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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20350-8.txt b/20350-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d09c1f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/20350-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9200 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, +September, 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: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: January 13, 2007 [EBook #20350] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections). + + + + + + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XIV.--SEPTEMBER, 1864.--NO. LXXXIII. + + +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. + + +Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved +to the end of the article. + + + + +THE CADMEAN MADNESS. + + +An old English divine fancied that all the world might go mad and nobody +know it. The conception suggests a query whether the standard of sanity, +as of fashions and prices, be not a purely artificial one, an accident +of convention, a law of society, an arbitrary institute, and therefore a +possible mistake. A sage and a maniac each thinks the other mad. The +decision is a matter of majorities. Should a whole community become +insane, it would nevertheless vote itself wise; if the craze of Bedlam +were uniform, its inmates could not distinguish it from a Pantheon; and +though all human history seemed to the gods only as a continuous series +of mediæval processions _des sots et des ânes_, yet the topsy-turvy +intellect of the world would ever worship folly in the name of wisdom. +Arts and sciences, ideas and institutions, laws and learning would still +abound, transmogrified to suit the reigning madness. And as statistics +reveal the late gradual and general increase of insanity, it becomes a +provident people to consider what may be the ultimate results, if this +increase should happen never to be checked. And if sanity be, indeed, a +glory which we might all lose unawares, we may well betake ourselves to +very solemn reflection as to whether we are, at the present moment, in +our wits and senses, or not. + +The peculiar proficiencies of great epochs are as astonishing as the +exploits of individual frenzy. The era of the Greek rhapsodists, when a +body of matchless epical literature was handed down by memory from +generation to generation, and a recitation of the whole "Odyssey" was +not too much for a dinner-party,--the era of Periclean culture, when the +Athenian populace was wont to pass whole days in the theatre, attending +with unfaltering intellectual keenness and æsthetic delight to three or +four long dramas, either of which would exhaust a modern audience,--the +wild and vast systems of imaginary abstractions, which the +Neo-Platonists, as also the German transcendentalists, so strangely +devised and became enamored of,--the grotesque views of men and things, +the funny universe altogether, which made up both the popular and the +learned thought of the Middle Ages,--the Buddhistic Orient, with its +subtile metaphysical illusions, its unreal astronomical heavens, its +habits of repose and its tornadoes of passion,--such are instances of +great diversities of character, which would be hardly accountable to +each other on the supposition of mutual sanity. They suggest a +difference of ideas, moods, habits, and capacities, which in +contemporaries and associates would amply justify either party that +happened to be the majority in turning all the rest into insane asylums. +It is the demoniac element, the raving of some particular demon, that +creates greatness either in men or nations. Power is maniacal. A +mysterious fury, a heavenly inspiration, an incomprehensible and +irresistible impulse, goads humanity on to achievements. Every age, +every person, and every art obeys the wand of the enchanter. History +moves by indirections. The first historic tendency is likely to be +slightly askew; there follows then an historic triumph, then an historic +eccentricity, then an historic folly, then an explosion; and then the +series begins again. In the grade of folly, hard upon an explosion, lies +modern literature. + +The characteristic mania of the last two centuries is reading and +writing. Solomon discovered that much study is a weariness of the flesh; +Aristophanes complained of the multitude and indignity of authors in his +time; and the famed preacher, Geyler von Kaisersberg, in the age of +prevalent monkery and Benedictine plodding, mentioned erudition and +madness, on equal footing, as the twin results of books: "_Libri quosdam +ad scientiam, quosdam ad insaniam deduxere_." These were successive +symptoms of the growing malady. But where there was one writer in the +time of Geyler, there are a million now. He saw both health and disease, +and could distinguish between them. We see only the latter. Skill in +letters, half a decade of centuries ago, was a miraculous attainment, +and placed its possessor in the rank of divines and diviners; now, +inability to read and write is accounted, with pauperism and crime, a +ground for civil disfranchisement. The old feudal merry and hearty +ignorance has been everywhere corrupted by books and newspapers, +learning and intelligence, the cabalistic words of modern life. Popular +poetry and music, ballads and legends, wit and originality have +disappeared before the barbaric intellectuality of our Cadmean idolatry. +Even the arts of conversation and oratory are waning, and may soon be +lost; we live only in second and silent thoughts: for who will waste +fame and fortune by giving to his friends the gems which will delight +mankind? and how can a statesman grapple eloquently with Fate, when the +contest is not to be determined on the spot, but by quiet and remote +people coolly reading his speech several hours or days later? Even if we +were vagarying into imbecility, like the wildest Neo-Platonic +hierophants, like the monkish chroniclers of the Middle Ages, like other +romantic and fantastic theorists who have leaped out of human nature +into a purely artificial realm, we should not know it, because we are +all doing it uniformly. + +The universe is a veiled Isis. The human mind from immemorial antiquity +has ceased to regard it. A small cohort of alphabets has enrobed it with +a wavy texture of letters, beyond which we cannot penetrate. The glamour +is upon us, and when we would see the facts of Nature, we behold only +tracts of print. The God of the heavens and earth has hidden Himself +from us since we gave ourselves up to the worship of the false +divinities of Phoenicia. No longer can we admire the _cosmos_; for the +_cosmos_ lies beyond a long perspective of theorems and propositions +that cross our eyes, like countless bees, from the alcoves of +philosophies and sciences. No longer do we bask in the beauty of things, +as in the sunlight; for when we would melt in feeling, we hear nothing +but the rattling of gems of verse. No longer does the mind, as +sympathetic priest and interpreter, hover amid the phenomena of time and +space; for the forms of Nature have given place to volumes, there are no +objects but pages, and passions have been supplanted by paragraphs. We +no longer see the whirling universe, or feel the pulsing of life. +Thought itself has ceased to be a sprite, and flows through the mind +only in the leaden shape of printed sentences. The symbolism of letters +is over us all. An all-pervading nominalism has completely masked +whatsoever there is that is real. More and more it is not the soul and +Nature, but the eye and print, whose resultant is thought. Nature +disappears and the mind withers. No other faculty has been developed in +man but that of the reader, no other possibility but that of the writer. +The old-fashioned arts which used to imply human nature, which used to +blossom instinctively, which have given joy and beauty to society, are +fading from the face of the earth. Where are the ancient and mediæval +popular games, those charming vital symptoms? The people now read +Dickens and Longfellow. Where are the old-fashioned instincts of worship +and love, consolation and mourning? The people have since found an +antidote for these experiences in Blair and Tupper, and other authors of +renown. Where are those weird voices of the air and forest and stream, +those symptoms of an enchanted Nature, which used to thrill and bless +the soul of man? The duller ear of men has failed to hear them in this +age of popular science. + +Literature, using the word with a benevolent breadth of meaning which +excludes no pretenders, is the result of the invasion of letters. It is +the fort which they occupy, which with too hasty consideration has +usually been regarded as friendly to the human race. Religions, laws, +sciences, arts, theories, and histories, instead of passing Ariel-like +into the elements when their task is done, are made perpetual prisoners +in the alcoves of dreary libraries. They have a fossil immortality, +surviving themselves in covers, as poems have survived minstrels. The +memory of man is made omni-capacious; its burden increases with every +generation; not even the ignorance and stolidity of the past are allowed +the final grace of being forgotten; and omniscience is becoming at once +more and more impossible and more and more fashionable. Whoever reads +only the books of his own time is superficial in proportion to the +thickness of the ages. But neither the genius of man, nor his length of +days, has had an increase corresponding to that of the realm of +knowledge, the requirements of reading, and the conditions of +intelligence. The multiplied attractions only crowd and obstruct the +necessarily narrow line of duty, possibility, and destiny. Life +threatens to be extinguished by its own shadow, by the _débris_ kept in +the current by countless tenacious records. Its essence escapes to +heaven or into new forms, but its ghosts still walk the earth in print. +Like that mythical serpent which advanced only as it grew in length, so +knowledge spans the whole length of the ages. Some philosopher conceived +of history as the migration and growth of reason throughout time, +culminating in successive historical ideas. He, however, supposed that +the idea of every age had nothing to do with any preceding age; it had +passed through whatsoever previous stages, had been somewhat modified by +them, contained in itself all that was best in them, was improved and +elevated at every new epoch; but it had no memory, never looked +backward, and was an ever rolling sphere, complete in itself, leaving no +trail behind. Human life, under the discipline of letters and common +schools, is not thus Hegelian, but advances under the boundless +retrospection of literature. And yet this is probably divine philosophy. +It is probable that the faculty of memory belongs to man only in an +immature state of development, and that in some future and happier epoch +the past will be known to us only as it lives in the present; and then +for the first time will Realism in life take the place of Nominalism. + +The largest library in the world, the Bibliothèque Impériale of Paris, +(it has been successively, like the adventurous and versatile throne of +France, Royale, Nationale, and Impériale,) contains very nearly one +million of books, the collected fruits of all time. Consider an average +book in that collection: how much human labor does it stand for? How +much capital was invested originally in its production, and how much +tribute of time and toil does it receive per annum? Regarding books as +intellectual estate, how much does it cost mankind to procure and keep +up an average specimen? What quantity of human resources has been +originally and consecutively sunk in the Parisian library? How much of +human time, which is but a span, and of human emotion and thought, which +are sacred and not to be carelessly thrown away, lie latent therein? + +The estimate must be highly speculative. Some books have cost a lifetime +and a heartbreak; others have been written at leisure in a week, and +without an emotion. Some are born from the martyrdom of a thinker to +fire the genius of a populace; others are the coruscations of joy, and +have a smile for their immortal heir. Some have made but the slightest +momentary ripple in human affairs; others, first gathering eddies about +themselves, have swept forward in grand currents, engrossing for +centuries whole departments of human energy. Thousands publish and are +forgotten before they die. Spinoza published after his death and is not +yet understood. + +We will begin with the destined bibliomacher at the time of his +assumption of short clothes. The alphabet is his first professional +torture, and that only ushers him upon the gigantic task of learning to +read and write his own language. Experience shows that this miracle of +memory and associative reason may be in the main accomplished by the +time he is eight years old. Thus far in his progress towards book-making +he has simply got his fingers hold of the pen. He has next to run the +gauntlet of the languages, sciences, and arts, to pass through the epoch +of the scholar, with satchel under his arm, with pale cheek, an eremite +and ascetic in the religion of Cadmus. At length, at about twenty years +of age, he leaves the university, not a master, but a bachelor of +liberal studies. But thus far he has laid only the foundation, has +acquired only rudiments and generalities, has only served his +apprenticeship to letters. God gave mind and nature, but art has +furnished him a new capacity and a new world,--the capacity to read, and +the world of books. He has simply acquired a new nature, a psychological +texture of letters, but the artificial _tabula rasa_ has yet to be +filled. Twenty obstetrical years have at last made him a literary +animal, have furnished him the abstract conditions of authorship; but he +has yet his life to save, and his fortune to make in literature. He is +born into the mystic fraternity of readers and writers, but the special +studies and experiences which fit him for anything, which make a book +possible, are still in the future. He will be fortunate, if he gets +through with them, and gets his first volume off his hands by the age of +thirty. Authors are the shortest-lived of men. Their average years are +less than fifty. Our bibliomacher has therefore twenty years left to +him. Taking all time together, since formerly authors wrote less +abundantly than now, he will not produce more than one work in five +years, that is, five works in his lifetime of fifty years. The +conclusion to which this rather precarious investigation thus brings us +is, that the original cost of an average book is ten years of a human +life. And yet these ten years make but the mere suggestion of the book. +The suggestion must be developed by an army of printers, sellers, and +librarians. What other institution in the world is there but the +Bibliothèque Impériale, to the mere suggestion of which ten millions of +laborious years have been devoted? + +Startling considerations present themselves. If there were no other +_argumentum ad absurdum_ to demonstrate some fundamental perversity and +absurdity in literature, it might be suspected from the fact that Nature +herself gives so little encouragement to it. Nobody is born an author. +The art of writing, common as it is, is not indigenous in man, but is +acquired by a nearly universal martyrdom of youth. If it had been +providentially designed that the function of any considerable portion of +mankind should have been to write books, we cannot suppose that an +economical Deity would have failed to create them with innate skill in +language, general knowledge, and penmanship. These accomplishments have +to be learned by every writer, yet writers are numberless. They are +mysteries which must be painfully encountered by every one at the +vestibule of the temple of literature, which nevertheless is thronged. +Surely, had this importance and prevalence been attached to them in the +Divine scheme, they would have been born in us like the senses, or would +blossom spontaneously in us, like the corollal growths of Faith and +Conscience. We should have been created in a condition of literary +capacity, and thus have been spared the alphabetical torture of +childhood, and the academic depths of philological despair. Twenty-five +years of preliminaries might have been avoided by changing the peg in +the scale of creation, and the studies of the boy might have begun where +now they end. Twenty-five years in the span of life would thus have been +saved, had what must be a universal acquirement been incorporated into +the original programme of human nature. + +Or had the Deity appreciated literature as we do, He would probably have +written out the universe in some snug little volume, some miniature +series, or some boundless Bodleian, instead of unfolding it through +infinite space and time, as an actual, concrete, unwritten reality. Be +creation a single act or an eternal process, it would have been all a +thing of books. The Divine Mind would have revealed itself in a library, +instead of in the universe. As for men, they would have existed only in +treatises on the mammalia. There are some specimens which we hardly +think are according to any anticipation of heavenly reason, and +therefore they would not have existed at all. Nothing would have been +but God and literature. Possibly a responsible creation like ours might +have been formed, nevertheless, by making each letter a living, +thinking, moral agent; and the alphabet might thus have written out the +Divine ideas, as men now work them out. If the conception seem to any +one chilly, if it have a dreary look, if it appear to leave only a +frosty metallic base, instead of the grand oceanic effervescence of +life, let him remember how often earthly authors have renounced living +realities, all personal sympathies and pleasures, communing only with +books, their minds dwelling apart from men. Remember Tasso and Southey; +ay, if you have yourself written a book that commands admiration, +remember what it cost you. Why hesitate to transfer to the skies a type +of life which we admire here below? But God having wrought out instead +of written out His thoughts, does it not appear that He designed for men +to do likewise? + +And thus a new consideration is presented. The exhibit of the original +cost of the Bibliothèque Impériale was the smallest item in our budget. +Mark the history of a book. How variously it engrosses the efforts of +the world, from the time when it first rushes into the arena of life! +The industry of printing embodies it, the energy of commerce disperses +it, the army of critics announce it, the world of readers give their +days and nights to it generation after generation, and its echoes +uninterruptedly repeat themselves along the infinite procession of +writers. The process reverts with every new edition, and eddies mingle +with eddies in the motley march of history. Its story may be traced in +martyrdoms of the flesh, in weary hours, strange experiences, unhappy +tempers, restless struggles, unrequited triumphs,--in the glare of +midnight lamps, and of wild, haggard eyes,--in sorrow, want, desolation, +despair, and madness. Born in sorrow, the book trails a pathway of +sorrow through the ages. And each book in the Parisian library stands +for all this,--some that were produced with tears having been always +read for jest,--some that were lightly written being now severe tasks +for historians, antiquaries, and source-mongers. + +Suppose an old Egyptian, who in primæval Hierapolis incased his thought +in papyrus, to be able now to take a stroll into the Bibliothèque, and +to see what has become of his thought so far as there represented. He +would find that it had haunted mankind ever since. An alcove would be +filled with commentaries on it, and discussions as to where it came from +and what it meant. He would find it modifying and modified by the +Greeks, and reproduced by them with divers variations,--extinguished by +Christianity,--revived, with a new face, among the theurgies and cabala +of Alexandria; he would catch the merest glimpse of it amid the +Christian legends and credulities of the Middle Ages,--but the Arabs +would have kept a stronger hold on it; he would see it in the background +after the revival of learning, till, gradually, as modern commerce +opened the East, scholars, also, discovered that there were wonders +behind the classic nations; and finally he would see how modern +research, rushing back through comparison of language-roots, through +geological data, through ethnological indications, through antiquarian +discoveries, has rooted out of the layers of ages all the history +attendant upon its original production. He would find the records of +this long history in the library around him. In every age, the thought, +born of pain, has been reproduced with travail. It did not do its +mission at once, penetrate like a ray of light into the heart of the +race, and leave a chemical effect which should last forever. No, the +blood of man's spirit was not purified,--only an external application +was made, and that application must be repeated with torture upon every +generation. Was this designed to be the function of thought, the mission +of heavenly ideas? + +This is the history of his thought in books. But let us conceive what +might have been its history but for the books;--how it might have been +written in the fibres of the soul, and lived in eternal reason, instead +of having been written on papyrus and involved in the realm of dead +matter. His idea, thrilling his own soul, would have revealed itself in +every particle and movement of his body; for "soul is form, and doth the +body make." Its first product would have been his own quivering, +animated, and animating personality. He would have impressed every one +of his associates, every one of whom would in turn have impressed a new +crowd, and thus the immortal array of influences would have gone on. Not +impressions on parchment, but impressions on the soul, not letters, but +thrills, would have been its result. Thus the magic of personal +influence of all kinds would have radiated from it in omnipresent and +colliding circlets forever, as the mighty imponderable agents are +believed to radiate from some hidden focal force. He would trace his +idea in the massive architecture and groping science of Egypt,--in the +elegant forms of worship, thought, institutes, and life among the +Greeks,--in the martial and systematizing genius of Rome,--and so on +through the ecclesiastical life of the Middle Ages, and the political +and scientific ambitions of modern times. Its operations have everywhere +been chemical, not mechanical. It has lived, not in the letter, but in +the spirit. Never dropping to the earth, it has been maintained as a +shuttlecock in spiritual regions by the dynamics of the soul. It has +wrought itself into the soul, the only living and immortal thing, and so +the proper place for ideas. Its mode of transmission has been by the +suffusion of the eye, the cheek, the lip, the manner, not by dead and +unsymbolical letters. It has had life, and not merely duration. It has +been perpetuated in cordate, not in dactylate characters. Its history +must not be sought away from the circle of life, but may be seen in the +current generation of men. The man whom you should meet on the street +would be the product of all the ideas and influences from the +foundation of the world, and his slightest act would reveal them all +vital within him. The libraries, which form dead recesses in the river +of life, would thus be swept into and dissolved in the current, and the +waters would have been deepened and colored by their dissolution. +Libraries are a sort of _débris_ of the world, but the spiritual +substance of them would thus enter into the organism of history. All the +last results of time would come to us, not through books, but through +the impressions of daily life. Whatsoever was unworthy to be woven into +the fibres of the soul would be overwhelmed by that oblivion which +chases humanity; all the time wasted in the wrong-headedness of +archæology would be saved; for there would be nothing of the past except +its influence on the immediate present, and nothing but the pure human +ingot would finally be left of the long whirlings in the crucible of +history. Some one has said that all recent literature is one gigantic +plagiarism from the past. Why plagiarize with toil the toils of the +past, when all that is good in them lives, necessarily and of its own +tendency, in the winged and growing spirit of man? The stream flows in a +channel, and is colored by all the ores of its banks, but it would be +absurd for it to attempt to take the channel up and carry it along with +itself out into the sea. Why should the tinted water of life attempt to +carry along with it not only the tint, but also the bank, ages back, +from which the tint proceeds? + +As the world goes on, the multitude of books increases. They grow as +grows the human race,--but, unlike the human race, they have a material +immortality here below. Fossil books, unlike fossil rocks, have a power +of reproduction. Every new year leaves not only a new inheritance, but +generally a larger one than ever before. What is to be the result? The +ultimate prospect is portentous. If England has produced ten thousand +volumes of fiction (about three thousand new novels) during the last +forty years, how many books of all kinds has Christendom to answer for +in the same period? If the British Museum makes it a point to preserve a +copy of everything that is published, how long will it be before the +whole world will not be sufficient to contain the multitude thereof? At +present all the collections of the Museum, books, etc., occupy only +forty acres on the soil, and an average of two hundred feet towards the +sky. But even these outlines indicate a block of space which under +geometrical increase would in the shortest of geological periods make a +more complete conquest of the earth than has ever been made by fire or +water. To say nothing of the sorrows of the composition of these new +literary stores, how is man, whose years are threescore-and-ten, going +to read them? Surely the green earth will be transformed into a +wilderness of books, and man, reduced from the priest and interpreter of +Nature to a bookworm, will be like the beasts which perish. + +The eye of fancy lately witnessed in a dream the vision of an age far in +the future. The surface of the earth was covered with lofty rectangles, +built up coral-like from small rectangles. There was neither tree nor +herb nor living creature. Walled paths, excavated ruts, alone broke the +desert-like prospect, as the burrows of life. Penetrating into these, +the eye saw men walking beneath the striated piles, with heads bent +forward and nervous fingering of brow. There the whole world, such as we +have known it, was buried beneath volumes, past all enumeration. There +was neither fauna nor flora, neither wilderness, tempest, nor any +familiar look of Nature, but only one boundless contiguity of books. +There was only man and space and one unceasing library, and the men +neither ate nor slept nor spoke. Nature was transformed into the +processes and products of writing, and man was now no longer lover, +friend, peasant, merchant, naturalist, traveller, gourmet, mechanic, +warrior, worshipper, but only an author. All other faculties had been +lost to him, and all resources for anything else had fled from his +universe. Anon some wrinkled, fidgety, cogitative being in human form +would add a new volume to some slope or tower of the monstrous +omni-patulent mass, or some sharp-glancing youth, with teeth set +unevenly on edge, would pull out a volume, look greedily and +half-believingly for a few moments, return it, and slink away. "What is +this world, and what means this life?" cried I, addressing an old man, +who had just tossed a volume aloft. "Where are we, and what about this? +Tell me, for I have not before seen and do not know." He glanced a +moment, then spoke, like a shade in hell, as follows:--"This is the +world, and here is human life. Man long enjoyed it, with wonderful +fulness and freshness of being. But a madness seized him; everybody +wrote books; the evil grew more and more; nought else was an object of +pursuit; till at last the earth was covered with tomes, and for long +ages now it has been buried beyond the reach of mortal. All forms of +life were exterminated. Man himself survives only as a literary shadow. +Each one writes a book, or a few books, and dies, vanishing into thin +air. Such is life,--a hecatomb!" + +But even if it be supposed that mind could survive the toil, and the +earth the quantity of our accumulating books, there are other +difficulties. There are other imperative limitations, beyond which the +art of writing cannot go. Letters themselves limit the possibilities of +literature. For there is only a certain number of letters. These letters +are capable of only a certain number of combinations into words. This +limited number of possible words is capable only of a certain number of +arrangements. Conceive the effect when all these capabilities shall be +exhausted! It will no longer be possible for a new thing to be said or +written. We shall have only to select and repeat from the past. Writing +shall be reduced to the making of extracts, and speaking to the making +of quotations. Yet the condition of things would certainly be improved. +As there is now a great deal of writing without thinking, so then +thinking could go on without writing. A man would be obliged to think +out and up to his result, as we do now; but whether his processes and +conclusions were wise or foolish, he would find them written out for him +in advance. The process of selection would be all. The immense amount of +writing would cease. Authors would be extinct. Thinkers could find their +ideas stated in the best possible way, and the most effective arguments +in their favor. If this event seems at all unlikely to any one, let him +only reflect on the long geological ages, and on the innumerable +writings, short and long, now published daily,--from Mr. Buckle to the +newspapers. Estimate everything in type daily throughout Christendom. If +so much is done in a day, how much in a few decades of centuries? +Surely, at our present rate, in a very conceivable length of time, the +resources of two alphabets would be exhausted. And this may be the +reason and providence in the amount of writing now going on,--to get +human language written up. The earth is as yet not half explored, and +its cultivation and development, in comparison with what shall some time +be, have scarcely begun. Will not the race be blessed, when its two +mortal foes, Nature and the alphabet, have been finally and forever +subdued? + +This necessary finiteness of literature may be illustrated in another +way. An English mathematician of the seventeenth century applied the +resources of his art to an enumeration of human ideas. He believed that +he could calculate with rigorous exactness the number of ideas of which +the human mind is susceptible. This number, according to him, (and he +has never been disputed,) was 3,155,760,000. Even if we allowed +a million of words to one idea, according to our present +practice,--instead of a single word to an idea, which would seem +reasonable,--still, all the possible combinations of words and ideas +would finally be exhausted. The ideas would give out, to be sure, a +million of times before the words; but the latter would meet their doom +at last. All possible ideas would then be served up in all possible ways +for all men, who could order them according to their appetites, and we +could dispense with cooks ever after. The written word would be the +finished record of all possible worlds, in gross and in detail. + +But the problem whose solution has thus been attempted by desperate +suggestions has, by changing its elements, nullified our calculation. We +have been plotting to cast out the demon of books; and, lo! three other +kindred demons of quarterlies, monthlies, and newspapers have joined +fellowship with it, and our latter estate is worse than our first. +Indeed, we may anticipate the speedy fossilization and extinction of +books, while these younger broods alone shall occupy the earth. Our +libraries are already hardly more than museums, they will soon be +_mausoleums_, while all our reading is of the winged words of the +hurried contributor. Some of the most intelligent and influential men in +large cities do not read a book once a year. The Cadmean magic has +passed from the hands of hierophants into those of the people. +Literature has fallen from the domain of immortal thought to that of +ephemeral speech, from the conditions of a fine to those of a mechanical +art. The order of genius has been abolished by an all-prevailing popular +opinion. The elegance and taste of patient culture have been vulgarized +by forced contact with the unpresentable facts thrust upon us by the +ready writer. Everybody now sighs for the new periodical, while nobody +has read the literature of any single age in any single country. + +How like mountain-billows of barbarism do the morning journals, reeking +with unkempt facts, roll in upon the peaceful thought of the soul! How +like savage hordes from some remote star, some nebulous chaos, that has +never yet been recognized in the cosmical world, do they trample upon +the organic and divine growths of culture, laying waste the well-ordered +and fairly adorned fields of the mind, demolishing the intellectual +highways which great engineering thinkers have constructed within us, +and reducing a domain in which poetry and philosophy, with their sacred +broods, dwelt gloriously together, to an undistinguishable level of +ruin! How helpless are we before a newspaper! We sit down to it a highly +developed and highly civilized being; we leave it a barbarian. Step by +step, blow by blow, has everything that was nobly formed within us been +knocked down, and we are made illustrations of the atomic theory of the +soul, every atom being a separate savage, after the social theory of +Hobbes. We are crazed by a multitudinousness of details, till the eye +sees no picture, the ear hears no music, the taste finds no beauty, and +the reason grasps no system. The only wonder is that the diabolical +invention of Faust or Gutenberg has not already transformed the growths +of the mind into a fauna and flora of perdition. + +It was a sad barbarism when men ran wild with their own impulses, unable +to control the fierceness of instinct. It is a sadder barbarism when men +yield to every impulse from without, with no imperial dignity in the +soul, which closes the apartments against the violence of the world and +frowns away unseemly intruders. We have no spontaneous enthusiasm, no +spiritual independence, no inner being, obedient only to its own law. We +do not plough the billows of time with true beak and steady weight, but +float, a tossed cork, now one side up and now the other. We live the +life of an insect accidentally caught within a drum. Every steamer that +comes hits the drum a beat; every telegram taps it; it echoes with every +representative's speech, reverberates with every senator's more portly +effort, screams at every accident. Everything that is done in the +universe seems to be done only to make a noise upon it. Every morning, +whatsoever thing has been changed, and whatsoever thing has been +unchanged, during the night, comes up to batter its report on the +omni-audient tympanum of the universe, the drum-head of the press. And +then we are inside of it. It may be music to the gods who dwell beyond +the blue ether, but it is terrible confusion to us. + +Virgil exhausted the resources of his genius in his portraiture of +Fame:-- + + "Fama, malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum: + Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo: + Parva metu primo; mox sese attollit in auras, + Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit. + + *** *** *** *** + + Tot linguæ, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit aures. + Nocte volat coeli medio terræque per umbram + Stridens, nec dulci declinat lumina somno." + +What would he have done, had he known our modern monster, the +alphabet-tongued, steel-sinewed, kettle-lunged Rumor? It is a sevenfold +horror. The Virgilian Fame was not a mechanical, but a living thing; it +grew as it ran; it at least gave a poetical impression. Its story grew +as legends grow, full to the brim of the instincts of the popular +genius. It left its traces as it passed, and the minds of all who saw +and heard rested in delightful wonder till something new happened. But +the fact which printed Rumor throws through the atmosphere is coupled +not with, the beauty of poetry, but with the madness of dissertation. +Everybody is not only informed that the Jackats defeated the Magnats on +the banks of the Kaiger on the last day of last week, but this news is +conveyed to them in connection with a series of revelations about the +relations of said fact to the universe. The primordial germ is not +poetical, but dissertational. It tends to no organic creation, but to +any abnormal and multitudinous display of suggestions, hypotheses, and +prophecies. The item is shaped as it passes, not by the hopes and fears +of the soul, but grows by accumulation of the dull details of prose. We +have neither the splendid bewilderments of the twelfth, nor the cold +illumination of the eighteenth century, but bewilderments without +splendor, and coldness without illumination. The world is too wide-awake +for thought,--the atmosphere is too bright for intellectual +achievements. We have the wonders and sensations of a day; but where are +the fathomless profundities, the long contemplations, and the silent +solemnities of life? The newspapers are marvels of mental industry. They +show how much work can be done in a day, but they never last more than a +day. Sad will it be when the genius of ephemerality has invaded all +departments of human actions and human motives! Farewell then to deep +thoughts, to sublime self-sacrifice, to heroic labors for lasting +results! Time is turned into a day, the mind knows only momentary +impressions, the weary way of art is made as short as a turnpike, and +the products of genius last only about as long as any mood of the +weather. Bleak and changeable March will rule the year in the +intellectual heavens. + +What symbol could represent this matchless embodiment of all the +activities, this tremendous success, this frenzied public interest? A +monster so large, and yet so quick,--so much bulk combined with so much +readiness,--reaching so far, and yet striking so often! Who can conceive +that productive state of mind in which some current fact is all the time +whirling the universe about it? Who can understand the mania of the +leader-writer, who never thinks of a subject without discovering the +possibility of a column concerning it,--who never looks upon his plate +of soup without mentally reviewing in elaborate periods the whole +vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms? + +But what is the advantage of newspapers? Forsooth, popular intelligence. +The newspaper is, in the first place, the legitimate and improved +successor of the fiery cross, beacon-light, signal-smoking summit, +hieroglyphic mark, and bulletin-board. It is, in addition to this, a +popular daily edition and application of the works of Aristotle, St. +Thomas Aquinas, Lord Bacon, Vattel, and Thomas Jefferson. On one page it +records items, on the other it shows the relations between those items +and the highest thought. Yet the whole circle is accomplished daily. The +journal is thus the synopticized, personified, incarnate madness of the +day,--for to-day is always mad, and becomes a thing of reason only when +it becomes yesterday. A proper historical fact is one of the rarest +shots in the journalist's bag, as time is sure to prove. If we had +newspaper-accounts of the age of Augustus, the chances are that no other +epoch in history would be so absolutely problematical, and Augustus +himself would be lucky, if he were not resolved into a myth, and the +journal into sibylline oracles. The dissertational department is equally +faulty; for to first impressions everything on earth is chameleon-like. +The Scandinavian Divinities, the Past, the Present, and the Future, +could look upon each other, but neither of them upon herself. But in the +journal the Present is trying to behold itself; the same priestess +utters and explains the oracle. Thus the journal is the immortal +reproduction of the _jour des dupes_. The editors are like the newsboys, +shouting the news which they do not understand. + +The public mind has given itself up to it. It claims the right to +pronounce all the newspapers very bad, but has renounced the privilege +of not reading them. Every one is made _particeps criminis_ in the +course of events. Nothing takes place in any quarter of the globe +without our assistance. We have to connive at _omne scibile_. About +everything natural and human, infernal and divine, there is a general +consultation of mankind, and we are all made responsible for the result. +Yet this constant interruption of our private intellectual habits and +interests is both an impertinence and a nuisance. Why send us all the +crudities? Why call upon us till you know what you want? Why speak till +you have got your brain and your mouth clear? Why may we not take the +universe for granted when we get up in the morning, instead of +proceeding directly to measure it over again? Once a year is often +enough for anybody but the government to hear anything about India, +China, Patagonia, and the other flaps and coat-tails of the world. Let +the North Pole never be mentioned again till we can melt the icebergs by +a burning mirror before we start. Don't report another asteroid till the +number reaches a thousand; that will be time enough for us to change our +peg. Let us hear nothing of the small speeches, but Congress may publish +once a week a bulletin of what it has done. The President and Cabinet +may publish a bulletin, not to exceed five lines, twice a week, or on +rare occasions and in a public emergency once a day. The right, however, +shall be reserved to the people to prohibit the Cabinet from saying +anything more aloud on a particular public question, till they have +settled it. Let no mail-steamer pass between here and Europe oftener +than once a month,--let all other steamers be forbidden to bring news, +and the utterance of news by passengers be treated either as a public +libel or nuisance, or as high treason. Leave the awful accidents to the +parties whom they concern, and don't trouble us, unless they have the +merit of novelty as well as of horror. Tell us only the highest facts, +the boldest strokes, the critical moments of daily chaos, and save us +from multitudinous nonsense. + +There are some things which we like to keep out of the +newspapers,--whose dignity is rather increased by being saved from them. +There are certain momentary and local interests which have become shy of +the horn of the reporter. The leading movements in politics, the +advanced guard of scientific and artistic achievement, the most +interesting social phenomena rather increase than diminish their +importance by currency in certain circles instead of in the press. The +prestige of some events in metropolitan cities, a marriage or a party, +depends on their social repute, and they are ambitiously kept out of +the journalist's range. Moreover, in politics, a few leading men meet +together for consultation, and----but the mysteries of political +strategy are unknown here. Certainly the journalist has great influence +in them, but the clubs are centres of information and discussions of a +character and interest to which all that newspapers do is second-rate. +Science has never been popularized directly by the newspapers, but the +erudition of a _savant_ reaches to the people by creating an atmospheric +change, in which task the journals may have their influence. Rightly or +wrongly, the administration in civil affairs at Washington has not +listened to the press much, but it may be different when a new election +approaches. The social, political, scientific, and military Dii Majores +all depend on the journal for a part of their daily breakfast, but all +soar above it. + +A well-known and rather startling story describes a being, which seems +to have been neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, which a man made out of the +elements, by the use of his hands, and by the processes of chemistry, +and which at the last galvanic touch rushed forth from the laboratory, +and from the horrified eyes of its creator, an independent, scoffing, +remorseless, and inevitable enemy of him to whose rash ingenuity it owed +its origin. + +Such a creature symbolizes some of our human arts and initiations. Once +organized by genius and consecrated by precedent, they become mighty +elements in history, revelling amid the wealthy energy of life, +exhausting the forces of the intellect, clipping the tendrils of +affection, becoming colossal in the architecture of society and dorsal +in its traditions, and tyrannizing with the heedless power of an +element, to the horror of the pious soul which called it into existence, +over all departments of human activity. Such an art, having passed a +period of tameless and extravagant dominance, at length becomes a +fossil, and is regarded only as an evidence of social upheaving in a +remote and unaccountable age. + +To charge such a creature with monstrosity during the period of its +power is simply to expose one's self to popular jeers. Having immense +respect for majorities in this country, we only venture obscurely to +hint, that, of all arts, none before has ever been so threatening, +curious, and fascinating a monster as that of printing. We merely +suggest the hypothesis, novel since some centuries, that old Faustus and +Gutenberg were as much inspired by the Evil One as they have been fabled +to be, when they carved out of a mountain of ore the instrument yclept +type, to completely exhaust the possibilities of which is of late +announced as the sum of human destiny. They lived under the +hallucination of dawning literature, when printed books implied sacred +and classical perfection; and they could by no means have foreseen the +royal folios of the "New York Herald" and "Tribune," or the marvellous +inanities about the past, present, and future, which figure in an +indescribable list of duodecimo fiction, theology, and popular science. + +But there is nothing so useless as to protest against a universal +fashion. Every epoch must work out its own problem in its own way; and +it may be that it is appointed unto mankind to work through all possible +mistakes as the condition of finally attaining the truth. The only way +is, to encourage the spirit of every age, to hurry on the climax. The +practical _reductio ad absurdum_ and consequent explosion will soon +accomplish themselves. + +But a more palpable reason against protesting is, that literature in its +different branches, now as ever, commands the services of the finest +minds. It is the literary character, of which the elder Disraeli has +written the natural history, which now as ever creates the books, the +magazines, the newspapers. That sanctified bookworm was the first to +codify the laws, customs, habits, and idiosyncrasies of literary men. He +was the Justinian of the life of genius. He wandered in abstraction +through the deserted alcoves of libraries, studying and creating the +political economy of thought. What long diversities of character, what +mysterious realms of experience, what wild waywardness of heavenly +endowments, what heroism of inward struggle, what shyness towards +society, what devotion to the beckoning ideal of art, what defeats and +what triumphs, what sufferings and joys, both in excess, were revealed +by him, the great political economist of genius! In his apostolic view, +genius alone consecrated literature, and made a literary life sacred. +Genius was to him that peculiar and spontaneous devotion to letters +which made its possessor indifferent to everything else. For a man +without this heavenly stamp to engage in literature was simply for him +to rush upon his fate, and become a public nuisance. Literature in its +very nature is precarious, and must be plucked from the brink of fate, +from the mouth of the dragon. The literary man runs the risk of being +destroyed in a thousand ways. He has no track laid, no instituted aids, +no specified course of action. The machineries of life are not for him. +He enters into no one of the departments of human routine. He has no +relations with the course of the dull world; he is not quite a man, as +the world goes, and not at all an angel, as the celestials see. He must +be his own motive, path, and guide, his own priest, king, and law. The +world may be his footstool, and may be his slough of despond, but is +never his final end. His aims are transcendental, his realm is art, his +interests ideal, his life divine, his destiny immortal. All the old +theories of saintship are revived in him. He is in the world, but not of +it. Shadows of infinitude are his realities. He sees only the starry +universe, and the radiant depths of the soul. Martyrdom may desolate, +but cannot terrify him. If he be a genius, if his soul crave only his +idea, and his body fare unconsciously well on bread and water, then his +lot is happy, and fortune can present no ills which will not shrink +before his burning eye. But if he be less than this, he is lost, the +sport of devouring elements. As he fights fate on the border of ruin, so +much the more should he be animated by courage, ambition, pride, +purpose, and faith. To him literature is a high adventure, and +impossible as a profession. A profession is an instituted department of +action, resting upon universal and constant needs, and paying regular +dividends. But the fine arts must in their nature be lawless. +Appointments cannot be made for them any more than for the +thunder-storms which sweep the sky. They die when they cease to be wild. +Literary life, at its best, is a desperate play, but it is with guineas, +and not with coppers, to all who truly play it. Its elements would not +be finer, were they the golden and potent stars of alchemistic and +astrological dreams. + +Such was genius, and such was literature, in the representation of their +first great lawgiver. But the world has changed. The sad story of the +calamities of authors need not be repeated. We live in the age of +authors triumphant. By swiftly succeeding and countless publications +they occupy the eye of the world, and achieve happiness before their +death. The stratagems of literature mark no longer a struggle between +genius and the bailiffs. What was once a desperate venture is now a +lucrative business. What was once a martyrdom is now its own reward. +What once had saintly unearthliness is now a powerful motor among +worldly interests. What was once the fatality of genius is now the +aspiration of fools. The people have turned to reading, and have become +a more liberal patron than even the Athenian State, monastic order, or +noble lord. No longer does the literary class wander about the streets, +gingerbread in its coat-pockets, and rhymes written on scraps of paper +from the gutter in its waistcoat-pockets. No longer does it unequally +compete with clowns and jockeys for lordly recognition. No longer are +the poet and the fool court-rivals. No longer does it look forward to +the jail as an occasional natural resting-place and paradise. No longer +must the author renounce the rank and robe of a gentleman to fall from +airy regions far below the mechanical artists to the level of +clodhoppers, even whose leaden existence was a less precarious matter. +The order of scholars has ceased to be mendicant, vagabond, and eremite. +It no longer cultivates blossoms of the soul, but manufactures objects +of barter. Now is the happy literary epoch, when to be intellectual and +omniscient is the public and private duty of every man. To read +newspapers by the billion and books by the million is now the common +law. We can conceive of Disraeli moaning that the Titan interests of the +earth have overthrown the celestial hierarchy,--that the realm of genius +has been stormed by worldly workers,--that literature, like the angels, +has fallen from its first estate,--and that authors, no longer the +disinterested and suffering apostles, of art, have chosen rather to bear +the wand of power and luxury than to be inspired. We can imagine his +horror at the sacrilegious vulgarization of print, that people without +taste rush into angelic metre, that dunces and sages thrive together on +the public indiscrimination. How would he marvel to see literary +reputations born, grow old, and die within a season, the owners thereof +content to be damned or forgotten eternally for a moment's incense or an +equally fugitive shilling. Nectar and ambrosia mean to them only +meanness, larceny, sacrilege, and bread and butter. + +And yet, notwithstanding the imaginary reproaches of our great literary +church-father, the most preciously endowed minds are still toiling in +letters. The sad and tortured devotion of genius still works itself out +in them. Writing is now a marvellous craft and industry. The books which +last, the books of a season, the quarterlies, monthlies, weeklies, +dailies, and even the hourlies, are among the institutions of its +fostering. Nor should that vehicle, partly of intelligence, but chiefly +of sentiment, the postal system, be unmentioned, which men and women +both patronize, each after their kind. Altogether, perhaps, in some way +or other, seven-eighths of the life of man is taken up by the Cadmean +Art. The whole fair domain of learning belongs to it; for nowhere now, +in garden, grove, or Stoical Porch, with only the living voices of man +and Nature, do students acquaint themselves with the joyous solemnities, +the mysterious certainties of thought. The mind lives in a universe of +type. There is no other art in which so desperate adventures are made. +Indeed, the normal mental state of the abundant writer is a marvellous +phenomenon. The literary faculty is born of the marriage of chronic +desperation with chronic trust. This may account in part for that +peculiar condition of mind which is both engendered and required by +abundant writing. A bold abandon, a desperate guidance, a thoughtless +ratiocination, a mechanical swaying of rhetoric, are the grounds of +dissertation. A pause for a few days, a visit to the country, anything +that would seem designed to restore the mind to its normal state, +destroys the faculty. The weary penman, who wishes his chaotic head +could be relieved by being transformed even as by Puck, knows that very +whirling chaos is the condition of his multitudinous periods. It seems +as if some special sluices of the soul must be opened to force the pen. +One man, on returning to his desk from a four weeks' vacation, took up +an unfinished article which he had left, and marvelled that such writing +should ever have proceeded from him. He could hardly understand it, +still less could he conceive of the mental process by which he had once +created it. That process was a sort of madness, and the discipline of +newspapers is inflicting it alike upon writers and readers. +Demoralization is the result of a life-long devotion to the maddening +rumors of the day. It takes many a day to recall that fierce caprice, as +of an Oriental despot, with which he watches the tiger-fights of ideas, +and strikes off periods, as the tyrant strikes off heads. + +And while no other art commands so universal homage, no other is so +purely artificial, so absolutely unsymbolical. The untutored mind sees +nothing in a printed column. A library has no natural impressiveness. It +is not in the shape of anything in this world of infinite beauty. The +barbarians of Omri destroyed one without a qualm. They have occupied +apartments in seraglios, but the beauties have never feared them as +rivals. Of all human employments, writing is the farthest removed from +any touch of Nature. It is at most a symbolism twice dead and buried. +The poetry in it lies back of a double hypothesis. Supposing the +original sounds to have once been imitations of the voices of Nature, +those sounds have now run completely away from what they once +represented; and supposing that letters were once imitations of natural +signs, they have long since lost the resemblance, and have become +independent entities. Whatever else is done by human artifice has in it +some relic of Nature, some touch of life. Painting copies to the eye, +music charms the ear, and all the useful arts have something of the +aboriginal way of doing things about them. Even speech has a living +grace and power, by the play of the voice and eye, and by the billowy +flushes of the countenance. Mental energy culminates in its modulations, +while the finest physical features combine to make them a consummate +work of art. But all the musical, ocular, and facial beauties are absent +from writing. The savage knows, or could quickly guess, the use of the +brush or chisel, the shuttle or locomotive, but not of the pen. Writing +is the only dead art, the only institute of either gods or men so +artificial that the natural mind can discover nothing significant in it. + +For instance, take one of the disputed statements of the Nicene Creed, +examine it by the nicest powers of the senses, study it upwards, +downwards, and crosswise, experiment to learn if it has any mysterious +chemical forces in it, consider its figures in relation to any +astrological positions, to any natural signs of whirlwinds, tempests, +plagues, famine, or earthquakes, try long to discover some hidden +symbolism in it, and confess finally that no man unregenerate to +letters, by any _a priori_ or empirical knowledge, could have at all +suspected that a bit of dirty parchment, with an ecclesiastical scrawl +upon it, would have power to drive the currents of history, inspire +great national passions, and impel the wars and direct the ideas of an +epoch. The conflicts of the iconoclasts can be understood even by a +child in its first meditations over a picture-book; hieroglyphics may +represent or suggest their objects by some natural association; but the +literary scrawl has a meaning only to the initiated. A book is the +prince of witch-work. Everything is contained in it; but even a superior +intelligence would have to go to school to get the key to its mysterious +treasures. + +And as the art is thus removed from Nature, so its devotees withdraw +themselves from life. Of no other class so truly as of writers can it be +said that they sacrifice the real to the ideal, life to fame. They +conquer the world by renouncing it. Its fleeting pleasures, its +enchantment of business or listlessness, its social enjoyments, the +vexations and health-giving bliss of domestic life, and all wandering +tastes, must be forsaken. A power which pierces, and an ambition which +enjoys the future, accepts the martyrdom of the present. They feel +loneliness in their own age, while with universal survey viewing the +beacon-lights of history across the peaks of generations. Their seat of +life is the literary faculty, and they prune and torture themselves only +to maintain in this the highest intensity and capacity. They are in some +sort rebels battling against time, not the humble well-doer content +simply to live and bless God. Between them and living men there is the +difference which exists between analytical and geometrical mathematics: +the former has to do with signs, the latter with realities. The former +contains the laws of the physical world, but a man may know and use +them like an adept, and yet be ignorant of physics. He may know all +there is of algebra, without seeing that the universe is masked in it. +The signs would be not means, but ultimates to it. So a writer may never +penetrate through the veil of language to the realities behind,--may +know only the mechanism, and not the spirit of learning and literature. +His mind is then skeleton-like,--his thought is the shadow of a shade. + +And yet is not life greater than art? Why transform real ideas and +sentiments into typographical fossils? Why have we forgotten the theory +of human life as a divine vegetation? Why not make our hearts the focus +of the lights which we strive to catch in books? Why should the wealthy +passivity of the Oriental genius be so little known among us? Why +conceive of success only as an outward fruit plucked by conscious +struggle? Banish books, banish reading, and how much time and strength +would be improvised in which to benefit each other! We might become +ourselves embodiments of all the truth and beauty and goodness now +stagnant in libraries, and might spread their aroma through the social +atmosphere. The dynamics would supplant the mechanics of the soul. In +the volume of life the literary man knows only the indexes; but he would +then be introduced to the radiant, fragrant, and buoyant contents, to +the beauty and the mystery, to the great passions and long +contemplations. The eternal spicy breeze would transform the leaden +atmosphere of his thought. An outlaw of the universe for his sins, he +would then be restored to the realities of the heart and mind. He would +then for the first time discover the difference between skill and +knowledge. Readers and writers would then be succeeded by human beings. +The golden ante-Cadmean age would come again. Literary sanctity having +become a tradition, there would be an end of its pretentious +counterfeits. The alphabet, decrepit with its long and vast labors, +would at last be released. The whole army of writers would take their +place among the curiosities of history. The Alexandrian thaumaturgists, +the Byzantine historians, the scholastic dialecticians, the serial +novelists, and the daily dissertationists, strung together, would make a +glittering chain of monomaniacs. Social life is a mutual joy; reading +may be rarely indulged without danger to sanity; but writing, unless the +man have genius, is but creating new rubbish, the nucleus of new deltas +of obstruction, till the river of life shall lose its way to the ocean, +and the Infinite be shut out altogether. The old bibliopole De Bury +flattered himself that he admired wisdom because it purchaseth such vast +delight. He had in mind the luxury of reading, and did not think that in +this world wisdom always hides its head or goes to the stake. Even if +literature were not to be abolished altogether, it is safe to think that +the world would be better off, if there were less writing. There should +be a division of labor; some should read and write, as some ordain laws, +create philosophies, tend shops, make chairs,--but why should everybody +dabble with literature? + +In all hypotheses as to the more remote destiny of literature, we can +but be struck by the precariousness of its existence. It is art +imperishable and ever-changing material. A fire once extinguished +perhaps half the world's literature, and struck thousands from the list +of authors. The forgetfulness of mankind in the mysterious mediæval age; +diminished by more than half the world of books. There are many books +which surely, and either rapidly or slowly, resolve themselves into the +elements, but the process cannot be seen. A whole army of books perishes +with every revolution of taste. And yet the amount of current writing +surpasses the strength of man's intellect or the length of his years. +Surely, the press is very much of a nuisance as well as a blessing. Its +products are getting very much in the way, and the impulse of the world +is too strong to allow itself to be clogged by them. Something must be +done. + +Among possibilities, let the following be suggested. The world may +perhaps return from unsymbolical to symbolical writing. There is a +science older than anything but shadowy traditions, and immemorially +linked with religion, poetry, and art. It is the almost forgotten +science of symbolism. Symbols, as compared with letters, are a higher +and more potent style of expression. They are the earthly shadows of +eternal truth. It is the language of the fine arts, of painting, +sculpture, the stage,--it will be the language of life, when, rising in +the scale of being, we shall return from the dead sea of literature to +the more energetic algebra of symbolical meanings. In these, the forms +of the reason and of Nature come into visible harmony; the hopes of man +find their shadows in the struggles of the universe, and the lights of +the spirit cluster myriad-fold around the objects of Nature. Let +Phoenician language be vivified into the universal poetry of +symbolism, and thought would then become life, instead of the ghost of +life. Current literature would give way to a new and true mythology; +authors and editors would suffer a transformation similar to that of +type-setters into artists, and of newsboys into connoisseurs; and the +figures of a noble humanity would fill the public mind, no longer +confused and degraded by the perpetual vision of leaden and unsuggestive +letters. From that time prose would be extinct, and poetry would be all +in all. History would renew its youth,--would find, after the struggles, +attainments, and developments of its manhood, that there is after all +nothing wiser in thought, no truer law, than the instincts of childhood. + +Or, again: improvements have already been made which promise as an +ultimate result to transform the largest library into a miniature for +the pocket. Stenography may yet reach to a degree that it will be able +to write folios on the thumb-nail, and dispose all the literature of the +world comfortably in a gentleman's pocket, before he sets out on his +summer excursion. The contents of vast tomes, bodies of history and of +science, may be so reduced that the eye can cover them at a glance, and +the process of reading be as rapid as that of thought The mind, instead +of wearying of slow perusal, would have to spur its lightning to keep +pace with the eye. Many books are born of mere vagueness and cloudiness +of thought. All such, when thus compressed into their reality, would go +out in eternal night. There is something overpowering in the conception +of the high pressure to which life in all its departments may some time +be brought. The mechanism of reading and writing would be slight. The +mental labor of comprehending would be immense. The mind, instead of +being subdued, would be spurred, by what it works in. We are now cramped +and checked by the overwhelming amount of linguistic red-tape in which +we have to operate; but then men, freed from these bonds, the husks of +thought almost all thrown away, would be purer, live faster, do greater, +die younger. What magnificent physical improvements, we may suppose, +will then aid the powers of the soul! The old world would then be +subdued, nevermore to strike a blow at its lithe conqueror, man. The +department of the newspaper, with inconceivable photographic and +telegraphic resources, may then be extended to the solar or the stellar +systems, and the turmoils of all creation would be reported at our +breakfast-tables. Men would rise every morning to take an intelligible +account of the aspects and the prospects of the universe. + +Or, once more: shall we venture into the speculative domain of the +philosophy of history, and give the rationale of our times? What is the +divine mission of the great marvel of our age, namely, its periodical +and fugitive literature? The intellectual and moral world of mankind +reforms itself at the outset of new civilizations, as Nature reforms +itself at every new geological epoch. The first step toward a reform, as +toward a crystallization, is a solution. There was a solvent period +between the unknown Orient and the greatness of Greece, between the +Classic and the Middle Ages,--and now humanity is again solvent, in the +transition from the traditions which issued out of feudalism to the +novelty of democratic crystallization. But as the youth of all animals +is prolonged in proportion to their dignity in the scale of being, so is +it with the children of history. Destiny is the longest-lived of all +things. We are not going to accomplish it all at once. We have got to +fight for it, to endure the newspapers in behalf of it. We are in a +place where gravitation changing goes the other way. For the first time, +all reigning ideas now find their focus in the popular mind. The giant +touches the earth to recover his strength. History returns to the +people. After two thousand years, popular intelligence is again to be +revived. And under what new conditions? We live in a telescopic, +microscopic, telegraphic universe, all the elements of which are brought +together under the combined operation of fire and water, as erst, in +primitive Nature, vulcanic and plutonic forces struggled together in the +face of heaven and hell to form the earth. The long ranges of history +have left with us one definite idea: it is that of progress, the +intellectual passion of our time. All our science demonstrates it, all +our poetry sings it. Democracy is the last term of political progress. +Popular intelligence and virtue are the conditions of democracy. To +produce these is the mission of periodical literature. The vast +complexities of the world, all knowledge and all purpose, are being +reduced in the crucible of the popular mind to a common product. +Knowledge lives neither in libraries nor in rare minds, but in the +general heart. Great men are already mythical, and great ideas are +admitted only so far as we, the people, can see something in them. By no +great books or long treatises, but by a ceaseless flow of brevities and +repetitions, is the pulverized thought of the world wrought into the +soul. It is amazing how many significant passages in history and in +literature are reproduced in the essays of magazines and the leaders of +newspapers by allusion and illustration, and by constant iteration +beaten into the heads of the people. The popular mind is now feeding +upon and deriving tone from the best things that literary commerce can +produce from the whole world, past and present. There is no finer +example of the popularization of science than Agassiz addressing the +American people through the columns of a monthly magazine. Of the +popular heart which used to rumble only about once in a century the +newspapers are now the daily organs. They are creating an organic +general mind, the soil for future grand ideas and institutes. As the +soul reaches a higher stage in its destiny than ever before, the +scaffolding by which it has risen is to be thrown aside. The quality of +libraries is to be transferred to the soul. Spiritual life is now to +exert its influence directly, without the mechanism of letters,--is +going to exert itself through the social atmosphere,--and all history +and thought are to be perpetuated and to grow, not in books, but in +minds. + +And yet, though we thus justify contemporary writing, we can but think, +that, after long ages of piecemeal and _bon-mot_ literature, we shall at +length return to serious studies, vast syntheses, great works. The +nebulous world of letters shall be again concentred into stars. The +epoch of the printing-press has run itself nearly through; but a new +epoch and a new art shall arise, by which the achievements and the +succession of genius shall be perpetuated. + + + + +THE BRIDGE OF CLOUD. + + + Burn, O evening hearth, and waken + Pleasant visions, as of old! + Though the house by winds be shaken, + Safe I keep this room of gold! + + Ah, no longer wizard Fancy + Builds its castles in the air, + Luring me by necromancy + Up the never-ending stair! + + But, instead, it builds me bridges + Over many a dark ravine, + Where beneath the gusty ridges + Cataracts dash and roar unseen. + + And I cross them, little heeding + Blast of wind or torrent's roar, + As I follow the receding + Footsteps that have gone before. + + Nought avails the imploring gesture, + Nought avails the cry of pain! + When I touch the flying vesture, + 'Tis the gray robe of the rain. + + Baffled I return, and, leaning + O'er the parapets of cloud, + Watch the mist that intervening + Wraps the valley in its shroud. + + And the sounds of life ascending + Faintly, vaguely, meet the ear, + Murmur of bells and voices blending + With the rush of waters near. + + Well I know what there lies hidden, + Every tower and town and farm, + And again the land forbidden + Reassumes its vanished charm. + + Well I know the secret places, + And the nests in hedge and tree; + At what doors are friendly faces, + In what hearts a thought of me. + + Through the mist and darkness sinking, + Blown by wind and beaten by shower, + Down I fling the thought I'm thinking, + Down I toss this Alpine flower. + + + + +THE ELECTRIC GIRL OF LA PERRIÈRE. + + +Eighteen years ago there occurred in one of the provinces of +France a case of an abnormal character, marked by extraordinary +phenomena,--interesting to the scientific, and especially to the medical +world. The authentic documents in this case are rare; and though the +case itself is often alluded to, its details have never, so far as I +know, been reproduced from these documents in an English dress, or +presented in trustworthy form to the American public. It occurred in the +Commune of La Perrière, situated in the Department of Orne, in January, +1846. + +It was critically observed, at the time, by Dr. Verger, an intelligent +physician of Bellesme, a neighboring town. He details the result of his +observations in two letters addressed to the "Journal du +Magnétisme,"--one dated January 29, the other February 2, 1846.[1] The +editor of that journal, M. Hébert, (de Garny,) himself repaired to the +spot, made the most minute researches into the matter, and gives us the +result of his observations and inquiries in a report, also published in +the "Journal du Magnétisme."[2] A neighboring proprietor, M. Jules de +Farémont, followed up the case with care, from its very commencement, +and has left on record a detailed report of his observations.[3] +Finally, after the girl's arrival in Paris, Dr. Tanchon carefully +studied the phenomena, and has given the results in a pamphlet published +at the time.[4] He it was, also, who addressed to M. Arago a note on the +subject, which was laid before the Academy by that distinguished man, at +their session of February 16, 1846.[5] Arago himself had then seen the +girl only a few minutes, but even in that brief time had verified a +portion of the phenomena. + +Dr. Tanchon's pamphlet contains fourteen letters, chiefly from medical +men and persons holding official positions in Bellesme, Mortagne, and +other neighboring towns, given at length and signed by the writers, all +of whom examined the girl, while yet in the country. Their testimony is +so circumstantial, so strictly concurrent in regard to all the main +phenomena, and so clearly indicative of the care and discrimination with +which the various observations were made, that there seems no good +reason, unless we find such in the nature of the phenomena themselves, +for refusing to give it credence. Several of the writers expressly +affirm the accuracy of M. Hébert's narrative, and all of them, by the +details they furnish, corroborate it. Mainly from that narrative, aided +by some of the observations of M. de Farémont, I compile the following +brief statement of the chief facts in this remarkable case. + +Angélique Cottin, a peasant-girl fourteen years of age, robust and in +good health, but very imperfectly educated and of limited intelligence, +lived with her aunt, the widow Loisnard, in a cottage with an earthen +floor, close to the Château of Monti-Mer, inhabited by its proprietor, +already mentioned, M. de Farémont. + +The weather, for eight days previous to the fifteenth of January, 1846, +had been heavy and tempestuous, with constantly recurring storms of +thunder and lightning. The atmosphere was charged with electricity. + +On the evening of that fifteenth of January, at eight o'clock, while +Angélique, in company with three other young girls, was at work, as +usual, in her aunt's cottage, weaving ladies' silk-net gloves, the +frame, made of rough oak and weighing about twenty-five pounds, to +which was attached the end of the warp, was upset, and the candlestick +on it thrown to the ground. The girls, blaming each other as having +caused the accident, replaced the frame, relighted the candle, and went +to work again. A second time the frame was thrown down. Thereupon the +children ran away, afraid of a thing so strange, and, with the +superstition common to their class, dreaming of witchcraft. The +neighbors, attracted by their cries, refused to credit their story. So, +returning, but with fear and trembling, two of them at first, afterwards +a third, resumed their occupation, without the recurrence of the +alarming phenomenon. But as soon as the girl Cottin, imitating her +companions, had touched her warp, the frame was agitated again, moved +about, was upset, and then thrown violently back. The girl was drawn +irresistibly after it; but as soon as she touched it, it moved still +farther away. + +Upon this the aunt, thinking, like the children, that there must be +sorcery in the case, took her niece to the parsonage of La Perrière, +demanding exorcism. The curate, an enlightened man, at first laughed at +her story; but the girl had brought her glove with her, and fixing it to +a kitchen-chair, the chair, like the frame, was repulsed and upset, +without being touched by Angélique. The curate then sat down on the +chair; but both chair and he were thrown to the ground in like manner. +Thus practically convinced of the reality of a phenomenon which he could +not explain, the good man reassured the terrified aunt by telling her it +was some bodily disease, and, very sensibly, referred the matter to the +physicians. + +The next day the aunt related the above particulars to M. de Farémont; +but for the time the effects had ceased. Three days later, at nine +o'clock, that gentleman was summoned to the cottage, where he verified +the fact that the frame was at intervals thrown back from Angélique with +such force, that, when exerting his utmost strength and holding it with +both hands, he was unable to prevent its motion. He observed that the +motion was partly rotary, from left to right. He particularly noticed +that the girl's feet did not touch the frame, and that, when it was +repulsed, she seemed drawn irresistibly after it, stretching out her +hands, as if instinctively, towards it. It was afterwards remarked, +that, when a piece of furniture or other object, thus acted upon by +Angélique, was too heavy to be moved, she herself was thrown back, as if +by the reaction of the force upon her person. + +By this time the cry of witchcraft was raised in the neighborhood, and +public opinion had even designated by name the sorcerer who had cast the +spell. On the twenty-first of January the phenomena increased in +violence and in variety. A chair on which the girl attempted to sit +down, though held by three strong men, was thrown off, in spite of their +efforts, to several yards' distance. Shovels, tongs, lighted firewood, +brushes, books, were all set in motion when the girl approached them. A +pair of scissors fastened to her girdle was detached, and thrown into +the air. + +On the twenty-fourth of January, M. de Farémont took the child and her +aunt in his carriage to the small neighboring town of Mamers. There, +before two physicians and several ladies and gentlemen, articles of +furniture moved about on her approach. And there, also, the following +conclusive experiment was tried by M. de Farémont. + +Into one end of a ponderous wooden block, weighing upwards of a hundred +and fifty pounds, he caused a small hook to be driven. To this he made +Angélique fix her silk. As soon as she sat down and her frock touched +the block, the latter _was instantly raised three or four inches from +the ground; and this was repeated as much as forty times in a minute_. +Then, after suffering the girl to rest, M. de Farémont seated himself on +the block, and was elevated in the same way. Then _three men placed +themselves upon it, and were raised also_, only not quite so high. "It +is certain," says M. de Farémont, "that I and one of the most athletic +porters of the Halle could not have lifted that block with the three +persons seated on it."[6] + +Dr. Verger came to Mamers to see Angélique, whom, as well as her family, +he had previously known. On the twenty-eighth of January, in the +presence of the curate of Saint Martin and of the chaplain of the +Bellesme hospital, the following incident occurred. As the child could +not sew without pricking herself with the needle, nor use scissors +without wounding her hands, they set her to shelling peas, placing a +large basket before her. As soon as her dress touched the basket, and +she reached her hand to begin work, the basket was violently repulsed, +and the peas projected upwards and scattered over the room. This was +twice repeated, under the same circumstances. Dr. Lemonnier, of Saint +Maurice, testifies to the same phenomenon, as occurring in his presence +and in that of the Procurator Royal of Mortagne;[7] he noticed that the +left hand produced the greater effect. He adds, that, he and another, +gentleman having endeavored, with all their strength, to hold a chair on +which Angélique sat down, it was violently forced from them, and one of +its legs broken. + +On the thirtieth of January, M. de Farémont tried the effect of +isolation. When, by means of dry glass, he isolated the child's feet and +the chair on which she sat, the chair ceased to move, and she remained +perfectly quiet. M. Olivier, government engineer, tried a similar +experiment, with the same results.[8] A week later, M. Hébert, repeating +this experiment, discovered that isolation of the chair was unnecessary; +it sufficed to isolate the girl.[9] Dr. Beaumont, vicar of +Pin-la-Garenne, noticed a fact, insignificant in appearance, yet quite +as conclusive as were the more violent manifestations, as to the reality +of the phenomena. Having moistened with saliva the scattered hairs on +his own arm, so that they lay flattened, attached to the epidermis, when +he approached his arm to the left arm of the girl, the hairs instantly +erected themselves. M. Hébert repeated the same experiment several +times, always with a similar result.[10] + +M. Olivier also tried the following. With a stick of sealing-wax, which +he had subjected to friction, he touched the girl's arm, and it gave her +a considerable shock; but touching her with another similar stick, that +had not been rubbed, she experienced no effect whatever.[11] Yet when M. +de Farémont, on the nineteenth of January, tried the same experiment +with a stick of sealing-wax and a glass tube, well prepared by rubbing, +he obtained no effect whatever. So also a pendulum of light pith, +brought into close proximity to her person at various points, was +neither attracted nor repulsed, in the slightest degree.[12] + +Towards the beginning of February, Angélique was obliged, for several +days, to eat standing; she could not sit down on a chair. This fact Dr. +Verger repeatedly verified. Holding her by the arm to prevent accident, +the moment she touched the chair it was projected from under her, and +she would have fallen but for his support. At such times, to take rest, +she had to seat herself on the floor, or on a stone provided for the +purpose. + +On one such occasion, "she approached," says M. de Farémont, "one of +those rough, heavy bedsteads used by the peasantry, weighing, with the +coarse bedclothes, some three hundred pounds, and sought to lie down on +it. The bed shook and oscillated in an incredible manner; no force that +I know of is capable of communicating to it such a movement. Then she +went to another bed, which was raised from the ground on wooden rollers, +six inches in diameter; and it was immediately thrown off the rollers." +All this M. de Farémont personally witnessed.[13] + +On the evening of the second of February, Dr. Verger received Angélique +into his house. On that day and the next, upwards of one thousand +persons came to see her. The constant experiments, which on that +occasion were continued into the night, so fatigued the poor girl that +the effects were sensibly diminished. Yet even then a small table +brought near to her was thrown down so violently that it broke to +pieces. It was of cherry-wood and varnished. + +"In a general way," says Dr. Beaumont-Chardon, "I think the effects were +more marked with me than with others, because I never evinced suspicion, +and spared her all suffering; and I thought I could observe, that, +although her powers were not under the control of her will, yet they +were greatest when her mind was at ease, and she was in good +spirits."[14] It appeared, also, that on waxed, or even tiled floors, +but more especially on carpets, the effects were much less than on an +earthen floor like that of the cottage where they originally showed +themselves. + +At first wooden furniture seemed exclusively affected; but at a later +period metal also, as tongs and shovels, though in a less degree, +appeared to be subjected to this extraordinary influence. When the +child's powers were the most active, actual contact was not necessary. +Articles of furniture and other small objects moved, if she accidentally +approached them. + +Up to the sixth of February she had been visited by more than two +thousand persons, including distinguished physicians from the towns of +Bellesme and Mortagne, and from all the neighborhood, magistrates, +lawyers, ecclesiastics, and others. Some gave her money. + +Then, in an evil hour, listening to mercenary suggestion, the parents +conceived the idea that the poor girl might be made a source of +pecuniary gain; and notwithstanding the advice and remonstrance of her +true friends, M. de Farémont, Dr. Verger, M. Hébert, and others, her +father resolved to exhibit her in Paris and elsewhere. + +On the road they were occasionally subjected to serious annoyances. The +report of the marvels above narrated had spread far and wide; and the +populace, by hundreds, followed the carriage, hooting and abusing the +sorceress. + +Arrived at the French metropolis, they put up at the Hôtel de Rennes, +No. 23, Rue des Deux-Écus. There, on the evening of the twelfth of +February, Dr. Tanchon saw Angélique for the first time. + +This gentleman soon verified, among other phenomena, the following. A +chair, which he held firmly with both hands, was forced back as soon as +she attempted to sit down; a middle-sized dining-table was displaced and +repulsed by the touch of her dress; a large sofa, on which Dr. Tanchon +was sitting, was pushed violently to the wall, as soon as the child sat +down beside him. The Doctor remarked, that, when a chair was thrown back +from under her, her clothes seemed attracted by it, and adhered to it, +until it was repulsed beyond their reach; that the power was greater +from the left hand than from the right, and that the former was warmer +than the latter, and often trembled, agitated by unusual contractions; +that the influence emanating from the girl was intermittent, not +permanent, being usually most powerful from seven till nine o'clock in +the evening, possibly influenced by the principal meal of the day, +dinner, taken at six o'clock; that, if the girl was cut off from contact +with the earth, either by placing her feet on a non-conductor or merely +by keeping them raised from the ground, the power ceased, and she could +remain seated quietly; that, during the paroxysm, if her left hand +touched any object, she threw it from her as if it burned her, +complaining that it pricked her, especially on the wrist; that, +happening one day to touch accidentally the nape of her neck, the girl +ran from him, crying out with pain; and that repeated observation +assured him of the fact that there was, in the region of the +cerebellum, and at the point where the superior muscles of the neck are +inserted in the cranium, a point so acutely sensitive that the child +would not suffer there the lightest touch; and, finally, that the girl's +pulse, often irregular, usually varied from one hundred and five to one +hundred and twenty beats a minute. + +A curious observation made by this physician was, that, at the moment of +greatest action, a cool breeze, or gaseous current, seemed to flow from +her person. This he felt on his hand, as distinctly as one feels the +breath during an ordinary expiration.[15] + +He remarked, also, that the intermittence of the child's power seemed to +depend in a measure on her state of mind. She was often in fear lest +some one should touch her from behind; the phenomena themselves agitated +her; in spite of a month's experience, each time they occurred she drew +back, as if alarmed. And all such agitations seemed to diminish her +power. When she was careless, and her mind was diverted to something +else, the demonstrations were always the most energetic. + +From the north pole of a magnet, if it touched her finger, she received +a sharp shock; while the contact of the south pole produced upon her no +effect whatever. This effect was uniform; and the girl could always tell +which pole touched her. + +Dr. Tanchon ascertained from the mother that no indications of puberty +had yet manifested themselves in her daughter's case. + +Such is a summary of the facts, embodied in a report drawn up by Dr. +Tanchon on the fifteenth of February. He took it with him on the evening +of the sixteenth to the Academy of Sciences, and asked M. Arago if he +had seen the electric girl, and if he intended to bring her case that +evening to the notice of the Academy. Arago replied to both questions in +the affirmative, adding,--"If you have seen her, I shall receive from +you with pleasure any communication you may have to make." + +Dr. Tanchon then read to him the report; and at the session of that +evening, Arago presented it, stated what he himself had seen, and +proposed that a committee should be appointed to examine the case. His +statement was received by his audience with many expressions of +incredulity; but they acceded to his suggestion by naming, from the +members of the Academy, a committee of six. + +It appears that Arago had had but a single opportunity, and for the +brief space of less than half an hour, of witnessing the phenomena to +which he referred. M. Cholet, the speculator who advanced to her parents +the money necessary to bring Angélique to Paris, had taken the girl and +her parents to the Observatory, where Arago then was, who, at the +earnest instance of Cholet, agreed to test the child's powers at once. +There were present on this occasion, besides Arago, MM. Mathieu and +Laugier, and an astronomer of the Observatory, named M. Goujon. + +The experiment of the chair perfectly succeeded. It was projected with +great violence against the wall, while the girl was thrown on the other +side. This experiment was repeated several times by Arago himself, and +each time with the same result. He could not, with all his force, hinder +the chair from being thrown back. Then MM. Goujon and Laugier attempted +to hold it, but with as little success. Finally, M. Goujon seated +himself first on half the chair, and at the moment when Angélique was +taking her seat beside him the chair was thrown down. + +When Angélique approached a small table, at the instant that her apron +touched it, it was repulsed. + +These particulars were given in all the medical journals of the day,[16] +as well as in the "Journal des Débats" of February 18, and the "Courrier +Français" of February 19, 1846. + +The minutes of the session of the Academy touch upon them in the most +studiously brief and guarded manner. They say, the sitting lasted only +some minutes. They admit, however, the main fact, namely, that the +movements of the chair, occurring as soon as Angélique seated herself +upon it, were most violent ("_d'une extrême violence_"). But as to the +other experiment, they allege that M. Arago did not clearly perceive the +movement of the table by the mere intervention of the girl's apron, +though the other observers did.[17] It is added, that the girl produced +no effect on the magnetic needle. + +Some accounts represent Arago as expressing himself much more decidedly. +He may have done so, in addressing the Academy; but I find no official +record of his remarks. + +He did not assist at the sittings of the committee that had been +appointed at his suggestion; but he signed their report, having +confidence, as he declared, in their judgment, and sharing their +mistrust. + +That report, made on the ninth of March, is to the effect, that they +witnessed no repulsive agency on a table or similar object; that they +saw no effect produced by the girl's arm on a magnetic needle; that the +girl did not possess the power to distinguish between the two poles of a +magnet; and, finally, that the only result they obtained was sudden and +violent movements of chairs on which the child was seated. They add, +"Serious suspicions having arisen as to the manner in which these +movements were produced, the committee decided to submit them to a +strict examination, declaring, in plain terms, that they would endeavor +to discover what part certain adroit and concealed manoeuvres of the +hands and feet had in their production. From that moment we were +informed that the young girl had lost her attractive and repulsive +powers, and that we should be notified when they reappeared. Many days +have elapsed; no notice has been sent us; yet we learn that Mademoiselle +Cottin daily exhibits her experiments in private circles." And they +conclude by recommending "that the communications addressed to them in +her case be considered _as not received_" ("_comme non avenues_"). In a +word, they officially branded the poor girl as an impostor. + +That, without any inquiry into the antecedents of the patient, without +the slightest attempt to obtain from those medical men who had followed +up the case from its commencement what they had observed, and that, in +advance of the strict examination which it was their duty to make, they +should insult the unfortunate girl by declaring that they intended to +find out the tricks with which she had been attempting to deceive +them,--all this is not the less lamentable because it is common among +those, who sit in the high places of science. + +If these Academicians had been moved by a simple love of truth, not +urged by a self-complacent eagerness to display their own sagacity, they +might have found a more probable explanation of the cessation, after +their first session, of some of Angelique's chief powers. + +Such an explanation is furnished to us by Dr. Tanchon, who was present, +by invitation, at the sittings of the committee. + +He informs us that, at their first sitting, held at the Jardin des +Plantes, on the seventeenth of February, after the committee had +witnessed, twice repeated, the violent displacement of a chair held with +all his strength by one of their number, (M. Rayet,) instead of +following up similar experiments and patiently waiting to observe the +phenomena as they presented themselves, they proceeded at once to +satisfy their own preconceptions. They brought Angélique into contact +with a voltaic battery. Then they placed on the bare arm of the child a +dead frog, anatomically prepared after the manner of Matteucci, that is, +the skin removed, and the animal dissected so as to expose the lumbar +nerves. By a galvanic current, they caused this frog to move, apparently +to revive, on the girl's arm. The effect upon her may be imagined. The +ignorant child, terrified out of her senses, spoke of nothing else the +rest of the day, dreamed of dead frogs coming to life all night, and +began to talk eagerly about it again the first thing the next +morning.[18] From that time her attractive and repulsive powers +gradually declined. + +In addition to the privilege of much accumulated learning, in addition +to the advantages of varied scientific research, we must have something +else, if we would advance yet farther in true knowledge. We must be +imbued with a simple, faithful spirit, not presuming, not preoccupied. +We must be willing to sit down at the feet of Truth, humble, patient, +docile, single-hearted. We must not be wise in our own conceit; else the +fool's chance is better than ours, to avoid error, and distinguish +truth. + +M. Cohu, a medical man of Mortagne, writing, in March, 1846, in reply to +some inquiries of Dr. Tanchon, after stating that the phenomenon of the +chair, repeatedly observed by himself, had been witnessed also by more +than a thousand persons, adds,--"It matters not what name we may give to +this; the important point is, to verify the reality of a repulsive +agency, and of one that is distinctly marked; the effects it is +impossible to deny. We may assign to this agency what seat we please, in +the cerebellum, in the pelvis, or elsewhere; the _fact_ is material, +visible, incontestable. Here in the Province, Sir, we are not very +learned, but we are often very mistrustful. In the present case we have +examined, reëxamined, taken every possible precaution against deception; +and the more we have seen, the deeper has been our conviction of the +reality of the phenomenon. Let the Academy decide as it will. _We have +seen_; it has not seen. We are, therefore, in a condition to decide +better than it can, I do not say what cause was operating, but what +effects presented themselves, under circumstances that remove even the +shadow of a doubt."[19] + +M. Hébert, too, states a truth of great practical value, when he +remarks, that, in the examination of phenomena of so fugitive and +seemingly capricious a character, involving the element of vitality, and +the production of which at any given moment depends not upon us, we +"ought to accommodate ourselves to the nature of the fact, not insist +that it should accommodate itself to us." + +For myself, I do not pretend to offer any positive opinion as to what +was ultimately the real state of the case. I do not assume to determine +whether the attractive and repulsive phenomena, after continuing for +upwards of a month, happened to be about to cease at the very time the +committee began to observe them,--or whether the harsh suspicious and +terror-inspiring tests of these gentlemen so wrought on the nervous +system of an easily daunted and superstitious girl, that some of her +abnormal powers, already on the wane, presently disappeared,--or whether +the poor child, it may be at the instigation of her parents, left +without the means of support,[20] really did at last simulate phenomena +that once were real, manufacture a counterfeit of what was originally +genuine. I do not take upon myself to decide between these various +hypotheses. I but express my conviction, that, for the first few weeks +at least, the phenomena actually occurred,--and that, had not the +gentlemen of the Academy been very unfortunate or very injudicious, +they could not have failed to perceive their reality. And I seek in vain +some apology for the conduct of these learned Academicians, called upon +to deal with a case so fraught with interest to science, when I find +them, merely because they do not at once succeed in personally verifying +sufficient to convince them of the existence of certain novel phenomena, +not only neglecting to seek evidence elsewhere, but even rejecting that +which a candid observer had placed within their reach. + +This appears to have been the judgment of the medical public of Paris. +The "Gazette des Hôpitaux," in its issue of March 17, 1846, protests +against the committee's mode of ignoring the matter, declaring that it +satisfied nobody. "Not received!" said the editor (alluding to the words +of the report); "that would be very convenient, if it were only +possible!"[21] + +And the "Gazette Médicale" very justly remarks,--"The non-appearance of +the phenomena at such or such a given moment proves nothing in itself. +It is but a negative fact, and, as such, cannot disprove the positive +fact of their appearance at another moment, if that be otherwise +satisfactorily attested." And the "Gazette" goes on to argue, from the +nature of the facts, that it is in the highest degree improbable that +they should have been the result of premeditated imposture. + +The course adopted by the Academy's committee is the less defensible, +because, though the attractive and repulsive phenomena ceased after +their first session, other phenomena, sufficiently remarkable, still +continued. As late as the tenth of March, the day after the committee +made their report, Angélique being then at Dr. Tanchon's house, a table +touched by her apron, while her hands were behind her and her feet +fifteen inches distant from it, _was raised entirely from the ground_, +though no part of her body touched it. This was witnessed, besides Dr. +Tanchon, by Dr. Charpentier-Méricourt, who had stationed himself so as +to observe it from the side. He distinctly saw the table rise, with all +four legs, from the floor, and he noticed that the two legs of the table +farthest from the girl rose first. He declares, that, during the whole +time, he perceived not the slightest movement either of her hands or her +feet; and he regarded deception, under the circumstances, to be utterly +impossible.[22] + +On the twelfth of March, in presence of five physicians, Drs. Amédée +Latour, Lachaise, Deleau, Pichard, and Soulé, the same phenomenon +occurred twice. + +And yet again on the fourteenth, four physicians being present, the +table was raised a single time, but with startling force. It was of +mahogany, with two drawers, and was four feet long by two feet and a +half wide. We may suppose it to have weighed some fifty or sixty pounds; +so that the girl's power, in this particular, appears to have much +decreased since that day, about the end of January, when M. de Farémont +saw repeatedly raised from the ground a block of one hundred and fifty +pounds' weight, with three men seated on it,--in all, not less than five +to six hundred pounds. + +By the end of March the whole of the phenomena had almost totally +ceased; and it does not appear that they have ever shown themselves +since that time. + +Dr. Tanchon considered them electrical. M. de Farémont seems to have +doubted that they were strictly so. In a letter, dated Monti-Mer, +November 1, 1846, and addressed to the Marquis de Mirville, that +gentleman says,--"The electrical effects I have seen produced in this +case varied so much,--since under certain circumstances good conductors +operated, and then again, in others, no effect was observable,--that, if +one follows the ordinary laws of electrical phenomena, one finds +evidence both for and against. I am well convinced, that, in the case +of this child, there is some power other than electricity."[23] + +But as my object is to state facts, rather than to moot theories, I +leave this debatable ground to others, and here close a narrative, +compiled with much care, of this interesting and instructive case. I was +the rather disposed to examine it critically and report it in detail, +because it seems to suggest valuable hints, if it does not afford some +clue, as to the character of subsequent manifestations in the United +States and elsewhere. + + * * * * * + +This case is not an isolated one. My limits however, prevent me from +here reproducing, as I might, sundry other recent narratives more or +less analogous to that of the girl Cottin. To one only shall I briefly +advert: a case related in the Paris newspaper, the "Siècle," of March 4, +1846, published when all Paris was talking of Arago's statement in +regard to the electric girl. + +It is there given on the authority of a principal professor in one of +the Royal Colleges of Paris. The case, very similar to that of Angélique +Cottin, occurred in the month of December previous, in the person of a +young girl, not quite fourteen years old, apprenticed to a colorist, in +the Rue Descartes. The occurrences were quite as marked as those in the +Cottin case. The professor, seated one day near the girl, was raised +from the floor, along with the chair on which he sat. There were +occasional knockings. The phenomena commenced December 2, 1845; and +lasted twelve days. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Journal du Magnétisme_, for 1846, pp. 80-84. + +[2] Pp. 89-106. + +[3] In Dr. Tanchon's pamphlet, pp. 46-53. + +[4] _Enquête, sur l'Authenticité des Phénomènes Électriques d'Angélique +Cottin_, par le Dr. Tanchon. Baillière, Paris, 1846. + +[5] See Minutes of the Academy, Session of Monday, February 16, 1846. + +[6] _Enquête_, etc., p. 49. + +[7] _Ibid._ p. 40. + +[8] _Ibid._ p. 42. + +[9] _Ibid._ p. 22. + +[10] _Enquête_, etc., p. 22. + +[11] _Ibid._ p. 43. + +[12] _Ibid._ p. 47. + +[13] _Ibid._ p. 49. + +[14] _Enquête_, etc., p. 35. They were greater, also, after meals than +before; so Hébert observed. p. 22. + +[15] _Enquête_, etc., p. 5. + +[16] I extract them from the "Journal des Connaissances +Médico-Chirurgicales," No. 3. + +[17] The words are,--"M. Arago n'a pas aperçu nettement les agitations +annoncées comme étant engendrées à distance, par l'intermédiaire d'un +tablier, sur un guéridon en bois: d'autres observateurs ont trouvé que +les agitations étaient sensibles." + +[18] _Enquête_, etc., p. 25. + +[19] _Enquête_, etc., p. 36. + +[20] M. Cholet, the individual who, in the hope of gain, furnished the +funds to bring Angélique to Paris for exhibition, as soon as he +perceived that the speculation was a failure, left the girl and her +parents in that city, dependent on the charity of strangers for daily +support, and for the means of returning to their humble +home.--_Enquête_, etc., p. 24. + +[21] "Non avenues! ce serait commode, si c'était possible!" + +[22] _Enquête_, etc., p. 30. + +[23] _Des Esprits et de leurs Manifestations Fluidiques_, par le Marquis +de Mirville, pp. 379, 380. + + + + +LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS. + + +THE DRAWING-ROOM. + +PART II. + +It was at this same period of time I made the acquaintance of Monsieur +Edmond About. When I met him he had just appeared as an author, and his +friends everywhere declared that Voltaire's mantle had fallen on his +shoulders. He had, like Voltaire, discovered instantly that mankind were +divided into hammers and anvils, and he determined to be one of the +hammers. He began his career by ridiculing a poetical country, Greece, +whose guest he had been, and whose sovereign and ministers had received +him with confidence,--repaying three years of hospitality by a satire of +three hundred pages. "Greece and the Greeks" was translated into several +languages. This edifying publication, which put the laughers on his +side, was followed by a different sort of work, which came near +producing on this budding reputation the effect of an April frost upon +an almond-tree in blossom. Voltaire's heir had found no better mode of +writing natural and true novels (so the scandalous chronicle said) than +to copy an original correspondence, and indiscreet "detectives" of +letters menaced him with publishing the whole Italian work from which he +"conveyed" the best part of "Tolla." All the literary world cried, +Havoc! upon the sprightly fellow laden with Italian relics. It was a +critical moment in his life. + +Monsieur Edmond About was introduced to me by a fascinating lady;--who +can resist the charms of the other sex? I saw before me a man some +eight-and-twenty years old, of a slender figure; his features were +irregular, but intellectual, and he looked at people like an +excessively near-sighted person who abused the advantages of being +near-sighted. He wore no spectacles. His eyes were small, cold, bright, +and were well wadded with such thick eyebrows and eyelashes it seemed +these must absorb them. I subsequently found, in a strange American +book,[24] some descriptions which may be applied to his odd expression +of eye. Monsieur Edmond About's mouth was sneering and sensual, and even +then affected Voltaire's sarcastic grimace. His bitter and equivocal +smile put you in mind of the grinding of an epigram-mill. One could +detect in his attitude, his physiognomy, and his language, that +obsequious malice, that familiarity, at the same time flattering and +jeering, which Voltaire turned to such good account in his commerce with +the great people of his day, and which his disciple was learning to +practise in his intercourse with the powerful of these times,--the +_parvenus_ and the wealthy. I was struck by the face of this college +Macchiavelli: on it were written the desire of success and the longing +to enjoy; the calculations of the ambitious man were allied with the +maliciousness of the giddy child. Of course he overwhelmed me with +compliments and flattery. He had, or thought he had, use for me. I +benevolently became the defender of the poor calumniated fellow in the +"Revue des Deux Mondes," just as one undertakes out of pure kindness of +heart to protect the widow and the orphan. Monsieur Edmond About thanked +me _orally_ with a flood of extraordinary gratitude; but he took good +care to avoid writing a word upon the subject. A letter might have laid +him under engagements, and might have embarrassed him one day or +another. Whereas he aimed to be both a diplomatist and a literary man. +He practised the art of good writing, and the art of turning it to the +best advantage. + +Some months after this he brought out a piece called "Guillery," at the +French Comedy. The first night it was played, there was a hail-storm of +hisses. No _claqueur_ ever remembered to have heard the like before. The +charitable dramatic critics--delicate fellows, who cannot bear to see +people possess talents without their permission and despite +them--attacked the piece as blood-hounds the fugitive murderer. It +seemed as if Monsieur Edmond About was a ruined man, who could never +dare hold up his head again. He resisted the death-warrant. He had +friends in influential houses. He soon found lint enough for his wounds. +The next winter the town heard that Monsieur Edmond About's wounds had +been well dressed and were cured, and that he was going to write in +"Figaro." The amateurs of scandal began at once to reckon upon the +gratification of their tastes. They were not mistaken. The moment his +second contribution to "Figaro" appeared, it became evident to all that +he had taken this warlike position at the advanced posts of light +literature solely to shoot at those persons who had wounded his vanity. +For three months he kept up such a sharp fire that every week numbered +its dead. Such carnage had never been seen. Everybody was severely +wounded: Jules Janin, Paulin Limayrac, Champfleury, Barbey d'Aurevilly, +and a host of others. Everybody said, (a thrill of terror ran through +them as they spoke,)--There is going to be one of these mornings a +terrible butchery: that imprudent Edmond About will have at least ten +duels on his hands. Not a bit of it! Not a bit of it! There were +negotiations, embassies, explanations exchanged which explained nothing, +and reparations made which repaired nothing. But there was not a shot +fired. There was not a drop of blood drawn. O Lord! no! Third parties +intervened, and demonstrated to the offended parties, that, when +Monsieur Edmond About called them stupid boobies, humbugs, tumblers, he +had no intention whatever of offending them. Good gracious! far +otherwise! In fine, one day the farce was played, the curtain fell upon +the well-spanked critics, and all this little company (so full of +talents and chivalry!) went arm-in-arm, the insulter and the insulted, +to breakfast together at Monsieur About's rooms, where, between a dozen +oysters and a bottle of Sauterne, he asked his victims what they thought +of some Titians he had just discovered, and which he wished to sell to +the Louvre for a small fortune,--Titians which were not painted even by +Mignard. The insulter and the insulted fell into each other's arms +before these daubs, and they parted, each delighted with the other. +These pseudo-Titians were for Monsieur About his Alcibiades's +dog's-tail. He spent one every month. Literary, picturesque, romanesque, +historical, agricultural, Greek, and Roman questions were never subjects +to him: he considered them merely advertisements to puff the +transcendent merits of Edmond About. Before he left "Figaro" he +determined to show me what a grateful fellow he was. He made me the mark +for all his epigrams, and I paid the price of peace with the others. I +have heard, since then, that Monsieur Edmond About has made his way +rapidly in the world. He is rich. He has the ribbon of the Legion of +Honor. He excels in writing pamphlets. He is not afraid of the most +startling truths. He writes about the Pope like a man who is not afraid +of the spiritual powers, and he has demonstrated that Prince Napoleon +won the Battle of the Alma and organized Algeria. + + * * * * * + +Among the numerous details of my grandeur and my decline, none exhibit +in a clearer light our literary manners and customs than the history of +my relations with Monsieur Louis Ulbach, the virtuous author, _now_, of +"L'Homme aux Cinq Louis d'Or," "Suzanne Duchemin," "Monsieur et Madame +Fernel," and other tales, which he hopes to see crowned by the French +Academy. Monsieur Louis Ulbach at first belonged to a triumvirate which +pretended to stand above the mob of democratic writers; and of a truth +Monsieur Maxime du Camp and Monsieur Laurent Pichat, his two leaders, +had none of those smoking-_café_ vulgarities which have procured so many +subscribers to the "Siècle" newspaper. Both poets, Laurent Pichat with +remarkable loftiness, Maxime du Camp with _bizarre_ energy, intent upon +an ideal which democracy has a right to pursue, since it has not yet +found it, men of the world, capable of discussing in full dress the most +perplexed questions of Socialism, they accept none of those party-chains +which so often bow down the noblest minds before idols made of plaster +or of clay. Besides, both of them were known by admirable acts of +generosity. There were in this triumvirate such dashes of aristocracy +and of revolution that they were called "the Poles of literature." + +Of course, when the storm burst which I had raised by my irreverent +attacks on De Béranger, these gentlemen separated from their political +friends, and complimented me. One of them even addressed me a letter, in +which I read these words, which assuredly I would not have written: +"That stupid De Béranger." There was a sort of alliance between us. +Monsieur Louis Ulbach celebrated it by publishing in his magazine, "La +Revue de Paris," an article in my honor, in which, after the usual +reserves, and after declaring war upon my doctrines, he vowed my prose +to be "fascinating," and complained of being so bewitched as to believe, +at times, that he was converted to the cause of the throne and of the +altar. This epithet, "fascinating," in turn fascinated me; and I thought +that my prose was, like some serpent, about to fascinate all the +butcher-birds and ducks of the democratic marsh. A year passed away; +these fine friendships cooled: 't is the fate of these factitious +tendernesses. With winter my second volume appeared, and Monsieur Louis +Ulbach set to work again; but this time he found me merely "ingenious." +It was a good deal more than I merited, and I would willingly have +contented myself with this phrase. Unfortunately, I could not forget the +austere counsel of Monsieur Louis Veuillot, and at this very epoch, +Monsieur Louis Ulbach, who as a novelist could merit a great deal of +praise, took it into his head to publish a thick volume of +transcendental criticism, in which he attacked everything I admired and +lauded everything I detested. I confess that I felt extremely +embarrassed: those nice little words "fascinating" and "ingenious" stuck +in my mind. Monsieur Louis Ulbach himself extricated me from my +perplexity. I had insufficiently praised his last novel. He wrote a +third article on my third work. Alas! the honeymoon had set. The +"fascinating" prose of 1855, the "ingenious" prose of 1856, had become +in 1857, in the opinion of the same judge, and in the language of the +same pen, "pretentious and tiresome." This sudden change of things and +epithets restored me to liberty. I walked abroad in all my strength and +independence, and I dissected Monsieur Louis Ulbach's thick volume with +a severity which was still tempered by the courteous forms and the +dimensions of my few newspaper-columns. A year passed away. My fourth +work appeared. Note that these several volumes were not different works, +but a series of volumes expressing the same opinions in the very same +style; in fine, they were but one work. Note, too, that Monsieur +Ulbach's "Revue de Paris" and "L'Assemblée Nationale," in which I wrote, +were both suppressed by the government on the same day, which +established between us a fraternity of martyrdom. All this was as +nothing. Louis Ulbach, this very same Louis Ulbach, was employed by a +newspaper where he was sure to please by insulting me, and the very +first thing he did was to give me a kick, such a kick as twenty horses +covered with sleigh-bells could not give. He called me "ignoramus," and +wondered what "this fellow" meant by his literary drivelling. The most +curious part of the whole business is, that he did not write the +article, all he did was to sign it! Four years, and a scratch given his +vanity, had proved enough to produce this change! + + * * * * * + +Shall I speak to you now of Henry Murger? I wrote this chapter of my +Memoirs during his life. I should have suppressed it, did I feel the +least drop of bitterness mingled with the recollection of the acts of +petty ingratitude of this charming writer. But my object in writing this +work is less to satisfy sterile revenge than to exhibit to you a corner +of literary life in Paris in the nineteenth century. + +In 1850 Henry Murger published a book in which the manners and customs +of people who live by their wits were painted in colors scarcely likely +to fascinate healthy imaginations. He declared to the world that the +novitiate of our future great authors was nothing but one incessant hunt +after a half-dollar and a mutton-chop. The world was told by others that +Henry Murger had learned to paint this existence by actual experience. +There were, however, in his book some excellent flashes of fancy and +youth; besides, the public then had grown tired of interminable +adventures and novels in fifty volumes. So Henry Murger's first work, +"La Vie de Bohême," was very popular; but it did not swell his purse or +improve his wardrobe. He was introduced to me, and I shall never forget +the low bow he made me. I was afraid for one moment that his bald head +would fall between his legs. This precocious baldness gave to his +delicate and sad face a singular physiognomy. He looked not so much like +a young old man as like an old young man. Henry Murger's warmest desire +was to write in the celebrated and influential "Revue des Deux Mondes," +which we all abuse so violently when we have reason to complain of it, +and which has but to make a sign to us and we instantly fall into its +arms. I was then on the best terms with the "Revue des Deux Mondes." +Monsieur Castil-Blaze, being from the same neighborhood with me, had +obtained a place for me in the "Revue," which belonged to his +son-in-law, Monsieur Buloz. I promised Henry Murger to speak a good word +for him. A favorable opportunity of doing so occurred a few days +afterwards. + +"I do not know what is to become of us," said Monsieur Buloz to me; "our +old contributors are dying, and no new ones make their appearance." + +"They appear, but you refuse to see them. There is Henry Murger, for +instance; he has just written an amusing book, which is the most +successful of the season." + +"Henry Murger! And is it you, Count Armand de Pontmartin, the literary +nobleman, the aristocratic writer, who wear (as the world avers) a white +cravat and white kid gloves from the time you get up, (I confess I have +never seen you with them,)--is it you who propose to me to admit Henry +Murger as a contributor to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,'--Henry Murger, +the ringleader of people who live by their wits?" + +"Why shouldn't I? We live in a day when white cravats have to be very +respectful to red cravats. Besides, nothing is too strange to happen; +and I would not bet you that Murger does not write in 'Le Moniteur' +before I do." + +"If you think I had better admit Henry Murger, I consent; but remember +what I say to you: It will be the source of annoyance to you." + +The next day a hack bore Henry Murger and me from the corner of the +Boulevard des Italiens and the Rue du Helder to the office of the "Revue +des Deux Mondes." We talked on the way. If I had had any illusions left +of the poetical dreams and virginal thoughts of young men fevered by +literary ambition, these few minutes would have been enough to dispel +them all. Henry Murger thought of nothing upon earth but money. How was +he going to pay his quarter's rent, or rather his two or three quarters' +rent? for he was two or three quarters behindhand. He still had credit +with this _restaurateur_, but he owed so much to such another that he +dared not show his face there. He was over head and ears in debt to his +tailor. He was afraid to think of the amount of money he owed his +shoemaker. The list was long, and "bills payable" lamentable. To end +this dreary balance-sheet, I took it into my head to deliver him a +lecture on the morality of literature and the duty of literary men. +"Art," said I to him, "must escape the materialism which oppresses and +will at last absorb it. We romantics of 1828 were mistaken. We thought +we were reacting against the pagan and mummified school of the +eighteenth century and of the First Empire. We did not perceive that a +revolutionary Art can under no circumstances turn to the profit of grand +spiritual and Christian traditions, to the worship of the ideal, to the +elevation of intellects. We did not see that it would be a little sooner +or a little later discounted by literary demagogues, who, without +tradition, without a creed, without any law except their own whims, +would become the slaves of every base passion, and of all physical and +moral deformities. It is not yet too late. Let us repair our faults. Let +us elevate, let us regenerate literature; let us bear it aloft to those +noble spheres where the soul soars in her native majes"---- + +I was declaiming with fire, my enthusiasm was becoming more and more +heated, when Henry Murger interrupted me by asking,--"Do you think +Monsieur Buloz will pay me in advance?" + +This question produced on my missionary's enthusiasm the same effect a +tub of cold water would have upon an excited poodle-dog. + +"Monsieur Murger," I replied, without being too much disconcerted, "you +will arrange those details with Monsieur Buloz. All I can do is to +introduce you." + +We reached the office. I was afraid I might embarrass Monsieur Buloz and +Monsieur Murger, if I remained with them; I therefore took a book and +went into the garden. I was called back in twenty minutes, and was +briefly told that Henry Murger had engaged to write a novel for the +"Revue." We went out together; but we had scarcely passed three doors, +when Murger said hurriedly to me,--"I beg your pardon, I have forgotten +something!"--and he went back to the office. I afterwards found out +that this "something" was an advance of money which he asked for upon a +novel whose first syllable he had not yet written. + +If I dwell upon these miserable details, it is not (God forbid!) to +insult laborious poverty, or talent forced to struggle against the +hardships of life or the embarrassments of improvident, careless youth. +No,--but there was here, and this is the reason I speak of it, the +_trade-mark_ of that literary living-by-the wits which had taken entire +possession of Henry Murger, against which he had struggled in vain all +his life long, and which at last crushed him in its feverish grasp. +Living by the wits was to Henry Murger what _roulette_ is to the +gambler, what brandy is to the drunkard, what the traps of the police +are to the knave and the burglar: he cursed it, but he could not quit +it; he lived in it, he lived by it, he died of it. The first time I +talked with Murger, and every subsequent conversation I had with him, +brought up money incessantly, in every tone, in every form; and when, +having become more familiar with what he called my squeamishness, he +talked more frankly to me, I saw that he required to support him a sum +of money three times greater than the annual income of which a whole +family of office-holders in the country, or even in Paris, live with +ease. This brought on him protests, bailiffs, constables, incredible +complications, continual uneasiness, a hankering after pecuniary +success, eternal complaints against publishers, magazine-editors, +theatre-managers, anxious negotiations, an immense loss of time, an +incredible wear-and-tear of brain, annoyances and cares enough to put +every thought to flight and to dry every source of inspiration and of +poetry. Remember that Henry Murger is one of the luckiest of the new men +who have appeared within these last fifteen years, for he received the +cross of the Legion of Honor, which, as everybody knows, is never given +except to men who deserve it. Judge, then, what the others +must be! Judge what must be the abortions, the disdained, the +supernumeraries,--those who sleep in lodging-houses at two cents a +night, or who eat their pitiful dinner outside the barrier-gate in a +wretched eating-house patronized by hack-drivers,--those who kill +themselves with charcoal, or who hang themselves, murdered by madness or +by hunger, the two pale goddesses of atheistical literatures! + +"Well," said I to Henry Murger, after we were once more seated in our +carriage, "are you pleased with Monsieur Buloz?" + +"Yes--and no. The most difficult step is taken. He allows me to +contribute my masterpieces to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' and I shall +never forget the immense service you have done me. Although you and I do +not serve the same literary gods, I am henceforward yours to the death! +But--the book-keeper is deusedly hard on trigger. Will you believe it? I +asked him to advance me forty dollars, and he refused!" + +We parted excellent friends, and he continued to assure me of his +gratitude, until the carriage stopped at my door. + +Years passed away. Henry Murger's promised novel was long coming to the +"Revue des Deux Mondes." At last it came; another followed eighteen +months afterwards; then he contributed a third. He displayed +unquestionable talents; he commanded moderate success. He had been told +by so many people that it was a hard matter to please the readers of the +"Revue des Deux Mondes," that it was necessary for him to free himself +from all his studios' fun, and everything tinctured with the petty +press, that he really believed for true everything he heard, and +appeared awkward in his movements. His students, his _grisettes_, and +his young artists were all on their good behavior, but were not more +droll. Marivaux had come down one more flight of stairs. Alfred de +Musset had steeped the powder and the patches in a glass of Champagne +wine. Henry Murger soaked them in a bottle of brandy or in a flagon of +beer. + +Henry Murger's gratitude, whenever we met, continued to exhale in +enthusiastic hymns. I lost sight of him for some time. I was told that +he lived somewhere in the Forest of Fontainebleau, to escape his +creditors' pursuit. At the critical moment of my literary life, I read +one morning in a petty newspaper a biting burlesque of which I was the +grotesque hero: I figured (my name was given in full) as a member of a +temperance society, whose members were pledged to total abstinence from +the use of ideas, wit, and style; at one of our monthly dinners, we were +said to have devoured Balzac at the first course, De Béranger for the +roast, Michelet for a side-dish, and George Sand for dessert. The next +day, and every day the petty paper appeared, the joke was renewed with +all sorts of variations. It was evidently a "rig" run on me. This joke +was signed every day "Marcel," which was the name of one of the heroes +of Henry Murger's novel, "La Vie de Bohême"; but I was very far indeed +from thinking that the man who was under so many "obligations" to me (as +Henry Murger always declared himself to be) should have joined the ranks +of my persecutors. A few days afterwards I heard, on the best authority, +that Henry Murger was the author of these articles. I felt a deep +chagrin at this discovery. Literary men constantly call Philistines and +Prudhommes those who lay great stress upon the absence of moral sense as +one of the great defects of the school of literature and art to which +Murger and his friends belong; and yet there should be a name for such +conduct as this, if for no other reason, for the sake of the culprits +themselves,--as, when poor Murger acted in this way to me, he was as +unconscious of what he did as when he raised heaven and earth to hunt +down a dollar. He was not guilty of a black heart, it was only absolute +deficiency of everything like moral sense. Henry Murger was under +obligations to me, as he said constantly; I had introduced and +recommended him to a man and a magazine that are, as of right, difficult +in the choice of their contributors; I had, for his sake, conquered +their prejudices, borne their reproaches. Whenever his novels appeared, +I treated them with indulgence, and gave them praise without examining +too particularly into their moral tendency, to the great scandal of my +usual readers, and despite the scoldings Monsieur Louis Veuillot gave +me. There never was the least coolness between Henry Murger and myself; +and yet, when I was attacked and harassed on every side, he hid himself +under a pseudonyme, and added his sarcasms to all the others directed +against me, that he might gratify his admiration for De Balzac and put a +little money in his pocket. + +By-and-by I continued to meet Henry Murger again on the Boulevard, and +at the first performance of new pieces. Do you imagine he shunned me? +Not a bit of it. He did not seem on these rare occasions to feel the +least embarrassment. He gave me cordial shakes of the hand, or he +bestowed on me one of those profound bows which brought his bald head on +a level with his waistcoat-pockets. Then he published a novel in "Le +Moniteur," after which he was decorated. Nothing was now heard from or +of him for a long time. Not a line by Henry Murger appeared anywhere. I +never heard that any piece by him was received, or even refused, by a +single one of the eighteen theatres in Paris. At last I met him one day +before the Variétés Theatre. I went up to speak to him, and ended by +asking the invariable question between literary men,--"What are you at +work on now? How comes it that so long a time has elapsed since you gave +us something to read or to applaud?" + +"I will tell you why," he replied, with melancholy _sang-froid_. "It is +not a question of literature, it is a question of arithmetic. I owe +eight hundred dollars to Madame Porcher, the wife of the +'authors'-tickets' dealer, who is always ready to advance money to +dramatic authors, and to whom we are all constantly in debt. I owe four +hundred dollars to the 'Moniteur,' and three hundred dollars to the +'Revue des Deux Mondes.' Follow my reasoning now: Were I to bring out a +play, my excellent friend, Madame Porcher, would lay hands on all the +proceeds, and I should receive nothing. Were I to give a novel to the +'Moniteur,' I should have to write twenty _feuilletons_ (you know they +pay twenty dollars a _feuilleton_ there) before I cancelled my old debt. +Were I to contribute to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' as soon as my six +sheets (at fifty dollars a sheet, that would be three hundred dollars) +were printed and published, the editor would say to me, 'We are even +now.' So you see that it would be unpardonable prodigality on my part to +publish anything; therefore I have determined not to work at all, in +order to avoid spending my money, and I am lazy--from economy!" + +His reply disarmed the little resentment I had left. I took his hand in +mine, and said to him,--"See here, Murger, I must confess to you I was a +little angry with you; but your arithmetic is more literary than you +think it. You have given me a lesson of contemporary literature; and I +say to you, as the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' would say, 'Murger, we are +even!'" + +I ran off without waiting for his reply, and whispered to myself, as I +went, "And yet Henry Murger is the most talented and the most honest of +them all!" + + * * * * * + +Let me continue the story of my misfortunes. The tempest was unchained +against me. It is true, there were among my adversaries some persons +under obligations to me,--some persons who were full of enthusiasm at my +first manner, and who would have made wry faces enough, had I published +their flattering letters to me,--other persons, to whom I had rendered +pecuniary services,--others, again, who had come to me with hat in hand +and supple knees, to beg my permission to allow them to dramatize my +novels. But what were these miserable considerations, when the great +interests of national literature, taste, and glory were at stake? I was +the vile detractor, the impious scorner of these glories, and it was but +justice that I should be put in the pillory and made the butt of rotten +eggs. Voltaire blasphemed, Béranger insulted, Victor Hugo outraged, were +offences which cried aloud for chastisement and for vengeance. Balzac's +shade especially complained and clamored for justice. It is true, that, +while Balzac was alive, he was not accustomed to anything like such +admiration. He openly avowed that he detested newspaper-writers, and +they returned the detestation with interest. Everybody, while he was +alive, declared him to be odd, eccentric, half-crazy, absurd. His +friends and his publishers, in fine, everybody who had anything to do +with him, told rather disreputable stories about him. No matter for +that. Balzac was dead, Balzac was a god, the god of all these +livers-by-the-wits, who but for him would have been atheists. Monsieur +Paulin Limayrac tore me to pieces in "La Presse." Monsieur Eugène +Pelletan shot me in "Le Siècle." Monsieur Taxile Delord mauled me in "Le +Charivari." To this episode of my exposition in the pillory belongs an +anecdote which I cannot omit. + +I was about to set off for the country, where I reckoned upon spending +some weeks of the month of May, in order to recover somewhat from these +incessant attacks made upon me. I had read in a _café_, while taking my +beefsteak and cup of chocolate, the various details of the punishment I +was about to undergo. One of my tormentors, who was a great deal more +celebrated for his aversion to water and clean linen than for any +article he had ever written, declared that I was about to be banished +from everything like decent society; another vowed by all the deities of +his Olympus that I was a mountebank and a skeptic, who had undertaken to +defend sound doctrines and to tomahawk eminent writers simply by way of +bringing myself into public notice; a third painted me as a poor wretch +who had come from his provincial home with his pockets filled with +manuscripts, and was going about Paris begging favorable notices as a +means of touching publishers and booksellers; a fourth depicted me, on +the other hand, as a wealthy fellow, who was so diseased with a mania +for literature that I paid newspapers and reviews to publish my +contributions, which no human being would have accepted gratuitously. As +I left the _café_, one of my intimate friends ran up to me. His face +expressed that mixture of cordial commiseration and desire to make a +fuss about the matter which one's friends' faces always wear under these +circumstances. + +"Well," said he, "what do you think of the way they treat you?" + +"Why, they are all at it,--Monsieur Edmond About, Monsieur Louis Ulbach, +Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, Monsieur Henry Murger, Monsieur Taxile +Delord,"---- + +"Ah! by the way, have you seen his article of yesterday?" + +"No." + +"You should have read that. Those in the morning's papers are nothing to +it. Really, you ought not to leave town without seeing it." Looking very +important, he added,--"In your position, you should know everything +written against you." + +I followed this friendly advice, and went to the Rue du Croissant, where +the office of "Le Charivari" moulders. As the place is anything but +attractive to well-bred persons, allow me to get there by the longest +road, and to go through the Faubourg Saint Honoré. A month before the +conversation above reported took place in front of a _café_-door, I had +the pleasure of meeting the Count de ----, an intellectual gentleman who +occupies an influential place in some aristocratic drawing-rooms which +still retain a partiality for literature. He said to me,-- + +"Do you know Monsieur Ernest Legouvé?" + +"Assuredly! The most polite and most agreeable of all the generals of +_Alexander_ Scribe; the author of 'Adrienne Lecouvreur,' which Rachel +played so well, of 'Médée,' in which Madame Ristori shines; a charming +gentleman, who, in our age of clubs, cigars, stables, jockeys, and +slang, has had the good taste to like feminine society. He has a +considerable estate; he belongs to the French Academy; his house is +agreeable; his manners delightful; his dinners unequalled. If in all +happiness there is a dash of management, where is the harm in Monsieur +Ernest Legouvé's case? Why should not gentlemen, too, be sometimes +adroit? Rogues are so always! Besides, has not a little art always been +necessary to effect an entrance into the French Academy?" + +"Monsieur Ernest Legouvé and I were at college together, and he bids me +bear you an invitation which I am sure you will not refuse. He has +written a play upon the delicate and thorny subject on which Monsieur +Jules Sandeau has written his admirable comedy, 'Le Gendre de Monsieur +Poirier': with this difference, however: Monsieur Legouvé has taken, not +a ruined and brilliant noble who marries the daughter of a plebeian, but +a young man, the architect of his own fortunes, with a most vulgar name, +who, on the score of talents, energy, delicacy of head and heart, is +loved by a young lady of noble birth, is accepted by her family, and +enters by right of conquest into that society from which his birth +excluded him." + +"That theme is rather more difficult: for, when Mademoiselle Poirier +marries the Marquis de Presles, she becomes the Marquise de Presles; +whereas, when Mademoiselle de Montmorency marries Monsieur Bernard, she +becomes plain Madame Bernard." + +"True enough! But Monsieur Legouvé is perplexed by a scruple which +reflects the greatest honor upon him: he entertains sincere respect, +great sympathy, for aristocratic distinctions; therefore he is anxious +to assure himself, before his piece is brought out in public, that it +does not contain a single scene or a single word which will be offensive +or disagreeable to noble ears. To satisfy himself in this particular, +he has asked me to allow him to read his comedy at my house. I shall +invite the Duchess de ----, the Marquis de ----, the Countess de ----, +the General de ----, the Duke de ----, the Marquise de ----, and the +Baroness de ----. I shall add to these two or three critics known in +good society, among whom I reckon upon you. In fine, this preliminary +Areopagus will be composed of sons of the Crusaders, who are almost as +sprightly as sons of Voltaire. Now Monsieur Ernest Legouvé will not be +satisfied with his comedy, unless these gentlefolk unanimously decide +that he need not blot a single line of it. Will you come? Remember, +Monsieur Ernest Legouvé invites you." + +"My dear Count, I willingly accept your proposition. Monsieur Legouvé +reads admirably, and his plays are all agreeable. Nevertheless, let me +tell you that this trial will prove nothing. Our poor society is like +Sganarelle's wife, who liked to be thrashed. It has borne smiling, and +repaid with wealth and fame, much more ardent attacks than Monsieur +Legouvé can make." + +Count de ---- and I shook hands, and parted. A few evenings afterwards +the reading took place. It was just what I expected. There were as many +marquises and duchesses (_real_ duchesses) as there were kings to +applaud Talma in the Erfurt pit. The noble assembly listened to Monsieur +Legouvés's comedy with that rather absent-minded urbanity and with those +charming exclamations of admiration which have been constantly given to +everybody who has read a piece in a drawing-room, from the days of the +Viscount d'Arlincourt and his "Le Solitaire," to the days of Monsieur +Viennet, of the French Academy, and his "Arbogaste." Monsieur Legouvé's +play, which was then called "Le Nom du Mari," and which has since been +played under the title of "Par Droit de Conquête," was pleasing. My ears +were not so much offended by the antagonism of poor nobility and wealthy +upstarts, which Monsieur Legouvé treated neither better nor worse than +any other has done, as by the details of roads, bridges, marsh-draining, +canals, railways, coal, coke, and the like, which were dead-weights on +Thalia's light robe; and the improbability of the plot was not so much +the marriage of a noble girl to the son of an apple-dealer as was the +perfection given to the young engineer: every virtue and every grace +were showered on him. The piece was unanimously pronounced successful. +The aristocratic audience applauded Monsieur Legouvé with their little +gloved hands, which never make much noise. He was complimented so +delicately that he was sincerely touched. There was not the slightest +objection, the lightest murmur made to the piece, and there trembled in +my eye that little tear Madame de Sévigné speaks of. + +But let us quit this drawing-room, and turn our steps towards the Rue du +Croissant, where the office of "Le Charivari" is to be found. Balzac has +described in "Les Illusions Perdues" the offices of these petty +newspapers: the passage divided into two equal portions, one of which +leads to the editor's room, and the other to the grated counter where +the clerk sits to receive subscribers. Everybody knows the appearance of +these old houses, these staircases, these flimsy partitions, with their +bad light coming through a window whose panes are veiled with a triple +coating of dust, smoke, and soot,--the whitewashed walls bearing +innumerable traces of fingers covered with ink, mingled with +pencil-caricatures and grotesque inscriptions. Although it was in the +month of May that I made this visit, I shivered with cold as I entered +this old house, and my gorge rose in disgust at the unaired smell and +ignoble scenes which everywhere appeared. The clerk I applied to had the +very face one might expect to find in such a place: one of those +colorless, hard, sinister faces which are to be seen in nearly all the +scenes of Paris reality. All things were in harmony in this shop: the +air, and the light, and the house,--the letter as well as the spirit. I +asked the clerk to give me the file for the month of April. I soon +found and read Monsieur Taxile Delord's article. Monsieur Taxile Delord +comes from some one of the southern departments of France. He made his +first appearance in public in "Le Sémaphore," the well-known newspaper +of Marseilles; but the twilight of a provincial life could not suit this +eagle, and in the course of a few years he came up to Paris. Alas! +Monsieur Taxile Delord was soon obliged to add the secret sorrows of +disappointed ambition to the original gayety of his character. His +deepest sorrow was to look upon himself for a grave and thoughtful +statesman, and be condemned by fate to a chronic state of fun and to +hard labor at pun-making for life. Imagine Junius damned to lead +Touchstone's life! He became sourness itself. His puns were lugubrious. +His fun grew heavy, and his gayety was funereal. The pretensions of this +checked gravity which settled upon his factitious hilarity were enough +to melt the hearts even of his enemies, if such a fellow could pretend +to have enemies. Once this galley-slave of fun tried to make his escape +from the galley. He wrote a play; and as the manager of one of the +theatres was his friend, he had it played. The democratic opinions of +Monsieur Taxile Delord raised favorable prejudices among the school-boys +of the Latin Quarter; but who can escape his fate? The masterpiece was +hissed. Its title was "The End of the Comedy"; and a wretched witling +pretended that the piece was ill-named, since the pit refused to see the +end of the comedy. Thereupon Monsieur Taxile Delord adopted the method +of Gulliver's tailor, who measured for clothes according to the rules of +arithmetic: he demonstrated that his piece was played three times from +beginning to end,--that, as the manager was his particular friend, and +as the Odeon was always empty, he might have had it played thirty +times,--and therefore that we were all bound to be grateful to him for +his moderation. This last argument met no person bold enough to +contradict it, and the subscribers to "Le Charivari" (which is the +"Punch" of Paris) were seized with holy horror, when they thought, that, +but for Monsieur Taxile Delord's moderation, "The End of the Comedy" +might have been played seven-and-twenty times more. + +What had I done to excite his ire? I had not treated Béranger with +sufficient respect, and Monsieur Taxile Delord, though a joker by trade, +would not hear of any fun on this subject. His genius had shaped itself +exactly on Béranger's, and he resented as a personal affront every +insult offered to the songster. Of a truth, Béranger's fate was a hard +one, and all my attacks on him were not half so bad as this treatment he +received at the hands of Monsieur Taxile Delord. Poor Béranger! So +Monsieur Taxile Delord took up the quarrel on his account, and relieved +his gall by throwing it on me. When I read his article, I felt +humiliated,--but not as the writer desired,--I felt humiliated for the +press, and for literature, and for Béranger, who really did not deserve +this hard fate. The humid office, full of dirt and dust and +printing-ink, disgusted and depressed me, and I involuntarily thought of +Count de ----'s drawing-room, and that aristocratic society where +everything was flowers, courtesy, perfumes, elegance, where people could +not even feel hatred towards their enemies, and where the genial poet, +Monsieur Ernest Legouvé, surrounded by the most charming and most +sprightly women of Paris, recently obtained so delightful a triumph. + +All at once a sympathetic and clear voice, a voice which I thought I had +heard in better society than where I was, reached my ears. Hid in the +dark corner where I sat, and where nobody could discover me, I saw the +door of the editor's room open and Monsieur Taxile Delord appear and +escort to the door a visitor. It was Monsieur Ernest Legouvé! They +passed close to me, and I heard Monsieur Ernest Legouvé say to Monsieur +Delord,--"My dear Sir, I recommend my play, 'Le Nom du Mari,' to you; I +hope you will be pleased with it!" + +This contrast annoyed me. I was then horribly out of humor from an +irritating prelection, and I felt towards Monsieur Legouvé that sort of +vexation the unlucky feel towards the lucky, the poor towards the rich, +the hunchbacks towards handsome men, and the awkward towards the adroit. +I said to myself,--"Armand, my poor Armand, you will never be aught but +a most stupid fool!" + +We add no commentary to this picture of literary life in Paris. We leave +the reader to draw his own conclusions. He needs no assistance,--for the +picture is painted in bright colors, and the light is thrown with no +parsimonious hand upon every corner. It is a curious exhibition of a +most unhealthy state of things. It explains a great many of those +literary mysteries, which seem so unaccountable, in the most brilliant +capital of the world. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] _Elsie Venner_, by Oliver OEendell (_sic_) Holmes. + + + + +THE MASKERS. + + + Yesternight, as late I strayed + Through the orchard's mottled shade,-- + Coming to the moonlit alleys, + Where the sweet Southwind, that dallies + All day with the Queen of Roses, + All night on her breast reposes,-- + Drinking from the dewy blooms, + Silences, and scented glooms + Of the warm-breathed summer night, + Long, deep draughts of pure delight,-- + Quick the shaken foliage parted, + And from out its shadows darted + Dwarf-like forms, with hideous faces, + Cries, contortions, and grimaces. + Still I stood beneath the lonely, + Sighing lilacs, saying only,-- + "Little friends, you can't alarm me; + Well I know you would not harm me!" + Straightway dropped each painted mask, + Sword of lath, and paper casque, + And a troop of rosy girls + Ran and kissed me through their curls. + + Caught within their net of graces, + I looked round on shining faces. + Sweetly through the moonlit alleys + Rang their laughter's silver sallies. + Then along the pathway, light + With the white bloom of the night, + I went peaceful, pacing slow, + Captive held in arms of snow. + Happy maids! of you I learn + Heavenly maskers to discern! + So, when seeming griefs and harms + Fill life's garden with alarms, + Through its inner walks enchanted + I will ever move undaunted. + Love hath messengers that borrow + Tragic masks of fear and sorrow, + When they come to do us kindness,-- + And but for our tears and blindness, + We should see, through each disguise, + Cherub cheeks and angel eyes. + + + + +CULLET. + + +"Good morning! Is it really a rainy day?" asked Miselle, imploringly, as +she seated herself at the breakfast-table, and glanced from Monsieur to +the heavy sky and the vane upon the coach-house, steadily pointing west. + +"Indeed, I hope not. Are you ready for Sandwich?" smilingly replied the +host. + +"More than ready,--eager. But the clouds." + +"One learns here upon the coast to brave the clouds; we have, to be +sure, a sea-turn just now, and perhaps there will be fog-showers +by-and-by, but nothing that need prevent our excursion." + +"Delightful!" exclaimed Optima, Miselle, and Madame, applying themselves +to eggs and toast with that calm confidence in a masculine decision so +sustaining to the feminine nature. + +The early breakfast over, Monsieur, with a gentle hint to the ladies of +haste in the matter of toilet, went to see that Gypsy and Fanny were +properly harnessed, and that a due number of cushions, rugs, and +water-proof wrappers were placed in the roomy carriage. + +Surely, never were hats so hastily assumed, never did gloves condescend +to be so easily found, never were fewer hasty returns for "something I +have forgotten," and Monsieur had barely time to send two messages to +the effect that all was ready, when the feminine trio descending upon +him triumphantly disproved once and forever the hoary slander upon their +sex of habitual unpunctuality. + +With quiet self-sacrifice Optima placed herself beside Madame in the +back of the carryall, leaving for Miselle the breezy seat in front, with +all its facilities for seeing, hearing, smelling, breathing; and let us +hope that the little banquet thus prepared for the conscience of that +young woman gave her as much satisfaction as Miselle's feast of the +senses did to her. + +Arching their necks, tossing their manes, spattering the dewy sand with +their little hoofs, Gypsy and Fanny rapidly whirled the carriage through +the drowsy town, across the Pilgrim Brook, and so, by the pretty suburb +of "T'other Side," (which no child of the Mayflower shall ever consent +to call Wellingsley,) to the open road skirting the blue waters of the +bay. + +"Ah, this is fine!" cried Miselle, snatching from seaward deep breaths +of the east wind laden with the wild life of ocean and the freedom of +boundless space. + +"Here we have it!" remarked Monsieur, somewhat irrelevantly, as he +hastily unbuckled the apron and spread it over his own lap and +Miselle's, just in time to catch a heavy dash of rain. + +"I am afraid it is going to be stormy, after all," piteously murmured +Miselle. + +"I told you we should have fog-showers, you know," suggested Monsieur, +with a quiet smile. + +"But what must we do?--go home?" + +"No, indeed!--we will go to Sandwich, let it rain twice, four times as +hard as this,--unless, indeed, Madame gives orders to the contrary. What +say you, Madame?" + +"I say, let us go on for the present. We can turn round at any time, if +it becomes necessary"; and Madame smiled benevolently at Miselle, down +whose face the rain-drops streamed, but who stoutly asserted,-- + +"Oh, this is nothing. Only a fog-shower, you know. We shall have it fine +directly." + +"Not till we are out of Eel River. This valley gathers all the clouds, +and they often get rain here when the sun is shining everywhere else." + +"A regular vale of tears! Happy the remnant of the world that dwelleth +not in Eel River!" murmured Miselle, surreptitiously pulling her +water-proof cloak about her shoulders. + +"Let me help you. Really, though, you are getting very wet, dear," +remonstrated Optima. + +"Not in the least. I enjoy it excessively. Besides, the shower is just +over.--What church is that, Monsieur, with the very disproportionate +steeple?" inquired Miselle, pointing to a square gray box, surmounted by +a ludicrously short and obtuse spire, expressive of a certain dogged +obstinacy of purpose. + +"The church is an Orthodox meetinghouse, and the steeple is Orthodox +too,--for the Cape. Anything else would blow down in the spring gales. +Park-Street steeple, for instance, would stand a very poor chance here." + +"Yes," said Miselle, vaguely, and she felt in her heart how this great +ocean that dwarfs or prostrates the works of man replaces them by a +temple builded in his own soul of proportions so lofty that God Himself +may dwell visibly therein. + +And now, having traversed the tearful valley, the road wound up the +Delectable Mountains beyond, and so into the pine forest, through whose +clashing needles glints of sunshine began to creep, while overhead the +gray shaded softly into pearl and dazzling white and palest blue. + +"There are deer in these Sandwich woods. See if we cannot find a pair of +great brown eyes peering out at us from some of the thickets," suggested +Madame. + +"Charming! If only we might see one! How young this nation is, after +all, when aboriginal deer roam the woods within fifty miles of Boston!" + +"But without game-laws they will soon be exterminated. A great many are +shot every winter, and the farmers complain bitterly of those that +remain. Some of their crops are quite ruined by the deer, they say," +remarked Monsieur. + +"Never mind. There are plenty of crops, and but very few deer. I +pronounce for the game-laws," recklessly declared Miselle. + +But the impending battle of political economy was averted by Madame's +exclamation of,-- + +"See, here is Sacrifice Rock. Let us stop and look at it a moment." + +Gypsy and Fanny, wild with the sparkling upland air, were with +difficulty persuaded to halt opposite a great flat granite boulder, +sloping from the skirt of the forest toward the road, and nearly covered +with pebbles and bits of decayed wood. + +"It is Sacrifice Rock," explained Monsieur. "From the days of the +Pilgrims to our own, no Indian passes this way without laying some +offering upon it. It would have been buried long ago, but that the +spring and autumn winds sweep away all the lighter deposits. You would +find the hollow at its back half filled with them. Once there may have +been human sacrifices,--tradition says so, at least; but now there is +seldom anything more precious than what you see." + +"But to what deity were the offerings made?" + +"Some savage Manitou, no doubt, but no one can say with certainty +anything about it. The degenerate half-breeds who live in this vicinity +only keep up the custom from tradition. They are called Christians now, +you know, and are quite above such idolatrous practices." + +"At any rate, I will add my contribution to this altar of an unknown +God. Besides, there are some blackberries that I must have," exclaimed +Optima, releasing her active limbs from the carriage in a very summary +fashion. + +Tossing a little stick upon the rock, she hastened to gather the +abundant fruit, a little for herself, a good deal for Madame and +Miselle, until Gypsy and Fanny stamped and neighed with impatience, and +Monsieur cried cheerily,-- + +"Come, young woman, come! We are not half-way to Sandwich, and the +horses will be devoured by these flies as surely as Bishop Hatto was by +mice." + +And so on through miles of merry woodland, by fields and orchards, whose +every crop is a fresh conquest of man over Nature in this one of her +most niggardly phases, by desolate cabins and lonely farms, until at a +sudden turn the broad, beautiful sea swept up to glorify the scene. And +while Miselle with flushed cheeks and tearful eyes drank in the ever-new +delight of its presence, Monsieur began a story of how a man, almost a +stranger to him, had come one winter evening and begged him for God's +love to go and help him search for the body of his brother, reported by +a wandering madwoman to be lying on this beach, and how he begged so +piteously that the listener could not choose but go. + +And as Monsieur vividly pictured that long, lonely drive through the +midnight woods, the desolate monotony of the beach, along whose margin +curled the foam-wreaths of the rising tide, while beyond phosphorescent +lights played over a world of weltering black waters,--as he told how, +after hours of patient search, they found the poor sodden corpse and +tenderly cared for it,--as Monsieur quietly told his tale and never knew +that he was a hero, Miselle turned shuddering from sea and beach and the +mocking play of the crested waves, as they leaped in the sunshine and +then sank back to sport hideously with other corpses hidden beneath +their smiling surface. + +Presently the sea was again shut off by woodland, and the scattered +houses closed into a village, nay, a town, the town of Sandwich; and +swinging through it at an easy rate, the carriage halted before an +odd-looking building, consisting of a quaint old inn, porched and +gambrel-roofed, joined in most unholy union to a big, square, staring +box, of true Yankee architecture. + +Descending with reluctance, even after three hours of immobility, from +her breezy seat, Miselle followed Madame into the quiet house, whose +landlord, like many another man, makes moan for "the good old times" +when summer tourists and commercial travellers filled his rooms and the +long dining-table, now unoccupied, save by our travellers and two young +men connected with the glass-manufactories. + +Rest, plenty of cool water, and dinner having restored the energies of +the travellers, it was proposed that they should proceed at once to the +Glass Works. And now, indeed, did Fortune smile upon this band of +adventurous spirits; for when the question of a guide arose, mine host +of the inn announced himself not only willing to act in that capacity, +but eminently qualified therefor by long experience as an operative in +various departments of the works. + +"How fortunate that the stage-coaches and peddlers no longer frequent +Sandwich! If our friend had them to attend to, he could not devote +himself to us in this charming manner," suggested Optima, as she and +Miselle gayly followed Monsieur, Madame, and Cicerone down the long +sunny street, whose loungers turned a glance of lazy wonder upon the +strangers. + +Passing presently a monotonous row of lodging-houses for the workmen, +and a public square with a fountain, which, as Optima suggested, might +be made very pretty with the addition of some water, the travellers +approached a large brick building, many-windowed, many-chimneyed, and +offering ingress through a low-browed arch of so gloomy an aspect that +one looked at its key-stone half expecting to read there the well-known +Dantean legend,-- + + "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi chi'ntrate!" + +Nor was the illusion quite destroyed by handling, for through the arch +and a short passage one entered a large, domed apartment, brick-floored +and dimly lighted, whose atmosphere was the breath of a dozen flashing +furnaces, whose occupants were grimy gnomes wildly sporting with strange +shapes of molten metal. + +"This is the glass-room, and in these furnaces the glass is melted; but +perhaps you will go first and see how it is mixed, and how the pots are +made to boil it in." + +"Yes, let us begin at the beginning," said all, and were led from the +Inferno across a cool, green yard, into a building specially devoted to +the pots. In a great bin lay masses of soft brown clay in its crude +condition, and upon the floor were heaped fragments of broken pots, +calcined by use in the furnaces, and now waiting to be ground up into a +fine powder between the wheels of a powerful mill working steadily in +one corner of the building. In another, a row of boxes or pens were +partially filled with a powdered mixture of the raw and burnt clay, and +this, being moistened with water, was worked to a proper consistency +beneath the bare feet of several stout men. + +"This work, like the treading of the wine-press, can be properly +performed only by human feet," remarked Monsieur. + +"So when next we sip nectar from one of your straw-stemmed glasses, we +will remember these gentlemen and their brothers of the wine-countries, +and gratefully acknowledge that without their exertions we could have +had neither wine nor goblet," said Miselle, maliciously. + +"No," suggested Optima, "we will enjoy the result and forget the +process. But what is that man about?" + +"Making sausages out of cheese, I should say," replied Monsieur; and the +comparison was almost unavoidable; for upon a coarse table lay masses of +moulded clay, in form and size exactly like cheeses, from which the +workman separated with a wooden knife a small portion to be rolled +beneath his hand into cylindrical shapes some four inches in length by +two in diameter. + +These a lad carefully placed upon a long and narrow board to carry up to +the pot-room, whither he was followed by the whole party. + +Miselle's first impression, upon entering this great chamber, was, that +she was following a drove of elephants; but as she skirted the regular +ranks of the great dun monsters and came to the front, she concluded +that she had stumbled upon the factory of Ali Baba's oil-jars. At any +rate, the old picture in the "Arabian Nights" represented Morgiana in +the act of pouring the boiling oil into vessels marvellously like these, +and in each of these was room for at least four robbers of true +melodramatic stature. + +Among these jars, with the noiseless solicitude of a mother in her +sleeping nursery, wandered their author and guardian, a pale, keen man, +and so rare an enthusiast in his art that one listening to him could +hardly fail to believe that the highest degree of thought, skill, and +experience might worthily be expended upon the construction of these +seething-pots for molten glass. + +"Will you look at this one? It is my last," said he, tenderly removing a +damp cloth from the surface of something like the half of a hogshead +made in clay. + +"I have not begun to dome it in yet; it must dry another day first," +said the artist, passing his hand lovingly along the smooth surface of +his work. + +"Then you cannot go on with them at once?" asked Madame. + +"Oh, no, Ma'am! They must dry and harden between the spells of work +upon them, or they never would stand their own weight. This one, you +see, is twelve inches thick in the bottom, and the sides are five inches +thick at the base, and graduated to four where the curve begins. Now if +I was to go right ahead, and put the roof on this mass of wet clay, I +shouldn't get it done before the whole would crush in together. I have +had them do so, Ma'am, when I was younger, but I know better now. I +sha'n't have that to suffer again." + +"And what are you at work upon while this dries?" + +"Here. This one is just begun. Shall I show you how I do it? John, where +are those rolls? Yes, I see. Now, Ma'am, this is the way." + +Taking one of the rolls in his left hand, and manipulating it with his +right, our artist laid it upon the top of the unfinished wall, and with +his supple fingers began to dovetail and compact it into the mass, +pressing and smoothing the whole carefully as he went on. + +"You see I must be very careful not to leave any air-bubbles in my work; +if I do, there will be a crack." + +"When the pot dries?" asked Madame. + +"No, Ma'am, when it is heated. I suppose the air expands and forces its +way out," said the man, shyly, as if he were more in the habit of +thinking philosophy than of talking it. "But see how smooth and fine +this clay is," added he, enthusiastically, passing his finger through +one of the rolls. "It is as close-grained and delicate as--as a lady's +cheek." + +"But, really, how could one describe the shape of these creatures?" +asked Optima aside of Miselle, as she stood contemplating a completed +monster. + +"By comparing them to an Esquimaux lodge, with one little arched window +just at the spring of the dome. Doesn't that give it?" + +"Perhaps. I never saw an Esquimaux lodge; did you, my dear?" + +"No, nor anything else in the least degree resembling these, unless it +was the picture of the oil-jars. Choose, my Optima, between the two." + +"Hark! we are losing something worth hearing." + +So the young women opened their ears, and heard the pallid enthusiast +tell how, after days and weeks of labor, and months of seasoning, the +pots were laboriously carried to a kiln, where they were slowly brought +to a red heat, and then suffered to cool as slowly. How the pot was then +taken to one of the furnaces of the Inferno, and a portion of its side +removed to receive it; how it was then built in, and reheated before the +glass-material was thrown in; and how, after all this care and toil, it +was perhaps not a week before it cracked or gave way at some point, and +must be taken away to make room for another. But this was unusually +"hard luck," and the pots sometimes held good as long as three months. + +"And what becomes of the old ones?" asked Optima, sympathetically. + +"Oh, they are all used over again, Miss. There must be a proportion of +burnt clay mixed with the raw, or it would be too rich to harden." + +"And what is the proportion?" + +"About one-third of the cooked clay, and two-thirds of the raw." + +"And where does the clay come from?" + +"Nearly all from Sturbridge, in England. Some has been brought from Gay +Head, on Martha's Vineyard; but it doesn't answer like the imported." + +Leaving the courteous artist in glass-pots to his labors, the party, +crossing again the breezy yard, entered a dismal brick-paved +basement-room, where grim bakers were attending upon a number of huge +ovens. One of these was just being filled; but instead of white and +brown loaves, golden cake, or flaky pies, the two attendants were piling +in short, thick bars of lead, and, hurry as they might, before they +could put in the last of the appointed number, little shining streams of +molten metal began to ooze from beneath the first, and trickle languidly +toward the mouth of the oven. + +But our bakers were ready for them. With hasty movement they threw in a +quantity of moistened clay, shaping and compacting it with their shovels +as they went on, until in a very few moments they had completed a neat +little semi-circular dike just within the door, as effectual a barrier +to the glowing pool behind it, wherein the softened bars were rapidly +disappearing, as was ever the Dutchman's dike to the ocean, with whom he +disputes the sovereignty of Holland. + +A wooden door was now put up, and the baking was left to itself for +about twenty-four hours, at the end of which time the lead would have +become transformed into a yellowish powder, known as massicot. + +"You will see it here. They are just beginning to clear this oven," said +Cicerone, pointing to a row of large iron vessels which the workmen were +filling with the contents of the just opened kiln. + +"And what next? What is it to the glass?" asked Miselle, unblushing at +her ignorance. + +"Next, it is put into these other kilns, and kept in motion with the +long rakes that you see here, and at the end of forty-eight hours it +will have absorbed sufficient oxygen from the atmosphere to turn it from +massicot to minium, or red-lead. Look at this, if you please." + +Cicerone here pointed to other iron vessels, in shape like the bowl out +of which the giant Blunderbore ate his bread and milk, while trembling +little Jack peeped at him from the oven; but these bowls were filled +with a beautiful scarlet powder of fine consistency. + +"That is red-lead, one of the most important ingredients in fine +flint-glass, as it gives it brilliancy and ductility. But it is not used +in the coarser glasses. And here is the sand-room." + +So saying, Cicerone led the way to a light and cheerful room of +delicious temperature, even on that summer's day, where, upon a low, +broad, iron table, heated from beneath by steam-pipes, lay a mass of +what might indeed be sand, and yet differed as much from ordinary sand +as a just washed pet-lamb differs from an old weather-beaten sheep. + +Like the lamb, the sand had been washed with care and much water, and +now lay reposing after its bath at lazy length, enjoying its _kief_, +like a sworn Mussulman. This sand is principally brought from the banks +of Hudson River and the coast of New Jersey; but a finer article of +quartz sand is found in Lanesboro', Massachusetts. + +In the centre of the room stood a great sifting-machine, worked by +steam; and the sand, after being thoroughly dried, was passed through +this, coming out a fine, glittering mass, very much resembling +granulated sugar, so far as looks are concerned. + +"Now it is ready to be sent up to the mixing-room; but if you will step +on this drop, we will go up before it," said the civil workman here in +charge. + +So some of the party stepped upon a solid platform about six feet +square, lying under a trap in the floor overhead, and were slowly wound +up to the mixing-room, feeling quite sure, when they stepped upon the +solid floor once more, that they had done a very heroic thing, and were +not hereafter to be dismayed by travellers' tales of descents into +coal-mines, or swinging to the tops of dizzy spires in creaking baskets. + +Here, in the mixing-room, stood great boxes, filled with sand, with +red-lead, or with sparkling soda and potash; and beside a trough stood, +shovel in hand, a good-natured-looking man, who was busily mixing +portions of these three ingredients into one mass. + +Him Miselle assailed with questions, and learned that the trough +contained + + 1400 pounds sand, + 350 " ash, + 100 " soda, + 800 " red-lead, + and about 100 " cullet.