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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102,
+April, 1866, 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 17, No. 102, April, 1866
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: May 9, 2007 [EBook #21408]
+
+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, Science, Art, and Politics._
+
+VOL. XVII.--APRIL, 1866.--NO. CII.
+
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, 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.
+
+
+
+
+LAST DAYS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
+
+
+PART I.
+
+When, in October, 1864, the European steamer brought us the intelligence
+of Walter Savage Landor's death, which occurred the month previous at
+Florence, newspaper readers asked, "Who is Landor?" The few who remember
+him remotely through the medium of Mr. Hillard's selections from his
+writings exclaimed, "What! Did he not die long ago?" The half-dozen
+Americans really familiar with this author knew that the fire of a
+genius unequalled in its way had gone out. Two or three, who were
+acquainted with the man even better than with his books, sighed, and
+thanked God! They thanked God that the old man's prayer had at last been
+answered, and that the curtain had been drawn on a life which in reality
+terminated ten years before, when old age became more than ripe. But
+Landor's walk into the dark valley was slow and majestic. Death fought
+long and desperately before he could claim his victim; and it was not
+until the last three years that body and mind grew thoroughly apathetic.
+"I have lost my intellect," said Landor, nearly two years ago: "for this
+I care not; but alas! I have lost my teeth and cannot eat!" Was it not
+time for him to go?
+
+    "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
+
+The glory of old age ceases when second childishness and oblivion begin;
+therefore we thanked God for His goodness in taking the lonely old man
+home.
+
+Long as was Landor's life and literary career, little is known of him
+personally. There are glimpses of him in Lady Blessington's Memoirs; and
+Emerson, in his "English Traits," describes two interviews with him in
+1843 at his Florentine villa. "I found him noble and courteous, living
+in a cloud of pictures.... I had inferred from his books, or magnified
+from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath,--an untamable
+petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just or not, but
+certainly on this May-day his courtesy veiled that haughty mind, and he
+was the most patient and gentle of hosts." According to the world's
+opinion, it was not always "May-day" with Landor, for the world neither
+preaches nor practices that rarity, human charity. Its instinct is a
+species of divining-rod, the virtue of which seems to be limited to a
+fatal facility in discovering frailty. Great men and women live in glass
+houses, and what passer-by can resist the temptation to throw stones? Is
+it generous, or even just, in scoffers who are safely hidden behind
+bricks and mortar, to take advantage of the glass? Could they show a
+nobler record if subjected to equally close scrutiny? Worshippers, too,
+at the shrines of inspiration are prone to look for ideal lives in their
+elect, forgetting that the divine afflatus is, after all, a gift,--that
+great thoughts are not the daily food of even the finest intellects. It
+is a necessity of nature for valleys to lie beneath the lofty mountain
+peaks that daringly pierce the sky; and it would seem as though the
+artist-temperament, after rising to sublime heights of ecstasy, plunged
+into corresponding depths, showing thereby the supremacy of the man over
+the god. Then is there much sighing and shaking of heads at the failings
+of genius, whereas genius in its depths sinks no lower than the ordinary
+level of mankind. It simply proves its title-deeds to mortality.
+Humanity at best is weak, and can only be divine by flashes. The Pythia
+was a stupid old woman, saving when she sat upon the tripod. Seeing
+genius to the best advantage in its work,--not always, but most
+frequently,--they are wisest who love the artist without demanding
+personal perfection. It is rational to conclude that the loftiest
+possible genius should be allied to the most perfect specimen of man,
+heart holding equal sway with head. A great man, however, need not be a
+great artist,--that is, of course, understood; but time ought to prove
+that the highest form of art can only emanate from the noblest type of
+humanity. The most glorious inspirations must flow through the purest
+channels. But this is the genius of the future, as far removed from what
+is best known as order is removed from chaos. The genius most familiar
+is not often founded on common sense; the _plus_ of one faculty denotes
+the _minus_ of another; and matter-of-fact people, who rule the
+world,--as they should,--and who have never dreamed of an inclination
+from the perpendicular, bestow little patience and less sympathy on
+vagaries, moral and mental, than, partly natural, are aggravated by that
+"capacity for joy" which "admits temptation."
+
+Landor's characteristic fault, in fact his vice, was that of a temper so
+undisciplined and impulsive as to be somewhat hurricanic in its
+consequences, though, not unlike the Australian boomerang, it frequently
+returned whence it came, and injured no one but the possessor.
+Circumstances aggravated, rather than diminished, this Landorian
+idiosyncrasy. Born in prosperity, heir to a large landed estate, and
+educated in aristocratic traditions, Walter Savage Landor began life
+without a struggle, and throughout a long career remained master of the
+situation, independent of the world and its favors. Perhaps too much
+freedom is as unfortunate in its results upon character as too much
+dependence. A nature to be properly developed should receive as well as
+give; otherwise it must be an angelic disposition that does not become
+tyrannical. All animated nature is despotic, the strong preying upon the
+weak. If men and women do not devour one another, it is merely because
+they dare not. The law of self-preservation prevents them from becoming
+anthropophagi. A knowledge that the eater may in his turn be eaten, is
+not appetizing. Materially and professionally successful, possessed of a
+physique that did honor to his ancestors and Nature, no shadows fell on
+Landor's path to chasten his spirit. Trials he endured of a private
+nature grievous in the extreme, yet calculated to harden rather than
+soften the heart,--trials of which others were partially the cause, and
+which probably need not have been had his character been understood and
+rightly dealt with. There is a soothing system for men as well as
+horses,--even for human Cruisers,--and the Rarey who reduces it to a
+science will deserve the world's everlasting gratitude. Powerful natures
+are likely to be as strong in their weaknesses as in their virtues;
+this, however, is a reckoning entirely too rational to be largely
+indulged in by the packed jury that holds inquest over the bodies,
+rather than the souls, of men. In his old age at least, Landor's
+irascibility amounted to temporary madness, for which he was no more
+responsible than is the sick man for the feverish ravings of delirium.
+That miserable law-suit at Bath, which has done so much to drag the name
+of Landor into the mire, would never have been prosecuted had its
+instigators had any respect for themselves or any decent appreciation of
+their victim.
+
+But Landor in his best moods was chivalry incarnate. His courtly manners
+toward ladies were particularly noticeable from the rarity of so much
+external polish in the new school of Anglo-Saxon gallantry. It was a
+pleasure to receive compliments from him; for they generally lay
+imbedded in the _sauce piquante_ of a _bon mot_. Having one day dropped
+his spectacles, which were picked up and presented to him by an American
+girl, Landor quickly exclaimed, with a grace not to be translated into
+words, "Ah, this is not the first time you have caught my eyes!" It was
+to the same young lady that he addressed this heretofore unpublished
+poem:--
+
+    "TO K. F.
+
+    "Kisses in former times I've seen,
+    Which, I confess it, raised my spleen;
+    They were contrived by Love to mock
+    The battledoor and shuttlecock.
+    Given, returned,--how strange a play,
+    Where neither loses all the day,
+    And both are, even when night sets in,
+    Again as ready to begin!
+    I am not sure I have not played
+    This very game with some fair maid.
+    Perhaps it was a dream; but this
+    I _know_ was not; I _know_ a kiss
+    Was given me in the sight of more
+    Than ever saw me kissed before.
+    Modest as winged angels are,
+    And no less brave and no less fair,
+    She came across, nor greatly feared,
+    The horrid brake of wintry beard.
+
+    "WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
+
+    "Sienna, July, 1860."
+
+The following papers, in so far as they relate to Landor personally, are
+not reminiscences of him in the zenith of fame. They contain glimpses of
+the old man of Florence in the years 1859, 1860, and 1861, just before
+the intellectual light began to flicker and go out. Even then Landor was
+cleverer, and, provided he was properly approached, more interesting
+than many younger men of genius. I shall ever esteem it one of the great
+privileges of my life that I was permitted to know him well, and call
+him friend. These papers are given to the public with the hope that they
+may be of more than ordinary interest to the intelligent reader, and
+that they may delineate Landor in more truthful colors than those in
+which he has heretofore been painted. In repeating conversations, I have
+endeavored to stand in the background, where I very properly belong. For
+the inevitable egotism of the personal pronoun, I hope to be pardoned by
+all charitable souls. That Landor, the octogenarian, has not been
+photographed by a more competent person, is certainly not my fault.
+Having had the good fortune to enjoy opportunities beyond my deserts, I
+should have shown a great want of appreciation had I not availed myself
+of them. If, in referring to Landor, I avoid the prefix "Mr.," it is
+because I feel, with Lady Blessington, that "there are some people, and
+he is of those, whom one cannot designate as 'Mr.' I should as soon
+think of adding the word to his name, as, in talking of some of the
+great writers of old, to prefix it to theirs."
+
+It was a modest house in a modest street that Landor inhabited during
+the last six years of his life. Tourists can have no recollection of the
+_Via Nunziatina_, directly back of the "Carmine" in the old part of
+Florence; but there is no loving lounger about those picturesque streets
+that does not remember how, strolling up the _Via dei Seragli_, one
+encounters the old shrine to the Madonna, which marks the entrance to
+that street made historical henceforth for having sheltered a great
+English writer. There, half-way down the _via_, in that little two-story
+_casa_, No. 2671, dwelt Walter Savage Landor, with his English
+housekeeper and _cameriera_. Sitting-room, bed-room, and dining-room
+opened into each other; and in the former he was always found, in a
+large arm-chair, surrounded by paintings; for he declared he could not
+live without them. His snowy hair and beard of patriarchal proportions,
+clear, keen, gray eyes, and grand head made the old poet greatly
+resemble Michel Angelo's world-renowned masterpiece of "Moses"; nor was
+the formation of Landor's forehead unlike that of Shakespeare. "If, as
+you declare," said he, jokingly, one day, "I look like that meekest of
+men, Moses and Shakespeare, I ought to be exceedingly good and somewhat
+clever."
+
+At Landor's feet was always crouched a beautiful Pomeranian dog, the
+gift of his kind American friend, William W. Story. The affection
+existing between "Gaillo" and his master was really touching. Gaillo's
+eyes were always turned towards Landor's; and upon the least
+encouragement, the dog would jump into his lap, lay his head most
+lovingly upon his master's neck, and generally deport himself in a very
+human manner. "Gaillo is such a dear dog!" said Landor, one day, while
+patting him. "We are very fond of each other, and always have a game of
+play after dinner; sometimes, when he is very good, we have two. I am
+sure I could not live, if he died; and I know that, when I am gone, he
+will grieve for me." Thereupon Gaillo wagged his tail, and looked
+piteously into _padrone's_ face, as much as to say he would be grieved
+indeed. Upon being asked if he thought dogs would be admitted into
+heaven, Landor answered: "And, pray, why not? They have all of the good
+and none of the bad qualities of man." No matter upon what subject
+conversation turned, Gaillo's feelings were consulted. He was the only
+and chosen companion of Landor in his walks; but few of the Florentines
+who stopped to remark the _vecchio con quel bel canino_, knew how great
+was the man upon whom they thus commented.
+
+It is seldom that England gives birth to so rampant a republican as
+Landor. Born on the 30th of January, two years before our Declaration of
+Independence, it is probable that the volcanic action of those troublous
+times had no little influence in permeating the mind of the embryo poet
+with that enthusiasm for and love of liberty for which he was
+distinguished in maturer years. From early youth, Landor was a poor
+respecter of royalty and rank _per se_. He often related, with great
+good-humor, an incident of his boyhood which brought his democratic
+ideas into domestic disgrace. An influential bishop of the Church of
+England, happening to dine with young Landor's father one day, assailed
+Porson, and, with self-assumed superiority, thinking to annihilate the
+old Grecian, exclaimed "_We_ have no opinion of his scholarship." Irate
+at this stupid pronunciamento against so renowned a man, young Landor
+looked up, and, with a sarcasm the point of which was not in the least
+blunted by age, retorted, "_We_, my Lord?" Of course such unheard of
+audacity and contempt of my Lord Bishop's capacity for criticism was
+severely reprobated by Landor Senior; but no amount of reproof could
+force his son into a confession of sorrow.
+
+"At Oxford," said Landor, "I was about the first student who wore his
+hair without powder. 'Take care,' said my tutor. 'They will stone you
+for a republican.' The Whigs (not the wigs) were then unpopular; but I
+stuck to my plain hair and queue tied with black ribbon."
+
+Of Landor's mature opinion of republics in general we glean much from a
+passage of the "Pentameron," in which the author adorns Petrarca with
+his own fine thoughts.
+
+"When the familiars of absolute princes taunt us, as they are wont to
+do, with the only apothegm they ever learnt by heart,--namely, that it
+is better to be ruled by one master than by many,--I quite agree with
+them; unity of power being the principle of republicanism, while the
+principle of despotism is division and delegation. In the one system,
+every man conducts his own affairs, either personally or through the
+agency of some trustworthy representative, which is essentially the
+same: in the other system, no man, in quality of citizen, has any
+affairs of his own to conduct; but a tutor has been as much set over him
+as over a lunatic, as little with his option or consent, and without any
+provision, as there is in the case of the lunatic, for returning reason.
+Meanwhile, the spirit of republics is omnipresent in them, as active in
+the particles as in the mass, in the circumference as in the centre.
+Eternal it must be, as truth and justice are, although not stationary."
+
+Let Europeans who, having predicted dismemberment of our Union,
+proclaimed death to democracy, and those thoughtless Americans who
+believe that liberty cannot survive the destruction of our Republic,
+think well of what great men have written. Though North America were
+submerged to-morrow, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans rushing over our
+buried hopes to a riotous embrace, republicanism would live as long as
+the elements endure,--borne on every wind, inhaled in every breath of
+air, abiding its opportunity to become an active principle. Absorbed in
+our own peculiar form of egotism, we believe that a Supreme Being has
+cast the cause of humanity upon one die, to prosper or perish by the
+chances of our game. What belittling of the Almighty! what magnifying of
+ourselves!
+
+Though often urged, Landor never became a candidate for Parliamentary
+honors. Political wire-pulling was not to the taste of a man who,
+notwithstanding large landed interests, could say: "I never was at a
+public dinner, at a club or hustings. I never influenced or attempted to
+influence a vote, and yet many, and not only my own tenants, have asked
+me to whom they should give theirs." Nor was he ever presented at court,
+although a presentation would have been at the request of the (at that
+time) Regent. Landor would not countenance a system of court-favor that
+opens its arms to every noodle wearing an officer's uniform, and almost
+universally turns its back upon intellect. He put not his faith in
+princes, and of titles says: "Formerly titles were inherited by men who
+could not write; they now are conferred on men who will not let others.
+Theirs may have been the darker age; ours is the duller. In theirs a
+high spirit was provoked; in ours, proscribed. In theirs the bravest
+were pre-eminent; in ours, the basest."
+
+Although a democrat, Landor was not indifferent to the good name of his
+own ancestors, not because of a long pedigree, but because many of these
+ancestors were historical personages and served their country long and
+well. That stock must be worthy of honorable mention which, extending
+with its ramifications over several centuries, gives to the world its
+finest fruit in its latest scion. It is a satisfaction to spring from
+hidalgo blood when the advantages of gentle rearing are demonstrated by
+being greater than one's fathers. In Lander's most admirable "Citation
+and Examination of William Shakespeare," the youngster whom Sir Silas
+Gough declares to be as "deep as the big tankard" says, "out of his own
+head":--"Hardly any man is ashamed of being inferior to his ancestors,
+although it is the very thing at which the great should blush, if,
+indeed, the great in general descended from the worthy. I did expect to
+see the day, and, although I shall not see it, it must come at last,
+when he shall be treated as a madman or an impostor who dares to claim
+nobility or precedency, and cannot show his family name in the history
+of his country. Even he who can show it, and who cannot write his own
+under it in the same or as goodly characters, must submit to the
+imputation of degeneracy, from which the lowly and obscure are exempt."
+Good old Penn, too, is made a lay figure upon which Landor dressed his
+thoughts, when the Quaker tells Lord Peterborough: "Of all pride,
+however, and all folly, the grossest is where a man who possesses no
+merit in himself shall pretend to an equality with one who does possess
+it, and shall found this pretension on no better plea or title than
+that, although he hath it not, his grandfather had. I would use no
+violence or coercion with any rational creature; but, rather than that
+such a bestiality in a human form should run about the streets uncured,
+I would shout like a stripling for the farrier at his furnace, and
+unthong the drenching horn from my stable-door." Landor could write his
+name under that of his family in as goodly characters, therefore he was
+not ashamed to relate anecdotes of his forefathers. It was with honest
+satisfaction that he perpetuated the memory of two of these worthies in
+the "Imaginary Conversations" between King Henry IV. and Sir Arnold
+Savage, and Oliver Cromwell and Walter Noble. "Sir Arnold, according to
+Elsynge, 'was the first who appears _upon any record_' to have been
+appointed to the dignity of Speaker in the House of Commons, as now
+constituted. He was elected a second time, four years afterwards, a rare
+honor in earlier days; and during this presidency he headed the Commons,
+and delivered their resolutions in the plain words recorded by
+Hakewell." These "plain words" were, that no subsidy should be granted
+to Henry IV. until every cause of public grievance had been removed.
+Landor came rightly by his independence of thought. "Walter Noble
+represented the city of Lichfield; he lived familiarly with the best
+patriots of the age, remonstrated with Cromwell, and retired from public
+life on the punishment of Charles."
+
+Landor was very fond of selecting the grand old Roundheads for his
+conversations. In their society he was most at home, and with them he
+was able to air his pet opinions. Good Andrew Marvell, a man after the
+author's own heart, discourses upon this matter of family: "Between the
+titled man of ancient and the titled man of recent date, the difference,
+if any, is in favor of the last. Suppose them both raised for merit,
+(here, indeed, we do come to theory!) the benefits that society has
+received from him are nearer us.... Some of us may look back six or
+seven centuries, and find a stout ruffian at the beginning." In England,
+where the institutions are such that a title of nobility is considered
+by the majority to be the highest reward attainable by merit, it is not
+surprising that the great god of Rank should be worshipped at the family
+altar of Form. In England, too, it must be acknowledged that men of rank
+are men of education, frequently of culture, and are useful to the
+nation as patrons of art and of science; therefore nobility frequently
+means absolute gentility. But in America what good can be said of those
+who, living upon the fortunes of fathers or grandfathers, amassed in
+honest trade,--residents of a particular street which is thereby
+rendered pluperfectly genteel,--with no recommendation but that derived
+from fashion and idleness,--draw the lines of social demarcation more
+closely than they are drawn in Europe, intellect and accomplishments
+being systematically snubbed where the possessors cannot show their
+family passes? Is not this attempt to graft the foibles of an older and
+more corrupt civilization upon our institutions, a disgrace to
+republicanism? Were the truth known, we should be able to report the
+existence of many advocates of monarchy, a privileged class, and an
+established church, among those into whose ancestry it would be unsafe
+to dig deeper than a second generation; by digging deeper we might touch
+sugar or tumble into a vat of molasses, and then what blushes for false
+pride!
+
+A very different idea of a great man from that of the vulgar do we get
+out of Landor's writings. His Diogenes tells us, (and very like the
+original seeker after honesty do we take him to be,) that "the great
+man is he who hath nothing to fear and nothing to hope from another. It
+is he who, while he demonstrates the iniquity of the laws and is able to
+correct them, obeys them peaceably. It is he who looks on the ambitious
+both as weak and fraudulent. It is he who hath no disposition or
+occasion for any kind of conceit, no reason for being or for appearing
+different from what he is. It is he who can call together the most
+select company when it pleases him." And Petrarca says that "Time the
+Sovran is first to discover the truly great." Yet, though we put faith
+in the justice of posterity, even Time plays many a one false through
+misplaced favoritism. "They, O Timotheus," exclaims the imaginary
+Lucian, "who survive the wreck of ages, are by no means, as a body, most
+worthy of our admiration. It is in these wrecks as in those at sea,--the
+best things are not always saved. Hencoops and empty barrels bob upon
+the surface, under a serene and smiling sky, when the graven or depicted
+images of the gods are scattered on invisible rocks, and when those who
+most resembled them in knowledge and beneficence are devoured by cold
+monsters below." We claim, however, that Lucian's theory is good for
+this world only, as we believe that soul, though it may be temporarily
+wrecked, speeds on to the inevitable justice of eternity. And can we,
+now that the fever of military glory is upon us, remember that, great as
+may be the man who conquers his country's enemies upon the battle-field,
+he is far greater who conquers the prejudices of his age and instils
+into groping masses the doctrines of a more glorious civilization?
+
+    "For civilisation perfected
+    Is fully developed Christianity."
+
+Every generation has two or three such men; no age has enough moral
+courage to give birth to more. They live under protest,--thought alone
+is free,--and when these men, fifty years in advance of their times,
+proclaim God's truth with the enthusiasm begotten of religion,
+grub-worms that rule the great _status quo_ sting the prophets with all
+the virus of their nature, and render each step forward as difficult as
+was once the passage of the Simplon. There is no stumbling-block like
+that of ignorance, and he who would remove it must wear the holy crown
+of thorns. We speak of the horrors of the Inquisition as things of the
+past. Are we so sure of this? Has not prejudice invented most exquisite
+tortures for reformers of all ages? America has her sins to answer for
+in this respect.
+
+    "Because ye prosper in God's name,
+          With a claim.
+    To honor in the old world's sight,
+    Yet do the fiend's work perfectly
+    In strangling martyrs,--for this lie
+    This is the curse."
+
+On the stubbornness of _Status Quo_ none have written better than
+Landor. "Unbendingness, in the moral as in the vegetable world, is an
+indication as frequently of unsoundness as of strength. Indeed, wise
+men, kings as well as others, have been free from it. Stiff necks are
+diseased ones."
+
+It was impossible to be in Landor's society a half-hour and not reap
+advantage. His great learning, varied information, extensive
+acquaintance with the world's celebrities, ready wit, and even readier
+repartee, rendered his conversation wonderfully entertaining. He would
+narrate anecdote after anecdote with surprising accuracy, being
+possessed of a singularly retentive memory, that could refer to a
+catalogue of notables far longer than Don Giovanni's picture-gallery of
+conquests. Names, it is true, he was frequently unable to recall, and
+supplied their place with a "God bless my soul, I forget everything";
+but facts were indelibly stamped upon his mind. He referred back to the
+year _one_ with as much facility as a person of the rising generation
+invokes the shade of some deed dead a few years. I looked with wonder
+upon a person who remembered Napoleon Bonaparte as a slender young man,
+and listened with delight to a voice from so dim a past. "I was in
+Paris," said Landor one day, "at the time that Bonaparte made his
+entrance as First Consul. I was standing within a few feet of him when
+he passed, and had a capital good look at him. He was exceedingly
+handsome then, with a rich olive complexion and oval face, youthful as a
+girl's. Near him rode Murat, mounted upon a gold-clad charger,--and very
+handsome he was too, but coxcombical."
+
+Like the rest of human kind, Landor had his prejudices,--they were very
+many. Foremost among them was an antipathy to the Bonaparte family. It
+is not necessary to have known him personally to be aware of his
+detestation of the first Napoleon, as in the conversation between
+himself, an English and a Florentine visitor, he gives expression to a
+generous indignation, which may well be inserted here, as it contains
+the pith of what Landor repeated in many a social talk. "This Holy
+Alliance will soon appear unholy to every nation in Europe. I despised
+Napoleon in the plenitude of his power no less than others despise him
+in the solitude of his exile: I thought him no less an impostor when he
+took the ermine, than when he took the emetic. I confess I do not love
+him the better, as some mercenaries in England and Scotland do, for
+having been the enemy of my country; nor should I love him the less for
+it, had his enmity been principled and manly. In what manner did this
+cruel wretch treat his enthusiastic admirer and humble follower,
+Toussaint l'Ouverture? He was thrown into a subterranean call, solitary,
+dark, damp, pestiferously unclean, where rheumatism racked his limbs,
+and where famine terminated his existence." Again, in his written
+opinions of C�sar, Cromwell, Milton, and Bonaparte, Landor criticises
+the career of the latter with no fondness, but with much truth, and
+justly says, that "Napoleon, in the last years of his sovereignty,
+fought without aim, vanquished without glory, and perished without
+defeat."
+
+Great as was Landor's dislike to the uncle, it paled before his
+detestation of the reigning Emperor,--a detestation too general to be
+designated an idiosyncrasy on the part of the poet. We always knew who
+was meant when a sentence was prefaced with "that rascal" or "that
+scoundrel,"--such were the epithets substituted for the name of Louis
+Napoleon. Believing the third Napoleon to be the worst enemy of his
+foster-mother, Italy, as well as of France, Landor bestowed upon him
+less love, if possible, than the majority of Englishmen. Having been
+personally acquainted with the Emperor when he lived in England as an
+exile, Landor, unlike many of Napoleon's enemies, acknowledged the
+superiority of his intellect. "I used to see a great deal of the Prince
+when he was in London. I met him very frequently of an evening at Lady
+Blessington's, and had many conversations with him, as he always sought
+me and made himself particularly civil. He was a very clever man, well
+informed on most subjects. The fops used to laugh at him, and call him a
+bore. A coxcombical young lord came up to me one evening after the
+Prince had taken his leave, and said, 'Mr. Landor, how _can_ you talk to
+that fool, Prince Napoleon?' To which I replied, 'My Lord, it takes a
+fool to find out that he is not a wise man!' His Lordship retired
+somewhat discomfited," added Landor with a laugh, "The Prince presented
+me with his work on Artillery, and invited me to his house. He had a
+very handsome establishment, and was not at all the poor man he is so
+often said to have been." Of this book Landor writes in an article to
+the "Quarterly Review" (I think): "If it is any honor, it has been
+conferred on me to have received from Napoleon's heir the literary work
+he composed in prison, well knowing, as he did, and expressing his
+regret for, my sentiments on his uncle. The explosion of the first
+cannon against Rome threw us apart forever." I shall not soon forget
+Landor's lively narration of Napoleon's escape from the prison at Ham,
+given in the same language in which it was told to him by the Prince. I
+would feign repeat it here, were it not that an account of this
+wonderful escape found its way into print some years ago. _Apropos_ of
+Napoleon, an old friend of Landor's told me that, while in London, the
+Prince was in the habit of calling upon him after dinner. He would sip
+_caf� noir_, smoke a cigar, ply his host with every conceivable
+question, but otherwise maintain a dignified reticence. It seems then
+that Louis Napoleon is indebted to nature, as well as to art, for his
+masterly ability in keeping his own counsel.
+
+Among other persons of note encountered by Landor at Lady Blessington's
+was Rachel. It was many years ago, before her star had attained its
+zenith. "She took tea with her Ladyship, and was accompanied by a female
+attendant, her mother I think. Rachel had very little to say, and left
+early, as she had an engagement at the theatre. There was nothing
+particularly noticeable in her appearance, but she was very ladylike. I
+never met her again."
+
+Landor entertained a genuine affection for the memory of Lady
+Blessington. "Ah, there was a woman!" he exclaimed one day with a sigh.
+"I never knew so brilliant and witty a person in conversation. She was
+most generous too, and kind-hearted. I never heard her make an
+ill-natured remark. It was my custom to visit her whenever the laurel
+was in bloom; and as the season approached, she would write me a note,
+saying, 'Gore House expects you, for the laurel has begun to blossom.' I
+never see laurel now, that it does not make me sad, for it recalls her
+to me so vividly. During these visits I never saw Lady Blessington until
+dinner-time. She always breakfasted in her own room, and wrote during
+the morning. She wrote very well, too; her style was pure. In the
+evening her drawing-room was thrown open to her friends, except when she
+attended the opera. Her opera-box faced the Queen's, and a formidable
+rival she was to her Majesty."
+
+"D'Orsay was an Apollo in beauty, very amiable, and had considerable
+talent for modelling." Taking me into his little back sitting-room,
+Landor brought out a small album, and, passing over the likenesses of
+several old friends, among whom were Southey, Porson, Napier, and other
+celebrities, he held up an engraving of Lady Blessington. Upon my
+remarking its beauty, Landor replied: "That was taken at the age of
+fifty, so you can imagine how beautiful she must have been in her youth.
+Her voice and laugh were very musical." Then, turning to a young lady
+present, Landor made her an exceedingly neat compliment, by saying,
+"_Your_ voice reminds me very vividly of Lady Blessington's. Perhaps,"
+he continued with a smile, "this is the reason why my old, deaf ears
+never lose a word when you are speaking." Driving along the north side
+of the Arno, one summer's day, Landor gazed sadly at a terrace
+overlooking the water, and said: "Many a delightful evening have I spent
+on that terrace with Lord and Lady Blessington. There we used to take
+our tea. They once visited Florence for no other purpose than to see me.
+Was not that friendly? They are both dead now, and I am doomed to live
+on. When Lady Blessington died, I was asked to write a Latin epitaph for
+her tomb, which I did; but some officious person thought to improve the
+Latin before it was engraved, and ruined it."
+
+This friendship was fully reciprocated by Lady Blessington, who, in her
+letters to Landor, refers no less than three times to those "calm nights
+on the terrace of the Casa Pelosi." "I send you," she writes, "the
+engraving, and have only to wish that it may sometimes remind you of the
+original.... Five fleeting years have gone by since our delicious
+evenings on the lovely Arno,--evenings never to be forgotten, and the
+recollections of which ought to cement the friendships then formed."
+Again, in her books of travel,--the "Idler in France" and "Idler in
+Italy,"--Lady Blessington pays the very highest tribute to Landor's
+heart, as well as intellect, and declares his real conversations to be
+quite as delightful as his imaginary ones. She who will live long in
+history as the friend of great men now lies "beneath the chestnut shade
+of Saint Germain"; and Landor, with the indignation of one who loved
+her, has turned to D'Orsay, asking
+
+    "Who was it squandered all her wealth,
+    And swept away the bloom of health?"
+
+Although a Latinist, Landor did not approve of making those who have
+passed away doubly dead to a majority of the living by Latin eulogy. In
+an interesting conversation he gives the following opinion: "Although I
+have written at various times a great number of such inscriptions"
+(Latin), "as parts of literature, yet I think nothing is so absurd, if
+you only inscribe them on a tomb. Why should extremely few persons, the
+least capable, perhaps, of sympathy, be invited to sympathize, while
+thousands are excluded from it by the iron grate of a dead language?
+Those who read a Latin inscription are the most likely to know already
+the character of the defunct, and no new feelings are to be excited in
+them; but the language of the country tells the ignorant who he was that
+lies under the turf before them; and, if he was a stranger, it
+naturalizes him among them; it gives him friends and relations; it
+brings to him and detains about him some who may imitate, many who will
+lament him. We have no right to deprive any one of a tender sentiment,
+by talking in an unknown tongue to him, when his heart would listen and
+answer to his own; we have no right to turn a chapel into a library,
+locking it with a key which the lawful proprietors cannot turn."
+
+I once asked Landor to describe Wordsworth's personal appearance. He
+laughed and replied: "The best description I can give you of Wordsworth
+is the one that Hazlitt gave _me_. Hazlitt's voice was very deep and
+gruff, and he peppered his sentences very bountifully with 'sirs.' In
+speaking to me of Wordsworth, he said: 'Well, sir, did you ever see a
+horse, sir?' 'Yes.' 'Then, sir, you have seen Wordsworth, sir! He looks
+exactly like a horse, sir, and a very long-faced horse at that, sir!'
+And he did look like a horse," added Landor.
+
+Those who have seen good likenesses of Wordsworth will readily remark
+this resemblance. A greater length of ear would liken the Lake poet to
+an animal of less dignity.
+
+Continuing the conversation thus begun, Landor said: "I saw a great deal
+of Hazlitt when he was in Florence. He called upon me frequently, and a
+funny fellow he was. He used to say to me: 'Mr. Landor, I like you,
+sir,--I like you very much, sir,--you're an honest man, sir; but I don't
+approve, sir, of a great deal that you have written, sir. You must
+reform some of your opinions, sir.'" And again Landor laughed with great
+good-will.
+
+"I regret that I saw Charles Lamb but once," replied Landor, in answer
+to many questions asked concerning this delightful man and writer. "Lamb
+sent word by Southey" (I think it was Southey) "that he would be very
+happy to see me, whereupon we made him a visit. He had then retired from
+the India House, and lived at Enfield. He was most charming in
+conversation, and his smile impressed me as being particularly genial.
+His sister also was a very agreeable person. During my visit, Lamb rose,
+went to a table in the centre of the room, and took up a book, out of
+which he read aloud. Soon shutting it, he turned to me, saying: 'Is not
+what I have been reading exceedingly good?' 'Very good,' I replied.
+Thereupon Lamb burst out laughing, and exclaimed: 'Did one ever know so
+conceited a man as Mr. Landor? He has actually praised his own ideas!'
+It was now my turn to laugh, as I had not the slightest remembrance of
+having written what Lamb had read."
+
+Are there many to whom the following lines will not be better than new?
+
+    "Once, and only once, have I seen thy face,
+    Elia! once only has thy tripping tongue
+    Run o'er my breast, yet never has been left
+    Impression on it stronger or more sweet.
+    Cordial old man! what youth was in thy years,
+    What wisdom in thy levity! what truth
+    In every utterance of that purest soul!
+    Few are the spirits of the glorified
+    I'd spring to earlier at the gate of Heaven."
+
+Being asked if he had met Byron, Landor replied: "I never saw Byron but
+once, and then accidentally. I went into a perfumery shop in London to
+purchase a pot of the ottar of roses, which at that time was very rare
+and expensive. As I entered the shop a handsome young man, with a slight
+limp in his walk, passed me and went out. The shopkeeper directed my
+attention to him, saying: 'Do you know who that is, sir?' 'No,' I
+answered. 'That is the young Lord Byron.' He had been purchasing some
+fancy soaps, and at that time was the fashion. I never desired to meet
+him."
+
+As all the world knows, there was little love lost between these two
+great writers; but it was the man, not the poet, that Landor so
+cordially disliked.
+
+
+
+
+MY ANNUAL.
+
+FOR THE "BOYS OF '29."
+
+
+    How long will this harp which you once loved to hear
+    Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear?
+    How long stir the echoes it wakened of old,
+    While its strings were unbroken, untarnished its gold?
+
+    Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do you wrong;
+    The heart, the heart only, shall throb in my song;
+    It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes,--
+    "We will bid our old harper play on till he dies."
+
+    Though Youth, the fair angel that looked o'er the strings,
+    Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings,
+    Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone,
+    It is still the old harp that was always your own.
+
+    I claim not its music,--each note it affords
+    I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords;
+    I know you will listen and love to the last,
+    For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past.
+
+    Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold
+    No craftsman could string and no artisan mould;
+    He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres
+    That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs.
+
+    Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings,
+    Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings;
+    Those shapes are the phantoms of years that have fled,
+    Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed.
+
+    Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this,
+    Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss;
+    The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will,
+    Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still.
+
+    The bird wanders careless while Summer is green,
+    The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen;
+    When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed,
+    The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest.
+
+    Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling
+    Is the light of our year, is the gem in its ring,
+    So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget
+    The rays it has lost, and its border of jet.
+
+    While round us the many-hued halo is shed,
+    How dear are the living, how near are the dead!
+    One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below,
+    Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow!
+
+    Not life shall enlarge it, nor death shall divide,--
+    No brother new-born finds his place at my side;
+    No titles shall freeze us, no grandeurs infest,--
+    His Honor, His Worship, are boys like the rest.
+
+    Some won the world's homage,--their names we hold dear,--
+    But Friendship, not Fame, is the countersign here;
+    Make room by the conqueror crowned in the strife
+    For the comrade that limps from the battle of life!
+
+    What tongue talks of battle? Too long we have heard
+    In sorrow, in anguish, that terrible word;
+    It reddened the sunshine, it crimsoned the wave,
+    It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our brave.
+
+    Peace, Peace, comes at last, with her garland of white;
+    Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to-night;
+    The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun;
+    We echo its words,--We are One! We are One!
+
+
+
+
+WERE THEY CRICKETS?
+
+
+About seven years ago, (it is possible that some of my readers may
+recall it,) the following paragraph appeared in the New York daily
+papers;--
+
+     "MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.--A young man named George Snyder
+     left the residence of his parents in Thirty-Third Street, last
+     Friday evening without his hat and taking nothing with him but
+     the suit which he was wearing (dark doeskin pants, and
+     invisible-green coat), and has not yet been heard from. It is
+     feared that he has wandered, in some sudden mental derangement,
+     off the wharves. Any information which may lead to his
+     discovery will be gratefully received by the distressed
+     parents."
+
+No information was ever received until the 1st of April last, when the
+missing man himself returned to his father's house, as mysteriously as
+he went, and was welcomed as one risen from the dead. I am that George
+Snyder, and propose to give now a brief account of that strange going
+and coming. Since April last I have been engaged, as well as the
+excitement of listening to the narrative of the great events which had
+taken place in my native land during my absence would allow me, in
+preparing for publication a history of my observations, made during the
+six years' absence; but of this history I can now give merely an
+outline.
+
+On the night of my departure, November 5, 1858, I was sitting in my own
+room, studying Gauss's "Theoria Motus"; and, as was often the case with
+me, I grew so absorbed in the study as to lose all consciousness of
+outward things beyond the limits of the single page before me. I had
+forgotten the time of night,--nay, I could not have recalled the time of
+my life, whether I was in college or had graduated, whether I had
+entered on my profession or was preparing for it. My loss of the sense
+of space was as absolute as my loss of the sense of time, and I could
+not have said whether I was in my father's house in New York, or in my
+room in Wentworth Hall, or in my office in Jersey City. I only knew that
+the page, illuminated by a drop gas-light, was before me, and on it the
+record of that brilliant triumph of the human intellect, the deduction
+of a planet's entire orbit from observations of its position.
+
+As I sat thus absorbed, my attention was partially diverted by a slight
+tapping, as if upon the very table upon which my book was resting.
+Without raising my eyes from the page, I allowed my thoughts to wander,
+as I inquired within myself what could have produced the noise. Could it
+be that I was thus suddenly "developed as a medium," and that the spirit
+of some departed friend wished to communicate with me? I rejected the
+thought instantly, for I was no believer in modern necromancy. But no
+sooner had I mentally decided that this was not the true explanation
+than I began to feel my right hand tremble in an unnatural manner, and
+my fingers close against my will around a pencil which I had been
+loosely holding. Then suddenly, upon the paper on which I
+had been occasionally filling out the omitted links in Gauss's
+mathematical reasoning, my hand, against my will, legibly scrawled,
+"_Copernicus_,"--upon which a renewed tapping was heard upon the table.
+I sprang out of my chair, as one startled out of sleep, and looked about
+the room. My full consciousness of time and place returned, and I saw
+nothing unusual about my apartment; there were the books, the chairs,
+and even the table, standing in motionless silence as usual. I concluded
+that my late hours and excessive concentration on my studies had made me
+nervous, or else that I had had a dream. I closed the book and prepared
+to go to bed. Like school-boy whistling to keep his courage up, I began
+to talk aloud, saying: "I wish Copernicus would really come and carry me
+off to explore the solar system; I fancy that I could make a better
+report than Andrew Jackson Davis has done."
+
+I tremble even now as I recall the instantaneous effect of those words.
+While I was still speaking, all earthly things vanished suddenly from my
+sight. There was no floor beneath me, no ceiling above, no walls around.
+There was even no earth below me, and no sky above. Look where I would,
+nothing was visible but my own body. My clothing shone with a pale blue
+light, by which I could peer into the surrounding darkness to the
+distance, as I should judge, of about twenty or thirty feet. I was
+apparently hanging, like a planet, in mid-ether, resting upon nothing.
+Horrible amazement seized me, as the conviction flashed through me like
+an electric shock that I must have lost my reason. In a few moments,
+however, this terror subsided; I felt certain that my thoughts were
+rational, and concluded that it was some affection of the optic nerve.
+But in a very few seconds I discovered by internal sensations that I was
+in motion, in a rapid, irregular, and accelerating motion. Awful horror
+again seized me; I screamed out a despairing cry for help, and fainted.
+
+When I recovered from the swoon, I found myself lying on a grassy bank
+near a sea-shore, with strange trees waving over me. The sun was
+apparently an hour high. I was dressed as on the preceding evening,
+without a hat. The air was deliciously mild, the landscape before me
+lovely and grand. I said to myself: "This is a beautiful dream; it must
+be a dream." But it was too real, and I said, "Can it be that I am
+asleep?" I pinched my arms, I went to the sea and dipped my head in the
+waters,--'t was in vain; I could not awake myself, because I was already
+awake.
+
+"No!" I replied, "you are not awake." Do you not remember that saying of
+Engel, that when men dream of asking whether they are awake, they always
+dream that they answer yes? But I said, I will apply two tests of my own
+which have often, when I was dreaming, convinced me that I was asleep
+and thus enabled me to awake. I gathered some pebbles and began to count
+them and lay them in heaps, and count them over again. There were no
+discrepancies between my counts; I was awake. Then I took out my pencil
+and memorandum-book to see whether I could solve an equation. But my
+hand was seized with trembling, and wrote without my assistance or
+guidance these words: "I, Copernicus, will comfort your friends. Be
+calm, be happy, you shall return and reap a peculiar glory. You, first
+of the inhabitants of Earth, have visited another planet while in the
+flesh. You are on an island in the tropical regions of Mars. I will take
+you home when you desire it,--only not now."
+
+It would be in vain for me to attempt to recall and to describe the
+whirling tumult of thoughts and emotions which this message created. I
+sat down upon the grass, and for a time was incapable of deliberate
+thought or action. At length I arose and paced up and down the turf,
+staring around upon the changeless blue of the seaward horizon, the
+heaving swell of the ocean, the restless surf fretting against the
+shore, and the motionless hills that rose behind each other inland, and
+lured the eye to a distant group of mountains. The coloring of sea and
+land was wonderfully fine; both seemed formed of similar translucent
+purple; and despite the excited state of my feelings and the stupendous
+nature of the words which I had just seen written by my own pencil, I
+was impressed with a sense of grandeur and of beauty which presently
+filled me with faith and hope. I assured myself that the spirit to whom
+permission had been given thus to transport me from my home was as kind
+as he was powerful. He had set me down in a beautiful country, he had
+promised to return me home when I desired it,--"only not now";--by which
+I concluded that he wished me to think calmly over the question before
+asking to return. And why, I added, should I be in haste? Copernicus, if
+it be he, promises to comfort my parents,--the island looks fertile,--if
+I find no inhabitants, I can be a new Robinson Crusoe,--and when I have
+explored the island thoroughly, I will ask this spirit to carry me back
+to New York, where I shall publish my observations, and add a new
+chapter to our knowledge of the solar system.
+
+I walked toward the mountains, among strange shrubs, and under strange
+trees. Some were in blossom, others laden with fruit, all in luxuriant
+foliage. As I walked on, the scenery became more and more charming; but
+I saw no signs of man, nor even of birds, nor beasts. Beautiful
+butterflies and other insects were abundant; in a little stream I saw
+minnows, and a fish elegantly striped with silver and gold; and as I
+followed up the brook, occasionally a frog, startled at my approach,
+leaped from the bank and dived into the water with a familiar cry. I
+wandered on until I judged it to be nearly noon, and, growing hungry,
+ventured to taste a fruit which looked more edible than any I had seen.
+To my delight I found it as delicious as a paw-paw. I dined on them
+heartily, and, sitting under the shade of the low trees from which I had
+gathered them, I fell into a reverie which ended in a sound sleep.
+
+When I awoke it was night. I walked out of the little grove in which I
+was sheltered, that I might have a clearer view of the stars. I soon
+recognized the constellations with which I had been familiar for years,
+though in somewhat new positions. Conspicuous near, the horizon was the
+"Milk Dipper" of Sagittarius, and I instantly noticed, with a thrill of
+intense surprise, that the planet Mars was missing! When I had first
+awakened, and stepped out of the grove, I had only a dim remembrance in
+my mind of having rambled in the fields and fallen asleep on the grass;
+but this planet missing in the constellation Sagittarius recalled to me
+at once my miraculous position on the planet Mars. Here was a
+confirmation unexpected and irrefragable of the truth of what Copernicus
+had written by my hand. The excited whirl of thoughts and emotions thus
+revived banished sleep, and I walked back and forward under the grove,
+and out on the open turf, gazing again and again at the constellation in
+which, only two days before, I had from the Jersey City ferryboat seen
+the now missing planet. At length Sagittarius sank behind the mountains,
+and the Twins arose out of the sea. With new wonder and admiration I
+beheld in Castor's knee the steady lustre of a planet which I had not
+known before,--an overwhelming proof of the reality of my asserted
+position on the planet Mars. For as this new planet was exactly in the
+opposite pole of the point whence Mars was missing, what could it be but
+my native Earth seen as a planet from that planet which had now become
+my earth? You may imagine that this new vision excited me too much to
+allow sleep to overpower me again until nearly daybreak.
+
+When I awoke, the sun was far above the waves. I breakfasted upon my
+newly tasted fruit, and resumed my journey toward the mountains in the
+west. An hour's walk brought me to the spot where I first saw the
+inhabitants of the island. I shall never forget a single feature of that
+landscape. The mingled delight at seeing them, and astonishment after
+looking a few moments at them, have photographed the whole surrounding
+scene to its minutest details indelibly upon my memory. I had ascended a
+little eminence in the principal valley of a brook, (which I had been
+following nearly from its outlet,) when suddenly the mountains, of which
+I had lost sight for a time, rose up before me in sublime strength, no
+longer of translucent purple, but revealing, under the direct light,
+their rugged solidity. On my right, in the foreground, were lofty black
+cliffs, made darker by being seen lying in their own shadow. On my left,
+green hills, in varying forms, stretched almost an interminable
+distance, varying also in their color and depth of shade. At the foot of
+the cliffs, in full sight, but too distant to be distinctly heard, the
+brook leaped along its rocky bed in a succession of scrambling
+cataracts, until it was in a perfect foam with the exertion. I sat upon
+a stone, gazing upon this valley, calmed, soothed, charmed with its
+beauty, and was speculating upon the cause of the ruddy purplish hue
+which I still noticed in the landscape, as I had the day before, when I
+heard a choir of half a dozen voices, apparently on the nearest cliff,
+joining in a Haydn-like hymn of praise. I drew nearer to the spot, and
+soon satisfied myself that all the sounds proceeded from one man sitting
+alone on a projecting rock. I listened to him attentively, vainly
+endeavoring to imagine how he produced such a volume of sounds, and
+delighted with the beautiful melody and exquisite harmony of his
+polyphonous song. When he ceased to sing, I stepped out in front of him
+and hailed him with a hearty "Good morning!" What was my astonishment to
+see him instantly unfurl a prodigious pair of wings, and fly off the
+rock. Hovering over me for a little while, evidently as much astonished
+at me as I at him, he flew away, and presently returned with a
+companion. They alighted near me, and began, as I thought, to sing, but
+in a very fragmentary way. I afterwards found that they were in
+conversation. I spoke to them, and, concealing my fears, endeavored by
+various signs to intimate my friendly disposition. They were not very
+backward in meeting my advances; and yet I soon discovered that,
+although they were two to one against me, they were as much alarmed as
+I; whereupon I became greatly reassured. It was not long before we had
+exchanged presents of wild fruits, and they had begun, by dumb show, and
+beckoning, and the utterance of soothing sounds, to invite me to
+accompany them. We proceeded slowly, for they could not be satisfied in
+their examination of me, nor I in my examination of them; and yet we
+rather preferred to keep out of each other's reach. Two points in them
+chiefly attracted my attention. One was their prodigious wings, which
+they folded into a very small compass when they walked. The other was
+their peculiar language, not being any _articulate_ speech, but only the
+utterance of vowel-sounds of musical quality, which seemed to come from
+several voices at once, and that not from the mouth, but, as I then
+thought, from all parts of their bodies.
+
+At length we reached a charming arbor, into which they conducted me.
+This arbor was built of some sort of bamboo or cane, woven together into
+a coarse lattice-work, the roof being made of the same and covered with
+huge leaves, perhaps of some palm. I call it an arbor, because the
+latticed sides were covered with flowering vines, of great variety and
+beauty. Within were bamboo seats and a table, whose material I afterward
+discovered was the dried leaves of a gigantic flag, flattened and made
+hard by a peculiar process of drawing them between joints of bamboo,
+somewhat as cane is pressed between rollers. Upon the table were
+numerous manuscripts, written, as I afterwards learned, on a paper made
+of the same flag. These manuscripts were removed, and a repast set on
+the table by servants, as I then took them to be, who brought it in from
+an adjoining arbor; but I found afterwards that they were members of the
+family, and that the relation of servant and master was not known among
+the inhabitants of the island. When these new members of the family
+first came to the arbor in which I and my two captors, as they
+considered themselves, were sitting, they started back, terrified at my
+appearance; and it was with great difficulty that my captors prevailed
+upon them to enter. This further encouraged me in the faith that they
+were a timid and inoffensive people. Their noonday meal, of which they
+gave me a part, (although they did not invite me to come to the table
+with them,) gave me still greater assurance, since I found it composed
+wholly of fruits and cereals. After their dinner, during which it was
+evident that they were engaged in a very lively discussion of their
+visitor or captive, some of the family flew away, and in the course of
+an hour returned, accompanied by half a dozen others, whom I afterwards
+found were the most learned naturalists of my captor's acquaintance. I
+was invited by pantomime to walk out into the open air, and of course
+accepted the invitation. Never was there such a Babel of musical tones
+as that which assailed my ears while these six learned--(what shall I
+call them? since their own name is not expressible by the letters of any
+alphabet)--learned men discussed me from every point of view. The mild
+and inoffensive appearance of the people, and the evident kindness
+mingled with their curiosity, had entirely disarmed my suspicions, and I
+as gladly showed them what I could do as I watched to see their habits.
+The whole afternoon was passed in exhibiting to these strange beings all
+of the various gaits and modes of motion and gymnastic exercises which I
+had ever learned.
+
+After supper my captor led me to a separate arbor, and pointed to a bed
+of soft, white straw, upon which I immediately stretched myself, and he
+retired. Presently I arose and attempted to go out, but found that he
+had fastened the door on the outside. It was not pleasant to find myself
+a prisoner; but that subject was instantly driven from my mind as I
+looked out through the lattice and saw Sagittarius, with no signs of the
+planet Mars. I returned to my straw; and, after the excitement of the
+day had subsided, I fell asleep and slept until after sunrise. My captor
+soon after appeared, bringing a basket of delicious fruits and bread.
+When I had eaten freely, he allowed me to wander at will, setting first
+a boy on top of my arbor, apparently to watch that I did not wander out
+of sight. I walked about and found that the homestead of my captor
+consisted of seven arbors in a grove of fruit-trees, with about a dozen
+acres of corn adjoining. This corn is a perennial, like our grass, and a
+field once planted yields in good land fifteen or twenty crops with only
+the labor of gathering. It then becomes exhausted, and the canes are
+burnt at a particular season, which destroys the roots, and prepares the
+ground admirably for fruit-trees. There were no stables about the place,
+and there are no horses nor cows on the island,--indeed, frogs and toads
+are the highest vertebrates known there.
+
+About the middle of the forenoon, my host, or captor, came, guided by
+his boy, who, flying from arbor to arbor and from tree to tree, had kept
+me in sight during my ramble. He brought with him seven others, bearing
+a hammock through the air, four flying on either side, and lowered it
+near me in the field. He then made signs to me to lie in the hammock. It
+was with some difficulty that I persuaded myself to risk it; but I
+thought at last that, after coming safely from the Earth to Mars, I
+would not shrink from a little excursion in the atmosphere of that
+planet. I laid myself in the hammock, and soon saw that the seven
+friends of my host were as much afraid of taking it up as I had been of
+getting in it. However, they mustered courage, and, spreading their
+wings, raised me up in the air. I was, I suppose, a deal heavier than
+they expected; for they set me down upon the top of the first knoll in
+their path, and set me down so suddenly that I was aware of their
+intention only by being dashed against the ground. I sprang up, and
+began to rub the bruised spots, while my winged bearers folded their
+wings, and lay panting on the turf. They had not taken me a half-mile.
+When they were rested, my host motioned to me to resume my place; and
+the eight again bore me, with more deliberate stroke, a full mile before
+dropping me again. But they were so much exhausted, and took so long to
+rest, that I suggested, by signs and motions, that I should rather walk;
+and so for the next mile they carried the empty hammock, flying very
+slowly, while I walked rapidly, or ran, after them. When, in my turn, I
+became exhausted, they motioned me into the hammock again. In this way,
+partly by being carried and partly on my own feet, I at length reached
+an immense arbor, in which several hundred of these creatures were
+assembled. It was the regular day of meeting for their Society of
+Natural History. One of our party first went in, and, I suppose,
+announced our arrival, then came out and spoke to my captor, who
+beckoned me to follow, and led me in. I was placed on a platform, and he
+then made a polyphonous speech, without a consonant sound in it;
+describing, as I afterwards learned, the history of my discovery and
+capture, and going into some speculations on my nature. Then the
+principal men crowded about me and felt me, and led me about the hall,
+until, what with the landings of the hammock and the handling of these
+sons of Mars, I was sore and wearied beyond expression.
+
+At length I was taken to a small arbor, where I was allowed to rest and
+to take food. The Society then, as I have since been told, held a long
+discussion, and finally appointed a committee to examine me, observe my
+habits, and report at the next regular meeting. There is no moon at
+Mars; but the regular meeting was on the twenty-eighth day
+following,--the seven notes of music having given them the idea of
+weeks.
+
+Extra ropes were then attached to the hammock, (which was built for the
+use of the infirm and aged, but the weight of these creatures is scarce
+half that of men,) and sixteen of them carried me back to my captor's
+homestead. That night I fell asleep before it was dark enough to see the
+stars, and assure myself, by a glance at the Milk Dipper, that it was
+not all a dream; but I awoke before daylight, and gazed through the
+lattice at the Twins, and at the Earth, shining with steady lustre upon
+Castor's knee.
+
+I will not weary the reader with details from my journal of each
+succeeding day. The committee came day after day and studied me. They
+induced me to lay aside part of my clothing that they might examine me
+more minutely, especially about the joints of the ankle, the knee,
+shoulder, and elbow; and were never weary of examining my neck and
+spinal column. I could not talk to them, and they had never seen a
+vertebrate higher in organization than their frogs and toads; wherefore,
+at the end of four weeks, they reported "that I was a new and wonderful
+gigantic Batrachian"; that "they recommended the Society to purchase me,
+and, after studying my habits thoroughly, dissect me, and mount my
+skeleton." Of which report I was, of course, in blessed ignorance for a
+long, long while.
+
+So my captor and his friends took the kindest care of me, and endeavored
+to amuse and instruct me, and also to find out what I would do if left
+to myself,--taking notes assiduously for the memoirs of their Society. I
+can assure the reader that I, on my part, was not idle, but took notes
+of them with equal diligence, at which imitation of their actions they
+were greatly amused. But I flatter myself that, when my notes, now in
+the hands of the Smithsonian Institution, are published, with the
+comments of the learned naturalists to whom the Institution has referred
+them, they will be found to embody the most valuable contributions to
+science. My own view of the inhabitants of Mars is that they are
+Rational Articulates. Rational they certainly are, and, although I am no
+naturalist, I venture to pronounce them Articulates. I do not mean
+anything disrespectful to these learned inhabitants of Mars in saying
+that their figure and movements reminded me of crickets: for I never
+have watched the black field-crickets in New England, standing on tiptoe
+to reach a blade of grass, without a feeling of admiration at their
+gentlemanly figure and the gracefulness of their air. But what is more
+important, I am told that Articulates breathe through spiracles in the
+sides of their bodies; and I know that these planetary men breathe
+through six mouths, three on either side of the body, entirely different
+in appearance and character from the seventh mouth in their face,
+through which they eat.
+
+In the volumes of notes which will be published by the Smithsonian
+Institution as soon as the necessary engravings can be finished, will
+also appear all that I was able to learn concerning the natural history
+of that planet, under the strict limitation, to which I was subjected,
+of bringing to Earth nothing but what I could carry about my own
+person.[A]
+
+I was, myself, particularly interested in investigating the Martial
+language, which differs entirely from our terrestrial tongues in not
+being articulate. Each of the six lateral mouths of these curious men is
+capable of sounding only one vowel, and of varying its musical pitch
+about five or six semitones. Thus, their six mouths give them a range of
+two and a half or three octaves. The right-hand lowest mouth is lowest
+in pitch, and gives a sound resembling the double _o_ in _moon_; the
+next lowest in pitch is the lowest left-hand mouth, and its vowel is
+more like _o_ in _note_. Thus they alternate, the highest left-hand
+mouth being highest in pitch, and uttering a sound resembling a long
+_ee_. The sound of each of the six is so individual, that, before I had
+been there six months, I could recognize, even in a stranger, the tones
+of each one of the six mouths. But they seldom use one mouth at a time.
+Their simplest ideas, such as the names of the most familiar objects,
+are expressed by brief melodic phrases, uttered by one mouth alone.
+Closely allied ideas are expressed by the same phrase uttered by a
+different mouth, and so with a different vowel-sound. But most ideas are
+complex; and these are expressed in the Mavortian speech by chords, or
+discords, produced by using two or more mouths at once. A few music
+types will illustrate this, by examples, better than any verbal
+description can do.
+
+[Illustration: {Music} A tree. Fruit. A fruit-tree. Do. in leaf and
+blossom. Do. in leaf and fruit. A dead fruit-tree]
+
+The signification of these chords is by no means arbitrary; but, on the
+contrary, their application is according to fixed rules and according to
+�sthetic principles; so that the highest poetry of these people becomes,
+in the very process of utterance, the finest music; while the utterance
+of base sentiments, or of fustian, becomes, by the very nature of the
+language, discordant, or at best vapid and unmelodious.
+
+It will readily be imagined that I was a very long while in learning to
+understand a speech so entirely different in all its principles from our
+earthly tongues. And when I began to comprehend it, as spoken by my new
+friends, I was unable, having but one mouth, to express anything but the
+simplest ideas. However, I had Yankee ingenuity enough to supply in some
+measure my want of lateral mouths.
+
+My captor daily allowed me more and more freedom, and at length
+permitted me to wander freely over the whole island, simply taking the
+precaution to send a boy with me as a companion and guide, in case I
+should lose my way. In one of these rambles I discovered a swamp of
+bamboos, and by the aid of my pocket-knife cut down several and carried
+them home. Then, with great difficulty and interminable labor, I managed
+to make a sort of small organ, a very rude affair, with six kinds of
+pipes, six of each kind. A bamboo pipe, with a reed tongue of the same
+material, or even one with a flute action, was not so sweet in tone as
+the voice of my friends; but they saw what I was trying to do, and
+could, after growing familiar with the sound of my pipes, decipher my
+meaning. The astonishment of my captor and his family at finding that
+their monster Batrachian could not only express simple ideas with his
+one mouth, but all the most complex notions by pieces of bamboo fastened
+together and held on his knees before him, was beyond measure. From this
+time my progress in learning their speech was very rapid; and within a
+year from the completion of my organ I could converse fluently with
+them. Of course, I had not mastered all the intricacies of their tongue,
+and even up to the time of my leaving them I felt that I was a mere
+learner; nevertheless, I could understand the main drift of all that
+they said; and what was equally gratifying to me, I could express to
+them almost anything expressible in English, and they understood me.
+
+My life now became a very happy one; I became sincerely attached to my
+captor and to his family, and was charmed with their good sense and
+their kind feeling. I flatter myself also that they, in their turn, were
+not only proud of their Batrachian, but grew fond of him. They showed me
+more and more attention, gave me a seat at their table, and furnished me
+with clothes of their own fashion. I must confess, however, that the
+openings on the sides for their mouths, and on the back for their wings,
+were rather troublesome to me, and occasioned me several severe colds,
+until I taught them to make my vesture close about my chest.
+
+When visitors came to their house I was always invited to bring out my
+organ and converse with them. Strangers found some difficulty in
+understanding me; but with the family I conversed with perfect ease, and
+they interpreted for me. I found that the universal theory concerning me
+was, that I came from beyond a range of mountains on the nearest
+continent, beyond which no explorations had ever been made. Concerning
+my mode of crossing the steep and lofty barrier on the continent, and
+the deep, wide strait which separated the island from the mainland, they
+speculated in vain. I humored this theory at first, as far as I could
+without positive statements of falsehood, for I knew that, if I told the
+truth, it would be absolutely incredible to them; and I did not reveal
+to my Martial friends my own terrestrial, to them celestial character,
+until just before my departure.
+
+But my psychical character perplexed them much more than my zo�logical.
+It seems that these islanders had been accustomed to call themselves, in
+their own tongue, "rational animals with sentiments of justice and
+piety,"--all which, be it remembered, is expressed in their wonderful
+language by a simple harmonic progression of four full chords.[B] But
+here was a Batrachian,--one of the lower orders of creation, in their
+view,--from whom the Almighty had withheld the gift of a rational soul,
+who nevertheless appeared to reason as soundly as they,--to understand
+all their ideas,--not only repeating their sentences on his bamboo
+pipes, but commenting intelligently on them; and who not only gave these
+proofs of an understanding mind, but of a heart and soul, manifesting
+almost Mavortian affection for his captor's family, and occasionally
+betraying even the existence of some religious sentiments. Was all this
+delusive? Did this Batrachian really possess a rational soul, with
+sentiments of piety and justice, or only a wonderfully constructive
+faculty of imitation?
+
+Reader, in your pride of Caucasian blood, you may think it incredible
+that such doubts should have been entertained concerning a man whose
+father is from one of the best families in Holland, whose mother is
+descended from, good English stock, and who himself exhibits sufficient
+intelligence to write this narrative; but nevertheless such doubts were
+actually entertained by a large proportion of the inhabitants of the
+island. Not only did the members of their Society of Natural History
+become warmly interested in the discussion, but finally the whole
+population of the island took sides on the question, and debated it with
+great warmth. The area of their country is about the same as that of
+Great Britain; but as they have no law of primogeniture, nor entailment
+of estates, nor hereditary rank, they have no poverty and no
+over-population; all of the inhabitants were happy and well-educated,
+all had abundant leisure, and all were ready to examine the evidence
+concerning the wonderful Batrachian that was said to have come ashore on
+the eastern side of their island.
+
+But alas! even in this well-governed and happy community, not every
+man's opinion was free from error, nor every man's temper free from
+prejudice and passion. Those who insisted that my bamboo music was only
+a parrot-like imitation of their speech accused those who held that I
+was really rational of the crime of exalting a Batrachian into equality
+with "rational animals with sentiments of justice and piety"; and the
+accused party, after a little natural shrinking from so bold a position,
+finally confessed the crime, by acknowledging that they thought that I
+was at least entitled to all the rights of their race. Here was the
+beginning of a feud which presently waxed as hot as that between the
+Big-Endians and the Little-Endians of Liliput.
+
+I have no doubt in my own mind that the temper displayed in this
+controversy sprang partly from causes which had been in operation for
+many years before my visit. Somewhere about the middle of the last
+century, (I am speaking now of terrestrial dates, translating their long
+years and odd numeral scale into ours,) a colony from the mainland had
+settled at one end of their island, and were still living among them.
+These continental men differed somewhat in figure and stature from the
+islanders, and their wings were of a dusky hue, while the islanders'
+wings were distinctly purple in their tone. These colonists were looked
+upon by most of the islanders as an inferior race, and there had been
+very few cases of intermarriage between them. These few cases had,
+however, led to some earnest discussions. Some maintained that it was
+only a want of good taste in a Purple-wing to be willing to marry a
+Dusky-wing, but that it was not a thing forbidden by morality or to be
+forbidden by law. Others maintained that such intermarriage was against
+nature, against public order and morality, and should be prohibited.
+Nay, some went so far as to say that these Dusky-wings were intruders,
+who ought to be sent back to their native continent; that the island was
+the Purple-wings' country, and that the Purple-wings should have
+absolute control over it, and ought not to suffer any other race to
+participate in its advantages.
+
+This division of opinion and feeling concerning the Dusky-wings,
+although deep and earnest, had not led to much open debate; the people
+of the island were very hospitable and polite, and they refrained to a
+great extent from showing their prejudices against the colonists. But my
+arrival gave them an opportunity of saying with open frankness many
+things which, although said concerning me, were meant and understood as
+referring to the immigrants from the continent. The Dusky-wings
+themselves said but little; they were quiet, inoffensive, affectionate
+people, who were somewhat wounded occasionally by the scorn of a
+Purple-wing, but simply went on minding their own business, and showing
+kindness to all persons alike.
+
+The aborigines of the island, outnumbering the others by twenty to one,
+discussed me and my position with eager warmth. On the one hand, it was
+argued that I was a Batrachian,--of a high species, it was granted, but
+still only an animal; that, if I really had reason and sentiments, they
+must be of a low order; that certainly I had no social nor legal rights
+which their race were bound to respect; that I was the property of my
+captor, by right of discovery, and he had absolute rights over me as a
+chattel; that he might sell me or use me as lawfully as he could sell or
+use clothing, food, or books; that he might compel me to work for him;
+and that he even had a right to poison me (as they poisoned troublesome
+insects) whenever he was tired of the burden of my support, or wished to
+study my anatomy.
+
+On the other hand, it was maintained that the fact of my being a
+Batrachian had no bearing on my moral rights, and ought not to have upon
+my social and legal rights. The capacity which I had for understanding
+the moral law and for feeling injustice gave me a claim to justice.
+Whoever has the moral sense to claim rights is by that very endowment
+vested with rights. "The true brotherhood between us rational animals,"
+said this party, "is founded in our rationality and in our sentiments of
+justice and piety, and not in our animal nature. But this Batrachian,
+although belonging to the lower orders of animal nature, partakes with
+us of reason and of the sentiments of justice and piety. He is therefore
+our brother, and his rights are as sacred as our own. He is the guest,
+and not the chattel, of the family who discovered him. To sell him or to
+buy him, to force him to labor against his will, to hold his life less
+sacred than our own, would be criminal."
+
+Of course I knew nothing of all this until I had been there for several
+years, and acquired a tolerable familiarity with their speech. Indeed,
+it required a considerable time for the feud to arrive at its highest.
+But at length party strife concerning me and concerning the relative
+superiority of the two races rose to such a pitch, that I seriously
+feared lest I should be the innocent cause of a civil war in this once
+happy island. Moreover, I saw that my presence was becoming a source of
+serious inconvenience to my host and to his family. They were attached
+to me, that I could not doubt; but neither could I doubt that it was
+unpleasant to them to have old acquaintances decline any further
+intercourse with them because they had allowed a Batrachian to sit at
+table with them.
+
+Very reluctantly I decided that I would ask Copernicus to restore me to
+my own family on Earth. First I broke the matter cautiously to my host,
+and explained to him confidentially my real origin and my intended
+return. He was astonished beyond measure at my revelation, and I could
+with difficulty persuade him that I was not of celestial nature. We
+talked it over daily for several weeks, and then explained it to the
+family, and afterwards to a select circle of friends, who were to
+publish it after my departure, and give to the whole island their first
+notions of _terrestrial_ geography and history. Finally, I decided upon
+a night in which I would depart, and at bed-time bade the family good
+by. At midnight I filled my pockets and sundry satchels with my
+note-books, specimens of dried plants, insects, fragments of minerals,
+etc., and, hanging these satchels on my arms, called on Copernicus to
+fulfil his promise. Instantly all things disappeared again from my view;
+I was floating with my satchels in mid-ether, and fell into a trance.
+When I awaked, I was in my father's house in New York. How long the
+passage required, I have no means of determining.
+
+The present brief sketch of my life upon the planet Mars is designed
+partly to call attention to the volumes which I am preparing, in
+conjunction with more learned and more scientific _collaborateurs_, for
+immediate publication by the Smithsonian Institution, and partly for the
+gratification of readers who may never see those ponderous quartos.
+
+I will only add, that, since my return to Earth, I have never been able
+to obtain any information either from Copernicus or from any other of
+the illustrious dead, except through the pages of their printed works.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] The strangeness of my adventures will be so apt to breed incredulity
+among those unacquainted with my character, that I add some certificates
+from the highest names known to science.
+
+     "New York, June 13, 1865.--Three plants, submitted to me by Mr.
+     George Snyder for examination, prove to be totally unlike any
+     botanical family hitherto known or described in any books to
+     which I have access.
+
+     "ROBERT BROWN, _Prof. Bott. Col., Coll. N. Y._"
+
+     "New York, June 15, 1865.--Mr. George Snyder. Dear Sir: Your
+     mineral gives, in the spectroscope, three elegant red bands and
+     one blue band; and certainly contains a new metal hitherto
+     unknown to chemistry.
+
+     "R. BUNSEN, _Prof. Chem., N. Y. Free Acad._"
+
+     "Cambridge, Mass., June, 18, 1863.--Mr. George Snyder has
+     placed in my hands three insects, belonging to three new
+     families of Orthoptera, differing widely from all previously
+     known.
+
+     "KIRBY SPENCE, _Assist. Ent., Mus. Comp. Z�ol._"
+
+[B] These chords are those of E, A, B, E, whence the creatures might be
+called _Eabes_.
+
+
+
+
+MADAM WALDOBOROUGH'S CARRIAGE.
+
+
+On a bright particular afternoon, in the month of November, 1855, I met
+on the Avenue des Champs �lys�es, in Paris, my young friend Herbert
+J----.
+
+After many desolate days of wind and rain and falling leaves, the city
+had thrown off her wet rags, so to speak, and arrayed herself in the
+gorgeous apparel of one of the most golden and perfect Sundays of the
+season. "All the world" was out of doors. The Boulevards, the Bois de
+Boulogne, the bridges over the Seine, all the public promenades and
+gardens, swarmed with joyous multitudes. The Champs �lys�es, and the
+long avenue leading up to the Barri�re de l'�toile, appeared one mighty
+river, an Amazon of many-colored human life. The finest July weather had
+not produced such a superb display; for now the people of fashion, who
+had passed the summer at their country-seats, or in Switzerland, or
+among the Pyrenees, reappeared in their showy equipages. The tide, which
+had been flowing to the Bois de Boulogne ever since two o'clock, had
+turned, and was pouring back into Paris. For miles, up and down, on
+either side of the city-wall, extended the glittering train of vehicles.
+The three broad, open gateways of the Barri�re proved insufficient
+channels; and far as you could see, along the Avenue de l'Imp�ratrice,
+stood three seemingly endless rows of carriages, closely crowded, unable
+to advance, waiting for the Barri�re de l'�toile to discharge its
+surplus living waters. Detachments of the mounted city guard, and long
+lines of police, regulated the flow; while at the Barri�re an extra
+force of customhouse officers fulfilled the necessary formality of
+casting an eye of inspection into each vehicle as it passed, to see that
+nothing was smuggled.
+
+Just below the Barri�re, as I was moving with the stream of pedestrians,
+I met Herbert. He turned and took my arm. As he did so, I noticed that
+he lifted his bran-new Parisian hat towards heaven, saluting with a
+lofty flourish one of the carriages that passed the gate.
+
+It was a dashy barouche, drawn by a glossy-black span, and occupied by
+two ladies and a lapdog. A driver on the box, and a footman perched
+behind, both in livery,--long coats, white gloves, and gold bands on
+their hats,--completed the establishment The ladies sat facing each
+other, and their mingled, effervescing skirts and flounces filled the
+cup of the vehicle quite to over-foaming, like a Rochelle powder, nearly
+drowning the brave spaniel, whose sturdy little nose was elevated, for
+air, just above the surge.
+
+Both ladies recognized my friend, and she who sat, or rather reclined,
+(for such a luxurious, languishing attitude can hardly be called a
+sitting posture.) fairy-like, in the hinder part of the shell, bestowed
+upon him a very gracious, condescending smile. She was a most imposing
+creature,--in freshness of complexion, in physical development, and,
+above all, in amplitude and magnificence of attire, a full-blown rose of
+a woman,--aged, I should say, about forty.
+
+"Don't you know that turn-out?" said Herbert, as the shallop with its
+lovely freight floated on in the current.
+
+"I am not so fortunate," I replied.
+
+"Good gracious! miserable man! Where do you live? In what obscure
+society have you buried yourself? Not to know MADAM WALDOBOROUGH'S
+CARRIAGE!"
+
+This was spoken in a tone of humorous extravagance which piqued my
+curiosity. Behind the ostentatious deference with which he had raised
+his hat to the sky, beneath the respectful awe with which he spoke the
+lady's name, I detected irony and a spirit of mischief.
+
+"Who is Madam Waldoborough? and what about her carriage?"
+
+"Who is Madam Waldoborough?" echoed Herbert, with mock astonishment;
+"that an American, six months in Paris, should ask that question! An
+American woman, and a woman of fortune, sir; and, which is more, of
+fashion; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any in
+Messina or elsewhere;--one that occupies a position, go to! and receives
+on Thursday evenings, go to! and that hath ambassadors at her table, and
+everything handsome about her! And as for her carriage," he continued,
+coming down from his Dogberrian strain of eloquence, "it is the very
+identical carriage which I didn't ride in once!"
+
+"How was that?"
+
+"I'll tell you; for it was a curious adventure, and as it was a very
+useful lesson to me, so you may take warning by my experience, and, if
+ever she invites you to ride with her, as she did me, beware! beware!
+her flashing eyes, her floating hair!--do not accept, or, before
+accepting, take Iago's advice, and put money in your purse: PUT MONEY IN
+YOUR PURSE! I'll tell you why.
+
+"But, in the first place, I must explain how I came to be without money
+in mine, so soon after arriving in Paris, where so much of the article
+is necessary. My woes all arise from vanity. That is the rock, that is
+the quicksand, that is the maelstrom. I presume you don't know anybody
+else who is afflicted with that complaint? If you do, I'll but teach you
+how to tell my story, and that will cure him; or, at least, it ought to.
+
+"You see, in crossing over to Liverpool in the steamer, I became
+acquainted with a charming young lady, who proved to be a second-cousin
+of my father's. She belongs to the aristocratic branch of our family.
+Every family tree has an aristocratic branch, or bough, or little twig
+at least, I believe. She was a Todworth; and having always heard my
+other relations mention with immense pride and respect the
+Todworths,--as if it was one of the solid satisfactions of life to be
+able to speak of 'my uncle Todworth,' or 'my cousins the Todworths,'--I
+was prepared to appreciate my extreme good fortune. She was a bride,
+setting out on her wedding tour. She had married a sallow, bilious,
+perfumed, very disagreeable fellow,--except that he too was an
+aristocrat, and a millionnaire besides, which made him very agreeable;
+at least, I thought so. That was before I rode in Madam Waldoborough's
+carriage: since which era in my life I have slightly changed my habits
+of thinking on these subjects.
