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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/16057-8.txt b/16057-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a48ee0d --- /dev/null +++ b/16057-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8955 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, +1864, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 + A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics + +Author: Various + +Release Date: June 14, 2005 [EBook #16057] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY,VOLUME 14 *** + + + + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine +Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: Footnotes moved to end of text] + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XIV.--AUGUST, 1864.--NO. LXXXII. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by TICKNOR AND +FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts. + + * * * * * + +CHARLES READE. + + +Some one lately took occasion, in passing, to class Charles Reade with +the clever writers of the day, sandwiching him between Anthony Trollope +and Wilkie Collins,--for no other reason, apparently, than that he +never, with Chinese accuracy, gives us gossiping drivel that reduces +life to the dregs of the commonplace, or snarls us in any inextricable +tangle of plots. + +Charles Reade is not a clever writer merely, but a great one,--how +great, only a careful _résumé_ of his productions can tell us. We know +too well that no one can take the place of him who has just left us, and +who touched so truly the chords of every passion; but out of the ranks +some one must step now to the leadership so deserted,--for Dickens +reigns in another region,--and whether or not it shall be Charles Reade +depends solely upon his own election: no one else is so competent, and +nothing but wilfulness or vanity need prevent him,--the wilfulness of +persisting in certain errors, or the vanity of assuming that he has no +farther to go. He needs to learn the calmness of a less variable +temperature and a truer equilibrium, less positive sharpness and more +philosophy; he will be a thorough master, when the subject glows in his +forge and he himself remains unheated. + +He is about the only writer we have who gives us anything of himself. +Quite unconsciously, every sentence he writes is saturated with his own +identity; he is, then, a man of courage, and--the postulate assumed that +we are not speaking of fools--courage in such case springs only from two +sources, carelessness of opinion and possession of power. Now no one, of +course, can be entirely indifferent to the audience he strives to +please; and it would seem, then, that that daring which is the first +element of success arises here from innate capacity. Unconsciously, as +we have said, is it that our author is self-betrayed, for he is by +nature so peculiarly a _raconteur_ that he forgets himself entirely in +seizing the prominent points of his story; and it is to this that his +chief fault is attributable,--the want of elaboration,--a fault, +however, which he has greatly overcome in his later books, where, +leaving sketchy outlines, he has given us one or two complete and +perfect pictures. His style, too, owes some slight debt to this fact; +it has been saved thereby from offensive mannerism, and yet given traits +of its own insusceptible of imitation,--for by mannerism we mean +affectations of language, not absurdities of type. + +There is a racy _verve_ and vigor in Charles Reade's style, which, after +the current inanities, is as inspiriting as a fine breeze on the upland; +it tingles with vitality; he seems to bring to his work a superb +physical strength, which he employs impartially in the statement of a +trifle or the storming of a city; and if on this page he handles a ship +in a sea-fight with the skill and force of a Viking, on the other he +picks up a pin cleaner of the adjacent dust than weaker fingers would do +it. There is no trace of the stale, flat, and unprofitable here; the +books are fairly alive, and that gesture tells their author best with +which a great actress once portrayed to us the poet Browning, rolling +her hands rapidly over one another, while she threw them up in the air, +as if she would describe a bubbling, boiling fountain. + +Charles Reade is the prose for Browning. The temperament of the two in +their works is almost identical, having first allowed for the delicate +femineity proper to every poet; and the richness that Browning lavishes +till it strikes the world no more than the lavish gold of the sun, the +lavish blue of the sky, Reade, taking warning, hoards, and lets out only +by glimpses. Yet such glimpses! for beauty and brilliancy and strength, +when they do occur, unrivalled. Yet never does he desert his narrative +for them one moment; on the contrary, we might complain that he almost +ignores the effect of Nature on various moods and minds: in a volume of +six hundred pages, the sole bit of so-called fine writing is the +following, justified by the prominence of its subject in the incidents, +and showing in spite of itself a certain masculine contempt for the +finicalities of language:-- + +"The leaves were many shades deeper and richer than any other tree could +show for a hundred miles round,--a deep green, fiery, yet soft; and then +their multitude,--the staircases of foliage, as you looked up the tree, +and could scarce catch a glimpse of the sky,--an inverted abyss of +color, a mound, a dome, of flake-emeralds that quivered in the golden +air. + +"And now the sun sets,--the green leaves are black,--the moon +rises,--her cold light shoots across one-half that giant stem. + +"How solemn and calm stands the great round tower of living wood, half +ebony, half silver, with its mighty cloud above of flake-jet leaves +tinged with frosty fire at one edge!" + +This oak was in Brittany,--the very one, perhaps, before which, + + "So hollow, huge, and old, + It looked a tower of ruined mason-work, + At Merlin's feet the wileful Vivien lay." + +Indeed, Brittany seems a kind of fairy-land to many writers. Tennyson, +Spenser, Matthew Arnold, Reade, all locate some one of their choicest +scenes there. The reason is not, perhaps, very remote. We prate about +the Anglo-Saxon blood; yet, in reality, there is very little of it to +prate about, especially in the educated classes. When the British were +driven from their island, they took refuge in Wales and Brittany. When +William the Norman conquered that island again, his force was chiefly +composed of the descendants of those very Britons; for so feeble was the +genuine Norse element that it had been long since absorbed, and in the +language of the Norman--used until a late day upon certain records in +England--there is not one single word of Scandinavian origin. Thus it +was neither French nor Norman nor Scandinavian invading the white +cliffs, but the exiled Briton reconquering his native land; and, to make +the fact still stronger, the army of Richmond, Henry VII., was entirely +recruited in Brittany. Perhaps, then, the reason that Brittany is to +many a region of romance and delight is a feeling akin to the pleasure +we take in visiting some ancestral domain from whose soil our fathers +once drew their being. + +The Breton novel of Mr. Reade, "White Lies," although somewhat crude, +otherwise ranks with his best. The action is uninterrupted and swift, +the characters sharply defined, if legendary, the dialogue always +sparkling, the plot cleanly executed, the whole full of humor and +seasoned with wit. So well has it caught the spirit of the scene that it +reads like a translation, and, lest we should mistake the _locale_, +everybody in the book lies abominably from beginning to end. + + "'A lie is a lump of sin and a piece of folly,' cries Jacintha. + + "Edouard notes it down, and then says, in allusion to a previous + remark of hers,-- + + "'I did not think you were five-and-twenty, though.' + + "'I am, then,--don't you believe me?' + + "'Why not? Indeed, how could I disbelieve you after your lecture?' + + "'It is well,' said Jacintha, with dignity. + + "She was twenty-seven by the parish-books." + +There is a good deal of picturesque beauty in this volume, and at the +opening of its affairs there occurs a paragraph which we appropriate, +not merely for its merit, nor because it is the only "interior" that we +can recall in all his novels, but because also it contains a +characteristically fearless measuring of swords with a great champion:-- + + "A spacious saloon panelled: dead, but snowy white picked out + sparingly with gold. Festoons of fruit and flowers finely carved + in wood on some of the panels. These also not smothered with + gilding, but as it were gold speckled here and there like tongues + of flame winding among insoluble snows.... Midway from the candle + to the distant door its twilight deepened, and all became + shapeless and sombre. The prospect ended half-way, sharp and + black, as in those out-o'-door closets imagined and painted by Mr. + Turner, whose Nature (Mr. Turner's) comes to a full stop as soon + as Mr. Turner sees no further occasion for her, instead of melting + by fine expanse and exquisite gradation into genuine distance, as + Nature does in Claude and in Nature. To reverse the picture: + standing at the door, you looked across forty feet of black, and + the little corner seemed on fire, and the fair heads about the + candle shone like the heads of St. Cecilias and Madonnas in an + antique stained-glass window. At last Laure [Laure Aglaë Rose de + Beaurepaire,--would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?] + observed the door open, and another candle glowed upon Jacintha's + comely peasant-face in the doorway; she dived into the shadow, and + emerged into light again close to the table, with napkins on her + arm." + +The book abounds, as indeed all its companions do, in quaint passages, +comical turns of a word, shrewd sayings,--of which a handful:-- + + '"Now you know,' said Dard, 'if I am to do this little job to-day, + I must start.' + + "'Who keeps you?' was the reply. + + "Thus these two loved." + +Dard, by the way, being an entirely new addition to the novelists' +_corps dramatique_, and almost a Shakspearian character. + + "It was her feelings, her confidence, the little love wanted,--not + her secret: that lay bare already to the shrewd young minx,--I beg + her pardon,--lynx." + +Another involves a curious philosophy, summed up in the following +formula:-- + + "She does not love him quite enough. + + "He loves her a little too much. Cure,--marriage." + +But there are one or two scenes in this tale of "White Lies" perfectly +matchless for fire and spirit; and to support the assertion, the reader +must allow a citation. And he will pardon the first for the sake of the +others, since Josephine is the betrothed of Camille Dujardin. + + "When he uttered these terrible words, each of which was a blow + with a bludgeon to the Baroness, the old lady, whose courage was + not equal to her spirit, shrank over the side of her arm-chair, + and cried piteously,--'He threatens me! he threatens me! I am + frightened!'--and put up her trembling hands, so suggestive was + the notary's eloquence of physical violence. Then his brutality + received an unexpected check. Imagine that a sparrow-hawk had + seized a trembling pigeon, and that a royal falcon swooped, and + with one lightning-like stroke of body and wing buffeted him away, + and there he was on his back, gaping and glaring and grasping at + nothing with his claws. So swift and irresistible, but far more + terrible and majestic, Josephine de Beaurepaire came from her + chair with one gesture of her body between her mother and the + notary, who was advancing on her with arms folded in a brutal + menacing way,--not the Josephine we have seen her, the calm, + languid beauty, but the Demoiselle de Beaurepaire,--her great + heart on fire, her blood up,--not her own only, but all the blood + of all the De Beaurepaires,--pale as ashes with wrath, her purple + eyes flaring, and her whole panther-like body ready either to + spring or strike. + + "'Slave! you dare to insult her, and before me! _Arrière, + misérable!_ or I soil my hand with your face!' + + "And her hand was up with the word, up, up,--higher it seemed than + ever a hand was lifted before. And if he had hesitated one moment, + I believe it would have come down; and if it had, he would have + gone to her feet before it: not under its weight,--the lightning + is not heavy,--but under the soul that would have struck with it. + But there was no need: the towering threat and the flaming eye and + the swift rush buffeted the caitiff away: he recoiled three steps, + and nearly fell down. She followed him as he went, strong in that + moment as Hercules, beautiful and terrible as Michael driving + Satan. He dared not, or rather he could not, stand before her: he + writhed and cowered and recoiled down the room while she marched + upon him. Then the driven serpent hissed as it wriggled away. + + "'For all this, she too shall be turned out of Beaurepaire,--not + like me, but forever! I swear it, _parolé de Perrin!_' + + "'She shall never be turned out! I swear it, _foi de De + Beaurepaire!_' + + "'You, too, daughter of Sa--' + + "'_Tais toi, et sors à l'instant même! Lâche!_' + + "The old lady moaning and trembling and all but fainting in her + chair; the young noble like destroying angel, hand in air, and + great eye scorching and withering; and the caitiff wriggling out + at the door, wincing with body and head, his knees knocking, his + heart panting, yet raging, his teeth gnashing, his cheek livid, + his eye gleaming with the fire of hell." + +Too much of this sort of thing becomes meretricious; a man is never the +master of his subject, when he suffers himself to be carried away by it. +And though a fault of haste is pardonable, when lost in fine execution, +we must acknowledge that there is certainly something very "Frenchy" in +this scene,--a remark, though, which can hardly be considered as +derogatory, when we remember that altogether the most readable fiction +of the day is French itself. Our author is evidently a great admirer of +Victor Hugo, though he is no such careful artist in language: he seldom +closes with such tremendous subjects as that adventurous writer +attempts; but he has all the sharp antithesis, the pungent epigram of +the other, and in his freest flight, though he peppers us as prodigally +with colons, he never becomes absurd, which the other is constantly on +the edge of being. + +The next scene which we adduce is that where the battered figure of a +pale, grisly man walks into the garrison-town of Bayonne, after a +three-years' absence, explained only to his disgrace, mutely overcomes +the guard, and rings the bell of the Governor's house. + + "The servant left him in the hall, and went up-stairs to tell his + master. At the name, the Governor reflected, then frowned, then + bade his servant reach him down a certain book. He inspected it. + + "'I thought so: any one with him?' + + "'No, Monsieur the Governor.' + + "'Load my pistols: put them on the table: put that book back: show + him in: and then order a guard to the door.' + + "The Governor was a stern veteran, with a powerful brow, a shaggy + eyebrow, and a piercing eye. He never rose, but leaned his chin on + his hand, and his elbow on a table that stood between them, and + eyed the new-comer very fixedly and strangely. + + "'We did not expect to see you on this side of the Pyrenees.' + + "'Nor I myself, Governor.' + + "'What do you come to me for?' + + "'A welcome, a suit of regimentals, and money to take me to + Paris.' + + "'And suppose, instead of that, I turn out a corporal's guard, and + bid them shoot you in the court-yard?' + + "'It would be the drollest thing you ever did, all things + considered,' said the other, coolly; but he looked a little + surprised. + + "The Governor went for the book he had lately consulted, found the + page, handed it to the rusty officer, and watched him keenly: the + blood rushed all over his face, and his lip trembled; but his eye + dwelt stern, yet sorrowful, on the Governor. + + "'I have read your book: now read mine.' + + "He drew off his coat, and showed his wrists and arms, blue and + waled. + + "'Can you read that, Monsieur?' + + "'No.' + + "'All the better for you! Spanish fetters, General.' + + "He showed a white scar on his shoulder. + + "'Can you read that, Sir?' + + "'Humph?' + + "'This is what I cut out of it,'--and he handed the Governor a + little round stone, as big and almost as regular as a musket-ball. + + "'Humph! that could hardly have been fired from a French musket.' + + "'Can you read this?'--and he showed him a long cicatrix on his + other arm. + + "'Knife, I think?' said the Governor. + + "'You are right, Monsieur: Spanish knife!--Can you read + this?'--and opening his bosom, he showed a raw and bloody wound on + his breast. + + "'Oh, the Devil!' cried the General. + + "The wounded man put his coat on again, and stood erect and + haughty and silent. + + "The General eyed him, and saw his great spirit shining through + this man. The more he looked, the less could the scarecrow veil + the hero from his practised eye. + + "'There has been some mistake, or else I dote--and can't tell a + soldier from a'-- + + "'Don't say the word, old man, or your heart will bleed!' + + "'Humph! I must go into this matter at once. Be seated, Captain, + if you please, and tell me what have you been doing all these + years?' + + "'Suffering!' + + "'What, all the time?' + + "'Without intermission.' + + "'But what? suffering what?' + + "'Cold, hunger, darkness, wounds, solitude, sickness, despair, + prison,--all that man can suffer.' + + "'Impossible! a man would be dead at that rate before this.' + + "'I should have died a dozen times, but for one thing.' + + "'Ay! what was that?' + + "'I had promised to live.' + + "There was a pause. Then the old man said, calmly,-- + + "'To the facts, young man: I listen.'" + + And high time, be it said; since it begins to read very much like + one of Artemas Ward's burlesques. The upshot of which listening + was, that the man left for Paris directly in the demanded + regimentals, and wrapt about with the Governor's furred cloak to + boot; that he would not delay in the metropolis one moment, even + to put on the epaulets they gave him, but saved them for his + sweetheart to make him a colonel with, and, though weary and torn + with pain, galloped away to the Chateau de Beaurepaire, to find + that sweetheart another man's wife. + + "He turned his back quickly on her. 'To the army!' he cried, + hoarsely. He drew himself haughtily up in marching-attitude. He + took three strides, erect and fiery and bold. At the fourth the + great heart snapped, and the worn body it had held up so long + rolled like a dead log upon the ground, with a tremendous fall." + +Which scene must be followed by its pendant, taking place during the +siege of a Prussian town, when, from the enemy's bastion, Long Tom, out +of range of Dujardin's battery, was throwing red-hot shot, sending half +a hundred-weight of iron up into the clouds, and plunging it down into +the French lines a mile off. + + "'Volunteers to go out of the trenches!' cried Sergeant La Croix, + in a stentorian voice, standing erect as a poker, and swelling + with importance. + + "There were fifty offers in less than as many seconds. + + "'Only twelve allowed to go,' said the Sergeant; 'and I am one,' + added he, adroitly inserting himself. + + "A gun was taken down, placed on a carriage, and posted near + Death's Alley, but out of the line of fire. + + "The Colonel himself superintended the loading of this gun; and to + the surprise of his men had the shot weighed first, and then + weighed out the powder himself. + + "He then waited quietly a long time, till the bastion pitched one + of its periodical shots into Death's Alley; but no sooner had the + shot struck, and sent the sand flying past the two lanes of + curious noses, than Colonel Dujardin jumped upon the gun and waved + his cocked hat. At this preconcerted signal, his battery opened + fire on the bastion, and the battery to his right hand opened on + the wall that fronted them; and the Colonel gave the word to run + the gun out of the trenches. They ran it out into the cloud of + smoke their own guns were belching forth, unseen by the enemy; but + they had no sooner twisted it into the line of Long Tom than the + smoke was gone, and there they were, a fair mark. + + "'Back into the trenches, all but one!' roared Dujardin. + + "And in they ran like rabbits. + + "'Quick! the elevation.' + + "Colonel Dujardin and La Croix raised the muzzle to the + mark,--hoo! hoo! hoo! ping! ping! ping' came the bullets about + their ears. + + "'Away with you!' cried the Colonel, taking the linstock from him. + + "Then Colonel Dujardin, fifteen yards from the trenches, in full + blazing uniform, showed two armies what one intrepid soldier can + do. He kneeled down and adjusted his gun, just as he would have + done in a practising-ground. He had a pot-shot to take, and a + pot-shot he would take. He ignored three hundred muskets that were + levelled at him. He looked along his gun, adjusted it and + readjusted to a hair's-breadth. The enemy's bullets pattered over + it; still he adjusted and readjusted. His men were groaning and + tearing their hair inside at his danger. + + "At last it was levelled to his mind, and then his movements were + as quick as they had hitherto been slow. In a moment he stood + erect in the half-fencing attitude of a gunner, and his linstock + at the touch-hole: a huge tongue of flame, a volume of smoke, a + roar, and the iron thunderbolt was on its way, and the Colonel + walked haughtily, but rapidly, back to the trenches: for in all + this no bravado. He was there to make a shot,--not to throw a + chance of life away, watching the effect. + + "Ten thousand eyes did that for him. + + "Both French and Prussians risked their own lives, craning out to + see what a colonel in full uniform was doing under fire from a + whole line of forts, and what would be his fate: but when he fired + the gun, their curiosity left the man and followed the iron + thunderbolt. + + "For two seconds all was uncertain: the ball was travelling. + + "Tom gave a rear like a wild horse, his protruding muzzle went up + sky-high, then was seen no more, and a ring of old iron and a + clatter of fragments were heard on the top of the bastion. Long + Tom was dismounted. Oh, the roar of laughter and triumph from one + end to another of the trenches, and the clapping of forty thousand + hands, that went on for full five minutes! then the Prussians, + either through a burst of generous praise for an act so chivalrous + and so brilliant, or because they would not be crowed over, + clapped their ten thousand hands as loudly, and thundering + heart-thrilling salvo of applause answered salvo on both sides + that terrible arena." + +If all this was melodramatic, it should be remembered that the time was +melodramatic itself; it is, however, saved from such accusation by the +truthfulness of the handling; and the homeliness of a portion of it +recalls the ballad of "Up at the villa, down in the city," with its +speeches of drum and fife. Nevertheless, here are combined the true +elements of modern sensational writing: there are the broad canvas, the +vivid colors, the abrupt contrast, all the dramatic and startling +effects that weekly fiction affords, the supernatural heroine, the more +than mortal hero. What, then, rescues it? It would be hard to reply. +Perhaps the reckless, rollicking wit: we cannot censure one who makes us +laugh with him. Perhaps nothing but the writer's exuberant and +superabundant vitality, which through such warp shoots a golden woof +till it is filled and interwoven with the true glance and gleam of +genius. The difference between these pages and that of the previously +mentioned style is the same as exists between any coarse scene-curtain +and some glorious painting, be it Church, with his tropical lushness, or +Gifford, with his shaking, shining mists,-- + + "mist + Like a vaporous amethyst, + Or an air-dissolved star + Mingling light and fragrance far + As the curved horizon's bound,"-- + +some canvas that seems to palpitate and live and tremble with the +breathing being confided to it by the painter. Indeed, Charles Reade has +a great deal of this pictorial power. A single sentence will sometimes +give not only the sketch, but all its tints. Take, for instance, the +paragraph in which, speaking of the Newhaven fish-wives, he says, "It is +a race of women that the Northern sun peachifies instead of +rosewoodizing"; and it is as good as that picture of the "Two +Grandmothers," where the rosy woman with her rosy troop is confronted by +the tawny sunburnt gypsy and her swarthy group of dancing-girl and +tambourine-tosser. + +When "Peg Woffington" first fell upon us, a dozen years ago or so, +Humdrum opened his eyes: it was like setting one's teeth in a juicy pear +fresh from the warm sunshine. Then came "Christie Johnstone," a perfect +pearl of its kind, in which we recognize an important contribution to +one class of romance. If ever the literature of the fishing-coast shall +be compiled, it will be found to be scanty, but superlative; let us +suggest that it shall open with Lucy Larcom's "Poor Lone Hannah," the +most touching and tearful of the songs of New-England life,--followed by +Christie Johnstone's night at sea among the blue-lights and the nets +with their silver and lightning mixed, where the fishers struggle with +that immense sheet varnished in red-hot silver,--and at the end let not +the "Pilot's Pretty Daughter" of William Allingham's be forgotten:-- + + "Were it my lot--there peeped a wish-- + To hand a pilot's oar and sail, + Or haul the dripping moonlit mesh + Spangled with herring-scale: + By dying stars how sweet 'twould be, + And dawn-blow freshening the sea, + With weary, cheery pull to shore + To gain my cottage-home once more, + And meet, before I reached the door, + My pretty pilot's daughter!" + +But it is a fine fashion of this noble world never to acknowledge itself +too well pleased. Men are ashamed of satisfaction. So soon as they have +exhausted the honey, they condemn the comb; it will do to wax an old +wife's thread;--they forget that the cells whose sides break the usual +uniformity contain the royal embryos. Humdrum read these little novels +through and through, laughed and cried over them in secret, then pulled +a long face, stepped forth and denounced--the typography. Now we admit +that the page presents a fairer appearance with single punctuations, +unblurred by Italics, and its smooth surface unbroken by strings of +capitals;--but let us ask these criticasters for what purpose types were +cast at all. To assist the author in the expression of his ideas, and to +elucidate subtile shades of meaning? or to prove his let and hindrance, +and to wrap his expression in mystery? Whether or no, it is patent that +Charles Reade makes an exclamation--and an interrogation-point together +say as much as many novelists can dibble over a whole page. +Nevertheless, in his latest work these eccentricities are greatly +modified; yet who would forego in the sea-fight that almost inaudible, +breathless whisper of "Our ammunition is nearly done"? or again the +moment when Skinner pokes Mr. Hardie lightly in the side and says, +"But--I've--got--THE RECEIPT"? And could anything express the state of +young Reginald's mind so ineffably as the primer type of his letter to +Lucy? + +A much less venial fault than any typographical trifle is a tendency +belonging to this author to repeat both incident and colloquy. This of +course is merely the result of negligence,--and negligence no one likes +to forgive; only Shakspeare can afford to be careless of his fame, and +the rags that his commentators make of him are a warning to all pettier +people. We have seen the manuscript of a man already immortal, so +interlined, erased, and corrected as to be undecipherable by any but +himself and the printer who has been for twenty years condemned to such +hard labor; surely others can condescend to the same pains;--yet we +doubt if Mr. Reade so much as looks his over a second time. + +Many persons have a trick of writing their names, not on the fly-leaf of +the books they possess, but on the hundredth or the fiftieth page. +Perhaps it is according to some such brand of the warehouse that we find +in "Very Hard Cash," or in "White Lies," indifferently, such brief +dialogues as this:-- + + "'No.' + + "'Are you sure?' + + "'Positive.'" + +Then, Reade's characters are perpetually doing the same thing. Josephine +and Margaret both seize their throats not to cry out; Josephine and +Margaret both kiss their babies alike,--a very pretty description of the +act, though:-- + + "The young mother sprang silently upon her child,--you would have + thought she was going to kill it,--her head reared itself again + and again, like a crested snake's, and again and again, and again + and again plunged down upon the child, and she kissed his little + body from head to foot with soft violence, and murmured through + her starting tears." + +But not content with that, Margaret must reënact it. Then Gerard and +Alfred, returning from long absences, both find their only sister dead; +and the plot of three of the novels turns on the fact of long and +inexplicable absences on the part of the heroes. The Baroness de +Beaurepaire, who is flavored with what her maker calls the "congealed +essence of grandmamma," shares her horror of the jargon-vocabulary +equally with Mrs. Dodd, (the captain's wife, who "reared her children in +a suburban villa with the manners which adorn a palace,--when they +happen to be there"). There is a singular habit in the several works of +putting up marble inscriptions for folks before actual demise requires +it,--Hardie showing Lucy Fountain hers, Camille erecting one to Raynal. +All his heroines, as soon as they are crossed in love, invariably lose +their tempers, and invariably by the same process; all, without +exception, have violet eyes and velvet lips, (and sometimes the heroes +also have the latter!) and all of them should wear key-holes at their +ear-rings. Indeed, here is our quarrel with Mr. Reade. The conception of +an artless woman is impossible with him. Plenty of beautiful ideals he +creates, but with the actual woman he is almost unacquainted: Lucy +Fountain, of all his feminine characters, is the only one whose +counterpart we have ever met; Julia, the most perfect type of his fancy, +impetuous, sparkling, and sweet, has this to say for herself, on +occasion of a boat-race:--"'We have won at last,' cried Julia, all on +fire, '_and fairly; only think of that_!'" Through every sentence that +he jots down runs a vein of gentle satire on the sex. Every specimen +that he has drawn from it possesses feline characteristics: if provoked, +they scratch; if happy, they purr; when they move, it is with the bodies +of panthers; when they caress their children, it is like snakes; and in +every single one of his books the women listen, behind the door, behind +the hedge, behind the boat. + + "'He would make an intolerable woman,' says the Baroness. 'A fine + life, if one had a parcel of women about one, blurting out their + real minds every moment, and never smoothing matters!' + + "'Mamma, what a horrid picture!' cries Laure." + +When upon this subject our author leaves innuendo, and fairly shows his +colors, he writes in this wise:-- + + "For nothing is so hard to her sex as a long, steady struggle. In + matters physical, this is the thing the muscles of the fair cannot + stand. In matters intellectual and moral, the long strain it is + that beats them dead. Do not look for a Bacona, a Newtona, a + Handella, a Victoria Huga. Some American ladies tell us education + has stopped the growth of these. No, Mesdames! These are not in + Nature. They can bubble letters in ten minutes that you could no + more deliver to order in ten days than a river can play like a + fountain. They can sparkle gems of stories; they can flash little + diamonds of poems. The entire sex has never produced one opera, + nor one epic that mankind could tolerate a minute: and why?--these + come by long, high-strung labor. But, weak as they are in the long + run of everything but the affections, (and there giants,) they are + all overpowering while the gallop lasts. Fragilla shall dance any + two of you flat on the floor before four o'clock, and then dance + on till peep of day. You trundle off to your business as usual, + and could dance again the next night, and so on through countless + ages. She who danced you into nothing is in bed, a human jelly + crowned with headache." + +Certainly, the concluding sentence shows that the writer is unacquainted +with the Fifth-Avenue Fragilla. And, moreover, we were unaware that she +had ever entered herself as competitor with Dr. Windship in the lifting +of three-thousand-pound weights. But this is poor stuff for a man of +talent to busy himself with,--as if the Creator intended rivalry between +beings complementary to each other, and of too diverse physical +organization to allow the idea. Yet a fair friend of ours would meet him +on his own ungallant ground. If Mr. Reade will trouble himself, says Una +and the Lion, to turn over a work of Frances Power Cobbe's on Intuitive +Morals, he will see that the first two impossibilities in his catalogue +are lessened so far as to allow hope; as for Handella, there is reason +to believe in her advent,--many women have written faultless tunes,--all +that is wanted is mathematical harmony,--and Mary Somerville, Maria +Mitchell, and the sister of the Herschels forbid despair on that point; +and God forbid the Victoria Huga! the male of the species is more than +enough. We must look upon any wide departure from the prevailing pattern +either as a monstrosity or as a development of the great plan; +therefore, if one of these women is a monstrosity, Laplace and Aristotle +are to be considered equally so. And then, also, Mr. Reade, masculine as +he is, finds eclipse in the shade of either Mrs. Lewes, (Marion Evans,) +or Charlotte Brontè, or Madame Dudevant. As for men, they are themselves +just emerging from barbarism; a race rises only with its women, as all +history shows. The whole sex has produced no operas? they are modern +things; when men have advanced a little, when our audience is ready, we +shall write operas. Epics? how many has the entire opposite sex +produced? well, four: terrible disparity, when we count by billions! +These are not in Nature? Whose assertion for that? till he can prove it, +the word of "some American ladies" is as good as the word of Mr. Charles +Reade. For myself, continued the outraged Una, I know a beautiful woman +who left lovers, society, pleasures,--absorbed in her moulding and +modelling, day by day and year by year, with no positive result except +in her own convictions and consciousness,--who spent the long summer +hours alone in the little building with her white ideas, and who, winter +night after night, rose to cross street and garden and snowy fields to +tend the fire and wet the clay, and who, on more than one morning +finding the weary labor of months wasted where the frozen substance had +peeled from the framework and lay in fragments on the floor, without a +murmur began the patient work again. That was during the trial; +afterwards attainment. Was there no long strain and steady struggle +there? + +Una's enthusiasm infects us; and very _apropos_ to all this do we hear +Mr. Reade's Jacintha remark,-- + + "We are good creatures, but we don't trouble our heads with + justice; it is a word you shall never hear a woman use, unless she + happens to be doing some monstrous injustice at the very moment." + +And with the best-natured contempt in the world, Dr. Sampson exclaims,-- + + "What! go t' a wumman for the truth, when I can go t' infallible + inference?" + +Even Lucy Fountain saw many young ladies healed of many young +enthusiasms by a wedding-ring,--but a wittier woman has said it better, +Una declares, in asserting that a married woman's name is her epitaph. +If, however, Mr. Reade's opinion of womankind is at any time +justifiable, we must bring Una to witness that it is so in the following +instance:-- + + "Realize the situation, and the strange incongruity between the + senses and the mind in these poor fellows! The day had ripened its + beauty; beneath a purple heaven shone, sparkled, and laughed a + blue sea, in whose waves the tropical sun seemed to have fused his + beams; and beneath that fair, sinless, peaceful sky, wafted by a + balmy breeze over those smiling, transparent, golden waves, a + bloodthirsty pirate bore down on them with a crew of human tigers; + and a lady babble babble babble babble babble babbled in their + quivering ears!" + +We have heard numberless inquiries as to Mr. Reade's private life, with +which, whether they have the right or not, the public will concern +itself. So at home is he on every subject that each appears to be his +specialty. One asserts that he follows Galen: witness his mania on +medicine. Certainly not, another replies; are not his principles +erroneous, and second-hand at that? Does he not dredge the science with +ridicule? No practitioner would gravely assert the feasibility of +transfusion, an operation never yet performed with success, since the +red globules of his own blood seem to be as proper to each individual as +his identity, and allow no admixture from alien veins; in surgery he has +but one foe,--phlebotomy; in pharmacy, but one friend,--chloroform; he +asserts of Dr. Sampson, (Dr. Dickson, the writer of "Fallacies of the +Faculty"?) that "he was strong, but not strong enough to make the +populace suspend an opinion; yet it might be done: by chloroforming +them." (Which leads one parenthetically to remark that it is great pity, +then, that, in the prevalent headlong precipitancy of public judgment, +anæsthetics have not been more generally employed on this side of the +water of late.) Certainly he is no physician, they say. But, on the +other hand, a conjecture that he has been before the mast is as +plausible a one as that ever Herman Melville was; there is the true +sailor's-roll about him; nobody less skilful than the captain of a +three-decker could have run the Agra through such a gantlet of +broadsides and hurricanes; the manoeuvring of the ship, when her +master puts her before the wind that he may rake one schooner's deck and +hurl the majestic monster bodily upon the other, is unequalled by +anything in nautical literature, and approached by nothing in verity, +except it may be Admiral Dupont's waltz of fire around the two forts of +Hilton Head. Another, who laughs at both of these amateur statements, +has a Grub-Street one; but, except to a favored few, to everybody in +this country he is only an impersonal existence. In this general dearth +of useful information, there are, however, one or two biographical +sketches afloat,--possibly hints of those waiting their chance in the +pigeon-holes of the Thunderer,--of which we are tempted to give the +reader a sample, brought to us by Una in substantiation of her +hostilities. + +The subject of the present notice was picked up at sea, a child, and, +under the provisions of maritime law concerning flotsam, jetsam, and +lagan, was appropriated by the crew. He then followed their fortunes +for several years, with various adventures, among which is the one +wherein he is said to have accompanied Arthur Gordon Pym (disguised in +the published account of that voyage under the name and appearance of +one Peters) upon his fearful South-Sea sail towards that vapory cataract +at the world's end which was seen "rolling silently into the sea from +some immense and far-distant rampart of the heaven," from the horrors of +which he escaped in the same miraculous manner that Mr. Pym did. He must +still have been young at the time, as this occurred in 1838. Unable to +find any credence to these extraordinary statements upon his return, he +found an asylum from the unbelieving world, where, in order not to +become a permanent resident, and being capable of impartial judgment +thereon, he employed himself in a profound study of finance. Emerging +from this seclusion, lest he should defraud his natural element +entirely, he plunged into the hot water of the revolutions then ravaging +Europe. Receiving wounds, he was laid up in hospital; and being of an +active turn of mind and debarred from other pursuits, he fell (like Dr. +Marie Zakrzewski) to studying the cards renewed every day above the +patients' beds with the disease written thereon, its symptoms, and its +treatment; in this manner he acquired quite a knowledge of medicine. He +was, however, mercifully prevented from practising by the fact, that, +upon repeating his story to an acquaintance, he met, as before, with +such total disbelief, that, most fortunately for many readers, he +determined at once to devote the remainder of his days to fiction. + +How much faith such a narrative deserves we leave others to decide. It, +however, has the virtue, as Una declares again, of plausibly explaining +Mr. Reade's entire misapprehension of the feminine portion of +humanity,--since, during the whole course of such a career, it would +have been impossible that he should have made intimate acquaintance with +a single specimen of the sex. It is true that in "Christie Johnstone" he +speaks of the musical performances of certain female relatives of his +own; but of course that is to be taken only as a part of the fiction. +One thing, however, is evident,--that, if this sketch is not true, the +converse of it must be, and where the reader has paid his money he may +take his choice. + +Mr. Reade's latest novel, "Very Hard Cash," is a continuation of a +previous one, "Love me Little, Love me Long." A great charm of +Thackeray's books was, that in every fresh one we heard a little news of +the dear old friends of former ones; and "Very Hard Cash" has all the +advantage of prepossession in its favor. Its forerunner was a startling +thing to the circulating-library, for the hero was an entirely new +character, dashing among the elegancies of the habitual hero like a +shaggy dog in a drawing-room; and though the author admires him to the +core of his heart, he never once hesitates to put him in ridiculous +plight, and sets at last this diamond-in-the-rough in his purest and +most polished gold. It is a delightful book, with one scene in it, the +memorable night at sea, worth scores of customary novels, and, apart +from the noble and beautiful delineation of David Dodd, would be +invaluable for nothing else but its faultless portraiture of that +millinery devotee, Mrs. Bazalgette. + +From two such natures as David and his wife nothing less noble should +spring; and therefore, through necessity, their daughter Julia, the +heroine of "Very Hard Cash," is that ideal of vehemence and sweetness +which we find her, not by any choice or fancy of the writer, but on +account of fate, natural deduction, and _a priori_ logic. She is, +however, for all that, to some extent a creation; one may imagine her, +long for her, look for her,--one will not immediately find her. Youth +never was painted so well as here; both Julia and Alfred are aureoled in +its beauty; they are not reasonable mortals with the accumulated +perfections of three-score and ten, but young creatures just brimmed, as +young creatures are, with the blissfulness of being. Nobody ever +appreciated youth as this writer does, nobody has so entered into it; +he never fails, to be sure, to make you laugh at it a little, but all +the time he confesses a kind of loving worship of that buoyant time when +the effervescence of the animal spirits fills the brain with its happy +fumes, of that fearless, confident period that + + "Is not, like Atlas, curled + Stooping 'neath the gray old world, + But which takes it, lithe and bland, + Easily in its small hand." + +We have often wondered that no one ever before grappled with the +material of this last volume. The easy ability of one person to +incarcerate another in a mad-house is as often abused in America as in +England, and circumstances in this drama which might strike a casual +reader as preposterous we can match with kindred and more hopeless cases +within our own knowledge. Perhaps one of the ablest portions of the +treatment which this book affords the theme is in the singular +collocation of characters,--the hero being wrongfully imprisoned as +insane, the heroine's father really made so by medical malpractice, the +hero's sister dying of injuries received from another maniac, his uncle +being imbecile, and his father and one of his physicians becoming +monomaniac. Nicer shades than these allow could not be drawn, and the +subject stands in bold relief as a monument of dauntless courage and +enthusiasm. + +No one can hesitate to declare this novel, as it is the latest, to be +also the finest of all that Charles Reade has given us. In saying this +we do not forget the "Cloister and Hearth," which, however tender and +touching and true to its century, is rather a rambling narrative than an +elucidated plot. "Very Hard Cash" is wrought out with the finest finish, +yet nowhere overdone; it so abounds in scenes of dramatic climax that we +fancy the stage has lost immensely by the romance-reader's gain; yet +there is never a single situation thrown away, every word tends in the +main direction, and after that the prolific mind of the writer overflows +in _marginalia_. There are one or two striking improbabilities, which +Mr. Reade himself excuses by asserting that the commonplace is neither +dramatic nor evangelical,--and therefore we confess, that, so long as +Reginald Bazalgette had a ship, Captain Dodd was as likely to turn up on +that as on any other, the purser as likely to make his communication at +that moment as later, and the fly as likely to resuscitate the patient +as the surgeon. But the characterization in this book is wonderful; +every name becomes an acquaintance, from Mrs. Beresford, dividing Ajax's +emotion and declining to be drowned in the dark, with her servant +Ramgolam and his matchless Orientalisms, up to the loftier models, one +of whom he endows with this exquisite bit of description:-- + + "A head overflowed by ripples of dark-brown hair sat with heroic + grace upon his solid white throat, like some glossy falcon + new-lighted on a Parian column." + +We must, however, object to Fullalove, who is quite unworthy of the +author, though perhaps complacently regarded by him as a success, being +merely the traditional Yankee compound of patents and conjectures, a +little smarter than usual, as of course a passage through Mr. Reade's +pen must make him;--he never touched his brain. Vespasian, also, is not +so good as he might be, although one enjoys his contempt for the +pirate's crew of Papuans, Sooloos, and Portuguese, as a "mixellaneous +bilin' of darkies," and finds something inimitable in his injured +dignity over the anomalous _sobriquet_ afforded him, whose changes he +rings through analogy and anatomy till he declares himself to be only a +"darned anemone." The real charm of the book, however, lies in the +beautiful relation which it pictures between mother and children, and in +the nature of the daughter herself, so exuberant, so dancing, yet the +foam subsiding into such a luminous body of clearness, which so lights +up the page with its loveliness, that, seeing how an artless woman is +foreign to Mr. Reade's ideas, we are forced to believe that Nature was +too strong for him and he wrote against the grain. Nevertheless, there +is enough of his own prejudice retained for piquancy,--and since the +poor things must be insignificantly wicked, see how charming they can +be! There are many scenes between these covers that would well bear +repetition, were they not too fresh in the reader's mind to require it; +we will content ourselves with a single one, which contains the only +pretentious writing of the whole novel, done at a touch, with a light, +loose pen, but showing beyond compare the soul of the poet through the +flesh of the novelist. + + "At six twenty-five, the grand orb set calm and red, and the sea + was gorgeous with miles and miles of great ruby dimples: it was + the first glowing smile of southern latitude. The night stole on + so soft, so clear, so balmy, all were loath to close their eyes on + it; the passengers lingered long on deck, watching the Great Bear + dip, and the Southern Cross rise, and overhead a whole heaven of + glorious stars most of us have never seen and never shall see in + this world. No belching smoke obscured, no plunging paddles + deepened; all was musical; the soft air sighing among the sails; + the phosphorescent water bubbling from the ship's bows; the + murmurs from little knots of men on deck subdued by the great + calm: home seemed near, all danger far; Peace ruled the sea, the + sky, the heart: the ship, making a track of white fire on the + deep, glided gently, yet swiftly, homeward, urged by snowy sails + piled up like alabaster towers against a violet sky, out of which + looked a thousand eyes of holy, tranquil fire. So melted the sweet + night away. + + "Now carmine streaks tinged the eastern sky at the water's edge, + and that water blushed; now the streaks turned orange, and the + waves below them sparkled. Thence splashes of living gold flew and + settled on the ship's white sails, the deck, and the faces; and, + with no more prologue, being so near the line, up came + majestically a huge, fiery, golden sun, and set the sea flaming + liquid topaz. + + "Instant the lookout at the foretop-gallant-mast-head hailed the + deck below. + + "'Strange sail! Right ahead!' + + * * * * * + + "Ah! the stranger's deck swarms black with men! + + "His sham ports fell as if by magic, his guns grinned through the + gaps like black teeth; his huge foresail rose and filled, and out + he came in chase. + + "The breeze was a kiss from Heaven, the sky a vaulted sapphire, + the sea a million dimples of liquid, lucid gold." + +In conclusion, we must pronounce Mr. Reade's merit, in our judgment, to +belong not so much to what he has already done as to what, if life be +allowed him, he is yet to do. All his previous works read like +'studies,' in the light of his last. For "Very Hard Cash" is the +beginning of a new era; it shows the careful hand of the artist doing +justice to the conceptions of genius, in the prime of his vigor, with +all his powers well in hand. The forms of literature change with the +necessities of the age,--to some future generation what illustration the +dramatists were to the Elizabethan day the knot of superior novelists +will be to this, and among them all Charles Reade is destined to no +subordinate rank. + + * * * * * + +HOW ROME IS GOVERNED. + + +There are a thousand descriptions of Rome, its antiquities, galleries, +ceremonies, and manners, but hardly any, that I remember, of the +organization of the Papal Government,--that wonderful power which long +played the chief part in the social and political revolutions of Europe, +which, even in its decay, preserves so much of its original grandeur, +and still clings to its traditions with a tenacity of conviction that +commands our respect, although the remembrance of the evil that it has +done compels us, as men and as Christians, to rejoice at the prospect of +its fall. + +This omission on the part of so many thoughtful travellers is by no +means an unnatural one. We go to Rome in order to see and to feel, +rather than to study and to think. The past crowds upon us overladen +with history and poetry; and the present is so full of new forms of life +that it is only when we come to sit down at a distance and gather up our +recollections that we ask ourselves how all the instruments of that +gorgeous pageantry are put together and moved. The Pope has palaces and +villas. The cardinals live in splendid apartments, and ride in massive +coaches of purple and gilt, drawn by horses richly caparisoned, and +attended by servants in livery. Bishops and prelates and monks and +priests and friars fill long processions on public occasions, and move +about in their daily life with the air and bearing of men who belong to +a sphere that common men have no concern in. + +There is a church or a chapel for every day in the year, and some emblem +of external recognition for every saint in the calendar. There are +lenten days, when the rich eat fresh tunny from the Adriatic or eels +from Comacchio, and the poor whatever they can get; and holidays, when +the shops are shut and the churches and theatres open, and everybody +amuses himself as well as his tastes and his means allow. Nowhere are +processions so splendid, festivals so magnificent, the whole body of the +population accustomed, either as actors or as spectators, to such daily +displays of opulence and grandeur. + +How is all this done? How do all these men live? What do they do for +themselves and for one another? What is the object of this +multiplication of insignia and titles? What is the meaning of the red +stockings and the purple stockings, and the red and the purple hat-band, +and the various decorations of the horses, and the infinite varieties of +cut and color and device in dress and equipage, which you begin to +distinguish only when you become accustomed to objects so unlike +anything you have ever seen before? For every one of them has a meaning, +and tells the instructed eye the hopes and aspirations and half the +history of the bearer as plainly as a tablet or an inscription. + +Without attempting, on the present occasion, to answer all of these +questions in detail, I shall endeavor to give such an outline of the +organization of the Roman Government as shall cover the most important +of them. + +The head of this vast body, the Pope, is better known than any of the +inferior members; for, as spiritual head of the Church and absolute +sovereign of her temporal dominions, his peculiar position has always +made him the object of peculiar attention. Officially, he was for +centuries the acknowledged chief of Christendom, jealous of his +prerogatives, bold in his assumptions, often feared where he was not +reverenced, and often courted and flattered where he inspired neither +reverence nor fear. Individually, his education and habits, the books he +reads and the company he keeps, have seldom led him to study the causes +of national prosperity, and still more seldom taught him to sympathize +with the feelings or respect the rights of mankind. + +From his childhood, the purest source of sympathies and affections is +closed for him rigorously and hopelessly. He grows up as a stranger at +the family-hearth; for, as he sits there, he is taught that he can never +have a family-hearth of his own. He begins life by renouncing its +dearest privileges, and training all his faculties for a relentless war +upon himself,--for repressing natural impulses, not guiding them, +extirpating his passions, not subduing them, and aiming at an +insensibility that can be attained only by the sacrifice of every human +instinct, rather than that serene tranquillity of spirit in which every +passion is recognized as a power for good as well as for evil, and all +are subjected alike to the guidance of a discriminating and +conscientious self-control. + +He is in a false position from his first step in life, and strays +farther and farther from the true course to the very end of it. His +hopes and aspirations are all directed to one object, trained to flow in +a dark and narrow channel, on which the sunbeams never play, and which +the pure breath of Nature never visits. His brothers and sisters have a +thousand things to talk about and think about which he has no part in. +If he joins in their games, it is still as the _abbatino_: the formal +small-clothes and narrow neckband and three-cornered hat that contrast +so strongly with their gay dresses are ever present to remind him and +them that they have different paths to travel, and have already entered +upon them. It is a dreary process that education of his, and one that +makes your heart ache to look upon. A rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed boy, +with boyish blood in his veins, running through them quick and warm, and +every now and then making them tingle with some boyish longing that will +out, although he is a priest in miniature and a Pope in prospective. I +never could look at it without thinking of the gardener, in the fulness +of his topiary pride, cutting trees and shrubs into towers and walls, +and every shape but that which Nature designed them for. Clip, clip, go +the long, scythe-like shears, and with every clip down comes a branch +with its thousand songs unsung, or a shoot with its half-blown promise +of spring. Cut away earnestly, patiently. You have your faith to help +you; and though your eyes are of the strongest and keenest, you have +never been taught to use them. Cut away till your arms ache and your +head swims with the strain of measuring angles and inches and pyramids +and obelisks; Nature is working at the root while you are warring on the +branches. True, the birds will not build where your shears have passed; +and the winds will wail where they would have piped it merrily, if the +young boughs had been there to dance to their breathings. But the roots +are tough and the trunks are strong, and the sap wells surely up from +those mysterious sources where, in darkness and silence, Nature works +her wondrous transformations,--proving, through each waxing and waning +year, by bud and leaf and branch, that, thwart and mutilate and deny her +as you may, she is the same kind mother still. + +As life advances, the dividing lines grow sharper and more defined. He +has got his Latin, and, in getting it, read Virgil and Horace and +Cicero, as his brothers did. But henceforth St. Augustine becomes his +Cicero; and he already begins to suspect that the best service his Homer +and Thucydides and Demosthenes have rendered him has been by enabling +him to understand St. Chrysostom. What is Herodotus to the Lives of the +Saints, or Livy to Baronius? Why should he waste his time on human +nature in Tacitus, or follow, with Guicciardini, the tortuous paths of +princes, when he can find lessons more to his taste, and wisdom more to +his purpose, in Mabillon and Pallavicini? His daily conversation is +about the interests and concerns of his order, and, as he enters upon +its duties, about the questions which those duties raise, and the +rewards which their fulfilment promises or brings. It was a great day +for him and for his friends, when he first ascended the altar in cope +and stole; but mass soon becomes a daily exercise, and, like all things +done daily, sinks into routine. A still more anxious day was it, when he +first took his seat in the confessional to absolve and to condemn, to +interpret and to enjoin, to listen to secrets which are like the lifting +of the veil from one of the darkest mysteries of life, and feel the +breath that bore them through the punctures of the thin partition fall +on his cheek with a warmth that made his veins glow and his own breath +come fast and thick. + +I once heard a confession of murder from the murderer's lips, as we sat +alone, side by side, on the same sofa. It was of a Sunday morning, +bright, beautiful, and still, one of those days in which earth looks so +pure and lovely that you can hardly believe sin could ever have found a +home thereon. He was a Sicilian, a gentleman by birth and fortune; and +when he first came into the room, apologizing for the intrusion, and +regretting that he was taking up my time with the business of a +stranger, I thought that I had never seen a more intelligent face or +felt more immediately at home with an utter stranger. He began his story +in a low, musical voice,--Italian loses none of its softness in the +mouth of a Sicilian,--and I had followed him through a midnight ride +over a wild and solitary road before I began to suspect how it was to +end. Then came the details: a sudden meeting,--angry words, heating to +madness blood already too hot,--a shot,--a body writhing on the ground +in its own blood. His voice hardly changed, though the tones, perhaps, +were somewhat deeper; but his cheek flushed and his eye kindled, and I +felt such a sickening shudder come over me as I had never felt before. +He was dressed in white, too,--spotless white, as it seemed to me, when +he first came into the room; I had even admired the neatness of his +trousers and waistcoat: but as I looked and listened, big drops of blood +seemed to come out upon them,--a drop for every word, slowly exuding +from some mysterious source, till he was bathed all over in it from head +to foot. A day or two afterwards, I met him upon the Pincian, in the +midst of walkers and riders and all the gay throng of a crowded +promenade at its most crowded hour. But the blood was on him still, and, +under the locks that clustered darkly over his forehead, the +ineffaceable mark of Cain. + +But even the story of murder may become familiar. Human nature at the +confessional is the dark side of human nature, and it is as hard for the +moral eye to preserve a healthy tone in the midst of this moral darkness +as for the physical eye to preserve its clearness and strength in the +constant presence of physical darkness. Curious questions come up there, +undoubtedly, of a deep, strange interest, and often, too, of a deep and +strange fascination. But it is not Nature's generous impulses, its +tender yearnings, its noble aspirations, that the stricken conscience +pours into the confessor's ear. The strugglings and writhings of the +soul, the convulsive efforts to cast off an insupportable burden, to +escape from an insufferable anguish, to find rest for itself in its +weariness, peace for its warring passions, an answer and a solution to +its doubts,--these are the events of the confessional. And its fruits +are the folios of Molina and Vasquez and Filutius and Lessius and +Escobar, wherein sin and temptation are weighed in scales so delicate +that the tenderest conscience can hardly hesitate to indulge itself now +and then in the flowery little by-paths that run so pleasantly close to +the straight and narrow way. It was not in the confessional that +Filangieri and Gioja and Romagnosi studied, that Adam Smith sought the +secret of national prosperity, or that Sismondi found that perennial +fountain of generous sympathies, which, through his fifty years of +incessant labor, welled up with such a quickening and invigorating +vitality from the profound investigations of the historian and the +patient statistics of the economist. + +Not all, however, who wear the priest's dress are confessors and +priests. There is a body of reserves always in waiting upon the vast +army of regular ecclesiastics: men ready to push forward into the +ranks, but who stop short at the _prima tonsura_ till they have +ascertained how much their chances will be bettered by taking the final +and irrevocable step. Yet, although they now and then bring somewhat +more of worldly leaven into their intellectual and moral training, they +well know that there is but one road to the red hat and the tiara, and +that they who give themselves up to this ambition must give themselves +up to it with undivided hearts. Thus the models which they set before +themselves, the ideals after which they strive, are all taken from +successful aspirants to the honors of the Church. And the interests of +that great body, as a body independent of laymen, and which can preserve +its immunities only by preserving its independence, and its independence +only by a rigid exclusion of foreign elements,[A] become as dear to them +as if they already enjoyed all its privileges and had assumed all its +obligations. + +If any one wishes to know what sort of statesmen such an education +makes, let him go thoughtfully over the twenty legations, prolegations, +delegations, and governments into which the twelve thousand nine hundred +and twenty square miles of the Pontifical States were still divided only +four years ago, and see how the two million nine hundred and eighty +thousand subjects of the Pope lived and throve under the care of +cardinals and prelates. Subtle negotiators, skilled in the crooks and +tangles of a wily and selfish policy, they have always been,--for they +have studied well the selfish elements of the human heart; patient, too, +and persevering and keen-eyed, as they must needs be who walk in +tortuous ways,--but cold, contracted, and arrogant, mistaking artifice +for statesmanship, unwilling to learn from the lessons of the past, and +unable to comprehend the changes that are going on around them, or to +see that every forward step of the human race is the result of causes +which man has sometimes been permitted to modify, but which he can never +hope to control. + +It is from men thus educated that the Pope and his counsellors are +chosen. + +As far as theoretical origin goes, the Pope is the most democratic of +sovereigns; for there is nothing to prevent his being taken from any +rank or order of the faithful. The sons of peasants and mechanics have +sat upon the Papal throne, and the thunderbolts of the Vatican have been +launched by hands familiar with the pruning-knife and the plough. But in +practice these bounds were effectually narrowed, when the college of +cardinals tacitly restricted the choice to the members of their own +body,--and still more effectually, when, by the same silent usurpation, +they resolved that Adrian of Utrecht should be the last of foreign +pontiffs. For three hundred and forty years none but Italians have been +called to the chair of St. Peter's, thus, by an inevitable result of the +unnatural alliance of temporal with spiritual sovereignty, confining the +birthright of Christendom to the nation which all Christendom delighted +to humiliate and oppress. + +Theoretically, also, the election of the Pope is made by the special +intervention of the Holy Ghost, although the doings of most conclaves +fill many pages of very unholy history. Intrigues begin the moment the +Pope's health is known to be failing, and grow thicker and more +intricate with each unfavorable bulletin. There are few among the +cardinals who do not feel that they have at least a chance of election; +and not one, perhaps, but enters the conclave prepared to make the most +of his individual pretensions. Some even, like Consalvi at the conclave +of Leo XII., set their hearts so strongly upon it that they have been +supposed to have died of the disappointment. Great services are not +always the best recommendation; for it is difficult to serve the public +well without making some private enemies. Little griefs, long forgotten +by the offender, but carefully treasured up in the more tenacious memory +of the offended, have more than once proved insurmountable obstacles in +the path to the throne. Each, too, of the great Catholic powers has a +right to exclude one among the candidates, if the exclusion be announced +before the votes are all given in: a privilege which, as it narrows the +circle of the eligible and increases individual chances, seldom fails to +be faithfully exercised. Indeed, up to the last moment, no one can tell +who may and who may not be chosen. The most prominent candidates are +often the first to be set aside; and the election, like all elections, +from that of a President of the United States to that of a +village-constable, is oftener decided by a combination of personal +ambitions and interests than by those pure and elevated motives which +look so attractive in the programme. + +The death of the Pope is announced by the tolling of the great bell of +the Capitol, and with all convenient haste the nine days' funeral +begins. Everybody that has been at Rome will remember the beautiful +little chapel on the right hand as you enter St. Peter's; for in the +niche above the altar is the group of the Virgin with the dead Christ on +her knees, one of the few works which the volcanic genius of Michel +Angelo could bring itself to finish in marble. In this chapel, directly +in front of this marvellous group, the body of the dead Pope, embalmed +and clad in Pontifical robes, is laid on a sumptuous bier, amid a blaze +of tapers, with sentinels from the Swiss guard at his feet, leaning on +their long halberds, and officers of the household in official costume, +and all that imposing mixture of sacred and profane which Rome knows so +well how to use upon all great occasions. And here, day after day, the +faithful still crowd to take the last look of their "Holy Father," and +kiss the cross on his slipper, and repeat a prayer for his soul. And +hundreds among them, especially the very young and the very old, go a +few yards farther on to the bronze statue of St. Peter, once the bronze +statue of Jupiter, and with equal faith imprint a fervent kiss on the +well-worn toe, and repeat a prayer for themselves. + +On the opposite side, over the doorway that leads to the dome, is a +large sarcophagus of white marble, looking down, if marble can be +supposed to look, upon the monument of the last of the Stuarts: dead +Pope and dead King almost face to face; crown and tiara mouldering +within a few paces of each other; for in that sarcophagus Pope after +Pope has silently taken his place, till summoned by the death of his +successor to go down to the darker slumbers of the vaults below. And at +the close of the ninth day of the funeral, when the crowd is gone, and +the doors are closed, and the evening shadows begin to fall upon chapel +and altar, and the votive tapers twinkle like dim stars through the +gathering gloom, the sarcophagus is opened, the coffin taken out and +examined and then carried down to the vault, the newly dead is raised to +his temporary resting-place, and amid a silence seldom broken by +lamentation the apostolic notary writes by flickering torchlight that +once more the successor of the throne has become the successor of the +grave. + +Then begins the conclave. Each cardinal comes in state with his two +_conclavistas_, or conclave-companions, usually prelates, and always +chosen with a view to the services they may be able to render in the +approaching struggle; the mass of the Holy Spirit is solemnly said, if +not always devoutly listened to; the ambassadors of the Catholic powers +utter their official exhortations to harmony and a single eye to the +good of the Church; and when they withdraw, the mason of the conclave +steps gravely forth, trowel in hand, to build up a solid wall of brick +and mortar betwixt the electors and that world which still looks forward +with curious interest, although with diminished faith, to the result of +the election. + +The conclave, as the name indicates, is a room, and when the +constitution of the customary circular letters announcing his election, +the new Pope, John XXI., better known, if known at all, by his +"Thesaurus Pauperum" than by his administration of the Holy See, issued +a Bull confirming the suspension of the obnoxious constitution, as +containing things "obscure, impracticable, and opposed to the +acceleration of the election." The next conclave lasted six months and +eight days. + +Still the conclave is a kind of imprisonment, which nothing but that +love of power which reconciles man to so many things he hates, and those +hopes that never die in hearts that have once cherished them, could +induce seventy men accustomed to lives of luxury and indulgence to +submit to. The usual place of holding it is the Quirinal, a cooler and +healthier palace than the Vatican; and, in a spirit very different from +that of the Gregorian constitution, everything is done to make it as +comfortable as is consistent with narrow space and walled-up doors. Each +cardinal has four small rooms for himself and his two companions, and +the number and quality of the dishes at his dinner and supper depend +upon his own habits and the skill of his cook. The approaches are +guarded by the senators and _conservatori_, patriarchs and bishops, and +at meal-times, a judge of the _Rota_ is stationed at the dumb-waiter to +examine the dishes as they are brought up, and make sure that the +intrigues within get no help from the intrigues without. Daily mass +forms, of course, a part of the daily routine, and is followed by the +morning vote. + +The voting usually begins with the _scrutinio_, or, as we should term +it, the ballot. Each cardinal writes his own name and that of his +candidate on a ticket. Then, with many ceremonies and genuflections, not +very edifying to profane eyes, if profane eyes were permitted to see +them, but each of which has its mystical interpretation, he ascends to +the altar and lays his ticket on the communion-plate, whence it is +transferred to the chalice,--communion-plate and communion-cup playing a +part in the ceremony which has made more than one good Catholic groan +deeply in spirit. The votes are then counted, care being taken that they +correspond in number to the number of cardinals present, and if any +candidate is found to have two-thirds of the votes cast, the election is +complete. If, however, the legal two-thirds are not reached, any voter +may change his vote by saying that he accedes to the votes thrown in +favor of any other candidate. This mode of election is called +_accession_, and has often been found successful where the prominence of +any candidate was sufficient to make it evident that two or three votes +would secure a choice. + +_Inspiration_ is another mode of election, not so common as the ballot, +but which, whenever any candidate has succeeded in forming a strong +party, is not without its advantages. Several cardinals call out +together the name of their candidate, and if many of them agree in +calling the same name, the rest are seldom willing to hold out in open +opposition to a choice which after all may be made without them: the +successful candidate always being expected to remember those who +favored, and seldom known to forget those who opposed his election. + +A fourth and last mode, never resorted to except in desperate straits, +and when the contest seems interminable, is by _delegation_: the power +of choice being delegated by the cardinals to one or more of their +number, and all solemnly pledging themselves to abide by the decision. +It was thus that Gregory X. was chosen by a delegation of six,--and that +John XXII. became Pope after two years of regular voting had failed to +procure a successor to the Prince of the Apostles. It has been said, +however, that John, who, partly by his talents and partly by fraud, had +raised himself from the lowest walks of life, had no sooner secured a +pledge of concurrence than he announced his own name as that of the +candidate of his choice. Surprised, but not edified, the cardinals made +no opposition to his elevation, for Christendom and folio crammed with +projects and reports: bishops and missionaries transport him in a moment +from England to China, from Egypt to Peru. If you could look into those +piles of papers which are awaiting his signature, you would find +petitions and remonstrances, death-warrants and pardons, political +processes and criminal processes, schemes for a new bishopric or a new +canonization, plans for a cathedral in New York or a convent in Syria, +for a new prison in the Patrimony or a new tax in the Marches, +architecture and law, finance and theology, sacred and profane all +jumbled together: and what wonder they should keep jumbled, from the +beginning to the end, from his coronation to his funeral, leaving him, +even with the best intentions and the most untiring industry, a helpless +prey to intrigues and cabals and all the artifices and deceptions which +beset a throne? Gioja and Romagnosi are under the ban, and he has no +wish to ask them for the clue to the labyrinth he is wandering in, even +if he had the time. He has no time to read the newspapers. His knowledge +of them is derived from abstracts prepared for him by a clerk in the +Governor's office,--containing, therefore, what the minister allows to +be put there, and nothing more; while their living pictures, those +columns of advertisements which bring before you day by day the wants +and hopes and pursuits of so many of your fellow-creatures, carrying +you, as it were, into hundreds of families, and laying open to your +scrutiny hundreds of human hearts, the different lights in which men and +things appear to the organs of different parties, and the proof which, +in the midst of their contradictions, they all concur in giving that +there is a spirit abroad which cannot be lulled to sleep, are lessons +all lost for him, and which, perhaps, would be equally lost, even if he +had the leisure and the knowledge to study them. + +He dines alone,--for in the city, in the dearth of publicans and +sinners, no one can sit at table with the Vicar of Christ; and thus +dinner-hour, the open-hearted hour, puts him almost more absolutely in +the hands of his immediate attendants than any hour of the twenty-four. +If he walks, it is in the garden or library; if he rides, it is +surrounded by guards and followed by his household train. He took his +last walk in the streets when he was a prelate, and thenceforth knows no +more of the city than he can see through his carriage-windows; and now +even that imperfect view is more than half cut off by the officers of +the guard, who ride their great black horses close to the carriage-door. + +But enough of the Pope, and much more than I had intended when I first +took up my pen. That, even when he has studied them most, the temporal +interests of his people must suffer in his hands, has been proved by the +sufferings of millions through centuries of oppression and misrule. And +must it not always be so, when the interests of husbands and fathers are +intrusted to men cut off by education and profession from the domestic +sympathies wherein these interests have birth, and that domestic hearth +which is at once the source and the emblem and the purifier of the +State? + +The electors and advisers of the Pope form the College of Cardinals, +seventy in number, when full: six bishops, fifty priests, and fourteen +deacons; once merely the parish priests of Rome, then princes of the +Church and electors of its visible head. In this body, formerly so +important and on which so much still depends, all Catholic Europe has +its representatives, although it is mainly composed of native Italians. +Many of them are men of exemplary piety, many of them eminent for talent +and learning, but some, too, mere worldlings, raised by intrigue or +favor or the necessities of birth to a position too exalted for weak +heads, and too much beset with temptation for corrupt hearts. + +The path that leads to the sacred college is neither a straight nor a +narrow one. There are no prescribed qualifications of age or of rank. +Leo X. was cardinal at thirteen; and although no such premature +appointment to the gravest duties has been made since, or will ever, +probably, be made again, yet there is always a salutary sprinkling of +youth in this eminent body, if priests and prelates can ever be said to +be truly young. And although families of a certain rank are sure of the +speedy promotion of any child whom they may see fit to dedicate to the +Church, yet the representative of untainted blood has often found +himself side by side with the son of a peasant or of an artisan. The +cardinal is not necessarily even a priest. Adrian V. died without +ordination; and Leo X. held the keys of St. Peter four days with +unconsecrated hands. He may even have been married, but must be single +again when he puts on the red hat. + +The appointment is made by the Pope, and, although announced to the +whole body assembled in consistory, requires no confirmation to make it +valid. Certain offices lead to it, and are known as cardinalate offices. +Every prelate looks forward to it with hope, and every priest with +longing; and besides the priests and prelates, the regular orders also, +the monks and friars, claim a representation in the college. But +whatever the pretensions or expectations of individuals may be, the +decision rests with the Pope, whose good-will, adroitly managed, has +often let fall the coveted honor upon men who had little else to +recommend them. It was certainly honorable to this reverend body in our +own day that they numbered Mai and Mezzofante among their brethren; but +in Rome the story ran that neither the palimpsestic labors of the one +nor the fifty languages of the other would have won him the well-earned +promotion, if the Pope's favorite servant had not set his heart upon +making his children's tutor assistant-librarian of the Vatican. + +Although nominally the council of the Pope, the consistory or official +assembly of the cardinals has few of the characteristics of a +deliberative body. The Pope addresses them from his throne; but the +substance of his address is already known to most of them beforehand, +and his opinion upon the subject, as well as theirs, made up before they +come together. They have no constituents to enlighten, nothing to hope +and nothing to fear from public opinion. They are all so near the +topmost round that each of them is justified in feeling as if he already +had his hand upon it; but to whichever of them that envied preëminence +may be destined, it is neither the favor nor the gratitude of the people +that can raise him to it. What they already hold they are sure of; and +it is only to the good-will of their colleagues that they are to look +for more. + +But it is in those public meetings that the Roman court puts on all its +splendor. The very hall has a grave and imposing air about it that +inspires serious thoughts in serious minds, and checks, for a moment, +the frivolous vivacity of lighter ones. You cannot look at the walls +without feeling a solemn sadness steal over you, as you think of the +thousands of your fellow-creatures who have gazed on them with the same +freshness and fulness of life with which you now gaze on them, since +Raphael and Michel Angelo first clothed them with their own immortal +conceptions, three hundred years ago. It was in an assembly like this, +and perhaps in this very room, that the condemnation of Luther was +pronounced, that Henry was proclaimed "Defender of the Faith," and that +Cardinal Pole rejoiced with his brethren of the purple over the +approaching return of England to the bosom of the Church. And as you are +musing on these things, and centuries seem to pass before you like the +figures of a dream, the room gradually fills, the cardinals come in and +take their places, each clad in the simple majesty of the purple, and +last of all comes the Pope himself, the steel sabres of his guard +ringing on the marble floor with a clang that breaks the harmonious +silence most discordantly. Then in a moment all is hushed again. The +cardinals go one by one to pay their homage to their spiritual father, +kneeling and kissing the cross on his mantle, he blessing them all, as +duteous children, in return. If you are an American and a Catholic, you +look on devoutly, feeling, perhaps, at moments, although you take good +care not to say so, that, although highly edifying, it is a little dull; +if an American and a Protestant, you think of the morning prayer in +Congress, and members with newspapers or half-read letters in their +hands, a very busy one now and then forgetting that he is standing with +his hat on, and all of them in a hurry to have it over and enter upon +the business of the day,--or of a reception-night, perhaps, at the White +House, with the President shaking hands as fast as they can be held out, +and trying hard to smile each new-comer into the belief that the +"present incumbent" is the very best man he can vote for at the next +election. + +But hush! the Pope is speaking,--not always as orators speak, it is +true, but gravely, at least, and with that indefinable air of dignity +which the habit of command seldom fails to impart. The language is +sonorous, and if you have had the good sense to unlearn your barbarous +application of English sounds--cunningly devised by Nature herself to +keep damp fogs and cold winds out of the mouth--to Italian vowels, which +the same judicious mother framed with equal cunning to let soft and +odoriferous airs into it, you will probably understand what he says, for +his speech is generally in Latin, and very good Latin too.[B] + +But still you grow tired, and, like the actors in the splendid pageant, +are heartily glad when it is all over,--well pleased to have seen it, +but, unless a sight-seer by nature, equally pleased to feel that you +will never be compelled by your duty to your guide-book and _cicerone_ +to see it again. + +There are three kinds of consistory,--the private, the public, and the +semi-public. The most interesting are those in which ambassadors are +received, for the ambassador's speech gives some variety to the routine. +But in substance they are all equally splendid, equally formal, and--now +that the world no longer looks to the Vatican for its creeds--all +equally insignificant and dull. + +Thus it is not as a deliberative body that the cardinals take part in +the government. Their collective functions are for the most part purely +formal, and the great wheel turns steadily on its axle without any +direct help from them. But as sole electors of the sovereign, whom they +are not only to choose, but to choose from among themselves, and as the +body from which the highest functionaries of the State are drawn, their +individual influence is always very considerable, often whatever they +have the tact and skill to make it. + +Another body which shares with the "Sacred College" the privilege of +furnishing the instruments of government is the Prelacy,--a term which +must be taken in its restricted sense, of men, whether laymen or +ecclesiastics, destined by profession to various offices of dignity and +trust in the civil and ecclesiastical administration, some of which lead +directly to the cardinalate, and all of them to personal privileges and +a competent income. Their education is often less exclusive than that of +the priests, for many of them have belonged to the world before they +gave themselves up to the Church, and profane studies have employed some +of the time which might otherwise have been devoted to Bellarmino and +his brethren. In dress they are distinguished by the color of their +stockings and hat-band. When they walk out, a liveried servant follows +them a few paces in the rear; and while the cardinals, from +"Illustrious" have become "Eminent," these aspirants to the purple are +always addressed as "Monsignore," or "My Lord." + +The first set of wheels in this complicated machine is composed of the +twenty-three Congregations, a kind of executive and deliberative +committees, consisting of cardinals and prelates, and first used by +Sixtus V., as a speedier and more effective method of eliciting the +opinions of his counsellors and bringing their administrative talents +into play than the deliberations in full consistory which had obtained +till his time. Sixteen of them are ecclesiastical, the remaining seven +civil, although the number may at any time be restricted or enlarged +according to the wants and the views of the reigning Pontiff. They have +their stated meetings, their regular offices and officers; and while +theoretically under the immediate direction of the sovereign, they +actually relieve him from many of the details and not a few of the +direct responsibilities of sovereignty. + +The first of these Congregations bears a name which sounds harshly in +Protestant ears, although but a shadow of that fearful power which once +carried terror to every fireside, and made even princes tremble and turn +pale on their thrones. The Holy Office still retains the form and +authority conferred upon it by Paul III., if not the spirit breathed +into it by the grasping Innocent and fiery Dominic. Its dark walls, +which so long shrouded darkest deeds, stand close to St. Peter's, under +the very eye of the Pope, as he looks from his bedroom-window,--within +ear-shot of the thousands whom curiosity or devotion brings yearly to +the church or to the palace, little heeding, as they gaze on the dome of +Michel Angelo or climb the stairway of Bernini, that almost beneath the +pavement they tread on are dungeons and chains and victims. + +But the Inquisition, you say, is no longer the Inquisition of three +hundred years ago. Bunyan tells us that Christian, on his pilgrimage to +the Celestial City, saw, among other memorable sights, a cave hard by +the way-side, wherein sat an old man, grinning at pilgrims as they +passed by, and biting his nails because he could not get at them. And +now let me tell you a story of the Inquisition which I know to be true. + +Some twenty-five years ago there lived in Rome a physician well known +for his professional skill, and still better for his good companionship +and ready wit. He was, in fact, a pleasant companion, fond of a good +story, fonder still of his dog and gun, fondest of all of talking about +poetry and reciting verses, which he could do by the hour,--sometimes +repeating whole pages from Dante or Petrarch or Tasso or his favorite of +all, Alfieri,--and sometimes extemporizing sonnets, or _terzine_, or +odes, with that wonderful facility which Nature has given to the Italian +_improvvisatore_ and denied to the rest of mankind. It has often been +remarked that the study of medicine goes hand in hand with a certain +boldness of speculation not altogether in harmony with the lessons of +the priest. No one who has lived in Italy long enough to get at the true +character of the people can have failed to observe this in Italian +physicians; and our doctor, like many of his brethren, was suspected of +carrying his speculations into forbidden fields. Still, his practice was +large, and went on increasing. Laymen, if they must needs be sick, were +glad to have him at their bedsides; and there were even men with purple +on their shoulders who had strong faith in his skill, if they had strong +doubts of his orthodoxy. Externally he conformed to the requirements of +the Church: heard mass of Sundays, and went once a year to the +confessional; for this much is a police regulation, a tax upon +conscience which every Roman is bound to pay. But he was too much behind +the scenes to do it with a good will, and saw professionally too much of +the daily life of the clergy, looked too freely and too closely at some +of their "pleasant vices," to feel much reverence either for them or for +their teachings. + +Suddenly his chair, for he was professor in the medical college, was +taken from him: a warning, thought his friends, that unfriendly eyes +were upon him; and so, also, thought some of his patients, and called in +a new physician. Still his general practice continued large; and +although he found a little more time for his wife,--for a father to sit +in, in darkness and silence, and recall the sunny faces and sweet +prattle of his children. But he felt that unseen eyes might be watching +him even there, and that a sigh, though breathed never so softly, might +reach the ears of some who would rejoice in it and come all the more +confidently to the work they had resolved to do upon him. So, setting +down his lamp, he made two or three turns across the room, and then, +drawing out his watch, as if to assure himself that it was bedtime, +deliberately undressed and went to bed. + +And to sleep? + +You will not call him coward, if with closed eyes he lay wakeful upon +his pillow, thinking over the last hour with a heart that beat quick, +though it faltered not, listening vainly for some sound to break the +unearthly silence, and longing for daylight, if, indeed, the light of +day was permitted to visit that lonely cell. It came at last, the +daylight,--though not as it was wont to come to him in his own dear +home, with a fresh morning breath and a fresher song of birds, waking +familiar voices and greeted with endearing accents. How would it be in +that home this morning? How had it been there through the slow hours of +that feverish night? How was it to be thenceforth with those precious +ones, and with him too, whom they all looked to for guidance and +counsel? + +He got up and dressed himself a little more carefully than usual, +resolved that there should be no outside telltales of the thoughts that +were struggling within. He had hardly finished dressing when the door +opened. Neither footsteps in the corridor nor the turning of the key had +he heard, but there stood a familiar of the Inquisition, friar in dress, +and with the stony face of a man accustomed to live by lamp-light and +talk in whispers. He brought the prisoner's breakfast,--coffee and +bread. "You have been listening," thought M----; "but I will be even +with you." And to make a fair start, he refused to touch either the +bread or the coffee until the familiar had tasted both. + +The morning passed slowly, though he helped it along as well as he could +by repeating verses and writing a sonnet on the wall with his pencil. +Dinner came: a good meal, more substantial than dungeon-air could give +an appetite for; but he ate it. Supper followed,--brought by the same +silent familiar who had served breakfast and dinner, and who still came +with the same noiseless step, set the dishes upon the table, tasted the +food as the Doctor bade him, and then went silently away. + +Five days passed, slowly, monotonously, wearily. Five nights of +unwelcome dreams and sleep that brought no rest. The close air and +narrow bounds began to tell upon his appetite and strength. He had soon +gone over his poets. Fortunately, they were well chosen and would bear +repeating. The fountain in his own mind, too, was still full, and he +found great relief in declaiming extempore verses in a loud voice, and +writing out those that pleased him best. But could he hold out? for it +was evidently intended to wear him down by anxiety and solitude, and +when they had broken his spirits bring him to an examination. + +At last a new face appeared: not cold like that of the familiar, nor +wreathed in smiles like that of a successful enemy, but wearing a decent +expression of gravity tempered by compassion. And "How do you do, +Doctor?" asked the visitor in a soothing voice, trained like his face to +tell lies at his bidding. + +"Well, Father, perfectly well." + +"I am very glad to hear it. I was afraid your appetite might have +suffered from the sudden change in your mode of life." + +"Not in the least. I have a sound stomach, and can digest anything you +send me." + +"And how do you contrive to pass your time? For so active a man, the +change is very great." + +"Oh, that is easy enough. I am very fond of poetry, and have such a good +memory that I know volumes of it by heart. There is nothing pleasanter +than repeating verses that you like,--except, perhaps, making verses +yourself." + +"Do you ever compose?" + +"I? It has always been my favorite pastime. Would you like to hear some +of my verses?" + +The sympathizing father was, of course, too happy; and M---- recited, in +his most effective manner, a sonnet, not very complimentary to +eavesdroppers and spies. A shadow passed over the monk's face; but he +was too well trained to let out his feelings prematurely; and resuming +the conversation as if nothing had occurred to disturb his equanimity, +he told M---- in his softest tone that he hoped there had been nothing +in his treatment to complain of. M---- sprang to his feet. + +"Oh, this, by Heaven, is too much, even from you! Nothing to complain +of! To tear the father of a family from the arms of his wife and +children, a physician from patients who are looking to him for life and +health,--and nothing to complain of!" + +It was just the question he wanted; and partly from design, and partly +from irrepressible indignation, he poured out a torrent of invective and +reproach which soon sent his visitor away, perfectly convinced that the +spirit they had undertaken to break had not yet begun to bend. + +Five more weary days, and then began the examination,--cautious, minute, +perplexing: questions framed to entangle; charges advanced, not for +discussion, but for conviction; a review of the whole course and tenor +of his past life; his stories and verses; his jests among friends; +sayings that he had forgotten; things that he had done years before, +mixed up with things that he had never done; all adroitly commingled, +and so skilfully arranged, that, while each seemed comparatively +unimportant in itself, each had its place prepared for it with malignant +craft and wondrous subtlety; and all taken together forming a network of +harmonious evidence from which there seemed no possibility of escape. +Familiar as he was with the history of the Holy Office, and aware as he +had always been that his steps, like those of every man upon whom +suspicion had ever fallen, were dogged by spies, he had never supposed +that his daily life had been tracked with such persistence, and so +carefully treasured up against him. + +He saw his danger, and saw, too, that the course he had resolved upon in +the first hour of his arrest was the only course that could save him. +Denial would be useless. They expected it and were well prepared for it. +But it remained to be seen whether they were equally well prepared for +frank confession and adroit interpretation. To every question with +regard to acts or words he answered, "Yes, I did so,--I said +so,--but"--and then, by putting an unexpected interpretation upon it, he +either stripped it of its offensive bearing, or reduced it to an idle +jest of which nothing worse could be said than that it was indiscreet. + +The fathers were puzzled. For denial they had proofs. Prevarication they +were familiar with, and never so happy as when they saw a poor, +perplexed, bewildered victim vainly struggling in the toils, driven +triumphantly from subterfuge to subterfuge, and at last, with nerveless +arms and faltering tongue, dropping hopeless upon his chair, as the +conviction forced itself upon him that he was there, not for trial, but +for condemnation. + +But a bold, self-possessed, self-reliant man, looking them in the face +with an eye as keen and scrutinizing as their own, answering every +question promptly in a firm voice, and, just as the blow seemed ready to +fall, parrying it by a movement so skilful as to compel his adversary to +change his ground and gird himself up for a new attack,--this was +something which, with all their experience, they had not counted upon, +and knew not how to meet. Day after day he was brought to the bar. Hour +after hour they laboriously plied question upon question. On their side +was the written record,--nothing omitted, nothing forgotten; the words +of yesterday close by the words of ten years ago; each accusation +propping the others; and every explanation and answer written minutely +down, to be brought out unexpectedly, and compared with each new one as +it came. On his, a ready wit, perfect self-control, a thorough knowledge +of the character of those whom he was dealing with, a remarkable command +of language, and a courage that nothing could shake. + +It was an exhausting process, and the Inquisitors, like the royal patron +of their institution, well knew that time was a powerful ally. Still +they resolved to call in a new one to their aid. M---- was known to be +very fond of his family; and long experience had taught the reverend +fathers that even the manliest heart may be shaken by a sudden awakening +of tender emotions. The examinations were discontinued. For three days +M---- was left to the solitude of his cell,--a solitude deeper and more +unnerving from contrast with the mental tension of the last fortnight. +Then, at the usual hour of examination, the door opened. The usual +attendants were in waiting. "Now for a new trial of wits," thought he, +as he rose to follow them. Then it occurred to him that it might be for +sentence that he was summoned; and while he was weighing the +probabilities, and calling up his strength for the occasion, he reached +the door, the attendants threw it open, and he found himself in the +presence, not of his judges, but of his wife and children. Pale, +bewildered, looking timidly towards him, through eyes dim with tears, +there they stood, utterly at a loss what to say or what to do. + +He felt his heart bound. But he saw the snare, and, repressing his +emotions by a powerful effort, held out his hand instead of opening his +arms, and bidding them, cheer up and give themselves no uneasiness about +him, and above all not to let their enemies fancy that either he or they +would be cast down by anything that they could do, he calmly turned to +the guards, and told them, that, if that stale trick was all they had +brought him there for, they had better take him back to his cell. + +Meanwhile his friends were not idle: and he had friends, as I have +already hinted, even in the sacred college. With a cardinal on your +side, you may do many things in Rome which it would hardly answer to +venture upon without him; for who can tell but that that Cardinal may +one day be Pope? The precise nature of the accusation lodged against him +M---- never knew; but he had gathered enough from the interrogatories to +feel that he had got lightly off, when he found himself condemned to say +his prayers and read books of devotion three months in a convent, with +the privilege of walking in the garden and talking theology with the +elder brethren. + +And thus the old man whom Bunyan's English Pilgrim saw in the cave by +the way-side two hundred years ago still sits there, biting his nails +and grinning, not altogether impotently, at Roman Pilgrims, to this very +day. + +The Congregation of the Holy Office is composed of thirteen cardinals, +one of whom is secretary, and an assessor, a commissary, counsellors, +and several officers taken from the prelates and regular orders. The +Pope himself is Prefect. The counsellors meet on Mondays in the Palace +of the Inquisition; the whole body on Wednesdays in the Convent of the +Minerva,--where St. Dominic still smiles upon his faithful +followers,--and Thursdays before the Pope. The examination of their +records and the opening of their prisons, during the brief existence of +the "Roman Republic" of 1849, showed that these meetings were not always +mere matters of form. + +The Congregation of the Index was founded by Pius V., in order to +relieve the Holy Office of that part of its duties which relates to +written and printed thought: censorship of the press would be the proper +term, if censorship, even in its most rigid form, did not fall short of +the attributes and functions of this odious tribunal. It is composed of +cardinals and ecclesiastics, many of them distinguished by their +learning, some, doubtless, by their piety,--but all leagued together, +and solemnly pledged to sleepless warfare against every form of +intellectual freedom. Without their approbation no manuscript can be +seat to the press, no new editions issued, no thought promulgated. Even +the stone-carver is not permitted to use his chisel until they have +decided how far love or pride may go in commemoration of the dead. They +mutilate, with equal sovereignty of will, the printed pages of a classic +and the manuscript of an unknown scribbler,--sit in judgment upon Botta +and Laplace, as their predecessors sat in judgment upon Guicciardini and +Galileo,--and, in the fervor of their undiscriminating zeal, condemn +Robertson and Gibbon, Reid and Hume, the skeptic Bolingbroke and the +pious Addison, to the same fiery purgation. That Italian literature was +not crushed by them long ago is, perhaps, the strongest proof of the +irrepressible vigor and marvellous vitality of the Italian mind. Not to +be on the "Index" would call a blush to the cheek of the most +unambitious of authors,--would carry a presumption of worthlessness with +it from which even the penny-a-liner would shrink with dismay,--and to +the poet and historian would sound like a sentence of perpetual +exclusion from all those cherished hopes which irradiate with heavenly +light the steep and thorny paths of intellectual renown. + +Next to these in importance is the Congregation of the "Propaganda," or +of that celebrated institution for the propagation of the Roman Catholic +religion which, since the reign of Gregory XV., has governed, as from a +common centre, the immense network of missions that Christian Rome has +spread over the lands she hopes to conquer, as Pagan Rome spread her +network of military roads over the lands which she had already reduced +to subjection. Cardinals, with a cardinal for prefect and a prelate for +secretary, compose this congregation, which holds regular meetings twice +a month, and, not unfrequently, extraordinary meetings in the presence +of the Pope. In these the important questions of the missionary world +are discussed, reports examined, new missions proposed, new missionaries +appointed, new bishoprics founded "among the heathen," and all these +complicated interests taken into impartial consideration. + +For here, at least, there is little room for heart-burnings and +jealousies. It is of equal importance to all that the conquests of the +Church should be extended to the utmost limits of the earth, the heathen +converted, and heretics won back to the fold. While John Eliot was +translating the Bible into a language which no one has been left to +read, and his Puritan brethren were hanging and shooting the Indians +whom they had neither the patience to win by their teaching nor the +charity to enlighten by their example, Indians from the true Indies were +preparing themselves in the halls of the Propaganda to carry the healing +promises of the gospel to the fathers and mothers who had watched over +their heathen infancy. In the record of the great things that Rome has +done, there is nothing greater than the foundation of the +Propaganda,--no conception so worthy of a steadfast faith, or more in +harmony with the spirit of the Saviour of mankind. To borrow the +helpless child, and restore him a helpful man,--to enlist the sympathies +of birth, and secure for themselves the eloquence of natural +affection,--to overleap the barriers of race and elude the sensitiveness +of national pride by putting the doctrines they sought to diffuse into +mouths which, untainted by repulsive accents, could enforce new truths +by well-known images and familiar illustrations,--was like laying anew +the foundations of the Capitol, and consecrating that spirit of worldly +wisdom wherein ancient Rome was never found wanting by that spirit of +Christian philanthropy which modern Rome has always claimed as her +peculiar distinction. + +But alas that a twenty-minutes' walk should take us from the Piazza di +Spagna to the Via di Sant' Uffizio! + +The other ecclesiastical functions of government are performed in a +similar way: one congregation superintending the churches of Rome and +its district, under the title of _Visita Apostolica_; one, the +ceremonies of the Church; one, ecclesiastical immunities; one, sacred +rites; one, indulgences and relies. Questions relative to bishops, +bishoprics, and the regular orders are intrusted to four congregations, +under different and appropriate names. St. Peter's has a special +congregation for itself, and not the least dignified and important of +them; for, besides eight cardinals and four prelates, it commands the +official services of the Auditor of the Apostolic Chamber, the +Treasurer, a judge of the _Rota_, a comptroller, an attorney-general, a +secretary, and several counsellors-at-law. Not St. Peter's only, but all +the churches of Rome, come in for a share of their attention; and what +is more important, they form a court of probate, with exclusive +jurisdiction over all wills containing charitable bequests, or bequests +to heretics and strangers, fugitives, exiles, or the dead. Even a doubt +as to the probability of being able to execute the bequest according to +the wishes of the testator, or an apparent contradiction in the devises +themselves, brings the will within the jurisdiction of this tribunal; +and should the legatee, after full experience of the law's delay, +succeed in obtaining a favorable decree, the income of his legacy, from +the death of the testator to the publication of the decision, is +sequestrated to the treasury of the church of St. Peter's. Few +congregations are more assiduous in the performance of their duties. + +A criminal court of appeals, with the appellation of _Sacra +Consulta_,--how this _sacred_ meets you at every turn!--a council called +_Buon Governo_, for the superintendence of municipal +administration,--one for roads, fountains, and water-courses, called the +General Prefecture of Waters and Roads,--a Council of "Economy," a +Council of Studies, a Council for the Examination of Accounts, in which +four laymen sit side by side with four prelates, under the presidency of +a cardinal, and the Congregation of the Census for the apportionment of +taxes on real estate in the country, form the seven civil congregations +by which the Pope is assisted in his labors, and the cardinals and +prelates brought in to a share of the administration. Add to these +sixteen tribunals, or courts, civil and ecclesiastical, two Secretaries +of State, a Secretary of Briefs and one of Memorials, a _Camerlengo_, a +Treasurer, and a Governor of Rome, and you have an outline of the Roman +Government under Gregory XVI. + +The Secretaries of State are always cardinals; the _Camerlengo_, who is +the official head of government during the vacancies of the Holy See, a +cardinal; the Treasurer and Governor of Rome, prelates, who, on leaving +office, become cardinals by right. The only part of this complex +machinery which was intrusted to laymen was the Tribunal of the Capitol +and the Tribunal of Commerce: the latter an institution of Pius VII., +and directly connected with the Chamber of Commerce, from whose fifteen +members two of its three judges are chosen, while the third is furnished +by the bar; the former, the feeble representative of all that is left of +the municipal government of Rome. + +Rome has sixty noble families who enjoy the title of Conscript. From +these are chosen, every three months, three _Conservatori_ and a Prior +of the Wards, who form a committee for the superintendence of the walls +and public monuments, and for the administration of the income of the +Capitoline Chamber. If we look at them in connection with the ancient +government of Rome, we shall find them employed in functions not unlike +those of the _Ædiles_. From the same point of view, the Senator may be +said to resemble the City Prefect; although, when you see him on public +days, standing like a statue on the steps of the Pontifical throne, +above the prelates, but a little lower than the cardinals, you can think +neither of prefect nor of senate, nor of anything that recalls the days +when Romans acknowledged no superior but the fellow-citizens whom they +themselves had chosen as representatives of their sovereign will. + +It requires no very profound examination of this system to see that it +is purely and rigidly ecclesiastical. The ecclesiastical leaven +penetrates it in every part. Wherever you go, either for business or for +amusement, you find some representative of the Church. Whichever way you +turn, you see keen eyes peering upon you from under a three-cornered hat +or a cowl. And even when the path seems for a while to be leading you +back to the world, through rows of shops, under the windows of bankers, +within sight of sails and steam, or within sound of humming wheels, +there are still shrines and oratories numberless by the way, and a +church or a convent at the end. + +Elective sovereign by origin, the moment the Pope ascends the throne, he +becomes absolute. Authority and honors proceed from him as from their +legitimate source. Money bears his image and superscription. Monuments +are inscribed with his name. Laws and decrees are promulgated as +voluntary emanations of his sovereign will. As head of the Church, all +spiritual interests are under his protection. As chief of the State, all +temporal interests are subject to his control. He reigns, not merely +like other sovereigns, by the "grace of God," but by a peculiar +privilege and inherent right, as Vicar of Christ. Resistance to his will +is not simply rebellion, but the deeper and deadlier sin of sacrilege. +His interpretation relieves the mind from the agony of doubt; his +blessing frees the conscience from the burden of sin. And how, if +earnest-minded and sincere, can he fail to look upon the interests of +the State as subordinate to the interests of the Church, and interpret +his duties and obligations as the legatee of Constantine by his feelings +and convictions as the successor of St. Peter? + +In the practical exercise of this authority be feels the want of other +eyes to help him see and other hands to help him do. He cannot read all +that is to be read, or write all that is to be written, or even hear and +say all that is to be heard and said. However great his love of detail, +there are details which he cannot reach. However comprehensive his +glance, or unwearied his industry, there are objects that lie beyond the +compass of his vision, and labor to be performed which no industry can +bring within the human allotment of twenty-four hours. + +Therefore, reserving to himself the final decision, he distributes the +various functions of government among his official counsellors and those +from whom new counsellors are to be chosen. He spreads an elaborate +network over all the interests and functions of the State, holding the +line in his own hand, and drawing or relaxing it at his own pleasure. He +is still the lawgiver and the judge, dictating according to his own +judgment, and deciding according to his own conviction. Of his laws +there is no revision; from his sentence there is no appeal. The duties +of the subject are defined by the rights of the sovereign; and of those +rights he is the sole and absolute judge. + +Hence a consciousness of power ever present and supreme, extending to +all that has been left him of the common relations of life,--to the hour +of business and the hour of repose, to the hall of audience and the +garden-walk, and giving equally its deceptive coloring to the thoughts +that stir him when borne on the shoulders of men through a prostrate +crowd, and those that flit dimly through his brain as he lays a weary +head upon a solitary pillow. And hence, too, he becomes for himself, as +well as for others, an object of constant contemplation,--valuing things +as they contribute to his pleasure, and men as they subject themselves +to his will,--not always cruel in heart, even when his acts are cruel, +nor unfeeling when he inflicts unmerited suffering and needless pain, +but seeming both cruel and unfeeling, because education and habit have +dried up within him that fount of human sympathies which Nature has set +in the heart of man at his birth, that he might ever bear something +about him to remind him of a mother's tenderness and a father's pride. + +If that be the best government wherein all the moral and intellectual +faculties of the governed receive their fullest development, and the +responsibility of the sovereign is made so immediate that he can neither +lose sight of it nor escape from its obligations, that surely must be +the worst in which one man thinks and judges for all, and, by an +unnatural union of spiritual and temporal attributes, is raised above +all human responsibility,--a theocracy, with man to interpret the will +of God, and to enforce his own interpretations. + + * * * * * + +CONCORD. + +MAY 23, 1864. + + + How beautiful it was, that one bright day + In the long week of rain! + Though all its splendor could not chase away + The omnipresent pain. + + The lovely town was white with apple-blooms, + And the great elms o'erhead + Dark shadows wove on their aërial looms, + Shot through with golden thread. + + Across the meadows, by the gray old manse, + The historic river flowed:-- + I was as one who wanders in a trance, + Unconscious of his road. + + The faces of familiar friends seemed strange; + Their voices I could hear, + And yet the words they uttered seemed to change + Their meaning to the ear. + + For the one face I looked for was not there, + The one low voice was mute; + Only an unseen presence filled the air, + And baffled my pursuit. + + Now I look back, and meadow, manse, and stream + Dimly my thought defines; + I only see--a dream within a dream-- + The hill-top hearsed with pines. + + I only hear above his place of rest + Their tender undertone, + The infinite longings of a troubled breast, + The voice so like his own. + + There in seclusion and remote from men + The wizard hand lies cold, + Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, + And left the tale half told. + + Ah, who shall lift that wand of magic power, + And the lost clue regain? + The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower + Unfinished must remain! + + * * * * * + +WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM? + +A STORY IN TWO PARTS. + +PART I + + +"Please, Ma'am, I want to come in out of the rain," said the dripping +figure at the door. + +"And who are you, Sir?" demanded the lady, astonished; for the bell had +been rung familiarly, and, thinking her son had come home, she had +hastened to let him in, but had met instead (at the front-door of her +fine house!) this wretch. + +"I'm Fessenden's fool, please, Ma'am," replied the son--not of this +happy mother, thank Heaven! not of this proud, elegant lady, oh, +no!--but of some no less human-hearted mother, I suppose, who had +likewise loved her boy, perhaps all the more fondly for his +infirmity,--who had hugged him to her bosom so many, many times, with +wild and sorrowful love,--and who, be sure, would not have kept him +standing there, ragged and shivering, in the rain. + +"Fessenden's fool!" cries the lady. "What's your name?" + +"Please, Ma'am, that's my name." Meekly spoken, with an earnest, staring +face. "Do you want me?" + +"No; we don't want a boy with such a name as that!" + +And the lady scowls, and shakes her head, and half closes the forbidding +door,--not thinking of that other mother's heart,--never dreaming that +such a gaunt and pallid wight ever had a mother at all. For the idea +that those long, lean hands, reaching far out of the short and split +coat-sleeves, had been a baby's pure, soft hands once, and had pressed +the white maternal breasts, and had played with the kisses of the fond +maternal lips,--it was scarcely conceivable; and a delicate-minded +matron, like Mrs. Gingerford, may well be excused for not entertaining +any such distressing fancy. + +"Wal! I'll go!" And the youth turned away. + +She could not shut the door. There was something in the unresentful, sad +face, pale cheeks, and large eyes, that fascinated her; something about +the tattered clothes, thin, wet locks of flaxen hair, and ravelled straw +hat-brim, fantastic and pitiful. And as he walked wearily away, and she +saw the night closing in black and dark, and felt the cold dash of the +rain blown against her own cheek, she concluded to take pity on him. For +she was by no means a hard-hearted woman; and though her house was +altogether too good for poor folks, and she really didn't know what she +should do with him, it seemed too bad to send him away shelterless, that +stormy November night. Besides, her husband was a rising +politician,--the public-spirited Judge Gingerford, you know,--the +eloquent philanthropist and reformer;--and to have it said that his door +had been shut against a perishing stranger might hurt him. So, as I +remarked, she concluded to take pity on the boy, and, after duly +weighing the matter, to call him back. And she called,--though, as I +suspect, not very loud. Moreover, the wind was whistling through the +leafless shrubbery, and his rags were fluttering, and his hat was +flapping about his ears, and the rain was pelting him; and just then the +Judge's respectable dog put his head out of the warm, dry kennel, and +barked; so that he did not hear,--the lady believed. + +He had heard very well, nevertheless. Why didn't he go back, then? +Maybe, because he was a fool. More likely, because he was, after all, +human. Within that husk of rags, under all that dull incumbrance of +imperfect physical organs that cramped and stifled it, there dwelt a +soul; and the soul of man knows its own worth, and is proud. The +coarsest, most degraded drudge still harbors in his wretched house of +clay a divine guest. There is that in the convict and slave which stirs +yet at an insult. And even in this lank, half-witted lad, the despised +and outcast of years, there abode a sense of inalienable dignity,--an +immanent instinct that he, too, was a creature of God, and worthy +therefore to be treated with a certain tenderness and respect, and not +to be roughly repulsed. This was as strong in him as in you. His wisdom +was little, but his will was firm. And though the house was cheerful and +large, and had room and comforts enough and to spare, rather than enter +it, after he had been flatly told he was not wanted, he would lie down +in the cold, wet fields and die. + +"Certainly, he will find shelter somewhere," thought the Judge's lady, +discharging her conscience of the responsibility. "But I am sorry he +didn't hear." + +Was she very sorry? + +She went back into her cozy, fire-lighted sewing-room, and thought no +more of the beggar-boy. And the watchdog, having barked his well-bred, +formal bark, without undue heat,--like a dog that knew the world, and +had acquired the tone of society,--stood a minute, important, +contemplating the drizzle from the door of his kennel, out of which he +had not deigned to step, then stretched himself once more on his straw, +gave a sigh of repose, and curled himself up, with his nose to the air, +in an attitude of canine enjoyment, in which it was to be hoped no +inconsiderate vagabond would again disturb him. + +As for Fessenden's--How shall we name him? Somehow, it goes against the +grain to call any person a fool. Though we may forget the Scriptural +warning, still charity remembers that he is our brother. Suppose, +therefore, we stop at the possessive case, and call him simply +Fessenden's? + +As for Fessenden's, then, he was less fortunate than the Judge's +mastiff. He had no dry straw, not even a kennel to crouch in. And the +fields were uninviting; and to die was not so pleasant. The veriest +wretch alive feels a yearning for life, and few are so foolish as not to +prefer a dry skin to a wet one. Even Fessenden's knew enough to go in +when it rained,--if he only could. So, with the dismallest prospect +before him, he kept on, in the wind and rain of that bitter November +night. + +And now the wind was rising to a tempest; and the rain was turning to +sleet; and November was fast becoming December. For this was the last +day of the month,--the close of the last day of autumn, as we divide the +seasons: autumn was flying in battle before the fierce onset of winter. +It was the close of the week also, being Saturday. + +Saturday night! what a sentiment of thankfulness and repose is in the +word! Comfort is in it; and peace exhales from it like an aroma. Your +work is ended; it is the hour of rest; the sense of duty done sweetens +reflection, and weariness subsides into soothing content. Once more the +heart grows tenderly appreciative of the commonest blessings. That you +have a roof to shelter you, and a pillow for your head, and love and +light and supper, and something in store for Sunday,--that the raving +rain is excluded, and the wolfish wind howls in vain,--that those +dearest to you are gathered about your hearth, and all is well,--it is +enough; the full soul asks no wore. + +But this particular Saturday evening brought no such suffusion of bliss +to Fessenden's,--if, indeed, any ever did. He saw, through the +streaming, misty air, the happy homes in the village lighted up one by +one as it grew dark. He had glimpses, through warm windows, of white +supper-tables. The storm made sufficient seclusion; there was no need to +draw the curtains. Servants were bringing in the tea-things. Children +were playing about the floors,--laughing, beautiful children. Behold +them, shivering beggar-boy! Lean by the iron rail, wait patiently in the +rain, and look in upon them; it is worth your while. How frolicsome and +light-hearted they seem! They are never cold, and seldom very hungry, +and the world is dry to them, and comfortable. And they all have +beds,--delicious beds. Mothers' hands tuck them in; mothers' lips teach +them to say their little prayers, and kiss them good-night. Foolish +fellow! why didn't you be one of those fortunate children, well fed, +rosy, and bright, instead of a starved and stupid tatterdemalion? A +question which shapes itself vaguely in his dull, aching soul, as he +stands trembling in the sleet, with only a few transparent squares of +glass dividing him and his misery from them and their joy. + +Mighty question! it is vast and dark as the night to him. He cannot +answer it; can you? + +Vast and dark and pitiless is the night. But the morning will surely +come; and after all the wrongs and tumults of life will rise the dawn of +the Day of God. And then every question of fate, though it fill the +universe for you now, shall dissolve in the brightness like a vapor, and +vanish like a little cloud. + +Meanwhile a servant comes out and drives Fessenden's away from the +fence. He recommenced his wanderings,--up one street and down another, +in search of a place to lay his head. The inferior dwellings he passed +by. But when he arrived at a particularly fine one, there he rang. Was +it not natural for him to infer that the largest houses had amplest +accommodations, and that the rich could best afford to be bounteous? If +in all these spacious mansions there was no little nook for him, if out +of their luxuries not a blanket or crust could be spared, what could he +hope from the poor? You see, he was not altogether witless, if he was +a--Fessenden's. Another proof: At whatever house he applied, he never +committed the vulgarity of a _détour_ to the back-entrance, but advanced +straight, with bold and confident port, to the front-door. The reason of +which was equally simple and clear: Front-doors were the most convenient +and inviting; and what were they made for, if not to go in at? + +But he grew weary of ringing and of being repulsed. It was dismal +standing still, however, and quite as comfortless sitting down. He was +so cold! So, to keep his blood in motion, he keeps his limbs in +motion,--till, lo! here he is again at the house where the happy +children were! They have ceased their play. Two young girls are at the +window, gazing out into the darkness, as if expecting some one. Not you, +miserable! You needn't stop and make signs for them to admit you. There! +don't you see you have frightened them? You are not a fitting spectacle +for such sweet-eyed darlings. They do well to drop the shade, to shut +out the darkness, and the dim, gesticulating phantom. Flit on! 'Tis +their father they are looking for, coming home to them with gifts from +the city. + +But he does not flit. When, presently, they lift a corner of the shade +to peep out, they see him still standing there, spectral in the gloom. +He is waiting for them to open the door! He thinks they have quitted the +window for that purpose! Ah! here comes the father, and they are glad. + +He comes hurrying from the cars under his umbrella, which is braced +against the gale and shuts out from his eyes the sight of the +unsheltered wretch. And he is hastily entering his door, which is opened +to him by the eager children, when they scream alarm; and looking over +his shoulder, he perceives, following at his heels, the fright. He is +one of your full-blooded, solid men; but he is startled. + +"What do you want?" he cries, and lifts the threatening umbrella. + +"I'm hungry," says the intruder, with a ghastly glare, still advancing. + +He stands taller in his tattered shoes than the solid gentleman in his +boots; and those long, lean, claw-like hands act as if anxious to clutch +something. Papa thinks it is his throat. + +"By heavens! and do you mean to"--And he prepares to charge umbrella. + +"You may!" answers the wretch, with perfect sincerity, presenting his +ragged bosom to the blow. + +The lord of the castle lowers his weapon. The children huddle behind +him, hushing their screams. + +"Go in, Minnie! In, all of you! Tell Stephen to come here,--quick!" + +The children scamper. And the florid, prosperous parent and the gaunt +and famishing pauper are alone, confronting each other by the light of +the shining hall-lamp. + +"I'm cold," says the latter,--"and wet," with an aguish shiver. + +"I should think so!" cries the gentleman, recovering from his alarm, and +getting his breath again, as he hears Stephen's step behind him. "Stand +back, can't you?" (indignantly). "Don't you see you are dripping on the +carpet?" + +"I'm so tired!" + +"Well! you needn't rub yourself against the door, if you are! Don't you +see you are smearing it? What are you roaming about in this way for, +intruding into people's houses?" + +"Please, Sir, I don't know," is the soft, sad answer; and Fessenden's is +meekly taking himself away. + +"It's too bad, though!" says the man, relenting. "What can we do with +this fellow, Stephen?" + +"Send him around to Judge Gingerford's,--I should say that's about the +best thing to do with him," says the witty Stephen. + +The man knew well what would please. His master's face lighted up. He +rubbed his hands, and regarded the vagabond with a humorous twinkle, +with malice in it. + +"Would you, Stephen? By George, I've a good notion to! Take the +umbrella, and go and show him the way." + +Stephen did not like that. + +"I was only joking, Sir," he said. + +"A good joke, too! Here, you fellow! go with my man. He'll take you to a +house where you'll find friends. Excellent folks! damned +philanthropical! red-hot abolitionists! If you only had nigger-blood, +now, they'd treat you like a prince. I don't know but I'd advise you to +tell 'em you're about a quarter nigger,--they'll think ten times as much +of you!" + +It was sufficiently evident that the gentleman did not love his neighbor +the Judge. There was in his tone bitter personal and political hatred. +With his own hands he spread again the soaked umbrella, and, giving it +to the reluctant Stephen, turned him away with the vagabond. Then he +shut the door, and went in. By the fire he pulled off his wet boots, and +put on the warm slippers, which the children brought him with innocent +strife to see which should be foremost. And he gave to each kisses and +toys; for he was a kind father. And sitting down to supper, with their +beaming faces around him, he thought of the beggar-boy only in +connection with the jocular spite he had indulged against his neighbor. + +Meanwhile the disgusted Stephen, walking alone under the umbrella, +drove Fessenden's before him through the storm. They turned a corner. +Stephen stopped. + +"There, that's the house, where the lights are. Good bye! Luck to you!" +And Stephen and umbrella disappeared in the darkness. + +Fessenden's kept on, wearily, wearily! He reached the house. And lo! it +was the same, at the door of which the lady had told him that he, with +his name, was not wanted. Tiger slept in his kennel, and dreamed of +barking at beggars. The Judge, snugly ensconced in his study, listened +to the report of his speech before the Timberville Benevolent +Association. His son read it aloud, in the columns of the "Timberville +Gazette." Gingerford smiled and nodded; for he thought it sounded well. +And Mrs. Gingerford was pleased and proud. And the heart of Gingerford +Junior swelled with the fervor of the eloquence, and with exultation in +his father's talents and distinction, as he read. The sleet rattled a +pleasant accompaniment against the window-shutters; and the organ-pipes +of the wind sounded a solemn symphony. This last night of November was +genial and bright to those worthy people, in their little family-circle. +And the future was full of promise. And the rhetoric of the orator +settled the duty of man to man so satisfactorily, and painted the +pleasures of benevolence in such colors, that all their bosoms glowed. + +"It is gratifying to think," said Mrs. Gingerford, wiping her eyes at +the pathetic close, "how much good the printing of that address in the +'Gazette' must accomplish. It will reach many so who hadn't the +good-fortune to hear it at the rooms." + +Certainly, Madam. The "Gazette" is taken, and perhaps read this very +evening, in every one of the houses at which the pauper has applied in +vain for shelter, since you frowned him from your door. Those exalted +sentiments, breathed in musical periods, are no doubt a rich legacy to +the society of Timberville, and to the world. It was wise to print them; +they will "reach many so." But will they reach this outcast beggar-boy, +and benefit him? Alas, it is fast growing too late for that! + +Utter fatigue and discouragement have overtaken him. The former notion +of dying in the fields recurs to him now; and wretched indeed must he +be, since even that desperate thought has a sort of comfort in it. But +he is too weary to seek out some suitably retired spot to take cold +leave of life in. On every side is darkness; on every side, wild storm. +Why endeavor to drag farther his benumbed limbs? As well stretch himself +here, upon this wet wintry sod, as anywhere. He has the presumption to +do it,--never considering how deeply he may injure a fine gentleman's +feelings by dying at his door. + +Tiger does not bark him away, but only dreams of barking, in his cozy +kennel. Close by are the windows of the mansion, glowing with light. +There beat the philanthropic hearts; there smiles the pale, pensive +lady; there beams the aspiring face of her son; and there sits the +Judge, with his feet on the rug, pleasantly contemplating the good his +speech will do, and thinking quite as much, perhaps, of the fame it will +bring him,--happily unconscious alike of his neighbor's malicious jest, +and of the real victim of that jest, lying out there in the tempest and +freezing rain. + +So November goes out; and winter, boisterous and triumphant, comes in. + + * * * * * + +Sunday morning: cold and clear. The December sun shines upon the glassy +turf, and upon trees all clad in armor of glittering ice. And the trees +creak and rattle in the north wind; and the icy splinters fall tinkling +to the ground. + +The splendor of the morning gilds the Judge's estate. Everything about +the mansion smiles and sparkles. Were last night's horrors a dream? + +There was danger, we remember, that the foolish youth might do a very +inconsiderate and shocking thing, and perhaps ruin the Judge. What if he +had really deposited his mortal remains at the gate of that worthy +man,--to be found there, ghastly and stiff, a revolting spectacle, this +bright morning? What a commentary on Gingerford philanthropy! For of +course some one would at once have stepped forward to testify to having +seen him driven from the door, which he came back to lay his bones near. +And Stephen would have been on hand to remember directing such a person, +inquiring his way a second time to the Judge's house. And here he is +dead,--to the secret delight of the Judge's enemies, and to the +indignation of all Timberville. At anybody else's door it wouldn't have +seemed so bad. But at Gingerford's! a philanthropist by profession! +author of that beautiful speech you cried over! You will never forgive +him those tears. The greatest crime a man can be guilty of in the eyes +of his constituents is to have been over-praised by them. Woe to him, +when they find out their error! and woe now to the Judge! The fact that +a dozen other influential citizens had also refused shelter to the +vagabond will not help the matter. Those very men will probably be the +first to cry, "Hypocrite! inhuman! a judgment upon him!"--for it is +always the person of doubtful virtue who is most eager to assume the +appearance of severe integrity; and we often flatter ourselves that our +private faults are atoned for, when we have loudly denounced them in +others. + +Fortunately, the flower of the Judge's reputation is saved from so +terrible a blight. There is no corpse at his gate; and our speculations +are idle. + +This is what had occurred. Not long after the lad had lain down, a +dream-like spell came over him. His pain was gone. He forgot that he was +cold. He was not hungry any more. A sweet sense of rest was diffused +through his tired limbs. And smiling and soothed he lay, while the storm +beat upon him. Was this death? For we know that in this merciful shape +death sometimes comes to the sufferer. + +Fessenden's afterwards said that he had "one of his fits." He was +subject to such. When men reviled and denied him, then came the +angels,--or he imagined they came. They walked by his side, and talked +with him; and often, all a summer's afternoon, he could be heard +conversing in the fields, as with familiar friends, when only himself +was visible, and his voice alone was heard in the silence. This was, in +fact, one of those idiosyncrasies which had earned him his shameful +name. + +In the trance of that night, lying cold upon the ground, he beheld his +ghostly visitors. They came and stood around him, a shining company, and +looked upon him with countenances of fair women and good men. Their +apparel was not unlike that of mortals. And he heard them questioning +among themselves how they should help him. And one of them, as it +seemed, brought human assistance; though the boy, who could see plenty +of ghosts, could not, for some reason, see the only actually visible and +substantial person then on the spot besides himself. He felt, however, +sensibly enough, the concussion of a stout pair of mortal legs that +presently went stumbling over him in the dark. The shock roused him. The +whole shadowy company vanished instantly; and in their place he saw, by +the glimmer from the Judge's windows, a dark sprawling figure getting up +out of the mud and water. + +"Don't be scared, it's me," said Fessenden's; for he guessed the fellow +was frightened. + +"Excuse me, Sir! I really didn't know it was you, Sir!" said the man, +with agitated politeness. "And who might you be, Sir? if I may be so +bold as to inquire." And regaining his balance, his umbrella, and his +self-possession, he drew near, and squatted cautiously before the +prostrate beggar, who, had his eyesight been half as keen for the living +as it was for the dead, would have discovered that the face bending over +him was black. + +"Never mind me," said Fessenden's. "Did it hurt ye?" + +"Well, Sir,--no, Sir,--only my knee went pretty seriously into something +wet. And I believe I've turned my umbrella wrong side out. I say, Sir, +what was you doing, lying here, Sir? You don't think of remaining here +all night, I trust, Sir?" + +"I've nowhere else to go," said the boy, trying to rise. + +The black man helped him up. + +"But this never'll do, you know! such an inclement night as this +is!--you'd die before morning, sure! Just wait till I can get my +umbrella into shape,--my gracious! how the wind pulls it! Now, then, +suppose you come along with me." + +"Please, Sir, I can't walk"; for the lad's limbs had stiffened, in spite +of his angels. + +"Is that so, Sir? Let me see; about how much do you weigh, Sir? Not much +above a hundred, do you? It isn't impossible but I may take you on my +back. Suppose you try it." + +"Oh, I can't!" groaned the boy. + +"Excuse me for contradicting you, but I think you can, Sir. I shouldn't +like to do it myself, in the daytime; but in the night so, who cares? +Nobody'll laugh at us, even if we don't succeed. Really, I wish you +wasn't quite so wet, Sir; for these here is my Sunday clothes. But never +mind a little water; we'll find a fire to get dry again. There you are, +my friend! A little higher. Put your hands over across my breast. +Couldn't manage to hold, the umbrella over us, could you? So fashion. +Now steady, while I rise with you." + +And the stalwart young negro, hooking his arms well under the legs of +his rider, got up stoopingly, gave a toss and a jolt to get him into the +right position, and walked off with him. Away they go, tramp, tramp, in +the storm and darkness. Thank Heaven, the Judge's fame is safe! If the +pauper dies, it will not be at his door. Little he knows, there in his +elegant study, what an inestimable service this black Samaritan is +rendering him. And it was just; for, after all the Judge had done for +the negro, (who, I suppose, was equally unconscious of any substantial +benefit received,) it was time that the negro should do something for +him in return. + +Tramp! tramp! a famous beggar's ride! It was a picturesque scene, with +food for laughter and tears in it, had we only been there with a +lantern. Fessenden's, fantastic, astride of the African, staring forward +into the darkness from under his ragged hat-brim, endeavoring to hold +the wreck of an umbrella over them,--the wind flapping and whirling it. +Tramp! tramp! past all those noble mansions, to the negro-hut beyond the +village. And, oh, to think of it! the rich citizens, the enlightened and +white-skinned Levites, having left him out, one of their own race, to +perish in the storm, this despised black man is found, alone of all the +world, to show mercy unto him! + +"How do you get on, Sir?" says the stout young Ethiop. "Would you ride +easier, if I should trot? or would you prefer a canter? Tell 'em to +bring on their two-forty nags now, if they want a race." + +Talking in this strain, to keep up his rider's spirits, he brought him, +not without sweat and toil, to the hut. A kick on the door with the +beggar's foot, which he used for the purpose, caused it to be opened by +a woolly-headed urchin; and in he staggered. + +Little woolly-head clapped his hands and screamed. + +"Oh, crackie, pappy! here comes Bill with the Devil on his back!" + +Sensation in the hut. There was an old negro woman in the corner, on one +side of the stove, knitting; and a very old negro man in the opposite +corner, napping; and a middle-aged man, with spectacles on his ebony +nose, reading slowly aloud from an ancient grease-covered book opened +before him on the old pine table; and a middle-aged woman patching a +jacket; and a girl washing dishes, which another girl was wiping: +representatives of four generations: and they all quitted their +occupations at once, to see what sort of a devil Bill had brought home. + +"Why, William! who have you got there, William?" said he of the +spectacles, with mild wonder,--removing those clerkly aids of vision, +and laying them across the book. + +"A chair!" panted Bill. "Now ease him down, if you +please,--careful,--and I'll--recite the circumstances,"--puffing, but +polite to the last. + +Helpless and gasping, Fessenden's was unfastened, and slipped down the +African's back upon a seat placed to receive him. He still clung to the +umbrella, which he endeavored to keep spread over him, while he stared +around with stupid amazement at the dim room and the array of black +faces. + +And now the excited urchin began to caper and sing:-- + + "'Went down to river, couldn't get across; + Jumped upon a nigger's back, thought it was a hoss!' + +"Oh, crackie, Bill!" + +"Father," said William, with wounded dignity,--for he was something of a +gentleman in his way,--"I wish you'd discipline that child, or else give +me permission to chuck him." + +"Joseph!" said the father, with a stern shake of his big black head at +the boy, "here's a stranger in the house! Walk straight, Joseph!" + +Which solemn injunction Joseph obeyed in a highly offensive manner, by +strutting off in imitation of William's dandified air. + +By this time the aged negro in the corner had become fully roused to the +consciousness of a guest in the house. He came forward with slow, +shuffling step. He was almost blind. He was exceedingly deaf. He was +withered and wrinkled in the last degree. His countenance was of the +color of rust-eaten bronze. He was more than a hundred years old,--the +father of the old woman, the grandfather of the middle-aged man, and the +great-grandfather of William, Joseph, and the girls. He was muffled in +rags, and wore a little cap on his head. This he removed with his left +hand, exposing a little battered tea-kettle of a bald pate, as with +smiling politeness he reached out the other trembling hand to shake that +of the stranger. + +"Welcome, Sah! Sarvant, Sah!" + +He bowed and smiled again, and the hospitable duty was performed; after +which he put on his cap and shuffled back into his corner, greatly +marvelled at by the gazing beggar-boy. + +The girls and their mother now bestirred themselves to get their guest +something to eat. The tin tea-pot was set on the stove, and hash was +warmed up in the spider. In the mean time William somewhat ruefully took +off his wet Sunday coat, and hung it to dry by the stove, interpolating +affectionate regrets for the soiled garment with the narration of his +adventure. + +"It was the merest chance my coming that way," he explained; "for I had +got started up the other street, when something says to me, 'Go by +Gingerford's! go by Judge Gingerford's!' so I altered my course, and the +result was, just as I got against the Judge's gate I was precipitated +over this here person." + +"I know what made ye!" spoke up the boy, with an earnest stare. + +"What, Sir,--if you please?" + +"The angels!" + +"The--the what, Sir?" + +"The angels! I seen 'em!" says Fessenden's. + +This astounding announcement was followed by a strange hush. Bill forgot +to smooth out the creases of his coat, and looked suspiciously at the +youth whom it had served as a saddle. He wondered if he had really been +ridden by the Devil. + +The old woman now interfered. She was at least seventy years of age. The +hair of her head was like mixed carded wool. Her coarse, cleanly gown +was composed of many-colored, curious patches. The atmosphere of +thorough grandmotherly goodness surrounded her. In the twilight sky of +her dusky face twinkled shrewdness and good-humor; and her voice was +full of authority and kindness. + +"Stan' back here now, you troubles!" pushing the children aside. +"Didn't none on ye never see nobody afore? This 'ere chile has got to be +took keer on, and that mighty soon! Gi' me the comf'table off'm the bed, +mammy." + +"Mammy" was the mother of the children. The "comf'table" was brought, +and she and her husband helped the old negress wrap Fessenden's up in +it, from head to foot, wet clothes and all. + +"Now your big warm gret-cut, pappy!" + +"Pappy" was her own son; and the "gret-cut" was his old, gray, patched +and double-patched surtout, which now came down from its peg, and spread +its broad flaps, like brooding wings, over the half-drowned human +chicken. + +"Now put in the wood, boys! Pour some of that 'ere hot tea down his +throat. Bless him, we'll sweat the cold out of him! we'll give him a +steaming!" + +She held with her own hand the cracked tea-cup to the lad's lips, and +made him drink. Then she pulled up the comforter about his face, till +nothing of him was visible but his nose and a curl or two of saturated +tow. Then she had him moved up close to the glowing stove, like a huge +chrysalis to be hatched by the heat. + +The dozing centenarian now roused again, and, perceiving the little nose +in the big bundle on the other side of the chimney, was once more +reminded of the sacred duties of hospitality. So he got upon his +trembling old legs again, pulled off his cap, and bowed and smiled as +before, with exquisite politeness, across the stove. "Sarvant, Sah! +Welcome, Sah!". And he sat down, and dozed again. + +Fessenden's was not in a position to return the courteous salute. The +old woman had by this time got his feet packed into the stove-oven, and +he was beginning to smoke. + +"Oh, Bill! just look a' Joe!" cried one of the girls. + +Bill left smoothing his broadcloth, and, turning up the whites of his +eyes, uttered a despairing groan. "Oh, that child! that child! that +child!"--his voice running up into a wild falsetto howl. + +The child thus passionately alluded to had possessed himself of Bill's +genteel silk hat, which had been tenderly put away to dry. It had been +sadly soaked by the rain, and bruised by the flopping umbrella which +Fessenden's had unhappily attempted to hold over it. And now Joe had +knocked in the crown, whilst geting it down from its peg with the broom. +He had thought to improve its appearance by stroking the nap the wrong +way with his sleeve. Lastly, putting it on his head, he had crushed the +sides together, to prevent its coming quite down over his eyes and ears +and resting on his shoulders. And there he was, with the broken umbrella +spread, hitting the top of the hat with it at every step, as he strutted +around the room in emulation of his brother's elegant style. + +"My name's Mr. Bill Williams, Asquare!" simpered the little satirist. +"Some folks call me Gentleman Bill, 'cause I'm so smart and +good-looking, Sar!" + +Gentleman Bill picked up the jack with which he had pulled off his wet +boots, and waited for a good chance to launch it at Joe's head. But Joe +kept behind his grandmother, and proceeded with his mimicry. + +"Nobody knows I'm smart and good-looking 'cept me, and that's the why I +tell on't Sar; that's the reason I excite the stircumsances, Sar!"--He +remembered Bill's saying he would "recite the circumstances," and this +was as near as he could come to the precise words.--"I'm a gentleman +tailor; that's my perfession, Sar. Work over to the North Village, Sar. +Come home Sat'day nights to stop over Sunday with the folks, and show my +good clo'es. How d' 'e do, Sar? Perty well, thank ye, Sar." And Joe, +putting down the umbrella, in order to lift the ingulfing hat from his +little round, black, curly head with both hands, made a most extravagant +bow to the chrysalis. + +"Old granny!" hoarsely whispered Bill, "you just stand out of the way +once, while I propel this boot-jack!" + +"Old granny don't stan' out o' the way oncet, for you to frow no +boot-jack in this house! S'pose I want to see that chile's head stove +in? Which is mos' consequence, I'd like to know, your hat, or his head? +Hats enough in the world. But that 'ere head is an oncommon head, and, +bless the boy, if he should lose that, I do'no' where he'd git another +like it! Come, no more fuss now! I got to make some gruel for this 'ere +poor, wet, starvin' critter. That hash a'n't the thing for him, +mammy,--you'd ought to know! He wants somefin' light and comfortin', +that'll warm his in'ards, and make him sweat, bless him!--Joey! Joey! +give up that 'ere hat now!" + +"Take it, then! Mean old thing,--I don't want it!" + +Joe extended it on the point of the umbrella; but just as Bill was +reaching to receive it, he gave it a little toss, which sent it into the +chip-basket. + +"Might know I'd had on your hat!" and the little rogue scratched his +head furiously. + +"I shall certainly massacre that child some fine morning!" muttered +Bill, ruefully extricating the insulted article from the basket. "Oh, my +gracious! only look at that, now, Creshy!" to his sister. "That's an +interesting object--isn't it?--for a gentleman to think of putting on to +his head Sunday morning!" + +"Oh, Bill!" cried Creshy, "jest look a' Joe agin!" + +Whilst he was sorrowfully restoring his hat to its pristine shape, he +had been robbed of his coat. The thief had run with it behind the bed, +where he had succeeded in getting into it. The collar enveloped his +ears. The skirts dragged upon the floor. He had buttoned it, to make it +fit better, but there was still room in it for two or three boys. He had +got on his father's spectacles and Fessenden's straw hat. He looked like +a frightful little old misshapen dwarf. And now, rolling up the sleeves +to find his hands, and wrinkling the coat outrageously at every +movement, he advanced from his retreat, and began to dance a +pigeon-wing, amid the convulsive laughter of the girls. + +"Oh, my soul! my soul!" cried Bill, his voice inclining again to the +falsetto. "Was there ever such an imp of Satan! Was there ever"-- + +Here he made a lunge at the offender. Joe attempted to escape, but, +getting his feet entangled in the superabundant coat-skirts, fell, +screaming as if he were about to be killed. + +"Good enough for you!" said his mother. "I wish you would get hurt!" + +"What you wish that for?" cried the old grandmother, rushing to the +rescue, brandishing a long iron spoon with which she had been stirring +the gruel. "Can't nobody never have no fun in this house? Bless us! what +'ud we do, if 't wa'n't for Joey, to make us laugh and keep our sperits +up? Jest you stan' back now, Bill!--'d ruther you'd strike me 'n see ye +hit that 'ere boy oncet!" + +"He must let my things be, then," said Bill, who couldn't see much sport +in the disrespectful use made of his wearing apparel.--"Here, you! +surrender my property!" + +"Laws! you be quiet! You'll git yer cut agin. Only jest look at him now, +he's so blessed cunning!" + +For Joe, reassured by his grandmother, had stopped screaming, and gone +to tailoring. He sat cross-legged on one of the unlucky coat-skirts, and +pulled the other up on his lap, for his work. Then he got an imaginary +thread, and, putting his fingers together, screwed up his mouth, and +looked over the spectacles, sharpening his sight,-- + + "Like an old tailor to his needle's eye." + +Then he began to stitch, to the infinite disgust of Bill, who was +sensitive touching his vocation. + +"I do declare, father! how you can smile, seeing that child carrying on +in this shape, is beyond my comprehension!" + +"Joseph!" said Mr. Williams, good-naturedly, "I guess that'll do for +to-night. Come, I want my spectacles." + +He had sat down to his book again. He was a slow, thoughtful, easy, +cheerful man, whom suffering and much humiliation had rendered very +mild and patient, if not quite broken-spirited. His voice was indulgent +and gentle, with that mellow richness of tone peculiar to the negro. +After he had spoken, the laughter subsided; and Joe, impressed by the +quiet paternal authority, quickly devised means to obey without +appearing to do so. For it is not so much obedience, as the +manifestation of obedience, that is repugnant to human nature,--not in +children only, but in grown folks as well. + +Joe disguised his compliance in this way. He got up, took off the +beggar's hat, put the spectacles into it, holding his hand on a rip in +the crown to keep them from falling through, and passed it around, +walking solemnly in his brother's abused coat. + +"I'm Deacon Todd," said he, "taking up a collection to buy Gentleman +Bill a new cut: gunter make a missionary of him!" + +He passed the hat to the women and the girls, all of whom pretended to +put in something. + +"I ha'n't got nothin'!" said Fessenden's, when it came to him; "I'm real +sorry I but I'll give my hat!"--earnest as could be. + +When the hat came to Mr. Williams, he quietly put in his hand and took +out his glasses. + +"Here, I've got something for you; I desire to contribute," said +Gentleman Bill. + +But Joe was shy of his brother. + +"Oh, we don't let the missionary give anything!" he said. "Here's the +hat what you're gunter wear;--give it to him, Cresh!" + +Bill disdained the beggar's, contribution; but, in his anxiety to seize +Joe, he suffered his sister to slip up behind him and clap the wet, +ragged straw wreck on his head. + +"Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!" screamed the girls with merriment, in which mother +and grandmother joined, while even their father indulged in a silent, +inward laugh. + +"Good!" said Fessenden's; "he may have it!" + +Bill, watching his opportunity, made a dash at the pretending Deacon +Todd. That nimble and quick-witted dwarf escaped as fast as his awkward +attire would permit. The bed seemed to be the only place of refuge, and +he dodged under it. + +"Come out!" shouted Bill, furious. + +"Come in and git me!" screamed Joe, defiant. + +Bill, if not too large, was far too dignified for such an enterprise. So +he got the broom, and began to stir Joe with the handle,--not observing, +in his wrath, that, the more he worried Joe, the more he was damaging +his own precious broadcloth. + +"I'm the lion to the show!" cried Joe, rolling and tumbling under the +bed to avoid the broom. "The keeper's a punchin' on me, to make me +roar!" + +And the lion roared. + +"He's a gunter come into the cage by-'m-by, and put his head into my +mouth. Then I'm a gunter swaller him! Ki! hoo! hoo! oo!" + +He roared in earnest this time. Bill, grown desperate, had knocked his +shins. As long as he hit him only on the head, the king of beasts didn't +care; but he couldn't stand an attack on the more sensitive part. + +"Jest look here, now!" exclaimed the old negress, with unusual spirit; +"gi' me that broom!" + +She wrenched it from Bill's hand. + +"Perty notion, you can't come home a minute without pesterin' that boy's +life out of him!" + +You see, color makes no difference with grandmothers. Black or white, +they are universally unjust, when they come to decide the quarrels of +their favorites. + +"Great lubberly fellow like you, 'busin' that poor babby all the time! +Come, Joey! come to granny, poor chile!" + +It was a sorry-looking lion that issued whimpering from the cage, +limping, and rubbing his eyes. His borrowed hide--namely, Bill's +coat--had been twisted into marvellous shapes in the scuffle; and, +being wet, it was almost white with the dust and lint that adhered to +it. Bill threw up his arms in despair; while Joe threw his, great +sleeves and all, around granny's neck, and found comfort on her +sympathizing bosom. + +"Silence, now," said Mr. Williams, "so's we can go on with the reading." + +Order was restored. Bill hung up his coat, and sat down. Joe nestled in +the old woman's lap. And now the storm was heard beating against the +house. + +"Say!" spoke up Fessenden's, "can I stop here over night?" + +"You don't suppose," said Mr. Williams, "we'd turn you out in such +weather as this, do you?" + +"Wal!" said Fessenden's, "nobody else would keep me." + +"Don't you be troubled! While we 've a ruf over our heads, no stranger +don't git turned away from it that wants shelter, and will put up with +our 'commodations. We can keep you to-night, and probably to-morrow +night, if you like to stay; but after that I can't promise. Mebby we +sha'n't have a ruf for our own heads then. But we'll trust the Lord," +said Mr. Williams, with a deep, serious smile,--while Mrs. Williams +sighed. + +"How is it about that matter?" Gentleman Bill inquired. + +"The house is to be tore down Monday, I suppose," replied his father, +mildly. + +"My gracious!" exclaimed Bill; "Mr. Frisbie a'n't really going to carry +that threat into execution?" + +"That's what he says, William. He has got a prejudice ag'inst color, you +know. Since he lost the election, through the opposition of the +abolitionists, as he thinks, he's been very much excited on the +subject," added Mr. Williams, in his subdued way. + +"Excited!" echoed his wife, bitterly. + +She was a much-suffering woman, inclined to melancholy; but there was a +latent fire in her when she seemed most despondent, and she roused up +now and spoke with passionate, flashing eyes:-- + +"Sence he got beat, town-meetin' day, he don't 'pear to take no comfort, +'thout 't is hatin' Judge Gingerford and spitin' niggers, as he calls +us. He sent his hired man over agin this mornin', to say, if we wa'n't +out of the house by Monday, 't would be pulled down on to our heads. +Call that Christian, when he knows we can't git another house, there 's +sich a s'picion agin people o' color?" + +"'T wa'n't alluz so; 't wa'n't so in my day," said the old woman, +pausing, as she was administering the gruel to Fessenden's with a spoon. +"Here's gran'pa, he was a slave, and I was born a slave, in this here +very State, as long ago as when they used to have slaves here, as I've +told ye time and agin; though I don't clearly remember it, for I scacely +ever knowed what bondage was, bless the Lord! But we allus foun' +somebody to be kind to us, and got along,--for it did seem as though God +kind o' looked arter us, and took keer on us, same as He did o' white +folks. We've been carried through, somehow or 'nother; and I can't help +thinkin' as how we shall be yit, spite o' Mr. Frisbie. S'pose God'll +forgit us 'cause His grand church-folks do? S'pose all they can say'll +pedijice Him?" + +Having advanced this unanswerable question, she turned once more to her +patient, who put up his head, and opened his mouth wide, to receive the +great spoon. + +"Lucky for them that can trust the Lord!" said Mrs. Williams, over her +patching. "But if I was a man, I'm 'fraid I should put my trust in a +good knife, and stan' by the ol' house when they come to pull it down! +The fust man laid hands on 't 'ud git hurt, I'm dreffle 'fraid! Prayin' +won't save it, you see!" + +"Mr. Frisbie owns the house," observed Gentleman Bill, "and I wouldn't +resort to violent measures to prevent him; though 't isn't possible for +me to believe he'll be so unhuman as to demolish it before you find +another." + +"I'm inclined to think he will," answered Mr. Williams, calmly. "He's a +rather determined man, William. But God won't quite forget us, I'm +sartin sure. And we won't worry about the house till the time comes, +anyhow. Le' 's see what the Good Book says to comfort us," he added, +with a hopeful smile. + +Unfortunately, the "Timberville Gazette" had not reached this benighted +family; and not having the Judge's Address to read, Mr. Williams read +the Sermon on the Mount. + +Fessenden's listened with the rest. And alight, not of the +understanding, but of the spirit, shone upon him. His intellect was too +feeble, I think, to draw any very keen comparison between those houses +where the "Timberville Gazette" was taken and read that evening and this +lowly abode,--between the rich there, who had shut their proud, +prosperous doors against him, and these poor servants of the Lord, who +had taken him in and comforted him, though the hour was nigh when they, +too, were to be driven forth shelterless in the wintry storms. The deep +and affecting suggestiveness of that wide contrast his mind was, no +doubt, too weak thoroughly to appreciate. Yet something his heart felt, +and something his soul perceived; his pale and vacant face was +illumined; and at the close of the reading he rose up. The coarse +wrappings of his body fell away; and the muffling ignorance, the +swaddling dulness, wherein that divine infant, the bright immortal +spirit, was confined, seemed also to fall off. He lifted up his hands, +spreading them as if dispensing blessings; and his countenance had a +vague, smiling wonder in it, almost beautiful, and his voice, when he +spoke, thrilled the ear. + +"Praise the Lord! praise the Lord! for He will provide! + +"Be comforted! for ye are the children of the Lord! + +"Be glad! be glad! for the Angel of the Lord is here! + +"Don't you see him? don't you see him? There! there!" he cried, +pointing, with an earnestness and radiance of look which filled all who +saw him with astonishment. They turned to gaze, as if really expecting +to behold the vision; then fixed their eyes again on the stranger. + +"You'll be taken care of, the Angel says. Even they that hate you shall +do you good. The mercy you have shown, Christ will show to you." + +Having uttered these sentences at intervals, in a loud voice, the +speaker gave a start, turned as if bewildered, and sat down again. + +Not a word was spoken. A hush of awe suspended the breath of the +listeners. Then a smile of fervent emotion lighted up like daybreak the +negro's dark visage, and his joy broke forth in song. The others joined +him, filling the house with the jubilee of their wild and mellow voices. + + "A poor wayfaring man of grief + Hath often crossed me on my way, + And sued so humbly for relief + That I could never answer nay." + +And so the fair fame of Gingerford, as we said before, was saved from +blight. The beggar-boy awakes this Sunday morning, not in the blaze of +Eternity, but in that dim nook of the domain of Time, Nigger Williams's +hut. He made his couch, not on the freezing ground, but in a bunk of the +low-roofed garret. His steaming clothes had been taken off, a dry shirt +had been given him, and he had Joe for a bedfellow. + +"Hug him tight, Joey dear!" said the old woman, as she carried away the +candle. "Snug up close, and keep him warm!" + +"I will!" cried Joe, as affectionate as he was roguish; and Fessenden's +never slept better than he did that night, with the tempest singing his +lullaby, and the arms of the loving negro boy about him. + +In the morning he found his clothes ready to put on. They had been +carefully dried; and the old woman had got up early and taken a few +needful stitches in them. + +"It's Sunday, granny," Creshy reminded her, to see what she would say. + +"A'n't no use lett'n' sich holes as these 'ere go, if 't is Sunday!" +replied the old woman. "Hope I never sh'll ketch you a doin' nuffin' +wus! A'n't we told to help our neighbor's sheep out o' the ditch on the +Lord's day? An' which is mos' consequence, I'd like to know, the +neighbor's sheep, or the neighbor hisself?" + +"But his clothes a'n't him," said Creshy. + +"S'pose I do'no' that? But what's a sheep for, if 't a'n't for its wool +to make the clo'es? Then, to look arter the sheep that makes the clo'es, +and not look arter the clo'es arter they're made, that's a mis'ble +notion!" + +"But you can mend the clothes any day." + +"Could I mend 'em yis'day, when I didn't have 'em to mend? or las' +night, when they was wringin' wet? Le' me alone, now, with your +nonsense!" + +"But you can mend them to-morrow," said the mischievous girl, delighted +to puzzle her grandmother. + +"And let that poor lorn chile go in rags over Sunday, freezin' cold +weather like this? Guess I a'n't so onfeelin,'--an' you a'n't nuther, +for all you like to tease your ole granny so! Bless the chile, seems to +me he's jest gwine to bring us good luck. I feel as though the Angel of +the Lord did ra'ly come into the house with him las' night! Wish I had +somefin' ra'l good for him for his breakfas' now! He'll be dreffle +hungry, that's sartin. Make a rousin' good big Johnny-cake, mammy; and, +Creshy, you stop botherin', and slice up them 'ere taters for fryin'." + +Soon the odor of the cooking stole up into the garret. Fessenden's +snuffed it with delighted senses. The feeling of his garments dry and +whole pleased him mightily. He heard the call to breakfast; and laughing +and rubbing his eyes, he followed Joe down the dark, uncertain footing +of the stairs. + +The family was already huddled about the table. But room was reserved +for their guest, and at his appearance the old patriarch rose smilingly +from his seat, pulled off his cap, which it seemed he always wore, and +shook hands with him, with the usual hospitable greeting. + +"Sarvant, Sah! Welcome, Sah!" + +Fessenden's was given a seat by his side. And the old woman piled his +plate with good things. And he ate, and was filled. For he was by no +means dainty, and had not, simple soul! the least prejudice against +color. + +And he was happy. The friendly black faces around him,--the cheerful, +sympathetic, rich-toned voices,--the motherly kindness of the old +woman,--the exquisite smiling politeness of the old man, who got up and +shook hands with him, on an average, every half-hour,--the +Bible-reading,--the singing,--the praying,--the elegance and +condescension of Gentleman Bill,--the pleasant looks and words of the +laughing-eyed girls,--and the irrepressible merriment of Joe, made that +a golden Sabbath in the lad's life. + +Alas that it should come to this! Associate with black folks! how +shocking! What if he was a--Fessenden's? wasn't he white? Where were +those finer tastes and instincts which make you and me shrink from +persons of color? Pity they had not been properly developed in him! Pity +he should stoop so low as to eat and sleep with niggers, and feel +grateful! He rolls and tumbles in mad frolic with Joe on the +garret-floor, and plays horse with him. He suffers his hair to be combed +by the girls, and actually experiences pleasure at the touch of their +gentle hands, and feels a vague wondering joy when they praise his +smooth flaxen locks. In a word, he is so weak as to wish that good Mr. +Williams was his father, and this delightful hut his home! + +And so he spends his Sunday. The family does not attend public worship. +They used to, when the old meeting-house was standing, and the old +minister was alive. But they do not feel at ease in the new edifice, and +the smart young preacher is too smart for them altogether. His rhetoric +is like the cold carving and frescos,--very fine, very admirable, no +doubt; but it has no warmth in it for them; it is foreign to their +common daily lives; it comes not near the hopes and fears and sufferings +of their humble hearts. Here religion, which too long suffered +abasement, is exalted. It is highly respectable. It shows culture; it +has the tone of society. It is worth while coming hither of a Sunday +morning, if only to hear the organ and see the fashions. Yet it can +hardly be expected that such creatures as the Williamses should +appreciate the privilege of hearing and beholding from the inclosure +which has been properly set off for their class,--the colored people's +pew. + +But Fessendon's might have done better, one would say, than to stay at +home with them. Why didn't he go to church, and be somebody? _He_ would +not have been put into the niggers' pew. As for his clothes, which might +have been objected to by worldly people, who would have thought of them, +or of anything else but his immortal soul, in the house of God? Of +course, there were no respecters of persons there,--none to say to a +rich Frisbie, or an eloquent Gingerford, "Sit thou, here, in a good +place," and to a ragged Fessenden's, "Stand thou there." + +But perhaps the less said on the subject the better. Pass over that +golden Sunday in the lad's life. Alas, when will he ever have such +another? For here it is Monday morning, and the house is to be torn +down. + +There seems to be no mistake about it. Mr. Frisbie has come over early, +driven in his light open carriage by his man Stephen, to see that the +niggers are out. And yonder come the workmen, to commence the work of +demolition. + +But the niggers are not out; not an article of furniture has been +removed. + +"You see, Sir,"--Mr. Williams calmly represents the case to his +landlord, as he sits in his carriage,--"it has been impossible. We shall +certainly go, just as soon as we can get another house anywhere in +town"-- + +"I don't want you to get another house in town," interrupts the +full-blooded, red-faced Frisbie. "We have had enough of you. You have +had fair warning. Now out with your traps, and off with you!" + +"I trust, at least, Sir, you will give us another week"-- + +"Not an hour!" + +"One day," remonstrates the mild negro; "I don't think you will refuse +us that." + +"Not a minute!" exclaims the firm Frisbie. "I've borne with you long +enough. Fact is, we have got tired of niggers in this town. I bought the +house with you in it, or you never would have got in. Now it is coming +down. Call out your folks, and save your stuff, if you're going +to.--Good morning, Adsly," to the master carpenter. "Go to work with +your fellows. Guess they'll be glad to get out by the time you've ripped +the roof off." + +Mr. Williams retires, disheartened, his visage surcharged with trouble. +For this wretched dwelling was his home, and dear to him. It was the +centre of his world. Around it all the humble hopes and pleasures of the +man had clustered for years. When weary with the long day's heavy toil, +here he had found rest. To this spot his spirit, sorrow-laden, had ever +turned with gratitude and yearning. And here he had found shelter, here +he had found love and comfort, the lonely, despised man. Even care and +grief had contributed to strengthen the hold of his heart upon this +soil. Here had died the only child he had ever lost; and in the old +burying-ground, over the hill yonder, it was buried. Under this mean +roof he had laid his sorrows before the Lord, he had wrestled with the +Lord in prayer, and his burdens had been taken from him, and light and +gladness had been poured upon his soul. Oh, ye proud! do you think that +happiness dwells only in high places, or that these lowly homes are not +dear to the poor? + +But now this sole haven of the negro and his family was to be destroyed. +Cruel cold blew the December wind, that wintry morning. And the gusts of +the landlord's temper were equally pitiless. + + * * * * * + +HEAD-QUARTERS OF BEER-DRINKING. + + +Besides the four elements known to us as such, namely, air, fire, earth, +and water, there is a liquid substance not entirely unknown in our +country, which, in the kingdom of Bavaria, is sometimes called the fifth +element, under the specific name of beer. It is true, that, where this +extra element is in such repute, some of the others suffer depreciation, +and especially is this true of water, though this latter is still +occasionally used both as a beverage and in purifying processes; and +there is, too, a tradition, which these inland people have little +opportunity of verifying, that it has sometimes been exclusively used +for purposes of navigation, and they are aware, that, if at any time +they should decide to emigrate to America, they might have occasion to +test on a large scale both its utility and its perils for this purpose. +The centre of gravity of this fifth element seems to be in the city of +Munich, the capital of the kingdom. People in this country who have +heard much of lager-beer, and seen a little of its use as introduced +into our land from Germany, may, perhaps, suppose that it is equally +distributed over all that extensive region known by this name. This is, +however, an error. Just as our atmosphere becomes ever less dense +according to its distance from the earth's centre of gravity, so this +fifth element, as one retires farther from the city of Munich. + +It would be an interesting inquiry for the medical man, who seeks to +enlarge his knowledge of the _vis medicatrix Naturæ_, for the +philanthropist, who would stimulate or increase the means of human +happiness, and remove or diminish those of human misery, and even for +the statistician, alike indifferent to both: _Why do particular articles +of diet and beverage concentrate their use so much in particular +climates, lands, and localities?_ Within certain limits the question is +easy. The inhabitant of the tropics lives on the bread-fruit, the +plantain, the orange, the fig, and the date. They grow around him, drop +as it were into his mouth, and are just what he needs to allay his +hunger and support his nature. The Greenlanders and the Esquimaux of +Labrador eat the flesh of bears, reindeer, and seals, and even drink +their fat by the quart. Fruits, if they were to be had, would not meet +their wants, and Providence has ordered accordingly. He of the tropics, +in addition to the external heat, needs but the mild and gentle fire +generated by the combustion of his native fruits, to keep his life-fluid +in action; while he of the frigid zones must be kept in life and motion +by rousing fires of seal's fat. Temperate latitudes produce most fruits, +and all the cereals and animals used for food; but Nature nowhere gives +us these in the shape of plum-puddings and pastries, or of beer and +alcoholic drinks. The combinations and commutations must be +manufactured. But does an impulse in man, like the instinct of the bee, +lead him to make just what he needs in his particular climate? Does the +Bavarian take to beer as the bee to honey? Does instinct or appetite in +general shape itself to climate and other outward circumstances? This is +but partly true. As Nature has distributed noxious vegetable and animal +substances through land and sea, which must be avoided, so man may not +pitch or pour indiscriminately into his stomach whatever substance may +be cooked or liquid distilled and offered to him, and we are thrown back +upon the direct test of their innocent or noxious properties, with full +responsibility of action; but still I have a profound conviction that +all such general production of the chief articles of food and drink has +its origin in some deeply felt necessity of human nature in their +particular localities;--the people may be on the wrong track in their +attempts to provide for such necessities, but that these are felt and +are the stimulus to the production is beyond doubt. + +Allowing for the changes wrought by time and cultivation, we can still +perceive the truth of what Tacitus wrote of Germany almost two thousand +years ago:--"The land, though somewhat varied in aspect, is in the main +deformed with dismal forests and foul marshes. The part next to Gaul is +wetter, and that next to Pannonia and Noricum higher and more windy. It +is sufficiently productive, but not adapted to fruit-trees." The whole +country lies in a high latitude,--Munich, though in the southern part, +being forty-eight degrees North. No large city on the continent lies at +such an elevation,--about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the +Adriatic. In the midst of a vast plain, it is exposed to all winds. Its +site and the surrounding country are a great gravel-bed, hundreds of +feet thick, a deposit from the Alps, spurs of which are within thirty +miles on the south, subjecting the whole region to sudden changes of +weather ranging in a few hours through many degrees of Fahrenheit. The +air is raw and chilly, and although many parts of Germany have since the +days of Tacitus developed an adaptation to the vine and other fruits, +none flourish in the neighborhood of Munich. The whole country suffers +from deficiency of nourishing and stimulating food. They may not +themselves know it, but this is true of the peasants who are best to do +in the world. Of the peasantry of Upper Bavaria, some have meat five +times in the year, on their chief holidays,--namely, Shrove Tuesday, +Easter, Whitsuntide, Church-Consecration, and Christmas; some have it on +but two of these days, and some only at Christmas. The exceptions may be +many, and the large cities are quite exceptional, but the change is of +late introduction. When people must labor upon such a diet, they feel +the lack of something; but the Bavarians have been too long in this case +to think of crying, like Israel of old in the wilderness, after having +left the abundance of Egypt, "Who shall give us flesh to eat?"