[25] + +This was to be a fine quality of flint-glass, and to it might be added +coloring-matter of any desired tint; but in the choice and proportion of +this lay one of the principal secrets of the art. + +All this information did the civil compounder vouchsafe to Miselle, with +the indulgent air of one who humors a child by answering his questions, +although quite sure that the subject is far above his comprehension; and +he smiled in much amusement at seeing his answers jotted down upon her +tablets. So Miselle thanked him, smiling a little in her turn, and they +parted in mutual satisfaction. + +"These trucks you see are ready-loaded with the frit, or glass-material, +and are to be wheeled down to the furnaces presently," said Cicerone. +"But, before following them, we had better go down and see the fires." + +Descending a short flight of stone steps, the party now entered a long, +dark passage, through which a torrent of wind swept, driving before it +the ashes and glowing cinders that dropped continually from a circular +grating overhead. The ground beneath was strewn with fire, and the whole +arrangement offered a rare opportunity to any misanthrope whose +preferences might point to death in the shape of a fiery shower-bath. + +In a gloomy crypt, opening near the grating, stood a gnome whose duty it +was to feed the furnace overhead with soft coal, which must be thrown in +at a small door and then pushed up and forward until it lay upon the +grating where it was consumed. Around this central fire the glass-pots, +ten to each furnace, are arranged, their lower surfaces in actual +contact with it, while the domed roof reverberates the heat upon them +from above. + +All around stood sturdy piers of brick and iron, and low-browed arches, +crushed, one could not but fancy, out of their original proportions by +the immense weight they were forced to uphold. + +Returning to the Inferno, Cicerone led the way to a pot which was being +filled with frit from one of the little covered cars that he had pointed +out in the mixing-room. This process was to be effected gradually, as he +explained,--a certain portion being at first placed in the heated pot, +and suffered to melt, and then another, until the pot should be full, +when the door of it would be put up and closed with cement. + +"And how long before the frit will be entirely melted?" asked Monsieur. + +"From thirty-six to sixty hours. The time varies a good deal with the +seasons, and different sorts of glass take different times to melt. This +flint-glass melts the easiest, and common bottle-glass takes the +longest. Crown-glass, such as is used for window-panes, comes between +the two; but that is not made here." + +"And when the glass is sufficiently boiled, what next?" + +"You shall see, for here is a pot just opened, and this man with the +long iron rod, called a pontil, or punty, in his hand, is about to skim +it." + +"What is there to skim off?" + +"Oh, there will be impurities, of course, however carefully the +ingredients are prepared. Some of these sink to the bottom, and some +rise in scum, or, as it is called here, glass-gall, and sometimes +sandiver." + +"Just like broth or society, isn't it, Optima?" suggested Miselle, +aside. + +"Why don't you discover a social pontil, then?" + +"Oh, I have no taste for reforming. What would there be to laugh at in +the world, if the human sandiver were removed?" + +"It might be an improvement to have the gall removed, my dear," remarked +Optima, significantly; but Miselle was too busy in watching the skimming +to understand the gentle rebuke. + +Thrusting the pontil far into the pot, the workman moved it gently from +side to side, turning it at the same time, until he suddenly withdrew +upon its point a large lump of glowing substance, which he shook off +upon a smooth iron table standing near, called a marver, (that is, +_marbre_,) in size and shape not unlike the largest of a nest of +teapoys. Here the lump of sandiver lay, while through its mass shot rays +of vivid prismatic color, glowing and dying along its surface so +vivaciously that one needs must fancy the salamander no fable, and that +this death of gorgeous agony was something more than the mere cooling of +an inert mass of matter. + +"You see how bubbly and streaked that is now?" broke in the voice of +Cicerone upon Miselle's little dream. "But after standing awhile the air +will all escape from the pot, leaving the glass smoother, thicker, and +tougher than it is now. Don't you want to look in, before it cools off?" + +With a mental protest against the fate of those luckless individuals who +threw Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego into the seven-times heated +furnace, Miselle stooped, and, looking in, uttered a cry of surprise and +delight. + +It was the very soul of fire, the essence of light and heat. Above, rose +a glowing arch, quivering with an intensity of color, such as fascinates +the eye of the eagle to the noonday sun. Below, undulated in great oily +waves a sea of molten matter, throbbing in vivid curves against the +sides of its glowing basin. And arch and wall and heaving waves all +mingled in a pure harmony, an accord, of light too intense for color, or +rather a color so intense as to be nameless in this pale world. + +Miselle knew now how the moth feels who plunges wildly into the flame +that lures him to his death, and yet fascinates him beyond the power of +resistance. The door was very small, or it might have been already too +late, when Optima touched the shoulder of this modern Parsee, and +suggested, calmly,-- + +"If you burn your eyes out here, my dear Miselle, you will be unable to +see anything else." + +The thought was a kind and sensible one, as, coming from Optima, it +could not have failed of being; and Miselle stood upright, stared +forlornly about her, and found the world very pale and weak, very cold +and dark. + +Was it to solace her sudden exile from fairy-land, or was it only as a +customary courtesy, that an old man, wasted and paled by years of +ministration at this fiery shrine, now seized a long, hollow iron rod, +called a blow-stick, and, thrusting the smaller end into the pot, +withdrew a small portion of the glass, and, while retaining it by a +swift twirl, presented the mouth-piece of the tube to Miselle with a +gesture so expressive that she immediately applied her lips to those of +the blow-stick, and rounded her cheeks to the similitude of those +corpulent little Breezes whom the old masters are so fond of depicting +attendant upon the flight of their brothers the Winds? + +Ah, my little dears, with your straws and soap-suds you will never blow +a bubble like that! As it slowly rounded to its perfect sphere, what +secrets of its birth within that glowing furnace, what mysteries of the +pure element whose creation it seemed, flashed in fiery hieroglyph +athwart its surface! A mocking globe, whereon were painted realms that +may none the less exist, because man's feeble vision has never seen +them, his fettered mind never imagined them. Who knows? It may have been +the surface of the sun that was for one instant drawn upon that ball of +liquid fire. Who is to limit the affinities, the subtle reproductions of +Nature's grand ideas? + +But as the wonder culminated, as the glancing rays resolved themselves +into more positive lines, as the enigma seemed about to offer its own +solution, the bubble broke, flew into a myriad tiny shards, which, with +a tinkling laugh, fell to the grimy pavement, and lay there sparkling +malicious fun into Miselle's eyes. + +Cicerone stooped and gathered some of the fragments. Surely, never was +substance so closely allied to shadow. The lightest touch, a breath +even, and they were gone,--and were they caught, it was like the capture +of one of the floating films of a summer morning, glancing brightly to +the eye, but impalpable to the touch. + +When all had looked, the guide slowly closed his hand with a cruel +gripe, and, opening it, threw down a little shower of scintillating +dust, an airy fall of powdered diamonds, lost as they readied the earth, +and that was all. + +"We're casting some of those Fresnel lanterns to-day. Perhaps the ladies +would like to see them," suggested the pale little old man, and pointed +to a powerful machine with a long lever-handle at the top, which, being +thrown up, showed a heavy iron mould, heated quite hot, and just now +smoking furiously from a fresh application of kerosene-oil, with which +the mould is coated before each period of service, much as the housewife +butters her griddle before each plateful of buckwheat cakes. + +As the smoke subsided, the old man, who proved a very intelligent as +well as civil person, thrust his pontil into the pot nearest the press, +and, withdrawing a sufficient quantity of the glass, dropped it squarely +into the open mould, whose operator, immediately seizing the long +handle, swung himself from it in a grotesque effort to increase the +natural gravity of his body, and succeeded in bringing it down with +great force. Then, leaning over the lever in a state of complacent +exhaustion, he glared for a moment at the spectators with the calm +superiority of one who, having climbed to the summit of knowledge, can +afford to pity the ignorant crowd groping below. + +The mould being reopened presently displayed a large, heavy lantern, +whose curiously elaborate flutings and pencillings were, as the +intelligent artisan averred, arranged upon the principle of the famous +Fresnel light, whose introduction some years ago marked an epoch in the +history of light-houses. + +"Why, Miss, these little up-and-down marks, that you'd take it were just +put in for fancy," said William Greaves, "have got a patent on 'em, and +no one else could put 'em into a lantern without being prosecuted." + +"But why? What difference do they make?" + +"Why, Miss, every one of them fingerings makes a lens; you see it's just +the same inside as out, and it sort of _spreads_ the light. That a'n't +the way to call it, but that's the idea; for the man that got it up was +down here, and I talked with him." + +"And what are they for?" + +"For ships' lanterns, Ma'am. They take this round lantern, when it's all +done here, and split it in two halves up and down, and then put one on +each side a vessel's bows just like the lamps on a doctor's gig, and the +bowsprit runs out between just like the horse does in the gig." + +At this juncture a small boy rushed up, and, thrusting a stick into the +still red-hot lantern, dexterously tilted it up and carried it away to a +furnace of different construction from the first, into one of whose open +doors he thrust it, and then returned to wait for another. + +This furnace, called a flashing-furnace, was round like the first, and +was fitted with eight or ten doors, from all of which the flames rushed +eagerly, and in a very startling fashion. + +"This is fed constantly with coal-oil," expounded Cicerone. "It is +brought in pipes, as you see, and drips down inside. These doors are +called 'glory-holes'"---- + +"Aureoles, perhaps," suggested Optima, in a whisper. + +"And the lanterns, or whatever is in hand, are brought here after +pressing, and put in to get well heated through again before they are +given to the finisher. Fire-polishing they call it. Here you see one +just ready to be taken out." + +"He will drop it," cried Miselle, as another boy, wielding a pontil with +a lump of melted glass at the end, darted before her, and, pressing this +heated end against the bottom of the lantern, picked it up and carried +it away, over his shoulder, as if he were a stray member of some +torch-light procession. + +"Not he! He's too well used to his trade," laughed Monsieur. "Now come +and see the finishing process." + +Following the steps of the young wide-awake, Miselle saw him deliver the +pontil, with the lantern still attached, to a listless individual seated +upon a bench whose long iron arms projected far in front of him, while +an idle pontil lay across them. This the boy snatched up and departed, +while the man, suddenly rousing himself, began to roll the new pontil up +and down the arms of his bench with his left hand, while with a pair of +compasses in his right he carefully gauged the diameter of the revolving +lantern, and then smoothed away its rough-cast edges by means of a +blackened bit of wood, somewhat of the shape, and bearing the name, of a +battledoor. + +The finishing over, another stick was thrust inside the lantern, and it +was separated from the pontil by the application of a bit of cold iron. +It was then carried to the mouth of a long gallery-like oven, moderately +heated, and fitted with a movable floor, upon which the articles put in +at the hot end were slowly transported through a carefully graduated +atmosphere to the cool end at a distance of perhaps a hundred feet, and +on their arrival were ready to be packed for transportation. + +This process was called annealing, and the oven with a movable floor was +technically denominated a leer. + +"Here they are pressing tumblers," continued the guide, pointing to a +press of smaller size and power, standing near another door of the same +furnace. "They have just had a large order from California, from a +single firm, for--how many tumblers did you tell me, Mr. Greaves?" + +"Twenty-two thousand dozen, Sir; and we shall have to spring to get them +off at the time set." + +"Nice tumblers they are, too,--just as good as cut, to my mind," +continued Cicerone, poking with his stick at one of the batch that was +now being placed in the leer. + +Very nice and clear they were, but not as good as cut to Miselle's mind, +and she remarked,-- + +"It is very easy to feel the difference, if not to see it, between cut +and pressed glass. The latter always has these blunted angles to the +facets, and has a certain vagueness and want of purpose about it; then +it is not so heavy or so sparkling; there is a certain exhilaration in +the gleam of cut glass that fits it for purposes to which the other +would be entirely unsuited. Fancy Champagne in a pressed goblet, or +tuberoses and japonicas in a pressed vase, or attar in a pressed +_flaçon_!" + +"Fortunately," replied Monsieur, to whom this aside had been addressed, +"the persons who consider Champagne, japonicas, and attar of roses +necessaries of life are very well able to provide cut-glass receptacles +for them. But isn't it worth one's while to be proud of a country where +every artisan's wife has her tumblers, her goblets, her vases, of +pressed glass, certainly, but 'as good, to her mind, as cut,' to quote +our friend? and don't you think it better that twenty-two thousand dozen +pressed tumblers should be sold at ten cents apiece than one-third that +number of cut ones at thirty cents, leaving all those who cannot pay the +higher price to drink out of"---- + +"Clam-shells? Well, perhaps. Equality and the rights of man are very +nice, of course, but I"---- + +"Like cut glass better," retorted Monsieur, laughing, while Miselle +turned a little indignantly to the guide, who was saying,-- + +"The reason the edges have that blunted look is partly because they +can't be struck as sharp as they can be ground, and then being heated in +the glory-holes, and again in the leers softens them down a little. In +fact, the very idea of annealing is to make the outside particles of the +glass run together just a very little, so as to fill up the pores as it +were, and make a smoother surface. If this were not done, it would fly +all to pieces the first time it was put into hot water." + +"The cut glass is not annealed, then?" + +"Oh, yes, after it is blown it is; and although the grinding takes off +part of the surface, I suppose it fills up the pores at the same time." + +"Cut glass is more apt to break in hot water than pressed or simply +blown glass," remarked Madame. + +"And is all cut glass blown in the first place?" asked Optima. + +"No, Miss, a good deal of it is pressed and then ground, either wholly +or in part; but this is not so clear or free from waves as the blown. +Out here is a man blowing _liqueur_-glasses. Perhaps you would like to +see that." + +The idea of blowing a bubble of glass into so intricate a shape, and +timing the process so that the brittle material should harden only when +it had reached the desired form, struck Miselle's mind as very +incredible; and she followed Cicerone with much curiosity to another +furnace, where one man, blow-pipe in hand, was dipping up a small +quantity of the liquid glass, and, having blown into it just long enough +to make a stout little bubble, laid the pipe across the iron arms of a +bench, where sat another operator, who immediately began to roll the +pipe up and down the arms of his chair, while with a supple iron +instrument, shaped like sugar-tongs with flattened bowls, he laid hold +of the bubble, and, while elongating it into a tube, brought the lower +extremity first to a point and then to a stem. To the end of this the +assistant now touched his pontil, upon whose end he had taken up a +little more glass, and this, being twisted in a ring round the foot of +the stem, divided from the pontil by a huge pair of scissors, +dexterously shaped with the plyers, and finally smoothed with a +battledoor, became the foot of the wine-glass. The heated pontil was now +applied exactly to the centre of this foot, the top of the glass divided +from the blow-pipe by the application of cold iron, and the whole thrust +for a few moments into the mouth of the furnace to soften, while the +first man laid another pipe with another bubble at the end before the +operator upon the bench, who recommenced the same process. + +The first glass, meantime, rendered once more ductile by heat, was +passed to another man upon another bench, who, keeping up all the while +the rotatory motion necessary to preserve the form of the softened +material, smoothed it with the battledoor, gauged it with the compasses, +coaxed it with the sugar-tongs, and finally trimmed it around the top +with his scissors as easily as if it had been of paper. It was then +cracked off from the pontil and carried away, a finished _liqueur_-glass +of the tiniest size, to be annealed. After this it might be used in its +simple condition, or ornamented with engraving, while the bottom of the +foot, still rough from contact with the pontil, was to be ground, +smoothed, and then polished. + +"Oh, how lovely! Look, Miselle, at this ruby glass," cried out Optima. + +"Gorgeous!" assented Miselle, peeping into a small pot where glowed and +heaved what seemed in very truth a mass of molten rubies. + +"What _are_ you going to make of this beautiful glass?" inquired she, +enthusiastically, of a pleasant-looking man who was patiently waiting +for room to approach his work. + +"Lamp-globes, Ma'am," returned he, sententiously. + +"Poor Miselle! You thought it would be Cinderella's slipper, at least, +didn't you?" laughed Optima. "But look!" + +The man, dipping his pipe, not into the ruby glass, but into an +adjoining pot of fine flint-glass, carefully blew a small globe, and +then removing the tube from his mouth swung it about in the air for a +few moments, until it had gained a certain degree of firmness. Then +dipping the bubble into the precious pot of ruby glass, (whose color, as +Cicerone mysteriously whispered, was derived from an oxide of gold,) he +withdrew it coated with the brilliant color, and so softened by the heat +as to be capable of further distension. After gently blowing, until the +shade had reached its proper size, the workman handed it to another, +who, rolling it upon the iron arms of his bench, made an opening, at the +point diametrically opposite that attached to the blow-pipe, with the +end of the compasses, and carefully enlarged, gauged, and shaped it, by +means of plyers and battledoor. + +"Pretty soon you will see how they cut the figures out and show the +white glass underneath," said the guide; but Miselle's attention was at +this moment engrossed by a series of small explosions, apparently close +at hand, and disagreeably suggestive of the final ascension of the Glass +Works, inclusive of all the pale men and boys, who might certainly be +supposed purified by fire, and ready to be released from the furnace of +affliction. Not feeling herself worthy to join this sublimated throng, +Miselle hastily communicated the idea to Optima, and proposed a sudden +retreat, but was smilingly bidden to first consider for a moment the +operations of four workmen close at hand, two of whom, kneeling upon the +ground, grasped the handles of two little presses, very like aggravated +bullet-moulds, while the other two, bringing little masses of glass upon +the ends of their blow-sticks and dropping them carefully into the necks +of the moulds, proceeded to blow through the pipe until the air forced +out a quantity of the glass in the form of a great bubble at the top of +the mould. The pressure from within increasing still more, this bubble +necessarily burst with a smart snap, and thus caused the explosive +sounds above referred to. The two casters then scraped away the _débris_ +at the top with a bit of stick, and, opening their moulds, disclosed in +one a pretty little essence-bottle, which a sharp boy in waiting +immediately snapped up on the end of a long fork, where he had already +spitted about a dozen more, and carried them away to the leer. + +"But what are _you_ casting?" asked Madame, puzzled, as the other +workman opened his mould and poked its contents out upon a bit of board +held ready by another sharp boy. + +"Little inks, Ma'am," was the laconic reply; and looking more narrowly +at the tiny object, it proved to be one of the small portable inkstands +used in writing-desks. + +More explosions at a little distance, and two more men were found to be +casting, in the same manner, small bottles of opaque white glass, +resembling china, a quality produced by an admixture of bone-dust in the +frit. These are the bottles dear to manufacturers of pomades, hair-oils, +and various cosmetics, and Miselle turned round a cool one lying upon +the ground, half-expecting to find a flourishing advertisement of a +newly discovered _Fontaine d'Or_ upon its back. She did not find it, but +espied instead two pretty little fellows in a corner just beyond, one of +whom might be twelve and his curly-haired junior not more than ten years +old, who were gravely engaged in blowing chimneys for kerosene lamps, +and quite successfully too, as a large box behind their bench amply +proved,--these alone of all the articles mentioned not requiring to be +passed through the leer. + +A little farther on, a workman, loading his pontil, by repeated +dippings, with a large quantity of glass, dropped the lump into an open +basin hollowed in the surface of one of the iron tables. It was here +suffered to cool for some moments, and then, by means of a pontil tipped +with molten glass, carried away to be fire-polished. + +This was a lens, such as are used to increase the light in ships' +cabins, staterooms, etc. Another and coarser quality, not lenses, but +simple disks of greenish glass, about four inches in thickness by twelve +in diameter, were stacked ready for removal at a short distance, and the +whole association made Miselle so intolerably sea-sick that she sidled +away to watch the manufacture of some decanters, "sech as is used in +bar-rooms, mostly, Ma'am," as the principal workman confided to her. +These were first moulded in the shape of great tumblers with an +excessively ugly pattern printed on the sides, then softened in a +glory-hole, and brought to a workman, who, by means of plyers and +battledoor, elongated and shaped the neck, leaving a queer, ragged lip +at the top. The decanter was then passed to Miselle's confidant, who +struck off this lip with the edge of his plyers. An attendant then +presented to him a lump of melted glass on the end of his pontil, and +the workman, deftly twisting it round the neck of his decanter, clipped +it off with a pair of scissors, and proceeded to smooth and shape it by +means of the plyers. + +These decanters were probably to be used in conjunction with some Gothic +goblets, whose press stood in the immediate vicinity. These were +greenish in color, thick and unwieldly in shape, and ornamented with +alternate panels of vertical and horizontal stripes. + +Miselle was still lost in contemplation of these goblets when Monsieur +approached. + +"No," exclaimed she, pointing at them,--"no true patriot should +congratulate his countrymen upon the plenitude of such articles as that! +Far better for the national growth in art that we should all revert to +clam-shells!" + +"Come, then, and see if we cannot find something more to your fancy in +the cutting-room," laughed Monsieur; and Miselle willingly followed +through the green yard, and up some stairs to a sunny chamber, or rather +hall, lined on either hand with a row of busy workmen, each seated +behind a whirring wheel, to which he held the surface of whatever +article he was engaged in cutting, or rather grinding. + +These wheels were arranged in a progressive order. The first were of +stone or iron, fed with sand and water, which trickled slowly down upon +them from a trough overhead. These rapidly cut away the surface of glass +presented to them, leaving it rough and opaque. The article was next +presented to a smooth grindstone, that removed the roughness, and left +the appearance of fine ground glass. + +The next process, called polishing, was effected upon a wooden wheel, +fed with pumice or rotten-stone and water, and the final touch was given +by another wooden wheel, and a preparation of tin and lead called +putty-powder. + +The opacity was now entirely removed, and the facets cut upon the +wine-glass Miselle had principally watched in its progress shone with +the clear and polished brilliancy characteristic of the finest quality +of cut glass. + +For very nice work, such as the polishing of chandelier-drops, and +articles of that sort, a leaden wheel, fed with fine rotten-stone and +water, is employed; but on the occasion referred to, no work of this +nature being in hand, these wheels were not used. + +Other wheels, consisting of a simple disk of iron, not unlike a circular +saw without any teeth, were used for cutting those narrow vertical +lines, technically known as fingering, familiar to those so happy as to +have had careful grandmothers, and to have inherited their decanters and +wine-glasses. The revival of this style, like that of the rich old +pattern in plate known as the "Mayflower," is a compliment just now paid +by the present generation to the taste of the past, and Miselle was +shown some beautiful specimens of the "latest mode, Ma'am," that awoke +melancholy reminiscences of the shattered idols of her youth. + +"Here are our friends, the ruby lampshades, again," remarked Optima. + +"And now you will see how the transparent figures are made upon them," +suggested Cicerone, pointing to a workman, who, with a pile of the +ruby-coated globes beside him, was painting circles upon one of them +with some yellowish pigment. The globe then being held to one of the +rough wheels, the thin shell of red glass within these circles was +ground away, leaving it white, but opaque. The globe then passed through +the processes of smooth grinding and polishing, above described, until +the pattern was finally developed in clear transparent medallions. + +A very beautiful article in colored glass was a Hock decanter of an +exquisite antique pattern in green glass, wreathed with a grape-vine, +whose leaves and stems were transparent, while the clusters of grapes +were left opaque by the omission of the polishing process. + +At the end of the noisy cutting-room was a small chamber, hardly more +than a closet, called the engraving-room, and bearing the same relation +to the former as the crypt where the cellarer jealously stores his Tokay +for the palate of a Kaiser holds to the acres of arches where lies the +_vin ordinaire_. + +Here, in the full light of ample windows, before a high bench, over +which revolved with incredible rapidity a half-dozen small copper disks +fed with fine emery and oil, stood as many earnest-looking men, not +artisans, but artists, each of whom, vaguely guided by a design lightly +sketched upon the article under his hands, was developing it with an +ease and skill really beautiful to contemplate. Intricate arabesques, +single flowers of perfect grace, or rare groups of bloom, piles of +fruit, or spirited animal-life, all grew between the whirring copper +wheel and the nice hand, whose slightest turn or pressure had a meaning +and a just result. + +Miselle watched the engraving of an intricate cipher beneath the +fantastic crest of some wealthy epicurean, who had ordered a complete +dessert-service of such charming forms and graceful designs that envy of +his taste, if not of his possessions, became a positive duty. + +"Is there any limit to the range of your subjects?" asked Miselle, as +the artist added the last graceful curve to the griffin's tail, and +contemplated his finished work with quiet complacency. + +"There may be, but I never found it. Whatever a pencil can draw this +wheel can cut," said he, with such a smile as Gottschalk might assume in +answering the query as to whether the score could be written that he +could not render. + +Having now witnessed all the processes of glass-manufacture to be seen +at this time and place,[26] the party were conducted to the show-room, +passing on the way through a room where a number of young women were +engaged in painting and gilding vases, spoon-holders, lamps, and various +other articles in plain and colored glass. The colors used showed, for +the most part, but a very faint resemblance to the tints they were +intended to produce, and the gold appeared like a dingy brown paint; +but, as was explained by Cicerone, these-colors were to be fixed by +burning, or rather melting them into the surface of the glass, and this +process would at the same time evolve their true colors and brilliancy, +both of paint and gilding. + +In the next room to this, several workmen were busy in fitting the metal +trimmings to such articles as lamps, lanterns, castors, +molasses-pitchers, and the like. + +One chirruping old man insisted upon mounting an immensely ugly blue and +yellow lamp upon a brass foot for the edification of his visitors, and +when this was over, exhibited some opaque white glass stands for other +lamps, which, as he fondly remarked, "would be took for marble +anyw'eres." + +The show-room was a long, airy hall, with a row of tables on either +hand, covered with glass, whose icy glitter and lack of color gave a +deliciously cool aspect to the whole place. Glass in every graceful form +and design, some heavy and crystalline, enriched with ornate workmanship +by cutter and engraver, some delicate and fragile as a soap-bubble; +hock-glasses as green and lucent as sea-water, and with an edge not too +thick to part the lips of Titania; glasses of amber, that should turn +pale Johannisberger to the true _vino d'oro_; glasses of glowing ruby +tint, than which Bohemia sends us nothing finer; vases and goblets as +rare in form and wrought as skilfully as those two cups that Nero bought +for six thousand sestertii; medallions bearing in _intaglio_ portraits +of distinguished men as clearly and unmistakably cut as on coin or +cameo; whole services of glass, more beautiful and almost as valuable as +services of plate; plumes of spun glass as fine and sheeny as softest +silk; toys and scientific playthings; objects of wonder, admiration, and +curiosity: all these were to be seen crowded upon these long, white +tables in the cool hall, where the wind, sweeping gently through, +brought the smell of the rising tide, and the sound of its waves upon +the shore. + +Here, too, was a man who knew the story, not only of the glass lying +beneath his hand to-day, but of all the glass the world has known, from +the colored beads inhumed with the Pharaonic princesses to the ruby +salver he so fondly fingered as he talked. + +He spoke of the glazed windows of Pompeii; of the "excellent portrait" +of the Emperor Constantine VII. painted, A. D. 949, upon a +church-window. He recounted the ancient story of the Phoenicians, who, +landing at the mouth of the river, brought from their ships lumps of +soda, and, laying them upon the sand as a support for their dinner-pot, +found when they had done lumps of glass among the ashes, and so +rediscovered the lost art of glass-making; but to this he added, with a +dubious smile,-- + +"Fire must have been hotter in those days than now. We could never melt +sand in that fashion now." + +Then coming to window-glass, he clearly described the process of its +manufacture, although confessing he had never been engaged in it, and +from this Miselle, with a word, launched him into the glowing sea of +mediæval painted windows, and the wellnigh forgotten glories of their +manufacture. + +"There is hardly one of them left that I have not seen," said he,--"from +the old heathen temples of the East, that the Christians converted to +their own use, and, while they burned the idols, spared the windows, +which they had sense to remember they could never reproduce, to the +gloomy purple-shadowed things they put up so much in England and the +United States at the present day, forgetting, as it would seem, that the +first idea of a window is to let the light through. + +"But one of the finest works of modern times was the great +tournament-window, first exhibited in London in 1820. I was a young +fellow then, hardly twenty indeed, and with very little money to spare +for sight-seeing. But from the day I first heard of it, until five years +afterward, when I saw it, I never wavered in my determination to go +abroad and look at that window, as well as all the others I had heard so +much of. + +"It was a beautiful thing really, Ma'am, measuring eighteen by +twenty-four feet, and made up of three hundred and fifty pieces of glass +set in metal astragals, so cleverly worked into the shadows that the +whole affair appeared like one piece. It represented the passage-of-arms +between Henry VIII., of England, and Francis I., of France, held at +Ardres, June 25, 1520, and of the hundred figures shown, over forty were +portraits. Among these were the two queens, Katharine of England, and +Claude of France, Anne Boleyn, and Cardinal Wolsey, with a great many +other distinguished persons." + +"And this window, where is it now?" asked Optima. + +"Destroyed by fire, June 30, 1832," he replied, with the mournful awe of +one giving the date of some terrible human disaster. + +"How many glass-factories like this are there in the country?" asked +Monsieur, reverting to the practical view of the matter under +consideration. + +"Flint-glass works, Sir? There are three in South Boston, two in East +Cambridge, and one here in Sandwich. That is for Massachusetts alone. +Then there are two in Brooklyn, New York, one in Jersey City, and two in +Philadelphia. These are all flint-glass, you understand; the principal +window-glass factories are in the southern part of New Jersey, and in +Pittsfield, Pennsylvania. Then there is a flourishing plate-glass +factory in Lenox, in this State, and another in New York. But the old +Bay State, Sir, has led the van in this enterprise ever since 1780, when +Robert Hewes, of Boston, opened the first glass-factory in the country +at Temple, New Hampshire. His workmen were all Hessians or Wallachians +who had deserted from the British army. They had learned the art in +their own country, and were the best men he could have found for his +purpose at that time; but they were a disorderly set, and, finally, one +of the furnace-men got drunk, and burnt down the works in the night. +Hewes presented a circular plate of glass, as a specimen of his +manufacture, to Harvard College, and I believe they have it now. It was +a very good article of glass, although a little greenish in color, and +not quite so clear as we get it now. + +"After he was burnt out, one Lint set up some glass-works in Boston +about 1800. They were not successful for a while, but about 1802 or 1803 +they got fairly started, and have kept ahead ever since." + +"Four o'clock, my dear," remarked Madame, softly, to Monsieur, and +Cicerone, who had fidgeted awfully all through the little lecture, +brightened perceptibly, and rubbed his hands contentedly, as, with many +thanks to the courteous superintendent, and a last glance at the +glittering wonders of his charge, the party descended once more to the +green yard, and crossed it to the principal gate. + +"One minute, Optima. Do come and look at the engine in here!" cried +Miselle, dragging her reluctant friend into a long, narrow den, almost +filled by a black monster with shining brass ornaments, who slid his +iron arms backward and forward, backward and forward, in a steady, +remorseless manner, highly suggestive of what he would do, had he fists +at the end of them, and all the world within reach of their swing. A +sickish smell of heated oil pervaded the apartment, although everything +was as clean and bright as hands could make it. + +With the foolish daring characteristic of her sex, Miselle stole out a +finger to touch the remorseless arm as it shot outward, but Optima +detected and arrested the movement, with a grave "For shame!" and at the +same moment a man suddenly emerged from behind the body of the monster, +and, approaching the venturous intruder, bawled in her ear,-- + +"'Twould take off a man's head, Miss, as easy as a pipe-stem!" + +Miselle nodded, without attempting a defence, and the man added +presently,-- + +"'Undred 'oss power, Miss. Drives all the works." + +"Do come out, Miselle! I shall go crazy in another minute!" screamed +Optima; and the two young women hastened to overtake the rest of the +party, who were already in the street. + +Gypsy and Fanny, who had better used their four hours of rest than in +exploring glass-works, stood ready-harnessed before the door of the +Central Hotel when the sight-seers returned thither, and in a few +moments the ladies were handed to their seats, Monsieur gathered up the +reins, and Tom having "given them their heads," the spirited little nags +tossed the precious gifts into the air, and took the road at a pace that +needed only moderating to make it the perfection of exhilarating motion. + +Words are all very well in their way, but they fail wofully when a +person has really anything to say. + +For instance, where are the phrases to describe that sunset sky, so +clear and blue overhead that one felt it was only the scant range of +human vision that hid the unveiled heavenly glories beyond the arch,--so +gorgeous at the horizon, where it met the opalescent sea,--so rosy in +the east, where, like a great golden shield, stood the moon gazing +across the world triumphantly at the sinking sun,--the dewy freshness +of the woods, where lingered the intoxicating perfumes distilled by the +blazing noontide from fir and spruce,--the jubilant chorus of birds, +dying strain by strain, until the melancholy whippoorwill grieved alone +in his woodland solitude? + +On by the lonely farms and unlighted cabins, by the bare, bleak moors, +where the night-wind came rolling softly up to look at the +travellers,--on till the low, broad sea opened out the view, and came +sobbing up on the beach, wailing at its own cruel deeds,--on beneath the +cloudless night, upon whose front blazed Orion and the Pleiades,--on +until the scene had wrought its charm, and the frequent speech fell to +scattered words, to silent thought, to passionate feeling, where +swelling heart and dim eyes alone uttered the soul's response to earth's +perfect beauty, God's perfect goodness. + +And so ever on, until the twinkling lights in the curve of the bay +showed where the weary Pilgrims had set foot on shore, in that black, +bitter December weather, and planted the seed that has borne blossoms +and fruits unnumbered, and shall yet bear more and more for centuries to +come. + +And through the quiet suburb, and across the brook, and up the +village-street, to the happy and hospitable home, where brilliant lights +and a sparkling tea-service waited to welcome the weary, but +well-pleased _voyageurs_. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] "Cullet" is the waste of the glass-room. The superfluous material +taken up on the pontil, and the shards of articles broken in process of +manufacture. The ingenious reader will thus interpret the heading of +this paper. + +[26] It is proper to state that Miselle subsequently visited the +New-England Glass Company's Works in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, and, +finding the method of manufacture nearly identical with that at +Sandwich, has, for convenience' sake, incorporated her observations +there with this account of her visit to the latter place. + + + + +WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM? + +A STORY IN TWO PARTS. + + +PART II. + +Gentleman Bill, full of confidence in his powers of persuasion, +advances, to add the weight of his respectability to his parent's +remonstrance. + +"Good morning, Mr. Frisbie,"--politely lifting his hat. + +"Hey?" says Frisbie, sarcastic.--"Look at his insolence, Stephen!" + +"I sincerely trust, Sir," begins Bill, "that you will reconsider your +determination, Sir"---- + +"Shall I fetch him a cut with the hosswhip?" whispers Stephen, loud +enough for the stalwart young black to hear. + +"You can fetch him a cut with the hosswhip, if you like," Bill answers +for Mr. Frisbie, with fire blazing upon his polite face. "But, Sir, in +case you do, Sir, I shall take it upon myself to teach you better +manners than to insult a gentleman conferring with your master, Sir!" + +"Ha, ha, ha!" roared Mr. Frisbie. "You've got it, Stephen!" + +The whip trembled in Stephen's angry hand, but the strapping young negro +looked so cool and wicked, standing there, that he wisely forbore to +strike. + +"I am sure, Sir," Bill addresses the landlord, "you are too humane a +person"---- + +"No, I a'n't," says the florid Frisbie. "I know what you're going to +say; but it's no use. You can't work upon my feelings; I a'n't one of +your soft kind.--Drive up to the door, Stephen." + +Stephen is very glad to start the horse suddenly and graze Gentleman +Bill's knee with the wheel-hub. Bill steps back a pace, and follows him +with the smiting look of one who treasures up wrath. You'd better be +careful, Stephen, let me tell you! + +Joe stands holding the door open, and Mr. Frisbie looks in. There, to +his astonishment, he sees the women washing clothes as unconcernedly as +if nothing unusual was about to occur. He jumps to the ground, heated +with passion. + +"Ho, here!" he shouts in at the door; "don't you see the house is coming +down?" + +Upon which the deaf old grandfather rises in his corner, and pulls off +his cap, with the usual salutation, "Sarvant, Sah," etc., and sitting +down again, relapses into a doze immediately. + +Frisbie is furious. "What you 'bout here?" he cries, in an alarming +voice. + +"Bless you, Sir," answers the old woman, over a tub, "don't you see? +We's doon' a little washin', Sir. Didn't you never see nobody wash +afore?" And she proceeds with her rubbing. + +"The house will be tumbling on you in ten minutes!" + +"You think so? Now I don't, Mr. Frisbie! This 'ere house a'n't gwine to +tumble down this mornin', I know. The Lord 'll look out for that, I +guess. Look o' these 'ere childern! look o' me! look o' my ole father +there, more'n a hunderd year ole! What's a-gwine to 'come on us all, if +you pull the house down? Can't git another right away; no team to tote +our things off with; an' how 'n the world we can do 'thout no house this +winter I can't see. So I've jes' concluded to trust the Lord, an' git +out my washin'." Rub, rub, rub! + +Frisbie grows purple. "Are you fools?" he inquires. + +"Yes, _I_ am! I'm Fessenden's." And the honest, staring youth comes +forward to see what is wanted. + +This unexpected response rather pricks the wind-bag of the man's zeal. +He looks curiously at the boy, who follows him out of the house. + +"Stephen, did you ever see that fellow before?" + +"Yes, Sir; he's the one come to our house Saturday night, and I showed +round to the Judge's." + +"Are you the fellow?" + +"Yes," says Fessenden's. "There wouldn't any of you let me into your +houses, neither!" + +"Wouldn't the people I sent you to let you in?" + +"No!" + +"Hear that, Stephen! your philanthropical Gingerford!--And what did you +do?" + +"I didn't do nothin',--only laid down to die, I did." + +"But you didn't die, did you?" + +"No! This man he come along, and brought me here." + +"Here? to the niggers?" + +"Yes! You wouldn't have me, so they took me, and dried me, and fed +me,--good folks, niggers!" Fessenden's bore this simple testimony. + +What is it makes the Frisbie color heighten so? Is it Gentleman Bill's +quiet smile, as he stands by and hears this conversation? + +"And you have been here ever since?" says the man, in a humbler key, and +with a milder look, than before. + +"Yes! It's a r'al good place!" says the youth. + +"But a'n't you ashamed to live with niggers?" + +"Ashamed? What for? Nobody else was good to me. But they was good to me. +I a'n't ashamed." + +The Frisbie color heightens more and more. He looks at that wretched +dwelling,--he glances aside at Mr. Williams, that coal-black Christian, +of sad and resigned demeanor, waiting ruefully to see the roof torn +off,--the only roof that had afforded shelter to the perishing outcast. +Mr. Frisbie is not one of the "soft kind," but he feels the prick of +conscience in his heart. + +"Why didn't you go to the poor-house? Didn't anybody tell you to?" + +"Yes, that's what they said. But nobody showed me the way, and I +couldn't find it." + +"Where did you come from? Who are you?" + +"Fessenden's." + +"Who is Fessenden?" + +"The man that owns me. But he whipped me and shet me up, and I wouldn't +stay." + +"Where does he live?" + +"Don't know. Away off." + +"You'd better go back to him, hadn't you?" + +"No! I like these folks. Best folks I ever seen!" avers the earnest +youth. + +Flush and confusion are in the rich man's face. He turns up an uneasy +glance at Adsly's men, already on the roof; then coughs, and says to +Stephen,-- + +"This is interesting!" + +"Very," says Stephen. + +"Don't you remember, _I_ was going to make some provision for this +fellow,--I'd have seen him safe in the almshouse, if nothing more,--but +you suggested Gingerford's." + +"I supposed Gingerford would be delighted to take him in," grins +Stephen. + +"Instead of that, he turns him out in the storm! Did you ever hear of +such sham philanthropy? By George!" cries Frisbie, in his indignation +against the Judge, "there's more real philanthropy in these +niggers"----checking himself, and glancing again at the workmen on the +roof. + +"What's philanthropy?" asks Fessenden's. "Is that what you're tearin' +their house down for? I'm sorry!" + +Frisbie is flustered. He is ashamed of appearing "soft." He wishes +heartily to be well rid of the niggers. But something in his own heart +rebels against the course he has taken to eject them. + +"Just hold on there a minute, Adsly!" + +"Ay, ay!" says Adsly. And the work stops. + +"Now what do I do this for?" exclaims Frisbie, vexed at himself the +instant he has spoken. And he frowns, and blows his nose furiously. +"It's because I am too good-natured, altogether!" + +"No, no, Sir,--I beg your pardon!" says Mr. Williams, his heart all +aglow with gratitude. "To be kind and merciful to the poor, that isn't +to be too good-natured, Sir!" + +"Well, well! I a'n't one of your milk-and-water sort. Look at such a man +as Gingerford, for example! But I guess, come case in hand, you'll find +as much genuine humanity in me, Adsly, as in them that profess so much. +Wait till to-morrow before you knock the old shell to pieces. I'll give +'em another day. And in the mean time, boy," turning to Fessenden's, +"you must find you another home. Either go back to your guardian, or +I'll send you over to the almshouse. These people can't keep you, for +they'll have no house in these parts to keep themselves in." + +"So?" says Fessenden's. "They kep' me when they had a house, and I'll +stay with them when they haven't got any." + +Something in the case of this unfortunate stripling interested Frisbie. +His devotion to his new friends was so sincere, and so simply expressed, +that the robust, well-fed man was almost touched by it. + +"I vow, it's a queer case, Stephen! What do you think of it?" + +"I think"----said the joker. + +"What do you think? Out with it!" + +"You own that vacant lot opposite Gingerford's?" + +"Yes; what of that?" + +"I think, then, instead of pulling the house down, I'd just move it over +there, niggers and all"---- + +"And set it opposite the Judge's!" exclaims Frisbie, catching gleefully +at the idea. + +"Exactly," says Stephen; "and give him enough of niggers for one while." + +"I'll do it!--Adsly! Adsly! See here, Adsly! Do you suppose this old box +can be moved?" + +"I guess so. 'T a'n't very large. Ruther think the frame'll hold +together." + +"Will you undertake the job?" + +"Wal, I never moved a house. There's Cap'en Slade, he moves houses. He's +got all the tackle for it, and I ha'n't. I suppose I can git him, if +you want me to see to the job." + +Agreed! It did not take Frisbie long to decide. It was such a tremendous +joke! A nest of niggers under the dainty Gingerford nose! ho, ho! Whip +up, Stephen! And the red and puffy face, redder and puffier still with +immense fun, rode off. + +Adsly and his men disappeared also, to return with Cap'en Slade and his +tackle on the morrow. Then Joe began to dance and scream like a little +devil. + +"Have a ride! have a ride! Oh, mammy! they're gunter snake th' ole house +through the village to-morrer, an' we're all gunter have a ride! free +gratis for nothin'! 'thout payin' for 't neither! A'n't we, Bill?" + +Mrs. Williams sits right down, overcome by the surprise. + +"Now I want to know if that 'ere 's so!" + +"That's what't looks like now," says Mr. Williams. "We're goin' to be +sot opposite Mr. Gingerford's." + +"'Ristocratic!" cries Joe, putting on airs. "That's what'll tickle +Bill!" + +"Oh, laws!" exclaims Mrs. Williams, with humorous sadness,--"what a show +th' ole cabin'll make, stuck down there 'mongst all them fine housen!" + +"I don't know's I quite like the notion," says her husband, with a +good-natured expansion of his serious features. "I'm 'fraid we sha'n't +be welcome neighbors down there. 'T a'n't so much out o' kindness to us +as it is out o' spite to the Gingerfords, that the house is to be moved +instid o' tore down." + +"That's the glory of the Lord! Even the wrath of man shall praise Him!" +utters the old grandmother, devoutly. + +"Won't it be jimmy?" crows Joe. "He's a jolly ole brick, that Frisbie! +I'm a-gunter set straddle on the ridge-pole, an' carry a flag. Hooray!" + +"I consider that the situation will be very much preferable to this," +observes Gentleman Bill, polishing his hat with his coat-sleeve. "Better +quarter of the town; more central; eligible locality for establishing a +tailor-shop." + +"Legible comicality for stablin' a shailor-top!" stammers Joe, mimicking +his brother. + +Upon which Bill--as he sometimes did, when excited--elapsed into the +vulgar, but expressive idiom of the family. "Shet yer head, can't ye?" +And he lifted a hand, with intent to clap it smartly upon the part the +occlusion of which was desirable. + +Joe shrieked, and fled. + +"No quarrellin' on a 'casion like this!" interposes the old woman, +covering the boy's retreat. "This 'ere's a time for joy and thanks, an' +nuffin' else. Bless the Lord, I knowed He'd keep an eye on to th' ole +house. Didn't I tell ye that boy'd bring us good luck? It's all on his +account the house a'n't tore down, an' I consider it a mighty Providence +from fust to last. Wasn't I right, when I said I guessed I'd have faith, +an' git the washin' out? Bless the Lord, I could cry!" + +And cry she did, with a fulness of heart which, I think, might possibly +have convinced even the jocund Frisbie that there was something better +than an old, worn-out, spiteful jest in the resolution he had taken to +have the house moved, instead of razed. + +And now the deaf old patriarch in the corner-became suddenly aware that +something exciting was going forward; but being unable clearly to +comprehend what, and chancing to see Fessenden's coming in, he gave +expression to his exuberant emotions by rising, and shaking the lad's +passive hand, with the usual highly polite salutation. + +"Tell him we're all a-gunter have a ride," said Joe. + +But as Fessenden's couldn't tell him loud enough, Joe screamed the news. + +"Say?" asked the old man, raising a feeble hand to his ear, and stooping +and smiling. + +"Put th' ole house on wheels, an' dror it!" shrieked Joe. + +"Yes, yes!" chuckled the old man. "I remember! Six hills in a row. +Busters!"--looking wonderfully knowing, and, with feeble forefinger +raised, nodding and winking at his great-grandchild,--as it were across +the slim gulf of a hundred years which divided the gleeful boyhood of +Joe from the second childhood of the ancient dreamer. + +The next day came Adsly and his men again, with Cap'en Slade and his +tackle, and several yokes of oxen with drivers. Levers and screws moved +the house from its foundations, and it was launched upon rollers. Then, +progress! Then, sensation in Timberville! Some said it was Noah's ark, +sailing down the street. The household furniture of the patriarch was +mostly left on board the antique craft, but Noah and his family followed +on foot. They took their live stock with them,--cow and calf, and +poultry and pig. Joe and his great-grandfather carried each a pair of +pullets, in their hands. Gentleman Bill drove the pig, with a rope tied +to his (piggy's) leg. Mr. Williams transported more poultry,--turkeys +and hens, in two great flopping clusters, slung over his shoulder, with +their heads down. The women bore crockery and other frangible articles, +and helped Fessenden's drive the cow. A picturesque procession, not +noiseless! The bosses shouted to the men, the drivers shouted to the +oxen, loud groaned the beams of the ark, the cow lowed, the calf bawled, +great was the squawking and squealing! + +Gentleman Bill was sick of the business before they had gone half-way. +He wished he had stayed in the shop, instead of coming over to help the +family, and make himself ridiculous. There was not much pleasure in +driving that stout young porker. Many a sharp jerk lamed the hand that +held the rope that restrained the leg that piggy wanted to run with. +Besides, (as I believe swine and some other folks invariably do under +the like circumstances,) piggy always tried to run in the wrong +direction. To add to Gentleman Bill's annoyance, spectators soon became +numerous, and witty suggestions were not wanting. + +"Take him up in your arms," said somebody. + +"Take advantage of his contrariness, and try to drive him 't other way," +said somebody else. + +"Ride him," proposed a third. + +"Make a whistle of his tail, an' blow it, an' he'll foller ye!" screamed +a bright school-boy. + +"Stick some of yer tailor's needles into him!" "Sew him up in a sack, +and shoulder him!" "Take up his hind-legs, and push him like a +wheelbarrer!" And so forth, and so forth, till Bill was in a fearful +sweat and rage, partly with the pig, but chiefly with the uncivil +multitude. + +"Ruther carry me on your back, some rainy night, hadn't ye?" said +Fessenden's, in all simplicity, perceiving his distress. + +"You didn't excruciate my wrist so like time!" groaned Bill. And what +was more, darkness covered that other memorable journey. + +As for Joe, he liked it. Though he was not allowed to ride the +ridge-pole and wave a flag through the village, as he proposed, he had +plenty of fun on foot. He went swinging his chickens, and frequently +pinching them to make them musical. The laughter of the lookers-on +didn't trouble him in the least; for he could laugh louder than any. But +his sisters were ashamed, and Mr. Williams looked grave; for they were, +actually, human! and I suppose they didn't like to be jeered at, and +called a swarm of niggers, any more than you or I would. + +So the journey was accomplished; and the stupendous joke of Frisbie's +was achieved. Conceive Mrs. Gingerford's wonder, when she beheld the ark +approaching! Fancy her feelings, when she saw it towed up and moored in +front of her own door,--the whole tribe of Noah, lowing cow, bawling +calf, squawking poultry, and squealing pig, and so forth, and so forth, +accompanying! This, then, was the meaning of the masons at work over +there since yesterday. They had been preparing the new foundations on +which the old house was to rest. So the stunning truth broke upon her: +niggers for neighbors! What had she done to merit such a dispensation? + +What done, unhappy lady? Your own act has drawn down upon you this +retribution. You yourself have done quite as much towards bringing that +queer craft along-side as yonder panting and lolling oxen. They are but +the brute instruments, while you have been a moral agent in the matter. +One word, uttered by you three nights ago, has had the terrible magic in +it to summon forth from the mysterious womb of events this extraordinary +procession. Had but a different word been spoken, it would have proved +equally magical, though we might never have known it: that breath by +your delicate lips would have blown back these horrible shadows; and +instead of all this din and confusion of house-hauling, we should have +had silence this day in the streets of Timberville. You don't see it? In +plain phrase, then, understand: you took not in the stranger at your +gate; but he found refuge with these blacks; and because they showed +mercy unto him, the sword of Frisbie's wrath was turned aside from them, +and, edged by Stephen's witty jest, directed against you and yours. +Hence this interesting scene which you look down upon from your windows, +at the beautiful hour of sunset, which you love. And, oh, to think of +it! between your chamber and those golden sunsets that negro hut and +those negroes will always be henceforth! + +Now don't you wish; Madam, you had had compassion on the wayfarer? But +we will not mock at your calamity. You did precisely what any of us +would have been only too apt to do in your place. You told the simple +truth, when you said you didn't want the ragged wretch in your house. +And what person of refinement, I'd like to know, would have wanted him? +For, say what you will, it is a most disagreeable thing to admit +downright dirty vagabonds into our elegant dwellings. And dangerous, +besides; for they might murder us in the night,--or steal something! Oh, +we fastidious and fearful! where is our charity? where is the heart of +trust? There was of old a Divine Man, who had not where to lay his +head,--whom the wise of those days scoffed at as a crazy fellow,--whom +respectable people shunned,--who made himself the companion of the poor, +the comforter of the distressed, the helper of those in trouble, and the +healer of diseases;--who shrank neither from the man or woman of sin, +nor from the loathsome leper, nor from sorrow and death for our +sakes,--whose gospel we now profess to live by, and---- + +But let us not be "soft." We are reasonably Christian, we hope; and it +shows low breeding to be ultra. (Was the Carpenter's Son low-bred?) + +And now the Judge rides home in the dusk of the December day. It is +still light enough, however, for him to see that Frisbie's vacant lot +has been made an Ararat of; and he could hear the Noachian noises, were +it ever so dark. The awful jest bursts upon him; he hears the screaming +of the bomb-shell, then the explosion. But the mind of this man is (so +to speak) casemated. It is a shock,--but he never once loses his +self-possession. His quick perception detects Friend Frisbie behind the +gun; and he smiles with his intelligent, fine-cut face. Shall malice +have the pleasure of knowing that the shot has told? Our orator is too +sagacious for that. There is never any use in being angry: that is one +of his maxims. Therefore, if he feels any chagrin, he will smother it. +If there is a storm within, the world shall see only the rainbow, that +radiant smile of his. Cool is Gingerford! He has seized the subject +instantly, and calculated all its bearings. He is a man to make the best +of it; and even the bitterness which is in it shall, if possible, bear +him some wholesome drink. To school his mind to patience,--to practise +daily the philanthropy he teaches,--this will be much; and already his +heart is humbled and warmed. And who knows,--for, with all his +sincerity and aspiration, he has an eye to temporal uses,--who knows but +this stumbling-block an enemy has placed in his way may prove the +stepping-stone of his ambition? + +"What is all this, James?" he inquires of his son, who comes out to the +gate to meet him. + +"Frisbie's meanness!" says the young man, almost choking. "And the whole +town is laughing at us!" + +"Laughing at us? What have we done?" mildly answers the parent. "I tell +you what, James,--they sha'n't laugh at us long. We can live so as to +compel them to reverence us; and if there is any ridicule attached to +the affair, it will soon rest where it belongs." + +"Such a sty stuck right down under our noses!" muttered the mortified +James. + +"We will make of it an ornament," retorts the Judge, with mounting +spirits. "Come with me,"--taking the youth's arm. "My son, call no human +habitation a sty. These people are our brothers, and we will show them +the kindness of brethren." + +A servant receives the horse, and Gingerford and his son cross the +street. + +"Good evening, Friend Williams! So you have concluded to come and live +neighbor to us, have you?" + +Friend Williams was at the end of the house, occupied in improvising a +cowshed under an old apple-tree. Piggy was already tied to the trunk of +the tree, and the hens and turkeys were noisily selecting their roosts +in the boughs. At sight of the Judge, whose displeasure he feared, the +negro was embarrassed, and hardly knew what to say. But the pleasant +greeting of the silver-toned voice reassured him, and he stopped his +work to frame his candid, respectful answer. + +"It was Mr. Frisbie that concluded. All I had to do was to go with the +house wherever he chose to move it." + +"Well, he might have done much worse by you. You have a nice landlord, a +nice landlord, Mr. Williams. Mr. Frisbie is a very fine man." + +It was Gingerford's practice to speak well of everybody with whom he had +any personal relations, and especially well of his enemies; because, as +he used to say to his son, evil words commonly do more harm to him who +utters them than to those they are designed to injure, while fair and +good words are easily spoken, and are the praise of their author, if of +nobody else: for, if the subject of them is a bad man, they will not be +accepted as literally true by any one that knows him, but, on the +contrary, they will be set down to the credit of your good-nature,--or +who knows but they may become coals of fire upon the head of your enemy, +and convert him into a friend? + +James had now an opportunity to test the truth of these observations. +Was Mr. Williams convinced that Frisbie was a nice landlord and a fine +man? By no means. But that Judge Gingerford was a fine man, and a +charitable, he believed more firmly than ever. Then there was Stephen +standing by,--having, no doubt, been sent by his master to observe the +chagrin of the Gingerfords, and to bring back the report thereof; who, +when he heard the Judge's words, looked surprised and abashed, and +presently stole away, himself discomfited. + +"I pray the Lord," said Mr. Williams, humbly and heartily, "you won't +consider us troublesome neighbors." + +"I hope not," replied the Judge; "and why should I? You have a good, +honest reputation, Friend Williams; and I hear that you are a peaceable +and industrious family. We ought to be able to serve each other in many +ways. What can I do for you, to begin with? Wouldn't you like to turn +your cow and calf into my yard?" + +"Thank you a thousand times,--if I can, just as well as not," said the +grateful negro. "We had to tear down the shed and pig-pen when we moved +the house, and I ha'n't had time to set 'em up again." + +"And I imagine you have had enough to do, for one day. Let your children +drive the creatures through the gate yonder; my man will show them the +shed. Are you a good gardener, Mr. Williams?" + +"Wal, I've done consid'able at that sort of work, Sir." + +"I'm glad of that. I have to hire a good deal of gardening done. I see +we are going to be very much obliged to your landlord for bringing us so +near together. And this is your father?" + +"My grandfather, Sir," said Mr. Williams. + +"Your grandfather? I must shake hands with him." + +"Sarvant, Sah," said the old man, cap off, bowing and smiling there in +the December twilight. + +"He's deaf as can be," said Mr. Williams; "you'll have to talk loud, to +make him hear. He's more 'n a hunderd year old." + +"You astonish me!" exclaimed the Judge. "A very remarkable old person! I +should delight to converse with him,--to know what his thoughts are in +these new times, and what his memories are of the past, which, I +suppose, is even now more familiar to his mind than the objects of +to-day. God bless you, my venerable friend!" shaking hands a second time +with the ancient black, and speaking in a loud voice. + +"Tankee, Sah,--very kind," smiled the flattered old man. "Sarvant, Sah." + +"'Tis you who are kind, to take notice of young fellows like me," +pleasantly replied the Judge.--"Well, good evening, friends. I shall +always be glad to know if there is anything I can do for you. Ha! what +is this?" + +It was the cow and calf coming back again, followed by Joe and +Fessenden's. + +"Gorry!" cried Joe,--"wa'n't that man mad? Thought he'd bite th' ole +cow's tail off!" + +"What man? My man?" + +"Yes," said honest Fessenden's; "he said he'd be damned if he'd have a +nigger's critters along with his'n!" + +"Then we'll afford him an early opportunity to be damned," observed the +Judge. "Drive them back again. I'll go with you.--By the way, Mr. +Williams,"--Gingerford saw his man approaching, and spoke loud enough +for him to hear and understand,--"are you accustomed to taking care of +horses? I may find it necessary to employ some one before long." + +"Wal, yes, Sir; I'm tol'able handy about a stable," replied the negro. + +"Hollo, there!" called the man, somewhat sullenly, "drive that cow back +here! Why didn't you tell me 't was the boss's orders?" + +"Did tell him so; and he said as how I lied," said Joe,--driving the +animals back again triumphantly. + +The Judge departed with his son,--a thoughtful and aspiring youth, who +pondered deeply what he had seen and heard, as he walked by his father's +side. And Mr. Williams, greatly relieved and gratified by the interview, +hastened to relate to his family the good news. And the praises of +Gingerford were on all their tongues, and in their prayers that night he +was not forgotten. + +Three days after, the Judge's man was dismissed from his place, in +consequence of difficulties originating in the affair of the cow. The +Judge had sought an early opportunity to converse with him on the +subject. + +"A negro's cow," said he, "is as good as anybody's cow; and I consider +Mr. Williams as good a man as you are." + +The white coachman couldn't stand that; and the result was that the +Gingerfords had a black coachman in a few days. The situation was +offered to Mr. Williams, and very glad he was to accept it. + +Thus the wrath of man continued to work the welfare of these humble +Christians. It is reasonable to doubt whether the Judge was at heart +delighted with his new neighbors; and jolly Mr. Frisbie enjoyed the joke +somewhat less, I suspect, than he anticipated. One party enjoyed it, +nevertheless. It was a serious and solid satisfaction to the Williams +family. No member of which, with the exception, perhaps, of Joe, +exhibited greater pleasure at the change in their situation than the +old patriarch. It rejuvenated him. His hearing was almost restored. "One +move more," he said, "and I shall be young and spry agin as the day I +got my freedom,"--that day, so many, many years ago, which he so well +remembered! Well, the "one move more" was near; and the morning of a new +freedom, the morning of a more perfect youth and gladness, was not +distant. + +It was the old man's delight to go out and sit in the sun before the +door, in the clear December weather, and pull off his cap to the Judge +as he passed. To get a bow, and perhaps a kind word, from the +illustrious Gingerford, was glory enough for one day, and the old man +invariably hurried into the house to tell of it. + +But one morning a singular thing occurred. To all appearances--to the +eyes of all except one--he remained sitting out there in the sun after +the Judge had gone. But Fessenden's, looking up suddenly, and staring at +vacancy, cried,-- + +"Hollo!" + +"What, child?" asked Mrs. Williams. + +"The old man!" said Fessenden's. "Comin' into the door! Don't ye see +him?" + +Nobody saw him but the lad; and of course all were astonished by his +earnest announcement of the apparition. The old grandmother hastened to +look out. There sat her father still, on the bench by the apple-tree, +leaning against the trunk. But the sight did not satisfy her. She ran +out to him. The smile of salutation was still on his lips, which seemed +just saying, "Sarvant, Sah," to the Judge. But those lips would never +move again. They were the lips of death. + +"What is the matter, Williams?" asked the Judge, on his return home that +afternoon. + +"My gran'ther is dead, Sir; and I don't know where to bury him." This +was the negro's quiet and serious answer. + +"Dead?" ejaculates the Judge. "Why, I saw him only this morning, and had +a smile from him!" + +"That was his last smile, Sir. You can see it on his face yet. He went +to heaven with that smile, we trust." + +To heaven? a negro in heaven? If that is so, some of us, I suppose, will +no longer wish to go there. Or do you imagine that you will have need of +servants in paradise, and that that is what Christian niggers are for? +Or do you believe that in the celestial congregations there will also be +a place set aside for the colored brethren,--a glorified niggers' pew? +You scowl; you don't like a joke upon so serious a subject? Hypocrite! +do you see nothing but a joke here? + +The Judge leaves everything and goes home with his coachman. Sure +enough! there is the same smile he saw in the morning, frozen on the +face of the corpse. + +"Gently and late death came to him!" says Gingerford. "Would we could +all die as happy! There is no occasion to mourn, my good woman." + +"Bless the Lord, I don't mourn!" replied the old negress. "But I'm so +brimful of thanks, I must cry for 't! He died a blessed ole Christian; +an' he's gone straight to glory, if there's anything in the promises. He +is free now, if he never was afore;--for, though they pretend there +a'n't no slaves in this 'ere State, an' the law freed us years ago, +seems to me there a'n't no r'al liberty for us, 'cept this!" She pointed +at the corpse, then threw up her eyes and hands with an expression of +devout and joyful gratitude. "He's gone where there a'n't no predijice +agin color, bless the Lord! He's gone where all them that's been washed +with the blood of Christ is all of one color in His sight!" Then turning +to the Judge,--"And you'll git your reward, Sir, be sure o' that!" + +"My reward?" And Gingerford, touched with genuine emotion, shook his +head, sadly. + +"Yes, Sir, your reward," repeated the old woman, tenderly arranging the +sheet over the still breast, and still, folded hands of the corpse. +"For makin' his last days happy,--for makin' his last minutes happy, I +may say. That 'ere smile was for you, Sir. You was kinder to him 'n +folks in gin'ral. He wa'n't used to 't. An' he felt it. An' he's gone to +glory with the news on 't. An' it'll be sot down to your credit there, +in the Big Book." + +Where was the Judge's eloquence? He could not find words to frame a +fitting reply to this ignorant black woman, whose emotion was so much +deeper than any fine phrases of his could reach, and whose simple faith +and gratitude overwhelmed him with the sudden conviction that he had +never yet said anything to the purpose, in all his rhetorical defences +of the down-trodden race. From that conviction came humility. Out of +humility rose inspiration. Two days later his eloquence found tongue; +and this was the occasion of it:-- + +The body of the old negro was to be buried. That he should be simply put +into the ground, and nothing said, any more than as if he were a brute +beast, did not seem befitting the obsequies of so old a man and so +faithful a Christian. The family had natural feelings on that subject. +They wanted to have a funeral sermon. + +Now it so happened that there was to be another funeral in the village +about that time. The old minister, had he been living, might have +managed to attend both. But the young minister couldn't think of such a +thing. The loveliest flower of maidenhood in his parish had been cut +down. One of the first families had been bereaved. Day and night he must +ponder and scribble to prepare a suitable discourse. And then, having +exhausted spiritual grace in bedecking the tomb of the lovely, should +he,--good gracious! _could_ he descend from those heights of beauty and +purity to the grave of a superannuated negro? Could divine oratory so +descend? + + "On that fair mountain leave to feed, + And batten on this _moor_"? + +Ought the cup of consolation, which he extended to his best, his +worthiest friends and parishioners, to be passed in the same hour to +thick African lips? + +Which questions were, of course, decided in the negative. There was +another minister in the village, but he was sick. What should be done? +To go wandering about the world in search of somebody to preach the +funeral sermon seemed a hard case,--as Mr. Williams remarked to the +Judge. + +"Tell you what, Williams," said the Judge,--"don't give yourself any +more trouble on that account. I'm not a minister, nor half good enough +for one,"--he could afford to speak disparagingly of himself, the +beautiful, gracious gentleman!--"but if you can't do any better, I'll be +present and say a few words at the funeral." + +"Thank you a thousand times!" said the grateful negro. "Couldn't be +nothin' better 'n that! We never expected no such honor; an' if my ole +gran'ther could have knowed you would speak to his funeral, he'd have +been proud, Sir!" + +"He was a simple-minded old soul!" replied the Judge, pleasantly. "And +you're another, Williams! However, I am glad you are satisfied. So this +difficulty is settled, too." For already one very serious difficulty had +been arranged through this man's kindness. + +Did I neglect to mention it,--how, when the old negro died, his family +had no place to bury him? The rest of his race, dying before him, had +been gathered to the mother's bosom in distant places: long lines of +dusky ancestors in Africa; a few descendants in America,--here and there +a grave among New-England hills. Only one, a child of Mr. Williams's, +had died in Timberville, and been placed in the old burying-ground over +yonder. But that was now closed against interments. And as for +purchasing a lot in the new cemetery,--how could poor Mr. Williams ever +hope to raise money to pay for it? + +"Williams," said the Judge, "I own several lots there, and if you'll be +a good boy, I'll make you a present of one." + +Ah, Gingerford! Gingerford! was it pure benevolence that prompted the +gift? Was the smile with which you afterwards related the circumstance +to dear Mrs. Gingerford a smile of sincere satisfaction at having done a +good action and witnessed the surprise and gratitude of your black +coachman? Tell us, was it altogether an accident, with no tincture +whatever of pleasant malice in it, that the lot you selected, out of +several, to be the burial-place of negroes, lay side by side with the +proud family-vault of your neighbor Frisbie? + +The Judge was one of those cool heads, who, when they have received an +injury, do not go raving of it up and down, but put it quietly aside, +and keep their temper, and rest content to wait patiently, perhaps +years, perhaps a lifetime, for the opportunity of a sudden and pat +revenge. Indeed, I suppose he would have been well satisfied to answer +Frisbie's spite with the nobler revenge of magnanimity and smiling +forbearance, had not the said opportunity presented itself. It was a +temptation not to be resisted. And he, the most philanthropical of men, +proved himself capable of being also the most cruel. + +There, in the choicest quarter of the cemetery, shone the white +ancestral monuments of the Frisbies. Death, the leveller, had not, +somehow, levelled them,--proud and pretentious even in their tombs. You +felt, as you read the sculptured record of their names and virtues, that +even their ashes were better than the ashes of common mortals. They +rendered sacred not only the still inclosure where they lay, but all +that beautiful sunny bank; so that nobody else had presumed to be buried +near them, but a space of many square rods on either side was left still +unappropriated,--until now, when, lo! here comes a black funeral, and +the corpse of one who had been a slave in his day, to profane the soil! + +Nor is this all, alas! There comes not one funeral procession only. The +first has scarcely entered the cemetery, when a second arrives. Side by +side the dead of this day are to be laid: our old friend the negro, and +the lovely young lady we have mentioned,--even the fairest of Mr. +Frisbie's own children. + +For it is she. The sweetest of the faces Fessenden's saw that stormy +night at the window, and yearned to be within the bright room where the +fire, was,--that dear warm face is cold in yonder coffin which the +afflicted family are attending to the tomb. + +And Frisbie, as we have somewhere said, loved his children. And in the +anguish of his bereavement he had not heeded the singular and somewhat +humiliating fact that his daughter had issued from the portal of Time in +company with one of his most despised tenants,--that, in the same hour, +almost at the same moment, Death had summoned them, leading them +together, as it were, one with his right hand, and one with his left, +the way of all the world. So that here was a surprise for the proud and +grief-smitten parent. + +"What is all that, Stephen?" he demands, with sudden consternation. + +"It seems to be another funeral, Sir. They're buryin' somebody next lot +to yours." + +"Who, who, Stephen?" + +"I--I ruther guess it's the old nigger, Sir," says Stephen. + +The mighty man is shaken. Wrath and sorrow and insulted affection +convulse him for a moment. His face grows purple, then pale, and he +struggles with his neckcloth, which is choking him. He sees the tall +form of Gingerford at the grave, and knows what it is to wish to murder +a man. Were those two Christian neighbors quite alone, in this solitude +of the dead, I fear one of them would soon be a fit subject for a +coroner's inquest and an epitaph. O pride and hatred! with what madness +can you inspire a mortal man! O Fessenden's! bless thy stars that thou +art not the only fool alive this day, nor the greatest! + +Fessenden's walked alone to the funeral, talking by himself, and now +and then laughing. Gentleman Bill thought his conduct indecorous, and +reproved him for it. + +"Gracious!" said the lad, "don't you see who I'm talkin' with?" + +"No, Sir,--I can't say I see anybody, Sir." + +"No?" exclaimed the astonished youth. "Why, it's the old man, goin' to +his own funeral!" + +This, you may say, was foolishness; but, oh, it was innocent and +beautiful foolishness, compared with that of Frisbie and his +sympathizers, when they discovered the negro burial, and felt that their +mourning was too respectable to be the near companion of the mourning of +those poor blacks, and that their beautiful dead was too precious to be +laid in the earth beside their dead. + +What could be done? Indignation and sorrow availed nothing. The tomb of +the lovely was prepared, and it only remained to pity the affront to her +ashes, as she was committed to the chill depths amid silence and choking +tears. It is done; and the burial of the old negro is deferentially +delayed until the more aristocratic rites are ended. + +Gingerford set the example of standing with his hat off in the yellow +sunshine and wintry air, with his noble head bowed low, while the last +prayer was said at the maiden's sepulture. Then he lifted up his face, +radiant; and the flashing and rainbow-spanned torrent of his eloquence +broke forth. He had reserved his forces for this hour. He had not the +Williams family and their friends alone for an audience, but many who +had come to attend the young lady's funeral remained to hear the Judge. +It was worth their while. Finely as he had discoursed at the hut of the +negroes, before the corpse was brought out, that was scarcely the time, +that was certainly not the place, for a crowning effort of his genius. +But here, his larger audience, the open air, the blue heavens, the +graves around, the burial of the young girl side by side with the old +slave, all contributed to inspire him. Human brotherhood, universal +love, the stern democracy of death, immortality,--these were his theme. +Life, incrusted with conventionalities; Death, that strips them all +away. This is the portal (pointing to the grave) at which the soul drops +all its false incumbrances,--rank, riches, sorrow, shame. It enters +naked into eternity. There worldly pride and arrogance have no place. +There false judgment goes out like a sick man's night-lamp, in the +morning light of truth. In the courts of God only spiritual distinctions +prevail. That you were a lord in this life will be of no account there, +where the humblest Christian love is preferred before the most brilliant +selfishness,--where the master is degraded, and the servant is exalted. +And so forth, and so forth; a brief, but eloquent address, of which it +is to be regretted that no report exists. + +Then came the prayer,--for the Judge had a gift that way too; and the +tenderness and true feeling with which he spoke of the old negro and the +wrongs of his race drew tears from many eyes. Then a hymn was +sung,--those who had stayed to sneer joining their voices seriously with +those of the lowly mourners. + +A few days later, Mr. Williams had the remains of his child taken from +the old burying-ground, and brought here, and laid beside the patriarch. +And before spring, simple tombstones of white marble (at Gingerford's +expense) marked the spot, and commemorated the circumstances of the old +man's extreme age and early bondage. + +And before spring, alas! three other graves were added to that sunny +bank! One by one, all those fair children whom Fessenden's had seen in +the warm room where the fire was had followed their sister to the tomb. +So fast they followed that Mr. Frisbie had no time to move his +family-vault from the degrading proximity of the negro graves. And +Fessenden's still lived, an orphan, yet happy, in the family of blacks +which had adopted him; while the parents of those children, who had +loved them, were left alone in the costly house, desolate. Was it, as +some supposed, a judgment upon Frisbie for his pride? I cannot tell. I +only know, that, in the end, that pride was utterly broken,--and that, +when the fine words of the young minister failed to console him, when +sympathizing friends surrounded him, and Gingerford came to visit him, +and they were reconciled, he turned from them all, and gratefully +received hope and comfort from the lips of a humble old Christian who +had nursed the last of his children in her days and nights of suffering, +almost against his will. + +That Christian? It was the old negro woman. + +Early in the spring, Mr. Williams----But no more! Haven't we already +prolonged our sketch to an intolerable length, considering the subject +of it? Not a lover in it! and, of course, it is preposterous to think of +making a readable story without one. Why didn't we make young Gingerford +in love with--let's see--Miss Frisbie? and Miss Frisbie's brother (it +would have required but a stroke of the pen to give her one) in love +with--Creshy Williams? What melodramatic difficulties might have been +built upon this foundation! And as for Fessenden's being a fool and a +pauper, he should turn out to be the son of some proud man, either +Gingerford or Frisbie. But it is too late now. We acknowledge our fatal +mistake. Who cares for the fortunes of a miserable negro family? Who +cares to know the future of Mr. Williams, or of any of his race? + +Suffice it, then, to say, that, as for the Williamses, God has taken +care of them in every trial,--turning even the wrath of enemies to their +advantage, as we have seen; just as He will, no doubt, in His fatherly +kindness, provide for that unhappy race which is now in the perilous +crisis of its destiny, and concerning which so many, both its friends +and enemies, are anxiously asking, "What will become of them?" + + + + +FORGOTTEN. + + + In this dim shadow, where + She found the quiet which all tired hearts crave, + Now, without grief or care, + The wild bees murmur, and the blossoms wave, + And the forgetful air + Blows heedlessly across her grassy grave. + + Yet, when she lived on earth, + She loved this leafy dell, and knew by name + All things of sylvan birth; + Squirrel and bird chirped welcome, when she came: + Yet now, in careless mirth, + They frisk, and build, and warble all the same. + + From the great city near, + Wherein she toiled through life's incessant quest, + For weary year on year, + Come the far voices of its deep unrest, + To touch her dead, deaf ear, + And surge unechoed o'er her pulseless breast. + + The hearts which clung to her + Have sought out other shrines, as all hearts must, + When Time, the comforter, + Has worn their grief out, and replaced their trust: + Not even neglect can stir + This little handful of forgotten dust. + + Grass waves, and insects hum, + And then the snow blows bitterly across; + Strange footsteps go and come, + Breaking the dew-drops on the starry moss: + She lieth still and dumb, + And counts no longer any gain or loss. + + Ah, well,--'t is better so; + Let the dust deepen as the years increase; + Of her who sleeps below + Let the name perish and the memory cease, + Since she has come to know + That which through life she vainly prayed for,--Peace! + + + + +WET-WEATHER WORK. + +BY A FARMER. + + +VIII.--CONCLUSION. + +As I sit in my library-chair listening to the welcome drip from the +eaves, I bethink me of the great host of English farm-teachers who in +the last century wrote and wrought so well, and wonder why their +precepts and their example should not have made a garden of that little +British island. To say nothing of the inherited knowledge of such men as +Sir Anthony Fitz-Herbert, Hugh Platt, Markham, Lord Bacon, Hartlib, and +the rest, there was Tull, who had blazed a new path between the turnip +and the wheat-drills--to fortune; there was Lord Kames, who illustrated +with rare good sense, and the daintiness of a man of letters, all the +economies of a thrifty husbandry; Sir John Sinclair proved the +wisdom of thorough culture upon tracts that almost covered counties; +Bakewell (of Dishley)--that fine old farmer in breeches and top-boots, +who received Russian princes and French marquises at his +kitchen-fireside--demonstrated how fat might be laid on sheep or cattle +for the handling of a butcher; in fact, he succeeded so far, that Dr. +Parkinson once told Paley that the great breeder had "the power of +fattening his sheep in whatever part of the body he chose, directing it +to shoulder, leg, or neck, as he thought proper,--and this," continued +Parkinson, "is the great _problem_ of his art." + +"It's a lie, Sir," said Paley,--"and that's the _solution_ of it." + +And yet Dr. Parkinson was very near the truth. + +Besides Bakewell, there was Arthur Young, as we have seen, giving all +England the benefit of agricultural comparisons by his admirable +"Tours"; Lord Dundonald had brought his chemical knowledge to the aid +of good husbandry; Abercrombie and Speechly and Marshall had written +treatises on all that regarded good gardening. The nurseries of +Tottenham Court Road, the parterres of Chelsea, and the stoves of the +Yew Gardens were luxuriant witnesses of what the enterprising gardener +might do. + +Agriculture, too, had a certain dignity given to it by the fact that +"Farmer George" (the King) had written his experiences for a journal of +Arthur Young, the Duke of Bedford was one of the foremost advocates of +improved farming, and Lord Townshend took a pride in his _sobriquet_ of +"Turnip Townshend." + +Yet, for all this, at the opening of the present century, England was by +no means a garden. Over more than half the kingdom, turnips, where sown +at all, were sown broadcast. In four counties out of five, a bare fallow +was deemed essential for the recuperation of cropped lands. Barley and +oats were more often grown than wheat. Dibbling or drilling of grain, +notwithstanding Platt and Jethro Tull, were still rare. The wet +clay-lands had, for the most part, no drainage, save the open furrows +which were as old as the teachings of Xenophon; indeed, it will hardly +be credited, when I state that it is only so late as 1843 that a certain +gardener, John Reade by name, at the Derby Show of the Royal +Agricultural Society, exhibited certain cylindrical pipes, which he had +formed by wrapping damp clay around a smooth billet of wood, and with +which he "had been in the habit of draining the hot-beds of his master." +A sagacious engineer who was present, and saw these, examined them +closely, and, calling the attention of Earl Spencer (the eminent +agriculturist) to them, said, "My Lord, with them I can drain all +England." + +It was not until about 1830 that the subsoil-plough of Mr. Smith of +Deanston was first contrived for special work upon the lands of +Perthshire. Notwithstanding all the brilliant successes of Bakewell, +long-legged, raw-boned cattle were admired by the majority of British +farmers at the opening of this century, and elephantine monsters of this +description were dragged about England in vans for exhibition. It was +only in 1798 that the "Smithfield Club" was inaugurated for the show of +fat cattle, by the Duke of Bedford, Lord Somerville, Arthur Young, and +others; and it was about the same period that young Jonas Webb (whose +life has latterly been illustrated by a glowing chapter from Elihu +Burritt) used to ride upon the Norfolk bucks bred by his grandfather, +and, with a quick sense of discomfort from their sharp backs, vowed, +that, when he "grew a man, he'd make better saddles for them"; and he +did, as every one knows who has ever seen a good type of the Brabaham +flock. + +The Royal Agricultural Society dates from 1838. In 1835 Sir Robert Peel +presented a farmers' club at Tamworth with "two iron ploughs of the best +construction," and when he inquired after them and their work the +following year, the report was that the wooden mould-board was better: +"We tried 'em, but we be all of one mind, that the iron made the weeds +grow." And I can recall a bright morning in January of 1845, when I made +two bouts around a field in the middle of the best dairy-district of +Devonshire, at the stilts of a plough so cumbrous and ineffective that a +thrifty New-England farmer would have discarded it at sight. Nor can I +omit, in this connection, to revive, so far as I may, the image of a +small Devon farmer, who had lived, and I dare say will die, utterly +ignorant of the instructions of Tull, or of the agricultural labors of +Arthur Young: a short, wheezy, rotund figure of a man, with ruddy +face,--fastening the _h_s in his talk most blunderingly,--driving over +to the market-town every fair-day, with pretty samples of wheat or +barley in his dog-cart,--believing in the royal family like a +gospel,--limiting his reading to glances at the "Times" in the +tap-room,--looking with an evil eye upon railways, (which, in that day, +had not intruded farther than Exeter into his shire,)--distrusting +terribly the spread of "eddication": it "doan't help the work-folk any; +for, d' ye see, they've to keep a mind on their pleughing and craps; and +as for the b'ys, the big uns must mind the beasts, and the little uns's +got enough to do a-scaring the demed rooks. Gads! what hodds to them, +please your Honor, what Darby is a-dooin' up in Lunnun, or what +Lewis-Philup is a-dooin' with the Frenchers?" And the ruddy +farmer-gentleman stirs his toddy afresh, lays his right leg caressingly +over his left leg, admires his white-topped boots, and is the picture of +British complacency. I hope he is living; I hope he stirs his toddy +still in the tap-room of the inn by the pretty Erme River; but I hope +that he has grown wiser as he has grown older, and that he has given +over his wheezy curses at the engine as it hurtles past on the iron way +to Plymouth and to Penzance. + + * * * * * + +The work was not all done for the agriculture and the agriculturist of +England in the last century; it is hardly all done yet; it is doubtful +if it will be done so as to close investigation and ripen method in our +time. There was room for a corps of fresh workers at the opening of the +present century; nor was such a corps lacking. + +About the year 1808, a certain John Christian Curwen, Member of +Parliament, and dating from Cumberland, wrote "Hints on Agricultural +Subjects," a big octavo volume, in which he suggests the steaming of +potatoes for horses, as a substitute for hay; but it does not appear +that the suggestion was well received. To his credit, however, it may be +said, that, in the same book, he urged the system of "soiling" +cattle,--a system which even now needs its earnest expounders, and which +would give full warrant for their loudest exhortation. + +I notice, too, that, at about the same period, Dr. Beddoes, the friend +and early patron of Sir Humphry Davy at the Pneumatic Institution of +Bristol, wrote a book with the quaint title, "Good Advice to Husbandmen +in Harvest, and for all those who labor in Hot Berths, and for others +who will take it--in Warm Weather." And with the recollection of Davy's +description of the Doctor in my mind,--"uncommonly short and +fat,"[27]--I have felt a great interest in seeing what such a man should +have to say upon harvest-heats; but his book, so far as I know, is not +to be found in America. + +A certain John Harding, of St. James Street, London, published, in 1809, +a tract upon "The Use of Sugar in Feeding Cattle," in which were set +forth sundry experiments which went to show how bullocks had been +fattened on molasses, and had been rewarded with a premium. I am +indebted for all knowledge of this anomalous tractate to the +"Agricultural Biography" of Mr. Donaldson, who seems disposed to give a +sheltering wing to the curious theory broached, and discourses upon it +with a lucidity and coherence worthy of a state-paper. I must be +permitted to quote Mr. Donaldson's language:--"The author's ideas are no +romance or chimera, but a very feasible entertainment of the +undertaking, when a social revolution permits the fruits of all climes +to be used in freedom of the burden of value that is imposed by +monopoly, and restricts the legitimate appropriation." + +George Adams, in 1810, proposed "A New System of Agriculture and Feeding +Stock," of which the novelty lay in movable sheds, (upon iron +tram-ways,) for the purpose of soiling cattle. The method was certainly +original; nor can it be regarded as wholly visionary in our time, when +the iron conduits of Mr. Mechi, under the steam-thrust of the Tip-Tree +engines, are showing a percentage of profit. + +Charles Drury, in the same year, recommended, in an elaborate treatise, +the steaming of straw, roots, and hay, for cattle-food,--a +recommendation which, in our time, has been put into most successful +practice. + +Mowbray, who was for a long time the great authority upon Domestic Fowls +and their Treatment, published his book in 1803, which he represents as +having been compiled from the memoranda of forty years' experience. + +And next, as illustrative of the rural literature of the early part of +this century, I must introduce the august name of Sir Humphry Davy. This +I am warranted in doing on two several counts: first, because he was an +accomplished fisherman and the author of "Salmonia," and next, because +he was the first scientific man of any repute who was formally invited +by a Board of Agriculture to discuss the relations of Chemistry to the +practice of farming. + +Unfortunately, he was himself ignorant of practical agriculture,[28] +when called upon to illustrate its relations to chemistry; but, like an +earnest man, he set about informing himself by communication with the +best farmers of the kingdom. He delivered a very admirable series of +lectures, and it was without doubt most agreeable to the +country-gentlemen to find the great waste from their fermenting manures +made clear by Sir Humphry's retorts; but Davy was too profound and too +honest a man to lay down for farmers any chemical high-road to success. +He directed and stimulated inquiry; he developed many of the principles +which underlay their best practice; but he offered them no safety-lamp. +I think he brought more zeal to his investigations in the domain of pure +science; he loved well-defined and brilliant results; and I do not think +that he pushed his inquiries in regard to the way in which the +forage-plants availed themselves of sulphate of lime with one-half the +earnestness or delight with which he conducted his discovery of the +integral character of chlorine, or with which he saw for the first time +the metallic globules bubbling out from the electrified crust of potash. + +Yet he loved the country with a rare and thorough love, as his +descriptions throughout his letters prove; and he delighted in straying +away, in the leafy month of June, to the charming place of his friend +Knight, upon the Teme in Herefordshire. His "Salmonia" is, in its way, a +pastoral; not, certainly, to be compared with the original of Walton, +lacking its simple homeliness, for which its superior scientific +accuracy can make but poor amends. I cannot altogether forget, in +reading it, that its author is a fine gentleman from London. Neither +fish, nor alders, nor eddies, nor purling shallows, can drive out of +memory the fact that Sir Humphry must be back at "The Hall" by half-past +six, in season to dress for dinner. Walton, in slouch-hat, bound about +with "leaders," sat upon the green turf to listen to a milkmaid's song. +Sir Humphry (I think he must have carried a camp-stool) recited some +verses written by "a noble lady long distinguished at court."[29] + +In fact, there was always a great deal of the fine gentleman about the +great chemist,--almost too fine for the quiet tenor of a working-life. +Those first brilliant successes of his professional career at the Royal +Institution of London, before he was turned of thirty, and in which his +youth, his splendid elocution, his happy discoveries, his attractive +manner, all made him the mark for distinguished attentions, went very +far, I fancy, to carry him to that stage of social intoxication under +which he was deluded into marrying a wealthy lady of fashion, and a +confirmed blue-stocking,--the brilliant Mrs. Apreece. + +Little domestic comfort ever came of the marriage. Yet he was a +chivalrous man, and took the issue calmly. It is always in his +letters,--"My dear Jane," and "God bless you! Yours affectionately." But +these expressions bound the tender passages. It was altogether a +gentlemanly and a lady-like affair. Only once, as I can find, he forgets +himself in an honest repining; it is in a letter to his brother, under +date of October 30, 1823:[30]--"To add to my annoyances, I find my +house, as usual, after the arrangements made by the mistress of it, +without female servants; but in this world we have to suffer and bear, +and from Socrates down to humble mortals, domestic discomfort seems a +sort of philosophical fate." + +If only Lady Davy could have seen this Xantippe touch, I think Sir +Humphry would have taken to angling in some quiet country-place for a +month thereafter! + +And even when affairs grow serious with the Baronet, and when, stricken +by the palsy, he is loitering among the mountains of Styria, he +writes,--"I am glad to hear of your perfect restoration, and with health +and the society of London, _which you are so fitted to ornament and +enjoy_, your '_viva la felicità_' is much more secure than any hope +belonging to me." + +And again, "You once _talked_ of passing _this_ winter in Italy; but I +hope your plans will be entirely guided by the state of your health and +feelings. Your society would undoubtedly be a very great resource to me, +but I am so well aware of my own present unfitness for society that I +would not have you risk the chance of an uncomfortable moment on my +account." + +The dear Lady Jane must have had a _penchant_ for society to leave the +poor palsied man to tumble into his tomb alone! + +Yet once again, in the last letter he ever writes, dated Rome, March, +1829, he gallantly asks her to join him; it begins,--"I am still alive, +though expecting every hour to be released." + +And the Lady Jane, who is washing off her fashionable humors in the +fashionable waters of Bath, writes,--"I have received, my beloved Sir +Humphry, the letter signed by your hand, with its precious wish of +tenderness. I start to-morrow, _having been detained here_ by Doctors +Babington and Clarke till to-day.... I cannot add more" (it is a letter +of half a page) "than that your fame is a deposit, and your memory a +glory, your life still a hope." + +Sweet Lady Jane! Yet they say she mourned him duly, and set a proper +headstone at his grave. But, for my own part, I have no faith in that +affection which will splinter a loving heart every day of its life, and +yet, when it has ceased to beat, will make atonement with an idle swash +of tears. + + * * * * * + +There was a British farmer by the name of Morris Birkbeck, who about the +year 1814 wrote an account of an agricultural tour in France; and who +subsequently established himself somewhere upon our Western prairies, of +which he gave account in "Letters from Illinois," and in "Notes on a +Journey in America, from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of +Illinois," with maps, etc. Cobbett once or twice names him as "poor +Birkbeck,"--but whether in allusion to his having been drowned in one of +our Western rivers, or to the poverty of his agricultural successes, it +is hard to determine. + +In 1820 Major-General Beatson, who had been Aid to the Marquis of +Wellesley in India, published an account of a new system of farming, +which he claimed to have in successful operation at his place in the +County of Sussex. The novelty of the system lay in the fact that he +abandoned both manures and the plough, and scarified the surface to the +depth of two or three inches, after which he burned it over. The +Major-General was called to the governorship of St. Helena before his +system had made much progress. I am led to allude to the plan as one of +the premonitory hints of that rotary method which is just now enlisting +a large degree of attention in the agricultural world, and which +promises to supplant the plough on all wide stretches of land, within +the present century. + +Finlayson, a brawny Scot, born in the parish of Mauchline, who was known +from "Glentuck to the Rutton-Ley" as the best man for "putting the +stone," or for a "hop, step, and leap," contrived the self-cleaning +ploughs (with circular beam) and harrows which bore his name. He was +also--besides being the athlete of Ayrshire--the author of sundry +creditable and practical works on agriculture. + +But the most notable man in connection with rural literature, of this +day, was, by all odds, William Cobbett. His early history has so large a +flavor of romance in it that I am sure my readers will excuse me for +detailing it. + +His grandfather was a day-laborer; he died before Cobbett was born; but +the author says that he used to visit the grandmother at Christmas and +Whitsuntide. Her home was "a little thatched cottage, with a garden +before the door. She used to give us milk and bread for breakfast, an +apple-pudding for dinner, and a piece of bread and cheese for our +supper. Her fire was made of turf cut from the neighboring heath; and +her evening light was a rush dipped in grease."[31] His father was a +small farmer, and one who did not allow his boys to grow up in idleness. +"My first occupation," he tells us, "was driving the small birds from +the turnip-seed, and the rook from the pease; when I first trudged +a-field, with my wooden bottle and my satchel swung over my shoulders, I +was hardly able to climb the gates and stiles; and at the close of the +day, to reach home was a task of infinite difficulty." + +At the age of eleven he speaks of himself as occupied in clipping +box-edgings and weeding flower-beds in the garden of the Bishop of +Winchester; and while here he encounters, one day, a workman who has +just come from the famous Kew Gardens of the King. Young Cobbett is +fired by the glowing description, and resolves that he must see them, +and work upon them too. So he sets off, one summer's morning, with only +the clothes he has upon his back, and with thirteen halfpence in his +pocket, for Richmond. And as he trudges through the streets of the town, +after a hard day's walk, in his blue smock-frock, and with his red +garters tied under his knees, staring about him, he sees in the window +of a bookseller's shop the "Tale of a Tub," price threepence; it piques +his curiosity, and, though his money is nearly all spent, he closes a +bargain for the book, and, throwing himself down upon the shady side of +a hay-rick, makes his first acquaintance with Dean Swift. He read till +it was dark, without thought of supper or of bed,--then tumbled down +upon the grass under the shadow of the stack, and slept till the birds +of the Kew Gardens waked him. + +He finds work, as he had determined to do; but it was not fated that he +should pass his life amid the pleasant parterres of Kew. At sixteen, or +thereabout, on a visit to a relative, he catches his first sight of the +Channel waters, and of the royal fleet riding at anchor at Spithead. And +at that sight, the "old Armada," and the "brave Rodney," and the "wooden +walls," of which he had read, come drifting like a poem into his +thought, and he vows that he will become a sailor,--maybe, in time, the +Admiral Cobbett. But here, too, the fates are against him: a kind +captain to whom he makes application suspects him for a runaway, and +advises him to find his way home. + +He returns once more to the plough; "but," he says, "I was now spoiled +for a farmer." He sighs for the world; the little horizon of Farnham +(his native town) is too narrow for him; and the very next year he makes +his final escapade. + +"It was on the 6th of May, 1783, that I, like Don Quixote, sallied forth +to seek adventures. I was dressed in my holiday clothes, in order to +accompany two or three lasses to Guildford fair. They were to assemble +at a house about three miles from my home, where I was to attend them; +but, unfortunately for me, I had to cross the London turnpike-road. The +stage-coach had just turned the summit of a hill, and was rattling down +towards me at a merry rate. The notion of going to London never entered +my mind till this very moment; yet the step was completely determined on +before the coach came to the spot where I stood. Up I got, and was in +London about nine o'clock in the evening." + +His immediate adventure in the metropolis proves to be his instalment as +scrivener in an attorney's office. No wonder he chafes at this; no +wonder, that, in his wanderings about town, he is charmed by an +advertisement which invited all loyal and public-spirited young men to +repair to a certain "rendezvous"; he goes to the rendezvous, and +presently finds himself a recruit in one of His Majesty's regiments +which is filling up for service in British America. + +He must have been an apt soldier, so far as drill went; for I find that +he rose rapidly to the grade of corporal, and thence to the position of +sergeant-major. He tells us that his early habits, his strict attention +to duty, and his native talent were the occasion of his swift promotion. +In New Brunswick, upon a certain winter's morning, he falls in with the +rosy-faced daughter of a sergeant of artillery, who was scrubbing her +pans at sunrise, upon the snow. "I made up my mind," he says, "that she +was the very girl for me.... This matter was at once settled as firmly +as if written in the book of fate." + +To this end he determines to leave the army as soon as possible. But +before he can effect this, the artillery-man is ordered back to England, +and his pretty daughter goes with him. But Cobbett has closed the +compact with her, and placed in her hands a hundred and fifty pounds of +his earnings,--a free gift, and an earnest of his troth. + +The very next season, however, he meets, in a sweet rural solitude of +the Province, another charmer, with whom he dallies in a lovelorn way +for two years or more. He cannot quite forget the old; he cannot cease +befondling the new. If only the "remotest rumor had come," says he, "of +the faithlessness of the brunette in England, I should have been +fastened for life in the New-Brunswick valley." But no such rumor comes, +and in due time he bids a heart-rending adieu, and recrosses the ocean +to find his first love maid-of-all-work in a gentleman's family at five +pounds a year; and she puts in his hand, upon their first interview, the +whole of the hundred and fifty pounds, untouched. This rekindles his +admiration and respect for her judgment, and she becomes his wife,--a +wife he never ceases thereafter to love and honor. + +He goes to France, and thence to America. Establishing himself in +Philadelphia, he enters upon the career of authorship, with a zeal for +the King, and a hatred of Dr. Franklin and all Democrats, which give him +a world of trouble. His foul bitterness of speech finds its climax at +length in a brutal onslaught upon Dr. Rush, for which he is prosecuted, +convicted, and mulcted in a sum that breaks down his bookselling and +interrupts the profits of his authorship. + +He retires to England, opens shop in Pall-Mall, and edits the +"Porcupine," which bristles with envenomed arrows discharged against all +Liberals and Democrats. Again he is prosecuted, convicted, imprisoned. +His boys, well taught in all manner of farm-work, send him, from his +home in the country, hampers of fresh fruits, to relieve the tedium of +Newgate. Discharged at length, and continuing his ribaldry in the +columns of the "Register," he flies before an Act of Parliament, and +takes new refuge in America. He is now upon Long Island, earnest as in +his youth in agricultural pursuits. The late Dr. Francis of New York +used to speak of his visits to him, and of the fine vegetables he +raised. His political opinions had undergone modification; there was not +so much declamation against democracy,--not so much angry zeal for +royalty and the state-church. Nay, he committed the stupendous absurdity +of carrying back with him to England the bones of Tom Paine, as the +grandest gift he could bestow upon his mother-land. No great ovations +greeted this strange luggage of his; I think he was ashamed of it +afterwards,--if Cobbett was ever ashamed of anything. He became +candidate for Parliament in the Liberal interest; he undertook those +famous "Rural Rides" which are a rare jumble of sweet rural scenes and +crazy political objurgation. Now he hammers the "parsons,"--now he tears +the paper-money to rags,--and anon he is bitter upon Malthus, Ricardo, +and the Scotch "Feelosofers,"--and closes his anathema with the charming +picture of a wooded "hanger," up which he toils (with curses on the +road) only to rejoice in the view of a sweet Hampshire valley, over +which sleek flocks are feeding, and down which some white stream goes +winding, and cheating him into a rare memory of his innocent boyhood. He +gains at length his election to Parliament; but he is not a man to +figure well there, with his impetuosity and lack of self-control. He can +talk by the hour to those who feel with him; but to be challenged, to +have his fierce invective submitted to the severe test of an inexorable +logic,--this limits his audacity; and his audacity once limited, his +power is gone. + +But I must not forget that I have brought him into my wet-day galaxy as +a farmer. His energy, his promptitude, his habits of thrift, would have +made him one of the best of farmers. His book on gardening is even now +one of the most instructive that can be placed in the hands of a +beginner. He ignores physiology and botany, indeed; he makes crude +errors on this score; but he had an intuitive sense of the right method +of teaching. He is plain and clear, to a comma. He knows what needs to +be told; and he tells it straightforwardly. There is no better model for +agricultural writers than "Cobbett on Gardening." There is no miserable +waste of words,--no indirectness of talk; what he thinks, he prints. + +His "Cottage Economy," too, is a book which every small landholder in +America should own; there is a sterling merit in it which will not be +outlived. He made a great mistake, it is true, in insisting that +Indian-corn could be grown successfully in England. But being a man who +did not yield to influences of climate himself, he did not mean that his +crops should; and if he had been rich enough, I believe that he would +have covered his farm with a glass roof, rather than yield his +conclusion that Indian-corn could be grown successfully under a British +sky. + +A great, impracticable, earnest, headstrong man, the like of whom does +not appear a half-dozen times in a century. Being self-educated, he was +possessed, like nearly all self-educated men, of a complacency and a +self-sufficiency which stood always in his way. Affecting to teach +grammar, he was ignorant of all the etymology of the language; knowing +no word of botany, he classified plants by the "fearings" of his +turnip-field. He was vain to the last degree; he thought his books were +the best books in the world, and that everybody should read them. He was +industrious, restless, captious, and, although humane at heart, was the +most malignant slanderer of his time. He called a political antagonist a +"pimp," and thought a crushing argument lay in the word; he called +parsons scoundrels, and bade his boys be regular at church. + +In June, 1835, while the Parliament was in session, he grew ill,--talked +feebly about politics and farming, (to his household,) "wished for 'four +days' rain' for the Cobbett corn," and on Wednesday, (16th June,) +desired to be carried around the farm, and criticized the work that had +been done,--grew feeble as evening drew on, and an hour after midnight +leaned back heavily in his chair, and died. + + * * * * * + +I must give a paragraph, at least, to the Rev. James Grahame, the good +Scotch parson, were it only because he wrote a poem called "British +Georgics." They are not so good as Virgil's; nor did he ever think it +himself. In fact, he published his best poem anonymously, and so +furtively that even his wife took up an early copy, which she found one +day upon her table, and, charmed with its pleasant description of +Scottish braes and burn-sides, said, "Ah! Jemmy, if ye could only mak' a +book like this!" And I will venture to say that "Jemmy" never had rarer +or pleasanter praise. + +Shall we read a little, and test the worth of good Mistress Grahame's +judgment? It is a bit of the parson's walk in "The Sabbath":-- + + "Now, when the downward sun has left the glens, + Each mountain's rugged lineaments are traced + Upon the adverse slope, where stalks gigantic + The shepherd's shadow thrown athwart the chasm, + As on the topmost ridge he homeward hies. + How deep the hush! the torrent's channel, dry, + Presents a stony steep, the echo's haunt. + But hark a plaintive sound floating along! + 'Tis from yon heath-roofed shieling; now it dies + Away, now rises full; it is the song + Which He who listens to the hallelujahs + Of choiring seraphim delights to hear; + It is the music of the heart, the voice + Of venerable age, of guileless youth, + In kindly circle seated on the ground + Before their wicker door." + +Crabbe, who was as keen an observer of rural scenes, had a much better +faculty of verse; indeed, he had a faculty of language so large that it +carried him beyond the real drift of his stories. I do not _know_ the +fact, indeed; but I think, that, notwithstanding the Duke of Rutland's +patronage, Mr. Crabbe must have written inordinately long sermons. It is +strange how many good men do,--losing point and force and efficiency in +a welter of words! If there is one rhetorical lesson which it behooves +all theologic or academic professors to lay down and enforce, (if need +be with the ferule,) it is this,--Be short. It is amazing the way in +which good men lose themselves on Sunday mornings in the lapse of their +own language; and most rarely are we confronted from the pulpit with an +opinion which would not bear stripping of wordy shifts, and be all the +more comely for its nakedness. + +George Crabbe wrote charming rural tales; but he wrote long ones. There +is minute observation, dramatic force, tender pathos, but there is much, +of tedious and coarse description. If by some subtile alchemy the better +qualities could be thrown down from the turbid and watery flux of his +verse, we should have an admirable pocket-volume for the country; as it +is, his books rest mostly on the shelves, and it requires a strong +breath to puff away the dust that has gathered on the topmost edges. + +I think of the Reverend Mr. Crabbe as an amiable, absent-minded old +gentleman, driving about on week-days in a heavy, square-topped gig, +(his wife holding the reins,) in search of way-side gypsies, and on +Sunday pushing a discourse--which was good up to the "fourthly"--into +the "seventhly." + +Charles Lamb, if he had been clerically disposed, would, I am sure, have +written short sermons; and I think that his hearers would have carried +away the gist of them clean and clear. + +He never wrote anything that could be called strictly pastoral; he was a +creature of streets and crowding houses; no man could have been more +ignorant of the every-day offices of rural life; I doubt if he ever knew +from which side a horse was to be mounted or a cow to be milked, and a +sprouting bean was a source of the greatest wonderment to him. Yet, in +spite of all this, what a book those Essays of his make, to lie down +with under trees! It is the honest, lovable simplicity of his nature +that makes the keeping good. He is the Izaak Walton of London +streets,--of print-shops, of pastry-shops, of mouldy book-stalls; the +chime of Bow-bells strikes upon his ear like the chorus of a milkmaid's +song at Ware. + +There is not a bit of rodomontade in him about the charms of the +country, from beginning to end; if there were, we should despise him. He +can find nothing to say of Skiddaw but that he is "a great creature"; +and he writes to Wordsworth, (whose sight is failing,) on Ambleside, "I +return you condolence for your decaying sight,--not for anything there +is to see in the country, but for the miss of the pleasure of reading a +London newspaper." + +And again to his friend Manning, (about the date of 1800,)--"I am not +romance-bit about _Nature_. The earth and sea and sky (when all is said) +is but as a house to dwell in. If the inmates be courteous, and good +liquors flow like the conduits at an old coronation,--if they can talk +sensibly, and feel properly, I have no need to stand staring upon the +gilded looking-glass, (that strained my friend's purse-strings in the +purchase,) nor his five-shilling print, over the mantel-piece, of old +Nabbs, the carrier. Just as important to me (in a sense) is all the +furniture of my world,--eye-pampering, but satisfies no heart. Streets, +streets, streets, markets, theatres, churches, Covent Gardens, shops +sparkling with pretty faces of industrious milliners, neat seamstresses, +ladies cheapening, gentlemen behind counters lying, authors in the +street with spectacles, lamps lit at night, pastry-cooks' and +silver-smiths' shops, beautiful Quakers of Pentonville, noise of +coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic watchmen at night, with bucks reeling +home drunk,--if you happen to wake at midnight, cries of 'Fire!' and +'Stop thief!'--inns of court with their learned air, and halls, and +butteries, just like Cambridge colleges,--old book-stalls, 'Jeremy +Taylors,' 'Burtons on Melancholy,' and 'Religio Medicis,' on every +stall. These are thy pleasures, O London-with-the-many-sins!--for these +may Keswick and her giant brood go hang!" + +And again to Wordsworth, in 1830,--"Let no native Londoner imagine that +health, and rest, and innocent occupation, interchange of converse +sweet, and recreative study, can make the country anything better than +altogether odious and detestable." + +Does any weak-limbed country-liver resent this honesty of speech? Surely +not, if he be earnest in his loves and faith; but, the rather, by such +token of unbounded naturalness, he recognizes under the waistcoat of +this dear, old, charming cockney the traces of close cousinship to the +Waltons, and binds him, and all the simplicity of his talk, to his +heart, for aye. There is never a hillside under whose oaks or chestnuts +I lounge upon a smoky afternoon of August, but a pocket Elia is as +coveted and as cousinly a companion as a pocket Walton, or a White of +Selborne. And upon wet days in my library, I conjure up the image of the +thin, bent old gentleman--Charles Lamb--to sit over against me, and I +watch his kindly, beaming eye, as he recites with poor stuttering +voice,--between the whiffs of his pipe,--over and over, those always new +stories of "Christ's Hospital," and the cherished "Blakesmoor," and +"Mackery End." + +(No, you need not put back the book, my boy; 't is always in place.) + +I never admired greatly James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd; yet he belongs +of double right in the coterie of my wet-day preachers. Bred a shepherd, +he tried farming, and he wrote pastorals. His farming (if we may believe +contemporary evidence) was by no means so good as his verse. The Ettrick +Shepherd of the "Noctes Ambrosianæ" is, I fancy, as much becolored by +the wit of Professor Wilson as any daughter of a duchess whom Sir Joshua +changed into a nymph. I think of Hogg as a sturdy sheep-tender, growing +rebellious among the Cheviot flocks, crazed by a reading of the Border +minstrelsy, drunken on books, (as his fellows were with "mountain-dew,") +and wreaking his vitality on Gaelic rhymes,--which, it is true, have a +certain blush and aroma of the heather-hills, but which never reached +the excellence that he fondly imagined belonged to them. I fancy, that, +when he sat at the laird's table, (Sir Walter's,) and called the laird's +lady by her baptismal name, and--not abashed in any presence--uttered +his Gaelic gibes for the wonderment of London guests,--that he thought +far more of himself than the world has ever been inclined to think of +him. I know that poets have a privilege of conceit, and that those who +are not poets sometimes assume it; but it is, after all, a sorry +quality by which to win the world's esteem; and when death closes the +record, it is apt to insure a large debit against the dead man. + +It may not be commonly known that the Ettrick Shepherd was an +agricultural author, and wrote "Hogg on Sheep," for which, as he tells +us, he received the sum of eighty-six pounds. It is an octavo book, and +relates to the care, management, and diseases of the black-faced +mountain-breed, of which alone he was cognizant. It had never a great +reputation; and I think the sheep-farmers of the Cheviots were disposed +to look with distrust upon the teachings of a shepherd who supped with +"lords" at Abbotsford, and whose best venture in verse was in "The +Queen's Wake." A British agricultural author, speaking of him in a +pitiful way, says,--"He passed years of busy authorship, and encountered +_the usual difficulties of that penurious mode of life_."[32] + +This is good; it is as good as anything of Hogg's. + +I approach the name of Mr. Loudon, the author of the Encyclopædias of +Gardening and Agriculture, with far more of respect. If nothing else in +him laid claim to regard, his industry, his earnestness, his +indefatigable labor in aid of all that belonged to the progress of +British gardening or farming, would demand it. I take a pride, too, in +saying, that, notwithstanding his literary labors, he was successful as +a farmer, during the short period of his farm-holding. + +Mr. Loudon was a Scotchman by birth, was educated in Edinburgh, and was +for a time under the tutelage of Mr. Dickson, the famous nurseryman of +Leith-Walk. Early in the present century he made his first appearance in +London,--published certain papers on the laying-out of the public +squares of the metropolis, and shortly after was employed by the Earl of +Mansfield in the arrangement of the palace-gardens at Scone. In 1813 and +'14 he travelled on the Continent very widely, making the gardens of +most repute the special objects of his study; and in 1822 he published +his "Encyclopædia of Gardening"; that of Agriculture followed shortly +after, and his book of Rural Architecture in 1833. But these labors, +enormous as they were, had interludes of other periodical work, and were +crowned at last by his _magnum opus_, the "Arboretum." A man of only +ordinary nerve and diligence would have taken a ten years' rest upon the +completion of only one of his ponderous octavos; and the wonder is the +greater, that London wrought in his later years under all the +disadvantages of appeals from rapacious creditors and the infirmities of +a broken constitution. Crippled, palsied, fevered, for a long period of +years, he still wrought on with a persistence that would have broken +many a strong man down, and only yielded at last to a bronchial +affection which grappled him at his work. + +This author massed together an amount of information upon the subjects +of which he treated that is quite unmatched in the whole annals of +agricultural literature. Columella, Heresbach, Worlidge, and even the +writers of the "Geoponica," dwindle into insignificance in the +comparison. He is not, indeed, always absolutely accurate on historical +points;[33] but in all essentials his books are so complete as to have +made them standard works up to a time long subsequent to their issue. + + * * * * * + +No notice of the agricultural literature of the early part of this +century would be at all complete without mention of the Magazines and +Society "Transactions," in which alone some of the best and most +scientific cultivators communicated their experience or suggestions to +the public. Loudon was himself the editor of the "Gardener's Magazine"; +and the earlier Transactions of the Horticultural Society are enriched +by the papers of such men as Knight, Van Mons, Sir Joseph Banks, Rev. +William Herbert, Messrs. Dickson, Haworth, Wedgwood, and others. The +works of individual authors lost ground in comparison with such an array +of reports from scientific observers, and from that time forth +periodical literature has become the standard teacher in what relates to +good culture. I do not know what extent of good the newly instituted +Agricultural Colleges of this country may effect; but I feel quite safe +in saying that our agricultural journals will prove always the most +effective teachers of the great mass of the farming-population. The +London Horticultural Society at an early day established the Chiswick +Gardens, and these, managed under the advice of the Society's Directors, +have not only afforded an accurate gauge of British progress in +horticulture, but they have furnished to the humblest cultivator who has +strolled through their inclosures practical lessons in the craft of +gardening, renewed from month to month and from year to year. It is to +be hoped that the American Agricultural Colleges will adopt some similar +plan, and illustrate the methods they teach upon lands which shall be +open to public inspection, and upon whose culture and its successes +systematic reports shall be annually made. Failing of this, they will +fail of the best part of their proper purpose. Nor would it be a +fruitless work, if, in connection with such experimental farm, a weekly +record were issued,--giving analyses of the artificial manures employed, +and a complete register of every field, from the date of its +"breaking-up" to the harvesting of the crop. Every new implement, +moreover, should be reported upon with unwavering impartiality, and no +advertisements should be received. I think under these conditions we +might almost look for an honest newspaper. + + * * * * * + +Writing thus, during these in-door hours, of country-pursuits, and of +those who have illustrated them, or who have in any way quickened the +edge with which we farmers rasp away the weeds or carve out our pastoral +entertainment, I come upon the names of a great bevy of poets, belonging +to the earlier quarter of this century, that I find it hard to pass by. +Much as I love to bring to mind, over and over again, "Ivanhoe" and +"Waverley," I love quite as much to summon to my view Walter Scott, the +woodsman of Abbotsford, with hatchet at his girdle, and the hound Maida +in attendance. I see him thinning out the saplings that he has planted +upon the Tweed banks. I know how they stand, having wandered by the hour +among them. I can fancy how the master would have lopped away the boughs +for a little looplet through which a burst of the blue Eildon Hills +should come. His favorite seat, overshadowed by an arbor-vitæ, (of which +a leaf lies pressed in the "Scotch Tourist" yonder,) was so near to the +Tweed banks that the ripple of the stream over its pebbly bottom must +have made a delightful lullaby for the toil-worn old man. But beyond +wood-craft, I could never discover that Sir Walter had any strong +agricultural inclination; nor do I think that the old gentleman had much +eye for the picturesque; no landscape-gardener of any reputation would +have decided upon such a site for such a pile as that of Abbotsford: the +spot is low; the views are not extended or varied; the very trees are +all of Scott's planting: but the master loved the murmur of the +Tweed,--loved the nearness of Melrose, and in every old bit of +sculpture that he walled into his home he found pictures of far-away +scenes that printed in vague shape of tower or abbey all his limited +horizon. + +Christopher North carried his Scotch love of mountains to his home among +the English lakes. I think he counted Skiddaw something more than "a +great creature." In all respects--saving the pipes and the ale--he was +the very opposite of Charles Lamb. And yet do we love him more? A +stalwart, hearty man, with a great redundance of flesh and blood, who +could "put the stone" with Finlayson, or climb with the hardiest of the +Ben-Nevis guides, or cast a fly with the daintiest of the Low-Country +fishers,--redundant of imagination, redundant of speech, and with such +exuberance in him that we feel surfeit from the overflow, as at the +reading of Spenser's "Faërie Queene," and lay him down with a wearisome +sense of mental indigestion. + +Nor yet is it so much an indigestion as a feeling of plethora, due less +to the frothiness of the condiments than to a certain fulness of blood +and brawn. The broad-shouldered Christopher, in his shooting-jacket, (a +dingy green velveteen, with pocket-pouches all stuffed,) strides away +along the skirts of Cruachan or Loch Lochy with such a tearing pace, and +greets every lassie with such a clamorous outbreak of song, and throws +such a wonderful stretch of line upon every pool, and amazes us with +such stupendous "strikes" and such a whizzing of his reel, that we +fairly lose our breath. + +Not so of the "White Doe of Rylstone"; nay, we more incline to doze over +it than to lose our breath. Wilson differs from Wordsworth as Loch Awe, +with its shaggy savagery of shore, from the Sunday quietude and beauty +of Rydal-Water. The Strid of Wordsworth was bounded by the slaty banks +of the "Crystal Wharf," and the Strid of Wilson, in his best moments, +was as large as the valley of Glencoe. Yet Wordsworth loved intensely +all the more beautiful aspects of the country, and of country-life. No +angler and no gardener, indeed,--too severely and proudly meditative for +any such sleight-of-hand. The only great weight which he ever lifted, I +suspect, was one which he carried with him always,--the immense dignity +of his poetic priesthood. His home and its surroundings were fairly +typical of his tastes: a cottage, (so called,) of homely material +indeed, but with an ambitious elevation of gables and of chimney-stacks; +a velvety sheen of turf, as dapper as that of a suburban haberdasher; a +mossy urn or two, patches of flowers, but rather fragrant than showy +ones; behind him the loveliest of wooded hills, all toned down by +graceful culture, and before him the silvery mirrors of Windermere and +Rydal-Water. + +We have to credit him with some rare and tender description, and +fragments of great poems; but I cannot help thinking that he fancied a +profounder meaning lay in them than the world has yet detected. + +John Clare was a contemporary of Wordsworth's, and was most essentially +a poet of the fields. His father was a pauper and a cripple; not even +young Cobbett was so pressed to the glebe by the circumstances of his +birth. But the thrushes taught Clare to sing. He wrote verses upon the +lining of his hat-band. He hoarded halfpence to buy Thomson's "Seasons," +and walked seven miles before sunrise to make the purchase. The hardest +field-toil could not repress the poetic aspirations of such a boy. By +dint of new hoardings he succeeded in printing verses of his own; but +nobody read them. He wrote other verses, which at length made him known. +The world flattered the peasant-bard of Northamptonshire. A few +distinguished patrons subscribed the means for equipping a farm of his +own. The heroine of his love-tales became its mistress; a shelf or two +of books made him rich; but in an evil hour he entered upon some +farm-speculation which broke down; a new poem was sharply criticized or +neglected; the novelty of his peasant's song was over. Disheartened and +gloomy, he was overwhelmed with despondency, and became the inmate of a +mad-house, where for forty years he has staggered idiotically toward the +rest which did not come. But even as I write I see in the British papers +that he is free at last. Poor Clare is dead. + +With this sad story in mind, we may read with a zest which perhaps its +merit alone would not provoke his little sonnet of "The Thrush's +Nest":-- + + "Within a thick and spreading hawthorn-bush, + That overhung a mole-hill large and round, + I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush + Sing hymns, of rapture, while I drank the sound + With joy; and oft, an unintruding guest, + I watched her secret toils from day to day,-- + How true she warped the moss to form her nest, + And modelled it within with wood and clay, + And by-and-by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, + There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers, + Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue; + And there I witnessed, in the summer hours, + A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly, + Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky." + +There are pretty snatches of a Southern May in Hunt's poem of "Rimini," +where + + "sky, earth, and sea + Breathe like a bright-eyed face that laughs out openly. + 'T is Nature full of spirits, waked and springing: + The birds to the delicious tune are singing, + Darting with freaks and snatches up and down, + Where the light woods go seaward from the town; + While happy faces striking through the green + Of leafy roads at every turn are seen; + And the far ships, lifting their sails of white + Like joyful hands, come up with scattery light, + Come gleaming up true to the wished-for day, + And chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the bay." + +This does not sound as if it came from the prince of cockneys; and I +have always felt a certain regard for Leigh Hunt, too, by reason of the +tender story which he gives of the little garden, "_mio picciol orto_," +that he established during his two years of prisonhood.[34] + +But, after all, there was no robustness in his rural spirit,--nothing +that makes the cheek tingle, as if a smart wind had smitten it. He was +born to handle roses without thorns; I think that with a pretty boudoir, +on whose table every morning a pretty maid should arrange a pretty +nosegay, and with a pretty canary to sing songs in a gilded cage, and +pretty gold-fish to disport in a crystal vase, and basted partridges for +dinner, his love for the country would have been satisfied. He loved +Nature as a sentimental boy loves a fine woman of twice his +years,--sighing himself away in pretty phrases that flatter, but do not +touch her; there is nothing to remind, even, of the full, abounding, +fiery, all-conquering love with which a full-grown man meets and marries +a yielding maiden. + +In poor John Keats, however, there _is_ something of this; and under its +heats he consumed away. For ripe, joyous outburst of all rural +fancies,--for keen apprehension of what most takes hold of the +susceptibilities of a man who loves the country,--for his coinage of all +sweet sounds of birds, all murmur of leaves, all riot and blossoming of +flowers, into fragrant verse,--he was without a peer in his day. It is +not that he is so true to natural phases in his descriptive epithets, +not that he sees all, not that he has heard all; but his heart has drunk +the incense of it, and his imagination refined it, and his fancy set it +aflow in those jocund lines which bound and writhe and exult with a +passionate love for the things of field and air. + + * * * * * + +I close these papers, with my eye resting upon the same stretch of +fields,--the wooded border of a river,--the twinkling roofs and spires +flanked by hills and sea,--where my eye rested when I began this story +of the old masters with Hesiod and the bean-patches of Ithaca. And I +take a pleasure in feeling that the farm-practice over all the fields +below me rests upon the cumulated authorship of so long a line of +teachers. Yon open furrow, over which the herbage has closed, carries +trace of the ridging in the "Works and Days"; the brown field of +half-broken clods is the fallow ([Greek: Neos]) of Xenophon; the drills +belong to Worlidge; their culture with the horse-hoe is at the order of +Master Tull. Young and Cobbett are full of their suggestions; Lancelot +Brown has ordered away a great straggling hedge-row; and Sir Uvedale +Price has urged me to spare a hoary maple which lords it over a +half-acre of flat land. Cato gives orders for the asparagus, and Switzer +for the hot-beds. Crescenzi directs the walling, and Smith of Deanston +the ploughing. Burns embalms all my field-mice, and Cowper drapes an urn +for me in a tangled wilderness. Knight names my cherries, and Walton, +the kind master, goes with me over the hill to a wee brook that bounds +down under hemlocks and soft maples, for "a contemplative man's +recreation." Davy long ago caught all the fermentation of my manure-heap +in his retort, and Thomson painted for me the scene which is under my +window to-day. Mowbray cures the pip in my poultry, and all the songs of +all the birds are caught and repeated to the echo in the pages of the +poets which lie here under my hand; through the prism of their verse, +Patrick the cattle-tender changes to a lithe milkmaid, against whose +ankles the buttercups nod rejoicingly, and Rosamund (which is the nurse) +wakes all Arden (which is Edgewood) with a rich burst of laughter. + +And shall I not be grateful to these my patrons? And shall I count it +unworthy to pass these few in-door hours of rain in the emblazonment of +their titles? + +Nor must I forget here to express my indebtedness to those kind friends +who have from time to time favored me with suggestions or corrections, +in the course of these papers, and to those others--not a few--who have +lent me rare old books of husbandry, which are not easily laid hold of. + +I have discussed no works of living authors, whether of practical or +pastoral intent: at some future day I may possibly pay my compliments to +them. Meantime I cannot help interpolating in the interest of my readers +a little fragment of a letter addressed to me within the year by the +lamented Hawthorne:--"I remember long ago your speaking prospectively of +a farm; but I never dreamed of your being really much more of a farmer +than myself, whose efforts in that line only make me the father of a +progeny of weeds in a garden-patch. I have about twenty-five acres of +land, seventeen of which are a hill of sand and gravel, wooded with +birches, locusts, and pitch-pines, and apparently incapable of any other +growth; so that I have great comfort in that part of my territory. The +other eight acres are said to be the best land in Concord, and they have +made me miserable, and would soon have ruined me, if I had not +determined nevermore to attempt raising anything from them. So there +they lie along the roadside, within their broken fence, an eyesore to +me, and a laughing-stock to all the neighbors. If it were not for the +difficulty of transportation by express or otherwise, I would thankfully +give you those eight acres." + +And now the fine, nervous hand, which wrought with such strange power +and beauty, is stilled forever! The eight acres can well lie neglected; +for upon a broader field, as large as humanity, and at the hands of +thousands of reapers who worked for love, he has gathered in a great +harvest of _immortelles_. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[27] _Life of Sir Humphry Davy_, London, 1839, p. 46. + +[28] See letter of Thomas Poole, p. 322, _Fragmentary Remains of Sir +Humphry Davy_. + +[29] _Salmonia_, p. 5, London, Murray, 1851. + +[30] _Fragmentary Remains_, p. 242. + +[31] _Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine._ + +[32] _Agricultural Biography_, etc. London, 1854. _Printed for the +Author._ + +[33] I ought, perhaps, to make definite exception in the case of a +writer so universally accredited. In his "Encyclopædia of Gardening," he +speaks of the "Geoponica" as the work of "modern Greeks," written after +the transfer of the seat of empire to Constantinople; whereas the bulk +of those treatises were written long before that date. He speaks of +Varro as first in order of time of Roman authors on agriculture; yet +Varro was born 116 B. C., and Cato died as early as 149 B. C. Crescenzi +he names as an author of the fifteenth century; he should be credited to +the fourteenth. He also commits the very common error in writers on +gardening, of confounding the Tuscan villa of Pliny with that at +Tusculum. These two places of the Roman Consul were entirely distinct +and unlike. + +[34] _Lord Byron and his Contemporaries_, Vol. II. p. 258. + + + + +REGULAR AND VOLUNTEER OFFICERS. + + +It is pleasant to see how much the present war has done towards effacing +the traditional jealousy between regular officers and volunteers. The +two classes have been so thoroughly intermingled, on staff-duties and in +the field,--so many regular officers now hold in the volunteer service a +rank higher than their permanent standing,--the whole previous military +experience of most regulars was so trifling, compared with that which +they and the volunteers have now shared in common,--and so many young +men have lately been appointed to commissions, in both branches, not +only without a West-Point education, but with almost none at all,--that +it really cannot be said that there is much feeling of conscious +separation left. For treating the two as antagonistic the time has +clearly gone by. For judiciously weighing their respective services in +the field the epoch has not come, since the reign of history begins only +when that of telegrams and special correspondents has ended. It is +better, therefore, to limit the comparison, as yet, to that minor +routine of military duty upon which the daily existence of an army +depends, and of which the great deeds of daring are merely exciting +episodes. + +At the beginning of the war, and before the distinction was thus +partially effaced, the comparison involved very different elements. In +our general military inexperience, the majority were not disposed to +underrate the value of specific professional training. Education holds +in this country much of the prestige held by hereditary rank in Europe, +modified only by the condition that the possessor shall take no undue +airs upon himself. Even then the penalty consists only in a few +outbreaks of superficial jealousy, and the substantial respect for any +real acquirements remains the same. So there was a time when the +faintest aroma of West Point lent a charm to the most unattractive +candidate for a commission. Any Governor felt a certain relief in +intrusting a regiment to any man who had ever eaten clandestine oysters +at Benny Haven's, or had once heard the whiz of an Indian arrow on the +frontier, however mediocre might have been all his other claims to +confidence. If he failed, the regular army might bear the shame; if he +succeeded, to the State-House be the glory. + +Yet there was always another party of critics, not less intelligent, who +urged the value of general preparations for any duty, as compared with +special,--who held that it was always easier for a man of brains to +acquire technical skill than for a person of mere technicality to +superadd brains, and that the antecedents of a frontier lieutenant were, +on the whole, a poorer training for large responsibilities than those of +many a civilian, who had lived in the midst of men, though out of +uniform. Let us have a fair statement of this position, for it was very +sincere and had much temporary influence. The main thing, it was argued, +was the knowledge of human nature and the habit of dealing with mankind +in masses,--the very thing from which the younger regular officers at +least had been rigidly excluded. From a monastic life at West Point they +had usually been transferred to a yet more isolated condition, in some +obscure outpost,--or if otherwise, then they had seen no service at all, +and were mere clerks in shoulder-straps. But a lawyer who could +manoeuvre fifty witnesses as if they were one,--a teacher used to +governing young men by the hundred,--an orator trained to sway +thousands,--a master-mechanic,--a railway-superintendent,--a +factory-agent,--a broker who could harness Wall Street and drive it,--a +financier who could rule a sovereign State with a rod of (railway) +iron,--such men as these, it was plausibly reasoned, could give an +average army-officer all the advantage of his special training, at the +start, and yet beat him at his own trade in a year. + +These theories were naturally strengthened, moreover, by occasional +instances of conspicuous failure, when volunteer troops were intrusted +to regular officers. These disappointments could usually be traced to +very plain causes. The men selected were sometimes men whose West-Point +career would hardly bear minute investigation,--or who had in civil +pursuits forgotten all they had learned at the Academy, except +self-esteem,--or who had been confined to the duties of some special +department, as quartermasters or paymasters, and were really fitted for +nothing else,--or who had served their country by resigning their +commissions, if not by holding them,--or who had contrived, first or +last, to lose hopelessly their tempers or their digestions, or their +faith, hope, and charity. Beyond all this lay the trouble, that the best +regular officer from the very fact of his superior training was puzzled +to know how much to demand of volunteer troops, or what standard to +enforce upon them. It was a problem in the Differential Calculus, with +the Army Regulations for a constant, and a raw volunteer regiment for a +variable, and not a formula in Davies which suited the purpose. +Unfortunately, these perplexities were quite as apt to end in relaxation +as in rigor, so that the regiments thus commanded sometimes slid into a +looseness of which a resolute volunteer officer would have been ashamed. + +These were among the earlier results. Against them was to be set the +fact, that, on the whole, no regiments in the field made progress so +rapid, or held their own so well, as those placed under regular +officers. And now that three years have abolished many surmises, and +turned many others into established facts, it must be owned that the +total value of the professional training has proved far greater, and +that of the general preparation far less, than many intelligent +observers predicted. The relation between officer and soldier is +something so different in kind from anything which civil life has to +offer, that it has proved almost impossible to transfer methods or +maxims from the one to the other. If a regiment is merely a caucus, and +the colonel the chairman,--or merely a fire-company, and the colonel the +foreman,--or merely a prayer-meeting, and the colonel the moderator,--or +merely a bar-room, and the colonel the landlord,--then the failure of +the whole thing is a foregone conclusion. War is not the highest of +human pursuits, certainly; but an army comes very near to being the +completest of human organizations, and he alone succeeds in it who +readily accepts its inevitable laws, and applies them. An army is an +aristocracy, on a three-years' lease, supposing that the period of +enlistment. No mortal skill can make military power effective on +democratic principles. A democratic people can perhaps carry on a war +longer and better than any other; because no other can so well +comprehend the object, raise the means, or bear the sacrifices. But +these sacrifices include the surrender, for the time being, of the +essential principle of the government. Personal independence in the +soldier, like personal liberty in the civilian, must be waived for the +preservation of the nation. With shipwreck staring men in the face, the +choice lies between despotism and anarchy, trusting to the common sense +of those concerned, when the danger is over, to revert to the old +safeguards. It is precisely because democracy is an advanced stage in +human society, that war, which belongs to a less advanced stage, is +peculiarly inconsistent with its habits. Thus the undemocratic +character, so often lamented in West Point and Annapolis, is in reality +their strong point. Granted that they are no more appropriate to our +stage of society than are revolvers and bowie-knives, that is precisely +what makes them all serviceable in time of war. War being exceptional, +the institutions which train its officers must be exceptional likewise. + +The first essential for military authority lies in the power of +command,--a power which it is useless to analyze, for it is felt +instinctively, and it is seen in its results. It is hardly too much to +say, that, in military service, if one has this power, all else becomes +secondary; and it is perfectly safe to say that without it all other +gifts are useless. Now for the exercise of power there is no preparation +like power, and nowhere is this preparation to be found, in this +community, except in regular army-training. Nothing but great personal +qualities can give a man by nature what is easily acquired by young men +of very average ability who are systematically trained to command. + +The criticism habitually made upon our army by foreign observers at the +beginning of the war continues still to be made, though in a rather less +degree,--that the soldiers are relatively superior to the officers, so +that the officers lead, perhaps, but do not command them. The reason is +plain. Three years are not long enough to overcome the settled habits of +twenty years. The weak point of our volunteer service invariably lies +here, that the soldier, in nine cases out of ten, utterly detests being +commanded, while the officer, in his turn, equally shrinks from +commanding. War, to both, is an episode in life, not a profession, and +therefore military subordination, which needs for its efficiency to be +fixed and absolute, is, by common consent, reduced to a minimum. The +white American soldier, being, doubtless, the most intelligent in the +world, is more ready than any other to comply with a reasonable order, +but he does it because it is reasonable, not because it is an order. +With advancing experience his compliance increases, but it is still +because he better and better comprehends the reason. Give him an order +that looks utterly unreasonable,--and this is sometimes necessary,--or +give him one which looks trifling, under which head all sanitary +precautions are yet too apt to rank, and you may, perhaps, find that you +still have a free and independent citizen to deal with, not a soldier. +_Implicit_ obedience must be admitted still to be a rare quality in our +army; nor can we wonder at it. In many cases there is really no more +difference between officers and men, in education or in breeding, than +if the one class were chosen by lot from the other; all are from the +same neighborhood, all will return to the same civil pursuits side by +side; every officer knows that in a little while each soldier will again +become his client or his customer, his constituent or his rival. Shall +he risk offending him for life in order to carry out some hobby of +stricter discipline? If this difficulty exist in the case of +commissioned officers, it is still more the case with the +non-commissioned, those essential intermediate links in the chain of +authority. Hence the discipline of our soldiers has been generally that +of a town-meeting or of an engine-company, rather than that of an army; +and it shows the extraordinary quality of the individual men, that so +much has been accomplished with such a formidable defect in the +organization. Even granting that there has been a great and constant +improvement, the evil is still vast enough. And every young man trained +at West Point enters the service with at least this advantage, that he +has been brought up to command, and has not that task to learn. + +He has this further advantage, that he is brought up with some respect +for the army-organization as it is, with its existing rules, methods, +and proprieties, and is not, like the newly commissioned civilian, +disposed in his secret soul to set aside all its proprieties as mere +"pipe-clay," its methods as "old-fogyism," and its rules as "red-tape." +How many good volunteer officers will admit, if they speak candidly, +that on entering the service they half believed the "Army Regulations" +to be a mass of old-time rubbish, which they would gladly reëdit, under +contract, with immense improvements, in a month or two,--and that they +finally left the service with the conviction that the same book was a +mine of wisdom, as yet but half explored! Certainly, when one thinks +for what a handful of an army our present military system was devised, +and with what an admirable elasticity it has borne this sudden and +stupendous expansion, it must be admitted to have most admirably stood +the test. Of course, there has been much amendment and alteration +needed, nor is the work done yet; but it has mainly touched the details, +not the general principles. The system is wonderfully complete for its +own ends, and the more one studies it the less one sneers. Many a form +which at first seems to the volunteer officer merely cumbrous and +trivial he learns to prize at last as almost essential to good +discipline; he seldom attempts a short cut without finding it the +longest way, and rarely enters on that heroic measure of cutting +red-tape without finding at last that he has entangled his own fingers +in the process. + +More thorough training tells in another way. It is hard to appreciate, +without the actual experience, how much of military life is a matter of +mere detail. The maiden at home fancies her lover charging at the head +of his company, when in reality he is at that precise moment endeavoring +to convince his company-cooks that salt-junk needs five hours' boiling, +or is anxiously deciding which pair of worn-out trousers shall be +ejected from a drummer-boy's knapsack. Courage is, no doubt, a good +quality in a soldier, and luckily not often wanting; but, in the long +run, courage depends largely on the haversack. Men are naturally brave, +and when the crisis comes, almost all men will fight well, if well +commanded. As Sir Philip Sidney said, an army of stags led by a lion is +more formidable than an army of lions led by a stag. Courage is cheap; +the main duty of an officer is to take good care of his men, so that +every one of them shall be ready, at a moment's notice, for any +reasonable demand. A soldier's life usually implies weeks and months of +waiting, and then one glorious hour; and if the interval of leisure has +been wasted, there is nothing but a wasted heroism at the end, and +perhaps not even that. The penalty for misused weeks, the reward for +laborious months, may be determined within ten minutes. Without +discipline an army is a mob, and the larger the worse; without rations +the men are empty uniforms; without ammunition they might as well have +no guns; without shoes they might almost as well have no legs. And it is +in the practical appreciation of all these matters that the superiority +of the regular officer is apt to be shown. + +Almost any honest volunteer officer will admit, that, although the +tactics were easily learned, yet, in dealing with all other practical +details of army-life, he was obliged to gain his knowledge through many +blunders. There were a thousand points on which the light of Nature, +even aided by "Army Regulations," did not sufficiently instruct him; and +his best hints were probably obtained by frankly consulting regular +officers, even if inferior in rank. The advantage of a West-Point +training is precisely that of any other professional education. There is +nothing in it which any intelligent man cannot learn for himself in +later life; nevertheless, the intelligent man would have fared a good +deal better, had he learned it all in advance. Test it by shifting the +positions. No lawyer would trust his case to a West-Point graduate, +without evidence of thorough special preparation. Yet he himself enters +on a career equally new to him, where his clients may be counted by +thousands, and every case is capital. The army is a foreign country to +civilians; of course you can learn the language after your arrival, but +how you envy your companion, who, having spoken it from childhood, can +proceed at once to matters more important! + +Yet the great advantage of the regular army does not, after all, consist +merely in any superiority of knowledge, or in the trained habit of +command. Granting that patience and labor can readily supply these to +the volunteer, the trouble remains, that even in labor and patience the +regular officer is apt to have the advantage, by reason of a stronger +stimulus. The difference is not merely in the start, but in the pace. No +man can be often thrown into the society of regular officers, especially +among the younger ones, without noticing a higher standard of +professional earnestness than that found among average volunteers; and +in this respect a West-Point training makes little or no difference. The +reason of the superiority is obvious. To the volunteer, the service is +still an episode; to the regular, a permanent career. No doubt, if a man +is thoroughly conscientious, or thoroughly ambitious, or thoroughly +enthusiastic, a temporary pursuit may prove as absorbing as if it were +taken up for life; but the majority of men, however well-meaning, are +not thorough at all. How often one hears the apology made by volunteer +officers, even those of high rank,--"Military life is not my profession; +I entered the army from patriotism, willing to serve my country +faithfully for three years, but of course not pretending to perfection +in every trivial detail of a pursuit which I shall soon quit forever." +But it is patriotism to think the details _not_ trivial. If one gives +one's self to one's country, let the gift be total and noble. These +details are worthy to absorb the whole daily thought, and they should +absorb it, until more thorough comprehension and more matured executive +power leave room for larger studies, still in the line of the adopted +occupation. If a man leaves his office or his study to be a soldier, let +him be a soldier in earnest. Let those three years bound the horizon of +his plans, and let him study his new duty as if earth offered no other +conceivable career. The scholar must forswear his pen, the lawyer his +books, the politician his arts. An officer of whatever rank, who does +not find occupation enough for every day, amid the quietest +winter-quarters, in the prescribed duties of his position and the +studies to which they should lead, is fitted only for civil pursuits, +and had better return to them. + +Without this thoroughness, life in the army affords no solid +contentment. What is called military glory is a fitful and uncertain +thing. Time and the newspapers play strange tricks with reputations, and +of a hundred officers whose names appear with honor in this morning's +despatches ninety may never be mentioned again till it is time to write +their epitaphs. Who, for instance, can recite the names of the +successive cavalry-commanders who have ridden on their bold forays +through Virginia, since the war began? All must give place to the latest +Kautz or Sheridan, who has eclipsed without excelling them all. Yet each +is as brave and as faithful to-day, no doubt, as when he too glittered +for his hour before all men's gaze, and the obscurer duty may be the +more substantial honor. So when I lift my eyes to look on yonder level +ocean-floor, the fitful sunshine now glimmers white on one far-off sail, +now on another; and yet I know that all canvas looks snowy while those +casual rays are on it, and that the best vessel is that which, sunlit or +shaded, best accomplishes its destined course. The officer is almost as +powerless as the soldier to choose his opportunity or his place. +Military glory may depend on a thousand things,--the accident of local +position, the jealousy of a rival, the whim of a superior. But the merit +of having done one's whole duty to the men whose lives are in one's +keeping, and to the nation whose life is staked with theirs,--of having +held one's command in such a state, that, if at any given moment it was +not performing the most brilliant achievement, it might have been,--this +is the substantial triumph which every faithful officer has always +within reach. + +Now will any one but a newspaper flatterer venture to say that this is +the habitual standard in our volunteer service? Take as a test the +manner in which official inspections are usually regarded by a +regimental commander. These occasions are to him what examinations by +the School Committee are to a public-school teacher. He may either +deprecate and dodge them, or he may manfully welcome them as the very +best means of improvement for all under his care. Which is the more +common view? What sight more pitiable than to behold an officer begging +off from inspection because he has just come in from picket, or is just +going out on picket, or has just removed camp, or was a day too late +with his last requisition for cartridges? No doubt it is a trying ordeal +to have some young regular-army lieutenant ride up to your tent at an +hour's notice, and leisurely devote a day to probing every weak spot in +your command,--to stand by while he smells at every camp-kettle, detects +every delinquent gun-sling, ferrets out old shoes from behind the +mess-bunks, spies out every tent-pole not labelled with the sergeant's +name, asks to see the cash-balance of each company-fund, and perplexes +your best captain on forming from two ranks into one by the left flank. +Yet it is just such unpleasant processes as these which are the +salvation of an army; these petty mortifications are the fulcrum by +which you can lift your whole regiment to a first-class rank, if you +have only the sense to use them. So long as no inspecting officer needs +twice to remind you of the same thing, you have no need to blush. But +though you be the bravest of the brave, though you know a thousand +things of which he is utterly ignorant, yet so long as he can tell you +one thing which you ought to know, he is master of the situation. He may +be the most conceited little popinjay who ever strutted in uniform; no +matter; it is more for your interest to learn than for his to teach. Let +our volunteer officers, as a body, once resolve to act on this +principle, and we shall have such an army as the world never saw. But +nothing costs the nation a price so fearful, in money or in men, as the +false pride which shrinks from these necessary surgical operations, or +regards the surgeon as a foe. + +It is not being an officer to wear uniform for three years, to draw +one's pay periodically, and to acquit one's self without shame during a +few hours or days of actual battle. History will never record what fine +regiments have been wasted and ruined, since this war began, by the +negligence in camp of commanders who were brave as Bayard in the field. +Unless a man is willing to concentrate his whole soul upon learning and +performing the humblest as well as the most brilliant functions of his +new profession, a true officer he will never become. More time will not +help him; for time seldom does much for one who enters, especially in +middle life, on an employment for which he is essentially unfitted. It +is amusing to see the weight attached to the name of veteran, in +military matters, by persons who in civil life are very ready to +exchange a veteran doctor or minister for his younger rival. Military +seniority, though the only practicable rule of precedence, is liable to +many notorious inconveniences. It is especially without meaning in the +volunteer service, where the Governor of Maine may happen to date a set +of commissions on the first day of January, and His Excellency of +Minnesota may doom his contemporary regiment to life-long subordination +by accidentally postponing theirs to the second day. But it has +sufficient drawbacks even where all the appointments pass through one +channel. The dignity it gives is a merely chronological distinction,--an +oldest-inhabitant renown,--much like the university-degree of A. M., +which simply implies that a man has got decently through college, and +then survived three years. But if a man was originally placed in a +position beyond his deserts, the mere lapse of time may have only made +him the more dangerous charlatan. If he showed no sign of military +aptitude in six months, a probation of three years may have been more +costly, but not more conclusive. Add to this the fact that each +successive year of the war has seen all officers more carefully +selected, if only because there has been more choice of material; so +that there is sometimes a temptation in actual service, were it +practicable, to become Scriptural in our treatment, and put the last +first and the first last. In those unfortunate early days, when it +seemed to most of our Governors to make little difference whom they +commissioned, since all were alike untried, and of two evils it was +natural to choose that which would produce the more agreeable +consequences at the next election-time,--in those days of darkness many +very poor officers saw the light. Many of these have since been happily +discharged or judiciously shelved. The trouble is, that those who remain +are among the senior officers in our volunteer army, in their respective +grades. They command posts, brigades, divisions. They preside at +court-martials. Beneath the shadow of their notorious incompetency all +minor evils may lurk undetected. To crown all, they are, in many cases, +sincere and well-meaning men, utterly obtuse as to their own +deficiencies, and manifesting (to employ a witticism coeval with +themselves) all the Christian virtues except that of resignation. + +The present writer has beheld the spectacle of an officer of high rank, +previously eminent in civil life, who could only vindicate himself +before a court-martial from the ruinous charge of false muster by +summoning a staff-officer to prove that it was his custom to sign all +military papers without looking at them. He has seen a lieutenant tried +for neglect of duty in allowing a soldier under his command, at an +important picket-post, to be found by the field-officer of the day with +two inches of sand in the bottom of his gun,--and pleading, in +mitigation of sentence, that it had never been the practice in his +regiment to make any inspection of men detailed for such duty. That such +instances of negligence should be tolerated for six months in any +regiment of regulars is a thing almost inconceivable, and yet in these +cases the regiments and the officers had been nearly three years in +service. + +It is to be remembered that even the command of a regiment of a thousand +men is a first-class administrative position, and that there is no +employer of men in civil life who assumes the responsibility of those +under his command so absolutely and thoroughly. The life, the health, +the efficiency, the finances, the families of his soldiers, are staked +not so much on the courage of a regimental commander as upon his +decision, his foresight, and his business-habits. As Richter's worldly +old statesman tells his son, "War trains a man to business." If he takes +his training slowly, he must grow perfect through suffering,--commonly +the suffering of other people. The varied and elaborate returns, for +instance, now required of officers,--daily, monthly, quarterly, +annually,--are not one too many as regards the interests of Government +and of the soldiers, but are enough to daunt any but an accurate and +methodical man. A single error in an ordnance requisition may send a +body of troops into action with only twenty rounds of ammunition to a +man. One mistake in a property-voucher may involve an officer in +stoppages exceeding his yearly pay. One wrong spelling in a muster-roll +may beggar a soldier's children ten years after the father has been +killed in battle. Under such circumstances no standard of accuracy can +be too high. And yet even the degree of regularity that now exists is +due more to the constant pressure from head-quarters than to any +individual zeal. For a large part of this pressure the influence of the +regular army is responsible,--those officers usually occupying the more +important staff-positions, and having in some departments of service, +especially in the ordnance, moulded and remoulded the whole machinery +until it has become almost a model. It would be difficult to name +anything in civil life which is in its way so perfect as the present +system of business and of papers in this department. Every ordnance +blank now contains a schedule of instructions for its own use, so simple +and so minute that it seems as if, henceforward, the most negligent +volunteer officer could never make another error. And yet in the very +last set of returns which the writer had occasion to revise,--returns +made by a very meritorious captain,--there were eight different papers, +and a mistake in every one. + +The glaring defeat of most of our volunteer regiments, from the +beginning to this day, has lain in slovenliness and remissness as to +every department of military duty, except the actual fighting and dying. +When it comes to that ultimate test, our men usually endure it so +magnificently that one is tempted to overlook all deficiencies on +intermediate points. But they must not be overlooked, because they +create a fearful discount on the usefulness of our troops, when tried by +the standard of regular armies. I do not now refer to the niceties of +dress-parade or the courtesies of salutation: it has long since been +tacitly admitted that a white American soldier will not present arms to +any number of rows of buttons, if he can by any ingenuity evade it; and +to shoulder arms on passing an officer is something to which only +Ethiopia or the regular army can attain. Grant, if you please, (though I +do not grant,) that these are merely points of foolish punctilio. But +there are many things which are more than punctilio, though they may be +less than fighting. The efficiency of a body of troops depends, after +all, not so much on its bravery as on the condition of its sick-list. A +regiment which does picket-duty faithfully will often avoid the need of +duties more terrible. Yet I have ridden by night along a chain of ten +sentinels, every one of whom should have taken my life rather than +permit me to give the countersign without dismounting, and have been +required to dismount by only four, while two did not ask me for the +countersign at all, and two others were asleep. I have ridden through a +regimental camp whose utterly filthy condition seemed enough to send +malaria through a whole military department, and have been asked by the +colonel, almost with tears in his eyes, to explain to him why his men +were dying at the rate of one a day. The latter was a regiment nearly a +year old, and the former one of almost two years' service, and just from +the old Army of the Potomac. + +The fault was, of course, in the officers. The officer makes the +command, as surely as, in educational matters, the teacher makes the +school. There is not a regiment in the army so good that it could not be +utterly spoiled in three months by a poor commander, nor so poor that it +could not be altogether transformed in six by a good one. The difference +in material is nothing,--white or black, German or Irish; so potent is +military machinery that an officer who knows his business can make good +soldiers out of almost anything, give him but a fair chance. The +difference between the present Army of the Potomac and any previous +one,--the reason why we do not daily hear, as in the early campaigns, of +irresistible surprises, overwhelming numbers, and masked batteries,--the +reason why the present movements are a tide and not a wave,--is not that +the men are veterans, but that the officers are. There is an immense +amount of perfectly raw material in General Grant's force, besides the +colored regiments, which in that army are all raw, but in which the +Copperhead critics have such faith they would gladly select them for +dangers fit for Napoleon's Old Guard. But the newest recruit soon grows +steady with a steady corporal at his elbow, a well-trained sergeant +behind him, and a captain or a colonel whose voice means something to +give commands. + +This reference to the colored troops suggests the false impression, +still held by many, that special opposition to this important military +organization has been made by regular officers. There is no justice in +this. While it is very probable that regular officers, as a class, may +have had stronger prejudices on this point than others have held, yet it +is to be remembered that the chief obstacles have not come from them, +nor from military men of any kind, but from civilians at home. Nothing +has been more remarkable than the facility with which the expected +aversion of the army everywhere vanished before the admirable behavior +of the colored troops, and the substantial value of the reinforcements +they brought. When it comes to the simple question whether a soldier +shall go on duty every night or every other night, he is not critical as +to beauty of complexion in the soldier who relieves him. + +Some regular officers may have been virulently opposed to the employment +of negroes as soldiers, though the few instances which I have known have +been far more than compensated by repeated acts of the most substantial +kindness from many others. But I never have met one who did not express +contempt for the fraud thus far practised by Government on a portion of +these troops, by refusing to pay them the wages which the Secretary of +War had guarantied. This is a wrong which, but for good discipline, +would have long since converted our older colored regiments into a mob +of mutineers, and which, while dishonestly saving the Government a few +thousand dollars, has virtually sacrificed hundreds of thousands in its +discouraging effect upon enlistments, at a time when the fate of the +nation may depend upon a few regiments more or less. It is in vain for +national conventions to make capital by denouncing massacres like that +of Fort Pillow, and yet ignore this more deliberate injustice for which +some of their own members are in part responsible. The colored soldiers +will take their own risk of capture and maltreatment very readily, +(since they must take it on themselves at any rate,) if the Government +will let its justice begin at home, and pay them their honest earnings. +It is of little consequence to a dying man whether any one else is to +die by retaliation, but it is of momentous consequence whether his wife +and family are to be cheated of half his scanty earnings by the nation +for which he dies. The Rebels may be induced to concede the negro the +rights of war, when we grant him the ordinary rights of peace, namely, +to be paid the price agreed upon. Jefferson Davis and the London +"Times"--one-half whose stock-in-trade is "the inveterate meanness of +the Yankee"--will hardly be converted to sound morals by the rebukes of +an administration which allows its Secretary of War to promise a black +soldier thirteen dollars a month, pay him seven, and shoot him if he +grumbles. From this crowning injustice the regular army, and, indeed, +the whole army, is clear; to civilians alone belongs this carnival of +fraud. + +If, in some instances, terrible injustice has been done to the black +soldiers in their military treatment also, it has not been only, or +chiefly, under regular officers. Against the cruel fatigue duty imposed +upon them last summer, in the Department of the South, for instance, +must be set the more disastrous mismanagements of the Department of the +Gulf,--the only place from which we now hear the old stories of disease +and desertion,--all dating back to the astonishing blunder of organizing +the colored regiments of half-size at the outset, with a full complement +of officers. This measure, however agreeable it might have been to the +horde of aspirants for commissions, was in itself calculated to destroy +all self-respect in the soldiers, being based on the utterly baseless +assumption that they required twice as many officers as whites, and was +foredoomed to failure, because no _esprit de corps_ can be created in a +regiment which is from the first insignificant in respect to size. It is +scarcely conceivable that any regular officer should have honestly +fallen into such an error as this; and it is very certain that the +wisest suggestions and the most efficient action have proceeded, since +the beginning, from them. It will be sufficient to mention the names of +Major-General Hunter, Brigadier-General Phelps, and Adjutant-General +Thomas; and one there is whose crowning merits deserve a tribute +distinct even from these. + +When some future Bancroft or Motley writes with philosophic brain and +poet's hand the story of the Great Civil War, he will find the +transition to a new era in our nation's history to have been fitly +marked by one festal day,--that of the announcement of the President's +Proclamation, upon Port-Royal Island, on the first of January, 1863. +That New-Year's time was our second contribution to the great series of +historic days, beads upon the rosary of the human race, permanent +festivals of freedom. Its celebration was one beside whose simple +pageant the superb festivals of other lands might seem but glittering +counterfeits. Beneath a majestic grove of the great live-oaks which +glorify the South-Carolina soil a liberated people met to celebrate +their own peaceful emancipation. They came thronging, by land and water, +from plantations which their own self-imposed and exemplary industry was +beginning already to redeem. The military escort which surrounded them +had been organized out of their own numbers, and had furnished to the +nation the first proof of the capacity of their race to bear arms. The +key-note of the meeting was given by spontaneous voices, whose +unexpected anthem took the day from the management of well-meaning +patrons, and swept all away into the great currents of simple feeling. +It was a scene never to be forgotten: the moss-hung trees, with their +hundred-feet diameter of shade; the eager faces of women and children in +the foreground; the many-colored headdresses; the upraised hands; the +neat uniforms of the soldiers; the outer row of mounted officers and +ladies; and beyond all the blue river, with its swift, free tide. And at +the centre of all this great and joyous circle stood modestly the man on +whose personal integrity and energy, more than on any President or +Cabinet, the hopes of all that multitude appeared to rest,--who +commanded then among his subjects, and still commands, an allegiance +more absolute than any European potentate can claim,--whose name will be +forever illustrious as having first made a practical reality out of that +Proclamation which then was to the President only an autograph, and to +the Cabinet only a dream,--who, when the whole fate of the slaves and of +the Government hung trembling in the balance, decided it forever by +throwing into the scale the weight of one resolute man,--who personally +mustered in the first black regiment, and personally governed the +first community where emancipation was a success,--who taught the +relieved nation, in fine, that there was strength and safety +in those dusky millions who till then had been an incubus and a +terror,--Brigadier-General Rufus Saxton, Military Governor of South +Carolina. The single career of this one man more than atones for all the +traitors whom West Point ever nurtured, and awards the highest place on +the roll of our practical statesmanship to the regular army. + + + + +THE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF INANIMATE THINGS. + + +I am confident, that, at the annunciation of my theme, Andover, +Princeton, and Cambridge will skip like rams, and the little hills of +East Windsor, Meadville, and Fairfax, like lambs. However +divinity-schools may refuse to "skip" in unison, and may butt and batter +each other about the doctrine and origin of _human_ depravity, all will +join devoutly in the _credo_, I believe in the total depravity of +inanimate things. + +The whole subject lies in a nutshell, or rather an apple-skin. We have +clerical authority for affirming that all its miseries were let loose +upon the human race by "them greenins" tempting our mother to curious +pomological speculations; and from that time till now--Longfellow, thou +reasonest well!--"things are not what they seem," but are diabolically +otherwise,--masked-batteries, nets, gins, and snares of evil. + +(In this connection I am reminded of--can I ever cease to remember?--the +unlucky lecturer at our lyceum a few winters ago, who, on rising to +address his audience, applauding him all the while most vehemently, +pulled out his handkerchief, for oratorical purposes only, and +inadvertently flung from his pocket three "Baldwins" that a friend had +given to him on his way to the hall, straight into the front row of +giggling girls.) + +My zeal on this subject received new impetus recently from an +exclamation which pierced the thin partitions of the country-parsonage, +once my home, where I chanced to be a guest. + +From the adjoining dressing-room issued a prolonged "Y-ah!"--not the +howl of a spoiled child, nor the protest of a captive gorilla, but the +whole-souled utterance of a mighty son of Anak, whose amiability is +invulnerable to weapons of human aggravation. + +I paused in the midst of toilet-exigencies, and listened +sympathetically, for I recognized the probable presence of the old enemy +to whom the bravest and sweetest succumb. + +Confirmation and explanation followed speedily in the half apologetic, +wholly wrathful declaration,--"The pitcher was made foolish in the first +place." I dare affirm, that, if the spirit of Lindley Murray himself +were at that moment hovering over that scene of trial, he dropped a +tear, or, better still, an adverbial _ly_ upon the false grammar, and +blotted it out forever. + +I comprehended the scene at once. I had been there. I felt again the +remorseless swash of the water over neat boots and immaculate hose; I +saw the perverse intricacies of its meanderings over the carpet, upon +which the "foolish" pitcher had been confidingly deposited; I knew, +beyond the necessity of ocular demonstration, that, as sure as there +were "pipe-hole" or crack in the ceiling of the study below, those +inanimate things would inevitably put their evil heads together, and +bring to grief the long-suffering Dominie, with whom, during my day, +such inundations had been of at least bi-weekly occurrence, instigated +by crinoline. The inherent wickedness of that "thing of beauty" will be +acknowledged by all mankind, and by every female not reduced to the +deplorable poverty of the heroine of the following veracious anecdote. + +A certain good bishop, on making a tour of inspection through a +mission-school of his diocese, was so impressed by the aspect of all its +beneficiaries that his heart overflowed with joy, and he exclaimed to a +little maiden whose appearance was particularly suggestive of +creature-comforts,--"Why, my little girl! you have everything that heart +can wish, haven't you?" Imagine the bewilderment and horror of the +prelate, when the miniature Flora McFlimsey drew down the corners of her +mouth lugubriously, and sought to accommodate the puffs and dimples of +her fat little body to an expression of abject misery, as she +replied,--"No, indeed, Sir! I haven't got any--skeleton!" + +We who have suffered know the disposition of graceless "skeletons" to +hang themselves on "foolish" pitchers, bureau-knobs, rockers, +cobble-stones, splinters, nails, and, indeed, any projection a tenth of +a line beyond a dead level. + +The mention of nails is suggestive of voluminous distresses. +Country-parsonages, from some inexplicable reason, are wont to bristle +all over with these impish assailants of human comfort. + +I never ventured to leave my masculine relatives to their own devices +for more than twenty-four consecutive hours, that I did not return to +find that they had seemingly manifested their grief at my absence after +the old Hebraic method, ("more honored in the breach than the +observance,") by rending their garments. When summoned to their account, +the invariable defence has been a vehement denunciation of some +particular _nail_ as the guilty cause of my woes. + +By the way, O Christian woman of the nineteenth century, did it ever +enter your heart to give devout thanks that you did not share the woe +of those whose fate it was to "sojourn in Mesech and dwell in the tents +of Kedar"? that it did not fall to your lot to do the plain sewing and +mending for some Jewish patriarch, patriot, or prophet of yore? + +Realize, if you can, the masculine aggravation and the feminine +long-suffering of a period when the head of a family could neither go +down-town, nor even sit at his tent-door, without descrying some +wickedness in high places, some insulting placard, some exasperating +war-bulletin, some offensive order from head-quarters, which caused him +to transform himself instantly into an animated rag-bag. Whereas, in +these women-saving days, similar grievances send President Abraham into +his cabinet to issue a proclamation, the Reverend Jeremiah into his +pulpit with a scathing homily, Poet-Laureate David to the "Atlantic" +with a burning lyric, and Major-General Joab to the privacy of his tent, +there to calm his perturbed spirit with Drake's Plantation Bitters. In +humble imitation of another, I would state that this indorsement of the +potency of a specific is entirely gratuitous, and that I am stimulated +thereto by no remuneration, fluid or otherwise. + +Blessed be this day of sewing-machines for women, and of safety-valves +and innocent explosives for their lords! + +But this is a digression. + +I awoke very early in life to the consciousness that I held the doctrine +which we are considering. + +On a hapless day when I was perhaps five years old, I was, in my own +estimation, intrusted with the family-dignity, when I was deposited for +the day at the house of a lordly Pharisee of the parish, with solemnly +repeated instructions in table-manners and the like. + +One who never analyzed the mysteries of a sensitive child's heart cannot +appreciate the sense of awful responsibility which oppressed me during +that visit. But all went faultlessly for a time. I corrected myself +instantly each time. I said, "Yes, Ma'am," to Mr. Simon, and "No, Sir," +to Madam, which was as often as I addressed them; I clenched little +fists and lips resolutely, that they might not touch, taste, handle, +tempting _bijouterie_; I even held in check the spirit of inquiry +rampant within me, and indulged myself with only one question to every +three minutes of time. + +At last I found myself at the handsome dinner-table, triumphantly +mounted upon two "Comprehensive Commentaries" and a dictionary, fearing +no evil from the viands before me. Least of all did I suspect the +vegetables of guile. But deep in the heart of a bland, mealy-mouthed +potato lurked cruel designs upon my fair reputation. + +No sooner had I, in the most approved style of nursery good-breeding, +applied my fork to its surface, than the hardhearted thing executed a +wild _pirouette_ before my astonished eyes, and then flew on impish +wings across the room, dashing out its malicious brains, I am happy to +say, against the parlor-door, but leaving me in a half-comatose state, +stirred only by vague longings for a lodge with "proud Korah's troop," +whose destination is unmistakably set forth in the "Shorter Catechism." + +There is a possibility that I received my innate distrust of things by +inheritance from my maternal grandmother, whose holy horror at the +profanity they once provoked from a bosom-friend in her childhood was +still vivid in her old age. + +It was on this wise. When still a pretty Puritan maiden, my grandame was +tempted irresistibly by the spring sunshine to the tabooed indulgence of +a Sunday-walk. The temptation was probably intensified by the +presence of the British troops, giving unwonted fascination to +village-promenades. Her confederate in this guilty pleasure was a +like-minded little saint; so there was a tacit agreement between them +that their transgression should be sanctified by a strict adherence to +religious topics of conversation. Accordingly they launched boldly upon +the great subject which was just then agitating church-circles in New +England. + +Fortune smiled upon these criminals against the Blue Laws, until they +encountered a wall surmounted by hickory rails. Without intermitting the +discussion, Susannah sprang agilely up. Quoth she, balancing herself for +one moment upon the summit,--"No, no, Betsey! _I_ believe God is the +author of sin!" The next she sprang toward the ground; but a salient +splinter, a chip of depravity, clutched her Sunday-gown, and converted +her incontinently, it seems, into a confessor of the opposing faith; for +history records, that, following the above-mentioned dogma, there came +from hitherto unstained lips,--"The Devil!" + +Time and space would, of course, be inadequate to the enumeration of all +the demonstrations of the truth of the doctrine of the absolute +depravity of things. A few examples only can be cited. + +There is melancholy pleasure in the knowledge that a great soul has gone +mourning before me in the path I am now pursuing. It was only to-day, +that, in glancing over the pages of Victor Hugo's greatest work, I +chanced upon the following:--"Every one will have noticed with what +skill a coin let fall upon the ground runs to hide itself, and what art +it has in rendering itself invisible; there are thoughts which play us +the same trick," etc., etc. + +The similar tendency of pins and needles is universally understood and +execrated,--their base secretiveness when searched for, and their +incensing intrusion when one is off guard. + +I know a man whose sense of their malignity is so keen, that, whenever +he catches a gleam of their treacherous lustre on the carpet, he +instantly draws his two and a quarter yards of length into the smallest +possible compass, and shrieks until the domestic police come to the +rescue, and apprehend the sharp little villains. Do not laugh at this. +Years ago he lost his choicest friend by the stab of just such a little +dastard lying in ambush. + +So also every wielder of the needle is familiar with the propensity of +the several parts of a garment in the process of manufacture to turn +themselves wrong side out, and down side up; and the same viciousness +cleaves like leprosy to the completed garment so long as a thread +remains. + +My blood still tingles with a horrible memory illustrative of this +truth. + +Dressing hurriedly and in darkness for a concert one evening, I appealed +to the Dominie, as we passed under the hall-lamp, for a +toilet-inspection. + +"How do I look, father?" + +After a sweeping glance came the candid statement,-- + +"Beau-tifully!" + +Oh, the blessed glamour which invests a child whose father views her +"with a critic's eye"! + +"Yes, _of course_; but look carefully, please; how is my dress?" + +Another examination of apparently severest scrutiny. + +"All right, dear! That's the new cloak, is it? Never saw you look +better. Come, we shall be late." + +Confidingly I went to the hall; confidingly I entered; since the +concert-room was crowded with rapt listeners to the Fifth Symphony, I, +gingerly, but still confidingly, followed the author of my days, and the +critic of my toilet, to the very uppermost seat, which I entered, barely +nodding to my finically fastidious friend, Guy Livingston, who was +seated near us with a stylish-looking stranger, who bent eyebrows and +glass upon me superciliously. + +Seated, the Dominie was at once lifted into the midst of the massive +harmonies of the Adagio; I lingered outside a moment, in order to settle +my garments and--that woman's look. What! was that a partially +suppressed titter near me? Ah! she has no soul for music! How such +ill-timed merriment will jar upon my friend's exquisite sensibilities! + +Shade of Beethoven! A hybrid cough and laugh, smothered decorously, but +still recognizable, from the courtly Guy himself! What can it mean? + +In my perturbation, my eyes fell and rested upon the sack, whose newness +and glorifying effect had been already noticed by my lynx-eyed parent. + +I here pause to remark that I had intended to request the compositor to +"set up" the coming sentence in explosive capitals, by way of emphasis, +but forbear, realizing that it already staggers under the weight of its +own significance. + +That sack was wrong side out! + +Stern necessity, proverbially known as "the mother of invention," and +practically the step-mother of ministers' daughters, had made me eke out +the silken facings of the front with cambric linings for the back and +sleeves. Accordingly, in the full blaze of the concert-room, there sat +I, "accoutred as I was," in motley attire,--my homely little economies +patent to admiring spectators: on either shoulder, budding wings +composed of unequal parts of sarcenet-cambric and cotton-batting; and in +my heart--_parricide_ I had almost said, but it was rather the more +filial sentiment of desire to operate for cataract upon my father's +eyes. But a moment's reflection sufficed to transfer my indignation to +its proper object,--the sinful sack itself, which, concerting with its +kindred darkness, had planned this cruel assault upon my innocent pride. + +A constitutional obtuseness renders me delightfully insensible to one +fruitful source of provocation among inanimate things. I am so dull as +to regard all distinctions between "rights" and "lefts" as invidious; +but I have witnessed the agonized struggles of many a victim of +fractious boots, and been thankful that "I am not as other men are," in +ability to comprehend the difference between my right and left foot. +Still, as already intimated, I have seen wise men driven mad by a thing +of leather and waxed-ends. + +A little innocent of three years, in all the pride of his first boots, +was aggravated, by the perversity of the right to thrust itself on to +the left leg, to the utterance of a contraband expletive. + +When reproved by his horror-stricken mamma, he maintained a dogged +silence. + +In order to pierce his apparently indurated conscience, his censor +finally said, solemnly,-- + +"Dugald! God knows that you said that wicked word." + +"Does He?" cried the baby-victim of reral depravity, in a tone of +relief; "then _He_ knows it was a doke" (_Anglicè_, joke). + +But, mind you, the sin-tempting boot intended no "doke." + +The toilet, with its multiform details and complicated machinery, is a +demon whose surname is Legion. + +Time would fail me to speak of the elusiveness of soap, the knottiness +of strings, the transitory nature of buttons, the inclination of +suspenders to twist, and of hooks to forsake their lawful eyes, and +cleave only unto the hairs of their hapless owner's head. (It occurs to +me as barely possible, that, in the last case, the hooks may be +innocent, and the sinfulness may lie in _capillary_ attraction.) + +And, O my brother or sister in sorrow, has it never befallen you, when +bending all your energies to the mighty task of "doing" your back-hair, +to find yourself gazing inanely at the opaque back of your brush, while +the hand-mirror, which had maliciously insinuated itself into your right +hand for this express purpose, came down upon your devoted head with a +resonant whack? + +I have alluded, parenthetically, to the possible guilt of capillary +attraction, but I am prepared to maintain against the attraction of +gravitation the charge of total depravity. Indeed, I should say of it, +as did the worthy exhorter of the Dominie's old parish in regard to +slavery,--"It's the wickedest thing in the world, except sin!" + +It was only the other day that I saw depicted upon the young divine's +countenance, from this cause, thoughts "too deep for tears," and, +perchance, too earthy for clerical utterance. + +From a mingling of sanitary and economic considerations, he had cleared +his own sidewalk after a heavy snow-storm. As he stood, leaning upon his +shovel, surveying with smiling complacency his accomplished task, the +spite of the arch-fiend Gravitation was raised against him, and, finding +the impish slates (hadn't Luther something to say about "_as many devils +as tiles_"?) ready to coöperate, an avalanche was the result, making the +last state of that sidewalk worse than the first, and sending the divine +into the house with a battered hat, and an article of faith +supplementary to the orthodox thirty-nine. + +Prolonged reflection upon a certain class of grievances has convinced me +that mankind has generally ascribed them to a guiltless source. I refer +to the unspeakable aggravation of "typographical errors," rightly so +called,--for, in nine cases out of ten, I opine it is the types +themselves which err. + +I appeal to fellow-sufferers, if the substitutions and interpolations +and false combinations of letters are not often altogether too absurd +for humanity. + +Take, as one instance, the experience of a friend, who, in writing in +all innocency of a session of the Historical Society, affirmed mildly in +manuscript, "All went smoothly," but weeks after was made to declare in +blatant print, "All went _snoringly_!" + +As among men, so in the alphabet, one sinner destroyeth much good. + +The genial Senator from the Granite Hills told me of an early aspiration +of his own for literary distinction, which was beheaded remorselessly by +a villain of this type. By way of majestic peroration to a pathetic +article, he had exclaimed, "For what would we exchange the fame of +Washington?"