+
+"Well, the fair bride was most gratifyingly affable, and cousined me to
+my heart's content. Her husband was no less friendly: they not only
+petted me, but I think they really liked me; and by the time we reached
+London I was on as affectionately familiar terms with them as a younger
+brother could have been. If I had been a Todworth, they couldn't have
+made more of me. They insisted on my going to the same hotel with them,
+and taking a room adjoining their suite. This was a happiness to which I
+had but one objection,--my limited pecuniary resources. My family are
+neither aristocrats nor millionnaires; and economy required that I
+should place myself in humble and inexpensive lodgings for the two or
+three weeks I was to spend in London. But vanity! vanity! I was actually
+ashamed, sir, to do the honest and true thing,--afraid of disgracing my
+branch of the family in the eyes of the Todworth branch, and of losing
+the fine friends I had made, by confessing my poverty. The bride, I
+confess, was a delightful companion; but I know other ladies just as
+interesting, although they do not happen to be Todworths. For her sake,
+personally, I should never have thought of committing the folly; and
+still less, I assure you, for that piece of perfumed and
+yellow-complexioned politeness, her husband. It was pride, sir, pride
+that ruined me. They went to Cox's Hotel, in Jermyn Street; and I,
+simpleton as I was, went with them,--for that was before I rode in Madam
+Waldoborough's carriage.
+
+"Cox's, I fancy, is the crack hotel of London. Lady Byron boarded there;
+the author of 'Childe Harold' himself used to stop there; Tom Moore
+wrote a few of his last songs and drank a good many of his last bottles
+of wine there; my Lords Tom, Dick, and Harry,--the Duke of Dash, Sir
+Edward Splash, and Viscount Flash,--these and other notables always
+honor Cox's when they go to town. So _we_ honored Cox's. And a very
+quiet, orderly, well-kept tavern we found it. I think Mr. Cox must have
+a good housekeeper. He has been fortunate in securing a very excellent
+cook. I should judge that he had engaged some of the finest gentlemen in
+England to act as waiters. Their manners would do credit to any
+potentate in Europe: there is that calm self-possession about them, that
+serious dignity of deportment, sustained by a secure sense of the mighty
+importance of their mission to the world which strikes a beholder with
+awe. I was made to feel very inferior in their presence. We dined at a
+private table, and these ministers of state waited upon us. They brought
+us the morning paper on a silver salver; they presented it as if it had
+been a mission from a king to a king. Whenever we went out or came in,
+there stood two of those magnates, in white waistcoats and white gloves,
+to open the folding-doors for us, with stately mien. You would have said
+it was the Lord High Chamberlain and his deputy, and that I was at least
+Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. I tried to receive
+these overpowering attentions with an air of easy indifference, like one
+who had been all his life accustomed to that sort of thing, you know;
+but I was oppressed with a terrible sense of being out of my place. I
+couldn't help feeling that these serene and lofty highnesses knew
+perfectly well that I was a green Yankee boy, with less than fifty
+pounds in my pocket; and I fancied that, behind the mask of gravity each
+imperturbable countenance wore, there was always lurking a smile of
+contempt.
+
+"But this was not the worst of it. I suffered from another cause. If
+noblemen were my attendants, I must expect to maintain noblemen. All
+that ceremony and deportment must go into the bill. With this view of
+the case, I could not look at their white kids without feeling sick at
+heart; white waistcoats became a terror; the sight of an august
+neckcloth, bowing its solemn attentions to me, depressed my very soul.
+The folding-doors, on golden hinges turning,--figuratively, at least, if
+not literally, like those of Milton's heaven,--grated as horrible
+discords on my secret ear as the gates of Milton's other place. It was
+my gold that helped to make those hinges. And this I endured merely for
+the sake of enjoying the society, not of my dear newly-found cousins,
+but of two phantoms, intangible, unsatisfactory, unreal that hovered
+over their heads,--the phantom of wealth and the still more empty
+phantom of social position. But all this, understand, was _before_ I
+rode in Madam Waldoborough's carriage.
+
+"Well, I saw London in company with my aristocratic relatives, and paid
+a good deal more for the show, and really profited less by it, than if I
+had gone about the business in my own deliberate and humble way.
+Everything was, of course, done in the most lordly and costly manner
+known. Instead of walking to this place or that, or taking an omnibus or
+a cab, we rolled magnificently in our carriage. I suppose the happy
+bridegroom would willingly have defrayed all these expenses, if I had
+wished him to do so; but pride prompted me to pay my share. So it
+happened that, during nine days in London, I spent as much as would have
+lasted me as many weeks, if I had been as wise as I was vain,--that is,
+if I had ridden in Madam Waldoborough's carriage _before_ I went to
+England.
+
+"When I saw how things were going, bankruptcy staring me in the face,
+ruin yawning at my feet, I was suddenly seized with an irresistible
+desire to go on to Paris, I had a French fever of the most violent
+character. I declared myself sick of the soot and smoke uproar of the
+great Babel,--I even spoke slightingly of Cox's Hotel, as if I had been
+used to better things,--and I called for my bill. Heavens and earth, how
+I trembled! Did ever a condemned wretch feel as faint at the sight of
+the priest coming to bid him prepare for the gallows, as I did at the
+sight of one of those sublime functionaries bringing me my doom on a
+silver salver? Every pore opened; a clammy perspiration broke out all
+over me; I reached forth a shaking hand, and thanked his highness with a
+ghastly smile.
+
+"A few figures told my fate. The convict who hears his death-sentence
+may still hope for a reprieve; but figures are inexorable, figures
+cannot lie. My bill at Cox's was in pounds, shillings, and pence,
+amounting to just eleven dollars a day. Eleven times nine are
+ninety-nine. It was so near a round hundred, it seemed a bitter mockery
+not to say a hundred, and have done with it, instead of scrupulously
+stopping to consider a single paltry dollar. I was reminded of the boy
+whose father bragged of killing nine hundred and ninety-nine pigeons at
+one shot. Somebody asked why he didn't say a thousand. 'Thunder!' says
+the boy, 'do you suppose my father would lie just for one pigeon?' I
+told the story, to show my cousins how coolly I received the bill, and
+paid it,--coined my heart and dropped my blood for drachmas, rather than
+appear mean in presence of my relatives, although I knew that a portion
+of the charge was for the bridal arrangements for which the bridegroom
+alone was responsible.
+
+"This drained my purse so nearly dry that I had only just money enough
+left to take me to Paris, and pay for a week's lodging or so in advance.
+They urged me to remain and go to Scotland with them; but I tore myself
+away, and fled to France. I would not permit them to accompany me to the
+railroad station, and see me off; for I was unwilling that they should
+know I was going to economize my finances by purchasing a second-class
+ticket. From the life I had been leading at Cox's to a second-class
+passage to Paris was that step from the sublime to the ridiculous which
+I did not wish to be seen taking. I think I'd have thrown myself into
+the Thames before I would thus have exposed myself; for, as I tell you,
+I had not yet been honored with a seat in Madame Waldoborough's
+carriage.
+
+"It is certainly a grand thing to keep grand company; but if ever I felt
+a sense of relief, it was when I found myself free from my cousins,
+emancipated from the fearful bondage of keeping up such expensive
+appearances; when I found myself seated on the hard, cushionless bench
+of the second-class car, and nibbled my crackers at my leisure,
+unoppressed by the awful presence of those grandees in white waistcoats,
+and by the more awful presence of a condemning conscience within myself.
+
+"I nibbled my crackers, and they tasted sweeter than Cox's best dinners;
+I nibbled, and contemplated my late experiences; nibbled, and was almost
+persuaded to be a Christian,--that is, to forswear thenceforth and
+forever all company which I could not afford to keep, all appearances
+which were not honest, all foolish pride, and silly ambition, and moral
+cowardice;--as I did after I had ridden in a certain carriage I have
+mentioned, and which I am coming to now as fast as possible.
+
+"I had lost nearly all my money and a good share of my self-respect by
+the course I had taken, and I could think of only one substantial
+advantage which I had gained. That was a note of introduction from my
+lovely cousin to Madame Waldoborough. That would be of inestimable value
+to me in Paris. It would give me access to the best society, and secure
+to me, a stranger many privileges which could not otherwise be obtained.
+'Perhaps, after all,' thought I, as I read over the flattering contents
+of the unsealed note,--'perhaps, after all, I shall find this worth
+quite as much as it has cost me.' O, had I foreseen that it was actually
+destined to procure me an invitation to ride out with Madam
+Waldoborough herself, shouldn't I have been elated?
+
+"I reached Paris, took a cheap lodging, and waited for the arrival of my
+uncle's goods destined for the Great Exhibition,--for to look after
+them, (I could speak French, you know,) and to assist in having them
+properly placed, was the main business that had brought me here. I also
+waited anxiously for my uncle and a fresh supply of funds. In the mean
+time I delivered my letters of introduction, and made a few
+acquaintances. Twice I called at Madam Waldoborough's hotel, but did not
+see her; she was out. So at least the servants said, but I suspect they
+lied; for, the second time I was told so, I noticed, O, the most
+splendid turn-out!--the same you just saw pass--waiting in the
+carriage-way before her door, with the driver on the box, and the
+footman holding open the silver-handled and escutchioned panel that
+served as a door to the barouche, as if expecting some grand personage
+to get in.
+
+"'Some distinguished visitor, perhaps,' thought I; 'or, it may be, Madam
+Waldoborough herself; instead of being out, she is just going out, and
+in five minutes the servant's lie will be a truth.' Sure enough, before
+I left the street--for I may as well confess that curiosity caused me to
+linger a little--my lady herself appeared in all her glory, and bounced
+into the barouche with a vigor that made it rock quite unromantically;
+for she is not frail, she is not a butterfly, as you perceived. I
+recognized her from a description I had received from my cousin the
+bride. She was accompanied by that meagre, smart little sprite of a
+French girl, whom Madam always takes with her,--to talk French with, and
+to be waited upon by her, she says; but rather, I believe, by way of a
+contrast to set off her own brilliant complexion and imperial
+proportions. It is Juno and Arachne. The divine orbs of the goddess
+turned haughtily upon me, but did not see me,--looked through and beyond
+me, as if I had been nothing but gossamer, feathers, air; and the little
+black, bead-like eyes of the insect pierced me maliciously an instant,
+as the barouche dashed past, and disappeared in the Rue de Rivoli. I was
+humiliated; I felt that I was recognized,--known as the rash youth who
+had just called at the H�tel de Waldoborough, been told that Madam was
+out, and had stopped outside to catch the hotel in a lie. It is very
+singular--how do you explain it?--that it should have seemed to me the
+circumstance was something, not for Madam, but for me to be ashamed of!
+I don't believe that the color of her peachy cheeks was heightened the
+shadow of a shade; but as for me, I blushed to the tips of my ears.
+
+"You may believe that I did not go away in such a cheerful frame of mind
+as might have encouraged me to repeat my call in a hurry. I just coldly
+enclosed to her my cousin's letter of introduction, along with my
+address; and said to myself, 'Now, she'll know what a deuse of a fellow
+she has slighted: she'll know she has put an affront upon a connection
+of the Todworths!' I was very silly, you see, for I had not yet--but I
+am coming to that part of my story.
+
+"Well, returning to my lodgings a few days afterwards, I found a note
+which had been left for me by a liveried footman,--Madam Waldoborough's
+footman, O heaven! I was thrown into great trepidation by the stupendous
+event, and eagerly inquired if Madam herself was in her carriage, and
+was immensely relieved to learn she was not; for, unspeakably gratifying
+as such condescension, such an Olympian compliment, would have been
+under other circumstances, I should have felt it more than offset by the
+mortification of knowing that she knew, that her own eyes had beheld,
+the very humble quarter in which a lack of means had compelled me to
+locate myself.
+
+"I turned from that frightful possibility to the note itself. It was
+everything I could have asked. It was ambrosia, it was nectar. I had
+done a big thing when I fired the Todworth gun: it had brought the enemy
+to terms. My cousin was complimented, and I was welcomed to Paris,
+and--THE H�TEL WALDOBOROUGH!
+
+"'Why have you not called to see me?' the note inquired, with charming
+innocence. 'I shall be at home to-morrow morning at two o'clock; cannot
+you give me the pleasure of greeting so near a relative of my dear,
+delightful Louise?'
+
+"Of course, I would afford her that pleasure! 'O, what a thing it is,' I
+said to myself, 'to be a third cousin to a Todworth!' But the two
+o'clock in the morning,--how should I manage that? I had not supposed
+that fashionable people in Paris got up so early, much less received
+visitors at that wonderful hour. But, on reflection, I concluded that
+two in the morning meant two in the afternoon; for I had heard that the
+great folks commenced their day at about that time.
+
+"At two o'clock, accordingly, the next afternoon,--excuse me, O ye
+fashionable ones! I mean the next morning,--I sallied forth from my
+little barren room in the Rue des Vieux Augustins, and proceeded to
+Madam's ancient palace in the Rue St. Martin, dressed in my best, and
+palpitating with a sense of the honor I was doing myself. This time the
+_concierge_ smiled encouragingly, and ascertained for me that Madam
+_was_ at home. I ascended the polished marble staircase to a saloon on
+the first floor, where I was requested to have the _obligeance
+d'attendre un petit moment_, until Madam should be informed of my
+arrival.
+
+"It was a very large, and, I must admit, a very respectable saloon,
+although not exactly what I had expected to see at the very summit of
+the social Olympus. I dropped into a fauteuil near a centre-table, on
+which there was a fantastical silver-wrought card-basket. What struck me
+particularly about the basket was a well-known little Todworth envelope,
+superscribed in the delicate handwriting of my aristocratic cousin,--my
+letter of introduction, in fact,--displayed upon the very top of the
+pile of billets and cards. My own card I did not see; but in looking for
+it I discovered some curious specimens of foreign orthography,--one
+dainty little note to '_Madame Valtobureau_'; another laboriously
+addressed to '_M. et Mme. Jean Val-d'eau-B�rot_'; and still a third, in
+which the name was conscientiously and industriously written out,
+'_Ou�ld�beurreaux_. This last, as an instance of spelling an English
+word _� la Fran�aise_, I thought a remarkable success, and very
+creditable to people who speak of _Lor Berong_, meaning Lord Byron,
+(_Be-wrong_ is good!) and talk glibly about _Frongclang_, and
+_Vashangtong_, meaning the great philosopher, and the Father of his
+Country.
+
+"I was trying to amuse myself with these orthographical curiosities, yet
+waiting anxiously all the while for the appearance of that illustrious
+ornament of her sex, to whom they were addressed; and the servant's
+'_petit moment_' had become a good _petit quart d'heure_, when the
+drawing-room door opened, and in glided, not the Goddess, but the
+Spider.
+
+"She had come to beg Monsieur (that was me) to have the bounty to excuse
+Madam (that was the Waldoborough), who had caused herself to be waited
+for, and who, I was assured, would give herself '_le plaisir de me voir
+dans un tout petit moment_.' So saying, with a smile, she seated
+herself; and, discovering that I was an American, began to talk bad
+English to me. I may say execrable English; for it is a habit your
+Frenchwoman often has, to abandon her own facile and fluent vernacular,
+which she speaks so charmingly, in order to show off a wretched
+smattering she may have acquired of your language,--from politeness,
+possibly, but I rather think from vanity. In the mean time Arachne
+busied her long agile fingers with some very appropriate embroidery; and
+busied her mind, too, I couldn't help thinking, weaving some intricate
+web of mischief,--for her eyes sparkled as they looked at me with a
+certain gleeful, malicious expression,--seeming to say, 'You have walked
+into my parlor, Mr. Fly, and I am sure to entangle you!' which made me
+feel uncomfortable.
+
+"The '_tout petit moment_' had become another good quarter of an hour,
+when the door again opened, and Madam--Madam herself--the Waldoborough
+appeared! Did you ever see flounces? did you ever witness expansion?
+have your eyes ever beheld the--so to speak--new-risen sun trailing
+clouds of glory over the threshold of the dawn? You should have seen
+Madam enter that room; you should have seen the effulgence of the
+greeting smile she gave me; then you wouldn't wonder that I was dazzled.
+
+"She filled and overflowed with her magnificence the most royal fauteuil
+in the saloon, and talked to me of my Todworth cousin, and of my
+Todworth cousin's husband, and of London, and America,--occasionally
+turning aside to show off her bad French by speaking to the Spider,
+until another quarter of an hour had elapsed. Then Paris was mentioned;
+one of us happened to speak of the Gobelins,--I cannot now recall which
+it was first uttered that fatal word to me, the direful spring of woes
+unnumbered! Had I visited the Gobelins? I had not, but I anticipated
+having that pleasure soon.
+
+"'Long as I have lived in Paris, I have never yet been to the Gobelins!'
+says Mrs. Waldoborough. '_Mademoiselle_' (that was Arachne) '_m'accuse
+toujours d'avoir tort, et me dit que je dois y aller, n'est ce pas,
+Mademoiselle?_'
+
+"'_Certainement!_' says Mademoiselle, emphatically; and in return for
+Madam's ill-spoken French, she added in English, of even worse quality,
+that the Gobelins' manufacture of tapisserie and carpet, was the place
+the moz curiouze and interressante which one could go see in Paris.
+
+"'_C'est ce qu'elle dit toujours_,' says the Waldoborough. 'But I make
+great allowances for her opinions, since she is an enthusiast with
+regard to everything that pertains to weaving.'
+
+"'Very natural that she should be, being a Spider,' I thought, but did
+not say so.
+
+"'However,' Madam continued, 'I should like extremely well to go there,
+if I could ever get the time. _Quand aurai-je le tems, Mademoiselle?_'
+
+"'I sink zis af'noon is more time zan you have anozer day, Madame,' says
+the Spider.
+
+"So the net was completed, and I was caught thus: Mrs. Waldoborough,
+with an hospitable glance at me, referred the proposition; and I said,
+if she would like to go that day, she must not let me hinder her, and
+offered to take my leave; and Arachne said, 'Monsieur perhaps he like go
+too?' And as Madam suggested ordering the carriage for the purpose, of
+course I jumped at the chance. To ride in that carriage! with the
+Waldoborough herself! with the driver before and the footman behind, in
+livery! O ye gods!
+
+"I was abandoned to intoxicating dreams of ambition, whilst Madam went
+to prepare herself, and Mademoiselle to order the carriage. It was not
+long before I heard a vehicle enter the court-yard, turn, and stop in
+the carriage-way, I tried to catch a glimpse of it from the window, but
+saw it only in imagination,--that barouche of barouches, which is
+Waldoborough's! I imagined myself seated luxuriously in that shell, with
+Madam by my side, rolling through the streets of Paris in even greater
+state than I had rolled through London with my Todworth cousin. I was
+impatient to be experiencing the new sensation. The moments dragged:
+five, ten, fifteen minutes at least elapsed, and all the while the
+carriage and I were waiting. Then appeared--who do you suppose? The
+Spider, dressed for an excursion. 'So she is going too!' thought I, not
+very well pleased. She had in her arms--what do you suppose? A
+confounded little lapdog,--the spaniel you saw just now with his nose
+just above the crinoline.
+
+"'Monsieur,' says she, 'I desire make you know the King Fran�ois.' I
+hate lapdogs; but, in order to be civil, I offered to pat his majesty
+on the head. That, however, did not seem to be court-etiquette; and I
+got snapped at by the little despot. 'Our compagnon of voyage,' says
+Mademoiselle, pacifying him with caresses.
+
+"'So, he is going too?' thought I,--so unreasonable as to feel a little
+dissatisfied; as if I had a right to say who should or who should not
+ride in Madam Waldoborough's carriage.
+
+"Mademoiselle sat with her hat on, and held the pup; and I sat with my
+hat in my hand, and held my peace; and she talked bad English to me, and
+good French to the dog, for, may be, ten minutes longer, when the
+Waldoborough swept in, arrayed for the occasion, and said, '_Maintenant
+nous irons_.' That was the signal for descending: as we did so, Madam
+casually remarked, that something was the matter with one of the
+Waldoborough horses, but that she had not thought it worth the while to
+give up our visit to the Gobelins on that account, since a _coup�_ would
+answer our purpose;--and the _coup�s_ in that quarter were really very
+respectable!
+
+"This considerate remark was as a feather-bed to break the frightful
+fall before me. You think I tumbled down the Waldoborough stairs? Worse
+than that: I dropped headlong, precipitately, from the heights of fairy
+dreams to low actuality; all the way down, down, down, from the
+Waldoborough barouche to a hired coach, a _voiture de remise_, that
+stood in its place at the door!
+
+"'Mademoiselle suggested that it would be quite as well to go in a
+_coup�_,' says Mrs. Waldoborough, as she got in.
+
+"'O certainly,' I replied, with preternatural cheerfulness. But I could
+have killed the Spider; for I suspected this was a part of the plot she
+had been weaving to entangle me.
+
+"It was a vehicle with two horses and seats for four; one driver in a
+red face,--the common livery of your Paris hackman; but no footman, no
+footman, no footman!" Hubert repeated, with a groan. "Not so much as a
+little tiger clinging to the straps behind! I comforted myself, however,
+with the reflection that beggars must not be choosers; that, if I rode
+with Madam, I must accept her style of turn-out; and that if I was a
+good boy, and went in the _coup�_ this time, I might go in the barouche
+the next.
+
+"Madam occupied the back seat--the seat of honor in a coach--with whom,
+do you suppose? Me? No, sir! With the Spider? Not even with the Spider!
+With the lapdog, sir! And I was forced to content myself with a seat by
+Arachne's side, facing the royal pair.
+
+"'_Aux Gobelins_,' says Mrs. Waldoborough, to the driver; '_mais allez
+par l'H�tel de Ville, le pont Louis Philippe, el l'�glise de N�tre
+Dame,--n'est-ce pas?_' referring the question to me.
+
+"I said, 'As you please.' And the red-faced driver said, '_Bien,
+Madame!_' as he shut us into the coach. And off we went by the H�tel de
+Ville, the Pont Louis Philippe, and N�tre Dame, accordingly.
+
+"We stopped a few minutes to look at the Cathedral front; then rattled
+on, up the Quai and across the Pont de l'Archev�ch�, and through the
+crooked, countless streets until we reached the Gobelins; and I must
+confess I did not yet experience any of the sublime emotions I had
+counted upon in riding with the distinguished Madam Waldoborough.
+
+"You have been to the Gobelins? If you haven't, you must go there,--not
+with two ladies and a lapdog, as I did, but independently, and you will
+find the visit well worth the trouble. The establishment derives its
+name from an obscure wool-dyer of the fifteenth century, Jean Gobelin,
+whose little workshop has grown to be one of the most extensive and
+magnificent carpet and tapestry manufactories in the world.
+
+"We found liveried attendants stationed at every door and turning-point,
+to direct the crowds of visitors and to keep out dogs. No dog could be
+admitted except in arms. I suggested that King Francis should be left in
+the coach; upon which Mrs. Waldoborough asked, reproachfully, 'Could I
+be so cruel?' and the Spider looked at me as if I had been an American
+savage. To atone for my inhumanity, I offered to carry the cur; he was
+put into my arms at once; and so it happened that I walked through that
+wonderful series of rooms, hung with tapestries of the richest
+description, of the times of Francis I., Louis XIV., and so forth, with
+a detested lapdog in my hands. However, I showed my heroism by enduring
+my fate without a murmur, and quoting Tennyson for the gratification of
+Mrs. Waldoborough, who was reminded of the corridors of 'The Palace of
+Art.'
+
+    'Some were hung with arras green and blue,
+      Showing a gaudy summer-morn,
+    Where with puffed cheek the belted hunter blew
+        His wreath�d bugle-horn.'
+
+    'One showed an iron coast, and angry waves.
+      You seemed to hear them climb and fall,
+    And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,
+        Beneath the windy wall.'
+
+    'Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasped,
+      From off her shoulder backward borne:
+    From one hand drooped a crocus: one hand grasped
+        The mild bull's golden horn.'
+
+And so forth, and so on. I continued my citations in order to keep
+Madam's mouth shut; for she annoyed me exceedingly by telling everybody
+she had occasion to speak with who she was.
+
+"'_Je suis Madame Waldoborough; et je d�sire savoir_' this thing, or
+that,--whatever she wished to inquire about; as if all the world knew of
+her fame, and she had only to state, 'I am that distinguished
+personage,' in order to command the utmost deference and respect.
+
+"From the show-rooms we passed on to the work-rooms, where we found the
+patient weavers sitting or standing at the back side of their pieces,
+with their baskets of many-colored spools at their sides, and the
+paintings they were copying behind them, slowly building up their
+imitative fabrics, loop after loop, and stitch after stitch, by hand.
+Madam told the workmen who she was, and learned that one had been at
+work six months on his picture; it was a female figure kneeling to a
+colossal pair of legs, destined to support a warrior, whose upper
+proportions waited to be drawn out of the spool-baskets. Another had
+been a year at work on a headless Virgin with a babe in her arms,
+finished only to the eyes. Sometimes ten, or even twenty years, are
+expended by one man upon a single piece of tapestry; but the patience of
+the workmen is not more wonderful than the art with which they select
+and blend their colors, passing from the softest to the most brilliant
+shades, without fault, as the work they are copying requires.
+
+"From the tapestry-weaving we passed on to the carpet-weaving rooms,
+where the workmen have the right side of their fabric before them, and
+the designs to be copied over their heads. Some of the patterns were of
+the most gorgeous description,--vines, scrolls, flowers, birds, lions,
+men; and the way they passed from the reflecting brain through the
+fingers of the weaver into the woollen texture was marvellous to behold.
+I could have spent some hours in the establishment pleasantly enough,
+watching the operatives, but for that terrible annoyance, the dog in my
+arms. I could not put him down, and I could not ask the ladies to take
+him. The Spider was in her element; she forgot everything but the toil
+of her fellow-spiders, and it was almost impossible to get her away from
+any piece she once became interested in. Madam, busy in telling who she
+was and asking questions, gave me little attention; so that I found
+myself more in the position of a lackey than a companion. I had
+regretted that her footman did not accompany us; but what need was there
+of a footman as long as she had me?
+
+"In half and hour I had become weary of the lapdog and the Gobelins, and
+wished to get away. But no,--Madam must tell more people who she was,
+and make further inquiries; and as for Arachne, I believe she would have
+remained there until this time. Another half-hour, and another, and
+still the good part of another, exhausted the strength of my arms and
+the endurance of my soul, until at last Mrs. Waldoborough said, '_Eh
+bien, nous avons tout vu, n'est-ce pas? Allons donc!_' And we
+_allonged_.
+
+"We found our _coup�_ waiting for us, and I thrust his majesty King
+Francis into it rather unceremoniously. Now you must know that all this
+time Mrs. Waldoborough had not the remotest idea but that she was
+treating me with all due civility. She is one of your thoroughly
+egotistical, self-absorbed women, accustomed to receiving homage, who
+appear to consider that to breathe in their presence and attend upon
+them is sufficient honor and happiness for anybody.
+
+"'Never mind,' thought I, 'she'll invite me to dinner, and may be I
+shall meet an ambassador!'
+
+"Arrived at the Hotel Waldoborough, accordingly, I stepped out of the
+_coup�_, and helped out the ladies and the lapdog, and was going in with
+them, as a matter of course. But the Spider said, 'Do not give yourself
+ze pain, Monsieur!' and relieved me of King Francis. And Madam said,
+'Shall I order the driver to be paid? or will you retain the _coup�_?
+You will want it to take you home. Well, good day,'--offering me two
+fingers to shake. 'I am very happy to have met you; and I hope I shall
+see you at my next reception. Thursday evening, remember; I receive
+Thursday evenings. _Cocher, vous emporterez ce monsieur chez lui,
+comprennez?_'
+
+"'_Bien, Madame!_' says the _cocher_.
+
+"'_Bon jour, Monsieur!_' says Arachne, gayly, tripping up the stairs
+with the king in her arms.
+
+"I was stunned. For a minute I did not know very well what I was about;
+indeed, I should have done very differently if I had had my wits about
+me. I stepped back into the _coup�_,--weary, disheartened, hungry; my
+dinner hour was past long ago; it was now approaching Madam's dinner
+hour, and I was sent away fasting. What was worse, the _coup�_ left for
+me to pay for. It was three hours since it had been ordered; price, two
+francs an hour; total, six francs. I had given the driver my address,
+and we were clattering away towards the Rue des Vieux Augustins, when I
+remembered, with a sinking of the heart I trust you may never
+experience, that I had not six francs in the world,--at least in this
+part of the world,--thanks to my Todworth cousin; that I had, in fact,
+only fifteen paltry sous in my pocket!
+
+"Here was a scrape! I had ridden in Madam Waldoborough's carriage with a
+vengeance! Six francs to pay! and how was I ever to pay it? '_Cocher!
+cocher!_' I cried out, despairingly, '_attendez!_'
+
+"'_Qu'est-il?_' says the _cocher_, stopping promptly.
+
+"Struck with the appalling thought that every additional rod we
+travelled involved an increase of expense, my first impulse was to jump
+out and dismiss him. But then came the more frightful nightmare fancy,
+that it was not possible to dismiss him unless I could pay him! I must
+keep him with me until I could devise some means of raising the six
+francs, which an hour later would be eight francs, and an hour later ten
+francs, and so forth. Every moment that I delayed payment swelled the
+debt; like a ruinous rate of interest, and diminished the possibility of
+ever being able to pay him at all. And of course I could not keep him
+with me forever,--go about the world henceforth in a hired coach, with a
+driver and span of horses impossible to get rid of.
+
+"'_Que veut Monsieur?_' says the driver, looking over at me with his red
+face, and waiting for my orders.
+
+"That recalled me from my hideous revery. I knew I might as well be
+travelling as standing still, since he was to be paid by the hour; so I
+said, 'Drive on, drive faster!'
+
+"I had one hope,--that on reaching my lodgings I might prevail upon the
+_concierge_ to pay for the coach. I stepped out with alacrity, said
+gayly to my coachman, '_Combien est-ce que je vous dois?_' and put my
+hand in among my fifteen sous with an air of confidence.
+
+"The driver looked at his watch, and said, with business-like
+exactness, '_Six francs vingt-cinq centimes, Monsieur._' _Vingt-cinq
+centimes!_ My debt had increased five cents whilst I had been thinking
+about it! '_Avec quelque-chose pour la boisson_,' he added with a
+persuasive smile. With a trifle besides for drink-money,--for that every
+French driver expects.
+
+"Then I appeared to discover, to my surprise, that I had not the change;
+so I cried out to the old woman in the porter's lodge, 'Give this man
+five francs for me, will you?' 'Five francs!' echoed the ogress with
+astonishment: '_Monsieur, je n'ai pas le sou!_'
+
+"I might have known it; of course she wouldn't have a sou for a poor
+devil like me; but the reply fell upon my heart like a death sentence.
+
+"I then proposed to call at the driver's stand and pay him in a day or
+two, if he would trust me. He smiled and shook his head.
+
+"'Very well,' said I, stepping back into the coach, 'drive to number
+five, Cit� Odiot.' I had an acquaintance there, of whom I thought I
+might possibly borrow. The coachman drove away cheerfully, seeming to be
+perfectly well satisfied with the state of things: he was master of the
+situation,--he was having employment, his pay was going on, and he could
+hold me in pledge for the money. We reached the Cit� Odiot: I ran in at
+number five, and up stairs to my friend's room. It was locked; he was
+away from home.
+
+"I had but one other acquaintance in Paris on whom I could venture to
+call for a loan of a few francs; and he lived far away, across the
+Seine, in the Rue Racine. There seemed to be no alternative; so away we
+posted, carrying my ever-increasing debt, dragging at each remove a
+lengthening chain. We reached the Rue Racine; I found my friend; I wrung
+his hand. 'For Heaven's sake,' said I, 'help me to get rid of this Old
+Man of the Sea,--this elephant won in a raffle!'
+
+"I explained. He laughed. 'What a funny adventure!' says he. 'And how
+curious that at this time, of all others, I haven't ten sous in the
+world! But I'll tell you what I can do,' says he.
+
+"'For mercy's sake, what?'
+
+"'I can get you out of the building by a private passage, take you
+through into the Rue de la Harpe, and let you escape. Your coachman will
+remain waiting for you at the door until you have traversed half Paris.
+That will be a capital point to the joke,--a splendid _finale_ for your
+little comedy!'
+
+"I confess to you that, perplexed and desperate as I was, I felt for an
+instant tempted to accept this infamous suggestion. Not that I would
+willingly have wronged the coachman; but since there was no hope of
+doing him justice, why not do the best thing for myself? If I could not
+save my honor, I might at least save my person. And I own that the
+picture of him which presented itself to my mind, waiting at the door so
+complacently, so stolidly, intent only on sticking by me at the rate of
+two francs an hour until paid off,--without feeling a shadow of sympathy
+for my distress, but secretly laughing at it, doubtless,--that provoked
+me; and I was pleased to think of him waiting there still, after I
+should have escaped, until at last his beaming red face would suddenly
+grow purple with wrath, and his placidity change to consternation, on
+discovering that he had been outwitted. But I knew too well what he
+would do. He would report me to the police! Worse than that, he would
+report me to Madam Waldoborough!
+
+"Already I fancied him, with his whip under his arm, smilingly taking
+off his hat, and extending his hand to the amazed and indignant lady,
+with a polite request that she would pay for that _coup�_! What _coup�_?
+And he would tell his story, and the Goddess would be thunderstruck; and
+the eyes of the Spider would sparkle wickedly; and I should be damned
+forever!
+
+"Then I could see the Parisian detectives--the best in the world--going
+to take down from the lady's lips a minute description of the
+adventurer, the swindler, who had imposed upon them, and attempted to
+cheat a poor hack-driver out of his hard-earned wages! Then would
+appear the reports in the newspapers,--how a well-dressed young man, an
+American, Monsieur X., (or perhaps my name would be given,) had been the
+means of enlivening the fashionable circles of Paris with a choice bit
+of scandal, by inviting a very distinguished lady, also an American,
+(whose Thursday evening receptions we well know, attended by some of the
+most illustrious French and foreign residents in the metropolis,) to
+accompany him on a tour of inspection to the Gobelins, and had
+afterwards been guilty of the unexampled baseness of leaving the _coup�_
+he had employed standing, unpaid, at the door of a certain house in the
+Rue Racine, whilst he escaped by a private passage into the Rue de la
+Harpe, and so forth, and so forth. I saw it all. I blushed, I shuddered
+at the fancied ignominy of the exposure.
+
+"'No,' said I; 't is impossible! If you can't help me to the money, I
+must try--but where, how can I hope to raise eight francs, (for it is
+four hours by this time, to say nothing of the drink-money!)--how can I
+ever hope to raise that sum in Paris?'
+
+"'You can pawn your watch,' says my false friend, rubbing his hands, and
+smiling, as if he really enjoyed the comicality of the thing.
+
+"But I had already eaten my watch, as the French say: it had been a week
+at the Mont de Pi�t�.
+
+"'Your coat then,' says my counsellor, with good-mannered unconcern.
+
+"'And go in my shirt-sleeves?' for I had placed my trunk and its
+contents in the charge of my landlord, as security for the payment of my
+board and room-rent.
+
+"'In that case, I don't see what you will do, unless you take my
+original advice, and dodge the fellow.'
+
+"I left my fair-weather acquaintance in disgust, and went off, literally
+staggering under the load, the ever-increasing load, the Pelion upon
+Ossa, of francs, francs, francs,--despair, despair, despair.
+
+"'_Eh bien?_' says the driver, interrogatively, as I went out to him.
+
+"'_Pas de chance!_' And I ordered him to drive back to the Cit� Odiot.
+
+"'_Bien!_' says he, polite as ever, cheery as ever; and away we went
+again, back across the Seine, up the Champs �lys�es, into the Rue de
+l'Oratoire, to the Cit�,--my stomach faint, my head aching, my thoughts
+whirling, and the carriage wheels rattling, clattering, chattering all
+the way, 'Two francs an hour and drink-money! Two francs an hour and
+drink-money!'
+
+"Once more I tried my luck at number five, and was filled with
+exasperation and dismay to find that my friend had been home, and gone
+off again in great haste, with a portmanteau in his hand.
+
+"Where had he gone? Nobody knew; but he had given his key to the
+house-servant, saying he would be absent several days.
+
+"'_Pensez-vous qu'il est all� � Londres?_' I hurriedly inquired.
+
+"'_Monsieur, je n'en sais rien_,' was the calm, decisive response.
+
+"I knew he often went to London; and now my only hope was to catch him
+at one of the railway stations. But by which route would he be like to
+go? I thought of only one, that by way of Calais, by which I had come,
+and I ordered my coachman to drive with all speed to the Northern
+Railway Station. He looked a little glum at this, and his '_Bien!_'
+sounded a good deal like the 'bang' of the coach-door, as he shut it
+rather sharply in my face.
+
+"Again we were off, my head hotter than ever, my feet like ice, and the
+coach-wheels saying vivaciously, as before, 'Two francs an hour, and
+drink-money! Two francs an hour, and drink-money!' I was terribly afraid
+we should be too late; but on arriving at the station, I found there was
+no train at all. One had left in the afternoon, and another would leave
+late in the evening. Then I happened to think there were other routes to
+London, by the way of Dieppe and Havre. My friend might have gone by one
+of those! Yes, there was a train at about that time, my driver somewhat
+sullenly informed me,--for he was fast losing his cheerfulness: perhaps
+it was his supper-time, or perhaps he was in a hurry for his
+drink-money. Did he know where the stations were? Know? of course he
+did! There was but one terminus for both routes; that was in the Rue St.
+Lazare. Could he reach it before the train started? Possibly; but his
+horses were jaded; they needed feeding. And why didn't I tell him before
+that I wished to stop there? for we had come through the Rue St. Lazare,
+and actually passed the railway station there, on our way from the Cit�
+Odiot! That was vexing to think of, but there was no help for it; so
+back we flew on our course, to catch, if possible the train, and my
+friend, who I was certain was going in it.
+
+"We reached the Lazarus Street Station; and I, all in a frenzy of
+apprehension, rushed in, to experience one of those fearful trials of
+temper to which nervous men--especially nervous Americans in Paris--are
+sometimes subject. The train was about starting; but, owing to the
+strict regulations which are everywhere enforced on French railways, I
+could not even force myself into the passenger-room,--much less get
+through the gate, and past the guard, to the platform where the cars
+were standing. Nobody could enter there without a ticket. My friend was
+going, and I could not rush in and catch him, and borrow my--ten francs,
+I suppose, by that time, because I had not a ticket, nor money to buy a
+ticket! I laugh now at the image of myself, as I must have appeared
+then,--frantically explaining what I could of the circumstances to any
+of the officials who would hear me,--pouring forth torrents of broken
+and hardly intelligible French, now shrieking to make myself understood,
+and now groaning with despair,--questioning, cursing, imploring,--and
+receiving the invariable, the inexorable reply, always polite, but
+always firm,--
+
+"'ON NE PASSE PAS, MONSIEUR.'
+
+"Absolutely no admittance! And while I was convulsing myself in vain,
+the train started! It was off,--my friend was gone, and I was ruined
+forever!
+
+"When the worst has happened, and we feel that it is so, and our own
+efforts are no longer of any avail, then we become calm: the heart
+accepts the fate it knows to be inevitable. The bankrupt, after all his
+anxious nights and terrible days of struggle, is almost happy at last,
+when all is over. Even the convict sleeps soundly on the night preceding
+his execution. Just so I recovered my self-possession and equanimity
+after the train had departed.
+
+"I went back to my hackman. His serenity had vanished as mine had
+arrived; and the fury that possessed me seemed to pass over and take up
+its abode with him.
+
+"'Will you pay me?' he demanded, fiercely.
+
+"'My friend,' said I, 'it is impossible.' And I repeated my proposition
+to call and settle with him in a day or two.
+
+"'And you will not pay me now?' he vociferated.
+
+"'My friend, I cannot.'
+
+"'Then I know what I shall do!' turning away with a gesture of rage.
+
+"'I have done what I could, now you shall try what you can,' I answered,
+mildly.
+
+"'_�coutez donc!_' he hissed, turning once more upon me. 'I go to Madam,
+I demand my pay of her. What do you say to that?'
+
+"A few minutes before I should have been overwhelmed by the suggestion.
+I was not pleased with it now. No man who has enjoyed the society of
+ladies, and fancied that he appeared smart in their presence, fancies
+the idea of being utterly shamed and humiliated in their eyes. I ought
+to have had the courage to say to Mrs. Waldoborough, when she had the
+coolness to send me off with the _coup�_, instead of my dinner: 'Excuse
+me, Madam, I have not the money to pay this man!'
+
+"It would have been bitter, that confession; but better one pill at the
+beginning of a malady than a whole boxful afterwards. Better truth,
+anyhow, though it kills you, than a precarious existence on false
+appearances. I had, by my own folly, through toadyism in the first place
+and moral cowardice afterwards, placed myself in an embarrassing and
+ludicrous position; and I must take the consequences.
+
+"'Very well,' said I, 'if you are absolutely bent on having your money
+to-night, I suppose that it is the best thing you can do. But say to
+Madam that I expect my uncle by the next steamer; that I wished you to
+wait till his arrival for your pay; and that you not only refused, but
+put me to a great deal of trouble. It is nothing extraordinary,' I
+continued, in the hope to soften him, 'for gay young men, Americans, to
+be without money for a few days in Paris, expecting remittances from
+home; and you fellows ought to be more accommodating.'
+
+"'True! true!' says the driver, turning again to go. 'But I must have my
+pay all the same. I shall tell Madam what you say.'
+
+"He was going. And now happened one of those wonderful things which
+sometimes occur in real life, but which, in novels, we pronounce
+improbable. Whilst we were speaking a train arrived; and I noticed a
+little withered old man,--a little smirking mummy of a man,--with a face
+all wrinkles and smiles, coming out of the building with his coat on his
+arm. I noticed him, because he was so ancient and dried up, and yet so
+happy, whilst I was so young and fresh, and yet so miserable. And I was
+wondering at his self-satisfaction, when I saw--what think
+you?--something fall to the ground from the waist-pocket of the coat he
+carried on his arm! It was--will you believe it?--a pocket-book!--a fat
+pocket-book, a respectable, well-worn pocket-book!--the pocket-book of a
+millionnaire, by Jove! I pounced upon it, like an eagle upon a rabbit.
+He was passing on when I ran after him, politely called his attention,
+and surprised him with a presentation of what he supposed was all the
+time conveyed safely in his coat.
+
+"'Is it possible!' said he, in very poor French, which betrayed him to
+be a foreigner like myself. 'You are very kind,--very honest,--very
+obliging, very obliging indeed!'
+
+"If thanks and smiles would answer my purpose, I had them in profusion.
+He looked to see that the pocket-book had not been opened, and thanked
+me again and again. He seemed very anxious to do the polite thing, yet
+still more anxious to be passing on. But I would not let him pass on; I
+held him with my glittering eye.
+
+"'Ah!' said he, 'perhaps you won't feel yourself injured by the
+offer,'--for he saw that I was well dressed, and probably hesitated on
+that account to reward me,--'perhaps you will take something for your
+honesty, for your trouble.' And putting his hand in his pantaloons
+pocket, he took it out again, with the palm covered with glittering gold
+pieces.
+
+"'Sir,' said I, 'I am ashamed to accept anything for so trifling a
+service; but I owe this man here,--how much is it now?'
+
+"'Ten francs and a half,' says the driver, whom I had stopped just in
+time.
+
+"'Ten francs and a half,' I repeated.
+
+"'_Mais n'oubliez pas la boisson_,' he added, his persuasive smile
+returning.
+
+"'With something for his dram,' I continued: 'which if you will have the
+kindness to pay him, and at the same time give me your address, I will
+see that the money is returned to you without fail in a day or two.'
+
+"The smiling little man paid the money on the spot; saying it was of no
+consequence, and neglecting to give me his address. And he went his way
+well satisfied, and the driver went his, also well satisfied; and I went
+mine, infinitely better satisfied, I imagine, than either of them.
+
+"Well, I had got rid of Madam Waldoborough's carriage, and learned a
+lesson which, I think, will last me the rest of my life. If ever again
+I run after great folks, or place myself in a false position through
+folly or cowardice, may the Fates confound me! But I must haste and tell
+you the curious _d�nouement_ of the affair.
+
+"I was not so anxious to cultivate Madam's acquaintance _after_ riding
+in her carriage, you may well believe. For months I did not see her. At
+last my Todworth cousin and her yellow-complexioned husband came to
+town, and I went with my uncle to call upon them at Meurice's Hotel.
+They were delighted to see me, and fondly pressed me to come and take a
+room adjoining their suite, as I did at Cox's. A card was brought in. My
+cousin smiled, and directed that the visitor should be admitted. There
+was a rustle,--a volume of flounces came sweeping in,--a well-remembered
+voice cried, 'My dear Louise!'--and my Todworth cousin was clasped in
+the buxom embrace of Madam Waldoborough.
+
+"But what did I behold? Following in Madam's wake, like a skiff towed at
+the stern of a rushing side-wheel steamer, a dapper little old man, a
+withered little old man, a gayly smiling little old man, whose
+countenance was somehow strangely familiar to me. I considered him a
+moment, and the scene in the Rue St. Lazare, with the _coup�_ driver and
+the man with the pocket-book, flashed across my mind. This was the man!
+I remembered him well; but he had evidently forgotten me.
+
+"Madam released Louise from her divine large arms, and greeted the
+yellow-complexioned one. Then she was introduced to my uncle. Then the
+bride said, 'You know my cousin Herbert, I believe?'
+
+"'Ah, yes!' says the Waldoborough, who had glanced at me curiously, but
+doubtfully, 'I recognize him now!' giving me a smile and two fingers. 'I
+thought I had seen him somewhere. You have been to one or two of my
+receptions, haven't you?'
+
+"'I have not yet had that pleasure,' said I.
+
+"'Ah, I remember now! You called one morning, didn't you? And we went
+somewhere together,--where did we go?--or was it some other gentleman?'
+
+"I said I thought it must have been some other gentleman; for indeed I
+could hardly believe now that I was that fool.
+
+"'Very likely,' said she; 'for I see so many,--my receptions, you know,
+Louise, are always so crowded! But, dear me, what am I thinking of?
+Where are you, my love?' and the steamer brought the skiff alongside.
+
+"'Louise, and gentlemen,' then said my lady, with a magnificent
+courtesy, the very wind of which I feared would blow him away,--but he
+advanced triumphantly, bowing and smiling extravagantly,--'allow me the
+happiness of presenting to you Mr. John Waldoborough, my husband.'
+
+"How I refrained from shrieking and throwing myself on the floor, I
+never well knew; for I declare to you, I was never so caught by surprise
+and tickled through and through by any _d�nouement_ or situation, in or
+off the stage! To think that pigmy, that wart, that little grimacing
+monkey of a man, parchment-faced, antique,--a mere moneybag on two
+sticks,--should be the husband of the great and glorious Madam
+Waldoborough! His wondrous self-satisfaction was accounted for.
+Moreover, I saw that Heaven's justice was done: Madam's husband had paid
+for Madam's carriage!"
+
+Here Herbert concluded his story. And it was time; for the day had
+closed, as we walked up and down, and the sudden November night had come
+on. Gas-light had replaced the light of the sun throughout the streets
+of the city. The brilliant cressets of the Place de la Concorde flamed
+like a constellation; and the Avenue des Champs �lys�es, with its rows
+of lamps, and the throngs of carriages, each bearing now its lighted
+lantern, moving along that far-extending slope, looked like a new Milky
+Way, fenced with lustrous stars, and swarming with meteoric fire-flies.
+
+
+
+
+PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.
+
+
+IV.
+
+_Salem, August 22d, 1837._--A walk yesterday afternoon down to the
+Juniper and Winter Island. Singular effect of partial sunshine, the sky
+being broadly and heavily clouded, and land and sea, in consequence,
+being generally overspread with a sombre gloom. But the sunshine,
+somehow or other, found its way between the interstices of the clouds,
+and illuminated some of the distant objects very vividly. The white
+sails of a ship caught it, and gleamed brilliant as sunny snow, the hull
+being scarcely visible, and the sea around dark; other smaller vessels
+too, so that they looked like heavenly-winged things just alighting on a
+dismal world. Shifting their sails, perhaps, or going on another tack,
+they almost disappear at once in the obscure distance. Islands are seen
+in summer sunshine and green glory; their rocks also sunny and their
+beaches white; while other islands, for no apparent reason, are in deep
+shade, and share the gloom of the rest of the world. Sometimes part of
+an island is illuminated and part dark. When the sunshine falls on a
+very distant island, nearer ones being in shade, it seems greatly to
+extend the bounds of visible space, and put the horizon to a farther
+distance. The sea roughly rushing against the shore, and dashing against
+the rocks, and grating back over the sands. A boat a little way from the
+shore, tossing and swinging at anchor. Beach birds flitting from place
+to place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The family seat of the Hawthornes is Wigcastle, Wigton, Wiltshire. The
+present head of the family, now residing there, is Hugh Hawthorne.
+William Hawthorne, who came over in 1635-6, was a younger brother of the
+family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A young man and girl meet together, each in search of a person to be
+known by some particular sign. They watch and wait a great while for
+that person to pass. At last some casual circumstance discloses that
+each is the one that the other is waiting for. Moral,--that what we need
+for our happiness is often close at hand, if we knew but how to seek for
+it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The journal of a human heart for a single day in ordinary circumstances.
+The lights and shadows that flit across it; its internal vicissitudes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Distrust to be thus exemplified:--Various good and desirable things to
+be presented to a young man, and offered to his acceptance,--as a
+friend, a wife, a fortune; but he to refuse them all, suspecting that it
+is merely a delusion. Yet all to be real, and he to be told so, when too
+late.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man tries to be happy in love; he cannot sincerely give his heart, and
+the affair seems all a dream. In domestic life, the same; in politics, a
+seeming patriot; but still he is sincere, and all seems like a theatre.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An old man, on a summer day, sits on a hill-top, or on the observatory
+of his house, and sees the sunshine pass from one object to another
+connected with the events of his past life,--as the school-house, the
+place where his wife lived in her maidenhood,--its setting beams falling
+on the churchyard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An idle man's pleasures and occupations and thoughts during a day spent
+by the sea-shore: among them, that of sitting on the top of a cliff, and
+throwing stones at his own shadow, far below.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A blind man to set forth on a walk through ways unknown to him, and to
+trust to the guidance of anybody who will take the trouble; the
+different characters who would undertake it: some mischievous, some
+well-meaning, but incapable; perhaps one blind man undertakes to lead
+another. At last, possibly, he rejects all guidance, and blunders on by
+himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the cabinet of the Essex Historical Society, old portraits.--Governor
+Leverett; a dark moustachioed face, the figure two-thirds length,
+clothed in a sort of frock coat, buttoned, and a broad sword-belt girded
+round the waist, and fastened with a large steel buckle; the hilt of the
+sword steel,--altogether very striking. Sir William Pepperell in English
+regimentals, coat, waistcoat, and breeches, all of red broadcloth,
+richly gold-embroidered; he holds a general's truncheon in his right
+hand, and extends the left towards the batteries erected against
+Louisbourg, in the country near which he is standing. Endicott,
+Pyncheon, and others, in scarlet robes, bands, &c. Half a dozen or more
+family portraits of the Olivers, some in plain dresses, brown, crimson,
+or claret; others with gorgeous gold-embroidered waistcoats, descending
+almost to the knees, so as to form the most conspicuous article of
+dress. Ladies, with lace ruffles, the painting of which, in one of the
+pictures, cost five guineas. Peter Oliver, who was crazy, used to fight
+with these family pictures in the old Mansion House; and the face and
+breast of one lady bear cuts and stabs inflicted by him. Miniatures in
+oil, with the paint peeling off, of stern, old, yellow faces. Oliver
+Cromwell, apparently an old picture, half length or one third, in an
+oval frame, probably painted for some New England partisan. Some
+pictures that had been partly obliterated by scrubbing with sand. The
+dresses, embroidery, laces of the Oliver family are generally better
+done than the faces. Governor Leverett's gloves,--the glove-part of
+coarse leather, but round the wrist a deep three or four inch border of
+spangles and silver embroidery. Old drinking-glasses, with tall stalks.
+A black glass bottle, stamped with the name of Philip English, with a
+broad bottom. The baby-linen, &c. of Governor Bradford of Plymouth
+colony. Old manuscript sermons, some written in shorthand, others in a
+hand that seems learnt from print.
+
+Nothing gives a stronger idea of old worm-eaten aristocracy--of a family
+being crazy with age, and of its being time that it was extinct--than
+these black, dusty, faded, antique-dressed portraits, such as those of
+the Oliver family; the identical old white wig of an ancient minister
+producing somewhat the impression that his very scalp, or some other
+portion of his personal self, would do.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The excruciating agonies which Nature inflicts on men (who break her
+laws) to be represented as the work of human tormentors; as the gout, by
+screwing the toes. Thus we might find that worse than the tortures of
+the Spanish Inquisition are daily suffered without exciting notice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suppose a married couple fondly attached to one another, and to think
+that they lived solely for one another; then it to be found out that
+they were divorced, or that they might separate if they chose. What
+would be its effect?
+
+
+_Monday, August 27th._--Went to Boston last Wednesday. Remarkables:--An
+author at the American Stationers' Company, slapping his hand on his
+manuscript, and crying, "I'm going to publish."--An excursion aboard a
+steamboat to Thompson's Island, to visit the Manual Labor School for
+boys. Aboard the steamboat several poets and various other authors; a
+Commodore,--Colton, a small, dark brown, sickly man, with a good deal of
+roughness in his address; Mr. Waterston, talking poetry and philosophy.
+Examination and exhibition of the boys, little tanned agriculturists.
+After examination, a stroll round the island, examining the products, as
+wheat in sheaves on the stubble-field; oats, somewhat blighted and
+spoiled; great pumpkins elsewhere; pastures; mowing ground;--all
+cultivated by the boys. Their residence, a great brick building, painted
+green, and standing on the summit of a rising ground, exposed to the
+winds of the bay. Vessels flitting past; great ships, with intricacy of
+rigging and various sails; schooners, sloops, with their one or two
+broad sheets of canvas: going on different tacks, so that the spectator
+might think that there was a different wind for each vessel, or that
+they scudded across the sea spontaneously, whither their own wills led
+them. The farm boys remain insulated, looking at the passing show,
+within sight of the city, yet having nothing to do with it; beholding
+their fellow-creatures skimming by them in winged machines, and
+steamboats snorting and puffing through the waves. Methinks an island
+would be the most desirable of all landed property, for it seems like a
+little world by itself; and the water may answer instead of the
+atmosphere that surrounds planets. The boys swinging, two together,
+standing up, and almost causing the ropes and their bodies to stretch
+out horizontally. On our departure, they ranged themselves on the rails
+of the fence, and, being dressed in blue, looked not unlike a flock of
+pigeons.
+
+On Friday, a visit to the Navy Yard at Charlestown, in company with the
+Naval Officer of Boston, and Cilley. Dined aboard the revenue cutter
+Hamilton. A pretty cabin, finished off with bird's-eye maple and
+mahogany; two looking-glasses. Two officers in blue frocks, with a
+stripe of lace on each shoulder. Dinner, chowder, fried fish, corned
+beef,--claret, afterwards champagne. The waiter tells the Captain of the
+cutter that Captain Percival (Commander of the Navy Yard) is sitting on
+the deck of the anchor hoy, (which lies inside of the cutter,) smoking
+his cigar. The Captain sends him a glass of champagne, and inquires of
+the waiter what Percival says to it. "He said, sir, 'What does he send
+me this damned stuff for?' but drinks, nevertheless." The Captain
+characterizes Percival as the roughest old devil that ever was in his
+manners, but a kind, good-hearted man at bottom. By and by comes in the
+steward. "Captain Percival is coming aboard of you, sir." "Well, ask him
+to walk down into the cabin"; and shortly down comes old Captain
+Percival, a white-haired, thin-visaged, weather-worn old gentleman, in a
+blue Quaker-cut coat, with tarnished lace and brass buttons, a pair of
+drab pantaloons, and brown waistcoat. There was an eccentric expression
+in his face, which seemed partly wilful, partly natural. He has not
+risen to his present rank in the regular line of the profession; but
+entered the navy as a sailing-master, and has all the roughness of that
+class of officers. Nevertheless, he knows how to behave and to talk like
+a gentleman. Sitting down, and taking in hand a glass of champagne, he
+began a lecture on economy, and how well it was that Uncle Sam had a
+broad back, being compelled to bear so many burdens as were laid on
+it,--alluding to the table covered with wine-bottles. Then he spoke of
+the fitting up of the cabin with expensive woods,--of the brooch in
+Captain Scott's bosom. Then he proceeded to discourse of politics,
+taking the opposite side to Cilley, and arguing with much pertinacity.
+He seems to have moulded and shaped himself to his own whims, till a
+sort of rough affectation has become thoroughly imbued throughout a
+kindly nature. He is full of antique prejudices against the modern
+fashions of the younger officers, their moustaches and such fripperies,
+and prophesies little better than disgrace in case of another war;
+owning that the boys would fight for their country, and die for her, but
+denying that there are any officers now like Hull and Stuart, whose
+exploits, nevertheless, he greatly depreciated, saying that the Boxer
+and Enterprise fought the only equal battle which we won during the war;
+and that, in that action, an officer had proposed to haul down the stars
+and stripes, and a common sailor threatened to cut him to pieces, if he
+should do so. He spoke of Bainbridge as a sot and a poltroon, who wanted
+to run from the Macedonian, pretending to take her for a line-of-battle
+ship; of Commodore Elliot as a liar; but praised Commodore Downes in the
+highest terms. Percival seems to be the very pattern of old integrity;
+taking as much care of Uncle Sam's interests as if all the money
+expended were to come out of his own pocket. This quality was displayed
+in his resistance to the demand of a new patent capstan for the
+revenue-cutter, which, however, Scott is resolved in such a sailor-like
+way to get, that he will probably succeed. Percival spoke to me of how
+his business in the yard absorbed him, especially the fitting of the
+Columbus seventy-four, of which ship he discoursed with great
+enthusiasm. He seems to have no ambition beyond his present duties,
+perhaps never had any; at any rate, he now passes his life with a sort
+of gruff contentedness, grumbling and growling, yet in good humor
+enough. He is conscious of his peculiarities; for when I asked him
+whether it would be well to make a naval officer Secretary of the Navy,
+he said, "God forbid, for that an old sailor was always full of
+prejudices and stubborn whim-whams," instancing himself; whereto I
+agreed. We went round the Navy Yard with Percival and Commodore Downes,
+the latter a sailor and a gentleman too, with rather more of the ocean
+than the drawing-room about him, but courteous, frank, and good-natured.
+We looked at rope-walks, rigging-lofts, ships in the stocks; and saw the
+sailors of the station laughing and sporting with great mirth and
+cheerfulness, which the Commodore said was much increased at sea. We
+returned to the wharf at Boston in the cutter's boat. Captain Scott, of
+the cutter, told me a singular story of what occurred during the action
+between the Constitution and Macedonian,--he being powder-monkey aboard
+the former ship. A cannon-shot came through the ship's side, and a man's
+head was struck off, probably by a splinter, for it was done without
+bruising the head or body, as clean as by a razor. Well, the man was
+walking pretty briskly at the time of the accident; and Scott seriously
+affirmed that he kept walking onward at the same pace, with two jets of
+blood gushing from his headless trunk, till, after going about twenty
+feet without a head, he sunk down at once, with his legs under him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[In corroboration of the truth of this, see Lord Bacon, Century IV. of
+his Sylva Sylvarum, or Natural History, in Ten Centuries, paragraph
+400.]
+
+On Saturday, I called to see E. H----, having previously appointed a
+meeting for the purpose of inquiring about our name. He is an old
+bachelor, and truly forlorn. The pride of ancestry seems to be his great
+hobby. He had a good many papers in his desk at the Custom-House, which
+he produced and dissertated upon, and afterwards went with me to his
+sister's, and showed me an old book, with a record of the children of
+the first emigrant, (who came over two hundred years ago,) in his own
+handwriting. E----'s manners are gentlemanly, and he seems to be very
+well informed. At a little distance, I think, one would take him to be
+not much over thirty; but nearer to hand one finds him to look rather
+venerable,--perhaps fifty or more. He is nervous, and his hands shook
+while he was looking over the papers, as if he had been startled by my
+visit; and when we came to the crossings of streets, he darted across,
+cautioning me, as if both were in great danger to be run over.
+Nevertheless, being very quick-tempered, he would face the Devil if at
+all irritated. He gave a most forlorn description of his life; how, when
+he came to Salem, there was nobody except Mr. ---- whom he cared about
+seeing; how his position prevented him from accepting of civilities,
+because he had no home where he could return them; in short, he seemed
+about as miserable a being as is to be found anywhere,--lonely, and with
+the sensitiveness to feel his loneliness, and capacities, now withered,
+to have enjoyed the sweets of life. I suppose he is comfortable enough
+when busied in his duties at the Custom-House; for when I spoke to him
+at my entrance, he was too much absorbed to hear me at first. As we
+walked, he kept telling stories of the family, which seemed to have
+comprised many oddities, eccentric men and women, recluses and other
+kinds,--one of old Philip English, (a Jersey man, the name originally
+L'Anglais,) who had been persecuted by John Hawthorne, of witch-time
+memory, and a violent quarrel ensued. When Philip lay on his death-bed,
+he consented to forgive his persecutor; "But if I get well," said he,
+"I'll be damned if I forgive him!" This Philip left daughters, one of
+whom married, I believe, the son of the persecuting John, and thus all
+the legitimate blood of English is in our family. E---- passed from the
+matters of birth, pedigree, and ancestral pride to give vent to the most
+arrant democracy and locofocoism that I ever happened to hear, saying
+that nobody ought to possess wealth longer than his own life, and that
+then it should return to the people, &c. He says old S. I---- has a
+great fund of traditions about the family, which she learned from her
+mother or grandmother, (I forget which,) one of them being a Hawthorne.
+The old lady was a very proud woman, and, as E---- says, "proud of being
+proud," and so is S. I----.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_October 7th, 1837._--A walk in Northfields in the afternoon. Bright
+sunshine and autumnal warmth, giving a sensation quite unlike the same
+degree of warmth in summer. Oaks,--some brown, some reddish, some still
+green; walnuts, yellow,--fallen leaves and acorns lying beneath; the
+footsteps crumple them in walking. In sunny spots beneath the trees,
+where green grass is overstrewn by the dry, fallen foliage, as I passed
+I disturbed multitudes of grasshoppers basking in the warm sunshine; and
+they began to hop, hop, hop, pattering on the dry leaves like big and
+heavy drops of a thunder-shower. They were invisible till they hopped.
+Boys gathering walnuts. Passed an orchard, where two men were gathering
+the apples. A wagon, with barrels, stood among the trees; the men's
+coats flung on the fence; the apples lay in heaps, and each of the men
+was up in a separate tree. They conversed together in loud voices, which
+the air caused to ring still louder, jeering each other, boasting of
+their own feats in shaking down the apples. One got into, the very top
+of his tree, and gave a long and mighty shake, and the big apples came
+down thump, thump, bushels hitting on the ground at once. "There! did
+you ever hear anything like that?" cried he. This sunny scene was
+pretty. A horse feeding apart, belonging to the wagon. The
+barberry-bushes have some red fruit on them, but they are frost-bitten.
+The rose-bushes have their scarlet hips.
+
+Distant clumps of trees, now that the variegated foliage adorns them,
+have a phantasmagorian, an apparition-like appearance. They seem to be
+of some kindred to the crimson and gold cloud-islands. It would not be
+strange to see phantoms peeping forth from their recesses. When the sun
+was almost below the horizon, his rays, gilding the upper branches of a
+yellow walnut-tree, had an airy and beautiful effect,--the gentle
+contrast between the tint of the yellow in the shade, and its ethereal
+gold in the fading sunshine. The woods that crown distant uplands were
+seen to great advantage in these last rays, for the sunshine perfectly
+marked out and distinguished every shade of color, varnishing them as it
+were; while, the country round, both hill and plain, being in gloomy
+shadow, the woods looked the brighter for it.
+
+The tide, being high, had flowed almost into the Cold Spring, so its
+small current hardly issued forth from the basin. As I approached, two
+little eels, about as long as my finger, and slender in proportion,
+wriggled out of the basin. They had come from the salt water. An
+Indian-corn field, as yet unharvested,--huge, golden pumpkins scattered
+among the hills of corn,--a noble-looking fruit. After the sun was down,
+the sky was deeply dyed with a broad sweep of gold, high towards the
+zenith; not flaming brightly, but of a somewhat dusky gold. A piece of
+water extending towards the west, between high banks, caught the
+reflection, and appeared like a sheet of brighter and more glistening
+gold than the sky which made it bright.
+
+Dandelions and blue flowers are still growing in sunny places. Saw in a
+barn a prodigious treasure of onions in their silvery coats, exhaling a
+penetrating perfume.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How exceeding bright looks the sunshine, casually reflected from a
+looking-glass into a gloomy region of the chamber, distinctly marking
+out the figures and colors of the paper hangings, which are scarcely
+seen elsewhere. It is like the light of mind thrown on an obscure
+subject.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Man's finest workmanship, the closer you observe it, the more
+imperfections it shows; as in a piece of polished steel a microscope
+will discover a rough surface. Whereas, what may look coarse and rough
+in Nature's workmanship will show an infinitely minute perfection, the
+closer you look into it. The reason of the minute superiority of
+Nature's work over man's is, that the former works from the innermost
+germ, while the latter works merely superficially.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Standing in the cross-road that leads by the Mineral Spring, and looking
+towards an opposite shore of the lake, an ascending bank, with a dense
+border of trees, green, yellow, red, russet, all bright colors,
+brightened by the mild brilliancy of the descending sun; it was strange
+to recognize the sober old friends of spring and summer in this new
+dress. By the by, a pretty riddle or fable might be made out of the
+changes in apparel of the familiar trees round a house, adapted for
+children. But in the lake, beneath the aforesaid border of trees,--the
+water being, not rippled, but its glassy surface somewhat moved and
+shaken by the remote agitation of a breeze that was breathing on the
+outer lake,--this being in a sort of bay,--in the slightly agitated
+mirror, the variegated trees were reflected dreamily and indistinctly; a
+broad belt of bright and diversified colors shining in the water
+beneath. Sometimes the image of a tree might be almost traced; then
+nothing but this sweep of broken rainbow. It was like the recollection
+of the real scene in an observer's mind,--a confused radiance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A whirlwind, whirling the dried leaves round in a circle, not very
+violently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To well consider the characters of a family of persons in a certain
+condition,--in poverty, for instance,--and endeavor to judge how an
+altered condition would affect the character of each.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The aromatic odor of peat smoke in the sunny autumnal air is very
+pleasant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Salem, October 14th, 1837._--A walk through Beverly to Browne's Hill,
+and home by the iron factory. A bright, cool afternoon. The trees, in a
+large part of the space through which I passed, appeared to be in their
+fullest glory, bright red, yellow, some of a tender green, appearing at
+a distance as if bedecked with new foliage, though this emerald tint was
+likewise the effect of frost. In some places, large tracts of ground
+were covered as with a scarlet cloth,--the underbrush being thus
+colored. The general character of these autumnal colors is not gaudy,
+scarcely gay; there is something too deep and rich in it: it is gorgeous
+and magnificent, but with a sobriety diffused. The pastures at the foot
+of Browne's Hill were plentifully covered with barberry-bushes, the
+leaves of which were reddish, and they were hung with a prodigious
+quantity of berries. From the summit of the hill, looking down a tract
+of woodland at a considerable distance, so that the interstices between
+the trees could not be seen, their tops presented an unbroken level, and
+seemed somewhat like a richly variegated carpet. The prospect from the
+hill is wide and interesting; but methinks it is pleasanter in the more
+immediate vicinity of the hill than miles away. It is agreeable to look
+down at the square patches of corn-field, or of potato-ground, or of
+cabbages still green, or of beets looking red,--all a man's farm, in
+short,--each portion of which he considers separately so important,
+while you take in the whole at a glance. Then to cast your eye over so
+many different establishments at once, and rapidly compare them,--here a
+house of gentility, with shady old yellow-leaved elms hanging around it;
+there a new little white dwelling; there an old farm-house; to see the
+barns and sheds and all the outhouses clustered together; to comprehend
+the oneness and exclusiveness and what constitutes the peculiarity of
+each of so many establishments, and to have in your mind a multitude of
+them, each of which is the most important part of the world to those who
+live in it,--this really enlarges the mind, and you come down the hill
+somewhat wiser than you go up. Pleasant to look over an orchard far
+below, and see the trees, each casting its own shadow; the white spires
+of meeting-houses; a sheet of water, partly seen among swelling lands.
+This Browne's Hill is a long ridge, lying in the midst of a large, level
+plain; it looks at a distance somewhat like a whale, with its head and
+tail under water, but its immense back protruding, with steep sides, and
+a gradual curve along its length. When you have climbed it on one side,
+and gaze from the summit at the other, you feel as if you had made a
+discovery,--the landscape being quite different on the two sides. The
+cellar of the house which formerly crowned the hill, and used to be
+named Browne's Folly, still remains, two grass-grown and shallow
+hollows, on the highest part of the ridge. The house consisted of two
+wings, each perhaps sixty feet in length, united by a middle part, in
+which was the entrance-hall, and which looked lengthwise along the hill.
+The foundation of a spacious porch may be traced on either side of the
+central portion; some of the stones still remain; but even where they
+are gone, the line of the porch is still traceable by the greener
+verdure. In the cellar, or rather in the two cellars, grow one or two
+barberry-bushes, with frost-bitten fruit; there is also yarrow with its
+white flower, and yellow dandelions. The cellars are still deep enough
+to shelter a person, all but his head at least, from the wind on the
+summit of the hill; but they are all grass-grown. A line of trees seems
+to have been planted along the ridge of the hill. The edifice must have
+made quite a magnificent appearance.
+
+Characteristics during the walk:--Apple-trees with only here and there
+an apple on the boughs, among the thinned leaves, the relics of a
+gathering. In others you observe a rustling, and see the boughs shaking
+and hear the apples thumping down, without seeing the person who does
+it. Apples scattered by the wayside, some with pieces bitten out, others
+entire, which you pick up, and taste, and find them harsh, crabbed
+cider-apples though they have a pretty, waxen appearance. In sunny spots
+of woodland, boys in search or nuts, looking picturesque among the
+scarlet and golden foliage. There is something in this sunny autumnal
+atmosphere that gives a peculiar effect to laughter and joyous
+voices,--it makes them infinitely more elastic and gladsome than at
+other seasons. Heaps of dry leaves, tossed together by the wind, as if
+for a couch and lounging-place for the weary traveller, while the sun is
+warming it for him. Golden pumpkins and squashes, heaped in the angle of
+a house, till they reach the lower windows. Ox-teams, laden with a
+rustling load of Indian corn, in the stalk and ear. When an inlet of the
+sea runs far up into the country, you stare to see a large schooner
+appear amid the rural landscape; she is unloading a cargo of wood, moist
+with rain or salt water that has dashed over it. Perhaps you hear the
+sound of an axe in the woodland; occasionally, the report of a
+fowling-piece. The travellers in the early part of the afternoon look
+warm and comfortable, as if taking a summer drive; but as eve draws
+nearer, you meet them well wrapped in top-coats or cloaks, or rough,
+great surtouts, and red-nosed withal, seeming to take no great comfort,
+but pressing homeward. The characteristic conversation among teamsters
+and country squires, where the ascent of a hill causes the chaise to go
+at the same pace as an ox-team,--perhaps discussing the qualities of a
+yoke of oxen. The cold, blue aspects of sheets of water. Some of the
+country shops with the doors closed; others still open as in summer. I
+meet a wood-sawyer, with his horse and saw on his shoulders, returning
+from work. As night draws on, you begin to see the gleaming of fires on
+the ceilings in the houses which you pass. The comfortless appearance of
+houses at bleak and bare spots,--you wonder how there can be any
+enjoyment in them. I meet a girl in a chintz gown, with a small shawl on
+her shoulders, white stockings, and summer morocco shoes,--it looks
+observable. Turkeys, queer, solemn objects, in black attire, grazing
+about, and trying to peck the fallen apples, which slip away from their
+bills.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_October 16th, 1837._--Spent the whole afternoon in a ramble to the
+sea-shore, near Phillips's Beach. A beautiful, warm, sunny afternoon,
+the very pleasantest day, probably, that there has been in the whole
+course of the year. People at work, harvesting, without their coats.
+Cocks, with their squad of hens, in the grass-fields, hunting
+grasshoppers, chasing them eagerly with outspread wings, appearing to
+take much interest in the sport, apart from the profit. Other hens
+picking up the ears of Indian corn. Grasshoppers, flies, and flying
+insects of all sorts, are more abundant in these warm autumnal days than
+I have seen them at any other time. Yellow butterflies flutter about in
+the sunshine, singly, by pairs, or more, and are wafted on the gentle
+gales. The crickets begin to sing early in the afternoon, and sometimes
+a locust may be heard. In some warm spots, a pleasant buzz of many
+insects.