--they +attempt rather to allay the gnawings at their stomachs by potations of +beer, and the appetite grows by what it feeds on. + +It is plausibly maintained that the climate of this particular locality +creates an actual necessity for the use of this beverage. Often, during +the earlier part of my residence there, I was besought by friends, with +manifestation of deepest concern, to use beer instead of water, with the +remark that the climate made this a necessary measure of security +against the prevalent typhus and typhoid fevers: a conviction which +seems to be deeply seated in the minds of the people. + +Aside from all this, there is an almost total want of the pleasant +beverages used in our families. Tea is as good as unknown in Old +Bavaria, its use being confined to those who have been in England, or +have learned it of the English, and not one woman in twenty thousand can +prepare it. Let the word _tea_ be erased from our vocabulary, and from +our minds all the cheerful associations which it awakens, and there +passes from our hearts none can tell how much of that which we most +fondly cherish there,--the family of both sexes, and occasionally some +neighbors and friends, seated around the table,--the gently stimulating +narcotic diffusing a charm over the whole social being, and +communicating itself to the vocal machinery. Fanatical reformers have +proclaimed its injurious effects; and it may have such; but they are a +thousand times compensated by its value as a bond of union to the +elements of the domestic circle. The tea-table has been the butt of many +a jest and sarcasm, as a fountain of gossip and slander. This may be +true; but the security it furnishes against the dissipation of the +elements of the social circle outweighs thousands of such trifles, and +we half suspect that this objection was originated, and is mischievously +propagated, by those who are already developing a love for other +beverages. If Cowper, with the "sofa" assigned as his subject, could +sing so beautifully of all things social and domestic, what might he +not have done with the tea-table--the rallying-point of social life to +so many who never had a sofa--for his theme? + +From the general use of coffee in the cities and large towns of Germany, +we have inferred its general use by the peasantry; but even this is +quite limited, in Upper Bavaria at least; it is found only where the +influence of city-life has penetrated. Sometimes a peasant woman has a +little hid in her chest, from which she stealthily prepares and drinks a +cup when her husband is away; but it is little used. This article was +brought into Western Europe in the seventeenth century, and found beer +in possession of Germany. The monks are said to have preached against +the use of coffee, as anticipating, by the dense black smoke which arose +from burning it, the "fumes of hell." It came from Turkey, and at that +day the Turk was still the hereditary dread of all the peoples on the +middle and upper Danube. He was next thing to the Devil; and what came +direct from the former could be but recent from the latter. + +Their beloved beer could not be traced so directly to an origin in the +nether world. The German tribes, as far back as history or tradition +reports them, seem to have loved this quieting beverage. Traces of their +coming together as now for banqueting purposes, under the shade of +Germany's primeval forests, are still found in history and historical +traditions. There is one fact which Americans, so accustomed to rapid +transformations of society by migration, immigration, and intermixture +of races, can scarcely comprehend, even when they know it as a fact: it +is the persistency with which national traits adhere to a people in an +old country, through generations and decades of generations and of +centuries, withstanding the shock of revolution both in government and +religion. Tacitus says of these people:--"At meals, they sit every man +upon a seat by himself and at a separate table. Arising, they proceed +armed to their business; and they go armed also to their banquets. _It +is no reproach to them to continue day and night drinking. Their drink +is fermented from barley or wheat into a certain resemblance of wine_. +Their food is simple,--wild fruits, fresh game, or coagulated milk. They +satisfy hunger without formality and without delicacies. _In regard to +thirst they do not exercise this moderation_. Indulge their appetites by +giving them all they desire, and you may conquer them by their vices not +less easily than by arms." + +Viewing, then, these people of Upper Bavaria, and of Munich in +particular, in their cold, raw air,--in their supposed exposure to +typhus and typhoid fevers,--deficiency of good food,--the want of the +domestic circle as cemented in our country over other beverages,--the +national abstemiousness in regard to food, and the addictedness to beer +for thousands of years past,--and we have a somewhat rational +explanation of the springing-up and development into such monstrous +proportions of the manufacture and consumption of this article. Of the +many it may be said,-- + + "They drink their simple beverage with a gust, + And feast upon an onion and a crust." + +Bavaria, not including the Rhenish Palatinate, uses over six million +bushels of barley, and upwards of seven million pounds of hops, +annually, in its breweries, making over eight million eimers, that is, +about five million barrels of beer. But nearly half the kingdom is +wine-growing, and uses comparatively little beer; so that this is mainly +consumed in the other half, that is, by about three millions of people. +At an average price of three and a half cents per quart, there is +consumed in the kingdom fifty million florins, or over twenty million +dollars, annually, in this beverage. Both manufacture and consumption +have their head-quarters in Munich. The quantity manufactured in this +city alone in 1856-7 was nine hundred and fifty thousand eimers, or +about five hundred and seventy thousand barrels, being nearly five +barrels a head for the whole population, men, women, and children. +Allowing for the amount exported, or sent out of the city, there remains +something like four barrels to each person. This is one quart, or four +of our common table-glasses, per day. But some drink none, others +little; a man is scarcely reckoned with real beer-drinkers until he +drinks six masses,--twenty-four of our common tumblers; ten masses are +not uncommon; twenty to thirty masses--eighty to one hundred and twenty +of our dinner-glasses--are drunk by some, and on a wager even much more. +The sick man whose physician prescribed for him a quart of herb-tea as +the only thing that would save him, and who replied that he was gone, +then, for he held but a _pint_, was no Bavarian; for the most modest +Bavarian girl would not feel alarmed in regard to her capacity, if +ordered to drink a gallon,--certainly not, if the liquid were beer. + +The aggregate labor performed in this branch of popular industry is thus +seen at a glance. But how is this done, and by whom? What is the noise +or noiselessness with which such torrents of this foaming liquid rush +daily through the channels of human bodies made originally too small to +admit half the quantity? What are the final results upon body, mind, and +heart of the present and future of the race? Does government encourage, +stimulate, control, and turn to account this national appetite? These +questions invite, and will well repay, a few moments' attention. + +I once heard a college student announce as the text of his oration +Lindley Murray's well-known definition of the verb,--a word which +signifies "to be, to do, or to suffer"; and he followed up his +announcement by a most beautiful and conclusive argument to show that +this definition describes with equal accuracy three classes of men into +which the whole world may be divided: a class who have no purpose in +life but simply "to be"; an active class, whose mission is "to do," to +which they bend all their energies; and a passive class, who merely +"suffer" themselves to be employed as the tools of the men of action. +Whether he would have modified his statement, had he known something of +Bavarian beer-drinkers, I do not know; for, although these belong, +doubtless, in general, to the class of men which he designated as having +no purpose but simply "to be," yet they certainly have a decided +preference as to the means of their being, which must be beer; they have +activity enough to get where this can be obtained, and to handle the +needed quantity; and the man who holds and bears about fifteen or twenty +quarts a day must have no small share of the grace of passive endurance. + +There is a class of the nobility too poor to treat themselves with the +diversions of court-life, and with notions of noble birth which forbid +them to engage in business, especially as they would thereby forfeit +their rank. They fund their small means, so as to yield them a stated +income; and in spending this and their time, they fall into a round +which brings them three or four times a day to some place where beer is +to be found, and with it a billiard-table and a reading-room. This class +does not, perhaps, embrace a very large number of the nobility, but it +is largely reinforced from others, whose small means are similarly +invested, and whose whole time is on their hands for disposal. The class +of men engaged in business, and pursuing it somewhat actively, give less +attention to beer during the day. They take a couple of glasses--four of +our common tumblers--at dinner, and perhaps send out a servant +occasionally during the day to replenish a pitcher for the +counter,--not, however, to treat customers, as used to be done in our +country; but as beer had been all day secondary to business, the latter +is dropped for the evening, and the undivided attention bestowed upon +the national beverage. A large portion of the poor, and many who cannot +be called poor, have not the means for this indulgence; and yet men and +women are seldom seen at their work without a mug of beer standing near +them. Ladies have the same provision in their families, as also +students, and all who occupy rented rooms in connection with the +families of the city; from ten to one o'clock servant-girls, with +pitchers in their hands and immense bunches of keys hanging to their +apron-strings, are seen running to and from the neighboring beer-houses +thick as butterflies floating in a summer sun, and seem far more as if +on business requiring haste. No room is sought for renting without an +inquiry as to the quality of the beer of the neighborhood; and the +landlady feels that her chances for a tenant are exceedingly slim, if +she cannot furnish a satisfactory recommendation in this respect. +Scarcely a house in the city is thirty steps from where the article can +be had. The places fitted up with seats and tables for drinking +accommodate from twenty to five hundred persons, and even one thousand +or more in summer, when a garden is generally prepared with seats for +the purpose. At these larger places, music is often provided, and ladies +are frequently found lending the charm and solace of their presence, and +sometimes a good deal more, to the other sex, in this self-denying work, +in which the men have generally been the great burden-bearers. But the +greatest crowds of real beer-drinkers go to another class of +houses,--that is, the breweries themselves, where rooms are always +fitted up for drinking. Of these the Court Brewery is perhaps in highest +repute, and is at least a great curiosity. I visited it three or four +times during a six years' residence in the city, and always in company +with others who wished to see the lions of the place, and for the same +reason that would have taken us to see a menagerie. Why did the monks +never think of applying to such places the figure by which they +protested against the introduction of coffee, "the fumes of hell"? The +smoke of five hundred cigars or pipes rising to a ceiling which had been +thus smoked for centuries,--the hoarse hum of five hundred voices +uttering the German gutturals from tongues thickened by the use of beer, +and floating heavily through an atmosphere of densest smoke, dimming the +lights and turning all into an indefinite and uniform brown color,--this +may indeed be a picture of Elysium to some minds, but to ours it is not. +I never found a vacant seat there, nor felt a desire to occupy one, had +there been such. Stone mugs of double the size of the common glasses are +used, perhaps to save servants' labor in drawing, which is no small +matter, as a barrel of beer lasts not more than ten minutes at the +height of the drinking-time of the evening. + +None of the drinking-places in the city are filled until evening. In the +afternoon many take their walks into the suburbs, and turn aside where a +glass may be had. On all holidays the whole city is adrift, much of it +in the surrounding country, and most of this drift lodges against the +suburban beer-houses. In summer evenings there are frequent +entertainments, some provided by the government,--as one every Saturday +evening from six to seven o'clock, from May to November, a mile from the +city, in the English Garden, where sometimes two thousand persons may be +in attendance, to hear the royal bands play. It is presumed that there +will always be a considerable number among these who will not be able to +stand it an hour without beer, and a beneficent provision is made for +such,--seats and tables for at least five hundred persons being there +provided, and often filled, so that some must drink standing. + +The regularity with which the men of Munich bring themselves around to +the same place at about the same time of day, especially if that place +is a beer-house, is remarkable,--indeed, amusing. A gentleman residing +in Berlin, where this everlasting beer-drinking does not prevail, +mentioned to me, as one of the most ludicrous occurrences of his life, +an invitation which he once received to visit a Munich professor whose +acquaintance he had made in Berlin. The professor told him, that, in +case he should arrive in Munich after a certain hour of the day, he must +go directly to the Court Brewery, and would find him there. We do +indeed regard this as the consummation of the ridiculous; but to this +bachelor professor it was the most natural thing in the world. He might +change his lodgings half a dozen times in a year, and so might not be +readily found; but the Court Brewery would remain from generation to +generation, and while he lived he expected regularly to appear there, +and there, of course, was the only place where he could make +appointments for years to come. + +This incident will intimate what an external view of this dark brown +mass of humanity would never have hinted,--that it contains men of +learning and parts. Could one go round and listen to each party by +itself, instead of hearing the low rumble which falls upon the ears of +the general observer, the profoundest problems of philosophy, +statesmanship, philology, geography, ethnography, and history would be +found undergoing the most searching examination. Fame says of _our_ +politicians who rise to positions which ought to be occupied only by +statesmen, that they frequent low places and mingle with the boisterous +crowd. This is probably not a slander. But these men frequent such +places only for a purpose. Their tastes do not lead them thither. They +go no oftener than serves their purpose. Not so with the learned German +beer-drinker. He is in his own proper society. Chinese or Sanscrit, +Arabic or Coptic, the last discoveries in the interior of Africa or +about the North Pole, or the more recondite regions of chemistry or +mineralogy, may be the theme of a familiar discourse, which each of the +party may fully appreciate. + +To these places, of course, only the men resort. Indeed, in this part of +Germany there is little of family-life. The members of the family take +their coffee separately, as each rises and is ready. The men quite +generally dine and sup away from home, and that, too, when their +business and their residence are in the same house, and the hotel or +eating-house is at a distance. An English gentleman told me of a German +friend of his who appeared in his seat in the beer-house on the evening +of his wedding-day; and to the suggestion that this was not quite right +to the newly married wife, he replied that it did indeed seem so, but he +thought it better not to encourage hopes destined to disappointment. +This may, too, have been one of those numerous instances in which the +parties had already spent many evenings together in such a way as to +have diminished the interest of both in each other's society on the +first evening of married life. A genuine Munich man would never be +embarrassed like the Parisian, of whom the well-known story is told, +that, having been accustomed to spend all his evenings in the +drawing-room of a certain lady, he was advised, on the death of her +husband, to marry her, and promptly replied with the question, "_Where, +then, should I spend my evenings?_" A true South-Bavarian's plan of +spending his evenings is not affected by the trifling event of his +marriage. + +Indeed, there is an aspect of this virtual dissolution of family-life +which has great interest as connected with German erudition. The English +or American scholar, whose social hours are mainly spent with his +family, or in the mixed society of the sexes, would never think of +introducing the subjects of his study into such circles, and hence is +without the best means of familiarizing his mind with the very topics to +which all his hours of close application are devoted; for no subject is +fully understood and reduced to material for ready use until it has been +in some form the theme of frequent familiar discourse. It is thus turned +over,--looked at on every side,--the views of men of different tastes, +studies, and orders of mind, who have not disqualified themselves for +this by being curled into the same nutshell, are called forth,--and the +sparks thus elicited catch on other tinder, which had not been touched +by those struck out in solitary study. It is thus that the thoughts of +the learned are familiarized, and their area extended. It is thus that +subjects which sit upon us as holiday-clothes are, in a society of +German _literati_, who are together every day at dinner, or over their +coffee after dinner, and every evening over their beer, become to them +as their every-day clothing. I am not of those who deem this result well +purchased at the price of the refining influence of the other sex, and +the virtual breaking-up of family-life; but if some middle way could be +hit upon to secure the two advantages at once, both science and society +would be great gainers. + +The government has regulated the manufacture of beer, and collected an +income-tax upon it, for centuries past; and this is even now one of its +most puzzling problems. It determines the price, both wholesale and +retail, at which the beer may be sold. The calculations are based upon +an estimate of the medium amount of fixed capital necessary for the +manufacture, then the labor, then the average price of barley and hops +at the October and November markets of each year; every item which +enters into the manufacture, including interest at five per cent on +capital, enters also into the government's calculation by which it +determines its tax and the price of beer. The price is never increased +or diminished by less than half a kreutzer, or two pfennigs, that is, +one-third of a cent, per mass. The fractional parts of this +half-kreutzer which may appear in the calculation are divided by a fixed +rule between the public and the brewer: that is, when the fraction is +one-fourth of a kreutzer, or less, the brewer must drop it for the +public benefit; when more, he may call it a half for his own benefit. +The government tax is nearly one kreutzer per mass, making about six +millions of florins. There is also in several places an additional local +beer-tax, amounting to nearly two million florins more. The population +of the kingdom is about five millions. A considerable portion of this +population are wine-growing, and manufacture and drink but little beer. +Ledlmayr, the largest brewer in Munich, made in the year 1856--the +latest statistics published--one hundred and twenty-nine thousand +eimers. Allowing three hundred working-days to the year, this would be +four hundred and thirty eimers, or twenty-seven thousand five hundred +and twenty masses, per day, and would pay to the government, at one +kreutzer per mass, one hundred and eighty dollars of our money for each +of these working-days, or fifty-four thousand dollars yearly. In a time +of popular sensitiveness, there is nothing which the government could do +that would be so likely to be followed by a revolutionary outbreak as to +add a kreutzer to the price of the mass or quart of beer. This article +is ranked in all police-regulations among the necessaries of life. The +bakeries and beer-houses must remain open at those holiday-hours when +all other shopkeepers, except the apothecaries, must close their shops. + +The statistics already given have reference to the common beer; but, +besides this, the brewers have permission to brew for certain short +periods what are called the double beers, without paying a tax upon +them. My statistics of the beer-drinking will, therefore, fall short of +the truth, at least by this uncertain quantity. During the brief periods +of the sale of the double beers, there is a great rush for them, +relieving somewhat the monotony of the ordinary routine. The two +principal kinds of double beer are the Bock-beer and the Salvator-beer. +The latter creates quite a furor. Many, led by curiosity to the +head-quarters of its sale, find their amusement there in testing the +capacity of some great beer-drinker,--and such are always on hand +waiting the chance,--by paying for all he will drink. These curious +visitors seldom return without a similar test of their own capacities; +and as the article has double the alcohol of the common beer, many a one +staggers a little on his homeward way who had never felt such effect +from the common form of the beverage. + +There is also no small amount of wine drunk in Munich. I have not the +statistics, but the number of large houses with the sign, +"Weinhandlung," and of the smaller ones with the sign, "Weinschenck," +and then the fact that at all the large hotels wine is mainly drunk at +dinner, furnish my data for this conclusion. In the wine-growing +districts of Bavaria beer-drinking is reduced to about one-fourth of the +Munich standard, and so we may suppose that the removal of all wine from +the capital might add one-fourth to the beer-drinking as given +above,--at least, it takes the place of one-fourth of that which would +be the aggregate of the beer-drinking. + +The government has a commission for the examination of the quality of +the beer; and, indeed, aside from this, the popular taste is not a bad +test in this respect. There is an error in the lines of Prior,-- + + "When you with High-Dutch Herren dine, + Expect false Latin and stummed wine: + They never taste who always drink; + They always talk who never think."[C] + +The most common manifestation of Bavarian beer-drinking is a perpetual +tasting, and not a pouring-down of the liquid a glass at a time. These +people seem to have the art of doing this thing so gradually and quietly +that the soothing liquor passes gently into the circulation, and +produces an effect very different from that which would result from +swallowing it a glass at a draught, enabling them to drink without +visible effect a much larger quantity in the aggregate. They practise +upon the proverb, "The still sow drinks the swill,"--a proverb which +would serve admirably the purpose of those who desire to join in the +general sarcasm expended upon Bavarian beer-drinking, since almost every +word in it seems to express so exactly some characteristic which North +Germans and others are disposed to attribute to Bavarians. + +Reference was made above to the government's regulating the price of +beer. The margin allowed between the wholesale and retail price is half +a kreutzer on the mass,--that is, one-fourth of a kreutzer or one-sixth +of a cent on the glass. What a blessing, if the retail liquor-trade in +our country were reduced to such a scale of profit! This would bring +less than two dollars on one thousand glasses. The work would have to be +turned over to benevolence for its prosecution, and would doubtless be +done much more to the advantage of the community. The profit, however, +on this trade in Bavaria is somewhat increased by the manner in which +servants are paid. Especially if good-looking girls are employed, the +employer may pay them nothing, but leave them to get their pay from the +customer. They bring him his change in kreutzers and fractions of a +kreutzer, and he shoves back to them often these fractional parts; and +if no such are there, a truly liberal soul may give the girl a whole +kreutzer, and then in return he will receive an expression of thanks +somewhat stronger than our lordly porters would allow themselves to make +for half a dollar on which they had no claim. Small as this profit is, +it brings to the retailers of Munich about five hundred thousand +florins, somewhat more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in +gold per annum. Then, if the servants receive from the customers +gratuities of half that amount, that is, an average of one-twelfth of a +cent on the glass, this amounts to two hundred and fifty thousand +florins per annum. In view of all these facts, it can be conceived that +nothing would be so certain to be followed by a revolutionary outbreak +as the addition of a kreutzer to the price of a mass of beer. + +The wit which sparkles and flashes in a Bavarian beer-house may be as +much less boisterous, or rather as much more quiet, than that which +explodes over the distilled spirits of our bar-rooms, as the stimulant +itself is less exciting, but is for this very reason the more genuine. +Like the myriads of fire-flies on a warm summer evening amid the rising +fog of a marshy ground, so gleams this wit in its smoky atmosphere; +still it is there, notwithstanding the popular notion of Bavarian +stupidity. The North German, and even English and American satirists of +these people, fare generally much as did Ulysses's men on drinking of +Circe's magic cup; and once turned into swine, they are seldom turned +back again, at least until they leave the charmed spot. When once drawn +into the vortex of students' convivial gatherings, they feel that there +is no escape without flying from the place. + +A drinking frolic, involving Americans, once called in my aid to settle +a great international difficulty--that is, one about as threatening as +most of those diplomatic cases flaunted so often in our +newspapers--between the United States and Bavarian governments. Two +American art-students had taken a room at Nymphenburg, a little village +in the vicinity of Munich, the site of a royal _château_, which in +summer is always occupied by a royal prince. There the great Napoleon +lodged, when he visited the Bavarian capital. There the present king was +born. There, at the time to which I refer, the king's youngest brother, +Adalbert,--who would have succeeded Otho on the throne of Greece, if the +Greeks had not otherwise determined,--was residing in the palace, and a +company of cuirassiers was stationed in the town. The two students were +visited on a Sunday evening by three or four more Americans, and one +English and two Bavarian friends. The usual beer-guzzling prevailed; +some exciting topic was up, and each must have his glass empty when the +time for refilling was announced. One of the Americans felt his capacity +not quite equal to the demands made upon it. The shift often resorted to +in such a trying situation is quietly to empty the glass under the table +or out of a window, if this can be done without observation,--and most +young men are not very observing at such times. Under the window, +outside, sat a party of the cuirassiers drinking, about a dozen of whom +made a sudden irruption into that bacchanal chamber, and, with little +explanation, proceeded to clear it of its tenants and guests, knocking +down, beating, and pitching them headlong down-stairs, until the work +was done. There were sundry flesh-bruises inflicted, some small +blood-vessels lying near the surface tapped, one collar-bone fractured, +a wrist sprained, garments torn off or left hanging in shreds; and +rarely has the darkness of a summer evening concealed a more ludicrous +spectacle than that of these dispersed beer-bacchanalians, each running +on his own account, hatless or coatless, as he happened to have been +left by some stout cuirassier into whose hands he had fallen. The next +day, a deputation of the injured company and their friends came to me, +desiring that redress might be demanded of the Bavarian government. They +stated their case both verbally and in writing. They were conscious of +no offence. If the assailants gave any reason for their assault, it was +not understood. Most of the young men knew but little German, and +perhaps just then less than usual of that or any other language. The +supposition was, that the rough treatment grew out of the cuirassiers' +jealousy that they were not so well served by the waiting-maids as the +American company and their guests. One, however, stated the unimportant +incident, that the coat of the man who handled him so carelessly seemed +to be very wet. One of the Americans who had been present on this +occasion did not present himself until sent for several days afterwards. +He had observed an incident seen by no other,--one of which the +performer, himself as honest a young man as ever lived, was utterly +unconscious,--_the pouring of a glass of beer from the window_. The beer +did as little harm on the cuirassiers' coats as it would have done in +the American's stomach, and was at least the incidental means of +bringing the whole scene to an abrupt end. The government was inclined +to do us justice, but very naturally thought that the drenching of its +cuirassiers might be pleaded in abatement of the insult to our national +dignity; and so a nominal punishment of the offenders finally settled +the question. + +If asked whether inebriation and its accompaniments are as marked under +the reign of beer as under that of the more fiery fluids used among us, +I should feel bound to reply negatively. The common Bavarian beer has +but about half the strength of the average malt liquors of our country, +and seldom produces real intoxication except upon novices. It may +stupefy, though this is by no means observable in the mental action of +learned Bavarians. The charge of dulness, so sarcastically made against +them, could be retorted with about as much show of reason against +Prussians, Hanoverians, Saxons, or, indeed, any other people. The +students, after their _Kneips_, have what they call +_Katzenjammer_,--cat-sickness,--the effect of debauch, loss of rest, and +general irregularities; and those who do most of the beer-drinking do +least of the studying. I should, indeed, fear fatal effects from +drinking half the quantity of water which some of them take of beer. The +drunkenness produced by beer is at least a very different thing from +that produced by distilled spirits. The one may be a stupor, the other +is a brief and sudden insanity. Beer holds no one captive by such spell +as that which seizes some natures on the first taste of ardent spirits, +throwing them beyond their own control until their week's frolic is +ended. The cases are rare, if they ever occur, in which the beer-drinker +is enticed from the prosecution of his business, if he has one,--and +beer furnishes the main substitute for business to those who have no +other employment. If it causes men to pursue their avocations lazily or +stupidly, it does not cause the irregularities and neglects of American +inebriation. Cases of pawning clothes and impoverishing families from +the appetite for beer may occur, just as from laziness, but not as from +the bewitching appetite for ardent spirits. + +The practice of Americans in Bavaria, even of those who never drink a +drop of beer at home, is, so far as I know, to drink a little while in +the country, acting from a supposed necessity in that climate, or +impelled by the want of other beverages. Physicians advise it, and I +suppose that American physicians would do the same in the case of their +countrymen temporarily residing there. In my own family, it was taken +every day at dinner as a kind of prescription, and the children were +disciplined to drink their little glass daily with rather less urging +than would have been necessary, had the dose been castor-oil; and they +always felt that they deserved an expression of approbation as being +"good children," if they drank their entire portion. Our taste for beer +never increased, but rather the contrary; and should I again reside in +that country, notwithstanding the general impression that its use is a +kind of necessity, as a security against the fevers incident to the +climate, I should feel just as secure without a drop. My little boy, +born in Bavaria, and but four years old when we left the kingdom, liked +the beer better than the other children, and so gave some support to the +theory that the Bavarians take to beer by instinct. He shared, too, in +the patriotic doubt of the people as to the possibility of successfully +imitating the article in other countries. When, on our journey homeward, +the train brought us into the little city of Koethen, we found evidence +of one of those attempts so unsuccessfully made everywhere in North +Germany to imitate the Bavarian beer. A man passed along by the train, +crying at the top of his voice, "_Baierisches bier!_" upon which the +little fellow, in the height of his indignation, cried out, +"_Baierisches Bier nicht!_"--("Not Bavarian beer!")--and so the cry and +response continued until the parties were out of each other's hearing, +and all the passengers in the train had their attention called, and +their main amusement furnished, by this childish outburst of patriotic +indignation. At this point, my life, observation, and adventures in +connection with Bavarian beer ceased, and almost the last echo of its +magic name in the original tongue died on my ears. That the results may +not be lost and forgotten, I now commit them to paper and to the +public. + + * * * * * + +FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK. + + + The Friar Jerome, for some slight sin, + Done in his youth, was struck with woe. + "When I am dead," quoth Friar Jerome, + "Surely, I think my soul will go + Shuddering through the darkened spheres, + Down to eternal fires below! + I shall not dare from that dread place + To lift mine eyes to Jesus' face, + Nor Mary's, as she sits adored + At the feet of Christ the Lord. + Alas! December's all too brief + For me to hope to wipe away + The memory of my sinful May!" + And Friar Jerome was full of grief, + That April evening, as he lay + On the straw pallet in his cell. + He scarcely heard the curfew-bell + Calling the brotherhood to prayer; + But he arose, for't was his care + Nightly to feed the hungry poor + That crowded to the Convent-door. + + His choicest duty it had been: + But this one night it weighed him down. + "What work for an immortal soul, + To feed and clothe some lazy clown! + Is there no action worth my mood, + No deed of daring, high and pure, + That shall, when I am dead, endure, + A well-spring of perpetual good?" + + And straight he thought of those great tomes + With clamps of gold,--the Convent's boast,-- + How they endured, while kings and realms + Passed into darkness and were lost; + How they had stood from age to age, + Clad in their yellow vellum-mail, + 'Gainst which the Paynim's godless rage, + The Vandal's fire could nought avail: + Though heathen sword-blows fell like hail, + Though cities ran with Christian blood, + Imperishable they had stood! + They did not seem like books to him, + But Heroes, Martyrs, Saints,--themselves + The things they told of, not mere books + Ranged grimly on the oaken shelves. + + To those dim alcoves, far withdrawn, + He turned with measured steps and slow, + Trimming his lantern as he went; + And there, among the shadows, bent + Above one ponderous folio, + With whose miraculous text were blent + Seraphic faces: Angels, crowned + With rings of melting amethyst; + Mute, patient Martyrs, cruelly bound + To blazing fagots; here and there, + Some bold, serene Evangelist, + Or Mary in her sunny hair: + And here and there from out the words + A brilliant tropic bird took flight; + And through the margins many a vine + Went wandering--roses, red and white, + Tulip, wind-flower, and columbine + Blossomed. To his believing mind + These things were real, and the soft wind, + Blown through the mullioned window, took + Scent from the lilies in the book. + + "Santa Maria!" cried Friar Jerome, + "Whatever man illumined this, + Though he were steeped heart-deep in sin, + Was worthy of unending bliss, + And no doubt hath it! Ah! dear Lord, + Might I so beautify Thy Word! + What sacristan, the convents through, + Transcribes with such precision? who + Does such initials as I do? + Lo! I will gird me to this work, + And save me, ere the one chance slips. + On smooth, clean parchment I'll engross + The Prophet's fell Apocalypse; + And as I write from day to day, + Perchance my sins will pass away." + + So Friar Jerome began his Book. + From break of dawn till curfew-chime + He bent above the lengthening page, + Like some rapt poet o'er his rhyme. + He scarcely paused to tell his beads, + Except at night; and then he lay + And tossed, unrestful, on the straw, + Impatient for the coming day,-- + Working like one who feels, perchance, + That, ere the longed-for goal be won, + Ere Beauty bare her perfect breast, + Black Death may pluck him from the sun. + At intervals the busy brook, + Turning the mill-wheel, caught his ear; + And through the grating of the cell + He saw the honeysuckles peer; + And knew't was summer, that the sheep + In golden pastures lay asleep; + And felt, that, somehow, God was near. + In his green pulpit on the elm, + The robin, abbot of that wood, + Held forth by times; and Friar Jerome + Listened, and smiled, and understood. + + While summer wrapped the blissful land, + What joy it was to labor so, + To see the long-tressed Angels grow + Beneath the cunning of his hand, + Vignette and tail-piece deftly wrought! + And little recked he of the poor + That missed him at the Convent-door; + Or, thinking of them, put the thought + Aside. "I feed the souls of men + Henceforth, and not their bodies!"--yet + Their sharp, pinched features, now and then, + Stole in between him and his Book, + And filled him with a vague regret. + + Now on that region fell a blight: + The corn grew cankered in its sheath; + And from the verdurous uplands rolled + A sultry vapor fraught with death,-- + A poisonous mist, that, like a pall, + Hung black and stagnant over all. + Then came the sickness,--the malign + Green-spotted terror, called the Pest, + That took the light from loving eyes, + And made the young bride's gentle breast + A fatal pillow. Ah! the woe, + The crime, the madness that befell! + In one short night that vale became + More foul than Dante's inmost hell. + Men cursed their wives; and mothers left + Their nursing babes alone to die, + And wantoned, singing, through the streets, + With shameless brow and frenzied eye; + And senseless clowns, not fearing God,-- + Such power the spotted fever had,-- + Razed Cragwood Castle on the hill, + Pillaged the wine-bins, and went mad. + And evermore that dreadful pall + Of mist hung stagnant over all: + By day, a sickly light broke through + The heated fog, on town and field; + By night the moon, in anger, turned + Against the earth its mottled shield. + + Then from the Convent, two and two, + The Prior chanting at their head, + The monks went forth to shrive the sick, + And give the hungry grave its dead,-- + Only Jerome, he went not forth, + But hiding in his dusty nook, + "Let come what will, I must illume + The last ten pages of my Book!" + He drew his stool before the desk, + And sat him down, distraught and wan, + To paint his darling masterpiece, + The stately figure of Saint John. + He sketched the head with pious care, + Laid in the tint, when, powers of Grace! + He found a grinning Death's-head there, + And not the grand Apostle's face! + + Then up he rose with one long cry: + "'Tis Satan's self does this," cried he, + "Because I shut and barred my heart + When Thou didst loudest call to me! + O Lord, Thou know'st the thoughts of men, + Thou know'st that I did yearn to make + Thy Word more lovely to the eyes + Of sinful souls, for Christ his sake! + Nathless, I leave the task undone: + I give up all to follow Thee,-- + Even like him who gave his nets + To winds and waves by Galilee!" + + Which said, he closed the precious Book + In silence with a reverent hand; + And, drawing his cowl about his face, + Went forth into the Stricken Land. + And there was joy in heaven that day,-- + More joy o'er that forlorn old friar + Than over fifty sinless men + Who never struggled with desire! + + What deeds he did in that dark town, + What hearts he soothed with anguish torn, + What weary ways of woe he trod, + Are written in the Book of God, + And shall be read at Judgment-Morn. + The weeks crept on, when, one still day, + God's awful presence filled the sky, + And that black vapor floated by, + And, lo! the sickness passed away. + With silvery clang, by thorp and town, + The bells made merry in their spires, + Men kissed each other on the street, + And music piped to dancing feet + The livelong night, by roaring fires! + + Then Friar Jerome, a wasted shape,--. + For he had taken the Plague at last,-- + Rose up, and through the happy town, + And through the wintry woodlands passed + Into the Convent. What a gloom + Sat brooding in each desolate room! + What silence in the corridor! + For of that long, innumerous train + Which issued forth a month before, + Scarce twenty had come back again! + + Counting his rosary step by step, + With a forlorn and vacant air, + Like some unshriven church-yard thing, + The Friar crawled up the mouldy stair + To his damp cell, that he might look + Once more on his beloved Book. + + And there it lay upon the stand, + Open!--he had not left it so. + He grasped it, with a cry; for, lo! + He saw that some angelic hand, + While he was gone, had finished it! + There't was complete, as he had planned! + There, at the end, stood _finis_, writ + And gilded as no man could do,-- + Not even that pious anchoret, + Bilfrid, the wonderful,--nor yet + The miniatore Ethelwold,-- + Nor Durham's Bishop, who of old + (England still hoards the priceless leaves) + Did the Four Gospels all in gold. + And Friar Jerome nor spoke nor stirred, + But, with his eyes fixed on that word, + He passed from sin and want and scorn; + And suddenly the chapel-bells + Rang in the holy Christmas-Morn! + + In those wild wars which racked the land, + Since then, and kingdoms rent in twain. + The Friar's Beautiful Book was lost,-- + That miracle of hand and brain: + Yet, though its leaves were torn and tossed, + The volume was not writ in vain! + + * * * * * + +LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS. + +THE DRAWING-ROOM. + + +PART I. + +We are no "lion-hunters." When we wish to learn something of eminent +authors, we hasten to the nearest book-shop and buy their works. They +put the best of themselves in their books. The old saw tells us how +completely all great men give the best part of themselves to the public, +while the _valet-de-chambre_ picks up little else than food for +contempt. Nevertheless, we are as inquisitive about everything that +concerns eminent people as anybody can be. We would not blot a single +line from Boswell. We protest against a word being effaced from the +garrulous pages of Lady Blessington and Leigh Hunt. We "hang" the stars +with which Earl Russell has _milky-wayed_ Moore's Diary. But we are no +"lion-hunters," (the name should be "lion-harriers,") simply because +this chase is not the best way to take the game we desire. What does the +lion-hunter secure? A commonplace observation upon the weather, an +adroit or awkward parry of flattery, and some superficial compliment +upon one's native place or present residence; for a great man at bay is +nothing more nor less than a casual acquaintance extremely on his guard, +and, commonly, extremely fatigued by admirers. True, one obtains an +acquaintance with the great man's voice, and the hearth where he lives, +and the right to boast with truth, "I have seen him." _Voilà tout!_ Now +this is not what we want. We desire some good, clear, faithful account +of these people, as they are, when they talk freely and easily to their +contemporaries, to their peers. Boswell's picture of the Literary Club +is invaluable, although, with the insatiable curiosity of the nineteenth +century, we regret that the prince of reporters failed to sketch the +persons and peculiarities of the _dramatis personæ_ whose conversations +he has so faithfully recorded. + +We wish to go behind the scenes, and to hear the conversation engaged in +in the green-room. We expect to see some dirt, some grease-pots, stained +ropes, and unpainted pulleys,--and, to tell the truth, we want to see +these blemishes. They are encouraging. They lessen the distance between +us and it by teaching us that even fairy-land knows no exemption from +those imperfections which blur our purest natures. + +A work has lately appeared in Europe which in some measure gratifies +this desire. It exhibits in full light a good many scenes of literary +life in Paris. They may be and probably are exaggerated, but +exaggerations do not mar truth; if they did, we should be obliged to +throw away the microscope, with nativities and divining-rods. We are +tempted to give our readers a share of the pleasure we have found in +perusing this picture of Paris life. We forewarn them that we have taken +liberties innumerable with the book. We have compressed into these few +leaves a volume of several hundred pages. We have discarded all the +machinery of the author, and introduced him personally to the reader in +the character of an autobiographer. We have not scrupled to make +explanations and additions wherever we thought them necessary, without +resorting to the artifice of notes or of quotation-marks. We repeat, +that we have taken a great many liberties with the author; but we have +made no statement, advanced no fact, indulged no reflection, which is +not to be found in the work referred to, or in some trustworthy +authority. And now we leave him the door without another observation. + +I am Count Armand de Pontmartin. I was born of noble parents at Aix, in +Provence, in 1820. I was educated at Paris, but the first twelve years +after I left college were passed on my estate in the enjoyment of an +income of three thousand dollars a year. Belonging to a Legitimist +family, my principles forbade my serving the Orléans dynasty, and I +should scarcely have known how to satisfy that thirst for activity which +fevers youth, had I not for years burned with the ambition to acquire +literary fame. Circumstances conspired to thwart these literary schemes, +and it was not until I had reached my thirtieth year that I came to +Paris with a heart full of emotion and hope, a trunk full of +manuscripts, and some friends' addresses on my memorandum-book. Before I +had been a week in town they had introduced me to three or four editors +of newspapers or reviews, and to several publishers and theatrical +managers. In less than a fortnight I breakfasted alone at Café Bignon +with one of my favorite authors, the celebrated novelist, Monsieur Jules +Sandeau.[D] I was confounded with astonishment and gratitude that he +should allow me to sit at the same table and eat with him. I felt +embarrassed to know where to find viands meet to offer him, and +beverages not unworthy to pass his lips. There were in his works so many +souls exiled from heaven, so many tearful smiles, so many melancholy +glances constantly turned towards the infinite horizon, that it seemed +to me something like sacrilege to offer to the creator of this noble and +charming world a dish of _rosbif aux pommes_ and a _turbot à la +Hollandaise_ and a claret wine. I could have invented for him some of +those Oriental delicacies made by sultans during harem's heavy hours; +rose-leaves kneaded with snow-water, dreams or perfumes disguised as +sweetmeats, or citron and myrtle-flowers dew-diamonded in golden +beakers. Of a truth, the personal appearance of my poetical guest did +give something of a shock to the ideal I had formed. Many and many a +time I had pictured him to myself tall and thin and pale, with large +black eyes raised heavenwards, and hair curling naturally on a forehead +shadowed by melancholy! In reality, Monsieur Jules Sandeau is a good +stout fellow, with broad, stalwart shoulders, a tendency to premature +obesity, small, bright, gentle, acute eyes, a head as bald as my knee, +rather thick lips, and a rubicund complexion; he has an air of +good-nature and simplicity which excludes everything like sentimental +exaggeration; he wears a black cravat tied negligently around a muscular +neck; in fine, he looks like a sub-lieutenant dressed in +citizen's-clothes. I got over this shock, and hunted all through the +bill of fare, (which, as you know, forms in Paris a duodecimo volume of +a good many pages,) trying my best to discover some romantic dish and +some supernal _liqueur_, until he cut short my chase by suggesting a +dinner of the most vulgar solidity; and when I tried to retrieve this +commonplace dinner by ordering for dessert some vapory _liqueurs_, such +as uncomprehended women sip, he proposed a glass of brandy. This was my +first literary deception. + +A theatrical newspaper was lying on the table. It contained an account +of a piece played the evening before. The writer spoke of the play as a +masterpiece, and of the performance as being one of those triumphs which +form an epoch in the history of dramatic art. I read this panegyric with +avidity, and exclaimed,-- + +"Oh, what a glorious thing success is! How happy that author must be!" + +"He!" replied Monsieur Sandeau, smiling; "he is mortified to death; his +play is execrable, and it fell flat." + +"You must be mistaken!" + +"I was present at the performance; and I have no reason to be pleased at +the miscarriage of the piece, for I am neither an enemy nor an intimate +friend of the author." + +Monsieur Jules Sandeau then went on to explain to me how the theatrical +newspapers, which contain the lists of performers and of pieces in all +the theatres of Paris, (play-bills being unknown,) enter into a +contract, which is the condition precedent of their sale in the +theatres, stipulating that they will never speak otherwise than in +praise of the pieces brought out. The report of the new piece is often +written and set up before the performance takes place. + +I blushed and said,-- + +"That is deplorable! But, thank Heaven! these are only the Grub-Street +writers, the mere penny-a-liners; the influential reporters of the great +morning papers, fortunately, are animated by a love of truth and +justice." + +Monsieur Sandeau looked at me, and smiled as be remarked,-- + +"Oh! as for them, they don't care a whit for piece or author or public. +They think of nothing but showing off themselves. Monsieur Théophile +Gautier has no care except to display the wealth of a palette which +mistook its vocation when it sought to obtain from pen, ink, and paper +those colors which pencil and canvas alone can give. He discards +sentiments, ideas, characters, dialogue, probability, intellectual +delicacy, everything which raises man above wood or stone. He would be +the very first writer of the age, if the world would agree to suppress +everything like heart and soul. He is never more at ease than when he +has to report a piece whose literary beauties are its splendid scenery +and costumes. He will dismiss the subject, the plot, the characters, and +the details in five lines; while fifteen columns will not suffice for +all the wonders of the decorations. If you ask him to send you to some +person most familiar with contemporary dramatic art, instead of sending +you to Alexandre Dumas, the elder or the younger, to Ponsard, or to +Augier, he will send you to the celebrated scene-painters, to Cicéri or +Séchan or Cambon. As for Monsieur Jules Janin, of whom I am very fond, +he is--You have sometimes been to concerts where virtuosos play +variations on the sextuor of "Lucie," or the trio of "William Tell," or +the duet of "Les Huguenots"? You listen attentively, and do at first +detect a phrase here and a phrase there which vaguely recall the work of +Donizetti, or of Rossini, or of Meyerbeer; but in an instant the +virtuoso himself forgets all about them. You have nothing but volley +after volley of notes, a musical storm, tempest, avalanche; the +primitive idea is fathoms deep under water, and when it is caught again +it is drowned. Now Monsieur Jules Janin has had for the last +five-and-twenty years the business of executing brilliant variations +upon the piano of dramatic criticism. He acts like the virtuosos you +hear at concerts. He writes, for conscience' sake, the name of the +author and the title of the play at the head of his dramatic report, and +then off he goes, heels over head, with variation and variation, and +variation and variation again, in French and in Latin, until at last no +human being can tell what he is after, where he is going, what he is +talking about, or what he means to say. He will tell you the whole story +of the Second Punic War, speaking of a sentimental comedy played at the +Gymnase Theatre, and a low farce of the Palais Royal Theatre will +furnish him the pretext to quote ten lines of Xenophon in the original +Greek. Monsieur Jules Janin is, notwithstanding all this, an excellent +fellow, and a man of great talents; but you must not ask him to work +miracles; in other words, you must not ask him to express briefly and +clearly what he thinks of the play he criticizes, nor to remember to-day +the opinion he entertained yesterday. These are miracles he cannot work. +He hears a piece; he is delighted with it; he says to the author, 'Your +piece is charming. You will be gratified by my criticism upon it.' He +comes home; he sits at his desk. What happens? Why, the wind which blew +from the north blows from the south; the soap-bubble rose on the left, +it floats away towards the right. His pen runs away with him; praise is +thrown out by the first hole in the road; epigram jumps in; and at last +the poor dramatic author, who was lauded to the skies yesterday, +complimented this morning, finds himself cut to pieces and dragged at +horses' tails in to-morrow's paper. Don't blame Monsieur Jules Janin for +it. 'Tis not his fault. The fault lies with his inkhorn; the fault lies +with his pen, which mistook the mustard-pot for the honey-jar; 'twill be +more careful next time. 'Tis the fault of the hand-organ which would +grind away while he was writing; 'tis the fault of the fly which would +keep buzzing about the room and bumping against the panes of glass; 'tis +the fault of the idea which took wings and flew away. The poor dramatic +author is mortified to death; but, Lord bless your soul! Monsieur Jules +Janin is not guilty." + +"What do you think of Monsieur Sainte-Beuve? Is he as unfaithful a +critic as Monsieur Théophile Gautier and Monsieur Jules Janin?" I asked, +rather timidly. + +"Monsieur Sainte-Beuve has received from Heaven (which he has ceased to +believe in) an exquisite taste, an extraordinary delicacy of tact, +admirable talents of criticism, relieved, and, as it were, fertilized, +by rare poetical faculties. He possesses and exercises in the most +masterly manner the art of shading, of hints, of hesitations, of +insinuations, of infiltrations, of evolutions, of circumlocutions, of +precautions, of ambuscades, of feline gambols, of ground and lofty +tumbling, of strategy, and of literary diplomacy. He excels in the art +of distilling a drop of poison in a phial of perfume so as to render the +poison delicious and the perfume venomous. His prose is as attractive +and magnetizing as a woman slightly compromised in public opinion, and +who does not tell all her secrets, but increases her attractions both by +what she shows and by what she conceals. Monsieur Sainte-Beuve has had +no desire but to be a pilgrim of ideas, lacking the first requisite in a +pilgrim, which is faith. He has circumnavigated, merely in the character +of amateur, every doctrine of the century; but though he has never +adopted one of them for his creed, when he abandoned them he seemed to +have betrayed them. Accused unjustly of treachery and apostasy, he has +done his best to confirm his reputation, and has ended by becoming the +enemy of those from whom at first he had only deserted. His error has +been in adulterating that which he might have put, with singular grace, +talents, and natural superiority, pure into currency,--in acting as if +literature were a war of treachery, where one was constantly obliged to +keep a sword in the hand and a poniard in the pocket. They say he is at +great pains to provide himself with an immense arsenal of defensive and +offensive weapons, that he may be able to crush those he loves to-day +and may detest to-morrow, and those he hates to-day and wishes to wreak +vengeance on hereafter. Monsieur Sainte-Beuve might have been the most +indisputable of authorities: he is only the most delightful of literary +curiosities." + +Such was the language of Monsieur Jules Sandeau. He spoke in the same +strain of many another eminent literary man. Around these illustrious +planets gravitated satellites. When new pieces were brought out, he told +me one could see between the acts the lieutenants go up to the +captain-critics and receive instructions from them; the consequence was, +the theatrical criticisms were either collective apotheoses or +collective executions. One day it was Mademoiselle Rachel they put on +the black list for three months, and they raised up against her Madame +Ristori, declaring that she was as superior to Rachel as Alfieri was to +Racine. Then 'twas the Gymnase Theatre they put in Coventry, for having +spoken disrespectfully of newspaper-writers. Another day Monsieur Scribe +was their victim, to punish him for fatiguing with his dramatic +longevity the young men, the new-comers, who are neither young men, nor +new men, nor men of talents. Monsieur Jules Sandeau had passed through +the thorny paths, the steppes, and the waste frontiers of literary life +in Paris, without losing his honor, but without retaining a particle of +illusion. He told me of his days of harsh and pernicious poverty, the +abyss of debt, the constable at the door, the agony of hunting after +dollar by dollar, "copy" hastily written to meet urgent wants, and the +sweet toil of literary exertion changed into torture. I questioned him +about Madame George Sand. What child of twenty has not been fired by +that free, proud poetry which refused to accept the cold chains of +commonplace life and justified the paradoxes of revolt by the eloquence +of the pleading and the beauty of the dream? I soon discovered that the +ideal and the real are two hostile brothers. De Balzac's works had +kindled sincere enthusiasm in my breast. Monsieur Jules Sandeau showed +me the dash of madness and of ingenuous depravity mixed with +incontestable genius in that powerful mind. He told me of De Balzac's +insane vanity, of his furious passion for wealth and luxury, of his +readiness to plunge and to drag others after him into the most hazardous +adventures, and of his insensibility to commercial honor. + +After parting from Monsieur Jules Sandeau, I strolled towards a +circulating-library. I was asking the mistress of the establishment some +questions about the latest publications, when all of a sudden the glass +door opened in the most violent manner, and who should come in but +Monsieur Philoxène Boyer, rushing forward like a whirlwind, a last lock +of hair dancing on top of a bald pate, a livid complexion, a feverish +eye, a sack-overcoat friable as tinder, a hat reddened by the rain, +trousers falling in lint upon boots run down at the heel: such was the +appearance presented by Monsieur Philoxène Boyer, our old classmate at +college, and now a critic, a romantic, an uncomprehended man of genius, +and a literary man. I had already seen at the Exchange the martyrs of +money; I now saw a martyr of letters. Monsieur Philoxène Boyer is +neither a fool nor a foundling; he was educated with care; he belongs to +an excellent family of Normandy; he might have been at this very hour an +excellent gentleman-farmer, honored by his neighbors, and leading a +quiet, useful life, while cultivating his paternal acres, and making a +respectable woman happy. But when he graduated at the Law School, the +demon of literature seized and refused to release him. His patrimonial +estate was worth thirty thousand dollars; ignorant of business, he sold +it below its true value, and, instead of placing the capital out at +interest, he put it in his pocket and dissipated it in those taxes, as +varied as old feudal burdens, which the poor, uncomprehended men of +genius levy on their wealthy brethren. One day it went in dinners given +to brethren who deliver diplomas of genius; another day it went in money +lent to Grub-Street penny-a-liners who were starving; again it went to +found petty newspapers established to demolish old reputations and raise +new ones, and to die of inanition at their fifth number for want of a +sixth subscriber. In fine, before three years had passed away, not a +cent was left of Monsieur Philoxène Boyer's estate, and in return he had +acquired neither talents nor fame. He is scarcely thirty years old: he +looks like a man of sixty. I know no man in the world who, for the hope +of half a million of dollars and a place in the French Academy, would +consent to bear the burden of tortures, privations, and humiliations +which make up Monsieur Philoxène Boyer's existence. He undergoes the +torments of the damned; he fasts; he flounders in all the sewers of +Paris. But he is riveted to this horrible existence as the galley-slave +to his chain; he can breathe no other air than this mephitic atmosphere; +he can lead no other life. When I saw him on the threshold of that +sombre and humid reading-room, muddied, wet, pale, thin, almost in rags, +I could not help thinking of this wretched galley-slave of literary +ambition as he might have been at home in his old Norman mansion, cozily +stretched before a blazing fire, with a cellar full of cider and a +larder groaning beneath the fat of that favored land, smiling at a young +wife on whose lap merry children were gambolling. He was in the vein of +bitter frankness. He had not dined the preceding day. He seized me by +the arm, and, dragging me out of the circulating-library, said to me, in +a voice as abrupt as a feverish pulsation,-- + +"Don't listen to that old hag! All the books she offers you are +miserable stuff, fit at best for the pastry-cooks. Oh! you don't know +how success is won nowadays. I'll tell you. There is an assurance +society between the book, the piece, and the judge. Praise me, and I'll +praise you. If you will praise us, we will praise you. The public buys." + +Then he went on with his bitter voice to utter a furious philippic +against our celebrated literary men. He attacked them all, with scarcely +an exception. This one sold his pen to the highest bidder; that one +levied contributions of all sorts on the vanity of authors and artists; +another was a mere actor; a fourth was nothing but a mountebank; a fifth +was a mere babbler; and so on he went through the whole catalogue of +authors. The illustrious literary democrats were Liberals and Spartans +only for the public eye. They cared as much about liberty as about old +moons: this one speculated on a title; that one on a vice; a third, to +possess a carriage and dine at Vefour's, had become the thrall of a +wealthy stockjobber who paid his virtues by the month and his opinions +by the line. He spoke in this way for an hour, bitter, excessive, +nervous, extravagant, and sometimes eloquent. All at once he +stopped,--and pressing my hand with a mixture of bitterness and +cynicism, he said,--"Old boy, I have now given you a dollar's worth of +literature; lend me ten dimes." I hastily drew from my pocket three or +four gold coins, and, blushing, slipped them into his hand; it trembled +a little; he thanked me with a glance, and, muttering something like +"Good bye," disappeared around the next corner. + +The next time I met Monsieur Jules Sandeau he said to me,--"I want you +to go with me to Madame Émile de Girardin's to-morrow evening. She is to +read a tragedy she has written in five acts and in verse. You will meet +a good many of our celebrated literary men there. You must remember that +the watchword at that house is, Admiration, more admiration, still more +admiration. You must excite enthusiasm to ecstasy, compliments to +lyrical poetry, and carry flattery to apotheosis. But before we go there +I beg you to allow me to return your aristocratic breakfast by a poor +literary man's dinner, which we will eat, not in Bignon's sumptuous +private room, but outside the walls of Paris, at 'Uncle' Moulinon's, +which is the rendezvous of the supernumeraries of art and literature. +The wine, roast, and salad are cheaper than you find them on the +Boulevard des Italiens, and it is advisable that a fervent neophyte like +you should take all the degrees in our freemasonry as soon as possible. +'Uncle' Moulinon's dining-saloon is to Madame Émile de Girardin's +drawing-room what a conscripts' barrack is to the official mansion of a +French marshal." + +I gratefully accepted the invitation, and at the appointed time I joined +Monsieur Jules Sandeau. We left Paris by the Barrière des Martyrs, +climbed Montmartre hill, and entered "Uncle" Moulinon's dining-saloon +when it was full of its usual frequenters. I had never seen such a sight +before. Imagine a gourmand obliged to witness with gaping mouth all, +even the most _prosaic_ details of the culinary preparations for a grand +dinner. The dining-saloon was a long, narrow room, low-pitched and +sombre; it was filled with small tables, where in unequal groups were +seated young men between eighteen and fifty-five, anticipating glory by +tobacco-smoke. Here were beardless chins accompanied by long locks; +there were bushy beards which covered three-quarters of the owners' +cadaverous, wasted faces; yonder were premature bald heads, leaden eyes, +feverish glances: look where you would, you saw everywhere that uneasy, +startled air which bore witness to a disordered life. To the sharp aroma +of tobacco were joined the stale and rancid odors peculiar to +fifth-rate eating-houses. I sought in vain upon all those faces youth's +gentle and poetical gayety, the exuberance of gifted natures, the +amiable cordiality of travelling-companions pressing on together in +different paths. The most salient characteristics of this bizarre +assembly were sickly smiles, an incredible mixture of triviality and +affectation, motions of wild beasts trying their teeth and claws, +starving attitudes, words tortured to make them look like ideas, a +brutal familiarity, and the evident desire to devour all their superiors +that they might next crush all their equals. I was glad when dinner was +over, for I felt ill at ease,--the sight before me differed so much from +that I had dreamed. + +Monsieur Jules Sandeau gave me his arm, and we walked towards the Avenue +des Champs Elysées. It was nine o'clock when we reached the Rue de +Chaillot, where Madame Émile de Girardin resided. She lived in a sort of +Greek temple, built about thirty feet below the level of the street, and +down to which we had to go as if we were entering a cellar. The house +was full of columns, statues, flowers, paintings, candelabra, and +servants in black dress-coats and short breeches; but everything about +the place looked so accidental and ephemeral that the Comte de +Saint-Brice, a very witty frequenter of the house, used to +say,--"Whenever I visit the place, I am always afraid of finding the +horses sold, the servants dismissed, the husband run away, the +drawing-room closed, and the house razed." The Comte de Saint-Brice's +fears must have been allayed on this evening. Everything was in its +place,--horses, servants, husband, drawing-room, house. Madame Émile de +Girardin was in full dress; the manuscript tragedy was in her lap. I +found in the drawing-room Monsieur Victor Hugo, Monsieur de Lamartine, +Monsieur Alfred de Musset, the three stars of our poetical heavens; +Monsieur Théophile Gautier, Monsieur Méry, Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, the +secondary planets; Madame George Sand, the great Amazon novelist; some +doctors, some artists, two or three actors from the French Comedy, and +some other gentlemen. At this period of time Madame Émile de Girardin +was forty-five years old. Her flatterers still spoke of her beauty. Her +conversation was dazzling, but it lacked charm: her talents forced +themselves upon one; her _bons mots_ took you by storm. Strength had +overcome everything like grace, and two hours' conversation with Madame +Émile de Girardin left one with a sick-headache or exhausted by fatigue. +Nevertheless, one of her most fervent admirers has uttered this singular +paradox about her: "She would be the first woman of the age, if she had +always talked and never written a line." + +Her husband, Monsieur Émile de Girardin, was present, with his pale +face, lymphatic complexion, glassy eye, and forehead checkered with a +Napoleon-like lock. He was then, and has remained ever since, the most +exact personification of a pasteboard man of genius lighted by +histrionic foot-lights. He was a compound of the dandy, the sophist, and +the agitator. His talents lay in making people believe him in possession +of ideas, when he had none,--just as speculators disseminate the +illusion of their capital, when in reality they are worse than bankrupt. +He began what others have since completed,--that is, he made trade and +advertisements the sovereign masters of literature and newspapers. +Abetted by the spirit of the age, he introduced into the intellectual +world the risks and unexpected hazards of stock-jobbing circles. He made +a great deal of money in this trade, and, besides, it gave him the +pleasure of making a great deal of noise in the world, of overturning +governments, of dreaming of being minister, nay, prime-minister, when +the day may come in which good, sense is to be challenged and France +made bankrupt. Everybody around him, even his wife, seemed to accept his +superiority for something unquestionable. Their union was not one of +those affectionate, faithful, and tender marriages, such as commonplace +folk hope to enjoy, but it was a copartnership of two smart people, +aided by two bunches of quills. Each pretended to admire the other with +an extravagance of show which made it hard for the bystander to repress +doubts and smiles. + +Monsieur Jules Sandeau had informed Madame Émile de Girardin that he +intended to bring me with him. I do not know how she found out that I +had, in the very heart of the Faubourg Saint Germain, an old aunt, a +_real_ duchess, who was recognized as an authority whose _dicta_ could +not be disputed by any noble family to be found from the Quai Voltaire +to the Rue de Babylone, which, as all the world knows, are the frontiers +of that, the most aristocratic quarter of Paris. Madame de Girardin knew +that my aunt was in a position to open to vanity the portals of some +noble houses which talents and fame alone could not open. Now Madame +Émile de Girardin's monomania was to be received in the noble +_faubourg_,--to live there perfectly at home, as if it were her native +sphere,--to be able to say, "My friend, the little Marchioness," or, "I +have just come from our dear Jeanne's house, my charming Countess, you +know: she is suffering dreadfully from her neuralgia." She reckoned a +triumph of this sort a thousand times preferable to the applause of her +readers and her friends. All the dull pleasantries with which she +adorned her over-praised "Letters" owed their origin solely to the +unequivocal veto placed by two or three courageous noble ladies on the +attempts made by Madame Émile de Girardin to force her entrance _vi et +armis_ into their mansions. For my aunt's sake, she received me with +especial courtesy, which I was ingenuous enough to attribute to my own +personal merit. However, I had not time to indulge in analysis: she was +about to begin to read her tragedy. + +The tragedy was that "Cléopâtre" in which Mademoiselle Rachel appeared, +after wrangling for some time with the authoress to induce the latter to +give Antony some other name, vowing that _Antoine_ was entirely too +vulgar to be uttered on the stage. The great tragic actress had never +heard of the illustrious Roman, and knew no other Antony but the +_Antoine_ who scrubbed her floors and brought her water. It was a +woman's tragedy, but written by a woman in man's attire, determined to +write a very masculine, vigorous work, but succeeding in producing only +a _plated_ piece, in which everything was puerile, artificial, and +conventional, from the first word to the last line. It was an _olla +podrida_, in which Shakspeare hobnobbed with Campistron, Théophile +Gautier locked arms with Dorat, Plutarch was dovetailed with the +Mantua-Makers' Journal of Fashions. Cleopatra spouted long speeches upon +archæology, hieroglyphics, the sun, climate, and virtue; Antony was +guilty of _concetti_ in the style of Seneca; Octavia prattled like a +respectable Parisian lady, who takes care of her children when they have +the measles, and hides from them their father's bad habits. It was +neither antique nor Roman, nor classic nor romantic, nor good nor bad +nor indifferent; it was a tragical wager won by a smart woman at the +expense of her audience. The latter, nevertheless, bravely did their +duty. Neither "Le Cid," nor "Polyeucte," nor "Andromaque," nor +"Athalie"--Corneille and Racine's masterpieces--ever produced such +rapturous enthusiasm. Monsieur Méry dashed off extemporaneously, in +Marseillais accent, admiring paradoxes which lacked nothing but splendid +rhyme. Monsieur Théophile Gautier, who looked like an obese Turk habited +in European clothes, laid aside his Moslem placidity to cry that the +tragedy was marvellous. Monsieur Alfred de Musset, lolling in his +arm-chair in an attitude which seemed a compromise between sleep and +_Kief_, smiled beatifically. Monsieur Victor Hugo vowed that nothing +half so fine had ever before been written in any age or in any country +or in any language--except (_aside_) "my own 'Burgraves'"! Monsieur de +Lamartine, like a god descended upon earth and astounded to find himself +at home, let fall from his divine lips compliments perfumed with +ambrosia, sparkling with poetry, and glittering with indifference. +Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, that little bit of a fellow, the fly of the +political and literary coach, went first to one and then to another, his +eye-glass incrusted in his eyebrow, stiffening his wee form as long as +he could make it, rattling his high-heeled boots as loudly as he could +contrive, stretching out his round, dogmatic face, puffing and blowing +to give himself importance, dying to be the Coryphæus of the company, +and mortified to see himself reduced to sing his enthusiasm in the +chorus; he frisked about the room, and seemed to be handing around his +rapture on a waiter, as domestics hand around cake and ices at parties. + +The tragedy fatigued me. This comedy of adulation disgusted me. My very +humble and obscure position in the midst of all these illustrious +shareholders of the Mutual-Admiration Society, organized by the vanity +of all to the profit of the vanity of each, kindled in me a desire to +show myself frank and independent. I murmured, loud enough to be heard +by all my neighbors,--"Of a truth, the Country's Muse is not Melpomene!" +Madame Émile de Girardin, when Mademoiselle Delphine Gay and in the most +brilliant period of her poetical youth, had styled herself "the +Country's Muse"; her admirers had adopted the title, and it had remained +her poetical _alias_. The exclamation was, therefore, if not very +brilliant, at least very plain and quite just. It soon went around the +room as rapidly as every ill-natured phrase will go; for everybody is +glad to borrow such remarks from his neighbor without paying the price +of them himself. I soon saw one of Madame Émile de Girardin's intimate +friends whisper something into her ear. She blushed. Her thin lips +became thinner. Her nose and her chin, which always seemed as if about +to wage war on each other, became more menacing than ever; her bright, +clear eyes turned from her friend and gave me a glance ten times more +tragic than the five acts of her tragedy. I saw that my exclamation had +been repeated to her, and that a universal anathema was thundered at the +rustic boor, at the barbarian impudent enough to dare to be witty by +Monsieur Méry's side, and to affect to be insensible to the sublime +beauties of "Cléopâtre." However, all was not yet lost; I had +unconsciously another way of conquering Madame de Girardin's favor. Her +countenance became wreathed in smiles, she advanced towards me, and +said, in a honeyed tone,--"Well, Count, give me some tidings of our +excellent Duchess de ----, your aunt, I believe?" + +In the mood of mind I was then in, nothing could have been more +disagreeable to me than this way of recalling my aristocratic titles at +the very moment when I sought to be nothing but a literary man. I +replied with a careless, indifferent, plebeian air, as if noble titles +were nothing in my opinion,--"The Duchess de ----! Gracious me! I never +see her, and I could not tell you for the life of me whether she is my +aunt or my cousin. Her drawing-room is the stupidest place on earth. +They played whist there at two cents a point. Every door was wadded to +keep draughts and ideas out. I long ago ceased to go there, and now I +would not dare show my face again." + +"Admirable! The Provinces are not devoid of sprightliness!" dryly +replied Madame Émile de Girardin. + +That was enough. I was weighed in the balance and found sadly wanting by +an ill-natured remark _plus_ and a duchess _minus_. Fifteen minutes +afterwards we took leave of Madame de Girardin. She gave Monsieur Jules +Sandeau a fraternal and virile shake of the hand in the English style; I +received only a very cold and very dry nod, which was as much as to +say,--"You are an ill-bred fellow and a fool; I have no fancy for you; +return here as rarely as possible." + +Soon after this memorable evening, Monsieur Jules Sandeau's friendly +offices acquainted literary circles that a young man of the best +society, devoted to literature, the author of some remarkable sketches +in the newspapers and reviews, was about to appear as the literary +critic of "L'Assemblée Nationale," the well-known dally newspaper, which +has been since suppressed by the government. A month afterwards my +signature might have been read at the foot of a _feuilleton_ of fifteen +columns. About the same period of time a fashionable publisher brought +out a volume of tales by me. This was my literary honey-moon. I was +astonished at the number of friends and admirers that rose on every side +of me. I could scarcely restrain myself from parodying Alceste's +phrase,--"Really, Gentlemen, I did not think myself the fellow of +talents I find I am!" But, of all surprises, the human heart finds this +the easiest to grow accustomed to. I soon found it perfectly natural +that people should look upon me as a genius, and I ingenuously +reproached myself for not having sooner made the discovery. Everybody +praised my little book as if it were a masterpiece. I might have made a +volume with the packets of praises sent to me; but I must add, for +truth's sake, that most of my panegyrists took care to slip under the +envelope which covered their letter of praise a volume of their works. I +have kept several of these letters. Here are copies of three of them. + + "Sir,--Your appearance among us is an honor in which every + literary man feels he has a share. You will regenerate criticism, + as you have purified novel-writing. One becomes better as he reads + your works, and feels an irresistible desire to do better that he + may be more worthy of your esteem. The days your criticisms appear + are our red-letter days, and every line you give our poor little + books is worth to them the sale of a hundred copies. I take the + liberty to send you herewith a humble volume. You may, perhaps, + find in it some over-crude tones, some raw shades; but do not + forbear to exercise your critical perspicuity. I submit myself in + advance to your reproaches and to your reservations; to be + censured by you is even a piece of good fortune, as your + reprimands themselves are adorned with courtesy and grace." + + "Sir,--I admire you the more because our opinions are not the + same; they may be said to be contrary; but extremes meet, and we + join hands on a great many points: are we not both of us + vanquished? Châteaubriand sympathized, nay, more, fraternized, + with Armand Carrel. I am not Carrel, but you may be Châteaubriand + before a very long while. I would beg to lay before you the book + which goes with this note; some passages of it may, perhaps, wound + your honorable regrets, your chivalrous respects, but they are + sincere; and this sincerity I have never better understood and + practised than when I assure you that I am your most assiduous + reader and most fervent admirer." + + "Sir,--Do not judge me, I pray you, from the newspapers in which, + to my great regret, I write: imperious circumstances, old + acquaintance, and--why shall I not confess it?--the necessities of + Parisian life, have driven me to appear to have enlisted on the + side of the most numerous battalions. But I have in the Provinces + a good old mother who reads no newspaper but yours; one of my + uncles is a Chevalier de Saint Louis; another served in Condé's + army; my Aunt Veronica is a pious woman, who would forever look + kindly upon me, if she should ever perceive through her spectacles + her nephew's name followed by praise from your pen. For I need not + say that you are her favorite author, as, of a truth, you are of + everybody; for who can remain insensible to those treasures of.... + [Here my modesty refuses to copy the text before me]. There is but + one opinion upon this subject. Royalists and democrats, disciples + of tradition or fanatics of fancy, _voltigeurs_ of the old + monarchy or reformers of the future, are all unanimous in + saluting, as a rising glory of our literature, the pure and noble + talent which.... [Here my modesty again refuses to copy the text + before me]. + + "P.S. I send you herewith two copies of my works, which I submit + to your able and kind criticism." + +Nor were appeals like these the only sort of seduction to which I was +exposed when I became the literary critic of "L'Assemblée Nationale." +The eminent men, sublime philosophers like Monsieur Victor Cousin and +Monsieur de Rémusat, incomparable historians like Monsieur Guizot, +Monsieur Thiers, Monsieur de Barante, admirable literary men like +Monsieur Villemain and Monsieur de Salvandy, (all of whom had spent +their lives in laying down political maxims, and in expressing their +astonishment that French heads were too hard or French nature too fickle +to conform French life to the profound maxims which they, the former, +had weighed and meditated in the silence of their study,) who had for +eighteen years ruled France, found themselves, one February morning in +1848, stripped of power and of place. They returned to their favorite +studies, and produced new works, to the delight of lettered men +everywhere. But, as the human heart, even in the beat of men, has its +weaknesses, these eminent men, who could not for a single instant doubt +either their talents or their success or the universal admiration in +which they were held, were a little too fond of hearing these agreeable +truths told them in articles devoted especially to their works. Now to +heighten the zeal of the authors of these articles, the eminent retired +statesmen held in their hands an infallible method: They would take +these trumpeters of fame aside, and, without contracting any positive +engagement, would distinctly hint to these critics, (a word to the wise +is sufficient!) that, after a few years of these excellent and useful +services in the daily press or in the periodicals, they, the former, +would elect the latter members of the French Academy. A seat in the +French Academy was the object of the most ardent ambition. No sooner was +the breath out of the body of one of the forty members of the French +Academy than twenty candidates entered the lists, and canvassed, +canvassed, canvassed the nine-and-thirty living Academicians, without +losing a minute in eating, drinking, or sleeping, until the election +took place. + +You may now see the various sorts of seductions which assailed me during +this short and brilliant period of my literary life. The world lay +smiling before me, and I felt quite happy,--when I met Monsieur Louis +Veuillot, the eminent editor of "L'Univers," which the government has +since suppressed. + +We had exchanged visiting-cards several times, and a few letters, but I +did not as yet know him. I was attracted to him by the very contrasts +which existed between us. My elegant and delicate nature (as the +newspapers then styled it: they _now_ call it my weak and morbid nature) +seemed in absolute contradiction to that robust frame, that oaken +solidity, which revealed beneath its rugged bark its virile juices. His +masculine and potent ugliness reminded me of Mirabeau, of a plebeian +Mirabeau with straight black hair, of a Mirabeau who had found at the +foot of the altar calmness for his tempest-tossed soul. His conversation +delighted and fascinated me. One felt (despite some coarseness in minor +details, and which almost seemed to be assumed) that there glowed within +him the energetic convictions of an honest man and a Christian, who had +at command the most stinging language that ever wrung the withers of +Voltaire's pale successors. No man among our contemporaries has been +more hated than Monsieur Louis Veuillot. He has flagellated, kicked, +cuffed, jeered, mocked, humiliated, exasperated, better than anybody +else, the writers I most detest. He has given them wounds which will +forever rankle. He has indelibly branded these miserable actors who play +upon the theatre of their vices the comedy of their vanity. We together +examined the pages where I had expressed my opinion upon contemporary +authors. + +"Are these," said Monsieur Louis Veuillot, speaking severely to me, +"are these all your sacrifices to the truth? Praises to that one, +flattery to this one, soft words to him, compliments to another? You +blame them just enough to incite people to buy their books. Is that what +you call serving our noble and austere cause? Oh, Sir! Sir!" ... + +He lectured me long and well. He spoke with the edification of a sermon +and the brilliancy of a satire. At last, ashamed of my weakness, +electrified by his language, burning to repair lost time, I said to him, +pressing his hands in mine,-- + +"I am dwelling amid the luxuries of Capua; when next you hear from me, I +shall be in the midst of the field of battle." + +I at once began my campaign. I made war upon Voltaire, Béranger, Eugene +Sue, De Balzac, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Michelet, Quinet; and as for +the small fry of literature, I showed them no mercy. War was soon +declared on _me_,--war without quarter. + +My first adversary was little Monsieur Paulin Limayrac. He has become +the most accomplished specimen of the job-editor. As firmly convinced of +the supremacy of the Articles of War as the best disciplined private +soldier who ever showed how perfect an automaton man may become by +thorough discipline, his political opinions are something more than a +creed: they are a watchword which be observes with a most supple +obstinacy. The cabinet-minister he calls master is a corporal who has +the right to think for him; and were the corporal to contradict himself +ten times in the course of a single day, imperturbable little Paulin +Limayrac would demonstrate to him that he was ten times in the right. +But then (that is, in 1855) Monsieur Paulin Limayrac was a Republican, a +Socialist; and his weakness lay in imagining not only that people read +his articles in "La Presse," but that they remembered them for a whole +sennight after reading them. When you met him, he always commenced +conversation:-- + +"Ah, ha! what did I tell you? Am I not an excellent prophet? You +remember the prophecy I made the other day? It has come to pass just as +I predicted it!" + +Poor Paulin Limayrac really thought himself a prophet, when in good +truth he was not even a conjurer. Stiffening himself up on his stumpy +legs, he stared as hard as he could through his eye-glass, and from his +giant's height of four feet ten, at everybody who pretended to believe +there was a God in heaven. His occupation just at that time was to toss +the incense-burning censer in honor of Madame, Émile de Girardin under +her aquiline nose. He had become the page, the groom, the dwarf of this +celebrated woman, who had, alas! only a few months more to live. He +opened the fire against me. To gratify Madame Émile de Girardin, he one +day wrote on the corner of her table twenty harsh lines against me, (he +took good care not to sign them,) in which he said of me exactly the +contrary of what he had written to me. As these lines were anonymous, I +did not care to pretend to recognize the author; besides, can you feel +anger towards such a whipper-snapper? I met him a short time afterwards, +and he gave me a more cordial shake-hands than ever. Now comes the cream +of the fellow's conduct: for all this that I have mentioned is as +nothing, so common of occurrence is it in Paris. Note that Madame Émile +de Girardin was dying: I was ignorant of it, but Monsieur Paulin +Limayrac knew it well. Note further, that for weeks before this he had +celebrated in the tenderest sentimental strains the loving friendship +which existed between Madame George Sand and Madame Émile de Girardin. +Note lastly, that Monsieur Paulin Limayrac had good reason to think that +I knew perfectly well who was really the author of the malicious attack +on me in "La Presse," which was his paper. Remember all this while I +repeat to you the dialogue which took place between us under an arcade +of the Rue Castiglione. I said to him,-- + +"Ah! my dear Sir, Madame George Sand must be gratified this time! Your +article this morning upon her autobiography really did hit the +bull's-eye, plumb! What fire! what enthusiasm! what lyric strains!" + +"I could not help myself," replied he. "It is one of the fatigues of my +place, I was obliged to write it." + +"Well, between you and me, the truth is that your admiration is a little +exaggerated. The work is less dull since Madame George Sand has reached +the really interesting periods of her life; but how fatiguing the first +part of it was! What stuff she thrust into it! What particulars relating +to her family and her mother, which were, to say the least of it, +useless!" + +"Why, my dear fellow," replied Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, with a knowing +look, "don't you know the secret?" + +"What secret?" + +"Ah! you have not yet shaken off provincial dust! Madame George Sand, +with that carelessness one almost always finds in great artists, sent to +Monsieur Émile de Girardin that enormous packet of four-and-twenty +volumes, at the same time authorizing him to retrench at least one-third +of the manuscript, if he thought fit. But Madame de Girardin (who is +extremely astute) thought, that, if the work were published without the +numerous dull chapters of the first part, it would command too brilliant +a success; and Her Most Gracious Majesty determined that the whole +four-and-twenty volumes should appear without the omission of a single +line,--which is all the more noble, grand, and generous, as we pay a +high price for the 'copy,' and it has curtailed our subscription-list a +good deal." + +"I thought Madame George Sand and Madame Émile de Girardin were upon the +footing of a most affectionate friendship." + +"'Tis a woman's friendship. 'Tis a poet's love for a poet. Each adores +the other; but then what is more vulgar than to love one's friends when +they are successful? Every hind can do that; while none but delicate and +sensitive souls can shed torrents of tears over a friend's reverses." + +A fortnight after this conversation took place, Madame Émile de Girardin +died. There was a flood of panegyrics and of tears. Monsieur Paulin +Limayrac was chief pall-bearer, and demonstrated in the columns of "La +Presse" that Madame Émile de Girardin had herself alone more genius than +Sappho, Corinne, Madame de Sévigné, Madame de Staël, and Madame George +Sand, all put together. + + * * * * * + +THE LITTLE COUNTRY-GIRL. + + +CHAPTER I. + +My father's old friend, Captain Joseph, came down by the morning train, +to inquire concerning a will placed in my keeping by Farmer Hill, lately +deceased. + +This is his first visit since our marriage. + +He declares himself perfectly satisfied with--a certain person, and +insists on my revealing the reason, or reasons, of her choosing--a +certain person, when she might, no doubt, have done better. + +And he is equally charmed with our locality,--is glad to find such a +paradise. + +I like Captain Joseph. He doesn't croak. Some old men would look dismal, +and say, perhaps,--"Happiness is not for earth," or, "In prosperity +prepare for adversity." As if anybody could! + +"A beautiful spot," says Captain Joseph. And truly it is a pleasant +place here, close by the sea,--a place made on purpose to live in. It is +a sort of valley, shut in on the east and on the west by high wooded +hills, which stretch far out into the sea, and so make for us a charming +little bay. There are only a few houses here: the town proper, where I +have my law-office, is a mile off. + +I found this nook quite accidentally, while sketching the islands off in +the harbor, and the water, and the deep shading on the woods beyond. The +people here took me to board. That was ten years ago. + +Then the family was large. There was old Mr. Lane, his wife, their five +grown-up boys, Emily, the sick one, and Miss Joey. The eldest son went +out to China, and there died. The next three, at different times, +started for California. Two died of the fever, and the third was +supposed to have been murdered in crossing the Plains. + +David remained. He was a tall, well-made youth, with plenty of health +and good looks, willing to work on the farm, but devoted mainly to his +little sloop-boat. People called him odd. He was both odd and even. He +was odd in being somewhat different in his habits from other young men; +but then he had an even way of his own, which he kept. With him, the sea +and his little sloop-boat and the daily paper supplied the place of +balls, concerts, parties, and young women. + +"Why don't you dress up, and go gallivantin' about 'mong the gals?" his +old mother used to say. But he would only laugh, and pshaw, and walk off +to the shore. And I, watching his erect gait and firm tread, would +wonder how it was that one good-looking young man should be so different +from all other good-looking young men. Still, there was a sort of +sheepishness about the eyes, and that was probably why he never turned +them, when meeting the girls, but strode along, looking straight ahead, +as if they had been so many fence-posts. + +Fanny J---- once laid a wager with me that she would make him bow. She +contrived a plan to meet him as he returned from the Square. I hid +behind the stone wall, and peeped through the chinks. Just as they met, +she almost let the wind blow her bonnet off, hoping to catch his eye. +But he looked so straight forward into the distance that I was alarmed, +thinking there might be a loose horse coming, or a house afire. That was +in the first of my staying there. We were afterwards great friends. He +liked me, because I was good to the old folks, and to Emily,--and had a +sort of respect for me, because I was the oldest, and because I could +talk, and because of the great thick books in my room. I respected him, +because I had seen the world and its shams, and knew him to be good all +the way through, and because he couldn't talk, and also, perhaps, +because he was so much bigger and handsomer than I. In fact, I should +have felt quite downhearted about my own looks, if I hadn't learned from +books--not the thick ones--that sallow-looking men, with dark eyes, are +interesting. + +David's mother approved of steady habits, but for all that she would +rather have had him waste some of his time, and be like the rest of his +kind. + +"Poor David!" she would say, sometimes, "if anybody could only make him +think he _was_ somebody, he'd _be_ somebody. But he 'a'n't got no +confidence." + +"Mother," I would answer, "don't worry about David. He's good, and +goodness is as good as anything." + +She liked to have me call her mother. I had been there so long that I +almost filled the place of one of her lost ones. Besides, I had no +mother of my own, and no real home. + +Miss Joey, not being past thirty, had a plan in her head. Her head was +small,--so was she,--but the plan was large enough and good enough. + +This plan, however, was upset, and by her own means, even before the +prospect of its being carried out was even probable. It was Miss Joey's +own notion that one half the house should be let. + +"We are so dwindled down," she said. "A small, quiet family would bring +in a little something, and be company." This was at the close of a long +and rather lonely winter. + +So, one day, Mr. Lane came home, and said he had let the other half to a +family from up-country,--man and wife and little girl. + +"The very thing!" said Miss Joey. + +Alas for human foresight! + +The next day, at sundown, a loaded wagon drove up; then a carryall, from +which stepped an elderly couple and a sweet pretty girl. + +"What angel is that, alighting upon earth?" I exclaimed, looking over +Miss Joey's head. + +"Thought she was goin' to be a little girl," said she. + +"Wal," replied Mr. Lane, "that's what he called her: suppose she seems +little to him. But so much the better. The bigger she is, the more +company she'll be." + +Miss Joey went in to receive them, and I retired to my chamber. From the +window I observed that the pretty girl was very handy about helping, and +heard her mother call her Mary Ellen. + +The next morning, just as I was leaving for the office, I heard a quick +step across the entry. The door opened, and "the little girl," Mary +Ellen, came in. Her hair was pushed straight behind her ears, and her +sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. + +"I came in," said she, rather bashfully, "to ask if Mr. Lane would help +us set up a bedstead; father had to go, and mother's feeble." + +"Mr. Lane's gone to get his horse shod," said Miss Joey. + +Mary Ellen stood still, doubting whether to speak, but looking rather +puzzled; for David was in plain sight, fixing his pickerel-traps in the +back-room. + +"Miss Joey," said I, smiling, and looking towards him, "there are two +Mr. Lanes, you know." + +"Oh, David,--yes,--David. Wal, so David could." + +And so David did. I bit my lip, and went out. + +In turning the corner of the house, I passed the open window, and +glanced in, as was natural. 'Twas an old-fashioned bedstead, and there +was David, red as a rose, screwing up the cord, while Mary Ellen, fair +as a lily, was hammering away at the wooden peg, while the old lady +stood by, giving directions. + +It struck me so queerly that I laughed and talked to myself all the way +to the office. + +"Poor David!" I muttered, "how could he steady his hands, with such a +pair of white arms near them? Good! good!" And then I would ha! ha! and +strike my stick against the stones. "Turner," said I, addressing myself, +"she's what you may call a sweet pretty girl." + +I addressed the same remark to Miss Joey that night at tea. + +"The girl," said she, "is an innocent little country-girl. She's got a +good skin and a handsome set of teeth. But there's no need of her +findin' out her good looks, unless you men-folks put her up to 't." + +This I of course took to myself, David being out of the question. + +An innocent little country-girl! And so she was. She brought to mind +damask roses, and apple-blossoms, and red rosebuds, and modest violets, +and stars and sunbeams, and all the freshness and sweetness of early +morning in the country. A delicious little innocent country-girl! Poor +David! who could have guessed that you were to be the means of letting +in upon her benighted mind the secret of her own beauty? + +Anybody who has travelled in the country has noticed two kinds of +country-girls. The first are green-looking and brazen-faced, staring at +you like great yellow buttercups, and are always ready to tell all they +know. The others are shy. They look up at you modestly, with their blue +or their brown eyes, and answer your questions in few words. Of this +last kind was Mary Ellen. She looked up with brown eyes,--not dark +brown, but light,--hazel, perhaps. + +And those brown, or hazel, or grayish eyes looked up to some +purpose,--as David, if he had had the gift of speech, might have +testified. But a man may tell a good deal and never use his tongue at +all. The eyes, for instance, or even the cheeks, can talk, and are full +as likely not to tell lies. + +It might have been two months, perhaps, after the other half was let, +that I heard Mrs. Lane say one day,-- + +"Joey, there's an alteration in David." + +"For better or wuss?" calmly inquired that maiden. + +I did not hear the reply, but I had seen the alteration. In fact, I had +noticed it from the beginning, and had come to the conclusion that the +mischief was done the first day,--that his heart somehow got a twist in +the screwing-up of the bed-cord,--that it received every one of the +blows which those white arms were aiming at the insensible wood. + +It was a case which had vastly interested me. I mean that it was quite +in my line, detecting a man's secret in his countenance. I was glad of +the practice. + +Mary Ellen knew, too; and yet she had received no help from the +profession. Only an innocent little country-girl! 'Twas her natural +penetration. What a pity women can't be lawyers, they have so much to +start with! + +Poor David! He wasn't sensible of what had befallen him. How should he +be? He didn't know why he smarted up his dress, why Bay-fishing wasn't +profitable, or why working on the land agreed with him best. He hadn't +even found out, as late as June, why he liked to have her bring out the +luncheon-basket to the mowers. But before the autumn he had discovered +his own secret. He knew very well, then, why he thought it a good plan +for Mary Ellen to come in and pare apples with Miss Joey at the halves. + +I could have wished him a pleasanter way, though, of finding out his +secret. + +There was another that saw the alteration, and that was Emily, the sick +one,--the care and the blessing of the household. For twelve summers her +foot had never pressed the greensward. They told me that once she was a +gay, frolicsome girl. 'Twas hard to believe, so tranquil, so spiritual, +so heavenly was the expression which long suffering had brought to her +face. That face, apart from this wonderful expression, was beautiful to +look upon. It seemed as if sickness itself was loath to meddle with +aught so lovely. So, while her body slowly wasted from the ravages of +disease, her countenance remained fair and youthful. + +She often had days of freedom from suffering,--days when, as she +expressed it, her Father called away His unwelcome messengers. At these +times she would sit in her stuffed chair, or lie on the sofa, and the +family went in and out as they chose. Everybody liked to stay in Emily's +room. Its very atmosphere was elevating. + +Then there were collected so many beautiful things,--for these she +craved. "I need them, mother," she would say,--"my soul has need of +them. If there are no flowers, get green leaves, or a picture of Christ, +or of some saint, or little child." And sometimes I would dream, for a +moment, that even I, with all my obtuseness, my earthiness, could have +some faint perception of the way in which, in the midst of suffering, +any form of beauty was a strength and a consolation. + +And singularly enough for a sick girl, she liked gold ornaments and +jewels. People used to lend her their chains and bracelets. "I know it +is strange, mother," she said, one day, while holding in her hand a ruby +bracelet,--"strange that I care for them; but they look so strong, so +enduring, so full of life: hang them across the white vase, please; I +love to see them there." + +It was good for her when Mary Ellen came, vigorous, fresh, beautiful, +like the early morning. She liked to have her in the room, to watch her +face, to braid her long brown hair, and dress it with flowers, or +pearls, or strings of beads,--to clasp her hands about the pretty white +throat, as if she were only a pigeon, or a little lamb, brought in for +her to play with. + +She was pleased, too, about David. "He is so good," she said to me one +day. "I always knew he had love and gentleness in his heart, and now an +angel has come to roll away the stone." + +I thought a great deal of my privilege of going into her room, the same +as the rest. After the perplexing, and often low, grovelling duties of +my profession, it was like sitting at the gate of heaven. + +I used to love to come home, at the close of a long summer's day, and +find the family assembled there. I felt the _rest_ of the hour so much +more, sitting among people who had been hard at work all day. + +The windows would be set wide open, that not a breath of out-door air +might he lost. And with the air would seem to come in the deep peace, +the solemn Hush of a country-twilight. It pervaded the room; and even my +cold, worldly nature would be touched. + +In these dim, shadowy hours, when Nature seemed to stand still, +breathless, waiting for the coming darkness, if I longed for anything, +it was for a voice to sing. Speech seemed harsh. Yet we often repeated +hymns and ballads. Emily knew a great many, and, after saying them over, +would dwell upon them, drawing the most beautiful meanings from passages +which to me had seemed obscure, and sometimes talked like one inspired. + +I felt that these seasons were my salvation,--were saving me from my +worldliness. Still, I sometimes had a guilty feeling, as if I were +drawing from Emily her beautiful life,--as if I were getting something +to which I had no right, something too good for me,--as if she might +exclaim, at any moment, "Virtue is gone out from me!" + +But Mary Ellen could sing. That was good. She knew hymns by dozens, and +tunes to them all, both old and new. Besides these, she could sing +love-songs and quaint old ballads, that nobody ever heard before. + +After she came, we had music to our twilights. + +David, of course, was a listener. He said he was always fond of music. I +used sometimes to wonder if the pretty singer of love-songs had any +special designs upon him. For I had been curiously watching this +innocent little country-girl. + +In talking with a friend of mine, he had laid it down as a law of +Nature, that all women, wild or cultivated, delight to worry and torment +all men; that they play with and prey upon their hearts; and that this +is done instinctively, as a cat worries a mouse. + +"A ministering angel thou," quoted I, rather abstractedly, as if +comparing views. + +"Angels? Yes,--and so they are," he answered, rather smartly. "And every +man's heart is a pool, into which they must descend and trouble the +waters!" + +I knew my friend had reason for his bitterness. Still, I resolved to +watch Mary Ellen. + +David's bashful attentions were by no means displeasing to her: that I +saw. She had not been accustomed to your glib, off-handed, smartly +dressed youths. Here was a good-looking young man, of blameless life, +who helped her draw up the bucket, took her to sail, taught her to row, +brought her home bushes of huckleberries and branches of swamp-pinks +from the pasture, and shells from the beach. + +That few words accompanied his offerings was matter of little moment, +since what he would have said was easily enough read in his face. It was +sufficient that his eyes spoke, that they followed her motions, that he +seemed never ready to go so long as she remained, that when she went he +could not long stay behind. + +Poor David! It wasn't his fault. He didn't mean to. Everybody knew 't +wasn't a bit like him. He was charmed. And that reminds me of what Miss +Joey said to Mr. Lane, the old man. + +It was just about sundown, and they two were sitting in the front-room, +looking out of the windows. It had been a sultry day. I was trying to +keep comfortable, and had found a nice little seat just outside the +door, underneath the lilacs. + +Mary Ellen and David came slowly walking past. They didn't seem to be +saying much. She had come out bareheaded, just for a little fresh air +and a stroll round the house. How cool she looked, in her light blue +gown, and her white apron, that tied behind with white bows and strings, +or streams! A May-bee buzzed about their ears, and lighted on her +shoulder. Poor David! He brushed it off before he thought. How +frightened he looked! how confused! But then just think of all the other +may-bes he had in his head, confusing him, buzzing to him all manner of +beautiful things! + +They stopped under the early-ripe tree. Mary Ellen pointed upwards, +laughing. He sprang up and snatched off the apple. Then she pointed +higher, and still higher, until at last he climbed the tree, and dropped +the apples down into her apron. + +"Mr. Lane," said Miss Joey, in an impressive undertone, "did you ever +hear of anybody's bewitchin' anybody?" + +"In books, Joey," he answered. + +"Wal," said she, in a low, but decided voice, "I'll tell you what I +think, and what's ben my mind from the beginnin' on't. That gal's +bewitched David. Don't you remember," she continued, "that the fust week +they come David had a bad cold?" + +"Wal, like enough he did," drawled the old man. "David was always +subject to a bad cold." + +"He did," replied Miss Joey. "I've got the whole on't in my mind now. +And mebby you've noticed that these folks are great for gatherin' in +herbs, and lobely, and bottlin' up hot-crop?" + +"Pepper-tea's a suvverin' remedy for a cold," put in the old man. + +"But now," Miss Joey proceeded, sinking her voice almost to a whisper, +"I want to fix your thoughts on somethin' dark-colored, in a vial, that +she fetched across the entry for him to take." + +"Help him any?" + +"Can't say it did, and can't say it didn't. But ever sence that, David's +ben a different man. He's follered that gal about as if there'd ben a +chain a-drawin' him,--as if she'd flung a lassoo round his neck, and was +pullin' him along. See him, and you see her. If she wants huckleberries, +she has huckleberries. If she wants violets, she has violets. See him +now, lookin' down at her through the branches. And see her, turnin' her +face up towards him. He's nigh upon addled. Shouldn't wonder this +minute, if he didn't know enough to keep his hold o' the branch. Does +that seem like our David, Mr. Lane, a bashful young feller like him?" + +"Bashful or bold makes no difference," replied the old man. "Love'll go +where't is sent,--likely to hit one as t' other. And when they're hit, +you can't tell 'em apart.--Why, Joey," he continued, suddenly quickening +his tone, "there's the Doctor's boy, as I'm alive!" + +Dr. Luce lived the other side of "the Crick." The young man coming along +the road was his son, just arrived home. + +As he came nearer, I took notice of his dress. I usually did, when +people came from the city. He wore a black bombazine coat, white +trousers, white waistcoat, blue necktie, and a Panama hat. His +complexion was fair, with plenty of light hair waving about his temples. +He stepped briskly along, with shoulders set back, twirling his glove. + +I knew Warren Luce well enough. I could tell just how it would strike +him, seeing David up in a tree, flinging down apples to a girl. I could +very well judge, too, how he would encounter the fair apparition +beneath. + +But how would he strike Mary Ellen,--this polished, smooth-tongued, +handsomely dressed youth? I had forebodings. I seemed to divine the +future. I fidgeted upon my seat, and straightened myself up, rather +pleased that my studies were getting complicated,--that I should have a +chance of searching out the natural heart of woman, when under the most +trying circumstances. + +But just as I was making ready to commence upon my new chapter, Mrs. +Lane called me to come and help move Emily. I very often lifted her from +the chair to the sofa. It could hardly be called lifting. 'Twas like +taking a little bird out of its nest and placing it in another. "The +Doctor's boy has come," said I, very quietly, when I had wheeled the +sofa so that she might feel the air from the window. + +She made no answer then; but a little after, when her mother stepped out +a minute, she said, just as quietly,-- + +"How will it be?" + +"How do you think?" I said. + +"I wish," she replied, "that he hadn't come. David is a dear brother. I +fear." + +When Emily said "I fear," there was no need to ask what. She feared the +effect upon Warren Luce of Mary Ellen's fresh and simple beauty. She +feared the effect upon her of his city-manners and fluent speech. She +feared for David an abiding sorrow. Warren Luce had travelled, had been +in society, and had been educated. I knew him well for a selfish, +heartless fellow, whose very soul had been drowned in worldly pleasures. +Just from the midst of artificial life, how charming must appear to him +our sweet wild-rose, our singing-bird, our fresh, untutored, innocent +little country-girl! + +"But why borrow trouble?" I said to myself. "It will come soon enough. +If not in this way, then in some other. Trouble stays not long away." + + +CHAPTER II. + +"The Crick" wasn't half a mile across. The Doctor's house was in plain +sight from our windows. 'Twas just a pleasant walk round there, and we +called them neighbors. The two young men had always been on the very +best of terms. Warren liked David because he knew how good he was, and +David liked Warren because he didn't know how bad he was. The chief bond +between them was the boat. Our stylish young gentleman, when he came +down to Nature, wanted to get as near her as he could,--not, perhaps, +that he loved her, but he liked a change. Nothing suited him better than +"camping out," or starting off before light a-fishing with David. + +I was not at all surprised, therefore, that he should appear bright and +early the next morning, to make some arrangement for the day. + +I saw him coming, from my window, and was pleased that I had lingered at +home rather beyond office-hours,--for Mary Ellen was shelling peas in +the back-doorway beneath, and I should have an opportunity of advancing +somewhat in my new chapter. It was a nice shady place. The door-steps +and the ground about them were still damp from the dew. + +He came trippingly along, inquiring for David. Mary Ellen blushed some. +I saw that their acquaintance had commenced the night before. He chatted +a little with the old folks, but directed most of his talk to Mary +Ellen, that he might have an excuse for looking her full in the face, +and drinking in her beauty. I saw him seat himself on the flat stone. I +saw him glance admiringly at the pretty white hands, handling so +daintily the green pods. I saw him show her how to make a boat of one, +putting in sticks for the thwarts. And finally, I saw David come round +the house and stop short. + +Warren sprang up. + +"Waiting for you, David," said he. "Tide coming, stiff breeze. We can be +on Jake's Ledge in a twinkling." + +And passing over a high hill, on my way to the Square, I saw the +sloop-boat, with flag flying, putting off towards Jake's Ledge. + +For the next two months the Doctor's boy walked straight in the path +which my prophetic vision had marked out for him. Morning, noon, and +evening brought him paddling across "the Crick," or footing it round by +the shore-way. + +Emily and I were troubled. We had once feared that our good brother and +friend would pass through life as a blind man wanders through a +flower-garden, lost to its chief beauty and sweetness. But his eyes had +been opened. And now was his life-path to lead him into a thorny +wilderness? was a worse darkness to settle down upon him? + +I fancied there was a hopeless look in his face,--that he shrank into +himself more than ever. The Doctor's boy had fairer gifts than he to +offer, and no lack of well-chosen words. It was with the utmost +uneasiness that I caught, occasionally, some of these telling phrases. I +liked not his air of devotedness, his eye constantly following Mary +Ellen's movements. I liked not the flower-gatherings, the rambles among +the rocks, the rowing by moonlight. Emily's short sentence came often to +mind, "I fear." + +For I felt almost sure that Warren Luce was in earnest,--that he was +deeply and truly in love with Mary Ellen. Not that he intended this at +first, but that her beauty conquered him. Most likely this was the first +of his knowing he had a heart, 'twas so small. Still, 'twas the best +thing he had, and appeared to hold considerable love for one of its +size. + +And how was it with Mary Ellen? Ah, she was enough to puzzle a justice! +I was not long, though, in perceiving that this unenlightened maiden +felt instinctively that her personal appearance should be attended to a +little more carefully than when only David was to admire. Her hair was +always in nice order, and I observed that even in the morning she would +have some bit of muslin or lace-work peeping from beneath her short +sleeve. I hope there is no harm in saying that I had, even before this, +noticed the shapeliness of her arm. I think I was struck with it the +first morning, when she came across the entry. + +And was she really a coquette, carrying herself steadily along between +two lovers, that she smiled just as pleasantly on David, giving him +never a cold word, even while the blushes kindled by the soft speeches +of Warren Luce still burned upon her cheeks? + +I found myself getting confused. My new studies were very absorbing in +their nature, and extremely intricate. Three books to translate, and +never a dictionary! + +After patient investigation, I settled down upon the conviction that +there was in the heart of our little country-girl one corner of which +David's constant goodness, and earnest, though unspoken love, had given +him the entire possession. + +I thought thus, because I saw that in her own nature were truth and +goodness. And she was quick of perception. I was often struck by the +shrewdness of her remarks. I thought the more favorably of her, too, +that she was fond of pictures. Before they came to live in the other +part, she had taken a dozen lessons of an itinerant drawing-master. I +had often encountered her in my walks, trying to make a sketch of a tree +or a house. She always tucked it behind her, though, or into her pocket, +the minute I came in sight. + +It was certainly true that she had not yielded to the fascinations of +the Doctor's boy so readily and so entirely as I had feared. "The girl +has some common sense," I thought, "some stability,--and likewise some +ideas of the eternal fitness of things." For I noticed, with pleasure, +one night in Emily's room, when somebody said, "There comes the Doctor's +boy," that she got up and closed the door. + +She had been singing the old-fashioned hymn commencing,-- + + "On the fair Heavenly Hills." + +The last line, + + "And all the air is Love," + +was repeated. The music was peculiar,--the notes rising and falling and +rolling over each other like waves. + +She had just stopped. Nobody moved. The silence was broken only by the +rustling of the lilac-bushes, as the night-wind swept over them. + +"The whispering of angels!" said Emily, softly. + +I was pleased that she closed the door. It showed that she felt his +unfitness to enter our little paradise. I took heart for David. And yet +it was only the next day that came the crowning with hop-blossoms. + +I had returned home early, and was in my own room, waiting for tea. +Casting my eyes towards the garden, I saw Mary Ellen sitting beneath a +tree, leaning against the trunk. Near by was a hop-pole, laden with its +green. And near by, also, stood Warren Luce, holding in his hand a thin, +square book. He had gathered a quantity of the beautiful hop-blossoms +and tendrils, and was directing her how to arrange them about her head. +It appeared to be his object to make her look like a picture in his +book. "A little more to the right. A few leaves about the ear," I heard +him say; and then, "They must drop a little lower on the other side. In +the picture, the tendrils touch the left shoulder. Now hold the basket +full of them, in this way. The blossoms must be trailing over it, and +your right hand upon the handle. Not so. Let me show"--And as he touched +her hand to place it in the right position, I almost sprang from my +seat, I was so indignant for David. + +I might have saved myself the trouble, though, for the next moment David +himself appeared, walking slowly home from the Square, with something in +a basket he was bringing for Emily. David was a good brother. + +"Perfect!" exclaimed Warren, as he completed his _tableau_. "Just like +the picture, only"--And here he dropped his voice. + +"David, come here," he called out, "and see which picture is the +prettiest." + +Poor David! I saw that it was all he could do, to walk straight past +without speaking. + +"Take them off," said Mary Ellen. "They are heavy." + +And she pulled the wreath from her head. + +That evening, coming home late, I saw a bright light in her room, and +glanced up, as I came near. She stood at the looking-glass between the +windows, holding a light in her hand. Upon her head, trailing down upon +her left shoulder, was a wreath of hop-blossoms. She wanted to know how +she looked in them. At least, this was my interpretation of the vision. +And while she held the light, first in one hand, then in the other, +turning this way and that, I stood debating whether there was any harm +in a girl's knowing she was pretty, or in her wishing to inform herself +whether any adornments rather out of the common course--hop-blossoms, +for instance--were becoming. That question, and the other, about all +women being coquettes, remain in my mind undecided to this day. + +Emily must have noticed something peculiar in David's manner, when he +brought her the basket. For it was the next day, I think, that she said +to me, in her quiet way,-- + +"Mr. Turner, a new feeling is taking hold of me. I'm afraid I--_hate_!" + +She made this announcement in her usual calm voice, as if she had been +speaking of some new manifestation of her disease. Then she told what +she had been observing in David's manner, and in Mary Ellen's. Said +she,-- + +"The girl has no heart. She trifles with David, and he is so wretched. +Better the stone had never been rolled away than his love be so thrown +back upon him. I pity him so much, and can do nothing." + +I hardly knew what to say in reply, for I was just as troubled as she +about David. He wandered off by himself, in the chill autumn evenings, +returned late, and stole off to his bed in silence. Stories of suicides +came to me. A man who never spoke might do anything. And this, I +thought, was the point. If I could only make him speak! + +He had always been more open with me than anybody,--had expressed +himself freely about the homestead, and his plans for redeeming it, and +about his anxiety for Emily. I could certainly, I thought, bring him to +speak of his trouble, if I only had for him a sure word of +encouragement. But this I had not, because Mary Ellen was such a puzzle. +Her openness served better for hiding the truth than did David's +reserve. At the bottom of my heart, though, was full faith in her love +for him. I paid her the compliment of believing she was too good to care +seriously for such a man as Warren Luce. But, then, I couldn't give my +faith to David. + +How would it do to make a bold move,--to speak to her? Might I not show +her how much was at stake, and in some way have my faith confirmed? +Would, or wouldn't it answer for me to do this? Should, or shouldn't I +make bungling work of it? I turned the matter over in my mind, to assure +myself of my right to intermeddle. + +We, too, had a sort of friendship, and I conceived that she very much +respected my opinion. In some ways, I had been of service to her. The +old man, her father, had been involved in legal troubles. She was +anxious to understand all about it. So I talked law to her, read law to +her, and marked law for her in my big books, besides giving advice +gratis. She had also taken other books from my library, whenever she +chose. I had lent her pictures to copy, and had shown her the way to +various points, in the country round about, whence a simple view might +easily be taken. Moreover, I was all the same as one of the family, and +felt a brother's interest in David. And, lastly, I was eight or ten +years older than she. + +'Twas certainly my right to speak. I could well see, however, that it +was a matter of some delicacy. My superior age and wisdom might shed a +halo around me; still, I was nothing more nor less than a young man, for +all that. + +It was one pleasant afternoon in the latter part of September, that, +engaged in these perplexing meditations, I strolled down towards the +shore. Mary Ellen hadn't been in to tea, her mother said, and I was +wondering what had become of her. + +One solitary buttonwood stood close to the edge of the bank,--so close +that at high tide its brandies hung over the water. I climbed up into a +reserved seat which was always kept for me there, a comfortable little +crotch among the boughs. Upon extraordinary occasions,--a splendid +sunset, or a rain, coming over the water, or an uncommonly fine moon, or +a furious storm,--I used to mount to this seat for a good view. + +On this particular afternoon the tide was unusually high,--in some +places, up to the top-rail of the meadow-fence. Our "Crick" was quite a +little bay. + +A skiff came paddling along-shore. As it drew near, I saw that it +contained two people,--the Doctor's boy and Mary Ellen. He was singing, +but I was unable to distinguish the words. Then there was some laughing. +After that, she began singing to him, and I made out both words and +tune, for then the boat was quite near. It was an old-fashioned ballad, +which I once heard her sing to Emily. It began thus:-- + + "As I was walking by the river-side, + Where little streams do gently glide, + I heard a fair maiden making her moan,-- + 'Oh, where is my sweet William gone? + Go, build me up a little boat, + All on the ocean I will float, + Hailing all ships as they pass by, + Inquiring for my sweet sailor-boy.'" + +I liked the music, it was so plaintive, so different from the common +well-bred songs. + +Not a breath of air was stirring. Her voice rang out upon the stillness, +clear and shrill as a wild bird's. It was such a voice as you frequently +meet with among country-girls, entirely uncultivated, but of great +power, and, on some notes, of wonderful sweetness. Her admiring +listener rested upon his oars, letting his skiff drift along upon the +tide. It floated underneath the tree, and up into "the Crick." As it +passed, I saw, in the bottom of the boat, a little basket of wild +cherries. + +While watching their progress, I heard a rustling among some +alder-bushes that grew about a fence, and, upon looking that way, saw +David. He, too, was watching the play, though he had not, like me, the +benefit of a seat in the gallery. + +The expression on his countenance was something like what I had seen on +the faces of people at the theatre: a sort of fixed, immovable look, as +if its wearer were determined on being sensation-proof. + +I glanced at the skiff. The Doctor's boy was throwing cherries at Mary +Ellen, and she was catching them in her mouth. She was in a great +frolic, laughing, showing her pretty teeth, and so earnest that one +might suppose life had no other object than catching wild cherries. + +Just then I perceived, a little to the right of me, the head and +shoulders of a woman rising slowly above the bank, and recognized at +once the small features and peculiarly small gray eyes of Miss Joey. She +had been gathering marsh-rosemary along-shore. + +She, too, was a spectator of the play,--was, in part, an actor in it; +for, while David's eyes were fixed upon the boat, hers were fixed upon +him, and with the same despairing expression. + +"Poor Miss Joey!" I said mentally, "doomed to see your beautiful plan +fail and come to nought! You and he suffer the same suffering, but it +can be no bond between you." + +She turned, and slowly descended the bank, and I watched her small +figure as it picked its way among the rocks, and finally disappeared +around a point. + +Meanwhile the voyagers had landed, and were making their way to the +house. I could see them until they reached the garden-gate, could see +Mary Ellen swinging her sun-bonnet by its string, and hear her laughing, +as she tried to mock the katydids. + +Then I looked for David. The feeling came over me that I was in some +magnificent theatre, where I was like a king, having a play acted for me +alone. David was lying upon the ground, with his face buried in the damp +grass. + +No matter how much we may read of the effects of great sorrow or great +happiness, they will always, in real life, come to us as something we +never heard of. I involuntarily turned my head aside, feeling that I was +where I had no right to be, that I had intruded my profane presence into +the innermost sanctuary of a human heart. + +While I was debating whether to remain concealed, or to go to him, throw +my arms around him, and say some word of comfort, he arose and walked +slowly towards the house. And I noticed that he went by exactly the same +route which the two had taken before him,--which brought to mind Miss +Joey's expression, "as if there'd ben a chain a-drawin' him." + +That very evening, as I was sitting at my window, watching the moon rise +over the water, I saw Mary Ellen pass along the road, and sit down upon +a little wooden step which was attached to a fence for convenience in +getting over. She was watching the moon rise, too. + +The scene I had so recently witnessed from the buttonwood-tree had made +me desperate. I felt that now, if ever, I must speak. Seizing my hat, I +walked rapidly to the spot, hoping it would be given me in that hour +what to say. + +After we had talked awhile about the moon, how it looked, rising over +the waters, as we saw it, and rising over the mountains, as she had seen +it, I turned my face rather aside, and said, quite suddenly,-- + +"Mary Ellen, I want to speak to you about something important. I hope +you will take it kindly." + +She made no answer; seemed startled. I hardly know how I stumbled along, +but I finally found myself speaking of my friendship for David, and of +my aversion to Warren Luce. She appeared not at all displeased, but said +very little. This was not as I expected. I thought she might answer +carelessly,--lightly. + +There came a pause. I couldn't seem to get on. She safe with averted +face, her arm on the fence, her head in her hand. In the strong light of +the moon, every feature was revealed. How beautiful she was in the +moonlight! But what was her face saying? A good deal, certainly; but +what? + +I stood leaning against the fence. + +"Mary Ellen," said I, with a sudden jerk, as it were, "it can't be that +Warren Luce--that he is the one whom--that--that you"--And here I +stopped. + +"I think Warren Luce has great power over me," said she, calmly, as if +coolly scanning her own feelings; "but you said right. He is not the one +whom--that"-- + +And here she smiled, as if at the thought of my broken-off sentences, +but without looking up. + +"My dear girl," said I, earnestly, and taking a forward step,--"forgive +me, but--I think--I hope--you love David,--don't you?" + +'Twas a bold question, and I knew it; but I was thinking how pleasant +'twould be to carry good tidings to my friend. + +"I love his goodness," said she, just as calmly as before. "And I love +him for loving me. I wish he was happy. I hope no harm will come to him. +I would do everything for him,--but"--and here her voice fell--"_I don't +love him as Jane loved_." + +"_Jane who_?" I asked, in surprise. + +"Jane Eyre." + +Here was a dilemma for me. What should I say next? What business had I, +meddling with a young girl's heart? I had been almost sure of finding +soundings, yet here I was in deep water! And, with all my pains, what +had I accomplished? + +She arose, and moved towards the house. I walked along by her side, +without speaking. + +"I'm going away to-morrow," said she, as we reached the gate, "to make a +visit at the old place; then everybody will be happier." + +It was my turn then to be silent,--for I was trying to take in the idea +that there was to be no Mary Ellen in the house. She had occupied our +thoughts so long, had been so prominent an actor in our daily life,--how +we should miss her! + +"Oh, no," I said, calmly,--for I had thought away all my surprise,--"we +shall all miss you very much." + +And there we parted. + +She left us the next morning, for a visit to her old home. + +The latter part of the day I went into Emily's room. She had been +growing worse for some time, and had been removed to the westerly room +to be rid of the bleak winds. David was sitting on a low stool by her +bedside, his head resting upon the bed, looking up in her face. She +smiled as I entered. + +"David is so tall," said she, "that I can't see his face away up there, +and so he brings it down for me to look at." + +She held in her hand the ruby bracelet. + +"David says," she continued, "that he is going to the gold-country, to +get money to pay off the mortgages,--and that, when he begins to get +gold, he shall get a heap, and will bring me home a whole necklace of +rubies, and make a beautiful home for me: _when_ he goes," she repeated, +with an unbelieving smile. + +I smiled, too, and passed on, feeling that I had already intruded too +much upon the privacy of hearts, and would leave the brother and sister +in peace. + +A few nights after this, I came home late from the Square, and found the +household in great commotion. David went out fishing, long before +daybreak, and had not yet returned. Other boats had come in, but nothing +had they seen of him, either on the Ledge or off in the Bay. This was +the more mysterious, as the weather had been unusually mild, with but +little wind. + +After talking over the matter with them, I suggested that he might have +gone farther than usual, and, on account of the light winds, had not +been able to get back. The night was calm, with plenty of moonlight. +There could be no possible danger to one so accustomed to the water as +David. + +This appeared very reasonable; and, at a late hour, all retired to bed. + +The next morning I looked from my window at daybreak. Miss Joey was +standing on the hill, gazing off upon the water. In a few minutes the +old folks came out. They crept up the hill, and stood looking off with +Miss Joey. I joined them. There was a fine strong breeze, and fair for +boats bound in. Not one, however, was in sight. Away off in the Bay was +a homeward-bound schooner, with colors flying. A fisherman, probably, +returning from the Banks. The morning air was chilly. We silently +descended the hill. + +During the day we heard that a vessel from Boston had spoken, half-way +on her passage, a small sloop-boat, with one man in it. Boston was sixty +miles distant, and it was something very unusual for a small boat to +make the passage. Friends in the city were written to, but no +information was obtained, and day after day passed without relieving our +suspense. + +But this was at last ended by a letter from David himself. It was +written to me. He had sold his boat in Boston, and had gone to New York, +where his letter was dated. He was going to sail for California the next +day. + +"I have long been meaning to go," he wrote, "but never thought of +leaving in this way, until I reached the fishing-ground, last Wednesday +morning. It came into my mind all at once, and I kept straight along. If +I'd gone back, the old folks, maybe, wouldn't have let me come, because, +you know, I'm the last. Besides, I thought I could go easier while--But +you know all about it, Turner. I saw that you knew. It has been very +hard. Somehow, trouble don't slip off of me easy. Taking everything as +it was, I couldn't stay by any longer. Otherwise, I don't know as I +could have left the old folks and Emily. I can't ask you to stay, unless +it's convenient; but while you do, I hope you'll have a care over all +I've left behind. You can cheer up Emily better than anybody." + +"The strength and the beauty of the house are gone!" remarked Emily to +me, as I sat down one afternoon by her window. + +Poor girl! It was but seldom she was able to speak at all. David's +sudden departure, and the anxiety attending it, had been too much for +her. Besides, she missed Mary Ellen. That little country-girl had, +besides her innocence and her good looks, a vein of drollery, which made +her a very entertaining companion. And then, being so quick-witted, and +so kind-hearted, she thought of various little things to do for Emily's +comfort, which never would have occurred to her mother or Miss Joey. +Emily wanted her back again. She had got over that feeling of hatred of +which she once accused herself. + +"It wasn't her fault," said she, one day, quite suddenly. + +"What?" I asked. + +"That she didn't love David in the way he loved her. I don't think she +deceived him. He never said anything, you know; so, of course, she had +no reason for being any other than kind to him. I believe she felt badly +about it, herself. I've seen her, when she thought I was asleep, lean +her head upon her hand, and sit so for a great while. Maybe, though, +it's because I want so much to love her that I make excuses for her. I +wish she'd come,--it's so lonely." + +And it was lonely. It was like remaining in the theatre after the play +is over and the actors retired. For Warren Luce, too, was gone. His +visit was only for the summer, and he had returned to his clerkship. + +"How would it have been, if he hadn't come?" I asked myself. "Might +David have been happy? Might she have loved him as 'Jane' loved? And how +much of her heart had the Doctor's boy carried away? Perhaps his power +over her was greater than she would own,--greater than she knew herself. +Perhaps he was even then corresponding with her. He might even be with +her among the mountains." + +Thus I debated, thus I questioned. + + +CHAPTER III. + +Mary Ellen was gone six weeks. We were all glad when she came back, the +house had seemed so like a tomb. I'm not sure about Miss Joey. No doubt +she looked upon her with an evil eye, as being the upsetter of all her +plans. But then there was nothing Miss Joey dreaded more than a lonely +house. She wanted company. + +And what better company, pray, can there be than a fair young face? Who +would ask for better entertainment than to watch the lighting-up of +bright eyes, and the parting of rosy lips, or the thousand other +bewitchments of youth and beauty? + +And she looked more beautiful than ever,--I suppose, because she came in +a dull time: just as flowers seem lovelier and more precious in the +winter. I fancied she was very sad, very thoughtful. Perhaps 'twas +David's going away that caused this. Perhaps she was sorry she had cast +from her such a precious thing as love. + +When Emily became much worse, which was shortly after her return, she +installed herself as chief nurse, sitting for hours in the darkened +room, amusing her with children's songs and stories,--for the sick girl, +in her weakest state, craved childish things. + +That was a quiet, a truly pleasant winter. After getting letters from +David, telling of his safe arrival out, everybody became more cheerful. + +But in the spring, as warm weather came on, Emily grew every day weaker. +The apple-blossoms came and went unheeded. + +One morning she awoke, unusually free from pain, and said to Mary +Ellen,-- + +"I saw David last night. He said to me, 'I shall come sooner than I +expected. But, before I come, I shall send the ruby necklace.'" Then she +described the miner's hut in which she had seen him. + +This was in the first part of June. + +On the day after the fourth of July we got news of his death. He had +been lost overboard, in a storm, between San Francisco and the Sandwich +Islands. + +It is very sad to recall that time of deep affliction. He was the last +of five sons, all of whom had left home in full health and strength, +none of whom returned. + +"Five as likely young men," said poor Miss Joey, "as ever grew up +beneath one roof." + +"All five gone!" groaned the old man, as he leaned his face against the +wall. + +"Five brothers waiting for me," whispered Emily, as Mary Ellen bent over +her, weeping. + +"Five boys," moaned the poor broken-hearted mother,--"nobody to take +care of them, nobody to do for them, no comforts, no mother, and now no +grave!" + +'Twas touching to see her husband trying to console her. Her favorite +seat was in one corner of the hard, old-fashioned settee. There she +would sit, swaying herself to and fro, whispering sometimes to herself, +"Deep waters! deep waters!" + +The old man would sit close up to her, and say, softly,-- + +"Now, mother, don't! I wouldn't take on. You know he isn't there. Look +up. Don't forget God!" + +Poor old man! 'Twas hard for him to look up, with so much to draw him +down. But I don't think he ever forgot God. + +A little before sunset, one afternoon, a few weeks after the sad news of +David's death had reached us, Mary Ellen came out to where I was sitting +under the lilacs, and asked if I couldn't move Emily into her own room +for a little while. + +"Is she able?" I asked. + +"I don't know what has come over her," she replied, "she seems so +strong. For a long time I thought her asleep, but all at once she spoke +out clear and loud, and said, 'I want to see his grave. If anybody could +take me to my own room, I could see his grave.' She keeps repeating it, +and she means the sea." + +'Twas not much to take her across the entry. Mary Ellen arranged +everything, and we placed her on a sofa by the window. + +"Oh," she exclaimed, "how I have longed for this! I have hungered and +thirsted for a good look at the sea." + +Her cheeks were pale, her eyes large and bright. + +She looked so ethereal, so unearthly, and lay so long motionless, with +her eyes fixed upon the water, that I half feared she would at that +moment pass away from us,--that she might, in some beautiful form, a +dove, or a bright angel, soar upward through the open window, and be +lost to our sight among the golden-edged clouds above. + +But she was thinking of David's grave. And a beautiful grave it seemed, +from that window. The water was still, as smooth as glass. I had never +noticed upon it so uncommon a tinge. 'Twas mostly of a pale green, very +pale; but portions of it were of a deep lilac. Farther off it was +purple, and very far off a dim, shadowy gray. I was glad it had on that +particular night such a peaceful, placid look. + +"Oh, what a beautiful grave!" said Emily. Then her eyes wandered to +different points of the landscape, dwelling for a long time on each. + +"I suppose you think," said she, at last, in a low, sweet voice, "that +it is easy for a sick girl to go. But I love everything I've been +looking at. It may be more beautiful there, but it will not be the same. +I shall want to see exactly this stretch of water, and the islands +beyond, and the shadows on those woods away off in the distance, and the +field where father has mowed the grass for so many years. Every summer, +as soon as June came in, I've listened, early in the morning, before +noise began, to hear the whetting of the scythe, and then waited for the +smell of the hay to come in at the windows. + +"Those maples, on the knoll, are my dear friends. I've been glad with +them in the spring, and sorry with them in the fall, through all these +years. The birds and the dandelions and the violets are all my friends. +I've waited for them every year, and it seemed as if the same ones came +back. You well people can't understand it. They are near to me. I enter +into the life of each one of them, just as you do into the lives of your +human friends. Spirits go everywhere, see everything. That will be too +much. I'm attached to just this spot of earth. And then I'm attached to +myself. I can't realize that I shall be the same, and I don't want to +give myself up, poor miserable creature as I am." + +Mary Ellen and I could only look at each other in astonishment. Her +voice, her seeming strength, and, more than all, her conversation, +amazed us. She had always been so trusting, so full of faith in her +Heavenly Father. + +The next morning, when Mary Ellen went to her bedside, she found her +lying awake, with her thin, white fingers clasped about her throat. She +looked up with a strange smile, and said,-- + +"My ruby necklace has come, and next, you know, will be the beautiful +home. It is almost ready, David said. But he brought the necklace, and +clasped it about my throat. It choked me, and I groaned a little. David +went then, and I've been waiting ever since for you to come." + +It was noontime when Mary Ellen told me this. I observed that she +trembled. "My dear girl," said I, "what makes you tremble so?" + +"Why," said she, in a whisper, "there is truly a red circle about her +throat. I saw it. 'Tis a warning. She's going to die." + +"Maybe," I said, "she is going soon to her beautiful home. But we know +no harm can come to our dear sister, she is so good, and so pure." Then, +taking her by the hand, I led her along to Emily's room. + +Her mother and Miss Joey stood near, weeping. The old man, with the +Bible upon his knees, sat at the foot of the bed. He had been reading +and praying. + +She looked up with a smile, as I entered with Mary Ellen. + +"I know," said she, in a perfectly distinct, but low voice, as we drew +near the bedside,--"I know what made me talk so yesterday.". + +She paused then, and afterwards spoke with difficulty. We all stood +breathless, bending eagerly forward, that not a word might be lost. + +"I know," she repeated, "what it was. 'Twas the earthy principle in +me--which revived--for a moment--at the last--and then put forth all its +strength. Since I have seen David--it seems pleasant--to go. I can't +tell,--you wouldn't understand,--I couldn't, if the separation--hadn't +begun. I'm not wholly here now." And the fixed, strange look in her face +confirmed the words as they fell from her lips. + +She lay for some time very still, breathing every moment fainter and +fainter, but seemingly in no distress. + +Suddenly she started. Her face grew radiant. Her gaze seemed fixed on +some point, thousands and thousands of miles away. Clasping her hands +together, she cried out, joyfully,-- + +"Oh, the beautiful home! the beautiful home!" + +'Twas over in an instant. She closed her eyes, turned her head a little +on the pillow, and breathed her life away as softly and peacefully as a +poor tired child sinks away to sleep. + +"And I saw the angels of God ascending and descending," I said, +earnestly. For I felt that one whose spiritual eyes were opened might +certainly do so. + +Late in the afternoon, when the heat of the day was past, I walked out +to the clump of maples on the knoll. Mary Ellen was already there. + +"Yes," said I, sitting down by her side, upon the grass, "we will lay +her here among her friends. And we will place here a white marble +monument." + +"I wish," said Mary Ellen, looking timidly up in my face, "that it could +be in memory of David, too." She said this with tears in her eyes, and +an unsteady voice. + +As I sit writing, I can see from my window the simple white monument, +which Mary Ellen and I planned together. The grass and field-flowers are +growing all about it, and the birds, Emily's birds, are singing in the +branches above. It has only this inscription,-- + +"_In memory of David and Emily_." + +"Six children,--and only one grave to show for all of them!" groaned the +poor old mother, when we first led her out to show her the stone. + +But there was shortly another grave beneath the maples; for the worn-out +old woman soon sank after Emily's death, and with her last breath begged +to be laid by her side. + +Only the old man and Miss Joey left. Still I could not go away. No other +place seemed like home. And besides, I had found out, long ago, my own +secret. It had been revealed to me, day by day, as I watched Mary Ellen +in the sick-room of Emily,--as I observed her patience, her sweetness, +her tenderness! + +And my secret came upon me with an overwhelming power. But I mastered +it. I kept it to myself. That is, as far as words were concerned. For +the expression of his face, for involuntary glances, no man can be held +responsible. + +I kept it to myself,--or tried to do so; for I wasn't sure--of anything. +Emily's words, "I fear," came to me with deep meaning. For, if the +goodness of David, if the fascinations of Warren Luce had effected +nothing, what could I hope? + +And was I sure about this last, about Warren? He was in the place. +Emily's sickness only had kept him away. I reviewed myself to myself, +overhauled whatever virtues or failings I knew of as belonging to me. + +Nothing very satisfactory resulted. But I remembered what the old man +said to Miss Joey, "Love'll go where 'tis sent," and took courage. Eight +or ten years older. I wonder if she would mind that? + +Day after day passed, and my secret still burned within me. It must +shine out of my eyes, I thought. But then, since Emily's death, I had +seen Mary Ellen much less frequently. She kept mostly with her mother, +on their own side of the house. + +But the time that was foreordained from the beginning of the world for +the bursting-forth of my secret came at last. + +It was a month after Emily's death. I happened to come home in the +evening unusually early. 'Twas exactly such a night as the one on which +I tried to sound the depths of a young girl's heart, and failed. If she +would only come out in the moonlight again, and let me try once more! + +As I passed the orchard, my heart gave a great leap, for she was +there,--she and Miss Joey, carrying in a great basket of apples. I +seized her side of the basket with one hand, and with the other grasped +hers so earnestly that she fairly started: I was so glad to see her! + +I led her along to the house, and then led her back, until we came to +the same little step on the fence,--with full faith, now, that it would +be given me in this hour what to say. + +I seated her exactly as she was before, with the moon shining full in +her face. Then I took my stand, leaning against the fence, just the +same. How beautiful she was in the moonlight! + +"And is there anybody," said I, as if continuing the conversation, "that +you do love as Jane did?" + +My voice, though, was far less steady than at the other time. + +"Mr. Turner," she exclaimed, starting up, with flashing eyes and glowing +cheeks, "you've no right to ask me such a question!" + +That blushing by moonlight! It was too much to be endured with calmness. +I felt myself giving way before it. + +But I sha'n't tell any more. It's no sign, because a man opens his +heart, that he should let everything drop out of it. + +If those interested know, that, at my earnest request, she gave me the +right to ask not only that question, but others which would naturally +follow, they know enough. + +I would willingly tell them, though, if our English language had a few +thousand words added to it, how delightful it was to know that this +sweet wild-rose had been blossoming for me, that our singing-bird had +been singing for me! I am willing to tell, too, how foolish I felt, when +the deceitfulness of the human heart, of my own human heart, became +apparent; when I found that I had been loving for myself, while I +thought I was loving for David,--that I had been jealous for myself, and +not for him; when I found that I had been studying my chapter, without +regarding the notes underneath. + +And being at last put upon the right track, I found it taking me a long +way backwards. It took me away to the beginning, when Mary Ellen first +came across the entry, and showed me that then and there the arrow was +sped, and love went where it was sent. I had misgivings, even, of having +taken a portion of the dark liquid in the little bottle. I could +perceive the drawing of the "chain," and almost feel the "lassoo" about +my neck. + +"Lawyer, indeed! And wonderfully sharp at cross-questioning, when you +couldn't draw a secret from a woman! Lawyer, indeed! Of great +penetration, that couldn't read a young girl's heart, when it lay open +before you,--that couldn't read your own! You'd better give up the +profession, and go to painting. That suits you better. Beauty is your +chief delight, after all. Not only beauty of face, but beauty of +everything under the sun. Go sit in your crotch among the green boughs +and paint landscapes!" + +It was full four years ago that I thus inveighed against myself, and +just about a year from the time when I took up the moonlight talk where +it had been left off, and finished it so charmingly. We two were taking +a long stroll together, and had been making our mutual confessions,--our +man-and-wife confessions. + +My innocent little country-girl turned her sweet face up to mine with a +doubtful expression, a comically wise look, and said, a little +anxiously,-- + +"Do you think it will pay?" + +Oh, she's a capital wife! She has beauty and sweetness and exquisite +taste and simplicity and loving-kindness, with just enough worldliness +to take all these charming qualities safely along through life. + +Hear how wisely she discusses the "coquette" question. + +Says she,--"I think it's natural for all women to want to please all +men. I believe that the very best and wisest woman in the world is +affected by flattery from a handsome man who knows how to flatter. Very +likely this might be put the other way about, but then in books that +side is usually left out. But what you, Mr. Landscape-painter, would +like to know is, whether I coquetted with the Doctor's boy. And I will +own that I tried to please him. I liked to have him think I was pretty. +I can't think what it was about him that had such power over me. I +tremble now to think what might have been, if--And just think what a +whole life would be with such a person! I don't believe, though, any +girl could have withstood him, unless her heart--I believe I should +certainly have loved him, if"-- + +"If what, and unless what?" I asked, drawing her close up to me, as if +that dangerous youth had still power to take her from me. + +She looked up so roguishly,-- + +"You ought to know; you took the chapter to study." + + +Oh, my innocent little country-girl! If I were a poet, I'd write a song +in your praise; and if I were a musician, I'd set it to music. But the +poetry is in my heart; and 'tis set to music there. + + * * * * * + +SWEET-BRIER. + + + Tender of words should singer be, + Sweet-Brier, who would tell of thee; + One who has drunk with eager lip + And treasured thy companionship; + + One who has sought thee far and wide, + In early dew, with morning pride; + To whom thou art no new-made friend, + Whose memories on thy breath attend. + + For such thou art a lemon-grove, + Where wandering orient odors rove,-- + Yet loyal ever to thy home, + The valley where the north winds roam. + + Sometimes I would call thee mine; + But sweeter far than _mine_ or _thine_ + To listen unto Nature's song, + Saying, To lovers all belong. + + I love thee for my greenest days + Rescued from Time at thy sweet gaze, + For pictures brilliant as the Spring + Brought back upon thy breathing wing. + + I love thee for thy influence, + Heart-honey, without impotence; + He who would reach thy virgin blush, + Like warrior bold, must dangers crush. + + Chiefly I love thee for thyself, + Wealth-giver, ignorant of pelf; + Fain would I learn thy upright ways + And heart thus redolent of praise. + + * * * * * + +HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. + +BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD. + +VIII. + +ECONOMY. + + +"The fact is," said Jennie, as she twirled a little hat on her hand, +which she had been making over, with, nobody knows what of bows and +pompons, and other matters for which the women have curious names,--"the +fact is, American women and girls must learn to economize; it isn't +merely restricting one's self to American goods, it is general economy, +that is required. Now here's this hat,--costs me only three dollars, all +told; and Sophie Page bought an English one this morning at Madame +Meyer's for which she gave fifteen. And I really don't think hers has +more of an air than mine. I made this over, you see, with things I had +in the house, bought nothing but the ribbon, and paid for altering and +pressing, and there you see what a stylish hat I have!" + +"Lovely! admirable!" said Miss Featherstone. "Upon my word, Jennie, you +ought to marry a poor parson; you would be quite thrown away upon a rich +man." + +"Let me see," said I. "I want to admire intelligently. That isn't the +hat you were wearing yesterday?" + +"Oh, no, papa! This is just done. The one I wore yesterday was my +waterfall-hat, with the green feather; this, you see, is an oriole." + +"A what?" + +"An oriole. Papa, how can you expect to learn about these things?" + +"And that plain little black one, with the stiff crop of scarlet +feathers sticking straight up?" + +"That's my jockey, papa, with a plume _en militaire_." + +"And did the waterfall and the jockey cost anything?" + +"They were very, very cheap, papa, considering. Miss Featherstone will +remember that the waterfall was a great bargain, and I had the feather +from last year; and as to the jockey, that was made out of my last +year's white one, dyed over. You know, papa, I always take care of my +things, and they last from year to year." + +"I do assure you, Mr. Crowfield," said Miss Featherstone, "I never saw +such little economists as your daughters; it is perfectly wonderful what +they contrive to dress on. How they manage to do it I'm sure I can't +see. I never could, I'm convinced." + +"Yes," said Jennie, "I've bought but just one new hat. I only wish you +could sit in church where we do, and see those Miss Fielders. Marianne +and I have counted six new hats apiece of those girls',--_new_, you +know, just out of the milliner's shop; and last Sunday they came out in +such lovely puffed tulle bonnets! Weren't they lovely, Marianne? And +next Sunday, I don't doubt, there'll be something else." + +"Yes," said Miss Featherstone,--"their father, they say, has made a +million dollars lately on Government contracts." + +"For my part," said Jennie, "I think such extravagance, at such a time +as this, is shameful." + +"Do you know," said I, "that I'm quite sure the Misses Fielder think +they are practising rigorous economy?" + +"Papa! Now there you are with your paradoxes! How can you say so?" + +"I shouldn't be afraid to bet a pair of gloves, now," said I, "that Miss +Fielder thinks herself half ready for translation, because she has +bought only six new hats and a tulle bonnet so far in the season. If it +were not for her dear bleeding country, she would have had thirty-six, +like the Misses Sibthorpe. If we were admitted to the secret councils of +the Fielders, doubtless we should perceive what temptations they daily +resist; how perfectly rubbishy and dreadful they suffer themselves to +be, because they feel it important now, in this crisis, to practise +economy; how they abuse the Sibthorpes, who have a new hat every time +they drive out, and never think of wearing one more than two or three +times; how virtuous and self-denying they feel, when they think of the +puffed tulle, for which they only gave eighteen dollars, when Madame +Caradori showed them those lovely ones, like the Misses Sibthorpe's, for +forty-five; and how they go home descanting on virgin simplicity, and +resolving that they will not allow themselves to be swept into the +vortex of extravagance, whatever other people may do." + +"Do you know," said Miss Featherstone, "I believe your papa is right? I +was calling on the oldest Miss Fielder the other day, and she told me +that she positively felt ashamed to go looking as she did, but that she +really did feel the necessity of economy. 'Perhaps we might afford to +spend more than some others,' she said; 'but it's so much better to give +the money to the Sanitary Commission!'" + +"Furthermore," said I, "I am going to put forth another paradox, and say +that very likely there are some people looking on my girls, and +commenting on them for extravagance in having three hats, even though +made over, and contrived from last year's stock." + +"They can't know anything about it, then," said Jennie, decisively; +"for, certainly, nobody can be decent, and invest less in millinery than +Marianne and I do." + +"When I was a young lady," said my wife, "a well-dressed girl got her a +new bonnet in the spring, and another in the fall;--that was the extent +of her purchases in this line. A second-best bonnet, left of last year, +did duty to relieve and preserve the best one. My father was accounted +well-to-do, but I had no more, and wanted no more. I also, bought +myself, every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and a light pair, and +wore them through the summer, and another two through the winter; one or +two pair of white kids, carefully cleaned, carried me through all my +parties. Hats had not been heard of, and the great necessity which +requires two or three new ones every spring and fall had not arisen. +Yet I was reckoned a well-appearing girl, who dressed liberally. Now, a +young lady who has a waterfall-hat, an oriole-hat, and a jockey, must +still be troubled with anxious cares for her spring and fall and summer +and winter bonnets,--all the variety will not take the place of them. +Gloves are bought by the dozen; and as to dresses, there seems to be no +limit to the quantity of material and trimming that may be expended upon +them. When I was a young lady, seventy-five dollars a year was +considered by careful parents a liberal allowance for a daughter's +wardrobe. I had a hundred, and was reckoned rich; and I sometimes used a +part to make up the deficiencies in the allowance of Sarah Evans, my +particular friend, whose father gave her only fifty. We all thought that +a very scant pattern; yet she generally made a very pretty and genteel +appearance, with the help of occasional presents from friends." + +"How could a girl dress for fifty dollars?" said Marianne. + +"She could get a white muslin and a white cambric, which, with different +sortings of ribbons, served her for all dress-occasions. A silk, in +those days, took only ten yards in the making, and one dark silk was +considered a reasonable allowance to a lady's wardrobe. Once made, it +stood for something,--always worn carefully, it lasted for years. One or +two calico morning-dresses, and a merino for winter wear, completed the +list. Then, as to collars, capes, cuffs, etc., we all did our own +embroidering, and very pretty things we wore, too. Girls looked as +pretty then as they do now, when four or five hundred dollars a year is +insufficient to clothe them." + +"But, mamma, you know our allowance isn't anything like that,--it is +quite a slender one, though not so small as yours was," said Marianne. +"Don't you think the customs of society make a difference? Do you think, +as things are, we could go back and dress for the sum you did?" + +"You cannot," said my wife, "without a greater sacrifice of feeling than +I wish to impose on you. Still, though I don't see how to help it, I +cannot but think that the requirements of fashion are becoming +needlessly extravagant, particularly in regard to the dress of women. It +seems to me, it is making the support of families so burdensome that +young men are discouraged from marriage. A young man, in a moderately +good business, might cheerfully undertake the world with a wife who +could make herself pretty and attractive for seventy-five dollars a +year, when he might sigh in vain for one who positively could not get +through, and be decent, on four hundred. Women, too, are getting to be +so attached to the trappings and accessories of life, that they cannot +think of marriage without an amount of fortune which few young men +possess." + +"You are talking in very low numbers about the dress of women," said +Miss Featherstone. "I do assure you that it is the easiest thing in the +world for a girl to make away with a thousand dollars a year, and not +have so much to show for it either as Marianne and Jennie." + +"To be sure," said I. "Only establish certain formulas of expectation, +and it is the easiest thing in the world. For instance, in your mother's +day girls talked of a pair of gloves,--now they talk of a pack; then it +was a bonnet summer and winter,--now it is a bonnet spring, summer, +autumn, and winter, and hats like monthly roses,--a new blossom every +few weeks." + +"And then," said my wife, "every device of the toilet is immediately +taken up and varied and improved on, so as to impose an almost monthly +necessity for novelty. The jackets of May are outshone by the jackets of +June; the buttons of June are antiquated in July; the trimmings of July +are _passées_ by September; side-combs, back-combs, puffs, rats, and all +sorts of such matters, are in a distracted race of improvement; every +article of feminine toilet is on the move towards perfection. It seems +to me that an infinity of money must be spent in these trifles, by +those who make the least pretension to keep in the fashion." + +"Well, papa," said Jennie, "after all, it's just the way things always +have been since the world began. You know the Bible says, 'Can a maid +forget her ornaments?' It's clear she can't. You see, it's a law of +Nature; and you remember all that long chapter in the Bible that we had +read in church last Sunday, about the curls and veils and tinkling +ornaments and crimping-pins, and all that. Women always have been too +much given to dress, and they always will be." + +"The thing is," said Marianne, "how can any woman, I, for example, know +what is too much or too little? In mamma's day, it seems, a girl could +keep her place in society, by hard economy, and spend only fifty dollars +a year on her dress. Mamma found a hundred dollars ample. I have more +than that, and find myself quite straitened to keep myself looking well. +I don't want to live for dress, to give all my time and thoughts to it; +I don't wish to be extravagant; and yet I wish to be lady-like; it +annoys and makes me unhappy not to be fresh and neat and nice; +shabbiness and seediness are my aversion. I don't see where the fault +is. Can one individual resist the whole current of society? It certainly +is not strictly necessary for us girls to have half the things we do. We +might, I suppose, live without many of them, and, as mamma says, look +just as well, because girls did before these things were invented. Now, +I confess, I flatter myself, generally, that I am a pattern of good +management and economy, because I get so much less than other girls I go +with. I wish you could see Miss Thorne's fall dresses that she showed me +last year when she was visiting here. She had six gowns, and no one of +them could have cost less than seventy or eighty dollars, and some of +them must have been even more expensive; and yet I don't doubt that this +fall she will feel that she must have just as many more. She runs +through and wears out these expensive things, with all their velvet and +thread lace, just as I wear my commonest ones; and at the end of the +season they are really gone,--spotted, stained, frayed, the lace all +pulled to pieces,--nothing left to save or make over. I feel as if +Jennie and I were patterns of economy, when I see such things. I really +don't know what economy is. What is it?" + +"There is the same difficulty in my housekeeping," said my wife. "I +think I am an economist. I mean to be one. All our expenses are on a +modest scale, and yet I can see much that really is not strictly +necessary; but if I compare myself with some of my neighbors, I feel as +if I were hardly respectable. There is no subject on which all the world +are censuring one another so much as this. Hardly any one but thinks her +neighbors extravagant in some one or more particulars, and takes for +granted that she herself is an economist." + +"I'll venture to say," said I, "that there isn't a woman of my +acquaintance that does not think she is an economist." + +"Papa is turned against us women, like all the rest of them," said +Jennie. "I wonder if it isn't just so with the men?" + +"Yes," said Marianne, "it's the fashion to talk as if all the +extravagance of the country was perpetrated by women. For my part, I +think young men are just as extravagant. Look at the sums they spend for +cigars and pipes,--an expense which hasn't even the pretence of +usefulness in any way; it's a purely selfish, nonsensical indulgence. +When a girl spends money in making herself look pretty, she contributes +something to the agreeableness of society; but a man's cigars and pipes +are neither ornamental nor useful." + +"Then look at their dress," said Jennie; "they are to the full as fussy +and particular about it as girls; they have as many fine, invisible +points of fashion, and their fashions change quite as often; and they +have just as many knick-knacks, with their studs and their +sleeve-buttons and waistcoat-buttons, their scarfs and scarf-pins, their +watch-chains and seals and seal-rings, and nobody knows what. Then they +often waste and throw away more than women, because they are not good +judges of material, nor saving in what they buy, and have no knowledge +of how things should be cared for, altered, or mended. If their cap is a +little too tight, they cut the lining with a penknife, or slit holes in +a new shirt-collar, because it does not exactly fit to their mind. For +my part, I think men are naturally twice as wasteful as women. A pretty +thing, to be sure, to have all the waste of the country laid to us!" + +"You are right, child," said I; "women are by nature, as compared with +men, the care-taking and saving part of creation,--the authors and +conservators of economy. As a general rule, man earns and woman saves +and applies. The wastefulness of woman is commonly the fault of man." + +"I don't see into that," said Bob Stephens. + +"In this way. Economy is the science of proportion. Whether a particular +purchase is extravagant depends mainly on the income it is taken from. +Suppose a woman has a hundred and fifty a year for her dress, and gives +fifty dollars for a bonnet; she gives a third of her income;--it is a +horrible extravagance, while for the woman whose income is ten thousand +it may be no extravagance at all. The poor clergyman's wife, when she +gives five dollars for a bonnet, may be giving as much, in proportion to +her income, as the woman who gives fifty. Now the difficulty with the +greater part of women is, that the men who make the money and hold it +give them no kind of standard by which to measure their expenses. Most +women and girls are in this matter entirely at sea, without chart or +compass. They don't know in the least what they have to spend. Husbands +and fathers often pride themselves about not saying a word on +business-matters to their wives and daughters. They don't wish them to +understand them, or to inquire into them, or to make remarks or +suggestions concerning them. 'I want you to have everything that is +suitable and proper,' says Jones to his wife, 'but don't be +extravagant.' + +"'But, my dear,' says Mrs. Jones, 'what is suitable and proper depends +very much on our means; if you could allow me any specific sum for dress +and housekeeping, I could tell better.' + +"'Nonsense, Susan! I can't do that,--it's too much trouble. Get what you +need, and avoid foolish extravagances; that's all I ask.' + +"By-and-by Mrs. Jones's bills are sent in, in an evil hour, when Jones +has heavy notes to meet, and then comes a domestic storm. + +"'I shall just be ruined, Madam, if that's the way you are going on. I +can't afford to dress you and the girls in the style you have set +up;--look at this milliner's bill!' + +"'I assure you,' says Mrs. Jones, 'we haven't got any more than the +Stebbinses,--nor so much.' + +"'Don't you know that the Stebbinses are worth five times as much as +ever I was?' + +"No, Mrs. Jones did not know it;--how should she, when her husband makes +it a rule never to speak of his business to her, and she has not the +remotest idea of his income? + +"Thus multitudes of good conscientious women and girls are extravagant +from pure ignorance. The male provider allows bills to be run up in his +name, and they have no earthly means of judging whether they are +spending too much or too little, except the semi-annual hurricane which +attends the coming in of these bills. + +"The first essential in the practice of economy is a knowledge of one's +income, and the man who refuses to accord to his wife and children this +information has never any right to accuse them of extravagance, because +he himself deprives them of that standard of comparison which is an +indispensable requisite in economy. As early as possible in the +education of children they should pass from that state of irresponsible +waiting to be provided for by parents, and be trusted with the spending +of some fixed allowance, that they may learn prices and values, and have +some notion of what money is actually worth and what it will bring. The +simple fact of the possession of a fixed and definite income often +suddenly transforms a giddy, extravagant girl into a care-taking, +prudent little woman. Her allowance is her own; she begins to plan upon +it,--to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and do numberless sums in her +little head. She no longer buys everything she fancies; she deliberates, +weighs, compares. And now there is room for self-denial and generosity +to come in. She can do without this article; she can furbish up some +older possession to do duty a little longer, and give this money to some +friend poorer than she; and ten to one the girl whose bills last year +were four or five hundred finds herself bringing through this year +creditably on a hundred and fifty. To be sure, she goes without numerous +things which she used to have. From the stand-point of a fixed income +she sees that these are impossible, and no more wants them than the +green cheese of the moon. She learns to make her own taste and skill +take the place of expensive purchases. She refits her hats and bonnets, +retrims her dresses, and in a thousand busy, earnest, happy little ways, +sets herself to make the most of her small income. + +"So the woman who has her definite allowance for housekeeping finds at +once a hundred questions set at rest. Before, it was not clear to her +why she should not 'go and do likewise' in relation to every purchase +made by her next neighbor. Now, there is a clear logic of proportion. +Certain things are evidently not to be thought of, though next neighbors +do have them; and we must resign ourselves to find some other way of +living." + +"My dear," said my wife, "I think there is a peculiar temptation in a +life organized as ours is in America. There are here no settled classes, +with similar ratios of income. Mixed together in the same society, going +to the same parties, and blended in daily neighborly intercourse, are +families of the most opposite extremes in point of fortune. In England +there is a very well understood expression, that people should not dress +or live above their station; in America none will admit that they have +any particular station, or that they can live above it. The principle of +democratic equality unites in society people of the most diverse +positions and means. + +"Here, for instance, is a family like Dr. Selden's, an old and highly +respected one, with an income of only two or three thousand,--yet they +are people universally sought for in society, and mingle in all the +intercourse of life with merchant-millionnaires whose incomes are from +ten to thirty thousand. Their sons and daughters go to the same schools, +the same parties, and are thus constantly meeting upon terms of social +equality. + +"Now it seems to me that our danger does not lie in the great and +evident expenses of our richer friends. We do not expect to have +pineries, graperies, equipages, horses, diamonds,--we say openly and of +course that we do not. Still, our expenses are constantly increased by +the proximity of these things, unless we understand ourselves better +than most people do. We don't, of course, expect to get a +fifteen-hundred-dollar Cashmere, like Mrs. So-and-so, but we begin to +look at hundred-dollar shawls and nibble about the hook. We don't expect +sets of diamonds, but a diamond ring, a pair of solitaire diamond +ear-rings, begins to be speculated about among the young people as among +possibilities. We don't expect to carpet our house with Axminster and +hang our windows with damask, but at least we must have Brussels and +brocatelle,--it _would not do_ not to. And so we go on getting hundreds +of things that we don't need, that have no real value except that they +soothe our self-love,--and for these inferior articles we pay a higher +proportion of our income than our rich neighbor does for his better +ones. Nothing is uglier than low-priced Cashmere shawls; and yet a young +man just entering business will spend an eighth of a year's income to +put one on his wife, and when he has put it there it only serves as a +constant source of disquiet,--for now that the door is opened, and +Cashmere shawls are possible, she is consumed with envy at the superior +ones constantly sported around her. So also with point-lace, velvet +dresses, and hundreds of things of that sort, which belong to a certain +rate of income, and are absurd below it." + +"And yet, mamma, I heard Aunt Easygo say that velvet, point-lace, and +Cashmere were the cheapest finery that could be bought, because they +lasted a lifetime." + +"Aunt Easygo speaks from an income of ten thousand a year; they may be +cheap for her rate of living,--but for us, for example, by no magic of +numbers can it be made to appear that it is cheaper to have the greatest +bargain in the world in Cashmere, lace, and diamonds, than not to have +them at all. I never had a diamond, never wore a piece of point-lace, +never had a velvet dress, and have been perfectly happy, and just as +much respected as if I had. Who ever thought of objecting to me for not +having them? Nobody, as I ever heard." + +"Certainly not, mamma," said Marianne. + +"The thing I have always said to you girls is, that you were not to +expect to live like richer people, not to begin to try, not to think or +inquire about certain rates of expenditure, or take the first step in +certain directions. We have moved on all our life after a very +antiquated and old-fashioned mode. We have had our little old-fashioned +house, our little old-fashioned ways." + +"Except the parlor-carpet, and what came of it, my dear," said I, +mischievously. + +"Yes, except the parlor-carpet," said my wife, with a conscious twinkle, +"and the things that came of it; there was a concession there, but one +can't be wise always." + +"_We_ talked mamma into that," said Jennie. + +"But one thing is certain," said my wife,--"that, though I have had an +antiquated, plain house, and plain furniture, and plain dress, and not +the beginning of a thing such as many of my neighbors have possessed, I +have spent more money than many of them for real comforts. While I had +young children, I kept more and better servants than many women who wore +Cashmeres and diamonds. I thought it better to pay extra wages to a +really good, trusty woman who lived with me from year to year, and +relieved me of some of my heaviest family-cares, than to have ever so +much lace locked away in my drawers. We always were able to go into the +country to spend our summers, and to keep a good family-horse and +carriage for daily driving,--by which means we afforded, as a family, +very poor patronage to the medical profession. Then we built our house, +and while we left out a great many expensive commonplaces that other +people think they must have, we put in a profusion of +bathing-accommodations such as very few people think of having. There +never was a time when we did not feel able to afford to do what was +necessary to preserve or to restore health; and for this I always drew +on the surplus fund laid up by my very unfashionable housekeeping and +dressing." + +"Your mother has had," said I, "what is the great want in America, +perfect independence of mind to go her own way without regard to the way +others go. I think there is, for some reason, more false shame among +Americans about economy than among Europeans. 