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+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: 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.
+
+ * * * * *
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+Kiepert's Map of the Route of the Ten Thousand. By James R. Boise,
+Professor in the University of Michigan. New York. D. Appleton & Co.
+16mo. pp. vi., 268. $1.00.
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+like most Visions of the Night, a Medley of Old Things and New. By Ulric
+De Lazie, Gentleman. New York. P. O'Shea. 12mo. pp. xviii., 534. $1.75.
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+Oxford, and one of Her Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary. First American,
+from the Fifth London Edition. With a Prefatory Note, by George H.
+Houghton, D.D., Rector of the Church of the Transfiguration in the City
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+Expository Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism. By George W. Bethune,
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+491. $2.25.
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+
+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 ***
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