+
+Crossed the fields near Brookhouse's villa, and came upon a long
+beach,--at least a mile long, I should think,--terminated by craggy
+rocks at either end, and backed by a high, broken bank, the grassy
+summit of which, year by year, is continually breaking away, and
+precipitated to the bottom. At the foot of the bank, in some parts, is a
+vast number of pebbles and paving-stones, rolled up thither by the sea
+long ago. The beach is of a brown sand, with hardly any pebbles
+intermixed upon it. When the tide is part way down, there is a margin of
+several yards from the water's edge, along the whole mile length of the
+beach, which glistens like a mirror, and reflects objects, and shines
+bright in the sunshine, the sand being wet to that distance from the
+water. Above this margin the sand is not wet, and grows less and less
+damp the farther towards the bank you keep. In some places your footstep
+is perfectly implanted, showing the whole shape, and the square toe, and
+every nail in the heel of your boot. Elsewhere, the impression is
+imperfect, and even when you stamp, you cannot imprint the whole. As you
+tread, a dry spot flashes around your step, and grows moist as you lift
+your foot again. Pleasant to pass along this extensive walk, watching
+the surf-wave;--how sometimes it seems to make a feint of breaking, but
+dies away ineffectually, merely kissing the strand; then, after many
+such abortive efforts, it gathers itself, and forms a high wall, and
+rolls onward, heightening and heightening, without foam at the summit of
+the green line, and at last throws itself fiercely on the beach, with a
+loud roar, the spray flying above. As you walk along, you are preceded
+by a flock of twenty or thirty beach birds, which are seeking, I
+suppose, for food on the margin of the surf, yet seem to be merely
+sporting, chasing the sea as it retires, and running up before the
+impending wave. Sometimes they let it bear them off their feet, and
+float lightly on its breaking summit: sometimes they flutter and seem to
+rest on the feathery spray. They are little birds with gray backs and
+snow-white breasts; their images may be seen in the wet sand almost or
+full as distinctly as the reality. Their legs are long. As you draw
+near, they take a flight of a score of yards or more, and then
+recommence their dalliance with the surf-wave. You may behold their
+multitudinous little tracks all along your way. Before you reach the end
+of the beach, you become quite attached to these little sea-birds, and
+take much interest in their occupations. After passing in one direction,
+it is pleasant then to retrace your footsteps. Your tracks being all
+traceable, you may recall the whole mood and occupation of your mind
+during your first passage. Here you turned somewhat aside to pick up a
+shell that you saw nearer the water's edge. Here you examined a long
+sea-weed, and trailed its length after you for a considerable distance.
+Here the effect of the wide sea struck you suddenly. Here you fronted
+the ocean, looking at a sail, distant in the sunny blue. Here you looked
+at some plant on the bank. Here some vagary of mind seems to have
+bewildered you; for your tracks go round and round, and interchange each
+other without visible reason. Here you picked up pebbles and skipped
+them upon the water. Here you wrote names and drew faces with a razor
+sea-shell in the sand.
+
+After leaving the beach, clambered over crags, all shattered and tossed
+about everyhow; in some parts curiously worn and hollowed out, almost
+into caverns. The rock, shagged with sea-weed,--in some places, a thick
+carpet of sea-weed laid over the pebbles, into which your foot would
+sink. Deep tanks among these rocks, which the sea replenishes at high
+tide, and then leaves the bottom all covered with various sorts of
+sea-plants, as if it were some sea-monster's private garden. I saw a
+crab in one of them; five-fingers too. From the edge of the rocks, you
+may look off into deep, deep water, even at low tide. Among the rocks, I
+found a great bird, whether a wild-goose, a loon, or an albatross, I
+scarcely know. It was in such a position that I almost fancied it might
+be asleep, and therefore drew near softly, lest it should take flight;
+but it was dead, and stirred not when I touched it. Sometimes a dead
+fish was cast up. A ledge of rocks, with a beacon upon it, looking like
+a monument erected to those who have perished by shipwreck. The smoked,
+extempore fireplace where a party cooked their fish. About midway on the
+beach, a fresh-water brooklet flows towards the sea. Where it leaves the
+land, it is quite a rippling little current; but in flowing across the
+sand, it grows shallower and more shallow, and at last is quite lost,
+and dies in the effort to carry its little tribute to the main.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An article to be made of telling the stories of the tiles of an
+old-fashioned chimney-piece to a child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A person conscious that he was soon to die, the humor in which he would
+pay his last visit to familiar persons and things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A description of the various classes of hotels and taverns, and the
+prominent personages in each. There should be some story connected with
+it,--as of a person commencing with boarding at a great hotel, and
+gradually, as his means grew less, descending in life, till he got below
+ground into a cellar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A person to be in the possession of something as perfect as mortal man
+has a right to demand; he tries to make it better, and ruins it
+entirely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A person to spend all his life and splendid talents in trying to achieve
+something naturally impossible,--as to make a conquest over Nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meditations about the main gas-pipe of a great city,--if the supply were
+to be stopped, what would happen? How many different scenes it sheds
+light on? It might be made emblematical of something.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_December 6th, 1837._--A fairy tale about chasing Echo to her
+hiding-place. Echo is the voice of a reflection in a mirror.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A house to be built over a natural spring of inflammable gas, and to be
+constantly illuminated therewith. What moral could be drawn from this?
+It is carburetted hydrogen gas, and is cooled from a soft shale or
+slate, which is sometimes bituminous, and contains more or less
+carbonate of lime. It appears in the vicinity of Lockport and Niagara
+Falls, and elsewhere in New York. I believe it indicates coal. At
+Fredonia, the whole village is lighted by it. Elsewhere, a farm-house
+was lighted by it, and no other fuel used in the coldest weather.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gnomes, or other mischievous little fiends, to be represented as
+burrowing in the hollow teeth of some person who has subjected himself
+to their power. It should be a child's story. This should be one of many
+modes of petty torment. They should be contrasted with beneficent
+fairies, who minister to the pleasures of the good.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man will undergo great toil and hardship for ends that must be many
+years distant,--as wealth or fame,--but none for an end that may be
+close at hand,--as the joys of heaven.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Insincerity in a man's own heart must make all his enjoyments, all that
+concerns him, unreal; so that his whole life must seem like a merely
+dramatic representation. And this would be the case, even though he were
+surrounded by true-hearted relatives and friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A company of men, none of whom have anything worth hoping for on earth,
+yet who do not look forward to anything beyond earth!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sorrow to be personified, and its effect on a family represented by the
+way in which the members of the family regard this dark-clad and
+sad-browed inmate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A story to show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one
+another.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To personify winds of various characters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man living a wicked life in one place, and simultaneously a virtuous
+and religious one in another.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An ornament to be worn about the person of a lady,--as a jewelled heart.
+After many years, it happens to be broken or unscrewed, and a poisonous
+odor comes out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lieutenant F. W---- of the navy was an inveterate duellist and an
+unerring shot. He had taken offence at Lieutenant F----, and endeavored
+to draw him into a duel, following him to the Mediterranean for that
+purpose, and harassing him intolerably. At last, both parties being in
+Massachusetts, F---- determined to fight, and applied to Lieutenant
+A---- to be his second. A---- examined into the merits of the quarrel,
+and came to the conclusion that F---- had not given F. W---- justifiable
+cause for driving him to a duel, and that he ought not to be shot. He
+instructed F---- in the use of the pistol, and, before the meeting,
+warned him, by all means, to get the first fire; for that, if F. W----
+fired first, he, F----, was infallibly a dead man, as his antagonist
+could shoot to a hair's breadth. The parties met; and F----, firing
+immediately on the word's being given, shot F. W---- through the heart.
+F. W----, with a most savage expression of countenance, fired, after the
+bullet had gone through his heart, and when the blood had entirely left
+his face, and shot away one of F----'s side-locks. His face probably
+looked as if he were already in the infernal regions; but afterwards it
+assumed an angelic calmness and repose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A company of persons to drink a certain medicinal preparation, which
+would prove a poison, or the contrary, according to their different
+characters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many persons, without a consciousness of so doing, to contribute to some
+one end; as to a beggar's feast, made up of broken victuals from many
+tables; or a patch carpet, woven of shreds from innumerable garments.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some very famous jewel or other thing, much talked of all over the
+world. Some person to meet with it, and get possession of it in some
+unexpected manner, amid homely circumstances.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To poison a person or a party of persons with the sacramental wine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A cloud in the shape of an old woman kneeling, with arms extended
+towards the moon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On being transported to strange scenes, we feel as if all were unreal.
+This is but the perception of the true unreality of earthly things, made
+evident by the want of congruity between ourselves and them. By and by
+we become mutually adapted, and the perception is lost.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An old looking-glass. Somebody finds out the secret of making all the
+images that have been reflected in it pass back again across its
+surface.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Indian races having reared no monuments, like the Greeks, Romans,
+and Egyptians, when they have disappeared from the earth, their history
+will appear a fable, and they misty phantoms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A woman to sympathize with all emotions, but to have none of her own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A portrait of a person in New England to be recognized as of the same
+person represented by a portrait, in Old England. Having distinguished
+himself there, he had suddenly vanished, and had never been heard of
+till he was thus discovered to be identical with a distinguished man in
+New England.
+
+
+
+
+SAINTE-BEUVE.
+
+
+The lives of French men of letters, at least during the last two
+centuries, have never been isolated or obscure. Had Rousseau been born
+on the borders of Loch Lomond, he might have proved in his own person,
+and without interruption, the superiority of the savage state; and after
+his death the information in regard to him would have been fragmentary
+and uncertain. But born on the shores of Lake Leman, centralization laid
+its grasp upon him, drew him into the vortex of the "great world," and
+caused his name to figure in all the questions, the quarrels, and the
+scandals of his day.
+
+The truth is, that literature is a far more important element of society
+in France than elsewhere. We seldom think of a French author, without
+recalling the history and the manners of his time. In reading a French
+play, though it be a tragedy of Racine or a comedy of Moli�re, we are
+reminded of the spectators before whom it was brought out. In reading a
+French book, though it be Pascal's "Thoughts" or the "Characters" of La
+Bruy�re, our minds are continually diverted from the matter of the work
+to the circumstances under which it was written and the public for whom
+it was intended.
+
+Generally, indeed, the author, however full of his subject, has
+evidently been thinking of his readers. His tone is that of a speaker
+with his audience before him. Madame de Sta�l actually composed in
+conversation, and her works are little more than imperfect records of
+her eloquent discourse. Innumerable productions have been read aloud, or
+handed round in private coteries, before being revised and published.
+The very excellence of the workmanship, if nothing else, shows that the
+article is "custom made." Even if the matter be poor, the writing is
+almost sure to be good. French literature abounds, beyond every other,
+in _readable_ books,--books such as are welcomed by the mass of
+cultivated persons. It excels, in short, as a literature of the _salon_,
+rather than of the study.
+
+As a natural corollary, criticism occupies a more distinct and prominent
+place in the literature of France than in that of any other nation.
+Every writer is sure of being heard, sure of being discussed, sure of
+being judged. This may not always have been favorable to originality. A
+fixed standard,--which is a necessary consequence,--though the guardian
+of taste, is a bar to innovation. When, however, the bar has been
+actually crossed, when encroachment has once obtained a footing, French
+criticism is swift to adjust itself to the new conditions imposed upon
+it, to widen its sphere and to institute fresh comparisons.
+
+The present position of French criticism, its connection with the
+general course of literature and of society from the fall of the first
+Empire to the establishment of the second,--a period of remarkable
+effervescence and even fertility,--will be best illustrated by a sketch
+of the writings and career of M. Sainte-Beuve. He is, it is true, one of
+a group, compromising such critics as Villemain, Cousin, Vinet, Planche,
+Taine, and Scherer; but his name is more intimately associated than any
+of these with the progress and fluctuations of opinion and of taste. His
+notices of his contemporaries have been by far the most copious and
+assiduous. His literary life, extending over forty years, embraces the
+rise and the decline of what is known as the Romantic School; and during
+all this period his course, whether we regard it as that of a leader or
+of a follower, has harmonized singularily with the tendencies of the
+age.
+
+Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was born at Boulogne--a town not fruitful
+in distinguished names--on the 23d of December, 1804. His father, who
+had held an employment under the government, died two days before the
+birth of the son. His mother was the daughter of an Englishwoman,--a
+circumstance which has been thought to account for the appreciation he
+has shown of English poetry. The notion would be more plausible if there
+were any poetry which he has failed to appreciate. But when it is added
+that she was a woman of remarkable intelligence and sensibility, we
+recognize a fact of which the influence can neither be doubted nor
+defined.
+
+After several years of prepatory instruction at a boarding-school in his
+native place, he was sent to Paris, when thirteen years old, and entered
+successively in several of the educational establishments which had
+succeeded to the ancient University. His studies, everywhere crowned
+with honors, were completed by a second course of rhetoric at the
+Coll�ge Bourbon, in 1822. He afterwards, however, attended the lectures
+of Guizot, Villemain, and other distinguished professors at the
+Sorbonne. A hostile critic, though seven years his junior, professes to
+retain a distinct recollection of him at this period: "Among the most
+assiduous and most attentive auditors was a young man whose face,
+irregular in outline but marvellously intelligent, reflected every
+thought and image of the speaker, almost as rivers reflect the landscape
+that unrolls itself along their banks. When I add that the volatile
+waves incessantly efface what they have just before reflected, the
+comparison will appear only the more exact." To an impartial inquirer it
+might appear singularly inexact; but having picked up the shaft, we
+shall not at present stop to examine whether it be poisoned.
+
+On quitting college, M. Sainte-Beuve made choice of medicine as his
+profession. He threw himself with enthusiasm into the study of anatomy,
+and soon qualified himself for an appointment as _externe_ at the
+Hospital of Saint Louis. This ardor, however, far from indicating the
+particular bent of his mind, proceeded from that eager curiosity which
+is ready to enter every avenue and knock at every door by which the
+domain of knowledge can be approached. With the faculties he was endowed
+with, and the training he had received, it was impossible that he should
+lose in any special pursuit his interest in general literature. His
+fellow-townsman and former master in rhetoric, M. Dubois, having become
+the principal editor of the newly founded "Globe," invited his
+co-operation. Accordingly, in 1824, he began to contribute critical and
+historical articles to that journal; and three years later he resigned
+his post at the hospital, with the purpose of devoting himself
+exclusively to literary pursuits.
+
+The period was in the highest degree favorable to the development and
+display of his talent. The literary revolution, which in Germany and
+England had already passed through its principal stages, had as yet
+scarcely penetrated into France. It had been heralded, indeed, by
+Chateaubriand, at the beginning of the century; and Madame de Sta�l,
+some few years later, had come into contact with the reigning chiefs of
+German literature, and had made known to her countrymen their character
+and activity. But the energies of France were then absorbed in
+enterprises of another kind. It was not till peace had been restored,
+and a new generation, ardent, susceptible, as eager for novelty as the
+veterans were impatient of it, had come upon the stage, that the
+requisite impulse was given. Victor Hugo, Lamartine, M�rim�e, Alfred de
+Vigny, and other young men of genius, were just opening the assault on
+the citadel of _classicisme_. Conventional rules were set at defiance;
+the authorities that had so long held sway were summoned to abdicate;
+nature, truth, above all passion, were invoked as the sources of
+inspiration, the law-givers of the imagination, the sole arbiters of
+style. As usual, the movement extended beyond its legitimate sphere. Not
+only the forms, but the ideas, not only the traditions, but the
+novelties, of the eighteenth century were to be discarded. In fact, the
+period, though favorable to literary development, was, on the surface at
+least, one of political and religious reaction; and reaction often
+assumes the aspect of progress, nay, in some cases is identical with
+progress. Most of the poets, dramatists, and other writers of the
+Romantic School were, either by affinity or predilection, legitimists
+and neo-Catholics. Gothic art, medi�val sentiment, the ancient monarchy
+and the ancient creed, were blended in their programme with the
+abrogation of the "unities," and a greater license of poetical
+expression.
+
+Imbued with the precepts of a former age, and fresh from the study of
+its masterpieces, M. Sainte-Beuve was at first repelled by the mutinous
+attitude of the new aspirants. He made his _d�but_ in an attack upon the
+"Odes and Ballads" of Victor Hugo. But his opposition quickly yielded to
+the force of the attraction. Nature had given him a peculiar mobility of
+temperament, and a strong instinctive sense of beauty under every
+diversity of form. Moreover, resistance would have been useless and
+Quixotic. In literature, as in politics, dynasties perish through their
+own weakness. The classical school of France had no living
+representative around whom its adherents could have rallied. Its only
+watchword was "The Past," which is always an omen of defeat.
+
+Properly speaking, therefore, M. Sainte-Beuve began his career, not as
+an opponent, but as the champion of the new school. He entered into
+personal and intimate relations with its leaders, joined, as a member of
+the _C�nacle_, in the discussion of their plans, attended the private
+readings of "Cromwell" and other works by which the breach was to be
+forced, and took upon himself the task of justifying innovation, and
+securing its reception with a hesitating public. Hence his criticism at
+this period was, as he himself has styled it, "polemical" and
+"aggressive." It was, however, neither violent nor sophistical. On the
+contrary, it was distinguished by the candor and the suavity of its
+tone. Goethe, who watched from afar a movement which, directly or
+indirectly, owed much to German inspiration, was particularly struck
+with this trait. "Our scholars," he remarked to Eckermann, "think it
+necessary to hate whoever differs from them in opinion; but the writers
+in the Globe know how to blame with refinement and courtesy."
+
+At home many, without being converted, were propitiated, and some, while
+still hostile or indifferent to the new literature, became warmly
+interested in its advocate. At the suggestion of Daunou, one of the most
+distinguished among the survivors of the Revolutionary epoch, he
+undertook a work on early French literature, with the intention of
+competing for a prize offered by the Academy. But his plan soon deviated
+from that which had been assigned; and his researches, more limited in
+their scope, but far deeper and more minute, than had been demanded,
+gave birth to a volume, published in 1828, under the title of _Tableau
+historique et critique de la Po�sie fran�aise et du Th��tre fran�ais au
+seizi�me Si�cle_. It was received with general favor. Some of the
+author's principles were strenuously disputed; but he was admitted to
+have made many discoveries in literary history, and to have introduced
+an entirely new method of criticism. Perhaps it would be more correct to
+say, that he had carried the torch of an enlightened judgment into a
+period which the brilliancy of succeeding epochs had thrown into
+obscurity.
+
+In 1829 M. Sainte-Beuve published a volume of poetry, _Po�sies de Joseph
+Delorme_, followed, in 1830, by another, entitled _Consolations_, and
+some years later by a third, _Pens�es d'Ao�t_. Although different
+degrees of merit have been assigned to these productions, their general
+character is the same. They exhibit, not the fire and inspiration of the
+true poetical temperament, but the experiments of a mind gifted with
+delicacy of sentiment and susceptible of varied impressions, in quest of
+appropriate forms and a deeper comprehension of the sources from which
+language derives its power as a vehicle of art. The influence of
+Wordsworth is observable in a studied familiarity of diction, as well as
+in the tendency to versify every thought or emotion suggested by daily
+observation. These peculiarities, coupled with the frequency of bold
+ellipses, provoked discussion, and seemed to promise a fresh expansion
+of poetical forms, in a somewhat different direction from that of the
+Romanticists. But it was not in this department that M. Sainte-Beuve was
+destined to become the founder of a school. His poetical talent, though
+unquestionable, had been bestowed, not as a special attribute, but as an
+auxiliary of other faculties granted in a larger measure. He has himself
+not only recognized its limits, but shown an inclination to underrate
+its value. "I have often thought," he remarks in one of his later
+papers, "that a critic who would attain to largeness of view would be
+better without any artistic faculty of his own. Goethe alone, by the
+universality of his poetical genius, was able to apply it in the
+estimation of what others had produced; in every species of composition
+he was entitled to say, 'Had I chosen, I could have given a perfect
+specimen of this.' But one who possesses only a single circumscribed
+talent should, in becoming a critic, forget it, bury it, and confess to
+himself that Nature is more bountiful and more varied than she showed
+herself in creating him. Incomplete artists, let us strive for an
+intelligence wider than our own talent,--than the best we are capable of
+producing."
+
+To the same period--perhaps to the same spirit of investigation and
+experiment--belongs the single prose work of fancy which has proceeded
+from his pen. It is a species of romance, bearing the title of
+_Volupt�_, and designed to exhibit the struggle between the senses and
+the soul, or, more strictly speaking, the effect upon the intellectual
+nature of an early captivity to the pleasures of sense. The hero,
+Amaury, after a youth of indulgence, finds himself in the prime of his
+manhood, with his powers of perception and of thought vigorous and
+matured, but incapable of acting, of willing, or of loving. He inspires
+love, but cannot return it; he feels, he admires, but he shrinks from
+any step demanding resolution or self-devotion. Hence, instead of
+conferring happiness, he makes victims,--victims not of an active, but
+of a merely passive and negative egotism. A conjunction of circumstances
+brings him to a sudden and vivid realization of his condition and its
+results. Instead of escaping by suicide, as might be expected,--and as
+would probably have been the case if Werther had not forestalled
+him,--he breaks loose from his thraldom by a supreme effort, and finds
+in the faith and sacrifices of a religious life the means of restoration
+and of permanent freedom. He enters a seminary, is ordained priest, and
+performs the funeral rites of the woman whose affection for him had been
+the most ardent and exalted, and whom his purified heart could have best
+repaid.
+
+In form, the work is an autobiography. The thoughts with which it teems
+are delicate and subtile; the style, somewhat labored and over-refined,
+is in contrast with that of the _Po�sies_, while it betrays the same
+struggle for a greater amplitude and independence. In point of art the
+book appears to us a failure. The theme is not objectionable in itself.
+It is similar to that of many works which have sprung from certain
+phases of individual experience. But if such experience is to be
+idealized, its origin should disappear. Shakespeare may have undergone
+all the conflicts of doubt and irresolution represented in "Hamlet"; but
+in reading "Hamlet" we think, not of Shakespeare's conflicts, but of our
+own. _Volupt�_ is too palpably a confession. The story is not a
+creation; it has been simply evolved by that process of thought which
+transports a particular idiosyncrasy into conditions and circumstances
+where it becomes a kind of destiny and a subject of speculation. Reality
+is wanting, for the very reason that the Imagination, after being called
+into play, has proved too feeble for her office. Herein Amaury differs
+widely from Ren�. Apart from the difference of power, Chateaubriand had
+poured out his entire self; he had transcended the limits of his actual
+life, but never those of his mental experience. M. Sainte-Beuve had felt
+only a part of what he sought to depict; the rest he had conjectured or
+borrowed. The pages which describe the hero's impressions and emotions
+in consecrating himself to the service of the Church were written by
+Lacordaire. They are a faithful transcript from nature, but from a
+nature not at all resembling that to which they have been applied. The
+circumstances under which the book was composed will exhibit the
+difference. The author was then intimate with Lamennais, whose eloquent
+voice, soon afterwards to be raised in support of the opposite cause,
+was proclaiming the sternest doctrines of a renovated Catholicism. A
+spell which acted so widely and so marvellously could not be altogether
+unfelt by a mind whose peculiar property it was to yield itself to every
+influence in order to extort its secret and comprehend its power. Beyond
+this point the magic failed. "In all my transitions,"--thus he has
+written of himself,--"I have never alienated my judgment and my will; I
+have never pledged my belief. But I had a power of comprehending persons
+and things which gave rise to the strongest hopes on the part of those
+who wished to convert me and who thought me entirely their own." Thus
+Lamartine, in a rapturous strain, had congratulated himself on having
+been the instrument of saving his friend from the abysm of unbelief.
+When Lamennais was forming the group of disciples who retired with him
+to La Chesnaye, M. Sainte-Beuve was invited to join them. While
+declining the proposal, he imagined the position in which he might have
+been led to embrace it, and--wrote _Volupt�_.
+
+The revolution of 1830, with the events that led to it, marks a
+turning-point in literary as well as in political history. The public
+mind was in a state of ebullition very unlike that of an ordinary
+political contest, in which one party pulls while the other applies the
+drag, one seeks to maintain, the other to destroy. All parties were
+pulling in different directions; all sought to destroy, in order to
+reconstruct; principles, except with the extremists, were simply
+expedients, adopted to-day, abandoned on the morrow. Nor is this to be
+explained, as English writers generally explain it, by the mere
+volatility of the French temperament. In England, an established basis
+of political power is slowly but constantly expanding; privilege
+crumbles and wears away under the gradual action of democracy;
+concession on the one side, moderation on the other, are perfectly
+feasible, and obviate the necessity for sudden ruptures and violent
+transitions. But in France the question created by past convulsions, and
+left unsolved by recent experiments, was this: What _is_ the basis of
+power? Privilege had been so shorn that those who desired to make that
+the foundation were necessarily not conservatives, but reactionists. On
+the other hand, if popular power were to be accepted in its widest
+sense, then a thousand questions, a thousand differences of opinion in
+regard to the mode, the form, the application, would naturally spring
+up. Besides, would it not be safer, wiser, to modify ideas by
+experience, to look abroad for patterns, to seek for an equilibrium, a
+_juste milieu_? Thus there was a diversity of systems, but all
+contemplative of change. No one was in favor of standing still, for
+there was nothing to stand upon. In a word, the agitation was not so
+much one of measures, of principles, or of prejudices, as of ideas.
+
+Now in an agitation of this kind, literary men--that is to say, the men
+whose business is to think--are likely to be active, and in France, at
+least, are apt to become prominent and influential. But they, of all
+men, by the very fact that they think, are least under the control of
+party affinities and fixed doctrines, the most liable to be swayed by
+discussion and reflection. Hence the spectacle, so frequent at that time
+and since, of men distinguished in the world of letters passing from the
+ranks of the legitimists into those of the republicans, from the
+advocacy of papal supremacy in temporal affairs to that of popular
+supremacy in religious affairs, from the defence of a landed aristocracy
+to the demand for a community of property; and afterwards, in many
+instances, returning with the backward current, abjuring freedom and
+embracing imperialism.
+
+In the case of M. Sainte-Beuve the changes were neither so abrupt nor so
+complete as in that of many others. But his course was still more
+meandering, skirting the bases of opposite systems, abiding with none.
+Never a blind adherent or a vehement opponent, he glided almost
+imperceptibly from camp to camp. He consorted, as we have seen, with
+legitimists and neo-Catholics, and allowed himself to be reckoned as one
+of them. Through the columns of the Globe, which had now become the
+organ of the Saint-Simonians, he invited the Romanticists to "step forth
+from the circle of pure art, and diffuse the doctrines of a progressive
+humanity." On the advent of Louis Philippe, he was inclined to accept
+the constitutional _r�gime_ as the triumph of good sense, as affording a
+practical solution and a promise of stability. But he appears soon to
+have lost his faith in a government too narrow in policy, too timid in
+action, too vulgar in aspect, to satisfy a cultivated Parisian taste.
+
+A similar flexibility will be noticed in his literary judgments. Shall
+we then pronounce him a very chameleon in politics and in art? Shall we
+say, with the critic already quoted, M. de Pontmartin, that his mental
+hues have been simply reflections, effaced as rapidly as they were made?
+On the contrary, we believe that he, of all men, has retained the
+various impressions he has once received. Unlike so many others, who, in
+changing their views, have contradicted all their former utterances,
+disowned their former selves, undergone a sort of bisection into two
+irreconcilable halves, M. Sainte-Beuve has linked one opinion with
+another, modified each by its opposite, and thus preserved his
+continuity and cohesion. "Everything has two names," to use his own
+expression, and he has never been content with knowing only one of them.
+Guided by a sympathetic intelligence, adopting, not symbols, but ideas,
+he has, by force of penetration and comprehension, extracted the essence
+of each doctrine in turn. His changes therefore indicate, not
+superficiality, but depth. He is no more chargeable with volatility than
+society itself. Like it he is a seeker, listening to every proposition,
+accepting what is vital, rejecting what is merely formal. There is not
+one of the systems which have been presented, however contrasted they
+may appear, but has left its impress upon society,--not one but has left
+its impress on the mind and opinions of M. Sainte-Beuve.
+
+In one particular--the most essential, in reality, of all--his constancy
+has been remarkable. He has remained true to his vocation. At the moment
+when his literary brethren, availing themselves of the opening we have
+noticed, were rushing into public life,--scholars and professors
+becoming ambassadors and ministers of state, poets and novelists
+mounting the tribune and the hustings, historians descending into the
+arena of political journalism,--M. Sainte-Beuve settled himself more
+firmly in the chair of criticism, concentrating his powers on the
+specialty to which they were so peculiarly adapted. His opportunities
+for doing this more effectively were themselves among the results of the
+events already mentioned. A greater freedom and activity of discussion
+demanded new and ampler organs. Cliques had been broken up; co-workers,
+brought together by sympathy, separated by the clash of opinions and
+ambitions, had dispersed; both in literature and in politics a wider,
+more inquisitive, more sympathetic public was to be addressed. Already
+in 1829, V�ron, one of those shrewd and speculative--we hardly know
+whether to call them men of business or adventurers, who foresee such
+occasions, had set up the _Revue de Paris_, on a more extended plan than
+that of any previous French journal of the kind. The opening article of
+the first number was from the pen of M. Sainte-Beuve. But this
+undertaking was subsequently merged in that of the _Revue des Deux
+Mondes_, which, after one or two abortive beginnings, was fairly started
+in January, 1831, and soon assumed the position it has ever since
+retained, at the head of the publications of its class. It enlisted
+among its contributors nearly all the leading writers of the day, none
+of whom was so regular and permanent, none of whom did so much to build
+up its reputation and confer upon it the stamp of authority, as M.
+Sainte-Beuve. His connection with it extended over seventeen years, the
+period between the last two revolutions. His papers seem to have
+averaged five or six a year. They form, with those which had been
+previously inserted in the _Revue de Paris_, a series of _Portraits_,
+now embraced in seven volumes, and divided, somewhat arbitrarily, into
+_Portraits litt�raires_, _Portraits contemporains_, and _Portraits de
+Femmes_. The names included, which with few exceptions are those of
+French writers, belong to different epochs, different schools, and
+different departments of literature. Many are famous; some are obscure;
+not a few, which had before been overlooked or overshadowed, owe the
+recognition they have since received to their admission into a gallery
+where the places have been assigned and the lights distributed by no
+partial or incompetent umpire.
+
+In the case of any kind of literature, but especially in that of
+criticism, it is interesting to have an author's own ideas of his office
+and art. The motto of the Edinburgh Review--"_Judex damnatur cum nocens
+absolvitur_"--was a very good indication of the spirit of its founders,
+whose legal habits and aspirations naturally suggested the spectacle of
+a court, in which the critic as judge was to sit upon the bench, and the
+author as prisoner was to stand at the bar. Had Jeffries, instead of
+Jeffrey, presided over the assizes, they could not have been gayer or
+bloodier. It is interesting to remember that among the criminals
+sentenced without reprieve were the greatest poet and the most original
+thinker of the time. A journal which has earned something of the
+prestige that attached to the youthful Edinburgh takes a not very
+different view of its own functions. "An author may wince under
+criticism," say the writers of the Saturday Review; "but is the master
+to leave off flogging because the pupil roars?" Here, too, the notion of
+the relative position of author and critic is perfectly natural. Young
+gentlemen, with a lively recollection of their own construings and
+birchings, are only too happy in the opportunity of sitting with bent
+brows and uplifted rod, watching for a false quantity or similar
+peccadillo, which may justify a withering rebuke or a vigorous
+flagellation. If we add, that these writers exhibit that accuracy of
+statement which usually accompanies the assumption of infallibility, and
+that their English is of that prim and painful kind, common to
+pedagogues, which betrays a constant fear of being caught tripping while
+engaged in correcting others, the comparison--to cite once more M. de
+Pontmartin--"will appear only the more exact." We forbear to descend to
+a far lower class, judges who know nothing of law, masters who have
+never been scholars, truly "incomplete artists" who cannot "forget or
+bury" their own extremely "circumscribed talent," but who are perfectly
+willing to bury, and would fain induce the world to forget, that of
+every suspected rival.
+
+Had M. Sainte-Beuve entered upon his task with similar conceptions and
+associations, his early anatomical studies would perhaps have suggested
+the patient under the scalpel as an appropriate device. But we are in
+danger of dishonoring him by the mere supposition. Scattered through his
+works--beginning with the earliest and coming down to the latest--we
+find such sentences as the following: "The critical spirit is in its
+nature facile, insinuating, mobile, and comprehensive; it is a great and
+limpid river, which winds and spreads itself around the productions and
+the monuments of genius." "The best and surest way to penetrate and to
+judge any writer, any man, is to listen to him,--to listen long and
+intently: do not press him; let him move and display himself with
+freedom, and _of_ himself he will tell you all _about_ himself; he will
+imprint himself upon your mind. Be assured that in the long run no man,
+no writer, above all no poet, will preserve his secret." "It is by
+virtue of an exquisite analogy that the word 'taste' has prevailed over
+the word 'judgment.' Judgment! I know minds which possess it in a high
+degree, but which are yet wanting in taste; for taste expresses what is
+finest and most instinctive in an organ which is at once the most
+delicate and the most complex." "To know how to read a book, judging it
+as we go along, but never ceasing to _taste_ it,--in this consists
+almost the whole art of criticism." "What Bacon says as to the proper
+mode of educing the natural meaning from Scripture may be applied to
+ancient writings of all kinds, or even to the most modern. The best and
+sweetest criticism is that which exudes from a good book, not pressed as
+in a wine-press, but squeezed gently in a free reading. I love that
+criticism should be an _emanation_ from the book." "Whenever I speak of
+a writer, I prefer to exhibit him in the brightest and happiest hour of
+his talent, to place him, if possible, directly under the rays." "The
+greatest triumph of criticism is when it recognizes the arrival of a
+power, the advent of a genius." "I cannot admit that the best mode of
+correcting a talent which is in process of development is to begin by
+throwing an inkstand at its head." "I am almost frightened at seeing to
+what an extent literary criticism becomes difficult, when it refrains
+from arrogance and from insult, claiming for itself both an honest
+freedom of judgment and the right to participate largely in the
+bestowment of deserved praise, as well as to maintain a certain
+cordiality even in its reservations." "If Diderot was as far as possible
+from being a dramatic poet, if he was destitute of that supreme creative
+power which involves the transformation of an author's own personality,
+he possessed, on the other hand, in the highest degree, that faculty of
+demi-metamorphosis which is the exercise and the triumph of criticism,
+and which consists in putting one's self in the the place of the author,
+occupying the point of view to the subject under examination, and
+reading every writing in the spirit by which it was dictated."
+
+Let us admit that these are not so much absolute principles of criticism
+as the features which characterize that of the writer himself and the
+method which he has almost involuntarily pursued. Let us admit this, and
+in doing so we concede to him all the qualities that are rarest and most
+desirable in his art,--impartiality, sincerity, disinterestedness;
+freedom from theory, from passion, and from prejudice; insight,
+comprehension, sensitiveness to every trait and every kind of beauty and
+of power; a patient ardor and pure delight in acquisition, and a
+generous desire, in the interest of literature itself, to communicate
+the results and inspire similar feelings. Without denying that all good
+criticism will partake more or less largely of these qualities, or that
+some of them have been more abundantly possessed, more profoundly
+applied, by others, we believe that it would be difficult to cite an
+instance in which they have been so entirely combined or so continuously
+exercised. M. Sainte-Beuve is pre-eminently an _artist_ in criticism. He
+has exhibited that self-absorption which it is easy to imagine, easy to
+find examples of, in poetry, in painting, and in music, but which in
+criticism had hitherto been hardly conceivable. "There is in him," wrote
+Gustave Planche in 1834,--and the force of the eulogy is in no degree
+impaired by subsequent censures from the same quarter,--"a happy
+mingling of enthusiasm and curiosity, renewed in proportion as they are
+appeased, and enrolled in the service of all nascent or unrecognized
+abilities.... He speaks the truth for the sole pleasure of speaking it,
+and asks no gratitude either from the disciples whom he initiates or
+from the new deities whom he exalts.... Whenever he finds a poet not
+sufficiently listened to, he aims to enlarge the audience, erects a
+stage on which to place him, and arranges everything for enabling him to
+produce the fullest effect.... Before him French criticism, when it was
+not either acrimonious or simply learned, consisted in a mere
+commonplace repetition of precepts and formulas of which the sense had
+been lost. His perpetual mobility is but a constant good faith; he
+believes in the most opposite schools, because believing is with him
+only a mode of comprehending."
+
+Let it not be supposed from this description that M. Sainte-Beuve is
+wanting in acuteness, that his enthusiasm predominates over his
+sagacity. On the contrary, there is no keener eye than his for whatever
+is false, pretentious, or unsound. His sure instinct quickly separates
+the gold from the alloy. Unlike the critics of the _nil admirari_
+school, whose reluctance to trust themselves to their emotions proceeds
+in great part from the absence of this instinct, he is proof against the
+approaches of the charlatan, and has never debased the word "art" by
+applying it to a mere melodramatic mechanism. But he rightly considers
+the office of the detector as insignificant in comparison with that of
+the discoverer, and his glow of satisfaction is reserved for the nobler
+employment. The points on which he insists are the obligation of
+honestly desiring to understand an author; the impropriety of fastening
+on defects, or of simply balancing between defects and merits; the duty
+of approving with heartiness and warmth, in place of that cold-blooded
+moderation which he pronounces, with Vauvenargues, "a sure sign of
+mediocrity." If, therefore, we say that his is only one species of
+criticism, we cannot deny its claim to be entitled the "criticism of
+_appreciation_." It is thus the exact reverse of that species to which
+we have before alluded, and which deserves to be called the "criticism
+of _depreciation_."
+
+We come now to the particular characteristics of the _Portraits_, the
+manner in which the author has there applied his principles. "I have
+never," he remarks in a recent defence, "vaunted my method as a
+discovery, or affected to guard it as a secret." It involves, however,
+both the one and the other. The discovery consists in the perception of
+the truth that an author is always in his works; that he cannot help
+being there; that no reticence, no pretences, no disguises, will avail
+to hide him. The secret lies in the skill with which the search is
+pursued and the object revealed. We do not, of course, mean to say that
+M. Sainte-Beuve is the originator of biographical criticism, which in
+England especially, favored by the portly Reviews, has been carried to
+an extent undreamt of elsewhere. But in general it may be noticed that
+English articles of this kind have been simply biographies accompanied
+with criticism; their model is to be found in Johnson's "Lives of the
+Poets." The critical articles of Mr. Carlyle are a striking exception.
+Of Carlyle it may be said, as it has been said of M. Sainte-Beuve, that
+"what chiefly interests him in a book is the author, and in the author
+the very mystery of his personality." In other words, each looks upon a
+literary work, not as the production of certain impersonal intellectual
+faculties, but as a manifestation of the author in the totality of his
+nature. But while the point of view is thus identical, there is little
+similarity in the treatment. In the one case a powerful imagination
+causes the figure to stand out in bold relief, while a luminous humor
+plays upon every feature. The method of the _Portraits_--again we cite
+the author's own language--is "descriptive, analytical, inquisitive." We
+are led along through a series of details, each lightly touched, each
+contributing to the elucidation of the enigma, by a train of closely
+linked and subtile observation, which penetrates all the obscurities,
+unravels all the intricacies, of the subject. And the result is, not
+that broad but mingled conception which arises from personal intimacy or
+from the art which simulates it, but that idea, that distilled essence,
+which is obtained when what is most characteristic, what is purely
+mental and individual, has been selected and condensed.
+
+The sympathetic nature of the critic displays itself in his general
+treatment of the theme, in the post of observation which he chooses. He
+is not an advocate or an apologist. But the opinions in which he does
+not coincide, the defects which he has no interest in concealing, he
+sets in their natural connection, and regards as portions of a living
+organism. Put before him a nature the most opposite to his own,--narrow,
+rigorous, systematic. Shall he oppose or condemn it because of this
+contrariety? But why, then, has he himself been endowed with suppleness
+and insight, why is he a critic, unless that he may enter into other
+minds see as they have seen, feel as they have felt? He must get to the
+centre before he can trace the limits and imperfections. Once there,
+once identified with his object, he can observe its irregularities
+without being irritated or perturbed. As for that Rhadamanthine
+criticism which sits aloof from its object, and treats every aberration
+from a straight line as something abnormal and abominable, he leaves it
+to the immaculate. In truth, such criticism, with all its pretences to
+authority, is open to this fatal objection,--it tends to destroy our
+relish for literature; instead of stimulating the appetite, it creates
+disgust.[C] How different is the effect produced by the _Portraits_! Of
+all criticism they have the most power to refresh our interest in
+familiar topics, and to kindle curiosity in regard to those with which
+we are unacquainted. They serve as the best possible introduction to the
+study of the works themselves, to which, accordingly, they have in many
+cases been prefixed. They put us in the proper disposition for _tasting_
+as we read. Often they are guides with which we could hardly dispense.
+M. Sainte-Beuve is never more happy than in dealing with complexities or
+contradictions, with characters that puzzle the ordinary observer, with
+harmonies which are hidden in discords. Of women, it has been well said,
+he writes "as if he were one of them." Like Thackeray, like Balzac, he
+knows their secret. So, too, the spirit of a particular epoch or a
+particular school is seized, its successive phases are distinguished,
+with a nicety defying competition. Especially is this applicable to the
+developments of the present century. Who, indeed, was so competent to
+describe its parties and conflicts, its emotions and languors, as one
+who had shared in all its transitions, in all its experiences?
+
+The style of the _Portraits_ might form the subject of a separate study.
+Abjuring antithesis and epigram on the one hand, pomp and declamation on
+the other, it has yet none of the limpidity, the rapid flow, the
+incisive directness, of classical French prose. On the contrary, it is
+full of shadings and undulations. It abounds in caressing epithets, and
+in figures sometimes elaborated and prolonged to the last degree,
+sometimes clustered and contrasted like flowers in a bouquet. After a
+continuous reading a sense of luxury steals over us; we seem to be
+surrounded by the rich draperies and scented atmosphere of a boudoir.
+Yet the term "florid" will not apply to what is everywhere pervaded by
+an exquisite harmony and taste. Simplicity of expression, energy of
+tone, would be out of place, where the thought is so subtile and
+refined, the glow of feeling so soft and restrained, the mind so
+absorbed in the effort to catch every echo, every reflection, floating
+across the field of its survey. Difficult as it is to convey any
+adequate notion of such a style by mere description, it would be at
+least as difficult to do justice to its peculiarities in a translation.
+Our impressions of it may perhaps be best summed up by saying that it
+is the farthest remove from oratory, and the nearest approach to poetry,
+of any prose not professedly idyllic or lyric with which we are
+acquainted.
+
+It has been stated by the author himself, as one defect in his criticism
+at this period, that it was not "conclusive." It was perfectly sincere,
+but not equally frank. In fact, it was not full-grown. A mind like that
+of M. Sainte-Beuve is slow in arriving at maturity. It is quick to
+comprehend; but the very breadth of its comprehension and the variety of
+its researches make it tardy in attaining that completeness and
+decision, that air of mastery, which less capacious minds assume through
+the mere instinct, and as the outward sign, of virility. He has himself
+indicated the distinction in his notice of M. Taine, whom he describes
+as "entering the arena fully armed and equipped, taking his place with a
+precision, a vigor of expression, a concentration and absoluteness of
+thought, which he applies in turn to the most opposite subjects, without
+ever forgetting his own identity or losing faith in his system." There
+were, however, in the case of M. Sainte-Beuve, further impediments to
+the assumption of an explicit and confident tone. Among the authors whom
+he was called upon to criticise were his acknowledged leaders, those by
+whom he had been initiated into the mysteries of modern art. Though he
+was fast outgrowing their influence, he was in no haste to proclaim his
+independence. An indefatigable student, he was accumulating stores of
+material without as yet drawing upon them to any proportionate extent,
+or putting forth all the strength with which they supplied him. Besides
+the "Portraits," his only other work during this period was his "History
+of Port Royal," the five volumes of which were published at long
+intervals. Social relations, too, exerted a restraining influence. His
+position in the world of letters was generally recognized, and had
+brought him the distinctions and rewards which France has it in her
+power to bestow. In 1840 he was appointed one of the conservators of the
+Mazarine Library. In 1845 he was elected to the French Academy. He lived
+on terms of intimacy with men of all parties, and with the highest in
+every party. He moved in the _�lite_ of Parisian society, accepting
+rather than claiming its attentions, but fully sensible of its charms.
+All these circumstances combined to prolong, in his case, that season
+when, though the fruit has formed, the blossoms have not yet fallen,
+when the mind still yields itself to illusions as if loath to be
+disenchanted. His sincere admiration for the genius of Chateaubriand did
+not blind him to the monstrosities or the littlenesses by which it was
+disfigured. But should he rudely break the spell in the presence of the
+enchanter? should he disturb the veneration that encircled his decline?
+should he steel himself against the gracious pleadings of Madame
+R�camier, and throw a bomb-shell into that circle of which no one could
+better appreciate the seductive repose? He chose rather to limit the
+scope of his judgment, to look at the object solely on its attractive
+side, to postpone _reservations_ which would have had the effect of a
+revolt.
+
+Yet the extent of his concessions has been much exaggerated. No
+extravagant laudations ever fell from his pen. Moreover, his gradual
+emancipation, so to speak, is apparent in his writings,--in the last
+volumes of his "Port Royal" and in the later "Portraits." It was
+facilitated by the waning power displayed in the productions of some
+with whom he had been closely associated. It was suddenly completed by
+an event of which the momentous and wide-spread consequences are still
+felt,--the Revolution of February, 1848.
+
+M. Sainte-Beuve has given a curious account of the immediate effect of
+that event upon his own external circumstances and position. Some
+lurking irony may be suspected,--a disposition to reduce the apparent
+magnitude of a great political convulsion by setting it in juxtaposition
+with its more trivial results. But as the narrative is characteristic,
+and contains some passages that throw light upon the author's habits and
+sentiments, we give it, very slightly abridged, in his own words. It is
+prefixed to a course of lectures on Chateaubriand and his literary
+friends, delivered at Li�ge in 1848-49.
+
+"In October, 1847, in my capacity as one of the Conservators of the
+Mazarine Library, I occupied rooms at the Institute, where I had a
+chimney that smoked. With the view of guarding against this
+inconvenience before the winter should have set in, I summoned the
+_fumiste_ of the establishment, who, after entering into details and
+fixing upon the remedy,--some contrivance on the roof in the nature of a
+hooded chimney-pot,--observed that the expense, amounting to a hundred
+francs or so, was one of those which are chargeable to the landlord,
+that is to say, in this case, the government. Consequently I made a
+requisition on the Minister to whose department it belonged; the work
+was executed, and I thought no more of it.
+
+"Some months later, the Revolution of the 24th of February broke out. I
+perceived from the first day all the importance of that event, but also
+its prematureness. Without being one of those who regretted the fall of
+a dynasty or of a political system, I grieved for a civilization which
+seemed to me for the moment greatly compromised. I did not, however,
+indulge in the gloomy anticipations which I saw had taken possession of
+many who the day before had professed themselves republicans, but who
+were now surprised, and even alarmed, at their own success. I thought we
+should get out of this, as we had already got out of so many other
+embarrassments. I reflected that History has more than one road by which
+to advance; and I awaited the development of facts with the curiosity of
+an observer, closely blended, I must confess, with the anxieties of a
+citizen.
+
+"About a month later, towards the end of March, I was told by a friend
+that M. Jean Reynaud, who then filled an office which, though nominally
+in the department of Public Instruction, corresponded in fact with that
+of Under-Secretary of State, wished to see me. I had been well
+acquainted with M. Reynaud for seventeen or eighteen years, and had
+dined with him, in company with M. Charton, on Wednesday, the 25th of
+February preceding, while the Revolution was in full blast. Profiting by
+a short truce which had suddenly intervened on the afternoon of that
+day, I had been able to traverse the Champs-�lys�es, at the farther end
+of which he lived, and to keep an appointment dating from several days
+before. On that Wednesday, at six o'clock in the evening, I did not
+expect, and as little did M. Reynaud himself expect, that two days later
+he would be holding the post of quasi-minister in the department of
+Public Instruction. I heard with pleasure of his appointment, in
+conjunction with that of M. Carnot and M. Charton, for I knew their
+perfect integrity.
+
+"Summoned then, about a month after these events, by M. Reynaud, and
+having entered his office and approached him with my ordinary air, I saw
+in his countenance a look of consternation. He informed me that
+something very grave had taken place, and that this something concerned
+me; that certain lists specifying the sums distributed by the late
+government, with the names of the recipients, had been seized at the
+Tuileries; that my name had been found in them; that it occurred several
+times, with a sum--with sums--of a considerable amount attached to it.
+At first I began to laugh; but perceiving that M. Reynaud did not laugh,
+and receiving from him repeated appeals to my recollection, I began to
+ply him with questions in return. He was unable to enter into any exact
+details; but he assured me that the fact was certain,--that he had
+verified it with his own eyes; and as his alarm evidently proceeded from
+his friendship, I could not doubt the reality of what he had told me.
+
+"I believe that, by my manner of replying on the instant, I convinced
+him of the existence of some error or some fraud. But I perceived that
+there were others, near him, behind him, who would be less easily
+convinced. As soon, therefore, as I had returned home, I addressed to
+the _Journal des D�bats_ a letter of denial, a defiance to calumny, in
+the tone natural to honorable persons and such as feel secure in their
+own innocence. This letter furnished M. Reynaud with a weapon against my
+accusers behind the scene. As a proof that he accepted both the
+sentiment and the terms, he caused it to be inserted in the _Moniteur_.
+
+"However, I was not entirely satisfied; I wished to bring the affair
+fully to light. I made attempts to procure the lists in question. I went
+to see M. Taschereau, who was publishing them in his _Revue
+r�trospective_; I saw M. Landrin, the Attorney-General of the Republic;
+I even caused inquiries to be made of the former Ministers, then in
+London, with whom I had had the honor of being personally acquainted. No
+result; nobody understood to what my questions had reference. Wearied
+out at last, I discontinued the pursuit, though without dismissing the
+subject from my thoughts.
+
+"I will get to the bottom of this affair. There was in the department of
+Public Instruction a man newly elevated to power, who honored me with an
+enmity already of long standing. I have never in my life met M. G�nin; I
+have never once seen his face; but the fact is that he has always
+detested me, has often in his writings made me the object of his satire,
+and in his critical articles especially has ridiculed me to the extent
+of his powers. I did not suit this writer, whom all his friends
+pronounced a man of intellect; I appeared to him affected and full of
+mannerisms; and to me, on the other hand, he perhaps appeared neither so
+subtile, nor so refined, nor so original, as he seemed to others. Now M.
+G�nin, who had been intrusted, after the 24th of February, 1848, with
+the distribution of the papers in the Bureau of Public Instruction, was
+undoubtedly the person who had availed himself of the list in which my
+name was said to figure, for the purpose of bringing an accusation
+against my honor. He was himself a man of probity, but one who, in the
+violence of his prejudices and the acerbity of his disposition, could
+hardly stop short of actions positively bad.
+
+"If M. G�nin had lived in the world, in society, during the fifteen
+years previous to 1848 which I had passed in it, he would have
+comprehended how a man of letters, without fortune, without ambition, of
+retiring manners, and keeping strictly to his own place, may yet--by his
+intellect perhaps, by his character, by his tact, and by his general
+conduct--obtain an honorable and agreeable position, and live with
+persons of every rank, the most distinguished in their several
+walks,--persons not precisely of his own class,--on that insensible
+footing of equality which is, or which was, the charm and honor of
+social life in France. For my own part, during those years,--happy ones
+I may call them,--I had endeavored, not without a fair degree of
+success, to arrange an existence combining dignity with ease. To write
+from time to time things which it might be agreeable to read; to read
+what was not only agreeable but instructive; above all, not to write too
+much, to cultivate friendships, to keep the mind at liberty for the
+intercourse of each day and be able to draw upon it without fear of
+exhausting it; giving more to one's intimates than to the public, and
+reserving the finest and tenderest thoughts, the flower of one's nature,
+for the inner sanctuary;--such was the mode of life I had conceived as
+suitable to a literary knight, who should not allow has professional
+pursuits and associations to domineer over and repress the essential
+elements of his heart and soul. Since then necessity has seized upon me
+and constrained me to renounce what I considered the only happiness. It
+is gone, it has forever vanished, that better time, adorned with study
+and leisure, passed in a chosen circle, where I once received, from a
+fair friend whose loss has been irreparable, this charming counsel
+insinuated in the form of praise: 'If you think yourself dependent on
+the approbation of certain people, believe me, that others are dependent
+upon yours. And what better, sweeter bond can there be between persons
+who esteem each other, than this mutual dependence on moral approbation,
+balancing, so to speak, one's own sentiment of freedom. _To desire to
+please and at the same time to remain free_,--this is the rule we ought
+to follow.' I accepted the motto; I promised myself to be faithful to it
+in all that I might write; my productions at that period will show
+perhaps the degree in which I was influenced by it. But I perceive that
+I have strayed from my text.
+
+"I had forgotten to mention that, on the same day on which I wrote the
+letter inserted first in the _Journal des D�bats_, and afterwards in the
+_Moniteur_, I forwarded to Messieurs Reynaud and Carnot the resignation
+of my place at the Mazarine. I did not wish to expose myself to
+interrogatories and explanations where I could be less sure of being
+questioned in a friendly spirit and listened to with confidence. From
+the moment of taking this step there was no longer much choice for me. I
+had to live by my pen; and during the year 1848, literature in my
+understanding of that term--and indeed literature of every kind--formed
+one of those branches of industry, devoted to the production of
+luxuries, which were struck with a sudden interdict, a temporary death.
+I was asked in conversation if I knew any man of letters who would
+accept a place in Belgium as professor of French literature. Learning
+that the vacancy was at the University of Li�ge, I offered myself. I
+went to Brussels to confer on the project with M. Charles Rogier,
+Minister of the Interior, whom I had known a long time, and I accepted
+with gratitude the propositions that were made to me.
+
+"I left France in October, 1848. The press of Paris noticed my departure
+only with raillery. When a man of letters has no party, no followers, at
+his back, when he takes his way alone and independently, the least that
+can be expected is that the world should give itself the pleasure of
+insulting him a little on his passage. In Belgium I met with unexpected
+difficulties, thrown in my way by hostile compatriots. Pamphlets
+containing incredible calumnies were published against me. I have reason
+to speak with praise of the youth of Belgium, who decided to wait, and
+to judge me only by my acts and words. In spite of obstacles I
+succeeded. The present book, which was entirely composed and was to have
+been published before the end of 1849, represents one of the two courses
+which I delivered.
+
+"P.S. I had almost forgotten to recur to the famous lists. The one
+containing my name appeared at last in the _Revue r�trospective_. 'M.
+Sainte-Beuve, 100 francs,'--this was what was to be read there. The
+fabulous ciphers had vanished. On seeing this entry a ray of light
+dawned upon my memory. I recollected my smoky chimney of 1847, the
+repair of which was to have cost about that sum. But for this incident,
+I should never have been led to deliver the course now submitted to the
+reader, and the one circumstance has occasioned my mention of the
+other."
+
+It must be confessed that the chimney that drove M. Sainte-Beuve into
+temporary exile, and led to the production of a work in which his views
+on many important topics were enunciated with a clearness and force he
+had hitherto held in reserve, had smoked to some purpose. We may be
+permitted to believe that his integrity had never been seriously
+questioned; that the pretext for a brief abandonment of his beloved
+Paris while she was in a state of excitement and dishabille had not been
+altogether unwelcome. Though no admirer of the government of Louis
+Philippe, he had, as he still acknowledges, appreciated "the mildness of
+that _r�gime_, its humanity, and the facilities it afforded for
+intellectual culture and the development of pacific interests of every
+kind." The sudden overthrow, the turmoil, the vagaries that ensued, were
+little to his taste. He was content to stand aside, availing himself of
+the general dislocation to look around and choose for himself a new
+field, a more independent position.
+
+Here then begins the third, and, as we must suppose, the final stage of
+his career. In September, 1849, he returned to Paris, feeling "a great
+need of activity," as if his mind had been "refreshed by a year of study
+and solitude." What was he to undertake? No sooner did the question
+arise, than an answer presented itself in the form of an offer from one
+whose coadjutor he had become on a previous and similar occasion. M. le
+docteur V�ron, now the proprietor of the _Constitutionnel_, and as
+sagacious as ever in catering for the public taste, proposed to him to
+furnish every Monday an article on some literary topic. The notion of
+writing for the masses, of adapting his style to the requirements of a
+newspaper, gave him a momentary shock. Hitherto he had addressed only
+the most select audiences. But, after all, he was conscious of an almost
+boundless versatility, and no plan could better satisfy the desire which
+he had long felt of becoming "a critic in the full sense of the word,
+with the advantages of ripeness and perhaps of boldness." Such a change
+would be suited also to the new aspect of society. In literature it was
+no longer the time for training, tending, and watering, but the season
+of gathering the fruit, selecting the good and rejecting the unsound.
+Romanticism as a school had done its work and was now extinct. Every one
+went his separate way. Questions of form were no longer mooted; the
+public tolerated everything. Whoever had an idea on any subject wrote
+about it, and whoever chose to write was a _litt�rateur_. "With such a
+noise in the streets it was necessary to raise one's voice in order to
+be heard. Accordingly," says M. Sainte-Beuve, "I set to work for the
+first time on that kind of criticism, frank and outspoken, which belongs
+to the open country and the broad day."
+
+With the old manner he laid aside the old title. The term _Portraits_,
+which in its literary signification recalled the times of the
+Rochefoucaulds and the S�vign�s, was exchanged for the more modern one
+of Conversations,--_Causeries de Lundis_. Begun in the _Constitutionnel_
+on the 1st of October, 1849, they were continued three years later in
+the _Moniteur_, and in 1861 again resumed, under the title of _Nouveaux
+Lundis_, in the first-named journal, where they are still in progress.
+More than once the author has intimated his intention to bring them to a
+close. But neither his own powers nor the appetite of his readers having
+suffered any abatement, one series has followed upon another, until, in
+their reprinted form, they now fill nineteen volumes, while more are
+eagerly expected.
+
+The transformation of style which was visible at the very outset is one
+of the miracles of literary art. Simplicity, swiftness, precision, all
+the qualities which were conspicuously absent, we will not say wanting,
+in the _Portraits_,--these are the characteristics, and that in a
+surpassing degree, of the _Causeries_. The whole arrangement, too, is
+different. There is no preluding, there are no intricate harmonies: the
+key-note is struck in the opening chord, and the theme is kept
+conspicuously in view throughout all the modulations. The papers at once
+acquired a popularity which of course had never attended the earlier
+ones. "He has not the time to make them bad," was the praise accorded by
+some of their admirers, and smilingly accepted by the author. But is
+this indeed the explanation? Had he merely taken to "dashing off" his
+thoughts, after the general manner of newspaper writers? Had he deserted
+"art," and fallen back upon the crudities misnamed "nature"? If such had
+been the case, there would have been no occasion for the present notice.
+His fame would long since have been buried under the rubbish he had
+himself piled up. The fact is very different. "Natural fluency"--that is
+to say, the inborn capacity of the writer--he undoubtedly possessed; but
+"acquired difficulty,"--this was the school in which he had practised,
+this was the discipline which enabled him, when the need arose, to carry
+on a campaign of forced marches, brilliant and incessant skirmishes,
+without severing his lines or suffering a mishap. It was in wielding the
+lance that he had acquired the vigor and agility to handle the javelin
+with consummate address. Contrasted as are his earlier and later styles,
+they have some essential qualities in common;--an exquisite fitness of
+expression; a total exemption from harshness, vulgarity, and all the
+vices that have grown so common; a method, a sequence, which is at once
+the closest and the least obtrusive to be found in any prose of the
+present day.
+
+We pass from the style to the substance. The criticism, as we have seen,
+was to be "frank and outspoken." It became so at a single bound. The
+subject of the second number of the _Causeries_ was the _Confidences_ of
+M. de Lamartine, and the article opens with these words: "And why, then,
+should I not speak of it? I know the difficulty of speaking of it with
+propriety; the time of illusions and of complaisances has passed; it is
+absolutely necessary to speak truths; and this may seem cruel, so well
+chosen is the moment. Yet when such a man as M. de Lamartine has deemed
+it becoming not to close the year 1848 without giving to the public the
+confessions of his youth and crowning his political career with idyls,
+shall criticism hesitate to follow him and to say what it thinks of his
+book? shall it exhibit a discretion and a shamefacedness for which no
+one, the author least of all, would care?" And what follows? An
+outpouring of ridicule, of severity, such as the same book received from
+so many quarters? Nothing of the sort; nothing more than a thoroughly
+candid and discriminating judgment, never over-stepping the bounds of
+courtesy, never exaggerating a defect or concealing a beauty. A talk
+might be raised about the inconsistency with a former tone; but if the
+fact was made apparent that the later effusions of a tender and
+melodious, but shallow Muse, were but dilutions, ever more watery and
+insipid, of the first sweet and abundant flow, was the critic or the
+poet at fault?
+
+And so it has been in all the subsequent articles of M. Sainte-Beuve. It
+matters not who or what is the subject,--let it be a long-established
+reputation, like that of M. Guizot; a youthful aspirant, such as M.
+Hyppolite Rigault and many others; a brother critic, like M.
+Prevost-Paradol; a fanatical controversialist, like M. Veuillot; a
+personal friend, like M. Flaubert; or a bitter and unscrupulous
+assailant, like M. de Pontmartin,--the treatment is ever the same,
+sincere, impartial, unaffected. "To say nothing of writers, even of
+those who are the most opposed to us, but what their judicious friends
+already think and would be forced to admit,--this is the height of my
+ambition." Such was his proclamation, such has been his practice. No one
+has ever been bold enough to gainsay it. An equity so great, so
+unvarying, has almost staggered his brethren of the craft. "It is grand,
+it is royal," says M. Scherer,--who has himself approached near enough
+to the same summit to appreciate its height,--"only in him it cannot be
+called a virtue: it belongs to the intellect, which in him is blended
+with the character."
+
+"But he professes neutrality! He has no doctrines, no belief, no
+emotions! He discusses everything, not with any regard to the eternal
+considerations of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, but solely in
+the view of literature and art!" So cry certain voices, loudest among
+them that of M. de Pontmartin. It is certainly somewhat surprising that
+a man without opinions, without emotions, should be made the object of
+violent attacks, that according to M. de Pontmartin himself, whose
+authority, however, upon this point we may take the liberty of
+rejecting, there should be "few men more generally hated." Mere jealousy
+can have nothing to do with it. "There is not," remarks M. Scherer, "the
+trace of a literary rivalry to be found in his whole career." The truth
+is, that M. Sainte-Beuve has, on all the subjects he has examined,
+convictions which are strong, decided, earnestly and powerfully
+maintained. But he differs from the rest of us in this, that he not only
+professes, but enforces, a perfect freedom of opinion, a perfect
+equality in discussion. In religion he attaches more importance to the
+sentiment than to the creed. In morals he sets up a higher standard than
+conventionalism. In politics, as we shall presently see, he has even
+given in his adhesion to a system; but, treating politics, like
+medicine, as an experimental science, he refuses to see in any system an
+article of faith to be adopted and proclaimed irrespective of its
+results. In questions of literature and art he declines to apply any
+test but the principles of art, the literary taste "pure and simple." In
+all matters he prefers to look at the practical rather than the dogmatic
+side, to study living forces rather than dead forms. Hence the charge of
+indifference. He would better please those who differ from him, were he
+one-sided, narrow, rancorous. It is because his armor is without a flaw
+that they detest him.[D]
+
+We have spoken frequently of M. de Pontmartin. It is time to speak of
+him a little more definitely. As M. Sainte-Beuve has remarked, "the
+subject is not a difficult one." He belongs to the old aristocracy, and
+takes care that his readers shall not forget the fact. In religion and
+politics--with him, as with so many others, the two words have much the
+same meaning--he adheres consistently and chivalrously to causes once
+great and resplendent, now only fit subjects for elegies. As a writer,
+he is a master of the _critique spirituelle_,--that species which is so
+brilliant in display, so unsubstantial in results. He sparkles and
+glows; but his light only directs the brown nightingale where to find
+its repast. Armed cap-�-pie, glittering with epigram, rhetoric, and
+irony, he entered the lists against M. Sainte-Beuve, ostensibly to
+defend the reputation of Chateaubriand, provoked in reality by the
+causes already noticed. We have no space for the controversy that
+ensued. It is worthy of remark that the assault was directed, not
+against the censures which had been passed upon Chateaubriand,--M. de
+Pontmartin took good care not to aim at his adversary's shield,--but
+against the motives which had led to their suppression while the object
+was alive, and to their publication after he was dead. Now there are in
+the book on Chateaubriand some disclosures which might better have been
+spared. But in determining motives we shall go utterly astray if we
+leave character out of sight; and the whole career of M. Sainte-Beuve
+rises up against the implication that he was prompted in this instance
+by any other impulse than that spirit of investigation, that desire to
+penetrate to the heart of his subject, to unveil truth and dissipate
+illusions, which has grown stronger and more imperative at every step of
+his advance. We pass over his immediate replies. When, in the regular
+course of his avocation, he found an opportunity for expressing his
+opinion of M. de Pontmartin, he did it in a characteristic manner. There
+is not a particle of temper, not the slightest assumption of
+superiority, in the article. It is not "scathing" or "crushing,"--as we
+have seen it described. It has all the keenness, merely because it has
+all the simplicity, of truth. The playful but searching satire which the
+author has ever at command just touches the declamation of his opponent,
+and it falls like a house of cards. He sums up with a judgment as fair
+and as calm as if he had been speaking of a writer of some distant
+period. Astonished at the sleight of hand which had disarmed, and at the
+generosity which had spared him, M. de Pontmartin, in the first moment
+of his defeat,--before he had had time to recover his (bad) temper, to
+arm himself for more fiery assaults to be followed by fresh
+overthrows,--declared that, in spite of the susceptibility of his
+friends, he himself was well satisfied with a criticism which "assigned
+to him nearly all the merit to which he could pretend," and in which,
+"for the first time in his literary life, he had seen himself discussed,
+appreciated, and valued without either the indulgences of friendship or
+the violence of hatred."
+
+One point still remains to be touched upon. M. Sainte-Beuve has been
+from the first a steady supporter of the present Empire. This of course
+accounts for a portion of the enmity with which he has been "honored."
+In 1852 he received the appointment of Professor of Latin in the Coll�ge
+de France; but his opening lecture was interrupted by the clamors of the
+students, and the course was never resumed. From 1857 to 1861 he held a
+position in connection with the superintendence of the �cole Normale. In
+April, 1865, he was raised to the dignity of a Senator. No one, so far
+as we know, in France,--no one out of France, so far as we know, but a
+Saturday Reviewer,[E]--has ever been foolish enough to insinuate that he
+had purchased his elevation by a sacrifice of principle. It seems to us
+that the grounds on which such a man defends a system still on its
+probation before the world are worth examining. He has stated them more
+than once with his usual clearness and frankness. We extract some
+passages, with only the slight verbal alterations indispensable for
+condensation.
+
+"Liberty! the name is so beautiful, so responsive to our noblest
+aspirations, that we hesitate to analyze it. But politics are, after
+all, not a mere matter of enthusiasm. I ask, therefore, of what liberty
+we are disputing? The word conveys many different ideas. Have we to do
+with an article of faith, some divine dogma not to be touched without
+sacrilege? Modern liberty, which keeps altogether in view the security
+of the individual, the free exercise of his faculties, is a very complex
+thing. If under a bad government, though it be in form republican, I
+cannot walk the streets with safety at night, then my liberty is
+curtailed. On the other hand, every advantage, every improvement, which
+science, civilization, a good police, or a watchful and philanthropic
+government furnishes to the masses and to individuals, is a liberty
+acquired, a liberty not the less practical, positive, and fruitful for
+being unwritten, unestablished by any charter. These, I shall be told,
+are 'little liberties.' I do not call them such. But we have a greater
+and more essential one,--the right of the representatives of the nation
+to discuss and vote on the budget; and this supposes others,--it brings
+with it publicity, and the liberty of touching upon such questions in
+the press. Here the difference of opinion is one of degree; some demand
+an unqualified freedom of discussion, others stop at a point more or
+less advanced.
+
+"In human society, liberty, like everything else, is relative, and
+dependent on a multitude of circumstances. A sober, orderly, laborious,
+educated people can support a larger dose than one less richly gifted in
+these respects. Liberty is, thank God! a progressive conquest; that
+portion of it which is denied us to-day we can always hope to acquire
+to-morrow. Let us develop, as far as it lies with us, intelligence,
+morality, habits of industry, in all the classes of society; that done,
+we may die tranquilly; France will be free, not with that absolute
+freedom which is not of this world, but with the relative freedom which
+corresponds with the imperfect, but perfectible, conditions of our
+nature.
+
+"This, however, will not satisfy those who are faithful to the primary
+idea of liberty as absolute and indivisible. After every concession,
+there must still remain two distinct classes of minds, divided by a
+broad line of demarcation.
+
+"One embraces those who hold firmly to that generous inspiration which,
+under all diversities of time and circumstances, has had the same moral
+source; who contend that such champions of liberty as Brutus, William of
+Orange, De Witt, Chatham, however haughty and aristocratic the ideas of
+some of them, were yet of the same political faith, filled with ideas of
+human nobleness and dignity, conceding much, if not to the masses, at
+least to the advanced and enlightened classes which in their eyes
+represented humanity. Thinkers of this kind are not far to seek; witness
+Scherer, R�musat, Tocqueville,--the last of whom was so imbued and
+penetrated with the idea that all his language vibrated with it; and,
+most striking example of all, that great minister too early removed,
+Cavour, who, confident in the patriotic sentiment of his countrymen,
+adopted it as a principle and a point of honor not to govern or reform
+without letting the air of liberty blow and even bluster around him.
+
+"It will not be said that I undervalue this class. I will come boldly to
+the other, composed of those who are neither servile not absolutists,--I
+repel this name, in my turn, with all the pride to which every sincere
+conviction has a right,--but who believe that humanity has in all times
+owed much to the mind and character of particular individuals; that
+there have always been, and always will be, what were formerly called
+heroes, what under one name or another are to be recognized as
+directors, guides, superior men,--men who, whether born or raised to
+power, cause their countrymen, their contemporaries, to take some of
+those decisive steps which would otherwise have been retarded or
+indefinitely adjourned. I picture to myself the first progress of
+society as having taken place in this way: tribes or collections of men
+stop short at a stage of civilization which indolence or ignorance leads
+them to be content with; in order that they shall pass beyond it, it is
+necessary that a superior and far-seeing mind, the civilizer, should
+assist them, should draw them to himself, raise them a degree by sheer
+force, as in the 'Deluge' of Poussin, those on the upper terraces
+stretch their hands to those below, clutch and lift them up. But
+humanity, I shall be told, is at last emancipated; it has no longer any
+deluge to fear; it has attained its majority; it finds within itself all
+the motives and stimulants to action; light circulates; every one has
+the right to speak and to be heard; the sum total of all opinions, the
+net result of discussion, may be accepted as the voice of truth itself!
+I do not deny that in certain questions of general interest and utility,
+on which every one may be tolerably well informed, the voice of all has,
+in our mild and instructed ages, its share of reason, and even of
+wisdom; ideas ripen by the mere conjunction of forces and the course of
+the seasons. And yet has routine altogether ceased? Is prejudice, that
+monster with a thousand forms which has the quality of never recognizing
+its own visage, as far removed as we flatter ourselves? Is progress,
+true progress, as entirely the order of the day as it is believed to be?
+How many steps are there still to take,--steps which I am persuaded
+never will be taken save by the impulsion and at the signal of a firm
+and vigorous head, which shall take the direction upon itself!
+
+"Some years since there was a question about finishing the Louvre. Could
+it of could it not be done? A great Assembly, when consulted, declared
+it to be impracticable. It was in fact impracticable under the
+conditions which then existed. Yet within the short period that has
+since elapsed, the Louvre has been finished. This instance is for me
+only a symbol. How many moral Louvres remain to be completed!
+
+"There are governments which have for their principle resistance and
+obstruction; but there are also governments of initiation. Governments
+founded on pure liberty are not necessarily the most active. Free
+assemblies are better suited to put the drag upon the wheels, to check
+them when they go too fast, than to accelerate them. Like criticism,
+which is in fact their province and their strength, they excel in
+warning and in hindering rather than in undertaking. The eternal problem
+is to reconcile, to balance, authority and liberty, using sometimes the
+one, sometimes the other. In this double play theory may be at fault,
+but practical ability will always triumph.
+
+"Some nations, it was lately said by a liberal, have tried to dispense
+with great men, and have succeeded. There is a perspective to
+contemplate! Let us not, however, in France, try too often to dispense
+with them. The greatest of our moralists, he who knew us best, has said
+of man in general, what is true of the French nature in particular, that
+we have more force than will. Let us hope that this latter quality may
+not fail us too long or in too many cases; and, that it may be
+efficacious, there is nothing like a man, a determined and sovereign
+will, at the head of the nation.
+
+"I appreciate human dignity as much as others. Woe to him who would seek
+to diminish the force of this moral spring; he would cripple at a blow
+all the virtues. I do not, however, place this noblest of sentiments on
+the somewhat isolated height where it is put by the exclusive adorers of
+liberty. Let us not confound dignity with mere loftiness. Moreover, by
+the side of dignity let us never forget that other inspiring sentiment,
+which is at least its equal in value, humanity; that is to say, the
+remembrance, the care, of that great number who are condemned to a life
+of poverty and suffering, and whose precarious condition will not endure
+those obstacles, retardments, and delays that belong to every plan of
+amelioration founded on agitation and a conflict of systems and ideas. I
+am far from imputing to the worshippers of liberty a disregard of this
+humane and generous feeling. But with them the means is more sacred than
+the end. They would rather take but one step in the path of true
+progress, than be projected two by an adverse principle. Their political
+religion is stronger than mine. Mine is not proof against experience.
+
+"If a question were put to us in a general way, Which is the better for
+a people, self-government, full discussion, decisions in accordance with
+good sense, and submitted to by all--or government by one, however
+able?--it would be only too easy to decide. But the practical question
+is, Given such a nation, with such a character, with such a history, in
+such a position,--does it, can it, wish to govern itself by itself?
+would not the end be anarchy? We talk of principles; let us not leave
+out of sight France, which is for us the first and most sacred of
+principles. Some have their idol in Rome and the Vatican; others in
+Westminster and the English Parliament; meanwhile, what becomes of poor
+France, which is neither Roman nor English, and which does not wish to
+be either?
+
+"No, without doubt, all is not perfect. Let us accept it on the
+condition of correcting and improving it. Examine the character,
+original and altogether modern, of this new Empire, which sincerely has
+no desire to repress liberty, which has acquired glory, and in which the
+august chain of tradition is already renewed. What a _r�le_ does it
+offer to young and intelligent minds, to generous minds, which, putting
+apart secondary questions and disengaging themselves from formulas,
+should be willing to seize and comprehend their entire epoch, accepting
+all that it contains! What a problem in politics, in public economy, in
+popular utility, that of seeking and aiding to prepare the way for such
+a future as is possible for France, as is now grandly opening before
+her, with a chief who has in his hand the power of Louis XIV., and in
+his heart the democratic principles of the Revolution,--for he has them,
+and his race is bound to have them!"
+
+This, it will be perceived, is an application of the ideas of Mr.