'I cannot afford it' is +more seldom heard among us. A young man beginning life, whose income may +be from five to eight hundred a year, thinks it elegant and gallant to +affect a careless air about money, especially among ladies,--to hand it +out freely, and put back his change without counting it,--to wear a +watch-chain and studs and shirt-fronts like those of some young +millionnaire. None but the most expensive tailors, shoemakers, and +hatters will do for him; and then he grumbles at the dearness of living, +and declares that he cannot get along on his salary. The same is true of +young girls, and of married men and women too,--the whole of them are +ashamed of economy. The cares that wear out life and health in many +households are of a nature that cannot be cast on God, or met by any +promise from the Bible,--it is not care for 'food convenient,' or for +comfortable raiment, but care to keep up false appearances, and to +stretch a narrow income over the space that can be covered only by a +wider one. + +"The poor widow in her narrow lodgings, with her monthly rent staring +her hourly in the face, and her bread and meat and candles and meal all +to be paid for on delivery or not obtained at all, may find comfort in +the good old Book, reading of that other widow whose wasting measure of +oil and last failing handful of meal were of such account before her +Father in heaven that a prophet was sent to recruit them; and when +customers do not pay, or wages are cut down, she can enter into her +chamber, and when she hath shut her door, present to her Father in +heaven His sure promise that with the fowls of the air she shall be fed +and with the lilies of the field she shall be clothed: but what promises +are there for her who is racking her brains on the ways and means to +provide as sumptuous an entertainment of oysters and Champagne at her +next party as her richer neighbor, or to compass that great bargain +which shall give her a point-lace set almost as handsome as that of Mrs. +Croesus, who has ten times her income?" + +"But, papa," said Marianne, with a twinge of that exacting sensitiveness +by which the child is characterized, "I think I am an economist, thanks +to you and mamma, so far as knowing just what my income is, and keeping +within it; but that does not satisfy me, and it seems that isn't all of +economy;--the question that haunts me is, Might I not make my little all +do more and better than I do?" + +"There," said I, "you have hit the broader and deeper signification of +economy, which is, in fact, the science of _comparative values._ In its +highest sense, economy is a just judgment of the comparative value of +things,--money only the means of enabling one to express that value. +This is the reason why the whole matter is so full of difficulty,--why +every one criticizes his neighbor in this regard. Human beings are so +various, the necessities of each are so different, they are made +comfortable or uncomfortable by such opposite means, that the spending +of other people's incomes must of necessity often look unwise from our +stand-point. For this reason multitudes of people who cannot be accused +of exceeding their incomes often seem to others to be spending them +foolishly and extravagantly." + +"But is there no standard of value?" said Marianne. + +"There are certain things upon which there is a pretty general +agreement, verbally at least, among mankind. For instance, it is +generally agreed that _health_ is an indispensable good,--that money is +well spent that secures it, and worse than ill spent that ruins it. + +"With this standard in mind, how much money is wasted even by people who +do not exceed their income! Here a man builds a house, and pays, in the +first place, ten thousand more than he need, for a location in a +fashionable part of the city, though the air will be closer and the +chances of health less; he spends three or four thousand more on a stone +front, on marble mantels imported from Italy, on plate-glass windows, +plated hinges, and a thousand nice points of finish, and has perhaps but +one bathroom for a whole household, and that so connected with his own +apartment that nobody but himself and his wife can use it. + +"Another man buys a lot in an open, airy situation, which fashion has +not made expensive, and builds without a stone front, marble mantels, +or plate-glass windows, but has a perfect system of ventilation through +his house, and bathing-rooms in every story, so that the children and +guests may all, without inconvenience, enjoy the luxury of abundant +water. + +"The first spends for fashion and show, the second for health and +comfort. + +"Here is a man that will buy his wife a diamond bracelet and a lace +shawl, and take her yearly to Washington to show off her beauty in +ball-dresses, who yet will not let her pay wages which will command any +but the poorest and most inefficient domestic service. The woman is worn +out, her life made a desert by exhaustion consequent on a futile attempt +to keep up a showy establishment with only half the hands needed for the +purpose. Another family will give brilliant parties, have a gay season +every year at the first hotels at Newport, and not be able to afford the +wife a fire in her chamber in midwinter, or the servants enough food to +keep them from constantly deserting. The damp, mouldy, dingy +cellar-kitchen, the cold, windy, desolate attic, devoid of any comfort, +where the domestics are doomed to pass their whole time, are witnesses +to what such families consider economy. Economy in the view of some is +undisguised slipshod slovenliness in the home-circle for the sake of +fine clothes to be shown abroad; it is undisguised hard selfishness to +servants and dependents, counting their every approach to comfort a +needless waste,--grudging the Roman-Catholic cook her cup of tea at +dinner on Friday, when she must not eat meat,--and murmuring that a +cracked, second-hand looking-glass must be got for the servants' room: +what business have they to want to know how they look? + +"Some families will employ the cheapest physician, without regard to his +ability to kill or cure; some will treat diseases in their incipiency +with quack medicines, bought cheap, hoping thereby to fend off the +doctor's bill. Some women seem to be pursued by an evil demon of +economy, which, like an _ignis fatuus_ in a bog, delights constantly to +tumble them over into the mire of expense. They are dismayed at the +quantity of sugar in the recipe for preserves, leave out a quarter, and +the whole ferments and is spoiled. They cannot by any means be induced +at any one time to buy enough silk to make a dress, and the dress +finally, after many convulsions and alterations, must be thrown by +altogether, as too scanty. They get poor needles, poor thread, poor +sugar, poor raisins, poor tea, poor coal. One wonders, in looking at +their blackened, smouldering grates, in a freezing day, what the fire is +there at all for,--it certainly warms nobody. The only thing they seem +likely to be lavish in is funeral expenses, which come in the wake of +leaky shoes and imperfect clothing. These funeral expenses at last +swallow all, since nobody can dispute an undertaker's bill. One pities +these joyless beings. Economy, instead of a rational act of the +judgment, is a morbid monomania, eating the pleasure out of life, and +haunting them to the grave. + +"Some people, again, think that nothing is economical but good eating. +Their flour is of an extra brand, their meat the first cut; the +delicacies of every season, in their dearest stages, come home to their +table with an apologetic smile,--'It was scandalously dear, my love, but +I thought we must just treat ourselves.' And yet these people cannot +afford to buy books, and pictures they regard as an unthought-of +extravagance. Trudging home with fifty dollars' worth of delicacies on +his arm, Smith meets Jones, who is exulting with a bag of crackers under +one arm and a choice little bit of an oil painting under the other, +which he thinks a bargain at fifty dollars. '_I_ can't afford to buy +pictures,' Smith says to his spouse, 'and I don't know bow Jones and his +wife manage.' Jones and his wife will live on bread and milk for a +month, and she will turn her best gown the third time, but they will +have their picture, and they are happy, Jones's picture remains, and +Smith's fifty dollars' worth of oysters and canned fruit to-morrow will +be gone forever. Of all modes of spending money, the swallowing of +expensive dainties brings the least return. There is one step lower than +this,--the consuming of luxuries that are injurious to the health. If +all the money spent on tobacco and liquors could be spent in books and +pictures, I predict that nobody's health would be a whit less sound, and +houses would be vastly more attractive. There is enough money spent in +smoking, drinking, and over-eating to give every family in the community +a good library, to hang everybody's parlor-walls with lovely pictures, +to set up in every house a conservatory which should bloom all winter +with choice flowers, to furnish every dwelling with ample bathing and +warming accommodations, even down to the dwellings of the poor; and in +the Millennium I believe this is the way things are to be. + +"In these times of peril and suffering, if the inquiry arises, How shall +there be retrenchment? I answer, First and foremost retrench things +needless, doubtful, and positively hurtful, as rum, tobacco, and all the +meerschaums of divers colors that do accompany the same. Second, +retrench all eating not necessary to health and comfort. A French family +would live in luxury on the leavings that are constantly coming from the +tables of those who call themselves in middling circumstances. There are +superstitions of the table that ought to be broken through. Why must you +always have cake in your closet? why need you feel undone to entertain a +guest with no cake on your tea-table? Do without it a year, and ask +yourselves if you or your children, or any one else, have suffered +materially in consequence. + +"Why is it imperative that you should have two or three courses at every +meal? Try the experiment of having but one, and that a very good one, +and see if any great amount of suffering ensues. Why must social +intercourse so largely consist in eating? In Paris there is a very +pretty custom. Each family has one evening in the week when it stays at +home and receives friends. Tea, with a little bread and butter and cake, +served in the most informal way, is the only refreshment. The rooms are +full, busy, bright,--everything as easy and joyous as if a monstrous +supper, with piles of jelly and mountains of cake, were waiting to give +the company a nightmare at the close. + +"Said a lady, pointing to a gentleman and his wife in a social circle of +this kind, 'I ought to know them well,--I have seen, them every week for +twenty years.' It is certainly pleasant and confirmative of social +enjoyment for friends to eat together; but a little enjoyed in this way +answers the purpose as well as a great deal, and better too." + +"Well, papa," said Marianne, "in the matter of dress now,--how much +ought one to spend just to look as others do?" + +"I will tell you what I saw the other night, girls, in the parlor of one +of our hotels. Two middle-aged Quaker ladies came gliding in, with calm, +cheerful faces, and lustrous dove-colored silks. By their conversation I +found that they belonged to that class of women among the Friends who +devote themselves to travelling on missions of benevolence. They had +just completed a tour of all the hospitals for wounded soldiers in the +country, where they had been carrying comforts, arranging, advising, and +soothing by their cheerful, gentle presence. They were now engaged on +another mission, to the lost and erring of their own sex; night after +night, guarded by a policeman, they had ventured after midnight into the +dance-houses where girls are being led to ruin, and with gentle words of +tender, motherly counsel sought to win them from their fatal +ways,--telling them where they might go the next day to find friends who +would open to them an asylum and aid them to seek a better life. + +"As I looked upon these women, dressed with such modest purity, I began +secretly to think that the Apostle was not wrong, when he spoke of women +adorning themselves with the _ornament_ of a meek and quiet spirit; for +the habitual gentleness of their expression, the calmness and purity of +the lines in their faces, the delicacy and simplicity of their apparel, +seemed of themselves a rare and peculiar beauty. I could not help +thinking that fashionable bonnets, flowing lace sleeves, and dresses +elaborately trimmed could not have improved even their outward +appearance. Doubtless, their simple wardrobe needed but a small trunk in +travelling from place to place, and hindered but little their prayers +and ministrations. + +"Now, it is true, all women are not called to such a life as this; but +might not all women take a leaf at least from their book? I submit the +inquiry humbly. It seems to me that there are many who go monthly to the +sacrament, and receive it with sincere devotion, and who give thanks +each time sincerely that they are thus made 'members incorporate in the +mystical body of Christ,' who have never thought of this membership as +meaning that they should share Christ's sacrifices for lost souls, or +abridge themselves of one ornament or encounter one inconvenience for +the sake of those wandering sheep for whom he died. Certainly there is a +higher economy which we need to learn,--that which makes all things +subservient to the spiritual and immortal, and that not merely to the +good of our own souls and those of our family, but of all who are knit +with us in the great bonds of human brotherhood. + +"The Sisters of Charity and the Friends, each with their different +costume of plainness and self-denial, and other noble-hearted women of +no particular outward order, but kindred in spirit, have shown to +womanhood, on the battle-field and in the hospital, a more excellent +way,--a beauty and nobility before which all the common graces and +ornaments of the sex fade, appear like dim candles by the pure, eternal +stars." + + * * * * * + +THE HEART OF THE WAR. + + + Peace in the clover-scented air, + And stars within the dome; + And underneath, in dim repose, + A plain, New-England home. + Within, a murmur of low tones + And sighs from hearts oppressed, + Merging in prayer, at last, that brings + The balm of silent rest. + + * * * * * + + I've closed a hard day's work, Marty,-- + The evening chores are done; + And you are weary with the house, + And with the little one. + But he is sleeping sweetly now, + With all our pretty brood; + So come and sit upon my knee, + And it will do me good. + + Oh, Marty! I must tell you all + The trouble in my heart, + And you mast do the best you can + To take and bear your part. + You've seen the shadow on my face, + You've felt it day and night; + For it has filled our little home, + And banished all its light. + + I did not mean it should be so, + And yet I might have known + That hearts that live as close as ours + Can never keep their own. + But we are fallen on evil times, + And, do whate'er I may, + My heart grows sad about the war, + And sadder every day. + + I think about it when I work, + And when I try to rest, + And never more than when your head + Is pillowed on my breast; + For then I see the camp-fires blaze, + And sleeping men around, + Who turn their faces toward their homes, + And dream upon the ground. + + I think about the dear, brave boys, + My mates in other years, + Who pine for home and those they love, + Till I am choked with tears. + With shouts and cheers they marched away + On glory's shining track, + But, ah! how long, how long they stay! + How few of them come back! + + One sleeps beside the Tennessee, + And one beside the James, + And one fought on a gallant ship + And perished in its flames. + And some, struck down by fell disease, + Are breathing out their life; + And others, maimed by cruel wounds, + Have left the deadly strife. + + Ah, Marty! Marty! only think + Of all the boys have done + And suffered in this weary war! + Brave heroes, every one! + Oh! often, often in the night, + I hear their voices call: + "_Come on and help us! Is it right_ + _That we should bear it all_?" + + And when I kneel and try to pray, + My thoughts are never free, + But cling to those who toil and fight + And die for you and me. + And when I pray for victory, + It seems almost a sin + To fold my hands and ask for what + I will not help to win. + + Oh! do not cling to me and cry, + For it will break my heart; + I'm sure you'd rather have me die + Than not to bear my part. + You think that some should stay at home + To care for those away; + But still I'm helpless to decide + If I should go or stay. + + For, Marty, all the soldiers love, + And all are loved again; + And I am loved, and love, perhaps, + No more than other men. + I cannot tell--I do not know-- + Which way my duty lies, + Or where the Lord would have me build + My fire of sacrifice. + + I feel--I know--I am not mean; + And though I seem to boast, + I'm sure that I would give my life + To those who need it most + Perhaps the Spirit will reveal + That which is fair and right; + So, Marty, let us humbly kneel + And pray to Heaven for light. + + * * * * * + + Peace in the clover-scented air, + And stars within the dome; + And underneath, in dim repose, + A plain, New-England home. + Within, a widow in her weeds, + From whom all joy is flown, + Who kneels among her sleeping babes, + And weeps and prays alone! + + * * * * * + +OUR RECENT FOREIGN RELATIONS. + + +The founders of the American Republic were wise alike in their grasp of +temporary difficulties and in the forethought they bestowed upon the +period of construction which was to come. Before a government was +formed, its necessary elements had attained something of order, much of +efficacy. In the very inception of revolution, the beginning was made of +that elaborate diplomatic system which became the medium by which we +have asserted rights, elicited respect, and received amenities from the +great powers of the earth. + +In the early days of our Revolution, the conduct of the foreign +correspondence was intrusted to the care of a Committee, composed of men +of established reputation for capacity and patriotism. Through their +labors, not only did we receive substantial sympathy from those +unselfish men in the mother-country who discountenanced the hateful +oppression of the crown: France, guided by the generous Vergennes, was +also attracted to our active defence; the independent spirit of the Low +Countries cheered and helped us; Tuscany, inheriting the sentiment of +liberty from Dante and Macchiavelli, extended loans with a liberal hand; +Spain and Portugal rose superior to their traditional bigotry, and sent +us money, ships, and stores. So efficient was our infant system of +diplomacy, that, long before the war had ended, England stood absolutely +without the countenance of a single Continental power, and confronted +boldly by her most ancient and most dreaded enemy. Proudly as she +entered into the conflict with her colonies, she became humbled as well +by the skill with which they attracted monarchies and empires to their +aid as by the valor with which they met her armies. It is hardly to be +doubted that our final success is to be in a great degree attributed to +the excellent diplomacy of Franklin, Lee, and Izard. Certain it is that +their labors vastly accelerated that success. How gigantic those labors +must have been, to bring the representatives and supporters of mediæval +systems of state-craft to countenance not only rebellion, but the +sentiment of republican liberty which rebellion matured, and which +successful revolution was to lay at the foundation of a new government! + +The Confederation, established for the more easy transition to a +permanent system, included almost as its corner-stone a Department of +Foreign Affairs. The duties of the Secretary were confined to the +performance of the specific acts authorized by Congress, at that time at +once the executive and the legislative power,--and consisted chiefly in +the preservation of the papers and records of the office, and conducting +the correspondence with ministers and agents abroad; he had likewise a +seat, but without a vote, in Congress, to give information and answer +inquiries. He was powerless to perform any executive act; he could not +negotiate a treaty; he could not give positive instructions to +ministers; and he was removable at the pleasure of Congress. Under the +Constitution, the duties of the Secretary of State became more +responsible; and the office was recognized as the highest in dignity, +next to the Executive. + +We may attribute our present rank among nations in no little degree to +the conspicuous fitness of our envoys at foreign courts for the peculiar +mission which it was their duty to fulfil, in the first quarter of a +century of our national existence. As soon as the British ministry +recognized the nationality of the United States, it was clear, that, on +the new footing, our relations with the mother-country must of necessity +be more intimate than those with any other nation. To pave the way for +the establishment of such an intercourse, no man could have been more +aptly chosen than John Adams. While his high-toned manners opened the +way to favor, his nervous logic followed up the advantage so gracefully +won, and drove home his purpose to its end. Franklin was equally +felicitous in attaching to himself the good-will of the court of +Versailles. Their successors well sustained the respect which they had +inspired; and it was a matter of surprise among the best educated +Europeans that such cultivated and capable men should proceed from a +country which they had thought to be a wilderness, and from a people of +whom they expected only the most flagrant barbarisms. + +That the elevated standard thus set up by our early diplomacy has been +preserved with but little exception is a simple matter of history. We +have been almost uniformly fortunate in the choice of our ministers +abroad, especially those to Great Britain. It is rightly regarded as a +distinction hardly inferior to any in the State, to occupy the post of +Plenipotentiary to St. James's or Versailles,--and this no less because +the incumbent has generally been one of our most honored statesmen than +because of the essential dignity and importance of the office. + +If we consider, in connection with this fact, the persistency with which +the Government has asserted the rights of an equal power, the promptness +with which it has resented every indignity offered to our flag, and the +vigor with which it has enforced in our favor the principles of +international law, it can be no matter of surprise that we should stand, +as we assuredly have stood, second to none in the estimate of our +physical and moral power. + +Starting on a totally new system,--a system which, if successful, would +disprove the universally received dogmas of the political philosophers +of Europe,--running counter to every prejudice and every conclusion of +the Old-World statesmen,--the United States had to work their way +through difficulties innumerable to their present rank, and were forced +to prove their institutions by experience, before they could assume the +dignity of a first-class power. + +When the present Rebellion arose, America had thus far proved the +success of democratic institutions. In military and naval power, in +education, in the administration of justice, in commercial thrift, in +mechanical and agricultural enterprise, in the development of the +national resources, the progress had been steady and rapid. The +politicians of Europe had been amazed to find that their unanimous +prediction of the frailty of our political system had totally failed. +The idea of a political centre combined with separate State +organizations was as firmly fixed as ever. The General Government +wielded an undiminished power in aid of the general good; the local +Legislatures controlled, within the original limits, local interests. +The people had suffered no curtailment of their liberties from the +delegation of political power; the executive had not been weakened +either by the accession of new States or the disaffection of old ones. +The most philosophic of the English statesmen had predicted again and +again that one of these alternatives must occur,--but they had begun to +doubt their own theories, and wellnigh confessed that our institutions +were a success. It was difficult for them to conceive that an entirely +novel frame of government, deriving its genius from an idea, and +regardless of precedent, could live to shame a system which had received +the sanction of centuries of success, which was seemingly Providential +in its stability, which had everywhere superseded every other form, +which had absorbed into itself the elements of all other systems. Our +Government was an anomaly; as such, there were ten chances to one +against it. And now, the Englishman who, above all others, is, on both +sides of the Atlantic, regarded as the ablest of modern political +theorists, has in a series of papers triumphantly vindicated the wisdom +of the founders of this Republic, and placed in the clearest logical +sequence the origin and tendency of our institutions. Every American +feels gratitude and reverence toward John Stuart Mill, who, in the +disinterestedness and courage of a great mind, has led the honest +opinion of England to appreciate at its value the system in which our +reason and our feelings are alike bound up. + +The confident belief, that an unusual strain on the supposed weak points +of the Federal Constitution would involve it in the fate of the Cromwell +dynasty and the French Revolution had begun to sleep, at the time of the +Secession movement, and but one ray of hope yet remained to the enemies +of republican government. They watched Slavery with an anxious eye. +There was their only chance. In that they saw the apple of discord which +might destroy our Union. They observed with exultation the increasing +influence of those who warred upon slavery in the North, and the +increasing insolence of those who would nationalize it in the South. On +this ground State and Federal authority must, they thought, come in +conflict. And as far as foresight could avail them, they had some reason +to be encouraged. That question has always been, without doubt, our +greatest, almost our only danger. + +There is reason to believe, then, that, when the Rebellion broke out, +the theorists of Europe deemed the test to have come, and that the final +success or failure of the Federal Constitution was staked on the result. +The people of the United States have been willing to accept that issue. +We have been ready to test the doctrines of Democracy by the +practicability of maintaining the Union, and to demonstrate, that, if +need be, the General Government may receive at the hands of the people +greater strength without endangering either their liberties or the order +of law. + +The diplomatic correspondence between the State Department and our +ministers to foreign powers during the present contest is contained in +two large volumes, published by the Government, which are full of +valuable matter. In the limited space permitted us, but little more than +a general survey of this correspondence can be attempted; and as our +relations with England far exceed all others in closeness and +interest,--a striking proof of which is found in the fact that the room +occupied in these volumes by communications with that country is greater +than that given to all the world besides,--we mainly confine ourselves +to the portion which regards her. + +England stands in the somewhat anomalous attitude of being to us the +champion of the old monarchical principle, and to Europe the champion of +Anglo-Saxon progress; so that the _dicta_ of her thinkers (those who +have opposed our Republic) may be regarded as the best thought of the +most enlightened monarchists in the world. As the ministry are obliged, +however unwillingly, to represent as well the popular as the +aristocratic ideas, through them there comes to us a pretty correct +exposition of the different opinions entertained by all classes. We may +regard two facts as well established, one leading out of the +other,--that England has ever been, and is, the most selfish of +nationalities, and that she does not desire the prosperity of any power +which may become a rival. With her politicians and her philosophers, +Tory and Whig, Churchmen and Dissenters, the ascendancy of Great Britain +has lain at the bottom of every policy, and has been the postulate of +every theory. Her history is that of a nationality eager to attain the +distinction of the first of powers. This fact, and this alone, can +reconcile the apparent inconsistencies of her record. At one time the +bold accuser of Despotism, she has with marvellous celerity turned to +the inthralment of oppressed races. Maxim has superseded maxim, until +her code of international law is a bewildering complication of anomaly +and contradiction. To humble her rivals by every means, and to encourage +the efforts of a people striving for freedom only when decided advantage +would accrue to herself, has been her constant policy. This is true of +the general tone of her successive cabinets, of the press, and of those +politicians who have by comfortable doctrines most successfully gained +the public ear. + +The classes who look at questions of policy with an eye to expediency +are, the leading statesmen of both parties, who regard as the proper end +of their labors the interests of Great Britain, and the +business-community, who judge of every political event by the manner in +which it affects their pockets. There are two other classes, who take a +higher view,--those who are conservative and fearful of innovation, and +those who believe in the progressive tendency of the Anglo-Saxon. Within +the last quarter of a century, the public opinion of England has been +undergoing a great change, especially that part of it which is +influenced by the lower-middle class. The people have been growing up to +the adoption of liberal principles of government. The Reform Bill of +1832 was a great stride in that direction; and the measures which have +followed upon it have widened the observation of the masses, made the +sense of political wrong quicker, and the appreciation of a free system +much more vivid. As a natural result, the attention of this class has +been drawn toward America, as the exponent of a government before which +all men are equal,--and so it is, that, as the Rebellion goes on, we +receive weekly evidence that the sober, honest thought of English +opinion is with us of the North. The class to which we refer, if it is +not now, will very shortly be, the governing element. The tendency is +irresistibly that way; the signs of its growing power are daily more and +more manifest. That it should be deeply interested in the perpetuity of +American institutions, as affecting its own position, is natural. In the +failure of man's self-governing capacity here, where every circumstance +has been favorable to its exercise, the rising spirit of a broader +liberty in England must foresee the death-blow to its own hopes. Our +failure will not be fatal to us alone; it will involve the fate of the +millions who are now seeking to plant themselves against the tremendous +force of kingly and patrician prestige. They have hitherto derived from +our example all the inspiration with which they have struggled upward. +They have been able to accomplish, step by step, important alterations +in the unwritten constitution, by the apt comparisons their leaders have +been able to make between American and British civilization. So that, in +considering the forces at work to influence those at the head of +affairs, it is necessary to consider that force which is imperceptibly, +but subtly, brought to bear upon them by the working-class. Mr. Beecher, +and other eminent Americans who have lately visited England, tell us +that this class are almost to a man sympathizers with us; and that this +sympathy has in many cases worked favorably to us cannot be doubted. +Even the operatives and manufacturers of Manchester and Leeds, at first, +a little morose because of the effect of the war on their industry, seem +to have come to a better second-thought, and are now outspoken for the +North. + +The different elements of English feeling toward us may be, we think, +stated thus. The aristocracy would view with complacency the disruption +of the Union, because we are a rival power, and they are thoroughly +pledged to British aggrandizement; because the success of the Union +would belie the principle whence they derive their prerogative, and +encourage the opposing element of popular rights to greater exertions +for ascendancy; because hatred of democracy is a sentiment inherited, as +well as a principle of self-preservation; and because they have not +forgotten the former dependence of America on England. The ministry feel +toward us as the servants of a jealous power would naturally feel toward +a rival. The theorists are eager for events to crown them with the +flattery of verified prediction. The commercial classes are ill pleased +that their thrift should be curtailed; the manufacturers grumble about +the scarcity of cotton. The timid minds of some honest thinkers did not +see the real issue, until the regular developments of the war satisfied +them; the lower orders had to be told before they could comprehend that +in our destiny they must read the counterpart of their own. Those +pretentious philanthropists who have assumed to direct the anti-slavery +party in England have mostly espoused the Southern side of the quarrel; +thus demonstrating that their moral scruples have no higher source than +their own political advantage, and no more lofty end than to divide and +distract a sister-nation. Of these we may instance the most conspicuous +of all, Lord Brougham,--who, after having for half a century derived all +the benefit he could from the striking and pathetic points in slavery to +vivify his eloquence, turns the bitter vial of his dotage against those +who stake everything upon its extinction. But everybody knows that Lord +Brougham is a type of those statesmen who stand by the people in the +Commons and grind the people in the Lords; who, after crying down public +wrongs, upon finding the responsibility of a coronet on their shoulders, +suddenly become arrant sticklers for hereditary rights. We are amused to +notice, among those peers who have risen above the selfishness by which +they are surrounded, and have given us a well-timed sympathy, but few +who are of new creations: for the Duke of Argyle and the Earls of +Carlisle and Clarendon are descendants of the oldest and proudest houses +in the realm. + +It is gratifying to observe that those forces which are operating +against us are those which are rapidly losing that control in public +affairs which belonged to past phases of society; while those forces +which are proper to the present, and are inevitably to assume the +preponderance in the future, appear as they develop to be more and more +sympathetic with the cause of our national integrity. Aristocratic +prestige is shrinking back before an advancing enlightenment which +elevates all to equal dignity. + +The present ministry is a fair type of the selfishness of British +statesmanship. The antecedents of its principal members are those of +timeserving politicians. Lord Palmerston, starting on his career as a +Tory of the Wellington stamp, has veered round as the tide has turned +against his former associates, and is the still distrusted +representative of the Liberal party. Lord Russell, in the youth of his +public service a Radical reformer, and the eager disciple of Sir Francis +Burdett when Sir Francis Burdett could not lead a corporal's guard, once +the prop and hope of those who sought a wider suffrage, has again and +again eaten his own words, and the history of his political life is a +ludicrous illustration of the perplexities of politicians. His +invariable course as a diplomatist has been to leave the way open to +prevarication, to keep his opinions in a cloud, and to confound sense +with ambiguity. It would be pure credulity to place much confidence in +the expressions of a statesman who within two months boldly censured and +then as boldly favored the designs of Victor Emmanuel on Venice, +officially and unblushingly before all Europe. Both these noble lords, +however, are fortunate in a keen appreciation of the national +prejudices, and know how to make use of the existing tone of public +feeling. A long vicissitude of successes and failures has taught both a +lesson which is every day a practical benefit; and after finding that +they were powerless when mutually opposed, they have succeeded in +swallowing the hatred of half a century, that they may join and divide +the power. The fact that there has been for some time a Tory majority in +the House of Commons shows the cunning with which Palmerston +manoeuvres his machinery. If we could conclude at all from his acts +what his sentiments are toward America, there is little love wasted on +us from that quarter; and Lord Russell, even while addressing the House +of Lords in terms favorable to us, never lets the occasion pass without +slipping in a sneer between his praises. + +Selfishness, national or individual, is ever cautious and ever +suspicious. It seldom rashly grasps the thing coveted: it oftener lets +the apt occasion pass without improvement. The diplomatic intercourse +between Lord Palmerston's government and our own for the last year or +two amply illustrates this. He had in the first place no prepossession +in favor of the United States. We believe that he was not at all +unwilling to see the Union dissolved. It was natural for a statesman +hardened by fifty years of intrigue and devotion to politics to look +with absolute gratification upon what seemed the dissolution of a great, +and, because a near, a hated rival. We do not think it too much to +assume, that, as far as Palmerston's personal feelings were concerned, +he was ready for the chance of Southern recognition at the outset. In +such a sentiment, he had the sympathy of the aristocracy, and of all +others who take the low standard of self-aggrandizement in determining +opinions. Two circumstances, however, were a restraint upon him, and +appealed with controlling force to his caution. He was not only an +aristocrat and a hater of republics, he was also the Prime-Minister of +_all_ England. He was absolutely dependent to a great degree upon the +lower orders for the permanence of his present dignity. Was it wise in +him to disregard the sentiments of those who were advancing to the +predominance, and resort for support to those whose power was rapidly +waning, whose opinions were yielding to the newer intelligence? Would it +not be fatally inconsistent in a Liberal statesman to override every +Liberal maxim and belie every Liberal profession? Was not the popular +current too strong to be safely defied? There were Liberal statesmen +enough of conspicuous merit to take his place at the helm, should he +make the misstep: Gladstone, Gibson, Herbert, Granville, would fully +answer the popular demand: his downfall, if it came, would doubtless be +final. His private feelings, therefore, even his political wishes, must +yield to policy. His love of place is too strong to succumb either to +personal prejudice or national jealousy; and the long habit has made the +self-denial more easy. + +The other reason why Lord Palmerston has withheld open comfort from the +Rebels is doubtless to be found in the steady adherence of our +Government to the position which it assumed at the beginning,--in the +promptness with which we have insisted upon our rights throughout the +world,--the grace with which we have disavowed the evident errors of +public servants,--the steadiness of our military progress,--the ease +with which we have borne the strain upon our resources in respect both +of men and money,--the possible, if not probable, success of the +war,--the certainty that that success would strengthen our system, and +render us capable of resenting foreign insult. For while Lord Palmerston +and Lord Russell are very apt to stalk about and threaten and talk very +loudly at nations whose weakness causes them not to be feared, and by +bullying whom some power or money may slide into British hands, they are +slow to provoke nations whose resentment either is or may become +formidable to British weal. The British lion roars over the impotence of +Brazil: he lies still and watches before the might of Napoleon. In the +one case he stands forth the lordly king of beasts; in the other he +seems metamorphosed into the fox. The hope that America would descend +incontinently to the rank of an inferior power was quickly dispelled; so +the lion crouched and the foxy head appeared. The everlasting caution +came in and said,--"Wait your chance; a hasty judgment is always a poor +judgment; let events take their course, and if occasion offers, strike +the right blow at the right time; but do not decree away the stability +of the Union either by the illusion of hope or by an expectation as yet +ill-founded." It was the wisdom of the serpent, eager, and conquering +eagerness. + +Under the cloak of a pretended neutrality, the ministry have had +opportunity to watch the course of events, to connive at aid to the +Rebellion, and to leave themselves unembarrassed when the success of +one side or the other should make it expedient to declare in its favor. +It has been with the greatest difficulty that Mr. Adams has been able to +bring the Foreign Office to exert its authority against violations of +that neutrality. Vessels, known well enough to be in the service of the +Confederates, or intended for their use, have been allowed to escape +from the Clyde, and to put into British ports to refit. Frequent +conflicts on questions of international law have arisen, in which our +Government has invariably insisted upon the known precedents set by +Great Britain, and which that power has generally deemed it prudent to +follow. In the case of the Trent, if we lost the possession of two +valuable prisoners of war, we at all events, by promptly disavowing the +act of Commodore Wilkes, set England an example of fairness which she +has been loath to follow, but which it would have been folly totally to +disregard. Yet it has been apparent that the British ministers have +borne us no good-will. Whatever justice has been done us has been done +grudgingly,--with the moroseness of an enemy who is compelled to yield. +While Lord Russell has been cautious how he offended our Government in +acts, his repeated sneers in Parliament, at dinners, and on the hustings +have exhibited the rancor of a jealous mind. There has been no hearty +will to do justice, no word other than of discouragement. Even the +amicable assurances which customarily pass between the statesmen of two +nations seem to have been dropped. We believe that any American would +rather bear the manly and outspoken denunciations of the Earl of Derby, +consistent and honest in his hostility, than the sly, covert +insinuations to which the Foreign Secretary gives utterance, at the very +time he is advocating a favorable course toward us. + +The ministry have constantly been met with the fact that our Government +has assumed throughout that the Union was to be preserved, and both the +act and the possibility of secession forever crushed. They cannot have +failed to observe, that, while the inevitable fortune of war has at +times brought momentary depression to our arms, the field of the +Rebellion has steadily contracted,--that those great conflicts which +have seemed drawn games have contributed in every instance to the +general end,--that repulse has been invariably followed by overbalancing +success. They must have been aware that the contrast between the feeling +of the North and that of the South has tended to foreshadow the issue. +Upon grounds of political economy, a life-long study to them, they must +have viewed with vast suspicion the ability of a people to attain +independence, who are trammelled by a blockade which they are themselves +fain to acknowledge effectual, prevented from the usual methods of +subsistence by inferiority of population, and under dreadful +apprehensions from the existence in their midst of millions of +malcontent slaves. They have not needed a subtle knowledge of political +philosophy to teach them that during the progress of the war the Federal +idea has received new strength, which its success will make permanent, +and which only total failure can diminish. Their favorite doctrine, that +governments within a government cannot exist, and that our Constitution +is weakened by the accession of every new State and the rise of every +new disagreement, is meeting its refutation every day. A concentration +of extraordinary power at the centre does not seem to shatter every bond +of union, as they have predicted,--and the States hold together and work +together with amazing zeal for so feeble a tie as that they have +represented. In their intercourse with our Government, they have +illustrated the effect which events have had on their policy. + +The course pursued by our Government seems to us to present a favorable +contrast to that pursued by Great Britain. The United States has always +manifested an anxiety to preserve amity. But the effort to preserve +amity has been dignified. We have claimed to be treated as a friendly +sovereign State. We have urged that the war should be regarded by +foreign powers as the rightful exercise of a complete nationality to +suppress insurrection. That the insurgents should be put upon a par with +the Government, that they should enjoy the benefits of an established +system, that they should have every right and every immunity as if the +quarrel were between equal powers, has seemed to us a fallacy tinctured +with deep prejudice. That feeling has been courteously, but firmly +represented by our ministers. Since it pleased the European courts to +proclaim their neutrality, we have borne the injustice temperately, and +have confined our demands to our rights under that _status_. When the +conduct of Great Britain has been of so irritating a nature as to +produce universal indignation throughout the community, our statesmen +have moderated the popular anger, and have remonstrated patiently as +well as firmly. They have discerned more accurately than the multitude +could do the evils of a twofold war, and yet have not avoided the +danger, when to avoid it would have been disgraceful. Whatever may be +the opinion of any as to Mr. Seward's political career, it is generally +admitted that as Secretary of State he has accomplished the better +thought of the nation. In his hands our foreign relations have been +administered with prudence, with minute attention, and with great +dignity. He has constantly maintained the idea of our national +integrity, the full expectation of our final success, the continued +efficacy of the Federal system, and our right to be considered none the +less a compact nationality because the insurrection has taken the form +of State secession. Our diplomatic intercourse has been confined to +strictly diplomatic etiquette. No attempt has been made to justify, for +the satisfaction of foreign courts, either the origin of the war, or the +modes which have been adopted in its prosecution. It has not been deemed +necessary to retaliate upon the Confederate agents who fill Europe with +their tale of woe, by retorting upon them a reference to the unchristian +practices of their soldiery. There has been no appeal to the moral +sympathies of the Old World, by harping upon the enormities of slavery, +and by announcing a crusade against it. Foreign communities have been +left to the ordinary modes of information, to the press and the accounts +of American and European orators, for the events which have been +passing. It has contented us to let the record speak for itself, to +attach infamy where it is due, to extort praise where praise is merited. +We have not shown an ungenerous exultation at the embroilments of +European politics, as diverting the hostile attention of enemies from +our own affairs. "We are content," says Mr. Seward, in a despatch to Mr. +Adams, "to rely upon the justice of our cause, and our own resources and +ability to maintain it." We have not sought the aid of any power; we +have only desired to sustain out admitted rights, and to be free from +external interference. + +It is surprising that Earl Russell should intimate his dissatisfaction +that we have been less quick to offence from France than from England. +The reason why we should not, in his opinion, feel so is the very reason +why we should. He thinks, because our relations have been more intimate +with England, because we speak the same language and inherit the same +Anglo-Saxon genius, that therefore we should be more patient with her. +But these circumstances seem to us to aggravate the treatment we have +received at her hands. It has appeared to us unnatural that a nation so +identified with us should mistrust us, and embrace every occasion to +slight us where they could safely do so. The closer the tie, the deeper +the wound. Besides, despite the common ground upon which England and +America have stood, the past bequeaths us little grudge against France, +much against England. France was the patron, England the bitter enemy, +of our national infancy. Our arms have never closed with those of +France; we have fought England twice, and virulently. Our diplomatic +intercourse with England has been a series of misunderstandings; that +with France has been, in general, harmonious. In later times, French +essayists and journalists have been tolerant of our faults, and eloquent +over our virtues; and not a little good feeling has been produced among +our educated classes by the fairness and acuteness with which one of the +greatest of modern Frenchmen, De Tocqueville, has considered our +institutions. On the other hand, the English press and the English +Parliament have been outspoken in their contempt of America; and the +offence has been enhanced by the peculiarly insulting terms in which the +feeling has been expressed. Such facts cannot but intensify our chagrin +at finding that power which we had always regarded as our companion in +the march of modern progress ill-disposed to sympathy now in the time of +our trouble. + +Mr. Seward has well expressed our attitude towards England in a few +words:--"The whole case may be summed up in this. The United States +claim, and they must continually claim, that in this war they are a +whole sovereign nation, and entitled to the same respect, as such, that +they accord to Great Britain. Great Britain does not treat them as such +a sovereign, and hence all the evils that disturb their intercourse and +endanger their friendship. Great Britain justifies her course, and +perseveres. The United States do not admit the justification, and so +they are obliged to complain and stand upon their guard. Those in either +country who desire to see the two nations remain in this relation are +not well-advised friends of either of them." + +Our relations with France during the war have not been dissimilar to +those with England, but have been less grating and more courteous. The +same difficulties in regard to neutral rights have arisen; and the +Imperial cabinet have seemed throughout favorable to the South. But the +popular feeling, as far as it is patent, is decidedly more favorable to +us than that of England; whatever has been said against us has been said +considerately and temperately; and there has been at no period any +imminent danger of war. The design of Napoleon to mediate was +interpreted by the community as hostile and aggressive in its object. +The President, we think justly, took what appears a more simple +view,--that the Emperor miscalculated the actual condition of the +country, and a mistaken desire to advise induced him to take the course +he did. But those who know France best tell us that the Imperial opinion +is far from being the index of the popular opinion, on any subject; and +every evidence induces the conclusion that there is a strong +undercurrent of sympathy for America throughout France. + +Of all the foreign powers, Russia has been the only one which has given +us cordial, unstinted encouragement. The sovereign, the most liberal and +enlightened Czar who ever ascended the Muscovite throne, has expressed +himself again and again the constant friend of the Union. It is +agreeable to reflect that that vast empire, now far on its way to a +liberal constitution, and hastened, instead of retarded by its august +head, should lend the moral force of its unqualified good-will to the +cause of American liberty. The noble words of Prince Gortschakoff to our +envoy will be grateful to every loyal American heart:--"We desire above +all things the maintenance of the American Union, as one indivisible +nation. Russia has declared her position, and will maintain it. There +will be proposals for intervention. Russia will refuse any invitation of +the kind. She will occupy the same ground as at the beginning of the +struggle. You may rely upon it, she will not change." + +Our relations with other nations have not been important, and are quite +similar to those with England and France. But, generally, the belief and +hope in the final success of the Union have been steadily strengthening +throughout Europe. The idea of our centralization has become more vivid; +and far juster estimates of our character and institutions have been +formed. When the war shall have been brought to a successful issue, we +shall have afforded a noble proof of the full efficiency of a republican +system over an intelligent people. Our own sinews will be compact, and +our spirit will be infused into the aspirations of distant peoples. It +may not be presumptuous to feel that our efforts are not for ourselves +alone, but that they tell upon the fate of the earnest and hopeful +millions who are striving for disenthralment in the Old World. Let us, +then, expand our just ambition beyond the object of our national +integrity; let us embrace within our own hopes the dawning fortunes of a +free Italy and a free Hungary, of Poland liberated, of Greece +regenerated. While nerving ourselves for the final struggle, let the +sublime thought that our success will reach in its vast results the +limits of the Christian world bring us redoubled strength. For if we +should fall, the thrones of despots are fixed for centuries; if we +triumph, in due time they will vanish and crumble to the dust. Those +sovereigns who are wise will appear in the van, leading their people to +the blessings of the liberty they have so long yearned for; those who +throw themselves in the way will be overwhelmed by the resistless tide. +To such an end we fight, and suffer, and wait; the greater the stake, +the more fearful the ordeal; but Providence smiles upon those whose aim +is freedom, and through danger guides to consummation. + + * * * * * + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_The Roman and the Teuton_: A Series of Lectures delivered before the +University of Cambridge. By CHARLES KINGSLEY, M.A., Professor of Modern +History. Cambridge and London: Macmillan & Co. + +Mr. Kingsley is a vivid and entertaining mediator between Carlyle and +commonplace. In his younger days and writings he mediated between his +master and commonplace radicalism,--representing the great Scot's +antagonism to existing institutions, his sympathy with man as man, and +his hope of a more human society, but representing it with sufficient +admixture of vague fancy, Chartist catchword, weak passionateness, and +spasmodic audacity, based, as such ever is, on moral cowardice. Of late +he has gone to the other side of his master, and now mediates between +him and the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Hanover family,--representing +Carlyle's passionate craving for supereminent persons, his passionate +abhorrence of democracy, his admiration of strong character, his +disposition to work from historical bases rather than from absolute +principles, but representing them at once with a prudence of common +sense and a prudence of self-seeking and timidity which are alike +foreign to his master's spirit. + +We prefer the second phase of the man. It belongs more properly to him. +He is ambitious; and the _rôle_ which he first assumed is one which +ambition can only spoil. He has but a weak faith in principles, and +flinches and flies off to "Prester John," or somewhere into the clouds, +when at last principle and sentiment must either fly off or fairly take +the stubborn British _taurus_ by the horns. And in truth, his early +creed was in part merely passionate and foolish, and with courage and +disinterestedness to do more he would have professed less. His present +position is better,--that is, sounder and sincerer. Better for _him_, +because more limited and British, leaving him room still to toil at good +work, and not calling upon him to break with Church and State, which he +really has not the heart to do. As head of the hierarchy of beadles, he +is an effective and even admirable man, pious, zealous, and reformatory; +but institutions are more necessary to him than principles, and any +attempt to plant himself purely on the latter places him in a false +position. + +Mr. Kingsley has fine gifts and good purposes. He has a rare power of +realizing scenes and characters,--a power equally rare of presenting +them in vivid, pictorial delineation. He must be a very engaging +lecturer, imparting to his official labor an interest which does not +always belong to labors of like kind. + +For discoursing upon history he has important qualifications, which it +would be uncandid not to acknowledge. Of these it is the first that he +clings manfully, despite the tendencies of our time, to the human, +rather than the extra-human stand-point. He respects personality; he +treats of men, not of puppets; he is old-fashioned enough to believe +that men may be moved from within no less than from without, and does +not attempt, as Quinet has it, to abolish human history and add a +chapter to natural history instead. Here, too, he follows Carlyle, but +in a way which is highly to his credit. The enthusiasm for science which +marks these later centuries breeds in many minds a powerful desire to +establish "laws" for the history of man,--that is, to establish for +man's history an invariable programme. To this end an effort is made to +render all results in history dependent on a few simple and tangible +conditions. The intrepid prosaic logic of Spencer, the discursive +boldness of Buckle, the rigid dogmatism of Draper are all engaged in +this endeavor. But, while eager to make history simple and orderly, they +forget to make it human. There is an order and progress, perhaps, but an +order and progress of what? Of _men_? Of human souls, self-moved? No, of +sticks floating on a current, of straws blown by the wind! Men, +according to this theory, are but ninepins in an alley which Nature sets +up only to bowl them down again; and what avails it, if Nature makes +improvement and learns to set them up better and better? The triumphs +are hers, not theirs. They are but ninepins, after all. Progress? Yes, +indeed; but _wooden_ progress, observe. + +Mr. Kingsley recognizes human beings, and recognizes them +heartily,--loves, hates, admires, despises; in fine, he deals with +history not merely as a scientist or theorist, but first of all as a +man. There are those who will think this weak. They are superior to this +partiality of man for himself, they! They would be ashamed not to sink +the man in the _savant_. But Mr. Kingsley refuses to dehumanize himself +in order to become historian and philosopher. He does well. + +Again, it is partly Mr. Kingsley's merit, and partly it expresses his +limitation, that he is treating history more distinctively as a +moralizer than any other noted writer of the time. He assumes in this +respect the Hebraistic point of view, and looks out from it with an +undoubting heartiness which in these days is really refreshing. He +believes in the Old Testament, and doubts not that riches and honors are +the rewards of right-doing. And in this, too, there is a vast deal of +truth; and it is truly delightful to find one who affirms it, not with +perfunctory drawl, but with hearty human zest, a little red in the face. + +It adds to the color of Mr. Kingsley's pages, while detracting from his +authority, that he is always and inevitably a _partisan_. He must have +somebody to cry up and somebody to cry down. In "Sir Amyas Leigh," his +hatred of the Spanish and admiration of the English were like those of a +man who had suffered intolerable wrongs from the one and received +invaluable rescue from the other. The same element appears powerfully in +the volume above named. The Teuton stands for all that is best, and the +Roman for all that is worst in humanity. He makes no secret, indeed, of +his deliberate belief that the whole future of the human race depends +upon the Teutonic family. Deliberate, we say; but in truth Mr. Kingsley +is little capable of believing anything deliberately. He is always +precipitate. His opinions have the force which can be given them by warm +espousal, vivid expression, a certain desire to be fair, and a constant +appeal to the moral nature of man; but the impression of hasty and +heated partisanship goes with them always, and two words from a broad +and balanced judgment might overturn many a chapter of this red-hot +advocacy. + +The present volume derives an interest for Americans from its relation +to our great contest. Mr. Kingsley has been represented as intensely +hostile to the North, and as using all his endeavor to infect his +pupils with his opinions. These lectures, however, hardly sustain such +representations. He is, indeed, anti-democratic in a high degree. He is +so as a disciple of Carlyle, as a prosperous Englishman, not destitute +of flunkyism, and also as a man whose very best power is that of +passionately admiring individual greatness. He is a believer in natural +aristocracy, in the British nobility, and in Carlyle; and democracy +could, of course, find small place in his creed. Hence he has a +sentimental sympathy with the South, and once in a foot-note speaks of +"the Southern gentleman" in a maudlin way. There is also another passage +in which he makes the South stand for the Teuton, whom he worships, and +the North for the Roman, whom he abhors. Yet this very passage occurs in +connection with a denunciation of deserved doom upon the Southern +Confederacy. He had been describing the last great battle of the Eastern +Goths, after which they literally disappeared from history. And the +reason of their defeat and destruction, he avers, was simply this, that +they were a slaveholding aristocracy. As such they _must_ perish; the +earth, he declares, will not and cannot afford them a dwelling-place. +Indeed, he repeatedly lays it down as a law of history that slaveholding +aristocracies must go down before the progress of the world, and must go +down in blood. + + +_The Small House at Allington_. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. New York: Harper & +Brothers. + +This is probably the best of Mr. Trollope's numerous works. It is by no +means different in kind from its predecessors; for it stands in the path +struck out by "The Warden" ten years ago. But it is better, inasmuch as +it is later; that is, it is by ten years better than "The Warden," and +by four years better than "Framley Parsonage." Mr. Trollope's course has +been very even,--too even, almost, to be called brilliant; for success +has become almost monotonous with him. His first novel was a triumph, +after its kind; and a list of his subsequent works would be but a record +of repeated triumphs. He has closely adhered to the method which he +found so serviceable at first; and although it is not for the general +critic to say whether he has felt temptations to turn aside, we may be +sure, in view of his unbroken popularity, that he has either been very +happy or very wise. His works, as they stand, are probably the exact +measure of his strength. + +We do not mean that he has exhausted his strength. It seems to be the +prime quality of such a genius as Mr. Trollope's that it is exempt from +accident,--that it accumulates, rather than loses force with age. Mr. +Trollope's work is simple observation. He is secure, therefore, as long +as he retains this faculty. And his observation is the more efficient +that it is hampered by no concomitant purpose, rooted to no underlying +beliefs or desires. It is firmly anchored, but above-ground. We have +often heard Mr. Trollope compared with Thackeray,--but never without +resenting the comparison. In no point are they more dissimilar than in +the above. Thackeray is a moralist, a satirist; he tells his story for +its lesson: whereas Mr. Trollope tells his story wholly for its own +sake. Thackeray is almost as much a preacher as he is a novelist; while +Mr. Trollope is the latter simply. Both writers are humorists, which +seems to be the inevitable mood of all shrewd observers; and both +incline to what is called quiet humor. But we know that there are many +kinds of laughter. Think of the different kinds of humorists we find in +Shakspeare's comedies. Mr. Trollope's merriment is evoked wholly by the +actual presence of an oddity; and Thackeray's, although it be, by the +way, abundantly sympathetic with superficial comedy, by its _existence_, +by its history, by some shadow it casts. Of course all humorists have an +immense common fund. When Cradell, in the present tale, talks about Mrs. +Lupex's fine _torso_, we are reminded both of Thackeray and Dickens. But +when the Squire, coming down to the Small House to discuss his niece's +marriage, just avoids a quarrel with his sister about the propriety of +early fires, we acknowledge, that, as it stands, the trait belongs to +Trollope alone. Dickens would have eschewed it, and Thackeray would have +expanded it. The same remark applies to their pathos. With Trollope we +weep, if it so happen we can, for a given shame or wrong. Our sympathy +in the work before us is for the jilted Lily Dale, our indignation for +her false lover. But our compassion for Amelia Osborne and Colonel +Newcome goes to the whole race of the oppressed. + +Mr. Trollope's greatest value we take to be that he is so purely a +novelist. The chief requisite for writing a novel in the present age +seems to be that the writer should be everything else. It implies that +the story-telling gift is very well in its way, but that the inner +substance of a tale must repose on some direct professional experience. +This fashion is of very recent date. Formerly the novelist had no +personality; he was a simple chronicler; his accidental stand-point was +as impertinent as the painter's attitude before his canvas. But now the +main question lies in the pose, not of the model, but of the artist. It +will fare ill with the second-rate writer of fiction, unless he can give +conclusive proof that he is well qualified in certain practical +functions. And the public is very vigilant on this point. It has become +wonderfully acute in discriminating true and false lore. The critic's +office is gradually reduced to a search for inaccuracies. We do not stop +to weigh these truths; we merely indicate them. But we confess, that, if +Mr. Trollope is somewhat dear to us, it is because they are not true of +him. The central purpose of a work of fiction is assuredly the portrayal +of human passions. To this principle Mr. Trollope steadfastly +adheres,--how consciously, how wilfully, we know not,--but with a +constancy which is almost a proof of conviction, and a degree of success +which lends great force to his example. The interest of the work before +us is emphatically a _moral_ interest: it is a story of feeling, the +narrative of certain feelings. + +Mr. Troliope's tales give us a very sound sense of their reality. It may +seem paradoxical to attribute this to the narrowness of the author's +imagination; but we cannot help doing so. On reflection, we shall see +that it is not so much persons as events that Mr. Trollope aims at +depicting, not so much characters as scenes. His pictures are real, _on +the whole_. Their reality, we take it, is owing to the happy balance of +the writer's judgment and his invention. Had his invention been a little +more tinged with fancy, it is probable that he would have known certain +temptations of which he appears to be ignorant. Even should he have +successfully resisted them, the struggle, the contest, the necessity of +choice would have robbed his manner of that easy self-sufficiency which +is one of its greatest charms. Had he succumbed, he would often have +fallen away from sober fidelity to Nature. As the matter stands, his +great felicity is that he never goes beyond his depth,--and this, not so +much from fear, as from ignorance. His insight is anything but profound. +He has no suspicion of deeper waters. Through the whole course of the +present story, he never attempts to fathom Crosbie's feelings, to +retrace his motives, to refine upon his character. Mr. Trollope has +learned much in what is called the realist school; but he has not taken +lessons in psychology. Even while looking into Crosbie's heart, we never +lose sight of Courcy Castle, of his Club, of his London life; we cross +the threshold of his inner being, we knock at the door of his soul, but +we remain within call of Lily Dale and the Lady Alexandrina. We never +see Crosbie the man, but always Crosbie the gentleman, the Government +clerk. We feel at times as if we had a right to know him better,--to +know him at least as well as he knew himself. It is significant of Mr. +Trollope's temperament--a temperament, as it seems to us, eminently +English--that he can have told such a story with so little preoccupation +with certain spiritual questions. It is evident that this spiritual +reticence, if we may so term it, is not a _parti pris_; for no fixed +principle, save perhaps the one hinted at above, is apparent in the +book. It belongs to a species of single-sightedness, by which Mr. +Trollope, in common with his countrymen, is largely characterized,--an +indifference to secondary considerations, an abstinence from sidelong +glances. It is akin to an intense literalness of perception, of which we +might find an example on every page Mr. Trollope has written. He is +conscious of seeing the surface of things so clearly, perhaps, that he +deems himself exempt from all profounder obligations. To describe +accurately what he sees is a point of conscience with him. In these +matters an omission is almost a crime. We remember an instance somewhat +to the purpose. After describing Mrs. Dale's tea-party at length, in the +beginning of the book, he wanders off with Crosbie and his sweetheart +on a moonlight-stroll, and so interests us in the feelings of the young +couple, and in Crosbie's plans and promises for the future, (which we +begin faintly to foresee,) that we have forgotten all about the party. +And, indeed, how could the story of the party end better than by gently +passing out of the reader's mind, superseded by a stronger interest, to +which it is merely accessory? But such is not the author's view of the +case. Dropping Crosbie, Lilian, and the more serious objects of our +recent concern, he begins a new line and ends his chapter thus:--"After +that they all went to bed." It recalls the manner of "Harry and Lucy," +friends of our childhood. + +But to return to our starting-point,--in "The Small House at Allington" +Mr. Trollope has outdone his previous efforts. He has used his best +gifts in unwonted fulness. Never before has he described young ladies +and the loves of young ladies in so charming and so natural a fashion. +Never before has he reproduced so faithfully--to say no more--certain +phases of the life and conversation of the youth of the other sex. Never +before has he caught so accurately the speech of our daily feelings, +plots, and passions. He has a habit of writing which is almost a style; +its principal charm is a certain tendency to quaintness; its principal +defect is an excess of words. But we suspect this manner makes easy +writing; in Mr. Trollope's books it certainly makes very easy reading. + + +_A Class-Book of Chemistry_; in which the Latest Facts and Principles of +the Science are explained and applied to the Arts of Life and the +Phenomena of Nature. A New Edition, entirely rewritten. By EDWARD L. +YOUMANS, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. + +Though Science has been often vaguely supposed to be something generally +distinct from ordinary knowledge, yet the slightest consideration will +suffice to show us that this is not the case. Scientific knowledge is +only a highly developed form of the common information of ordinary +minds. The specific attribute by which it is distinguished from the +latter is quantitative prevision. Mere prevision is not peculiar to +science. When the school-boy throws a stone into the air, he can predict +its fall as certainly as the astronomer can predict the recurrence of an +eclipse; but his prevision, though certain, is rude and indefinite: +though he can foretell the kind of effect which will follow the given +mechanical impulse, yet the quantity of effect--the height to which the +stone will ascend, and the rapidity with which it will fall--is +something utterly beyond his ken. The servant-girl has no need of +chemistry to teach her, that, when the match is applied, the fire will +burn and smoke ascend the chimney; but she is far from being able to +predict the proportional weights of oxygen and carbon which will unite, +the volume of the gases which are to be given off, or the intensity of +the radiation which is to warm the room: her prevision is qualitative, +not quantitative, in its character. But when Galileo discovers the +increment of the velocity of falling bodies, and when Dalton and De +Morveau discover the exact proportions in which chemical union takes +place, it is evident that knowledge has advanced from a rudely +qualitative to an accurately quantitative stage; and it does not admit +of dispute that the progress of science is thus a progress from the +indefinite to the definite. + +From the point of view here taken it would appear that during the +present century no science has made such rapid and unprecedented strides +as Chemistry; and its progress becomes all the more striking, when we +consider the state of the science previous to the French Revolution. For +centuries nothing had been done in it whatever. Besides the commonest +previsions of every-day life, the ancients knew scarcely anything either +of chemistry or physics, except that amber possessed attractive +properties. The discovery of the strong acids by the Arabs Giafar and +Rhazes, and of phosphorus by Bechil, are almost the only landmarks in +the history of the science, until the discovery of oxygen and the +destruction of the phlogistic theory by Priestley and Lavoisier, +together with the introduction of the balance and the thermometer into +the laboratory, rendered quantitative experiments possible. Since then +its progress has been unexampled. The law of definite proportions, not +long since disputed or unwillingly accepted, has been proved to hold +even among organic compounds. A nomenclature has been invented and +perfected, such as no other science can boast of, whether we consider +the extent to which it facilitates practical operations, or its logical +value as a means of mental discipline. Chemistry has also interacted +with the different branches of physics, giving us the voltaic battery, +the telegraph, and the wonderful results of spectrum-analysis. On the +other hand, it has analyzed the proximate constituents of animal and +vegetal structures, and has even gone far toward determining some of the +conditions of organic existence; while every one of the arts, whether +æsthetic, therapeutic, or industrial, has received from it many and +important suggestions. + +In a science which advances so rapidly there is great need of popular +books which shall clearly and succinctly present the very latest results +of investigation, without burdening the reader with technical details. +For some time there has been no such work in this country. To ascertain +the newest discoveries, it has been necessary to consult the journals +and memoirs of learned societies, the excellent works of Professor +Miller being too cumbrous to be of much service either to the +unscientific reader or to the general scholar. On the other hand, the +text-books in common use have been positively detestable. The +information furnished by many of them is worse than ignorance. We are +tired of works on chemical physics which discourse of "calorie" and "the +electric fluid,"--of works on organic chemistry which ascribe the +phenomena of life to "a vital principle which overrides chemical laws." +A book at once clear, concise, and modern has long been the great +desideratum. + +This need is most amply supplied by the recent work of Dr. Youmans. +Laying no claim to the character of an exposition of original +discoveries, and thus keeping aloof from involved discussion, it is at +the same time so lucid in its statements, so pertinent in its +illustrations, and so philosophic in its reflections, as to invest with +a new charm every subject of which it treats. The author deserves high +praise for taking into account the circumstance that the reading public +is not entirely composed of physicists and chemists. It has been too +much the fashion for writers on scientific subjects to give definitions +which can be rendered intelligible only by an intimate acquaintance with +the very matters defined. It would be tedious to enumerate the countless +absurd explanations given in elementary text-books of the phenomena of +interference, polarization, and double refraction,--explanations as +enigmatical as the inscriptions at Memphis and Karnak,--explanations +useless to the optician because needless, and to the student because +obscure. It would seem that subjects so simple and beautiful as these +could not be rendered difficult of comprehension, except by the most +awkward treatment; and yet we know of no work previous to that of Dr. +Youmans which does not utterly fail to give the general scientific +reader any idea whatever of their nature and theory. Here, however, they +are explained with clearness and elegance, and their bearing on the +undulatory theory of light is distinctly shown. As other instances of +most admirable exposition, we may call attention to the paragraphs on +crystallization, on the atomic theory, on isomerism and allotropism, on +diamagnetism, magnetic induction, and electric "currents," on the +sources of heat, on the chemical and thermal spectra, on the correlation +and equivalence of the forces, on the theory of ozone, on the +exceptional expansion of water and the supposed complexity of its atom, +on the structure of flame, on the constitution of salts, on the colloid +condition of matter, on types and compound radicles, on the dynamics of +vegetable growth and the production of animal power, and, above all, to +the passage which describes the phenomena of latent heat. Throughout, in +treating of these subjects, the author's felicity of exposition never +fails him. The most difficult phenomena are rendered perfectly easy of +comprehension, and their mutual relations are not left out of account. +Each set of facts is treated, not as forming an isolated body of truth, +but as an integral portion of the complex and logically indivisible +universe. In this respect Dr. Youmans's work is far superior to the +recent production of Dr. Hooker, in which, for example, the mere +existence of such a doctrine as that of the correlation of forces is +grudgingly noticed, and its ultimate significance entirely overlooked. + +Far different is Dr. Youmans's treatment of the same doctrine. Indeed, +we think that the chapters on chemical physics form the most +interesting portion of his work, and their value consists chiefly in the +constant reference to the modern ideas of force which pervades them. In +a work intended for the education of youth, such a feature cannot be too +highly praised. It is time that the old material superstitions about +force were eradicated from men's minds, and as far as possible from +their language. It is already more than half a century since Count +Rumford demonstrated the immaterial nature of heat, and Young +established the undulatory theory of light,--ideas which had germinated +two hundred years ago in the lofty minds of Huygens and Hooke. Since +then have been discovered the polarization and interference of heat, the +triple constitution of the solar ray, the identity of magnetism and +electricity, the polar nature of chemical affinity, the optical +polarities of crystals, and the interaction of magnetism and light. +Since then the once meagre and fragmentary science of physics has become +one of the grandest and richest departments of human thought; and the +illustrious names of Helmholtz, Joule, and Mayer, of Grove, Faraday, and +Tyndall, may be fitly named beside those of the leading thinkers of past +ages. The physical forces are no longer to be looked upon as inscrutable +material entities,--forms of matter imponderable, and therefore +inconceivable; but they have been shown to be diverse, but +interchangeable modes of molecular motion, omnipresent, ceaselessly +active. The wondrous phenomena of light, heat, and electricity are seen +to be due to the rhythmical vibration of atoms. There is thus no such +thing as rest: from the planet to the ultimate particle, all things are +endlessly moving: and the mystic song of the Earth-Spirit in "Faust" is +recognized as the expression of the sublimest truth of science:-- + + "In Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm, + Wall' ich auf und ab, webe hin und her, + Geburt und Grab, + Ein ewiges Meer, + Ein wechselnd Weben, + Ein glühend Leben, + So schaff' ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit, + Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid." + +In a discussion containing so much that is noble, however, we are sorry +to observe that Dr. Youmans is betrayed into using the current +expressions concerning an "ether" which is supposed to be the universal +vehicle for the transmission of molecular vibrations. We are told, that, +while "the vibrations of a sonorous body produce undulations in the +air," on the other hand, "the vibrations of atoms in a flame produce +undulations in the ether." We would by no means charge Dr. Youmans with +all the consequences naturally deducible from such a statement. We +believe that he uses the term "ether" simply to render himself more +intelligible to those who have been wont to make use of it to facilitate +their thinking. Such an object is highly praiseworthy, and is too often +left out of sight by those who write elementary works. But the good +service thus rendered is far more than counterbalanced by the host of +erroneous conceptions which at once arise at the introduction of this +luckless term. This notion of an "imaginary ether" should be at once and +forever discarded by every writer on physics. The very word should be +remorselessly expunged from every discussion of the subject. It is one +of the most baneful words in the whole dictionary of scientific +terminology. It stands for a fiction as useless as it is without +foundation. It is useless because superfluous, and not needed in order +to account for the phenomena. An ether is no more necessary in the case +of light than it is in the case of sound. Thermal vibrations are the +oscillations of atoms, not the undulations of an ether. If it be urged +that rays of light and heat will traverse a vacuum, we reply, that the +much-derided aphorism, "Nature abhors a vacuum," is as true at this day +as it was before Torricelli's experiment. A perfect vacuum has never +been produced; and if it were to be produced, the ether must be +excluded, else it would be no vacuum, after all. For, if there were such +a thing as an ether, it must of course be some form of matter; nobody +ever claimed for it the character of motion or force. If it be +considered as matter, then, we are confronted with new difficulties; for +all matter must exert gravitation. Weight is our sole test of the very +existence of matter; it is the balance which has proved that nothing +ever disappears. Imponderable matter is no more possible than a +triangular ellipse. Away, then, with such a mischief-breeding +conception! Let this last-surviving fetich be ousted from the fair +temple of inorganic science. Undulations have been measured and counted; +quantitative relations, like those expressed in Joule's law, have been +established between them; but an "ether" has never yet been the object +of human ken. + +We have expressed ourselves thus emphatically upon this all-important +point, in order to warn the reader of Dr. Youmans's book against drawing +conclusions which the author himself evidently does not mean to convey. +No clear ideas can ever be entertained in physics until this anomalous +"ether" is excommunicated; and therefore we wish it had been banished +from this excellent treatise. We differ also very widely from the +author's views of animal heat, but have not space to enter upon the +discussion. With these exceptions we know of nothing in the work that +could be improved. It is an honor to American science, and fully merits +a more exhaustive examination than we have here been enabled to bestow +upon it. + + +_Strategy and Tactics_. By General G.H. DUFOUR, lately an Officer of the +French Engineer Corps, Graduate of the Polytechnic School, and Commander +of the Legion of Honor; Chief of Staff of the Swiss Army. Translated +from the latest French Edition, by WILLIAM R. CRAIGHILL, Captain U.S. +Engineers, lately Assistant Professor of Civil and Military Engineering +and Science of War at the U.S. Military Academy. New York: D. Van +Nostrand. + +The author of this work is a distinguished civil and military engineer +and practical soldier, who, in all military matters, is recognized as +one of the first authorities in Europe. His history is especially +interesting to Americans, since not many years ago he played a prominent +part in the suppression of a rebellion which, in many features, +exhibited a remarkable similarity to the one with which our own +Government is contending. We refer to the secession of the seven Swiss +cantons forming the Sonderbund, which, like the insurrection of the +Southern States, was a revolt of reactionary against liberal principles +of government; it was likewise the fruit of a well-organized and +long-matured conspiracy, which only delayed an open outbreak until all +its preparations were adequately perfected for a formidable resistance. +The issue of the contest was what we may hope will be that of our +own,--the triumph of free principles, and the complete reëstablishment +of the authority of the legitimate Government on a firmer basis than it +had before occupied. + +General Dufour was born at Constance, of a family of Genevese origin. +Having acquired his early education at Geneva, where he devoted his +attention chiefly to mathematics, he entered the Polytechnic School at +Paris, was commissioned two years afterwards in the corps of Engineers, +and served in the later campaigns of Napoleon, where he rose to the rank +of captain. He afterwards entered the Swiss Federal service, in which he +became colonel, chief of the general staff, and quartermaster-general. +At later periods he has held the less active, but equally responsible +and honorable positions of superintendent of the triangulation of +Switzerland on which the topographical map of the country is based, and +chief instructor of engineering in the principal military school of the +Republic, at Thun. + +When, in 1847, the Swiss Diet determined to dissolve the Sonderbund, +which had at length committed the overt act of treason, General Dufour +was appointed commander-in-chief of the Federal army. A few days after +the call for troops was issued, he found himself at the head of an army +of one hundred thousand men, and immediately entered actively upon the +work before him. His dispositions were skilful and his movements rapid. +He adopted with success the "anaconda" system of strategy, and hemmed in +the insurgents at every point, closing in the mountain-passes, and +completely isolating them. After six days of active campaigning the +Canton of Freyburg was subdued; nine days afterwards Luzerne submitted; +the other rebellious cantons were quick to yield; and in eighteen days +from the commencement of active operations, and twenty-three days from +the issue by the Federal Diet of the decree of coercion, the rebellion +was extinguished so completely that no murmur of treason has since been +heard in the Republic. So rapidly was the whole accomplished, that +foreign powers had not time to intervene; and it is said, that, when the +French messenger went to seek the insurgents with his proposals, they +were already fugitives. In honor of his services in this contest, the +Federal Diet voted General Dufour a sabre of honor and a donative of +forty thousand francs. + +General Dufour's "Strategy and Tactics" is evidently the fruit of an +attentive study of the best examples and authorities of all ages. He has +avoided mere theories and fine writing, and has aimed to present a work +practical in its treatment and application. The lessons of history have +been his guide; his precepts are fortified by pertinent examples from +the campaigns of the best generals, and we may study them with +confidence that when put to the actual test they will not fail. + +The distinction between strategy and tactics, not always clearly +understood, is in substance drawn thus by General Dufour. Strategy +involves general movements and the general arrangement of campaigns, +depending chiefly upon the topographical features of the country which +is the scene of operations,--while tactics relate to the minor details +of campaigns, as the disposition for marches and battles, the +arrangement of camps, etc. Strategy depends upon circumstances fixed in +their nature, and is the same always and everywhere; but tactics must be +modified to suit degree of skill, arms, and manner of fighting of the +combatants. Hence, "much instruction in strategy may be derived from the +study of history; but very grave errors will result, if we attempt to +apply in the armies of the present day the tactics of the ancients. This +fault has been committed by more than one man of merit, for want of +reflection upon the great difference between our missile weapons and +those of the ancients, and upon the resulting differences in the +arrangement of troops for combat." Our own military leaders have not +entirely avoided mistakes of this kind in the conduct of the present +war. + +The treatise before us elucidates the general principles of strategy and +tactics, and applies them to the different classes of field--operations, +without entering into details, or describing the minor manoeuvres, +which belong more appropriately to another class of works. + +The first chapter treats of bases and lines of operations, strategic +points, plans of offensive and defensive campaigns, and strategical +operations. Under the last head are embraced forward movements and +retreats, diversions, (combined movements and detachments,) the pursuit +of a defeated enemy, and the holding of a conquered country. The great +lesson of the chapter, prominent in almost every paragraph, is the +necessity of _concentration_. Divergent marches, scattering of forces, +unless ample facilities are secured for a speedy rally, when necessary, +to a common point, are among the most fruitful sources of disaster. + +The organization of armies next receives attention. The explanation of +the composition of the army, its divisions and subdivisions, and the +adjustment of the relative proportions of the different classes of +troops, is brief and lucid. In the article on the formation of troops +the relative merits of formation in two ranks or three are discussed at +length. + +Under the head of marches and manoeuvres are considered the rules by +which these movements should be conducted. These apply to the adjustment +of the columns, and the division, when necessary, of the forces upon +different roads in order to facilitate progress and make subsistence +more easy, the detailing of scouts and advance and rear guards, etc. The +adaptation of these rules to forward movements and battles leads to a +description of the order of march of the division, the precautions to be +observed in the passage of defiles, bridges, woods, and rivers, and when +the column has arrived in the presence of the enemy, and the conduct of +flank marches, marches in retreat, and the simultaneous movement of +several columns. The importance of precautions against surprise, of +preserving the mobility of the columns, and of providing for +concentration on short notice whenever it may be necessary, is not lost +sight of, but is dwelt upon with great frequency. But military rules are +not more inflexible than other human rules. Though they are based upon +fixed principles, cases may, and do, arise when they cannot be strictly +adhered to,--sometimes when they ought not to be. When should they be +strictly observed? When and how far is it prudent to depart from them? +"These questions," says General Dufour, "admit of no answers. +Circumstances, which are always different, must decide in each +particular case that arises. Here is the place for a general to show his +ability. The military art would not be so difficult in practice, and +those who have become so distinguished in it would not have acquired +their renown, had it been a thing of invariable rules. To be really a +great general, a man must have great tact and discernment in order to +adopt the best plan in each case as it presents itself; he must have a +ready _coup d'oeil_, so as to do the right thing at the right time and +place; for what is excellent one day may be very injurious the next. The +plans of a great captain seem like inspirations, so rapid are the +operations of the mind from which they proceed: notwithstanding this, +everything is taken into account and weighed; each circumstance is +appreciated and properly estimated; objects which escape entirely the +observation of ordinary minds may to him seem so important as to become +the principal means of inducing him to pursue a particular course. As a +necessary consequence, a deliberative council is a poor director of the +operations of a campaign. As another consequence, no mere theorizer can +be a great general." + +Battles, on which the fortune of the campaign must turn at last, receive +a large share of attention. The decision of the question as to when they +shall be fought, though sometimes admitting of no choice, is more often, +with a skilful general, a matter of pure calculation, depending upon +fixed principles, which General Dufour recites in a few brief, but +suggestive sentences. His directions for the disposition and manoeuvres +of the forces in both offensive and defensive battles are quite +complete, though the thousand varying circumstances by which these may +be modified, and which render it impossible for one battle to be a copy +of another, can only be hinted at. Among the elements of a battle here +considered are the disposition of the forces, the manner of bringing on +and conducting the engagement, the manoeuvres to change position on +the field, bringing on reinforcements, seizing all advantages that may +offer, and the manner of conducting pursuit or retreat. The attack and +defence of mountains and rivers, of redoubts, houses, and villages, +covering a siege, infantry, cavalry, and artillery combats and +reconnoissances, each involve special principles, and are treated +separately. In the course of the article on battles, some general +observations are introduced on conducting manoeuvres so as to insure +promptness, security, and precision. The conduct of topographical +reconnoissances is well explained by means of a map of a supposed +district of country, with marked features, which is to be examined. On +this the course of the reconnoitring party, as it goes over the whole, +is traced step by step, and fully explained in the letter-press. In the +concluding chapter the author treats of convoys, ambuscades, advance +posts, the laying-out of camps, and giving rest to troops. + +Such are the outlines of a subject which General Dufour has handled in a +masterly manner. His maxims are practical in their bearing, they commend +themselves to our common sense as sound in principle, and are such as +have received the indorsement of the best authorities. His style is +clear and comprehensive; nothing superfluous is inserted, nothing need +be added to make the subject more clear. The illustrations, which are +given wherever they are needed, are simple and clear; the explanations +are sufficient. This work will be a valuable manual to soldiers, and +students will find it an excellent text-book. We hail it as an important +addition to our growing military literature. + + +_Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as modified by Human Action_. By +GEORGE P. MARSH. New York: Charles Scribner. 8vo. pp. 560. + +The student of Physical Geography must not expect to find in this +massive book a systematic exposition of the science in the manner of +Guyot and the French and German geographers; nor must he expect to see +worked out on its pages the elaborate application of Geography to +History, such as one day will be done, and such as was attempted, though +with results of varied value and certainty, by the eloquent and +plausible Buckle; but he will find an unexpected development of man's +dominion over the world he inhabits. Mr. Marsh takes his readers very +much by surprise; for few are aware, we apprehend, that in the course of +his wandering life, and while prosecuting his eminent philological +studies, he has made leisure enough to survey the natural sciences with +critical exactness, pursue an extended course of inquiry into physical +phenomena, note and digest the results of Italian, Spanish, English, +French, German, Dutch, and American naturalists, ply every guide and +ploughman, every driver and forester, every fisherman and miner, every +lumberman and carpenter, for the results which men attain by observing +within the narrow circle of their occupation,--and weave all into a +copious work which subordinates all results to a grand psychological +law, the mastery of man's mind over the world it calls its home. + +The work which we are noticing aspires to and rightly claims a foremost +place among the literary productions of America, despite a certain +homely flavor and a certain unpretending way which its author has of +saying things which are really great and fine. The main thought +illustrated is not new, but it is brought out so forcibly, and +illustrated by such encyclopedic learning, that it has the power of +novelty. Mr. Marsh shows, as many before him have done, that man is now +using the organic and inorganic forms of the earth in a manner so +subsidiary to the might of his intellect and his will, that such +obstacles as mountains and seas, which used to impede him hopelessly, +now are his auxiliaries; but he does more than this: he demonstrates the +destructive and annihilating sway of man over the world in the past and +in the present; and, proceeding from the historic fact that the +countries which in the palmy days of the Roman Empire were the granary +and the wine-cellar of the world have been given over by the improvident +destructiveness of man to desolation and desert, he enters into a +thorough study of the fact, that, no sooner does man recede from the +barbaric state than he commences a career of destructiveness, cutting +off, in a manner reckless and criminally wasteful, forests, the lives of +quadrupeds, birds, insects, and in short every living thing excepting +the few domestic animals which follow him and serve him for +companionship or for food. Mr. Marsh shows, with more than prophetic +insight, with the mathematical logic of facts, that, unless +compensations far more general and adequate than have yet been devised +are provided, the destructive propensities of civilized man will convert +the world into a waste. Some of our readers have paused thoughtfully +over that chapter in "Les Misérables" which deals so grimly with the +sewerage of cities, and details with the faithfulness of an historian +the exhausting demands of those conduits which carry untold millions to +the sea, and waste that aliment of impoverished soils which not all the +science of the age has found it possible to restore; but Mr. Marsh, not +drawing single pictures with so strong lines, spreads a broader canvas, +and compels his reader to equal thoughtfulness. To quote but one +instance is enough. We have in America thus far escaped, and as +singularly as fortunately, the importation of the wheat-midge which has +been the scourge of the grain-fields of Europe: it will, doubtless, some +time be a passenger on our Atlantic ships or steamers; it will commence +its work; and then man has the task of importing its natural +antagonists, of promoting their spread, and so of compensating the evil. +The work which we are noticing abundantly shows, that, if man were not +in the world, the natural compensations which the Divine Being has +introduced would produce perfect harmony in all things; that man, from +his first stroke at a tree, his first slaying of a beast or bird, +introduces an element of disorder which he can compensate only after +civilization has reached a height of which we yet know nothing, and of +which our present civilization gives us but the suggestion. + +To those who may not care to master the philosophy of "Man and Nature," +the book presents great attractions in the fund of new and entertaining +knowledge given in the text, and yet more largely in the foot-notes. +Many have waded through Mr. Buckle's two volumes a second time for the +purpose of gleaning his facts and gathering up in the easiest way the +latest word in science and literature. Mr. Marsh spreads a homelier +table, but one just as varied and hearty. Never in the course of our +miscellaneous reading have we met an equal store of fresh facts. As +hinted above, they are gathered from every source: the experience of the +maple-sugar maker in Vermont is quoted side by side with the testimony +of the European scholar. The reader will be amazed that there are so +many common things in the world of which he has never heard, and that +they have so large and fruitful an influence over the world's progress. + +If there are striking faults in Mr. Marsh's work, they seem to be these: +want of continuity in treatment, and disproportionate development of +some subjects in contrast with others. The book is, in fact, too large +for a popular treatise, and not large enough for a scientific exposition +of all it essays to discuss. It claims to be a popular work; but the +elaborate discussion of Forests is far beyond the wishes or needs of any +but a scientific reader. The broken, jagged, paragraph style is a +drawback to the pleasure of perusing it: the notion seems to impress the +author that people will not read anything elaborate, unless it be broken +up into labelled paragraphs. It is true of the newspaper: it is not true +of the octavo, to which they sit down expecting a different mode of +treatment, a broad, discursive style, flowing, redundant, and even +eloquent. Yet Mr. Marsh has in some instances transgressed, we think, +even in fulness: the great prominence given, for example, to the +drainage of Holland is untrue to the general tenor of the book and to +the prospective future of the world. It was a great historic deed, when +the relations of man to Nature were quite other than what they are +to-day; but now that man is master of the sea, regulates the price of +bread in London by the price of corn in Illinois, and of broadcloth in +Paris by the cost of wool in Australia, the recovery of a few hundred +thousand acres from the bottom of the North Sea is a great thing for +Holland, but a small thing for the world. + +Yet we accept this book with grateful thanks to the accomplished author. +In the present transition-stage from metaphysical to physical studies, +it will be eagerly accepted, as showing, not openly nor yet covertly, +yet suggestively, the true connection of both. Few books give in quiet, +modest fashion so much theology as this, and yet few claim to give so +little. Few bear more strongly on the mooted points of Anthropology; few +strike so strong a blow at that Development-theory which makes man +merely king of the beasts, and superior to the ape and the gorilla only +in degree; and yet few proceed in such high argument with less +ostentation. This book leaves one great want unfulfilled: to take up the +mantle of Ritter and proceed carefully to the study of French, German, +Russian, English, Spanish, and Italian history, and indeed all great +nations' history, by the light of geography. The problem is stated; it +has now only to be wrought out. Perhaps Mr. Marsh, whose acquisitions +seem to be boundless, and whose powers unlimited, may live to win fresh +laurels on this field. + + * * * * * + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +Woodburn. A Novel. By Rosa Vertner Jeffrey, Author of "Poems by Rosa." +New York. 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"All +right," said he, "from your point of view; but still I shall oppose it +always, tooth and nail; for, if they come in, we must go out." + +[B] Dr. Lieber, in his "Reminiscences of Niebuhr,"--a delightful book of +a delightful class,--records the great historian's testimony in favor of +Italian Latin. + +[C] This is a metrical version of the following passage of the +"Scaligeriana":--"Les Allemans ne se soucient pas quel vin ils boivent +pourvu que ce soit vin, ni quel Latin ils parlent pourvu que ce soit +Latin." + +[D] Need we say that this gentleman is a member of the French Academy, a +librarian of the Mazarin Library, and the well-known author of +"Mademoiselle de la Seiglière," "La Maison de Penarvan," "Sacs et +Parchemins," etc.? + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, +August, 1864, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY,VOLUME 14 *** + +***** This file should be named 16057-8.txt or 16057-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/0/5/16057/ + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine +Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + +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: Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 + A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics + +Author: Various + +Release Date: June 14, 2005 [EBook #16057] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY,VOLUME 14 *** + + + + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine +Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + +<p><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a></p> +<h1>THE</h1> + +<h1>ATLANTIC MONTHLY</h1> + +<h2>A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.</h2> + +<h3>VOL. XIV.—AUGUST, 1864.—NO. LXXXII.</h3> + +<p>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by TICKNOR AND +FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts.</p> + + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#CHARLES_READE"><b>CHARLES READE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#HOW_ROME_IS_GOVERNED"><b>HOW ROME IS GOVERNED.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CONCORD"><b>CONCORD.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#WHAT_WILL_BECOME_OF_THEM"><b>WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM?</b></a><br /> +<a href="#HEAD-QUARTERS_OF_BEER-DRINKING"><b>HEAD-QUARTERS OF BEER-DRINKING.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#FRIAR_JEROMES_BEAUTIFUL_BOOK"><b>FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#LITERARY_LIFE_IN_PARIS"><b>LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_LITTLE_COUNTRY-GIRL"><b>THE LITTLE COUNTRY-GIRL.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#SWEET-BRIER"><b>SWEET-BRIER.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#HOUSE_AND_HOME_PAPERS"><b>HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_HEART_OF_THE_WAR"><b>THE HEART OF THE WAR.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#OUR_RECENT_FOREIGN_RELATIONS"><b>OUR RECENT FOREIGN RELATIONS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"><b>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS"><b>RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS</b></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHARLES_READE" id="CHARLES_READE"></a>CHARLES READE.</h2> + + +<p>Some one lately took occasion, in passing, to class Charles Reade with +the clever writers of the day, sandwiching him between Anthony Trollope +and Wilkie Collins,—for no other reason, apparently, than that he +never, with Chinese accuracy, gives us gossiping drivel that reduces +life to the dregs of the commonplace, or snarls us in any inextricable +tangle of plots.</p> + +<p>Charles Reade is not a clever writer merely, but a great one,—how +great, only a careful <i>résumé</i> of his productions can tell us. We know +too well that no one can take the place of him who has just left us, and +who touched so truly the chords of every passion; but out of the ranks +some one must step now to the leadership so deserted,—for Dickens +reigns in another region,—and whether or not it shall be Charles Reade +depends solely upon his own election: no one else is so competent, and +nothing but wilfulness or vanity need prevent him,—the wilfulness of +persisting in certain errors, or the vanity of assuming that he has no +farther to go. He needs to learn the calmness of a less variable +temperature and a truer equilibrium, less positive sharpness and more +philosophy; he will be a thorough master, when the subject glows in his +forge and he himself remains unheated.</p> + +<p>He is about the only writer we have who gives us anything of himself. +Quite unconsciously, every sentence he writes is saturated with his own +identity; he is, then, a man of courage, and—the postulate assumed that +we are not speaking of fools—courage in such case springs only from two +sources, carelessness of opinion and possession of power. Now no one, of +course, can be entirely indifferent to the audience he strives to +please; and it would seem, then, that that daring which is the first +element of success arises here from innate capacity. Unconsciously, as +we have said, is it that our author is self-betrayed, for he is by +nature so peculiarly a <i>raconteur</i> that he forgets himself entirely in +seizing the prominent points of his story; and it is to this that his +chief fault is attributable,—the want of elaboration,—a fault, +however, which he has greatly overcome in his later books, where, +leaving sketchy outlines, he has given us one or two complete and +perfect pictures. His style, too, owes some slight debt to this fact;<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a> +it has been saved thereby from offensive mannerism, and yet given traits +of its own insusceptible of imitation,—for by mannerism we mean +affectations of language, not absurdities of type.</p> + +<p>There is a racy <i>verve</i> and vigor in Charles Reade's style, which, after +the current inanities, is as inspiriting as a fine breeze on the upland; +it tingles with vitality; he seems to bring to his work a superb +physical strength, which he employs impartially in the statement of a +trifle or the storming of a city; and if on this page he handles a ship +in a sea-fight with the skill and force of a Viking, on the other he +picks up a pin cleaner of the adjacent dust than weaker fingers would do +it. There is no trace of the stale, flat, and unprofitable here; the +books are fairly alive, and that gesture tells their author best with +which a great actress once portrayed to us the poet Browning, rolling +her hands rapidly over one another, while she threw them up in the air, +as if she would describe a bubbling, boiling fountain.</p> + +<p>Charles Reade is the prose for Browning. The temperament of the two in +their works is almost identical, having first allowed for the delicate +femineity proper to every poet; and the richness that Browning lavishes +till it strikes the world no more than the lavish gold of the sun, the +lavish blue of the sky, Reade, taking warning, hoards, and lets out only +by glimpses. Yet such glimpses! for beauty and brilliancy and strength, +when they do occur, unrivalled. Yet never does he desert his narrative +for them one moment; on the contrary, we might complain that he almost +ignores the effect of Nature on various moods and minds: in a volume of +six hundred pages, the sole bit of so-called fine writing is the +following, justified by the prominence of its subject in the incidents, +and showing in spite of itself a certain masculine contempt for the +finicalities of language:—</p> + +<p>"The leaves were many shades deeper and richer than any other tree could +show for a hundred miles round,—a deep green, fiery, yet soft; and then +their multitude,—the staircases of foliage, as you looked up the tree, +and could scarce catch a glimpse of the sky,—an inverted abyss of +color, a mound, a dome, of flake-emeralds that quivered in the golden +air.</p> + +<p>"And now the sun sets,—the green leaves are black,—the moon +rises,—her cold light shoots across one-half that giant stem.</p> + +<p>"How solemn and calm stands the great round tower of living wood, half +ebony, half silver, with its mighty cloud above of flake-jet leaves +tinged with frosty fire at one edge!"</p> + +<p>This oak was in Brittany,—the very one, perhaps, before which,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">"So hollow, huge, and old,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It looked a tower of ruined mason-work,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At Merlin's feet the wileful Vivien lay."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Indeed, Brittany seems a kind of fairy-land to many writers. Tennyson, +Spenser, Matthew Arnold, Reade, all locate some one of their choicest +scenes there. The reason is not, perhaps, very remote. We prate about +the Anglo-Saxon blood; yet, in reality, there is very little of it to +prate about, especially in the educated classes. When the British were +driven from their island, they took refuge in Wales and Brittany. When +William the Norman conquered that island again, his force was chiefly +composed of the descendants of those very Britons; for so feeble was the +genuine Norse element that it had been long since absorbed, and in the +language of the Norman—used until a late day upon certain records in +England—there is not one single word of Scandinavian origin. Thus it +was neither French nor Norman nor Scandinavian invading the white +cliffs, but the exiled Briton reconquering his native land; and, to make +the fact still stronger, the army of Richmond, Henry VII., was entirely +recruited in Brittany. Perhaps, then, the reason that Brittany is to +many a region of romance and delight is a feeling akin to the pleasure +we take in visiting some ancestral domain from whose soil our fathers +once drew their being.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>The Breton novel of Mr. Reade, "White Lies," although somewhat crude, +otherwise ranks with his best. The action is uninterrupted and swift, +the characters sharply defined, if legendary, the dialogue always +sparkling, the plot cleanly executed, the whole full of humor and +seasoned with wit. So well has it caught the spirit of the scene that it +reads like a translation, and, lest we should mistake the <i>locale</i>, +everybody in the book lies abominably from beginning to end.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'A lie is a lump of sin and a piece of folly,' cries Jacintha.</p> + +<p>"Edouard notes it down, and then says, in allusion to a previous +remark of hers,—</p> + +<p>"'I did not think you were five-and-twenty, though.'</p> + +<p>"'I am, then,—don't you believe me?'</p> + +<p>"'Why not? Indeed, how could I disbelieve you after your lecture?'</p> + +<p>"'It is well,' said Jacintha, with dignity.</p> + +<p>"She was twenty-seven by the parish-books."</p></div> + +<p>There is a good deal of picturesque beauty in this volume, and at the +opening of its affairs there occurs a paragraph which we appropriate, +not merely for its merit, nor because it is the only "interior" that we +can recall in all his novels, but because also it contains a +characteristically fearless measuring of swords with a great champion:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"A spacious saloon panelled: dead, but snowy white picked out +sparingly with gold. Festoons of fruit and flowers finely carved +in wood on some of the panels. These also not smothered with +gilding, but as it were gold speckled here and there like tongues +of flame winding among insoluble snows.... Midway from the candle +to the distant door its twilight deepened, and all became +shapeless and sombre. The prospect ended half-way, sharp and +black, as in those out-o'-door closets imagined and painted by Mr. +Turner, whose Nature (Mr. Turner's) comes to a full stop as soon +as Mr. Turner sees no further occasion for her, instead of melting +by fine expanse and exquisite gradation into genuine distance, as +Nature does in Claude and in Nature. To reverse the picture: +standing at the door, you looked across forty feet of black, and +the little corner seemed on fire, and the fair heads about the +candle shone like the heads of St. Cecilias and Madonnas in an +antique stained-glass window. At last Laure [Laure Aglaë Rose de +Beaurepaire,—would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?] +observed the door open, and another candle glowed upon Jacintha's +comely peasant-face in the doorway; she dived into the shadow, and +emerged into light again close to the table, with napkins on her +arm."</p></div> + +<p>The book abounds, as indeed all its companions do, in quaint passages, +comical turns of a word, shrewd sayings,—of which a handful:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'"Now you know,' said Dard, 'if I am to do this little job to-day, +I must start.'</p> + +<p>"'Who keeps you?' was the reply.</p> + +<p>"Thus these two loved."</p></div> + +<p>Dard, by the way, being an entirely new addition to the novelists' +<i>corps dramatique</i>, and almost a Shakspearian character.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It was her feelings, her confidence, the little love wanted,—not +her secret: that lay bare already to the shrewd young minx,—I beg +her pardon,—lynx."</p></div> + +<p>Another involves a curious philosophy, summed up in the following +formula:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"She does not love him quite enough.</p> + +<p>"He loves her a little too much. Cure,—marriage."</p></div> + +<p>But there are one or two scenes in this tale of "White Lies" perfectly +matchless for fire and spirit; and to support the assertion, the reader +must allow a citation. And he will pardon the first for the sake of the +others, since Josephine is the betrothed of Camille Dujardin.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"When he uttered these terrible words, each of which was a blow +with a bludgeon to the Baroness, the old lady, whose courage was +not equal to her spirit, shrank over the side of her arm-chair, +and cried<a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a> piteously,—'He threatens me! he threatens me! I am +frightened!'—and put up her trembling hands, so suggestive was +the notary's eloquence of physical violence. Then his brutality +received an unexpected check. Imagine that a sparrow-hawk had +seized a trembling pigeon, and that a royal falcon swooped, and +with one lightning-like stroke of body and wing buffeted him away, +and there he was on his back, gaping and glaring and grasping at +nothing with his claws. So swift and irresistible, but far more +terrible and majestic, Josephine de Beaurepaire came from her +chair with one gesture of her body between her mother and the +notary, who was advancing on her with arms folded in a brutal +menacing way,—not the Josephine we have seen her, the calm, +languid beauty, but the Demoiselle de Beaurepaire,—her great +heart on fire, her blood up,—not her own only, but all the blood +of all the De Beaurepaires,—pale as ashes with wrath, her purple +eyes flaring, and her whole panther-like body ready either to +spring or strike.</p> + +<p>"'Slave! you dare to insult her, and before me! <i>Arrière, +misérable!</i> or I soil my hand with your face!'</p> + +<p>"And her hand was up with the word, up, up,—higher it seemed than +ever a hand was lifted before. And if he had hesitated one moment, +I believe it would have come down; and if it had, he would have +gone to her feet before it: not under its weight,—the lightning +is not heavy,—but under the soul that would have struck with it. +But there was no need: the towering threat and the flaming eye and +the swift rush buffeted the caitiff away: he recoiled three steps, +and nearly fell down. She followed him as he went, strong in that +moment as Hercules, beautiful and terrible as Michael driving +Satan. He dared not, or rather he could not, stand before her: he +writhed and cowered and recoiled down the room while she marched +upon him. Then the driven serpent hissed as it wriggled away.</p> + +<p>"'For all this, she too shall be turned out of Beaurepaire,—not +like me, but forever! I swear it, <i>parolé de Perrin!</i>'</p> + +<p>"'She shall never be turned out! I swear it, <i>foi de De +Beaurepaire!</i>'</p> + +<p>"'You, too, daughter of Sa—'</p> + +<p>"'<i>Tais toi, et sors à l'instant même! Lâche!</i>'</p> + +<p>"The old lady moaning and trembling and all but fainting in her +chair; the young noble like destroying angel, hand in air, and +great eye scorching and withering; and the caitiff wriggling out +at the door, wincing with body and head, his knees knocking, his +heart panting, yet raging, his teeth gnashing, his cheek livid, +his eye gleaming with the fire of hell."</p></div> + +<p>Too much of this sort of thing becomes meretricious; a man is never the +master of his subject, when he suffers himself to be carried away by it. +And though a fault of haste is pardonable, when lost in fine execution, +we must acknowledge that there is certainly something very "Frenchy" in +this scene,—a remark, though, which can hardly be considered as +derogatory, when we remember that altogether the most readable fiction +of the day is French itself. Our author is evidently a great admirer of +Victor Hugo, though he is no such careful artist in language: he seldom +closes with such tremendous subjects as that adventurous writer +attempts; but he has all the sharp antithesis, the pungent epigram of +the other, and in his freest flight, though he peppers us as prodigally +with colons, he never becomes absurd, which the other is constantly on +the edge of being.</p> + +<p>The next scene which we adduce is that where the battered figure of a +pale, grisly man walks into the garrison-town of Bayonne, after a +three-years' absence, explained only to his disgrace, mutely overcomes +the guard, and rings the bell of the Governor's house.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The servant left him in the hall, and went up-stairs to tell his +master. At the name, the Governor reflected, then frowned, then +bade his servant reach him down a certain book. He inspected it.</p> + +<p>"'I thought so: any one with him?'</p> + +<p>"'No, Monsieur the Governor.'</p> + +<p>"'Load my pistols: put them on the table: put that book back: show +him in: and then order a guard to the door.'</p> + +<p>"The Governor was a stern veteran, with a powerful brow, a shaggy +eyebrow, and a piercing eye. He never rose, but leaned his chin on +his hand, and his elbow <a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>on a table that stood between them, and +eyed the new-comer very fixedly and strangely.</p> + +<p>"'We did not expect to see you on this side of the Pyrenees.'</p> + +<p>"'Nor I myself, Governor.'</p> + +<p>"'What do you come to me for?'</p> + +<p>"'A welcome, a suit of regimentals, and money to take me to +Paris.'</p> + +<p>"'And suppose, instead of that, I turn out a corporal's guard, and +bid them shoot you in the court-yard?'</p> + +<p>"'It would be the drollest thing you ever did, all things +considered,' said the other, coolly; but he looked a little +surprised.</p> + +<p>"The Governor went for the book he had lately consulted, found the +page, handed it to the rusty officer, and watched him keenly: the +blood rushed all over his face, and his lip trembled; but his eye +dwelt stern, yet sorrowful, on the Governor.</p> + +<p>"'I have read your book: now read mine.'</p> + +<p>"He drew off his coat, and showed his wrists and arms, blue and +waled.</p> + +<p>"'Can you read that, Monsieur?'</p> + +<p>"'No.'</p> + +<p>"'All the better for you! Spanish fetters, General.'</p> + +<p>"He showed a white scar on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"'Can you read that, Sir?'</p> + +<p>"'Humph?'</p> + +<p>"'This is what I cut out of it,'—and he handed the Governor a +little round stone, as big and almost as regular as a musket-ball.</p> + +<p>"'Humph! that could hardly have been fired from a French musket.'</p> + +<p>"'Can you read this?'—and he showed him a long cicatrix on his +other arm.</p> + +<p>"'Knife, I think?' said the Governor.</p> + +<p>"'You are right, Monsieur: Spanish knife!—Can you read +this?'—and opening his bosom, he showed a raw and bloody wound on +his breast.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, the Devil!' cried the General.</p> + +<p>"The wounded man put his coat on again, and stood erect and +haughty and silent.</p> + +<p>"The General eyed him, and saw his great spirit shining through +this man. The more he looked, the less could the scarecrow veil +the hero from his practised eye.</p> + +<p>"'There has been some mistake, or else I dote—and can't tell a +soldier from a'—</p> + +<p>"'Don't say the word, old man, or your heart will bleed!'</p> + +<p>"'Humph! I must go into this matter at once. Be seated, Captain, +if you please, and tell me what have you been doing all these +years?'</p> + +<p>"'Suffering!'</p> + +<p>"'What, all the time?'</p> + +<p>"'Without intermission.'</p> + +<p>"'But what? suffering what?'</p> + +<p>"'Cold, hunger, darkness, wounds, solitude, sickness, despair, +prison,—all that man can suffer.'</p> + +<p>"'Impossible! a man would be dead at that rate before this.'</p> + +<p>"'I should have died a dozen times, but for one thing.'</p> + +<p>"'Ay! what was that?'</p> + +<p>"'I had promised to live.'</p> + +<p>"There was a pause. Then the old man said, calmly,—</p> + +<p>"'To the facts, young man: I listen.'"</p> + +<p>And high time, be it said; since it begins to read very much like +one of Artemas Ward's burlesques. The upshot of which listening +was, that the man left for Paris directly in the demanded +regimentals, and wrapt about with the Governor's furred cloak to +boot; that he would not delay in the metropolis one moment, even +to put on the epaulets they gave him, but saved them for his +sweetheart to make him a colonel with, and, though weary and torn +with pain, galloped away to the Chateau de Beaurepaire, to find +that sweetheart another man's wife.</p> + +<p>"He turned his back quickly on her. 'To the army!' he cried, +hoarsely. He drew himself haughtily up in marching-attitude. He +took three strides, erect and fiery and bold. At the fourth the +great heart snapped, and the worn body it had held up so long +rolled like a dead log upon the ground, with a tremendous fall."</p></div> + +<p>Which scene must be followed by its pendant, taking place during the +siege of a Prussian town, when, from the enemy's bastion, Long Tom, out +of range of Dujardin's battery, was throwing red-hot shot, sending half +a hundred-weight <a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>of iron up into the clouds, and plunging it down into +the French lines a mile off.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'Volunteers to go out of the trenches!' cried Sergeant La Croix, +in a stentorian voice, standing erect as a poker, and swelling +with importance.</p> + +<p>"There were fifty offers in less than as many seconds.</p> + +<p>"'Only twelve allowed to go,' said the Sergeant; 'and I am one,' +added he, adroitly inserting himself.</p> + +<p>"A gun was taken down, placed on a carriage, and posted near +Death's Alley, but out of the line of fire.</p> + +<p>"The Colonel himself superintended the loading of this gun; and to +the surprise of his men had the shot weighed first, and then +weighed out the powder himself.</p> + +<p>"He then waited quietly a long time, till the bastion pitched one +of its periodical shots into Death's Alley; but no sooner had the +shot struck, and sent the sand flying past the two lanes of +curious noses, than Colonel Dujardin jumped upon the gun and waved +his cocked hat. At this preconcerted signal, his battery opened +fire on the bastion, and the battery to his right hand opened on +the wall that fronted them; and the Colonel gave the word to run +the gun out of the trenches. They ran it out into the cloud of +smoke their own guns were belching forth, unseen by the enemy; but +they had no sooner twisted it into the line of Long Tom than the +smoke was gone, and there they were, a fair mark.</p> + +<p>"'Back into the trenches, all but one!' roared Dujardin.</p> + +<p>"And in they ran like rabbits.</p> + +<p>"'Quick! the elevation.'</p> + +<p>"Colonel Dujardin and La Croix raised the muzzle to the +mark,—hoo! hoo! hoo! ping! ping! ping' came the bullets about +their ears.</p> + +<p>"'Away with you!' cried the Colonel, taking the linstock from him.</p> + +<p>"Then Colonel Dujardin, fifteen yards from the trenches, in full +blazing uniform, showed two armies what one intrepid soldier can +do. He kneeled down and adjusted his gun, just as he would have +done in a practising-ground. He had a pot-shot to take, and a +pot-shot he would take. He ignored three hundred muskets that were +levelled at him. He looked along his gun, adjusted it and +readjusted to a hair's-breadth. The enemy's bullets pattered over +it; still he adjusted and readjusted. His men were groaning and +tearing their hair inside at his danger.</p> + +<p>"At last it was levelled to his mind, and then his movements were +as quick as they had hitherto been slow. In a moment he stood +erect in the half-fencing attitude of a gunner, and his linstock +at the touch-hole: a huge tongue of flame, a volume of smoke, a +roar, and the iron thunderbolt was on its way, and the Colonel +walked haughtily, but rapidly, back to the trenches: for in all +this no bravado. He was there to make a shot,—not to throw a +chance of life away, watching the effect.</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand eyes did that for him.</p> + +<p>"Both French and Prussians risked their own lives, craning out to +see what a colonel in full uniform was doing under fire from a +whole line of forts, and what would be his fate: but when he fired +the gun, their curiosity left the man and followed the iron +thunderbolt.</p> + +<p>"For two seconds all was uncertain: the ball was travelling.</p> + +<p>"Tom gave a rear like a wild horse, his protruding muzzle went up +sky-high, then was seen no more, and a ring of old iron and a +clatter of fragments were heard on the top of the bastion. Long +Tom was dismounted. Oh, the roar of laughter and triumph from one +end to another of the trenches, and the clapping of forty thousand +hands, that went on for full five minutes! then the Prussians, +either through a burst of generous praise for an act so chivalrous +and so brilliant, or because they would not be crowed over, +clapped their ten thousand hands as loudly, and thundering +heart-thrilling salvo of applause answered salvo on both sides +that terrible arena."</p></div> + +<p>If all this was melodramatic, it should be remembered that the time was +melodramatic itself; it is, however, saved from such accusation by the +truthfulness of the handling; and the homeliness of a portion of it +recalls the ballad of "Up at the villa, down in the city," with its +speeches of drum and fife. Nevertheless, here are combined the true +elements of modern sensational writing: there are the broad canvas, the +vivid colors, the abrupt contrast, all the dramatic and startling +effects that weekly fiction affords, <a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>the supernatural heroine, the more +than mortal hero. What, then, rescues it? It would be hard to reply. +Perhaps the reckless, rollicking wit: we cannot censure one who makes us +laugh with him. Perhaps nothing but the writer's exuberant and +superabundant vitality, which through such warp shoots a golden woof +till it is filled and interwoven with the true glance and gleam of +genius. The difference between these pages and that of the previously +mentioned style is the same as exists between any coarse scene-curtain +and some glorious painting, be it Church, with his tropical lushness, or +Gifford, with his shaking, shining mists,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;">"mist</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like a vaporous amethyst,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or an air-dissolved star</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mingling light and fragrance far</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As the curved horizon's bound,"—</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>some canvas that seems to palpitate and live and tremble with the +breathing being confided to it by the painter. Indeed, Charles Reade has +a great deal of this pictorial power. A single sentence will sometimes +give not only the sketch, but all its tints. Take, for instance, the +paragraph in which, speaking of the Newhaven fish-wives, he says, "It is +a race of women that the Northern sun peachifies instead of +rosewoodizing"; and it is as good as that picture of the "Two +Grandmothers," where the rosy woman with her rosy troop is confronted by +the tawny sunburnt gypsy and her swarthy group of dancing-girl and +tambourine-tosser.</p> + +<p>When "Peg Woffington" first fell upon us, a dozen years ago or so, +Humdrum opened his eyes: it was like setting one's teeth in a juicy pear +fresh from the warm sunshine. Then came "Christie Johnstone," a perfect +pearl of its kind, in which we recognize an important contribution to +one class of romance. If ever the literature of the fishing-coast shall +be compiled, it will be found to be scanty, but superlative; let us +suggest that it shall open with Lucy Larcom's "Poor Lone Hannah," the +most touching and tearful of the songs of New-England life,—followed by +Christie Johnstone's night at sea among the blue-lights and the nets +with their silver and lightning mixed, where the fishers struggle with +that immense sheet varnished in red-hot silver,—and at the end let not +the "Pilot's Pretty Daughter" of William Allingham's be forgotten:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Were it my lot—there peeped a wish—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To hand a pilot's oar and sail,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or haul the dripping moonlit mesh</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Spangled with herring-scale:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By dying stars how sweet 'twould be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And dawn-blow freshening the sea,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With weary, cheery pull to shore</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To gain my cottage-home once more,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And meet, before I reached the door,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My pretty pilot's daughter!"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But it is a fine fashion of this noble world never to acknowledge itself +too well pleased. Men are ashamed of satisfaction. So soon as they have +exhausted the honey, they condemn the comb; it will do to wax an old +wife's thread;—they forget that the cells whose sides break the usual +uniformity contain the royal embryos. Humdrum read these little novels +through and through, laughed and cried over them in secret, then pulled +a long face, stepped forth and denounced—the typography. Now we admit +that the page presents a fairer appearance with single punctuations, +unblurred by Italics, and its smooth surface unbroken by strings of +capitals;—but let us ask these criticasters for what purpose types were +cast at all. To assist the author in the expression of his ideas, and to +elucidate subtile shades of meaning? or to prove his let and hindrance, +and to wrap his expression in mystery? Whether or no, it is patent that +Charles Reade makes an exclamation—and an interrogation-point together +say as much as many novelists can dibble over a whole page. +Nevertheless, in his latest work these eccentricities are greatly +modified; yet who would forego in the sea-fight that almost inaudible, +breathless whisper of "Our ammunition is nearly done"? or again the +moment when Skinner pokes Mr. Hardie lightly in the side and says, +"But—I've—got—THE RECEIPT"?<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a> And could anything express the state of +young Reginald's mind so ineffably as the primer type of his letter to +Lucy?</p> + +<p>A much less venial fault than any typographical trifle is a tendency +belonging to this author to repeat both incident and colloquy. This of +course is merely the result of negligence,—and negligence no one likes +to forgive; only Shakspeare can afford to be careless of his fame, and +the rags that his commentators make of him are a warning to all pettier +people. We have seen the manuscript of a man already immortal, so +interlined, erased, and corrected as to be undecipherable by any but +himself and the printer who has been for twenty years condemned to such +hard labor; surely others can condescend to the same pains;—yet we +doubt if Mr. Reade so much as looks his over a second time.</p> + +<p>Many persons have a trick of writing their names, not on the fly-leaf of +the books they possess, but on the hundredth or the fiftieth page. +Perhaps it is according to some such brand of the warehouse that we find +in "Very Hard Cash," or in "White Lies," indifferently, such brief +dialogues as this:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'No.'</p> + +<p>"'Are you sure?'</p> + +<p>"'Positive.'"</p></div> + +<p>Then, Reade's characters are perpetually doing the same thing. Josephine +and Margaret both seize their throats not to cry out; Josephine and +Margaret both kiss their babies alike,—a very pretty description of the +act, though:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The young mother sprang silently upon her child,—you would have +thought she was going to kill it,—her head reared itself again +and again, like a crested snake's, and again and again, and again +and again plunged down upon the child, and she kissed his little +body from head to foot with soft violence, and murmured through +her starting tears."</p></div> + +<p>But not content with that, Margaret must reënact it. Then Gerard and +Alfred, returning from long absences, both find their only sister dead; +and the plot of three of the novels turns on the fact of long and +inexplicable absences on the part of the heroes. The Baroness de +Beaurepaire, who is flavored with what her maker calls the "congealed +essence of grandmamma," shares her horror of the jargon-vocabulary +equally with Mrs. Dodd, (the captain's wife, who "reared her children in +a suburban villa with the manners which adorn a palace,—when they +happen to be there"). There is a singular habit in the several works of +putting up marble inscriptions for folks before actual demise requires +it,—Hardie showing Lucy Fountain hers, Camille erecting one to Raynal. +All his heroines, as soon as they are crossed in love, invariably lose +their tempers, and invariably by the same process; all, without +exception, have violet eyes and velvet lips, (and sometimes the heroes +also have the latter!) and all of them should wear key-holes at their +ear-rings. Indeed, here is our quarrel with Mr. Reade. The conception of +an artless woman is impossible with him. Plenty of beautiful ideals he +creates, but with the actual woman he is almost unacquainted: Lucy +Fountain, of all his feminine characters, is the only one whose +counterpart we have ever met; Julia, the most perfect type of his fancy, +impetuous, sparkling, and sweet, has this to say for herself, on +occasion of a boat-race:—"'We have won at last,' cried Julia, all on +fire, '<i>and fairly; only think of that</i>!'" Through every sentence that +he jots down runs a vein of gentle satire on the sex. Every specimen +that he has drawn from it possesses feline characteristics: if provoked, +they scratch; if happy, they purr; when they move, it is with the bodies +of panthers; when they caress their children, it is like snakes; and in +every single one of his books the women listen, behind the door, behind +the hedge, behind the boat.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'He would make an intolerable woman,' says the Baroness. 'A fine +life, if one had a parcel of women about one, <a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>blurting out their +real minds every moment, and never smoothing matters!'</p> + +<p>"'Mamma, what a horrid picture!' cries Laure."</p></div> + +<p>When upon this subject our author leaves innuendo, and fairly shows his +colors, he writes in this wise:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"For nothing is so hard to her sex as a long, steady struggle. In +matters physical, this is the thing the muscles of the fair cannot +stand. In matters intellectual and moral, the long strain it is +that beats them dead. Do not look for a Bacona, a Newtona, a +Handella, a Victoria Huga. Some American ladies tell us education +has stopped the growth of these. No, Mesdames! These are not in +Nature. They can bubble letters in ten minutes that you could no +more deliver to order in ten days than a river can play like a +fountain. They can sparkle gems of stories; they can flash little +diamonds of poems. The entire sex has never produced one opera, +nor one epic that mankind could tolerate a minute: and why?—these +come by long, high-strung labor. But, weak as they are in the long +run of everything but the affections, (and there giants,) they are +all overpowering while the gallop lasts. Fragilla shall dance any +two of you flat on the floor before four o'clock, and then dance +on till peep of day. You trundle off to your business as usual, +and could dance again the next night, and so on through countless +ages. She who danced you into nothing is in bed, a human jelly +crowned with headache."</p></div> + +<p>Certainly, the concluding sentence shows that the writer is unacquainted +with the Fifth-Avenue Fragilla. And, moreover, we were unaware that she +had ever entered herself as competitor with Dr. Windship in the lifting +of three-thousand-pound weights. But this is poor stuff for a man of +talent to busy himself with,—as if the Creator intended rivalry between +beings complementary to each other, and of too diverse physical +organization to allow the idea. Yet a fair friend of ours would meet him +on his own ungallant ground. If Mr. Reade will trouble himself, says Una +and the Lion, to turn over a work of Frances Power Cobbe's on Intuitive +Morals, he will see that the first two impossibilities in his catalogue +are lessened so far as to allow hope; as for Handella, there is reason +to believe in her advent,—many women have written faultless tunes,—all +that is wanted is mathematical harmony,—and Mary Somerville, Maria +Mitchell, and the sister of the Herschels forbid despair on that point; +and God forbid the Victoria Huga! the male of the species is more than +enough. We must look upon any wide departure from the prevailing pattern +either as a monstrosity or as a development of the great plan; +therefore, if one of these women is a monstrosity, Laplace and Aristotle +are to be considered equally so. And then, also, Mr. Reade, masculine as +he is, finds eclipse in the shade of either Mrs. Lewes, (Marion Evans,) +or Charlotte Brontè, or Madame Dudevant. As for men, they are themselves +just emerging from barbarism; a race rises only with its women, as all +history shows. The whole sex has produced no operas? they are modern +things; when men have advanced a little, when our audience is ready, we +shall write operas. Epics? how many has the entire opposite sex +produced? well, four: terrible disparity, when we count by billions! +These are not in Nature? Whose assertion for that? till he can prove it, +the word of "some American ladies" is as good as the word of Mr. Charles +Reade. For myself, continued the outraged Una, I know a beautiful woman +who left lovers, society, pleasures,—absorbed in her moulding and +modelling, day by day and year by year, with no positive result except +in her own convictions and consciousness,—who spent the long summer +hours alone in the little building with her white ideas, and who, winter +night after night, rose to cross street and garden and snowy fields to +tend the fire and wet the clay, and who, on more than one morning +finding the weary labor of months wasted where the frozen substance had +peeled from the framework and lay in fragments on the floor, without a +murmur began the patient work again. That was <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>during the trial; +afterwards attainment. Was there no long strain and steady struggle +there?</p> + +<p>Una's enthusiasm infects us; and very <i>apropos</i> to all this do we hear +Mr. Reade's Jacintha remark,—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"We are good creatures, but we don't trouble our heads with +justice; it is a word you shall never hear a woman use, unless she +happens to be doing some monstrous injustice at the very moment."</p></div> + +<p>And with the best-natured contempt in the world, Dr. Sampson exclaims,—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"What! go t' a wumman for the truth, when I can go t' infallible +inference?"</p></div> + +<p>Even Lucy Fountain saw many young ladies healed of many young +enthusiasms by a wedding-ring,—but a wittier woman has said it better, +Una declares, in asserting that a married woman's name is her epitaph. +If, however, Mr. Reade's opinion of womankind is at any time +justifiable, we must bring Una to witness that it is so in the following +instance:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Realize the situation, and the strange incongruity between the +senses and the mind in these poor fellows! The day had ripened its +beauty; beneath a purple heaven shone, sparkled, and laughed a +blue sea, in whose waves the tropical sun seemed to have fused his +beams; and beneath that fair, sinless, peaceful sky, wafted by a +balmy breeze over those smiling, transparent, golden waves, a +bloodthirsty pirate bore down on them with a crew of human tigers; +and a lady babble babble babble babble babble babbled in their +quivering ears!"</p></div> + +<p>We have heard numberless inquiries as to Mr. Reade's private life, with +which, whether they have the right or not, the public will concern +itself. So at home is he on every subject that each appears to be his +specialty. One asserts that he follows Galen: witness his mania on +medicine. Certainly not, another replies; are not his principles +erroneous, and second-hand at that? Does he not dredge the science with +ridicule? No practitioner would gravely assert the feasibility of +transfusion, an operation never yet performed with success, since the +red globules of his own blood seem to be as proper to each individual as +his identity, and allow no admixture from alien veins; in surgery he has +but one foe,—phlebotomy; in pharmacy, but one friend,—chloroform; he +asserts of Dr. Sampson, (Dr. Dickson, the writer of "Fallacies of the +Faculty"?) that "he was strong, but not strong enough to make the +populace suspend an opinion; yet it might be done: by chloroforming +them." (Which leads one parenthetically to remark that it is great pity, +then, that, in the prevalent headlong precipitancy of public judgment, +anæsthetics have not been more generally employed on this side of the +water of late.) Certainly he is no physician, they say. But, on the +other hand, a conjecture that he has been before the mast is as +plausible a one as that ever Herman Melville was; there is the true +sailor's-roll about him; nobody less skilful than the captain of a +three-decker could have run the Agra through such a gantlet of +broadsides and hurricanes; the manœuvring of the ship, when her +master puts her before the wind that he may rake one schooner's deck and +hurl the majestic monster bodily upon the other, is unequalled by +anything in nautical literature, and approached by nothing in verity, +except it may be Admiral Dupont's waltz of fire around the two forts of +Hilton Head. Another, who laughs at both of these amateur statements, +has a Grub-Street one; but, except to a favored few, to everybody in +this country he is only an impersonal existence. In this general dearth +of useful information, there are, however, one or two biographical +sketches afloat,—possibly hints of those waiting their chance in the +pigeon-holes of the Thunderer,—of which we are tempted to give the +reader a sample, brought to us by Una in substantiation of her +hostilities.</p> + +<p>The subject of the present notice was picked up at sea, a child, and, +under the provisions of maritime law concerning flotsam, jetsam, and +lagan, was appropriated by the crew. He then followed <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>their fortunes +for several years, with various adventures, among which is the one +wherein he is said to have accompanied Arthur Gordon Pym (disguised in +the published account of that voyage under the name and appearance of +one Peters) upon his fearful South-Sea sail towards that vapory cataract +at the world's end which was seen "rolling silently into the sea from +some immense and far-distant rampart of the heaven," from the horrors of +which he escaped in the same miraculous manner that Mr. Pym did. He must +still have been young at the time, as this occurred in 1838. Unable to +find any credence to these extraordinary statements upon his return, he +found an asylum from the unbelieving world, where, in order not to +become a permanent resident, and being capable of impartial judgment +thereon, he employed himself in a profound study of finance. Emerging +from this seclusion, lest he should defraud his natural element +entirely, he plunged into the hot water of the revolutions then ravaging +Europe. Receiving wounds, he was laid up in hospital; and being of an +active turn of mind and debarred from other pursuits, he fell (like Dr. +Marie Zakrzewski) to studying the cards renewed every day above the +patients' beds with the disease written thereon, its symptoms, and its +treatment; in this manner he acquired quite a knowledge of medicine. He +was, however, mercifully prevented from practising by the fact, that, +upon repeating his story to an acquaintance, he met, as before, with +such total disbelief, that, most fortunately for many readers, he +determined at once to devote the remainder of his days to fiction.</p> + +<p>How much faith such a narrative deserves we leave others to decide. It, +however, has the virtue, as Una declares again, of plausibly explaining +Mr. Reade's entire misapprehension of the feminine portion of +humanity,—since, during the whole course of such a career, it would +have been impossible that he should have made intimate acquaintance with +a single specimen of the sex. It is true that in "Christie Johnstone" he +speaks of the musical performances of certain female relatives of his +own; but of course that is to be taken only as a part of the fiction. +One thing, however, is evident,—that, if this sketch is not true, the +converse of it must be, and where the reader has paid his money he may +take his choice.</p> + +<p>Mr. Reade's latest novel, "Very Hard Cash," is a continuation of a +previous one, "Love me Little, Love me Long." A great charm of +Thackeray's books was, that in every fresh one we heard a little news of +the dear old friends of former ones; and "Very Hard Cash" has all the +advantage of prepossession in its favor. Its forerunner was a startling +thing to the circulating-library, for the hero was an entirely new +character, dashing among the elegancies of the habitual hero like a +shaggy dog in a drawing-room; and though the author admires him to the +core of his heart, he never once hesitates to put him in ridiculous +plight, and sets at last this diamond-in-the-rough in his purest and +most polished gold. It is a delightful book, with one scene in it, the +memorable night at sea, worth scores of customary novels, and, apart +from the noble and beautiful delineation of David Dodd, would be +invaluable for nothing else but its faultless portraiture of that +millinery devotee, Mrs. Bazalgette.</p> + +<p>From two such natures as David and his wife nothing less noble should +spring; and therefore, through necessity, their daughter Julia, the +heroine of "Very Hard Cash," is that ideal of vehemence and sweetness +which we find her, not by any choice or fancy of the writer, but on +account of fate, natural deduction, and <i>a priori</i> logic. She is, +however, for all that, to some extent a creation; one may imagine her, +long for her, look for her,—one will not immediately find her. Youth +never was painted so well as here; both Julia and Alfred are aureoled in +its beauty; they are not reasonable mortals with the accumulated +perfections of three-score and ten, but young creatures just brimmed, as +young creatures are, with the blissfulness of being. Nobody ever +<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>appreciated youth as this writer does, nobody has so entered into it; +he never fails, to be sure, to make you laugh at it a little, but all +the time he confesses a kind of loving worship of that buoyant time when +the effervescence of the animal spirits fills the brain with its happy +fumes, of that fearless, confident period that</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Is not, like Atlas, curled</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stooping 'neath the gray old world,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But which takes it, lithe and bland,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Easily in its small hand."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>We have often wondered that no one ever before grappled with the +material of this last volume. The easy ability of one person to +incarcerate another in a mad-house is as often abused in America as in +England, and circumstances in this drama which might strike a casual +reader as preposterous we can match with kindred and more hopeless cases +within our own knowledge. Perhaps one of the ablest portions of the +treatment which this book affords the theme is in the singular +collocation of characters,—the hero being wrongfully imprisoned as +insane, the heroine's father really made so by medical malpractice, the +hero's sister dying of injuries received from another maniac, his uncle +being imbecile, and his father and one of his physicians becoming +monomaniac. Nicer shades than these allow could not be drawn, and the +subject stands in bold relief as a monument of dauntless courage and +enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>No one can hesitate to declare this novel, as it is the latest, to be +also the finest of all that Charles Reade has given us. In saying this +we do not forget the "Cloister and Hearth," which, however tender and +touching and true to its century, is rather a rambling narrative than an +elucidated plot. "Very Hard Cash" is wrought out with the finest finish, +yet nowhere overdone; it so abounds in scenes of dramatic climax that we +fancy the stage has lost immensely by the romance-reader's gain; yet +there is never a single situation thrown away, every word tends in the +main direction, and after that the prolific mind of the writer overflows +in <i>marginalia</i>. There are one or two striking improbabilities, which +Mr. Reade himself excuses by asserting that the commonplace is neither +dramatic nor evangelical,—and therefore we confess, that, so long as +Reginald Bazalgette had a ship, Captain Dodd was as likely to turn up on +that as on any other, the purser as likely to make his communication at +that moment as later, and the fly as likely to resuscitate the patient +as the surgeon. But the characterization in this book is wonderful; +every name becomes an acquaintance, from Mrs. Beresford, dividing Ajax's +emotion and declining to be drowned in the dark, with her servant +Ramgolam and his matchless Orientalisms, up to the loftier models, one +of whom he endows with this exquisite bit of description:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"A head overflowed by ripples of dark-brown hair sat with heroic +grace upon his solid white throat, like some glossy falcon +new-lighted on a Parian column."</p></div> + +<p>We must, however, object to Fullalove, who is quite unworthy of the +author, though perhaps complacently regarded by him as a success, being +merely the traditional Yankee compound of patents and conjectures, a +little smarter than usual, as of course a passage through Mr. Reade's +pen must make him;—he never touched his brain. Vespasian, also, is not +so good as he might be, although one enjoys his contempt for the +pirate's crew of Papuans, Sooloos, and Portuguese, as a "mixellaneous +bilin' of darkies," and finds something inimitable in his injured +dignity over the anomalous <i>sobriquet</i> afforded him, whose changes he +rings through analogy and anatomy till he declares himself to be only a +"darned anemone." The real charm of the book, however, lies in the +beautiful relation which it pictures between mother and children, and in +the nature of the daughter herself, so exuberant, so dancing, yet the +foam subsiding into such a luminous body of clearness, which so lights +up the page with its loveliness, that, seeing how an artless woman is +foreign to Mr. Reade's ideas, we are forced to believe <a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>that Nature was +too strong for him and he wrote against the grain. Nevertheless, there +is enough of his own prejudice retained for piquancy,—and since the +poor things must be insignificantly wicked, see how charming they can +be! There are many scenes between these covers that would well bear +repetition, were they not too fresh in the reader's mind to require it; +we will content ourselves with a single one, which contains the only +pretentious writing of the whole novel, done at a touch, with a light, +loose pen, but showing beyond compare the soul of the poet through the +flesh of the novelist.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"At six twenty-five, the grand orb set calm and red, and the sea +was gorgeous with miles and miles of great ruby dimples: it was +the first glowing smile of southern latitude. The night stole on +so soft, so clear, so balmy, all were loath to close their eyes on +it; the passengers lingered long on deck, watching the Great Bear +dip, and the Southern Cross rise, and overhead a whole heaven of +glorious stars most of us have never seen and never shall see in +this world. No belching smoke obscured, no plunging paddles +deepened; all was musical; the soft air sighing among the sails; +the phosphorescent water bubbling from the ship's bows; the +murmurs from little knots of men on deck subdued by the great +calm: home seemed near, all danger far; Peace ruled the sea, the +sky, the heart: the ship, making a track of white fire on the +deep, glided gently, yet swiftly, homeward, urged by snowy sails +piled up like alabaster towers against a violet sky, out of which +looked a thousand eyes of holy, tranquil fire. So melted the sweet +night away.</p> + +<p>"Now carmine streaks tinged the eastern sky at the water's edge, +and that water blushed; now the streaks turned orange, and the +waves below them sparkled. Thence splashes of living gold flew and +settled on the ship's white sails, the deck, and the faces; and, +with no more prologue, being so near the line, up came +majestically a huge, fiery, golden sun, and set the sea flaming +liquid topaz.</p> + +<p>"Instant the lookout at the foretop-gallant-mast-head hailed the +deck below.</p> + +<p>"'Strange sail! Right ahead!'</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Ah! the stranger's deck swarms black with men!</p> + +<p>"His sham ports fell as if by magic, his guns grinned through the +gaps like black teeth; his huge foresail rose and filled, and out +he came in chase.</p> + +<p>"The breeze was a kiss from Heaven, the sky a vaulted sapphire, +the sea a million dimples of liquid, lucid gold."</p></div> + +<p>In conclusion, we must pronounce Mr. Reade's merit, in our judgment, to +belong not so much to what he has already done as to what, if life be +allowed him, he is yet to do. All his previous works read like +'studies,' in the light of his last. For "Very Hard Cash" is the +beginning of a new era; it shows the careful hand of the artist doing +justice to the conceptions of genius, in the prime of his vigor, with +all his powers well in hand. The forms of literature change with the +necessities of the age,—to some future generation what illustration the +dramatists were to the Elizabethan day the knot of superior novelists +will be to this, and among them all Charles Reade is destined to no +subordinate rank.</p><p><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="HOW_ROME_IS_GOVERNED" id="HOW_ROME_IS_GOVERNED"></a>HOW ROME IS GOVERNED.</h2> + + +<p>There are a thousand descriptions of Rome, its antiquities, galleries, +ceremonies, and manners, but hardly any, that I remember, of the +organization of the Papal Government,—that wonderful power which long +played the chief part in the social and political revolutions of Europe, +which, even in its decay, preserves so much of its original grandeur, +and still clings to its traditions with a tenacity of conviction that +commands our respect, although the remembrance of the evil that it has +done compels us, as men and as Christians, to rejoice at the prospect of +its fall.</p> + +<p>This omission on the part of so many thoughtful travellers is by no +means an unnatural one. We go to Rome in order to see and to feel, +rather than to study and to think. The past crowds upon us overladen +with history and poetry; and the present is so full of new forms of life +that it is only when we come to sit down at a distance and gather up our +recollections that we ask ourselves how all the instruments of that +gorgeous pageantry are put together and moved. The Pope has palaces and +villas. The cardinals live in splendid apartments, and ride in massive +coaches of purple and gilt, drawn by horses richly caparisoned, and +attended by servants in livery. Bishops and prelates and monks and +priests and friars fill long processions on public occasions, and move +about in their daily life with the air and bearing of men who belong to +a sphere that common men have no concern in.</p> + +<p>There is a church or a chapel for every day in the year, and some emblem +of external recognition for every saint in the calendar. There are +lenten days, when the rich eat fresh tunny from the Adriatic or eels +from Comacchio, and the poor whatever they can get; and holidays, when +the shops are shut and the churches and theatres open, and everybody +amuses himself as well as his tastes and his means allow. Nowhere are +processions so splendid, festivals so magnificent, the whole body of the +population accustomed, either as actors or as spectators, to such daily +displays of opulence and grandeur.</p> + +<p>How is all this done? How do all these men live? What do they do for +themselves and for one another? What is the object of this +multiplication of insignia and titles? What is the meaning of the red +stockings and the purple stockings, and the red and the purple hat-band, +and the various decorations of the horses, and the infinite varieties of +cut and color and device in dress and equipage, which you begin to +distinguish only when you become accustomed to objects so unlike +anything you have ever seen before? For every one of them has a meaning, +and tells the instructed eye the hopes and aspirations and half the +history of the bearer as plainly as a tablet or an inscription.</p> + +<p>Without attempting, on the present occasion, to answer all of these +questions in detail, I shall endeavor to give such an outline of the +organization of the Roman Government as shall cover the most important +of them.</p> + +<p>The head of this vast body, the Pope, is better known than any of the +inferior members; for, as spiritual head of the Church and absolute +sovereign of her temporal dominions, his peculiar position has always +made him the object of peculiar attention. Officially, he was for +centuries the acknowledged chief of Christendom, jealous of his +prerogatives, bold in his assumptions, often feared where he was not +reverenced, and often courted and flattered where he inspired neither +reverence nor fear. Individually, his education and habits, the books he +reads and the company he keeps, have seldom led him to study the causes +of national prosperity, and still more seldom taught him to sympathize +with the feelings or respect the rights of mankind.</p><p><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a></p> + +<p>From his childhood, the purest source of sympathies and affections is +closed for him rigorously and hopelessly. He grows up as a stranger at +the family-hearth; for, as he sits there, he is taught that he can never +have a family-hearth of his own. He begins life by renouncing its +dearest privileges, and training all his faculties for a relentless war +upon himself,—for repressing natural impulses, not guiding them, +extirpating his passions, not subduing them, and aiming at an +insensibility that can be attained only by the sacrifice of every human +instinct, rather than that serene tranquillity of spirit in which every +passion is recognized as a power for good as well as for evil, and all +are subjected alike to the guidance of a discriminating and +conscientious self-control.</p> + +<p>He is in a false position from his first step in life, and strays +farther and farther from the true course to the very end of it. His +hopes and aspirations are all directed to one object, trained to flow in +a dark and narrow channel, on which the sunbeams never play, and which +the pure breath of Nature never visits. His brothers and sisters have a +thousand things to talk about and think about which he has no part in. +If he joins in their games, it is still as the <i>abbatino</i>: the formal +small-clothes and narrow neckband and three-cornered hat that contrast +so strongly with their gay dresses are ever present to remind him and +them that they have different paths to travel, and have already entered +upon them. It is a dreary process that education of his, and one that +makes your heart ache to look upon. A rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed boy, +with boyish blood in his veins, running through them quick and warm, and +every now and then making them tingle with some boyish longing that will +out, although he is a priest in miniature and a Pope in prospective. I +never could look at it without thinking of the gardener, in the fulness +of his topiary pride, cutting trees and shrubs into towers and walls, +and every shape but that which Nature designed them for. Clip, clip, go +the long, scythe-like shears, and with every clip down comes a branch +with its thousand songs unsung, or a shoot with its half-blown promise +of spring. Cut away earnestly, patiently. You have your faith to help +you; and though your eyes are of the strongest and keenest, you have +never been taught to use them. Cut away till your arms ache and your +head swims with the strain of measuring angles and inches and pyramids +and obelisks; Nature is working at the root while you are warring on the +branches. True, the birds will not build where your shears have passed; +and the winds will wail where they would have piped it merrily, if the +young boughs had been there to dance to their breathings. But the roots +are tough and the trunks are strong, and the sap wells surely up from +those mysterious sources where, in darkness and silence, Nature works +her wondrous transformations,—proving, through each waxing and waning +year, by bud and leaf and branch, that, thwart and mutilate and deny her +as you may, she is the same kind mother still.</p> + +<p>As life advances, the dividing lines grow sharper and more defined. He +has got his Latin, and, in getting it, read Virgil and Horace and +Cicero, as his brothers did. But henceforth St. Augustine becomes his +Cicero; and he already begins to suspect that the best service his Homer +and Thucydides and Demosthenes have rendered him has been by enabling +him to understand St. Chrysostom. What is Herodotus to the Lives of the +Saints, or Livy to Baronius? Why should he waste his time on human +nature in Tacitus, or follow, with Guicciardini, the tortuous paths of +princes, when he can find lessons more to his taste, and wisdom more to +his purpose, in Mabillon and Pallavicini? His daily conversation is +about the interests and concerns of his order, and, as he enters upon +its duties, about the questions which those duties raise, and the +rewards which their fulfilment promises or brings. It was a great day +for him and for his friends, when he first ascended the altar in cope +and stole; but mass soon becomes a daily exercise, <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>and, like all things +done daily, sinks into routine. A still more anxious day was it, when he +first took his seat in the confessional to absolve and to condemn, to +interpret and to enjoin, to listen to secrets which are like the lifting +of the veil from one of the darkest mysteries of life, and feel the +breath that bore them through the punctures of the thin partition fall +on his cheek with a warmth that made his veins glow and his own breath +come fast and thick.</p> + +<p>I once heard a confession of murder from the murderer's lips, as we sat +alone, side by side, on the same sofa. It was of a Sunday morning, +bright, beautiful, and still, one of those days in which earth looks so +pure and lovely that you can hardly believe sin could ever have found a +home thereon. He was a Sicilian, a gentleman by birth and fortune; and +when he first came into the room, apologizing for the intrusion, and +regretting that he was taking up my time with the business of a +stranger, I thought that I had never seen a more intelligent face or +felt more immediately at home with an utter stranger. He began his story +in a low, musical voice,—Italian loses none of its softness in the +mouth of a Sicilian,—and I had followed him through a midnight ride +over a wild and solitary road before I began to suspect how it was to +end. Then came the details: a sudden meeting,—angry words, heating to +madness blood already too hot,—a shot,—a body writhing on the ground +in its own blood. His voice hardly changed, though the tones, perhaps, +were somewhat deeper; but his cheek flushed and his eye kindled, and I +felt such a sickening shudder come over me as I had never felt before. +He was dressed in white, too,—spotless white, as it seemed to me, when +he first came into the room; I had even admired the neatness of his +trousers and waistcoat: but as I looked and listened, big drops of blood +seemed to come out upon them,—a drop for every word, slowly exuding +from some mysterious source, till he was bathed all over in it from head +to foot. A day or two afterwards, I met him upon the Pincian, in the +midst of walkers and riders and all the gay throng of a crowded +promenade at its most crowded hour. But the blood was on him still, and, +under the locks that clustered darkly over his forehead, the +ineffaceable mark of Cain.</p> + +<p>But even the story of murder may become familiar. Human nature at the +confessional is the dark side of human nature, and it is as hard for the +moral eye to preserve a healthy tone in the midst of this moral darkness +as for the physical eye to preserve its clearness and strength in the +constant presence of physical darkness. Curious questions come up there, +undoubtedly, of a deep, strange interest, and often, too, of a deep and +strange fascination. But it is not Nature's generous impulses, its +tender yearnings, its noble aspirations, that the stricken conscience +pours into the confessor's ear. The strugglings and writhings of the +soul, the convulsive efforts to cast off an insupportable burden, to +escape from an insufferable anguish, to find rest for itself in its +weariness, peace for its warring passions, an answer and a solution to +its doubts,—these are the events of the confessional. And its fruits +are the folios of Molina and Vasquez and Filutius and Lessius and +Escobar, wherein sin and temptation are weighed in scales so delicate +that the tenderest conscience can hardly hesitate to indulge itself now +and then in the flowery little by-paths that run so pleasantly close to +the straight and narrow way. It was not in the confessional that +Filangieri and Gioja and Romagnosi studied, that Adam Smith sought the +secret of national prosperity, or that Sismondi found that perennial +fountain of generous sympathies, which, through his fifty years of +incessant labor, welled up with such a quickening and invigorating +vitality from the profound investigations of the historian and the +patient statistics of the economist.</p> + +<p>Not all, however, who wear the priest's dress are confessors and +priests. There is a body of reserves always in waiting upon the vast +army of regular ecclesiastics: men ready to push forward into the +<a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>ranks, but who stop short at the <i>prima tonsura</i> till they have +ascertained how much their chances will be bettered by taking the final +and irrevocable step. Yet, although they now and then bring somewhat +more of worldly leaven into their intellectual and moral training, they +well know that there is but one road to the red hat and the tiara, and +that they who give themselves up to this ambition must give themselves +up to it with undivided hearts. Thus the models which they set before +themselves, the ideals after which they strive, are all taken from +successful aspirants to the honors of the Church. And the interests of +that great body, as a body independent of laymen, and which can preserve +its immunities only by preserving its independence, and its independence +only by a rigid exclusion of foreign elements,<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> become as dear to them +as if they already enjoyed all its privileges and had assumed all its +obligations.</p> + +<p>If any one wishes to know what sort of statesmen such an education +makes, let him go thoughtfully over the twenty legations, prolegations, +delegations, and governments into which the twelve thousand nine hundred +and twenty square miles of the Pontifical States were still divided only +four years ago, and see how the two million nine hundred and eighty +thousand subjects of the Pope lived and throve under the care of +cardinals and prelates. Subtle negotiators, skilled in the crooks and +tangles of a wily and selfish policy, they have always been,—for they +have studied well the selfish elements of the human heart; patient, too, +and persevering and keen-eyed, as they must needs be who walk in +tortuous ways,—but cold, contracted, and arrogant, mistaking artifice +for statesmanship, unwilling to learn from the lessons of the past, and +unable to comprehend the changes that are going on around them, or to +see that every forward step of the human race is the result of causes +which man has sometimes been permitted to modify, but which he can never +hope to control.</p> + +<p>It is from men thus educated that the Pope and his counsellors are +chosen.</p> + +<p>As far as theoretical origin goes, the Pope is the most democratic of +sovereigns; for there is nothing to prevent his being taken from any +rank or order of the faithful. The sons of peasants and mechanics have +sat upon the Papal throne, and the thunderbolts of the Vatican have been +launched by hands familiar with the pruning-knife and the plough. But in +practice these bounds were effectually narrowed, when the college of +cardinals tacitly restricted the choice to the members of their own +body,—and still more effectually, when, by the same silent usurpation, +they resolved that Adrian of Utrecht should be the last of foreign +pontiffs. For three hundred and forty years none but Italians have been +called to the chair of St. Peter's, thus, by an inevitable result of the +unnatural alliance of temporal with spiritual sovereignty, confining the +birthright of Christendom to the nation which all Christendom delighted +to humiliate and oppress.</p> + +<p>Theoretically, also, the election of the Pope is made by the special +intervention of the Holy Ghost, although the doings of most conclaves +fill many pages of very unholy history. Intrigues begin the moment the +Pope's health is known to be failing, and grow thicker and more +intricate with each unfavorable bulletin. There are few among the +cardinals who do not feel that they have at least a chance of election; +and not one, perhaps, but enters the conclave prepared to make the most +of his individual pretensions. Some even, like Consalvi at the conclave +of Leo XII., set their hearts so strongly upon it that they have been +supposed to have died of the disappointment. Great services are not +always the best recommendation; for it is difficult to serve the public +well without <a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>making some private enemies. Little griefs, long forgotten +by the offender, but carefully treasured up in the more tenacious memory +of the offended, have more than once proved insurmountable obstacles in +the path to the throne. Each, too, of the great Catholic powers has a +right to exclude one among the candidates, if the exclusion be announced +before the votes are all given in: a privilege which, as it narrows the +circle of the eligible and increases individual chances, seldom fails to +be faithfully exercised. Indeed, up to the last moment, no one can tell +who may and who may not be chosen. The most prominent candidates are +often the first to be set aside; and the election, like all elections, +from that of a President of the United States to that of a +village-constable, is oftener decided by a combination of personal +ambitions and interests than by those pure and elevated motives which +look so attractive in the programme.</p> + +<p>The death of the Pope is announced by the tolling of the great bell of +the Capitol, and with all convenient haste the nine days' funeral +begins. Everybody that has been at Rome will remember the beautiful +little chapel on the right hand as you enter St. Peter's; for in the +niche above the altar is the group of the Virgin with the dead Christ on +her knees, one of the few works which the volcanic genius of Michel +Angelo could bring itself to finish in marble. In this chapel, directly +in front of this marvellous group, the body of the dead Pope, embalmed +and clad in Pontifical robes, is laid on a sumptuous bier, amid a blaze +of tapers, with sentinels from the Swiss guard at his feet, leaning on +their long halberds, and officers of the household in official costume, +and all that imposing mixture of sacred and profane which Rome knows so +well how to use upon all great occasions. And here, day after day, the +faithful still crowd to take the last look of their "Holy Father," and +kiss the cross on his slipper, and repeat a prayer for his soul. And +hundreds among them, especially the very young and the very old, go a +few yards farther on to the bronze statue of St. Peter, once the bronze +statue of Jupiter, and with equal faith imprint a fervent kiss on the +well-worn toe, and repeat a prayer for themselves.