--referring, I scarcely need say, to the man of fragrant +memory, and not to the odorous capital. The black-hearted little dies, +left to their own devices one night, struck dismay to the heart of the +aspirant author by propounding in black and white a prosaic inquiry as +to what would be considered a fair equivalent for the _farm_ of the +father of his country! + +Among frequent instances of this depravity in my own experience, a +flagrant example still shows its ugly front on a page of a child's book. +In the latest edition of "Our Little Girls," (good Mr. Randolph, pray +read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest,) there occurs a description of a +christening, wherein a venerable divine is made to dip "his _head_" into +the consecrating water, and lay it upon the child. + +Disembodied words are also sinners and the occasions of sin. Who has not +broken the Commandments in consequence of the provocation of some +miserable little monosyllabic eluding his grasp in the moment of his +direst need, or of some impertinent interloper thrusting itself in to +the utter demoralization of his well-organized sentences? Who has not +been covered with shame at tripping over the pronunciation of some +perfectly simple word like "statistics," "inalienable," "inextricable," +etc., etc., etc.? + +Whose experience will not empower him to sympathize with that +unfortunate invalid, who, on being interrogated by a pious visitor in +regard to her enjoyment of means of grace, informed the horror-stricken +inquisitor,--"I have not been to church for years, I have been such an +_infidel_,"--and then, moved by a dim impression of wrong somewhere, as +well as by the evident shock inflicted upon her worthy visitor, but +conscious of her own integrity, repeated still more emphatically,--"No; +I have been a confirmed infidel for years." + +But a peremptory summons from an animated nursery forbids my lingering +longer in this fruitful field. I can only add an instance of +corroborating testimony from each member of the circle originating this +essay. + +The Dominie _loq._--"Sha'n't have anything to do with it! It's a wicked +thing! To be sure, I do remember, when I was a little boy, I used to +throw stones at the chip-basket when it upset the cargo I had just +laded, and it was a great relief to my feelings too. Besides, you've +told stories about me which were anything but true. I don't remember +anything about that sack." + +Lady-visitor _loq._--"The first time I was invited to Mr. ----'s, (the +Hon. ---- ----'s, you know,) I was somewhat anxious, but went home +flattering myself I had made a creditable impression. Imagine my +consternation, when I came to relieve the pocket of my gala-gown, donned +for the occasion, at discovering among its treasures a tea-napkin, +marked gorgeously with the Hon. ---- ----'s family-crest, which had +maliciously crept into its depths in order to bring me into disgrace! I +have never been able to bring myself to the point of confession, in +spite of my subsequent intimacy with the family. If it were not for +Joseph's positive assertion to the contrary, I should be of the opinion +that his cup of divination conjured itself deliberately and sinfully +into innocent Benjamin's sack." + +Student _loq._ (Testimony open to criticism.)--"Met pretty girl on the +street yesterday. Sure I had on my 'Armstrong' hat when I left +home,--sure as fate; but when I went to pull it off,--by the crown, of +course,--to bow to pretty girl, I smashed in my beaver! How it got there +don't know. Knocked it off. Pretty girl picked it up and handed it to +me. Confounded things, any way!" + +Young divine _loq._--"While I was in the army, I was in Washington on +'leave' for two or three days. One night, at a party, I became utterly +bewildered in an attempt to converse, after long desuetude, with a +fascinating woman. I went stumbling on, amazing her more and more, until +finally I covered myself with glory by the categorical statement that in +my opinion General McClellan could 'never get across the Peninsula +without a _fattle_; I beg pardon, Madam! what I mean to say is, without +a _bight_.'" + +School-girl _loq._--"When Uncle ---- was President, I was at the White +House at a state-dinner one evening. Senator ---- came rushing in +frantically after we had been at table some time. No sooner was he +seated than he turned to Aunt to apologize for his delay; and, being +very much heated, and very much embarrassed, he tugged away desperately +at his pocket, and finally succeeded in extracting a huge blue stocking, +evidently of home-manufacture, with which he proceeded to wipe his +forehead very energetically and very conspicuously. I suppose the truth +was that the poor man's handkerchiefs were "on a strike," and thrust +forward this homespun stocking to bring him to terms." + +School-girl, No. 2, _loq._--"My last term at F., I was expecting a box +of 'goodies' from home. So when the message came, 'An express-package +for you, Miss Fanny!' I invited all my specials to come and assist at +the opening. Instead of the expected box, there appeared a +misshapen-bundle, done up in yellow wrapping-paper. Four such +dejected-looking damsels were never seen before as we, standing around +the ugly old thing. Finally, Alice suggested,-- + +"'Open it!' + +"'Oh, I know what it is,' I said; 'it is my old Thibet, that mother has +had made over for me.' + +"'Let's see,' persisted Alice. + +"So I opened the package. The first thing I drew out was too much for +me. + +"'What a funny-looking basque!' exclaimed Alice. All the rest were +struck dumb with disappointment. + +"No! not a basque at all, but a man's black satin waistcoat! and next +came objects about which there could be no doubt,--a pair of dingy old +trousers, and a swallow-tailed coat! Imagine the chorus of damsels! + +"The secret was, that two packages lay in father's office,--one for me, +the other for those everlasting freedmen. John was to forward mine. He +had taken up the box to write my address on it, when the yellow bundle +tumbled off the desk at his feet and scared the wits out of his head. +So I came in for father's secondhand clothes, and the Ethiopians had the +'goodies'!" + +Repentant Dominie _loq._--"I don't approve of it at all; but then, if +you must write the wicked thing, I heard a good story for you to-day. +Dr. ---- found himself in the pulpit of a Dutch Reformed Church the other +Sunday. You know he is one who prides himself on his adaptation to +places and times. Just at the close of the introductory services, a +black gown lying over the arm of the sofa caught his eye. He was rising +to deliver his sermon, when it forced itself on his attention again. + +"'Sure enough,' thought he, 'Dutch Reformed clergymen do wear gowns. I +might as well put it on.' + +"So he solemnly thrust himself into the malicious (as you would say) +garment, and went through the services as well as he could, considering +that his audience seemed singularly agitated, and indeed on the point of +bursting out into a general laugh, throughout the entire service. And no +wonder! The good Doctor, in his zeal for conformity, had attired himself +in the black cambric duster in which the pulpit was shrouded during +week-days, and had been gesticulating his eloquent homily with his arms +thrust through the holes left for the pulpit-lamps!" + + + + +WHAT SHALL WE HAVE FOR DINNER? + + +I think I must be personally known to most of the readers of the +"Atlantic." I see them wherever I go, and they see me. Beneath a +shelter-tent by the Rapidan, in a striped railroad-station in Bavaria, +at the counter of Trübner's bookstore in London, and at Cordaville, in +Worcester County, Massachusetts, as we waited for the freight to get out +of the way, I have read the "Atlantic" over their shoulders, or they +over mine. The same thing has happened at six hundred and thirty-two +other improbable places. More than this, however, my words and works in +the great science of Domestic Economy have travelled everywhere before +me, not simply like the Connecticut of the poet, + + "Bringing shad to South Hadley, and pleasure to man,"[35] + +but extending all over the civilized world. Not that I am the author of +the clothes-wringing machine, or of the spring clothes-pin,--my +influence has been more subtile. I have propounded great central axioms +in housekeeping and the other economies, which have rushed over the +world with the inevitable momentum of truth. It was I, for instance, who +first discovered and proclaimed the great governing fact that the butter +of a family costs more than its bread. It was I who first announced that +you cannot economize in the quality of your paper. I am the discoverer +of the formula that a family consumes as many barrels of flour in a year +as it has adult members, reducing children to adults by the rule of +three. The morning after our marriage I raised the window-shade, so that +the rising sun of that auspicious day should shine full upon our +parlor-Brussels. I said to Lois, "Let us never be slaves to our +carpets!" The angel smiled assent; and on the wings of that smile my +whisper fluttered over the earth. It brooded in a thousand homes else +miserable. Light was where before was chaos. Sunshine drove scrofula +from ten thousand quivering frames, and millions of infant lips would +this day raise Lois's name and mine in their Kindergarten songs, did +they only know who were their benefactors. + +Standing thus in the centre of the sphere of the domestic economies, I +have, of course, read with passionate interest the "House and Home +Papers" in the "Atlantic." It is I, as I am proud to confess, who have, +violated all copyright, have had them reprinted, as Tract No. 2237 of +the American Tract Society, No. 63 of the American Tract Society of +Boston, and No. 445 of the issues of the Sanitary Commission, and am now +about to introduce them surreptitiously into the bureaus of these +charities, so that the colporteurs, of every stripe, may at last be +certain that they are conferring the first of benefits upon their +homeless fellow-creatures. It is I who every night toil through long +streets that I may slide these little tracts, messengers of blessing, +under the front-doors of wretched friends, who are dying without homes +in the gilded miseries of their bowling-alley parlors. Where they have +introduced the patent weather-strip, I place the tract on the upper +door-step, with a brick-bat, which keeps it from blowing away. But I +observe that it is no part of the plan of those charming papers, more +than it was of the "Novum Organon" or of the "Principia," to descend +into the details of the economies. I suppose that the author left all +that to the "Domestic Economy" of her excellent sister, and, as far as +the details of practice go, well she might. But between that practical +detail by which one sister cooks to-day the dinners on a million tables, +and the æsthetic, moral, and religious considerations by which the other +sister elevates the life of the million homes in whose dining-rooms +those tables stand, there is room for a brief exposition of the +principles on which those dinners are to be selected. + +It is that exposition which, as I sit superior, I am to give, _ex +cathedra_, after this long preface, now. + +I shall illustrate the necessity of this exposition by an introduction +to follow the preface, after the manner of the Germans, before we arrive +at the substance of our work, which will be itself comprised in its +first chapter. This introduction will consist of two illustrations. The +first relates to the planting of potatoes. When I inherited my ancestral +estate, known as "Crusoe's Well," I resolved to devote it to potatoes +for the first summer. I summoned my vassals, and we fenced it. I bought +dung and manured it. I hired ploughmen and oxen, and they ploughed it. I +made a covenant with a Kelt, who became, _quoad hoc_, my slave, and gave +to him money, with which I directed him to buy seed-potatoes and plant +it. + +And he,--"How many shall I buy?" + +I retired to my study, consulted London, Lindley, and Linnæus,--the +thick Gray, the middling Gray, and the child's Gray,--Worcester's +Dictionary, and Webster's, in both of which you can usually find almost +anything but what should be there,--Johnson's "Dictionary of Gardening," +and Gardner's "Dictionary of Farming,"--and none of these treatises +mentioned the quantity of potatoes proper for planting a given space of +land. Even the Worcester and Webster failed. I was reduced to tell the +Kelt to ask the huckster of whom he bought. All the treatises went on +the principle--true, but inadequate--that "any fool would know." Any +fool might, probably does,--but I was not a fool. + +The next year, having built my house and taken Lois home, the bluebirds +sang spring to us one fine morning, and we went out to plant our +radish-seeds. With fit forethought, the seed had been bought, the ground +manured and raked, the string, the dibble, the woman's trowel, the man's +trowel, the sticks for the seed-papers, and the papers were all there. +Lois was charming, in her sun-bonnet; I looked knowing in my Canadian +oat-straw. We marked out the bed,--as the robins, meadow-larks, and +bluebirds directed. Lois then looked up article "Radish" in the +"Farmer's Dictionary," and we found the lists of "Long White Naples," +"White Spanish," "Black Spanish," "Long Scarlet," "White Turnip-Root," +"Purple Turnip," and the rest, for two columns, which we should and +should not plant. All that was nothing to us. We were to plant +radish-seeds, which we had bought, as such, from Mr. Swett. How deep to +plant them, how far apart or how near together, the book was to tell. +But the book only said, "Everybody knows how to plant radishes." + +Now this was not true. _We_ did not know. + +These two illustrations, as the minister says, are sufficient to show +the character of the deficiency which I am now to supply,--which young +housekeepers of intelligence feel, when they have got their nests ready +and begin to bill and coo in-doors. There are many things which every +fool knows, which people of sense do not know. First among these things +is, "What will you have for dinner?"--a question not to be answered by +detailed answers,--on the principle of the imaginary Barmacide feasts of +the cook-books,--but by the results of deep principles, which underlie, +indeed, the whole superficial strata of civilized life. Did not the army +of the Punjaub perish, as it retreated from Ghizni to Jelalabad, not +because the enemy's lances were strong, but because one day it did not +dine? + +I am not going to tell the old story of that "sweet pretty girl" who, +after a week of legs of mutton, ordered a "leg of beef." I sympathize +with her from the bottom of my heart. Her sister will be married +to-morrow. To her I dedicate this paper, that she may know, not what she +shall order,--that is left to her own sweet will, less fettered now that +her life is rounded by her welding it upon its other half than it was +when she wandered in maiden meditation fancy-free,--not, I say, what she +shall order for her dinner and for Leander's, but the principle on which +the order is to be given. + +"But, my dear Mr. Carter," says the blushing child, as she reads, "we +have got to be so dreadfully economical!" + +Fairest of your sex, there was never one of your sex, since Eve finished +the apple, lest any should be wasted, nor of my sex, since Adam grimly +champed the parings, thinking he was "in for it," who should not be +economical. A just economy is the law of a luxurious life. "Dreadful +economy" is the principle which is now to be unfolded to you. + +Economy in itself is one of the most agreeable of luxuries. This I need +not demonstrate. Everybody knows what good fun it is to make a bargain. +Economy becomes dreadful, only when some lightning-flash of truth shows +us that our painful frugality has been really the most lavish waste. + +So Lois and I, for nine years, lived without a corkscrew. We would buy +busts and chromoliths with our money instead,--we would go to the White +Mountains, we would maintain an elegant æsthetic hospitality, as they do +in Paris, with the money we should save by doing without a corkscrew. So +I spoiled two sets of kitchen-forks by drawing corks with them, I broke +the necks of legions of bottles for which Mr. Tarr would have credited +me two cents each, and many times damaged, even to the swearing-point, +one of the sweetest tempers in the world,--all that we might economize +on this corkscrew. But one day, at the corner-shop, I saw a corkscrew in +the glass show-case, lying on some pocket-combs and family dye-stuffs. I +asked the price, to learn that it cost seventeen cents. The resolution +of years gave way before the temptation. I bought the corkscrew, and +from that moment my income has equalled my expenses. So you see, my +sweet May-bud, just trembling on the edge of housekeeping, that true +economy consists in buying the right thing at the right time,--if you +only pay for it as you go. + +"But, my dear Mr. Carter, I don't know what the right thing is!" + +Sweet heart, I knew it. And your husband knows no more than you +do,--although he will pretend to know, that he may look cross when the +bills come in. Read what follows; hide the "Atlantic" before he comes +home; and you will know more than he knows on the most important point +in human life. Vainly, henceforth, will he quote Greek to you, or talk +pompous nonsense about the price of Treasury certificates, if you know +at what price eggs are really cheap, and at what price they are really +dear. + +Listen, and remember! Then hide the "Atlantic" away. + +When I engaged in the study of Hebrew, which was at that time a +"regular" at college, (for why should I blush to own that I am in my one +hundred and tenth year?) as I toiled through the rules and exceptions in +dear old Stephen Sewall's Hebrew Grammar, I ventured to ask him, one +desperately hot June day, whether he could not tell us, were it only for +curiosity's sake, which rule would come into play in every verse, and +which would be of use only once or twice in the whole Bible. "Ah, +Carter," said the dear old fellow, (he taught his beloved language with +his own book,) "it is all of use,--all!" And so we had to take it all, +and find out as we could which rules would be constant servitors to us, +and which occasional lackeys, hired for special occasions. Just so, dear +Hero, do you stand about your housekeeping. You wall be fretting +yourself to death to economize in each one of one hundred and seven +different articles,--for so many are you and Leander to assimilate and +make your own special phosphate and carbon, as this sweet honey-year of +yours goes on. Of that fret and wear of your sweet temper, child, there +is no use at all. Listen, and you shall learn what are to be the great +constants of your expense,--what Stephen Sewall would have called the +regular verbs transitive of your being, doing, and suffering,--and how +many of the one hundred and seven are only exceptional Lamed Hhes, at +which you can guess or which you can skip, if the great central +movements of your economies go bravely on. + +I do not know, of course, whether Leander is fond of coffee, and whether +you drink tea or no. I can only tell you what is in our family, and +assure you that ours is a model family. Such a model is it, that Lois +has just now counted up the one hundred and seven articles for me,--has +shown me that they all together cost us nine hundred and twenty-six +dollars and thirty-two cents in the year 1863, and how much each of them +cost. Now our family consists,-- + +1. Of the baby, who is king. + +2, 3. Of two nurses, who are prime-ministers, one of domestic affairs, +one of private education. + +4, 5. Of a cook and table-girl, who are chancellor and foreign +secretary. These four make the cabinet. + +6-8. Three older children; these are in the government, but not in the +cabinet. + +9 and 10. Lois and I,--who pay the taxes, fight common enemies, and do +what the others tell us as well as we can. + +This family, you observe, consists of six grown persons, and three +children old enough to eat, who are equivalent to a seventh. I may say, +in passing, that it therefore consumes just seven barrels of flour a +year. + +To feed it, as Lois has just now shown you, cost in the year 1863 nine +hundred and twenty-six dollars and thirty-two cents. That is the way we +chose to live. We could have lived just as happily on half that sum,--we +could have lived just as wretchedly on ten times that sum. But, however +we lived, the proportions of our expense would not have varied much from +what I am now to teach you, dear Hero (if that really be your name). + +BUTTER is the biggest expense-item of all. Of our nine hundred and +twenty-six dollars and thirty-two cents, ninety-one dollars and +twenty-six cents went for butter. Remember that your butter is one-tenth +part of the whole. + +Next comes flour. Our seven barrels cost us seventy dollars and +eighty-three cents. We bought, besides, six dollars and seventy-six +cents' worth of bread, and six dollars and seventy-one cents' worth of +crackers,--convenient sometimes, dear Hero. So that your wheat-flour and +bread are almost a tenth of the whole. + +Next comes beef, in all forms, ninety dollars and seventy-six cents; +there goes another tenth. The other meats are, mutton, forty-seven +dollars and sixty-seven cents; turkeys, chickens, etc., if you call them +meat, sixty-one dollars and fifty-six cents; lamb, seventeen dollars and +fifty-three cents; veal, eleven dollars and fifty-three cents; fresh +pork, one dollar and seventy-three cents. (This must have been for some +guest. Lois and I each had a grandfather named Enoch, and have Jewish +prejudices; also, fresh pork is really the most costly article of diet, +if you count in the doctor's bills. But for ham there is ten dollars and +twenty-two cents. Ham is always available, you know, Hero. For other +salt pork, I recommend you to institute a father or brother, or cousin +attached to you in youth, who shall carry on a model farm in the +country, and kill for you a model corn-fed pig every year, see it salted +with his own eyes, and send to you a half-barrel of the pork for a _gage +d'amour_. It is a much more sentimental present than rosebuds, dearest +Hero,--and it lasts longer. That is the way we do; and salt pork, +therefore, does not appear on our bills. But against such salt pork I +have no Hebrew prejudice. Try it, Hero, with paper-sliced potatoes fried +for breakfast.) All other forms of meat sum up only two dollars and +twenty-three cents. And now, Hero, I will explain to you the philosophy +of meats. You see they cost you a quarter part of what you spend. + +Know, then, my dear child, that the real business of the three meals a +day,--of the neat luncheon you serve on your wedding-silver for Mrs. +Dubbadoe and her pretty daughter, when they drive in from Milton to see +you,--of the ice-cream you ate last night at the summer party which the +Bellinghams gave the Pinckneys,--of the hard-tack and boiled dog which +dear John is now digesting in front of Petersburg,--the real business, I +say, is to supply the human frame with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and +nitrogen in organized forms. It must be in organized matter. You might +pound your wedding-diamonds for carbon, you might give water from Jordan +for oxygen and hydrogen, and the snow-flakes of the Jungfrau might serve +the nitrogen for Leander's dinners, but, because these are not +organized, Leander's cheek would pale, and his teeth shake in their +sockets, and his muscles dwindle to packthreads, as William Augustus's +do in the Slovenly-Peter books, and he would die before your eyes, Hero! +Yes, he would die! Do not, in your love of him, therefore, feed him on +your diamonds. Give him organized matter. Now, in doing this, you have +been wise in spending even a tenth of your substance on wheat. For wheat +is almost pure food; and wheat contains all you want,--more carbon than +your diamonds, more oxygen and hydrogen than your tears, more nitrogen +than the snow-flake,--but not nitrogen enough, dear Hero. + +"More nitrogen!" gasps Leander, "more nitrogen, my charmer, or I die!" +This is the real meaning of the words, when he says, "Let us have +roast-beef for dinner," or when he asks you to pass him the butter. + +Although beef, then, has little more than a quarter as much food in it +as wheat has, you must have some beef, or something like it, because +Leander, and you too, my rosy-cheek, must have nitrogen as well as +carbon. + +I beg you not to throw the "Atlantic" away at this point, my child. Do +not say that Mr. Carter is an old fool, and that you never meant to live +on vegetables. A great many people have meant to, and have never known +what was the matter with them, when the real deficiency was nitrogen. +Besides, child, though wheat is the best single feeder of all, as I have +told you, because in its gluten it has so much nitrogen, this is to be +said of all vegetables, that, so far as we live on them, we exist +slowly; to a certain extent we have to ruminate as the cows do, and not +as men and women should ruminate, and all animal or functional life goes +more slowly on. Now, Hero, you and Leander both have to lead a rapid +life. Most people do in the autumn of 1864. So give him meat, dear Hero, +as above. + +As for my being an old fool, my dear, I have said I am one hundred and +nine, which is older than old Mr. Waldo was, older than everybody except +old Parr. And after forty, everybody is a fool--or a physician. + +Let us return, then, to our mutton,--always a good thing to return to, +especially if the plates are hot, as yours, Hero, always will be. For +mutton, besides such water as you can dry out of it, contains +twenty-nine per cent. of food,--for meat, a high percentage. + +Let us see where we are. + +Our butter costs us one-tenth. + +Our flour and wheat-bread cost us almost one-tenth. + +Our beef costs us one-tenth. + +Our other meats cost us a tenth and a half of what we spend for eating +and drinking. + +"Where in the world does the rest go, Mr. Carter? Here is not half. But +I could certainly live very well on these things." + +Angel, you could. But if you lived wholly on these, you would want more +of them. You see we have said nothing of coffee and tea,--the princes or +princesses of food,--without which civilized man cannot renew his +brains. In such years as these, Hero, when our brave soldiers must have +coffee or we can have no victories, coffee costs me and Lois fifty +dollars,--cheap at that,--for, without it, did we drink dandelion like +the cows, or chiccory like the asses, how were these brains renewed? + +"Tea and coffee are the same thing," says Liebig; at least, he says that +_Theine_, the base of tea, and _Caffeine_, the base of coffee, are the +same. What I know is, that, when coffee costs fifty dollars a year, tea +costs thirty dollars and eighty-nine cents. + +For tea and coffee, Hero, allow about another tenth,--the cocoa and +cream will bring it up to that. + +Our sugar cost us fifty-four dollars and twenty-two cents; our milk +fifty dollars and sixty-two; our cream ten dollars seventy-seven. + +"Buy your cream separate," says Hero, "if you have as good a milkman as +Mr. Whittemore." + +You have not as many babies as we, Hero. When you have, you will not +grudge the milk or the sugar. Lots of nourishment in sugar! Sugar and +milk are another tenth. + +I do not know if you are a Catholic, Hero; but I guess your kitchen is; +and so I am pretty sure that you will eat fish Fridays. I know you are a +person of sense, so I know you will often delight Leander, as he rises +from the day's swim which, for your sake, Hero, he takes across the cold +Hellespont of life,--(all men are Leanders, and all women should be +their Heros, holding high love-torches for them,)--as he rises, I say, +with "a sound of wateriness," I know you will often delight him with +oysters, scalloped, fried, or plain, as _entremets_ to flank his +dinner-table. For fish count two per cent., for oysters two more, for +eggs three or four, and for that stupid compound of starch which some +men call "indispensable," and all men call "potato," count three or four +more. My advice is, that, when potatoes are dear, you skip them. +Rice-_croquets_ are better and cheaper. There goes another tenth. + +Tea and coffee, etc., one-tenth. + +Sugar and milk, one-tenth. + +Fish, eggs, potatoes, etc., one-tenth. + +Thus is it, Hero, that three-quarters of what you eat will be spent for +your bread and butter, your meat, fish, eggs, and potatoes, your coffee, +tea, milk, and sugar,--for twenty-one articles on a list of one hundred +and seven. Fresh vegetables, besides those named, will take one-fifth of +what is left: say five per cent. of the whole expense. The doctor will +order porter or wine, when your back aches, or when Leander looks thin. +Have nothing to do with them till he does order them, but reserve +another five per cent. for them. The rest, Hero, it is mace, it is +yeast, it is vinegar, pepper, and mustard, it is sardines, it is +lobster, it is the unconsidered world of trifles which make up the +visible difference between the table of high civilization and that of +the Abyssinian or the Blackfoot Indian. Let us hope it is not much +cream-of-tartar or saleratus. It is grits and grapes, it is lard and +lemons, it is maple-sugar and melons, it is nuts and nutmeg, or any +other alliteration that you fancy. + +Now, pretty one, I can see you smile, and I can hear you say,--"Dear old +Mr. Carter, I am very much obliged to you. I begin to see my way a +little more clearly." Of course you do, child. You begin to see that the +most desperate economy in lemons will not make you and Leander rich, but +that you must make up your mind at the start about beef and about +butter. Hear, then, my parting whisper. + +Disregard the traditions of economy. What is cheap to-day is dear +to-morrow. Do not make a bill-of-fare, and, because everything on it +tastes very badly, think it is cheap. Salt codfish is cheap sometimes, +and sometimes very dear. Venison is often an extravagance; but, of a +winter when the sleighing is good, and when the hunters have not gone +South, it is the cheapest food for you. Eggs are dear, if they tempt you +to cakes that you do not like. But no eggs can be sent to our brave +army, so, if you do choose to make a bargain with your Aunt Eunice at +Naugatuck Neck to send you four dozen by express once a week, they will +be, perhaps, the cheapest food you can buy. What you want, my child, is +variety. However cheaply you live, secure four things: First, a change +of fare from day to day, so as to have a good appetite; Second, +simplicity, each day, in the table, so as to lose but little in chips; +Third, fitness of things there, as hot plates for your mutton and cold +ones for your butter, so that what you have may be of the best; and, +first, second, third, and last, love between you and Leander. This last +sauce, says Solomon, answers even for herbs. And you know the Emperors +Augustus and Nebuchadnezzar both had to live on herbs,--I am afraid, +because love had been wanting in both cases. If you have a stalled ox, +you will need the same sauces,--much more, unless it is better dressed +than the only one I ever saw, which was at Warwick, when Cheron and I +were going to Stratford-on-Avon. It was not attractive. You will need +three of these four things, if you are rich. Rich or poor, buy in as +large quantities as you can. Rich or poor, pay cash. Rich or poor, do +not try to do without carbon or nitrogen. Rich or poor, vary steadily +the bills-of-fare. Now the minimum of what you can support life upon, at +this moment, is easily told. Jeff Davis makes the calculation for you. +It is quarter of a pound of salt pork a day, with four Graham hard-tack. +That is what each of his soldiers is eating; and though they are not +stout, they are wiry fellows, and fight well. The maximum you can find +by lodging at the Brevoort, at New York,--where, when I last went to the +front, I stopped an hour on the way, and, though I had no meals, paid +two dollars and eighty cents for washing my face in another man's +bedroom. A year of Jeff Davis's diet would cost you and Leander, if you +bought in large quantities, sixty dollars. A year at Rye Beach just now +would cost you two or three thousand dollars. Choose your dinner from +either bill; vary it, by all the gradations between. But remember, +child, as you would cheer Leander after his swim, and keep within your +allowance, remember that what was dear yesterday may be cheap +to-day,--remember to vary the repast, therefore, from Monday round to +Saturday; eschew the corner-shop, and buy as large stores as Leander +will let you; and always keep near at hand an unexhausted supply of +Solomon's condiment. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[35] + + "All hail, thou Connecticut, who forever hast ran, + Bringing shad to South Hadley, and pleasure to man!" + + + + +BEFORE VICKSBURG. + +MAY 19, 1863. + + + While Sherman stood beneath the hottest fire + That from the lines of Vicksburg gleamed, + And bomb-shells tumbled in their smoky gyre, + And grape-shot hissed, and case-shot screamed; + Back from the front there came, + Weeping and sorely lame, + The merest child, the youngest face + Man ever saw in such a fearful place. + + Stifling his tears, he limped his chief to meet; + But when he paused, and tottering stood, + Around the circle of his little feet + There spread a pool of bright, young blood. + Shocked at his doleful case, + Sherman cried, "Halt! front face! + Who are you? Speak, my gallant boy!" + "A drummer, Sir:--Fifty-Fifth Illinois." + + "Are you not hit?" "That's nothing. Only send + Some cartridges: our men are out; + And the foe press us." "But, my little friend"-- + "Don't mind me! Did you hear that shout? + What if our men be driven? + Oh, for the love of Heaven, + Send to my Colonel, General dear!" + "But you?" "Oh, I shall easily find the rear." + + "I'll see to that," cried Sherman; and a drop + Angels might envy dimmed his eye, + As the boy, toiling towards the hill's hard top, + Turned round, and with his shrill child's cry + Shouted, "Oh, don't forget! + We'll win the battle yet! + But let our soldiers have some more, + More cartridges, Sir,--calibre fifty-four!" + + + + +OUR VISIT TO RICHMOND. + +WHY WE WENT THERE. + + +Why my companion, the Rev. Dr. Jaquess, Colonel of the Seventy-Third +Regiment of Illinois Volunteers, recently went to Richmond, and the +circumstances attending his previous visit within the Rebel lines,--when +he wore his uniform, and mixed openly with scores of leading +Confederates,--I shall shortly make known to the public in a volume +called "Down in Tennessee." It may now, however, be asked why I, a +"civil" individual, and not in the pay of Government, became his +travelling-companion, and, at a time when all the world was rushing +North to the mountains and the watering-places, journeyed South for a +conference with the arch-Rebel, in the hot and dangerous latitude of +Virginia. + +Did it never occur to you, reader, when you have undertaken to account +for some of the simplest of your own actions, how many good reasons have +arisen in your mind, every one of which has justified you in concluding +that you were of "sound and disposing understanding"? So, now, in +looking inward for the why and the wherefore which I know will be +demanded of me at the threshold of this article, I find half a dozen +reasons for my visit to Richmond, any one of which ought to prove that I +am a sensible man, altogether too sensible to go on so long a journey, +in the heat of midsummer, for the mere pleasure of the thing. Some of +these reasons I will enumerate. + +First: Very many honest people at the North sincerely believe that the +revolted States will return to the Union, if assured of protection to +their peculiar institution. The Government having declared that no State +shall be readmitted which has not first abolished Slavery, these people +hold it responsible for the continuance of the war. It is, therefore, +important to know whether the Rebel States will or will not return, if +allowed to retain Slavery. Mr. Jefferson Davis could, undoubtedly, +answer that question; and that may have been a reason why I went to see +him. + +Second: On the second of July last, C. C. Clay, of Alabama, J. P. +Holcombe, of Virginia, and G. N. Sanders, of nowhere in particular, +appeared at Niagara Falls, and publicly announced that they were there +to confer with the Democratic leaders in reference to the Chicago +nomination. Very soon thereafter, a few friends of the Administration +received intimations from those gentlemen that they were Commissioners +from the Rebel Government, with authority to negotiate preliminaries of +peace on something like the following basis, namely: A restoration of +the Union as it was; all negroes actually freed by the war to be +declared free, and all negroes not actually freed by the war to be +declared slaves. + +These overtures were not considered sincere. They seemed concocted to +embarrass the Government, to throw upon it the odium of continuing the +war, and thus to secure the triumph of the peace-traitors at the +November election. The scheme, if well managed, threatened to be +dangerous, by uniting the Peace-men, the Copperheads, and such of the +Republicans as love peace better than principle, in one opposition, +willing to make a peace that would be inconsistent with the safety and +dignity of the country. It was, therefore, important to discover--what +was then in doubt--whether the Rebel envoys really had, or had not, any +official authority. + +Within fifteen days of the appearance of these "Peace Commissioners," +Jefferson Davis had said to an eminent Secession divine, who, late in +June, came through the Union lines by the Maryland back-door, that he +would make peace on no other terms than a recognition of Southern +Independence. (He might, however, agree to two governments, bound +together by a league offensive and defensive,--for all external purposes +_one_, for all internal purposes _two_; but he would agree to nothing +better.) + +There was reason to consider this information trustworthy, and to +believe Mr. Davis (who was supposed to be a clear-minded man) altogether +ignorant of the doings of his Niagara satellites. If this were true, and +were proven to be true,--if the _great_ Rebel should reiterate this +declaration in the presence of a trustworthy witness, at the very time +when the _small_ Rebels were opening their Quaker guns on the +country,--would not the Niagara negotiators be stripped of their false +colors, and their low schemes be exposed to the scorn of all honest men, +North and South? + +I may have thought so; and that may have been another reason why I went +to Richmond. + +Third: I had been acquainted with Colonel Jaquess's peace-movements from +their inception. Early in June last he wrote me from a battle-field in +Georgia, announcing his intention of again visiting the Rebels, and +asking an interview with me at a designated place. We met, and went to +Washington together. Arriving there, I became aware that obstacles were +in the way of his further progress. Those obstacles could be removed by +my accompanying him; and that, to those who know the man and his +"mission," which is to preach peace on earth and good-will among men, +would seem a very good reason why I went to Richmond. + +Fourth,--and this to very many may appear as potent as any of the +preceding reasons,--I had in my boyhood a strange fancy for +church-belfries and liberty-poles. This fancy led me, in +school-vacations, to perch my small self for hours on the cross-beams in +the old belfry, and to climb to the very top of the tall pole which +still surmounts the little village-green. In my youth, this feeling was +simply a spirit of adventure; but as I grew older it deepened into a +reverence for what those old bells said, and a love for the principle of +which that old liberty-pole is now only a crumbling symbol. + +Had not events shown that Jeff. Davis had never seen that old +liberty-pole, and never heard the chimes which still ring out from that +old belfry? Who knew, in these days when every wood-sawyer has a +"mission," but _I_ had a "mission," and it was to tell the Rebel +President that Northern liberty-poles still stand for Freedom, and that +Northern church-bells still peal out, "Liberty throughout the land, to +_all_ the inhabitants thereof"? + +If that _was_ my mission, will anybody blame me for fanning Mr. Davis +with a "blast" of cool Northern "wind" in this hot weather? + +But enough of mystification. The straightforward reader wants a +straightforward reason, and he shall have it. + +We went to Richmond because we hoped to pave the way for negotiations +that would result in peace. + +If we should succeed, the consciousness of having served the country +would, we thought, pay our expenses. If we should fail, but return +safely, we might still serve the country by making public the cause of +our failure. If we should fail, and _not_ return safely, but be shot or +hanged as spies,--as we might be, for we could have no protection from +our Government, and no safe-conduct from the Rebels,--two lives would be +added to the thousands already sacrificed to this Rebellion, but they +would as effectually serve the country as if lost on the battle-field. + +These are the reasons, and the only reasons, why we went to Richmond. + + +HOW WE WENT THERE. + +We went there in an ambulance, and we went together,--the Colonel and I; +and though two men were never more unlike, we worked together like two +brothers, or like two halves of a pair of shears. That we got _in_ was +owing, perhaps, to me; that we got _out_ was due altogether to him; and +a man more cool, more brave, more self-reliant, and more self-devoted +than that quiet "Western parson" it never was my fortune to encounter. + +When the far-away Boston bells were sounding nine, on the morning of +Saturday, the sixteenth of July, we took our glorious Massachusetts +General by the hand, and said to him,-- + +"Good bye. If you do not see us within ten days, you will know we have +'gone up.'" + +"If I do not see you within that time," he replied, "I'll demand you; +and if they don't produce you, body and soul, I'll take two for +one,--better men than you are,--and hang them higher than Haman. My hand +on that. Good bye." + +At three o'clock on the afternoon of the same day, mounted on two +raw-boned relics of Sheridan's great raid, and armed with a letter to +Jeff. Davis, a white cambric handkerchief tied to a short stick, and an +honest face,--this last was the Colonel's,--we rode up to the Rebel +lines. A ragged, yellow-faced boy, with a carbine in one hand, and +another white handkerchief tied to another short stick in the other, +came out to meet us. + +"Can you tell us, my man, where to find Judge Ould, the Exchange +Commissioner?" + +"Yas. Him and t'other 'Change officers is over ter the plantation beyont +Miss Grover's. Ye'll know it by its hevin' nary door nur winder [the +mansion, he meant]. They's all busted in. Foller the bridle-path through +the timber, and keep your rag a-flyin', fur our boys is thicker 'n +huckelberries in them woods, and they mought pop ye, ef they didn't seed +it." + +Thanking him, we turned our horses into the "timber," and, galloping +rapidly on, soon came in sight of the deserted plantation. Lolling on +the grass, in the shade of the windowless mansion, we found the +Confederate officials. They rose as we approached; and one of us said to +the Judge,--a courteous, middle-aged gentleman, in a Panama hat, and a +suit of spotless white drillings,-- + +"We are late, but it's your fault. Your people fired at us down the +river, and we had to turn back and come overland." + +"You don't suppose they saw your flag?" + +"No. It was hidden by the trees; but a shot came uncomfortably near us. +It struck the water, and ricochetted not three yards off. A little +nearer, and it would have shortened me by a head, and the Colonel by two +feet." + +"That would have been a sad thing for you; but a miss, you know, is as +good as a mile," said the Judge, evidently enjoying the "joke." + +"We hear Grant was in the boat that followed yours, and was struck while +at dinner," remarked Captain Hatch, the Judge's Adjutant,--a gentleman, +and about the best-looking man in the Confederacy. + +"Indeed! Do you believe it?" + +"I don't know, of course"; and his looks asked for an answer. We gave +none, for all such information is contraband. We might have told him +that Grant, Butler, and Foster examined their position from Mrs. +Grover's house,--about four hundred yards distant,--two hours after the +Rebel cannon-ball danced a break-down on the Lieutenant-General's +dinner-table. + +We were then introduced to the other officials,--Major Henniken of the +War Department, a young man formerly of New York, but now scorning the +imputation of being a Yankee, and Mr. Charles Javins, of the +Provost-Guard of Richmond. This latter individual was our shadow in +Dixie. He was of medium height, stoutly built, with a short, thick neck, +and arms and shoulders denoting great strength. He looked a natural-born +jailer, and much such a character as a timid man would not care to +encounter, except at long range of a rifle warranted to five twenty +shots a minute, and to hit every time. + +To give us a _moonlight view_ of the Richmond fortifications, the Judge +proposed to start after sundown; and as it wanted some hours of that +time, we seated ourselves on the ground, and entered into conversation. +The treatment of our prisoners, the _status_ of black troops, and +non-combatants, and all the questions which have led to the suspension +of exchanges, had been good-naturedly discussed, when the Captain, +looking up from one of the Northern papers we had brought him, said,-- + +"Do you know, it mortifies me that you don't hate us as we hate you? You +kill us as Agassiz kills a fly,--because you love us." + +"Of course we do. The North is being crucified for love of the South." + +"If you love us so, why don't you let us go?" asked the Judge, rather +curtly. + +"For that very reason,--because we love you. If we let you go, with +slavery, and your notions of 'empire,' you'd run straight to barbarism +and the Devil." + +"We'd take the risk of that. But let me tell you, if you are going to +Mr. Davis with any such ideas, you might as well turn back at once. He +can make peace on no other basis than Independence. Recognition must be +the beginning, middle, and ending of all negotiations. Our people will +accept peace on no other terms." + +"I think you are wrong there," said the Colonel. "When I was here a year +ago, I met many of your leading men, and they all assured me they wanted +peace and reunion, even at the sacrifice of slavery. Within a week, a +man you venerate and love has met me at Baltimore, and besought me to +come here, and offer Mr. Davis peace on such conditions." + +"That may be. Some of our old men, who are weak in the knees, may want +peace on any terms; but the Southern people will not have it without +Independence. Mr. Davis knows them, and you will find he will insist +upon that. Concede that, and we'll not quarrel about minor matters." + +"We'll not quarrel at all. But it's sundown, and time we were 'on to +Richmond.'" + +"That's the 'Tribune' cry," said the Captain, rising; "and I hurrah for +the 'Tribune,' for it's honest, and--I want my supper." + +We all laughed, and the Judge ordered the horses. As we were about to +start, I said to him,-- + +"You've forgotten our parole." + +"Oh, never mind that. We'll attend to that at Richmond." + +Stepping into his carriage, and unfurling the flag of truce, he then led +the way, by a "short cut," across the cornfield which divided the +mansion from the high-road. We followed in an ambulance drawn by a pair +of mules, our shadow--Mr. Javins--sitting between us and the twilight, +and Jack, a "likely darky," almost the sole survivor of his master's +twelve hundred slaves, ("De ress all stole, Massa,--stole by you +Yankees,") occupying the front-seat, and with a stout whip "working our +passage" to Richmond. + +Much that was amusing and interesting occurred during our three-hours' +journey, but regard for our word forbids my relating it. Suffice it to +say, we saw the "frowning fortifications," we "flanked" the "invincible +army," and, at ten o'clock that night, planted our flag (against a +lamp-post) in the very heart of the hostile city. As we alighted at the +doorway of the Spotswood Hotel, the Judge said to the Colonel,-- + +"Button your outside-coat up closely. Your uniform must not be seen +here." + +The Colonel did as he was bidden; and, without stopping to register our +names at the office, we followed the Judge and the Captain up to No. 60. +It was a large, square room in the fourth story, with an unswept, ragged +carpet, and bare, white walls, smeared with soot and tobacco-juice. +Several chairs, a marble-top table, and a pine wash-stand and +clothes-press straggled about the floor, and in the corners were three +beds, garnished with tattered pillow-cases, and covered with white +counterpanes, grown gray with longing for soapsuds and a wash-tub. The +plainer and humbler of these beds was designed for the burly Mr. Javins; +the others had been made ready for the extraordinary envoys (not envoys +extraordinary) who, in defiance of all precedent and the "law of +nations," had just then "taken Richmond." + +A single gas-jet was burning over the mantel-piece, and above it I saw a +"writing on the wall" which implied that Jane Jackson had run up a +washing-score of fifty dollars! + +I was congratulating myself on not having to pay that woman's +laundry-bills, when the Judge said,-- + +"You want supper. What shall we order?" + +"A slice of hot corn-bread would make _me_ the happiest man in +Richmond." + +The Captain thereupon left the room, and shortly returning, remarked,-- + +"The landlord swears you're from Georgia. He says none but a Georgian +would call for corn-bread at this time of night." + +On that hint we acted, and when our sooty attendant came in with the +supper-things, we discussed Georgia mines, Georgia banks, and Georgia +mosquitoes, in a way that showed we had been bitten by all of them. In +half an hour it was noised all about the hotel that the two gentlemen +the Confederacy was taking such excellent care of were from Georgia. + +The meal ended, and a quiet smoke over, our entertainers rose to go. As +the Judge bade us good-night, he said to us,-- + +"In the morning you had better address a note to Mr. Benjamin, asking +the interview with the President. I will call at ten o'clock, and take +it to him." + +"Very well. But will Mr. Davis see us on Sunday?" + +"Oh, that will make no difference." + + +WHAT WE DID THERE. + +The next morning, after breakfast, which we took in our room with Mr. +Javins, we indited a note--of which the following is a copy--to the +Confederate Secretary of State. + + "Spotswood House, Richmond, Va. + + "July 17th, 1864. + + "Hon. J. P. Benjamin, + + "Secretary of State, etc. + + "DEAR SIR,--The undersigned respectfully solicit an interview + with President Davis. + + "They visit Richmond only as private citizens, and have no + official character or authority; but they are acquainted with + the views of the United States Government, and with the + sentiments of the Northern people relative to an adjustment of + the differences existing between the North and the South, and + earnestly hope that a free interchange of views between + President Davis and themselves may open the way to such + _official_ negotiations as will result in restoring PEACE to + the two sections of our distracted country. + + "They, therefore, ask an interview with the President, and + awaiting your reply, are + + "Truly and respectfully yours." + +This was signed by both of us; and when the Judge called, as he had +appointed, we sent it--together with a commendatory letter I had +received, on setting out, from a near relative of Mr. Davis--to the +Rebel Secretary. In half an hour Judge Ould returned, saying,--"Mr. +Benjamin sends you his compliments, and will be happy to see you at the +State Department." + +We found the Secretary--a short, plump, oily little man in black, with a +keen black eye, a Jew face, a yellow skin, curly black hair, closely +trimmed black whiskers, and a ponderous gold watch-chain--in the +northwest room of the "United States" Custom-House. Over the door of +this room were the words, "State Department," and round its walls were +hung a few maps and battle-plans. In one corner was a tier of shelves +filled with books,--among which I noticed Headley's "History," +Lossing's "Pictorial," Parton's "Butler," Greeley's "American +Conflict," a complete set of the "Rebellion Record," and a dozen numbers +and several bound volumes of the "Atlantic Monthly,"--and in the centre +of the apartment was a black-walnut table, covered with green cloth, and +filled with a multitude of "state-papers." At this table sat the +Secretary. He rose as we entered, and, as Judge Ould introduced us, took +our hands, and said,-- + +"I am glad, very glad, to meet you, Gentlemen. I have read your note, +and"--bowing to me--"the open letter you bring from ----. Your errand +commands my respect and sympathy. Pray be seated." + +As we took the proffered seats, the Colonel, drawing off his "duster," +and displaying his uniform, said,-- + +"We thank you for this cordial reception, Mr. Benjamin. We trust you +will be as glad to hear us as you are to see us." + +"No doubt I shall be, for you come to talk of peace. Peace is what we +all want." + +"It is, indeed; and for that reason we are here to see Mr. Davis. Can we +see him, Sir?" + +"Do you bring any overtures to him from your Government?" + +"No, Sir. We bring no overtures and have no authority from our +Government. We state that in our note. We would be glad, however, to +know what terms will be acceptable to Mr. Davis. If they at all +harmonize with Mr. Lincoln's views, we will report them to him, and so +open the door for official negotiations." + +"Are you acquainted with Mr. Lincoln's views?" + +"One of us is, fully." + +"Did Mr. Lincoln, _in any way_, authorize you to come here?" + +"No, Sir. We came with his pass, but not by his request. We say, +distinctly, we have no official, or unofficial, authority. We come as +men and Christians, not as diplomatists, hoping, in a frank talk with +Mr. Davis, to discover some way by which this war may be stopped." + +"Well, Gentlemen, I will repeat what you say to the President, and if he +follows my advice,--and I think he will,--he will meet you. He will be +at church this afternoon; so, suppose you call here at nine this +evening. If anything should occur in the meantime to prevent his seeing +you, I will let you know through Judge Ould." + +Throughout this interview the manner of the Secretary was cordial; but +with this cordiality was a strange constraint and diffidence, almost +amounting to timidity, which struck both my companion and myself. +Contrasting his manner with the quiet dignity of the Colonel, I almost +fancied our positions reversed,--that, instead of our being in his +power, the Secretary was in ours, and momently expecting to hear some +unwelcome sentence from our lips. There is something, after all, in +moral power. Mr. Benjamin does not possess it, nor is he a great man. He +has a keen, shrewd, ready intellect, but not the _stamina_ to originate, +or even to execute, any great good or great wickedness. + +After a day spent in our room, conversing with the Judge, or watching +the passers-by in the street,--I should like to tell who they were and +how they looked, but such information is just now contraband,--we called +again, at nine o'clock, at the State Department. + +Mr. Benjamin occupied his previous seat at the table, and at his right +sat a spare, thin-featured man, with iron-gray hair and beard, and a +clear, gray eye full of life and vigor. He had a broad, massive +forehead, and a mouth and chin denoting great energy and strength of +will. His face was emaciated, and much wrinkled, but his features were +good, especially his eyes,--though one of them bore a scar, apparently +made by some sharp instrument. He wore a suit of grayish-brown, +evidently of foreign manufacture, and, as he rose, I saw that he was +about five feet ten inches high, with a slight stoop in the shoulders. +His manners were simple, easy, and quite fascinating: and he threw an +indescribable charm into his voice, as he extended his hand, and said to +us,-- + +"I am glad to see you, Gentlemen. You are very welcome to Richmond." + +And this was the man who was President of the United States under +Franklin Pierce, and who is now the heart, soul, and brains of the +Southern Confederacy! + +His manner put me entirely at my ease,--the Colonel would be at his, if +he stood before Cæsar,--and I replied,-- + +"We thank you, Mr. Davis. It is not often you meet men of our clothes, +and our principles, in Richmond." + +"Not often,--not so often as I could wish; and I trust your coming may +lead to a more frequent and a more friendly intercourse between the +North and the South." + +"We sincerely hope it may." + +"Mr. Benjamin tells me you have asked to see me, to"---- + +And he paused, as if desiring we should finish the sentence. The Colonel +replied,-- + +"Yes, Sir. We have asked this interview in the hope that you may suggest +some way by which this war can be stopped. Our people want peace,--your +people do, and your Congress has recently said that _you_ do. We have +come to ask how it can be brought about." + +"In a very simple way. Withdraw your armies from our territory, and +peace will come of itself. We do not seek to subjugate you. We +are not waging an offensive war, except so far as it is +offensive-defensive,--that is, so far as we are forced to invade you to +prevent your invading us. Let us alone, and peace will come at once." + +"But we cannot let you alone so long as you repudiate the Union. That is +the one thing the Northern people will not surrender." + +"I know. You would deny to us what you exact for yourselves,--the right +of self-government." + +"No, Sir," I remarked. "We would deny you no natural right. But we think +Union essential to peace; and, Mr. Davis, _could_ two people, with the +same language, separated by only an imaginary line, live at peace with +each other? Would not disputes constantly arise, and cause almost +constant war between them?" + +"Undoubtedly,--with this generation. You have sown such bitterness at +the South, you have put such an ocean of blood between the two sections, +that I despair of seeing any harmony in my time. Our children may forget +this war, but _we_ cannot." + +"I think the bitterness you speak of, Sir," said the Colonel, "does not +really exist. _We_ meet and talk here as friends; our soldiers meet and +fraternize with each other; and I feel sure, that, if the Union were +restored, a more friendly feeling would arise between us than has ever +existed. The war has made us know and respect each other better than +before. This is the view of very many Southern men; I have had it from +many of them,--your leading citizens." + +"They are mistaken," replied Mr. Davis. "They do not understand Southern +sentiment. How can we feel anything but bitterness towards men who deny +us our rights? If you enter my house and drive me out of it, am I not +your natural enemy?" + +"You put the case too strongly. But we cannot fight forever; the war +must end at some time; we must finally agree upon something; can we not +agree now, and stop this frightful carnage? We are both Christian men, +Mr. Davis. Can _you_, as a Christian man, leave untried any means that +may lead to peace?" + +"No, I cannot. I desire peace as much as you do. I deplore bloodshed as +much as you do; but I feel that not one drop of the blood shed in this +war is on _my_ hands,--I can look up to my God and say this. I tried all +in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, and for twelve years I +worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad +and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves; and so the war came, +and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his +tracks, and his children seize his musket and fight his battle, _unless +you acknowledge our right to self-government_. We are not fighting for +slavery. We are fighting for Independence,--and that, or extermination, +we _will_ have." + +"And there are, at least, four and a half millions of us left; so you +see you have a work before you," said Mr. Benjamin, with a decided +sneer. + +"We have no wish to exterminate you," answered the Colonel. "I believe +what I have said,--that there is no bitterness between the Northern and +Southern _people_. The North, I know, loves the South. When peace comes, +it will pour money and means into your hands to repair the waste caused +by the war; and it would now welcome you back, and forgive you all the +loss and bloodshed you have caused. But we _must_ crush your armies, and +exterminate your Government. And is not that already nearly done? You +are wholly without money, and at the end of your resources. Grant has +shut you up in Richmond. Sherman is before Atlanta. Had you not, then, +better accept honorable terms while you can retain your prestige, and +save the pride of the Southern people?" + +Mr. Davis smiled. + +"I respect your earnestness, Colonel, but you do not seem to understand +the situation. We are not exactly shut up in Richmond. If your papers +tell the truth, it is your capital that is in danger, not ours. Some +weeks ago, Grant crossed the Rapidan to whip Lee, and take Richmond. Lee +drove him in the first battle, and then Grant executed what your people +call a 'brilliant flank-movement,' and fought Lee again. Lee drove him a +second time, and then Grant made another 'flank-movement'; and so they +kept on,--Lee whipping, and Grant flanking,--until Grant got where he is +now. And what is the net result? Grant has lost seventy-five or eighty +thousand men,--_more than Lee had at the outset_,--and is no nearer +taking Richmond than at first; and Lee, whose front has never been +broken, holds him completely in check, and has men enough to spare to +invade Maryland, and threaten Washington! Sherman, to be sure, _is_ +before Atlanta; but suppose he is, and suppose he takes it? You know, +that, the farther he goes from his base of supplies, the weaker he +grows, and the more disastrous defeat will be to him. And defeat _may_ +come. So, in a military view, I should certainly say our position was +better than yours. + +"As to money: we are richer than you are. You smile; but admit that our +paper is worth nothing,--it answers as a circulating-medium; and we hold +it all ourselves. If every dollar of it were lost, we should, as we have +no foreign debt, be none the poorer. But it _is_ worth something; it has +the solid basis of a large cotton-crop, while yours rests on nothing, +and you owe all the world. As to resources: we do not lack for arms or +ammunition, and we have still a wide territory from which to gather +supplies. So, you see, we are not in extremities. But if we were,--if we +were without money, without food, without weapons,--if our whole country +were devastated, and our armies crushed and disbanded,--could we, +without giving up our manhood, give up our right to govern ourselves? +Would _you_ not rather die, and feel yourself a man, than live, and be +subject to a foreign power?" + +"From your stand-point there is force in what you say," replied the +Colonel. "But we did not come here to argue with you, Mr. Davis. We +came, hoping to find some honorable way to peace; and I am grieved to +hear you say what you do. When I have seen your young men dying on the +battle-field, and your old men, women, and children starving in their +homes, I have felt I could risk my life to save them. For that reason I +am here; and I am grieved, grieved, that there is no hope." + +"I know your motives, Colonel Jaquess, and I honor you for them; but +what can I do more than I am doing? I would give my poor life, gladly, +if it would bring peace and good-will to the two countries; but it would +not. It is with your own people you should labor. It is they who +desolate our homes, burn our wheat-fields, break the wheels of wagons +carrying away our women and children, and destroy supplies meant for our +sick and wounded. At your door lies all the misery and the crime of this +war,--and it is a fearful, fearful account." + +"Not all of it, Mr. Davis. I admit a fearful account, but it is not +_all_ at our door. The passions of both sides are aroused. Unarmed men +are hanged, prisoners are shot down in cold blood, by yourselves. +Elements of barbarism are entering the war on both sides, that should +make us--you and me, as Christian men--shudder to think of. In God's +name, then, let us stop it. Let us do something, concede something, to +bring about peace. You cannot expect, with only four and a half +millions, as Mr. Benjamin says you have, to hold out forever against +twenty millions." + +Again Mr. Davis smiled. + +"Do you suppose there are twenty millions at the North determined to +crush us?" + +"I do,--to crush your _government_. A small number of our people, a very +small number, are your friends,--Secessionists. The rest differ about +measures and candidates, but are united in the determination to sustain +the Union. Whoever is elected in November, he _must be_ committed to a +vigorous prosecution of the war." + +Mr. Davis still looking incredulous, I remarked,-- + +"It is so, Sir. Whoever tells you otherwise deceives you. I think I know +Northern sentiment, and I assure you it is so. You know we have a system +of lyceum-lecturing in our large towns. At the close of these lectures, +it is the custom of the people to come upon the platform and talk with +the lecturer. This gives him an excellent opportunity of learning public +sentiment. Last winter I lectured before nearly a hundred of such +associations, all over the North,--from Dubuque to Bangor,--and I took +pains to ascertain the feeling of the people. I found a unanimous +determination to crush the Rebellion and save the Union at every +sacrifice. The majority are in favor of Mr. Lincoln, and nearly all of +those opposed to him are opposed to him because they think he does not +fight you with enough vigor. The radical Republicans, who go for +slave-suffrage and thorough confiscation, are those who will defeat him, +if he is defeated. But if he is defeated before the people, the House +will elect a worse man,--I mean, worse for you. It is more radical than +he is,--you can see that from Mr. Ashley's Reconstruction Bill,--and the +people are more radical than the House. Mr. Lincoln, I know, is about to +call out five hundred thousand more men, and I can't see how you _can_ +resist much longer; but if you do, you will only deepen the radical +feeling of the Northern people. They will now give you fair, honorable, +_generous_ terms; but let them suffer much more, let there be a dead man +in every house, as there is now in every village, and they will give you +_no_ terms,--they will insist on hanging every Rebel south of ----. +Pardon my terms. I mean no offence." + +"You give no offence," he replied, smiling very, pleasantly. "I wouldn't +have you pick your words. This is a frank, free talk, and I like you the +better for saying what you think. Go on." + +"I was merely going to say, that, let the Northern people once really +feel the war,--they do not feel it yet,--and they will insist on hanging +every one of your leaders." + +"Well, admitting all you say, I can't see how it affects our position. +There are some things worse than hanging or extermination. We reckon +giving up the right of self-government one of those things." + +"By self-government you mean disunion,--Southern Independence?" + +"Yes." + +"And slavery, you say, is no longer an element in the contest." + +"No, it is not, it never was an _essential_ element. It was only a means +of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination. It +fired the musket which was already capped and loaded. There are +essential differences between the North and the South that will, however +this war may end, make them two nations." + +"You ask me to say what I think. Will you allow me to say that I know +the South pretty well, and never observed those differences?" + +"Then you have not used your eyes. My sight is poorer than yours, but I +have seen them for years." + +The laugh was upon me, and Mr. Benjamin enjoyed it. + +"Well, Sir, be that as it may, if I understand you, the dispute between +your government and ours is narrowed down to this: Union or Disunion." + +"Yes; or to put it in other words: Independence or Subjugation." + +"Then the two governments are irreconcilably apart. They have no +alternative but to fight it out. But it is not so with the people. They +are tired of fighting, and want peace; and as they bear all the burden +and suffering of the war, is it not right they should have peace, and +have it on such terms as they like?" + +"I don't understand you. Be a little more explicit." + +"Well, suppose the two governments should agree to something like this: +To go to the people with two propositions: say, Peace, with Disunion and +Southern Independence, as your proposition,--and Peace, with Union, +Emancipation, No Confiscation, and Universal Amnesty, as ours. Let the +citizens of all the United States (as they existed before the war) vote +'Yes,' or 'No,' on these two propositions, at a special election within +sixty days. If a majority votes Disunion, our government to be bound by +it, and to let you go in peace. If a majority votes Union, yours to be +bound by it, and to stay in peace. The two governments can contract in +this way, and the people, though constitutionally unable to decide on +peace or war, can elect which of the two propositions shall govern their +rulers. Let Lee and Grant, meanwhile, agree to an armistice. This would +sheathe the sword; and if once sheathed, it would never again be drawn +by this generation." + +"The plan is altogether impracticable. If the South were only one State, +it might work; but as it is, if one Southern State objected to +emancipation, it would nullify the whole thing; for you are aware the +people of Virginia cannot vote slavery out of South Carolina, nor the +people of South Carolina vote it out of Virginia." + +"But three-fourths of the States can amend the Constitution. Let it be +done in that way,--in any way, so that it be done by the people. I am +not a statesman or a politician, and I do not know just how such a plan +could be carried out; but you get the idea,--that the PEOPLE shall +decide the question." + +"That the _majority_ shall decide it, you mean. We seceded to rid +ourselves of the rule of the majority, and this would subject us to it +again." + +"But the majority must rule finally, either with bullets or ballots." + +"I am not so sure of that. Neither current events nor history shows that +the majority rules, or ever did rule. The contrary, I think, is true. +Why, Sir, the man who should go before the Southern people with such a +proposition, with _any_ proposition which implied that the North was to +have a voice in determining the domestic relations of the South, could +not live here a day. He would be hanged to the first tree, without judge +or jury." + +"Allow me to doubt that. I think it more likely he would be hanged, if +he let the Southern people know the majority couldn't rule," I replied, +smiling. + +"I have no fear of that," rejoined Mr. Davis, also smiling most +good-humoredly. "I give you leave to proclaim it from every house-top in +the South." + +"But, seriously, Sir, you let the majority rule in a single State; why +not let it rule in the whole country?" + +"Because the States are independent and sovereign. The country is not. +It is only a confederation of States; or rather it _was_: it is now +_two_ confederations." + +"Then we are not a _people_,--we are only a political partnership?" + +"That is all." + +"Your very name, Sir, '_United_ States,' implies that," said Mr. +Benjamin. "But, tell me, are the terms you have named--Emancipation, No +Confiscation, and Universal Amnesty--the terms which Mr. Lincoln +authorized you to offer us?" + +"No, Sir, Mr. Lincoln did not authorize me to offer you any terms. But I +_think_ both he and the Northern people, for the sake of peace, would +assent to some such conditions." + +"They are _very_ generous," replied Mr. Davis, for the first time during +the interview showing some angry feeling. "But Amnesty, Sir, applies to +criminals. We have committed no crime. Confiscation is of no account, +unless you can enforce it. And Emancipation! You have already +emancipated nearly two millions of our slaves,--and if you will take +care of them, you may emancipate the rest. I had a few when the war +began. I was of some use to them; they never were of any to me. Against +their will you 'emancipated' them; and you may 'emancipate' every negro +in the Confederacy, but _we will be free_! We will govern ourselves. We +_will_ do it, if we have to see every Southern plantation sacked, and +every Southern city in flames." + +"I see, Mr. Davis, it is useless to continue this conversation," I +replied; "and you will pardon us, if we have seemed to press our views +with too much pertinacity. We love the old flag, and that must be our +apology for intruding upon you at all." + +"You have not intruded upon me," he replied, resuming his usual manner. +"I am glad to have met you, both. I once loved the old flag as well as +you do; I would have died for it; but now it is to me only the emblem of +oppression." + +"I hope the day may never come, Mr. Davis, when _I_ say that," said the +Colonel. + +A half-hour's conversation on other topics--not of public +interest--ensued, and then we rose to go. As we did so, the Rebel +President gave me his hand, and, bidding me a kindly good-bye, expressed +the hope of seeing me again in Richmond in happier times,--when peace +should have returned; but with the Colonel his parting was particularly +cordial. Taking his hand in both of his, he said to him,-- + +"Colonel, I respect your character and your motives, and I wish you +well,--I wish you every good I can wish you consistently with the +interests of the Confederacy." + +The quiet, straightforward bearing and magnificent moral courage of our +"fighting parson" had evidently impressed Mr. Davis very favorably. + +As we were leaving the room, he added-- + +"Say to Mr. Lincoln from me, that I shall at any time be pleased to +receive proposals for peace on the basis of our Independence. It will be +useless to approach me with any other." + +When we went out, Mr. Benjamin called Judge Ould, who had been waiting +during the whole interview--two hours--at the other end of the hall, and +we passed down the stairway together. As I put my arm within that of the +Judge, he said to me,-- + +"Well, what is the result?" + +"Nothing but war,--war to the knife." + +"Ephraim is joined to his idols,--let him alone," added the Colonel, +solemnly. + +I should like to relate the incidents of the next day, when we visited +Castle Thunder, Libby Prison, and the hospitals occupied by our wounded; +but the limits of a magazine-article will not permit. I can only say +that at sundown we passed out of the Rebel lines, and at ten o'clock +that night stretched our tired limbs on the "downy" cots in General +Butler's tent, thankful, devoutly thankful, that we were once again +under the folds of the old flag. + + * * * * * + +Thus ended our visit to Richmond. I have endeavored to sketch it +faithfully. The conversation with Mr. Davis I took down shortly after +entering the Union lines, and I have tried to report his exact language, +extenuating nothing, and coloring nothing that he said. Some of his +sentences, as I read them over, appear stilted and high-flown, but they +did not sound so when uttered. As listened to, they seemed the simple, +natural language of his thought. He spoke deliberately, apparently +weighing every word, and knowing well that all he said would be given to +the public. + +He is a man of peculiar ability. Our interview with him explained to me +why, with no money and no commerce, with nearly every one of their +important cities in our hands, and with an army greatly inferior in +numbers and equipment to ours, the Rebels have held out so long. It is +because of the sagacity, energy, and indomitable will of Jefferson +Davis. Without him the Rebellion would crumble to pieces in a day; with +him it may continue to be, even in disaster, a power that will tax the +whole energy and resources of the nation. + +The Southern masses want peace. Many of the Southern leaders want +it,--both my companion and I, by correspondence and intercourse with +them, know this; but there can be no peace so long as Mr. Davis controls +the South. Ignoring slavery, he himself states the issue,--the only +issue with him,--Union, or Disunion. That is it. We must conquer, or be +conquered. We can negotiate only with the bayonet. We can have peace and +union only by putting forth all our strength, crushing the Southern +armies, and overthrowing the Southern government. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin._ By JAMES PARTON. New York: Mason +Brothers. Two Volumes. 8vo. + +To appreciate the importance of this work, we must remember that it +covers more than three-fourths of a century full of great events, if not +of great men; that it begins with Boston and Philadelphia as small +provincial towns, and leaves them the thriving capitals of independent +States; that it finds colonial energy struggling with metropolitan +jealousy and ignorance; that it follows the struggle through all its +phases, until the restrictions of the mother became oppression, and the +love of the children was converted into hatred; that it traces the +growth and expansion of American industry,--the dawn of American +invention, so full of promise,--the development of the principle of +self-government, so full of power,--the bitter contest, so full of +lessons which, used aright, might have spared us more than half the +blood and treasure of the present war. + +To appreciate the difficulty of this work, we must remember that the +inner and the outer life of the subject of it are equally full of +marvels; that, beginning by cutting off candle-wicks in a +tallow-chandler's shop in Boston, he ended as the greatest scientific +discoverer among those men renowned for science who composed the Royal +Society of London and the Academy of Sciences of Paris; that, with the +aid of an odd volume of the "Spectator," used according to his own +conception of the best way of using it, he made himself master of a +pure, simple, graceful, and effective English style; that the opinions +and maxims which he drew from his own observation and reflection have +passed into the daily life of millions, warning, strengthening, +cheering, and guiding; that he succeeded in the most difficult +negotiations, was a leader of public opinion on the most important +questions, and, holding his way cheerfully, resolutely, and lovingly to +the end, left the world wiser in many things, and in some better, for +the eighty-four years that he had passed in it. + +Nor must we forget, that, among the many things which this wonderful old +man did, was to tell us half the story of his own life, and with such +unaffected simplicity, such evident sincerity, and such attractive +grace, as to make it--as far as it goes--the most perfect production of +its class. Then why attempt to do it over again? is the question that +naturally springs to every lip, on reading the title of Mr. Parton's +book. + +Mr. Parton has anticipated this question, and answered it. +"Autobiography is one of the most interesting and valuable kinds of +composition; but autobiography can never be accepted _in lieu_ of +biography, because to no man is the giftie given of seeing himself as +others see him. Rousseau's Confessions are a miracle of candor: they +reveal much concerning a certain weak, wandering, diseased, miserable, +wicked Jean Jacques; but of that marvellous Rousseau whose writings +thrilled Europe they contain how much? Not one word. Madame D'Arblay's +Diary relates a thousand pleasant things, but it does not tell us what +manner of person Madame D'Arblay was. Franklin's Autobiography gives +agreeable information respecting a sagacious shopkeeper of Philadelphia, +but has little to impart to us respecting the grand Franklin, the +world's Franklin, the philosopher, the statesman, the philanthropist. A +man cannot reveal his best self, nor, unless he is a Rousseau, his +worst. Perhaps he never knows either." + +The basis of Mr. Parton's work is, as the basis of every satisfactory +biography must be, the writings of its subject. "After all," he says, +"Dr. Jared Sparks's excellent edition of the 'Life and Works of +Franklin,' is the source of the greater part of the information we +possess concerning him.... The libraries, the public records, and the +private collections of England, France, and the United States, were so +diligently searched by Dr. Sparks, that, though seven previous editions +of the works of Franklin had appeared, he was able to add to his +publication the astonishing number of six hundred and fifty pieces of +Dr. Franklin's composition never before collected, of which four hundred +and fifty had never before appeared in print. To unwearied diligence in +collecting Dr. Sparks added an admirable talent in elucidating. His +notes are always such as an intelligent reader would desire, and they +usually contain all the information needed for a perfect understanding +of the matter in hand. Dr. Sparks's edition is a monument at once to the +memory of Benjamin Franklin and to his own diligence, tact, and +faithfulness." We take great pleasure in copying this passage, both +because it seems to illustrate the spirit which Mr. Parton brought to +his task, and because the value of Mr. Sparks's labors have not always +been so freely acknowledged by those who have been freest in their use +of them. + +To a careful study of those volumes Mr. Parton has added patient and +extensive research among the newspapers and magazines of the time, and, +apparently, a wide range of general reading. Thus he has filled his work +with facts, some curious, some new, and all interesting, as well in +their bearing upon the times as upon the man. He is a good delver, a +good sifter, and, what is equally important, a good interpreter,--not +merely bringing facts to the light, but compelling them to give out, +like Correggio's pictures, a light of their own. He possesses, too, in +an eminent degree, the power of forming for himself a conception of his +subject as a whole, keeping it constantly before his mind in the +elaboration of the parts, and thus bringing it vividly before the mind +of the reader. Franklin's true place in history has never before been +assigned him upon such incontrovertible evidence. + +If we were to undertake to name the parts of this work which have given +us most satisfaction, we should, although with some hesitation, name the +admirable chapters which Mr. Parton has devoted to Franklin's diplomatic +labors in England and France. In none of his good works has that great +man been more exposed to calumny, or treated with more barefaced +ingratitude by those who profited most by them, than in bringing to +light the dangerous letters of Hutchinson and Oliver. Even within the +last few years, the apologetic biographer of John Adams repeats the +accusation of moral obliquity in a tone that would hardly have been +misplaced in a defence of Wedderburn. Mr. Parton tells the story with +great simplicity, and, without entering into any unnecessary +disquisition, accepts for his commentary upon it Mr. Bancroft's wise, +and, as it seems to us, unanswerable conclusion. "Had the conspiracy +which was thus laid bare aimed at the life of a minister or the king, +any honest man must have immediately communicated the discovery to the +Secretary of State: to conspire to introduce into America a military +government, and abridge American liberty, was a more heinous crime, of +which irrefragable evidence had now come to light." + +Never, too, was philosopher more severely tried than Franklin was tried +by the colleagues whom Congress sent him, from time to time, as clogs +upon the great wheel which he was turning so skilfully. And this, too, +Mr. Parton has set in full light, not by the special pleading of the +apologist, but by the documentary researches of the historian. + +There are some things, however, in this work which we could have wished +somewhat different from what they are. Mr. Parton's fluent and forcible +style sometimes degenerates into flippancy. We could cite many instances +of felicitous expression, some, also, of bad taste, and some of hasty +assertion. "_Clubable_" is hardly a good enough word to bear frequent +repetition. "This question was a complete baffler" is too much like +slang to be admitted into the good company which Mr. Parton's sentences +usually keep. We were not aware that "Physician, heal thyself" was a +stock classical allusion. We do not believe--for Dante and Milton would +rise up in judgment against us, even if the vast majority of other great +men did not--that "it is only second-rate men who have great aims." We +do not believe that the style of the "Spectator" is an "easily imitated +style"; for, of the hundreds who have tried, how many, besides Franklin, +have really succeeded in imitating it? We do not believe that Latin and +Greek are an "obstructing nuisance," or that the student of Homer and +Thucydides and Demosthenes and Plato and Aristotle and Cæsar and Cicero +and Tacitus is merely studying "the prattle of infant man," or "adding +the ignorance of the ancients to the ignorance he was born with." We +believe, on the contrary, that it was by such studies that Gibbon and +Niebuhr and Arnold and Grote acquired their marvellous power of +discovering historical truth and detecting historical error, and that +from no modern language could they have received such discipline. + +But we not only agree with the sentiment, but admire the simple energy +of the expression, when he says that "Franklin was the man of all others +then alive who possessed in the greatest perfection the four grand +requisites for the successful observation of Nature or the pursuit of +literature,--a sound and great understanding, patience, dexterity, and +an independent income." Equally judicious and equally well-expressed is +the following passage upon the Penns:--"Thomas Penn was a man of +business, careful, saving, and methodical. Richard Penn was a +spendthrift. Both were men of slender abilities, and not of very +estimable character. They had done some liberal acts for the Province, +such as sending over presents to the Library of books and apparatus, and +cannon for the defence of Philadelphia. If the Pennsylvanians had been +more submissive, they would doubtless have continued their benefactions. +But, unhappily, they cherished those erroneous, those Tory notions of +the rights of sovereignty which Lord Bute infused into the contracted +mind of George III., and which cost that dull and obstinate monarch, +first, his colonies, and then his senses. It is also rooted in the +British mind, that a landholder is entitled to the particular respect of +his species. These Penns, in addition to the pride of possessing acres +by the million, felt themselves to be the lords of the land they owned, +and of the people who dwelt upon it." And in speaking of English ideas +of American resistance:--"Englishmen have made sublime sacrifices to +principle, but they appear slow to believe that any other people can." +And, "George III. sat upon a constitutional throne, but he had an +unconstitutional mind." It would be difficult to find a more +comprehensive sentence than the following:--"The counsel employed by Mr. +Mauduit was Alexander Wedderburn, a sharp, unprincipled Scotch +barrister, destined to scale all the heights of preferment which +shameless subserviency could reach." + +It would be easy to multiply examples, but we have given, we believe, +more than enough to show that we look upon Mr. Parton's "Franklin" as a +work of very great value. + + +_The Maine Woods._ By HENRY D. THOREAU, Author of "A Week on the Concord +and Merrimack Rivers," "Walden," "Excursions," etc., etc. Boston: +Ticknor & Fields. + +The steadily growing fame of Thoreau has this characteristic, that it +is, like his culture, a purely American product, and is no pale +reflection of the cheap glories of an English reprint. Whether he would +have gained or lost by a more cosmopolitan training or criticism is not +the question now; but certain it is that neither of these things went to +the making of his fame. Classical and Oriental reading he had; but +beyond these he cared for nothing which the men and meadows of Concord +could not give, and for this voluntary abnegation, half whimsical, half +sublime, the world repaid him with life-long obscurity, and will yet +repay him with permanent renown. + +His choice of subjects, too, involves the same double recompense; for no +books are less dazzling or more immortal than those whose theme is +external Nature. Nothing else wears so well. History becomes so rapidly +overlaid with details, and its aspects change so fast, that the most +elaborate work soon grows obsolete; while a thoroughly sincere and +careful book on Nature cannot be superseded, and lives forever. Its +basis is real and permanent. There will always be birds and flowers, +nights and mornings. The infinite fascinations of mountains and of +forests will outlast this war, and the next, and the race that makes the +war. The same solidity of material which has guarantied permanence to +the fame of Izaak Walton and White of Selborne will as surely secure +that of Thoreau, who excels each of these writers upon his own ground, +while superadding a wider culture, a loftier thought, and a fine, though +fantastic, literary skill. All men may not love Nature, but all men +ultimately love her lovers. And of those lovers, past or present, +Thoreau is the most profound in his devotion, and the most richly +repaid. + +Against these great merits are to be set, no doubt, some formidable +literary defects: an occasional mistiness of expression, like the summit +of Katahdin, as he himself describes it,--one vast fog, with here and +there a rock protruding; also, an occasional sandy barrenness, like his +beloved Cape Cod. In truth, he never quite completed the transition from +the observer to the artist. With the power of constructing sentences as +perfectly graceful as a hemlock-bough, he yet displays the most wayward +aptitude for literary caterpillars'-nests and all manner of +disfigurements. The same want of artistic habit appears also in his +wilful disregard of all rules of proportion. He depicts an Indian, for +instance, with such minute observation and admirable verbal skill that +one feels as if neither Catlin nor Schoolcraft ever saw the actual +creature; but though the table-talk of the aboriginal may seem for a +time more suggestive than that of Coleridge or Macaulay, yet there is a +point beyond which his, like theirs, becomes a bore. + +In addition to these drawbacks, one finds in Thoreau an unnecessary +defiance of tone, and a very resolute non-appreciation of many things +which a larger mental digestion can assimilate without discomfort. In +his dealings with Nature he is sweet, genial, patient, wise. In his +dealings with men he exasperates himself over the least divergence from +the desired type. Before any over-tendency to the amenities and luxuries +of civilization, in particular, he becomes unreasonable and relentless. +Hence there appears something hard and ungenial in his views of life, +utterly out of keeping with the delicate tenderness which he shows in +the woods. The housekeeping of bees and birds he finds noble and +beautiful, but for the home and cradle of the humblest human pair he can +scarcely be said to have even toleration; a farmer's barn he considers a +cumbrous and pitiable appendage, and he lectures the Irish women in +their shanties for their undue share of the elegancies of life. With +infinite faith in the tendencies of mineral and vegetable nature, in +human nature he shows no practical trust, and must even be severe upon +the babies in the Maine log-huts for playing with wooden dolls instead +of pine-cones. It is, indeed, noticeable that he seems to love every +other living animal more unreservedly than the horse,--as if this poor +sophisticated creature, though still a quadruped and a brother, had been +so vitiated by undue intimacy with man as to have become little better +than if he wore broadcloth and voted. + +Yet there was not in Thoreau one trait of the misanthrope; his solitary +life at Walden was not chosen because he loved man less, but because he +loved Nature more; and any young poet or naturalist might envy the +opportunities it gave him. But his intellectual habits showed always a +tendency to exaggeration, and he spent much mental force in fighting +shadows, Church and State, war and politics,--a man of solid vigor must +find room in his philosophy to tolerate these matters for a time, even +if he cannot cordially embrace them. But Thoreau, a celibate, and at +times a hermit, brought the Protestant extreme to match the Roman +Catholic, and though he did not personally ignore one duty of domestic +life, he yet held a system which would have excluded wife and child, +house and property. His example is noble and useful to all high-minded +young people, but only when interpreted by a philosophy less exclusive +than his own. In urging his one social panacea, "Simplify, I say, +simplify," he failed to see that all steps in moral or material +organization are really efforts after the same process he recommends. +The sewing-machine is a more complex affair than the needle, but it +simplifies every woman's life, and helps her to that same comparative +freedom from care which Thoreau would seek only by reverting to the +Indian blanket. + +But many-sided men do not move in battalions, and even a one-sided +philosopher may be a boon to think of, if he be as noble as Thoreau. His +very defects are higher than many men's virtues, and his most fantastic +moralizings will bear reading without doing harm, especially during a +Presidential campaign. Of his books, "Walden" will probably be +permanently reckoned as the best, as being the most full and deliberate +exhibition of the author's mind, and as extracting the most from the +least material. It is also the most uniform in texture, and the most +complete in plan, while the "Week" has no unity but that of the +chronological epoch it covers,--a week which is probably the most +comprehensive on record, ranging from the Bhagvat-Geetha to the "good +time coming,"--and the "Excursions" no unity but that of the covers +which comprise them, being, indeed, a compilation of his earliest and +latest essays. Which of his four volumes contains his finest writing it +would really be hard to say; but in structure the present book comes +nearest to "Walden"; it is within its limits a perfect monograph of the +Maine woods. All that has been previously written fails to portray so +vividly the mysterious life of the lonely forest,--the grandeur of +Katahdin or Ktaadn, that hermit-mountain,--and the wild and adventurous +navigation of those Northern water-courses whose perils make the boating +of the Adirondack region seem safe and tame. The book is also more +unexceptionably healthy in its tone than any of its predecessors, and it +is pleasant to find the author, on emerging from his explorations, +admitting that the confines of civilization afford, after all, the best +residence, and that the wilderness is of most value as "a resource and a +background." + +There yet remain for publication Thoreau's adventures on Cape Cod; his +few public addresses on passing events, especially those on the Burns +Rescue and the John-Brown affair, which were certainly among the very +ablest productions called forth by those exciting occasions; his poems; +and his private letters to his friend Blake, of Worcester, and to +others,--letters which certainly contain some of his toughest, and +perhaps also some of his finest writing. All these deserve, and must one +day receive, preservation. He who reads most books reads that which has +a merely temporary interest, and will be presently superseded by +something better; but Nature has waited many centuries for Thoreau, and +we can hardly expect to see, during this generation, another mortal so +favored with her confidence. + + +_Jennie Juneiana_: Talks on Women's Topics. By JENNIE JUNE. Boston: Lee +& Shepard. 12mo. pp. 240. + +Great are the resources of human invention, and the tiresome passion for +alliterative titles may possibly have culminated in some name yet more +foolish than that of this little green and gold volume. If so, the rival +has proved too much for the trump of Fame to carry, and has dropped +unnoticed. In the present case, the title does perhaps some injustice to +the book, which is not a silly one, though it contains very silly +things. It seems to be written from the point of view afforded by a +second-rate New-York boarding-house, and by a person who has never come +in contact with any refined or well-bred people. With this allowance, it +is written in the interest of good manners and good morals, and with +enough of natural tact to keep the writer from getting far beyond her +depth, although she does talk of "Goethe's Mignion" and "Miss +Werner,"--whoever these personages may be,--and of "the substantial fame +achieved by the unknown author of 'Rutledge.'" It is written in the +prevalent American newspaper-style,--a style which is apt to be graphic, +piquant, and dashing, accompanied by a flavor, slight or more than +slight, of flippancy and slang,--a style such as reaches high-tide in +certain "popular" native authors, male and female, and in ebbing strands +us on "Jennie June." + +Of course, writing from the windows of Mrs. Todgers, "Jennie" manifests +the usual superfluous anxiety of her kind not to be called +strong-minded. She is prettily indignant at the thought of female +physicians: there is nothing improper in having diseases, but to cure +them would be indelicacy indeed. Girls out of work, who wish for places +in shops, are only "patriotic young ladies who desire to fill all the +lucrative situations at present occupied by young men." She would even +banish Bridget from the kitchen and substitute unlimited Patricks, which +will interest housekeepers as being the only conceivable remedy worse +than the disease. Of course, a female lecturer is an abomination: +"Jennie" proves, first, that a "strong-minded woman" must be either +unmarried or unhappy in marriage, and then turns, with rather illogical +wrath, upon Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown, for being too domestic to +make speeches since their marriage. To follow the court phraseology, +"This reminds us of a little anecdote." When the fashion of long, +flowing wigs was just vanishing in Boston, somebody wore one from that +town down to Salem, where they were entirely extinct. All the +street-boys ran after him all the morning, to ask him why he wore a wig. +He, wishing to avoid offence, left it in the house at dinner-time; and +was pursued all the afternoon by the same boys, with the inquiry why he +did _not_ wear a wig. These eloquent women find it equally hard to +please their little critic by silence or by speech. The simple truth +probably is, that they hold precisely the same views which they always +held, and will live to trouble her yet, when the epoch of the nursery is +over. The majority of women's-rights advocates have always been wives +and mothers, and, for aught we know, excellent ones, since that dear, +motherly old Quakeress, Lucretia Mott, first broached the matter; and +the great change in our legislation on all the property-rights of that +sex is just as directly traceable to their labors as is the repeal of +the English corn-laws to the efforts of the "League." If, however, +"Jennie" consoles herself with the reflection that the points made in +this controversy by the authors of "Hannah Thurston" and "Miss Gilbert's +Career" are not much stronger than her own, she must remember her +favorite theory, that all foolishness sounds more respectable when +uttered from masculine lips. + + +1. _Woman and her Era._ By ELIZA W. FARNHAM. In Two Volumes. New York: +A. J. Davis & Co. + +2. _Eliza Woodson; or, The Early Days of one of the World's Workers._ A +Story of American Life. New York: A. J. Davis & Co. + +In the three and a half centuries since Cornelius Agrippa, no one has +attempted with so much ability as Mrs. Farnham to transfer the theory of +woman's superiority from the domain of poetry to that of science. Second +to no American woman save Miss Dix in her experience as a practical +philanthropist, she has studied human nature in the sternest practical +schools, from Sing-Sing to California. She justly claims for her views +that they have been maturing for twenty-two years of "experience so +varied as to give it almost every form of trial which could fall to the +intellectual life of any save the most favored women." Her books show, +moreover, an ardent love of literature and some accurate scientific +training,--though her style has the condensation and vigor which active +life creates, rather than the graces of culture. + +The essence of her book lies in this opening syllogism:-- + +"Life is exalted in proportion to its organic and functional complexity; + +"Woman's organism is more complex and her totality of function larger +than those of any other being inhabiting our earth; + +"Therefore her position in the scale of life is the most exalted,--the +sovereign one." + +This is compactly stated and quite unequivocal, although the three last +words of the conclusion are a step beyond the premises, and the main +fight of her opponents would no doubt be made on her definition of the +word _being_. The assumption that either sex of a given species is a +distinct "being" cannot probably be slid into the minor premise of the +argument without some objection from the opposing counsel. However, this +brings us at once to the main point, and the chapter called "The Organic +Argument," which opens with this syllogism, is really the pith of the +book, and would, perhaps, stand stronger without the other six hundred +pages. In this chapter she shows the strength of a system-maker, in the +rest the weaknesses of one; she feels obliged to apply her creed to +everything, to illustrate everything by its light, to find unexpected +confirmations everywhere, and to manipulate all the history of art, +literature, and society, till she conforms them all to her standard. She +recites, with no new power, historical facts that are already familiar; +and gives many pages to extracts from very well known poets and very ill +known prose-writers, to the exclusion of her own terse and vigorous +thought. All this is without a trace of book-making, but is done in +single-hearted zeal for views which are only damaged by the process. + +These are merely literary defects; but Mrs. Farnham really suffers in +thought by the same unflinching fidelity to her creed. It makes her +clear and resolute in her statement; but it often makes her as one-sided +as the advocates of male supremacy whom she impugns. To be sure, her +theory enables her to extenuate some points of admitted injustice to +woman,--finding, for instance, in her educational and professional +exclusions a crude effort, on the part of society, to treat her as a +sort of bird-of-paradise, born only to fly, and therefore not needing +feet. Yet this authoress is obliged to assume a tone of habitual +antagonism towards men, from which the advocates of mere equality are +excused. Indeed, the technical Woman's-Rights movement has always +witnessed a very hearty coöperation among its advocates of both sexes, +and it is generally admitted that men are at least as ready to concede +additional rights as women to ask for them. But when one comes to Mrs. +Farnham's stand-point, and sees what her opinion of men really is, the +stanchest masculine ally must shrink from assigning himself to such a +category of scoundrels. The best criticism made on Michelet's theory of +woman as a predestined invalid was that of the sensible physician who +responded, "As if the Almighty did not know how to create a woman!"--and +Mrs. Farnham certainly proves too much in undertaking to expose the +blunders of Deity in the construction of a man. Assuming, as she +invariably does, the highest woman to be the typical woman, and the +lowest man to be the typical man, she can prove anything she pleases. +But even this does not content her; every gleam of tenderness and +refinement exhibited by man she transfers by some inexplicable +legerdemain of logic to the feminine side, and makes somehow into a new +proof of his hopeless inferiority; and she is landed at last in the +amazing paradox, that "the most powerful feminine souls have appeared in +masculine forms, thus far in human career." (Vol. II. p. 360.) + +In short, her theory involves a necessity of perpetual overstatement. +The conception of a pure and noble young man, such as Richter delineates +in his Walt or Albano, seems utterly foreign to her system; and of that +fine subtilty of nature by which the highest types of manhood and +womanhood approach each other, as if mutually lending refinement and +strength, she seems to have no conception. The truth is, that, however +much we may concede to the average spiritual superiority of woman, a +great deal also depends on the inheritance and the training of the +individual. Mrs. Farnham, like every refined woman, is often shocked by +the coarseness of even virtuous men; but she does not tell us the other +side of the story,--how often every man of refinement has occasion to be +shocked by the coarseness of even virtuous women. Sexual disparities may +be much; but individual disparities are even more. + +Mrs. Farnham is noble enough, and her book is brave and wise enough, to +bear criticisms which grow only from her attempting too much. The +difference between her book and most of those written on the other side +is, that in the previous cases the lions have been the painters, and +here it is the lioness. As against the exaggerations on the other side, +she has a right to exaggerate on her part. As against the theory that +man is superior to woman because he is larger, she has a right to plead +that in that case the gorilla were the better man, and to assert on the +other hand that woman is superior because smaller,--Emerson's mountain +and squirrel. As against the theory that glory and dominion go with the +beard, she has a right to maintain (and that she does with no small +pungency) that Nature gave man this appendage because he was not to be +trusted with his own face, and needed this additional covering for his +shame. As against the historical traditions of man's mastery, she does +well to urge that creation is progressive, and that the megalosaurus was +master even before man. It is, indeed, this last point which constitutes +the crowning merit of the book, and which will be permanently associated +with Mrs. Farnham's name. No one before her has so firmly grasped this +key to woman's historic position, that the past was an age of coarse, +preliminary labor, in which her time had not yet come. This theory, as +elucidated by Mrs. Farnham, taken with the fine statement of Buckle as +to the importance of the intuitive element in the feminine intellect, +(which statement Mrs. Farnham also quotes,) constitutes the most +valuable ground logically conquered for woman within this century. These +contributions are eclipsed in importance only by those actual +achievements of women of genius,--as of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Rosa +Bonheur, and Harriet Hosmer,--which, so far as they go, render all +argument superfluous. + +In this domain of practical achievement Mrs. Farnham has also labored +well, and the autobiography of her childish years, when she only aspired +after such toils, has an interest wholly apart from that of her larger +work, and scarcely its inferior. Except the immortal "Pet Marjorie," one +can hardly recall in literature a delineation so marvellous of a +childish mind so extraordinary as "Eliza Woodson." The few characters +appear with an individuality worthy of a great novelist; every lover of +children must find it altogether fascinating, and to the most +experienced student of human nature it opens a new chapter of startling +interest. + + +_The Cliff-Climbers; or, The Lone Home in the Himalayas._ A Sequel to +"The Plant-Hunters." By CAPTAIN MAYNE REID, Author of "The Desert Home," +"The Boy-Hunters," etc., etc. With Illustrations. Boston: Ticknor & +Fields. + +Beloved of boys, the adventurous Mayne Reid continues from year to year +his good work as a story-teller. Since he held the youthful student a +spellbound reader of "The Desert Home," he has sent abroad a dozen +volumes, all excellent in their way, for the entertainment of his +ever-increasing audience. He has not, however, dealt quite fairly by his +boy-friends. He kept them waiting several years for the completion of +"The Plant-Hunters," and it is only now that he has found time to add +"The Cliff-Climbers" as a sequel to that fascinating story. While we +thank him for the book that gives us farther acquaintance with those +stirring individuals, Karl and Caspar, we cannot help reminding him how +long ago it is since we read "The Plant-Hunters," and wished for more. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +Poetry of the Age of Fable. Collected by Thomas Bulfinch. Boston. J. E. +Tilton & Co. 18mo. pp. x., 251. $2.00. + +Phantom Leaves. A Treatise on the Art of producing Skeleton Leaves. +Boston. J. E. Tilton & Co. 12mo. pp. 96. $1.50. + +Wax Flowers: How to make them. With New Methods of sheeting Wax, +modelling Fruit, etc. Boston. J. E. Tilton & Co. 12mo. pp. 116. $1.50. + +The Bridal Eve. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Philadelphia. T. 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A Book of Consolations for the Sick, the Dying, and the +Bereaved. By Thomas Baldwin Thayer. Boston. Tompkins & Co. 12mo. pp. +272. $1.25. + +Naomi Torrento. The History of a Woman. By Gertrude F. De Vingut. New +York. John Bradburn. 8vo. pp. 275. $2.00. + +The Battle-Fields of our Fathers. By Virginia F. Townsend. New York. +John Bradburn. 12mo. pp. 368. $1.50. + +Precedents of American Neutrality, in Reply to the Speech of Sir +Roundell Palmer, Attorney-General of England, in the British House of +Commons, May 13, 1864. By George Bemis. Boston. Little, Brown, & Co. +8vo. paper. pp. viii., 83. 50 cents. + +Rhode Island in the Rebellion. By Edwin M. Stone, of the First Regiment +Rhode Island Light Artillery. Providence. George H. Whitney. 12mo. pp. +xxxviii., 398. + +The Coward. A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863. By Henry Morford. +Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 520. $2.00. + +The Dead Shot; or, Sportsman's Complete Guide: Being a Treatise on the +Use of the Gun, with Rudimentary and Finishing Lessons in the Art of +shooting Game of all Kinds, Pigeon-Shooting, Dog-Breaking, etc. By +Marksman. New York. W. A. Townsend. 16mo. pp. 282. $2.00. + +Overland Explorations in Siberia, Northern Asia, and the Great Amoor +River Country; Incidental Notices of Manchooria, Mongolia, Kamschatka, +and Japan, with Map and Plan of an Overland Telegraph around the World, +viâ Behring's Strait and Asiatic Russia to Europe. By Major Perry McD. +Collins, Commercial Agent of the United States of America for the Amoor +River, Asiatic Russia. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. iv., 467. + +Life with the Forty-Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers. By Henry T. Johns, +late Quartermaster's Clerk Forty-Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers. +Pittsfield. Published for the Author. 12mo. pp. 391. $1.25. + +Woman and her Era. By Eliza W. Farnham. New York. A. J. Davis & Co. +12mo. Two Vols. pp. 318, 466. $3.00. + +A Woman's Philosophy of Woman; or, Woman Affranchised. An Answer to +Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, Legouvé, Comte, and other Modern +Innovators. By Madame D'Héricourt. New York. G. W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. +317. $1.50. + +The New Internal Revenue Law, approved June 30, 1864, with Copious +Marginal References, a Complete Analytical Index, and Tables of +Taxation. Compiled by Horace E. Dresser. New York. D. Appleton & Co. +8vo. paper, pp. 122. 50 cents. + +Personal and Political Ballads. Arranged and edited by Frank Moore. New +York. G. P. Putnam. 32mo. pp. xvi., 368. $1.00. + +Enoch Arden, etc. By Alfred Tennyson, D. C. L., Poet-Laureate. Boston. +Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 204. $1.25. + +Dramatis Personæ. By Robert Browning. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. +pp. 262. $1.50. + +"Babble-Brook" Songs. By J. H. McNaughton. Boston. O. 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Boston. +Crosby & Nichols. 16mo. pp. 261. $1.00. + +The Cliff-Climbers; or, The Lone Home in the Himalayas. A Sequel to "The +Plant-Hunters." By Captain Mayne Reid, Author of "The Desert Home," "The +Boy-Hunters," etc., etc. With Illustrations. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. +83, September, 1864, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + +***** This file should be named 20350-8.txt or 20350-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/5/20350/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections). + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: January 13, 2007 [EBook #20350] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections). + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h4>THE</h4> + +<h1>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h1> + +<h2>A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.</h2> + +<h3>VOL. XIV.—SEPTEMBER, 1864.—NO. LXXXIII.</h3> + + +<p>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by <span class="smcap">Ticknor and +Fields</span>, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p>Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved +to the end of the article. Table of contents has been generated for the HTML version.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Contents</h2> +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#THE_CADMEAN_MADNESS"><b>THE CADMEAN MADNESS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_BRIDGE_OF_CLOUD"><b>THE BRIDGE OF CLOUD.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_ELECTRIC_GIRL_OF_LA_PERRIERE"><b>THE ELECTRIC GIRL OF LA PERRIÈRE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#LITERARY_LIFE_IN_PARIS"><b>LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_MASKERS"><b>THE MASKERS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CULLET"><b>CULLET.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#WHAT_WILL_BECOME_OF_THEM"><b>WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM?</b></a><br /> +<a href="#FORGOTTEN"><b>FORGOTTEN.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#WET-WEATHER_WORK"><b>WET-WEATHER WORK.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#REGULAR_AND_VOLUNTEER_OFFICERS"><b>REGULAR AND VOLUNTEER OFFICERS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_TOTAL_DEPRAVITY_OF_INANIMATE_THINGS"><b>THE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF INANIMATE THINGS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#WHAT_SHALL_WE_HAVE_FOR_DINNER"><b>WHAT SHALL WE HAVE FOR DINNER?</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BEFORE_VICKSBURG"><b>BEFORE VICKSBURG.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#OUR_VISIT_TO_RICHMOND"><b>OUR VISIT TO RICHMOND.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"><b>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS"><b>RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS</b></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_CADMEAN_MADNESS" id="THE_CADMEAN_MADNESS"></a>THE CADMEAN MADNESS.</h2> + + +<p>An old English divine fancied that all the world might go mad and nobody +know it. The conception suggests a query whether the standard of sanity, +as of fashions and prices, be not a purely artificial one, an accident +of convention, a law of society, an arbitrary institute, and therefore a +possible mistake. A sage and a maniac each thinks the other mad. The +decision is a matter of majorities. Should a whole community become +insane, it would nevertheless vote itself wise; if the craze of Bedlam +were uniform, its inmates could not distinguish it from a Pantheon; and +though all human history seemed to the gods only as a continuous series +of mediæval processions <i>des sots et des ânes</i>, yet the topsy-turvy +intellect of the world would ever worship folly in the name of wisdom. +Arts and sciences, ideas and institutions, laws and learning would still +abound, transmogrified to suit the reigning madness. And as statistics +reveal the late gradual and general increase of insanity, it becomes a +provident people to consider what may be the ultimate results, if this +increase should happen never to be checked. And if sanity be, indeed, a +glory which we might all lose unawares, we may well betake ourselves to +very solemn reflection as to whether we are, at the present moment, in +our wits and senses, or not.</p> + +<p>The peculiar proficiencies of great epochs are as astonishing as the +exploits of individual frenzy. The era of the Greek rhapsodists, when a +body of matchless epical literature was handed down by memory from +generation to generation, and a recitation of the whole "Odyssey" was +not too much for a dinner-party,—the era of Periclean culture, when the +Athenian populace was wont to pass whole days in the theatre, attending +with unfaltering intellectual keenness and æsthetic delight to three or +four long dramas, either of which would exhaust a modern audience,—the +wild and vast systems of imaginary abstractions, which the +Neo-Platonists, as also the German transcendentalists, so strangely +devised and became enamored of,—the grotesque views of men and things, +the funny universe altogether, which made up both the popular and the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>learned thought of the Middle Ages,—the Buddhistic Orient, with its +subtile metaphysical illusions, its unreal astronomical heavens, its +habits of repose and its tornadoes of passion,—such are instances of +great diversities of character, which would be hardly accountable to +each other on the supposition of mutual sanity. They suggest a +difference of ideas, moods, habits, and capacities, which in +contemporaries and associates would amply justify either party that +happened to be the majority in turning all the rest into insane asylums. +It is the demoniac element, the raving of some particular demon, that +creates greatness either in men or nations. Power is maniacal. A +mysterious fury, a heavenly inspiration, an incomprehensible and +irresistible impulse, goads humanity on to achievements. Every age, +every person, and every art obeys the wand of the enchanter. History +moves by indirections. The first historic tendency is likely to be +slightly askew; there follows then an historic triumph, then an historic +eccentricity, then an historic folly, then an explosion; and then the +series begins again. In the grade of folly, hard upon an explosion, lies +modern literature.</p> + +<p>The characteristic mania of the last two centuries is reading and +writing. Solomon discovered that much study is a weariness of the flesh; +Aristophanes complained of the multitude and indignity of authors in his +time; and the famed preacher, Geyler von Kaisersberg, in the age of +prevalent monkery and Benedictine plodding, mentioned erudition and +madness, on equal footing, as the twin results of books: "<i>Libri quosdam +ad scientiam, quosdam ad insaniam deduxere</i>." These were successive +symptoms of the growing malady. But where there was one writer in the +time of Geyler, there are a million now. He saw both health and disease, +and could distinguish between them. We see only the latter. Skill in +letters, half a decade of centuries ago, was a miraculous attainment, +and placed its possessor in the rank of divines and diviners; now, +inability to read and write is accounted, with pauperism and crime, a +ground for civil disfranchisement. The old feudal merry and hearty +ignorance has been everywhere corrupted by books and newspapers, +learning and intelligence, the cabalistic words of modern life. Popular +poetry and music, ballads and legends, wit and originality have +disappeared before the barbaric intellectuality of our Cadmean idolatry. +Even the arts of conversation and oratory are waning, and may soon be +lost; we live only in second and silent thoughts: for who will waste +fame and fortune by giving to his friends the gems which will delight +mankind? and how can a statesman grapple eloquently with Fate, when the +contest is not to be determined on the spot, but by quiet and remote +people coolly reading his speech several hours or days later? Even if we +were vagarying into imbecility, like the wildest Neo-Platonic +hierophants, like the monkish chroniclers of the Middle Ages, like other +romantic and fantastic theorists who have leaped out of human nature +into a purely artificial realm, we should not know it, because we are +all doing it uniformly.</p> + +<p>The universe is a veiled Isis. The human mind from immemorial antiquity +has ceased to regard it. A small cohort of alphabets has enrobed it with +a wavy texture of letters, beyond which we cannot penetrate. The glamour +is upon us, and when we would see the facts of Nature, we behold only +tracts of print. The God of the heavens and earth has hidden Himself +from us since we gave ourselves up to the worship of the false +divinities of Phoenicia. No longer can we admire the <i>cosmos</i>; for the +<i>cosmos</i> lies beyond a long perspective of theorems and propositions +that cross our eyes, like countless bees, from the alcoves of +philosophies and sciences. No longer do we bask in the beauty of things, +as in the sunlight; for when we would melt in feeling, we hear nothing +but the rattling of gems of verse. No longer does the mind, as +sympathetic priest and interpreter, hover amid the phenomena of time and +space; for the forms of Nature have given place to volumes, there are no +objects but pages, and passions have been supplanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> by paragraphs. We +no longer see the whirling universe, or feel the pulsing of life. +Thought itself has ceased to be a sprite, and flows through the mind +only in the leaden shape of printed sentences. The symbolism of letters +is over us all. An all-pervading nominalism has completely masked +whatsoever there is that is real. More and more it is not the soul and +Nature, but the eye and print, whose resultant is thought. Nature +disappears and the mind withers. No other faculty has been developed in +man but that of the reader, no other possibility but that of the writer. +The old-fashioned arts which used to imply human nature, which used to +blossom instinctively, which have given joy and beauty to society, are +fading from the face of the earth. Where are the ancient and mediæval +popular games, those charming vital symptoms? The people now read +Dickens and Longfellow. Where are the old-fashioned instincts of worship +and love, consolation and mourning? The people have since found an +antidote for these experiences in Blair and Tupper, and other authors of +renown. Where are those weird voices of the air and forest and stream, +those symptoms of an enchanted Nature, which used to thrill and bless +the soul of man? The duller ear of men has failed to hear them in this +age of popular science.</p> + +<p>Literature, using the word with a benevolent breadth of meaning which +excludes no pretenders, is the result of the invasion of letters. It is +the fort which they occupy, which with too hasty consideration has +usually been regarded as friendly to the human race. Religions, laws, +sciences, arts, theories, and histories, instead of passing Ariel-like +into the elements when their task is done, are made perpetual prisoners +in the alcoves of dreary libraries. They have a fossil immortality, +surviving themselves in covers, as poems have survived minstrels. The +memory of man is made omni-capacious; its burden increases with every +generation; not even the ignorance and stolidity of the past are allowed +the final grace of being forgotten; and omniscience is becoming at once +more and more impossible and more and more fashionable. Whoever reads +only the books of his own time is superficial in proportion to the +thickness of the ages. But neither the genius of man, nor his length of +days, has had an increase corresponding to that of the realm of +knowledge, the requirements of reading, and the conditions of +intelligence. The multiplied attractions only crowd and obstruct the +necessarily narrow line of duty, possibility, and destiny. Life +threatens to be extinguished by its own shadow, by the <i>débris</i> kept in +the current by countless tenacious records. Its essence escapes to +heaven or into new forms, but its ghosts still walk the earth in print. +Like that mythical serpent which advanced only as it grew in length, so +knowledge spans the whole length of the ages. Some philosopher conceived +of history as the migration and growth of reason throughout time, +culminating in successive historical ideas. He, however, supposed that +the idea of every age had nothing to do with any preceding age; it had +passed through whatsoever previous stages, had been somewhat modified by +them, contained in itself all that was best in them, was improved and +elevated at every new epoch; but it had no memory, never looked +backward, and was an ever rolling sphere, complete in itself, leaving no +trail behind. Human life, under the discipline of letters and common +schools, is not thus Hegelian, but advances under the boundless +retrospection of literature. And yet this is probably divine philosophy. +It is probable that the faculty of memory belongs to man only in an +immature state of development, and that in some future and happier epoch +the past will be known to us only as it lives in the present; and then +for the first time will Realism in life take the place of Nominalism.</p> + +<p>The largest library in the world, the Bibliothèque Impériale of Paris, +(it has been successively, like the adventurous and versatile throne of +France, Royale, Nationale, and Impériale,) contains very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> nearly one +million of books, the collected fruits of all time. Consider an average +book in that collection: how much human labor does it stand for? How +much capital was invested originally in its production, and how much +tribute of time and toil does it receive per annum? Regarding books as +intellectual estate, how much does it cost mankind to procure and keep +up an average specimen? What quantity of human resources has been +originally and consecutively sunk in the Parisian library? How much of +human time, which is but a span, and of human emotion and thought, which +are sacred and not to be carelessly thrown away, lie latent therein?</p> + +<p>The estimate must be highly speculative. Some books have cost a lifetime +and a heartbreak; others have been written at leisure in a week, and +without an emotion. Some are born from the martyrdom of a thinker to +fire the genius of a populace; others are the coruscations of joy, and +have a smile for their immortal heir. Some have made but the slightest +momentary ripple in human affairs; others, first gathering eddies about +themselves, have swept forward in grand currents, engrossing for +centuries whole departments of human energy. Thousands publish and are +forgotten before they die. Spinoza published after his death and is not +yet understood.</p> + +<p>We will begin with the destined bibliomacher at the time of his +assumption of short clothes. The alphabet is his first professional +torture, and that only ushers him upon the gigantic task of learning to +read and write his own language. Experience shows that this miracle of +memory and associative reason may be in the main accomplished by the +time he is eight years old. Thus far in his progress towards book-making +he has simply got his fingers hold of the pen. He has next to run the +gauntlet of the languages, sciences, and arts, to pass through the epoch +of the scholar, with satchel under his arm, with pale cheek, an eremite +and ascetic in the religion of Cadmus. At length, at about twenty years +of age, he leaves the university, not a master, but a bachelor of +liberal studies. But thus far he has laid only the foundation, has +acquired only rudiments and generalities, has only served his +apprenticeship to letters. God gave mind and nature, but art has +furnished him a new capacity and a new world,—the capacity to read, and +the world of books. He has simply acquired a new nature, a psychological +texture of letters, but the artificial <i>tabula rasa</i> has yet to be +filled. Twenty obstetrical years have at last made him a literary +animal, have furnished him the abstract conditions of authorship; but he +has yet his life to save, and his fortune to make in literature. He is +born into the mystic fraternity of readers and writers, but the special +studies and experiences which fit him for anything, which make a book +possible, are still in the future. He will be fortunate, if he gets +through with them, and gets his first volume off his hands by the age of +thirty. Authors are the shortest-lived of men. Their average years are +less than fifty. Our bibliomacher has therefore twenty years left to +him. Taking all time together, since formerly authors wrote less +abundantly than now, he will not produce more than one work in five +years, that is, five works in his lifetime of fifty years. The +conclusion to which this rather precarious investigation thus brings us +is, that the original cost of an average book is ten years of a human +life. And yet these ten years make but the mere suggestion of the book. +The suggestion must be developed by an army of printers, sellers, and +librarians. What other institution in the world is there but the +Bibliothèque Impériale, to the mere suggestion of which ten millions of +laborious years have been devoted?</p> + +<p>Startling considerations present themselves. If there were no other +<i>argumentum ad absurdum</i> to demonstrate some fundamental perversity and +absurdity in literature, it might be suspected from the fact that Nature +herself gives so little encouragement to it. Nobody is born an author. +The art of writing, common as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> it is, is not indigenous in man, but is +acquired by a nearly universal martyrdom of youth. If it had been +providentially designed that the function of any considerable portion of +mankind should have been to write books, we cannot suppose that an +economical Deity would have failed to create them with innate skill in +language, general knowledge, and penmanship. These accomplishments have +to be learned by every writer, yet writers are numberless. They are +mysteries which must be painfully encountered by every one at the +vestibule of the temple of literature, which nevertheless is thronged. +Surely, had this importance and prevalence been attached to them in the +Divine scheme, they would have been born in us like the senses, or would +blossom spontaneously in us, like the corollal growths of Faith and +Conscience. We should have been created in a condition of literary +capacity, and thus have been spared the alphabetical torture of +childhood, and the academic depths of philological despair. Twenty-five +years of preliminaries might have been avoided by changing the peg in +the scale of creation, and the studies of the boy might have begun where +now they end. Twenty-five years in the span of life would thus have been +saved, had what must be a universal acquirement been incorporated into +the original programme of human nature.</p> + +<p>Or had the Deity appreciated literature as we do, He would probably have +written out the universe in some snug little volume, some miniature +series, or some boundless Bodleian, instead of unfolding it through +infinite space and time, as an actual, concrete, unwritten reality. Be +creation a single act or an eternal process, it would have been all a +thing of books. The Divine Mind would have revealed itself in a library, +instead of in the universe. As for men, they would have existed only in +treatises on the mammalia. There are some specimens which we hardly +think are according to any anticipation of heavenly reason, and +therefore they would not have existed at all. Nothing would have been +but God and literature. Possibly a responsible creation like ours might +have been formed, nevertheless, by making each letter a living, +thinking, moral agent; and the alphabet might thus have written out the +Divine ideas, as men now work them out. If the conception seem to any +one chilly, if it have a dreary look, if it appear to leave only a +frosty metallic base, instead of the grand oceanic effervescence of +life, let him remember how often earthly authors have renounced living +realities, all personal sympathies and pleasures, communing only with +books, their minds dwelling apart from men. Remember Tasso and Southey; +ay, if you have yourself written a book that commands admiration, +remember what it cost you. Why hesitate to transfer to the skies a type +of life which we admire here below? But God having wrought out instead +of written out His thoughts, does it not appear that He designed for men +to do likewise?</p> + +<p>And thus a new consideration is presented. The exhibit of the original +cost of the Bibliothèque Impériale was the smallest item in our budget. +Mark the history of a book. How variously it engrosses the efforts of +the world, from the time when it first rushes into the arena of life! +The industry of printing embodies it, the energy of commerce disperses +it, the army of critics announce it, the world of readers give their +days and nights to it generation after generation, and its echoes +uninterruptedly repeat themselves along the infinite procession of +writers. The process reverts with every new edition, and eddies mingle +with eddies in the motley march of history. Its story may be traced in +martyrdoms of the flesh, in weary hours, strange experiences, unhappy +tempers, restless struggles, unrequited triumphs,—in the glare of +midnight lamps, and of wild, haggard eyes,—in sorrow, want, desolation, +despair, and madness. Born in sorrow, the book trails a pathway of +sorrow through the ages. And each book in the Parisian library stands +for all this,—some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> that were produced with tears having been always +read for jest,—some that were lightly written being now severe tasks +for historians, antiquaries, and source-mongers.</p> + +<p>Suppose an old Egyptian, who in primæval Hierapolis incased his thought +in papyrus, to be able now to take a stroll into the Bibliothèque, and +to see what has become of his thought so far as there represented. He +would find that it had haunted mankind ever since. An alcove would be +filled with commentaries on it, and discussions as to where it came from +and what it meant. He would find it modifying and modified by the +Greeks, and reproduced by them with divers variations,—extinguished by +Christianity,—revived, with a new face, among the theurgies and cabala +of Alexandria; he would catch the merest glimpse of it amid the +Christian legends and credulities of the Middle Ages,—but the Arabs +would have kept a stronger hold on it; he would see it in the background +after the revival of learning, till, gradually, as modern commerce +opened the East, scholars, also, discovered that there were wonders +behind the classic nations; and finally he would see how modern +research, rushing back through comparison of language-roots, through +geological data, through ethnological indications, through antiquarian +discoveries, has rooted out of the layers of ages all the history +attendant upon its original production. He would find the records of +this long history in the library around him. In every age, the thought, +born of pain, has been reproduced with travail. It did not do its +mission at once, penetrate like a ray of light into the heart of the +race, and leave a chemical effect which should last forever. No, the +blood of man's spirit was not purified,—only an external application +was made, and that application must be repeated with torture upon every +generation. Was this designed to be the function of thought, the mission +of heavenly ideas?</p> + +<p>This is the history of his thought in books. But let us conceive what +might have been its history but for the books;—how it might have been +written in the fibres of the soul, and lived in eternal reason, instead +of having been written on papyrus and involved in the realm of dead +matter. His idea, thrilling his own soul, would have revealed itself in +every particle and movement of his body; for "soul is form, and doth the +body make." Its first product would have been his own quivering, +animated, and animating personality. He would have impressed every one +of his associates, every one of whom would in turn have impressed a new +crowd, and thus the immortal array of influences would have gone on. Not +impressions on parchment, but impressions on the soul, not letters, but +thrills, would have been its result. Thus the magic of personal +influence of all kinds would have radiated from it in omnipresent and +colliding circlets forever, as the mighty imponderable agents are +believed to radiate from some hidden focal force. He would trace his +idea in the massive architecture and groping science of Egypt,—in the +elegant forms of worship, thought, institutes, and life among the +Greeks,—in the martial and systematizing genius of Rome,—and so on +through the ecclesiastical life of the Middle Ages, and the political +and scientific ambitions of modern times. Its operations have everywhere +been chemical, not mechanical. It has lived, not in the letter, but in +the spirit. Never dropping to the earth, it has been maintained as a +shuttlecock in spiritual regions by the dynamics of the soul. It has +wrought itself into the soul, the only living and immortal thing, and so +the proper place for ideas. Its mode of transmission has been by the +suffusion of the eye, the cheek, the lip, the manner, not by dead and +unsymbolical letters. It has had life, and not merely duration. It has +been perpetuated in cordate, not in dactylate characters. Its history +must not be sought away from the circle of life, but may be seen in the +current generation of men. The man whom you should meet on the street +would be the product of all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> ideas and influences from the +foundation of the world, and his slightest act would reveal them all +vital within him. The libraries, which form dead recesses in the river +of life, would thus be swept into and dissolved in the current, and the +waters would have been deepened and colored by their dissolution. +Libraries are a sort of <i>débris</i> of the world, but the spiritual +substance of them would thus enter into the organism of history. All the +last results of time would come to us, not through books, but through +the impressions of daily life. Whatsoever was unworthy to be woven into +the fibres of the soul would be overwhelmed by that oblivion which +chases humanity; all the time wasted in the wrong-headedness of +archæology would be saved; for there would be nothing of the past except +its influence on the immediate present, and nothing but the pure human +ingot would finally be left of the long whirlings in the crucible of +history. Some one has said that all recent literature is one gigantic +plagiarism from the past. Why plagiarize with toil the toils of the +past, when all that is good in them lives, necessarily and of its own +tendency, in the winged and growing spirit of man? The stream flows in a +channel, and is colored by all the ores of its banks, but it would be +absurd for it to attempt to take the channel up and carry it along with +itself out into the sea. Why should the tinted water of life attempt to +carry along with it not only the tint, but also the bank, ages back, +from which the tint proceeds?</p> + +<p>As the world goes on, the multitude of books increases. They grow as +grows the human race,—but, unlike the human race, they have a material +immortality here below. Fossil books, unlike fossil rocks, have a power +of reproduction. Every new year leaves not only a new inheritance, but +generally a larger one than ever before. What is to be the result? The +ultimate prospect is portentous. If England has produced ten thousand +volumes of fiction (about three thousand new novels) during the last +forty years, how many books of all kinds has Christendom to answer for +in the same period? If the British Museum makes it a point to preserve a +copy of everything that is published, how long will it be before the +whole world will not be sufficient to contain the multitude thereof? At +present all the collections of the Museum, books, etc., occupy only +forty acres on the soil, and an average of two hundred feet towards the +sky. But even these outlines indicate a block of space which under +geometrical increase would in the shortest of geological periods make a +more complete conquest of the earth than has ever been made by fire or +water. To say nothing of the sorrows of the composition of these new +literary stores, how is man, whose years are threescore-and-ten, going +to read them? Surely the green earth will be transformed into a +wilderness of books, and man, reduced from the priest and interpreter of +Nature to a bookworm, will be like the beasts which perish.</p> + +<p>The eye of fancy lately witnessed in a dream the vision of an age far in +the future. The surface of the earth was covered with lofty rectangles, +built up coral-like from small rectangles. There was neither tree nor +herb nor living creature. Walled paths, excavated ruts, alone broke the +desert-like prospect, as the burrows of life. Penetrating into these, +the eye saw men walking beneath the striated piles, with heads bent +forward and nervous fingering of brow. There the whole world, such as we +have known it, was buried beneath volumes, past all enumeration. There +was neither fauna nor flora, neither wilderness, tempest, nor any +familiar look of Nature, but only one boundless contiguity of books. +There was only man and space and one unceasing library, and the men +neither ate nor slept nor spoke. Nature was transformed into the +processes and products of writing, and man was now no longer lover, +friend, peasant, merchant, naturalist, traveller, gourmet, mechanic, +warrior, worshipper, but only an author. All other faculties had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> +lost to him, and all resources for anything else had fled from his +universe. Anon some wrinkled, fidgety, cogitative being in human form +would add a new volume to some slope or tower of the monstrous +omni-patulent mass, or some sharp-glancing youth, with teeth set +unevenly on edge, would pull out a volume, look greedily and +half-believingly for a few moments, return it, and slink away. "What is +this world, and what means this life?" cried I, addressing an old man, +who had just tossed a volume aloft. "Where are we, and what about this? +Tell me, for I have not before seen and do not know." He glanced a +moment, then spoke, like a shade in hell, as follows:—"This is the +world, and here is human life. Man long enjoyed it, with wonderful +fulness and freshness of being. But a madness seized him; everybody +wrote books; the evil grew more and more; nought else was an object of +pursuit; till at last the earth was covered with tomes, and for long +ages now it has been buried beyond the reach of mortal. All forms of +life were exterminated. Man himself survives only as a literary shadow. +Each one writes a book, or a few books, and dies, vanishing into thin +air. Such is life,—a hecatomb!"</p> + +<p>But even if it be supposed that mind could survive the toil, and the +earth the quantity of our accumulating books, there are other +difficulties. There are other imperative limitations, beyond which the +art of writing cannot go. Letters themselves limit the possibilities of +literature. For there is only a certain number of letters. These letters +are capable of only a certain number of combinations into words. This +limited number of possible words is capable only of a certain number of +arrangements. Conceive the effect when all these capabilities shall be +exhausted! It will no longer be possible for a new thing to be said or +written. We shall have only to select and repeat from the past. Writing +shall be reduced to the making of extracts, and speaking to the making +of quotations. Yet the condition of things would certainly be improved. +As there is now a great deal of writing without thinking, so then +thinking could go on without writing. A man would be obliged to think +out and up to his result, as we do now; but whether his processes and +conclusions were wise or foolish, he would find them written out for him +in advance. The process of selection would be all. The immense amount of +writing would cease. Authors would be extinct. Thinkers could find their +ideas stated in the best possible way, and the most effective arguments +in their favor. If this event seems at all unlikely to any one, let him +only reflect on the long geological ages, and on the innumerable +writings, short and long, now published daily,—from Mr. Buckle to the +newspapers. Estimate everything in type daily throughout Christendom. If +so much is done in a day, how much in a few decades of centuries? +Surely, at our present rate, in a very conceivable length of time, the +resources of two alphabets would be exhausted. And this may be the +reason and providence in the amount of writing now going on,—to get +human language written up. The earth is as yet not half explored, and +its cultivation and development, in comparison with what shall some time +be, have scarcely begun. Will not the race be blessed, when its two +mortal foes, Nature and the alphabet, have been finally and forever +subdued?</p> + +<p>This necessary finiteness of literature may be illustrated in another +way. An English mathematician of the seventeenth century applied the +resources of his art to an enumeration of human ideas. He believed that +he could calculate with rigorous exactness the number of ideas of which +the human mind is susceptible. This number, according to him, (and he +has never been disputed,) was 3,155,760,000. Even if we allowed +a million of words to one idea, according to our present +practice,—instead of a single word to an idea, which would seem +reasonable,—still, all the possible combinations of words and ideas +would finally be exhausted. The ideas would give out, to be sure, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +million of times before the words; but the latter would meet their doom +at last. All possible ideas would then be served up in all possible ways +for all men, who could order them according to their appetites, and we +could dispense with cooks ever after. The written word would be the +finished record of all possible worlds, in gross and in detail.</p> + +<p>But the problem whose solution has thus been attempted by desperate +suggestions has, by changing its elements, nullified our calculation. We +have been plotting to cast out the demon of books; and, lo! three other +kindred demons of quarterlies, monthlies, and newspapers have joined +fellowship with it, and our latter estate is worse than our first. +Indeed, we may anticipate the speedy fossilization and extinction of +books, while these younger broods alone shall occupy the earth. Our +libraries are already hardly more than museums, they will soon be +<i>mausoleums</i>, while all our reading is of the winged words of the +hurried contributor. Some of the most intelligent and influential men in +large cities do not read a book once a year. The Cadmean magic has +passed from the hands of hierophants into those of the people. +Literature has fallen from the domain of immortal thought to that of +ephemeral speech, from the conditions of a fine to those of a mechanical +art. The order of genius has been abolished by an all-prevailing popular +opinion. The elegance and taste of patient culture have been vulgarized +by forced contact with the unpresentable facts thrust upon us by the +ready writer. Everybody now sighs for the new periodical, while nobody +has read the literature of any single age in any single country.</p> + +<p>How like mountain-billows of barbarism do the morning journals, reeking +with unkempt facts, roll in upon the peaceful thought of the soul! How +like savage hordes from some remote star, some nebulous chaos, that has +never yet been recognized in the cosmical world, do they trample upon +the organic and divine growths of culture, laying waste the well-ordered +and fairly adorned fields of the mind, demolishing the intellectual +highways which great engineering thinkers have constructed within us, +and reducing a domain in which poetry and philosophy, with their sacred +broods, dwelt gloriously together, to an undistinguishable level of +ruin! How helpless are we before a newspaper! We sit down to it a highly +developed and highly civilized being; we leave it a barbarian. Step by +step, blow by blow, has everything that was nobly formed within us been +knocked down, and we are made illustrations of the atomic theory of the +soul, every atom being a separate savage, after the social theory of +Hobbes. We are crazed by a multitudinousness of details, till the eye +sees no picture, the ear hears no music, the taste finds no beauty, and +the reason grasps no system. The only wonder is that the diabolical +invention of Faust or Gutenberg has not already transformed the growths +of the mind into a fauna and flora of perdition.</p> + +<p>It was a sad barbarism when men ran wild with their own impulses, unable +to control the fierceness of instinct. It is a sadder barbarism when men +yield to every impulse from without, with no imperial dignity in the +soul, which closes the apartments against the violence of the world and +frowns away unseemly intruders. We have no spontaneous enthusiasm, no +spiritual independence, no inner being, obedient only to its own law. We +do not plough the billows of time with true beak and steady weight, but +float, a tossed cork, now one side up and now the other. We live the +life of an insect accidentally caught within a drum. Every steamer that +comes hits the drum a beat; every telegram taps it; it echoes with every +representative's speech, reverberates with every senator's more portly +effort, screams at every accident. Everything that is done in the +universe seems to be done only to make a noise upon it. Every morning, +whatsoever thing has been changed, and whatsoever thing has been +unchanged, during<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> the night, comes up to batter its report on the +omni-audient tympanum of the universe, the drum-head of the press. And +then we are inside of it. It may be music to the gods who dwell beyond +the blue ether, but it is terrible confusion to us.</p> + +<p>Virgil exhausted the resources of his genius in his portraiture of +Fame:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Fama, malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Parva metu primo; mox sese attollit in auras,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">*** *** *** ***<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tot linguæ, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit aures.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nocte volat cœli medio terræque per umbram<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stridens, nec dulci declinat lumina somno."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>What would he have done, had he known our modern monster, the +alphabet-tongued, steel-sinewed, kettle-lunged Rumor? It is a sevenfold +horror. The Virgilian Fame was not a mechanical, but a living thing; it +grew as it ran; it at least gave a poetical impression. Its story grew +as legends grow, full to the brim of the instincts of the popular +genius. It left its traces as it passed, and the minds of all who saw +and heard rested in delightful wonder till something new happened. But +the fact which printed Rumor throws through the atmosphere is coupled +not with, the beauty of poetry, but with the madness of dissertation. +Everybody is not only informed that the Jackats defeated the Magnats on +the banks of the Kaiger on the last day of last week, but this news is +conveyed to them in connection with a series of revelations about the +relations of said fact to the universe. The primordial germ is not +poetical, but dissertational. It tends to no organic creation, but to +any abnormal and multitudinous display of suggestions, hypotheses, and +prophecies. The item is shaped as it passes, not by the hopes and fears +of the soul, but grows by accumulation of the dull details of prose. We +have neither the splendid bewilderments of the twelfth, nor the cold +illumination of the eighteenth century, but bewilderments without +splendor, and coldness without illumination. The world is too wide-awake +for thought,—the atmosphere is too bright for intellectual +achievements. We have the wonders and sensations of a day; but where are +the fathomless profundities, the long contemplations, and the silent +solemnities of life? The newspapers are marvels of mental industry. They +show how much work can be done in a day, but they never last more than a +day. Sad will it be when the genius of ephemerality has invaded all +departments of human actions and human motives! Farewell then to deep +thoughts, to sublime self-sacrifice, to heroic labors for lasting +results! Time is turned into a day, the mind knows only momentary +impressions, the weary way of art is made as short as a turnpike, and +the products of genius last only about as long as any mood of the +weather. Bleak and changeable March will rule the year in the +intellectual heavens.</p> + +<p>What symbol could represent this matchless embodiment of all the +activities, this tremendous success, this frenzied public interest? A +monster so large, and yet so quick,—so much bulk combined with so much +readiness,—reaching so far, and yet striking so often! Who can conceive +that productive state of mind in which some current fact is all the time +whirling the universe about it? Who can understand the mania of the +leader-writer, who never thinks of a subject without discovering the +possibility of a column concerning it,—who never looks upon his plate +of soup without mentally reviewing in elaborate periods the whole +vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms?</p> + +<p>But what is the advantage of newspapers? Forsooth, popular intelligence. +The newspaper is, in the first place, the legitimate and improved +successor of the fiery cross, beacon-light, signal-smoking summit, +hieroglyphic mark, and bulletin-board. It is, in addition to this, a +popular daily edition and application<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> of the works of Aristotle, St. +Thomas Aquinas, Lord Bacon, Vattel, and Thomas Jefferson. On one page it +records items, on the other it shows the relations between those items +and the highest thought. Yet the whole circle is accomplished daily. The +journal is thus the synopticized, personified, incarnate madness of the +day,—for to-day is always mad, and becomes a thing of reason only when +it becomes yesterday. A proper historical fact is one of the rarest +shots in the journalist's bag, as time is sure to prove. If we had +newspaper-accounts of the age of Augustus, the chances are that no other +epoch in history would be so absolutely problematical, and Augustus +himself would be lucky, if he were not resolved into a myth, and the +journal into sibylline oracles. The dissertational department is equally +faulty; for to first impressions everything on earth is chameleon-like. +The Scandinavian Divinities, the Past, the Present, and the Future, +could look upon each other, but neither of them upon herself. But in the +journal the Present is trying to behold itself; the same priestess +utters and explains the oracle. Thus the journal is the immortal +reproduction of the <i>jour des dupes</i>. The editors are like the newsboys, +shouting the news which they do not understand.</p> + +<p>The public mind has given itself up to it. It claims the right to +pronounce all the newspapers very bad, but has renounced the privilege +of not reading them. Every one is made <i>particeps criminis</i> in the +course of events. Nothing takes place in any quarter of the globe +without our assistance. We have to connive at <i>omne scibile</i>. About +everything natural and human, infernal and divine, there is a general +consultation of mankind, and we are all made responsible for the result. +Yet this constant interruption of our private intellectual habits and +interests is both an impertinence and a nuisance. Why send us all the +crudities? Why call upon us till you know what you want? Why speak till +you have got your brain and your mouth clear? Why may we not take the +universe for granted when we get up in the morning, instead of +proceeding directly to measure it over again? Once a year is often +enough for anybody but the government to hear anything about India, +China, Patagonia, and the other flaps and coat-tails of the world. Let +the North Pole never be mentioned again till we can melt the icebergs by +a burning mirror before we start. Don't report another asteroid till the +number reaches a thousand; that will be time enough for us to change our +peg. Let us hear nothing of the small speeches, but Congress may publish +once a week a bulletin of what it has done. The President and Cabinet +may publish a bulletin, not to exceed five lines, twice a week, or on +rare occasions and in a public emergency once a day. The right, however, +shall be reserved to the people to prohibit the Cabinet from saying +anything more aloud on a particular public question, till they have +settled it. Let no mail-steamer pass between here and Europe oftener +than once a month,—let all other steamers be forbidden to bring news, +and the utterance of news by passengers be treated either as a public +libel or nuisance, or as high treason. Leave the awful accidents to the +parties whom they concern, and don't trouble us, unless they have the +merit of novelty as well as of horror. Tell us only the highest facts, +the boldest strokes, the critical moments of daily chaos, and save us +from multitudinous nonsense.</p> + +<p>There are some things which we like to keep out of the +newspapers,—whose dignity is rather increased by being saved from them. +There are certain momentary and local interests which have become shy of +the horn of the reporter. The leading movements in politics, the +advanced guard of scientific and artistic achievement, the most +interesting social phenomena rather increase than diminish their +importance by currency in certain circles instead of in the press. The +prestige of some events in metropolitan cities, a marriage or a party, +depends on their social repute, and they are ambitiously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> kept out of +the journalist's range. Moreover, in politics, a few leading men meet +together for consultation, and——but the mysteries of political +strategy are unknown here. Certainly the journalist has great influence +in them, but the clubs are centres of information and discussions of a +character and interest to which all that newspapers do is second-rate. +Science has never been popularized directly by the newspapers, but the +erudition of a <i>savant</i> reaches to the people by creating an atmospheric +change, in which task the journals may have their influence. Rightly or +wrongly, the administration in civil affairs at Washington has not +listened to the press much, but it may be different when a new election +approaches. The social, political, scientific, and military Dii Majores +all depend on the journal for a part of their daily breakfast, but all +soar above it.</p> + +<p>A well-known and rather startling story describes a being, which seems +to have been neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, which a man made out of the +elements, by the use of his hands, and by the processes of chemistry, +and which at the last galvanic touch rushed forth from the laboratory, +and from the horrified eyes of its creator, an independent, scoffing, +remorseless, and inevitable enemy of him to whose rash ingenuity it owed +its origin.</p> + +<p>Such a creature symbolizes some of our human arts and initiations. Once +organized by genius and consecrated by precedent, they become mighty +elements in history, revelling amid the wealthy energy of life, +exhausting the forces of the intellect, clipping the tendrils of +affection, becoming colossal in the architecture of society and dorsal +in its traditions, and tyrannizing with the heedless power of an +element, to the horror of the pious soul which called it into existence, +over all departments of human activity. Such an art, having passed a +period of tameless and extravagant dominance, at length becomes a +fossil, and is regarded only as an evidence of social upheaving in a +remote and unaccountable age.</p> + +<p>To charge such a creature with monstrosity during the period of its +power is simply to expose one's self to popular jeers. Having immense +respect for majorities in this country, we only venture obscurely to +hint, that, of all arts, none before has ever been so threatening, +curious, and fascinating a monster as that of printing. We merely +suggest the hypothesis, novel since some centuries, that old Faustus and +Gutenberg were as much inspired by the Evil One as they have been fabled +to be, when they carved out of a mountain of ore the instrument yclept +type, to completely exhaust the possibilities of which is of late +announced as the sum of human destiny. They lived under the +hallucination of dawning literature, when printed books implied sacred +and classical perfection; and they could by no means have foreseen the +royal folios of the "New York Herald" and "Tribune," or the marvellous +inanities about the past, present, and future, which figure in an +indescribable list of duodecimo fiction, theology, and popular science.</p> + +<p>But there is nothing so useless as to protest against a universal +fashion. Every epoch must work out its own problem in its own way; and +it may be that it is appointed unto mankind to work through all possible +mistakes as the condition of finally attaining the truth. The only way +is, to encourage the spirit of every age, to hurry on the climax. The +practical <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> and consequent explosion will soon +accomplish themselves.</p> + +<p>But a more palpable reason against protesting is, that literature in its +different branches, now as ever, commands the services of the finest +minds. It is the literary character, of which the elder Disraeli has +written the natural history, which now as ever creates the books, the +magazines, the newspapers. That sanctified bookworm was the first to +codify the laws, customs, habits, and idiosyncrasies of literary men. He +was the Justinian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> of the life of genius. He wandered in abstraction +through the deserted alcoves of libraries, studying and creating the +political economy of thought. What long diversities of character, what +mysterious realms of experience, what wild waywardness of heavenly +endowments, what heroism of inward struggle, what shyness towards +society, what devotion to the beckoning ideal of art, what defeats and +what triumphs, what sufferings and joys, both in excess, were revealed +by him, the great political economist of genius! In his apostolic view, +genius alone consecrated literature, and made a literary life sacred. +Genius was to him that peculiar and spontaneous devotion to letters +which made its possessor indifferent to everything else. For a man +without this heavenly stamp to engage in literature was simply for him +to rush upon his fate, and become a public nuisance. Literature in its +very nature is precarious, and must be plucked from the brink of fate, +from the mouth of the dragon. The literary man runs the risk of being +destroyed in a thousand ways. He has no track laid, no instituted aids, +no specified course of action. The machineries of life are not for him. +He enters into no one of the departments of human routine. He has no +relations with the course of the dull world; he is not quite a man, as +the world goes, and not at all an angel, as the celestials see. He must +be his own motive, path, and guide, his own priest, king, and law. The +world may be his footstool, and may be his slough of despond, but is +never his final end. His aims are transcendental, his realm is art, his +interests ideal, his life divine, his destiny immortal. All the old +theories of saintship are revived in him. He is in the world, but not of +it. Shadows of infinitude are his realities. He sees only the starry +universe, and the radiant depths of the soul. Martyrdom may desolate, +but cannot terrify him. If he be a genius, if his soul crave only his +idea, and his body fare unconsciously well on bread and water, then his +lot is happy, and fortune can present no ills which will not shrink +before his burning eye. But if he be less than this, he is lost, the +sport of devouring elements. As he fights fate on the border of ruin, so +much the more should he be animated by courage, ambition, pride, +purpose, and faith. To him literature is a high adventure, and +impossible as a profession. A profession is an instituted department of +action, resting upon universal and constant needs, and paying regular +dividends. But the fine arts must in their nature be lawless. +Appointments cannot be made for them any more than for the +thunder-storms which sweep the sky. They die when they cease to be wild. +Literary life, at its best, is a desperate play, but it is with guineas, +and not with coppers, to all who truly play it. Its elements would not +be finer, were they the golden and potent stars of alchemistic and +astrological dreams.</p> + +<p>Such was genius, and such was literature, in the representation of their +first great lawgiver. But the world has changed. The sad story of the +calamities of authors need not be repeated. We live in the age of +authors triumphant. By swiftly succeeding and countless publications +they occupy the eye of the world, and achieve happiness before their +death. The stratagems of literature mark no longer a struggle between +genius and the bailiffs. What was once a desperate venture is now a +lucrative business. What was once a martyrdom is now its own reward. +What once had saintly unearthliness is now a powerful motor among +worldly interests. What was once the fatality of genius is now the +aspiration of fools. The people have turned to reading, and have become +a more liberal patron than even the Athenian State, monastic order, or +noble lord. No longer does the literary class wander about the streets, +gingerbread in its coat-pockets, and rhymes written on scraps of paper +from the gutter in its waistcoat-pockets. No longer does it unequally +compete with clowns and jockeys for lordly recognition. No longer are +the poet and the fool court-rivals. No longer does it look forward to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> +the jail as an occasional natural resting-place and paradise. No longer +must the author renounce the rank and robe of a gentleman to fall from +airy regions far below the mechanical artists to the level of +clodhoppers, even whose leaden existence was a less precarious matter. +The order of scholars has ceased to be mendicant, vagabond, and eremite. +It no longer cultivates blossoms of the soul, but manufactures objects +of barter. Now is the happy literary epoch, when to be intellectual and +omniscient is the public and private duty of every man. To read +newspapers by the billion and books by the million is now the common +law. We can conceive of Disraeli moaning that the Titan interests of the +earth have overthrown the celestial hierarchy,—that the realm of genius +has been stormed by worldly workers,—that literature, like the angels, +has fallen from its first estate,—and that authors, no longer the +disinterested and suffering apostles, of art, have chosen rather to bear +the wand of power and luxury than to be inspired. We can imagine his +horror at the sacrilegious vulgarization of print, that people without +taste rush into angelic metre, that dunces and sages thrive together on +the public indiscrimination. How would he marvel to see literary +reputations born, grow old, and die within a season, the owners thereof +content to be damned or forgotten eternally for a moment's incense or an +equally fugitive shilling. Nectar and ambrosia mean to them only +meanness, larceny, sacrilege, and bread and butter.</p> + +<p>And yet, notwithstanding the imaginary reproaches of our great literary +church-father, the most preciously endowed minds are still toiling in +letters. The sad and tortured devotion of genius still works itself out +in them. Writing is now a marvellous craft and industry. The books which +last, the books of a season, the quarterlies, monthlies, weeklies, +dailies, and even the hourlies, are among the institutions of its +fostering. Nor should that vehicle, partly of intelligence, but chiefly +of sentiment, the postal system, be unmentioned, which men and women +both patronize, each after their kind. Altogether, perhaps, in some way +or other, seven-eighths of the life of man is taken up by the Cadmean +Art. The whole fair domain of learning belongs to it; for nowhere now, +in garden, grove, or Stoical Porch, with only the living voices of man +and Nature, do students acquaint themselves with the joyous solemnities, +the mysterious certainties of thought. The mind lives in a universe of +type. There is no other art in which so desperate adventures are made. +Indeed, the normal mental state of the abundant writer is a marvellous +phenomenon. The literary faculty is born of the marriage of chronic +desperation with chronic trust. This may account in part for that +peculiar condition of mind which is both engendered and required by +abundant writing. A bold abandon, a desperate guidance, a thoughtless +ratiocination, a mechanical swaying of rhetoric, are the grounds of +dissertation. A pause for a few days, a visit to the country, anything +that would seem designed to restore the mind to its normal state, +destroys the faculty. The weary penman, who wishes his chaotic head +could be relieved by being transformed even as by Puck, knows that very +whirling chaos is the condition of his multitudinous periods. It seems +as if some special sluices of the soul must be opened to force the pen. +One man, on returning to his desk from a four weeks' vacation, took up +an unfinished article which he had left, and marvelled that such writing +should ever have proceeded from him. He could hardly understand it, +still less could he conceive of the mental process by which he had once +created it. That process was a sort of madness, and the discipline of +newspapers is inflicting it alike upon writers and readers. +Demoralization is the result of a life-long devotion to the maddening +rumors of the day. It takes many a day to recall that fierce caprice, as +of an Oriental despot, with which he watches the tiger-fights of ideas, +and strikes off periods, as the tyrant strikes off heads.</p> + +<p>And while no other art commands so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> universal homage, no other is so +purely artificial, so absolutely unsymbolical. The untutored mind sees +nothing in a printed column. A library has no natural impressiveness. It +is not in the shape of anything in this world of infinite beauty. The +barbarians of Omri destroyed one without a qualm. They have occupied +apartments in seraglios, but the beauties have never feared them as +rivals. Of all human employments, writing is the farthest removed from +any touch of Nature. It is at most a symbolism twice dead and buried. +The poetry in it lies back of a double hypothesis. Supposing the +original sounds to have once been imitations of the voices of Nature, +those sounds have now run completely away from what they once +represented; and supposing that letters were once imitations of natural +signs, they have long since lost the resemblance, and have become +independent entities. Whatever else is done by human artifice has in it +some relic of Nature, some touch of life. Painting copies to the eye, +music charms the ear, and all the useful arts have something of the +aboriginal way of doing things about them. Even speech has a living +grace and power, by the play of the voice and eye, and by the billowy +flushes of the countenance. Mental energy culminates in its modulations, +while the finest physical features combine to make them a consummate +work of art. But all the musical, ocular, and facial beauties are absent +from writing. The savage knows, or could quickly guess, the use of the +brush or chisel, the shuttle or locomotive, but not of the pen. Writing +is the only dead art, the only institute of either gods or men so +artificial that the natural mind can discover nothing significant in it.</p> + +<p>For instance, take one of the disputed statements of the Nicene Creed, +examine it by the nicest powers of the senses, study it upwards, +downwards, and crosswise, experiment to learn if it has any mysterious +chemical forces in it, consider its figures in relation to any +astrological positions, to any natural signs of whirlwinds, tempests, +plagues, famine, or earthquakes, try long to discover some hidden +symbolism in it, and confess finally that no man unregenerate to +letters, by any <i>a priori</i> or empirical knowledge, could have at all +suspected that a bit of dirty parchment, with an ecclesiastical scrawl +upon it, would have power to drive the currents of history, inspire +great national passions, and impel the wars and direct the ideas of an +epoch. The conflicts of the iconoclasts can be understood even by a +child in its first meditations over a picture-book; hieroglyphics may +represent or suggest their objects by some natural association; but the +literary scrawl has a meaning only to the initiated. A book is the +prince of witch-work. Everything is contained in it; but even a superior +intelligence would have to go to school to get the key to its mysterious +treasures.</p> + +<p>And as the art is thus removed from Nature, so its devotees withdraw +themselves from life. Of no other class so truly as of writers can it be +said that they sacrifice the real to the ideal, life to fame. They +conquer the world by renouncing it. Its fleeting pleasures, its +enchantment of business or listlessness, its social enjoyments, the +vexations and health-giving bliss of domestic life, and all wandering +tastes, must be forsaken. A power which pierces, and an ambition which +enjoys the future, accepts the martyrdom of the present. They feel +loneliness in their own age, while with universal survey viewing the +beacon-lights of history across the peaks of generations. Their seat of +life is the literary faculty, and they prune and torture themselves only +to maintain in this the highest intensity and capacity. They are in some +sort rebels battling against time, not the humble well-doer content +simply to live and bless God. Between them and living men there is the +difference which exists between analytical and geometrical mathematics: +the former has to do with signs, the latter with realities. The former +contains the laws of the physical world, but a man may know and use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +them like an adept, and yet be ignorant of physics. He may know all +there is of algebra, without seeing that the universe is masked in it. +The signs would be not means, but ultimates to it. So a writer may never +penetrate through the veil of language to the realities behind,—may +know only the mechanism, and not the spirit of learning and literature. +His mind is then skeleton-like,—his thought is the shadow of a shade.</p> + +<p>And yet is not life greater than art? Why transform real ideas and +sentiments into typographical fossils? Why have we forgotten the theory +of human life as a divine vegetation? Why not make our hearts the focus +of the lights which we strive to catch in books? Why should the wealthy +passivity of the Oriental genius be so little known among us? Why +conceive of success only as an outward fruit plucked by conscious +struggle? Banish books, banish reading, and how much time and strength +would be improvised in which to benefit each other! We might become +ourselves embodiments of all the truth and beauty and goodness now +stagnant in libraries, and might spread their aroma through the social +atmosphere. The dynamics would supplant the mechanics of the soul. In +the volume of life the literary man knows only the indexes; but he would +then be introduced to the radiant, fragrant, and buoyant contents, to +the beauty and the mystery, to the great passions and long +contemplations. The eternal spicy breeze would transform the leaden +atmosphere of his thought. An outlaw of the universe for his sins, he +would then be restored to the realities of the heart and mind. He would +then for the first time discover the difference between skill and +knowledge. Readers and writers would then be succeeded by human beings. +The golden ante-Cadmean age would come again. Literary sanctity having +become a tradition, there would be an end of its pretentious +counterfeits. The alphabet, decrepit with its long and vast labors, +would at last be released. The whole army of writers would take their +place among the curiosities of history. The Alexandrian thaumaturgists, +the Byzantine historians, the scholastic dialecticians, the serial +novelists, and the daily dissertationists, strung together, would make a +glittering chain of monomaniacs. Social life is a mutual joy; reading +may be rarely indulged without danger to sanity; but writing, unless the +man have genius, is but creating new rubbish, the nucleus of new deltas +of obstruction, till the river of life shall lose its way to the ocean, +and the Infinite be shut out altogether. The old bibliopole De Bury +flattered himself that he admired wisdom because it purchaseth such vast +delight. He had in mind the luxury of reading, and did not think that in +this world wisdom always hides its head or goes to the stake. Even if +literature were not to be abolished altogether, it is safe to think that +the world would be better off, if there were less writing. There should +be a division of labor; some should read and write, as some ordain laws, +create philosophies, tend shops, make chairs,—but why should everybody +dabble with literature?</p> + +<p>In all hypotheses as to the more remote destiny of literature, we can +but be struck by the precariousness of its existence. It is art +imperishable and ever-changing material. A fire once extinguished +perhaps half the world's literature, and struck thousands from the list +of authors. The forgetfulness of mankind in the mysterious mediæval age; +diminished by more than half the world of books. There are many books +which surely, and either rapidly or slowly, resolve themselves into the +elements, but the process cannot be seen. A whole army of books perishes +with every revolution of taste. And yet the amount of current writing +surpasses the strength of man's intellect or the length of his years. +Surely, the press is very much of a nuisance as well as a blessing. Its +products are getting very much in the way, and the impulse of the world +is too strong to allow itself to be clogged by them. Something must be +done.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<p>Among possibilities, let the following be suggested. The world may +perhaps return from unsymbolical to symbolical writing. There is a +science older than anything but shadowy traditions, and immemorially +linked with religion, poetry, and art. It is the almost forgotten +science of symbolism. Symbols, as compared with letters, are a higher +and more potent style of expression. They are the earthly shadows of +eternal truth. It is the language of the fine arts, of painting, +sculpture, the stage,—it will be the language of life, when, rising in +the scale of being, we shall return from the dead sea of literature to +the more energetic algebra of symbolical meanings. In these, the forms +of the reason and of Nature come into visible harmony; the hopes of man +find their shadows in the struggles of the universe, and the lights of +the spirit cluster myriad-fold around the objects of Nature. Let +Phœnician language be vivified into the universal poetry of +symbolism, and thought would then become life, instead of the ghost of +life. Current literature would give way to a new and true mythology; +authors and editors would suffer a transformation similar to that of +type-setters into artists, and of newsboys into connoisseurs; and the +figures of a noble humanity would fill the public mind, no longer +confused and degraded by the perpetual vision of leaden and unsuggestive +letters. From that time prose would be extinct, and poetry would be all +in all. History would renew its youth,—would find, after the struggles, +attainments, and developments of its manhood, that there is after all +nothing wiser in thought, no truer law, than the instincts of childhood.</p> + +<p>Or, again: improvements have already been made which promise as an +ultimate result to transform the largest library into a miniature for +the pocket. Stenography may yet reach to a degree that it will be able +to write folios on the thumb-nail, and dispose all the literature of the +world comfortably in a gentleman's pocket, before he sets out on his +summer excursion. The contents of vast tomes, bodies of history and of +science, may be so reduced that the eye can cover them at a glance, and +the process of reading be as rapid as that of thought The mind, instead +of wearying of slow perusal, would have to spur its lightning to keep +pace with the eye. Many books are born of mere vagueness and cloudiness +of thought. All such, when thus compressed into their reality, would go +out in eternal night. There is something overpowering in the conception +of the high pressure to which life in all its departments may some time +be brought. The mechanism of reading and writing would be slight. The +mental labor of comprehending would be immense. The mind, instead of +being subdued, would be spurred, by what it works in. We are now cramped +and checked by the overwhelming amount of linguistic red-tape in which +we have to operate; but then men, freed from these bonds, the husks of +thought almost all thrown away, would be purer, live faster, do greater, +die younger. What magnificent physical improvements, we may suppose, +will then aid the powers of the soul! The old world would then be +subdued, nevermore to strike a blow at its lithe conqueror, man. The +department of the newspaper, with inconceivable photographic and +telegraphic resources, may then be extended to the solar or the stellar +systems, and the turmoils of all creation would be reported at our +breakfast-tables. Men would rise every morning to take an intelligible +account of the aspects and the prospects of the universe.</p> + +<p>Or, once more: shall we venture into the speculative domain of the +philosophy of history, and give the rationale of our times? What is the +divine mission of the great marvel of our age, namely, its periodical +and fugitive literature? The intellectual and moral world of mankind +reforms itself at the outset of new civilizations, as Nature reforms +itself at every new geological epoch. The first step toward a reform, as +toward a crystallization, is a solution. There was a solvent period +between the unknown Orient and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> the greatness of Greece, between the +Classic and the Middle Ages,—and now humanity is again solvent, in the +transition from the traditions which issued out of feudalism to the +novelty of democratic crystallization. But as the youth of all animals +is prolonged in proportion to their dignity in the scale of being, so is +it with the children of history. Destiny is the longest-lived of all +things. We are not going to accomplish it all at once. We have got to +fight for it, to endure the newspapers in behalf of it. We are in a +place where gravitation changing goes the other way. For the first time, +all reigning ideas now find their focus in the popular mind. The giant +touches the earth to recover his strength. History returns to the +people. After two thousand years, popular intelligence is again to be +revived. And under what new conditions? We live in a telescopic, +microscopic, telegraphic universe, all the elements of which are brought +together under the combined operation of fire and water, as erst, in +primitive Nature, vulcanic and plutonic forces struggled together in the +face of heaven and hell to form the earth. The long ranges of history +have left with us one definite idea: it is that of progress, the +intellectual passion of our time. All our science demonstrates it, all +our poetry sings it. Democracy is the last term of political progress. +Popular intelligence and virtue are the conditions of democracy. To +produce these is the mission of periodical literature. The vast +complexities of the world, all knowledge and all purpose, are being +reduced in the crucible of the popular mind to a common product. +Knowledge lives neither in libraries nor in rare minds, but in the +general heart. Great men are already mythical, and great ideas are +admitted only so far as we, the people, can see something in them. By no +great books or long treatises, but by a ceaseless flow of brevities and +repetitions, is the pulverized thought of the world wrought into the +soul. It is amazing how many significant passages in history and in +literature are reproduced in the essays of magazines and the leaders of +newspapers by allusion and illustration, and by constant iteration +beaten into the heads of the people. The popular mind is now feeding +upon and deriving tone from the best things that literary commerce can +produce from the whole world, past and present. There is no finer +example of the popularization of science than Agassiz addressing the +American people through the columns of a monthly magazine. Of the +popular heart which used to rumble only about once in a century the +newspapers are now the daily organs. They are creating an organic +general mind, the soil for future grand ideas and institutes. As the +soul reaches a higher stage in its destiny than ever before, the +scaffolding by which it has risen is to be thrown aside. The quality of +libraries is to be transferred to the soul. Spiritual life is now to +exert its influence directly, without the mechanism of letters,—is +going to exert itself through the social atmosphere,—and all history +and thought are to be perpetuated and to grow, not in books, but in +minds.