+Carlyle, modified by the special views and characteristics of the
+writer, and adapted to the circumstances and necessities of the
+particular case. It has far less similarity with the doctrines so
+pompously announced, so vaguely applied, in the _Vie de Jules C�sar_. It
+does not lie open to the criticism which that clumsy and feeble apology
+seemed intended to provoke, and which it had received at the competent
+hands of M. Scherer. We have here no mysterious revelations of the
+designs of Providence, no intimations that the world was created as a
+theatre for the exaltation of certain godlike individuals. The question,
+as presented by M. Sainte-Beuve, is a practical one, and as such we
+accept it. We believe with him in the necessity for great men, in the
+guidance of heroes. We believe with M. Scherer in the animating forces
+of liberty, in its activity and power as an essential principle of
+progress and civilization. That the combination may exist is attested by
+such examples as William of Orange, Count Cavour, Abraham Lincoln.
+
+It all comes, therefore, to this single inquiry: Is the present ruler of
+France a great man, a hero? Is he the enlightened leader whom a nation
+may and confidently follow? Has he the genius and the will to solve the
+problem before him, to reconcile liberty with authority? Posterity alone
+will be able to pronounce with unanimity. For ourselves, we must answer
+in the negative. We do not denounce him, we believe it absurd to
+denounce him, as a conspirator or a usurper. If he was a conspirator,
+France was his accomplice. There cannot be a doubt that the nation not
+only was ready to accept him, but sought him; not indeed for his
+personal qualities, not as recognizing its appointed guide, but from the
+recollections and the hopes of which his name was the symbol. We
+acknowledge, too, his obvious abilities; we acknowledge the material and
+economical improvements which his government has inaugurated. But we
+fail to see the "moral Louvres" which he has opened; we fail to see in
+his character any evidences of the moral power which can alone inspire
+such improvements; we fail to see in his reign any principle of
+"initiation," save that which the Ruler of the universe has implanted in
+every system and in every government. Yet we concede the right of others
+to think differently on these points, without being suspected of moral
+obtuseness or obliquity. Especially can we comprehend how a patriotic
+Frenchman should choose to accept all the conditions of his epoch, and
+embrace every opportunity of aiding in the task of correction and
+amelioration.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We are unwilling to emerge from our subject at its least agreeable
+angle. Our strain, however feeble, shall not close with a discord. And
+indeed, in looking back, we are pained to perceive how slight is the
+justice we have been able to render to the rare combination of powers
+exhibited in the works we have enumerated. We have left unnoticed the
+wonderful extent and accuracy of the learning, the compass and
+profundity of the thought, the inexhaustible spirit, ever preserving the
+happy mean between mental languor and nervous excitement. In these
+twenty-seven volumes of criticism, scarcely an error has been detected,
+scarcely a single repetition is met with; there is scarcely a page which
+a reader, unpressed for time, would be inclined to skip. Where you least
+agree with the author, there you will perhaps have the most reason to
+thank him for his hints and elucidations. Is it not then with reason
+that M. Sainte-Beuve has been styled "the prince of contemporaneous
+criticism"? His decisions have been accepted by the public, and he has
+founded a school which does honor to France.
+
+How is it that our own language offers no such example? How is it that
+the English literature of the present century, superior to that of
+France in so many departments, richer therefore in the material of
+criticism, has nothing to show in this way, we will not say equal,
+but--taking quantity as well as quality into the account--in any degree
+similar? How is it that nothing has been written on the highest minds
+and chief productions of the day--on Tennyson, on Thackeray, on
+Carlyle--which is worth preserving or remembering? Is it that criticism
+has been almost abandoned to a class of writers who have no sense of
+their responsibilities, no enlightened interest in their art, no
+liberality of views,--who make their position and the influence attached
+to it subservient either to their interests or to their vanity? Descend,
+gentlemen reviewers, from the heights on which you have perched
+yourselves; lay aside your airs and your tricks, your pretences and
+affectations! Have the honesty not to misrepresent your author, the
+decency not to abuse him, the patience to read, and if possible to
+understand him! Point out his blemishes, correct his blunders, castigate
+his faults; it is your duty,--he himself will have reason to thank you.
+But do not approach him with arrogance or a supercilious coldness; do
+not, if your knowledge be less than his, seek to mask your ignorance
+with the deformity of conceit; do not treat him as a criminal or as a
+dunce, unless he happens really to be one. Above all, do not, by dint of
+_judging_, vitiate your faculty of _tasting_. Recognize the importance,
+the inestimable virtues, of that quality which you have piqued
+yourselves on despising,--that _sympathy_ which is the sum of
+experience, the condition of insight, the root of tolerance, the seal of
+culture!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[C] At the moment when we are sending this sketch to press a specimen of
+the sort of criticism to which we have alluded comes to us in the form
+of an article in the Quarterly Review for January,--the subject, M.
+Sainte-Beuve himself. One wonders how it is that the writer, who, if
+really familiar with the productions he criticises, must have been
+indebted to them for many hours of enjoyment, much curious information,
+and a multitude of suggestions and stimulants to reflection, should have
+had no feeling of kindliness or gratitude for the author. But then the
+question comes up, Was he in reality familiar with the works? Several of
+his statements might provoke a doubt upon this point. We cite a single
+example. Speaking of M. Sainte-Beuve's temporary connection with the
+Saint-Simonians, he says: "For a brief season he appears to have felt
+some of the zeal of a neophyte, _speaking_ the _speech_ and _talking_
+the vague nonsense of his new friends. But soon his native good-sense
+seems to have perceived that the whole thing was only a fevered dream of
+a diseased age." Now the reviewer, if he knows anything of the doctrines
+in question, is entitled to express his opinion of them, even if he does
+it in tautological and slipshod English. But he has no right to
+attribute his own opinions to M. Sainte-Beuve, who is so far from
+holding them that, in articles written so lately as in 1861 (_Nouveaux
+Lundis_, I.), he has not only traced the _enduring_ influence of
+Saint-Simonianism upon some of the ablest minds in France, but has
+contended that what were once considered the wildest dreams of that
+system have since been substantially realized. Perhaps the reviewer
+thinks that, as M. Sainte-Beuve is "a chameleon," with scarcely one
+single fixed opinion on any problem, literary, philosophical, political,
+or religious, there can be no harm in fathering upon him any notion from
+whatever source. But on one point at least--the duty of being accurate
+in the statement of other persons' opinions--M. Sainte-Beuve has shown
+an unwavering consistency.
+
+[D] Here is, quite _apropos_, a frank admission to that effect from the
+Quarterly Reviewer before mentioned: "We confess we should be glad to
+meet with some passages in the writings of M. Sainte-Beuve which would
+prove him capable of downright scorn or anger." Yes, but if they had
+been there, how stern would have been the rebuke!
+
+[E] A Quarterly Reviewer must now be added.
+
+
+
+
+DE SPIRIDIONE EPISCOPO.
+
+
+    This is the story of Spiridion,
+    Bishop of Cyprus by the grace of God,
+    Told by Ruffinus in his history.
+
+    A fair and stately lady was Iren�,
+    Spiridion's daughter, and in all the isle
+    Was none so proud; if that indeed be pride,
+    The haughty conscience of great truthfulness,
+    Which makes the spirit faithful unto death,
+    And martyrdom itself a little thing.
+
+    There came a stranger to Spiridion,
+    A wealthy merchant from the Syrian land,
+    Who, greeting, said: "Good father, I have here
+    A golden casket filled with Roman coin
+    And Eastern gems of cost uncountable.
+    Great are the dangers of the rocky road,
+    False as a serpent is the purple sea,
+    And he who carries wealth in foreign lands
+    Carries his death, too often, near his heart,
+    And finds life's poison where he hoped to find
+    Against its pains a pleasant antidote.
+    I pray you, keep for me these gems in trust,
+    And give them to me when I come again."
+
+    Spiridion listened with a friendly smile,
+    And answered thus the dark-browed Syrian:
+    "Here is a better guardian of gold,--
+    My daughter, sir. The people of the coast
+    Are wont to say that, if she broke her faith,
+    Silver and gold themselves would lose their shine.
+    She is our island's trusty treasurer."
+    "Then," said the Syrian, "she shall be mine
+    As well as theirs,"--and saying this he gave
+    The casket with the jewels to her hand.
+
+    Right earnestly the lady answered him,
+    As one who slowly turns some curious thought:
+    "Sir, you have called this treasure _life and death_,
+    Which in your Eastern lore, as I have read,
+    Is the symbolic phrase of Deity,
+    And the most potent phrase to sway the world.
+    With life to death I'll guard the gems for you,
+    And dead or living give them back again."
+
+    Now while the merchant went to distant Rome
+    The fair Iren� died a sudden death,
+    And all the land went mourning for the maid,
+    And on the roads and in the palaces
+    Was one long wail for her by night and day.
+    While thus they grieved, the Syrian came again,
+    And, after fit delay, in proper time
+    Went to the father, to Spiridion,
+    Condoling with him on his daughter's death
+    In many a sad and gentle Eastern phrase,
+    Deep tinctured with a strange philosophy.
+
+    Now when they had awhile consumed their grief
+    Outspoke the Bishop: "Syrian, it is well
+    If this sad death be not more sad for us,
+    And most especially more sad for thee,
+    Than thou hast dreamed of." Here he checked his speech,
+    And then, as if in utter agony,
+    Burst forth with--"She is gone! and all thy store,
+    It too is gone: she only upon earth
+    Knew where 't was hidden,--and she trusted none.
+    O God, be merciful! What shall I do?"
+
+    Then on him gravely looked the Syrian
+    With grand, calm mien, as almost pitying,
+    And said: "O father, can this be thy _faith_?
+    Man of the West, how little didst thou know
+    The wondrous nature of that girl now dead.
+    Hast thou ne'er heard that they who once become
+    Faithful to death are masters over death?
+    And here and there on earth a woman lives
+    Whose eyes proclaim the mighty victory won.
+    Give me thy hand and lead me to the bier:
+    Thou know'st it is not all of death to die."
+
+    He took his hand and led him to the bier,
+    And they beheld the Beautiful in Death,
+    The perfect loveliness of Grecian form
+    Inspired by Egypt's solemn mystery.
+    A single pause in the eternity,
+    The Present, Past, and Future all in one.
+
+    Awhile they stood and gazed upon the Dead,
+    And then Spiridion spoke, as one inspired:
+    "O God! thou wert our witness,--make it known!"
+    He paused in solemn awe, for at the word
+    There came an awful sign. The dead white hand
+    Was lifted, and Iren�'s eyes unclosed,
+    Beaming with light as only angels' beam,
+    And from the cold white lips there came a voice:
+    "_The gems lie hidden in the garden wall._
+    _God bless thee, father, for thy constant love!_
+    _God bless thee, Syrian, for thy faith in me!_"
+
+    This is the story of Spiridion,
+    And of his daughter, faithful unto death.
+
+
+
+
+A STRUGGLE FOR SHELTER.
+
+
+Having, in "A Letter to a Young Housekeeper," held counsel with her
+whose home is made by a noble husband, it is no less pleasant to recall
+the claims of her whose home is made by herself; who, instead of keeping
+house for two, keeps house for but one, and whose stars have not yet led
+her on either to matrimony or to Washington Territory.
+
+Mrs. Stowe, in a late number of the Atlantic, has discoursed admirably
+on the woman question of how to get occupation; a point to be equally
+anxious upon is that of how to get a shelter. It is often easier to get
+a husband than either. Perhaps every one knows the exceeding difficulty
+with which, in our large cities, the single woman obtains even a room
+wherein to lodge; but only the victims can know the real distresses it
+involves. In the capital, where noble women are chiefly needed, to begin
+homeless is a positive peril; and to stand on the surest integrity is
+only to fall at last. If one apply at the boarding-houses it is either
+to be instantly rebuffed by learning that no rooms are let to ladies, or
+more delicately parried by being told that the terms are forty dollars a
+week! If one have attractions and friends, it is equivocal; if one have
+them not, it is equally desperate. Should Minerva herself alight there
+with a purse that would not compass Willard's, one cannot imagine what
+would become of her. She would probably be seen wandering at late night,
+with bedimmed stars and bedraggled gauze, until some vigorous officer
+should lead her to the station-house for vagrancy. Thus when fascination
+and forlornness are at equal discount, when powers and penuries go down
+together, and common and uncommon sense fail alike, to what natural
+feeling shall one hope to appeal? There is no sound spot of humanity
+left to rest upon. It is a dilemma that is nothing but horns.
+
+Possibly it is a trifle better in New England; but here, as elsewhere,
+the chief enemy of woman is woman. It is women who keep our houses for
+boarding and lodging, and, with a few radiant exceptions, it is they who
+never take ladies. If by any chance a foothold be obtained there, the
+only safety is in keeping it with stern self-denial of all outside
+pleasures or excursions. Surrender for a week, and you return to that
+door only to hear that two gentlemen have taken your room, and that they
+will pay more. You ask for an attic. Just now there are two gentlemen
+there. Will there be a place under the eaves? Possibly, next week. But
+before then the two gentlemen are on hand again, have unpacked their
+vials of unctuous hair-oil, and are happily snuggled under the eaves.
+Indeed, they seem to make long journeys expressly to head one off, and
+to be where they should not be. They are on time always, and in at the
+winning. Some day one will pathetically die of two gentlemen on the
+brain; and the doctor will only call it congestion. O for a new Knight
+of a Sorrowful Figure, to demolish all such ubiquitous persons! I have
+sometimes had as many as three of my engaged rooms at a time occupied by
+these perpetual individuals,--myself waiting a-tremble on the portico.
+Then it struck me that, if there were really any more gentlemen in
+Washington Territory than here, women had better not go there.
+
+Out of this exigency has arisen a grand vision of mine to build a flat
+of five or six rooms; a single landing of dining- and drawing-rooms,
+boudoir, bedroom, and kitchen with its apartment for a domestic. And,
+either by lounge-bedstead or famous Plympton, there should be the
+possibility of sleeping in every apartment but the kitchen. This would
+be such sweet revenge for one whom the Fates had driven about for five
+years to hunt lodgings. I would gormandize on bedrooms,--like Cromwell
+resting in a different one every night,--and the empty ones filling with
+forlornest of females, provided one need not do the honors at their
+table in the morning and hear how they have slept. There should be
+alcoves too, with statues; and unexpected niches of rooms crimson with
+drapery, "fit to soothe the imagination with privacy"; and oh! perhaps
+somewhere a bit of a conservatory and a fountain,--did not Mrs. Stowe
+tell us of these too? Here one could dwell snugly as in the petals of a
+rose, or expansively as in a banyan-tree, undisturbed alike from
+gentlemen in black or women in white, liable only to the elements and to
+mortality.
+
+If only this castle were as attainable as that of Thoreau!--which was to
+consist of but one room, with one door to enter it, and where "some
+should live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some
+on settles,--some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some
+aloft on rafters with the spiders if they chose."
+
+But on the _terra firma_ of realities one's trouble is somewhat
+mitigated by the fact that, when all is said and done, the
+boarding-houses are usually so poor, that, having entered them, one's
+effort to get admitted is rather exceeded by one's desire to depart. The
+meats are all cooked together with one universal gravy;--beef is pork,
+and lamb is pork, each passing round the swinal sin; the vegetables
+often seem to know but one common kettle, for turnip is onion, and
+squash is onion; while the corn-cake has soda for sugar, and the bread
+is sour and drab-colored, much resembling slices of Kossuth hat.
+
+From these facts grew the experiment of becoming housekeeper
+extraordinary to myself,--a strait to which many a one is likely to be
+driven, unless we are to have something better than can be offered by
+the present system of boarding-houses. For since one's castle was not
+yet builded outside of the brain, it only took a little Quixotism of
+imagination to consider as castles all these four-story brick houses
+with placards affixed of "Rooms to be let," and to secure the most
+eligible corner in one of these at moderate rent.
+
+This of course is not so easy to do; but at last a _petite_ room seemed
+to be struck out from the white heat of luck,--so _petite_!--six feet by
+thirteen feet, two carpet-breadths wide and four masculine strides long;
+one flight up, and just large enough to sheathe one's self in;
+high-walled and corniced, with on the one hand a charming bay-window
+looking three ways, and cheerily catching the sunlight early and late;
+on the other, an open grate fire, fit to illuminate the gray Boston
+mornings,--though, when the brilliant sun came round full at noon, there
+seemed no fire till that was gone. I strove to forget that it might have
+been a doctor's consulting office, and three days after there blossomed
+out of it seven several apartments; the inevitable curtain across the
+corner giving a wardrobe and bath; the short side of the room, with
+desk, a library; the long side, with sofa, a bedchamber; the upper end,
+with table, a dining-hall; the cupboard and region about the hearth, a
+kitchen; while the remainder, with a lively camp-stool chair that
+balanced about anywhere and doubled into nothing when desired, was
+drawing-room,--that is, it was drawing-room wherever the chair was
+drawn. In this apartment everything was handy. One could sit in the
+centre thereof, and, by a little dexterous tacking to north or south,
+reach every article in it. But when a lad whose occasional infirmity was
+fainting was proposed to build the fire, it became necessary to decline,
+on the ground that there really was not room enough, unless he were so
+kind as to faint up chimney. A genuine bower it was, but not a Boffin's
+Bower, where the wedded occupants suited their contrary tastes by having
+part sanded-floor for Mr. Boffin, and part high-colored carpet for Mrs.
+Boffin,--"comfort on one side and fashion on the other." In this the
+walls were hung with pictures, and the windows with lace, while the
+corner curtain was a gorgeous piano cover. Mr. Boffin not being here, it
+was both comfort and fashion all round.
+
+In this minute way of living, the first visiting messages could only
+include the announcement of dainty regards, and of readiness to receive
+friends one by one; and dining messages could only entreat "the best one
+to come to the _petite_ one on Thursday, for sake of a suggestion of
+pigeons' wings." Assuredly none would have voted any exquisite thing out
+of place, from a dish of lampreys, that favorite viand of kings, to the
+common delicacy of Rome, a stew of nightingales' tongues. And so compact
+were all the arrangements, that a brilliant friend was fain to declare
+that the hostess should certainly live on condensed milk.
+
+Indeed, it was the grand concentration of having wardrobe and bath
+together that caused a very singular mishap. One morning, being in
+clumsy-fingered haste to get to a train, I summarily dropped my bonnet
+into the wash-bowl. This was not a very dry joke, but having mopped up
+the article as well as possible, I put it on and departed with usual
+hilarity,--still remembering what it was to have the kindest fortune in
+the world, and that one should not expect so rare a life as mine without
+an occasional disaster.
+
+But none need undertake a plan of this sort on the theology of Widow
+Bedott's hymn, "K. K., Kant Kalkerlate"; for in this song of life on six
+feet by thirteen, calculation is the sole rhyme for salvation. We have
+heard of dying by inches: this is living by inches. If there be not
+floor-room, then perhaps there is wall-room, and every possible article
+must be made to hang, from the boot-bag and umbrella behind the curtain
+to the pretty market-basket, so toy-like, in the corner. Indeed, it is
+the chief charm of a camp-stool chair that this too, when off duty, may
+be hung upon the wall, like a hunter's saddle when the chase is ended.
+Only see that all the screws are in stoutly, so that in some
+entertaining hour various items of your wardrobe or adornments do not
+bring their owner to sudden grief.
+
+As might be anticipated, it was rather a struggle to get condensed; and
+afterward, too, there were fleeting phases of feeling about it all. For
+at times it is not pleasant to connect the day of the week chiefly with
+its being the day to clean one's cupboard or lamp-chimney. Often, too,
+during a very nice breakfast, one is ready to vow that she will never do
+otherwise than board herself; and while despatching the work after,
+equally ready to vow that she will take flight from this as soon as
+possible. Sometimes, also, one gets a little too much of herself, and an
+overdose in this direction is about as bad as most insufferable things.
+But then there must be seasons of discouragement in everything. They
+inhere to all human enterprises, just as measles and whooping-cough to
+childhood. It is well to remember as they pass how rarely it is that
+they prove fatal.
+
+And wherefore discouraged, indeed? Is it not the charm of life that
+nothing is final,--not even death itself? In this strange existence,
+with its great and rapid transitions, happy events are always imminent.
+One may be performing her own menialities to-day, and to-morrow, in an
+ambassador's carriage, be folded in a fur robe with couchant lions upon
+it; to-day be quartered in a single attic, to-morrow be treading the
+tapestries of her own drawing-rooms. Thus the golden Fate turns and
+keeps turning; it is only when, through frigidness or fear, we refuse to
+revolve with it, that there ensues the discord of despair.
+
+But instead of going to a Walden and camping on the shady edges of the
+world, to see what could be done without civilization, I preferred to
+camp down in the heart of civilization, and see what could be done with
+it;--not to fly the world, but to face it, and give it a new emphasis,
+if so it should be; to conjure it a little, and strike out new
+combinations of good cheer and good fellowship. In fact, it seems to me
+ever that the wild heart of romance and adventure abides no more with
+rough, uncouth nature than with humanity and art. To sit under the pines
+and watch the squirrels run, or down in the bush-tangles of the
+Penobscot and see the Indians row, is to me no more than when Gottschalk
+wheels his piano out upon the broad, lone piazza of his house on the
+crater's edge, and rolls forth music to the mountains and stars. Here
+too are mystery, poesy, and a perpetual horizon.
+
+This for romance; but true adventure abides most where most the forces
+of humanity are. So I camped down in the heart of things, surely; for in
+the next room were a child, kitten, and canary; in the basement was a
+sewing-machine; while across the entry were a piano, flute, and
+music-box. But Providence, that ever takes care of its own, did ever
+prevent all these from performing at once, or the grand seraglio of
+Satan would have been nothing to it.
+
+But if in getting a room one is haunted by the two gentlemen, in getting
+furniture and provisions one is afterward haunted by the "family"
+relation. It is a result of the youthfulness of our civilization, that
+as yet it is cumbrous and unwieldy. We do not yet master it, but are
+mastered by it; and nowhere in America will one find the charming
+arrangements for single living which have filled the Old World with
+delightful haunts for the students of every land. As yet we provide for
+people, not persons; and the needs of the single woman are no more
+considered in business than in boarding. Forever she is reminded of the
+Scripture, "He setteth the solitary in families"; and forever it seems
+that all must be set there but herself. For nice crockery is sold by the
+set, knives and forks by the half-dozen, the best coal by the half-ton;
+the tin-pans are immense, and suggest a family Thanksgiving; pokers
+gigantic, fit only to be wielded by the father of a family; and at
+market the game is found with feet tied together in clever family
+bunches, while one is equally troubled to get a chop or a steak, because
+it will spoil the family roast,--and as to a bit of venison for
+breakfast, it may be had by taking two haunches and a saddle. In
+desperation she exclaims with O'Grady of Arrah na Pogue, "O father Adam,
+why had you not died with all your ribs left in your body!" For since
+there is neither place nor provision for her in the world, why indeed
+should she have come?
+
+Having once, on a fruitless tour through Faneuil Hall Market for a
+single slice of beef, come to the last stall, and here finding nothing
+less than a sirloin of six pounds, which was not to be cut, I could
+only answer imploringly, "But pray, what is one person to do with a
+sirloin of six pounds?" A relenting smile swept over the stern butcher's
+face. "I _will_ cut it!" he said, brandishing the knife at once. "Thank
+you," I cried, with a gush of emotion; for he seemed a really religious
+man. He comprehended that there was at least one solitary whom the Lord
+had not set in a family. I took the number of his stall.
+
+Nor is it yet too late to be grateful to him who proposed breaking a
+bundle of cutlery in my behalf. He too realized the situation, and saw
+that by no possibility could one person gracefully get on with six
+knives and forks at once.
+
+Indeed, since one's single wants are not regularly met by this system of
+things, the only way at present to get them answered is by favor. So
+that the first item in setting up an establishment is not only to bring
+one's resources about one, but to find the people of the trade who will
+assist in the gladdest way. One wants the right stripe in the morning
+and evening papers, but none the less happy are just the right merchant
+and just the right menial. Since all of life may be rounded into rhythm,
+shall we not even consult the harmonies in a grocer or an upholsterer?
+Personal power can be carried into every department. It is well to find
+where one's word has weight, then always say the word there. This is a
+part of the quest which makes life a perpetual adventure; and there is
+nothing more piquant than to go on an exploring tour for one's
+affinities among the trades. It is perhaps rather more of the
+sensational than the sentimental, and might be marked in the private
+note-book with famous headings, like those of the New York papers on a
+balloon marriage, as, The last affinity item! A raid among the
+magnetisms! or, Hifalutin among prunes! However, in some subtile way,
+one soon divines on entering a store whether she is to be well served
+there, and must follow with tact the undercurrent in the shop as well as
+in the _salon_. If it be not the right encounter, ask for something
+there is not, and pass on to the next. Thus, "my grocer" apologizes for
+keeping honey, because I do not eat sweets, and proposes to open the
+butter trade because it is so annoying to go about for butter; "my
+stoveman" descends from the stilts of the firm, looking after these
+chimney affairs himself; "my carpenter" says, "Shure, an' ye don't owe
+_me_ onything; I'd work for ye grat-tis if I could"; "my cabinet-dealer"
+sends tables and wardrobes at midnight if desired, and takes them back
+and sells them over the next day; even the washerwoman is an affinity,
+exclaiming, "Shure, an' ye naid n't think I'll be chargin' ye with all
+the collars an' ruffles ye put in,--shure, an' I'll not."
+
+Perhaps it sounds a little egotistic to say "my grocer," &c., but is not
+this the way that heads of families talk, and am I not head and family
+too? At least the solitary may soothe themselves with the family sounds.
+Indeed, it soon appears that all these faithful servers are like to
+become so radical a part of the my and mine of existence, as to make it
+really alarming. When one's comfort is thus bound up in fire-boy and
+washerwoman, alas! what will become of the grand philosophy of
+Epictetus?
+
+To begin housekeeping proper, one will need at least a bread-knife and
+tumbler, a gridiron and individual salt,--cost eighty-four cents. My
+list also includes for kitchen and table use:--
+
+    Tin saucepan                          .40
+     " baking-pan                         .23
+     " oyster pail                        .25
+    2 breakfast plates                    .20
+    4 tea plates                          .32
+    Cup (and cover to mimic sugar-bowl)   .15
+    Mixing spoon                          .15
+    Pint bowl                             .20
+    Butter jar                            .35
+    2 knives and forks                    .45
+    2 saucers                             .14
+    2 minute platters                     .18
+    1 " vegetable-dish                    .10
+    3 individual butter-plates            .18
+                                         ----
+                                        $3.30
+    The aforementioned gridiron, &c.      .84
+                                         ----
+             Sum total                  $4.14
+
+To this should be added a small iron frying-pan for gravied meats. The
+quart pail usually did duty for vegetables, the saucepan for soup, while
+prime chops and steaks appeared from the gridiron. Tea-spoons are not
+included, nor any tea things whatever. These excepted, it will be seen
+that less than five dollars gives a full housekeeping apparatus, with
+pretty white crockery enough to invite a dinner guest.
+
+The provisions for one week were:--
+
+    Bread and rolls                .59
+    4 pears and 1/2 lb. grapes     .28
+    1 lb. butter                   .55
+      " granulated sugar           .22
+      " corn starch                .16
+      " salt                       .05
+    1/4 lb. pepper                 .15
+    1/2 lb. halibut                .25
+    3/4 lb. steak                  .30
+    1 quail                        .40
+    1 pint cranberries             .08
+    Celery                         .05
+    1 peck potatoes and turnips    .40
+    Pickles, 1 pint bottle         .37
+                                  ----
+                                 $3.85
+
+At the end of the week there was stock unused to the amount of $1.00,
+making $2.85 for actual board, (I did not dine out once,) and this
+included the most expensive meats, which one might not always care to
+get; for it is not parsimony that often prefers a sirloin steak at
+thirty cents to a tenderloin at forty cents. But this note may be added.
+Don't buy quails, they are all gizzard and feathers; and don't buy
+halibut, till you have inquired the price. It will also be perceived
+that beverages are not mentioned. None of that seven million pounds of
+tea shipped from China last September ever came to my shores. If this
+article were added, there would come in large complications of furniture
+and food, beside the obligation of being on the stairs at early hours in
+fearful dishabille, watching for the milkman, as I have seen my
+sister-lodgers.
+
+The pecuniary result is, that, for less than three dollars per week and
+the work, one may have the best food in the market; for three dollars
+and no work, one may have the very worst in the world.
+
+For any ordinary amount of cooking, an open grate is admirable, though
+it do not furnish that convenient stove-pipe whereon lady boarders can
+smooth out their ribbons, &c.; but it is accessible, and draws the
+culinary odors speedily out of the room. At least it is admirable from
+fall to the middle of December, when you find that it draws the heat, as
+well as the odors, up chimney; then you will get a "Fairy" stove of the
+smallest size, with a portable oven, and fairly go into winter quarters.
+But by the grate one may boil, broil, and toast, if not roast; for I
+used with delight to cook apples on the cool corners, giving them a turn
+between sentences as I read or wrote. They seemed to have a higher
+flavor, being seasoned with thoughts; but it was not equally sure if the
+thoughts were better for being seasoned with apple. However, one must
+not count herself so _recherch�_ as Schiller, who could only write when
+his desk was full of rotten apples.
+
+Still the grate has no oven, and the chief difficulty is in bread. One
+starts bravely on the baker's article, but such is the excess of yeast
+that the bitterness becomes intolerable. Then one begins to perambulate
+the city, and thinks she has a prize in this or that brand,--is enamored
+of Brigham's Graham biscuits, hot twice a week, or of Parker's
+rolls,--but soon eats through novelty to the core, and that is always
+hops. Thus one goes from baker to baker, but it is only a hopping from
+hops to hops. I see with malicious joy that the exportation tariff is to
+be removed from hops.
+
+As to crackers, they are of course no more available than pine splints,
+though the Graham variety is the best. Aerated bread is probably the
+most healthful, but this is pitiable to live on; it tastes like salted
+flannel.
+
+Finally, let me confess to the use of a friendly oven near by, and from
+this came every week the indispensable Graham cakes, which are the
+despair of all the cooks. Of course, on this point it is impossible,
+without seeing their experiment, to say why it failed; but all the
+given conditions being met, if the cakes were tough, there was probably
+too much meal; if soggy, too little. Also the latest improvement is not
+to cut them in diamonds, but to roll them into various forms. After
+scalding, the dough is just too soft to be handled easily; it is then to
+be dropped into meal upon the board, separating it in small quantities
+with a spoon or knife, and rolling lightly in the meal into small
+biscuits, rolls, or any form desired. But do not work in any of the
+meal. Possibly some of the failures come from disregard of this; for the
+meal which is added after, being unscalded, is not light, and would only
+clog the cakes. And, in eating, the biscuits should be broken, never
+sliced. They are in their prime when hot, quite as much as Ward
+Beecher's famous apple-pie; but, unlike that, may be freshened afterward
+by dipping in cold water and heating in a quick oven just before wanted.
+In other words, they may be regenerated by immersion.
+
+As to the system of this minute household,--if any should be curious to
+know,--it was to have breakfast-dishes despatched, with the dinner
+vegetables pared, at half past nine, A. M.; dinner out of hand by two,
+P. M.; bread and butter and Cochituate precisely at six, P. M.
+
+In one of Mr. and Mrs. Hall's "Memories of Authors," mention is made of
+a little Miss Spence, who, with rather limited arrangements in two
+rooms, used to give literary tea-parties, and was shrewdly suspected of
+keeping her butter in a wash-bowl. I did not follow any such underhanded
+proceeding. I kept my butter on the balcony. All-out-doors was my
+refrigerator; and if one will look abroad some cool, glittering night,
+he may yet see my oyster-pail hung by a star, or swinging on the horns
+of a new moon.
+
+Perhaps it is fair to mention, however, that on one glittering night the
+mercury fell below zero, and the windows all froze hard down, and there
+was the butter locked on the outer side! And oh! it is such a trying
+calamity to be frozen in from one's butter! But after this experience
+the housekeeper shrewdly watches for these episodes of weather, and
+takes the jar in of a night. So it is that eternal vigilance is the
+price even of butter.
+
+Still it seemed that, with careful and economizing mind, on six feet by
+thirteen it was not only possible to live, but to take table-boarders.
+Certainly nothing could be gayer, unless to ramble delightfully forever
+in one of those orange-colored ambrotype-saloons, drawn by milk-white
+oxen; or to quarter like Gavroche of _Les Miserables_ among the ribs of
+the plaster elephant in the Bastile; or more pensively to abide in the
+crannied boat-cabin of the Peggotys, watching the tide sweep out and in.
+
+This must be the weird, barbaric side of the before-named brick and
+mortar flat of five rooms.
+
+Pope, the tragedian, said that he knew of but one crime a man could
+commit,--peppering a rump steak. It is an argument for boarding one's
+self that all these comfortable crimes thus become feasible. One may
+even butter her bread on three sides with impunity; or eat tamarinds at
+every meal, running the risk of her own grimaces; or take her stewed
+cherries with curious, undivided interest as to whether a sweet or sour
+one will come next (dried cherries are a great consolation); and, being
+allowed to help herself, can the better bring all the edibles to an end
+at once upon her plate,--an indication of Providence that the proper
+feast is finished. Wonderfully independent all this! Life with the
+genuine bachelor flavor. As L. remarked, even the small broom in the
+corner had a sturdy little way of standing alone.
+
+Perhaps there is nothing finer than the throng of fancies that comes in
+a solitary breakfast. Then one reaches hands of greeting to all the lone
+artists taking their morning _acquavite_ in Rome; to the young students
+of Germany at their early coffee and eggs; even remembering the lively
+_grisette_ of Paris, as, with a parting fillip to her canary, she flits
+forth from her upper room; and finally drinks to the memory of our own
+Irving at his bachelor breakfast among the fountains and flowers in the
+Court of Lions at the Alhambra.
+
+And very sweet, too, it is, in the fall of the day, to sit by the rich,
+ruby coals, and think of those who are far, until they come near; and of
+that which is hoped for, until it seems that which is; to sit and dream,
+till
+
+        "The breath of the great Lord God divine
+    Stirs the little red rose of a room."
+
+This it is to keep house with a bread-knife and tumbler, a gridiron and
+an individual salt. This it is to vitally understand the _multum in
+parvo_ of existence. This it is to have used and mastered civilization.
+
+But the total pecuniary result is, that the rent of the very smallest
+room in central location--at the hub of the hub--will not be less than
+three dollars per week, without light, heat, or furniture. Fire, and a
+boy to make it, will be two dollars per week; light seventy-five cents
+if gas, twenty-five cents if kerosene; this, with board at three
+dollars, washing at one dollar per dozen, and the constant Tribune,
+etc., brings one up to the pretty little sum of ten dollars per week,
+without a single item of luxury, unless daily papers can be called
+luxurious. Or, should one go out to breakfasts and dinners, nothing
+tolerable can be had under five dollars per week; and this gives a total
+of twelve dollars. Then, to complete one's life, there must be clothing,
+literature, perhaps travel and hospitality, making nearly as much more;
+and to crown it, there must be the single woman's favorite lecturer or
+_prima donna_; for ah! we too, in some form, must have our cigars and
+champagne. A round thousand a year for ever so small a package of
+humanity!
+
+And of course, as goods are higher in small quantities, so in living by
+this individual way it will be discovered that prices are prodigious,
+but that weights and measures are not. After opening the small purse
+regularly at half-hour intervals for several weeks, one at length finds
+herself opening it when there is nothing to be bought, from mere
+muscular habit. Altogether it is easy to spend as much as a second-rate
+Congressman, without any of his accommodations. This is wherein one does
+not master civilization.
+
+Mr. McCulloch, in his Report on the Treasury, suggested an increase of
+salary for certain subordinates in his department, declaring that they
+could not support their families in due rank on four, five, or even six
+thousand dollars a year. It is easy to believe it. It is easy to believe
+anything that may be stated with regard to money, except that one will
+ever be able to get enough of it to cover these terrible charges. The
+entire fabric of things rests on money; and our prices would drive a
+respectable Frenchman into suicide. O poor Robin Ruff! alas for your
+grand visions that you sang so glowingly to dear Gaffer Green! In this
+age of the world, O what could you do, or where could you go, e'en on a
+thousand pounds a year, poor Robin Ruff?
+
+And so long as each must keep her separate establishment, it will not be
+found possible to reduce living much below the present figures. But
+London has more wisely met the pressure of the times in those
+magnificent clubhouses, which have made Pall Mall almost a solid square
+of palaces hardly inferior to the homes of the nobility themselves. Each
+of these houses has its hundreds of members, who really fare
+sumptuously, having all the luxuries of wealth on the prices that one
+pays here for poverty. The food is furnished by the best purveyors, and
+charged to the consumers at cost; all other expenses of the
+establishment being met by the members' initiation fees, ranging from
+�32 entrance fee and �11 annual subscription, to �9 and �6 for entrance
+and subscription. Being admirably officered and planned throughout,
+these gigantic households are systematized to the beautiful smoothness
+of small ones; their phrase of "fare-well" is one of epicurean
+invitation, not of dismissal; while such are the combined luxuriousness
+and economy that, says one authority, "the modern London club is a
+realization of a Utopian coenobium,--a sort of lay convent, rivalling
+the celebrated Abbey of Thelem�, with the agreeable motto of _Fais ce
+que voudras_, instead of monastic discipline."
+
+Of course, New York also has followed suit, and there, too, clubs are
+trumps; but, according to "The Nation," with this remarkable exception,
+that "at these houses the leading idea seems to be, not to furnish the
+members at cost price, but to increase the finances with a view to some
+future expenditure." The writer reasonably observes, that "what a man
+wants is his breakfast or dinner cheaper than he can get it at the
+hotel, and not to pay thirty or sixty dollars annually in order that ten
+years hence the club may have a new building farther up town." And
+Boston has followed New York, with its trio of well-known clubs,
+differing also from those of London in having poorer appointments and
+the highest conceivable charges.
+
+But most of these clubs do not include lodgings, and none of them
+include ladies. It remains for America to give us the club complete in
+both. There is every reason why women should secure elegant and
+economical homes in this way. Indeed, in the present state of things,
+there seems no other way to secure them. There is no remedy but in a
+system of judicious clubbing. Since this phase of the world seems made
+up for the family relation, then ladies must make themselves into a sort
+of family to face it. Where is the coming man who shall communicate this
+art of clubbing, which has not yet even been admitted into the feminine
+dialect? Mr. Mercer is doing for the women who wish to go out in the
+world that which womanly gratitude can but lightly repay.[F] Where is
+the kindly, honest-hearted Mr. Mercer who shall further a like
+enterprise here,--a provision of quarters for those who can pay
+reasonably and who do not wish to go away? This would be a genuine
+Stay-at-home Club, a Can't-get-away Club of the very happiest sort. And
+this alone can put life in our noble cities, where active-brained women
+love to be, on something like possible terms.
+
+In Miss Howitt's "Art Student at Munich,"--a charming sketch, by the
+way, of women living _en bachelier_ abroad,--we find one young
+enthusiast idealizing upon this very need of feminine life, which she
+christens an Associated Home. In her artistic mind it takes the form of
+an outer and inner sisterhood,--the inner devoted to culture, the outer
+attending to the useful, ready alike to broil a steak or toe a stocking
+for the more ethereal ones of the household. This is all quite amiably
+intended, but no queen-bee and common-bee scheme of the sort seems to be
+either generous or practicable. It involves at once too much caste and
+too much contact. We do not wish to find servants or scrubs in our
+sisters, nor do we wish at all times even to see our sisters. There must
+be elbow-room for mood and temperament, as well as high walls of
+defence. The social element is too shy and elusive, and will not, like a
+monkey, perform on demand; therefore our plan abjures all these poetic
+organizations, which have a great deal of cant and very little good
+companionship; it has no sentimentalism to offer, proposing an
+association of purses rather than of persons,--a household on the base
+of protection rather than of society,--a mere combining for privileges
+and against prices. It is resolved into a simple matter of business; and
+the only help women need is that of an organizing brain to put
+themselves into this associate form, whereby they can meet the existing
+state of things with somewhat of human comfort.
+
+Are we never to obtain even this, until the golden doors of the
+Millennium swing open? Ah, then indeed one must melt a little, looking
+regretfully back to Brook Farm, undismayed by the fearful Zenobia;
+looking leniently toward Wallingford, Lebanon, and Haryard. Anything
+for wholesome diet, free life, and a quiet refuge.
+
+But whether to live alone or together, the first want is of
+houses,--which is another hitch in the social system. In the city a
+building-lot is an incipient fortune; and the large sum paid for it is
+the beginning of reasons for the large rent of the building that is put
+upon it. But then if ground is costly, air is cheap,--land is high, but
+sky is low; and one need have but very little earth to a great deal of
+house. A writer, describing the London of thirty years ago, speaks of
+the huge, narrow dwellings, full five stories high, and says that the
+agility with which the inmates "ran up and down, and perched on the
+different stories, gave the idea of a cage with its birds and sticks";
+and the like figure seems to have occurred to the queer Mademoiselle
+Marchand of "Denise," who, as she toiled to her eyrie on the topmost
+landing, exclaimed, "One would think these houses were built by a winged
+race, who only used stairs when they were moulting!" But these same
+lofty houses are the very thing we must have to-day, all but the running
+up and down. Build us houses up, and up, as high as they will stand;
+give us plenty of sky-parlors, but also plenty of steam-elevators to go
+to and from "my lady's chamber." It is not a wise economy to devote
+one's precious power to this enormous amount of stair-work. It is not a
+kind of exercise that is sanitive. The Evans House and Hotel Pelham, for
+instance, are very pretty Bostonianisms, but all their rooms within
+range of ordinary means are beyond the range of ordinary strength. The
+achievement of twenty flights a day, back and forth, would leave but
+small surplus of vigor. While the steam power is there for heating
+purposes, why not use some of it to propel the passengers up and down
+that wilderness of rosy boudoirs? Is there any reason why this
+labor-saving machine, the steam-elevator, which we now associate with
+Fifth Avenue luxury, should not be the common possession of all our
+large tenanted buildings? And is there any reason, indeed, in our houses
+being no better appointed than the English houses of thirty years ago?
+Ruskin has been honorably named for renting a few cottages with an eye
+to his tenants as well as himself; but the men who in our crowded cities
+shall erect these mammoth rental establishments, with steam access to
+every story, will build their own best monuments for posterity. We
+commend it to capitalists as a chance to invest in a generous fame.
+Until this is done, we shall even disapprove of bestowing any more
+mansions upon our beloved General Grant. It is not gallant. Until then,
+too, how shall one ever pass that venerable Park Street Church of
+Boston, without the irreverent sigh of "What capital lodgings it would
+make!" Those three little windows in the curve, looking up and down the
+street, and into the ever-fascinating Atlantic establishment; the lucky
+tower, into which one might retreat, pen in hand, if not wishing to be
+at home to callers nor abroad to himself,--Carlyle-like, making the
+library at the top of the house; and all within glance of the dominating
+State-House, whither one might steal up for an occasional lunch of
+oratory or a digest of laws. We also hear of a new hotel being builded
+on Tremont Street, and wonder if there will be any rooms fit for ladies,
+and whether one of those in the loft will rent for as much as a charming
+villa should command.
+
+But while we ask now for immediate relief by clubs and rental
+establishments, the great practical and artistic problem of America
+still remains in learning to manage its civilization; in acquiring a
+forecaste, a system, that meets individual wants; in adjusting resource
+to requirement. Then we shall not be driven into association. It is
+jocosely said, that in the West, whose rivers are shallow and uncertain,
+the steamers are built to run on a heavy dew. Allowing for the joke,
+this is not more nice than wise. To be dexterous, fine-fingered, facile!
+How perfect is the response in all the petty personalities of politics!
+In this America, where all men aspire, and more men get office than one
+would think there were offices to get, what miracles of adroitness! It
+is one perpetual, Turn, turn again, Lord Mayor! If but half the genius
+were diverted from office-getting to house-building, what towering
+results! But since it is the misery of a republic that politics is
+supreme, and that a people who govern themselves can have little leisure
+for anything else, I have sometimes feared that the only way to get
+these woman questions through is by tacking them on to politics. If,
+then, any of our masculine friends now go to Congress on an amelioration
+of labor, Heaven speed the day when they can only go on an amelioration
+of lodgings.
+
+But on this side of the question we as yet hold close to the leeward.
+For to make it political, women must have political power, the power of
+the ballot; and this claim she chooses to defer to the more oppressed
+race,--chooses first to secure justice to all men, before entering the
+long campaign of justice to women.
+
+Meanwhile, we young housekeepers, who are neither capitalists to build
+what we need, nor politicians to procure it builded, can only live on
+these real-unreal lives as we may. But sometimes, when the city lamps
+are agleam in the early evening, we go out for a walk of romance upon
+the brilliant avenue near by, gazing eagerly into those superb
+drawing-rooms where the curtains are kindly lifted a little, and tempted
+to ring at the door on a false errand where they are not,--simply to get
+a peep at the captivating comfort inside. And thus we too possess houses
+and homes; with all these to enjoy and none of them to care for, why may
+not one easily remain the wealthiest person in the universe? Ah, no one
+knows what riches we have in our thoughts, and how little bliss there is
+in the world that we have not!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[F] Since the above was written, there have been serious charges against
+Mr. Mercer, but our praise must remain until the case shall be more
+fairly made up.
+
+
+
+
+DOCTOR JOHNS.
+
+
+LIII.
+
+Reuben, meantime, is leading a dashing life in the city. The Brindlock
+family have taken him to their arms again as freely and heartily as if
+he had never entered the fold over which the good Doctor exercised
+pastoral care, and as if he had never strayed from it again.
+
+"I told you 't would be all right, Mabel," said Mr. Brindlock to his
+wife; and neither of them ever rallied him upon his bootless experience
+in that direction.
+
+But the kindly aunt had not forborne (how could she?) certain pertinent
+inquiries in regard to the pretty Miss Maverick, under which Reuben had
+shown considerable disposition to flinch; although he vainly fancied
+that he stood the interrogation with a high hand. Mrs. Brindlock drew
+her own conclusions, but was not greatly disturbed by them. Why should
+she be, indeed? Reuben, with his present most promising establishment in
+business, and with a face and air that insured him a cordial welcome in
+that circle of wealthy acquaintances which Mrs. Brindlock especially
+cultivated, was counted a _bon parti_, independent of his position as
+presumptive heir to a large share of the Brindlock estate.
+
+Once or twice since his leave of Ashfield he has astonished the good
+people there by a dashing visit. Perhaps he has enjoyed (such things are
+sometimes enjoyed) setting forth before the quiet parishioners of his
+father his new consequence as a man of the world and of large moneyed
+prospects. It is even possible that he may have entertained agreeably
+the fancy of dazing the eyes of both Rose and Ad�le with the glitter of
+his city distinctions. But their admiration, if they felt any, was not
+flatteringly expressed. Ad�le, indeed, was always graciously kind, and,
+seeing his confirmed godlessness, tortured herself secretly with the
+thought that, but for her rebuff, he might have made a better fight
+against the bedevilments of the world, and lived a truer and purer life.
+All that, however, was irrevocably past. As for Rose, if there crept
+into her little prayers a touch of sentiment as she pleaded for the
+backslidden son of the minister, her prayers were none the worse for it.
+Such trace of sentimental color--like the blush upon her fair
+cheek--gave a completed beauty to her appeals.
+
+Reuben saw that Phil was terribly in earnest in his love, and he
+fancied, with some twinges, that he saw indications on the part of Ad�le
+of its being not wholly unacceptable. Rose, too, seemed not disinclined
+to receive the assiduous attentions of the young minister, who had
+become a frequent visitor in the Elderkin household, and who preached
+with an unction and an earnestness that touched her heart, and that made
+her sigh despondingly over the outcast son of the old pastor. Watching
+these things with a look studiedly careless and indifferent, Reuben felt
+himself cut off more than ever from such charms or virtues as might
+possibly have belonged to continued association with the companions of
+his boyhood, and nerved himself for a new and firmer grip upon those
+pleasures of the outer world which had not yet proved an illusion. There
+were moments--mostly drifting over him in silent night-hours, within his
+old chamber at the parsonage--when it seemed to him that he had made a
+losing game of it. The sparkling eyes of Ad�le, suffused with tears,--as
+in that memorable interview of the garden,--beam upon him, promising, as
+then, other guidance; they gain new brilliance, and wear stronger
+entreaty, as they shine lovingly upon him from the distance--growing
+greater and greater--which now lies between them. Her beauty, her grace,
+her tenderness, now that they are utterly beyond reach, are tenfold
+enticing; and in that other sphere to which, in his night revery, they
+seem translated, the joyous face of Rose, like that of an attendant
+angel, looks down regretfully, full of a capacity for love to which he
+must be a stranger.
+
+He is wakened by the bells next morning,--a Sunday morning, may be.
+There they go,--he sees them from the window,--the two comely damsels,
+picking their way through the light, fresh-fallen snow of March. Going
+possibly to teach the catechism; he sneers at this thought, for he is
+awake now. Has the world no richer gift in store for him? That Sophie
+Bowrigg is a great fortune, a superb dancer, a gorgeous armful of a
+woman. What if they were to join their fortunes and come back some day
+to dazzle these quiet townsfolk with the splendor of their life? His
+visits in Ashfield grow shorter and more rare. There is nothing
+particularly alluring. We shall not meet him there again until we meet
+him for the last time.
+
+Mr. Catesby is an "acceptable preacher." He unfolds the orthodox
+doctrines with more grace than had belonged to the manner of the Doctor,
+and illustrates them from time to time with a certain youthful glow, and
+touches of passionate exhortation, which for many years the Ashfield
+pulpit had not known. The old ladies befriend him and pet him in their
+kindly way; and if at times his speculative humor (which he is not
+wholly without) leads him beyond the bounds of the accepted doctrines,
+he compounds the matter by strong assertion of those sturdy generalities
+which lie at the bottom of the orthodox creed.
+
+But his self-control is not so apparent in his social intercourse; and
+before he has been three months in Ashfield, he has given tongue to
+gossip, and all the old ladies comment upon his enslavement to the
+pretty Rose Elderkin. And they talk by the book; he is desperately
+enamored. Young clergymen have this way of falling, at sight, into the
+toils, which is vastly refreshing to middle-aged observers. But we have
+no occasion to detail his experience. An incident only of his recreative
+pursuits in this direction belongs to our narrative.
+
+Upon one of the botanical excursions of later spring which he had
+inaugurated, and to which the maidenly modesty of Rose had suggested
+that Ad�le should make a party, the young Catesby (who was a native of
+Eastern Massachusetts) had asked in his _na�ve_ manner after her family
+connections. An uncle of his had known a Mr. Maverick, who had long been
+a resident of Europe.
+
+"It may possibly be some relation of yours, Miss Maverick," said the
+young minister.
+
+"Do you recall the first name?" said Rose.
+
+Mr. Catesby hesitated in that interesting way in which lovers are wont
+to hesitate. No, he did not remember; but he was a jovial,
+generous-hearted man, (he had heard his uncle often describe him,) who
+must be now some fifty or sixty years old.--"Frank Maverick, to be sure;
+I have the name."
+
+"Why, it is my father," said Ad�le with a swift, happy rush of color to
+her face.
+
+"O no, Miss Maverick," said the young Catesby with a smile, "that is
+quite impossible. The gentleman of whom I speak, and my uncle visited
+him only three years ago, is a confirmed bachelor, and he had rallied
+him, I remember, upon never having married."
+
+The color left the cheeks of Ad�le.
+
+"Frank, did you say?" persisted Rose.
+
+"Frank was the name," said the innocent young clergyman; "and he was a
+merchant, if I remember rightly, somewhere upon the Mediterranean."
+
+"It's very strange," said Rose, turning to Ad�le.
+
+And Ad�le, all her color gone, had the fortitude to pat Rose lovingly
+upon the shoulder, and to say, with a forced smile, "Life is very
+strange, Rose."
+
+But from this time till they reached home,--fortunately not far
+away,--Ad�le said nothing more. Rose remarked an unwonted pallor in her
+cheeks.
+
+"You are tired, Ad�le," said she; "you are so pale!"
+
+"Child," said Ad�le, tapping her again, in a womanly way that was
+strange to her companion, "you have color for us both."
+
+At this, her reserve of dignity and fortitude being now wellnigh spent,
+she rushed away to her chamber. What wonder if she sought the little
+crucifix, sole memento of the unknown mother, and glued it to her lips,
+as she fell upon her knees by the bedside, and uttered such a prayer for
+help and strength as had never uttered before?
+
+"It is true! it is true! I see it now. The child of shame! The child of
+shame! O my father, my father! what wrong have you done me!" And again
+she prays for help and strength.
+
+There is not a doubt in her mind where the truth lies. In a moment her
+thought has flashed over the whole chain of evidence. The father's
+studied silence; her alienation from any home of her own; the mysterious
+hints of the Doctor; and the strange communication of Reuben,--all come
+up in stately array and confound her with the bitter truth. There is a
+little miniature of her father which she has kept among her choicest
+treasures. She seeks it now. Is it to throw it away in scorn? No, no,
+no. Our affections are after all not submissible to strict moral
+regimen. It is with set teeth and a hard look in her eye that she
+regards it at first; then her eyes suffuse with tears while she looks,
+and she kisses it passionately again and again.
+
+"Can there be some horrible mistake in all this?" she asks herself. At
+the thought she slips on hat and shawl and glides noiselessly down the
+stairs, (not for the world would she have been interrupted!) and walks
+swiftly away to her old home at the parsonage.
+
+Dame Tourtelot meets her and says, "Good evening, Miss Adeel."
+
+And Ad�le, in a voice so firm that it does not seem her own, says, "Good
+evening, Miss Tourtelot." She wonders greatly at her own calmness.
+
+
+LIV.
+
+The Doctor is alone in his study when Ad�le comes in upon him, and she
+has reached his chair and dropped upon her knees beside him before he
+has time to rise.
+
+"New Papa, you have been so kind to me! I know the truth now,--the
+mystery, the shame";--and she dropped her head upon his knees.
+
+"Adaly, Adaly, my dear child!" said the old man with a great tremor in
+his voice, "what does this mean?"
+
+She was sobbing, sobbing.
+
+"Adaly, my child, what can I do for you?"
+
+"Pray for me, New Papa!" and she lifted her eyes upon him with a tender,
+appealing look.
+
+"Always, always, Adaly!"
+
+"Tell me, New Papa,--tell me honestly,--is it not true that I can call
+no one mother,--that I never could?"
+
+The Doctor trembled: he would have given ten years of his life to have
+been able to challenge her story, to disabuse her mind of the belief
+which he saw was fastened past all recall. "Adaly," said he, "Christ
+befriended the Magdalen,--how much more you, then, if so be you are the
+unoffending child of----"
+
+"I knew it! I knew it!" and she fell to sobbing again upon the knee of
+the old gentleman, in a wild, passionate way.
+
+In such supreme moments the mind reaches its decisions with electrical
+rapidity. Even as she leaned there, her thought flashed upon that poor
+Madame Arles who had so befriended her,--against whom they had cautioned
+her, who had shown such intense emotion at their first meeting, who had
+summoned her at the last, and who had died with that wailing cry, "_Ma
+fille!_" upon her lip. Yes, yes, her mother indeed, who died in her
+arms! (she can never forget that death-clasp.)
+
+She hints as much to the Doctor, who, in view of his recent
+communication from Maverick, will not gainsay her.
+
+When she moved away at last, as if for a leave-taking, silent and
+humiliated, the old man said to her, "My child, are you not still my
+Adaly? God is no respecter of persons; his ministers should be like
+him."
+
+Whereupon Ad�le came and kissed him with a warmth that reminded him of
+days long past.
+
+She rejoiced in not having encountered the gray, keen eyes of the
+spinster. She knew they would read unfailingly the whole extent of the
+revelation that had dawned upon her. That the spinster herself knew the
+truth, and had long known it, she was sure; and she recalled with a
+shudder the look of those uncanny eyes upon the evening of their little
+frolic at the Elderkins. She dreaded the thought of ever meeting them
+again, and still more the thought of listening to the stiff, cold words
+of consolation which she knew she would count it her duty to administer.
+
+It was dusk when she left the Doctor's door; he would have attended, but
+she begged to be alone. It was an April evening, the chilliness of the
+earth just yielding to the coming summer; the frogs clamorous in all the
+near pools, and filling the air with the harsh uproar of their voices;
+the delicate grass-blades were just thrusting their tips through the
+brown web of the old year's growth, and in sunny, close-trodden spots
+showing a mat of green, while the fleecy brown blossoms of the elm were
+tufting all the spray of the embowering trees. Here and there a village
+loiterer greeted her kindly. They all knew Miss Ad�le. "They will all
+know it to-morrow," she thought, "and then--then--"
+
+With a swift but unsteady step she makes her way to the little
+graveyard; she had gone there often, and there were those who said
+wantonly that she went to say her prayers before the little cross upon
+the tombstone she had placed over the grave of Madame Arles. Now she
+threw herself prone upon the little hillock, with a low, sharp cry of
+distress, like that of a wounded bird,--"My mother! my mother!"
+
+Every word, every look of tenderness which the dead woman had lavished,
+she recalls now with a terrible distinctness. Those loud, vague appeals
+of her delirium come to her recollection with a meaning in them that is
+only too plain; and then the tight, passionate clasp, when, strained to
+her bosom, relief came at last. Ad�le lies there unconscious of the
+time, until the night dews warn her away; she staggers through the gate.
+Where next? She fancies they must know it all at the Elderkins',--that
+she has no right there. Is she not an estray upon the world? Shall she
+not--as well first as last--wander forth, homeless as she is, into the
+night? And true to these despairing thoughts, she hurries away farther
+and farther from the town. The frogs croak monotonously in all the
+marshes, as if in mockery of her grief. On some near tree an owl is
+hooting, with a voice that is strangely and pitifully human. Presently
+an outlying farm-house shows its cheery, hospitable light through the
+window-panes, and she is tempted to shorten her steps and steal a look
+into the room where the family sits grouped around the firelight. No
+such sanctuary for her ever was or ever can be. Even the lowing of a cow
+in the yard, and the answering bleat of a calf within the barn, seem to
+mock the outcast.
+
+On she passes, scarce knowing whither her hurrying steps are bearing
+her, until at last she spies a low building in the fields away upon her
+right, which she knows. It is the home of that outlawed woman where
+Madame Arles had died. Here at least she will be met with sympathy, even
+if the truth were wholly known; and yet perhaps last of all places would
+she have it known there. She taps at the door; she has wandered out of
+her way, and asks for a moment's rest. The little boy of the house, when
+he has made out the visitor by a few furtive peeps from behind the
+mother's chair, comes to her fawningly and familiarly; and as Ad�le
+looks into his bright, fearless eyes, a new courage seems to possess
+her. God's children, all of us; and He careth even for the sparrows. She
+will conquer her despairing weakness; she will accept her cross and bear
+it resolutely. By slow degrees she is won over by the frolicsome humor
+of the curly-pated boy, who never once quits her side, into cheerful
+prattle with him. And when at last, fairly rested, she would set off on
+her return, the lone woman says she will see her safely as far as the
+village street; the boy, too, insists doggedly upon attending them; and
+so, with her hand tightly clasped in the hand of the lad, Ad�le makes
+her way back into the town. Along the street she passes, even under the
+windows of the parsonage, with her hand still locked in that of the
+outlawed boy; and she wonders if in broad day the same courage would be
+meted to her? They only part when within sight of the broad glow of
+light from the Elderkin windows; and here Ad�le, taking out her purse,
+counts out the half of her money and places it in the hands of the boy.
+
+"We will share and share alike, Willie," said she, "But never tell who
+gave you this."
+
+"But, Miss Maverick, it's too much," said the woman.
+
+"No, it's not," said the boy, clutching it eagerly.
+
+With a parting good-night, Ad�le darted within the gate, and opened
+softly the door, determined to meet courageously whatever rebuffs might
+be in store for her.
+
+
+LV.
+
+Rose has detailed the story of the occurrence, with the innocent
+curiosity of girlhood, to the Squire and Mrs. Elderkin (Phil being just
+now away). The Squire, as he hears it, has passed a significant look
+across to Mrs. Elderkin.
+
+"It's very queer, isn't it?" asked Rose.
+
+"Very," said the Squire, who had for some time cherished suspicions of
+certain awkward relations existing between Maverick and the mother of
+Ad�le, but never so decided as this story would seem to warrant. "And
+what said Ad�le?" continued he.
+
+"It disturbed her, I think, papa; she didn't seem at all herself."
+
+"Rose, my dear," said the kindly old gentleman, "there is some unlucky
+family difference between Mr. and Mrs. Maverick, and I dare say the talk
+was unpleasant to Ad�le; if I were you, I wouldn't allude to it again;
+don't mention it, please, Rose."
+
+If it could be possible, good Mrs. Elderkin greeted Ad�le as she came in
+more warmly than ever. "You must be careful, my dear, of these first
+spring days of ours; you are late to-night."
+
+"Yes," says Ad�le, "I was gone longer than I thought. I rambled off to
+the churchyard, and I have been at the Doctor's."
+
+Again the old people exchanged glances.
+
+Why does she find herself watching their looks so curiously? Yet there
+is nothing but kindness in them. She is glad Phil is not there.
+
+The next morning the Squire stepped over at an early hour to the
+parsonage, and by an adroit question or two, which the good Doctor had
+neither the art nor the disposition to evade, unriddled the whole truth
+with respect to the parentage of Ad�le. The Doctor also advised him of
+the delusion of the poor girl with respect to Madame Arles, and how he
+had considered it unwise to attempt any explanation until he should hear
+further from Mr. Maverick, whose recent letter he counted it his duty to
+lay before Mr. Elderkin.
+
+"It's a sad business," said he.
+
+And the Doctor, "_The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at
+what they stumble._"
+
+The Squire walks home in a brown study. Like all the rest, he has been
+charmed with the liveliness and grace of Ad�le; over and over he has
+said to his boy, "How fares it, Phil? Why, at your age, my boy, I should
+have had her in the toils long ago."
+
+Since her domestication under his own roof, the old gentleman's liking
+for her had grown tenfold strong; he had familiarized himself with the
+idea of counting her one of his own flock. But, the child of a
+French----
+
+"Well, well, we will see what the old lady may say," reflected he. And
+he took the first private occasion to lay the matter before Mrs.
+Elderkin.
+
+"Well, mother, the suspicions of last night are all true,--true as a
+book."
+
+"God help the poor child, then!" said Madam, holding up her hands.
+
+"Of course He'll do that, wife. But what say you to Phil's marriage now?
+Does it look as tempting as it did?"
+
+The old lady reflected a moment, lifting her hand to smooth the hair
+upon her temple, as if in aid of her thought, then said,--"Giles, you
+know the world better than I; you know best what may be well for the
+boy. I love Ad�le very much; I do not believe that I should love her any
+less if she were the wife of Phil. But you know best, Giles; you must
+decide."
+
+"There's a good woman!" said the Squire; and he stayed his pace up and
+down the room to lay his hand approvingly upon the head of the old lady,
+touching as tenderly those gray locks as ever he had done in earlier
+years the ripples of golden brown.
+
+In a few days Phil returns,--blithe, hopeful, winsome as ever. He is
+puzzled, however, by the grave manner of the Squire, when he takes him
+aside, after the first hearty greetings, and says, "Phil, my lad, how
+fares it with the love matter? Have things come to a crisis, eh?"
+
+"What do you mean, father?" and Phil blushes like a boy of ten.
+
+"I mean to ask, Philip," said the old gentleman, measuredly, "if you
+have made any positive declaration to Miss Maverick."
+
+"Not yet," said Phil, with a modest frankness.
+
+"Very good, my son, very good. And now, Phil, I would wait a
+little,--take time for reflection; don't do anything rashly. It's an
+important step to take."
+
+"But, father," says Phil, puzzled by the old gentleman's manner, "what
+does this mean?"
+
+"Philip," said the Squire, with a seriousness that seemed almost comical
+by its excess, "would you really marry Ad�le?"
+
+"To-morrow, if I could," said Phil.
+
+"Tut, tut, Phil! It's the old hot blood in him!" (He says this, as if to
+himself.) "Philip, I wouldn't do so, my boy."
+
+And thereupon he gives him in his way a story of the revelations of the
+last few days.
+
+At the first, Phil is disposed to an indignant denial, as if by no
+possibility any indignity could attach to the name or associations of
+Ad�le. But in the whirl of his feeling he remembered that interview with
+Reuben, and his boast that Phil could not affront the conventionalities
+of the world. It confirmed the truth to him in a moment. Reuben then had
+known the whole, and had been disinterestedly generous. Should he be any
+less so?
+
+"Well, father," said Phil, after a minute or two of silence, "I don't
+think the story changes my mind one whit. I would marry her to-morrow,
+if I could," and he looked the Squire fairly and squarely in the face.
+
+"Gad, boy," said the old gentleman, "you must love her as I loved your
+mother!"
+
+"I hope I do," said Phil,--"that is if I win her. I don't think she's to
+be had for the asking."
+
+"Aha! the pinch lies there, eh?" said the Squire, and he said it in
+better humor than he would have said it ten days before. "What's the
+trouble, Philip?"
+
+"Well, sir, I think she always had a tenderness for Reuben; I think she
+loves him now in her heart."
+
+"So, so! The wind lies there, eh? Well, let it bide, my boy; let it bide
+awhile. We shall know something more of the matter soon."
+
+And there the discourse of the Squire ended.
+
+Meantime, however, Rose and Ad�le are having a little private interview
+above stairs, which in its subject-matter is not wholly unrelated to the
+same theme.
+
+"Rose," Ad�le had said, as she fondled her in her winning way, "your
+brother Phil has been very kind to me."
+
+"He always meant to be," said Rose, with a charming glow upon her face.
+
+"He always _has_ been," said Ad�le; "but, dear Rose, I know I can talk
+as plainly to you as to another self almost."
+
+"You can,--you can, Ady," said she.
+
+"I have thought," continued Ad�le, "though I know it is very unmaidenly
+in me to say it, that Phil was disposed sometimes to talk even more
+warmly than he has ever talked, and to ask me to be a nearer friend to
+him even than you, dear Rose. May be it is only my own vanity that leads
+me sometimes to suspect this."
+
+"O, I hope it may be true!" burst forth Rose.
+
+"I hope _not_," said Ad�le, with a voice so gravely earnest that Rose
+shuddered.
+
+"O Ady, you don't mean it! you who are so good, so kind! Phil's heart
+will break."
+
+"I don't think that," said Ad�le, with a faint hard smile, in which her
+womanly vanity struggled with her resolution. "And whatever might have
+been, that which I have hinted at _must_ not be now, dear Rose. You will
+know some day why--why it would be ungrateful in me to determine
+otherwise. Promise me, darling, that you will discourage any inclination
+toward it, wherever you can best do so. Promise me, dear Rose!"
+
+"Do you really, truly mean it?" said the other, with a disappointment
+she but poorly concealed.
+
+"With all my heart, I do," said Ad�le.
+
+And Rose promised, while she threw herself upon the neck of Ad�le and
+said, "I am so sorry! It will be such a blow to poor Phil!"
+
+After this, things went on very much in their old way. To the great
+relief of Ad�le there was no explosive village demonstration of the news
+which had come home so cruelly to herself. The Doctor had given an
+admonition to the young minister, and the old Squire had told him, in a
+pointed and confidential way, that he had heard of his inquiries and
+assertions with respect to Mr. Maverick, and begged to hint that the
+relations between the father and the mother of Ad�le were not of the
+happiest, and it was quite possible that Mr. Maverick had assumed
+latterly the name of a bachelor; it was not, however, a very profitable
+subject of the speculation or of gossip, and if he valued the favor of
+the young ladies he would forbear all allusion to it. A suggestion which
+Mr. Catesby was not slow to accept religiously, and scrupulously to bear
+in mind.
+
+Phil was as hot a lover as ever, though for a time a little more
+distant: and the poor fellow remarked a new timidity and reserve about
+Ad�le, which, so far from abating, only fed the flame; and there is no
+knowing to what reach it might have blazed out, if a trifling little
+circumstance had not paralyzed his zeal.
+
+From time to time, Phil had been used to bring home a rare flower or two
+as a gift for Ad�le, which Rose had always lovingly arranged in some
+coquettish fashion, either upon the bosom or in the hair of Ad�le; but a
+new and late gift of this kind--a little tuft of the trailing arbutus
+which he has clambered over miles of woodland to secure--is not worn by
+Ad�le, but by Rose, who glances into the astounded face of Phil with a
+pretty, demure look of penitence.
+
+"I say, Rose," says he, seizing his chance for a private word,--"that's
+not for you."
+
+"I know it, Phil; Ad�le gave it to me."
+
+"And that's her favorite flower."
+
+"Yes, Phil," and there is a shake in her voice now. "I think she's grown
+tired of such gifts, Phil";--whereat she glances keenly and pitifully at
+him.
+
+"_Truly_, Rose?" says Phil, with the color on a sudden quitting his
+cheeks.
+
+"Truly,--truly, Phil,"--and in spite of herself the pretty hazel eyes
+are brimming full, and, under pretence of some household duty, she
+dashes away. For a moment Phil stands confounded. Then, through his set
+teeth, he growls, "I was a fool not to have known it!"
+
+But Phil was not a fool, but a sturdy, brave-hearted fellow, who bore
+whatever blows fortune gave him, or seemed to give, with a courage that
+had a fine elastic temper in it. He may have made his business
+engagements at the river or in the city a little more frequent and
+prolonged after this; but always there was the same deferential show of
+tender feeling toward his father's guest, whenever he happened in
+Ashfield. Indeed, he felt immensely comforted by a little report which
+Rose made to him in her most despairing manner. Ad�le had told her that
+she "would never, never marry."
+
+There are a great many mothers of fine families who have made such a
+speech at twenty or thereabout; and Phil knew it.
+
+
+LVI.
+
+We by no means intend to represent our friend Ad�le as altogether a
+saint. Such creatures are very rare, and not always the most lovable,
+according to our poor human ways of thinking; but she may possibly grow
+into saintship, in view of a certain sturdy religious sense of duty that
+belongs to her, and a faith that is always glowing. At present she is a
+high-spirited, sensitive girl,--not without her pride and her lesser
+vanities, not without an immense capacity for loving and being loved,
+but just now trembling under that shock to her sensibilities which we
+have detailed,--but never fainting, never despairing. Not even
+relinquishing her pride, but guarding it with triple defences, by her
+reserve in respect to Phil, as well as by a certain new dignity of
+manner which has grown out of her conflict with the opprobrium that
+seems to threaten, for no fault of her own.
+
+Ad�le sees clearly now the full burden of Reuben's proposal to cherish
+and guard her against whatever indignities might threaten; she sees more
+clearly than ever the rich, impulsive generosity of his nature
+reflected, and it disturbs her grievously to think that she had met it
+only with reproach. The thought of the mad, wild, godless career upon
+which he may have entered, and of which the village gossips are full, is
+hardly more afflictive to her than her recollection of that frank,
+self-sacrificing generosity, so ignobly requited. She longs in her heart
+to clear the debt,--to tell him what grateful sense she has of his
+intended kindness. But how? Should she,--being what she is,--even by a
+word, seem to invite a return of that devotion which may be was but the
+passion of an hour, and which it were fatal to renew? Her pride revolts
+at this. And yet--and yet--so brave a generosity shall not be wholly
+unacknowledged. She writes:--
+
+"Reuben, I know now the full weight of the favor of what you promised to
+bestow upon me when I so blindly reproached you with intrusion upon my
+private griefs. Forgive me, Reuben! I thank you now, late as it is, with
+my whole heart. It is needless to tell you how I came to know what,
+perhaps, I had better never have known, but which must always have
+overhung me as a dark cloud charged with a blasting fate. This
+knowledge, dear Reuben, which separates us so surely and so widely,
+relieves me of the embarrassment which I might otherwise have felt in
+telling you of my lasting gratitude, and (if as a sister I may say it)
+my love. If your kind heart could so overflow with pity then, you will
+surely pity me the more now; yet not _too much_, Reuben, for my pride as
+a woman is as strong as ever. The world was made for me, as much as it
+was made for others; and if I bear its blight, I will find some flowers
+yet to cherish. I do not count it altogether so grim and odious a
+world,--even under the broken light which shines upon it for me,--as in
+your last visits you seemed disposed to reckon it.
+
+"And this reminds me, Reuben, that I have told you frankly how the cloud
+which overhung me has opened with a terrible surety. How is it with the
+cloud that lay upon you? Is there any light? Ah, Reuben, when I recall
+those days in which long ago your faith in something better beyond this
+world than lies in it seemed to be so much stronger and firmer than
+mine, and when your trust was so confident as to make mine stronger, it
+seems like a strange dream to me,--all the more when now you, who should
+reason more justly than I, believe in 'nothing,' (was not that your last
+word?)--and yet, dear Reuben, I cling,--I cling. Do you remember the old
+hymn I sung in those days:--
+
+    'Ingemisco tanquam reus,
+    Culpa rubet vultus meus;
+    Supplicanti parce, Deus.'
+
+Even the old Doctor, who was so troubled by the Romish hymns, said it
+must have been written by a good man."
+
+Much more she writes in this vein, but returns ever and again to that
+noble generosity of his,--her delicacy struggling throughout with her
+tender gratitude,--yet she fails not to show a deep, earnest
+undercurrent of affection, which surely might develop under sympathy
+into a very fever of love. Will it not touch the heart of Reuben? Will
+it not divert him from the trail where he wanders blindly? If we have
+read his character rightly, surely this letter, in which a delicate
+sensibility hardly veils a great passionate wealth of feeling, will stir
+him to a new and more hopeful venture.
+
+God send that the letter may reach him safely!
+
+For a long time Ad�le has not written to Reuben, and it occurs to her,
+as she strolls away toward the village post, that to mail it herself may
+possibly provoke new town gossip. In this perplexity she presently
+encounters her boy friend, Arthur, who for a handful of pennies, and
+under injunction of secrecy, cheerfully undertakes the duty. To the
+house of the lad's mother, far away as it was, Ad�le had wandered
+frequently of late, and had borne away from time to time some trifling
+memento of the dead one whose memory so endeared the spot. It happens
+that she continues her stroll thither on this occasion; and the poor
+woman, toward whom Ad�le's charities have flowed with a profusion that
+has astounded the Doctor, repays some new gift by placing in her hands a
+little embroidered kerchief, "too fine for such as she," which had
+belonged to Madame Arles. A flimsy bit of muslin daintily embroidered;
+but there is a name stitched upon its corner, for which Ad�le treasures
+it past all reckoning,--the name of _Julie Chalet_.