</p> + +<p>On the opposite side, over the doorway that leads to the dome, is a +large sarcophagus of white marble, looking down, if marble can be +supposed to look, upon the monument of the last of the Stuarts: dead +Pope and dead King almost face to face; crown and tiara mouldering +within a few paces of each other; for in that sarcophagus Pope after +Pope has silently taken his place, till summoned by the death of his +successor to go down to the darker slumbers of the vaults below. And at +the close of the ninth day of the funeral, when the crowd is gone, and +the doors are closed, and the evening shadows begin to fall upon chapel +and altar, and the votive tapers twinkle like dim stars through the +gathering gloom, the sarcophagus is opened, the coffin taken out and +examined and then carried down to the vault, the newly dead is raised to +his temporary resting-place, and amid a silence seldom broken by +lamentation the apostolic notary writes by flickering torchlight that +once more the successor of the throne has become the successor of the +grave.</p> + +<p>Then begins the conclave. Each cardinal comes in state with his two +<i>conclavistas</i>, or conclave-companions, usually prelates, and always +chosen with a view to the services they may be able to render in the +approaching struggle; the mass of the Holy Spirit is solemnly said, if +not always devoutly listened to; the ambassadors of the Catholic powers +utter their official exhortations to harmony and a single eye to the +good of the Church; and when they withdraw, the mason of the conclave +steps gravely forth, trowel in hand, to build up a solid wall of brick +and mortar betwixt the electors and that world which still looks forward +with curious interest, although with diminished faith, to the result of +the election.</p> + +<p>The conclave, as the name indicates, is a room, and when the +constitution of <a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>the customary circular letters announcing his election, +the new Pope, John XXI., better known, if known at all, by his +"Thesaurus Pauperum" than by his administration of the Holy See, issued +a Bull confirming the suspension of the obnoxious constitution, as +containing things "obscure, impracticable, and opposed to the +acceleration of the election." The next conclave lasted six months and +eight days.</p> + +<p>Still the conclave is a kind of imprisonment, which nothing but that +love of power which reconciles man to so many things he hates, and those +hopes that never die in hearts that have once cherished them, could +induce seventy men accustomed to lives of luxury and indulgence to +submit to. The usual place of holding it is the Quirinal, a cooler and +healthier palace than the Vatican; and, in a spirit very different from +that of the Gregorian constitution, everything is done to make it as +comfortable as is consistent with narrow space and walled-up doors. Each +cardinal has four small rooms for himself and his two companions, and +the number and quality of the dishes at his dinner and supper depend +upon his own habits and the skill of his cook. The approaches are +guarded by the senators and <i>conservatori</i>, patriarchs and bishops, and +at meal-times, a judge of the <i>Rota</i> is stationed at the dumb-waiter to +examine the dishes as they are brought up, and make sure that the +intrigues within get no help from the intrigues without. Daily mass +forms, of course, a part of the daily routine, and is followed by the +morning vote.</p> + +<p>The voting usually begins with the <i>scrutinio</i>, or, as we should term +it, the ballot. Each cardinal writes his own name and that of his +candidate on a ticket. Then, with many ceremonies and genuflections, not +very edifying to profane eyes, if profane eyes were permitted to see +them, but each of which has its mystical interpretation, he ascends to +the altar and lays his ticket on the communion-plate, whence it is +transferred to the chalice,—communion-plate and communion-cup playing a +part in the ceremony which has made more than one good Catholic groan +deeply in spirit. The votes are then counted, care being taken that they +correspond in number to the number of cardinals present, and if any +candidate is found to have two-thirds of the votes cast, the election is +complete. If, however, the legal two-thirds are not reached, any voter +may change his vote by saying that he accedes to the votes thrown in +favor of any other candidate. This mode of election is called +<i>accession</i>, and has often been found successful where the prominence of +any candidate was sufficient to make it evident that two or three votes +would secure a choice.</p> + +<p><i>Inspiration</i> is another mode of election, not so common as the ballot, +but which, whenever any candidate has succeeded in forming a strong +party, is not without its advantages. Several cardinals call out +together the name of their candidate, and if many of them agree in +calling the same name, the rest are seldom willing to hold out in open +opposition to a choice which after all may be made without them: the +successful candidate always being expected to remember those who +favored, and seldom known to forget those who opposed his election.</p> + +<p>A fourth and last mode, never resorted to except in desperate straits, +and when the contest seems interminable, is by <i>delegation</i>: the power +of choice being delegated by the cardinals to one or more of their +number, and all solemnly pledging themselves to abide by the decision. +It was thus that Gregory X. was chosen by a delegation of six,—and that +John XXII. became Pope after two years of regular voting had failed to +procure a successor to the Prince of the Apostles. It has been said, +however, that John, who, partly by his talents and partly by fraud, had +raised himself from the lowest walks of life, had no sooner secured a +pledge of concurrence than he announced his own name as that of the +candidate of his choice. Surprised, but not edified, the cardinals made +no opposition to his elevation, for Christendom and <a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>folio crammed with +projects and reports: bishops and missionaries transport him in a moment +from England to China, from Egypt to Peru. If you could look into those +piles of papers which are awaiting his signature, you would find +petitions and remonstrances, death-warrants and pardons, political +processes and criminal processes, schemes for a new bishopric or a new +canonization, plans for a cathedral in New York or a convent in Syria, +for a new prison in the Patrimony or a new tax in the Marches, +architecture and law, finance and theology, sacred and profane all +jumbled together: and what wonder they should keep jumbled, from the +beginning to the end, from his coronation to his funeral, leaving him, +even with the best intentions and the most untiring industry, a helpless +prey to intrigues and cabals and all the artifices and deceptions which +beset a throne? Gioja and Romagnosi are under the ban, and he has no +wish to ask them for the clue to the labyrinth he is wandering in, even +if he had the time. He has no time to read the newspapers. His knowledge +of them is derived from abstracts prepared for him by a clerk in the +Governor's office,—containing, therefore, what the minister allows to +be put there, and nothing more; while their living pictures, those +columns of advertisements which bring before you day by day the wants +and hopes and pursuits of so many of your fellow-creatures, carrying +you, as it were, into hundreds of families, and laying open to your +scrutiny hundreds of human hearts, the different lights in which men and +things appear to the organs of different parties, and the proof which, +in the midst of their contradictions, they all concur in giving that +there is a spirit abroad which cannot be lulled to sleep, are lessons +all lost for him, and which, perhaps, would be equally lost, even if he +had the leisure and the knowledge to study them.</p> + +<p>He dines alone,—for in the city, in the dearth of publicans and +sinners, no one can sit at table with the Vicar of Christ; and thus +dinner-hour, the open-hearted hour, puts him almost more absolutely in +the hands of his immediate attendants than any hour of the twenty-four. +If he walks, it is in the garden or library; if he rides, it is +surrounded by guards and followed by his household train. He took his +last walk in the streets when he was a prelate, and thenceforth knows no +more of the city than he can see through his carriage-windows; and now +even that imperfect view is more than half cut off by the officers of +the guard, who ride their great black horses close to the carriage-door.</p> + +<p>But enough of the Pope, and much more than I had intended when I first +took up my pen. That, even when he has studied them most, the temporal +interests of his people must suffer in his hands, has been proved by the +sufferings of millions through centuries of oppression and misrule. And +must it not always be so, when the interests of husbands and fathers are +intrusted to men cut off by education and profession from the domestic +sympathies wherein these interests have birth, and that domestic hearth +which is at once the source and the emblem and the purifier of the +State?</p> + +<p>The electors and advisers of the Pope form the College of Cardinals, +seventy in number, when full: six bishops, fifty priests, and fourteen +deacons; once merely the parish priests of Rome, then princes of the +Church and electors of its visible head. In this body, formerly so +important and on which so much still depends, all Catholic Europe has +its representatives, although it is mainly composed of native Italians. +Many of them are men of exemplary piety, many of them eminent for talent +and learning, but some, too, mere worldlings, raised by intrigue or +favor or the necessities of birth to a position too exalted for weak +heads, and too much beset with temptation for corrupt hearts.</p> + +<p>The path that leads to the sacred college is neither a straight nor a +narrow one. There are no prescribed qualifications of age or of rank. +Leo X. was cardinal at thirteen; and although no such premature +appointment to the gravest duties <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>has been made since, or will ever, +probably, be made again, yet there is always a salutary sprinkling of +youth in this eminent body, if priests and prelates can ever be said to +be truly young. And although families of a certain rank are sure of the +speedy promotion of any child whom they may see fit to dedicate to the +Church, yet the representative of untainted blood has often found +himself side by side with the son of a peasant or of an artisan. The +cardinal is not necessarily even a priest. Adrian V. died without +ordination; and Leo X. held the keys of St. Peter four days with +unconsecrated hands. He may even have been married, but must be single +again when he puts on the red hat.</p> + +<p>The appointment is made by the Pope, and, although announced to the +whole body assembled in consistory, requires no confirmation to make it +valid. Certain offices lead to it, and are known as cardinalate offices. +Every prelate looks forward to it with hope, and every priest with +longing; and besides the priests and prelates, the regular orders also, +the monks and friars, claim a representation in the college. But +whatever the pretensions or expectations of individuals may be, the +decision rests with the Pope, whose good-will, adroitly managed, has +often let fall the coveted honor upon men who had little else to +recommend them. It was certainly honorable to this reverend body in our +own day that they numbered Mai and Mezzofante among their brethren; but +in Rome the story ran that neither the palimpsestic labors of the one +nor the fifty languages of the other would have won him the well-earned +promotion, if the Pope's favorite servant had not set his heart upon +making his children's tutor assistant-librarian of the Vatican.</p> + +<p>Although nominally the council of the Pope, the consistory or official +assembly of the cardinals has few of the characteristics of a +deliberative body. The Pope addresses them from his throne; but the +substance of his address is already known to most of them beforehand, +and his opinion upon the subject, as well as theirs, made up before they +come together. They have no constituents to enlighten, nothing to hope +and nothing to fear from public opinion. They are all so near the +topmost round that each of them is justified in feeling as if he already +had his hand upon it; but to whichever of them that envied preëminence +may be destined, it is neither the favor nor the gratitude of the people +that can raise him to it. What they already hold they are sure of; and +it is only to the good-will of their colleagues that they are to look +for more.</p> + +<p>But it is in those public meetings that the Roman court puts on all its +splendor. The very hall has a grave and imposing air about it that +inspires serious thoughts in serious minds, and checks, for a moment, +the frivolous vivacity of lighter ones. You cannot look at the walls +without feeling a solemn sadness steal over you, as you think of the +thousands of your fellow-creatures who have gazed on them with the same +freshness and fulness of life with which you now gaze on them, since +Raphael and Michel Angelo first clothed them with their own immortal +conceptions, three hundred years ago. It was in an assembly like this, +and perhaps in this very room, that the condemnation of Luther was +pronounced, that Henry was proclaimed "Defender of the Faith," and that +Cardinal Pole rejoiced with his brethren of the purple over the +approaching return of England to the bosom of the Church. And as you are +musing on these things, and centuries seem to pass before you like the +figures of a dream, the room gradually fills, the cardinals come in and +take their places, each clad in the simple majesty of the purple, and +last of all comes the Pope himself, the steel sabres of his guard +ringing on the marble floor with a clang that breaks the harmonious +silence most discordantly. Then in a moment all is hushed again. The +cardinals go one by one to pay their homage to their spiritual father, +kneeling and kissing the cross on his mantle, he blessing them all, as +duteous children, in return. If you are an American and a Catholic, you +look on <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>devoutly, feeling, perhaps, at moments, although you take good +care not to say so, that, although highly edifying, it is a little dull; +if an American and a Protestant, you think of the morning prayer in +Congress, and members with newspapers or half-read letters in their +hands, a very busy one now and then forgetting that he is standing with +his hat on, and all of them in a hurry to have it over and enter upon +the business of the day,—or of a reception-night, perhaps, at the White +House, with the President shaking hands as fast as they can be held out, +and trying hard to smile each new-comer into the belief that the +"present incumbent" is the very best man he can vote for at the next +election.</p> + +<p>But hush! the Pope is speaking,—not always as orators speak, it is +true, but gravely, at least, and with that indefinable air of dignity +which the habit of command seldom fails to impart. The language is +sonorous, and if you have had the good sense to unlearn your barbarous +application of English sounds—cunningly devised by Nature herself to +keep damp fogs and cold winds out of the mouth—to Italian vowels, which +the same judicious mother framed with equal cunning to let soft and +odoriferous airs into it, you will probably understand what he says, for +his speech is generally in Latin, and very good Latin too.<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a></p> + +<p>But still you grow tired, and, like the actors in the splendid pageant, +are heartily glad when it is all over,—well pleased to have seen it, +but, unless a sight-seer by nature, equally pleased to feel that you +will never be compelled by your duty to your guide-book and <i>cicerone</i> +to see it again.</p> + +<p>There are three kinds of consistory,—the private, the public, and the +semi-public. The most interesting are those in which ambassadors are +received, for the ambassador's speech gives some variety to the routine. +But in substance they are all equally splendid, equally formal, and—now +that the world no longer looks to the Vatican for its creeds—all +equally insignificant and dull.</p> + +<p>Thus it is not as a deliberative body that the cardinals take part in +the government. Their collective functions are for the most part purely +formal, and the great wheel turns steadily on its axle without any +direct help from them. But as sole electors of the sovereign, whom they +are not only to choose, but to choose from among themselves, and as the +body from which the highest functionaries of the State are drawn, their +individual influence is always very considerable, often whatever they +have the tact and skill to make it.</p> + +<p>Another body which shares with the "Sacred College" the privilege of +furnishing the instruments of government is the Prelacy,—a term which +must be taken in its restricted sense, of men, whether laymen or +ecclesiastics, destined by profession to various offices of dignity and +trust in the civil and ecclesiastical administration, some of which lead +directly to the cardinalate, and all of them to personal privileges and +a competent income. Their education is often less exclusive than that of +the priests, for many of them have belonged to the world before they +gave themselves up to the Church, and profane studies have employed some +of the time which might otherwise have been devoted to Bellarmino and +his brethren. In dress they are distinguished by the color of their +stockings and hat-band. When they walk out, a liveried servant follows +them a few paces in the rear; and while the cardinals, from +"Illustrious" have become "Eminent," these aspirants to the purple are +always addressed as "Monsignore," or "My Lord."</p> + +<p>The first set of wheels in this complicated machine is composed of the +twenty-three Congregations, a kind of executive and deliberative +committees, consisting of cardinals and prelates, and first <a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>used by +Sixtus V., as a speedier and more effective method of eliciting the +opinions of his counsellors and bringing their administrative talents +into play than the deliberations in full consistory which had obtained +till his time. Sixteen of them are ecclesiastical, the remaining seven +civil, although the number may at any time be restricted or enlarged +according to the wants and the views of the reigning Pontiff. They have +their stated meetings, their regular offices and officers; and while +theoretically under the immediate direction of the sovereign, they +actually relieve him from many of the details and not a few of the +direct responsibilities of sovereignty.</p> + +<p>The first of these Congregations bears a name which sounds harshly in +Protestant ears, although but a shadow of that fearful power which once +carried terror to every fireside, and made even princes tremble and turn +pale on their thrones. The Holy Office still retains the form and +authority conferred upon it by Paul III., if not the spirit breathed +into it by the grasping Innocent and fiery Dominic. Its dark walls, +which so long shrouded darkest deeds, stand close to St. Peter's, under +the very eye of the Pope, as he looks from his bedroom-window,—within +ear-shot of the thousands whom curiosity or devotion brings yearly to +the church or to the palace, little heeding, as they gaze on the dome of +Michel Angelo or climb the stairway of Bernini, that almost beneath the +pavement they tread on are dungeons and chains and victims.</p> + +<p>But the Inquisition, you say, is no longer the Inquisition of three +hundred years ago. Bunyan tells us that Christian, on his pilgrimage to +the Celestial City, saw, among other memorable sights, a cave hard by +the way-side, wherein sat an old man, grinning at pilgrims as they +passed by, and biting his nails because he could not get at them. And +now let me tell you a story of the Inquisition which I know to be true.</p> + +<p>Some twenty-five years ago there lived in Rome a physician well known +for his professional skill, and still better for his good companionship +and ready wit. He was, in fact, a pleasant companion, fond of a good +story, fonder still of his dog and gun, fondest of all of talking about +poetry and reciting verses, which he could do by the hour,—sometimes +repeating whole pages from Dante or Petrarch or Tasso or his favorite of +all, Alfieri,—and sometimes extemporizing sonnets, or <i>terzine</i>, or +odes, with that wonderful facility which Nature has given to the Italian +<i>improvvisatore</i> and denied to the rest of mankind. It has often been +remarked that the study of medicine goes hand in hand with a certain +boldness of speculation not altogether in harmony with the lessons of +the priest. No one who has lived in Italy long enough to get at the true +character of the people can have failed to observe this in Italian +physicians; and our doctor, like many of his brethren, was suspected of +carrying his speculations into forbidden fields. Still, his practice was +large, and went on increasing. Laymen, if they must needs be sick, were +glad to have him at their bedsides; and there were even men with purple +on their shoulders who had strong faith in his skill, if they had strong +doubts of his orthodoxy. Externally he conformed to the requirements of +the Church: heard mass of Sundays, and went once a year to the +confessional; for this much is a police regulation, a tax upon +conscience which every Roman is bound to pay. But he was too much behind +the scenes to do it with a good will, and saw professionally too much of +the daily life of the clergy, looked too freely and too closely at some +of their "pleasant vices," to feel much reverence either for them or for +their teachings.</p> + +<p>Suddenly his chair, for he was professor in the medical college, was +taken from him: a warning, thought his friends, that unfriendly eyes +were upon him; and so, also, thought some of his patients, and called in +a new physician. Still his general practice continued large; and +although he found a little more time for <a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>his wife,—for a father to sit +in, in darkness and silence, and recall the sunny faces and sweet +prattle of his children. But he felt that unseen eyes might be watching +him even there, and that a sigh, though breathed never so softly, might +reach the ears of some who would rejoice in it and come all the more +confidently to the work they had resolved to do upon him. So, setting +down his lamp, he made two or three turns across the room, and then, +drawing out his watch, as if to assure himself that it was bedtime, +deliberately undressed and went to bed.</p> + +<p>And to sleep?</p> + +<p>You will not call him coward, if with closed eyes he lay wakeful upon +his pillow, thinking over the last hour with a heart that beat quick, +though it faltered not, listening vainly for some sound to break the +unearthly silence, and longing for daylight, if, indeed, the light of +day was permitted to visit that lonely cell. It came at last, the +daylight,—though not as it was wont to come to him in his own dear +home, with a fresh morning breath and a fresher song of birds, waking +familiar voices and greeted with endearing accents. How would it be in +that home this morning? How had it been there through the slow hours of +that feverish night? How was it to be thenceforth with those precious +ones, and with him too, whom they all looked to for guidance and +counsel?</p> + +<p>He got up and dressed himself a little more carefully than usual, +resolved that there should be no outside telltales of the thoughts that +were struggling within. He had hardly finished dressing when the door +opened. Neither footsteps in the corridor nor the turning of the key had +he heard, but there stood a familiar of the Inquisition, friar in dress, +and with the stony face of a man accustomed to live by lamp-light and +talk in whispers. He brought the prisoner's breakfast,—coffee and +bread. "You have been listening," thought M——; "but I will be even +with you." And to make a fair start, he refused to touch either the +bread or the coffee until the familiar had tasted both.</p> + +<p>The morning passed slowly, though he helped it along as well as he could +by repeating verses and writing a sonnet on the wall with his pencil. +Dinner came: a good meal, more substantial than dungeon-air could give +an appetite for; but he ate it. Supper followed,—brought by the same +silent familiar who had served breakfast and dinner, and who still came +with the same noiseless step, set the dishes upon the table, tasted the +food as the Doctor bade him, and then went silently away.</p> + +<p>Five days passed, slowly, monotonously, wearily. Five nights of +unwelcome dreams and sleep that brought no rest. The close air and +narrow bounds began to tell upon his appetite and strength. He had soon +gone over his poets. Fortunately, they were well chosen and would bear +repeating. The fountain in his own mind, too, was still full, and he +found great relief in declaiming extempore verses in a loud voice, and +writing out those that pleased him best. But could he hold out? for it +was evidently intended to wear him down by anxiety and solitude, and +when they had broken his spirits bring him to an examination.</p> + +<p>At last a new face appeared: not cold like that of the familiar, nor +wreathed in smiles like that of a successful enemy, but wearing a decent +expression of gravity tempered by compassion. And "How do you do, +Doctor?" asked the visitor in a soothing voice, trained like his face to +tell lies at his bidding.</p> + +<p>"Well, Father, perfectly well."</p> + +<p>"I am very glad to hear it. I was afraid your appetite might have +suffered from the sudden change in your mode of life."</p> + +<p>"Not in the least. I have a sound stomach, and can digest anything you +send me."</p> + +<p>"And how do you contrive to pass your time? For so active a man, the +change is very great."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that is easy enough. I am very fond of poetry, and have such a good +memory that I know volumes of it by heart. There is nothing pleasanter +than <a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>repeating verses that you like,—except, perhaps, making verses +yourself."</p> + +<p>"Do you ever compose?"</p> + +<p>"I? It has always been my favorite pastime. Would you like to hear some +of my verses?"</p> + +<p>The sympathizing father was, of course, too happy; and M—— recited, in +his most effective manner, a sonnet, not very complimentary to +eavesdroppers and spies. A shadow passed over the monk's face; but he +was too well trained to let out his feelings prematurely; and resuming +the conversation as if nothing had occurred to disturb his equanimity, +he told M—— in his softest tone that he hoped there had been nothing +in his treatment to complain of. M—— sprang to his feet.</p> + +<p>"Oh, this, by Heaven, is too much, even from you! Nothing to complain +of! To tear the father of a family from the arms of his wife and +children, a physician from patients who are looking to him for life and +health,—and nothing to complain of!"</p> + +<p>It was just the question he wanted; and partly from design, and partly +from irrepressible indignation, he poured out a torrent of invective and +reproach which soon sent his visitor away, perfectly convinced that the +spirit they had undertaken to break had not yet begun to bend.</p> + +<p>Five more weary days, and then began the examination,—cautious, minute, +perplexing: questions framed to entangle; charges advanced, not for +discussion, but for conviction; a review of the whole course and tenor +of his past life; his stories and verses; his jests among friends; +sayings that he had forgotten; things that he had done years before, +mixed up with things that he had never done; all adroitly commingled, +and so skilfully arranged, that, while each seemed comparatively +unimportant in itself, each had its place prepared for it with malignant +craft and wondrous subtlety; and all taken together forming a network of +harmonious evidence from which there seemed no possibility of escape. +Familiar as he was with the history of the Holy Office, and aware as he +had always been that his steps, like those of every man upon whom +suspicion had ever fallen, were dogged by spies, he had never supposed +that his daily life had been tracked with such persistence, and so +carefully treasured up against him.</p> + +<p>He saw his danger, and saw, too, that the course he had resolved upon in +the first hour of his arrest was the only course that could save him. +Denial would be useless. They expected it and were well prepared for it. +But it remained to be seen whether they were equally well prepared for +frank confession and adroit interpretation. To every question with +regard to acts or words he answered, "Yes, I did so,—I said +so,—but"—and then, by putting an unexpected interpretation upon it, he +either stripped it of its offensive bearing, or reduced it to an idle +jest of which nothing worse could be said than that it was indiscreet.</p> + +<p>The fathers were puzzled. For denial they had proofs. Prevarication they +were familiar with, and never so happy as when they saw a poor, +perplexed, bewildered victim vainly struggling in the toils, driven +triumphantly from subterfuge to subterfuge, and at last, with nerveless +arms and faltering tongue, dropping hopeless upon his chair, as the +conviction forced itself upon him that he was there, not for trial, but +for condemnation.</p> + +<p>But a bold, self-possessed, self-reliant man, looking them in the face +with an eye as keen and scrutinizing as their own, answering every +question promptly in a firm voice, and, just as the blow seemed ready to +fall, parrying it by a movement so skilful as to compel his adversary to +change his ground and gird himself up for a new attack,—this was +something which, with all their experience, they had not counted upon, +and knew not how to meet. Day after day he was brought to the bar. Hour +after hour they laboriously plied question upon question. On their side +was the written record,—nothing omitted, nothing <a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>forgotten; the words +of yesterday close by the words of ten years ago; each accusation +propping the others; and every explanation and answer written minutely +down, to be brought out unexpectedly, and compared with each new one as +it came. On his, a ready wit, perfect self-control, a thorough knowledge +of the character of those whom he was dealing with, a remarkable command +of language, and a courage that nothing could shake.</p> + +<p>It was an exhausting process, and the Inquisitors, like the royal patron +of their institution, well knew that time was a powerful ally. Still +they resolved to call in a new one to their aid. M—— was known to be +very fond of his family; and long experience had taught the reverend +fathers that even the manliest heart may be shaken by a sudden awakening +of tender emotions. The examinations were discontinued. For three days +M—— was left to the solitude of his cell,—a solitude deeper and more +unnerving from contrast with the mental tension of the last fortnight. +Then, at the usual hour of examination, the door opened. The usual +attendants were in waiting. "Now for a new trial of wits," thought he, +as he rose to follow them. Then it occurred to him that it might be for +sentence that he was summoned; and while he was weighing the +probabilities, and calling up his strength for the occasion, he reached +the door, the attendants threw it open, and he found himself in the +presence, not of his judges, but of his wife and children. Pale, +bewildered, looking timidly towards him, through eyes dim with tears, +there they stood, utterly at a loss what to say or what to do.</p> + +<p>He felt his heart bound. But he saw the snare, and, repressing his +emotions by a powerful effort, held out his hand instead of opening his +arms, and bidding them, cheer up and give themselves no uneasiness about +him, and above all not to let their enemies fancy that either he or they +would be cast down by anything that they could do, he calmly turned to +the guards, and told them, that, if that stale trick was all they had +brought him there for, they had better take him back to his cell.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile his friends were not idle: and he had friends, as I have +already hinted, even in the sacred college. With a cardinal on your +side, you may do many things in Rome which it would hardly answer to +venture upon without him; for who can tell but that that Cardinal may +one day be Pope? The precise nature of the accusation lodged against him +M—— never knew; but he had gathered enough from the interrogatories to +feel that he had got lightly off, when he found himself condemned to say +his prayers and read books of devotion three months in a convent, with +the privilege of walking in the garden and talking theology with the +elder brethren.</p> + +<p>And thus the old man whom Bunyan's English Pilgrim saw in the cave by +the way-side two hundred years ago still sits there, biting his nails +and grinning, not altogether impotently, at Roman Pilgrims, to this very +day.</p> + +<p>The Congregation of the Holy Office is composed of thirteen cardinals, +one of whom is secretary, and an assessor, a commissary, counsellors, +and several officers taken from the prelates and regular orders. The +Pope himself is Prefect. The counsellors meet on Mondays in the Palace +of the Inquisition; the whole body on Wednesdays in the Convent of the +Minerva,—where St. Dominic still smiles upon his faithful +followers,—and Thursdays before the Pope. The examination of their +records and the opening of their prisons, during the brief existence of +the "Roman Republic" of 1849, showed that these meetings were not always +mere matters of form.</p> + +<p>The Congregation of the Index was founded by Pius V., in order to +relieve the Holy Office of that part of its duties which relates to +written and printed thought: censorship of the press would be the proper +term, if censorship, even in its most rigid form, did not fall short of +the attributes and functions of this odious <a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>tribunal. It is composed of +cardinals and ecclesiastics, many of them distinguished by their +learning, some, doubtless, by their piety,—but all leagued together, +and solemnly pledged to sleepless warfare against every form of +intellectual freedom. Without their approbation no manuscript can be +seat to the press, no new editions issued, no thought promulgated. Even +the stone-carver is not permitted to use his chisel until they have +decided how far love or pride may go in commemoration of the dead. They +mutilate, with equal sovereignty of will, the printed pages of a classic +and the manuscript of an unknown scribbler,—sit in judgment upon Botta +and Laplace, as their predecessors sat in judgment upon Guicciardini and +Galileo,—and, in the fervor of their undiscriminating zeal, condemn +Robertson and Gibbon, Reid and Hume, the skeptic Bolingbroke and the +pious Addison, to the same fiery purgation. That Italian literature was +not crushed by them long ago is, perhaps, the strongest proof of the +irrepressible vigor and marvellous vitality of the Italian mind. Not to +be on the "Index" would call a blush to the cheek of the most +unambitious of authors,—would carry a presumption of worthlessness with +it from which even the penny-a-liner would shrink with dismay,—and to +the poet and historian would sound like a sentence of perpetual +exclusion from all those cherished hopes which irradiate with heavenly +light the steep and thorny paths of intellectual renown.</p> + +<p>Next to these in importance is the Congregation of the "Propaganda," or +of that celebrated institution for the propagation of the Roman Catholic +religion which, since the reign of Gregory XV., has governed, as from a +common centre, the immense network of missions that Christian Rome has +spread over the lands she hopes to conquer, as Pagan Rome spread her +network of military roads over the lands which she had already reduced +to subjection. Cardinals, with a cardinal for prefect and a prelate for +secretary, compose this congregation, which holds regular meetings twice +a month, and, not unfrequently, extraordinary meetings in the presence +of the Pope. In these the important questions of the missionary world +are discussed, reports examined, new missions proposed, new missionaries +appointed, new bishoprics founded "among the heathen," and all these +complicated interests taken into impartial consideration.</p> + +<p>For here, at least, there is little room for heart-burnings and +jealousies. It is of equal importance to all that the conquests of the +Church should be extended to the utmost limits of the earth, the heathen +converted, and heretics won back to the fold. While John Eliot was +translating the Bible into a language which no one has been left to +read, and his Puritan brethren were hanging and shooting the Indians +whom they had neither the patience to win by their teaching nor the +charity to enlighten by their example, Indians from the true Indies were +preparing themselves in the halls of the Propaganda to carry the healing +promises of the gospel to the fathers and mothers who had watched over +their heathen infancy. In the record of the great things that Rome has +done, there is nothing greater than the foundation of the +Propaganda,—no conception so worthy of a steadfast faith, or more in +harmony with the spirit of the Saviour of mankind. To borrow the +helpless child, and restore him a helpful man,—to enlist the sympathies +of birth, and secure for themselves the eloquence of natural +affection,—to overleap the barriers of race and elude the sensitiveness +of national pride by putting the doctrines they sought to diffuse into +mouths which, untainted by repulsive accents, could enforce new truths +by well-known images and familiar illustrations,—was like laying anew +the foundations of the Capitol, and consecrating that spirit of worldly +wisdom wherein ancient Rome was never found wanting by that spirit of +Christian philanthropy which modern Rome has always claimed as her +peculiar distinction.</p> + +<p>But alas that a twenty-minutes' walk <a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>should take us from the Piazza di +Spagna to the Via di Sant' Uffizio!</p> + +<p>The other ecclesiastical functions of government are performed in a +similar way: one congregation superintending the churches of Rome and +its district, under the title of <i>Visita Apostolica</i>; one, the +ceremonies of the Church; one, ecclesiastical immunities; one, sacred +rites; one, indulgences and relies. Questions relative to bishops, +bishoprics, and the regular orders are intrusted to four congregations, +under different and appropriate names. St. Peter's has a special +congregation for itself, and not the least dignified and important of +them; for, besides eight cardinals and four prelates, it commands the +official services of the Auditor of the Apostolic Chamber, the +Treasurer, a judge of the <i>Rota</i>, a comptroller, an attorney-general, a +secretary, and several counsellors-at-law. Not St. Peter's only, but all +the churches of Rome, come in for a share of their attention; and what +is more important, they form a court of probate, with exclusive +jurisdiction over all wills containing charitable bequests, or bequests +to heretics and strangers, fugitives, exiles, or the dead. Even a doubt +as to the probability of being able to execute the bequest according to +the wishes of the testator, or an apparent contradiction in the devises +themselves, brings the will within the jurisdiction of this tribunal; +and should the legatee, after full experience of the law's delay, +succeed in obtaining a favorable decree, the income of his legacy, from +the death of the testator to the publication of the decision, is +sequestrated to the treasury of the church of St. Peter's. Few +congregations are more assiduous in the performance of their duties.</p> + +<p>A criminal court of appeals, with the appellation of <i>Sacra +Consulta</i>,—how this <i>sacred</i> meets you at every turn!—a council called +<i>Buon Governo</i>, for the superintendence of municipal +administration,—one for roads, fountains, and water-courses, called the +General Prefecture of Waters and Roads,—a Council of "Economy," a +Council of Studies, a Council for the Examination of Accounts, in which +four laymen sit side by side with four prelates, under the presidency of +a cardinal, and the Congregation of the Census for the apportionment of +taxes on real estate in the country, form the seven civil congregations +by which the Pope is assisted in his labors, and the cardinals and +prelates brought in to a share of the administration. Add to these +sixteen tribunals, or courts, civil and ecclesiastical, two Secretaries +of State, a Secretary of Briefs and one of Memorials, a <i>Camerlengo</i>, a +Treasurer, and a Governor of Rome, and you have an outline of the Roman +Government under Gregory XVI.</p> + +<p>The Secretaries of State are always cardinals; the <i>Camerlengo</i>, who is +the official head of government during the vacancies of the Holy See, a +cardinal; the Treasurer and Governor of Rome, prelates, who, on leaving +office, become cardinals by right. The only part of this complex +machinery which was intrusted to laymen was the Tribunal of the Capitol +and the Tribunal of Commerce: the latter an institution of Pius VII., +and directly connected with the Chamber of Commerce, from whose fifteen +members two of its three judges are chosen, while the third is furnished +by the bar; the former, the feeble representative of all that is left of +the municipal government of Rome.</p> + +<p>Rome has sixty noble families who enjoy the title of Conscript. From +these are chosen, every three months, three <i>Conservatori</i> and a Prior +of the Wards, who form a committee for the superintendence of the walls +and public monuments, and for the administration of the income of the +Capitoline Chamber. If we look at them in connection with the ancient +government of Rome, we shall find them employed in functions not unlike +those of the <i>Ædiles</i>. From the same point of view, the Senator may be +said to resemble the City Prefect; although, when you see him on public +days, standing like a statue on the steps of the Pontifical throne, +above the prelates, but a little lower than the cardinals, you can think +neither of prefect nor of senate, nor of anything that recalls <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>the days +when Romans acknowledged no superior but the fellow-citizens whom they +themselves had chosen as representatives of their sovereign will.</p> + +<p>It requires no very profound examination of this system to see that it +is purely and rigidly ecclesiastical. The ecclesiastical leaven +penetrates it in every part. Wherever you go, either for business or for +amusement, you find some representative of the Church. Whichever way you +turn, you see keen eyes peering upon you from under a three-cornered hat +or a cowl. And even when the path seems for a while to be leading you +back to the world, through rows of shops, under the windows of bankers, +within sight of sails and steam, or within sound of humming wheels, +there are still shrines and oratories numberless by the way, and a +church or a convent at the end.</p> + +<p>Elective sovereign by origin, the moment the Pope ascends the throne, he +becomes absolute. Authority and honors proceed from him as from their +legitimate source. Money bears his image and superscription. Monuments +are inscribed with his name. Laws and decrees are promulgated as +voluntary emanations of his sovereign will. As head of the Church, all +spiritual interests are under his protection. As chief of the State, all +temporal interests are subject to his control. He reigns, not merely +like other sovereigns, by the "grace of God," but by a peculiar +privilege and inherent right, as Vicar of Christ. Resistance to his will +is not simply rebellion, but the deeper and deadlier sin of sacrilege. +His interpretation relieves the mind from the agony of doubt; his +blessing frees the conscience from the burden of sin. And how, if +earnest-minded and sincere, can he fail to look upon the interests of +the State as subordinate to the interests of the Church, and interpret +his duties and obligations as the legatee of Constantine by his feelings +and convictions as the successor of St. Peter?</p> + +<p>In the practical exercise of this authority be feels the want of other +eyes to help him see and other hands to help him do. He cannot read all +that is to be read, or write all that is to be written, or even hear and +say all that is to be heard and said. However great his love of detail, +there are details which he cannot reach. However comprehensive his +glance, or unwearied his industry, there are objects that lie beyond the +compass of his vision, and labor to be performed which no industry can +bring within the human allotment of twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>Therefore, reserving to himself the final decision, he distributes the +various functions of government among his official counsellors and those +from whom new counsellors are to be chosen. He spreads an elaborate +network over all the interests and functions of the State, holding the +line in his own hand, and drawing or relaxing it at his own pleasure. He +is still the lawgiver and the judge, dictating according to his own +judgment, and deciding according to his own conviction. Of his laws +there is no revision; from his sentence there is no appeal. The duties +of the subject are defined by the rights of the sovereign; and of those +rights he is the sole and absolute judge.</p> + +<p>Hence a consciousness of power ever present and supreme, extending to +all that has been left him of the common relations of life,—to the hour +of business and the hour of repose, to the hall of audience and the +garden-walk, and giving equally its deceptive coloring to the thoughts +that stir him when borne on the shoulders of men through a prostrate +crowd, and those that flit dimly through his brain as he lays a weary +head upon a solitary pillow. And hence, too, he becomes for himself, as +well as for others, an object of constant contemplation,—valuing things +as they contribute to his pleasure, and men as they subject themselves +to his will,—not always cruel in heart, even when his acts are cruel, +nor unfeeling when he inflicts unmerited suffering and needless pain, +but seeming both cruel and unfeeling, because education and habit have +dried up within him that fount of human sympathies which Nature <a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>has set +in the heart of man at his birth, that he might ever bear something +about him to remind him of a mother's tenderness and a father's pride.</p> + +<p>If that be the best government wherein all the moral and intellectual +faculties of the governed receive their fullest development, and the +responsibility of the sovereign is made so immediate that he can neither +lose sight of it nor escape from its obligations, that surely must be +the worst in which one man thinks and judges for all, and, by an +unnatural union of spiritual and temporal attributes, is raised above +all human responsibility,—a theocracy, with man to interpret the will +of God, and to enforce his own interpretations.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONCORD" id="CONCORD"></a>CONCORD.</h2> + +<h4>MAY 23, 1864.</h4> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How beautiful it was, that one bright day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the long week of rain!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though all its splendor could not chase away</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The omnipresent pain.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The lovely town was white with apple-blooms,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the great elms o'erhead</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dark shadows wove on their aërial looms,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shot through with golden thread.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Across the meadows, by the gray old manse,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The historic river flowed:—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I was as one who wanders in a trance,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unconscious of his road.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The faces of familiar friends seemed strange;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their voices I could hear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And yet the words they uttered seemed to change</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their meaning to the ear.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the one face I looked for was not there,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The one low voice was mute;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Only an unseen presence filled the air,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And baffled my pursuit.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now I look back, and meadow, manse, and stream</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dimly my thought defines;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I only see—a dream within a dream—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The hill-top hearsed with pines.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I only hear above his place of rest</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their tender undertone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The infinite longings of a troubled breast,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The voice so like his own.</span><br /><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There in seclusion and remote from men</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The wizard hand lies cold,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And left the tale half told.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, who shall lift that wand of magic power,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the lost clue regain?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unfinished must remain!</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WHAT_WILL_BECOME_OF_THEM" id="WHAT_WILL_BECOME_OF_THEM"></a>WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM?</h2> + +<h3>A STORY IN TWO PARTS.</h3> + +<h4>PART I</h4> + + +<p>"Please, Ma'am, I want to come in out of the rain," said the dripping +figure at the door.</p> + +<p>"And who are you, Sir?" demanded the lady, astonished; for the bell had +been rung familiarly, and, thinking her son had come home, she had +hastened to let him in, but had met instead (at the front-door of her +fine house!) this wretch.</p> + +<p>"I'm Fessenden's fool, please, Ma'am," replied the son—not of this +happy mother, thank Heaven! not of this proud, elegant lady, oh, +no!—but of some no less human-hearted mother, I suppose, who had +likewise loved her boy, perhaps all the more fondly for his +infirmity,—who had hugged him to her bosom so many, many times, with +wild and sorrowful love,—and who, be sure, would not have kept him +standing there, ragged and shivering, in the rain.</p> + +<p>"Fessenden's fool!" cries the lady. "What's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Please, Ma'am, that's my name." Meekly spoken, with an earnest, staring +face. "Do you want me?"</p> + +<p>"No; we don't want a boy with such a name as that!"</p> + +<p>And the lady scowls, and shakes her head, and half closes the forbidding +door,—not thinking of that other mother's heart,—never dreaming that +such a gaunt and pallid wight ever had a mother at all. For the idea +that those long, lean hands, reaching far out of the short and split +coat-sleeves, had been a baby's pure, soft hands once, and had pressed +the white maternal breasts, and had played with the kisses of the fond +maternal lips,—it was scarcely conceivable; and a delicate-minded +matron, like Mrs. Gingerford, may well be excused for not entertaining +any such distressing fancy.</p> + +<p>"Wal! I'll go!" And the youth turned away.</p> + +<p>She could not shut the door. There was something in the unresentful, sad +face, pale cheeks, and large eyes, that fascinated her; something about +the tattered clothes, thin, wet locks of flaxen hair, and ravelled straw +hat-brim, fantastic and pitiful. And as he walked wearily away, and she +saw the night closing in black and dark, and felt the cold dash of the +rain blown against her own cheek, she concluded to take pity on him. For +she was by no means a hard-hearted woman; and though her house was +altogether too good for poor folks, and she really didn't know what she +should do with him, it seemed too bad to send him away shelterless, that +stormy November night. Besides, <a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>her husband was a rising +politician,—the public-spirited Judge Gingerford, you know,—the +eloquent philanthropist and reformer;—and to have it said that his door +had been shut against a perishing stranger might hurt him. So, as I +remarked, she concluded to take pity on the boy, and, after duly +weighing the matter, to call him back. And she called,—though, as I +suspect, not very loud. Moreover, the wind was whistling through the +leafless shrubbery, and his rags were fluttering, and his hat was +flapping about his ears, and the rain was pelting him; and just then the +Judge's respectable dog put his head out of the warm, dry kennel, and +barked; so that he did not hear,—the lady believed.</p> + +<p>He had heard very well, nevertheless. Why didn't he go back, then? +Maybe, because he was a fool. More likely, because he was, after all, +human. Within that husk of rags, under all that dull incumbrance of +imperfect physical organs that cramped and stifled it, there dwelt a +soul; and the soul of man knows its own worth, and is proud. The +coarsest, most degraded drudge still harbors in his wretched house of +clay a divine guest. There is that in the convict and slave which stirs +yet at an insult. And even in this lank, half-witted lad, the despised +and outcast of years, there abode a sense of inalienable dignity,—an +immanent instinct that he, too, was a creature of God, and worthy +therefore to be treated with a certain tenderness and respect, and not +to be roughly repulsed. This was as strong in him as in you. His wisdom +was little, but his will was firm. And though the house was cheerful and +large, and had room and comforts enough and to spare, rather than enter +it, after he had been flatly told he was not wanted, he would lie down +in the cold, wet fields and die.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, he will find shelter somewhere," thought the Judge's lady, +discharging her conscience of the responsibility. "But I am sorry he +didn't hear."</p> + +<p>Was she very sorry?</p> + +<p>She went back into her cozy, fire-lighted sewing-room, and thought no +more of the beggar-boy. And the watchdog, having barked his well-bred, +formal bark, without undue heat,—like a dog that knew the world, and +had acquired the tone of society,—stood a minute, important, +contemplating the drizzle from the door of his kennel, out of which he +had not deigned to step, then stretched himself once more on his straw, +gave a sigh of repose, and curled himself up, with his nose to the air, +in an attitude of canine enjoyment, in which it was to be hoped no +inconsiderate vagabond would again disturb him.</p> + +<p>As for Fessenden's—How shall we name him? Somehow, it goes against the +grain to call any person a fool. Though we may forget the Scriptural +warning, still charity remembers that he is our brother. Suppose, +therefore, we stop at the possessive case, and call him simply +Fessenden's?</p> + +<p>As for Fessenden's, then, he was less fortunate than the Judge's +mastiff. He had no dry straw, not even a kennel to crouch in. And the +fields were uninviting; and to die was not so pleasant. The veriest +wretch alive feels a yearning for life, and few are so foolish as not to +prefer a dry skin to a wet one. Even Fessenden's knew enough to go in +when it rained,—if he only could. So, with the dismallest prospect +before him, he kept on, in the wind and rain of that bitter November +night.</p> + +<p>And now the wind was rising to a tempest; and the rain was turning to +sleet; and November was fast becoming December. For this was the last +day of the month,—the close of the last day of autumn, as we divide the +seasons: autumn was flying in battle before the fierce onset of winter. +It was the close of the week also, being Saturday.</p> + +<p>Saturday night! what a sentiment of thankfulness and repose is in the +word! Comfort is in it; and peace exhales from it like an aroma. Your +work is ended; it is the hour of rest; the sense of duty done sweetens +reflection, and weariness <a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>subsides into soothing content. Once more the +heart grows tenderly appreciative of the commonest blessings. That you +have a roof to shelter you, and a pillow for your head, and love and +light and supper, and something in store for Sunday,—that the raving +rain is excluded, and the wolfish wind howls in vain,—that those +dearest to you are gathered about your hearth, and all is well,—it is +enough; the full soul asks no wore.</p> + +<p>But this particular Saturday evening brought no such suffusion of bliss +to Fessenden's,—if, indeed, any ever did. He saw, through the +streaming, misty air, the happy homes in the village lighted up one by +one as it grew dark. He had glimpses, through warm windows, of white +supper-tables. The storm made sufficient seclusion; there was no need to +draw the curtains. Servants were bringing in the tea-things. Children +were playing about the floors,—laughing, beautiful children. Behold +them, shivering beggar-boy! Lean by the iron rail, wait patiently in the +rain, and look in upon them; it is worth your while. How frolicsome and +light-hearted they seem! They are never cold, and seldom very hungry, +and the world is dry to them, and comfortable. And they all have +beds,—delicious beds. Mothers' hands tuck them in; mothers' lips teach +them to say their little prayers, and kiss them good-night. Foolish +fellow! why didn't you be one of those fortunate children, well fed, +rosy, and bright, instead of a starved and stupid tatterdemalion? A +question which shapes itself vaguely in his dull, aching soul, as he +stands trembling in the sleet, with only a few transparent squares of +glass dividing him and his misery from them and their joy.</p> + +<p>Mighty question! it is vast and dark as the night to him. He cannot +answer it; can you?</p> + +<p>Vast and dark and pitiless is the night. But the morning will surely +come; and after all the wrongs and tumults of life will rise the dawn of +the Day of God. And then every question of fate, though it fill the +universe for you now, shall dissolve in the brightness like a vapor, and +vanish like a little cloud.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile a servant comes out and drives Fessenden's away from the +fence. He recommenced his wanderings,—up one street and down another, +in search of a place to lay his head. The inferior dwellings he passed +by. But when he arrived at a particularly fine one, there he rang. Was +it not natural for him to infer that the largest houses had amplest +accommodations, and that the rich could best afford to be bounteous? If +in all these spacious mansions there was no little nook for him, if out +of their luxuries not a blanket or crust could be spared, what could he +hope from the poor? You see, he was not altogether witless, if he was +a—Fessenden's. Another proof: At whatever house he applied, he never +committed the vulgarity of a <i>détour</i> to the back-entrance, but advanced +straight, with bold and confident port, to the front-door. The reason of +which was equally simple and clear: Front-doors were the most convenient +and inviting; and what were they made for, if not to go in at?</p> + +<p>But he grew weary of ringing and of being repulsed. It was dismal +standing still, however, and quite as comfortless sitting down. He was +so cold! So, to keep his blood in motion, he keeps his limbs in +motion,—till, lo! here he is again at the house where the happy +children were! They have ceased their play. Two young girls are at the +window, gazing out into the darkness, as if expecting some one. Not you, +miserable! You needn't stop and make signs for them to admit you. There! +don't you see you have frightened them? You are not a fitting spectacle +for such sweet-eyed darlings. They do well to drop the shade, to shut +out the darkness, and the dim, gesticulating phantom. Flit on! 'Tis +their father they are looking for, coming home to them with gifts from +the city.</p> + +<p>But he does not flit. When, presently, they lift a corner of the shade +to peep out, they see him still standing there, <a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>spectral in the gloom. +He is waiting for them to open the door! He thinks they have quitted the +window for that purpose! Ah! here comes the father, and they are glad.</p> + +<p>He comes hurrying from the cars under his umbrella, which is braced +against the gale and shuts out from his eyes the sight of the +unsheltered wretch. And he is hastily entering his door, which is opened +to him by the eager children, when they scream alarm; and looking over +his shoulder, he perceives, following at his heels, the fright. He is +one of your full-blooded, solid men; but he is startled.</p> + +<p>"What do you want?" he cries, and lifts the threatening umbrella.</p> + +<p>"I'm hungry," says the intruder, with a ghastly glare, still advancing.</p> + +<p>He stands taller in his tattered shoes than the solid gentleman in his +boots; and those long, lean, claw-like hands act as if anxious to clutch +something. Papa thinks it is his throat.</p> + +<p>"By heavens! and do you mean to"—And he prepares to charge umbrella.</p> + +<p>"You may!" answers the wretch, with perfect sincerity, presenting his +ragged bosom to the blow.</p> + +<p>The lord of the castle lowers his weapon. The children huddle behind +him, hushing their screams.</p> + +<p>"Go in, Minnie! In, all of you! Tell Stephen to come here,—quick!"</p> + +<p>The children scamper. And the florid, prosperous parent and the gaunt +and famishing pauper are alone, confronting each other by the light of +the shining hall-lamp.</p> + +<p>"I'm cold," says the latter,—"and wet," with an aguish shiver.</p> + +<p>"I should think so!" cries the gentleman, recovering from his alarm, and +getting his breath again, as he hears Stephen's step behind him. "Stand +back, can't you?" (indignantly). "Don't you see you are dripping on the +carpet?"</p> + +<p>"I'm so tired!"</p> + +<p>"Well! you needn't rub yourself against the door, if you are! Don't you +see you are smearing it? What are you roaming about in this way for, +intruding into people's houses?"</p> + +<p>"Please, Sir, I don't know," is the soft, sad answer; and Fessenden's is +meekly taking himself away.</p> + +<p>"It's too bad, though!" says the man, relenting. "What can we do with +this fellow, Stephen?"</p> + +<p>"Send him around to Judge Gingerford's,—I should say that's about the +best thing to do with him," says the witty Stephen.</p> + +<p>The man knew well what would please. His master's face lighted up. He +rubbed his hands, and regarded the vagabond with a humorous twinkle, +with malice in it.</p> + +<p>"Would you, Stephen? By George, I've a good notion to! Take the +umbrella, and go and show him the way."</p> + +<p>Stephen did not like that.</p> + +<p>"I was only joking, Sir," he said.</p> + +<p>"A good joke, too! Here, you fellow! go with my man. He'll take you to a +house where you'll find friends. Excellent folks! damned +philanthropical! red-hot abolitionists! If you only had nigger-blood, +now, they'd treat you like a prince. I don't know but I'd advise you to +tell 'em you're about a quarter nigger,—they'll think ten times as much +of you!"</p> + +<p>It was sufficiently evident that the gentleman did not love his neighbor +the Judge. There was in his tone bitter personal and political hatred. +With his own hands he spread again the soaked umbrella, and, giving it +to the reluctant Stephen, turned him away with the vagabond. Then he +shut the door, and went in. By the fire he pulled off his wet boots, and +put on the warm slippers, which the children brought him with innocent +strife to see which should be foremost. And he gave to each kisses and +toys; for he was a kind father. And sitting down to supper, with their +beaming faces around him, he thought of the beggar-boy only in +connection with the jocular spite he had indulged against his neighbor.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the disgusted Stephen, walking alone under the umbrella, +drove<a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a> Fessenden's before him through the storm. They turned a corner. +Stephen stopped.</p> + +<p>"There, that's the house, where the lights are. Good bye! Luck to you!" +And Stephen and umbrella disappeared in the darkness.</p> + +<p>Fessenden's kept on, wearily, wearily! He reached the house. And lo! it +was the same, at the door of which the lady had told him that he, with +his name, was not wanted. Tiger slept in his kennel, and dreamed of +barking at beggars. The Judge, snugly ensconced in his study, listened +to the report of his speech before the Timberville Benevolent +Association. His son read it aloud, in the columns of the "Timberville +Gazette." Gingerford smiled and nodded; for he thought it sounded well. +And Mrs. Gingerford was pleased and proud. And the heart of Gingerford +Junior swelled with the fervor of the eloquence, and with exultation in +his father's talents and distinction, as he read. The sleet rattled a +pleasant accompaniment against the window-shutters; and the organ-pipes +of the wind sounded a solemn symphony. This last night of November was +genial and bright to those worthy people, in their little family-circle. +And the future was full of promise. And the rhetoric of the orator +settled the duty of man to man so satisfactorily, and painted the +pleasures of benevolence in such colors, that all their bosoms glowed.</p> + +<p>"It is gratifying to think," said Mrs. Gingerford, wiping her eyes at +the pathetic close, "how much good the printing of that address in the +'Gazette' must accomplish. It will reach many so who hadn't the +good-fortune to hear it at the rooms."</p> + +<p>Certainly, Madam. The "Gazette" is taken, and perhaps read this very +evening, in every one of the houses at which the pauper has applied in +vain for shelter, since you frowned him from your door. Those exalted +sentiments, breathed in musical periods, are no doubt a rich legacy to +the society of Timberville, and to the world. It was wise to print them; +they will "reach many so." But will they reach this outcast beggar-boy, +and benefit him? Alas, it is fast growing too late for that!</p> + +<p>Utter fatigue and discouragement have overtaken him. The former notion +of dying in the fields recurs to him now; and wretched indeed must he +be, since even that desperate thought has a sort of comfort in it. But +he is too weary to seek out some suitably retired spot to take cold +leave of life in. On every side is darkness; on every side, wild storm. +Why endeavor to drag farther his benumbed limbs? As well stretch himself +here, upon this wet wintry sod, as anywhere. He has the presumption to +do it,—never considering how deeply he may injure a fine gentleman's +feelings by dying at his door.</p> + +<p>Tiger does not bark him away, but only dreams of barking, in his cozy +kennel. Close by are the windows of the mansion, glowing with light. +There beat the philanthropic hearts; there smiles the pale, pensive +lady; there beams the aspiring face of her son; and there sits the +Judge, with his feet on the rug, pleasantly contemplating the good his +speech will do, and thinking quite as much, perhaps, of the fame it will +bring him,—happily unconscious alike of his neighbor's malicious jest, +and of the real victim of that jest, lying out there in the tempest and +freezing rain.</p> + +<p>So November goes out; and winter, boisterous and triumphant, comes in.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Sunday morning: cold and clear. The December sun shines upon the glassy +turf, and upon trees all clad in armor of glittering ice. And the trees +creak and rattle in the north wind; and the icy splinters fall tinkling +to the ground.</p> + +<p>The splendor of the morning gilds the Judge's estate. Everything about +the mansion smiles and sparkles. Were last night's horrors a dream?</p> + +<p>There was danger, we remember, that the foolish youth might do a very +inconsiderate and shocking thing, and perhaps ruin the Judge. What if he +had <a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>really deposited his mortal remains at the gate of that worthy +man,—to be found there, ghastly and stiff, a revolting spectacle, this +bright morning? What a commentary on Gingerford philanthropy! For of +course some one would at once have stepped forward to testify to having +seen him driven from the door, which he came back to lay his bones near. +And Stephen would have been on hand to remember directing such a person, +inquiring his way a second time to the Judge's house. And here he is +dead,—to the secret delight of the Judge's enemies, and to the +indignation of all Timberville. At anybody else's door it wouldn't have +seemed so bad. But at Gingerford's! a philanthropist by profession! +author of that beautiful speech you cried over! You will never forgive +him those tears. The greatest crime a man can be guilty of in the eyes +of his constituents is to have been over-praised by them. Woe to him, +when they find out their error! and woe now to the Judge! The fact that +a dozen other influential citizens had also refused shelter to the +vagabond will not help the matter. Those very men will probably be the +first to cry, "Hypocrite! inhuman! a judgment upon him!"—for it is +always the person of doubtful virtue who is most eager to assume the +appearance of severe integrity; and we often flatter ourselves that our +private faults are atoned for, when we have loudly denounced them in +others.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, the flower of the Judge's reputation is saved from so +terrible a blight. There is no corpse at his gate; and our speculations +are idle.</p> + +<p>This is what had occurred. Not long after the lad had lain down, a +dream-like spell came over him. His pain was gone. He forgot that he was +cold. He was not hungry any more. A sweet sense of rest was diffused +through his tired limbs. And smiling and soothed he lay, while the storm +beat upon him. Was this death? For we know that in this merciful shape +death sometimes comes to the sufferer.</p> + +<p>Fessenden's afterwards said that he had "one of his fits." He was +subject to such. When men reviled and denied him, then came the +angels,—or he imagined they came. They walked by his side, and talked +with him; and often, all a summer's afternoon, he could be heard +conversing in the fields, as with familiar friends, when only himself +was visible, and his voice alone was heard in the silence. This was, in +fact, one of those idiosyncrasies which had earned him his shameful +name.</p> + +<p>In the trance of that night, lying cold upon the ground, he beheld his +ghostly visitors. They came and stood around him, a shining company, and +looked upon him with countenances of fair women and good men. Their +apparel was not unlike that of mortals. And he heard them questioning +among themselves how they should help him. And one of them, as it +seemed, brought human assistance; though the boy, who could see plenty +of ghosts, could not, for some reason, see the only actually visible and +substantial person then on the spot besides himself. He felt, however, +sensibly enough, the concussion of a stout pair of mortal legs that +presently went stumbling over him in the dark. The shock roused him. The +whole shadowy company vanished instantly; and in their place he saw, by +the glimmer from the Judge's windows, a dark sprawling figure getting up +out of the mud and water.</p> + +<p>"Don't be scared, it's me," said Fessenden's; for he guessed the fellow +was frightened.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, Sir! I really didn't know it was you, Sir!" said the man, +with agitated politeness. "And who might you be, Sir? if I may be so +bold as to inquire." And regaining his balance, his umbrella, and his +self-possession, he drew near, and squatted cautiously before the +prostrate beggar, who, had his eyesight been half as keen for the living +as it was for the dead, would have discovered that the face bending over +him was black.</p> + +<p>"Never mind me," said Fessenden's. "Did it hurt ye?"</p><p><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a></p> + +<p>"Well, Sir,—no, Sir,—only my knee went pretty seriously into something +wet. And I believe I've turned my umbrella wrong side out. I say, Sir, +what was you doing, lying here, Sir? You don't think of remaining here +all night, I trust, Sir?"</p> + +<p>"I've nowhere else to go," said the boy, trying to rise.</p> + +<p>The black man helped him up.</p> + +<p>"But this never'll do, you know! such an inclement night as this +is!—you'd die before morning, sure! Just wait till I can get my +umbrella into shape,—my gracious! how the wind pulls it! Now, then, +suppose you come along with me."</p> + +<p>"Please, Sir, I can't walk"; for the lad's limbs had stiffened, in spite +of his angels.</p> + +<p>"Is that so, Sir? Let me see; about how much do you weigh, Sir? Not much +above a hundred, do you? It isn't impossible but I may take you on my +back. Suppose you try it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can't!" groaned the boy.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me for contradicting you, but I think you can, Sir. I shouldn't +like to do it myself, in the daytime; but in the night so, who cares? +Nobody'll laugh at us, even if we don't succeed. Really, I wish you +wasn't quite so wet, Sir; for these here is my Sunday clothes. But never +mind a little water; we'll find a fire to get dry again. There you are, +my friend! A little higher. Put your hands over across my breast. +Couldn't manage to hold, the umbrella over us, could you? So fashion. +Now steady, while I rise with you."</p> + +<p>And the stalwart young negro, hooking his arms well under the legs of +his rider, got up stoopingly, gave a toss and a jolt to get him into the +right position, and walked off with him. Away they go, tramp, tramp, in +the storm and darkness. Thank Heaven, the Judge's fame is safe! If the +pauper dies, it will not be at his door. Little he knows, there in his +elegant study, what an inestimable service this black Samaritan is +rendering him. And it was just; for, after all the Judge had done for +the negro, (who, I suppose, was equally unconscious of any substantial +benefit received,) it was time that the negro should do something for +him in return.</p> + +<p>Tramp! tramp! a famous beggar's ride! It was a picturesque scene, with +food for laughter and tears in it, had we only been there with a +lantern. Fessenden's, fantastic, astride of the African, staring forward +into the darkness from under his ragged hat-brim, endeavoring to hold +the wreck of an umbrella over them,—the wind flapping and whirling it. +Tramp! tramp! past all those noble mansions, to the negro-hut beyond the +village. And, oh, to think of it! the rich citizens, the enlightened and +white-skinned Levites, having left him out, one of their own race, to +perish in the storm, this despised black man is found, alone of all the +world, to show mercy unto him!</p> + +<p>"How do you get on, Sir?" says the stout young Ethiop. "Would you ride +easier, if I should trot? or would you prefer a canter? Tell 'em to +bring on their two-forty nags now, if they want a race."</p> + +<p>Talking in this strain, to keep up his rider's spirits, he brought him, +not without sweat and toil, to the hut. A kick on the door with the +beggar's foot, which he used for the purpose, caused it to be opened by +a woolly-headed urchin; and in he staggered.</p> + +<p>Little woolly-head clapped his hands and screamed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, crackie, pappy! here comes Bill with the Devil on his back!"</p> + +<p>Sensation in the hut. There was an old negro woman in the corner, on one +side of the stove, knitting; and a very old negro man in the opposite +corner, napping; and a middle-aged man, with spectacles on his ebony +nose, reading slowly aloud from an ancient grease-covered book opened +before him on the old pine table; and a middle-aged woman patching a +jacket; and a girl washing dishes, which another girl was wiping: +representatives of four generations: and they all quitted their +occupations at once, to see what sort of a devil Bill had brought home.</p><p><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a></p> + +<p>"Why, William! who have you got there, William?" said he of the +spectacles, with mild wonder,—removing those clerkly aids of vision, +and laying them across the book.</p> + +<p>"A chair!" panted Bill. "Now ease him down, if you +please,—careful,—and I'll—recite the circumstances,"—puffing, but +polite to the last.</p> + +<p>Helpless and gasping, Fessenden's was unfastened, and slipped down the +African's back upon a seat placed to receive him. He still clung to the +umbrella, which he endeavored to keep spread over him, while he stared +around with stupid amazement at the dim room and the array of black +faces.</p> + +<p>And now the excited urchin began to caper and sing:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'Went down to river, couldn't get across;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jumped upon a nigger's back, thought it was a hoss!'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Oh, crackie, Bill!"</p> + +<p>"Father," said William, with wounded dignity,—for he was something of a +gentleman in his way,—"I wish you'd discipline that child, or else give +me permission to chuck him."</p> + +<p>"Joseph!" said the father, with a stern shake of his big black head at +the boy, "here's a stranger in the house! Walk straight, Joseph!"</p> + +<p>Which solemn injunction Joseph obeyed in a highly offensive manner, by +strutting off in imitation of William's dandified air.</p> + +<p>By this time the aged negro in the corner had become fully roused to the +consciousness of a guest in the house. He came forward with slow, +shuffling step. He was almost blind. He was exceedingly deaf. He was +withered and wrinkled in the last degree. His countenance was of the +color of rust-eaten bronze. He was more than a hundred years old,—the +father of the old woman, the grandfather of the middle-aged man, and the +great-grandfather of William, Joseph, and the girls. He was muffled in +rags, and wore a little cap on his head. This he removed with his left +hand, exposing a little battered tea-kettle of a bald pate, as with +smiling politeness he reached out the other trembling hand to shake that +of the stranger.</p> + +<p>"Welcome, Sah! Sarvant, Sah!"</p> + +<p>He bowed and smiled again, and the hospitable duty was performed; after +which he put on his cap and shuffled back into his corner, greatly +marvelled at by the gazing beggar-boy.</p> + +<p>The girls and their mother now bestirred themselves to get their guest +something to eat. The tin tea-pot was set on the stove, and hash was +warmed up in the spider. In the mean time William somewhat ruefully took +off his wet Sunday coat, and hung it to dry by the stove, interpolating +affectionate regrets for the soiled garment with the narration of his +adventure.</p> + +<p>"It was the merest chance my coming that way," he explained; "for I had +got started up the other street, when something says to me, 'Go by +Gingerford's! go by Judge Gingerford's!' so I altered my course, and the +result was, just as I got against the Judge's gate I was precipitated +over this here person."</p> + +<p>"I know what made ye!" spoke up the boy, with an earnest stare.</p> + +<p>"What, Sir,—if you please?"</p> + +<p>"The angels!"</p> + +<p>"The—the what, Sir?"</p> + +<p>"The angels! I seen 'em!" says Fessenden's.</p> + +<p>This astounding announcement was followed by a strange hush. Bill forgot +to smooth out the creases of his coat, and looked suspiciously at the +youth whom it had served as a saddle. He wondered if he had really been +ridden by the Devil.</p> + +<p>The old woman now interfered. She was at least seventy years of age. The +hair of her head was like mixed carded wool. Her coarse, cleanly gown +was composed of many-colored, curious patches. The atmosphere of +thorough grandmotherly goodness surrounded her. In the twilight sky of +her dusky face twinkled shrewdness and good-humor; and her voice was +full of authority and kindness.</p> + +<p>"Stan' back here now, you troubles!"<a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a> pushing the children aside. +"Didn't none on ye never see nobody afore? This 'ere chile has got to be +took keer on, and that mighty soon! Gi' me the comf'table off'm the bed, +mammy."</p> + +<p>"Mammy" was the mother of the children. The "comf'table" was brought, +and she and her husband helped the old negress wrap Fessenden's up in +it, from head to foot, wet clothes and all.</p> + +<p>"Now your big warm gret-cut, pappy!"</p> + +<p>"Pappy" was her own son; and the "gret-cut" was his old, gray, patched +and double-patched surtout, which now came down from its peg, and spread +its broad flaps, like brooding wings, over the half-drowned human +chicken.</p> + +<p>"Now put in the wood, boys! Pour some of that 'ere hot tea down his +throat. Bless him, we'll sweat the cold out of him! we'll give him a +steaming!"</p> + +<p>She held with her own hand the cracked tea-cup to the lad's lips, and +made him drink. Then she pulled up the comforter about his face, till +nothing of him was visible but his nose and a curl or two of saturated +tow. Then she had him moved up close to the glowing stove, like a huge +chrysalis to be hatched by the heat.</p> + +<p>The dozing centenarian now roused again, and, perceiving the little nose +in the big bundle on the other side of the chimney, was once more +reminded of the sacred duties of hospitality. So he got upon his +trembling old legs again, pulled off his cap, and bowed and smiled as +before, with exquisite politeness, across the stove. "Sarvant, Sah! +Welcome, Sah!". And he sat down, and dozed again.</p> + +<p>Fessenden's was not in a position to return the courteous salute. The +old woman had by this time got his feet packed into the stove-oven, and +he was beginning to smoke.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Bill! just look a' Joe!" cried one of the girls.</p> + +<p>Bill left smoothing his broadcloth, and, turning up the whites of his +eyes, uttered a despairing groan. "Oh, that child! that child! that +child!"—his voice running up into a wild falsetto howl.</p> + +<p>The child thus passionately alluded to had possessed himself of Bill's +genteel silk hat, which had been tenderly put away to dry. It had been +sadly soaked by the rain, and bruised by the flopping umbrella which +Fessenden's had unhappily attempted to hold over it. And now Joe had +knocked in the crown, whilst geting it down from its peg with the broom. +He had thought to improve its appearance by stroking the nap the wrong +way with his sleeve. Lastly, putting it on his head, he had crushed the +sides together, to prevent its coming quite down over his eyes and ears +and resting on his shoulders. And there he was, with the broken umbrella +spread, hitting the top of the hat with it at every step, as he strutted +around the room in emulation of his brother's elegant style.</p> + +<p>"My name's Mr. Bill Williams, Asquare!" simpered the little satirist. +"Some folks call me Gentleman Bill, 'cause I'm so smart and +good-looking, Sar!"</p> + +<p>Gentleman Bill picked up the jack with which he had pulled off his wet +boots, and waited for a good chance to launch it at Joe's head. But Joe +kept behind his grandmother, and proceeded with his mimicry.</p> + +<p>"Nobody knows I'm smart and good-looking 'cept me, and that's the why I +tell on't Sar; that's the reason I excite the stircumsances, Sar!"—He +remembered Bill's saying he would "recite the circumstances," and this +was as near as he could come to the precise words.—"I'm a gentleman +tailor; that's my perfession, Sar. Work over to the North Village, Sar. +Come home Sat'day nights to stop over Sunday with the folks, and show my +good clo'es. How d' 'e do, Sar? Perty well, thank ye, Sar." And Joe, +putting down the umbrella, in order to lift the ingulfing hat from his +little round, black, curly head with both hands, made a most extravagant +bow to the chrysalis.</p> + +<p>"Old granny!" hoarsely whispered Bill, "you just stand out of the way +once, while I propel this boot-jack!"</p> + +<p>"Old granny don't stan' out o' the way oncet, for you to frow no +boot-jack <a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>in this house! S'pose I want to see that chile's head stove +in? Which is mos' consequence, I'd like to know, your hat, or his head? +Hats enough in the world. But that 'ere head is an oncommon head, and, +bless the boy, if he should lose that, I do'no' where he'd git another +like it! Come, no more fuss now! I got to make some gruel for this 'ere +poor, wet, starvin' critter. That hash a'n't the thing for him, +mammy,—you'd ought to know! He wants somefin' light and comfortin', +that'll warm his in'ards, and make him sweat, bless him!—Joey! Joey! +give up that 'ere hat now!"</p> + +<p>"Take it, then! Mean old thing,—I don't want it!"</p> + +<p>Joe extended it on the point of the umbrella; but just as Bill was +reaching to receive it, he gave it a little toss, which sent it into the +chip-basket.</p> + +<p>"Might know I'd had on your hat!" and the little rogue scratched his +head furiously.</p> + +<p>"I shall certainly massacre that child some fine morning!" muttered +Bill, ruefully extricating the insulted article from the basket. "Oh, my +gracious! only look at that, now, Creshy!" to his sister. "That's an +interesting object—isn't it?—for a gentleman to think of putting on to +his head Sunday morning!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Bill!" cried Creshy, "jest look a' Joe agin!"</p> + +<p>Whilst he was sorrowfully restoring his hat to its pristine shape, he +had been robbed of his coat. The thief had run with it behind the bed, +where he had succeeded in getting into it. The collar enveloped his +ears. The skirts dragged upon the floor. He had buttoned it, to make it +fit better, but there was still room in it for two or three boys. He had +got on his father's spectacles and Fessenden's straw hat. He looked like +a frightful little old misshapen dwarf. And now, rolling up the sleeves +to find his hands, and wrinkling the coat outrageously at every +movement, he advanced from his retreat, and began to dance a +pigeon-wing, amid the convulsive laughter of the girls.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my soul! my soul!" cried Bill, his voice inclining again to the +falsetto. "Was there ever such an imp of Satan! Was there ever"—</p> + +<p>Here he made a lunge at the offender. Joe attempted to escape, but, +getting his feet entangled in the superabundant coat-skirts, fell, +screaming as if he were about to be killed.</p> + +<p>"Good enough for you!" said his mother. "I wish you would get hurt!"</p> + +<p>"What you wish that for?" cried the old grandmother, rushing to the +rescue, brandishing a long iron spoon with which she had been stirring +the gruel. "Can't nobody never have no fun in this house? Bless us! what +'ud we do, if 't wa'n't for Joey, to make us laugh and keep our sperits +up? Jest you stan' back now, Bill!—'d ruther you'd strike me 'n see ye +hit that 'ere boy oncet!"</p> + +<p>"He must let my things be, then," said Bill, who couldn't see much sport +in the disrespectful use made of his wearing apparel.—"Here, you! +surrender my property!"</p> + +<p>"Laws! you be quiet! You'll git yer cut agin. Only jest look at him now, +he's so blessed cunning!"</p> + +<p>For Joe, reassured by his grandmother, had stopped screaming, and gone +to tailoring. He sat cross-legged on one of the unlucky coat-skirts, and +pulled the other up on his lap, for his work. Then he got an imaginary +thread, and, putting his fingers together, screwed up his mouth, and +looked over the spectacles, sharpening his sight,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Like an old tailor to his needle's eye."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Then he began to stitch, to the infinite disgust of Bill, who was +sensitive touching his vocation.</p> + +<p>"I do declare, father! how you can smile, seeing that child carrying on +in this shape, is beyond my comprehension!"</p> + +<p>"Joseph!" said Mr. Williams, good-naturedly, "I guess that'll do for +to-night. Come, I want my spectacles."</p> + +<p>He had sat down to his book again. He was a slow, thoughtful, easy, +cheerful <a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>man, whom suffering and much humiliation had rendered very +mild and patient, if not quite broken-spirited. His voice was indulgent +and gentle, with that mellow richness of tone peculiar to the negro. +After he had spoken, the laughter subsided; and Joe, impressed by the +quiet paternal authority, quickly devised means to obey without +appearing to do so. For it is not so much obedience, as the +manifestation of obedience, that is repugnant to human nature,—not in +children only, but in grown folks as well.</p> + +<p>Joe disguised his compliance in this way. He got up, took off the +beggar's hat, put the spectacles into it, holding his hand on a rip in +the crown to keep them from falling through, and passed it around, +walking solemnly in his brother's abused coat.</p> + +<p>"I'm Deacon Todd," said he, "taking up a collection to buy Gentleman +Bill a new cut: gunter make a missionary of him!"</p> + +<p>He passed the hat to the women and the girls, all of whom pretended to +put in something.</p> + +<p>"I ha'n't got nothin'!" said Fessenden's, when it came to him; "I'm real +sorry I but I'll give my hat!"—earnest as could be.</p> + +<p>When the hat came to Mr. Williams, he quietly put in his hand and took +out his glasses.</p> + +<p>"Here, I've got something for you; I desire to contribute," said +Gentleman Bill.</p> + +<p>But Joe was shy of his brother.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we don't let the missionary give anything!" he said. "Here's the +hat what you're gunter wear;—give it to him, Cresh!"</p> + +<p>Bill disdained the beggar's, contribution; but, in his anxiety to seize +Joe, he suffered his sister to slip up behind him and clap the wet, +ragged straw wreck on his head.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!" screamed the girls with merriment, in which mother +and grandmother joined, while even their father indulged in a silent, +inward laugh.</p> + +<p>"Good!" said Fessenden's; "he may have it!"</p> + +<p>Bill, watching his opportunity, made a dash at the pretending Deacon +Todd. That nimble and quick-witted dwarf escaped as fast as his awkward +attire would permit. The bed seemed to be the only place of refuge, and +he dodged under it.</p> + +<p>"Come out!" shouted Bill, furious.</p> + +<p>"Come in and git me!" screamed Joe, defiant.</p> + +<p>Bill, if not too large, was far too dignified for such an enterprise. So +he got the broom, and began to stir Joe with the handle,—not observing, +in his wrath, that, the more he worried Joe, the more he was damaging +his own precious broadcloth.</p> + +<p>"I'm the lion to the show!" cried Joe, rolling and tumbling under the +bed to avoid the broom. "The keeper's a punchin' on me, to make me +roar!"</p> + +<p>And the lion roared.</p> + +<p>"He's a gunter come into the cage by-'m-by, and put his head into my +mouth. Then I'm a gunter swaller him! Ki! hoo! hoo! oo!"</p> + +<p>He roared in earnest this time. Bill, grown desperate, had knocked his +shins. As long as he hit him only on the head, the king of beasts didn't +care; but he couldn't stand an attack on the more sensitive part.</p> + +<p>"Jest look here, now!" exclaimed the old negress, with unusual spirit; +"gi' me that broom!"</p> + +<p>She wrenched it from Bill's hand.</p> + +<p>"Perty notion, you can't come home a minute without pesterin' that boy's +life out of him!"</p> + +<p>You see, color makes no difference with grandmothers. Black or white, +they are universally unjust, when they come to decide the quarrels of +their favorites.</p> + +<p>"Great lubberly fellow like you, 'busin' that poor babby all the time! +Come, Joey! come to granny, poor chile!"</p> + +<p>It was a sorry-looking lion that issued whimpering from the cage, +limping, and rubbing his eyes. His borrowed hide—namely, Bill's +coat—had been twisted into marvellous shapes in the scuffle; <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>and, +being wet, it was almost white with the dust and lint that adhered to +it. Bill threw up his arms in despair; while Joe threw his, great +sleeves and all, around granny's neck, and found comfort on her +sympathizing bosom.</p> + +<p>"Silence, now," said Mr. Williams, "so's we can go on with the reading."</p> + +<p>Order was restored. Bill hung up his coat, and sat down. Joe nestled in +the old woman's lap. And now the storm was heard beating against the +house.</p> + +<p>"Say!" spoke up Fessenden's, "can I stop here over night?"</p> + +<p>"You don't suppose," said Mr. Williams, "we'd turn you out in such +weather as this, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Wal!" said Fessenden's, "nobody else would keep me."</p> + +<p>"Don't you be troubled! While we 've a ruf over our heads, no stranger +don't git turned away from it that wants shelter, and will put up with +our 'commodations. We can keep you to-night, and probably to-morrow +night, if you like to stay; but after that I can't promise. Mebby we +sha'n't have a ruf for our own heads then. But we'll trust the Lord," +said Mr. Williams, with a deep, serious smile,—while Mrs. Williams +sighed.</p> + +<p>"How is it about that matter?" Gentleman Bill inquired.</p> + +<p>"The house is to be tore down Monday, I suppose," replied his father, +mildly.</p> + +<p>"My gracious!" exclaimed Bill; "Mr. Frisbie a'n't really going to carry +that threat into execution?"</p> + +<p>"That's what he says, William. He has got a prejudice ag'inst color, you +know. Since he lost the election, through the opposition of the +abolitionists, as he thinks, he's been very much excited on the +subject," added Mr. Williams, in his subdued way.</p> + +<p>"Excited!" echoed his wife, bitterly.</p> + +<p>She was a much-suffering woman, inclined to melancholy; but there was a +latent fire in her when she seemed most despondent, and she roused up +now and spoke with passionate, flashing eyes:—</p> + +<p>"Sence he got beat, town-meetin' day, he don't 'pear to take no comfort, +'thout 't is hatin' Judge Gingerford and spitin' niggers, as he calls +us. He sent his hired man over agin this mornin', to say, if we wa'n't +out of the house by Monday, 't would be pulled down on to our heads. +Call that Christian, when he knows we can't git another house, there 's +sich a s'picion agin people o' color?"</p> + +<p>"'T wa'n't alluz so; 't wa'n't so in my day," said the old woman, +pausing, as she was administering the gruel to Fessenden's with a spoon. +"Here's gran'pa, he was a slave, and I was born a slave, in this here +very State, as long ago as when they used to have slaves here, as I've +told ye time and agin; though I don't clearly remember it, for I scacely +ever knowed what bondage was, bless the Lord! But we allus foun' +somebody to be kind to us, and got along,—for it did seem as though God +kind o' looked arter us, and took keer on us, same as He did o' white +folks. We've been carried through, somehow or 'nother; and I can't help +thinkin' as how we shall be yit, spite o' Mr. Frisbie. S'pose God'll +forgit us 'cause His grand church-folks do? S'pose all they can say'll +pedijice Him?"</p> + +<p>Having advanced this unanswerable question, she turned once more to her +patient, who put up his head, and opened his mouth wide, to receive the +great spoon.</p> + +<p>"Lucky for them that can trust the Lord!" said Mrs. Williams, over her +patching. "But if I was a man, I'm 'fraid I should put my trust in a +good knife, and stan' by the ol' house when they come to pull it down! +The fust man laid hands on 't 'ud git hurt, I'm dreffle 'fraid! Prayin' +won't save it, you see!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Frisbie owns the house," observed Gentleman Bill, "and I wouldn't +resort to violent measures to prevent him; though 't isn't possible for +me to believe he'll be so unhuman as to demolish it before you find +another."</p> + +<p>"I'm inclined to think he will," answered<a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a> Mr. Williams, calmly. "He's a +rather determined man, William. But God won't quite forget us, I'm +sartin sure. And we won't worry about the house till the time comes, +anyhow. Le' 's see what the Good Book says to comfort us," he added, +with a hopeful smile.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, the "Timberville Gazette" had not reached this benighted +family; and not having the Judge's Address to read, Mr. Williams read +the Sermon on the Mount.</p> + +<p>Fessenden's listened with the rest. And alight, not of the +understanding, but of the spirit, shone upon him. His intellect was too +feeble, I think, to draw any very keen comparison between those houses +where the "Timberville Gazette" was taken and read that evening and this +lowly abode,—between the rich there, who had shut their proud, +prosperous doors against him, and these poor servants of the Lord, who +had taken him in and comforted him, though the hour was nigh when they, +too, were to be driven forth shelterless in the wintry storms. The deep +and affecting suggestiveness of that wide contrast his mind was, no +doubt, too weak thoroughly to appreciate. Yet something his heart felt, +and something his soul perceived; his pale and vacant face was +illumined; and at the close of the reading he rose up. The coarse +wrappings of his body fell away; and the muffling ignorance, the +swaddling dulness, wherein that divine infant, the bright immortal +spirit, was confined, seemed also to fall off. He lifted up his hands, +spreading them as if dispensing blessings; and his countenance had a +vague, smiling wonder in it, almost beautiful, and his voice, when he +spoke, thrilled the ear.</p> + +<p>"Praise the Lord! praise the Lord! for He will provide!</p> + +<p>"Be comforted! for ye are the children of the Lord!</p> + +<p>"Be glad! be glad! for the Angel of the Lord is here!</p> + +<p>"Don't you see him? don't you see him? There! there!" he cried, +pointing, with an earnestness and radiance of look which filled all who +saw him with astonishment. They turned to gaze, as if really expecting +to behold the vision; then fixed their eyes again on the stranger.</p> + +<p>"You'll be taken care of, the Angel says. Even they that hate you shall +do you good. The mercy you have shown, Christ will show to you."</p> + +<p>Having uttered these sentences at intervals, in a loud voice, the +speaker gave a start, turned as if bewildered, and sat down again.</p> + +<p>Not a word was spoken. A hush of awe suspended the breath of the +listeners. Then a smile of fervent emotion lighted up like daybreak the +negro's dark visage, and his joy broke forth in song. The others joined +him, filling the house with the jubilee of their wild and mellow voices.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"A poor wayfaring man of grief</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hath often crossed me on my way,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And sued so humbly for relief</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That I could never answer nay."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And so the fair fame of Gingerford, as we said before, was saved from +blight. The beggar-boy awakes this Sunday morning, not in the blaze of +Eternity, but in that dim nook of the domain of Time, Nigger Williams's +hut. He made his couch, not on the freezing ground, but in a bunk of the +low-roofed garret. His steaming clothes had been taken off, a dry shirt +had been given him, and he had Joe for a bedfellow.</p> + +<p>"Hug him tight, Joey dear!" said the old woman, as she carried away the +candle. "Snug up close, and keep him warm!"</p> + +<p>"I will!" cried Joe, as affectionate as he was roguish; and Fessenden's +never slept better than he did that night, with the tempest singing his +lullaby, and the arms of the loving negro boy about him.</p> + +<p>In the morning he found his clothes ready to put on. They had been +carefully dried; and the old woman had got up early and taken a few +needful stitches in them.</p> + +<p>"It's Sunday, granny," Creshy reminded her, to see what she would say.</p> + +<p>"A'n't no use lett'n' sich holes as these 'ere go, if 't is Sunday!" +replied <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>the old woman. "Hope I never sh'll ketch you a doin' nuffin' +wus! A'n't we told to help our neighbor's sheep out o' the ditch on the +Lord's day? An' which is mos' consequence, I'd like to know, the +neighbor's sheep, or the neighbor hisself?"</p> + +<p>"But his clothes a'n't him," said Creshy.</p> + +<p>"S'pose I do'no' that? But what's a sheep for, if 't a'n't for its wool +to make the clo'es? Then, to look arter the sheep that makes the clo'es, +and not look arter the clo'es arter they're made, that's a mis'ble +notion!"</p> + +<p>"But you can mend the clothes any day."</p> + +<p>"Could I mend 'em yis'day, when I didn't have 'em to mend? or las' +night, when they was wringin' wet? Le' me alone, now, with your +nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"But you can mend them to-morrow," said the mischievous girl, delighted +to puzzle her grandmother.</p> + +<p>"And let that poor lorn chile go in rags over Sunday, freezin' cold +weather like this? Guess I a'n't so onfeelin,'—an' you a'n't nuther, +for all you like to tease your ole granny so! Bless the chile, seems to +me he's jest gwine to bring us good luck. I feel as though the Angel of +the Lord did ra'ly come into the house with him las' night! Wish I had +somefin' ra'l good for him for his breakfas' now! He'll be dreffle +hungry, that's sartin. Make a rousin' good big Johnny-cake, mammy; and, +Creshy, you stop botherin', and slice up them 'ere taters for fryin'."</p> + +<p>Soon the odor of the cooking stole up into the garret. Fessenden's +snuffed it with delighted senses. The feeling of his garments dry and +whole pleased him mightily. He heard the call to breakfast; and laughing +and rubbing his eyes, he followed Joe down the dark, uncertain footing +of the stairs.</p> + +<p>The family was already huddled about the table. But room was reserved +for their guest, and at his appearance the old patriarch rose smilingly +from his seat, pulled off his cap, which it seemed he always wore, and +shook hands with him, with the usual hospitable greeting.</p> + +<p>"Sarvant, Sah! Welcome, Sah!"</p> + +<p>Fessenden's was given a seat by his side. And the old woman piled his +plate with good things. And he ate, and was filled. For he was by no +means dainty, and had not, simple soul! the least prejudice against +color.</p> + +<p>And he was happy. The friendly black faces around him,—the cheerful, +sympathetic, rich-toned voices,—the motherly kindness of the old +woman,—the exquisite smiling politeness of the old man, who got up and +shook hands with him, on an average, every half-hour,—the +Bible-reading,—the singing,—the praying,—the elegance and +condescension of Gentleman Bill,—the pleasant looks and words of the +laughing-eyed girls,—and the irrepressible merriment of Joe, made that +a golden Sabbath in the lad's life.</p> + +<p>Alas that it should come to this! Associate with black folks! how +shocking! What if he was a—Fessenden's? wasn't he white? Where were +those finer tastes and instincts which make you and me shrink from +persons of color? Pity they had not been properly developed in him! Pity +he should stoop so low as to eat and sleep with niggers, and feel +grateful! He rolls and tumbles in mad frolic with Joe on the +garret-floor, and plays horse with him. He suffers his hair to be combed +by the girls, and actually experiences pleasure at the touch of their +gentle hands, and feels a vague wondering joy when they praise his +smooth flaxen locks. In a word, he is so weak as to wish that good Mr. +Williams was his father, and this delightful hut his home!</p> + +<p>And so he spends his Sunday. The family does not attend public worship. +They used to, when the old meeting-house was standing, and the old +minister was alive. But they do not feel at ease in the new edifice, and +the smart young preacher is too smart for them altogether. His rhetoric +is like the cold carving and frescos,—very fine, very admirable, no +doubt; but it has no warmth in it for <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>them; it is foreign to their +common daily lives; it comes not near the hopes and fears and sufferings +of their humble hearts. Here religion, which too long suffered +abasement, is exalted. It is highly respectable. It shows culture; it +has the tone of society. It is worth while coming hither of a Sunday +morning, if only to hear the organ and see the fashions. Yet it can +hardly be expected that such creatures as the Williamses should +appreciate the privilege of hearing and beholding from the inclosure +which has been properly set off for their class,—the colored people's +pew.</p> + +<p>But Fessendon's might have done better, one would say, than to stay at +home with them. Why didn't he go to church, and be somebody? <i>He</i> would +not have been put into the niggers' pew. As for his clothes, which might +have been objected to by worldly people, who would have thought of them, +or of anything else but his immortal soul, in the house of God? Of +course, there were no respecters of persons there,—none to say to a +rich Frisbie, or an eloquent Gingerford, "Sit thou, here, in a good +place," and to a ragged Fessenden's, "Stand thou there."</p> + +<p>But perhaps the less said on the subject the better. Pass over that +golden Sunday in the lad's life. Alas, when will he ever have such +another? For here it is Monday morning, and the house is to be torn +down.</p> + +<p>There seems to be no mistake about it. Mr. Frisbie has come over early, +driven in his light open carriage by his man Stephen, to see that the +niggers are out. And yonder come the workmen, to commence the work of +demolition.</p> + +<p>But the niggers are not out; not an article of furniture has been +removed.</p> + +<p>"You see, Sir,"—Mr. Williams calmly represents the case to his +landlord, as he sits in his carriage,—"it has been impossible. We shall +certainly go, just as soon as we can get another house anywhere in +town"—</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to get another house in town," interrupts the +full-blooded, red-faced Frisbie. "We have had enough of you. You have +had fair warning. Now out with your traps, and off with you!"</p> + +<p>"I trust, at least, Sir, you will give us another week"—</p> + +<p>"Not an hour!"</p> + +<p>"One day," remonstrates the mild negro; "I don't think you will refuse +us that."</p> + +<p>"Not a minute!" exclaims the firm Frisbie. "I've borne with you long +enough. Fact is, we have got tired of niggers in this town. I bought the +house with you in it, or you never would have got in. Now it is coming +down. Call out your folks, and save your stuff, if you're going +to.—Good morning, Adsly," to the master carpenter. "Go to work with +your fellows. Guess they'll be glad to get out by the time you've ripped +the roof off."</p> + +<p>Mr. Williams retires, disheartened, his visage surcharged with trouble. +For this wretched dwelling was his home, and dear to him. It was the +centre of his world. Around it all the humble hopes and pleasures of the +man had clustered for years. When weary with the long day's heavy toil, +here he had found rest. To this spot his spirit, sorrow-laden, had ever +turned with gratitude and yearning. And here he had found shelter, here +he had found love and comfort, the lonely, despised man. Even care and +grief had contributed to strengthen the hold of his heart upon this +soil. Here had died the only child he had ever lost; and in the old +burying-ground, over the hill yonder, it was buried. Under this mean +roof he had laid his sorrows before the Lord, he had wrestled with the +Lord in prayer, and his burdens had been taken from him, and light and +gladness had been poured upon his soul. Oh, ye proud! do you think that +happiness dwells only in high places, or that these lowly homes are not +dear to the poor?</p> + +<p>But now this sole haven of the negro and his family was to be destroyed. +Cruel cold blew the December wind, that wintry morning. And the gusts of +the landlord's temper were equally pitiless.</p><p><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="HEAD-QUARTERS_OF_BEER-DRINKING" id="HEAD-QUARTERS_OF_BEER-DRINKING"></a>HEAD-QUARTERS OF BEER-DRINKING.</h2> + + +<p>Besides the four elements known to us as such, namely, air, fire, earth, +and water, there is a liquid substance not entirely unknown in our +country, which, in the kingdom of Bavaria, is sometimes called the fifth +element, under the specific name of beer. It is true, that, where this +extra element is in such repute, some of the others suffer depreciation, +and especially is this true of water, though this latter is still +occasionally used both as a beverage and in purifying processes; and +there is, too, a tradition, which these inland people have little +opportunity of verifying, that it has sometimes been exclusively used +for purposes of navigation, and they are aware, that, if at any time +they should decide to emigrate to America, they might have occasion to +test on a large scale both its utility and its perils for this purpose. +The centre of gravity of this fifth element seems to be in the city of +Munich, the capital of the kingdom. People in this country who have +heard much of lager-beer, and seen a little of its use as introduced +into our land from Germany, may, perhaps, suppose that it is equally +distributed over all that extensive region known by this name. This is, +however, an error. Just as our atmosphere becomes ever less dense +according to its distance from the earth's centre of gravity, so this +fifth element, as one retires farther from the city of Munich.</p> + +<p>It would be an interesting inquiry for the medical man, who seeks to +enlarge his knowledge of the <i>vis medicatrix Naturæ</i>, for the +philanthropist, who would stimulate or increase the means of human +happiness, and remove or diminish those of human misery, and even for +the statistician, alike indifferent to both: <i>Why do particular articles +of diet and beverage concentrate their use so much in particular +climates, lands, and localities?</i> Within certain limits the question is +easy. The inhabitant of the tropics lives on the bread-fruit, the +plantain, the orange, the fig, and the date. They grow around him, drop +as it were into his mouth, and are just what he needs to allay his +hunger and support his nature. The Greenlanders and the Esquimaux of +Labrador eat the flesh of bears, reindeer, and seals, and even drink +their fat by the quart. Fruits, if they were to be had, would not meet +their wants, and Providence has ordered accordingly. He of the tropics, +in addition to the external heat, needs but the mild and gentle fire +generated by the combustion of his native fruits, to keep his life-fluid +in action; while he of the frigid zones must be kept in life and motion +by rousing fires of seal's fat. Temperate latitudes produce most fruits, +and all the cereals and animals used for food; but Nature nowhere gives +us these in the shape of plum-puddings and pastries, or of beer and +alcoholic drinks. The combinations and commutations must be +manufactured. But does an impulse in man, like the instinct of the bee, +lead him to make just what he needs in his particular climate? Does the +Bavarian take to beer as the bee to honey? Does instinct or appetite in +general shape itself to climate and other outward circumstances? This is +but partly true. As Nature has distributed noxious vegetable and animal +substances through land and sea, which must be avoided, so man may not +pitch or pour indiscriminately into his stomach whatever substance may +be cooked or liquid distilled and offered to him, and we are thrown back +upon the direct test of their innocent or noxious properties, with full +responsibility of action; but still I have a profound conviction that +all such general production of the chief articles of food and drink has +its origin in some deeply felt necessity of human nature in their +particular localities;—the people may be on the wrong track in their +attempts to provide for such necessities, <a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>but that these are felt and +are the stimulus to the production is beyond doubt.</p> + +<p>Allowing for the changes wrought by time and cultivation, we can still +perceive the truth of what Tacitus wrote of Germany almost two thousand +years ago:—"The land, though somewhat varied in aspect, is in the main +deformed with dismal forests and foul marshes. The part next to Gaul is +wetter, and that next to Pannonia and Noricum higher and more windy. It +is sufficiently productive, but not adapted to fruit-trees." The whole +country lies in a high latitude,—Munich, though in the southern part, +being forty-eight degrees North. No large city on the continent lies at +such an elevation,—about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the +Adriatic. In the midst of a vast plain, it is exposed to all winds. Its +site and the surrounding country are a great gravel-bed, hundreds of +feet thick, a deposit from the Alps, spurs of which are within thirty +miles on the south, subjecting the whole region to sudden changes of +weather ranging in a few hours through many degrees of Fahrenheit. The +air is raw and chilly, and although many parts of Germany have since the +days of Tacitus developed an adaptation to the vine and other fruits, +none flourish in the neighborhood of Munich. The whole country suffers +from deficiency of nourishing and stimulating food. They may not +themselves know it, but this is true of the peasants who are best to do +in the world. Of the peasantry of Upper Bavaria, some have meat five +times in the year, on their chief holidays,—namely, Shrove Tuesday, +Easter, Whitsuntide, Church-Consecration, and Christmas; some have it on +but two of these days, and some only at Christmas. The exceptions may be +many, and the large cities are quite exceptional, but the change is of +late introduction. When people must labor upon such a diet, they feel +the lack of something; but the Bavarians have been too long in this case +to think of crying, like Israel of old in the wilderness, after having +left the abundance of Egypt, "Who shall give us flesh to eat?"—they +attempt rather to allay the gnawings at their stomachs by potations of +beer, and the appetite grows by what it feeds on.</p> + +<p>It is plausibly maintained that the climate of this particular locality +creates an actual necessity for the use of this beverage. Often, during +the earlier part of my residence there, I was besought by friends, with +manifestation of deepest concern, to use beer instead of water, with the +remark that the climate made this a necessary measure of security +against the prevalent typhus and typhoid fevers: a conviction which +seems to be deeply seated in the minds of the people.</p> + +<p>Aside from all this, there is an almost total want of the pleasant +beverages used in our families. Tea is as good as unknown in Old +Bavaria, its use being confined to those who have been in England, or +have learned it of the English, and not one woman in twenty thousand can +prepare it. Let the word <i>tea</i> be erased from our vocabulary, and from +our minds all the cheerful associations which it awakens, and there +passes from our hearts none can tell how much of that which we most +fondly cherish there,—the family of both sexes, and occasionally some +neighbors and friends, seated around the table,—the gently stimulating +narcotic diffusing a charm over the whole social being, and +communicating itself to the vocal machinery. Fanatical reformers have +proclaimed its injurious effects; and it may have such; but they are a +thousand times compensated by its value as a bond of union to the +elements of the domestic circle. The tea-table has been the butt of many +a jest and sarcasm, as a fountain of gossip and slander. This may be +true; but the security it furnishes against the dissipation of the +elements of the social circle outweighs thousands of such trifles, and +we half suspect that this objection was originated, and is mischievously +propagated, by those who are already developing a love for other +beverages. If Cowper, with the "sofa" assigned as his subject, could +sing so beautifully of all things social and domestic, <a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>what might he +not have done with the tea-table—the rallying-point of social life to +so many who never had a sofa—for his theme?</p> + +<p>From the general use of coffee in the cities and large towns of Germany, +we have inferred its general use by the peasantry; but even this is +quite limited, in Upper Bavaria at least; it is found only where the +influence of city-life has penetrated. Sometimes a peasant woman has a +little hid in her chest, from which she stealthily prepares and drinks a +cup when her husband is away; but it is little used. This article was +brought into Western Europe in the seventeenth century, and found beer +in possession of Germany. The monks are said to have preached against +the use of coffee, as anticipating, by the dense black smoke which arose +from burning it, the "fumes of hell." It came from Turkey, and at that +day the Turk was still the hereditary dread of all the peoples on the +middle and upper Danube. He was next thing to the Devil; and what came +direct from the former could be but recent from the latter.</p> + +<p>Their beloved beer could not be traced so directly to an origin in the +nether world. The German tribes, as far back as history or tradition +reports them, seem to have loved this quieting beverage. Traces of their +coming together as now for banqueting purposes, under the shade of +Germany's primeval forests, are still found in history and historical +traditions. There is one fact which Americans, so accustomed to rapid +transformations of society by migration, immigration, and intermixture +of races, can scarcely comprehend, even when they know it as a fact: it +is the persistency with which national traits adhere to a people in an +old country, through generations and decades of generations and of +centuries, withstanding the shock of revolution both in government and +religion. Tacitus says of these people:—"At meals, they sit every man +upon a seat by himself and at a separate table. Arising, they proceed +armed to their business; and they go armed also to their banquets. <i>It +is no reproach to them to continue day and night drinking. Their drink +is fermented from barley or wheat into a certain resemblance of wine</i>. +Their food is simple,—wild fruits, fresh game, or coagulated milk. They +satisfy hunger without formality and without delicacies. <i>In regard to +thirst they do not exercise this moderation</i>. Indulge their appetites by +giving them all they desire, and you may conquer them by their vices not +less easily than by arms."</p> + +<p>Viewing, then, these people of Upper Bavaria, and of Munich in +particular, in their cold, raw air,—in their supposed exposure to +typhus and typhoid fevers,—deficiency of good food,—the want of the +domestic circle as cemented in our country over other beverages,—the +national abstemiousness in regard to food, and the addictedness to beer +for thousands of years past,—and we have a somewhat rational +explanation of the springing-up and development into such monstrous +proportions of the manufacture and consumption of this article. Of the +many it may be said,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"They drink their simple beverage with a gust,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And feast upon an onion and a crust."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Bavaria, not including the Rhenish Palatinate, uses over six million +bushels of barley, and upwards of seven million pounds of hops, +annually, in its breweries, making over eight million eimers, that is, +about five million barrels of beer. But nearly half the kingdom is +wine-growing, and uses comparatively little beer; so that this is mainly +consumed in the other half, that is, by about three millions of people. +At an average price of three and a half cents per quart, there is +consumed in the kingdom fifty million florins, or over twenty million +dollars, annually, in this beverage. Both manufacture and consumption +have their head-quarters in Munich. The quantity manufactured in this +city alone in 1856-7 was nine hundred and fifty thousand eimers, or +about five hundred and seventy thousand barrels, being nearly five +barrels a head for the whole population, men, <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>women, and children. +Allowing for the amount exported, or sent out of the city, there remains +something like four barrels to each person. This is one quart, or four +of our common table-glasses, per day. But some drink none, others +little; a man is scarcely reckoned with real beer-drinkers until he +drinks six masses,—twenty-four of our common tumblers; ten masses are +not uncommon; twenty to thirty masses—eighty to one hundred and twenty +of our dinner-glasses—are drunk by some, and on a wager even much more. +The sick man whose physician prescribed for him a quart of herb-tea as +the only thing that would save him, and who replied that he was gone, +then, for he held but a <i>pint</i>, was no Bavarian; for the most modest +Bavarian girl would not feel alarmed in regard to her capacity, if +ordered to drink a gallon,—certainly not, if the liquid were beer.</p> + +<p>The aggregate labor performed in this branch of popular industry is thus +seen at a glance. But how is this done, and by whom? What is the noise +or noiselessness with which such torrents of this foaming liquid rush +daily through the channels of human bodies made originally too small to +admit half the quantity? What are the final results upon body, mind, and +heart of the present and future of the race? Does government encourage, +stimulate, control, and turn to account this national appetite? These +questions invite, and will well repay, a few moments' attention.</p> + +<p>I once heard a college student announce as the text of his oration +Lindley Murray's well-known definition of the verb,—a word which +signifies "to be, to do, or to suffer"; and he followed up his +announcement by a most beautiful and conclusive argument to show that +this definition describes with equal accuracy three classes of men into +which the whole world may be divided: a class who have no purpose in +life but simply "to be"; an active class, whose mission is "to do," to +which they bend all their energies; and a passive class, who merely +"suffer" themselves to be employed as the tools of the men of action. +Whether he would have modified his statement, had he known something of +Bavarian beer-drinkers, I do not know; for, although these belong, +doubtless, in general, to the class of men which he designated as having +no purpose but simply "to be," yet they certainly have a decided +preference as to the means of their being, which must be beer; they have +activity enough to get where this can be obtained, and to handle the +needed quantity; and the man who holds and bears about fifteen or twenty +quarts a day must have no small share of the grace of passive endurance.</p> + +<p>There is a class of the nobility too poor to treat themselves with the +diversions of court-life, and with notions of noble birth which forbid +them to engage in business, especially as they would thereby forfeit +their rank. They fund their small means, so as to yield them a stated +income; and in spending this and their time, they fall into a round +which brings them three or four times a day to some place where beer is +to be found, and with it a billiard-table and a reading-room. This class +does not, perhaps, embrace a very large number of the nobility, but it +is largely reinforced from others, whose small means are similarly +invested, and whose whole time is on their hands for disposal. The class +of men engaged in business, and pursuing it somewhat actively, give less +attention to beer during the day. They take a couple of glasses—four of +our common tumblers—at dinner, and perhaps send out a servant +occasionally during the day to replenish a pitcher for the +counter,—not, however, to treat customers, as used to be done in our +country; but as beer had been all day secondary to business, the latter +is dropped for the evening, and the undivided attention bestowed upon +the national beverage. A large portion of the poor, and many who cannot +be called poor, have not the means for this indulgence; and yet men and +women are seldom seen at their work without a mug of beer standing near +them. Ladies have the same provision in their families, as also +students, and all <a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>who occupy rented rooms in connection with the +families of the city; from ten to one o'clock servant-girls, with +pitchers in their hands and immense bunches of keys hanging to their +apron-strings, are seen running to and from the neighboring beer-houses +thick as butterflies floating in a summer sun, and seem far more as if +on business requiring haste. No room is sought for renting without an +inquiry as to the quality of the beer of the neighborhood; and the +landlady feels that her chances for a tenant are exceedingly slim, if +she cannot furnish a satisfactory recommendation in this respect. +Scarcely a house in the city is thirty steps from where the article can +be had. The places fitted up with seats and tables for drinking +accommodate from twenty to five hundred persons, and even one thousand +or more in summer, when a garden is generally prepared with seats for +the purpose. At these larger places, music is often provided, and ladies +are frequently found lending the charm and solace of their presence, and +sometimes a good deal more, to the other sex, in this self-denying work, +in which the men have generally been the great burden-bearers. But the +greatest crowds of real beer-drinkers go to another class of +houses,—that is, the breweries themselves, where rooms are always +fitted up for drinking. Of these the Court Brewery is perhaps in highest +repute, and is at least a great curiosity. I visited it three or four +times during a six years' residence in the city, and always in company +with others who wished to see the lions of the place, and for the same +reason that would have taken us to see a menagerie. Why did the monks +never think of applying to such places the figure by which they +protested against the introduction of coffee, "the fumes of hell"? The +smoke of five hundred cigars or pipes rising to a ceiling which had been +thus smoked for centuries,—the hoarse hum of five hundred voices +uttering the German gutturals from tongues thickened by the use of beer, +and floating heavily through an atmosphere of densest smoke, dimming the +lights and turning all into an indefinite and uniform brown color,—this +may indeed be a picture of Elysium to some minds, but to ours it is not. +I never found a vacant seat there, nor felt a desire to occupy one, had +there been such. Stone mugs of double the size of the common glasses are +used, perhaps to save servants' labor in drawing, which is no small +matter, as a barrel of beer lasts not more than ten minutes at the +height of the drinking-time of the evening.</p> + +<p>None of the drinking-places in the city are filled until evening. In the +afternoon many take their walks into the suburbs, and turn aside where a +glass may be had. On all holidays the whole city is adrift, much of it +in the surrounding country, and most of this drift lodges against the +suburban beer-houses. In summer evenings there are frequent +entertainments, some provided by the government,—as one every Saturday +evening from six to seven o'clock, from May to November, a mile from the +city, in the English Garden, where sometimes two thousand persons may be +in attendance, to hear the royal bands play. It is presumed that there +will always be a considerable number among these who will not be able to +stand it an hour without beer, and a beneficent provision is made for +such,—seats and tables for at least five hundred persons being there +provided, and often filled, so that some must drink standing.</p> + +<p>The regularity with which the men of Munich bring themselves around to +the same place at about the same time of day, especially if that place +is a beer-house, is remarkable,—indeed, amusing. A gentleman residing +in Berlin, where this everlasting beer-drinking does not prevail, +mentioned to me, as one of the most ludicrous occurrences of his life, +an invitation which he once received to visit a Munich professor whose +acquaintance he had made in Berlin. The professor told him, that, in +case he should arrive in Munich after a certain hour of the day, he must +go directly to the Court Brewery, and would find him there. We do +<a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>indeed regard this as the consummation of the ridiculous; but to this +bachelor professor it was the most natural thing in the world. He might +change his lodgings half a dozen times in a year, and so might not be +readily found; but the Court Brewery would remain from generation to +generation, and while he lived he expected regularly to appear there, +and there, of course, was the only place where he could make +appointments for years to come.</p> + +<p>This incident will intimate what an external view of this dark brown +mass of humanity would never have hinted,—that it contains men of +learning and parts. Could one go round and listen to each party by +itself, instead of hearing the low rumble which falls upon the ears of +the general observer, the profoundest problems of philosophy, +statesmanship, philology, geography, ethnography, and history would be +found undergoing the most searching examination. Fame says of <i>our</i> +politicians who rise to positions which ought to be occupied only by +statesmen, that they frequent low places and mingle with the boisterous +crowd. This is probably not a slander. But these men frequent such +places only for a purpose. Their tastes do not lead them thither. They +go no oftener than serves their purpose. Not so with the learned German +beer-drinker. He is in his own proper society. Chinese or Sanscrit, +Arabic or Coptic, the last discoveries in the interior of Africa or +about the North Pole, or the more recondite regions of chemistry or +mineralogy, may be the theme of a familiar discourse, which each of the +party may fully appreciate.</p> + +<p>To these places, of course, only the men resort. Indeed, in this part of +Germany there is little of family-life. The members of the family take +their coffee separately, as each rises and is ready. The men quite +generally dine and sup away from home, and that, too, when their +business and their residence are in the same house, and the hotel or +eating-house is at a distance. An English gentleman told me of a German +friend of his who appeared in his seat in the beer-house on the evening +of his wedding-day; and to the suggestion that this was not quite right +to the newly married wife, he replied that it did indeed seem so, but he +thought it better not to encourage hopes destined to disappointment. +This may, too, have been one of those numerous instances in which the +parties had already spent many evenings together in such a way as to +have diminished the interest of both in each other's society on the +first evening of married life. A genuine Munich man would never be +embarrassed like the Parisian, of whom the well-known story is told, +that, having been accustomed to spend all his evenings in the +drawing-room of a certain lady, he was advised, on the death of her +husband, to marry her, and promptly replied with the question, "<i>Where, +then, should I spend my evenings?</i>" A true South-Bavarian's plan of +spending his evenings is not affected by the trifling event of his +marriage.</p> + +<p>Indeed, there is an aspect of this virtual dissolution of family-life +which has great interest as connected with German erudition. The English +or American scholar, whose social hours are mainly spent with his +family, or in the mixed society of the sexes, would never think of +introducing the subjects of his study into such circles, and hence is +without the best means of familiarizing his mind with the very topics to +which all his hours of close application are devoted; for no subject is +fully understood and reduced to material for ready use until it has been +in some form the theme of frequent familiar discourse. It is thus turned +over,—looked at on every side,—the views of men of different tastes, +studies, and orders of mind, who have not disqualified themselves for +this by being curled into the same nutshell, are called forth,—and the +sparks thus elicited catch on other tinder, which had not been touched +by those struck out in solitary study. It is thus that the thoughts of +the learned are familiarized, and their area extended. It is thus that +subjects which sit upon us as holiday-clothes are, in a society of +German <i>literati</i>, <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>who are together every day at dinner, or over their +coffee after dinner, and every evening over their beer, become to them +as their every-day clothing. I am not of those who deem this result well +purchased at the price of the refining influence of the other sex, and +the virtual breaking-up of family-life; but if some middle way could be +hit upon to secure the two advantages at once, both science and society +would be great gainers.</p> + +<p>The government has regulated the manufacture of beer, and collected an +income-tax upon it, for centuries past; and this is even now one of its +most puzzling problems. It determines the price, both wholesale and +retail, at which the beer may be sold. The calculations are based upon +an estimate of the medium amount of fixed capital necessary for the +manufacture, then the labor, then the average price of barley and hops +at the October and November markets of each year; every item which +enters into the manufacture, including interest at five per cent on +capital, enters also into the government's calculation by which it +determines its tax and the price of beer. The price is never increased +or diminished by less than half a kreutzer, or two pfennigs, that is, +one-third of a cent, per mass. The fractional parts of this +half-kreutzer which may appear in the calculation are divided by a fixed +rule between the public and the brewer: that is, when the fraction is +one-fourth of a kreutzer, or less, the brewer must drop it for the +public benefit; when more, he may call it a half for his own benefit. +The government tax is nearly one kreutzer per mass, making about six +millions of florins. There is also in several places an additional local +beer-tax, amounting to nearly two million florins more. The population +of the kingdom is about five millions. A considerable portion of this +population are wine-growing, and manufacture and drink but little beer. +Ledlmayr, the largest brewer in Munich, made in the year 1856—the +latest statistics published—one hundred and twenty-nine thousand +eimers. Allowing three hundred working-days to the year, this would be +four hundred and thirty eimers, or twenty-seven thousand five hundred +and twenty masses, per day, and would pay to the government, at one +kreutzer per mass, one hundred and eighty dollars of our money for each +of these working-days, or fifty-four thousand dollars yearly. In a time +of popular sensitiveness, there is nothing which the government could do +that would be so likely to be followed by a revolutionary outbreak as to +add a kreutzer to the price of the mass or quart of beer. This article +is ranked in all police-regulations among the necessaries of life. The +bakeries and beer-houses must remain open at those holiday-hours when +all other shopkeepers, except the apothecaries, must close their shops.</p> + +<p>The statistics already given have reference to the common beer; but, +besides this, the brewers have permission to brew for certain short +periods what are called the double beers, without paying a tax upon +them. My statistics of the beer-drinking will, therefore, fall short of +the truth, at least by this uncertain quantity. During the brief periods +of the sale of the double beers, there is a great rush for them, +relieving somewhat the monotony of the ordinary routine. The two +principal kinds of double beer are the Bock-beer and the Salvator-beer. +The latter creates quite a furor. Many, led by curiosity to the +head-quarters of its sale, find their amusement there in testing the +capacity of some great beer-drinker,—and such are always on hand +waiting the chance,—by paying for all he will drink. These curious +visitors seldom return without a similar test of their own capacities; +and as the article has double the alcohol of the common beer, many a one +staggers a little on his homeward way who had never felt such effect +from the common form of the beverage.</p> + +<p>There is also no small amount of wine drunk in Munich. I have not the +statistics, but the number of large houses with the sign, +"Weinhandlung," and of the smaller ones with the sign, "Weinschenck,"<a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a> +and then the fact that at all the large hotels wine is mainly drunk at +dinner, furnish my data for this conclusion. In the wine-growing +districts of Bavaria beer-drinking is reduced to about one-fourth of the +Munich standard, and so we may suppose that the removal of all wine from +the capital might add one-fourth to the beer-drinking as given +above,—at least, it takes the place of one-fourth of that which would +be the aggregate of the beer-drinking.</p> + +<p>The government has a commission for the examination of the quality of +the beer; and, indeed, aside from this, the popular taste is not a bad +test in this respect. There is an error in the lines of Prior,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"When you with High-Dutch Herren dine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Expect false Latin and stummed wine:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They never taste who always drink;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They always talk who never think."<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The most common manifestation of Bavarian beer-drinking is a perpetual +tasting, and not a pouring-down of the liquid a glass at a time. These +people seem to have the art of doing this thing so gradually and quietly +that the soothing liquor passes gently into the circulation, and +produces an effect very different from that which would result from +swallowing it a glass at a draught, enabling them to drink without +visible effect a much larger quantity in the aggregate. They practise +upon the proverb, "The still sow drinks the swill,"—a proverb which +would serve admirably the purpose of those who desire to join in the +general sarcasm expended upon Bavarian beer-drinking, since almost every +word in it seems to express so exactly some characteristic which North +Germans and others are disposed to attribute to Bavarians.</p> + +<p>Reference was made above to the government's regulating the price of +beer. The margin allowed between the wholesale and retail price is half +a kreutzer on the mass,—that is, one-fourth of a kreutzer or one-sixth +of a cent on the glass. What a blessing, if the retail liquor-trade in +our country were reduced to such a scale of profit! This would bring +less than two dollars on one thousand glasses. The work would have to be +turned over to benevolence for its prosecution, and would doubtless be +done much more to the advantage of the community. The profit, however, +on this trade in Bavaria is somewhat increased by the manner in which +servants are paid. Especially if good-looking girls are employed, the +employer may pay them nothing, but leave them to get their pay from the +customer. They bring him his change in kreutzers and fractions of a +kreutzer, and he shoves back to them often these fractional parts; and +if no such are there, a truly liberal soul may give the girl a whole +kreutzer, and then in return he will receive an expression of thanks +somewhat stronger than our lordly porters would allow themselves to make +for half a dollar on which they had no claim. Small as this profit is, +it brings to the retailers of Munich about five hundred thousand +florins, somewhat more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in +gold per annum. Then, if the servants receive from the customers +gratuities of half that amount, that is, an average of one-twelfth of a +cent on the glass, this amounts to two hundred and fifty thousand +florins per annum. In view of all these facts, it can be conceived that +nothing would be so certain to be followed by a revolutionary outbreak +as the addition of a kreutzer to the price of a mass of beer.</p> + +<p>The wit which sparkles and flashes in a Bavarian beer-house may be as +much less boisterous, or rather as much more quiet, than that which +explodes over the distilled spirits of our bar-rooms, as the stimulant +itself is less exciting, but is for this very reason the more genuine. +Like the myriads of fire-flies on a warm summer evening amid the rising +fog of a marshy ground, so gleams this wit in its smoky atmosphere; +still it is there, notwithstanding the popular notion of Bavarian +stupidity. The North German, and <a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>even English and American satirists of +these people, fare generally much as did Ulysses's men on drinking of +Circe's magic cup; and once turned into swine, they are seldom turned +back again, at least until they leave the charmed spot. When once drawn +into the vortex of students' convivial gatherings, they feel that there +is no escape without flying from the place.</p> + +<p>A drinking frolic, involving Americans, once called in my aid to settle +a great international difficulty—that is, one about as threatening as +most of those diplomatic cases flaunted so often in our +newspapers—between the United States and Bavarian governments. Two +American art-students had taken a room at Nymphenburg, a little village +in the vicinity of Munich, the site of a royal <i>château</i>, which in +summer is always occupied by a royal prince. There the great Napoleon +lodged, when he visited the Bavarian capital. There the present king was +born. There, at the time to which I refer, the king's youngest brother, +Adalbert,—who would have succeeded Otho on the throne of Greece, if the +Greeks had not otherwise determined,—was residing in the palace, and a +company of cuirassiers was stationed in the town. The two students were +visited on a Sunday evening by three or four more Americans, and one +English and two Bavarian friends. The usual beer-guzzling prevailed; +some exciting topic was up, and each must have his glass empty when the +time for refilling was announced. One of the Americans felt his capacity +not quite equal to the demands made upon it. The shift often resorted to +in such a trying situation is quietly to empty the glass under the table +or out of a window, if this can be done without observation,—and most +young men are not very observing at such times. Under the window, +outside, sat a party of the cuirassiers drinking, about a dozen of whom +made a sudden irruption into that bacchanal chamber, and, with little +explanation, proceeded to clear it of its tenants and guests, knocking +down, beating, and pitching them headlong down-stairs, until the work +was done. There were sundry flesh-bruises inflicted, some small +blood-vessels lying near the surface tapped, one collar-bone fractured, +a wrist sprained, garments torn off or left hanging in shreds; and +rarely has the darkness of a summer evening concealed a more ludicrous +spectacle than that of these dispersed beer-bacchanalians, each running +on his own account, hatless or coatless, as he happened to have been +left by some stout cuirassier into whose hands he had fallen. The next +day, a deputation of the injured company and their friends came to me, +desiring that redress might be demanded of the Bavarian government. They +stated their case both verbally and in writing. They were conscious of +no offence. If the assailants gave any reason for their assault, it was +not understood. Most of the young men knew but little German, and +perhaps just then less than usual of that or any other language. The +supposition was, that the rough treatment grew out of the cuirassiers' +jealousy that they were not so well served by the waiting-maids as the +American company and their guests. One, however, stated the unimportant +incident, that the coat of the man who handled him so carelessly seemed +to be very wet. One of the Americans who had been present on this +occasion did not present himself until sent for several days afterwards. +He had observed an incident seen by no other,—one of which the +performer, himself as honest a young man as ever lived, was utterly +unconscious,—<i>the pouring of a glass of beer from the window</i>. The beer +did as little harm on the cuirassiers' coats as it would have done in +the American's stomach, and was at least the incidental means of +bringing the whole scene to an abrupt end. The government was inclined +to do us justice, but very naturally thought that the drenching of its +cuirassiers might be pleaded in abatement of the insult to our national +dignity; and so a nominal punishment of the offenders finally settled +the question.</p> + +<p>If asked whether inebriation and its <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>accompaniments are as marked under +the reign of beer as under that of the more fiery fluids used among us, +I should feel bound to reply negatively. The common Bavarian beer has +but about half the strength of the average malt liquors of our country, +and seldom produces real intoxication except upon novices. It may +stupefy, though this is by no means observable in the mental action of +learned Bavarians. The charge of dulness, so sarcastically made against +them, could be retorted with about as much show of reason against +Prussians, Hanoverians, Saxons, or, indeed, any other people. The +students, after their <i>Kneips</i>, have what they call +<i>Katzenjammer</i>,—cat-sickness,—the effect of debauch, loss of rest, and +general irregularities; and those who do most of the beer-drinking do +least of the studying. I should, indeed, fear fatal effects from +drinking half the quantity of water which some of them take of beer. The +drunkenness produced by beer is at least a very different thing from +that produced by distilled spirits. The one may be a stupor, the other +is a brief and sudden insanity. Beer holds no one captive by such spell +as that which seizes some natures on the first taste of ardent spirits, +throwing them beyond their own control until their week's frolic is +ended. The cases are rare, if they ever occur, in which the beer-drinker +is enticed from the prosecution of his business, if he has one,—and +beer furnishes the main substitute for business to those who have no +other employment. If it causes men to pursue their avocations lazily or +stupidly, it does not cause the irregularities and neglects of American +inebriation. Cases of pawning clothes and impoverishing families from +the appetite for beer may occur, just as from laziness, but not as from +the bewitching appetite for ardent spirits.</p> + +<p>The practice of Americans in Bavaria, even of those who never drink a +drop of beer at home, is, so far as I know, to drink a little while in +the country, acting from a supposed necessity in that climate, or +impelled by the want of other beverages. Physicians advise it, and I +suppose that American physicians would do the same in the case of their +countrymen temporarily residing there. In my own family, it was taken +every day at dinner as a kind of prescription, and the children were +disciplined to drink their little glass daily with rather less urging +than would have been necessary, had the dose been castor-oil; and they +always felt that they deserved an expression of approbation as being +"good children," if they drank their entire portion. Our taste for beer +never increased, but rather the contrary; and should I again reside in +that country, notwithstanding the general impression that its use is a +kind of necessity, as a security against the fevers incident to the +climate, I should feel just as secure without a drop. My little boy, +born in Bavaria, and but four years old when we left the kingdom, liked +the beer better than the other children, and so gave some support to the +theory that the Bavarians take to beer by instinct. He shared, too, in +the patriotic doubt of the people as to the possibility of successfully +imitating the article in other countries. When, on our journey homeward, +the train brought us into the little city of Koethen, we found evidence +of one of those attempts so unsuccessfully made everywhere in North +Germany to imitate the Bavarian beer. A man passed along by the train, +crying at the top of his voice, "<i>Baierisches bier!</i>" upon which the +little fellow, in the height of his indignation, cried out, +"<i>Baierisches Bier nicht!</i>"—("Not Bavarian beer!")—and so the cry and +response continued until the parties were out of each other's hearing, +and all the passengers in the train had their attention called, and +their main amusement furnished, by this childish outburst of patriotic +indignation. At this point, my life, observation, and adventures in +connection with Bavarian beer ceased, and almost the last echo of its +magic name in the original tongue died on my ears. That the results may +not be lost and forgotten, I now commit them to paper and to the +public.</p><p><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FRIAR_JEROMES_BEAUTIFUL_BOOK" id="FRIAR_JEROMES_BEAUTIFUL_BOOK"></a>FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK.</h2> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Friar Jerome, for some slight sin,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Done in his youth, was struck with woe.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"When I am dead," quoth Friar Jerome,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Surely, I think my soul will go</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shuddering through the darkened spheres,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Down to eternal fires below!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shall not dare from that dread place</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To lift mine eyes to Jesus' face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor Mary's, as she sits adored</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At the feet of Christ the Lord.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alas! December's all too brief</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For me to hope to wipe away</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The memory of my sinful May!"</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Friar Jerome was full of grief,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That April evening, as he lay</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On the straw pallet in his cell.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He scarcely heard the curfew-bell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Calling the brotherhood to prayer;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But he arose, for't was his care</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nightly to feed the hungry poor</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That crowded to the Convent-door.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His choicest duty it had been:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But this one night it weighed him down.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"What work for an immortal soul,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To feed and clothe some lazy clown!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is there no action worth my mood,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No deed of daring, high and pure,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That shall, when I am dead, endure,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A well-spring of perpetual good?"</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And straight he thought of those great tomes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With clamps of gold,—the Convent's boast,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How they endured, while kings and realms</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Passed into darkness and were lost;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How they had stood from age to age,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clad in their yellow vellum-mail,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Gainst which the Paynim's godless rage,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Vandal's fire could nought avail:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though heathen sword-blows fell like hail,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though cities ran with Christian blood,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Imperishable they had stood!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They did not seem like books to him,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But Heroes, Martyrs, Saints,—themselves</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The things they told of, not mere books</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ranged grimly on the oaken shelves.</span><br /><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To those dim alcoves, far withdrawn,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He turned with measured steps and slow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Trimming his lantern as he went;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And there, among the shadows, bent</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Above one ponderous folio,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With whose miraculous text were blent</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seraphic faces: Angels, crowned</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With rings of melting amethyst;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mute, patient Martyrs, cruelly bound</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To blazing fagots; here and there,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some bold, serene Evangelist,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or Mary in her sunny hair:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And here and there from out the words</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A brilliant tropic bird took flight;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And through the margins many a vine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Went wandering—roses, red and white,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tulip, wind-flower, and columbine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blossomed. To his believing mind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">These things were real, and the soft wind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blown through the mullioned window, took</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scent from the lilies in the book.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Santa Maria!" cried Friar Jerome,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Whatever man illumined this,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though he were steeped heart-deep in sin,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Was worthy of unending bliss,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And no doubt hath it! Ah! dear Lord,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Might I so beautify Thy Word!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What sacristan, the convents through,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Transcribes with such precision? who</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Does such initials as I do?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo! I will gird me to this work,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And save me, ere the one chance slips.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On smooth, clean parchment I'll engross</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Prophet's fell Apocalypse;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And as I write from day to day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Perchance my sins will pass away."</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So Friar Jerome began his Book.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From break of dawn till curfew-chime</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He bent above the lengthening page,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like some rapt poet o'er his rhyme.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He scarcely paused to tell his beads,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Except at night; and then he lay</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And tossed, unrestful, on the straw,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Impatient for the coming day,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Working like one who feels, perchance,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That, ere the longed-for goal be won,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ere Beauty bare her perfect breast,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Black Death may pluck him from the sun.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At intervals the busy brook,</span><br /><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Turning the mill-wheel, caught his ear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And through the grating of the cell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He saw the honeysuckles peer;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And knew't was summer, that the sheep</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In golden pastures lay asleep;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And felt, that, somehow, God was near.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In his green pulpit on the elm,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The robin, abbot of that wood,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Held forth by times; and Friar Jerome</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Listened, and smiled, and understood.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While summer wrapped the blissful land,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What joy it was to labor so,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To see the long-tressed Angels grow</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beneath the cunning of his hand,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vignette and tail-piece deftly wrought!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And little recked he of the poor</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That missed him at the Convent-door;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or, thinking of them, put the thought</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Aside. "I feed the souls of men</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Henceforth, and not their bodies!"—yet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their sharp, pinched features, now and then,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stole in between him and his Book,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And filled him with a vague regret.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Now on that region fell a blight:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The corn grew cankered in its sheath;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And from the verdurous uplands rolled</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A sultry vapor fraught with death,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A poisonous mist, that, like a pall,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hung black and stagnant over all.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then came the sickness,—the malign</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Green-spotted terror, called the Pest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That took the light from loving eyes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And made the young bride's gentle breast</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A fatal pillow. Ah! the woe,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The crime, the madness that befell!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In one short night that vale became</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More foul than Dante's inmost hell.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Men cursed their wives; and mothers left</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their nursing babes alone to die,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And wantoned, singing, through the streets,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With shameless brow and frenzied eye;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And senseless clowns, not fearing God,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such power the spotted fever had,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Razed Cragwood Castle on the hill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pillaged the wine-bins, and went mad.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And evermore that dreadful pall</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of mist hung stagnant over all:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By day, a sickly light broke through</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The heated fog, on town and field;</span><br /><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By night the moon, in anger, turned</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Against the earth its mottled shield.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then from the Convent, two and two,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Prior chanting at their head,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The monks went forth to shrive the sick,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And give the hungry grave its dead,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Only Jerome, he went not forth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But hiding in his dusty nook,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Let come what will, I must illume</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The last ten pages of my Book!"</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He drew his stool before the desk,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And sat him down, distraught and wan,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To paint his darling masterpiece,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The stately figure of Saint John.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He sketched the head with pious care,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laid in the tint, when, powers of Grace!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He found a grinning Death's-head there,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And not the grand Apostle's face!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then up he rose with one long cry:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'Tis Satan's self does this," cried he,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Because I shut and barred my heart</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When Thou didst loudest call to me!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O Lord, Thou know'st the thoughts of men,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou know'st that I did yearn to make</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thy Word more lovely to the eyes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of sinful souls, for Christ his sake!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nathless, I leave the task undone:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I give up all to follow Thee,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Even like him who gave his nets</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To winds and waves by Galilee!"</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which said, he closed the precious Book</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In silence with a reverent hand;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, drawing his cowl about his face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Went forth into the Stricken Land.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And there was joy in heaven that day,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More joy o'er that forlorn old friar</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Than over fifty sinless men</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who never struggled with desire!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What deeds he did in that dark town,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What hearts he soothed with anguish torn,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What weary ways of woe he trod,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are written in the Book of God,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And shall be read at Judgment-Morn.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The weeks crept on, when, one still day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">God's awful presence filled the sky,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And that black vapor floated by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, lo! the sickness passed away.</span><br /><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With silvery clang, by thorp and town,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The bells made merry in their spires,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Men kissed each other on the street,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And music piped to dancing feet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The livelong night, by roaring fires!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then Friar Jerome, a wasted shape,—.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For he had taken the Plague at last,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rose up, and through the happy town,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And through the wintry woodlands passed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Into the Convent. What a gloom</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sat brooding in each desolate room!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What silence in the corridor!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For of that long, innumerous train</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which issued forth a month before,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scarce twenty had come back again!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Counting his rosary step by step,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With a forlorn and vacant air,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like some unshriven church-yard thing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Friar crawled up the mouldy stair</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To his damp cell, that he might look</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Once more on his beloved Book.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And there it lay upon the stand,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Open!—he had not left it so.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He grasped it, with a cry; for, lo!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He saw that some angelic hand,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While he was gone, had finished it!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There't was complete, as he had planned!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There, at the end, stood <i>finis</i>, writ</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And gilded as no man could do,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not even that pious anchoret,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bilfrid, the wonderful,—nor yet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The miniatore Ethelwold,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor Durham's Bishop, who of old</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(England still hoards the priceless leaves)</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Did the Four Gospels all in gold.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Friar Jerome nor spoke nor stirred,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But, with his eyes fixed on that word,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He passed from sin and want and scorn;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And suddenly the chapel-bells</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rang in the holy Christmas-Morn!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In those wild wars which racked the land,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since then, and kingdoms rent in twain.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Friar's Beautiful Book was lost,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That miracle of hand and brain:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet, though its leaves were torn and tossed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The volume was not writ in vain!</span><br /> +</p><p><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LITERARY_LIFE_IN_PARIS" id="LITERARY_LIFE_IN_PARIS"></a>LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS.</h2> + +<h3>THE DRAWING-ROOM.</h3> + + +<h4>PART I.</h4> + +<p>We are no "lion-hunters." When we wish to learn something of eminent +authors, we hasten to the nearest book-shop and buy their works. They +put the best of themselves in their books. The old saw tells us how +completely all great men give the best part of themselves to the public, +while the <i>valet-de-chambre</i> picks up little else than food for +contempt. Nevertheless, we are as inquisitive about everything that +concerns eminent people as anybody can be. We would not blot a single +line from Boswell. We protest against a word being effaced from the +garrulous pages of Lady Blessington and Leigh Hunt. We "hang" the stars +with which Earl Russell has <i>milky-wayed</i> Moore's Diary. But we are no +"lion-hunters," (the name should be "lion-harriers,") simply because +this chase is not the best way to take the game we desire. What does the +lion-hunter secure? A commonplace observation upon the weather, an +adroit or awkward parry of flattery, and some superficial compliment +upon one's native place or present residence; for a great man at bay is +nothing more nor less than a casual acquaintance extremely on his guard, +and, commonly, extremely fatigued by admirers. True, one obtains an +acquaintance with the great man's voice, and the hearth where he lives, +and the right to boast with truth, "I have seen him." <i>Voilà tout!</i> Now +this is not what we want. We desire some good, clear, faithful account +of these people, as they are, when they talk freely and easily to their +contemporaries, to their peers. Boswell's picture of the Literary Club +is invaluable, although, with the insatiable curiosity of the nineteenth +century, we regret that the prince of reporters failed to sketch the +persons and peculiarities of the <i>dramatis personæ</i> whose conversations +he has so faithfully recorded.</p> + +<p>We wish to go behind the scenes, and to hear the conversation engaged in +in the green-room. We expect to see some dirt, some grease-pots, stained +ropes, and unpainted pulleys,—and, to tell the truth, we want to see +these blemishes. They are encouraging. They lessen the distance between +us and it by teaching us that even fairy-land knows no exemption from +those imperfections which blur our purest natures.</p> + +<p>A work has lately appeared in Europe which in some measure gratifies +this desire. It exhibits in full light a good many scenes of literary +life in Paris. They may be and probably are exaggerated, but +exaggerations do not mar truth; if they did, we should be obliged to +throw away the microscope, with nativities and divining-rods. We are +tempted to give our readers a share of the pleasure we have found in +perusing this picture of Paris life. We forewarn them that we have taken +liberties innumerable with the book. We have compressed into these few +leaves a volume of several hundred pages. We have discarded all the +machinery of the author, and introduced him personally to the reader in +the character of an autobiographer. We have not scrupled to make +explanations and additions wherever we thought them necessary, without +resorting to the artifice of notes or of quotation-marks. We repeat, +that we have taken a great many liberties with the author; but we have +made no statement, advanced no fact, indulged no reflection, which is +not to be found in the work referred to, or in some trustworthy +authority. And now we leave him the door without another observation.</p> + +<p>I am Count Armand de Pontmartin. I was born of noble parents at Aix, in +Provence, <a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>in 1820. I was educated at Paris, but the first twelve years +after I left college were passed on my estate in the enjoyment of an +income of three thousand dollars a year. Belonging to a Legitimist +family, my principles forbade my serving the Orléans dynasty, and I +should scarcely have known how to satisfy that thirst for activity which +fevers youth, had I not for years burned with the ambition to acquire +literary fame. Circumstances conspired to thwart these literary schemes, +and it was not until I had reached my thirtieth year that I came to +Paris with a heart full of emotion and hope, a trunk full of +manuscripts, and some friends' addresses on my memorandum-book. Before I +had been a week in town they had introduced me to three or four editors +of newspapers or reviews, and to several publishers and theatrical +managers. In less than a fortnight I breakfasted alone at Café Bignon +with one of my favorite authors, the celebrated novelist, Monsieur Jules +Sandeau.<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> I was confounded with astonishment and gratitude that he +should allow me to sit at the same table and eat with him. I felt +embarrassed to know where to find viands meet to offer him, and +beverages not unworthy to pass his lips. There were in his works so many +souls exiled from heaven, so many tearful smiles, so many melancholy +glances constantly turned towards the infinite horizon, that it seemed +to me something like sacrilege to offer to the creator of this noble and +charming world a dish of <i>rosbif aux pommes</i> and a <i>turbot à la +Hollandaise</i> and a claret wine. I could have invented for him some of +those Oriental delicacies made by sultans during harem's heavy hours; +rose-leaves kneaded with snow-water, dreams or perfumes disguised as +sweetmeats, or citron and myrtle-flowers dew-diamonded in golden +beakers. Of a truth, the personal appearance of my poetical guest did +give something of a shock to the ideal I had formed. Many and many a +time I had pictured him to myself tall and thin and pale, with large +black eyes raised heavenwards, and hair curling naturally on a forehead +shadowed by melancholy! In reality, Monsieur Jules Sandeau is a good +stout fellow, with broad, stalwart shoulders, a tendency to premature +obesity, small, bright, gentle, acute eyes, a head as bald as my knee, +rather thick lips, and a rubicund complexion; he has an air of +good-nature and simplicity which excludes everything like sentimental +exaggeration; he wears a black cravat tied negligently around a muscular +neck; in fine, he looks like a sub-lieutenant dressed in +citizen's-clothes. I got over this shock, and hunted all through the +bill of fare, (which, as you know, forms in Paris a duodecimo volume of +a good many pages,) trying my best to discover some romantic dish and +some supernal <i>liqueur</i>, until he cut short my chase by suggesting a +dinner of the most vulgar solidity; and when I tried to retrieve this +commonplace dinner by ordering for dessert some vapory <i>liqueurs</i>, such +as uncomprehended women sip, he proposed a glass of brandy. This was my +first literary deception.</p> + +<p>A theatrical newspaper was lying on the table. It contained an account +of a piece played the evening before. The writer spoke of the play as a +masterpiece, and of the performance as being one of those triumphs which +form an epoch in the history of dramatic art. I read this panegyric with +avidity, and exclaimed,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, what a glorious thing success is! How happy that author must be!"</p> + +<p>"He!" replied Monsieur Sandeau, smiling; "he is mortified to death; his +play is execrable, and it fell flat."</p> + +<p>"You must be mistaken!"</p> + +<p>"I was present at the performance; and I have no reason to be pleased at +the miscarriage of the piece, for I am neither an enemy nor an intimate +friend of the author."</p><p><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a></p> + +<p>Monsieur Jules Sandeau then went on to explain to me how the theatrical +newspapers, which contain the lists of performers and of pieces in all +the theatres of Paris, (play-bills being unknown,) enter into a +contract, which is the condition precedent of their sale in the +theatres, stipulating that they will never speak otherwise than in +praise of the pieces brought out. The report of the new piece is often +written and set up before the performance takes place.