</p> + +<p>And yet, though we thus justify contemporary writing, we can but think, +that, after long ages of piecemeal and <i>bon-mot</i> literature, we shall at +length return to serious studies, vast syntheses, great works. The +nebulous world of letters shall be again concentred into stars. The +epoch of the printing-press has run itself nearly through; but a new +epoch and a new art shall arise, by which the achievements and the +succession of genius shall be perpetuated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_BRIDGE_OF_CLOUD" id="THE_BRIDGE_OF_CLOUD"></a>THE BRIDGE OF CLOUD.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Burn, O evening hearth, and waken<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pleasant visions, as of old!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though the house by winds be shaken,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Safe I keep this room of gold!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah, no longer wizard Fancy<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Builds its castles in the air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Luring me by necromancy<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Up the never-ending stair!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But, instead, it builds me bridges<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Over many a dark ravine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where beneath the gusty ridges<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cataracts dash and roar unseen.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And I cross them, little heeding<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Blast of wind or torrent's roar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I follow the receding<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Footsteps that have gone before.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nought avails the imploring gesture,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nought avails the cry of pain!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I touch the flying vesture,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Tis the gray robe of the rain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Baffled I return, and, leaning<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O'er the parapets of cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Watch the mist that intervening<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wraps the valley in its shroud.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And the sounds of life ascending<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Faintly, vaguely, meet the ear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Murmur of bells and voices blending<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With the rush of waters near.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Well I know what there lies hidden,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Every tower and town and farm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And again the land forbidden<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Reassumes its vanished charm.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Well I know the secret places,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the nests in hedge and tree;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At what doors are friendly faces,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In what hearts a thought of me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through the mist and darkness sinking,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Blown by wind and beaten by shower,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down I fling the thought I'm thinking,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Down I toss this Alpine flower.<br /></span></div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_ELECTRIC_GIRL_OF_LA_PERRIERE" id="THE_ELECTRIC_GIRL_OF_LA_PERRIERE"></a>THE ELECTRIC GIRL OF LA PERRIÈRE.</h2> + + +<p>Eighteen years ago there occurred in one of the provinces of +France a case of an abnormal character, marked by extraordinary +phenomena,—interesting to the scientific, and especially to the medical +world. The authentic documents in this case are rare; and though the +case itself is often alluded to, its details have never, so far as I +know, been reproduced from these documents in an English dress, or +presented in trustworthy form to the American public. It occurred in the +Commune of La Perrière, situated in the Department of Orne, in January, +1846.</p> + +<p>It was critically observed, at the time, by Dr. Verger, an intelligent +physician of Bellesme, a neighboring town. He details the result of his +observations in two letters addressed to the "Journal du +Magnétisme,"—one dated January 29, the other February 2, 1846.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> The +editor of that journal, M. Hébert, (de Garny,) himself repaired to the +spot, made the most minute researches into the matter, and gives us the +result of his observations and inquiries in a report, also published in +the "Journal du Magnétisme."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> A neighboring proprietor, M. Jules de +Farémont, followed up the case with care, from its very commencement, +and has left on record a detailed report of his observations.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +Finally, after the girl's arrival in Paris, Dr. Tanchon carefully +studied the phenomena, and has given the results in a pamphlet published +at the time.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> He it was, also, who addressed to M. Arago a note on the +subject, which was laid before the Academy by that distinguished man, at +their session of February 16, 1846.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Arago himself had then seen the +girl only a few minutes, but even in that brief time had verified a +portion of the phenomena.</p> + +<p>Dr. Tanchon's pamphlet contains fourteen letters, chiefly from medical +men and persons holding official positions in Bellesme, Mortagne, and +other neighboring towns, given at length and signed by the writers, all +of whom examined the girl, while yet in the country. Their testimony is +so circumstantial, so strictly concurrent in regard to all the main +phenomena, and so clearly indicative of the care and discrimination with +which the various observations were made, that there seems no good +reason, unless we find such in the nature of the phenomena themselves, +for refusing to give it credence. Several of the writers expressly +affirm the accuracy of M. Hébert's narrative, and all of them, by the +details they furnish, corroborate it. Mainly from that narrative, aided +by some of the observations of M. de Farémont, I compile the following +brief statement of the chief facts in this remarkable case.</p> + +<p>Angélique Cottin, a peasant-girl fourteen years of age, robust and in +good health, but very imperfectly educated and of limited intelligence, +lived with her aunt, the widow Loisnard, in a cottage with an earthen +floor, close to the Château of Monti-Mer, inhabited by its proprietor, +already mentioned, M. de Farémont.</p> + +<p>The weather, for eight days previous to the fifteenth of January, 1846, +had been heavy and tempestuous, with constantly recurring storms of +thunder and lightning. The atmosphere was charged with electricity.</p> + +<p>On the evening of that fifteenth of January, at eight o'clock, while +Angélique, in company with three other young girls, was at work, as +usual, in her aunt's cottage, weaving ladies' silk-net gloves, the +frame, made of rough oak and weighing about twenty-five pounds, to +which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> was attached the end of the warp, was upset, and the candlestick +on it thrown to the ground. The girls, blaming each other as having +caused the accident, replaced the frame, relighted the candle, and went +to work again. A second time the frame was thrown down. Thereupon the +children ran away, afraid of a thing so strange, and, with the +superstition common to their class, dreaming of witchcraft. The +neighbors, attracted by their cries, refused to credit their story. So, +returning, but with fear and trembling, two of them at first, afterwards +a third, resumed their occupation, without the recurrence of the +alarming phenomenon. But as soon as the girl Cottin, imitating her +companions, had touched her warp, the frame was agitated again, moved +about, was upset, and then thrown violently back. The girl was drawn +irresistibly after it; but as soon as she touched it, it moved still +farther away.</p> + +<p>Upon this the aunt, thinking, like the children, that there must be +sorcery in the case, took her niece to the parsonage of La Perrière, +demanding exorcism. The curate, an enlightened man, at first laughed at +her story; but the girl had brought her glove with her, and fixing it to +a kitchen-chair, the chair, like the frame, was repulsed and upset, +without being touched by Angélique. The curate then sat down on the +chair; but both chair and he were thrown to the ground in like manner. +Thus practically convinced of the reality of a phenomenon which he could +not explain, the good man reassured the terrified aunt by telling her it +was some bodily disease, and, very sensibly, referred the matter to the +physicians.</p> + +<p>The next day the aunt related the above particulars to M. de Farémont; +but for the time the effects had ceased. Three days later, at nine +o'clock, that gentleman was summoned to the cottage, where he verified +the fact that the frame was at intervals thrown back from Angélique with +such force, that, when exerting his utmost strength and holding it with +both hands, he was unable to prevent its motion. He observed that the +motion was partly rotary, from left to right. He particularly noticed +that the girl's feet did not touch the frame, and that, when it was +repulsed, she seemed drawn irresistibly after it, stretching out her +hands, as if instinctively, towards it. It was afterwards remarked, +that, when a piece of furniture or other object, thus acted upon by +Angélique, was too heavy to be moved, she herself was thrown back, as if +by the reaction of the force upon her person.</p> + +<p>By this time the cry of witchcraft was raised in the neighborhood, and +public opinion had even designated by name the sorcerer who had cast the +spell. On the twenty-first of January the phenomena increased in +violence and in variety. A chair on which the girl attempted to sit +down, though held by three strong men, was thrown off, in spite of their +efforts, to several yards' distance. Shovels, tongs, lighted firewood, +brushes, books, were all set in motion when the girl approached them. A +pair of scissors fastened to her girdle was detached, and thrown into +the air.</p> + +<p>On the twenty-fourth of January, M. de Farémont took the child and her +aunt in his carriage to the small neighboring town of Mamers. There, +before two physicians and several ladies and gentlemen, articles of +furniture moved about on her approach. And there, also, the following +conclusive experiment was tried by M. de Farémont.</p> + +<p>Into one end of a ponderous wooden block, weighing upwards of a hundred +and fifty pounds, he caused a small hook to be driven. To this he made +Angélique fix her silk. As soon as she sat down and her frock touched +the block, the latter <i>was instantly raised three or four inches from +the ground; and this was repeated as much as forty times in a minute</i>. +Then, after suffering the girl to rest, M. de Farémont seated himself on +the block, and was elevated in the same way. Then <i>three men placed +themselves upon it, and were raised also</i>, only not quite so high. "It +is certain," says M. de Farémont,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> "that I and one of the most athletic +porters of the Halle could not have lifted that block with the three +persons seated on it."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>Dr. Verger came to Mamers to see Angélique, whom, as well as her family, +he had previously known. On the twenty-eighth of January, in the +presence of the curate of Saint Martin and of the chaplain of the +Bellesme hospital, the following incident occurred. As the child could +not sew without pricking herself with the needle, nor use scissors +without wounding her hands, they set her to shelling peas, placing a +large basket before her. As soon as her dress touched the basket, and +she reached her hand to begin work, the basket was violently repulsed, +and the peas projected upwards and scattered over the room. This was +twice repeated, under the same circumstances. Dr. Lemonnier, of Saint +Maurice, testifies to the same phenomenon, as occurring in his presence +and in that of the Procurator Royal of Mortagne;<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> he noticed that the +left hand produced the greater effect. He adds, that, he and another, +gentleman having endeavored, with all their strength, to hold a chair on +which Angélique sat down, it was violently forced from them, and one of +its legs broken.</p> + +<p>On the thirtieth of January, M. de Farémont tried the effect of +isolation. When, by means of dry glass, he isolated the child's feet and +the chair on which she sat, the chair ceased to move, and she remained +perfectly quiet. M. Olivier, government engineer, tried a similar +experiment, with the same results.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> A week later, M. Hébert, repeating +this experiment, discovered that isolation of the chair was unnecessary; +it sufficed to isolate the girl.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Dr. Beaumont, vicar of +Pin-la-Garenne, noticed a fact, insignificant in appearance, yet quite +as conclusive as were the more violent manifestations, as to the reality +of the phenomena. Having moistened with saliva the scattered hairs on +his own arm, so that they lay flattened, attached to the epidermis, when +he approached his arm to the left arm of the girl, the hairs instantly +erected themselves. M. Hébert repeated the same experiment several +times, always with a similar result.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>M. Olivier also tried the following. With a stick of sealing-wax, which +he had subjected to friction, he touched the girl's arm, and it gave her +a considerable shock; but touching her with another similar stick, that +had not been rubbed, she experienced no effect whatever.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Yet when M. +de Farémont, on the nineteenth of January, tried the same experiment +with a stick of sealing-wax and a glass tube, well prepared by rubbing, +he obtained no effect whatever. So also a pendulum of light pith, +brought into close proximity to her person at various points, was +neither attracted nor repulsed, in the slightest degree.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>Towards the beginning of February, Angélique was obliged, for several +days, to eat standing; she could not sit down on a chair. This fact Dr. +Verger repeatedly verified. Holding her by the arm to prevent accident, +the moment she touched the chair it was projected from under her, and +she would have fallen but for his support. At such times, to take rest, +she had to seat herself on the floor, or on a stone provided for the +purpose.</p> + +<p>On one such occasion, "she approached," says M. de Farémont, "one of +those rough, heavy bedsteads used by the peasantry, weighing, with the +coarse bedclothes, some three hundred pounds, and sought to lie down on +it. The bed shook and oscillated in an incredible manner; no force that +I know of is capable of communicating to it such a movement. Then she +went to another bed, which was raised from the ground on wooden rollers, +six inches in diameter; and it was immediately thrown off the rollers." +All this M. de Farémont personally witnessed.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>On the evening of the second of February,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> Dr. Verger received Angélique +into his house. On that day and the next, upwards of one thousand +persons came to see her. The constant experiments, which on that +occasion were continued into the night, so fatigued the poor girl that +the effects were sensibly diminished. Yet even then a small table +brought near to her was thrown down so violently that it broke to +pieces. It was of cherry-wood and varnished.</p> + +<p>"In a general way," says Dr. Beaumont-Chardon, "I think the effects were +more marked with me than with others, because I never evinced suspicion, +and spared her all suffering; and I thought I could observe, that, +although her powers were not under the control of her will, yet they +were greatest when her mind was at ease, and she was in good +spirits."<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> It appeared, also, that on waxed, or even tiled floors, +but more especially on carpets, the effects were much less than on an +earthen floor like that of the cottage where they originally showed +themselves.</p> + +<p>At first wooden furniture seemed exclusively affected; but at a later +period metal also, as tongs and shovels, though in a less degree, +appeared to be subjected to this extraordinary influence. When the +child's powers were the most active, actual contact was not necessary. +Articles of furniture and other small objects moved, if she accidentally +approached them.</p> + +<p>Up to the sixth of February she had been visited by more than two +thousand persons, including distinguished physicians from the towns of +Bellesme and Mortagne, and from all the neighborhood, magistrates, +lawyers, ecclesiastics, and others. Some gave her money.</p> + +<p>Then, in an evil hour, listening to mercenary suggestion, the parents +conceived the idea that the poor girl might be made a source of +pecuniary gain; and notwithstanding the advice and remonstrance of her +true friends, M. de Farémont, Dr. Verger, M. Hébert, and others, her +father resolved to exhibit her in Paris and elsewhere.</p> + +<p>On the road they were occasionally subjected to serious annoyances. The +report of the marvels above narrated had spread far and wide; and the +populace, by hundreds, followed the carriage, hooting and abusing the +sorceress.</p> + +<p>Arrived at the French metropolis, they put up at the Hôtel de Rennes, +No. 23, Rue des Deux-Écus. There, on the evening of the twelfth of +February, Dr. Tanchon saw Angélique for the first time.</p> + +<p>This gentleman soon verified, among other phenomena, the following. A +chair, which he held firmly with both hands, was forced back as soon as +she attempted to sit down; a middle-sized dining-table was displaced and +repulsed by the touch of her dress; a large sofa, on which Dr. Tanchon +was sitting, was pushed violently to the wall, as soon as the child sat +down beside him. The Doctor remarked, that, when a chair was thrown back +from under her, her clothes seemed attracted by it, and adhered to it, +until it was repulsed beyond their reach; that the power was greater +from the left hand than from the right, and that the former was warmer +than the latter, and often trembled, agitated by unusual contractions; +that the influence emanating from the girl was intermittent, not +permanent, being usually most powerful from seven till nine o'clock in +the evening, possibly influenced by the principal meal of the day, +dinner, taken at six o'clock; that, if the girl was cut off from contact +with the earth, either by placing her feet on a non-conductor or merely +by keeping them raised from the ground, the power ceased, and she could +remain seated quietly; that, during the paroxysm, if her left hand +touched any object, she threw it from her as if it burned her, +complaining that it pricked her, especially on the wrist; that, +happening one day to touch accidentally the nape of her neck, the girl +ran from him, crying out with pain; and that repeated observation +assured him of the fact that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> there was, in the region of the +cerebellum, and at the point where the superior muscles of the neck are +inserted in the cranium, a point so acutely sensitive that the child +would not suffer there the lightest touch; and, finally, that the girl's +pulse, often irregular, usually varied from one hundred and five to one +hundred and twenty beats a minute.</p> + +<p>A curious observation made by this physician was, that, at the moment of +greatest action, a cool breeze, or gaseous current, seemed to flow from +her person. This he felt on his hand, as distinctly as one feels the +breath during an ordinary expiration.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>He remarked, also, that the intermittence of the child's power seemed to +depend in a measure on her state of mind. She was often in fear lest +some one should touch her from behind; the phenomena themselves agitated +her; in spite of a month's experience, each time they occurred she drew +back, as if alarmed. And all such agitations seemed to diminish her +power. When she was careless, and her mind was diverted to something +else, the demonstrations were always the most energetic.</p> + +<p>From the north pole of a magnet, if it touched her finger, she received +a sharp shock; while the contact of the south pole produced upon her no +effect whatever. This effect was uniform; and the girl could always tell +which pole touched her.</p> + +<p>Dr. Tanchon ascertained from the mother that no indications of puberty +had yet manifested themselves in her daughter's case.</p> + +<p>Such is a summary of the facts, embodied in a report drawn up by Dr. +Tanchon on the fifteenth of February. He took it with him on the evening +of the sixteenth to the Academy of Sciences, and asked M. Arago if he +had seen the electric girl, and if he intended to bring her case that +evening to the notice of the Academy. Arago replied to both questions in +the affirmative, adding,—"If you have seen her, I shall receive from +you with pleasure any communication you may have to make."</p> + +<p>Dr. Tanchon then read to him the report; and at the session of that +evening, Arago presented it, stated what he himself had seen, and +proposed that a committee should be appointed to examine the case. His +statement was received by his audience with many expressions of +incredulity; but they acceded to his suggestion by naming, from the +members of the Academy, a committee of six.</p> + +<p>It appears that Arago had had but a single opportunity, and for the +brief space of less than half an hour, of witnessing the phenomena to +which he referred. M. Cholet, the speculator who advanced to her parents +the money necessary to bring Angélique to Paris, had taken the girl and +her parents to the Observatory, where Arago then was, who, at the +earnest instance of Cholet, agreed to test the child's powers at once. +There were present on this occasion, besides Arago, MM. Mathieu and +Laugier, and an astronomer of the Observatory, named M. Goujon.</p> + +<p>The experiment of the chair perfectly succeeded. It was projected with +great violence against the wall, while the girl was thrown on the other +side. This experiment was repeated several times by Arago himself, and +each time with the same result. He could not, with all his force, hinder +the chair from being thrown back. Then MM. Goujon and Laugier attempted +to hold it, but with as little success. Finally, M. Goujon seated +himself first on half the chair, and at the moment when Angélique was +taking her seat beside him the chair was thrown down.</p> + +<p>When Angélique approached a small table, at the instant that her apron +touched it, it was repulsed.</p> + +<p>These particulars were given in all the medical journals of the day,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +as well as in the "Journal des Débats" of February 18, and the "Courrier +Français" of February 19, 1846.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>The minutes of the session of the Academy touch upon them in the most +studiously brief and guarded manner. They say, the sitting lasted only +some minutes. They admit, however, the main fact, namely, that the +movements of the chair, occurring as soon as Angélique seated herself +upon it, were most violent ("<i>d'une extrême violence</i>"). But as to the +other experiment, they allege that M. Arago did not clearly perceive the +movement of the table by the mere intervention of the girl's apron, +though the other observers did.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> It is added, that the girl produced +no effect on the magnetic needle.</p> + +<p>Some accounts represent Arago as expressing himself much more decidedly. +He may have done so, in addressing the Academy; but I find no official +record of his remarks.</p> + +<p>He did not assist at the sittings of the committee that had been +appointed at his suggestion; but he signed their report, having +confidence, as he declared, in their judgment, and sharing their +mistrust.</p> + +<p>That report, made on the ninth of March, is to the effect, that they +witnessed no repulsive agency on a table or similar object; that they +saw no effect produced by the girl's arm on a magnetic needle; that the +girl did not possess the power to distinguish between the two poles of a +magnet; and, finally, that the only result they obtained was sudden and +violent movements of chairs on which the child was seated. They add, +"Serious suspicions having arisen as to the manner in which these +movements were produced, the committee decided to submit them to a +strict examination, declaring, in plain terms, that they would endeavor +to discover what part certain adroit and concealed manœuvres of the +hands and feet had in their production. From that moment we were +informed that the young girl had lost her attractive and repulsive +powers, and that we should be notified when they reappeared. Many days +have elapsed; no notice has been sent us; yet we learn that Mademoiselle +Cottin daily exhibits her experiments in private circles." And they +conclude by recommending "that the communications addressed to them in +her case be considered <i>as not received</i>" ("<i>comme non avenues</i>"). In a +word, they officially branded the poor girl as an impostor.</p> + +<p>That, without any inquiry into the antecedents of the patient, without +the slightest attempt to obtain from those medical men who had followed +up the case from its commencement what they had observed, and that, in +advance of the strict examination which it was their duty to make, they +should insult the unfortunate girl by declaring that they intended to +find out the tricks with which she had been attempting to deceive +them,—all this is not the less lamentable because it is common among +those, who sit in the high places of science.</p> + +<p>If these Academicians had been moved by a simple love of truth, not +urged by a self-complacent eagerness to display their own sagacity, they +might have found a more probable explanation of the cessation, after +their first session, of some of Angelique's chief powers.</p> + +<p>Such an explanation is furnished to us by Dr. Tanchon, who was present, +by invitation, at the sittings of the committee.</p> + +<p>He informs us that, at their first sitting, held at the Jardin des +Plantes, on the seventeenth of February, after the committee had +witnessed, twice repeated, the violent displacement of a chair held with +all his strength by one of their number, (M. Rayet,) instead of +following up similar experiments and patiently waiting to observe the +phenomena as they presented themselves, they proceeded at once to +satisfy their own preconceptions. They brought Angélique into contact +with a voltaic battery. Then they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> placed on the bare arm of the child a +dead frog, anatomically prepared after the manner of Matteucci, that is, +the skin removed, and the animal dissected so as to expose the lumbar +nerves. By a galvanic current, they caused this frog to move, apparently +to revive, on the girl's arm. The effect upon her may be imagined. The +ignorant child, terrified out of her senses, spoke of nothing else the +rest of the day, dreamed of dead frogs coming to life all night, and +began to talk eagerly about it again the first thing the next +morning.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> From that time her attractive and repulsive powers +gradually declined.</p> + +<p>In addition to the privilege of much accumulated learning, in addition +to the advantages of varied scientific research, we must have something +else, if we would advance yet farther in true knowledge. We must be +imbued with a simple, faithful spirit, not presuming, not preoccupied. +We must be willing to sit down at the feet of Truth, humble, patient, +docile, single-hearted. We must not be wise in our own conceit; else the +fool's chance is better than ours, to avoid error, and distinguish +truth.</p> + +<p>M. Cohu, a medical man of Mortagne, writing, in March, 1846, in reply to +some inquiries of Dr. Tanchon, after stating that the phenomenon of the +chair, repeatedly observed by himself, had been witnessed also by more +than a thousand persons, adds,—"It matters not what name we may give to +this; the important point is, to verify the reality of a repulsive +agency, and of one that is distinctly marked; the effects it is +impossible to deny. We may assign to this agency what seat we please, in +the cerebellum, in the pelvis, or elsewhere; the <i>fact</i> is material, +visible, incontestable. Here in the Province, Sir, we are not very +learned, but we are often very mistrustful. In the present case we have +examined, reëxamined, taken every possible precaution against deception; +and the more we have seen, the deeper has been our conviction of the +reality of the phenomenon. Let the Academy decide as it will. <i>We have +seen</i>; it has not seen. We are, therefore, in a condition to decide +better than it can, I do not say what cause was operating, but what +effects presented themselves, under circumstances that remove even the +shadow of a doubt."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>M. Hébert, too, states a truth of great practical value, when he +remarks, that, in the examination of phenomena of so fugitive and +seemingly capricious a character, involving the element of vitality, and +the production of which at any given moment depends not upon us, we +"ought to accommodate ourselves to the nature of the fact, not insist +that it should accommodate itself to us."</p> + +<p>For myself, I do not pretend to offer any positive opinion as to what +was ultimately the real state of the case. I do not assume to determine +whether the attractive and repulsive phenomena, after continuing for +upwards of a month, happened to be about to cease at the very time the +committee began to observe them,—or whether the harsh suspicious and +terror-inspiring tests of these gentlemen so wrought on the nervous +system of an easily daunted and superstitious girl, that some of her +abnormal powers, already on the wane, presently disappeared,—or whether +the poor child, it may be at the instigation of her parents, left +without the means of support,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> really did at last simulate phenomena +that once were real, manufacture a counterfeit of what was originally +genuine. I do not take upon myself to decide between these various +hypotheses. I but express my conviction, that, for the first few weeks +at least, the phenomena actually occurred,—and that, had not the +gentlemen of the Academy been very unfortunate or very injudicious,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> +they could not have failed to perceive their reality. And I seek in vain +some apology for the conduct of these learned Academicians, called upon +to deal with a case so fraught with interest to science, when I find +them, merely because they do not at once succeed in personally verifying +sufficient to convince them of the existence of certain novel phenomena, +not only neglecting to seek evidence elsewhere, but even rejecting that +which a candid observer had placed within their reach.</p> + +<p>This appears to have been the judgment of the medical public of Paris. +The "Gazette des Hôpitaux," in its issue of March 17, 1846, protests +against the committee's mode of ignoring the matter, declaring that it +satisfied nobody. "Not received!" said the editor (alluding to the words +of the report); "that would be very convenient, if it were only +possible!"<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>And the "Gazette Médicale" very justly remarks,—"The non-appearance of +the phenomena at such or such a given moment proves nothing in itself. +It is but a negative fact, and, as such, cannot disprove the positive +fact of their appearance at another moment, if that be otherwise +satisfactorily attested." And the "Gazette" goes on to argue, from the +nature of the facts, that it is in the highest degree improbable that +they should have been the result of premeditated imposture.</p> + +<p>The course adopted by the Academy's committee is the less defensible, +because, though the attractive and repulsive phenomena ceased after +their first session, other phenomena, sufficiently remarkable, still +continued. As late as the tenth of March, the day after the committee +made their report, Angélique being then at Dr. Tanchon's house, a table +touched by her apron, while her hands were behind her and her feet +fifteen inches distant from it, <i>was raised entirely from the ground</i>, +though no part of her body touched it. This was witnessed, besides Dr. +Tanchon, by Dr. Charpentier-Méricourt, who had stationed himself so as +to observe it from the side. He distinctly saw the table rise, with all +four legs, from the floor, and he noticed that the two legs of the table +farthest from the girl rose first. He declares, that, during the whole +time, he perceived not the slightest movement either of her hands or her +feet; and he regarded deception, under the circumstances, to be utterly +impossible.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>On the twelfth of March, in presence of five physicians, Drs. Amédée +Latour, Lachaise, Deleau, Pichard, and Soulé, the same phenomenon +occurred twice.</p> + +<p>And yet again on the fourteenth, four physicians being present, the +table was raised a single time, but with startling force. It was of +mahogany, with two drawers, and was four feet long by two feet and a +half wide. We may suppose it to have weighed some fifty or sixty pounds; +so that the girl's power, in this particular, appears to have much +decreased since that day, about the end of January, when M. de Farémont +saw repeatedly raised from the ground a block of one hundred and fifty +pounds' weight, with three men seated on it,—in all, not less than five +to six hundred pounds.</p> + +<p>By the end of March the whole of the phenomena had almost totally +ceased; and it does not appear that they have ever shown themselves +since that time.</p> + +<p>Dr. Tanchon considered them electrical. M. de Farémont seems to have +doubted that they were strictly so. In a letter, dated Monti-Mer, +November 1, 1846, and addressed to the Marquis de Mirville, that +gentleman says,—"The electrical effects I have seen produced in this +case varied so much,—since under certain circumstances good conductors +operated, and then again, in others, no effect was observable,—that, if +one follows the ordinary laws of electrical phenomena, one finds +evidence both for and against. I am well convinced, that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> in the case +of this child, there is some power other than electricity."<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>But as my object is to state facts, rather than to moot theories, I +leave this debatable ground to others, and here close a narrative, +compiled with much care, of this interesting and instructive case. I was +the rather disposed to examine it critically and report it in detail, +because it seems to suggest valuable hints, if it does not afford some +clue, as to the character of subsequent manifestations in the United +States and elsewhere.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>This case is not an isolated one. My limits however, prevent me from +here reproducing, as I might, sundry other recent narratives more or +less analogous to that of the girl Cottin. To one only shall I briefly +advert: a case related in the Paris newspaper, the "Siècle," of March 4, +1846, published when all Paris was talking of Arago's statement in +regard to the electric girl.</p> + +<p>It is there given on the authority of a principal professor in one of +the Royal Colleges of Paris. The case, very similar to that of Angélique +Cottin, occurred in the month of December previous, in the person of a +young girl, not quite fourteen years old, apprenticed to a colorist, in +the Rue Descartes. The occurrences were quite as marked as those in the +Cottin case. The professor, seated one day near the girl, was raised +from the floor, along with the chair on which he sat. There were +occasional knockings. The phenomena commenced December 2, 1845; and +lasted twelve days.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Journal du Magnétisme</i>, for 1846, pp. 80-84.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Pp. 89-106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> In Dr. Tanchon's pamphlet, pp. 46-53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Enquête, sur l'Authenticité des Phénomènes Électriques +d'Angélique Cottin</i>, par le Dr. Tanchon. Baillière, Paris, 1846.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See Minutes of the Academy, Session of Monday, February 16, +1846.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Enquête</i>, etc., p. 49.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>Enquête</i>, etc., p. 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 47.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 49.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>Enquête</i>, etc., p. 35. They were greater, also, after +meals than before; so Hébert observed. p. 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>Enquête</i>, etc., p. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> I extract them from the "Journal des Connaissances +Médico-Chirurgicales," No. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The words are,—"M. Arago n'a pas aperçu nettement les +agitations annoncées comme étant engendrées à distance, par +l'intermédiaire d'un tablier, sur un guéridon en bois: d'autres +observateurs ont trouvé que les agitations étaient sensibles."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Enquête</i>, etc., p. 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>Enquête</i>, etc., p. 36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> M. Cholet, the individual who, in the hope of gain, +furnished the funds to bring Angélique to Paris for exhibition, as soon +as he perceived that the speculation was a failure, left the girl and +her parents in that city, dependent on the charity of strangers for +daily support, and for the means of returning to their humble +home.—<i>Enquête</i>, etc., p. 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> "Non avenues! ce serait commode, si c'était possible!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Enquête</i>, etc., p. 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Des Esprits et de leurs Manifestations Fluidiques</i>, par +le Marquis de Mirville, pp. 379, 380.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LITERARY_LIFE_IN_PARIS" id="LITERARY_LIFE_IN_PARIS"></a>LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS.</h2> + + +<h3>THE DRAWING-ROOM.</h3> + +<h3>PART II.</h3> + +<p>It was at this same period of time I made the acquaintance of Monsieur +Edmond About. When I met him he had just appeared as an author, and his +friends everywhere declared that Voltaire's mantle had fallen on his +shoulders. He had, like Voltaire, discovered instantly that mankind were +divided into hammers and anvils, and he determined to be one of the +hammers. He began his career by ridiculing a poetical country, Greece, +whose guest he had been, and whose sovereign and ministers had received +him with confidence,—repaying three years of hospitality by a satire of +three hundred pages. "Greece and the Greeks" was translated into several +languages. This edifying publication, which put the laughers on his +side, was followed by a different sort of work, which came near +producing on this budding reputation the effect of an April frost upon +an almond-tree in blossom. Voltaire's heir had found no better mode of +writing natural and true novels (so the scandalous chronicle said) than +to copy an original correspondence, and indiscreet "detectives" of +letters menaced him with publishing the whole Italian work from which he +"conveyed" the best part of "Tolla." All the literary world cried, +Havoc! upon the sprightly fellow laden with Italian relics. It was a +critical moment in his life.</p> + +<p>Monsieur Edmond About was introduced to me by a fascinating lady;—who +can resist the charms of the other sex? I saw before me a man some +eight-and-twenty years old, of a slender figure; his features were +irregular, but intellectual, and he looked at people like an +excessively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> near-sighted person who abused the advantages of being +near-sighted. He wore no spectacles. His eyes were small, cold, bright, +and were well wadded with such thick eyebrows and eyelashes it seemed +these must absorb them. I subsequently found, in a strange American +book,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> some descriptions which may be applied to his odd expression +of eye. Monsieur Edmond About's mouth was sneering and sensual, and even +then affected Voltaire's sarcastic grimace. His bitter and equivocal +smile put you in mind of the grinding of an epigram-mill. One could +detect in his attitude, his physiognomy, and his language, that +obsequious malice, that familiarity, at the same time flattering and +jeering, which Voltaire turned to such good account in his commerce with +the great people of his day, and which his disciple was learning to +practise in his intercourse with the powerful of these times,—the +<i>parvenus</i> and the wealthy. I was struck by the face of this college +Macchiavelli: on it were written the desire of success and the longing +to enjoy; the calculations of the ambitious man were allied with the +maliciousness of the giddy child. Of course he overwhelmed me with +compliments and flattery. He had, or thought he had, use for me. I +benevolently became the defender of the poor calumniated fellow in the +"Revue des Deux Mondes," just as one undertakes out of pure kindness of +heart to protect the widow and the orphan. Monsieur Edmond About thanked +me <i>orally</i> with a flood of extraordinary gratitude; but he took good +care to avoid writing a word upon the subject. A letter might have laid +him under engagements, and might have embarrassed him one day or +another. Whereas he aimed to be both a diplomatist and a literary man. +He practised the art of good writing, and the art of turning it to the +best advantage.</p> + +<p>Some months after this he brought out a piece called "Guillery," at the +French Comedy. The first night it was played, there was a hail-storm of +hisses. No <i>claqueur</i> ever remembered to have heard the like before. The +charitable dramatic critics—delicate fellows, who cannot bear to see +people possess talents without their permission and despite +them—attacked the piece as blood-hounds the fugitive murderer. It +seemed as if Monsieur Edmond About was a ruined man, who could never +dare hold up his head again. He resisted the death-warrant. He had +friends in influential houses. He soon found lint enough for his wounds. +The next winter the town heard that Monsieur Edmond About's wounds had +been well dressed and were cured, and that he was going to write in +"Figaro." The amateurs of scandal began at once to reckon upon the +gratification of their tastes. They were not mistaken. The moment his +second contribution to "Figaro" appeared, it became evident to all that +he had taken this warlike position at the advanced posts of light +literature solely to shoot at those persons who had wounded his vanity. +For three months he kept up such a sharp fire that every week numbered +its dead. Such carnage had never been seen. Everybody was severely +wounded: Jules Janin, Paulin Limayrac, Champfleury, Barbey d'Aurevilly, +and a host of others. Everybody said, (a thrill of terror ran through +them as they spoke,)—There is going to be one of these mornings a +terrible butchery: that imprudent Edmond About will have at least ten +duels on his hands. Not a bit of it! Not a bit of it! There were +negotiations, embassies, explanations exchanged which explained nothing, +and reparations made which repaired nothing. But there was not a shot +fired. There was not a drop of blood drawn. O Lord! no! Third parties +intervened, and demonstrated to the offended parties, that, when +Monsieur Edmond About called them stupid boobies, humbugs, tumblers, he +had no intention whatever of offending them. Good gracious! far +otherwise! In fine, one day the farce was played, the curtain fell upon +the well-spanked critics, and all this little company (so full of +talents and chivalry!) went arm-in-arm,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> the insulter and the insulted, +to breakfast together at Monsieur About's rooms, where, between a dozen +oysters and a bottle of Sauterne, he asked his victims what they thought +of some Titians he had just discovered, and which he wished to sell to +the Louvre for a small fortune,—Titians which were not painted even by +Mignard. The insulter and the insulted fell into each other's arms +before these daubs, and they parted, each delighted with the other. +These pseudo-Titians were for Monsieur About his Alcibiades's +dog's-tail. He spent one every month. Literary, picturesque, romanesque, +historical, agricultural, Greek, and Roman questions were never subjects +to him: he considered them merely advertisements to puff the +transcendent merits of Edmond About. Before he left "Figaro" he +determined to show me what a grateful fellow he was. He made me the mark +for all his epigrams, and I paid the price of peace with the others. I +have heard, since then, that Monsieur Edmond About has made his way +rapidly in the world. He is rich. He has the ribbon of the Legion of +Honor. He excels in writing pamphlets. He is not afraid of the most +startling truths. He writes about the Pope like a man who is not afraid +of the spiritual powers, and he has demonstrated that Prince Napoleon +won the Battle of the Alma and organized Algeria.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Among the numerous details of my grandeur and my decline, none exhibit +in a clearer light our literary manners and customs than the history of +my relations with Monsieur Louis Ulbach, the virtuous author, <i>now</i>, of +"L'Homme aux Cinq Louis d'Or," "Suzanne Duchemin," "Monsieur et Madame +Fernel," and other tales, which he hopes to see crowned by the French +Academy. Monsieur Louis Ulbach at first belonged to a triumvirate which +pretended to stand above the mob of democratic writers; and of a truth +Monsieur Maxime du Camp and Monsieur Laurent Pichat, his two leaders, +had none of those smoking-<i>café</i> vulgarities which have procured so many +subscribers to the "Siècle" newspaper. Both poets, Laurent Pichat with +remarkable loftiness, Maxime du Camp with <i>bizarre</i> energy, intent upon +an ideal which democracy has a right to pursue, since it has not yet +found it, men of the world, capable of discussing in full dress the most +perplexed questions of Socialism, they accept none of those party-chains +which so often bow down the noblest minds before idols made of plaster +or of clay. Besides, both of them were known by admirable acts of +generosity. There were in this triumvirate such dashes of aristocracy +and of revolution that they were called "the Poles of literature."</p> + +<p>Of course, when the storm burst which I had raised by my irreverent +attacks on De Béranger, these gentlemen separated from their political +friends, and complimented me. One of them even addressed me a letter, in +which I read these words, which assuredly I would not have written: +"That stupid De Béranger." There was a sort of alliance between us. +Monsieur Louis Ulbach celebrated it by publishing in his magazine, "La +Revue de Paris," an article in my honor, in which, after the usual +reserves, and after declaring war upon my doctrines, he vowed my prose +to be "fascinating," and complained of being so bewitched as to believe, +at times, that he was converted to the cause of the throne and of the +altar. This epithet, "fascinating," in turn fascinated me; and I thought +that my prose was, like some serpent, about to fascinate all the +butcher-birds and ducks of the democratic marsh. A year passed away; +these fine friendships cooled: 't is the fate of these factitious +tendernesses. With winter my second volume appeared, and Monsieur Louis +Ulbach set to work again; but this time he found me merely "ingenious." +It was a good deal more than I merited, and I would willingly have +contented myself with this phrase. Unfortunately, I could not forget the +austere counsel of Monsieur Louis Veuillot, and at this very epoch, +Monsieur Louis Ulbach, who as a novelist could merit a great deal of +praise, took it into his head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> to publish a thick volume of +transcendental criticism, in which he attacked everything I admired and +lauded everything I detested. I confess that I felt extremely +embarrassed: those nice little words "fascinating" and "ingenious" stuck +in my mind. Monsieur Louis Ulbach himself extricated me from my +perplexity. I had insufficiently praised his last novel. He wrote a +third article on my third work. Alas! the honeymoon had set. The +"fascinating" prose of 1855, the "ingenious" prose of 1856, had become +in 1857, in the opinion of the same judge, and in the language of the +same pen, "pretentious and tiresome." This sudden change of things and +epithets restored me to liberty. I walked abroad in all my strength and +independence, and I dissected Monsieur Louis Ulbach's thick volume with +a severity which was still tempered by the courteous forms and the +dimensions of my few newspaper-columns. A year passed away. My fourth +work appeared. Note that these several volumes were not different works, +but a series of volumes expressing the same opinions in the very same +style; in fine, they were but one work. Note, too, that Monsieur +Ulbach's "Revue de Paris" and "L'Assemblée Nationale," in which I wrote, +were both suppressed by the government on the same day, which +established between us a fraternity of martyrdom. All this was as +nothing. Louis Ulbach, this very same Louis Ulbach, was employed by a +newspaper where he was sure to please by insulting me, and the very +first thing he did was to give me a kick, such a kick as twenty horses +covered with sleigh-bells could not give. He called me "ignoramus," and +wondered what "this fellow" meant by his literary drivelling. The most +curious part of the whole business is, that he did not write the +article, all he did was to sign it! Four years, and a scratch given his +vanity, had proved enough to produce this change!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Shall I speak to you now of Henry Murger? I wrote this chapter of my +Memoirs during his life. I should have suppressed it, did I feel the +least drop of bitterness mingled with the recollection of the acts of +petty ingratitude of this charming writer. But my object in writing this +work is less to satisfy sterile revenge than to exhibit to you a corner +of literary life in Paris in the nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>In 1850 Henry Murger published a book in which the manners and customs +of people who live by their wits were painted in colors scarcely likely +to fascinate healthy imaginations. He declared to the world that the +novitiate of our future great authors was nothing but one incessant hunt +after a half-dollar and a mutton-chop. The world was told by others that +Henry Murger had learned to paint this existence by actual experience. +There were, however, in his book some excellent flashes of fancy and +youth; besides, the public then had grown tired of interminable +adventures and novels in fifty volumes. So Henry Murger's first work, +"La Vie de Bohême," was very popular; but it did not swell his purse or +improve his wardrobe. He was introduced to me, and I shall never forget +the low bow he made me. I was afraid for one moment that his bald head +would fall between his legs. This precocious baldness gave to his +delicate and sad face a singular physiognomy. He looked not so much like +a young old man as like an old young man. Henry Murger's warmest desire +was to write in the celebrated and influential "Revue des Deux Mondes," +which we all abuse so violently when we have reason to complain of it, +and which has but to make a sign to us and we instantly fall into its +arms. I was then on the best terms with the "Revue des Deux Mondes." +Monsieur Castil-Blaze, being from the same neighborhood with me, had +obtained a place for me in the "Revue," which belonged to his +son-in-law, Monsieur Buloz. I promised Henry Murger to speak a good word +for him. A favorable opportunity of doing so occurred a few days +afterwards.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I do not know what is to become of us," said Monsieur Buloz to me; "our +old contributors are dying, and no new ones make their appearance."</p> + +<p>"They appear, but you refuse to see them. There is Henry Murger, for +instance; he has just written an amusing book, which is the most +successful of the season."</p> + +<p>"Henry Murger! And is it you, Count Armand de Pontmartin, the literary +nobleman, the aristocratic writer, who wear (as the world avers) a white +cravat and white kid gloves from the time you get up, (I confess I have +never seen you with them,)—is it you who propose to me to admit Henry +Murger as a contributor to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,'—Henry Murger, +the ringleader of people who live by their wits?"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I? We live in a day when white cravats have to be very +respectful to red cravats. Besides, nothing is too strange to happen; +and I would not bet you that Murger does not write in 'Le Moniteur' +before I do."</p> + +<p>"If you think I had better admit Henry Murger, I consent; but remember +what I say to you: It will be the source of annoyance to you."</p> + +<p>The next day a hack bore Henry Murger and me from the corner of the +Boulevard des Italiens and the Rue du Helder to the office of the "Revue +des Deux Mondes." We talked on the way. If I had had any illusions left +of the poetical dreams and virginal thoughts of young men fevered by +literary ambition, these few minutes would have been enough to dispel +them all. Henry Murger thought of nothing upon earth but money. How was +he going to pay his quarter's rent, or rather his two or three quarters' +rent? for he was two or three quarters behindhand. He still had credit +with this <i>restaurateur</i>, but he owed so much to such another that he +dared not show his face there. He was over head and ears in debt to his +tailor. He was afraid to think of the amount of money he owed his +shoemaker. The list was long, and "bills payable" lamentable. To end +this dreary balance-sheet, I took it into my head to deliver him a +lecture on the morality of literature and the duty of literary men. +"Art," said I to him, "must escape the materialism which oppresses and +will at last absorb it. We romantics of 1828 were mistaken. We thought +we were reacting against the pagan and mummified school of the +eighteenth century and of the First Empire. We did not perceive that a +revolutionary Art can under no circumstances turn to the profit of grand +spiritual and Christian traditions, to the worship of the ideal, to the +elevation of intellects. We did not see that it would be a little sooner +or a little later discounted by literary demagogues, who, without +tradition, without a creed, without any law except their own whims, +would become the slaves of every base passion, and of all physical and +moral deformities. It is not yet too late. Let us repair our faults. Let +us elevate, let us regenerate literature; let us bear it aloft to those +noble spheres where the soul soars in her native majes"——</p> + +<p>I was declaiming with fire, my enthusiasm was becoming more and more +heated, when Henry Murger interrupted me by asking,—"Do you think +Monsieur Buloz will pay me in advance?"</p> + +<p>This question produced on my missionary's enthusiasm the same effect a +tub of cold water would have upon an excited poodle-dog.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Murger," I replied, without being too much disconcerted, "you +will arrange those details with Monsieur Buloz. All I can do is to +introduce you."</p> + +<p>We reached the office. I was afraid I might embarrass Monsieur Buloz and +Monsieur Murger, if I remained with them; I therefore took a book and +went into the garden. I was called back in twenty minutes, and was +briefly told that Henry Murger had engaged to write a novel for the +"Revue." We went out together; but we had scarcely passed three doors, +when Murger said hurriedly to me,—"I beg your pardon, I have forgotten +something!"—and he went back to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> office. I afterwards found out +that this "something" was an advance of money which he asked for upon a +novel whose first syllable he had not yet written.</p> + +<p>If I dwell upon these miserable details, it is not (God forbid!) to +insult laborious poverty, or talent forced to struggle against the +hardships of life or the embarrassments of improvident, careless youth. +No,—but there was here, and this is the reason I speak of it, the +<i>trade-mark</i> of that literary living-by-the wits which had taken entire +possession of Henry Murger, against which he had struggled in vain all +his life long, and which at last crushed him in its feverish grasp. +Living by the wits was to Henry Murger what <i>roulette</i> is to the +gambler, what brandy is to the drunkard, what the traps of the police +are to the knave and the burglar: he cursed it, but he could not quit +it; he lived in it, he lived by it, he died of it. The first time I +talked with Murger, and every subsequent conversation I had with him, +brought up money incessantly, in every tone, in every form; and when, +having become more familiar with what he called my squeamishness, he +talked more frankly to me, I saw that he required to support him a sum +of money three times greater than the annual income of which a whole +family of office-holders in the country, or even in Paris, live with +ease. This brought on him protests, bailiffs, constables, incredible +complications, continual uneasiness, a hankering after pecuniary +success, eternal complaints against publishers, magazine-editors, +theatre-managers, anxious negotiations, an immense loss of time, an +incredible wear-and-tear of brain, annoyances and cares enough to put +every thought to flight and to dry every source of inspiration and of +poetry. Remember that Henry Murger is one of the luckiest of the new men +who have appeared within these last fifteen years, for he received the +cross of the Legion of Honor, which, as everybody knows, is never given +except to men who deserve it. Judge, then, what the others +must be! Judge what must be the abortions, the disdained, the +supernumeraries,—those who sleep in lodging-houses at two cents a +night, or who eat their pitiful dinner outside the barrier-gate in a +wretched eating-house patronized by hack-drivers,—those who kill +themselves with charcoal, or who hang themselves, murdered by madness or +by hunger, the two pale goddesses of atheistical literatures!</p> + +<p>"Well," said I to Henry Murger, after we were once more seated in our +carriage, "are you pleased with Monsieur Buloz?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—and no. The most difficult step is taken. He allows me to +contribute my masterpieces to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' and I shall +never forget the immense service you have done me. Although you and I do +not serve the same literary gods, I am henceforward yours to the death! +But—the book-keeper is deusedly hard on trigger. Will you believe it? I +asked him to advance me forty dollars, and he refused!"</p> + +<p>We parted excellent friends, and he continued to assure me of his +gratitude, until the carriage stopped at my door.</p> + +<p>Years passed away. Henry Murger's promised novel was long coming to the +"Revue des Deux Mondes." At last it came; another followed eighteen +months afterwards; then he contributed a third. He displayed +unquestionable talents; he commanded moderate success. He had been told +by so many people that it was a hard matter to please the readers of the +"Revue des Deux Mondes," that it was necessary for him to free himself +from all his studios' fun, and everything tinctured with the petty +press, that he really believed for true everything he heard, and +appeared awkward in his movements. His students, his <i>grisettes</i>, and +his young artists were all on their good behavior, but were not more +droll. Marivaux had come down one more flight of stairs. Alfred de +Musset had steeped the powder and the patches in a glass of Champagne +wine. Henry Murger soaked them in a bottle of brandy or in a flagon of +beer.</p> + +<p>Henry Murger's gratitude, whenever we met, continued to exhale in +enthusiastic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> hymns. I lost sight of him for some time. I was told that +he lived somewhere in the Forest of Fontainebleau, to escape his +creditors' pursuit. At the critical moment of my literary life, I read +one morning in a petty newspaper a biting burlesque of which I was the +grotesque hero: I figured (my name was given in full) as a member of a +temperance society, whose members were pledged to total abstinence from +the use of ideas, wit, and style; at one of our monthly dinners, we were +said to have devoured Balzac at the first course, De Béranger for the +roast, Michelet for a side-dish, and George Sand for dessert. The next +day, and every day the petty paper appeared, the joke was renewed with +all sorts of variations. It was evidently a "rig" run on me. This joke +was signed every day "Marcel," which was the name of one of the heroes +of Henry Murger's novel, "La Vie de Bohême"; but I was very far indeed +from thinking that the man who was under so many "obligations" to me (as +Henry Murger always declared himself to be) should have joined the ranks +of my persecutors. A few days afterwards I heard, on the best authority, +that Henry Murger was the author of these articles. I felt a deep +chagrin at this discovery. Literary men constantly call Philistines and +Prudhommes those who lay great stress upon the absence of moral sense as +one of the great defects of the school of literature and art to which +Murger and his friends belong; and yet there should be a name for such +conduct as this, if for no other reason, for the sake of the culprits +themselves,—as, when poor Murger acted in this way to me, he was as +unconscious of what he did as when he raised heaven and earth to hunt +down a dollar. He was not guilty of a black heart, it was only absolute +deficiency of everything like moral sense. Henry Murger was under +obligations to me, as he said constantly; I had introduced and +recommended him to a man and a magazine that are, as of right, difficult +in the choice of their contributors; I had, for his sake, conquered +their prejudices, borne their reproaches. Whenever his novels appeared, +I treated them with indulgence, and gave them praise without examining +too particularly into their moral tendency, to the great scandal of my +usual readers, and despite the scoldings Monsieur Louis Veuillot gave +me. There never was the least coolness between Henry Murger and myself; +and yet, when I was attacked and harassed on every side, he hid himself +under a pseudonyme, and added his sarcasms to all the others directed +against me, that he might gratify his admiration for De Balzac and put a +little money in his pocket.</p> + +<p>By-and-by I continued to meet Henry Murger again on the Boulevard, and +at the first performance of new pieces. Do you imagine he shunned me? +Not a bit of it. He did not seem on these rare occasions to feel the +least embarrassment. He gave me cordial shakes of the hand, or he +bestowed on me one of those profound bows which brought his bald head on +a level with his waistcoat-pockets. Then he published a novel in "Le +Moniteur," after which he was decorated. Nothing was now heard from or +of him for a long time. Not a line by Henry Murger appeared anywhere. I +never heard that any piece by him was received, or even refused, by a +single one of the eighteen theatres in Paris. At last I met him one day +before the Variétés Theatre. I went up to speak to him, and ended by +asking the invariable question between literary men,—"What are you at +work on now? How comes it that so long a time has elapsed since you gave +us something to read or to applaud?"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you why," he replied, with melancholy <i>sang-froid</i>. "It is +not a question of literature, it is a question of arithmetic. I owe +eight hundred dollars to Madame Porcher, the wife of the +'authors'-tickets' dealer, who is always ready to advance money to +dramatic authors, and to whom we are all constantly in debt. I owe four +hundred dollars to the 'Moniteur,' and three hundred dollars<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> to the +'Revue des Deux Mondes.' Follow my reasoning now: Were I to bring out a +play, my excellent friend, Madame Porcher, would lay hands on all the +proceeds, and I should receive nothing. Were I to give a novel to the +'Moniteur,' I should have to write twenty <i>feuilletons</i> (you know they +pay twenty dollars a <i>feuilleton</i> there) before I cancelled my old debt. +Were I to contribute to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' as soon as my six +sheets (at fifty dollars a sheet, that would be three hundred dollars) +were printed and published, the editor would say to me, 'We are even +now.' So you see that it would be unpardonable prodigality on my part to +publish anything; therefore I have determined not to work at all, in +order to avoid spending my money, and I am lazy—from economy!"</p> + +<p>His reply disarmed the little resentment I had left. I took his hand in +mine, and said to him,—"See here, Murger, I must confess to you I was a +little angry with you; but your arithmetic is more literary than you +think it. You have given me a lesson of contemporary literature; and I +say to you, as the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' would say, 'Murger, we are +even!'"</p> + +<p>I ran off without waiting for his reply, and whispered to myself, as I +went, "And yet Henry Murger is the most talented and the most honest of +them all!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Let me continue the story of my misfortunes. The tempest was unchained +against me. It is true, there were among my adversaries some persons +under obligations to me,—some persons who were full of enthusiasm at my +first manner, and who would have made wry faces enough, had I published +their flattering letters to me,—other persons, to whom I had rendered +pecuniary services,—others, again, who had come to me with hat in hand +and supple knees, to beg my permission to allow them to dramatize my +novels. But what were these miserable considerations, when the great +interests of national literature, taste, and glory were at stake? I was +the vile detractor, the impious scorner of these glories, and it was but +justice that I should be put in the pillory and made the butt of rotten +eggs. Voltaire blasphemed, Béranger insulted, Victor Hugo outraged, were +offences which cried aloud for chastisement and for vengeance. Balzac's +shade especially complained and clamored for justice. It is true, that, +while Balzac was alive, he was not accustomed to anything like such +admiration. He openly avowed that he detested newspaper-writers, and +they returned the detestation with interest. Everybody, while he was +alive, declared him to be odd, eccentric, half-crazy, absurd. His +friends and his publishers, in fine, everybody who had anything to do +with him, told rather disreputable stories about him. No matter for +that. Balzac was dead, Balzac was a god, the god of all these +livers-by-the-wits, who but for him would have been atheists. Monsieur +Paulin Limayrac tore me to pieces in "La Presse." Monsieur Eugène +Pelletan shot me in "Le Siècle." Monsieur Taxile Delord mauled me in "Le +Charivari." To this episode of my exposition in the pillory belongs an +anecdote which I cannot omit.</p> + +<p>I was about to set off for the country, where I reckoned upon spending +some weeks of the month of May, in order to recover somewhat from these +incessant attacks made upon me. I had read in a <i>café</i>, while taking my +beefsteak and cup of chocolate, the various details of the punishment I +was about to undergo. One of my tormentors, who was a great deal more +celebrated for his aversion to water and clean linen than for any +article he had ever written, declared that I was about to be banished +from everything like decent society; another vowed by all the deities of +his Olympus that I was a mountebank and a skeptic, who had undertaken to +defend sound doctrines and to tomahawk eminent writers simply by way of +bringing myself into public notice; a third painted me as a poor wretch +who had come from his provincial home with his pockets filled with +manuscripts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> and was going about Paris begging favorable notices as a +means of touching publishers and booksellers; a fourth depicted me, on +the other hand, as a wealthy fellow, who was so diseased with a mania +for literature that I paid newspapers and reviews to publish my +contributions, which no human being would have accepted gratuitously. As +I left the <i>café</i>, one of my intimate friends ran up to me. His face +expressed that mixture of cordial commiseration and desire to make a +fuss about the matter which one's friends' faces always wear under these +circumstances.</p> + +<p>"Well," said he, "what do you think of the way they treat you?"</p> + +<p>"Why, they are all at it,—Monsieur Edmond About, Monsieur Louis Ulbach, +Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, Monsieur Henry Murger, Monsieur Taxile +Delord,"——</p> + +<p>"Ah! by the way, have you seen his article of yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You should have read that. Those in the morning's papers are nothing to +it. Really, you ought not to leave town without seeing it." Looking very +important, he added,—"In your position, you should know everything +written against you."</p> + +<p>I followed this friendly advice, and went to the Rue du Croissant, where +the office of "Le Charivari" moulders. As the place is anything but +attractive to well-bred persons, allow me to get there by the longest +road, and to go through the Faubourg Saint Honoré. A month before the +conversation above reported took place in front of a <i>café</i>-door, I had +the pleasure of meeting the Count de ——, an intellectual gentleman who +occupies an influential place in some aristocratic drawing-rooms which +still retain a partiality for literature. He said to me,—</p> + +<p>"Do you know Monsieur Ernest Legouvé?"</p> + +<p>"Assuredly! The most polite and most agreeable of all the generals of +<i>Alexander</i> Scribe; the author of 'Adrienne Lecouvreur,' which Rachel +played so well, of 'Médée,' in which Madame Ristori shines; a charming +gentleman, who, in our age of clubs, cigars, stables, jockeys, and +slang, has had the good taste to like feminine society. He has a +considerable estate; he belongs to the French Academy; his house is +agreeable; his manners delightful; his dinners unequalled. If in all +happiness there is a dash of management, where is the harm in Monsieur +Ernest Legouvé's case? Why should not gentlemen, too, be sometimes +adroit? Rogues are so always! Besides, has not a little art always been +necessary to effect an entrance into the French Academy?"</p> + +<p>"Monsieur Ernest Legouvé and I were at college together, and he bids me +bear you an invitation which I am sure you will not refuse. He has +written a play upon the delicate and thorny subject on which Monsieur +Jules Sandeau has written his admirable comedy, 'Le Gendre de Monsieur +Poirier': with this difference, however: Monsieur Legouvé has taken, not +a ruined and brilliant noble who marries the daughter of a plebeian, but +a young man, the architect of his own fortunes, with a most vulgar name, +who, on the score of talents, energy, delicacy of head and heart, is +loved by a young lady of noble birth, is accepted by her family, and +enters by right of conquest into that society from which his birth +excluded him."</p> + +<p>"That theme is rather more difficult: for, when Mademoiselle Poirier +marries the Marquis de Presles, she becomes the Marquise de Presles; +whereas, when Mademoiselle de Montmorency marries Monsieur Bernard, she +becomes plain Madame Bernard."</p> + +<p>"True enough! But Monsieur Legouvé is perplexed by a scruple which +reflects the greatest honor upon him: he entertains sincere respect, +great sympathy, for aristocratic distinctions; therefore he is anxious +to assure himself, before his piece is brought out in public, that it +does not contain a single scene or a single word which will be offensive +or disagreeable to noble ears. To satisfy himself in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> particular, +he has asked me to allow him to read his comedy at my house. I shall +invite the Duchess de ——, the Marquis de ——, the Countess de ——, +the General de ——, the Duke de ——, the Marquise de ——, and the +Baroness de ——. I shall add to these two or three critics known in +good society, among whom I reckon upon you. In fine, this preliminary +Areopagus will be composed of sons of the Crusaders, who are almost as +sprightly as sons of Voltaire. Now Monsieur Ernest Legouvé will not be +satisfied with his comedy, unless these gentlefolk unanimously decide +that he need not blot a single line of it. Will you come? Remember, +Monsieur Ernest Legouvé invites you."</p> + +<p>"My dear Count, I willingly accept your proposition. Monsieur Legouvé +reads admirably, and his plays are all agreeable. Nevertheless, let me +tell you that this trial will prove nothing. Our poor society is like +Sganarelle's wife, who liked to be thrashed. It has borne smiling, and +repaid with wealth and fame, much more ardent attacks than Monsieur +Legouvé can make."</p> + +<p>Count de —— and I shook hands, and parted. A few evenings afterwards +the reading took place. It was just what I expected. There were as many +marquises and duchesses (<i>real</i> duchesses) as there were kings to +applaud Talma in the Erfurt pit. The noble assembly listened to Monsieur +Legouvés's comedy with that rather absent-minded urbanity and with those +charming exclamations of admiration which have been constantly given to +everybody who has read a piece in a drawing-room, from the days of the +Viscount d'Arlincourt and his "Le Solitaire," to the days of Monsieur +Viennet, of the French Academy, and his "Arbogaste." Monsieur Legouvé's +play, which was then called "Le Nom du Mari," and which has since been +played under the title of "Par Droit de Conquête," was pleasing. My ears +were not so much offended by the antagonism of poor nobility and wealthy +upstarts, which Monsieur Legouvé treated neither better nor worse than +any other has done, as by the details of roads, bridges, marsh-draining, +canals, railways, coal, coke, and the like, which were dead-weights on +Thalia's light robe; and the improbability of the plot was not so much +the marriage of a noble girl to the son of an apple-dealer as was the +perfection given to the young engineer: every virtue and every grace +were showered on him. The piece was unanimously pronounced successful. +The aristocratic audience applauded Monsieur Legouvé with their little +gloved hands, which never make much noise. He was complimented so +delicately that he was sincerely touched. There was not the slightest +objection, the lightest murmur made to the piece, and there trembled in +my eye that little tear Madame de Sévigné speaks of.</p> + +<p>But let us quit this drawing-room, and turn our steps towards the Rue du +Croissant, where the office of "Le Charivari" is to be found. Balzac has +described in "Les Illusions Perdues" the offices of these petty +newspapers: the passage divided into two equal portions, one of which +leads to the editor's room, and the other to the grated counter where +the clerk sits to receive subscribers. Everybody knows the appearance of +these old houses, these staircases, these flimsy partitions, with their +bad light coming through a window whose panes are veiled with a triple +coating of dust, smoke, and soot,—the whitewashed walls bearing +innumerable traces of fingers covered with ink, mingled with +pencil-caricatures and grotesque inscriptions. Although it was in the +month of May that I made this visit, I shivered with cold as I entered +this old house, and my gorge rose in disgust at the unaired smell and +ignoble scenes which everywhere appeared. The clerk I applied to had the +very face one might expect to find in such a place: one of those +colorless, hard, sinister faces which are to be seen in nearly all the +scenes of Paris reality. All things were in harmony in this shop: the +air, and the light, and the house,—the letter as well as the spirit. I +asked the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> clerk to give me the file for the month of April. I soon +found and read Monsieur Taxile Delord's article. Monsieur Taxile Delord +comes from some one of the southern departments of France. He made his +first appearance in public in "Le Sémaphore," the well-known newspaper +of Marseilles; but the twilight of a provincial life could not suit this +eagle, and in the course of a few years he came up to Paris. Alas! +Monsieur Taxile Delord was soon obliged to add the secret sorrows of +disappointed ambition to the original gayety of his character. His +deepest sorrow was to look upon himself for a grave and thoughtful +statesman, and be condemned by fate to a chronic state of fun and to +hard labor at pun-making for life. Imagine Junius damned to lead +Touchstone's life! He became sourness itself. His puns were lugubrious. +His fun grew heavy, and his gayety was funereal. The pretensions of this +checked gravity which settled upon his factitious hilarity were enough +to melt the hearts even of his enemies, if such a fellow could pretend +to have enemies. Once this galley-slave of fun tried to make his escape +from the galley. He wrote a play; and as the manager of one of the +theatres was his friend, he had it played. The democratic opinions of +Monsieur Taxile Delord raised favorable prejudices among the school-boys +of the Latin Quarter; but who can escape his fate? The masterpiece was +hissed. Its title was "The End of the Comedy"; and a wretched witling +pretended that the piece was ill-named, since the pit refused to see the +end of the comedy. Thereupon Monsieur Taxile Delord adopted the method +of Gulliver's tailor, who measured for clothes according to the rules of +arithmetic: he demonstrated that his piece was played three times from +beginning to end,—that, as the manager was his particular friend, and +as the Odeon was always empty, he might have had it played thirty +times,—and therefore that we were all bound to be grateful to him for +his moderation. This last argument met no person bold enough to +contradict it, and the subscribers to "Le Charivari" (which is the +"Punch" of Paris) were seized with holy horror, when they thought, that, +but for Monsieur Taxile Delord's moderation, "The End of the Comedy" +might have been played seven-and-twenty times more.</p> + +<p>What had I done to excite his ire? I had not treated Béranger with +sufficient respect, and Monsieur Taxile Delord, though a joker by trade, +would not hear of any fun on this subject. His genius had shaped itself +exactly on Béranger's, and he resented as a personal affront every +insult offered to the songster. Of a truth, Béranger's fate was a hard +one, and all my attacks on him were not half so bad as this treatment he +received at the hands of Monsieur Taxile Delord. Poor Béranger! So +Monsieur Taxile Delord took up the quarrel on his account, and relieved +his gall by throwing it on me. When I read his article, I felt +humiliated,—but not as the writer desired,—I felt humiliated for the +press, and for literature, and for Béranger, who really did not deserve +this hard fate. The humid office, full of dirt and dust and +printing-ink, disgusted and depressed me, and I involuntarily thought of +Count de ——'s drawing-room, and that aristocratic society where +everything was flowers, courtesy, perfumes, elegance, where people could +not even feel hatred towards their enemies, and where the genial poet, +Monsieur Ernest Legouvé, surrounded by the most charming and most +sprightly women of Paris, recently obtained so delightful a triumph.</p> + +<p>All at once a sympathetic and clear voice, a voice which I thought I had +heard in better society than where I was, reached my ears. Hid in the +dark corner where I sat, and where nobody could discover me, I saw the +door of the editor's room open and Monsieur Taxile Delord appear and +escort to the door a visitor. It was Monsieur Ernest Legouvé! They +passed close to me, and I heard Monsieur Ernest Legouvé say to Monsieur +Delord,—"My dear Sir, I recommend my play, 'Le Nom du Mari,' to you; I +hope you will be pleased with it!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + +<p>This contrast annoyed me. I was then horribly out of humor from an +irritating prelection, and I felt towards Monsieur Legouvé that sort of +vexation the unlucky feel towards the lucky, the poor towards the rich, +the hunchbacks towards handsome men, and the awkward towards the adroit. +I said to myself,—"Armand, my poor Armand, you will never be aught but +a most stupid fool!"</p> + +<p>We add no commentary to this picture of literary life in Paris. We leave +the reader to draw his own conclusions. He needs no assistance,—for the +picture is painted in bright colors, and the light is thrown with no +parsimonious hand upon every corner. It is a curious exhibition of a +most unhealthy state of things. It explains a great many of those +literary mysteries, which seem so unaccountable, in the most brilliant +capital of the world.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Elsie Venner</i>, by Oliver Œendell (<i>sic</i>) Holmes.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_MASKERS" id="THE_MASKERS"></a>THE MASKERS.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yesternight, as late I strayed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the orchard's mottled shade,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Coming to the moonlit alleys,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the sweet Southwind, that dallies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All day with the Queen of Roses,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All night on her breast reposes,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drinking from the dewy blooms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silences, and scented glooms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the warm-breathed summer night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long, deep draughts of pure delight,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quick the shaken foliage parted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from out its shadows darted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dwarf-like forms, with hideous faces,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cries, contortions, and grimaces.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still I stood beneath the lonely,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sighing lilacs, saying only,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Little friends, you can't alarm me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well I know you would not harm me!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Straightway dropped each painted mask,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sword of lath, and paper casque,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a troop of rosy girls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ran and kissed me through their curls.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Caught within their net of graces,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I looked round on shining faces.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweetly through the moonlit alleys<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rang their laughter's silver sallies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then along the pathway, light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the white bloom of the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I went peaceful, pacing slow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Captive held in arms of snow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Happy maids! of you I learn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heavenly maskers to discern!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +<span class="i0">So, when seeming griefs and harms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fill life's garden with alarms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through its inner walks enchanted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will ever move undaunted.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love hath messengers that borrow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tragic masks of fear and sorrow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When they come to do us kindness,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And but for our tears and blindness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We should see, through each disguise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cherub cheeks and angel eyes.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CULLET" id="CULLET"></a>CULLET.</h2> + + +<p>"Good morning! Is it really a rainy day?" asked Miselle, imploringly, as +she seated herself at the breakfast-table, and glanced from Monsieur to +the heavy sky and the vane upon the coach-house, steadily pointing west.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I hope not. Are you ready for Sandwich?" smilingly replied the +host.</p> + +<p>"More than ready,—eager. But the clouds."</p> + +<p>"One learns here upon the coast to brave the clouds; we have, to be +sure, a sea-turn just now, and perhaps there will be fog-showers +by-and-by, but nothing that need prevent our excursion."</p> + +<p>"Delightful!" exclaimed Optima, Miselle, and Madame, applying themselves +to eggs and toast with that calm confidence in a masculine decision so +sustaining to the feminine nature.</p> + +<p>The early breakfast over, Monsieur, with a gentle hint to the ladies of +haste in the matter of toilet, went to see that Gypsy and Fanny were +properly harnessed, and that a due number of cushions, rugs, and +water-proof wrappers were placed in the roomy carriage.</p> + +<p>Surely, never were hats so hastily assumed, never did gloves condescend +to be so easily found, never were fewer hasty returns for "something I +have forgotten," and Monsieur had barely time to send two messages to +the effect that all was ready, when the feminine trio descending upon +him triumphantly disproved once and forever the hoary slander upon their +sex of habitual unpunctuality.</p> + +<p>With quiet self-sacrifice Optima placed herself beside Madame in the +back of the carryall, leaving for Miselle the breezy seat in front, with +all its facilities for seeing, hearing, smelling, breathing; and let us +hope that the little banquet thus prepared for the conscience of that +young woman gave her as much satisfaction as Miselle's feast of the +senses did to her.</p> + +<p>Arching their necks, tossing their manes, spattering the dewy sand with +their little hoofs, Gypsy and Fanny rapidly whirled the carriage through +the drowsy town, across the Pilgrim Brook, and so, by the pretty suburb +of "T'other Side," (which no child of the Mayflower shall ever consent +to call Wellingsley,) to the open road skirting the blue waters of the +bay.</p> + +<p>"Ah, this is fine!" cried Miselle, snatching from seaward deep breaths +of the east wind laden with the wild life of ocean and the freedom of +boundless space.</p> + +<p>"Here we have it!" remarked Monsieur, somewhat irrelevantly, as he +hastily unbuckled the apron and spread it over his own lap and +Miselle's, just in time to catch a heavy dash of rain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I am afraid it is going to be stormy, after all," piteously murmured +Miselle.</p> + +<p>"I told you we should have fog-showers, you know," suggested Monsieur, +with a quiet smile.</p> + +<p>"But what must we do?—go home?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed!—we will go to Sandwich, let it rain twice, four times as +hard as this,—unless, indeed, Madame gives orders to the contrary. What +say you, Madame?"</p> + +<p>"I say, let us go on for the present. We can turn round at any time, if +it becomes necessary"; and Madame smiled benevolently at Miselle, down +whose face the rain-drops streamed, but who stoutly asserted,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, this is nothing. Only a fog-shower, you know. We shall have it fine +directly."</p> + +<p>"Not till we are out of Eel River. This valley gathers all the clouds, +and they often get rain here when the sun is shining everywhere else."</p> + +<p>"A regular vale of tears! Happy the remnant of the world that dwelleth +not in Eel River!" murmured Miselle, surreptitiously pulling her +water-proof cloak about her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Let me help you. Really, though, you are getting very wet, dear," +remonstrated Optima.</p> + +<p>"Not in the least. I enjoy it excessively. Besides, the shower is just +over.—What church is that, Monsieur, with the very disproportionate +steeple?" inquired Miselle, pointing to a square gray box, surmounted by +a ludicrously short and obtuse spire, expressive of a certain dogged +obstinacy of purpose.</p> + +<p>"The church is an Orthodox meetinghouse, and the steeple is Orthodox +too,—for the Cape. Anything else would blow down in the spring gales. +Park-Street steeple, for instance, would stand a very poor chance here."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Miselle, vaguely, and she felt in her heart how this great +ocean that dwarfs or prostrates the works of man replaces them by a +temple builded in his own soul of proportions so lofty that God Himself +may dwell visibly therein.</p> + +<p>And now, having traversed the tearful valley, the road wound up the +Delectable Mountains beyond, and so into the pine forest, through whose +clashing needles glints of sunshine began to creep, while overhead the +gray shaded softly into pearl and dazzling white and palest blue.</p> + +<p>"There are deer in these Sandwich woods. See if we cannot find a pair of +great brown eyes peering out at us from some of the thickets," suggested +Madame.</p> + +<p>"Charming! If only we might see one! How young this nation is, after +all, when aboriginal deer roam the woods within fifty miles of Boston!"</p> + +<p>"But without game-laws they will soon be exterminated. A great many are +shot every winter, and the farmers complain bitterly of those that +remain. Some of their crops are quite ruined by the deer, they say," +remarked Monsieur.</p> + +<p>"Never mind. There are plenty of crops, and but very few deer. I +pronounce for the game-laws," recklessly declared Miselle.</p> + +<p>But the impending battle of political economy was averted by Madame's +exclamation of,—</p> + +<p>"See, here is Sacrifice Rock. Let us stop and look at it a moment."</p> + +<p>Gypsy and Fanny, wild with the sparkling upland air, were with +difficulty persuaded to halt opposite a great flat granite boulder, +sloping from the skirt of the forest toward the road, and nearly covered +with pebbles and bits of decayed wood.</p> + +<p>"It is Sacrifice Rock," explained Monsieur. "From the days of the +Pilgrims to our own, no Indian passes this way without laying some +offering upon it. It would have been buried long ago, but that the +spring and autumn winds sweep away all the lighter deposits. You would +find the hollow at its back half filled with them. Once there may have +been human sacrifices,—tradition says so, at least; but now there is +seldom anything more precious than what you see."</p> + +<p>"But to what deity were the offerings made?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Some savage Manitou, no doubt, but no one can say with certainty +anything about it. The degenerate half-breeds who live in this vicinity +only keep up the custom from tradition. They are called Christians now, +you know, and are quite above such idolatrous practices."</p> + +<p>"At any rate, I will add my contribution to this altar of an unknown +God. Besides, there are some blackberries that I must have," exclaimed +Optima, releasing her active limbs from the carriage in a very summary +fashion.</p> + +<p>Tossing a little stick upon the rock, she hastened to gather the +abundant fruit, a little for herself, a good deal for Madame and +Miselle, until Gypsy and Fanny stamped and neighed with impatience, and +Monsieur cried cheerily,—</p> + +<p>"Come, young woman, come! We are not half-way to Sandwich, and the +horses will be devoured by these flies as surely as Bishop Hatto was by +mice."</p> + +<p>And so on through miles of merry woodland, by fields and orchards, whose +every crop is a fresh conquest of man over Nature in this one of her +most niggardly phases, by desolate cabins and lonely farms, until at a +sudden turn the broad, beautiful sea swept up to glorify the scene. And +while Miselle with flushed cheeks and tearful eyes drank in the ever-new +delight of its presence, Monsieur began a story of how a man, almost a +stranger to him, had come one winter evening and begged him for God's +love to go and help him search for the body of his brother, reported by +a wandering madwoman to be lying on this beach, and how he begged so +piteously that the listener could not choose but go.</p> + +<p>And as Monsieur vividly pictured that long, lonely drive through the +midnight woods, the desolate monotony of the beach, along whose margin +curled the foam-wreaths of the rising tide, while beyond phosphorescent +lights played over a world of weltering black waters,—as he told how, +after hours of patient search, they found the poor sodden corpse and +tenderly cared for it,—as Monsieur quietly told his tale and never knew +that he was a hero, Miselle turned shuddering from sea and beach and the +mocking play of the crested waves, as they leaped in the sunshine and +then sank back to sport hideously with other corpses hidden beneath +their smiling surface.</p> + +<p>Presently the sea was again shut off by woodland, and the scattered +houses closed into a village, nay, a town, the town of Sandwich; and +swinging through it at an easy rate, the carriage halted before an +odd-looking building, consisting of a quaint old inn, porched and +gambrel-roofed, joined in most unholy union to a big, square, staring +box, of true Yankee architecture.</p> + +<p>Descending with reluctance, even after three hours of immobility, from +her breezy seat, Miselle followed Madame into the quiet house, whose +landlord, like many another man, makes moan for "the good old times" +when summer tourists and commercial travellers filled his rooms and the +long dining-table, now unoccupied, save by our travellers and two young +men connected with the glass-manufactories.</p> + +<p>Rest, plenty of cool water, and dinner having restored the energies of +the travellers, it was proposed that they should proceed at once to the +Glass Works. And now, indeed, did Fortune smile upon this band of +adventurous spirits; for when the question of a guide arose, mine host +of the inn announced himself not only willing to act in that capacity, +but eminently qualified therefor by long experience as an operative in +various departments of the works.</p> + +<p>"How fortunate that the stage-coaches and peddlers no longer frequent +Sandwich! If our friend had them to attend to, he could not devote +himself to us in this charming manner," suggested Optima, as she and +Miselle gayly followed Monsieur, Madame, and Cicerone down the long +sunny street, whose loungers turned a glance of lazy wonder upon the +strangers.</p> + +<p>Passing presently a monotonous row of lodging-houses for the workmen, +and a public square with a fountain, which, as Optima suggested, might +be made very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> pretty with the addition of some water, the travellers +approached a large brick building, many-windowed, many-chimneyed, and +offering ingress through a low-browed arch of so gloomy an aspect that +one looked at its key-stone half expecting to read there the well-known +Dantean legend,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Lasciate ogni speranza, voi chi'ntrate!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Nor was the illusion quite destroyed by handling, for through the arch +and a short passage one entered a large, domed apartment, brick-floored +and dimly lighted, whose atmosphere was the breath of a dozen flashing +furnaces, whose occupants were grimy gnomes wildly sporting with strange +shapes of molten metal.</p> + +<p>"This is the glass-room, and in these furnaces the glass is melted; but +perhaps you will go first and see how it is mixed, and how the pots are +made to boil it in."</p> + +<p>"Yes, let us begin at the beginning," said all, and were led from the +Inferno across a cool, green yard, into a building specially devoted to +the pots. In a great bin lay masses of soft brown clay in its crude +condition, and upon the floor were heaped fragments of broken pots, +calcined by use in the furnaces, and now waiting to be ground up into a +fine powder between the wheels of a powerful mill working steadily in +one corner of the building. In another, a row of boxes or pens were +partially filled with a powdered mixture of the raw and burnt clay, and +this, being moistened with water, was worked to a proper consistency +beneath the bare feet of several stout men.</p> + +<p>"This work, like the treading of the wine-press, can be properly +performed only by human feet," remarked Monsieur.</p> + +<p>"So when next we sip nectar from one of your straw-stemmed glasses, we +will remember these gentlemen and their brothers of the wine-countries, +and gratefully acknowledge that without their exertions we could have +had neither wine nor goblet," said Miselle, maliciously.</p> + +<p>"No," suggested Optima, "we will enjoy the result and forget the +process. But what is that man about?"</p> + +<p>"Making sausages out of cheese, I should say," replied Monsieur; and the +comparison was almost unavoidable; for upon a coarse table lay masses of +moulded clay, in form and size exactly like cheeses, from which the +workman separated with a wooden knife a small portion to be rolled +beneath his hand into cylindrical shapes some four inches in length by +two in diameter.</p> + +<p>These a lad carefully placed upon a long and narrow board to carry up to +the pot-room, whither he was followed by the whole party.</p> + +<p>Miselle's first impression, upon entering this great chamber, was, that +she was following a drove of elephants; but as she skirted the regular +ranks of the great dun monsters and came to the front, she concluded +that she had stumbled upon the factory of Ali Baba's oil-jars. At any +rate, the old picture in the "Arabian Nights" represented Morgiana in +the act of pouring the boiling oil into vessels marvellously like these, +and in each of these was room for at least four robbers of true +melodramatic stature.</p> + +<p>Among these jars, with the noiseless solicitude of a mother in her +sleeping nursery, wandered their author and guardian, a pale, keen man, +and so rare an enthusiast in his art that one listening to him could +hardly fail to believe that the highest degree of thought, skill, and +experience might worthily be expended upon the construction of these +seething-pots for molten glass.</p> + +<p>"Will you look at this one? It is my last," said he, tenderly removing a +damp cloth from the surface of something like the half of a hogshead +made in clay.</p> + +<p>"I have not begun to dome it in yet; it must dry another day first," +said the artist, passing his hand lovingly along the smooth surface of +his work.</p> + +<p>"Then you cannot go on with them at once?" asked Madame.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Ma'am! They must dry and harden between the spells of work +upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> them, or they never would stand their own weight. This one, you +see, is twelve inches thick in the bottom, and the sides are five inches +thick at the base, and graduated to four where the curve begins. Now if +I was to go right ahead, and put the roof on this mass of wet clay, I +shouldn't get it done before the whole would crush in together. I have +had them do so, Ma'am, when I was younger, but I know better now. I +sha'n't have that to suffer again."</p> + +<p>"And what are you at work upon while this dries?"</p> + +<p>"Here. This one is just begun. Shall I show you how I do it? John, where +are those rolls? Yes, I see. Now, Ma'am, this is the way."</p> + +<p>Taking one of the rolls in his left hand, and manipulating it with his +right, our artist laid it upon the top of the unfinished wall, and with +his supple fingers began to dovetail and compact it into the mass, +pressing and smoothing the whole carefully as he went on.</p> + +<p>"You see I must be very careful not to leave any air-bubbles in my work; +if I do, there will be a crack."</p> + +<p>"When the pot dries?" asked Madame.</p> + +<p>"No, Ma'am, when it is heated. I suppose the air expands and forces its +way out," said the man, shyly, as if he were more in the habit of +thinking philosophy than of talking it. "But see how smooth and fine +this clay is," added he, enthusiastically, passing his finger through +one of the rolls. "It is as close-grained and delicate as—as a lady's +cheek."</p> + +<p>"But, really, how could one describe the shape of these creatures?" +asked Optima aside of Miselle, as she stood contemplating a completed +monster.</p> + +<p>"By comparing them to an Esquimaux lodge, with one little arched window +just at the spring of the dome. Doesn't that give it?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. I never saw an Esquimaux lodge; did you, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"No, nor anything else in the least degree resembling these, unless it +was the picture of the oil-jars. Choose, my Optima, between the two."</p> + +<p>"Hark! we are losing something worth hearing."</p> + +<p>So the young women opened their ears, and heard the pallid enthusiast +tell how, after days and weeks of labor, and months of seasoning, the +pots were laboriously carried to a kiln, where they were slowly brought +to a red heat, and then suffered to cool as slowly. How the pot was then +taken to one of the furnaces of the Inferno, and a portion of its side +removed to receive it; how it was then built in, and reheated before the +glass-material was thrown in; and how, after all this care and toil, it +was perhaps not a week before it cracked or gave way at some point, and +must be taken away to make room for another. But this was unusually +"hard luck," and the pots sometimes held good as long as three months.</p> + +<p>"And what becomes of the old ones?" asked Optima, sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"Oh, they are all used over again, Miss. There must be a proportion of +burnt clay mixed with the raw, or it would be too rich to harden."</p> + +<p>"And what is the proportion?"</p> + +<p>"About one-third of the cooked clay, and two-thirds of the raw."</p> + +<p>"And where does the clay come from?"</p> + +<p>"Nearly all from Sturbridge, in England. Some has been brought from Gay +Head, on Martha's Vineyard; but it doesn't answer like the imported."</p> + +<p>Leaving the courteous artist in glass-pots to his labors, the party, +crossing again the breezy yard, entered a dismal brick-paved +basement-room, where grim bakers were attending upon a number of huge +ovens. One of these was just being filled; but instead of white and +brown loaves, golden cake, or flaky pies, the two attendants were piling +in short, thick bars of lead, and, hurry as they might, before they +could put in the last of the appointed number, little shining streams of +molten metal began to ooze from beneath the first, and trickle languidly +toward the mouth of the oven.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> + +<p>But our bakers were ready for them. With hasty movement they threw in a +quantity of moistened clay, shaping and compacting it with their shovels +as they went on, until in a very few moments they had completed a neat +little semi-circular dike just within the door, as effectual a barrier +to the glowing pool behind it, wherein the softened bars were rapidly +disappearing, as was ever the Dutchman's dike to the ocean, with whom he +disputes the sovereignty of Holland.</p> + +<p>A wooden door was now put up, and the baking was left to itself for +about twenty-four hours, at the end of which time the lead would have +become transformed into a yellowish powder, known as massicot.</p> + +<p>"You will see it here. They are just beginning to clear this oven," said +Cicerone, pointing to a row of large iron vessels which the workmen were +filling with the contents of the just opened kiln.</p> + +<p>"And what next? What is it to the glass?" asked Miselle, unblushing at +her ignorance.</p> + +<p>"Next, it is put into these other kilns, and kept in motion with the +long rakes that you see here, and at the end of forty-eight hours it +will have absorbed sufficient oxygen from the atmosphere to turn it from +massicot to minium, or red-lead. Look at this, if you please."</p> + +<p>Cicerone here pointed to other iron vessels, in shape like the bowl out +of which the giant Blunderbore ate his bread and milk, while trembling +little Jack peeped at him from the oven; but these bowls were filled +with a beautiful scarlet powder of fine consistency.</p> + +<p>"That is red-lead, one of the most important ingredients in fine +flint-glass, as it gives it brilliancy and ductility. But it is not used +in the coarser glasses. And here is the sand-room."</p> + +<p>So saying, Cicerone led the way to a light and cheerful room of +delicious temperature, even on that summer's day, where, upon a low, +broad, iron table, heated from beneath by steam-pipes, lay a mass of +what might indeed be sand, and yet differed as much from ordinary sand +as a just washed pet-lamb differs from an old weather-beaten sheep.</p> + +<p>Like the lamb, the sand had been washed with care and much water, and +now lay reposing after its bath at lazy length, enjoying its <i>kief</i>, +like a sworn Mussulman. This sand is principally brought from the banks +of Hudson River and the coast of New Jersey; but a finer article of +quartz sand is found in Lanesboro', Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>In the centre of the room stood a great sifting-machine, worked by +steam; and the sand, after being thoroughly dried, was passed through +this, coming out a fine, glittering mass, very much resembling +granulated sugar, so far as looks are concerned.</p> + +<p>"Now it is ready to be sent up to the mixing-room; but if you will step +on this drop, we will go up before it," said the civil workman here in +charge.</p> + +<p>So some of the party stepped upon a solid platform about six feet +square, lying under a trap in the floor overhead, and were slowly wound +up to the mixing-room, feeling quite sure, when they stepped upon the +solid floor once more, that they had done a very heroic thing, and were +not hereafter to be dismayed by travellers' tales of descents into +coal-mines, or swinging to the tops of dizzy spires in creaking baskets.</p> + +<p>Here, in the mixing-room, stood great boxes, filled with sand, with +red-lead, or with sparkling soda and potash; and beside a trough stood, +shovel in hand, a good-natured-looking man, who was busily mixing +portions of these three ingredients into one mass.</p> + +<p>Him Miselle assailed with questions, and learned that the trough +contained</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>1400</td><td align='left'>pounds</td><td align='left'>sand,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>350</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='left'>ash,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>100</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='left'>soda,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>800</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='left'>red-lead,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>and about 100</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='left'>cullet.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p> +<p>This was to be a fine quality of flint-glass, and to it might be added +coloring-matter of any desired tint; but in the choice and proportion of +this lay one of the principal secrets of the art.</p> + +<p>All this information did the civil compounder vouchsafe to Miselle, with +the indulgent air of one who humors a child by answering his questions, +although quite sure that the subject is far above his comprehension; and +he smiled in much amusement at seeing his answers jotted down upon her +tablets. So Miselle thanked him, smiling a little in her turn, and they +parted in mutual satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"These trucks you see are ready-loaded with the frit, or glass-material, +and are to be wheeled down to the furnaces presently," said Cicerone. +"But, before following them, we had better go down and see the fires."</p> + +<p>Descending a short flight of stone steps, the party now entered a long, +dark passage, through which a torrent of wind swept, driving before it +the ashes and glowing cinders that dropped continually from a circular +grating overhead. The ground beneath was strewn with fire, and the whole +arrangement offered a rare opportunity to any misanthrope whose +preferences might point to death in the shape of a fiery shower-bath.</p> + +<p>In a gloomy crypt, opening near the grating, stood a gnome whose duty it +was to feed the furnace overhead with soft coal, which must be thrown in +at a small door and then pushed up and forward until it lay upon the +grating where it was consumed. Around this central fire the glass-pots, +ten to each furnace, are arranged, their lower surfaces in actual +contact with it, while the domed roof reverberates the heat upon them +from above.</p> + +<p>All around stood sturdy piers of brick and iron, and low-browed arches, +crushed, one could not but fancy, out of their original proportions by +the immense weight they were forced to uphold.</p> + +<p>Returning to the Inferno, Cicerone led the way to a pot which was being +filled with frit from one of the little covered cars that he had pointed +out in the mixing-room. This process was to be effected gradually, as he +explained,—a certain portion being at first placed in the heated pot, +and suffered to melt, and then another, until the pot should be full, +when the door of it would be put up and closed with cement.</p> + +<p>"And how long before the frit will be entirely melted?" asked Monsieur.</p> + +<p>"From thirty-six to sixty hours. The time varies a good deal with the +seasons, and different sorts of glass take different times to melt. This +flint-glass melts the easiest, and common bottle-glass takes the +longest. Crown-glass, such as is used for window-panes, comes between +the two; but that is not made here."</p> + +<p>"And when the glass is sufficiently boiled, what next?"</p> + +<p>"You shall see, for here is a pot just opened, and this man with the +long iron rod, called a pontil, or punty, in his hand, is about to skim +it."</p> + +<p>"What is there to skim off?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, there will be impurities, of course, however carefully the +ingredients are prepared. Some of these sink to the bottom, and some +rise in scum, or, as it is called here, glass-gall, and sometimes +sandiver."</p> + +<p>"Just like broth or society, isn't it, Optima?" suggested Miselle, +aside.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you discover a social pontil, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I have no taste for reforming. What would there be to laugh at in +the world, if the human sandiver were removed?"</p> + +<p>"It might be an improvement to have the gall removed, my dear," remarked +Optima, significantly; but Miselle was too busy in watching the skimming +to understand the gentle rebuke.</p> + +<p>Thrusting the pontil far into the pot, the workman moved it gently from +side to side, turning it at the same time, until he suddenly withdrew +upon its point a large lump of glowing substance, which he shook off +upon a smooth iron table standing near, called a marver, (that is, +<i>marbre</i>,) in size and shape not unlike the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> largest of a nest of +teapoys. Here the lump of sandiver lay, while through its mass shot rays +of vivid prismatic color, glowing and dying along its surface so +vivaciously that one needs must fancy the salamander no fable, and that +this death of gorgeous agony was something more than the mere cooling of +an inert mass of matter.</p> + +<p>"You see how bubbly and streaked that is now?" broke in the voice of +Cicerone upon Miselle's little dream. "But after standing awhile the air +will all escape from the pot, leaving the glass smoother, thicker, and +tougher than it is now. Don't you want to look in, before it cools off?"</p> + +<p>With a mental protest against the fate of those luckless individuals who +threw Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego into the seven-times heated +furnace, Miselle stooped, and, looking in, uttered a cry of surprise and +delight.</p> + +<p>It was the very soul of fire, the essence of light and heat. Above, rose +a glowing arch, quivering with an intensity of color, such as fascinates +the eye of the eagle to the noonday sun. Below, undulated in great oily +waves a sea of molten matter, throbbing in vivid curves against the +sides of its glowing basin. And arch and wall and heaving waves all +mingled in a pure harmony, an accord, of light too intense for color, or +rather a color so intense as to be nameless in this pale world.</p> + +<p>Miselle knew now how the moth feels who plunges wildly into the flame +that lures him to his death, and yet fascinates him beyond the power of +resistance. The door was very small, or it might have been already too +late, when Optima touched the shoulder of this modern Parsee, and +suggested, calmly,—</p> + +<p>"If you burn your eyes out here, my dear Miselle, you will be unable to +see anything else."</p> + +<p>The thought was a kind and sensible one, as, coming from Optima, it +could not have failed of being; and Miselle stood upright, stared +forlornly about her, and found the world very pale and weak, very cold +and dark.</p> + +<p>Was it to solace her sudden exile from fairy-land, or was it only as a +customary courtesy, that an old man, wasted and paled by years of +ministration at this fiery shrine, now seized a long, hollow iron rod, +called a blow-stick, and, thrusting the smaller end into the pot, +withdrew a small portion of the glass, and, while retaining it by a +swift twirl, presented the mouth-piece of the tube to Miselle with a +gesture so expressive that she immediately applied her lips to those of +the blow-stick, and rounded her cheeks to the similitude of those +corpulent little Breezes whom the old masters are so fond of depicting +attendant upon the flight of their brothers the Winds?</p> + +<p>Ah, my little dears, with your straws and soap-suds you will never blow +a bubble like that! As it slowly rounded to its perfect sphere, what +secrets of its birth within that glowing furnace, what mysteries of the +pure element whose creation it seemed, flashed in fiery hieroglyph +athwart its surface! A mocking globe, whereon were painted realms that +may none the less exist, because man's feeble vision has never seen +them, his fettered mind never imagined them. Who knows? It may have been +the surface of the sun that was for one instant drawn upon that ball of +liquid fire. Who is to limit the affinities, the subtle reproductions of +Nature's grand ideas?</p> + +<p>But as the wonder culminated, as the glancing rays resolved themselves +into more positive lines, as the enigma seemed about to offer its own +solution, the bubble broke, flew into a myriad tiny shards, which, with +a tinkling laugh, fell to the grimy pavement, and lay there sparkling +malicious fun into Miselle's eyes.</p> + +<p>Cicerone stooped and gathered some of the fragments. Surely, never was +substance so closely allied to shadow. The lightest touch, a breath +even, and they were gone,—and were they caught, it was like the capture +of one of the floating films of a summer morning, glancing brightly to +the eye, but impalpable to the touch.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p> + +<p>When all had looked, the guide slowly closed his hand with a cruel +gripe, and, opening it, threw down a little shower of scintillating +dust, an airy fall of powdered diamonds, lost as they readied the earth, +and that was all.</p> + +<p>"We're casting some of those Fresnel lanterns to-day. Perhaps the ladies +would like to see them," suggested the pale little old man, and pointed +to a powerful machine with a long lever-handle at the top, which, being +thrown up, showed a heavy iron mould, heated quite hot, and just now +smoking furiously from a fresh application of kerosene-oil, with which +the mould is coated before each period of service, much as the housewife +butters her griddle before each plateful of buckwheat cakes.</p> + +<p>As the smoke subsided, the old man, who proved a very intelligent as +well as civil person, thrust his pontil into the pot nearest the press, +and, withdrawing a sufficient quantity of the glass, dropped it squarely +into the open mould, whose operator, immediately seizing the long +handle, swung himself from it in a grotesque effort to increase the +natural gravity of his body, and succeeded in bringing it down with +great force. Then, leaning over the lever in a state of complacent +exhaustion, he glared for a moment at the spectators with the calm +superiority of one who, having climbed to the summit of knowledge, can +afford to pity the ignorant crowd groping below.</p> + +<p>The mould being reopened presently displayed a large, heavy lantern, +whose curiously elaborate flutings and pencillings were, as the +intelligent artisan averred, arranged upon the principle of the famous +Fresnel light, whose introduction some years ago marked an epoch in the +history of light-houses.</p> + +<p>"Why, Miss, these little up-and-down marks, that you'd take it were just +put in for fancy," said William Greaves, "have got a patent on 'em, and +no one else could put 'em into a lantern without being prosecuted."</p> + +<p>"But why? What difference do they make?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Miss, every one of them fingerings makes a lens; you see it's just +the same inside as out, and it sort of <i>spreads</i> the light. That a'n't +the way to call it, but that's the idea; for the man that got it up was +down here, and I talked with him."</p> + +<p>"And what are they for?"</p> + +<p>"For ships' lanterns, Ma'am. They take this round lantern, when it's all +done here, and split it in two halves up and down, and then put one on +each side a vessel's bows just like the lamps on a doctor's gig, and the +bowsprit runs out between just like the horse does in the gig."</p> + +<p>At this juncture a small boy rushed up, and, thrusting a stick into the +still red-hot lantern, dexterously tilted it up and carried it away to a +furnace of different construction from the first, into one of whose open +doors he thrust it, and then returned to wait for another.</p> + +<p>This furnace, called a flashing-furnace, was round like the first, and +was fitted with eight or ten doors, from all of which the flames rushed +eagerly, and in a very startling fashion.</p> + +<p>"This is fed constantly with coal-oil," expounded Cicerone. "It is +brought in pipes, as you see, and drips down inside. These doors are +called 'glory-holes'"——</p> + +<p>"Aureoles, perhaps," suggested Optima, in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"And the lanterns, or whatever is in hand, are brought here after +pressing, and put in to get well heated through again before they are +given to the finisher. Fire-polishing they call it. Here you see one +just ready to be taken out."</p> + +<p>"He will drop it," cried Miselle, as another boy, wielding a pontil with +a lump of melted glass at the end, darted before her, and, pressing this +heated end against the bottom of the lantern, picked it up and carried +it away, over his shoulder, as if he were a stray member of some +torch-light procession.</p> + +<p>"Not he! He's too well used to his trade," laughed Monsieur. "Now come +and see the finishing process."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> + +<p>Following the steps of the young wide-awake, Miselle saw him deliver the +pontil, with the lantern still attached, to a listless individual seated +upon a bench whose long iron arms projected far in front of him, while +an idle pontil lay across them. This the boy snatched up and departed, +while the man, suddenly rousing himself, began to roll the new pontil up +and down the arms of his bench with his left hand, while with a pair of +compasses in his right he carefully gauged the diameter of the revolving +lantern, and then smoothed away its rough-cast edges by means of a +blackened bit of wood, somewhat of the shape, and bearing the name, of a +battledoor.</p> + +<p>The finishing over, another stick was thrust inside the lantern, and it +was separated from the pontil by the application of a bit of cold iron. +It was then carried to the mouth of a long gallery-like oven, moderately +heated, and fitted with a movable floor, upon which the articles put in +at the hot end were slowly transported through a carefully graduated +atmosphere to the cool end at a distance of perhaps a hundred feet, and +on their arrival were ready to be packed for transportation.</p> + +<p>This process was called annealing, and the oven with a movable floor was +technically denominated a leer.</p> + +<p>"Here they are pressing tumblers," continued the guide, pointing to a +press of smaller size and power, standing near another door of the same +furnace. "They have just had a large order from California, from a +single firm, for—how many tumblers did you tell me, Mr. Greaves?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two thousand dozen, Sir; and we shall have to spring to get them +off at the time set."</p> + +<p>"Nice tumblers they are, too,—just as good as cut, to my mind," +continued Cicerone, poking with his stick at one of the batch that was +now being placed in the leer.</p> + +<p>Very nice and clear they were, but not as good as cut to Miselle's mind, +and she remarked,—</p> + +<p>"It is very easy to feel the difference, if not to see it, between cut +and pressed glass. The latter always has these blunted angles to the +facets, and has a certain vagueness and want of purpose about it; then +it is not so heavy or so sparkling; there is a certain exhilaration in +the gleam of cut glass that fits it for purposes to which the other +would be entirely unsuited. Fancy Champagne in a pressed goblet, or +tuberoses and japonicas in a pressed vase, or attar in a pressed +<i>flaçon</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Fortunately," replied Monsieur, to whom this aside had been addressed, +"the persons who consider Champagne, japonicas, and attar of roses +necessaries of life are very well able to provide cut-glass receptacles +for them. But isn't it worth one's while to be proud of a country where +every artisan's wife has her tumblers, her goblets, her vases, of +pressed glass, certainly, but 'as good, to her mind, as cut,' to quote +our friend? and don't you think it better that twenty-two thousand dozen +pressed tumblers should be sold at ten cents apiece than one-third that +number of cut ones at thirty cents, leaving all those who cannot pay the +higher price to drink out of"——</p> + +<p>"Clam-shells? Well, perhaps. Equality and the rights of man are very +nice, of course, but I"——</p> + +<p>"Like cut glass better," retorted Monsieur, laughing, while Miselle +turned a little indignantly to the guide, who was saying,—</p> + +<p>"The reason the edges have that blunted look is partly because they +can't be struck as sharp as they can be ground, and then being heated in +the glory-holes, and again in the leers softens them down a little. In +fact, the very idea of annealing is to make the outside particles of the +glass run together just a very little, so as to fill up the pores as it +were, and make a smoother surface. If this were not done, it would fly +all to pieces the first time it was put into hot water."</p> + +<p>"The cut glass is not annealed, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, after it is blown it is; and although the grinding takes off +part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> the surface, I suppose it fills up the pores at the same time."</p> + +<p>"Cut glass is more apt to break in hot water than pressed or simply +blown glass," remarked Madame.</p> + +<p>"And is all cut glass blown in the first place?" asked Optima.</p> + +<p>"No, Miss, a good deal of it is pressed and then ground, either wholly +or in part; but this is not so clear or free from waves as the blown. +Out here is a man blowing <i>liqueur</i>-glasses. Perhaps you would like to +see that."</p> + +<p>The idea of blowing a bubble of glass into so intricate a shape, and +timing the process so that the brittle material should harden only when +it had reached the desired form, struck Miselle's mind as very +incredible; and she followed Cicerone with much curiosity to another +furnace, where one man, blow-pipe in hand, was dipping up a small +quantity of the liquid glass, and, having blown into it just long enough +to make a stout little bubble, laid the pipe across the iron arms of a +bench, where sat another operator, who immediately began to roll the +pipe up and down the arms of his chair, while with a supple iron +instrument, shaped like sugar-tongs with flattened bowls, he laid hold +of the bubble, and, while elongating it into a tube, brought the lower +extremity first to a point and then to a stem. To the end of this the +assistant now touched his pontil, upon whose end he had taken up a +little more glass, and this, being twisted in a ring round the foot of +the stem, divided from the pontil by a huge pair of scissors, +dexterously shaped with the plyers, and finally smoothed with a +battledoor, became the foot of the wine-glass. The heated pontil was now +applied exactly to the centre of this foot, the top of the glass divided +from the blow-pipe by the application of cold iron, and the whole thrust +for a few moments into the mouth of the furnace to soften, while the +first man laid another pipe with another bubble at the end before the +operator upon the bench, who recommenced the same process.</p> + +<p>The first glass, meantime, rendered once more ductile by heat, was +passed to another man upon another bench, who, keeping up all the while +the rotatory motion necessary to preserve the form of the softened +material, smoothed it with the battledoor, gauged it with the compasses, +coaxed it with the sugar-tongs, and finally trimmed it around the top +with his scissors as easily as if it had been of paper. It was then +cracked off from the pontil and carried away, a finished <i>liqueur</i>-glass +of the tiniest size, to be annealed. After this it might be used in its +simple condition, or ornamented with engraving, while the bottom of the +foot, still rough from contact with the pontil, was to be ground, +smoothed, and then polished.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how lovely! Look, Miselle, at this ruby glass," cried out Optima.</p> + +<p>"Gorgeous!" assented Miselle, peeping into a small pot where glowed and +heaved what seemed in very truth a mass of molten rubies.</p> + +<p>"What <i>are</i> you going to make of this beautiful glass?" inquired she, +enthusiastically, of a pleasant-looking man who was patiently waiting +for room to approach his work.</p> + +<p>"Lamp-globes, Ma'am," returned he, sententiously.</p> + +<p>"Poor Miselle! You thought it would be Cinderella's slipper, at least, +didn't you?" laughed Optima. "But look!"</p> + +<p>The man, dipping his pipe, not into the ruby glass, but into an +adjoining pot of fine flint-glass, carefully blew a small globe, and +then removing the tube from his mouth swung it about in the air for a +few moments, until it had gained a certain degree of firmness. Then +dipping the bubble into the precious pot of ruby glass, (whose color, as +Cicerone mysteriously whispered, was derived from an oxide of gold,) he +withdrew it coated with the brilliant color, and so softened by the heat +as to be capable of further distension. After gently blowing, until the +shade had reached its proper size, the workman handed it to another, +who, rolling it upon the iron arms of his bench, made an opening, at the +point<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> diametrically opposite that attached to the blow-pipe, with the +end of the compasses, and carefully enlarged, gauged, and shaped it, by +means of plyers and battledoor.</p> + +<p>"Pretty soon you will see how they cut the figures out and show the +white glass underneath," said the guide; but Miselle's attention was at +this moment engrossed by a series of small explosions, apparently close +at hand, and disagreeably suggestive of the final ascension of the Glass +Works, inclusive of all the pale men and boys, who might certainly be +supposed purified by fire, and ready to be released from the furnace of +affliction. Not feeling herself worthy to join this sublimated throng, +Miselle hastily communicated the idea to Optima, and proposed a sudden +retreat, but was smilingly bidden to first consider for a moment the +operations of four workmen close at hand, two of whom, kneeling upon the +ground, grasped the handles of two little presses, very like aggravated +bullet-moulds, while the other two, bringing little masses of glass upon +the ends of their blow-sticks and dropping them carefully into the necks +of the moulds, proceeded to blow through the pipe until the air forced +out a quantity of the glass in the form of a great bubble at the top of +the mould. The pressure from within increasing still more, this bubble +necessarily burst with a smart snap, and thus caused the explosive +sounds above referred to. The two casters then scraped away the <i>débris</i> +at the top with a bit of stick, and, opening their moulds, disclosed in +one a pretty little essence-bottle, which a sharp boy in waiting +immediately snapped up on the end of a long fork, where he had already +spitted about a dozen more, and carried them away to the leer.</p> + +<p>"But what are <i>you</i> casting?" asked Madame, puzzled, as the other +workman opened his mould and poked its contents out upon a bit of board +held ready by another sharp boy.</p> + +<p>"Little inks, Ma'am," was the laconic reply; and looking more narrowly +at the tiny object, it proved to be one of the small portable inkstands +used in writing-desks.</p> + +<p>More explosions at a little distance, and two more men were found to be +casting, in the same manner, small bottles of opaque white glass, +resembling china, a quality produced by an admixture of bone-dust in the +frit. These are the bottles dear to manufacturers of pomades, hair-oils, +and various cosmetics, and Miselle turned round a cool one lying upon +the ground, half-expecting to find a flourishing advertisement of a +newly discovered <i>Fontaine d'Or</i> upon its back. She did not find it, but +espied instead two pretty little fellows in a corner just beyond, one of +whom might be twelve and his curly-haired junior not more than ten years +old, who were gravely engaged in blowing chimneys for kerosene lamps, +and quite successfully too, as a large box behind their bench amply +proved,—these alone of all the articles mentioned not requiring to be +passed through the leer.</p> + +<p>A little farther on, a workman, loading his pontil, by repeated +dippings, with a large quantity of glass, dropped the lump into an open +basin hollowed in the surface of one of the iron tables. It was here +suffered to cool for some moments, and then, by means of a pontil tipped +with molten glass, carried away to be fire-polished.</p> + +<p>This was a lens, such as are used to increase the light in ships' +cabins, staterooms, etc. Another and coarser quality, not lenses, but +simple disks of greenish glass, about four inches in thickness by twelve +in diameter, were stacked ready for removal at a short distance, and the +whole association made Miselle so intolerably sea-sick that she sidled +away to watch the manufacture of some decanters, "sech as is used in +bar-rooms, mostly, Ma'am," as the principal workman confided to her. +These were first moulded in the shape of great tumblers with an +excessively ugly pattern printed on the sides, then softened in a +glory-hole, and brought to a workman, who, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> means of plyers and +battledoor, elongated and shaped the neck, leaving a queer, ragged lip +at the top. The decanter was then passed to Miselle's confidant, who +struck off this lip with the edge of his plyers. An attendant then +presented to him a lump of melted glass on the end of his pontil, and +the workman, deftly twisting it round the neck of his decanter, clipped +it off with a pair of scissors, and proceeded to smooth and shape it by +means of the plyers.</p> + +<p>These decanters were probably to be used in conjunction with some Gothic +goblets, whose press stood in the immediate vicinity. These were +greenish in color, thick and unwieldly in shape, and ornamented with +alternate panels of vertical and horizontal stripes.</p> + +<p>Miselle was still lost in contemplation of these goblets when Monsieur +approached.</p> + +<p>"No," exclaimed she, pointing at them,—"no true patriot should +congratulate his countrymen upon the plenitude of such articles as that! +Far better for the national growth in art that we should all revert to +clam-shells!"</p> + +<p>"Come, then, and see if we cannot find something more to your fancy in +the cutting-room," laughed Monsieur; and Miselle willingly followed +through the green yard, and up some stairs to a sunny chamber, or rather +hall, lined on either hand with a row of busy workmen, each seated +behind a whirring wheel, to which he held the surface of whatever +article he was engaged in cutting, or rather grinding.</p> + +<p>These wheels were arranged in a progressive order. The first were of +stone or iron, fed with sand and water, which trickled slowly down upon +them from a trough overhead. These rapidly cut away the surface of glass +presented to them, leaving it rough and opaque. The article was next +presented to a smooth grindstone, that removed the roughness, and left +the appearance of fine ground glass.</p> + +<p>The next process, called polishing, was effected upon a wooden wheel, +fed with pumice or rotten-stone and water, and the final touch was given +by another wooden wheel, and a preparation of tin and lead called +putty-powder.</p> + +<p>The opacity was now entirely removed, and the facets cut upon the +wine-glass Miselle had principally watched in its progress shone with +the clear and polished brilliancy characteristic of the finest quality +of cut glass.</p> + +<p>For very nice work, such as the polishing of chandelier-drops, and +articles of that sort, a leaden wheel, fed with fine rotten-stone and +water, is employed; but on the occasion referred to, no work of this +nature being in hand, these wheels were not used.</p> + +<p>Other wheels, consisting of a simple disk of iron, not unlike a circular +saw without any teeth, were used for cutting those narrow vertical +lines, technically known as fingering, familiar to those so happy as to +have had careful grandmothers, and to have inherited their decanters and +wine-glasses. The revival of this style, like that of the rich old +pattern in plate known as the "Mayflower," is a compliment just now paid +by the present generation to the taste of the past, and Miselle was +shown some beautiful specimens of the "latest mode, Ma'am," that awoke +melancholy reminiscences of the shattered idols of her youth.</p> + +<p>"Here are our friends, the ruby lampshades, again," remarked Optima.</p> + +<p>"And now you will see how the transparent figures are made upon them," +suggested Cicerone, pointing to a workman, who, with a pile of the +ruby-coated globes beside him, was painting circles upon one of them +with some yellowish pigment. The globe then being held to one of the +rough wheels, the thin shell of red glass within these circles was +ground away, leaving it white, but opaque. The globe then passed through +the processes of smooth grinding and polishing, above described, until +the pattern was finally developed in clear transparent medallions.</p> + +<p>A very beautiful article in colored<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> glass was a Hock decanter of an +exquisite antique pattern in green glass, wreathed with a grape-vine, +whose leaves and stems were transparent, while the clusters of grapes +were left opaque by the omission of the polishing process.</p> + +<p>At the end of the noisy cutting-room was a small chamber, hardly more +than a closet, called the engraving-room, and bearing the same relation +to the former as the crypt where the cellarer jealously stores his Tokay +for the palate of a Kaiser holds to the acres of arches where lies the +<i>vin ordinaire</i>.</p> + +<p>Here, in the full light of ample windows, before a high bench, over +which revolved with incredible rapidity a half-dozen small copper disks +fed with fine emery and oil, stood as many earnest-looking men, not +artisans, but artists, each of whom, vaguely guided by a design lightly +sketched upon the article under his hands, was developing it with an +ease and skill really beautiful to contemplate. Intricate arabesques, +single flowers of perfect grace, or rare groups of bloom, piles of +fruit, or spirited animal-life, all grew between the whirring copper +wheel and the nice hand, whose slightest turn or pressure had a meaning +and a just result.</p> + +<p>Miselle watched the engraving of an intricate cipher beneath the +fantastic crest of some wealthy epicurean, who had ordered a complete +dessert-service of such charming forms and graceful designs that envy of +his taste, if not of his possessions, became a positive duty.</p> + +<p>"Is there any limit to the range of your subjects?" asked Miselle, as +the artist added the last graceful curve to the griffin's tail, and +contemplated his finished work with quiet complacency.</p> + +<p>"There may be, but I never found it. Whatever a pencil can draw this +wheel can cut," said he, with such a smile as Gottschalk might assume in +answering the query as to whether the score could be written that he +could not render.</p> + +<p>Having now witnessed all the processes of glass-manufacture to be seen +at this time and place,<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> the party were conducted to the show-room, +passing on the way through a room where a number of young women were +engaged in painting and gilding vases, spoon-holders, lamps, and various +other articles in plain and colored glass. The colors used showed, for +the most part, but a very faint resemblance to the tints they were +intended to produce, and the gold appeared like a dingy brown paint; +but, as was explained by Cicerone, these-colors were to be fixed by +burning, or rather melting them into the surface of the glass, and this +process would at the same time evolve their true colors and brilliancy, +both of paint and gilding.</p> + +<p>In the next room to this, several workmen were busy in fitting the metal +trimmings to such articles as lamps, lanterns, castors, +molasses-pitchers, and the like.</p> + +<p>One chirruping old man insisted upon mounting an immensely ugly blue and +yellow lamp upon a brass foot for the edification of his visitors, and +when this was over, exhibited some opaque white glass stands for other +lamps, which, as he fondly remarked, "would be took for marble +anyw'eres."</p> + +<p>The show-room was a long, airy hall, with a row of tables on either +hand, covered with glass, whose icy glitter and lack of color gave a +deliciously cool aspect to the whole place. Glass in every graceful form +and design, some heavy and crystalline, enriched with ornate workmanship +by cutter and engraver, some delicate and fragile as a soap-bubble; +hock-glasses as green and lucent as sea-water, and with an edge not too +thick to part the lips of Titania; glasses of amber, that should turn +pale Johannisberger to the true <i>vino d'oro</i>; glasses of glowing ruby +tint, than which Bohemia sends us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> nothing finer; vases and goblets as +rare in form and wrought as skilfully as those two cups that Nero bought +for six thousand sestertii; medallions bearing in <i>intaglio</i> portraits +of distinguished men as clearly and unmistakably cut as on coin or +cameo; whole services of glass, more beautiful and almost as valuable as +services of plate; plumes of spun glass as fine and sheeny as softest +silk; toys and scientific playthings; objects of wonder, admiration, and +curiosity: all these were to be seen crowded upon these long, white +tables in the cool hall, where the wind, sweeping gently through, +brought the smell of the rising tide, and the sound of its waves upon +the shore.</p> + +<p>Here, too, was a man who knew the story, not only of the glass lying +beneath his hand to-day, but of all the glass the world has known, from +the colored beads inhumed with the Pharaonic princesses to the ruby +salver he so fondly fingered as he talked.</p> + +<p>He spoke of the glazed windows of Pompeii; of the "excellent portrait" +of the Emperor Constantine VII. painted, <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 949, upon a +church-window. He recounted the ancient story of the Phœnicians, who, +landing at the mouth of the river, brought from their ships lumps of +soda, and, laying them upon the sand as a support for their dinner-pot, +found when they had done lumps of glass among the ashes, and so +rediscovered the lost art of glass-making; but to this he added, with a +dubious smile,—</p> + +<p>"Fire must have been hotter in those days than now. We could never melt +sand in that fashion now."</p> + +<p>Then coming to window-glass, he clearly described the process of its +manufacture, although confessing he had never been engaged in it, and +from this Miselle, with a word, launched him into the glowing sea of +mediæval painted windows, and the wellnigh forgotten glories of their +manufacture.</p> + +<p>"There is hardly one of them left that I have not seen," said he,—"from +the old heathen temples of the East, that the Christians converted to +their own use, and, while they burned the idols, spared the windows, +which they had sense to remember they could never reproduce, to the +gloomy purple-shadowed things they put up so much in England and the +United States at the present day, forgetting, as it would seem, that the +first idea of a window is to let the light through.</p> + +<p>"But one of the finest works of modern times was the great +tournament-window, first exhibited in London in 1820. I was a young +fellow then, hardly twenty indeed, and with very little money to spare +for sight-seeing. But from the day I first heard of it, until five years +afterward, when I saw it, I never wavered in my determination to go +abroad and look at that window, as well as all the others I had heard so +much of.</p> + +<p>"It was a beautiful thing really, Ma'am, measuring eighteen by +twenty-four feet, and made up of three hundred and fifty pieces of glass +set in metal astragals, so cleverly worked into the shadows that the +whole affair appeared like one piece. It represented the passage-of-arms +between Henry VIII., of England, and Francis I., of France, held at +Ardres, June 25, 1520, and of the hundred figures shown, over forty were +portraits. Among these were the two queens, Katharine of England, and +Claude of France, Anne Boleyn, and Cardinal Wolsey, with a great many +other distinguished persons."</p> + +<p>"And this window, where is it now?" asked Optima.</p> + +<p>"Destroyed by fire, June 30, 1832," he replied, with the mournful awe of +one giving the date of some terrible human disaster.</p> + +<p>"How many glass-factories like this are there in the country?" asked +Monsieur, reverting to the practical view of the matter under +consideration.</p> + +<p>"Flint-glass works, Sir? There are three in South Boston, two in East +Cambridge, and one here in Sandwich. That is for Massachusetts alone. +Then there are two in Brooklyn, New York, one in Jersey City, and two in +Philadelphia.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> These are all flint-glass, you understand; the principal +window-glass factories are in the southern part of New Jersey, and in +Pittsfield, Pennsylvania. Then there is a flourishing plate-glass +factory in Lenox, in this State, and another in New York. But the old +Bay State, Sir, has led the van in this enterprise ever since 1780, when +Robert Hewes, of Boston, opened the first glass-factory in the country +at Temple, New Hampshire. His workmen were all Hessians or Wallachians +who had deserted from the British army. They had learned the art in +their own country, and were the best men he could have found for his +purpose at that time; but they were a disorderly set, and, finally, one +of the furnace-men got drunk, and burnt down the works in the night. +Hewes presented a circular plate of glass, as a specimen of his +manufacture, to Harvard College, and I believe they have it now. It was +a very good article of glass, although a little greenish in color, and +not quite so clear as we get it now.</p> + +<p>"After he was burnt out, one Lint set up some glass-works in Boston +about 1800. They were not successful for a while, but about 1802 or 1803 +they got fairly started, and have kept ahead ever since."</p> + +<p>"Four o'clock, my dear," remarked Madame, softly, to Monsieur, and +Cicerone, who had fidgeted awfully all through the little lecture, +brightened perceptibly, and rubbed his hands contentedly, as, with many +thanks to the courteous superintendent, and a last glance at the +glittering wonders of his charge, the party descended once more to the +green yard, and crossed it to the principal gate.</p> + +<p>"One minute, Optima. Do come and look at the engine in here!" cried +Miselle, dragging her reluctant friend into a long, narrow den, almost +filled by a black monster with shining brass ornaments, who slid his +iron arms backward and forward, backward and forward, in a steady, +remorseless manner, highly suggestive of what he would do, had he fists +at the end of them, and all the world within reach of their swing. A +sickish smell of heated oil pervaded the apartment, although everything +was as clean and bright as hands could make it.</p> + +<p>With the foolish daring characteristic of her sex, Miselle stole out a +finger to touch the remorseless arm as it shot outward, but Optima +detected and arrested the movement, with a grave "For shame!" and at the +same moment a man suddenly emerged from behind the body of the monster, +and, approaching the venturous intruder, bawled in her ear,—</p> + +<p>"'Twould take off a man's head, Miss, as easy as a pipe-stem!"</p> + +<p>Miselle nodded, without attempting a defence, and the man added +presently,—</p> + +<p>"'Undred 'oss power, Miss. Drives all the works."</p> + +<p>"Do come out, Miselle! I shall go crazy in another minute!" screamed +Optima; and the two young women hastened to overtake the rest of the +party, who were already in the street.</p> + +<p>Gypsy and Fanny, who had better used their four hours of rest than in +exploring glass-works, stood ready-harnessed before the door of the +Central Hotel when the sight-seers returned thither, and in a few +moments the ladies were handed to their seats, Monsieur gathered up the +reins, and Tom having "given them their heads," the spirited little nags +tossed the precious gifts into the air, and took the road at a pace that +needed only moderating to make it the perfection of exhilarating motion.</p> + +<p>Words are all very well in their way, but they fail wofully when a +person has really anything to say.</p> + +<p>For instance, where are the phrases to describe that sunset sky, so +clear and blue overhead that one felt it was only the scant range of +human vision that hid the unveiled heavenly glories beyond the arch,—so +gorgeous at the horizon, where it met the opalescent sea,—so rosy in +the east, where, like a great golden shield, stood the moon gazing +across the world triumphantly at the sinking sun,—the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> dewy freshness +of the woods, where lingered the intoxicating perfumes distilled by the +blazing noontide from fir and spruce,—the jubilant chorus of birds, +dying strain by strain, until the melancholy whippoorwill grieved alone +in his woodland solitude?</p> + +<p>On by the lonely farms and unlighted cabins, by the bare, bleak moors, +where the night-wind came rolling softly up to look at the +travellers,—on till the low, broad sea opened out the view, and came +sobbing up on the beach, wailing at its own cruel deeds,—on beneath the +cloudless night, upon whose front blazed Orion and the Pleiades,—on +until the scene had wrought its charm, and the frequent speech fell to +scattered words, to silent thought, to passionate feeling, where +swelling heart and dim eyes alone uttered the soul's response to earth's +perfect beauty, God's perfect goodness.</p> + +<p>And so ever on, until the twinkling lights in the curve of the bay +showed where the weary Pilgrims had set foot on shore, in that black, +bitter December weather, and planted the seed that has borne blossoms +and fruits unnumbered, and shall yet bear more and more for centuries to +come.</p> + +<p>And through the quiet suburb, and across the brook, and up the +village-street, to the happy and hospitable home, where brilliant lights +and a sparkling tea-service waited to welcome the weary, but +well-pleased <i>voyageurs</i>.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> "Cullet" is the waste of the glass-room. The superfluous +material taken up on the pontil, and the shards of articles broken in +process of manufacture. The ingenious reader will thus interpret the +heading of this paper.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> It is proper to state that Miselle subsequently visited +the New-England Glass Company's Works in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, +and, finding the method of manufacture nearly identical with that at +Sandwich, has, for convenience' sake, incorporated her observations +there with this account of her visit to the latter place.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WHAT_WILL_BECOME_OF_THEM" id="WHAT_WILL_BECOME_OF_THEM"></a>WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM?</h2> + +<h3>A STORY IN TWO PARTS.</h3> + + +<h3>PART II.</h3> + +<p>Gentleman Bill, full of confidence in his powers of persuasion, +advances, to add the weight of his respectability to his parent's +remonstrance.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Mr. Frisbie,"—politely lifting his hat.</p> + +<p>"Hey?" says Frisbie, sarcastic.—"Look at his insolence, Stephen!"</p> + +<p>"I sincerely trust, Sir," begins Bill, "that you will reconsider your +determination, Sir"——</p> + +<p>"Shall I fetch him a cut with the hosswhip?" whispers Stephen, loud +enough for the stalwart young black to hear.</p> + +<p>"You can fetch him a cut with the hosswhip, if you like," Bill answers +for Mr. Frisbie, with fire blazing upon his polite face. "But, Sir, in +case you do, Sir, I shall take it upon myself to teach you better +manners than to insult a gentleman conferring with your master, Sir!"</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha, ha!" roared Mr. Frisbie. "You've got it, Stephen!"</p> + +<p>The whip trembled in Stephen's angry hand, but the strapping young negro +looked so cool and wicked, standing there, that he wisely forbore to +strike.</p> + +<p>"I am sure, Sir," Bill addresses the landlord, "you are too humane a +person"——</p> + +<p>"No, I a'n't," says the florid Frisbie. "I know what you're going to +say; but it's no use. You can't work upon my feelings; I a'n't one of +your soft kind.—Drive up to the door, Stephen."</p> + +<p>Stephen is very glad to start the horse suddenly and graze Gentleman +Bill's knee with the wheel-hub. Bill steps back a pace, and follows him +with the smiting look of one who treasures up wrath. You'd better be +careful, Stephen, let me tell you!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> + +<p>Joe stands holding the door open, and Mr. Frisbie looks in. There, to +his astonishment, he sees the women washing clothes as unconcernedly as +if nothing unusual was about to occur. He jumps to the ground, heated +with passion.</p> + +<p>"Ho, here!" he shouts in at the door; "don't you see the house is coming +down?"</p> + +<p>Upon which the deaf old grandfather rises in his corner, and pulls off +his cap, with the usual salutation, "Sarvant, Sah," etc., and sitting +down again, relapses into a doze immediately.</p> + +<p>Frisbie is furious. "What you 'bout here?" he cries, in an alarming +voice.</p> + +<p>"Bless you, Sir," answers the old woman, over a tub, "don't you see? +We's doon' a little washin', Sir. Didn't you never see nobody wash +afore?" And she proceeds with her rubbing.</p> + +<p>"The house will be tumbling on you in ten minutes!"</p> + +<p>"You think so? Now I don't, Mr. Frisbie! This 'ere house a'n't gwine to +tumble down this mornin', I know. The Lord 'll look out for that, I +guess. Look o' these 'ere childern! look o' me! look o' my ole father +there, more'n a hunderd year ole! What's a-gwine to 'come on us all, if +you pull the house down? Can't git another right away; no team to tote +our things off with; an' how 'n the world we can do 'thout no house this +winter I can't see. So I've jes' concluded to trust the Lord, an' git +out my washin'." Rub, rub, rub!</p> + +<p>Frisbie grows purple. "Are you fools?" he inquires.</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>I</i> am! I'm Fessenden's." And the honest, staring youth comes +forward to see what is wanted.</p> + +<p>This unexpected response rather pricks the wind-bag of the man's zeal. +He looks curiously at the boy, who follows him out of the house.</p> + +<p>"Stephen, did you ever see that fellow before?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sir; he's the one come to our house Saturday night, and I showed +round to the Judge's."</p> + +<p>"Are you the fellow?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," says Fessenden's. "There wouldn't any of you let me into your +houses, neither!"</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't the people I sent you to let you in?"</p> + +<p>"No!"</p> + +<p>"Hear that, Stephen! your philanthropical Gingerford!—And what did you +do?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't do nothin',—only laid down to die, I did."</p> + +<p>"But you didn't die, did you?"</p> + +<p>"No! This man he come along, and brought me here."</p> + +<p>"Here? to the niggers?"</p> + +<p>"Yes! You wouldn't have me, so they took me, and dried me, and fed +me,—good folks, niggers!" Fessenden's bore this simple testimony.</p> + +<p>What is it makes the Frisbie color heighten so? Is it Gentleman Bill's +quiet smile, as he stands by and hears this conversation?</p> + +<p>"And you have been here ever since?" says the man, in a humbler key, and +with a milder look, than before.</p> + +<p>"Yes! It's a r'al good place!" says the youth.</p> + +<p>"But a'n't you ashamed to live with niggers?"</p> + +<p>"Ashamed? What for? Nobody else was good to me. But they was good to me. +I a'n't ashamed."</p> + +<p>The Frisbie color heightens more and more. He looks at that wretched +dwelling,—he glances aside at Mr. Williams, that coal-black Christian, +of sad and resigned demeanor, waiting ruefully to see the roof torn +off,—the only roof that had afforded shelter to the perishing outcast. +Mr. Frisbie is not one of the "soft kind," but he feels the prick of +conscience in his heart.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you go to the poor-house? Didn't anybody tell you to?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's what they said. But nobody showed me the way, and I +couldn't find it."</p> + +<p>"Where did you come from? Who are you?"</p> + +<p>"Fessenden's."</p> + +<p>"Who is Fessenden?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The man that owns me. But he whipped me and shet me up, and I wouldn't +stay."</p> + +<p>"Where does he live?"</p> + +<p>"Don't know. Away off."</p> + +<p>"You'd better go back to him, hadn't you?"</p> + +<p>"No! I like these folks. Best folks I ever seen!" avers the earnest +youth.</p> + +<p>Flush and confusion are in the rich man's face. He turns up an uneasy +glance at Adsly's men, already on the roof; then coughs, and says to +Stephen,—</p> + +<p>"This is interesting!"</p> + +<p>"Very," says Stephen.</p> + +<p>"Don't you remember, <i>I</i> was going to make some provision for this +fellow,—I'd have seen him safe in the almshouse, if nothing more,—but +you suggested Gingerford's."</p> + +<p>"I supposed Gingerford would be delighted to take him in," grins +Stephen.</p> + +<p>"Instead of that, he turns him out in the storm! Did you ever hear of +such sham philanthropy? By George!" cries Frisbie, in his indignation +against the Judge, "there's more real philanthropy in these +niggers"——checking himself, and glancing again at the workmen on the +roof.</p> + +<p>"What's philanthropy?" asks Fessenden's. "Is that what you're tearin' +their house down for? I'm sorry!"</p> + +<p>Frisbie is flustered. He is ashamed of appearing "soft." He wishes +heartily to be well rid of the niggers. But something in his own heart +rebels against the course he has taken to eject them.</p> + +<p>"Just hold on there a minute, Adsly!"</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay!" says Adsly. And the work stops.</p> + +<p>"Now what do I do this for?" exclaims Frisbie, vexed at himself the +instant he has spoken. And he frowns, and blows his nose furiously. +"It's because I am too good-natured, altogether!"</p> + +<p>"No, no, Sir,—I beg your pardon!" says Mr. Williams, his heart all +aglow with gratitude. "To be kind and merciful to the poor, that isn't +to be too good-natured, Sir!"</p> + +<p>"Well, well! I a'n't one of your milk-and-water sort. Look at such a man +as Gingerford, for example! But I guess, come case in hand, you'll find +as much genuine humanity in me, Adsly, as in them that profess so much. +Wait till to-morrow before you knock the old shell to pieces. I'll give +'em another day. And in the mean time, boy," turning to Fessenden's, +"you must find you another home. Either go back to your guardian, or +I'll send you over to the almshouse. These people can't keep you, for +they'll have no house in these parts to keep themselves in."</p> + +<p>"So?" says Fessenden's. "They kep' me when they had a house, and I'll +stay with them when they haven't got any."</p> + +<p>Something in the case of this unfortunate stripling interested Frisbie. +His devotion to his new friends was so sincere, and so simply expressed, +that the robust, well-fed man was almost touched by it.</p> + +<p>"I vow, it's a queer case, Stephen! What do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>"I think"——said the joker.</p> + +<p>"What do you think? Out with it!"</p> + +<p>"You own that vacant lot opposite Gingerford's?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; what of that?"</p> + +<p>"I think, then, instead of pulling the house down, I'd just move it over +there, niggers and all"——</p> + +<p>"And set it opposite the Judge's!" exclaims Frisbie, catching gleefully +at the idea.</p> + +<p>"Exactly," says Stephen; "and give him enough of niggers for one while."</p> + +<p>"I'll do it!—Adsly! Adsly! See here, Adsly! Do you suppose this old box +can be moved?"</p> + +<p>"I guess so. 'T a'n't very large. Ruther think the frame'll hold +together."</p> + +<p>"Will you undertake the job?"</p> + +<p>"Wal, I never moved a house. There's Cap'en Slade, he moves houses. He's +got all the tackle for it, and I ha'n't. I suppose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> I can git him, if +you want me to see to the job."</p> + +<p>Agreed! It did not take Frisbie long to decide. It was such a tremendous +joke! A nest of niggers under the dainty Gingerford nose! ho, ho! Whip +up, Stephen! And the red and puffy face, redder and puffier still with +immense fun, rode off.</p> + +<p>Adsly and his men disappeared also, to return with Cap'en Slade and his +tackle on the morrow. Then Joe began to dance and scream like a little +devil.</p> + +<p>"Have a ride! have a ride! Oh, mammy! they're gunter snake th' ole house +through the village to-morrer, an' we're all gunter have a ride! free +gratis for nothin'! 'thout payin' for 't neither! A'n't we, Bill?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Williams sits right down, overcome by the surprise.</p> + +<p>"Now I want to know if that 'ere 's so!"</p> + +<p>"That's what't looks like now," says Mr. Williams. "We're goin' to be +sot opposite Mr. Gingerford's."</p> + +<p>"'Ristocratic!" cries Joe, putting on airs. "That's what'll tickle +Bill!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, laws!" exclaims Mrs. Williams, with humorous sadness,—"what a show +th' ole cabin'll make, stuck down there 'mongst all them fine housen!"</p> + +<p>"I don't know's I quite like the notion," says her husband, with a +good-natured expansion of his serious features. "I'm 'fraid we sha'n't +be welcome neighbors down there. 'T a'n't so much out o' kindness to us +as it is out o' spite to the Gingerfords, that the house is to be moved +instid o' tore down."</p> + +<p>"That's the glory of the Lord! Even the wrath of man shall praise Him!" +utters the old grandmother, devoutly.</p> + +<p>"Won't it be jimmy?" crows Joe. "He's a jolly ole brick, that Frisbie! +I'm a-gunter set straddle on the ridge-pole, an' carry a flag. Hooray!"</p> + +<p>"I consider that the situation will be very much preferable to this," +observes Gentleman Bill, polishing his hat with his coat-sleeve. "Better +quarter of the town; more central; eligible locality for establishing a +tailor-shop."</p> + +<p>"Legible comicality for stablin' a shailor-top!" stammers Joe, mimicking +his brother.</p> + +<p>Upon which Bill—as he sometimes did, when excited—elapsed into the +vulgar, but expressive idiom of the family. "Shet yer head, can't ye?" +And he lifted a hand, with intent to clap it smartly upon the part the +occlusion of which was desirable.</p> + +<p>Joe shrieked, and fled.</p> + +<p>"No quarrellin' on a 'casion like this!" interposes the old woman, +covering the boy's retreat. "This 'ere's a time for joy and thanks, an' +nuffin' else. Bless the Lord, I knowed He'd keep an eye on to th' ole +house. Didn't I tell ye that boy'd bring us good luck? It's all on his +account the house a'n't tore down, an' I consider it a mighty Providence +from fust to last. Wasn't I right, when I said I guessed I'd have faith, +an' git the washin' out? Bless the Lord, I could cry!"</p> + +<p>And cry she did, with a fulness of heart which, I think, might possibly +have convinced even the jocund Frisbie that there was something better +than an old, worn-out, spiteful jest in the resolution he had taken to +have the house moved, instead of razed.</p> + +<p>And now the deaf old patriarch in the corner-became suddenly aware that +something exciting was going forward; but being unable clearly to +comprehend what, and chancing to see Fessenden's coming in, he gave +expression to his exuberant emotions by rising, and shaking the lad's +passive hand, with the usual highly polite salutation.</p> + +<p>"Tell him we're all a-gunter have a ride," said Joe.</p> + +<p>But as Fessenden's couldn't tell him loud enough, Joe screamed the news.</p> + +<p>"Say?" asked the old man, raising a feeble hand to his ear, and stooping +and smiling.</p> + +<p>"Put th' ole house on wheels, an' dror it!" shrieked Joe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, yes!" chuckled the old man. "I remember! Six hills in a row. +Busters!"—looking wonderfully knowing, and, with feeble forefinger +raised, nodding and winking at his great-grandchild,—as it were across +the slim gulf of a hundred years which divided the gleeful boyhood of +Joe from the second childhood of the ancient dreamer.</p> + +<p>The next day came Adsly and his men again, with Cap'en Slade and his +tackle, and several yokes of oxen with drivers. Levers and screws moved +the house from its foundations, and it was launched upon rollers. Then, +progress! Then, sensation in Timberville! Some said it was Noah's ark, +sailing down the street. The household furniture of the patriarch was +mostly left on board the antique craft, but Noah and his family followed +on foot. They took their live stock with them,—cow and calf, and +poultry and pig. Joe and his great-grandfather carried each a pair of +pullets, in their hands. Gentleman Bill drove the pig, with a rope tied +to his (piggy's) leg. Mr. Williams transported more poultry,—turkeys +and hens, in two great flopping clusters, slung over his shoulder, with +their heads down. The women bore crockery and other frangible articles, +and helped Fessenden's drive the cow. A picturesque procession, not +noiseless! The bosses shouted to the men, the drivers shouted to the +oxen, loud groaned the beams of the ark, the cow lowed, the calf bawled, +great was the squawking and squealing!</p> + +<p>Gentleman Bill was sick of the business before they had gone half-way. +He wished he had stayed in the shop, instead of coming over to help the +family, and make himself ridiculous. There was not much pleasure in +driving that stout young porker. Many a sharp jerk lamed the hand that +held the rope that restrained the leg that piggy wanted to run with. +Besides, (as I believe swine and some other folks invariably do under +the like circumstances,) piggy always tried to run in the wrong +direction. To add to Gentleman Bill's annoyance, spectators soon became +numerous, and witty suggestions were not wanting.</p> + +<p>"Take him up in your arms," said somebody.</p> + +<p>"Take advantage of his contrariness, and try to drive him 't other way," +said somebody else.</p> + +<p>"Ride him," proposed a third.</p> + +<p>"Make a whistle of his tail, an' blow it, an' he'll foller ye!" screamed +a bright school-boy.</p> + +<p>"Stick some of yer tailor's needles into him!" "Sew him up in a sack, +and shoulder him!" "Take up his hind-legs, and push him like a +wheelbarrer!" And so forth, and so forth, till Bill was in a fearful +sweat and rage, partly with the pig, but chiefly with the uncivil +multitude.</p> + +<p>"Ruther carry me on your back, some rainy night, hadn't ye?" said +Fessenden's, in all simplicity, perceiving his distress.</p> + +<p>"You didn't excruciate my wrist so like time!" groaned Bill. And what +was more, darkness covered that other memorable journey.</p> + +<p>As for Joe, he liked it. Though he was not allowed to ride the +ridge-pole and wave a flag through the village, as he proposed, he had +plenty of fun on foot. He went swinging his chickens, and frequently +pinching them to make them musical. The laughter of the lookers-on +didn't trouble him in the least; for he could laugh louder than any. But +his sisters were ashamed, and Mr. Williams looked grave; for they were, +actually, human! and I suppose they didn't like to be jeered at, and +called a swarm of niggers, any more than you or I would.</p> + +<p>So the journey was accomplished; and the stupendous joke of Frisbie's +was achieved. Conceive Mrs. Gingerford's wonder, when she beheld the ark +approaching! Fancy her feelings, when she saw it towed up and moored in +front of her own door,—the whole tribe of Noah, lowing cow, bawling +calf, squawking poultry, and squealing pig, and so forth, and so forth, +accompanying! This, then, was the meaning of the masons at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> work over +there since yesterday. They had been preparing the new foundations on +which the old house was to rest. So the stunning truth broke upon her: +niggers for neighbors! What had she done to merit such a dispensation?</p> + +<p>What done, unhappy lady? Your own act has drawn down upon you this +retribution. You yourself have done quite as much towards bringing that +queer craft along-side as yonder panting and lolling oxen. They are but +the brute instruments, while you have been a moral agent in the matter. +One word, uttered by you three nights ago, has had the terrible magic in +it to summon forth from the mysterious womb of events this extraordinary +procession. Had but a different word been spoken, it would have proved +equally magical, though we might never have known it: that breath by +your delicate lips would have blown back these horrible shadows; and +instead of all this din and confusion of house-hauling, we should have +had silence this day in the streets of Timberville. You don't see it? In +plain phrase, then, understand: you took not in the stranger at your +gate; but he found refuge with these blacks; and because they showed +mercy unto him, the sword of Frisbie's wrath was turned aside from them, +and, edged by Stephen's witty jest, directed against you and yours. +Hence this interesting scene which you look down upon from your windows, +at the beautiful hour of sunset, which you love. And, oh, to think of +it! between your chamber and those golden sunsets that negro hut and +those negroes will always be henceforth!</p> + +<p>Now don't you wish; Madam, you had had compassion on the wayfarer? But +we will not mock at your calamity. You did precisely what any of us +would have been only too apt to do in your place. You told the simple +truth, when you said you didn't want the ragged wretch in your house. +And what person of refinement, I'd like to know, would have wanted him? +For, say what you will, it is a most disagreeable thing to admit +downright dirty vagabonds into our elegant dwellings. And dangerous, +besides; for they might murder us in the night,—or steal something! Oh, +we fastidious and fearful! where is our charity? where is the heart of +trust? There was of old a Divine Man, who had not where to lay his +head,—whom the wise of those days scoffed at as a crazy fellow,—whom +respectable people shunned,—who made himself the companion of the poor, +the comforter of the distressed, the helper of those in trouble, and the +healer of diseases;—who shrank neither from the man or woman of sin, +nor from the loathsome leper, nor from sorrow and death for our +sakes,—whose gospel we now profess to live by, and——</p> + +<p>But let us not be "soft." We are reasonably Christian, we hope; and it +shows low breeding to be ultra. (Was the Carpenter's Son low-bred?)</p> + +<p>And now the Judge rides home in the dusk of the December day. It is +still light enough, however, for him to see that Frisbie's vacant lot +has been made an Ararat of; and he could hear the Noachian noises, were +it ever so dark. The awful jest bursts upon him; he hears the screaming +of the bomb-shell, then the explosion. But the mind of this man is (so +to speak) casemated. It is a shock,—but he never once loses his +self-possession. His quick perception detects Friend Frisbie behind the +gun; and he smiles with his intelligent, fine-cut face. Shall malice +have the pleasure of knowing that the shot has told? Our orator is too +sagacious for that. There is never any use in being angry: that is one +of his maxims. Therefore, if he feels any chagrin, he will smother it. +If there is a storm within, the world shall see only the rainbow, that +radiant smile of his. Cool is Gingerford! He has seized the subject +instantly, and calculated all its bearings. He is a man to make the best +of it; and even the bitterness which is in it shall, if possible, bear +him some wholesome drink. To school his mind to patience,—to practise +daily the philanthropy he teaches,—this will be much; and already his +heart is humbled and warmed. And who knows,—for,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> with all his +sincerity and aspiration, he has an eye to temporal uses,—who knows but +this stumbling-block an enemy has placed in his way may prove the +stepping-stone of his ambition?</p> + +<p>"What is all this, James?" he inquires of his son, who comes out to the +gate to meet him.</p> + +<p>"Frisbie's meanness!" says the young man, almost choking. "And the whole +town is laughing at us!"</p> + +<p>"Laughing at us? What have we done?" mildly answers the parent. "I tell +you what, James,—they sha'n't laugh at us long. We can live so as to +compel them to reverence us; and if there is any ridicule attached to +the affair, it will soon rest where it belongs."</p> + +<p>"Such a sty stuck right down under our noses!" muttered the mortified +James.</p> + +<p>"We will make of it an ornament," retorts the Judge, with mounting +spirits. "Come with me,"—taking the youth's arm. "My son, call no human +habitation a sty. These people are our brothers, and we will show them +the kindness of brethren."</p> + +<p>A servant receives the horse, and Gingerford and his son cross the +street.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Friend Williams! So you have concluded to come and live +neighbor to us, have you?"</p> + +<p>Friend Williams was at the end of the house, occupied in improvising a +cowshed under an old apple-tree. Piggy was already tied to the trunk of +the tree, and the hens and turkeys were noisily selecting their roosts +in the boughs. At sight of the Judge, whose displeasure he feared, the +negro was embarrassed, and hardly knew what to say. But the pleasant +greeting of the silver-toned voice reassured him, and he stopped his +work to frame his candid, respectful answer.</p> + +<p>"It was Mr. Frisbie that concluded. All I had to do was to go with the +house wherever he chose to move it."</p> + +<p>"Well, he might have done much worse by you. You have a nice landlord, a +nice landlord, Mr. Williams. Mr. Frisbie is a very fine man."</p> + +<p>It was Gingerford's practice to speak well of everybody with whom he had +any personal relations, and especially well of his enemies; because, as +he used to say to his son, evil words commonly do more harm to him who +utters them than to those they are designed to injure, while fair and +good words are easily spoken, and are the praise of their author, if of +nobody else: for, if the subject of them is a bad man, they will not be +accepted as literally true by any one that knows him, but, on the +contrary, they will be set down to the credit of your good-nature,—or +who knows but they may become coals of fire upon the head of your enemy, +and convert him into a friend?</p> + +<p>James had now an opportunity to test the truth of these observations. +Was Mr. Williams convinced that Frisbie was a nice landlord and a fine +man? By no means. But that Judge Gingerford was a fine man, and a +charitable, he believed more firmly than ever. Then there was Stephen +standing by,—having, no doubt, been sent by his master to observe the +chagrin of the Gingerfords, and to bring back the report thereof; who, +when he heard the Judge's words, looked surprised and abashed, and +presently stole away, himself discomfited.</p> + +<p>"I pray the Lord," said Mr. Williams, humbly and heartily, "you won't +consider us troublesome neighbors."</p> + +<p>"I hope not," replied the Judge; "and why should I? You have a good, +honest reputation, Friend Williams; and I hear that you are a peaceable +and industrious family. We ought to be able to serve each other in many +ways. What can I do for you, to begin with? Wouldn't you like to turn +your cow and calf into my yard?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you a thousand times,—if I can, just as well as not," said the +grateful negro. "We had to tear down the shed and pig-pen when we moved +the house, and I ha'n't had time to set 'em up again."</p> + +<p>"And I imagine you have had enough to do, for one day. Let your children +drive the creatures through the gate yonder;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> my man will show them the +shed. Are you a good gardener, Mr. Williams?"</p> + +<p>"Wal, I've done consid'able at that sort of work, Sir."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad of that. I have to hire a good deal of gardening done. I see +we are going to be very much obliged to your landlord for bringing us so +near together. And this is your father?"</p> + +<p>"My grandfather, Sir," said Mr. Williams.</p> + +<p>"Your grandfather? I must shake hands with him."</p> + +<p>"Sarvant, Sah," said the old man, cap off, bowing and smiling there in +the December twilight.</p> + +<p>"He's deaf as can be," said Mr. Williams; "you'll have to talk loud, to +make him hear. He's more 'n a hunderd year old."</p> + +<p>"You astonish me!" exclaimed the Judge. "A very remarkable old person! I +should delight to converse with him,—to know what his thoughts are in +these new times, and what his memories are of the past, which, I +suppose, is even now more familiar to his mind than the objects of +to-day. God bless you, my venerable friend!" shaking hands a second time +with the ancient black, and speaking in a loud voice.</p> + +<p>"Tankee, Sah,—very kind," smiled the flattered old man. "Sarvant, Sah."</p> + +<p>"'Tis you who are kind, to take notice of young fellows like me," +pleasantly replied the Judge.—"Well, good evening, friends. I shall +always be glad to know if there is anything I can do for you. Ha! what +is this?"</p> + +<p>It was the cow and calf coming back again, followed by Joe and +Fessenden's.</p> + +<p>"Gorry!" cried Joe,—"wa'n't that man mad? Thought he'd bite th' ole +cow's tail off!"</p> + +<p>"What man? My man?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said honest Fessenden's; "he said he'd be damned if he'd have a +nigger's critters along with his'n!"</p> + +<p>"Then we'll afford him an early opportunity to be damned," observed the +Judge. "Drive them back again. I'll go with you.—By the way, Mr. +Williams,"—Gingerford saw his man approaching, and spoke loud enough +for him to hear and understand,—"are you accustomed to taking care of +horses? I may find it necessary to employ some one before long."</p> + +<p>"Wal, yes, Sir; I'm tol'able handy about a stable," replied the negro.</p> + +<p>"Hollo, there!" called the man, somewhat sullenly, "drive that cow back +here! Why didn't you tell me 't was the boss's orders?"</p> + +<p>"Did tell him so; and he said as how I lied," said Joe,—driving the +animals back again triumphantly.</p> + +<p>The Judge departed with his son,—a thoughtful and aspiring youth, who +pondered deeply what he had seen and heard, as he walked by his father's +side. And Mr. Williams, greatly relieved and gratified by the interview, +hastened to relate to his family the good news. And the praises of +Gingerford were on all their tongues, and in their prayers that night he +was not forgotten.</p> + +<p>Three days after, the Judge's man was dismissed from his place, in +consequence of difficulties originating in the affair of the cow. The +Judge had sought an early opportunity to converse with him on the +subject.</p> + +<p>"A negro's cow," said he, "is as good as anybody's cow; and I consider +Mr. Williams as good a man as you are."</p> + +<p>The white coachman couldn't stand that; and the result was that the +Gingerfords had a black coachman in a few days. The situation was +offered to Mr. Williams, and very glad he was to accept it.</p> + +<p>Thus the wrath of man continued to work the welfare of these humble +Christians. It is reasonable to doubt whether the Judge was at heart +delighted with his new neighbors; and jolly Mr. Frisbie enjoyed the joke +somewhat less, I suspect, than he anticipated. One party enjoyed it, +nevertheless. It was a serious and solid satisfaction to the Williams +family. No member of which, with the exception, perhaps, of Joe, +exhibited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> greater pleasure at the change in their situation than the +old patriarch. It rejuvenated him. His hearing was almost restored. "One +move more," he said, "and I shall be young and spry agin as the day I +got my freedom,"—that day, so many, many years ago, which he so well +remembered! Well, the "one move more" was near; and the morning of a new +freedom, the morning of a more perfect youth and gladness, was not +distant.</p> + +<p>It was the old man's delight to go out and sit in the sun before the +door, in the clear December weather, and pull off his cap to the Judge +as he passed. To get a bow, and perhaps a kind word, from the +illustrious Gingerford, was glory enough for one day, and the old man +invariably hurried into the house to tell of it.</p> + +<p>But one morning a singular thing occurred. To all appearances—to the +eyes of all except one—he remained sitting out there in the sun after +the Judge had gone. But Fessenden's, looking up suddenly, and staring at +vacancy, cried,—</p> + +<p>"Hollo!"</p> + +<p>"What, child?" asked Mrs. Williams.</p> + +<p>"The old man!" said Fessenden's. "Comin' into the door! Don't ye see +him?"</p> + +<p>Nobody saw him but the lad; and of course all were astonished by his +earnest announcement of the apparition. The old grandmother hastened to +look out. There sat her father still, on the bench by the apple-tree, +leaning against the trunk. But the sight did not satisfy her. She ran +out to him. The smile of salutation was still on his lips, which seemed +just saying, "Sarvant, Sah," to the Judge. But those lips would never +move again. They were the lips of death.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, Williams?" asked the Judge, on his return home that +afternoon.</p> + +<p>"My gran'ther is dead, Sir; and I don't know where to bury him." This +was the negro's quiet and serious answer.</p> + +<p>"Dead?" ejaculates the Judge. "Why, I saw him only this morning, and had +a smile from him!"</p> + +<p>"That was his last smile, Sir. You can see it on his face yet. He went +to heaven with that smile, we trust."</p> + +<p>To heaven? a negro in heaven? If that is so, some of us, I suppose, will +no longer wish to go there. Or do you imagine that you will have need of +servants in paradise, and that that is what Christian niggers are for? +Or do you believe that in the celestial congregations there will also be +a place set aside for the colored brethren,—a glorified niggers' pew? +You scowl; you don't like a joke upon so serious a subject? Hypocrite! +do you see nothing but a joke here?</p> + +<p>The Judge leaves everything and goes home with his coachman. Sure +enough! there is the same smile he saw in the morning, frozen on the +face of the corpse.</p> + +<p>"Gently and late death came to him!" says Gingerford. "Would we could +all die as happy! There is no occasion to mourn, my good woman."</p> + +<p>"Bless the Lord, I don't mourn!" replied the old negress. "But I'm so +brimful of thanks, I must cry for 't! He died a blessed ole Christian; +an' he's gone straight to glory, if there's anything in the promises. He +is free now, if he never was afore;—for, though they pretend there +a'n't no slaves in this 'ere State, an' the law freed us years ago, +seems to me there a'n't no r'al liberty for us, 'cept this!" She pointed +at the corpse, then threw up her eyes and hands with an expression of +devout and joyful gratitude. "He's gone where there a'n't no predijice +agin color, bless the Lord! He's gone where all them that's been washed +with the blood of Christ is all of one color in His sight!" Then turning +to the Judge,—"And you'll git your reward, Sir, be sure o' that!"