+
+It was as if the dead one had suddenly come back and whispered it in her
+ear,--Julie Chalet. The spring birds sung the name in chorus as she
+walked home; and on the grave-stone, under the cross, she seemed to see
+it cut upon the marble,--Julie Chalet.
+
+Ad�le has written to her father, of course, in those days when the first
+shock of the new revelation had passed. How could she do otherwise? If
+she has poured out the bitterness of her grief and of her isolation, she
+has mercifully spared him any reproach!
+
+"I think I now understand," she writes, "the reason of your long absence
+from me. Whatever other griefs I bear, I will not believe that it has
+been from lack of affection for me. I recall that day, dear papa, when,
+with my head lying on your bosom, you said to me, 'She is unworthy; I
+will love you for both.' You must! But was she, papa, so utterly
+unworthy? I think I have known her; nay, I feel almost sure,--sure that
+these arms held her in the moment when she breathed adieu to the world.
+If ever bad, I am sure that she must have grown into goodness. I cannot,
+I will not, think otherwise. I can tell you so many of her kind deeds as
+will take away your condemnation. In this hope I live, dear papa.
+
+"I have found her true name too, at last,--Julie Chalet,--is it not so?
+I wonder with what feeling you will read it; will it be with a wakened
+fondness? will it be with loathing? I tremble while I ask. You shall go
+with me (will you not?) _to her grave_; and there a kind Heaven will put
+in our hearts what memories are best.
+
+"I know now the secret of your caution in respect to Reuben; you have
+been unwilling that _your child_ should bring any possible shame to the
+household of a friend! Trust to me,--trust to _me_, papa, your
+sensitiveness cannot possibly be keener, if it be more generous, than my
+own. Yet I have never told you--what I have since learned--of the
+unselfish devotion of Reuben, which declared itself when he knew
+all,--all. Would I not be almost tempted to thank him with--myself? Yet,
+trust me, if I have written him with an almost unmaidenly warmth, I have
+called to his mind the great gulf that _must_ lie between us.
+
+"Is the old godmother, of whom you used to speak, still alive? It seems
+that I should love to hang about her neck in memory of days gone; it
+seems that I should love the warm sky under which I was born,--I am sure
+I should love the olive orchards, and the vines, and the light upon the
+sea. I feel as if I were living in chains now. When, when will you come
+to break them, and set me free?"
+
+In those days of May, when the leaflets were unfolding, and when the
+downy bluebells were lifting their clustered blossoms filled with a
+mysterious fragrance, like the breath of young babes, Ad�le loved to
+linger in the study of the parsonage; more than ever the good Doctor
+seemed a "New Papa,"--more than ever his eye dwelt upon her with a
+parental smile. It was not that she loved Rose less, that she lingered
+here so long; but she could not shake off the conviction that some day
+soon Rose might shrink from her. The good Doctor never would. Nor can it
+be counted strange if there, in the study so familiar to her childhood,
+she should recall the days when she had frolicked down the orchard,
+when Reuben had gathered flowers for her, when life seemed enchanting.
+Was it enchanting now?
+
+The Doctor was always gravely kind. "Have courage, Adaly, have courage!"
+he was wont to say, "God orders all things right."
+
+And somehow, when she hears him say it, she believes it more than ever.
+
+Ten days, a fortnight, and a month pass, and there is no acknowledgment
+from Reuben of her grateful letter. He does not count it worth his
+while, apparently, to break his long silence; or, possibly, he is too
+much engrossed with livelier interests to give a thought to this episode
+of his old life in Ashfield. Ad�le is disturbed by it; but the very
+disturbance gives her new courage to combat faithfully the difficulties
+of her position. "One cheering word I would have thought he might have
+given me," said she.
+
+The appeal to her father, too, has no answer. Before it reaches its
+destination, Maverick has taken ship for America; and, singularly
+enough, it is fated that the letter of Ad�le should be first opened and
+read--by her mother.
+
+
+LVII.
+
+Some time in mid-May of this year Maverick writes:--
+
+"My dear Johns,--I shall again greet you, God willing, in your own home,
+some forty days hence, and I shall come as a repentant Benedick; for I
+now wear the dignities of a married man. Your kind letter counted for a
+great deal toward my determination; but I will not affect to conceal
+from you, that my tender interest in the future of Ad�le counted for a
+great deal more. As I had supposed, the communication to Julie (which I
+effected through her brother) that her child was still living, and
+living motherless, woke all the tenderness of her nature. I cannot say
+that the sudden change in her inclinations was any way flattering to me;
+but knowing her recent religious austerities, I was prepared for this. I
+shall not undertake to describe to you our first interview, which I can
+never forget. It belongs to those heart-secrets which cannot be spoken
+of; but this much I may tell you,--that, if there was no kindling of the
+old and wayward love, there grew out of it a respect for her present
+severity and elevation of character that I had never anticipated. At our
+age, indeed, (though, when I think of it, I must be many years your
+junior,) a respect for womanly character most legitimately takes the
+place of that disorderly sentiment which twenty years ago blazed out in
+passion.
+
+"We have been married according to the rites of the Romish Church. If I
+had proposed other ceremony, more agreeable to your views, I am
+confident that she would not have listened to me. She is wrapped as
+steadfastly in her creed as ever you in yours. To do otherwise in so
+sacred a matter--and with her it wore solely that aspect--than as her
+Church commands, would have been to do foully and vainly. I had prepared
+you, I think, for her perversity in this matter; nor do I think that all
+your zeal and powers of persuasion could make her recreant to the faith
+for which she has immolated all the womanly vanities which certainly
+once belonged to her. Indeed, the only trace of worldliness which I see
+in her is her intense yearning toward our dear Ad�le, and her passionate
+longing to clasp her child once more to her heart. Nor will I conceal
+from you that she hopes, with all the fervor of a mother's hope, to wean
+her from what she counts the heretical opinions under which she has been
+reared, and to bring her into the fold of the faithful.
+
+"You will naturally ask, my dear Johns, why I do not combat this; but I
+am too old and too far spent for a fight about creeds. I should have
+made a lame fight on that score at any day; but now my main concern, it
+would seem, should be to look out personally for the creed which has
+most of mercy in it. If I seem to speak triflingly, my dear Johns, I
+pray you excuse me; it is only my business way of stating the actual
+facts in the case. As for Madame Maverick, I am sure you will find no
+trifling in her (if you ever meet her); she is terribly in earnest. I
+tell her she would have made a magnificent lady prioress, whereat she
+thumbs her beads and whispers a Latin distich, as if she were exorcising
+a demon. Yet I should do wrong if I were to represent her as always
+severe, even upon such a theme; there certainly belongs to her a tender,
+appealing manner (reminding of Ad�le in a way that brings tears to my
+eyes); but it is always bounded by allegiance to her sworn faith. You
+will think it an exaggeration, but she reminds me at times of those
+women of the New Testament (which I have not altogether forgotten) who
+gave up all for the following of the Master. If I were in your study, my
+dear Johns, you might ask me who those women were? And for my soul I
+could not tell you. Yet I have a vague recollection that there were
+those who showed a beautiful devotion to the Christian faith, that
+somehow sublimated their lives and memories. Again, I feel constrained
+to put before you another feature in her character, which I am confident
+will make you feel kindly toward her; my home near to Marseilles, which
+has been but a gypsy home for so many years, she has taken under her
+hand, and by its new appointments and order has convicted me of the
+losses I have felt so long. True, you might object to the _oratoire_;
+but in all else I am confident you would approve, and in all else
+felicitate Ad�le upon the home which was preparing for her.
+
+"Madame Maverick will not sail with me for America; although the
+marriage, under French law, may have admitted Ad�le to all rights and
+even social immunities, yet I have represented that another law and
+custom rules with you. Whatever opprobrium might attach to the mother,
+Julie, with her exalted religious sentiment, would not weigh for a
+moment; but as regards Ad�le, she manifests a strange tenderness. To
+spare her any pang, or possible pangs, she is content to wait. I have
+feared, too, I must confess, that any undue expression of condemnation
+or distrust might work revulsion of her own feeling. But while she
+assents,--with some reluctance, I must admit,--to this plan of deferring
+her meeting with Ad�le, on whom all her affections seem to centre, she
+insists, in a way that I find it difficult to combat, upon her child's
+speedy return. That her passionate love will insure entire devotion on
+the part of Ad�le, I cannot doubt. And how the anti-Romish faith which
+must have been instilled in the dear girl by your teachings, as well as
+by her associations, may withstand the earnest attack of Madame
+Maverick, I cannot tell. I have a fear it may lead to some dismal
+complications. You know what the earnestness of your own faith is; but I
+don't think you yet know the earnestness of an opposing faith, with a
+Frenchwoman to back it. Even as I write, she comes to cast a glance at
+my work, and says, 'Monsieur Maverick,' (she called me Frank once,)
+'what are you saying there to the heretical Doctor?'
+
+"Whereupon I translate for her ear a sentence or two. 'Tell him,' says
+she, 'that I thank him for his kindness; tell him besides, that I can in
+no way better atone for the guiltiness of the past, than by bringing
+back this wandering lamb into the true fold. Only when we kneel before
+the same altar, her hand in mine, can I feel that she is truly my
+child.'
+
+"I fear greatly this zeal may prove infectious.
+
+"And now, my dear Johns, in regard to the revelation to Ad�le of what is
+written here,--of the whole truth, in short, for it must come out,--I
+haven't the heart or the courage to make it myself. I must throw myself
+on your charity. For Heaven's sake, tell the story as kindly as you can.
+Don't let her think too harshly of me. See to it, I pray, that my name
+don't become a bugbear in the village. I have pretty broad shoulders,
+and could bear it, if I only were to be sufferer; but I am sure 't would
+react fearfully on the sensibilities of poor Ad�le. _That_ sin is past
+cure and past preachment; no good can come from trumpeting wrath against
+it. Do me this favor, Johns, and you will find me a more willing
+listener in what is to come. I can't promise, indeed, to accept all your
+dogmas; there is a thick crust of the world on me, and I doubt if you
+could force them through it; but, for Ad�le's sake, I think I could
+become a very orderly and presentable person, even for a New England
+meeting-house. I will make a beginning now by turning over the little
+property which you hold for Ad�le, in trust, for disbursement in your
+parish charities. The dear child won't need it, and the parish may."
+
+The Doctor was happy to be relieved of the worst part of the revelation;
+but he had yet to communicate the fact that the mother was still alive,
+and (what was to him worst of all) that she was imbruted with the
+delusions of the Romish Church. He chose his hour, and, meeting her upon
+the village street, asked her into his study.
+
+"Adaly, your father is coming. He will be here within a month."
+
+"At last! at last!" said she, with a cry of joy.
+
+"But, Adaly," continued he, with great gravity, "I have perhaps led you
+into error. Your mother, Adaly,--your mother is still living."
+
+"Living!" and an expression almost of radiance shot over the fair face.
+But in an instant it was gone. Was not the poor lady she had so
+religiously mourned over her mother? That death embrace and the tomb
+were, then, only solemn mockeries! With a frightful alertness her
+thought ran to them,--weighed them. "New Papa," said she, approaching
+him with a gravity that matched his own, "is this some new delusion? Is
+it true? Has he written me?"
+
+"He has not written you, my child; but I have a letter, informing me of
+his marriage, and begging me to make the revelation to you as kindly as
+I might."
+
+"Marriage! Marriage to whom?" says Ad�le, her eyes flashing fire, and
+her lips showing a tempest of scarce controllable feeling.
+
+"Marriage to your mother, Adaly. He would be just at last."
+
+"O my God!" exclaimed Ad�le, with a burst of tears. "It's false! I shall
+never see my mother again in this world. I know it! I know it!"
+
+"But, Adaly, my child, consider!" said the old gentleman.
+
+Ad�le did not heed him. She was lost in her own griefs. She could only
+exclaim, "O my father! my father!"
+
+The old Doctor was greatly moved; he laid down his spectacles, and paced
+up and down the room. The earnestness of her doubt made him almost
+believe that he was himself deceived.
+
+"Can it be? can it be?" he muttered, half under breath, while Ad�le sat
+drooping in her chair. "May be the instinct of the poor girl is right,
+after all," thought he,--"sin is so full of disguises."
+
+At this moment there is a sharp tap at the door, and Miss Eliza steps
+in, the bearer of a letter from Reuben.
+
+
+
+
+KILLED AT THE FORD
+
+
+    He is dead, the beautiful youth,
+    The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,--
+    He, the life and light of us all,
+    Whose voice was blithe as a bugle call,
+    Whom all eyes followed with one consent,
+    The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
+    Hushed all murmurs of discontent.
+
+    Only last night, as we rode along
+    Down the dark of the mountain gap,
+    To visit the picket-guard at the ford,
+    Little dreaming of any mishap,
+    He was humming the words of some old song:
+    "Two red roses he had on his cap
+    And another he bore at the point of his sword."
+
+    Sudden and swift a whistling ball
+    Came out of a wood, and the voice was still;
+    Something I heard in the darkness fall,
+    And for a moment my blood grew chill;
+    I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
+    In a room where some one is lying dead;
+    But he made no answer to what I said.
+
+    We lifted him up on his saddle again,
+    And through the mire and the mist and the rain
+    Carried him back to the silent camp,
+    And laid him as if asleep on his bed;
+    And I saw by the light of the surgeon's lamp
+    Two white roses upon his cheeks,
+    And one just over his heart blood-red!
+
+    And I saw in a vision how far and fleet
+    That fatal bullet went speeding forth,
+    Till it reached a town in the distant North,
+    Till it reached a house in a sunny street,
+    Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat
+    Without a murmur, without a cry;
+    And a bell was tolled in that far-off town,
+    For one who had passed from cross to crown,--
+    And the neighbors wondered that she should die.
+
+
+
+
+THE LATE INSURRECTION IN JAMAICA.
+
+
+If Cuba be the Queen of the Antilles, then fairest of the sisterhood
+which adorn her regal state is Jamaica. A land of streams and mountains,
+from the one it derives almost inexhaustible fertility of valleys and
+plains; from the other, enchanting prospects, which challenge comparison
+with the scenery even of Tyrol and Switzerland. Tropical along its
+shores, temperate up its steep hills, the sun of Africa on its plains,
+the frosts of New England in its mountains, there is scarcely a luxury
+of the South or a comfort of the North which may not be cultivated to
+advantage somewhere within its borders. Here is the natural home of the
+sugar-cane; and it is scarcely a figure of speech to say that the sugar
+supply of the world might come from the teeming bosom of this little
+island. Here too are slopes of hills, and broad savannas, where "the
+grass may almost be _seen_ growing," and where may be bred cattle fit to
+compete with the far-famed herds of England. The forests are full of
+mahogany and logwood. The surrounding waters swarm with fish of every
+variety, and of the finest flavor. Nominally, at least, the people are
+free and self-governed; and if, under propitious skies, the burdens
+either of the private home or of the state are heavy and crushing, it is
+because of mismanagement and not of necessity. To a casual observer,
+therefore, it would seem as if nowhere in the same space were gathered
+more elements of wealth, prosperity, and happiness than in Jamaica.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yet Jamaica is poor and discontented, and from year to year is growing
+more miserable and more full of complaints. While on the little island
+of Barbadoes, which is flat and comparatively destitute of natural
+beauty, the inhabitant is proud to the verge of the ludicrous of his
+home, the Jamaican, dwelling amid scenes of perpetual loveliness,
+despises his native soil. And not without reason. For Jamaica presents
+that saddest and least flattering sight, a land sinking into hopeless
+ruin. Her plantations are left uncultivated. Her cities look time-worn
+and crumbling. Her fields, which once blossomed like the rose, are
+relapsing into the wilderness. She does not feed her people. She does
+not clothe them. She does not furnish them shelter. With three hundred
+and fifty thousand negroes she has not sufficient labor. With twenty
+thousand whites she has not employers enough who are capable of managing
+wisely and paying honestly what labor she has. With a soil which Nature
+has made one broad pasture, she does not raise the half of her own beef
+and pork. With plains which ought to be waving with luxuriant harvests
+of wheat and corn, her children are fed from our overflowing granaries.
+With woods filled with trees fit for building, she sends all the way to
+the Provinces for shingles, joist, and boards. On her two hundred swift,
+sparkling rivers there was not, in 1850, a single saw-mill. In an age of
+invention and labor-saving machines, the plough is to her a modern
+innovation; and her laborers still scratch the soil which they seek to
+till with tools of the Middle Ages. Even the production of sugar, to
+which she has sacrificed every other industrial interest, has sunk from
+the boasted hundred and fifty thousand hogsheads of the last century, to
+a meagre yearly crop of thirty thousand. Nine tenths of her proprietors
+are absentees. More than that proportion of her great estates are
+ruinously mortgaged. A tourist gives as the final evidence of
+exhaustion, that Jamaica has no amusements, no circus, no theatre, no
+opera, none of the pleasant trifles which surplus wealth creates.
+
+Nor are the moral aspects any more encouraging. Slavery, dying, cursed
+the soil with its fatal bequest, contempt for labor; and the years which
+have elapsed since emancipation have done little or nothing to give to
+the toiler conscious dignity and worth. The bondsman, scarcely yet freed
+from all his chains, naturally enough thinks that, "if Massa will not
+work," it is the highest gentility in him not to work either, and sighs
+for a few acres whereon he may live in sluggish content. And his quondam
+master, left to his own resources, will not any more than before put his
+shoulder to the work; and, though sunk himself in sloth, ceases not to
+complain of another's indolence. The spirit of caste is still
+relentless. The white man despises the black man, and, if he can, cheats
+him and tramples upon him. The black man, in return, suspects and fears
+his old oppressor, and sometimes, goaded to desperation, turns upon him.
+A perpetual discontent has always brooded over Jamaica; and it is
+recorded that no less than thirty bloody rebellions have left their
+crimson stains on her ignoble annals.
+
+It is in vain to inquire for the causes of this physical and moral
+decay. For every class has its special complaint, every traveller his
+favorite theory, and every political economist his sufficient
+explanation. But let the cause be what it may, the fact stands out black
+and repulsive. Jamaica, which came from the hand of the Creator a fair
+and well-watered garden, has presented for more than half a century that
+melancholy spectacle, too common in Equatorial America, of a land rich
+in every natural advantage, and yet through the misfortune or folly of
+its people plunged in poverty and misery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The world at large had become tired of the griefs of Jamaica, and
+reconciled itself to her wretchedness as a foregone conclusion, when the
+events of last October lent a fresh and terrible interest to her
+history. An insurrection, including in its purpose the murder of every
+white man on the island, has been quenched in the blood of its leaders,
+say the Governor of Jamaica and his defenders. An insignificant riot has
+been followed by a wholesale and indiscriminate massacre, sparing not
+even the women and children, reply their opponents.
+
+Admitting for a moment the whole planter theory of a general
+insurrection, the question inevitably arises, What are the causes which
+would prompt such a rebellion, and which, while they do not justify
+violence, furnish reasons why every humane mind should desire to treat
+with leniency the errors, and even the crimes, of an ignorant and
+oppressed race? The ordinary burden of the Jamaica negro is far from a
+light one. The yearly expense of his government is not less than a
+million dollars, or about three dollars for every man, woman, and child
+on the island. The executive and judicial departments are on a scale of
+expense which would befit a continent. The Governor receives a salary of
+forty thousand dollars, the Chief Justice fifteen thousand dollars, the
+Associate Justices ten thousand dollars. The ecclesiastical
+establishment, which ministers little or nothing to the religious wants
+of the colored race, absorbs another huge portion of the public revenue.
+And all this magnificence of expenditure in a population of twenty
+thousand bankrupt whites and three hundred and fifty thousand half-naked
+blacks. If, now, the negro believed that this burden was distributed
+evenly, he might bear it with patience. But he does not believe so. He
+is sure, on the contrary, that the white man, who controls legislation,
+so assesses the revenue that it shall relieve the rich and burden the
+poor. He tells you that the luxuries of the planter are admitted at a
+nominal duty, while the coarse fabrics with which he must clothe himself
+and family pay forty per cent; that while the planter's huge hogshead of
+seventeen hundred pounds' weight pays only an excise of three shillings,
+the hard-raised barrel of his home produce of two hundred pounds must
+pay two shillings; that every miserable mule-cart of the petty
+land-owner is subjected to eighteen shillings license, while the great
+ox-carts of the thousand-acre plantation go untaxed,--a law under which
+the number of little carts in one district sunk from five hundred to
+less than two hundred, and with it sunk who shall tell how much growing
+enterprise. These complaints may be unjust, but the negro believes in
+them, and they chafe and exasperate him.
+
+Another important question is, What is the ability of the negro to bear
+these burdens? A defender of the planters gravely asserts "that the
+negro demands a price for his labor which would be exorbitant in any
+part of the world." What is that exorbitant price? An able-bodied
+agricultural laborer in Jamaica receives from eighteen to thirty cents a
+day; and, if he is both fortunate and industrious, may net for a year's
+work the fabulous sum of from fifty to eighty dollars. And this in a
+country which is one of the dearest in the world; where the necessaries
+of life are always at war prices; where flour is now twenty dollars a
+barrel, and eggs are fifty cents a dozen, and butter is forty cents a
+pound, and ham twenty-five, and beef and mutton still higher.
+
+Did the laborer actually receive his pittance, his lot might be more
+tolerable. But it is the almost universal complaint, that, either from
+inability or disinclination, the planter does not keep his agreements.
+Sometimes the overseer, when the work has been done, and well done,
+arbitrarily retains a quarter, or even a half, of the stipulated wages.
+The negro says he has no chance for redress; that even a written
+agreement is worth no more than a blank paper, for the magistrates are
+either all planters, or their dependents, and have no ears to hear the
+cry of the lowly. Add now to all this the fact, that the last few
+seasons have been unfavorable to agriculture; that planters and peasants
+alike are even more than usually poor; that in whole districts the
+blacks are destitute, their children up to the age of ten or twelve
+years from absolute necessity going about stark naked, and their men and
+women wearing only rags and streamers, which do not preserve even the
+show of decency;--and is there not sufficient reason, not indeed to
+justify murder and arson, but why a whole race of suffering and
+excitable people should not be stamped as fiends in human shape for the
+outrages of a few of their number?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Turn now to the actual scene of conflict. In a little triangular tract
+of country on the east shore of Jamaica, hemmed in between the sea and
+the Blue Mountains, twenty-five miles long and two thirds as wide,
+occurred in October last what Governor Eyre has seen fit to dignify with
+the name of an insurrection. The first act of violence was committed at
+Morant Bay,--a town where it is said that no missionary to the blacks
+has been permitted to live for thirty-five years,--in the parish of St.
+Thomas in the East,--that very St. Thomas, possibly, whose court-house
+was called forty years ago the "hell of Jamaica," and where is preserved
+as a pleasant relic of the past a record book wherein the curious
+traveller reads the prices paid in the palmy days of slavery for cutting
+off the ears and legs, and slitting the noses, of runaway negroes. Had
+these negroes of Morant Bay any special causes of exasperation? They
+had. Their complaint was threefold. First, that the only magistrate who
+protected their interests had been arbitrarily removed. Second, that a
+plantation claimed by them to be deserted was as arbitrarily adjudged to
+be the rightful property of a white man. Third, that the plucking of
+fruit by the wayside, which had been a custom from time immemorial, and
+which resembled the plucking of ears of corn under the Jewish law, was
+by new regulations made a crime. Thus matters stood on the day of the
+outbreak; a general condition of poverty and discontent throughout the
+island; a special condition of exasperation in the parish of St. Thomas
+in the East, and particularly at Morant Bay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the 7th of last October, a negro was arrested for picking two
+cocoanuts, value threepence. This arrest had every exasperating
+condition. The fruit was taken from a plantation whose title was
+disputed, and upon which the negroes had squatted. The law which made
+the plucking of fruit a crime was itself peculiarly obnoxious. The
+magistrate before whom the offence was to be tried, rightly or wrongly,
+was accused by the blacks of gross partiality and injustice. The accused
+man was followed to the court by a crowd of his friends, armed, it is
+said, with clubs, though this latter statement seems to be doubtful.
+When a sentence of four shillings' fine, or, in default of payment,
+thirty days' imprisonment, was imposed, the award was received in
+silence. But when the costs were adjudged to be twelve shillings and
+sixpence, there were murmurs. Some tumultuously advised the man not to
+pay. Some, believing the case involved the title to the land, told him
+to appeal to a higher court. The magistrate ordered the arrest of all
+noisy persons. But these fled to the street, and, shielded by the
+citizens, escaped. The next day but one, six constables armed with a
+warrant proceeded to Stony Gut, the scene of the original arrest, to
+take into custody twenty-eight persons accused of riot. But they were
+forcibly resisted, handcuffed with their own irons, and forced
+ignominiously to take their way back. Some of the arrests, however, were
+made quietly a little time after.
+
+On the 11th of October dawned an eventful day. The magistrates were
+assembled in the court-house at Morant Bay for the purpose of examining
+the prisoners. The court-house was guarded by twenty armed volunteers, a
+body apparently of local militia. Some four or five hundred excited
+blacks surrounded the court-house, armed with bludgeons, grasping
+stones. What led to a collision can never be known. Very probably
+missiles were thrown at the guard. At any rate the officer in command
+ordered them to fire upon the crowd, and fifteen of the rioters fell
+dead or wounded. Then all restraint was at an end. The negroes threw
+themselves with incredible fury upon the guard, drove them into the
+court-house, summoned them to surrender at discretion, then set fire to
+the building, and murdered, with many circumstances of atrocity, the
+unhappy inmates, as they sought to flee. Sixteen were killed, and
+eighteen wounded, while a few escaped unharmed, by the help of the
+negroes themselves. This was the beginning and the end of the famous
+armed insurrection, so far as it ever was armed insurrection. The
+rioters dispersed. The spirit of insubordination spread to the
+plantations. There was general confusion, some destruction of property,
+some robbery. The whites were filled with alarm. Many left all and fled.
+The most exaggerated reports obtained credence. But if we except a Mr.
+Hine, who had rendered himself especially unpopular, and who was
+murdered on his plantation, not one white man appears to have been
+killed in cold blood, and not one white woman or child suffered from
+violence of any sort. Facts to the contrary may yet come to light.
+Official reports may reveal some secret chapter of bloodshed. But the
+chances of such a revelation are small enough. Three months have elapsed
+since the first tidings of the outbreak reached the mother country.
+There has been a great excitement; investigation has been demanded;
+facts have been called for; the defenders of the planters have been
+defied to produce facts. Meanwhile the Governor of Jamaica has written
+home repeated despatches; the commander of the military forces which
+crushed the rebellion has visited England; the planters' journals have
+come laden with vulgar abuse of the negro, and with all sorts of evil
+surmises as to his motives and purposes; letters have been received from
+Jamaica from persons in every position in life; and still no new
+facts,--not so much as one clear accusation of any further fatal
+violence. The conclusion is irresistible, that this was a riot, and not
+an insurrection; and that it began and ended, so far as armed force was
+concerned, at Morant Bay, on that unhappy day, the 11th of last October.
+
+It cannot be denied that the occurrences of that day were marked by
+some circumstances of painful ferocity. Men were literally hacked to
+pieces, crying for mercy. One man's tongue was cut from his mouth even
+while he lived. Another, escaping, was thrown back into the burning
+building, and roasted to death. The joints of the hand of the dead chief
+magistrate were dissevered by the blacks, who cried out exultingly,
+"This hand will write no more lying despatches to the Queen." But the
+events of that day were marked also by instances of humanity. The clerk
+of the court was rescued by his negro servant, who thrust him beneath
+the floor, and, watching his opportunity, conveyed him to the shelter of
+the woods next morning. A child, who happened to be with his father in
+the court-house, was snatched up by a negro woman, who, at the risk of
+her own life, carried him to a place of safety. But admitting the worst
+charges, any one who remembers the New York riot of 1863 will be slow to
+assert that this black mob exhibited any barbarity which has not been
+more than emulated by white mobs. Shocking enough the details are; but
+human action always and with every race is ferocious, when once the
+restraints of self-control and the law are thrown off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With a people so excitable as the blacks of Jamaica, and among whom
+there existed so many causes of disaffection, the greatest promptitude
+of action was a virtue. Had Governor Eyre marched with a military force
+into the district, had he crushed out every vestige of armed resistance,
+had he brought before proper tribunals and punished with severity all
+persons who were convicted of any complicity in these outrages, he would
+have merited the praise of every good man. What he did was to let loose
+upon a little district, unmuzzled, the dogs of war. What he did was to
+gather from all quarters an armed force, a motley crew, regulars and
+militia, sailors and landsmen, black and white, and permit them to hold
+for fourteen long days a saturnalia of blood. What he did was to summon
+the savage Maroon tribes to the feast of death, that by their barbaric
+warfare they might add yet one more shade of gloom to the picture. The
+official accounts are enough to blanch the cheek with horror. In two
+days after the riot martial law was declared. In four, the outbreak was
+hemmed into narrow quarters. In a week, it ceased to exist in any shape.
+Yet the work of death went on. Bands of maddened soldiers pierced the
+country in every direction. Men were arrested upon the slightest
+suspicion. Every petty officer constituted himself a judge; every
+private soldier became an executioner. If the black man fled, he was
+shot as a rebel; if he surrendered, he was hung on the same pretext,
+after the most summary trial. If the number of prisoners became
+inconveniently large, they were shot, or else whipped and let go,
+apparently according to the whim of the officer in command. Women were
+seized, stripped half naked, and thrown among the vulgar soldiery to be
+scourged. The estimate is that five hundred and fifty were hung by order
+of drum-head court-martials, five hundred destroyed by the Maroons, two
+thousand shot by the soldiery, and that three hundred women were catted,
+and how many men nobody presumes even to guess. One asks, At what
+expense of life to the victors was all this slaughter accomplished? And
+he reads, that not one soldier was killed, that not one soldier was
+wounded, that not one soldier received so much as a scratch, unless from
+the bushes through which he pursued his human prey. It was not war: it
+was a massacre. These poor people fled like panic-struck sheep, and the
+soldiery tracked them like wolves. The human heart could wish to take
+refuge in incredulity, but alas! the worst testimony of all is found in
+the official reports of the actors themselves.
+
+A few terrible anecdotes will give reality to the picture. George
+Marshall, a mulatto, was taken up with others as a straggler, and
+ordered to receive fifty lashes. With each lash the unfortunate man
+gritted his teeth and turned his head, whether from pain or anger is
+uncertain. The provost-marshal construed this into a threatening look,
+and ordered him to be hung, which was done. There was no proof whatever
+that Marshall had any connection with the riot. A company of Maroons
+discovered a body of blacks, men, women, and children, who had taken
+refuge up in the trees, and stood and deliberately shot them, one by
+one, until they had all fallen, and the ground beneath was thickly
+strewn with their dead bodies. On a plantation between Morant Bay and
+Port Antonio the people were led by evil example into some acts of riot
+and pillage. But even in the midst of their license they sent word to
+the English gentleman who had charge of the plantation, that, if he and
+his family remained quiet, they should be protected. So rapidly did the
+spirit of rioting burn itself out, that on the next Sunday, only four
+days after the first outbreak at Morant Bay, he rode down to the estate,
+conducted a religious service as usual, speaking boldly to the people of
+the folly and sin of their course, and counselling them to return
+quietly to their work. His words were so well received, that on Monday
+morning he started for the plantation, purposing to appoint for the
+workmen their tasks, as the best possible way of keeping them out of
+mischief. As he drew near, he heard firing, and the first sight which
+greeted him was a negro shot down. The village was in possession of a
+small company of soldiers, without even a subaltern to control them.
+Without pretence of a trial, they were shooting the people one by one,
+as they were pointed out to them by a petty constable. On their march,
+these very soldiers had been ordered to fire upon every one who ran
+away, and they fired at every bush at random, never stopping to count
+the slain.
+
+Nothing can exceed the horrible frankness of the reports of the
+officers. Here is Lieutenant Aldcock's language: "On returning to Golden
+Grove in the evening, sixty-seven prisoners were sent in by the Maroons.
+I disposed of as many as possible, but was too tired to continue after
+dark. On the morning of the 24th, I started for Morant Bay, having first
+flogged four, and hung six rebels." Here is a gem from Captain Ford:
+"The black troops are more successful than ours in catching horses;
+nearly all of them are mounted. They shot about one hundred and sixty
+people in their march from Port Antonio to Manchioneal, hanged seven in
+Manchioneal, and shot three on their way here. This is a picture of
+martial law. The soldiers enjoy it." Now consider a moment this killing
+of one hundred and sixty people on the way from Port Antonio. The
+distance traversed in a direct line was about twelve miles. There are no
+large towns on the line of march; and if you suppose that the rural
+population had here the average density of the island, there could not
+have been, in a belt of country one mile wide and the twelve miles long,
+over five hundred people; and we are forced to the conclusion, that
+these restorers of peace cleaned a strip a mile wide of every man and
+every well-grown boy. "And the soldiers enjoy it!" And the officers
+glory in it! Nothing was permitted to stop or clog the death mills. At
+Morant Bay, "to save time," two court-martials were formed. No time was
+lost in proceeding to business. "Each five minutes condemned rebels were
+taken down under escort awaiting their doom." Only three brought before
+these terrible tribunals escaped death. The court, composed exclusively
+of military and naval officers, spared none; every one brought before it
+was hanged. How many other such courts were at work does not appear; but
+it is evident not less than ten or a dozen. And subalterns, who ought
+not to have been intrusted with the charge of a score of men, assumed
+the dread power of life and death over poor wretches snatched from their
+homes, and given neither time nor opportunity for defence. Yet all this
+does not satisfy the remorseless planter. When, in a parish of thirty
+thousand people, two or three thousand sleep in bloody graves, and at
+least as many more have been pitilessly scourged, he calls "the clemency
+of the authorities extraordinary," and says, "that it comes too soon."
+No wonder that such a record as this stirred to its depth the popular
+heart of England. And it is the only relieving feature, that the
+indignation thus aroused has overridden all opposition, silenced all
+paltry excuses, and forced the government to appoint a Commission of
+Inquiry, and pending that inquiry to suspend Governor Eyre from his
+office.
+
+One case, that of the judicial murder of Mr. Gordon, has properly
+awakened great attention. Mr. Gordon was the very magistrate whose
+removal from office created so much discontent in the whole parish of
+St. Thomas in the East. He was a colored man with a very slight infusion
+of black blood. His father was an Englishman, and he himself was bred in
+England and married an English lady. He was wealthy, and the owner of a
+great plantation. A bitter and fearless opponent of what he considered
+to be the oppression of the planters, they in turn concentrated upon him
+all their anger and malice, while the negroes looked up to him as their
+hope and defence. The mere statement of the facts indicates that, if Mr.
+Gordon was to be tried at all, the investigation should have been
+patient, open, and thorough, granting to the accused every opportunity
+of defence. What did take place was this. Mr. Gordon was at Kingston,
+forty miles away from the scene of action. As soon as he learned that a
+warrant was out for his arrest, he surrendered himself, and was hurried
+away from the place where civil law was supreme to the scene of martial
+law at Morant Bay. Without a friend to defend him, with no opportunity
+to procure rebutting evidence, he was brought before a court of three
+subalterns, and, after what was called "a very patient trial" of four or
+five hours, sentenced to be hanged. Not one insult was spared. When he
+was marched up from the wharf, the sailors were permitted to heap upon
+him every opprobrious epithet. Before his execution "his black coat and
+vest were taken from him as a prize by one soldier, his spectacles by
+another; so," as an officer boasts, "he was treated not differently from
+the common herd." The accusation was, that he had plotted a wide-spread
+and diabolical rebellion. The only evidence which has been submitted
+proves him guilty of intemperate language, and an abounding sympathy for
+the poor and oppressed.[G] In his last letter to his wife, written just
+before his execution, he uses language which has the stamp of truth upon
+it. "I do not deserve my sentence, for I never advised or took part in
+the insurrection. All I ever did was to recommend the people who
+complained to seek redress in a legitimate way. It is, however, the will
+of God that I should thus suffer in obeying his command to relieve the
+poor and needy, and so far as I was able to protect the oppressed. And
+glory be to His name, and I thank Him that I suffer in such a cause."
+But it matters not of what Mr. Gordon was guilty; the method of the
+proceedings, the dragging him from civil protection, the deprivation of
+all proper opportunity for defence, the putting him to death as it were
+in a corner, were all subversive of personal rights and safety. The
+highest authority in England has declared the whole trial an illegality.
+And the circumstances of the hour, when every vestige, ever pretence, of
+armed resistance had been swept away, left no excuse for over-stepping
+the bounds of legal authority.
+
+It is proper that full weight should be given to the alleged
+justification of these enormities. A diabolical plot existed, whose
+meshes included the whole island, and whose purpose was to put to death
+every white man and to outrage every white woman. This is what the
+Governor asserts. This is what the Assembly reiterates. This is the
+charge upon which every appeal of the Jamaican journals turns. The whole
+truth we probably never shall know. The men who could best reveal it are
+silent in the graves which lawless violence has dug for them, and will
+bear no testimony except at the bar or Eternal Justice. The report of
+the Committee of Inquiry will no doubt shed some light. Pending that
+inquiry there are considerations which strike every one. If for two
+years a bloody insurrection had been plotted, and the outbreak at Morant
+Bay was the first stroke to toward its accomplishment, is it credible
+that these truculent rebels should submit themselves as sheep to the
+slaughter,--that not one band should be found to strike a manly blow for
+life and liberty? If such an insurrection had its roots in every part of
+the island, is it credible, that, while the whole military and naval
+force, and no small part of the white inhabitants, were engaged in
+putting down the thirty thousand of their brethren in St. Thomas and
+Portland parishes, the three hundred thousand blacks all over the island
+should remain peaceable and law-abiding? And it is to be noticed that,
+since the reign of terror has subsided a little, those who know the
+negroes best, the missionaries who labor among them, express the most
+hearty contempt for these charges. But suppose that the negro had
+plotted insurrection, diabolical, satanic, would that be any excuse for
+wholesale slaughter, without forms of law, when all resistance was at an
+end? We know that the South plotted and consummated rebellion; that her
+people have slain three hundred thousand of our sons on the
+battle-field; that more than thirty thousand have wasted and died of
+slow torture in her prisons; that whenever the secrets of that
+charnel-house, Southern life, are disclosed, they will tell of thousands
+of Unionists who were hung, who were shot, who were burned at the stake,
+who were hunted by dogs, who were scourged to death with whips, and all
+because they were faithful to their country. And knowing all this, is
+there a man of the North who, when military resistance has ceased, would
+march our armies southward, hang every tenth man, shoot every fourth,
+scourge as many more, and suffer a wild soldiery to strip half naked and
+score with cruel whips thousands of the women? And does it alter the
+moral aspect of the case, that these things are transacted on a little
+island of the sea, and not on a continent,--or that the skin of the
+sufferer is black instead of white?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The use men seek to make of events reveals often the motives which they
+carried into the transaction of these events. Never was this more true
+of any body of people than of the planters of Jamaica. The Kingston
+Journal, an opposition, but not radical paper, boldly asserts, that the
+press has been gagged because it urged upon government the necessity of
+reform; that it has not dared to comment upon current facts, lest it
+should come under grave suspicion; that "now, when the greatest order
+prevails, and there is not the remotest probability of another outbreak,
+we _dare_ not comment upon events, which, for the good of all classes,
+ought to be calmly and fully discussed." A significant commentary upon
+these statements is the fact that Mr. Levien, the editor of a Jamaica
+paper, was arrested, because in an editorial he boldly condemned the
+trial and execution of Mr. Gordon. And it is probable that he escaped
+paying dearly for his courage, only because the Chief Justice of Jamaica
+declared the whole law under which he was arrested unconstitutional, and
+dismissed the case. A still more significant commentary upon these
+statements is that other fact, that, in the midst of what they averred
+were the throes of a great rebellion, the members of the Assembly
+proceeded to destroy the very foundations of civil and religious
+liberty and of the freedom of the press. They proposed to give the
+Governor almost despotic authority, by surrendering the franchise of the
+Assembly, and vesting its power in a council of twenty-four, half of
+whom should be appointed by the Governor himself, and half elected by
+the people from the list only of those who had estates worth more than
+fifteen hundred dollars a year, or a salary of more than twenty-five
+hundred dollars. All social worship, all conference and prayer meetings,
+and even family prayers, if more than two strangers were present, were
+to be interdicted, unless, indeed, they were conducted by a minister of
+a favored sect. The denominations who had chiefly ministered to the
+blacks were to be placed under such disabilities as should greatly
+limit, or else destroy, their usefulness. And to round out and complete
+the circle of despotism, this proposition, was introduced,--"that if
+anything is contained in any printed paper which may be considered
+seditious, or that may be adjudged so by any court which the Governor
+may appoint, the writer shall be sentenced to hard labor in the
+penitentiary for seven years." It is idle to suppose that these measures
+will be sanctioned by the Queen; but they show what feelings burn in the
+breasts of the planters, and admonish us to receive with caution any
+statements which they may make concerning other classes of the
+community.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This Jamaica "insurrection," whose origin, growth, and extinguishment in
+blood have now been traced, has been the cause of we know not how many
+oracular warnings from the lips of those who have not been distinguished
+by any hearty attachment to the rights of the black. "See now," they
+say, "what is the peril of emancipating these blacks." "Behold what
+comes of educating this people up to the capacity of mischief."
+"Acknowledge now that not even the gift of universal suffrage will
+elevate and soften a race at once fickle and ferocious. There is no
+safety but in keeping them under. Stop in your perilous experiments
+while you can."
+
+So long as the accounts of this outbreak are at once so conflicting and
+so colored by party feeling, it may not be easy to say what are its
+positive lessons. But it is easy to tell some things which it does not
+teach.
+
+In the _first_ place, it does not teach the danger of conferring the
+right to vote upon the negro, for the negro of Jamaica has never
+attained to that privilege. His traducers cry out, "What a race! The
+best fed, the best clothed, the best sheltered, the least worked
+peasantry on the face of the earth! Free! Free to make their own laws,
+to choose their own rulers, to govern themselves! And yet they are
+discontented!" Turn now and inquire what are the facts about their
+governing themselves. True, no law says the negro shall not vote, but
+the qualification is made so high that it is impossible that he should
+vote. In a country where wages are scarcely a quarter of a dollar a day,
+he is required to have an estate worth thirty dollars a year, or an
+income of one hundred and forty dollars a year, or to pay taxes of
+fifteen dollars a year. Suppose now that in New England a law were
+passed that no man should vote who had not an estate worth two hundred
+dollars a year, or an income of one thousand dollars, or who did not pay
+one hundred dollars yearly tax,--and this, considering the difference of
+wages, is scarcely as high a qualification as that of Jamaica,--and how
+large a proportion of our people would obtain the privileges of a voter?
+In fact, in Jamaica only three thousand vote, or about one twenty-fifth
+of the adult males. Is it not just possible that the discontent there
+may grow out of aspirations for self-government, and for the dignity and
+privileges, as well as the name, of freemen? May not the outbreak teach
+the danger of not allowing the negro to vote?
+
+In the _second_ place, this rebellion does not teach the danger of
+educating the negro; for the negro of Jamaica never has been educated.
+While the government has wrung from his scanty wages a million dollars,
+it pays the Governor alone more than three times the sum it appropriates
+to education. It doles out for the education of seventy-five thousand
+children the pittance of twelve thousand five hundred dollars. Did not
+the negro himself eke out this bounty from his own little savings, not
+one in a dozen of the children would ever enter a school-room or see a
+book. As it is, only one sixth part of the children are, or ever were,
+under instruction. And the instruction they receive is too often from
+persons themselves illiterate and full of superstition, but who are the
+best teachers who can be obtained with limited means. Consider, then,
+the real condition of affairs,--three hundred and fifty thousand blacks,
+a large share of them children or grandchildren of those who were
+brought from Africa, with the wild blood of their fathers scarcely
+diluted in their veins, with all the old traditions of Fetichism and Obi
+worship fresh in their minds, altogether uneducated, or at best half
+educated; consider what virgin soil is here for every vile superstition,
+what a field for the demagogue to cultivate, and then decide whether it
+might not be safer, after all, to educate the negro in Jamaica.
+
+This insurrection does not teach, in the _third_ place, the danger of
+obliterating the lines of caste, for in Jamaica those lines have never
+been obliterated, or even made faint. It may be doubted whether there
+was ever a moment when the ill-dissembled contempt of the whites, and
+the distrust of the blacks, were more profound then now. An intelligent
+observer declared, in 1850, that the gap between the blacks and whites
+had been steadily increasing ever since emancipation. And ten years
+later the Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society records, "that, as
+a general statement, there is no generous feeling in the relations
+between employer and employed. The negro can expect nothing but barest
+justice, and is happy if he gets that." Can there be any safety for the
+minority, when the majority, which numbers fifteen to one, has such a
+sense of injustice rankling in its breast? One wades through the late
+reprints of the Jamaica journals, column after column, page after page,
+filled with coarse invective, with bitter denunciation, with injurious
+suspicion; sees with what terrible relish the sufferings of these
+deluded people are recorded; marks how the heroism which goes to the
+scaffold without a tremor, and looks undeserved death in the face
+without a fear, is travestied; shudders to hear the planters, after
+thousands have been slain, yet cry for more blood; and then he puts the
+paper down and says, "Here in this language is material enough out of
+which to create a dozen bloody rebellions." How any race with the blood
+of the tropics boiling in their veins, with the traditions of old
+oppressions burning in their memory, can ever forget or forgive this
+language and these unbridled outrages is inconceivable. He is mad who
+does not see that the gulf of caste, too wide before, has widened and
+deepened almost unfathomably by the influence of the events of the last
+few months. He is mad, too, who thinks that Morant Bay, or the parish of
+St. Thomas in the East, with their unshrived dead, is a safer place for
+a white man to dwell in than it was six months ago.
+
+It is too early to gather up all the lessons of this last of the almost
+innumerable outbreaks in Jamaica. They may never be gathered up. But one
+lesson stands out prominently, and that is, the safety of justice. We
+cannot bring perfect equality upon the earth. It is not desirable
+perhaps that we should. To the end of time, probably, there will be rich
+and poor, high and low, weak and strong, black and white. But we can be
+just. We can recognize every man as a child of God. We can grant to him
+all the rights, all the privileges, and all the opportunities which
+belong to a man. That is a lesson which Jamaica has never learned, and
+therefore she sits under the shadow of her mountains, by the side of the
+restless sea, clothed in garments of wretchedness.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[G] Since the above was written, despatches and explanations have been
+received from Governor Eyre, and published; also an unofficial account
+of the trial of Mr. Gordon, from the pen of a reporter who was present.
+It is to be regretted that these papers do not relieve the authorities
+from the charge of atrocious and illegal cruelty in the slightest
+degree. Neither does the evidence in any way justify the legal or
+illegal murder of Mr. Gordon. While in November there was an evident
+desire to boast of the number and severity of the punishments which had
+been inflicted upon the unfortunate blacks, there is as evident a desire
+in January to show that the number of those who perished has been
+greatly exaggerated. But it is difficult to see how the actors propose
+to refute statements for which they themselves furnished the materials.
+One agreeable fact comes out in these papers, that the British home
+authorities never committed themselves to a support of the conduct of
+the Jamaican officials. On the contrary, it now appears that Mr.
+Cardwell, the British Colonial Secretary, from the beginning intimated
+very clearly his doubt on the propriety of the proceedings, especially
+in the case of Mr. Gordon.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHIMNEY-CORNER FOR 1866.
+
+
+IV.
+
+DRESS, OR WHO MAKES THE FASHIONS.
+
+The door of my study being open, I heard in the distant parlor a sort of
+flutter of silken wings, and chatter of bird-like voices, which told me
+that a covey of Jennie's pretty young street birds had just alighted
+there. I could not forbear a peep at the rosy faces that glanced out
+under pheasants' tails, doves' wings, and nodding hummingbirds, and made
+one or two errands in that direction only that I might gratify my eyes
+with a look at them.
+
+Your nice young girl, of good family and good breeding, is always a
+pretty object, and, for my part, I regularly lose my heart (in a sort of
+figurative way) to every fresh, charming creature that trips across my
+path. All their mysterious rattle-traps and whirligigs,--their curls and
+networks and crimples and rimples and crisping-pins,--their little
+absurdities, if you will,--have to me a sort of charm, like the tricks
+and stammerings of a curly-headed child. I should have made a very poor
+censor if I had been put in Cato's place: the witches would have thrown
+all my wisdom into some private chip-basket of their own, and walked off
+with it in triumph. Never a girl bows to me that I do not see in her eye
+a twinkle of confidence that she could, if she chose, make an old fool
+of me. I surrender at discretion on first sight.
+
+Jennie's friends are nice girls,--the flowers of good, staid, sensible
+families,--not heathen blossoms nursed in the hot-bed heat of wild,
+high-flying, fashionable society. They have been duly and truly taught
+and brought up, by good mothers and painstaking aunties, to understand
+in their infancy that handsome is that handsome does; that little girls
+must not be vain of their pretty red shoes and nice curls, and must
+remember that it is better to be good than to be handsome; with all
+other wholesome truisms of the kind. They have been to school, and had
+their minds improved in all modern ways,--have calculated eclipses, and
+read Virgil, Schiller, and La Fontaine, and understand all about the
+geological strata, and the different systems of metaphysics,--so that a
+person reading the list of their acquirements might be a little appalled
+at the prospect of entering into conversation with them. For all these
+reasons I listened quite indulgently to the animated conversation that
+was going on about--Well!
+
+What _do_ girls generally talk about, when a knot of them get together?
+Not, I believe, about the sources of the Nile, or the precession of the
+equinoxes, or the nature of the human understanding, or Dante, or
+Shakespeare, or Milton, although they have learned all about them in
+school; but upon a theme much nearer and dearer,--the one all-pervading
+feminine topic ever since Eve started the first toilet of fig-leaves;
+and as I caught now and then a phrase of their chatter, I jotted it down
+in pure amusement, giving to each charming speaker the name of the bird
+under whose colors she was sailing.
+
+"For my part," said little Humming-Bird, "I'm quite worn out with
+sewing; the fashions are all _so_ different from what they were last
+year, that everything has to be made over."
+
+"Isn't it dreadful!" said Pheasant. "There's my new mauve silk dress! it
+was a very expensive silk, and I haven't worn it more than three or four
+times, and it really looks quite dowdy; and I can't get Patterson to do
+it over for me for this party. Well, really, I shall have to give up
+company because I have nothing to wear."
+
+"Who _does_ set the fashions, I wonder," said Humming-Bird; "they seem
+now-a-days to whirl faster and faster, till really they don't leave one
+time for anything."
+
+"Yes," said Dove, "I haven't a moment for reading, or drawing, or
+keeping up my music. The fact is, now-a-days, to keep one's self
+properly dressed is all one can do. If I were _grande dame_ now, and had
+only to send an order to my milliner and dressmaker, I might be
+beautifully dressed all the time without giving much thought to it
+myself; and that is what I should like. But this constant planning about
+one's toilet, changing your buttons and your fringes and your
+bonnet-trimmings and your hats every other day, and then being
+behindhand! It is really too fatiguing.
+
+"Well," said Jennie, "I never pretend to keep up. I never expect to be
+in the front rank of fashion, but no girl wants to be behind every one;
+nobody wants to have people say, 'Do see what an old-times,
+rubbishy-looking creature _that_ is.' And now, with my small means and
+conscience, (for I have a conscience in this matter, and don't wish to
+spend any more time and money than is needed to keep one's self fresh
+and tasteful,) I find my dress quite a fatiguing care."
+
+"Well, now, girls," said Humming-Bird, "do you really know, I have
+sometimes thought I should like to be a nun, just to get rid of all this
+labor. If I once gave up dress altogether, and knew I was to have
+nothing but one plain robe tied round my waist with a cord, it does seem
+to me as if it would be a perfect repose,--only one is a Protestant, you
+know."
+
+Now, as Humming-Bird was the most notoriously dressy individual in the
+little circle, this suggestion was received with quite a laugh. But Dove
+took it up.
+
+"Well, really," she said, "when dear Mr. S---- preaches those saintly
+sermons to us about our baptismal vows, and the nobleness of an
+unworldly life, and calls on us to live for something purer and higher
+than we are living for, I confess that sometimes all my life seems to me
+a mere sham,--that I am going to church, and saying solemn words, and
+being wrought up by solemn music, and uttering most solemn vows and
+prayers, all to no purpose; and then I come away and look at my life,
+all resolving itself into a fritter about dress, and sewing-silk, cord,
+braid, and buttons,--the next fashion of bonnets,--how to make my old
+dresses answer instead of new,--how to keep the air of the world, while
+in my heart I am cherishing something higher and better. If there's
+anything I detest it is hypocrisy; and sometimes the life I lead looks
+like it. But how to get out of it? what to do?"
+
+"I'm sure," said Humming-Bird, "that taking care of my clothes and going
+into company is, frankly, _all_ I do. If I go to parties, as other girls
+do, and make calls, and keep dressed,--you know papa is not rich, and
+one must do these things economically,--it really does take all the time
+I have. When I was confirmed the Bishop talked to us so sweetly, and I
+really meant sincerely to be a good girl,--to be as good as I knew how;
+but now, when they talk about fighting the good fight and running the
+Christian race, I feel very mean and little, for I am sure this isn't
+doing it. But what is,--and who is?"
+
+"Aunt Betsey Titcomb is doing it, I suppose," said Pheasant.
+
+"Aunt Betsey!" said Humming-Bird, "well, she is. She spends _all_ her
+money in doing good. She goes around visiting the poor all the time. She
+is a perfect saint;--but O girls, how she looks! Well, now, I confess,
+when I think I must look like Aunt Betsey, my courage gives out. _Is_ it
+necessary to go without hoops, and look like a dipped candle, in order
+to be unworldly? Must one wear such a fright of a bonnet?"
+
+"No," said Jennie, "I think not. I think Miss Betsey Titcomb, good as
+she is, injures the cause of goodness by making it outwardly repulsive.
+I really think, if she would take some pains with her dress, and spend
+upon her own wardrobe a little of the money she gives away, that she
+might have influence in leading others to higher aims; now all her
+influence is against it. Her _outr�_ and repulsive exterior arrays our
+natural and innocent feelings against goodness; for surely it is natural
+and innocent to wish to look well, and I am really afraid a great many
+of us are more afraid of being thought ridiculous than of being wicked."
+
+"And after all," said Pheasant, "you know Mr. St. Clair says, 'Dress is
+one of the fine arts,' and if it is, why of course we ought to cultivate
+it. Certainly, well-dressed men and women are more agreeable objects
+than rude and unkempt ones. There must be somebody whose mission it is
+to preside over the agreeable arts of life; and I suppose it falls to
+'us girls.' That's the way I comfort myself, at all events. Then I must
+confess that I do like dress; I'm not cultivated enough to be a painter
+or a poet, and I have all my artistic nature, such as it is, in dress. I
+love harmonies of color, exact shades and matches; I love to see a
+uniform idea carried all through a woman's toilet,--her dress, her
+bonnet, her gloves, her shoes, her pocket-handkerchief and cuffs, her
+very parasol, all in correspondence."
+
+"But, my dear," said Jennie, "anything of this kind must take a
+fortune!"
+
+"And if I had a fortune, I'm pretty sure I should spend a good deal of
+it in this way," said Pheasant. "I can imagine such completeness of
+toilet as I have never seen. How I would like the means to show what I
+could do! My life, now, is perpetual disquiet. I always feel shabby. My
+things must all be bought at hap-hazard, as they can be got out of my
+poor little allowance,--and things are getting so horridly dear! Only
+think of it, girls! gloves at two and a quarter! and boots at seven,
+eight, and ten dollars! and then, as you say, the fashions changing so!
+Why, I bought a sack last fall and gave forty dollars for it, and this
+winter I'm wearing it, to be sure, but it has no style at all,--looks
+quite antiquated!"
+
+"Now I say," said Jennie, "that you are really morbid on the subject of
+dress; you are fastidious and particular and exacting in your ideas in a
+way that really ought to be put down. There is not a girl of our set
+that dresses as nicely as you do, except Emma Seyton, and her father,
+you know, has no end of income."
+
+"Nonsense, Jennie," said Pheasant. "I think I really look like a beggar;
+but then, I bear it as well as I can, because, you see, I know papa does
+all for us he can, and I won't be extravagant. But I do think, as
+Humming-Bird says, that it would be a great relief to give it up
+altogether and retire from the world; or, as Cousin John says, climb a
+tree and pull it up after you, and so be in peace."
+
+"Well," said Jennie, "all this seems to have come on since the war. It
+seems to me that not only has everything doubled in price, but all the
+habits of the world seem to require that you shall have double the
+quantity of everything. Two or three years ago a good balmoral skirt was
+a fixed fact; it was a convenient thing for sloppy, unpleasant weather.
+But now, dear me! there is no end to them. They cost fifteen and twenty
+dollars; and girls that I know have one or two every season, besides all
+sorts of quilled and embroidered and ruffled and tucked and flounced
+ones. Then, in dressing one's hair, what a perfect overflow there is of
+all manner of waterfalls, and braids, and rats and mice, and curls, and
+combs; when three or four years ago we combed our own hair innocently
+behind our ears, and put flowers in it, and thought we looked nicely at
+our evening parties! I don't believe we look any better now, when we are
+dressed, than we did then,--so what's the use?"
+
+"Well, did you ever see such a tyranny as this of fashion?" said
+Humming-Bird. "We know it's silly, but we all bow down before it; we are
+afraid of our lives before it; and who makes all this and sets it going?
+The Paris milliners, the Empress, or who?"
+
+"The question where fashions come from is like the question where pins
+go to," said Pheasant. "Think of the thousands and millions of pins
+that are being used every year, and not one of them worn out. Where do
+they all go to? One would expect to find a pin mine somewhere."
+
+"Victor Hugo says they go into the sewers in Paris," said Jennie.
+
+"And the fashions come from a source about as pure," said I, from the
+next room.
+
+"Bless me, Jennie, do tell us if your father has been listening to us
+all this time!" was the next exclamation; and forthwith there was a whir
+and rustle of the silken wings, as the whole troop fluttered into my
+study.
+
+"Now, Mr. Crowfield, you are too bad!" said Humming-Bird, as she perched
+upon a corner of my study-table, and put her little feet upon an old
+"Froissart" which filled the arm-chair.
+
+"To be listening to our nonsense!" said Pheasant.
+
+"Lying in wait for us!" said Dove.
+
+"Well, now, you have brought us all down on you," said Humming-Bird,
+"and you won't find it so easy to be rid of us. You will have to answer
+all our questions."
+
+"My dears, I am at your service, as far as mortal man may be," said I.
+
+"Well, then," said Humming-Bird, "tell us all about everything,--how
+things come to be as they are. Who makes the fashions?"
+
+"I believe it is universally admitted that, in the matter of feminine
+toilet, France rules the world," said I.
+
+"But who rules France?" said Pheasant. "Who decides what the fashions
+shall be there?"
+
+"It is the great misfortune of the civilized world, at the present
+hour," said I, "that the state of morals in France is apparently at the
+very lowest ebb, and consequently the leadership of fashion is entirely
+in the hands of a class of women who could not be admitted into good
+society, in any country. Women who can never have the name of wife,--who
+know none of the ties of family,--these are the dictators whose dress
+and equipage and appointments give the law, first to France, and through
+France to the civilized world. Such was the confession of Monsieur
+Dupin, made in a late speech before the French Senate, and acknowledged,
+with murmurs of assent on all sides, to be the truth. This is the reason
+why the fashions have such an utter disregard of all those laws of
+prudence and economy which regulate the expenditures of families. They
+are made by women whose sole and only hold on life is personal
+attractiveness, and with whom to keep this up, at any cost, is a
+desperate necessity. No moral quality, no association of purity, truth,
+modesty, self-denial, or family love, comes in to hallow the atmosphere
+about them, and create a sphere of loveliness which brightens as mere
+physical beauty fades. The ravages of time and dissipation must be made
+up by an unceasing study of the arts of the toilet. Artists of all
+sorts, moving in their train, rack all the stores of ancient and modern
+art for the picturesque, the dazzling, the grotesque; and so, lest these
+Circes of society should carry all before them, and enchant every
+husband, brother, and lover, the staid and lawful Penelopes leave the
+hearth and home to follow in their triumphal march and imitate their
+arts. Thus it goes in France; and in England, virtuous and domestic
+princesses and peeresses must take obediently what has been decreed by
+their rulers in the _demi-monde_ of France; and we in America have
+leaders of fashion, who make it their pride and glory to turn New York
+into Paris, and to keep even step with everything that is going on
+there. So the whole world of womankind is marching under the command of
+these leaders. The love of dress and glitter and fashion is getting to
+be a morbid, unhealthy epidemic, which really eats away the nobleness
+and purity of women.
+
+"In France, as Monsieur Dupin, Edmond About, and Michelet tell us, the
+extravagant demands of love for dress lead women to contract debts
+unknown to their husbands, and sign obligations which are paid by the
+sacrifice of honor, and thus the purity of the family is continually
+undermined. In England there is a voice of complaint, sounding from the
+leading periodicals, that the extravagant demands of female fashion are
+bringing distress into families, and making marriages impossible; and
+something of the same sort seems to have begun here. We are across the
+Atlantic, to be sure; but we feel the swirl and drift of the great
+whirlpool; only, fortunately, we are far enough off to be able to see
+whither things are tending, and to stop ourselves if we will.
+
+"We have just come through a great struggle, in which our women have
+borne an heroic part,--have shown themselves capable of any kind of
+endurance and self-sacrifice; and now we are in that reconstructive
+state which makes it of the greatest consequence to ourselves and the
+world that we understand our own institutions and position, and learn
+that, instead of following the corrupt and worn-out ways of the Old
+World, we are called on to set the example of a new state of
+society,--noble, simple, pure, and religious; and women can do more
+towards this even than men, for women are the real architects of
+society.
+
+"Viewed in this light, even the small, frittering cares of woman's
+life--the attention to buttons, trimmings, thread, and sewing-silk--may
+be an expression of their patriotism and their religion. A noble-hearted
+woman puts a noble meaning into even the commonplace details of life.
+The women of America can, if they choose, hold back their country from
+following in the wake of old, corrupt, worn-out, effeminate European
+society, and make America the leader of the world in all that is good."
+
+"I'm sure," said Humming-Bird, "we all would like to be noble and
+heroic. During the war, I did so long to be a man! I felt so poor and
+insignificant because I was nothing but a girl!"
+
+"Ah, well," said Pheasant, "but then one wants to do something worth
+doing, if one is going to do anything. One would like to be grand and
+heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be _very_
+something, _very_ great, _very_ heroic; or if not that, then at least
+very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity
+that bores me."
+
+"Then, I suppose, you agree with the man we read of, who buried his one
+talent in the earth, as hardly worth caring for."
+
+"To say the truth, I always had something of a sympathy for that man,"
+said Pheasant. "I can't enjoy goodness and heroism in homoeopathic
+doses. I want something appreciable. What I can do, being a woman, is a
+very different thing from what I should try to do if I were a man, and
+had a man's chances: it is so much less--so poor--that it is scarcely
+worth trying for."
+
+"You remember," said I, "the apothegm of one of the old divines, that if
+two angels were sent down from heaven, the one to govern a kingdom, and
+the other to sweep a street, they would not feel any disposition to
+change works."
+
+"Well, that just shows that they are angels, and not mortals," said
+Pheasant; "but we poor human beings see things differently."
+
+"Yet, my child, what could Grant or Sherman have done, if it had not
+been for the thousands of brave privates who were content to do each
+their imperceptible little,--if it had not been for the poor, unnoticed,
+faithful, never-failing common soldiers, who did the work and bore the
+suffering? No _one_ man saved our country, or could save it; nor could
+the men have saved it without the women. Every mother that said to her
+son, Go; every wife that strengthened the hands of her husband; every
+girl who sent courageous letters to her betrothed; every woman who
+worked for a fair; every grandam whose trembling hands knit stockings
+and scraped lint; every little maiden who hemmed shirts and made
+comfort-bags for soldiers,--each and all have been the joint doers of a
+great heroic work, the doing of which has been the regeneration of our
+era. A whole generation has learned the luxury of thinking heroic
+thoughts and being conversant with heroic deeds, and I have faith to
+believe that all this is not to go out in a mere crush of fashionable
+luxury and folly and frivolous emptiness,--but that our girls are going
+to merit the high praise given us by De Tocqueville, when he placed
+first among the causes of our prosperity the _noble character of
+American women_. Because foolish female persons in New York are striving
+to outdo the _demi-monde_ of Paris in extravagance, it must not follow
+that every sensible and patriotic matron, and every nice, modest young
+girl, must forthwith, and without inquiry, rush as far after them as
+they possibly can. Because Mrs. Shoddy opens a ball in a
+two-thousand-dollar lace dress, every girl in the land need not look
+with shame on her modest white muslin. Somewhere between the fast women
+of Paris and the daughters of Christian American families there should
+be established a _cordon sanitaire_, to keep out the contagion of
+manners, customs, and habits with which a noble-minded, religious
+democratic people ought to have nothing to do."
+
+"Well now, Mr. Crowfield," said the Dove, "since you speak us so fair,
+and expect so much of us, we must of course try not to fall below your
+compliments; but, after all, tell us what is the right standard about
+dress. Now we have daily lectures about this at home. Aunt Maria says
+that she never saw such times as these, when mothers and daughters,
+church-members and worldly people, all seem to be going one way, and sit
+down together and talk, as they will, on dress and fashion,--how to have
+this made and that altered. We used to be taught, she said, that
+church-members had higher things to think of,--that their thoughts ought
+to be fixed on something better, and that they ought to restrain the
+vanity and worldliness of children and young people; but now, she says,
+even before a girl is born, dress is the one thing needful,--the great
+thing to be thought of; and so, in every step of the way upward, her
+little shoes, and her little bonnets, and her little dresses, and her
+corals and her ribbons, are constantly being discussed in her presence,
+as the one all-important object of life. Aunt Maria thinks mamma is
+dreadful, because she has maternal yearnings over our toilet successes
+and fortunes; and we secretly think she is rather soured by old age, and
+has forgotten how a girl feels."
+
+"The fact is," said I, "that the love of dress and outside show has been
+always such an exacting and absorbing tendency, that it seems to have
+furnished work for religionists and economists, in all ages, to keep it
+within bounds. Various religious bodies, at the outset, adopted severe
+rules in protest against it The Quakers and the Methodists prescribed
+certain fixed modes of costume as a barrier against its frivolities and
+follies. In the Romish Church an entrance on any religious order
+prescribed entire and total renunciation of all thought and care for the
+beautiful in person or apparel, as the first step towards saintship. The
+costume of the _religieuse_ seemed to be purposely intended to imitate
+the shroudings and swathings of a corpse and the lugubrious color of a
+pall, so as forever to remind the wearer that she was dead to the world
+of ornament and physical beauty. All great Christian preachers and
+reformers have levelled their artillery against the toilet, from the
+time of St. Jerome downward; and Tom Moore has put into beautiful and
+graceful verse St. Jerome's admonitions to the fair church-goers of his
+time.
+
+
+'WHO IS THE MAID?
+
+'ST. JEROME'S LOVE.
+
+    'Who is the maid my spirit seeks,
+      Through cold reproof and slander's blight?
+    Has _she_ Love's roses on her cheeks?
+      Is _hers_ an eye of this world's light?
+    No: wan and sunk with midnight prayer
+      Are the pale looks of her I love;
+    Or if, at times, a light be there,
+      Its beam is kindled from above.
+
+    'I chose not her, my heart's elect,
+      From those who seek their Maker's shrine
+    In gems and garlands proudly decked,
+      As if themselves were things divine.
+    No: Heaven but faintly warms the breast
+      That beats beneath a broidered veil;
+    And she who comes in glittering vest
+      To mourn her frailty still is frail.
+
+    'Not so the faded form I prize
+      And love, because its bloom is gone;
+    The glory in those sainted eyes
+      Is all the grace _her_ brow puts on.
+    And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright,
+      So touching, as that form's decay,
+    Which, like the altar's trembling light,
+      In holy lustre wastes away.'
+
+"But the defect of all these modes of warfare on the elegances and
+refinements of the toilet was that they were too indiscriminate. They
+were in reality founded on a false principle. They took for granted that
+there was something radically corrupt and wicked in the body and in the
+physical system. According to this mode of viewing things, the body was
+a loathsome and pestilent prison, in which the soul was locked up and
+enslaved, and the eyes, the ears, the taste, the smell, were all so many
+corrupt traitors in conspiracy to poison her. Physical beauty of every
+sort was a snare, a Circean enchantment, to be valiantly contended with
+and straitly eschewed. Hence they preached, not moderation, but total
+abstinence from all pursuit of physical grace and beauty.
+
+"Now, a resistance founded on an over-statement is constantly tending to
+reaction. People always have a tendency to begin thinking for
+themselves; and when they so think, they perceive that a good and wise
+God would not have framed our bodies with such exquisite care only to
+corrupt our souls,--that physical beauty, being created in such profuse
+abundance around us, and we being possessed with such a longing for it,
+must have its uses, its legitimate sphere of exercise. Even the poor,
+shrouded nun, as she walks the convent garden, cannot help asking
+herself why, if the crimson velvet of the rose was made by God, all
+colors except black and white are sinful for her; and the modest Quaker,
+after hanging all her house and dressing all her children in drab,
+cannot but marvel at the sudden outstreaking of blue and yellow and
+crimson in the tulip-beds under her window, and reflect how very
+differently the great All-Father arrays the world's housekeeping. The
+consequence of all this has been, that the reforms based upon these
+severe and exclusive views have gradually gone backward. The Quaker
+dress is imperceptibly and gracefully melting away into a refined
+simplicity of modern costume, which in many cases seems to be the
+perfection of taste. The obvious reflection, that one color of the
+rainbow is quite as much of God as another, has led the children of
+gentle dove-colored mothers to appear in shades of rose-color, blue, and
+lilac; and wise elders have said, it is not so much the color or the
+shape that we object to, as giving too much time and too much money,--if
+the heart is right with God and man, the bonnet ribbon may be of any
+shade you please."
+
+"But don't you think," said Pheasant, "that a certain fixed dress,
+marking the unworldly character of a religious order, is desirable? Now,
+I have said before that I am very fond of dress. I have a passion for
+beauty and completeness in it; and as long as I am in the world and
+obliged to dress as the world does, it constantly haunts me, and tempts
+me to give more time, more thought, more money, to these things than I
+really think they are worth. But I can conceive of giving up this thing
+altogether as being much easier than regulating it to the precise point.
+I never read of a nun's taking the veil, without a certain thrill of
+sympathy. To cut off one's hair, to take off and cast from her, one by
+one, all one's trinkets and jewels, to lie down and have the pall thrown
+over one, and feel one's self, once for all, dead to the world,--I
+cannot help feeling as if this were real, thorough, noble renunciation,
+and as if one might rise up from it with a grand, calm consciousness of
+having risen to a higher and purer atmosphere, and got above all the
+littlenesses and distractions that beset us here. So I have heard
+charming young Quaker girls, who, in more thoughtless days, indulged in
+what for them was a slight shading of worldly conformity, say that it
+was to them a blessed rest when they put on the strict, plain dress, and
+felt that they really had taken up the cross and turned their backs on
+the world. I can conceive of doing this, much more easily than I can of
+striking the exact line between worldly conformity and noble aspiration,
+in the life I live now."
+
+"My dear child," said I, "we all overlook one great leading principle of
+our nature, and that is, that we are made to find a higher pleasure in
+self-sacrifice than in any form of self-indulgence. There is something
+grand and pathetic in the idea of an entire self-surrender, to which
+every human soul leaps up, as we do to the sound of martial music.
+
+"How many boys of Boston and New York, who had lived effeminate and idle
+lives, felt this new power uprising in them in our war! How they
+embraced the dirt and discomfort and fatigue and watchings and toils of
+camp-life with an eagerness of zest which they had never felt in the
+pursuit of mere pleasure, and wrote home burning letters that they never
+were so happy in their lives! It was not that dirt and fatigue and
+discomfort and watchings and weariness were in themselves agreeable, but
+it was a joy to feel themselves able to bear all and surrender all for
+something higher than self. Many a poor Battery bully of New York, many
+a street rowdy, felt uplifted by the discovery that he too had hid away
+under the dirt and dust of his former life this divine and precious
+jewel. He leaped for joy to find that he too could be a hero. Think of
+the hundreds of thousands of plain, ordinary workingmen, and of
+seemingly ordinary boys, who, but for such a crisis, might have passed
+through life never knowing this to be in them, and who courageously
+endured hunger and thirst and cold, and separation from dearest friends,
+for days and weeks and months, when they might, at any day, have bought
+a respite by deserting their country's flag! Starving boys, sick at
+heart, dizzy in head, pining for home and mother, still found warmth and
+comfort in the one thought that they could suffer, die, for their
+country; and the graves at Salisbury and Andersonville show in how many
+souls this noble power of self-sacrifice to the higher good was
+lodged,--how many there were, even in the humblest walks of life, who
+preferred death by torture to life in dishonor.
+
+"It is this heroic element in man and woman that makes self-sacrifice an
+ennobling and purifying ordeal in any religious profession. The man
+really is taken into a higher region of his own nature, and finds a
+pleasure in the exercise of higher faculties which he did not suppose
+himself to possess. Whatever sacrifice is supposed to be duty, whether
+the supposition be really correct or not, has in it an ennobling and
+purifying power; and thus the eras of conversion from one form of the
+Christian religion to another are often marked with a real and permanent
+exaltation of the whole character. But it does not follow that certain
+religious beliefs and ordinances are in themselves just, because they
+thus touch the great heroic master-chord of the human soul. To wear
+sackcloth and sleep on a plank may have been of use to many souls, as
+symbolizing the awakening of this higher nature; but, still, the
+religion of the New Testament is plainly one which calls to no such
+outward and evident sacrifices.
+
+"It was John the Baptist, and not the Messiah, who dwelt in the
+wilderness and wore garments of camel's hair; and Jesus was commented
+on, not for his asceticism, but for his cheerful, social acceptance of
+the average innocent wants and enjoyments of humanity. 'The Son of man
+came eating and drinking.' The great, and never-ceasing, and utter
+self-sacrifice of his life was not signified by any peculiarity of
+costume, or language, or manner; it showed itself only as it
+unconsciously welled up in all his words and actions, in his estimates
+of life, in all that marked him out as a being of a higher and holier
+sphere."