</p> + +<p>I blushed and said,—</p> + +<p>"That is deplorable! But, thank Heaven! these are only the Grub-Street +writers, the mere penny-a-liners; the influential reporters of the great +morning papers, fortunately, are animated by a love of truth and +justice."</p> + +<p>Monsieur Sandeau looked at me, and smiled as be remarked,—</p> + +<p>"Oh! as for them, they don't care a whit for piece or author or public. +They think of nothing but showing off themselves. Monsieur Théophile +Gautier has no care except to display the wealth of a palette which +mistook its vocation when it sought to obtain from pen, ink, and paper +those colors which pencil and canvas alone can give. He discards +sentiments, ideas, characters, dialogue, probability, intellectual +delicacy, everything which raises man above wood or stone. He would be +the very first writer of the age, if the world would agree to suppress +everything like heart and soul. He is never more at ease than when he +has to report a piece whose literary beauties are its splendid scenery +and costumes. He will dismiss the subject, the plot, the characters, and +the details in five lines; while fifteen columns will not suffice for +all the wonders of the decorations. If you ask him to send you to some +person most familiar with contemporary dramatic art, instead of sending +you to Alexandre Dumas, the elder or the younger, to Ponsard, or to +Augier, he will send you to the celebrated scene-painters, to Cicéri or +Séchan or Cambon. As for Monsieur Jules Janin, of whom I am very fond, +he is—You have sometimes been to concerts where virtuosos play +variations on the sextuor of "Lucie," or the trio of "William Tell," or +the duet of "Les Huguenots"? You listen attentively, and do at first +detect a phrase here and a phrase there which vaguely recall the work of +Donizetti, or of Rossini, or of Meyerbeer; but in an instant the +virtuoso himself forgets all about them. You have nothing but volley +after volley of notes, a musical storm, tempest, avalanche; the +primitive idea is fathoms deep under water, and when it is caught again +it is drowned. Now Monsieur Jules Janin has had for the last +five-and-twenty years the business of executing brilliant variations +upon the piano of dramatic criticism. He acts like the virtuosos you +hear at concerts. He writes, for conscience' sake, the name of the +author and the title of the play at the head of his dramatic report, and +then off he goes, heels over head, with variation and variation, and +variation and variation again, in French and in Latin, until at last no +human being can tell what he is after, where he is going, what he is +talking about, or what he means to say. He will tell you the whole story +of the Second Punic War, speaking of a sentimental comedy played at the +Gymnase Theatre, and a low farce of the Palais Royal Theatre will +furnish him the pretext to quote ten lines of Xenophon in the original +Greek. Monsieur Jules Janin is, notwithstanding all this, an excellent +fellow, and a man of great talents; but you must not ask him to work +miracles; in other words, you must not ask him to express briefly and +clearly what he thinks of the play he criticizes, nor to remember to-day +the opinion he entertained yesterday. These are miracles he cannot work. +He hears a piece; he is delighted with it; he says to the author, 'Your +piece is charming. You will be gratified by my criticism upon it.' He +comes home; he sits at his desk. What happens? Why, the wind which blew +from the north blows from the south; the soap-bubble rose on the left, +it floats away towards the right. His pen runs away <a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>with him; praise is +thrown out by the first hole in the road; epigram jumps in; and at last +the poor dramatic author, who was lauded to the skies yesterday, +complimented this morning, finds himself cut to pieces and dragged at +horses' tails in to-morrow's paper. Don't blame Monsieur Jules Janin for +it. 'Tis not his fault. The fault lies with his inkhorn; the fault lies +with his pen, which mistook the mustard-pot for the honey-jar; 'twill be +more careful next time. 'Tis the fault of the hand-organ which would +grind away while he was writing; 'tis the fault of the fly which would +keep buzzing about the room and bumping against the panes of glass; 'tis +the fault of the idea which took wings and flew away. The poor dramatic +author is mortified to death; but, Lord bless your soul! Monsieur Jules +Janin is not guilty."</p> + +<p>"What do you think of Monsieur Sainte-Beuve? Is he as unfaithful a +critic as Monsieur Théophile Gautier and Monsieur Jules Janin?" I asked, +rather timidly.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Sainte-Beuve has received from Heaven (which he has ceased to +believe in) an exquisite taste, an extraordinary delicacy of tact, +admirable talents of criticism, relieved, and, as it were, fertilized, +by rare poetical faculties. He possesses and exercises in the most +masterly manner the art of shading, of hints, of hesitations, of +insinuations, of infiltrations, of evolutions, of circumlocutions, of +precautions, of ambuscades, of feline gambols, of ground and lofty +tumbling, of strategy, and of literary diplomacy. He excels in the art +of distilling a drop of poison in a phial of perfume so as to render the +poison delicious and the perfume venomous. His prose is as attractive +and magnetizing as a woman slightly compromised in public opinion, and +who does not tell all her secrets, but increases her attractions both by +what she shows and by what she conceals. Monsieur Sainte-Beuve has had +no desire but to be a pilgrim of ideas, lacking the first requisite in a +pilgrim, which is faith. He has circumnavigated, merely in the character +of amateur, every doctrine of the century; but though he has never +adopted one of them for his creed, when he abandoned them he seemed to +have betrayed them. Accused unjustly of treachery and apostasy, he has +done his best to confirm his reputation, and has ended by becoming the +enemy of those from whom at first he had only deserted. His error has +been in adulterating that which he might have put, with singular grace, +talents, and natural superiority, pure into currency,—in acting as if +literature were a war of treachery, where one was constantly obliged to +keep a sword in the hand and a poniard in the pocket. They say he is at +great pains to provide himself with an immense arsenal of defensive and +offensive weapons, that he may be able to crush those he loves to-day +and may detest to-morrow, and those he hates to-day and wishes to wreak +vengeance on hereafter. Monsieur Sainte-Beuve might have been the most +indisputable of authorities: he is only the most delightful of literary +curiosities."</p> + +<p>Such was the language of Monsieur Jules Sandeau. He spoke in the same +strain of many another eminent literary man. Around these illustrious +planets gravitated satellites. When new pieces were brought out, he told +me one could see between the acts the lieutenants go up to the +captain-critics and receive instructions from them; the consequence was, +the theatrical criticisms were either collective apotheoses or +collective executions. One day it was Mademoiselle Rachel they put on +the black list for three months, and they raised up against her Madame +Ristori, declaring that she was as superior to Rachel as Alfieri was to +Racine. Then 'twas the Gymnase Theatre they put in Coventry, for having +spoken disrespectfully of newspaper-writers. Another day Monsieur Scribe +was their victim, to punish him for fatiguing with his dramatic +longevity the young men, the new-comers, who are neither young men, nor +new men, nor men of talents. Monsieur Jules Sandeau had passed through +the thorny paths, the steppes, and the waste frontiers of literary life +<a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>in Paris, without losing his honor, but without retaining a particle of +illusion. He told me of his days of harsh and pernicious poverty, the +abyss of debt, the constable at the door, the agony of hunting after +dollar by dollar, "copy" hastily written to meet urgent wants, and the +sweet toil of literary exertion changed into torture. I questioned him +about Madame George Sand. What child of twenty has not been fired by +that free, proud poetry which refused to accept the cold chains of +commonplace life and justified the paradoxes of revolt by the eloquence +of the pleading and the beauty of the dream? I soon discovered that the +ideal and the real are two hostile brothers. De Balzac's works had +kindled sincere enthusiasm in my breast. Monsieur Jules Sandeau showed +me the dash of madness and of ingenuous depravity mixed with +incontestable genius in that powerful mind. He told me of De Balzac's +insane vanity, of his furious passion for wealth and luxury, of his +readiness to plunge and to drag others after him into the most hazardous +adventures, and of his insensibility to commercial honor.</p> + +<p>After parting from Monsieur Jules Sandeau, I strolled towards a +circulating-library. I was asking the mistress of the establishment some +questions about the latest publications, when all of a sudden the glass +door opened in the most violent manner, and who should come in but +Monsieur Philoxène Boyer, rushing forward like a whirlwind, a last lock +of hair dancing on top of a bald pate, a livid complexion, a feverish +eye, a sack-overcoat friable as tinder, a hat reddened by the rain, +trousers falling in lint upon boots run down at the heel: such was the +appearance presented by Monsieur Philoxène Boyer, our old classmate at +college, and now a critic, a romantic, an uncomprehended man of genius, +and a literary man. I had already seen at the Exchange the martyrs of +money; I now saw a martyr of letters. Monsieur Philoxène Boyer is +neither a fool nor a foundling; he was educated with care; he belongs to +an excellent family of Normandy; he might have been at this very hour an +excellent gentleman-farmer, honored by his neighbors, and leading a +quiet, useful life, while cultivating his paternal acres, and making a +respectable woman happy. But when he graduated at the Law School, the +demon of literature seized and refused to release him. His patrimonial +estate was worth thirty thousand dollars; ignorant of business, he sold +it below its true value, and, instead of placing the capital out at +interest, he put it in his pocket and dissipated it in those taxes, as +varied as old feudal burdens, which the poor, uncomprehended men of +genius levy on their wealthy brethren. One day it went in dinners given +to brethren who deliver diplomas of genius; another day it went in money +lent to Grub-Street penny-a-liners who were starving; again it went to +found petty newspapers established to demolish old reputations and raise +new ones, and to die of inanition at their fifth number for want of a +sixth subscriber. In fine, before three years had passed away, not a +cent was left of Monsieur Philoxène Boyer's estate, and in return he had +acquired neither talents nor fame. He is scarcely thirty years old: he +looks like a man of sixty. I know no man in the world who, for the hope +of half a million of dollars and a place in the French Academy, would +consent to bear the burden of tortures, privations, and humiliations +which make up Monsieur Philoxène Boyer's existence. He undergoes the +torments of the damned; he fasts; he flounders in all the sewers of +Paris. But he is riveted to this horrible existence as the galley-slave +to his chain; he can breathe no other air than this mephitic atmosphere; +he can lead no other life. When I saw him on the threshold of that +sombre and humid reading-room, muddied, wet, pale, thin, almost in rags, +I could not help thinking of this wretched galley-slave of literary +ambition as he might have been at home in his old Norman mansion, cozily +stretched before a blazing fire, with a cellar full of cider and a +larder groaning beneath the fat of that favored land, smiling at a young +wife on whose lap merry children <a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>were gambolling. He was in the vein of +bitter frankness. He had not dined the preceding day. He seized me by +the arm, and, dragging me out of the circulating-library, said to me, in +a voice as abrupt as a feverish pulsation,—</p> + +<p>"Don't listen to that old hag! All the books she offers you are +miserable stuff, fit at best for the pastry-cooks. Oh! you don't know +how success is won nowadays. I'll tell you. There is an assurance +society between the book, the piece, and the judge. Praise me, and I'll +praise you. If you will praise us, we will praise you. The public buys."</p> + +<p>Then he went on with his bitter voice to utter a furious philippic +against our celebrated literary men. He attacked them all, with scarcely +an exception. This one sold his pen to the highest bidder; that one +levied contributions of all sorts on the vanity of authors and artists; +another was a mere actor; a fourth was nothing but a mountebank; a fifth +was a mere babbler; and so on he went through the whole catalogue of +authors. The illustrious literary democrats were Liberals and Spartans +only for the public eye. They cared as much about liberty as about old +moons: this one speculated on a title; that one on a vice; a third, to +possess a carriage and dine at Vefour's, had become the thrall of a +wealthy stockjobber who paid his virtues by the month and his opinions +by the line. He spoke in this way for an hour, bitter, excessive, +nervous, extravagant, and sometimes eloquent. All at once he +stopped,—and pressing my hand with a mixture of bitterness and +cynicism, he said,—"Old boy, I have now given you a dollar's worth of +literature; lend me ten dimes." I hastily drew from my pocket three or +four gold coins, and, blushing, slipped them into his hand; it trembled +a little; he thanked me with a glance, and, muttering something like +"Good bye," disappeared around the next corner.</p> + +<p>The next time I met Monsieur Jules Sandeau he said to me,—"I want you +to go with me to Madame Émile de Girardin's to-morrow evening. She is to +read a tragedy she has written in five acts and in verse. You will meet +a good many of our celebrated literary men there. You must remember that +the watchword at that house is, Admiration, more admiration, still more +admiration. You must excite enthusiasm to ecstasy, compliments to +lyrical poetry, and carry flattery to apotheosis. But before we go there +I beg you to allow me to return your aristocratic breakfast by a poor +literary man's dinner, which we will eat, not in Bignon's sumptuous +private room, but outside the walls of Paris, at 'Uncle' Moulinon's, +which is the rendezvous of the supernumeraries of art and literature. +The wine, roast, and salad are cheaper than you find them on the +Boulevard des Italiens, and it is advisable that a fervent neophyte like +you should take all the degrees in our freemasonry as soon as possible. +'Uncle' Moulinon's dining-saloon is to Madame Émile de Girardin's +drawing-room what a conscripts' barrack is to the official mansion of a +French marshal."</p> + +<p>I gratefully accepted the invitation, and at the appointed time I joined +Monsieur Jules Sandeau. We left Paris by the Barrière des Martyrs, +climbed Montmartre hill, and entered "Uncle" Moulinon's dining-saloon +when it was full of its usual frequenters. I had never seen such a sight +before. Imagine a gourmand obliged to witness with gaping mouth all, +even the most <i>prosaic</i> details of the culinary preparations for a grand +dinner. The dining-saloon was a long, narrow room, low-pitched and +sombre; it was filled with small tables, where in unequal groups were +seated young men between eighteen and fifty-five, anticipating glory by +tobacco-smoke. Here were beardless chins accompanied by long locks; +there were bushy beards which covered three-quarters of the owners' +cadaverous, wasted faces; yonder were premature bald heads, leaden eyes, +feverish glances: look where you would, you saw everywhere that uneasy, +startled air which bore witness to a disordered life. To the sharp aroma +of tobacco were joined the stale and rancid odors peculiar to +<a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>fifth-rate eating-houses. I sought in vain upon all those faces youth's +gentle and poetical gayety, the exuberance of gifted natures, the +amiable cordiality of travelling-companions pressing on together in +different paths. The most salient characteristics of this bizarre +assembly were sickly smiles, an incredible mixture of triviality and +affectation, motions of wild beasts trying their teeth and claws, +starving attitudes, words tortured to make them look like ideas, a +brutal familiarity, and the evident desire to devour all their superiors +that they might next crush all their equals. I was glad when dinner was +over, for I felt ill at ease,—the sight before me differed so much from +that I had dreamed.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Jules Sandeau gave me his arm, and we walked towards the Avenue +des Champs Elysées. It was nine o'clock when we reached the Rue de +Chaillot, where Madame Émile de Girardin resided. She lived in a sort of +Greek temple, built about thirty feet below the level of the street, and +down to which we had to go as if we were entering a cellar. The house +was full of columns, statues, flowers, paintings, candelabra, and +servants in black dress-coats and short breeches; but everything about +the place looked so accidental and ephemeral that the Comte de +Saint-Brice, a very witty frequenter of the house, used to +say,—"Whenever I visit the place, I am always afraid of finding the +horses sold, the servants dismissed, the husband run away, the +drawing-room closed, and the house razed." The Comte de Saint-Brice's +fears must have been allayed on this evening. Everything was in its +place,—horses, servants, husband, drawing-room, house. Madame Émile de +Girardin was in full dress; the manuscript tragedy was in her lap. I +found in the drawing-room Monsieur Victor Hugo, Monsieur de Lamartine, +Monsieur Alfred de Musset, the three stars of our poetical heavens; +Monsieur Théophile Gautier, Monsieur Méry, Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, the +secondary planets; Madame George Sand, the great Amazon novelist; some +doctors, some artists, two or three actors from the French Comedy, and +some other gentlemen. At this period of time Madame Émile de Girardin +was forty-five years old. Her flatterers still spoke of her beauty. Her +conversation was dazzling, but it lacked charm: her talents forced +themselves upon one; her <i>bons mots</i> took you by storm. Strength had +overcome everything like grace, and two hours' conversation with Madame +Émile de Girardin left one with a sick-headache or exhausted by fatigue. +Nevertheless, one of her most fervent admirers has uttered this singular +paradox about her: "She would be the first woman of the age, if she had +always talked and never written a line."</p> + +<p>Her husband, Monsieur Émile de Girardin, was present, with his pale +face, lymphatic complexion, glassy eye, and forehead checkered with a +Napoleon-like lock. He was then, and has remained ever since, the most +exact personification of a pasteboard man of genius lighted by +histrionic foot-lights. He was a compound of the dandy, the sophist, and +the agitator. His talents lay in making people believe him in possession +of ideas, when he had none,—just as speculators disseminate the +illusion of their capital, when in reality they are worse than bankrupt. +He began what others have since completed,—that is, he made trade and +advertisements the sovereign masters of literature and newspapers. +Abetted by the spirit of the age, he introduced into the intellectual +world the risks and unexpected hazards of stock-jobbing circles. He made +a great deal of money in this trade, and, besides, it gave him the +pleasure of making a great deal of noise in the world, of overturning +governments, of dreaming of being minister, nay, prime-minister, when +the day may come in which good, sense is to be challenged and France +made bankrupt. Everybody around him, even his wife, seemed to accept his +superiority for something unquestionable. Their union was not one of +those affectionate, faithful, and tender marriages, such as commonplace +folk hope to enjoy, but it was a copartnership of two <a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>smart people, +aided by two bunches of quills. Each pretended to admire the other with +an extravagance of show which made it hard for the bystander to repress +doubts and smiles.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Jules Sandeau had informed Madame Émile de Girardin that he +intended to bring me with him. I do not know how she found out that I +had, in the very heart of the Faubourg Saint Germain, an old aunt, a +<i>real</i> duchess, who was recognized as an authority whose <i>dicta</i> could +not be disputed by any noble family to be found from the Quai Voltaire +to the Rue de Babylone, which, as all the world knows, are the frontiers +of that, the most aristocratic quarter of Paris. Madame de Girardin knew +that my aunt was in a position to open to vanity the portals of some +noble houses which talents and fame alone could not open. Now Madame +Émile de Girardin's monomania was to be received in the noble +<i>faubourg</i>,—to live there perfectly at home, as if it were her native +sphere,—to be able to say, "My friend, the little Marchioness," or, "I +have just come from our dear Jeanne's house, my charming Countess, you +know: she is suffering dreadfully from her neuralgia." She reckoned a +triumph of this sort a thousand times preferable to the applause of her +readers and her friends. All the dull pleasantries with which she +adorned her over-praised "Letters" owed their origin solely to the +unequivocal veto placed by two or three courageous noble ladies on the +attempts made by Madame Émile de Girardin to force her entrance <i>vi et +armis</i> into their mansions. For my aunt's sake, she received me with +especial courtesy, which I was ingenuous enough to attribute to my own +personal merit. However, I had not time to indulge in analysis: she was +about to begin to read her tragedy.</p> + +<p>The tragedy was that "Cléopâtre" in which Mademoiselle Rachel appeared, +after wrangling for some time with the authoress to induce the latter to +give Antony some other name, vowing that <i>Antoine</i> was entirely too +vulgar to be uttered on the stage. The great tragic actress had never +heard of the illustrious Roman, and knew no other Antony but the +<i>Antoine</i> who scrubbed her floors and brought her water. It was a +woman's tragedy, but written by a woman in man's attire, determined to +write a very masculine, vigorous work, but succeeding in producing only +a <i>plated</i> piece, in which everything was puerile, artificial, and +conventional, from the first word to the last line. It was an <i>olla +podrida</i>, in which Shakspeare hobnobbed with Campistron, Théophile +Gautier locked arms with Dorat, Plutarch was dovetailed with the +Mantua-Makers' Journal of Fashions. Cleopatra spouted long speeches upon +archæology, hieroglyphics, the sun, climate, and virtue; Antony was +guilty of <i>concetti</i> in the style of Seneca; Octavia prattled like a +respectable Parisian lady, who takes care of her children when they have +the measles, and hides from them their father's bad habits. It was +neither antique nor Roman, nor classic nor romantic, nor good nor bad +nor indifferent; it was a tragical wager won by a smart woman at the +expense of her audience. The latter, nevertheless, bravely did their +duty. Neither "Le Cid," nor "Polyeucte," nor "Andromaque," nor +"Athalie"—Corneille and Racine's masterpieces—ever produced such +rapturous enthusiasm. Monsieur Méry dashed off extemporaneously, in +Marseillais accent, admiring paradoxes which lacked nothing but splendid +rhyme. Monsieur Théophile Gautier, who looked like an obese Turk habited +in European clothes, laid aside his Moslem placidity to cry that the +tragedy was marvellous. Monsieur Alfred de Musset, lolling in his +arm-chair in an attitude which seemed a compromise between sleep and +<i>Kief</i>, smiled beatifically. Monsieur Victor Hugo vowed that nothing +half so fine had ever before been written in any age or in any country +or in any language—except (<i>aside</i>) "my own 'Burgraves'"! Monsieur de +Lamartine, like a god descended upon earth and astounded to find himself +at home, let fall from his divine lips compliments <a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>perfumed with +ambrosia, sparkling with poetry, and glittering with indifference. +Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, that little bit of a fellow, the fly of the +political and literary coach, went first to one and then to another, his +eye-glass incrusted in his eyebrow, stiffening his wee form as long as +he could make it, rattling his high-heeled boots as loudly as he could +contrive, stretching out his round, dogmatic face, puffing and blowing +to give himself importance, dying to be the Coryphæus of the company, +and mortified to see himself reduced to sing his enthusiasm in the +chorus; he frisked about the room, and seemed to be handing around his +rapture on a waiter, as domestics hand around cake and ices at parties.</p> + +<p>The tragedy fatigued me. This comedy of adulation disgusted me. My very +humble and obscure position in the midst of all these illustrious +shareholders of the Mutual-Admiration Society, organized by the vanity +of all to the profit of the vanity of each, kindled in me a desire to +show myself frank and independent. I murmured, loud enough to be heard +by all my neighbors,—"Of a truth, the Country's Muse is not Melpomene!" +Madame Émile de Girardin, when Mademoiselle Delphine Gay and in the most +brilliant period of her poetical youth, had styled herself "the +Country's Muse"; her admirers had adopted the title, and it had remained +her poetical <i>alias</i>. The exclamation was, therefore, if not very +brilliant, at least very plain and quite just. It soon went around the +room as rapidly as every ill-natured phrase will go; for everybody is +glad to borrow such remarks from his neighbor without paying the price +of them himself. I soon saw one of Madame Émile de Girardin's intimate +friends whisper something into her ear. She blushed. Her thin lips +became thinner. Her nose and her chin, which always seemed as if about +to wage war on each other, became more menacing than ever; her bright, +clear eyes turned from her friend and gave me a glance ten times more +tragic than the five acts of her tragedy. I saw that my exclamation had +been repeated to her, and that a universal anathema was thundered at the +rustic boor, at the barbarian impudent enough to dare to be witty by +Monsieur Méry's side, and to affect to be insensible to the sublime +beauties of "Cléopâtre." However, all was not yet lost; I had +unconsciously another way of conquering Madame de Girardin's favor. Her +countenance became wreathed in smiles, she advanced towards me, and +said, in a honeyed tone,—"Well, Count, give me some tidings of our +excellent Duchess de ——, your aunt, I believe?"</p> + +<p>In the mood of mind I was then in, nothing could have been more +disagreeable to me than this way of recalling my aristocratic titles at +the very moment when I sought to be nothing but a literary man. I +replied with a careless, indifferent, plebeian air, as if noble titles +were nothing in my opinion,—"The Duchess de ——! Gracious me! I never +see her, and I could not tell you for the life of me whether she is my +aunt or my cousin. Her drawing-room is the stupidest place on earth. +They played whist there at two cents a point. Every door was wadded to +keep draughts and ideas out. I long ago ceased to go there, and now I +would not dare show my face again."</p> + +<p>"Admirable! The Provinces are not devoid of sprightliness!" dryly +replied Madame Émile de Girardin.</p> + +<p>That was enough. I was weighed in the balance and found sadly wanting by +an ill-natured remark <i>plus</i> and a duchess <i>minus</i>. Fifteen minutes +afterwards we took leave of Madame de Girardin. She gave Monsieur Jules +Sandeau a fraternal and virile shake of the hand in the English style; I +received only a very cold and very dry nod, which was as much as to +say,—"You are an ill-bred fellow and a fool; I have no fancy for you; +return here as rarely as possible."</p> + +<p>Soon after this memorable evening, Monsieur Jules Sandeau's friendly +offices acquainted literary circles that a young man of the best +society, devoted to literature, the author of some remarkable sketches +in the newspapers and reviews, <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>was about to appear as the literary +critic of "L'Assemblée Nationale," the well-known dally newspaper, which +has been since suppressed by the government. A month afterwards my +signature might have been read at the foot of a <i>feuilleton</i> of fifteen +columns. About the same period of time a fashionable publisher brought +out a volume of tales by me. This was my literary honey-moon. I was +astonished at the number of friends and admirers that rose on every side +of me. I could scarcely restrain myself from parodying Alceste's +phrase,—"Really, Gentlemen, I did not think myself the fellow of +talents I find I am!" But, of all surprises, the human heart finds this +the easiest to grow accustomed to. I soon found it perfectly natural +that people should look upon me as a genius, and I ingenuously +reproached myself for not having sooner made the discovery. Everybody +praised my little book as if it were a masterpiece. I might have made a +volume with the packets of praises sent to me; but I must add, for +truth's sake, that most of my panegyrists took care to slip under the +envelope which covered their letter of praise a volume of their works. I +have kept several of these letters. Here are copies of three of them.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Sir,—Your appearance among us is an honor in which every +literary man feels he has a share. You will regenerate criticism, +as you have purified novel-writing. One becomes better as he reads +your works, and feels an irresistible desire to do better that he +may be more worthy of your esteem. The days your criticisms appear +are our red-letter days, and every line you give our poor little +books is worth to them the sale of a hundred copies. I take the +liberty to send you herewith a humble volume. You may, perhaps, +find in it some over-crude tones, some raw shades; but do not +forbear to exercise your critical perspicuity. I submit myself in +advance to your reproaches and to your reservations; to be +censured by you is even a piece of good fortune, as your +reprimands themselves are adorned with courtesy and grace."</p> + +<p>"Sir,—I admire you the more because our opinions are not the +same; they may be said to be contrary; but extremes meet, and we +join hands on a great many points: are we not both of us +vanquished? Châteaubriand sympathized, nay, more, fraternized, +with Armand Carrel. I am not Carrel, but you may be Châteaubriand +before a very long while. I would beg to lay before you the book +which goes with this note; some passages of it may, perhaps, wound +your honorable regrets, your chivalrous respects, but they are +sincere; and this sincerity I have never better understood and +practised than when I assure you that I am your most assiduous +reader and most fervent admirer."</p> + +<p>"Sir,—Do not judge me, I pray you, from the newspapers in which, +to my great regret, I write: imperious circumstances, old +acquaintance, and—why shall I not confess it?—the necessities of +Parisian life, have driven me to appear to have enlisted on the +side of the most numerous battalions. But I have in the Provinces +a good old mother who reads no newspaper but yours; one of my +uncles is a Chevalier de Saint Louis; another served in Condé's +army; my Aunt Veronica is a pious woman, who would forever look +kindly upon me, if she should ever perceive through her spectacles +her nephew's name followed by praise from your pen. For I need not +say that you are her favorite author, as, of a truth, you are of +everybody; for who can remain insensible to those treasures of.... +[Here my modesty refuses to copy the text before me]. There is but +one opinion upon this subject. Royalists and democrats, disciples +of tradition or fanatics of fancy, <i>voltigeurs</i> of the old +monarchy or reformers of the future, are all unanimous in +saluting, as a rising glory of our literature, the pure and noble +talent which.... [Here my modesty again refuses to copy the text +before me].</p><p><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a></p> + +<p>"P.S. I send you herewith two copies of my works, which I submit +to your able and kind criticism."</p></div> + +<p>Nor were appeals like these the only sort of seduction to which I was +exposed when I became the literary critic of "L'Assemblée Nationale." +The eminent men, sublime philosophers like Monsieur Victor Cousin and +Monsieur de Rémusat, incomparable historians like Monsieur Guizot, +Monsieur Thiers, Monsieur de Barante, admirable literary men like +Monsieur Villemain and Monsieur de Salvandy, (all of whom had spent +their lives in laying down political maxims, and in expressing their +astonishment that French heads were too hard or French nature too fickle +to conform French life to the profound maxims which they, the former, +had weighed and meditated in the silence of their study,) who had for +eighteen years ruled France, found themselves, one February morning in +1848, stripped of power and of place. They returned to their favorite +studies, and produced new works, to the delight of lettered men +everywhere. But, as the human heart, even in the beat of men, has its +weaknesses, these eminent men, who could not for a single instant doubt +either their talents or their success or the universal admiration in +which they were held, were a little too fond of hearing these agreeable +truths told them in articles devoted especially to their works. Now to +heighten the zeal of the authors of these articles, the eminent retired +statesmen held in their hands an infallible method: They would take +these trumpeters of fame aside, and, without contracting any positive +engagement, would distinctly hint to these critics, (a word to the wise +is sufficient!) that, after a few years of these excellent and useful +services in the daily press or in the periodicals, they, the former, +would elect the latter members of the French Academy. A seat in the +French Academy was the object of the most ardent ambition. No sooner was +the breath out of the body of one of the forty members of the French +Academy than twenty candidates entered the lists, and canvassed, +canvassed, canvassed the nine-and-thirty living Academicians, without +losing a minute in eating, drinking, or sleeping, until the election +took place.</p> + +<p>You may now see the various sorts of seductions which assailed me during +this short and brilliant period of my literary life. The world lay +smiling before me, and I felt quite happy,—when I met Monsieur Louis +Veuillot, the eminent editor of "L'Univers," which the government has +since suppressed.</p> + +<p>We had exchanged visiting-cards several times, and a few letters, but I +did not as yet know him. I was attracted to him by the very contrasts +which existed between us. My elegant and delicate nature (as the +newspapers then styled it: they <i>now</i> call it my weak and morbid nature) +seemed in absolute contradiction to that robust frame, that oaken +solidity, which revealed beneath its rugged bark its virile juices. His +masculine and potent ugliness reminded me of Mirabeau, of a plebeian +Mirabeau with straight black hair, of a Mirabeau who had found at the +foot of the altar calmness for his tempest-tossed soul. His conversation +delighted and fascinated me. One felt (despite some coarseness in minor +details, and which almost seemed to be assumed) that there glowed within +him the energetic convictions of an honest man and a Christian, who had +at command the most stinging language that ever wrung the withers of +Voltaire's pale successors. No man among our contemporaries has been +more hated than Monsieur Louis Veuillot. He has flagellated, kicked, +cuffed, jeered, mocked, humiliated, exasperated, better than anybody +else, the writers I most detest. He has given them wounds which will +forever rankle. He has indelibly branded these miserable actors who play +upon the theatre of their vices the comedy of their vanity. We together +examined the pages where I had expressed my opinion upon contemporary +authors.</p> + +<p>"Are these," said Monsieur Louis<a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a> Veuillot, speaking severely to me, +"are these all your sacrifices to the truth? Praises to that one, +flattery to this one, soft words to him, compliments to another? You +blame them just enough to incite people to buy their books. Is that what +you call serving our noble and austere cause? Oh, Sir! Sir!" ...</p> + +<p>He lectured me long and well. He spoke with the edification of a sermon +and the brilliancy of a satire. At last, ashamed of my weakness, +electrified by his language, burning to repair lost time, I said to him, +pressing his hands in mine,—</p> + +<p>"I am dwelling amid the luxuries of Capua; when next you hear from me, I +shall be in the midst of the field of battle."</p> + +<p>I at once began my campaign. I made war upon Voltaire, Béranger, Eugene +Sue, De Balzac, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Michelet, Quinet; and as for +the small fry of literature, I showed them no mercy. War was soon +declared on <i>me</i>,—war without quarter.</p> + +<p>My first adversary was little Monsieur Paulin Limayrac. He has become +the most accomplished specimen of the job-editor. As firmly convinced of +the supremacy of the Articles of War as the best disciplined private +soldier who ever showed how perfect an automaton man may become by +thorough discipline, his political opinions are something more than a +creed: they are a watchword which be observes with a most supple +obstinacy. The cabinet-minister he calls master is a corporal who has +the right to think for him; and were the corporal to contradict himself +ten times in the course of a single day, imperturbable little Paulin +Limayrac would demonstrate to him that he was ten times in the right. +But then (that is, in 1855) Monsieur Paulin Limayrac was a Republican, a +Socialist; and his weakness lay in imagining not only that people read +his articles in "La Presse," but that they remembered them for a whole +sennight after reading them. When you met him, he always commenced +conversation:—</p> + +<p>"Ah, ha! what did I tell you? Am I not an excellent prophet? You +remember the prophecy I made the other day? It has come to pass just as +I predicted it!"</p> + +<p>Poor Paulin Limayrac really thought himself a prophet, when in good +truth he was not even a conjurer. Stiffening himself up on his stumpy +legs, he stared as hard as he could through his eye-glass, and from his +giant's height of four feet ten, at everybody who pretended to believe +there was a God in heaven. His occupation just at that time was to toss +the incense-burning censer in honor of Madame, Émile de Girardin under +her aquiline nose. He had become the page, the groom, the dwarf of this +celebrated woman, who had, alas! only a few months more to live. He +opened the fire against me. To gratify Madame Émile de Girardin, he one +day wrote on the corner of her table twenty harsh lines against me, (he +took good care not to sign them,) in which he said of me exactly the +contrary of what he had written to me. As these lines were anonymous, I +did not care to pretend to recognize the author; besides, can you feel +anger towards such a whipper-snapper? I met him a short time afterwards, +and he gave me a more cordial shake-hands than ever. Now comes the cream +of the fellow's conduct: for all this that I have mentioned is as +nothing, so common of occurrence is it in Paris. Note that Madame Émile +de Girardin was dying: I was ignorant of it, but Monsieur Paulin +Limayrac knew it well. Note further, that for weeks before this he had +celebrated in the tenderest sentimental strains the loving friendship +which existed between Madame George Sand and Madame Émile de Girardin. +Note lastly, that Monsieur Paulin Limayrac had good reason to think that +I knew perfectly well who was really the author of the malicious attack +on me in "La Presse," which was his paper. Remember all this while I +repeat to you the dialogue which took place between us under an arcade +of the Rue Castiglione. I said to him,—</p><p><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a></p> + +<p>"Ah! my dear Sir, Madame George Sand must be gratified this time! Your +article this morning upon her autobiography really did hit the +bull's-eye, plumb! What fire! what enthusiasm! what lyric strains!"</p> + +<p>"I could not help myself," replied he. "It is one of the fatigues of my +place, I was obliged to write it."</p> + +<p>"Well, between you and me, the truth is that your admiration is a little +exaggerated. The work is less dull since Madame George Sand has reached +the really interesting periods of her life; but how fatiguing the first +part of it was! What stuff she thrust into it! What particulars relating +to her family and her mother, which were, to say the least of it, +useless!"</p> + +<p>"Why, my dear fellow," replied Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, with a knowing +look, "don't you know the secret?"</p> + +<p>"What secret?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! you have not yet shaken off provincial dust! Madame George Sand, +with that carelessness one almost always finds in great artists, sent to +Monsieur Émile de Girardin that enormous packet of four-and-twenty +volumes, at the same time authorizing him to retrench at least one-third +of the manuscript, if he thought fit. But Madame de Girardin (who is +extremely astute) thought, that, if the work were published without the +numerous dull chapters of the first part, it would command too brilliant +a success; and Her Most Gracious Majesty determined that the whole +four-and-twenty volumes should appear without the omission of a single +line,—which is all the more noble, grand, and generous, as we pay a +high price for the 'copy,' and it has curtailed our subscription-list a +good deal."</p> + +<p>"I thought Madame George Sand and Madame Émile de Girardin were upon the +footing of a most affectionate friendship."</p> + +<p>"'Tis a woman's friendship. 'Tis a poet's love for a poet. Each adores +the other; but then what is more vulgar than to love one's friends when +they are successful? Every hind can do that; while none but delicate and +sensitive souls can shed torrents of tears over a friend's reverses."</p> + +<p>A fortnight after this conversation took place, Madame Émile de Girardin +died. There was a flood of panegyrics and of tears. Monsieur Paulin +Limayrac was chief pall-bearer, and demonstrated in the columns of "La +Presse" that Madame Émile de Girardin had herself alone more genius than +Sappho, Corinne, Madame de Sévigné, Madame de Staël, and Madame George +Sand, all put together.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LITTLE_COUNTRY-GIRL" id="THE_LITTLE_COUNTRY-GIRL"></a>THE LITTLE COUNTRY-GIRL.</h2> + + +<h4>CHAPTER I.</h4> + +<p>My father's old friend, Captain Joseph, came down by the morning train, +to inquire concerning a will placed in my keeping by Farmer Hill, lately +deceased.</p> + +<p>This is his first visit since our marriage.</p> + +<p>He declares himself perfectly satisfied with—a certain person, and +insists on my revealing the reason, or reasons, of her choosing—a +certain person, when she might, no doubt, have done better.</p> + +<p>And he is equally charmed with our locality,—is glad to find such a +paradise.</p> + +<p>I like Captain Joseph. He doesn't croak. Some old men would look dismal, +and say, perhaps,—"Happiness is not for earth," or, "In prosperity +prepare for adversity." As if anybody could!</p><p><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a></p> + +<p>"A beautiful spot," says Captain Joseph. And truly it is a pleasant +place here, close by the sea,—a place made on purpose to live in. It is +a sort of valley, shut in on the east and on the west by high wooded +hills, which stretch far out into the sea, and so make for us a charming +little bay. There are only a few houses here: the town proper, where I +have my law-office, is a mile off.</p> + +<p>I found this nook quite accidentally, while sketching the islands off in +the harbor, and the water, and the deep shading on the woods beyond. The +people here took me to board. That was ten years ago.</p> + +<p>Then the family was large. There was old Mr. Lane, his wife, their five +grown-up boys, Emily, the sick one, and Miss Joey. The eldest son went +out to China, and there died. The next three, at different times, +started for California. Two died of the fever, and the third was +supposed to have been murdered in crossing the Plains.</p> + +<p>David remained. He was a tall, well-made youth, with plenty of health +and good looks, willing to work on the farm, but devoted mainly to his +little sloop-boat. People called him odd. He was both odd and even. He +was odd in being somewhat different in his habits from other young men; +but then he had an even way of his own, which he kept. With him, the sea +and his little sloop-boat and the daily paper supplied the place of +balls, concerts, parties, and young women.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you dress up, and go gallivantin' about 'mong the gals?" his +old mother used to say. But he would only laugh, and pshaw, and walk off +to the shore. And I, watching his erect gait and firm tread, would +wonder how it was that one good-looking young man should be so different +from all other good-looking young men. Still, there was a sort of +sheepishness about the eyes, and that was probably why he never turned +them, when meeting the girls, but strode along, looking straight ahead, +as if they had been so many fence-posts.</p> + +<p>Fanny J—— once laid a wager with me that she would make him bow. She +contrived a plan to meet him as he returned from the Square. I hid +behind the stone wall, and peeped through the chinks. Just as they met, +she almost let the wind blow her bonnet off, hoping to catch his eye. +But he looked so straight forward into the distance that I was alarmed, +thinking there might be a loose horse coming, or a house afire. That was +in the first of my staying there. We were afterwards great friends. He +liked me, because I was good to the old folks, and to Emily,—and had a +sort of respect for me, because I was the oldest, and because I could +talk, and because of the great thick books in my room. I respected him, +because I had seen the world and its shams, and knew him to be good all +the way through, and because he couldn't talk, and also, perhaps, +because he was so much bigger and handsomer than I. In fact, I should +have felt quite downhearted about my own looks, if I hadn't learned from +books—not the thick ones—that sallow-looking men, with dark eyes, are +interesting.</p> + +<p>David's mother approved of steady habits, but for all that she would +rather have had him waste some of his time, and be like the rest of his +kind.</p> + +<p>"Poor David!" she would say, sometimes, "if anybody could only make him +think he <i>was</i> somebody, he'd <i>be</i> somebody. But he 'a'n't got no +confidence."</p> + +<p>"Mother," I would answer, "don't worry about David. He's good, and +goodness is as good as anything."</p> + +<p>She liked to have me call her mother. I had been there so long that I +almost filled the place of one of her lost ones. Besides, I had no +mother of my own, and no real home.</p> + +<p>Miss Joey, not being past thirty, had a plan in her head. Her head was +small,—so was she,—but the plan was large enough and good enough.</p> + +<p>This plan, however, was upset, and by her own means, even before the +prospect <a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>of its being carried out was even probable. It was Miss Joey's +own notion that one half the house should be let.</p> + +<p>"We are so dwindled down," she said. "A small, quiet family would bring +in a little something, and be company." This was at the close of a long +and rather lonely winter.</p> + +<p>So, one day, Mr. Lane came home, and said he had let the other half to a +family from up-country,—man and wife and little girl.</p> + +<p>"The very thing!" said Miss Joey.</p> + +<p>Alas for human foresight!</p> + +<p>The next day, at sundown, a loaded wagon drove up; then a carryall, from +which stepped an elderly couple and a sweet pretty girl.</p> + +<p>"What angel is that, alighting upon earth?" I exclaimed, looking over +Miss Joey's head.</p> + +<p>"Thought she was goin' to be a little girl," said she.</p> + +<p>"Wal," replied Mr. Lane, "that's what he called her: suppose she seems +little to him. But so much the better. The bigger she is, the more +company she'll be."</p> + +<p>Miss Joey went in to receive them, and I retired to my chamber. From the +window I observed that the pretty girl was very handy about helping, and +heard her mother call her Mary Ellen.</p> + +<p>The next morning, just as I was leaving for the office, I heard a quick +step across the entry. The door opened, and "the little girl," Mary +Ellen, came in. Her hair was pushed straight behind her ears, and her +sleeves were rolled up to the elbows.</p> + +<p>"I came in," said she, rather bashfully, "to ask if Mr. Lane would help +us set up a bedstead; father had to go, and mother's feeble."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lane's gone to get his horse shod," said Miss Joey.</p> + +<p>Mary Ellen stood still, doubting whether to speak, but looking rather +puzzled; for David was in plain sight, fixing his pickerel-traps in the +back-room.</p> + +<p>"Miss Joey," said I, smiling, and looking towards him, "there are two +Mr. Lanes, you know."</p> + +<p>"Oh, David,—yes,—David. Wal, so David could."</p> + +<p>And so David did. I bit my lip, and went out.</p> + +<p>In turning the corner of the house, I passed the open window, and +glanced in, as was natural. 'Twas an old-fashioned bedstead, and there +was David, red as a rose, screwing up the cord, while Mary Ellen, fair +as a lily, was hammering away at the wooden peg, while the old lady +stood by, giving directions.</p> + +<p>It struck me so queerly that I laughed and talked to myself all the way +to the office.</p> + +<p>"Poor David!" I muttered, "how could he steady his hands, with such a +pair of white arms near them? Good! good!" And then I would ha! ha! and +strike my stick against the stones. "Turner," said I, addressing myself, +"she's what you may call a sweet pretty girl."</p> + +<p>I addressed the same remark to Miss Joey that night at tea.</p> + +<p>"The girl," said she, "is an innocent little country-girl. She's got a +good skin and a handsome set of teeth. But there's no need of her +findin' out her good looks, unless you men-folks put her up to 't."</p> + +<p>This I of course took to myself, David being out of the question.</p> + +<p>An innocent little country-girl! And so she was. She brought to mind +damask roses, and apple-blossoms, and red rosebuds, and modest violets, +and stars and sunbeams, and all the freshness and sweetness of early +morning in the country. A delicious little innocent country-girl! Poor +David! who could have guessed that you were to be the means of letting +in upon her benighted mind the secret of her own beauty?</p> + +<p>Anybody who has travelled in the country has noticed two kinds of +country-girls. The first are green-looking and brazen-faced, staring at +you like great yellow buttercups, and are always ready to tell all they +know. The others are shy. They look up at you modestly, with their blue +or their brown eyes, and answer your <a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>questions in few words. Of this +last kind was Mary Ellen. She looked up with brown eyes,—not dark +brown, but light,—hazel, perhaps.</p> + +<p>And those brown, or hazel, or grayish eyes looked up to some +purpose,—as David, if he had had the gift of speech, might have +testified. But a man may tell a good deal and never use his tongue at +all. The eyes, for instance, or even the cheeks, can talk, and are full +as likely not to tell lies.</p> + +<p>It might have been two months, perhaps, after the other half was let, +that I heard Mrs. Lane say one day,—</p> + +<p>"Joey, there's an alteration in David."</p> + +<p>"For better or wuss?" calmly inquired that maiden.</p> + +<p>I did not hear the reply, but I had seen the alteration. In fact, I had +noticed it from the beginning, and had come to the conclusion that the +mischief was done the first day,—that his heart somehow got a twist in +the screwing-up of the bed-cord,—that it received every one of the +blows which those white arms were aiming at the insensible wood.</p> + +<p>It was a case which had vastly interested me. I mean that it was quite +in my line, detecting a man's secret in his countenance. I was glad of +the practice.</p> + +<p>Mary Ellen knew, too; and yet she had received no help from the +profession. Only an innocent little country-girl! 'Twas her natural +penetration. What a pity women can't be lawyers, they have so much to +start with!</p> + +<p>Poor David! He wasn't sensible of what had befallen him. How should he +be? He didn't know why he smarted up his dress, why Bay-fishing wasn't +profitable, or why working on the land agreed with him best. He hadn't +even found out, as late as June, why he liked to have her bring out the +luncheon-basket to the mowers. But before the autumn he had discovered +his own secret. He knew very well, then, why he thought it a good plan +for Mary Ellen to come in and pare apples with Miss Joey at the halves.</p> + +<p>I could have wished him a pleasanter way, though, of finding out his +secret.</p> + +<p>There was another that saw the alteration, and that was Emily, the sick +one,—the care and the blessing of the household. For twelve summers her +foot had never pressed the greensward. They told me that once she was a +gay, frolicsome girl. 'Twas hard to believe, so tranquil, so spiritual, +so heavenly was the expression which long suffering had brought to her +face. That face, apart from this wonderful expression, was beautiful to +look upon. It seemed as if sickness itself was loath to meddle with +aught so lovely. So, while her body slowly wasted from the ravages of +disease, her countenance remained fair and youthful.</p> + +<p>She often had days of freedom from suffering,—days when, as she +expressed it, her Father called away His unwelcome messengers. At these +times she would sit in her stuffed chair, or lie on the sofa, and the +family went in and out as they chose. Everybody liked to stay in Emily's +room. Its very atmosphere was elevating.</p> + +<p>Then there were collected so many beautiful things,—for these she +craved. "I need them, mother," she would say,—"my soul has need of +them. If there are no flowers, get green leaves, or a picture of Christ, +or of some saint, or little child." And sometimes I would dream, for a +moment, that even I, with all my obtuseness, my earthiness, could have +some faint perception of the way in which, in the midst of suffering, +any form of beauty was a strength and a consolation.</p> + +<p>And singularly enough for a sick girl, she liked gold ornaments and +jewels. People used to lend her their chains and bracelets. "I know it +is strange, mother," she said, one day, while holding in her hand a ruby +bracelet,—"strange that I care for them; but they look so strong, so +enduring, so full of life: hang them across the white vase, please; I +love to see them there."</p> + +<p>It was good for her when Mary Ellen came, vigorous, fresh, beautiful, +like the <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>early morning. She liked to have her in the room, to watch her +face, to braid her long brown hair, and dress it with flowers, or +pearls, or strings of beads,—to clasp her hands about the pretty white +throat, as if she were only a pigeon, or a little lamb, brought in for +her to play with.</p> + +<p>She was pleased, too, about David. "He is so good," she said to me one +day. "I always knew he had love and gentleness in his heart, and now an +angel has come to roll away the stone."</p> + +<p>I thought a great deal of my privilege of going into her room, the same +as the rest. After the perplexing, and often low, grovelling duties of +my profession, it was like sitting at the gate of heaven.</p> + +<p>I used to love to come home, at the close of a long summer's day, and +find the family assembled there. I felt the <i>rest</i> of the hour so much +more, sitting among people who had been hard at work all day.</p> + +<p>The windows would be set wide open, that not a breath of out-door air +might he lost. And with the air would seem to come in the deep peace, +the solemn Hush of a country-twilight. It pervaded the room; and even my +cold, worldly nature would be touched.</p> + +<p>In these dim, shadowy hours, when Nature seemed to stand still, +breathless, waiting for the coming darkness, if I longed for anything, +it was for a voice to sing. Speech seemed harsh. Yet we often repeated +hymns and ballads. Emily knew a great many, and, after saying them over, +would dwell upon them, drawing the most beautiful meanings from passages +which to me had seemed obscure, and sometimes talked like one inspired.</p> + +<p>I felt that these seasons were my salvation,—were saving me from my +worldliness. Still, I sometimes had a guilty feeling, as if I were +drawing from Emily her beautiful life,—as if I were getting something +to which I had no right, something too good for me,—as if she might +exclaim, at any moment, "Virtue is gone out from me!"</p> + +<p>But Mary Ellen could sing. That was good. She knew hymns by dozens, and +tunes to them all, both old and new. Besides these, she could sing +love-songs and quaint old ballads, that nobody ever heard before.</p> + +<p>After she came, we had music to our twilights.</p> + +<p>David, of course, was a listener. He said he was always fond of music. I +used sometimes to wonder if the pretty singer of love-songs had any +special designs upon him. For I had been curiously watching this +innocent little country-girl.</p> + +<p>In talking with a friend of mine, he had laid it down as a law of +Nature, that all women, wild or cultivated, delight to worry and torment +all men; that they play with and prey upon their hearts; and that this +is done instinctively, as a cat worries a mouse.</p> + +<p>"A ministering angel thou," quoted I, rather abstractedly, as if +comparing views.</p> + +<p>"Angels? Yes,—and so they are," he answered, rather smartly. "And every +man's heart is a pool, into which they must descend and trouble the +waters!"</p> + +<p>I knew my friend had reason for his bitterness. Still, I resolved to +watch Mary Ellen.</p> + +<p>David's bashful attentions were by no means displeasing to her: that I +saw. She had not been accustomed to your glib, off-handed, smartly +dressed youths. Here was a good-looking young man, of blameless life, +who helped her draw up the bucket, took her to sail, taught her to row, +brought her home bushes of huckleberries and branches of swamp-pinks +from the pasture, and shells from the beach.</p> + +<p>That few words accompanied his offerings was matter of little moment, +since what he would have said was easily enough read in his face. It was +sufficient that his eyes spoke, that they followed her motions, that he +seemed never ready to go so long as she remained, that when she went he +could not long stay behind.</p><p><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a></p> + +<p>Poor David! It wasn't his fault. He didn't mean to. Everybody knew 't +wasn't a bit like him. He was charmed. And that reminds me of what Miss +Joey said to Mr. Lane, the old man.</p> + +<p>It was just about sundown, and they two were sitting in the front-room, +looking out of the windows. It had been a sultry day. I was trying to +keep comfortable, and had found a nice little seat just outside the +door, underneath the lilacs.</p> + +<p>Mary Ellen and David came slowly walking past. They didn't seem to be +saying much. She had come out bareheaded, just for a little fresh air +and a stroll round the house. How cool she looked, in her light blue +gown, and her white apron, that tied behind with white bows and strings, +or streams! A May-bee buzzed about their ears, and lighted on her +shoulder. Poor David! He brushed it off before he thought. How +frightened he looked! how confused! But then just think of all the other +may-bes he had in his head, confusing him, buzzing to him all manner of +beautiful things!</p> + +<p>They stopped under the early-ripe tree. Mary Ellen pointed upwards, +laughing. He sprang up and snatched off the apple. Then she pointed +higher, and still higher, until at last he climbed the tree, and dropped +the apples down into her apron.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lane," said Miss Joey, in an impressive undertone, "did you ever +hear of anybody's bewitchin' anybody?"</p> + +<p>"In books, Joey," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Wal," said she, in a low, but decided voice, "I'll tell you what I +think, and what's ben my mind from the beginnin' on't. That gal's +bewitched David. Don't you remember," she continued, "that the fust week +they come David had a bad cold?"</p> + +<p>"Wal, like enough he did," drawled the old man. "David was always +subject to a bad cold."</p> + +<p>"He did," replied Miss Joey. "I've got the whole on't in my mind now. +And mebby you've noticed that these folks are great for gatherin' in +herbs, and lobely, and bottlin' up hot-crop?"</p> + +<p>"Pepper-tea's a suvverin' remedy for a cold," put in the old man.</p> + +<p>"But now," Miss Joey proceeded, sinking her voice almost to a whisper, +"I want to fix your thoughts on somethin' dark-colored, in a vial, that +she fetched across the entry for him to take."</p> + +<p>"Help him any?"</p> + +<p>"Can't say it did, and can't say it didn't. But ever sence that, David's +ben a different man. He's follered that gal about as if there'd ben a +chain a-drawin' him,—as if she'd flung a lassoo round his neck, and was +pullin' him along. See him, and you see her. If she wants huckleberries, +she has huckleberries. If she wants violets, she has violets. See him +now, lookin' down at her through the branches. And see her, turnin' her +face up towards him. He's nigh upon addled. Shouldn't wonder this +minute, if he didn't know enough to keep his hold o' the branch. Does +that seem like our David, Mr. Lane, a bashful young feller like him?"</p> + +<p>"Bashful or bold makes no difference," replied the old man. "Love'll go +where't is sent,—likely to hit one as t' other. And when they're hit, +you can't tell 'em apart.—Why, Joey," he continued, suddenly quickening +his tone, "there's the Doctor's boy, as I'm alive!"</p> + +<p>Dr. Luce lived the other side of "the Crick." The young man coming along +the road was his son, just arrived home.</p> + +<p>As he came nearer, I took notice of his dress. I usually did, when +people came from the city. He wore a black bombazine coat, white +trousers, white waistcoat, blue necktie, and a Panama hat. His +complexion was fair, with plenty of light hair waving about his temples. +He stepped briskly along, with shoulders set back, twirling his glove.</p> + +<p>I knew Warren Luce well enough. I could tell just how it would strike +him, seeing David up in a tree, flinging down apples to a girl. I could +very well judge, too, how he would encounter the fair apparition +beneath.</p> + +<p>But how would he strike Mary Ellen,—this <a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>polished, smooth-tongued, +handsomely dressed youth? I had forebodings. I seemed to divine the +future. I fidgeted upon my seat, and straightened myself up, rather +pleased that my studies were getting complicated,—that I should have a +chance of searching out the natural heart of woman, when under the most +trying circumstances.</p> + +<p>But just as I was making ready to commence upon my new chapter, Mrs. +Lane called me to come and help move Emily. I very often lifted her from +the chair to the sofa. It could hardly be called lifting. 'Twas like +taking a little bird out of its nest and placing it in another. "The +Doctor's boy has come," said I, very quietly, when I had wheeled the +sofa so that she might feel the air from the window.</p> + +<p>She made no answer then; but a little after, when her mother stepped out +a minute, she said, just as quietly,—</p> + +<p>"How will it be?"</p> + +<p>"How do you think?" I said.</p> + +<p>"I wish," she replied, "that he hadn't come. David is a dear brother. I +fear."</p> + +<p>When Emily said "I fear," there was no need to ask what. She feared the +effect upon Warren Luce of Mary Ellen's fresh and simple beauty. She +feared the effect upon her of his city-manners and fluent speech. She +feared for David an abiding sorrow. Warren Luce had travelled, had been +in society, and had been educated. I knew him well for a selfish, +heartless fellow, whose very soul had been drowned in worldly pleasures. +Just from the midst of artificial life, how charming must appear to him +our sweet wild-rose, our singing-bird, our fresh, untutored, innocent +little country-girl!</p> + +<p>"But why borrow trouble?" I said to myself. "It will come soon enough. +If not in this way, then in some other. Trouble stays not long away."</p> + + +<h4>CHAPTER II.</h4> + +<p>"The Crick" wasn't half a mile across. The Doctor's house was in plain +sight from our windows. 'Twas just a pleasant walk round there, and we +called them neighbors. The two young men had always been on the very +best of terms. Warren liked David because he knew how good he was, and +David liked Warren because he didn't know how bad he was. The chief bond +between them was the boat. Our stylish young gentleman, when he came +down to Nature, wanted to get as near her as he could,—not, perhaps, +that he loved her, but he liked a change. Nothing suited him better than +"camping out," or starting off before light a-fishing with David.</p> + +<p>I was not at all surprised, therefore, that he should appear bright and +early the next morning, to make some arrangement for the day.</p> + +<p>I saw him coming, from my window, and was pleased that I had lingered at +home rather beyond office-hours,—for Mary Ellen was shelling peas in +the back-doorway beneath, and I should have an opportunity of advancing +somewhat in my new chapter. It was a nice shady place. The door-steps +and the ground about them were still damp from the dew.</p> + +<p>He came trippingly along, inquiring for David. Mary Ellen blushed some. +I saw that their acquaintance had commenced the night before. He chatted +a little with the old folks, but directed most of his talk to Mary +Ellen, that he might have an excuse for looking her full in the face, +and drinking in her beauty. I saw him seat himself on the flat stone. I +saw him glance admiringly at the pretty white hands, handling so +daintily the green pods. I saw him show her how to make a boat of one, +putting in sticks for the thwarts. And finally, I saw David come round +the house and stop short.</p> + +<p>Warren sprang up.</p> + +<p>"Waiting for you, David," said he. "Tide coming, stiff breeze. We can be +on Jake's Ledge in a twinkling."</p> + +<p>And passing over a high hill, on my way to the Square, I saw the +sloop-boat, with flag flying, putting off towards Jake's Ledge.</p><p><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a></p> + +<p>For the next two months the Doctor's boy walked straight in the path +which my prophetic vision had marked out for him. Morning, noon, and +evening brought him paddling across "the Crick," or footing it round by +the shore-way.</p> + +<p>Emily and I were troubled. We had once feared that our good brother and +friend would pass through life as a blind man wanders through a +flower-garden, lost to its chief beauty and sweetness. But his eyes had +been opened. And now was his life-path to lead him into a thorny +wilderness? was a worse darkness to settle down upon him?</p> + +<p>I fancied there was a hopeless look in his face,—that he shrank into +himself more than ever. The Doctor's boy had fairer gifts than he to +offer, and no lack of well-chosen words. It was with the utmost +uneasiness that I caught, occasionally, some of these telling phrases. I +liked not his air of devotedness, his eye constantly following Mary +Ellen's movements. I liked not the flower-gatherings, the rambles among +the rocks, the rowing by moonlight. Emily's short sentence came often to +mind, "I fear."</p> + +<p>For I felt almost sure that Warren Luce was in earnest,—that he was +deeply and truly in love with Mary Ellen. Not that he intended this at +first, but that her beauty conquered him. Most likely this was the first +of his knowing he had a heart, 'twas so small. Still, 'twas the best +thing he had, and appeared to hold considerable love for one of its +size.</p> + +<p>And how was it with Mary Ellen? Ah, she was enough to puzzle a justice! +I was not long, though, in perceiving that this unenlightened maiden +felt instinctively that her personal appearance should be attended to a +little more carefully than when only David was to admire. Her hair was +always in nice order, and I observed that even in the morning she would +have some bit of muslin or lace-work peeping from beneath her short +sleeve. I hope there is no harm in saying that I had, even before this, +noticed the shapeliness of her arm. I think I was struck with it the +first morning, when she came across the entry.</p> + +<p>And was she really a coquette, carrying herself steadily along between +two lovers, that she smiled just as pleasantly on David, giving him +never a cold word, even while the blushes kindled by the soft speeches +of Warren Luce still burned upon her cheeks?</p> + +<p>I found myself getting confused. My new studies were very absorbing in +their nature, and extremely intricate. Three books to translate, and +never a dictionary!</p> + +<p>After patient investigation, I settled down upon the conviction that +there was in the heart of our little country-girl one corner of which +David's constant goodness, and earnest, though unspoken love, had given +him the entire possession.</p> + +<p>I thought thus, because I saw that in her own nature were truth and +goodness. And she was quick of perception. I was often struck by the +shrewdness of her remarks. I thought the more favorably of her, too, +that she was fond of pictures. Before they came to live in the other +part, she had taken a dozen lessons of an itinerant drawing-master. I +had often encountered her in my walks, trying to make a sketch of a tree +or a house. She always tucked it behind her, though, or into her pocket, +the minute I came in sight.</p> + +<p>It was certainly true that she had not yielded to the fascinations of +the Doctor's boy so readily and so entirely as I had feared. "The girl +has some common sense," I thought, "some stability,—and likewise some +ideas of the eternal fitness of things." For I noticed, with pleasure, +one night in Emily's room, when somebody said, "There comes the Doctor's +boy," that she got up and closed the door.</p> + +<p>She had been singing the old-fashioned hymn commencing,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"On the fair Heavenly Hills."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The last line,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"And all the air is Love,"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>was repeated. The music was peculiar,—the <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>notes rising and falling and +rolling over each other like waves.</p> + +<p>She had just stopped. Nobody moved. The silence was broken only by the +rustling of the lilac-bushes, as the night-wind swept over them.</p> + +<p>"The whispering of angels!" said Emily, softly.</p> + +<p>I was pleased that she closed the door. It showed that she felt his +unfitness to enter our little paradise. I took heart for David. And yet +it was only the next day that came the crowning with hop-blossoms.</p> + +<p>I had returned home early, and was in my own room, waiting for tea. +Casting my eyes towards the garden, I saw Mary Ellen sitting beneath a +tree, leaning against the trunk. Near by was a hop-pole, laden with its +green. And near by, also, stood Warren Luce, holding in his hand a thin, +square book. He had gathered a quantity of the beautiful hop-blossoms +and tendrils, and was directing her how to arrange them about her head. +It appeared to be his object to make her look like a picture in his +book. "A little more to the right. A few leaves about the ear," I heard +him say; and then, "They must drop a little lower on the other side. In +the picture, the tendrils touch the left shoulder. Now hold the basket +full of them, in this way. The blossoms must be trailing over it, and +your right hand upon the handle. Not so. Let me show"—And as he touched +her hand to place it in the right position, I almost sprang from my +seat, I was so indignant for David.</p> + +<p>I might have saved myself the trouble, though, for the next moment David +himself appeared, walking slowly home from the Square, with something in +a basket he was bringing for Emily. David was a good brother.</p> + +<p>"Perfect!" exclaimed Warren, as he completed his <i>tableau</i>. "Just like +the picture, only"—And here he dropped his voice.</p> + +<p>"David, come here," he called out, "and see which picture is the +prettiest."</p> + +<p>Poor David! I saw that it was all he could do, to walk straight past +without speaking.</p> + +<p>"Take them off," said Mary Ellen. "They are heavy."</p> + +<p>And she pulled the wreath from her head.</p> + +<p>That evening, coming home late, I saw a bright light in her room, and +glanced up, as I came near. She stood at the looking-glass between the +windows, holding a light in her hand. Upon her head, trailing down upon +her left shoulder, was a wreath of hop-blossoms. She wanted to know how +she looked in them. At least, this was my interpretation of the vision. +And while she held the light, first in one hand, then in the other, +turning this way and that, I stood debating whether there was any harm +in a girl's knowing she was pretty, or in her wishing to inform herself +whether any adornments rather out of the common course—hop-blossoms, +for instance—were becoming. That question, and the other, about all +women being coquettes, remain in my mind undecided to this day.</p> + +<p>Emily must have noticed something peculiar in David's manner, when he +brought her the basket. For it was the next day, I think, that she said +to me, in her quiet way,—</p> + +<p>"Mr. Turner, a new feeling is taking hold of me. I'm afraid I—<i>hate</i>!"</p> + +<p>She made this announcement in her usual calm voice, as if she had been +speaking of some new manifestation of her disease. Then she told what +she had been observing in David's manner, and in Mary Ellen's. Said +she,—</p> + +<p>"The girl has no heart. She trifles with David, and he is so wretched. +Better the stone had never been rolled away than his love be so thrown +back upon him. I pity him so much, and can do nothing."</p> + +<p>I hardly knew what to say in reply, for I was just as troubled as she +about David. He wandered off by himself, in the chill autumn evenings, +returned late, and stole off to his bed in silence. Stories of suicides +came to me. A man who never spoke might do anything. And <a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>this, I +thought, was the point. If I could only make him speak!</p> + +<p>He had always been more open with me than anybody,—had expressed +himself freely about the homestead, and his plans for redeeming it, and +about his anxiety for Emily. I could certainly, I thought, bring him to +speak of his trouble, if I only had for him a sure word of +encouragement. But this I had not, because Mary Ellen was such a puzzle. +Her openness served better for hiding the truth than did David's +reserve. At the bottom of my heart, though, was full faith in her love +for him. I paid her the compliment of believing she was too good to care +seriously for such a man as Warren Luce. But, then, I couldn't give my +faith to David.</p> + +<p>How would it do to make a bold move,—to speak to her? Might I not show +her how much was at stake, and in some way have my faith confirmed? +Would, or wouldn't it answer for me to do this? Should, or shouldn't I +make bungling work of it? I turned the matter over in my mind, to assure +myself of my right to intermeddle.</p> + +<p>We, too, had a sort of friendship, and I conceived that she very much +respected my opinion. In some ways, I had been of service to her. The +old man, her father, had been involved in legal troubles. She was +anxious to understand all about it. So I talked law to her, read law to +her, and marked law for her in my big books, besides giving advice +gratis. She had also taken other books from my library, whenever she +chose. I had lent her pictures to copy, and had shown her the way to +various points, in the country round about, whence a simple view might +easily be taken. Moreover, I was all the same as one of the family, and +felt a brother's interest in David. And, lastly, I was eight or ten +years older than she.</p> + +<p>'Twas certainly my right to speak. I could well see, however, that it +was a matter of some delicacy. My superior age and wisdom might shed a +halo around me; still, I was nothing more nor less than a young man, for +all that.</p> + +<p>It was one pleasant afternoon in the latter part of September, that, +engaged in these perplexing meditations, I strolled down towards the +shore. Mary Ellen hadn't been in to tea, her mother said, and I was +wondering what had become of her.</p> + +<p>One solitary buttonwood stood close to the edge of the bank,—so close +that at high tide its brandies hung over the water. I climbed up into a +reserved seat which was always kept for me there, a comfortable little +crotch among the boughs. Upon extraordinary occasions,—a splendid +sunset, or a rain, coming over the water, or an uncommonly fine moon, or +a furious storm,—I used to mount to this seat for a good view.</p> + +<p>On this particular afternoon the tide was unusually high,—in some +places, up to the top-rail of the meadow-fence. Our "Crick" was quite a +little bay.</p> + +<p>A skiff came paddling along-shore. As it drew near, I saw that it +contained two people,—the Doctor's boy and Mary Ellen. He was singing, +but I was unable to distinguish the words. Then there was some laughing. +After that, she began singing to him, and I made out both words and +tune, for then the boat was quite near. It was an old-fashioned ballad, +which I once heard her sing to Emily. It began thus:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"As I was walking by the river-side,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where little streams do gently glide,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I heard a fair maiden making her moan,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Oh, where is my sweet William gone?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Go, build me up a little boat,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All on the ocean I will float,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hailing all ships as they pass by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Inquiring for my sweet sailor-boy.'"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>I liked the music, it was so plaintive, so different from the common +well-bred songs.</p> + +<p>Not a breath of air was stirring. Her voice rang out upon the stillness, +clear and shrill as a wild bird's. It was such a voice as you frequently +meet with among country-girls, entirely uncultivated, but of great +power, and, on some <a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>notes, of wonderful sweetness. Her admiring +listener rested upon his oars, letting his skiff drift along upon the +tide. It floated underneath the tree, and up into "the Crick." As it +passed, I saw, in the bottom of the boat, a little basket of wild +cherries.</p> + +<p>While watching their progress, I heard a rustling among some +alder-bushes that grew about a fence, and, upon looking that way, saw +David. He, too, was watching the play, though he had not, like me, the +benefit of a seat in the gallery.</p> + +<p>The expression on his countenance was something like what I had seen on +the faces of people at the theatre: a sort of fixed, immovable look, as +if its wearer were determined on being sensation-proof.</p> + +<p>I glanced at the skiff. The Doctor's boy was throwing cherries at Mary +Ellen, and she was catching them in her mouth. She was in a great +frolic, laughing, showing her pretty teeth, and so earnest that one +might suppose life had no other object than catching wild cherries.</p> + +<p>Just then I perceived, a little to the right of me, the head and +shoulders of a woman rising slowly above the bank, and recognized at +once the small features and peculiarly small gray eyes of Miss Joey. She +had been gathering marsh-rosemary along-shore.</p> + +<p>She, too, was a spectator of the play,—was, in part, an actor in it; +for, while David's eyes were fixed upon the boat, hers were fixed upon +him, and with the same despairing expression.</p> + +<p>"Poor Miss Joey!" I said mentally, "doomed to see your beautiful plan +fail and come to nought! You and he suffer the same suffering, but it +can be no bond between you."</p> + +<p>She turned, and slowly descended the bank, and I watched her small +figure as it picked its way among the rocks, and finally disappeared +around a point.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the voyagers had landed, and were making their way to the +house. I could see them until they reached the garden-gate, could see +Mary Ellen swinging her sun-bonnet by its string, and hear her laughing, +as she tried to mock the katydids.</p> + +<p>Then I looked for David. The feeling came over me that I was in some +magnificent theatre, where I was like a king, having a play acted for me +alone. David was lying upon the ground, with his face buried in the damp +grass.</p> + +<p>No matter how much we may read of the effects of great sorrow or great +happiness, they will always, in real life, come to us as something we +never heard of. I involuntarily turned my head aside, feeling that I was +where I had no right to be, that I had intruded my profane presence into +the innermost sanctuary of a human heart.</p> + +<p>While I was debating whether to remain concealed, or to go to him, throw +my arms around him, and say some word of comfort, he arose and walked +slowly towards the house. And I noticed that he went by exactly the same +route which the two had taken before him,—which brought to mind Miss +Joey's expression, "as if there'd ben a chain a-drawin' him."</p> + +<p>That very evening, as I was sitting at my window, watching the moon rise +over the water, I saw Mary Ellen pass along the road, and sit down upon +a little wooden step which was attached to a fence for convenience in +getting over. She was watching the moon rise, too.</p> + +<p>The scene I had so recently witnessed from the buttonwood-tree had made +me desperate. I felt that now, if ever, I must speak. Seizing my hat, I +walked rapidly to the spot, hoping it would be given me in that hour +what to say.</p> + +<p>After we had talked awhile about the moon, how it looked, rising over +the waters, as we saw it, and rising over the mountains, as she had seen +it, I turned my face rather aside, and said, quite suddenly,—</p> + +<p>"Mary Ellen, I want to speak to you about something important. I hope +you will take it kindly."</p> + +<p>She made no answer; seemed startled. I hardly know how I stumbled along, +but<a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a> I finally found myself speaking of my friendship for David, and of +my aversion to Warren Luce. She appeared not at all displeased, but said +very little. This was not as I expected. I thought she might answer +carelessly,—lightly.</p> + +<p>There came a pause. I couldn't seem to get on. She safe with averted +face, her arm on the fence, her head in her hand. In the strong light of +the moon, every feature was revealed. How beautiful she was in the +moonlight! But what was her face saying? A good deal, certainly; but +what?</p> + +<p>I stood leaning against the fence.</p> + +<p>"Mary Ellen," said I, with a sudden jerk, as it were, "it can't be that +Warren Luce—that he is the one whom—that—that you"—And here I +stopped.</p> + +<p>"I think Warren Luce has great power over me," said she, calmly, as if +coolly scanning her own feelings; "but you said right. He is not the one +whom—that"—</p> + +<p>And here she smiled, as if at the thought of my broken-off sentences, +but without looking up.</p> + +<p>"My dear girl," said I, earnestly, and taking a forward step,—"forgive +me, but—I think—I hope—you love David,—don't you?"</p> + +<p>'Twas a bold question, and I knew it; but I was thinking how pleasant +'twould be to carry good tidings to my friend.</p> + +<p>"I love his goodness," said she, just as calmly as before. "And I love +him for loving me. I wish he was happy. I hope no harm will come to him. +I would do everything for him,—but"—and here her voice fell—"<i>I don't +love him as Jane loved</i>."</p> + +<p>"<i>Jane who</i>?" I asked, in surprise.</p> + +<p>"Jane Eyre."</p> + +<p>Here was a dilemma for me. What should I say next? What business had I, +meddling with a young girl's heart? I had been almost sure of finding +soundings, yet here I was in deep water! And, with all my pains, what +had I accomplished?</p> + +<p>She arose, and moved towards the house. I walked along by her side, +without speaking.</p> + +<p>"I'm going away to-morrow," said she, as we reached the gate, "to make a +visit at the old place; then everybody will be happier."</p> + +<p>It was my turn then to be silent,—for I was trying to take in the idea +that there was to be no Mary Ellen in the house. She had occupied our +thoughts so long, had been so prominent an actor in our daily life,—how +we should miss her!</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," I said, calmly,—for I had thought away all my surprise,—"we +shall all miss you very much."</p> + +<p>And there we parted.</p> + +<p>She left us the next morning, for a visit to her old home.</p> + +<p>The latter part of the day I went into Emily's room. She had been +growing worse for some time, and had been removed to the westerly room +to be rid of the bleak winds. David was sitting on a low stool by her +bedside, his head resting upon the bed, looking up in her face. She +smiled as I entered.</p> + +<p>"David is so tall," said she, "that I can't see his face away up there, +and so he brings it down for me to look at."</p> + +<p>She held in her hand the ruby bracelet.</p> + +<p>"David says," she continued, "that he is going to the gold-country, to +get money to pay off the mortgages,—and that, when he begins to get +gold, he shall get a heap, and will bring me home a whole necklace of +rubies, and make a beautiful home for me: <i>when</i> he goes," she repeated, +with an unbelieving smile.</p> + +<p>I smiled, too, and passed on, feeling that I had already intruded too +much upon the privacy of hearts, and would leave the brother and sister +in peace.</p> + +<p>A few nights after this, I came home late from the Square, and found the +household in great commotion. David went out fishing, long before +daybreak, and had not yet returned. Other boats had come in, but nothing +had they seen of him, either on the Ledge or off in the Bay. This was +the more mysterious, <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>as the weather had been unusually mild, with but +little wind.</p> + +<p>After talking over the matter with them, I suggested that he might have +gone farther than usual, and, on account of the light winds, had not +been able to get back. The night was calm, with plenty of moonlight. +There could be no possible danger to one so accustomed to the water as +David.</p> + +<p>This appeared very reasonable; and, at a late hour, all retired to bed.</p> + +<p>The next morning I looked from my window at daybreak. Miss Joey was +standing on the hill, gazing off upon the water. In a few minutes the +old folks came out. They crept up the hill, and stood looking off with +Miss Joey. I joined them. There was a fine strong breeze, and fair for +boats bound in. Not one, however, was in sight. Away off in the Bay was +a homeward-bound schooner, with colors flying. A fisherman, probably, +returning from the Banks. The morning air was chilly. We silently +descended the hill.</p> + +<p>During the day we heard that a vessel from Boston had spoken, half-way +on her passage, a small sloop-boat, with one man in it. Boston was sixty +miles distant, and it was something very unusual for a small boat to +make the passage. Friends in the city were written to, but no +information was obtained, and day after day passed without relieving our +suspense.</p> + +<p>But this was at last ended by a letter from David himself. It was +written to me. He had sold his boat in Boston, and had gone to New York, +where his letter was dated. He was going to sail for California the next +day.</p> + +<p>"I have long been meaning to go," he wrote, "but never thought of +leaving in this way, until I reached the fishing-ground, last Wednesday +morning. It came into my mind all at once, and I kept straight along. If +I'd gone back, the old folks, maybe, wouldn't have let me come, because, +you know, I'm the last. Besides, I thought I could go easier while—But +you know all about it, Turner. I saw that you knew. It has been very +hard. Somehow, trouble don't slip off of me easy. Taking everything as +it was, I couldn't stay by any longer. Otherwise, I don't know as I +could have left the old folks and Emily. I can't ask you to stay, unless +it's convenient; but while you do, I hope you'll have a care over all +I've left behind. You can cheer up Emily better than anybody."</p> + +<p>"The strength and the beauty of the house are gone!" remarked Emily to +me, as I sat down one afternoon by her window.</p> + +<p>Poor girl! It was but seldom she was able to speak at all. David's +sudden departure, and the anxiety attending it, had been too much for +her. Besides, she missed Mary Ellen. That little country-girl had, +besides her innocence and her good looks, a vein of drollery, which made +her a very entertaining companion. And then, being so quick-witted, and +so kind-hearted, she thought of various little things to do for Emily's +comfort, which never would have occurred to her mother or Miss Joey. +Emily wanted her back again. She had got over that feeling of hatred of +which she once accused herself.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't her fault," said she, one day, quite suddenly.</p> + +<p>"What?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"That she didn't love David in the way he loved her. I don't think she +deceived him. He never said anything, you know; so, of course, she had +no reason for being any other than kind to him. I believe she felt badly +about it, herself. I've seen her, when she thought I was asleep, lean +her head upon her hand, and sit so for a great while. Maybe, though, +it's because I want so much to love her that I make excuses for her. I +wish she'd come,—it's so lonely."</p> + +<p>And it was lonely. It was like remaining in the theatre after the play +is over and the actors retired. For Warren Luce, too, was gone. His +visit was only for the summer, and he had returned to his clerkship.</p><p><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a></p> + +<p>"How would it have been, if he hadn't come?" I asked myself. "Might +David have been happy? Might she have loved him as 'Jane' loved? And how +much of her heart had the Doctor's boy carried away? Perhaps his power +over her was greater than she would own,—greater than she knew herself. +Perhaps he was even then corresponding with her. He might even be with +her among the mountains."</p> + +<p>Thus I debated, thus I questioned.</p> + + +<h4>CHAPTER III.</h4> + +<p>Mary Ellen was gone six weeks. We were all glad when she came back, the +house had seemed so like a tomb. I'm not sure about Miss Joey. No doubt +she looked upon her with an evil eye, as being the upsetter of all her +plans. But then there was nothing Miss Joey dreaded more than a lonely +house. She wanted company.</p> + +<p>And what better company, pray, can there be than a fair young face? Who +would ask for better entertainment than to watch the lighting-up of +bright eyes, and the parting of rosy lips, or the thousand other +bewitchments of youth and beauty?</p> + +<p>And she looked more beautiful than ever,—I suppose, because she came in +a dull time: just as flowers seem lovelier and more precious in the +winter. I fancied she was very sad, very thoughtful. Perhaps 'twas +David's going away that caused this. Perhaps she was sorry she had cast +from her such a precious thing as love.</p> + +<p>When Emily became much worse, which was shortly after her return, she +installed herself as chief nurse, sitting for hours in the darkened +room, amusing her with children's songs and stories,—for the sick girl, +in her weakest state, craved childish things.</p> + +<p>That was a quiet, a truly pleasant winter. After getting letters from +David, telling of his safe arrival out, everybody became more cheerful.</p> + +<p>But in the spring, as warm weather came on, Emily grew every day weaker. +The apple-blossoms came and went unheeded.</p> + +<p>One morning she awoke, unusually free from pain, and said to Mary +Ellen,—</p> + +<p>"I saw David last night. He said to me, 'I shall come sooner than I +expected. But, before I come, I shall send the ruby necklace.'" Then she +described the miner's hut in which she had seen him.</p> + +<p>This was in the first part of June.</p> + +<p>On the day after the fourth of July we got news of his death. He had +been lost overboard, in a storm, between San Francisco and the Sandwich +Islands.</p> + +<p>It is very sad to recall that time of deep affliction. He was the last +of five sons, all of whom had left home in full health and strength, +none of whom returned.</p> + +<p>"Five as likely young men," said poor Miss Joey, "as ever grew up +beneath one roof."</p> + +<p>"All five gone!" groaned the old man, as he leaned his face against the +wall.</p> + +<p>"Five brothers waiting for me," whispered Emily, as Mary Ellen bent over +her, weeping.</p> + +<p>"Five boys," moaned the poor broken-hearted mother,—"nobody to take +care of them, nobody to do for them, no comforts, no mother, and now no +grave!"</p> + +<p>'Twas touching to see her husband trying to console her. Her favorite +seat was in one corner of the hard, old-fashioned settee. There she +would sit, swaying herself to and fro, whispering sometimes to herself, +"Deep waters! deep waters!"</p> + +<p>The old man would sit close up to her, and say, softly,—</p> + +<p>"Now, mother, don't! I wouldn't take on. You know he isn't there. Look +up. Don't forget God!"</p> + +<p>Poor old man! 'Twas hard for him to look up, with so much to draw him +down. But I don't think he ever forgot God.</p> + +<p>A little before sunset, one afternoon, a few weeks after the sad news of +David's death had reached us, Mary Ellen came out to where I was sitting +under <a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>the lilacs, and asked if I couldn't move Emily into her own room +for a little while.</p> + +<p>"Is she able?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what has come over her," she replied, "she seems so +strong. For a long time I thought her asleep, but all at once she spoke +out clear and loud, and said, 'I want to see his grave. If anybody could +take me to my own room, I could see his grave.' She keeps repeating it, +and she means the sea."</p> + +<p>'Twas not much to take her across the entry. Mary Ellen arranged +everything, and we placed her on a sofa by the window.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she exclaimed, "how I have longed for this! I have hungered and +thirsted for a good look at the sea."</p> + +<p>Her cheeks were pale, her eyes large and bright.</p> + +<p>She looked so ethereal, so unearthly, and lay so long motionless, with +her eyes fixed upon the water, that I half feared she would at that +moment pass away from us,—that she might, in some beautiful form, a +dove, or a bright angel, soar upward through the open window, and be +lost to our sight among the golden-edged clouds above.</p> + +<p>But she was thinking of David's grave. And a beautiful grave it seemed, +from that window. The water was still, as smooth as glass. I had never +noticed upon it so uncommon a tinge. 'Twas mostly of a pale green, very +pale; but portions of it were of a deep lilac. Farther off it was +purple, and very far off a dim, shadowy gray. I was glad it had on that +particular night such a peaceful, placid look.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what a beautiful grave!" said Emily. Then her eyes wandered to +different points of the landscape, dwelling for a long time on each.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you think," said she, at last, in a low, sweet voice, "that +it is easy for a sick girl to go. But I love everything I've been +looking at. It may be more beautiful there, but it will not be the same. +I shall want to see exactly this stretch of water, and the islands +beyond, and the shadows on those woods away off in the distance, and the +field where father has mowed the grass for so many years. Every summer, +as soon as June came in, I've listened, early in the morning, before +noise began, to hear the whetting of the scythe, and then waited for the +smell of the hay to come in at the windows.</p> + +<p>"Those maples, on the knoll, are my dear friends. I've been glad with +them in the spring, and sorry with them in the fall, through all these +years. The birds and the dandelions and the violets are all my friends. +I've waited for them every year, and it seemed as if the same ones came +back. You well people can't understand it. They are near to me. I enter +into the life of each one of them, just as you do into the lives of your +human friends. Spirits go everywhere, see everything. That will be too +much. I'm attached to just this spot of earth. And then I'm attached to +myself. I can't realize that I shall be the same, and I don't want to +give myself up, poor miserable creature as I am."</p> + +<p>Mary Ellen and I could only look at each other in astonishment. Her +voice, her seeming strength, and, more than all, her conversation, +amazed us. She had always been so trusting, so full of faith in her +Heavenly Father.</p> + +<p>The next morning, when Mary Ellen went to her bedside, she found her +lying awake, with her thin, white fingers clasped about her throat. She +looked up with a strange smile, and said,—</p> + +<p>"My ruby necklace has come, and next, you know, will be the beautiful +home. It is almost ready, David said. But he brought the necklace, and +clasped it about my throat. It choked me, and I groaned a little. David +went then, and I've been waiting ever since for you to come."</p> + +<p>It was noontime when Mary Ellen told me this. I observed that she +trembled. "My dear girl," said I, "what makes you tremble so?"</p> + +<p>"Why," said she, in a whisper, "there is truly a red circle about her +throat. I <a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>saw it. 'Tis a warning. She's going to die."</p> + +<p>"Maybe," I said, "she is going soon to her beautiful home. But we know +no harm can come to our dear sister, she is so good, and so pure." Then, +taking her by the hand, I led her along to Emily's room.</p> + +<p>Her mother and Miss Joey stood near, weeping. The old man, with the +Bible upon his knees, sat at the foot of the bed. He had been reading +and praying.</p> + +<p>She looked up with a smile, as I entered with Mary Ellen.</p> + +<p>"I know," said she, in a perfectly distinct, but low voice, as we drew +near the bedside,—"I know what made me talk so yesterday.".</p> + +<p>She paused then, and afterwards spoke with difficulty. We all stood +breathless, bending eagerly forward, that not a word might be lost.</p> + +<p>"I know," she repeated, "what it was. 'Twas the earthy principle in +me—which revived—for a moment—at the last—and then put forth all its +strength. Since I have seen David—it seems pleasant—to go. I can't +tell,—you wouldn't understand,—I couldn't, if the separation—hadn't +begun. I'm not wholly here now." And the fixed, strange look in her face +confirmed the words as they fell from her lips.</p> + +<p>She lay for some time very still, breathing every moment fainter and +fainter, but seemingly in no distress.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she started. Her face grew radiant. Her gaze seemed fixed on +some point, thousands and thousands of miles away. Clasping her hands +together, she cried out, joyfully,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, the beautiful home! the beautiful home!"</p> + +<p>'Twas over in an instant. She closed her eyes, turned her head a little +on the pillow, and breathed her life away as softly and peacefully as a +poor tired child sinks away to sleep.</p> + +<p>"And I saw the angels of God ascending and descending," I said, +earnestly. For I felt that one whose spiritual eyes were opened might +certainly do so.</p> + +<p>Late in the afternoon, when the heat of the day was past, I walked out +to the clump of maples on the knoll. Mary Ellen was already there.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said I, sitting down by her side, upon the grass, "we will lay +her here among her friends. And we will place here a white marble +monument."</p> + +<p>"I wish," said Mary Ellen, looking timidly up in my face, "that it could +be in memory of David, too." She said this with tears in her eyes, and +an unsteady voice.</p> + +<p>As I sit writing, I can see from my window the simple white monument, +which Mary Ellen and I planned together. The grass and field-flowers are +growing all about it, and the birds, Emily's birds, are singing in the +branches above. It has only this inscription,—</p> + +<p>"<i>In memory of David and Emily</i>."</p> + +<p>"Six children,—and only one grave to show for all of them!" groaned the +poor old mother, when we first led her out to show her the stone.</p> + +<p>But there was shortly another grave beneath the maples; for the worn-out +old woman soon sank after Emily's death, and with her last breath begged +to be laid by her side.</p> + +<p>Only the old man and Miss Joey left. Still I could not go away. No other +place seemed like home. And besides, I had found out, long ago, my own +secret. It had been revealed to me, day by day, as I watched Mary Ellen +in the sick-room of Emily,—as I observed her patience, her sweetness, +her tenderness!</p> + +<p>And my secret came upon me with an overwhelming power. But I mastered +it. I kept it to myself. That is, as far as words were concerned. For +the expression of his face, for involuntary glances, no man can be held +responsible.</p> + +<p>I kept it to myself,—or tried to do so; for I wasn't sure—of anything. +Emily's words, "I fear," came to me with deep meaning. For, if the +goodness of David, if the fascinations of Warren Luce had effected +nothing, what could I hope?</p> + +<p>And was I sure about this last, about<a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a> Warren? He was in the place. +Emily's sickness only had kept him away. I reviewed myself to myself, +overhauled whatever virtues or failings I knew of as belonging to me.</p> + +<p>Nothing very satisfactory resulted. But I remembered what the old man +said to Miss Joey, "Love'll go where 'tis sent," and took courage. Eight +or ten years older. I wonder if she would mind that?</p> + +<p>Day after day passed, and my secret still burned within me. It must +shine out of my eyes, I thought. But then, since Emily's death, I had +seen Mary Ellen much less frequently. She kept mostly with her mother, +on their own side of the house.</p> + +<p>But the time that was foreordained from the beginning of the world for +the bursting-forth of my secret came at last.</p> + +<p>It was a month after Emily's death. I happened to come home in the +evening unusually early. 'Twas exactly such a night as the one on which +I tried to sound the depths of a young girl's heart, and failed. If she +would only come out in the moonlight again, and let me try once more!</p> + +<p>As I passed the orchard, my heart gave a great leap, for she was +there,—she and Miss Joey, carrying in a great basket of apples. I +seized her side of the basket with one hand, and with the other grasped +hers so earnestly that she fairly started: I was so glad to see her!</p> + +<p>I led her along to the house, and then led her back, until we came to +the same little step on the fence,—with full faith, now, that it would +be given me in this hour what to say.</p> + +<p>I seated her exactly as she was before, with the moon shining full in +her face. Then I took my stand, leaning against the fence, just the +same. How beautiful she was in the moonlight!</p> + +<p>"And is there anybody," said I, as if continuing the conversation, "that +you do love as Jane did?"</p> + +<p>My voice, though, was far less steady than at the other time.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Turner," she exclaimed, starting up, with flashing eyes and glowing +cheeks, "you've no right to ask me such a question!"</p> + +<p>That blushing by moonlight! It was too much to be endured with calmness. +I felt myself giving way before it.</p> + +<p>But I sha'n't tell any more. It's no sign, because a man opens his +heart, that he should let everything drop out of it.</p> + +<p>If those interested know, that, at my earnest request, she gave me the +right to ask not only that question, but others which would naturally +follow, they know enough.</p> + +<p>I would willingly tell them, though, if our English language had a few +thousand words added to it, how delightful it was to know that this +sweet wild-rose had been blossoming for me, that our singing-bird had +been singing for me! I am willing to tell, too, how foolish I felt, when +the deceitfulness of the human heart, of my own human heart, became +apparent; when I found that I had been loving for myself, while I +thought I was loving for David,—that I had been jealous for myself, and +not for him; when I found that I had been studying my chapter, without +regarding the notes underneath.</p> + +<p>And being at last put upon the right track, I found it taking me a long +way backwards. It took me away to the beginning, when Mary Ellen first +came across the entry, and showed me that then and there the arrow was +sped, and love went where it was sent. I had misgivings, even, of having +taken a portion of the dark liquid in the little bottle. I could +perceive the drawing of the "chain," and almost feel the "lassoo" about +my neck.</p> + +<p>"Lawyer, indeed! And wonderfully sharp at cross-questioning, when you +couldn't draw a secret from a woman! Lawyer, indeed! Of great +penetration, that couldn't read a young girl's heart, when it lay open +before you,—that couldn't read your own! You'd better give up the +profession, and go to painting. That suits you better. Beauty is your +chief delight, after all. Not only <a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>beauty of face, but beauty of +everything under the sun. Go sit in your crotch among the green boughs +and paint landscapes!"</p> + +<p>It was full four years ago that I thus inveighed against myself, and +just about a year from the time when I took up the moonlight talk where +it had been left off, and finished it so charmingly. We two were taking +a long stroll together, and had been making our mutual confessions,—our +man-and-wife confessions.</p> + +<p>My innocent little country-girl turned her sweet face up to mine with a +doubtful expression, a comically wise look, and said, a little +anxiously,—</p> + +<p>"Do you think it will pay?"</p> + +<p>Oh, she's a capital wife! She has beauty and sweetness and exquisite +taste and simplicity and loving-kindness, with just enough worldliness +to take all these charming qualities safely along through life.</p> + +<p>Hear how wisely she discusses the "coquette" question.</p> + +<p>Says she,—"I think it's natural for all women to want to please all +men. I believe that the very best and wisest woman in the world is +affected by flattery from a handsome man who knows how to flatter. Very +likely this might be put the other way about, but then in books that +side is usually left out. But what you, Mr. Landscape-painter, would +like to know is, whether I coquetted with the Doctor's boy. And I will +own that I tried to please him. I liked to have him think I was pretty. +I can't think what it was about him that had such power over me. I +tremble now to think what might have been, if—And just think what a +whole life would be with such a person! I don't believe, though, any +girl could have withstood him, unless her heart—I believe I should +certainly have loved him, if"—</p> + +<p>"If what, and unless what?" I asked, drawing her close up to me, as if +that dangerous youth had still power to take her from me.</p> + +<p>She looked up so roguishly,—</p> + +<p>"You ought to know; you took the chapter to study."</p> + + +<p>Oh, my innocent little country-girl! If I were a poet, I'd write a song +in your praise; and if I were a musician, I'd set it to music. But the +poetry is in my heart; and 'tis set to music there.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SWEET-BRIER" id="SWEET-BRIER"></a>SWEET-BRIER.</h2> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tender of words should singer be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sweet-Brier, who would tell of thee;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One who has drunk with eager lip</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And treasured thy companionship;</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One who has sought thee far and wide,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In early dew, with morning pride;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To whom thou art no new-made friend,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whose memories on thy breath attend.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For such thou art a lemon-grove,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where wandering orient odors rove,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet loyal ever to thy home,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The valley where the north winds roam.</span><br /><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sometimes I would call thee mine;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But sweeter far than <i>mine</i> or <i>thine</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To listen unto Nature's song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saying, To lovers all belong.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I love thee for my greenest days</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rescued from Time at thy sweet gaze,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For pictures brilliant as the Spring</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brought back upon thy breathing wing.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I love thee for thy influence,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Heart-honey, without impotence;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who would reach thy virgin blush,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like warrior bold, must dangers crush.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chiefly I love thee for thyself,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wealth-giver, ignorant of pelf;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fain would I learn thy upright ways</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And heart thus redolent of praise.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="HOUSE_AND_HOME_PAPERS" id="HOUSE_AND_HOME_PAPERS"></a>HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.</h2> + +<h3>BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.</h3> + +<h4>VIII.</h4> + +<h4>ECONOMY.</h4> + + +<p>"The fact is," said Jennie, as she twirled a little hat on her hand, +which she had been making over, with, nobody knows what of bows and +pompons, and other matters for which the women have curious names,—"the +fact is, American women and girls must learn to economize; it isn't +merely restricting one's self to American goods, it is general economy, +that is required. Now here's this hat,—costs me only three dollars, all +told; and Sophie Page bought an English one this morning at Madame +Meyer's for which she gave fifteen. And I really don't think hers has +more of an air than mine. I made this over, you see, with things I had +in the house, bought nothing but the ribbon, and paid for altering and +pressing, and there you see what a stylish hat I have!"</p> + +<p>"Lovely! admirable!" said Miss Featherstone. "Upon my word, Jennie, you +ought to marry a poor parson; you would be quite thrown away upon a rich +man."</p> + +<p>"Let me see," said I. "I want to admire intelligently. That isn't the +hat you were wearing yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, papa! This is just done. The one I wore yesterday was my +waterfall-hat, with the green feather; this, you see, is an oriole."</p> + +<p>"A what?"</p> + +<p>"An oriole. Papa, how can you expect to learn about these things?"</p> + +<p>"And that plain little black one, with the stiff crop of scarlet +feathers sticking straight up?"</p> + +<p>"That's my jockey, papa, with a plume <i>en militaire</i>."</p> + +<p>"And did the waterfall and the jockey cost anything?"</p> + +<p>"They were very, very cheap, papa, <a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>considering. Miss Featherstone will +remember that the waterfall was a great bargain, and I had the feather +from last year; and as to the jockey, that was made out of my last +year's white one, dyed over. You know, papa, I always take care of my +things, and they last from year to year."</p> + +<p>"I do assure you, Mr. Crowfield," said Miss Featherstone, "I never saw +such little economists as your daughters; it is perfectly wonderful what +they contrive to dress on. How they manage to do it I'm sure I can't +see. I never could, I'm convinced."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Jennie, "I've bought but just one new hat. I only wish you +could sit in church where we do, and see those Miss Fielders. Marianne +and I have counted six new hats apiece of those girls',—<i>new</i>, you +know, just out of the milliner's shop; and last Sunday they came out in +such lovely puffed tulle bonnets! Weren't they lovely, Marianne? And +next Sunday, I don't doubt, there'll be something else."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Miss Featherstone,—"their father, they say, has made a +million dollars lately on Government contracts."</p> + +<p>"For my part," said Jennie, "I think such extravagance, at such a time +as this, is shameful."</p> + +<p>"Do you know," said I, "that I'm quite sure the Misses Fielder think +they are practising rigorous economy?"</p> + +<p>"Papa! Now there you are with your paradoxes! How can you say so?"</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't be afraid to bet a pair of gloves, now," said I, "that Miss +Fielder thinks herself half ready for translation, because she has +bought only six new hats and a tulle bonnet so far in the season. If it +were not for her dear bleeding country, she would have had thirty-six, +like the Misses Sibthorpe. If we were admitted to the secret councils of +the Fielders, doubtless we should perceive what temptations they daily +resist; how perfectly rubbishy and dreadful they suffer themselves to +be, because they feel it important now, in this crisis, to practise +economy; how they abuse the Sibthorpes, who have a new hat every time +they drive out, and never think of wearing one more than two or three +times; how virtuous and self-denying they feel, when they think of the +puffed tulle, for which they only gave eighteen dollars, when Madame +Caradori showed them those lovely ones, like the Misses Sibthorpe's, for +forty-five; and how they go home descanting on virgin simplicity, and +resolving that they will not allow themselves to be swept into the +vortex of extravagance, whatever other people may do."</p> + +<p>"Do you know," said Miss Featherstone, "I believe your papa is right? I +was calling on the oldest Miss Fielder the other day, and she told me +that she positively felt ashamed to go looking as she did, but that she +really did feel the necessity of economy. 'Perhaps we might afford to +spend more than some others,' she said; 'but it's so much better to give +the money to the Sanitary Commission!'"</p> + +<p>"Furthermore," said I, "I am going to put forth another paradox, and say +that very likely there are some people looking on my girls, and +commenting on them for extravagance in having three hats, even though +made over, and contrived from last year's stock."</p> + +<p>"They can't know anything about it, then," said Jennie, decisively; +"for, certainly, nobody can be decent, and invest less in millinery than +Marianne and I do."</p> + +<p>"When I was a young lady," said my wife, "a well-dressed girl got her a +new bonnet in the spring, and another in the fall;—that was the extent +of her purchases in this line. A second-best bonnet, left of last year, +did duty to relieve and preserve the best one. My father was accounted +well-to-do, but I had no more, and wanted no more. I also, bought +myself, every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and a light pair, and +wore them through the summer, and another two through the winter; one or +two pair of white kids, carefully cleaned, carried me through all my +parties. Hats had not been heard of, and the great necessity which +requires two or three new <a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>ones every spring and fall had not arisen. +Yet I was reckoned a well-appearing girl, who dressed liberally. Now, a +young lady who has a waterfall-hat, an oriole-hat, and a jockey, must +still be troubled with anxious cares for her spring and fall and summer +and winter bonnets,—all the variety will not take the place of them. +Gloves are bought by the dozen; and as to dresses, there seems to be no +limit to the quantity of material and trimming that may be expended upon +them. When I was a young lady, seventy-five dollars a year was +considered by careful parents a liberal allowance for a daughter's +wardrobe. I had a hundred, and was reckoned rich; and I sometimes used a +part to make up the deficiencies in the allowance of Sarah Evans, my +particular friend, whose father gave her only fifty. We all thought that +a very scant pattern; yet she generally made a very pretty and genteel +appearance, with the help of occasional presents from friends."</p> + +<p>"How could a girl dress for fifty dollars?" said Marianne.</p> + +<p>"She could get a white muslin and a white cambric, which, with different +sortings of ribbons, served her for all dress-occasions. A silk, in +those days, took only ten yards in the making, and one dark silk was +considered a reasonable allowance to a lady's wardrobe. Once made, it +stood for something,—always worn carefully, it lasted for years. One or +two calico morning-dresses, and a merino for winter wear, completed the +list. Then, as to collars, capes, cuffs, etc., we all did our own +embroidering, and very pretty things we wore, too. Girls looked as +pretty then as they do now, when four or five hundred dollars a year is +insufficient to clothe them."</p> + +<p>"But, mamma, you know our allowance isn't anything like that,—it is +quite a slender one, though not so small as yours was," said Marianne. +"Don't you think the customs of society make a difference? Do you think, +as things are, we could go back and dress for the sum you did?"</p> + +<p>"You cannot," said my wife, "without a greater sacrifice of feeling than +I wish to impose on you. Still, though I don't see how to help it, I +cannot but think that the requirements of fashion are becoming +needlessly extravagant, particularly in regard to the dress of women. It +seems to me, it is making the support of families so burdensome that +young men are discouraged from marriage. A young man, in a moderately +good business, might cheerfully undertake the world with a wife who +could make herself pretty and attractive for seventy-five dollars a +year, when he might sigh in vain for one who positively could not get +through, and be decent, on four hundred. Women, too, are getting to be +so attached to the trappings and accessories of life, that they cannot +think of marriage without an amount of fortune which few young men +possess."</p> + +<p>"You are talking in very low numbers about the dress of women," said +Miss Featherstone. "I do assure you that it is the easiest thing in the +world for a girl to make away with a thousand dollars a year, and not +have so much to show for it either as Marianne and Jennie."</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said I. "Only establish certain formulas of expectation, +and it is the easiest thing in the world. For instance, in your mother's +day girls talked of a pair of gloves,—now they talk of a pack; then it +was a bonnet summer and winter,—now it is a bonnet spring, summer, +autumn, and winter, and hats like monthly roses,—a new blossom every +few weeks."</p> + +<p>"And then," said my wife, "every device of the toilet is immediately +taken up and varied and improved on, so as to impose an almost monthly +necessity for novelty. The jackets of May are outshone by the jackets of +June; the buttons of June are antiquated in July; the trimmings of July +are <i>passées</i> by September; side-combs, back-combs, puffs, rats, and all +sorts of such matters, are in a distracted race of improvement; every +article of feminine toilet is on the move towards perfection. It seems +to me that an infinity of money must be spent in these <a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>trifles, by +those who make the least pretension to keep in the fashion."</p> + +<p>"Well, papa," said Jennie, "after all, it's just the way things always +have been since the world began. You know the Bible says, 'Can a maid +forget her ornaments?' It's clear she can't. You see, it's a law of +Nature; and you remember all that long chapter in the Bible that we had +read in church last Sunday, about the curls and veils and tinkling +ornaments and crimping-pins, and all that. Women always have been too +much given to dress, and they always will be."</p> + +<p>"The thing is," said Marianne, "how can any woman, I, for example, know +what is too much or too little? In mamma's day, it seems, a girl could +keep her place in society, by hard economy, and spend only fifty dollars +a year on her dress. Mamma found a hundred dollars ample. I have more +than that, and find myself quite straitened to keep myself looking well. +I don't want to live for dress, to give all my time and thoughts to it; +I don't wish to be extravagant; and yet I wish to be lady-like; it +annoys and makes me unhappy not to be fresh and neat and nice; +shabbiness and seediness are my aversion. I don't see where the fault +is. Can one individual resist the whole current of society? It certainly +is not strictly necessary for us girls to have half the things we do. We +might, I suppose, live without many of them, and, as mamma says, look +just as well, because girls did before these things were invented. Now, +I confess, I flatter myself, generally, that I am a pattern of good +management and economy, because I get so much less than other girls I go +with. I wish you could see Miss Thorne's fall dresses that she showed me +last year when she was visiting here. She had six gowns, and no one of +them could have cost less than seventy or eighty dollars, and some of +them must have been even more expensive; and yet I don't doubt that this +fall she will feel that she must have just as many more. She runs +through and wears out these expensive things, with all their velvet and +thread lace, just as I wear my commonest ones; and at the end of the +season they are really gone,—spotted, stained, frayed, the lace all +pulled to pieces,—nothing left to save or make over. I feel as if +Jennie and I were patterns of economy, when I see such things. I really +don't know what economy is. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"There is the same difficulty in my housekeeping," said my wife. "I +think I am an economist. I mean to be one. All our expenses are on a +modest scale, and yet I can see much that really is not strictly +necessary; but if I compare myself with some of my neighbors, I feel as +if I were hardly respectable. There is no subject on which all the world +are censuring one another so much as this. Hardly any one but thinks her +neighbors extravagant in some one or more particulars, and takes for +granted that she herself is an economist."</p> + +<p>"I'll venture to say," said I, "that there isn't a woman of my +acquaintance that does not think she is an economist."</p> + +<p>"Papa is turned against us women, like all the rest of them," said +Jennie. "I wonder if it isn't just so with the men?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Marianne, "it's the fashion to talk as if all the +extravagance of the country was perpetrated by women. For my part, I +think young men are just as extravagant. Look at the sums they spend for +cigars and pipes,—an expense which hasn't even the pretence of +usefulness in any way; it's a purely selfish, nonsensical indulgence. +When a girl spends money in making herself look pretty, she contributes +something to the agreeableness of society; but a man's cigars and pipes +are neither ornamental nor useful."</p> + +<p>"Then look at their dress," said Jennie; "they are to the full as fussy +and particular about it as girls; they have as many fine, invisible +points of fashion, and their fashions change quite as often; and they +have just as many knick-knacks, with their studs and their +sleeve-buttons and waistcoat-buttons, their scarfs and scarf-pins, their +watch-chains and seals and seal-rings, and nobody <a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>knows what. Then they +often waste and throw away more than women, because they are not good +judges of material, nor saving in what they buy, and have no knowledge +of how things should be cared for, altered, or mended. If their cap is a +little too tight, they cut the lining with a penknife, or slit holes in +a new shirt-collar, because it does not exactly fit to their mind. For +my part, I think men are naturally twice as wasteful as women. A pretty +thing, to be sure, to have all the waste of the country laid to us!"</p> + +<p>"You are right, child," said I; "women are by nature, as compared with +men, the care-taking and saving part of creation,—the authors and +conservators of economy. As a general rule, man earns and woman saves +and applies. The wastefulness of woman is commonly the fault of man."</p> + +<p>"I don't see into that," said Bob Stephens.</p> + +<p>"In this way. Economy is the science of proportion. Whether a particular +purchase is extravagant depends mainly on the income it is taken from. +Suppose a woman has a hundred and fifty a year for her dress, and gives +fifty dollars for a bonnet; she gives a third of her income;—it is a +horrible extravagance, while for the woman whose income is ten thousand +it may be no extravagance at all. The poor clergyman's wife, when she +gives five dollars for a bonnet, may be giving as much, in proportion to +her income, as the woman who gives fifty. Now the difficulty with the +greater part of women is, that the men who make the money and hold it +give them no kind of standard by which to measure their expenses. Most +women and girls are in this matter entirely at sea, without chart or +compass. They don't know in the least what they have to spend. Husbands +and fathers often pride themselves about not saying a word on +business-matters to their wives and daughters. They don't wish them to +understand them, or to inquire into them, or to make remarks or +suggestions concerning them. 'I want you to have everything that is +suitable and proper,' says Jones to his wife, 'but don't be +extravagant.'</p> + +<p>"'But, my dear,' says Mrs. Jones, 'what is suitable and proper depends +very much on our means; if you could allow me any specific sum for dress +and housekeeping, I could tell better.'</p> + +<p>"'Nonsense, Susan! I can't do that,—it's too much trouble. Get what you +need, and avoid foolish extravagances; that's all I ask.'</p> + +<p>"By-and-by Mrs. Jones's bills are sent in, in an evil hour, when Jones +has heavy notes to meet, and then comes a domestic storm.</p> + +<p>"'I shall just be ruined, Madam, if that's the way you are going on. I +can't afford to dress you and the girls in the style you have set +up;—look at this milliner's bill!'</p> + +<p>"'I assure you,' says Mrs. Jones, 'we haven't got any more than the +Stebbinses,—nor so much.'</p> + +<p>"'Don't you know that the Stebbinses are worth five times as much as +ever I was?'</p> + +<p>"No, Mrs. Jones did not know it;—how should she, when her husband makes +it a rule never to speak of his business to her, and she has not the +remotest idea of his income?</p> + +<p>"Thus multitudes of good conscientious women and girls are extravagant +from pure ignorance. The male provider allows bills to be run up in his +name, and they have no earthly means of judging whether they are +spending too much or too little, except the semi-annual hurricane which +attends the coming in of these bills.</p> + +<p>"The first essential in the practice of economy is a knowledge of one's +income, and the man who refuses to accord to his wife and children this +information has never any right to accuse them of extravagance, because +he himself deprives them of that standard of comparison which is an +indispensable requisite in economy. As early as possible in the +education of children they should pass from that state of irresponsible +waiting <a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>to be provided for by parents, and be trusted with the spending +of some fixed allowance, that they may learn prices and values, and have +some notion of what money is actually worth and what it will bring. The +simple fact of the possession of a fixed and definite income often +suddenly transforms a giddy, extravagant girl into a care-taking, +prudent little woman. Her allowance is her own; she begins to plan upon +it,—to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and do numberless sums in her +little head. She no longer buys everything she fancies; she deliberates, +weighs, compares. And now there is room for self-denial and generosity +to come in. She can do without this article; she can furbish up some +older possession to do duty a little longer, and give this money to some +friend poorer than she; and ten to one the girl whose bills last year +were four or five hundred finds herself bringing through this year +creditably on a hundred and fifty. To be sure, she goes without numerous +things which she used to have. From the stand-point of a fixed income +she sees that these are impossible, and no more wants them than the +green cheese of the moon. She learns to make her own taste and skill +take the place of expensive purchases. She refits her hats and bonnets, +retrims her dresses, and in a thousand busy, earnest, happy little ways, +sets herself to make the most of her small income.</p> + +<p>"So the woman who has her definite allowance for housekeeping finds at +once a hundred questions set at rest. Before, it was not clear to her +why she should not 'go and do likewise' in relation to every purchase +made by her next neighbor. Now, there is a clear logic of proportion. +Certain things are evidently not to be thought of, though next neighbors +do have them; and we must resign ourselves to find some other way of +living."</p> + +<p>"My dear," said my wife, "I think there is a peculiar temptation in a +life organized as ours is in America. There are here no settled classes, +with similar ratios of income. Mixed together in the same society, going +to the same parties, and blended in daily neighborly intercourse, are +families of the most opposite extremes in point of fortune. In England +there is a very well understood expression, that people should not dress +or live above their station; in America none will admit that they have +any particular station, or that they can live above it. The principle of +democratic equality unites in society people of the most diverse +positions and means.</p> + +<p>"Here, for instance, is a family like Dr. Selden's, an old and highly +respected one, with an income of only two or three thousand,—yet they +are people universally sought for in society, and mingle in all the +intercourse of life with merchant-millionnaires whose incomes are from +ten to thirty thousand. Their sons and daughters go to the same schools, +the same parties, and are thus constantly meeting upon terms of social +equality.</p> + +<p>"Now it seems to me that our danger does not lie in the great and +evident expenses of our richer friends. We do not expect to have +pineries, graperies, equipages, horses, diamonds,—we say openly and of +course that we do not. Still, our expenses are constantly increased by +the proximity of these things, unless we understand ourselves better +than most people do. We don't, of course, expect to get a +fifteen-hundred-dollar Cashmere, like Mrs. So-and-so, but we begin to +look at hundred-dollar shawls and nibble about the hook. We don't expect +sets of diamonds, but a diamond ring, a pair of solitaire diamond +ear-rings, begins to be speculated about among the young people as among +possibilities. We don't expect to carpet our house with Axminster and +hang our windows with damask, but at least we must have Brussels and +brocatelle,—it <i>would not do</i> not to. And so we go on getting hundreds +of things that we don't need, that have no real value except that they +soothe our self-love,—and for these inferior articles we pay a higher +proportion of our income than our rich <a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>neighbor does for his better +ones. Nothing is uglier than low-priced Cashmere shawls; and yet a young +man just entering business will spend an eighth of a year's income to +put one on his wife, and when he has put it there it only serves as a +constant source of disquiet,—for now that the door is opened, and +Cashmere shawls are possible, she is consumed with envy at the superior +ones constantly sported around her. So also with point-lace, velvet +dresses, and hundreds of things of that sort, which belong to a certain +rate of income, and are absurd below it."</p> + +<p>"And yet, mamma, I heard Aunt Easygo say that velvet, point-lace, and +Cashmere were the cheapest finery that could be bought, because they +lasted a lifetime."</p> + +<p>"Aunt Easygo speaks from an income of ten thousand a year; they may be +cheap for her rate of living,—but for us, for example, by no magic of +numbers can it be made to appear that it is cheaper to have the greatest +bargain in the world in Cashmere, lace, and diamonds, than not to have +them at all. I never had a diamond, never wore a piece of point-lace, +never had a velvet dress, and have been perfectly happy, and just as +much respected as if I had. Who ever thought of objecting to me for not +having them? Nobody, as I ever heard."</p> + +<p>"Certainly not, mamma," said Marianne.</p> + +<p>"The thing I have always said to you girls is, that you were not to +expect to live like richer people, not to begin to try, not to think or +inquire about certain rates of expenditure, or take the first step in +certain directions. We have moved on all our life after a very +antiquated and old-fashioned mode. We have had our little old-fashioned +house, our little old-fashioned ways."</p> + +<p>"Except the parlor-carpet, and what came of it, my dear," said I, +mischievously.</p> + +<p>"Yes, except the parlor-carpet," said my wife, with a conscious twinkle, +"and the things that came of it; there was a concession there, but one +can't be wise always."</p> + +<p>"<i>We</i> talked mamma into that," said Jennie.</p> + +<p>"But one thing is certain," said my wife,—"that, though I have had an +antiquated, plain house, and plain furniture, and plain dress, and not +the beginning of a thing such as many of my neighbors have possessed, I +have spent more money than many of them for real comforts. While I had +young children, I kept more and better servants than many women who wore +Cashmeres and diamonds. I thought it better to pay extra wages to a +really good, trusty woman who lived with me from year to year, and +relieved me of some of my heaviest family-cares, than to have ever so +much lace locked away in my drawers. We always were able to go into the +country to spend our summers, and to keep a good family-horse and +carriage for daily driving,—by which means we afforded, as a family, +very poor patronage to the medical profession. Then we built our house, +and while we left out a great many expensive commonplaces that other +people think they must have, we put in a profusion of +bathing-accommodations such as very few people think of having. There +never was a time when we did not feel able to afford to do what was +necessary to preserve or to restore health; and for this I always drew +on the surplus fund laid up by my very unfashionable housekeeping and +dressing."</p> + +<p>"Your mother has had," said I, "what is the great want in America, +perfect independence of mind to go her own way without regard to the way +others go. I think there is, for some reason, more false shame among +Americans about economy than among Europeans. 'I cannot afford it' is +more seldom heard among us. A young man beginning life, whose income may +be from five to eight hundred a year, thinks it elegant and gallant to +affect a careless air about money, especially among ladies,—to hand it +out freely, and put back his change without counting it,—to wear a +watch-chain and <a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>studs and shirt-fronts like those of some young +millionnaire. None but the most expensive tailors, shoemakers, and +hatters will do for him; and then he grumbles at the dearness of living, +and declares that he cannot get along on his salary. The same is true of +young girls, and of married men and women too,—the whole of them are +ashamed of economy. The cares that wear out life and health in many +households are of a nature that cannot be cast on God, or met by any +promise from the Bible,—it is not care for 'food convenient,' or for +comfortable raiment, but care to keep up false appearances, and to +stretch a narrow income over the space that can be covered only by a +wider one.</p> + +<p>"The poor widow in her narrow lodgings, with her monthly rent staring +her hourly in the face, and her bread and meat and candles and meal all +to be paid for on delivery or not obtained at all, may find comfort in +the good old Book, reading of that other widow whose wasting measure of +oil and last failing handful of meal were of such account before her +Father in heaven that a prophet was sent to recruit them; and when +customers do not pay, or wages are cut down, she can enter into her +chamber, and when she hath shut her door, present to her Father in +heaven His sure promise that with the fowls of the air she shall be fed +and with the lilies of the field she shall be clothed: but what promises +are there for her who is racking her brains on the ways and means to +provide as sumptuous an entertainment of oysters and Champagne at her +next party as her richer neighbor, or to compass that great bargain +which shall give her a point-lace set almost as handsome as that of Mrs. +Croesus, who has ten times her income?"</p> + +<p>"But, papa," said Marianne, with a twinge of that exacting sensitiveness +by which the child is characterized, "I think I am an economist, thanks +to you and mamma, so far as knowing just what my income is, and keeping +within it; but that does not satisfy me, and it seems that isn't all of +economy;—the question that haunts me is, Might I not make my little all +do more and better than I do?"</p> + +<p>"There," said I, "you have hit the broader and deeper signification of +economy, which is, in fact, the science of <i>comparative values.</i> In its +highest sense, economy is a just judgment of the comparative value of +things,—money only the means of enabling one to express that value. +This is the reason why the whole matter is so full of difficulty,—why +every one criticizes his neighbor in this regard. Human beings are so +various, the necessities of each are so different, they are made +comfortable or uncomfortable by such opposite means, that the spending +of other people's incomes must of necessity often look unwise from our +stand-point. For this reason multitudes of people who cannot be accused +of exceeding their incomes often seem to others to be spending them +foolishly and extravagantly."</p> + +<p>"But is there no standard of value?" said Marianne.</p> + +<p>"There are certain things upon which there is a pretty general +agreement, verbally at least, among mankind. For instance, it is +generally agreed that <i>health</i> is an indispensable good,—that money is +well spent that secures it, and worse than ill spent that ruins it.</p> + +<p>"With this standard in mind, how much money is wasted even by people who +do not exceed their income! Here a man builds a house, and pays, in the +first place, ten thousand more than he need, for a location in a +fashionable part of the city, though the air will be closer and the +chances of health less; he spends three or four thousand more on a stone +front, on marble mantels imported from Italy, on plate-glass windows, +plated hinges, and a thousand nice points of finish, and has perhaps but +one bathroom for a whole household, and that so connected with his own +apartment that nobody but himself and his wife can use it.</p> + +<p>"Another man buys a lot in an open, airy situation, which fashion has +not made <a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>expensive, and builds without a stone front, marble mantels, +or plate-glass windows, but has a perfect system of ventilation through +his house, and bathing-rooms in every story, so that the children and +guests may all, without inconvenience, enjoy the luxury of abundant +water.</p> + +<p>"The first spends for fashion and show, the second for health and +comfort.</p> + +<p>"Here is a man that will buy his wife a diamond bracelet and a lace +shawl, and take her yearly to Washington to show off her beauty in +ball-dresses, who yet will not let her pay wages which will command any +but the poorest and most inefficient domestic service. The woman is worn +out, her life made a desert by exhaustion consequent on a futile attempt +to keep up a showy establishment with only half the hands needed for the +purpose. Another family will give brilliant parties, have a gay season +every year at the first hotels at Newport, and not be able to afford the +wife a fire in her chamber in midwinter, or the servants enough food to +keep them from constantly deserting. The damp, mouldy, dingy +cellar-kitchen, the cold, windy, desolate attic, devoid of any comfort, +where the domestics are doomed to pass their whole time, are witnesses +to what such families consider economy. Economy in the view of some is +undisguised slipshod slovenliness in the home-circle for the sake of +fine clothes to be shown abroad; it is undisguised hard selfishness to +servants and dependents, counting their every approach to comfort a +needless waste,—grudging the Roman-Catholic cook her cup of tea at +dinner on Friday, when she must not eat meat,—and murmuring that a +cracked, second-hand looking-glass must be got for the servants' room: +what business have they to want to know how they look?</p> + +<p>"Some families will employ the cheapest physician, without regard to his +ability to kill or cure; some will treat diseases in their incipiency +with quack medicines, bought cheap, hoping thereby to fend off the +doctor's bill. Some women seem to be pursued by an evil demon of +economy, which, like an <i>ignis fatuus</i> in a bog, delights constantly to +tumble them over into the mire of expense. They are dismayed at the +quantity of sugar in the recipe for preserves, leave out a quarter, and +the whole ferments and is spoiled. They cannot by any means be induced +at any one time to buy enough silk to make a dress, and the dress +finally, after many convulsions and alterations, must be thrown by +altogether, as too scanty. They get poor needles, poor thread, poor +sugar, poor raisins, poor tea, poor coal. One wonders, in looking at +their blackened, smouldering grates, in a freezing day, what the fire is +there at all for,—it certainly warms nobody. The only thing they seem +likely to be lavish in is funeral expenses, which come in the wake of +leaky shoes and imperfect clothing. These funeral expenses at last +swallow all, since nobody can dispute an undertaker's bill. One pities +these joyless beings. Economy, instead of a rational act of the +judgment, is a morbid monomania, eating the pleasure out of life, and +haunting them to the grave.</p> + +<p>"Some people, again, think that nothing is economical but good eating. +Their flour is of an extra brand, their meat the first cut; the +delicacies of every season, in their dearest stages, come home to their +table with an apologetic smile,—'It was scandalously dear, my love, but +I thought we must just treat ourselves.' And yet these people cannot +afford to buy books, and pictures they regard as an unthought-of +extravagance. Trudging home with fifty dollars' worth of delicacies on +his arm, Smith meets Jones, who is exulting with a bag of crackers under +one arm and a choice little bit of an oil painting under the other, +which he thinks a bargain at fifty dollars. '<i>I</i> can't afford to buy +pictures,' Smith says to his spouse, 'and I don't know bow Jones and his +wife manage.' Jones and his wife will live on bread and milk for a +month, and she will turn her best gown the third time, but they will +have their picture, and they are happy, Jones's picture remains, <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>and +Smith's fifty dollars' worth of oysters and canned fruit to-morrow will +be gone forever. Of all modes of spending money, the swallowing of +expensive dainties brings the least return. There is one step lower than +this,—the consuming of luxuries that are injurious to the health. If +all the money spent on tobacco and liquors could be spent in books and +pictures, I predict that nobody's health would be a whit less sound, and +houses would be vastly more attractive. There is enough money spent in +smoking, drinking, and over-eating to give every family in the community +a good library, to hang everybody's parlor-walls with lovely pictures, +to set up in every house a conservatory which should bloom all winter +with choice flowers, to furnish every dwelling with ample bathing and +warming accommodations, even down to the dwellings of the poor; and in +the Millennium I believe this is the way things are to be.</p> + +<p>"In these times of peril and suffering, if the inquiry arises, How shall +there be retrenchment? I answer, First and foremost retrench things +needless, doubtful, and positively hurtful, as rum, tobacco, and all the +meerschaums of divers colors that do accompany the same. Second, +retrench all eating not necessary to health and comfort. A French family +would live in luxury on the leavings that are constantly coming from the +tables of those who call themselves in middling circumstances. There are +superstitions of the table that ought to be broken through. Why must you +always have cake in your closet? why need you feel undone to entertain a +guest with no cake on your tea-table? Do without it a year, and ask +yourselves if you or your children, or any one else, have suffered +materially in consequence.</p> + +<p>"Why is it imperative that you should have two or three courses at every +meal? Try the experiment of having but one, and that a very good one, +and see if any great amount of suffering ensues. Why must social +intercourse so largely consist in eating? In Paris there is a very +pretty custom. Each family has one evening in the week when it stays at +home and receives friends. Tea, with a little bread and butter and cake, +served in the most informal way, is the only refreshment. The rooms are +full, busy, bright,—everything as easy and joyous as if a monstrous +supper, with piles of jelly and mountains of cake, were waiting to give +the company a nightmare at the close.</p> + +<p>"Said a lady, pointing to a gentleman and his wife in a social circle of +this kind, 'I ought to know them well,—I have seen, them every week for +twenty years.' It is certainly pleasant and confirmative of social +enjoyment for friends to eat together; but a little enjoyed in this way +answers the purpose as well as a great deal, and better too."</p> + +<p>"Well, papa," said Marianne, "in the matter of dress now,—how much +ought one to spend just to look as others do?"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you what I saw the other night, girls, in the parlor of one +of our hotels. Two middle-aged Quaker ladies came gliding in, with calm, +cheerful faces, and lustrous dove-colored silks. By their conversation I +found that they belonged to that class of women among the Friends who +devote themselves to travelling on missions of benevolence. They had +just completed a tour of all the hospitals for wounded soldiers in the +country, where they had been carrying comforts, arranging, advising, and +soothing by their cheerful, gentle presence. They were now engaged on +another mission, to the lost and erring of their own sex; night after +night, guarded by a policeman, they had ventured after midnight into the +dance-houses where girls are being led to ruin, and with gentle words of +tender, motherly counsel sought to win them from their fatal +ways,—telling them where they might go the next day to find friends who +would open to them an asylum and aid them to seek a better life.</p> + +<p>"As I looked upon these women, dressed with such modest purity, I began +secretly to think that the Apostle was not wrong, when he spoke of women +<a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>adorning themselves with the <i>ornament</i> of a meek and quiet spirit; for +the habitual gentleness of their expression, the calmness and purity of +the lines in their faces, the delicacy and simplicity of their apparel, +seemed of themselves a rare and peculiar beauty. I could not help +thinking that fashionable bonnets, flowing lace sleeves, and dresses +elaborately trimmed could not have improved even their outward +appearance. Doubtless, their simple wardrobe needed but a small trunk in +travelling from place to place, and hindered but little their prayers +and ministrations.</p> + +<p>"Now, it is true, all women are not called to such a life as this; but +might not all women take a leaf at least from their book? I submit the +inquiry humbly. It seems to me that there are many who go monthly to the +sacrament, and receive it with sincere devotion, and who give thanks +each time sincerely that they are thus made 'members incorporate in the +mystical body of Christ,' who have never thought of this membership as +meaning that they should share Christ's sacrifices for lost souls, or +abridge themselves of one ornament or encounter one inconvenience for +the sake of those wandering sheep for whom he died. Certainly there is a +higher economy which we need to learn,—that which makes all things +subservient to the spiritual and immortal, and that not merely to the +good of our own souls and those of our family, but of all who are knit +with us in the great bonds of human brotherhood.</p> + +<p>"The Sisters of Charity and the Friends, each with their different +costume of plainness and self-denial, and other noble-hearted women of +no particular outward order, but kindred in spirit, have shown to +womanhood, on the battle-field and in the hospital, a more excellent +way,—a beauty and nobility before which all the common graces and +ornaments of the sex fade, appear like dim candles by the pure, eternal +stars."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_HEART_OF_THE_WAR" id="THE_HEART_OF_THE_WAR"></a>THE HEART OF THE WAR.</h2> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Peace in the clover-scented air,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And stars within the dome;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And underneath, in dim repose,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A plain, New-England home.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Within, a murmur of low tones</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And sighs from hearts oppressed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Merging in prayer, at last, that brings</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The balm of silent rest.</span><br /></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I've closed a hard day's work, Marty,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The evening chores are done;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And you are weary with the house,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And with the little one.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But he is sleeping sweetly now,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With all our pretty brood;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So come and sit upon my knee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And it will do me good.</span><br /><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh, Marty! I must tell you all</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The trouble in my heart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And you mast do the best you can</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To take and bear your part.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You've seen the shadow on my face,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">You've felt it day and night;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For it has filled our little home,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And banished all its light.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I did not mean it should be so,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And yet I might have known</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That hearts that live as close as ours</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Can never keep their own.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But we are fallen on evil times,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And, do whate'er I may,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My heart grows sad about the war,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And sadder every day.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I think about it when I work,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And when I try to rest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And never more than when your head</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Is pillowed on my breast;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For then I see the camp-fires blaze,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And sleeping men around,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who turn their faces toward their homes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And dream upon the ground.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I think about the dear, brave boys,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My mates in other years,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who pine for home and those they love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Till I am choked with tears.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With shouts and cheers they marched away</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On glory's shining track,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But, ah! how long, how long they stay!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How few of them come back!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One sleeps beside the Tennessee,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And one beside the James,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And one fought on a gallant ship</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And perished in its flames.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And some, struck down by fell disease,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are breathing out their life;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And others, maimed by cruel wounds,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Have left the deadly strife.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, Marty! Marty! only think</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of all the boys have done</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And suffered in this weary war!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Brave heroes, every one!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh! often, often in the night,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I hear their voices call:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"<i>Come on and help us! Is it right</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>That we should bear it all</i>?"</span><br /><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when I kneel and try to pray,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My thoughts are never free,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But cling to those who toil and fight</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And die for you and me.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when I pray for victory,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It seems almost a sin</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To fold my hands and ask for what</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I will not help to win.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh! do not cling to me and cry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For it will break my heart;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'm sure you'd rather have me die</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Than not to bear my part.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You think that some should stay at home</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To care for those away;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But still I'm helpless to decide</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If I should go or stay.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For, Marty, all the soldiers love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And all are loved again;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And I am loved, and love, perhaps,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No more than other men.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot tell—I do not know—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which way my duty lies,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or where the Lord would have me build</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My fire of sacrifice.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I feel—I know—I am not mean;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And though I seem to boast,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'm sure that I would give my life</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To those who need it most</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Perhaps the Spirit will reveal</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That which is fair and right;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So, Marty, let us humbly kneel</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And pray to Heaven for light.</span><br /> +</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Peace in the clover-scented air,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And stars within the dome;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And underneath, in dim repose,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A plain, New-England home.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Within, a widow in her weeds,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From whom all joy is flown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who kneels among her sleeping babes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And weeps and prays alone!</span><br /> +</p><p><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="OUR_RECENT_FOREIGN_RELATIONS" id="OUR_RECENT_FOREIGN_RELATIONS"></a>OUR RECENT FOREIGN RELATIONS.</h2> + + +<p>The founders of the American Republic were wise alike in their grasp of +temporary difficulties and in the forethought they bestowed upon the +period of construction which was to come. Before a government was +formed, its necessary elements had attained something of order, much of +efficacy. In the very inception of revolution, the beginning was made of +that elaborate diplomatic system which became the medium by which we +have asserted rights, elicited respect, and received amenities from the +great powers of the earth.</p> + +<p>In the early days of our Revolution, the conduct of the foreign +correspondence was intrusted to the care of a Committee, composed of men +of established reputation for capacity and patriotism. Through their +labors, not only did we receive substantial sympathy from those +unselfish men in the mother-country who discountenanced the hateful +oppression of the crown: France, guided by the generous Vergennes, was +also attracted to our active defence; the independent spirit of the Low +Countries cheered and helped us; Tuscany, inheriting the sentiment of +liberty from Dante and Macchiavelli, extended loans with a liberal hand; +Spain and Portugal rose superior to their traditional bigotry, and sent +us money, ships, and stores. So efficient was our infant system of +diplomacy, that, long before the war had ended, England stood absolutely +without the countenance of a single Continental power, and confronted +boldly by her most ancient and most dreaded enemy. Proudly as she +entered into the conflict with her colonies, she became humbled as well +by the skill with which they attracted monarchies and empires to their +aid as by the valor with which they met her armies. It is hardly to be +doubted that our final success is to be in a great degree attributed to +the excellent diplomacy of Franklin, Lee, and Izard. Certain it is that +their labors vastly accelerated that success. How gigantic those labors +must have been, to bring the representatives and supporters of mediæval +systems of state-craft to countenance not only rebellion, but the +sentiment of republican liberty which rebellion matured, and which +successful revolution was to lay at the foundation of a new government!</p> + +<p>The Confederation, established for the more easy transition to a +permanent system, included almost as its corner-stone a Department of +Foreign Affairs. The duties of the Secretary were confined to the +performance of the specific acts authorized by Congress, at that time at +once the executive and the legislative power,—and consisted chiefly in +the preservation of the papers and records of the office, and conducting +the correspondence with ministers and agents abroad; he had likewise a +seat, but without a vote, in Congress, to give information and answer +inquiries. He was powerless to perform any executive act; he could not +negotiate a treaty; he could not give positive instructions to +ministers; and he was removable at the pleasure of Congress. Under the +Constitution, the duties of the Secretary of State became more +responsible; and the office was recognized as the highest in dignity, +next to the Executive.</p> + +<p>We may attribute our present rank among nations in no little degree to +the conspicuous fitness of our envoys at foreign courts for the peculiar +mission which it was their duty to fulfil, in the first quarter of a +century of our national existence. As soon as the British ministry +recognized the nationality of the United States, it was clear, that, on +the new footing, our relations with the mother-country must of necessity +be more intimate than those with any other nation. To pave the way for +the establishment of such an intercourse, no man could have been more +aptly chosen than John Adams.<a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a> While his high-toned manners opened the +way to favor, his nervous logic followed up the advantage so gracefully +won, and drove home his purpose to its end. Franklin was equally +felicitous in attaching to himself the good-will of the court of +Versailles. Their successors well sustained the respect which they had +inspired; and it was a matter of surprise among the best educated +Europeans that such cultivated and capable men should proceed from a +country which they had thought to be a wilderness, and from a people of +whom they expected only the most flagrant barbarisms.</p> + +<p>That the elevated standard thus set up by our early diplomacy has been +preserved with but little exception is a simple matter of history. We +have been almost uniformly fortunate in the choice of our ministers +abroad, especially those to Great Britain. It is rightly regarded as a +distinction hardly inferior to any in the State, to occupy the post of +Plenipotentiary to St. James's or Versailles,—and this no less because +the incumbent has generally been one of our most honored statesmen than +because of the essential dignity and importance of the office.</p> + +<p>If we consider, in connection with this fact, the persistency with which +the Government has asserted the rights of an equal power, the promptness +with which it has resented every indignity offered to our flag, and the +vigor with which it has enforced in our favor the principles of +international law, it can be no matter of surprise that we should stand, +as we assuredly have stood, second to none in the estimate of our +physical and moral power.</p> + +<p>Starting on a totally new system,—a system which, if successful, would +disprove the universally received dogmas of the political philosophers +of Europe,—running counter to every prejudice and every conclusion of +the Old-World statesmen,—the United States had to work their way +through difficulties innumerable to their present rank, and were forced +to prove their institutions by experience, before they could assume the +dignity of a first-class power.</p> + +<p>When the present Rebellion arose, America had thus far proved the +success of democratic institutions. In military and naval power, in +education, in the administration of justice, in commercial thrift, in +mechanical and agricultural enterprise, in the development of the +national resources, the progress had been steady and rapid. The +politicians of Europe had been amazed to find that their unanimous +prediction of the frailty of our political system had totally failed. +The idea of a political centre combined with separate State +organizations was as firmly fixed as ever. The General Government +wielded an undiminished power in aid of the general good; the local +Legislatures controlled, within the original limits, local interests. +The people had suffered no curtailment of their liberties from the +delegation of political power; the executive had not been weakened +either by the accession of new States or the disaffection of old ones. +The most philosophic of the English statesmen had predicted again and +again that one of these alternatives must occur,—but they had begun to +doubt their own theories, and wellnigh confessed that our institutions +were a success. It was difficult for them to conceive that an entirely +novel frame of government, deriving its genius from an idea, and +regardless of precedent, could live to shame a system which had received +the sanction of centuries of success, which was seemingly Providential +in its stability, which had everywhere superseded every other form, +which had absorbed into itself the elements of all other systems. Our +Government was an anomaly; as such, there were ten chances to one +against it. And now, the Englishman who, above all others, is, on both +sides of the Atlantic, regarded as the ablest of modern political +theorists, has in a series of papers triumphantly vindicated the wisdom +of the founders of this Republic, and placed in the clearest logical +sequence the origin and tendency of our institutions. Every American +feels gratitude and reverence toward John Stuart Mill, who, in the +disinterestedness and <a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>courage of a great mind, has led the honest +opinion of England to appreciate at its value the system in which our +reason and our feelings are alike bound up.</p> + +<p>The confident belief, that an unusual strain on the supposed weak points +of the Federal Constitution would involve it in the fate of the Cromwell +dynasty and the French Revolution had begun to sleep, at the time of the +Secession movement, and but one ray of hope yet remained to the enemies +of republican government. They watched Slavery with an anxious eye. +There was their only chance. In that they saw the apple of discord which +might destroy our Union. They observed with exultation the increasing +influence of those who warred upon slavery in the North, and the +increasing insolence of those who would nationalize it in the South. On +this ground State and Federal authority must, they thought, come in +conflict. And as far as foresight could avail them, they had some reason +to be encouraged. That question has always been, without doubt, our +greatest, almost our only danger.</p> + +<p>There is reason to believe, then, that, when the Rebellion broke out, +the theorists of Europe deemed the test to have come, and that the final +success or failure of the Federal Constitution was staked on the result. +The people of the United States have been willing to accept that issue. +We have been ready to test the doctrines of Democracy by the +practicability of maintaining the Union, and to demonstrate, that, if +need be, the General Government may receive at the hands of the people +greater strength without endangering either their liberties or the order +of law.</p> + +<p>The diplomatic correspondence between the State Department and our +ministers to foreign powers during the present contest is contained in +two large volumes, published by the Government, which are full of +valuable matter. In the limited space permitted us, but little more than +a general survey of this correspondence can be attempted; and as our +relations with England far exceed all others in closeness and +interest,—a striking proof of which is found in the fact that the room +occupied in these volumes by communications with that country is greater +than that given to all the world besides,—we mainly confine ourselves +to the portion which regards her.</p> + +<p>England stands in the somewhat anomalous attitude of being to us the +champion of the old monarchical principle, and to Europe the champion of +Anglo-Saxon progress; so that the <i>dicta</i> of her thinkers (those who +have opposed our Republic) may be regarded as the best thought of the +most enlightened monarchists in the world. As the ministry are obliged, +however unwillingly, to represent as well the popular as the +aristocratic ideas, through them there comes to us a pretty correct +exposition of the different opinions entertained by all classes. We may +regard two facts as well established, one leading out of the +other,—that England has ever been, and is, the most selfish of +nationalities, and that she does not desire the prosperity of any power +which may become a rival. With her politicians and her philosophers, +Tory and Whig, Churchmen and Dissenters, the ascendancy of Great Britain +has lain at the bottom of every policy, and has been the postulate of +every theory. Her history is that of a nationality eager to attain the +distinction of the first of powers. This fact, and this alone, can +reconcile the apparent inconsistencies of her record. At one time the +bold accuser of Despotism, she has with marvellous celerity turned to +the inthralment of oppressed races. Maxim has superseded maxim, until +her code of international law is a bewildering complication of anomaly +and contradiction. To humble her rivals by every means, and to encourage +the efforts of a people striving for freedom only when decided advantage +would accrue to herself, has been her constant policy. This is true of +the general tone of her successive cabinets, of <a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a>the press, and of those +politicians who have by comfortable doctrines most successfully gained +the public ear.</p> + +<p>The classes who look at questions of policy with an eye to expediency +are, the leading statesmen of both parties, who regard as the proper end +of their labors the interests of Great Britain, and the +business-community, who judge of every political event by the manner in +which it affects their pockets. There are two other classes, who take a +higher view,—those who are conservative and fearful of innovation, and +those who believe in the progressive tendency of the Anglo-Saxon. Within +the last quarter of a century, the public opinion of England has been +undergoing a great change, especially that part of it which is +influenced by the lower-middle class. The people have been growing up to +the adoption of liberal principles of government. The Reform Bill of +1832 was a great stride in that direction; and the measures which have +followed upon it have widened the observation of the masses, made the +sense of political wrong quicker, and the appreciation of a free system +much more vivid. As a natural result, the attention of this class has +been drawn toward America, as the exponent of a government before which +all men are equal,—and so it is, that, as the Rebellion goes on, we +receive weekly evidence that the sober, honest thought of English +opinion is with us of the North. The class to which we refer, if it is +not now, will very shortly be, the governing element. The tendency is +irresistibly that way; the signs of its growing power are daily more and +more manifest. That it should be deeply interested in the perpetuity of +American institutions, as affecting its own position, is natural. In the +failure of man's self-governing capacity here, where every circumstance +has been favorable to its exercise, the rising spirit of a broader +liberty in England must foresee the death-blow to its own hopes. Our +failure will not be fatal to us alone; it will involve the fate of the +millions who are now seeking to plant themselves against the tremendous +force of kingly and patrician prestige. They have hitherto derived from +our example all the inspiration with which they have struggled upward. +They have been able to accomplish, step by step, important alterations +in the unwritten constitution, by the apt comparisons their leaders have +been able to make between American and British civilization. So that, in +considering the forces at work to influence those at the head of +affairs, it is necessary to consider that force which is imperceptibly, +but subtly, brought to bear upon them by the working-class. Mr. Beecher, +and other eminent Americans who have lately visited England, tell us +that this class are almost to a man sympathizers with us; and that this +sympathy has in many cases worked favorably to us cannot be doubted. +Even the operatives and manufacturers of Manchester and Leeds, at first, +a little morose because of the effect of the war on their industry, seem +to have come to a better second-thought, and are now outspoken for the +North.</p> + +<p>The different elements of English feeling toward us may be, we think, +stated thus. The aristocracy would view with complacency the disruption +of the Union, because we are a rival power, and they are thoroughly +pledged to British aggrandizement; because the success of the Union +would belie the principle whence they derive their prerogative, and +encourage the opposing element of popular rights to greater exertions +for ascendancy; because hatred of democracy is a sentiment inherited, as +well as a principle of self-preservation; and because they have not +forgotten the former dependence of America on England. The ministry feel +toward us as the servants of a jealous power would naturally feel toward +a rival. The theorists are eager for events to crown them with the +flattery of verified prediction. The commercial classes are ill pleased +that their thrift should be curtailed; the manufacturers grumble about +the scarcity of cotton. The timid minds of some honest <a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a>thinkers did not +see the real issue, until the regular developments of the war satisfied +them; the lower orders had to be told before they could comprehend that +in our destiny they must read the counterpart of their own. Those +pretentious philanthropists who have assumed to direct the anti-slavery +party in England have mostly espoused the Southern side of the quarrel; +thus demonstrating that their moral scruples have no higher source than +their own political advantage, and no more lofty end than to divide and +distract a sister-nation. Of these we may instance the most conspicuous +of all, Lord Brougham,—who, after having for half a century derived all +the benefit he could from the striking and pathetic points in slavery to +vivify his eloquence, turns the bitter vial of his dotage against those +who stake everything upon its extinction. But everybody knows that Lord +Brougham is a type of those statesmen who stand by the people in the +Commons and grind the people in the Lords; who, after crying down public +wrongs, upon finding the responsibility of a coronet on their shoulders, +suddenly become arrant sticklers for hereditary rights. We are amused to +notice, among those peers who have risen above the selfishness by which +they are surrounded, and have given us a well-timed sympathy, but few +who are of new creations: for the Duke of Argyle and the Earls of +Carlisle and Clarendon are descendants of the oldest and proudest houses +in the realm.</p> + +<p>It is gratifying to observe that those forces which are operating +against us are those which are rapidly losing that control in public +affairs which belonged to past phases of society; while those forces +which are proper to the present, and are inevitably to assume the +preponderance in the future, appear as they develop to be more and more +sympathetic with the cause of our national integrity. Aristocratic +prestige is shrinking back before an advancing enlightenment which +elevates all to equal dignity.