</p> + +<p>"My reward?" And Gingerford, touched with genuine emotion, shook his +head, sadly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sir, your reward," repeated the old woman, tenderly arranging the +sheet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> over the still breast, and still, folded hands of the corpse. +"For makin' his last days happy,—for makin' his last minutes happy, I +may say. That 'ere smile was for you, Sir. You was kinder to him 'n +folks in gin'ral. He wa'n't used to 't. An' he felt it. An' he's gone to +glory with the news on 't. An' it'll be sot down to your credit there, +in the Big Book."</p> + +<p>Where was the Judge's eloquence? He could not find words to frame a +fitting reply to this ignorant black woman, whose emotion was so much +deeper than any fine phrases of his could reach, and whose simple faith +and gratitude overwhelmed him with the sudden conviction that he had +never yet said anything to the purpose, in all his rhetorical defences +of the down-trodden race. From that conviction came humility. Out of +humility rose inspiration. Two days later his eloquence found tongue; +and this was the occasion of it:—</p> + +<p>The body of the old negro was to be buried. That he should be simply put +into the ground, and nothing said, any more than as if he were a brute +beast, did not seem befitting the obsequies of so old a man and so +faithful a Christian. The family had natural feelings on that subject. +They wanted to have a funeral sermon.</p> + +<p>Now it so happened that there was to be another funeral in the village +about that time. The old minister, had he been living, might have +managed to attend both. But the young minister couldn't think of such a +thing. The loveliest flower of maidenhood in his parish had been cut +down. One of the first families had been bereaved. Day and night he must +ponder and scribble to prepare a suitable discourse. And then, having +exhausted spiritual grace in bedecking the tomb of the lovely, should +he,—good gracious! <i>could</i> he descend from those heights of beauty and +purity to the grave of a superannuated negro? Could divine oratory so +descend?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"On that fair mountain leave to feed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And batten on this <i>moor</i>"?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Ought the cup of consolation, which he extended to his best, his +worthiest friends and parishioners, to be passed in the same hour to +thick African lips?</p> + +<p>Which questions were, of course, decided in the negative. There was +another minister in the village, but he was sick. What should be done? +To go wandering about the world in search of somebody to preach the +funeral sermon seemed a hard case,—as Mr. Williams remarked to the +Judge.</p> + +<p>"Tell you what, Williams," said the Judge,—"don't give yourself any +more trouble on that account. I'm not a minister, nor half good enough +for one,"—he could afford to speak disparagingly of himself, the +beautiful, gracious gentleman!—"but if you can't do any better, I'll be +present and say a few words at the funeral."</p> + +<p>"Thank you a thousand times!" said the grateful negro. "Couldn't be +nothin' better 'n that! We never expected no such honor; an' if my ole +gran'ther could have knowed you would speak to his funeral, he'd have +been proud, Sir!"</p> + +<p>"He was a simple-minded old soul!" replied the Judge, pleasantly. "And +you're another, Williams! However, I am glad you are satisfied. So this +difficulty is settled, too." For already one very serious difficulty had +been arranged through this man's kindness.</p> + +<p>Did I neglect to mention it,—how, when the old negro died, his family +had no place to bury him? The rest of his race, dying before him, had +been gathered to the mother's bosom in distant places: long lines of +dusky ancestors in Africa; a few descendants in America,—here and there +a grave among New-England hills. Only one, a child of Mr. Williams's, +had died in Timberville, and been placed in the old burying-ground over +yonder. But that was now closed against interments. And as for +purchasing a lot in the new cemetery,—how could poor Mr. Williams ever +hope to raise money to pay for it?</p> + +<p>"Williams," said the Judge, "I own several lots there, and if you'll be +a good boy, I'll make you a present of one."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ah, Gingerford! Gingerford! was it pure benevolence that prompted the +gift? Was the smile with which you afterwards related the circumstance +to dear Mrs. Gingerford a smile of sincere satisfaction at having done a +good action and witnessed the surprise and gratitude of your black +coachman? Tell us, was it altogether an accident, with no tincture +whatever of pleasant malice in it, that the lot you selected, out of +several, to be the burial-place of negroes, lay side by side with the +proud family-vault of your neighbor Frisbie?</p> + +<p>The Judge was one of those cool heads, who, when they have received an +injury, do not go raving of it up and down, but put it quietly aside, +and keep their temper, and rest content to wait patiently, perhaps +years, perhaps a lifetime, for the opportunity of a sudden and pat +revenge. Indeed, I suppose he would have been well satisfied to answer +Frisbie's spite with the nobler revenge of magnanimity and smiling +forbearance, had not the said opportunity presented itself. It was a +temptation not to be resisted. And he, the most philanthropical of men, +proved himself capable of being also the most cruel.</p> + +<p>There, in the choicest quarter of the cemetery, shone the white +ancestral monuments of the Frisbies. Death, the leveller, had not, +somehow, levelled them,—proud and pretentious even in their tombs. You +felt, as you read the sculptured record of their names and virtues, that +even their ashes were better than the ashes of common mortals. They +rendered sacred not only the still inclosure where they lay, but all +that beautiful sunny bank; so that nobody else had presumed to be buried +near them, but a space of many square rods on either side was left still +unappropriated,—until now, when, lo! here comes a black funeral, and +the corpse of one who had been a slave in his day, to profane the soil!</p> + +<p>Nor is this all, alas! There comes not one funeral procession only. The +first has scarcely entered the cemetery, when a second arrives. Side by +side the dead of this day are to be laid: our old friend the negro, and +the lovely young lady we have mentioned,—even the fairest of Mr. +Frisbie's own children.</p> + +<p>For it is she. The sweetest of the faces Fessenden's saw that stormy +night at the window, and yearned to be within the bright room where the +fire, was,—that dear warm face is cold in yonder coffin which the +afflicted family are attending to the tomb.</p> + +<p>And Frisbie, as we have somewhere said, loved his children. And in the +anguish of his bereavement he had not heeded the singular and somewhat +humiliating fact that his daughter had issued from the portal of Time in +company with one of his most despised tenants,—that, in the same hour, +almost at the same moment, Death had summoned them, leading them +together, as it were, one with his right hand, and one with his left, +the way of all the world. So that here was a surprise for the proud and +grief-smitten parent.</p> + +<p>"What is all that, Stephen?" he demands, with sudden consternation.</p> + +<p>"It seems to be another funeral, Sir. They're buryin' somebody next lot +to yours."</p> + +<p>"Who, who, Stephen?"</p> + +<p>"I—I ruther guess it's the old nigger, Sir," says Stephen.</p> + +<p>The mighty man is shaken. Wrath and sorrow and insulted affection +convulse him for a moment. His face grows purple, then pale, and he +struggles with his neckcloth, which is choking him. He sees the tall +form of Gingerford at the grave, and knows what it is to wish to murder +a man. Were those two Christian neighbors quite alone, in this solitude +of the dead, I fear one of them would soon be a fit subject for a +coroner's inquest and an epitaph. O pride and hatred! with what madness +can you inspire a mortal man! O Fessenden's! bless thy stars that thou +art not the only fool alive this day, nor the greatest!</p> + +<p>Fessenden's walked alone to the funeral,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> talking by himself, and now +and then laughing. Gentleman Bill thought his conduct indecorous, and +reproved him for it.</p> + +<p>"Gracious!" said the lad, "don't you see who I'm talkin' with?"</p> + +<p>"No, Sir,—I can't say I see anybody, Sir."</p> + +<p>"No?" exclaimed the astonished youth. "Why, it's the old man, goin' to +his own funeral!"</p> + +<p>This, you may say, was foolishness; but, oh, it was innocent and +beautiful foolishness, compared with that of Frisbie and his +sympathizers, when they discovered the negro burial, and felt that their +mourning was too respectable to be the near companion of the mourning of +those poor blacks, and that their beautiful dead was too precious to be +laid in the earth beside their dead.</p> + +<p>What could be done? Indignation and sorrow availed nothing. The tomb of +the lovely was prepared, and it only remained to pity the affront to her +ashes, as she was committed to the chill depths amid silence and choking +tears. It is done; and the burial of the old negro is deferentially +delayed until the more aristocratic rites are ended.</p> + +<p>Gingerford set the example of standing with his hat off in the yellow +sunshine and wintry air, with his noble head bowed low, while the last +prayer was said at the maiden's sepulture. Then he lifted up his face, +radiant; and the flashing and rainbow-spanned torrent of his eloquence +broke forth. He had reserved his forces for this hour. He had not the +Williams family and their friends alone for an audience, but many who +had come to attend the young lady's funeral remained to hear the Judge. +It was worth their while. Finely as he had discoursed at the hut of the +negroes, before the corpse was brought out, that was scarcely the time, +that was certainly not the place, for a crowning effort of his genius. +But here, his larger audience, the open air, the blue heavens, the +graves around, the burial of the young girl side by side with the old +slave, all contributed to inspire him. Human brotherhood, universal +love, the stern democracy of death, immortality,—these were his theme. +Life, incrusted with conventionalities; Death, that strips them all +away. This is the portal (pointing to the grave) at which the soul drops +all its false incumbrances,—rank, riches, sorrow, shame. It enters +naked into eternity. There worldly pride and arrogance have no place. +There false judgment goes out like a sick man's night-lamp, in the +morning light of truth. In the courts of God only spiritual distinctions +prevail. That you were a lord in this life will be of no account there, +where the humblest Christian love is preferred before the most brilliant +selfishness,—where the master is degraded, and the servant is exalted. +And so forth, and so forth; a brief, but eloquent address, of which it +is to be regretted that no report exists.</p> + +<p>Then came the prayer,—for the Judge had a gift that way too; and the +tenderness and true feeling with which he spoke of the old negro and the +wrongs of his race drew tears from many eyes. Then a hymn was +sung,—those who had stayed to sneer joining their voices seriously with +those of the lowly mourners.</p> + +<p>A few days later, Mr. Williams had the remains of his child taken from +the old burying-ground, and brought here, and laid beside the patriarch. +And before spring, simple tombstones of white marble (at Gingerford's +expense) marked the spot, and commemorated the circumstances of the old +man's extreme age and early bondage.</p> + +<p>And before spring, alas! three other graves were added to that sunny +bank! One by one, all those fair children whom Fessenden's had seen in +the warm room where the fire was had followed their sister to the tomb. +So fast they followed that Mr. Frisbie had no time to move his +family-vault from the degrading proximity of the negro graves. And +Fessenden's still lived, an orphan, yet happy, in the family of blacks +which had adopted him; while the parents of those children, who had +loved them, were left alone in the costly house, desolate. Was it, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> +some supposed, a judgment upon Frisbie for his pride? I cannot tell. I +only know, that, in the end, that pride was utterly broken,—and that, +when the fine words of the young minister failed to console him, when +sympathizing friends surrounded him, and Gingerford came to visit him, +and they were reconciled, he turned from them all, and gratefully +received hope and comfort from the lips of a humble old Christian who +had nursed the last of his children in her days and nights of suffering, +almost against his will.</p> + +<p>That Christian? It was the old negro woman.</p> + +<p>Early in the spring, Mr. Williams——But no more! Haven't we already +prolonged our sketch to an intolerable length, considering the subject +of it? Not a lover in it! and, of course, it is preposterous to think of +making a readable story without one. Why didn't we make young Gingerford +in love with—let's see—Miss Frisbie? and Miss Frisbie's brother (it +would have required but a stroke of the pen to give her one) in love +with—Creshy Williams? What melodramatic difficulties might have been +built upon this foundation! And as for Fessenden's being a fool and a +pauper, he should turn out to be the son of some proud man, either +Gingerford or Frisbie. But it is too late now. We acknowledge our fatal +mistake. Who cares for the fortunes of a miserable negro family? Who +cares to know the future of Mr. Williams, or of any of his race?</p> + +<p>Suffice it, then, to say, that, as for the Williamses, God has taken +care of them in every trial,—turning even the wrath of enemies to their +advantage, as we have seen; just as He will, no doubt, in His fatherly +kindness, provide for that unhappy race which is now in the perilous +crisis of its destiny, and concerning which so many, both its friends +and enemies, are anxiously asking, "What will become of them?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FORGOTTEN" id="FORGOTTEN"></a>FORGOTTEN.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">In this dim shadow, where<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She found the quiet which all tired hearts crave,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Now, without grief or care,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wild bees murmur, and the blossoms wave,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the forgetful air<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blows heedlessly across her grassy grave.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Yet, when she lived on earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She loved this leafy dell, and knew by name<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All things of sylvan birth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Squirrel and bird chirped welcome, when she came:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet now, in careless mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They frisk, and build, and warble all the same.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">From the great city near,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherein she toiled through life's incessant quest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For weary year on year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come the far voices of its deep unrest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To touch her dead, deaf ear,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> +<span class="i0">And surge unechoed o'er her pulseless breast.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">The hearts which clung to her<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have sought out other shrines, as all hearts must,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When Time, the comforter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has worn their grief out, and replaced their trust:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not even neglect can stir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This little handful of forgotten dust.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Grass waves, and insects hum,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then the snow blows bitterly across;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Strange footsteps go and come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breaking the dew-drops on the starry moss:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She lieth still and dumb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And counts no longer any gain or loss.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Ah, well,—'t is better so;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let the dust deepen as the years increase;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of her who sleeps below<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let the name perish and the memory cease,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Since she has come to know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That which through life she vainly prayed for,—Peace!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WET-WEATHER_WORK" id="WET-WEATHER_WORK"></a>WET-WEATHER WORK.</h2> + +<h3>BY A FARMER.</h3> + + +<h3>VIII.—CONCLUSION.</h3> + +<p>As I sit in my library-chair listening to the welcome drip from the +eaves, I bethink me of the great host of English farm-teachers who in +the last century wrote and wrought so well, and wonder why their +precepts and their example should not have made a garden of that little +British island. To say nothing of the inherited knowledge of such men as +Sir Anthony Fitz-Herbert, Hugh Platt, Markham, Lord Bacon, Hartlib, and +the rest, there was Tull, who had blazed a new path between the turnip +and the wheat-drills—to fortune; there was Lord Kames, who illustrated +with rare good sense, and the daintiness of a man of letters, all the +economies of a thrifty husbandry; Sir John Sinclair proved the +wisdom of thorough culture upon tracts that almost covered counties; +Bakewell (of Dishley)—that fine old farmer in breeches and top-boots, +who received Russian princes and French marquises at his +kitchen-fireside—demonstrated how fat might be laid on sheep or cattle +for the handling of a butcher; in fact, he succeeded so far, that Dr. +Parkinson once told Paley that the great breeder had "the power of +fattening his sheep in whatever part of the body he chose, directing it +to shoulder, leg, or neck, as he thought proper,—and this," continued +Parkinson, "is the great <i>problem</i> of his art."</p> + +<p>"It's a lie, Sir," said Paley,—"and that's the <i>solution</i> of it."</p> + +<p>And yet Dr. Parkinson was very near the truth.</p> + +<p>Besides Bakewell, there was Arthur Young, as we have seen, giving all +England the benefit of agricultural comparisons by his admirable +"Tours"; Lord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> Dundonald had brought his chemical knowledge to the aid +of good husbandry; Abercrombie and Speechly and Marshall had written +treatises on all that regarded good gardening. The nurseries of +Tottenham Court Road, the parterres of Chelsea, and the stoves of the +Yew Gardens were luxuriant witnesses of what the enterprising gardener +might do.</p> + +<p>Agriculture, too, had a certain dignity given to it by the fact that +"Farmer George" (the King) had written his experiences for a journal of +Arthur Young, the Duke of Bedford was one of the foremost advocates of +improved farming, and Lord Townshend took a pride in his <i>sobriquet</i> of +"Turnip Townshend."</p> + +<p>Yet, for all this, at the opening of the present century, England was by +no means a garden. Over more than half the kingdom, turnips, where sown +at all, were sown broadcast. In four counties out of five, a bare fallow +was deemed essential for the recuperation of cropped lands. Barley and +oats were more often grown than wheat. Dibbling or drilling of grain, +notwithstanding Platt and Jethro Tull, were still rare. The wet +clay-lands had, for the most part, no drainage, save the open furrows +which were as old as the teachings of Xenophon; indeed, it will hardly +be credited, when I state that it is only so late as 1843 that a certain +gardener, John Reade by name, at the Derby Show of the Royal +Agricultural Society, exhibited certain cylindrical pipes, which he had +formed by wrapping damp clay around a smooth billet of wood, and with +which he "had been in the habit of draining the hot-beds of his master." +A sagacious engineer who was present, and saw these, examined them +closely, and, calling the attention of Earl Spencer (the eminent +agriculturist) to them, said, "My Lord, with them I can drain all +England."</p> + +<p>It was not until about 1830 that the subsoil-plough of Mr. Smith of +Deanston was first contrived for special work upon the lands of +Perthshire. Notwithstanding all the brilliant successes of Bakewell, +long-legged, raw-boned cattle were admired by the majority of British +farmers at the opening of this century, and elephantine monsters of this +description were dragged about England in vans for exhibition. It was +only in 1798 that the "Smithfield Club" was inaugurated for the show of +fat cattle, by the Duke of Bedford, Lord Somerville, Arthur Young, and +others; and it was about the same period that young Jonas Webb (whose +life has latterly been illustrated by a glowing chapter from Elihu +Burritt) used to ride upon the Norfolk bucks bred by his grandfather, +and, with a quick sense of discomfort from their sharp backs, vowed, +that, when he "grew a man, he'd make better saddles for them"; and he +did, as every one knows who has ever seen a good type of the Brabaham +flock.</p> + +<p>The Royal Agricultural Society dates from 1838. In 1835 Sir Robert Peel +presented a farmers' club at Tamworth with "two iron ploughs of the best +construction," and when he inquired after them and their work the +following year, the report was that the wooden mould-board was better: +"We tried 'em, but we be all of one mind, that the iron made the weeds +grow." And I can recall a bright morning in January of 1845, when I made +two bouts around a field in the middle of the best dairy-district of +Devonshire, at the stilts of a plough so cumbrous and ineffective that a +thrifty New-England farmer would have discarded it at sight. Nor can I +omit, in this connection, to revive, so far as I may, the image of a +small Devon farmer, who had lived, and I dare say will die, utterly +ignorant of the instructions of Tull, or of the agricultural labors of +Arthur Young: a short, wheezy, rotund figure of a man, with ruddy +face,—fastening the <i>h</i>s in his talk most blunderingly,—driving over +to the market-town every fair-day, with pretty samples of wheat or +barley in his dog-cart,—believing in the royal family like a +gospel,—limiting his reading to glances at the "Times" in the +tap-room,—looking with an evil eye upon railways, (which, in that day, +had not intruded farther than Exeter into his shire,)—distrusting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> +terribly the spread of "eddication": it "doan't help the work-folk any; +for, d' ye see, they've to keep a mind on their pleughing and craps; and +as for the b'ys, the big uns must mind the beasts, and the little uns's +got enough to do a-scaring the demed rooks. Gads! what hodds to them, +please your Honor, what Darby is a-dooin' up in Lunnun, or what +Lewis-Philup is a-dooin' with the Frenchers?" And the ruddy +farmer-gentleman stirs his toddy afresh, lays his right leg caressingly +over his left leg, admires his white-topped boots, and is the picture of +British complacency. I hope he is living; I hope he stirs his toddy +still in the tap-room of the inn by the pretty Erme River; but I hope +that he has grown wiser as he has grown older, and that he has given +over his wheezy curses at the engine as it hurtles past on the iron way +to Plymouth and to Penzance.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The work was not all done for the agriculture and the agriculturist of +England in the last century; it is hardly all done yet; it is doubtful +if it will be done so as to close investigation and ripen method in our +time. There was room for a corps of fresh workers at the opening of the +present century; nor was such a corps lacking.</p> + +<p>About the year 1808, a certain John Christian Curwen, Member of +Parliament, and dating from Cumberland, wrote "Hints on Agricultural +Subjects," a big octavo volume, in which he suggests the steaming of +potatoes for horses, as a substitute for hay; but it does not appear +that the suggestion was well received. To his credit, however, it may be +said, that, in the same book, he urged the system of "soiling" +cattle,—a system which even now needs its earnest expounders, and which +would give full warrant for their loudest exhortation.</p> + +<p>I notice, too, that, at about the same period, Dr. Beddoes, the friend +and early patron of Sir Humphry Davy at the Pneumatic Institution of +Bristol, wrote a book with the quaint title, "Good Advice to Husbandmen +in Harvest, and for all those who labor in Hot Berths, and for others +who will take it—in Warm Weather." And with the recollection of Davy's +description of the Doctor in my mind,—"uncommonly short and +fat,"<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>—I have felt a great interest in seeing what such a man should +have to say upon harvest-heats; but his book, so far as I know, is not +to be found in America.</p> + +<p>A certain John Harding, of St. James Street, London, published, in 1809, +a tract upon "The Use of Sugar in Feeding Cattle," in which were set +forth sundry experiments which went to show how bullocks had been +fattened on molasses, and had been rewarded with a premium. I am +indebted for all knowledge of this anomalous tractate to the +"Agricultural Biography" of Mr. Donaldson, who seems disposed to give a +sheltering wing to the curious theory broached, and discourses upon it +with a lucidity and coherence worthy of a state-paper. I must be +permitted to quote Mr. Donaldson's language:—"The author's ideas are no +romance or chimera, but a very feasible entertainment of the +undertaking, when a social revolution permits the fruits of all climes +to be used in freedom of the burden of value that is imposed by +monopoly, and restricts the legitimate appropriation."</p> + +<p>George Adams, in 1810, proposed "A New System of Agriculture and Feeding +Stock," of which the novelty lay in movable sheds, (upon iron +tram-ways,) for the purpose of soiling cattle. The method was certainly +original; nor can it be regarded as wholly visionary in our time, when +the iron conduits of Mr. Mechi, under the steam-thrust of the Tip-Tree +engines, are showing a percentage of profit.</p> + +<p>Charles Drury, in the same year, recommended, in an elaborate treatise, +the steaming of straw, roots, and hay, for cattle-food,—a +recommendation which, in our time, has been put into most successful +practice.</p> + +<p>Mowbray, who was for a long time the great authority upon Domestic Fowls +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> their Treatment, published his book in 1803, which he represents as +having been compiled from the memoranda of forty years' experience.</p> + +<p>And next, as illustrative of the rural literature of the early part of +this century, I must introduce the august name of Sir Humphry Davy. This +I am warranted in doing on two several counts: first, because he was an +accomplished fisherman and the author of "Salmonia," and next, because +he was the first scientific man of any repute who was formally invited +by a Board of Agriculture to discuss the relations of Chemistry to the +practice of farming.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, he was himself ignorant of practical agriculture,<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> +when called upon to illustrate its relations to chemistry; but, like an +earnest man, he set about informing himself by communication with the +best farmers of the kingdom. He delivered a very admirable series of +lectures, and it was without doubt most agreeable to the +country-gentlemen to find the great waste from their fermenting manures +made clear by Sir Humphry's retorts; but Davy was too profound and too +honest a man to lay down for farmers any chemical high-road to success. +He directed and stimulated inquiry; he developed many of the principles +which underlay their best practice; but he offered them no safety-lamp. +I think he brought more zeal to his investigations in the domain of pure +science; he loved well-defined and brilliant results; and I do not think +that he pushed his inquiries in regard to the way in which the +forage-plants availed themselves of sulphate of lime with one-half the +earnestness or delight with which he conducted his discovery of the +integral character of chlorine, or with which he saw for the first time +the metallic globules bubbling out from the electrified crust of potash.</p> + +<p>Yet he loved the country with a rare and thorough love, as his +descriptions throughout his letters prove; and he delighted in straying +away, in the leafy month of June, to the charming place of his friend +Knight, upon the Teme in Herefordshire. His "Salmonia" is, in its way, a +pastoral; not, certainly, to be compared with the original of Walton, +lacking its simple homeliness, for which its superior scientific +accuracy can make but poor amends. I cannot altogether forget, in +reading it, that its author is a fine gentleman from London. Neither +fish, nor alders, nor eddies, nor purling shallows, can drive out of +memory the fact that Sir Humphry must be back at "The Hall" by half-past +six, in season to dress for dinner. Walton, in slouch-hat, bound about +with "leaders," sat upon the green turf to listen to a milkmaid's song. +Sir Humphry (I think he must have carried a camp-stool) recited some +verses written by "a noble lady long distinguished at court."<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p>In fact, there was always a great deal of the fine gentleman about the +great chemist,—almost too fine for the quiet tenor of a working-life. +Those first brilliant successes of his professional career at the Royal +Institution of London, before he was turned of thirty, and in which his +youth, his splendid elocution, his happy discoveries, his attractive +manner, all made him the mark for distinguished attentions, went very +far, I fancy, to carry him to that stage of social intoxication under +which he was deluded into marrying a wealthy lady of fashion, and a +confirmed blue-stocking,—the brilliant Mrs. Apreece.</p> + +<p>Little domestic comfort ever came of the marriage. Yet he was a +chivalrous man, and took the issue calmly. It is always in his +letters,—"My dear Jane," and "God bless you! Yours affectionately." But +these expressions bound the tender passages. It was altogether a +gentlemanly and a lady-like affair. Only once, as I can find, he forgets +himself in an honest repining; it is in a letter to his brother, under +date of October 30, 1823:<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>—"To add to my annoyances, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> find my +house, as usual, after the arrangements made by the mistress of it, +without female servants; but in this world we have to suffer and bear, +and from Socrates down to humble mortals, domestic discomfort seems a +sort of philosophical fate."</p> + +<p>If only Lady Davy could have seen this Xantippe touch, I think Sir +Humphry would have taken to angling in some quiet country-place for a +month thereafter!</p> + +<p>And even when affairs grow serious with the Baronet, and when, stricken +by the palsy, he is loitering among the mountains of Styria, he +writes,—"I am glad to hear of your perfect restoration, and with health +and the society of London, <i>which you are so fitted to ornament and +enjoy</i>, your '<i>viva la felicità</i>' is much more secure than any hope +belonging to me."</p> + +<p>And again, "You once <i>talked</i> of passing <i>this</i> winter in Italy; but I +hope your plans will be entirely guided by the state of your health and +feelings. Your society would undoubtedly be a very great resource to me, +but I am so well aware of my own present unfitness for society that I +would not have you risk the chance of an uncomfortable moment on my +account."</p> + +<p>The dear Lady Jane must have had a <i>penchant</i> for society to leave the +poor palsied man to tumble into his tomb alone!</p> + +<p>Yet once again, in the last letter he ever writes, dated Rome, March, +1829, he gallantly asks her to join him; it begins,—"I am still alive, +though expecting every hour to be released."</p> + +<p>And the Lady Jane, who is washing off her fashionable humors in the +fashionable waters of Bath, writes,—"I have received, my beloved Sir +Humphry, the letter signed by your hand, with its precious wish of +tenderness. I start to-morrow, <i>having been detained here</i> by Doctors +Babington and Clarke till to-day.... I cannot add more" (it is a letter +of half a page) "than that your fame is a deposit, and your memory a +glory, your life still a hope."</p> + +<p>Sweet Lady Jane! Yet they say she mourned him duly, and set a proper +headstone at his grave. But, for my own part, I have no faith in that +affection which will splinter a loving heart every day of its life, and +yet, when it has ceased to beat, will make atonement with an idle swash +of tears.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>There was a British farmer by the name of Morris Birkbeck, who about the +year 1814 wrote an account of an agricultural tour in France; and who +subsequently established himself somewhere upon our Western prairies, of +which he gave account in "Letters from Illinois," and in "Notes on a +Journey in America, from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of +Illinois," with maps, etc. Cobbett once or twice names him as "poor +Birkbeck,"—but whether in allusion to his having been drowned in one of +our Western rivers, or to the poverty of his agricultural successes, it +is hard to determine.</p> + +<p>In 1820 Major-General Beatson, who had been Aid to the Marquis of +Wellesley in India, published an account of a new system of farming, +which he claimed to have in successful operation at his place in the +County of Sussex. The novelty of the system lay in the fact that he +abandoned both manures and the plough, and scarified the surface to the +depth of two or three inches, after which he burned it over. The +Major-General was called to the governorship of St. Helena before his +system had made much progress. I am led to allude to the plan as one of +the premonitory hints of that rotary method which is just now enlisting +a large degree of attention in the agricultural world, and which +promises to supplant the plough on all wide stretches of land, within +the present century.</p> + +<p>Finlayson, a brawny Scot, born in the parish of Mauchline, who was known +from "Glentuck to the Rutton-Ley" as the best man for "putting the +stone," or for a "hop, step, and leap," contrived the self-cleaning +ploughs (with circular beam) and harrows which bore his name. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> was +also—besides being the athlete of Ayrshire—the author of sundry +creditable and practical works on agriculture.</p> + +<p>But the most notable man in connection with rural literature, of this +day, was, by all odds, William Cobbett. His early history has so large a +flavor of romance in it that I am sure my readers will excuse me for +detailing it.</p> + +<p>His grandfather was a day-laborer; he died before Cobbett was born; but +the author says that he used to visit the grandmother at Christmas and +Whitsuntide. Her home was "a little thatched cottage, with a garden +before the door. She used to give us milk and bread for breakfast, an +apple-pudding for dinner, and a piece of bread and cheese for our +supper. Her fire was made of turf cut from the neighboring heath; and +her evening light was a rush dipped in grease."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> His father was a +small farmer, and one who did not allow his boys to grow up in idleness. +"My first occupation," he tells us, "was driving the small birds from +the turnip-seed, and the rook from the pease; when I first trudged +a-field, with my wooden bottle and my satchel swung over my shoulders, I +was hardly able to climb the gates and stiles; and at the close of the +day, to reach home was a task of infinite difficulty."</p> + +<p>At the age of eleven he speaks of himself as occupied in clipping +box-edgings and weeding flower-beds in the garden of the Bishop of +Winchester; and while here he encounters, one day, a workman who has +just come from the famous Kew Gardens of the King. Young Cobbett is +fired by the glowing description, and resolves that he must see them, +and work upon them too. So he sets off, one summer's morning, with only +the clothes he has upon his back, and with thirteen halfpence in his +pocket, for Richmond. And as he trudges through the streets of the town, +after a hard day's walk, in his blue smock-frock, and with his red +garters tied under his knees, staring about him, he sees in the window +of a bookseller's shop the "Tale of a Tub," price threepence; it piques +his curiosity, and, though his money is nearly all spent, he closes a +bargain for the book, and, throwing himself down upon the shady side of +a hay-rick, makes his first acquaintance with Dean Swift. He read till +it was dark, without thought of supper or of bed,—then tumbled down +upon the grass under the shadow of the stack, and slept till the birds +of the Kew Gardens waked him.</p> + +<p>He finds work, as he had determined to do; but it was not fated that he +should pass his life amid the pleasant parterres of Kew. At sixteen, or +thereabout, on a visit to a relative, he catches his first sight of the +Channel waters, and of the royal fleet riding at anchor at Spithead. And +at that sight, the "old Armada," and the "brave Rodney," and the "wooden +walls," of which he had read, come drifting like a poem into his +thought, and he vows that he will become a sailor,—maybe, in time, the +Admiral Cobbett. But here, too, the fates are against him: a kind +captain to whom he makes application suspects him for a runaway, and +advises him to find his way home.</p> + +<p>He returns once more to the plough; "but," he says, "I was now spoiled +for a farmer." He sighs for the world; the little horizon of Farnham +(his native town) is too narrow for him; and the very next year he makes +his final escapade.</p> + +<p>"It was on the 6th of May, 1783, that I, like Don Quixote, sallied forth +to seek adventures. I was dressed in my holiday clothes, in order to +accompany two or three lasses to Guildford fair. They were to assemble +at a house about three miles from my home, where I was to attend them; +but, unfortunately for me, I had to cross the London turnpike-road. The +stage-coach had just turned the summit of a hill, and was rattling down +towards me at a merry rate. The notion of going to London never entered +my mind till this very moment; yet the step was completely determined on +before the coach came to the spot where I stood. Up I got, and was in +London about nine o'clock in the evening."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + +<p>His immediate adventure in the metropolis proves to be his instalment as +scrivener in an attorney's office. No wonder he chafes at this; no +wonder, that, in his wanderings about town, he is charmed by an +advertisement which invited all loyal and public-spirited young men to +repair to a certain "rendezvous"; he goes to the rendezvous, and +presently finds himself a recruit in one of His Majesty's regiments +which is filling up for service in British America.</p> + +<p>He must have been an apt soldier, so far as drill went; for I find that +he rose rapidly to the grade of corporal, and thence to the position of +sergeant-major. He tells us that his early habits, his strict attention +to duty, and his native talent were the occasion of his swift promotion. +In New Brunswick, upon a certain winter's morning, he falls in with the +rosy-faced daughter of a sergeant of artillery, who was scrubbing her +pans at sunrise, upon the snow. "I made up my mind," he says, "that she +was the very girl for me.... This matter was at once settled as firmly +as if written in the book of fate."</p> + +<p>To this end he determines to leave the army as soon as possible. But +before he can effect this, the artillery-man is ordered back to England, +and his pretty daughter goes with him. But Cobbett has closed the +compact with her, and placed in her hands a hundred and fifty pounds of +his earnings,—a free gift, and an earnest of his troth.</p> + +<p>The very next season, however, he meets, in a sweet rural solitude of +the Province, another charmer, with whom he dallies in a lovelorn way +for two years or more. He cannot quite forget the old; he cannot cease +befondling the new. If only the "remotest rumor had come," says he, "of +the faithlessness of the brunette in England, I should have been +fastened for life in the New-Brunswick valley." But no such rumor comes, +and in due time he bids a heart-rending adieu, and recrosses the ocean +to find his first love maid-of-all-work in a gentleman's family at five +pounds a year; and she puts in his hand, upon their first interview, the +whole of the hundred and fifty pounds, untouched. This rekindles his +admiration and respect for her judgment, and she becomes his wife,—a +wife he never ceases thereafter to love and honor.</p> + +<p>He goes to France, and thence to America. Establishing himself in +Philadelphia, he enters upon the career of authorship, with a zeal for +the King, and a hatred of Dr. Franklin and all Democrats, which give him +a world of trouble. His foul bitterness of speech finds its climax at +length in a brutal onslaught upon Dr. Rush, for which he is prosecuted, +convicted, and mulcted in a sum that breaks down his bookselling and +interrupts the profits of his authorship.</p> + +<p>He retires to England, opens shop in Pall-Mall, and edits the +"Porcupine," which bristles with envenomed arrows discharged against all +Liberals and Democrats. Again he is prosecuted, convicted, imprisoned. +His boys, well taught in all manner of farm-work, send him, from his +home in the country, hampers of fresh fruits, to relieve the tedium of +Newgate. Discharged at length, and continuing his ribaldry in the +columns of the "Register," he flies before an Act of Parliament, and +takes new refuge in America. He is now upon Long Island, earnest as in +his youth in agricultural pursuits. The late Dr. Francis of New York +used to speak of his visits to him, and of the fine vegetables he +raised. His political opinions had undergone modification; there was not +so much declamation against democracy,—not so much angry zeal for +royalty and the state-church. Nay, he committed the stupendous absurdity +of carrying back with him to England the bones of Tom Paine, as the +grandest gift he could bestow upon his mother-land. No great ovations +greeted this strange luggage of his; I think he was ashamed of it +afterwards,—if Cobbett was ever ashamed of anything. He became +candidate for Parliament in the Liberal interest; he undertook those +famous "Rural Rides" which are a rare jumble of sweet rural scenes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> and +crazy political objurgation. Now he hammers the "parsons,"—now he tears +the paper-money to rags,—and anon he is bitter upon Malthus, Ricardo, +and the Scotch "Feelosofers,"—and closes his anathema with the charming +picture of a wooded "hanger," up which he toils (with curses on the +road) only to rejoice in the view of a sweet Hampshire valley, over +which sleek flocks are feeding, and down which some white stream goes +winding, and cheating him into a rare memory of his innocent boyhood. He +gains at length his election to Parliament; but he is not a man to +figure well there, with his impetuosity and lack of self-control. He can +talk by the hour to those who feel with him; but to be challenged, to +have his fierce invective submitted to the severe test of an inexorable +logic,—this limits his audacity; and his audacity once limited, his +power is gone.</p> + +<p>But I must not forget that I have brought him into my wet-day galaxy as +a farmer. His energy, his promptitude, his habits of thrift, would have +made him one of the best of farmers. His book on gardening is even now +one of the most instructive that can be placed in the hands of a +beginner. He ignores physiology and botany, indeed; he makes crude +errors on this score; but he had an intuitive sense of the right method +of teaching. He is plain and clear, to a comma. He knows what needs to +be told; and he tells it straightforwardly. There is no better model for +agricultural writers than "Cobbett on Gardening." There is no miserable +waste of words,—no indirectness of talk; what he thinks, he prints.</p> + +<p>His "Cottage Economy," too, is a book which every small landholder in +America should own; there is a sterling merit in it which will not be +outlived. He made a great mistake, it is true, in insisting that +Indian-corn could be grown successfully in England. But being a man who +did not yield to influences of climate himself, he did not mean that his +crops should; and if he had been rich enough, I believe that he would +have covered his farm with a glass roof, rather than yield his +conclusion that Indian-corn could be grown successfully under a British +sky.</p> + +<p>A great, impracticable, earnest, headstrong man, the like of whom does +not appear a half-dozen times in a century. Being self-educated, he was +possessed, like nearly all self-educated men, of a complacency and a +self-sufficiency which stood always in his way. Affecting to teach +grammar, he was ignorant of all the etymology of the language; knowing +no word of botany, he classified plants by the "fearings" of his +turnip-field. He was vain to the last degree; he thought his books were +the best books in the world, and that everybody should read them. He was +industrious, restless, captious, and, although humane at heart, was the +most malignant slanderer of his time. He called a political antagonist a +"pimp," and thought a crushing argument lay in the word; he called +parsons scoundrels, and bade his boys be regular at church.</p> + +<p>In June, 1835, while the Parliament was in session, he grew ill,—talked +feebly about politics and farming, (to his household,) "wished for 'four +days' rain' for the Cobbett corn," and on Wednesday, (16th June,) +desired to be carried around the farm, and criticized the work that had +been done,—grew feeble as evening drew on, and an hour after midnight +leaned back heavily in his chair, and died.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I must give a paragraph, at least, to the Rev. James Grahame, the good +Scotch parson, were it only because he wrote a poem called "British +Georgics." They are not so good as Virgil's; nor did he ever think it +himself. In fact, he published his best poem anonymously, and so +furtively that even his wife took up an early copy, which she found one +day upon her table, and, charmed with its pleasant description of +Scottish braes and burn-sides, said, "Ah! Jemmy, if ye could only mak' a +book like this!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> And I will venture to say that "Jemmy" never had rarer +or pleasanter praise.</p> + +<p>Shall we read a little, and test the worth of good Mistress Grahame's +judgment? It is a bit of the parson's walk in "The Sabbath":—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Now, when the downward sun has left the glens,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each mountain's rugged lineaments are traced<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the adverse slope, where stalks gigantic<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The shepherd's shadow thrown athwart the chasm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As on the topmost ridge he homeward hies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How deep the hush! the torrent's channel, dry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Presents a stony steep, the echo's haunt.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But hark a plaintive sound floating along!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis from yon heath-roofed shieling; now it dies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Away, now rises full; it is the song<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which He who listens to the hallelujahs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of choiring seraphim delights to hear;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is the music of the heart, the voice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of venerable age, of guileless youth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In kindly circle seated on the ground<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before their wicker door."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Crabbe, who was as keen an observer of rural scenes, had a much better +faculty of verse; indeed, he had a faculty of language so large that it +carried him beyond the real drift of his stories. I do not <i>know</i> the +fact, indeed; but I think, that, notwithstanding the Duke of Rutland's +patronage, Mr. Crabbe must have written inordinately long sermons. It is +strange how many good men do,—losing point and force and efficiency in +a welter of words! If there is one rhetorical lesson which it behooves +all theologic or academic professors to lay down and enforce, (if need +be with the ferule,) it is this,—Be short. It is amazing the way in +which good men lose themselves on Sunday mornings in the lapse of their +own language; and most rarely are we confronted from the pulpit with an +opinion which would not bear stripping of wordy shifts, and be all the +more comely for its nakedness.</p> + +<p>George Crabbe wrote charming rural tales; but he wrote long ones. There +is minute observation, dramatic force, tender pathos, but there is much, +of tedious and coarse description. If by some subtile alchemy the better +qualities could be thrown down from the turbid and watery flux of his +verse, we should have an admirable pocket-volume for the country; as it +is, his books rest mostly on the shelves, and it requires a strong +breath to puff away the dust that has gathered on the topmost edges.</p> + +<p>I think of the Reverend Mr. Crabbe as an amiable, absent-minded old +gentleman, driving about on week-days in a heavy, square-topped gig, +(his wife holding the reins,) in search of way-side gypsies, and on +Sunday pushing a discourse—which was good up to the "fourthly"—into +the "seventhly."</p> + +<p>Charles Lamb, if he had been clerically disposed, would, I am sure, have +written short sermons; and I think that his hearers would have carried +away the gist of them clean and clear.</p> + +<p>He never wrote anything that could be called strictly pastoral; he was a +creature of streets and crowding houses; no man could have been more +ignorant of the every-day offices of rural life; I doubt if he ever knew +from which side a horse was to be mounted or a cow to be milked, and a +sprouting bean was a source of the greatest wonderment to him. Yet, in +spite of all this, what a book those Essays of his make, to lie down +with under trees! It is the honest, lovable simplicity of his nature +that makes the keeping good. He is the Izaak Walton of London +streets,—of print-shops, of pastry-shops, of mouldy book-stalls; the +chime of Bow-bells strikes upon his ear like the chorus of a milkmaid's +song at Ware.</p> + +<p>There is not a bit of rodomontade in him about the charms of the +country, from beginning to end; if there were, we should despise him. He +can find nothing to say of Skiddaw but that he is "a great creature"; +and he writes to Wordsworth, (whose sight is failing,) on Ambleside, "I +return you condolence for your decaying sight,—not for anything there +is to see in the country, but for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> miss of the pleasure of reading a +London newspaper."</p> + +<p>And again to his friend Manning, (about the date of 1800,)—"I am not +romance-bit about <i>Nature</i>. The earth and sea and sky (when all is said) +is but as a house to dwell in. If the inmates be courteous, and good +liquors flow like the conduits at an old coronation,—if they can talk +sensibly, and feel properly, I have no need to stand staring upon the +gilded looking-glass, (that strained my friend's purse-strings in the +purchase,) nor his five-shilling print, over the mantel-piece, of old +Nabbs, the carrier. Just as important to me (in a sense) is all the +furniture of my world,—eye-pampering, but satisfies no heart. Streets, +streets, streets, markets, theatres, churches, Covent Gardens, shops +sparkling with pretty faces of industrious milliners, neat seamstresses, +ladies cheapening, gentlemen behind counters lying, authors in the +street with spectacles, lamps lit at night, pastry-cooks' and +silver-smiths' shops, beautiful Quakers of Pentonville, noise of +coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic watchmen at night, with bucks reeling +home drunk,—if you happen to wake at midnight, cries of 'Fire!' and +'Stop thief!'—inns of court with their learned air, and halls, and +butteries, just like Cambridge colleges,—old book-stalls, 'Jeremy +Taylors,' 'Burtons on Melancholy,' and 'Religio Medicis,' on every +stall. These are thy pleasures, O London-with-the-many-sins!—for these +may Keswick and her giant brood go hang!"</p> + +<p>And again to Wordsworth, in 1830,—"Let no native Londoner imagine that +health, and rest, and innocent occupation, interchange of converse +sweet, and recreative study, can make the country anything better than +altogether odious and detestable."</p> + +<p>Does any weak-limbed country-liver resent this honesty of speech? Surely +not, if he be earnest in his loves and faith; but, the rather, by such +token of unbounded naturalness, he recognizes under the waistcoat of +this dear, old, charming cockney the traces of close cousinship to the +Waltons, and binds him, and all the simplicity of his talk, to his +heart, for aye. There is never a hillside under whose oaks or chestnuts +I lounge upon a smoky afternoon of August, but a pocket Elia is as +coveted and as cousinly a companion as a pocket Walton, or a White of +Selborne. And upon wet days in my library, I conjure up the image of the +thin, bent old gentleman—Charles Lamb—to sit over against me, and I +watch his kindly, beaming eye, as he recites with poor stuttering +voice,—between the whiffs of his pipe,—over and over, those always new +stories of "Christ's Hospital," and the cherished "Blakesmoor," and +"Mackery End."</p> + +<p>(No, you need not put back the book, my boy; 't is always in place.)</p> + +<p>I never admired greatly James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd; yet he belongs +of double right in the coterie of my wet-day preachers. Bred a shepherd, +he tried farming, and he wrote pastorals. His farming (if we may believe +contemporary evidence) was by no means so good as his verse. The Ettrick +Shepherd of the "Noctes Ambrosianæ" is, I fancy, as much becolored by +the wit of Professor Wilson as any daughter of a duchess whom Sir Joshua +changed into a nymph. I think of Hogg as a sturdy sheep-tender, growing +rebellious among the Cheviot flocks, crazed by a reading of the Border +minstrelsy, drunken on books, (as his fellows were with "mountain-dew,") +and wreaking his vitality on Gaelic rhymes,—which, it is true, have a +certain blush and aroma of the heather-hills, but which never reached +the excellence that he fondly imagined belonged to them. I fancy, that, +when he sat at the laird's table, (Sir Walter's,) and called the laird's +lady by her baptismal name, and—not abashed in any presence—uttered +his Gaelic gibes for the wonderment of London guests,—that he thought +far more of himself than the world has ever been inclined to think of +him. I know that poets have a privilege of conceit, and that those who +are not poets sometimes assume<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> it; but it is, after all, a sorry +quality by which to win the world's esteem; and when death closes the +record, it is apt to insure a large debit against the dead man.</p> + +<p>It may not be commonly known that the Ettrick Shepherd was an +agricultural author, and wrote "Hogg on Sheep," for which, as he tells +us, he received the sum of eighty-six pounds. It is an octavo book, and +relates to the care, management, and diseases of the black-faced +mountain-breed, of which alone he was cognizant. It had never a great +reputation; and I think the sheep-farmers of the Cheviots were disposed +to look with distrust upon the teachings of a shepherd who supped with +"lords" at Abbotsford, and whose best venture in verse was in "The +Queen's Wake." A British agricultural author, speaking of him in a +pitiful way, says,—"He passed years of busy authorship, and encountered +<i>the usual difficulties of that penurious mode of life</i>."<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p>This is good; it is as good as anything of Hogg's.</p> + +<p>I approach the name of Mr. Loudon, the author of the Encyclopædias of +Gardening and Agriculture, with far more of respect. If nothing else in +him laid claim to regard, his industry, his earnestness, his +indefatigable labor in aid of all that belonged to the progress of +British gardening or farming, would demand it. I take a pride, too, in +saying, that, notwithstanding his literary labors, he was successful as +a farmer, during the short period of his farm-holding.</p> + +<p>Mr. Loudon was a Scotchman by birth, was educated in Edinburgh, and was +for a time under the tutelage of Mr. Dickson, the famous nurseryman of +Leith-Walk. Early in the present century he made his first appearance in +London,—published certain papers on the laying-out of the public +squares of the metropolis, and shortly after was employed by the Earl of +Mansfield in the arrangement of the palace-gardens at Scone. In 1813 and +'14 he travelled on the Continent very widely, making the gardens of +most repute the special objects of his study; and in 1822 he published +his "Encyclopædia of Gardening"; that of Agriculture followed shortly +after, and his book of Rural Architecture in 1833. But these labors, +enormous as they were, had interludes of other periodical work, and were +crowned at last by his <i>magnum opus</i>, the "Arboretum." A man of only +ordinary nerve and diligence would have taken a ten years' rest upon the +completion of only one of his ponderous octavos; and the wonder is the +greater, that London wrought in his later years under all the +disadvantages of appeals from rapacious creditors and the infirmities of +a broken constitution. Crippled, palsied, fevered, for a long period of +years, he still wrought on with a persistence that would have broken +many a strong man down, and only yielded at last to a bronchial +affection which grappled him at his work.</p> + +<p>This author massed together an amount of information upon the subjects +of which he treated that is quite unmatched in the whole annals of +agricultural literature. Columella, Heresbach, Worlidge, and even the +writers of the "Geoponica," dwindle into insignificance in the +comparison. He is not, indeed, always absolutely accurate on historical +points;<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> but in all essentials his books are so complete<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> as to have +made them standard works up to a time long subsequent to their issue.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>No notice of the agricultural literature of the early part of this +century would be at all complete without mention of the Magazines and +Society "Transactions," in which alone some of the best and most +scientific cultivators communicated their experience or suggestions to +the public. Loudon was himself the editor of the "Gardener's Magazine"; +and the earlier Transactions of the Horticultural Society are enriched +by the papers of such men as Knight, Van Mons, Sir Joseph Banks, Rev. +William Herbert, Messrs. Dickson, Haworth, Wedgwood, and others. The +works of individual authors lost ground in comparison with such an array +of reports from scientific observers, and from that time forth +periodical literature has become the standard teacher in what relates to +good culture. I do not know what extent of good the newly instituted +Agricultural Colleges of this country may effect; but I feel quite safe +in saying that our agricultural journals will prove always the most +effective teachers of the great mass of the farming-population. The +London Horticultural Society at an early day established the Chiswick +Gardens, and these, managed under the advice of the Society's Directors, +have not only afforded an accurate gauge of British progress in +horticulture, but they have furnished to the humblest cultivator who has +strolled through their inclosures practical lessons in the craft of +gardening, renewed from month to month and from year to year. It is to +be hoped that the American Agricultural Colleges will adopt some similar +plan, and illustrate the methods they teach upon lands which shall be +open to public inspection, and upon whose culture and its successes +systematic reports shall be annually made. Failing of this, they will +fail of the best part of their proper purpose. Nor would it be a +fruitless work, if, in connection with such experimental farm, a weekly +record were issued,—giving analyses of the artificial manures employed, +and a complete register of every field, from the date of its +"breaking-up" to the harvesting of the crop. Every new implement, +moreover, should be reported upon with unwavering impartiality, and no +advertisements should be received. I think under these conditions we +might almost look for an honest newspaper.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Writing thus, during these in-door hours, of country-pursuits, and of +those who have illustrated them, or who have in any way quickened the +edge with which we farmers rasp away the weeds or carve out our pastoral +entertainment, I come upon the names of a great bevy of poets, belonging +to the earlier quarter of this century, that I find it hard to pass by. +Much as I love to bring to mind, over and over again, "Ivanhoe" and +"Waverley," I love quite as much to summon to my view Walter Scott, the +woodsman of Abbotsford, with hatchet at his girdle, and the hound Maida +in attendance. I see him thinning out the saplings that he has planted +upon the Tweed banks. I know how they stand, having wandered by the hour +among them. I can fancy how the master would have lopped away the boughs +for a little looplet through which a burst of the blue Eildon Hills +should come. His favorite seat, overshadowed by an arbor-vitæ, (of which +a leaf lies pressed in the "Scotch Tourist" yonder,) was so near to the +Tweed banks that the ripple of the stream over its pebbly bottom must +have made a delightful lullaby for the toil-worn old man. But beyond +wood-craft, I could never discover that Sir Walter had any strong +agricultural inclination; nor do I think that the old gentleman had much +eye for the picturesque; no landscape-gardener of any reputation would +have decided upon such a site for such a pile as that of Abbotsford: the +spot is low; the views are not extended or varied; the very trees are +all of Scott's planting: but the master loved the murmur of the +Tweed,—loved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> the nearness of Melrose, and in every old bit of +sculpture that he walled into his home he found pictures of far-away +scenes that printed in vague shape of tower or abbey all his limited +horizon.</p> + +<p>Christopher North carried his Scotch love of mountains to his home among +the English lakes. I think he counted Skiddaw something more than "a +great creature." In all respects—saving the pipes and the ale—he was +the very opposite of Charles Lamb. And yet do we love him more? A +stalwart, hearty man, with a great redundance of flesh and blood, who +could "put the stone" with Finlayson, or climb with the hardiest of the +Ben-Nevis guides, or cast a fly with the daintiest of the Low-Country +fishers,—redundant of imagination, redundant of speech, and with such +exuberance in him that we feel surfeit from the overflow, as at the +reading of Spenser's "Faërie Queene," and lay him down with a wearisome +sense of mental indigestion.</p> + +<p>Nor yet is it so much an indigestion as a feeling of plethora, due less +to the frothiness of the condiments than to a certain fulness of blood +and brawn. The broad-shouldered Christopher, in his shooting-jacket, (a +dingy green velveteen, with pocket-pouches all stuffed,) strides away +along the skirts of Cruachan or Loch Lochy with such a tearing pace, and +greets every lassie with such a clamorous outbreak of song, and throws +such a wonderful stretch of line upon every pool, and amazes us with +such stupendous "strikes" and such a whizzing of his reel, that we +fairly lose our breath.</p> + +<p>Not so of the "White Doe of Rylstone"; nay, we more incline to doze over +it than to lose our breath. Wilson differs from Wordsworth as Loch Awe, +with its shaggy savagery of shore, from the Sunday quietude and beauty +of Rydal-Water. The Strid of Wordsworth was bounded by the slaty banks +of the "Crystal Wharf," and the Strid of Wilson, in his best moments, +was as large as the valley of Glencoe. Yet Wordsworth loved intensely +all the more beautiful aspects of the country, and of country-life. No +angler and no gardener, indeed,—too severely and proudly meditative for +any such sleight-of-hand. The only great weight which he ever lifted, I +suspect, was one which he carried with him always,—the immense dignity +of his poetic priesthood. His home and its surroundings were fairly +typical of his tastes: a cottage, (so called,) of homely material +indeed, but with an ambitious elevation of gables and of chimney-stacks; +a velvety sheen of turf, as dapper as that of a suburban haberdasher; a +mossy urn or two, patches of flowers, but rather fragrant than showy +ones; behind him the loveliest of wooded hills, all toned down by +graceful culture, and before him the silvery mirrors of Windermere and +Rydal-Water.</p> + +<p>We have to credit him with some rare and tender description, and +fragments of great poems; but I cannot help thinking that he fancied a +profounder meaning lay in them than the world has yet detected.</p> + +<p>John Clare was a contemporary of Wordsworth's, and was most essentially +a poet of the fields. His father was a pauper and a cripple; not even +young Cobbett was so pressed to the glebe by the circumstances of his +birth. But the thrushes taught Clare to sing. He wrote verses upon the +lining of his hat-band. He hoarded halfpence to buy Thomson's "Seasons," +and walked seven miles before sunrise to make the purchase. The hardest +field-toil could not repress the poetic aspirations of such a boy. By +dint of new hoardings he succeeded in printing verses of his own; but +nobody read them. He wrote other verses, which at length made him known. +The world flattered the peasant-bard of Northamptonshire. A few +distinguished patrons subscribed the means for equipping a farm of his +own. The heroine of his love-tales became its mistress; a shelf or two +of books made him rich; but in an evil hour he entered upon some +farm-speculation which broke down; a new poem was sharply criticized or +neglected; the novelty of his peasant's song was over.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> Disheartened and +gloomy, he was overwhelmed with despondency, and became the inmate of a +mad-house, where for forty years he has staggered idiotically toward the +rest which did not come. But even as I write I see in the British papers +that he is free at last. Poor Clare is dead.</p> + +<p>With this sad story in mind, we may read with a zest which perhaps its +merit alone would not provoke his little sonnet of "The Thrush's +Nest":—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Within a thick and spreading hawthorn-bush,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That overhung a mole-hill large and round,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sing hymns, of rapture, while I drank the sound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With joy; and oft, an unintruding guest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I watched her secret toils from day to day,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How true she warped the moss to form her nest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And modelled it within with wood and clay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And by-and-by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there I witnessed, in the summer hours,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>There are pretty snatches of a Southern May in Hunt's poem of "Rimini," +where</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i15">"sky, earth, and sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breathe like a bright-eyed face that laughs out openly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T is Nature full of spirits, waked and springing:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The birds to the delicious tune are singing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Darting with freaks and snatches up and down,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the light woods go seaward from the town;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While happy faces striking through the green<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of leafy roads at every turn are seen;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the far ships, lifting their sails of white<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like joyful hands, come up with scattery light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come gleaming up true to the wished-for day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the bay."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This does not sound as if it came from the prince of cockneys; and I +have always felt a certain regard for Leigh Hunt, too, by reason of the +tender story which he gives of the little garden, "<i>mio picciol orto</i>," +that he established during his two years of prisonhood.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> + +<p>But, after all, there was no robustness in his rural spirit,—nothing +that makes the cheek tingle, as if a smart wind had smitten it. He was +born to handle roses without thorns; I think that with a pretty boudoir, +on whose table every morning a pretty maid should arrange a pretty +nosegay, and with a pretty canary to sing songs in a gilded cage, and +pretty gold-fish to disport in a crystal vase, and basted partridges for +dinner, his love for the country would have been satisfied. He loved +Nature as a sentimental boy loves a fine woman of twice his +years,—sighing himself away in pretty phrases that flatter, but do not +touch her; there is nothing to remind, even, of the full, abounding, +fiery, all-conquering love with which a full-grown man meets and marries +a yielding maiden.</p> + +<p>In poor John Keats, however, there <i>is</i> something of this; and under its +heats he consumed away. For ripe, joyous outburst of all rural +fancies,—for keen apprehension of what most takes hold of the +susceptibilities of a man who loves the country,—for his coinage of all +sweet sounds of birds, all murmur of leaves, all riot and blossoming of +flowers, into fragrant verse,—he was without a peer in his day. It is +not that he is so true to natural phases in his descriptive epithets, +not that he sees all, not that he has heard all; but his heart has drunk +the incense of it, and his imagination refined it, and his fancy set it +aflow in those jocund lines which bound and writhe and exult with a +passionate love for the things of field and air.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I close these papers, with my eye resting upon the same stretch of +fields,—the wooded border of a river,—the twinkling roofs and spires +flanked by hills and sea,—where my eye rested when I began this story +of the old masters with Hesiod and the bean-patches of Ithaca. And I +take a pleasure in feeling that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> farm-practice over all the fields +below me rests upon the cumulated authorship of so long a line of +teachers. Yon open furrow, over which the herbage has closed, carries +trace of the ridging in the "Works and Days"; the brown field of +half-broken clods is the fallow (Νεος) of Xenophon; the drills +belong to Worlidge; their culture with the horse-hoe is at the order of +Master Tull. Young and Cobbett are full of their suggestions; Lancelot +Brown has ordered away a great straggling hedge-row; and Sir Uvedale +Price has urged me to spare a hoary maple which lords it over a +half-acre of flat land. Cato gives orders for the asparagus, and Switzer +for the hot-beds. Crescenzi directs the walling, and Smith of Deanston +the ploughing. Burns embalms all my field-mice, and Cowper drapes an urn +for me in a tangled wilderness. Knight names my cherries, and Walton, +the kind master, goes with me over the hill to a wee brook that bounds +down under hemlocks and soft maples, for "a contemplative man's +recreation." Davy long ago caught all the fermentation of my manure-heap +in his retort, and Thomson painted for me the scene which is under my +window to-day. Mowbray cures the pip in my poultry, and all the songs of +all the birds are caught and repeated to the echo in the pages of the +poets which lie here under my hand; through the prism of their verse, +Patrick the cattle-tender changes to a lithe milkmaid, against whose +ankles the buttercups nod rejoicingly, and Rosamund (which is the nurse) +wakes all Arden (which is Edgewood) with a rich burst of laughter.</p> + +<p>And shall I not be grateful to these my patrons? And shall I count it +unworthy to pass these few in-door hours of rain in the emblazonment of +their titles?</p> + +<p>Nor must I forget here to express my indebtedness to those kind friends +who have from time to time favored me with suggestions or corrections, +in the course of these papers, and to those others—not a few—who have +lent me rare old books of husbandry, which are not easily laid hold of.</p> + +<p>I have discussed no works of living authors, whether of practical or +pastoral intent: at some future day I may possibly pay my compliments to +them. Meantime I cannot help interpolating in the interest of my readers +a little fragment of a letter addressed to me within the year by the +lamented Hawthorne:—"I remember long ago your speaking prospectively of +a farm; but I never dreamed of your being really much more of a farmer +than myself, whose efforts in that line only make me the father of a +progeny of weeds in a garden-patch. I have about twenty-five acres of +land, seventeen of which are a hill of sand and gravel, wooded with +birches, locusts, and pitch-pines, and apparently incapable of any other +growth; so that I have great comfort in that part of my territory. The +other eight acres are said to be the best land in Concord, and they have +made me miserable, and would soon have ruined me, if I had not +determined nevermore to attempt raising anything from them. So there +they lie along the roadside, within their broken fence, an eyesore to +me, and a laughing-stock to all the neighbors. If it were not for the +difficulty of transportation by express or otherwise, I would thankfully +give you those eight acres."</p> + +<p>And now the fine, nervous hand, which wrought with such strange power +and beauty, is stilled forever! The eight acres can well lie neglected; +for upon a broader field, as large as humanity, and at the hands of +thousands of reapers who worked for love, he has gathered in a great +harvest of <i>immortelles</i>.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> <i>Life of Sir Humphry Davy</i>, London, 1839, p. 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> See letter of Thomas Poole, p. 322, <i>Fragmentary Remains +of Sir Humphry Davy</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> <i>Salmonia</i>, p. 5, London, Murray, 1851.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Fragmentary Remains</i>, p. 242.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>Agricultural Biography</i>, etc. London, 1854. <i>Printed for +the Author.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> I ought, perhaps, to make definite exception in the case +of a writer so universally accredited. In his "Encyclopædia of +Gardening," he speaks of the "Geoponica" as the work of "modern Greeks," +written after the transfer of the seat of empire to Constantinople; +whereas the bulk of those treatises were written long before that date. +He speaks of Varro as first in order of time of Roman authors on +agriculture; yet Varro was born 116 <span class="smcap">b. c.</span>, and Cato died as early as 149 +<span class="smcap">b. c.</span> Crescenzi he names as an author of the fifteenth century; he +should be credited to the fourteenth. He also commits the very common +error in writers on gardening, of confounding the Tuscan villa of Pliny +with that at Tusculum. These two places of the Roman Consul were +entirely distinct and unlike.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Lord Byron and his Contemporaries</i>, Vol. II. p. 258.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="REGULAR_AND_VOLUNTEER_OFFICERS" id="REGULAR_AND_VOLUNTEER_OFFICERS"></a>REGULAR AND VOLUNTEER OFFICERS.</h2> + + +<p>It is pleasant to see how much the present war has done towards effacing +the traditional jealousy between regular officers and volunteers. The +two classes have been so thoroughly intermingled, on staff-duties and in +the field,—so many regular officers now hold in the volunteer service a +rank higher than their permanent standing,—the whole previous military +experience of most regulars was so trifling, compared with that which +they and the volunteers have now shared in common,—and so many young +men have lately been appointed to commissions, in both branches, not +only without a West-Point education, but with almost none at all,—that +it really cannot be said that there is much feeling of conscious +separation left. For treating the two as antagonistic the time has +clearly gone by. For judiciously weighing their respective services in +the field the epoch has not come, since the reign of history begins only +when that of telegrams and special correspondents has ended. It is +better, therefore, to limit the comparison, as yet, to that minor +routine of military duty upon which the daily existence of an army +depends, and of which the great deeds of daring are merely exciting +episodes.</p> + +<p>At the beginning of the war, and before the distinction was thus +partially effaced, the comparison involved very different elements. In +our general military inexperience, the majority were not disposed to +underrate the value of specific professional training. Education holds +in this country much of the prestige held by hereditary rank in Europe, +modified only by the condition that the possessor shall take no undue +airs upon himself. Even then the penalty consists only in a few +outbreaks of superficial jealousy, and the substantial respect for any +real acquirements remains the same. So there was a time when the +faintest aroma of West Point lent a charm to the most unattractive +candidate for a commission. Any Governor felt a certain relief in +intrusting a regiment to any man who had ever eaten clandestine oysters +at Benny Haven's, or had once heard the whiz of an Indian arrow on the +frontier, however mediocre might have been all his other claims to +confidence. If he failed, the regular army might bear the shame; if he +succeeded, to the State-House be the glory.</p> + +<p>Yet there was always another party of critics, not less intelligent, who +urged the value of general preparations for any duty, as compared with +special,—who held that it was always easier for a man of brains to +acquire technical skill than for a person of mere technicality to +superadd brains, and that the antecedents of a frontier lieutenant were, +on the whole, a poorer training for large responsibilities than those of +many a civilian, who had lived in the midst of men, though out of +uniform. Let us have a fair statement of this position, for it was very +sincere and had much temporary influence. The main thing, it was argued, +was the knowledge of human nature and the habit of dealing with mankind +in masses,—the very thing from which the younger regular officers at +least had been rigidly excluded. From a monastic life at West Point they +had usually been transferred to a yet more isolated condition, in some +obscure outpost,—or if otherwise, then they had seen no service at all, +and were mere clerks in shoulder-straps. But a lawyer who could +manœuvre fifty witnesses as if they were one,—a teacher used to +governing young men by the hundred,—an orator trained to sway +thousands,—a master-mechanic,—a railway-superintendent,—a +factory-agent,—a broker who could harness Wall Street and drive it,—a +financier who could rule a sovereign State with a rod of (railway) +iron,—such men as these, it was plausibly reasoned, could give an +average army-officer all the advantage of his special training, at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> +start, and yet beat him at his own trade in a year.</p> + +<p>These theories were naturally strengthened, moreover, by occasional +instances of conspicuous failure, when volunteer troops were intrusted +to regular officers. These disappointments could usually be traced to +very plain causes. The men selected were sometimes men whose West-Point +career would hardly bear minute investigation,—or who had in civil +pursuits forgotten all they had learned at the Academy, except +self-esteem,—or who had been confined to the duties of some special +department, as quartermasters or paymasters, and were really fitted for +nothing else,—or who had served their country by resigning their +commissions, if not by holding them,—or who had contrived, first or +last, to lose hopelessly their tempers or their digestions, or their +faith, hope, and charity. Beyond all this lay the trouble, that the best +regular officer from the very fact of his superior training was puzzled +to know how much to demand of volunteer troops, or what standard to +enforce upon them. It was a problem in the Differential Calculus, with +the Army Regulations for a constant, and a raw volunteer regiment for a +variable, and not a formula in Davies which suited the purpose. +Unfortunately, these perplexities were quite as apt to end in relaxation +as in rigor, so that the regiments thus commanded sometimes slid into a +looseness of which a resolute volunteer officer would have been ashamed.</p> + +<p>These were among the earlier results. Against them was to be set the +fact, that, on the whole, no regiments in the field made progress so +rapid, or held their own so well, as those placed under regular +officers. And now that three years have abolished many surmises, and +turned many others into established facts, it must be owned that the +total value of the professional training has proved far greater, and +that of the general preparation far less, than many intelligent +observers predicted. The relation between officer and soldier is +something so different in kind from anything which civil life has to +offer, that it has proved almost impossible to transfer methods or +maxims from the one to the other. If a regiment is merely a caucus, and +the colonel the chairman,—or merely a fire-company, and the colonel the +foreman,—or merely a prayer-meeting, and the colonel the moderator,—or +merely a bar-room, and the colonel the landlord,—then the failure of +the whole thing is a foregone conclusion. War is not the highest of +human pursuits, certainly; but an army comes very near to being the +completest of human organizations, and he alone succeeds in it who +readily accepts its inevitable laws, and applies them. An army is an +aristocracy, on a three-years' lease, supposing that the period of +enlistment. No mortal skill can make military power effective on +democratic principles. A democratic people can perhaps carry on a war +longer and better than any other; because no other can so well +comprehend the object, raise the means, or bear the sacrifices. But +these sacrifices include the surrender, for the time being, of the +essential principle of the government. Personal independence in the +soldier, like personal liberty in the civilian, must be waived for the +preservation of the nation. With shipwreck staring men in the face, the +choice lies between despotism and anarchy, trusting to the common sense +of those concerned, when the danger is over, to revert to the old +safeguards. It is precisely because democracy is an advanced stage in +human society, that war, which belongs to a less advanced stage, is +peculiarly inconsistent with its habits. Thus the undemocratic +character, so often lamented in West Point and Annapolis, is in reality +their strong point. Granted that they are no more appropriate to our +stage of society than are revolvers and bowie-knives, that is precisely +what makes them all serviceable in time of war. War being exceptional, +the institutions which train its officers must be exceptional likewise.</p> + +<p>The first essential for military authority lies in the power of +command,—a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> power which it is useless to analyze, for it is felt +instinctively, and it is seen in its results. It is hardly too much to +say, that, in military service, if one has this power, all else becomes +secondary; and it is perfectly safe to say that without it all other +gifts are useless. Now for the exercise of power there is no preparation +like power, and nowhere is this preparation to be found, in this +community, except in regular army-training. Nothing but great personal +qualities can give a man by nature what is easily acquired by young men +of very average ability who are systematically trained to command.</p> + +<p>The criticism habitually made upon our army by foreign observers at the +beginning of the war continues still to be made, though in a rather less +degree,—that the soldiers are relatively superior to the officers, so +that the officers lead, perhaps, but do not command them. The reason is +plain. Three years are not long enough to overcome the settled habits of +twenty years. The weak point of our volunteer service invariably lies +here, that the soldier, in nine cases out of ten, utterly detests being +commanded, while the officer, in his turn, equally shrinks from +commanding. War, to both, is an episode in life, not a profession, and +therefore military subordination, which needs for its efficiency to be +fixed and absolute, is, by common consent, reduced to a minimum. The +white American soldier, being, doubtless, the most intelligent in the +world, is more ready than any other to comply with a reasonable order, +but he does it because it is reasonable, not because it is an order. +With advancing experience his compliance increases, but it is still +because he better and better comprehends the reason. Give him an order +that looks utterly unreasonable,—and this is sometimes necessary,—or +give him one which looks trifling, under which head all sanitary +precautions are yet too apt to rank, and you may, perhaps, find that you +still have a free and independent citizen to deal with, not a soldier. +<i>Implicit</i> obedience must be admitted still to be a rare quality in our +army; nor can we wonder at it. In many cases there is really no more +difference between officers and men, in education or in breeding, than +if the one class were chosen by lot from the other; all are from the +same neighborhood, all will return to the same civil pursuits side by +side; every officer knows that in a little while each soldier will again +become his client or his customer, his constituent or his rival. Shall +he risk offending him for life in order to carry out some hobby of +stricter discipline? If this difficulty exist in the case of +commissioned officers, it is still more the case with the +non-commissioned, those essential intermediate links in the chain of +authority. Hence the discipline of our soldiers has been generally that +of a town-meeting or of an engine-company, rather than that of an army; +and it shows the extraordinary quality of the individual men, that so +much has been accomplished with such a formidable defect in the +organization. Even granting that there has been a great and constant +improvement, the evil is still vast enough. And every young man trained +at West Point enters the service with at least this advantage, that he +has been brought up to command, and has not that task to learn.</p> + +<p>He has this further advantage, that he is brought up with some respect +for the army-organization as it is, with its existing rules, methods, +and proprieties, and is not, like the newly commissioned civilian, +disposed in his secret soul to set aside all its proprieties as mere +"pipe-clay," its methods as "old-fogyism," and its rules as "red-tape." +How many good volunteer officers will admit, if they speak candidly, +that on entering the service they half believed the "Army Regulations" +to be a mass of old-time rubbish, which they would gladly reëdit, under +contract, with immense improvements, in a month or two,—and that they +finally left the service with the conviction that the same book was a +mine of wisdom, as yet but half explored!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> Certainly, when one thinks +for what a handful of an army our present military system was devised, +and with what an admirable elasticity it has borne this sudden and +stupendous expansion, it must be admitted to have most admirably stood +the test. Of course, there has been much amendment and alteration +needed, nor is the work done yet; but it has mainly touched the details, +not the general principles. The system is wonderfully complete for its +own ends, and the more one studies it the less one sneers. Many a form +which at first seems to the volunteer officer merely cumbrous and +trivial he learns to prize at last as almost essential to good +discipline; he seldom attempts a short cut without finding it the +longest way, and rarely enters on that heroic measure of cutting +red-tape without finding at last that he has entangled his own fingers +in the process.</p> + +<p>More thorough training tells in another way. It is hard to appreciate, +without the actual experience, how much of military life is a matter of +mere detail. The maiden at home fancies her lover charging at the head +of his company, when in reality he is at that precise moment endeavoring +to convince his company-cooks that salt-junk needs five hours' boiling, +or is anxiously deciding which pair of worn-out trousers shall be +ejected from a drummer-boy's knapsack. Courage is, no doubt, a good +quality in a soldier, and luckily not often wanting; but, in the long +run, courage depends largely on the haversack. Men are naturally brave, +and when the crisis comes, almost all men will fight well, if well +commanded. As Sir Philip Sidney said, an army of stags led by a lion is +more formidable than an army of lions led by a stag. Courage is cheap; +the main duty of an officer is to take good care of his men, so that +every one of them shall be ready, at a moment's notice, for any +reasonable demand. A soldier's life usually implies weeks and months of +waiting, and then one glorious hour; and if the interval of leisure has +been wasted, there is nothing but a wasted heroism at the end, and +perhaps not even that. The penalty for misused weeks, the reward for +laborious months, may be determined within ten minutes. Without +discipline an army is a mob, and the larger the worse; without rations +the men are empty uniforms; without ammunition they might as well have +no guns; without shoes they might almost as well have no legs. And it is +in the practical appreciation of all these matters that the superiority +of the regular officer is apt to be shown.</p> + +<p>Almost any honest volunteer officer will admit, that, although the +tactics were easily learned, yet, in dealing with all other practical +details of army-life, he was obliged to gain his knowledge through many +blunders. There were a thousand points on which the light of Nature, +even aided by "Army Regulations," did not sufficiently instruct him; and +his best hints were probably obtained by frankly consulting regular +officers, even if inferior in rank. The advantage of a West-Point +training is precisely that of any other professional education. There is +nothing in it which any intelligent man cannot learn for himself in +later life; nevertheless, the intelligent man would have fared a good +deal better, had he learned it all in advance. Test it by shifting the +positions. No lawyer would trust his case to a West-Point graduate, +without evidence of thorough special preparation. Yet he himself enters +on a career equally new to him, where his clients may be counted by +thousands, and every case is capital. The army is a foreign country to +civilians; of course you can learn the language after your arrival, but +how you envy your companion, who, having spoken it from childhood, can +proceed at once to matters more important!</p> + +<p>Yet the great advantage of the regular army does not, after all, consist +merely in any superiority of knowledge, or in the trained habit of +command. Granting that patience and labor can readily supply these to +the volunteer, the trouble remains, that even in labor and patience the +regular officer is apt to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> the advantage, by reason of a stronger +stimulus. The difference is not merely in the start, but in the pace. No +man can be often thrown into the society of regular officers, especially +among the younger ones, without noticing a higher standard of +professional earnestness than that found among average volunteers; and +in this respect a West-Point training makes little or no difference. The +reason of the superiority is obvious. To the volunteer, the service is +still an episode; to the regular, a permanent career. No doubt, if a man +is thoroughly conscientious, or thoroughly ambitious, or thoroughly +enthusiastic, a temporary pursuit may prove as absorbing as if it were +taken up for life; but the majority of men, however well-meaning, are +not thorough at all. How often one hears the apology made by volunteer +officers, even those of high rank,—"Military life is not my profession; +I entered the army from patriotism, willing to serve my country +faithfully for three years, but of course not pretending to perfection +in every trivial detail of a pursuit which I shall soon quit forever." +But it is patriotism to think the details <i>not</i> trivial. If one gives +one's self to one's country, let the gift be total and noble. These +details are worthy to absorb the whole daily thought, and they should +absorb it, until more thorough comprehension and more matured executive +power leave room for larger studies, still in the line of the adopted +occupation. If a man leaves his office or his study to be a soldier, let +him be a soldier in earnest. Let those three years bound the horizon of +his plans, and let him study his new duty as if earth offered no other +conceivable career. The scholar must forswear his pen, the lawyer his +books, the politician his arts. An officer of whatever rank, who does +not find occupation enough for every day, amid the quietest +winter-quarters, in the prescribed duties of his position and the +studies to which they should lead, is fitted only for civil pursuits, +and had better return to them.</p> + +<p>Without this thoroughness, life in the army affords no solid +contentment. What is called military glory is a fitful and uncertain +thing. Time and the newspapers play strange tricks with reputations, and +of a hundred officers whose names appear with honor in this morning's +despatches ninety may never be mentioned again till it is time to write +their epitaphs. Who, for instance, can recite the names of the +successive cavalry-commanders who have ridden on their bold forays +through Virginia, since the war began? All must give place to the latest +Kautz or Sheridan, who has eclipsed without excelling them all. Yet each +is as brave and as faithful to-day, no doubt, as when he too glittered +for his hour before all men's gaze, and the obscurer duty may be the +more substantial honor. So when I lift my eyes to look on yonder level +ocean-floor, the fitful sunshine now glimmers white on one far-off sail, +now on another; and yet I know that all canvas looks snowy while those +casual rays are on it, and that the best vessel is that which, sunlit or +shaded, best accomplishes its destined course. The officer is almost as +powerless as the soldier to choose his opportunity or his place. +Military glory may depend on a thousand things,—the accident of local +position, the jealousy of a rival, the whim of a superior. But the merit +of having done one's whole duty to the men whose lives are in one's +keeping, and to the nation whose life is staked with theirs,—of having +held one's command in such a state, that, if at any given moment it was +not performing the most brilliant achievement, it might have been,—this +is the substantial triumph which every faithful officer has always +within reach.</p> + +<p>Now will any one but a newspaper flatterer venture to say that this is +the habitual standard in our volunteer service? Take as a test the +manner in which official inspections are usually regarded by a +regimental commander. These occasions are to him what examinations by +the School Committee are to a public-school teacher. He may either +deprecate and dodge them, or he may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> manfully welcome them as the very +best means of improvement for all under his care. Which is the more +common view? What sight more pitiable than to behold an officer begging +off from inspection because he has just come in from picket, or is just +going out on picket, or has just removed camp, or was a day too late +with his last requisition for cartridges? No doubt it is a trying ordeal +to have some young regular-army lieutenant ride up to your tent at an +hour's notice, and leisurely devote a day to probing every weak spot in +your command,—to stand by while he smells at every camp-kettle, detects +every delinquent gun-sling, ferrets out old shoes from behind the +mess-bunks, spies out every tent-pole not labelled with the sergeant's +name, asks to see the cash-balance of each company-fund, and perplexes +your best captain on forming from two ranks into one by the left flank. +Yet it is just such unpleasant processes as these which are the +salvation of an army; these petty mortifications are the fulcrum by +which you can lift your whole regiment to a first-class rank, if you +have only the sense to use them. So long as no inspecting officer needs +twice to remind you of the same thing, you have no need to blush. But +though you be the bravest of the brave, though you know a thousand +things of which he is utterly ignorant, yet so long as he can tell you +one thing which you ought to know, he is master of the situation. He may +be the most conceited little popinjay who ever strutted in uniform; no +matter; it is more for your interest to learn than for his to teach. Let +our volunteer officers, as a body, once resolve to act on this +principle, and we shall have such an army as the world never saw. But +nothing costs the nation a price so fearful, in money or in men, as the +false pride which shrinks from these necessary surgical operations, or +regards the surgeon as a foe.</p> + +<p>It is not being an officer to wear uniform for three years, to draw +one's pay periodically, and to acquit one's self without shame during a +few hours or days of actual battle. History will never record what fine +regiments have been wasted and ruined, since this war began, by the +negligence in camp of commanders who were brave as Bayard in the field. +Unless a man is willing to concentrate his whole soul upon learning and +performing the humblest as well as the most brilliant functions of his +new profession, a true officer he will never become. More time will not +help him; for time seldom does much for one who enters, especially in +middle life, on an employment for which he is essentially unfitted. It +is amusing to see the weight attached to the name of veteran, in +military matters, by persons who in civil life are very ready to +exchange a veteran doctor or minister for his younger rival. Military +seniority, though the only practicable rule of precedence, is liable to +many notorious inconveniences. It is especially without meaning in the +volunteer service, where the Governor of Maine may happen to date a set +of commissions on the first day of January, and His Excellency of +Minnesota may doom his contemporary regiment to life-long subordination +by accidentally postponing theirs to the second day. But it has +sufficient drawbacks even where all the appointments pass through one +channel. The dignity it gives is a merely chronological distinction,—an +oldest-inhabitant renown,—much like the university-degree of A. M., +which simply implies that a man has got decently through college, and +then survived three years. But if a man was originally placed in a +position beyond his deserts, the mere lapse of time may have only made +him the more dangerous charlatan. If he showed no sign of military +aptitude in six months, a probation of three years may have been more +costly, but not more conclusive. Add to this the fact that each +successive year of the war has seen all officers more carefully +selected, if only because there has been more choice of material; so +that there is sometimes a temptation in actual service, were it +practicable, to become Scriptural in our treatment, and put the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> last +first and the first last. In those unfortunate early days, when it +seemed to most of our Governors to make little difference whom they +commissioned, since all were alike untried, and of two evils it was +natural to choose that which would produce the more agreeable +consequences at the next election-time,—in those days of darkness many +very poor officers saw the light. Many of these have since been happily +discharged or judiciously shelved. The trouble is, that those who remain +are among the senior officers in our volunteer army, in their respective +grades. They command posts, brigades, divisions. They preside at +court-martials. Beneath the shadow of their notorious incompetency all +minor evils may lurk undetected. To crown all, they are, in many cases, +sincere and well-meaning men, utterly obtuse as to their own +deficiencies, and manifesting (to employ a witticism coeval with +themselves) all the Christian virtues except that of resignation.</p> + +<p>The present writer has beheld the spectacle of an officer of high rank, +previously eminent in civil life, who could only vindicate himself +before a court-martial from the ruinous charge of false muster by +summoning a staff-officer to prove that it was his custom to sign all +military papers without looking at them. He has seen a lieutenant tried +for neglect of duty in allowing a soldier under his command, at an +important picket-post, to be found by the field-officer of the day with +two inches of sand in the bottom of his gun,—and pleading, in +mitigation of sentence, that it had never been the practice in his +regiment to make any inspection of men detailed for such duty. That such +instances of negligence should be tolerated for six months in any +regiment of regulars is a thing almost inconceivable, and yet in these +cases the regiments and the officers had been nearly three years in +service.</p> + +<p>It is to be remembered that even the command of a regiment of a thousand +men is a first-class administrative position, and that there is no +employer of men in civil life who assumes the responsibility of those +under his command so absolutely and thoroughly. The life, the health, +the efficiency, the finances, the families of his soldiers, are staked +not so much on the courage of a regimental commander as upon his +decision, his foresight, and his business-habits. As Richter's worldly +old statesman tells his son, "War trains a man to business." If he takes +his training slowly, he must grow perfect through suffering,—commonly +the suffering of other people. The varied and elaborate returns, for +instance, now required of officers,—daily, monthly, quarterly, +annually,—are not one too many as regards the interests of Government +and of the soldiers, but are enough to daunt any but an accurate and +methodical man. A single error in an ordnance requisition may send a +body of troops into action with only twenty rounds of ammunition to a +man. One mistake in a property-voucher may involve an officer in +stoppages exceeding his yearly pay. One wrong spelling in a muster-roll +may beggar a soldier's children ten years after the father has been +killed in battle. Under such circumstances no standard of accuracy can +be too high. And yet even the degree of regularity that now exists is +due more to the constant pressure from head-quarters than to any +individual zeal. For a large part of this pressure the influence of the +regular army is responsible,—those officers usually occupying the more +important staff-positions, and having in some departments of service, +especially in the ordnance, moulded and remoulded the whole machinery +until it has become almost a model. It would be difficult to name +anything in civil life which is in its way so perfect as the present +system of business and of papers in this department. Every ordnance +blank now contains a schedule of instructions for its own use, so simple +and so minute that it seems as if, henceforward, the most negligent +volunteer officer could never make another error. And yet in the very +last set of returns which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> writer had occasion to revise,—returns +made by a very meritorious captain,—there were eight different papers, +and a mistake in every one.</p> + +<p>The glaring defeat of most of our volunteer regiments, from the +beginning to this day, has lain in slovenliness and remissness as to +every department of military duty, except the actual fighting and dying. +When it comes to that ultimate test, our men usually endure it so +magnificently that one is tempted to overlook all deficiencies on +intermediate points. But they must not be overlooked, because they +create a fearful discount on the usefulness of our troops, when tried by +the standard of regular armies. I do not now refer to the niceties of +dress-parade or the courtesies of salutation: it has long since been +tacitly admitted that a white American soldier will not present arms to +any number of rows of buttons, if he can by any ingenuity evade it; and +to shoulder arms on passing an officer is something to which only +Ethiopia or the regular army can attain. Grant, if you please, (though I +do not grant,) that these are merely points of foolish punctilio. But +there are many things which are more than punctilio, though they may be +less than fighting. The efficiency of a body of troops depends, after +all, not so much on its bravery as on the condition of its sick-list. A +regiment which does picket-duty faithfully will often avoid the need of +duties more terrible. Yet I have ridden by night along a chain of ten +sentinels, every one of whom should have taken my life rather than +permit me to give the countersign without dismounting, and have been +required to dismount by only four, while two did not ask me for the +countersign at all, and two others were asleep. I have ridden through a +regimental camp whose utterly filthy condition seemed enough to send +malaria through a whole military department, and have been asked by the +colonel, almost with tears in his eyes, to explain to him why his men +were dying at the rate of one a day. The latter was a regiment nearly a +year old, and the former one of almost two years' service, and just from +the old Army of the Potomac.</p> + +<p>The fault was, of course, in the officers. The officer makes the +command, as surely as, in educational matters, the teacher makes the +school. There is not a regiment in the army so good that it could not be +utterly spoiled in three months by a poor commander, nor so poor that it +could not be altogether transformed in six by a good one. The difference +in material is nothing,—white or black, German or Irish; so potent is +military machinery that an officer who knows his business can make good +soldiers out of almost anything, give him but a fair chance. The +difference between the present Army of the Potomac and any previous +one,—the reason why we do not daily hear, as in the early campaigns, of +irresistible surprises, overwhelming numbers, and masked batteries,—the +reason why the present movements are a tide and not a wave,—is not that +the men are veterans, but that the officers are. There is an immense +amount of perfectly raw material in General Grant's force, besides the +colored regiments, which in that army are all raw, but in which the +Copperhead critics have such faith they would gladly select them for +dangers fit for Napoleon's Old Guard. But the newest recruit soon grows +steady with a steady corporal at his elbow, a well-trained sergeant +behind him, and a captain or a colonel whose voice means something to +give commands.</p> + +<p>This reference to the colored troops suggests the false impression, +still held by many, that special opposition to this important military +organization has been made by regular officers. There is no justice in +this. While it is very probable that regular officers, as a class, may +have had stronger prejudices on this point than others have held, yet it +is to be remembered that the chief obstacles have not come from them, +nor from military men of any kind, but from civilians at home. Nothing +has been more remarkable than the facility with which the expected +aversion of the army everywhere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> vanished before the admirable behavior +of the colored troops, and the substantial value of the reinforcements +they brought. When it comes to the simple question whether a soldier +shall go on duty every night or every other night, he is not critical as +to beauty of complexion in the soldier who relieves him.</p> + +<p>Some regular officers may have been virulently opposed to the employment +of negroes as soldiers, though the few instances which I have known have +been far more than compensated by repeated acts of the most substantial +kindness from many others. But I never have met one who did not express +contempt for the fraud thus far practised by Government on a portion of +these troops, by refusing to pay them the wages which the Secretary of +War had guarantied. This is a wrong which, but for good discipline, +would have long since converted our older colored regiments into a mob +of mutineers, and which, while dishonestly saving the Government a few +thousand dollars, has virtually sacrificed hundreds of thousands in its +discouraging effect upon enlistments, at a time when the fate of the +nation may depend upon a few regiments more or less. It is in vain for +national conventions to make capital by denouncing massacres like that +of Fort Pillow, and yet ignore this more deliberate injustice for which +some of their own members are in part responsible. The colored soldiers +will take their own risk of capture and maltreatment very readily, +(since they must take it on themselves at any rate,) if the Government +will let its justice begin at home, and pay them their honest earnings. +It is of little consequence to a dying man whether any one else is to +die by retaliation, but it is of momentous consequence whether his wife +and family are to be cheated of half his scanty earnings by the nation +for which he dies. The Rebels may be induced to concede the negro the +rights of war, when we grant him the ordinary rights of peace, namely, +to be paid the price agreed upon. Jefferson Davis and the London +"Times"—one-half whose stock-in-trade is "the inveterate meanness of +the Yankee"—will hardly be converted to sound morals by the rebukes of +an administration which allows its Secretary of War to promise a black +soldier thirteen dollars a month, pay him seven, and shoot him if he +grumbles. From this crowning injustice the regular army, and, indeed, +the whole army, is clear; to civilians alone belongs this carnival of +fraud.</p> + +<p>If, in some instances, terrible injustice has been done to the black +soldiers in their military treatment also, it has not been only, or +chiefly, under regular officers. Against the cruel fatigue duty imposed +upon them last summer, in the Department of the South, for instance, +must be set the more disastrous mismanagements of the Department of the +Gulf,—the only place from which we now hear the old stories of disease +and desertion,—all dating back to the astonishing blunder of organizing +the colored regiments of half-size at the outset, with a full complement +of officers. This measure, however agreeable it might have been to the +horde of aspirants for commissions, was in itself calculated to destroy +all self-respect in the soldiers, being based on the utterly baseless +assumption that they required twice as many officers as whites, and was +foredoomed to failure, because no <i>esprit de corps</i> can be created in a +regiment which is from the first insignificant in respect to size. It is +scarcely conceivable that any regular officer should have honestly +fallen into such an error as this; and it is very certain that the +wisest suggestions and the most efficient action have proceeded, since +the beginning, from them. It will be sufficient to mention the names of +Major-General Hunter, Brigadier-General Phelps, and Adjutant-General +Thomas; and one there is whose crowning merits deserve a tribute +distinct even from these.</p> + +<p>When some future Bancroft or Motley writes with philosophic brain and +poet's hand the story of the Great Civil War, he will find the +transition to a new era in our nation's history to have been fitly +marked by one festal day,—that of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> announcement of the President's +Proclamation, upon Port-Royal Island, on the first of January, 1863. +That New-Year's time was our second contribution to the great series of +historic days, beads upon the rosary of the human race, permanent +festivals of freedom. Its celebration was one beside whose simple +pageant the superb festivals of other lands might seem but glittering +counterfeits. Beneath a majestic grove of the great live-oaks which +glorify the South-Carolina soil a liberated people met to celebrate +their own peaceful emancipation. They came thronging, by land and water, +from plantations which their own self-imposed and exemplary industry was +beginning already to redeem. The military escort which surrounded them +had been organized out of their own numbers, and had furnished to the +nation the first proof of the capacity of their race to bear arms. The +key-note of the meeting was given by spontaneous voices, whose +unexpected anthem took the day from the management of well-meaning +patrons, and swept all away into the great currents of simple feeling. +It was a scene never to be forgotten: the moss-hung trees, with their +hundred-feet diameter of shade; the eager faces of women and children in +the foreground; the many-colored headdresses; the upraised hands; the +neat uniforms of the soldiers; the outer row of mounted officers and +ladies; and beyond all the blue river, with its swift, free tide. And at +the centre of all this great and joyous circle stood modestly the man on +whose personal integrity and energy, more than on any President or +Cabinet, the hopes of all that multitude appeared to rest,—who +commanded then among his subjects, and still commands, an allegiance +more absolute than any European potentate can claim,—whose name will be +forever illustrious as having first made a practical reality out of that +Proclamation which then was to the President only an autograph, and to +the Cabinet only a dream,—who, when the whole fate of the slaves and of +the Government hung trembling in the balance, decided it forever by +throwing into the scale the weight of one resolute man,—who personally +mustered in the first black regiment, and personally governed the +first community where emancipation was a success,—who taught the +relieved nation, in fine, that there was strength and safety +in those dusky millions who till then had been an incubus and a +terror,—Brigadier-General Rufus Saxton, Military Governor of South +Carolina. The single career of this one man more than atones for all the +traitors whom West Point ever nurtured, and awards the highest place on +the roll of our practical statesmanship to the regular army.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_TOTAL_DEPRAVITY_OF_INANIMATE_THINGS" id="THE_TOTAL_DEPRAVITY_OF_INANIMATE_THINGS"></a>THE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF INANIMATE THINGS.</h2> + + +<p>I am confident, that, at the annunciation of my theme, Andover, +Princeton, and Cambridge will skip like rams, and the little hills of +East Windsor, Meadville, and Fairfax, like lambs. However +divinity-schools may refuse to "skip" in unison, and may butt and batter +each other about the doctrine and origin of <i>human</i> depravity, all will +join devoutly in the <i>credo</i>, I believe in the total depravity of +inanimate things.</p> + +<p>The whole subject lies in a nutshell, or rather an apple-skin. We have +clerical authority for affirming that all its miseries were let loose +upon the human race by "them greenins" tempting our mother to curious +pomological speculations; and from that time till now—Longfellow, thou +reasonest well!—"things are not what they seem," but are diabolically +otherwise,—masked-batteries, nets, gins, and snares of evil.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p> + +<p>(In this connection I am reminded of—can I ever cease to remember?—the +unlucky lecturer at our lyceum a few winters ago, who, on rising to +address his audience, applauding him all the while most vehemently, +pulled out his handkerchief, for oratorical purposes only, and +inadvertently flung from his pocket three "Baldwins" that a friend had +given to him on his way to the hall, straight into the front row of +giggling girls.)</p> + +<p>My zeal on this subject received new impetus recently from an +exclamation which pierced the thin partitions of the country-parsonage, +once my home, where I chanced to be a guest.</p> + +<p>From the adjoining dressing-room issued a prolonged "Y-ah!"—not the +howl of a spoiled child, nor the protest of a captive gorilla, but the +whole-souled utterance of a mighty son of Anak, whose amiability is +invulnerable to weapons of human aggravation.</p> + +<p>I paused in the midst of toilet-exigencies, and listened +sympathetically, for I recognized the probable presence of the old enemy +to whom the bravest and sweetest succumb.</p> + +<p>Confirmation and explanation followed speedily in the half apologetic, +wholly wrathful declaration,—"The pitcher was made foolish in the first +place." I dare affirm, that, if the spirit of Lindley Murray himself +were at that moment hovering over that scene of trial, he dropped a +tear, or, better still, an adverbial <i>ly</i> upon the false grammar, and +blotted it out forever.</p> + +<p>I comprehended the scene at once. I had been there. I felt again the +remorseless swash of the water over neat boots and immaculate hose; I +saw the perverse intricacies of its meanderings over the carpet, upon +which the "foolish" pitcher had been confidingly deposited; I knew, +beyond the necessity of ocular demonstration, that, as sure as there +were "pipe-hole" or crack in the ceiling of the study below, those +inanimate things would inevitably put their evil heads together, and +bring to grief the long-suffering Dominie, with whom, during my day, +such inundations had been of at least bi-weekly occurrence, instigated +by crinoline. The inherent wickedness of that "thing of beauty" will be +acknowledged by all mankind, and by every female not reduced to the +deplorable poverty of the heroine of the following veracious anecdote.</p> + +<p>A certain good bishop, on making a tour of inspection through a +mission-school of his diocese, was so impressed by the aspect of all its +beneficiaries that his heart overflowed with joy, and he exclaimed to a +little maiden whose appearance was particularly suggestive of +creature-comforts,—"Why, my little girl! you have everything that heart +can wish, haven't you?" Imagine the bewilderment and horror of the +prelate, when the miniature Flora McFlimsey drew down the corners of her +mouth lugubriously, and sought to accommodate the puffs and dimples of +her fat little body to an expression of abject misery, as she +replied,—"No, indeed, Sir! I haven't got any—skeleton!"</p> + +<p>We who have suffered know the disposition of graceless "skeletons" to +hang themselves on "foolish" pitchers, bureau-knobs, rockers, +cobble-stones, splinters, nails, and, indeed, any projection a tenth of +a line beyond a dead level.</p> + +<p>The mention of nails is suggestive of voluminous distresses. +Country-parsonages, from some inexplicable reason, are wont to bristle +all over with these impish assailants of human comfort.</p> + +<p>I never ventured to leave my masculine relatives to their own devices +for more than twenty-four consecutive hours, that I did not return to +find that they had seemingly manifested their grief at my absence after +the old Hebraic method, ("more honored in the breach than the +observance,") by rending their garments. When summoned to their account, +the invariable defence has been a vehement denunciation of some +particular <i>nail</i> as the guilty cause of my woes.</p> + +<p>By the way, O Christian woman of the nineteenth century, did it ever +enter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> your heart to give devout thanks that you did not share the woe +of those whose fate it was to "sojourn in Mesech and dwell in the tents +of Kedar"? that it did not fall to your lot to do the plain sewing and +mending for some Jewish patriarch, patriot, or prophet of yore?</p> + +<p>Realize, if you can, the masculine aggravation and the feminine +long-suffering of a period when the head of a family could neither go +down-town, nor even sit at his tent-door, without descrying some +wickedness in high places, some insulting placard, some exasperating +war-bulletin, some offensive order from head-quarters, which caused him +to transform himself instantly into an animated rag-bag. Whereas, in +these women-saving days, similar grievances send President Abraham into +his cabinet to issue a proclamation, the Reverend Jeremiah into his +pulpit with a scathing homily, Poet-Laureate David to the "Atlantic" +with a burning lyric, and Major-General Joab to the privacy of his tent, +there to calm his perturbed spirit with Drake's Plantation Bitters. In +humble imitation of another, I would state that this indorsement of the +potency of a specific is entirely gratuitous, and that I am stimulated +thereto by no remuneration, fluid or otherwise.</p> + +<p>Blessed be this day of sewing-machines for women, and of safety-valves +and innocent explosives for their lords!</p> + +<p>But this is a digression.</p> + +<p>I awoke very early in life to the consciousness that I held the doctrine +which we are considering.</p> + +<p>On a hapless day when I was perhaps five years old, I was, in my own +estimation, intrusted with the family-dignity, when I was deposited for +the day at the house of a lordly Pharisee of the parish, with solemnly +repeated instructions in table-manners and the like.</p> + +<p>One who never analyzed the mysteries of a sensitive child's heart cannot +appreciate the sense of awful responsibility which oppressed me during +that visit. But all went faultlessly for a time. I corrected myself +instantly each time. I said, "Yes, Ma'am," to Mr. Simon, and "No, Sir," +to Madam, which was as often as I addressed them; I clenched little +fists and lips resolutely, that they might not touch, taste, handle, +tempting <i>bijouterie</i>; I even held in check the spirit of inquiry +rampant within me, and indulged myself with only one question to every +three minutes of time.</p> + +<p>At last I found myself at the handsome dinner-table, triumphantly +mounted upon two "Comprehensive Commentaries" and a dictionary, fearing +no evil from the viands before me. Least of all did I suspect the +vegetables of guile. But deep in the heart of a bland, mealy-mouthed +potato lurked cruel designs upon my fair reputation.</p> + +<p>No sooner had I, in the most approved style of nursery good-breeding, +applied my fork to its surface, than the hardhearted thing executed a +wild <i>pirouette</i> before my astonished eyes, and then flew on impish +wings across the room, dashing out its malicious brains, I am happy to +say, against the parlor-door, but leaving me in a half-comatose state, +stirred only by vague longings for a lodge with "proud Korah's troop," +whose destination is unmistakably set forth in the "Shorter Catechism."</p> + +<p>There is a possibility that I received my innate distrust of things by +inheritance from my maternal grandmother, whose holy horror at the +profanity they once provoked from a bosom-friend in her childhood was +still vivid in her old age.</p> + +<p>It was on this wise. When still a pretty Puritan maiden, my grandame was +tempted irresistibly by the spring sunshine to the tabooed indulgence of +a Sunday-walk. The temptation was probably intensified by the +presence of the British troops, giving unwonted fascination to +village-promenades. Her confederate in this guilty pleasure was a +like-minded little saint; so there was a tacit agreement between them +that their transgression should be sanctified by a strict adherence to +religious topics of conversation. Accordingly they launched boldly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> upon +the great subject which was just then agitating church-circles in New +England.</p> + +<p>Fortune smiled upon these criminals against the Blue Laws, until they +encountered a wall surmounted by hickory rails. Without intermitting the +discussion, Susannah sprang agilely up. Quoth she, balancing herself for +one moment upon the summit,—"No, no, Betsey! <i>I</i> believe God is the +author of sin!" The next she sprang toward the ground; but a salient +splinter, a chip of depravity, clutched her Sunday-gown, and converted +her incontinently, it seems, into a confessor of the opposing faith; for +history records, that, following the above-mentioned dogma, there came +from hitherto unstained lips,—"The Devil!"</p> + +<p>Time and space would, of course, be inadequate to the enumeration of all +the demonstrations of the truth of the doctrine of the absolute +depravity of things. A few examples only can be cited.</p> + +<p>There is melancholy pleasure in the knowledge that a great soul has gone +mourning before me in the path I am now pursuing. It was only to-day, +that, in glancing over the pages of Victor Hugo's greatest work, I +chanced upon the following:—"Every one will have noticed with what +skill a coin let fall upon the ground runs to hide itself, and what art +it has in rendering itself invisible; there are thoughts which play us +the same trick," etc., etc.</p> + +<p>The similar tendency of pins and needles is universally understood and +execrated,—their base secretiveness when searched for, and their +incensing intrusion when one is off guard.</p> + +<p>I know a man whose sense of their malignity is so keen, that, whenever +he catches a gleam of their treacherous lustre on the carpet, he +instantly draws his two and a quarter yards of length into the smallest +possible compass, and shrieks until the domestic police come to the +rescue, and apprehend the sharp little villains. Do not laugh at this. +Years ago he lost his choicest friend by the stab of just such a little +dastard lying in ambush.</p> + +<p>So also every wielder of the needle is familiar with the propensity of +the several parts of a garment in the process of manufacture to turn +themselves wrong side out, and down side up; and the same viciousness +cleaves like leprosy to the completed garment so long as a thread +remains.</p> + +<p>My blood still tingles with a horrible memory illustrative of this +truth.</p> + +<p>Dressing hurriedly and in darkness for a concert one evening, I appealed +to the Dominie, as we passed under the hall-lamp, for a +toilet-inspection.</p> + +<p>"How do I look, father?"</p> + +<p>After a sweeping glance came the candid statement,—</p> + +<p>"Beau-tifully!"</p> + +<p>Oh, the blessed glamour which invests a child whose father views her +"with a critic's eye"!</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>of course</i>; but look carefully, please; how is my dress?"</p> + +<p>Another examination of apparently severest scrutiny.</p> + +<p>"All right, dear! That's the new cloak, is it? Never saw you look +better. Come, we shall be late."</p> + +<p>Confidingly I went to the hall; confidingly I entered; since the +concert-room was crowded with rapt listeners to the Fifth Symphony, I, +gingerly, but still confidingly, followed the author of my days, and the +critic of my toilet, to the very uppermost seat, which I entered, barely +nodding to my finically fastidious friend, Guy Livingston, who was +seated near us with a stylish-looking stranger, who bent eyebrows and +glass upon me superciliously.</p> + +<p>Seated, the Dominie was at once lifted into the midst of the massive +harmonies of the Adagio; I lingered outside a moment, in order to settle +my garments and—that woman's look. What! was that a partially +suppressed titter near me? Ah! she has no soul for music! How such +ill-timed merriment will jar upon my friend's exquisite sensibilities!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span></p> + +<p>Shade of Beethoven! A hybrid cough and laugh, smothered decorously, but +still recognizable, from the courtly Guy himself! What can it mean?</p> + +<p>In my perturbation, my eyes fell and rested upon the sack, whose newness +and glorifying effect had been already noticed by my lynx-eyed parent.</p> + +<p>I here pause to remark that I had intended to request the compositor to +"set up" the coming sentence in explosive capitals, by way of emphasis, +but forbear, realizing that it already staggers under the weight of its +own significance.</p> + +<p>That sack was wrong side out!</p> + +<p>Stern necessity, proverbially known as "the mother of invention," and +practically the step-mother of ministers' daughters, had made me eke out +the silken facings of the front with cambric linings for the back and +sleeves. Accordingly, in the full blaze of the concert-room, there sat +I, "accoutred as I was," in motley attire,—my homely little economies +patent to admiring spectators: on either shoulder, budding wings +composed of unequal parts of sarcenet-cambric and cotton-batting; and in +my heart—<i>parricide</i> I had almost said, but it was rather the more +filial sentiment of desire to operate for cataract upon my father's +eyes. But a moment's reflection sufficed to transfer my indignation to +its proper object,—the sinful sack itself, which, concerting with its +kindred darkness, had planned this cruel assault upon my innocent pride.</p> + +<p>A constitutional obtuseness renders me delightfully insensible to one +fruitful source of provocation among inanimate things. I am so dull as +to regard all distinctions between "rights" and "lefts" as invidious; +but I have witnessed the agonized struggles of many a victim of +fractious boots, and been thankful that "I am not as other men are," in +ability to comprehend the difference between my right and left foot. +Still, as already intimated, I have seen wise men driven mad by a thing +of leather and waxed-ends.</p> + +<p>A little innocent of three years, in all the pride of his first boots, +was aggravated, by the perversity of the right to thrust itself on to +the left leg, to the utterance of a contraband expletive.</p> + +<p>When reproved by his horror-stricken mamma, he maintained a dogged +silence.</p> + +<p>In order to pierce his apparently indurated conscience, his censor +finally said, solemnly,—</p> + +<p>"Dugald! God knows that you said that wicked word."</p> + +<p>"Does He?" cried the baby-victim of reral depravity, in a tone of +relief; "then <i>He</i> knows it was a doke" (<i>Anglicè</i>, joke).</p> + +<p>But, mind you, the sin-tempting boot intended no "doke."</p> + +<p>The toilet, with its multiform details and complicated machinery, is a +demon whose surname is Legion.</p> + +<p>Time would fail me to speak of the elusiveness of soap, the knottiness +of strings, the transitory nature of buttons, the inclination of +suspenders to twist, and of hooks to forsake their lawful eyes, and +cleave only unto the hairs of their hapless owner's head. (It occurs to +me as barely possible, that, in the last case, the hooks may be +innocent, and the sinfulness may lie in <i>capillary</i> attraction.)</p> + +<p>And, O my brother or sister in sorrow, has it never befallen you, when +bending all your energies to the mighty task of "doing" your back-hair, +to find yourself gazing inanely at the opaque back of your brush, while +the hand-mirror, which had maliciously insinuated itself into your right +hand for this express purpose, came down upon your devoted head with a +resonant whack?</p> + +<p>I have alluded, parenthetically, to the possible guilt of capillary +attraction, but I am prepared to maintain against the attraction of +gravitation the charge of total depravity. Indeed, I should say of it, +as did the worthy exhorter of the Dominie's old parish in regard to +slavery,—"It's the wickedest thing in the world, except sin!"</p> + +<p>It was only the other day that I saw depicted upon the young divine's +countenance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> from this cause, thoughts "too deep for tears," and, +perchance, too earthy for clerical utterance.</p> + +<p>From a mingling of sanitary and economic considerations, he had cleared +his own sidewalk after a heavy snow-storm. As he stood, leaning upon his +shovel, surveying with smiling complacency his accomplished task, the +spite of the arch-fiend Gravitation was raised against him, and, finding +the impish slates (hadn't Luther something to say about "<i>as many devils +as tiles</i>"?) ready to coöperate, an avalanche was the result, making the +last state of that sidewalk worse than the first, and sending the divine +into the house with a battered hat, and an article of faith +supplementary to the orthodox thirty-nine.</p> + +<p>Prolonged reflection upon a certain class of grievances has convinced me +that mankind has generally ascribed them to a guiltless source. I refer +to the unspeakable aggravation of "typographical errors," rightly so +called,—for, in nine cases out of ten, I opine it is the types +themselves which err.</p> + +<p>I appeal to fellow-sufferers, if the substitutions and interpolations +and false combinations of letters are not often altogether too absurd +for humanity.</p> + +<p>Take, as one instance, the experience of a friend, who, in writing in +all innocency of a session of the Historical Society, affirmed mildly in +manuscript, "All went smoothly," but weeks after was made to declare in +blatant print, "All went <i>snoringly</i>!"</p> + +<p>As among men, so in the alphabet, one sinner destroyeth much good.</p> + +<p>The genial Senator from the Granite Hills told me of an early aspiration +of his own for literary distinction, which was beheaded remorselessly by +a villain of this type. By way of majestic peroration to a pathetic +article, he had exclaimed, "For what would we exchange the fame of +Washington?"—referring, I scarcely need say, to the man of fragrant +memory, and not to the odorous capital. The black-hearted little dies, +left to their own devices one night, struck dismay to the heart of the +aspirant author by propounding in black and white a prosaic inquiry as +to what would be considered a fair equivalent for the <i>farm</i> of the +father of his country!</p> + +<p>Among frequent instances of this depravity in my own experience, a +flagrant example still shows its ugly front on a page of a child's book. +In the latest edition of "Our Little Girls," (good Mr. Randolph, pray +read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest,) there occurs a description of a +christening, wherein a venerable divine is made to dip "his <i>head</i>" into +the consecrating water, and lay it upon the child.</p> + +<p>Disembodied words are also sinners and the occasions of sin. Who has not +broken the Commandments in consequence of the provocation of some +miserable little monosyllabic eluding his grasp in the moment of his +direst need, or of some impertinent interloper thrusting itself in to +the utter demoralization of his well-organized sentences? Who has not +been covered with shame at tripping over the pronunciation of some +perfectly simple word like "statistics," "inalienable," "inextricable," +etc., etc., etc.?</p> + +<p>Whose experience will not empower him to sympathize with that +unfortunate invalid, who, on being interrogated by a pious visitor in +regard to her enjoyment of means of grace, informed the horror-stricken +inquisitor,—"I have not been to church for years, I have been such an +<i>infidel</i>,"—and then, moved by a dim impression of wrong somewhere, as +well as by the evident shock inflicted upon her worthy visitor, but +conscious of her own integrity, repeated still more emphatically,—"No; +I have been a confirmed infidel for years."</p> + +<p>But a peremptory summons from an animated nursery forbids my lingering +longer in this fruitful field. I can only add an instance of +corroborating testimony from each member of the circle originating this +essay.</p> + +<p>The Dominie <i>loq.</i>—"Sha'n't have anything to do with it! It's a wicked +thing! To be sure, I do remember, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> I was a little boy, I used to +throw stones at the chip-basket when it upset the cargo I had just +laded, and it was a great relief to my feelings too. Besides, you've +told stories about me which were anything but true. I don't remember +anything about that sack."</p> + +<p>Lady-visitor <i>loq.</i>—"The first time I was invited to Mr. ——'s, (the +Hon. —— ——'s, you know,) I was somewhat anxious, but went home +flattering myself I had made a creditable impression. Imagine my +consternation, when I came to relieve the pocket of my gala-gown, donned +for the occasion, at discovering among its treasures a tea-napkin, +marked gorgeously with the Hon. —— ——'s family-crest, which had +maliciously crept into its depths in order to bring me into disgrace! I +have never been able to bring myself to the point of confession, in +spite of my subsequent intimacy with the family. If it were not for +Joseph's positive assertion to the contrary, I should be of the opinion +that his cup of divination conjured itself deliberately and sinfully +into innocent Benjamin's sack."</p> + +<p>Student <i>loq.</i> (Testimony open to criticism.)—"Met pretty girl on the +street yesterday. Sure I had on my 'Armstrong' hat when I left +home,—sure as fate; but when I went to pull it off,—by the crown, of +course,—to bow to pretty girl, I smashed in my beaver! How it got there +don't know. Knocked it off. Pretty girl picked it up and handed it to +me. Confounded things, any way!"</p> + +<p>Young divine <i>loq.</i>—"While I was in the army, I was in Washington on +'leave' for two or three days. One night, at a party, I became utterly +bewildered in an attempt to converse, after long desuetude, with a +fascinating woman. I went stumbling on, amazing her more and more, until +finally I covered myself with glory by the categorical statement that in +my opinion General McClellan could 'never get across the Peninsula +without a <i>fattle</i>; I beg pardon, Madam! what I mean to say is, without +a <i>bight</i>.'"</p> + +<p>School-girl <i>loq.</i>—"When Uncle —— was President, I was at the White +House at a state-dinner one evening. Senator —— came rushing in +frantically after we had been at table some time. No sooner was he +seated than he turned to Aunt to apologize for his delay; and, being +very much heated, and very much embarrassed, he tugged away desperately +at his pocket, and finally succeeded in extracting a huge blue stocking, +evidently of home-manufacture, with which he proceeded to wipe his +forehead very energetically and very conspicuously. I suppose the truth +was that the poor man's handkerchiefs were "on a strike," and thrust +forward this homespun stocking to bring him to terms."</p> + +<p>School-girl, No. 2, <i>loq.</i>—"My last term at F., I was expecting a box +of 'goodies' from home. So when the message came, 'An express-package +for you, Miss Fanny!' I invited all my specials to come and assist at +the opening. Instead of the expected box, there appeared a +misshapen-bundle, done up in yellow wrapping-paper. Four such +dejected-looking damsels were never seen before as we, standing around +the ugly old thing. Finally, Alice suggested,—</p> + +<p>"'Open it!'</p> + +<p>"'Oh, I know what it is,' I said; 'it is my old Thibet, that mother has +had made over for me.'</p> + +<p>"'Let's see,' persisted Alice.</p> + +<p>"So I opened the package. The first thing I drew out was too much for +me.</p> + +<p>"'What a funny-looking basque!' exclaimed Alice. All the rest were +struck dumb with disappointment.</p> + +<p>"No! not a basque at all, but a man's black satin waistcoat! and next +came objects about which there could be no doubt,—a pair of dingy old +trousers, and a swallow-tailed coat! Imagine the chorus of damsels!</p> + +<p>"The secret was, that two packages lay in father's office,—one for me, +the other for those everlasting freedmen. John was to forward mine. He +had taken up the box to write my address on it, when the yellow bundle +tumbled off the desk at his feet and scared the wits out of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> head. +So I came in for father's secondhand clothes, and the Ethiopians had the +'goodies'!"</p> + +<p>Repentant Dominie <i>loq.</i>—"I don't approve of it at all; but then, if +you must write the wicked thing, I heard a good story for you to-day. +Dr. —— found himself in the pulpit of a Dutch Reformed Church the other +Sunday. You know he is one who prides himself on his adaptation to +places and times. Just at the close of the introductory services, a +black gown lying over the arm of the sofa caught his eye. He was rising +to deliver his sermon, when it forced itself on his attention again.</p> + +<p>"'Sure enough,' thought he, 'Dutch Reformed clergymen do wear gowns. I +might as well put it on.'</p> + +<p>"So he solemnly thrust himself into the malicious (as you would say) +garment, and went through the services as well as he could, considering +that his audience seemed singularly agitated, and indeed on the point of +bursting out into a general laugh, throughout the entire service. And no +wonder! The good Doctor, in his zeal for conformity, had attired himself +in the black cambric duster in which the pulpit was shrouded during +week-days, and had been gesticulating his eloquent homily with his arms +thrust through the holes left for the pulpit-lamps!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WHAT_SHALL_WE_HAVE_FOR_DINNER" id="WHAT_SHALL_WE_HAVE_FOR_DINNER"></a>WHAT SHALL WE HAVE FOR DINNER?</h2> + + +<p>I think I must be personally known to most of the readers of the +"Atlantic." I see them wherever I go, and they see me. Beneath a +shelter-tent by the Rapidan, in a striped railroad-station in Bavaria, +at the counter of Trübner's bookstore in London, and at Cordaville, in +Worcester County, Massachusetts, as we waited for the freight to get out +of the way, I have read the "Atlantic" over their shoulders, or they +over mine. The same thing has happened at six hundred and thirty-two +other improbable places. More than this, however, my words and works in +the great science of Domestic Economy have travelled everywhere before +me, not simply like the Connecticut of the poet,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Bringing shad to South Hadley, and pleasure to man,"<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>but extending all over the civilized world. Not that I am the author of +the clothes-wringing machine, or of the spring clothes-pin,—my +influence has been more subtile. I have propounded great central axioms +in housekeeping and the other economies, which have rushed over the +world with the inevitable momentum of truth. It was I, for instance, who +first discovered and proclaimed the great governing fact that the butter +of a family costs more than its bread. It was I who first announced that +you cannot economize in the quality of your paper. I am the discoverer +of the formula that a family consumes as many barrels of flour in a year +as it has adult members, reducing children to adults by the rule of +three. The morning after our marriage I raised the window-shade, so that +the rising sun of that auspicious day should shine full upon our +parlor-Brussels. I said to Lois, "Let us never be slaves to our +carpets!" The angel smiled assent; and on the wings of that smile my +whisper fluttered over the earth. It brooded in a thousand homes else +miserable. Light was where before was chaos. Sunshine drove scrofula +from ten thousand quivering frames, and millions of infant lips would +this day raise Lois's name and mine in their Kindergarten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> songs, did +they only know who were their benefactors.</p> + +<p>Standing thus in the centre of the sphere of the domestic economies, I +have, of course, read with passionate interest the "House and Home +Papers" in the "Atlantic." It is I, as I am proud to confess, who have, +violated all copyright, have had them reprinted, as Tract No. 2237 of +the American Tract Society, No. 63 of the American Tract Society of +Boston, and No. 445 of the issues of the Sanitary Commission, and am now +about to introduce them surreptitiously into the bureaus of these +charities, so that the colporteurs, of every stripe, may at last be +certain that they are conferring the first of benefits upon their +homeless fellow-creatures. It is I who every night toil through long +streets that I may slide these little tracts, messengers of blessing, +under the front-doors of wretched friends, who are dying without homes +in the gilded miseries of their bowling-alley parlors. Where they have +introduced the patent weather-strip, I place the tract on the upper +door-step, with a brick-bat, which keeps it from blowing away. But I +observe that it is no part of the plan of those charming papers, more +than it was of the "Novum Organon" or of the "Principia," to descend +into the details of the economies. I suppose that the author left all +that to the "Domestic Economy" of her excellent sister, and, as far as +the details of practice go, well she might. But between that practical +detail by which one sister cooks to-day the dinners on a million tables, +and the æsthetic, moral, and religious considerations by which the other +sister elevates the life of the million homes in whose dining-rooms +those tables stand, there is room for a brief exposition of the +principles on which those dinners are to be selected.</p> + +<p>It is that exposition which, as I sit superior, I am to give, <i>ex +cathedra</i>, after this long preface, now.</p> + +<p>I shall illustrate the necessity of this exposition by an introduction +to follow the preface, after the manner of the Germans, before we arrive +at the substance of our work, which will be itself comprised in its +first chapter. This introduction will consist of two illustrations. The +first relates to the planting of potatoes. When I inherited my ancestral +estate, known as "Crusoe's Well," I resolved to devote it to potatoes +for the first summer. I summoned my vassals, and we fenced it. I bought +dung and manured it. I hired ploughmen and oxen, and they ploughed it. I +made a covenant with a Kelt, who became, <i>quoad hoc</i>, my slave, and gave +to him money, with which I directed him to buy seed-potatoes and plant +it.</p> + +<p>And he,—"How many shall I buy?"</p> + +<p>I retired to my study, consulted London, Lindley, and Linnæus,—the +thick Gray, the middling Gray, and the child's Gray,—Worcester's +Dictionary, and Webster's, in both of which you can usually find almost +anything but what should be there,—Johnson's "Dictionary of Gardening," +and Gardner's "Dictionary of Farming,"—and none of these treatises +mentioned the quantity of potatoes proper for planting a given space of +land. Even the Worcester and Webster failed. I was reduced to tell the +Kelt to ask the huckster of whom he bought. All the treatises went on +the principle—true, but inadequate—that "any fool would know." Any +fool might, probably does,—but I was not a fool.</p> + +<p>The next year, having built my house and taken Lois home, the bluebirds +sang spring to us one fine morning, and we went out to plant our +radish-seeds. With fit forethought, the seed had been bought, the ground +manured and raked, the string, the dibble, the woman's trowel, the man's +trowel, the sticks for the seed-papers, and the papers were all there. +Lois was charming, in her sun-bonnet; I looked knowing in my Canadian +oat-straw. We marked out the bed,—as the robins, meadow-larks, and +bluebirds directed. Lois then looked up article "Radish" in the +"Farmer's Dictionary," and we found the lists of "Long White Naples," +"White Spanish,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> "Black Spanish," "Long Scarlet," "White Turnip-Root," +"Purple Turnip," and the rest, for two columns, which we should and +should not plant. All that was nothing to us. We were to plant +radish-seeds, which we had bought, as such, from Mr. Swett. How deep to +plant them, how far apart or how near together, the book was to tell. +But the book only said, "Everybody knows how to plant radishes."</p> + +<p>Now this was not true. <i>We</i> did not know.</p> + +<p>These two illustrations, as the minister says, are sufficient to show +the character of the deficiency which I am now to supply,—which young +housekeepers of intelligence feel, when they have got their nests ready +and begin to bill and coo in-doors. There are many things which every +fool knows, which people of sense do not know. First among these things +is, "What will you have for dinner?"—a question not to be answered by +detailed answers,—on the principle of the imaginary Barmacide feasts of +the cook-books,—but by the results of deep principles, which underlie, +indeed, the whole superficial strata of civilized life. Did not the army +of the Punjaub perish, as it retreated from Ghizni to Jelalabad, not +because the enemy's lances were strong, but because one day it did not +dine?</p> + +<p>I am not going to tell the old story of that "sweet pretty girl" who, +after a week of legs of mutton, ordered a "leg of beef." I sympathize +with her from the bottom of my heart. Her sister will be married +to-morrow. To her I dedicate this paper, that she may know, not what she +shall order,—that is left to her own sweet will, less fettered now that +her life is rounded by her welding it upon its other half than it was +when she wandered in maiden meditation fancy-free,—not, I say, what she +shall order for her dinner and for Leander's, but the principle on which +the order is to be given.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Mr. Carter," says the blushing child, as she reads, "we +have got to be so dreadfully economical!"</p> + +<p>Fairest of your sex, there was never one of your sex, since Eve finished +the apple, lest any should be wasted, nor of my sex, since Adam grimly +champed the parings, thinking he was "in for it," who should not be +economical. A just economy is the law of a luxurious life. "Dreadful +economy" is the principle which is now to be unfolded to you.</p> + +<p>Economy in itself is one of the most agreeable of luxuries. This I need +not demonstrate. Everybody knows what good fun it is to make a bargain. +Economy becomes dreadful, only when some lightning-flash of truth shows +us that our painful frugality has been really the most lavish waste.</p> + +<p>So Lois and I, for nine years, lived without a corkscrew. We would buy +busts and chromoliths with our money instead,—we would go to the White +Mountains, we would maintain an elegant æsthetic hospitality, as they do +in Paris, with the money we should save by doing without a corkscrew. So +I spoiled two sets of kitchen-forks by drawing corks with them, I broke +the necks of legions of bottles for which Mr. Tarr would have credited +me two cents each, and many times damaged, even to the swearing-point, +one of the sweetest tempers in the world,—all that we might economize +on this corkscrew. But one day, at the corner-shop, I saw a corkscrew in +the glass show-case, lying on some pocket-combs and family dye-stuffs. I +asked the price, to learn that it cost seventeen cents. The resolution +of years gave way before the temptation. I bought the corkscrew, and +from that moment my income has equalled my expenses. So you see, my +sweet May-bud, just trembling on the edge of housekeeping, that true +economy consists in buying the right thing at the right time,—if you +only pay for it as you go.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Mr. Carter, I don't know what the right thing is!"</p> + +<p>Sweet heart, I knew it. And your husband knows no more than you +do,—although<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> he will pretend to know, that he may look cross when the +bills come in. Read what follows; hide the "Atlantic" before he comes +home; and you will know more than he knows on the most important point +in human life. Vainly, henceforth, will he quote Greek to you, or talk +pompous nonsense about the price of Treasury certificates, if you know +at what price eggs are really cheap, and at what price they are really +dear.</p> + +<p>Listen, and remember! Then hide the "Atlantic" away.</p> + +<p>When I engaged in the study of Hebrew, which was at that time a +"regular" at college, (for why should I blush to own that I am in my one +hundred and tenth year?) as I toiled through the rules and exceptions in +dear old Stephen Sewall's Hebrew Grammar, I ventured to ask him, one +desperately hot June day, whether he could not tell us, were it only for +curiosity's sake, which rule would come into play in every verse, and +which would be of use only once or twice in the whole Bible. "Ah, +Carter," said the dear old fellow, (he taught his beloved language with +his own book,) "it is all of use,—all!" And so we had to take it all, +and find out as we could which rules would be constant servitors to us, +and which occasional lackeys, hired for special occasions. Just so, dear +Hero, do you stand about your housekeeping. You wall be fretting +yourself to death to economize in each one of one hundred and seven +different articles,—for so many are you and Leander to assimilate and +make your own special phosphate and carbon, as this sweet honey-year of +yours goes on. Of that fret and wear of your sweet temper, child, there +is no use at all. Listen, and you shall learn what are to be the great +constants of your expense,—what Stephen Sewall would have called the +regular verbs transitive of your being, doing, and suffering,—and how +many of the one hundred and seven are only exceptional Lamed Hhes, at +which you can guess or which you can skip, if the great central +movements of your economies go bravely on.</p> + +<p>I do not know, of course, whether Leander is fond of coffee, and whether +you drink tea or no. I can only tell you what is in our family, and +assure you that ours is a model family. Such a model is it, that Lois +has just now counted up the one hundred and seven articles for me,—has +shown me that they all together cost us nine hundred and twenty-six +dollars and thirty-two cents in the year 1863, and how much each of them +cost. Now our family consists,—</p> + +<p>1. Of the baby, who is king.</p> + +<p>2, 3. Of two nurses, who are prime-ministers, one of domestic affairs, +one of private education.</p> + +<p>4, 5. Of a cook and table-girl, who are chancellor and foreign +secretary. These four make the cabinet.</p> + +<p>6-8. Three older children; these are in the government, but not in the +cabinet.</p> + +<p>9 and 10. Lois and I,—who pay the taxes, fight common enemies, and do +what the others tell us as well as we can.</p> + +<p>This family, you observe, consists of six grown persons, and three +children old enough to eat, who are equivalent to a seventh. I may say, +in passing, that it therefore consumes just seven barrels of flour a +year.</p> + +<p>To feed it, as Lois has just now shown you, cost in the year 1863 nine +hundred and twenty-six dollars and thirty-two cents. That is the way we +chose to live. We could have lived just as happily on half that sum,—we +could have lived just as wretchedly on ten times that sum. But, however +we lived, the proportions of our expense would not have varied much from +what I am now to teach you, dear Hero (if that really be your name).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Butter</span> is the biggest expense-item of all. Of our nine hundred and +twenty-six dollars and thirty-two cents, ninety-one dollars and +twenty-six cents went for butter. Remember that your butter is one-tenth +part of the whole.</p> + +<p>Next comes flour. Our seven barrels cost us seventy dollars and +eighty-three cents. We bought, besides, six dollars<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> and seventy-six +cents' worth of bread, and six dollars and seventy-one cents' worth of +crackers,—convenient sometimes, dear Hero. So that your wheat-flour and +bread are almost a tenth of the whole.</p> + +<p>Next comes beef, in all forms, ninety dollars and seventy-six cents; +there goes another tenth. The other meats are, mutton, forty-seven +dollars and sixty-seven cents; turkeys, chickens, etc., if you call them +meat, sixty-one dollars and fifty-six cents; lamb, seventeen dollars and +fifty-three cents; veal, eleven dollars and fifty-three cents; fresh +pork, one dollar and seventy-three cents. (This must have been for some +guest. Lois and I each had a grandfather named Enoch, and have Jewish +prejudices; also, fresh pork is really the most costly article of diet, +if you count in the doctor's bills. But for ham there is ten dollars and +twenty-two cents. Ham is always available, you know, Hero. For other +salt pork, I recommend you to institute a father or brother, or cousin +attached to you in youth, who shall carry on a model farm in the +country, and kill for you a model corn-fed pig every year, see it salted +with his own eyes, and send to you a half-barrel of the pork for a <i>gage +d'amour</i>. It is a much more sentimental present than rosebuds, dearest +Hero,—and it lasts longer. That is the way we do; and salt pork, +therefore, does not appear on our bills. But against such salt pork I +have no Hebrew prejudice. Try it, Hero, with paper-sliced potatoes fried +for breakfast.) All other forms of meat sum up only two dollars and +twenty-three cents. And now, Hero, I will explain to you the philosophy +of meats. You see they cost you a quarter part of what you spend.</p> + +<p>Know, then, my dear child, that the real business of the three meals a +day,—of the neat luncheon you serve on your wedding-silver for Mrs. +Dubbadoe and her pretty daughter, when they drive in from Milton to see +you,—of the ice-cream you ate last night at the summer party which the +Bellinghams gave the Pinckneys,—of the hard-tack and boiled dog which +dear John is now digesting in front of Petersburg,—the real business, I +say, is to supply the human frame with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and +nitrogen in organized forms. It must be in organized matter. You might +pound your wedding-diamonds for carbon, you might give water from Jordan +for oxygen and hydrogen, and the snow-flakes of the Jungfrau might serve +the nitrogen for Leander's dinners, but, because these are not +organized, Leander's cheek would pale, and his teeth shake in their +sockets, and his muscles dwindle to packthreads, as William Augustus's +do in the Slovenly-Peter books, and he would die before your eyes, Hero! +Yes, he would die! Do not, in your love of him, therefore, feed him on +your diamonds. Give him organized matter. Now, in doing this, you have +been wise in spending even a tenth of your substance on wheat. For wheat +is almost pure food; and wheat contains all you want,—more carbon than +your diamonds, more oxygen and hydrogen than your tears, more nitrogen +than the snow-flake,—but not nitrogen enough, dear Hero.</p> + +<p>"More nitrogen!" gasps Leander, "more nitrogen, my charmer, or I die!" +This is the real meaning of the words, when he says, "Let us have +roast-beef for dinner," or when he asks you to pass him the butter.</p> + +<p>Although beef, then, has little more than a quarter as much food in it +as wheat has, you must have some beef, or something like it, because +Leander, and you too, my rosy-cheek, must have nitrogen as well as +carbon.</p> + +<p>I beg you not to throw the "Atlantic" away at this point, my child. Do +not say that Mr. Carter is an old fool, and that you never meant to live +on vegetables. A great many people have meant to, and have never known +what was the matter with them, when the real deficiency was nitrogen. +Besides, child, though wheat is the best single feeder of all, as I have +told you, because in its gluten it has so much nitrogen, this is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> to be +said of all vegetables, that, so far as we live on them, we exist +slowly; to a certain extent we have to ruminate as the cows do, and not +as men and women should ruminate, and all animal or functional life goes +more slowly on. Now, Hero, you and Leander both have to lead a rapid +life. Most people do in the autumn of 1864. So give him meat, dear Hero, +as above.</p> + +<p>As for my being an old fool, my dear, I have said I am one hundred and +nine, which is older than old Mr. Waldo was, older than everybody except +old Parr. And after forty, everybody is a fool—or a physician.</p> + +<p>Let us return, then, to our mutton,—always a good thing to return to, +especially if the plates are hot, as yours, Hero, always will be. For +mutton, besides such water as you can dry out of it, contains +twenty-nine per cent. of food,—for meat, a high percentage.</p> + +<p>Let us see where we are.</p> + +<p>Our butter costs us one-tenth.</p> + +<p>Our flour and wheat-bread cost us almost one-tenth.</p> + +<p>Our beef costs us one-tenth.</p> + +<p>Our other meats cost us a tenth and a half of what we spend for eating +and drinking.</p> + +<p>"Where in the world does the rest go, Mr. Carter? Here is not half. But +I could certainly live very well on these things."</p> + +<p>Angel, you could. But if you lived wholly on these, you would want more +of them. You see we have said nothing of coffee and tea,—the princes or +princesses of food,—without which civilized man cannot renew his +brains. In such years as these, Hero, when our brave soldiers must have +coffee or we can have no victories, coffee costs me and Lois fifty +dollars,—cheap at that,—for, without it, did we drink dandelion like +the cows, or chiccory like the asses, how were these brains renewed?</p> + +<p>"Tea and coffee are the same thing," says Liebig; at least, he says that +<i>Theine</i>, the base of tea, and <i>Caffeine</i>, the base of coffee, are the +same. What I know is, that, when coffee costs fifty dollars a year, tea +costs thirty dollars and eighty-nine cents.</p> + +<p>For tea and coffee, Hero, allow about another tenth,—the cocoa and +cream will bring it up to that.</p> + +<p>Our sugar cost us fifty-four dollars and twenty-two cents; our milk +fifty dollars and sixty-two; our cream ten dollars seventy-seven.</p> + +<p>"Buy your cream separate," says Hero, "if you have as good a milkman as +Mr. Whittemore."</p> + +<p>You have not as many babies as we, Hero. When you have, you will not +grudge the milk or the sugar. Lots of nourishment in sugar! Sugar and +milk are another tenth.</p> + +<p>I do not know if you are a Catholic, Hero; but I guess your kitchen is; +and so I am pretty sure that you will eat fish Fridays. I know you are a +person of sense, so I know you will often delight Leander, as he rises +from the day's swim which, for your sake, Hero, he takes across the cold +Hellespont of life,—(all men are Leanders, and all women should be +their Heros, holding high love-torches for them,)—as he rises, I say, +with "a sound of wateriness," I know you will often delight him with +oysters, scalloped, fried, or plain, as <i>entremets</i> to flank his +dinner-table. For fish count two per cent., for oysters two more, for +eggs three or four, and for that stupid compound of starch which some +men call "indispensable," and all men call "potato," count three or four +more. My advice is, that, when potatoes are dear, you skip them. +Rice-<i>croquets</i> are better and cheaper. There goes another tenth.</p> + +<p>Tea and coffee, etc., one-tenth.</p> + +<p>Sugar and milk, one-tenth.</p> + +<p>Fish, eggs, potatoes, etc., one-tenth.</p> + +<p>Thus is it, Hero, that three-quarters of what you eat will be spent for +your bread and butter, your meat, fish, eggs, and potatoes, your coffee, +tea, milk, and sugar,—for twenty-one articles on a list of one hundred +and seven. Fresh vegetables, besides those named, will take one-fifth of +what is left: say five per cent. of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> the whole expense. The doctor will +order porter or wine, when your back aches, or when Leander looks thin. +Have nothing to do with them till he does order them, but reserve +another five per cent. for them. The rest, Hero, it is mace, it is +yeast, it is vinegar, pepper, and mustard, it is sardines, it is +lobster, it is the unconsidered world of trifles which make up the +visible difference between the table of high civilization and that of +the Abyssinian or the Blackfoot Indian. Let us hope it is not much +cream-of-tartar or saleratus. It is grits and grapes, it is lard and +lemons, it is maple-sugar and melons, it is nuts and nutmeg, or any +other alliteration that you fancy.</p> + +<p>Now, pretty one, I can see you smile, and I can hear you say,—"Dear old +Mr. Carter, I am very much obliged to you. I begin to see my way a +little more clearly." Of course you do, child. You begin to see that the +most desperate economy in lemons will not make you and Leander rich, but +that you must make up your mind at the start about beef and about +butter. Hear, then, my parting whisper.</p> + +<p>Disregard the traditions of economy. What is cheap to-day is dear +to-morrow. Do not make a bill-of-fare, and, because everything on it +tastes very badly, think it is cheap. Salt codfish is cheap sometimes, +and sometimes very dear. Venison is often an extravagance; but, of a +winter when the sleighing is good, and when the hunters have not gone +South, it is the cheapest food for you. Eggs are dear, if they tempt you +to cakes that you do not like. But no eggs can be sent to our brave +army, so, if you do choose to make a bargain with your Aunt Eunice at +Naugatuck Neck to send you four dozen by express once a week, they will +be, perhaps, the cheapest food you can buy. What you want, my child, is +variety. However cheaply you live, secure four things: First, a change +of fare from day to day, so as to have a good appetite; Second, +simplicity, each day, in the table, so as to lose but little in chips; +Third, fitness of things there, as hot plates for your mutton and cold +ones for your butter, so that what you have may be of the best; and, +first, second, third, and last, love between you and Leander. This last +sauce, says Solomon, answers even for herbs. And you know the Emperors +Augustus and Nebuchadnezzar both had to live on herbs,—I am afraid, +because love had been wanting in both cases. If you have a stalled ox, +you will need the same sauces,—much more, unless it is better dressed +than the only one I ever saw, which was at Warwick, when Cheron and I +were going to Stratford-on-Avon. It was not attractive. You will need +three of these four things, if you are rich. Rich or poor, buy in as +large quantities as you can. Rich or poor, pay cash. Rich or poor, do +not try to do without carbon or nitrogen. Rich or poor, vary steadily +the bills-of-fare. Now the minimum of what you can support life upon, at +this moment, is easily told. Jeff Davis makes the calculation for you. +It is quarter of a pound of salt pork a day, with four Graham hard-tack. +That is what each of his soldiers is eating; and though they are not +stout, they are wiry fellows, and fight well. The maximum you can find +by lodging at the Brevoort, at New York,—where, when I last went to the +front, I stopped an hour on the way, and, though I had no meals, paid +two dollars and eighty cents for washing my face in another man's +bedroom. A year of Jeff Davis's diet would cost you and Leander, if you +bought in large quantities, sixty dollars. A year at Rye Beach just now +would cost you two or three thousand dollars. Choose your dinner from +either bill; vary it, by all the gradations between. But remember, +child, as you would cheer Leander after his swim, and keep within your +allowance, remember that what was dear yesterday may be cheap +to-day,—remember to vary the repast, therefore, from Monday round to +Saturday; eschew the corner-shop, and buy as large stores as Leander +will let you; and always keep near at hand an unexhausted supply of +Solomon's condiment.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"All hail, thou Connecticut, who forever hast ran,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bringing shad to South Hadley, and pleasure to man!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BEFORE_VICKSBURG" id="BEFORE_VICKSBURG"></a>BEFORE VICKSBURG.</h2> + +<h3>MAY 19, 1863.</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">While Sherman stood beneath the hottest fire<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That from the lines of Vicksburg gleamed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bomb-shells tumbled in their smoky gyre,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And grape-shot hissed, and case-shot screamed;<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Back from the front there came,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Weeping and sorely lame,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The merest child, the youngest face<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man ever saw in such a fearful place.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Stifling his tears, he limped his chief to meet;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But when he paused, and tottering stood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Around the circle of his little feet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There spread a pool of bright, young blood.<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Shocked at his doleful case,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Sherman cried, "Halt! front face!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who are you? Speak, my gallant boy!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"A drummer, Sir:—Fifty-Fifth Illinois."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Are you not hit?" "That's nothing. Only send<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some cartridges: our men are out;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the foe press us." "But, my little friend"—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Don't mind me! Did you hear that shout?<br /></span> +<span class="i6">What if our men be driven?<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Oh, for the love of Heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Send to my Colonel, General dear!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"But you?" "Oh, I shall easily find the rear."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I'll see to that," cried Sherman; and a drop<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Angels might envy dimmed his eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the boy, toiling towards the hill's hard top,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Turned round, and with his shrill child's cry<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Shouted, "Oh, don't forget!<br /></span> +<span class="i6">We'll win the battle yet!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But let our soldiers have some more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More cartridges, Sir,—calibre fifty-four!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="OUR_VISIT_TO_RICHMOND" id="OUR_VISIT_TO_RICHMOND"></a>OUR VISIT TO RICHMOND.</h2> + +<h3>WHY WE WENT THERE.</h3> + + +<p>Why my companion, the Rev. Dr. Jaquess, Colonel of the Seventy-Third +Regiment of Illinois Volunteers, recently went to Richmond, and the +circumstances attending his previous visit within the Rebel lines,—when +he wore his uniform, and mixed openly with scores of leading +Confederates,—I shall shortly make known to the public in a volume +called "Down in Tennessee." It may now, however, be asked why I, a +"civil" individual, and not in the pay of Government, became his +travelling-companion, and, at a time when all the world was rushing +North to the mountains and the watering-places, journeyed South for a +conference with the arch-Rebel, in the hot and dangerous latitude of +Virginia.</p> + +<p>Did it never occur to you, reader, when you have undertaken to account +for some of the simplest of your own actions, how many good reasons have +arisen in your mind, every one of which has justified you in concluding +that you were of "sound and disposing understanding"? So, now, in +looking inward for the why and the wherefore which I know will be +demanded of me at the threshold of this article, I find half a dozen +reasons for my visit to Richmond, any one of which ought to prove that I +am a sensible man, altogether too sensible to go on so long a journey, +in the heat of midsummer, for the mere pleasure of the thing. Some of +these reasons I will enumerate.</p> + +<p>First: Very many honest people at the North sincerely believe that the +revolted States will return to the Union, if assured of protection to +their peculiar institution. The Government having declared that no State +shall be readmitted which has not first abolished Slavery, these people +hold it responsible for the continuance of the war. It is, therefore, +important to know whether the Rebel States will or will not return, if +allowed to retain Slavery. Mr. Jefferson Davis could, undoubtedly, +answer that question; and that may have been a reason why I went to see +him.</p> + +<p>Second: On the second of July last, C. C. Clay, of Alabama, J. P. +Holcombe, of Virginia, and G. N. Sanders, of nowhere in particular, +appeared at Niagara Falls, and publicly announced that they were there +to confer with the Democratic leaders in reference to the Chicago +nomination. Very soon thereafter, a few friends of the Administration +received intimations from those gentlemen that they were Commissioners +from the Rebel Government, with authority to negotiate preliminaries of +peace on something like the following basis, namely: A restoration of +the Union as it was; all negroes actually freed by the war to be +declared free, and all negroes not actually freed by the war to be +declared slaves.</p> + +<p>These overtures were not considered sincere. They seemed concocted to +embarrass the Government, to throw upon it the odium of continuing the +war, and thus to secure the triumph of the peace-traitors at the +November election. The scheme, if well managed, threatened to be +dangerous, by uniting the Peace-men, the Copperheads, and such of the +Republicans as love peace better than principle, in one opposition, +willing to make a peace that would be inconsistent with the safety and +dignity of the country. It was, therefore, important to discover—what +was then in doubt—whether the Rebel envoys really had, or had not, any +official authority.</p> + +<p>Within fifteen days of the appearance of these "Peace Commissioners," +Jefferson Davis had said to an eminent Secession divine, who, late in +June, came through the Union lines by the Maryland back-door, that he +would make peace on no other terms than a recognition of Southern +Independence. (He might, however, agree to two governments,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> bound +together by a league offensive and defensive,—for all external purposes +<i>one</i>, for all internal purposes <i>two</i>; but he would agree to nothing +better.)</p> + +<p>There was reason to consider this information trustworthy, and to +believe Mr. Davis (who was supposed to be a clear-minded man) altogether +ignorant of the doings of his Niagara satellites. If this were true, and +were proven to be true,—if the <i>great</i> Rebel should reiterate this +declaration in the presence of a trustworthy witness, at the very time +when the <i>small</i> Rebels were opening their Quaker guns on the +country,—would not the Niagara negotiators be stripped of their false +colors, and their low schemes be exposed to the scorn of all honest men, +North and South?</p> + +<p>I may have thought so; and that may have been another reason why I went +to Richmond.</p> + +<p>Third: I had been acquainted with Colonel Jaquess's peace-movements from +their inception. Early in June last he wrote me from a battle-field in +Georgia, announcing his intention of again visiting the Rebels, and +asking an interview with me at a designated place. We met, and went to +Washington together. Arriving there, I became aware that obstacles were +in the way of his further progress. Those obstacles could be removed by +my accompanying him; and that, to those who know the man and his +"mission," which is to preach peace on earth and good-will among men, +would seem a very good reason why I went to Richmond.</p> + +<p>Fourth,—and this to very many may appear as potent as any of the +preceding reasons,—I had in my boyhood a strange fancy for +church-belfries and liberty-poles. This fancy led me, in +school-vacations, to perch my small self for hours on the cross-beams in +the old belfry, and to climb to the very top of the tall pole which +still surmounts the little village-green. In my youth, this feeling was +simply a spirit of adventure; but as I grew older it deepened into a +reverence for what those old bells said, and a love for the principle of +which that old liberty-pole is now only a crumbling symbol.</p> + +<p>Had not events shown that Jeff. Davis had never seen that old +liberty-pole, and never heard the chimes which still ring out from that +old belfry? Who knew, in these days when every wood-sawyer has a +"mission," but <i>I</i> had a "mission," and it was to tell the Rebel +President that Northern liberty-poles still stand for Freedom, and that +Northern church-bells still peal out, "Liberty throughout the land, to +<i>all</i> the inhabitants thereof"?</p> + +<p>If that <i>was</i> my mission, will anybody blame me for fanning Mr. Davis +with a "blast" of cool Northern "wind" in this hot weather?</p> + +<p>But enough of mystification. The straightforward reader wants a +straightforward reason, and he shall have it.</p> + +<p>We went to Richmond because we hoped to pave the way for negotiations +that would result in peace.</p> + +<p>If we should succeed, the consciousness of having served the country +would, we thought, pay our expenses. If we should fail, but return +safely, we might still serve the country by making public the cause of +our failure. If we should fail, and <i>not</i> return safely, but be shot or +hanged as spies,—as we might be, for we could have no protection from +our Government, and no safe-conduct from the Rebels,—two lives would be +added to the thousands already sacrificed to this Rebellion, but they +would as effectually serve the country as if lost on the battle-field.</p> + +<p>These are the reasons, and the only reasons, why we went to Richmond.</p> + + +<h3>HOW WE WENT THERE.</h3> + +<p>We went there in an ambulance, and we went together,—the Colonel and I; +and though two men were never more unlike, we worked together like two +brothers, or like two halves of a pair of shears. That we got <i>in</i> was +owing, perhaps, to me; that we got <i>out</i> was due altogether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> to him; and +a man more cool, more brave, more self-reliant, and more self-devoted +than that quiet "Western parson" it never was my fortune to encounter.</p> + +<p>When the far-away Boston bells were sounding nine, on the morning of +Saturday, the sixteenth of July, we took our glorious Massachusetts +General by the hand, and said to him,—</p> + +<p>"Good bye. If you do not see us within ten days, you will know we have +'gone up.'"</p> + +<p>"If I do not see you within that time," he replied, "I'll demand you; +and if they don't produce you, body and soul, I'll take two for +one,—better men than you are,—and hang them higher than Haman. My hand +on that. Good bye."</p> + +<p>At three o'clock on the afternoon of the same day, mounted on two +raw-boned relics of Sheridan's great raid, and armed with a letter to +Jeff. Davis, a white cambric handkerchief tied to a short stick, and an +honest face,—this last was the Colonel's,—we rode up to the Rebel +lines. A ragged, yellow-faced boy, with a carbine in one hand, and +another white handkerchief tied to another short stick in the other, +came out to meet us.</p> + +<p>"Can you tell us, my man, where to find Judge Ould, the Exchange +Commissioner?"</p> + +<p>"Yas. Him and t'other 'Change officers is over ter the plantation beyont +Miss Grover's. Ye'll know it by its hevin' nary door nur winder [the +mansion, he meant]. They's all busted in. Foller the bridle-path through +the timber, and keep your rag a-flyin', fur our boys is thicker 'n +huckelberries in them woods, and they mought pop ye, ef they didn't seed +it."</p> + +<p>Thanking him, we turned our horses into the "timber," and, galloping +rapidly on, soon came in sight of the deserted plantation. Lolling on +the grass, in the shade of the windowless mansion, we found the +Confederate officials. They rose as we approached; and one of us said to +the Judge,—a courteous, middle-aged gentleman, in a Panama hat, and a +suit of spotless white drillings,—</p> + +<p>"We are late, but it's your fault. Your people fired at us down the +river, and we had to turn back and come overland."</p> + +<p>"You don't suppose they saw your flag?"</p> + +<p>"No. It was hidden by the trees; but a shot came uncomfortably near us. +It struck the water, and ricochetted not three yards off. A little +nearer, and it would have shortened me by a head, and the Colonel by two +feet."</p> + +<p>"That would have been a sad thing for you; but a miss, you know, is as +good as a mile," said the Judge, evidently enjoying the "joke."</p> + +<p>"We hear Grant was in the boat that followed yours, and was struck while +at dinner," remarked Captain Hatch, the Judge's Adjutant,—a gentleman, +and about the best-looking man in the Confederacy.</p> + +<p>"Indeed! Do you believe it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, of course"; and his looks asked for an answer. We gave +none, for all such information is contraband. We might have told him +that Grant, Butler, and Foster examined their position from Mrs. +Grover's house,—about four hundred yards distant,—two hours after the +Rebel cannon-ball danced a break-down on the Lieutenant-General's +dinner-table.</p> + +<p>We were then introduced to the other officials,—Major Henniken of the +War Department, a young man formerly of New York, but now scorning the +imputation of being a Yankee, and Mr. Charles Javins, of the +Provost-Guard of Richmond. This latter individual was our shadow in +Dixie. He was of medium height, stoutly built, with a short, thick neck, +and arms and shoulders denoting great strength. He looked a natural-born +jailer, and much such a character as a timid man would not care to +encounter, except at long range of a rifle warranted to five twenty +shots a minute, and to hit every time.</p> + +<p>To give us a <i>moonlight view</i> of the Richmond fortifications, the Judge +proposed to start after sundown; and as it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> wanted some hours of that +time, we seated ourselves on the ground, and entered into conversation. +The treatment of our prisoners, the <i>status</i> of black troops, and +non-combatants, and all the questions which have led to the suspension +of exchanges, had been good-naturedly discussed, when the Captain, +looking up from one of the Northern papers we had brought him, said,—</p> + +<p>"Do you know, it mortifies me that you don't hate us as we hate you? You +kill us as Agassiz kills a fly,—because you love us."