+
+"Then you do not believe in influencing this subject of dress by
+religious persons' adopting any particular laws of costume?" said
+Pheasant.
+
+"I do not see it to be possible," said I, "considering how society is
+made up. There are such differences of taste and character,--people move
+in such different spheres, are influenced by such different
+circumstances,--that all we can do is to lay down certain great
+principles, and leave it to every one to apply them according to
+individual needs."
+
+"But what are these principles? There is the grand inquiry."
+
+"Well," said I, "let us feel our way. In the first place, then, we are
+all agreed in one starting-point,--that beauty is not to be considered
+as a bad thing,--that the love of ornament in our outward and physical
+life is not a sinful or a dangerous feeling, and only leads to evil, as
+all other innocent things do, by being used in wrong ways. So far we are
+all agreed, are we not?"
+
+"Certainly," said all the voices.
+
+"It is, therefore, neither wicked nor silly nor weak-minded to like
+beautiful dress, and all that goes to make it up. Jewelry, diamonds,
+pearls, emeralds, rubies, and all sorts of pretty things that are made
+of them, are as lawful and innocent objects of admiration and desire, as
+flowers or birds or butterflies, or the tints of evening skies. Gems, in
+fact, are a species of mineral flower; they are the blossoms of the
+dark, hard mine; and what they want in perfume, they make up in
+durability. The best Christian in the world may, without the least
+inconsistency, admire them, and say, as a charming, benevolent old
+Quaker lady once said to me, 'I do so love to look at beautiful
+jewelry!' The love of beautiful dress, in itself, therefore, so far from
+being in a bad sense worldly, may be the same indication of a refined
+and poetical nature that is given by the love of flowers and of natural
+objects.
+
+"In the third place, there is nothing in itself wrong, or unworthy a
+rational being, in a certain degree of attention to the fashion of
+society in our costume. It is not wrong to be annoyed at unnecessary
+departures from the commonly received practices of good society in the
+matter of the arrangement of our toilet; and it would indicate rather an
+unamiable want of sympathy with our fellow-beings, if we were not
+willing, for the most part, to follow what they indicate to be agreeable
+in the disposition of our outward affairs."
+
+"Well, I must say, Mr. Crowfield, you are allowing us all a very
+generous margin," said Humming-Bird.
+
+"But, now," said I, "I am coming to the restrictions. When is love of
+dress excessive and wrong? To this I answer by stating my faith in one
+of old Plato's ideas, in which he speaks of beauty and its uses. He says
+there were two impersonations of beauty worshipped under the name of
+Venus in the ancient times,--the one celestial, born of the highest
+gods, the other earthly. To the earthly Venus the sacrifices were such
+as were more trivial; to the celestial, such as were more holy. 'The
+worship of the earthly Venus,' he says, 'sends us oftentimes on unworthy
+and trivial errands, but the worship of the celestial to high and
+honorable friendships, to noble aspirations and heroic actions.'
+
+"Now it seems to me that, if we bear in mind this truth in regard to
+beauty, we shall have a test with which to try ourselves in the matter
+of physical adornment. We are always excessive when we sacrifice the
+higher beauty to attain the lower one. A woman who will sacrifice
+domestic affection, conscience, self-respect, honor, to love of dress,
+we all agree, loves dress too much. She loses the true and higher beauty
+of womanhood for the lower beauty of gems and flowers and colors. A girl
+who sacrifices to dress all her time, all her strength, all her money,
+to the neglect of the cultivation of her mind and heart, and to the
+neglect of the claims of others on her helpfulness, is sacrificing the
+higher to the lower beauty. Her fault is not the love of beauty, but
+loving the wrong and inferior kind.
+
+"It is remarkable that the directions of Holy Writ, in regard to the
+female dress, should distinctly take note of this difference between the
+higher and the lower beauty which we find in the works of Plato. The
+Apostle gives no rule, no specific costume, which should mark the
+Christian woman from the Pagan; but says, 'whose adorning, let it not be
+that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or
+of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in
+that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet
+spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.' The gold and gems
+and apparel are not forbidden; but we are told not to depend on them for
+beauty, to the neglect of those imperishable, immortal graces that
+belong to the soul. The makers of fashion among whom Christian women
+lived when the Apostle wrote, were the same class of brilliant and
+worthless Aspasias who make the fashions of modern Paris; and all
+womankind was sunk into slavish adoration of mere physical adornment
+when the Gospel sent forth among them this call to the culture of a
+higher and immortal beauty.
+
+"In fine, girls," said I, "you may try yourselves by this standard. You
+love dress too much when you care more for your outward adornings than
+for your inward dispositions,--when it afflicts you more to have torn
+your dress than to have lost your temper,--when you are more troubled by
+an ill-fitting gown than by a neglected duty,--when you are less
+concerned at having made an unjust comment, or spread a scandalous
+report, than at having worn a _pass�e_ bonnet,--when you are less
+troubled at the thought of being found at the last great feast without
+the wedding garment, than at being found at the party to-night in the
+fashion of last year. No Christian woman, as I view it, ought to give
+such attention to her dress as to allow it to take up _all_ of three
+very important things, viz.:--
+
+    _All_ her time.
+    _All_ her strength.
+    _All_ her money.
+
+Whoever does this lives not the Christian, but the Pagan life,--worships
+not at the Christian's altar of our Lord Jesus, but at the shrine of the
+lower Venus of Corinth and Rome."
+
+"O now, Mr. Crowfield, you frighten me," said Humming-Bird. "I'm so
+afraid, do you know, that I am doing exactly that."
+
+"And so am I," said Pheasant; "and yet, certainly, it is not what I mean
+or intend to do."
+
+"But how to help it," said Dove.
+
+"My dears," said I, "where there is a will, there is a way. Only resolve
+that you will put the true beauty first,--that, even if you do have to
+seem unfashionable, you will follow the highest beauty of
+womanhood,--and the battle is half gained. Only resolve that your time,
+your strength, your money, such as you have, shall not all--nor more
+than half--be given to mere outward adornment, and you will go right. It
+requires only an army of girls animated with this noble purpose to
+declare independence in America, and emancipate us from the decrees and
+tyrannies of French actresses and ballet-dancers. _En avant_, girls! You
+yet can, if you will, save the republic."
+
+
+
+
+THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS.
+
+
+The President of the United States was not elected to the office he
+holds by the voice of the people of the loyal States; in voting for him
+as Vice-President nobody dreamed that, by the assassination of Mr.
+Lincoln, he would constitutionally succeed to the more important post.
+The persons who now form the Congress of the United States _were_
+elected by the people or the States for the exact positions they hold.
+In any comparison between the two as to the direct derivation of their
+power from the people and the States, Congress has everything in its
+favor; Mr. Johnson, nothing. The immense power he enjoys, a power not
+merely greater than that of Queen Victoria, but greater than that of
+Earl Russell, the real British Executive, is the result not of design,
+but of accident. That the executive power he holds is legitimate, within
+its just constitutional bounds, must not blind us to the fact that it
+did not have its origin in the popular vote, especially now when he is
+appealing to the people to support him against their direct
+representatives.
+
+For the event which the Union party of the country was so anxious to
+avert, but which some clearly foresaw as inevitable, has occurred; the
+President has come to an open rupture with Congress on the question of
+reconstruction. No one who has witnessed during the past eight months
+the humiliating expedients to which even statesmen and patriots have
+resorted, in order to avoid giving Mr. Johnson offence, without at the
+same time sacrificing all decent regard for their own convictions and
+the will of the people, can assert that this rupture was provoked by
+Congress. The President has, on the whole, been treated with singular
+tenderness by the national party whose just expectations he has
+disappointed; the opposition to his schemes has, indeed, exhibited, if
+anything, too much of the style of "bated breath" to befit the dignity
+of independent legislators; and the only result of this timorous dissent
+has been to inflame him with the notion that the public men who offered
+it were conscious that the people were on his side, and concealed
+anxiety for their own popularity under a feigned indisposition to
+quarrel with him.
+
+The President seems to belong to that class of men who act not so much
+from principles as from moods; as his moods vary, his conduct changes;
+but while he is possessed by one of them, his mind is inaccessible to
+evidence which does not sustain his dominant feeling, and uninfluenced
+by arguments which do not confirm his dominant ideas. Mr. Covode and Mr.
+Schurz could get no hearing from him, because they were sent south to
+collect evidence while he was in one mood, and had to report the results
+of their investigations when he had passed into another. This
+peculiarity of his mind makes the idea of a "Johnson party" so difficult
+of realization; for a party cannot be founded on a man, unless that
+man's intellect and integrity are so manifestly pre-eminent as to dwarf
+all comparison with others, or unless his conduct obeys laws, and can
+therefore be calculated. Thus the gentlemen who spoke for him in New
+York, on the 22d of February, at the time he was speaking for himself in
+Washington, found that they were unwittingly his opponents, while
+appearing as his mouth-pieces, and had accordingly to send telegrams to
+Washington of such fond servility, that the vindication of their
+partisanship could only be made at the expense of provoking the hilarity
+of the public. But one principle, taken up from personal feeling, at the
+time he resented the idea that "Tennessee had ever gone out of the
+Union," has had a mischievous influence in directing his policy, though
+it has never been consistently carried out; for Mr. Johnson's mode of
+dealing with a principle is strikingly individual. He uses it to justify
+his doing what he desires, while he does not allow it to restrain him
+from doing what he pleases. The principle which he thus adopted was,
+that the seceded States had never been out of the Union as _States_. It
+would seem to be clear that, constitutionally speaking, a State in the
+American Union is a vital part of the government, to which, at the same
+time, it owes allegiance. The seceded States solemnly, by conventions of
+their people, broke away from this allegiance, and have not, up to the
+present moment, formed a part of the government. The condition in which
+they were left by their own acts may be variously stated; it may be said
+that they were "States out of practical relations to the Union,"--which
+is simply to decline venturing farther than one step in the analysis of
+their condition,--or "States in rebellion," or "States whose governments
+have lapsed," or "Territories"; but certainly, neither in principle nor
+in fact, were they States in the Union, according to the constitutional
+meaning of that phrase. The one thing certain is, that their criminal
+acts did not affect at all the rights of the United States over their
+geographical limits and population; for these rights were given by
+conventions of the people of all the States, and could not therefore be
+abrogated by the will of the particular States that rebelled. Whether or
+not the word "Territories" fits their condition, it is plain that they
+cannot be brought back to their old "practical relations to the Union"
+without a process similar to that by which Territories are organized
+into States and brought into the Union. If they were, during the
+Rebellion, States in the Union, then the only clause in the Constitution
+which covers their case is that in which each house of Congress is
+authorized "to compel the attendance of absent members"; but, even
+conceding that we have waged war in the character of a colossal
+sergeant-at-arms, we should, by another clause of the Constitution, be
+bound to compel their attendance as members, only to punish their
+absence as traitors.
+
+Still, even if we should admit, against all the facts and logic of the
+case, that the Rebel communities have never been out of the Union as
+States, it is plain that the conduct of the Executive has not, until
+recently, conformed to that theory. He violated it constantly in the
+processes of his scheme of reconstruction, only to make it reappear as
+mandatory in the results. All the steps he took in creating State
+governments were necessarily subversive of universally recognized State
+rights. The Secessionists had done their work so completely, as regards
+their respective localities, that there was left no possible organic
+connection between the old States and any new ones which might be
+organized under the lead of the Federal government. The only persons who
+could properly call State conventions were disqualified, by treason, for
+the office, and might have been hanged as traitors while occupied in
+preserving unbroken the unity of their State life. In other words, the
+only persons competent to act constitutionally were the persons
+constitutionally incompetent to act,--a gigantic practical bull and
+absurdity, which met Mr. Johnson as the first logical consequence of his
+fundamental maxim. He accordingly was forced to go to work as if no
+principle hampered him. He assumed, at the start, the most radical and
+important of all State rights; that is, from a mixed _population_ of
+black and white freemen he selected a certain number, whose
+distinguishing mark was color; and these persons were, after they had
+taken an extra-constitutional oath, constituted by him the _people_ of
+each of the seceded States. A provisional governor, nominated by
+himself, directed this people, constituted such by himself, to elect
+delegates to a convention which was to pass ordinances dictated by
+himself. In this, he may have simply accepted the condition of things;
+he may have done the best with the materials he had to work with; still
+he plainly did not deal with South Carolina, Mississippi, and the rest,
+as if they were States that "had never been out of the Union," and
+entitled to any of the rights enjoyed by Pennsylvania or New York. But
+the hybrid States, which are thus purely his own creations, he now
+presents, in a veto message, to the Senate of the United States as the
+equals of the States it represents; informs that body that he is
+constitutionally the President of the States he has made, as well as the
+President of the States which have not enjoyed the advantage of his
+formative hand; and unmistakably hints that Congress, unless it admits
+the representatives of the States he has reconstructed, is not a
+complete and competent legislative body for the whole Union,--is, in
+plain words, a _Rump_. The President, to be sure, qualifies his
+suggestion by asking for the admission only of loyal men, who can take
+the oaths. But is it not plain that Congress, if it admits Senators and
+Representatives, admits the States from which they come? The
+Constitution says that "the Senate of the United States shall be
+composed of two Senators from each _State_"; that "the House of
+Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by
+the people of the several _States_." Now let us suppose that some of the
+South Carolina members are admitted on the President's plan, and that
+others are rejected. What is the result? Is not South Carolina in the
+Union? Can a fraction of the State be in, and another fraction out, by
+the terms of the United States Constitution? Are not the "loyal men" in
+for their term of office simply, and the State in permanently? The
+proposition to let in what are called loyal men, and then afterwards to
+debate the terms on which the States which sent them shall be admitted,
+might be seriously discussed in a Fenian Congress, but it would prove
+too much for the gravity of an American assembly. The President thinks
+Congress is bound to admit "loyal men"; but in conceding this claim,
+would not the great legislative bodies of the nation practically confess
+that they had no right or power to exact guaranties, no business
+whatever with "reconstruction"? It is the office of the President, it
+seems, to reconstruct States; the duty of Congress is confined to
+accepting, placidly, the results of his work. Such is the only logical
+inference from Mr. Johnson's last position. And thus a man, who was
+intended by the people who voted for him to have no other connection
+with reconstruction than what a casting vote in the Senate might
+possibly give him, has taken the whole vast subject into his exclusive
+control. Was there ever acted on the stage of history such a travesty of
+constitutional government?
+
+The loyal States, indeed, come out of the war separated from the
+disloyal, not by such thin partitions as the President so cavalierly
+breaks through, but by a great sea of blood. It is across that we must
+survey their rights and duties; it is with that in view we must settle
+the terms of their readmission. It is idle to apply to 1866 the
+word-twisting of 1860. The Rebel communities which began the war are not
+the same communities which were recognized as States in the Union before
+the war occurred. No sophistry that perplexes the brain of the people
+can prevent this fact being felt in their hearts. The proposition that
+States can plunge into rebellion, and, after waging against the
+government a war which is put down only at the expense of enormous
+sacrifices of treasure and blood, can, when defeated, return _of right_
+to form a part of the government they have labored to subvert, is a
+proposition so repugnant to common sense that its acceptance by the
+people would send them down a step in the zo�logical scale. Have we been
+fighting in order to compel the South to resume its reluctant _r�le_ of
+governing us? Are we to be told that the States which have sent mourning
+into every loyal family in the land, and which have loaded every loyal
+laborer's back with a new and unexampled burden of taxation, have the
+same right to seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives which
+New York and Illinois can claim? The question is not whether the
+victorious party shall exercise magnanimity and mercy, whether it shall
+attempt to heal wounds rather than open them afresh, but whether its
+legal representatives, constituting, as it was supposed, the legislative
+department of the United States government, shall have anything to do
+with the matter at all. The President seems to think they have not; and
+finding that Congress, by immense majorities, declined to abdicate its
+functions, he and his partisans appealed to such legislative assemblies
+as could be extemporized for the occasion. Congress did not fairly
+represent the people of the whole Union; and Mr. Johnson accordingly
+unfolded his measures to a body which, in his opinion, we must suppose
+did, namely, a Copperhead mob which gathered under his windows at
+Washington. The Secretary of State addressed a meeting in New York,
+assembled in a hall which is the very symbol of mutation. Some
+collectors and postmasters have, we believe, been kind enough to take
+upon themselves the trouble of calling similar legislative assemblies in
+their respective cities; and Keokuk, it is well known, has won deserved
+celebrity for the rapidity with which its gathering of publicists passed
+the President's plan. Still more important, perhaps, is the unanimity
+with which the "James Page Library Company," of Philadelphia, fulfilled
+its duty of legislating for the whole republic. This mode of taking the
+opinion of the people, if considered merely as an innocent amusement of
+great officials, may be harmless; but political farces played by actors
+who do not seem to take their own jokes sometimes lead to serious
+consequences; and the effect upon the South of suggesting that the
+Congress of the United States not only misrepresents its constituents,
+but excludes "loyal men" who have a right to seats, cannot but give
+fierce additional stimulants to Southern disaffection.
+
+We are accordingly, it would seem, in danger of having a President, who
+is at variance with nearly two thirds of Congress, using his whole
+executive power and influence against the party he was supposed to
+represent, and having on his side the Southerners who made the
+Rebellion, the Northerners whose sympathies were on the side of the
+Rebellion, a small collection of Republican politicians called "the
+President's friends," and the undefined political force passing under
+the name of "the Blairs." But Congress is stronger than the whole body
+of its opponents, and is backed by the great mass of the loyal people,
+determined not to surrender all the advantages of the position which has
+been gained by the profuse shedding of so much loyal blood.
+
+"Constitutional government is on trial" in this contest; and Mr. Johnson
+seems neither to have the constitutional instinct in his blood, nor the
+constitutional principle in his brain. The position of the President of
+the United States is analogous, not so much to that of a Napoleon or a
+Bismark, as to that of an English prime-minister. In the theory and
+ordinary working of the government, he is one of a body of statesmen,
+agreeing in their general views, and elected by the same party; what are
+called his measures are passed by Congress, because the majority of
+Congress and he are in general accord on all important questions; and it
+is against the whole idea of constitutional government that the
+executive _will_ is a fair offset to the legislative _reason_,--that one
+man is the equal of the whole body of the people's representatives. The
+powers of an executive are of such a character, that, pushed wilfully to
+their ultimate expression, they can absorb all the other departments of
+the government, as when James the Second practically repealed laws by
+pushing to its abstract logical consequences his undoubted power of
+pardon; but a constitutional government implies, as a condition of its
+existence, that the executive will have that kind of mind and temper
+which instinctively recognizes the practical limitations of powers in
+themselves vague; for if the executive can defy the legislature, the
+legislature can bring the whole government to an end by a simple refusal
+to grant supplies. In his Washington speech, the President selected for
+special attack the chairman of the House Committee of Ways and Means,
+and the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; but it
+would be difficult to conjecture how he could carry on the government
+without the aid of what these men represent, for Mr. Stevens pays him
+his salary, and Mr. Sumner gives effect to his treaties. Bismark, in
+Prussia, snaps his fingers in the faces of the Prussian Chambers, and
+still contrives to get along very comfortably; but an American President
+does not enjoy similar advantages. He can follow his own will or caprice
+only by the toleration of the legislative body he defames and
+disregards. His great power is the veto; but the perverse use of this
+could easily be checked by the perverse use of many a legislative power
+which a mere majority of Congress can effectively use. The fallacy of
+the argument of "the President's friends," in their proposition that
+Congress should settle the dispute by the easy method of allowing Mr.
+Johnson to have his own way, consists in its entire oversight of the
+essential character of constitutional government.
+
+And now what would be the consequences of the yielding of Congress in
+this struggle? The first effect would be the concession that, in respect
+to the most important matter that will probably ever be brought before
+the United States government, the executive branch was everything, and
+the legislative nothing. The second effect would be, that the Rebel
+Slates would re-enter the Union, not only without giving additional
+guaranties for their good behavior, but with the elated feeling that
+they had gained a great triumph over the "fanatical" North. The third
+effect would be the establishment of the principle, that they had never
+been out of the Union as States; that, accordingly, a doubt was over the
+legality of the legislation which had been transacted in the absence of
+their representatives; and that, Congress having, for the past five
+years, represented only a section of the country, that section was alone
+bound by its measures. The moment it is admitted that the national
+legislature, as now constituted, is an incomplete body, and that it
+needs Southern "loyal men" to make its laws operative over the South, a
+whole brood of deductive reasoners will spring up in that region, eager
+to carry the principle out to its remotest logical consequences. After
+two or three of those cotton crops on which some persons rely so much to
+make the South contented have given it the requisite leisure to follow
+long trains of reasoning, it will by degrees convince itself that the
+whole national legislation during the war, including the debt and the
+Anti-Slavery Amendment, was unconstitutional, and that, as far as it
+concerns the Southern States, it is void, and should be of no effect.
+Persons who are accustomed to nickname as "radicals" all those statesmen
+who do not consider that the removal of an immediate inconvenience
+exhausts the whole science of practical politics, are wont to make merry
+over this possibility of Southern repudiation, or to look down upon its
+fanatical suggesters with the benevolent pity of serenely superior
+intelligence; but nobody who has watched the steps by which Calhoun's
+logic was inwrought into the substance of the Southern mind,--nobody who
+has noted the process by which the justification of one of the bloodiest
+rebellions in the history of the world was deduced from the definition
+of an abstraction,--nobody who explores the meaning of the phrase,
+common in many mouths, that "the South _thought_ itself in the
+right,"--will doubt that the seeming bugbear may turn out a dreadful
+reality. It is impossible, in fact, for the most far-sighted mind to
+predict all the evils which may flow from the heedless adoption of a
+vicious principle; if the war has not taught us this, it has taught us
+nothing.
+
+But it is not to be supposed that Congress will yield, for to yield
+would be to commit suicide. There is not an interest in the nation which
+is not concerned in its adherence to the principle, that in it the whole
+legislative power of the United States government is vested, and that it
+has the right to exact irreversible guaranties of the Rebel States as
+the conditions of the admission of their Senators and Representatives.
+They are not _in_ the Union until they are in its government; and
+Congress has the same power to keep them out that it has to let them in.
+By the very nature of the case, the whole question must be left to its
+judgment of what is necessary for the public safety and honor. Its
+members may be mistaken, but the only method to correct their mistake is
+to elect other persons in their places, when their limited period of
+service has expired; and any new Congress will, unless it is
+scandalously neglectful of the public interests, admit the Rebel States
+to their old places in the Union, not because it _must_, but because it
+thinks that a sufficient number of guaranties have been obtained to
+render their admission prudent and safe. It is in this form that the
+subject is coming before the people in the autumn elections; and this
+explains the eager haste of the President's friends to forestall and
+mislead the public mind, and sacrifice a great party, founded on
+principles, to the will of an individual, veering with his moods.
+
+We think, if the vote were taken now, that Congress would be
+overwhelmingly sustained by the people. We think this, in spite of such
+expressions of the popular will as found vent in the President's meeting
+at Washington and Mr. Seward's meeting in New York,--in spite even of
+the resolutions of Keokuk and the address of the "James Page Library
+Company" of Philadelphia,--in spite, above all, of the perfect felicity
+in which, if we may believe the Secretary of State, the President's
+speech left the American people. The loyal men of the loyal States do
+not intend that the war they carried on for great ends shall pass into
+history as the bloodiest of all purposeless farces, beginning in an
+ecstasy of public spirit and ending in an ignominious surrender of the
+advantages of hard-won victory. They demand such guaranties, in the
+shape of amendments to the Constitution, as shall insure security for
+the future from such evils as have scourged them in the past; and these
+guaranties they do not think have been yet obtained. They make this
+demand in no spirit of rancorous hostility to the South, for they
+require nothing which it is not for the permanent welfare of the South
+to grant. They feel that, if a settlement is patched up on the
+President's plan, it will leave Southern society a prey to most of the
+influences which have so long been its curse, which have narrowed its
+patriotism, checked its progress, vitiated its character, educated it in
+disloyalty, and impelled it into war. They desire that a settlement
+shall be effected which shall make the South republican, like the North,
+homogeneous with it in institutions, as well as nominally united to it
+under one government,--a settlement which shall annihilate the accursed
+heresy of Secession by extinguishing the accursed prejudice of caste.
+
+Such a settlement the people have not in the "President's plan." What
+confidence, indeed, can they place in the professions of the cunning
+Southern politicians who have taken the President captive, and used him
+as an instrument while seeming to obey him as agents? There is something
+to make us distrust the stability of the firmest and most upright
+statesman in the spectacle of that remarkable conquest. Mr. Johnson,
+when elected, appeared to represent the most violent radical ideas and
+the most vindictive passions engendered by the war. He spoke as if the
+blacks were to find in him a Moses, and the Rebels a Nemesis. It seemed
+as if there could not be in the whole land a sufficient number of
+sour-apple trees to furnish hanging accommodations for the possible
+victims of his patriotic wrath. One almost feared that reconciliation
+would be indefinitely postponed by the relentless severity with which
+he would visit treason with death. But the Southern politicians, finding
+that further military resistance was hopeless, resorted at once to their
+old game of intrigue and management, and proved that, fresh as they were
+from the experience of violent methods, they had not forgotten their old
+art of manipulating Presidents. They adapted themselves with marvellous
+flexibility to the changed condition of things, in order to become
+masters of the situation, and began to declaim in favor of the Union,
+even while their curses against it were yet echoing in the air. They
+wheedled the President into pardoning, in the place of hanging them;
+they made themselves serviceable agents in carrying out his plan of
+reconstruction; they gave up what it was impossible for them to retain,
+in order to retain what it would destroy their influence to give up;
+they got possession of him to the extent of insinuating subtly into his
+mind ideas which they made him think he himself originated; and finally
+they capped the climax of their skilful audacity, by taking him out of
+"practical relations" with the party to which he was indebted for his
+elevation, and made him the representative of the small party which
+voted against him, and of the defeated Rebel Confederacy, which, of
+course, could not do even that. The Southern politicians have succeeded
+in many shrewd political contrivances in the course of our history, but
+this last is certainly their masterpiece. Its only parallel or precedent
+is to be found in Richard's wooing of Anne:--
+
+    "What! I, that killed her husband and his father,
+    To take her in her heart's extremest hate;
+    With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
+    The bleeding witness of my hatred by,
+    Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
+    And I no friends to back my suit withal,
+    But the plain devil, and dissembling looks,
+    And yet to win her,--all the world to nothing!"
+
+Now can the people trust these politicians to the extent of placing in
+their hands the powers of their State governments, and the
+representative power of their States in Congress, without exacting
+irreversible guaranties necessary for the public safety? Can the people
+uphold, as against Congress, a President whose mind seems to be so much
+under the influence of these men that he publicly insults the
+legislature of the nation? Is the President to be supported because he
+sustains State Rights against Centralization? The only centralization
+which is to be feared, in this case, is the centralization of all the
+powers of the government in its executive branch. Is the President to be
+supported because he represents the principle of "no taxation without
+representation"? The object of Congress is to see to it that there shall
+not be a "representation" which, in respect to the national debt, shall
+endeavor to abolish "taxation" altogether,--which, in respect to the
+freedmen, shall tax permanently a population it misrepresents,--which,
+in respect to the balance of political power, shall use the black
+freemen as a basis of representation, while it excludes them from having
+a voice in the selection of the representatives. Is the President to be
+supported because he is determined the defeated South shall not be
+oppressed? The purpose of Congress is not to commit, but prevent
+oppression; not to oppress the Rebel whites, but to guard from
+oppression the loyal blacks; not to refuse full political privileges to
+the late armed enemies of the nation, but to avoid the intolerable
+ignominy of giving those enemies the power to play the robber and tyrant
+over its true and tried friends. Is the President to be supported
+because he is magnanimous and merciful? Congress doubts the magnanimity
+which sacrifices the innocent in order to propitiate the guilty, and the
+mercy which abandons the helpless and weak to the covetousness of the
+powerful and strong. Is the President to be supported because he aims to
+represent the whole people? Congress may well suspect that he represents
+the least patriotic portion, especially when he puts a stigma on all
+ardent loyalty by denouncing as equally traitorous the "extremists of
+both sections," and thus makes no distinction between the "fanaticism"
+which perilled everything in fighting _for_ the government, and the
+"fanaticism" which perilled everything in fighting _against_ it. And,
+finally, is the President to be supported because he is the champion of
+conciliation and peace? Congress believes that his conciliation is the
+compromise of vital principles; that his peace is the surrender of human
+rights; that his plan but postpones the operation of causes of discord
+it fails to eradicate; and that, if the war has taught us nothing else,
+it has taught us this,--spreading it out indeed before all eyes in
+letters of fire and blood,--that no conciliation is possible which
+sacrifices the defenceless, and that no peace is permanent which is
+unfounded in justice.
+
+
+
+
+GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+One day, at dinner, Father Francis let them know that he was ordered to
+another part of the county, and should no longer be able to enjoy their
+hospitality. "I am sorry for it," said Griffith, heartily; and Mrs.
+Gaunt echoed him out of politeness; but, when husband and wife came to
+talk it over in private, she let out all of a sudden, and for the first
+time, that the spiritual coldness of her governor had been a great
+misfortune to her all these years. "His mind," said she, "is set on
+earthly things. Instead of helping the angels to raise my thoughts to
+heaven and heavenly things, he drags me down to earth. O that man's soul
+was born without wings!"
+
+Griffith ventured to suggest that Francis was, nevertheless, an honest
+man, and no mischief-maker.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt soon disposed of this, "O, there are plenty of honest men in
+the world," said she; "but in one's spiritual director one needs
+something more than that, and I have pined for it like a thirsty soul in
+the desert all these years. Poor good man, I love him dearly; but, thank
+Heaven, he is going."
+
+The next time Francis came, Mrs. Gaunt took an opportunity to inquire,
+but in the most delicate way, who was to be his successor.
+
+"Well," said he, "I fear you will have no one for the present: I mean no
+one very fit to direct you in practical matters; but in all that tends
+directly to the welfare of the soul you will have one young in years but
+old in good works, and very much my superior in piety."
+
+"I think you do yourself injustice, Father," said Mrs. Gaunt, sweetly.
+She was always polite; and, to be always polite, you must be sometimes
+insincere.
+
+"No, my daughter," said Father Francis, quietly, "thank God, I know my
+own defects, and they teach me a little humility. I discharge my
+religious duties punctually, and find them wholesome and composing; but
+I lack that holy unction, that spiritual imagination, by which more
+favored Christians have fitted themselves to converse with angels. I
+have too much body, I suppose and too little soul. I own to you that I
+cannot look forward to the hour of death as a happy release from the
+burden of the flesh. Life is pleasant to me; immortality tempts me not;
+the pure in heart delight me; but in the sentimental part of religion I
+feel myself dry and barren. I fear God, and desire to do his will; but I
+cannot love him as the saints have done; my spirit is too dull, too
+gross. I have often been unable to keep pace with you in your pious and
+lofty aspirations; and this softens my regret at quitting you; for you
+will be in better hands, my daughter."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt was touched by her old friend's humility, and gave him both
+hands, with the tears in her eyes. But she said nothing; the subject was
+delicate; and really she could not honestly contradict him.
+
+A day or two afterwards he brought his successor to the house; a man so
+remarkable that Mrs. Gaunt almost started at first sight of him. Born of
+an Italian mother, his skin was dark, and his eyes coal-black; yet his
+ample but symmetrical forehead was singularly white and delicate. Very
+tall and spare, and both face and figure were of that exalted kind which
+make ordinary beauty seem dross. In short, he was one of those ethereal
+priests the Roman Catholic Church produces every now and then by way of
+incredible contrast to the thickset peasants in black that form her
+staple. This Brother Leonard looked and moved like a being who had come
+down from some higher sphere to pay the world a very little visit, and
+be very kind and patient with it all the time.
+
+He was presented to Mrs. Gaunt, and bowed calmly, coldly, and with a
+certain mixture of humility and superiority, and gave her but one
+tranquil glance, then turned his eyes inward as before.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt, on the contrary, was almost fluttered at being presented so
+suddenly to one who seemed to her Religion embodied. She blushed, and
+looked timidly at him, and was anxious not to make an unfavorable
+impression.
+
+She found it, however, very difficult to make any impression at all.
+Leonard had no small talk, and met her advances in that line with
+courteous monosyllables; and when she, upon this, turned and chatted
+with Father Francis, he did not wait for an opening to strike in, but
+sought a shelter from her commonplaces in his own thoughts.
+
+Then Mrs. Gaunt yielded to her genuine impulse, and began to talk about
+the prospects of the Church, and what might be done to reconvert the
+British Isles to the true faith. Her cheek flushed, and her eye shone
+with the theme; and Francis smiled paternally; but the young priest drew
+back. Mrs. Gaunt saw in a moment that he disapproved of a woman meddling
+with so high a matter uninvited. If he had said so, she had spirit
+enough to have resisted; but the cold, lofty look of polite but grave
+disapproval dashed her courage and reduced her to silence.
+
+She soon recovered so far as to be piqued. She gave her whole attention
+to Francis, and, on parting with her guests, she courtesied coldly to
+Leonard, and said to Francis, "Ah, my dear friend, I foresee I shall
+miss you terribly."
+
+I am afraid this pretty speech was intended as a side cut at Leonard.
+
+    "But on the impassive ice the lightnings play."
+
+Her new confessor retired, and left her with a sense of inferiority,
+which would have been pleasing to her woman's nature if Leonard himself
+had appeared less conscious of it, and had shown ever so little approval
+of herself; but, impressed upon her too sharply, it piqued and mortified
+her.
+
+However, like a gallant champion, she awaited another encounter. She so
+rarely failed to please, she could not accept defeat.
+
+Father Francis departed.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt soon found that she really missed him. She had got into a
+habit of running to her confessor twice a week, and to her director
+nearly every day that he did not come of his own accord to her.
+
+Her good sense showed her at once she must not take up Brother Leonard's
+time in this way. She went a long time, for her, without confession; at
+last she sent a line to Leonard asking him when it would be convenient
+to him to confess her. Leonard wrote back to say that he received
+penitents in the chapel for two hours after matins every Monday,
+Tuesday, and Saturday.
+
+This implied, first come, first served; and was rather galling to Mrs.
+Gaunt.
+
+However, she rode one morning, with her groom behind her, and had to
+wait until an old woman in a red cloak and black bonnet was first
+disposed of. She confessed a heap. And presently the soft but chill
+tones of Brother Leonard broke in with these freezing words: "My
+daughter, excuse me; but confession is one thing, gossip about ourselves
+is another."
+
+This distinction was fine, but fatal. The next minute the fair penitent
+was in her carriage, her eyes filled with tears of mortification.
+
+"The man is a spiritual machine," said she; and her pride was mortified
+to the core.
+
+In these happy days she used to open her heart to her husband; and she
+went so far as to say some bitter little feminine things of her new
+confessor before him.
+
+He took no notice at first; but at last he said one day: "Well, I am of
+you mind; he is very poor company compared with that jovial old blade,
+Francis. But why so many words, Kate? You don't use to bite twice at a
+cherry; if the milk-sop is not to your taste, give him the sack and be
+d----d to him." And with this homely advice Squire Gaunt dismissed the
+matter and went to the stable to give his mare a ball.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So you see Mrs. Gaunt was discontented with Francis for not being an
+enthusiast, and nettled with Leonard for being one.
+
+The very next Sunday morning she went and heard Leonard preach. His
+first sermon was an era in her life. After twenty years of pulpit
+prosers, there suddenly rose before her a sacred orator; an orator born;
+blest with that divine and thrilling eloquence that no heart can really
+resist. He prepared his great theme with art at first; but, once warm,
+it carried him away, and his hearers went with him like so many straws
+on the flood, and in the exercise of this great gift the whole man
+seemed transfigured; abroad, he was a languid, rather slouching priest,
+who crept about, a picture of delicate humility, but with a shade of
+meanness; for, religious prejudice apart, it is ignoble to sweep the
+wall in passing as he did, and eye the ground: but, once in the pulpit,
+his figure rose and swelled majestically, and seemed to fly over them
+all like a guardian angel's; his sallow cheek burned, his great Italian
+eye shot black lightning at the impenitent, and melted ineffably when he
+soothed the sorrowful.
+
+Observe that great, mean, brown bird in the Zo�logical Gardens, which
+sits so tame on its perch, and droops and slouches like a drowsy duck!
+That is the great and soaring eagle. Who would believe it, to look at
+him? Yet all he wants is to be put in his right place instead of his
+wrong. He is not himself in man's cages, belonging to God's sky. Even so
+Leonard was abroad in the world, but at home in the pulpit; and so he
+somewhat crept and slouched about the parish, but soared like an eagle
+in his native air.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt sat thrilled, enraptured, melted. She hung upon his words;
+and when they ceased, she still sat motionless, spell-bound; loath to
+believe that accents so divine could really come to an end.
+
+Even whilst all the rest were dispersing, she sat quite still, and
+closed her eyes. For her soul was too high-strung now to endure the
+chit-chat she knew would attack her on the road home,--chit-chat that
+had been welcome enough coming home from other preachers.
+
+And by this means she came hot and undiluted to her husband; she laid
+her white hand on his shoulder, and said, "O Griffith, I have heard the
+voice of God."
+
+Griffith looked alarmed, and rather shocked than elated.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt observed that, and tacked on, "Speaking by the lips of his
+servant." But she fired again the next moment, and said, "The grave hath
+given us back St. Paul in the Church's need; and I have heard him this
+day."
+
+"Good heavens! where?"
+
+"At St. Mary's Chapel."
+
+Then Griffith looked very incredulous. Then she gushed out with, "What,
+because it is a small chapel, you think a great saint cannot be in it.
+Why, our Saviour was born in a stable, if you go to that."
+
+"Well, but my dear, consider," said Griffith; "who ever heard of
+comparing a living man to St. Paul, for preaching? Why, he was an
+apostle, for one thing; and there are no apostles now-a-days. He made
+Felix tremble on his throne, and almost persuaded Whatsename, another
+heathen gentleman, to be a Christian."
+
+"That is true," said the lady, thoughtfully; "but he sent one man that
+_we_ know of to sleep. Catch Brother Leonard sending any man to sleep!
+And then nobody will ever say of _him_ that he was long preaching."
+
+"Why, I do say it," replied Griffith. "By the same token, I have been
+waiting dinner for you this half-hour, along of his preaching."
+
+"Ah, that's because you did not hear him," retorted Mrs. Gaunt; "if you
+had, it would have seemed too short, and you would have forgotten all
+about your dinner for once."
+
+Griffith made no reply. He even looked vexed at her enthusiastic
+admiration. She saw, and said no more. But after dinner she retired to
+the grove, and thought of the sermon and the preacher: thought of them
+all the more that she was discouraged from enlarging on them. And it
+would have been kinder, and also wiser, of Griffith, if he had
+encouraged her to let out her heart to him on this subject, although it
+did not happen to interest him. A husband should not chill an
+enthusiastic wife, and, above all, should never separate himself from
+her favorite topic, when she loves him well enough to try and share it
+with him.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt, however, though her feelings were quick, was not cursed with
+a sickly or irritable sensibility; nor, on the other hand, was she one
+of those lovely little bores who cannot keep their tongues off their
+favorite theme. She quietly let the subject drop for a whole week; but
+the next Sunday morning she asked her husband if he would do her a
+little favor.
+
+"I'm more likely to say ay than nay," was the cheerful reply.
+
+"It is just to go to chapel with me; and then you can judge for
+yourself."
+
+Griffith looked rather sheepish at this proposal; and he said he could
+not very well do that.
+
+"Why not, dearest, just for once?"
+
+"Well, you see, parties run so high in this parish; and everything one
+does is noted. Why, if I was to go to chapel, they'd say directly, 'Look
+at Griffith Gaunt, he is so tied to his wife's apron he is going to give
+up the faith of his ancestors.'"
+
+"The faith of your ancestors! That is a good jest. The faith of your
+grandfather at the outside: the faith of your ancestors was the faith of
+mine and me."
+
+"Well, don't let us differ about a word," said Griffith; "you know what
+I mean. Did ever I ask you to go to church with me? and if I were to ask
+you, would you go?"
+
+Mrs. Gaunt colored; but would not give in. "That is not the same thing,"
+said she. "I do profess religion: you do not. You scarce think of God on
+week-days; and, indeed, never mention his name, except in the way of
+swearing; and on Sunday you go to church--for what? to doze before
+dinner, you know you do. Come now, with you 't is no question of
+religion, but just of nap or no nap: for Brother Leonard won't let you
+sleep, I warn you fairly."
+
+Griffith shook his head. "You are too hard on me, wife. I know I am not
+so good as you are, and never shall be; but that is not the fault of the
+Protestant faith, which hath reared so many holy men: and some of 'em
+our _ancestors_ burnt alive, and will burn in hell themselves for the
+deed. But, look you, sweetheart, if I'm not a saint I'm a gentleman,
+and, say I wear my faith loose, I won't drag it in the dirt none the
+more for that. So you must excuse me."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt was staggered; and if Griffith had said no more, I think she
+would have withdrawn her request, and so the matter ended. But persons
+unversed in argument can seldom let well alone; and this simple Squire
+must needs go on to say, "Besides, Kate, it would come to the parson's
+ears, and he is a friend of mine, you know. Why, I shall be sure to meet
+him to-morrow."
+
+"Ay," retorted the lady, "by the cover-side. Well, when you do, tell him
+you refused your wife your company for fear of offending the religious
+views of a fox-hunting parson."
+
+"Nay, Kate," said Griffith, "this is not to ask thy man to go with thee;
+'t is to say go he must, willy nilly." With that he rose and rang the
+bell. "Order the chariot," said he, "I am to go with our dame."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt's face beamed with gratified pride and affection.
+
+The chariot came round, and Griffith handed his dame in. He then gave an
+involuntary sigh, and followed her with a hang-dog look.
+
+She heard the sigh, and saw the look, and laid her hand quickly on his
+shoulder, and said, gently but coldly, "Stay you at home, my dear. We
+shall meet at dinner."
+
+"As you will," said he, cheerfully: and they went their several ways. He
+congratulated himself on her clemency, and his own escape.
+
+She went along, sorrowful at having to drink so great a bliss alone; and
+thought it unkind and stupid of Griffith not to yield with a good grace
+if he could yield at all: and, indeed, women seem cleverer than men in
+this, that, when they resign their wills, they do it graciously and not
+by halves. Perhaps they are more accustomed to knock under; and you know
+practice makes perfect.
+
+But every smaller feeling was swept away by the preacher, and Mrs. Gaunt
+came home full of pious and lofty thoughts.
+
+She found her husband seated at the dinner-table, with one turnip before
+him; and even that was not comestible; for it was his grandfather's
+watch, with a face about the size of a new-born child's. "Forty-five
+minutes past one, Kate," said he, ruefully.
+
+"Well, why not bid them serve the dinner?" said she with an air of
+consummate indifference.
+
+"What, dine alone o' Sunday? Why, you know I couldn't eat a morsel
+without you, set opposite."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt smiled affectionately. "Well then, my dear, we had better
+order dinner an hour later next Sunday."
+
+"But that will upset the servants, and spoil their Sunday."
+
+"And am I to be their slave?" said Mrs. Gaunt, getting a little warm.
+"Dinner! dinner! What? shall I starve my soul, by hurrying away from the
+oracles of God to a sirloin? O these gross appetites! how they deaden
+the immortal half, and wall out Heaven's music! For my part, I wish
+there was no such thing as eating and drinking. 'T is like falling from
+Heaven down into the mud, to come back from such divine discourse and be
+greeted with 'Dinner! dinner! dinner!'"
+
+The next Sunday, after waiting half an hour for her, Griffith began his
+dinner without her.
+
+And this time, on her arrival, instead of remonstrating with her, he
+excused himself. "Nothing," said he, "upsets a man's temper like waiting
+for his dinner."
+
+"Well, but you have not waited."
+
+"Yes, I did, a good half-hour. Till I could wait no longer."
+
+"Well, dear, if I were you I would not have waited at all, or else
+waited till your wife came home."
+
+"Ah, dame, that is all very well for you to say. You could live on
+hearing of sermons and smelling to rosebuds. You don't know what 't is
+to be a hungry man."
+
+The next Sunday he sat sadly down, and finished his dinner without her.
+And she came home and sat down to half-empty dishes; and ate much less
+than she used when she had him to keep her company in it.
+
+Griffith, looking on disconsolate, told her she was more like a bird
+pecking than a Christian eating of a Sunday.
+
+"No matter, child," said she; "so long as my soul is filled with the
+bread of Heaven."
+
+Leonard's eloquence suffered no diminution, either in quantity or
+quality; and, after a while, Gaunt gave up his rule of never dining
+abroad on the Sunday. If his wife was not punctual, his stomach was; and
+he had not the same temptation to dine at home he used to have.
+
+And indeed, by degrees, instead of quietly enjoying his wife's company
+on that sweet day, he got to see less of her than on the week-days.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Your mechanical preacher flings his words out happy-go-lucky; but the
+pulpit orator, like every other orator, feels his people's pulse as he
+speaks, and vibrates with them, and they with him.
+
+So Leonard soon discovered he had a great listener in Mrs. Gaunt: she
+was always there whenever he preached, and her rapt attention never
+flagged. Her gray eyes never left his face, and, being upturned, the
+full orbs came out in all their grandeur, and seemed an angel's, come
+down from heaven to hear him: for, indeed, to a very dark man, as
+Leonard was, the gentle radiance of a true Saxon beauty seems always
+more or less angelic.
+
+By degrees this face became a help to the orator. In preaching he looked
+sometimes to it for sympathy, and lo, it was sure to be melting with
+sympathy. Was he led on to higher or deeper thoughts than most of his
+congregation could understand, he looked to this face to understand him;
+and lo, it had quite understood him, and was beaming with intelligence.
+
+From a help and an encouragement it became a comfort and a delight to
+him.
+
+On leaving the pulpit and cooling, he remembered its owner was no angel,
+but a woman of the world, and had put him frivolous questions.
+
+The illusion, however, was so beautiful, that Leonard, being an
+imaginative man, was unwilling to dispel it by coming into familiar
+contact with Mrs. Gaunt. So he used to make his assistant visit her, and
+receive her when she came to confess, which was very rarely; for she was
+discouraged by her first reception.
+
+Brother Leonard lived in a sort of dwarf monastery, consisting of two
+cottages, an oratory, and a sepulchre. The two latter were old, but the
+cottages had been built expressly for him and another seminary priest
+who had been invited from France. Inside, these cottages were little
+more than ceils; only the bigger had a kitchen which was a glorious
+place compared with the parlor; for it was illuminated with bright
+pewter plates, copper vessels, brass candlesticks, and a nice clean
+woman, with a plain gown kilted over a quilted silk petticoat; Betty
+Scarf, an old servant of Mrs. Gaunt's, who had married, and was now the
+Widow Gough.
+
+She stood at the gate one day, as Mrs. Gaunt drove by; and courtesied,
+all beaming.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt stopped the carriage, and made some kind and patronizing
+inquiries about her; and it ended in Betty asking her to come in and see
+her place. Mrs. Gaunt looked a little shy at that, and did not move.
+"Nay, they are both abroad till supper time," said Betty, reading her in
+a moment by the light of sex. Then Mrs. Gaunt smiled, and got out of her
+carriage. Betty took her in and showed her everything in doors and out.
+Mrs. Gaunt looked mighty demure and dignified, but scanned everything
+closely, only without seeming too curious.
+
+The cold gloom of the parlor struck her. She shuddered, and said, "This
+would give me the vapors. But, doubtless, angels come and brighten it
+for _him_."
+
+"Not always," said Betty. "I do see him with his head in his hand by the
+hour, and hear him sigh ever so loud as I pass the door. Why, one day
+he was fain to have me and my spinning-wheel aside him. Says he, 'Let me
+hear thy busy wheel, and see thee ply it.' 'And welcome,' says I. So I
+sat in his room, and span, and he sat a gloating of me as if he had
+never seen a woman spin hemp afore (he is a very simple man): and
+presently says he--but what signifies what _he_ said?"
+
+"Nay, Betty; if you please! I am much interested in him. He preaches so
+divinely."
+
+"Ay," said Betty, "that's his gift. But a poor trencher-man; and I
+declare I'm ashamed to eat all the vittels that are eaten here, and me
+but a woman."
+
+"But what did he say to you that time?" asked Mrs. Gaunt, a little
+impatiently.
+
+Betty cudgelled her memory. "Well, says he, 'My daughter,' (the poor
+soul always calls me his daughter, and me old enough to be his mother
+mostly,) says he, 'how comes it that you are never wearied, nor cast
+down, and yet you but serve a sinner like yourself; but I do often droop
+in my Master's service, and He is the Lord of heaven and earth?' Says I,
+'I'll tell ye, sir: because ye don't eat enough o' vittels.'"
+
+"What an answer!"
+
+"Why, 't is the truth, dame. And says I, 'If I was to be always fasting,
+like as you be, d' ye think I should have the heart to work from morn
+till night?' Now, wasn't I right?"
+
+"I don't know till I hear what answer he made," said Mrs. Gaunt, with
+mean caution.
+
+"O, he shook his head, and said he ate mortal food enow, (poor simple
+body!) but drank too little of grace divine. That were his word."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt was a good deal struck and affected by this revelation, and
+astonished at the slighting tone Betty took in speaking of so remarkable
+a man. The saying that "No man is a hero to his valet" was not yet
+current, or perhaps she would have been less surprised at that.
+
+"Alas! poor man," said she, "and is it so? To hear him, I thought his
+soul was borne up night and day by angels' pinions--"
+
+The widow interrupted her. "Ay, you hear him preach, and it is like
+God's trumpet mostly, and so much I say for him in all companies. But I
+see him directly after; he totters in to this very room, and sits him
+down pale and panting, and one time like to swoon, and another all for
+crying, and then he is ever so dull and sad for the whole afternoon."
+
+"And nobody knows this but you? You have got my old petticoat still, I
+see. I must look you up another."
+
+"You are very good, dame, I am sure. 'T will not come amiss; I've only
+this for Sundays and all. No, my lady, not a soul but me and you. I'm
+not one as tells tales out of doors, but I don't mind you, dame; you are
+my old mistress, and a discreet woman. 'T will go no further than your
+ear."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt told her she might rely on that. The widow then inquired
+after Mrs. Gaunt's little girl, and admired her dress, and described her
+own ailments, and poured out a continuous stream of topics bearing no
+affinity to each other except that they were all of them not worth
+mentioning. And all the while she thus discoursed, Mrs. Gaunt's
+thoughtful eyes looked straight over the chatterbox's white cap, and
+explored vacancy; and by and by she broke the current of twaddle with
+the majestic air of a camelopard marching across a running gutter.
+
+"Betsy Gough," said she, "I am thinking."
+
+Mrs. Gough was struck dumb by an announcement so singular.
+
+"I have heard, and I have read, that great and pious and learned men are
+often to seek in little simple things, such as plain bodies have at
+their fingers' ends. So, now, if you and I could only teach him
+something for all he has taught us! And, to be sure, we ought to be kind
+to him if we can; for O Betty, my woman, 't is a poor vanity to go and
+despise the great, and the learned, and the sainted, because forsooth
+we find them out in some one little weakness,--we that are all made up
+of weaknesses and defects. So, now, I sit me down in his very chair, so.
+And sit you there. Now let us, you and me, look at his room quietly, all
+over, and see what is wanting."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"First and foremost methinks this window should be filled with geraniums
+and jessamine and so forth. With all his learning perhaps he has to be
+taught, the color of flowers and golden green leaves, with the sun
+shining through, how it soothes the eye and relieves the spirits; yet
+every woman born knows that. Then do but see this bare table! a purple
+cloth on that, I say."
+
+"Which he will fling it out of the window, I say."
+
+"Nay, for I'll embroider a cross in the middle with gold braid. Then a
+rose-colored blind would not be amiss; and there must be a good mirror
+facing the window; but, indeed, if I had my way, I'd paint these horrid
+walls the first thing."
+
+"How you run on, dame! Bless your heart, you'd turn his den into a
+palace; he won't suffer that. He is all for self-mortification, poor
+simple soul."
+
+"O, not all at once, I did not mean," said Mrs. Gaunt; "but by little
+and little, you know. We must begin with the flowers: God made them; and
+so to be sure he will not spurn _them_."
+
+Betty began to enter into the plot. "Ay, ay," said she: "the flowers
+first; and so creep on. But naught will avail to make a man of him so
+long as he eats but of eggs and garden-stuff, like the beasts of the
+field, 'that to-day are, and to-morrow are cast into the oven.'"
+
+Mrs. Gaunt smiled at this ambitious attempt of the widow to apply
+Scripture. Then she said, rather timidly, "Could you make his eggs into
+omelets? and so pound in a little meat with your small herbs; I dare say
+he would be none the wiser, and he so bent on high and heavenly things."
+
+"You may take your oath of that."
+
+"Well, then. And I shall send you some stock from the castle, and you
+can cook his vegetables in good strong gravy, unbeknown."
+
+The Widow Gough chuckled aloud.
+
+"But stay," said Mrs. Gaunt; "for us to play the woman so, and delude a
+saint for his mere bodily weal, will it not be a sin, and a sacrilege to
+boot?"
+
+"Let that flea stick in the wall," said Betty, contemptuously. "Find you
+the meat, and I'll find the deceit: for he is as poor as a rat into the
+bargain. Nay, nay, God Almighty will never have the heart to burn us two
+for such a trifle. Why 't is no more than cheating a froward child into
+taking 's physic."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt got into her carriage and went home, thinking all the way.
+What she had heard filled her with feelings strangely but sweetly
+composed of veneration and pity. In that Leonard was a great orator and
+a high-minded priest, she revered him; in that he was solitary and sad,
+she pitied him; in that he wanted common sense, she felt like a mother,
+and must take him under her wing. All true women love to protect;
+perhaps it is a part of the great maternal element: but to protect a
+man, and yet look up to him, this is delicious. It satisfies their
+double craving; it takes them by both breasts, as the saying is.
+
+Leonard, in truth, was one of those high-strung men who pay for their
+periods of religious rapture by hours of melancholy. This oscillation of
+the spirits in extraordinary men appears to be more or less a law of
+nature; and this the Widow Gough was not aware of.
+
+The very next Sunday, while he was preaching, she and Mrs. Gaunt's
+gardener were filling his bow-window with flower-pots, the flowers in
+full bloom and leaf. The said window was large and had a broad sill
+outside, and inside, one of the old-fashioned high window-seats that
+follow the shape of the window. Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves,
+sent up a cart-load of flower-pots, and Betty and the gardener arranged
+at least eighty of them, small and great, inside and outside the window.
+
+When Leonard returned from preaching, Betty was at the door to watch. He
+came past the window with his hands on his breast, and his eyes on the
+ground, and never saw the flowers in his own window. Betty was
+disgusted. However, she followed him stealthily as he went to his room,
+and she heard a profound "Ah!" burst from him.
+
+She bustled in and found him standing in a rapture, with the blood
+mantling in his pale cheeks, and his dark eyes glowing.
+
+"Now blessed be the heart that hath conceived this thing, and the hand
+that hath done it," said he. "My poor room, it is a bower of roses, all
+beauty and fragrance."
+
+And he sat down, inhaling them and looking at them; and a dreamy, tender
+complacency crept over his heart, and softened his noble features
+exquisitely.
+
+Widow Gough, red with gratified pride, stood watching him, and admiring
+him; but, indeed, she often admired him, though she had got into a way
+of decrying him.
+
+But at last she lost patience at his want of curiosity; that being a
+defect she was free from herself.
+
+"Ye don't ask me who sent them," said she, reproachfully.
+
+"Nay, nay," said he; "prithee do not tell me: let me divine."
+
+"Divine, then," said Betty, roughly. "Which I suppose you means
+'guess.'"
+
+"Nay, but let me be quiet awhile," said he, imploringly; "let me sit
+down and fancy that I am a holy man, and some angel hath turned my cave
+into a Paradise."
+
+"No more an angel than I am," said the practical widow. "But, now I
+think on 't, y' are not to know who 't was. Them as sent them they bade
+me hold my tongue."
+
+This was not true; but Betty, being herself given to unwise revelations
+and superfluous secrecy, chose suddenly to assume that this business was
+to be clandestine.
+
+The priest turned his eye inwards and meditated.
+
+"I see who it is," said he, with an air of absolute conviction. "It must
+be the lady who comes always when I preach, and her face like none
+other; it beams with divine intelligence. I will make her all the return
+we poor priests can make to our benefactors. I will pray for her soul
+here among the flowers God has made, and she has given his servant to
+glorify his dwelling. My daughter, you may retire."
+
+This last with surprising, gentle dignity; so Betty went off rather
+abashed, and avenged herself by adulterating the holy man's innutritious
+food with Mrs. Gaunt's good gravy; while he prayed fervently for her
+eternal weal among the flowers she had given him.
+
+Now Mrs. Gaunt, after eight years of married life, was too sensible and
+dignified a woman to make a romantic mystery out of nothing. She
+concealed the gravy, because there secrecy was necessary; but she never
+dreamed of hiding that she had sent her spiritual adviser a load of
+flowers. She did not tell her neighbors, for she was not ostentatious;
+but she told her husband, who grunted, but did not object.
+
+But Betty's nonsense lent an air of romance and mystery that was well
+adapted to captivate the imagination of a young, ardent, and solitary
+spirit like Leonard.
+
+He would have called on the lady he suspected, and thanked her for her
+kindness. But this, he feared, would be unwelcome, since she chose to be
+his unknown benefactress. It would be ill taste in him to tell her he
+had found her out: it might offend her sensibility, and then she would
+draw in.
+
+He kept his gratitude, therefore, to himself, and did not cool it by
+utterance. He often sat among the flowers, in a sweet revery, enjoying
+their color and fragrance; and sometimes he would shut his eyes, and
+call up the angelical face, with great, celestial, upturned orbs, and
+fancy it among her own flowers, and the queen of them all.
+
+These day-dreams did not at that time interfere with his religious
+duties. They only took the place of those occasional hours when, partly
+by the reaction consequent on great religious fervor, partly by
+exhaustion of the body weakened by fasts, partly by the natural delicacy
+of his fibre and the tenderness of his disposition, his soul used to be
+sad.
+
+By and by these languid hours, sad no longer, became sweet and dear to
+him. He had something so interesting to think of, to dream about. He had
+a Madonna that cared for him in secret.
+
+She was human; but good, beautiful, and wise. She came to his sermons,
+and understood every word.
+
+"And she knows me better than I know myself," said he; "since I had
+these flowers from her hand, I am another man."
+
+One day he came into his room and found two watering-pots there. One was
+large and had a rose to it, the other small and with a plain spout.
+
+"Ah!" said he; and colored with delight. He called Betty, and asked her
+who had brought them.
+
+"How should I know?" said she, roughly. "I dare say they dropped from
+heaven. See, there is a cross painted on 'em in gold letters."
+
+"And so there is!" said Leonard, and crossed himself.
+
+"That means nobody is to use them but you, I trow," said Betty, rather
+crossly.
+
+The priest's cheek colored high. "I will use them this instant," said
+he. "I will revive my drooping children as they have revived me." And he
+caught up a watering-pot with ardor.
+
+"What, with the sun hot upon 'em?" screamed Betty. "Well, saving your
+presence, you _are_ a simple man."
+
+"Why, good Betty, 't is the sun that makes them faint," objected the
+priest, timidly, and with the utmost humility of manner, though Betty's
+tone would have irritated a smaller mind.
+
+"Well, well," said she, softening; "but ye see it never rains with a hot
+sun, and the flowers they know that; and look to be watered after
+Nature, or else they take it amiss. You, and all your sort, sir, you
+think to be stronger than Nature; you do fast and pray all day, and
+won't look at a woman like other men; and now you wants to water the
+very flowers at noon!"
+
+"Betty," said Leonard smiling, "I yield to thy superior wisdom, and I
+will water them at morn and eve. In truth we have all much to learn: let
+us try and teach one another as kindly as we can."
+
+"I wish you'd teach me to be as humble as you be," blurted out Betty,
+with something very like a sob: "and more respectful to my betters,"
+added she, angrily.
+
+Watering the flowers she had given him became a solace and a delight to
+the solitary priest: he always watered them with his own hands, and felt
+quite paternal over them.
+
+One evening Mrs. Gaunt rode by with Griffith, and saw him watering them.
+His tall figure, graceful, though inclined to stoop, bent over them with
+feminine delicacy; and the simple act, which would have been nothing in
+vulgar hands, seemed to Mrs. Gaunt so earnest, tender, and delicate in
+him, that her eyes filled, and she murmured, "Poor Brother Leonard!"
+
+"Why, what's wrong with him now?" asked Griffith, a little peevishly.
+
+"That was him watering the flowers."
+
+"O, is that all?" said Griffith, carelessly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Leonard said to himself, "I go too little abroad among my people." He
+made a little round, and it ended in Hernshaw Castle.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt was out.
+
+He looked disappointed; so the servant suggested that perhaps she was in
+the Dame's haunt: he pointed to the grove.
+
+Leonard followed his direction, and soon found himself, for the first
+time, in that sombre, solemn retreat.
+
+It was a hot summer day, and the grove was delicious. It was also a
+place well suited to the imaginative and religious mind of the Italian.
+
+He walked slowly to and fro, in religious meditation. Indeed, he had
+nearly thought out his next sermon, when his meditative eye happened to
+fall on a terrestrial object that startled and thrilled him. Yet it was
+only a lady's glove. It lay at the foot of a rude wooden seat beneath a
+gigantic pine.
+
+He stooped and picked it up. He opened the little fingers, and called up
+in fancy the white and tapering hand that glove could fit. He laid the
+glove softly on his own palm, and eyed it with dreamy tenderness. "So
+this is the hand that hath solaced my loneliness," said he: "a hand fair
+as that angelical face, and sweet as the kind heart that doeth good by
+stealth."
+
+Then, forgetting for a moment, as lofty spirits will, the difference
+between _meum_ and _tuum_, he put the little glove in his bosom, and
+paced thoughtfully home through the woods, that were separated from the
+grove only by one meadow: and so he missed the owner of the glove, for
+she had returned home while he was meditating in her favorite haunt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Leonard, amongst his other accomplishments, could draw and paint with no
+mean skill. In one of those hours that used to be of melancholy, but now
+were hours of dreamy complacency, he took out his pencils and endeavored
+to sketch the inspired face that he had learned to preach to, and now to
+dwell on with gratitude.
+
+Clearly as he saw it before him, he could not reproduce it to his own
+satisfaction. After many failures he got very near the mark: yet still
+something was wanting.
+
+Then, as a last resource, he actually took his sketch to church with
+him, and in preaching made certain pauses, and, with a very few touches,
+perfected the likeness; then, on his return home, threw himself on his
+knees and prayed forgiveness of God with many sighs and tears, and hid
+the sacrilegious drawing out of his own sight.
+
+Two days after, he was at work coloring it; and the hours flew by like
+minutes, as he laid the mellow, melting tints on with infinite care and
+delicacy. _Labor ipse voluptas._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Gaunt heard Leonard had called on her in person. She was pleased at
+that, and it encouraged her to carry out her whole design.
+
+Accordingly, one afternoon, when she knew Leonard would be at vespers,
+she sent on a loaded pony-cart, and followed it on horseback.
+
+Then it was all hurry-skurry with Betty and her, to get their dark deeds
+done before their victim's return.
+
+These good creatures set the mirror opposite the flowery window, and so
+made the room a very bower. They fixed a magnificent crucifix of ivory
+and gold over the mantel-piece, and they took away his hassock of rushes
+and substituted a _prie-dieu_ of rich crimson velvet. All that remained
+was to put their blue cover, with its golden cross, on the table. To do
+this, however, they had to remove the priest's papers and things: they
+were covered with a cloth. Mrs. Gaunt felt them under it.
+
+"But perhaps he will be angry if we move his papers," said she.
+
+"Not he," said Betty. "He has no secrets from God or man."
+
+"Well, _I_ won't take it on me," said Mrs. Gaunt, merrily. "I leave that
+to you." And she turned her back and settled the mirror, officiously,
+leaving all the other responsibilities to Betty.
+
+The sturdy widow laughed at her scruples, and whipped off the cloth
+without ceremony. But soon her laugh stopped mighty short, and she
+uttered an exclamation.
+
+"What is the matter?" said Mrs. Gaunt, turning her head sharply round.
+
+"A wench's glove, as I'm a living sinner," groaned Betty.
+
+A poor little glove lay on the table; and both women eyed it like
+basilisks a moment. Then Betty pounced on it and examined it with the
+fierce keenness of her sex in such conjunctures, searching for a name
+or a clew.
+
+Owing to this rapidity, Mrs. Gaunt, who stood at some distance, had not
+time to observe the button on the glove, or she would have recognized
+her own property.
+
+"He have had a hussy with him unbeknown," said Betty, "and she have left
+her glove. 'T is easy to get in by the window and out again. Only let me
+catch her! I'll tear her eyes out, and give him my mind. I'll have no
+young hussies creeping in an' out where I be."
+
+Thus spoke the simple woman, venting her coarse domestic jealousy.
+
+The gentlewoman said nothing, but a strange feeling traversed her heart
+for the first time in her life.
+
+It was a little chill, it was a little ache, it was a little sense of
+sickness; none of these violent, yet all distinct. And all about what?
+After this curious, novel spasm at the heart, she began to be ashamed of
+herself for having had such a feeling.
+
+Betty held her out the glove: and she recognized it directly, and turned
+as red as fire.
+
+"You know whose 't is?" said Betty, keenly.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt was on her guard in a moment. "Why, Betty," said she, "for
+shame! 't is some penitent hath left her glove after confession. Would
+you belie a good man for that? O, fie!"
+
+"Humph!" said Betty, doubtfully. "Then why keep it under cover? Now you
+can read, dame; let us see if there isn't a letter or so writ by the
+hand as owns this very glove."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt declined, with cold dignity, to pry into Brother Leonard's
+manuscripts.
+
+Her eye, however, darted sidelong at them, and told another tale; and,
+if she had been there alone, perhaps, the daughter of Eve would have
+predominated.
+
+Betty, inflamed by the glove, rummaged the papers in search of female
+handwriting. She could tell that from a man's, though she could not read
+either.
+
+But there is a handwriting that the most ignorant can read at sight; and
+so Betty's researches were not in vain: hidden under several sheets of
+paper, she found a picture. She gave but one glance at it, and screamed
+out: "There, didn't I tell you? Here she is! the brazen,
+red-haired--LAWK A DAISY! WHY, 'T IS YOURSELF."
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+"Me!" cried Mrs. Gaunt, in amazement: then she ran to the picture, and
+at sight of it every other sentiment gave way for a moment to gratified
+vanity. "Nay," said she, beaming and blushing, "I was never half so
+beautiful. What heavenly eyes!"
+
+"The fellows to 'em be in your own head, dame, this moment."
+
+"Seeing is believing," said Mrs. Gaunt, gayly, and in a moment she was
+at the priest's mirror, and inspected her eyes minutely, cocking her
+head this way and that. She ended by shaking it, and saying, "No. He has
+flattered them prodigiously."
+
+"Not a jot," said Betty. "If you could see yourself in chapel, you do
+turn 'em up just so, and the white shows all round." Then she tapped the
+picture with her finger: "O them eyes! they were never made for the good
+of his soul,--poor simple man!"
+
+Betty said this with sudden gravity: and now Mrs. Gaunt began to feel
+very awkward. "Mr. Gaunt would give fifty pounds for this," said she, to
+gain time: and, while she uttered that sentence, she whipped on her
+armor.
+
+"I'll tell you what I think," said she, calmly, "he wished to paint a
+Madonna; and he must take some woman's face to aid his fancy. All the
+painters are driven to that. So he just took the best that came to hand,
+and that is not saying much, for this is a rare ill-favored parish: and
+he has made an angel of her, a very angel. There, hide Me away again, or
+I shall long for Me--to show to my husband. I must be going; I wouldn't
+be caught here _now_ for a pension."
+
+"Well, if ye must," said Betty; "but when will ye come again?" (She
+hadn't got the petticoat yet.)
+
+"Humph!" said Mrs. Gaunt, "I have done all I can for him; and perhaps
+more than I ought. But there's nothing to hinder you from coming to me.
+I'll be as good as my word; and I have an old Paduasoy, besides, you can
+perhaps do something with it."
+
+"You are very good, dame," said Betty, courtesying.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt then hurried away, and Betty looked after her very
+expressively, and shook her head. She had a female instinct that some
+mischief or other was brewing.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt went home in a revery.
+
+At the gate she found her husband, and asked him to take a turn in the
+garden with her.
+
+He complied; and she intended to tell him a portion, at least, of what
+had occurred. She began timidly, after this fashion: "My dear, Brother
+Leonard is _so_ grateful for your flowers," and then hesitated.
+
+"I'm sure he is very welcome," said Griffith. "Why doesn't he sup with
+us, and be sociable, as Father Francis used? Invite him; let him know he
+will be welcome."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt blushed; and objected. "He never calls on us."
+
+"Well, well, every man to his taste," said Griffith, indifferently, and
+proceeded to talk to her about his farm, and a sorrel mare with a white
+mane and tail that he had seen, and thought it would suit her.
+
+She humored him, and affected a great interest in all this, and had not
+the courage to force the other topic on.
+
+Next Sunday morning, after a very silent breakfast, she burst out,
+almost violently, "Griffith, I shall go to the parish church with you,
+and then we will dine together afterwards."
+
+"You don't mean it, Kate," said he, delighted.
+
+"Ay, but I do. Although you refused to go to chapel with me."
+
+They went to church together, and Mrs. Gaunt's appearance there created
+no small sensation. She was conscious of that, but hid it, and conducted
+herself admirably. Her mind seemed entirely given to the service, and to
+a dull sermon that followed.
+
+But at dinner she broke out, "Well, give me your church for a sleeping
+draught. You all slumbered, more or less: those that survived the
+drowsy, droning prayers sank under the dry, dull, dreary discourse. You
+snored, for one."
+
+"Nay, I hope not, my dear."
+
+"You did then, as loud as your bass fiddle."
+
+"And you sat there and let me!" said Griffith, reproachfully.
+
+"To be sure I did. I was too good a wife, and too good a Christian, to
+wake you. Sleep is good for the body, and twaddle is not good for the
+soul. I'd have slept too, if I could; but with me going to chapel, I'm
+not used to sleep at that time o' day. You can't sleep, and Brother
+Leonard speaking."
+
+In the afternoon came Mrs. Gough, all in her best. Mrs. Gaunt had her
+into her bedroom, and gave her the promised petticoat, and the old
+Paduasoy gown; and then, as ladies will, when their hand is once in,
+added first one thing, then another, till there was quite a large
+bundle.
+
+"But how is it you are here so soon?" asked Mrs. Gaunt.
+
+"O, we had next to no sermon to-day. He couldn't make no hand of it:
+dawdled on a bit; then gave us his blessing, and bundled us out."
+
+"Then I've lost nothing," said Mrs. Gaunt.
+
+"Not you. Well, I don't know. Mayhap if you had been there he'd have
+preached his best. But la! we warn't worth it."
+
+At this conjecture Mrs. Gaunt's face burned, but she said nothing: only
+she cut the interview short, and dismissed Betty with her bundle.
+
+As Betty crossed the landing, Mrs. Gaunt's new lady's-maid, Caroline
+Ryder, stepped accidentally, on purpose, out of an adjoining room, in
+which she had been lurking, and lifted her black brows in affected
+surprise. "What, are you going to strip the house, my woman?" said she,
+quietly.
+
+Betty put down the bundle, and set her arms akimbo. "There is none on 't
+stolen, any way," said she.
+
+Caroline's black eyes flashed fire at this, and her cheek lost color;
+but she parried the innuendo skilfully. "Taking my perquisites on the
+sly,--that is not so very far from stealing."
+
+"O, there's plenty left for you, my fine lady. Besides, you don't want
+_her_; you can set your cap at the master, they say. I'm too old for
+that, and too honest into the bargain."
+
+"Too ill-favored, you mean, ye old harridan," said Ryder,
+contemptuously.
+
+But, for reasons hereafter to be dealt with, Betty's thrust went home:
+and the pair were mortal enemies from that hour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Gaunt came down from her room discomposed: from that she became
+restless and irritable; so much so, indeed, that at last Mr. Gaunt told
+her, good-humoredly enough, if going to church made her ill (meaning
+peevish), she had better go to chapel. "You are right," said she, "and
+so I will."
+
+The next Sunday she was at her post in good time.
+
+The preacher cast an anxious glance around to see if she was there. Her
+quick eye saw that glance, and it gave her a demure pleasure.
+
+This day he was more eloquent than ever: and he delivered a beautiful
+passage concerning those who do good in secret. In uttering these
+eloquent sentences his cheek glowed, and he could not deny himself the
+pleasure of looking down at the lovely face that was turned up to him.
+Probably his look was more expressive than he intended: the celestial
+eyes sank under it, and were abashed, and the fair cheek burned: and
+then so did Leonard's at that.
+
+Thus, subtly yet effectually, did these two minds communicate in a crowd
+that never noticed nor suspected the delicate interchange of sentiment
+that was going on under their very eyes.
+
+In a general way compliments did not seduce Mrs. Gaunt: she was well
+used to them, for one thing. But to be praised in that sacred edifice,
+and from the pulpit, and by such an orator as Leonard, and to be praised
+in words so sacred and beautiful that the ears around her drank them
+with delight,--all this made her heart beat, and filled her with soft
+and sweet complacency.
+
+And then to be thanked in public, yet, as it were, clandestinely, this
+gratified the furtive tendency of woman.
+
+There was no irritability this afternoon; but a gentle radiance that
+diffused itself on all around, and made the whole household
+happy,--especially Griffith, whose pipe she filled, for once, with her
+own white hand, and talked dogs, horses, calves, hinds, cows, politics,
+markets, hay, to please him: and seemed interested in them all.
+
+But the next day she changed: ill at ease, and out of spirits, and could
+settle to nothing.
+
+It was very hot for one thing: and, altogether, a sort of lassitude and
+distaste for everything overpowered her, and she retired into the grove,
+and sat languidly on a seat with half-closed eyes.