</p> + +<p>The present ministry is a fair type of the selfishness of British +statesmanship. The antecedents of its principal members are those of +timeserving politicians. Lord Palmerston, starting on his career as a +Tory of the Wellington stamp, has veered round as the tide has turned +against his former associates, and is the still distrusted +representative of the Liberal party. Lord Russell, in the youth of his +public service a Radical reformer, and the eager disciple of Sir Francis +Burdett when Sir Francis Burdett could not lead a corporal's guard, once +the prop and hope of those who sought a wider suffrage, has again and +again eaten his own words, and the history of his political life is a +ludicrous illustration of the perplexities of politicians. His +invariable course as a diplomatist has been to leave the way open to +prevarication, to keep his opinions in a cloud, and to confound sense +with ambiguity. It would be pure credulity to place much confidence in +the expressions of a statesman who within two months boldly censured and +then as boldly favored the designs of Victor Emmanuel on Venice, +officially and unblushingly before all Europe. Both these noble lords, +however, are fortunate in a keen appreciation of the national +prejudices, and know how to make use of the existing tone of public +feeling. A long vicissitude of successes and failures has taught both a +lesson which is every day a practical benefit; and after finding that +they were powerless when mutually opposed, they have succeeded in +swallowing the hatred of half a century, that they may join and divide +the power. The fact that there has been for some time a Tory majority in +the House of Commons shows the cunning with which Palmerston +manœuvres his machinery. If we could conclude at all from his acts +what his sentiments are toward America, there is little love wasted on +us from that quarter; and Lord Russell, even while addressing the House +of Lords in terms favorable to us, never lets the occasion pass without +slipping in a sneer between his praises.</p> + +<p>Selfishness, national or individual, is ever cautious and ever +suspicious. It <a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>seldom rashly grasps the thing coveted: it oftener lets +the apt occasion pass without improvement. The diplomatic intercourse +between Lord Palmerston's government and our own for the last year or +two amply illustrates this. He had in the first place no prepossession +in favor of the United States. We believe that he was not at all +unwilling to see the Union dissolved. It was natural for a statesman +hardened by fifty years of intrigue and devotion to politics to look +with absolute gratification upon what seemed the dissolution of a great, +and, because a near, a hated rival. We do not think it too much to +assume, that, as far as Palmerston's personal feelings were concerned, +he was ready for the chance of Southern recognition at the outset. In +such a sentiment, he had the sympathy of the aristocracy, and of all +others who take the low standard of self-aggrandizement in determining +opinions. Two circumstances, however, were a restraint upon him, and +appealed with controlling force to his caution. He was not only an +aristocrat and a hater of republics, he was also the Prime-Minister of +<i>all</i> England. He was absolutely dependent to a great degree upon the +lower orders for the permanence of his present dignity. Was it wise in +him to disregard the sentiments of those who were advancing to the +predominance, and resort for support to those whose power was rapidly +waning, whose opinions were yielding to the newer intelligence? Would it +not be fatally inconsistent in a Liberal statesman to override every +Liberal maxim and belie every Liberal profession? Was not the popular +current too strong to be safely defied? There were Liberal statesmen +enough of conspicuous merit to take his place at the helm, should he +make the misstep: Gladstone, Gibson, Herbert, Granville, would fully +answer the popular demand: his downfall, if it came, would doubtless be +final. His private feelings, therefore, even his political wishes, must +yield to policy. His love of place is too strong to succumb either to +personal prejudice or national jealousy; and the long habit has made the +self-denial more easy.</p> + +<p>The other reason why Lord Palmerston has withheld open comfort from the +Rebels is doubtless to be found in the steady adherence of our +Government to the position which it assumed at the beginning,—in the +promptness with which we have insisted upon our rights throughout the +world,—the grace with which we have disavowed the evident errors of +public servants,—the steadiness of our military progress,—the ease +with which we have borne the strain upon our resources in respect both +of men and money,—the possible, if not probable, success of the +war,—the certainty that that success would strengthen our system, and +render us capable of resenting foreign insult. For while Lord Palmerston +and Lord Russell are very apt to stalk about and threaten and talk very +loudly at nations whose weakness causes them not to be feared, and by +bullying whom some power or money may slide into British hands, they are +slow to provoke nations whose resentment either is or may become +formidable to British weal. The British lion roars over the impotence of +Brazil: he lies still and watches before the might of Napoleon. In the +one case he stands forth the lordly king of beasts; in the other he +seems metamorphosed into the fox. The hope that America would descend +incontinently to the rank of an inferior power was quickly dispelled; so +the lion crouched and the foxy head appeared. The everlasting caution +came in and said,—"Wait your chance; a hasty judgment is always a poor +judgment; let events take their course, and if occasion offers, strike +the right blow at the right time; but do not decree away the stability +of the Union either by the illusion of hope or by an expectation as yet +ill-founded." It was the wisdom of the serpent, eager, and conquering +eagerness.</p> + +<p>Under the cloak of a pretended neutrality, the ministry have had +opportunity to watch the course of events, to connive at aid to the +Rebellion, and to leave themselves unembarrassed when the success <a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>of +one side or the other should make it expedient to declare in its favor. +It has been with the greatest difficulty that Mr. Adams has been able to +bring the Foreign Office to exert its authority against violations of +that neutrality. Vessels, known well enough to be in the service of the +Confederates, or intended for their use, have been allowed to escape +from the Clyde, and to put into British ports to refit. Frequent +conflicts on questions of international law have arisen, in which our +Government has invariably insisted upon the known precedents set by +Great Britain, and which that power has generally deemed it prudent to +follow. In the case of the Trent, if we lost the possession of two +valuable prisoners of war, we at all events, by promptly disavowing the +act of Commodore Wilkes, set England an example of fairness which she +has been loath to follow, but which it would have been folly totally to +disregard. Yet it has been apparent that the British ministers have +borne us no good-will. Whatever justice has been done us has been done +grudgingly,—with the moroseness of an enemy who is compelled to yield. +While Lord Russell has been cautious how he offended our Government in +acts, his repeated sneers in Parliament, at dinners, and on the hustings +have exhibited the rancor of a jealous mind. There has been no hearty +will to do justice, no word other than of discouragement. Even the +amicable assurances which customarily pass between the statesmen of two +nations seem to have been dropped. We believe that any American would +rather bear the manly and outspoken denunciations of the Earl of Derby, +consistent and honest in his hostility, than the sly, covert +insinuations to which the Foreign Secretary gives utterance, at the very +time he is advocating a favorable course toward us.</p> + +<p>The ministry have constantly been met with the fact that our Government +has assumed throughout that the Union was to be preserved, and both the +act and the possibility of secession forever crushed. They cannot have +failed to observe, that, while the inevitable fortune of war has at +times brought momentary depression to our arms, the field of the +Rebellion has steadily contracted,—that those great conflicts which +have seemed drawn games have contributed in every instance to the +general end,—that repulse has been invariably followed by overbalancing +success. They must have been aware that the contrast between the feeling +of the North and that of the South has tended to foreshadow the issue. +Upon grounds of political economy, a life-long study to them, they must +have viewed with vast suspicion the ability of a people to attain +independence, who are trammelled by a blockade which they are themselves +fain to acknowledge effectual, prevented from the usual methods of +subsistence by inferiority of population, and under dreadful +apprehensions from the existence in their midst of millions of +malcontent slaves. They have not needed a subtle knowledge of political +philosophy to teach them that during the progress of the war the Federal +idea has received new strength, which its success will make permanent, +and which only total failure can diminish. Their favorite doctrine, that +governments within a government cannot exist, and that our Constitution +is weakened by the accession of every new State and the rise of every +new disagreement, is meeting its refutation every day. A concentration +of extraordinary power at the centre does not seem to shatter every bond +of union, as they have predicted,—and the States hold together and work +together with amazing zeal for so feeble a tie as that they have +represented. In their intercourse with our Government, they have +illustrated the effect which events have had on their policy.</p> + +<p>The course pursued by our Government seems to us to present a favorable +contrast to that pursued by Great Britain. The United States has always +manifested an anxiety to preserve amity. But the effort to preserve +amity has been dignified. We have claimed to be treated as a friendly +sovereign State. We have <a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>urged that the war should be regarded by +foreign powers as the rightful exercise of a complete nationality to +suppress insurrection. That the insurgents should be put upon a par with +the Government, that they should enjoy the benefits of an established +system, that they should have every right and every immunity as if the +quarrel were between equal powers, has seemed to us a fallacy tinctured +with deep prejudice. That feeling has been courteously, but firmly +represented by our ministers. Since it pleased the European courts to +proclaim their neutrality, we have borne the injustice temperately, and +have confined our demands to our rights under that <i>status</i>. When the +conduct of Great Britain has been of so irritating a nature as to +produce universal indignation throughout the community, our statesmen +have moderated the popular anger, and have remonstrated patiently as +well as firmly. They have discerned more accurately than the multitude +could do the evils of a twofold war, and yet have not avoided the +danger, when to avoid it would have been disgraceful. Whatever may be +the opinion of any as to Mr. Seward's political career, it is generally +admitted that as Secretary of State he has accomplished the better +thought of the nation. In his hands our foreign relations have been +administered with prudence, with minute attention, and with great +dignity. He has constantly maintained the idea of our national +integrity, the full expectation of our final success, the continued +efficacy of the Federal system, and our right to be considered none the +less a compact nationality because the insurrection has taken the form +of State secession. Our diplomatic intercourse has been confined to +strictly diplomatic etiquette. No attempt has been made to justify, for +the satisfaction of foreign courts, either the origin of the war, or the +modes which have been adopted in its prosecution. It has not been deemed +necessary to retaliate upon the Confederate agents who fill Europe with +their tale of woe, by retorting upon them a reference to the unchristian +practices of their soldiery. There has been no appeal to the moral +sympathies of the Old World, by harping upon the enormities of slavery, +and by announcing a crusade against it. Foreign communities have been +left to the ordinary modes of information, to the press and the accounts +of American and European orators, for the events which have been +passing. It has contented us to let the record speak for itself, to +attach infamy where it is due, to extort praise where praise is merited. +We have not shown an ungenerous exultation at the embroilments of +European politics, as diverting the hostile attention of enemies from +our own affairs. "We are content," says Mr. Seward, in a despatch to Mr. +Adams, "to rely upon the justice of our cause, and our own resources and +ability to maintain it." We have not sought the aid of any power; we +have only desired to sustain out admitted rights, and to be free from +external interference.</p> + +<p>It is surprising that Earl Russell should intimate his dissatisfaction +that we have been less quick to offence from France than from England. +The reason why we should not, in his opinion, feel so is the very reason +why we should. He thinks, because our relations have been more intimate +with England, because we speak the same language and inherit the same +Anglo-Saxon genius, that therefore we should be more patient with her. +But these circumstances seem to us to aggravate the treatment we have +received at her hands. It has appeared to us unnatural that a nation so +identified with us should mistrust us, and embrace every occasion to +slight us where they could safely do so. The closer the tie, the deeper +the wound. Besides, despite the common ground upon which England and +America have stood, the past bequeaths us little grudge against France, +much against England. France was the patron, England the bitter enemy, +of our national infancy. Our arms have never closed with those of +France; we have fought England twice, and virulently. Our diplomatic +intercourse with England has been <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>a series of misunderstandings; that +with France has been, in general, harmonious. In later times, French +essayists and journalists have been tolerant of our faults, and eloquent +over our virtues; and not a little good feeling has been produced among +our educated classes by the fairness and acuteness with which one of the +greatest of modern Frenchmen, De Tocqueville, has considered our +institutions. On the other hand, the English press and the English +Parliament have been outspoken in their contempt of America; and the +offence has been enhanced by the peculiarly insulting terms in which the +feeling has been expressed. Such facts cannot but intensify our chagrin +at finding that power which we had always regarded as our companion in +the march of modern progress ill-disposed to sympathy now in the time of +our trouble.</p> + +<p>Mr. Seward has well expressed our attitude towards England in a few +words:—"The whole case may be summed up in this. The United States +claim, and they must continually claim, that in this war they are a +whole sovereign nation, and entitled to the same respect, as such, that +they accord to Great Britain. Great Britain does not treat them as such +a sovereign, and hence all the evils that disturb their intercourse and +endanger their friendship. Great Britain justifies her course, and +perseveres. The United States do not admit the justification, and so +they are obliged to complain and stand upon their guard. Those in either +country who desire to see the two nations remain in this relation are +not well-advised friends of either of them."</p> + +<p>Our relations with France during the war have not been dissimilar to +those with England, but have been less grating and more courteous. The +same difficulties in regard to neutral rights have arisen; and the +Imperial cabinet have seemed throughout favorable to the South. But the +popular feeling, as far as it is patent, is decidedly more favorable to +us than that of England; whatever has been said against us has been said +considerately and temperately; and there has been at no period any +imminent danger of war. The design of Napoleon to mediate was +interpreted by the community as hostile and aggressive in its object. +The President, we think justly, took what appears a more simple +view,—that the Emperor miscalculated the actual condition of the +country, and a mistaken desire to advise induced him to take the course +he did. But those who know France best tell us that the Imperial opinion +is far from being the index of the popular opinion, on any subject; and +every evidence induces the conclusion that there is a strong +undercurrent of sympathy for America throughout France.</p> + +<p>Of all the foreign powers, Russia has been the only one which has given +us cordial, unstinted encouragement. The sovereign, the most liberal and +enlightened Czar who ever ascended the Muscovite throne, has expressed +himself again and again the constant friend of the Union. It is +agreeable to reflect that that vast empire, now far on its way to a +liberal constitution, and hastened, instead of retarded by its august +head, should lend the moral force of its unqualified good-will to the +cause of American liberty. The noble words of Prince Gortschakoff to our +envoy will be grateful to every loyal American heart:—"We desire above +all things the maintenance of the American Union, as one indivisible +nation. Russia has declared her position, and will maintain it. There +will be proposals for intervention. Russia will refuse any invitation of +the kind. She will occupy the same ground as at the beginning of the +struggle. You may rely upon it, she will not change."</p> + +<p>Our relations with other nations have not been important, and are quite +similar to those with England and France. But, generally, the belief and +hope in the final success of the Union have been steadily strengthening +throughout Europe. The idea of our centralization has become more vivid; +and far juster estimates of our character and institutions have been +formed. When the war shall have been brought <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>to a successful issue, we +shall have afforded a noble proof of the full efficiency of a republican +system over an intelligent people. Our own sinews will be compact, and +our spirit will be infused into the aspirations of distant peoples. It +may not be presumptuous to feel that our efforts are not for ourselves +alone, but that they tell upon the fate of the earnest and hopeful +millions who are striving for disenthralment in the Old World. Let us, +then, expand our just ambition beyond the object of our national +integrity; let us embrace within our own hopes the dawning fortunes of a +free Italy and a free Hungary, of Poland liberated, of Greece +regenerated. While nerving ourselves for the final struggle, let the +sublime thought that our success will reach in its vast results the +limits of the Christian world bring us redoubled strength. For if we +should fall, the thrones of despots are fixed for centuries; if we +triumph, in due time they will vanish and crumble to the dust. Those +sovereigns who are wise will appear in the van, leading their people to +the blessings of the liberty they have so long yearned for; those who +throw themselves in the way will be overwhelmed by the resistless tide. +To such an end we fight, and suffer, and wait; the greater the stake, +the more fearful the ordeal; but Providence smiles upon those whose aim +is freedom, and through danger guides to consummation.</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 Roman and the Teuton</i>: A Series of Lectures delivered before the +University of Cambridge. By CHARLES KINGSLEY, M.A., Professor of Modern +History. Cambridge and London: Macmillan & Co.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kingsley is a vivid and entertaining mediator between Carlyle and +commonplace. In his younger days and writings he mediated between his +master and commonplace radicalism,—representing the great Scot's +antagonism to existing institutions, his sympathy with man as man, and +his hope of a more human society, but representing it with sufficient +admixture of vague fancy, Chartist catchword, weak passionateness, and +spasmodic audacity, based, as such ever is, on moral cowardice. Of late +he has gone to the other side of his master, and now mediates between +him and the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Hanover family,—representing +Carlyle's passionate craving for supereminent persons, his passionate +abhorrence of democracy, his admiration of strong character, his +disposition to work from historical bases rather than from absolute +principles, but representing them at once with a prudence of common +sense and a prudence of self-seeking and timidity which are alike +foreign to his master's spirit.</p> + +<p>We prefer the second phase of the man. It belongs more properly to him. +He is ambitious; and the <i>rôle</i> which he first assumed is one which +ambition can only spoil. He has but a weak faith in principles, and +flinches and flies off to "Prester John," or somewhere into the clouds, +when at last principle and sentiment must either fly off or fairly take +the stubborn British <i>taurus</i> by the horns. And in truth, his early +creed was in part merely passionate and foolish, and with courage and +disinterestedness to do more he would have professed less. His present +position is better,—that is, sounder and sincerer. Better for <i>him</i>, +because more limited and British, leaving him room still to toil at good +work, and not calling upon him to break with Church and State, which he +really has not the heart to do. As head of the hierarchy of beadles, he +is an effective and even admirable man, pious, zealous, and reformatory; +but institutions <a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>are more necessary to him than principles, and any +attempt to plant himself purely on the latter places him in a false +position.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kingsley has fine gifts and good purposes. He has a rare power of +realizing scenes and characters,—a power equally rare of presenting +them in vivid, pictorial delineation. He must be a very engaging +lecturer, imparting to his official labor an interest which does not +always belong to labors of like kind.</p> + +<p>For discoursing upon history he has important qualifications, which it +would be uncandid not to acknowledge. Of these it is the first that he +clings manfully, despite the tendencies of our time, to the human, +rather than the extra-human stand-point. He respects personality; he +treats of men, not of puppets; he is old-fashioned enough to believe +that men may be moved from within no less than from without, and does +not attempt, as Quinet has it, to abolish human history and add a +chapter to natural history instead. Here, too, he follows Carlyle, but +in a way which is highly to his credit. The enthusiasm for science which +marks these later centuries breeds in many minds a powerful desire to +establish "laws" for the history of man,—that is, to establish for +man's history an invariable programme. To this end an effort is made to +render all results in history dependent on a few simple and tangible +conditions. The intrepid prosaic logic of Spencer, the discursive +boldness of Buckle, the rigid dogmatism of Draper are all engaged in +this endeavor. But, while eager to make history simple and orderly, they +forget to make it human. There is an order and progress, perhaps, but an +order and progress of what? Of <i>men</i>? Of human souls, self-moved? No, of +sticks floating on a current, of straws blown by the wind! Men, +according to this theory, are but ninepins in an alley which Nature sets +up only to bowl them down again; and what avails it, if Nature makes +improvement and learns to set them up better and better? The triumphs +are hers, not theirs. They are but ninepins, after all. Progress? Yes, +indeed; but <i>wooden</i> progress, observe.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kingsley recognizes human beings, and recognizes them +heartily,—loves, hates, admires, despises; in fine, he deals with +history not merely as a scientist or theorist, but first of all as a +man. There are those who will think this weak. They are superior to this +partiality of man for himself, they! They would be ashamed not to sink +the man in the <i>savant</i>. But Mr. Kingsley refuses to dehumanize himself +in order to become historian and philosopher. He does well.</p> + +<p>Again, it is partly Mr. Kingsley's merit, and partly it expresses his +limitation, that he is treating history more distinctively as a +moralizer than any other noted writer of the time. He assumes in this +respect the Hebraistic point of view, and looks out from it with an +undoubting heartiness which in these days is really refreshing. He +believes in the Old Testament, and doubts not that riches and honors are +the rewards of right-doing. And in this, too, there is a vast deal of +truth; and it is truly delightful to find one who affirms it, not with +perfunctory drawl, but with hearty human zest, a little red in the face.</p> + +<p>It adds to the color of Mr. Kingsley's pages, while detracting from his +authority, that he is always and inevitably a <i>partisan</i>. He must have +somebody to cry up and somebody to cry down. In "Sir Amyas Leigh," his +hatred of the Spanish and admiration of the English were like those of a +man who had suffered intolerable wrongs from the one and received +invaluable rescue from the other. The same element appears powerfully in +the volume above named. The Teuton stands for all that is best, and the +Roman for all that is worst in humanity. He makes no secret, indeed, of +his deliberate belief that the whole future of the human race depends +upon the Teutonic family. Deliberate, we say; but in truth Mr. Kingsley +is little capable of believing anything deliberately. He is always +precipitate. His opinions have the force which can be given them by warm +espousal, vivid expression, a certain desire to be fair, and a constant +appeal to the moral nature of man; but the impression of hasty and +heated partisanship goes with them always, and two words from a broad +and balanced judgment might overturn many a chapter of this red-hot +advocacy.</p> + +<p>The present volume derives an interest for Americans from its relation +to our great contest. Mr. Kingsley has been represented as intensely +hostile to the<a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a> North, and as using all his endeavor to infect his +pupils with his opinions. These lectures, however, hardly sustain such +representations. He is, indeed, anti-democratic in a high degree. He is +so as a disciple of Carlyle, as a prosperous Englishman, not destitute +of flunkyism, and also as a man whose very best power is that of +passionately admiring individual greatness. He is a believer in natural +aristocracy, in the British nobility, and in Carlyle; and democracy +could, of course, find small place in his creed. Hence he has a +sentimental sympathy with the South, and once in a foot-note speaks of +"the Southern gentleman" in a maudlin way. There is also another passage +in which he makes the South stand for the Teuton, whom he worships, and +the North for the Roman, whom he abhors. Yet this very passage occurs in +connection with a denunciation of deserved doom upon the Southern +Confederacy. He had been describing the last great battle of the Eastern +Goths, after which they literally disappeared from history. And the +reason of their defeat and destruction, he avers, was simply this, that +they were a slaveholding aristocracy. As such they <i>must</i> perish; the +earth, he declares, will not and cannot afford them a dwelling-place. +Indeed, he repeatedly lays it down as a law of history that slaveholding +aristocracies must go down before the progress of the world, and must go +down in blood.</p> + + +<p><i>The Small House at Allington</i>. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. New York: Harper & +Brothers.</p> + +<p>This is probably the best of Mr. Trollope's numerous works. It is by no +means different in kind from its predecessors; for it stands in the path +struck out by "The Warden" ten years ago. But it is better, inasmuch as +it is later; that is, it is by ten years better than "The Warden," and +by four years better than "Framley Parsonage." Mr. Trollope's course has +been very even,—too even, almost, to be called brilliant; for success +has become almost monotonous with him. His first novel was a triumph, +after its kind; and a list of his subsequent works would be but a record +of repeated triumphs. He has closely adhered to the method which he +found so serviceable at first; and although it is not for the general +critic to say whether he has felt temptations to turn aside, we may be +sure, in view of his unbroken popularity, that he has either been very +happy or very wise. His works, as they stand, are probably the exact +measure of his strength.</p> + +<p>We do not mean that he has exhausted his strength. It seems to be the +prime quality of such a genius as Mr. Trollope's that it is exempt from +accident,—that it accumulates, rather than loses force with age. Mr. +Trollope's work is simple observation. He is secure, therefore, as long +as he retains this faculty. And his observation is the more efficient +that it is hampered by no concomitant purpose, rooted to no underlying +beliefs or desires. It is firmly anchored, but above-ground. We have +often heard Mr. Trollope compared with Thackeray,—but never without +resenting the comparison. In no point are they more dissimilar than in +the above. Thackeray is a moralist, a satirist; he tells his story for +its lesson: whereas Mr. Trollope tells his story wholly for its own +sake. Thackeray is almost as much a preacher as he is a novelist; while +Mr. Trollope is the latter simply. Both writers are humorists, which +seems to be the inevitable mood of all shrewd observers; and both +incline to what is called quiet humor. But we know that there are many +kinds of laughter. Think of the different kinds of humorists we find in +Shakspeare's comedies. Mr. Trollope's merriment is evoked wholly by the +actual presence of an oddity; and Thackeray's, although it be, by the +way, abundantly sympathetic with superficial comedy, by its <i>existence</i>, +by its history, by some shadow it casts. Of course all humorists have an +immense common fund. When Cradell, in the present tale, talks about Mrs. +Lupex's fine <i>torso</i>, we are reminded both of Thackeray and Dickens. But +when the Squire, coming down to the Small House to discuss his niece's +marriage, just avoids a quarrel with his sister about the propriety of +early fires, we acknowledge, that, as it stands, the trait belongs to +Trollope alone. Dickens would have eschewed it, and Thackeray would have +expanded it. The same remark applies to their pathos. With Trollope we +weep, if it so happen we can, for a given shame or wrong. Our sympathy +in the work before us is for the jilted<a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a> Lily Dale, our indignation for +her false lover. But our compassion for Amelia Osborne and Colonel +Newcome goes to the whole race of the oppressed.</p> + +<p>Mr. Trollope's greatest value we take to be that he is so purely a +novelist. The chief requisite for writing a novel in the present age +seems to be that the writer should be everything else. It implies that +the story-telling gift is very well in its way, but that the inner +substance of a tale must repose on some direct professional experience. +This fashion is of very recent date. Formerly the novelist had no +personality; he was a simple chronicler; his accidental stand-point was +as impertinent as the painter's attitude before his canvas. But now the +main question lies in the pose, not of the model, but of the artist. It +will fare ill with the second-rate writer of fiction, unless he can give +conclusive proof that he is well qualified in certain practical +functions. And the public is very vigilant on this point. It has become +wonderfully acute in discriminating true and false lore. The critic's +office is gradually reduced to a search for inaccuracies. We do not stop +to weigh these truths; we merely indicate them. But we confess, that, if +Mr. Trollope is somewhat dear to us, it is because they are not true of +him. The central purpose of a work of fiction is assuredly the portrayal +of human passions. To this principle Mr. Trollope steadfastly +adheres,—how consciously, how wilfully, we know not,—but with a +constancy which is almost a proof of conviction, and a degree of success +which lends great force to his example. The interest of the work before +us is emphatically a <i>moral</i> interest: it is a story of feeling, the +narrative of certain feelings.</p> + +<p>Mr. Troliope's tales give us a very sound sense of their reality. It may +seem paradoxical to attribute this to the narrowness of the author's +imagination; but we cannot help doing so. On reflection, we shall see +that it is not so much persons as events that Mr. Trollope aims at +depicting, not so much characters as scenes. His pictures are real, <i>on +the whole</i>. Their reality, we take it, is owing to the happy balance of +the writer's judgment and his invention. Had his invention been a little +more tinged with fancy, it is probable that he would have known certain +temptations of which he appears to be ignorant. Even should he have +successfully resisted them, the struggle, the contest, the necessity of +choice would have robbed his manner of that easy self-sufficiency which +is one of its greatest charms. Had he succumbed, he would often have +fallen away from sober fidelity to Nature. As the matter stands, his +great felicity is that he never goes beyond his depth,—and this, not so +much from fear, as from ignorance. His insight is anything but profound. +He has no suspicion of deeper waters. Through the whole course of the +present story, he never attempts to fathom Crosbie's feelings, to +retrace his motives, to refine upon his character. Mr. Trollope has +learned much in what is called the realist school; but he has not taken +lessons in psychology. Even while looking into Crosbie's heart, we never +lose sight of Courcy Castle, of his Club, of his London life; we cross +the threshold of his inner being, we knock at the door of his soul, but +we remain within call of Lily Dale and the Lady Alexandrina. We never +see Crosbie the man, but always Crosbie the gentleman, the Government +clerk. We feel at times as if we had a right to know him better,—to +know him at least as well as he knew himself. It is significant of Mr. +Trollope's temperament—a temperament, as it seems to us, eminently +English—that he can have told such a story with so little preoccupation +with certain spiritual questions. It is evident that this spiritual +reticence, if we may so term it, is not a <i>parti pris</i>; for no fixed +principle, save perhaps the one hinted at above, is apparent in the +book. It belongs to a species of single-sightedness, by which Mr. +Trollope, in common with his countrymen, is largely characterized,—an +indifference to secondary considerations, an abstinence from sidelong +glances. It is akin to an intense literalness of perception, of which we +might find an example on every page Mr. Trollope has written. He is +conscious of seeing the surface of things so clearly, perhaps, that he +deems himself exempt from all profounder obligations. To describe +accurately what he sees is a point of conscience with him. In these +matters an omission is almost a crime. We remember an instance somewhat +to the purpose. After describing Mrs. Dale's tea-party at length, in the +beginning of the book, he wanders off with Crosbie and his sweetheart +<a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>on a moonlight-stroll, and so interests us in the feelings of the young +couple, and in Crosbie's plans and promises for the future, (which we +begin faintly to foresee,) that we have forgotten all about the party. +And, indeed, how could the story of the party end better than by gently +passing out of the reader's mind, superseded by a stronger interest, to +which it is merely accessory? But such is not the author's view of the +case. Dropping Crosbie, Lilian, and the more serious objects of our +recent concern, he begins a new line and ends his chapter thus:—"After +that they all went to bed." It recalls the manner of "Harry and Lucy," +friends of our childhood.</p> + +<p>But to return to our starting-point,—in "The Small House at Allington" +Mr. Trollope has outdone his previous efforts. He has used his best +gifts in unwonted fulness. Never before has he described young ladies +and the loves of young ladies in so charming and so natural a fashion. +Never before has he reproduced so faithfully—to say no more—certain +phases of the life and conversation of the youth of the other sex. Never +before has he caught so accurately the speech of our daily feelings, +plots, and passions. He has a habit of writing which is almost a style; +its principal charm is a certain tendency to quaintness; its principal +defect is an excess of words. But we suspect this manner makes easy +writing; in Mr. Trollope's books it certainly makes very easy reading.</p> + + +<p><i>A Class-Book of Chemistry</i>; in which the Latest Facts and Principles of +the Science are explained and applied to the Arts of Life and the +Phenomena of Nature. A New Edition, entirely rewritten. By EDWARD L. +YOUMANS, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co.</p> + +<p>Though Science has been often vaguely supposed to be something generally +distinct from ordinary knowledge, yet the slightest consideration will +suffice to show us that this is not the case. Scientific knowledge is +only a highly developed form of the common information of ordinary +minds. The specific attribute by which it is distinguished from the +latter is quantitative prevision. Mere prevision is not peculiar to +science. When the school-boy throws a stone into the air, he can predict +its fall as certainly as the astronomer can predict the recurrence of an +eclipse; but his prevision, though certain, is rude and indefinite: +though he can foretell the kind of effect which will follow the given +mechanical impulse, yet the quantity of effect—the height to which the +stone will ascend, and the rapidity with which it will fall—is +something utterly beyond his ken. The servant-girl has no need of +chemistry to teach her, that, when the match is applied, the fire will +burn and smoke ascend the chimney; but she is far from being able to +predict the proportional weights of oxygen and carbon which will unite, +the volume of the gases which are to be given off, or the intensity of +the radiation which is to warm the room: her prevision is qualitative, +not quantitative, in its character. But when Galileo discovers the +increment of the velocity of falling bodies, and when Dalton and De +Morveau discover the exact proportions in which chemical union takes +place, it is evident that knowledge has advanced from a rudely +qualitative to an accurately quantitative stage; and it does not admit +of dispute that the progress of science is thus a progress from the +indefinite to the definite.</p> + +<p>From the point of view here taken it would appear that during the +present century no science has made such rapid and unprecedented strides +as Chemistry; and its progress becomes all the more striking, when we +consider the state of the science previous to the French Revolution. For +centuries nothing had been done in it whatever. Besides the commonest +previsions of every-day life, the ancients knew scarcely anything either +of chemistry or physics, except that amber possessed attractive +properties. The discovery of the strong acids by the Arabs Giafar and +Rhazes, and of phosphorus by Bechil, are almost the only landmarks in +the history of the science, until the discovery of oxygen and the +destruction of the phlogistic theory by Priestley and Lavoisier, +together with the introduction of the balance and the thermometer into +the laboratory, rendered quantitative experiments possible. Since then +its progress has been unexampled. The law of definite proportions, not +long since disputed or unwillingly accepted, has been proved to hold +even among <a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>organic compounds. A nomenclature has been invented and +perfected, such as no other science can boast of, whether we consider +the extent to which it facilitates practical operations, or its logical +value as a means of mental discipline. Chemistry has also interacted +with the different branches of physics, giving us the voltaic battery, +the telegraph, and the wonderful results of spectrum-analysis. On the +other hand, it has analyzed the proximate constituents of animal and +vegetal structures, and has even gone far toward determining some of the +conditions of organic existence; while every one of the arts, whether +æsthetic, therapeutic, or industrial, has received from it many and +important suggestions.</p> + +<p>In a science which advances so rapidly there is great need of popular +books which shall clearly and succinctly present the very latest results +of investigation, without burdening the reader with technical details. +For some time there has been no such work in this country. To ascertain +the newest discoveries, it has been necessary to consult the journals +and memoirs of learned societies, the excellent works of Professor +Miller being too cumbrous to be of much service either to the +unscientific reader or to the general scholar. On the other hand, the +text-books in common use have been positively detestable. The +information furnished by many of them is worse than ignorance. We are +tired of works on chemical physics which discourse of "calorie" and "the +electric fluid,"—of works on organic chemistry which ascribe the +phenomena of life to "a vital principle which overrides chemical laws." +A book at once clear, concise, and modern has long been the great +desideratum.</p> + +<p>This need is most amply supplied by the recent work of Dr. Youmans. +Laying no claim to the character of an exposition of original +discoveries, and thus keeping aloof from involved discussion, it is at +the same time so lucid in its statements, so pertinent in its +illustrations, and so philosophic in its reflections, as to invest with +a new charm every subject of which it treats. The author deserves high +praise for taking into account the circumstance that the reading public +is not entirely composed of physicists and chemists. It has been too +much the fashion for writers on scientific subjects to give definitions +which can be rendered intelligible only by an intimate acquaintance with +the very matters defined. It would be tedious to enumerate the countless +absurd explanations given in elementary text-books of the phenomena of +interference, polarization, and double refraction,—explanations as +enigmatical as the inscriptions at Memphis and Karnak,—explanations +useless to the optician because needless, and to the student because +obscure. It would seem that subjects so simple and beautiful as these +could not be rendered difficult of comprehension, except by the most +awkward treatment; and yet we know of no work previous to that of Dr. +Youmans which does not utterly fail to give the general scientific +reader any idea whatever of their nature and theory. Here, however, they +are explained with clearness and elegance, and their bearing on the +undulatory theory of light is distinctly shown. As other instances of +most admirable exposition, we may call attention to the paragraphs on +crystallization, on the atomic theory, on isomerism and allotropism, on +diamagnetism, magnetic induction, and electric "currents," on the +sources of heat, on the chemical and thermal spectra, on the correlation +and equivalence of the forces, on the theory of ozone, on the +exceptional expansion of water and the supposed complexity of its atom, +on the structure of flame, on the constitution of salts, on the colloid +condition of matter, on types and compound radicles, on the dynamics of +vegetable growth and the production of animal power, and, above all, to +the passage which describes the phenomena of latent heat. Throughout, in +treating of these subjects, the author's felicity of exposition never +fails him. The most difficult phenomena are rendered perfectly easy of +comprehension, and their mutual relations are not left out of account. +Each set of facts is treated, not as forming an isolated body of truth, +but as an integral portion of the complex and logically indivisible +universe. In this respect Dr. Youmans's work is far superior to the +recent production of Dr. Hooker, in which, for example, the mere +existence of such a doctrine as that of the correlation of forces is +grudgingly noticed, and its ultimate significance entirely overlooked.</p> + +<p>Far different is Dr. Youmans's treatment of the same doctrine. Indeed, +we think <a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>that the chapters on chemical physics form the most +interesting portion of his work, and their value consists chiefly in the +constant reference to the modern ideas of force which pervades them. In +a work intended for the education of youth, such a feature cannot be too +highly praised. It is time that the old material superstitions about +force were eradicated from men's minds, and as far as possible from +their language. It is already more than half a century since Count +Rumford demonstrated the immaterial nature of heat, and Young +established the undulatory theory of light,—ideas which had germinated +two hundred years ago in the lofty minds of Huygens and Hooke. Since +then have been discovered the polarization and interference of heat, the +triple constitution of the solar ray, the identity of magnetism and +electricity, the polar nature of chemical affinity, the optical +polarities of crystals, and the interaction of magnetism and light. +Since then the once meagre and fragmentary science of physics has become +one of the grandest and richest departments of human thought; and the +illustrious names of Helmholtz, Joule, and Mayer, of Grove, Faraday, and +Tyndall, may be fitly named beside those of the leading thinkers of past +ages. The physical forces are no longer to be looked upon as inscrutable +material entities,—forms of matter imponderable, and therefore +inconceivable; but they have been shown to be diverse, but +interchangeable modes of molecular motion, omnipresent, ceaselessly +active. The wondrous phenomena of light, heat, and electricity are seen +to be due to the rhythmical vibration of atoms. There is thus no such +thing as rest: from the planet to the ultimate particle, all things are +endlessly moving: and the mystic song of the Earth-Spirit in "Faust" is +recognized as the expression of the sublimest truth of science:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"In Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wall' ich auf und ab, webe hin und her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Geburt und Grab,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ein ewiges Meer,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ein wechselnd Weben,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ein glühend Leben,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So schaff' ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In a discussion containing so much that is noble, however, we are sorry +to observe that Dr. Youmans is betrayed into using the current +expressions concerning an "ether" which is supposed to be the universal +vehicle for the transmission of molecular vibrations. We are told, that, +while "the vibrations of a sonorous body produce undulations in the +air," on the other hand, "the vibrations of atoms in a flame produce +undulations in the ether." We would by no means charge Dr. Youmans with +all the consequences naturally deducible from such a statement. We +believe that he uses the term "ether" simply to render himself more +intelligible to those who have been wont to make use of it to facilitate +their thinking. Such an object is highly praiseworthy, and is too often +left out of sight by those who write elementary works. But the good +service thus rendered is far more than counterbalanced by the host of +erroneous conceptions which at once arise at the introduction of this +luckless term. This notion of an "imaginary ether" should be at once and +forever discarded by every writer on physics. The very word should be +remorselessly expunged from every discussion of the subject. It is one +of the most baneful words in the whole dictionary of scientific +terminology. It stands for a fiction as useless as it is without +foundation. It is useless because superfluous, and not needed in order +to account for the phenomena. An ether is no more necessary in the case +of light than it is in the case of sound. Thermal vibrations are the +oscillations of atoms, not the undulations of an ether. If it be urged +that rays of light and heat will traverse a vacuum, we reply, that the +much-derided aphorism, "Nature abhors a vacuum," is as true at this day +as it was before Torricelli's experiment. A perfect vacuum has never +been produced; and if it were to be produced, the ether must be +excluded, else it would be no vacuum, after all. For, if there were such +a thing as an ether, it must of course be some form of matter; nobody +ever claimed for it the character of motion or force. If it be +considered as matter, then, we are confronted with new difficulties; for +all matter must exert gravitation. Weight is our sole test of the very +existence of matter; it is the balance which has proved that nothing +ever disappears. Imponderable matter is no more possible than a +triangular ellipse. Away, then, with such a mischief-breeding +<a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>conception! Let this last-surviving fetich be ousted from the fair +temple of inorganic science. Undulations have been measured and counted; +quantitative relations, like those expressed in Joule's law, have been +established between them; but an "ether" has never yet been the object +of human ken.</p> + +<p>We have expressed ourselves thus emphatically upon this all-important +point, in order to warn the reader of Dr. Youmans's book against drawing +conclusions which the author himself evidently does not mean to convey. +No clear ideas can ever be entertained in physics until this anomalous +"ether" is excommunicated; and therefore we wish it had been banished +from this excellent treatise. We differ also very widely from the +author's views of animal heat, but have not space to enter upon the +discussion. With these exceptions we know of nothing in the work that +could be improved. It is an honor to American science, and fully merits +a more exhaustive examination than we have here been enabled to bestow +upon it.</p> + + +<p><i>Strategy and Tactics</i>. By General G.H. DUFOUR, lately an Officer of the +French Engineer Corps, Graduate of the Polytechnic School, and Commander +of the Legion of Honor; Chief of Staff of the Swiss Army. Translated +from the latest French Edition, by WILLIAM R. CRAIGHILL, Captain U.S. +Engineers, lately Assistant Professor of Civil and Military Engineering +and Science of War at the U.S. Military Academy. New York: D. Van +Nostrand.</p> + +<p>The author of this work is a distinguished civil and military engineer +and practical soldier, who, in all military matters, is recognized as +one of the first authorities in Europe. His history is especially +interesting to Americans, since not many years ago he played a prominent +part in the suppression of a rebellion which, in many features, +exhibited a remarkable similarity to the one with which our own +Government is contending. We refer to the secession of the seven Swiss +cantons forming the Sonderbund, which, like the insurrection of the +Southern States, was a revolt of reactionary against liberal principles +of government; it was likewise the fruit of a well-organized and +long-matured conspiracy, which only delayed an open outbreak until all +its preparations were adequately perfected for a formidable resistance. +The issue of the contest was what we may hope will be that of our +own,—the triumph of free principles, and the complete reëstablishment +of the authority of the legitimate Government on a firmer basis than it +had before occupied.</p> + +<p>General Dufour was born at Constance, of a family of Genevese origin. +Having acquired his early education at Geneva, where he devoted his +attention chiefly to mathematics, he entered the Polytechnic School at +Paris, was commissioned two years afterwards in the corps of Engineers, +and served in the later campaigns of Napoleon, where he rose to the rank +of captain. He afterwards entered the Swiss Federal service, in which he +became colonel, chief of the general staff, and quartermaster-general. +At later periods he has held the less active, but equally responsible +and honorable positions of superintendent of the triangulation of +Switzerland on which the topographical map of the country is based, and +chief instructor of engineering in the principal military school of the +Republic, at Thun.</p> + +<p>When, in 1847, the Swiss Diet determined to dissolve the Sonderbund, +which had at length committed the overt act of treason, General Dufour +was appointed commander-in-chief of the Federal army. A few days after +the call for troops was issued, he found himself at the head of an army +of one hundred thousand men, and immediately entered actively upon the +work before him. His dispositions were skilful and his movements rapid. +He adopted with success the "anaconda" system of strategy, and hemmed in +the insurgents at every point, closing in the mountain-passes, and +completely isolating them. After six days of active campaigning the +Canton of Freyburg was subdued; nine days afterwards Luzerne submitted; +the other rebellious cantons were quick to yield; and in eighteen days +from the commencement of active operations, and twenty-three days from +the issue by the Federal Diet of the decree of coercion, the rebellion +was extinguished so completely that no murmur of treason has since been +heard in the Republic. So rapidly was <a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>the whole accomplished, that +foreign powers had not time to intervene; and it is said, that, when the +French messenger went to seek the insurgents with his proposals, they +were already fugitives. In honor of his services in this contest, the +Federal Diet voted General Dufour a sabre of honor and a donative of +forty thousand francs.</p> + +<p>General Dufour's "Strategy and Tactics" is evidently the fruit of an +attentive study of the best examples and authorities of all ages. He has +avoided mere theories and fine writing, and has aimed to present a work +practical in its treatment and application. The lessons of history have +been his guide; his precepts are fortified by pertinent examples from +the campaigns of the best generals, and we may study them with +confidence that when put to the actual test they will not fail.</p> + +<p>The distinction between strategy and tactics, not always clearly +understood, is in substance drawn thus by General Dufour. Strategy +involves general movements and the general arrangement of campaigns, +depending chiefly upon the topographical features of the country which +is the scene of operations,—while tactics relate to the minor details +of campaigns, as the disposition for marches and battles, the +arrangement of camps, etc. Strategy depends upon circumstances fixed in +their nature, and is the same always and everywhere; but tactics must be +modified to suit degree of skill, arms, and manner of fighting of the +combatants. Hence, "much instruction in strategy may be derived from the +study of history; but very grave errors will result, if we attempt to +apply in the armies of the present day the tactics of the ancients. This +fault has been committed by more than one man of merit, for want of +reflection upon the great difference between our missile weapons and +those of the ancients, and upon the resulting differences in the +arrangement of troops for combat." Our own military leaders have not +entirely avoided mistakes of this kind in the conduct of the present +war.</p> + +<p>The treatise before us elucidates the general principles of strategy and +tactics, and applies them to the different classes of field—operations, +without entering into details, or describing the minor manœuvres, +which belong more appropriately to another class of works.</p> + +<p>The first chapter treats of bases and lines of operations, strategic +points, plans of offensive and defensive campaigns, and strategical +operations. Under the last head are embraced forward movements and +retreats, diversions, (combined movements and detachments,) the pursuit +of a defeated enemy, and the holding of a conquered country. The great +lesson of the chapter, prominent in almost every paragraph, is the +necessity of <i>concentration</i>. Divergent marches, scattering of forces, +unless ample facilities are secured for a speedy rally, when necessary, +to a common point, are among the most fruitful sources of disaster.</p> + +<p>The organization of armies next receives attention. The explanation of +the composition of the army, its divisions and subdivisions, and the +adjustment of the relative proportions of the different classes of +troops, is brief and lucid. In the article on the formation of troops +the relative merits of formation in two ranks or three are discussed at +length.</p> + +<p>Under the head of marches and manœuvres are considered the rules by +which these movements should be conducted. These apply to the adjustment +of the columns, and the division, when necessary, of the forces upon +different roads in order to facilitate progress and make subsistence +more easy, the detailing of scouts and advance and rear guards, etc. The +adaptation of these rules to forward movements and battles leads to a +description of the order of march of the division, the precautions to be +observed in the passage of defiles, bridges, woods, and rivers, and when +the column has arrived in the presence of the enemy, and the conduct of +flank marches, marches in retreat, and the simultaneous movement of +several columns. The importance of precautions against surprise, of +preserving the mobility of the columns, and of providing for +concentration on short notice whenever it may be necessary, is not lost +sight of, but is dwelt upon with great frequency. But military rules are +not more inflexible than other human rules. Though they are based upon +fixed principles, cases may, and do, arise when they cannot be strictly +adhered to,—sometimes when they ought not to be. When should they be +strictly observed? When and how far is it prudent to depart from them? +"These questions," says General<a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a> Dufour, "admit of no answers. +Circumstances, which are always different, must decide in each +particular case that arises. Here is the place for a general to show his +ability. The military art would not be so difficult in practice, and +those who have become so distinguished in it would not have acquired +their renown, had it been a thing of invariable rules. To be really a +great general, a man must have great tact and discernment in order to +adopt the best plan in each case as it presents itself; he must have a +ready <i>coup d'oeil</i>, so as to do the right thing at the right time and +place; for what is excellent one day may be very injurious the next. The +plans of a great captain seem like inspirations, so rapid are the +operations of the mind from which they proceed: notwithstanding this, +everything is taken into account and weighed; each circumstance is +appreciated and properly estimated; objects which escape entirely the +observation of ordinary minds may to him seem so important as to become +the principal means of inducing him to pursue a particular course. As a +necessary consequence, a deliberative council is a poor director of the +operations of a campaign. As another consequence, no mere theorizer can +be a great general."</p> + +<p>Battles, on which the fortune of the campaign must turn at last, receive +a large share of attention. The decision of the question as to when they +shall be fought, though sometimes admitting of no choice, is more often, +with a skilful general, a matter of pure calculation, depending upon +fixed principles, which General Dufour recites in a few brief, but +suggestive sentences. His directions for the disposition and manoeuvres +of the forces in both offensive and defensive battles are quite +complete, though the thousand varying circumstances by which these may +be modified, and which render it impossible for one battle to be a copy +of another, can only be hinted at. Among the elements of a battle here +considered are the disposition of the forces, the manner of bringing on +and conducting the engagement, the manœuvres to change position on +the field, bringing on reinforcements, seizing all advantages that may +offer, and the manner of conducting pursuit or retreat. The attack and +defence of mountains and rivers, of redoubts, houses, and villages, +covering a siege, infantry, cavalry, and artillery combats and +reconnoissances, each involve special principles, and are treated +separately. In the course of the article on battles, some general +observations are introduced on conducting manœuvres so as to insure +promptness, security, and precision. The conduct of topographical +reconnoissances is well explained by means of a map of a supposed +district of country, with marked features, which is to be examined. On +this the course of the reconnoitring party, as it goes over the whole, +is traced step by step, and fully explained in the letter-press. In the +concluding chapter the author treats of convoys, ambuscades, advance +posts, the laying-out of camps, and giving rest to troops.</p> + +<p>Such are the outlines of a subject which General Dufour has handled in a +masterly manner. His maxims are practical in their bearing, they commend +themselves to our common sense as sound in principle, and are such as +have received the indorsement of the best authorities. His style is +clear and comprehensive; nothing superfluous is inserted, nothing need +be added to make the subject more clear. The illustrations, which are +given wherever they are needed, are simple and clear; the explanations +are sufficient. This work will be a valuable manual to soldiers, and +students will find it an excellent text-book. We hail it as an important +addition to our growing military literature.</p> + + +<p><i>Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as modified by Human Action</i>. By +GEORGE P. MARSH. New York: Charles Scribner. 8vo. pp. 560.</p> + +<p>The student of Physical Geography must not expect to find in this +massive book a systematic exposition of the science in the manner of +Guyot and the French and German geographers; nor must he expect to see +worked out on its pages the elaborate application of Geography to +History, such as one day will be done, and such as was attempted, though +with results of varied value and certainty, by the eloquent and +plausible Buckle; but he will find an unexpected development of man's +dominion over the world he inhabits. Mr. Marsh takes his readers very +much by surprise; for few are aware, we apprehend, that in the course of +his wandering <a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>life, and while prosecuting his eminent philological +studies, he has made leisure enough to survey the natural sciences with +critical exactness, pursue an extended course of inquiry into physical +phenomena, note and digest the results of Italian, Spanish, English, +French, German, Dutch, and American naturalists, ply every guide and +ploughman, every driver and forester, every fisherman and miner, every +lumberman and carpenter, for the results which men attain by observing +within the narrow circle of their occupation,—and weave all into a +copious work which subordinates all results to a grand psychological +law, the mastery of man's mind over the world it calls its home.</p> + +<p>The work which we are noticing aspires to and rightly claims a foremost +place among the literary productions of America, despite a certain +homely flavor and a certain unpretending way which its author has of +saying things which are really great and fine. The main thought +illustrated is not new, but it is brought out so forcibly, and +illustrated by such encyclopedic learning, that it has the power of +novelty. Mr. Marsh shows, as many before him have done, that man is now +using the organic and inorganic forms of the earth in a manner so +subsidiary to the might of his intellect and his will, that such +obstacles as mountains and seas, which used to impede him hopelessly, +now are his auxiliaries; but he does more than this: he demonstrates the +destructive and annihilating sway of man over the world in the past and +in the present; and, proceeding from the historic fact that the +countries which in the palmy days of the Roman Empire were the granary +and the wine-cellar of the world have been given over by the improvident +destructiveness of man to desolation and desert, he enters into a +thorough study of the fact, that, no sooner does man recede from the +barbaric state than he commences a career of destructiveness, cutting +off, in a manner reckless and criminally wasteful, forests, the lives of +quadrupeds, birds, insects, and in short every living thing excepting +the few domestic animals which follow him and serve him for +companionship or for food. Mr. Marsh shows, with more than prophetic +insight, with the mathematical logic of facts, that, unless +compensations far more general and adequate than have yet been devised +are provided, the destructive propensities of civilized man will convert +the world into a waste. Some of our readers have paused thoughtfully +over that chapter in "Les Misérables" which deals so grimly with the +sewerage of cities, and details with the faithfulness of an historian +the exhausting demands of those conduits which carry untold millions to +the sea, and waste that aliment of impoverished soils which not all the +science of the age has found it possible to restore; but Mr. Marsh, not +drawing single pictures with so strong lines, spreads a broader canvas, +and compels his reader to equal thoughtfulness. To quote but one +instance is enough. We have in America thus far escaped, and as +singularly as fortunately, the importation of the wheat-midge which has +been the scourge of the grain-fields of Europe: it will, doubtless, some +time be a passenger on our Atlantic ships or steamers; it will commence +its work; and then man has the task of importing its natural +antagonists, of promoting their spread, and so of compensating the evil. +The work which we are noticing abundantly shows, that, if man were not +in the world, the natural compensations which the Divine Being has +introduced would produce perfect harmony in all things; that man, from +his first stroke at a tree, his first slaying of a beast or bird, +introduces an element of disorder which he can compensate only after +civilization has reached a height of which we yet know nothing, and of +which our present civilization gives us but the suggestion.</p> + +<p>To those who may not care to master the philosophy of "Man and Nature," +the book presents great attractions in the fund of new and entertaining +knowledge given in the text, and yet more largely in the foot-notes. +Many have waded through Mr. Buckle's two volumes a second time for the +purpose of gleaning his facts and gathering up in the easiest way the +latest word in science and literature. Mr. Marsh spreads a homelier +table, but one just as varied and hearty. Never in the course of our +miscellaneous reading have we met an equal store of fresh facts. As +hinted above, they are gathered from every source: the experience of the +maple-sugar maker in Vermont is quoted side by side with the testimony +of the European scholar. The reader will be amazed that there are so +many common things in the world of <a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>which he has never heard, and that +they have so large and fruitful an influence over the world's progress.</p> + +<p>If there are striking faults in Mr. Marsh's work, they seem to be these: +want of continuity in treatment, and disproportionate development of +some subjects in contrast with others. The book is, in fact, too large +for a popular treatise, and not large enough for a scientific exposition +of all it essays to discuss. It claims to be a popular work; but the +elaborate discussion of Forests is far beyond the wishes or needs of any +but a scientific reader. The broken, jagged, paragraph style is a +drawback to the pleasure of perusing it: the notion seems to impress the +author that people will not read anything elaborate, unless it be broken +up into labelled paragraphs. It is true of the newspaper: it is not true +of the octavo, to which they sit down expecting a different mode of +treatment, a broad, discursive style, flowing, redundant, and even +eloquent. Yet Mr. Marsh has in some instances transgressed, we think, +even in fulness: the great prominence given, for example, to the +drainage of Holland is untrue to the general tenor of the book and to +the prospective future of the world. It was a great historic deed, when +the relations of man to Nature were quite other than what they are +to-day; but now that man is master of the sea, regulates the price of +bread in London by the price of corn in Illinois, and of broadcloth in +Paris by the cost of wool in Australia, the recovery of a few hundred +thousand acres from the bottom of the North Sea is a great thing for +Holland, but a small thing for the world.</p> + +<p>Yet we accept this book with grateful thanks to the accomplished author. +In the present transition-stage from metaphysical to physical studies, +it will be eagerly accepted, as showing, not openly nor yet covertly, +yet suggestively, the true connection of both. Few books give in quiet, +modest fashion so much theology as this, and yet few claim to give so +little. Few bear more strongly on the mooted points of Anthropology; few +strike so strong a blow at that Development-theory which makes man +merely king of the beasts, and superior to the ape and the gorilla only +in degree; and yet few proceed in such high argument with less +ostentation. This book leaves one great want unfulfilled: to take up the +mantle of Ritter and proceed carefully to the study of French, German, +Russian, English, Spanish, and Italian history, and indeed all great +nations' history, by the light of geography. The problem is stated; it +has now only to be wrought out. Perhaps Mr. Marsh, whose acquisitions +seem to be boundless, and whose powers unlimited, may live to win fresh +laurels on this field.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS" id="RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS"></a>RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS</h2> + +<h3>RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h3> + + +<p>Woodburn. A Novel. 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Van Nostrand. +Square 18mo. pp. 182. $1.50.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> I was once trying to convince an eminent prelate—one of +the most learned and liberal of his order, and even then close to the +red hat—of the importance of admitting laymen to certain State +functions. "All right," said he, "from your point of view; but still I +shall oppose it always, tooth and nail; for, if they come in, we must go +out."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Dr. Lieber, in his "Reminiscences of Niebuhr,"—a +delightful book of a delightful class,—records the great historian's +testimony in favor of Italian Latin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> This is a metrical version of the following passage of the +"Scaligeriana":—"Les Allemans ne se soucient pas quel vin ils boivent +pourvu que ce soit vin, ni quel Latin ils parlent pourvu que ce soit +Latin."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> Need we say that this gentleman is a member of the French +Academy, a librarian of the Mazarin Library, and the well-known author +of "Mademoiselle de la Seiglière," "La Maison de Penarvan," "Sacs et +Parchemins," etc.?</p></div> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, +August, 1864, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY,VOLUME 14 *** + +***** This file should be named 16057-h.htm or 16057-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/0/5/16057/ + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine +Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + +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: Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 + A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics + +Author: Various + +Release Date: June 14, 2005 [EBook #16057] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY,VOLUME 14 *** + + + + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine +Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: Footnotes moved to end of text] + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XIV.--AUGUST, 1864.--NO. LXXXII. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by TICKNOR AND +FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts. + + * * * * * + +CHARLES READE. + + +Some one lately took occasion, in passing, to class Charles Reade with +the clever writers of the day, sandwiching him between Anthony Trollope +and Wilkie Collins,--for no other reason, apparently, than that he +never, with Chinese accuracy, gives us gossiping drivel that reduces +life to the dregs of the commonplace, or snarls us in any inextricable +tangle of plots. + +Charles Reade is not a clever writer merely, but a great one,--how +great, only a careful _resume_ of his productions can tell us. We know +too well that no one can take the place of him who has just left us, and +who touched so truly the chords of every passion; but out of the ranks +some one must step now to the leadership so deserted,--for Dickens +reigns in another region,--and whether or not it shall be Charles Reade +depends solely upon his own election: no one else is so competent, and +nothing but wilfulness or vanity need prevent him,--the wilfulness of +persisting in certain errors, or the vanity of assuming that he has no +farther to go. He needs to learn the calmness of a less variable +temperature and a truer equilibrium, less positive sharpness and more +philosophy; he will be a thorough master, when the subject glows in his +forge and he himself remains unheated. + +He is about the only writer we have who gives us anything of himself. +Quite unconsciously, every sentence he writes is saturated with his own +identity; he is, then, a man of courage, and--the postulate assumed that +we are not speaking of fools--courage in such case springs only from two +sources, carelessness of opinion and possession of power. Now no one, of +course, can be entirely indifferent to the audience he strives to +please; and it would seem, then, that that daring which is the first +element of success arises here from innate capacity. Unconsciously, as +we have said, is it that our author is self-betrayed, for he is by +nature so peculiarly a _raconteur_ that he forgets himself entirely in +seizing the prominent points of his story; and it is to this that his +chief fault is attributable,--the want of elaboration,--a fault, +however, which he has greatly overcome in his later books, where, +leaving sketchy outlines, he has given us one or two complete and +perfect pictures. His style, too, owes some slight debt to this fact; +it has been saved thereby from offensive mannerism, and yet given traits +of its own insusceptible of imitation,--for by mannerism we mean +affectations of language, not absurdities of type. + +There is a racy _verve_ and vigor in Charles Reade's style, which, after +the current inanities, is as inspiriting as a fine breeze on the upland; +it tingles with vitality; he seems to bring to his work a superb +physical strength, which he employs impartially in the statement of a +trifle or the storming of a city; and if on this page he handles a ship +in a sea-fight with the skill and force of a Viking, on the other he +picks up a pin cleaner of the adjacent dust than weaker fingers would do +it. There is no trace of the stale, flat, and unprofitable here; the +books are fairly alive, and that gesture tells their author best with +which a great actress once portrayed to us the poet Browning, rolling +her hands rapidly over one another, while she threw them up in the air, +as if she would describe a bubbling, boiling fountain. + +Charles Reade is the prose for Browning. The temperament of the two in +their works is almost identical, having first allowed for the delicate +femineity proper to every poet; and the richness that Browning lavishes +till it strikes the world no more than the lavish gold of the sun, the +lavish blue of the sky, Reade, taking warning, hoards, and lets out only +by glimpses. Yet such glimpses! for beauty and brilliancy and strength, +when they do occur, unrivalled. Yet never does he desert his narrative +for them one moment; on the contrary, we might complain that he almost +ignores the effect of Nature on various moods and minds: in a volume of +six hundred pages, the sole bit of so-called fine writing is the +following, justified by the prominence of its subject in the incidents, +and showing in spite of itself a certain masculine contempt for the +finicalities of language:-- + +"The leaves were many shades deeper and richer than any other tree could +show for a hundred miles round,--a deep green, fiery, yet soft; and then +their multitude,--the staircases of foliage, as you looked up the tree, +and could scarce catch a glimpse of the sky,--an inverted abyss of +color, a mound, a dome, of flake-emeralds that quivered in the golden +air. + +"And now the sun sets,--the green leaves are black,--the moon +rises,--her cold light shoots across one-half that giant stem. + +"How solemn and calm stands the great round tower of living wood, half +ebony, half silver, with its mighty cloud above of flake-jet leaves +tinged with frosty fire at one edge!" + +This oak was in Brittany,--the very one, perhaps, before which, + + "So hollow, huge, and old, + It looked a tower of ruined mason-work, + At Merlin's feet the wileful Vivien lay." + +Indeed, Brittany seems a kind of fairy-land to many writers. Tennyson, +Spenser, Matthew Arnold, Reade, all locate some one of their choicest +scenes there. The reason is not, perhaps, very remote. We prate about +the Anglo-Saxon blood; yet, in reality, there is very little of it to +prate about, especially in the educated classes. When the British were +driven from their island, they took refuge in Wales and Brittany. When +William the Norman conquered that island again, his force was chiefly +composed of the descendants of those very Britons; for so feeble was the +genuine Norse element that it had been long since absorbed, and in the +language of the Norman--used until a late day upon certain records in +England--there is not one single word of Scandinavian origin. Thus it +was neither French nor Norman nor Scandinavian invading the white +cliffs, but the exiled Briton reconquering his native land; and, to make +the fact still stronger, the army of Richmond, Henry VII., was entirely +recruited in Brittany. Perhaps, then, the reason that Brittany is to +many a region of romance and delight is a feeling akin to the pleasure +we take in visiting some ancestral domain from whose soil our fathers +once drew their being. + +The Breton novel of Mr. Reade, "White Lies," although somewhat crude, +otherwise ranks with his best. The action is uninterrupted and swift, +the characters sharply defined, if legendary, the dialogue always +sparkling, the plot cleanly executed, the whole full of humor and +seasoned with wit. So well has it caught the spirit of the scene that it +reads like a translation, and, lest we should mistake the _locale_, +everybody in the book lies abominably from beginning to end. + + "'A lie is a lump of sin and a piece of folly,' cries Jacintha. + + "Edouard notes it down, and then says, in allusion to a previous + remark of hers,-- + + "'I did not think you were five-and-twenty, though.' + + "'I am, then,--don't you believe me?' + + "'Why not? Indeed, how could I disbelieve you after your lecture?' + + "'It is well,' said Jacintha, with dignity. + + "She was twenty-seven by the parish-books." + +There is a good deal of picturesque beauty in this volume, and at the +opening of its affairs there occurs a paragraph which we appropriate, +not merely for its merit, nor because it is the only "interior" that we +can recall in all his novels, but because also it contains a +characteristically fearless measuring of swords with a great champion:-- + + "A spacious saloon panelled: dead, but snowy white picked out + sparingly with gold. Festoons of fruit and flowers finely carved + in wood on some of the panels. These also not smothered with + gilding, but as it were gold speckled here and there like tongues + of flame winding among insoluble snows.... Midway from the candle + to the distant door its twilight deepened, and all became + shapeless and sombre. The prospect ended half-way, sharp and + black, as in those out-o'-door closets imagined and painted by Mr. + Turner, whose Nature (Mr. Turner's) comes to a full stop as soon + as Mr. Turner sees no further occasion for her, instead of melting + by fine expanse and exquisite gradation into genuine distance, as + Nature does in Claude and in Nature. To reverse the picture: + standing at the door, you looked across forty feet of black, and + the little corner seemed on fire, and the fair heads about the + candle shone like the heads of St. Cecilias and Madonnas in an + antique stained-glass window. At last Laure [Laure Aglae Rose de + Beaurepaire,--would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?] + observed the door open, and another candle glowed upon Jacintha's + comely peasant-face in the doorway; she dived into the shadow, and + emerged into light again close to the table, with napkins on her + arm." + +The book abounds, as indeed all its companions do, in quaint passages, +comical turns of a word, shrewd sayings,--of which a handful:-- + + '"Now you know,' said Dard, 'if I am to do this little job to-day, + I must start.' + + "'Who keeps you?' was the reply. + + "Thus these two loved." + +Dard, by the way, being an entirely new addition to the novelists' +_corps dramatique_, and almost a Shakspearian character. + + "It was her feelings, her confidence, the little love wanted,--not + her secret: that lay bare already to the shrewd young minx,--I beg + her pardon,--lynx." + +Another involves a curious philosophy, summed up in the following +formula:-- + + "She does not love him quite enough. + + "He loves her a little too much. Cure,--marriage." + +But there are one or two scenes in this tale of "White Lies" perfectly +matchless for fire and spirit; and to support the assertion, the reader +must allow a citation. And he will pardon the first for the sake of the +others, since Josephine is the betrothed of Camille Dujardin. + + "When he uttered these terrible words, each of which was a blow + with a bludgeon to the Baroness, the old lady, whose courage was + not equal to her spirit, shrank over the side of her arm-chair, + and cried piteously,--'He threatens me! he threatens me! I am + frightened!'--and put up her trembling hands, so suggestive was + the notary's eloquence of physical violence. Then his brutality + received an unexpected check. Imagine that a sparrow-hawk had + seized a trembling pigeon, and that a royal falcon swooped, and + with one lightning-like stroke of body and wing buffeted him away, + and there he was on his back, gaping and glaring and grasping at + nothing with his claws. So swift and irresistible, but far more + terrible and majestic, Josephine de Beaurepaire came from her + chair with one gesture of her body between her mother and the + notary, who was advancing on her with arms folded in a brutal + menacing way,--not the Josephine we have seen her, the calm, + languid beauty, but the Demoiselle de Beaurepaire,--her great + heart on fire, her blood up,--not her own only, but all the blood + of all the De Beaurepaires,--pale as ashes with wrath, her purple + eyes flaring, and her whole panther-like body ready either to + spring or strike. + + "'Slave! you dare to insult her, and before me! _Arriere, + miserable!_ or I soil my hand with your face!' + + "And her hand was up with the word, up, up,--higher it seemed than + ever a hand was lifted before. And if he had hesitated one moment, + I believe it would have come down; and if it had, he would have + gone to her feet before it: not under its weight,--the lightning + is not heavy,--but under the soul that would have struck with it. + But there was no need: the towering threat and the flaming eye and + the swift rush buffeted the caitiff away: he recoiled three steps, + and nearly fell down. She followed him as he went, strong in that + moment as Hercules, beautiful and terrible as Michael driving + Satan. He dared not, or rather he could not, stand before her: he + writhed and cowered and recoiled down the room while she marched + upon him. Then the driven serpent hissed as it wriggled away. + + "'For all this, she too shall be turned out of Beaurepaire,--not + like me, but forever! I swear it, _parole de Perrin!_' + + "'She shall never be turned out! I swear it, _foi de De + Beaurepaire!_' + + "'You, too, daughter of Sa--' + + "'_Tais toi, et sors a l'instant meme! Lache!_' + + "The old lady moaning and trembling and all but fainting in her + chair; the young noble like destroying angel, hand in air, and + great eye scorching and withering; and the caitiff wriggling out + at the door, wincing with body and head, his knees knocking, his + heart panting, yet raging, his teeth gnashing, his cheek livid, + his eye gleaming with the fire of hell." + +Too much of this sort of thing becomes meretricious; a man is never the +master of his subject, when he suffers himself to be carried away by it. +And though a fault of haste is pardonable, when lost in fine execution, +we must acknowledge that there is certainly something very "Frenchy" in +this scene,--a remark, though, which can hardly be considered as +derogatory, when we remember that altogether the most readable fiction +of the day is French itself. Our author is evidently a great admirer of +Victor Hugo, though he is no such careful artist in language: he seldom +closes with such tremendous subjects as that adventurous writer +attempts; but he has all the sharp antithesis, the pungent epigram of +the other, and in his freest flight, though he peppers us as prodigally +with colons, he never becomes absurd, which the other is constantly on +the edge of being. + +The next scene which we adduce is that where the battered figure of a +pale, grisly man walks into the garrison-town of Bayonne, after a +three-years' absence, explained only to his disgrace, mutely overcomes +the guard, and rings the bell of the Governor's house. + + "The servant left him in the hall, and went up-stairs to tell his + master. At the name, the Governor reflected, then frowned, then + bade his servant reach him down a certain book. He inspected it. + + "'I thought so: any one with him?' + + "'No, Monsieur the Governor.' + + "'Load my pistols: put them on the table: put that book back: show + him in: and then order a guard to the door.' + + "The Governor was a stern veteran, with a powerful brow, a shaggy + eyebrow, and a piercing eye. He never rose, but leaned his chin on + his hand, and his elbow on a table that stood between them, and + eyed the new-comer very fixedly and strangely. + + "'We did not expect to see you on this side of the Pyrenees.' + + "'Nor I myself, Governor.' + + "'What do you come to me for?' + + "'A welcome, a suit of regimentals, and money to take me to + Paris.' + + "'And suppose, instead of that, I turn out a corporal's guard, and + bid them shoot you in the court-yard?' + + "'It would be the drollest thing you ever did, all things + considered,' said the other, coolly; but he looked a little + surprised. + + "The Governor went for the book he had lately consulted, found the + page, handed it to the rusty officer, and watched him keenly: the + blood rushed all over his face, and his lip trembled; but his eye + dwelt stern, yet sorrowful, on the Governor. + + "'I have read your book: now read mine.' + + "He drew off his coat, and showed his wrists and arms, blue and + waled. + + "'Can you read that, Monsieur?' + + "'No.' + + "'All the better for you! Spanish fetters, General.' + + "He showed a white scar on his shoulder. + + "'Can you read that, Sir?' + + "'Humph?' + + "'This is what I cut out of it,'--and he handed the Governor a + little round stone, as big and almost as regular as a musket-ball. + + "'Humph! that could hardly have been fired from a French musket.' + + "'Can you read this?'--and he showed him a long cicatrix on his + other arm. + + "'Knife, I think?' said the Governor. + + "'You are right, Monsieur: Spanish knife!--Can you read + this?'--and opening his bosom, he showed a raw and bloody wound on + his breast. + + "'Oh, the Devil!' cried the General. + + "The wounded man put his coat on again, and stood erect and + haughty and silent. + + "The General eyed him, and saw his great spirit shining through + this man. The more he looked, the less could the scarecrow veil + the hero from his practised eye. + + "'There has been some mistake, or else I dote--and can't tell a + soldier from a'-- + + "'Don't say the word, old man, or your heart will bleed!' + + "'Humph! I must go into this matter at once. Be seated, Captain, + if you please, and tell me what have you been doing all these + years?' + + "'Suffering!' + + "'What, all the time?' + + "'Without intermission.' + + "'But what? suffering what?' + + "'Cold, hunger, darkness, wounds, solitude, sickness, despair, + prison,--all that man can suffer.' + + "'Impossible! a man would be dead at that rate before this.' + + "'I should have died a dozen times, but for one thing.' + + "'Ay! what was that?' + + "'I had promised to live.' + + "There was a pause. Then the old man said, calmly,-- + + "'To the facts, young man: I listen.'" + + And high time, be it said; since it begins to read very much like + one of Artemas Ward's burlesques. The upshot of which listening + was, that the man left for Paris directly in the demanded + regimentals, and wrapt about with the Governor's furred cloak to + boot; that he would not delay in the metropolis one moment, even + to put on the epaulets they gave him, but saved them for his + sweetheart to make him a colonel with, and, though weary and torn + with pain, galloped away to the Chateau de Beaurepaire, to find + that sweetheart another man's wife. + + "He turned his back quickly on her. 'To the army!' he cried, + hoarsely. He drew himself haughtily up in marching-attitude. He + took three strides, erect and fiery and bold. At the fourth the + great heart snapped, and the worn body it had held up so long + rolled like a dead log upon the ground, with a tremendous fall." + +Which scene must be followed by its pendant, taking place during the +siege of a Prussian town, when, from the enemy's bastion, Long Tom, out +of range of Dujardin's battery, was throwing red-hot shot, sending half +a hundred-weight of iron up into the clouds, and plunging it down into +the French lines a mile off. + + "'Volunteers to go out of the trenches!' cried Sergeant La Croix, + in a stentorian voice, standing erect as a poker, and swelling + with importance. + + "There were fifty offers in less than as many seconds. + + "'Only twelve allowed to go,' said the Sergeant; 'and I am one,' + added he, adroitly inserting himself. + + "A gun was taken down, placed on a carriage, and posted near + Death's Alley, but out of the line of fire. + + "The Colonel himself superintended the loading of this gun; and to + the surprise of his men had the shot weighed first, and then + weighed out the powder himself. + + "He then waited quietly a long time, till the bastion pitched one + of its periodical shots into Death's Alley; but no sooner had the + shot struck, and sent the sand flying past the two lanes of + curious noses, than Colonel Dujardin jumped upon the gun and waved + his cocked hat. At this preconcerted signal, his battery opened + fire on the bastion, and the battery to his right hand opened on + the wall that fronted them; and the Colonel gave the word to run + the gun out of the trenches. They ran it out into the cloud of + smoke their own guns were belching forth, unseen by the enemy; but + they had no sooner twisted it into the line of Long Tom than the + smoke was gone, and there they were, a fair mark. + + "'Back into the trenches, all but one!' roared Dujardin. + + "And in they ran like rabbits. + + "'Quick! the elevation.' + + "Colonel Dujardin and La Croix raised the muzzle to the + mark,--hoo! hoo! hoo! ping! ping! ping' came the bullets about + their ears. + + "'Away with you!' cried the Colonel, taking the linstock from him. + + "Then Colonel Dujardin, fifteen yards from the trenches, in full + blazing uniform, showed two armies what one intrepid soldier can + do. He kneeled down and adjusted his gun, just as he would have + done in a practising-ground. He had a pot-shot to take, and a + pot-shot he would take. He ignored three hundred muskets that were + levelled at him. He looked along his gun, adjusted it and + readjusted to a hair's-breadth. The enemy's bullets pattered over + it; still he adjusted and readjusted. His men were groaning and + tearing their hair inside at his danger. + + "At last it was levelled to his mind, and then his movements were + as quick as they had hitherto been slow. In a moment he stood + erect in the half-fencing attitude of a gunner, and his linstock + at the touch-hole: a huge tongue of flame, a volume of smoke, a + roar, and the iron thunderbolt was on its way, and the Colonel + walked haughtily, but rapidly, back to the trenches: for in all + this no bravado. He was there to make a shot,--not to throw a + chance of life away, watching the effect. + + "Ten thousand eyes did that for him. + + "Both French and Prussians risked their own lives, craning out to + see what a colonel in full uniform was doing under fire from a + whole line of forts, and what would be his fate: but when he fired + the gun, their curiosity left the man and followed the iron + thunderbolt. + + "For two seconds all was uncertain: the ball was travelling. + + "Tom gave a rear like a wild horse, his protruding muzzle went up + sky-high, then was seen no more, and a ring of old iron and a + clatter of fragments were heard on the top of the bastion. Long + Tom was dismounted. Oh, the roar of laughter and triumph from one + end to another of the trenches, and the clapping of forty thousand + hands, that went on for full five minutes! then the Prussians, + either through a burst of generous praise for an act so chivalrous + and so brilliant, or because they would not be crowed over, + clapped their ten thousand hands as loudly, and thundering + heart-thrilling salvo of applause answered salvo on both sides + that terrible arena." + +If all this was melodramatic, it should be remembered that the time was +melodramatic itself; it is, however, saved from such accusation by the +truthfulness of the handling; and the homeliness of a portion of it +recalls the ballad of "Up at the villa, down in the city," with its +speeches of drum and fife. Nevertheless, here are combined the true +elements of modern sensational writing: there are the broad canvas, the +vivid colors, the abrupt contrast, all the dramatic and startling +effects that weekly fiction affords, the supernatural heroine, the more +than mortal hero. What, then, rescues it? It would be hard to reply. +Perhaps the reckless, rollicking wit: we cannot censure one who makes us +laugh with him. Perhaps nothing but the writer's exuberant and +superabundant vitality, which through such warp shoots a golden woof +till it is filled and interwoven with the true glance and gleam of +genius. The difference between these pages and that of the previously +mentioned style is the same as exists between any coarse scene-curtain +and some glorious painting, be it Church, with his tropical lushness, or +Gifford, with his shaking, shining mists,-- + + "mist + Like a vaporous amethyst, + Or an air-dissolved star + Mingling light and fragrance far + As the curved horizon's bound,"-- + +some canvas that seems to palpitate and live and tremble with the +breathing being confided to it by the painter. Indeed, Charles Reade has +a great deal of this pictorial power. A single sentence will sometimes +give not only the sketch, but all its tints. Take, for instance, the +paragraph in which, speaking of the Newhaven fish-wives, he says, "It is +a race of women that the Northern sun peachifies instead of +rosewoodizing"; and it is as good as that picture of the "Two +Grandmothers," where the rosy woman with her rosy troop is confronted by +the tawny sunburnt gypsy and her swarthy group of dancing-girl and +tambourine-tosser. + +When "Peg Woffington" first fell upon us, a dozen years ago or so, +Humdrum opened his eyes: it was like setting one's teeth in a juicy pear +fresh from the warm sunshine. Then came "Christie Johnstone," a perfect +pearl of its kind, in which we recognize an important contribution to +one class of romance. If ever the literature of the fishing-coast shall +be compiled, it will be found to be scanty, but superlative; let us +suggest that it shall open with Lucy Larcom's "Poor Lone Hannah," the +most touching and tearful of the songs of New-England life,--followed by +Christie Johnstone's night at sea among the blue-lights and the nets +with their silver and lightning mixed, where the fishers struggle with +that immense sheet varnished in red-hot silver,--and at the end let not +the "Pilot's Pretty Daughter" of William Allingham's be forgotten:-- + + "Were it my lot--there peeped a wish-- + To hand a pilot's oar and sail, + Or haul the dripping moonlit mesh + Spangled with herring-scale: + By dying stars how sweet 'twould be, + And dawn-blow freshening the sea, + With weary, cheery pull to shore + To gain my cottage-home once more, + And meet, before I reached the door, + My pretty pilot's daughter!" + +But it is a fine fashion of this noble world never to acknowledge itself +too well pleased. Men are ashamed of satisfaction. So soon as they have +exhausted the honey, they condemn the comb; it will do to wax an old +wife's thread;--they forget that the cells whose sides break the usual +uniformity contain the royal embryos. Humdrum read these little novels +through and through, laughed and cried over them in secret, then pulled +a long face, stepped forth and denounced--the typography. Now we admit +that the page presents a fairer appearance with single punctuations, +unblurred by Italics, and its smooth surface unbroken by strings of +capitals;--but let us ask these criticasters for what purpose types were +cast at all. To assist the author in the expression of his ideas, and to +elucidate subtile shades of meaning? or to prove his let and hindrance, +and to wrap his expression in mystery? Whether or no, it is patent that +Charles Reade makes an exclamation--and an interrogation-point together +say as much as many novelists can dibble over a whole page. +Nevertheless, in his latest work these eccentricities are greatly +modified; yet who would forego in the sea-fight that almost inaudible, +breathless whisper of "Our ammunition is nearly done"? or again the +moment when Skinner pokes Mr. Hardie lightly in the side and says, +"But--I've--got--THE RECEIPT"? And could anything express the state of +young Reginald's mind so ineffably as the primer type of his letter to +Lucy? + +A much less venial fault than any typographical trifle is a tendency +belonging to this author to repeat both incident and colloquy. This of +course is merely the result of negligence,--and negligence no one likes +to forgive; only Shakspeare can afford to be careless of his fame, and +the rags that his commentators make of him are a warning to all pettier +people. We have seen the manuscript of a man already immortal, so +interlined, erased, and corrected as to be undecipherable by any but +himself and the printer who has been for twenty years condemned to such +hard labor; surely others can condescend to the same pains;--yet we +doubt if Mr. Reade so much as looks his over a second time. + +Many persons have a trick of writing their names, not on the fly-leaf of +the books they possess, but on the hundredth or the fiftieth page. +Perhaps it is according to some such brand of the warehouse that we find +in "Very Hard Cash," or in "White Lies," indifferently, such brief +dialogues as this:-- + + "'No.' + + "'Are you sure?' + + "'Positive.'" + +Then, Reade's characters are perpetually doing the same thing. Josephine +and Margaret both seize their throats not to cry out; Josephine and +Margaret both kiss their babies alike,--a very pretty description of the +act, though:-- + + "The young mother sprang silently upon her child,--you would have + thought she was going to kill it,--her head reared itself again + and again, like a crested snake's, and again and again, and again + and again plunged down upon the child, and she kissed his little + body from head to foot with soft violence, and murmured through + her starting tears." + +But not content with that, Margaret must reenact it. Then Gerard and +Alfred, returning from long absences, both find their only sister dead; +and the plot of three of the novels turns on the fact of long and +inexplicable absences on the part of the heroes. The Baroness de +Beaurepaire, who is flavored with what her maker calls the "congealed +essence of grandmamma," shares her horror of the jargon-vocabulary +equally with Mrs. Dodd, (the captain's wife, who "reared her children in +a suburban villa with the manners which adorn a palace,--when they +happen to be there"). There is a singular habit in the several works of +putting up marble inscriptions for folks before actual demise requires +it,--Hardie showing Lucy Fountain hers, Camille erecting one to Raynal. +All his heroines, as soon as they are crossed in love, invariably lose +their tempers, and invariably by the same process; all, without +exception, have violet eyes and velvet lips, (and sometimes the heroes +also have the latter!) and all of them should wear key-holes at their +ear-rings. Indeed, here is our quarrel with Mr. Reade. The conception of +an artless woman is impossible with him. Plenty of beautiful ideals he +creates, but with the actual woman he is almost unacquainted: Lucy +Fountain, of all his feminine characters, is the only one whose +counterpart we have ever met; Julia, the most perfect type of his fancy, +impetuous, sparkling, and sweet, has this to say for herself, on +occasion of a boat-race:--"'We have won at last,' cried Julia, all on +fire, '_and fairly; only think of that_!'" Through every sentence that +he jots down runs a vein of gentle satire on the sex. Every specimen +that he has drawn from it possesses feline characteristics: if provoked, +they scratch; if happy, they purr; when they move, it is with the bodies +of panthers; when they caress their children, it is like snakes; and in +every single one of his books the women listen, behind the door, behind +the hedge, behind the boat. + + "'He would make an intolerable woman,' says the Baroness. 'A fine + life, if one had a parcel of women about one, blurting out their + real minds every moment, and never smoothing matters!' + + "'Mamma, what a horrid picture!' cries Laure." + +When upon this subject our author leaves innuendo, and fairly shows his +colors, he writes in this wise:-- + + "For nothing is so hard to her sex as a long, steady struggle. In + matters physical, this is the thing the muscles of the fair cannot + stand. In matters intellectual and moral, the long strain it is + that beats them dead. Do not look for a Bacona, a Newtona, a + Handella, a Victoria Huga. Some American ladies tell us education + has stopped the growth of these. No, Mesdames! These are not in + Nature. They can bubble letters in ten minutes that you could no + more deliver to order in ten days than a river can play like a + fountain. They can sparkle gems of stories; they can flash little + diamonds of poems. The entire sex has never produced one opera, + nor one epic that mankind could tolerate a minute: and why?--these + come by long, high-strung labor. But, weak as they are in the long + run of everything but the affections, (and there giants,) they are + all overpowering while the gallop lasts. Fragilla shall dance any + two of you flat on the floor before four o'clock, and then dance + on till peep of day. You trundle off to your business as usual, + and could dance again the next night, and so on through countless + ages. She who danced you into nothing is in bed, a human jelly + crowned with headache." + +Certainly, the concluding sentence shows that the writer is unacquainted +with the Fifth-Avenue Fragilla. And, moreover, we were unaware that she +had ever entered herself as competitor with Dr. Windship in the lifting +of three-thousand-pound weights. But this is poor stuff for a man of +talent to busy himself with,--as if the Creator intended rivalry between +beings complementary to each other, and of too diverse physical +organization to allow the idea. Yet a fair friend of ours would meet him +on his own ungallant ground. If Mr. Reade will trouble himself, says Una +and the Lion, to turn over a work of Frances Power Cobbe's on Intuitive +Morals, he will see that the first two impossibilities in his catalogue +are lessened so far as to allow hope; as for Handella, there is reason +to believe in her advent,--many women have written faultless tunes,--all +that is wanted is mathematical harmony,--and Mary Somerville, Maria +Mitchell, and the sister of the Herschels forbid despair on that point; +and God forbid the Victoria Huga! the male of the species is more than +enough. We must look upon any wide departure from the prevailing pattern +either as a monstrosity or as a development of the great plan; +therefore, if one of these women is a monstrosity, Laplace and Aristotle +are to be considered equally so. And then, also, Mr. Reade, masculine as +he is, finds eclipse in the shade of either Mrs. Lewes, (Marion Evans,) +or Charlotte Bronte, or Madame Dudevant. As for men, they are themselves +just emerging from barbarism; a race rises only with its women, as all +history shows. The whole sex has produced no operas? they are modern +things; when men have advanced a little, when our audience is ready, we +shall write operas. Epics? how many has the entire opposite sex +produced? well, four: terrible disparity, when we count by billions! +These are not in Nature? Whose assertion for that? till he can prove it, +the word of "some American ladies" is as good as the word of Mr. Charles +Reade. For myself, continued the outraged Una, I know a beautiful woman +who left lovers, society, pleasures,--absorbed in her moulding and +modelling, day by day and year by year, with no positive result except +in her own convictions and consciousness,--who spent the long summer +hours alone in the little building with her white ideas, and who, winter +night after night, rose to cross street and garden and snowy fields to +tend the fire and wet the clay, and who, on more than one morning +finding the weary labor of months wasted where the frozen substance had +peeled from the framework and lay in fragments on the floor, without a +murmur began the patient work again. That was during the trial; +afterwards attainment. Was there no long strain and steady struggle +there? + +Una's enthusiasm infects us; and very _apropos_ to all this do we hear +Mr. Reade's Jacintha remark,-- + + "We are good creatures, but we don't trouble our heads with + justice; it is a word you shall never hear a woman use, unless she + happens to be doing some monstrous injustice at the very moment." + +And with the best-natured contempt in the world, Dr. Sampson exclaims,-- + + "What! go t' a wumman for the truth, when I can go t' infallible + inference?" + +Even Lucy Fountain saw many young ladies healed of many young +enthusiasms by a wedding-ring,--but a wittier woman has said it better, +Una declares, in asserting that a married woman's name is her epitaph. +If, however, Mr. Reade's opinion of womankind is at any time +justifiable, we must bring Una to witness that it is so in the following +instance:-- + + "Realize the situation, and the strange incongruity between the + senses and the mind in these poor fellows! The day had ripened its + beauty; beneath a purple heaven shone, sparkled, and laughed a + blue sea, in whose waves the tropical sun seemed to have fused his + beams; and beneath that fair, sinless, peaceful sky, wafted by a + balmy breeze over those smiling, transparent, golden waves, a + bloodthirsty pirate bore down on them with a crew of human tigers; + and a lady babble babble babble babble babble babbled in their + quivering ears!" + +We have heard numberless inquiries as to Mr. Reade's private life, with +which, whether they have the right or not, the public will concern +itself. So at home is he on every subject that each appears to be his +specialty. One asserts that he follows Galen: witness his mania on +medicine. Certainly not, another replies; are not his principles +erroneous, and second-hand at that? Does he not dredge the science with +ridicule? No practitioner would gravely assert the feasibility of +transfusion, an operation never yet performed with success, since the +red globules of his own blood seem to be as proper to each individual as +his identity, and allow no admixture from alien veins; in surgery he has +but one foe,--phlebotomy; in pharmacy, but one friend,--chloroform; he +asserts of Dr. Sampson, (Dr. Dickson, the writer of "Fallacies of the +Faculty"?) that "he was strong, but not strong enough to make the +populace suspend an opinion; yet it might be done: by chloroforming +them." (Which leads one parenthetically to remark that it is great pity, +then, that, in the prevalent headlong precipitancy of public judgment, +anaesthetics have not been more generally employed on this side of the +water of late.) Certainly he is no physician, they say. But, on the +other hand, a conjecture that he has been before the mast is as +plausible a one as that ever Herman Melville was; there is the true +sailor's-roll about him; nobody less skilful than the captain of a +three-decker could have run the Agra through such a gantlet of +broadsides and hurricanes; the manoeuvring of the ship, when her +master puts her before the wind that he may rake one schooner's deck and +hurl the majestic monster bodily upon the other, is unequalled by +anything in nautical literature, and approached by nothing in verity, +except it may be Admiral Dupont's waltz of fire around the two forts of +Hilton Head. Another, who laughs at both of these amateur statements, +has a Grub-Street one; but, except to a favored few, to everybody in +this country he is only an impersonal existence. In this general dearth +of useful information, there are, however, one or two biographical +sketches afloat,--possibly hints of those waiting their chance in the +pigeon-holes of the Thunderer,--of which we are tempted to give the +reader a sample, brought to us by Una in substantiation of her +hostilities. + +The subject of the present notice was picked up at sea, a child, and, +under the provisions of maritime law concerning flotsam, jetsam, and +lagan, was appropriated by the crew. He then followed their fortunes +for several years, with various adventures, among which is the one +wherein he is said to have accompanied Arthur Gordon Pym (disguised in +the published account of that voyage under the name and appearance of +one Peters) upon his fearful South-Sea sail towards that vapory cataract +at the world's end which was seen "rolling silently into the sea from +some immense and far-distant rampart of the heaven," from the horrors of +which he escaped in the same miraculous manner that Mr. Pym did. He must +still have been young at the time, as this occurred in 1838. Unable to +find any credence to these extraordinary statements upon his return, he +found an asylum from the unbelieving world, where, in order not to +become a permanent resident, and being capable of impartial judgment +thereon, he employed himself in a profound study of finance. Emerging +from this seclusion, lest he should defraud his natural element +entirely, he plunged into the hot water of the revolutions then ravaging +Europe. Receiving wounds, he was laid up in hospital; and being of an +active turn of mind and debarred from other pursuits, he fell (like Dr. +Marie Zakrzewski) to studying the cards renewed every day above the +patients' beds with the disease written thereon, its symptoms, and its +treatment; in this manner he acquired quite a knowledge of medicine. He +was, however, mercifully prevented from practising by the fact, that, +upon repeating his story to an acquaintance, he met, as before, with +such total disbelief, that, most fortunately for many readers, he +determined at once to devote the remainder of his days to fiction. + +How much faith such a narrative deserves we leave others to decide. It, +however, has the virtue, as Una declares again, of plausibly explaining +Mr. Reade's entire misapprehension of the feminine portion of +humanity,--since, during the whole course of such a career, it would +have been impossible that he should have made intimate acquaintance with +a single specimen of the sex. It is true that in "Christie Johnstone" he +speaks of the musical performances of certain female relatives of his +own; but of course that is to be taken only as a part of the fiction. +One thing, however, is evident,--that, if this sketch is not true, the +converse of it must be, and where the reader has paid his money he may +take his choice. + +Mr. Reade's latest novel, "Very Hard Cash," is a continuation of a +previous one, "Love me Little, Love me Long." A great charm of +Thackeray's books was, that in every fresh one we heard a little news of +the dear old friends of former ones; and "Very Hard Cash" has all the +advantage of prepossession in its favor. Its forerunner was a startling +thing to the circulating-library, for the hero was an entirely new +character, dashing among the elegancies of the habitual hero like a +shaggy dog in a drawing-room; and though the author admires him to the +core of his heart, he never once hesitates to put him in ridiculous +plight, and sets at last this diamond-in-the-rough in his purest and +most polished gold. It is a delightful book, with one scene in it, the +memorable night at sea, worth scores of customary novels, and, apart +from the noble and beautiful delineation of David Dodd, would be +invaluable for nothing else but its faultless portraiture of that +millinery devotee, Mrs. Bazalgette. + +From two such natures as David and his wife nothing less noble should +spring; and therefore, through necessity, their daughter Julia, the +heroine of "Very Hard Cash," is that ideal of vehemence and sweetness +which we find her, not by any choice or fancy of the writer, but on +account of fate, natural deduction, and _a priori_ logic. She is, +however, for all that, to some extent a creation; one may imagine her, +long for her, look for her,--one will not immediately find her. Youth +never was painted so well as here; both Julia and Alfred are aureoled in +its beauty; they are not reasonable mortals with the accumulated +perfections of three-score and ten, but young creatures just brimmed, as +young creatures are, with the blissfulness of being. Nobody ever +appreciated youth as this writer does, nobody has so entered into it; +he never fails, to be sure, to make you laugh at it a little, but all +the time he confesses a kind of loving worship of that buoyant time when +the effervescence of the animal spirits fills the brain with its happy +fumes, of that fearless, confident period that + + "Is not, like Atlas, curled + Stooping 'neath the gray old world, + But which takes it, lithe and bland, + Easily in its small hand." + +We have often wondered that no one ever before grappled with the +material of this last volume. The easy ability of one person to +incarcerate another in a mad-house is as often abused in America as in +England, and circumstances in this drama which might strike a casual +reader as preposterous we can match with kindred and more hopeless cases +within our own knowledge. Perhaps one of the ablest portions of the +treatment which this book affords the theme is in the singular +collocation of characters,--the hero being wrongfully imprisoned as +insane, the heroine's father really made so by medical malpractice, the +hero's sister dying of injuries received from another maniac, his uncle +being imbecile, and his father and one of his physicians becoming +monomaniac. Nicer shades than these allow could not be drawn, and the +subject stands in bold relief as a monument of dauntless courage and +enthusiasm. + +No one can hesitate to declare this novel, as it is the latest, to be +also the finest of all that Charles Reade has given us. In saying this +we do not forget the "Cloister and Hearth," which, however tender and +touching and true to its century, is rather a rambling narrative than an +elucidated plot. "Very Hard Cash" is wrought out with the finest finish, +yet nowhere overdone; it so abounds in scenes of dramatic climax that we +fancy the stage has lost immensely by the romance-reader's gain; yet +there is never a single situation thrown away, every word tends in the +main direction, and after that the prolific mind of the writer overflows +in _marginalia_. There are one or two striking improbabilities, which +Mr. Reade himself excuses by asserting that the commonplace is neither +dramatic nor evangelical,--and therefore we confess, that, so long as +Reginald Bazalgette had a ship, Captain Dodd was as likely to turn up on +that as on any other, the purser as likely to make his communication at +that moment as later, and the fly as likely to resuscitate the patient +as the surgeon. But the characterization in this book is wonderful; +every name becomes an acquaintance, from Mrs. Beresford, dividing Ajax's +emotion and declining to be drowned in the dark, with her servant +Ramgolam and his matchless Orientalisms, up to the loftier models, one +of whom he endows with this exquisite bit of description:-- + + "A head overflowed by ripples of dark-brown hair sat with heroic + grace upon his solid white throat, like some glossy falcon + new-lighted on a Parian column." + +We must, however, object to Fullalove, who is quite unworthy of the +author, though perhaps complacently regarded by him as a success, being +merely the traditional Yankee compound of patents and conjectures, a +little smarter than usual, as of course a passage through Mr. Reade's +pen must make him;--he never touched his brain. Vespasian, also, is not +so good as he might be, although one enjoys his contempt for the +pirate's crew of Papuans, Sooloos, and Portuguese, as a "mixellaneous +bilin' of darkies," and finds something inimitable in his injured +dignity over the anomalous _sobriquet_ afforded him, whose changes he +rings through analogy and anatomy till he declares himself to be only a +"darned anemone." The real charm of the book, however, lies in the +beautiful relation which it pictures between mother and children, and in +the nature of the daughter herself, so exuberant, so dancing, yet the +foam subsiding into such a luminous body of clearness, which so lights +up the page with its loveliness, that, seeing how an artless woman is +foreign to Mr. Reade's ideas, we are forced to believe that Nature was +too strong for him and he wrote against the grain. Nevertheless, there +is enough of his own prejudice retained for piquancy,--and since the +poor things must be insignificantly wicked, see how charming they can +be! There are many scenes between these covers that would well bear +repetition, were they not too fresh in the reader's mind to require it; +we will content ourselves with a single one, which contains the only +pretentious writing of the whole novel, done at a touch, with a light, +loose pen, but showing beyond compare the soul of the poet through the +flesh of the novelist. + + "At six twenty-five, the grand orb set calm and red, and the sea + was gorgeous with miles and miles of great ruby dimples: it was + the first glowing smile of southern latitude. The night stole on + so soft, so clear, so balmy, all were loath to close their eyes on + it; the passengers lingered long on deck, watching the Great Bear + dip, and the Southern Cross rise, and overhead a whole heaven of + glorious stars most of us have never seen and never shall see in + this world. No belching smoke obscured, no plunging paddles + deepened; all was musical; the soft air sighing among the sails; + the phosphorescent water bubbling from the ship's bows; the + murmurs from little knots of men on deck subdued by the great + calm: home seemed near, all danger far; Peace ruled the sea, the + sky, the heart: the ship, making a track of white fire on the + deep, glided gently, yet swiftly, homeward, urged by snowy sails + piled up like alabaster towers against a violet sky, out of which + looked a thousand eyes of holy, tranquil fire. So melted the sweet + night away. + + "Now carmine streaks tinged the eastern sky at the water's edge, + and that water blushed; now the streaks turned orange, and the + waves below them sparkled. Thence splashes of living gold flew and + settled on the ship's white sails, the deck, and the faces; and, + with no more prologue, being so near the line, up came + majestically a huge, fiery, golden sun, and set the sea flaming + liquid topaz. + + "Instant the lookout at the foretop-gallant-mast-head hailed the + deck below. + + "'Strange sail! Right ahead!' + + * * * * * + + "Ah! the stranger's deck swarms black with men! + + "His sham ports fell as if by magic, his guns grinned through the + gaps like black teeth; his huge foresail rose and filled, and out + he came in chase. + + "The breeze was a kiss from Heaven, the sky a vaulted sapphire, + the sea a million dimples of liquid, lucid gold." + +In conclusion, we must pronounce Mr. Reade's merit, in our judgment, to +belong not so much to what he has already done as to what, if life be +allowed him, he is yet to do. All his previous works read like +'studies,' in the light of his last. For "Very Hard Cash" is the +beginning of a new era; it shows the careful hand of the artist doing +justice to the conceptions of genius, in the prime of his vigor, with +all his powers well in hand. The forms of literature change with the +necessities of the age,--to some future generation what illustration the +dramatists were to the Elizabethan day the knot of superior novelists +will be to this, and among them all Charles Reade is destined to no +subordinate rank. + + * * * * * + +HOW ROME IS GOVERNED. + + +There are a thousand descriptions of Rome, its antiquities, galleries, +ceremonies, and manners, but hardly any, that I remember, of the +organization of the Papal Government,--that wonderful power which long +played the chief part in the social and political revolutions of Europe, +which, even in its decay, preserves so much of its original grandeur, +and still clings to its traditions with a tenacity of conviction that +commands our respect, although the remembrance of the evil that it has +done compels us, as men and as Christians, to rejoice at the prospect of +its fall. + +This omission on the part of so many thoughtful travellers is by no +means an unnatural one. We go to Rome in order to see and to feel, +rather than to study and to think. The past crowds upon us overladen +with history and poetry; and the present is so full of new forms of life +that it is only when we come to sit down at a distance and gather up our +recollections that we ask ourselves how all the instruments of that +gorgeous pageantry are put together and moved. The Pope has palaces and +villas. The cardinals live in splendid apartments, and ride in massive +coaches of purple and gilt, drawn by horses richly caparisoned, and +attended by servants in livery. Bishops and prelates and monks and +priests and friars fill long processions on public occasions, and move +about in their daily life with the air and bearing of men who belong to +a sphere that common men have no concern in. + +There is a church or a chapel for every day in the year, and some emblem +of external recognition for every saint in the calendar. There are +lenten days, when the rich eat fresh tunny from the Adriatic or eels +from Comacchio, and the poor whatever they can get; and holidays, when +the shops are shut and the churches and theatres open, and everybody +amuses himself as well as his tastes and his means allow. Nowhere are +processions so splendid, festivals so magnificent, the whole body of the +population accustomed, either as actors or as spectators, to such daily +displays of opulence and grandeur. + +How is all this done? How do all these men live? What do they do for +themselves and for one another? What is the object of this +multiplication of insignia and titles? What is the meaning of the red +stockings and the purple stockings, and the red and the purple hat-band, +and the various decorations of the horses, and the infinite varieties of +cut and color and device in dress and equipage, which you begin to +distinguish only when you become accustomed to objects so unlike +anything you have ever seen before? For every one of them has a meaning, +and tells the instructed eye the hopes and aspirations and half the +history of the bearer as plainly as a tablet or an inscription. + +Without attempting, on the present occasion, to answer all of these +questions in detail, I shall endeavor to give such an outline of the +organization of the Roman Government as shall cover the most important +of them. + +The head of this vast body, the Pope, is better known than any of the +inferior members; for, as spiritual head of the Church and absolute +sovereign of her temporal dominions, his peculiar position has always +made him the object of peculiar attention. Officially, he was for +centuries the acknowledged chief of Christendom, jealous of his +prerogatives, bold in his assumptions, often feared where he was not +reverenced, and often courted and flattered where he inspired neither +reverence nor fear. Individually, his education and habits, the books he +reads and the company he keeps, have seldom led him to study the causes +of national prosperity, and still more seldom taught him to sympathize +with the feelings or respect the rights of mankind. + +From his childhood, the purest source of sympathies and affections is +closed for him rigorously and hopelessly. He grows up as a stranger at +the family-hearth; for, as he sits there, he is taught that he can never +have a family-hearth of his own. He begins life by renouncing its +dearest privileges, and training all his faculties for a relentless war +upon himself,--for repressing natural impulses, not guiding them, +extirpating his passions, not subduing them, and aiming at an +insensibility that can be attained only by the sacrifice of every human +instinct, rather than that serene tranquillity of spirit in which every +passion is recognized as a power for good as well as for evil, and all +are subjected alike to the guidance of a discriminating and +conscientious self-control. + +He is in a false position from his first step in life, and strays +farther and farther from the true course to the very end of it. His +hopes and aspirations are all directed to one object, trained to flow in +a dark and narrow channel, on which the sunbeams never play, and which +the pure breath of Nature never visits. His brothers and sisters have a +thousand things to talk about and think about which he has no part in. +If he joins in their games, it is still as the _abbatino_: the formal +small-clothes and narrow neckband and three-cornered hat that contrast +so strongly with their gay dresses are ever present to remind him and +them that they have different paths to travel, and have already entered +upon them. It is a dreary process that education of his, and one that +makes your heart ache to look upon. A rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed boy, +with boyish blood in his veins, running through them quick and warm, and +every now and then making them tingle with some boyish longing that will +out, although he is a priest in miniature and a Pope in prospective. I +never could look at it without thinking of the gardener, in the fulness +of his topiary pride, cutting trees and shrubs into towers and walls, +and every shape but that which Nature designed them for. Clip, clip, go +the long, scythe-like shears, and with every clip down comes a branch +with its thousand songs unsung, or a shoot with its half-blown promise +of spring. Cut away earnestly, patiently. You have your faith to help +you; and though your eyes are of the strongest and keenest, you have +never been taught to use them. Cut away till your arms ache and your +head swims with the strain of measuring angles and inches and pyramids +and obelisks; Nature is working at the root while you are warring on the +branches. True, the birds will not build where your shears have passed; +and the winds will wail where they would have piped it merrily, if the +young boughs had been there to dance to their breathings. But the roots +are tough and the trunks are strong, and the sap wells surely up from +those mysterious sources where, in darkness and silence, Nature works +her wondrous transformations,--proving, through each waxing and waning +year, by bud and leaf and branch, that, thwart and mutilate and deny her +as you may, she is the same kind mother still. + +As life advances, the dividing lines grow sharper and more defined. He +has got his Latin, and, in getting it, read Virgil and Horace and +Cicero, as his brothers did. But henceforth St. Augustine becomes his +Cicero; and he already begins to suspect that the best service his Homer +and Thucydides and Demosthenes have rendered him has been by enabling +him to understand St. Chrysostom. What is Herodotus to the Lives of the +Saints, or Livy to Baronius? Why should he waste his time on human +nature in Tacitus, or follow, with Guicciardini, the tortuous paths of +princes, when he can find lessons more to his taste, and wisdom more to +his purpose, in Mabillon and Pallavicini? His daily conversation is +about the interests and concerns of his order, and, as he enters upon +its duties, about the questions which those duties raise, and the +rewards which their fulfilment promises or brings. It was a great day +for him and for his friends, when he first ascended the altar in cope +and stole; but mass soon becomes a daily exercise, and, like all things +done daily, sinks into routine. A still more anxious day was it, when he +first took his seat in the confessional to absolve and to condemn, to +interpret and to enjoin, to listen to secrets which are like the lifting +of the veil from one of the darkest mysteries of life, and feel the +breath that bore them through the punctures of the thin partition fall +on his cheek with a warmth that made his veins glow and his own breath +come fast and thick. + +I once heard a confession of murder from the murderer's lips, as we sat +alone, side by side, on the same sofa. It was of a Sunday morning, +bright, beautiful, and still, one of those days in which earth looks so +pure and lovely that you can hardly believe sin could ever have found a +home thereon. He was a Sicilian, a gentleman by birth and fortune; and +when he first came into the room, apologizing for the intrusion, and +regretting that he was taking up my time with the business of a +stranger, I thought that I had never seen a more intelligent face or +felt more immediately at home with an utter stranger. He began his story +in a low, musical voice,--Italian loses none of its softness in the +mouth of a Sicilian,--and I had followed him through a midnight ride +over a wild and solitary road before I began to suspect how it was to +end. Then came the details: a sudden meeting,--angry words, heating to +madness blood already too hot,--a shot,--a body writhing on the ground +in its own blood. His voice hardly changed, though the tones, perhaps, +were somewhat deeper; but his cheek flushed and his eye kindled, and I +felt such a sickening shudder come over me as I had never felt before. +He was dressed in white, too,--spotless white, as it seemed to me, when +he first came into the room; I had even admired the neatness of his +trousers and waistcoat: but as I looked and listened, big drops of blood +seemed to come out upon them,--a drop for every word, slowly exuding +from some mysterious source, till he was bathed all over in it from head +to foot. A day or two afterwards, I met him upon the Pincian, in the +midst of walkers and riders and all the gay throng of a crowded +promenade at its most crowded hour. But the blood was on him still, and, +under the locks that clustered darkly over his forehead, the +ineffaceable mark of Cain. + +But even the story of murder may become familiar. Human nature at the +confessional is the dark side of human nature, and it is as hard for the +moral eye to preserve a healthy tone in the midst of this moral darkness +as for the physical eye to preserve its clearness and strength in the +constant presence of physical darkness. Curious questions come up there, +undoubtedly, of a deep, strange interest, and often, too, of a deep and +strange fascination. But it is not Nature's generous impulses, its +tender yearnings, its noble aspirations, that the stricken conscience +pours into the confessor's ear. The strugglings and writhings of the +soul, the convulsive efforts to cast off an insupportable burden, to +escape from an insufferable anguish, to find rest for itself in its +weariness, peace for its warring passions, an answer and a solution to +its doubts,--these are the events of the confessional. And its fruits +are the folios of Molina and Vasquez and Filutius and Lessius and +Escobar, wherein sin and temptation are weighed in scales so delicate +that the tenderest conscience can hardly hesitate to indulge itself now +and then in the flowery little by-paths that run so pleasantly close to +the straight and narrow way. It was not in the confessional that +Filangieri and Gioja and Romagnosi studied, that Adam Smith sought the +secret of national prosperity, or that Sismondi found that perennial +fountain of generous sympathies, which, through his fifty years of +incessant labor, welled up with such a quickening and invigorating +vitality from the profound investigations of the historian and the +patient statistics of the economist. + +Not all, however, who wear the priest's dress are confessors and +priests. There is a body of reserves always in waiting upon the vast +army of regular ecclesiastics: men ready to push forward into the +ranks, but who stop short at the _prima tonsura_ till they have +ascertained how much their chances will be bettered by taking the final +and irrevocable step. Yet, although they now and then bring somewhat +more of worldly leaven into their intellectual and moral training, they +well know that there is but one road to the red hat and the tiara, and +that they who give themselves up to this ambition must give themselves +up to it with undivided hearts. Thus the models which they set before +themselves, the ideals after which they strive, are all taken from +successful aspirants to the honors of the Church. And the interests of +that great body, as a body independent of laymen, and which can preserve +its immunities only by preserving its independence, and its independence +only by a rigid exclusion of foreign elements,[A] become as dear to them +as if they already enjoyed all its privileges and had assumed all its +obligations. + +If any one wishes to know what sort of statesmen such an education +makes, let him go thoughtfully over the twenty legations, prolegations, +delegations, and governments into which the twelve thousand nine hundred +and twenty square miles of the Pontifical States were still divided only +four years ago, and see how the two million nine hundred and eighty +thousand subjects of the Pope lived and throve under the care of +cardinals and prelates. Subtle negotiators, skilled in the crooks and +tangles of a wily and selfish policy, they have always been,--for they +have studied well the selfish elements of the human heart; patient, too, +and persevering and keen-eyed, as they must needs be who walk in +tortuous ways,--but cold, contracted, and arrogant, mistaking artifice +for statesmanship, unwilling to learn from the lessons of the past, and +unable to comprehend the changes that are going on around them, or to +see that every forward step of the human race is the result of causes +which man has sometimes been permitted to modify, but which he can never +hope to control. + +It is from men thus educated that the Pope and his counsellors are +chosen. + +As far as theoretical origin goes, the Pope is the most democratic of +sovereigns; for there is nothing to prevent his being taken from any +rank or order of the faithful. The sons of peasants and mechanics have +sat upon the Papal throne, and the thunderbolts of the Vatican have been +launched by hands familiar with the pruning-knife and the plough. But in +practice these bounds were effectually narrowed, when the college of +cardinals tacitly restricted the choice to the members of their own +body,--and still more effectually, when, by the same silent usurpation, +they resolved that Adrian of Utrecht should be the last of foreign +pontiffs. For three hundred and forty years none but Italians have been +called to the chair of St. Peter's, thus, by an inevitable result of the +unnatural alliance of temporal with spiritual sovereignty, confining the +birthright of Christendom to the nation which all Christendom delighted +to humiliate and oppress. + +Theoretically, also, the election of the Pope is made by the special +intervention of the Holy Ghost, although the doings of most conclaves +fill many pages of very unholy history. Intrigues begin the moment the +Pope's health is known to be failing, and grow thicker and more +intricate with each unfavorable bulletin. There are few among the +cardinals who do not feel that they have at least a chance of election; +and not one, perhaps, but enters the conclave prepared to make the most +of his individual pretensions. Some even, like Consalvi at the conclave +of Leo XII., set their hearts so strongly upon it that they have been +supposed to have died of the disappointment. Great services are not +always the best recommendation; for it is difficult to serve the public +well without making some private enemies. Little griefs, long forgotten +by the offender, but carefully treasured up in the more tenacious memory +of the offended, have more than once proved insurmountable obstacles in +the path to the throne. Each, too, of the great Catholic powers has a +right to exclude one among the candidates, if the exclusion be announced +before the votes are all given in: a privilege which, as it narrows the +circle of the eligible and increases individual chances, seldom fails to +be faithfully exercised. Indeed, up to the last moment, no one can tell +who may and who may not be chosen. The most prominent candidates are +often the first to be set aside; and the election, like all elections, +from that of a President of the United States to that of a +village-constable, is oftener decided by a combination of personal +ambitions and interests than by those pure and elevated motives which +look so attractive in the programme. + +The death of the Pope is announced by the tolling of the great bell of +the Capitol, and with all convenient haste the nine days' funeral +begins. Everybody that has been at Rome will remember the beautiful +little chapel on the right hand as you enter St. Peter's; for in the +niche above the altar is the group of the Virgin with the dead Christ on +her knees, one of the few works which the volcanic genius of Michel +Angelo could bring itself to finish in marble. In this chapel, directly +in front of this marvellous group, the body of the dead Pope, embalmed +and clad in Pontifical robes, is laid on a sumptuous bier, amid a blaze +of tapers, with sentinels from the Swiss guard at his feet, leaning on +their long halberds, and officers of the household in official costume, +and all that imposing mixture of sacred and profane which Rome knows so +well how to use upon all great occasions. And here, day after day, the +faithful still crowd to take the last look of their "Holy Father," and +kiss the cross on his slipper, and repeat a prayer for his soul. And +hundreds among them, especially the very young and the very old, go a +few yards farther on to the bronze statue of St. Peter, once the bronze +statue of Jupiter, and with equal faith imprint a fervent kiss on the +well-worn toe, and repeat a prayer for themselves. + +On the opposite side, over the doorway that leads to the dome, is a +large sarcophagus of white marble, looking down, if marble can be +supposed to look, upon the monument of the last of the Stuarts: dead +Pope and dead King almost face to face; crown and tiara mouldering +within a few paces of each other; for in that sarcophagus Pope after +Pope has silently taken his place, till summoned by the death of his +successor to go down to the darker slumbers of the vaults below. And at +the close of the ninth day of the funeral, when the crowd is gone, and +the doors are closed, and the evening shadows begin to fall upon chapel +and altar, and the votive tapers twinkle like dim stars through the +gathering gloom, the sarcophagus is opened, the coffin taken out and +examined and then carried down to the vault, the newly dead is raised to +his temporary resting-place, and amid a silence seldom broken by +lamentation the apostolic notary writes by flickering torchlight that +once more the successor of the throne has become the successor of the +grave. + +Then begins the conclave. Each cardinal comes in state with his two +_conclavistas_, or conclave-companions, usually prelates, and always +chosen with a view to the services they may be able to render in the +approaching struggle; the mass of the Holy Spirit is solemnly said, if +not always devoutly listened to; the ambassadors of the Catholic powers +utter their official exhortations to harmony and a single eye to the +good of the Church; and when they withdraw, the mason of the conclave +steps gravely forth, trowel in hand, to build up a solid wall of brick +and mortar betwixt the electors and that world which still looks forward +with curious interest, although with diminished faith, to the result of +the election. + +The conclave, as the name indicates, is a room, and when the +constitution of the customary circular letters announcing his election, +the new Pope, John XXI., better known, if known at all, by his +"Thesaurus Pauperum" than by his administration of the Holy See, issued +a Bull confirming the suspension of the obnoxious constitution, as +containing things "obscure, impracticable, and opposed to the +acceleration of the election." The next conclave lasted six months and +eight days. + +Still the conclave is a kind of imprisonment, which nothing but that +love of power which reconciles man to so many things he hates, and those +hopes that never die in hearts that have once cherished them, could +induce seventy men accustomed to lives of luxury and indulgence to +submit to. The usual place of holding it is the Quirinal, a cooler and +healthier palace than the Vatican; and, in a spirit very different from +that of the Gregorian constitution, everything is done to make it as +comfortable as is consistent with narrow space and walled-up doors. Each +cardinal has four small rooms for himself and his two companions, and +the number and quality of the dishes at his dinner and supper depend +upon his own habits and the skill of his cook. The approaches are +guarded by the senators and _conservatori_, patriarchs and bishops, and +at meal-times, a judge of the _Rota_ is stationed at the dumb-waiter to +examine the dishes as they are brought up, and make sure that the +intrigues within get no help from the intrigues without. Daily mass +forms, of course, a part of the daily routine, and is followed by the +morning vote. + +The voting usually begins with the _scrutinio_, or, as we should term +it, the ballot. Each cardinal writes his own name and that of his +candidate on a ticket. Then, with many ceremonies and genuflections, not +very edifying to profane eyes, if profane eyes were permitted to see +them, but each of which has its mystical interpretation, he ascends to +the altar and lays his ticket on the communion-plate, whence it is +transferred to the chalice,--communion-plate and communion-cup playing a +part in the ceremony which has made more than one good Catholic groan +deeply in spirit. The votes are then counted, care being taken that they +correspond in number to the number of cardinals present, and if any +candidate is found to have two-thirds of the votes cast, the election is +complete. If, however, the legal two-thirds are not reached, any voter +may change his vote by saying that he accedes to the votes thrown in +favor of any other candidate. This mode of election is called +_accession_, and has often been found successful where the prominence of +any candidate was sufficient to make it evident that two or three votes +would secure a choice. + +_Inspiration_ is another mode of election, not so common as the ballot, +but which, whenever any candidate has succeeded in forming a strong +party, is not without its advantages. Several cardinals call out +together the name of their candidate, and if many of them agree in +calling the same name, the rest are seldom willing to hold out in open +opposition to a choice which after all may be made without them: the +successful candidate always being expected to remember those who +favored, and seldom known to forget those who opposed his election. + +A fourth and last mode, never resorted to except in desperate straits, +and when the contest seems interminable, is by _delegation_: the power +of choice being delegated by the cardinals to one or more of their +number, and all solemnly pledging themselves to abide by the decision. +It was thus that Gregory X. was chosen by a delegation of six,--and that +John XXII. became Pope after two years of regular voting had failed to +procure a successor to the Prince of the Apostles. It has been said, +however, that John, who, partly by his talents and partly by fraud, had +raised himself from the lowest walks of life, had no sooner secured a +pledge of concurrence than he announced his own name as that of the +candidate of his choice. Surprised, but not edified, the cardinals made +no opposition to his elevation, for Christendom and folio crammed with +projects and reports: bishops and missionaries transport him in a moment +from England to China, from Egypt to Peru. If you could look into those +piles of papers which are awaiting his signature, you would find +petitions and remonstrances, death-warrants and pardons, political +processes and criminal processes, schemes for a new bishopric or a new +canonization, plans for a cathedral in New York or a convent in Syria, +for a new prison in the Patrimony or a new tax in the Marches, +architecture and law, finance and theology, sacred and profane all +jumbled together: and what wonder they should keep jumbled, from the +beginning to the end, from his coronation to his funeral, leaving him, +even with the best intentions and the most untiring industry, a helpless +prey to intrigues and cabals and all the artifices and deceptions which +beset a throne? Gioja and Romagnosi are under the ban, and he has no +wish to ask them for the clue to the labyrinth he is wandering in, even +if he had the time. He has no time to read the newspapers. His knowledge +of them is derived from abstracts prepared for him by a clerk in the +Governor's office,--containing, therefore, what the minister allows to +be put there, and nothing more; while their living pictures, those +columns of advertisements which bring before you day by day the wants +and hopes and pursuits of so many of your fellow-creatures, carrying +you, as it were, into hundreds of families, and laying open to your +scrutiny hundreds of human hearts, the different lights in which men and +things appear to the organs of different parties, and the proof which, +in the midst of their contradictions, they all concur in giving that +there is a spirit abroad which cannot be lulled to sleep, are lessons +all lost for him, and which, perhaps, would be equally lost, even if he +had the leisure and the knowledge to study them. + +He dines alone,--for in the city, in the dearth of publicans and +sinners, no one can sit at table with the Vicar of Christ; and thus +dinner-hour, the open-hearted hour, puts him almost more absolutely in +the hands of his immediate attendants than any hour of the twenty-four. +If he walks, it is in the garden or library; if he rides, it is +surrounded by guards and followed by his household train. He took his +last walk in the streets when he was a prelate, and thenceforth knows no +more of the city than he can see through his carriage-windows; and now +even that imperfect view is more than half cut off by the officers of +the guard, who ride their great black horses close to the carriage-door. + +But enough of the Pope, and much more than I had intended when I first +took up my pen. That, even when he has studied them most, the temporal +interests of his people must suffer in his hands, has been proved by the +sufferings of millions through centuries of oppression and misrule. And +must it not always be so, when the interests of husbands and fathers are +intrusted to men cut off by education and profession from the domestic +sympathies wherein these interests have birth, and that domestic hearth +which is at once the source and the emblem and the purifier of the +State? + +The electors and advisers of the Pope form the College of Cardinals, +seventy in number, when full: six bishops, fifty priests, and fourteen +deacons; once merely the parish priests of Rome, then princes of the +Church and electors of its visible head. In this body, formerly so +important and on which so much still depends, all Catholic Europe has +its representatives, although it is mainly composed of native Italians. +Many of them are men of exemplary piety, many of them eminent for talent +and learning, but some, too, mere worldlings, raised by intrigue or +favor or the necessities of birth to a position too exalted for weak +heads, and too much beset with temptation for corrupt hearts. + +The path that leads to the sacred college is neither a straight nor a +narrow one. There are no prescribed qualifications of age or of rank. +Leo X. was cardinal at thirteen; and although no such premature +appointment to the gravest duties has been made since, or will ever, +probably, be made again, yet there is always a salutary sprinkling of +youth in this eminent body, if priests and prelates can ever be said to +be truly young. And although families of a certain rank are sure of the +speedy promotion of any child whom they may see fit to dedicate to the +Church, yet the representative of untainted blood has often found +himself side by side with the son of a peasant or of an artisan. The +cardinal is not necessarily even a priest. Adrian V. died without +ordination; and Leo X. held the keys of St. Peter four days with +unconsecrated hands. He may even have been married, but must be single +again when he puts on the red hat. + +The appointment is made by the Pope, and, although announced to the +whole body assembled in consistory, requires no confirmation to make it +valid. Certain offices lead to it, and are known as cardinalate offices. +Every prelate looks forward to it with hope, and every priest with +longing; and besides the priests and prelates, the regular orders also, +the monks and friars, claim a representation in the college. But +whatever the pretensions or expectations of individuals may be, the +decision rests with the Pope, whose good-will, adroitly managed, has +often let fall the coveted honor upon men who had little else to +recommend them. It was certainly honorable to this reverend body in our +own day that they numbered Mai and Mezzofante among their brethren; but +in Rome the story ran that neither the palimpsestic labors of the one +nor the fifty languages of the other would have won him the well-earned +promotion, if the Pope's favorite servant had not set his heart upon +making his children's tutor assistant-librarian of the Vatican. + +Although nominally the council of the Pope, the consistory or official +assembly of the cardinals has few of the characteristics of a +deliberative body. The Pope addresses them from his throne; but the +substance of his address is already known to most of them beforehand, +and his opinion upon the subject, as well as theirs, made up before they +come together. They have no constituents to enlighten, nothing to hope +and nothing to fear from public opinion. They are all so near the +topmost round that each of them is justified in feeling as if he already +had his hand upon it; but to whichever of them that envied preeminence +may be destined, it is neither the favor nor the gratitude of the people +that can raise him to it. What they already hold they are sure of; and +it is only to the good-will of their colleagues that they are to look +for more. + +But it is in those public meetings that the Roman court puts on all its +splendor. The very hall has a grave and imposing air about it that +inspires serious thoughts in serious minds, and checks, for a moment, +the frivolous vivacity of lighter ones. You cannot look at the walls +without feeling a solemn sadness steal over you, as you think of the +thousands of your fellow-creatures who have gazed on them with the same +freshness and fulness of life with which you now gaze on them, since +Raphael and Michel Angelo first clothed them with their own immortal +conceptions, three hundred years ago. It was in an assembly like this, +and perhaps in this very room, that the condemnation of Luther was +pronounced, that Henry was proclaimed "Defender of the Faith," and that +Cardinal Pole rejoiced with his brethren of the purple over the +approaching return of England to the bosom of the Church. And as you are +musing on these things, and centuries seem to pass before you like the +figures of a dream, the room gradually fills, the cardinals come in and +take their places, each clad in the simple majesty of the purple, and +last of all comes the Pope himself, the steel sabres of his guard +ringing on the marble floor with a clang that breaks the harmonious +silence most discordantly. Then in a moment all is hushed again. The +cardinals go one by one to pay their homage to their spiritual father, +kneeling and kissing the cross on his mantle, he blessing them all, as +duteous children, in return. If you are an American and a Catholic, you +look on devoutly, feeling, perhaps, at moments, although you take good +care not to say so, that, although highly edifying, it is a little dull; +if an American and a Protestant, you think of the morning prayer in +Congress, and members with newspapers or half-read letters in their +hands, a very busy one now and then forgetting that he is standing with +his hat on, and all of them in a hurry to have it over and enter upon +the business of the day,--or of a reception-night, perhaps, at the White +House, with the President shaking hands as fast as they can be held out, +and trying hard to smile each new-comer into the belief that the +"present incumbent" is the very best man he can vote for at the next +election. + +But hush! the Pope is speaking,--not always as orators speak, it is +true, but gravely, at least, and with that indefinable air of dignity +which the habit of command seldom fails to impart. The language is +sonorous, and if you have had the good sense to unlearn your barbarous +application of English sounds--cunningly devised by Nature herself to +keep damp fogs and cold winds out of the mouth--to Italian vowels, which +the same judicious mother framed with equal cunning to let soft and +odoriferous airs into it, you will probably understand what he says, for +his speech is generally in Latin, and very good Latin too.[B] + +But still you grow tired, and, like the actors in the splendid pageant, +are heartily glad when it is all over,--well pleased to have seen it, +but, unless a sight-seer by nature, equally pleased to feel that you +will never be compelled by your duty to your guide-book and _cicerone_ +to see it again. + +There are three kinds of consistory,--the private, the public, and the +semi-public. The most interesting are those in which ambassadors are +received, for the ambassador's speech gives some variety to the routine. +But in substance they are all equally splendid, equally formal, and--now +that the world no longer looks to the Vatican for its creeds--all +equally insignificant and dull. + +Thus it is not as a deliberative body that the cardinals take part in +the government. Their collective functions are for the most part purely +formal, and the great wheel turns steadily on its axle without any +direct help from them. But as sole electors of the sovereign, whom they +are not only to choose, but to choose from among themselves, and as the +body from which the highest functionaries of the State are drawn, their +individual influence is always very considerable, often whatever they +have the tact and skill to make it. + +Another body which shares with the "Sacred College" the privilege of +furnishing the instruments of government is the Prelacy,--a term which +must be taken in its restricted sense, of men, whether laymen or +ecclesiastics, destined by profession to various offices of dignity and +trust in the civil and ecclesiastical administration, some of which lead +directly to the cardinalate, and all of them to personal privileges and +a competent income. Their education is often less exclusive than that of +the priests, for many of them have belonged to the world before they +gave themselves up to the Church, and profane studies have employed some +of the time which might otherwise have been devoted to Bellarmino and +his brethren. In dress they are distinguished by the color of their +stockings and hat-band. When they walk out, a liveried servant follows +them a few paces in the rear; and while the cardinals, from +"Illustrious" have become "Eminent," these aspirants to the purple are +always addressed as "Monsignore," or "My Lord." + +The first set of wheels in this complicated machine is composed of the +twenty-three Congregations, a kind of executive and deliberative +committees, consisting of cardinals and prelates, and first used by +Sixtus V., as a speedier and more effective method of eliciting the +opinions of his counsellors and bringing their administrative talents +into play than the deliberations in full consistory which had obtained +till his time. Sixteen of them are ecclesiastical, the remaining seven +civil, although the number may at any time be restricted or enlarged +according to the wants and the views of the reigning Pontiff. They have +their stated meetings, their regular offices and officers; and while +theoretically under the immediate direction of the sovereign, they +actually relieve him from many of the details and not a few of the +direct responsibilities of sovereignty. + +The first of these Congregations bears a name which sounds harshly in +Protestant ears, although but a shadow of that fearful power which once +carried terror to every fireside, and made even princes tremble and turn +pale on their thrones. The Holy Office still retains the form and +authority conferred upon it by Paul III., if not the spirit breathed +into it by the grasping Innocent and fiery Dominic. Its dark walls, +which so long shrouded darkest deeds, stand close to St. Peter's, under +the very eye of the Pope, as he looks from his bedroom-window,--within +ear-shot of the thousands whom curiosity or devotion brings yearly to +the church or to the palace, little heeding, as they gaze on the dome of +Michel Angelo or climb the stairway of Bernini, that almost beneath the +pavement they tread on are dungeons and chains and victims. + +But the Inquisition, you say, is no longer the Inquisition of three +hundred years ago. Bunyan tells us that Christian, on his pilgrimage to +the Celestial City, saw, among other memorable sights, a cave hard by +the way-side, wherein sat an old man, grinning at pilgrims as they +passed by, and biting his nails because he could not get at them. And +now let me tell you a story of the Inquisition which I know to be true. + +Some twenty-five years ago there lived in Rome a physician well known +for his professional skill, and still better for his good companionship +and ready wit. He was, in fact, a pleasant companion, fond of a good +story, fonder still of his dog and gun, fondest of all of talking about +poetry and reciting verses, which he could do by the hour,--sometimes +repeating whole pages from Dante or Petrarch or Tasso or his favorite of +all, Alfieri,--and sometimes extemporizing sonnets, or _terzine_, or +odes, with that wonderful facility which Nature has given to the Italian +_improvvisatore_ and denied to the rest of mankind. It has often been +remarked that the study of medicine goes hand in hand with a certain +boldness of speculation not altogether in harmony with the lessons of +the priest. No one who has lived in Italy long enough to get at the true +character of the people can have failed to observe this in Italian +physicians; and our doctor, like many of his brethren, was suspected of +carrying his speculations into forbidden fields. Still, his practice was +large, and went on increasing. Laymen, if they must needs be sick, were +glad to have him at their bedsides; and there were even men with purple +on their shoulders who had strong faith in his skill, if they had strong +doubts of his orthodoxy. Externally he conformed to the requirements of +the Church: heard mass of Sundays, and went once a year to the +confessional; for this much is a police regulation, a tax upon +conscience which every Roman is bound to pay. But he was too much behind +the scenes to do it with a good will, and saw professionally too much of +the daily life of the clergy, looked too freely and too closely at some +of their "pleasant vices," to feel much reverence either for them or for +their teachings. + +Suddenly his chair, for he was professor in the medical college, was +taken from him: a warning, thought his friends, that unfriendly eyes +were upon him; and so, also, thought some of his patients, and called in +a new physician. Still his general practice continued large; and +although he found a little more time for his wife,--for a father to sit +in, in darkness and silence, and recall the sunny faces and sweet +prattle of his children. But he felt that unseen eyes might be watching +him even there, and that a sigh, though breathed never so softly, might +reach the ears of some who would rejoice in it and come all the more +confidently to the work they had resolved to do upon him. So, setting +down his lamp, he made two or three turns across the room, and then, +drawing out his watch, as if to assure himself that it was bedtime, +deliberately undressed and went to bed. + +And to sleep? + +You will not call him coward, if with closed eyes he lay wakeful upon +his pillow, thinking over the last hour with a heart that beat quick, +though it faltered not, listening vainly for some sound to break the +unearthly silence, and longing for daylight, if, indeed, the light of +day was permitted to visit that lonely cell. It came at last, the +daylight,--though not as it was wont to come to him in his own dear +home, with a fresh morning breath and a fresher song of birds, waking +familiar voices and greeted with endearing accents. How would it be in +that home this morning? How had it been there through the slow hours of +that feverish night? How was it to be thenceforth with those precious +ones, and with him too, whom they all looked to for guidance and +counsel? + +He got up and dressed himself a little more carefully than usual, +resolved that there should be no outside telltales of the thoughts that +were struggling within. He had hardly finished dressing when the door +opened. Neither footsteps in the corridor nor the turning of the key had +he heard, but there stood a familiar of the Inquisition, friar in dress, +and with the stony face of a man accustomed to live by lamp-light and +talk in whispers. He brought the prisoner's breakfast,--coffee and +bread. "You have been listening," thought M----; "but I will be even +with you." And to make a fair start, he refused to touch either the +bread or the coffee until the familiar had tasted both. + +The morning passed slowly, though he helped it along as well as he could +by repeating verses and writing a sonnet on the wall with his pencil. +Dinner came: a good meal, more substantial than dungeon-air could give +an appetite for; but he ate it. Supper followed,--brought by the same +silent familiar who had served breakfast and dinner, and who still came +with the same noiseless step, set the dishes upon the table, tasted the +food as the Doctor bade him, and then went silently away. + +Five days passed, slowly, monotonously, wearily. Five nights of +unwelcome dreams and sleep that brought no rest. The close air and +narrow bounds began to tell upon his appetite and strength. He had soon +gone over his poets. Fortunately, they were well chosen and would bear +repeating. The fountain in his own mind, too, was still full, and he +found great relief in declaiming extempore verses in a loud voice, and +writing out those that pleased him best. But could he hold out? for it +was evidently intended to wear him down by anxiety and solitude, and +when they had broken his spirits bring him to an examination. + +At last a new face appeared: not cold like that of the familiar, nor +wreathed in smiles like that of a successful enemy, but wearing a decent +expression of gravity tempered by compassion. And "How do you do, +Doctor?" asked the visitor in a soothing voice, trained like his face to +tell lies at his bidding. + +"Well, Father, perfectly well." + +"I am very glad to hear it. I was afraid your appetite might have +suffered from the sudden change in your mode of life." + +"Not in the least. I have a sound stomach, and can digest anything you +send me." + +"And how do you contrive to pass your time? For so active a man, the +change is very great." + +"Oh, that is easy enough. I am very fond of poetry, and have such a good +memory that I know volumes of it by heart. There is nothing pleasanter +than repeating verses that you like,--except, perhaps, making verses +yourself." + +"Do you ever compose?" + +"I? It has always been my favorite pastime. Would you like to hear some +of my verses?" + +The sympathizing father was, of course, too happy; and M---- recited, in +his most effective manner, a sonnet, not very complimentary to +eavesdroppers and spies. A shadow passed over the monk's face; but he +was too well trained to let out his feelings prematurely; and resuming +the conversation as if nothing had occurred to disturb his equanimity, +he told M---- in his softest tone that he hoped there had been nothing +in his treatment to complain of. M---- sprang to his feet. + +"Oh, this, by Heaven, is too much, even from you! Nothing to complain +of! To tear the father of a family from the arms of his wife and +children, a physician from patients who are looking to him for life and +health,--and nothing to complain of!" + +It was just the question he wanted; and partly from design, and partly +from irrepressible indignation, he poured out a torrent of invective and +reproach which soon sent his visitor away, perfectly convinced that the +spirit they had undertaken to break had not yet begun to bend. + +Five more weary days, and then began the examination,--cautious, minute, +perplexing: questions framed to entangle; charges advanced, not for +discussion, but for conviction; a review of the whole course and tenor +of his past life; his stories and verses; his jests among friends; +sayings that he had forgotten; things that he had done years before, +mixed up with things that he had never done; all adroitly commingled, +and so skilfully arranged, that, while each seemed comparatively +unimportant in itself, each had its place prepared for it with malignant +craft and wondrous subtlety; and all taken together forming a network of +harmonious evidence from which there seemed no possibility of escape. +Familiar as he was with the history of the Holy Office, and aware as he +had always been that his steps, like those of every man upon whom +suspicion had ever fallen, were dogged by spies, he had never supposed +that his daily life had been tracked with such persistence, and so +carefully treasured up against him. + +He saw his danger, and saw, too, that the course he had resolved upon in +the first hour of his arrest was the only course that could save him. +Denial would be useless. They expected it and were well prepared for it. +But it remained to be seen whether they were equally well prepared for +frank confession and adroit interpretation. To every question with +regard to acts or words he answered, "Yes, I did so,--I said +so,--but"--and then, by putting an unexpected interpretation upon it, he +either stripped it of its offensive bearing, or reduced it to an idle +jest of which nothing worse could be said than that it was indiscreet. + +The fathers were puzzled. For denial they had proofs. Prevarication they +were familiar with, and never so happy as when they saw a poor, +perplexed, bewildered victim vainly struggling in the toils, driven +triumphantly from subterfuge to subterfuge, and at last, with nerveless +arms and faltering tongue, dropping hopeless upon his chair, as the +conviction forced itself upon him that he was there, not for trial, but +for condemnation. + +But a bold, self-possessed, self-reliant man, looking them in the face +with an eye as keen and scrutinizing as their own, answering every +question promptly in a firm voice, and, just as the blow seemed ready to +fall, parrying it by a movement so skilful as to compel his adversary to +change his ground and gird himself up for a new attack,--this was +something which, with all their experience, they had not counted upon, +and knew not how to meet. Day after day he was brought to the bar. Hour +after hour they laboriously plied question upon question. On their side +was the written record,--nothing omitted, nothing forgotten; the words +of yesterday close by the words of ten years ago; each accusation +propping the others; and every explanation and answer written minutely +down, to be brought out unexpectedly, and compared with each new one as +it came. On his, a ready wit, perfect self-control, a thorough knowledge +of the character of those whom he was dealing with, a remarkable command +of language, and a courage that nothing could shake. + +It was an exhausting process, and the Inquisitors, like the royal patron +of their institution, well knew that time was a powerful ally. Still +they resolved to call in a new one to their aid. M---- was known to be +very fond of his family; and long experience had taught the reverend +fathers that even the manliest heart may be shaken by a sudden awakening +of tender emotions. The examinations were discontinued. For three days +M---- was left to the solitude of his cell,--a solitude deeper and more +unnerving from contrast with the mental tension of the last fortnight. +Then, at the usual hour of examination, the door opened. The usual +attendants were in waiting. "Now for a new trial of wits," thought he, +as he rose to follow them. Then it occurred to him that it might be for +sentence that he was summoned; and while he was weighing the +probabilities, and calling up his strength for the occasion, he reached +the door, the attendants threw it open, and he found himself in the +presence, not of his judges, but of his wife and children. Pale, +bewildered, looking timidly towards him, through eyes dim with tears, +there they stood, utterly at a loss what to say or what to do. + +He felt his heart bound. But he saw the snare, and, repressing his +emotions by a powerful effort, held out his hand instead of opening his +arms, and bidding them, cheer up and give themselves no uneasiness about +him, and above all not to let their enemies fancy that either he or they +would be cast down by anything that they could do, he calmly turned to +the guards, and told them, that, if that stale trick was all they had +brought him there for, they had better take him back to his cell. + +Meanwhile his friends were not idle: and he had friends, as I have +already hinted, even in the sacred college. With a cardinal on your +side, you may do many things in Rome which it would hardly answer to +venture upon without him; for who can tell but that that Cardinal may +one day be Pope? The precise nature of the accusation lodged against him +M---- never knew; but he had gathered enough from the interrogatories to +feel that he had got lightly off, when he found himself condemned to say +his prayers and read books of devotion three months in a convent, with +the privilege of walking in the garden and talking theology with the +elder brethren. + +And thus the old man whom Bunyan's English Pilgrim saw in the cave by +the way-side two hundred years ago still sits there, biting his nails +and grinning, not altogether impotently, at Roman Pilgrims, to this very +day. + +The Congregation of the Holy Office is composed of thirteen cardinals, +one of whom is secretary, and an assessor, a commissary, counsellors, +and several officers taken from the prelates and regular orders. The +Pope himself is Prefect. The counsellors meet on Mondays in the Palace +of the Inquisition; the whole body on Wednesdays in the Convent of the +Minerva,--where St. Dominic still smiles upon his faithful +followers,--and Thursdays before the Pope. The examination of their +records and the opening of their prisons, during the brief existence of +the "Roman Republic" of 1849, showed that these meetings were not always +mere matters of form. + +The Congregation of the Index was founded by Pius V., in order to +relieve the Holy Office of that part of its duties which relates to +written and printed thought: censorship of the press would be the proper +term, if censorship, even in its most rigid form, did not fall short of +the attributes and functions of this odious tribunal. It is composed of +cardinals and ecclesiastics, many of them distinguished by their +learning, some, doubtless, by their piety,--but all leagued together, +and solemnly pledged to sleepless warfare against every form of +intellectual freedom. Without their approbation no manuscript can be +seat to the press, no new editions issued, no thought promulgated. Even +the stone-carver is not permitted to use his chisel until they have +decided how far love or pride may go in commemoration of the dead. They +mutilate, with equal sovereignty of will, the printed pages of a classic +and the manuscript of an unknown scribbler,--sit in judgment upon Botta +and Laplace, as their predecessors sat in judgment upon Guicciardini and +Galileo,--and, in the fervor of their undiscriminating zeal, condemn +Robertson and Gibbon, Reid and Hume, the skeptic Bolingbroke and the +pious Addison, to the same fiery purgation. That Italian literature was +not crushed by them long ago is, perhaps, the strongest proof of the +irrepressible vigor and marvellous vitality of the Italian mind. Not to +be on the "Index" would call a blush to the cheek of the most +unambitious of authors,--would carry a presumption of worthlessness with +it from which even the penny-a-liner would shrink with dismay,--and to +the poet and historian would sound like a sentence of perpetual +exclusion from all those cherished hopes which irradiate with heavenly +light the steep and thorny paths of intellectual renown. + +Next to these in importance is the Congregation of the "Propaganda," or +of that celebrated institution for the propagation of the Roman Catholic +religion which, since the reign of Gregory XV., has governed, as from a +common centre, the immense network of missions that Christian Rome has +spread over the lands she hopes to conquer, as Pagan Rome spread her +network of military roads over the lands which she had already reduced +to subjection. Cardinals, with a cardinal for prefect and a prelate for +secretary, compose this congregation, which holds regular meetings twice +a month, and, not unfrequently, extraordinary meetings in the presence +of the Pope. In these the important questions of the missionary world +are discussed, reports examined, new missions proposed, new missionaries +appointed, new bishoprics founded "among the heathen," and all these +complicated interests taken into impartial consideration. + +For here, at least, there is little room for heart-burnings and +jealousies. It is of equal importance to all that the conquests of the +Church should be extended to the utmost limits of the earth, the heathen +converted, and heretics won back to the fold. While John Eliot was +translating the Bible into a language which no one has been left to +read, and his Puritan brethren were hanging and shooting the Indians +whom they had neither the patience to win by their teaching nor the +charity to enlighten by their example, Indians from the true Indies were +preparing themselves in the halls of the Propaganda to carry the healing +promises of the gospel to the fathers and mothers who had watched over +their heathen infancy. In the record of the great things that Rome has +done, there is nothing greater than the foundation of the +Propaganda,--no conception so worthy of a steadfast faith, or more in +harmony with the spirit of the Saviour of mankind. To borrow the +helpless child, and restore him a helpful man,--to enlist the sympathies +of birth, and secure for themselves the eloquence of natural +affection,--to overleap the barriers of race and elude the sensitiveness +of national pride by putting the doctrines they sought to diffuse into +mouths which, untainted by repulsive accents, could enforce new truths +by well-known images and familiar illustrations,--was like laying anew +the foundations of the Capitol, and consecrating that spirit of worldly +wisdom wherein ancient Rome was never found wanting by that spirit of +Christian philanthropy which modern Rome has always claimed as her +peculiar distinction. + +But alas that a twenty-minutes' walk should take us from the Piazza di +Spagna to the Via di Sant' Uffizio! + +The other ecclesiastical functions of government are performed in a +similar way: one congregation superintending the churches of Rome and +its district, under the title of _Visita Apostolica_; one, the +ceremonies of the Church; one, ecclesiastical immunities; one, sacred +rites; one, indulgences and relies. Questions relative to bishops, +bishoprics, and the regular orders are intrusted to four congregations, +under different and appropriate names. St. Peter's has a special +congregation for itself, and not the least dignified and important of +them; for, besides eight cardinals and four prelates, it commands the +official services of the Auditor of the Apostolic Chamber, the +Treasurer, a judge of the _Rota_, a comptroller, an attorney-general, a +secretary, and several counsellors-at-law. Not St. Peter's only, but all +the churches of Rome, come in for a share of their attention; and what +is more important, they form a court of probate, with exclusive +jurisdiction over all wills containing charitable bequests, or bequests +to heretics and strangers, fugitives, exiles, or the dead. Even a doubt +as to the probability of being able to execute the bequest according to +the wishes of the testator, or an apparent contradiction in the devises +themselves, brings the will within the jurisdiction of this tribunal; +and should the legatee, after full experience of the law's delay, +succeed in obtaining a favorable decree, the income of his legacy, from +the death of the testator to the publication of the decision, is +sequestrated to the treasury of the church of St. Peter's. Few +congregations are more assiduous in the performance of their duties. + +A criminal court of appeals, with the appellation of _Sacra +Consulta_,--how this _sacred_ meets you at every turn!