</p> + +<p>"Of course we do. The North is being crucified for love of the South."</p> + +<p>"If you love us so, why don't you let us go?" asked the Judge, rather +curtly.</p> + +<p>"For that very reason,—because we love you. If we let you go, with +slavery, and your notions of 'empire,' you'd run straight to barbarism +and the Devil."</p> + +<p>"We'd take the risk of that. But let me tell you, if you are going to +Mr. Davis with any such ideas, you might as well turn back at once. He +can make peace on no other basis than Independence. Recognition must be +the beginning, middle, and ending of all negotiations. Our people will +accept peace on no other terms."</p> + +<p>"I think you are wrong there," said the Colonel. "When I was here a year +ago, I met many of your leading men, and they all assured me they wanted +peace and reunion, even at the sacrifice of slavery. Within a week, a +man you venerate and love has met me at Baltimore, and besought me to +come here, and offer Mr. Davis peace on such conditions."</p> + +<p>"That may be. Some of our old men, who are weak in the knees, may want +peace on any terms; but the Southern people will not have it without +Independence. Mr. Davis knows them, and you will find he will insist +upon that. Concede that, and we'll not quarrel about minor matters."</p> + +<p>"We'll not quarrel at all. But it's sundown, and time we were 'on to +Richmond.'"</p> + +<p>"That's the 'Tribune' cry," said the Captain, rising; "and I hurrah for +the 'Tribune,' for it's honest, and—I want my supper."</p> + +<p>We all laughed, and the Judge ordered the horses. As we were about to +start, I said to him,—</p> + +<p>"You've forgotten our parole."</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind that. We'll attend to that at Richmond."</p> + +<p>Stepping into his carriage, and unfurling the flag of truce, he then led +the way, by a "short cut," across the cornfield which divided the +mansion from the high-road. We followed in an ambulance drawn by a pair +of mules, our shadow—Mr. Javins—sitting between us and the twilight, +and Jack, a "likely darky," almost the sole survivor of his master's +twelve hundred slaves, ("De ress all stole, Massa,—stole by you +Yankees,") occupying the front-seat, and with a stout whip "working our +passage" to Richmond.</p> + +<p>Much that was amusing and interesting occurred during our three-hours' +journey, but regard for our word forbids my relating it. Suffice it to +say, we saw the "frowning fortifications," we "flanked" the "invincible +army," and, at ten o'clock that night, planted our flag (against a +lamp-post) in the very heart of the hostile city. As we alighted at the +doorway of the Spotswood Hotel, the Judge said to the Colonel,—</p> + +<p>"Button your outside-coat up closely. Your uniform must not be seen +here."</p> + +<p>The Colonel did as he was bidden; and, without stopping to register our +names at the office, we followed the Judge and the Captain up to No. 60. +It was a large, square room in the fourth story, with an unswept, ragged +carpet, and bare, white walls, smeared with soot and tobacco-juice. +Several chairs, a marble-top table, and a pine wash-stand and +clothes-press straggled about the floor, and in the corners were three +beds, garnished with tattered pillow-cases, and covered with white +counterpanes, grown gray with longing for soapsuds and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> wash-tub. The +plainer and humbler of these beds was designed for the burly Mr. Javins; +the others had been made ready for the extraordinary envoys (not envoys +extraordinary) who, in defiance of all precedent and the "law of +nations," had just then "taken Richmond."</p> + +<p>A single gas-jet was burning over the mantel-piece, and above it I saw a +"writing on the wall" which implied that Jane Jackson had run up a +washing-score of fifty dollars!</p> + +<p>I was congratulating myself on not having to pay that woman's +laundry-bills, when the Judge said,—</p> + +<p>"You want supper. What shall we order?"</p> + +<p>"A slice of hot corn-bread would make <i>me</i> the happiest man in +Richmond."</p> + +<p>The Captain thereupon left the room, and shortly returning, remarked,—</p> + +<p>"The landlord swears you're from Georgia. He says none but a Georgian +would call for corn-bread at this time of night."</p> + +<p>On that hint we acted, and when our sooty attendant came in with the +supper-things, we discussed Georgia mines, Georgia banks, and Georgia +mosquitoes, in a way that showed we had been bitten by all of them. In +half an hour it was noised all about the hotel that the two gentlemen +the Confederacy was taking such excellent care of were from Georgia.</p> + +<p>The meal ended, and a quiet smoke over, our entertainers rose to go. As +the Judge bade us good-night, he said to us,—</p> + +<p>"In the morning you had better address a note to Mr. Benjamin, asking +the interview with the President. I will call at ten o'clock, and take +it to him."</p> + +<p>"Very well. But will Mr. Davis see us on Sunday?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that will make no difference."</p> + + +<h3>WHAT WE DID THERE.</h3> + +<p>The next morning, after breakfast, which we took in our room with Mr. +Javins, we indited a note—of which the following is a copy—to the +Confederate Secretary of State.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Spotswood House, Richmond, Va.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i16">"July 17th, 1864.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Hon. J. P. Benjamin,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Secretary of State, etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—The undersigned respectfully solicit an interview +with President Davis.</p> + +<p>"They visit Richmond only as private citizens, and have no +official character or authority; but they are acquainted with +the views of the United States Government, and with the +sentiments of the Northern people relative to an adjustment of +the differences existing between the North and the South, and +earnestly hope that a free interchange of views between +President Davis and themselves may open the way to such +<i>official</i> negotiations as will result in restoring <span class="smcap">peace</span> to +the two sections of our distracted country.</p> + +<p>"They, therefore, ask an interview with the President, and +awaiting your reply, are</p></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Truly and respectfully yours."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This was signed by both of us; and when the Judge called, as he had +appointed, we sent it—together with a commendatory letter I had +received, on setting out, from a near relative of Mr. Davis—to the +Rebel Secretary. In half an hour Judge Ould returned, saying,—"Mr. +Benjamin sends you his compliments, and will be happy to see you at the +State Department."</p> + +<p>We found the Secretary—a short, plump, oily little man in black, with a +keen black eye, a Jew face, a yellow skin, curly black hair, closely +trimmed black whiskers, and a ponderous gold watch-chain—in the +northwest room of the "United States" Custom-House. Over the door of +this room were the words, "State Department," and round its walls were +hung a few maps and battle-plans. In one corner was a tier of shelves +filled with books,—among which I noticed Headley's "History," +Lossing's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> "Pictorial," Parton's "Butler," Greeley's "American +Conflict," a complete set of the "Rebellion Record," and a dozen numbers +and several bound volumes of the "Atlantic Monthly,"—and in the centre +of the apartment was a black-walnut table, covered with green cloth, and +filled with a multitude of "state-papers." At this table sat the +Secretary. He rose as we entered, and, as Judge Ould introduced us, took +our hands, and said,—</p> + +<p>"I am glad, very glad, to meet you, Gentlemen. I have read your note, +and"—bowing to me—"the open letter you bring from ——. Your errand +commands my respect and sympathy. Pray be seated."</p> + +<p>As we took the proffered seats, the Colonel, drawing off his "duster," +and displaying his uniform, said,—</p> + +<p>"We thank you for this cordial reception, Mr. Benjamin. We trust you +will be as glad to hear us as you are to see us."</p> + +<p>"No doubt I shall be, for you come to talk of peace. Peace is what we +all want."</p> + +<p>"It is, indeed; and for that reason we are here to see Mr. Davis. Can we +see him, Sir?"</p> + +<p>"Do you bring any overtures to him from your Government?"</p> + +<p>"No, Sir. We bring no overtures and have no authority from our +Government. We state that in our note. We would be glad, however, to +know what terms will be acceptable to Mr. Davis. If they at all +harmonize with Mr. Lincoln's views, we will report them to him, and so +open the door for official negotiations."</p> + +<p>"Are you acquainted with Mr. Lincoln's views?"</p> + +<p>"One of us is, fully."</p> + +<p>"Did Mr. Lincoln, <i>in any way</i>, authorize you to come here?"</p> + +<p>"No, Sir. We came with his pass, but not by his request. We say, +distinctly, we have no official, or unofficial, authority. We come as +men and Christians, not as diplomatists, hoping, in a frank talk with +Mr. Davis, to discover some way by which this war may be stopped."</p> + +<p>"Well, Gentlemen, I will repeat what you say to the President, and if he +follows my advice,—and I think he will,—he will meet you. He will be +at church this afternoon; so, suppose you call here at nine this +evening. If anything should occur in the meantime to prevent his seeing +you, I will let you know through Judge Ould."</p> + +<p>Throughout this interview the manner of the Secretary was cordial; but +with this cordiality was a strange constraint and diffidence, almost +amounting to timidity, which struck both my companion and myself. +Contrasting his manner with the quiet dignity of the Colonel, I almost +fancied our positions reversed,—that, instead of our being in his +power, the Secretary was in ours, and momently expecting to hear some +unwelcome sentence from our lips. There is something, after all, in +moral power. Mr. Benjamin does not possess it, nor is he a great man. He +has a keen, shrewd, ready intellect, but not the <i>stamina</i> to originate, +or even to execute, any great good or great wickedness.</p> + +<p>After a day spent in our room, conversing with the Judge, or watching +the passers-by in the street,—I should like to tell who they were and +how they looked, but such information is just now contraband,—we called +again, at nine o'clock, at the State Department.</p> + +<p>Mr. Benjamin occupied his previous seat at the table, and at his right +sat a spare, thin-featured man, with iron-gray hair and beard, and a +clear, gray eye full of life and vigor. He had a broad, massive +forehead, and a mouth and chin denoting great energy and strength of +will. His face was emaciated, and much wrinkled, but his features were +good, especially his eyes,—though one of them bore a scar, apparently +made by some sharp instrument. He wore a suit of grayish-brown, +evidently of foreign manufacture, and, as he rose, I saw that he was +about five feet ten inches high, with a slight stoop in the shoulders. +His manners<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> were simple, easy, and quite fascinating: and he threw an +indescribable charm into his voice, as he extended his hand, and said to +us,—</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see you, Gentlemen. You are very welcome to Richmond."</p> + +<p>And this was the man who was President of the United States under +Franklin Pierce, and who is now the heart, soul, and brains of the +Southern Confederacy!</p> + +<p>His manner put me entirely at my ease,—the Colonel would be at his, if +he stood before Cæsar,—and I replied,—</p> + +<p>"We thank you, Mr. Davis. It is not often you meet men of our clothes, +and our principles, in Richmond."</p> + +<p>"Not often,—not so often as I could wish; and I trust your coming may +lead to a more frequent and a more friendly intercourse between the +North and the South."</p> + +<p>"We sincerely hope it may."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Benjamin tells me you have asked to see me, to"——</p> + +<p>And he paused, as if desiring we should finish the sentence. The Colonel +replied,—</p> + +<p>"Yes, Sir. We have asked this interview in the hope that you may suggest +some way by which this war can be stopped. Our people want peace,—your +people do, and your Congress has recently said that <i>you</i> do. We have +come to ask how it can be brought about."</p> + +<p>"In a very simple way. Withdraw your armies from our territory, and +peace will come of itself. We do not seek to subjugate you. We +are not waging an offensive war, except so far as it is +offensive-defensive,—that is, so far as we are forced to invade you to +prevent your invading us. Let us alone, and peace will come at once."</p> + +<p>"But we cannot let you alone so long as you repudiate the Union. That is +the one thing the Northern people will not surrender."</p> + +<p>"I know. You would deny to us what you exact for yourselves,—the right +of self-government."</p> + +<p>"No, Sir," I remarked. "We would deny you no natural right. But we think +Union essential to peace; and, Mr. Davis, <i>could</i> two people, with the +same language, separated by only an imaginary line, live at peace with +each other? Would not disputes constantly arise, and cause almost +constant war between them?"</p> + +<p>"Undoubtedly,—with this generation. You have sown such bitterness at +the South, you have put such an ocean of blood between the two sections, +that I despair of seeing any harmony in my time. Our children may forget +this war, but <i>we</i> cannot."</p> + +<p>"I think the bitterness you speak of, Sir," said the Colonel, "does not +really exist. <i>We</i> meet and talk here as friends; our soldiers meet and +fraternize with each other; and I feel sure, that, if the Union were +restored, a more friendly feeling would arise between us than has ever +existed. The war has made us know and respect each other better than +before. This is the view of very many Southern men; I have had it from +many of them,—your leading citizens."</p> + +<p>"They are mistaken," replied Mr. Davis. "They do not understand Southern +sentiment. How can we feel anything but bitterness towards men who deny +us our rights? If you enter my house and drive me out of it, am I not +your natural enemy?"</p> + +<p>"You put the case too strongly. But we cannot fight forever; the war +must end at some time; we must finally agree upon something; can we not +agree now, and stop this frightful carnage? We are both Christian men, +Mr. Davis. Can <i>you</i>, as a Christian man, leave untried any means that +may lead to peace?"</p> + +<p>"No, I cannot. I desire peace as much as you do. I deplore bloodshed as +much as you do; but I feel that not one drop of the blood shed in this +war is on <i>my</i> hands,—I can look up to my God and say this. I tried all +in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, and for twelve years I +worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad +and blind; it would not let us govern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> ourselves; and so the war came, +and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his +tracks, and his children seize his musket and fight his battle, <i>unless +you acknowledge our right to self-government</i>. We are not fighting for +slavery. We are fighting for Independence,—and that, or extermination, +we <i>will</i> have."</p> + +<p>"And there are, at least, four and a half millions of us left; so you +see you have a work before you," said Mr. Benjamin, with a decided +sneer.</p> + +<p>"We have no wish to exterminate you," answered the Colonel. "I believe +what I have said,—that there is no bitterness between the Northern and +Southern <i>people</i>. The North, I know, loves the South. When peace comes, +it will pour money and means into your hands to repair the waste caused +by the war; and it would now welcome you back, and forgive you all the +loss and bloodshed you have caused. But we <i>must</i> crush your armies, and +exterminate your Government. And is not that already nearly done? You +are wholly without money, and at the end of your resources. Grant has +shut you up in Richmond. Sherman is before Atlanta. Had you not, then, +better accept honorable terms while you can retain your prestige, and +save the pride of the Southern people?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Davis smiled.</p> + +<p>"I respect your earnestness, Colonel, but you do not seem to understand +the situation. We are not exactly shut up in Richmond. If your papers +tell the truth, it is your capital that is in danger, not ours. Some +weeks ago, Grant crossed the Rapidan to whip Lee, and take Richmond. Lee +drove him in the first battle, and then Grant executed what your people +call a 'brilliant flank-movement,' and fought Lee again. Lee drove him a +second time, and then Grant made another 'flank-movement'; and so they +kept on,—Lee whipping, and Grant flanking,—until Grant got where he is +now. And what is the net result? Grant has lost seventy-five or eighty +thousand men,—<i>more than Lee had at the outset</i>,—and is no nearer +taking Richmond than at first; and Lee, whose front has never been +broken, holds him completely in check, and has men enough to spare to +invade Maryland, and threaten Washington! Sherman, to be sure, <i>is</i> +before Atlanta; but suppose he is, and suppose he takes it? You know, +that, the farther he goes from his base of supplies, the weaker he +grows, and the more disastrous defeat will be to him. And defeat <i>may</i> +come. So, in a military view, I should certainly say our position was +better than yours.</p> + +<p>"As to money: we are richer than you are. You smile; but admit that our +paper is worth nothing,—it answers as a circulating-medium; and we hold +it all ourselves. If every dollar of it were lost, we should, as we have +no foreign debt, be none the poorer. But it <i>is</i> worth something; it has +the solid basis of a large cotton-crop, while yours rests on nothing, +and you owe all the world. As to resources: we do not lack for arms or +ammunition, and we have still a wide territory from which to gather +supplies. So, you see, we are not in extremities. But if we were,—if we +were without money, without food, without weapons,—if our whole country +were devastated, and our armies crushed and disbanded,—could we, +without giving up our manhood, give up our right to govern ourselves? +Would <i>you</i> not rather die, and feel yourself a man, than live, and be +subject to a foreign power?"</p> + +<p>"From your stand-point there is force in what you say," replied the +Colonel. "But we did not come here to argue with you, Mr. Davis. We +came, hoping to find some honorable way to peace; and I am grieved to +hear you say what you do. When I have seen your young men dying on the +battle-field, and your old men, women, and children starving in their +homes, I have felt I could risk my life to save them. For that reason I +am here; and I am grieved, grieved, that there is no hope."</p> + +<p>"I know your motives, Colonel Jaquess, and I honor you for them; but +what can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> I do more than I am doing? I would give my poor life, gladly, +if it would bring peace and good-will to the two countries; but it would +not. It is with your own people you should labor. It is they who +desolate our homes, burn our wheat-fields, break the wheels of wagons +carrying away our women and children, and destroy supplies meant for our +sick and wounded. At your door lies all the misery and the crime of this +war,—and it is a fearful, fearful account."</p> + +<p>"Not all of it, Mr. Davis. I admit a fearful account, but it is not +<i>all</i> at our door. The passions of both sides are aroused. Unarmed men +are hanged, prisoners are shot down in cold blood, by yourselves. +Elements of barbarism are entering the war on both sides, that should +make us—you and me, as Christian men—shudder to think of. In God's +name, then, let us stop it. Let us do something, concede something, to +bring about peace. You cannot expect, with only four and a half +millions, as Mr. Benjamin says you have, to hold out forever against +twenty millions."</p> + +<p>Again Mr. Davis smiled.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose there are twenty millions at the North determined to +crush us?"</p> + +<p>"I do,—to crush your <i>government</i>. A small number of our people, a very +small number, are your friends,—Secessionists. The rest differ about +measures and candidates, but are united in the determination to sustain +the Union. Whoever is elected in November, he <i>must be</i> committed to a +vigorous prosecution of the war."</p> + +<p>Mr. Davis still looking incredulous, I remarked,—</p> + +<p>"It is so, Sir. Whoever tells you otherwise deceives you. I think I know +Northern sentiment, and I assure you it is so. You know we have a system +of lyceum-lecturing in our large towns. At the close of these lectures, +it is the custom of the people to come upon the platform and talk with +the lecturer. This gives him an excellent opportunity of learning public +sentiment. Last winter I lectured before nearly a hundred of such +associations, all over the North,—from Dubuque to Bangor,—and I took +pains to ascertain the feeling of the people. I found a unanimous +determination to crush the Rebellion and save the Union at every +sacrifice. The majority are in favor of Mr. Lincoln, and nearly all of +those opposed to him are opposed to him because they think he does not +fight you with enough vigor. The radical Republicans, who go for +slave-suffrage and thorough confiscation, are those who will defeat him, +if he is defeated. But if he is defeated before the people, the House +will elect a worse man,—I mean, worse for you. It is more radical than +he is,—you can see that from Mr. Ashley's Reconstruction Bill,—and the +people are more radical than the House. Mr. Lincoln, I know, is about to +call out five hundred thousand more men, and I can't see how you <i>can</i> +resist much longer; but if you do, you will only deepen the radical +feeling of the Northern people. They will now give you fair, honorable, +<i>generous</i> terms; but let them suffer much more, let there be a dead man +in every house, as there is now in every village, and they will give you +<i>no</i> terms,—they will insist on hanging every Rebel south of ——. +Pardon my terms. I mean no offence."</p> + +<p>"You give no offence," he replied, smiling very, pleasantly. "I wouldn't +have you pick your words. This is a frank, free talk, and I like you the +better for saying what you think. Go on."</p> + +<p>"I was merely going to say, that, let the Northern people once really +feel the war,—they do not feel it yet,—and they will insist on hanging +every one of your leaders."</p> + +<p>"Well, admitting all you say, I can't see how it affects our position. +There are some things worse than hanging or extermination. We reckon +giving up the right of self-government one of those things."</p> + +<p>"By self-government you mean disunion,—Southern Independence?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And slavery, you say, is no longer an element in the contest."</p> + +<p>"No, it is not, it never was an <i>essential</i> element. It was only a means +of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination. It +fired the musket which was already capped and loaded. There are +essential differences between the North and the South that will, however +this war may end, make them two nations."</p> + +<p>"You ask me to say what I think. Will you allow me to say that I know +the South pretty well, and never observed those differences?"</p> + +<p>"Then you have not used your eyes. My sight is poorer than yours, but I +have seen them for years."</p> + +<p>The laugh was upon me, and Mr. Benjamin enjoyed it.</p> + +<p>"Well, Sir, be that as it may, if I understand you, the dispute between +your government and ours is narrowed down to this: Union or Disunion."</p> + +<p>"Yes; or to put it in other words: Independence or Subjugation."</p> + +<p>"Then the two governments are irreconcilably apart. They have no +alternative but to fight it out. But it is not so with the people. They +are tired of fighting, and want peace; and as they bear all the burden +and suffering of the war, is it not right they should have peace, and +have it on such terms as they like?"</p> + +<p>"I don't understand you. Be a little more explicit."</p> + +<p>"Well, suppose the two governments should agree to something like this: +To go to the people with two propositions: say, Peace, with Disunion and +Southern Independence, as your proposition,—and Peace, with Union, +Emancipation, No Confiscation, and Universal Amnesty, as ours. Let the +citizens of all the United States (as they existed before the war) vote +'Yes,' or 'No,' on these two propositions, at a special election within +sixty days. If a majority votes Disunion, our government to be bound by +it, and to let you go in peace. If a majority votes Union, yours to be +bound by it, and to stay in peace. The two governments can contract in +this way, and the people, though constitutionally unable to decide on +peace or war, can elect which of the two propositions shall govern their +rulers. Let Lee and Grant, meanwhile, agree to an armistice. This would +sheathe the sword; and if once sheathed, it would never again be drawn +by this generation."</p> + +<p>"The plan is altogether impracticable. If the South were only one State, +it might work; but as it is, if one Southern State objected to +emancipation, it would nullify the whole thing; for you are aware the +people of Virginia cannot vote slavery out of South Carolina, nor the +people of South Carolina vote it out of Virginia."</p> + +<p>"But three-fourths of the States can amend the Constitution. Let it be +done in that way,—in any way, so that it be done by the people. I am +not a statesman or a politician, and I do not know just how such a plan +could be carried out; but you get the idea,—that the <span class="smcap">people</span> shall +decide the question."</p> + +<p>"That the <i>majority</i> shall decide it, you mean. We seceded to rid +ourselves of the rule of the majority, and this would subject us to it +again."</p> + +<p>"But the majority must rule finally, either with bullets or ballots."</p> + +<p>"I am not so sure of that. Neither current events nor history shows that +the majority rules, or ever did rule. The contrary, I think, is true. +Why, Sir, the man who should go before the Southern people with such a +proposition, with <i>any</i> proposition which implied that the North was to +have a voice in determining the domestic relations of the South, could +not live here a day. He would be hanged to the first tree, without judge +or jury."</p> + +<p>"Allow me to doubt that. I think it more likely he would be hanged, if +he let the Southern people know the majority couldn't rule," I replied, +smiling.</p> + +<p>"I have no fear of that," rejoined Mr. Davis, also smiling most +good-humoredly. "I give you leave to proclaim it from every house-top in +the South."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But, seriously, Sir, you let the majority rule in a single State; why +not let it rule in the whole country?"</p> + +<p>"Because the States are independent and sovereign. The country is not. +It is only a confederation of States; or rather it <i>was</i>: it is now +<i>two</i> confederations."</p> + +<p>"Then we are not a <i>people</i>,—we are only a political partnership?"</p> + +<p>"That is all."</p> + +<p>"Your very name, Sir, '<i>United</i> States,' implies that," said Mr. +Benjamin. "But, tell me, are the terms you have named—Emancipation, No +Confiscation, and Universal Amnesty—the terms which Mr. Lincoln +authorized you to offer us?"</p> + +<p>"No, Sir, Mr. Lincoln did not authorize me to offer you any terms. But I +<i>think</i> both he and the Northern people, for the sake of peace, would +assent to some such conditions."</p> + +<p>"They are <i>very</i> generous," replied Mr. Davis, for the first time during +the interview showing some angry feeling. "But Amnesty, Sir, applies to +criminals. We have committed no crime. Confiscation is of no account, +unless you can enforce it. And Emancipation! You have already +emancipated nearly two millions of our slaves,—and if you will take +care of them, you may emancipate the rest. I had a few when the war +began. I was of some use to them; they never were of any to me. Against +their will you 'emancipated' them; and you may 'emancipate' every negro +in the Confederacy, but <i>we will be free</i>! We will govern ourselves. We +<i>will</i> do it, if we have to see every Southern plantation sacked, and +every Southern city in flames."</p> + +<p>"I see, Mr. Davis, it is useless to continue this conversation," I +replied; "and you will pardon us, if we have seemed to press our views +with too much pertinacity. We love the old flag, and that must be our +apology for intruding upon you at all."</p> + +<p>"You have not intruded upon me," he replied, resuming his usual manner. +"I am glad to have met you, both. I once loved the old flag as well as +you do; I would have died for it; but now it is to me only the emblem of +oppression."</p> + +<p>"I hope the day may never come, Mr. Davis, when <i>I</i> say that," said the +Colonel.</p> + +<p>A half-hour's conversation on other topics—not of public +interest—ensued, and then we rose to go. As we did so, the Rebel +President gave me his hand, and, bidding me a kindly good-bye, expressed +the hope of seeing me again in Richmond in happier times,—when peace +should have returned; but with the Colonel his parting was particularly +cordial. Taking his hand in both of his, he said to him,—</p> + +<p>"Colonel, I respect your character and your motives, and I wish you +well,—I wish you every good I can wish you consistently with the +interests of the Confederacy."</p> + +<p>The quiet, straightforward bearing and magnificent moral courage of our +"fighting parson" had evidently impressed Mr. Davis very favorably.</p> + +<p>As we were leaving the room, he added—</p> + +<p>"Say to Mr. Lincoln from me, that I shall at any time be pleased to +receive proposals for peace on the basis of our Independence. It will be +useless to approach me with any other."</p> + +<p>When we went out, Mr. Benjamin called Judge Ould, who had been waiting +during the whole interview—two hours—at the other end of the hall, and +we passed down the stairway together. As I put my arm within that of the +Judge, he said to me,—</p> + +<p>"Well, what is the result?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing but war,—war to the knife."</p> + +<p>"Ephraim is joined to his idols,—let him alone," added the Colonel, +solemnly.</p> + +<p>I should like to relate the incidents of the next day, when we visited +Castle Thunder, Libby Prison, and the hospitals occupied by our wounded; +but the limits of a magazine-article will not permit. I can only say +that at sundown we passed out of the Rebel lines, and at ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> o'clock +that night stretched our tired limbs on the "downy" cots in General +Butler's tent, thankful, devoutly thankful, that we were once again +under the folds of the old flag.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Thus ended our visit to Richmond. I have endeavored to sketch it +faithfully. The conversation with Mr. Davis I took down shortly after +entering the Union lines, and I have tried to report his exact language, +extenuating nothing, and coloring nothing that he said. Some of his +sentences, as I read them over, appear stilted and high-flown, but they +did not sound so when uttered. As listened to, they seemed the simple, +natural language of his thought. He spoke deliberately, apparently +weighing every word, and knowing well that all he said would be given to +the public.</p> + +<p>He is a man of peculiar ability. Our interview with him explained to me +why, with no money and no commerce, with nearly every one of their +important cities in our hands, and with an army greatly inferior in +numbers and equipment to ours, the Rebels have held out so long. It is +because of the sagacity, energy, and indomitable will of Jefferson +Davis. Without him the Rebellion would crumble to pieces in a day; with +him it may continue to be, even in disaster, a power that will tax the +whole energy and resources of the nation.</p> + +<p>The Southern masses want peace. Many of the Southern leaders want +it,—both my companion and I, by correspondence and intercourse with +them, know this; but there can be no peace so long as Mr. Davis controls +the South. Ignoring slavery, he himself states the issue,—the only +issue with him,—Union, or Disunion. That is it. We must conquer, or be +conquered. We can negotiate only with the bayonet. We can have peace and +union only by putting forth all our strength, crushing the Southern +armies, and overthrowing the Southern government.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES" id="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"></a>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</h2> + + +<p><i>Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin.</i> By <span class="smcap">James Parton</span>. New York: Mason +Brothers. Two Volumes. 8vo.</p> + +<p>To appreciate the importance of this work, we must remember that it +covers more than three-fourths of a century full of great events, if not +of great men; that it begins with Boston and Philadelphia as small +provincial towns, and leaves them the thriving capitals of independent +States; that it finds colonial energy struggling with metropolitan +jealousy and ignorance; that it follows the struggle through all its +phases, until the restrictions of the mother became oppression, and the +love of the children was converted into hatred; that it traces the +growth and expansion of American industry,—the dawn of American +invention, so full of promise,—the development of the principle of +self-government, so full of power,—the bitter contest, so full of +lessons which, used aright, might have spared us more than half the +blood and treasure of the present war.</p> + +<p>To appreciate the difficulty of this work, we must remember that the +inner and the outer life of the subject of it are equally full of +marvels; that, beginning by cutting off candle-wicks in a +tallow-chandler's shop in Boston, he ended as the greatest scientific +discoverer among those men renowned for science who composed the Royal +Society of London and the Academy of Sciences of Paris; that, with the +aid of an odd volume of the "Spectator," used according to his own +conception of the best way of using it, he made himself master of a +pure, simple, graceful, and effective English style; that the opinions +and maxims which he drew from his own observation and reflection have +passed into the daily life of millions, warning, strengthening, +cheering, and guiding; that he succeeded in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> the most difficult +negotiations, was a leader of public opinion on the most important +questions, and, holding his way cheerfully, resolutely, and lovingly to +the end, left the world wiser in many things, and in some better, for +the eighty-four years that he had passed in it.</p> + +<p>Nor must we forget, that, among the many things which this wonderful old +man did, was to tell us half the story of his own life, and with such +unaffected simplicity, such evident sincerity, and such attractive +grace, as to make it—as far as it goes—the most perfect production of +its class. Then why attempt to do it over again? is the question that +naturally springs to every lip, on reading the title of Mr. Parton's +book.</p> + +<p>Mr. Parton has anticipated this question, and answered it. +"Autobiography is one of the most interesting and valuable kinds of +composition; but autobiography can never be accepted <i>in lieu</i> of +biography, because to no man is the giftie given of seeing himself as +others see him. Rousseau's Confessions are a miracle of candor: they +reveal much concerning a certain weak, wandering, diseased, miserable, +wicked Jean Jacques; but of that marvellous Rousseau whose writings +thrilled Europe they contain how much? Not one word. Madame D'Arblay's +Diary relates a thousand pleasant things, but it does not tell us what +manner of person Madame D'Arblay was. Franklin's Autobiography gives +agreeable information respecting a sagacious shopkeeper of Philadelphia, +but has little to impart to us respecting the grand Franklin, the +world's Franklin, the philosopher, the statesman, the philanthropist. A +man cannot reveal his best self, nor, unless he is a Rousseau, his +worst. Perhaps he never knows either."</p> + +<p>The basis of Mr. Parton's work is, as the basis of every satisfactory +biography must be, the writings of its subject. "After all," he says, +"Dr. Jared Sparks's excellent edition of the 'Life and Works of +Franklin,' is the source of the greater part of the information we +possess concerning him.... The libraries, the public records, and the +private collections of England, France, and the United States, were so +diligently searched by Dr. Sparks, that, though seven previous editions +of the works of Franklin had appeared, he was able to add to his +publication the astonishing number of six hundred and fifty pieces of +Dr. Franklin's composition never before collected, of which four hundred +and fifty had never before appeared in print. To unwearied diligence in +collecting Dr. Sparks added an admirable talent in elucidating. His +notes are always such as an intelligent reader would desire, and they +usually contain all the information needed for a perfect understanding +of the matter in hand. Dr. Sparks's edition is a monument at once to the +memory of Benjamin Franklin and to his own diligence, tact, and +faithfulness." We take great pleasure in copying this passage, both +because it seems to illustrate the spirit which Mr. Parton brought to +his task, and because the value of Mr. Sparks's labors have not always +been so freely acknowledged by those who have been freest in their use +of them.</p> + +<p>To a careful study of those volumes Mr. Parton has added patient and +extensive research among the newspapers and magazines of the time, and, +apparently, a wide range of general reading. Thus he has filled his work +with facts, some curious, some new, and all interesting, as well in +their bearing upon the times as upon the man. He is a good delver, a +good sifter, and, what is equally important, a good interpreter,—not +merely bringing facts to the light, but compelling them to give out, +like Correggio's pictures, a light of their own. He possesses, too, in +an eminent degree, the power of forming for himself a conception of his +subject as a whole, keeping it constantly before his mind in the +elaboration of the parts, and thus bringing it vividly before the mind +of the reader. Franklin's true place in history has never before been +assigned him upon such incontrovertible evidence.</p> + +<p>If we were to undertake to name the parts of this work which have given +us most satisfaction, we should, although with some hesitation, name the +admirable chapters which Mr. Parton has devoted to Franklin's diplomatic +labors in England and France. In none of his good works has that great +man been more exposed to calumny, or treated with more barefaced +ingratitude by those who profited most by them, than in bringing to +light the dangerous letters of Hutchinson and Oliver. Even within the +last few years, the apologetic biographer of John Adams repeats the +accusation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> of moral obliquity in a tone that would hardly have been +misplaced in a defence of Wedderburn. Mr. Parton tells the story with +great simplicity, and, without entering into any unnecessary +disquisition, accepts for his commentary upon it Mr. Bancroft's wise, +and, as it seems to us, unanswerable conclusion. "Had the conspiracy +which was thus laid bare aimed at the life of a minister or the king, +any honest man must have immediately communicated the discovery to the +Secretary of State: to conspire to introduce into America a military +government, and abridge American liberty, was a more heinous crime, of +which irrefragable evidence had now come to light."</p> + +<p>Never, too, was philosopher more severely tried than Franklin was tried +by the colleagues whom Congress sent him, from time to time, as clogs +upon the great wheel which he was turning so skilfully. And this, too, +Mr. Parton has set in full light, not by the special pleading of the +apologist, but by the documentary researches of the historian.</p> + +<p>There are some things, however, in this work which we could have wished +somewhat different from what they are. Mr. Parton's fluent and forcible +style sometimes degenerates into flippancy. We could cite many instances +of felicitous expression, some, also, of bad taste, and some of hasty +assertion. "<i>Clubable</i>" is hardly a good enough word to bear frequent +repetition. "This question was a complete baffler" is too much like +slang to be admitted into the good company which Mr. Parton's sentences +usually keep. We were not aware that "Physician, heal thyself" was a +stock classical allusion. We do not believe—for Dante and Milton would +rise up in judgment against us, even if the vast majority of other great +men did not—that "it is only second-rate men who have great aims." We +do not believe that the style of the "Spectator" is an "easily imitated +style"; for, of the hundreds who have tried, how many, besides Franklin, +have really succeeded in imitating it? We do not believe that Latin and +Greek are an "obstructing nuisance," or that the student of Homer and +Thucydides and Demosthenes and Plato and Aristotle and Cæsar and Cicero +and Tacitus is merely studying "the prattle of infant man," or "adding +the ignorance of the ancients to the ignorance he was born with." We +believe, on the contrary, that it was by such studies that Gibbon and +Niebuhr and Arnold and Grote acquired their marvellous power of +discovering historical truth and detecting historical error, and that +from no modern language could they have received such discipline.</p> + +<p>But we not only agree with the sentiment, but admire the simple energy +of the expression, when he says that "Franklin was the man of all others +then alive who possessed in the greatest perfection the four grand +requisites for the successful observation of Nature or the pursuit of +literature,—a sound and great understanding, patience, dexterity, and +an independent income." Equally judicious and equally well-expressed is +the following passage upon the Penns:—"Thomas Penn was a man of +business, careful, saving, and methodical. Richard Penn was a +spendthrift. Both were men of slender abilities, and not of very +estimable character. They had done some liberal acts for the Province, +such as sending over presents to the Library of books and apparatus, and +cannon for the defence of Philadelphia. If the Pennsylvanians had been +more submissive, they would doubtless have continued their benefactions. +But, unhappily, they cherished those erroneous, those Tory notions of +the rights of sovereignty which Lord Bute infused into the contracted +mind of George III., and which cost that dull and obstinate monarch, +first, his colonies, and then his senses. It is also rooted in the +British mind, that a landholder is entitled to the particular respect of +his species. These Penns, in addition to the pride of possessing acres +by the million, felt themselves to be the lords of the land they owned, +and of the people who dwelt upon it." And in speaking of English ideas +of American resistance:—"Englishmen have made sublime sacrifices to +principle, but they appear slow to believe that any other people can." +And, "George III. sat upon a constitutional throne, but he had an +unconstitutional mind." It would be difficult to find a more +comprehensive sentence than the following:—"The counsel employed by Mr. +Mauduit was Alexander Wedderburn, a sharp, unprincipled Scotch +barrister, destined to scale all the heights of preferment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> which +shameless subserviency could reach."</p> + +<p>It would be easy to multiply examples, but we have given, we believe, +more than enough to show that we look upon Mr. Parton's "Franklin" as a +work of very great value.</p> + + +<p><i>The Maine Woods.</i> By <span class="smcap">Henry D. Thoreau</span>, Author of "A Week on the Concord +and Merrimack Rivers," "Walden," "Excursions," etc., etc. Boston: +Ticknor & Fields.</p> + +<p>The steadily growing fame of Thoreau has this characteristic, that it +is, like his culture, a purely American product, and is no pale +reflection of the cheap glories of an English reprint. Whether he would +have gained or lost by a more cosmopolitan training or criticism is not +the question now; but certain it is that neither of these things went to +the making of his fame. Classical and Oriental reading he had; but +beyond these he cared for nothing which the men and meadows of Concord +could not give, and for this voluntary abnegation, half whimsical, half +sublime, the world repaid him with life-long obscurity, and will yet +repay him with permanent renown.</p> + +<p>His choice of subjects, too, involves the same double recompense; for no +books are less dazzling or more immortal than those whose theme is +external Nature. Nothing else wears so well. History becomes so rapidly +overlaid with details, and its aspects change so fast, that the most +elaborate work soon grows obsolete; while a thoroughly sincere and +careful book on Nature cannot be superseded, and lives forever. Its +basis is real and permanent. There will always be birds and flowers, +nights and mornings. The infinite fascinations of mountains and of +forests will outlast this war, and the next, and the race that makes the +war. The same solidity of material which has guarantied permanence to +the fame of Izaak Walton and White of Selborne will as surely secure +that of Thoreau, who excels each of these writers upon his own ground, +while superadding a wider culture, a loftier thought, and a fine, though +fantastic, literary skill. All men may not love Nature, but all men +ultimately love her lovers. And of those lovers, past or present, +Thoreau is the most profound in his devotion, and the most richly +repaid.</p> + +<p>Against these great merits are to be set, no doubt, some formidable +literary defects: an occasional mistiness of expression, like the summit +of Katahdin, as he himself describes it,—one vast fog, with here and +there a rock protruding; also, an occasional sandy barrenness, like his +beloved Cape Cod. In truth, he never quite completed the transition from +the observer to the artist. With the power of constructing sentences as +perfectly graceful as a hemlock-bough, he yet displays the most wayward +aptitude for literary caterpillars'-nests and all manner of +disfigurements. The same want of artistic habit appears also in his +wilful disregard of all rules of proportion. He depicts an Indian, for +instance, with such minute observation and admirable verbal skill that +one feels as if neither Catlin nor Schoolcraft ever saw the actual +creature; but though the table-talk of the aboriginal may seem for a +time more suggestive than that of Coleridge or Macaulay, yet there is a +point beyond which his, like theirs, becomes a bore.</p> + +<p>In addition to these drawbacks, one finds in Thoreau an unnecessary +defiance of tone, and a very resolute non-appreciation of many things +which a larger mental digestion can assimilate without discomfort. In +his dealings with Nature he is sweet, genial, patient, wise. In his +dealings with men he exasperates himself over the least divergence from +the desired type. Before any over-tendency to the amenities and luxuries +of civilization, in particular, he becomes unreasonable and relentless. +Hence there appears something hard and ungenial in his views of life, +utterly out of keeping with the delicate tenderness which he shows in +the woods. The housekeeping of bees and birds he finds noble and +beautiful, but for the home and cradle of the humblest human pair he can +scarcely be said to have even toleration; a farmer's barn he considers a +cumbrous and pitiable appendage, and he lectures the Irish women in +their shanties for their undue share of the elegancies of life. With +infinite faith in the tendencies of mineral and vegetable nature, in +human nature he shows no practical trust, and must even be severe upon +the babies in the Maine log-huts for playing with wooden dolls instead +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> pine-cones. It is, indeed, noticeable that he seems to love every +other living animal more unreservedly than the horse,—as if this poor +sophisticated creature, though still a quadruped and a brother, had been +so vitiated by undue intimacy with man as to have become little better +than if he wore broadcloth and voted.</p> + +<p>Yet there was not in Thoreau one trait of the misanthrope; his solitary +life at Walden was not chosen because he loved man less, but because he +loved Nature more; and any young poet or naturalist might envy the +opportunities it gave him. But his intellectual habits showed always a +tendency to exaggeration, and he spent much mental force in fighting +shadows, Church and State, war and politics,—a man of solid vigor must +find room in his philosophy to tolerate these matters for a time, even +if he cannot cordially embrace them. But Thoreau, a celibate, and at +times a hermit, brought the Protestant extreme to match the Roman +Catholic, and though he did not personally ignore one duty of domestic +life, he yet held a system which would have excluded wife and child, +house and property. His example is noble and useful to all high-minded +young people, but only when interpreted by a philosophy less exclusive +than his own. In urging his one social panacea, "Simplify, I say, +simplify," he failed to see that all steps in moral or material +organization are really efforts after the same process he recommends. +The sewing-machine is a more complex affair than the needle, but it +simplifies every woman's life, and helps her to that same comparative +freedom from care which Thoreau would seek only by reverting to the +Indian blanket.</p> + +<p>But many-sided men do not move in battalions, and even a one-sided +philosopher may be a boon to think of, if he be as noble as Thoreau. His +very defects are higher than many men's virtues, and his most fantastic +moralizings will bear reading without doing harm, especially during a +Presidential campaign. Of his books, "Walden" will probably be +permanently reckoned as the best, as being the most full and deliberate +exhibition of the author's mind, and as extracting the most from the +least material. It is also the most uniform in texture, and the most +complete in plan, while the "Week" has no unity but that of the +chronological epoch it covers,—a week which is probably the most +comprehensive on record, ranging from the Bhagvat-Geetha to the "good +time coming,"—and the "Excursions" no unity but that of the covers +which comprise them, being, indeed, a compilation of his earliest and +latest essays. Which of his four volumes contains his finest writing it +would really be hard to say; but in structure the present book comes +nearest to "Walden"; it is within its limits a perfect monograph of the +Maine woods. All that has been previously written fails to portray so +vividly the mysterious life of the lonely forest,—the grandeur of +Katahdin or Ktaadn, that hermit-mountain,—and the wild and adventurous +navigation of those Northern water-courses whose perils make the boating +of the Adirondack region seem safe and tame. The book is also more +unexceptionably healthy in its tone than any of its predecessors, and it +is pleasant to find the author, on emerging from his explorations, +admitting that the confines of civilization afford, after all, the best +residence, and that the wilderness is of most value as "a resource and a +background."</p> + +<p>There yet remain for publication Thoreau's adventures on Cape Cod; his +few public addresses on passing events, especially those on the Burns +Rescue and the John-Brown affair, which were certainly among the very +ablest productions called forth by those exciting occasions; his poems; +and his private letters to his friend Blake, of Worcester, and to +others,—letters which certainly contain some of his toughest, and +perhaps also some of his finest writing. All these deserve, and must one +day receive, preservation. He who reads most books reads that which has +a merely temporary interest, and will be presently superseded by +something better; but Nature has waited many centuries for Thoreau, and +we can hardly expect to see, during this generation, another mortal so +favored with her confidence.</p> + + +<p><i>Jennie Juneiana</i>: Talks on Women's Topics. By <span class="smcap">Jennie June</span>. Boston: Lee +& Shepard. 12mo. pp. 240.</p> + +<p>Great are the resources of human invention, and the tiresome passion for +alliterative<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> titles may possibly have culminated in some name yet more +foolish than that of this little green and gold volume. If so, the rival +has proved too much for the trump of Fame to carry, and has dropped +unnoticed. In the present case, the title does perhaps some injustice to +the book, which is not a silly one, though it contains very silly +things. It seems to be written from the point of view afforded by a +second-rate New-York boarding-house, and by a person who has never come +in contact with any refined or well-bred people. With this allowance, it +is written in the interest of good manners and good morals, and with +enough of natural tact to keep the writer from getting far beyond her +depth, although she does talk of "Goethe's Mignion" and "Miss +Werner,"—whoever these personages may be,—and of "the substantial fame +achieved by the unknown author of 'Rutledge.'" It is written in the +prevalent American newspaper-style,—a style which is apt to be graphic, +piquant, and dashing, accompanied by a flavor, slight or more than +slight, of flippancy and slang,—a style such as reaches high-tide in +certain "popular" native authors, male and female, and in ebbing strands +us on "Jennie June."</p> + +<p>Of course, writing from the windows of Mrs. Todgers, "Jennie" manifests +the usual superfluous anxiety of her kind not to be called +strong-minded. She is prettily indignant at the thought of female +physicians: there is nothing improper in having diseases, but to cure +them would be indelicacy indeed. Girls out of work, who wish for places +in shops, are only "patriotic young ladies who desire to fill all the +lucrative situations at present occupied by young men." She would even +banish Bridget from the kitchen and substitute unlimited Patricks, which +will interest housekeepers as being the only conceivable remedy worse +than the disease. Of course, a female lecturer is an abomination: +"Jennie" proves, first, that a "strong-minded woman" must be either +unmarried or unhappy in marriage, and then turns, with rather illogical +wrath, upon Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown, for being too domestic to +make speeches since their marriage. To follow the court phraseology, +"This reminds us of a little anecdote." When the fashion of long, +flowing wigs was just vanishing in Boston, somebody wore one from that +town down to Salem, where they were entirely extinct. All the +street-boys ran after him all the morning, to ask him why he wore a wig. +He, wishing to avoid offence, left it in the house at dinner-time; and +was pursued all the afternoon by the same boys, with the inquiry why he +did <i>not</i> wear a wig. These eloquent women find it equally hard to +please their little critic by silence or by speech. The simple truth +probably is, that they hold precisely the same views which they always +held, and will live to trouble her yet, when the epoch of the nursery is +over. The majority of women's-rights advocates have always been wives +and mothers, and, for aught we know, excellent ones, since that dear, +motherly old Quakeress, Lucretia Mott, first broached the matter; and +the great change in our legislation on all the property-rights of that +sex is just as directly traceable to their labors as is the repeal of +the English corn-laws to the efforts of the "League." If, however, +"Jennie" consoles herself with the reflection that the points made in +this controversy by the authors of "Hannah Thurston" and "Miss Gilbert's +Career" are not much stronger than her own, she must remember her +favorite theory, that all foolishness sounds more respectable when +uttered from masculine lips.</p> + + +<p>1. <i>Woman and her Era.</i> By <span class="smcap">Eliza W. Farnham</span>. In Two Volumes. New York: +A. J. Davis & Co.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Eliza Woodson; or, The Early Days of one of the World's Workers.</i> A +Story of American Life. New York: A. J. Davis & Co.</p> + +<p>In the three and a half centuries since Cornelius Agrippa, no one has +attempted with so much ability as Mrs. Farnham to transfer the theory of +woman's superiority from the domain of poetry to that of science. Second +to no American woman save Miss Dix in her experience as a practical +philanthropist, she has studied human nature in the sternest practical +schools, from Sing-Sing to California. She justly claims for her views +that they have been maturing for twenty-two years of "experience so +varied as to give it almost every form of trial which could fall to the +intellectual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> life of any save the most favored women." Her books show, +moreover, an ardent love of literature and some accurate scientific +training,—though her style has the condensation and vigor which active +life creates, rather than the graces of culture.</p> + +<p>The essence of her book lies in this opening syllogism:—</p> + +<p>"Life is exalted in proportion to its organic and functional complexity;</p> + +<p>"Woman's organism is more complex and her totality of function larger +than those of any other being inhabiting our earth;</p> + +<p>"Therefore her position in the scale of life is the most exalted,—the +sovereign one."</p> + +<p>This is compactly stated and quite unequivocal, although the three last +words of the conclusion are a step beyond the premises, and the main +fight of her opponents would no doubt be made on her definition of the +word <i>being</i>. The assumption that either sex of a given species is a +distinct "being" cannot probably be slid into the minor premise of the +argument without some objection from the opposing counsel. However, this +brings us at once to the main point, and the chapter called "The Organic +Argument," which opens with this syllogism, is really the pith of the +book, and would, perhaps, stand stronger without the other six hundred +pages. In this chapter she shows the strength of a system-maker, in the +rest the weaknesses of one; she feels obliged to apply her creed to +everything, to illustrate everything by its light, to find unexpected +confirmations everywhere, and to manipulate all the history of art, +literature, and society, till she conforms them all to her standard. She +recites, with no new power, historical facts that are already familiar; +and gives many pages to extracts from very well known poets and very ill +known prose-writers, to the exclusion of her own terse and vigorous +thought. All this is without a trace of book-making, but is done in +single-hearted zeal for views which are only damaged by the process.</p> + +<p>These are merely literary defects; but Mrs. Farnham really suffers in +thought by the same unflinching fidelity to her creed. It makes her +clear and resolute in her statement; but it often makes her as one-sided +as the advocates of male supremacy whom she impugns. To be sure, her +theory enables her to extenuate some points of admitted injustice to +woman,—finding, for instance, in her educational and professional +exclusions a crude effort, on the part of society, to treat her as a +sort of bird-of-paradise, born only to fly, and therefore not needing +feet. Yet this authoress is obliged to assume a tone of habitual +antagonism towards men, from which the advocates of mere equality are +excused. Indeed, the technical Woman's-Rights movement has always +witnessed a very hearty coöperation among its advocates of both sexes, +and it is generally admitted that men are at least as ready to concede +additional rights as women to ask for them. But when one comes to Mrs. +Farnham's stand-point, and sees what her opinion of men really is, the +stanchest masculine ally must shrink from assigning himself to such a +category of scoundrels. The best criticism made on Michelet's theory of +woman as a predestined invalid was that of the sensible physician who +responded, "As if the Almighty did not know how to create a woman!"—and +Mrs. Farnham certainly proves too much in undertaking to expose the +blunders of Deity in the construction of a man. Assuming, as she +invariably does, the highest woman to be the typical woman, and the +lowest man to be the typical man, she can prove anything she pleases. +But even this does not content her; every gleam of tenderness and +refinement exhibited by man she transfers by some inexplicable +legerdemain of logic to the feminine side, and makes somehow into a new +proof of his hopeless inferiority; and she is landed at last in the +amazing paradox, that "the most powerful feminine souls have appeared in +masculine forms, thus far in human career." (Vol. II. p. 360.)</p> + +<p>In short, her theory involves a necessity of perpetual overstatement. +The conception of a pure and noble young man, such as Richter delineates +in his Walt or Albano, seems utterly foreign to her system; and of that +fine subtilty of nature by which the highest types of manhood and +womanhood approach each other, as if mutually lending refinement and +strength, she seems to have no conception. The truth is, that, however +much we may concede to the average spiritual superiority of woman, a +great deal also depends on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> inheritance and the training of the +individual. Mrs. Farnham, like every refined woman, is often shocked by +the coarseness of even virtuous men; but she does not tell us the other +side of the story,—how often every man of refinement has occasion to be +shocked by the coarseness of even virtuous women. Sexual disparities may +be much; but individual disparities are even more.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Farnham is noble enough, and her book is brave and wise enough, to +bear criticisms which grow only from her attempting too much. The +difference between her book and most of those written on the other side +is, that in the previous cases the lions have been the painters, and +here it is the lioness. As against the exaggerations on the other side, +she has a right to exaggerate on her part. As against the theory that +man is superior to woman because he is larger, she has a right to plead +that in that case the gorilla were the better man, and to assert on the +other hand that woman is superior because smaller,—Emerson's mountain +and squirrel. As against the theory that glory and dominion go with the +beard, she has a right to maintain (and that she does with no small +pungency) that Nature gave man this appendage because he was not to be +trusted with his own face, and needed this additional covering for his +shame. As against the historical traditions of man's mastery, she does +well to urge that creation is progressive, and that the megalosaurus was +master even before man. It is, indeed, this last point which constitutes +the crowning merit of the book, and which will be permanently associated +with Mrs. Farnham's name. No one before her has so firmly grasped this +key to woman's historic position, that the past was an age of coarse, +preliminary labor, in which her time had not yet come. This theory, as +elucidated by Mrs. Farnham, taken with the fine statement of Buckle as +to the importance of the intuitive element in the feminine intellect, +(which statement Mrs. Farnham also quotes,) constitutes the most +valuable ground logically conquered for woman within this century. These +contributions are eclipsed in importance only by those actual +achievements of women of genius,—as of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Rosa +Bonheur, and Harriet Hosmer,—which, so far as they go, render all +argument superfluous.</p> + +<p>In this domain of practical achievement Mrs. Farnham has also labored +well, and the autobiography of her childish years, when she only aspired +after such toils, has an interest wholly apart from that of her larger +work, and scarcely its inferior. Except the immortal "Pet Marjorie," one +can hardly recall in literature a delineation so marvellous of a +childish mind so extraordinary as "Eliza Woodson." The few characters +appear with an individuality worthy of a great novelist; every lover of +children must find it altogether fascinating, and to the most +experienced student of human nature it opens a new chapter of startling +interest.</p> + + +<p><i>The Cliff-Climbers; or, The Lone Home in the Himalayas.</i> A Sequel to +"The Plant-Hunters." By <span class="smcap">Captain Mayne Reid</span>, Author of "The Desert Home," +"The Boy-Hunters," etc., etc. With Illustrations. Boston: Ticknor & +Fields.</p> + +<p>Beloved of boys, the adventurous Mayne Reid continues from year to year +his good work as a story-teller. Since he held the youthful student a +spellbound reader of "The Desert Home," he has sent abroad a dozen +volumes, all excellent in their way, for the entertainment of his +ever-increasing audience. He has not, however, dealt quite fairly by his +boy-friends. He kept them waiting several years for the completion of +"The Plant-Hunters," and it is only now that he has found time to add +"The Cliff-Climbers" as a sequel to that fascinating story. While we +thank him for the book that gives us farther acquaintance with those +stirring individuals, Karl and Caspar, we cannot help reminding him how +long ago it is since we read "The Plant-Hunters," and wished for more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS" id="RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS"></a>RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS</h2> + +<h3>RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h3> + + +<p>Poetry of the Age of Fable. Collected by Thomas Bulfinch. Boston. J. E. +Tilton & Co. 18mo. pp. x., 251. $2.00.</p> + +<p>Phantom Leaves. A Treatise on the Art of producing Skeleton Leaves. +Boston. J. E. Tilton & Co. 12mo. pp. 96. $1.50.</p> + +<p>Wax Flowers: How to make them. With New Methods of sheeting Wax, +modelling Fruit, etc. Boston. J. E. Tilton & Co. 12mo. pp. 116. $1.50.</p> + +<p>The Bridal Eve. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Philadelphia. T. B. +Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 446. $1.50.</p> + +<p>The Potomac and the Rapidan. Army Notes, from the Failure at Winchester +to the Reinforcement of Rosecrans. By Alonzo H. Quint, Chaplain of the +Second Massachusetts Infantry. Boston. Crosby & Nichols. 12mo. pp. 407. +$1.75.</p> + +<p>Hotspur. A Tale of the Old Dutch Manor. By Mansfield T. Walworth, Author +of "Lulu." New York. G. W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 324. $1.25.</p> + +<p>The Peninsular Campaign and its Antecedents, as developed by the Report +of Major-General George B. McClellan and other Published Documents. By +J. G. Barnard, Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers and Brigadier-General of +Volunteers, and Chief Engineer in the Army of the Potomac from its +Organization to the Close of the Peninsular Campaign. New York. D. Van +Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 94. $1.00.</p> + +<p>Songs of the Soldiers. Arranged and edited by Frank Moore. New York. G. +P. Putnam. 18mo. pp. xvi., 318. $1.00.</p> + +<p>Self-Sacrifice. By the Author of "Margaret Maitland." Philadelphia. T. +B. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 375. $1.50.</p> + +<p>Out in the World. A Novel. By T. S. Arthur. New York. G. W. Carleton. +12mo. pp. 312. $1.50.</p> + +<p>Watson's Manual of Calisthenics: A Systematic Drill-Book without +Apparatus; for Schools, Families, and Gymnasiums. With Music to +accompany the Exercises. Illustrated from Original Designs. By J. +Madison Watson. New York and Philadelphia. Schermerhorn, Bancroft, & Co. +8vo. pp. 144. $1.25.</p> + +<p>Eliza Woodson; or, The Early Days of one of the World's Workers. A Story +of American Life. Second Edition. New York. A. J. Davis & Co. 12mo. pp. +426. $1.25.</p> + +<p>The Hour which cometh and now is: Sermons preached in Indiana-Place +Chapel, Boston. By James Freeman Clarke. Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. +12mo. pp. vi, 348. $1.50.</p> + +<p>Expository Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism. By George W. Bethune, +D. D. In Two Volumes. Vol. II. New York. Sheldon & Co. 12mo. pp. 535. +$2.25.</p> + +<p>Over the River; or, Pleasant Walks into the Valley of Shadows, and +Beyond. A Book of Consolations for the Sick, the Dying, and the +Bereaved. By Thomas Baldwin Thayer. Boston. Tompkins & Co. 12mo. pp. +272. $1.25.</p> + +<p>Naomi Torrento. The History of a Woman. By Gertrude F. De Vingut. New +York. John Bradburn. 8vo. pp. 275. $2.00.</p> + +<p>The Battle-Fields of our Fathers. By Virginia F. Townsend. New York. +John Bradburn. 12mo. pp. 368. $1.50.</p> + +<p>Precedents of American Neutrality, in Reply to the Speech of Sir +Roundell Palmer, Attorney-General of England, in the British House of +Commons, May 13, 1864. By George Bemis. Boston. Little, Brown, & Co. +8vo. paper. pp. viii., 83. 50 cents.</p> + +<p>Rhode Island in the Rebellion. By Edwin M. Stone, of the First Regiment +Rhode Island Light Artillery. Providence. George H. Whitney. 12mo. pp. +xxxviii., 398.</p> + +<p>The Coward. A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863. By Henry Morford. +Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 520. $2.00.</p> + +<p>The Dead Shot; or, Sportsman's Complete Guide: Being a Treatise on the +Use of the Gun, with Rudimentary and Finishing Lessons in the Art of +shooting Game of all Kinds, Pigeon-Shooting, Dog-Breaking, etc. By +Marksman. New York. W. A. Townsend. 16mo. pp. 282. $2.00.</p> + +<p>Overland Explorations in Siberia, Northern Asia, and the Great Amoor +River Country; Incidental Notices of Manchooria, Mongolia, Kamschatka, +and Japan, with Map and Plan of an Overland Telegraph around the World, +viâ Behring's Strait and Asiatic Russia to Europe. By Major Perry McD. +Collins, Commercial Agent of the United States of America for the Amoor +River, Asiatic Russia. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. iv., 467.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span></p> + +<p>Life with the Forty-Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers. By Henry T. Johns, +late Quartermaster's Clerk Forty-Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers. +Pittsfield. Published for the Author. 12mo. pp. 391. $1.25.</p> + +<p>Woman and her Era. By Eliza W. Farnham. New York. A. J. Davis & Co. +12mo. Two Vols. pp. 318, 466. $3.00.</p> + +<p>A Woman's Philosophy of Woman; or, Woman Affranchised. An Answer to +Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, Legouvé, Comte, and other Modern +Innovators. By Madame D'Héricourt. New York. G. W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. +317. $1.50.</p> + +<p>The New Internal Revenue Law, approved June 30, 1864, with Copious +Marginal References, a Complete Analytical Index, and Tables of +Taxation. Compiled by Horace E. Dresser. New York. D. Appleton & Co. +8vo. paper, pp. 122. 50 cents.</p> + +<p>Personal and Political Ballads. Arranged and edited by Frank Moore. New +York. G. P. Putnam. 32mo. pp. xvi., 368. $1.00.</p> + +<p>Enoch Arden, etc. By Alfred Tennyson, D. C. L., Poet-Laureate. Boston. +Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 204. $1.25.</p> + +<p>Dramatis Personæ. By Robert Browning. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. +pp. 262. $1.50.</p> + +<p>"Babble-Brook" Songs. By J. H. McNaughton. Boston. O. Ditson & Co. 16mo. +pp. 237. $1.25.</p> + +<p>The Early Dawn; or, Sketches of Christian Life in England in the Olden +Time. By the Author of "Chronicles of Schönberg-Cotta Family." With +Introduction by Professor Henry B. Smith, D. D. New York. M. W. Dodd, +No. 506 Broadway. 12mo. pp. 397. $1.75.</p> + +<p>The Forest Arcadia of Northern New York. Embracing a View of its +Mineral, Agricultural, and Timber Resources. Boston. T. O. H. P. +Burnham. 16mo. pp. 224. $1.50.</p> + +<p>Azarian: An Episode. By Harriet Elizabeth Prescott, Author of "The Amber +Gods," etc. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 251. $1.25.</p> + +<p>Man and his Relations: Illustrating the Influence of the Mind on the +Body; the Relations of the Faculties to the Organs, and to the Elements, +Objects, and Phenomena of the External World. By S. B. Brittan, M. D. +New York. W. A. Townsend. 8vo. pp. xiv., 578. $3.50.</p> + +<p>A Summer Cruise on the Coast of New England. By Robert Carter. Boston. +Crosby & Nichols. 16mo. pp. 261. $1.00.</p> + +<p>The Cliff-Climbers; or, The Lone Home in the Himalayas. A Sequel to "The +Plant-Hunters." By Captain Mayne Reid, Author of "The Desert Home," "The +Boy-Hunters," etc., etc. With Illustrations. Boston. Ticknor & Fields.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. +83, September, 1864, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + +***** This file should be named 20350-h.htm or 20350-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/5/20350/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections). + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: January 13, 2007 [EBook #20350] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections). + + + + + + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XIV.--SEPTEMBER, 1864.--NO. LXXXIII. + + +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. + + +Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved +to the end of the article. + + + + +THE CADMEAN MADNESS. + + +An old English divine fancied that all the world might go mad and nobody +know it. The conception suggests a query whether the standard of sanity, +as of fashions and prices, be not a purely artificial one, an accident +of convention, a law of society, an arbitrary institute, and therefore a +possible mistake. A sage and a maniac each thinks the other mad. The +decision is a matter of majorities. Should a whole community become +insane, it would nevertheless vote itself wise; if the craze of Bedlam +were uniform, its inmates could not distinguish it from a Pantheon; and +though all human history seemed to the gods only as a continuous series +of mediaeval processions _des sots et des anes_, yet the topsy-turvy +intellect of the world would ever worship folly in the name of wisdom. +Arts and sciences, ideas and institutions, laws and learning would still +abound, transmogrified to suit the reigning madness. And as statistics +reveal the late gradual and general increase of insanity, it becomes a +provident people to consider what may be the ultimate results, if this +increase should happen never to be checked. And if sanity be, indeed, a +glory which we might all lose unawares, we may well betake ourselves to +very solemn reflection as to whether we are, at the present moment, in +our wits and senses, or not. + +The peculiar proficiencies of great epochs are as astonishing as the +exploits of individual frenzy. The era of the Greek rhapsodists, when a +body of matchless epical literature was handed down by memory from +generation to generation, and a recitation of the whole "Odyssey" was +not too much for a dinner-party,--the era of Periclean culture, when the +Athenian populace was wont to pass whole days in the theatre, attending +with unfaltering intellectual keenness and aesthetic delight to three or +four long dramas, either of which would exhaust a modern audience,--the +wild and vast systems of imaginary abstractions, which the +Neo-Platonists, as also the German transcendentalists, so strangely +devised and became enamored of,--the grotesque views of men and things, +the funny universe altogether, which made up both the popular and the +learned thought of the Middle Ages,--the Buddhistic Orient, with its +subtile metaphysical illusions, its unreal astronomical heavens, its +habits of repose and its tornadoes of passion,--such are instances of +great diversities of character, which would be hardly accountable to +each other on the supposition of mutual sanity. They suggest a +difference of ideas, moods, habits, and capacities, which in +contemporaries and associates would amply justify either party that +happened to be the majority in turning all the rest into insane asylums. +It is the demoniac element, the raving of some particular demon, that +creates greatness either in men or nations. Power is maniacal. A +mysterious fury, a heavenly inspiration, an incomprehensible and +irresistible impulse, goads humanity on to achievements. Every age, +every person, and every art obeys the wand of the enchanter. History +moves by indirections. The first historic tendency is likely to be +slightly askew; there follows then an historic triumph, then an historic +eccentricity, then an historic folly, then an explosion; and then the +series begins again. In the grade of folly, hard upon an explosion, lies +modern literature. + +The characteristic mania of the last two centuries is reading and +writing. Solomon discovered that much study is a weariness of the flesh; +Aristophanes complained of the multitude and indignity of authors in his +time; and the famed preacher, Geyler von Kaisersberg, in the age of +prevalent monkery and Benedictine plodding, mentioned erudition and +madness, on equal footing, as the twin results of books: "_Libri quosdam +ad scientiam, quosdam ad insaniam deduxere_." These were successive +symptoms of the growing malady. But where there was one writer in the +time of Geyler, there are a million now. He saw both health and disease, +and could distinguish between them. We see only the latter. Skill in +letters, half a decade of centuries ago, was a miraculous attainment, +and placed its possessor in the rank of divines and diviners; now, +inability to read and write is accounted, with pauperism and crime, a +ground for civil disfranchisement. The old feudal merry and hearty +ignorance has been everywhere corrupted by books and newspapers, +learning and intelligence, the cabalistic words of modern life. Popular +poetry and music, ballads and legends, wit and originality have +disappeared before the barbaric intellectuality of our Cadmean idolatry. +Even the arts of conversation and oratory are waning, and may soon be +lost; we live only in second and silent thoughts: for who will waste +fame and fortune by giving to his friends the gems which will delight +mankind? and how can a statesman grapple eloquently with Fate, when the +contest is not to be determined on the spot, but by quiet and remote +people coolly reading his speech several hours or days later? Even if we +were vagarying into imbecility, like the wildest Neo-Platonic +hierophants, like the monkish chroniclers of the Middle Ages, like other +romantic and fantastic theorists who have leaped out of human nature +into a purely artificial realm, we should not know it, because we are +all doing it uniformly. + +The universe is a veiled Isis. The human mind from immemorial antiquity +has ceased to regard it. A small cohort of alphabets has enrobed it with +a wavy texture of letters, beyond which we cannot penetrate. The glamour +is upon us, and when we would see the facts of Nature, we behold only +tracts of print. The God of the heavens and earth has hidden Himself +from us since we gave ourselves up to the worship of the false +divinities of Phoenicia. No longer can we admire the _cosmos_; for the +_cosmos_ lies beyond a long perspective of theorems and propositions +that cross our eyes, like countless bees, from the alcoves of +philosophies and sciences. No longer do we bask in the beauty of things, +as in the sunlight; for when we would melt in feeling, we hear nothing +but the rattling of gems of verse. No longer does the mind, as +sympathetic priest and interpreter, hover amid the phenomena of time and +space; for the forms of Nature have given place to volumes, there are no +objects but pages, and passions have been supplanted by paragraphs. We +no longer see the whirling universe, or feel the pulsing of life. +Thought itself has ceased to be a sprite, and flows through the mind +only in the leaden shape of printed sentences. The symbolism of letters +is over us all. An all-pervading nominalism has completely masked +whatsoever there is that is real. More and more it is not the soul and +Nature, but the eye and print, whose resultant is thought. Nature +disappears and the mind withers. No other faculty has been developed in +man but that of the reader, no other possibility but that of the writer. +The old-fashioned arts which used to imply human nature, which used to +blossom instinctively, which have given joy and beauty to society, are +fading from the face of the earth. Where are the ancient and mediaeval +popular games, those charming vital symptoms? The people now read +Dickens and Longfellow. Where are the old-fashioned instincts of worship +and love, consolation and mourning? The people have since found an +antidote for these experiences in Blair and Tupper, and other authors of +renown. Where are those weird voices of the air and forest and stream, +those symptoms of an enchanted Nature, which used to thrill and bless +the soul of man? The duller ear of men has failed to hear them in this +age of popular science. + +Literature, using the word with a benevolent breadth of meaning which +excludes no pretenders, is the result of the invasion of letters. It is +the fort which they occupy, which with too hasty consideration has +usually been regarded as friendly to the human race. Religions, laws, +sciences, arts, theories, and histories, instead of passing Ariel-like +into the elements when their task is done, are made perpetual prisoners +in the alcoves of dreary libraries. They have a fossil immortality, +surviving themselves in covers, as poems have survived minstrels. The +memory of man is made omni-capacious; its burden increases with every +generation; not even the ignorance and stolidity of the past are allowed +the final grace of being forgotten; and omniscience is becoming at once +more and more impossible and more and more fashionable. Whoever reads +only the books of his own time is superficial in proportion to the +thickness of the ages. But neither the genius of man, nor his length of +days, has had an increase corresponding to that of the realm of +knowledge, the requirements of reading, and the conditions of +intelligence. The multiplied attractions only crowd and obstruct the +necessarily narrow line of duty, possibility, and destiny. Life +threatens to be extinguished by its own shadow, by the _debris_ kept in +the current by countless tenacious records. Its essence escapes to +heaven or into new forms, but its ghosts still walk the earth in print. +Like that mythical serpent which advanced only as it grew in length, so +knowledge spans the whole length of the ages. Some philosopher conceived +of history as the migration and growth of reason throughout time, +culminating in successive historical ideas. He, however, supposed that +the idea of every age had nothing to do with any preceding age; it had +passed through whatsoever previous stages, had been somewhat modified by +them, contained in itself all that was best in them, was improved and +elevated at every new epoch; but it had no memory, never looked +backward, and was an ever rolling sphere, complete in itself, leaving no +trail behind. Human life, under the discipline of letters and common +schools, is not thus Hegelian, but advances under the boundless +retrospection of literature. And yet this is probably divine philosophy. +It is probable that the faculty of memory belongs to man only in an +immature state of development, and that in some future and happier epoch +the past will be known to us only as it lives in the present; and then +for the first time will Realism in life take the place of Nominalism. + +The largest library in the world, the Bibliotheque Imperiale of Paris, +(it has been successively, like the adventurous and versatile throne of +France, Royale, Nationale, and Imperiale,) contains very nearly one +million of books, the collected fruits of all time. Consider an average +book in that collection: how much human labor does it stand for? How +much capital was invested originally in its production, and how much +tribute of time and toil does it receive per annum? Regarding books as +intellectual estate, how much does it cost mankind to procure and keep +up an average specimen? What quantity of human resources has been +originally and consecutively sunk in the Parisian library? How much of +human time, which is but a span, and of human emotion and thought, which +are sacred and not to be carelessly thrown away, lie latent therein? + +The estimate must be highly speculative. Some books have cost a lifetime +and a heartbreak; others have been written at leisure in a week, and +without an emotion. Some are born from the martyrdom of a thinker to +fire the genius of a populace; others are the coruscations of joy, and +have a smile for their immortal heir. Some have made but the slightest +momentary ripple in human affairs; others, first gathering eddies about +themselves, have swept forward in grand currents, engrossing for +centuries whole departments of human energy. Thousands publish and are +forgotten before they die. Spinoza published after his death and is not +yet understood. + +We will begin with the destined bibliomacher at the time of his +assumption of short clothes. The alphabet is his first professional +torture, and that only ushers him upon the gigantic task of learning to +read and write his own language. Experience shows that this miracle of +memory and associative reason may be in the main accomplished by the +time he is eight years old. Thus far in his progress towards book-making +he has simply got his fingers hold of the pen. He has next to run the +gauntlet of the languages, sciences, and arts, to pass through the epoch +of the scholar, with satchel under his arm, with pale cheek, an eremite +and ascetic in the religion of Cadmus. At length, at about twenty years +of age, he leaves the university, not a master, but a bachelor of +liberal studies. But thus far he has laid only the foundation, has +acquired only rudiments and generalities, has only served his +apprenticeship to letters. God gave mind and nature, but art has +furnished him a new capacity and a new world,--the capacity to read, and +the world of books. He has simply acquired a new nature, a psychological +texture of letters, but the artificial _tabula rasa_ has yet to be +filled. Twenty obstetrical years have at last made him a literary +animal, have furnished him the abstract conditions of authorship; but he +has yet his life to save, and his fortune to make in literature. He is +born into the mystic fraternity of readers and writers, but the special +studies and experiences which fit him for anything, which make a book +possible, are still in the future. He will be fortunate, if he gets +through with them, and gets his first volume off his hands by the age of +thirty. Authors are the shortest-lived of men. Their average years are +less than fifty. Our bibliomacher has therefore twenty years left to +him. Taking all time together, since formerly authors wrote less +abundantly than now, he will not produce more than one work in five +years, that is, five works in his lifetime of fifty years. The +conclusion to which this rather precarious investigation thus brings us +is, that the original cost of an average book is ten years of a human +life. And yet these ten years make but the mere suggestion of the book. +The suggestion must be developed by an army of printers, sellers, and +librarians. What other institution in the world is there but the +Bibliotheque Imperiale, to the mere suggestion of which ten millions of +laborious years have been devoted? + +Startling considerations present themselves. If there were no other +_argumentum ad absurdum_ to demonstrate some fundamental perversity and +absurdity in literature, it might be suspected from the fact that Nature +herself gives so little encouragement to it. Nobody is born an author. +The art of writing, common as it is, is not indigenous in man, but is +acquired by a nearly universal martyrdom of youth. If it had been +providentially designed that the function of any considerable portion of +mankind should have been to write books, we cannot suppose that an +economical Deity would have failed to create them with innate skill in +language, general knowledge, and penmanship. These accomplishments have +to be learned by every writer, yet writers are numberless. They are +mysteries which must be painfully encountered by every one at the +vestibule of the temple of literature, which nevertheless is thronged. +Surely, had this importance and prevalence been attached to them in the +Divine scheme, they would have been born in us like the senses, or would +blossom spontaneously in us, like the corollal growths of Faith and +Conscience. We should have been created in a condition of literary +capacity, and thus have been spared the alphabetical torture of +childhood, and the academic depths of philological despair. Twenty-five +years of preliminaries might have been avoided by changing the peg in +the scale of creation, and the studies of the boy might have begun where +now they end. Twenty-five years in the span of life would thus have been +saved, had what must be a universal acquirement been incorporated into +the original programme of human nature. + +Or had the Deity appreciated literature as we do, He would probably have +written out the universe in some snug little volume, some miniature +series, or some boundless Bodleian, instead of unfolding it through +infinite space and time, as an actual, concrete, unwritten reality. Be +creation a single act or an eternal process, it would have been all a +thing of books. The Divine Mind would have revealed itself in a library, +instead of in the universe. As for men, they would have existed only in +treatises on the mammalia. There are some specimens which we hardly +think are according to any anticipation of heavenly reason, and +therefore they would not have existed at all. Nothing would have been +but God and literature. Possibly a responsible creation like ours might +have been formed, nevertheless, by making each letter a living, +thinking, moral agent; and the alphabet might thus have written out the +Divine ideas, as men now work them out. If the conception seem to any +one chilly, if it have a dreary look, if it appear to leave only a +frosty metallic base, instead of the grand oceanic effervescence of +life, let him remember how often earthly authors have renounced living +realities, all personal sympathies and pleasures, communing only with +books, their minds dwelling apart from men. Remember Tasso and Southey; +ay, if you have yourself written a book that commands admiration, +remember what it cost you. Why hesitate to transfer to the skies a type +of life which we admire here below? But God having wrought out instead +of written out His thoughts, does it not appear that He designed for men +to do likewise? + +And thus a new consideration is presented. The exhibit of the original +cost of the Bibliotheque Imperiale was the smallest item in our budget. +Mark the history of a book. How variously it engrosses the efforts of +the world, from the time when it first rushes into the arena of life! +The industry of printing embodies it, the energy of commerce disperses +it, the army of critics announce it, the world of readers give their +days and nights to it generation after generation, and its echoes +uninterruptedly repeat themselves along the infinite procession of +writers. The process reverts with every new edition, and eddies mingle +with eddies in the motley march of history. Its story may be traced in +martyrdoms of the flesh, in weary hours, strange experiences, unhappy +tempers, restless struggles, unrequited triumphs,--in the glare of +midnight lamps, and of wild, haggard eyes,--in sorrow, want, desolation, +despair, and madness. Born in sorrow, the book trails a pathway of +sorrow through the ages. And each book in the Parisian library stands +for all this,--some that were produced with tears having been always +read for jest,--some that were lightly written being now severe tasks +for historians, antiquaries, and source-mongers. + +Suppose an old Egyptian, who in primaeval Hierapolis incased his thought +in papyrus, to be able now to take a stroll into the Bibliotheque, and +to see what has become of his thought so far as there represented. He +would find that it had haunted mankind ever since. An alcove would be +filled with commentaries on it, and discussions as to where it came from +and what it meant. He would find it modifying and modified by the +Greeks, and reproduced by them with divers variations,--extinguished by +Christianity,--revived, with a new face, among the theurgies and cabala +of Alexandria; he would catch the merest glimpse of it amid the +Christian legends and credulities of the Middle Ages,--but the Arabs +would have kept a stronger hold on it; he would see it in the background +after the revival of learning, till, gradually, as modern commerce +opened the East, scholars, also, discovered that there were wonders +behind the classic nations; and finally he would see how modern +research, rushing back through comparison of language-roots, through +geological data, through ethnological indications, through antiquarian +discoveries, has rooted out of the layers of ages all the history +attendant upon its original production. He would find the records of +this long history in the library around him. In every age, the thought, +born of pain, has been reproduced with travail. It did not do its +mission at once, penetrate like a ray of light into the heart of the +race, and leave a chemical effect which should last forever. No, the +blood of man's spirit was not purified,--only an external application +was made, and that application must be repeated with torture upon every +generation. Was this designed to be the function of thought, the mission +of heavenly ideas? + +This is the history of his thought in books. But let us conceive what +might have been its history but for the books;--how it might have been +written in the fibres of the soul, and lived in eternal reason, instead +of having been written on papyrus and involved in the realm of dead +matter. His idea, thrilling his own soul, would have revealed itself in +every particle and movement of his body; for "soul is form, and doth the +body make." Its first product would have been his own quivering, +animated, and animating personality. He would have impressed every one +of his associates, every one of whom would in turn have impressed a new +crowd, and thus the immortal array of influences would have gone on. Not +impressions on parchment, but impressions on the soul, not letters, but +thrills, would have been its result. Thus the magic of personal +influence of all kinds would have radiated from it in omnipresent and +colliding circlets forever, as the mighty imponderable agents are +believed to radiate from some hidden focal force. He would trace his +idea in the massive architecture and groping science of Egypt,--in the +elegant forms of worship, thought, institutes, and life among the +Greeks,--in the martial and systematizing genius of Rome,--and so on +through the ecclesiastical life of the Middle Ages, and the political +and scientific ambitions of modern times. Its operations have everywhere +been chemical, not mechanical. It has lived, not in the letter, but in +the spirit. Never dropping to the earth, it has been maintained as a +shuttlecock in spiritual regions by the dynamics of the soul. It has +wrought itself into the soul, the only living and immortal thing, and so +the proper place for ideas. Its mode of transmission has been by the +suffusion of the eye, the cheek, the lip, the manner, not by dead and +unsymbolical letters. It has had life, and not merely duration. It has +been perpetuated in cordate, not in dactylate characters. Its history +must not be sought away from the circle of life, but may be seen in the +current generation of men. The man whom you should meet on the street +would be the product of all the ideas and influences from the +foundation of the world, and his slightest act would reveal them all +vital within him. The libraries, which form dead recesses in the river +of life, would thus be swept into and dissolved in the current, and the +waters would have been deepened and colored by their dissolution. +Libraries are a sort of _debris_ of the world, but the spiritual +substance of them would thus enter into the organism of history. All the +last results of time would come to us, not through books, but through +the impressions of daily life. Whatsoever was unworthy to be woven into +the fibres of the soul would be overwhelmed by that oblivion which +chases humanity; all the time wasted in the wrong-headedness of +archaeology would be saved; for there would be nothing of the past except +its influence on the immediate present, and nothing but the pure human +ingot would finally be left of the long whirlings in the crucible of +history. Some one has said that all recent literature is one gigantic +plagiarism from the past. Why plagiarize with toil the toils of the +past, when all that is good in them lives, necessarily and of its own +tendency, in the winged and growing spirit of man? The stream flows in a +channel, and is colored by all the ores of its banks, but it would be +absurd for it to attempt to take the channel up and carry it along with +itself out into the sea. Why should the tinted water of life attempt to +carry along with it not only the tint, but also the bank, ages back, +from which the tint proceeds? + +As the world goes on, the multitude of books increases. They grow as +grows the human race,--but, unlike the human race, they have a material +immortality here below. Fossil books, unlike fossil rocks, have a power +of reproduction. Every new year leaves not only a new inheritance, but +generally a larger one than ever before. What is to be the result? The +ultimate prospect is portentous. If England has produced ten thousand +volumes of fiction (about three thousand new novels) during the last +forty years, how many books of all kinds has Christendom to answer for +in the same period? If the British Museum makes it a point to preserve a +copy of everything that is published, how long will it be before the +whole world will not be sufficient to contain the multitude thereof? At +present all the collections of the Museum, books, etc., occupy only +forty acres on the soil, and an average of two hundred feet towards the +sky. But even these outlines indicate a block of space which under +geometrical increase would in the shortest of geological periods make a +more complete conquest of the earth than has ever been made by fire or +water. To say nothing of the sorrows of the composition of these new +literary stores, how is man, whose years are threescore-and-ten, going +to read them? Surely the green earth will be transformed into a +wilderness of books, and man, reduced from the priest and interpreter of +Nature to a bookworm, will be like the beasts which perish. + +The eye of fancy lately witnessed in a dream the vision of an age far in +the future. The surface of the earth was covered with lofty rectangles, +built up coral-like from small rectangles. There was neither tree nor +herb nor living creature. Walled paths, excavated ruts, alone broke the +desert-like prospect, as the burrows of life. Penetrating into these, +the eye saw men walking beneath the striated piles, with heads bent +forward and nervous fingering of brow. There the whole world, such as we +have known it, was buried beneath volumes, past all enumeration. There +was neither fauna nor flora, neither wilderness, tempest, nor any +familiar look of Nature, but only one boundless contiguity of books. +There was only man and space and one unceasing library, and the men +neither ate nor slept nor spoke. Nature was transformed into the +processes and products of writing, and man was now no longer lover, +friend, peasant, merchant, naturalist, traveller, gourmet, mechanic, +warrior, worshipper, but only an author. All other faculties had been +lost to him, and all resources for anything else had fled from his +universe. Anon some wrinkled, fidgety, cogitative being in human form +would add a new volume to some slope or tower of the monstrous +omni-patulent mass, or some sharp-glancing youth, with teeth set +unevenly on edge, would pull out a volume, look greedily and +half-believingly for a few moments, return it, and slink away. "What is +this world, and what means this life?" cried I, addressing an old man, +who had just tossed a volume aloft. "Where are we, and what about this? +Tell me, for I have not before seen and do not know." He glanced a +moment, then spoke, like a shade in hell, as follows:--"This is the +world, and here is human life. Man long enjoyed it, with wonderful +fulness and freshness of being. But a madness seized him; everybody +wrote books; the evil grew more and more; nought else was an object of +pursuit; till at last the earth was covered with tomes, and for long +ages now it has been buried beyond the reach of mortal. All forms of +life were exterminated. Man himself survives only as a literary shadow. +Each one writes a book, or a few books, and dies, vanishing into thin +air. Such is life,--a hecatomb!" + +But even if it be supposed that mind could survive the toil, and the +earth the quantity of our accumulating books, there are other +difficulties. There are other imperative limitations, beyond which the +art of writing cannot go. Letters themselves limit the possibilities of +literature. For there is only a certain number of letters. These letters +are capable of only a certain number of combinations into words. This +limited number of possible words is capable only of a certain number of +arrangements. Conceive the effect when all these capabilities shall be +exhausted! It will no longer be possible for a new thing to be said or +written. We shall have only to select and repeat from the past. Writing +shall be reduced to the making of extracts, and speaking to the making +of quotations. Yet the condition of things would certainly be improved. +As there is now a great deal of writing without thinking, so then +thinking could go on without writing. A man would be obliged to think +out and up to his result, as we do now; but whether his processes and +conclusions were wise or foolish, he would find them written out for him +in advance. The process of selection would be all. The immense amount of +writing would cease. Authors would be extinct. Thinkers could find their +ideas stated in the best possible way, and the most effective arguments +in their favor. If this event seems at all unlikely to any one, let him +only reflect on the long geological ages, and on the innumerable +writings, short and long, now published daily,--from Mr. Buckle to the +newspapers. Estimate everything in type daily throughout Christendom. If +so much is done in a day, how much in a few decades of centuries? +Surely, at our present rate, in a very conceivable length of time, the +resources of two alphabets would be exhausted. And this may be the +reason and providence in the amount of writing now going on,--to get +human language written up. The earth is as yet not half explored, and +its cultivation and development, in comparison with what shall some time +be, have scarcely begun. Will not the race be blessed, when its two +mortal foes, Nature and the alphabet, have been finally and forever +subdued? + +This necessary finiteness of literature may be illustrated in another +way. An English mathematician of the seventeenth century applied the +resources of his art to an enumeration of human ideas. He believed that +he could calculate with rigorous exactness the number of ideas of which +the human mind is susceptible. This number, according to him, (and he +has never been disputed,) was 3,155,760,000. Even if we allowed +a million of words to one idea, according to our present +practice,--instead of a single word to an idea, which would seem +reasonable,--still, all the possible combinations of words and ideas +would finally be exhausted. The ideas would give out, to be sure, a +million of times before the words; but the latter would meet their doom +at last. All possible ideas would then be served up in all possible ways +for all men, who could order them according to their appetites, and we +could dispense with cooks ever after. The written word would be the +finished record of all possible worlds, in gross and in detail. + +But the problem whose solution has thus been attempted by desperate +suggestions has, by changing its elements, nullified our calculation. We +have been plotting to cast out the demon of books; and, lo! three other +kindred demons of quarterlies, monthlies, and newspapers have joined +fellowship with it, and our latter estate is worse than our first. +Indeed, we may anticipate the speedy fossilization and extinction of +books, while these younger broods alone shall occupy the earth. Our +libraries are already hardly more than museums, they will soon be +_mausoleums_, while all our reading is of the winged words of the +hurried contributor. Some of the most intelligent and influential men in +large cities do not read a book once a year. The Cadmean magic has +passed from the hands of hierophants into those of the people. +Literature has fallen from the domain of immortal thought to that of +ephemeral speech, from the conditions of a fine to those of a mechanical +art. The order of genius has been abolished by an all-prevailing popular +opinion. The elegance and taste of patient culture have been vulgarized +by forced contact with the unpresentable facts thrust upon us by the +ready writer. Everybody now sighs for the new periodical, while nobody +has read the literature of any single age in any single country. + +How like mountain-billows of barbarism do the morning journals, reeking +with unkempt facts, roll in upon the peaceful thought of the soul! How +like savage hordes from some remote star, some nebulous chaos, that has +never yet been recognized in the cosmical world, do they trample upon +the organic and divine growths of culture, laying waste the well-ordered +and fairly adorned fields of the mind, demolishing the intellectual +highways which great engineering thinkers have constructed within us, +and reducing a domain in which poetry and philosophy, with their sacred +broods, dwelt gloriously together, to an undistinguishable level of +ruin! How helpless are we before a newspaper! We sit down to it a highly +developed and highly civilized being; we leave it a barbarian. Step by +step, blow by blow, has everything that was nobly formed within us been +knocked down, and we are made illustrations of the atomic theory of the +soul, every atom being a separate savage, after the social theory of +Hobbes. We are crazed by a multitudinousness of details, till the eye +sees no picture, the ear hears no music, the taste finds no beauty, and +the reason grasps no system. The only wonder is that the diabolical +invention of Faust or Gutenberg has not already transformed the growths +of the mind into a fauna and flora of perdition. + +It was a sad barbarism when men ran wild with their own impulses, unable +to control the fierceness of instinct. It is a sadder barbarism when men +yield to every impulse from without, with no imperial dignity in the +soul, which closes the apartments against the violence of the world and +frowns away unseemly intruders. We have no spontaneous enthusiasm, no +spiritual independence, no inner being, obedient only to its own law. We +do not plough the billows of time with true beak and steady weight, but +float, a tossed cork, now one side up and now the other. We live the +life of an insect accidentally caught within a drum. Every steamer that +comes hits the drum a beat; every telegram taps it; it echoes with every +representative's speech, reverberates with every senator's more portly +effort, screams at every accident. Everything that is done in the +universe seems to be done only to make a noise upon it. Every morning, +whatsoever thing has been changed, and whatsoever thing has been +unchanged, during the night, comes up to batter its report on the +omni-audient tympanum of the universe, the drum-head of the press. And +then we are inside of it. It may be music to the gods who dwell beyond +the blue ether, but it is terrible confusion to us. + +Virgil exhausted the resources of his genius in his portraiture of +Fame:-- + + "Fama, malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum: + Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo: + Parva metu primo; mox sese attollit in auras, + Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit. + + *** *** *** *** + + Tot linguae, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit aures. + Nocte volat coeli medio terraeque per umbram + Stridens, nec dulci declinat lumina somno." + +What would he have done, had he known our modern monster, the +alphabet-tongued, steel-sinewed, kettle-lunged Rumor? It is a sevenfold +horror. The Virgilian Fame was not a mechanical, but a living thing; it +grew as it ran; it at least gave a poetical impression. Its story grew +as legends grow, full to the brim of the instincts of the popular +genius. It left its traces as it passed, and the minds of all who saw +and heard rested in delightful wonder till something new happened. But +the fact which printed Rumor throws through the atmosphere is coupled +not with, the beauty of poetry, but with the madness of dissertation. +Everybody is not only informed that the Jackats defeated the Magnats on +the banks of the Kaiger on the last day of last week, but this news is +conveyed to them in connection with a series of revelations about the +relations of said fact to the universe. The primordial germ is not +poetical, but dissertational. It tends to no organic creation, but to +any abnormal and multitudinous display of suggestions, hypotheses, and +prophecies. The item is shaped as it passes, not by the hopes and fears +of the soul, but grows by accumulation of the dull details of prose. We +have neither the splendid bewilderments of the twelfth, nor the cold +illumination of the eighteenth century, but bewilderments without +splendor, and coldness without illumination. The world is too wide-awake +for thought,--the atmosphere is too bright for intellectual +achievements. We have the wonders and sensations of a day; but where are +the fathomless profundities, the long contemplations, and the silent +solemnities of life? The newspapers are marvels of mental industry. They +show how much work can be done in a day, but they never last more than a +day. Sad will it be when the genius of ephemerality has invaded all +departments of human actions and human motives! Farewell then to deep +thoughts, to sublime self-sacrifice, to heroic labors for lasting +results! Time is turned into a day, the mind knows only momentary +impressions, the weary way of art is made as short as a turnpike, and +the products of genius last only about as long as any mood of the +weather. Bleak and changeable March will rule the year in the +intellectual heavens. + +What symbol could represent this matchless embodiment of all the +activities, this tremendous success, this frenzied public interest? A +monster so large, and yet so quick,--so much bulk combined with so much +readiness,--reaching so far, and yet striking so often! Who can conceive +that productive state of mind in which some current fact is all the time +whirling the universe about it? Who can understand the mania of the +leader-writer, who never thinks of a subject without discovering the +possibility of a column concerning it,--who never looks upon his plate +of soup without mentally reviewing in elaborate periods the whole +vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms? + +But what is the advantage of newspapers? Forsooth, popular intelligence. +The newspaper is, in the first place, the legitimate and improved +successor of the fiery cross, beacon-light, signal-smoking summit, +hieroglyphic mark, and bulletin-board. It is, in addition to this, a +popular daily edition and application of the works of Aristotle, St. +Thomas Aquinas, Lord Bacon, Vattel, and Thomas Jefferson. On one page it +records items, on the other it shows the relations between those items +and the highest thought. Yet the whole circle is accomplished daily. The +journal is thus the synopticized, personified, incarnate madness of the +day,--for to-day is always mad, and becomes a thing of reason only when +it becomes yesterday. A proper historical fact is one of the rarest +shots in the journalist's bag, as time is sure to prove. If we had +newspaper-accounts of the age of Augustus, the chances are that no other +epoch in history would be so absolutely problematical, and Augustus +himself would be lucky, if he were not resolved into a myth, and the +journal into sibylline oracles. The dissertational department is equally +faulty; for to first impressions everything on earth is chameleon-like. +The Scandinavian Divinities, the Past, the Present, and the Future, +could look upon each other, but neither of them upon herself. But in the +journal the Present is trying to behold itself; the same priestess +utters and explains the oracle. Thus the journal is the immortal +reproduction of the _jour des dupes_. The editors are like the newsboys, +shouting the news which they do not understand. + +The public mind has given itself up to it. It claims the right to +pronounce all the newspapers very bad, but has renounced the privilege +of not reading them. Every one is made _particeps criminis_ in the +course of events. Nothing takes place in any quarter of the globe +without our assistance. We have to connive at _omne scibile_. About +everything natural and human, infernal and divine, there is a general +consultation of mankind, and we are all made responsible for the result. +Yet this constant interruption of our private intellectual habits and +interests is both an impertinence and a nuisance. Why send us all the +crudities? Why call upon us till you know what you want? Why speak till +you have got your brain and your mouth clear? Why may we not take the +universe for granted when we get up in the morning, instead of +proceeding directly to measure it over again? Once a year is often +enough for anybody but the government to hear anything about India, +China, Patagonia, and the other flaps and coat-tails of the world. Let +the North Pole never be mentioned again till we can melt the icebergs by +a burning mirror before we start. Don't report another asteroid till the +number reaches a thousand; that will be time enough for us to change our +peg. Let us hear nothing of the small speeches, but Congress may publish +once a week a bulletin of what it has done. The President and Cabinet +may publish a bulletin, not to exceed five lines, twice a week, or on +rare occasions and in a public emergency once a day. The right, however, +shall be reserved to the people to prohibit the Cabinet from saying +anything more aloud on a particular public question, till they have +settled it. Let no mail-steamer pass between here and Europe oftener +than once a month,--let all other steamers be forbidden to bring news, +and the utterance of news by passengers be treated either as a public +libel or nuisance, or as high treason. Leave the awful accidents to the +parties whom they concern, and don't trouble us, unless they have the +merit of novelty as well as of horror. Tell us only the highest facts, +the boldest strokes, the critical moments of daily chaos, and save us +from multitudinous nonsense. + +There are some things which we like to keep out of the +newspapers,--whose dignity is rather increased by being saved from them. +There are certain momentary and local interests which have become shy of +the horn of the reporter. The leading movements in politics, the +advanced guard of scientific and artistic achievement, the most +interesting social phenomena rather increase than diminish their +importance by currency in certain circles instead of in the press. The +prestige of some events in metropolitan cities, a marriage or a party, +depends on their social repute, and they are ambitiously kept out of +the journalist's range. Moreover, in politics, a few leading men meet +together for consultation, and----but the mysteries of political +strategy are unknown here. Certainly the journalist has great influence +in them, but the clubs are centres of information and discussions of a +character and interest to which all that newspapers do is second-rate. +Science has never been popularized directly by the newspapers, but the +erudition of a _savant_ reaches to the people by creating an atmospheric +change, in which task the journals may have their influence. Rightly or +wrongly, the administration in civil affairs at Washington has not +listened to the press much, but it may be different when a new election +approaches. The social, political, scientific, and military Dii Majores +all depend on the journal for a part of their daily breakfast, but all +soar above it. + +A well-known and rather startling story describes a being, which seems +to have been neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, which a man made out of the +elements, by the use of his hands, and by the processes of chemistry, +and which at the last galvanic touch rushed forth from the laboratory, +and from the horrified eyes of its creator, an independent, scoffing, +remorseless, and inevitable enemy of him to whose rash ingenuity it owed +its origin. + +Such a creature symbolizes some of our human arts and initiations. Once +organized by genius and consecrated by precedent, they become mighty +elements in history, revelling amid the wealthy energy of life, +exhausting the forces of the intellect, clipping the tendrils of +affection, becoming colossal in the architecture of society and dorsal +in its traditions, and tyrannizing with the heedless power of an +element, to the horror of the pious soul which called it into existence, +over all departments of human activity. Such an art, having passed a +period of tameless and extravagant dominance, at length becomes a +fossil, and is regarded only as an evidence of social upheaving in a +remote and unaccountable age. + +To charge such a creature with monstrosity during the period of its +power is simply to expose one's self to popular jeers. Having immense +respect for majorities in this country, we only venture obscurely to +hint, that, of all arts, none before has ever been so threatening, +curious, and fascinating a monster as that of printing. We merely +suggest the hypothesis, novel since some centuries, that old Faustus and +Gutenberg were as much inspired by the Evil One as they have been fabled +to be, when they carved out of a mountain of ore the instrument yclept +type, to completely exhaust the possibilities of which is of late +announced as the sum of human destiny. They lived under the +hallucination of dawning literature, when printed books implied sacred +and classical perfection; and they could by no means have foreseen the +royal folios of the "New York Herald" and "Tribune," or the marvellous +inanities about the past, present, and future, which figure in an +indescribable list of duodecimo fiction, theology, and popular science. + +But there is nothing so useless as to protest against a universal +fashion. Every epoch must work out its own problem in its own way; and +it may be that it is appointed unto mankind to work through all possible +mistakes as the condition of finally attaining the truth. The only way +is, to encourage the spirit of every age, to hurry on the climax. The +practical _reductio ad absurdum_ and consequent explosion will soon +accomplish themselves. + +But a more palpable reason against protesting is, that literature in its +different branches, now as ever, commands the services of the finest +minds. It is the literary character, of which the elder Disraeli has +written the natural history, which now as ever creates the books, the +magazines, the newspapers. That sanctified bookworm was the first to +codify the laws, customs, habits, and idiosyncrasies of literary men. He +was the Justinian of the life of genius. He wandered in abstraction +through the deserted alcoves of libraries, studying and creating the +political economy of thought. What long diversities of character, what +mysterious realms of experience, what wild waywardness of heavenly +endowments, what heroism of inward struggle, what shyness towards +society, what devotion to the beckoning ideal of art, what defeats and +what triumphs, what sufferings and joys, both in excess, were revealed +by him, the great political economist of genius! In his apostolic view, +genius alone consecrated literature, and made a literary life sacred. +Genius was to him that peculiar and spontaneous devotion to letters +which made its possessor indifferent to everything else. For a man +without this heavenly stamp to engage in literature was simply for him +to rush upon his fate, and become a public nuisance. Literature in its +very nature is precarious, and must be plucked from the brink of fate, +from the mouth of the dragon. The literary man runs the risk of being +destroyed in a thousand ways. He has no track laid, no instituted aids, +no specified course of action. The machineries of life are not for him. +He enters into no one of the departments of human routine. He has no +relations with the course of the dull world; he is not quite a man, as +the world goes, and not at all an angel, as the celestials see. He must +be his own motive, path, and guide, his own priest, king, and law. The +world may be his footstool, and may be his slough of despond, but is +never his final end. His aims are transcendental, his realm is art, his +interests ideal, his life divine, his destiny immortal. All the old +theories of saintship are revived in him. He is in the world, but not of +it. Shadows of infinitude are his realities. He sees only the starry +universe, and the radiant depths of the soul. Martyrdom may desolate, +but cannot terrify him. If he be a genius, if his soul crave only his +idea, and his body fare unconsciously well on bread and water, then his +lot is happy, and fortune can present no ills which will not shrink +before his burning eye. But if he be less than this, he is lost, the +sport of devouring elements. As he fights fate on the border of ruin, so +much the more should he be animated by courage, ambition, pride, +purpose, and faith. To him literature is a high adventure, and +impossible as a profession. A profession is an instituted department of +action, resting upon universal and constant needs, and paying regular +dividends. But the fine arts must in their nature be lawless. +Appointments cannot be made for them any more than for the +thunder-storms which sweep the sky. They die when they cease to be wild. +Literary life, at its best, is a desperate play, but it is with guineas, +and not with coppers, to all who truly play it. Its elements would not +be finer, were they the golden and potent stars of alchemistic and +astrological dreams. + +Such was genius, and such was literature, in the representation of their +first great lawgiver. But the world has changed. The sad story of the +calamities of authors need not be repeated. We live in the age of +authors triumphant. By swiftly succeeding and countless publications +they occupy the eye of the world, and achieve happiness before their +death. The stratagems of literature mark no longer a struggle between +genius and the bailiffs. What was once a desperate venture is now a +lucrative business. What was once a martyrdom is now its own reward. +What once had saintly unearthliness is now a powerful motor among +worldly interests. What was once the fatality of genius is now the +aspiration of fools. The people have turned to reading, and have become +a more liberal patron than even the Athenian State, monastic order, or +noble lord. No longer does the literary class wander about the streets, +gingerbread in its coat-pockets, and rhymes written on scraps of paper +from the gutter in its waistcoat-pockets. No longer does it unequally +compete with clowns and jockeys for lordly recognition. No longer are +the poet and the fool court-rivals. No longer does it look forward to +the jail as an occasional natural resting-place and paradise. No longer +must the author renounce the rank and robe of a gentleman to fall from +airy regions far below the mechanical artists to the level of +clodhoppers, even whose leaden existence was a less precarious matter. +The order of scholars has ceased to be mendicant, vagabond, and eremite. +It no longer cultivates blossoms of the soul, but manufactures objects +of barter. Now is the happy literary epoch, when to be intellectual and +omniscient is the public and private duty of every man. To read +newspapers by the billion and books by the million is now the common +law. We can conceive of Disraeli moaning that the Titan interests of the +earth have overthrown the celestial hierarchy,--that the realm of genius +has been stormed by worldly workers,--that literature, like the angels, +has fallen from its first estate,--and that authors, no longer the +disinterested and suffering apostles, of art, have chosen rather to bear +the wand of power and luxury than to be inspired. We can imagine his +horror at the sacrilegious vulgarization of print, that people without +taste rush into angelic metre, that dunces and sages thrive together on +the public indiscrimination. How would he marvel to see literary +reputations born, grow old, and die within a season, the owners thereof +content to be damned or forgotten eternally for a moment's incense or an +equally fugitive shilling. Nectar and ambrosia mean to them only +meanness, larceny, sacrilege, and bread and butter. + +And yet, notwithstanding the imaginary reproaches of our great literary +church-father, the most preciously endowed minds are still toiling in +letters. The sad and tortured devotion of genius still works itself out +in them. Writing is now a marvellous craft and industry. The books which +last, the books of a season, the quarterlies, monthlies, weeklies, +dailies, and even the hourlies, are among the institutions of its +fostering. Nor should that vehicle, partly of intelligence, but chiefly +of sentiment, the postal system, be unmentioned, which men and women +both patronize, each after their kind. Altogether, perhaps, in some way +or other, seven-eighths of the life of man is taken up by the Cadmean +Art. The whole fair domain of learning belongs to it; for nowhere now, +in garden, grove, or Stoical Porch, with only the living voices of man +and Nature, do students acquaint themselves with the joyous solemnities, +the mysterious certainties of thought. The mind lives in a universe of +type. There is no other art in which so desperate adventures are made. +Indeed, the normal mental state of the abundant writer is a marvellous +phenomenon. The literary faculty is born of the marriage of chronic +desperation with chronic trust. This may account in part for that +peculiar condition of mind which is both engendered and required by +abundant writing. A bold abandon, a desperate guidance, a thoughtless +ratiocination, a mechanical swaying of rhetoric, are the grounds of +dissertation. A pause for a few days, a visit to the country, anything +that would seem designed to restore the mind to its normal state, +destroys the faculty. The weary penman, who wishes his chaotic head +could be relieved by being transformed even as by Puck, knows that very +whirling chaos is the condition of his multitudinous periods. It seems +as if some special sluices of the soul must be opened to force the pen. +One man, on returning to his desk from a four weeks' vacation, took up +an unfinished article which he had left, and marvelled that such writing +should ever have proceeded from him. He could hardly understand it, +still less could he conceive of the mental process by which he had once +created it. That process was a sort of madness, and the discipline of +newspapers is inflicting it alike upon writers and readers. +Demoralization is the result of a life-long devotion to the maddening +rumors of the day. It takes many a day to recall that fierce caprice, as +of an Oriental despot, with which he watches the tiger-fights of ideas, +and strikes off periods, as the tyrant strikes off heads. + +And while no other art commands so universal homage, no other is so +purely artificial, so absolutely unsymbolical. The untutored mind sees +nothing in a printed column. A library has no natural impressiveness. It +is not in the shape of anything in this world of infinite beauty. The +barbarians of Omri destroyed one without a qualm. They have occupied +apartments in seraglios, but the beauties have never feared them as +rivals. Of all human employments, writing is the farthest removed from +any touch of Nature. It is at most a symbolism twice dead and buried. +The poetry in it lies back of a double hypothesis. Supposing the +original sounds to have once been imitations of the voices of Nature, +those sounds have now run completely away from what they once +represented; and supposing that letters were once imitations of natural +signs, they have long since lost the resemblance, and have become +independent entities. Whatever else is done by human artifice has in it +some relic of Nature, some touch of life. Painting copies to the eye, +music charms the ear, and all the useful arts have something of the +aboriginal way of doing things about them. Even speech has a living +grace and power, by the play of the voice and eye, and by the billowy +flushes of the countenance. Mental energy culminates in its modulations, +while the finest physical features combine to make them a consummate +work of art. But all the musical, ocular, and facial beauties are absent +from writing. The savage knows, or could quickly guess, the use of the +brush or chisel, the shuttle or locomotive, but not of the pen. Writing +is the only dead art, the only institute of either gods or men so +artificial that the natural mind can discover nothing significant in it. + +For instance, take one of the disputed statements of the Nicene Creed, +examine it by the nicest powers of the senses, study it upwards, +downwards, and crosswise, experiment to learn if it has any mysterious +chemical forces in it, consider its figures in relation to any +astrological positions, to any natural signs of whirlwinds, tempests, +plagues, famine, or earthquakes, try long to discover some hidden +symbolism in it, and confess finally that no man unregenerate to +letters, by any _a priori_ or empirical knowledge, could have at all +suspected that a bit of dirty parchment, with an ecclesiastical scrawl +upon it, would have power to drive the currents of history, inspire +great national passions, and impel the wars and direct the ideas of an +epoch. The conflicts of the iconoclasts can be understood even by a +child in its first meditations over a picture-book; hieroglyphics may +represent or suggest their objects by some natural association; but the +literary scrawl has a meaning only to the initiated. A book is the +prince of witch-work. Everything is contained in it; but even a superior +intelligence would have to go to school to get the key to its mysterious +treasures. + +And as the art is thus removed from Nature, so its devotees withdraw +themselves from life. Of no other class so truly as of writers can it be +said that they sacrifice the real to the ideal, life to fame. They +conquer the world by renouncing it. Its fleeting pleasures, its +enchantment of business or listlessness, its social enjoyments, the +vexations and health-giving bliss of domestic life, and all wandering +tastes, must be forsaken. A power which pierces, and an ambition which +enjoys the future, accepts the martyrdom of the present. They feel +loneliness in their own age, while with universal survey viewing the +beacon-lights of history across the peaks of generations. Their seat of +life is the literary faculty, and they prune and torture themselves only +to maintain in this the highest intensity and capacity. They are in some +sort rebels battling against time, not the humble well-doer content +simply to live and bless God. Between them and living men there is the +difference which exists between analytical and geometrical mathematics: +the former has to do with signs, the latter with realities. The former +contains the laws of the physical world, but a man may know and use +them like an adept, and yet be ignorant of physics. He may know all +there is of algebra, without seeing that the universe is masked in it. +The signs would be not means, but ultimates to it. So a writer may never +penetrate through the veil of language to the realities behind,--may +know only the mechanism, and not the spirit of learning and literature. +His mind is then skeleton-like,--his thought is the shadow of a shade. + +And yet is not life greater than art? Why transform real ideas and +sentiments into typographical fossils? Why have we forgotten the theory +of human life as a divine vegetation? Why not make our hearts the focus +of the lights which we strive to catch in books? Why should the wealthy +passivity of the Oriental genius be so little known among us? Why +conceive of success only as an outward fruit plucked by conscious +struggle? Banish books, banish reading, and how much time and strength +would be improvised in which to benefit each other! We might become +ourselves embodiments of all the truth and beauty and goodness now +stagnant in libraries, and might spread their aroma through the social +atmosphere. The dynamics would supplant the mechanics of the soul. In +the volume of life the literary man knows only the indexes; but he would +then be introduced to the radiant, fragrant, and buoyant contents, to +the beauty and the mystery, to the great passions and long +contemplations. The eternal spicy breeze would transform the leaden +atmosphere of his thought. An outlaw of the universe for his sins, he +would then be restored to the realities of the heart and mind. He would +then for the first time discover the difference between skill and +knowledge. Readers and writers would then be succeeded by human beings. +The golden ante-Cadmean age would come again. Literary sanctity having +become a tradition, there would be an end of its pretentious +counterfeits. The alphabet, decrepit with its long and vast labors, +would at last be released. The whole army of writers would take their +place among the curiosities of history. The Alexandrian thaumaturgists, +the Byzantine historians, the scholastic dialecticians, the serial +novelists, and the daily dissertationists, strung together, would make a +glittering chain of monomaniacs. Social life is a mutual joy; reading +may be rarely indulged without danger to sanity; but writing, unless the +man have genius, is but creating new rubbish, the nucleus of new deltas +of obstruction, till the river of life shall lose its way to the ocean, +and the Infinite be shut out altogether. The old bibliopole De Bury +flattered himself that he admired wisdom because it purchaseth such vast +delight. He had in mind the luxury of reading, and did not think that in +this world wisdom always hides its head or goes to the stake. Even if +literature were not to be abolished altogether, it is safe to think that +the world would be better off, if there were less writing. There should +be a division of labor; some should read and write, as some ordain laws, +create philosophies, tend shops, make chairs,--but why should everybody +dabble with literature? + +In all hypotheses as to the more remote destiny of literature, we can +but be struck by the precariousness of its existence. It is art +imperishable and ever-changing material. A fire once extinguished +perhaps half the world's literature, and struck thousands from the list +of authors. The forgetfulness of mankind in the mysterious mediaeval age; +diminished by more than half the world of books. There are many books +which surely, and either rapidly or slowly, resolve themselves into the +elements, but the process cannot be seen. A whole army of books perishes +with every revolution of taste. And yet the amount of current writing +surpasses the strength of man's intellect or the length of his years. +Surely, the press is very much of a nuisance as well as a blessing. Its +products are getting very much in the way, and the impulse of the world +is too strong to allow itself to be clogged by them. Something must be +done. + +Among possibilities, let the following be suggested. The world may +perhaps return from unsymbolical to symbolical writing. There is a +science older than anything but shadowy traditions, and immemorially +linked with religion, poetry, and art. It is the almost forgotten +science of symbolism. Symbols, as compared with letters, are a higher +and more potent style of expression. They are the earthly shadows of +eternal truth. It is the language of the fine arts, of painting, +sculpture, the stage,--it will be the language of life, when, rising in +the scale of being, we shall return from the dead sea of literature to +the more energetic algebra of symbolical meanings. In these, the forms +of the reason and of Nature come into visible harmony; the hopes of man +find their shadows in the struggles of the universe, and the lights of +the spirit cluster myriad-fold around the objects of Nature. Let +Phoenician language be vivified into the universal poetry of +symbolism, and thought would then become life, instead of the ghost of +life. Current literature would give way to a new and true mythology; +authors and editors would suffer a transformation similar to that of +type-setters into artists, and of newsboys into connoisseurs; and the +figures of a noble humanity would fill the public mind, no longer +confused and degraded by the perpetual vision of leaden and unsuggestive +letters. From that time prose would be extinct, and poetry would be all +in all. History would renew its youth,--would find, after the struggles, +attainments, and developments of its manhood, that there is after all +nothing wiser in thought, no truer law, than the instincts of childhood. + +Or, again: improvements have already been made which promise as an +ultimate result to transform the largest library into a miniature for +the pocket. Stenography may yet reach to a degree that it will be able +to write folios on the thumb-nail, and dispose all the literature of the +world comfortably in a gentleman's pocket, before he sets out on his +summer excursion. The contents of vast tomes, bodies of history and of +science, may be so reduced that the eye can cover them at a glance, and +the process of reading be as rapid as that of thought The mind, instead +of wearying of slow perusal, would have to spur its lightning to keep +pace with the eye. Many books are born of mere vagueness and cloudiness +of thought. All such, when thus compressed into their reality, would go +out in eternal night. There is something overpowering in the conception +of the high pressure to which life in all its departments may some time +be brought. The mechanism of reading and writing would be slight. The +mental labor of comprehending would be immense. The mind, instead of +being subdued, would be spurred, by what it works in. We are now cramped +and checked by the overwhelming amount of linguistic red-tape in which +we have to operate; but then men, freed from these bonds, the husks of +thought almost all thrown away, would be purer, live faster, do greater, +die younger. What magnificent physical improvements, we may suppose, +will then aid the powers of the soul! The old world would then be +subdued, nevermore to strike a blow at its lithe conqueror, man. The +department of the newspaper, with inconceivable photographic and +telegraphic resources, may then be extended to the solar or the stellar +systems, and the turmoils of all creation would be reported at our +breakfast-tables. Men would rise every morning to take an intelligible +account of the aspects and the prospects of the universe. + +Or, once more: shall we venture into the speculative domain of the +philosophy of history, and give the rationale of our times? What is the +divine mission of the great marvel of our age, namely, its periodical +and fugitive literature? The intellectual and moral world of mankind +reforms itself at the outset of new civilizations, as Nature reforms +itself at every new geological epoch. The first step toward a reform, as +toward a crystallization, is a solution. There was a solvent period +between the unknown Orient and the greatness of Greece, between the +Classic and the Middle Ages,--and now humanity is again solvent, in the +transition from the traditions which issued out of feudalism to the +novelty of democratic crystallization. But as the youth of all animals +is prolonged in proportion to their dignity in the scale of being, so is +it with the children of history. Destiny is the longest-lived of all +things. We are not going to accomplish it all at once. We have got to +fight for it, to endure the newspapers in behalf of it. We are in a +place where gravitation changing goes the other way. For the first time, +all reigning ideas now find their focus in the popular mind. The giant +touches the earth to recover his strength. History returns to the +people. After two thousand years, popular intelligence is again to be +revived. And under what new conditions? We live in a telescopic, +microscopic, telegraphic universe, all the elements of which are brought +together under the combined operation of fire and water, as erst, in +primitive Nature, vulcanic and plutonic forces struggled together in the +face of heaven and hell to form the earth. The long ranges of history +have left with us one definite idea: it is that of progress, the +intellectual passion of our time. All our science demonstrates it, all +our poetry sings it. Democracy is the last term of political progress. +Popular intelligence and virtue are the conditions of democracy. To +produce these is the mission of periodical literature. The vast +complexities of the world, all knowledge and all purpose, are being +reduced in the crucible of the popular mind to a common product. +Knowledge lives neither in libraries nor in rare minds, but in the +general heart. Great men are already mythical, and great ideas are +admitted only so far as we, the people, can see something in them. By no +great books or long treatises, but by a ceaseless flow of brevities and +repetitions, is the pulverized thought of the world wrought into the +soul. It is amazing how many significant passages in history and in +literature are reproduced in the essays of magazines and the leaders of +newspapers by allusion and illustration, and by constant iteration +beaten into the heads of the people. The popular mind is now feeding +upon and deriving tone from the best things that literary commerce can +produce from the whole world, past and present. There is no finer +example of the popularization of science than Agassiz addressing the +American people through the columns of a monthly magazine. Of the +popular heart which used to rumble only about once in a century the +newspapers are now the daily organs. They are creating an organic +general mind, the soil for future grand ideas and institutes. As the +soul reaches a higher stage in its destiny than ever before, the +scaffolding by which it has risen is to be thrown aside. The quality of +libraries is to be transferred to the soul. Spiritual life is now to +exert its influence directly, without the mechanism of letters,--is +going to exert itself through the social atmosphere,--and all history +and thought are to be perpetuated and to grow, not in books, but in +minds. + +And yet, though we thus justify contemporary writing, we can but think, +that, after long ages of piecemeal and _bon-mot_ literature, we shall at +length return to serious studies, vast syntheses, great works. The +nebulous world of letters shall be again concentred into stars. The +epoch of the printing-press has run itself nearly through; but a new +epoch and a new art shall arise, by which the achievements and the +succession of genius shall be perpetuated. + + + + +THE BRIDGE OF CLOUD. + + + Burn, O evening hearth, and waken + Pleasant visions, as of old! + Though the house by winds be shaken, + Safe I keep this room of gold! + + Ah, no longer wizard Fancy + Builds its castles in the air, + Luring me by necromancy + Up the never-ending stair! + + But, instead, it builds me bridges + Over many a dark ravine, + Where beneath the gusty ridges + Cataracts dash and roar unseen. + + And I cross them, little heeding + Blast of wind or torrent's roar, + As I follow the receding + Footsteps that have gone before. + + Nought avails the imploring gesture, + Nought avails the cry of pain! + When I touch the flying vesture, + 'Tis the gray robe of the rain. + + Baffled I return, and, leaning + O'er the parapets of cloud, + Watch the mist that intervening + Wraps the valley in its shroud. + + And the sounds of life ascending + Faintly, vaguely, meet the ear, + Murmur of bells and voices blending + With the rush of waters near. + + Well I know what there lies hidden, + Every tower and town and farm, + And again the land forbidden + Reassumes its vanished charm. + + Well I know the secret places, + And the nests in hedge and tree; + At what doors are friendly faces, + In what hearts a thought of me. + + Through the mist and darkness sinking, + Blown by wind and beaten by shower, + Down I fling the thought I'm thinking, + Down I toss this Alpine flower. + + + + +THE ELECTRIC GIRL OF LA PERRIERE. + + +Eighteen years ago there occurred in one of the provinces of +France a case of an abnormal character, marked by extraordinary +phenomena,--interesting to the scientific, and especially to the medical +world. The authentic documents in this case are rare; and though the +case itself is often alluded to, its details have never, so far as I +know, been reproduced from these documents in an English dress, or +presented in trustworthy form to the American public. It occurred in the +Commune of La Perriere, situated in the Department of Orne, in January, +1846. + +It was critically observed, at the time, by Dr. Verger, an intelligent +physician of Bellesme, a neighboring town. He details the result of his +observations in two letters addressed to the "Journal du +Magnetisme,"--one dated January 29, the other February 2, 1846.[1] The +editor of that journal, M. Hebert, (de Garny,) himself repaired to the +spot, made the most minute researches into the matter, and gives us the +result of his observations and inquiries in a report, also published in +the "Journal du Magnetisme."[2] A neighboring proprietor, M. Jules de +Faremont, followed up the case with care, from its very commencement, +and has left on record a detailed report of his observations.[3] +Finally, after the girl's arrival in Paris, Dr. Tanchon carefully +studied the phenomena, and has given the results in a pamphlet published +at the time.[4] He it was, also, who addressed to M. Arago a note on the +subject, which was laid before the Academy by that distinguished man, at +their session of February 16, 1846.[5] Arago himself had then seen the +girl only a few minutes, but even in that brief time had verified a +portion of the phenomena. + +Dr. Tanchon's pamphlet contains fourteen letters, chiefly from medical +men and persons holding official positions in Bellesme, Mortagne, and +other neighboring towns, given at length and signed by the writers, all +of whom examined the girl, while yet in the country. Their testimony is +so circumstantial, so strictly concurrent in regard to all the main +phenomena, and so clearly indicative of the care and discrimination with +which the various observations were made, that there seems no good +reason, unless we find such in the nature of the phenomena themselves, +for refusing to give it credence. Several of the writers expressly +affirm the accuracy of M. Hebert's narrative, and all of them, by the +details they furnish, corroborate it. Mainly from that narrative, aided +by some of the observations of M. de Faremont, I compile the following +brief statement of the chief facts in this remarkable case. + +Angelique Cottin, a peasant-girl fourteen years of age, robust and in +good health, but very imperfectly educated and of limited intelligence, +lived with her aunt, the widow Loisnard, in a cottage with an earthen +floor, close to the Chateau of Monti-Mer, inhabited by its proprietor, +already mentioned, M. de Faremont. + +The weather, for eight days previous to the fifteenth of January, 1846, +had been heavy and tempestuous, with constantly recurring storms of +thunder and lightning. The atmosphere was charged with electricity. + +On the evening of that fifteenth of January, at eight o'clock, while +Angelique, in company with three other young girls, was at work, as +usual, in her aunt's cottage, weaving ladies' silk-net gloves, the +frame, made of rough oak and weighing about twenty-five pounds, to +which was attached the end of the warp, was upset, and the candlestick +on it thrown to the ground. The girls, blaming each other as having +caused the accident, replaced the frame, relighted the candle, and went +to work again. A second time the frame was thrown down. Thereupon the +children ran away, afraid of a thing so strange, and, with the +superstition common to their class, dreaming of witchcraft. The +neighbors, attracted by their cries, refused to credit their story. So, +returning, but with fear and trembling, two of them at first, afterwards +a third, resumed their occupation, without the recurrence of the +alarming phenomenon. But as soon as the girl Cottin, imitating her +companions, had touched her warp, the frame was agitated again, moved +about, was upset, and then thrown violently back. The girl was drawn +irresistibly after it; but as soon as she touched it, it moved still +farther away. + +Upon this the aunt, thinking, like the children, that there must be +sorcery in the case, took her niece to the parsonage of La Perriere, +demanding exorcism. The curate, an enlightened man, at first laughed at +her story; but the girl had brought her glove with her, and fixing it to +a kitchen-chair, the chair, like the frame, was repulsed and upset, +without being touched by Angelique. The curate then sat down on the +chair; but both chair and he were thrown to the ground in like manner. +Thus practically convinced of the reality of a phenomenon which he could +not explain, the good man reassured the terrified aunt by telling her it +was some bodily disease, and, very sensibly, referred the matter to the +physicians. + +The next day the aunt related the above particulars to M. de Faremont; +but for the time the effects had ceased. Three days later, at nine +o'clock, that gentleman was summoned to the cottage, where he verified +the fact that the frame was at intervals thrown back from Angelique with +such force, that, when exerting his utmost strength and holding it with +both hands, he was unable to prevent its motion. He observed that the +motion was partly rotary, from left to right. He particularly noticed +that the girl's feet did not touch the frame, and that, when it was +repulsed, she seemed drawn irresistibly after it, stretching out her +hands, as if instinctively, towards it. It was afterwards remarked, +that, when a piece of furniture or other object, thus acted upon by +Angelique, was too heavy to be moved, she herself was thrown back, as if +by the reaction of the force upon her person. + +By this time the cry of witchcraft was raised in the neighborhood, and +public opinion had even designated by name the sorcerer who had cast the +spell. On the twenty-first of January the phenomena increased in +violence and in variety. A chair on which the girl attempted to sit +down, though held by three strong men, was thrown off, in spite of their +efforts, to several yards' distance. Shovels, tongs, lighted firewood, +brushes, books, were all set in motion when the girl approached them. A +pair of scissors fastened to her girdle was detached, and thrown into +the air. + +On the twenty-fourth of January, M. de Faremont took the child and her +aunt in his carriage to the small neighboring town of Mamers. There, +before two physicians and several ladies and gentlemen, articles of +furniture moved about on her approach. And there, also, the following +conclusive experiment was tried by M. de Faremont. + +Into one end of a ponderous wooden block, weighing upwards of a hundred +and fifty pounds, he caused a small hook to be driven. To this he made +Angelique fix her silk. As soon as she sat down and her frock touched +the block, the latter _was instantly raised three or four inches from +the ground; and this was repeated as much as forty times in a minute_. +Then, after suffering the girl to rest, M. de Faremont seated himself on +the block, and was elevated in the same way. Then _three men placed +themselves upon it, and were raised also_, only not quite so high. "It +is certain," says M. de Faremont, "that I and one of the most athletic +porters of the Halle could not have lifted that block with the three +persons seated on it."[6] + +Dr. Verger came to Mamers to see Angelique, whom, as well as her family, +he had previously known. On the twenty-eighth of January, in the +presence of the curate of Saint Martin and of the chaplain of the +Bellesme hospital, the following incident occurred. As the child could +not sew without pricking herself with the needle, nor use scissors +without wounding her hands, they set her to shelling peas, placing a +large basket before her. As soon as her dress touched the basket, and +she reached her hand to begin work, the basket was violently repulsed, +and the peas projected upwards and scattered over the room. This was +twice repeated, under the same circumstances. Dr. Lemonnier, of Saint +Maurice, testifies to the same phenomenon, as occurring in his presence +and in that of the Procurator Royal of Mortagne;[7] he noticed that the +left hand produced the greater effect. He adds, that, he and another, +gentleman having endeavored, with all their strength, to hold a chair on +which Angelique sat down, it was violently forced from them, and one of +its legs broken. + +On the thirtieth of January, M. de Faremont tried the effect of +isolation. When, by means of dry glass, he isolated the child's feet and +the chair on which she sat, the chair ceased to move, and she remained +perfectly quiet. M. Olivier, government engineer, tried a similar +experiment, with the same results.[8] A week later, M. Hebert, repeating +this experiment, discovered that isolation of the chair was unnecessary; +it sufficed to isolate the girl.[9] Dr. Beaumont, vicar of +Pin-la-Garenne, noticed a fact, insignificant in appearance, yet quite +as conclusive as were the more violent manifestations, as to the reality +of the phenomena. Having moistened with saliva the scattered hairs on +his own arm, so that they lay flattened, attached to the epidermis, when +he approached his arm to the left arm of the girl, the hairs instantly +erected themselves. M. Hebert repeated the same experiment several +times, always with a similar result.[10] + +M. Olivier also tried the following. With a stick of sealing-wax, which +he had subjected to friction, he touched the girl's arm, and it gave her +a considerable shock; but touching her with another similar stick, that +had not been rubbed, she experienced no effect whatever.[11] Yet when M. +de Faremont, on the nineteenth of January, tried the same experiment +with a stick of sealing-wax and a glass tube, well prepared by rubbing, +he obtained no effect whatever. So also a pendulum of light pith, +brought into close proximity to her person at various points, was +neither attracted nor repulsed, in the slightest degree.[12] + +Towards the beginning of February, Angelique was obliged, for several +days, to eat standing; she could not sit down on a chair. This fact Dr. +Verger repeatedly verified. Holding her by the arm to prevent accident, +the moment she touched the chair it was projected from under her, and +she would have fallen but for his support. At such times, to take rest, +she had to seat herself on the floor, or on a stone provided for the +purpose. + +On one such occasion, "she approached," says M. de Faremont, "one of +those rough, heavy bedsteads used by the peasantry, weighing, with the +coarse bedclothes, some three hundred pounds, and sought to lie down on +it. The bed shook and oscillated in an incredible manner; no force that +I know of is capable of communicating to it such a movement. Then she +went to another bed, which was raised from the ground on wooden rollers, +six inches in diameter; and it was immediately thrown off the rollers." +All this M. de Faremont personally witnessed.[13] + +On the evening of the second of February, Dr. Verger received Angelique +into his house. On that day and the next, upwards of one thousand +persons came to see her. The constant experiments, which on that +occasion were continued into the night, so fatigued the poor girl that +the effects were sensibly diminished. Yet even then a small table +brought near to her was thrown down so violently that it broke to +pieces. It was of cherry-wood and varnished. + +"In a general way," says Dr. Beaumont-Chardon, "I think the effects were +more marked with me than with others, because I never evinced suspicion, +and spared her all suffering; and I thought I could observe, that, +although her powers were not under the control of her will, yet they +were greatest when her mind was at ease, and she was in good +spirits."[14] It appeared, also, that on waxed, or even tiled floors, +but more especially on carpets, the effects were much less than on an +earthen floor like that of the cottage where they originally showed +themselves. + +At first wooden furniture seemed exclusively affected; but at a later +period metal also, as tongs and shovels, though in a less degree, +appeared to be subjected to this extraordinary influence. When the +child's powers were the most active, actual contact was not necessary. +Articles of furniture and other small objects moved, if she accidentally +approached them. + +Up to the sixth of February she had been visited by more than two +thousand persons, including distinguished physicians from the towns of +Bellesme and Mortagne, and from all the neighborhood, magistrates, +lawyers, ecclesiastics, and others. Some gave her money. + +Then, in an evil hour, listening to mercenary suggestion, the parents +conceived the idea that the poor girl might be made a source of +pecuniary gain; and notwithstanding the advice and remonstrance of her +true friends, M. de Faremont, Dr. Verger, M. Hebert, and others, her +father resolved to exhibit her in Paris and elsewhere. + +On the road they were occasionally subjected to serious annoyances. The +report of the marvels above narrated had spread far and wide; and the +populace, by hundreds, followed the carriage, hooting and abusing the +sorceress. + +Arrived at the French metropolis, they put up at the Hotel de Rennes, +No. 23, Rue des Deux-Ecus. There, on the evening of the twelfth of +February, Dr. Tanchon saw Angelique for the first time. + +This gentleman soon verified, among other phenomena, the following. A +chair, which he held firmly with both hands, was forced back as soon as +she attempted to sit down; a middle-sized dining-table was displaced and +repulsed by the touch of her dress; a large sofa, on which Dr. Tanchon +was sitting, was pushed violently to the wall, as soon as the child sat +down beside him. The Doctor remarked, that, when a chair was thrown back +from under her, her clothes seemed attracted by it, and adhered to it, +until it was repulsed beyond their reach; that the power was greater +from the left hand than from the right, and that the former was warmer +than the latter, and often trembled, agitated by unusual contractions; +that the influence emanating from the girl was intermittent, not +permanent, being usually most powerful from seven till nine o'clock in +the evening, possibly influenced by the principal meal of the day, +dinner, taken at six o'clock; that, if the girl was cut off from contact +with the earth, either by placing her feet on a non-conductor or merely +by keeping them raised from the ground, the power ceased, and she could +remain seated quietly; that, during the paroxysm, if her left hand +touched any object, she threw it from her as if it burned her, +complaining that it pricked her, especially on the wrist; that, +happening one day to touch accidentally the nape of her neck, the girl +ran from him, crying out with pain; and that repeated observation +assured him of the fact that there was, in the region of the +cerebellum, and at the point where the superior muscles of the neck are +inserted in the cranium, a point so acutely sensitive that the child +would not suffer there the lightest touch; and, finally, that the girl's +pulse, often irregular, usually varied from one hundred and five to one +hundred and twenty beats a minute. + +A curious observation made by this physician was, that, at the moment of +greatest action, a cool breeze, or gaseous current, seemed to flow from +her person. This he felt on his hand, as distinctly as one feels the +breath during an ordinary expiration.[15] + +He remarked, also, that the intermittence of the child's power seemed to +depend in a measure on her state of mind. She was often in fear lest +some one should touch her from behind; the phenomena themselves agitated +her; in spite of a month's experience, each time they occurred she drew +back, as if alarmed. And all such agitations seemed to diminish her +power. When she was careless, and her mind was diverted to something +else, the demonstrations were always the most energetic. + +From the north pole of a magnet, if it touched her finger, she received +a sharp shock; while the contact of the south pole produced upon her no +effect whatever. This effect was uniform; and the girl could always tell +which pole touched her. + +Dr. Tanchon ascertained from the mother that no indications of puberty +had yet manifested themselves in her daughter's case. + +Such is a summary of the facts, embodied in a report drawn up by Dr. +Tanchon on the fifteenth of February. He took it with him on the evening +of the sixteenth to the Academy of Sciences, and asked M. Arago if he +had seen the electric girl, and if he intended to bring her case that +evening to the notice of the Academy. Arago replied to both questions in +the affirmative, adding,--"If you have seen her, I shall receive from +you with pleasure any communication you may have to make." + +Dr. Tanchon then read to him the report; and at the session of that +evening, Arago presented it, stated what he himself had seen, and +proposed that a committee should be appointed to examine the case. His +statement was received by his audience with many expressions of +incredulity; but they acceded to his suggestion by naming, from the +members of the Academy, a committee of six. + +It appears that Arago had had but a single opportunity, and for the +brief space of less than half an hour, of witnessing the phenomena to +which he referred. M. Cholet, the speculator who advanced to her parents +the money necessary to bring Angelique to Paris, had taken the girl and +her parents to the Observatory, where Arago then was, who, at the +earnest instance of Cholet, agreed to test the child's powers at once. +There were present on this occasion, besides Arago, MM. Mathieu and +Laugier, and an astronomer of the Observatory, named M. Goujon. + +The experiment of the chair perfectly succeeded. It was projected with +great violence against the wall, while the girl was thrown on the other +side. This experiment was repeated several times by Arago himself, and +each time with the same result. He could not, with all his force, hinder +the chair from being thrown back. Then MM. Goujon and Laugier attempted +to hold it, but with as little success. Finally, M. Goujon seated +himself first on half the chair, and at the moment when Angelique was +taking her seat beside him the chair was thrown down. + +When Angelique approached a small table, at the instant that her apron +touched it, it was repulsed. + +These particulars were given in all the medical journals of the day,[16] +as well as in the "Journal des Debats" of February 18, and the "Courrier +Francais" of February 19, 1846. + +The minutes of the session of the Academy touch upon them in the most +studiously brief and guarded manner. They say, the sitting lasted only +some minutes. They admit, however, the main fact, namely, that the +movements of the chair, occurring as soon as Angelique seated herself +upon it, were most violent ("_d'une extreme violence_"). But as to the +other experiment, they allege that M. Arago did not clearly perceive the +movement of the table by the mere intervention of the girl's apron, +though the other observers did.[17] It is added, that the girl produced +no effect on the magnetic needle. + +Some accounts represent Arago as expressing himself much more decidedly. +He may have done so, in addressing the Academy; but I find no official +record of his remarks. + +He did not assist at the sittings of the committee that had been +appointed at his suggestion; but he signed their report, having +confidence, as he declared, in their judgment, and sharing their +mistrust. + +That report, made on the ninth of March, is to the effect, that they +witnessed no repulsive agency on a table or similar object; that they +saw no effect produced by the girl's arm on a magnetic needle; that the +girl did not possess the power to distinguish between the two poles of a +magnet; and, finally, that the only result they obtained was sudden and +violent movements of chairs on which the child was seated. They add, +"Serious suspicions having arisen as to the manner in which these +movements were produced, the committee decided to submit them to a +strict examination, declaring, in plain terms, that they would endeavor +to discover what part certain adroit and concealed manoeuvres of the +hands and feet had in their production. From that moment we were +informed that the young girl had lost her attractive and repulsive +powers, and that we should be notified when they reappeared. Many days +have elapsed; no notice has been sent us; yet we learn that Mademoiselle +Cottin daily exhibits her experiments in private circles." And they +conclude by recommending "that the communications addressed to them in +her case be considered _as not received_" ("_comme non avenues_"). In a +word, they officially branded the poor girl as an impostor. + +That, without any inquiry into the antecedents of the patient, without +the slightest attempt to obtain from those medical men who had followed +up the case from its commencement what they had observed, and that, in +advance of the strict examination which it was their duty to make, they +should insult the unfortunate girl by declaring that they intended to +find out the tricks with which she had been attempting to deceive +them,--all this is not the less lamentable because it is common among +those, who sit in the high places of science. + +If these Academicians had been moved by a simple love of truth, not +urged by a self-complacent eagerness to display their own sagacity, they +might have found a more probable explanation of the cessation, after +their first session, of some of Angelique's chief powers. + +Such an explanation is furnished to us by Dr. Tanchon, who was present, +by invitation, at the sittings of the committee. + +He informs us that, at their first sitting, held at the Jardin des +Plantes, on the seventeenth of February, after the committee had +witnessed, twice repeated, the violent displacement of a chair held with +all his strength by one of their number, (M. Rayet,) instead of +following up similar experiments and patiently waiting to observe the +phenomena as they presented themselves, they proceeded at once to +satisfy their own preconceptions. They brought Angelique into contact +with a voltaic battery. Then they placed on the bare arm of the child a +dead frog, anatomically prepared after the manner of Matteucci, that is, +the skin removed, and the animal dissected so as to expose the lumbar +nerves. By a galvanic current, they caused this frog to move, apparently +to revive, on the girl's arm. The effect upon her may be imagined. The +ignorant child, terrified out of her senses, spoke of nothing else the +rest of the day, dreamed of dead frogs coming to life all night, and +began to talk eagerly about it again the first thing the next +morning.[18] From that time her attractive and repulsive powers +gradually declined. + +In addition to the privilege of much accumulated learning, in addition +to the advantages of varied scientific research, we must have something +else, if we would advance yet farther in true knowledge. We must be +imbued with a simple, faithful spirit, not presuming, not preoccupied. +We must be willing to sit down at the feet of Truth, humble, patient, +docile, single-hearted. We must not be wise in our own conceit; else the +fool's chance is better than ours, to avoid error, and distinguish +truth. + +M. Cohu, a medical man of Mortagne, writing, in March, 1846, in reply to +some inquiries of Dr. Tanchon, after stating that the phenomenon of the +chair, repeatedly observed by himself, had been witnessed also by more +than a thousand persons, adds,--"It matters not what name we may give to +this; the important point is, to verify the reality of a repulsive +agency, and of one that is distinctly marked; the effects it is +impossible to deny. We may assign to this agency what seat we please, in +the cerebellum, in the pelvis, or elsewhere; the _fact_ is material, +visible, incontestable. Here in the Province, Sir, we are not very +learned, but we are often very mistrustful. In the present case we have +examined, reexamined, taken every possible precaution against deception; +and the more we have seen, the deeper has been our conviction of the +reality of the phenomenon. Let the Academy decide as it will. _We have +seen_; it has not seen. We are, therefore, in a condition to decide +better than it can, I do not say what cause was operating, but what +effects presented themselves, under circumstances that remove even the +shadow of a doubt."[19] + +M. Hebert, too, states a truth of great practical value, when he +remarks, that, in the examination of phenomena of so fugitive and +seemingly capricious a character, involving the element of vitality, and +the production of which at any given moment depends not upon us, we +"ought to accommodate ourselves to the nature of the fact, not insist +that it should accommodate itself to us." + +For myself, I do not pretend to offer any positive opinion as to what +was ultimately the real state of the case. I do not assume to determine +whether the attractive and repulsive phenomena, after continuing for +upwards of a month, happened to be about to cease at the very time the +committee began to observe them,--or whether the harsh suspicious and +terror-inspiring tests of these gentlemen so wrought on the nervous +system of an easily daunted and superstitious girl, that some of her +abnormal powers, already on the wane, presently disappeared,--or whether +the poor child, it may be at the instigation of her parents, left +without the means of support,[20] really did at last simulate phenomena +that once were real, manufacture a counterfeit of what was originally +genuine. I do not take upon myself to decide between these various +hypotheses. I but express my conviction, that, for the first few weeks +at least, the phenomena actually occurred,--and that, had not the +gentlemen of the Academy been very unfortunate or very injudicious, +they could not have failed to perceive their reality. And I seek in vain +some apology for the conduct of these learned Academicians, called upon +to deal with a case so fraught with interest to science, when I find +them, merely because they do not at once succeed in personally verifying +sufficient to convince them of the existence of certain novel phenomena, +not only neglecting to seek evidence elsewhere, but even rejecting that +which a candid observer had placed within their reach. + +This appears to have been the judgment of the medical public of Paris. +The "Gazette des Hopitaux," in its issue of March 17, 1846, protests +against the committee's mode of ignoring the matter, declaring that it +satisfied nobody. "Not received!" said the editor (alluding to the words +of the report); "that would be very convenient, if it were only +possible!"[21] + +And the "Gazette Medicale" very justly remarks,--"The non-appearance of +the phenomena at such or such a given moment proves nothing in itself. +It is but a negative fact, and, as such, cannot disprove the positive +fact of their appearance at another moment, if that be otherwise +satisfactorily attested." And the "Gazette" goes on to argue, from the +nature of the facts, that it is in the highest degree improbable that +they should have been the result of premeditated imposture. + +The course adopted by the Academy's committee is the less defensible, +because, though the attractive and repulsive phenomena ceased after +their first session, other phenomena, sufficiently remarkable, still +continued. As late as the tenth of March, the day after the committee +made their report, Angelique being then at Dr. Tanchon's house, a table +touched by her apron, while her hands were behind her and her feet +fifteen inches distant from it, _was raised entirely from the ground_, +though no part of her body touched it. This was witnessed, besides Dr. +Tanchon, by Dr. Charpentier-Mericourt, who had stationed himself so as +to observe it from the side. He distinctly saw the table rise, with all +four legs, from the floor, and he noticed that the two legs of the table +farthest from the girl rose first. He declares, that, during the whole +time, he perceived not the slightest movement either of her hands or her +feet; and he regarded deception, under the circumstances, to be utterly +impossible.[22] + +On the twelfth of March, in presence of five physicians, Drs. Amedee +Latour, Lachaise, Deleau, Pichard, and Soule, the same phenomenon +occurred twice. + +And yet again on the fourteenth, four physicians being present, the +table was raised a single time, but with startling force. It was of +mahogany, with two drawers, and was four feet long by two feet and a +half wide. We may suppose it to have weighed some fifty or sixty pounds; +so that the girl's power, in this particular, appears to have much +decreased since that day, about the end of January, when M. de Faremont +saw repeatedly raised from the ground a block of one hundred and fifty +pounds' weight, with three men seated on it,--in all, not less than five +to six hundred pounds. + +By the end of March the whole of the phenomena had almost totally +ceased; and it does not appear that they have ever shown themselves +since that time. + +Dr. Tanchon considered them electrical. M. de Faremont seems to have +doubted that they were strictly so. In a letter, dated Monti-Mer, +November 1, 1846, and addressed to the Marquis de Mirville, that +gentleman says,--"The electrical effects I have seen produced in this +case varied so much,--since under certain circumstances good conductors +operated, and then again, in others, no effect was observable,--that, if +one follows the ordinary laws of electrical phenomena, one finds +evidence both for and against. I am well convinced, that, in the case +of this child, there is some power other than electricity."[23] + +But as my object is to state facts, rather than to moot theories, I +leave this debatable ground to others, and here close a narrative, +compiled with much care, of this interesting and instructive case. I was +the rather disposed to examine it critically and report it in detail, +because it seems to suggest valuable hints, if it does not afford some +clue, as to the character of subsequent manifestations in the United +States and elsewhere. + + * * * * * + +This case is not an isolated one. My limits however, prevent me from +here reproducing, as I might, sundry other recent narratives more or +less analogous to that of the girl Cottin. To one only shall I briefly +advert: a case related in the Paris newspaper, the "Siecle," of March 4, +1846, published when all Paris was talking of Arago's statement in +regard to the electric girl. + +It is there given on the authority of a principal professor in one of +the Royal Colleges of Paris. The case, very similar to that of Angelique +Cottin, occurred in the month of December previous, in the person of a +young girl, not quite fourteen years old, apprenticed to a colorist, in +the Rue Descartes. The occurrences were quite as marked as those in the +Cottin case. The professor, seated one day near the girl, was raised +from the floor, along with the chair on which he sat. There were +occasional knockings. The phenomena commenced December 2, 1845; and +lasted twelve days. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Journal du Magnetisme_, for 1846, pp. 80-84. + +[2] Pp. 89-106. + +[3] In Dr. Tanchon's pamphlet, pp. 46-53. + +[4] _Enquete, sur l'Authenticite des Phenomenes Electriques d'Angelique +Cottin_, par le Dr. Tanchon. Bailliere, Paris, 1846. + +[5] See Minutes of the Academy, Session of Monday, February 16, 1846. + +[6] _Enquete_, etc., p. 49. + +[7] _Ibid._ p. 40. + +[8] _Ibid._ p. 42. + +[9] _Ibid._ p. 22. + +[10] _Enquete_, etc., p. 22. + +[11] _Ibid._ p. 43. + +[12] _Ibid._ p. 47. + +[13] _Ibid._ p. 49. + +[14] _Enquete_, etc., p. 35. They were greater, also, after meals than +before; so Hebert observed. p. 22. + +[15] _Enquete_, etc., p. 5. + +[16] I extract them from the "Journal des Connaissances +Medico-Chirurgicales," No. 3. + +[17] The words are,--"M. Arago n'a pas apercu nettement les agitations +annoncees comme etant engendrees a distance, par l'intermediaire d'un +tablier, sur un gueridon en bois: d'autres observateurs ont trouve que +les agitations etaient sensibles." + +[18] _Enquete_, etc., p. 25. + +[19] _Enquete_, etc., p. 36. + +[20] M. Cholet, the individual who, in the hope of gain, furnished the +funds to bring Angelique to Paris for exhibition, as soon as he +perceived that the speculation was a failure, left the girl and her +parents in that city, dependent on the charity of strangers for daily +support, and for the means of returning to their humble +home.