+
+But her meditations were no longer so calm and speculative as
+heretofore. She found her mind constantly recurring to one person, and,
+above all, to the discovery she had made of her portrait in his
+possession. She had turned it off to Betty Gough; but here, in her calm
+solitude and umbrageous twilight, her mind crept out of its cave, like
+wild and timid things at dusk, and whispered to her heart that Leonard
+perhaps admired her more than was safe or prudent.
+
+Then this alarmed her, yet caused her a secret complacency: and that,
+her furtive satisfaction, alarmed her still more.
+
+Now, while she sat thus absorbed, she heard a gentle footstep coming
+near. She looked up, and there was Leonard close to her; standing
+meekly, with his arms crossed upon his bosom.
+
+His being there so pat upon her thoughts scared her out of her habitual
+self-command. She started up, with a faint cry, and stood panting, as if
+about to fly, with her beautiful eyes turned large upon him.
+
+He put forth a deprecating hand, and soothed her. "Forgive me, madam,"
+said he; "I have unawares intruded on your privacy; I will retire."
+
+"Nay," said she, falteringly, "you are welcome. But no one comes here;
+so I was startled." Then, recovering herself, "Excuse my ill-manners. 'T
+is so strange that you should come to me here, of all places."
+
+"Nay, my daughter," said the priest, "not so very strange: contemplative
+minds love such places. Calling one day to see you, I found this sweet
+and solemn grove; the like I never saw in England: and to-day I returned
+in hopes to profit by it. Do but look around at these tall columns; how
+calm, how reverend! 'T is God's own temple, not built with hands."
+
+"Indeed it is," said Mrs. Gaunt, earnestly. Then, like a woman as she
+was, "So you came to see my trees, not me."
+
+Leonard blushed. "I did not design to return without paying my respects
+to her who owns this temple, and is worthy of it; nay, I beg you not to
+think me ungrateful."
+
+His humility and gentle but earnest voice made Mrs. Gaunt ashamed of her
+petulance. She smiled sweetly, and looked pleased. However, erelong, she
+attacked him again. "Father Francis used to visit us often," said she.
+"He made friends with my husband, too. And I never lacked an adviser
+while he was here."
+
+Leonard looked so confused at this second reproach that Mrs. Gaunt's
+heart began to yearn. However, he said humbly that Francis was a secular
+priest, whereas he was convent-bred. He added, that by his years and
+experience Francis was better fitted to advise persons of her age and
+sex, in matters secular, than he was. He concluded timidly that he was
+ready, nevertheless, to try and advise her; but could not, in such
+matters, assume the authority that belongs to age and knowledge of the
+world.
+
+"Nay, nay," said she, earnestly, "guide and direct my soul, and I am
+content."
+
+He said, yes! that was his duty and his right.
+
+Then, after a certain hesitation, which at once let her know what was
+coming, he began to thank her, with infinite grace and sweetness, for
+her kindness to him.
+
+She looked him full in the face, and said she was not aware of any
+kindness she had shown him worth speaking of.
+
+"That but shows," said he, "how natural it is to you to do acts of
+goodness. My poor room is a very bower now, and I am happy in it. I used
+to feel very sad there at times; but your hand has cured me."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt colored beautifully. "You make me ashamed," said she. "Things
+are come to a pass indeed, if a lady may not send a few flowers and
+things to her spiritual father without being thanked for it. And, O,
+sir, what are earthly flowers compared with those blossoms of the soul
+you have shed so liberally over us? Our immortal parts were all asleep
+when you came here and wakened them by the fire of your words.
+Eloquence! 't was a thing I had read of, but never heard, nor thought to
+hear. Methought the orators and poets of the Church were all in their
+graves this thousand years, and she must go all the way to heaven that
+would hear the soul's true music. But I know better now."
+
+Leonard colored high with pleasure, "Such praise from you is too sweet,"
+he muttered. "I must not court it. The heart is full of vanity." And he
+deprecated further eulogy, by a movement of the hand extremely refined,
+and, in fact, rather feminine.
+
+Deferring to his wish Mrs. Gaunt glided to other matters, and was
+naturally led to speak of the prospects of their Church, and the
+possibility of reconverting these islands. This had been the dream of
+her young heart; but marriage and maternity, and the universal coldness
+with which the subject had been received, had chilled her so, that of
+late years she had almost ceased to speak of it. Even Leonard, on a
+former occasion, had listened coldly to her; but now his heart was open
+to her. He was, in fact, quite as enthusiastic on this point as ever she
+had been; and then he had digested his aspirations into clearer forms.
+Not only had he resolved that Great Britain must be reconverted, but had
+planned the way to do it. His cheek glowed, his eyes gleamed, and he
+poured out his hopes and his plans before her with an eloquence that few
+mortals could have resisted.
+
+As for this, his hearer, she was quite carried away by it. She joined
+herself to his plans on the spot; she begged, with tears in her eyes, to
+be permitted to support him in this great cause. She devoted to it her
+substance, her influence, and every gift that God had given her: the
+hours passed like minutes in this high converse; and when the tinkling
+of the little bell at a distance summoned him to vespers, he left her
+with a gentle regret he scarcely tried to conceal, and she went slowly
+in like one in a dream, and the world seemed dead to her forever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nevertheless, when Mrs. Ryder, combing out her long hair, gave one
+inadvertent tug, the fair enthusiast came back to earth, and asked her,
+rather sharply, who her head was running on.
+
+Ryder, a very handsome young woman, with fine black eyes, made no reply,
+but only drew her breath audibly hard.
+
+I do not very much wonder at that, nor at my having to answer that
+question for Mrs. Ryder. For her head was at that moment running, like
+any other woman's, on the man she was in love with.
+
+And the man she was in love with was the husband of the lady whose hair
+she was combing, and who put her that curious question--plump.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+_The Resources of California, comprising Agriculture, Mining, Geography,
+Climate, Commerce, &c., and the Past and Future Development of the
+State._ By JOHN S. HITTELL. Second Edition, with an Appendix on Oregon
+and Washington Territory. San Francisco: A. Roman & Co. New York: W. J.
+Widdleton.
+
+This is a book almost as encyclopedic as its title would indicate; and
+is evidently written with a desire to say everything which the theme
+permits, and to say it truly. It answers almost every question that an
+intelligent person can ask, in respect to California, besides a good
+many which few intelligent persons know enough to propound. And it is a
+proof of its honesty that it does not, after all, make California
+overpoweringly attractive, whether in respect of climate, society, or
+business. This is saying a good deal, when we consider that the Preface
+sums up the allurements of the Pacific coast in a single sentence
+covering two and a half pages.
+
+The philosophy of the author is sometimes rather bewildering, as where
+he defines "universal suffrage" to mean that "every sane adult white
+male citizen, not a felon, may vote at every election." (p. 349.) His
+general statements, too, are apt to be rather sweeping. For instance, he
+says, in two different passages, that, "so far as we know, the climate
+of San Francisco is the most equable and the mildest in the world." (pp.
+29, 431.) Yet he puts the extremes of temperature in this favored
+climate at +25� and +97� Fahrenheit; while at Fayal, in the Azores, the
+recorded extremes are, if we mistake not, +40� and +85�; and no doubt
+there are other temperate climates as uniform.
+
+One might object, too, from the side of severe science, to his devoting
+the "Reptile" department of his zo�logical section chiefly to spiders,
+with incidental remarks on fleas and mosquitos. Perhaps it is to balance
+Captain Stedman in Surinam, who under the head of "Insects" discourses
+chiefly of vampyre-bats.
+
+The wonders of the Yo-semite valley he describes as well as most people;
+and faithfully contends for their superiority to those of Niagara,
+where, as he plaintively observes, "a day or two is enough," while one
+could contentedly remain for months among the California wonders. He
+shows, however, that his memories of Atlantic civilization are still
+painfully vivid, when he counsels the beholder of the Mariposa grove to
+lie on his back, and think of Trinity Church steeple. Might not one also
+beguile a third day at Niagara by reflections on the Croton Aqueduct?
+
+But these little glimpses of the author's personality make the book only
+the more entertaining, and give spice to the really vast mass of
+accurate information which it conveys. There are few passages which one
+can call actually imaginative, unless one includes under that head the
+description (page 40) of that experiment "common in the Eastern cities,"
+where a man dressed in woollen, by sliding on a carpet a few steps,
+accumulates enough personal electricity to light gas with his fingers.
+This familiar process, it appears, is impossible in California, and so
+far his descriptions of that climate convey a sense of safety. Yet even
+one seasoned to such wonders as these might be startled, for a moment,
+before his account of the mountain sheep (_Ovis montana_). This
+ponderous animal, weighing three hundred and fifty pounds, has a
+sportive habit of leaping headlong from precipices one hundred feet
+high, and alighting on its horns, which, being strong and elastic, throw
+him ten or fifteen feet into the air, "and the next time he alights on
+his feet all right." (p. 124.) "Mountaineers assert" this; and after
+this it can be hardly doubted that the products of the human
+imagination, in California, are on a scale of Yo-semite magnificence.
+
+
+_The American Republic: its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny._ By
+O. A. BROWNSON, LL. D. New York: P. O'Shea.
+
+Mr. Brownson's influence over the American people, which had dwindled
+pretty nearly to zero at the beginning of the war, revived with that
+revival of the old Adam which made him a patriot, and thus showed him
+rather in the light of a heretic. This book sets him right (or wrong)
+again, and his temporary partnership with "humanitarians" may be
+regarded as closed by official notification. In a volume which might
+well be compressed into one fourth its present size, he covers a great
+deal of ground, and has pungent suggestions on both sides of a great
+many questions. Even in the Preface he announces his abandonment of the
+doctrine of State sovereignty, after holding it for thirty-three years,
+and at once proceeds to explain how, in a profounder sense, he holds it
+more thoroughly than ever. In the chapter on "Secession," which is the
+best in the book, he indorses Charles Sumner's theory of State suicide;
+holds that the Southern States are now "under the Union, not of it," and
+seems quite inclined to pardon Mr. Lincoln for abolishing slavery by
+proclamation. On the other hand, he scouts the theory that the Rebels
+committed treason, in any moral sense, and proclaims that we are all
+"willing and proud to be their countrymen, fellow-citizens, and
+friends." "There need be no fear to trust them now." To hang or exile
+them would be worse than "deporting four millions of negroes and colored
+men." (pp. 335-338.)
+
+It must, indeed, be owned that our author has apparently reverted to an
+amount of colorphobia which must cheer the hearts of the Hibernian
+portion of his co-religionists. Ignoring the past in a way which seems
+almost wilful, he declares that the freedman has no capacity of
+patriotism, no sort of appreciation of the question at stake; and that
+he would, if enfranchised, invariably vote with his former master. "In
+any contest between North and South, they would take, to a man, the
+Southern side." (pp. 346, 376.) Nevertheless, he thinks that the negro
+will be ultimately enfranchised, "and the danger is, that it will be
+attempted too soon." If, indeed, it be postponed, he seems to think the
+negro may, by the blessing of Providence, "melt away." (p. 437.) What a
+pity that the obstinate fellow, with all the aid now being contributed
+in the way of assassination, so steadfastly refuses to melt!
+
+Against the Abolitionists, also, Mr. Brownson is still ready to break a
+lance, with the hearty unreasoning hostility of the good old times.
+"Wendell Phillips is as far removed from true Christian civilization as
+was John C. Calhoun, and William Lloyd Garrison is as much of a
+barbarian and despot in principle and tendency as Jefferson Davis." (p.
+355.) This touch of righteous indignation is less crushing, however,
+than his covert attacks upon our two great generals. For in one place he
+enumerates as typical warriors "McClellan, Grant, and Sherman," and in
+another place, "Halleck, Grant, and Sherman." This is indeed the very
+refinement of unkindness.
+
+Of a standing army Mr. Brownson thinks well, and wishes it to number a
+hundred thousand; but his reason for the faith that is in him is a
+little unexpected. He thinks it useful because "it creates honorable
+places for gentlemen or the sons of gentlemen without wealth." (p. 386.)
+Touching our naturalized foreigners, he admits that they have been
+rather a source of embarrassment in recruiting for our armies (p. 381);
+but consoles himself by hinting, with his accustomed modesty, that "the
+best things written on the controversy have been by Catholics." (p.
+378.)
+
+He sees danger in the horizon, and frankly avows it. It is none of the
+commonplace perils, however,--national bankruptcy, revival of the slave
+power, oppression of Southern loyalists. A wholly new and profounder
+terror is that which his penetrating eye evokes from the future. It is,
+that, if matters go on as now, foreign observers will never clearly
+understand whether it was the "territorial democracy" or the
+"humanitarian democracy" which really triumphed in the late contest!
+"The danger now is, that the Union victory will, at home and abroad, be
+interpreted as a victory won in the interest of social or humanitarian
+democracy. It was because they regarded the war waged on the side of the
+Union as waged in the interest of this terrible democracy, that our
+bishops and clergy sympathized so little with the government in
+prosecuting it; not, as some imagined, because they were disloyal.... If
+the victory of the Union should turn out to be a victory for the
+humanitarian democracy, the civilized world will have no reason to
+applaud it." (pp. 365, 366.)
+
+After this passage, it is needless to say that its author is the same
+Mr. Brownson whom the American people long since tried and found wanting
+as a safe or wise counsellor; the same of whom the Roman Catholic Church
+one day assumed the responsibility, and found the task more onerous than
+had been expected. He retains his arrogance, his gladiatorial skill, his
+habit of sweeping assertion; but perhaps his virulence is softened, save
+where some unhappy "humanitarian" is under dissection. Enough remains of
+the habit, however, to make his worst pages the raciest, and to render
+it a sharp self-satire when he proclaims, at the very outset, that a
+constitutional treatise should be written "with temper."
+
+
+_Across the Continent: a Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the
+Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax._ By SAMUEL BOWLES,
+Editor of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican. Springfield, Mass.: Samuel
+Bowles & Co.
+
+Since Mr. Greeley set the example, it has been the manifest destiny of
+every enterprising journalist to take an occasional trip across the
+continent, and personally inspect his subscribers. The latest overland
+Odyssey of this kind--transacted by three silent editors and one very
+public Speaker--is recorded in Mr. Bowles's new book; which proceeds, as
+one may observe, from his own publishing office and bindery, and may
+therefore almost claim, like the quaint little books presented by the
+eccentric Quincy Tufts to Harvard College Library, to have been
+"written, printed, and bound by the same hand."
+
+Journalism is a good training, in some ways, for a trip like this. It
+implies a quick eye for facts, a good memory for figures, a hearty faith
+in the national bird, and a boundless appetite for new acquaintances.
+Every Eastern editor, moreover, is sure to find old neighbors throughout
+the West; and he who escorts a rising politician has all the world for a
+friend.
+
+The result is, in this case, a thoroughly American book,--American in
+the sense of to-day, if not according to the point of view of the
+millennium. It is American in its vast applications of arithmetic; in
+the facility with which it brings the breadth of a continent within the
+limits of a summer's ride; in the eloquence which rises to sublimity
+over mining stock, and dwindles to the verge of commonplace before
+unmarketable natural beauties. Of course, it is the best book on the
+theme it handles, for it is the latest; it is lively, readable,
+instructive; but no descriptions of those changing regions can last
+much longer than an almanac, and this will retain its place only until
+the coming of the next editorial pilgrim.
+
+
+_Esperance._ By META LANDER, author of "Light on the Dark River,"
+"Marion Graham," &c. New York: Sheldon & Co.
+
+Can it be possible that any literature of the world now yields
+sentimental novels so vague and immature as those which America brings
+forth? Or is it that their Transatlantic compeers float away and
+dissolve by their own feebleness before they reach our shores?
+
+"Cry, Esperance! Percy! and set on." This Shakespearian motto might have
+appeared upon the title-page of this volume; but there is nothing so
+vivacious upon that page, nor indeed on any other. The name of the book
+comes from that of the heroine, who was baptized Hope. But the friend of
+her soul was wont to call her Esperance, "in her wooing moods," and from
+this simple application of the French dictionary results the title of
+the romance. Even this does not close the catalogue of the heroine's pet
+names however, for in moments of yet higher ecstasy, when she rides
+sublime upon the storm of passion, she is styled, not without scientific
+appropriateness, "Espy."
+
+Esperance is a young girl who seeks her destiny. She also has her
+"wooing moods," during which, on small provocation, she "hastily pens a
+few lines"--of verse such as no young lady's diary should be without.
+She has, moreover, her intervals of sternness, when she boxes ears; now
+in case of her father, unfilially, and anon in more righteous conflict
+with her step-mother's wicked lover. But her demonstrations do not
+usually take the brief form of blows, but the more formidable shape of
+words. Indeed, it takes a good many words to meet the innumerable crises
+of her daily life; and, to do her justice, the more desperate the
+emergencies, the better she likes them. Anguish is heaped upon her,
+father and mother desert her, several eligible lovers jilt her,--she
+would be much obliged to you to point out any specific sorrow of which
+at least one good specimen has not occurred within her experience. There
+is a distressing casualty to every chapter, and then come in the
+poisoned arrows! "Once in the room, I bolted the door and threw
+myself--not on the bed--the floor better suited my mood. And there I
+lay, with reeling senses, and a brain on fire, while in my trampled and
+bruised heart were wildly struggling tenderness and scorn, love and
+hate, life and death.... The slow-moving hours tolled a mournful
+requiem, as the long procession of stricken hopes and joys were borne
+onward to their death and burial. And I, the victim, turned
+executioner."
+
+The French dictionary extends onward from the title-page, and haunts
+these impassioned pages. Phrases of a recondite and elaborate
+description, such as "_Oui, monsieur_," "_Tr�s-bien_," and "_Entrez_,"
+adorn the sportive conversation of this cultivated circle. Sometimes,
+with higher flight, some one essays to gambol in the Latin tongue: "It
+seemed to me that old Tempus must have taken to himself a new pair of
+wings to have _fugited_ so rapidly as he did." Yet the French and the
+Latin are better than the English; for the main body of the book, while
+breaking no important law of morals or of grammar, is scarcely adapted
+for any phase of human existence beyond the boarding-school. It seems
+rather hard, perhaps, to devote serious censure to a thing so frail; but
+without a little homely truth, how are we ever to get beyond this
+bread-and-butter epoch of American fiction?
+
+
+_Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds: with Notices of Some of his
+Contemporaries._ Commenced by CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE, R. A. Continued and
+concluded by TOM TAYLOR, M. A. London: John Murray. 2 vols. 8vo.
+
+"When, in 1832," writes C. R. Leslie, "Constable exhibited his 'Opening
+of Waterloo Bridge,' it was placed in the school of painting,--one of
+the small rooms in Somerset House. A sea-piece, by Turner, was next to
+it,--a gray picture, beautiful and true, but with no positive color in
+any part of it. Constable's 'Waterloo' seemed as if painted with liquid
+gold and silver, and Turner came several times into the room while he
+was heightening with vermilion and lake the decorations and flags of the
+city barges. Turner stood behind him, looking from the 'Waterloo' to his
+own picture, and at last brought his palette from the great room where
+he was touching another picture, and, putting a round daub of red lead,
+somewhat bigger than a shilling, on his gray sea, went away without
+saying a word. The intensity of the red lead, made more vivid by the
+coolness of his picture, caused even the vermilion and lake of Constable
+to look weak. I came into the room just as Turner left it. 'He has been
+here,' said Constable, 'and fired a gun.'"
+
+Twenty years ago the erratic life of Haydon the artist was dashed
+suddenly and violently out by his own hand. Men brought the cold light
+of their judgment then, and overspread his character, forgetful of the
+fires of his genius; but Mr. Tom Taylor remembered the burning spirit,
+memorable to the soul of art, and he published two volumes containing
+Haydon's autobiography and journals, which have set a seal upon his
+memory, and lead us to thank the man who has done for Haydon what Turner
+did for his own picture,--fired a gun.
+
+Since Haydon's Autobiography was published, Mr. Taylor has not been
+idle. Some of the purest and most popular plays now upon the stage we
+owe to his hand. The face of the _blas�_ theatre-goer shines when his
+play is announced for the evening; and even the long-visaged critic,
+fond of talking of the _d�cadence_ of the modern stage, has been known
+to appear punctually in his seat when Tom Taylor's play was to lead off
+the performance.
+
+The days of Burton have passed, and the echoes of roof-splitting
+laughter he excited have died away; but while the remembrance of "lovely
+things" remains with us, those who were fortunate enough to have seen
+Mr. Taylor's play of "Helping Hands," as performed at Burton's Theatre
+in New York, will be sure never to forget it.
+
+We should be glad, if space permitted, to speak of Mr. Taylor in the
+several branches of literature wherein he has become distinguished; but
+it is chiefly with him as a biographer, and principally with one
+biography, we are concerned here.
+
+Six years ago, Leslie's "Biographical Recollections" were given to the
+world by the hand of the same editor. There are few books more
+delightful of this kind in our language; and no small share of the
+interest results from the conscientious work Mr. Taylor has put into the
+study of Mr. Leslie's pictures, and his recognition of him as
+distinctively a literary painter, possessing a kindly brotherhood to
+Washington Irving in the subtile humor he loved to depict.
+
+We remember having the good fortune once to meet Mr. Taylor, while he
+was preparing this book, and being impressed with the idea that he had
+committed Mr. Leslie's paintings to memory, as one of the necessary
+preliminaries in order to do justice to his subject. He had that day
+returned from a pilgrimage to one of the pictures, and was able to
+inform the artists who were present with regard to the smallest
+accessory. We fancied, had painting, and not penning, been his forte, he
+could have reproduced the picture for us on the spot, could we, at the
+same time, have transformed the table-cloth into a canvas.
+
+In the Preface to the Recollections of Leslie, we are told that the
+reason his autobiography ends abruptly was not because of Mr. Leslie's
+failing health, "but because all the time he could spare from painting
+was, during the last year of his life, occupied by him in writing the
+Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, at which he worked hard even a month before
+his death." When the Leslie papers were put into Mr. Taylor's hands,
+this Life, then in a fragmentary condition, being hardly more than
+memoranda, for the most part, also came into his possession. And it
+having been his "lot," as he has elsewhere said, to have the materials
+for two artistic biographies already intrusted to his care, he must have
+accepted the third, thus silently bestowed, as the especial legacy of
+his friend.
+
+Therefore, by education and by accident, (if we may choose to consider
+it such,) setting aside Mr. Taylor's natural ability for the labor, he
+found himself pre-eminently elected to complete and issue the "Life and
+Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds." The request of Mr. Murray, the publisher,
+appears, however, to have spurred him to the actual acceptance of the
+work. Some idea of these volumes, with their varied interest of life and
+art, may be briefly conveyed by quoting from the Preface, where Mr.
+Taylor writes:--
+
+"The life of a painter, more than most men, as a rule, derives its
+interest from his work and from the people he paints. When his sitters
+are the chief men and women of his time, for beauty, genius, rank,
+power, wit, goodness, or even fashion and folly, this interest is
+heightened. It culminates when the painter is the equal and honored
+associate of his sitters. All these conditions concur in the case of
+Reynolds. It is impossible to write a Life and Times of the painter
+without passing in review--hasty and brief as it must be--the great
+facts of politics, literature, and manners during his busy life, which
+touched, often very closely, the chief actors in a drama taking in the
+most stirring events of the last century, and containing the germs of
+many things that have materially operated to shape our arts, manners,
+and institutions.
+
+"By the use of these materials, I have attempted to carry out Mr.
+Leslie's intention of presenting Sir Joshua in his true character, as
+the genial centre of a most various and brilliant society, as well as
+the transmitter of its chief figures to our time by his potent art."
+
+It is only by turning over the pages of each chapter, and observing
+closely the brackets wherein Mr. Taylor's portion of the work is
+enclosed, that we discover how great his labor has been, and how well
+fulfilled. His interpolations are flung, like the Fribourg Bridge, fine
+and strong, welding together opposing points, and never inserted like a
+wedge. A happy instance of this appears in the first volume, where Mr.
+Taylor says, speaking of Johnson, after the death of his mother, "The
+regard of such men as Reynolds was henceforth the best comfort of that
+great, solitary heart; and the painter's purse and house and pen were
+alike at his friend's service." "For example," Leslie continues, "in
+this year Reynolds wrote three papers for the 'Idler.' 'I have heard Sir
+Joshua say,' observes Northcote, 'that Johnson required them from him on
+a sudden emergency, and on that account he sat up the whole night to
+complete them in time; and by it he was so much disordered, that it
+produced a vertigo in his head.'"
+
+The story of Reynolds's youth is a happier one than is often recorded of
+young artists. His father was too wise and too kind to cross the natural
+proclivities of the boy, although he does appear to have wavered for a
+moment when Joshua declared he "had rather be an apothecary than an
+_ordinary_ painter." He was, however, early apprenticed to Hudson, the
+first portrait-painter of his time in England. But hardly two years had
+elapsed before the master saw himself eclipsed, and the two separated
+without great waste of love on the part of Hudson. From that moment,
+Reynolds's career was decided. He put the mannerism of his former master
+away from his pictures when he distanced himself from his studio, and,
+going soon after to the Continent, devoted himself to the study of great
+works of art. With what vigor and faithfulness this labor was pursued,
+the Roman and Venetian note-books testify. "For the studies he made from
+Raphael," writes Leslie, "he paid dearly; for he caught so severe a cold
+in the chambers of the Vatican as to occasion a deafness which obliged
+him to use an ear-trumpet for the remainder of his life."
+
+The fertility and inexhaustibility of power shown by Sir Joshua Reynolds
+have seldom, if ever, been surpassed in the history of Art. In the
+"Catalogue Raisonn�e" of his paintings, soon to be given to the public,
+nearly three thousand pictures will be enumerated. Many of these were,
+of course, finished by his assistants, according to the fashion of the
+time, but the expression of the face remains to attest the master's
+hand. (Unless, perchance, the head may have dropped off the canvas
+entirely, as happened once, when an unfortunate youth, who had borrowed
+one of his fine pictures to copy, was carrying it home under his arm.)
+
+In the record for the year 1758, we are startled by the number of one
+hundred and fifty sitters. And although this was probably the busiest
+year of his life, our astonishment never wanes while observing the
+ceaseless industry of every moment of his career, during the seventh day
+as well as the other six; and this, too, in spite of a promise won from
+him by Dr. Johnson, when on his death-bed, that he would never use his
+pencil on a Sunday. But the habit of a long working life was too strong
+upon him, and he soon persuaded himself that it was better to have made
+the promise than distress a dying friend, although he did not intend to
+observe it strictly.
+
+Sir Joshua possessed the high art of inciting himself to work by
+repeatedly soliciting the most beautiful and most interesting persons of
+the time to sit to him. The lovely face of Kitty Fisher was painted by
+him five times, and no less frequently that of the charming actress,
+Mrs. Abington, who was also noted for her _bel esprit_, and was
+evidently a favorite with the great painter. There are two or three
+pictures of Mrs. Siddons by his hand, and many of the beautiful Maria
+Countess Waldegrave, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester, a lock of whose
+"delicate golden-brown" hair was found by Mr. Taylor in a side-pocket of
+one of Sir Joshua's note-books,--"loveliest of all, whom Reynolds seems
+never to have been tired of painting, nor she of sitting to him."
+
+Of his numerous and invaluable pictures of Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith and
+Admiral Keppel, it is hardly necessary to speak. Many of them are well
+known to us from engravings.
+
+To a painter, this Life is of incalculable interest and value. The
+account of his manner of handling "the vehicles" is minute and faithful;
+and if, as Northcote complained, who was a pupil of Reynolds, Sir Joshua
+could not teach, he could only show you how he worked,--many an artist
+can gather from these pages what Northcote gathered by looking from
+palette to canvas. The descriptions of some of the paintings are rich in
+color, and are worthy of the highest praise.
+
+Sir Joshua Reynolds is one of the few men of genius who have been also
+men of society. In his note-books for the year, sometimes the number of
+engagements for dinners and visits would preponderate over the number of
+his sitters, and sometimes the scale would be about equal. Yet the
+amount of the latter was always astonishingly large. Perhaps no man,
+through a long series of years, was more esteemed and sought by the most
+honorable in society than he; while his diary, with its meagre jottings,
+brings before us a motley and phantasmagorical procession of the wisest
+and wittiest, the most beautiful and most notorious men and women of
+that period, who thronged his studio. We can see the bitterest political
+opponents passing each other upon the threshold of his painting-room,
+and, what was far more agreeable to Sir Joshua than having to do with
+these stormy petrels, we can see the worshipping knight and his lovely
+mistress, or the fair-cheeked children of many a lady whom he had
+painted, years before, in the first blossoming of her own youth.
+
+The gentleness and natural amiability of his disposition eminently
+fitted him for the high social position he attained; but the fervor he
+felt for his work made him forget everything foreign to it until the
+hour arrived when he must leave his painting-room. He was fond of
+receiving company, especially at dinner, and his dinners were always
+most agreeable. He often annoyed his sister, Miss Reynolds, who presided
+over his household for a time, by inviting any friends who might happen
+into his studio in the morning to come to dine with him at night, quite
+forgetting that the number of seats he had provided was already filled
+by guests previously asked. The result was what might be expected, and
+it was often simply bare good fortune if everybody had enough to eat.
+But, "though the dinner might be careless and inelegant, and the
+servants awkward and too few," the talk was always pleasant, and no
+invitations to dine were more eagerly accepted than his.
+
+It was on the principle, perhaps, that "to the feasts of the good the
+good come uninvited," that Dr. Johnson made it a point to be present on
+these occasions, and was seldom welcomed otherwise than most cordially
+by Sir Joshua. On one occasion, however, when another guest was expected
+to converse, Sir Joshua was really vexed to find Dr. Johnson in the
+drawing-room, and would hardly speak to him. Miss Reynolds, who appears
+to have been one of the "unappreciated and misunderstood" women who
+thought she was a painter when she was not, and of whose copies Sir
+Joshua said, "They make other people laugh, and me cry," became a great
+favorite with Dr. Johnson, who probably knew how to sympathize with the
+morbid sensitiveness of the poor lady. She seems never to have tired of
+pouring tea for him! He, in return, wrote doggerel verses to her over
+the tea-tray in this fashion:--
+
+    "I therefore pray thee, Renny dear,
+      That thou wilt give to me,
+    With cream and sugar softened well,
+      Another dish of tea.
+
+    "Nor fear that I, my gentle maid,
+      Shall long detain the cup,
+    When once unto the bottom I
+      Have drunk the liquor up.
+
+    "Yet hear, alas! this mournful truth,
+      Nor hear it with a frown:
+    Thou canst not make the tea so fast
+      As I can gulp it down."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No.
+102, April, 1866, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102,
+April, 1866, 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 17, No. 102, April, 1866
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: May 9, 2007 [EBook #21408]
+
+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>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p>
+
+<h4>THE</h4>
+
+<h1>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h1>
+
+<h2><i>A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics.</i></h2>
+
+<h3>VOL. XVII.&mdash;APRIL, 1866.&mdash;NO. CII.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, 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 created for the HTML version.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#LAST_DAYS_OF_WALTER_SAVAGE_LANDOR"><b>LAST DAYS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#MY_ANNUAL"><b>MY ANNUAL.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#WERE_THEY_CRICKETS"><b>WERE THEY CRICKETS?</b></a><br />
+<a href="#MADAM_WALDOBOROUGHS_CARRIAGE"><b>MADAM WALDOBOROUGH'S CARRIAGE.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#PASSAGES_FROM_HAWTHORNES_NOTE-BOOKS"><b>PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#SAINTE-BEUVE"><b>SAINTE-BEUVE.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#DE_SPIRIDIONE_EPISCOPO"><b>DE SPIRIDIONE EPISCOPO.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#A_STRUGGLE_FOR_SHELTER"><b>A STRUGGLE FOR SHELTER.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#DOCTOR_JOHNS"><b>DOCTOR JOHNS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#KILLED_AT_THE_FORD"><b>KILLED AT THE FORD</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_LATE_INSURRECTION_IN_JAMAICA"><b>THE LATE INSURRECTION IN JAMAICA.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_CHIMNEY-CORNER_FOR_1866"><b>THE CHIMNEY-CORNER FOR 1866.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_PRESIDENT_AND_CONGRESS"><b>THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#GRIFFITH_GAUNT_OR_JEALOUSY"><b>GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"><b>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</b></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LAST_DAYS_OF_WALTER_SAVAGE_LANDOR" id="LAST_DAYS_OF_WALTER_SAVAGE_LANDOR"></a>LAST DAYS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>PART I.</h3>
+
+<p>When, in October, 1864, the European steamer brought us the intelligence
+of Walter Savage Landor's death, which occurred the month previous at
+Florence, newspaper readers asked, "Who is Landor?" The few who remember
+him remotely through the medium of Mr. Hillard's selections from his
+writings exclaimed, "What! Did he not die long ago?" The half-dozen
+Americans really familiar with this author knew that the fire of a
+genius unequalled in its way had gone out. Two or three, who were
+acquainted with the man even better than with his books, sighed, and
+thanked God! They thanked God that the old man's prayer had at last been
+answered, and that the curtain had been drawn on a life which in reality
+terminated ten years before, when old age became more than ripe. But
+Landor's walk into the dark valley was slow and majestic. Death fought
+long and desperately before he could claim his victim; and it was not
+until the last three years that body and mind grew thoroughly apathetic.
+"I have lost my intellect," said Landor, nearly two years ago: "for this
+I care not; but alas! I have lost my teeth and cannot eat!" Was it not
+time for him to go?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The glory of old age ceases when second childishness and oblivion begin;
+therefore we thanked God for His goodness in taking the lonely old man
+home.</p>
+
+<p>Long as was Landor's life and literary career, little is known of him
+personally. There are glimpses of him in Lady Blessington's Memoirs; and
+Emerson, in his "English Traits," describes two interviews with him in
+1843 at his Florentine villa. "I found him noble and courteous, living
+in a cloud of pictures.... I had inferred from his books, or magnified
+from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath,&mdash;an untamable
+petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just or not, but
+certainly on this May-day his courtesy veiled that haughty mind, and he
+was the most patient and gentle of hosts." According to the world's
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>opinion, it was not always "May-day" with Landor, for the world neither
+preaches nor practices that rarity, human charity. Its instinct is a
+species of divining-rod, the virtue of which seems to be limited to a
+fatal facility in discovering frailty. Great men and women live in glass
+houses, and what passer-by can resist the temptation to throw stones? Is
+it generous, or even just, in scoffers who are safely hidden behind
+bricks and mortar, to take advantage of the glass? Could they show a
+nobler record if subjected to equally close scrutiny? Worshippers, too,
+at the shrines of inspiration are prone to look for ideal lives in their
+elect, forgetting that the divine afflatus is, after all, a gift,&mdash;that
+great thoughts are not the daily food of even the finest intellects. It
+is a necessity of nature for valleys to lie beneath the lofty mountain
+peaks that daringly pierce the sky; and it would seem as though the
+artist-temperament, after rising to sublime heights of ecstasy, plunged
+into corresponding depths, showing thereby the supremacy of the man over
+the god. Then is there much sighing and shaking of heads at the failings
+of genius, whereas genius in its depths sinks no lower than the ordinary
+level of mankind. It simply proves its title-deeds to mortality.
+Humanity at best is weak, and can only be divine by flashes. The Pythia
+was a stupid old woman, saving when she sat upon the tripod. Seeing
+genius to the best advantage in its work,&mdash;not always, but most
+frequently,&mdash;they are wisest who love the artist without demanding
+personal perfection. It is rational to conclude that the loftiest
+possible genius should be allied to the most perfect specimen of man,
+heart holding equal sway with head. A great man, however, need not be a
+great artist,&mdash;that is, of course, understood; but time ought to prove
+that the highest form of art can only emanate from the noblest type of
+humanity. The most glorious inspirations must flow through the purest
+channels. But this is the genius of the future, as far removed from what
+is best known as order is removed from chaos. The genius most familiar
+is not often founded on common sense; the <i>plus</i> of one faculty denotes
+the <i>minus</i> of another; and matter-of-fact people, who rule the
+world,&mdash;as they should,&mdash;and who have never dreamed of an inclination
+from the perpendicular, bestow little patience and less sympathy on
+vagaries, moral and mental, than, partly natural, are aggravated by that
+"capacity for joy" which "admits temptation."</p>
+
+<p>Landor's characteristic fault, in fact his vice, was that of a temper so
+undisciplined and impulsive as to be somewhat hurricanic in its
+consequences, though, not unlike the Australian boomerang, it frequently
+returned whence it came, and injured no one but the possessor.
+Circumstances aggravated, rather than diminished, this Landorian
+idiosyncrasy. Born in prosperity, heir to a large landed estate, and
+educated in aristocratic traditions, Walter Savage Landor began life
+without a struggle, and throughout a long career remained master of the
+situation, independent of the world and its favors. Perhaps too much
+freedom is as unfortunate in its results upon character as too much
+dependence. A nature to be properly developed should receive as well as
+give; otherwise it must be an angelic disposition that does not become
+tyrannical. All animated nature is despotic, the strong preying upon the
+weak. If men and women do not devour one another, it is merely because
+they dare not. The law of self-preservation prevents them from becoming
+anthropophagi. A knowledge that the eater may in his turn be eaten, is
+not appetizing. Materially and professionally successful, possessed of a
+physique that did honor to his ancestors and Nature, no shadows fell on
+Landor's path to chasten his spirit. Trials he endured of a private
+nature grievous in the extreme, yet calculated to harden rather than
+soften the heart,&mdash;trials of which others were partially the cause, and
+which probably need not have been had his character been understood and
+rightly dealt with. There is a soothing system for men as well as
+horses,&mdash;even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> for human Cruisers,&mdash;and the Rarey who reduces it to a
+science will deserve the world's everlasting gratitude. Powerful natures
+are likely to be as strong in their weaknesses as in their virtues;
+this, however, is a reckoning entirely too rational to be largely
+indulged in by the packed jury that holds inquest over the bodies,
+rather than the souls, of men. In his old age at least, Landor's
+irascibility amounted to temporary madness, for which he was no more
+responsible than is the sick man for the feverish ravings of delirium.
+That miserable law-suit at Bath, which has done so much to drag the name
+of Landor into the mire, would never have been prosecuted had its
+instigators had any respect for themselves or any decent appreciation of
+their victim.</p>
+
+<p>But Landor in his best moods was chivalry incarnate. His courtly manners
+toward ladies were particularly noticeable from the rarity of so much
+external polish in the new school of Anglo-Saxon gallantry. It was a
+pleasure to receive compliments from him; for they generally lay
+imbedded in the <i>sauce piquante</i> of a <i>bon mot</i>. Having one day dropped
+his spectacles, which were picked up and presented to him by an American
+girl, Landor quickly exclaimed, with a grace not to be translated into
+words, "Ah, this is not the first time you have caught my eyes!" It was
+to the same young lady that he addressed this heretofore unpublished
+poem:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"TO K. F.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Kisses in former times I've seen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which, I confess it, raised my spleen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were contrived by Love to mock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The battledoor and shuttlecock.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Given, returned,&mdash;how strange a play,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where neither loses all the day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And both are, even when night sets in,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Again as ready to begin!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am not sure I have not played<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This very game with some fair maid.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perhaps it was a dream; but this<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I <i>know</i> was not; I <i>know</i> a kiss<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was given me in the sight of more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than ever saw me kissed before.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Modest as winged angels are,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And no less brave and no less fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She came across, nor greatly feared,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The horrid brake of wintry beard.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i9">"<span class="smcap">Walter Savage Landor</span>.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Sienna, July, 1860."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The following papers, in so far as they relate to Landor personally, are
+not reminiscences of him in the zenith of fame. They contain glimpses of
+the old man of Florence in the years 1859, 1860, and 1861, just before
+the intellectual light began to flicker and go out. Even then Landor was
+cleverer, and, provided he was properly approached, more interesting
+than many younger men of genius. I shall ever esteem it one of the great
+privileges of my life that I was permitted to know him well, and call
+him friend. These papers are given to the public with the hope that they
+may be of more than ordinary interest to the intelligent reader, and
+that they may delineate Landor in more truthful colors than those in
+which he has heretofore been painted. In repeating conversations, I have
+endeavored to stand in the background, where I very properly belong. For
+the inevitable egotism of the personal pronoun, I hope to be pardoned by
+all charitable souls. That Landor, the octogenarian, has not been
+photographed by a more competent person, is certainly not my fault.
+Having had the good fortune to enjoy opportunities beyond my deserts, I
+should have shown a great want of appreciation had I not availed myself
+of them. If, in referring to Landor, I avoid the prefix "Mr.," it is
+because I feel, with Lady Blessington, that "there are some people, and
+he is of those, whom one cannot designate as 'Mr.' I should as soon
+think of adding the word to his name, as, in talking of some of the
+great writers of old, to prefix it to theirs."</p>
+
+<p>It was a modest house in a modest street that Landor inhabited during
+the last six years of his life. Tourists can have no recollection of the
+<i>Via Nunziatina</i>, directly back of the "Carmine" in the old part of
+Florence; but there is no loving lounger about those picturesque streets
+that does not remember how, strolling up the <i>Via dei Seragli</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> one
+encounters the old shrine to the Madonna, which marks the entrance to
+that street made historical henceforth for having sheltered a great
+English writer. There, half-way down the <i>via</i>, in that little two-story
+<i>casa</i>, No. 2671, dwelt Walter Savage Landor, with his English
+housekeeper and <i>cameriera</i>. Sitting-room, bed-room, and dining-room
+opened into each other; and in the former he was always found, in a
+large arm-chair, surrounded by paintings; for he declared he could not
+live without them. His snowy hair and beard of patriarchal proportions,
+clear, keen, gray eyes, and grand head made the old poet greatly
+resemble Michel Angelo's world-renowned masterpiece of "Moses"; nor was
+the formation of Landor's forehead unlike that of Shakespeare. "If, as
+you declare," said he, jokingly, one day, "I look like that meekest of
+men, Moses and Shakespeare, I ought to be exceedingly good and somewhat
+clever."</p>
+
+<p>At Landor's feet was always crouched a beautiful Pomeranian dog, the
+gift of his kind American friend, William W. Story. The affection
+existing between "Gaillo" and his master was really touching. Gaillo's
+eyes were always turned towards Landor's; and upon the least
+encouragement, the dog would jump into his lap, lay his head most
+lovingly upon his master's neck, and generally deport himself in a very
+human manner. "Gaillo is such a dear dog!" said Landor, one day, while
+patting him. "We are very fond of each other, and always have a game of
+play after dinner; sometimes, when he is very good, we have two. I am
+sure I could not live, if he died; and I know that, when I am gone, he
+will grieve for me." Thereupon Gaillo wagged his tail, and looked
+piteously into <i>padrone's</i> face, as much as to say he would be grieved
+indeed. Upon being asked if he thought dogs would be admitted into
+heaven, Landor answered: "And, pray, why not? They have all of the good
+and none of the bad qualities of man." No matter upon what subject
+conversation turned, Gaillo's feelings were consulted. He was the only
+and chosen companion of Landor in his walks; but few of the Florentines
+who stopped to remark the <i>vecchio con quel bel canino</i>, knew how great
+was the man upon whom they thus commented.</p>
+
+<p>It is seldom that England gives birth to so rampant a republican as
+Landor. Born on the 30th of January, two years before our Declaration of
+Independence, it is probable that the volcanic action of those troublous
+times had no little influence in permeating the mind of the embryo poet
+with that enthusiasm for and love of liberty for which he was
+distinguished in maturer years. From early youth, Landor was a poor
+respecter of royalty and rank <i>per se</i>. He often related, with great
+good-humor, an incident of his boyhood which brought his democratic
+ideas into domestic disgrace. An influential bishop of the Church of
+England, happening to dine with young Landor's father one day, assailed
+Porson, and, with self-assumed superiority, thinking to annihilate the
+old Grecian, exclaimed "<i>We</i> have no opinion of his scholarship." Irate
+at this stupid pronunciamento against so renowned a man, young Landor
+looked up, and, with a sarcasm the point of which was not in the least
+blunted by age, retorted, "<i>We</i>, my Lord?" Of course such unheard of
+audacity and contempt of my Lord Bishop's capacity for criticism was
+severely reprobated by Landor Senior; but no amount of reproof could
+force his son into a confession of sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"At Oxford," said Landor, "I was about the first student who wore his
+hair without powder. 'Take care,' said my tutor. 'They will stone you
+for a republican.' The Whigs (not the wigs) were then unpopular; but I
+stuck to my plain hair and queue tied with black ribbon."</p>
+
+<p>Of Landor's mature opinion of republics in general we glean much from a
+passage of the "Pentameron," in which the author adorns Petrarca with
+his own fine thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"When the familiars of absolute princes taunt us, as they are wont to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>
+do, with the only apothegm they ever learnt by heart,&mdash;namely, that it
+is better to be ruled by one master than by many,&mdash;I quite agree with
+them; unity of power being the principle of republicanism, while the
+principle of despotism is division and delegation. In the one system,
+every man conducts his own affairs, either personally or through the
+agency of some trustworthy representative, which is essentially the
+same: in the other system, no man, in quality of citizen, has any
+affairs of his own to conduct; but a tutor has been as much set over him
+as over a lunatic, as little with his option or consent, and without any
+provision, as there is in the case of the lunatic, for returning reason.
+Meanwhile, the spirit of republics is omnipresent in them, as active in
+the particles as in the mass, in the circumference as in the centre.
+Eternal it must be, as truth and justice are, although not stationary."</p>
+
+<p>Let Europeans who, having predicted dismemberment of our Union,
+proclaimed death to democracy, and those thoughtless Americans who
+believe that liberty cannot survive the destruction of our Republic,
+think well of what great men have written. Though North America were
+submerged to-morrow, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans rushing over our
+buried hopes to a riotous embrace, republicanism would live as long as
+the elements endure,&mdash;borne on every wind, inhaled in every breath of
+air, abiding its opportunity to become an active principle. Absorbed in
+our own peculiar form of egotism, we believe that a Supreme Being has
+cast the cause of humanity upon one die, to prosper or perish by the
+chances of our game. What belittling of the Almighty! what magnifying of
+ourselves!</p>
+
+<p>Though often urged, Landor never became a candidate for Parliamentary
+honors. Political wire-pulling was not to the taste of a man who,
+notwithstanding large landed interests, could say: "I never was at a
+public dinner, at a club or hustings. I never influenced or attempted to
+influence a vote, and yet many, and not only my own tenants, have asked
+me to whom they should give theirs." Nor was he ever presented at court,
+although a presentation would have been at the request of the (at that
+time) Regent. Landor would not countenance a system of court-favor that
+opens its arms to every noodle wearing an officer's uniform, and almost
+universally turns its back upon intellect. He put not his faith in
+princes, and of titles says: "Formerly titles were inherited by men who
+could not write; they now are conferred on men who will not let others.
+Theirs may have been the darker age; ours is the duller. In theirs a
+high spirit was provoked; in ours, proscribed. In theirs the bravest
+were pre-eminent; in ours, the basest."</p>
+
+<p>Although a democrat, Landor was not indifferent to the good name of his
+own ancestors, not because of a long pedigree, but because many of these
+ancestors were historical personages and served their country long and
+well. That stock must be worthy of honorable mention which, extending
+with its ramifications over several centuries, gives to the world its
+finest fruit in its latest scion. It is a satisfaction to spring from
+hidalgo blood when the advantages of gentle rearing are demonstrated by
+being greater than one's fathers. In Lander's most admirable "Citation
+and Examination of William Shakespeare," the youngster whom Sir Silas
+Gough declares to be as "deep as the big tankard" says, "out of his own
+head":&mdash;"Hardly any man is ashamed of being inferior to his ancestors,
+although it is the very thing at which the great should blush, if,
+indeed, the great in general descended from the worthy. I did expect to
+see the day, and, although I shall not see it, it must come at last,
+when he shall be treated as a madman or an impostor who dares to claim
+nobility or precedency, and cannot show his family name in the history
+of his country. Even he who can show it, and who cannot write his own
+under it in the same or as goodly characters, must submit to the
+imputation of degeneracy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> from which the lowly and obscure are exempt."
+Good old Penn, too, is made a lay figure upon which Landor dressed his
+thoughts, when the Quaker tells Lord Peterborough: "Of all pride,
+however, and all folly, the grossest is where a man who possesses no
+merit in himself shall pretend to an equality with one who does possess
+it, and shall found this pretension on no better plea or title than
+that, although he hath it not, his grandfather had. I would use no
+violence or coercion with any rational creature; but, rather than that
+such a bestiality in a human form should run about the streets uncured,
+I would shout like a stripling for the farrier at his furnace, and
+unthong the drenching horn from my stable-door." Landor could write his
+name under that of his family in as goodly characters, therefore he was
+not ashamed to relate anecdotes of his forefathers. It was with honest
+satisfaction that he perpetuated the memory of two of these worthies in
+the "Imaginary Conversations" between King Henry IV. and Sir Arnold
+Savage, and Oliver Cromwell and Walter Noble. "Sir Arnold, according to
+Elsynge, 'was the first who appears <i>upon any record</i>' to have been
+appointed to the dignity of Speaker in the House of Commons, as now
+constituted. He was elected a second time, four years afterwards, a rare
+honor in earlier days; and during this presidency he headed the Commons,
+and delivered their resolutions in the plain words recorded by
+Hakewell." These "plain words" were, that no subsidy should be granted
+to Henry IV. until every cause of public grievance had been removed.
+Landor came rightly by his independence of thought. "Walter Noble
+represented the city of Lichfield; he lived familiarly with the best
+patriots of the age, remonstrated with Cromwell, and retired from public
+life on the punishment of Charles."</p>
+
+<p>Landor was very fond of selecting the grand old Roundheads for his
+conversations. In their society he was most at home, and with them he
+was able to air his pet opinions. Good Andrew Marvell, a man after the
+author's own heart, discourses upon this matter of family: "Between the
+titled man of ancient and the titled man of recent date, the difference,
+if any, is in favor of the last. Suppose them both raised for merit,
+(here, indeed, we do come to theory!) the benefits that society has
+received from him are nearer us.... Some of us may look back six or
+seven centuries, and find a stout ruffian at the beginning." In England,
+where the institutions are such that a title of nobility is considered
+by the majority to be the highest reward attainable by merit, it is not
+surprising that the great god of Rank should be worshipped at the family
+altar of Form. In England, too, it must be acknowledged that men of rank
+are men of education, frequently of culture, and are useful to the
+nation as patrons of art and of science; therefore nobility frequently
+means absolute gentility. But in America what good can be said of those
+who, living upon the fortunes of fathers or grandfathers, amassed in
+honest trade,&mdash;residents of a particular street which is thereby
+rendered pluperfectly genteel,&mdash;with no recommendation but that derived
+from fashion and idleness,&mdash;draw the lines of social demarcation more
+closely than they are drawn in Europe, intellect and accomplishments
+being systematically snubbed where the possessors cannot show their
+family passes? Is not this attempt to graft the foibles of an older and
+more corrupt civilization upon our institutions, a disgrace to
+republicanism? Were the truth known, we should be able to report the
+existence of many advocates of monarchy, a privileged class, and an
+established church, among those into whose ancestry it would be unsafe
+to dig deeper than a second generation; by digging deeper we might touch
+sugar or tumble into a vat of molasses, and then what blushes for false
+pride!</p>
+
+<p>A very different idea of a great man from that of the vulgar do we get
+out of Landor's writings. His Diogenes tells us, (and very like the
+original seeker after honesty do we take him to be,) that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> "the great
+man is he who hath nothing to fear and nothing to hope from another. It
+is he who, while he demonstrates the iniquity of the laws and is able to
+correct them, obeys them peaceably. It is he who looks on the ambitious
+both as weak and fraudulent. It is he who hath no disposition or
+occasion for any kind of conceit, no reason for being or for appearing
+different from what he is. It is he who can call together the most
+select company when it pleases him." And Petrarca says that "Time the
+Sovran is first to discover the truly great." Yet, though we put faith
+in the justice of posterity, even Time plays many a one false through
+misplaced favoritism. "They, O Timotheus," exclaims the imaginary
+Lucian, "who survive the wreck of ages, are by no means, as a body, most
+worthy of our admiration. It is in these wrecks as in those at sea,&mdash;the
+best things are not always saved. Hencoops and empty barrels bob upon
+the surface, under a serene and smiling sky, when the graven or depicted
+images of the gods are scattered on invisible rocks, and when those who
+most resembled them in knowledge and beneficence are devoured by cold
+monsters below." We claim, however, that Lucian's theory is good for
+this world only, as we believe that soul, though it may be temporarily
+wrecked, speeds on to the inevitable justice of eternity. And can we,
+now that the fever of military glory is upon us, remember that, great as
+may be the man who conquers his country's enemies upon the battle-field,
+he is far greater who conquers the prejudices of his age and instils
+into groping masses the doctrines of a more glorious civilization?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"For civilisation perfected<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is fully developed Christianity."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Every generation has two or three such men; no age has enough moral
+courage to give birth to more. They live under protest,&mdash;thought alone
+is free,&mdash;and when these men, fifty years in advance of their times,
+proclaim God's truth with the enthusiasm begotten of religion,
+grub-worms that rule the great <i>status quo</i> sting the prophets with all
+the virus of their nature, and render each step forward as difficult as
+was once the passage of the Simplon. There is no stumbling-block like
+that of ignorance, and he who would remove it must wear the holy crown
+of thorns. We speak of the horrors of the Inquisition as things of the
+past. Are we so sure of this? Has not prejudice invented most exquisite
+tortures for reformers of all ages? America has her sins to answer for
+in this respect.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Because ye prosper in God's name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">With a claim.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To honor in the old world's sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet do the fiend's work perfectly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In strangling martyrs,&mdash;for this lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This is the curse."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>On the stubbornness of <i>Status Quo</i> none have written better than
+Landor. "Unbendingness, in the moral as in the vegetable world, is an
+indication as frequently of unsoundness as of strength. Indeed, wise
+men, kings as well as others, have been free from it. Stiff necks are
+diseased ones."</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to be in Landor's society a half-hour and not reap
+advantage. His great learning, varied information, extensive
+acquaintance with the world's celebrities, ready wit, and even readier
+repartee, rendered his conversation wonderfully entertaining. He would
+narrate anecdote after anecdote with surprising accuracy, being
+possessed of a singularly retentive memory, that could refer to a
+catalogue of notables far longer than Don Giovanni's picture-gallery of
+conquests. Names, it is true, he was frequently unable to recall, and
+supplied their place with a "God bless my soul, I forget everything";
+but facts were indelibly stamped upon his mind. He referred back to the
+year <i>one</i> with as much facility as a person of the rising generation
+invokes the shade of some deed dead a few years. I looked with wonder
+upon a person who remembered Napoleon Bonaparte as a slender young man,
+and listened with delight to a voice from so dim a past. "I was in
+Paris," said Landor one day, "at the time that Bonaparte made his
+entrance as First Consul. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> was standing within a few feet of him when
+he passed, and had a capital good look at him. He was exceedingly
+handsome then, with a rich olive complexion and oval face, youthful as a
+girl's. Near him rode Murat, mounted upon a gold-clad charger,&mdash;and very
+handsome he was too, but coxcombical."</p>
+
+<p>Like the rest of human kind, Landor had his prejudices,&mdash;they were very
+many. Foremost among them was an antipathy to the Bonaparte family. It
+is not necessary to have known him personally to be aware of his
+detestation of the first Napoleon, as in the conversation between
+himself, an English and a Florentine visitor, he gives expression to a
+generous indignation, which may well be inserted here, as it contains
+the pith of what Landor repeated in many a social talk. "This Holy
+Alliance will soon appear unholy to every nation in Europe. I despised
+Napoleon in the plenitude of his power no less than others despise him
+in the solitude of his exile: I thought him no less an impostor when he
+took the ermine, than when he took the emetic. I confess I do not love
+him the better, as some mercenaries in England and Scotland do, for
+having been the enemy of my country; nor should I love him the less for
+it, had his enmity been principled and manly. In what manner did this
+cruel wretch treat his enthusiastic admirer and humble follower,
+Toussaint l'Ouverture? He was thrown into a subterranean call, solitary,
+dark, damp, pestiferously unclean, where rheumatism racked his limbs,
+and where famine terminated his existence." Again, in his written
+opinions of C&aelig;sar, Cromwell, Milton, and Bonaparte, Landor criticises
+the career of the latter with no fondness, but with much truth, and
+justly says, that "Napoleon, in the last years of his sovereignty,
+fought without aim, vanquished without glory, and perished without
+defeat."</p>
+
+<p>Great as was Landor's dislike to the uncle, it paled before his
+detestation of the reigning Emperor,&mdash;a detestation too general to be
+designated an idiosyncrasy on the part of the poet. We always knew who
+was meant when a sentence was prefaced with "that rascal" or "that
+scoundrel,"&mdash;such were the epithets substituted for the name of Louis
+Napoleon. Believing the third Napoleon to be the worst enemy of his
+foster-mother, Italy, as well as of France, Landor bestowed upon him
+less love, if possible, than the majority of Englishmen. Having been
+personally acquainted with the Emperor when he lived in England as an
+exile, Landor, unlike many of Napoleon's enemies, acknowledged the
+superiority of his intellect. "I used to see a great deal of the Prince
+when he was in London. I met him very frequently of an evening at Lady
+Blessington's, and had many conversations with him, as he always sought
+me and made himself particularly civil. He was a very clever man, well
+informed on most subjects. The fops used to laugh at him, and call him a
+bore. A coxcombical young lord came up to me one evening after the
+Prince had taken his leave, and said, 'Mr. Landor, how <i>can</i> you talk to
+that fool, Prince Napoleon?' To which I replied, 'My Lord, it takes a
+fool to find out that he is not a wise man!' His Lordship retired
+somewhat discomfited," added Landor with a laugh, "The Prince presented
+me with his work on Artillery, and invited me to his house. He had a
+very handsome establishment, and was not at all the poor man he is so
+often said to have been." Of this book Landor writes in an article to
+the "Quarterly Review" (I think): "If it is any honor, it has been
+conferred on me to have received from Napoleon's heir the literary work
+he composed in prison, well knowing, as he did, and expressing his
+regret for, my sentiments on his uncle. The explosion of the first
+cannon against Rome threw us apart forever." I shall not soon forget
+Landor's lively narration of Napoleon's escape from the prison at Ham,
+given in the same language in which it was told to him by the Prince. I
+would feign repeat it here, were it not that an account of this
+wonderful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> escape found its way into print some years ago. <i>Apropos</i> of
+Napoleon, an old friend of Landor's told me that, while in London, the
+Prince was in the habit of calling upon him after dinner. He would sip
+<i>caf&eacute; noir</i>, smoke a cigar, ply his host with every conceivable
+question, but otherwise maintain a dignified reticence. It seems then
+that Louis Napoleon is indebted to nature, as well as to art, for his
+masterly ability in keeping his own counsel.</p>
+
+<p>Among other persons of note encountered by Landor at Lady Blessington's
+was Rachel. It was many years ago, before her star had attained its
+zenith. "She took tea with her Ladyship, and was accompanied by a female
+attendant, her mother I think. Rachel had very little to say, and left
+early, as she had an engagement at the theatre. There was nothing
+particularly noticeable in her appearance, but she was very ladylike. I
+never met her again."</p>
+
+<p>Landor entertained a genuine affection for the memory of Lady
+Blessington. "Ah, there was a woman!" he exclaimed one day with a sigh.
+"I never knew so brilliant and witty a person in conversation. She was
+most generous too, and kind-hearted. I never heard her make an
+ill-natured remark. It was my custom to visit her whenever the laurel
+was in bloom; and as the season approached, she would write me a note,
+saying, 'Gore House expects you, for the laurel has begun to blossom.' I
+never see laurel now, that it does not make me sad, for it recalls her
+to me so vividly. During these visits I never saw Lady Blessington until
+dinner-time. She always breakfasted in her own room, and wrote during
+the morning. She wrote very well, too; her style was pure. In the
+evening her drawing-room was thrown open to her friends, except when she
+attended the opera. Her opera-box faced the Queen's, and a formidable
+rival she was to her Majesty."</p>
+
+<p>"D'Orsay was an Apollo in beauty, very amiable, and had considerable
+talent for modelling." Taking me into his little back sitting-room,
+Landor brought out a small album, and, passing over the likenesses of
+several old friends, among whom were Southey, Porson, Napier, and other
+celebrities, he held up an engraving of Lady Blessington. Upon my
+remarking its beauty, Landor replied: "That was taken at the age of
+fifty, so you can imagine how beautiful she must have been in her youth.
+Her voice and laugh were very musical." Then, turning to a young lady
+present, Landor made her an exceedingly neat compliment, by saying,
+"<i>Your</i> voice reminds me very vividly of Lady Blessington's. Perhaps,"
+he continued with a smile, "this is the reason why my old, deaf ears
+never lose a word when you are speaking." Driving along the north side
+of the Arno, one summer's day, Landor gazed sadly at a terrace
+overlooking the water, and said: "Many a delightful evening have I spent
+on that terrace with Lord and Lady Blessington. There we used to take
+our tea. They once visited Florence for no other purpose than to see me.
+Was not that friendly? They are both dead now, and I am doomed to live
+on. When Lady Blessington died, I was asked to write a Latin epitaph for
+her tomb, which I did; but some officious person thought to improve the
+Latin before it was engraved, and ruined it."</p>
+
+<p>This friendship was fully reciprocated by Lady Blessington, who, in her
+letters to Landor, refers no less than three times to those "calm nights
+on the terrace of the Casa Pelosi." "I send you," she writes, "the
+engraving, and have only to wish that it may sometimes remind you of the
+original.... Five fleeting years have gone by since our delicious
+evenings on the lovely Arno,&mdash;evenings never to be forgotten, and the
+recollections of which ought to cement the friendships then formed."
+Again, in her books of travel,&mdash;the "Idler in France" and "Idler in
+Italy,"&mdash;Lady Blessington pays the very highest tribute to Landor's
+heart, as well as intellect, and declares his real conversations to be
+quite as delightful as his imaginary ones. She who will live<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> long in
+history as the friend of great men now lies "beneath the chestnut shade
+of Saint Germain"; and Landor, with the indignation of one who loved
+her, has turned to D'Orsay, asking</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Who was it squandered all her wealth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And swept away the bloom of health?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Although a Latinist, Landor did not approve of making those who have
+passed away doubly dead to a majority of the living by Latin eulogy. In
+an interesting conversation he gives the following opinion: "Although I
+have written at various times a great number of such inscriptions"
+(Latin), "as parts of literature, yet I think nothing is so absurd, if
+you only inscribe them on a tomb. Why should extremely few persons, the
+least capable, perhaps, of sympathy, be invited to sympathize, while
+thousands are excluded from it by the iron grate of a dead language?
+Those who read a Latin inscription are the most likely to know already
+the character of the defunct, and no new feelings are to be excited in
+them; but the language of the country tells the ignorant who he was that
+lies under the turf before them; and, if he was a stranger, it
+naturalizes him among them; it gives him friends and relations; it
+brings to him and detains about him some who may imitate, many who will
+lament him. We have no right to deprive any one of a tender sentiment,
+by talking in an unknown tongue to him, when his heart would listen and
+answer to his own; we have no right to turn a chapel into a library,
+locking it with a key which the lawful proprietors cannot turn."</p>
+
+<p>I once asked Landor to describe Wordsworth's personal appearance. He
+laughed and replied: "The best description I can give you of Wordsworth
+is the one that Hazlitt gave <i>me</i>. Hazlitt's voice was very deep and
+gruff, and he peppered his sentences very bountifully with 'sirs.' In
+speaking to me of Wordsworth, he said: 'Well, sir, did you ever see a
+horse, sir?' 'Yes.' 'Then, sir, you have seen Wordsworth, sir! He looks
+exactly like a horse, sir, and a very long-faced horse at that, sir!'
+And he did look like a horse," added Landor.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have seen good likenesses of Wordsworth will readily remark
+this resemblance. A greater length of ear would liken the Lake poet to
+an animal of less dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing the conversation thus begun, Landor said: "I saw a great deal
+of Hazlitt when he was in Florence. He called upon me frequently, and a
+funny fellow he was. He used to say to me: 'Mr. Landor, I like you,
+sir,&mdash;I like you very much, sir,&mdash;you're an honest man, sir; but I don't
+approve, sir, of a great deal that you have written, sir. You must
+reform some of your opinions, sir.'" And again Landor laughed with great
+good-will.</p>
+
+<p>"I regret that I saw Charles Lamb but once," replied Landor, in answer
+to many questions asked concerning this delightful man and writer. "Lamb
+sent word by Southey" (I think it was Southey) "that he would be very
+happy to see me, whereupon we made him a visit. He had then retired from
+the India House, and lived at Enfield. He was most charming in
+conversation, and his smile impressed me as being particularly genial.
+His sister also was a very agreeable person. During my visit, Lamb rose,
+went to a table in the centre of the room, and took up a book, out of
+which he read aloud. Soon shutting it, he turned to me, saying: 'Is not
+what I have been reading exceedingly good?' 'Very good,' I replied.
+Thereupon Lamb burst out laughing, and exclaimed: 'Did one ever know so
+conceited a man as Mr. Landor? He has actually praised his own ideas!'
+It was now my turn to laugh, as I had not the slightest remembrance of
+having written what Lamb had read."</p>
+
+<p>Are there many to whom the following lines will not be better than new?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Once, and only once, have I seen thy face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Elia! once only has thy tripping tongue<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Run o'er my breast, yet never has been left<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Impression on it stronger or more sweet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cordial old man! what youth was in thy years,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What wisdom in thy levity! what truth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In every utterance of that purest soul!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Few are the spirits of the glorified<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'd spring to earlier at the gate of Heaven."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Being asked if he had met Byron, Landor replied: "I never saw Byron but
+once, and then accidentally. I went into a perfumery shop in London to
+purchase a pot of the ottar of roses, which at that time was very rare
+and expensive. As I entered the shop a handsome young man, with a slight
+limp in his walk, passed me and went out. The shopkeeper directed my
+attention to him, saying: 'Do you know who that is, sir?' 'No,' I
+answered. 'That is the young Lord Byron.' He had been purchasing some
+fancy soaps, and at that time was the fashion. I never desired to meet
+him."</p>
+
+<p>As all the world knows, there was little love lost between these two
+great writers; but it was the man, not the poet, that Landor so
+cordially disliked.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="MY_ANNUAL" id="MY_ANNUAL"></a>MY ANNUAL.</h2>
+
+<h3>FOR THE "BOYS OF '29."</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How long will this harp which you once loved to hear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How long stir the echoes it wakened of old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While its strings were unbroken, untarnished its gold?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do you wrong;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The heart, the heart only, shall throb in my song;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"We will bid our old harper play on till he dies."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Though Youth, the fair angel that looked o'er the strings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It is still the old harp that was always your own.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I claim not its music,&mdash;each note it affords<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I know you will listen and love to the last,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No craftsman could string and no artisan mould;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those shapes are the phantoms of years that have fled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The bird wanders careless while Summer is green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is the light of our year, is the gem in its ring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rays it has lost, and its border of jet.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">While round us the many-hued halo is shed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How dear are the living, how near are the dead!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not life shall enlarge it, nor death shall divide,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No brother new-born finds his place at my side;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No titles shall freeze us, no grandeurs infest,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His Honor, His Worship, are boys like the rest.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Some won the world's homage,&mdash;their names we hold dear,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Friendship, not Fame, is the countersign here;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Make room by the conqueror crowned in the strife<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the comrade that limps from the battle of life!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What tongue talks of battle? Too long we have heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In sorrow, in anguish, that terrible word;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It reddened the sunshine, it crimsoned the wave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our brave.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Peace, Peace, comes at last, with her garland of white;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to-night;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We echo its words,&mdash;We are One! We are One!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="WERE_THEY_CRICKETS" id="WERE_THEY_CRICKETS"></a>WERE THEY CRICKETS?</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>About seven years ago, (it is possible that some of my readers may
+recall it,) the following paragraph appeared in the New York daily
+papers;&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Mysterious Disappearance</span>.&mdash;A young man named George Snyder
+left the residence of his parents in Thirty-Third Street, last
+Friday evening without his hat and taking nothing with him but
+the suit which he was wearing (dark doeskin pants, and
+invisible-green coat), and has not yet been heard from. It is
+feared that he has wandered, in some sudden mental derangement,
+off the wharves. Any information which may lead to his
+discovery will be gratefully received by the distressed
+parents."</p></div>
+
+<p>No information was ever received until the 1st of April last, when the
+missing man himself returned to his father's house, as mysteriously as
+he went, and was welcomed as one risen from the dead. I am that George
+Snyder, and propose to give now a brief account of that strange going
+and coming. Since April last I have been engaged, as well as the
+excitement of listening to the narrative of the great events which had
+taken place in my native land during my absence would allow me, in
+preparing for publication a history of my observations, made during the
+six years' absence; but of this history I can now give merely an
+outline.</p>
+
+<p>On the night of my departure, November 5, 1858, I was sitting in my own
+room, studying Gauss's "Theoria Motus"; and, as was often the case with
+me, I grew so absorbed in the study as to lose all consciousness of
+outward things beyond the limits of the single page before me. I had
+forgotten the time of night,&mdash;nay, I could not have recalled the time of
+my life, whether I was in college or had graduated, whether I had
+entered on my profession or was preparing for it. My loss of the sense
+of space was as absolute as my loss of the sense of time, and I could
+not have said whether I was in my father's house in New York, or in my
+room in Wentworth Hall, or in my office in Jersey City. I only knew that
+the page, illuminated by a drop gas-light, was before me, and on it the
+record of that brilliant triumph of the human intellect, the deduction
+of a planet's entire orbit from observations of its position.</p>
+
+<p>As I sat thus absorbed, my attention was partially diverted by a slight
+tapping, as if upon the very table upon which my book was resting.
+Without raising my eyes from the page, I allowed my thoughts to wander,
+as I inquired within myself what could have produced the noise. Could it
+be that I was thus suddenly "developed as a medium," and that the spirit
+of some departed friend wished to communicate with me? I rejected the
+thought instantly, for I was no believer in modern necromancy. But no
+sooner had I mentally decided that this was not the true explanation
+than I began to feel my right hand tremble in an unnatural manner, and
+my fingers close against my will around a pencil which I had been
+loosely holding. Then suddenly, upon the paper on which I
+had been occasionally filling out the omitted links in Gauss's
+mathematical reasoning, my hand, against my will, legibly scrawled,
+"<i>Copernicus</i>,"&mdash;upon which a renewed tapping was heard upon the table.
+I sprang out of my chair, as one startled out of sleep, and looked about
+the room. My full consciousness of time and place returned, and I saw
+nothing unusual about my apartment; there were the books, the chairs,
+and even the table, standing in motionless silence as usual. I concluded
+that my late hours and excessive concentration on my studies had made me
+nervous, or else that I had had a dream. I closed the book and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> prepared
+to go to bed. Like school-boy whistling to keep his courage up, I began
+to talk aloud, saying: "I wish Copernicus would really come and carry me
+off to explore the solar system; I fancy that I could make a better
+report than Andrew Jackson Davis has done."</p>
+
+<p>I tremble even now as I recall the instantaneous effect of those words.
+While I was still speaking, all earthly things vanished suddenly from my
+sight. There was no floor beneath me, no ceiling above, no walls around.
+There was even no earth below me, and no sky above. Look where I would,
+nothing was visible but my own body. My clothing shone with a pale blue
+light, by which I could peer into the surrounding darkness to the
+distance, as I should judge, of about twenty or thirty feet. I was
+apparently hanging, like a planet, in mid-ether, resting upon nothing.
+Horrible amazement seized me, as the conviction flashed through me like
+an electric shock that I must have lost my reason. In a few moments,
+however, this terror subsided; I felt certain that my thoughts were
+rational, and concluded that it was some affection of the optic nerve.
+But in a very few seconds I discovered by internal sensations that I was
+in motion, in a rapid, irregular, and accelerating motion. Awful horror
+again seized me; I screamed out a despairing cry for help, and fainted.</p>
+
+<p>When I recovered from the swoon, I found myself lying on a grassy bank
+near a sea-shore, with strange trees waving over me. The sun was
+apparently an hour high. I was dressed as on the preceding evening,
+without a hat. The air was deliciously mild, the landscape before me
+lovely and grand. I said to myself: "This is a beautiful dream; it must
+be a dream." But it was too real, and I said, "Can it be that I am
+asleep?" I pinched my arms, I went to the sea and dipped my head in the
+waters,&mdash;'t was in vain; I could not awake myself, because I was already
+awake.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" I replied, "you are not awake." Do you not remember that saying of
+Engel, that when men dream of asking whether they are awake, they always
+dream that they answer yes? But I said, I will apply two tests of my own
+which have often, when I was dreaming, convinced me that I was asleep
+and thus enabled me to awake. I gathered some pebbles and began to count
+them and lay them in heaps, and count them over again. There were no
+discrepancies between my counts; I was awake. Then I took out my pencil
+and memorandum-book to see whether I could solve an equation. But my
+hand was seized with trembling, and wrote without my assistance or
+guidance these words: "I, Copernicus, will comfort your friends. Be
+calm, be happy, you shall return and reap a peculiar glory. You, first
+of the inhabitants of Earth, have visited another planet while in the
+flesh. You are on an island in the tropical regions of Mars. I will take
+you home when you desire it,&mdash;only not now."</p>
+
+<p>It would be in vain for me to attempt to recall and to describe the
+whirling tumult of thoughts and emotions which this message created. I
+sat down upon the grass, and for a time was incapable of deliberate
+thought or action. At length I arose and paced up and down the turf,
+staring around upon the changeless blue of the seaward horizon, the
+heaving swell of the ocean, the restless surf fretting against the
+shore, and the motionless hills that rose behind each other inland, and
+lured the eye to a distant group of mountains. The coloring of sea and
+land was wonderfully fine; both seemed formed of similar translucent
+purple; and despite the excited state of my feelings and the stupendous
+nature of the words which I had just seen written by my own pencil, I
+was impressed with a sense of grandeur and of beauty which presently
+filled me with faith and hope. I assured myself that the spirit to whom
+permission had been given thus to transport me from my home was as kind
+as he was powerful. He had set me down in a beautiful country, he had
+promised to return me home when I desired it,&mdash;"only not now";&mdash;by which
+I concluded that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> wished me to think calmly over the question before
+asking to return. And why, I added, should I be in haste? Copernicus, if
+it be he, promises to comfort my parents,&mdash;the island looks fertile,&mdash;if
+I find no inhabitants, I can be a new Robinson Crusoe,&mdash;and when I have
+explored the island thoroughly, I will ask this spirit to carry me back
+to New York, where I shall publish my observations, and add a new
+chapter to our knowledge of the solar system.</p>
+
+<p>I walked toward the mountains, among strange shrubs, and under strange
+trees. Some were in blossom, others laden with fruit, all in luxuriant
+foliage. As I walked on, the scenery became more and more charming; but
+I saw no signs of man, nor even of birds, nor beasts. Beautiful
+butterflies and other insects were abundant; in a little stream I saw
+minnows, and a fish elegantly striped with silver and gold; and as I
+followed up the brook, occasionally a frog, startled at my approach,
+leaped from the bank and dived into the water with a familiar cry. I
+wandered on until I judged it to be nearly noon, and, growing hungry,
+ventured to taste a fruit which looked more edible than any I had seen.