--a council called +_Buon Governo_, for the superintendence of municipal +administration,--one for roads, fountains, and water-courses, called the +General Prefecture of Waters and Roads,--a Council of "Economy," a +Council of Studies, a Council for the Examination of Accounts, in which +four laymen sit side by side with four prelates, under the presidency of +a cardinal, and the Congregation of the Census for the apportionment of +taxes on real estate in the country, form the seven civil congregations +by which the Pope is assisted in his labors, and the cardinals and +prelates brought in to a share of the administration. Add to these +sixteen tribunals, or courts, civil and ecclesiastical, two Secretaries +of State, a Secretary of Briefs and one of Memorials, a _Camerlengo_, a +Treasurer, and a Governor of Rome, and you have an outline of the Roman +Government under Gregory XVI. + +The Secretaries of State are always cardinals; the _Camerlengo_, who is +the official head of government during the vacancies of the Holy See, a +cardinal; the Treasurer and Governor of Rome, prelates, who, on leaving +office, become cardinals by right. The only part of this complex +machinery which was intrusted to laymen was the Tribunal of the Capitol +and the Tribunal of Commerce: the latter an institution of Pius VII., +and directly connected with the Chamber of Commerce, from whose fifteen +members two of its three judges are chosen, while the third is furnished +by the bar; the former, the feeble representative of all that is left of +the municipal government of Rome. + +Rome has sixty noble families who enjoy the title of Conscript. From +these are chosen, every three months, three _Conservatori_ and a Prior +of the Wards, who form a committee for the superintendence of the walls +and public monuments, and for the administration of the income of the +Capitoline Chamber. If we look at them in connection with the ancient +government of Rome, we shall find them employed in functions not unlike +those of the _AEdiles_. From the same point of view, the Senator may be +said to resemble the City Prefect; although, when you see him on public +days, standing like a statue on the steps of the Pontifical throne, +above the prelates, but a little lower than the cardinals, you can think +neither of prefect nor of senate, nor of anything that recalls the days +when Romans acknowledged no superior but the fellow-citizens whom they +themselves had chosen as representatives of their sovereign will. + +It requires no very profound examination of this system to see that it +is purely and rigidly ecclesiastical. The ecclesiastical leaven +penetrates it in every part. Wherever you go, either for business or for +amusement, you find some representative of the Church. Whichever way you +turn, you see keen eyes peering upon you from under a three-cornered hat +or a cowl. And even when the path seems for a while to be leading you +back to the world, through rows of shops, under the windows of bankers, +within sight of sails and steam, or within sound of humming wheels, +there are still shrines and oratories numberless by the way, and a +church or a convent at the end. + +Elective sovereign by origin, the moment the Pope ascends the throne, he +becomes absolute. Authority and honors proceed from him as from their +legitimate source. Money bears his image and superscription. Monuments +are inscribed with his name. Laws and decrees are promulgated as +voluntary emanations of his sovereign will. As head of the Church, all +spiritual interests are under his protection. As chief of the State, all +temporal interests are subject to his control. He reigns, not merely +like other sovereigns, by the "grace of God," but by a peculiar +privilege and inherent right, as Vicar of Christ. Resistance to his will +is not simply rebellion, but the deeper and deadlier sin of sacrilege. +His interpretation relieves the mind from the agony of doubt; his +blessing frees the conscience from the burden of sin. And how, if +earnest-minded and sincere, can he fail to look upon the interests of +the State as subordinate to the interests of the Church, and interpret +his duties and obligations as the legatee of Constantine by his feelings +and convictions as the successor of St. Peter? + +In the practical exercise of this authority be feels the want of other +eyes to help him see and other hands to help him do. He cannot read all +that is to be read, or write all that is to be written, or even hear and +say all that is to be heard and said. However great his love of detail, +there are details which he cannot reach. However comprehensive his +glance, or unwearied his industry, there are objects that lie beyond the +compass of his vision, and labor to be performed which no industry can +bring within the human allotment of twenty-four hours. + +Therefore, reserving to himself the final decision, he distributes the +various functions of government among his official counsellors and those +from whom new counsellors are to be chosen. He spreads an elaborate +network over all the interests and functions of the State, holding the +line in his own hand, and drawing or relaxing it at his own pleasure. He +is still the lawgiver and the judge, dictating according to his own +judgment, and deciding according to his own conviction. Of his laws +there is no revision; from his sentence there is no appeal. The duties +of the subject are defined by the rights of the sovereign; and of those +rights he is the sole and absolute judge. + +Hence a consciousness of power ever present and supreme, extending to +all that has been left him of the common relations of life,--to the hour +of business and the hour of repose, to the hall of audience and the +garden-walk, and giving equally its deceptive coloring to the thoughts +that stir him when borne on the shoulders of men through a prostrate +crowd, and those that flit dimly through his brain as he lays a weary +head upon a solitary pillow. And hence, too, he becomes for himself, as +well as for others, an object of constant contemplation,--valuing things +as they contribute to his pleasure, and men as they subject themselves +to his will,--not always cruel in heart, even when his acts are cruel, +nor unfeeling when he inflicts unmerited suffering and needless pain, +but seeming both cruel and unfeeling, because education and habit have +dried up within him that fount of human sympathies which Nature has set +in the heart of man at his birth, that he might ever bear something +about him to remind him of a mother's tenderness and a father's pride. + +If that be the best government wherein all the moral and intellectual +faculties of the governed receive their fullest development, and the +responsibility of the sovereign is made so immediate that he can neither +lose sight of it nor escape from its obligations, that surely must be +the worst in which one man thinks and judges for all, and, by an +unnatural union of spiritual and temporal attributes, is raised above +all human responsibility,--a theocracy, with man to interpret the will +of God, and to enforce his own interpretations. + + * * * * * + +CONCORD. + +MAY 23, 1864. + + + How beautiful it was, that one bright day + In the long week of rain! + Though all its splendor could not chase away + The omnipresent pain. + + The lovely town was white with apple-blooms, + And the great elms o'erhead + Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms, + Shot through with golden thread. + + Across the meadows, by the gray old manse, + The historic river flowed:-- + I was as one who wanders in a trance, + Unconscious of his road. + + The faces of familiar friends seemed strange; + Their voices I could hear, + And yet the words they uttered seemed to change + Their meaning to the ear. + + For the one face I looked for was not there, + The one low voice was mute; + Only an unseen presence filled the air, + And baffled my pursuit. + + Now I look back, and meadow, manse, and stream + Dimly my thought defines; + I only see--a dream within a dream-- + The hill-top hearsed with pines. + + I only hear above his place of rest + Their tender undertone, + The infinite longings of a troubled breast, + The voice so like his own. + + There in seclusion and remote from men + The wizard hand lies cold, + Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, + And left the tale half told. + + Ah, who shall lift that wand of magic power, + And the lost clue regain? + The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower + Unfinished must remain! + + * * * * * + +WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM? + +A STORY IN TWO PARTS. + +PART I + + +"Please, Ma'am, I want to come in out of the rain," said the dripping +figure at the door. + +"And who are you, Sir?" demanded the lady, astonished; for the bell had +been rung familiarly, and, thinking her son had come home, she had +hastened to let him in, but had met instead (at the front-door of her +fine house!) this wretch. + +"I'm Fessenden's fool, please, Ma'am," replied the son--not of this +happy mother, thank Heaven! not of this proud, elegant lady, oh, +no!--but of some no less human-hearted mother, I suppose, who had +likewise loved her boy, perhaps all the more fondly for his +infirmity,--who had hugged him to her bosom so many, many times, with +wild and sorrowful love,--and who, be sure, would not have kept him +standing there, ragged and shivering, in the rain. + +"Fessenden's fool!" cries the lady. "What's your name?" + +"Please, Ma'am, that's my name." Meekly spoken, with an earnest, staring +face. "Do you want me?" + +"No; we don't want a boy with such a name as that!" + +And the lady scowls, and shakes her head, and half closes the forbidding +door,--not thinking of that other mother's heart,--never dreaming that +such a gaunt and pallid wight ever had a mother at all. For the idea +that those long, lean hands, reaching far out of the short and split +coat-sleeves, had been a baby's pure, soft hands once, and had pressed +the white maternal breasts, and had played with the kisses of the fond +maternal lips,--it was scarcely conceivable; and a delicate-minded +matron, like Mrs. Gingerford, may well be excused for not entertaining +any such distressing fancy. + +"Wal! I'll go!" And the youth turned away. + +She could not shut the door. There was something in the unresentful, sad +face, pale cheeks, and large eyes, that fascinated her; something about +the tattered clothes, thin, wet locks of flaxen hair, and ravelled straw +hat-brim, fantastic and pitiful. And as he walked wearily away, and she +saw the night closing in black and dark, and felt the cold dash of the +rain blown against her own cheek, she concluded to take pity on him. For +she was by no means a hard-hearted woman; and though her house was +altogether too good for poor folks, and she really didn't know what she +should do with him, it seemed too bad to send him away shelterless, that +stormy November night. Besides, her husband was a rising +politician,--the public-spirited Judge Gingerford, you know,--the +eloquent philanthropist and reformer;--and to have it said that his door +had been shut against a perishing stranger might hurt him. So, as I +remarked, she concluded to take pity on the boy, and, after duly +weighing the matter, to call him back. And she called,--though, as I +suspect, not very loud. Moreover, the wind was whistling through the +leafless shrubbery, and his rags were fluttering, and his hat was +flapping about his ears, and the rain was pelting him; and just then the +Judge's respectable dog put his head out of the warm, dry kennel, and +barked; so that he did not hear,--the lady believed. + +He had heard very well, nevertheless. Why didn't he go back, then? +Maybe, because he was a fool. More likely, because he was, after all, +human. Within that husk of rags, under all that dull incumbrance of +imperfect physical organs that cramped and stifled it, there dwelt a +soul; and the soul of man knows its own worth, and is proud. The +coarsest, most degraded drudge still harbors in his wretched house of +clay a divine guest. There is that in the convict and slave which stirs +yet at an insult. And even in this lank, half-witted lad, the despised +and outcast of years, there abode a sense of inalienable dignity,--an +immanent instinct that he, too, was a creature of God, and worthy +therefore to be treated with a certain tenderness and respect, and not +to be roughly repulsed. This was as strong in him as in you. His wisdom +was little, but his will was firm. And though the house was cheerful and +large, and had room and comforts enough and to spare, rather than enter +it, after he had been flatly told he was not wanted, he would lie down +in the cold, wet fields and die. + +"Certainly, he will find shelter somewhere," thought the Judge's lady, +discharging her conscience of the responsibility. "But I am sorry he +didn't hear." + +Was she very sorry? + +She went back into her cozy, fire-lighted sewing-room, and thought no +more of the beggar-boy. And the watchdog, having barked his well-bred, +formal bark, without undue heat,--like a dog that knew the world, and +had acquired the tone of society,--stood a minute, important, +contemplating the drizzle from the door of his kennel, out of which he +had not deigned to step, then stretched himself once more on his straw, +gave a sigh of repose, and curled himself up, with his nose to the air, +in an attitude of canine enjoyment, in which it was to be hoped no +inconsiderate vagabond would again disturb him. + +As for Fessenden's--How shall we name him? Somehow, it goes against the +grain to call any person a fool. Though we may forget the Scriptural +warning, still charity remembers that he is our brother. Suppose, +therefore, we stop at the possessive case, and call him simply +Fessenden's? + +As for Fessenden's, then, he was less fortunate than the Judge's +mastiff. He had no dry straw, not even a kennel to crouch in. And the +fields were uninviting; and to die was not so pleasant. The veriest +wretch alive feels a yearning for life, and few are so foolish as not to +prefer a dry skin to a wet one. Even Fessenden's knew enough to go in +when it rained,--if he only could. So, with the dismallest prospect +before him, he kept on, in the wind and rain of that bitter November +night. + +And now the wind was rising to a tempest; and the rain was turning to +sleet; and November was fast becoming December. For this was the last +day of the month,--the close of the last day of autumn, as we divide the +seasons: autumn was flying in battle before the fierce onset of winter. +It was the close of the week also, being Saturday. + +Saturday night! what a sentiment of thankfulness and repose is in the +word! Comfort is in it; and peace exhales from it like an aroma. Your +work is ended; it is the hour of rest; the sense of duty done sweetens +reflection, and weariness subsides into soothing content. Once more the +heart grows tenderly appreciative of the commonest blessings. That you +have a roof to shelter you, and a pillow for your head, and love and +light and supper, and something in store for Sunday,--that the raving +rain is excluded, and the wolfish wind howls in vain,--that those +dearest to you are gathered about your hearth, and all is well,--it is +enough; the full soul asks no wore. + +But this particular Saturday evening brought no such suffusion of bliss +to Fessenden's,--if, indeed, any ever did. He saw, through the +streaming, misty air, the happy homes in the village lighted up one by +one as it grew dark. He had glimpses, through warm windows, of white +supper-tables. The storm made sufficient seclusion; there was no need to +draw the curtains. Servants were bringing in the tea-things. Children +were playing about the floors,--laughing, beautiful children. Behold +them, shivering beggar-boy! Lean by the iron rail, wait patiently in the +rain, and look in upon them; it is worth your while. How frolicsome and +light-hearted they seem! They are never cold, and seldom very hungry, +and the world is dry to them, and comfortable. And they all have +beds,--delicious beds. Mothers' hands tuck them in; mothers' lips teach +them to say their little prayers, and kiss them good-night. Foolish +fellow! why didn't you be one of those fortunate children, well fed, +rosy, and bright, instead of a starved and stupid tatterdemalion? A +question which shapes itself vaguely in his dull, aching soul, as he +stands trembling in the sleet, with only a few transparent squares of +glass dividing him and his misery from them and their joy. + +Mighty question! it is vast and dark as the night to him. He cannot +answer it; can you? + +Vast and dark and pitiless is the night. But the morning will surely +come; and after all the wrongs and tumults of life will rise the dawn of +the Day of God. And then every question of fate, though it fill the +universe for you now, shall dissolve in the brightness like a vapor, and +vanish like a little cloud. + +Meanwhile a servant comes out and drives Fessenden's away from the +fence. He recommenced his wanderings,--up one street and down another, +in search of a place to lay his head. The inferior dwellings he passed +by. But when he arrived at a particularly fine one, there he rang. Was +it not natural for him to infer that the largest houses had amplest +accommodations, and that the rich could best afford to be bounteous? If +in all these spacious mansions there was no little nook for him, if out +of their luxuries not a blanket or crust could be spared, what could he +hope from the poor? You see, he was not altogether witless, if he was +a--Fessenden's. Another proof: At whatever house he applied, he never +committed the vulgarity of a _detour_ to the back-entrance, but advanced +straight, with bold and confident port, to the front-door. The reason of +which was equally simple and clear: Front-doors were the most convenient +and inviting; and what were they made for, if not to go in at? + +But he grew weary of ringing and of being repulsed. It was dismal +standing still, however, and quite as comfortless sitting down. He was +so cold! So, to keep his blood in motion, he keeps his limbs in +motion,--till, lo! here he is again at the house where the happy +children were! They have ceased their play. Two young girls are at the +window, gazing out into the darkness, as if expecting some one. Not you, +miserable! You needn't stop and make signs for them to admit you. There! +don't you see you have frightened them? You are not a fitting spectacle +for such sweet-eyed darlings. They do well to drop the shade, to shut +out the darkness, and the dim, gesticulating phantom. Flit on! 'Tis +their father they are looking for, coming home to them with gifts from +the city. + +But he does not flit. When, presently, they lift a corner of the shade +to peep out, they see him still standing there, spectral in the gloom. +He is waiting for them to open the door! He thinks they have quitted the +window for that purpose! Ah! here comes the father, and they are glad. + +He comes hurrying from the cars under his umbrella, which is braced +against the gale and shuts out from his eyes the sight of the +unsheltered wretch. And he is hastily entering his door, which is opened +to him by the eager children, when they scream alarm; and looking over +his shoulder, he perceives, following at his heels, the fright. He is +one of your full-blooded, solid men; but he is startled. + +"What do you want?" he cries, and lifts the threatening umbrella. + +"I'm hungry," says the intruder, with a ghastly glare, still advancing. + +He stands taller in his tattered shoes than the solid gentleman in his +boots; and those long, lean, claw-like hands act as if anxious to clutch +something. Papa thinks it is his throat. + +"By heavens! and do you mean to"--And he prepares to charge umbrella. + +"You may!" answers the wretch, with perfect sincerity, presenting his +ragged bosom to the blow. + +The lord of the castle lowers his weapon. The children huddle behind +him, hushing their screams. + +"Go in, Minnie! In, all of you! Tell Stephen to come here,--quick!" + +The children scamper. And the florid, prosperous parent and the gaunt +and famishing pauper are alone, confronting each other by the light of +the shining hall-lamp. + +"I'm cold," says the latter,--"and wet," with an aguish shiver. + +"I should think so!" cries the gentleman, recovering from his alarm, and +getting his breath again, as he hears Stephen's step behind him. "Stand +back, can't you?" (indignantly). "Don't you see you are dripping on the +carpet?" + +"I'm so tired!" + +"Well! you needn't rub yourself against the door, if you are! Don't you +see you are smearing it? What are you roaming about in this way for, +intruding into people's houses?" + +"Please, Sir, I don't know," is the soft, sad answer; and Fessenden's is +meekly taking himself away. + +"It's too bad, though!" says the man, relenting. "What can we do with +this fellow, Stephen?" + +"Send him around to Judge Gingerford's,--I should say that's about the +best thing to do with him," says the witty Stephen. + +The man knew well what would please. His master's face lighted up. He +rubbed his hands, and regarded the vagabond with a humorous twinkle, +with malice in it. + +"Would you, Stephen? By George, I've a good notion to! Take the +umbrella, and go and show him the way." + +Stephen did not like that. + +"I was only joking, Sir," he said. + +"A good joke, too! Here, you fellow! go with my man. He'll take you to a +house where you'll find friends. Excellent folks! damned +philanthropical! red-hot abolitionists! If you only had nigger-blood, +now, they'd treat you like a prince. I don't know but I'd advise you to +tell 'em you're about a quarter nigger,--they'll think ten times as much +of you!" + +It was sufficiently evident that the gentleman did not love his neighbor +the Judge. There was in his tone bitter personal and political hatred. +With his own hands he spread again the soaked umbrella, and, giving it +to the reluctant Stephen, turned him away with the vagabond. Then he +shut the door, and went in. By the fire he pulled off his wet boots, and +put on the warm slippers, which the children brought him with innocent +strife to see which should be foremost. And he gave to each kisses and +toys; for he was a kind father. And sitting down to supper, with their +beaming faces around him, he thought of the beggar-boy only in +connection with the jocular spite he had indulged against his neighbor. + +Meanwhile the disgusted Stephen, walking alone under the umbrella, +drove Fessenden's before him through the storm. They turned a corner. +Stephen stopped. + +"There, that's the house, where the lights are. Good bye! Luck to you!" +And Stephen and umbrella disappeared in the darkness. + +Fessenden's kept on, wearily, wearily! He reached the house. And lo! it +was the same, at the door of which the lady had told him that he, with +his name, was not wanted. Tiger slept in his kennel, and dreamed of +barking at beggars. The Judge, snugly ensconced in his study, listened +to the report of his speech before the Timberville Benevolent +Association. His son read it aloud, in the columns of the "Timberville +Gazette." Gingerford smiled and nodded; for he thought it sounded well. +And Mrs. Gingerford was pleased and proud. And the heart of Gingerford +Junior swelled with the fervor of the eloquence, and with exultation in +his father's talents and distinction, as he read. The sleet rattled a +pleasant accompaniment against the window-shutters; and the organ-pipes +of the wind sounded a solemn symphony. This last night of November was +genial and bright to those worthy people, in their little family-circle. +And the future was full of promise. And the rhetoric of the orator +settled the duty of man to man so satisfactorily, and painted the +pleasures of benevolence in such colors, that all their bosoms glowed. + +"It is gratifying to think," said Mrs. Gingerford, wiping her eyes at +the pathetic close, "how much good the printing of that address in the +'Gazette' must accomplish. It will reach many so who hadn't the +good-fortune to hear it at the rooms." + +Certainly, Madam. The "Gazette" is taken, and perhaps read this very +evening, in every one of the houses at which the pauper has applied in +vain for shelter, since you frowned him from your door. Those exalted +sentiments, breathed in musical periods, are no doubt a rich legacy to +the society of Timberville, and to the world. It was wise to print them; +they will "reach many so." But will they reach this outcast beggar-boy, +and benefit him? Alas, it is fast growing too late for that! + +Utter fatigue and discouragement have overtaken him. The former notion +of dying in the fields recurs to him now; and wretched indeed must he +be, since even that desperate thought has a sort of comfort in it. But +he is too weary to seek out some suitably retired spot to take cold +leave of life in. On every side is darkness; on every side, wild storm. +Why endeavor to drag farther his benumbed limbs? As well stretch himself +here, upon this wet wintry sod, as anywhere. He has the presumption to +do it,--never considering how deeply he may injure a fine gentleman's +feelings by dying at his door. + +Tiger does not bark him away, but only dreams of barking, in his cozy +kennel. Close by are the windows of the mansion, glowing with light. +There beat the philanthropic hearts; there smiles the pale, pensive +lady; there beams the aspiring face of her son; and there sits the +Judge, with his feet on the rug, pleasantly contemplating the good his +speech will do, and thinking quite as much, perhaps, of the fame it will +bring him,--happily unconscious alike of his neighbor's malicious jest, +and of the real victim of that jest, lying out there in the tempest and +freezing rain. + +So November goes out; and winter, boisterous and triumphant, comes in. + + * * * * * + +Sunday morning: cold and clear. The December sun shines upon the glassy +turf, and upon trees all clad in armor of glittering ice. And the trees +creak and rattle in the north wind; and the icy splinters fall tinkling +to the ground. + +The splendor of the morning gilds the Judge's estate. Everything about +the mansion smiles and sparkles. Were last night's horrors a dream? + +There was danger, we remember, that the foolish youth might do a very +inconsiderate and shocking thing, and perhaps ruin the Judge. What if he +had really deposited his mortal remains at the gate of that worthy +man,--to be found there, ghastly and stiff, a revolting spectacle, this +bright morning? What a commentary on Gingerford philanthropy! For of +course some one would at once have stepped forward to testify to having +seen him driven from the door, which he came back to lay his bones near. +And Stephen would have been on hand to remember directing such a person, +inquiring his way a second time to the Judge's house. And here he is +dead,--to the secret delight of the Judge's enemies, and to the +indignation of all Timberville. At anybody else's door it wouldn't have +seemed so bad. But at Gingerford's! a philanthropist by profession! +author of that beautiful speech you cried over! You will never forgive +him those tears. The greatest crime a man can be guilty of in the eyes +of his constituents is to have been over-praised by them. Woe to him, +when they find out their error! and woe now to the Judge! The fact that +a dozen other influential citizens had also refused shelter to the +vagabond will not help the matter. Those very men will probably be the +first to cry, "Hypocrite! inhuman! a judgment upon him!"--for it is +always the person of doubtful virtue who is most eager to assume the +appearance of severe integrity; and we often flatter ourselves that our +private faults are atoned for, when we have loudly denounced them in +others. + +Fortunately, the flower of the Judge's reputation is saved from so +terrible a blight. There is no corpse at his gate; and our speculations +are idle. + +This is what had occurred. Not long after the lad had lain down, a +dream-like spell came over him. His pain was gone. He forgot that he was +cold. He was not hungry any more. A sweet sense of rest was diffused +through his tired limbs. And smiling and soothed he lay, while the storm +beat upon him. Was this death? For we know that in this merciful shape +death sometimes comes to the sufferer. + +Fessenden's afterwards said that he had "one of his fits." He was +subject to such. When men reviled and denied him, then came the +angels,--or he imagined they came. They walked by his side, and talked +with him; and often, all a summer's afternoon, he could be heard +conversing in the fields, as with familiar friends, when only himself +was visible, and his voice alone was heard in the silence. This was, in +fact, one of those idiosyncrasies which had earned him his shameful +name. + +In the trance of that night, lying cold upon the ground, he beheld his +ghostly visitors. They came and stood around him, a shining company, and +looked upon him with countenances of fair women and good men. Their +apparel was not unlike that of mortals. And he heard them questioning +among themselves how they should help him. And one of them, as it +seemed, brought human assistance; though the boy, who could see plenty +of ghosts, could not, for some reason, see the only actually visible and +substantial person then on the spot besides himself. He felt, however, +sensibly enough, the concussion of a stout pair of mortal legs that +presently went stumbling over him in the dark. The shock roused him. The +whole shadowy company vanished instantly; and in their place he saw, by +the glimmer from the Judge's windows, a dark sprawling figure getting up +out of the mud and water. + +"Don't be scared, it's me," said Fessenden's; for he guessed the fellow +was frightened. + +"Excuse me, Sir! I really didn't know it was you, Sir!" said the man, +with agitated politeness. "And who might you be, Sir? if I may be so +bold as to inquire." And regaining his balance, his umbrella, and his +self-possession, he drew near, and squatted cautiously before the +prostrate beggar, who, had his eyesight been half as keen for the living +as it was for the dead, would have discovered that the face bending over +him was black. + +"Never mind me," said Fessenden's. "Did it hurt ye?" + +"Well, Sir,--no, Sir,--only my knee went pretty seriously into something +wet. And I believe I've turned my umbrella wrong side out. I say, Sir, +what was you doing, lying here, Sir? You don't think of remaining here +all night, I trust, Sir?" + +"I've nowhere else to go," said the boy, trying to rise. + +The black man helped him up. + +"But this never'll do, you know! such an inclement night as this +is!--you'd die before morning, sure! Just wait till I can get my +umbrella into shape,--my gracious! how the wind pulls it! Now, then, +suppose you come along with me." + +"Please, Sir, I can't walk"; for the lad's limbs had stiffened, in spite +of his angels. + +"Is that so, Sir? Let me see; about how much do you weigh, Sir? Not much +above a hundred, do you? It isn't impossible but I may take you on my +back. Suppose you try it." + +"Oh, I can't!" groaned the boy. + +"Excuse me for contradicting you, but I think you can, Sir. I shouldn't +like to do it myself, in the daytime; but in the night so, who cares? +Nobody'll laugh at us, even if we don't succeed. Really, I wish you +wasn't quite so wet, Sir; for these here is my Sunday clothes. But never +mind a little water; we'll find a fire to get dry again. There you are, +my friend! A little higher. Put your hands over across my breast. +Couldn't manage to hold, the umbrella over us, could you? So fashion. +Now steady, while I rise with you." + +And the stalwart young negro, hooking his arms well under the legs of +his rider, got up stoopingly, gave a toss and a jolt to get him into the +right position, and walked off with him. Away they go, tramp, tramp, in +the storm and darkness. Thank Heaven, the Judge's fame is safe! If the +pauper dies, it will not be at his door. Little he knows, there in his +elegant study, what an inestimable service this black Samaritan is +rendering him. And it was just; for, after all the Judge had done for +the negro, (who, I suppose, was equally unconscious of any substantial +benefit received,) it was time that the negro should do something for +him in return. + +Tramp! tramp! a famous beggar's ride! It was a picturesque scene, with +food for laughter and tears in it, had we only been there with a +lantern. Fessenden's, fantastic, astride of the African, staring forward +into the darkness from under his ragged hat-brim, endeavoring to hold +the wreck of an umbrella over them,--the wind flapping and whirling it. +Tramp! tramp! past all those noble mansions, to the negro-hut beyond the +village. And, oh, to think of it! the rich citizens, the enlightened and +white-skinned Levites, having left him out, one of their own race, to +perish in the storm, this despised black man is found, alone of all the +world, to show mercy unto him! + +"How do you get on, Sir?" says the stout young Ethiop. "Would you ride +easier, if I should trot? or would you prefer a canter? Tell 'em to +bring on their two-forty nags now, if they want a race." + +Talking in this strain, to keep up his rider's spirits, he brought him, +not without sweat and toil, to the hut. A kick on the door with the +beggar's foot, which he used for the purpose, caused it to be opened by +a woolly-headed urchin; and in he staggered. + +Little woolly-head clapped his hands and screamed. + +"Oh, crackie, pappy! here comes Bill with the Devil on his back!" + +Sensation in the hut. There was an old negro woman in the corner, on one +side of the stove, knitting; and a very old negro man in the opposite +corner, napping; and a middle-aged man, with spectacles on his ebony +nose, reading slowly aloud from an ancient grease-covered book opened +before him on the old pine table; and a middle-aged woman patching a +jacket; and a girl washing dishes, which another girl was wiping: +representatives of four generations: and they all quitted their +occupations at once, to see what sort of a devil Bill had brought home. + +"Why, William! who have you got there, William?" said he of the +spectacles, with mild wonder,--removing those clerkly aids of vision, +and laying them across the book. + +"A chair!" panted Bill. "Now ease him down, if you +please,--careful,--and I'll--recite the circumstances,"--puffing, but +polite to the last. + +Helpless and gasping, Fessenden's was unfastened, and slipped down the +African's back upon a seat placed to receive him. He still clung to the +umbrella, which he endeavored to keep spread over him, while he stared +around with stupid amazement at the dim room and the array of black +faces. + +And now the excited urchin began to caper and sing:-- + + "'Went down to river, couldn't get across; + Jumped upon a nigger's back, thought it was a hoss!' + +"Oh, crackie, Bill!" + +"Father," said William, with wounded dignity,--for he was something of a +gentleman in his way,--"I wish you'd discipline that child, or else give +me permission to chuck him." + +"Joseph!" said the father, with a stern shake of his big black head at +the boy, "here's a stranger in the house! Walk straight, Joseph!" + +Which solemn injunction Joseph obeyed in a highly offensive manner, by +strutting off in imitation of William's dandified air. + +By this time the aged negro in the corner had become fully roused to the +consciousness of a guest in the house. He came forward with slow, +shuffling step. He was almost blind. He was exceedingly deaf. He was +withered and wrinkled in the last degree. His countenance was of the +color of rust-eaten bronze. He was more than a hundred years old,--the +father of the old woman, the grandfather of the middle-aged man, and the +great-grandfather of William, Joseph, and the girls. He was muffled in +rags, and wore a little cap on his head. This he removed with his left +hand, exposing a little battered tea-kettle of a bald pate, as with +smiling politeness he reached out the other trembling hand to shake that +of the stranger. + +"Welcome, Sah! Sarvant, Sah!" + +He bowed and smiled again, and the hospitable duty was performed; after +which he put on his cap and shuffled back into his corner, greatly +marvelled at by the gazing beggar-boy. + +The girls and their mother now bestirred themselves to get their guest +something to eat. The tin tea-pot was set on the stove, and hash was +warmed up in the spider. In the mean time William somewhat ruefully took +off his wet Sunday coat, and hung it to dry by the stove, interpolating +affectionate regrets for the soiled garment with the narration of his +adventure. + +"It was the merest chance my coming that way," he explained; "for I had +got started up the other street, when something says to me, 'Go by +Gingerford's! go by Judge Gingerford's!' so I altered my course, and the +result was, just as I got against the Judge's gate I was precipitated +over this here person." + +"I know what made ye!" spoke up the boy, with an earnest stare. + +"What, Sir,--if you please?" + +"The angels!" + +"The--the what, Sir?" + +"The angels! I seen 'em!" says Fessenden's. + +This astounding announcement was followed by a strange hush. Bill forgot +to smooth out the creases of his coat, and looked suspiciously at the +youth whom it had served as a saddle. He wondered if he had really been +ridden by the Devil. + +The old woman now interfered. She was at least seventy years of age. The +hair of her head was like mixed carded wool. Her coarse, cleanly gown +was composed of many-colored, curious patches. The atmosphere of +thorough grandmotherly goodness surrounded her. In the twilight sky of +her dusky face twinkled shrewdness and good-humor; and her voice was +full of authority and kindness. + +"Stan' back here now, you troubles!" pushing the children aside. +"Didn't none on ye never see nobody afore? This 'ere chile has got to be +took keer on, and that mighty soon! Gi' me the comf'table off'm the bed, +mammy." + +"Mammy" was the mother of the children. The "comf'table" was brought, +and she and her husband helped the old negress wrap Fessenden's up in +it, from head to foot, wet clothes and all. + +"Now your big warm gret-cut, pappy!" + +"Pappy" was her own son; and the "gret-cut" was his old, gray, patched +and double-patched surtout, which now came down from its peg, and spread +its broad flaps, like brooding wings, over the half-drowned human +chicken. + +"Now put in the wood, boys! Pour some of that 'ere hot tea down his +throat. Bless him, we'll sweat the cold out of him! we'll give him a +steaming!" + +She held with her own hand the cracked tea-cup to the lad's lips, and +made him drink. Then she pulled up the comforter about his face, till +nothing of him was visible but his nose and a curl or two of saturated +tow. Then she had him moved up close to the glowing stove, like a huge +chrysalis to be hatched by the heat. + +The dozing centenarian now roused again, and, perceiving the little nose +in the big bundle on the other side of the chimney, was once more +reminded of the sacred duties of hospitality. So he got upon his +trembling old legs again, pulled off his cap, and bowed and smiled as +before, with exquisite politeness, across the stove. "Sarvant, Sah! +Welcome, Sah!". And he sat down, and dozed again. + +Fessenden's was not in a position to return the courteous salute. The +old woman had by this time got his feet packed into the stove-oven, and +he was beginning to smoke. + +"Oh, Bill! just look a' Joe!" cried one of the girls. + +Bill left smoothing his broadcloth, and, turning up the whites of his +eyes, uttered a despairing groan. "Oh, that child! that child! that +child!"--his voice running up into a wild falsetto howl. + +The child thus passionately alluded to had possessed himself of Bill's +genteel silk hat, which had been tenderly put away to dry. It had been +sadly soaked by the rain, and bruised by the flopping umbrella which +Fessenden's had unhappily attempted to hold over it. And now Joe had +knocked in the crown, whilst geting it down from its peg with the broom. +He had thought to improve its appearance by stroking the nap the wrong +way with his sleeve. Lastly, putting it on his head, he had crushed the +sides together, to prevent its coming quite down over his eyes and ears +and resting on his shoulders. And there he was, with the broken umbrella +spread, hitting the top of the hat with it at every step, as he strutted +around the room in emulation of his brother's elegant style. + +"My name's Mr. Bill Williams, Asquare!" simpered the little satirist. +"Some folks call me Gentleman Bill, 'cause I'm so smart and +good-looking, Sar!" + +Gentleman Bill picked up the jack with which he had pulled off his wet +boots, and waited for a good chance to launch it at Joe's head. But Joe +kept behind his grandmother, and proceeded with his mimicry. + +"Nobody knows I'm smart and good-looking 'cept me, and that's the why I +tell on't Sar; that's the reason I excite the stircumsances, Sar!"--He +remembered Bill's saying he would "recite the circumstances," and this +was as near as he could come to the precise words.--"I'm a gentleman +tailor; that's my perfession, Sar. Work over to the North Village, Sar. +Come home Sat'day nights to stop over Sunday with the folks, and show my +good clo'es. How d' 'e do, Sar? Perty well, thank ye, Sar." And Joe, +putting down the umbrella, in order to lift the ingulfing hat from his +little round, black, curly head with both hands, made a most extravagant +bow to the chrysalis. + +"Old granny!" hoarsely whispered Bill, "you just stand out of the way +once, while I propel this boot-jack!" + +"Old granny don't stan' out o' the way oncet, for you to frow no +boot-jack in this house! S'pose I want to see that chile's head stove +in? Which is mos' consequence, I'd like to know, your hat, or his head? +Hats enough in the world. But that 'ere head is an oncommon head, and, +bless the boy, if he should lose that, I do'no' where he'd git another +like it! Come, no more fuss now! I got to make some gruel for this 'ere +poor, wet, starvin' critter. That hash a'n't the thing for him, +mammy,--you'd ought to know! He wants somefin' light and comfortin', +that'll warm his in'ards, and make him sweat, bless him!--Joey! Joey! +give up that 'ere hat now!" + +"Take it, then! Mean old thing,--I don't want it!" + +Joe extended it on the point of the umbrella; but just as Bill was +reaching to receive it, he gave it a little toss, which sent it into the +chip-basket. + +"Might know I'd had on your hat!" and the little rogue scratched his +head furiously. + +"I shall certainly massacre that child some fine morning!" muttered +Bill, ruefully extricating the insulted article from the basket. "Oh, my +gracious! only look at that, now, Creshy!" to his sister. "That's an +interesting object--isn't it?--for a gentleman to think of putting on to +his head Sunday morning!" + +"Oh, Bill!" cried Creshy, "jest look a' Joe agin!" + +Whilst he was sorrowfully restoring his hat to its pristine shape, he +had been robbed of his coat. The thief had run with it behind the bed, +where he had succeeded in getting into it. The collar enveloped his +ears. The skirts dragged upon the floor. He had buttoned it, to make it +fit better, but there was still room in it for two or three boys. He had +got on his father's spectacles and Fessenden's straw hat. He looked like +a frightful little old misshapen dwarf. And now, rolling up the sleeves +to find his hands, and wrinkling the coat outrageously at every +movement, he advanced from his retreat, and began to dance a +pigeon-wing, amid the convulsive laughter of the girls. + +"Oh, my soul! my soul!" cried Bill, his voice inclining again to the +falsetto. "Was there ever such an imp of Satan! Was there ever"-- + +Here he made a lunge at the offender. Joe attempted to escape, but, +getting his feet entangled in the superabundant coat-skirts, fell, +screaming as if he were about to be killed. + +"Good enough for you!" said his mother. "I wish you would get hurt!" + +"What you wish that for?" cried the old grandmother, rushing to the +rescue, brandishing a long iron spoon with which she had been stirring +the gruel. "Can't nobody never have no fun in this house? Bless us! what +'ud we do, if 't wa'n't for Joey, to make us laugh and keep our sperits +up? Jest you stan' back now, Bill!--'d ruther you'd strike me 'n see ye +hit that 'ere boy oncet!" + +"He must let my things be, then," said Bill, who couldn't see much sport +in the disrespectful use made of his wearing apparel.--"Here, you! +surrender my property!" + +"Laws! you be quiet! You'll git yer cut agin. Only jest look at him now, +he's so blessed cunning!" + +For Joe, reassured by his grandmother, had stopped screaming, and gone +to tailoring. He sat cross-legged on one of the unlucky coat-skirts, and +pulled the other up on his lap, for his work. Then he got an imaginary +thread, and, putting his fingers together, screwed up his mouth, and +looked over the spectacles, sharpening his sight,-- + + "Like an old tailor to his needle's eye." + +Then he began to stitch, to the infinite disgust of Bill, who was +sensitive touching his vocation. + +"I do declare, father! how you can smile, seeing that child carrying on +in this shape, is beyond my comprehension!" + +"Joseph!" said Mr. Williams, good-naturedly, "I guess that'll do for +to-night. Come, I want my spectacles." + +He had sat down to his book again. He was a slow, thoughtful, easy, +cheerful man, whom suffering and much humiliation had rendered very +mild and patient, if not quite broken-spirited. His voice was indulgent +and gentle, with that mellow richness of tone peculiar to the negro. +After he had spoken, the laughter subsided; and Joe, impressed by the +quiet paternal authority, quickly devised means to obey without +appearing to do so. For it is not so much obedience, as the +manifestation of obedience, that is repugnant to human nature,--not in +children only, but in grown folks as well. + +Joe disguised his compliance in this way. He got up, took off the +beggar's hat, put the spectacles into it, holding his hand on a rip in +the crown to keep them from falling through, and passed it around, +walking solemnly in his brother's abused coat. + +"I'm Deacon Todd," said he, "taking up a collection to buy Gentleman +Bill a new cut: gunter make a missionary of him!" + +He passed the hat to the women and the girls, all of whom pretended to +put in something. + +"I ha'n't got nothin'!" said Fessenden's, when it came to him; "I'm real +sorry I but I'll give my hat!"--earnest as could be. + +When the hat came to Mr. Williams, he quietly put in his hand and took +out his glasses. + +"Here, I've got something for you; I desire to contribute," said +Gentleman Bill. + +But Joe was shy of his brother. + +"Oh, we don't let the missionary give anything!" he said. "Here's the +hat what you're gunter wear;--give it to him, Cresh!" + +Bill disdained the beggar's, contribution; but, in his anxiety to seize +Joe, he suffered his sister to slip up behind him and clap the wet, +ragged straw wreck on his head. + +"Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!" screamed the girls with merriment, in which mother +and grandmother joined, while even their father indulged in a silent, +inward laugh. + +"Good!" said Fessenden's; "he may have it!" + +Bill, watching his opportunity, made a dash at the pretending Deacon +Todd. That nimble and quick-witted dwarf escaped as fast as his awkward +attire would permit. The bed seemed to be the only place of refuge, and +he dodged under it. + +"Come out!" shouted Bill, furious. + +"Come in and git me!" screamed Joe, defiant. + +Bill, if not too large, was far too dignified for such an enterprise. So +he got the broom, and began to stir Joe with the handle,--not observing, +in his wrath, that, the more he worried Joe, the more he was damaging +his own precious broadcloth. + +"I'm the lion to the show!" cried Joe, rolling and tumbling under the +bed to avoid the broom. "The keeper's a punchin' on me, to make me +roar!" + +And the lion roared. + +"He's a gunter come into the cage by-'m-by, and put his head into my +mouth. Then I'm a gunter swaller him! Ki! hoo! hoo! oo!" + +He roared in earnest this time. Bill, grown desperate, had knocked his +shins. As long as he hit him only on the head, the king of beasts didn't +care; but he couldn't stand an attack on the more sensitive part. + +"Jest look here, now!" exclaimed the old negress, with unusual spirit; +"gi' me that broom!" + +She wrenched it from Bill's hand. + +"Perty notion, you can't come home a minute without pesterin' that boy's +life out of him!" + +You see, color makes no difference with grandmothers. Black or white, +they are universally unjust, when they come to decide the quarrels of +their favorites. + +"Great lubberly fellow like you, 'busin' that poor babby all the time! +Come, Joey! come to granny, poor chile!" + +It was a sorry-looking lion that issued whimpering from the cage, +limping, and rubbing his eyes. His borrowed hide--namely, Bill's +coat--had been twisted into marvellous shapes in the scuffle; and, +being wet, it was almost white with the dust and lint that adhered to +it. Bill threw up his arms in despair; while Joe threw his, great +sleeves and all, around granny's neck, and found comfort on her +sympathizing bosom. + +"Silence, now," said Mr. Williams, "so's we can go on with the reading." + +Order was restored. Bill hung up his coat, and sat down. Joe nestled in +the old woman's lap. And now the storm was heard beating against the +house. + +"Say!" spoke up Fessenden's, "can I stop here over night?" + +"You don't suppose," said Mr. Williams, "we'd turn you out in such +weather as this, do you?" + +"Wal!" said Fessenden's, "nobody else would keep me." + +"Don't you be troubled! While we 've a ruf over our heads, no stranger +don't git turned away from it that wants shelter, and will put up with +our 'commodations. We can keep you to-night, and probably to-morrow +night, if you like to stay; but after that I can't promise. Mebby we +sha'n't have a ruf for our own heads then. But we'll trust the Lord," +said Mr. Williams, with a deep, serious smile,--while Mrs. Williams +sighed. + +"How is it about that matter?" Gentleman Bill inquired. + +"The house is to be tore down Monday, I suppose," replied his father, +mildly. + +"My gracious!" exclaimed Bill; "Mr. Frisbie a'n't really going to carry +that threat into execution?" + +"That's what he says, William. He has got a prejudice ag'inst color, you +know. Since he lost the election, through the opposition of the +abolitionists, as he thinks, he's been very much excited on the +subject," added Mr. Williams, in his subdued way. + +"Excited!" echoed his wife, bitterly. + +She was a much-suffering woman, inclined to melancholy; but there was a +latent fire in her when she seemed most despondent, and she roused up +now and spoke with passionate, flashing eyes:-- + +"Sence he got beat, town-meetin' day, he don't 'pear to take no comfort, +'thout 't is hatin' Judge Gingerford and spitin' niggers, as he calls +us. He sent his hired man over agin this mornin', to say, if we wa'n't +out of the house by Monday, 't would be pulled down on to our heads. +Call that Christian, when he knows we can't git another house, there 's +sich a s'picion agin people o' color?" + +"'T wa'n't alluz so; 't wa'n't so in my day," said the old woman, +pausing, as she was administering the gruel to Fessenden's with a spoon. +"Here's gran'pa, he was a slave, and I was born a slave, in this here +very State, as long ago as when they used to have slaves here, as I've +told ye time and agin; though I don't clearly remember it, for I scacely +ever knowed what bondage was, bless the Lord! But we allus foun' +somebody to be kind to us, and got along,--for it did seem as though God +kind o' looked arter us, and took keer on us, same as He did o' white +folks. We've been carried through, somehow or 'nother; and I can't help +thinkin' as how we shall be yit, spite o' Mr. Frisbie. S'pose God'll +forgit us 'cause His grand church-folks do? S'pose all they can say'll +pedijice Him?" + +Having advanced this unanswerable question, she turned once more to her +patient, who put up his head, and opened his mouth wide, to receive the +great spoon. + +"Lucky for them that can trust the Lord!" said Mrs. Williams, over her +patching. "But if I was a man, I'm 'fraid I should put my trust in a +good knife, and stan' by the ol' house when they come to pull it down! +The fust man laid hands on 't 'ud git hurt, I'm dreffle 'fraid! Prayin' +won't save it, you see!" + +"Mr. Frisbie owns the house," observed Gentleman Bill, "and I wouldn't +resort to violent measures to prevent him; though 't isn't possible for +me to believe he'll be so unhuman as to demolish it before you find +another." + +"I'm inclined to think he will," answered Mr. Williams, calmly. "He's a +rather determined man, William. But God won't quite forget us, I'm +sartin sure. And we won't worry about the house till the time comes, +anyhow. Le' 's see what the Good Book says to comfort us," he added, +with a hopeful smile. + +Unfortunately, the "Timberville Gazette" had not reached this benighted +family; and not having the Judge's Address to read, Mr. Williams read +the Sermon on the Mount. + +Fessenden's listened with the rest. And alight, not of the +understanding, but of the spirit, shone upon him. His intellect was too +feeble, I think, to draw any very keen comparison between those houses +where the "Timberville Gazette" was taken and read that evening and this +lowly abode,--between the rich there, who had shut their proud, +prosperous doors against him, and these poor servants of the Lord, who +had taken him in and comforted him, though the hour was nigh when they, +too, were to be driven forth shelterless in the wintry storms. The deep +and affecting suggestiveness of that wide contrast his mind was, no +doubt, too weak thoroughly to appreciate. Yet something his heart felt, +and something his soul perceived; his pale and vacant face was +illumined; and at the close of the reading he rose up. The coarse +wrappings of his body fell away; and the muffling ignorance, the +swaddling dulness, wherein that divine infant, the bright immortal +spirit, was confined, seemed also to fall off. He lifted up his hands, +spreading them as if dispensing blessings; and his countenance had a +vague, smiling wonder in it, almost beautiful, and his voice, when he +spoke, thrilled the ear. + +"Praise the Lord! praise the Lord! for He will provide! + +"Be comforted! for ye are the children of the Lord! + +"Be glad! be glad! for the Angel of the Lord is here! + +"Don't you see him? don't you see him? There! there!" he cried, +pointing, with an earnestness and radiance of look which filled all who +saw him with astonishment. They turned to gaze, as if really expecting +to behold the vision; then fixed their eyes again on the stranger. + +"You'll be taken care of, the Angel says. Even they that hate you shall +do you good. The mercy you have shown, Christ will show to you." + +Having uttered these sentences at intervals, in a loud voice, the +speaker gave a start, turned as if bewildered, and sat down again. + +Not a word was spoken. A hush of awe suspended the breath of the +listeners. Then a smile of fervent emotion lighted up like daybreak the +negro's dark visage, and his joy broke forth in song. The others joined +him, filling the house with the jubilee of their wild and mellow voices. + + "A poor wayfaring man of grief + Hath often crossed me on my way, + And sued so humbly for relief + That I could never answer nay." + +And so the fair fame of Gingerford, as we said before, was saved from +blight. The beggar-boy awakes this Sunday morning, not in the blaze of +Eternity, but in that dim nook of the domain of Time, Nigger Williams's +hut. He made his couch, not on the freezing ground, but in a bunk of the +low-roofed garret. His steaming clothes had been taken off, a dry shirt +had been given him, and he had Joe for a bedfellow. + +"Hug him tight, Joey dear!" said the old woman, as she carried away the +candle. "Snug up close, and keep him warm!" + +"I will!" cried Joe, as affectionate as he was roguish; and Fessenden's +never slept better than he did that night, with the tempest singing his +lullaby, and the arms of the loving negro boy about him. + +In the morning he found his clothes ready to put on. They had been +carefully dried; and the old woman had got up early and taken a few +needful stitches in them. + +"It's Sunday, granny," Creshy reminded her, to see what she would say. + +"A'n't no use lett'n' sich holes as these 'ere go, if 't is Sunday!" +replied the old woman. "Hope I never sh'll ketch you a doin' nuffin' +wus! A'n't we told to help our neighbor's sheep out o' the ditch on the +Lord's day? An' which is mos' consequence, I'd like to know, the +neighbor's sheep, or the neighbor hisself?" + +"But his clothes a'n't him," said Creshy. + +"S'pose I do'no' that? But what's a sheep for, if 't a'n't for its wool +to make the clo'es? Then, to look arter the sheep that makes the clo'es, +and not look arter the clo'es arter they're made, that's a mis'ble +notion!" + +"But you can mend the clothes any day." + +"Could I mend 'em yis'day, when I didn't have 'em to mend? or las' +night, when they was wringin' wet? Le' me alone, now, with your +nonsense!" + +"But you can mend them to-morrow," said the mischievous girl, delighted +to puzzle her grandmother. + +"And let that poor lorn chile go in rags over Sunday, freezin' cold +weather like this? Guess I a'n't so onfeelin,'--an' you a'n't nuther, +for all you like to tease your ole granny so! Bless the chile, seems to +me he's jest gwine to bring us good luck. I feel as though the Angel of +the Lord did ra'ly come into the house with him las' night! Wish I had +somefin' ra'l good for him for his breakfas' now! He'll be dreffle +hungry, that's sartin. Make a rousin' good big Johnny-cake, mammy; and, +Creshy, you stop botherin', and slice up them 'ere taters for fryin'." + +Soon the odor of the cooking stole up into the garret. Fessenden's +snuffed it with delighted senses. The feeling of his garments dry and +whole pleased him mightily. He heard the call to breakfast; and laughing +and rubbing his eyes, he followed Joe down the dark, uncertain footing +of the stairs. + +The family was already huddled about the table. But room was reserved +for their guest, and at his appearance the old patriarch rose smilingly +from his seat, pulled off his cap, which it seemed he always wore, and +shook hands with him, with the usual hospitable greeting. + +"Sarvant, Sah! Welcome, Sah!" + +Fessenden's was given a seat by his side. And the old woman piled his +plate with good things. And he ate, and was filled. For he was by no +means dainty, and had not, simple soul! the least prejudice against +color. + +And he was happy. The friendly black faces around him,--the cheerful, +sympathetic, rich-toned voices,--the motherly kindness of the old +woman,--the exquisite smiling politeness of the old man, who got up and +shook hands with him, on an average, every half-hour,--the +Bible-reading,--the singing,--the praying,--the elegance and +condescension of Gentleman Bill,--the pleasant looks and words of the +laughing-eyed girls,--and the irrepressible merriment of Joe, made that +a golden Sabbath in the lad's life. + +Alas that it should come to this! Associate with black folks! how +shocking! What if he was a--Fessenden's? wasn't he white? Where were +those finer tastes and instincts which make you and me shrink from +persons of color? Pity they had not been properly developed in him! Pity +he should stoop so low as to eat and sleep with niggers, and feel +grateful! He rolls and tumbles in mad frolic with Joe on the +garret-floor, and plays horse with him. He suffers his hair to be combed +by the girls, and actually experiences pleasure at the touch of their +gentle hands, and feels a vague wondering joy when they praise his +smooth flaxen locks. In a word, he is so weak as to wish that good Mr. +Williams was his father, and this delightful hut his home! + +And so he spends his Sunday. The family does not attend public worship. +They used to, when the old meeting-house was standing, and the old +minister was alive. But they do not feel at ease in the new edifice, and +the smart young preacher is too smart for them altogether. His rhetoric +is like the cold carving and frescos,--very fine, very admirable, no +doubt; but it has no warmth in it for them; it is foreign to their +common daily lives; it comes not near the hopes and fears and sufferings +of their humble hearts. Here religion, which too long suffered +abasement, is exalted. It is highly respectable. It shows culture; it +has the tone of society. It is worth while coming hither of a Sunday +morning, if only to hear the organ and see the fashions. Yet it can +hardly be expected that such creatures as the Williamses should +appreciate the privilege of hearing and beholding from the inclosure +which has been properly set off for their class,--the colored people's +pew. + +But Fessendon's might have done better, one would say, than to stay at +home with them. Why didn't he go to church, and be somebody? _He_ would +not have been put into the niggers' pew. As for his clothes, which might +have been objected to by worldly people, who would have thought of them, +or of anything else but his immortal soul, in the house of God? Of +course, there were no respecters of persons there,--none to say to a +rich Frisbie, or an eloquent Gingerford, "Sit thou, here, in a good +place," and to a ragged Fessenden's, "Stand thou there." + +But perhaps the less said on the subject the better. Pass over that +golden Sunday in the lad's life. Alas, when will he ever have such +another? For here it is Monday morning, and the house is to be torn +down. + +There seems to be no mistake about it. Mr. Frisbie has come over early, +driven in his light open carriage by his man Stephen, to see that the +niggers are out. And yonder come the workmen, to commence the work of +demolition. + +But the niggers are not out; not an article of furniture has been +removed. + +"You see, Sir,"--Mr. Williams calmly represents the case to his +landlord, as he sits in his carriage,--"it has been impossible. We shall +certainly go, just as soon as we can get another house anywhere in +town"-- + +"I don't want you to get another house in town," interrupts the +full-blooded, red-faced Frisbie. "We have had enough of you. You have +had fair warning. Now out with your traps, and off with you!" + +"I trust, at least, Sir, you will give us another week"-- + +"Not an hour!" + +"One day," remonstrates the mild negro; "I don't think you will refuse +us that." + +"Not a minute!" exclaims the firm Frisbie. "I've borne with you long +enough. Fact is, we have got tired of niggers in this town. I bought the +house with you in it, or you never would have got in. Now it is coming +down. Call out your folks, and save your stuff, if you're going +to.--Good morning, Adsly," to the master carpenter. "Go to work with +your fellows. Guess they'll be glad to get out by the time you've ripped +the roof off." + +Mr. Williams retires, disheartened, his visage surcharged with trouble. +For this wretched dwelling was his home, and dear to him. It was the +centre of his world. Around it all the humble hopes and pleasures of the +man had clustered for years. When weary with the long day's heavy toil, +here he had found rest. To this spot his spirit, sorrow-laden, had ever +turned with gratitude and yearning. And here he had found shelter, here +he had found love and comfort, the lonely, despised man. Even care and +grief had contributed to strengthen the hold of his heart upon this +soil. Here had died the only child he had ever lost; and in the old +burying-ground, over the hill yonder, it was buried. Under this mean +roof he had laid his sorrows before the Lord, he had wrestled with the +Lord in prayer, and his burdens had been taken from him, and light and +gladness had been poured upon his soul. Oh, ye proud! do you think that +happiness dwells only in high places, or that these lowly homes are not +dear to the poor? + +But now this sole haven of the negro and his family was to be destroyed. +Cruel cold blew the December wind, that wintry morning. And the gusts of +the landlord's temper were equally pitiless. + + * * * * * + +HEAD-QUARTERS OF BEER-DRINKING. + + +Besides the four elements known to us as such, namely, air, fire, earth, +and water, there is a liquid substance not entirely unknown in our +country, which, in the kingdom of Bavaria, is sometimes called the fifth +element, under the specific name of beer. It is true, that, where this +extra element is in such repute, some of the others suffer depreciation, +and especially is this true of water, though this latter is still +occasionally used both as a beverage and in purifying processes; and +there is, too, a tradition, which these inland people have little +opportunity of verifying, that it has sometimes been exclusively used +for purposes of navigation, and they are aware, that, if at any time +they should decide to emigrate to America, they might have occasion to +test on a large scale both its utility and its perils for this purpose. +The centre of gravity of this fifth element seems to be in the city of +Munich, the capital of the kingdom. People in this country who have +heard much of lager-beer, and seen a little of its use as introduced +into our land from Germany, may, perhaps, suppose that it is equally +distributed over all that extensive region known by this name. This is, +however, an error. Just as our atmosphere becomes ever less dense +according to its distance from the earth's centre of gravity, so this +fifth element, as one retires farther from the city of Munich. + +It would be an interesting inquiry for the medical man, who seeks to +enlarge his knowledge of the _vis medicatrix Naturae_, for the +philanthropist, who would stimulate or increase the means of human +happiness, and remove or diminish those of human misery, and even for +the statistician, alike indifferent to both: _Why do particular articles +of diet and beverage concentrate their use so much in particular +climates, lands, and localities?_ Within certain limits the question is +easy. The inhabitant of the tropics lives on the bread-fruit, the +plantain, the orange, the fig, and the date. They grow around him, drop +as it were into his mouth, and are just what he needs to allay his +hunger and support his nature. The Greenlanders and the Esquimaux of +Labrador eat the flesh of bears, reindeer, and seals, and even drink +their fat by the quart. Fruits, if they were to be had, would not meet +their wants, and Providence has ordered accordingly. He of the tropics, +in addition to the external heat, needs but the mild and gentle fire +generated by the combustion of his native fruits, to keep his life-fluid +in action; while he of the frigid zones must be kept in life and motion +by rousing fires of seal's fat. Temperate latitudes produce most fruits, +and all the cereals and animals used for food; but Nature nowhere gives +us these in the shape of plum-puddings and pastries, or of beer and +alcoholic drinks. The combinations and commutations must be +manufactured. But does an impulse in man, like the instinct of the bee, +lead him to make just what he needs in his particular climate? Does the +Bavarian take to beer as the bee to honey? Does instinct or appetite in +general shape itself to climate and other outward circumstances? This is +but partly true. As Nature has distributed noxious vegetable and animal +substances through land and sea, which must be avoided, so man may not +pitch or pour indiscriminately into his stomach whatever substance may +be cooked or liquid distilled and offered to him, and we are thrown back +upon the direct test of their innocent or noxious properties, with full +responsibility of action; but still I have a profound conviction that +all such general production of the chief articles of food and drink has +its origin in some deeply felt necessity of human nature in their +particular localities;--the people may be on the wrong track in their +attempts to provide for such necessities, but that these are felt and +are the stimulus to the production is beyond doubt. + +Allowing for the changes wrought by time and cultivation, we can still +perceive the truth of what Tacitus wrote of Germany almost two thousand +years ago:--"The land, though somewhat varied in aspect, is in the main +deformed with dismal forests and foul marshes. The part next to Gaul is +wetter, and that next to Pannonia and Noricum higher and more windy. It +is sufficiently productive, but not adapted to fruit-trees." The whole +country lies in a high latitude,--Munich, though in the southern part, +being forty-eight degrees North. No large city on the continent lies at +such an elevation,--about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the +Adriatic. In the midst of a vast plain, it is exposed to all winds. Its +site and the surrounding country are a great gravel-bed, hundreds of +feet thick, a deposit from the Alps, spurs of which are within thirty +miles on the south, subjecting the whole region to sudden changes of +weather ranging in a few hours through many degrees of Fahrenheit. The +air is raw and chilly, and although many parts of Germany have since the +days of Tacitus developed an adaptation to the vine and other fruits, +none flourish in the neighborhood of Munich. The whole country suffers +from deficiency of nourishing and stimulating food. They may not +themselves know it, but this is true of the peasants who are best to do +in the world. Of the peasantry of Upper Bavaria, some have meat five +times in the year, on their chief holidays,--namely, Shrove Tuesday, +Easter, Whitsuntide, Church-Consecration, and Christmas; some have it on +but two of these days, and some only at Christmas. The exceptions may be +many, and the large cities are quite exceptional, but the change is of +late introduction. When people must labor upon such a diet, they feel +the lack of something; but the Bavarians have been too long in this case +to think of crying, like Israel of old in the wilderness, after having +left the abundance of Egypt, "Who shall give us flesh to eat?"--they +attempt rather to allay the gnawings at their stomachs by potations of +beer, and the appetite grows by what it feeds on. + +It is plausibly maintained that the climate of this particular locality +creates an actual necessity for the use of this beverage. Often, during +the earlier part of my residence there, I was besought by friends, with +manifestation of deepest concern, to use beer instead of water, with the +remark that the climate made this a necessary measure of security +against the prevalent typhus and typhoid fevers: a conviction which +seems to be deeply seated in the minds of the people. + +Aside from all this, there is an almost total want of the pleasant +beverages used in our families. Tea is as good as unknown in Old +Bavaria, its use being confined to those who have been in England, or +have learned it of the English, and not one woman in twenty thousand can +prepare it. Let the word _tea_ be erased from our vocabulary, and from +our minds all the cheerful associations which it awakens, and there +passes from our hearts none can tell how much of that which we most +fondly cherish there,--the family of both sexes, and occasionally some +neighbors and friends, seated around the table,--the gently stimulating +narcotic diffusing a charm over the whole social being, and +communicating itself to the vocal machinery. Fanatical reformers have +proclaimed its injurious effects; and it may have such; but they are a +thousand times compensated by its value as a bond of union to the +elements of the domestic circle. The tea-table has been the butt of many +a jest and sarcasm, as a fountain of gossip and slander. This may be +true; but the security it furnishes against the dissipation of the +elements of the social circle outweighs thousands of such trifles, and +we half suspect that this objection was originated, and is mischievously +propagated, by those who are already developing a love for other +beverages. If Cowper, with the "sofa" assigned as his subject, could +sing so beautifully of all things social and domestic, what might he +not have done with the tea-table--the rallying-point of social life to +so many who never had a sofa--for his theme? + +From the general use of coffee in the cities and large towns of Germany, +we have inferred its general use by the peasantry; but even this is +quite limited, in Upper Bavaria at least; it is found only where the +influence of city-life has penetrated. Sometimes a peasant woman has a +little hid in her chest, from which she stealthily prepares and drinks a +cup when her husband is away; but it is little used. This article was +brought into Western Europe in the seventeenth century, and found beer +in possession of Germany. The monks are said to have preached against +the use of coffee, as anticipating, by the dense black smoke which arose +from burning it, the "fumes of hell." It came from Turkey, and at that +day the Turk was still the hereditary dread of all the peoples on the +middle and upper Danube. He was next thing to the Devil; and what came +direct from the former could be but recent from the latter. + +Their beloved beer could not be traced so directly to an origin in the +nether world. The German tribes, as far back as history or tradition +reports them, seem to have loved this quieting beverage. Traces of their +coming together as now for banqueting purposes, under the shade of +Germany's primeval forests, are still found in history and historical +traditions. There is one fact which Americans, so accustomed to rapid +transformations of society by migration, immigration, and intermixture +of races, can scarcely comprehend, even when they know it as a fact: it +is the persistency with which national traits adhere to a people in an +old country, through generations and decades of generations and of +centuries, withstanding the shock of revolution both in government and +religion. Tacitus says of these people:--"At meals, they sit every man +upon a seat by himself and at a separate table. Arising, they proceed +armed to their business; and they go armed also to their banquets. _It +is no reproach to them to continue day and night drinking. Their drink +is fermented from barley or wheat into a certain resemblance of wine_. +Their food is simple,--wild fruits, fresh game, or coagulated milk. They +satisfy hunger without formality and without delicacies. _In regard to +thirst they do not exercise this moderation_. Indulge their appetites by +giving them all they desire, and you may conquer them by their vices not +less easily than by arms." + +Viewing, then, these people of Upper Bavaria, and of Munich in +particular, in their cold, raw air,--in their supposed exposure to +typhus and typhoid fevers,--deficiency of good food,--the want of the +domestic circle as cemented in our country over other beverages,--the +national abstemiousness in regard to food, and the addictedness to beer +for thousands of years past,--and we have a somewhat rational +explanation of the springing-up and development into such monstrous +proportions of the manufacture and consumption of this article. Of the +many it may be said,-- + + "They drink their simple beverage with a gust, + And feast upon an onion and a crust." + +Bavaria, not including the Rhenish Palatinate, uses over six million +bushels of barley, and upwards of seven million pounds of hops, +annually, in its breweries, making over eight million eimers, that is, +about five million barrels of beer. But nearly half the kingdom is +wine-growing, and uses comparatively little beer; so that this is mainly +consumed in the other half, that is, by about three millions of people. +At an average price of three and a half cents per quart, there is +consumed in the kingdom fifty million florins, or over twenty million +dollars, annually, in this beverage. Both manufacture and consumption +have their head-quarters in Munich. The quantity manufactured in this +city alone in 1856-7 was nine hundred and fifty thousand eimers, or +about five hundred and seventy thousand barrels, being nearly five +barrels a head for the whole population, men, women, and children. +Allowing for the amount exported, or sent out of the city, there remains +something like four barrels to each person. This is one quart, or four +of our common table-glasses, per day. But some drink none, others +little; a man is scarcely reckoned with real beer-drinkers until he +drinks six masses,--twenty-four of our common tumblers; ten masses are +not uncommon; twenty to thirty masses--eighty to one hundred and twenty +of our dinner-glasses--are drunk by some, and on a wager even much more. +The sick man whose physician prescribed for him a quart of herb-tea as +the only thing that would save him, and who replied that he was gone, +then, for he held but a _pint_, was no Bavarian; for the most modest +Bavarian girl would not feel alarmed in regard to her capacity, if +ordered to drink a gallon,--certainly not, if the liquid were beer. + +The aggregate labor performed in this branch of popular industry is thus +seen at a glance. But how is this done, and by whom? What is the noise +or noiselessness with which such torrents of this foaming liquid rush +daily through the channels of human bodies made originally too small to +admit half the quantity? What are the final results upon body, mind, and +heart of the present and future of the race? Does government encourage, +stimulate, control, and turn to account this national appetite? These +questions invite, and will well repay, a few moments' attention. + +I once heard a college student announce as the text of his oration +Lindley Murray's well-known definition of the verb,--a word which +signifies "to be, to do, or to suffer"; and he followed up his +announcement by a most beautiful and conclusive argument to show that +this definition describes with equal accuracy three classes of men into +which the whole world may be divided: a class who have no purpose in +life but simply "to be"; an active class, whose mission is "to do," to +which they bend all their energies; and a passive class, who merely +"suffer" themselves to be employed as the tools of the men of action. +Whether he would have modified his statement, had he known something of +Bavarian beer-drinkers, I do not know; for, although these belong, +doubtless, in general, to the class of men which he designated as having +no purpose but simply "to be," yet they certainly have a decided +preference as to the means of their being, which must be beer; they have +activity enough to get where this can be obtained, and to handle the +needed quantity; and the man who holds and bears about fifteen or twenty +quarts a day must have no small share of the grace of passive endurance. + +There is a class of the nobility too poor to treat themselves with the +diversions of court-life, and with notions of noble birth which forbid +them to engage in business, especially as they would thereby forfeit +their rank. They fund their small means, so as to yield them a stated +income; and in spending this and their time, they fall into a round +which brings them three or four times a day to some place where beer is +to be found, and with it a billiard-table and a reading-room. This class +does not, perhaps, embrace a very large number of the nobility, but it +is largely reinforced from others, whose small means are similarly +invested, and whose whole time is on their hands for disposal. The class +of men engaged in business, and pursuing it somewhat actively, give less +attention to beer during the day. They take a couple of glasses--four of +our common tumblers--at dinner, and perhaps send out a servant +occasionally during the day to replenish a pitcher for the +counter,--not, however, to treat customers, as used to be done in our +country; but as beer had been all day secondary to business, the latter +is dropped for the evening, and the undivided attention bestowed upon +the national beverage. A large portion of the poor, and many who cannot +be called poor, have not the means for this indulgence; and yet men and +women are seldom seen at their work without a mug of beer standing near +them. Ladies have the same provision in their families, as also +students, and all who occupy rented rooms in connection with the +families of the city; from ten to one o'clock servant-girls, with +pitchers in their hands and immense bunches of keys hanging to their +apron-strings, are seen running to and from the neighboring beer-houses +thick as butterflies floating in a summer sun, and seem far more as if +on business requiring haste. No room is sought for renting without an +inquiry as to the quality of the beer of the neighborhood; and the +landlady feels that her chances for a tenant are exceedingly slim, if +she cannot furnish a satisfactory recommendation in this respect. +Scarcely a house in the city is thirty steps from where the article can +be had. The places fitted up with seats and tables for drinking +accommodate from twenty to five hundred persons, and even one thousand +or more in summer, when a garden is generally prepared with seats for +the purpose. At these larger places, music is often provided, and ladies +are frequently found lending the charm and solace of their presence, and +sometimes a good deal more, to the other sex, in this self-denying work, +in which the men have generally been the great burden-bearers. But the +greatest crowds of real beer-drinkers go to another class of +houses,--that is, the breweries themselves, where rooms are always +fitted up for drinking. Of these the Court Brewery is perhaps in highest +repute, and is at least a great curiosity. I visited it three or four +times during a six years' residence in the city, and always in company +with others who wished to see the lions of the place, and for the same +reason that would have taken us to see a menagerie. Why did the monks +never think of applying to such places the figure by which they +protested against the introduction of coffee, "the fumes of hell"? The +smoke of five hundred cigars or pipes rising to a ceiling which had been +thus smoked for centuries,--the hoarse hum of five hundred voices +uttering the German gutturals from tongues thickened by the use of beer, +and floating heavily through an atmosphere of densest smoke, dimming the +lights and turning all into an indefinite and uniform brown color,--this +may indeed be a picture of Elysium to some minds, but to ours it is not. +I never found a vacant seat there, nor felt a desire to occupy one, had +there been such. Stone mugs of double the size of the common glasses are +used, perhaps to save servants' labor in drawing, which is no small +matter, as a barrel of beer lasts not more than ten minutes at the +height of the drinking-time of the evening. + +None of the drinking-places in the city are filled until evening. In the +afternoon many take their walks into the suburbs, and turn aside where a +glass may be had. On all holidays the whole city is adrift, much of it +in the surrounding country, and most of this drift lodges against the +suburban beer-houses. In summer evenings there are frequent +entertainments, some provided by the government,--as one every Saturday +evening from six to seven o'clock, from May to November, a mile from the +city, in the English Garden, where sometimes two thousand persons may be +in attendance, to hear the royal bands play. It is presumed that there +will always be a considerable number among these who will not be able to +stand it an hour without beer, and a beneficent provision is made for +such,--seats and tables for at least five hundred persons being there +provided, and often filled, so that some must drink standing. + +The regularity with which the men of Munich bring themselves around to +the same place at about the same time of day, especially if that place +is a beer-house, is remarkable,--indeed, amusing. A gentleman residing +in Berlin, where this everlasting beer-drinking does not prevail, +mentioned to me, as one of the most ludicrous occurrences of his life, +an invitation which he once received to visit a Munich professor whose +acquaintance he had made in Berlin. The professor told him, that, in +case he should arrive in Munich after a certain hour of the day, he must +go directly to the Court Brewery, and would find him there. We do +indeed regard this as the consummation of the ridiculous; but to this +bachelor professor it was the most natural thing in the world. He might +change his lodgings half a dozen times in a year, and so might not be +readily found; but the Court Brewery would remain from generation to +generation, and while he lived he expected regularly to appear there, +and there, of course, was the only place where he could make +appointments for years to come. + +This incident will intimate what an external view of this dark brown +mass of humanity would never have hinted,--that it contains men of +learning and parts. Could one go round and listen to each party by +itself, instead of hearing the low rumble which falls upon the ears of +the general observer, the profoundest problems of philosophy, +statesmanship, philology, geography, ethnography, and history would be +found undergoing the most searching examination. Fame says of _our_ +politicians who rise to positions which ought to be occupied only by +statesmen, that they frequent low places and mingle with the boisterous +crowd. This is probably not a slander. But these men frequent such +places only for a purpose. Their tastes do not lead them thither. They +go no oftener than serves their purpose. Not so with the learned German +beer-drinker. He is in his own proper society. Chinese or Sanscrit, +Arabic or Coptic, the last discoveries in the interior of Africa or +about the North Pole, or the more recondite regions of chemistry or +mineralogy, may be the theme of a familiar discourse, which each of the +party may fully appreciate. + +To these places, of course, only the men resort. Indeed, in this part of +Germany there is little of family-life. The members of the family take +their coffee separately, as each rises and is ready. The men quite +generally dine and sup away from home, and that, too, when their +business and their residence are in the same house, and the hotel or +eating-house is at a distance. An English gentleman told me of a German +friend of his who appeared in his seat in the beer-house on the evening +of his wedding-day; and to the suggestion that this was not quite right +to the newly married wife, he replied that it did indeed seem so, but he +thought it better not to encourage hopes destined to disappointment. +This may, too, have been one of those numerous instances in which the +parties had already spent many evenings together in such a way as to +have diminished the interest of both in each other's society on the +first evening of married life. A genuine Munich man would never be +embarrassed like the Parisian, of whom the well-known story is told, +that, having been accustomed to spend all his evenings in the +drawing-room of a certain lady, he was advised, on the death of her +husband, to marry her, and promptly replied with the question, "_Where, +then, should I spend my evenings?_" A true South-Bavarian's plan of +spending his evenings is not affected by the trifling event of his +marriage. + +Indeed, there is an aspect of this virtual dissolution of family-life +which has great interest as connected with German erudition. The English +or American scholar, whose social hours are mainly spent with his +family, or in the mixed society of the sexes, would never think of +introducing the subjects of his study into such circles, and hence is +without the best means of familiarizing his mind with the very topics to +which all his hours of close application are devoted; for no subject is +fully understood and reduced to material for ready use until it has been +in some form the theme of frequent familiar discourse. It is thus turned +over,--looked at on every side,--the views of men of different tastes, +studies, and orders of mind, who have not disqualified themselves for +this by being curled into the same nutshell, are called forth,--and the +sparks thus elicited catch on other tinder, which had not been touched +by those struck out in solitary study. It is thus that the thoughts of +the learned are familiarized, and their area extended. It is thus that +subjects which sit upon us as holiday-clothes are, in a society of +German _literati_, who are together every day at dinner, or over their +coffee after dinner, and every evening over their beer, become to them +as their every-day clothing. I am not of those who deem this result well +purchased at the price of the refining influence of the other sex, and +the virtual breaking-up of family-life; but if some middle way could be +hit upon to secure the two advantages at once, both science and society +would be great gainers. + +The government has regulated the manufacture of beer, and collected an +income-tax upon it, for centuries past; and this is even now one of its +most puzzling problems. It determines the price, both wholesale and +retail, at which the beer may be sold. The calculations are based upon +an estimate of the medium amount of fixed capital necessary for the +manufacture, then the labor, then the average price of barley and hops +at the October and November markets of each year; every item which +enters into the manufacture, including interest at five per cent on +capital, enters also into the government's calculation by which it +determines its tax and the price of beer. The price is never increased +or diminished by less than half a kreutzer, or two pfennigs, that is, +one-third of a cent, per mass. The fractional parts of this +half-kreutzer which may appear in the calculation are divided by a fixed +rule between the public and the brewer: that is, when the fraction is +one-fourth of a kreutzer, or less, the brewer must drop it for the +public benefit; when more, he may call it a half for his own benefit. +The government tax is nearly one kreutzer per mass, making about six +millions of florins. There is also in several places an additional local +beer-tax, amounting to nearly two million florins more. The population +of the kingdom is about five millions. A considerable portion of this +population are wine-growing, and manufacture and drink but little beer. +Ledlmayr, the largest brewer in Munich, made in the year 1856--the +latest statistics published--one hundred and twenty-nine thousand +eimers. Allowing three hundred working-days to the year, this would be +four hundred and thirty eimers, or twenty-seven thousand five hundred +and twenty masses, per day, and would pay to the government, at one +kreutzer per mass, one hundred and eighty dollars of our money for each +of these working-days, or fifty-four thousand dollars yearly. In a time +of popular sensitiveness, there is nothing which the government could do +that would be so likely to be followed by a revolutionary outbreak as to +add a kreutzer to the price of the mass or quart of beer. This article +is ranked in all police-regulations among the necessaries of life. The +bakeries and beer-houses must remain open at those holiday-hours when +all other shopkeepers, except the apothecaries, must close their shops. + +The statistics already given have reference to the common beer; but, +besides this, the brewers have permission to brew for certain short +periods what are called the double beers, without paying a tax upon +them. My statistics of the beer-drinking will, therefore, fall short of +the truth, at least by this uncertain quantity. During the brief periods +of the sale of the double beers, there is a great rush for them, +relieving somewhat the monotony of the ordinary routine. The two +principal kinds of double beer are the Bock-beer and the Salvator-beer. +The latter creates quite a furor. Many, led by curiosity to the +head-quarters of its sale, find their amusement there in testing the +capacity of some great beer-drinker,--and such are always on hand +waiting the chance,--by paying for all he will drink. These curious +visitors seldom return without a similar test of their own capacities; +and as the article has double the alcohol of the common beer, many a one +staggers a little on his homeward way who had never felt such effect +from the common form of the beverage. + +There is also no small amount of wine drunk in Munich. I have not the +statistics, but the number of large houses with the sign, +"Weinhandlung," and of the smaller ones with the sign, "Weinschenck," +and then the fact that at all the large hotels wine is mainly drunk at +dinner, furnish my data for this conclusion. In the wine-growing +districts of Bavaria beer-drinking is reduced to about one-fourth of the +Munich standard, and so we may suppose that the removal of all wine from +the capital might add one-fourth to the beer-drinking as given +above,--at least, it takes the place of one-fourth of that which would +be the aggregate of the beer-drinking. + +The government has a commission for the examination of the quality of +the beer; and, indeed, aside from this, the popular taste is not a bad +test in this respect. There is an error in the lines of Prior,-- + + "When you with High-Dutch Herren dine, + Expect false Latin and stummed wine: + They never taste who always drink; + They always talk who never think."[C] + +The most common manifestation of Bavarian beer-drinking is a perpetual +tasting, and not a pouring-down of the liquid a glass at a time. These +people seem to have the art of doing this thing so gradually and quietly +that the soothing liquor passes gently into the circulation, and +produces an effect very different from that which would result from +swallowing it a glass at a draught, enabling them to drink without +visible effect a much larger quantity in the aggregate. They practise +upon the proverb, "The still sow drinks the swill,"--a proverb which +would serve admirably the purpose of those who desire to join in the +general sarcasm expended upon Bavarian beer-drinking, since almost every +word in it seems to express so exactly some characteristic which North +Germans and others are disposed to attribute to Bavarians. + +Reference was made above to the government's regulating the price of +beer. The margin allowed between the wholesale and retail price is half +a kreutzer on the mass,--that is, one-fourth of a kreutzer or one-sixth +of a cent on the glass. What a blessing, if the retail liquor-trade in +our country were reduced to such a scale of profit! This would bring +less than two dollars on one thousand glasses. The work would have to be +turned over to benevolence for its prosecution, and would doubtless be +done much more to the advantage of the community. The profit, however, +on this trade in Bavaria is somewhat increased by the manner in which +servants are paid. Especially if good-looking girls are employed, the +employer may pay them nothing, but leave them to get their pay from the +customer. They bring him his change in kreutzers and fractions of a +kreutzer, and he shoves back to them often these fractional parts; and +if no such are there, a truly liberal soul may give the girl a whole +kreutzer, and then in return he will receive an expression of thanks +somewhat stronger than our lordly porters would allow themselves to make +for half a dollar on which they had no claim. Small as this profit is, +it brings to the retailers of Munich about five hundred thousand +florins, somewhat more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in +gold per annum. Then, if the servants receive from the customers +gratuities of half that amount, that is, an average of one-twelfth of a +cent on the glass, this amounts to two hundred and fifty thousand +florins per annum. In view of all these facts, it can be conceived that +nothing would be so certain to be followed by a revolutionary outbreak +as the addition of a kreutzer to the price of a mass of beer. + +The wit which sparkles and flashes in a Bavarian beer-house may be as +much less boisterous, or rather as much more quiet, than that which +explodes over the distilled spirits of our bar-rooms, as the stimulant +itself is less exciting, but is for this very reason the more genuine. +Like the myriads of fire-flies on a warm summer evening amid the rising +fog of a marshy ground, so gleams this wit in its smoky atmosphere; +still it is there, notwithstanding the popular notion of Bavarian +stupidity. The North German, and even English and American satirists of +these people, fare generally much as did Ulysses's men on drinking of +Circe's magic cup; and once turned into swine, they are seldom turned +back again, at least until they leave the charmed spot. When once drawn +into the vortex of students' convivial gatherings, they feel that there +is no escape without flying from the place. + +A drinking frolic, involving Americans, once called in my aid to settle +a great international difficulty--that is, one about as threatening as +most of those diplomatic cases flaunted so often in our +newspapers--between the United States and Bavarian governments. Two +American art-students had taken a room at Nymphenburg, a little village +in the vicinity of Munich, the site of a royal _chateau_, which in +summer is always occupied by a royal prince. There the great Napoleon +lodged, when he visited the Bavarian capital. There the present king was +born. There, at the time to which I refer, the king's youngest brother, +Adalbert,--who would have succeeded Otho on the throne of Greece, if the +Greeks had not otherwise determined,--was residing in the palace, and a +company of cuirassiers was stationed in the town. The two students were +visited on a Sunday evening by three or four more Americans, and one +English and two Bavarian friends. The usual beer-guzzling prevailed; +some exciting topic was up, and each must have his glass empty when the +time for refilling was announced. One of the Americans felt his capacity +not quite equal to the demands made upon it. The shift often resorted to +in such a trying situation is quietly to empty the glass under the table +or out of a window, if this can be done without observation,--and most +young men are not very observing at such times. Under the window, +outside, sat a party of the cuirassiers drinking, about a dozen of whom +made a sudden irruption into that bacchanal chamber, and, with little +explanation, proceeded to clear it of its tenants and guests, knocking +down, beating, and pitching them headlong down-stairs, until the work +was done. There were sundry flesh-bruises inflicted, some small +blood-vessels lying near the surface tapped, one collar-bone fractured, +a wrist sprained, garments torn off or left hanging in shreds; and +rarely has the darkness of a summer evening concealed a more ludicrous +spectacle than that of these dispersed beer-bacchanalians, each running +on his own account, hatless or coatless, as he happened to have been +left by some stout cuirassier into whose hands he had fallen. The next +day, a deputation of the injured company and their friends came to me, +desiring that redress might be demanded of the Bavarian government. They +stated their case both verbally and in writing. They were conscious of +no offence. If the assailants gave any reason for their assault, it was +not understood. Most of the young men knew but little German, and +perhaps just then less than usual of that or any other language. The +supposition was, that the rough treatment grew out of the cuirassiers' +jealousy that they were not so well served by the waiting-maids as the +American company and their guests. One, however, stated the unimportant +incident, that the coat of the man who handled him so carelessly seemed +to be very wet. One of the Americans who had been present on this +occasion did not present himself until sent for several days afterwards. +He had observed an incident seen by no other,--one of which the +performer, himself as honest a young man as ever lived, was utterly +unconscious,--_the pouring of a glass of beer from the window_. The beer +did as little harm on the cuirassiers' coats as it would have done in +the American's stomach, and was at least the incidental means of +bringing the whole scene to an abrupt end. The government was inclined +to do us justice, but very naturally thought that the drenching of its +cuirassiers might be pleaded in abatement of the insult to our national +dignity; and so a nominal punishment of the offenders finally settled +the question. + +If asked whether inebriation and its accompaniments are as marked under +the reign of beer as under that of the more fiery fluids used among us, +I should feel bound to reply negatively. The common Bavarian beer has +but about half the strength of the average malt liquors of our country, +and seldom produces real intoxication except upon novices. It may +stupefy, though this is by no means observable in the mental action of +learned Bavarians. The charge of dulness, so sarcastically made against +them, could be retorted with about as much show of reason against +Prussians, Hanoverians, Saxons, or, indeed, any other people. The +students, after their _Kneips_, have what they call +_Katzenjammer_,--cat-sickness,--the effect of debauch, loss of rest, and +general irregularities; and those who do most of the beer-drinking do +least of the studying. I should, indeed, fear fatal effects from +drinking half the quantity of water which some of them take of beer. The +drunkenness produced by beer is at least a very different thing from +that produced by distilled spirits. The one may be a stupor, the other +is a brief and sudden insanity. Beer holds no one captive by such spell +as that which seizes some natures on the first taste of ardent spirits, +throwing them beyond their own control until their week's frolic is +ended. The cases are rare, if they ever occur, in which the beer-drinker +is enticed from the prosecution of his business, if he has one,--and +beer furnishes the main substitute for business to those who have no +other employment. If it causes men to pursue their avocations lazily or +stupidly, it does not cause the irregularities and neglects of American +inebriation. Cases of pawning clothes and impoverishing families from +the appetite for beer may occur, just as from laziness, but not as from +the bewitching appetite for ardent spirits. + +The practice of Americans in Bavaria, even of those who never drink a +drop of beer at home, is, so far as I know, to drink a little while in +the country, acting from a supposed necessity in that climate, or +impelled by the want of other beverages. Physicians advise it, and I +suppose that American physicians would do the same in the case of their +countrymen temporarily residing there. In my own family, it was taken +every day at dinner as a kind of prescription, and the children were +disciplined to drink their little glass daily with rather less urging +than would have been necessary, had the dose been castor-oil; and they +always felt that they deserved an expression of approbation as being +"good children," if they drank their entire portion. Our taste for beer +never increased, but rather the contrary; and should I again reside in +that country, notwithstanding the general impression that its use is a +kind of necessity, as a security against the fevers incident to the +climate, I should feel just as secure without a drop. My little boy, +born in Bavaria, and but four years old when we left the kingdom, liked +the beer better than the other children, and so gave some support to the +theory that the Bavarians take to beer by instinct. He shared, too, in +the patriotic doubt of the people as to the possibility of successfully +imitating the article in other countries. When, on our journey homeward, +the train brought us into the little city of Koethen, we found evidence +of one of those attempts so unsuccessfully made everywhere in North +Germany to imitate the Bavarian beer. A man passed along by the train, +crying at the top of his voice, "_Baierisches bier!_" upon which the +little fellow, in the height of his indignation, cried out, +"_Baierisches Bier nicht!_"--("Not Bavarian beer!")--and so the cry and +response continued until the parties were out of each other's hearing, +and all the passengers in the train had their attention called, and +their main amusement furnished, by this childish outburst of patriotic +indignation. At this point, my life, observation, and adventures in +connection with Bavarian beer ceased, and almost the last echo of its +magic name in the original tongue died on my ears. That the results may +not be lost and forgotten, I now commit them to paper and to the +public. + + * * * * * + +FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK. + + + The Friar Jerome, for some slight sin, + Done in his youth, was struck with woe. + "When I am dead," quoth Friar Jerome, + "Surely, I think my soul will go + Shuddering through the darkened spheres, + Down to eternal fires below! + I shall not dare from that dread place + To lift mine eyes to Jesus' face, + Nor Mary's, as she sits adored + At the feet of Christ the Lord. + Alas! December's all too brief + For me to hope to wipe away + The memory of my sinful May!" + And Friar Jerome was full of grief, + That April evening, as he lay + On the straw pallet in his cell. + He scarcely heard the curfew-bell + Calling the brotherhood to prayer; + But he arose, for't was his care + Nightly to feed the hungry poor + That crowded to the Convent-door. + + His choicest duty it had been: + But this one night it weighed him down. + "What work for an immortal soul, + To feed and clothe some lazy clown! + Is there no action worth my mood, + No deed of daring, high and pure, + That shall, when I am dead, endure, + A well-spring of perpetual good?" + + And straight he thought of those great tomes + With clamps of gold,--the Convent's boast,-- + How they endured, while kings and realms + Passed into darkness and were lost; + How they had stood from age to age, + Clad in their yellow vellum-mail, + 'Gainst which the Paynim's godless rage, + The Vandal's fire could nought avail: + Though heathen sword-blows fell like hail, + Though cities ran with Christian blood, + Imperishable they had stood! + They did not seem like books to him, + But Heroes, Martyrs, Saints,--themselves + The things they told of, not mere books + Ranged grimly on the oaken shelves. + + To those dim alcoves, far withdrawn, + He turned with measured steps and slow, + Trimming his lantern as he went; + And there, among the shadows, bent + Above one ponderous folio, + With whose miraculous text were blent + Seraphic faces: Angels, crowned + With rings of melting amethyst; + Mute, patient Martyrs, cruelly bound + To blazing fagots; here and there, + Some bold, serene Evangelist, + Or Mary in her sunny hair: + And here and there from out the words + A brilliant tropic bird took flight; + And through the margins many a vine + Went wandering--roses, red and white, + Tulip, wind-flower, and columbine + Blossomed. To his believing mind + These things were real, and the soft wind, + Blown through the mullioned window, took + Scent from the lilies in the book. + + "Santa Maria!" cried Friar Jerome, + "Whatever man illumined this, + Though he were steeped heart-deep in sin, + Was worthy of unending bliss, + And no doubt hath it! Ah! dear Lord, + Might I so beautify Thy Word! + What sacristan, the convents through, + Transcribes with such precision? who + Does such initials as I do? + Lo! I will gird me to this work, + And save me, ere the one chance slips. + On smooth, clean parchment I'll engross + The Prophet's fell Apocalypse; + And as I write from day to day, + Perchance my sins will pass away." + + So Friar Jerome began his Book. + From break of dawn till curfew-chime + He bent above the lengthening page, + Like some rapt poet o'er his rhyme. + He scarcely paused to tell his beads, + Except at night; and then he lay + And tossed, unrestful, on the straw, + Impatient for the coming day,-- + Working like one who feels, perchance, + That, ere the longed-for goal be won, + Ere Beauty bare her perfect breast, + Black Death may pluck him from the sun. + At intervals the busy brook, + Turning the mill-wheel, caught his ear; + And through the grating of the cell + He saw the honeysuckles peer; + And knew't was summer, that the sheep + In golden pastures lay asleep; + And felt, that, somehow, God was near. + In his green pulpit on the elm, + The robin, abbot of that wood, + Held forth by times; and Friar Jerome + Listened, and smiled, and understood. + + While summer wrapped the blissful land, + What joy it was to labor so, + To see the long-tressed Angels grow + Beneath the cunning of his hand, + Vignette and tail-piece deftly wrought! + And little recked he of the poor + That missed him at the Convent-door; + Or, thinking of them, put the thought + Aside. "I feed the souls of men + Henceforth, and not their bodies!"--yet + Their sharp, pinched features, now and then, + Stole in between him and his Book, + And filled him with a vague regret. + + Now on that region fell a blight: + The corn grew cankered in its sheath; + And from the verdurous uplands rolled + A sultry vapor fraught with death,-- + A poisonous mist, that, like a pall, + Hung black and stagnant over all. + Then came the sickness,--the malign + Green-spotted terror, called the Pest, + That took the light from loving eyes, + And made the young bride's gentle breast + A fatal pillow. Ah! the woe, + The crime, the madness that befell! + In one short night that vale became + More foul than Dante's inmost hell. + Men cursed their wives; and mothers left + Their nursing babes alone to die, + And wantoned, singing, through the streets, + With shameless brow and frenzied eye; + And senseless clowns, not fearing God,-- + Such power the spotted fever had,-- + Razed Cragwood Castle on the hill, + Pillaged the wine-bins, and went mad. + And evermore that dreadful pall + Of mist hung stagnant over all: + By day, a sickly light broke through + The heated fog, on town and field; + By night the moon, in anger, turned + Against the earth its mottled shield. + + Then from the Convent, two and two, + The Prior chanting at their head, + The monks went forth to shrive the sick, + And give the hungry grave its dead,-- + Only Jerome, he went not forth, + But hiding in his dusty nook, + "Let come what will, I must illume + The last ten pages of my Book!" + He drew his stool before the desk, + And sat him down, distraught and wan, + To paint his darling masterpiece, + The stately figure of Saint John. + He sketched the head with pious care, + Laid in the tint, when, powers of Grace! + He found a grinning Death's-head there, + And not the grand Apostle's face! + + Then up he rose with one long cry: + "'Tis Satan's self does this," cried he, + "Because I shut and barred my heart + When Thou didst loudest call to me! + O Lord, Thou know'st the thoughts of men, + Thou know'st that I did yearn to make + Thy Word more lovely to the eyes + Of sinful souls, for Christ his sake! + Nathless, I leave the task undone: + I give up all to follow Thee,-- + Even like him who gave his nets + To winds and waves by Galilee!" + + Which said, he closed the precious Book + In silence with a reverent hand; + And, drawing his cowl about his face, + Went forth into the Stricken Land. + And there was joy in heaven that day,-- + More joy o'er that forlorn old friar + Than over fifty sinless men + Who never struggled with desire! + + What deeds he did in that dark town, + What hearts he soothed with anguish torn, + What weary ways of woe he trod, + Are written in the Book of God, + And shall be read at Judgment-Morn. + The weeks crept on, when, one still day, + God's awful presence filled the sky, + And that black vapor floated by, + And, lo! the sickness passed away. + With silvery clang, by thorp and town, + The bells made merry in their spires, + Men kissed each other on the street, + And music piped to dancing feet + The livelong night, by roaring fires! + + Then Friar Jerome, a wasted shape,--. + For he had taken the Plague at last,-- + Rose up, and through the happy town, + And through the wintry woodlands passed + Into the Convent. What a gloom + Sat brooding in each desolate room! + What silence in the corridor! + For of that long, innumerous train + Which issued forth a month before, + Scarce twenty had come back again! + + Counting his rosary step by step, + With a forlorn and vacant air, + Like some unshriven church-yard thing, + The Friar crawled up the mouldy stair + To his damp cell, that he might look + Once more on his beloved Book. + + And there it lay upon the stand, + Open!--he had not left it so. + He grasped it, with a cry; for, lo! + He saw that some angelic hand, + While he was gone, had finished it! + There't was complete, as he had planned! + There, at the end, stood _finis_, writ + And gilded as no man could do,-- + Not even that pious anchoret, + Bilfrid, the wonderful,--nor yet + The miniatore Ethelwold,-- + Nor Durham's Bishop, who of old + (England still hoards the priceless leaves) + Did the Four Gospels all in gold. + And Friar Jerome nor spoke nor stirred, + But, with his eyes fixed on that word, + He passed from sin and want and scorn; + And suddenly the chapel-bells + Rang in the holy Christmas-Morn! + + In those wild wars which racked the land, + Since then, and kingdoms rent in twain. + The Friar's Beautiful Book was lost,-- + That miracle of hand and brain: + Yet, though its leaves were torn and tossed, + The volume was not writ in vain! + + * * * * * + +LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS. + +THE DRAWING-ROOM. + + +PART I. + +We are no "lion-hunters." When we wish to learn something of eminent +authors, we hasten to the nearest book-shop and buy their works. They +put the best of themselves in their books. The old saw tells us how +completely all great men give the best part of themselves to the public, +while the _valet-de-chambre_ picks up little else than food for +contempt. Nevertheless, we are as inquisitive about everything that +concerns eminent people as anybody can be. We would not blot a single +line from Boswell. We protest against a word being effaced from the +garrulous pages of Lady Blessington and Leigh Hunt. We "hang" the stars +with which Earl Russell has _milky-wayed_ Moore's Diary. But we are no +"lion-hunters," (the name should be "lion-harriers,") simply because +this chase is not the best way to take the game we desire. What does the +lion-hunter secure? A commonplace observation upon the weather, an +adroit or awkward parry of flattery, and some superficial compliment +upon one's native place or present residence; for a great man at bay is +nothing more nor less than a casual acquaintance extremely on his guard, +and, commonly, extremely fatigued by admirers. True, one obtains an +acquaintance with the great man's voice, and the hearth where he lives, +and the right to boast with truth, "I have seen him." _Voila tout!_ Now +this is not what we want. We desire some good, clear, faithful account +of these people, as they are, when they talk freely and easily to their +contemporaries, to their peers. Boswell's picture of the Literary Club +is invaluable, although, with the insatiable curiosity of the nineteenth +century, we regret that the prince of reporters failed to sketch the +persons and peculiarities of the _dramatis personae_ whose conversations +he has so faithfully recorded. + +We wish to go behind the scenes, and to hear the conversation engaged in +in the green-room. We expect to see some dirt, some grease-pots, stained +ropes, and unpainted pulleys,--and, to tell the truth, we want to see +these blemishes. They are encouraging. They lessen the distance between +us and it by teaching us that even fairy-land knows no exemption from +those imperfections which blur our purest natures. + +A work has lately appeared in Europe which in some measure gratifies +this desire. It exhibits in full light a good many scenes of literary +life in Paris. They may be and probably are exaggerated, but +exaggerations do not mar truth; if they did, we should be obliged to +throw away the microscope, with nativities and divining-rods. We are +tempted to give our readers a share of the pleasure we have found in +perusing this picture of Paris life. We forewarn them that we have taken +liberties innumerable with the book. We have compressed into these few +leaves a volume of several hundred pages. We have discarded all the +machinery of the author, and introduced him personally to the reader in +the character of an autobiographer. We have not scrupled to make +explanations and additions wherever we thought them necessary, without +resorting to the artifice of notes or of quotation-marks. We repeat, +that we have taken a great many liberties with the author; but we have +made no statement, advanced no fact, indulged no reflection, which is +not to be found in the work referred to, or in some trustworthy +authority. And now we leave him the door without another observation. + +I am Count Armand de Pontmartin. I was born of noble parents at Aix, in +Provence, in 1820. I was educated at Paris, but the first twelve years +after I left college were passed on my estate in the enjoyment of an +income of three thousand dollars a year. Belonging to a Legitimist +family, my principles forbade my serving the Orleans dynasty, and I +should scarcely have known how to satisfy that thirst for activity which +fevers youth, had I not for years burned with the ambition to acquire +literary fame. Circumstances conspired to thwart these literary schemes, +and it was not until I had reached my thirtieth year that I came to +Paris with a heart full of emotion and hope, a trunk full of +manuscripts, and some friends' addresses on my memorandum-book. Before I +had been a week in town they had introduced me to three or four editors +of newspapers or reviews, and to several publishers and theatrical +managers. In less than a fortnight I breakfasted alone at Cafe Bignon +with one of my favorite authors, the celebrated novelist, Monsieur Jules +Sandeau.[D] I was confounded with astonishment and gratitude that he +should allow me to sit at the same table and eat with him. I felt +embarrassed to know where to find viands meet to offer him, and +beverages not unworthy to pass his lips. There were in his works so many +souls exiled from heaven, so many tearful smiles, so many melancholy +glances constantly turned towards the infinite horizon, that it seemed +to me something like sacrilege to offer to the creator of this noble and +charming world a dish of _rosbif aux pommes_ and a _turbot a la +Hollandaise_ and a claret wine. I could have invented for him some of +those Oriental delicacies made by sultans during harem's heavy hours; +rose-leaves kneaded with snow-water, dreams or perfumes disguised as +sweetmeats, or citron and myrtle-flowers dew-diamonded in golden +beakers. Of a truth, the personal appearance of my poetical guest did +give something of a shock to the ideal I had formed. Many and many a +time I had pictured him to myself tall and thin and pale, with large +black eyes raised heavenwards, and hair curling naturally on a forehead +shadowed by melancholy! In reality, Monsieur Jules Sandeau is a good +stout fellow, with broad, stalwart shoulders, a tendency to premature +obesity, small, bright, gentle, acute eyes, a head as bald as my knee, +rather thick lips, and a rubicund complexion; he has an air of +good-nature and simplicity which excludes everything like sentimental +exaggeration; he wears a black cravat tied negligently around a muscular +neck; in fine, he looks like a sub-lieutenant dressed in +citizen's-clothes. I got over this shock, and hunted all through the +bill of fare, (which, as you know, forms in Paris a duodecimo volume of +a good many pages,) trying my best to discover some romantic dish and +some supernal _liqueur_, until he cut short my chase by suggesting a +dinner of the most vulgar solidity; and when I tried to retrieve this +commonplace dinner by ordering for dessert some vapory _liqueurs_, such +as uncomprehended women sip, he proposed a glass of brandy. This was my +first literary deception. + +A theatrical newspaper was lying on the table. It contained an account +of a piece played the evening before. The writer spoke of the play as a +masterpiece, and of the performance as being one of those triumphs which +form an epoch in the history of dramatic art. I read this panegyric with +avidity, and exclaimed,-- + +"Oh, what a glorious thing success is! How happy that author must be!" + +"He!" replied Monsieur Sandeau, smiling; "he is mortified to death; his +play is execrable, and it fell flat." + +"You must be mistaken!" + +"I was present at the performance; and I have no reason to be pleased at +the miscarriage of the piece, for I am neither an enemy nor an intimate +friend of the author." + +Monsieur Jules Sandeau then went on to explain to me how the theatrical +newspapers, which contain the lists of performers and of pieces in all +the theatres of Paris, (play-bills being unknown,) enter into a +contract, which is the condition precedent of their sale in the +theatres, stipulating that they will never speak otherwise than in +praise of the pieces brought out. The report of the new piece is often +written and set up before the performance takes place. + +I blushed and said,-- + +"That is deplorable! But, thank Heaven! these are only the Grub-Street +writers, the mere penny-a-liners; the influential reporters of the great +morning papers, fortunately, are animated by a love of truth and +justice." + +Monsieur Sandeau looked at me, and smiled as be remarked,-- + +"Oh! as for them, they don't care a whit for piece or author or public. +They think of nothing but showing off themselves. Monsieur Theophile +Gautier has no care except to display the wealth of a palette which +mistook its vocation when it sought to obtain from pen, ink, and paper +those colors which pencil and canvas alone can give. He discards +sentiments, ideas, characters, dialogue, probability, intellectual +delicacy, everything which raises man above wood or stone. He would be +the very first writer of the age, if the world would agree to suppress +everything like heart and soul. He is never more at ease than when he +has to report a piece whose literary beauties are its splendid scenery +and costumes. He will dismiss the subject, the plot, the characters, and +the details in five lines; while fifteen columns will not suffice for +all the wonders of the decorations. If you ask him to send you to some +person most familiar with contemporary dramatic art, instead of sending +you to Alexandre Dumas, the elder or the younger, to Ponsard, or to +Augier, he will send you to the celebrated scene-painters, to Ciceri or +Sechan or Cambon. As for Monsieur Jules Janin, of whom I am very fond, +he is--You have sometimes been to concerts where virtuosos play +variations on the sextuor of "Lucie," or the trio of "William Tell," or +the duet of "Les Huguenots"? You listen attentively, and do at first +detect a phrase here and a phrase there which vaguely recall the work of +Donizetti, or of Rossini, or of Meyerbeer; but in an instant the +virtuoso himself forgets all about them. You have nothing but volley +after volley of notes, a musical storm, tempest, avalanche; the +primitive idea is fathoms deep under water, and when it is caught again +it is drowned. Now Monsieur Jules Janin has had for the last +five-and-twenty years the business of executing brilliant variations +upon the piano of dramatic criticism. He acts like the virtuosos you +hear at concerts. He writes, for conscience' sake, the name of the +author and the title of the play at the head of his dramatic report, and +then off he goes, heels over head, with variation and variation, and +variation and variation again, in French and in Latin, until at last no +human being can tell what he is after, where he is going, what he is +talking about, or what he means to say. He will tell you the whole story +of the Second Punic War, speaking of a sentimental comedy played at the +Gymnase Theatre, and a low farce of the Palais Royal Theatre will +furnish him the pretext to quote ten lines of Xenophon in the original +Greek. Monsieur Jules Janin is, notwithstanding all this, an excellent +fellow, and a man of great talents; but you must not ask him to work +miracles; in other words, you must not ask him to express briefly and +clearly what he thinks of the play he criticizes, nor to remember to-day +the opinion he entertained yesterday. These are miracles he cannot work. +He hears a piece; he is delighted with it; he says to the author, 'Your +piece is charming. You will be gratified by my criticism upon it.' He +comes home; he sits at his desk. What happens? Why, the wind which blew +from the north blows from the south; the soap-bubble rose on the left, +it floats away towards the right. His pen runs away with him; praise is +thrown out by the first hole in the road; epigram jumps in; and at last +the poor dramatic author, who was lauded to the skies yesterday, +complimented this morning, finds himself cut to pieces and dragged at +horses' tails in to-morrow's paper. Don't blame Monsieur Jules Janin for +it. 'Tis not his fault. The fault lies with his inkhorn; the fault lies +with his pen, which mistook the mustard-pot for the honey-jar; 'twill be +more careful next time. 'Tis the fault of the hand-organ which would +grind away while he was writing; 'tis the fault of the fly which would +keep buzzing about the room and bumping against the panes of glass; 'tis +the fault of the idea which took wings and flew away. The poor dramatic +author is mortified to death; but, Lord bless your soul! Monsieur Jules +Janin is not guilty." + +"What do you think of Monsieur Sainte-Beuve? Is he as unfaithful a +critic as Monsieur Theophile Gautier and Monsieur Jules Janin?" I asked, +rather timidly. + +"Monsieur Sainte-Beuve has received from Heaven (which he has ceased to +believe in) an exquisite taste, an extraordinary delicacy of tact, +admirable talents of criticism, relieved, and, as it were, fertilized, +by rare poetical faculties. He possesses and exercises in the most +masterly manner the art of shading, of hints, of hesitations, of +insinuations, of infiltrations, of evolutions, of circumlocutions, of +precautions, of ambuscades, of feline gambols, of ground and lofty +tumbling, of strategy, and of literary diplomacy. He excels in the art +of distilling a drop of poison in a phial of perfume so as to render the +poison delicious and the perfume venomous. His prose is as attractive +and magnetizing as a woman slightly compromised in public opinion, and +who does not tell all her secrets, but increases her attractions both by +what she shows and by what she conceals. Monsieur Sainte-Beuve has had +no desire but to be a pilgrim of ideas, lacking the first requisite in a +pilgrim, which is faith. He has circumnavigated, merely in the character +of amateur, every doctrine of the century; but though he has never +adopted one of them for his creed, when he abandoned them he seemed to +have betrayed them. Accused unjustly of treachery and apostasy, he has +done his best to confirm his reputation, and has ended by becoming the +enemy of those from whom at first he had only deserted. His error has +been in adulterating that which he might have put, with singular grace, +talents, and natural superiority, pure into currency,--in acting as if +literature were a war of treachery, where one was constantly obliged to +keep a sword in the hand and a poniard in the pocket. They say he is at +great pains to provide himself with an immense arsenal of defensive and +offensive weapons, that he may be able to crush those he loves to-day +and may detest to-morrow, and those he hates to-day and wishes to wreak +vengeance on hereafter. Monsieur Sainte-Beuve might have been the most +indisputable of authorities: he is only the most delightful of literary +curiosities." + +Such was the language of Monsieur Jules Sandeau. He spoke in the same +strain of many another eminent literary man. Around these illustrious +planets gravitated satellites. When new pieces were brought out, he told +me one could see between the acts the lieutenants go up to the +captain-critics and receive instructions from them; the consequence was, +the theatrical criticisms were either collective apotheoses or +collective executions. One day it was Mademoiselle Rachel they put on +the black list for three months, and they raised up against her Madame +Ristori, declaring that she was as superior to Rachel as Alfieri was to +Racine. Then 'twas the Gymnase Theatre they put in Coventry, for having +spoken disrespectfully of newspaper-writers. Another day Monsieur Scribe +was their victim, to punish him for fatiguing with his dramatic +longevity the young men, the new-comers, who are neither young men, nor +new men, nor men of talents. Monsieur Jules Sandeau had passed through +the thorny paths, the steppes, and the waste frontiers of literary life +in Paris, without losing his honor, but without retaining a particle of +illusion. He told me of his days of harsh and pernicious poverty, the +abyss of debt, the constable at the door, the agony of hunting after +dollar by dollar, "copy" hastily written to meet urgent wants, and the +sweet toil of literary exertion changed into torture. I questioned him +about Madame George Sand. What child of twenty has not been fired by +that free, proud poetry which refused to accept the cold chains of +commonplace life and justified the paradoxes of revolt by the eloquence +of the pleading and the beauty of the dream? I soon discovered that the +ideal and the real are two hostile brothers. De Balzac's works had +kindled sincere enthusiasm in my breast. Monsieur Jules Sandeau showed +me the dash of madness and of ingenuous depravity mixed with +incontestable genius in that powerful mind. He told me of De Balzac's +insane vanity, of his furious passion for wealth and luxury, of his +readiness to plunge and to drag others after him into the most hazardous +adventures, and of his insensibility to commercial honor. + +After parting from Monsieur Jules Sandeau, I strolled towards a +circulating-library. I was asking the mistress of the establishment some +questions about the latest publications, when all of a sudden the glass +door opened in the most violent manner, and who should come in but +Monsieur Philoxene Boyer, rushing forward like a whirlwind, a last lock +of hair dancing on top of a bald pate, a livid complexion, a feverish +eye, a sack-overcoat friable as tinder, a hat reddened by the rain, +trousers falling in lint upon boots run down at the heel: such was the +appearance presented by Monsieur Philoxene Boyer, our old classmate at +college, and now a critic, a romantic, an uncomprehended man of genius, +and a literary man. I had already seen at the Exchange the martyrs of +money; I now saw a martyr of letters. Monsieur Philoxene Boyer is +neither a fool nor a foundling; he was educated with care; he belongs to +an excellent family of Normandy; he might have been at this very hour an +excellent gentleman-farmer, honored by his neighbors, and leading a +quiet, useful life, while cultivating his paternal acres, and making a +respectable woman happy. But when he graduated at the Law School, the +demon of literature seized and refused to release him. His patrimonial +estate was worth thirty thousand dollars; ignorant of business, he sold +it below its true value, and, instead of placing the capital out at +interest, he put it in his pocket and dissipated it in those taxes, as +varied as old feudal burdens, which the poor, uncomprehended men of +genius levy on their wealthy brethren. One day it went in dinners given +to brethren who deliver diplomas of genius; another day it went in money +lent to Grub-Street penny-a-liners who were starving; again it went to +found petty newspapers established to demolish old reputations and raise +new ones, and to die of inanition at their fifth number for want of a +sixth subscriber. In fine, before three years had passed away, not a +cent was left of Monsieur Philoxene Boyer's estate, and in return he had +acquired neither talents nor fame. He is scarcely thirty years old: he +looks like a man of sixty. I know no man in the world who, for the hope +of half a million of dollars and a place in the French Academy, would +consent to bear the burden of tortures, privations, and humiliations +which make up Monsieur Philoxene Boyer's existence. He undergoes the +torments of the damned; he fasts; he flounders in all the sewers of +Paris. But he is riveted to this horrible existence as the galley-slave +to his chain; he can breathe no other air than this mephitic atmosphere; +he can lead no other life. When I saw him on the threshold of that +sombre and humid reading-room, muddied, wet, pale, thin, almost in rags, +I could not help thinking of this wretched galley-slave of literary +ambition as he might have been at home in his old Norman mansion, cozily +stretched before a blazing fire, with a cellar full of cider and a +larder groaning beneath the fat of that favored land, smiling at a young +wife on whose lap merry children were gambolling. He was in the vein of +bitter frankness. He had not dined the preceding day. He seized me by +the arm, and, dragging me out of the circulating-library, said to me, in +a voice as abrupt as a feverish pulsation,-- + +"Don't listen to that old hag! All the books she offers you are +miserable stuff, fit at best for the pastry-cooks. Oh! you don't know +how success is won nowadays. I'll tell you. There is an assurance +society between the book, the piece, and the judge. Praise me, and I'll +praise you. If you will praise us, we will praise you. The public buys." + +Then he went on with his bitter voice to utter a furious philippic +against our celebrated literary men. He attacked them all, with scarcely +an exception. This one sold his pen to the highest bidder; that one +levied contributions of all sorts on the vanity of authors and artists; +another was a mere actor; a fourth was nothing but a mountebank; a fifth +was a mere babbler; and so on he went through the whole catalogue of +authors. The illustrious literary democrats were Liberals and Spartans +only for the public eye. They cared as much about liberty as about old +moons: this one speculated on a title; that one on a vice; a third, to +possess a carriage and dine at Vefour's, had become the thrall of a +wealthy stockjobber who paid his virtues by the month and his opinions +by the line. He spoke in this way for an hour, bitter, excessive, +nervous, extravagant, and sometimes eloquent. All at once he +stopped,--and pressing my hand with a mixture of bitterness and +cynicism, he said,--"Old boy, I have now given you a dollar's worth of +literature; lend me ten dimes." I hastily drew from my pocket three or +four gold coins, and, blushing, slipped them into his hand; it trembled +a little; he thanked me with a glance, and, muttering something like +"Good bye," disappeared around the next corner. + +The next time I met Monsieur Jules Sandeau he said to me,--"I want you +to go with me to Madame Emile de Girardin's to-morrow evening. She is to +read a tragedy she has written in five acts and in verse. You will meet +a good many of our celebrated literary men there. You must remember that +the watchword at that house is, Admiration, more admiration, still more +admiration. You must excite enthusiasm to ecstasy, compliments to +lyrical poetry, and carry flattery to apotheosis. But before we go there +I beg you to allow me to return your aristocratic breakfast by a poor +literary man's dinner, which we will eat, not in Bignon's sumptuous +private room, but outside the walls of Paris, at 'Uncle' Moulinon's, +which is the rendezvous of the supernumeraries of art and literature. +The wine, roast, and salad are cheaper than you find them on the +Boulevard des Italiens, and it is advisable that a fervent neophyte like +you should take all the degrees in our freemasonry as soon as possible. +'Uncle' Moulinon's dining-saloon is to Madame Emile de Girardin's +drawing-room what a conscripts' barrack is to the official mansion of a +French marshal." + +I gratefully accepted the invitation, and at the appointed time I joined +Monsieur Jules Sandeau. We left Paris by the Barriere des Martyrs, +climbed Montmartre hill, and entered "Uncle" Moulinon's dining-saloon +when it was full of its usual frequenters. I had never seen such a sight +before. Imagine a gourmand obliged to witness with gaping mouth all, +even the most _prosaic_ details of the culinary preparations for a grand +dinner. The dining-saloon was a long, narrow room, low-pitched and +sombre; it was filled with small tables, where in unequal groups were +seated young men between eighteen and fifty-five, anticipating glory by +tobacco-smoke. Here were beardless chins accompanied by long locks; +there were bushy beards which covered three-quarters of the owners' +cadaverous, wasted faces; yonder were premature bald heads, leaden eyes, +feverish glances: look where you would, you saw everywhere that uneasy, +startled air which bore witness to a disordered life. To the sharp aroma +of tobacco were joined the stale and rancid odors peculiar to +fifth-rate eating-houses. I sought in vain upon all those faces youth's +gentle and poetical gayety, the exuberance of gifted natures, the +amiable cordiality of travelling-companions pressing on together in +different paths. The most salient characteristics of this bizarre +assembly were sickly smiles, an incredible mixture of triviality and +affectation, motions of wild beasts trying their teeth and claws, +starving attitudes, words tortured to make them look like ideas, a +brutal familiarity, and the evident desire to devour all their superiors +that they might next crush all their equals. I was glad when dinner was +over, for I felt ill at ease,--the sight before me differed so much from +that I had dreamed. + +Monsieur Jules Sandeau gave me his arm, and we walked towards the Avenue +des Champs Elysees. It was nine o'clock when we reached the Rue de +Chaillot, where Madame Emile de Girardin resided. She lived in a sort of +Greek temple, built about thirty feet below the level of the street, and +down to which we had to go as if we were entering a cellar. The house +was full of columns, statues, flowers, paintings, candelabra, and +servants in black dress-coats and short breeches; but everything about +the place looked so accidental and ephemeral that the Comte de +Saint-Brice, a very witty frequenter of the house, used to +say,--"Whenever I visit the place, I am always afraid of finding the +horses sold, the servants dismissed, the husband run away, the +drawing-room closed, and the house razed." The Comte de Saint-Brice's +fears must have been allayed on this evening. Everything was in its +place,--horses, servants, husband, drawing-room, house. Madame Emile de +Girardin was in full dress; the manuscript tragedy was in her lap. I +found in the drawing-room Monsieur Victor Hugo, Monsieur de Lamartine, +Monsieur Alfred de Musset, the three stars of our poetical heavens; +Monsieur Theophile Gautier, Monsieur Mery, Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, the +secondary planets; Madame George Sand, the great Amazon novelist; some +doctors, some artists, two or three actors from the French Comedy, and +some other gentlemen. At this period of time Madame Emile de Girardin +was forty-five years old. Her flatterers still spoke of her beauty. Her +conversation was dazzling, but it lacked charm: her talents forced +themselves upon one; her _bons mots_ took you by storm. Strength had +overcome everything like grace, and two hours' conversation with Madame +Emile de Girardin left one with a sick-headache or exhausted by fatigue. +Nevertheless, one of her most fervent admirers has uttered this singular +paradox about her: "She would be the first woman of the age, if she had +always talked and never written a line." + +Her husband, Monsieur Emile de Girardin, was present, with his pale +face, lymphatic complexion, glassy eye, and forehead checkered with a +Napoleon-like lock. He was then, and has remained ever since, the most +exact personification of a pasteboard man of genius lighted by +histrionic foot-lights. He was a compound of the dandy, the sophist, and +the agitator. His talents lay in making people believe him in possession +of ideas, when he had none,--just as speculators disseminate the +illusion of their capital, when in reality they are worse than bankrupt. +He began what others have since completed,--that is, he made trade and +advertisements the sovereign masters of literature and newspapers. +Abetted by the spirit of the age, he introduced into the intellectual +world the risks and unexpected hazards of stock-jobbing circles. He made +a great deal of money in this trade, and, besides, it gave him the +pleasure of making a great deal of noise in the world, of overturning +governments, of dreaming of being minister, nay, prime-minister, when +the day may come in which good, sense is to be challenged and France +made bankrupt. Everybody around him, even his wife, seemed to accept his +superiority for something unquestionable. Their union was not one of +those affectionate, faithful, and tender marriages, such as commonplace +folk hope to enjoy, but it was a copartnership of two smart people, +aided by two bunches of quills. Each pretended to admire the other with +an extravagance of show which made it hard for the bystander to repress +doubts and smiles. + +Monsieur Jules Sandeau had informed Madame Emile de Girardin that he +intended to bring me with him. I do not know how she found out that I +had, in the very heart of the Faubourg Saint Germain, an old aunt, a +_real_ duchess, who was recognized as an authority whose _dicta_ could +not be disputed by any noble family to be found from the Quai Voltaire +to the Rue de Babylone, which, as all the world knows, are the frontiers +of that, the most aristocratic quarter of Paris. Madame de Girardin knew +that my aunt was in a position to open to vanity the portals of some +noble houses which talents and fame alone could not open. Now Madame +Emile de Girardin's monomania was to be received in the noble +_faubourg_,--to live there perfectly at home, as if it were her native +sphere,--to be able to say, "My friend, the little Marchioness," or, "I +have just come from our dear Jeanne's house, my charming Countess, you +know: she is suffering dreadfully from her neuralgia." She reckoned a +triumph of this sort a thousand times preferable to the applause of her +readers and her friends. All the dull pleasantries with which she +adorned her over-praised "Letters" owed their origin solely to the +unequivocal veto placed by two or three courageous noble ladies on the +attempts made by Madame Emile de Girardin to force her entrance _vi et +armis_ into their mansions. For my aunt's sake, she received me with +especial courtesy, which I was ingenuous enough to attribute to my own +personal merit. However, I had not time to indulge in analysis: she was +about to begin to read her tragedy. + +The tragedy was that "Cleopatre" in which Mademoiselle Rachel appeared, +after wrangling for some time with the authoress to induce the latter to +give Antony some other name, vowing that _Antoine_ was entirely too +vulgar to be uttered on the stage. The great tragic actress had never +heard of the illustrious Roman, and knew no other Antony but the +_Antoine_ who scrubbed her floors and brought her water. It was a +woman's tragedy, but written by a woman in man's attire, determined to +write a very masculine, vigorous work, but succeeding in producing only +a _plated_ piece, in which everything was puerile, artificial, and +conventional, from the first word to the last line. It was an _olla +podrida_, in which Shakspeare hobnobbed with Campistron, Theophile +Gautier locked arms with Dorat, Plutarch was dovetailed with the +Mantua-Makers' Journal of Fashions. Cleopatra spouted long speeches upon +archaeology, hieroglyphics, the sun, climate, and virtue; Antony was +guilty of _concetti_ in the style of Seneca; Octavia prattled like a +respectable Parisian lady, who takes care of her children when they have +the measles, and hides from them their father's bad habits. It was +neither antique nor Roman, nor classic nor romantic, nor good nor bad +nor indifferent; it was a tragical wager won by a smart woman at the +expense of her audience. The latter, nevertheless, bravely did their +duty. Neither "Le Cid," nor "Polyeucte," nor "Andromaque," nor +"Athalie"--Corneille and Racine's masterpieces--ever produced such +rapturous enthusiasm. Monsieur Mery dashed off extemporaneously, in +Marseillais accent, admiring paradoxes which lacked nothing but splendid +rhyme. Monsieur Theophile Gautier, who looked like an obese Turk habited +in European clothes, laid aside his Moslem placidity to cry that the +tragedy was marvellous. Monsieur Alfred de Musset, lolling in his +arm-chair in an attitude which seemed a compromise between sleep and +_Kief_, smiled beatifically. Monsieur Victor Hugo vowed that nothing +half so fine had ever before been written in any age or in any country +or in any language--except (_aside_) "my own 'Burgraves'"! Monsieur de +Lamartine, like a god descended upon earth and astounded to find himself +at home, let fall from his divine lips compliments perfumed with +ambrosia, sparkling with poetry, and glittering with indifference. +Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, that little bit of a fellow, the fly of the +political and literary coach, went first to one and then to another, his +eye-glass incrusted in his eyebrow, stiffening his wee form as long as +he could make it, rattling his high-heeled boots as loudly as he could +contrive, stretching out his round, dogmatic face, puffing and blowing +to give himself importance, dying to be the Coryphaeus of the company, +and mortified to see himself reduced to sing his enthusiasm in the +chorus; he frisked about the room, and seemed to be handing around his +rapture on a waiter, as domestics hand around cake and ices at parties. + +The tragedy fatigued me. This comedy of adulation disgusted me. My very +humble and obscure position in the midst of all these illustrious +shareholders of the Mutual-Admiration Society, organized by the vanity +of all to the profit of the vanity of each, kindled in me a desire to +show myself frank and independent. I murmured, loud enough to be heard +by all my neighbors,--"Of a truth, the Country's Muse is not Melpomene!" +Madame Emile de Girardin, when Mademoiselle Delphine Gay and in the most +brilliant period of her poetical youth, had styled herself "the +Country's Muse"; her admirers had adopted the title, and it had remained +her poetical _alias_. The exclamation was, therefore, if not very +brilliant, at least very plain and quite just. It soon went around the +room as rapidly as every ill-natured phrase will go; for everybody is +glad to borrow such remarks from his neighbor without paying the price +of them himself. I soon saw one of Madame Emile de Girardin's intimate +friends whisper something into her ear. She blushed. Her thin lips +became thinner. Her nose and her chin, which always seemed as if about +to wage war on each other, became more menacing than ever; her bright, +clear eyes turned from her friend and gave me a glance ten times more +tragic than the five acts of her tragedy. I saw that my exclamation had +been repeated to her, and that a universal anathema was thundered at the +rustic boor, at the barbarian impudent enough to dare to be witty by +Monsieur Mery's side, and to affect to be insensible to the sublime +beauties of "Cleopatre." However, all was not yet lost; I had +unconsciously another way of conquering Madame de Girardin's favor. Her +countenance became wreathed in smiles, she advanced towards me, and +said, in a honeyed tone,--"Well, Count, give me some tidings of our +excellent Duchess de ----, your aunt, I believe?" + +In the mood of mind I was then in, nothing could have been more +disagreeable to me than this way of recalling my aristocratic titles at +the very moment when I sought to be nothing but a literary man. I +replied with a careless, indifferent, plebeian air, as if noble titles +were nothing in my opinion,--"The Duchess de ----! Gracious me! I never +see her, and I could not tell you for the life of me whether she is my +aunt or my cousin. Her drawing-room is the stupidest place on earth. +They played whist there at two cents a point. Every door was wadded to +keep draughts and ideas out. I long ago ceased to go there, and now I +would not dare show my face again." + +"Admirable! The Provinces are not devoid of sprightliness!" dryly +replied Madame Emile de Girardin. + +That was enough. I was weighed in the balance and found sadly wanting by +an ill-natured remark _plus_ and a duchess _minus_. Fifteen minutes +afterwards we took leave of Madame de Girardin. She gave Monsieur Jules +Sandeau a fraternal and virile shake of the hand in the English style; I +received only a very cold and very dry nod, which was as much as to +say,--"You are an ill-bred fellow and a fool; I have no fancy for you; +return here as rarely as possible." + +Soon after this memorable evening, Monsieur Jules Sandeau's friendly +offices acquainted literary circles that a young man of the best +society, devoted to literature, the author of some remarkable sketches +in the newspapers and reviews, was about to appear as the literary +critic of "L'Assemblee Nationale," the well-known dally newspaper, which +has been since suppressed by the government. A month afterwards my +signature might have been read at the foot of a _feuilleton_ of fifteen +columns. About the same period of time a fashionable publisher brought +out a volume of tales by me. This was my literary honey-moon. I was +astonished at the number of friends and admirers that rose on every side +of me. I could scarcely restrain myself from parodying Alceste's +phrase,--"Really, Gentlemen, I did not think myself the fellow of +talents I find I am!" But, of all surprises, the human heart finds this +the easiest to grow accustomed to. I soon found it perfectly natural +that people should look upon me as a genius, and I ingenuously +reproached myself for not having sooner made the discovery. Everybody +praised my little book as if it were a masterpiece. I might have made a +volume with the packets of praises sent to me; but I must add, for +truth's sake, that most of my panegyrists took care to slip under the +envelope which covered their letter of praise a volume of their works. I +have kept several of these letters. Here are copies of three of them. + + "Sir,--Your appearance among us is an honor in which every + literary man feels he has a share. You will regenerate criticism, + as you have purified novel-writing. One becomes better as he reads + your works, and feels an irresistible desire to do better that he + may be more worthy of your esteem. The days your criticisms appear + are our red-letter days, and every line you give our poor little + books is worth to them the sale of a hundred copies. I take the + liberty to send you herewith a humble volume. You may, perhaps, + find in it some over-crude tones, some raw shades; but do not + forbear to exercise your critical perspicuity. I submit myself in + advance to your reproaches and to your reservations; to be + censured by you is even a piece of good fortune, as your + reprimands themselves are adorned with courtesy and grace." + + "Sir,--I admire you the more because our opinions are not the + same; they may be said to be contrary; but extremes meet, and we + join hands on a great many points: are we not both of us + vanquished? Chateaubriand sympathized, nay, more, fraternized, + with Armand Carrel. I am not Carrel, but you may be Chateaubriand + before a very long while. I would beg to lay before you the book + which goes with this note; some passages of it may, perhaps, wound + your honorable regrets, your chivalrous respects, but they are + sincere; and this sincerity I have never better understood and + practised than when I assure you that I am your most assiduous + reader and most fervent admirer." + + "Sir,--Do not judge me, I pray you, from the newspapers in which, + to my great regret, I write: imperious circumstances, old + acquaintance, and--why shall I not confess it?--the necessities of + Parisian life, have driven me to appear to have enlisted on the + side of the most numerous battalions. But I have in the Provinces + a good old mother who reads no newspaper but yours; one of my + uncles is a Chevalier de Saint Louis; another served in Conde's + army; my Aunt Veronica is a pious woman, who would forever look + kindly upon me, if she should ever perceive through her spectacles + her nephew's name followed by praise from your pen. For I need not + say that you are her favorite author, as, of a truth, you are of + everybody; for who can remain insensible to those treasures of.... + [Here my modesty refuses to copy the text before me]. There is but + one opinion upon this subject. Royalists and democrats, disciples + of tradition or fanatics of fancy, _voltigeurs_ of the old + monarchy or reformers of the future, are all unanimous in + saluting, as a rising glory of our literature, the pure and noble + talent which.... [Here my modesty again refuses to copy the text + before me]. + + "P.S. I send you herewith two copies of my works, which I submit + to your able and kind criticism." + +Nor were appeals like these the only sort of seduction to which I was +exposed when I became the literary critic of "L'Assemblee Nationale." +The eminent men, sublime philosophers like Monsieur Victor Cousin and +Monsieur de Remusat, incomparable historians like Monsieur Guizot, +Monsieur Thiers, Monsieur de Barante, admirable literary men like +Monsieur Villemain and Monsieur de Salvandy, (all of whom had spent +their lives in laying down political maxims, and in expressing their +astonishment that French heads were too hard or French nature too fickle +to conform French life to the profound maxims which they, the former, +had weighed and meditated in the silence of their study,) who had for +eighteen years ruled France, found themselves, one February morning in +1848, stripped of power and of place. They returned to their favorite +studies, and produced new works, to the delight of lettered men +everywhere. But, as the human heart, even in the beat of men, has its +weaknesses, these eminent men, who could not for a single instant doubt +either their talents or their success or the universal admiration in +which they were held, were a little too fond of hearing these agreeable +truths told them in articles devoted especially to their works. Now to +heighten the zeal of the authors of these articles, the eminent retired +statesmen held in their hands an infallible method: They would take +these trumpeters of fame aside, and, without contracting any positive +engagement, would distinctly hint to these critics, (a word to the wise +is sufficient!) that, after a few years of these excellent and useful +services in the daily press or in the periodicals, they, the former, +would elect the latter members of the French Academy. A seat in the +French Academy was the object of the most ardent ambition. No sooner was +the breath out of the body of one of the forty members of the French +Academy than twenty candidates entered the lists, and canvassed, +canvassed, canvassed the nine-and-thirty living Academicians, without +losing a minute in eating, drinking, or sleeping, until the election +took place. + +You may now see the various sorts of seductions which assailed me during +this short and brilliant period of my literary life. The world lay +smiling before me, and I felt quite happy,--when I met Monsieur Louis +Veuillot, the eminent editor of "L'Univers," which the government has +since suppressed. + +We had exchanged visiting-cards several times, and a few letters, but I +did not as yet know him. I was attracted to him by the very contrasts +which existed between us. My elegant and delicate nature (as the +newspapers then styled it: they _now_ call it my weak and morbid nature) +seemed in absolute contradiction to that robust frame, that oaken +solidity, which revealed beneath its rugged bark its virile juices. His +masculine and potent ugliness reminded me of Mirabeau, of a plebeian +Mirabeau with straight black hair, of a Mirabeau who had found at the +foot of the altar calmness for his tempest-tossed soul. His conversation +delighted and fascinated me. One felt (despite some coarseness in minor +details, and which almost seemed to be assumed) that there glowed within +him the energetic convictions of an honest man and a Christian, who had +at command the most stinging language that ever wrung the withers of +Voltaire's pale successors. No man among our contemporaries has been +more hated than Monsieur Louis Veuillot. He has flagellated, kicked, +cuffed, jeered, mocked, humiliated, exasperated, better than anybody +else, the writers I most detest. He has given them wounds which will +forever rankle. He has indelibly branded these miserable actors who play +upon the theatre of their vices the comedy of their vanity. We together +examined the pages where I had expressed my opinion upon contemporary +authors. + +"Are these," said Monsieur Louis Veuillot, speaking severely to me, +"are these all your sacrifices to the truth? Praises to that one, +flattery to this one, soft words to him, compliments to another? You +blame them just enough to incite people to buy their books. Is that what +you call serving our noble and austere cause? Oh, Sir! Sir!" ... + +He lectured me long and well. He spoke with the edification of a sermon +and the brilliancy of a satire. At last, ashamed of my weakness, +electrified by his language, burning to repair lost time, I said to him, +pressing his hands in mine,-- + +"I am dwelling amid the luxuries of Capua; when next you hear from me, I +shall be in the midst of the field of battle." + +I at once began my campaign. I made war upon Voltaire, Beranger, Eugene +Sue, De Balzac, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Michelet, Quinet; and as for +the small fry of literature, I showed them no mercy. War was soon +declared on _me_,--war without quarter. + +My first adversary was little Monsieur Paulin Limayrac. He has become +the most accomplished specimen of the job-editor. As firmly convinced of +the supremacy of the Articles of War as the best disciplined private +soldier who ever showed how perfect an automaton man may become by +thorough discipline, his political opinions are something more than a +creed: they are a watchword which be observes with a most supple +obstinacy. The cabinet-minister he calls master is a corporal who has +the right to think for him; and were the corporal to contradict himself +ten times in the course of a single day, imperturbable little Paulin +Limayrac would demonstrate to him that he was ten times in the right. +But then (that is, in 1855) Monsieur Paulin Limayrac was a Republican, a +Socialist; and his weakness lay in imagining not only that people read +his articles in "La Presse," but that they remembered them for a whole +sennight after reading them. When you met him, he always commenced +conversation:-- + +"Ah, ha! what did I tell you? Am I not an excellent prophet? You +remember the prophecy I made the other day? It has come to pass just as +I predicted it!" + +Poor Paulin Limayrac really thought himself a prophet, when in good +truth he was not even a conjurer. Stiffening himself up on his stumpy +legs, he stared as hard as he could through his eye-glass, and from his +giant's height of four feet ten, at everybody who pretended to believe +there was a God in heaven. His occupation just at that time was to toss +the incense-burning censer in honor of Madame, Emile de Girardin under +her aquiline nose. He had become the page, the groom, the dwarf of this +celebrated woman, who had, alas! only a few months more to live. He +opened the fire against me. To gratify Madame Emile de Girardin, he one +day wrote on the corner of her table twenty harsh lines against me, (he +took good care not to sign them,) in which he said of me exactly the +contrary of what he had written to me. As these lines were anonymous, I +did not care to pretend to recognize the author; besides, can you feel +anger towards such a whipper-snapper? I met him a short time afterwards, +and he gave me a more cordial shake-hands than ever. Now comes the cream +of the fellow's conduct: for all this that I have mentioned is as +nothing, so common of occurrence is it in Paris. Note that Madame Emile +de Girardin was dying: I was ignorant of it, but Monsieur Paulin +Limayrac knew it well. Note further, that for weeks before this he had +celebrated in the tenderest sentimental strains the loving friendship +which existed between Madame George Sand and Madame Emile de Girardin. +Note lastly, that Monsieur Paulin Limayrac had good reason to think that +I knew perfectly well who was really the author of the malicious attack +on me in "La Presse," which was his paper. Remember all this while I +repeat to you the dialogue which took place between us under an arcade +of the Rue Castiglione. I said to him,-- + +"Ah! my dear Sir, Madame George Sand must be gratified this time! Your +article this morning upon her autobiography really did hit the +bull's-eye, plumb! What fire! what enthusiasm! what lyric strains!" + +"I could not help myself," replied he. "It is one of the fatigues of my +place, I was obliged to write it." + +"Well, between you and me, the truth is that your admiration is a little +exaggerated. The work is less dull since Madame George Sand has reached +the really interesting periods of her life; but how fatiguing the first +part of it was! What stuff she thrust into it! What particulars relating +to her family and her mother, which were, to say the least of it, +useless!" + +"Why, my dear fellow," replied Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, with a knowing +look, "don't you know the secret?" + +"What secret?" + +"Ah! you have not yet shaken off provincial dust! Madame George Sand, +with that carelessness one almost always finds in great artists, sent to +Monsieur Emile de Girardin that enormous packet of four-and-twenty +volumes, at the same time authorizing him to retrench at least one-third +of the manuscript, if he thought fit. But Madame de Girardin (who is +extremely astute) thought, that, if the work were published without the +numerous dull chapters of the first part, it would command too brilliant +a success; and Her Most Gracious Majesty determined that the whole +four-and-twenty volumes should appear without the omission of a single +line,--which is all the more noble, grand, and generous, as we pay a +high price for the 'copy,' and it has curtailed our subscription-list a +good deal." + +"I thought Madame George Sand and Madame Emile de Girardin were upon the +footing of a most affectionate friendship." + +"'Tis a woman's friendship. 'Tis a poet's love for a poet. Each adores +the other; but then what is more vulgar than to love one's friends when +they are successful? Every hind can do that; while none but delicate and +sensitive souls can shed torrents of tears over a friend's reverses." + +A fortnight after this conversation took place, Madame Emile de Girardin +died. There was a flood of panegyrics and of tears. Monsieur Paulin +Limayrac was chief pall-bearer, and demonstrated in the columns of "La +Presse" that Madame Emile de Girardin had herself alone more genius than +Sappho, Corinne, Madame de Sevigne, Madame de Stael, and Madame George +Sand, all put together. + + * * * * * + +THE LITTLE COUNTRY-GIRL. + + +CHAPTER I. + +My father's old friend, Captain Joseph, came down by the morning train, +to inquire concerning a will placed in my keeping by Farmer Hill, lately +deceased. + +This is his first visit since our marriage. + +He declares himself perfectly satisfied with--a certain person, and +insists on my revealing the reason, or reasons, of her choosing--a +certain person, when she might, no doubt, have done better. + +And he is equally charmed with our locality,--is glad to find such a +paradise. + +I like Captain Joseph. He doesn't croak. Some old men would look dismal, +and say, perhaps,--"Happiness is not for earth," or, "In prosperity +prepare for adversity." As if anybody could! + +"A beautiful spot," says Captain Joseph. And truly it is a pleasant +place here, close by the sea,--a place made on purpose to live in. It is +a sort of valley, shut in on the east and on the west by high wooded +hills, which stretch far out into the sea, and so make for us a charming +little bay. There are only a few houses here: the town proper, where I +have my law-office, is a mile off. + +I found this nook quite accidentally, while sketching the islands off in +the harbor, and the water, and the deep shading on the woods beyond. The +people here took me to board. That was ten years ago. + +Then the family was large. There was old Mr. Lane, his wife, their five +grown-up boys, Emily, the sick one, and Miss Joey. The eldest son went +out to China, and there died. The next three, at different times, +started for California. Two died of the fever, and the third was +supposed to have been murdered in crossing the Plains. + +David remained. He was a tall, well-made youth, with plenty of health +and good looks, willing to work on the farm, but devoted mainly to his +little sloop-boat. People called him odd. He was both odd and even. He +was odd in being somewhat different in his habits from other young men; +but then he had an even way of his own, which he kept. With him, the sea +and his little sloop-boat and the daily paper supplied the place of +balls, concerts, parties, and young women. + +"Why don't you dress up, and go gallivantin' about 'mong the gals?" his +old mother used to say. But he would only laugh, and pshaw, and walk off +to the shore. And I, watching his erect gait and firm tread, would +wonder how it was that one good-looking young man should be so different +from all other good-looking young men. Still, there was a sort of +sheepishness about the eyes, and that was probably why he never turned +them, when meeting the girls, but strode along, looking straight ahead, +as if they had been so many fence-posts. + +Fanny J---- once laid a wager with me that she would make him bow. She +contrived a plan to meet him as he returned from the Square. I hid +behind the stone wall, and peeped through the chinks. Just as they met, +she almost let the wind blow her bonnet off, hoping to catch his eye. +But he looked so straight forward into the distance that I was alarmed, +thinking there might be a loose horse coming, or a house afire. That was +in the first of my staying there. We were afterwards great friends. He +liked me, because I was good to the old folks, and to Emily,--and had a +sort of respect for me, because I was the oldest, and because I could +talk, and because of the great thick books in my room. I respected him, +because I had seen the world and its shams, and knew him to be good all +the way through, and because he couldn't talk, and also, perhaps, +because he was so much bigger and handsomer than I. In fact, I should +have felt quite downhearted about my own looks, if I hadn't learned from +books--not the thick ones--that sallow-looking men, with dark eyes, are +interesting. + +David's mother approved of steady habits, but for all that she would +rather have had him waste some of his time, and be like the rest of his +kind. + +"Poor David!" she would say, sometimes, "if anybody could only make him +think he _was_ somebody, he'd _be_ somebody. But he 'a'n't got no +confidence." + +"Mother," I would answer, "don't worry about David. He's good, and +goodness is as good as anything." + +She liked to have me call her mother. I had been there so long that I +almost filled the place of one of her lost ones. Besides, I had no +mother of my own, and no real home. + +Miss Joey, not being past thirty, had a plan in her head. Her head was +small,--so was she,--but the plan was large enough and good enough. + +This plan, however, was upset, and by her own means, even before the +prospect of its being carried out was even probable. It was Miss Joey's +own notion that one half the house should be let. + +"We are so dwindled down," she said. "A small, quiet family would bring +in a little something, and be company." This was at the close of a long +and rather lonely winter. + +So, one day, Mr. Lane came home, and said he had let the other half to a +family from up-country,--man and wife and little girl. + +"The very thing!" said Miss Joey. + +Alas for human foresight! + +The next day, at sundown, a loaded wagon drove up; then a carryall, from +which stepped an elderly couple and a sweet pretty girl. + +"What angel is that, alighting upon earth?" I exclaimed, looking over +Miss Joey's head. + +"Thought she was goin' to be a little girl," said she. + +"Wal," replied Mr. Lane, "that's what he called her: suppose she seems +little to him. But so much the better. The bigger she is, the more +company she'll be." + +Miss Joey went in to receive them, and I retired to my chamber. From the +window I observed that the pretty girl was very handy about helping, and +heard her mother call her Mary Ellen. + +The next morning, just as I was leaving for the office, I heard a quick +step across the entry. The door opened, and "the little girl," Mary +Ellen, came in. Her hair was pushed straight behind her ears, and her +sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. + +"I came in," said she, rather bashfully, "to ask if Mr. Lane would help +us set up a bedstead; father had to go, and mother's feeble." + +"Mr. Lane's gone to get his horse shod," said Miss Joey. + +Mary Ellen stood still, doubting whether to speak, but looking rather +puzzled; for David was in plain sight, fixing his pickerel-traps in the +back-room. + +"Miss Joey," said I, smiling, and looking towards him, "there are two +Mr. Lanes, you know." + +"Oh, David,--yes,--David. Wal, so David could." + +And so David did. I bit my lip, and went out. + +In turning the corner of the house, I passed the open window, and +glanced in, as was natural. 'Twas an old-fashioned bedstead, and there +was David, red as a rose, screwing up the cord, while Mary Ellen, fair +as a lily, was hammering away at the wooden peg, while the old lady +stood by, giving directions. + +It struck me so queerly that I laughed and talked to myself all the way +to the office. + +"Poor David!" I muttered, "how could he steady his hands, with such a +pair of white arms near them? Good! good!" And then I would ha! ha! and +strike my stick against the stones. "Turner," said I, addressing myself, +"she's what you may call a sweet pretty girl." + +I addressed the same remark to Miss Joey that night at tea. + +"The girl," said she, "is an innocent little country-girl. She's got a +good skin and a handsome set of teeth. But there's no need of her +findin' out her good looks, unless you men-folks put her up to 't." + +This I of course took to myself, David being out of the question. + +An innocent little country-girl! And so she was. She brought to mind +damask roses, and apple-blossoms, and red rosebuds, and modest violets, +and stars and sunbeams, and all the freshness and sweetness of early +morning in the country. A delicious little innocent country-girl! Poor +David! who could have guessed that you were to be the means of letting +in upon her benighted mind the secret of her own beauty? + +Anybody who has travelled in the country has noticed two kinds of +country-girls. The first are green-looking and brazen-faced, staring at +you like great yellow buttercups, and are always ready to tell all they +know. The others are shy. They look up at you modestly, with their blue +or their brown eyes, and answer your questions in few words. Of this +last kind was Mary Ellen. She looked up with brown eyes,--not dark +brown, but light,--hazel, perhaps. + +And those brown, or hazel, or grayish eyes looked up to some +purpose,--as David, if he had had the gift of speech, might have +testified. But a man may tell a good deal and never use his tongue at +all. The eyes, for instance, or even the cheeks, can talk, and are full +as likely not to tell lies. + +It might have been two months, perhaps, after the other half was let, +that I heard Mrs. Lane say one day,-- + +"Joey, there's an alteration in David." + +"For better or wuss?" calmly inquired that maiden. + +I did not hear the reply, but I had seen the alteration. In fact, I had +noticed it from the beginning, and had come to the conclusion that the +mischief was done the first day,--that his heart somehow got a twist in +the screwing-up of the bed-cord,--that it received every one of the +blows which those white arms were aiming at the insensible wood. + +It was a case which had vastly interested me. I mean that it was quite +in my line, detecting a man's secret in his countenance. I was glad of +the practice. + +Mary Ellen knew, too; and yet she had received no help from the +profession. Only an innocent little country-girl! 'Twas her natural +penetration. What a pity women can't be lawyers, they have so much to +start with! + +Poor David! He wasn't sensible of what had befallen him. How should he +be? He didn't know why he smarted up his dress, why Bay-fishing wasn't +profitable, or why working on the land agreed with him best. He hadn't +even found out, as late as June, why he liked to have her bring out the +luncheon-basket to the mowers. But before the autumn he had discovered +his own secret. He knew very well, then, why he thought it a good plan +for Mary Ellen to come in and pare apples with Miss Joey at the halves. + +I could have wished him a pleasanter way, though, of finding out his +secret. + +There was another that saw the alteration, and that was Emily, the sick +one,--the care and the blessing of the household. For twelve summers her +foot had never pressed the greensward. They told me that once she was a +gay, frolicsome girl. 'Twas hard to believe, so tranquil, so spiritual, +so heavenly was the expression which long suffering had brought to her +face. That face, apart from this wonderful expression, was beautiful to +look upon. It seemed as if sickness itself was loath to meddle with +aught so lovely. So, while her body slowly wasted from the ravages of +disease, her countenance remained fair and youthful. + +She often had days of freedom from suffering,--days when, as she +expressed it, her Father called away His unwelcome messengers. At these +times she would sit in her stuffed chair, or lie on the sofa, and the +family went in and out as they chose. Everybody liked to stay in Emily's +room. Its very atmosphere was elevating. + +Then there were collected so many beautiful things,--for these she +craved. "I need them, mother," she would say,--"my soul has need of +them. If there are no flowers, get green leaves, or a picture of Christ, +or of some saint, or little child." And sometimes I would dream, for a +moment, that even I, with all my obtuseness, my earthiness, could have +some faint perception of the way in which, in the midst of suffering, +any form of beauty was a strength and a consolation. + +And singularly enough for a sick girl, she liked gold ornaments and +jewels. People used to lend her their chains and bracelets. "I know it +is strange, mother," she said, one day, while holding in her hand a ruby +bracelet,--"strange that I care for them; but they look so strong, so +enduring, so full of life: hang them across the white vase, please; I +love to see them there." + +It was good for her when Mary Ellen came, vigorous, fresh, beautiful, +like the early morning. She liked to have her in the room, to watch her +face, to braid her long brown hair, and dress it with flowers, or +pearls, or strings of beads,--to clasp her hands about the pretty white +throat, as if she were only a pigeon, or a little lamb, brought in for +her to play with. + +She was pleased, too, about David. "He is so good," she said to me one +day. "I always knew he had love and gentleness in his heart, and now an +angel has come to roll away the stone." + +I thought a great deal of my privilege of going into her room, the same +as the rest. After the perplexing, and often low, grovelling duties of +my profession, it was like sitting at the gate of heaven. + +I used to love to come home, at the close of a long summer's day, and +find the family assembled there. I felt the _rest_ of the hour so much +more, sitting among people who had been hard at work all day. + +The windows would be set wide open, that not a breath of out-door air +might he lost. And with the air would seem to come in the deep peace, +the solemn Hush of a country-twilight. It pervaded the room; and even my +cold, worldly nature would be touched. + +In these dim, shadowy hours, when Nature seemed to stand still, +breathless, waiting for the coming darkness, if I longed for anything, +it was for a voice to sing. Speech seemed harsh. Yet we often repeated +hymns and ballads. Emily knew a great many, and, after saying them over, +would dwell upon them, drawing the most beautiful meanings from passages +which to me had seemed obscure, and sometimes talked like one inspired. + +I felt that these seasons were my salvation,--were saving me from my +worldliness. Still, I sometimes had a guilty feeling, as if I were +drawing from Emily her beautiful life,--as if I were getting something +to which I had no right, something too good for me,--as if she might +exclaim, at any moment, "Virtue is gone out from me!" + +But Mary Ellen could sing. That was good. She knew hymns by dozens, and +tunes to them all, both old and new. Besides these, she could sing +love-songs and quaint old ballads, that nobody ever heard before. + +After she came, we had music to our twilights. + +David, of course, was a listener. He said he was always fond of music. I +used sometimes to wonder if the pretty singer of love-songs had any +special designs upon him. For I had been curiously watching this +innocent little country-girl. + +In talking with a friend of mine, he had laid it down as a law of +Nature, that all women, wild or cultivated, delight to worry and torment +all men; that they play with and prey upon their hearts; and that this +is done instinctively, as a cat worries a mouse. + +"A ministering angel thou," quoted I, rather abstractedly, as if +comparing views. + +"Angels? Yes,--and so they are," he answered, rather smartly. "And every +man's heart is a pool, into which they must descend and trouble the +waters!" + +I knew my friend had reason for his bitterness. Still, I resolved to +watch Mary Ellen. + +David's bashful attentions were by no means displeasing to her: that I +saw. She had not been accustomed to your glib, off-handed, smartly +dressed youths. Here was a good-looking young man, of blameless life, +who helped her draw up the bucket, took her to sail, taught her to row, +brought her home bushes of huckleberries and branches of swamp-pinks +from the pasture, and shells from the beach. + +That few words accompanied his offerings was matter of little moment, +since what he would have said was easily enough read in his face. It was +sufficient that his eyes spoke, that they followed her motions, that he +seemed never ready to go so long as she remained, that when she went he +could not long stay behind. + +Poor David! It wasn't his fault. He didn't mean to. Everybody knew 't +wasn't a bit like him. He was charmed. And that reminds me of what Miss +Joey said to Mr. Lane, the old man. + +It was just about sundown, and they two were sitting in the front-room, +looking out of the windows. It had been a sultry day. I was trying to +keep comfortable, and had found a nice little seat just outside the +door, underneath the lilacs. + +Mary Ellen and David came slowly walking past. They didn't seem to be +saying much. She had come out bareheaded, just for a little fresh air +and a stroll round the house. How cool she looked, in her light blue +gown, and her white apron, that tied behind with white bows and strings, +or streams! A May-bee buzzed about their ears, and lighted on her +shoulder. Poor David! He brushed it off before he thought. How +frightened he looked! how confused! But then just think of all the other +may-bes he had in his head, confusing him, buzzing to him all manner of +beautiful things! + +They stopped under the early-ripe tree. Mary Ellen pointed upwards, +laughing. He sprang up and snatched off the apple. Then she pointed +higher, and still higher, until at last he climbed the tree, and dropped +the apples down into her apron. + +"Mr. Lane," said Miss Joey, in an impressive undertone, "did you ever +hear of anybody's bewitchin' anybody?" + +"In books, Joey," he answered. + +"Wal," said she, in a low, but decided voice, "I'll tell you what I +think, and what's ben my mind from the beginnin' on't. That gal's +bewitched David. Don't you remember," she continued, "that the fust week +they come David had a bad cold?" + +"Wal, like enough he did," drawled the old man. "David was always +subject to a bad cold." + +"He did," replied Miss Joey. "I've got the whole on't in my mind now. +And mebby you've noticed that these folks are great for gatherin' in +herbs, and lobely, and bottlin' up hot-crop?" + +"Pepper-tea's a suvverin' remedy for a cold," put in the old man. + +"But now," Miss Joey proceeded, sinking her voice almost to a whisper, +"I want to fix your thoughts on somethin' dark-colored, in a vial, that +she fetched across the entry for him to take." + +"Help him any?" + +"Can't say it did, and can't say it didn't. But ever sence that, David's +ben a different man. He's follered that gal about as if there'd ben a +chain a-drawin' him,--as if she'd flung a lassoo round his neck, and was +pullin' him along. See him, and you see her. If she wants huckleberries, +she has huckleberries. If she wants violets, she has violets. See him +now, lookin' down at her through the branches. And see her, turnin' her +face up towards him. He's nigh upon addled. Shouldn't wonder this +minute, if he didn't know enough to keep his hold o' the branch. Does +that seem like our David, Mr. Lane, a bashful young feller like him?" + +"Bashful or bold makes no difference," replied the old man. "Love'll go +where't is sent,--likely to hit one as t' other. And when they're hit, +you can't tell 'em apart.