--_Enquete_, etc., p. 24. + +[21] "Non avenues! ce serait commode, si c'etait possible!" + +[22] _Enquete_, etc., p. 30. + +[23] _Des Esprits et de leurs Manifestations Fluidiques_, par le Marquis +de Mirville, pp. 379, 380. + + + + +LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS. + + +THE DRAWING-ROOM. + +PART II. + +It was at this same period of time I made the acquaintance of Monsieur +Edmond About. When I met him he had just appeared as an author, and his +friends everywhere declared that Voltaire's mantle had fallen on his +shoulders. He had, like Voltaire, discovered instantly that mankind were +divided into hammers and anvils, and he determined to be one of the +hammers. He began his career by ridiculing a poetical country, Greece, +whose guest he had been, and whose sovereign and ministers had received +him with confidence,--repaying three years of hospitality by a satire of +three hundred pages. "Greece and the Greeks" was translated into several +languages. This edifying publication, which put the laughers on his +side, was followed by a different sort of work, which came near +producing on this budding reputation the effect of an April frost upon +an almond-tree in blossom. Voltaire's heir had found no better mode of +writing natural and true novels (so the scandalous chronicle said) than +to copy an original correspondence, and indiscreet "detectives" of +letters menaced him with publishing the whole Italian work from which he +"conveyed" the best part of "Tolla." All the literary world cried, +Havoc! upon the sprightly fellow laden with Italian relics. It was a +critical moment in his life. + +Monsieur Edmond About was introduced to me by a fascinating lady;--who +can resist the charms of the other sex? I saw before me a man some +eight-and-twenty years old, of a slender figure; his features were +irregular, but intellectual, and he looked at people like an +excessively near-sighted person who abused the advantages of being +near-sighted. He wore no spectacles. His eyes were small, cold, bright, +and were well wadded with such thick eyebrows and eyelashes it seemed +these must absorb them. I subsequently found, in a strange American +book,[24] some descriptions which may be applied to his odd expression +of eye. Monsieur Edmond About's mouth was sneering and sensual, and even +then affected Voltaire's sarcastic grimace. His bitter and equivocal +smile put you in mind of the grinding of an epigram-mill. One could +detect in his attitude, his physiognomy, and his language, that +obsequious malice, that familiarity, at the same time flattering and +jeering, which Voltaire turned to such good account in his commerce with +the great people of his day, and which his disciple was learning to +practise in his intercourse with the powerful of these times,--the +_parvenus_ and the wealthy. I was struck by the face of this college +Macchiavelli: on it were written the desire of success and the longing +to enjoy; the calculations of the ambitious man were allied with the +maliciousness of the giddy child. Of course he overwhelmed me with +compliments and flattery. He had, or thought he had, use for me. I +benevolently became the defender of the poor calumniated fellow in the +"Revue des Deux Mondes," just as one undertakes out of pure kindness of +heart to protect the widow and the orphan. Monsieur Edmond About thanked +me _orally_ with a flood of extraordinary gratitude; but he took good +care to avoid writing a word upon the subject. A letter might have laid +him under engagements, and might have embarrassed him one day or +another. Whereas he aimed to be both a diplomatist and a literary man. +He practised the art of good writing, and the art of turning it to the +best advantage. + +Some months after this he brought out a piece called "Guillery," at the +French Comedy. The first night it was played, there was a hail-storm of +hisses. No _claqueur_ ever remembered to have heard the like before. The +charitable dramatic critics--delicate fellows, who cannot bear to see +people possess talents without their permission and despite +them--attacked the piece as blood-hounds the fugitive murderer. It +seemed as if Monsieur Edmond About was a ruined man, who could never +dare hold up his head again. He resisted the death-warrant. He had +friends in influential houses. He soon found lint enough for his wounds. +The next winter the town heard that Monsieur Edmond About's wounds had +been well dressed and were cured, and that he was going to write in +"Figaro." The amateurs of scandal began at once to reckon upon the +gratification of their tastes. They were not mistaken. The moment his +second contribution to "Figaro" appeared, it became evident to all that +he had taken this warlike position at the advanced posts of light +literature solely to shoot at those persons who had wounded his vanity. +For three months he kept up such a sharp fire that every week numbered +its dead. Such carnage had never been seen. Everybody was severely +wounded: Jules Janin, Paulin Limayrac, Champfleury, Barbey d'Aurevilly, +and a host of others. Everybody said, (a thrill of terror ran through +them as they spoke,)--There is going to be one of these mornings a +terrible butchery: that imprudent Edmond About will have at least ten +duels on his hands. Not a bit of it! Not a bit of it! There were +negotiations, embassies, explanations exchanged which explained nothing, +and reparations made which repaired nothing. But there was not a shot +fired. There was not a drop of blood drawn. O Lord! no! Third parties +intervened, and demonstrated to the offended parties, that, when +Monsieur Edmond About called them stupid boobies, humbugs, tumblers, he +had no intention whatever of offending them. Good gracious! far +otherwise! In fine, one day the farce was played, the curtain fell upon +the well-spanked critics, and all this little company (so full of +talents and chivalry!) went arm-in-arm, the insulter and the insulted, +to breakfast together at Monsieur About's rooms, where, between a dozen +oysters and a bottle of Sauterne, he asked his victims what they thought +of some Titians he had just discovered, and which he wished to sell to +the Louvre for a small fortune,--Titians which were not painted even by +Mignard. The insulter and the insulted fell into each other's arms +before these daubs, and they parted, each delighted with the other. +These pseudo-Titians were for Monsieur About his Alcibiades's +dog's-tail. He spent one every month. Literary, picturesque, romanesque, +historical, agricultural, Greek, and Roman questions were never subjects +to him: he considered them merely advertisements to puff the +transcendent merits of Edmond About. Before he left "Figaro" he +determined to show me what a grateful fellow he was. He made me the mark +for all his epigrams, and I paid the price of peace with the others. I +have heard, since then, that Monsieur Edmond About has made his way +rapidly in the world. He is rich. He has the ribbon of the Legion of +Honor. He excels in writing pamphlets. He is not afraid of the most +startling truths. He writes about the Pope like a man who is not afraid +of the spiritual powers, and he has demonstrated that Prince Napoleon +won the Battle of the Alma and organized Algeria. + + * * * * * + +Among the numerous details of my grandeur and my decline, none exhibit +in a clearer light our literary manners and customs than the history of +my relations with Monsieur Louis Ulbach, the virtuous author, _now_, of +"L'Homme aux Cinq Louis d'Or," "Suzanne Duchemin," "Monsieur et Madame +Fernel," and other tales, which he hopes to see crowned by the French +Academy. Monsieur Louis Ulbach at first belonged to a triumvirate which +pretended to stand above the mob of democratic writers; and of a truth +Monsieur Maxime du Camp and Monsieur Laurent Pichat, his two leaders, +had none of those smoking-_cafe_ vulgarities which have procured so many +subscribers to the "Siecle" newspaper. Both poets, Laurent Pichat with +remarkable loftiness, Maxime du Camp with _bizarre_ energy, intent upon +an ideal which democracy has a right to pursue, since it has not yet +found it, men of the world, capable of discussing in full dress the most +perplexed questions of Socialism, they accept none of those party-chains +which so often bow down the noblest minds before idols made of plaster +or of clay. Besides, both of them were known by admirable acts of +generosity. There were in this triumvirate such dashes of aristocracy +and of revolution that they were called "the Poles of literature." + +Of course, when the storm burst which I had raised by my irreverent +attacks on De Beranger, these gentlemen separated from their political +friends, and complimented me. One of them even addressed me a letter, in +which I read these words, which assuredly I would not have written: +"That stupid De Beranger." There was a sort of alliance between us. +Monsieur Louis Ulbach celebrated it by publishing in his magazine, "La +Revue de Paris," an article in my honor, in which, after the usual +reserves, and after declaring war upon my doctrines, he vowed my prose +to be "fascinating," and complained of being so bewitched as to believe, +at times, that he was converted to the cause of the throne and of the +altar. This epithet, "fascinating," in turn fascinated me; and I thought +that my prose was, like some serpent, about to fascinate all the +butcher-birds and ducks of the democratic marsh. A year passed away; +these fine friendships cooled: 't is the fate of these factitious +tendernesses. With winter my second volume appeared, and Monsieur Louis +Ulbach set to work again; but this time he found me merely "ingenious." +It was a good deal more than I merited, and I would willingly have +contented myself with this phrase. Unfortunately, I could not forget the +austere counsel of Monsieur Louis Veuillot, and at this very epoch, +Monsieur Louis Ulbach, who as a novelist could merit a great deal of +praise, took it into his head to publish a thick volume of +transcendental criticism, in which he attacked everything I admired and +lauded everything I detested. I confess that I felt extremely +embarrassed: those nice little words "fascinating" and "ingenious" stuck +in my mind. Monsieur Louis Ulbach himself extricated me from my +perplexity. I had insufficiently praised his last novel. He wrote a +third article on my third work. Alas! the honeymoon had set. The +"fascinating" prose of 1855, the "ingenious" prose of 1856, had become +in 1857, in the opinion of the same judge, and in the language of the +same pen, "pretentious and tiresome." This sudden change of things and +epithets restored me to liberty. I walked abroad in all my strength and +independence, and I dissected Monsieur Louis Ulbach's thick volume with +a severity which was still tempered by the courteous forms and the +dimensions of my few newspaper-columns. A year passed away. My fourth +work appeared. Note that these several volumes were not different works, +but a series of volumes expressing the same opinions in the very same +style; in fine, they were but one work. Note, too, that Monsieur +Ulbach's "Revue de Paris" and "L'Assemblee Nationale," in which I wrote, +were both suppressed by the government on the same day, which +established between us a fraternity of martyrdom. All this was as +nothing. Louis Ulbach, this very same Louis Ulbach, was employed by a +newspaper where he was sure to please by insulting me, and the very +first thing he did was to give me a kick, such a kick as twenty horses +covered with sleigh-bells could not give. He called me "ignoramus," and +wondered what "this fellow" meant by his literary drivelling. The most +curious part of the whole business is, that he did not write the +article, all he did was to sign it! Four years, and a scratch given his +vanity, had proved enough to produce this change! + + * * * * * + +Shall I speak to you now of Henry Murger? I wrote this chapter of my +Memoirs during his life. I should have suppressed it, did I feel the +least drop of bitterness mingled with the recollection of the acts of +petty ingratitude of this charming writer. But my object in writing this +work is less to satisfy sterile revenge than to exhibit to you a corner +of literary life in Paris in the nineteenth century. + +In 1850 Henry Murger published a book in which the manners and customs +of people who live by their wits were painted in colors scarcely likely +to fascinate healthy imaginations. He declared to the world that the +novitiate of our future great authors was nothing but one incessant hunt +after a half-dollar and a mutton-chop. The world was told by others that +Henry Murger had learned to paint this existence by actual experience. +There were, however, in his book some excellent flashes of fancy and +youth; besides, the public then had grown tired of interminable +adventures and novels in fifty volumes. So Henry Murger's first work, +"La Vie de Boheme," was very popular; but it did not swell his purse or +improve his wardrobe. He was introduced to me, and I shall never forget +the low bow he made me. I was afraid for one moment that his bald head +would fall between his legs. This precocious baldness gave to his +delicate and sad face a singular physiognomy. He looked not so much like +a young old man as like an old young man. Henry Murger's warmest desire +was to write in the celebrated and influential "Revue des Deux Mondes," +which we all abuse so violently when we have reason to complain of it, +and which has but to make a sign to us and we instantly fall into its +arms. I was then on the best terms with the "Revue des Deux Mondes." +Monsieur Castil-Blaze, being from the same neighborhood with me, had +obtained a place for me in the "Revue," which belonged to his +son-in-law, Monsieur Buloz. I promised Henry Murger to speak a good word +for him. A favorable opportunity of doing so occurred a few days +afterwards. + +"I do not know what is to become of us," said Monsieur Buloz to me; "our +old contributors are dying, and no new ones make their appearance." + +"They appear, but you refuse to see them. There is Henry Murger, for +instance; he has just written an amusing book, which is the most +successful of the season." + +"Henry Murger! And is it you, Count Armand de Pontmartin, the literary +nobleman, the aristocratic writer, who wear (as the world avers) a white +cravat and white kid gloves from the time you get up, (I confess I have +never seen you with them,)--is it you who propose to me to admit Henry +Murger as a contributor to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,'--Henry Murger, +the ringleader of people who live by their wits?" + +"Why shouldn't I? We live in a day when white cravats have to be very +respectful to red cravats. Besides, nothing is too strange to happen; +and I would not bet you that Murger does not write in 'Le Moniteur' +before I do." + +"If you think I had better admit Henry Murger, I consent; but remember +what I say to you: It will be the source of annoyance to you." + +The next day a hack bore Henry Murger and me from the corner of the +Boulevard des Italiens and the Rue du Helder to the office of the "Revue +des Deux Mondes." We talked on the way. If I had had any illusions left +of the poetical dreams and virginal thoughts of young men fevered by +literary ambition, these few minutes would have been enough to dispel +them all. Henry Murger thought of nothing upon earth but money. How was +he going to pay his quarter's rent, or rather his two or three quarters' +rent? for he was two or three quarters behindhand. He still had credit +with this _restaurateur_, but he owed so much to such another that he +dared not show his face there. He was over head and ears in debt to his +tailor. He was afraid to think of the amount of money he owed his +shoemaker. The list was long, and "bills payable" lamentable. To end +this dreary balance-sheet, I took it into my head to deliver him a +lecture on the morality of literature and the duty of literary men. +"Art," said I to him, "must escape the materialism which oppresses and +will at last absorb it. We romantics of 1828 were mistaken. We thought +we were reacting against the pagan and mummified school of the +eighteenth century and of the First Empire. We did not perceive that a +revolutionary Art can under no circumstances turn to the profit of grand +spiritual and Christian traditions, to the worship of the ideal, to the +elevation of intellects. We did not see that it would be a little sooner +or a little later discounted by literary demagogues, who, without +tradition, without a creed, without any law except their own whims, +would become the slaves of every base passion, and of all physical and +moral deformities. It is not yet too late. Let us repair our faults. Let +us elevate, let us regenerate literature; let us bear it aloft to those +noble spheres where the soul soars in her native majes"---- + +I was declaiming with fire, my enthusiasm was becoming more and more +heated, when Henry Murger interrupted me by asking,--"Do you think +Monsieur Buloz will pay me in advance?" + +This question produced on my missionary's enthusiasm the same effect a +tub of cold water would have upon an excited poodle-dog. + +"Monsieur Murger," I replied, without being too much disconcerted, "you +will arrange those details with Monsieur Buloz. All I can do is to +introduce you." + +We reached the office. I was afraid I might embarrass Monsieur Buloz and +Monsieur Murger, if I remained with them; I therefore took a book and +went into the garden. I was called back in twenty minutes, and was +briefly told that Henry Murger had engaged to write a novel for the +"Revue." We went out together; but we had scarcely passed three doors, +when Murger said hurriedly to me,--"I beg your pardon, I have forgotten +something!"--and he went back to the office. I afterwards found out +that this "something" was an advance of money which he asked for upon a +novel whose first syllable he had not yet written. + +If I dwell upon these miserable details, it is not (God forbid!) to +insult laborious poverty, or talent forced to struggle against the +hardships of life or the embarrassments of improvident, careless youth. +No,--but there was here, and this is the reason I speak of it, the +_trade-mark_ of that literary living-by-the wits which had taken entire +possession of Henry Murger, against which he had struggled in vain all +his life long, and which at last crushed him in its feverish grasp. +Living by the wits was to Henry Murger what _roulette_ is to the +gambler, what brandy is to the drunkard, what the traps of the police +are to the knave and the burglar: he cursed it, but he could not quit +it; he lived in it, he lived by it, he died of it. The first time I +talked with Murger, and every subsequent conversation I had with him, +brought up money incessantly, in every tone, in every form; and when, +having become more familiar with what he called my squeamishness, he +talked more frankly to me, I saw that he required to support him a sum +of money three times greater than the annual income of which a whole +family of office-holders in the country, or even in Paris, live with +ease. This brought on him protests, bailiffs, constables, incredible +complications, continual uneasiness, a hankering after pecuniary +success, eternal complaints against publishers, magazine-editors, +theatre-managers, anxious negotiations, an immense loss of time, an +incredible wear-and-tear of brain, annoyances and cares enough to put +every thought to flight and to dry every source of inspiration and of +poetry. Remember that Henry Murger is one of the luckiest of the new men +who have appeared within these last fifteen years, for he received the +cross of the Legion of Honor, which, as everybody knows, is never given +except to men who deserve it. Judge, then, what the others +must be! Judge what must be the abortions, the disdained, the +supernumeraries,--those who sleep in lodging-houses at two cents a +night, or who eat their pitiful dinner outside the barrier-gate in a +wretched eating-house patronized by hack-drivers,--those who kill +themselves with charcoal, or who hang themselves, murdered by madness or +by hunger, the two pale goddesses of atheistical literatures! + +"Well," said I to Henry Murger, after we were once more seated in our +carriage, "are you pleased with Monsieur Buloz?" + +"Yes--and no. The most difficult step is taken. He allows me to +contribute my masterpieces to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' and I shall +never forget the immense service you have done me. Although you and I do +not serve the same literary gods, I am henceforward yours to the death! +But--the book-keeper is deusedly hard on trigger. Will you believe it? I +asked him to advance me forty dollars, and he refused!" + +We parted excellent friends, and he continued to assure me of his +gratitude, until the carriage stopped at my door. + +Years passed away. Henry Murger's promised novel was long coming to the +"Revue des Deux Mondes." At last it came; another followed eighteen +months afterwards; then he contributed a third. He displayed +unquestionable talents; he commanded moderate success. He had been told +by so many people that it was a hard matter to please the readers of the +"Revue des Deux Mondes," that it was necessary for him to free himself +from all his studios' fun, and everything tinctured with the petty +press, that he really believed for true everything he heard, and +appeared awkward in his movements. His students, his _grisettes_, and +his young artists were all on their good behavior, but were not more +droll. Marivaux had come down one more flight of stairs. Alfred de +Musset had steeped the powder and the patches in a glass of Champagne +wine. Henry Murger soaked them in a bottle of brandy or in a flagon of +beer. + +Henry Murger's gratitude, whenever we met, continued to exhale in +enthusiastic hymns. I lost sight of him for some time. I was told that +he lived somewhere in the Forest of Fontainebleau, to escape his +creditors' pursuit. At the critical moment of my literary life, I read +one morning in a petty newspaper a biting burlesque of which I was the +grotesque hero: I figured (my name was given in full) as a member of a +temperance society, whose members were pledged to total abstinence from +the use of ideas, wit, and style; at one of our monthly dinners, we were +said to have devoured Balzac at the first course, De Beranger for the +roast, Michelet for a side-dish, and George Sand for dessert. The next +day, and every day the petty paper appeared, the joke was renewed with +all sorts of variations. It was evidently a "rig" run on me. This joke +was signed every day "Marcel," which was the name of one of the heroes +of Henry Murger's novel, "La Vie de Boheme"; but I was very far indeed +from thinking that the man who was under so many "obligations" to me (as +Henry Murger always declared himself to be) should have joined the ranks +of my persecutors. A few days afterwards I heard, on the best authority, +that Henry Murger was the author of these articles. I felt a deep +chagrin at this discovery. Literary men constantly call Philistines and +Prudhommes those who lay great stress upon the absence of moral sense as +one of the great defects of the school of literature and art to which +Murger and his friends belong; and yet there should be a name for such +conduct as this, if for no other reason, for the sake of the culprits +themselves,--as, when poor Murger acted in this way to me, he was as +unconscious of what he did as when he raised heaven and earth to hunt +down a dollar. He was not guilty of a black heart, it was only absolute +deficiency of everything like moral sense. Henry Murger was under +obligations to me, as he said constantly; I had introduced and +recommended him to a man and a magazine that are, as of right, difficult +in the choice of their contributors; I had, for his sake, conquered +their prejudices, borne their reproaches. Whenever his novels appeared, +I treated them with indulgence, and gave them praise without examining +too particularly into their moral tendency, to the great scandal of my +usual readers, and despite the scoldings Monsieur Louis Veuillot gave +me. There never was the least coolness between Henry Murger and myself; +and yet, when I was attacked and harassed on every side, he hid himself +under a pseudonyme, and added his sarcasms to all the others directed +against me, that he might gratify his admiration for De Balzac and put a +little money in his pocket. + +By-and-by I continued to meet Henry Murger again on the Boulevard, and +at the first performance of new pieces. Do you imagine he shunned me? +Not a bit of it. He did not seem on these rare occasions to feel the +least embarrassment. He gave me cordial shakes of the hand, or he +bestowed on me one of those profound bows which brought his bald head on +a level with his waistcoat-pockets. Then he published a novel in "Le +Moniteur," after which he was decorated. Nothing was now heard from or +of him for a long time. Not a line by Henry Murger appeared anywhere. I +never heard that any piece by him was received, or even refused, by a +single one of the eighteen theatres in Paris. At last I met him one day +before the Varietes Theatre. I went up to speak to him, and ended by +asking the invariable question between literary men,--"What are you at +work on now? How comes it that so long a time has elapsed since you gave +us something to read or to applaud?" + +"I will tell you why," he replied, with melancholy _sang-froid_. "It is +not a question of literature, it is a question of arithmetic. I owe +eight hundred dollars to Madame Porcher, the wife of the +'authors'-tickets' dealer, who is always ready to advance money to +dramatic authors, and to whom we are all constantly in debt. I owe four +hundred dollars to the 'Moniteur,' and three hundred dollars to the +'Revue des Deux Mondes.' Follow my reasoning now: Were I to bring out a +play, my excellent friend, Madame Porcher, would lay hands on all the +proceeds, and I should receive nothing. Were I to give a novel to the +'Moniteur,' I should have to write twenty _feuilletons_ (you know they +pay twenty dollars a _feuilleton_ there) before I cancelled my old debt. +Were I to contribute to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' as soon as my six +sheets (at fifty dollars a sheet, that would be three hundred dollars) +were printed and published, the editor would say to me, 'We are even +now.' So you see that it would be unpardonable prodigality on my part to +publish anything; therefore I have determined not to work at all, in +order to avoid spending my money, and I am lazy--from economy!" + +His reply disarmed the little resentment I had left. I took his hand in +mine, and said to him,--"See here, Murger, I must confess to you I was a +little angry with you; but your arithmetic is more literary than you +think it. You have given me a lesson of contemporary literature; and I +say to you, as the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' would say, 'Murger, we are +even!'" + +I ran off without waiting for his reply, and whispered to myself, as I +went, "And yet Henry Murger is the most talented and the most honest of +them all!" + + * * * * * + +Let me continue the story of my misfortunes. The tempest was unchained +against me. It is true, there were among my adversaries some persons +under obligations to me,--some persons who were full of enthusiasm at my +first manner, and who would have made wry faces enough, had I published +their flattering letters to me,--other persons, to whom I had rendered +pecuniary services,--others, again, who had come to me with hat in hand +and supple knees, to beg my permission to allow them to dramatize my +novels. But what were these miserable considerations, when the great +interests of national literature, taste, and glory were at stake? I was +the vile detractor, the impious scorner of these glories, and it was but +justice that I should be put in the pillory and made the butt of rotten +eggs. Voltaire blasphemed, Beranger insulted, Victor Hugo outraged, were +offences which cried aloud for chastisement and for vengeance. Balzac's +shade especially complained and clamored for justice. It is true, that, +while Balzac was alive, he was not accustomed to anything like such +admiration. He openly avowed that he detested newspaper-writers, and +they returned the detestation with interest. Everybody, while he was +alive, declared him to be odd, eccentric, half-crazy, absurd. His +friends and his publishers, in fine, everybody who had anything to do +with him, told rather disreputable stories about him. No matter for +that. Balzac was dead, Balzac was a god, the god of all these +livers-by-the-wits, who but for him would have been atheists. Monsieur +Paulin Limayrac tore me to pieces in "La Presse." Monsieur Eugene +Pelletan shot me in "Le Siecle." Monsieur Taxile Delord mauled me in "Le +Charivari." To this episode of my exposition in the pillory belongs an +anecdote which I cannot omit. + +I was about to set off for the country, where I reckoned upon spending +some weeks of the month of May, in order to recover somewhat from these +incessant attacks made upon me. I had read in a _cafe_, while taking my +beefsteak and cup of chocolate, the various details of the punishment I +was about to undergo. One of my tormentors, who was a great deal more +celebrated for his aversion to water and clean linen than for any +article he had ever written, declared that I was about to be banished +from everything like decent society; another vowed by all the deities of +his Olympus that I was a mountebank and a skeptic, who had undertaken to +defend sound doctrines and to tomahawk eminent writers simply by way of +bringing myself into public notice; a third painted me as a poor wretch +who had come from his provincial home with his pockets filled with +manuscripts, and was going about Paris begging favorable notices as a +means of touching publishers and booksellers; a fourth depicted me, on +the other hand, as a wealthy fellow, who was so diseased with a mania +for literature that I paid newspapers and reviews to publish my +contributions, which no human being would have accepted gratuitously. As +I left the _cafe_, one of my intimate friends ran up to me. His face +expressed that mixture of cordial commiseration and desire to make a +fuss about the matter which one's friends' faces always wear under these +circumstances. + +"Well," said he, "what do you think of the way they treat you?" + +"Why, they are all at it,--Monsieur Edmond About, Monsieur Louis Ulbach, +Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, Monsieur Henry Murger, Monsieur Taxile +Delord,"---- + +"Ah! by the way, have you seen his article of yesterday?" + +"No." + +"You should have read that. Those in the morning's papers are nothing to +it. Really, you ought not to leave town without seeing it." Looking very +important, he added,--"In your position, you should know everything +written against you." + +I followed this friendly advice, and went to the Rue du Croissant, where +the office of "Le Charivari" moulders. As the place is anything but +attractive to well-bred persons, allow me to get there by the longest +road, and to go through the Faubourg Saint Honore. A month before the +conversation above reported took place in front of a _cafe_-door, I had +the pleasure of meeting the Count de ----, an intellectual gentleman who +occupies an influential place in some aristocratic drawing-rooms which +still retain a partiality for literature. He said to me,-- + +"Do you know Monsieur Ernest Legouve?" + +"Assuredly! The most polite and most agreeable of all the generals of +_Alexander_ Scribe; the author of 'Adrienne Lecouvreur,' which Rachel +played so well, of 'Medee,' in which Madame Ristori shines; a charming +gentleman, who, in our age of clubs, cigars, stables, jockeys, and +slang, has had the good taste to like feminine society. He has a +considerable estate; he belongs to the French Academy; his house is +agreeable; his manners delightful; his dinners unequalled. If in all +happiness there is a dash of management, where is the harm in Monsieur +Ernest Legouve's case? Why should not gentlemen, too, be sometimes +adroit? Rogues are so always! Besides, has not a little art always been +necessary to effect an entrance into the French Academy?" + +"Monsieur Ernest Legouve and I were at college together, and he bids me +bear you an invitation which I am sure you will not refuse. He has +written a play upon the delicate and thorny subject on which Monsieur +Jules Sandeau has written his admirable comedy, 'Le Gendre de Monsieur +Poirier': with this difference, however: Monsieur Legouve has taken, not +a ruined and brilliant noble who marries the daughter of a plebeian, but +a young man, the architect of his own fortunes, with a most vulgar name, +who, on the score of talents, energy, delicacy of head and heart, is +loved by a young lady of noble birth, is accepted by her family, and +enters by right of conquest into that society from which his birth +excluded him." + +"That theme is rather more difficult: for, when Mademoiselle Poirier +marries the Marquis de Presles, she becomes the Marquise de Presles; +whereas, when Mademoiselle de Montmorency marries Monsieur Bernard, she +becomes plain Madame Bernard." + +"True enough! But Monsieur Legouve is perplexed by a scruple which +reflects the greatest honor upon him: he entertains sincere respect, +great sympathy, for aristocratic distinctions; therefore he is anxious +to assure himself, before his piece is brought out in public, that it +does not contain a single scene or a single word which will be offensive +or disagreeable to noble ears. To satisfy himself in this particular, +he has asked me to allow him to read his comedy at my house. I shall +invite the Duchess de ----, the Marquis de ----, the Countess de ----, +the General de ----, the Duke de ----, the Marquise de ----, and the +Baroness de ----. I shall add to these two or three critics known in +good society, among whom I reckon upon you. In fine, this preliminary +Areopagus will be composed of sons of the Crusaders, who are almost as +sprightly as sons of Voltaire. Now Monsieur Ernest Legouve will not be +satisfied with his comedy, unless these gentlefolk unanimously decide +that he need not blot a single line of it. Will you come? Remember, +Monsieur Ernest Legouve invites you." + +"My dear Count, I willingly accept your proposition. Monsieur Legouve +reads admirably, and his plays are all agreeable. Nevertheless, let me +tell you that this trial will prove nothing. Our poor society is like +Sganarelle's wife, who liked to be thrashed. It has borne smiling, and +repaid with wealth and fame, much more ardent attacks than Monsieur +Legouve can make." + +Count de ---- and I shook hands, and parted. A few evenings afterwards +the reading took place. It was just what I expected. There were as many +marquises and duchesses (_real_ duchesses) as there were kings to +applaud Talma in the Erfurt pit. The noble assembly listened to Monsieur +Legouves's comedy with that rather absent-minded urbanity and with those +charming exclamations of admiration which have been constantly given to +everybody who has read a piece in a drawing-room, from the days of the +Viscount d'Arlincourt and his "Le Solitaire," to the days of Monsieur +Viennet, of the French Academy, and his "Arbogaste." Monsieur Legouve's +play, which was then called "Le Nom du Mari," and which has since been +played under the title of "Par Droit de Conquete," was pleasing. My ears +were not so much offended by the antagonism of poor nobility and wealthy +upstarts, which Monsieur Legouve treated neither better nor worse than +any other has done, as by the details of roads, bridges, marsh-draining, +canals, railways, coal, coke, and the like, which were dead-weights on +Thalia's light robe; and the improbability of the plot was not so much +the marriage of a noble girl to the son of an apple-dealer as was the +perfection given to the young engineer: every virtue and every grace +were showered on him. The piece was unanimously pronounced successful. +The aristocratic audience applauded Monsieur Legouve with their little +gloved hands, which never make much noise. He was complimented so +delicately that he was sincerely touched. There was not the slightest +objection, the lightest murmur made to the piece, and there trembled in +my eye that little tear Madame de Sevigne speaks of. + +But let us quit this drawing-room, and turn our steps towards the Rue du +Croissant, where the office of "Le Charivari" is to be found. Balzac has +described in "Les Illusions Perdues" the offices of these petty +newspapers: the passage divided into two equal portions, one of which +leads to the editor's room, and the other to the grated counter where +the clerk sits to receive subscribers. Everybody knows the appearance of +these old houses, these staircases, these flimsy partitions, with their +bad light coming through a window whose panes are veiled with a triple +coating of dust, smoke, and soot,--the whitewashed walls bearing +innumerable traces of fingers covered with ink, mingled with +pencil-caricatures and grotesque inscriptions. Although it was in the +month of May that I made this visit, I shivered with cold as I entered +this old house, and my gorge rose in disgust at the unaired smell and +ignoble scenes which everywhere appeared. The clerk I applied to had the +very face one might expect to find in such a place: one of those +colorless, hard, sinister faces which are to be seen in nearly all the +scenes of Paris reality. All things were in harmony in this shop: the +air, and the light, and the house,--the letter as well as the spirit. I +asked the clerk to give me the file for the month of April. I soon +found and read Monsieur Taxile Delord's article. Monsieur Taxile Delord +comes from some one of the southern departments of France. He made his +first appearance in public in "Le Semaphore," the well-known newspaper +of Marseilles; but the twilight of a provincial life could not suit this +eagle, and in the course of a few years he came up to Paris. Alas! +Monsieur Taxile Delord was soon obliged to add the secret sorrows of +disappointed ambition to the original gayety of his character. His +deepest sorrow was to look upon himself for a grave and thoughtful +statesman, and be condemned by fate to a chronic state of fun and to +hard labor at pun-making for life. Imagine Junius damned to lead +Touchstone's life! He became sourness itself. His puns were lugubrious. +His fun grew heavy, and his gayety was funereal. The pretensions of this +checked gravity which settled upon his factitious hilarity were enough +to melt the hearts even of his enemies, if such a fellow could pretend +to have enemies. Once this galley-slave of fun tried to make his escape +from the galley. He wrote a play; and as the manager of one of the +theatres was his friend, he had it played. The democratic opinions of +Monsieur Taxile Delord raised favorable prejudices among the school-boys +of the Latin Quarter; but who can escape his fate? The masterpiece was +hissed. Its title was "The End of the Comedy"; and a wretched witling +pretended that the piece was ill-named, since the pit refused to see the +end of the comedy. Thereupon Monsieur Taxile Delord adopted the method +of Gulliver's tailor, who measured for clothes according to the rules of +arithmetic: he demonstrated that his piece was played three times from +beginning to end,--that, as the manager was his particular friend, and +as the Odeon was always empty, he might have had it played thirty +times,--and therefore that we were all bound to be grateful to him for +his moderation. This last argument met no person bold enough to +contradict it, and the subscribers to "Le Charivari" (which is the +"Punch" of Paris) were seized with holy horror, when they thought, that, +but for Monsieur Taxile Delord's moderation, "The End of the Comedy" +might have been played seven-and-twenty times more. + +What had I done to excite his ire? I had not treated Beranger with +sufficient respect, and Monsieur Taxile Delord, though a joker by trade, +would not hear of any fun on this subject. His genius had shaped itself +exactly on Beranger's, and he resented as a personal affront every +insult offered to the songster. Of a truth, Beranger's fate was a hard +one, and all my attacks on him were not half so bad as this treatment he +received at the hands of Monsieur Taxile Delord. Poor Beranger! So +Monsieur Taxile Delord took up the quarrel on his account, and relieved +his gall by throwing it on me. When I read his article, I felt +humiliated,--but not as the writer desired,--I felt humiliated for the +press, and for literature, and for Beranger, who really did not deserve +this hard fate. The humid office, full of dirt and dust and +printing-ink, disgusted and depressed me, and I involuntarily thought of +Count de ----'s drawing-room, and that aristocratic society where +everything was flowers, courtesy, perfumes, elegance, where people could +not even feel hatred towards their enemies, and where the genial poet, +Monsieur Ernest Legouve, surrounded by the most charming and most +sprightly women of Paris, recently obtained so delightful a triumph. + +All at once a sympathetic and clear voice, a voice which I thought I had +heard in better society than where I was, reached my ears. Hid in the +dark corner where I sat, and where nobody could discover me, I saw the +door of the editor's room open and Monsieur Taxile Delord appear and +escort to the door a visitor. It was Monsieur Ernest Legouve! They +passed close to me, and I heard Monsieur Ernest Legouve say to Monsieur +Delord,--"My dear Sir, I recommend my play, 'Le Nom du Mari,' to you; I +hope you will be pleased with it!" + +This contrast annoyed me. I was then horribly out of humor from an +irritating prelection, and I felt towards Monsieur Legouve that sort of +vexation the unlucky feel towards the lucky, the poor towards the rich, +the hunchbacks towards handsome men, and the awkward towards the adroit. +I said to myself,--"Armand, my poor Armand, you will never be aught but +a most stupid fool!" + +We add no commentary to this picture of literary life in Paris. We leave +the reader to draw his own conclusions. He needs no assistance,--for the +picture is painted in bright colors, and the light is thrown with no +parsimonious hand upon every corner. It is a curious exhibition of a +most unhealthy state of things. It explains a great many of those +literary mysteries, which seem so unaccountable, in the most brilliant +capital of the world. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] _Elsie Venner_, by Oliver OEendell (_sic_) Holmes. + + + + +THE MASKERS. + + + Yesternight, as late I strayed + Through the orchard's mottled shade,-- + Coming to the moonlit alleys, + Where the sweet Southwind, that dallies + All day with the Queen of Roses, + All night on her breast reposes,-- + Drinking from the dewy blooms, + Silences, and scented glooms + Of the warm-breathed summer night, + Long, deep draughts of pure delight,-- + Quick the shaken foliage parted, + And from out its shadows darted + Dwarf-like forms, with hideous faces, + Cries, contortions, and grimaces. + Still I stood beneath the lonely, + Sighing lilacs, saying only,-- + "Little friends, you can't alarm me; + Well I know you would not harm me!" + Straightway dropped each painted mask, + Sword of lath, and paper casque, + And a troop of rosy girls + Ran and kissed me through their curls. + + Caught within their net of graces, + I looked round on shining faces. + Sweetly through the moonlit alleys + Rang their laughter's silver sallies. + Then along the pathway, light + With the white bloom of the night, + I went peaceful, pacing slow, + Captive held in arms of snow. + Happy maids! of you I learn + Heavenly maskers to discern! + So, when seeming griefs and harms + Fill life's garden with alarms, + Through its inner walks enchanted + I will ever move undaunted. + Love hath messengers that borrow + Tragic masks of fear and sorrow, + When they come to do us kindness,-- + And but for our tears and blindness, + We should see, through each disguise, + Cherub cheeks and angel eyes. + + + + +CULLET. + + +"Good morning! Is it really a rainy day?" asked Miselle, imploringly, as +she seated herself at the breakfast-table, and glanced from Monsieur to +the heavy sky and the vane upon the coach-house, steadily pointing west. + +"Indeed, I hope not. Are you ready for Sandwich?" smilingly replied the +host. + +"More than ready,--eager. But the clouds." + +"One learns here upon the coast to brave the clouds; we have, to be +sure, a sea-turn just now, and perhaps there will be fog-showers +by-and-by, but nothing that need prevent our excursion." + +"Delightful!" exclaimed Optima, Miselle, and Madame, applying themselves +to eggs and toast with that calm confidence in a masculine decision so +sustaining to the feminine nature. + +The early breakfast over, Monsieur, with a gentle hint to the ladies of +haste in the matter of toilet, went to see that Gypsy and Fanny were +properly harnessed, and that a due number of cushions, rugs, and +water-proof wrappers were placed in the roomy carriage. + +Surely, never were hats so hastily assumed, never did gloves condescend +to be so easily found, never were fewer hasty returns for "something I +have forgotten," and Monsieur had barely time to send two messages to +the effect that all was ready, when the feminine trio descending upon +him triumphantly disproved once and forever the hoary slander upon their +sex of habitual unpunctuality. + +With quiet self-sacrifice Optima placed herself beside Madame in the +back of the carryall, leaving for Miselle the breezy seat in front, with +all its facilities for seeing, hearing, smelling, breathing; and let us +hope that the little banquet thus prepared for the conscience of that +young woman gave her as much satisfaction as Miselle's feast of the +senses did to her. + +Arching their necks, tossing their manes, spattering the dewy sand with +their little hoofs, Gypsy and Fanny rapidly whirled the carriage through +the drowsy town, across the Pilgrim Brook, and so, by the pretty suburb +of "T'other Side," (which no child of the Mayflower shall ever consent +to call Wellingsley,) to the open road skirting the blue waters of the +bay. + +"Ah, this is fine!" cried Miselle, snatching from seaward deep breaths +of the east wind laden with the wild life of ocean and the freedom of +boundless space. + +"Here we have it!" remarked Monsieur, somewhat irrelevantly, as he +hastily unbuckled the apron and spread it over his own lap and +Miselle's, just in time to catch a heavy dash of rain. + +"I am afraid it is going to be stormy, after all," piteously murmured +Miselle. + +"I told you we should have fog-showers, you know," suggested Monsieur, +with a quiet smile. + +"But what must we do?--go home?" + +"No, indeed!--we will go to Sandwich, let it rain twice, four times as +hard as this,--unless, indeed, Madame gives orders to the contrary. What +say you, Madame?" + +"I say, let us go on for the present. We can turn round at any time, if +it becomes necessary"; and Madame smiled benevolently at Miselle, down +whose face the rain-drops streamed, but who stoutly asserted,-- + +"Oh, this is nothing. Only a fog-shower, you know. We shall have it fine +directly." + +"Not till we are out of Eel River. This valley gathers all the clouds, +and they often get rain here when the sun is shining everywhere else." + +"A regular vale of tears! Happy the remnant of the world that dwelleth +not in Eel River!" murmured Miselle, surreptitiously pulling her +water-proof cloak about her shoulders. + +"Let me help you. Really, though, you are getting very wet, dear," +remonstrated Optima. + +"Not in the least. I enjoy it excessively. Besides, the shower is just +over.--What church is that, Monsieur, with the very disproportionate +steeple?" inquired Miselle, pointing to a square gray box, surmounted by +a ludicrously short and obtuse spire, expressive of a certain dogged +obstinacy of purpose. + +"The church is an Orthodox meetinghouse, and the steeple is Orthodox +too,--for the Cape. Anything else would blow down in the spring gales. +Park-Street steeple, for instance, would stand a very poor chance here." + +"Yes," said Miselle, vaguely, and she felt in her heart how this great +ocean that dwarfs or prostrates the works of man replaces them by a +temple builded in his own soul of proportions so lofty that God Himself +may dwell visibly therein. + +And now, having traversed the tearful valley, the road wound up the +Delectable Mountains beyond, and so into the pine forest, through whose +clashing needles glints of sunshine began to creep, while overhead the +gray shaded softly into pearl and dazzling white and palest blue. + +"There are deer in these Sandwich woods. See if we cannot find a pair of +great brown eyes peering out at us from some of the thickets," suggested +Madame. + +"Charming! If only we might see one! How young this nation is, after +all, when aboriginal deer roam the woods within fifty miles of Boston!" + +"But without game-laws they will soon be exterminated. A great many are +shot every winter, and the farmers complain bitterly of those that +remain. Some of their crops are quite ruined by the deer, they say," +remarked Monsieur. + +"Never mind. There are plenty of crops, and but very few deer. I +pronounce for the game-laws," recklessly declared Miselle. + +But the impending battle of political economy was averted by Madame's +exclamation of,-- + +"See, here is Sacrifice Rock. Let us stop and look at it a moment." + +Gypsy and Fanny, wild with the sparkling upland air, were with +difficulty persuaded to halt opposite a great flat granite boulder, +sloping from the skirt of the forest toward the road, and nearly covered +with pebbles and bits of decayed wood. + +"It is Sacrifice Rock," explained Monsieur. "From the days of the +Pilgrims to our own, no Indian passes this way without laying some +offering upon it. It would have been buried long ago, but that the +spring and autumn winds sweep away all the lighter deposits. You would +find the hollow at its back half filled with them. Once there may have +been human sacrifices,--tradition says so, at least; but now there is +seldom anything more precious than what you see." + +"But to what deity were the offerings made?" + +"Some savage Manitou, no doubt, but no one can say with certainty +anything about it. The degenerate half-breeds who live in this vicinity +only keep up the custom from tradition. They are called Christians now, +you know, and are quite above such idolatrous practices." + +"At any rate, I will add my contribution to this altar of an unknown +God. Besides, there are some blackberries that I must have," exclaimed +Optima, releasing her active limbs from the carriage in a very summary +fashion. + +Tossing a little stick upon the rock, she hastened to gather the +abundant fruit, a little for herself, a good deal for Madame and +Miselle, until Gypsy and Fanny stamped and neighed with impatience, and +Monsieur cried cheerily,-- + +"Come, young woman, come! We are not half-way to Sandwich, and the +horses will be devoured by these flies as surely as Bishop Hatto was by +mice." + +And so on through miles of merry woodland, by fields and orchards, whose +every crop is a fresh conquest of man over Nature in this one of her +most niggardly phases, by desolate cabins and lonely farms, until at a +sudden turn the broad, beautiful sea swept up to glorify the scene. And +while Miselle with flushed cheeks and tearful eyes drank in the ever-new +delight of its presence, Monsieur began a story of how a man, almost a +stranger to him, had come one winter evening and begged him for God's +love to go and help him search for the body of his brother, reported by +a wandering madwoman to be lying on this beach, and how he begged so +piteously that the listener could not choose but go. + +And as Monsieur vividly pictured that long, lonely drive through the +midnight woods, the desolate monotony of the beach, along whose margin +curled the foam-wreaths of the rising tide, while beyond phosphorescent +lights played over a world of weltering black waters,--as he told how, +after hours of patient search, they found the poor sodden corpse and +tenderly cared for it,--as Monsieur quietly told his tale and never knew +that he was a hero, Miselle turned shuddering from sea and beach and the +mocking play of the crested waves, as they leaped in the sunshine and +then sank back to sport hideously with other corpses hidden beneath +their smiling surface. + +Presently the sea was again shut off by woodland, and the scattered +houses closed into a village, nay, a town, the town of Sandwich; and +swinging through it at an easy rate, the carriage halted before an +odd-looking building, consisting of a quaint old inn, porched and +gambrel-roofed, joined in most unholy union to a big, square, staring +box, of true Yankee architecture. + +Descending with reluctance, even after three hours of immobility, from +her breezy seat, Miselle followed Madame into the quiet house, whose +landlord, like many another man, makes moan for "the good old times" +when summer tourists and commercial travellers filled his rooms and the +long dining-table, now unoccupied, save by our travellers and two young +men connected with the glass-manufactories. + +Rest, plenty of cool water, and dinner having restored the energies of +the travellers, it was proposed that they should proceed at once to the +Glass Works. And now, indeed, did Fortune smile upon this band of +adventurous spirits; for when the question of a guide arose, mine host +of the inn announced himself not only willing to act in that capacity, +but eminently qualified therefor by long experience as an operative in +various departments of the works. + +"How fortunate that the stage-coaches and peddlers no longer frequent +Sandwich! If our friend had them to attend to, he could not devote +himself to us in this charming manner," suggested Optima, as she and +Miselle gayly followed Monsieur, Madame, and Cicerone down the long +sunny street, whose loungers turned a glance of lazy wonder upon the +strangers. + +Passing presently a monotonous row of lodging-houses for the workmen, +and a public square with a fountain, which, as Optima suggested, might +be made very pretty with the addition of some water, the travellers +approached a large brick building, many-windowed, many-chimneyed, and +offering ingress through a low-browed arch of so gloomy an aspect that +one looked at its key-stone half expecting to read there the well-known +Dantean legend,-- + + "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi chi'ntrate!" + +Nor was the illusion quite destroyed by handling, for through the arch +and a short passage one entered a large, domed apartment, brick-floored +and dimly lighted, whose atmosphere was the breath of a dozen flashing +furnaces, whose occupants were grimy gnomes wildly sporting with strange +shapes of molten metal. + +"This is the glass-room, and in these furnaces the glass is melted; but +perhaps you will go first and see how it is mixed, and how the pots are +made to boil it in." + +"Yes, let us begin at the beginning," said all, and were led from the +Inferno across a cool, green yard, into a building specially devoted to +the pots. In a great bin lay masses of soft brown clay in its crude +condition, and upon the floor were heaped fragments of broken pots, +calcined by use in the furnaces, and now waiting to be ground up into a +fine powder between the wheels of a powerful mill working steadily in +one corner of the building. In another, a row of boxes or pens were +partially filled with a powdered mixture of the raw and burnt clay, and +this, being moistened with water, was worked to a proper consistency +beneath the bare feet of several stout men. + +"This work, like the treading of the wine-press, can be properly +performed only by human feet," remarked Monsieur. + +"So when next we sip nectar from one of your straw-stemmed glasses, we +will remember these gentlemen and their brothers of the wine-countries, +and gratefully acknowledge that without their exertions we could have +had neither wine nor goblet," said Miselle, maliciously. + +"No," suggested Optima, "we will enjoy the result and forget the +process. But what is that man about?" + +"Making sausages out of cheese, I should say," replied Monsieur; and the +comparison was almost unavoidable; for upon a coarse table lay masses of +moulded clay, in form and size exactly like cheeses, from which the +workman separated with a wooden knife a small portion to be rolled +beneath his hand into cylindrical shapes some four inches in length by +two in diameter. + +These a lad carefully placed upon a long and narrow board to carry up to +the pot-room, whither he was followed by the whole party. + +Miselle's first impression, upon entering this great chamber, was, that +she was following a drove of elephants; but as she skirted the regular +ranks of the great dun monsters and came to the front, she concluded +that she had stumbled upon the factory of Ali Baba's oil-jars. At any +rate, the old picture in the "Arabian Nights" represented Morgiana in +the act of pouring the boiling oil into vessels marvellously like these, +and in each of these was room for at least four robbers of true +melodramatic stature. + +Among these jars, with the noiseless solicitude of a mother in her +sleeping nursery, wandered their author and guardian, a pale, keen man, +and so rare an enthusiast in his art that one listening to him could +hardly fail to believe that the highest degree of thought, skill, and +experience might worthily be expended upon the construction of these +seething-pots for molten glass. + +"Will you look at this one? It is my last," said he, tenderly removing a +damp cloth from the surface of something like the half of a hogshead +made in clay. + +"I have not begun to dome it in yet; it must dry another day first," +said the artist, passing his hand lovingly along the smooth surface of +his work. + +"Then you cannot go on with them at once?" asked Madame. + +"Oh, no, Ma'am! They must dry and harden between the spells of work +upon them, or they never would stand their own weight. This one, you +see, is twelve inches thick in the bottom, and the sides are five inches +thick at the base, and graduated to four where the curve begins. Now if +I was to go right ahead, and put the roof on this mass of wet clay, I +shouldn't get it done before the whole would crush in together. I have +had them do so, Ma'am, when I was younger, but I know better now. I +sha'n't have that to suffer again." + +"And what are you at work upon while this dries?" + +"Here. This one is just begun. Shall I show you how I do it? John, where +are those rolls? Yes, I see. Now, Ma'am, this is the way." + +Taking one of the rolls in his left hand, and manipulating it with his +right, our artist laid it upon the top of the unfinished wall, and with +his supple fingers began to dovetail and compact it into the mass, +pressing and smoothing the whole carefully as he went on. + +"You see I must be very careful not to leave any air-bubbles in my work; +if I do, there will be a crack." + +"When the pot dries?" asked Madame. + +"No, Ma'am, when it is heated. I suppose the air expands and forces its +way out," said the man, shyly, as if he were more in the habit of +thinking philosophy than of talking it. "But see how smooth and fine +this clay is," added he, enthusiastically, passing his finger through +one of the rolls. "It is as close-grained and delicate as--as a lady's +cheek." + +"But, really, how could one describe the shape of these creatures?" +asked Optima aside of Miselle, as she stood contemplating a completed +monster. + +"By comparing them to an Esquimaux lodge, with one little arched window +just at the spring of the dome. Doesn't that give it?" + +"Perhaps. I never saw an Esquimaux lodge; did you, my dear?" + +"No, nor anything else in the least degree resembling these, unless it +was the picture of the oil-jars. Choose, my Optima, between the two." + +"Hark! we are losing something worth hearing." + +So the young women opened their ears, and heard the pallid enthusiast +tell how, after days and weeks of labor, and months of seasoning, the +pots were laboriously carried to a kiln, where they were slowly brought +to a red heat, and then suffered to cool as slowly. How the pot was then +taken to one of the furnaces of the Inferno, and a portion of its side +removed to receive it; how it was then built in, and reheated before the +glass-material was thrown in; and how, after all this care and toil, it +was perhaps not a week before it cracked or gave way at some point, and +must be taken away to make room for another. But this was unusually +"hard luck," and the pots sometimes held good as long as three months. + +"And what becomes of the old ones?" asked Optima, sympathetically. + +"Oh, they are all used over again, Miss. There must be a proportion of +burnt clay mixed with the raw, or it would be too rich to harden." + +"And what is the proportion?" + +"About one-third of the cooked clay, and two-thirds of the raw." + +"And where does the clay come from?" + +"Nearly all from Sturbridge, in England. Some has been brought from Gay +Head, on Martha's Vineyard; but it doesn't answer like the imported." + +Leaving the courteous artist in glass-pots to his labors, the party, +crossing again the breezy yard, entered a dismal brick-paved +basement-room, where grim bakers were attending upon a number of huge +ovens. One of these was just being filled; but instead of white and +brown loaves, golden cake, or flaky pies, the two attendants were piling +in short, thick bars of lead, and, hurry as they might, before they +could put in the last of the appointed number, little shining streams of +molten metal began to ooze from beneath the first, and trickle languidly +toward the mouth of the oven. + +But our bakers were ready for them. With hasty movement they threw in a +quantity of moistened clay, shaping and compacting it with their shovels +as they went on, until in a very few moments they had completed a neat +little semi-circular dike just within the door, as effectual a barrier +to the glowing pool behind it, wherein the softened bars were rapidly +disappearing, as was ever the Dutchman's dike to the ocean, with whom he +disputes the sovereignty of Holland. + +A wooden door was now put up, and the baking was left to itself for +about twenty-four hours, at the end of which time the lead would have +become transformed into a yellowish powder, known as massicot. + +"You will see it here. They are just beginning to clear this oven," said +Cicerone, pointing to a row of large iron vessels which the workmen were +filling with the contents of the just opened kiln. + +"And what next? What is it to the glass?" asked Miselle, unblushing at +her ignorance. + +"Next, it is put into these other kilns, and kept in motion with the +long rakes that you see here, and at the end of forty-eight hours it +will have absorbed sufficient oxygen from the atmosphere to turn it from +massicot to minium, or red-lead. Look at this, if you please." + +Cicerone here pointed to other iron vessels, in shape like the bowl out +of which the giant Blunderbore ate his bread and milk, while trembling +little Jack peeped at him from the oven; but these bowls were filled +with a beautiful scarlet powder of fine consistency. + +"That is red-lead, one of the most important ingredients in fine +flint-glass, as it gives it brilliancy and ductility. But it is not used +in the coarser glasses. And here is the sand-room." + +So saying, Cicerone led the way to a light and cheerful room of +delicious temperature, even on that summer's day, where, upon a low, +broad, iron table, heated from beneath by steam-pipes, lay a mass of +what might indeed be sand, and yet differed as much from ordinary sand +as a just washed pet-lamb differs from an old weather-beaten sheep. + +Like the lamb, the sand had been washed with care and much water, and +now lay reposing after its bath at lazy length, enjoying its _kief_, +like a sworn Mussulman. This sand is principally brought from the banks +of Hudson River and the coast of New Jersey; but a finer article of +quartz sand is found in Lanesboro', Massachusetts. + +In the centre of the room stood a great sifting-machine, worked by +steam; and the sand, after being thoroughly dried, was passed through +this, coming out a fine, glittering mass, very much resembling +granulated sugar, so far as looks are concerned. + +"Now it is ready to be sent up to the mixing-room; but if you will step +on this drop, we will go up before it," said the civil workman here in +charge. + +So some of the party stepped upon a solid platform about six feet +square, lying under a trap in the floor overhead, and were slowly wound +up to the mixing-room, feeling quite sure, when they stepped upon the +solid floor once more, that they had done a very heroic thing, and were +not hereafter to be dismayed by travellers' tales of descents into +coal-mines, or swinging to the tops of dizzy spires in creaking baskets. + +Here, in the mixing-room, stood great boxes, filled with sand, with +red-lead, or with sparkling soda and potash; and beside a trough stood, +shovel in hand, a good-natured-looking man, who was busily mixing +portions of these three ingredients into one mass. + +Him Miselle assailed with questions, and learned that the trough +contained + + 1400 pounds sand, + 350 " ash, + 100 " soda, + 800 " red-lead, + and about 100 " cullet.[25] + +This was to be a fine quality of flint-glass, and to it might be added +coloring-matter of any desired tint; but in the choice and proportion of +this lay one of the principal secrets of the art. + +All this information did the civil compounder vouchsafe to Miselle, with +the indulgent air of one who humors a child by answering his questions, +although quite sure that the subject is far above his comprehension; and +he smiled in much amusement at seeing his answers jotted down upon her +tablets. So Miselle thanked him, smiling a little in her turn, and they +parted in mutual satisfaction. + +"These trucks you see are ready-loaded with the frit, or glass-material, +and are to be wheeled down to the furnaces presently," said Cicerone. +"But, before following them, we had better go down and see the fires." + +Descending a short flight of stone steps, the party now entered a long, +dark passage, through which a torrent of wind swept, driving before it +the ashes and glowing cinders that dropped continually from a circular +grating overhead. The ground beneath was strewn with fire, and the whole +arrangement offered a rare opportunity to any misanthrope whose +preferences might point to death in the shape of a fiery shower-bath. + +In a gloomy crypt, opening near the grating, stood a gnome whose duty it +was to feed the furnace overhead with soft coal, which must be thrown in +at a small door and then pushed up and forward until it lay upon the +grating where it was consumed. Around this central fire the glass-pots, +ten to each furnace, are arranged, their lower surfaces in actual +contact with it, while the domed roof reverberates the heat upon them +from above. + +All around stood sturdy piers of brick and iron, and low-browed arches, +crushed, one could not but fancy, out of their original proportions by +the immense weight they were forced to uphold. + +Returning to the Inferno, Cicerone led the way to a pot which was being +filled with frit from one of the little covered cars that he had pointed +out in the mixing-room. This process was to be effected gradually, as he +explained,--a certain portion being at first placed in the heated pot, +and suffered to melt, and then another, until the pot should be full, +when the door of it would be put up and closed with cement. + +"And how long before the frit will be entirely melted?" asked Monsieur. + +"From thirty-six to sixty hours. The time varies a good deal with the +seasons, and different sorts of glass take different times to melt. This +flint-glass melts the easiest, and common bottle-glass takes the +longest. Crown-glass, such as is used for window-panes, comes between +the two; but that is not made here." + +"And when the glass is sufficiently boiled, what next?" + +"You shall see, for here is a pot just opened, and this man with the +long iron rod, called a pontil, or punty, in his hand, is about to skim +it." + +"What is there to skim off?" + +"Oh, there will be impurities, of course, however carefully the +ingredients are prepared. Some of these sink to the bottom, and some +rise in scum, or, as it is called here, glass-gall, and sometimes +sandiver." + +"Just like broth or society, isn't it, Optima?" suggested Miselle, +aside. + +"Why don't you discover a social pontil, then?" + +"Oh, I have no taste for reforming. What would there be to laugh at in +the world, if the human sandiver were removed?" + +"It might be an improvement to have the gall removed, my dear," remarked +Optima, significantly; but Miselle was too busy in watching the skimming +to understand the gentle rebuke. + +Thrusting the pontil far into the pot, the workman moved it gently from +side to side, turning it at the same time, until he suddenly withdrew +upon its point a large lump of glowing substance, which he shook off +upon a smooth iron table standing near, called a marver, (that is, +_marbre_,) in size and shape not unlike the largest of a nest of +teapoys. Here the lump of sandiver lay, while through its mass shot rays +of vivid prismatic color, glowing and dying along its surface so +vivaciously that one needs must fancy the salamander no fable, and that +this death of gorgeous agony was something more than the mere cooling of +an inert mass of matter. + +"You see how bubbly and streaked that is now?" broke in the voice of +Cicerone upon Miselle's little dream. "But after standing awhile the air +will all escape from the pot, leaving the glass smoother, thicker, and +tougher than it is now. Don't you want to look in, before it cools off?" + +With a mental protest against the fate of those luckless individuals who +threw Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego into the seven-times heated +furnace, Miselle stooped, and, looking in, uttered a cry of surprise and +delight. + +It was the very soul of fire, the essence of light and heat. Above, rose +a glowing arch, quivering with an intensity of color, such as fascinates +the eye of the eagle to the noonday sun. Below, undulated in great oily +waves a sea of molten matter, throbbing in vivid curves against the +sides of its glowing basin. And arch and wall and heaving waves all +mingled in a pure harmony, an accord, of light too intense for color, or +rather a color so intense as to be nameless in this pale world. + +Miselle knew now how the moth feels who plunges wildly into the flame +that lures him to his death, and yet fascinates him beyond the power of +resistance. The door was very small, or it might have been already too +late, when Optima touched the shoulder of this modern Parsee, and +suggested, calmly,-- + +"If you burn your eyes out here, my dear Miselle, you will be unable to +see anything else." + +The thought was a kind and sensible one, as, coming from Optima, it +could not have failed of being; and Miselle stood upright, stared +forlornly about her, and found the world very pale and weak, very cold +and dark. + +Was it to solace her sudden exile from fairy-land, or was it only as a +customary courtesy, that an old man, wasted and paled by years of +ministration at this fiery shrine, now seized a long, hollow iron rod, +called a blow-stick, and, thrusting the smaller end into the pot, +withdrew a small portion of the glass, and, while retaining it by a +swift twirl, presented the mouth-piece of the tube to Miselle with a +gesture so expressive that she immediately applied her lips to those of +the blow-stick, and rounded her cheeks to the similitude of those +corpulent little Breezes whom the old masters are so fond of depicting +attendant upon the flight of their brothers the Winds? + +Ah, my little dears, with your straws and soap-suds you will never blow +a bubble like that! As it slowly rounded to its perfect sphere, what +secrets of its birth within that glowing furnace, what mysteries of the +pure element whose creation it seemed, flashed in fiery hieroglyph +athwart its surface! A mocking globe, whereon were painted realms that +may none the less exist, because man's feeble vision has never seen +them, his fettered mind never imagined them. Who knows? It may have been +the surface of the sun that was for one instant drawn upon that ball of +liquid fire. Who is to limit the affinities, the subtle reproductions of +Nature's grand ideas? + +But as the wonder culminated, as the glancing rays resolved themselves +into more positive lines, as the enigma seemed about to offer its own +solution, the bubble broke, flew into a myriad tiny shards, which, with +a tinkling laugh, fell to the grimy pavement, and lay there sparkling +malicious fun into Miselle's eyes. + +Cicerone stooped and gathered some of the fragments. Surely, never was +substance so closely allied to shadow. The lightest touch, a breath +even, and they were gone,--and were they caught, it was like the capture +of one of the floating films of a summer morning, glancing brightly to +the eye, but impalpable to the touch. + +When all had looked, the guide slowly closed his hand with a cruel +gripe, and, opening it, threw down a little shower of scintillating +dust, an airy fall of powdered diamonds, lost as they readied the earth, +and that was all. + +"We're casting some of those Fresnel lanterns to-day. Perhaps the ladies +would like to see them," suggested the pale little old man, and pointed +to a powerful machine with a long lever-handle at the top, which, being +thrown up, showed a heavy iron mould, heated quite hot, and just now +smoking furiously from a fresh application of kerosene-oil, with which +the mould is coated before each period of service, much as the housewife +butters her griddle before each plateful of buckwheat cakes. + +As the smoke subsided, the old man, who proved a very intelligent as +well as civil person, thrust his pontil into the pot nearest the press, +and, withdrawing a sufficient quantity of the glass, dropped it squarely +into the open mould, whose operator, immediately seizing the long +handle, swung himself from it in a grotesque effort to increase the +natural gravity of his body, and succeeded in bringing it down with +great force. Then, leaning over the lever in a state of complacent +exhaustion, he glared for a moment at the spectators with the calm +superiority of one who, having climbed to the summit of knowledge, can +afford to pity the ignorant crowd groping below. + +The mould being reopened presently displayed a large, heavy lantern, +whose curiously elaborate flutings and pencillings were, as the +intelligent artisan averred, arranged upon the principle of the famous +Fresnel light, whose introduction some years ago marked an epoch in the +history of light-houses. + +"Why, Miss, these little up-and-down marks, that you'd take it were just +put in for fancy," said William Greaves, "have got a patent on 'em, and +no one else could put 'em into a lantern without being prosecuted." + +"But why? What difference do they make?" + +"Why, Miss, every one of them fingerings makes a lens; you see it's just +the same inside as out, and it sort of _spreads_ the light. That a'n't +the way to call it, but that's the idea; for the man that got it up was +down here, and I talked with him." + +"And what are they for?" + +"For ships' lanterns, Ma'am. They take this round lantern, when it's all +done here, and split it in two halves up and down, and then put one on +each side a vessel's bows just like the lamps on a doctor's gig, and the +bowsprit runs out between just like the horse does in the gig." + +At this juncture a small boy rushed up, and, thrusting a stick into the +still red-hot lantern, dexterously tilted it up and carried it away to a +furnace of different construction from the first, into one of whose open +doors he thrust it, and then returned to wait for another. + +This furnace, called a flashing-furnace, was round like the first, and +was fitted with eight or ten doors, from all of which the flames rushed +eagerly, and in a very startling fashion. + +"This is fed constantly with coal-oil," expounded Cicerone. "It is +brought in pipes, as you see, and drips down inside. These doors are +called 'glory-holes'"---- + +"Aureoles, perhaps," suggested Optima, in a whisper. + +"And the lanterns, or whatever is in hand, are brought here after +pressing, and put in to get well heated through again before they are +given to the finisher. Fire-polishing they call it. Here you see one +just ready to be taken out." + +"He will drop it," cried Miselle, as another boy, wielding a pontil with +a lump of melted glass at the end, darted before her, and, pressing this +heated end against the bottom of the lantern, picked it up and carried +it away, over his shoulder, as if he were a stray member of some +torch-light procession. + +"Not he! He's too well used to his trade," laughed Monsieur. "Now come +and see the finishing process." + +Following the steps of the young wide-awake, Miselle saw him deliver the +pontil, with the lantern still attached, to a listless individual seated +upon a bench whose long iron arms projected far in front of him, while +an idle pontil lay across them. This the boy snatched up and departed, +while the man, suddenly rousing himself, began to roll the new pontil up +and down the arms of his bench with his left hand, while with a pair of +compasses in his right he carefully gauged the diameter of the revolving +lantern, and then smoothed away its rough-cast edges by means of a +blackened bit of wood, somewhat of the shape, and bearing the name, of a +battledoor. + +The finishing over, another stick was thrust inside the lantern, and it +was separated from the pontil by the application of a bit of cold iron. +It was then carried to the mouth of a long gallery-like oven, moderately +heated, and fitted with a movable floor, upon which the articles put in +at the hot end were slowly transported through a carefully graduated +atmosphere to the cool end at a distance of perhaps a hundred feet, and +on their arrival were ready to be packed for transportation. + +This process was called annealing, and the oven with a movable floor was +technically denominated a leer. + +"Here they are pressing tumblers," continued the guide, pointing to a +press of smaller size and power, standing near another door of the same +furnace. "They have just had a large order from California, from a +single firm, for--how many tumblers did you tell me, Mr. Greaves?" + +"Twenty-two thousand dozen, Sir; and we shall have to spring to get them +off at the time set." + +"Nice tumblers they are, too,--just as good as cut, to my mind," +continued Cicerone, poking with his stick at one of the batch that was +now being placed in the leer. + +Very nice and clear they were, but not as good as cut to Miselle's mind, +and she remarked,-- + +"It is very easy to feel the difference, if not to see it, between cut +and pressed glass. The latter always has these blunted angles to the +facets, and has a certain vagueness and want of purpose about it; then +it is not so heavy or so sparkling; there is a certain exhilaration in +the gleam of cut glass that fits it for purposes to which the other +would be entirely unsuited. Fancy Champagne in a pressed goblet, or +tuberoses and japonicas in a pressed vase, or attar in a pressed +_flacon_!" + +"Fortunately," replied Monsieur, to whom this aside had been addressed, +"the persons who consider Champagne, japonicas, and attar of roses +necessaries of life are very well able to provide cut-glass receptacles +for them. But isn't it worth one's while to be proud of a country where +every artisan's wife has her tumblers, her goblets, her vases, of +pressed glass, certainly, but 'as good, to her mind, as cut,' to quote +our friend? and don't you think it better that twenty-two thousand dozen +pressed tumblers should be sold at ten cents apiece than one-third that +number of cut ones at thirty cents, leaving all those who cannot pay the +higher price to drink out of"---- + +"Clam-shells? Well, perhaps. Equality and the rights of man are very +nice, of course, but I"---- + +"Like cut glass better," retorted Monsieur, laughing, while Miselle +turned a little indignantly to the guide, who was saying,-- + +"The reason the edges have that blunted look is partly because they +can't be struck as sharp as they can be ground, and then being heated in +the glory-holes, and again in the leers softens them down a little. In +fact, the very idea of annealing is to make the outside particles of the +glass run together just a very little, so as to fill up the pores as it +were, and make a smoother surface. If this were not done, it would fly +all to pieces the first time it was put into hot water." + +"The cut glass is not annealed, then?" + +"Oh, yes, after it is blown it is; and although the grinding takes off +part of the surface, I suppose it fills up the pores at the same time." + +"Cut glass is more apt to break in hot water than pressed or simply +blown glass," remarked Madame. + +"And is all cut glass blown in the first place?" asked Optima. + +"No, Miss, a good deal of it is pressed and then ground, either wholly +or in part; but this is not so clear or free from waves as the blown. +Out here is a man blowing _liqueur_-glasses. Perhaps you would like to +see that." + +The idea of blowing a bubble of glass into so intricate a shape, and +timing the process so that the brittle material should harden only when +it had reached the desired form, struck Miselle's mind as very +incredible; and she followed Cicerone with much curiosity to another +furnace, where one man, blow-pipe in hand, was dipping up a small +quantity of the liquid glass, and, having blown into it just long enough +to make a stout little bubble, laid the pipe across the iron arms of a +bench, where sat another operator, who immediately began to roll the +pipe up and down the arms of his chair, while with a supple iron +instrument, shaped like sugar-tongs with flattened bowls, he laid hold +of the bubble, and, while elongating it into a tube, brought the lower +extremity first to a point and then to a stem. To the end of this the +assistant now touched his pontil, upon whose end he had taken up a +little more glass, and this, being twisted in a ring round the foot of +the stem, divided from the pontil by a huge pair of scissors, +dexterously shaped with the plyers, and finally smoothed with a +battledoor, became the foot of the wine-glass. The heated pontil was now +applied exactly to the centre of this foot, the top of the glass divided +from the blow-pipe by the application of cold iron, and the whole thrust +for a few moments into the mouth of the furnace to soften, while the +first man laid another pipe with another bubble at the end before the +operator upon the bench, who recommenced the same process. + +The first glass, meantime, rendered once more ductile by heat, was +passed to another man upon another bench, who, keeping up all the while +the rotatory motion necessary to preserve the form of the softened +material, smoothed it with the battledoor, gauged it with the compasses, +coaxed it with the sugar-tongs, and finally trimmed it around the top +with his scissors as easily as if it had been of paper. It was then +cracked off from the pontil and carried away, a finished _liqueur_-glass +of the tiniest size, to be annealed. After this it might be used in its +simple condition, or ornamented with engraving, while the bottom of the +foot, still rough from contact with the pontil, was to be ground, +smoothed, and then polished. + +"Oh, how lovely! Look, Miselle, at this ruby glass," cried out Optima. + +"Gorgeous!" assented Miselle, peeping into a small pot where glowed and +heaved what seemed in very truth a mass of molten rubies. + +"What _are_ you going to make of this beautiful glass?" inquired she, +enthusiastically, of a pleasant-looking man who was patiently waiting +for room to approach his work. + +"Lamp-globes, Ma'am," returned he, sententiously. + +"Poor Miselle! You thought it would be Cinderella's slipper, at least, +didn't you?" laughed Optima. "But look!" + +The man, dipping his pipe, not into the ruby glass, but into an +adjoining pot of fine flint-glass, carefully blew a small globe, and +then removing the tube from his mouth swung it about in the air for a +few moments, until it had gained a certain degree of firmness. Then +dipping the bubble into the precious pot of ruby glass, (whose color, as +Cicerone mysteriously whispered, was derived from an oxide of gold,) he +withdrew it coated with the brilliant color, and so softened by the heat +as to be capable of further distension. After gently blowing, until the +shade had reached its proper size, the workman handed it to another, +who, rolling it upon the iron arms of his bench, made an opening, at the +point diametrically opposite that attached to the blow-pipe, with the +end of the compasses, and carefully enlarged, gauged, and shaped it, by +means of plyers and battledoor. + +"Pretty soon you will see how they cut the figures out and show the +white glass underneath," said the guide; but Miselle's attention was at +this moment engrossed by a series of small explosions, apparently close +at hand, and disagreeably suggestive of the final ascension of the Glass +Works, inclusive of all the pale men and boys, who might certainly be +supposed purified by fire, and ready to be released from the furnace of +affliction. Not feeling herself worthy to join this sublimated throng, +Miselle hastily communicated the idea to Optima, and proposed a sudden +retreat, but was smilingly bidden to first consider for a moment the +operations of four workmen close at hand, two of whom, kneeling upon the +ground, grasped the handles of two little presses, very like aggravated +bullet-moulds, while the other two, bringing little masses of glass upon +the ends of their blow-sticks and dropping them carefully into the necks +of the moulds, proceeded to blow through the pipe until the air forced +out a quantity of the glass in the form of a great bubble at the top of +the mould. The pressure from within increasing still more, this bubble +necessarily burst with a smart snap, and thus caused the explosive +sounds above referred to. The two casters then scraped away the _debris_ +at the top with a bit of stick, and, opening their moulds, disclosed in +one a pretty little essence-bottle, which a sharp boy in waiting +immediately snapped up on the end of a long fork, where he had already +spitted about a dozen more, and carried them away to the leer. + +"But what are _you_ casting?" asked Madame, puzzled, as the other +workman opened his mould and poked its contents out upon a bit of board +held ready by another sharp boy. + +"Little inks, Ma'am," was the laconic reply; and looking more narrowly +at the tiny object, it proved to be one of the small portable inkstands +used in writing-desks. + +More explosions at a little distance, and two more men were found to be +casting, in the same manner, small bottles of opaque white glass, +resembling china, a quality produced by an admixture of bone-dust in the +frit. These are the bottles dear to manufacturers of pomades, hair-oils, +and various cosmetics, and Miselle turned round a cool one lying upon +the ground, half-expecting to find a flourishing advertisement of a +newly discovered _Fontaine d'Or_ upon its back. She did not find it, but +espied instead two pretty little fellows in a corner just beyond, one of +whom might be twelve and his curly-haired junior not more than ten years +old, who were gravely engaged in blowing chimneys for kerosene lamps, +and quite successfully too, as a large box behind their bench amply +proved,--these alone of all the articles mentioned not requiring to be +passed through the leer. + +A little farther on, a workman, loading his pontil, by repeated +dippings, with a large quantity of glass, dropped the lump into an open +basin hollowed in the surface of one of the iron tables. It was here +suffered to cool for some moments, and then, by means of a pontil tipped +with molten glass, carried away to be fire-polished. + +This was a lens, such as are used to increase the light in ships' +cabins, staterooms, etc. Another and coarser quality, not lenses, but +simple disks of greenish glass, about four inches in thickness by twelve +in diameter, were stacked ready for removal at a short distance, and the +whole association made Miselle so intolerably sea-sick that she sidled +away to watch the manufacture of some decanters, "sech as is used in +bar-rooms, mostly, Ma'am," as the principal workman confided to her. +These were first moulded in the shape of great tumblers with an +excessively ugly pattern printed on the sides, then softened in a +glory-hole, and brought to a workman, who, by means of plyers and +battledoor, elongated and shaped the neck, leaving a queer, ragged lip +at the top. The decanter was then passed to Miselle's confidant, who +struck off this lip with the edge of his plyers. An attendant then +presented to him a lump of melted glass on the end of his pontil, and +the workman, deftly twisting it round the neck of his decanter, clipped +it off with a pair of scissors, and proceeded to smooth and shape it by +means of the plyers. + +These decanters were probably to be used in conjunction with some Gothic +goblets, whose press stood in the immediate vicinity. These were +greenish in color, thick and unwieldly in shape, and ornamented with +alternate panels of vertical and horizontal stripes. + +Miselle was still lost in contemplation of these goblets when Monsieur +approached. + +"No," exclaimed she, pointing at them,--"no true patriot should +congratulate his countrymen upon the plenitude of such articles as that! +Far better for the national growth in art that we should all revert to +clam-shells!" + +"Come, then, and see if we cannot find something more to your fancy in +the cutting-room," laughed Monsieur; and Miselle willingly followed +through the green yard, and up some stairs to a sunny chamber, or rather +hall, lined on either hand with a row of busy workmen, each seated +behind a whirring wheel, to which he held the surface of whatever +article he was engaged in cutting, or rather grinding. + +These wheels were arranged in a progressive order. The first were of +stone or iron, fed with sand and water, which trickled slowly down upon +them from a trough overhead. These rapidly cut away the surface of glass +presented to them, leaving it rough and opaque. The article was next +presented to a smooth grindstone, that removed the roughness, and left +the appearance of fine ground glass. + +The next process, called polishing, was effected upon a wooden wheel, +fed with pumice or rotten-stone and water, and the final touch was given +by another wooden wheel, and a preparation of tin and lead called +putty-powder. + +The opacity was now entirely removed, and the facets cut upon the +wine-glass Miselle had principally watched in its progress shone with +the clear and polished brilliancy characteristic of the finest quality +of cut glass. + +For very nice work, such as the polishing of chandelier-drops, and +articles of that sort, a leaden wheel, fed with fine rotten-stone and +water, is employed; but on the occasion referred to, no work of this +nature being in hand, these wheels were not used. + +Other wheels, consisting of a simple disk of iron, not unlike a circular +saw without any teeth, were used for cutting those narrow vertical +lines, technically known as fingering, familiar to those so happy as to +have had careful grandmothers, and to have inherited their decanters and +wine-glasses. The revival of this style, like that of the rich old +pattern in plate known as the "Mayflower," is a compliment just now paid +by the present generation to the taste of the past, and Miselle was +shown some beautiful specimens of the "latest mode, Ma'am," that awoke +melancholy reminiscences of the shattered idols of her youth. + +"Here are our friends, the ruby lampshades, again," remarked Optima. + +"And now you will see how the transparent figures are made upon them," +suggested Cicerone, pointing to a workman, who, with a pile of the +ruby-coated globes beside him, was painting circles upon one of them +with some yellowish pigment. The globe then being held to one of the +rough wheels, the thin shell of red glass within these circles was +ground away, leaving it white, but opaque. The globe then passed through +the processes of smooth grinding and polishing, above described, until +the pattern was finally developed in clear transparent medallions. + +A very beautiful article in colored glass was a Hock decanter of an +exquisite antique pattern in green glass, wreathed with a grape-vine, +whose leaves and stems were transparent, while the clusters of grapes +were left opaque by the omission of the polishing process. + +At the end of the noisy cutting-room was a small chamber, hardly more +than a closet, called the engraving-room, and bearing the same relation +to the former as the crypt where the cellarer jealously stores his Tokay +for the palate of a Kaiser holds to the acres of arches where lies the +_vin ordinaire_. + +Here, in the full light of ample windows, before a high bench, over +which revolved with incredible rapidity a half-dozen small copper disks +fed with fine emery and oil, stood as many earnest-looking men, not +artisans, but artists, each of whom, vaguely guided by a design lightly +sketched upon the article under his hands, was developing it with an +ease and skill really beautiful to contemplate. Intricate arabesques, +single flowers of perfect grace, or rare groups of bloom, piles of +fruit, or spirited animal-life, all grew between the whirring copper +wheel and the nice hand, whose slightest turn or pressure had a meaning +and a just result. + +Miselle watched the engraving of an intricate cipher beneath the +fantastic crest of some wealthy epicurean, who had ordered a complete +dessert-service of such charming forms and graceful designs that envy of +his taste, if not of his possessions, became a positive duty. + +"Is there any limit to the range of your subjects?" asked Miselle, as +the artist added the last graceful curve to the griffin's tail, and +contemplated his finished work with quiet complacency. + +"There may be, but I never found it. Whatever a pencil can draw this +wheel can cut," said he, with such a smile as Gottschalk might assume in +answering the query as to whether the score could be written that he +could not render. + +Having now witnessed all the processes of glass-manufacture to be seen +at this time and place,[26] the party were conducted to the show-room, +passing on the way through a room where a number of young women were +engaged in painting and gilding vases, spoon-holders, lamps, and various +other articles in plain and colored glass. The colors used showed, for +the most part, but a very faint resemblance to the tints they were +intended to produce, and the gold appeared like a dingy brown paint; +but, as was explained by Cicerone, these-colors were to be fixed by +burning, or rather melting them into the surface of the glass, and this +process would at the same time evolve their true colors and brilliancy, +both of paint and gilding. + +In the next room to this, several workmen were busy in fitting the metal +trimmings to such articles as lamps, lanterns, castors, +molasses-pitchers, and the like. + +One chirruping old man insisted upon mounting an immensely ugly blue and +yellow lamp upon a brass foot for the edification of his visitors, and +when this was over, exhibited some opaque white glass stands for other +lamps, which, as he fondly remarked, "would be took for marble +anyw'eres." + +The show-room was a long, airy hall, with a row of tables on either +hand, covered with glass, whose icy glitter and lack of color gave a +deliciously cool aspect to the whole place. Glass in every graceful form +and design, some heavy and crystalline, enriched with ornate workmanship +by cutter and engraver, some delicate and fragile as a soap-bubble; +hock-glasses as green and lucent as sea-water, and with an edge not too +thick to part the lips of Titania; glasses of amber, that should turn +pale Johannisberger to the true _vino d'oro_; glasses of glowing ruby +tint, than which Bohemia sends us nothing finer; vases and goblets as +rare in form and wrought as skilfully as those two cups that Nero bought +for six thousand sestertii; medallions bearing in _intaglio_ portraits +of distinguished men as clearly and unmistakably cut as on coin or +cameo; whole services of glass, more beautiful and almost as valuable as +services of plate; plumes of spun glass as fine and sheeny as softest +silk; toys and scientific playthings; objects of wonder, admiration, and +curiosity: all these were to be seen crowded upon these long, white +tables in the cool hall, where the wind, sweeping gently through, +brought the smell of the rising tide, and the sound of its waves upon +the shore. + +Here, too, was a man who knew the story, not only of the glass lying +beneath his hand to-day, but of all the glass the world has known, from +the colored beads inhumed with the Pharaonic princesses to the ruby +salver he so fondly fingered as he talked. + +He spoke of the glazed windows of Pompeii; of the "excellent portrait" +of the Emperor Constantine VII. painted, A. D. 949, upon a +church-window. He recounted the ancient story of the Phoenicians, who, +landing at the mouth of the river, brought from their ships lumps of +soda, and, laying them upon the sand as a support for their dinner-pot, +found when they had done lumps of glass among the ashes, and so +rediscovered the lost art of glass-making; but to this he added, with a +dubious smile,-- + +"Fire must have been hotter in those days than now. We could never melt +sand in that fashion now." + +Then coming to window-glass, he clearly described the process of its +manufacture, although confessing he had never been engaged in it, and +from this Miselle, with a word, launched him into the glowing sea of +mediaeval painted windows, and the wellnigh forgotten glories of their +manufacture. + +"There is hardly one of them left that I have not seen," said he,--"from +the old heathen temples of the East, that the Christians converted to +their own use, and, while they burned the idols, spared the windows, +which they had sense to remember they could never reproduce, to the +gloomy purple-shadowed things they put up so much in England and the +United States at the present day, forgetting, as it would seem, that the +first idea of a window is to let the light through. + +"But one of the finest works of modern times was the great +tournament-window, first exhibited in London in 1820. I was a young +fellow then, hardly twenty indeed, and with very little money to spare +for sight-seeing. But from the day I first heard of it, until five years +afterward, when I saw it, I never wavered in my determination to go +abroad and look at that window, as well as all the others I had heard so +much of. + +"It was a beautiful thing really, Ma'am, measuring eighteen by +twenty-four feet, and made up of three hundred and fifty pieces of glass +set in metal astragals, so cleverly worked into the shadows that the +whole affair appeared like one piece. It represented the passage-of-arms +between Henry VIII., of England, and Francis I., of France, held at +Ardres, June 25, 1520, and of the hundred figures shown, over forty were +portraits. Among these were the two queens, Katharine of England, and +Claude of France, Anne Boleyn, and Cardinal Wolsey, with a great many +other distinguished persons." + +"And this window, where is it now?" asked Optima. + +"Destroyed by fire, June 30, 1832," he replied, with the mournful awe of +one giving the date of some terrible human disaster. + +"How many glass-factories like this are there in the country?" asked +Monsieur, reverting to the practical view of the matter under +consideration. + +"Flint-glass works, Sir? There are three in South Boston, two in East +Cambridge, and one here in Sandwich. That is for Massachusetts alone. +Then there are two in Brooklyn, New York, one in Jersey City, and two in +Philadelphia. These are all flint-glass, you understand; the principal +window-glass factories are in the southern part of New Jersey, and in +Pittsfield, Pennsylvania. Then there is a flourishing plate-glass +factory in Lenox, in this State, and another in New York. But the old +Bay State, Sir, has led the van in this enterprise ever since 1780, when +Robert Hewes, of Boston, opened the first glass-factory in the country +at Temple, New Hampshire. His workmen were all Hessians or Wallachians +who had deserted from the British army. They had learned the art in +their own country, and were the best men he could have found for his +purpose at that time; but they were a disorderly set, and, finally, one +of the furnace-men got drunk, and burnt down the works in the night. +Hewes presented a circular plate of glass, as a specimen of his +manufacture, to Harvard College, and I believe they have it now. It was +a very good article of glass, although a little greenish in color, and +not quite so clear as we get it now. + +"After he was burnt out, one Lint set up some glass-works in Boston +about 1800. They were not successful for a while, but about 1802 or 1803 +they got fairly started, and have kept ahead ever since." + +"Four o'clock, my dear," remarked Madame, softly, to Monsieur, and +Cicerone, who had fidgeted awfully all through the little lecture, +brightened perceptibly, and rubbed his hands contentedly, as, with many +thanks to the courteous superintendent, and a last glance at the +glittering wonders of his charge, the party descended once more to the +green yard, and crossed it to the principal gate. + +"One minute, Optima. Do come and look at the engine in here!" cried +Miselle, dragging her reluctant friend into a long, narrow den, almost +filled by a black monster with shining brass ornaments, who slid his +iron arms backward and forward, backward and forward, in a steady, +remorseless manner, highly suggestive of what he would do, had he fists +at the end of them, and all the world within reach of their swing. A +sickish smell of heated oil pervaded the apartment, although everything +was as clean and bright as hands could make it. + +With the foolish daring characteristic of her sex, Miselle stole out a +finger to touch the remorseless arm as it shot outward, but Optima +detected and arrested the movement, with a grave "For shame!" and at the +same moment a man suddenly emerged from behind the body of the monster, +and, approaching the venturous intruder, bawled in her ear,-- + +"'Twould take off a man's head, Miss, as easy as a pipe-stem!" + +Miselle nodded, without attempting a defence, and the man added +presently,-- + +"'Undred 'oss power, Miss. Drives all the works." + +"Do come out, Miselle! I shall go crazy in another minute!" screamed +Optima; and the two young women hastened to overtake the rest of the +party, who were already in the street. + +Gypsy and Fanny, who had better used their four hours of rest than in +exploring glass-works, stood ready-harnessed before the door of the +Central Hotel when the sight-seers returned thither, and in a few +moments the ladies were handed to their seats, Monsieur gathered up the +reins, and Tom having "given them their heads," the spirited little nags +tossed the precious gifts into the air, and took the road at a pace that +needed only moderating to make it the perfection of exhilarating motion. + +Words are all very well in their way, but they fail wofully when a +person has really anything to say. + +For instance, where are the phrases to describe that sunset sky, so +clear and blue overhead that one felt it was only the scant range of +human vision that hid the unveiled heavenly glories beyond the arch,--so +gorgeous at the horizon, where it met the opalescent sea,--so rosy in +the east, where, like a great golden shield, stood the moon gazing +across the world triumphantly at the sinking sun,--the dewy freshness +of the woods, where lingered the intoxicating perfumes distilled by the +blazing noontide from fir and spruce,--the jubilant chorus of birds, +dying strain by strain, until the melancholy whippoorwill grieved alone +in his woodland solitude? + +On by the lonely farms and unlighted cabins, by the bare, bleak moors, +where the night-wind came rolling softly up to look at the +travellers,--on till the low, broad sea opened out the view, and came +sobbing up on the beach, wailing at its own cruel deeds,--on beneath the +cloudless night, upon whose front blazed Orion and the Pleiades,--on +until the scene had wrought its charm, and the frequent speech fell to +scattered words, to silent thought, to passionate feeling, where +swelling heart and dim eyes alone uttered the soul's response to earth's +perfect beauty, God's perfect goodness. + +And so ever on, until the twinkling lights in the curve of the bay +showed where the weary Pilgrims had set foot on shore, in that black, +bitter December weather, and planted the seed that has borne blossoms +and fruits unnumbered, and shall yet bear more and more for centuries to +come. + +And through the quiet suburb, and across the brook, and up the +village-street, to the happy and hospitable home, where brilliant lights +and a sparkling tea-service waited to welcome the weary, but +well-pleased _voyageurs_. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] "Cullet" is the waste of the glass-room. The superfluous material +taken up on the pontil, and the shards of articles broken in process of +manufacture. The ingenious reader will thus interpret the heading of +this paper. + +[26] It is proper to state that Miselle subsequently visited the +New-England Glass Company's Works in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, and, +finding the method of manufacture nearly identical with that at +Sandwich, has, for convenience' sake, incorporated her observations +there with this account of her visit to the latter place. + + + + +WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM? + +A STORY IN TWO PARTS. + + +PART II. + +Gentleman Bill, full of confidence in his powers of persuasion, +advances, to add the weight of his respectability to his parent's +remonstrance. + +"Good morning, Mr. Frisbie,"--politely lifting his hat. + +"Hey?" says Frisbie, sarcastic.--"Look at his insolence, Stephen!" + +"I sincerely trust, Sir," begins Bill, "that you will reconsider your +determination, Sir"---- + +"Shall I fetch him a cut with the hosswhip?" whispers Stephen, loud +enough for the stalwart young black to hear. + +"You can fetch him a cut with the hosswhip, if you like," Bill answers +for Mr. Frisbie, with fire blazing upon his polite face. "But, Sir, in +case you do, Sir, I shall take it upon myself to teach you better +manners than to insult a gentleman conferring with your master, Sir!" + +"Ha, ha, ha!" roared Mr. Frisbie. "You've got it, Stephen!" + +The whip trembled in Stephen's angry hand, but the strapping young negro +looked so cool and wicked, standing there, that he wisely forbore to +strike. + +"I am sure, Sir," Bill addresses the landlord, "you are too humane a +person"---- + +"No, I a'n't," says the florid Frisbie. "I know what you're going to +say; but it's no use. You can't work upon my feelings; I a'n't one of +your soft kind.--Drive up to the door, Stephen." + +Stephen is very glad to start the horse suddenly and graze Gentleman +Bill's knee with the wheel-hub. Bill steps back a pace, and follows him +with the smiting look of one who treasures up wrath. You'd better be +careful, Stephen, let me tell you! + +Joe stands holding the door open, and Mr. Frisbie looks in. There, to +his astonishment, he sees the women washing clothes as unconcernedly as +if nothing unusual was about to occur. He jumps to the ground, heated +with passion. + +"Ho, here!" he shouts in at the door; "don't you see the house is coming +down?" + +Upon which the deaf old grandfather rises in his corner, and pulls off +his cap, with the usual salutation, "Sarvant, Sah," etc., and sitting +down again, relapses into a doze immediately. + +Frisbie is furious. "What you 'bout here?" he cries, in an alarming +voice. + +"Bless you, Sir," answers the old woman, over a tub, "don't you see? +We's doon' a little washin', Sir. Didn't you never see nobody wash +afore?" And she proceeds with her rubbing. + +"The house will be tumbling on you in ten minutes!" + +"You think so? Now I don't, Mr. Frisbie! This 'ere house a'n't gwine to +tumble down this mornin', I know. The Lord 'll look out for that, I +guess. Look o' these 'ere childern! look o' me! look o' my ole father +there, more'n a hunderd year ole! What's a-gwine to 'come on us all, if +you pull the house down? Can't git another right away; no team to tote +our things off with; an' how 'n the world we can do 'thout no house this +winter I can't see. So I've jes' concluded to trust the Lord, an' git +out my washin'." Rub, rub, rub! + +Frisbie grows purple. "Are you fools?" he inquires. + +"Yes, _I_ am! I'm Fessenden's." And the honest, staring youth comes +forward to see what is wanted. + +This unexpected response rather pricks the wind-bag of the man's zeal. +He looks curiously at the boy, who follows him out of the house. + +"Stephen, did you ever see that fellow before?" + +"Yes, Sir; he's the one come to our house Saturday night, and I showed +round to the Judge's." + +"Are you the fellow?" + +"Yes," says Fessenden's. "There wouldn't any of you let me into your +houses, neither!" + +"Wouldn't the people I sent you to let you in?" + +"No!" + +"Hear that, Stephen! your philanthropical Gingerford!--And what did you +do?" + +"I didn't do nothin',--only laid down to die, I did." + +"But you didn't die, did you?" + +"No! This man he come along, and brought me here." + +"Here? to the niggers?" + +"Yes! You wouldn't have me, so they took me, and dried me, and fed +me,--good folks, niggers!" Fessenden's bore this simple testimony. + +What is it makes the Frisbie color heighten so? Is it Gentleman Bill's +quiet smile, as he stands by and hears this conversation? + +"And you have been here ever since?" says the man, in a humbler key, and +with a milder look, than before. + +"Yes! It's a r'al good place!" says the youth. + +"But a'n't you ashamed to live with niggers?" + +"Ashamed? What for? Nobody else was good to me. But they was good to me. +I a'n't ashamed." + +The Frisbie color heightens more and more. He looks at that wretched +dwelling,--he glances aside at Mr. Williams, that coal-black Christian, +of sad and resigned demeanor, waiting ruefully to see the roof torn +off,--the only roof that had afforded shelter to the perishing outcast. +Mr. Frisbie is not one of the "soft kind," but he feels the prick of +conscience in his heart. + +"Why didn't you go to the poor-house? Didn't anybody tell you to?" + +"Yes, that's what they said. But nobody showed me the way, and I +couldn't find it." + +"Where did you come from? Who are you?" + +"Fessenden's." + +"Who is Fessenden?" + +"The man that owns me. But he whipped me and shet me up, and I wouldn't +stay." + +"Where does he live?" + +"Don't know. Away off." + +"You'd better go back to him, hadn't you?" + +"No! I like these folks. Best folks I ever seen!" avers the earnest +youth. + +Flush and confusion are in the rich man's face. He turns up an uneasy +glance at Adsly's men, already on the roof; then coughs, and says to +Stephen,-- + +"This is interesting!" + +"Very," says Stephen. + +"Don't you remember, _I_ was going to make some provision for this +fellow,--I'd have seen him safe in the almshouse, if nothing more,--but +you suggested Gingerford's." + +"I supposed Gingerford would be delighted to take him in," grins +Stephen. + +"Instead of that, he turns him out in the storm! Did you ever hear of +such sham philanthropy? By George!" cries Frisbie, in his indignation +against the Judge, "there's more real philanthropy in these +niggers"----checking himself, and glancing again at the workmen on the +roof. + +"What's philanthropy?" asks Fessenden's. "Is that what you're tearin' +their house down for? I'm sorry!" + +Frisbie is flustered. He is ashamed of appearing "soft." He wishes +heartily to be well rid of the niggers. But something in his own heart +rebels against the course he has taken to eject them. + +"Just hold on there a minute, Adsly!" + +"Ay, ay!" says Adsly. And the work stops. + +"Now what do I do this for?" exclaims Frisbie, vexed at himself the +instant he has spoken. And he frowns, and blows his nose furiously. +"It's because I am too good-natured, altogether!" + +"No, no, Sir,--I beg your pardon!" says Mr. Williams, his heart all +aglow with gratitude. "To be kind and merciful to the poor, that isn't +to be too good-natured, Sir!" + +"Well, well! I a'n't one of your milk-and-water sort. Look at such a man +as Gingerford, for example! But I guess, come case in hand, you'll find +as much genuine humanity in me, Adsly, as in them that profess so much. +Wait till to-morrow before you knock the old shell to pieces. I'll give +'em another day. And in the mean time, boy," turning to Fessenden's, +"you must find you another home. Either go back to your guardian, or +I'll send you over to the almshouse. These people can't keep you, for +they'll have no house in these parts to keep themselves in." + +"So?" says Fessenden's. "They kep' me when they had a house, and I'll +stay with them when they haven't got any." + +Something in the case of this unfortunate stripling interested Frisbie. +His devotion to his new friends was so sincere, and so simply expressed, +that the robust, well-fed man was almost touched by it. + +"I vow, it's a queer case, Stephen! What do you think of it?" + +"I think"----said the joker. + +"What do you think? Out with it!" + +"You own that vacant lot opposite Gingerford's?" + +"Yes; what of that?" + +"I think, then, instead of pulling the house down, I'd just move it over +there, niggers and all"---- + +"And set it opposite the Judge's!" exclaims Frisbie, catching gleefully +at the idea. + +"Exactly," says Stephen; "and give him enough of niggers for one while." + +"I'll do it!--Adsly! Adsly! See here, Adsly! Do you suppose this old box +can be moved?" + +"I guess so. 'T a'n't very large. Ruther think the frame'll hold +together." + +"Will you undertake the job?" + +"Wal, I never moved a house. There's Cap'en Slade, he moves houses. He's +got all the tackle for it, and I ha'n't. I suppose I can git him, if +you want me to see to the job." + +Agreed! It did not take Frisbie long to decide. It was such a tremendous +joke! A nest of niggers under the dainty Gingerford nose! ho, ho! Whip +up, Stephen! And the red and puffy face, redder and puffier still with +immense fun, rode off. + +Adsly and his men disappeared also, to return with Cap'en Slade and his +tackle on the morrow. Then Joe began to dance and scream like a little +devil. + +"Have a ride! have a ride! Oh, mammy! they're gunter snake th' ole house +through the village to-morrer, an' we're all gunter have a ride! free +gratis for nothin'! 'thout payin' for 't neither! A'n't we, Bill?" + +Mrs. Williams sits right down, overcome by the surprise. + +"Now I want to know if that 'ere 's so!" + +"That's what't looks like now," says Mr. Williams. "We're goin' to be +sot opposite Mr. Gingerford's." + +"'Ristocratic!" cries Joe, putting on airs. "That's what'll tickle +Bill!" + +"Oh, laws!" exclaims Mrs. Williams, with humorous sadness,--"what a show +th' ole cabin'll make, stuck down there 'mongst all them fine housen!" + +"I don't know's I quite like the notion," says her husband, with a +good-natured expansion of his serious features. "I'm 'fraid we sha'n't +be welcome neighbors down there. 'T a'n't so much out o' kindness to us +as it is out o' spite to the Gingerfords, that the house is to be moved +instid o' tore down." + +"That's the glory of the Lord! Even the wrath of man shall praise Him!" +utters the old grandmother, devoutly. + +"Won't it be jimmy?" crows Joe. "He's a jolly ole brick, that Frisbie! +I'm a-gunter set straddle on the ridge-pole, an' carry a flag. Hooray!" + +"I consider that the situation will be very much preferable to this," +observes Gentleman Bill, polishing his hat with his coat-sleeve. "Better +quarter of the town; more central; eligible locality for establishing a +tailor-shop." + +"Legible comicality for stablin' a shailor-top!" stammers Joe, mimicking +his brother. + +Upon which Bill--as he sometimes did, when excited--elapsed into the +vulgar, but expressive idiom of the family. "Shet yer head, can't ye?" +And he lifted a hand, with intent to clap it smartly upon the part the +occlusion of which was desirable. + +Joe shrieked, and fled. + +"No quarrellin' on a 'casion like this!" interposes the old woman, +covering the boy's retreat. "This 'ere's a time for joy and thanks, an' +nuffin' else. Bless the Lord, I knowed He'd keep an eye on to th' ole +house. Didn't I tell ye that boy'd bring us good luck? It's all on his +account the house a'n't tore down, an' I consider it a mighty Providence +from fust to last. Wasn't I right, when I said I guessed I'd have faith, +an' git the washin' out? Bless the Lord, I could cry!" + +And cry she did, with a fulness of heart which, I think, might possibly +have convinced even the jocund Frisbie that there was something better +than an old, worn-out, spiteful jest in the resolution he had taken to +have the house moved, instead of razed. + +And now the deaf old patriarch in the corner-became suddenly aware that +something exciting was going forward; but being unable clearly to +comprehend what, and chancing to see Fessenden's coming in, he gave +expression to his exuberant emotions by rising, and shaking the lad's +passive hand, with the usual highly polite salutation. + +"Tell him we're all a-gunter have a ride," said Joe. + +But as Fessenden's couldn't tell him loud enough, Joe screamed the news. + +"Say?" asked the old man, raising a feeble hand to his ear, and stooping +and smiling. + +"Put th' ole house on wheels, an' dror it!" shrieked Joe. + +"Yes, yes!" chuckled the old man. "I remember! Six hills in a row. +Busters!"--looking wonderfully knowing, and, with feeble forefinger +raised, nodding and winking at his great-grandchild,--as it were across +the slim gulf of a hundred years which divided the gleeful boyhood of +Joe from the second childhood of the ancient dreamer. + +The next day came Adsly and his men again, with Cap'en Slade and his +tackle, and several yokes of oxen with drivers. Levers and screws moved +the house from its foundations, and it was launched upon rollers. Then, +progress! Then, sensation in Timberville! Some said it was Noah's ark, +sailing down the street. The household furniture of the patriarch was +mostly left on board the antique craft, but Noah and his family followed +on foot. They took their live stock with them,--cow and calf, and +poultry and pig. Joe and his great-grandfather carried each a pair of +pullets, in their hands. Gentleman Bill drove the pig, with a rope tied +to his (piggy's) leg. Mr. Williams transported more poultry,--turkeys +and hens, in two great flopping clusters, slung over his shoulder, with +their heads down. The women bore crockery and other frangible articles, +and helped Fessenden's drive the cow. A picturesque procession, not +noiseless! The bosses shouted to the men, the drivers shouted to the +oxen, loud groaned the beams of the ark, the cow lowed, the calf bawled, +great was the squawking and squealing! + +Gentleman Bill was sick of the business before they had gone half-way. +He wished he had stayed in the shop, instead of coming over to help the +family, and make himself ridiculous. There was not much pleasure in +driving that stout young porker. Many a sharp jerk lamed the hand that +held the rope that restrained the leg that piggy wanted to run with. +Besides, (as I believe swine and some other folks invariably do under +the like circumstances,) piggy always tried to run in the wrong +direction. To add to Gentleman Bill's annoyance, spectators soon became +numerous, and witty suggestions were not wanting. + +"Take him up in your arms," said somebody. + +"Take advantage of his contrariness, and try to drive him 't other way," +said somebody else. + +"Ride him," proposed a third. + +"Make a whistle of his tail, an' blow it, an' he'll foller ye!" screamed +a bright school-boy. + +"Stick some of yer tailor's needles into him!" "Sew him up in a sack, +and shoulder him!" "Take up his hind-legs, and push him like a +wheelbarrer!" And so forth, and so forth, till Bill was in a fearful +sweat and rage, partly with the pig, but chiefly with the uncivil +multitude. + +"Ruther carry me on your back, some rainy night, hadn't ye?" said +Fessenden's, in all simplicity, perceiving his distress. + +"You didn't excruciate my wrist so like time!" groaned Bill. And what +was more, darkness covered that other memorable journey. + +As for Joe, he liked it. Though he was not allowed to ride the +ridge-pole and wave a flag through the village, as he proposed, he had +plenty of fun on foot. He went swinging his chickens, and frequently +pinching them to make them musical. The laughter of the lookers-on +didn't trouble him in the least; for he could laugh louder than any. But +his sisters were ashamed, and Mr. Williams looked grave; for they were, +actually, human! and I suppose they didn't like to be jeered at, and +called a swarm of niggers, any more than you or I would. + +So the journey was accomplished; and the stupendous joke of Frisbie's +was achieved. Conceive Mrs. Gingerford's wonder, when she beheld the ark +approaching! Fancy her feelings, when she saw it towed up and moored in +front of her own door,--the whole tribe of Noah, lowing cow, bawling +calf, squawking poultry, and squealing pig, and so forth, and so forth, +accompanying! This, then, was the meaning of the masons at work over +there since yesterday. They had been preparing the new foundations on +which the old house was to rest. So the stunning truth broke upon her: +niggers for neighbors! What had she done to merit such a dispensation? + +What done, unhappy lady? Your own act has drawn down upon you this +retribution. You yourself have done quite as much towards bringing that +queer craft along-side as yonder panting and lolling oxen. They are but +the brute instruments, while you have been a moral agent in the matter. +One word, uttered by you three nights ago, has had the terrible magic in +it to summon forth from the mysterious womb of events this extraordinary +procession. Had but a different word been spoken, it would have proved +equally magical, though we might never have known it: that breath by +your delicate lips would have blown back these horrible shadows; and +instead of all this din and confusion of house-hauling, we should have +had silence this day in the streets of Timberville. You don't see it? In +plain phrase, then, understand: you took not in the stranger at your +gate; but he found refuge with these blacks; and because they showed +mercy unto him, the sword of Frisbie's wrath was turned aside from them, +and, edged by Stephen's witty jest, directed against you and yours. +Hence this interesting scene which you look down upon from your windows, +at the beautiful hour of sunset, which you love. And, oh, to think of +it! between your chamber and those golden sunsets that negro hut and +those negroes will always be henceforth! + +Now don't you wish; Madam, you had had compassion on the wayfarer? But +we will not mock at your calamity. You did precisely what any of us +would have been only too apt to do in your place. You told the simple +truth, when you said you didn't want the ragged wretch in your house. +And what person of refinement, I'd like to know, would have wanted him? +For, say what you will, it is a most disagreeable thing to admit +downright dirty vagabonds into our elegant dwellings. And dangerous, +besides; for they might murder us in the night,--or steal something! Oh, +we fastidious and fearful! where is our charity? where is the heart of +trust? There was of old a Divine Man, who had not where to lay his +head,--whom the wise of those days scoffed at as a crazy fellow,--whom +respectable people shunned,--who made himself the companion of the poor, +the comforter of the distressed, the helper of those in trouble, and the +healer of diseases;--who shrank neither from the man or woman of sin, +nor from the loathsome leper, nor from sorrow and death for our +sakes,--whose gospel we now profess to live by, and---- + +But let us not be "soft." We are reasonably Christian, we hope; and it +shows low breeding to be ultra. (Was the Carpenter's Son low-bred?) + +And now the Judge rides home in the dusk of the December day. It is +still light enough, however, for him to see that Frisbie's vacant lot +has been made an Ararat of; and he could hear the Noachian noises, were +it ever so dark. The awful jest bursts upon him; he hears the screaming +of the bomb-shell, then the explosion. But the mind of this man is (so +to speak) casemated. It is a shock,--but he never once loses his +self-possession. His quick perception detects Friend Frisbie behind the +gun; and he smiles with his intelligent, fine-cut face. Shall malice +have the pleasure of knowing that the shot has told? Our orator is too +sagacious for that. There is never any use in being angry: that is one +of his maxims. Therefore, if he feels any chagrin, he will smother it. +If there is a storm within, the world shall see only the rainbow, that +radiant smile of his. Cool is Gingerford! He has seized the subject +instantly, and calculated all its bearings. He is a man to make the best +of it; and even the bitterness which is in it shall, if possible, bear +him some wholesome drink. To school his mind to patience,--to practise +daily the philanthropy he teaches,--this will be much; and already his +heart is humbled and warmed. And who knows,--for, with all his +sincerity and aspiration, he has an eye to temporal uses,--who knows but +this stumbling-block an enemy has placed in his way may prove the +stepping-stone of his ambition? + +"What is all this, James?" he inquires of his son, who comes out to the +gate to meet him. + +"Frisbie's meanness!" says the young man, almost choking. "And the whole +town is laughing at us!" + +"Laughing at us? What have we done?" mildly answers the parent. "I tell +you what, James,--they sha'n't laugh at us long. We can live so as to +compel them to reverence us; and if there is any ridicule attached to +the affair, it will soon rest where it belongs." + +"Such a sty stuck right down under our noses!" muttered the mortified +James. + +"We will make of it an ornament," retorts the Judge, with mounting +spirits. "Come with me,"--taking the youth's arm. "My son, call no human +habitation a sty. These people are our brothers, and we will show them +the kindness of brethren." + +A servant receives the horse, and Gingerford and his son cross the +street. + +"Good evening, Friend Williams! So you have concluded to come and live +neighbor to us, have you?" + +Friend Williams was at the end of the house, occupied in improvising a +cowshed under an old apple-tree. Piggy was already tied to the trunk of +the tree, and the hens and turkeys were noisily selecting their roosts +in the boughs. At sight of the Judge, whose displeasure he feared, the +negro was embarrassed, and hardly knew what to say. But the pleasant +greeting of the silver-toned voice reassured him, and he stopped his +work to frame his candid, respectful answer. + +"It was Mr. Frisbie that concluded. All I had to do was to go with the +house wherever he chose to move it." + +"Well, he might have done much worse by you. You have a nice landlord, a +nice landlord, Mr. Williams. Mr. Frisbie is a very fine man." + +It was Gingerford's practice to speak well of everybody with whom he had +any personal relations, and especially well of his enemies; because, as +he used to say to his son, evil words commonly do more harm to him who +utters them than to those they are designed to injure, while fair and +good words are easily spoken, and are the praise of their author, if of +nobody else: for, if the subject of them is a bad man, they will not be +accepted as literally true by any one that knows him, but, on the +contrary, they will be set down to the credit of your good-nature,--or +who knows but they may become coals of fire upon the head of your enemy, +and convert him into a friend? + +James had now an opportunity to test the truth of these observations. +Was Mr. Williams convinced that Frisbie was a nice landlord and a fine +man? By no means. But that Judge Gingerford was a fine man, and a +charitable, he believed more firmly than ever. Then there was Stephen +standing by,--having, no doubt, been sent by his master to observe the +chagrin of the Gingerfords, and to bring back the report thereof; who, +when he heard the Judge's words, looked surprised and abashed, and +presently stole away, himself discomfited. + +"I pray the Lord," said Mr. Williams, humbly and heartily, "you won't +consider us troublesome neighbors." + +"I hope not," replied the Judge; "and why should I? You have a good, +honest reputation, Friend Williams; and I hear that you are a peaceable +and industrious family. We ought to be able to serve each other in many +ways. What can I do for you, to begin with? Wouldn't you like to turn +your cow and calf into my yard?" + +"Thank you a thousand times,--if I can, just as well as not," said the +grateful negro. "We had to tear down the shed and pig-pen when we moved +the house, and I ha'n't had time to set 'em up again." + +"And I imagine you have had enough to do, for one day. Let your children +drive the creatures through the gate yonder; my man will show them the +shed. Are you a good gardener, Mr. Williams?" + +"Wal, I've done consid'able at that sort of work, Sir." + +"I'm glad of that. I have to hire a good deal of gardening done. I see +we are going to be very much obliged to your landlord for bringing us so +near together. And this is your father?" + +"My grandfather, Sir," said Mr. Williams. + +"Your grandfather? I must shake hands with him." + +"Sarvant, Sah," said the old man, cap off, bowing and smiling there in +the December twilight. + +"He's deaf as can be," said Mr. Williams; "you'll have to talk loud, to +make him hear. He's more 'n a hunderd year old." + +"You astonish me!" exclaimed the Judge. "A very remarkable old person! I +should delight to converse with him,--to know what his thoughts are in +these new times, and what his memories are of the past, which, I +suppose, is even now more familiar to his mind than the objects of +to-day. God bless you, my venerable friend!" shaking hands a second time +with the ancient black, and speaking in a loud voice. + +"Tankee, Sah,--very kind," smiled the flattered old man. "Sarvant, Sah." + +"'Tis you who are kind, to take notice of young fellows like me," +pleasantly replied the Judge.--"Well, good evening, friends. I shall +always be glad to know if there is anything I can do for you. Ha! what +is this?" + +It was the cow and calf coming back again, followed by Joe and +Fessenden's. + +"Gorry!" cried Joe,--"wa'n't that man mad? Thought he'd bite th' ole +cow's tail off!" + +"What man? My man?" + +"Yes," said honest Fessenden's; "he said he'd be damned if he'd have a +nigger's critters along with his'n!" + +"Then we'll afford him an early opportunity to be damned," observed the +Judge. "Drive them back again. I'll go with you.--By the way, Mr. +Williams,"--Gingerford saw his man approaching, and spoke loud enough +for him to hear and understand,--"are you accustomed to taking care of +horses? I may find it necessary to employ some one before long." + +"Wal, yes, Sir; I'm tol'able handy about a stable," replied the negro. + +"Hollo, there!" called the man, somewhat sullenly, "drive that cow back +here! Why didn't you tell me 't was the boss's orders?" + +"Did tell him so; and he said as how I lied," said Joe,--driving the +animals back again triumphantly. + +The Judge departed with his son,--a thoughtful and aspiring youth, who +pondered deeply what he had seen and heard, as he walked by his father's +side. And Mr. Williams, greatly relieved and gratified by the interview, +hastened to relate to his family the good news. And the praises of +Gingerford were on all their tongues, and in their prayers that night he +was not forgotten. + +Three days after, the Judge's man was dismissed from his place, in +consequence of difficulties originating in the affair of the cow. The +Judge had sought an early opportunity to converse with him on the +subject. + +"A negro's cow," said he, "is as good as anybody's cow; and I consider +Mr. Williams as good a man as you are." + +The white coachman couldn't stand that; and the result was that the +Gingerfords had a black coachman in a few days. The situation was +offered to Mr. Williams, and very glad he was to accept it. + +Thus the wrath of man continued to work the welfare of these humble +Christians. It is reasonable to doubt whether the Judge was at heart +delighted with his new neighbors; and jolly Mr. Frisbie enjoyed the joke +somewhat less, I suspect, than he anticipated. One party enjoyed it, +nevertheless. It was a serious and solid satisfaction to the Williams +family. No member of which, with the exception, perhaps, of Joe, +exhibited greater pleasure at the change in their situation than the +old patriarch. It rejuvenated him. His hearing was almost restored. "One +move more," he said, "and I shall be young and spry agin as the day I +got my freedom,"--that day, so many, many years ago, which he so well +remembered! Well, the "one move more" was near; and the morning of a new +freedom, the morning of a more perfect youth and gladness, was not +distant. + +It was the old man's delight to go out and sit in the sun before the +door, in the clear December weather, and pull off his cap to the Judge +as he passed. To get a bow, and perhaps a kind word, from the +illustrious Gingerford, was glory enough for one day, and the old man +invariably hurried into the house to tell of it. + +But one morning a singular thing occurred. To all appearances--to the +eyes of all except one--he remained sitting out there in the sun after +the Judge had gone. But Fessenden's, looking up suddenly, and staring at +vacancy, cried,-- + +"Hollo!" + +"What, child?" asked Mrs. Williams. + +"The old man!" said Fessenden's. "Comin' into the door! Don't ye see +him?" + +Nobody saw him but the lad; and of course all were astonished by his +earnest announcement of the apparition. The old grandmother hastened to +look out. There sat her father still, on the bench by the apple-tree, +leaning against the trunk. But the sight did not satisfy her. She ran +out to him. The smile of salutation was still on his lips, which seemed +just saying, "Sarvant, Sah," to the Judge. But those lips would never +move again. They were the lips of death. + +"What is the matter, Williams?" asked the Judge, on his return home that +afternoon. + +"My gran'ther is dead, Sir; and I don't know where to bury him." This +was the negro's quiet and serious answer. + +"Dead?" ejaculates the Judge. "Why, I saw him only this morning, and had +a smile from him!" + +"That was his last smile, Sir. You can see it on his face yet. He went +to heaven with that smile, we trust." + +To heaven? a negro in heaven? If that is so, some of us, I suppose, will +no longer wish to go there. Or do you imagine that you will have need of +servants in paradise, and that that is what Christian niggers are for? +Or do you believe that in the celestial congregations there will also be +a place set aside for the colored brethren,--a glorified niggers' pew? +You scowl; you don't like a joke upon so serious a subject? Hypocrite! +do you see nothing but a joke here? + +The Judge leaves everything and goes home with his coachman. Sure +enough! there is the same smile he saw in the morning, frozen on the +face of the corpse. + +"Gently and late death came to him!" says Gingerford. "Would we could +all die as happy! There is no occasion to mourn, my good woman." + +"Bless the Lord, I don't mourn!" replied the old negress. "But I'm so +brimful of thanks, I must cry for 't! He died a blessed ole Christian; +an' he's gone straight to glory, if there's anything in the promises. He +is free now, if he never was afore;--for, though they pretend there +a'n't no slaves in this 'ere State, an' the law freed us years ago, +seems to me there a'n't no r'al liberty for us, 'cept this!" She pointed +at the corpse, then threw up her eyes and hands with an expression of +devout and joyful gratitude. "He's gone where there a'n't no predijice +agin color, bless the Lord! He's gone where all them that's been washed +with the blood of Christ is all of one color in His sight!" Then turning +to the Judge,--"And you'll git your reward, Sir, be sure o' that!" + +"My reward?" And Gingerford, touched with genuine emotion, shook his +head, sadly. + +"Yes, Sir, your reward," repeated the old woman, tenderly arranging the +sheet over the still breast, and still, folded hands of the corpse. +"For makin' his last days happy,--for makin' his last minutes happy, I +may say. That 'ere smile was for you, Sir. You was kinder to him 'n +folks in gin'ral. He wa'n't used to 't. An' he felt it. An' he's gone to +glory with the news on 't. An' it'll be sot down to your credit there, +in the Big Book." + +Where was the Judge's eloquence? He could not find words to frame a +fitting reply to this ignorant black woman, whose emotion was so much +deeper than any fine phrases of his could reach, and whose simple faith +and gratitude overwhelmed him with the sudden conviction that he had +never yet said anything to the purpose, in all his rhetorical defences +of the down-trodden race. From that conviction came humility. Out of +humility rose inspiration. Two days later his eloquence found tongue; +and this was the occasion of it:-- + +The body of the old negro was to be buried. That he should be simply put +into the ground, and nothing said, any more than as if he were a brute +beast, did not seem befitting the obsequies of so old a man and so +faithful a Christian. The family had natural feelings on that subject. +They wanted to have a funeral sermon. + +Now it so happened that there was to be another funeral in the village +about that time. The old minister, had he been living, might have +managed to attend both. But the young minister couldn't think of such a +thing. The loveliest flower of maidenhood in his parish had been cut +down. One of the first families had been bereaved. Day and night he must +ponder and scribble to prepare a suitable discourse. And then, having +exhausted spiritual grace in bedecking the tomb of the lovely, should +he,--good gracious! _could_ he descend from those heights of beauty and +purity to the grave of a superannuated negro? Could divine oratory so +descend? + + "On that fair mountain leave to feed, + And batten on this _moor_"? + +Ought the cup of consolation, which he extended to his best, his +worthiest friends and parishioners, to be passed in the same hour to +thick African lips? + +Which questions were, of course, decided in the negative. There was +another minister in the village, but he was sick. What should be done? +To go wandering about the world in search of somebody to preach the +funeral sermon seemed a hard case,--as Mr. Williams remarked to the +Judge. + +"Tell you what, Williams," said the Judge,--"don't give yourself any +more trouble on that account. I'm not a minister, nor half good enough +for one,"--he could afford to speak disparagingly of himself, the +beautiful, gracious gentleman!--"but if you can't do any better, I'll be +present and say a few words at the funeral." + +"Thank you a thousand times!" said the grateful negro. "Couldn't be +nothin' better 'n that! We never expected no such honor; an' if my ole +gran'ther could have knowed you would speak to his funeral, he'd have +been proud, Sir!" + +"He was a simple-minded old soul!" replied the Judge, pleasantly. "And +you're another, Williams! However, I am glad you are satisfied. So this +difficulty is settled, too." For already one very serious difficulty had +been arranged through this man's kindness. + +Did I neglect to mention it,--how, when the old negro died, his family +had no place to bury him? The rest of his race, dying before him, had +been gathered to the mother's bosom in distant places: long lines of +dusky ancestors in Africa; a few descendants in America,--here and there +a grave among New-England hills. Only one, a child of Mr. Williams's, +had died in Timberville, and been placed in the old burying-ground over +yonder. But that was now closed against interments. And as for +purchasing a lot in the new cemetery,--how could poor Mr. Williams ever +hope to raise money to pay for it? + +"Williams," said the Judge, "I own several lots there, and if you'll be +a good boy, I'll make you a present of one." + +Ah, Gingerford! Gingerford! was it pure benevolence that prompted the +gift? Was the smile with which you afterwards related the circumstance +to dear Mrs. Gingerford a smile of sincere satisfaction at having done a +good action and witnessed the surprise and gratitude of your black +coachman? Tell us, was it altogether an accident, with no tincture +whatever of pleasant malice in it, that the lot you selected, out of +several, to be the burial-place of negroes, lay side by side with the +proud family-vault of your neighbor Frisbie? + +The Judge was one of those cool heads, who, when they have received an +injury, do not go raving of it up and down, but put it quietly aside, +and keep their temper, and rest content to wait patiently, perhaps +years, perhaps a lifetime, for the opportunity of a sudden and pat +revenge. Indeed, I suppose he would have been well satisfied to answer +Frisbie's spite with the nobler revenge of magnanimity and smiling +forbearance, had not the said opportunity presented itself. It was a +temptation not to be resisted. And he, the most philanthropical of men, +proved himself capable of being also the most cruel. + +There, in the choicest quarter of the cemetery, shone the white +ancestral monuments of the Frisbies. Death, the leveller, had not, +somehow, levelled them,--proud and pretentious even in their tombs. You +felt, as you read the sculptured record of their names and virtues, that +even their ashes were better than the ashes of common mortals. They +rendered sacred not only the still inclosure where they lay, but all +that beautiful sunny bank; so that nobody else had presumed to be buried +near them, but a space of many square rods on either side was left still +unappropriated,--until now, when, lo! here comes a black funeral, and +the corpse of one who had been a slave in his day, to profane the soil! + +Nor is this all, alas! There comes not one funeral procession only. The +first has scarcely entered the cemetery, when a second arrives. Side by +side the dead of this day are to be laid: our old friend the negro, and +the lovely young lady we have mentioned,--even the fairest of Mr. +Frisbie's own children. + +For it is she. The sweetest of the faces Fessenden's saw that stormy +night at the window, and yearned to be within the bright room where the +fire, was,--that dear warm face is cold in yonder coffin which the +afflicted family are attending to the tomb. + +And Frisbie, as we have somewhere said, loved his children. And in the +anguish of his bereavement he had not heeded the singular and somewhat +humiliating fact that his daughter had issued from the portal of Time in +company with one of his most despised tenants,--that, in the same hour, +almost at the same moment, Death had summoned them, leading them +together, as it were, one with his right hand, and one with his left, +the way of all the world. So that here was a surprise for the proud and +grief-smitten parent. + +"What is all that, Stephen?" he demands, with sudden consternation. + +"It seems to be another funeral, Sir. They're buryin' somebody next lot +to yours." + +"Who, who, Stephen?" + +"I--I ruther guess it's the old nigger, Sir," says Stephen. + +The mighty man is shaken. Wrath and sorrow and insulted affection +convulse him for a moment. His face grows purple, then pale, and he +struggles with his neckcloth, which is choking him. He sees the tall +form of Gingerford at the grave, and knows what it is to wish to murder +a man. Were those two Christian neighbors quite alone, in this solitude +of the dead, I fear one of them would soon be a fit subject for a +coroner's inquest and an epitaph. O pride and hatred! with what madness +can you inspire a mortal man! O Fessenden's! bless thy stars that thou +art not the only fool alive this day, nor the greatest! + +Fessenden's walked alone to the funeral, talking by himself, and now +and then laughing. Gentleman Bill thought his conduct indecorous, and +reproved him for it. + +"Gracious!" said the lad, "don't you see who I'm talkin' with?" + +"No, Sir,--I can't say I see anybody, Sir." + +"No?" exclaimed the astonished youth. "Why, it's the old man, goin' to +his own funeral!" + +This, you may say, was foolishness; but, oh, it was innocent and +beautiful foolishness, compared with that of Frisbie and his +sympathizers, when they discovered the negro burial, and felt that their +mourning was too respectable to be the near companion of the mourning of +those poor blacks, and that their beautiful dead was too precious to be +laid in the earth beside their dead. + +What could be done? Indignation and sorrow availed nothing. The tomb of +the lovely was prepared, and it only remained to pity the affront to her +ashes, as she was committed to the chill depths amid silence and choking +tears. It is done; and the burial of the old negro is deferentially +delayed until the more aristocratic rites are ended. + +Gingerford set the example of standing with his hat off in the yellow +sunshine and wintry air, with his noble head bowed low, while the last +prayer was said at the maiden's sepulture. Then he lifted up his face, +radiant; and the flashing and rainbow-spanned torrent of his eloquence +broke forth. He had reserved his forces for this hour. He had not the +Williams family and their friends alone for an audience, but many who +had come to attend the young lady's funeral remained to hear the Judge. +It was worth their while. Finely as he had discoursed at the hut of the +negroes, before the corpse was brought out, that was scarcely the time, +that was certainly not the place, for a crowning effort of his genius. +But here, his larger audience, the open air, the blue heavens, the +graves around, the burial of the young girl side by side with the old +slave, all contributed to inspire him. Human brotherhood, universal +love, the stern democracy of death, immortality,--these were his theme. +Life, incrusted with conventionalities; Death, that strips them all +away. This is the portal (pointing to the grave) at which the soul drops +all its false incumbrances,--rank, riches, sorrow, shame. It enters +naked into eternity. There worldly pride and arrogance have no place. +There false judgment goes out like a sick man's night-lamp, in the +morning light of truth. In the courts of God only spiritual distinctions +prevail. That you were a lord in this life will be of no account there, +where the humblest Christian love is preferred before the most brilliant +selfishness,--where the master is degraded, and the servant is exalted. +And so forth, and so forth; a brief, but eloquent address, of which it +is to be regretted that no report exists. + +Then came the prayer,--for the Judge had a gift that way too; and the +tenderness and true feeling with which he spoke of the old negro and the +wrongs of his race drew tears from many eyes. Then a hymn was +sung,--those who had stayed to sneer joining their voices seriously with +those of the lowly mourners. + +A few days later, Mr. Williams had the remains of his child taken from +the old burying-ground, and brought here, and laid beside the patriarch. +And before spring, simple tombstones of white marble (at Gingerford's +expense) marked the spot, and commemorated the circumstances of the old +man's extreme age and early bondage. + +And before spring, alas! three other graves were added to that sunny +bank! One by one, all those fair children whom Fessenden's had seen in +the warm room where the fire was had followed their sister to the tomb. +So fast they followed that Mr. Frisbie had no time to move his +family-vault from the degrading proximity of the negro graves. And +Fessenden's still lived, an orphan, yet happy, in the family of blacks +which had adopted him; while the parents of those children, who had +loved them, were left alone in the costly house, desolate. Was it, as +some supposed, a judgment upon Frisbie for his pride? I cannot tell. I +only know, that, in the end, that pride was utterly broken,--and that, +when the fine words of the young minister failed to console him, when +sympathizing friends surrounded him, and Gingerford came to visit him, +and they were reconciled, he turned from them all, and gratefully +received hope and comfort from the lips of a humble old Christian who +had nursed the last of his children in her days and nights of suffering, +almost against his will. + +That Christian? It was the old negro woman. + +Early in the spring, Mr. Williams----But no more! Haven't we already +prolonged our sketch to an intolerable length, considering the subject +of it? Not a lover in it! and, of course, it is preposterous to think of +making a readable story without one. Why didn't we make young Gingerford +in love with--let's see--Miss Frisbie? and Miss Frisbie's brother (it +would have required but a stroke of the pen to give her one) in love +with--Creshy Williams? What melodramatic difficulties might have been +built upon this foundation! And as for Fessenden's being a fool and a +pauper, he should turn out to be the son of some proud man, either +Gingerford or Frisbie. But it is too late now. We acknowledge our fatal +mistake. Who cares for the fortunes of a miserable negro family? Who +cares to know the future of Mr. Williams, or of any of his race? + +Suffice it, then, to say, that, as for the Williamses, God has taken +care of them in every trial,--turning even the wrath of enemies to their +advantage, as we have seen; just as He will, no doubt, in His fatherly +kindness, provide for that unhappy race which is now in the perilous +crisis of its destiny, and concerning which so many, both its friends +and enemies, are anxiously asking, "What will become of them?" + + + + +FORGOTTEN. + + + In this dim shadow, where + She found the quiet which all tired hearts crave, + Now, without grief or care, + The wild bees murmur, and the blossoms wave, + And the forgetful air + Blows heedlessly across her grassy grave. + + Yet, when she lived on earth, + She loved this leafy dell, and knew by name + All things of sylvan birth; + Squirrel and bird chirped welcome, when she came: + Yet now, in careless mirth, + They frisk, and build, and warble all the same. + + From the great city near, + Wherein she toiled through life's incessant quest, + For weary year on year, + Come the far voices of its deep unrest, + To touch her dead, deaf ear, + And surge unechoed o'er her pulseless breast. + + The hearts which clung to her + Have sought out other shrines, as all hearts must, + When Time, the comforter, + Has worn their grief out, and replaced their trust: + Not even neglect can stir + This little handful of forgotten dust. + + Grass waves, and insects hum, + And then the snow blows bitterly across; + Strange footsteps go and come, + Breaking the dew-drops on the starry moss: + She lieth still and dumb, + And counts no longer any gain or loss. + + Ah, well,--'t is better so; + Let the dust deepen as the years increase; + Of her who sleeps below + Let the name perish and the memory cease, + Since she has come to know + That which through life she vainly prayed for,--Peace! + + + + +WET-WEATHER WORK. + +BY A FARMER. + + +VIII.--CONCLUSION. + +As I sit in my library-chair listening to the welcome drip from the +eaves, I bethink me of the great host of English farm-teachers who in +the last century wrote and wrought so well, and wonder why their +precepts and their example should not have made a garden of that little +British island. To say nothing of the inherited knowledge of such men as +Sir Anthony Fitz-Herbert, Hugh Platt, Markham, Lord Bacon, Hartlib, and +the rest, there was Tull, who had blazed a new path between the turnip +and the wheat-drills--to fortune; there was Lord Kames, who illustrated +with rare good sense, and the daintiness of a man of letters, all the +economies of a thrifty husbandry; Sir John Sinclair proved the +wisdom of thorough culture upon tracts that almost covered counties; +Bakewell (of Dishley)--that fine old farmer in breeches and top-boots, +who received Russian princes and French marquises at his +kitchen-fireside--demonstrated how fat might be laid on sheep or cattle +for the handling of a butcher; in fact, he succeeded so far, that Dr. +Parkinson once told Paley that the great breeder had "the power of +fattening his sheep in whatever part of the body he chose, directing it +to shoulder, leg, or neck, as he thought proper,--and this," continued +Parkinson, "is the great _problem_ of his art." + +"It's a lie, Sir," said Paley,--"and that's the _solution_ of it." + +And yet Dr. Parkinson was very near the truth. + +Besides Bakewell, there was Arthur Young, as we have seen, giving all +England the benefit of agricultural comparisons by his admirable +"Tours"; Lord Dundonald had brought his chemical knowledge to the aid +of good husbandry; Abercrombie and Speechly and Marshall had written +treatises on all that regarded good gardening. The nurseries of +Tottenham Court Road, the parterres of Chelsea, and the stoves of the +Yew Gardens were luxuriant witnesses of what the enterprising gardener +might do. + +Agriculture, too, had a certain dignity given to it by the fact that +"Farmer George" (the King) had written his experiences for a journal of +Arthur Young, the Duke of Bedford was one of the foremost advocates of +improved farming, and Lord Townshend took a pride in his _sobriquet_ of +"Turnip Townshend." + +Yet, for all this, at the opening of the present century, England was by +no means a garden. Over more than half the kingdom, turnips, where sown +at all, were sown broadcast. In four counties out of five, a bare fallow +was deemed essential for the recuperation of cropped lands. Barley and +oats were more often grown than wheat. Dibbling or drilling of grain, +notwithstanding Platt and Jethro Tull, were still rare. The wet +clay-lands had, for the most part, no drainage, save the open furrows +which were as old as the teachings of Xenophon; indeed, it will hardly +be credited, when I state that it is only so late as 1843 that a certain +gardener, John Reade by name, at the Derby Show of the Royal +Agricultural Society, exhibited certain cylindrical pipes, which he had +formed by wrapping damp clay around a smooth billet of wood, and with +which he "had been in the habit of draining the hot-beds of his master." +A sagacious engineer who was present, and saw these, examined them +closely, and, calling the attention of Earl Spencer (the eminent +agriculturist) to them, said, "My Lord, with them I can drain all +England." + +It was not until about 1830 that the subsoil-plough of Mr. Smith of +Deanston was first contrived for special work upon the lands of +Perthshire. Notwithstanding all the brilliant successes of Bakewell, +long-legged, raw-boned cattle were admired by the majority of British +farmers at the opening of this century, and elephantine monsters of this +description were dragged about England in vans for exhibition. It was +only in 1798 that the "Smithfield Club" was inaugurated for the show of +fat cattle, by the Duke of Bedford, Lord Somerville, Arthur Young, and +others; and it was about the same period that young Jonas Webb (whose +life has latterly been illustrated by a glowing chapter from Elihu +Burritt) used to ride upon the Norfolk bucks bred by his grandfather, +and, with a quick sense of discomfort from their sharp backs, vowed, +that, when he "grew a man, he'd make better saddles for them"; and he +did, as every one knows who has ever seen a good type of the Brabaham +flock. + +The Royal Agricultural Society dates from 1838. In 1835 Sir Robert Peel +presented a farmers' club at Tamworth with "two iron ploughs of the best +construction," and when he inquired after them and their work the +following year, the report was that the wooden mould-board was better: +"We tried 'em, but we be all of one mind, that the iron made the weeds +grow." And I can recall a bright morning in January of 1845, when I made +two bouts around a field in the middle of the best dairy-district of +Devonshire, at the stilts of a plough so cumbrous and ineffective that a +thrifty New-England farmer would have discarded it at sight. Nor can I +omit, in this connection, to revive, so far as I may, the image of a +small Devon farmer, who had lived, and I dare say will die, utterly +ignorant of the instructions of Tull, or of the agricultural labors of +Arthur Young: a short, wheezy, rotund figure of a man, with ruddy +face,--fastening the _h_s in his talk most blunderingly,--driving over +to the market-town every fair-day, with pretty samples of wheat or +barley in his dog-cart,--believing in the royal family like a +gospel,--limiting his reading to glances at the "Times" in the +tap-room,--looking with an evil eye upon railways, (which, in that day, +had not intruded farther than Exeter into his shire,)--distrusting +terribly the spread of "eddication": it "doan't help the work-folk any; +for, d' ye see, they've to keep a mind on their pleughing and craps; and +as for the b'ys, the big uns must mind the beasts, and the little uns's +got enough to do a-scaring the demed rooks. Gads! what hodds to them, +please your Honor, what Darby is a-dooin' up in Lunnun, or what +Lewis-Philup is a-dooin' with the Frenchers?" And the ruddy +farmer-gentleman stirs his toddy afresh, lays his right leg caressingly +over his left leg, admires his white-topped boots, and is the picture of +British complacency. I hope he is living; I hope he stirs his toddy +still in the tap-room of the inn by the pretty Erme River; but I hope +that he has grown wiser as he has grown older, and that he has given +over his wheezy curses at the engine as it hurtles past on the iron way +to Plymouth and to Penzance. + + * * * * * + +The work was not all done for the agriculture and the agriculturist of +England in the last century; it is hardly all done yet; it is doubtful +if it will be done so as to close investigation and ripen method in our +time. There was room for a corps of fresh workers at the opening of the +present century; nor was such a corps lacking. + +About the year 1808, a certain John Christian Curwen, Member of +Parliament, and dating from Cumberland, wrote "Hints on Agricultural +Subjects," a big octavo volume, in which he suggests the steaming of +potatoes for horses, as a substitute for hay; but it does not appear +that the suggestion was well received. To his credit, however, it may be +said, that, in the same book, he urged the system of "soiling" +cattle,--a system which even now needs its earnest expounders, and which +would give full warrant for their loudest exhortation. + +I notice, too, that, at about the same period, Dr. Beddoes, the friend +and early patron of Sir Humphry Davy at the Pneumatic Institution of +Bristol, wrote a book with the quaint title, "Good Advice to Husbandmen +in Harvest, and for all those who labor in Hot Berths, and for others +who will take it--in Warm Weather." And with the recollection of Davy's +description of the Doctor in my mind,--"uncommonly short and +fat,"[27]--I have felt a great interest in seeing what such a man should +have to say upon harvest-heats; but his book, so far as I know, is not +to be found in America. + +A certain John Harding, of St. James Street, London, published, in 1809, +a tract upon "The Use of Sugar in Feeding Cattle," in which were set +forth sundry experiments which went to show how bullocks had been +fattened on molasses, and had been rewarded with a premium. I am +indebted for all knowledge of this anomalous tractate to the +"Agricultural Biography" of Mr. Donaldson, who seems disposed to give a +sheltering wing to the curious theory broached, and discourses upon it +with a lucidity and coherence worthy of a state-paper. I must be +permitted to quote Mr. Donaldson's language:--"The author's ideas are no +romance or chimera, but a very feasible entertainment of the +undertaking, when a social revolution permits the fruits of all climes +to be used in freedom of the burden of value that is imposed by +monopoly, and restricts the legitimate appropriation." + +George Adams, in 1810, proposed "A New System of Agriculture and Feeding +Stock," of which the novelty lay in movable sheds, (upon iron +tram-ways,) for the purpose of soiling cattle. The method was certainly +original; nor can it be regarded as wholly visionary in our time, when +the iron conduits of Mr. Mechi, under the steam-thrust of the Tip-Tree +engines, are showing a percentage of profit. + +Charles Drury, in the same year, recommended, in an elaborate treatise, +the steaming of straw, roots, and hay, for cattle-food,--a +recommendation which, in our time, has been put into most successful +practice. + +Mowbray, who was for a long time the great authority upon Domestic Fowls +and their Treatment, published his book in 1803, which he represents as +having been compiled from the memoranda of forty years' experience. + +And next, as illustrative of the rural literature of the early part of +this century, I must introduce the august name of Sir Humphry Davy. This +I am warranted in doing on two several counts: first, because he was an +accomplished fisherman and the author of "Salmonia," and next, because +he was the first scientific man of any repute who was formally invited +by a Board of Agriculture to discuss the relations of Chemistry to the +practice of farming. + +Unfortunately, he was himself ignorant of practical agriculture,[28] +when called upon to illustrate its relations to chemistry; but, like an +earnest man, he set about informing himself by communication with the +best farmers of the kingdom. He delivered a very admirable series of +lectures, and it was without doubt most agreeable to the +country-gentlemen to find the great waste from their fermenting manures +made clear by Sir Humphry's retorts; but Davy was too profound and too +honest a man to lay down for farmers any chemical high-road to success. +He directed and stimulated inquiry; he developed many of the principles +which underlay their best practice; but he offered them no safety-lamp. +I think he brought more zeal to his investigations in the domain of pure +science; he loved well-defined and brilliant results; and I do not think +that he pushed his inquiries in regard to the way in which the +forage-plants availed themselves of sulphate of lime with one-half the +earnestness or delight with which he conducted his discovery of the +integral character of chlorine, or with which he saw for the first time +the metallic globules bubbling out from the electrified crust of potash. + +Yet he loved the country with a rare and thorough love, as his +descriptions throughout his letters prove; and he delighted in straying +away, in the leafy month of June, to the charming place of his friend +Knight, upon the Teme in Herefordshire. His "Salmonia" is, in its way, a +pastoral; not, certainly, to be compared with the original of Walton, +lacking its simple homeliness, for which its superior scientific +accuracy can make but poor amends. I cannot altogether forget, in +reading it, that its author is a fine gentleman from London. Neither +fish, nor alders, nor eddies, nor purling shallows, can drive out of +memory the fact that Sir Humphry must be back at "The Hall" by half-past +six, in season to dress for dinner. Walton, in slouch-hat, bound about +with "leaders," sat upon the green turf to listen to a milkmaid's song. +Sir Humphry (I think he must have carried a camp-stool) recited some +verses written by "a noble lady long distinguished at court."[29] + +In fact, there was always a great deal of the fine gentleman about the +great chemist,--almost too fine for the quiet tenor of a working-life. +Those first brilliant successes of his professional career at the Royal +Institution of London, before he was turned of thirty, and in which his +youth, his splendid elocution, his happy discoveries, his attractive +manner, all made him the mark for distinguished attentions, went very +far, I fancy, to carry him to that stage of social intoxication under +which he was deluded into marrying a wealthy lady of fashion, and a +confirmed blue-stocking,--the brilliant Mrs. Apreece. + +Little domestic comfort ever came of the marriage. Yet he was a +chivalrous man, and took the issue calmly. It is always in his +letters,--"My dear Jane," and "God bless you! Yours affectionately." But +these expressions bound the tender passages. It was altogether a +gentlemanly and a lady-like affair. Only once, as I can find, he forgets +himself in an honest repining; it is in a letter to his brother, under +date of October 30, 1823:[30]--"To add to my annoyances, I find my +house, as usual, after the arrangements made by the mistress of it, +without female servants; but in this world we have to suffer and bear, +and from Socrates down to humble mortals, domestic discomfort seems a +sort of philosophical fate." + +If only Lady Davy could have seen this Xantippe touch, I think Sir +Humphry would have taken to angling in some quiet country-place for a +month thereafter! + +And even when affairs grow serious with the Baronet, and when, stricken +by the palsy, he is loitering among the mountains of Styria, he +writes,--"I am glad to hear of your perfect restoration, and with health +and the society of London, _which you are so fitted to ornament and +enjoy_, your '_viva la felicita_' is much more secure than any hope +belonging to me." + +And again, "You once _talked_ of passing _this_ winter in Italy; but I +hope your plans will be entirely guided by the state of your health and +feelings. Your society would undoubtedly be a very great resource to me, +but I am so well aware of my own present unfitness for society that I +would not have you risk the chance of an uncomfortable moment on my +account." + +The dear Lady Jane must have had a _penchant_ for society to leave the +poor palsied man to tumble into his tomb alone! + +Yet once again, in the last letter he ever writes, dated Rome, March, +1829, he gallantly asks her to join him; it begins,--"I am still alive, +though expecting every hour to be released." + +And the Lady Jane, who is washing off her fashionable humors in the +fashionable waters of Bath, writes,--"I have received, my beloved Sir +Humphry, the letter signed by your hand, with its precious wish of +tenderness. I start to-morrow, _having been detained here_ by Doctors +Babington and Clarke till to-day.... I cannot add more" (it is a letter +of half a page) "than that your fame is a deposit, and your memory a +glory, your life still a hope." + +Sweet Lady Jane! Yet they say she mourned him duly, and set a proper +headstone at his grave. But, for my own part, I have no faith in that +affection which will splinter a loving heart every day of its life, and +yet, when it has ceased to beat, will make atonement with an idle swash +of tears. + + * * * * * + +There was a British farmer by the name of Morris Birkbeck, who about the +year 1814 wrote an account of an agricultural tour in France; and who +subsequently established himself somewhere upon our Western prairies, of +which he gave account in "Letters from Illinois," and in "Notes on a +Journey in America, from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of +Illinois," with maps, etc. Cobbett once or twice names him as "poor +Birkbeck,"--but whether in allusion to his having been drowned in one of +our Western rivers, or to the poverty of his agricultural successes, it +is hard to determine. + +In 1820 Major-General Beatson, who had been Aid to the Marquis of +Wellesley in India, published an account of a new system of farming, +which he claimed to have in successful operation at his place in the +County of Sussex. The novelty of the system lay in the fact that he +abandoned both manures and the plough, and scarified the surface to the +depth of two or three inches, after which he burned it over. The +Major-General was called to the governorship of St. Helena before his +system had made much progress. I am led to allude to the plan as one of +the premonitory hints of that rotary method which is just now enlisting +a large degree of attention in the agricultural world, and which +promises to supplant the plough on all wide stretches of land, within +the present century. + +Finlayson, a brawny Scot, born in the parish of Mauchline, who was known +from "Glentuck to the Rutton-Ley" as the best man for "putting the +stone," or for a "hop, step, and leap," contrived the self-cleaning +ploughs (with circular beam) and harrows which bore his name. He was +also--besides being the athlete of Ayrshire--the author of sundry +creditable and practical works on agriculture. + +But the most notable man in connection with rural literature, of this +day, was, by all odds, William Cobbett. His early history has so large a +flavor of romance in it that I am sure my readers will excuse me for +detailing it. + +His grandfather was a day-laborer; he died before Cobbett was born; but +the author says that he used to visit the grandmother at Christmas and +Whitsuntide. Her home was "a little thatched cottage, with a garden +before the door. She used to give us milk and bread for breakfast, an +apple-pudding for dinner, and a piece of bread and cheese for our +supper. Her fire was made of turf cut from the neighboring heath; and +her evening light was a rush dipped in grease."[31] His father was a +small farmer, and one who did not allow his boys to grow up in idleness. +"My first occupation," he tells us, "was driving the small birds from +the turnip-seed, and the rook from the pease; when I first trudged +a-field, with my wooden bottle and my satchel swung over my shoulders, I +was hardly able to climb the gates and stiles; and at the close of the +day, to reach home was a task of infinite difficulty." + +At the age of eleven he speaks of himself as occupied in clipping +box-edgings and weeding flower-beds in the garden of the Bishop of +Winchester; and while here he encounters, one day, a workman who has +just come from the famous Kew Gardens of the King. Young Cobbett is +fired by the glowing description, and resolves that he must see them, +and work upon them too. So he sets off, one summer's morning, with only +the clothes he has upon his back, and with thirteen halfpence in his +pocket, for Richmond. And as he trudges through the streets of the town, +after a hard day's walk, in his blue smock-frock, and with his red +garters tied under his knees, staring about him, he sees in the window +of a bookseller's shop the "Tale of a Tub," price threepence; it piques +his curiosity, and, though his money is nearly all spent, he closes a +bargain for the book, and, throwing himself down upon the shady side of +a hay-rick, makes his first acquaintance with Dean Swift. He read till +it was dark, without thought of supper or of bed,--then tumbled down +upon the grass under the shadow of the stack, and slept till the birds +of the Kew Gardens waked him. + +He finds work, as he had determined to do; but it was not fated that he +should pass his life amid the pleasant parterres of Kew. At sixteen, or +thereabout, on a visit to a relative, he catches his first sight of the +Channel waters, and of the royal fleet riding at anchor at Spithead. And +at that sight, the "old Armada," and the "brave Rodney," and the "wooden +walls," of which he had read, come drifting like a poem into his +thought, and he vows that he will become a sailor,--maybe, in time, the +Admiral Cobbett. But here, too, the fates are against him: a kind +captain to whom he makes application suspects him for a runaway, and +advises him to find his way home. + +He returns once more to the plough; "but," he says, "I was now spoiled +for a farmer." He sighs for the world; the little horizon of Farnham +(his native town) is too narrow for him; and the very next year he makes +his final escapade. + +"It was on the 6th of May, 1783, that I, like Don Quixote, sallied forth +to seek adventures. I was dressed in my holiday clothes, in order to +accompany two or three lasses to Guildford fair. They were to assemble +at a house about three miles from my home, where I was to attend them; +but, unfortunately for me, I had to cross the London turnpike-road. The +stage-coach had just turned the summit of a hill, and was rattling down +towards me at a merry rate. The notion of going to London never entered +my mind till this very moment; yet the step was completely determined on +before the coach came to the spot where I stood. Up I got, and was in +London about nine o'clock in the evening." + +His immediate adventure in the metropolis proves to be his instalment as +scrivener in an attorney's office. No wonder he chafes at this; no +wonder, that, in his wanderings about town, he is charmed by an +advertisement which invited all loyal and public-spirited young men to +repair to a certain "rendezvous"; he goes to the rendezvous, and +presently finds himself a recruit in one of His Majesty's regiments +which is filling up for service in British America. + +He must have been an apt soldier, so far as drill went; for I find that +he rose rapidly to the grade of corporal, and thence to the position of +sergeant-major. He tells us that his early habits, his strict attention +to duty, and his native talent were the occasion of his swift promotion. +In New Brunswick, upon a certain winter's morning, he falls in with the +rosy-faced daughter of a sergeant of artillery, who was scrubbing her +pans at sunrise, upon the snow. "I made up my mind," he says, "that she +was the very girl for me.... This matter was at once settled as firmly +as if written in the book of fate." + +To this end he determines to leave the army as soon as possible. But +before he can effect this, the artillery-man is ordered back to England, +and his pretty daughter goes with him. But Cobbett has closed the +compact with her, and placed in her hands a hundred and fifty pounds of +his earnings,--a free gift, and an earnest of his troth. + +The very next season, however, he meets, in a sweet rural solitude of +the Province, another charmer, with whom he dallies in a lovelorn way +for two years or more. He cannot quite forget the old; he cannot cease +befondling the new. If only the "remotest rumor had come," says he, "of +the faithlessness of the brunette in England, I should have been +fastened for life in the New-Brunswick valley." But no such rumor comes, +and in due time he bids a heart-rending adieu, and recrosses the ocean +to find his first love maid-of-all-work in a gentleman's family at five +pounds a year; and she puts in his hand, upon their first interview, the +whole of the hundred and fifty pounds, untouched. This rekindles his +admiration and respect for her judgment, and she becomes his wife,--a +wife he never ceases thereafter to love and honor. + +He goes to France, and thence to America. Establishing himself in +Philadelphia, he enters upon the career of authorship, with a zeal for +the King, and a hatred of Dr. Franklin and all Democrats, which give him +a world of trouble. His foul bitterness of speech finds its climax at +length in a brutal onslaught upon Dr. Rush, for which he is prosecuted, +convicted, and mulcted in a sum that breaks down his bookselling and +interrupts the profits of his authorship. + +He retires to England, opens shop in Pall-Mall, and edits the +"Porcupine," which bristles with envenomed arrows discharged against all +Liberals and Democrats. Again he is prosecuted, convicted, imprisoned. +His boys, well taught in all manner of farm-work, send him, from his +home in the country, hampers of fresh fruits, to relieve the tedium of +Newgate. Discharged at length, and continuing his ribaldry in the +columns of the "Register," he flies before an Act of Parliament, and +takes new refuge in America. He is now upon Long Island, earnest as in +his youth in agricultural pursuits. The late Dr. Francis of New York +used to speak of his visits to him, and of the fine vegetables he +raised. His political opinions had undergone modification; there was not +so much declamation against democracy,--not so much angry zeal for +royalty and the state-church. Nay, he committed the stupendous absurdity +of carrying back with him to England the bones of Tom Paine, as the +grandest gift he could bestow upon his mother-land. No great ovations +greeted this strange luggage of his; I think he was ashamed of it +afterwards,--if Cobbett was ever ashamed of anything. He became +candidate for Parliament in the Liberal interest; he undertook those +famous "Rural Rides" which are a rare jumble of sweet rural scenes and +crazy political objurgation. Now he hammers the "parsons,"--now he tears +the paper-money to rags,--and anon he is bitter upon Malthus, Ricardo, +and the Scotch "Feelosofers,"--and closes his anathema with the charming +picture of a wooded "hanger," up which he toils (with curses on the +road) only to rejoice in the view of a sweet Hampshire valley, over +which sleek flocks are feeding, and down which some white stream goes +winding, and cheating him into a rare memory of his innocent boyhood. He +gains at length his election to Parliament; but he is not a man to +figure well there, with his impetuosity and lack of self-control. He can +talk by the hour to those who feel with him; but to be challenged, to +have his fierce invective submitted to the severe test of an inexorable +logic,--this limits his audacity; and his audacity once limited, his +power is gone. + +But I must not forget that I have brought him into my wet-day galaxy as +a farmer. His energy, his promptitude, his habits of thrift, would have +made him one of the best of farmers. His book on gardening is even now +one of the most instructive that can be placed in the hands of a +beginner. He ignores physiology and botany, indeed; he makes crude +errors on this score; but he had an intuitive sense of the right method +of teaching. He is plain and clear, to a comma. He knows what needs to +be told; and he tells it straightforwardly. There is no better model for +agricultural writers than "Cobbett on Gardening." There is no miserable +waste of words,--no indirectness of talk; what he thinks, he prints. + +His "Cottage Economy," too, is a book which every small landholder in +America should own; there is a sterling merit in it which will not be +outlived. He made a great mistake, it is true, in insisting that +Indian-corn could be grown successfully in England. But being a man who +did not yield to influences of climate himself, he did not mean that his +crops should; and if he had been rich enough, I believe that he would +have covered his farm with a glass roof, rather than yield his +conclusion that Indian-corn could be grown successfully under a British +sky. + +A great, impracticable, earnest, headstrong man, the like of whom does +not appear a half-dozen times in a century. Being self-educated, he was +possessed, like nearly all self-educated men, of a complacency and a +self-sufficiency which stood always in his way. Affecting to teach +grammar, he was ignorant of all the etymology of the language; knowing +no word of botany, he classified plants by the "fearings" of his +turnip-field. He was vain to the last degree; he thought his books were +the best books in the world, and that everybody should read them. He was +industrious, restless, captious, and, although humane at heart, was the +most malignant slanderer of his time. He called a political antagonist a +"pimp," and thought a crushing argument lay in the word; he called +parsons scoundrels, and bade his boys be regular at church. + +In June, 1835, while the Parliament was in session, he grew ill,--talked +feebly about politics and farming, (to his household,) "wished for 'four +days' rain' for the Cobbett corn," and on Wednesday, (16th June,) +desired to be carried around the farm, and criticized the work that had +been done,--grew feeble as evening drew on, and an hour after midnight +leaned back heavily in his chair, and died. + + * * * * * + +I must give a paragraph, at least, to the Rev. James Grahame, the good +Scotch parson, were it only because he wrote a poem called "British +Georgics." They are not so good as Virgil's; nor did he ever think it +himself. In fact, he published his best poem anonymously, and so +furtively that even his wife took up an early copy, which she found one +day upon her table, and, charmed with its pleasant description of +Scottish braes and burn-sides, said, "Ah! Jemmy, if ye could only mak' a +book like this!" And I will venture to say that "Jemmy" never had rarer +or pleasanter praise. + +Shall we read a little, and test the worth of good Mistress Grahame's +judgment? It is a bit of the parson's walk in "The Sabbath":-- + + "Now, when the downward sun has left the glens, + Each mountain's rugged lineaments are traced + Upon the adverse slope, where stalks gigantic + The shepherd's shadow thrown athwart the chasm, + As on the topmost ridge he homeward hies. + How deep the hush! the torrent's channel, dry, + Presents a stony steep, the echo's haunt. + But hark a plaintive sound floating along! + 'Tis from yon heath-roofed shieling; now it dies + Away, now rises full; it is the song + Which He who listens to the hallelujahs + Of choiring seraphim delights to hear; + It is the music of the heart, the voice + Of venerable age, of guileless youth, + In kindly circle seated on the ground + Before their wicker door." + +Crabbe, who was as keen an observer of rural scenes, had a much better +faculty of verse; indeed, he had a faculty of language so large that it +carried him beyond the real drift of his stories. I do not _know_ the +fact, indeed; but I think, that, notwithstanding the Duke of Rutland's +patronage, Mr. Crabbe must have written inordinately long sermons. It is +strange how many good men do,--losing point and force and efficiency in +a welter of words! If there is one rhetorical lesson which it behooves +all theologic or academic professors to lay down and enforce, (if need +be with the ferule,) it is this,--Be short. It is amazing the way in +which good men lose themselves on Sunday mornings in the lapse of their +own language; and most rarely are we confronted from the pulpit with an +opinion which would not bear stripping of wordy shifts, and be all the +more comely for its nakedness. + +George Crabbe wrote charming rural tales; but he wrote long ones. There +is minute observation, dramatic force, tender pathos, but there is much, +of tedious and coarse description. If by some subtile alchemy the better +qualities could be thrown down from the turbid and watery flux of his +verse, we should have an admirable pocket-volume for the country; as it +is, his books rest mostly on the shelves, and it requires a strong +breath to puff away the dust that has gathered on the topmost edges. + +I think of the Reverend Mr. Crabbe as an amiable, absent-minded old +gentleman, driving about on week-days in a heavy, square-topped gig, +(his wife holding the reins,) in search of way-side gypsies, and on +Sunday pushing a discourse--which was good up to the "fourthly"--into +the "seventhly." + +Charles Lamb, if he had been clerically disposed, would, I am sure, have +written short sermons; and I think that his hearers would have carried +away the gist of them clean and clear. + +He never wrote anything that could be called strictly pastoral; he was a +creature of streets and crowding houses; no man could have been more +ignorant of the every-day offices of rural life; I doubt if he ever knew +from which side a horse was to be mounted or a cow to be milked, and a +sprouting bean was a source of the greatest wonderment to him. Yet, in +spite of all this, what a book those Essays of his make, to lie down +with under trees! It is the honest, lovable simplicity of his nature +that makes the keeping good. He is the Izaak Walton of London +streets,--of print-shops, of pastry-shops, of mouldy book-stalls; the +chime of Bow-bells strikes upon his ear like the chorus of a milkmaid's +song at Ware. + +There is not a bit of rodomontade in him about the charms of the +country, from beginning to end; if there were, we should despise him. He +can find nothing to say of Skiddaw but that he is "a great creature"; +and he writes to Wordsworth, (whose sight is failing,) on Ambleside, "I +return you condolence for your decaying sight,--not for anything there +is to see in the country, but for the miss of the pleasure of reading a +London newspaper." + +And again to his friend Manning, (about the date of 1800,)--"I am not +romance-bit about _Nature_. The earth and sea and sky (when all is said) +is but as a house to dwell in. If the inmates be courteous, and good +liquors flow like the conduits at an old coronation,--if they can talk +sensibly, and feel properly, I have no need to stand staring upon the +gilded looking-glass, (that strained my friend's purse-strings in the +purchase,) nor his five-shilling print, over the mantel-piece, of old +Nabbs, the carrier. Just as important to me (in a sense) is all the +furniture of my world,--eye-pampering, but satisfies no heart. Streets, +streets, streets, markets, theatres, churches, Covent Gardens, shops +sparkling with pretty faces of industrious milliners, neat seamstresses, +ladies cheapening, gentlemen behind counters lying, authors in the +street with spectacles, lamps lit at night, pastry-cooks' and +silver-smiths' shops, beautiful Quakers of Pentonville, noise of +coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic watchmen at night, with bucks reeling +home drunk,--if you happen to wake at midnight, cries of 'Fire!' and +'Stop thief!'--inns of court with their learned air, and halls, and +butteries, just like Cambridge colleges,--old book-stalls, 'Jeremy +Taylors,' 'Burtons on Melancholy,' and 'Religio Medicis,' on every +stall. These are thy pleasures, O London-with-the-many-sins!--for these +may Keswick and her giant brood go hang!" + +And again to Wordsworth, in 1830,--"Let no native Londoner imagine that +health, and rest, and innocent occupation, interchange of converse +sweet, and recreative study, can make the country anything better than +altogether odious and detestable." + +Does any weak-limbed country-liver resent this honesty of speech? Surely +not, if he be earnest in his loves and faith; but, the rather, by such +token of unbounded naturalness, he recognizes under the waistcoat of +this dear, old, charming cockney the traces of close cousinship to the +Waltons, and binds him, and all the simplicity of his talk, to his +heart, for aye. There is never a hillside under whose oaks or chestnuts +I lounge upon a smoky afternoon of August, but a pocket Elia is as +coveted and as cousinly a companion as a pocket Walton, or a White of +Selborne. And upon wet days in my library, I conjure up the image of the +thin, bent old gentleman--Charles Lamb--to sit over against me, and I +watch his kindly, beaming eye, as he recites with poor stuttering +voice,--between the whiffs of his pipe,--over and over, those always new +stories of "Christ's Hospital," and the cherished "Blakesmoor," and +"Mackery End." + +(No, you need not put back the book, my boy; 't is always in place.) + +I never admired greatly James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd; yet he belongs +of double right in the coterie of my wet-day preachers. Bred a shepherd, +he tried farming, and he wrote pastorals. His farming (if we may believe +contemporary evidence) was by no means so good as his verse. The Ettrick +Shepherd of the "Noctes Ambrosianae" is, I fancy, as much becolored by +the wit of Professor Wilson as any daughter of a duchess whom Sir Joshua +changed into a nymph. I think of Hogg as a sturdy sheep-tender, growing +rebellious among the Cheviot flocks, crazed by a reading of the Border +minstrelsy, drunken on books, (as his fellows were with "mountain-dew,") +and wreaking his vitality on Gaelic rhymes,--which, it is true, have a +certain blush and aroma of the heather-hills, but which never reached +the excellence that he fondly imagined belonged to them. I fancy, that, +when he sat at the laird's table, (Sir Walter's,) and called the laird's +lady by her baptismal name, and--not abashed in any presence--uttered +his Gaelic gibes for the wonderment of London guests,--that he thought +far more of himself than the world has ever been inclined to think of +him. I know that poets have a privilege of conceit, and that those who +are not poets sometimes assume it; but it is, after all, a sorry +quality by which to win the world's esteem; and when death closes the +record, it is apt to insure a large debit against the dead man. + +It may not be commonly known that the Ettrick Shepherd was an +agricultural author, and wrote "Hogg on Sheep," for which, as he tells +us, he received the sum of eighty-six pounds. It is an octavo book, and +relates to the care, management, and diseases of the black-faced +mountain-breed, of which alone he was cognizant. It had never a great +reputation; and I think the sheep-farmers of the Cheviots were disposed +to look with distrust upon the teachings of a shepherd who supped with +"lords" at Abbotsford, and whose best venture in verse was in "The +Queen's Wake." A British agricultural author, speaking of him in a +pitiful way, says,--"He passed years of busy authorship, and encountered +_the usual difficulties of that penurious mode of life_."