--Why, Joey," he continued, suddenly quickening +his tone, "there's the Doctor's boy, as I'm alive!" + +Dr. Luce lived the other side of "the Crick." The young man coming along +the road was his son, just arrived home. + +As he came nearer, I took notice of his dress. I usually did, when +people came from the city. He wore a black bombazine coat, white +trousers, white waistcoat, blue necktie, and a Panama hat. His +complexion was fair, with plenty of light hair waving about his temples. +He stepped briskly along, with shoulders set back, twirling his glove. + +I knew Warren Luce well enough. I could tell just how it would strike +him, seeing David up in a tree, flinging down apples to a girl. I could +very well judge, too, how he would encounter the fair apparition +beneath. + +But how would he strike Mary Ellen,--this polished, smooth-tongued, +handsomely dressed youth? I had forebodings. I seemed to divine the +future. I fidgeted upon my seat, and straightened myself up, rather +pleased that my studies were getting complicated,--that I should have a +chance of searching out the natural heart of woman, when under the most +trying circumstances. + +But just as I was making ready to commence upon my new chapter, Mrs. +Lane called me to come and help move Emily. I very often lifted her from +the chair to the sofa. It could hardly be called lifting. 'Twas like +taking a little bird out of its nest and placing it in another. "The +Doctor's boy has come," said I, very quietly, when I had wheeled the +sofa so that she might feel the air from the window. + +She made no answer then; but a little after, when her mother stepped out +a minute, she said, just as quietly,-- + +"How will it be?" + +"How do you think?" I said. + +"I wish," she replied, "that he hadn't come. David is a dear brother. I +fear." + +When Emily said "I fear," there was no need to ask what. She feared the +effect upon Warren Luce of Mary Ellen's fresh and simple beauty. She +feared the effect upon her of his city-manners and fluent speech. She +feared for David an abiding sorrow. Warren Luce had travelled, had been +in society, and had been educated. I knew him well for a selfish, +heartless fellow, whose very soul had been drowned in worldly pleasures. +Just from the midst of artificial life, how charming must appear to him +our sweet wild-rose, our singing-bird, our fresh, untutored, innocent +little country-girl! + +"But why borrow trouble?" I said to myself. "It will come soon enough. +If not in this way, then in some other. Trouble stays not long away." + + +CHAPTER II. + +"The Crick" wasn't half a mile across. The Doctor's house was in plain +sight from our windows. 'Twas just a pleasant walk round there, and we +called them neighbors. The two young men had always been on the very +best of terms. Warren liked David because he knew how good he was, and +David liked Warren because he didn't know how bad he was. The chief bond +between them was the boat. Our stylish young gentleman, when he came +down to Nature, wanted to get as near her as he could,--not, perhaps, +that he loved her, but he liked a change. Nothing suited him better than +"camping out," or starting off before light a-fishing with David. + +I was not at all surprised, therefore, that he should appear bright and +early the next morning, to make some arrangement for the day. + +I saw him coming, from my window, and was pleased that I had lingered at +home rather beyond office-hours,--for Mary Ellen was shelling peas in +the back-doorway beneath, and I should have an opportunity of advancing +somewhat in my new chapter. It was a nice shady place. The door-steps +and the ground about them were still damp from the dew. + +He came trippingly along, inquiring for David. Mary Ellen blushed some. +I saw that their acquaintance had commenced the night before. He chatted +a little with the old folks, but directed most of his talk to Mary +Ellen, that he might have an excuse for looking her full in the face, +and drinking in her beauty. I saw him seat himself on the flat stone. I +saw him glance admiringly at the pretty white hands, handling so +daintily the green pods. I saw him show her how to make a boat of one, +putting in sticks for the thwarts. And finally, I saw David come round +the house and stop short. + +Warren sprang up. + +"Waiting for you, David," said he. "Tide coming, stiff breeze. We can be +on Jake's Ledge in a twinkling." + +And passing over a high hill, on my way to the Square, I saw the +sloop-boat, with flag flying, putting off towards Jake's Ledge. + +For the next two months the Doctor's boy walked straight in the path +which my prophetic vision had marked out for him. Morning, noon, and +evening brought him paddling across "the Crick," or footing it round by +the shore-way. + +Emily and I were troubled. We had once feared that our good brother and +friend would pass through life as a blind man wanders through a +flower-garden, lost to its chief beauty and sweetness. But his eyes had +been opened. And now was his life-path to lead him into a thorny +wilderness? was a worse darkness to settle down upon him? + +I fancied there was a hopeless look in his face,--that he shrank into +himself more than ever. The Doctor's boy had fairer gifts than he to +offer, and no lack of well-chosen words. It was with the utmost +uneasiness that I caught, occasionally, some of these telling phrases. I +liked not his air of devotedness, his eye constantly following Mary +Ellen's movements. I liked not the flower-gatherings, the rambles among +the rocks, the rowing by moonlight. Emily's short sentence came often to +mind, "I fear." + +For I felt almost sure that Warren Luce was in earnest,--that he was +deeply and truly in love with Mary Ellen. Not that he intended this at +first, but that her beauty conquered him. Most likely this was the first +of his knowing he had a heart, 'twas so small. Still, 'twas the best +thing he had, and appeared to hold considerable love for one of its +size. + +And how was it with Mary Ellen? Ah, she was enough to puzzle a justice! +I was not long, though, in perceiving that this unenlightened maiden +felt instinctively that her personal appearance should be attended to a +little more carefully than when only David was to admire. Her hair was +always in nice order, and I observed that even in the morning she would +have some bit of muslin or lace-work peeping from beneath her short +sleeve. I hope there is no harm in saying that I had, even before this, +noticed the shapeliness of her arm. I think I was struck with it the +first morning, when she came across the entry. + +And was she really a coquette, carrying herself steadily along between +two lovers, that she smiled just as pleasantly on David, giving him +never a cold word, even while the blushes kindled by the soft speeches +of Warren Luce still burned upon her cheeks? + +I found myself getting confused. My new studies were very absorbing in +their nature, and extremely intricate. Three books to translate, and +never a dictionary! + +After patient investigation, I settled down upon the conviction that +there was in the heart of our little country-girl one corner of which +David's constant goodness, and earnest, though unspoken love, had given +him the entire possession. + +I thought thus, because I saw that in her own nature were truth and +goodness. And she was quick of perception. I was often struck by the +shrewdness of her remarks. I thought the more favorably of her, too, +that she was fond of pictures. Before they came to live in the other +part, she had taken a dozen lessons of an itinerant drawing-master. I +had often encountered her in my walks, trying to make a sketch of a tree +or a house. She always tucked it behind her, though, or into her pocket, +the minute I came in sight. + +It was certainly true that she had not yielded to the fascinations of +the Doctor's boy so readily and so entirely as I had feared. "The girl +has some common sense," I thought, "some stability,--and likewise some +ideas of the eternal fitness of things." For I noticed, with pleasure, +one night in Emily's room, when somebody said, "There comes the Doctor's +boy," that she got up and closed the door. + +She had been singing the old-fashioned hymn commencing,-- + + "On the fair Heavenly Hills." + +The last line, + + "And all the air is Love," + +was repeated. The music was peculiar,--the notes rising and falling and +rolling over each other like waves. + +She had just stopped. Nobody moved. The silence was broken only by the +rustling of the lilac-bushes, as the night-wind swept over them. + +"The whispering of angels!" said Emily, softly. + +I was pleased that she closed the door. It showed that she felt his +unfitness to enter our little paradise. I took heart for David. And yet +it was only the next day that came the crowning with hop-blossoms. + +I had returned home early, and was in my own room, waiting for tea. +Casting my eyes towards the garden, I saw Mary Ellen sitting beneath a +tree, leaning against the trunk. Near by was a hop-pole, laden with its +green. And near by, also, stood Warren Luce, holding in his hand a thin, +square book. He had gathered a quantity of the beautiful hop-blossoms +and tendrils, and was directing her how to arrange them about her head. +It appeared to be his object to make her look like a picture in his +book. "A little more to the right. A few leaves about the ear," I heard +him say; and then, "They must drop a little lower on the other side. In +the picture, the tendrils touch the left shoulder. Now hold the basket +full of them, in this way. The blossoms must be trailing over it, and +your right hand upon the handle. Not so. Let me show"--And as he touched +her hand to place it in the right position, I almost sprang from my +seat, I was so indignant for David. + +I might have saved myself the trouble, though, for the next moment David +himself appeared, walking slowly home from the Square, with something in +a basket he was bringing for Emily. David was a good brother. + +"Perfect!" exclaimed Warren, as he completed his _tableau_. "Just like +the picture, only"--And here he dropped his voice. + +"David, come here," he called out, "and see which picture is the +prettiest." + +Poor David! I saw that it was all he could do, to walk straight past +without speaking. + +"Take them off," said Mary Ellen. "They are heavy." + +And she pulled the wreath from her head. + +That evening, coming home late, I saw a bright light in her room, and +glanced up, as I came near. She stood at the looking-glass between the +windows, holding a light in her hand. Upon her head, trailing down upon +her left shoulder, was a wreath of hop-blossoms. She wanted to know how +she looked in them. At least, this was my interpretation of the vision. +And while she held the light, first in one hand, then in the other, +turning this way and that, I stood debating whether there was any harm +in a girl's knowing she was pretty, or in her wishing to inform herself +whether any adornments rather out of the common course--hop-blossoms, +for instance--were becoming. That question, and the other, about all +women being coquettes, remain in my mind undecided to this day. + +Emily must have noticed something peculiar in David's manner, when he +brought her the basket. For it was the next day, I think, that she said +to me, in her quiet way,-- + +"Mr. Turner, a new feeling is taking hold of me. I'm afraid I--_hate_!" + +She made this announcement in her usual calm voice, as if she had been +speaking of some new manifestation of her disease. Then she told what +she had been observing in David's manner, and in Mary Ellen's. Said +she,-- + +"The girl has no heart. She trifles with David, and he is so wretched. +Better the stone had never been rolled away than his love be so thrown +back upon him. I pity him so much, and can do nothing." + +I hardly knew what to say in reply, for I was just as troubled as she +about David. He wandered off by himself, in the chill autumn evenings, +returned late, and stole off to his bed in silence. Stories of suicides +came to me. A man who never spoke might do anything. And this, I +thought, was the point. If I could only make him speak! + +He had always been more open with me than anybody,--had expressed +himself freely about the homestead, and his plans for redeeming it, and +about his anxiety for Emily. I could certainly, I thought, bring him to +speak of his trouble, if I only had for him a sure word of +encouragement. But this I had not, because Mary Ellen was such a puzzle. +Her openness served better for hiding the truth than did David's +reserve. At the bottom of my heart, though, was full faith in her love +for him. I paid her the compliment of believing she was too good to care +seriously for such a man as Warren Luce. But, then, I couldn't give my +faith to David. + +How would it do to make a bold move,--to speak to her? Might I not show +her how much was at stake, and in some way have my faith confirmed? +Would, or wouldn't it answer for me to do this? Should, or shouldn't I +make bungling work of it? I turned the matter over in my mind, to assure +myself of my right to intermeddle. + +We, too, had a sort of friendship, and I conceived that she very much +respected my opinion. In some ways, I had been of service to her. The +old man, her father, had been involved in legal troubles. She was +anxious to understand all about it. So I talked law to her, read law to +her, and marked law for her in my big books, besides giving advice +gratis. She had also taken other books from my library, whenever she +chose. I had lent her pictures to copy, and had shown her the way to +various points, in the country round about, whence a simple view might +easily be taken. Moreover, I was all the same as one of the family, and +felt a brother's interest in David. And, lastly, I was eight or ten +years older than she. + +'Twas certainly my right to speak. I could well see, however, that it +was a matter of some delicacy. My superior age and wisdom might shed a +halo around me; still, I was nothing more nor less than a young man, for +all that. + +It was one pleasant afternoon in the latter part of September, that, +engaged in these perplexing meditations, I strolled down towards the +shore. Mary Ellen hadn't been in to tea, her mother said, and I was +wondering what had become of her. + +One solitary buttonwood stood close to the edge of the bank,--so close +that at high tide its brandies hung over the water. I climbed up into a +reserved seat which was always kept for me there, a comfortable little +crotch among the boughs. Upon extraordinary occasions,--a splendid +sunset, or a rain, coming over the water, or an uncommonly fine moon, or +a furious storm,--I used to mount to this seat for a good view. + +On this particular afternoon the tide was unusually high,--in some +places, up to the top-rail of the meadow-fence. Our "Crick" was quite a +little bay. + +A skiff came paddling along-shore. As it drew near, I saw that it +contained two people,--the Doctor's boy and Mary Ellen. He was singing, +but I was unable to distinguish the words. Then there was some laughing. +After that, she began singing to him, and I made out both words and +tune, for then the boat was quite near. It was an old-fashioned ballad, +which I once heard her sing to Emily. It began thus:-- + + "As I was walking by the river-side, + Where little streams do gently glide, + I heard a fair maiden making her moan,-- + 'Oh, where is my sweet William gone? + Go, build me up a little boat, + All on the ocean I will float, + Hailing all ships as they pass by, + Inquiring for my sweet sailor-boy.'" + +I liked the music, it was so plaintive, so different from the common +well-bred songs. + +Not a breath of air was stirring. Her voice rang out upon the stillness, +clear and shrill as a wild bird's. It was such a voice as you frequently +meet with among country-girls, entirely uncultivated, but of great +power, and, on some notes, of wonderful sweetness. Her admiring +listener rested upon his oars, letting his skiff drift along upon the +tide. It floated underneath the tree, and up into "the Crick." As it +passed, I saw, in the bottom of the boat, a little basket of wild +cherries. + +While watching their progress, I heard a rustling among some +alder-bushes that grew about a fence, and, upon looking that way, saw +David. He, too, was watching the play, though he had not, like me, the +benefit of a seat in the gallery. + +The expression on his countenance was something like what I had seen on +the faces of people at the theatre: a sort of fixed, immovable look, as +if its wearer were determined on being sensation-proof. + +I glanced at the skiff. The Doctor's boy was throwing cherries at Mary +Ellen, and she was catching them in her mouth. She was in a great +frolic, laughing, showing her pretty teeth, and so earnest that one +might suppose life had no other object than catching wild cherries. + +Just then I perceived, a little to the right of me, the head and +shoulders of a woman rising slowly above the bank, and recognized at +once the small features and peculiarly small gray eyes of Miss Joey. She +had been gathering marsh-rosemary along-shore. + +She, too, was a spectator of the play,--was, in part, an actor in it; +for, while David's eyes were fixed upon the boat, hers were fixed upon +him, and with the same despairing expression. + +"Poor Miss Joey!" I said mentally, "doomed to see your beautiful plan +fail and come to nought! You and he suffer the same suffering, but it +can be no bond between you." + +She turned, and slowly descended the bank, and I watched her small +figure as it picked its way among the rocks, and finally disappeared +around a point. + +Meanwhile the voyagers had landed, and were making their way to the +house. I could see them until they reached the garden-gate, could see +Mary Ellen swinging her sun-bonnet by its string, and hear her laughing, +as she tried to mock the katydids. + +Then I looked for David. The feeling came over me that I was in some +magnificent theatre, where I was like a king, having a play acted for me +alone. David was lying upon the ground, with his face buried in the damp +grass. + +No matter how much we may read of the effects of great sorrow or great +happiness, they will always, in real life, come to us as something we +never heard of. I involuntarily turned my head aside, feeling that I was +where I had no right to be, that I had intruded my profane presence into +the innermost sanctuary of a human heart. + +While I was debating whether to remain concealed, or to go to him, throw +my arms around him, and say some word of comfort, he arose and walked +slowly towards the house. And I noticed that he went by exactly the same +route which the two had taken before him,--which brought to mind Miss +Joey's expression, "as if there'd ben a chain a-drawin' him." + +That very evening, as I was sitting at my window, watching the moon rise +over the water, I saw Mary Ellen pass along the road, and sit down upon +a little wooden step which was attached to a fence for convenience in +getting over. She was watching the moon rise, too. + +The scene I had so recently witnessed from the buttonwood-tree had made +me desperate. I felt that now, if ever, I must speak. Seizing my hat, I +walked rapidly to the spot, hoping it would be given me in that hour +what to say. + +After we had talked awhile about the moon, how it looked, rising over +the waters, as we saw it, and rising over the mountains, as she had seen +it, I turned my face rather aside, and said, quite suddenly,-- + +"Mary Ellen, I want to speak to you about something important. I hope +you will take it kindly." + +She made no answer; seemed startled. I hardly know how I stumbled along, +but I finally found myself speaking of my friendship for David, and of +my aversion to Warren Luce. She appeared not at all displeased, but said +very little. This was not as I expected. I thought she might answer +carelessly,--lightly. + +There came a pause. I couldn't seem to get on. She safe with averted +face, her arm on the fence, her head in her hand. In the strong light of +the moon, every feature was revealed. How beautiful she was in the +moonlight! But what was her face saying? A good deal, certainly; but +what? + +I stood leaning against the fence. + +"Mary Ellen," said I, with a sudden jerk, as it were, "it can't be that +Warren Luce--that he is the one whom--that--that you"--And here I +stopped. + +"I think Warren Luce has great power over me," said she, calmly, as if +coolly scanning her own feelings; "but you said right. He is not the one +whom--that"-- + +And here she smiled, as if at the thought of my broken-off sentences, +but without looking up. + +"My dear girl," said I, earnestly, and taking a forward step,--"forgive +me, but--I think--I hope--you love David,--don't you?" + +'Twas a bold question, and I knew it; but I was thinking how pleasant +'twould be to carry good tidings to my friend. + +"I love his goodness," said she, just as calmly as before. "And I love +him for loving me. I wish he was happy. I hope no harm will come to him. +I would do everything for him,--but"--and here her voice fell--"_I don't +love him as Jane loved_." + +"_Jane who_?" I asked, in surprise. + +"Jane Eyre." + +Here was a dilemma for me. What should I say next? What business had I, +meddling with a young girl's heart? I had been almost sure of finding +soundings, yet here I was in deep water! And, with all my pains, what +had I accomplished? + +She arose, and moved towards the house. I walked along by her side, +without speaking. + +"I'm going away to-morrow," said she, as we reached the gate, "to make a +visit at the old place; then everybody will be happier." + +It was my turn then to be silent,--for I was trying to take in the idea +that there was to be no Mary Ellen in the house. She had occupied our +thoughts so long, had been so prominent an actor in our daily life,--how +we should miss her! + +"Oh, no," I said, calmly,--for I had thought away all my surprise,--"we +shall all miss you very much." + +And there we parted. + +She left us the next morning, for a visit to her old home. + +The latter part of the day I went into Emily's room. She had been +growing worse for some time, and had been removed to the westerly room +to be rid of the bleak winds. David was sitting on a low stool by her +bedside, his head resting upon the bed, looking up in her face. She +smiled as I entered. + +"David is so tall," said she, "that I can't see his face away up there, +and so he brings it down for me to look at." + +She held in her hand the ruby bracelet. + +"David says," she continued, "that he is going to the gold-country, to +get money to pay off the mortgages,--and that, when he begins to get +gold, he shall get a heap, and will bring me home a whole necklace of +rubies, and make a beautiful home for me: _when_ he goes," she repeated, +with an unbelieving smile. + +I smiled, too, and passed on, feeling that I had already intruded too +much upon the privacy of hearts, and would leave the brother and sister +in peace. + +A few nights after this, I came home late from the Square, and found the +household in great commotion. David went out fishing, long before +daybreak, and had not yet returned. Other boats had come in, but nothing +had they seen of him, either on the Ledge or off in the Bay. This was +the more mysterious, as the weather had been unusually mild, with but +little wind. + +After talking over the matter with them, I suggested that he might have +gone farther than usual, and, on account of the light winds, had not +been able to get back. The night was calm, with plenty of moonlight. +There could be no possible danger to one so accustomed to the water as +David. + +This appeared very reasonable; and, at a late hour, all retired to bed. + +The next morning I looked from my window at daybreak. Miss Joey was +standing on the hill, gazing off upon the water. In a few minutes the +old folks came out. They crept up the hill, and stood looking off with +Miss Joey. I joined them. There was a fine strong breeze, and fair for +boats bound in. Not one, however, was in sight. Away off in the Bay was +a homeward-bound schooner, with colors flying. A fisherman, probably, +returning from the Banks. The morning air was chilly. We silently +descended the hill. + +During the day we heard that a vessel from Boston had spoken, half-way +on her passage, a small sloop-boat, with one man in it. Boston was sixty +miles distant, and it was something very unusual for a small boat to +make the passage. Friends in the city were written to, but no +information was obtained, and day after day passed without relieving our +suspense. + +But this was at last ended by a letter from David himself. It was +written to me. He had sold his boat in Boston, and had gone to New York, +where his letter was dated. He was going to sail for California the next +day. + +"I have long been meaning to go," he wrote, "but never thought of +leaving in this way, until I reached the fishing-ground, last Wednesday +morning. It came into my mind all at once, and I kept straight along. If +I'd gone back, the old folks, maybe, wouldn't have let me come, because, +you know, I'm the last. Besides, I thought I could go easier while--But +you know all about it, Turner. I saw that you knew. It has been very +hard. Somehow, trouble don't slip off of me easy. Taking everything as +it was, I couldn't stay by any longer. Otherwise, I don't know as I +could have left the old folks and Emily. I can't ask you to stay, unless +it's convenient; but while you do, I hope you'll have a care over all +I've left behind. You can cheer up Emily better than anybody." + +"The strength and the beauty of the house are gone!" remarked Emily to +me, as I sat down one afternoon by her window. + +Poor girl! It was but seldom she was able to speak at all. David's +sudden departure, and the anxiety attending it, had been too much for +her. Besides, she missed Mary Ellen. That little country-girl had, +besides her innocence and her good looks, a vein of drollery, which made +her a very entertaining companion. And then, being so quick-witted, and +so kind-hearted, she thought of various little things to do for Emily's +comfort, which never would have occurred to her mother or Miss Joey. +Emily wanted her back again. She had got over that feeling of hatred of +which she once accused herself. + +"It wasn't her fault," said she, one day, quite suddenly. + +"What?" I asked. + +"That she didn't love David in the way he loved her. I don't think she +deceived him. He never said anything, you know; so, of course, she had +no reason for being any other than kind to him. I believe she felt badly +about it, herself. I've seen her, when she thought I was asleep, lean +her head upon her hand, and sit so for a great while. Maybe, though, +it's because I want so much to love her that I make excuses for her. I +wish she'd come,--it's so lonely." + +And it was lonely. It was like remaining in the theatre after the play +is over and the actors retired. For Warren Luce, too, was gone. His +visit was only for the summer, and he had returned to his clerkship. + +"How would it have been, if he hadn't come?" I asked myself. "Might +David have been happy? Might she have loved him as 'Jane' loved? And how +much of her heart had the Doctor's boy carried away? Perhaps his power +over her was greater than she would own,--greater than she knew herself. +Perhaps he was even then corresponding with her. He might even be with +her among the mountains." + +Thus I debated, thus I questioned. + + +CHAPTER III. + +Mary Ellen was gone six weeks. We were all glad when she came back, the +house had seemed so like a tomb. I'm not sure about Miss Joey. No doubt +she looked upon her with an evil eye, as being the upsetter of all her +plans. But then there was nothing Miss Joey dreaded more than a lonely +house. She wanted company. + +And what better company, pray, can there be than a fair young face? Who +would ask for better entertainment than to watch the lighting-up of +bright eyes, and the parting of rosy lips, or the thousand other +bewitchments of youth and beauty? + +And she looked more beautiful than ever,--I suppose, because she came in +a dull time: just as flowers seem lovelier and more precious in the +winter. I fancied she was very sad, very thoughtful. Perhaps 'twas +David's going away that caused this. Perhaps she was sorry she had cast +from her such a precious thing as love. + +When Emily became much worse, which was shortly after her return, she +installed herself as chief nurse, sitting for hours in the darkened +room, amusing her with children's songs and stories,--for the sick girl, +in her weakest state, craved childish things. + +That was a quiet, a truly pleasant winter. After getting letters from +David, telling of his safe arrival out, everybody became more cheerful. + +But in the spring, as warm weather came on, Emily grew every day weaker. +The apple-blossoms came and went unheeded. + +One morning she awoke, unusually free from pain, and said to Mary +Ellen,-- + +"I saw David last night. He said to me, 'I shall come sooner than I +expected. But, before I come, I shall send the ruby necklace.'" Then she +described the miner's hut in which she had seen him. + +This was in the first part of June. + +On the day after the fourth of July we got news of his death. He had +been lost overboard, in a storm, between San Francisco and the Sandwich +Islands. + +It is very sad to recall that time of deep affliction. He was the last +of five sons, all of whom had left home in full health and strength, +none of whom returned. + +"Five as likely young men," said poor Miss Joey, "as ever grew up +beneath one roof." + +"All five gone!" groaned the old man, as he leaned his face against the +wall. + +"Five brothers waiting for me," whispered Emily, as Mary Ellen bent over +her, weeping. + +"Five boys," moaned the poor broken-hearted mother,--"nobody to take +care of them, nobody to do for them, no comforts, no mother, and now no +grave!" + +'Twas touching to see her husband trying to console her. Her favorite +seat was in one corner of the hard, old-fashioned settee. There she +would sit, swaying herself to and fro, whispering sometimes to herself, +"Deep waters! deep waters!" + +The old man would sit close up to her, and say, softly,-- + +"Now, mother, don't! I wouldn't take on. You know he isn't there. Look +up. Don't forget God!" + +Poor old man! 'Twas hard for him to look up, with so much to draw him +down. But I don't think he ever forgot God. + +A little before sunset, one afternoon, a few weeks after the sad news of +David's death had reached us, Mary Ellen came out to where I was sitting +under the lilacs, and asked if I couldn't move Emily into her own room +for a little while. + +"Is she able?" I asked. + +"I don't know what has come over her," she replied, "she seems so +strong. For a long time I thought her asleep, but all at once she spoke +out clear and loud, and said, 'I want to see his grave. If anybody could +take me to my own room, I could see his grave.' She keeps repeating it, +and she means the sea." + +'Twas not much to take her across the entry. Mary Ellen arranged +everything, and we placed her on a sofa by the window. + +"Oh," she exclaimed, "how I have longed for this! I have hungered and +thirsted for a good look at the sea." + +Her cheeks were pale, her eyes large and bright. + +She looked so ethereal, so unearthly, and lay so long motionless, with +her eyes fixed upon the water, that I half feared she would at that +moment pass away from us,--that she might, in some beautiful form, a +dove, or a bright angel, soar upward through the open window, and be +lost to our sight among the golden-edged clouds above. + +But she was thinking of David's grave. And a beautiful grave it seemed, +from that window. The water was still, as smooth as glass. I had never +noticed upon it so uncommon a tinge. 'Twas mostly of a pale green, very +pale; but portions of it were of a deep lilac. Farther off it was +purple, and very far off a dim, shadowy gray. I was glad it had on that +particular night such a peaceful, placid look. + +"Oh, what a beautiful grave!" said Emily. Then her eyes wandered to +different points of the landscape, dwelling for a long time on each. + +"I suppose you think," said she, at last, in a low, sweet voice, "that +it is easy for a sick girl to go. But I love everything I've been +looking at. It may be more beautiful there, but it will not be the same. +I shall want to see exactly this stretch of water, and the islands +beyond, and the shadows on those woods away off in the distance, and the +field where father has mowed the grass for so many years. Every summer, +as soon as June came in, I've listened, early in the morning, before +noise began, to hear the whetting of the scythe, and then waited for the +smell of the hay to come in at the windows. + +"Those maples, on the knoll, are my dear friends. I've been glad with +them in the spring, and sorry with them in the fall, through all these +years. The birds and the dandelions and the violets are all my friends. +I've waited for them every year, and it seemed as if the same ones came +back. You well people can't understand it. They are near to me. I enter +into the life of each one of them, just as you do into the lives of your +human friends. Spirits go everywhere, see everything. That will be too +much. I'm attached to just this spot of earth. And then I'm attached to +myself. I can't realize that I shall be the same, and I don't want to +give myself up, poor miserable creature as I am." + +Mary Ellen and I could only look at each other in astonishment. Her +voice, her seeming strength, and, more than all, her conversation, +amazed us. She had always been so trusting, so full of faith in her +Heavenly Father. + +The next morning, when Mary Ellen went to her bedside, she found her +lying awake, with her thin, white fingers clasped about her throat. She +looked up with a strange smile, and said,-- + +"My ruby necklace has come, and next, you know, will be the beautiful +home. It is almost ready, David said. But he brought the necklace, and +clasped it about my throat. It choked me, and I groaned a little. David +went then, and I've been waiting ever since for you to come." + +It was noontime when Mary Ellen told me this. I observed that she +trembled. "My dear girl," said I, "what makes you tremble so?" + +"Why," said she, in a whisper, "there is truly a red circle about her +throat. I saw it. 'Tis a warning. She's going to die." + +"Maybe," I said, "she is going soon to her beautiful home. But we know +no harm can come to our dear sister, she is so good, and so pure." Then, +taking her by the hand, I led her along to Emily's room. + +Her mother and Miss Joey stood near, weeping. The old man, with the +Bible upon his knees, sat at the foot of the bed. He had been reading +and praying. + +She looked up with a smile, as I entered with Mary Ellen. + +"I know," said she, in a perfectly distinct, but low voice, as we drew +near the bedside,--"I know what made me talk so yesterday.". + +She paused then, and afterwards spoke with difficulty. We all stood +breathless, bending eagerly forward, that not a word might be lost. + +"I know," she repeated, "what it was. 'Twas the earthy principle in +me--which revived--for a moment--at the last--and then put forth all its +strength. Since I have seen David--it seems pleasant--to go. I can't +tell,--you wouldn't understand,--I couldn't, if the separation--hadn't +begun. I'm not wholly here now." And the fixed, strange look in her face +confirmed the words as they fell from her lips. + +She lay for some time very still, breathing every moment fainter and +fainter, but seemingly in no distress. + +Suddenly she started. Her face grew radiant. Her gaze seemed fixed on +some point, thousands and thousands of miles away. Clasping her hands +together, she cried out, joyfully,-- + +"Oh, the beautiful home! the beautiful home!" + +'Twas over in an instant. She closed her eyes, turned her head a little +on the pillow, and breathed her life away as softly and peacefully as a +poor tired child sinks away to sleep. + +"And I saw the angels of God ascending and descending," I said, +earnestly. For I felt that one whose spiritual eyes were opened might +certainly do so. + +Late in the afternoon, when the heat of the day was past, I walked out +to the clump of maples on the knoll. Mary Ellen was already there. + +"Yes," said I, sitting down by her side, upon the grass, "we will lay +her here among her friends. And we will place here a white marble +monument." + +"I wish," said Mary Ellen, looking timidly up in my face, "that it could +be in memory of David, too." She said this with tears in her eyes, and +an unsteady voice. + +As I sit writing, I can see from my window the simple white monument, +which Mary Ellen and I planned together. The grass and field-flowers are +growing all about it, and the birds, Emily's birds, are singing in the +branches above. It has only this inscription,-- + +"_In memory of David and Emily_." + +"Six children,--and only one grave to show for all of them!" groaned the +poor old mother, when we first led her out to show her the stone. + +But there was shortly another grave beneath the maples; for the worn-out +old woman soon sank after Emily's death, and with her last breath begged +to be laid by her side. + +Only the old man and Miss Joey left. Still I could not go away. No other +place seemed like home. And besides, I had found out, long ago, my own +secret. It had been revealed to me, day by day, as I watched Mary Ellen +in the sick-room of Emily,--as I observed her patience, her sweetness, +her tenderness! + +And my secret came upon me with an overwhelming power. But I mastered +it. I kept it to myself. That is, as far as words were concerned. For +the expression of his face, for involuntary glances, no man can be held +responsible. + +I kept it to myself,--or tried to do so; for I wasn't sure--of anything. +Emily's words, "I fear," came to me with deep meaning. For, if the +goodness of David, if the fascinations of Warren Luce had effected +nothing, what could I hope? + +And was I sure about this last, about Warren? He was in the place. +Emily's sickness only had kept him away. I reviewed myself to myself, +overhauled whatever virtues or failings I knew of as belonging to me. + +Nothing very satisfactory resulted. But I remembered what the old man +said to Miss Joey, "Love'll go where 'tis sent," and took courage. Eight +or ten years older. I wonder if she would mind that? + +Day after day passed, and my secret still burned within me. It must +shine out of my eyes, I thought. But then, since Emily's death, I had +seen Mary Ellen much less frequently. She kept mostly with her mother, +on their own side of the house. + +But the time that was foreordained from the beginning of the world for +the bursting-forth of my secret came at last. + +It was a month after Emily's death. I happened to come home in the +evening unusually early. 'Twas exactly such a night as the one on which +I tried to sound the depths of a young girl's heart, and failed. If she +would only come out in the moonlight again, and let me try once more! + +As I passed the orchard, my heart gave a great leap, for she was +there,--she and Miss Joey, carrying in a great basket of apples. I +seized her side of the basket with one hand, and with the other grasped +hers so earnestly that she fairly started: I was so glad to see her! + +I led her along to the house, and then led her back, until we came to +the same little step on the fence,--with full faith, now, that it would +be given me in this hour what to say. + +I seated her exactly as she was before, with the moon shining full in +her face. Then I took my stand, leaning against the fence, just the +same. How beautiful she was in the moonlight! + +"And is there anybody," said I, as if continuing the conversation, "that +you do love as Jane did?" + +My voice, though, was far less steady than at the other time. + +"Mr. Turner," she exclaimed, starting up, with flashing eyes and glowing +cheeks, "you've no right to ask me such a question!" + +That blushing by moonlight! It was too much to be endured with calmness. +I felt myself giving way before it. + +But I sha'n't tell any more. It's no sign, because a man opens his +heart, that he should let everything drop out of it. + +If those interested know, that, at my earnest request, she gave me the +right to ask not only that question, but others which would naturally +follow, they know enough. + +I would willingly tell them, though, if our English language had a few +thousand words added to it, how delightful it was to know that this +sweet wild-rose had been blossoming for me, that our singing-bird had +been singing for me! I am willing to tell, too, how foolish I felt, when +the deceitfulness of the human heart, of my own human heart, became +apparent; when I found that I had been loving for myself, while I +thought I was loving for David,--that I had been jealous for myself, and +not for him; when I found that I had been studying my chapter, without +regarding the notes underneath. + +And being at last put upon the right track, I found it taking me a long +way backwards. It took me away to the beginning, when Mary Ellen first +came across the entry, and showed me that then and there the arrow was +sped, and love went where it was sent. I had misgivings, even, of having +taken a portion of the dark liquid in the little bottle. I could +perceive the drawing of the "chain," and almost feel the "lassoo" about +my neck. + +"Lawyer, indeed! And wonderfully sharp at cross-questioning, when you +couldn't draw a secret from a woman! Lawyer, indeed! Of great +penetration, that couldn't read a young girl's heart, when it lay open +before you,--that couldn't read your own! You'd better give up the +profession, and go to painting. That suits you better. Beauty is your +chief delight, after all. Not only beauty of face, but beauty of +everything under the sun. Go sit in your crotch among the green boughs +and paint landscapes!" + +It was full four years ago that I thus inveighed against myself, and +just about a year from the time when I took up the moonlight talk where +it had been left off, and finished it so charmingly. We two were taking +a long stroll together, and had been making our mutual confessions,--our +man-and-wife confessions. + +My innocent little country-girl turned her sweet face up to mine with a +doubtful expression, a comically wise look, and said, a little +anxiously,-- + +"Do you think it will pay?" + +Oh, she's a capital wife! She has beauty and sweetness and exquisite +taste and simplicity and loving-kindness, with just enough worldliness +to take all these charming qualities safely along through life. + +Hear how wisely she discusses the "coquette" question. + +Says she,--"I think it's natural for all women to want to please all +men. I believe that the very best and wisest woman in the world is +affected by flattery from a handsome man who knows how to flatter. Very +likely this might be put the other way about, but then in books that +side is usually left out. But what you, Mr. Landscape-painter, would +like to know is, whether I coquetted with the Doctor's boy. And I will +own that I tried to please him. I liked to have him think I was pretty. +I can't think what it was about him that had such power over me. I +tremble now to think what might have been, if--And just think what a +whole life would be with such a person! I don't believe, though, any +girl could have withstood him, unless her heart--I believe I should +certainly have loved him, if"-- + +"If what, and unless what?" I asked, drawing her close up to me, as if +that dangerous youth had still power to take her from me. + +She looked up so roguishly,-- + +"You ought to know; you took the chapter to study." + + +Oh, my innocent little country-girl! If I were a poet, I'd write a song +in your praise; and if I were a musician, I'd set it to music. But the +poetry is in my heart; and 'tis set to music there. + + * * * * * + +SWEET-BRIER. + + + Tender of words should singer be, + Sweet-Brier, who would tell of thee; + One who has drunk with eager lip + And treasured thy companionship; + + One who has sought thee far and wide, + In early dew, with morning pride; + To whom thou art no new-made friend, + Whose memories on thy breath attend. + + For such thou art a lemon-grove, + Where wandering orient odors rove,-- + Yet loyal ever to thy home, + The valley where the north winds roam. + + Sometimes I would call thee mine; + But sweeter far than _mine_ or _thine_ + To listen unto Nature's song, + Saying, To lovers all belong. + + I love thee for my greenest days + Rescued from Time at thy sweet gaze, + For pictures brilliant as the Spring + Brought back upon thy breathing wing. + + I love thee for thy influence, + Heart-honey, without impotence; + He who would reach thy virgin blush, + Like warrior bold, must dangers crush. + + Chiefly I love thee for thyself, + Wealth-giver, ignorant of pelf; + Fain would I learn thy upright ways + And heart thus redolent of praise. + + * * * * * + +HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. + +BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD. + +VIII. + +ECONOMY. + + +"The fact is," said Jennie, as she twirled a little hat on her hand, +which she had been making over, with, nobody knows what of bows and +pompons, and other matters for which the women have curious names,--"the +fact is, American women and girls must learn to economize; it isn't +merely restricting one's self to American goods, it is general economy, +that is required. Now here's this hat,--costs me only three dollars, all +told; and Sophie Page bought an English one this morning at Madame +Meyer's for which she gave fifteen. And I really don't think hers has +more of an air than mine. I made this over, you see, with things I had +in the house, bought nothing but the ribbon, and paid for altering and +pressing, and there you see what a stylish hat I have!" + +"Lovely! admirable!" said Miss Featherstone. "Upon my word, Jennie, you +ought to marry a poor parson; you would be quite thrown away upon a rich +man." + +"Let me see," said I. "I want to admire intelligently. That isn't the +hat you were wearing yesterday?" + +"Oh, no, papa! This is just done. The one I wore yesterday was my +waterfall-hat, with the green feather; this, you see, is an oriole." + +"A what?" + +"An oriole. Papa, how can you expect to learn about these things?" + +"And that plain little black one, with the stiff crop of scarlet +feathers sticking straight up?" + +"That's my jockey, papa, with a plume _en militaire_." + +"And did the waterfall and the jockey cost anything?" + +"They were very, very cheap, papa, considering. Miss Featherstone will +remember that the waterfall was a great bargain, and I had the feather +from last year; and as to the jockey, that was made out of my last +year's white one, dyed over. You know, papa, I always take care of my +things, and they last from year to year." + +"I do assure you, Mr. Crowfield," said Miss Featherstone, "I never saw +such little economists as your daughters; it is perfectly wonderful what +they contrive to dress on. How they manage to do it I'm sure I can't +see. I never could, I'm convinced." + +"Yes," said Jennie, "I've bought but just one new hat. I only wish you +could sit in church where we do, and see those Miss Fielders. Marianne +and I have counted six new hats apiece of those girls',--_new_, you +know, just out of the milliner's shop; and last Sunday they came out in +such lovely puffed tulle bonnets! Weren't they lovely, Marianne? And +next Sunday, I don't doubt, there'll be something else." + +"Yes," said Miss Featherstone,--"their father, they say, has made a +million dollars lately on Government contracts." + +"For my part," said Jennie, "I think such extravagance, at such a time +as this, is shameful." + +"Do you know," said I, "that I'm quite sure the Misses Fielder think +they are practising rigorous economy?" + +"Papa! Now there you are with your paradoxes! How can you say so?" + +"I shouldn't be afraid to bet a pair of gloves, now," said I, "that Miss +Fielder thinks herself half ready for translation, because she has +bought only six new hats and a tulle bonnet so far in the season. If it +were not for her dear bleeding country, she would have had thirty-six, +like the Misses Sibthorpe. If we were admitted to the secret councils of +the Fielders, doubtless we should perceive what temptations they daily +resist; how perfectly rubbishy and dreadful they suffer themselves to +be, because they feel it important now, in this crisis, to practise +economy; how they abuse the Sibthorpes, who have a new hat every time +they drive out, and never think of wearing one more than two or three +times; how virtuous and self-denying they feel, when they think of the +puffed tulle, for which they only gave eighteen dollars, when Madame +Caradori showed them those lovely ones, like the Misses Sibthorpe's, for +forty-five; and how they go home descanting on virgin simplicity, and +resolving that they will not allow themselves to be swept into the +vortex of extravagance, whatever other people may do." + +"Do you know," said Miss Featherstone, "I believe your papa is right? I +was calling on the oldest Miss Fielder the other day, and she told me +that she positively felt ashamed to go looking as she did, but that she +really did feel the necessity of economy. 'Perhaps we might afford to +spend more than some others,' she said; 'but it's so much better to give +the money to the Sanitary Commission!'" + +"Furthermore," said I, "I am going to put forth another paradox, and say +that very likely there are some people looking on my girls, and +commenting on them for extravagance in having three hats, even though +made over, and contrived from last year's stock." + +"They can't know anything about it, then," said Jennie, decisively; +"for, certainly, nobody can be decent, and invest less in millinery than +Marianne and I do." + +"When I was a young lady," said my wife, "a well-dressed girl got her a +new bonnet in the spring, and another in the fall;--that was the extent +of her purchases in this line. A second-best bonnet, left of last year, +did duty to relieve and preserve the best one. My father was accounted +well-to-do, but I had no more, and wanted no more. I also, bought +myself, every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and a light pair, and +wore them through the summer, and another two through the winter; one or +two pair of white kids, carefully cleaned, carried me through all my +parties. Hats had not been heard of, and the great necessity which +requires two or three new ones every spring and fall had not arisen. +Yet I was reckoned a well-appearing girl, who dressed liberally. Now, a +young lady who has a waterfall-hat, an oriole-hat, and a jockey, must +still be troubled with anxious cares for her spring and fall and summer +and winter bonnets,--all the variety will not take the place of them. +Gloves are bought by the dozen; and as to dresses, there seems to be no +limit to the quantity of material and trimming that may be expended upon +them. When I was a young lady, seventy-five dollars a year was +considered by careful parents a liberal allowance for a daughter's +wardrobe. I had a hundred, and was reckoned rich; and I sometimes used a +part to make up the deficiencies in the allowance of Sarah Evans, my +particular friend, whose father gave her only fifty. We all thought that +a very scant pattern; yet she generally made a very pretty and genteel +appearance, with the help of occasional presents from friends." + +"How could a girl dress for fifty dollars?" said Marianne. + +"She could get a white muslin and a white cambric, which, with different +sortings of ribbons, served her for all dress-occasions. A silk, in +those days, took only ten yards in the making, and one dark silk was +considered a reasonable allowance to a lady's wardrobe. Once made, it +stood for something,--always worn carefully, it lasted for years. One or +two calico morning-dresses, and a merino for winter wear, completed the +list. Then, as to collars, capes, cuffs, etc., we all did our own +embroidering, and very pretty things we wore, too. Girls looked as +pretty then as they do now, when four or five hundred dollars a year is +insufficient to clothe them." + +"But, mamma, you know our allowance isn't anything like that,--it is +quite a slender one, though not so small as yours was," said Marianne. +"Don't you think the customs of society make a difference? Do you think, +as things are, we could go back and dress for the sum you did?" + +"You cannot," said my wife, "without a greater sacrifice of feeling than +I wish to impose on you. Still, though I don't see how to help it, I +cannot but think that the requirements of fashion are becoming +needlessly extravagant, particularly in regard to the dress of women. It +seems to me, it is making the support of families so burdensome that +young men are discouraged from marriage. A young man, in a moderately +good business, might cheerfully undertake the world with a wife who +could make herself pretty and attractive for seventy-five dollars a +year, when he might sigh in vain for one who positively could not get +through, and be decent, on four hundred. Women, too, are getting to be +so attached to the trappings and accessories of life, that they cannot +think of marriage without an amount of fortune which few young men +possess." + +"You are talking in very low numbers about the dress of women," said +Miss Featherstone. "I do assure you that it is the easiest thing in the +world for a girl to make away with a thousand dollars a year, and not +have so much to show for it either as Marianne and Jennie." + +"To be sure," said I. "Only establish certain formulas of expectation, +and it is the easiest thing in the world. For instance, in your mother's +day girls talked of a pair of gloves,--now they talk of a pack; then it +was a bonnet summer and winter,--now it is a bonnet spring, summer, +autumn, and winter, and hats like monthly roses,--a new blossom every +few weeks." + +"And then," said my wife, "every device of the toilet is immediately +taken up and varied and improved on, so as to impose an almost monthly +necessity for novelty. The jackets of May are outshone by the jackets of +June; the buttons of June are antiquated in July; the trimmings of July +are _passees_ by September; side-combs, back-combs, puffs, rats, and all +sorts of such matters, are in a distracted race of improvement; every +article of feminine toilet is on the move towards perfection. It seems +to me that an infinity of money must be spent in these trifles, by +those who make the least pretension to keep in the fashion." + +"Well, papa," said Jennie, "after all, it's just the way things always +have been since the world began. You know the Bible says, 'Can a maid +forget her ornaments?' It's clear she can't. You see, it's a law of +Nature; and you remember all that long chapter in the Bible that we had +read in church last Sunday, about the curls and veils and tinkling +ornaments and crimping-pins, and all that. Women always have been too +much given to dress, and they always will be." + +"The thing is," said Marianne, "how can any woman, I, for example, know +what is too much or too little? In mamma's day, it seems, a girl could +keep her place in society, by hard economy, and spend only fifty dollars +a year on her dress. Mamma found a hundred dollars ample. I have more +than that, and find myself quite straitened to keep myself looking well. +I don't want to live for dress, to give all my time and thoughts to it; +I don't wish to be extravagant; and yet I wish to be lady-like; it +annoys and makes me unhappy not to be fresh and neat and nice; +shabbiness and seediness are my aversion. I don't see where the fault +is. Can one individual resist the whole current of society? It certainly +is not strictly necessary for us girls to have half the things we do. We +might, I suppose, live without many of them, and, as mamma says, look +just as well, because girls did before these things were invented. Now, +I confess, I flatter myself, generally, that I am a pattern of good +management and economy, because I get so much less than other girls I go +with. I wish you could see Miss Thorne's fall dresses that she showed me +last year when she was visiting here. She had six gowns, and no one of +them could have cost less than seventy or eighty dollars, and some of +them must have been even more expensive; and yet I don't doubt that this +fall she will feel that she must have just as many more. She runs +through and wears out these expensive things, with all their velvet and +thread lace, just as I wear my commonest ones; and at the end of the +season they are really gone,--spotted, stained, frayed, the lace all +pulled to pieces,--nothing left to save or make over. I feel as if +Jennie and I were patterns of economy, when I see such things. I really +don't know what economy is. What is it?" + +"There is the same difficulty in my housekeeping," said my wife. "I +think I am an economist. I mean to be one. All our expenses are on a +modest scale, and yet I can see much that really is not strictly +necessary; but if I compare myself with some of my neighbors, I feel as +if I were hardly respectable. There is no subject on which all the world +are censuring one another so much as this. Hardly any one but thinks her +neighbors extravagant in some one or more particulars, and takes for +granted that she herself is an economist." + +"I'll venture to say," said I, "that there isn't a woman of my +acquaintance that does not think she is an economist." + +"Papa is turned against us women, like all the rest of them," said +Jennie. "I wonder if it isn't just so with the men?" + +"Yes," said Marianne, "it's the fashion to talk as if all the +extravagance of the country was perpetrated by women. For my part, I +think young men are just as extravagant. Look at the sums they spend for +cigars and pipes,--an expense which hasn't even the pretence of +usefulness in any way; it's a purely selfish, nonsensical indulgence. +When a girl spends money in making herself look pretty, she contributes +something to the agreeableness of society; but a man's cigars and pipes +are neither ornamental nor useful." + +"Then look at their dress," said Jennie; "they are to the full as fussy +and particular about it as girls; they have as many fine, invisible +points of fashion, and their fashions change quite as often; and they +have just as many knick-knacks, with their studs and their +sleeve-buttons and waistcoat-buttons, their scarfs and scarf-pins, their +watch-chains and seals and seal-rings, and nobody knows what. Then they +often waste and throw away more than women, because they are not good +judges of material, nor saving in what they buy, and have no knowledge +of how things should be cared for, altered, or mended. If their cap is a +little too tight, they cut the lining with a penknife, or slit holes in +a new shirt-collar, because it does not exactly fit to their mind. For +my part, I think men are naturally twice as wasteful as women. A pretty +thing, to be sure, to have all the waste of the country laid to us!" + +"You are right, child," said I; "women are by nature, as compared with +men, the care-taking and saving part of creation,--the authors and +conservators of economy. As a general rule, man earns and woman saves +and applies. The wastefulness of woman is commonly the fault of man." + +"I don't see into that," said Bob Stephens. + +"In this way. Economy is the science of proportion. Whether a particular +purchase is extravagant depends mainly on the income it is taken from. +Suppose a woman has a hundred and fifty a year for her dress, and gives +fifty dollars for a bonnet; she gives a third of her income;--it is a +horrible extravagance, while for the woman whose income is ten thousand +it may be no extravagance at all. The poor clergyman's wife, when she +gives five dollars for a bonnet, may be giving as much, in proportion to +her income, as the woman who gives fifty. Now the difficulty with the +greater part of women is, that the men who make the money and hold it +give them no kind of standard by which to measure their expenses. Most +women and girls are in this matter entirely at sea, without chart or +compass. They don't know in the least what they have to spend. Husbands +and fathers often pride themselves about not saying a word on +business-matters to their wives and daughters. They don't wish them to +understand them, or to inquire into them, or to make remarks or +suggestions concerning them. 'I want you to have everything that is +suitable and proper,' says Jones to his wife, 'but don't be +extravagant.' + +"'But, my dear,' says Mrs. Jones, 'what is suitable and proper depends +very much on our means; if you could allow me any specific sum for dress +and housekeeping, I could tell better.' + +"'Nonsense, Susan! I can't do that,--it's too much trouble. Get what you +need, and avoid foolish extravagances; that's all I ask.' + +"By-and-by Mrs. Jones's bills are sent in, in an evil hour, when Jones +has heavy notes to meet, and then comes a domestic storm. + +"'I shall just be ruined, Madam, if that's the way you are going on. I +can't afford to dress you and the girls in the style you have set +up;--look at this milliner's bill!' + +"'I assure you,' says Mrs. Jones, 'we haven't got any more than the +Stebbinses,--nor so much.' + +"'Don't you know that the Stebbinses are worth five times as much as +ever I was?' + +"No, Mrs. Jones did not know it;--how should she, when her husband makes +it a rule never to speak of his business to her, and she has not the +remotest idea of his income? + +"Thus multitudes of good conscientious women and girls are extravagant +from pure ignorance. The male provider allows bills to be run up in his +name, and they have no earthly means of judging whether they are +spending too much or too little, except the semi-annual hurricane which +attends the coming in of these bills. + +"The first essential in the practice of economy is a knowledge of one's +income, and the man who refuses to accord to his wife and children this +information has never any right to accuse them of extravagance, because +he himself deprives them of that standard of comparison which is an +indispensable requisite in economy. As early as possible in the +education of children they should pass from that state of irresponsible +waiting to be provided for by parents, and be trusted with the spending +of some fixed allowance, that they may learn prices and values, and have +some notion of what money is actually worth and what it will bring. The +simple fact of the possession of a fixed and definite income often +suddenly transforms a giddy, extravagant girl into a care-taking, +prudent little woman. Her allowance is her own; she begins to plan upon +it,--to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and do numberless sums in her +little head. She no longer buys everything she fancies; she deliberates, +weighs, compares. And now there is room for self-denial and generosity +to come in. She can do without this article; she can furbish up some +older possession to do duty a little longer, and give this money to some +friend poorer than she; and ten to one the girl whose bills last year +were four or five hundred finds herself bringing through this year +creditably on a hundred and fifty. To be sure, she goes without numerous +things which she used to have. From the stand-point of a fixed income +she sees that these are impossible, and no more wants them than the +green cheese of the moon. She learns to make her own taste and skill +take the place of expensive purchases. She refits her hats and bonnets, +retrims her dresses, and in a thousand busy, earnest, happy little ways, +sets herself to make the most of her small income. + +"So the woman who has her definite allowance for housekeeping finds at +once a hundred questions set at rest. Before, it was not clear to her +why she should not 'go and do likewise' in relation to every purchase +made by her next neighbor. Now, there is a clear logic of proportion. +Certain things are evidently not to be thought of, though next neighbors +do have them; and we must resign ourselves to find some other way of +living." + +"My dear," said my wife, "I think there is a peculiar temptation in a +life organized as ours is in America. There are here no settled classes, +with similar ratios of income. Mixed together in the same society, going +to the same parties, and blended in daily neighborly intercourse, are +families of the most opposite extremes in point of fortune. In England +there is a very well understood expression, that people should not dress +or live above their station; in America none will admit that they have +any particular station, or that they can live above it. The principle of +democratic equality unites in society people of the most diverse +positions and means. + +"Here, for instance, is a family like Dr. Selden's, an old and highly +respected one, with an income of only two or three thousand,--yet they +are people universally sought for in society, and mingle in all the +intercourse of life with merchant-millionnaires whose incomes are from +ten to thirty thousand. Their sons and daughters go to the same schools, +the same parties, and are thus constantly meeting upon terms of social +equality. + +"Now it seems to me that our danger does not lie in the great and +evident expenses of our richer friends. We do not expect to have +pineries, graperies, equipages, horses, diamonds,--we say openly and of +course that we do not. Still, our expenses are constantly increased by +the proximity of these things, unless we understand ourselves better +than most people do. We don't, of course, expect to get a +fifteen-hundred-dollar Cashmere, like Mrs. So-and-so, but we begin to +look at hundred-dollar shawls and nibble about the hook. We don't expect +sets of diamonds, but a diamond ring, a pair of solitaire diamond +ear-rings, begins to be speculated about among the young people as among +possibilities. We don't expect to carpet our house with Axminster and +hang our windows with damask, but at least we must have Brussels and +brocatelle,--it _would not do_ not to. And so we go on getting hundreds +of things that we don't need, that have no real value except that they +soothe our self-love,--and for these inferior articles we pay a higher +proportion of our income than our rich neighbor does for his better +ones. Nothing is uglier than low-priced Cashmere shawls; and yet a young +man just entering business will spend an eighth of a year's income to +put one on his wife, and when he has put it there it only serves as a +constant source of disquiet,--for now that the door is opened, and +Cashmere shawls are possible, she is consumed with envy at the superior +ones constantly sported around her. So also with point-lace, velvet +dresses, and hundreds of things of that sort, which belong to a certain +rate of income, and are absurd below it." + +"And yet, mamma, I heard Aunt Easygo say that velvet, point-lace, and +Cashmere were the cheapest finery that could be bought, because they +lasted a lifetime." + +"Aunt Easygo speaks from an income of ten thousand a year; they may be +cheap for her rate of living,--but for us, for example, by no magic of +numbers can it be made to appear that it is cheaper to have the greatest +bargain in the world in Cashmere, lace, and diamonds, than not to have +them at all. I never had a diamond, never wore a piece of point-lace, +never had a velvet dress, and have been perfectly happy, and just as +much respected as if I had. Who ever thought of objecting to me for not +having them? Nobody, as I ever heard." + +"Certainly not, mamma," said Marianne. + +"The thing I have always said to you girls is, that you were not to +expect to live like richer people, not to begin to try, not to think or +inquire about certain rates of expenditure, or take the first step in +certain directions. We have moved on all our life after a very +antiquated and old-fashioned mode. We have had our little old-fashioned +house, our little old-fashioned ways." + +"Except the parlor-carpet, and what came of it, my dear," said I, +mischievously. + +"Yes, except the parlor-carpet," said my wife, with a conscious twinkle, +"and the things that came of it; there was a concession there, but one +can't be wise always." + +"_We_ talked mamma into that," said Jennie. + +"But one thing is certain," said my wife,--"that, though I have had an +antiquated, plain house, and plain furniture, and plain dress, and not +the beginning of a thing such as many of my neighbors have possessed, I +have spent more money than many of them for real comforts. While I had +young children, I kept more and better servants than many women who wore +Cashmeres and diamonds. I thought it better to pay extra wages to a +really good, trusty woman who lived with me from year to year, and +relieved me of some of my heaviest family-cares, than to have ever so +much lace locked away in my drawers. We always were able to go into the +country to spend our summers, and to keep a good family-horse and +carriage for daily driving,--by which means we afforded, as a family, +very poor patronage to the medical profession. Then we built our house, +and while we left out a great many expensive commonplaces that other +people think they must have, we put in a profusion of +bathing-accommodations such as very few people think of having. There +never was a time when we did not feel able to afford to do what was +necessary to preserve or to restore health; and for this I always drew +on the surplus fund laid up by my very unfashionable housekeeping and +dressing." + +"Your mother has had," said I, "what is the great want in America, +perfect independence of mind to go her own way without regard to the way +others go. I think there is, for some reason, more false shame among +Americans about economy than among Europeans. 'I cannot afford it' is +more seldom heard among us. A young man beginning life, whose income may +be from five to eight hundred a year, thinks it elegant and gallant to +affect a careless air about money, especially among ladies,--to hand it +out freely, and put back his change without counting it,--to wear a +watch-chain and studs and shirt-fronts like those of some young +millionnaire. None but the most expensive tailors, shoemakers, and +hatters will do for him; and then he grumbles at the dearness of living, +and declares that he cannot get along on his salary. The same is true of +young girls, and of married men and women too,--the whole of them are +ashamed of economy. The cares that wear out life and health in many +households are of a nature that cannot be cast on God, or met by any +promise from the Bible,--it is not care for 'food convenient,' or for +comfortable raiment, but care to keep up false appearances, and to +stretch a narrow income over the space that can be covered only by a +wider one. + +"The poor widow in her narrow lodgings, with her monthly rent staring +her hourly in the face, and her bread and meat and candles and meal all +to be paid for on delivery or not obtained at all, may find comfort in +the good old Book, reading of that other widow whose wasting measure of +oil and last failing handful of meal were of such account before her +Father in heaven that a prophet was sent to recruit them; and when +customers do not pay, or wages are cut down, she can enter into her +chamber, and when she hath shut her door, present to her Father in +heaven His sure promise that with the fowls of the air she shall be fed +and with the lilies of the field she shall be clothed: but what promises +are there for her who is racking her brains on the ways and means to +provide as sumptuous an entertainment of oysters and Champagne at her +next party as her richer neighbor, or to compass that great bargain +which shall give her a point-lace set almost as handsome as that of Mrs. +Croesus, who has ten times her income?" + +"But, papa," said Marianne, with a twinge of that exacting sensitiveness +by which the child is characterized, "I think I am an economist, thanks +to you and mamma, so far as knowing just what my income is, and keeping +within it; but that does not satisfy me, and it seems that isn't all of +economy;--the question that haunts me is, Might I not make my little all +do more and better than I do?" + +"There," said I, "you have hit the broader and deeper signification of +economy, which is, in fact, the science of _comparative values._ In its +highest sense, economy is a just judgment of the comparative value of +things,--money only the means of enabling one to express that value. +This is the reason why the whole matter is so full of difficulty,--why +every one criticizes his neighbor in this regard. Human beings are so +various, the necessities of each are so different, they are made +comfortable or uncomfortable by such opposite means, that the spending +of other people's incomes must of necessity often look unwise from our +stand-point. For this reason multitudes of people who cannot be accused +of exceeding their incomes often seem to others to be spending them +foolishly and extravagantly." + +"But is there no standard of value?" said Marianne. + +"There are certain things upon which there is a pretty general +agreement, verbally at least, among mankind. For instance, it is +generally agreed that _health_ is an indispensable good,--that money is +well spent that secures it, and worse than ill spent that ruins it. + +"With this standard in mind, how much money is wasted even by people who +do not exceed their income! Here a man builds a house, and pays, in the +first place, ten thousand more than he need, for a location in a +fashionable part of the city, though the air will be closer and the +chances of health less; he spends three or four thousand more on a stone +front, on marble mantels imported from Italy, on plate-glass windows, +plated hinges, and a thousand nice points of finish, and has perhaps but +one bathroom for a whole household, and that so connected with his own +apartment that nobody but himself and his wife can use it. + +"Another man buys a lot in an open, airy situation, which fashion has +not made expensive, and builds without a stone front, marble mantels, +or plate-glass windows, but has a perfect system of ventilation through +his house, and bathing-rooms in every story, so that the children and +guests may all, without inconvenience, enjoy the luxury of abundant +water. + +"The first spends for fashion and show, the second for health and +comfort. + +"Here is a man that will buy his wife a diamond bracelet and a lace +shawl, and take her yearly to Washington to show off her beauty in +ball-dresses, who yet will not let her pay wages which will command any +but the poorest and most inefficient domestic service. The woman is worn +out, her life made a desert by exhaustion consequent on a futile attempt +to keep up a showy establishment with only half the hands needed for the +purpose. Another family will give brilliant parties, have a gay season +every year at the first hotels at Newport, and not be able to afford the +wife a fire in her chamber in midwinter, or the servants enough food to +keep them from constantly deserting. The damp, mouldy, dingy +cellar-kitchen, the cold, windy, desolate attic, devoid of any comfort, +where the domestics are doomed to pass their whole time, are witnesses +to what such families consider economy. Economy in the view of some is +undisguised slipshod slovenliness in the home-circle for the sake of +fine clothes to be shown abroad; it is undisguised hard selfishness to +servants and dependents, counting their every approach to comfort a +needless waste,--grudging the Roman-Catholic cook her cup of tea at +dinner on Friday, when she must not eat meat,--and murmuring that a +cracked, second-hand looking-glass must be got for the servants' room: +what business have they to want to know how they look? + +"Some families will employ the cheapest physician, without regard to his +ability to kill or cure; some will treat diseases in their incipiency +with quack medicines, bought cheap, hoping thereby to fend off the +doctor's bill. Some women seem to be pursued by an evil demon of +economy, which, like an _ignis fatuus_ in a bog, delights constantly to +tumble them over into the mire of expense. They are dismayed at the +quantity of sugar in the recipe for preserves, leave out a quarter, and +the whole ferments and is spoiled. They cannot by any means be induced +at any one time to buy enough silk to make a dress, and the dress +finally, after many convulsions and alterations, must be thrown by +altogether, as too scanty. They get poor needles, poor thread, poor +sugar, poor raisins, poor tea, poor coal. One wonders, in looking at +their blackened, smouldering grates, in a freezing day, what the fire is +there at all for,--it certainly warms nobody. The only thing they seem +likely to be lavish in is funeral expenses, which come in the wake of +leaky shoes and imperfect clothing. These funeral expenses at last +swallow all, since nobody can dispute an undertaker's bill. One pities +these joyless beings. Economy, instead of a rational act of the +judgment, is a morbid monomania, eating the pleasure out of life, and +haunting them to the grave. + +"Some people, again, think that nothing is economical but good eating. +Their flour is of an extra brand, their meat the first cut; the +delicacies of every season, in their dearest stages, come home to their +table with an apologetic smile,--'It was scandalously dear, my love, but +I thought we must just treat ourselves.' And yet these people cannot +afford to buy books, and pictures they regard as an unthought-of +extravagance. Trudging home with fifty dollars' worth of delicacies on +his arm, Smith meets Jones, who is exulting with a bag of crackers under +one arm and a choice little bit of an oil painting under the other, +which he thinks a bargain at fifty dollars. '_I_ can't afford to buy +pictures,' Smith says to his spouse, 'and I don't know bow Jones and his +wife manage.' Jones and his wife will live on bread and milk for a +month, and she will turn her best gown the third time, but they will +have their picture, and they are happy, Jones's picture remains, and +Smith's fifty dollars' worth of oysters and canned fruit to-morrow will +be gone forever. Of all modes of spending money, the swallowing of +expensive dainties brings the least return. There is one step lower than +this,--the consuming of luxuries that are injurious to the health. If +all the money spent on tobacco and liquors could be spent in books and +pictures, I predict that nobody's health would be a whit less sound, and +houses would be vastly more attractive. There is enough money spent in +smoking, drinking, and over-eating to give every family in the community +a good library, to hang everybody's parlor-walls with lovely pictures, +to set up in every house a conservatory which should bloom all winter +with choice flowers, to furnish every dwelling with ample bathing and +warming accommodations, even down to the dwellings of the poor; and in +the Millennium I believe this is the way things are to be. + +"In these times of peril and suffering, if the inquiry arises, How shall +there be retrenchment? I answer, First and foremost retrench things +needless, doubtful, and positively hurtful, as rum, tobacco, and all the +meerschaums of divers colors that do accompany the same. Second, +retrench all eating not necessary to health and comfort. A French family +would live in luxury on the leavings that are constantly coming from the +tables of those who call themselves in middling circumstances. There are +superstitions of the table that ought to be broken through. Why must you +always have cake in your closet? why need you feel undone to entertain a +guest with no cake on your tea-table? Do without it a year, and ask +yourselves if you or your children, or any one else, have suffered +materially in consequence. + +"Why is it imperative that you should have two or three courses at every +meal? Try the experiment of having but one, and that a very good one, +and see if any great amount of suffering ensues. Why must social +intercourse so largely consist in eating? In Paris there is a very +pretty custom. Each family has one evening in the week when it stays at +home and receives friends. Tea, with a little bread and butter and cake, +served in the most informal way, is the only refreshment. The rooms are +full, busy, bright,--everything as easy and joyous as if a monstrous +supper, with piles of jelly and mountains of cake, were waiting to give +the company a nightmare at the close. + +"Said a lady, pointing to a gentleman and his wife in a social circle of +this kind, 'I ought to know them well,--I have seen, them every week for +twenty years.' It is certainly pleasant and confirmative of social +enjoyment for friends to eat together; but a little enjoyed in this way +answers the purpose as well as a great deal, and better too." + +"Well, papa," said Marianne, "in the matter of dress now,--how much +ought one to spend just to look as others do?" + +"I will tell you what I saw the other night, girls, in the parlor of one +of our hotels. Two middle-aged Quaker ladies came gliding in, with calm, +cheerful faces, and lustrous dove-colored silks. By their conversation I +found that they belonged to that class of women among the Friends who +devote themselves to travelling on missions of benevolence. They had +just completed a tour of all the hospitals for wounded soldiers in the +country, where they had been carrying comforts, arranging, advising, and +soothing by their cheerful, gentle presence. They were now engaged on +another mission, to the lost and erring of their own sex; night after +night, guarded by a policeman, they had ventured after midnight into the +dance-houses where girls are being led to ruin, and with gentle words of +tender, motherly counsel sought to win them from their fatal +ways,--telling them where they might go the next day to find friends who +would open to them an asylum and aid them to seek a better life. + +"As I looked upon these women, dressed with such modest purity, I began +secretly to think that the Apostle was not wrong, when he spoke of women +adorning themselves with the _ornament_ of a meek and quiet spirit; for +the habitual gentleness of their expression, the calmness and purity of +the lines in their faces, the delicacy and simplicity of their apparel, +seemed of themselves a rare and peculiar beauty. I could not help +thinking that fashionable bonnets, flowing lace sleeves, and dresses +elaborately trimmed could not have improved even their outward +appearance. Doubtless, their simple wardrobe needed but a small trunk in +travelling from place to place, and hindered but little their prayers +and ministrations. + +"Now, it is true, all women are not called to such a life as this; but +might not all women take a leaf at least from their book? I submit the +inquiry humbly. It seems to me that there are many who go monthly to the +sacrament, and receive it with sincere devotion, and who give thanks +each time sincerely that they are thus made 'members incorporate in the +mystical body of Christ,' who have never thought of this membership as +meaning that they should share Christ's sacrifices for lost souls, or +abridge themselves of one ornament or encounter one inconvenience for +the sake of those wandering sheep for whom he died. Certainly there is a +higher economy which we need to learn,--that which makes all things +subservient to the spiritual and immortal, and that not merely to the +good of our own souls and those of our family, but of all who are knit +with us in the great bonds of human brotherhood. + +"The Sisters of Charity and the Friends, each with their different +costume of plainness and self-denial, and other noble-hearted women of +no particular outward order, but kindred in spirit, have shown to +womanhood, on the battle-field and in the hospital, a more excellent +way,--a beauty and nobility before which all the common graces and +ornaments of the sex fade, appear like dim candles by the pure, eternal +stars." + + * * * * * + +THE HEART OF THE WAR. + + + Peace in the clover-scented air, + And stars within the dome; + And underneath, in dim repose, + A plain, New-England home. + Within, a murmur of low tones + And sighs from hearts oppressed, + Merging in prayer, at last, that brings + The balm of silent rest. + + * * * * * + + I've closed a hard day's work, Marty,-- + The evening chores are done; + And you are weary with the house, + And with the little one. + But he is sleeping sweetly now, + With all our pretty brood; + So come and sit upon my knee, + And it will do me good. + + Oh, Marty! I must tell you all + The trouble in my heart, + And you mast do the best you can + To take and bear your part. + You've seen the shadow on my face, + You've felt it day and night; + For it has filled our little home, + And banished all its light. + + I did not mean it should be so, + And yet I might have known + That hearts that live as close as ours + Can never keep their own. + But we are fallen on evil times, + And, do whate'er I may, + My heart grows sad about the war, + And sadder every day. + + I think about it when I work, + And when I try to rest, + And never more than when your head + Is pillowed on my breast; + For then I see the camp-fires blaze, + And sleeping men around, + Who turn their faces toward their homes, + And dream upon the ground. + + I think about the dear, brave boys, + My mates in other years, + Who pine for home and those they love, + Till I am choked with tears. + With shouts and cheers they marched away + On glory's shining track, + But, ah! how long, how long they stay! + How few of them come back! + + One sleeps beside the Tennessee, + And one beside the James, + And one fought on a gallant ship + And perished in its flames. + And some, struck down by fell disease, + Are breathing out their life; + And others, maimed by cruel wounds, + Have left the deadly strife. + + Ah, Marty! Marty! only think + Of all the boys have done + And suffered in this weary war! + Brave heroes, every one! + Oh! often, often in the night, + I hear their voices call: + "_Come on and help us! Is it right_ + _That we should bear it all_?" + + And when I kneel and try to pray, + My thoughts are never free, + But cling to those who toil and fight + And die for you and me. + And when I pray for victory, + It seems almost a sin + To fold my hands and ask for what + I will not help to win. + + Oh! do not cling to me and cry, + For it will break my heart; + I'm sure you'd rather have me die + Than not to bear my part. + You think that some should stay at home + To care for those away; + But still I'm helpless to decide + If I should go or stay. + + For, Marty, all the soldiers love, + And all are loved again; + And I am loved, and love, perhaps, + No more than other men. + I cannot tell--I do not know-- + Which way my duty lies, + Or where the Lord would have me build + My fire of sacrifice. + + I feel--I know--I am not mean; + And though I seem to boast, + I'm sure that I would give my life + To those who need it most + Perhaps the Spirit will reveal + That which is fair and right; + So, Marty, let us humbly kneel + And pray to Heaven for light. + + * * * * * + + Peace in the clover-scented air, + And stars within the dome; + And underneath, in dim repose, + A plain, New-England home. + Within, a widow in her weeds, + From whom all joy is flown, + Who kneels among her sleeping babes, + And weeps and prays alone! + + * * * * * + +OUR RECENT FOREIGN RELATIONS. + + +The founders of the American Republic were wise alike in their grasp of +temporary difficulties and in the forethought they bestowed upon the +period of construction which was to come. Before a government was +formed, its necessary elements had attained something of order, much of +efficacy. In the very inception of revolution, the beginning was made of +that elaborate diplomatic system which became the medium by which we +have asserted rights, elicited respect, and received amenities from the +great powers of the earth. + +In the early days of our Revolution, the conduct of the foreign +correspondence was intrusted to the care of a Committee, composed of men +of established reputation for capacity and patriotism. Through their +labors, not only did we receive substantial sympathy from those +unselfish men in the mother-country who discountenanced the hateful +oppression of the crown: France, guided by the generous Vergennes, was +also attracted to our active defence; the independent spirit of the Low +Countries cheered and helped us; Tuscany, inheriting the sentiment of +liberty from Dante and Macchiavelli, extended loans with a liberal hand; +Spain and Portugal rose superior to their traditional bigotry, and sent +us money, ships, and stores. So efficient was our infant system of +diplomacy, that, long before the war had ended, England stood absolutely +without the countenance of a single Continental power, and confronted +boldly by her most ancient and most dreaded enemy. Proudly as she +entered into the conflict with her colonies, she became humbled as well +by the skill with which they attracted monarchies and empires to their +aid as by the valor with which they met her armies. It is hardly to be +doubted that our final success is to be in a great degree attributed to +the excellent diplomacy of Franklin, Lee, and Izard. Certain it is that +their labors vastly accelerated that success. How gigantic those labors +must have been, to bring the representatives and supporters of mediaeval +systems of state-craft to countenance not only rebellion, but the +sentiment of republican liberty which rebellion matured, and which +successful revolution was to lay at the foundation of a new government! + +The Confederation, established for the more easy transition to a +permanent system, included almost as its corner-stone a Department of +Foreign Affairs. The duties of the Secretary were confined to the +performance of the specific acts authorized by Congress, at that time at +once the executive and the legislative power,--and consisted chiefly in +the preservation of the papers and records of the office, and conducting +the correspondence with ministers and agents abroad; he had likewise a +seat, but without a vote, in Congress, to give information and answer +inquiries. He was powerless to perform any executive act; he could not +negotiate a treaty; he could not give positive instructions to +ministers; and he was removable at the pleasure of Congress. Under the +Constitution, the duties of the Secretary of State became more +responsible; and the office was recognized as the highest in dignity, +next to the Executive. + +We may attribute our present rank among nations in no little degree to +the conspicuous fitness of our envoys at foreign courts for the peculiar +mission which it was their duty to fulfil, in the first quarter of a +century of our national existence. As soon as the British ministry +recognized the nationality of the United States, it was clear, that, on +the new footing, our relations with the mother-country must of necessity +be more intimate than those with any other nation. To pave the way for +the establishment of such an intercourse, no man could have been more +aptly chosen than John Adams. While his high-toned manners opened the +way to favor, his nervous logic followed up the advantage so gracefully +won, and drove home his purpose to its end. Franklin was equally +felicitous in attaching to himself the good-will of the court of +Versailles. Their successors well sustained the respect which they had +inspired; and it was a matter of surprise among the best educated +Europeans that such cultivated and capable men should proceed from a +country which they had thought to be a wilderness, and from a people of +whom they expected only the most flagrant barbarisms. + +That the elevated standard thus set up by our early diplomacy has been +preserved with but little exception is a simple matter of history. We +have been almost uniformly fortunate in the choice of our ministers +abroad, especially those to Great Britain. It is rightly regarded as a +distinction hardly inferior to any in the State, to occupy the post of +Plenipotentiary to St. James's or Versailles,--and this no less because +the incumbent has generally been one of our most honored statesmen than +because of the essential dignity and importance of the office. + +If we consider, in connection with this fact, the persistency with which +the Government has asserted the rights of an equal power, the promptness +with which it has resented every indignity offered to our flag, and the +vigor with which it has enforced in our favor the principles of +international law, it can be no matter of surprise that we should stand, +as we assuredly have stood, second to none in the estimate of our +physical and moral power. + +Starting on a totally new system,--a system which, if successful, would +disprove the universally received dogmas of the political philosophers +of Europe,--running counter to every prejudice and every conclusion of +the Old-World statesmen,--the United States had to work their way +through difficulties innumerable to their present rank, and were forced +to prove their institutions by experience, before they could assume the +dignity of a first-class power. + +When the present Rebellion arose, America had thus far proved the +success of democratic institutions. In military and naval power, in +education, in the administration of justice, in commercial thrift, in +mechanical and agricultural enterprise, in the development of the +national resources, the progress had been steady and rapid. The +politicians of Europe had been amazed to find that their unanimous +prediction of the frailty of our political system had totally failed. +The idea of a political centre combined with separate State +organizations was as firmly fixed as ever. The General Government +wielded an undiminished power in aid of the general good; the local +Legislatures controlled, within the original limits, local interests. +The people had suffered no curtailment of their liberties from the +delegation of political power; the executive had not been weakened +either by the accession of new States or the disaffection of old ones. +The most philosophic of the English statesmen had predicted again and +again that one of these alternatives must occur,--but they had begun to +doubt their own theories, and wellnigh confessed that our institutions +were a success. It was difficult for them to conceive that an entirely +novel frame of government, deriving its genius from an idea, and +regardless of precedent, could live to shame a system which had received +the sanction of centuries of success, which was seemingly Providential +in its stability, which had everywhere superseded every other form, +which had absorbed into itself the elements of all other systems. Our +Government was an anomaly; as such, there were ten chances to one +against it. And now, the Englishman who, above all others, is, on both +sides of the Atlantic, regarded as the ablest of modern political +theorists, has in a series of papers triumphantly vindicated the wisdom +of the founders of this Republic, and placed in the clearest logical +sequence the origin and tendency of our institutions. Every American +feels gratitude and reverence toward John Stuart Mill, who, in the +disinterestedness and courage of a great mind, has led the honest +opinion of England to appreciate at its value the system in which our +reason and our feelings are alike bound up. + +The confident belief, that an unusual strain on the supposed weak points +of the Federal Constitution would involve it in the fate of the Cromwell +dynasty and the French Revolution had begun to sleep, at the time of the +Secession movement, and but one ray of hope yet remained to the enemies +of republican government. They watched Slavery with an anxious eye. +There was their only chance. In that they saw the apple of discord which +might destroy our Union. They observed with exultation the increasing +influence of those who warred upon slavery in the North, and the +increasing insolence of those who would nationalize it in the South. On +this ground State and Federal authority must, they thought, come in +conflict. And as far as foresight could avail them, they had some reason +to be encouraged. That question has always been, without doubt, our +greatest, almost our only danger. + +There is reason to believe, then, that, when the Rebellion broke out, +the theorists of Europe deemed the test to have come, and that the final +success or failure of the Federal Constitution was staked on the result. +The people of the United States have been willing to accept that issue. +We have been ready to test the doctrines of Democracy by the +practicability of maintaining the Union, and to demonstrate, that, if +need be, the General Government may receive at the hands of the people +greater strength without endangering either their liberties or the order +of law. + +The diplomatic correspondence between the State Department and our +ministers to foreign powers during the present contest is contained in +two large volumes, published by the Government, which are full of +valuable matter. In the limited space permitted us, but little more than +a general survey of this correspondence can be attempted; and as our +relations with England far exceed all others in closeness and +interest,--a striking proof of which is found in the fact that the room +occupied in these volumes by communications with that country is greater +than that given to all the world besides,--we mainly confine ourselves +to the portion which regards her. + +England stands in the somewhat anomalous attitude of being to us the +champion of the old monarchical principle, and to Europe the champion of +Anglo-Saxon progress; so that the _dicta_ of her thinkers (those who +have opposed our Republic) may be regarded as the best thought of the +most enlightened monarchists in the world. As the ministry are obliged, +however unwillingly, to represent as well the popular as the +aristocratic ideas, through them there comes to us a pretty correct +exposition of the different opinions entertained by all classes. We may +regard two facts as well established, one leading out of the +other,--that England has ever been, and is, the most selfish of +nationalities, and that she does not desire the prosperity of any power +which may become a rival. With her politicians and her philosophers, +Tory and Whig, Churchmen and Dissenters, the ascendancy of Great Britain +has lain at the bottom of every policy, and has been the postulate of +every theory. Her history is that of a nationality eager to attain the +distinction of the first of powers. This fact, and this alone, can +reconcile the apparent inconsistencies of her record. At one time the +bold accuser of Despotism, she has with marvellous celerity turned to +the inthralment of oppressed races. Maxim has superseded maxim, until +her code of international law is a bewildering complication of anomaly +and contradiction. To humble her rivals by every means, and to encourage +the efforts of a people striving for freedom only when decided advantage +would accrue to herself, has been her constant policy. This is true of +the general tone of her successive cabinets, of the press, and of those +politicians who have by comfortable doctrines most successfully gained +the public ear. + +The classes who look at questions of policy with an eye to expediency +are, the leading statesmen of both parties, who regard as the proper end +of their labors the interests of Great Britain, and the +business-community, who judge of every political event by the manner in +which it affects their pockets. There are two other classes, who take a +higher view,--those who are conservative and fearful of innovation, and +those who believe in the progressive tendency of the Anglo-Saxon. Within +the last quarter of a century, the public opinion of England has been +undergoing a great change, especially that part of it which is +influenced by the lower-middle class. The people have been growing up to +the adoption of liberal principles of government. The Reform Bill of +1832 was a great stride in that direction; and the measures which have +followed upon it have widened the observation of the masses, made the +sense of political wrong quicker, and the appreciation of a free system +much more vivid. As a natural result, the attention of this class has +been drawn toward America, as the exponent of a government before which +all men are equal,--and so it is, that, as the Rebellion goes on, we +receive weekly evidence that the sober, honest thought of English +opinion is with us of the North. The class to which we refer, if it is +not now, will very shortly be, the governing element. The tendency is +irresistibly that way; the signs of its growing power are daily more and +more manifest. That it should be deeply interested in the perpetuity of +American institutions, as affecting its own position, is natural. In the +failure of man's self-governing capacity here, where every circumstance +has been favorable to its exercise, the rising spirit of a broader +liberty in England must foresee the death-blow to its own hopes. Our +failure will not be fatal to us alone; it will involve the fate of the +millions who are now seeking to plant themselves against the tremendous +force of kingly and patrician prestige. They have hitherto derived from +our example all the inspiration with which they have struggled upward. +They have been able to accomplish, step by step, important alterations +in the unwritten constitution, by the apt comparisons their leaders have +been able to make between American and British civilization. So that, in +considering the forces at work to influence those at the head of +affairs, it is necessary to consider that force which is imperceptibly, +but subtly, brought to bear upon them by the working-class. Mr. Beecher, +and other eminent Americans who have lately visited England, tell us +that this class are almost to a man sympathizers with us; and that this +sympathy has in many cases worked favorably to us cannot be doubted. +Even the operatives and manufacturers of Manchester and Leeds, at first, +a little morose because of the effect of the war on their industry, seem +to have come to a better second-thought, and are now outspoken for the +North. + +The different elements of English feeling toward us may be, we think, +stated thus. The aristocracy would view with complacency the disruption +of the Union, because we are a rival power, and they are thoroughly +pledged to British aggrandizement; because the success of the Union +would belie the principle whence they derive their prerogative, and +encourage the opposing element of popular rights to greater exertions +for ascendancy; because hatred of democracy is a sentiment inherited, as +well as a principle of self-preservation; and because they have not +forgotten the former dependence of America on England. The ministry feel +toward us as the servants of a jealous power would naturally feel toward +a rival. The theorists are eager for events to crown them with the +flattery of verified prediction. The commercial classes are ill pleased +that their thrift should be curtailed; the manufacturers grumble about +the scarcity of cotton. The timid minds of some honest thinkers did not +see the real issue, until the regular developments of the war satisfied +them; the lower orders had to be told before they could comprehend that +in our destiny they must read the counterpart of their own. Those +pretentious philanthropists who have assumed to direct the anti-slavery +party in England have mostly espoused the Southern side of the quarrel; +thus demonstrating that their moral scruples have no higher source than +their own political advantage, and no more lofty end than to divide and +distract a sister-nation. Of these we may instance the most conspicuous +of all, Lord Brougham,--who, after having for half a century derived all +the benefit he could from the striking and pathetic points in slavery to +vivify his eloquence, turns the bitter vial of his dotage against those +who stake everything upon its extinction. But everybody knows that Lord +Brougham is a type of those statesmen who stand by the people in the +Commons and grind the people in the Lords; who, after crying down public +wrongs, upon finding the responsibility of a coronet on their shoulders, +suddenly become arrant sticklers for hereditary rights. We are amused to +notice, among those peers who have risen above the selfishness by which +they are surrounded, and have given us a well-timed sympathy, but few +who are of new creations: for the Duke of Argyle and the Earls of +Carlisle and Clarendon are descendants of the oldest and proudest houses +in the realm. + +It is gratifying to observe that those forces which are operating +against us are those which are rapidly losing that control in public +affairs which belonged to past phases of society; while those forces +which are proper to the present, and are inevitably to assume the +preponderance in the future, appear as they develop to be more and more +sympathetic with the cause of our national integrity. Aristocratic +prestige is shrinking back before an advancing enlightenment which +elevates all to equal dignity. + +The present ministry is a fair type of the selfishness of British +statesmanship. The antecedents of its principal members are those of +timeserving politicians. Lord Palmerston, starting on his career as a +Tory of the Wellington stamp, has veered round as the tide has turned +against his former associates, and is the still distrusted +representative of the Liberal party. Lord Russell, in the youth of his +public service a Radical reformer, and the eager disciple of Sir Francis +Burdett when Sir Francis Burdett could not lead a corporal's guard, once +the prop and hope of those who sought a wider suffrage, has again and +again eaten his own words, and the history of his political life is a +ludicrous illustration of the perplexities of politicians. His +invariable course as a diplomatist has been to leave the way open to +prevarication, to keep his opinions in a cloud, and to confound sense +with ambiguity. It would be pure credulity to place much confidence in +the expressions of a statesman who within two months boldly censured and +then as boldly favored the designs of Victor Emmanuel on Venice, +officially and unblushingly before all Europe. Both these noble lords, +however, are fortunate in a keen appreciation of the national +prejudices, and know how to make use of the existing tone of public +feeling. A long vicissitude of successes and failures has taught both a +lesson which is every day a practical benefit; and after finding that +they were powerless when mutually opposed, they have succeeded in +swallowing the hatred of half a century, that they may join and divide +the power. The fact that there has been for some time a Tory majority in +the House of Commons shows the cunning with which Palmerston +manoeuvres his machinery. If we could conclude at all from his acts +what his sentiments are toward America, there is little love wasted on +us from that quarter; and Lord Russell, even while addressing the House +of Lords in terms favorable to us, never lets the occasion pass without +slipping in a sneer between his praises. + +Selfishness, national or individual, is ever cautious and ever +suspicious. It seldom rashly grasps the thing coveted: it oftener lets +the apt occasion pass without improvement. The diplomatic intercourse +between Lord Palmerston's government and our own for the last year or +two amply illustrates this. He had in the first place no prepossession +in favor of the United States. We believe that he was not at all +unwilling to see the Union dissolved. It was natural for a statesman +hardened by fifty years of intrigue and devotion to politics to look +with absolute gratification upon what seemed the dissolution of a great, +and, because a near, a hated rival. We do not think it too much to +assume, that, as far as Palmerston's personal feelings were concerned, +he was ready for the chance of Southern recognition at the outset. In +such a sentiment, he had the sympathy of the aristocracy, and of all +others who take the low standard of self-aggrandizement in determining +opinions. Two circumstances, however, were a restraint upon him, and +appealed with controlling force to his caution. He was not only an +aristocrat and a hater of republics, he was also the Prime-Minister of +_all_ England. He was absolutely dependent to a great degree upon the +lower orders for the permanence of his present dignity. Was it wise in +him to disregard the sentiments of those who were advancing to the +predominance, and resort for support to those whose power was rapidly +waning, whose opinions were yielding to the newer intelligence? Would it +not be fatally inconsistent in a Liberal statesman to override every +Liberal maxim and belie every Liberal profession? Was not the popular +current too strong to be safely defied? There were Liberal statesmen +enough of conspicuous merit to take his place at the helm, should he +make the misstep: Gladstone, Gibson, Herbert, Granville, would fully +answer the popular demand: his downfall, if it came, would doubtless be +final. His private feelings, therefore, even his political wishes, must +yield to policy. His love of place is too strong to succumb either to +personal prejudice or national jealousy; and the long habit has made the +self-denial more easy. + +The other reason why Lord Palmerston has withheld open comfort from the +Rebels is doubtless to be found in the steady adherence of our +Government to the position which it assumed at the beginning,--in the +promptness with which we have insisted upon our rights throughout the +world,--the grace with which we have disavowed the evident errors of +public servants,--the steadiness of our military progress,--the ease +with which we have borne the strain upon our resources in respect both +of men and money,--the possible, if not probable, success of the +war,--the certainty that that success would strengthen our system, and +render us capable of resenting foreign insult. For while Lord Palmerston +and Lord Russell are very apt to stalk about and threaten and talk very +loudly at nations whose weakness causes them not to be feared, and by +bullying whom some power or money may slide into British hands, they are +slow to provoke nations whose resentment either is or may become +formidable to British weal. The British lion roars over the impotence of +Brazil: he lies still and watches before the might of Napoleon. In the +one case he stands forth the lordly king of beasts; in the other he +seems metamorphosed into the fox. The hope that America would descend +incontinently to the rank of an inferior power was quickly dispelled; so +the lion crouched and the foxy head appeared. The everlasting caution +came in and said,--"Wait your chance; a hasty judgment is always a poor +judgment; let events take their course, and if occasion offers, strike +the right blow at the right time; but do not decree away the stability +of the Union either by the illusion of hope or by an expectation as yet +ill-founded." It was the wisdom of the serpent, eager, and conquering +eagerness. + +Under the cloak of a pretended neutrality, the ministry have had +opportunity to watch the course of events, to connive at aid to the +Rebellion, and to leave themselves unembarrassed when the success of +one side or the other should make it expedient to declare in its favor. +It has been with the greatest difficulty that Mr. Adams has been able to +bring the Foreign Office to exert its authority against violations of +that neutrality. Vessels, known well enough to be in the service of the +Confederates, or intended for their use, have been allowed to escape +from the Clyde, and to put into British ports to refit. Frequent +conflicts on questions of international law have arisen, in which our +Government has invariably insisted upon the known precedents set by +Great Britain, and which that power has generally deemed it prudent to +follow. In the case of the Trent, if we lost the possession of two +valuable prisoners of war, we at all events, by promptly disavowing the +act of Commodore Wilkes, set England an example of fairness which she +has been loath to follow, but which it would have been folly totally to +disregard. Yet it has been apparent that the British ministers have +borne us no good-will. Whatever justice has been done us has been done +grudgingly,--with the moroseness of an enemy who is compelled to yield. +While Lord Russell has been cautious how he offended our Government in +acts, his repeated sneers in Parliament, at dinners, and on the hustings +have exhibited the rancor of a jealous mind. There has been no hearty +will to do justice, no word other than of discouragement. Even the +amicable assurances which customarily pass between the statesmen of two +nations seem to have been dropped. We believe that any American would +rather bear the manly and outspoken denunciations of the Earl of Derby, +consistent and honest in his hostility, than the sly, covert +insinuations to which the Foreign Secretary gives utterance, at the very +time he is advocating a favorable course toward us. + +The ministry have constantly been met with the fact that our Government +has assumed throughout that the Union was to be preserved, and both the +act and the possibility of secession forever crushed. They cannot have +failed to observe, that, while the inevitable fortune of war has at +times brought momentary depression to our arms, the field of the +Rebellion has steadily contracted,--that those great conflicts which +have seemed drawn games have contributed in every instance to the +general end,--that repulse has been invariably followed by overbalancing +success. They must have been aware that the contrast between the feeling +of the North and that of the South has tended to foreshadow the issue. +Upon grounds of political economy, a life-long study to them, they must +have viewed with vast suspicion the ability of a people to attain +independence, who are trammelled by a blockade which they are themselves +fain to acknowledge effectual, prevented from the usual methods of +subsistence by inferiority of population, and under dreadful +apprehensions from the existence in their midst of millions of +malcontent slaves. They have not needed a subtle knowledge of political +philosophy to teach them that during the progress of the war the Federal +idea has received new strength, which its success will make permanent, +and which only total failure can diminish. Their favorite doctrine, that +governments within a government cannot exist, and that our Constitution +is weakened by the accession of every new State and the rise of every +new disagreement, is meeting its refutation every day. A concentration +of extraordinary power at the centre does not seem to shatter every bond +of union, as they have predicted,--and the States hold together and work +together with amazing zeal for so feeble a tie as that they have +represented. In their intercourse with our Government, they have +illustrated the effect which events have had on their policy. + +The course pursued by our Government seems to us to present a favorable +contrast to that pursued by Great Britain. The United States has always +manifested an anxiety to preserve amity. But the effort to preserve +amity has been dignified. We have claimed to be treated as a friendly +sovereign State. We have urged that the war should be regarded by +foreign powers as the rightful exercise of a complete nationality to +suppress insurrection. That the insurgents should be put upon a par with +the Government, that they should enjoy the benefits of an established +system, that they should have every right and every immunity as if the +quarrel were between equal powers, has seemed to us a fallacy tinctured +with deep prejudice. That feeling has been courteously, but firmly +represented by our ministers. Since it pleased the European courts to +proclaim their neutrality, we have borne the injustice temperately, and +have confined our demands to our rights under that _status_. When the +conduct of Great Britain has been of so irritating a nature as to +produce universal indignation throughout the community, our statesmen +have moderated the popular anger, and have remonstrated patiently as +well as firmly. They have discerned more accurately than the multitude +could do the evils of a twofold war, and yet have not avoided the +danger, when to avoid it would have been disgraceful. Whatever may be +the opinion of any as to Mr. Seward's political career, it is generally +admitted that as Secretary of State he has accomplished the better +thought of the nation. In his hands our foreign relations have been +administered with prudence, with minute attention, and with great +dignity. He has constantly maintained the idea of our national +integrity, the full expectation of our final success, the continued +efficacy of the Federal system, and our right to be considered none the +less a compact nationality because the insurrection has taken the form +of State secession. Our diplomatic intercourse has been confined to +strictly diplomatic etiquette. No attempt has been made to justify, for +the satisfaction of foreign courts, either the origin of the war, or the +modes which have been adopted in its prosecution. It has not been deemed +necessary to retaliate upon the Confederate agents who fill Europe with +their tale of woe, by retorting upon them a reference to the unchristian +practices of their soldiery. There has been no appeal to the moral +sympathies of the Old World, by harping upon the enormities of slavery, +and by announcing a crusade against it. Foreign communities have been +left to the ordinary modes of information, to the press and the accounts +of American and European orators, for the events which have been +passing. It has contented us to let the record speak for itself, to +attach infamy where it is due, to extort praise where praise is merited. +We have not shown an ungenerous exultation at the embroilments of +European politics, as diverting the hostile attention of enemies from +our own affairs. "We are content," says Mr. Seward, in a despatch to Mr. +Adams, "to rely upon the justice of our cause, and our own resources and +ability to maintain it." We have not sought the aid of any power; we +have only desired to sustain out admitted rights, and to be free from +external interference. + +It is surprising that Earl Russell should intimate his dissatisfaction +that we have been less quick to offence from France than from England. +The reason why we should not, in his opinion, feel so is the very reason +why we should. He thinks, because our relations have been more intimate +with England, because we speak the same language and inherit the same +Anglo-Saxon genius, that therefore we should be more patient with her. +But these circumstances seem to us to aggravate the treatment we have +received at her hands. It has appeared to us unnatural that a nation so +identified with us should mistrust us, and embrace every occasion to +slight us where they could safely do so. The closer the tie, the deeper +the wound. Besides, despite the common ground upon which England and +America have stood, the past bequeaths us little grudge against France, +much against England. France was the patron, England the bitter enemy, +of our national infancy. Our arms have never closed with those of +France; we have fought England twice, and virulently. Our diplomatic +intercourse with England has been a series of misunderstandings; that +with France has been, in general, harmonious. In later times, French +essayists and journalists have been tolerant of our faults, and eloquent +over our virtues; and not a little good feeling has been produced among +our educated classes by the fairness and acuteness with which one of the +greatest of modern Frenchmen, De Tocqueville, has considered our +institutions. On the other hand, the English press and the English +Parliament have been outspoken in their contempt of America; and the +offence has been enhanced by the peculiarly insulting terms in which the +feeling has been expressed. Such facts cannot but intensify our chagrin +at finding that power which we had always regarded as our companion in +the march of modern progress ill-disposed to sympathy now in the time of +our trouble. + +Mr. Seward has well expressed our attitude towards England in a few +words:--"The whole case may be summed up in this. The United States +claim, and they must continually claim, that in this war they are a +whole sovereign nation, and entitled to the same respect, as such, that +they accord to Great Britain. Great Britain does not treat them as such +a sovereign, and hence all the evils that disturb their intercourse and +endanger their friendship. Great Britain justifies her course, and +perseveres. The United States do not admit the justification, and so +they are obliged to complain and stand upon their guard. Those in either +country who desire to see the two nations remain in this relation are +not well-advised friends of either of them." + +Our relations with France during the war have not been dissimilar to +those with England, but have been less grating and more courteous. The +same difficulties in regard to neutral rights have arisen; and the +Imperial cabinet have seemed throughout favorable to the South. But the +popular feeling, as far as it is patent, is decidedly more favorable to +us than that of England; whatever has been said against us has been said +considerately and temperately; and there has been at no period any +imminent danger of war. The design of Napoleon to mediate was +interpreted by the community as hostile and aggressive in its object. +The President, we think justly, took what appears a more simple +view,--that the Emperor miscalculated the actual condition of the +country, and a mistaken desire to advise induced him to take the course +he did. But those who know France best tell us that the Imperial opinion +is far from being the index of the popular opinion, on any subject; and +every evidence induces the conclusion that there is a strong +undercurrent of sympathy for America throughout France. + +Of all the foreign powers, Russia has been the only one which has given +us cordial, unstinted encouragement. The sovereign, the most liberal and +enlightened Czar who ever ascended the Muscovite throne, has expressed +himself again and again the constant friend of the Union. It is +agreeable to reflect that that vast empire, now far on its way to a +liberal constitution, and hastened, instead of retarded by its august +head, should lend the moral force of its unqualified good-will to the +cause of American liberty. The noble words of Prince Gortschakoff to our +envoy will be grateful to every loyal American heart:--"We desire above +all things the maintenance of the American Union, as one indivisible +nation. Russia has declared her position, and will maintain it. There +will be proposals for intervention. Russia will refuse any invitation of +the kind. She will occupy the same ground as at the beginning of the +struggle. You may rely upon it, she will not change." + +Our relations with other nations have not been important, and are quite +similar to those with England and France. But, generally, the belief and +hope in the final success of the Union have been steadily strengthening +throughout Europe. The idea of our centralization has become more vivid; +and far juster estimates of our character and institutions have been +formed. When the war shall have been brought to a successful issue, we +shall have afforded a noble proof of the full efficiency of a republican +system over an intelligent people. Our own sinews will be compact, and +our spirit will be infused into the aspirations of distant peoples. It +may not be presumptuous to feel that our efforts are not for ourselves +alone, but that they tell upon the fate of the earnest and hopeful +millions who are striving for disenthralment in the Old World. Let us, +then, expand our just ambition beyond the object of our national +integrity; let us embrace within our own hopes the dawning fortunes of a +free Italy and a free Hungary, of Poland liberated, of Greece +regenerated. While nerving ourselves for the final struggle, let the +sublime thought that our success will reach in its vast results the +limits of the Christian world bring us redoubled strength. For if we +should fall, the thrones of despots are fixed for centuries; if we +triumph, in due time they will vanish and crumble to the dust. Those +sovereigns who are wise will appear in the van, leading their people to +the blessings of the liberty they have so long yearned for; those who +throw themselves in the way will be overwhelmed by the resistless tide. +To such an end we fight, and suffer, and wait; the greater the stake, +the more fearful the ordeal; but Providence smiles upon those whose aim +is freedom, and through danger guides to consummation. + + * * * * * + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_The Roman and the Teuton_: A Series of Lectures delivered before the +University of Cambridge. By CHARLES KINGSLEY, M.A., Professor of Modern +History. Cambridge and London: Macmillan & Co. + +Mr. Kingsley is a vivid and entertaining mediator between Carlyle and +commonplace. In his younger days and writings he mediated between his +master and commonplace radicalism,--representing the great Scot's +antagonism to existing institutions, his sympathy with man as man, and +his hope of a more human society, but representing it with sufficient +admixture of vague fancy, Chartist catchword, weak passionateness, and +spasmodic audacity, based, as such ever is, on moral cowardice. Of late +he has gone to the other side of his master, and now mediates between +him and the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Hanover family,--representing +Carlyle's passionate craving for supereminent persons, his passionate +abhorrence of democracy, his admiration of strong character, his +disposition to work from historical bases rather than from absolute +principles, but representing them at once with a prudence of common +sense and a prudence of self-seeking and timidity which are alike +foreign to his master's spirit. + +We prefer the second phase of the man. It belongs more properly to him. +He is ambitious; and the _role_ which he first assumed is one which +ambition can only spoil. He has but a weak faith in principles, and +flinches and flies off to "Prester John," or somewhere into the clouds, +when at last principle and sentiment must either fly off or fairly take +the stubborn British _taurus_ by the horns. And in truth, his early +creed was in part merely passionate and foolish, and with courage and +disinterestedness to do more he would have professed less. His present +position is better,--that is, sounder and sincerer. Better for _him_, +because more limited and British, leaving him room still to toil at good +work, and not calling upon him to break with Church and State, which he +really has not the heart to do. As head of the hierarchy of beadles, he +is an effective and even admirable man, pious, zealous, and reformatory; +but institutions are more necessary to him than principles, and any +attempt to plant himself purely on the latter places him in a false +position. + +Mr. Kingsley has fine gifts and good purposes. He has a rare power of +realizing scenes and characters,--a power equally rare of presenting +them in vivid, pictorial delineation. He must be a very engaging +lecturer, imparting to his official labor an interest which does not +always belong to labors of like kind. + +For discoursing upon history he has important qualifications, which it +would be uncandid not to acknowledge. Of these it is the first that he +clings manfully, despite the tendencies of our time, to the human, +rather than the extra-human stand-point. He respects personality; he +treats of men, not of puppets; he is old-fashioned enough to believe +that men may be moved from within no less than from without, and does +not attempt, as Quinet has it, to abolish human history and add a +chapter to natural history instead. Here, too, he follows Carlyle, but +in a way which is highly to his credit. The enthusiasm for science which +marks these later centuries breeds in many minds a powerful desire to +establish "laws" for the history of man,--that is, to establish for +man's history an invariable programme. To this end an effort is made to +render all results in history dependent on a few simple and tangible +conditions. The intrepid prosaic logic of Spencer, the discursive +boldness of Buckle, the rigid dogmatism of Draper are all engaged in +this endeavor. But, while eager to make history simple and orderly, they +forget to make it human. There is an order and progress, perhaps, but an +order and progress of what? Of _men_? Of human souls, self-moved? No, of +sticks floating on a current, of straws blown by the wind! Men, +according to this theory, are but ninepins in an alley which Nature sets +up only to bowl them down again; and what avails it, if Nature makes +improvement and learns to set them up better and better? The triumphs +are hers, not theirs. They are but ninepins, after all. Progress? Yes, +indeed; but _wooden_ progress, observe. + +Mr. Kingsley recognizes human beings, and recognizes them +heartily,--loves, hates, admires, despises; in fine, he deals with +history not merely as a scientist or theorist, but first of all as a +man. There are those who will think this weak. They are superior to this +partiality of man for himself, they! They would be ashamed not to sink +the man in the _savant_. But Mr. Kingsley refuses to dehumanize himself +in order to become historian and philosopher. He does well. + +Again, it is partly Mr. Kingsley's merit, and partly it expresses his +limitation, that he is treating history more distinctively as a +moralizer than any other noted writer of the time. He assumes in this +respect the Hebraistic point of view, and looks out from it with an +undoubting heartiness which in these days is really refreshing. He +believes in the Old Testament, and doubts not that riches and honors are +the rewards of right-doing. And in this, too, there is a vast deal of +truth; and it is truly delightful to find one who affirms it, not with +perfunctory drawl, but with hearty human zest, a little red in the face. + +It adds to the color of Mr. Kingsley's pages, while detracting from his +authority, that he is always and inevitably a _partisan_. He must have +somebody to cry up and somebody to cry down. In "Sir Amyas Leigh," his +hatred of the Spanish and admiration of the English were like those of a +man who had suffered intolerable wrongs from the one and received +invaluable rescue from the other. The same element appears powerfully in +the volume above named. The Teuton stands for all that is best, and the +Roman for all that is worst in humanity. He makes no secret, indeed, of +his deliberate belief that the whole future of the human race depends +upon the Teutonic family. Deliberate, we say; but in truth Mr. Kingsley +is little capable of believing anything deliberately. He is always +precipitate. His opinions have the force which can be given them by warm +espousal, vivid expression, a certain desire to be fair, and a constant +appeal to the moral nature of man; but the impression of hasty and +heated partisanship goes with them always, and two words from a broad +and balanced judgment might overturn many a chapter of this red-hot +advocacy. + +The present volume derives an interest for Americans from its relation +to our great contest. Mr. Kingsley has been represented as intensely +hostile to the North, and as using all his endeavor to infect his +pupils with his opinions. These lectures, however, hardly sustain such +representations. He is, indeed, anti-democratic in a high degree. He is +so as a disciple of Carlyle, as a prosperous Englishman, not destitute +of flunkyism, and also as a man whose very best power is that of +passionately admiring individual greatness. He is a believer in natural +aristocracy, in the British nobility, and in Carlyle; and democracy +could, of course, find small place in his creed. Hence he has a +sentimental sympathy with the South, and once in a foot-note speaks of +"the Southern gentleman" in a maudlin way. There is also another passage +in which he makes the South stand for the Teuton, whom he worships, and +the North for the Roman, whom he abhors. Yet this very passage occurs in +connection with a denunciation of deserved doom upon the Southern +Confederacy. He had been describing the last great battle of the Eastern +Goths, after which they literally disappeared from history. And the +reason of their defeat and destruction, he avers, was simply this, that +they were a slaveholding aristocracy. As such they _must_ perish; the +earth, he declares, will not and cannot afford them a dwelling-place. +Indeed, he repeatedly lays it down as a law of history that slaveholding +aristocracies must go down before the progress of the world, and must go +down in blood. + + +_The Small House at Allington_. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. New York: Harper & +Brothers. + +This is probably the best of Mr. Trollope's numerous works. It is by no +means different in kind from its predecessors; for it stands in the path +struck out by "The Warden" ten years ago. But it is better, inasmuch as +it is later; that is, it is by ten years better than "The Warden," and +by four years better than "Framley Parsonage." Mr. Trollope's course has +been very even,--too even, almost, to be called brilliant; for success +has become almost monotonous with him. His first novel was a triumph, +after its kind; and a list of his subsequent works would be but a record +of repeated triumphs. He has closely adhered to the method which he +found so serviceable at first; and although it is not for the general +critic to say whether he has felt temptations to turn aside, we may be +sure, in view of his unbroken popularity, that he has either been very +happy or very wise. His works, as they stand, are probably the exact +measure of his strength. + +We do not mean that he has exhausted his strength. It seems to be the +prime quality of such a genius as Mr. Trollope's that it is exempt from +accident,--that it accumulates, rather than loses force with age. Mr. +Trollope's work is simple observation. He is secure, therefore, as long +as he retains this faculty. And his observation is the more efficient +that it is hampered by no concomitant purpose, rooted to no underlying +beliefs or desires. It is firmly anchored, but above-ground. We have +often heard Mr. Trollope compared with Thackeray,--but never without +resenting the comparison. In no point are they more dissimilar than in +the above. Thackeray is a moralist, a satirist; he tells his story for +its lesson: whereas Mr. Trollope tells his story wholly for its own +sake. Thackeray is almost as much a preacher as he is a novelist; while +Mr. Trollope is the latter simply. Both writers are humorists, which +seems to be the inevitable mood of all shrewd observers; and both +incline to what is called quiet humor. But we know that there are many +kinds of laughter. Think of the different kinds of humorists we find in +Shakspeare's comedies. Mr. Trollope's merriment is evoked wholly by the +actual presence of an oddity; and Thackeray's, although it be, by the +way, abundantly sympathetic with superficial comedy, by its _existence_, +by its history, by some shadow it casts. Of course all humorists have an +immense common fund. When Cradell, in the present tale, talks about Mrs. +Lupex's fine _torso_, we are reminded both of Thackeray and Dickens. But +when the Squire, coming down to the Small House to discuss his niece's +marriage, just avoids a quarrel with his sister about the propriety of +early fires, we acknowledge, that, as it stands, the trait belongs to +Trollope alone. Dickens would have eschewed it, and Thackeray would have +expanded it. The same remark applies to their pathos. With Trollope we +weep, if it so happen we can, for a given shame or wrong. Our sympathy +in the work before us is for the jilted Lily Dale, our indignation for +her false lover. But our compassion for Amelia Osborne and Colonel +Newcome goes to the whole race of the oppressed. + +Mr. Trollope's greatest value we take to be that he is so purely a +novelist. The chief requisite for writing a novel in the present age +seems to be that the writer should be everything else. It implies that +the story-telling gift is very well in its way, but that the inner +substance of a tale must repose on some direct professional experience. +This fashion is of very recent date. Formerly the novelist had no +personality; he was a simple chronicler; his accidental stand-point was +as impertinent as the painter's attitude before his canvas. But now the +main question lies in the pose, not of the model, but of the artist. It +will fare ill with the second-rate writer of fiction, unless he can give +conclusive proof that he is well qualified in certain practical +functions. And the public is very vigilant on this point. It has become +wonderfully acute in discriminating true and false lore. The critic's +office is gradually reduced to a search for inaccuracies. We do not stop +to weigh these truths; we merely indicate them. But we confess, that, if +Mr. Trollope is somewhat dear to us, it is because they are not true of +him. The central purpose of a work of fiction is assuredly the portrayal +of human passions. To this principle Mr. Trollope steadfastly +adheres,--how consciously, how wilfully, we know not,--but with a +constancy which is almost a proof of conviction, and a degree of success +which lends great force to his example. The interest of the work before +us is emphatically a _moral_ interest: it is a story of feeling, the +narrative of certain feelings. + +Mr. Troliope's tales give us a very sound sense of their reality. It may +seem paradoxical to attribute this to the narrowness of the author's +imagination; but we cannot help doing so. On reflection, we shall see +that it is not so much persons as events that Mr. Trollope aims at +depicting, not so much characters as scenes. His pictures are real, _on +the whole_. Their reality, we take it, is owing to the happy balance of +the writer's judgment and his invention. Had his invention been a little +more tinged with fancy, it is probable that he would have known certain +temptations of which he appears to be ignorant. Even should he have +successfully resisted them, the struggle, the contest, the necessity of +choice would have robbed his manner of that easy self-sufficiency which +is one of its greatest charms. Had he succumbed, he would often have +fallen away from sober fidelity to Nature. As the matter stands, his +great felicity is that he never goes beyond his depth,--and this, not so +much from fear, as from ignorance. His insight is anything but profound. +He has no suspicion of deeper waters. Through the whole course of the +present story, he never attempts to fathom Crosbie's feelings, to +retrace his motives, to refine upon his character. Mr. Trollope has +learned much in what is called the realist school; but he has not taken +lessons in psychology. Even while looking into Crosbie's heart, we never +lose sight of Courcy Castle, of his Club, of his London life; we cross +the threshold of his inner being, we knock at the door of his soul, but +we remain within call of Lily Dale and the Lady Alexandrina. We never +see Crosbie the man, but always Crosbie the gentleman, the Government +clerk. We feel at times as if we had a right to know him better,--to +know him at least as well as he knew himself. It is significant of Mr. +Trollope's temperament--a temperament, as it seems to us, eminently +English--that he can have told such a story with so little preoccupation +with certain spiritual questions. It is evident that this spiritual +reticence, if we may so term it, is not a _parti pris_; for no fixed +principle, save perhaps the one hinted at above, is apparent in the +book. It belongs to a species of single-sightedness, by which Mr. +Trollope, in common with his countrymen, is largely characterized,--an +indifference to secondary considerations, an abstinence from sidelong +glances. It is akin to an intense literalness of perception, of which we +might find an example on every page Mr. Trollope has written. He is +conscious of seeing the surface of things so clearly, perhaps, that he +deems himself exempt from all profounder obligations. To describe +accurately what he sees is a point of conscience with him. In these +matters an omission is almost a crime. We remember an instance somewhat +to the purpose. After describing Mrs. Dale's tea-party at length, in the +beginning of the book, he wanders off with Crosbie and his sweetheart +on a moonlight-stroll, and so interests us in the feelings of the young +couple, and in Crosbie's plans and promises for the future, (which we +begin faintly to foresee,) that we have forgotten all about the party. +And, indeed, how could the story of the party end better than by gently +passing out of the reader's mind, superseded by a stronger interest, to +which it is merely accessory? But such is not the author's view of the +case. Dropping Crosbie, Lilian, and the more serious objects of our +recent concern, he begins a new line and ends his chapter thus:--"After +that they all went to bed." It recalls the manner of "Harry and Lucy," +friends of our childhood. + +But to return to our starting-point,--in "The Small House at Allington" +Mr. Trollope has outdone his previous efforts. He has used his best +gifts in unwonted fulness. Never before has he described young ladies +and the loves of young ladies in so charming and so natural a fashion. +Never before has he reproduced so faithfully--to say no more--certain +phases of the life and conversation of the youth of the other sex. Never +before has he caught so accurately the speech of our daily feelings, +plots, and passions. He has a habit of writing which is almost a style; +its principal charm is a certain tendency to quaintness; its principal +defect is an excess of words. But we suspect this manner makes easy +writing; in Mr. Trollope's books it certainly makes very easy reading. + + +_A Class-Book of Chemistry_; in which the Latest Facts and Principles of +the Science are explained and applied to the Arts of Life and the +Phenomena of Nature. A New Edition, entirely rewritten. By EDWARD L. +YOUMANS, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. + +Though Science has been often vaguely supposed to be something generally +distinct from ordinary knowledge, yet the slightest consideration will +suffice to show us that this is not the case. Scientific knowledge is +only a highly developed form of the common information of ordinary +minds. The specific attribute by which it is distinguished from the +latter is quantitative prevision. Mere prevision is not peculiar to +science. When the school-boy throws a stone into the air, he can predict +its fall as certainly as the astronomer can predict the recurrence of an +eclipse; but his prevision, though certain, is rude and indefinite: +though he can foretell the kind of effect which will follow the given +mechanical impulse, yet the quantity of effect--the height to which the +stone will ascend, and the rapidity with which it will fall--is +something utterly beyond his ken. The servant-girl has no need of +chemistry to teach her, that, when the match is applied, the fire will +burn and smoke ascend the chimney; but she is far from being able to +predict the proportional weights of oxygen and carbon which will unite, +the volume of the gases which are to be given off, or the intensity of +the radiation which is to warm the room: her prevision is qualitative, +not quantitative, in its character. But when Galileo discovers the +increment of the velocity of falling bodies, and when Dalton and De +Morveau discover the exact proportions in which chemical union takes +place, it is evident that knowledge has advanced from a rudely +qualitative to an accurately quantitative stage; and it does not admit +of dispute that the progress of science is thus a progress from the +indefinite to the definite. + +From the point of view here taken it would appear that during the +present century no science has made such rapid and unprecedented strides +as Chemistry; and its progress becomes all the more striking, when we +consider the state of the science previous to the French Revolution. For +centuries nothing had been done in it whatever. Besides the commonest +previsions of every-day life, the ancients knew scarcely anything either +of chemistry or physics, except that amber possessed attractive +properties. The discovery of the strong acids by the Arabs Giafar and +Rhazes, and of phosphorus by Bechil, are almost the only landmarks in +the history of the science, until the discovery of oxygen and the +destruction of the phlogistic theory by Priestley and Lavoisier, +together with the introduction of the balance and the thermometer into +the laboratory, rendered quantitative experiments possible. Since then +its progress has been unexampled. The law of definite proportions, not +long since disputed or unwillingly accepted, has been proved to hold +even among organic compounds. A nomenclature has been invented and +perfected, such as no other science can boast of, whether we consider +the extent to which it facilitates practical operations, or its logical +value as a means of mental discipline. Chemistry has also interacted +with the different branches of physics, giving us the voltaic battery, +the telegraph, and the wonderful results of spectrum-analysis. On the +other hand, it has analyzed the proximate constituents of animal and +vegetal structures, and has even gone far toward determining some of the +conditions of organic existence; while every one of the arts, whether +aesthetic, therapeutic, or industrial, has received from it many and +important suggestions. + +In a science which advances so rapidly there is great need of popular +books which shall clearly and succinctly present the very latest results +of investigation, without burdening the reader with technical details. +For some time there has been no such work in this country. To ascertain +the newest discoveries, it has been necessary to consult the journals +and memoirs of learned societies, the excellent works of Professor +Miller being too cumbrous to be of much service either to the +unscientific reader or to the general scholar. On the other hand, the +text-books in common use have been positively detestable. The +information furnished by many of them is worse than ignorance. We are +tired of works on chemical physics which discourse of "calorie" and "the +electric fluid,"--of works on organic chemistry which ascribe the +phenomena of life to "a vital principle which overrides chemical laws." +A book at once clear, concise, and modern has long been the great +desideratum. + +This need is most amply supplied by the recent work of Dr. Youmans. +Laying no claim to the character of an exposition of original +discoveries, and thus keeping aloof from involved discussion, it is at +the same time so lucid in its statements, so pertinent in its +illustrations, and so philosophic in its reflections, as to invest with +a new charm every subject of which it treats. The author deserves high +praise for taking into account the circumstance that the reading public +is not entirely composed of physicists and chemists. It has been too +much the fashion for writers on scientific subjects to give definitions +which can be rendered intelligible only by an intimate acquaintance with +the very matters defined. It would be tedious to enumerate the countless +absurd explanations given in elementary text-books of the phenomena of +interference, polarization, and double refraction,--explanations as +enigmatical as the inscriptions at Memphis and Karnak,--explanations +useless to the optician because needless, and to the student because +obscure. It would seem that subjects so simple and beautiful as these +could not be rendered difficult of comprehension, except by the most +awkward treatment; and yet we know of no work previous to that of Dr. +Youmans which does not utterly fail to give the general scientific +reader any idea whatever of their nature and theory. Here, however, they +are explained with clearness and elegance, and their bearing on the +undulatory theory of light is distinctly shown. As other instances of +most admirable exposition, we may call attention to the paragraphs on +crystallization, on the atomic theory, on isomerism and allotropism, on +diamagnetism, magnetic induction, and electric "currents," on the +sources of heat, on the chemical and thermal spectra, on the correlation +and equivalence of the forces, on the theory of ozone, on the +exceptional expansion of water and the supposed complexity of its atom, +on the structure of flame, on the constitution of salts, on the colloid +condition of matter, on types and compound radicles, on the dynamics of +vegetable growth and the production of animal power, and, above all, to +the passage which describes the phenomena of latent heat. Throughout, in +treating of these subjects, the author's felicity of exposition never +fails him. The most difficult phenomena are rendered perfectly easy of +comprehension, and their mutual relations are not left out of account. +Each set of facts is treated, not as forming an isolated body of truth, +but as an integral portion of the complex and logically indivisible +universe. In this respect Dr. Youmans's work is far superior to the +recent production of Dr. Hooker, in which, for example, the mere +existence of such a doctrine as that of the correlation of forces is +grudgingly noticed, and its ultimate significance entirely overlooked. + +Far different is Dr. Youmans's treatment of the same doctrine. Indeed, +we think that the chapters on chemical physics form the most +interesting portion of his work, and their value consists chiefly in the +constant reference to the modern ideas of force which pervades them. In +a work intended for the education of youth, such a feature cannot be too +highly praised. It is time that the old material superstitions about +force were eradicated from men's minds, and as far as possible from +their language. It is already more than half a century since Count +Rumford demonstrated the immaterial nature of heat, and Young +established the undulatory theory of light,--ideas which had germinated +two hundred years ago in the lofty minds of Huygens and Hooke. Since +then have been discovered the polarization and interference of heat, the +triple constitution of the solar ray, the identity of magnetism and +electricity, the polar nature of chemical affinity, the optical +polarities of crystals, and the interaction of magnetism and light. +Since then the once meagre and fragmentary science of physics has become +one of the grandest and richest departments of human thought; and the +illustrious names of Helmholtz, Joule, and Mayer, of Grove, Faraday, and +Tyndall, may be fitly named beside those of the leading thinkers of past +ages. The physical forces are no longer to be looked upon as inscrutable +material entities,--forms of matter imponderable, and therefore +inconceivable; but they have been shown to be diverse, but +interchangeable modes of molecular motion, omnipresent, ceaselessly +active. The wondrous phenomena of light, heat, and electricity are seen +to be due to the rhythmical vibration of atoms. There is thus no such +thing as rest: from the planet to the ultimate particle, all things are +endlessly moving: and the mystic song of the Earth-Spirit in "Faust" is +recognized as the expression of the sublimest truth of science:-- + + "In Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm, + Wall' ich auf und ab, webe hin und her, + Geburt und Grab, + Ein ewiges Meer, + Ein wechselnd Weben, + Ein gluehend Leben, + So schaff' ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit, + Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid." + +In a discussion containing so much that is noble, however, we are sorry +to observe that Dr. Youmans is betrayed into using the current +expressions concerning an "ether" which is supposed to be the universal +vehicle for the transmission of molecular vibrations. We are told, that, +while "the vibrations of a sonorous body produce undulations in the +air," on the other hand, "the vibrations of atoms in a flame produce +undulations in the ether." We would by no means charge Dr. Youmans with +all the consequences naturally deducible from such a statement. We +believe that he uses the term "ether" simply to render himself more +intelligible to those who have been wont to make use of it to facilitate +their thinking. Such an object is highly praiseworthy, and is too often +left out of sight by those who write elementary works. But the good +service thus rendered is far more than counterbalanced by the host of +erroneous conceptions which at once arise at the introduction of this +luckless term. This notion of an "imaginary ether" should be at once and +forever discarded by every writer on physics. The very word should be +remorselessly expunged from every discussion of the subject. It is one +of the most baneful words in the whole dictionary of scientific +terminology. It stands for a fiction as useless as it is without +foundation. It is useless because superfluous, and not needed in order +to account for the phenomena. An ether is no more necessary in the case +of light than it is in the case of sound. Thermal vibrations are the +oscillations of atoms, not the undulations of an ether. If it be urged +that rays of light and heat will traverse a vacuum, we reply, that the +much-derided aphorism, "Nature abhors a vacuum," is as true at this day +as it was before Torricelli's experiment. A perfect vacuum has never +been produced; and if it were to be produced, the ether must be +excluded, else it would be no vacuum, after all. For, if there were such +a thing as an ether, it must of course be some form of matter; nobody +ever claimed for it the character of motion or force. If it be +considered as matter, then, we are confronted with new difficulties; for +all matter must exert gravitation. Weight is our sole test of the very +existence of matter; it is the balance which has proved that nothing +ever disappears. Imponderable matter is no more possible than a +triangular ellipse. Away, then, with such a mischief-breeding +conception! Let this last-surviving fetich be ousted from the fair +temple of inorganic science. Undulations have been measured and counted; +quantitative relations, like those expressed in Joule's law, have been +established between them; but an "ether" has never yet been the object +of human ken. + +We have expressed ourselves thus emphatically upon this all-important +point, in order to warn the reader of Dr. Youmans's book against drawing +conclusions which the author himself evidently does not mean to convey. +No clear ideas can ever be entertained in physics until this anomalous +"ether" is excommunicated; and therefore we wish it had been banished +from this excellent treatise. We differ also very widely from the +author's views of animal heat, but have not space to enter upon the +discussion. With these exceptions we know of nothing in the work that +could be improved. It is an honor to American science, and fully merits +a more exhaustive examination than we have here been enabled to bestow +upon it. + + +_Strategy and Tactics_. By General G.H. DUFOUR, lately an Officer of the +French Engineer Corps, Graduate of the Polytechnic School, and Commander +of the Legion of Honor; Chief of Staff of the Swiss Army. Translated +from the latest French Edition, by WILLIAM R. CRAIGHILL, Captain U.S. +Engineers, lately Assistant Professor of Civil and Military Engineering +and Science of War at the U.S. Military Academy. New York: D. Van +Nostrand. + +The author of this work is a distinguished civil and military engineer +and practical soldier, who, in all military matters, is recognized as +one of the first authorities in Europe. His history is especially +interesting to Americans, since not many years ago he played a prominent +part in the suppression of a rebellion which, in many features, +exhibited a remarkable similarity to the one with which our own +Government is contending. We refer to the secession of the seven Swiss +cantons forming the Sonderbund, which, like the insurrection of the +Southern States, was a revolt of reactionary against liberal principles +of government; it was likewise the fruit of a well-organized and +long-matured conspiracy, which only delayed an open outbreak until all +its preparations were adequately perfected for a formidable resistance. +The issue of the contest was what we may hope will be that of our +own,--the triumph of free principles, and the complete reestablishment +of the authority of the legitimate Government on a firmer basis than it +had before occupied. + +General Dufour was born at Constance, of a family of Genevese origin. +Having acquired his early education at Geneva, where he devoted his +attention chiefly to mathematics, he entered the Polytechnic School at +Paris, was commissioned two years afterwards in the corps of Engineers, +and served in the later campaigns of Napoleon, where he rose to the rank +of captain. He afterwards entered the Swiss Federal service, in which he +became colonel, chief of the general staff, and quartermaster-general. +At later periods he has held the less active, but equally responsible +and honorable positions of superintendent of the triangulation of +Switzerland on which the topographical map of the country is based, and +chief instructor of engineering in the principal military school of the +Republic, at Thun. + +When, in 1847, the Swiss Diet determined to dissolve the Sonderbund, +which had at length committed the overt act of treason, General Dufour +was appointed commander-in-chief of the Federal army. A few days after +the call for troops was issued, he found himself at the head of an army +of one hundred thousand men, and immediately entered actively upon the +work before him. His dispositions were skilful and his movements rapid. +He adopted with success the "anaconda" system of strategy, and hemmed in +the insurgents at every point, closing in the mountain-passes, and +completely isolating them. After six days of active campaigning the +Canton of Freyburg was subdued; nine days afterwards Luzerne submitted; +the other rebellious cantons were quick to yield; and in eighteen days +from the commencement of active operations, and twenty-three days from +the issue by the Federal Diet of the decree of coercion, the rebellion +was extinguished so completely that no murmur of treason has since been +heard in the Republic. So rapidly was the whole accomplished, that +foreign powers had not time to intervene; and it is said, that, when the +French messenger went to seek the insurgents with his proposals, they +were already fugitives. In honor of his services in this contest, the +Federal Diet voted General Dufour a sabre of honor and a donative of +forty thousand francs. + +General Dufour's "Strategy and Tactics" is evidently the fruit of an +attentive study of the best examples and authorities of all ages. He has +avoided mere theories and fine writing, and has aimed to present a work +practical in its treatment and application. The lessons of history have +been his guide; his precepts are fortified by pertinent examples from +the campaigns of the best generals, and we may study them with +confidence that when put to the actual test they will not fail. + +The distinction between strategy and tactics, not always clearly +understood, is in substance drawn thus by General Dufour. Strategy +involves general movements and the general arrangement of campaigns, +depending chiefly upon the topographical features of the country which +is the scene of operations,--while tactics relate to the minor details +of campaigns, as the disposition for marches and battles, the +arrangement of camps, etc. Strategy depends upon circumstances fixed in +their nature, and is the same always and everywhere; but tactics must be +modified to suit degree of skill, arms, and manner of fighting of the +combatants. Hence, "much instruction in strategy may be derived from the +study of history; but very grave errors will result, if we attempt to +apply in the armies of the present day the tactics of the ancients. This +fault has been committed by more than one man of merit, for want of +reflection upon the great difference between our missile weapons and +those of the ancients, and upon the resulting differences in the +arrangement of troops for combat." Our own military leaders have not +entirely avoided mistakes of this kind in the conduct of the present +war. + +The treatise before us elucidates the general principles of strategy and +tactics, and applies them to the different classes of field--operations, +without entering into details, or describing the minor manoeuvres, +which belong more appropriately to another class of works. + +The first chapter treats of bases and lines of operations, strategic +points, plans of offensive and defensive campaigns, and strategical +operations. Under the last head are embraced forward movements and +retreats, diversions, (combined movements and detachments,) the pursuit +of a defeated enemy, and the holding of a conquered country. The great +lesson of the chapter, prominent in almost every paragraph, is the +necessity of _concentration_. Divergent marches, scattering of forces, +unless ample facilities are secured for a speedy rally, when necessary, +to a common point, are among the most fruitful sources of disaster. + +The organization of armies next receives attention. The explanation of +the composition of the army, its divisions and subdivisions, and the +adjustment of the relative proportions of the different classes of +troops, is brief and lucid. In the article on the formation of troops +the relative merits of formation in two ranks or three are discussed at +length. + +Under the head of marches and manoeuvres are considered the rules by +which these movements should be conducted. These apply to the adjustment +of the columns, and the division, when necessary, of the forces upon +different roads in order to facilitate progress and make subsistence +more easy, the detailing of scouts and advance and rear guards, etc. The +adaptation of these rules to forward movements and battles leads to a +description of the order of march of the division, the precautions to be +observed in the passage of defiles, bridges, woods, and rivers, and when +the column has arrived in the presence of the enemy, and the conduct of +flank marches, marches in retreat, and the simultaneous movement of +several columns. The importance of precautions against surprise, of +preserving the mobility of the columns, and of providing for +concentration on short notice whenever it may be necessary, is not lost +sight of, but is dwelt upon with great frequency. But military rules are +not more inflexible than other human rules. Though they are based upon +fixed principles, cases may, and do, arise when they cannot be strictly +adhered to,--sometimes when they ought not to be. When should they be +strictly observed? When and how far is it prudent to depart from them? +"These questions," says General Dufour, "admit of no answers. +Circumstances, which are always different, must decide in each +particular case that arises. Here is the place for a general to show his +ability. The military art would not be so difficult in practice, and +those who have become so distinguished in it would not have acquired +their renown, had it been a thing of invariable rules. To be really a +great general, a man must have great tact and discernment in order to +adopt the best plan in each case as it presents itself; he must have a +ready _coup d'oeil_, so as to do the right thing at the right time and +place; for what is excellent one day may be very injurious the next. The +plans of a great captain seem like inspirations, so rapid are the +operations of the mind from which they proceed: notwithstanding this, +everything is taken into account and weighed; each circumstance is +appreciated and properly estimated; objects which escape entirely the +observation of ordinary minds may to him seem so important as to become +the principal means of inducing him to pursue a particular course. As a +necessary consequence, a deliberative council is a poor director of the +operations of a campaign. As another consequence, no mere theorizer can +be a great general." + +Battles, on which the fortune of the campaign must turn at last, receive +a large share of attention. The decision of the question as to when they +shall be fought, though sometimes admitting of no choice, is more often, +with a skilful general, a matter of pure calculation, depending upon +fixed principles, which General Dufour recites in a few brief, but +suggestive sentences. His directions for the disposition and manoeuvres +of the forces in both offensive and defensive battles are quite +complete, though the thousand varying circumstances by which these may +be modified, and which render it impossible for one battle to be a copy +of another, can only be hinted at. Among the elements of a battle here +considered are the disposition of the forces, the manner of bringing on +and conducting the engagement, the manoeuvres to change position on +the field, bringing on reinforcements, seizing all advantages that may +offer, and the manner of conducting pursuit or retreat. The attack and +defence of mountains and rivers, of redoubts, houses, and villages, +covering a siege, infantry, cavalry, and artillery combats and +reconnoissances, each involve special principles, and are treated +separately. In the course of the article on battles, some general +observations are introduced on conducting manoeuvres so as to insure +promptness, security, and precision. The conduct of topographical +reconnoissances is well explained by means of a map of a supposed +district of country, with marked features, which is to be examined. On +this the course of the reconnoitring party, as it goes over the whole, +is traced step by step, and fully explained in the letter-press. In the +concluding chapter the author treats of convoys, ambuscades, advance +posts, the laying-out of camps, and giving rest to troops. + +Such are the outlines of a subject which General Dufour has handled in a +masterly manner. His maxims are practical in their bearing, they commend +themselves to our common sense as sound in principle, and are such as +have received the indorsement of the best authorities. His style is +clear and comprehensive; nothing superfluous is inserted, nothing need +be added to make the subject more clear. The illustrations, which are +given wherever they are needed, are simple and clear; the explanations +are sufficient. This work will be a valuable manual to soldiers, and +students will find it an excellent text-book. We hail it as an important +addition to our growing military literature. + + +_Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as modified by Human Action_. By +GEORGE P. MARSH. New York: Charles Scribner. 8vo. pp. 560. + +The student of Physical Geography must not expect to find in this +massive book a systematic exposition of the science in the manner of +Guyot and the French and German geographers; nor must he expect to see +worked out on its pages the elaborate application of Geography to +History, such as one day will be done, and such as was attempted, though +with results of varied value and certainty, by the eloquent and +plausible Buckle; but he will find an unexpected development of man's +dominion over the world he inhabits. Mr. Marsh takes his readers very +much by surprise; for few are aware, we apprehend, that in the course of +his wandering life, and while prosecuting his eminent philological +studies, he has made leisure enough to survey the natural sciences with +critical exactness, pursue an extended course of inquiry into physical +phenomena, note and digest the results of Italian, Spanish, English, +French, German, Dutch, and American naturalists, ply every guide and +ploughman, every driver and forester, every fisherman and miner, every +lumberman and carpenter, for the results which men attain by observing +within the narrow circle of their occupation,--and weave all into a +copious work which subordinates all results to a grand psychological +law, the mastery of man's mind over the world it calls its home. + +The work which we are noticing aspires to and rightly claims a foremost +place among the literary productions of America, despite a certain +homely flavor and a certain unpretending way which its author has of +saying things which are really great and fine. The main thought +illustrated is not new, but it is brought out so forcibly, and +illustrated by such encyclopedic learning, that it has the power of +novelty. Mr. Marsh shows, as many before him have done, that man is now +using the organic and inorganic forms of the earth in a manner so +subsidiary to the might of his intellect and his will, that such +obstacles as mountains and seas, which used to impede him hopelessly, +now are his auxiliaries; but he does more than this: he demonstrates the +destructive and annihilating sway of man over the world in the past and +in the present; and, proceeding from the historic fact that the +countries which in the palmy days of the Roman Empire were the granary +and the wine-cellar of the world have been given over by the improvident +destructiveness of man to desolation and desert, he enters into a +thorough study of the fact, that, no sooner does man recede from the +barbaric state than he commences a career of destructiveness, cutting +off, in a manner reckless and criminally wasteful, forests, the lives of +quadrupeds, birds, insects, and in short every living thing excepting +the few domestic animals which follow him and serve him for +companionship or for food. Mr. Marsh shows, with more than prophetic +insight, with the mathematical logic of facts, that, unless +compensations far more general and adequate than have yet been devised +are provided, the destructive propensities of civilized man will convert +the world into a waste. Some of our readers have paused thoughtfully +over that chapter in "Les Miserables" which deals so grimly with the +sewerage of cities, and details with the faithfulness of an historian +the exhausting demands of those conduits which carry untold millions to +the sea, and waste that aliment of impoverished soils which not all the +science of the age has found it possible to restore; but Mr. Marsh, not +drawing single pictures with so strong lines, spreads a broader canvas, +and compels his reader to equal thoughtfulness. To quote but one +instance is enough. We have in America thus far escaped, and as +singularly as fortunately, the importation of the wheat-midge which has +been the scourge of the grain-fields of Europe: it will, doubtless, some +time be a passenger on our Atlantic ships or steamers; it will commence +its work; and then man has the task of importing its natural +antagonists, of promoting their spread, and so of compensating the evil. +The work which we are noticing abundantly shows, that, if man were not +in the world, the natural compensations which the Divine Being has +introduced would produce perfect harmony in all things; that man, from +his first stroke at a tree, his first slaying of a beast or bird, +introduces an element of disorder which he can compensate only after +civilization has reached a height of which we yet know nothing, and of +which our present civilization gives us but the suggestion. + +To those who may not care to master the philosophy of "Man and Nature," +the book presents great attractions in the fund of new and entertaining +knowledge given in the text, and yet more largely in the foot-notes. +Many have waded through Mr. Buckle's two volumes a second time for the +purpose of gleaning his facts and gathering up in the easiest way the +latest word in science and literature. Mr. Marsh spreads a homelier +table, but one just as varied and hearty. Never in the course of our +miscellaneous reading have we met an equal store of fresh facts. As +hinted above, they are gathered from every source: the experience of the +maple-sugar maker in Vermont is quoted side by side with the testimony +of the European scholar. The reader will be amazed that there are so +many common things in the world of which he has never heard, and that +they have so large and fruitful an influence over the world's progress. + +If there are striking faults in Mr. Marsh's work, they seem to be these: +want of continuity in treatment, and disproportionate development of +some subjects in contrast with others. The book is, in fact, too large +for a popular treatise, and not large enough for a scientific exposition +of all it essays to discuss. It claims to be a popular work; but the +elaborate discussion of Forests is far beyond the wishes or needs of any +but a scientific reader. The broken, jagged, paragraph style is a +drawback to the pleasure of perusing it: the notion seems to impress the +author that people will not read anything elaborate, unless it be broken +up into labelled paragraphs. It is true of the newspaper: it is not true +of the octavo, to which they sit down expecting a different mode of +treatment, a broad, discursive style, flowing, redundant, and even +eloquent. Yet Mr. Marsh has in some instances transgressed, we think, +even in fulness: the great prominence given, for example, to the +drainage of Holland is untrue to the general tenor of the book and to +the prospective future of the world. It was a great historic deed, when +the relations of man to Nature were quite other than what they are +to-day; but now that man is master of the sea, regulates the price of +bread in London by the price of corn in Illinois, and of broadcloth in +Paris by the cost of wool in Australia, the recovery of a few hundred +thousand acres from the bottom of the North Sea is a great thing for +Holland, but a small thing for the world. + +Yet we accept this book with grateful thanks to the accomplished author. +In the present transition-stage from metaphysical to physical studies, +it will be eagerly accepted, as showing, not openly nor yet covertly, +yet suggestively, the true connection of both. Few books give in quiet, +modest fashion so much theology as this, and yet few claim to give so +little. Few bear more strongly on the mooted points of Anthropology; few +strike so strong a blow at that Development-theory which makes man +merely king of the beasts, and superior to the ape and the gorilla only +in degree; and yet few proceed in such high argument with less +ostentation. This book leaves one great want unfulfilled: to take up the +mantle of Ritter and proceed carefully to the study of French, German, +Russian, English, Spanish, and Italian history, and indeed all great +nations' history, by the light of geography. The problem is stated; it +has now only to be wrought out. Perhaps Mr. Marsh, whose acquisitions +seem to be boundless, and whose powers unlimited, may live to win fresh +laurels on this field. + + * * * * * + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +Woodburn. A Novel. By Rosa Vertner Jeffrey, Author of "Poems by Rosa." +New York. 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By Henry D. Thoreau, Author of "Walden," etc. Boston. +Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. viii., 328. $1.50. + +A Memoir of the Christian Labors, Pastoral and Philanthropic, of Thomas +Chalmers, D.D., LL.D. By Francis Wayland. Boston. Gould & Lincoln. 12mo. +pp. 218. 90 cents. + +History of the Rebellion: Its Authors and Causes. By Joshua R. Giddings. +New York. Follett, Foster, & Co. 8vo. pp. 498. $3.00. + +Manual of Gunnery Instructions for the Navy of the United Slates. +Compiled from the Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy, for +the Use of the United States Naval Academy. New York. D. Van Nostrand. +Square 18mo. pp. 182. $1.50. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] I was once trying to convince an eminent prelate--one of the most +learned and liberal of his order, and even then close to the red hat--of +the importance of admitting laymen to certain State functions. "All +right," said he, "from your point of view; but still I shall oppose it +always, tooth and nail; for, if they come in, we must go out." + +[B] Dr. Lieber, in his "Reminiscences of Niebuhr,"--a delightful book of +a delightful class,--records the great historian's testimony in favor of +Italian Latin. + +[C] This is a metrical version of the following passage of the +"Scaligeriana":--"Les Allemans ne se soucient pas quel vin ils boivent +pourvu que ce soit vin, ni quel Latin ils parlent pourvu que ce soit +Latin." + +[D] Need we say that this gentleman is a member of the French Academy, a +librarian of the Mazarin Library, and the well-known author of +"Mademoiselle de la Seigliere," "La Maison de Penarvan," "Sacs et +Parchemins," etc.? + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, +August, 1864, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY,VOLUME 14 *** + +***** This file should be named 16057.txt or 16057.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/0/5/16057/ + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine +Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + +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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