[32] + +This is good; it is as good as anything of Hogg's. + +I approach the name of Mr. Loudon, the author of the Encyclopaedias of +Gardening and Agriculture, with far more of respect. If nothing else in +him laid claim to regard, his industry, his earnestness, his +indefatigable labor in aid of all that belonged to the progress of +British gardening or farming, would demand it. I take a pride, too, in +saying, that, notwithstanding his literary labors, he was successful as +a farmer, during the short period of his farm-holding. + +Mr. Loudon was a Scotchman by birth, was educated in Edinburgh, and was +for a time under the tutelage of Mr. Dickson, the famous nurseryman of +Leith-Walk. Early in the present century he made his first appearance in +London,--published certain papers on the laying-out of the public +squares of the metropolis, and shortly after was employed by the Earl of +Mansfield in the arrangement of the palace-gardens at Scone. In 1813 and +'14 he travelled on the Continent very widely, making the gardens of +most repute the special objects of his study; and in 1822 he published +his "Encyclopaedia of Gardening"; that of Agriculture followed shortly +after, and his book of Rural Architecture in 1833. But these labors, +enormous as they were, had interludes of other periodical work, and were +crowned at last by his _magnum opus_, the "Arboretum." A man of only +ordinary nerve and diligence would have taken a ten years' rest upon the +completion of only one of his ponderous octavos; and the wonder is the +greater, that London wrought in his later years under all the +disadvantages of appeals from rapacious creditors and the infirmities of +a broken constitution. Crippled, palsied, fevered, for a long period of +years, he still wrought on with a persistence that would have broken +many a strong man down, and only yielded at last to a bronchial +affection which grappled him at his work. + +This author massed together an amount of information upon the subjects +of which he treated that is quite unmatched in the whole annals of +agricultural literature. Columella, Heresbach, Worlidge, and even the +writers of the "Geoponica," dwindle into insignificance in the +comparison. He is not, indeed, always absolutely accurate on historical +points;[33] but in all essentials his books are so complete as to have +made them standard works up to a time long subsequent to their issue. + + * * * * * + +No notice of the agricultural literature of the early part of this +century would be at all complete without mention of the Magazines and +Society "Transactions," in which alone some of the best and most +scientific cultivators communicated their experience or suggestions to +the public. Loudon was himself the editor of the "Gardener's Magazine"; +and the earlier Transactions of the Horticultural Society are enriched +by the papers of such men as Knight, Van Mons, Sir Joseph Banks, Rev. +William Herbert, Messrs. Dickson, Haworth, Wedgwood, and others. The +works of individual authors lost ground in comparison with such an array +of reports from scientific observers, and from that time forth +periodical literature has become the standard teacher in what relates to +good culture. I do not know what extent of good the newly instituted +Agricultural Colleges of this country may effect; but I feel quite safe +in saying that our agricultural journals will prove always the most +effective teachers of the great mass of the farming-population. The +London Horticultural Society at an early day established the Chiswick +Gardens, and these, managed under the advice of the Society's Directors, +have not only afforded an accurate gauge of British progress in +horticulture, but they have furnished to the humblest cultivator who has +strolled through their inclosures practical lessons in the craft of +gardening, renewed from month to month and from year to year. It is to +be hoped that the American Agricultural Colleges will adopt some similar +plan, and illustrate the methods they teach upon lands which shall be +open to public inspection, and upon whose culture and its successes +systematic reports shall be annually made. Failing of this, they will +fail of the best part of their proper purpose. Nor would it be a +fruitless work, if, in connection with such experimental farm, a weekly +record were issued,--giving analyses of the artificial manures employed, +and a complete register of every field, from the date of its +"breaking-up" to the harvesting of the crop. Every new implement, +moreover, should be reported upon with unwavering impartiality, and no +advertisements should be received. I think under these conditions we +might almost look for an honest newspaper. + + * * * * * + +Writing thus, during these in-door hours, of country-pursuits, and of +those who have illustrated them, or who have in any way quickened the +edge with which we farmers rasp away the weeds or carve out our pastoral +entertainment, I come upon the names of a great bevy of poets, belonging +to the earlier quarter of this century, that I find it hard to pass by. +Much as I love to bring to mind, over and over again, "Ivanhoe" and +"Waverley," I love quite as much to summon to my view Walter Scott, the +woodsman of Abbotsford, with hatchet at his girdle, and the hound Maida +in attendance. I see him thinning out the saplings that he has planted +upon the Tweed banks. I know how they stand, having wandered by the hour +among them. I can fancy how the master would have lopped away the boughs +for a little looplet through which a burst of the blue Eildon Hills +should come. His favorite seat, overshadowed by an arbor-vitae, (of which +a leaf lies pressed in the "Scotch Tourist" yonder,) was so near to the +Tweed banks that the ripple of the stream over its pebbly bottom must +have made a delightful lullaby for the toil-worn old man. But beyond +wood-craft, I could never discover that Sir Walter had any strong +agricultural inclination; nor do I think that the old gentleman had much +eye for the picturesque; no landscape-gardener of any reputation would +have decided upon such a site for such a pile as that of Abbotsford: the +spot is low; the views are not extended or varied; the very trees are +all of Scott's planting: but the master loved the murmur of the +Tweed,--loved the nearness of Melrose, and in every old bit of +sculpture that he walled into his home he found pictures of far-away +scenes that printed in vague shape of tower or abbey all his limited +horizon. + +Christopher North carried his Scotch love of mountains to his home among +the English lakes. I think he counted Skiddaw something more than "a +great creature." In all respects--saving the pipes and the ale--he was +the very opposite of Charles Lamb. And yet do we love him more? A +stalwart, hearty man, with a great redundance of flesh and blood, who +could "put the stone" with Finlayson, or climb with the hardiest of the +Ben-Nevis guides, or cast a fly with the daintiest of the Low-Country +fishers,--redundant of imagination, redundant of speech, and with such +exuberance in him that we feel surfeit from the overflow, as at the +reading of Spenser's "Faerie Queene," and lay him down with a wearisome +sense of mental indigestion. + +Nor yet is it so much an indigestion as a feeling of plethora, due less +to the frothiness of the condiments than to a certain fulness of blood +and brawn. The broad-shouldered Christopher, in his shooting-jacket, (a +dingy green velveteen, with pocket-pouches all stuffed,) strides away +along the skirts of Cruachan or Loch Lochy with such a tearing pace, and +greets every lassie with such a clamorous outbreak of song, and throws +such a wonderful stretch of line upon every pool, and amazes us with +such stupendous "strikes" and such a whizzing of his reel, that we +fairly lose our breath. + +Not so of the "White Doe of Rylstone"; nay, we more incline to doze over +it than to lose our breath. Wilson differs from Wordsworth as Loch Awe, +with its shaggy savagery of shore, from the Sunday quietude and beauty +of Rydal-Water. The Strid of Wordsworth was bounded by the slaty banks +of the "Crystal Wharf," and the Strid of Wilson, in his best moments, +was as large as the valley of Glencoe. Yet Wordsworth loved intensely +all the more beautiful aspects of the country, and of country-life. No +angler and no gardener, indeed,--too severely and proudly meditative for +any such sleight-of-hand. The only great weight which he ever lifted, I +suspect, was one which he carried with him always,--the immense dignity +of his poetic priesthood. His home and its surroundings were fairly +typical of his tastes: a cottage, (so called,) of homely material +indeed, but with an ambitious elevation of gables and of chimney-stacks; +a velvety sheen of turf, as dapper as that of a suburban haberdasher; a +mossy urn or two, patches of flowers, but rather fragrant than showy +ones; behind him the loveliest of wooded hills, all toned down by +graceful culture, and before him the silvery mirrors of Windermere and +Rydal-Water. + +We have to credit him with some rare and tender description, and +fragments of great poems; but I cannot help thinking that he fancied a +profounder meaning lay in them than the world has yet detected. + +John Clare was a contemporary of Wordsworth's, and was most essentially +a poet of the fields. His father was a pauper and a cripple; not even +young Cobbett was so pressed to the glebe by the circumstances of his +birth. But the thrushes taught Clare to sing. He wrote verses upon the +lining of his hat-band. He hoarded halfpence to buy Thomson's "Seasons," +and walked seven miles before sunrise to make the purchase. The hardest +field-toil could not repress the poetic aspirations of such a boy. By +dint of new hoardings he succeeded in printing verses of his own; but +nobody read them. He wrote other verses, which at length made him known. +The world flattered the peasant-bard of Northamptonshire. A few +distinguished patrons subscribed the means for equipping a farm of his +own. The heroine of his love-tales became its mistress; a shelf or two +of books made him rich; but in an evil hour he entered upon some +farm-speculation which broke down; a new poem was sharply criticized or +neglected; the novelty of his peasant's song was over. Disheartened and +gloomy, he was overwhelmed with despondency, and became the inmate of a +mad-house, where for forty years he has staggered idiotically toward the +rest which did not come. But even as I write I see in the British papers +that he is free at last. Poor Clare is dead. + +With this sad story in mind, we may read with a zest which perhaps its +merit alone would not provoke his little sonnet of "The Thrush's +Nest":-- + + "Within a thick and spreading hawthorn-bush, + That overhung a mole-hill large and round, + I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush + Sing hymns, of rapture, while I drank the sound + With joy; and oft, an unintruding guest, + I watched her secret toils from day to day,-- + How true she warped the moss to form her nest, + And modelled it within with wood and clay, + And by-and-by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, + There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers, + Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue; + And there I witnessed, in the summer hours, + A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly, + Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky." + +There are pretty snatches of a Southern May in Hunt's poem of "Rimini," +where + + "sky, earth, and sea + Breathe like a bright-eyed face that laughs out openly. + 'T is Nature full of spirits, waked and springing: + The birds to the delicious tune are singing, + Darting with freaks and snatches up and down, + Where the light woods go seaward from the town; + While happy faces striking through the green + Of leafy roads at every turn are seen; + And the far ships, lifting their sails of white + Like joyful hands, come up with scattery light, + Come gleaming up true to the wished-for day, + And chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the bay." + +This does not sound as if it came from the prince of cockneys; and I +have always felt a certain regard for Leigh Hunt, too, by reason of the +tender story which he gives of the little garden, "_mio picciol orto_," +that he established during his two years of prisonhood.[34] + +But, after all, there was no robustness in his rural spirit,--nothing +that makes the cheek tingle, as if a smart wind had smitten it. He was +born to handle roses without thorns; I think that with a pretty boudoir, +on whose table every morning a pretty maid should arrange a pretty +nosegay, and with a pretty canary to sing songs in a gilded cage, and +pretty gold-fish to disport in a crystal vase, and basted partridges for +dinner, his love for the country would have been satisfied. He loved +Nature as a sentimental boy loves a fine woman of twice his +years,--sighing himself away in pretty phrases that flatter, but do not +touch her; there is nothing to remind, even, of the full, abounding, +fiery, all-conquering love with which a full-grown man meets and marries +a yielding maiden. + +In poor John Keats, however, there _is_ something of this; and under its +heats he consumed away. For ripe, joyous outburst of all rural +fancies,--for keen apprehension of what most takes hold of the +susceptibilities of a man who loves the country,--for his coinage of all +sweet sounds of birds, all murmur of leaves, all riot and blossoming of +flowers, into fragrant verse,--he was without a peer in his day. It is +not that he is so true to natural phases in his descriptive epithets, +not that he sees all, not that he has heard all; but his heart has drunk +the incense of it, and his imagination refined it, and his fancy set it +aflow in those jocund lines which bound and writhe and exult with a +passionate love for the things of field and air. + + * * * * * + +I close these papers, with my eye resting upon the same stretch of +fields,--the wooded border of a river,--the twinkling roofs and spires +flanked by hills and sea,--where my eye rested when I began this story +of the old masters with Hesiod and the bean-patches of Ithaca. And I +take a pleasure in feeling that the farm-practice over all the fields +below me rests upon the cumulated authorship of so long a line of +teachers. Yon open furrow, over which the herbage has closed, carries +trace of the ridging in the "Works and Days"; the brown field of +half-broken clods is the fallow ([Greek: Neos]) of Xenophon; the drills +belong to Worlidge; their culture with the horse-hoe is at the order of +Master Tull. Young and Cobbett are full of their suggestions; Lancelot +Brown has ordered away a great straggling hedge-row; and Sir Uvedale +Price has urged me to spare a hoary maple which lords it over a +half-acre of flat land. Cato gives orders for the asparagus, and Switzer +for the hot-beds. Crescenzi directs the walling, and Smith of Deanston +the ploughing. Burns embalms all my field-mice, and Cowper drapes an urn +for me in a tangled wilderness. Knight names my cherries, and Walton, +the kind master, goes with me over the hill to a wee brook that bounds +down under hemlocks and soft maples, for "a contemplative man's +recreation." Davy long ago caught all the fermentation of my manure-heap +in his retort, and Thomson painted for me the scene which is under my +window to-day. Mowbray cures the pip in my poultry, and all the songs of +all the birds are caught and repeated to the echo in the pages of the +poets which lie here under my hand; through the prism of their verse, +Patrick the cattle-tender changes to a lithe milkmaid, against whose +ankles the buttercups nod rejoicingly, and Rosamund (which is the nurse) +wakes all Arden (which is Edgewood) with a rich burst of laughter. + +And shall I not be grateful to these my patrons? And shall I count it +unworthy to pass these few in-door hours of rain in the emblazonment of +their titles? + +Nor must I forget here to express my indebtedness to those kind friends +who have from time to time favored me with suggestions or corrections, +in the course of these papers, and to those others--not a few--who have +lent me rare old books of husbandry, which are not easily laid hold of. + +I have discussed no works of living authors, whether of practical or +pastoral intent: at some future day I may possibly pay my compliments to +them. Meantime I cannot help interpolating in the interest of my readers +a little fragment of a letter addressed to me within the year by the +lamented Hawthorne:--"I remember long ago your speaking prospectively of +a farm; but I never dreamed of your being really much more of a farmer +than myself, whose efforts in that line only make me the father of a +progeny of weeds in a garden-patch. I have about twenty-five acres of +land, seventeen of which are a hill of sand and gravel, wooded with +birches, locusts, and pitch-pines, and apparently incapable of any other +growth; so that I have great comfort in that part of my territory. The +other eight acres are said to be the best land in Concord, and they have +made me miserable, and would soon have ruined me, if I had not +determined nevermore to attempt raising anything from them. So there +they lie along the roadside, within their broken fence, an eyesore to +me, and a laughing-stock to all the neighbors. If it were not for the +difficulty of transportation by express or otherwise, I would thankfully +give you those eight acres." + +And now the fine, nervous hand, which wrought with such strange power +and beauty, is stilled forever! The eight acres can well lie neglected; +for upon a broader field, as large as humanity, and at the hands of +thousands of reapers who worked for love, he has gathered in a great +harvest of _immortelles_. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[27] _Life of Sir Humphry Davy_, London, 1839, p. 46. + +[28] See letter of Thomas Poole, p. 322, _Fragmentary Remains of Sir +Humphry Davy_. + +[29] _Salmonia_, p. 5, London, Murray, 1851. + +[30] _Fragmentary Remains_, p. 242. + +[31] _Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine._ + +[32] _Agricultural Biography_, etc. London, 1854. _Printed for the +Author._ + +[33] I ought, perhaps, to make definite exception in the case of a +writer so universally accredited. In his "Encyclopaedia of Gardening," he +speaks of the "Geoponica" as the work of "modern Greeks," written after +the transfer of the seat of empire to Constantinople; whereas the bulk +of those treatises were written long before that date. He speaks of +Varro as first in order of time of Roman authors on agriculture; yet +Varro was born 116 B. C., and Cato died as early as 149 B. C. Crescenzi +he names as an author of the fifteenth century; he should be credited to +the fourteenth. He also commits the very common error in writers on +gardening, of confounding the Tuscan villa of Pliny with that at +Tusculum. These two places of the Roman Consul were entirely distinct +and unlike. + +[34] _Lord Byron and his Contemporaries_, Vol. II. p. 258. + + + + +REGULAR AND VOLUNTEER OFFICERS. + + +It is pleasant to see how much the present war has done towards effacing +the traditional jealousy between regular officers and volunteers. The +two classes have been so thoroughly intermingled, on staff-duties and in +the field,--so many regular officers now hold in the volunteer service a +rank higher than their permanent standing,--the whole previous military +experience of most regulars was so trifling, compared with that which +they and the volunteers have now shared in common,--and so many young +men have lately been appointed to commissions, in both branches, not +only without a West-Point education, but with almost none at all,--that +it really cannot be said that there is much feeling of conscious +separation left. For treating the two as antagonistic the time has +clearly gone by. For judiciously weighing their respective services in +the field the epoch has not come, since the reign of history begins only +when that of telegrams and special correspondents has ended. It is +better, therefore, to limit the comparison, as yet, to that minor +routine of military duty upon which the daily existence of an army +depends, and of which the great deeds of daring are merely exciting +episodes. + +At the beginning of the war, and before the distinction was thus +partially effaced, the comparison involved very different elements. In +our general military inexperience, the majority were not disposed to +underrate the value of specific professional training. Education holds +in this country much of the prestige held by hereditary rank in Europe, +modified only by the condition that the possessor shall take no undue +airs upon himself. Even then the penalty consists only in a few +outbreaks of superficial jealousy, and the substantial respect for any +real acquirements remains the same. So there was a time when the +faintest aroma of West Point lent a charm to the most unattractive +candidate for a commission. Any Governor felt a certain relief in +intrusting a regiment to any man who had ever eaten clandestine oysters +at Benny Haven's, or had once heard the whiz of an Indian arrow on the +frontier, however mediocre might have been all his other claims to +confidence. If he failed, the regular army might bear the shame; if he +succeeded, to the State-House be the glory. + +Yet there was always another party of critics, not less intelligent, who +urged the value of general preparations for any duty, as compared with +special,--who held that it was always easier for a man of brains to +acquire technical skill than for a person of mere technicality to +superadd brains, and that the antecedents of a frontier lieutenant were, +on the whole, a poorer training for large responsibilities than those of +many a civilian, who had lived in the midst of men, though out of +uniform. Let us have a fair statement of this position, for it was very +sincere and had much temporary influence. The main thing, it was argued, +was the knowledge of human nature and the habit of dealing with mankind +in masses,--the very thing from which the younger regular officers at +least had been rigidly excluded. From a monastic life at West Point they +had usually been transferred to a yet more isolated condition, in some +obscure outpost,--or if otherwise, then they had seen no service at all, +and were mere clerks in shoulder-straps. But a lawyer who could +manoeuvre fifty witnesses as if they were one,--a teacher used to +governing young men by the hundred,--an orator trained to sway +thousands,--a master-mechanic,--a railway-superintendent,--a +factory-agent,--a broker who could harness Wall Street and drive it,--a +financier who could rule a sovereign State with a rod of (railway) +iron,--such men as these, it was plausibly reasoned, could give an +average army-officer all the advantage of his special training, at the +start, and yet beat him at his own trade in a year. + +These theories were naturally strengthened, moreover, by occasional +instances of conspicuous failure, when volunteer troops were intrusted +to regular officers. These disappointments could usually be traced to +very plain causes. The men selected were sometimes men whose West-Point +career would hardly bear minute investigation,--or who had in civil +pursuits forgotten all they had learned at the Academy, except +self-esteem,--or who had been confined to the duties of some special +department, as quartermasters or paymasters, and were really fitted for +nothing else,--or who had served their country by resigning their +commissions, if not by holding them,--or who had contrived, first or +last, to lose hopelessly their tempers or their digestions, or their +faith, hope, and charity. Beyond all this lay the trouble, that the best +regular officer from the very fact of his superior training was puzzled +to know how much to demand of volunteer troops, or what standard to +enforce upon them. It was a problem in the Differential Calculus, with +the Army Regulations for a constant, and a raw volunteer regiment for a +variable, and not a formula in Davies which suited the purpose. +Unfortunately, these perplexities were quite as apt to end in relaxation +as in rigor, so that the regiments thus commanded sometimes slid into a +looseness of which a resolute volunteer officer would have been ashamed. + +These were among the earlier results. Against them was to be set the +fact, that, on the whole, no regiments in the field made progress so +rapid, or held their own so well, as those placed under regular +officers. And now that three years have abolished many surmises, and +turned many others into established facts, it must be owned that the +total value of the professional training has proved far greater, and +that of the general preparation far less, than many intelligent +observers predicted. The relation between officer and soldier is +something so different in kind from anything which civil life has to +offer, that it has proved almost impossible to transfer methods or +maxims from the one to the other. If a regiment is merely a caucus, and +the colonel the chairman,--or merely a fire-company, and the colonel the +foreman,--or merely a prayer-meeting, and the colonel the moderator,--or +merely a bar-room, and the colonel the landlord,--then the failure of +the whole thing is a foregone conclusion. War is not the highest of +human pursuits, certainly; but an army comes very near to being the +completest of human organizations, and he alone succeeds in it who +readily accepts its inevitable laws, and applies them. An army is an +aristocracy, on a three-years' lease, supposing that the period of +enlistment. No mortal skill can make military power effective on +democratic principles. A democratic people can perhaps carry on a war +longer and better than any other; because no other can so well +comprehend the object, raise the means, or bear the sacrifices. But +these sacrifices include the surrender, for the time being, of the +essential principle of the government. Personal independence in the +soldier, like personal liberty in the civilian, must be waived for the +preservation of the nation. With shipwreck staring men in the face, the +choice lies between despotism and anarchy, trusting to the common sense +of those concerned, when the danger is over, to revert to the old +safeguards. It is precisely because democracy is an advanced stage in +human society, that war, which belongs to a less advanced stage, is +peculiarly inconsistent with its habits. Thus the undemocratic +character, so often lamented in West Point and Annapolis, is in reality +their strong point. Granted that they are no more appropriate to our +stage of society than are revolvers and bowie-knives, that is precisely +what makes them all serviceable in time of war. War being exceptional, +the institutions which train its officers must be exceptional likewise. + +The first essential for military authority lies in the power of +command,--a power which it is useless to analyze, for it is felt +instinctively, and it is seen in its results. It is hardly too much to +say, that, in military service, if one has this power, all else becomes +secondary; and it is perfectly safe to say that without it all other +gifts are useless. Now for the exercise of power there is no preparation +like power, and nowhere is this preparation to be found, in this +community, except in regular army-training. Nothing but great personal +qualities can give a man by nature what is easily acquired by young men +of very average ability who are systematically trained to command. + +The criticism habitually made upon our army by foreign observers at the +beginning of the war continues still to be made, though in a rather less +degree,--that the soldiers are relatively superior to the officers, so +that the officers lead, perhaps, but do not command them. The reason is +plain. Three years are not long enough to overcome the settled habits of +twenty years. The weak point of our volunteer service invariably lies +here, that the soldier, in nine cases out of ten, utterly detests being +commanded, while the officer, in his turn, equally shrinks from +commanding. War, to both, is an episode in life, not a profession, and +therefore military subordination, which needs for its efficiency to be +fixed and absolute, is, by common consent, reduced to a minimum. The +white American soldier, being, doubtless, the most intelligent in the +world, is more ready than any other to comply with a reasonable order, +but he does it because it is reasonable, not because it is an order. +With advancing experience his compliance increases, but it is still +because he better and better comprehends the reason. Give him an order +that looks utterly unreasonable,--and this is sometimes necessary,--or +give him one which looks trifling, under which head all sanitary +precautions are yet too apt to rank, and you may, perhaps, find that you +still have a free and independent citizen to deal with, not a soldier. +_Implicit_ obedience must be admitted still to be a rare quality in our +army; nor can we wonder at it. In many cases there is really no more +difference between officers and men, in education or in breeding, than +if the one class were chosen by lot from the other; all are from the +same neighborhood, all will return to the same civil pursuits side by +side; every officer knows that in a little while each soldier will again +become his client or his customer, his constituent or his rival. Shall +he risk offending him for life in order to carry out some hobby of +stricter discipline? If this difficulty exist in the case of +commissioned officers, it is still more the case with the +non-commissioned, those essential intermediate links in the chain of +authority. Hence the discipline of our soldiers has been generally that +of a town-meeting or of an engine-company, rather than that of an army; +and it shows the extraordinary quality of the individual men, that so +much has been accomplished with such a formidable defect in the +organization. Even granting that there has been a great and constant +improvement, the evil is still vast enough. And every young man trained +at West Point enters the service with at least this advantage, that he +has been brought up to command, and has not that task to learn. + +He has this further advantage, that he is brought up with some respect +for the army-organization as it is, with its existing rules, methods, +and proprieties, and is not, like the newly commissioned civilian, +disposed in his secret soul to set aside all its proprieties as mere +"pipe-clay," its methods as "old-fogyism," and its rules as "red-tape." +How many good volunteer officers will admit, if they speak candidly, +that on entering the service they half believed the "Army Regulations" +to be a mass of old-time rubbish, which they would gladly reedit, under +contract, with immense improvements, in a month or two,--and that they +finally left the service with the conviction that the same book was a +mine of wisdom, as yet but half explored! Certainly, when one thinks +for what a handful of an army our present military system was devised, +and with what an admirable elasticity it has borne this sudden and +stupendous expansion, it must be admitted to have most admirably stood +the test. Of course, there has been much amendment and alteration +needed, nor is the work done yet; but it has mainly touched the details, +not the general principles. The system is wonderfully complete for its +own ends, and the more one studies it the less one sneers. Many a form +which at first seems to the volunteer officer merely cumbrous and +trivial he learns to prize at last as almost essential to good +discipline; he seldom attempts a short cut without finding it the +longest way, and rarely enters on that heroic measure of cutting +red-tape without finding at last that he has entangled his own fingers +in the process. + +More thorough training tells in another way. It is hard to appreciate, +without the actual experience, how much of military life is a matter of +mere detail. The maiden at home fancies her lover charging at the head +of his company, when in reality he is at that precise moment endeavoring +to convince his company-cooks that salt-junk needs five hours' boiling, +or is anxiously deciding which pair of worn-out trousers shall be +ejected from a drummer-boy's knapsack. Courage is, no doubt, a good +quality in a soldier, and luckily not often wanting; but, in the long +run, courage depends largely on the haversack. Men are naturally brave, +and when the crisis comes, almost all men will fight well, if well +commanded. As Sir Philip Sidney said, an army of stags led by a lion is +more formidable than an army of lions led by a stag. Courage is cheap; +the main duty of an officer is to take good care of his men, so that +every one of them shall be ready, at a moment's notice, for any +reasonable demand. A soldier's life usually implies weeks and months of +waiting, and then one glorious hour; and if the interval of leisure has +been wasted, there is nothing but a wasted heroism at the end, and +perhaps not even that. The penalty for misused weeks, the reward for +laborious months, may be determined within ten minutes. Without +discipline an army is a mob, and the larger the worse; without rations +the men are empty uniforms; without ammunition they might as well have +no guns; without shoes they might almost as well have no legs. And it is +in the practical appreciation of all these matters that the superiority +of the regular officer is apt to be shown. + +Almost any honest volunteer officer will admit, that, although the +tactics were easily learned, yet, in dealing with all other practical +details of army-life, he was obliged to gain his knowledge through many +blunders. There were a thousand points on which the light of Nature, +even aided by "Army Regulations," did not sufficiently instruct him; and +his best hints were probably obtained by frankly consulting regular +officers, even if inferior in rank. The advantage of a West-Point +training is precisely that of any other professional education. There is +nothing in it which any intelligent man cannot learn for himself in +later life; nevertheless, the intelligent man would have fared a good +deal better, had he learned it all in advance. Test it by shifting the +positions. No lawyer would trust his case to a West-Point graduate, +without evidence of thorough special preparation. Yet he himself enters +on a career equally new to him, where his clients may be counted by +thousands, and every case is capital. The army is a foreign country to +civilians; of course you can learn the language after your arrival, but +how you envy your companion, who, having spoken it from childhood, can +proceed at once to matters more important! + +Yet the great advantage of the regular army does not, after all, consist +merely in any superiority of knowledge, or in the trained habit of +command. Granting that patience and labor can readily supply these to +the volunteer, the trouble remains, that even in labor and patience the +regular officer is apt to have the advantage, by reason of a stronger +stimulus. The difference is not merely in the start, but in the pace. No +man can be often thrown into the society of regular officers, especially +among the younger ones, without noticing a higher standard of +professional earnestness than that found among average volunteers; and +in this respect a West-Point training makes little or no difference. The +reason of the superiority is obvious. To the volunteer, the service is +still an episode; to the regular, a permanent career. No doubt, if a man +is thoroughly conscientious, or thoroughly ambitious, or thoroughly +enthusiastic, a temporary pursuit may prove as absorbing as if it were +taken up for life; but the majority of men, however well-meaning, are +not thorough at all. How often one hears the apology made by volunteer +officers, even those of high rank,--"Military life is not my profession; +I entered the army from patriotism, willing to serve my country +faithfully for three years, but of course not pretending to perfection +in every trivial detail of a pursuit which I shall soon quit forever." +But it is patriotism to think the details _not_ trivial. If one gives +one's self to one's country, let the gift be total and noble. These +details are worthy to absorb the whole daily thought, and they should +absorb it, until more thorough comprehension and more matured executive +power leave room for larger studies, still in the line of the adopted +occupation. If a man leaves his office or his study to be a soldier, let +him be a soldier in earnest. Let those three years bound the horizon of +his plans, and let him study his new duty as if earth offered no other +conceivable career. The scholar must forswear his pen, the lawyer his +books, the politician his arts. An officer of whatever rank, who does +not find occupation enough for every day, amid the quietest +winter-quarters, in the prescribed duties of his position and the +studies to which they should lead, is fitted only for civil pursuits, +and had better return to them. + +Without this thoroughness, life in the army affords no solid +contentment. What is called military glory is a fitful and uncertain +thing. Time and the newspapers play strange tricks with reputations, and +of a hundred officers whose names appear with honor in this morning's +despatches ninety may never be mentioned again till it is time to write +their epitaphs. Who, for instance, can recite the names of the +successive cavalry-commanders who have ridden on their bold forays +through Virginia, since the war began? All must give place to the latest +Kautz or Sheridan, who has eclipsed without excelling them all. Yet each +is as brave and as faithful to-day, no doubt, as when he too glittered +for his hour before all men's gaze, and the obscurer duty may be the +more substantial honor. So when I lift my eyes to look on yonder level +ocean-floor, the fitful sunshine now glimmers white on one far-off sail, +now on another; and yet I know that all canvas looks snowy while those +casual rays are on it, and that the best vessel is that which, sunlit or +shaded, best accomplishes its destined course. The officer is almost as +powerless as the soldier to choose his opportunity or his place. +Military glory may depend on a thousand things,--the accident of local +position, the jealousy of a rival, the whim of a superior. But the merit +of having done one's whole duty to the men whose lives are in one's +keeping, and to the nation whose life is staked with theirs,--of having +held one's command in such a state, that, if at any given moment it was +not performing the most brilliant achievement, it might have been,--this +is the substantial triumph which every faithful officer has always +within reach. + +Now will any one but a newspaper flatterer venture to say that this is +the habitual standard in our volunteer service? Take as a test the +manner in which official inspections are usually regarded by a +regimental commander. These occasions are to him what examinations by +the School Committee are to a public-school teacher. He may either +deprecate and dodge them, or he may manfully welcome them as the very +best means of improvement for all under his care. Which is the more +common view? What sight more pitiable than to behold an officer begging +off from inspection because he has just come in from picket, or is just +going out on picket, or has just removed camp, or was a day too late +with his last requisition for cartridges? No doubt it is a trying ordeal +to have some young regular-army lieutenant ride up to your tent at an +hour's notice, and leisurely devote a day to probing every weak spot in +your command,--to stand by while he smells at every camp-kettle, detects +every delinquent gun-sling, ferrets out old shoes from behind the +mess-bunks, spies out every tent-pole not labelled with the sergeant's +name, asks to see the cash-balance of each company-fund, and perplexes +your best captain on forming from two ranks into one by the left flank. +Yet it is just such unpleasant processes as these which are the +salvation of an army; these petty mortifications are the fulcrum by +which you can lift your whole regiment to a first-class rank, if you +have only the sense to use them. So long as no inspecting officer needs +twice to remind you of the same thing, you have no need to blush. But +though you be the bravest of the brave, though you know a thousand +things of which he is utterly ignorant, yet so long as he can tell you +one thing which you ought to know, he is master of the situation. He may +be the most conceited little popinjay who ever strutted in uniform; no +matter; it is more for your interest to learn than for his to teach. Let +our volunteer officers, as a body, once resolve to act on this +principle, and we shall have such an army as the world never saw. But +nothing costs the nation a price so fearful, in money or in men, as the +false pride which shrinks from these necessary surgical operations, or +regards the surgeon as a foe. + +It is not being an officer to wear uniform for three years, to draw +one's pay periodically, and to acquit one's self without shame during a +few hours or days of actual battle. History will never record what fine +regiments have been wasted and ruined, since this war began, by the +negligence in camp of commanders who were brave as Bayard in the field. +Unless a man is willing to concentrate his whole soul upon learning and +performing the humblest as well as the most brilliant functions of his +new profession, a true officer he will never become. More time will not +help him; for time seldom does much for one who enters, especially in +middle life, on an employment for which he is essentially unfitted. It +is amusing to see the weight attached to the name of veteran, in +military matters, by persons who in civil life are very ready to +exchange a veteran doctor or minister for his younger rival. Military +seniority, though the only practicable rule of precedence, is liable to +many notorious inconveniences. It is especially without meaning in the +volunteer service, where the Governor of Maine may happen to date a set +of commissions on the first day of January, and His Excellency of +Minnesota may doom his contemporary regiment to life-long subordination +by accidentally postponing theirs to the second day. But it has +sufficient drawbacks even where all the appointments pass through one +channel. The dignity it gives is a merely chronological distinction,--an +oldest-inhabitant renown,--much like the university-degree of A. M., +which simply implies that a man has got decently through college, and +then survived three years. But if a man was originally placed in a +position beyond his deserts, the mere lapse of time may have only made +him the more dangerous charlatan. If he showed no sign of military +aptitude in six months, a probation of three years may have been more +costly, but not more conclusive. Add to this the fact that each +successive year of the war has seen all officers more carefully +selected, if only because there has been more choice of material; so +that there is sometimes a temptation in actual service, were it +practicable, to become Scriptural in our treatment, and put the last +first and the first last. In those unfortunate early days, when it +seemed to most of our Governors to make little difference whom they +commissioned, since all were alike untried, and of two evils it was +natural to choose that which would produce the more agreeable +consequences at the next election-time,--in those days of darkness many +very poor officers saw the light. Many of these have since been happily +discharged or judiciously shelved. The trouble is, that those who remain +are among the senior officers in our volunteer army, in their respective +grades. They command posts, brigades, divisions. They preside at +court-martials. Beneath the shadow of their notorious incompetency all +minor evils may lurk undetected. To crown all, they are, in many cases, +sincere and well-meaning men, utterly obtuse as to their own +deficiencies, and manifesting (to employ a witticism coeval with +themselves) all the Christian virtues except that of resignation. + +The present writer has beheld the spectacle of an officer of high rank, +previously eminent in civil life, who could only vindicate himself +before a court-martial from the ruinous charge of false muster by +summoning a staff-officer to prove that it was his custom to sign all +military papers without looking at them. He has seen a lieutenant tried +for neglect of duty in allowing a soldier under his command, at an +important picket-post, to be found by the field-officer of the day with +two inches of sand in the bottom of his gun,--and pleading, in +mitigation of sentence, that it had never been the practice in his +regiment to make any inspection of men detailed for such duty. That such +instances of negligence should be tolerated for six months in any +regiment of regulars is a thing almost inconceivable, and yet in these +cases the regiments and the officers had been nearly three years in +service. + +It is to be remembered that even the command of a regiment of a thousand +men is a first-class administrative position, and that there is no +employer of men in civil life who assumes the responsibility of those +under his command so absolutely and thoroughly. The life, the health, +the efficiency, the finances, the families of his soldiers, are staked +not so much on the courage of a regimental commander as upon his +decision, his foresight, and his business-habits. As Richter's worldly +old statesman tells his son, "War trains a man to business." If he takes +his training slowly, he must grow perfect through suffering,--commonly +the suffering of other people. The varied and elaborate returns, for +instance, now required of officers,--daily, monthly, quarterly, +annually,--are not one too many as regards the interests of Government +and of the soldiers, but are enough to daunt any but an accurate and +methodical man. A single error in an ordnance requisition may send a +body of troops into action with only twenty rounds of ammunition to a +man. One mistake in a property-voucher may involve an officer in +stoppages exceeding his yearly pay. One wrong spelling in a muster-roll +may beggar a soldier's children ten years after the father has been +killed in battle. Under such circumstances no standard of accuracy can +be too high. And yet even the degree of regularity that now exists is +due more to the constant pressure from head-quarters than to any +individual zeal. For a large part of this pressure the influence of the +regular army is responsible,--those officers usually occupying the more +important staff-positions, and having in some departments of service, +especially in the ordnance, moulded and remoulded the whole machinery +until it has become almost a model. It would be difficult to name +anything in civil life which is in its way so perfect as the present +system of business and of papers in this department. Every ordnance +blank now contains a schedule of instructions for its own use, so simple +and so minute that it seems as if, henceforward, the most negligent +volunteer officer could never make another error. And yet in the very +last set of returns which the writer had occasion to revise,--returns +made by a very meritorious captain,--there were eight different papers, +and a mistake in every one. + +The glaring defeat of most of our volunteer regiments, from the +beginning to this day, has lain in slovenliness and remissness as to +every department of military duty, except the actual fighting and dying. +When it comes to that ultimate test, our men usually endure it so +magnificently that one is tempted to overlook all deficiencies on +intermediate points. But they must not be overlooked, because they +create a fearful discount on the usefulness of our troops, when tried by +the standard of regular armies. I do not now refer to the niceties of +dress-parade or the courtesies of salutation: it has long since been +tacitly admitted that a white American soldier will not present arms to +any number of rows of buttons, if he can by any ingenuity evade it; and +to shoulder arms on passing an officer is something to which only +Ethiopia or the regular army can attain. Grant, if you please, (though I +do not grant,) that these are merely points of foolish punctilio. But +there are many things which are more than punctilio, though they may be +less than fighting. The efficiency of a body of troops depends, after +all, not so much on its bravery as on the condition of its sick-list. A +regiment which does picket-duty faithfully will often avoid the need of +duties more terrible. Yet I have ridden by night along a chain of ten +sentinels, every one of whom should have taken my life rather than +permit me to give the countersign without dismounting, and have been +required to dismount by only four, while two did not ask me for the +countersign at all, and two others were asleep. I have ridden through a +regimental camp whose utterly filthy condition seemed enough to send +malaria through a whole military department, and have been asked by the +colonel, almost with tears in his eyes, to explain to him why his men +were dying at the rate of one a day. The latter was a regiment nearly a +year old, and the former one of almost two years' service, and just from +the old Army of the Potomac. + +The fault was, of course, in the officers. The officer makes the +command, as surely as, in educational matters, the teacher makes the +school. There is not a regiment in the army so good that it could not be +utterly spoiled in three months by a poor commander, nor so poor that it +could not be altogether transformed in six by a good one. The difference +in material is nothing,--white or black, German or Irish; so potent is +military machinery that an officer who knows his business can make good +soldiers out of almost anything, give him but a fair chance. The +difference between the present Army of the Potomac and any previous +one,--the reason why we do not daily hear, as in the early campaigns, of +irresistible surprises, overwhelming numbers, and masked batteries,--the +reason why the present movements are a tide and not a wave,--is not that +the men are veterans, but that the officers are. There is an immense +amount of perfectly raw material in General Grant's force, besides the +colored regiments, which in that army are all raw, but in which the +Copperhead critics have such faith they would gladly select them for +dangers fit for Napoleon's Old Guard. But the newest recruit soon grows +steady with a steady corporal at his elbow, a well-trained sergeant +behind him, and a captain or a colonel whose voice means something to +give commands. + +This reference to the colored troops suggests the false impression, +still held by many, that special opposition to this important military +organization has been made by regular officers. There is no justice in +this. While it is very probable that regular officers, as a class, may +have had stronger prejudices on this point than others have held, yet it +is to be remembered that the chief obstacles have not come from them, +nor from military men of any kind, but from civilians at home. Nothing +has been more remarkable than the facility with which the expected +aversion of the army everywhere vanished before the admirable behavior +of the colored troops, and the substantial value of the reinforcements +they brought. When it comes to the simple question whether a soldier +shall go on duty every night or every other night, he is not critical as +to beauty of complexion in the soldier who relieves him. + +Some regular officers may have been virulently opposed to the employment +of negroes as soldiers, though the few instances which I have known have +been far more than compensated by repeated acts of the most substantial +kindness from many others. But I never have met one who did not express +contempt for the fraud thus far practised by Government on a portion of +these troops, by refusing to pay them the wages which the Secretary of +War had guarantied. This is a wrong which, but for good discipline, +would have long since converted our older colored regiments into a mob +of mutineers, and which, while dishonestly saving the Government a few +thousand dollars, has virtually sacrificed hundreds of thousands in its +discouraging effect upon enlistments, at a time when the fate of the +nation may depend upon a few regiments more or less. It is in vain for +national conventions to make capital by denouncing massacres like that +of Fort Pillow, and yet ignore this more deliberate injustice for which +some of their own members are in part responsible. The colored soldiers +will take their own risk of capture and maltreatment very readily, +(since they must take it on themselves at any rate,) if the Government +will let its justice begin at home, and pay them their honest earnings. +It is of little consequence to a dying man whether any one else is to +die by retaliation, but it is of momentous consequence whether his wife +and family are to be cheated of half his scanty earnings by the nation +for which he dies. The Rebels may be induced to concede the negro the +rights of war, when we grant him the ordinary rights of peace, namely, +to be paid the price agreed upon. Jefferson Davis and the London +"Times"--one-half whose stock-in-trade is "the inveterate meanness of +the Yankee"--will hardly be converted to sound morals by the rebukes of +an administration which allows its Secretary of War to promise a black +soldier thirteen dollars a month, pay him seven, and shoot him if he +grumbles. From this crowning injustice the regular army, and, indeed, +the whole army, is clear; to civilians alone belongs this carnival of +fraud. + +If, in some instances, terrible injustice has been done to the black +soldiers in their military treatment also, it has not been only, or +chiefly, under regular officers. Against the cruel fatigue duty imposed +upon them last summer, in the Department of the South, for instance, +must be set the more disastrous mismanagements of the Department of the +Gulf,--the only place from which we now hear the old stories of disease +and desertion,--all dating back to the astonishing blunder of organizing +the colored regiments of half-size at the outset, with a full complement +of officers. This measure, however agreeable it might have been to the +horde of aspirants for commissions, was in itself calculated to destroy +all self-respect in the soldiers, being based on the utterly baseless +assumption that they required twice as many officers as whites, and was +foredoomed to failure, because no _esprit de corps_ can be created in a +regiment which is from the first insignificant in respect to size. It is +scarcely conceivable that any regular officer should have honestly +fallen into such an error as this; and it is very certain that the +wisest suggestions and the most efficient action have proceeded, since +the beginning, from them. It will be sufficient to mention the names of +Major-General Hunter, Brigadier-General Phelps, and Adjutant-General +Thomas; and one there is whose crowning merits deserve a tribute +distinct even from these. + +When some future Bancroft or Motley writes with philosophic brain and +poet's hand the story of the Great Civil War, he will find the +transition to a new era in our nation's history to have been fitly +marked by one festal day,--that of the announcement of the President's +Proclamation, upon Port-Royal Island, on the first of January, 1863. +That New-Year's time was our second contribution to the great series of +historic days, beads upon the rosary of the human race, permanent +festivals of freedom. Its celebration was one beside whose simple +pageant the superb festivals of other lands might seem but glittering +counterfeits. Beneath a majestic grove of the great live-oaks which +glorify the South-Carolina soil a liberated people met to celebrate +their own peaceful emancipation. They came thronging, by land and water, +from plantations which their own self-imposed and exemplary industry was +beginning already to redeem. The military escort which surrounded them +had been organized out of their own numbers, and had furnished to the +nation the first proof of the capacity of their race to bear arms. The +key-note of the meeting was given by spontaneous voices, whose +unexpected anthem took the day from the management of well-meaning +patrons, and swept all away into the great currents of simple feeling. +It was a scene never to be forgotten: the moss-hung trees, with their +hundred-feet diameter of shade; the eager faces of women and children in +the foreground; the many-colored headdresses; the upraised hands; the +neat uniforms of the soldiers; the outer row of mounted officers and +ladies; and beyond all the blue river, with its swift, free tide. And at +the centre of all this great and joyous circle stood modestly the man on +whose personal integrity and energy, more than on any President or +Cabinet, the hopes of all that multitude appeared to rest,--who +commanded then among his subjects, and still commands, an allegiance +more absolute than any European potentate can claim,--whose name will be +forever illustrious as having first made a practical reality out of that +Proclamation which then was to the President only an autograph, and to +the Cabinet only a dream,--who, when the whole fate of the slaves and of +the Government hung trembling in the balance, decided it forever by +throwing into the scale the weight of one resolute man,--who personally +mustered in the first black regiment, and personally governed the +first community where emancipation was a success,--who taught the +relieved nation, in fine, that there was strength and safety +in those dusky millions who till then had been an incubus and a +terror,--Brigadier-General Rufus Saxton, Military Governor of South +Carolina. The single career of this one man more than atones for all the +traitors whom West Point ever nurtured, and awards the highest place on +the roll of our practical statesmanship to the regular army. + + + + +THE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF INANIMATE THINGS. + + +I am confident, that, at the annunciation of my theme, Andover, +Princeton, and Cambridge will skip like rams, and the little hills of +East Windsor, Meadville, and Fairfax, like lambs. However +divinity-schools may refuse to "skip" in unison, and may butt and batter +each other about the doctrine and origin of _human_ depravity, all will +join devoutly in the _credo_, I believe in the total depravity of +inanimate things. + +The whole subject lies in a nutshell, or rather an apple-skin. We have +clerical authority for affirming that all its miseries were let loose +upon the human race by "them greenins" tempting our mother to curious +pomological speculations; and from that time till now--Longfellow, thou +reasonest well!--"things are not what they seem," but are diabolically +otherwise,--masked-batteries, nets, gins, and snares of evil. + +(In this connection I am reminded of--can I ever cease to remember?--the +unlucky lecturer at our lyceum a few winters ago, who, on rising to +address his audience, applauding him all the while most vehemently, +pulled out his handkerchief, for oratorical purposes only, and +inadvertently flung from his pocket three "Baldwins" that a friend had +given to him on his way to the hall, straight into the front row of +giggling girls.) + +My zeal on this subject received new impetus recently from an +exclamation which pierced the thin partitions of the country-parsonage, +once my home, where I chanced to be a guest. + +From the adjoining dressing-room issued a prolonged "Y-ah!"--not the +howl of a spoiled child, nor the protest of a captive gorilla, but the +whole-souled utterance of a mighty son of Anak, whose amiability is +invulnerable to weapons of human aggravation. + +I paused in the midst of toilet-exigencies, and listened +sympathetically, for I recognized the probable presence of the old enemy +to whom the bravest and sweetest succumb. + +Confirmation and explanation followed speedily in the half apologetic, +wholly wrathful declaration,--"The pitcher was made foolish in the first +place." I dare affirm, that, if the spirit of Lindley Murray himself +were at that moment hovering over that scene of trial, he dropped a +tear, or, better still, an adverbial _ly_ upon the false grammar, and +blotted it out forever. + +I comprehended the scene at once. I had been there. I felt again the +remorseless swash of the water over neat boots and immaculate hose; I +saw the perverse intricacies of its meanderings over the carpet, upon +which the "foolish" pitcher had been confidingly deposited; I knew, +beyond the necessity of ocular demonstration, that, as sure as there +were "pipe-hole" or crack in the ceiling of the study below, those +inanimate things would inevitably put their evil heads together, and +bring to grief the long-suffering Dominie, with whom, during my day, +such inundations had been of at least bi-weekly occurrence, instigated +by crinoline. The inherent wickedness of that "thing of beauty" will be +acknowledged by all mankind, and by every female not reduced to the +deplorable poverty of the heroine of the following veracious anecdote. + +A certain good bishop, on making a tour of inspection through a +mission-school of his diocese, was so impressed by the aspect of all its +beneficiaries that his heart overflowed with joy, and he exclaimed to a +little maiden whose appearance was particularly suggestive of +creature-comforts,--"Why, my little girl! you have everything that heart +can wish, haven't you?" Imagine the bewilderment and horror of the +prelate, when the miniature Flora McFlimsey drew down the corners of her +mouth lugubriously, and sought to accommodate the puffs and dimples of +her fat little body to an expression of abject misery, as she +replied,--"No, indeed, Sir! I haven't got any--skeleton!" + +We who have suffered know the disposition of graceless "skeletons" to +hang themselves on "foolish" pitchers, bureau-knobs, rockers, +cobble-stones, splinters, nails, and, indeed, any projection a tenth of +a line beyond a dead level. + +The mention of nails is suggestive of voluminous distresses. +Country-parsonages, from some inexplicable reason, are wont to bristle +all over with these impish assailants of human comfort. + +I never ventured to leave my masculine relatives to their own devices +for more than twenty-four consecutive hours, that I did not return to +find that they had seemingly manifested their grief at my absence after +the old Hebraic method, ("more honored in the breach than the +observance,") by rending their garments. When summoned to their account, +the invariable defence has been a vehement denunciation of some +particular _nail_ as the guilty cause of my woes. + +By the way, O Christian woman of the nineteenth century, did it ever +enter your heart to give devout thanks that you did not share the woe +of those whose fate it was to "sojourn in Mesech and dwell in the tents +of Kedar"? that it did not fall to your lot to do the plain sewing and +mending for some Jewish patriarch, patriot, or prophet of yore? + +Realize, if you can, the masculine aggravation and the feminine +long-suffering of a period when the head of a family could neither go +down-town, nor even sit at his tent-door, without descrying some +wickedness in high places, some insulting placard, some exasperating +war-bulletin, some offensive order from head-quarters, which caused him +to transform himself instantly into an animated rag-bag. Whereas, in +these women-saving days, similar grievances send President Abraham into +his cabinet to issue a proclamation, the Reverend Jeremiah into his +pulpit with a scathing homily, Poet-Laureate David to the "Atlantic" +with a burning lyric, and Major-General Joab to the privacy of his tent, +there to calm his perturbed spirit with Drake's Plantation Bitters. In +humble imitation of another, I would state that this indorsement of the +potency of a specific is entirely gratuitous, and that I am stimulated +thereto by no remuneration, fluid or otherwise. + +Blessed be this day of sewing-machines for women, and of safety-valves +and innocent explosives for their lords! + +But this is a digression. + +I awoke very early in life to the consciousness that I held the doctrine +which we are considering. + +On a hapless day when I was perhaps five years old, I was, in my own +estimation, intrusted with the family-dignity, when I was deposited for +the day at the house of a lordly Pharisee of the parish, with solemnly +repeated instructions in table-manners and the like. + +One who never analyzed the mysteries of a sensitive child's heart cannot +appreciate the sense of awful responsibility which oppressed me during +that visit. But all went faultlessly for a time. I corrected myself +instantly each time. I said, "Yes, Ma'am," to Mr. Simon, and "No, Sir," +to Madam, which was as often as I addressed them; I clenched little +fists and lips resolutely, that they might not touch, taste, handle, +tempting _bijouterie_; I even held in check the spirit of inquiry +rampant within me, and indulged myself with only one question to every +three minutes of time. + +At last I found myself at the handsome dinner-table, triumphantly +mounted upon two "Comprehensive Commentaries" and a dictionary, fearing +no evil from the viands before me. Least of all did I suspect the +vegetables of guile. But deep in the heart of a bland, mealy-mouthed +potato lurked cruel designs upon my fair reputation. + +No sooner had I, in the most approved style of nursery good-breeding, +applied my fork to its surface, than the hardhearted thing executed a +wild _pirouette_ before my astonished eyes, and then flew on impish +wings across the room, dashing out its malicious brains, I am happy to +say, against the parlor-door, but leaving me in a half-comatose state, +stirred only by vague longings for a lodge with "proud Korah's troop," +whose destination is unmistakably set forth in the "Shorter Catechism." + +There is a possibility that I received my innate distrust of things by +inheritance from my maternal grandmother, whose holy horror at the +profanity they once provoked from a bosom-friend in her childhood was +still vivid in her old age. + +It was on this wise. When still a pretty Puritan maiden, my grandame was +tempted irresistibly by the spring sunshine to the tabooed indulgence of +a Sunday-walk. The temptation was probably intensified by the +presence of the British troops, giving unwonted fascination to +village-promenades. Her confederate in this guilty pleasure was a +like-minded little saint; so there was a tacit agreement between them +that their transgression should be sanctified by a strict adherence to +religious topics of conversation. Accordingly they launched boldly upon +the great subject which was just then agitating church-circles in New +England. + +Fortune smiled upon these criminals against the Blue Laws, until they +encountered a wall surmounted by hickory rails. Without intermitting the +discussion, Susannah sprang agilely up. Quoth she, balancing herself for +one moment upon the summit,--"No, no, Betsey! _I_ believe God is the +author of sin!" The next she sprang toward the ground; but a salient +splinter, a chip of depravity, clutched her Sunday-gown, and converted +her incontinently, it seems, into a confessor of the opposing faith; for +history records, that, following the above-mentioned dogma, there came +from hitherto unstained lips,--"The Devil!" + +Time and space would, of course, be inadequate to the enumeration of all +the demonstrations of the truth of the doctrine of the absolute +depravity of things. A few examples only can be cited. + +There is melancholy pleasure in the knowledge that a great soul has gone +mourning before me in the path I am now pursuing. It was only to-day, +that, in glancing over the pages of Victor Hugo's greatest work, I +chanced upon the following:--"Every one will have noticed with what +skill a coin let fall upon the ground runs to hide itself, and what art +it has in rendering itself invisible; there are thoughts which play us +the same trick," etc., etc. + +The similar tendency of pins and needles is universally understood and +execrated,--their base secretiveness when searched for, and their +incensing intrusion when one is off guard. + +I know a man whose sense of their malignity is so keen, that, whenever +he catches a gleam of their treacherous lustre on the carpet, he +instantly draws his two and a quarter yards of length into the smallest +possible compass, and shrieks until the domestic police come to the +rescue, and apprehend the sharp little villains. Do not laugh at this. +Years ago he lost his choicest friend by the stab of just such a little +dastard lying in ambush. + +So also every wielder of the needle is familiar with the propensity of +the several parts of a garment in the process of manufacture to turn +themselves wrong side out, and down side up; and the same viciousness +cleaves like leprosy to the completed garment so long as a thread +remains. + +My blood still tingles with a horrible memory illustrative of this +truth. + +Dressing hurriedly and in darkness for a concert one evening, I appealed +to the Dominie, as we passed under the hall-lamp, for a +toilet-inspection. + +"How do I look, father?" + +After a sweeping glance came the candid statement,-- + +"Beau-tifully!" + +Oh, the blessed glamour which invests a child whose father views her +"with a critic's eye"! + +"Yes, _of course_; but look carefully, please; how is my dress?" + +Another examination of apparently severest scrutiny. + +"All right, dear! That's the new cloak, is it? Never saw you look +better. Come, we shall be late." + +Confidingly I went to the hall; confidingly I entered; since the +concert-room was crowded with rapt listeners to the Fifth Symphony, I, +gingerly, but still confidingly, followed the author of my days, and the +critic of my toilet, to the very uppermost seat, which I entered, barely +nodding to my finically fastidious friend, Guy Livingston, who was +seated near us with a stylish-looking stranger, who bent eyebrows and +glass upon me superciliously. + +Seated, the Dominie was at once lifted into the midst of the massive +harmonies of the Adagio; I lingered outside a moment, in order to settle +my garments and--that woman's look. What! was that a partially +suppressed titter near me? Ah! she has no soul for music! How such +ill-timed merriment will jar upon my friend's exquisite sensibilities! + +Shade of Beethoven! A hybrid cough and laugh, smothered decorously, but +still recognizable, from the courtly Guy himself! What can it mean? + +In my perturbation, my eyes fell and rested upon the sack, whose newness +and glorifying effect had been already noticed by my lynx-eyed parent. + +I here pause to remark that I had intended to request the compositor to +"set up" the coming sentence in explosive capitals, by way of emphasis, +but forbear, realizing that it already staggers under the weight of its +own significance. + +That sack was wrong side out! + +Stern necessity, proverbially known as "the mother of invention," and +practically the step-mother of ministers' daughters, had made me eke out +the silken facings of the front with cambric linings for the back and +sleeves. Accordingly, in the full blaze of the concert-room, there sat +I, "accoutred as I was," in motley attire,--my homely little economies +patent to admiring spectators: on either shoulder, budding wings +composed of unequal parts of sarcenet-cambric and cotton-batting; and in +my heart--_parricide_ I had almost said, but it was rather the more +filial sentiment of desire to operate for cataract upon my father's +eyes. But a moment's reflection sufficed to transfer my indignation to +its proper object,--the sinful sack itself, which, concerting with its +kindred darkness, had planned this cruel assault upon my innocent pride. + +A constitutional obtuseness renders me delightfully insensible to one +fruitful source of provocation among inanimate things. I am so dull as +to regard all distinctions between "rights" and "lefts" as invidious; +but I have witnessed the agonized struggles of many a victim of +fractious boots, and been thankful that "I am not as other men are," in +ability to comprehend the difference between my right and left foot. +Still, as already intimated, I have seen wise men driven mad by a thing +of leather and waxed-ends. + +A little innocent of three years, in all the pride of his first boots, +was aggravated, by the perversity of the right to thrust itself on to +the left leg, to the utterance of a contraband expletive. + +When reproved by his horror-stricken mamma, he maintained a dogged +silence. + +In order to pierce his apparently indurated conscience, his censor +finally said, solemnly,-- + +"Dugald! God knows that you said that wicked word." + +"Does He?" cried the baby-victim of reral depravity, in a tone of +relief; "then _He_ knows it was a doke" (_Anglice_, joke). + +But, mind you, the sin-tempting boot intended no "doke." + +The toilet, with its multiform details and complicated machinery, is a +demon whose surname is Legion. + +Time would fail me to speak of the elusiveness of soap, the knottiness +of strings, the transitory nature of buttons, the inclination of +suspenders to twist, and of hooks to forsake their lawful eyes, and +cleave only unto the hairs of their hapless owner's head. (It occurs to +me as barely possible, that, in the last case, the hooks may be +innocent, and the sinfulness may lie in _capillary_ attraction.) + +And, O my brother or sister in sorrow, has it never befallen you, when +bending all your energies to the mighty task of "doing" your back-hair, +to find yourself gazing inanely at the opaque back of your brush, while +the hand-mirror, which had maliciously insinuated itself into your right +hand for this express purpose, came down upon your devoted head with a +resonant whack? + +I have alluded, parenthetically, to the possible guilt of capillary +attraction, but I am prepared to maintain against the attraction of +gravitation the charge of total depravity. Indeed, I should say of it, +as did the worthy exhorter of the Dominie's old parish in regard to +slavery,--"It's the wickedest thing in the world, except sin!" + +It was only the other day that I saw depicted upon the young divine's +countenance, from this cause, thoughts "too deep for tears," and, +perchance, too earthy for clerical utterance. + +From a mingling of sanitary and economic considerations, he had cleared +his own sidewalk after a heavy snow-storm. As he stood, leaning upon his +shovel, surveying with smiling complacency his accomplished task, the +spite of the arch-fiend Gravitation was raised against him, and, finding +the impish slates (hadn't Luther something to say about "_as many devils +as tiles_"?) ready to cooeperate, an avalanche was the result, making the +last state of that sidewalk worse than the first, and sending the divine +into the house with a battered hat, and an article of faith +supplementary to the orthodox thirty-nine. + +Prolonged reflection upon a certain class of grievances has convinced me +that mankind has generally ascribed them to a guiltless source. I refer +to the unspeakable aggravation of "typographical errors," rightly so +called,--for, in nine cases out of ten, I opine it is the types +themselves which err. + +I appeal to fellow-sufferers, if the substitutions and interpolations +and false combinations of letters are not often altogether too absurd +for humanity. + +Take, as one instance, the experience of a friend, who, in writing in +all innocency of a session of the Historical Society, affirmed mildly in +manuscript, "All went smoothly," but weeks after was made to declare in +blatant print, "All went _snoringly_!" + +As among men, so in the alphabet, one sinner destroyeth much good. + +The genial Senator from the Granite Hills told me of an early aspiration +of his own for literary distinction, which was beheaded remorselessly by +a villain of this type. By way of majestic peroration to a pathetic +article, he had exclaimed, "For what would we exchange the fame of +Washington?"--referring, I scarcely need say, to the man of fragrant +memory, and not to the odorous capital. The black-hearted little dies, +left to their own devices one night, struck dismay to the heart of the +aspirant author by propounding in black and white a prosaic inquiry as +to what would be considered a fair equivalent for the _farm_ of the +father of his country! + +Among frequent instances of this depravity in my own experience, a +flagrant example still shows its ugly front on a page of a child's book. +In the latest edition of "Our Little Girls," (good Mr. Randolph, pray +read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest,) there occurs a description of a +christening, wherein a venerable divine is made to dip "his _head_" into +the consecrating water, and lay it upon the child. + +Disembodied words are also sinners and the occasions of sin. Who has not +broken the Commandments in consequence of the provocation of some +miserable little monosyllabic eluding his grasp in the moment of his +direst need, or of some impertinent interloper thrusting itself in to +the utter demoralization of his well-organized sentences? Who has not +been covered with shame at tripping over the pronunciation of some +perfectly simple word like "statistics," "inalienable," "inextricable," +etc., etc., etc.? + +Whose experience will not empower him to sympathize with that +unfortunate invalid, who, on being interrogated by a pious visitor in +regard to her enjoyment of means of grace, informed the horror-stricken +inquisitor,--"I have not been to church for years, I have been such an +_infidel_,"--and then, moved by a dim impression of wrong somewhere, as +well as by the evident shock inflicted upon her worthy visitor, but +conscious of her own integrity, repeated still more emphatically,--"No; +I have been a confirmed infidel for years." + +But a peremptory summons from an animated nursery forbids my lingering +longer in this fruitful field. I can only add an instance of +corroborating testimony from each member of the circle originating this +essay. + +The Dominie _loq._--"Sha'n't have anything to do with it! It's a wicked +thing! To be sure, I do remember, when I was a little boy, I used to +throw stones at the chip-basket when it upset the cargo I had just +laded, and it was a great relief to my feelings too. Besides, you've +told stories about me which were anything but true. I don't remember +anything about that sack." + +Lady-visitor _loq._--"The first time I was invited to Mr. ----'s, (the +Hon. ---- ----'s, you know,) I was somewhat anxious, but went home +flattering myself I had made a creditable impression. Imagine my +consternation, when I came to relieve the pocket of my gala-gown, donned +for the occasion, at discovering among its treasures a tea-napkin, +marked gorgeously with the Hon. ---- ----'s family-crest, which had +maliciously crept into its depths in order to bring me into disgrace! I +have never been able to bring myself to the point of confession, in +spite of my subsequent intimacy with the family. If it were not for +Joseph's positive assertion to the contrary, I should be of the opinion +that his cup of divination conjured itself deliberately and sinfully +into innocent Benjamin's sack." + +Student _loq._ (Testimony open to criticism.)--"Met pretty girl on the +street yesterday. Sure I had on my 'Armstrong' hat when I left +home,--sure as fate; but when I went to pull it off,--by the crown, of +course,--to bow to pretty girl, I smashed in my beaver! How it got there +don't know. Knocked it off. Pretty girl picked it up and handed it to +me. Confounded things, any way!" + +Young divine _loq._--"While I was in the army, I was in Washington on +'leave' for two or three days. One night, at a party, I became utterly +bewildered in an attempt to converse, after long desuetude, with a +fascinating woman. I went stumbling on, amazing her more and more, until +finally I covered myself with glory by the categorical statement that in +my opinion General McClellan could 'never get across the Peninsula +without a _fattle_; I beg pardon, Madam! what I mean to say is, without +a _bight_.'" + +School-girl _loq._--"When Uncle ---- was President, I was at the White +House at a state-dinner one evening. Senator ---- came rushing in +frantically after we had been at table some time. No sooner was he +seated than he turned to Aunt to apologize for his delay; and, being +very much heated, and very much embarrassed, he tugged away desperately +at his pocket, and finally succeeded in extracting a huge blue stocking, +evidently of home-manufacture, with which he proceeded to wipe his +forehead very energetically and very conspicuously. I suppose the truth +was that the poor man's handkerchiefs were "on a strike," and thrust +forward this homespun stocking to bring him to terms." + +School-girl, No. 2, _loq._--"My last term at F., I was expecting a box +of 'goodies' from home. So when the message came, 'An express-package +for you, Miss Fanny!' I invited all my specials to come and assist at +the opening. Instead of the expected box, there appeared a +misshapen-bundle, done up in yellow wrapping-paper. Four such +dejected-looking damsels were never seen before as we, standing around +the ugly old thing. Finally, Alice suggested,-- + +"'Open it!' + +"'Oh, I know what it is,' I said; 'it is my old Thibet, that mother has +had made over for me.' + +"'Let's see,' persisted Alice. + +"So I opened the package. The first thing I drew out was too much for +me. + +"'What a funny-looking basque!' exclaimed Alice. All the rest were +struck dumb with disappointment. + +"No! not a basque at all, but a man's black satin waistcoat! and next +came objects about which there could be no doubt,--a pair of dingy old +trousers, and a swallow-tailed coat! Imagine the chorus of damsels! + +"The secret was, that two packages lay in father's office,--one for me, +the other for those everlasting freedmen. John was to forward mine. He +had taken up the box to write my address on it, when the yellow bundle +tumbled off the desk at his feet and scared the wits out of his head. +So I came in for father's secondhand clothes, and the Ethiopians had the +'goodies'!" + +Repentant Dominie _loq._--"I don't approve of it at all; but then, if +you must write the wicked thing, I heard a good story for you to-day. +Dr. ---- found himself in the pulpit of a Dutch Reformed Church the other +Sunday. You know he is one who prides himself on his adaptation to +places and times. Just at the close of the introductory services, a +black gown lying over the arm of the sofa caught his eye. He was rising +to deliver his sermon, when it forced itself on his attention again. + +"'Sure enough,' thought he, 'Dutch Reformed clergymen do wear gowns. I +might as well put it on.' + +"So he solemnly thrust himself into the malicious (as you would say) +garment, and went through the services as well as he could, considering +that his audience seemed singularly agitated, and indeed on the point of +bursting out into a general laugh, throughout the entire service. And no +wonder! The good Doctor, in his zeal for conformity, had attired himself +in the black cambric duster in which the pulpit was shrouded during +week-days, and had been gesticulating his eloquent homily with his arms +thrust through the holes left for the pulpit-lamps!" + + + + +WHAT SHALL WE HAVE FOR DINNER? + + +I think I must be personally known to most of the readers of the +"Atlantic." I see them wherever I go, and they see me. Beneath a +shelter-tent by the Rapidan, in a striped railroad-station in Bavaria, +at the counter of Truebner's bookstore in London, and at Cordaville, in +Worcester County, Massachusetts, as we waited for the freight to get out +of the way, I have read the "Atlantic" over their shoulders, or they +over mine. The same thing has happened at six hundred and thirty-two +other improbable places. More than this, however, my words and works in +the great science of Domestic Economy have travelled everywhere before +me, not simply like the Connecticut of the poet, + + "Bringing shad to South Hadley, and pleasure to man,"[35] + +but extending all over the civilized world. Not that I am the author of +the clothes-wringing machine, or of the spring clothes-pin,--my +influence has been more subtile. I have propounded great central axioms +in housekeeping and the other economies, which have rushed over the +world with the inevitable momentum of truth. It was I, for instance, who +first discovered and proclaimed the great governing fact that the butter +of a family costs more than its bread. It was I who first announced that +you cannot economize in the quality of your paper. I am the discoverer +of the formula that a family consumes as many barrels of flour in a year +as it has adult members, reducing children to adults by the rule of +three. The morning after our marriage I raised the window-shade, so that +the rising sun of that auspicious day should shine full upon our +parlor-Brussels. I said to Lois, "Let us never be slaves to our +carpets!" The angel smiled assent; and on the wings of that smile my +whisper fluttered over the earth. It brooded in a thousand homes else +miserable. Light was where before was chaos. Sunshine drove scrofula +from ten thousand quivering frames, and millions of infant lips would +this day raise Lois's name and mine in their Kindergarten songs, did +they only know who were their benefactors. + +Standing thus in the centre of the sphere of the domestic economies, I +have, of course, read with passionate interest the "House and Home +Papers" in the "Atlantic." It is I, as I am proud to confess, who have, +violated all copyright, have had them reprinted, as Tract No. 2237 of +the American Tract Society, No. 63 of the American Tract Society of +Boston, and No. 445 of the issues of the Sanitary Commission, and am now +about to introduce them surreptitiously into the bureaus of these +charities, so that the colporteurs, of every stripe, may at last be +certain that they are conferring the first of benefits upon their +homeless fellow-creatures. It is I who every night toil through long +streets that I may slide these little tracts, messengers of blessing, +under the front-doors of wretched friends, who are dying without homes +in the gilded miseries of their bowling-alley parlors. Where they have +introduced the patent weather-strip, I place the tract on the upper +door-step, with a brick-bat, which keeps it from blowing away. But I +observe that it is no part of the plan of those charming papers, more +than it was of the "Novum Organon" or of the "Principia," to descend +into the details of the economies. I suppose that the author left all +that to the "Domestic Economy" of her excellent sister, and, as far as +the details of practice go, well she might. But between that practical +detail by which one sister cooks to-day the dinners on a million tables, +and the aesthetic, moral, and religious considerations by which the other +sister elevates the life of the million homes in whose dining-rooms +those tables stand, there is room for a brief exposition of the +principles on which those dinners are to be selected. + +It is that exposition which, as I sit superior, I am to give, _ex +cathedra_, after this long preface, now. + +I shall illustrate the necessity of this exposition by an introduction +to follow the preface, after the manner of the Germans, before we arrive +at the substance of our work, which will be itself comprised in its +first chapter. This introduction will consist of two illustrations. The +first relates to the planting of potatoes. When I inherited my ancestral +estate, known as "Crusoe's Well," I resolved to devote it to potatoes +for the first summer. I summoned my vassals, and we fenced it. I bought +dung and manured it. I hired ploughmen and oxen, and they ploughed it. I +made a covenant with a Kelt, who became, _quoad hoc_, my slave, and gave +to him money, with which I directed him to buy seed-potatoes and plant +it. + +And he,--"How many shall I buy?" + +I retired to my study, consulted London, Lindley, and Linnaeus,--the +thick Gray, the middling Gray, and the child's Gray,--Worcester's +Dictionary, and Webster's, in both of which you can usually find almost +anything but what should be there,--Johnson's "Dictionary of Gardening," +and Gardner's "Dictionary of Farming,"--and none of these treatises +mentioned the quantity of potatoes proper for planting a given space of +land. Even the Worcester and Webster failed. I was reduced to tell the +Kelt to ask the huckster of whom he bought. All the treatises went on +the principle--true, but inadequate--that "any fool would know." Any +fool might, probably does,--but I was not a fool. + +The next year, having built my house and taken Lois home, the bluebirds +sang spring to us one fine morning, and we went out to plant our +radish-seeds. With fit forethought, the seed had been bought, the ground +manured and raked, the string, the dibble, the woman's trowel, the man's +trowel, the sticks for the seed-papers, and the papers were all there. +Lois was charming, in her sun-bonnet; I looked knowing in my Canadian +oat-straw. We marked out the bed,--as the robins, meadow-larks, and +bluebirds directed. Lois then looked up article "Radish" in the +"Farmer's Dictionary," and we found the lists of "Long White Naples," +"White Spanish," "Black Spanish," "Long Scarlet," "White Turnip-Root," +"Purple Turnip," and the rest, for two columns, which we should and +should not plant. All that was nothing to us. We were to plant +radish-seeds, which we had bought, as such, from Mr. Swett. How deep to +plant them, how far apart or how near together, the book was to tell. +But the book only said, "Everybody knows how to plant radishes." + +Now this was not true. _We_ did not know. + +These two illustrations, as the minister says, are sufficient to show +the character of the deficiency which I am now to supply,--which young +housekeepers of intelligence feel, when they have got their nests ready +and begin to bill and coo in-doors. There are many things which every +fool knows, which people of sense do not know. First among these things +is, "What will you have for dinner?"--a question not to be answered by +detailed answers,--on the principle of the imaginary Barmacide feasts of +the cook-books,--but by the results of deep principles, which underlie, +indeed, the whole superficial strata of civilized life. Did not the army +of the Punjaub perish, as it retreated from Ghizni to Jelalabad, not +because the enemy's lances were strong, but because one day it did not +dine? + +I am not going to tell the old story of that "sweet pretty girl" who, +after a week of legs of mutton, ordered a "leg of beef." I sympathize +with her from the bottom of my heart. Her sister will be married +to-morrow. To her I dedicate this paper, that she may know, not what she +shall order,--that is left to her own sweet will, less fettered now that +her life is rounded by her welding it upon its other half than it was +when she wandered in maiden meditation fancy-free,--not, I say, what she +shall order for her dinner and for Leander's, but the principle on which +the order is to be given. + +"But, my dear Mr. Carter," says the blushing child, as she reads, "we +have got to be so dreadfully economical!" + +Fairest of your sex, there was never one of your sex, since Eve finished +the apple, lest any should be wasted, nor of my sex, since Adam grimly +champed the parings, thinking he was "in for it," who should not be +economical. A just economy is the law of a luxurious life. "Dreadful +economy" is the principle which is now to be unfolded to you. + +Economy in itself is one of the most agreeable of luxuries. This I need +not demonstrate. Everybody knows what good fun it is to make a bargain. +Economy becomes dreadful, only when some lightning-flash of truth shows +us that our painful frugality has been really the most lavish waste. + +So Lois and I, for nine years, lived without a corkscrew. We would buy +busts and chromoliths with our money instead,--we would go to the White +Mountains, we would maintain an elegant aesthetic hospitality, as they do +in Paris, with the money we should save by doing without a corkscrew. So +I spoiled two sets of kitchen-forks by drawing corks with them, I broke +the necks of legions of bottles for which Mr. Tarr would have credited +me two cents each, and many times damaged, even to the swearing-point, +one of the sweetest tempers in the world,--all that we might economize +on this corkscrew. But one day, at the corner-shop, I saw a corkscrew in +the glass show-case, lying on some pocket-combs and family dye-stuffs. I +asked the price, to learn that it cost seventeen cents. The resolution +of years gave way before the temptation. I bought the corkscrew, and +from that moment my income has equalled my expenses. So you see, my +sweet May-bud, just trembling on the edge of housekeeping, that true +economy consists in buying the right thing at the right time,--if you +only pay for it as you go. + +"But, my dear Mr. Carter, I don't know what the right thing is!" + +Sweet heart, I knew it. And your husband knows no more than you +do,--although he will pretend to know, that he may look cross when the +bills come in. Read what follows; hide the "Atlantic" before he comes +home; and you will know more than he knows on the most important point +in human life. Vainly, henceforth, will he quote Greek to you, or talk +pompous nonsense about the price of Treasury certificates, if you know +at what price eggs are really cheap, and at what price they are really +dear. + +Listen, and remember! Then hide the "Atlantic" away. + +When I engaged in the study of Hebrew, which was at that time a +"regular" at college, (for why should I blush to own that I am in my one +hundred and tenth year?) as I toiled through the rules and exceptions in +dear old Stephen Sewall's Hebrew Grammar, I ventured to ask him, one +desperately hot June day, whether he could not tell us, were it only for +curiosity's sake, which rule would come into play in every verse, and +which would be of use only once or twice in the whole Bible. "Ah, +Carter," said the dear old fellow, (he taught his beloved language with +his own book,) "it is all of use,--all!" And so we had to take it all, +and find out as we could which rules would be constant servitors to us, +and which occasional lackeys, hired for special occasions. Just so, dear +Hero, do you stand about your housekeeping. You wall be fretting +yourself to death to economize in each one of one hundred and seven +different articles,--for so many are you and Leander to assimilate and +make your own special phosphate and carbon, as this sweet honey-year of +yours goes on. Of that fret and wear of your sweet temper, child, there +is no use at all. Listen, and you shall learn what are to be the great +constants of your expense,--what Stephen Sewall would have called the +regular verbs transitive of your being, doing, and suffering,--and how +many of the one hundred and seven are only exceptional Lamed Hhes, at +which you can guess or which you can skip, if the great central +movements of your economies go bravely on. + +I do not know, of course, whether Leander is fond of coffee, and whether +you drink tea or no. I can only tell you what is in our family, and +assure you that ours is a model family. Such a model is it, that Lois +has just now counted up the one hundred and seven articles for me,--has +shown me that they all together cost us nine hundred and twenty-six +dollars and thirty-two cents in the year 1863, and how much each of them +cost. Now our family consists,-- + +1. Of the baby, who is king. + +2, 3. Of two nurses, who are prime-ministers, one of domestic affairs, +one of private education. + +4, 5. Of a cook and table-girl, who are chancellor and foreign +secretary. These four make the cabinet. + +6-8. Three older children; these are in the government, but not in the +cabinet. + +9 and 10. Lois and I,--who pay the taxes, fight common enemies, and do +what the others tell us as well as we can. + +This family, you observe, consists of six grown persons, and three +children old enough to eat, who are equivalent to a seventh. I may say, +in passing, that it therefore consumes just seven barrels of flour a +year. + +To feed it, as Lois has just now shown you, cost in the year 1863 nine +hundred and twenty-six dollars and thirty-two cents. That is the way we +chose to live. We could have lived just as happily on half that sum,--we +could have lived just as wretchedly on ten times that sum. But, however +we lived, the proportions of our expense would not have varied much from +what I am now to teach you, dear Hero (if that really be your name). + +BUTTER is the biggest expense-item of all. Of our nine hundred and +twenty-six dollars and thirty-two cents, ninety-one dollars and +twenty-six cents went for butter. Remember that your butter is one-tenth +part of the whole. + +Next comes flour. Our seven barrels cost us seventy dollars and +eighty-three cents. We bought, besides, six dollars and seventy-six +cents' worth of bread, and six dollars and seventy-one cents' worth of +crackers,--convenient sometimes, dear Hero. So that your wheat-flour and +bread are almost a tenth of the whole. + +Next comes beef, in all forms, ninety dollars and seventy-six cents; +there goes another tenth. The other meats are, mutton, forty-seven +dollars and sixty-seven cents; turkeys, chickens, etc., if you call them +meat, sixty-one dollars and fifty-six cents; lamb, seventeen dollars and +fifty-three cents; veal, eleven dollars and fifty-three cents; fresh +pork, one dollar and seventy-three cents. (This must have been for some +guest. Lois and I each had a grandfather named Enoch, and have Jewish +prejudices; also, fresh pork is really the most costly article of diet, +if you count in the doctor's bills. But for ham there is ten dollars and +twenty-two cents. Ham is always available, you know, Hero. For other +salt pork, I recommend you to institute a father or brother, or cousin +attached to you in youth, who shall carry on a model farm in the +country, and kill for you a model corn-fed pig every year, see it salted +with his own eyes, and send to you a half-barrel of the pork for a _gage +d'amour_. It is a much more sentimental present than rosebuds, dearest +Hero,--and it lasts longer. That is the way we do; and salt pork, +therefore, does not appear on our bills. But against such salt pork I +have no Hebrew prejudice. Try it, Hero, with paper-sliced potatoes fried +for breakfast.) All other forms of meat sum up only two dollars and +twenty-three cents. And now, Hero, I will explain to you the philosophy +of meats. You see they cost you a quarter part of what you spend. + +Know, then, my dear child, that the real business of the three meals a +day,--of the neat luncheon you serve on your wedding-silver for Mrs. +Dubbadoe and her pretty daughter, when they drive in from Milton to see +you,--of the ice-cream you ate last night at the summer party which the +Bellinghams gave the Pinckneys,--of the hard-tack and boiled dog which +dear John is now digesting in front of Petersburg,--the real business, I +say, is to supply the human frame with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and +nitrogen in organized forms. It must be in organized matter. You might +pound your wedding-diamonds for carbon, you might give water from Jordan +for oxygen and hydrogen, and the snow-flakes of the Jungfrau might serve +the nitrogen for Leander's dinners, but, because these are not +organized, Leander's cheek would pale, and his teeth shake in their +sockets, and his muscles dwindle to packthreads, as William Augustus's +do in the Slovenly-Peter books, and he would die before your eyes, Hero! +Yes, he would die! Do not, in your love of him, therefore, feed him on +your diamonds. Give him organized matter. Now, in doing this, you have +been wise in spending even a tenth of your substance on wheat. For wheat +is almost pure food; and wheat contains all you want,--more carbon than +your diamonds, more oxygen and hydrogen than your tears, more nitrogen +than the snow-flake,--but not nitrogen enough, dear Hero. + +"More nitrogen!" gasps Leander, "more nitrogen, my charmer, or I die!" +This is the real meaning of the words, when he says, "Let us have +roast-beef for dinner," or when he asks you to pass him the butter. + +Although beef, then, has little more than a quarter as much food in it +as wheat has, you must have some beef, or something like it, because +Leander, and you too, my rosy-cheek, must have nitrogen as well as +carbon. + +I beg you not to throw the "Atlantic" away at this point, my child. Do +not say that Mr. Carter is an old fool, and that you never meant to live +on vegetables. A great many people have meant to, and have never known +what was the matter with them, when the real deficiency was nitrogen. +Besides, child, though wheat is the best single feeder of all, as I have +told you, because in its gluten it has so much nitrogen, this is to be +said of all vegetables, that, so far as we live on them, we exist +slowly; to a certain extent we have to ruminate as the cows do, and not +as men and women should ruminate, and all animal or functional life goes +more slowly on. Now, Hero, you and Leander both have to lead a rapid +life. Most people do in the autumn of 1864. So give him meat, dear Hero, +as above. + +As for my being an old fool, my dear, I have said I am one hundred and +nine, which is older than old Mr. Waldo was, older than everybody except +old Parr. And after forty, everybody is a fool--or a physician. + +Let us return, then, to our mutton,--always a good thing to return to, +especially if the plates are hot, as yours, Hero, always will be. For +mutton, besides such water as you can dry out of it, contains +twenty-nine per cent. of food,--for meat, a high percentage. + +Let us see where we are. + +Our butter costs us one-tenth. + +Our flour and wheat-bread cost us almost one-tenth. + +Our beef costs us one-tenth. + +Our other meats cost us a tenth and a half of what we spend for eating +and drinking. + +"Where in the world does the rest go, Mr. Carter? Here is not half. But +I could certainly live very well on these things." + +Angel, you could. But if you lived wholly on these, you would want more +of them. You see we have said nothing of coffee and tea,--the princes or +princesses of food,--without which civilized man cannot renew his +brains. In such years as these, Hero, when our brave soldiers must have +coffee or we can have no victories, coffee costs me and Lois fifty +dollars,--cheap at that,--for, without it, did we drink dandelion like +the cows, or chiccory like the asses, how were these brains renewed? + +"Tea and coffee are the same thing," says Liebig; at least, he says that +_Theine_, the base of tea, and _Caffeine_, the base of coffee, are the +same. What I know is, that, when coffee costs fifty dollars a year, tea +costs thirty dollars and eighty-nine cents. + +For tea and coffee, Hero, allow about another tenth,--the cocoa and +cream will bring it up to that. + +Our sugar cost us fifty-four dollars and twenty-two cents; our milk +fifty dollars and sixty-two; our cream ten dollars seventy-seven. + +"Buy your cream separate," says Hero, "if you have as good a milkman as +Mr. Whittemore." + +You have not as many babies as we, Hero. When you have, you will not +grudge the milk or the sugar. Lots of nourishment in sugar! Sugar and +milk are another tenth. + +I do not know if you are a Catholic, Hero; but I guess your kitchen is; +and so I am pretty sure that you will eat fish Fridays. I know you are a +person of sense, so I know you will often delight Leander, as he rises +from the day's swim which, for your sake, Hero, he takes across the cold +Hellespont of life,--(all men are Leanders, and all women should be +their Heros, holding high love-torches for them,)--as he rises, I say, +with "a sound of wateriness," I know you will often delight him with +oysters, scalloped, fried, or plain, as _entremets_ to flank his +dinner-table. For fish count two per cent., for oysters two more, for +eggs three or four, and for that stupid compound of starch which some +men call "indispensable," and all men call "potato," count three or four +more. My advice is, that, when potatoes are dear, you skip them. +Rice-_croquets_ are better and cheaper. There goes another tenth. + +Tea and coffee, etc., one-tenth. + +Sugar and milk, one-tenth. + +Fish, eggs, potatoes, etc., one-tenth. + +Thus is it, Hero, that three-quarters of what you eat will be spent for +your bread and butter, your meat, fish, eggs, and potatoes, your coffee, +tea, milk, and sugar,--for twenty-one articles on a list of one hundred +and seven. Fresh vegetables, besides those named, will take one-fifth of +what is left: say five per cent. of the whole expense. The doctor will +order porter or wine, when your back aches, or when Leander looks thin. +Have nothing to do with them till he does order them, but reserve +another five per cent. for them. The rest, Hero, it is mace, it is +yeast, it is vinegar, pepper, and mustard, it is sardines, it is +lobster, it is the unconsidered world of trifles which make up the +visible difference between the table of high civilization and that of +the Abyssinian or the Blackfoot Indian. Let us hope it is not much +cream-of-tartar or saleratus. It is grits and grapes, it is lard and +lemons, it is maple-sugar and melons, it is nuts and nutmeg, or any +other alliteration that you fancy. + +Now, pretty one, I can see you smile, and I can hear you say,--"Dear old +Mr. Carter, I am very much obliged to you. I begin to see my way a +little more clearly." Of course you do, child. You begin to see that the +most desperate economy in lemons will not make you and Leander rich, but +that you must make up your mind at the start about beef and about +butter. Hear, then, my parting whisper. + +Disregard the traditions of economy. What is cheap to-day is dear +to-morrow. Do not make a bill-of-fare, and, because everything on it +tastes very badly, think it is cheap. Salt codfish is cheap sometimes, +and sometimes very dear. Venison is often an extravagance; but, of a +winter when the sleighing is good, and when the hunters have not gone +South, it is the cheapest food for you. Eggs are dear, if they tempt you +to cakes that you do not like. But no eggs can be sent to our brave +army, so, if you do choose to make a bargain with your Aunt Eunice at +Naugatuck Neck to send you four dozen by express once a week, they will +be, perhaps, the cheapest food you can buy. What you want, my child, is +variety. However cheaply you live, secure four things: First, a change +of fare from day to day, so as to have a good appetite; Second, +simplicity, each day, in the table, so as to lose but little in chips; +Third, fitness of things there, as hot plates for your mutton and cold +ones for your butter, so that what you have may be of the best; and, +first, second, third, and last, love between you and Leander. This last +sauce, says Solomon, answers even for herbs. And you know the Emperors +Augustus and Nebuchadnezzar both had to live on herbs,--I am afraid, +because love had been wanting in both cases. If you have a stalled ox, +you will need the same sauces,--much more, unless it is better dressed +than the only one I ever saw, which was at Warwick, when Cheron and I +were going to Stratford-on-Avon. It was not attractive. You will need +three of these four things, if you are rich. Rich or poor, buy in as +large quantities as you can. Rich or poor, pay cash. Rich or poor, do +not try to do without carbon or nitrogen. Rich or poor, vary steadily +the bills-of-fare. Now the minimum of what you can support life upon, at +this moment, is easily told. Jeff Davis makes the calculation for you. +It is quarter of a pound of salt pork a day, with four Graham hard-tack. +That is what each of his soldiers is eating; and though they are not +stout, they are wiry fellows, and fight well. The maximum you can find +by lodging at the Brevoort, at New York,--where, when I last went to the +front, I stopped an hour on the way, and, though I had no meals, paid +two dollars and eighty cents for washing my face in another man's +bedroom. A year of Jeff Davis's diet would cost you and Leander, if you +bought in large quantities, sixty dollars. A year at Rye Beach just now +would cost you two or three thousand dollars. Choose your dinner from +either bill; vary it, by all the gradations between. But remember, +child, as you would cheer Leander after his swim, and keep within your +allowance, remember that what was dear yesterday may be cheap +to-day,--remember to vary the repast, therefore, from Monday round to +Saturday; eschew the corner-shop, and buy as large stores as Leander +will let you; and always keep near at hand an unexhausted supply of +Solomon's condiment. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[35] + + "All hail, thou Connecticut, who forever hast ran, + Bringing shad to South Hadley, and pleasure to man!" + + + + +BEFORE VICKSBURG. + +MAY 19, 1863. + + + While Sherman stood beneath the hottest fire + That from the lines of Vicksburg gleamed, + And bomb-shells tumbled in their smoky gyre, + And grape-shot hissed, and case-shot screamed; + Back from the front there came, + Weeping and sorely lame, + The merest child, the youngest face + Man ever saw in such a fearful place. + + Stifling his tears, he limped his chief to meet; + But when he paused, and tottering stood, + Around the circle of his little feet + There spread a pool of bright, young blood. + Shocked at his doleful case, + Sherman cried, "Halt! front face! + Who are you? Speak, my gallant boy!" + "A drummer, Sir:--Fifty-Fifth Illinois." + + "Are you not hit?" "That's nothing. Only send + Some cartridges: our men are out; + And the foe press us." "But, my little friend"-- + "Don't mind me! Did you hear that shout? + What if our men be driven? + Oh, for the love of Heaven, + Send to my Colonel, General dear!" + "But you?" "Oh, I shall easily find the rear." + + "I'll see to that," cried Sherman; and a drop + Angels might envy dimmed his eye, + As the boy, toiling towards the hill's hard top, + Turned round, and with his shrill child's cry + Shouted, "Oh, don't forget! + We'll win the battle yet! + But let our soldiers have some more, + More cartridges, Sir,--calibre fifty-four!" + + + + +OUR VISIT TO RICHMOND. + +WHY WE WENT THERE. + + +Why my companion, the Rev. Dr. Jaquess, Colonel of the Seventy-Third +Regiment of Illinois Volunteers, recently went to Richmond, and the +circumstances attending his previous visit within the Rebel lines,--when +he wore his uniform, and mixed openly with scores of leading +Confederates,--I shall shortly make known to the public in a volume +called "Down in Tennessee." It may now, however, be asked why I, a +"civil" individual, and not in the pay of Government, became his +travelling-companion, and, at a time when all the world was rushing +North to the mountains and the watering-places, journeyed South for a +conference with the arch-Rebel, in the hot and dangerous latitude of +Virginia. + +Did it never occur to you, reader, when you have undertaken to account +for some of the simplest of your own actions, how many good reasons have +arisen in your mind, every one of which has justified you in concluding +that you were of "sound and disposing understanding"? So, now, in +looking inward for the why and the wherefore which I know will be +demanded of me at the threshold of this article, I find half a dozen +reasons for my visit to Richmond, any one of which ought to prove that I +am a sensible man, altogether too sensible to go on so long a journey, +in the heat of midsummer, for the mere pleasure of the thing. Some of +these reasons I will enumerate. + +First: Very many honest people at the North sincerely believe that the +revolted States will return to the Union, if assured of protection to +their peculiar institution. The Government having declared that no State +shall be readmitted which has not first abolished Slavery, these people +hold it responsible for the continuance of the war. It is, therefore, +important to know whether the Rebel States will or will not return, if +allowed to retain Slavery. Mr. Jefferson Davis could, undoubtedly, +answer that question; and that may have been a reason why I went to see +him. + +Second: On the second of July last, C. C. Clay, of Alabama, J. P. +Holcombe, of Virginia, and G. N. Sanders, of nowhere in particular, +appeared at Niagara Falls, and publicly announced that they were there +to confer with the Democratic leaders in reference to the Chicago +nomination. Very soon thereafter, a few friends of the Administration +received intimations from those gentlemen that they were Commissioners +from the Rebel Government, with authority to negotiate preliminaries of +peace on something like the following basis, namely: A restoration of +the Union as it was; all negroes actually freed by the war to be +declared free, and all negroes not actually freed by the war to be +declared slaves. + +These overtures were not considered sincere. They seemed concocted to +embarrass the Government, to throw upon it the odium of continuing the +war, and thus to secure the triumph of the peace-traitors at the +November election. The scheme, if well managed, threatened to be +dangerous, by uniting the Peace-men, the Copperheads, and such of the +Republicans as love peace better than principle, in one opposition, +willing to make a peace that would be inconsistent with the safety and +dignity of the country. It was, therefore, important to discover--what +was then in doubt--whether the Rebel envoys really had, or had not, any +official authority. + +Within fifteen days of the appearance of these "Peace Commissioners," +Jefferson Davis had said to an eminent Secession divine, who, late in +June, came through the Union lines by the Maryland back-door, that he +would make peace on no other terms than a recognition of Southern +Independence. (He might, however, agree to two governments, bound +together by a league offensive and defensive,--for all external purposes +_one_, for all internal purposes _two_; but he would agree to nothing +better.) + +There was reason to consider this information trustworthy, and to +believe Mr. Davis (who was supposed to be a clear-minded man) altogether +ignorant of the doings of his Niagara satellites. If this were true, and +were proven to be true,--if the _great_ Rebel should reiterate this +declaration in the presence of a trustworthy witness, at the very time +when the _small_ Rebels were opening their Quaker guns on the +country,--would not the Niagara negotiators be stripped of their false +colors, and their low schemes be exposed to the scorn of all honest men, +North and South? + +I may have thought so; and that may have been another reason why I went +to Richmond. + +Third: I had been acquainted with Colonel Jaquess's peace-movements from +their inception. Early in June last he wrote me from a battle-field in +Georgia, announcing his intention of again visiting the Rebels, and +asking an interview with me at a designated place. We met, and went to +Washington together. Arriving there, I became aware that obstacles were +in the way of his further progress. Those obstacles could be removed by +my accompanying him; and that, to those who know the man and his +"mission," which is to preach peace on earth and good-will among men, +would seem a very good reason why I went to Richmond. + +Fourth,--and this to very many may appear as potent as any of the +preceding reasons,--I had in my boyhood a strange fancy for +church-belfries and liberty-poles. This fancy led me, in +school-vacations, to perch my small self for hours on the cross-beams in +the old belfry, and to climb to the very top of the tall pole which +still surmounts the little village-green. In my youth, this feeling was +simply a spirit of adventure; but as I grew older it deepened into a +reverence for what those old bells said, and a love for the principle of +which that old liberty-pole is now only a crumbling symbol. + +Had not events shown that Jeff. Davis had never seen that old +liberty-pole, and never heard the chimes which still ring out from that +old belfry? Who knew, in these days when every wood-sawyer has a +"mission," but _I_ had a "mission," and it was to tell the Rebel +President that Northern liberty-poles still stand for Freedom, and that +Northern church-bells still peal out, "Liberty throughout the land, to +_all_ the inhabitants thereof"? + +If that _was_ my mission, will anybody blame me for fanning Mr. Davis +with a "blast" of cool Northern "wind" in this hot weather? + +But enough of mystification. The straightforward reader wants a +straightforward reason, and he shall have it. + +We went to Richmond because we hoped to pave the way for negotiations +that would result in peace. + +If we should succeed, the consciousness of having served the country +would, we thought, pay our expenses. If we should fail, but return +safely, we might still serve the country by making public the cause of +our failure. If we should fail, and _not_ return safely, but be shot or +hanged as spies,--as we might be, for we could have no protection from +our Government, and no safe-conduct from the Rebels,--two lives would be +added to the thousands already sacrificed to this Rebellion, but they +would as effectually serve the country as if lost on the battle-field. + +These are the reasons, and the only reasons, why we went to Richmond. + + +HOW WE WENT THERE. + +We went there in an ambulance, and we went together,--the Colonel and I; +and though two men were never more unlike, we worked together like two +brothers, or like two halves of a pair of shears. That we got _in_ was +owing, perhaps, to me; that we got _out_ was due altogether to him; and +a man more cool, more brave, more self-reliant, and more self-devoted +than that quiet "Western parson" it never was my fortune to encounter. + +When the far-away Boston bells were sounding nine, on the morning of +Saturday, the sixteenth of July, we took our glorious Massachusetts +General by the hand, and said to him,-- + +"Good bye. If you do not see us within ten days, you will know we have +'gone up.'" + +"If I do not see you within that time," he replied, "I'll demand you; +and if they don't produce you, body and soul, I'll take two for +one,--better men than you are,--and hang them higher than Haman. My hand +on that. Good bye." + +At three o'clock on the afternoon of the same day, mounted on two +raw-boned relics of Sheridan's great raid, and armed with a letter to +Jeff. Davis, a white cambric handkerchief tied to a short stick, and an +honest face,--this last was the Colonel's,--we rode up to the Rebel +lines. A ragged, yellow-faced boy, with a carbine in one hand, and +another white handkerchief tied to another short stick in the other, +came out to meet us. + +"Can you tell us, my man, where to find Judge Ould, the Exchange +Commissioner?" + +"Yas. Him and t'other 'Change officers is over ter the plantation beyont +Miss Grover's. Ye'll know it by its hevin' nary door nur winder [the +mansion, he meant]. They's all busted in. Foller the bridle-path through +the timber, and keep your rag a-flyin', fur our boys is thicker 'n +huckelberries in them woods, and they mought pop ye, ef they didn't seed +it." + +Thanking him, we turned our horses into the "timber," and, galloping +rapidly on, soon came in sight of the deserted plantation. Lolling on +the grass, in the shade of the windowless mansion, we found the +Confederate officials. They rose as we approached; and one of us said to +the Judge,--a courteous, middle-aged gentleman, in a Panama hat, and a +suit of spotless white drillings,-- + +"We are late, but it's your fault. Your people fired at us down the +river, and we had to turn back and come overland." + +"You don't suppose they saw your flag?" + +"No. It was hidden by the trees; but a shot came uncomfortably near us. +It struck the water, and ricochetted not three yards off. A little +nearer, and it would have shortened me by a head, and the Colonel by two +feet." + +"That would have been a sad thing for you; but a miss, you know, is as +good as a mile," said the Judge, evidently enjoying the "joke." + +"We hear Grant was in the boat that followed yours, and was struck while +at dinner," remarked Captain Hatch, the Judge's Adjutant,--a gentleman, +and about the best-looking man in the Confederacy. + +"Indeed! Do you believe it?" + +"I don't know, of course"; and his looks asked for an answer. We gave +none, for all such information is contraband. We might have told him +that Grant, Butler, and Foster examined their position from Mrs. +Grover's house,--about four hundred yards distant,--two hours after the +Rebel cannon-ball danced a break-down on the Lieutenant-General's +dinner-table. + +We were then introduced to the other officials,--Major Henniken of the +War Department, a young man formerly of New York, but now scorning the +imputation of being a Yankee, and Mr. Charles Javins, of the +Provost-Guard of Richmond. This latter individual was our shadow in +Dixie. He was of medium height, stoutly built, with a short, thick neck, +and arms and shoulders denoting great strength. He looked a natural-born +jailer, and much such a character as a timid man would not care to +encounter, except at long range of a rifle warranted to five twenty +shots a minute, and to hit every time. + +To give us a _moonlight view_ of the Richmond fortifications, the Judge +proposed to start after sundown; and as it wanted some hours of that +time, we seated ourselves on the ground, and entered into conversation. +The treatment of our prisoners, the _status_ of black troops, and +non-combatants, and all the questions which have led to the suspension +of exchanges, had been good-naturedly discussed, when the Captain, +looking up from one of the Northern papers we had brought him, said,-- + +"Do you know, it mortifies me that you don't hate us as we hate you? You +kill us as Agassiz kills a fly,--because you love us." + +"Of course we do. The North is being crucified for love of the South." + +"If you love us so, why don't you let us go?" asked the Judge, rather +curtly. + +"For that very reason,--because we love you. If we let you go, with +slavery, and your notions of 'empire,' you'd run straight to barbarism +and the Devil." + +"We'd take the risk of that. But let me tell you, if you are going to +Mr. Davis with any such ideas, you might as well turn back at once. He +can make peace on no other basis than Independence. Recognition must be +the beginning, middle, and ending of all negotiations. Our people will +accept peace on no other terms." + +"I think you are wrong there," said the Colonel. "When I was here a year +ago, I met many of your leading men, and they all assured me they wanted +peace and reunion, even at the sacrifice of slavery. Within a week, a +man you venerate and love has met me at Baltimore, and besought me to +come here, and offer Mr. Davis peace on such conditions." + +"That may be. Some of our old men, who are weak in the knees, may want +peace on any terms; but the Southern people will not have it without +Independence. Mr. Davis knows them, and you will find he will insist +upon that. Concede that, and we'll not quarrel about minor matters." + +"We'll not quarrel at all. But it's sundown, and time we were 'on to +Richmond.'" + +"That's the 'Tribune' cry," said the Captain, rising; "and I hurrah for +the 'Tribune,' for it's honest, and--I want my supper." + +We all laughed, and the Judge ordered the horses. As we were about to +start, I said to him,-- + +"You've forgotten our parole." + +"Oh, never mind that. We'll attend to that at Richmond." + +Stepping into his carriage, and unfurling the flag of truce, he then led +the way, by a "short cut," across the cornfield which divided the +mansion from the high-road. We followed in an ambulance drawn by a pair +of mules, our shadow--Mr. Javins--sitting between us and the twilight, +and Jack, a "likely darky," almost the sole survivor of his master's +twelve hundred slaves, ("De ress all stole, Massa,--stole by you +Yankees,") occupying the front-seat, and with a stout whip "working our +passage" to Richmond. + +Much that was amusing and interesting occurred during our three-hours' +journey, but regard for our word forbids my relating it. Suffice it to +say, we saw the "frowning fortifications," we "flanked" the "invincible +army," and, at ten o'clock that night, planted our flag (against a +lamp-post) in the very heart of the hostile city. As we alighted at the +doorway of the Spotswood Hotel, the Judge said to the Colonel,-- + +"Button your outside-coat up closely. Your uniform must not be seen +here." + +The Colonel did as he was bidden; and, without stopping to register our +names at the office, we followed the Judge and the Captain up to No. 60. +It was a large, square room in the fourth story, with an unswept, ragged +carpet, and bare, white walls, smeared with soot and tobacco-juice. +Several chairs, a marble-top table, and a pine wash-stand and +clothes-press straggled about the floor, and in the corners were three +beds, garnished with tattered pillow-cases, and covered with white +counterpanes, grown gray with longing for soapsuds and a wash-tub. The +plainer and humbler of these beds was designed for the burly Mr. Javins; +the others had been made ready for the extraordinary envoys (not envoys +extraordinary) who, in defiance of all precedent and the "law of +nations," had just then "taken Richmond." + +A single gas-jet was burning over the mantel-piece, and above it I saw a +"writing on the wall" which implied that Jane Jackson had run up a +washing-score of fifty dollars! + +I was congratulating myself on not having to pay that woman's +laundry-bills, when the Judge said,-- + +"You want supper. What shall we order?" + +"A slice of hot corn-bread would make _me_ the happiest man in +Richmond." + +The Captain thereupon left the room, and shortly returning, remarked,-- + +"The landlord swears you're from Georgia. He says none but a Georgian +would call for corn-bread at this time of night." + +On that hint we acted, and when our sooty attendant came in with the +supper-things, we discussed Georgia mines, Georgia banks, and Georgia +mosquitoes, in a way that showed we had been bitten by all of them. In +half an hour it was noised all about the hotel that the two gentlemen +the Confederacy was taking such excellent care of were from Georgia. + +The meal ended, and a quiet smoke over, our entertainers rose to go. As +the Judge bade us good-night, he said to us,-- + +"In the morning you had better address a note to Mr. Benjamin, asking +the interview with the President. I will call at ten o'clock, and take +it to him." + +"Very well. But will Mr. Davis see us on Sunday?" + +"Oh, that will make no difference." + + +WHAT WE DID THERE. + +The next morning, after breakfast, which we took in our room with Mr. +Javins, we indited a note--of which the following is a copy--to the +Confederate Secretary of State. + + "Spotswood House, Richmond, Va. + + "July 17th, 1864. + + "Hon. J. P. Benjamin, + + "Secretary of State, etc. + + "DEAR SIR,--The undersigned respectfully solicit an interview + with President Davis. + + "They visit Richmond only as private citizens, and have no + official character or authority; but they are acquainted with + the views of the United States Government, and with the + sentiments of the Northern people relative to an adjustment of + the differences existing between the North and the South, and + earnestly hope that a free interchange of views between + President Davis and themselves may open the way to such + _official_ negotiations as will result in restoring PEACE to + the two sections of our distracted country. + + "They, therefore, ask an interview with the President, and + awaiting your reply, are + + "Truly and respectfully yours." + +This was signed by both of us; and when the Judge called, as he had +appointed, we sent it--together with a commendatory letter I had +received, on setting out, from a near relative of Mr. Davis--to the +Rebel Secretary. In half an hour Judge Ould returned, saying,--"Mr. +Benjamin sends you his compliments, and will be happy to see you at the +State Department." + +We found the Secretary--a short, plump, oily little man in black, with a +keen black eye, a Jew face, a yellow skin, curly black hair, closely +trimmed black whiskers, and a ponderous gold watch-chain--in the +northwest room of the "United States" Custom-House. Over the door of +this room were the words, "State Department," and round its walls were +hung a few maps and battle-plans. In one corner was a tier of shelves +filled with books,--among which I noticed Headley's "History," +Lossing's "Pictorial," Parton's "Butler," Greeley's "American +Conflict," a complete set of the "Rebellion Record," and a dozen numbers +and several bound volumes of the "Atlantic Monthly,"--and in the centre +of the apartment was a black-walnut table, covered with green cloth, and +filled with a multitude of "state-papers." At this table sat the +Secretary. He rose as we entered, and, as Judge Ould introduced us, took +our hands, and said,-- + +"I am glad, very glad, to meet you, Gentlemen. I have read your note, +and"--bowing to me--"the open letter you bring from ----. Your errand +commands my respect and sympathy. Pray be seated." + +As we took the proffered seats, the Colonel, drawing off his "duster," +and displaying his uniform, said,-- + +"We thank you for this cordial reception, Mr. Benjamin. We trust you +will be as glad to hear us as you are to see us." + +"No doubt I shall be, for you come to talk of peace. Peace is what we +all want." + +"It is, indeed; and for that reason we are here to see Mr. Davis. Can we +see him, Sir?" + +"Do you bring any overtures to him from your Government?" + +"No, Sir. We bring no overtures and have no authority from our +Government. We state that in our note. We would be glad, however, to +know what terms will be acceptable to Mr. Davis. If they at all +harmonize with Mr. Lincoln's views, we will report them to him, and so +open the door for official negotiations." + +"Are you acquainted with Mr. Lincoln's views?" + +"One of us is, fully." + +"Did Mr. Lincoln, _in any way_, authorize you to come here?" + +"No, Sir. We came with his pass, but not by his request. We say, +distinctly, we have no official, or unofficial, authority. We come as +men and Christians, not as diplomatists, hoping, in a frank talk with +Mr. Davis, to discover some way by which this war may be stopped." + +"Well, Gentlemen, I will repeat what you say to the President, and if he +follows my advice,--and I think he will,--he will meet you. He will be +at church this afternoon; so, suppose you call here at nine this +evening. If anything should occur in the meantime to prevent his seeing +you, I will let you know through Judge Ould." + +Throughout this interview the manner of the Secretary was cordial; but +with this cordiality was a strange constraint and diffidence, almost +amounting to timidity, which struck both my companion and myself. +Contrasting his manner with the quiet dignity of the Colonel, I almost +fancied our positions reversed,--that, instead of our being in his +power, the Secretary was in ours, and momently expecting to hear some +unwelcome sentence from our lips. There is something, after all, in +moral power. Mr. Benjamin does not possess it, nor is he a great man. He +has a keen, shrewd, ready intellect, but not the _stamina_ to originate, +or even to execute, any great good or great wickedness. + +After a day spent in our room, conversing with the Judge, or watching +the passers-by in the street,--I should like to tell who they were and +how they looked, but such information is just now contraband,--we called +again, at nine o'clock, at the State Department. + +Mr. Benjamin occupied his previous seat at the table, and at his right +sat a spare, thin-featured man, with iron-gray hair and beard, and a +clear, gray eye full of life and vigor. He had a broad, massive +forehead, and a mouth and chin denoting great energy and strength of +will. His face was emaciated, and much wrinkled, but his features were +good, especially his eyes,--though one of them bore a scar, apparently +made by some sharp instrument. He wore a suit of grayish-brown, +evidently of foreign manufacture, and, as he rose, I saw that he was +about five feet ten inches high, with a slight stoop in the shoulders. +His manners were simple, easy, and quite fascinating: and he threw an +indescribable charm into his voice, as he extended his hand, and said to +us,-- + +"I am glad to see you, Gentlemen. You are very welcome to Richmond." + +And this was the man who was President of the United States under +Franklin Pierce, and who is now the heart, soul, and brains of the +Southern Confederacy! + +His manner put me entirely at my ease,--the Colonel would be at his, if +he stood before Caesar,--and I replied,-- + +"We thank you, Mr. Davis. It is not often you meet men of our clothes, +and our principles, in Richmond." + +"Not often,--not so often as I could wish; and I trust your coming may +lead to a more frequent and a more friendly intercourse between the +North and the South." + +"We sincerely hope it may." + +"Mr. Benjamin tells me you have asked to see me, to"---- + +And he paused, as if desiring we should finish the sentence. The Colonel +replied,-- + +"Yes, Sir. We have asked this interview in the hope that you may suggest +some way by which this war can be stopped. Our people want peace,--your +people do, and your Congress has recently said that _you_ do. We have +come to ask how it can be brought about." + +"In a very simple way. Withdraw your armies from our territory, and +peace will come of itself. We do not seek to subjugate you. We +are not waging an offensive war, except so far as it is +offensive-defensive,--that is, so far as we are forced to invade you to +prevent your invading us. Let us alone, and peace will come at once." + +"But we cannot let you alone so long as you repudiate the Union. That is +the one thing the Northern people will not surrender." + +"I know. You would deny to us what you exact for yourselves,--the right +of self-government." + +"No, Sir," I remarked. "We would deny you no natural right. But we think +Union essential to peace; and, Mr. Davis, _could_ two people, with the +same language, separated by only an imaginary line, live at peace with +each other? Would not disputes constantly arise, and cause almost +constant war between them?" + +"Undoubtedly,--with this generation. You have sown such bitterness at +the South, you have put such an ocean of blood between the two sections, +that I despair of seeing any harmony in my time. Our children may forget +this war, but _we_ cannot." + +"I think the bitterness you speak of, Sir," said the Colonel, "does not +really exist. _We_ meet and talk here as friends; our soldiers meet and +fraternize with each other; and I feel sure, that, if the Union were +restored, a more friendly feeling would arise between us than has ever +existed. The war has made us know and respect each other better than +before. This is the view of very many Southern men; I have had it from +many of them,--your leading citizens." + +"They are mistaken," replied Mr. Davis. "They do not understand Southern +sentiment. How can we feel anything but bitterness towards men who deny +us our rights? If you enter my house and drive me out of it, am I not +your natural enemy?" + +"You put the case too strongly. But we cannot fight forever; the war +must end at some time; we must finally agree upon something; can we not +agree now, and stop this frightful carnage? We are both Christian men, +Mr. Davis. Can _you_, as a Christian man, leave untried any means that +may lead to peace?" + +"No, I cannot. I desire peace as much as you do. I deplore bloodshed as +much as you do; but I feel that not one drop of the blood shed in this +war is on _my_ hands,--I can look up to my God and say this. I tried all +in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, and for twelve years I +worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad +and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves; and so the war came, +and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his +tracks, and his children seize his musket and fight his battle, _unless +you acknowledge our right to self-government_. We are not fighting for +slavery. We are fighting for Independence,--and that, or extermination, +we _will_ have." + +"And there are, at least, four and a half millions of us left; so you +see you have a work before you," said Mr. Benjamin, with a decided +sneer. + +"We have no wish to exterminate you," answered the Colonel. "I believe +what I have said,--that there is no bitterness between the Northern and +Southern _people_. The North, I know, loves the South. When peace comes, +it will pour money and means into your hands to repair the waste caused +by the war; and it would now welcome you back, and forgive you all the +loss and bloodshed you have caused. But we _must_ crush your armies, and +exterminate your Government. And is not that already nearly done? You +are wholly without money, and at the end of your resources. Grant has +shut you up in Richmond. Sherman is before Atlanta. Had you not, then, +better accept honorable terms while you can retain your prestige, and +save the pride of the Southern people?" + +Mr. Davis smiled. + +"I respect your earnestness, Colonel, but you do not seem to understand +the situation. We are not exactly shut up in Richmond. If your papers +tell the truth, it is your capital that is in danger, not ours. Some +weeks ago, Grant crossed the Rapidan to whip Lee, and take Richmond. Lee +drove him in the first battle, and then Grant executed what your people +call a 'brilliant flank-movement,' and fought Lee again. Lee drove him a +second time, and then Grant made another 'flank-movement'; and so they +kept on,--Lee whipping, and Grant flanking,--until Grant got where he is +now. And what is the net result? Grant has lost seventy-five or eighty +thousand men,--_more than Lee had at the outset_,--and is no nearer +taking Richmond than at first; and Lee, whose front has never been +broken, holds him completely in check, and has men enough to spare to +invade Maryland, and threaten Washington! Sherman, to be sure, _is_ +before Atlanta; but suppose he is, and suppose he takes it? You know, +that, the farther he goes from his base of supplies, the weaker he +grows, and the more disastrous defeat will be to him. And defeat _may_ +come. So, in a military view, I should certainly say our position was +better than yours. + +"As to money: we are richer than you are. You smile; but admit that our +paper is worth nothing,--it answers as a circulating-medium; and we hold +it all ourselves. If every dollar of it were lost, we should, as we have +no foreign debt, be none the poorer. But it _is_ worth something; it has +the solid basis of a large cotton-crop, while yours rests on nothing, +and you owe all the world. As to resources: we do not lack for arms or +ammunition, and we have still a wide territory from which to gather +supplies. So, you see, we are not in extremities. But if we were,--if we +were without money, without food, without weapons,--if our whole country +were devastated, and our armies crushed and disbanded,--could we, +without giving up our manhood, give up our right to govern ourselves? +Would _you_ not rather die, and feel yourself a man, than live, and be +subject to a foreign power?" + +"From your stand-point there is force in what you say," replied the +Colonel. "But we did not come here to argue with you, Mr. Davis. We +came, hoping to find some honorable way to peace; and I am grieved to +hear you say what you do. When I have seen your young men dying on the +battle-field, and your old men, women, and children starving in their +homes, I have felt I could risk my life to save them. For that reason I +am here; and I am grieved, grieved, that there is no hope." + +"I know your motives, Colonel Jaquess, and I honor you for them; but +what can I do more than I am doing? I would give my poor life, gladly, +if it would bring peace and good-will to the two countries; but it would +not. It is with your own people you should labor. It is they who +desolate our homes, burn our wheat-fields, break the wheels of wagons +carrying away our women and children, and destroy supplies meant for our +sick and wounded. At your door lies all the misery and the crime of this +war,--and it is a fearful, fearful account." + +"Not all of it, Mr. Davis. I admit a fearful account, but it is not +_all_ at our door. The passions of both sides are aroused. Unarmed men +are hanged, prisoners are shot down in cold blood, by yourselves. +Elements of barbarism are entering the war on both sides, that should +make us--you and me, as Christian men--shudder to think of. In God's +name, then, let us stop it. Let us do something, concede something, to +bring about peace. You cannot expect, with only four and a half +millions, as Mr. Benjamin says you have, to hold out forever against +twenty millions." + +Again Mr. Davis smiled. + +"Do you suppose there are twenty millions at the North determined to +crush us?" + +"I do,--to crush your _government_. A small number of our people, a very +small number, are your friends,--Secessionists. The rest differ about +measures and candidates, but are united in the determination to sustain +the Union. Whoever is elected in November, he _must be_ committed to a +vigorous prosecution of the war." + +Mr. Davis still looking incredulous, I remarked,-- + +"It is so, Sir. Whoever tells you otherwise deceives you. I think I know +Northern sentiment, and I assure you it is so. You know we have a system +of lyceum-lecturing in our large towns. At the close of these lectures, +it is the custom of the people to come upon the platform and talk with +the lecturer. This gives him an excellent opportunity of learning public +sentiment. Last winter I lectured before nearly a hundred of such +associations, all over the North,--from Dubuque to Bangor,--and I took +pains to ascertain the feeling of the people. I found a unanimous +determination to crush the Rebellion and save the Union at every +sacrifice. The majority are in favor of Mr. Lincoln, and nearly all of +those opposed to him are opposed to him because they think he does not +fight you with enough vigor. The radical Republicans, who go for +slave-suffrage and thorough confiscation, are those who will defeat him, +if he is defeated. But if he is defeated before the people, the House +will elect a worse man,--I mean, worse for you. It is more radical than +he is,--you can see that from Mr. Ashley's Reconstruction Bill,--and the +people are more radical than the House. Mr. Lincoln, I know, is about to +call out five hundred thousand more men, and I can't see how you _can_ +resist much longer; but if you do, you will only deepen the radical +feeling of the Northern people. They will now give you fair, honorable, +_generous_ terms; but let them suffer much more, let there be a dead man +in every house, as there is now in every village, and they will give you +_no_ terms,--they will insist on hanging every Rebel south of ----. +Pardon my terms. I mean no offence." + +"You give no offence," he replied, smiling very, pleasantly. "I wouldn't +have you pick your words. This is a frank, free talk, and I like you the +better for saying what you think. Go on." + +"I was merely going to say, that, let the Northern people once really +feel the war,--they do not feel it yet,--and they will insist on hanging +every one of your leaders." + +"Well, admitting all you say, I can't see how it affects our position. +There are some things worse than hanging or extermination. We reckon +giving up the right of self-government one of those things." + +"By self-government you mean disunion,--Southern Independence?" + +"Yes." + +"And slavery, you say, is no longer an element in the contest." + +"No, it is not, it never was an _essential_ element. It was only a means +of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination. It +fired the musket which was already capped and loaded. There are +essential differences between the North and the South that will, however +this war may end, make them two nations." + +"You ask me to say what I think. Will you allow me to say that I know +the South pretty well, and never observed those differences?" + +"Then you have not used your eyes. My sight is poorer than yours, but I +have seen them for years." + +The laugh was upon me, and Mr. Benjamin enjoyed it. + +"Well, Sir, be that as it may, if I understand you, the dispute between +your government and ours is narrowed down to this: Union or Disunion." + +"Yes; or to put it in other words: Independence or Subjugation." + +"Then the two governments are irreconcilably apart. They have no +alternative but to fight it out. But it is not so with the people. They +are tired of fighting, and want peace; and as they bear all the burden +and suffering of the war, is it not right they should have peace, and +have it on such terms as they like?" + +"I don't understand you. Be a little more explicit." + +"Well, suppose the two governments should agree to something like this: +To go to the people with two propositions: say, Peace, with Disunion and +Southern Independence, as your proposition,--and Peace, with Union, +Emancipation, No Confiscation, and Universal Amnesty, as ours. Let the +citizens of all the United States (as they existed before the war) vote +'Yes,' or 'No,' on these two propositions, at a special election within +sixty days. If a majority votes Disunion, our government to be bound by +it, and to let you go in peace. If a majority votes Union, yours to be +bound by it, and to stay in peace. The two governments can contract in +this way, and the people, though constitutionally unable to decide on +peace or war, can elect which of the two propositions shall govern their +rulers. Let Lee and Grant, meanwhile, agree to an armistice. This would +sheathe the sword; and if once sheathed, it would never again be drawn +by this generation." + +"The plan is altogether impracticable. If the South were only one State, +it might work; but as it is, if one Southern State objected to +emancipation, it would nullify the whole thing; for you are aware the +people of Virginia cannot vote slavery out of South Carolina, nor the +people of South Carolina vote it out of Virginia." + +"But three-fourths of the States can amend the Constitution. Let it be +done in that way,--in any way, so that it be done by the people. I am +not a statesman or a politician, and I do not know just how such a plan +could be carried out; but you get the idea,--that the PEOPLE shall +decide the question." + +"That the _majority_ shall decide it, you mean. We seceded to rid +ourselves of the rule of the majority, and this would subject us to it +again." + +"But the majority must rule finally, either with bullets or ballots." + +"I am not so sure of that. Neither current events nor history shows that +the majority rules, or ever did rule. The contrary, I think, is true. +Why, Sir, the man who should go before the Southern people with such a +proposition, with _any_ proposition which implied that the North was to +have a voice in determining the domestic relations of the South, could +not live here a day. He would be hanged to the first tree, without judge +or jury." + +"Allow me to doubt that. I think it more likely he would be hanged, if +he let the Southern people know the majority couldn't rule," I replied, +smiling. + +"I have no fear of that," rejoined Mr. Davis, also smiling most +good-humoredly. "I give you leave to proclaim it from every house-top in +the South." + +"But, seriously, Sir, you let the majority rule in a single State; why +not let it rule in the whole country?" + +"Because the States are independent and sovereign. The country is not. +It is only a confederation of States; or rather it _was_: it is now +_two_ confederations." + +"Then we are not a _people_,--we are only a political partnership?" + +"That is all." + +"Your very name, Sir, '_United_ States,' implies that," said Mr. +Benjamin. "But, tell me, are the terms you have named--Emancipation, No +Confiscation, and Universal Amnesty--the terms which Mr. Lincoln +authorized you to offer us?" + +"No, Sir, Mr. Lincoln did not authorize me to offer you any terms. But I +_think_ both he and the Northern people, for the sake of peace, would +assent to some such conditions." + +"They are _very_ generous," replied Mr. Davis, for the first time during +the interview showing some angry feeling. "But Amnesty, Sir, applies to +criminals. We have committed no crime. Confiscation is of no account, +unless you can enforce it. And Emancipation! You have already +emancipated nearly two millions of our slaves,--and if you will take +care of them, you may emancipate the rest. I had a few when the war +began. I was of some use to them; they never were of any to me. Against +their will you 'emancipated' them; and you may 'emancipate' every negro +in the Confederacy, but _we will be free_! We will govern ourselves. We +_will_ do it, if we have to see every Southern plantation sacked, and +every Southern city in flames." + +"I see, Mr. Davis, it is useless to continue this conversation," I +replied; "and you will pardon us, if we have seemed to press our views +with too much pertinacity. We love the old flag, and that must be our +apology for intruding upon you at all." + +"You have not intruded upon me," he replied, resuming his usual manner. +"I am glad to have met you, both. I once loved the old flag as well as +you do; I would have died for it; but now it is to me only the emblem of +oppression." + +"I hope the day may never come, Mr. Davis, when _I_ say that," said the +Colonel. + +A half-hour's conversation on other topics--not of public +interest--ensued, and then we rose to go. As we did so, the Rebel +President gave me his hand, and, bidding me a kindly good-bye, expressed +the hope of seeing me again in Richmond in happier times,--when peace +should have returned; but with the Colonel his parting was particularly +cordial. Taking his hand in both of his, he said to him,-- + +"Colonel, I respect your character and your motives, and I wish you +well,--I wish you every good I can wish you consistently with the +interests of the Confederacy." + +The quiet, straightforward bearing and magnificent moral courage of our +"fighting parson" had evidently impressed Mr. Davis very favorably. + +As we were leaving the room, he added-- + +"Say to Mr. Lincoln from me, that I shall at any time be pleased to +receive proposals for peace on the basis of our Independence. It will be +useless to approach me with any other." + +When we went out, Mr. Benjamin called Judge Ould, who had been waiting +during the whole interview--two hours--at the other end of the hall, and +we passed down the stairway together. As I put my arm within that of the +Judge, he said to me,-- + +"Well, what is the result?" + +"Nothing but war,--war to the knife." + +"Ephraim is joined to his idols,--let him alone," added the Colonel, +solemnly. + +I should like to relate the incidents of the next day, when we visited +Castle Thunder, Libby Prison, and the hospitals occupied by our wounded; +but the limits of a magazine-article will not permit. I can only say +that at sundown we passed out of the Rebel lines, and at ten o'clock +that night stretched our tired limbs on the "downy" cots in General +Butler's tent, thankful, devoutly thankful, that we were once again +under the folds of the old flag. + + * * * * * + +Thus ended our visit to Richmond. I have endeavored to sketch it +faithfully. The conversation with Mr. Davis I took down shortly after +entering the Union lines, and I have tried to report his exact language, +extenuating nothing, and coloring nothing that he said. Some of his +sentences, as I read them over, appear stilted and high-flown, but they +did not sound so when uttered. As listened to, they seemed the simple, +natural language of his thought. He spoke deliberately, apparently +weighing every word, and knowing well that all he said would be given to +the public. + +He is a man of peculiar ability. Our interview with him explained to me +why, with no money and no commerce, with nearly every one of their +important cities in our hands, and with an army greatly inferior in +numbers and equipment to ours, the Rebels have held out so long. It is +because of the sagacity, energy, and indomitable will of Jefferson +Davis. Without him the Rebellion would crumble to pieces in a day; with +him it may continue to be, even in disaster, a power that will tax the +whole energy and resources of the nation. + +The Southern masses want peace. Many of the Southern leaders want +it,--both my companion and I, by correspondence and intercourse with +them, know this; but there can be no peace so long as Mr. Davis controls +the South. Ignoring slavery, he himself states the issue,--the only +issue with him,--Union, or Disunion. That is it. We must conquer, or be +conquered. We can negotiate only with the bayonet. We can have peace and +union only by putting forth all our strength, crushing the Southern +armies, and overthrowing the Southern government. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin._ By JAMES PARTON. New York: Mason +Brothers. Two Volumes. 8vo. + +To appreciate the importance of this work, we must remember that it +covers more than three-fourths of a century full of great events, if not +of great men; that it begins with Boston and Philadelphia as small +provincial towns, and leaves them the thriving capitals of independent +States; that it finds colonial energy struggling with metropolitan +jealousy and ignorance; that it follows the struggle through all its +phases, until the restrictions of the mother became oppression, and the +love of the children was converted into hatred; that it traces the +growth and expansion of American industry,--the dawn of American +invention, so full of promise,--the development of the principle of +self-government, so full of power,--the bitter contest, so full of +lessons which, used aright, might have spared us more than half the +blood and treasure of the present war. + +To appreciate the difficulty of this work, we must remember that the +inner and the outer life of the subject of it are equally full of +marvels; that, beginning by cutting off candle-wicks in a +tallow-chandler's shop in Boston, he ended as the greatest scientific +discoverer among those men renowned for science who composed the Royal +Society of London and the Academy of Sciences of Paris; that, with the +aid of an odd volume of the "Spectator," used according to his own +conception of the best way of using it, he made himself master of a +pure, simple, graceful, and effective English style; that the opinions +and maxims which he drew from his own observation and reflection have +passed into the daily life of millions, warning, strengthening, +cheering, and guiding; that he succeeded in the most difficult +negotiations, was a leader of public opinion on the most important +questions, and, holding his way cheerfully, resolutely, and lovingly to +the end, left the world wiser in many things, and in some better, for +the eighty-four years that he had passed in it. + +Nor must we forget, that, among the many things which this wonderful old +man did, was to tell us half the story of his own life, and with such +unaffected simplicity, such evident sincerity, and such attractive +grace, as to make it--as far as it goes--the most perfect production of +its class. Then why attempt to do it over again? is the question that +naturally springs to every lip, on reading the title of Mr. Parton's +book. + +Mr. Parton has anticipated this question, and answered it. +"Autobiography is one of the most interesting and valuable kinds of +composition; but autobiography can never be accepted _in lieu_ of +biography, because to no man is the giftie given of seeing himself as +others see him. Rousseau's Confessions are a miracle of candor: they +reveal much concerning a certain weak, wandering, diseased, miserable, +wicked Jean Jacques; but of that marvellous Rousseau whose writings +thrilled Europe they contain how much? Not one word. Madame D'Arblay's +Diary relates a thousand pleasant things, but it does not tell us what +manner of person Madame D'Arblay was. Franklin's Autobiography gives +agreeable information respecting a sagacious shopkeeper of Philadelphia, +but has little to impart to us respecting the grand Franklin, the +world's Franklin, the philosopher, the statesman, the philanthropist. A +man cannot reveal his best self, nor, unless he is a Rousseau, his +worst. Perhaps he never knows either." + +The basis of Mr. Parton's work is, as the basis of every satisfactory +biography must be, the writings of its subject. "After all," he says, +"Dr. Jared Sparks's excellent edition of the 'Life and Works of +Franklin,' is the source of the greater part of the information we +possess concerning him.... The libraries, the public records, and the +private collections of England, France, and the United States, were so +diligently searched by Dr. Sparks, that, though seven previous editions +of the works of Franklin had appeared, he was able to add to his +publication the astonishing number of six hundred and fifty pieces of +Dr. Franklin's composition never before collected, of which four hundred +and fifty had never before appeared in print. To unwearied diligence in +collecting Dr. Sparks added an admirable talent in elucidating. His +notes are always such as an intelligent reader would desire, and they +usually contain all the information needed for a perfect understanding +of the matter in hand. Dr. Sparks's edition is a monument at once to the +memory of Benjamin Franklin and to his own diligence, tact, and +faithfulness." We take great pleasure in copying this passage, both +because it seems to illustrate the spirit which Mr. Parton brought to +his task, and because the value of Mr. Sparks's labors have not always +been so freely acknowledged by those who have been freest in their use +of them. + +To a careful study of those volumes Mr. Parton has added patient and +extensive research among the newspapers and magazines of the time, and, +apparently, a wide range of general reading. Thus he has filled his work +with facts, some curious, some new, and all interesting, as well in +their bearing upon the times as upon the man. He is a good delver, a +good sifter, and, what is equally important, a good interpreter,--not +merely bringing facts to the light, but compelling them to give out, +like Correggio's pictures, a light of their own. He possesses, too, in +an eminent degree, the power of forming for himself a conception of his +subject as a whole, keeping it constantly before his mind in the +elaboration of the parts, and thus bringing it vividly before the mind +of the reader. Franklin's true place in history has never before been +assigned him upon such incontrovertible evidence. + +If we were to undertake to name the parts of this work which have given +us most satisfaction, we should, although with some hesitation, name the +admirable chapters which Mr. Parton has devoted to Franklin's diplomatic +labors in England and France. In none of his good works has that great +man been more exposed to calumny, or treated with more barefaced +ingratitude by those who profited most by them, than in bringing to +light the dangerous letters of Hutchinson and Oliver. Even within the +last few years, the apologetic biographer of John Adams repeats the +accusation of moral obliquity in a tone that would hardly have been +misplaced in a defence of Wedderburn. Mr. Parton tells the story with +great simplicity, and, without entering into any unnecessary +disquisition, accepts for his commentary upon it Mr. Bancroft's wise, +and, as it seems to us, unanswerable conclusion. "Had the conspiracy +which was thus laid bare aimed at the life of a minister or the king, +any honest man must have immediately communicated the discovery to the +Secretary of State: to conspire to introduce into America a military +government, and abridge American liberty, was a more heinous crime, of +which irrefragable evidence had now come to light." + +Never, too, was philosopher more severely tried than Franklin was tried +by the colleagues whom Congress sent him, from time to time, as clogs +upon the great wheel which he was turning so skilfully. And this, too, +Mr. Parton has set in full light, not by the special pleading of the +apologist, but by the documentary researches of the historian. + +There are some things, however, in this work which we could have wished +somewhat different from what they are. Mr. Parton's fluent and forcible +style sometimes degenerates into flippancy. We could cite many instances +of felicitous expression, some, also, of bad taste, and some of hasty +assertion. "_Clubable_" is hardly a good enough word to bear frequent +repetition. "This question was a complete baffler" is too much like +slang to be admitted into the good company which Mr. Parton's sentences +usually keep. We were not aware that "Physician, heal thyself" was a +stock classical allusion. We do not believe--for Dante and Milton would +rise up in judgment against us, even if the vast majority of other great +men did not--that "it is only second-rate men who have great aims." We +do not believe that the style of the "Spectator" is an "easily imitated +style"; for, of the hundreds who have tried, how many, besides Franklin, +have really succeeded in imitating it? We do not believe that Latin and +Greek are an "obstructing nuisance," or that the student of Homer and +Thucydides and Demosthenes and Plato and Aristotle and Caesar and Cicero +and Tacitus is merely studying "the prattle of infant man," or "adding +the ignorance of the ancients to the ignorance he was born with." We +believe, on the contrary, that it was by such studies that Gibbon and +Niebuhr and Arnold and Grote acquired their marvellous power of +discovering historical truth and detecting historical error, and that +from no modern language could they have received such discipline. + +But we not only agree with the sentiment, but admire the simple energy +of the expression, when he says that "Franklin was the man of all others +then alive who possessed in the greatest perfection the four grand +requisites for the successful observation of Nature or the pursuit of +literature,--a sound and great understanding, patience, dexterity, and +an independent income." Equally judicious and equally well-expressed is +the following passage upon the Penns:--"Thomas Penn was a man of +business, careful, saving, and methodical. Richard Penn was a +spendthrift. Both were men of slender abilities, and not of very +estimable character. They had done some liberal acts for the Province, +such as sending over presents to the Library of books and apparatus, and +cannon for the defence of Philadelphia. If the Pennsylvanians had been +more submissive, they would doubtless have continued their benefactions. +But, unhappily, they cherished those erroneous, those Tory notions of +the rights of sovereignty which Lord Bute infused into the contracted +mind of George III., and which cost that dull and obstinate monarch, +first, his colonies, and then his senses. It is also rooted in the +British mind, that a landholder is entitled to the particular respect of +his species. These Penns, in addition to the pride of possessing acres +by the million, felt themselves to be the lords of the land they owned, +and of the people who dwelt upon it." And in speaking of English ideas +of American resistance:--"Englishmen have made sublime sacrifices to +principle, but they appear slow to believe that any other people can." +And, "George III. sat upon a constitutional throne, but he had an +unconstitutional mind." It would be difficult to find a more +comprehensive sentence than the following:--"The counsel employed by Mr. +Mauduit was Alexander Wedderburn, a sharp, unprincipled Scotch +barrister, destined to scale all the heights of preferment which +shameless subserviency could reach." + +It would be easy to multiply examples, but we have given, we believe, +more than enough to show that we look upon Mr. Parton's "Franklin" as a +work of very great value. + + +_The Maine Woods._ By HENRY D. THOREAU, Author of "A Week on the Concord +and Merrimack Rivers," "Walden," "Excursions," etc., etc. Boston: +Ticknor & Fields. + +The steadily growing fame of Thoreau has this characteristic, that it +is, like his culture, a purely American product, and is no pale +reflection of the cheap glories of an English reprint. Whether he would +have gained or lost by a more cosmopolitan training or criticism is not +the question now; but certain it is that neither of these things went to +the making of his fame. Classical and Oriental reading he had; but +beyond these he cared for nothing which the men and meadows of Concord +could not give, and for this voluntary abnegation, half whimsical, half +sublime, the world repaid him with life-long obscurity, and will yet +repay him with permanent renown. + +His choice of subjects, too, involves the same double recompense; for no +books are less dazzling or more immortal than those whose theme is +external Nature. Nothing else wears so well. History becomes so rapidly +overlaid with details, and its aspects change so fast, that the most +elaborate work soon grows obsolete; while a thoroughly sincere and +careful book on Nature cannot be superseded, and lives forever. Its +basis is real and permanent. There will always be birds and flowers, +nights and mornings. The infinite fascinations of mountains and of +forests will outlast this war, and the next, and the race that makes the +war. The same solidity of material which has guarantied permanence to +the fame of Izaak Walton and White of Selborne will as surely secure +that of Thoreau, who excels each of these writers upon his own ground, +while superadding a wider culture, a loftier thought, and a fine, though +fantastic, literary skill. All men may not love Nature, but all men +ultimately love her lovers. And of those lovers, past or present, +Thoreau is the most profound in his devotion, and the most richly +repaid. + +Against these great merits are to be set, no doubt, some formidable +literary defects: an occasional mistiness of expression, like the summit +of Katahdin, as he himself describes it,--one vast fog, with here and +there a rock protruding; also, an occasional sandy barrenness, like his +beloved Cape Cod. In truth, he never quite completed the transition from +the observer to the artist. With the power of constructing sentences as +perfectly graceful as a hemlock-bough, he yet displays the most wayward +aptitude for literary caterpillars'-nests and all manner of +disfigurements. The same want of artistic habit appears also in his +wilful disregard of all rules of proportion. He depicts an Indian, for +instance, with such minute observation and admirable verbal skill that +one feels as if neither Catlin nor Schoolcraft ever saw the actual +creature; but though the table-talk of the aboriginal may seem for a +time more suggestive than that of Coleridge or Macaulay, yet there is a +point beyond which his, like theirs, becomes a bore. + +In addition to these drawbacks, one finds in Thoreau an unnecessary +defiance of tone, and a very resolute non-appreciation of many things +which a larger mental digestion can assimilate without discomfort. In +his dealings with Nature he is sweet, genial, patient, wise. In his +dealings with men he exasperates himself over the least divergence from +the desired type. Before any over-tendency to the amenities and luxuries +of civilization, in particular, he becomes unreasonable and relentless. +Hence there appears something hard and ungenial in his views of life, +utterly out of keeping with the delicate tenderness which he shows in +the woods. The housekeeping of bees and birds he finds noble and +beautiful, but for the home and cradle of the humblest human pair he can +scarcely be said to have even toleration; a farmer's barn he considers a +cumbrous and pitiable appendage, and he lectures the Irish women in +their shanties for their undue share of the elegancies of life. With +infinite faith in the tendencies of mineral and vegetable nature, in +human nature he shows no practical trust, and must even be severe upon +the babies in the Maine log-huts for playing with wooden dolls instead +of pine-cones. It is, indeed, noticeable that he seems to love every +other living animal more unreservedly than the horse,--as if this poor +sophisticated creature, though still a quadruped and a brother, had been +so vitiated by undue intimacy with man as to have become little better +than if he wore broadcloth and voted. + +Yet there was not in Thoreau one trait of the misanthrope; his solitary +life at Walden was not chosen because he loved man less, but because he +loved Nature more; and any young poet or naturalist might envy the +opportunities it gave him. But his intellectual habits showed always a +tendency to exaggeration, and he spent much mental force in fighting +shadows, Church and State, war and politics,--a man of solid vigor must +find room in his philosophy to tolerate these matters for a time, even +if he cannot cordially embrace them. But Thoreau, a celibate, and at +times a hermit, brought the Protestant extreme to match the Roman +Catholic, and though he did not personally ignore one duty of domestic +life, he yet held a system which would have excluded wife and child, +house and property. His example is noble and useful to all high-minded +young people, but only when interpreted by a philosophy less exclusive +than his own. In urging his one social panacea, "Simplify, I say, +simplify," he failed to see that all steps in moral or material +organization are really efforts after the same process he recommends. +The sewing-machine is a more complex affair than the needle, but it +simplifies every woman's life, and helps her to that same comparative +freedom from care which Thoreau would seek only by reverting to the +Indian blanket. + +But many-sided men do not move in battalions, and even a one-sided +philosopher may be a boon to think of, if he be as noble as Thoreau. His +very defects are higher than many men's virtues, and his most fantastic +moralizings will bear reading without doing harm, especially during a +Presidential campaign. Of his books, "Walden" will probably be +permanently reckoned as the best, as being the most full and deliberate +exhibition of the author's mind, and as extracting the most from the +least material. It is also the most uniform in texture, and the most +complete in plan, while the "Week" has no unity but that of the +chronological epoch it covers,--a week which is probably the most +comprehensive on record, ranging from the Bhagvat-Geetha to the "good +time coming,"--and the "Excursions" no unity but that of the covers +which comprise them, being, indeed, a compilation of his earliest and +latest essays. Which of his four volumes contains his finest writing it +would really be hard to say; but in structure the present book comes +nearest to "Walden"; it is within its limits a perfect monograph of the +Maine woods. All that has been previously written fails to portray so +vividly the mysterious life of the lonely forest,--the grandeur of +Katahdin or Ktaadn, that hermit-mountain,--and the wild and adventurous +navigation of those Northern water-courses whose perils make the boating +of the Adirondack region seem safe and tame. The book is also more +unexceptionably healthy in its tone than any of its predecessors, and it +is pleasant to find the author, on emerging from his explorations, +admitting that the confines of civilization afford, after all, the best +residence, and that the wilderness is of most value as "a resource and a +background." + +There yet remain for publication Thoreau's adventures on Cape Cod; his +few public addresses on passing events, especially those on the Burns +Rescue and the John-Brown affair, which were certainly among the very +ablest productions called forth by those exciting occasions; his poems; +and his private letters to his friend Blake, of Worcester, and to +others,--letters which certainly contain some of his toughest, and +perhaps also some of his finest writing. All these deserve, and must one +day receive, preservation. He who reads most books reads that which has +a merely temporary interest, and will be presently superseded by +something better; but Nature has waited many centuries for Thoreau, and +we can hardly expect to see, during this generation, another mortal so +favored with her confidence. + + +_Jennie Juneiana_: Talks on Women's Topics. By JENNIE JUNE. Boston: Lee +& Shepard. 12mo. pp. 240. + +Great are the resources of human invention, and the tiresome passion for +alliterative titles may possibly have culminated in some name yet more +foolish than that of this little green and gold volume. If so, the rival +has proved too much for the trump of Fame to carry, and has dropped +unnoticed. In the present case, the title does perhaps some injustice to +the book, which is not a silly one, though it contains very silly +things. It seems to be written from the point of view afforded by a +second-rate New-York boarding-house, and by a person who has never come +in contact with any refined or well-bred people. With this allowance, it +is written in the interest of good manners and good morals, and with +enough of natural tact to keep the writer from getting far beyond her +depth, although she does talk of "Goethe's Mignion" and "Miss +Werner,"--whoever these personages may be,--and of "the substantial fame +achieved by the unknown author of 'Rutledge.'" It is written in the +prevalent American newspaper-style,--a style which is apt to be graphic, +piquant, and dashing, accompanied by a flavor, slight or more than +slight, of flippancy and slang,--a style such as reaches high-tide in +certain "popular" native authors, male and female, and in ebbing strands +us on "Jennie June." + +Of course, writing from the windows of Mrs. Todgers, "Jennie" manifests +the usual superfluous anxiety of her kind not to be called +strong-minded. She is prettily indignant at the thought of female +physicians: there is nothing improper in having diseases, but to cure +them would be indelicacy indeed. Girls out of work, who wish for places +in shops, are only "patriotic young ladies who desire to fill all the +lucrative situations at present occupied by young men." She would even +banish Bridget from the kitchen and substitute unlimited Patricks, which +will interest housekeepers as being the only conceivable remedy worse +than the disease. Of course, a female lecturer is an abomination: +"Jennie" proves, first, that a "strong-minded woman" must be either +unmarried or unhappy in marriage, and then turns, with rather illogical +wrath, upon Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown, for being too domestic to +make speeches since their marriage. To follow the court phraseology, +"This reminds us of a little anecdote." When the fashion of long, +flowing wigs was just vanishing in Boston, somebody wore one from that +town down to Salem, where they were entirely extinct. All the +street-boys ran after him all the morning, to ask him why he wore a wig. +He, wishing to avoid offence, left it in the house at dinner-time; and +was pursued all the afternoon by the same boys, with the inquiry why he +did _not_ wear a wig. These eloquent women find it equally hard to +please their little critic by silence or by speech. The simple truth +probably is, that they hold precisely the same views which they always +held, and will live to trouble her yet, when the epoch of the nursery is +over. The majority of women's-rights advocates have always been wives +and mothers, and, for aught we know, excellent ones, since that dear, +motherly old Quakeress, Lucretia Mott, first broached the matter; and +the great change in our legislation on all the property-rights of that +sex is just as directly traceable to their labors as is the repeal of +the English corn-laws to the efforts of the "League." If, however, +"Jennie" consoles herself with the reflection that the points made in +this controversy by the authors of "Hannah Thurston" and "Miss Gilbert's +Career" are not much stronger than her own, she must remember her +favorite theory, that all foolishness sounds more respectable when +uttered from masculine lips. + + +1. _Woman and her Era._ By ELIZA W. FARNHAM. In Two Volumes. New York: +A. J. Davis & Co. + +2. _Eliza Woodson; or, The Early Days of one of the World's Workers._ A +Story of American Life. New York: A. J. Davis & Co. + +In the three and a half centuries since Cornelius Agrippa, no one has +attempted with so much ability as Mrs. Farnham to transfer the theory of +woman's superiority from the domain of poetry to that of science. Second +to no American woman save Miss Dix in her experience as a practical +philanthropist, she has studied human nature in the sternest practical +schools, from Sing-Sing to California. She justly claims for her views +that they have been maturing for twenty-two years of "experience so +varied as to give it almost every form of trial which could fall to the +intellectual life of any save the most favored women." Her books show, +moreover, an ardent love of literature and some accurate scientific +training,--though her style has the condensation and vigor which active +life creates, rather than the graces of culture. + +The essence of her book lies in this opening syllogism:-- + +"Life is exalted in proportion to its organic and functional complexity; + +"Woman's organism is more complex and her totality of function larger +than those of any other being inhabiting our earth; + +"Therefore her position in the scale of life is the most exalted,--the +sovereign one." + +This is compactly stated and quite unequivocal, although the three last +words of the conclusion are a step beyond the premises, and the main +fight of her opponents would no doubt be made on her definition of the +word _being_. The assumption that either sex of a given species is a +distinct "being" cannot probably be slid into the minor premise of the +argument without some objection from the opposing counsel. However, this +brings us at once to the main point, and the chapter called "The Organic +Argument," which opens with this syllogism, is really the pith of the +book, and would, perhaps, stand stronger without the other six hundred +pages. In this chapter she shows the strength of a system-maker, in the +rest the weaknesses of one; she feels obliged to apply her creed to +everything, to illustrate everything by its light, to find unexpected +confirmations everywhere, and to manipulate all the history of art, +literature, and society, till she conforms them all to her standard. She +recites, with no new power, historical facts that are already familiar; +and gives many pages to extracts from very well known poets and very ill +known prose-writers, to the exclusion of her own terse and vigorous +thought. All this is without a trace of book-making, but is done in +single-hearted zeal for views which are only damaged by the process. + +These are merely literary defects; but Mrs. Farnham really suffers in +thought by the same unflinching fidelity to her creed. It makes her +clear and resolute in her statement; but it often makes her as one-sided +as the advocates of male supremacy whom she impugns. To be sure, her +theory enables her to extenuate some points of admitted injustice to +woman,--finding, for instance, in her educational and professional +exclusions a crude effort, on the part of society, to treat her as a +sort of bird-of-paradise, born only to fly, and therefore not needing +feet. Yet this authoress is obliged to assume a tone of habitual +antagonism towards men, from which the advocates of mere equality are +excused. Indeed, the technical Woman's-Rights movement has always +witnessed a very hearty cooeperation among its advocates of both sexes, +and it is generally admitted that men are at least as ready to concede +additional rights as women to ask for them. But when one comes to Mrs. +Farnham's stand-point, and sees what her opinion of men really is, the +stanchest masculine ally must shrink from assigning himself to such a +category of scoundrels. The best criticism made on Michelet's theory of +woman as a predestined invalid was that of the sensible physician who +responded, "As if the Almighty did not know how to create a woman!"--and +Mrs. Farnham certainly proves too much in undertaking to expose the +blunders of Deity in the construction of a man. Assuming, as she +invariably does, the highest woman to be the typical woman, and the +lowest man to be the typical man, she can prove anything she pleases. +But even this does not content her; every gleam of tenderness and +refinement exhibited by man she transfers by some inexplicable +legerdemain of logic to the feminine side, and makes somehow into a new +proof of his hopeless inferiority; and she is landed at last in the +amazing paradox, that "the most powerful feminine souls have appeared in +masculine forms, thus far in human career." (Vol. II. p. 360.) + +In short, her theory involves a necessity of perpetual overstatement. +The conception of a pure and noble young man, such as Richter delineates +in his Walt or Albano, seems utterly foreign to her system; and of that +fine subtilty of nature by which the highest types of manhood and +womanhood approach each other, as if mutually lending refinement and +strength, she seems to have no conception. The truth is, that, however +much we may concede to the average spiritual superiority of woman, a +great deal also depends on the inheritance and the training of the +individual. Mrs. Farnham, like every refined woman, is often shocked by +the coarseness of even virtuous men; but she does not tell us the other +side of the story,--how often every man of refinement has occasion to be +shocked by the coarseness of even virtuous women. Sexual disparities may +be much; but individual disparities are even more. + +Mrs. Farnham is noble enough, and her book is brave and wise enough, to +bear criticisms which grow only from her attempting too much. The +difference between her book and most of those written on the other side +is, that in the previous cases the lions have been the painters, and +here it is the lioness. As against the exaggerations on the other side, +she has a right to exaggerate on her part. As against the theory that +man is superior to woman because he is larger, she has a right to plead +that in that case the gorilla were the better man, and to assert on the +other hand that woman is superior because smaller,--Emerson's mountain +and squirrel. As against the theory that glory and dominion go with the +beard, she has a right to maintain (and that she does with no small +pungency) that Nature gave man this appendage because he was not to be +trusted with his own face, and needed this additional covering for his +shame. As against the historical traditions of man's mastery, she does +well to urge that creation is progressive, and that the megalosaurus was +master even before man. It is, indeed, this last point which constitutes +the crowning merit of the book, and which will be permanently associated +with Mrs. Farnham's name. No one before her has so firmly grasped this +key to woman's historic position, that the past was an age of coarse, +preliminary labor, in which her time had not yet come. This theory, as +elucidated by Mrs. Farnham, taken with the fine statement of Buckle as +to the importance of the intuitive element in the feminine intellect, +(which statement Mrs. Farnham also quotes,) constitutes the most +valuable ground logically conquered for woman within this century. These +contributions are eclipsed in importance only by those actual +achievements of women of genius,--as of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Rosa +Bonheur, and Harriet Hosmer,--which, so far as they go, render all +argument superfluous. + +In this domain of practical achievement Mrs. Farnham has also labored +well, and the autobiography of her childish years, when she only aspired +after such toils, has an interest wholly apart from that of her larger +work, and scarcely its inferior. Except the immortal "Pet Marjorie," one +can hardly recall in literature a delineation so marvellous of a +childish mind so extraordinary as "Eliza Woodson." The few characters +appear with an individuality worthy of a great novelist; every lover of +children must find it altogether fascinating, and to the most +experienced student of human nature it opens a new chapter of startling +interest. + + +_The Cliff-Climbers; or, The Lone Home in the Himalayas._ A Sequel to +"The Plant-Hunters." By CAPTAIN MAYNE REID, Author of "The Desert Home," +"The Boy-Hunters," etc., etc. With Illustrations. Boston: Ticknor & +Fields. + +Beloved of boys, the adventurous Mayne Reid continues from year to year +his good work as a story-teller. Since he held the youthful student a +spellbound reader of "The Desert Home," he has sent abroad a dozen +volumes, all excellent in their way, for the entertainment of his +ever-increasing audience. He has not, however, dealt quite fairly by his +boy-friends. He kept them waiting several years for the completion of +"The Plant-Hunters," and it is only now that he has found time to add +"The Cliff-Climbers" as a sequel to that fascinating story. While we +thank him for the book that gives us farther acquaintance with those +stirring individuals, Karl and Caspar, we cannot help reminding him how +long ago it is since we read "The Plant-Hunters," and wished for more. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +Poetry of the Age of Fable. Collected by Thomas Bulfinch. Boston. J. E. +Tilton & Co. 18mo. pp. x., 251. $2.00. + +Phantom Leaves. A Treatise on the Art of producing Skeleton Leaves. +Boston. J. E. Tilton & Co. 12mo. pp. 96. $1.50. + +Wax Flowers: How to make them. With New Methods of sheeting Wax, +modelling Fruit, etc. Boston. J. E. Tilton & Co. 12mo. pp. 116. $1.50. + +The Bridal Eve. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Philadelphia. T. 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Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 520. $2.00. + +The Dead Shot; or, Sportsman's Complete Guide: Being a Treatise on the +Use of the Gun, with Rudimentary and Finishing Lessons in the Art of +shooting Game of all Kinds, Pigeon-Shooting, Dog-Breaking, etc. By +Marksman. New York. W. A. Townsend. 16mo. pp. 282. $2.00. + +Overland Explorations in Siberia, Northern Asia, and the Great Amoor +River Country; Incidental Notices of Manchooria, Mongolia, Kamschatka, +and Japan, with Map and Plan of an Overland Telegraph around the World, +via Behring's Strait and Asiatic Russia to Europe. By Major Perry McD. +Collins, Commercial Agent of the United States of America for the Amoor +River, Asiatic Russia. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. iv., 467. + +Life with the Forty-Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers. By Henry T. Johns, +late Quartermaster's Clerk Forty-Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers. +Pittsfield. Published for the Author. 12mo. pp. 391. $1.25. + +Woman and her Era. By Eliza W. Farnham. New York. A. J. Davis & Co. +12mo. Two Vols. pp. 318, 466. $3.00. + +A Woman's Philosophy of Woman; or, Woman Affranchised. An Answer to +Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, Legouve, Comte, and other Modern +Innovators. By Madame D'Hericourt. New York. G. W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. +317. $1.50. + +The New Internal Revenue Law, approved June 30, 1864, with Copious +Marginal References, a Complete Analytical Index, and Tables of +Taxation. Compiled by Horace E. Dresser. New York. D. Appleton & Co. +8vo. paper, pp. 122. 50 cents. + +Personal and Political Ballads. Arranged and edited by Frank Moore. New +York. G. P. Putnam. 32mo. pp. xvi., 368. $1.00. + +Enoch Arden, etc. By Alfred Tennyson, D. C. L., Poet-Laureate. Boston. +Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 204. $1.25. + +Dramatis Personae. By Robert Browning. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. +pp. 262. $1.50. + +"Babble-Brook" Songs. By J. H. McNaughton. Boston. O. 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Boston. +Crosby & Nichols. 16mo. pp. 261. $1.00. + +The Cliff-Climbers; or, The Lone Home in the Himalayas. A Sequel to "The +Plant-Hunters." By Captain Mayne Reid, Author of "The Desert Home," "The +Boy-Hunters," etc., etc. With Illustrations. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. +83, September, 1864, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + +***** This file should be named 20350.txt or 20350.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/5/20350/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections). + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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