+To my delight I found it as delicious as a paw-paw. I dined on them
+heartily, and, sitting under the shade of the low trees from which I had
+gathered them, I fell into a reverie which ended in a sound sleep.</p>
+
+<p>When I awoke it was night. I walked out of the little grove in which I
+was sheltered, that I might have a clearer view of the stars. I soon
+recognized the constellations with which I had been familiar for years,
+though in somewhat new positions. Conspicuous near, the horizon was the
+"Milk Dipper" of Sagittarius, and I instantly noticed, with a thrill of
+intense surprise, that the planet Mars was missing! When I had first
+awakened, and stepped out of the grove, I had only a dim remembrance in
+my mind of having rambled in the fields and fallen asleep on the grass;
+but this planet missing in the constellation Sagittarius recalled to me
+at once my miraculous position on the planet Mars. Here was a
+confirmation unexpected and irrefragable of the truth of what Copernicus
+had written by my hand. The excited whirl of thoughts and emotions thus
+revived banished sleep, and I walked back and forward under the grove,
+and out on the open turf, gazing again and again at the constellation in
+which, only two days before, I had from the Jersey City ferryboat seen
+the now missing planet. At length Sagittarius sank behind the mountains,
+and the Twins arose out of the sea. With new wonder and admiration I
+beheld in Castor's knee the steady lustre of a planet which I had not
+known before,&mdash;an overwhelming proof of the reality of my asserted
+position on the planet Mars. For as this new planet was exactly in the
+opposite pole of the point whence Mars was missing, what could it be but
+my native Earth seen as a planet from that planet which had now become
+my earth? You may imagine that this new vision excited me too much to
+allow sleep to overpower me again until nearly daybreak.</p>
+
+<p>When I awoke, the sun was far above the waves. I breakfasted upon my
+newly tasted fruit, and resumed my journey toward the mountains in the
+west. An hour's walk brought me to the spot where I first saw the
+inhabitants of the island. I shall never forget a single feature of that
+landscape. The mingled delight at seeing them, and astonishment after
+looking a few moments at them, have photographed the whole surrounding
+scene to its minutest details indelibly upon my memory. I had ascended a
+little eminence in the principal valley of a brook, (which I had been
+following nearly from its outlet,) when suddenly the mountains, of which
+I had lost sight for a time, rose up before me in sublime strength, no
+longer of translucent purple, but revealing, under the direct light,
+their rugged solidity. On my right, in the foreground, were lofty black
+cliffs, made darker by being seen lying in their own shadow. On my left,
+green hills, in varying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> forms, stretched almost an interminable
+distance, varying also in their color and depth of shade. At the foot of
+the cliffs, in full sight, but too distant to be distinctly heard, the
+brook leaped along its rocky bed in a succession of scrambling
+cataracts, until it was in a perfect foam with the exertion. I sat upon
+a stone, gazing upon this valley, calmed, soothed, charmed with its
+beauty, and was speculating upon the cause of the ruddy purplish hue
+which I still noticed in the landscape, as I had the day before, when I
+heard a choir of half a dozen voices, apparently on the nearest cliff,
+joining in a Haydn-like hymn of praise. I drew nearer to the spot, and
+soon satisfied myself that all the sounds proceeded from one man sitting
+alone on a projecting rock. I listened to him attentively, vainly
+endeavoring to imagine how he produced such a volume of sounds, and
+delighted with the beautiful melody and exquisite harmony of his
+polyphonous song. When he ceased to sing, I stepped out in front of him
+and hailed him with a hearty "Good morning!" What was my astonishment to
+see him instantly unfurl a prodigious pair of wings, and fly off the
+rock. Hovering over me for a little while, evidently as much astonished
+at me as I at him, he flew away, and presently returned with a
+companion. They alighted near me, and began, as I thought, to sing, but
+in a very fragmentary way. I afterwards found that they were in
+conversation. I spoke to them, and, concealing my fears, endeavored by
+various signs to intimate my friendly disposition. They were not very
+backward in meeting my advances; and yet I soon discovered that,
+although they were two to one against me, they were as much alarmed as
+I; whereupon I became greatly reassured. It was not long before we had
+exchanged presents of wild fruits, and they had begun, by dumb show, and
+beckoning, and the utterance of soothing sounds, to invite me to
+accompany them. We proceeded slowly, for they could not be satisfied in
+their examination of me, nor I in my examination of them; and yet we
+rather preferred to keep out of each other's reach. Two points in them
+chiefly attracted my attention. One was their prodigious wings, which
+they folded into a very small compass when they walked. The other was
+their peculiar language, not being any <i>articulate</i> speech, but only the
+utterance of vowel-sounds of musical quality, which seemed to come from
+several voices at once, and that not from the mouth, but, as I then
+thought, from all parts of their bodies.</p>
+
+<p>At length we reached a charming arbor, into which they conducted me.
+This arbor was built of some sort of bamboo or cane, woven together into
+a coarse lattice-work, the roof being made of the same and covered with
+huge leaves, perhaps of some palm. I call it an arbor, because the
+latticed sides were covered with flowering vines, of great variety and
+beauty. Within were bamboo seats and a table, whose material I afterward
+discovered was the dried leaves of a gigantic flag, flattened and made
+hard by a peculiar process of drawing them between joints of bamboo,
+somewhat as cane is pressed between rollers. Upon the table were
+numerous manuscripts, written, as I afterwards learned, on a paper made
+of the same flag. These manuscripts were removed, and a repast set on
+the table by servants, as I then took them to be, who brought it in from
+an adjoining arbor; but I found afterwards that they were members of the
+family, and that the relation of servant and master was not known among
+the inhabitants of the island. When these new members of the family
+first came to the arbor in which I and my two captors, as they
+considered themselves, were sitting, they started back, terrified at my
+appearance; and it was with great difficulty that my captors prevailed
+upon them to enter. This further encouraged me in the faith that they
+were a timid and inoffensive people. Their noonday meal, of which they
+gave me a part, (although they did not invite me to come to the table
+with them,) gave me still greater assurance, since I found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> it composed
+wholly of fruits and cereals. After their dinner, during which it was
+evident that they were engaged in a very lively discussion of their
+visitor or captive, some of the family flew away, and in the course of
+an hour returned, accompanied by half a dozen others, whom I afterwards
+found were the most learned naturalists of my captor's acquaintance. I
+was invited by pantomime to walk out into the open air, and of course
+accepted the invitation. Never was there such a Babel of musical tones
+as that which assailed my ears while these six learned&mdash;(what shall I
+call them? since their own name is not expressible by the letters of any
+alphabet)&mdash;learned men discussed me from every point of view. The mild
+and inoffensive appearance of the people, and the evident kindness
+mingled with their curiosity, had entirely disarmed my suspicions, and I
+as gladly showed them what I could do as I watched to see their habits.
+The whole afternoon was passed in exhibiting to these strange beings all
+of the various gaits and modes of motion and gymnastic exercises which I
+had ever learned.</p>
+
+<p>After supper my captor led me to a separate arbor, and pointed to a bed
+of soft, white straw, upon which I immediately stretched myself, and he
+retired. Presently I arose and attempted to go out, but found that he
+had fastened the door on the outside. It was not pleasant to find myself
+a prisoner; but that subject was instantly driven from my mind as I
+looked out through the lattice and saw Sagittarius, with no signs of the
+planet Mars. I returned to my straw; and, after the excitement of the
+day had subsided, I fell asleep and slept until after sunrise. My captor
+soon after appeared, bringing a basket of delicious fruits and bread.
+When I had eaten freely, he allowed me to wander at will, setting first
+a boy on top of my arbor, apparently to watch that I did not wander out
+of sight. I walked about and found that the homestead of my captor
+consisted of seven arbors in a grove of fruit-trees, with about a dozen
+acres of corn adjoining. This corn is a perennial, like our grass, and a
+field once planted yields in good land fifteen or twenty crops with only
+the labor of gathering. It then becomes exhausted, and the canes are
+burnt at a particular season, which destroys the roots, and prepares the
+ground admirably for fruit-trees. There were no stables about the place,
+and there are no horses nor cows on the island,&mdash;indeed, frogs and toads
+are the highest vertebrates known there.</p>
+
+<p>About the middle of the forenoon, my host, or captor, came, guided by
+his boy, who, flying from arbor to arbor and from tree to tree, had kept
+me in sight during my ramble. He brought with him seven others, bearing
+a hammock through the air, four flying on either side, and lowered it
+near me in the field. He then made signs to me to lie in the hammock. It
+was with some difficulty that I persuaded myself to risk it; but I
+thought at last that, after coming safely from the Earth to Mars, I
+would not shrink from a little excursion in the atmosphere of that
+planet. I laid myself in the hammock, and soon saw that the seven
+friends of my host were as much afraid of taking it up as I had been of
+getting in it. However, they mustered courage, and, spreading their
+wings, raised me up in the air. I was, I suppose, a deal heavier than
+they expected; for they set me down upon the top of the first knoll in
+their path, and set me down so suddenly that I was aware of their
+intention only by being dashed against the ground. I sprang up, and
+began to rub the bruised spots, while my winged bearers folded their
+wings, and lay panting on the turf. They had not taken me a half-mile.
+When they were rested, my host motioned to me to resume my place; and
+the eight again bore me, with more deliberate stroke, a full mile before
+dropping me again. But they were so much exhausted, and took so long to
+rest, that I suggested, by signs and motions, that I should rather walk;
+and so for the next mile they carried the empty hammock, flying very
+slowly, while I walked rapidly, or ran, after them. When, in my turn, I
+became exhausted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> they motioned me into the hammock again. In this way,
+partly by being carried and partly on my own feet, I at length reached
+an immense arbor, in which several hundred of these creatures were
+assembled. It was the regular day of meeting for their Society of
+Natural History. One of our party first went in, and, I suppose,
+announced our arrival, then came out and spoke to my captor, who
+beckoned me to follow, and led me in. I was placed on a platform, and he
+then made a polyphonous speech, without a consonant sound in it;
+describing, as I afterwards learned, the history of my discovery and
+capture, and going into some speculations on my nature. Then the
+principal men crowded about me and felt me, and led me about the hall,
+until, what with the landings of the hammock and the handling of these
+sons of Mars, I was sore and wearied beyond expression.</p>
+
+<p>At length I was taken to a small arbor, where I was allowed to rest and
+to take food. The Society then, as I have since been told, held a long
+discussion, and finally appointed a committee to examine me, observe my
+habits, and report at the next regular meeting. There is no moon at
+Mars; but the regular meeting was on the twenty-eighth day
+following,&mdash;the seven notes of music having given them the idea of
+weeks.</p>
+
+<p>Extra ropes were then attached to the hammock, (which was built for the
+use of the infirm and aged, but the weight of these creatures is scarce
+half that of men,) and sixteen of them carried me back to my captor's
+homestead. That night I fell asleep before it was dark enough to see the
+stars, and assure myself, by a glance at the Milk Dipper, that it was
+not all a dream; but I awoke before daylight, and gazed through the
+lattice at the Twins, and at the Earth, shining with steady lustre upon
+Castor's knee.</p>
+
+<p>I will not weary the reader with details from my journal of each
+succeeding day. The committee came day after day and studied me. They
+induced me to lay aside part of my clothing that they might examine me
+more minutely, especially about the joints of the ankle, the knee,
+shoulder, and elbow; and were never weary of examining my neck and
+spinal column. I could not talk to them, and they had never seen a
+vertebrate higher in organization than their frogs and toads; wherefore,
+at the end of four weeks, they reported "that I was a new and wonderful
+gigantic Batrachian"; that "they recommended the Society to purchase me,
+and, after studying my habits thoroughly, dissect me, and mount my
+skeleton." Of which report I was, of course, in blessed ignorance for a
+long, long while.</p>
+
+<p>So my captor and his friends took the kindest care of me, and endeavored
+to amuse and instruct me, and also to find out what I would do if left
+to myself,&mdash;taking notes assiduously for the memoirs of their Society. I
+can assure the reader that I, on my part, was not idle, but took notes
+of them with equal diligence, at which imitation of their actions they
+were greatly amused. But I flatter myself that, when my notes, now in
+the hands of the Smithsonian Institution, are published, with the
+comments of the learned naturalists to whom the Institution has referred
+them, they will be found to embody the most valuable contributions to
+science. My own view of the inhabitants of Mars is that they are
+Rational Articulates. Rational they certainly are, and, although I am no
+naturalist, I venture to pronounce them Articulates. I do not mean
+anything disrespectful to these learned inhabitants of Mars in saying
+that their figure and movements reminded me of crickets: for I never
+have watched the black field-crickets in New England, standing on tiptoe
+to reach a blade of grass, without a feeling of admiration at their
+gentlemanly figure and the gracefulness of their air. But what is more
+important, I am told that Articulates breathe through spiracles in the
+sides of their bodies; and I know that these planetary men breathe
+through six mouths, three on either side of the body, entirely different
+in appearance and character from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> seventh mouth in their face,
+through which they eat.</p>
+
+<p>In the volumes of notes which will be published by the Smithsonian
+Institution as soon as the necessary engravings can be finished, will
+also appear all that I was able to learn concerning the natural history
+of that planet, under the strict limitation, to which I was subjected,
+of bringing to Earth nothing but what I could carry about my own
+person.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<p>I was, myself, particularly interested in investigating the Martial
+language, which differs entirely from our terrestrial tongues in not
+being articulate. Each of the six lateral mouths of these curious men is
+capable of sounding only one vowel, and of varying its musical pitch
+about five or six semitones. Thus, their six mouths give them a range of
+two and a half or three octaves. The right-hand lowest mouth is lowest
+in pitch, and gives a sound resembling the double <i>o</i> in <i>moon</i>; the
+next lowest in pitch is the lowest left-hand mouth, and its vowel is
+more like <i>o</i> in <i>note</i>. Thus they alternate, the highest left-hand
+mouth being highest in pitch, and uttering a sound resembling a long
+<i>ee</i>. The sound of each of the six is so individual, that, before I had
+been there six months, I could recognize, even in a stranger, the tones
+of each one of the six mouths. But they seldom use one mouth at a time.
+Their simplest ideas, such as the names of the most familiar objects,
+are expressed by brief melodic phrases, uttered by one mouth alone.
+Closely allied ideas are expressed by the same phrase uttered by a
+different mouth, and so with a different vowel-sound. But most ideas are
+complex; and these are expressed in the Mavortian speech by chords, or
+discords, produced by using two or more mouths at once. A few music
+types will illustrate this, by examples, better than any verbal
+description can do.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 421px;">
+<img src="images/image408.jpg" width="421" height="178" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>The signification of these chords is by no means arbitrary; but, on the
+contrary, their application is according to fixed rules and according to
+&aelig;sthetic principles; so that the highest poetry of these people becomes,
+in the very process of utterance, the finest music; while the utterance
+of base sentiments, or of fustian, becomes, by the very nature of the
+language, discordant, or at best vapid and unmelodious.</p>
+
+<p>It will readily be imagined that I was a very long while in learning to
+understand a speech so entirely different in all its principles from our
+earthly tongues. And when I began to comprehend it, as spoken by my new
+friends, I was unable, having but one mouth, to express anything but the
+simplest ideas. However, I had Yankee ingenuity enough to supply in some
+measure my want of lateral mouths.</p>
+
+<p>My captor daily allowed me more and more freedom, and at length
+permitted me to wander freely over the whole island, simply taking the
+precaution to send a boy with me as a companion and guide, in case I
+should lose my way. In one of these rambles I discovered a swamp of
+bamboos, and by the aid of my pocket-knife cut down several and carried
+them home. Then, with great difficulty and interminable labor, I managed
+to make a sort of small organ, a very rude affair, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> six kinds of
+pipes, six of each kind. A bamboo pipe, with a reed tongue of the same
+material, or even one with a flute action, was not so sweet in tone as
+the voice of my friends; but they saw what I was trying to do, and
+could, after growing familiar with the sound of my pipes, decipher my
+meaning. The astonishment of my captor and his family at finding that
+their monster Batrachian could not only express simple ideas with his
+one mouth, but all the most complex notions by pieces of bamboo fastened
+together and held on his knees before him, was beyond measure. From this
+time my progress in learning their speech was very rapid; and within a
+year from the completion of my organ I could converse fluently with
+them. Of course, I had not mastered all the intricacies of their tongue,
+and even up to the time of my leaving them I felt that I was a mere
+learner; nevertheless, I could understand the main drift of all that
+they said; and what was equally gratifying to me, I could express to
+them almost anything expressible in English, and they understood me.</p>
+
+<p>My life now became a very happy one; I became sincerely attached to my
+captor and to his family, and was charmed with their good sense and
+their kind feeling. I flatter myself also that they, in their turn, were
+not only proud of their Batrachian, but grew fond of him. They showed me
+more and more attention, gave me a seat at their table, and furnished me
+with clothes of their own fashion. I must confess, however, that the
+openings on the sides for their mouths, and on the back for their wings,
+were rather troublesome to me, and occasioned me several severe colds,
+until I taught them to make my vesture close about my chest.</p>
+
+<p>When visitors came to their house I was always invited to bring out my
+organ and converse with them. Strangers found some difficulty in
+understanding me; but with the family I conversed with perfect ease, and
+they interpreted for me. I found that the universal theory concerning me
+was, that I came from beyond a range of mountains on the nearest
+continent, beyond which no explorations had ever been made. Concerning
+my mode of crossing the steep and lofty barrier on the continent, and
+the deep, wide strait which separated the island from the mainland, they
+speculated in vain. I humored this theory at first, as far as I could
+without positive statements of falsehood, for I knew that, if I told the
+truth, it would be absolutely incredible to them; and I did not reveal
+to my Martial friends my own terrestrial, to them celestial character,
+until just before my departure.</p>
+
+<p>But my psychical character perplexed them much more than my zo&ouml;logical.
+It seems that these islanders had been accustomed to call themselves, in
+their own tongue, "rational animals with sentiments of justice and
+piety,"&mdash;all which, be it remembered, is expressed in their wonderful
+language by a simple harmonic progression of four full chords.<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> But
+here was a Batrachian,&mdash;one of the lower orders of creation, in their
+view,&mdash;from whom the Almighty had withheld the gift of a rational soul,
+who nevertheless appeared to reason as soundly as they,&mdash;to understand
+all their ideas,&mdash;not only repeating their sentences on his bamboo
+pipes, but commenting intelligently on them; and who not only gave these
+proofs of an understanding mind, but of a heart and soul, manifesting
+almost Mavortian affection for his captor's family, and occasionally
+betraying even the existence of some religious sentiments. Was all this
+delusive? Did this Batrachian really possess a rational soul, with
+sentiments of piety and justice, or only a wonderfully constructive
+faculty of imitation?</p>
+
+<p>Reader, in your pride of Caucasian blood, you may think it incredible
+that such doubts should have been entertained concerning a man whose
+father is from one of the best families in Holland, whose mother is
+descended from, good English stock, and who himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> exhibits sufficient
+intelligence to write this narrative; but nevertheless such doubts were
+actually entertained by a large proportion of the inhabitants of the
+island. Not only did the members of their Society of Natural History
+become warmly interested in the discussion, but finally the whole
+population of the island took sides on the question, and debated it with
+great warmth. The area of their country is about the same as that of
+Great Britain; but as they have no law of primogeniture, nor entailment
+of estates, nor hereditary rank, they have no poverty and no
+over-population; all of the inhabitants were happy and well-educated,
+all had abundant leisure, and all were ready to examine the evidence
+concerning the wonderful Batrachian that was said to have come ashore on
+the eastern side of their island.</p>
+
+<p>But alas! even in this well-governed and happy community, not every
+man's opinion was free from error, nor every man's temper free from
+prejudice and passion. Those who insisted that my bamboo music was only
+a parrot-like imitation of their speech accused those who held that I
+was really rational of the crime of exalting a Batrachian into equality
+with "rational animals with sentiments of justice and piety"; and the
+accused party, after a little natural shrinking from so bold a position,
+finally confessed the crime, by acknowledging that they thought that I
+was at least entitled to all the rights of their race. Here was the
+beginning of a feud which presently waxed as hot as that between the
+Big-Endians and the Little-Endians of Liliput.</p>
+
+<p>I have no doubt in my own mind that the temper displayed in this
+controversy sprang partly from causes which had been in operation for
+many years before my visit. Somewhere about the middle of the last
+century, (I am speaking now of terrestrial dates, translating their long
+years and odd numeral scale into ours,) a colony from the mainland had
+settled at one end of their island, and were still living among them.
+These continental men differed somewhat in figure and stature from the
+islanders, and their wings were of a dusky hue, while the islanders'
+wings were distinctly purple in their tone. These colonists were looked
+upon by most of the islanders as an inferior race, and there had been
+very few cases of intermarriage between them. These few cases had,
+however, led to some earnest discussions. Some maintained that it was
+only a want of good taste in a Purple-wing to be willing to marry a
+Dusky-wing, but that it was not a thing forbidden by morality or to be
+forbidden by law. Others maintained that such intermarriage was against
+nature, against public order and morality, and should be prohibited.
+Nay, some went so far as to say that these Dusky-wings were intruders,
+who ought to be sent back to their native continent; that the island was
+the Purple-wings' country, and that the Purple-wings should have
+absolute control over it, and ought not to suffer any other race to
+participate in its advantages.</p>
+
+<p>This division of opinion and feeling concerning the Dusky-wings,
+although deep and earnest, had not led to much open debate; the people
+of the island were very hospitable and polite, and they refrained to a
+great extent from showing their prejudices against the colonists. But my
+arrival gave them an opportunity of saying with open frankness many
+things which, although said concerning me, were meant and understood as
+referring to the immigrants from the continent. The Dusky-wings
+themselves said but little; they were quiet, inoffensive, affectionate
+people, who were somewhat wounded occasionally by the scorn of a
+Purple-wing, but simply went on minding their own business, and showing
+kindness to all persons alike.</p>
+
+<p>The aborigines of the island, outnumbering the others by twenty to one,
+discussed me and my position with eager warmth. On the one hand, it was
+argued that I was a Batrachian,&mdash;of a high species, it was granted, but
+still only an animal; that, if I really had reason and sentiments, they
+must be of a low order;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> that certainly I had no social nor legal rights
+which their race were bound to respect; that I was the property of my
+captor, by right of discovery, and he had absolute rights over me as a
+chattel; that he might sell me or use me as lawfully as he could sell or
+use clothing, food, or books; that he might compel me to work for him;
+and that he even had a right to poison me (as they poisoned troublesome
+insects) whenever he was tired of the burden of my support, or wished to
+study my anatomy.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, it was maintained that the fact of my being a
+Batrachian had no bearing on my moral rights, and ought not to have upon
+my social and legal rights. The capacity which I had for understanding
+the moral law and for feeling injustice gave me a claim to justice.
+Whoever has the moral sense to claim rights is by that very endowment
+vested with rights. "The true brotherhood between us rational animals,"
+said this party, "is founded in our rationality and in our sentiments of
+justice and piety, and not in our animal nature. But this Batrachian,
+although belonging to the lower orders of animal nature, partakes with
+us of reason and of the sentiments of justice and piety. He is therefore
+our brother, and his rights are as sacred as our own. He is the guest,
+and not the chattel, of the family who discovered him. To sell him or to
+buy him, to force him to labor against his will, to hold his life less
+sacred than our own, would be criminal."</p>
+
+<p>Of course I knew nothing of all this until I had been there for several
+years, and acquired a tolerable familiarity with their speech. Indeed,
+it required a considerable time for the feud to arrive at its highest.
+But at length party strife concerning me and concerning the relative
+superiority of the two races rose to such a pitch, that I seriously
+feared lest I should be the innocent cause of a civil war in this once
+happy island. Moreover, I saw that my presence was becoming a source of
+serious inconvenience to my host and to his family. They were attached
+to me, that I could not doubt; but neither could I doubt that it was
+unpleasant to them to have old acquaintances decline any further
+intercourse with them because they had allowed a Batrachian to sit at
+table with them.</p>
+
+<p>Very reluctantly I decided that I would ask Copernicus to restore me to
+my own family on Earth. First I broke the matter cautiously to my host,
+and explained to him confidentially my real origin and my intended
+return. He was astonished beyond measure at my revelation, and I could
+with difficulty persuade him that I was not of celestial nature. We
+talked it over daily for several weeks, and then explained it to the
+family, and afterwards to a select circle of friends, who were to
+publish it after my departure, and give to the whole island their first
+notions of <i>terrestrial</i> geography and history. Finally, I decided upon
+a night in which I would depart, and at bed-time bade the family good
+by. At midnight I filled my pockets and sundry satchels with my
+note-books, specimens of dried plants, insects, fragments of minerals,
+etc., and, hanging these satchels on my arms, called on Copernicus to
+fulfil his promise. Instantly all things disappeared again from my view;
+I was floating with my satchels in mid-ether, and fell into a trance.
+When I awaked, I was in my father's house in New York. How long the
+passage required, I have no means of determining.</p>
+
+<p>The present brief sketch of my life upon the planet Mars is designed
+partly to call attention to the volumes which I am preparing, in
+conjunction with more learned and more scientific <i>collaborateurs</i>, for
+immediate publication by the Smithsonian Institution, and partly for the
+gratification of readers who may never see those ponderous quartos.</p>
+
+<p>I will only add, that, since my return to Earth, I have never been able
+to obtain any information either from Copernicus or from any other of
+the illustrious dead, except through the pages of their printed works.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> The strangeness of my adventures will be so apt to breed
+incredulity among those unacquainted with my character, that I add some
+certificates from the highest names known to science.
+</p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"New York, June 13, 1865.&mdash;Three plants, submitted to me by Mr.
+George Snyder for examination, prove to be totally unlike any
+botanical family hitherto known or described in any books to
+which I have access.
+</p><p>
+"<span class="smcap">Robert Brown</span>, <i>Prof. Bott. Col., Coll. N. Y.</i>"
+</p><p>
+"New York, June 15, 1865.&mdash;Mr. George Snyder. Dear Sir: Your
+mineral gives, in the spectroscope, three elegant red bands and
+one blue band; and certainly contains a new metal hitherto
+unknown to chemistry.
+</p><p>
+"<span class="smcap">R. Bunsen</span>, <i>Prof. Chem., N. Y. Free Acad.</i>"
+</p><p>
+"Cambridge, Mass., June, 18, 1863.&mdash;Mr. George Snyder has
+placed in my hands three insects, belonging to three new
+families of Orthoptera, differing widely from all previously
+known.
+</p><p>
+"<span class="smcap">Kirby Spence</span>, <i>Assist. Ent., Mus. Comp. Z&ouml;ol.</i>"</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> These chords are those of E, A, B, E, whence the creatures
+might be called <i>Eabes</i>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="MADAM_WALDOBOROUGHS_CARRIAGE" id="MADAM_WALDOBOROUGHS_CARRIAGE"></a>MADAM WALDOBOROUGH'S CARRIAGE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>On a bright particular afternoon, in the month of November, 1855, I met
+on the Avenue des Champs &Eacute;lys&eacute;es, in Paris, my young friend Herbert
+J&mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p>After many desolate days of wind and rain and falling leaves, the city
+had thrown off her wet rags, so to speak, and arrayed herself in the
+gorgeous apparel of one of the most golden and perfect Sundays of the
+season. "All the world" was out of doors. The Boulevards, the Bois de
+Boulogne, the bridges over the Seine, all the public promenades and
+gardens, swarmed with joyous multitudes. The Champs &Eacute;lys&eacute;es, and the
+long avenue leading up to the Barri&egrave;re de l'&Eacute;toile, appeared one mighty
+river, an Amazon of many-colored human life. The finest July weather had
+not produced such a superb display; for now the people of fashion, who
+had passed the summer at their country-seats, or in Switzerland, or
+among the Pyrenees, reappeared in their showy equipages. The tide, which
+had been flowing to the Bois de Boulogne ever since two o'clock, had
+turned, and was pouring back into Paris. For miles, up and down, on
+either side of the city-wall, extended the glittering train of vehicles.
+The three broad, open gateways of the Barri&egrave;re proved insufficient
+channels; and far as you could see, along the Avenue de l'Imp&eacute;ratrice,
+stood three seemingly endless rows of carriages, closely crowded, unable
+to advance, waiting for the Barri&egrave;re de l'&Eacute;toile to discharge its
+surplus living waters. Detachments of the mounted city guard, and long
+lines of police, regulated the flow; while at the Barri&egrave;re an extra
+force of customhouse officers fulfilled the necessary formality of
+casting an eye of inspection into each vehicle as it passed, to see that
+nothing was smuggled.</p>
+
+<p>Just below the Barri&egrave;re, as I was moving with the stream of pedestrians,
+I met Herbert. He turned and took my arm. As he did so, I noticed that
+he lifted his bran-new Parisian hat towards heaven, saluting with a
+lofty flourish one of the carriages that passed the gate.</p>
+
+<p>It was a dashy barouche, drawn by a glossy-black span, and occupied by
+two ladies and a lapdog. A driver on the box, and a footman perched
+behind, both in livery,&mdash;long coats, white gloves, and gold bands on
+their hats,&mdash;completed the establishment The ladies sat facing each
+other, and their mingled, effervescing skirts and flounces filled the
+cup of the vehicle quite to over-foaming, like a Rochelle powder, nearly
+drowning the brave spaniel, whose sturdy little nose was elevated, for
+air, just above the surge.</p>
+
+<p>Both ladies recognized my friend, and she who sat, or rather reclined,
+(for such a luxurious, languishing attitude can hardly be called a
+sitting posture.) fairy-like, in the hinder part of the shell, bestowed
+upon him a very gracious, condescending smile. She was a most imposing
+creature,&mdash;in freshness of complexion, in physical development, and,
+above all, in amplitude and magnificence of attire, a full-blown rose of
+a woman,&mdash;aged, I should say, about forty.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know that turn-out?" said Herbert, as the shallop with its
+lovely freight floated on in the current.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so fortunate," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious! miserable man! Where do you live? In what obscure
+society have you buried yourself? Not to know <span class="smcap">Madam Waldoborough's
+Carriage</span>!"</p>
+
+<p>This was spoken in a tone of humorous extravagance which piqued my
+curiosity. Behind the ostentatious deference with which he had raised
+his hat to the sky, beneath the respectful awe with which he spoke the
+lady's name, I detected irony and a spirit of mischief.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Madam Waldoborough? and what about her carriage?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Who is Madam Waldoborough?" echoed Herbert, with mock astonishment;
+"that an American, six months in Paris, should ask that question! An
+American woman, and a woman of fortune, sir; and, which is more, of
+fashion; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any in
+Messina or elsewhere;&mdash;one that occupies a position, go to! and receives
+on Thursday evenings, go to! and that hath ambassadors at her table, and
+everything handsome about her! And as for her carriage," he continued,
+coming down from his Dogberrian strain of eloquence, "it is the very
+identical carriage which I didn't ride in once!"</p>
+
+<p>"How was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you; for it was a curious adventure, and as it was a very
+useful lesson to me, so you may take warning by my experience, and, if
+ever she invites you to ride with her, as she did me, beware! beware!
+her flashing eyes, her floating hair!&mdash;do not accept, or, before
+accepting, take Iago's advice, and put money in your purse: <span class="smcap">put money in
+your purse</span>! I'll tell you why.</p>
+
+<p>"But, in the first place, I must explain how I came to be without money
+in mine, so soon after arriving in Paris, where so much of the article
+is necessary. My woes all arise from vanity. That is the rock, that is
+the quicksand, that is the maelstrom. I presume you don't know anybody
+else who is afflicted with that complaint? If you do, I'll but teach you
+how to tell my story, and that will cure him; or, at least, it ought to.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, in crossing over to Liverpool in the steamer, I became
+acquainted with a charming young lady, who proved to be a second-cousin
+of my father's. She belongs to the aristocratic branch of our family.
+Every family tree has an aristocratic branch, or bough, or little twig
+at least, I believe. She was a Todworth; and having always heard my
+other relations mention with immense pride and respect the
+Todworths,&mdash;as if it was one of the solid satisfactions of life to be
+able to speak of 'my uncle Todworth,' or 'my cousins the Todworths,'&mdash;I
+was prepared to appreciate my extreme good fortune. She was a bride,
+setting out on her wedding tour. She had married a sallow, bilious,
+perfumed, very disagreeable fellow,&mdash;except that he too was an
+aristocrat, and a millionnaire besides, which made him very agreeable;
+at least, I thought so. That was before I rode in Madam Waldoborough's
+carriage: since which era in my life I have slightly changed my habits
+of thinking on these subjects.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the fair bride was most gratifyingly affable, and cousined me to
+my heart's content. Her husband was no less friendly: they not only
+petted me, but I think they really liked me; and by the time we reached
+London I was on as affectionately familiar terms with them as a younger
+brother could have been. If I had been a Todworth, they couldn't have
+made more of me. They insisted on my going to the same hotel with them,
+and taking a room adjoining their suite. This was a happiness to which I
+had but one objection,&mdash;my limited pecuniary resources. My family are
+neither aristocrats nor millionnaires; and economy required that I
+should place myself in humble and inexpensive lodgings for the two or
+three weeks I was to spend in London. But vanity! vanity! I was actually
+ashamed, sir, to do the honest and true thing,&mdash;afraid of disgracing my
+branch of the family in the eyes of the Todworth branch, and of losing
+the fine friends I had made, by confessing my poverty. The bride, I
+confess, was a delightful companion; but I know other ladies just as
+interesting, although they do not happen to be Todworths. For her sake,
+personally, I should never have thought of committing the folly; and
+still less, I assure you, for that piece of perfumed and
+yellow-complexioned politeness, her husband. It was pride, sir, pride
+that ruined me. They went to Cox's Hotel, in Jermyn Street; and I,
+simpleton as I was, went with them,&mdash;for that was before I rode in Madam
+Waldoborough's carriage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Cox's, I fancy, is the crack hotel of London. Lady Byron boarded there;
+the author of 'Childe Harold' himself used to stop there; Tom Moore
+wrote a few of his last songs and drank a good many of his last bottles
+of wine there; my Lords Tom, Dick, and Harry,&mdash;the Duke of Dash, Sir
+Edward Splash, and Viscount Flash,&mdash;these and other notables always
+honor Cox's when they go to town. So <i>we</i> honored Cox's. And a very
+quiet, orderly, well-kept tavern we found it. I think Mr. Cox must have
+a good housekeeper. He has been fortunate in securing a very excellent
+cook. I should judge that he had engaged some of the finest gentlemen in
+England to act as waiters. Their manners would do credit to any
+potentate in Europe: there is that calm self-possession about them, that
+serious dignity of deportment, sustained by a secure sense of the mighty
+importance of their mission to the world which strikes a beholder with
+awe. I was made to feel very inferior in their presence. We dined at a
+private table, and these ministers of state waited upon us. They brought
+us the morning paper on a silver salver; they presented it as if it had
+been a mission from a king to a king. Whenever we went out or came in,
+there stood two of those magnates, in white waistcoats and white gloves,
+to open the folding-doors for us, with stately mien. You would have said
+it was the Lord High Chamberlain and his deputy, and that I was at least
+Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. I tried to receive
+these overpowering attentions with an air of easy indifference, like one
+who had been all his life accustomed to that sort of thing, you know;
+but I was oppressed with a terrible sense of being out of my place. I
+couldn't help feeling that these serene and lofty highnesses knew
+perfectly well that I was a green Yankee boy, with less than fifty
+pounds in my pocket; and I fancied that, behind the mask of gravity each
+imperturbable countenance wore, there was always lurking a smile of
+contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"But this was not the worst of it. I suffered from another cause. If
+noblemen were my attendants, I must expect to maintain noblemen. All
+that ceremony and deportment must go into the bill. With this view of
+the case, I could not look at their white kids without feeling sick at
+heart; white waistcoats became a terror; the sight of an august
+neckcloth, bowing its solemn attentions to me, depressed my very soul.
+The folding-doors, on golden hinges turning,&mdash;figuratively, at least, if
+not literally, like those of Milton's heaven,&mdash;grated as horrible
+discords on my secret ear as the gates of Milton's other place. It was
+my gold that helped to make those hinges. And this I endured merely for
+the sake of enjoying the society, not of my dear newly-found cousins,
+but of two phantoms, intangible, unsatisfactory, unreal that hovered
+over their heads,&mdash;the phantom of wealth and the still more empty
+phantom of social position. But all this, understand, was <i>before</i> I
+rode in Madam Waldoborough's carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I saw London in company with my aristocratic relatives, and paid
+a good deal more for the show, and really profited less by it, than if I
+had gone about the business in my own deliberate and humble way.
+Everything was, of course, done in the most lordly and costly manner
+known. Instead of walking to this place or that, or taking an omnibus or
+a cab, we rolled magnificently in our carriage. I suppose the happy
+bridegroom would willingly have defrayed all these expenses, if I had
+wished him to do so; but pride prompted me to pay my share. So it
+happened that, during nine days in London, I spent as much as would have
+lasted me as many weeks, if I had been as wise as I was vain,&mdash;that is,
+if I had ridden in Madam Waldoborough's carriage <i>before</i> I went to
+England.</p>
+
+<p>"When I saw how things were going, bankruptcy staring me in the face,
+ruin yawning at my feet, I was suddenly seized with an irresistible
+desire to go on to Paris, I had a French fever of the most violent
+character. I declared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> myself sick of the soot and smoke uproar of the
+great Babel,&mdash;I even spoke slightingly of Cox's Hotel, as if I had been
+used to better things,&mdash;and I called for my bill. Heavens and earth, how
+I trembled! Did ever a condemned wretch feel as faint at the sight of
+the priest coming to bid him prepare for the gallows, as I did at the
+sight of one of those sublime functionaries bringing me my doom on a
+silver salver? Every pore opened; a clammy perspiration broke out all
+over me; I reached forth a shaking hand, and thanked his highness with a
+ghastly smile.</p>
+
+<p>"A few figures told my fate. The convict who hears his death-sentence
+may still hope for a reprieve; but figures are inexorable, figures
+cannot lie. My bill at Cox's was in pounds, shillings, and pence,
+amounting to just eleven dollars a day. Eleven times nine are
+ninety-nine. It was so near a round hundred, it seemed a bitter mockery
+not to say a hundred, and have done with it, instead of scrupulously
+stopping to consider a single paltry dollar. I was reminded of the boy
+whose father bragged of killing nine hundred and ninety-nine pigeons at
+one shot. Somebody asked why he didn't say a thousand. 'Thunder!' says
+the boy, 'do you suppose my father would lie just for one pigeon?' I
+told the story, to show my cousins how coolly I received the bill, and
+paid it,&mdash;coined my heart and dropped my blood for drachmas, rather than
+appear mean in presence of my relatives, although I knew that a portion
+of the charge was for the bridal arrangements for which the bridegroom
+alone was responsible.</p>
+
+<p>"This drained my purse so nearly dry that I had only just money enough
+left to take me to Paris, and pay for a week's lodging or so in advance.
+They urged me to remain and go to Scotland with them; but I tore myself
+away, and fled to France. I would not permit them to accompany me to the
+railroad station, and see me off; for I was unwilling that they should
+know I was going to economize my finances by purchasing a second-class
+ticket. From the life I had been leading at Cox's to a second-class
+passage to Paris was that step from the sublime to the ridiculous which
+I did not wish to be seen taking. I think I'd have thrown myself into
+the Thames before I would thus have exposed myself; for, as I tell you,
+I had not yet been honored with a seat in Madame Waldoborough's
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"It is certainly a grand thing to keep grand company; but if ever I felt
+a sense of relief, it was when I found myself free from my cousins,
+emancipated from the fearful bondage of keeping up such expensive
+appearances; when I found myself seated on the hard, cushionless bench
+of the second-class car, and nibbled my crackers at my leisure,
+unoppressed by the awful presence of those grandees in white waistcoats,
+and by the more awful presence of a condemning conscience within myself.</p>
+
+<p>"I nibbled my crackers, and they tasted sweeter than Cox's best dinners;
+I nibbled, and contemplated my late experiences; nibbled, and was almost
+persuaded to be a Christian,&mdash;that is, to forswear thenceforth and
+forever all company which I could not afford to keep, all appearances
+which were not honest, all foolish pride, and silly ambition, and moral
+cowardice;&mdash;as I did after I had ridden in a certain carriage I have
+mentioned, and which I am coming to now as fast as possible.</p>
+
+<p>"I had lost nearly all my money and a good share of my self-respect by
+the course I had taken, and I could think of only one substantial
+advantage which I had gained. That was a note of introduction from my
+lovely cousin to Madame Waldoborough. That would be of inestimable value
+to me in Paris. It would give me access to the best society, and secure
+to me, a stranger many privileges which could not otherwise be obtained.
+'Perhaps, after all,' thought I, as I read over the flattering contents
+of the unsealed note,&mdash;'perhaps, after all, I shall find this worth
+quite as much as it has cost me.' O, had I foreseen that it was actually
+destined to procure me an invitation to ride<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> out with Madam
+Waldoborough herself, shouldn't I have been elated?</p>
+
+<p>"I reached Paris, took a cheap lodging, and waited for the arrival of my
+uncle's goods destined for the Great Exhibition,&mdash;for to look after
+them, (I could speak French, you know,) and to assist in having them
+properly placed, was the main business that had brought me here. I also
+waited anxiously for my uncle and a fresh supply of funds. In the mean
+time I delivered my letters of introduction, and made a few
+acquaintances. Twice I called at Madam Waldoborough's hotel, but did not
+see her; she was out. So at least the servants said, but I suspect they
+lied; for, the second time I was told so, I noticed, O, the most
+splendid turn-out!&mdash;the same you just saw pass&mdash;waiting in the
+carriage-way before her door, with the driver on the box, and the
+footman holding open the silver-handled and escutchioned panel that
+served as a door to the barouche, as if expecting some grand personage
+to get in.</p>
+
+<p>"'Some distinguished visitor, perhaps,' thought I; 'or, it may be, Madam
+Waldoborough herself; instead of being out, she is just going out, and
+in five minutes the servant's lie will be a truth.' Sure enough, before
+I left the street&mdash;for I may as well confess that curiosity caused me to
+linger a little&mdash;my lady herself appeared in all her glory, and bounced
+into the barouche with a vigor that made it rock quite unromantically;
+for she is not frail, she is not a butterfly, as you perceived. I
+recognized her from a description I had received from my cousin the
+bride. She was accompanied by that meagre, smart little sprite of a
+French girl, whom Madam always takes with her,&mdash;to talk French with, and
+to be waited upon by her, she says; but rather, I believe, by way of a
+contrast to set off her own brilliant complexion and imperial
+proportions. It is Juno and Arachne. The divine orbs of the goddess
+turned haughtily upon me, but did not see me,&mdash;looked through and beyond
+me, as if I had been nothing but gossamer, feathers, air; and the little
+black, bead-like eyes of the insect pierced me maliciously an instant,
+as the barouche dashed past, and disappeared in the Rue de Rivoli. I was
+humiliated; I felt that I was recognized,&mdash;known as the rash youth who
+had just called at the H&ocirc;tel de Waldoborough, been told that Madam was
+out, and had stopped outside to catch the hotel in a lie. It is very
+singular&mdash;how do you explain it?&mdash;that it should have seemed to me the
+circumstance was something, not for Madam, but for me to be ashamed of!
+I don't believe that the color of her peachy cheeks was heightened the
+shadow of a shade; but as for me, I blushed to the tips of my ears.</p>
+
+<p>"You may believe that I did not go away in such a cheerful frame of mind
+as might have encouraged me to repeat my call in a hurry. I just coldly
+enclosed to her my cousin's letter of introduction, along with my
+address; and said to myself, 'Now, she'll know what a deuse of a fellow
+she has slighted: she'll know she has put an affront upon a connection
+of the Todworths!' I was very silly, you see, for I had not yet&mdash;but I
+am coming to that part of my story.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, returning to my lodgings a few days afterwards, I found a note
+which had been left for me by a liveried footman,&mdash;Madam Waldoborough's
+footman, O heaven! I was thrown into great trepidation by the stupendous
+event, and eagerly inquired if Madam herself was in her carriage, and
+was immensely relieved to learn she was not; for, unspeakably gratifying
+as such condescension, such an Olympian compliment, would have been
+under other circumstances, I should have felt it more than offset by the
+mortification of knowing that she knew, that her own eyes had beheld,
+the very humble quarter in which a lack of means had compelled me to
+locate myself.</p>
+
+<p>"I turned from that frightful possibility to the note itself. It was
+everything I could have asked. It was ambrosia, it was nectar. I had
+done a big thing when I fired the Todworth gun: it had brought the enemy
+to terms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> My cousin was complimented, and I was welcomed to Paris,
+and&mdash;<span class="smcap">the H&ocirc;tel Waldoborough</span>!</p>
+
+<p>"'Why have you not called to see me?' the note inquired, with charming
+innocence. 'I shall be at home to-morrow morning at two o'clock; cannot
+you give me the pleasure of greeting so near a relative of my dear,
+delightful Louise?'</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, I would afford her that pleasure! 'O, what a thing it is,' I
+said to myself, 'to be a third cousin to a Todworth!' But the two
+o'clock in the morning,&mdash;how should I manage that? I had not supposed
+that fashionable people in Paris got up so early, much less received
+visitors at that wonderful hour. But, on reflection, I concluded that
+two in the morning meant two in the afternoon; for I had heard that the
+great folks commenced their day at about that time.</p>
+
+<p>"At two o'clock, accordingly, the next afternoon,&mdash;excuse me, O ye
+fashionable ones! I mean the next morning,&mdash;I sallied forth from my
+little barren room in the Rue des Vieux Augustins, and proceeded to
+Madam's ancient palace in the Rue St. Martin, dressed in my best, and
+palpitating with a sense of the honor I was doing myself. This time the
+<i>concierge</i> smiled encouragingly, and ascertained for me that Madam
+<i>was</i> at home. I ascended the polished marble staircase to a saloon on
+the first floor, where I was requested to have the <i>obligeance
+d'attendre un petit moment</i>, until Madam should be informed of my
+arrival.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a very large, and, I must admit, a very respectable saloon,
+although not exactly what I had expected to see at the very summit of
+the social Olympus. I dropped into a fauteuil near a centre-table, on
+which there was a fantastical silver-wrought card-basket. What struck me
+particularly about the basket was a well-known little Todworth envelope,
+superscribed in the delicate handwriting of my aristocratic cousin,&mdash;my
+letter of introduction, in fact,&mdash;displayed upon the very top of the
+pile of billets and cards. My own card I did not see; but in looking for
+it I discovered some curious specimens of foreign orthography,&mdash;one
+dainty little note to '<i>Madame Valtobureau</i>'; another laboriously
+addressed to '<i>M. et Mme. Jean Val-d'eau-B&egrave;rot</i>'; and still a third, in
+which the name was conscientiously and industriously written out,
+'<i>Ou&acirc;ld&ocirc;beurreaux</i>. This last, as an instance of spelling an English
+word <i>&agrave; la Fran&ccedil;aise</i>, I thought a remarkable success, and very
+creditable to people who speak of <i>Lor Berong</i>, meaning Lord Byron,
+(<i>Be-wrong</i> is good!) and talk glibly about <i>Frongclang</i>, and
+<i>Vashangtong</i>, meaning the great philosopher, and the Father of his
+Country.</p>
+
+<p>"I was trying to amuse myself with these orthographical curiosities, yet
+waiting anxiously all the while for the appearance of that illustrious
+ornament of her sex, to whom they were addressed; and the servant's
+'<i>petit moment</i>' had become a good <i>petit quart d'heure</i>, when the
+drawing-room door opened, and in glided, not the Goddess, but the
+Spider.</p>
+
+<p>"She had come to beg Monsieur (that was me) to have the bounty to excuse
+Madam (that was the Waldoborough), who had caused herself to be waited
+for, and who, I was assured, would give herself '<i>le plaisir de me voir
+dans un tout petit moment</i>.' So saying, with a smile, she seated
+herself; and, discovering that I was an American, began to talk bad
+English to me. I may say execrable English; for it is a habit your
+Frenchwoman often has, to abandon her own facile and fluent vernacular,
+which she speaks so charmingly, in order to show off a wretched
+smattering she may have acquired of your language,&mdash;from politeness,
+possibly, but I rather think from vanity. In the mean time Arachne
+busied her long agile fingers with some very appropriate embroidery; and
+busied her mind, too, I couldn't help thinking, weaving some intricate
+web of mischief,&mdash;for her eyes sparkled as they looked at me with a
+certain gleeful, malicious expression,&mdash;seeming to say, 'You have walked
+into my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> parlor, Mr. Fly, and I am sure to entangle you!' which made me
+feel uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>"The '<i>tout petit moment</i>' had become another good quarter of an hour,
+when the door again opened, and Madam&mdash;Madam herself&mdash;the Waldoborough
+appeared! Did you ever see flounces? did you ever witness expansion?
+have your eyes ever beheld the&mdash;so to speak&mdash;new-risen sun trailing
+clouds of glory over the threshold of the dawn? You should have seen
+Madam enter that room; you should have seen the effulgence of the
+greeting smile she gave me; then you wouldn't wonder that I was dazzled.</p>
+
+<p>"She filled and overflowed with her magnificence the most royal fauteuil
+in the saloon, and talked to me of my Todworth cousin, and of my
+Todworth cousin's husband, and of London, and America,&mdash;occasionally
+turning aside to show off her bad French by speaking to the Spider,
+until another quarter of an hour had elapsed. Then Paris was mentioned;
+one of us happened to speak of the Gobelins,&mdash;I cannot now recall which
+it was first uttered that fatal word to me, the direful spring of woes
+unnumbered! Had I visited the Gobelins? I had not, but I anticipated
+having that pleasure soon.</p>
+
+<p>"'Long as I have lived in Paris, I have never yet been to the Gobelins!'
+says Mrs. Waldoborough. '<i>Mademoiselle</i>' (that was Arachne) '<i>m'accuse
+toujours d'avoir tort, et me dit que je dois y aller, n'est ce pas,
+Mademoiselle?</i>'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Certainement!</i>' says Mademoiselle, emphatically; and in return for
+Madam's ill-spoken French, she added in English, of even worse quality,
+that the Gobelins' manufacture of tapisserie and carpet, was the place
+the moz curiouze and interressante which one could go see in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>C'est ce qu'elle dit toujours</i>,' says the Waldoborough. 'But I make
+great allowances for her opinions, since she is an enthusiast with
+regard to everything that pertains to weaving.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Very natural that she should be, being a Spider,' I thought, but did
+not say so.</p>
+
+<p>"'However,' Madam continued, 'I should like extremely well to go there,
+if I could ever get the time. <i>Quand aurai-je le tems, Mademoiselle?</i>'</p>
+
+<p>"'I sink zis af'noon is more time zan you have anozer day, Madame,' says
+the Spider.</p>
+
+<p>"So the net was completed, and I was caught thus: Mrs. Waldoborough,
+with an hospitable glance at me, referred the proposition; and I said,
+if she would like to go that day, she must not let me hinder her, and
+offered to take my leave; and Arachne said, 'Monsieur perhaps he like go
+too?' And as Madam suggested ordering the carriage for the purpose, of
+course I jumped at the chance. To ride in that carriage! with the
+Waldoborough herself! with the driver before and the footman behind, in
+livery! O ye gods!</p>
+
+<p>"I was abandoned to intoxicating dreams of ambition, whilst Madam went
+to prepare herself, and Mademoiselle to order the carriage. It was not
+long before I heard a vehicle enter the court-yard, turn, and stop in
+the carriage-way, I tried to catch a glimpse of it from the window, but
+saw it only in imagination,&mdash;that barouche of barouches, which is
+Waldoborough's! I imagined myself seated luxuriously in that shell, with
+Madam by my side, rolling through the streets of Paris in even greater
+state than I had rolled through London with my Todworth cousin. I was
+impatient to be experiencing the new sensation. The moments dragged:
+five, ten, fifteen minutes at least elapsed, and all the while the
+carriage and I were waiting. Then appeared&mdash;who do you suppose? The
+Spider, dressed for an excursion. 'So she is going too!' thought I, not
+very well pleased. She had in her arms&mdash;what do you suppose? A
+confounded little lapdog,&mdash;the spaniel you saw just now with his nose
+just above the crinoline.</p>
+
+<p>"'Monsieur,' says she, 'I desire make you know the King Fran&ccedil;ois.' I
+hate lapdogs; but, in order to be civil, I offered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> to pat his majesty
+on the head. That, however, did not seem to be court-etiquette; and I
+got snapped at by the little despot. 'Our compagnon of voyage,' says
+Mademoiselle, pacifying him with caresses.</p>
+
+<p>"'So, he is going too?' thought I,&mdash;so unreasonable as to feel a little
+dissatisfied; as if I had a right to say who should or who should not
+ride in Madam Waldoborough's carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle sat with her hat on, and held the pup; and I sat with my
+hat in my hand, and held my peace; and she talked bad English to me, and
+good French to the dog, for, may be, ten minutes longer, when the
+Waldoborough swept in, arrayed for the occasion, and said, '<i>Maintenant
+nous irons</i>.' That was the signal for descending: as we did so, Madam
+casually remarked, that something was the matter with one of the
+Waldoborough horses, but that she had not thought it worth the while to
+give up our visit to the Gobelins on that account, since a <i>coup&eacute;</i> would
+answer our purpose;&mdash;and the <i>coup&eacute;s</i> in that quarter were really very
+respectable!</p>
+
+<p>"This considerate remark was as a feather-bed to break the frightful
+fall before me. You think I tumbled down the Waldoborough stairs? Worse
+than that: I dropped headlong, precipitately, from the heights of fairy
+dreams to low actuality; all the way down, down, down, from the
+Waldoborough barouche to a hired coach, a <i>voiture de remise</i>, that
+stood in its place at the door!</p>
+
+<p>"'Mademoiselle suggested that it would be quite as well to go in a
+<i>coup&eacute;</i>,' says Mrs. Waldoborough, as she got in.</p>
+
+<p>"'O certainly,' I replied, with preternatural cheerfulness. But I could
+have killed the Spider; for I suspected this was a part of the plot she
+had been weaving to entangle me.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a vehicle with two horses and seats for four; one driver in a
+red face,&mdash;the common livery of your Paris hackman; but no footman, no
+footman, no footman!" Hubert repeated, with a groan. "Not so much as a
+little tiger clinging to the straps behind! I comforted myself, however,
+with the reflection that beggars must not be choosers; that, if I rode
+with Madam, I must accept her style of turn-out; and that if I was a
+good boy, and went in the <i>coup&eacute;</i> this time, I might go in the barouche
+the next.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam occupied the back seat&mdash;the seat of honor in a coach&mdash;with whom,
+do you suppose? Me? No, sir! With the Spider? Not even with the Spider!
+With the lapdog, sir! And I was forced to content myself with a seat by
+Arachne's side, facing the royal pair.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Aux Gobelins</i>,' says Mrs. Waldoborough, to the driver; '<i>mais allez
+par l'H&ocirc;tel de Ville, le pont Louis Philippe, el l'&eacute;glise de N&ocirc;tre
+Dame,&mdash;n'est-ce pas?</i>' referring the question to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I said, 'As you please.' And the red-faced driver said, '<i>Bien,
+Madame!</i>' as he shut us into the coach. And off we went by the H&ocirc;tel de
+Ville, the Pont Louis Philippe, and N&ocirc;tre Dame, accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>"We stopped a few minutes to look at the Cathedral front; then rattled
+on, up the Quai and across the Pont de l'Archev&ecirc;ch&eacute;, and through the
+crooked, countless streets until we reached the Gobelins; and I must
+confess I did not yet experience any of the sublime emotions I had
+counted upon in riding with the distinguished Madam Waldoborough.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been to the Gobelins? If you haven't, you must go there,&mdash;not
+with two ladies and a lapdog, as I did, but independently, and you will
+find the visit well worth the trouble. The establishment derives its
+name from an obscure wool-dyer of the fifteenth century, Jean Gobelin,
+whose little workshop has grown to be one of the most extensive and
+magnificent carpet and tapestry manufactories in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"We found liveried attendants stationed at every door and turning-point,
+to direct the crowds of visitors and to keep out dogs. No dog could be
+admitted except in arms. I suggested that King Francis should be left in
+the coach; upon which Mrs. Waldoborough asked,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> reproachfully, 'Could I
+be so cruel?' and the Spider looked at me as if I had been an American
+savage. To atone for my inhumanity, I offered to carry the cur; he was
+put into my arms at once; and so it happened that I walked through that
+wonderful series of rooms, hung with tapestries of the richest
+description, of the times of Francis I., Louis XIV., and so forth, with
+a detested lapdog in my hands. However, I showed my heroism by enduring
+my fate without a murmur, and quoting Tennyson for the gratification of
+Mrs. Waldoborough, who was reminded of the corridors of 'The Palace of
+Art.'</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Some were hung with arras green and blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Showing a gaudy summer-morn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where with puffed cheek the belted hunter blew<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">His wreath&eacute;d bugle-horn.'<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'One showed an iron coast, and angry waves.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">You seemed to hear them climb and fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Beneath the windy wall.'<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasped,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From off her shoulder backward borne:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From one hand drooped a crocus: one hand grasped<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The mild bull's golden horn.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And so forth, and so on. I continued my citations in order to keep
+Madam's mouth shut; for she annoyed me exceedingly by telling everybody
+she had occasion to speak with who she was.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Je suis Madame Waldoborough; et je d&eacute;sire savoir</i>' this thing, or
+that,&mdash;whatever she wished to inquire about; as if all the world knew of
+her fame, and she had only to state, 'I am that distinguished
+personage,' in order to command the utmost deference and respect.</p>
+
+<p>"From the show-rooms we passed on to the work-rooms, where we found the
+patient weavers sitting or standing at the back side of their pieces,
+with their baskets of many-colored spools at their sides, and the
+paintings they were copying behind them, slowly building up their
+imitative fabrics, loop after loop, and stitch after stitch, by hand.
+Madam told the workmen who she was, and learned that one had been at
+work six months on his picture; it was a female figure kneeling to a
+colossal pair of legs, destined to support a warrior, whose upper
+proportions waited to be drawn out of the spool-baskets. Another had
+been a year at work on a headless Virgin with a babe in her arms,
+finished only to the eyes. Sometimes ten, or even twenty years, are
+expended by one man upon a single piece of tapestry; but the patience of
+the workmen is not more wonderful than the art with which they select
+and blend their colors, passing from the softest to the most brilliant
+shades, without fault, as the work they are copying requires.</p>
+
+<p>"From the tapestry-weaving we passed on to the carpet-weaving rooms,
+where the workmen have the right side of their fabric before them, and
+the designs to be copied over their heads. Some of the patterns were of
+the most gorgeous description,&mdash;vines, scrolls, flowers, birds, lions,
+men; and the way they passed from the reflecting brain through the
+fingers of the weaver into the woollen texture was marvellous to behold.
+I could have spent some hours in the establishment pleasantly enough,
+watching the operatives, but for that terrible annoyance, the dog in my
+arms. I could not put him down, and I could not ask the ladies to take
+him. The Spider was in her element; she forgot everything but the toil
+of her fellow-spiders, and it was almost impossible to get her away from
+any piece she once became interested in. Madam, busy in telling who she
+was and asking questions, gave me little attention; so that I found
+myself more in the position of a lackey than a companion. I had
+regretted that her footman did not accompany us; but what need was there
+of a footman as long as she had me?</p>
+
+<p>"In half and hour I had become weary of the lapdog and the Gobelins, and
+wished to get away. But no,&mdash;Madam must tell more people who she was,
+and make further inquiries; and as for Arachne, I believe she would have
+remained there until this time. Another half-hour, and another, and
+still the good part of another, exhausted the strength of my arms and
+the endurance of my soul, until at last Mrs. Waldoborough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> said, '<i>Eh
+bien, nous avons tout vu, n'est-ce pas? Allons donc!</i>' And we
+<i>allonged</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"We found our <i>coup&eacute;</i> waiting for us, and I thrust his majesty King
+Francis into it rather unceremoniously. Now you must know that all this
+time Mrs. Waldoborough had not the remotest idea but that she was
+treating me with all due civility. She is one of your thoroughly
+egotistical, self-absorbed women, accustomed to receiving homage, who
+appear to consider that to breathe in their presence and attend upon
+them is sufficient honor and happiness for anybody.</p>
+
+<p>"'Never mind,' thought I, 'she'll invite me to dinner, and may be I
+shall meet an ambassador!'</p>
+
+<p>"Arrived at the Hotel Waldoborough, accordingly, I stepped out of the
+<i>coup&eacute;</i>, and helped out the ladies and the lapdog, and was going in with
+them, as a matter of course. But the Spider said, 'Do not give yourself
+ze pain, Monsieur!' and relieved me of King Francis. And Madam said,
+'Shall I order the driver to be paid? or will you retain the <i>coup&eacute;</i>?
+You will want it to take you home. Well, good day,'&mdash;offering me two
+fingers to shake. 'I am very happy to have met you; and I hope I shall
+see you at my next reception. Thursday evening, remember; I receive
+Thursday evenings. <i>Cocher, vous emporterez ce monsieur chez lui,
+comprennez?</i>'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Bien, Madame!</i>' says the <i>cocher</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Bon jour, Monsieur!</i>' says Arachne, gayly, tripping up the stairs
+with the king in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I was stunned. For a minute I did not know very well what I was about;
+indeed, I should have done very differently if I had had my wits about
+me. I stepped back into the <i>coup&eacute;</i>,&mdash;weary, disheartened, hungry; my
+dinner hour was past long ago; it was now approaching Madam's dinner
+hour, and I was sent away fasting. What was worse, the <i>coup&eacute;</i> left for
+me to pay for. It was three hours since it had been ordered; price, two
+francs an hour; total, six francs. I had given the driver my address,
+and we were clattering away towards the Rue des Vieux Augustins, when I
+remembered, with a sinking of the heart I trust you may never
+experience, that I had not six francs in the world,&mdash;at least in this
+part of the world,&mdash;thanks to my Todworth cousin; that I had, in fact,
+only fifteen paltry sous in my pocket!</p>
+
+<p>"Here was a scrape! I had ridden in Madam Waldoborough's carriage with a
+vengeance! Six francs to pay! and how was I ever to pay it? '<i>Cocher!
+cocher!</i>' I cried out, despairingly, '<i>attendez!</i>'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Qu'est-il?</i>' says the <i>cocher</i>, stopping promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Struck with the appalling thought that every additional rod we
+travelled involved an increase of expense, my first impulse was to jump
+out and dismiss him. But then came the more frightful nightmare fancy,
+that it was not possible to dismiss him unless I could pay him! I must
+keep him with me until I could devise some means of raising the six
+francs, which an hour later would be eight francs, and an hour later ten
+francs, and so forth. Every moment that I delayed payment swelled the
+debt; like a ruinous rate of interest, and diminished the possibility of
+ever being able to pay him at all. And of course I could not keep him
+with me forever,&mdash;go about the world henceforth in a hired coach, with a
+driver and span of horses impossible to get rid of.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Que veut Monsieur?</i>' says the driver, looking over at me with his red
+face, and waiting for my orders.</p>
+
+<p>"That recalled me from my hideous revery. I knew I might as well be
+travelling as standing still, since he was to be paid by the hour; so I
+said, 'Drive on, drive faster!'</p>
+
+<p>"I had one hope,&mdash;that on reaching my lodgings I might prevail upon the
+<i>concierge</i> to pay for the coach. I stepped out with alacrity, said
+gayly to my coachman, '<i>Combien est-ce que je vous dois?</i>' and put my
+hand in among my fifteen sous with an air of confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"The driver looked at his watch, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> said, with business-like
+exactness, '<i>Six francs vingt-cinq centimes, Monsieur.</i>' <i>Vingt-cinq
+centimes!</i> My debt had increased five cents whilst I had been thinking
+about it! '<i>Avec quelque-chose pour la boisson</i>,' he added with a
+persuasive smile. With a trifle besides for drink-money,&mdash;for that every
+French driver expects.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I appeared to discover, to my surprise, that I had not the change;
+so I cried out to the old woman in the porter's lodge, 'Give this man
+five francs for me, will you?' 'Five francs!' echoed the ogress with
+astonishment: '<i>Monsieur, je n'ai pas le sou!</i>'</p>
+
+<p>"I might have known it; of course she wouldn't have a sou for a poor
+devil like me; but the reply fell upon my heart like a death sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"I then proposed to call at the driver's stand and pay him in a day or
+two, if he would trust me. He smiled and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"'Very well,' said I, stepping back into the coach, 'drive to number
+five, Cit&eacute; Odiot.' I had an acquaintance there, of whom I thought I
+might possibly borrow. The coachman drove away cheerfully, seeming to be
+perfectly well satisfied with the state of things: he was master of the
+situation,&mdash;he was having employment, his pay was going on, and he could
+hold me in pledge for the money. We reached the Cit&eacute; Odiot: I ran in at
+number five, and up stairs to my friend's room. It was locked; he was
+away from home.</p>
+
+<p>"I had but one other acquaintance in Paris on whom I could venture to
+call for a loan of a few francs; and he lived far away, across the
+Seine, in the Rue Racine. There seemed to be no alternative; so away we
+posted, carrying my ever-increasing debt, dragging at each remove a
+lengthening chain. We reached the Rue Racine; I found my friend; I wrung
+his hand. 'For Heaven's sake,' said I, 'help me to get rid of this Old
+Man of the Sea,&mdash;this elephant won in a raffle!'</p>
+
+<p>"I explained. He laughed. 'What a funny adventure!' says he. 'And how
+curious that at this time, of all others, I haven't ten sous in the
+world! But I'll tell you what I can do,' says he.</p>
+
+<p>"'For mercy's sake, what?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I can get you out of the building by a private passage, take you
+through into the Rue de la Harpe, and let you escape. Your coachman will
+remain waiting for you at the door until you have traversed half Paris.
+That will be a capital point to the joke,&mdash;a splendid <i>finale</i> for your
+little comedy!'</p>
+
+<p>"I confess to you that, perplexed and desperate as I was, I felt for an
+instant tempted to accept this infamous suggestion. Not that I would
+willingly have wronged the coachman; but since there was no hope of
+doing him justice, why not do the best thing for myself? If I could not
+save my honor, I might at least save my person. And I own that the
+picture of him which presented itself to my mind, waiting at the door so
+complacently, so stolidly, intent only on sticking by me at the rate of
+two francs an hour until paid off,&mdash;without feeling a shadow of sympathy
+for my distress, but secretly laughing at it, doubtless,&mdash;that provoked
+me; and I was pleased to think of him waiting there still, after I
+should have escaped, until at last his beaming red face would suddenly
+grow purple with wrath, and his placidity change to consternation, on
+discovering that he had been outwitted. But I knew too well what he
+would do. He would report me to the police! Worse than that, he would
+report me to Madam Waldoborough!</p>
+
+<p>"Already I fancied him, with his whip under his arm, smilingly taking
+off his hat, and extending his hand to the amazed and indignant lady,
+with a polite request that she would pay for that <i>coup&eacute;</i>! What <i>coup&eacute;</i>?
+And he would tell his story, and the Goddess would be thunderstruck; and
+the eyes of the Spider would sparkle wickedly; and I should be damned
+forever!</p>
+
+<p>"Then I could see the Parisian detectives&mdash;the best in the world&mdash;going
+to take down from the lady's lips a minute description of the
+adventurer, the swindler, who had imposed upon them, and attempted to
+cheat a poor hack-driver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> out of his hard-earned wages! Then would
+appear the reports in the newspapers,&mdash;how a well-dressed young man, an
+American, Monsieur X., (or perhaps my name would be given,) had been the
+means of enlivening the fashionable circles of Paris with a choice bit
+of scandal, by inviting a very distinguished lady, also an American,
+(whose Thursday evening receptions we well know, attended by some of the
+most illustrious French and foreign residents in the metropolis,) to
+accompany him on a tour of inspection to the Gobelins, and had
+afterwards been guilty of the unexampled baseness of leaving the <i>coup&eacute;</i>
+he had employed standing, unpaid, at the door of a certain house in the
+Rue Racine, whilst he escaped by a private passage into the Rue de la
+Harpe, and so forth, and so forth. I saw it all. I blushed, I shuddered
+at the fancied ignominy of the exposure.</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' said I; 't is impossible! If you can't help me to the money, I
+must try&mdash;but where, how can I hope to raise eight francs, (for it is
+four hours by this time, to say nothing of the drink-money!)&mdash;how can I
+ever hope to raise that sum in Paris?'</p>
+
+<p>"'You can pawn your watch,' says my false friend, rubbing his hands, and
+smiling, as if he really enjoyed the comicality of the thing.</p>
+
+<p>"But I had already eaten my watch, as the French say: it had been a week
+at the Mont de Pi&eacute;t&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"'Your coat then,' says my counsellor, with good-mannered unconcern.</p>
+
+<p>"'And go in my shirt-sleeves?' for I had placed my trunk and its
+contents in the charge of my landlord, as security for the payment of my
+board and room-rent.</p>
+
+<p>"'In that case, I don't see what you will do, unless you take my
+original advice, and dodge the fellow.'</p>
+
+<p>"I left my fair-weather acquaintance in disgust, and went off, literally
+staggering under the load, the ever-increasing load, the Pelion upon
+Ossa, of francs, francs, francs,&mdash;despair, despair, despair.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Eh bien?</i>' says the driver, interrogatively, as I went out to him.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Pas de chance!</i>' And I ordered him to drive back to the Cit&eacute; Odiot.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Bien!</i>' says he, polite as ever, cheery as ever; and away we went
+again, back across the Seine, up the Champs &Eacute;lys&eacute;es, into the Rue de
+l'Oratoire, to the Cit&eacute;,&mdash;my stomach faint, my head aching, my thoughts
+whirling, and the carriage wheels rattling, clattering, chattering all
+the way, 'Two francs an hour and drink-money! Two francs an hour and
+drink-money!'</p>
+
+<p>"Once more I tried my luck at number five, and was filled with
+exasperation and dismay to find that my friend had been home, and gone
+off again in great haste, with a portmanteau in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Where had he gone? Nobody knew; but he had given his key to the
+house-servant, saying he would be absent several days.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Pensez-vous qu'il est all&eacute; &agrave; Londres?</i>' I hurriedly inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Monsieur, je n'en sais rien</i>,' was the calm, decisive response.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew he often went to London; and now my only hope was to catch him
+at one of the railway stations. But by which route would he be like to
+go? I thought of only one, that by way of Calais, by which I had come,
+and I ordered my coachman to drive with all speed to the Northern
+Railway Station. He looked a little glum at this, and his '<i>Bien!</i>'
+sounded a good deal like the 'bang' of the coach-door, as he shut it
+rather sharply in my face.</p>
+
+<p>"Again we were off, my head hotter than ever, my feet like ice, and the
+coach-wheels saying vivaciously, as before, 'Two francs an hour, and
+drink-money! Two francs an hour, and drink-money!' I was terribly afraid
+we should be too late; but on arriving at the station, I found there was
+no train at all. One had left in the afternoon, and another would leave
+late in the evening. Then I happened to think there were other routes to
+London, by the way of Dieppe and Havre. My friend might have gone by one
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> those! Yes, there was a train at about that time, my driver somewhat
+sullenly informed me,&mdash;for he was fast losing his cheerfulness: perhaps
+it was his supper-time, or perhaps he was in a hurry for his
+drink-money. Did he know where the stations were? Know? of course he
+did! There was but one terminus for both routes; that was in the Rue St.
+Lazare. Could he reach it before the train started? Possibly; but his
+horses were jaded; they needed feeding. And why didn't I tell him before
+that I wished to stop there? for we had come through the Rue St. Lazare,
+and actually passed the railway station there, on our way from the Cit&eacute;
+Odiot! That was vexing to think of, but there was no help for it; so
+back we flew on our course, to catch, if possible the train, and my
+friend, who I was certain was going in it.</p>
+
+<p>"We reached the Lazarus Street Station; and I, all in a frenzy of
+apprehension, rushed in, to experience one of those fearful trials of
+temper to which nervous men&mdash;especially nervous Americans in Paris&mdash;are
+sometimes subject. The train was about starting; but, owing to the
+strict regulations which are everywhere enforced on French railways, I
+could not even force myself into the passenger-room,&mdash;much less get
+through the gate, and past the guard, to the platform where the cars
+were standing. Nobody could enter there without a ticket. My friend was
+going, and I could not rush in and catch him, and borrow my&mdash;ten francs,
+I suppose, by that time, because I had not a ticket, nor money to buy a
+ticket! I laugh now at the image of myself, as I must have appeared
+then,&mdash;frantically explaining what I could of the circumstances to any
+of the officials who would hear me,&mdash;pouring forth torrents of broken
+and hardly intelligible French, now shrieking to make myself understood,
+and now groaning with despair,&mdash;questioning, cursing, imploring,&mdash;and
+receiving the invariable, the inexorable reply, always polite, but
+always firm,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'<span class="smcap">On ne passe pas, Monsieur.</span>'</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely no admittance! And while I was convulsing myself in vain,
+the train started! It was off,&mdash;my friend was gone, and I was ruined
+forever!</p>
+
+<p>"When the worst has happened, and we feel that it is so, and our own
+efforts are no longer of any avail, then we become calm: the heart
+accepts the fate it knows to be inevitable. The bankrupt, after all his
+anxious nights and terrible days of struggle, is almost happy at last,
+when all is over. Even the convict sleeps soundly on the night preceding
+his execution. Just so I recovered my self-possession and equanimity
+after the train had departed.</p>
+
+<p>"I went back to my hackman. His serenity had vanished as mine had
+arrived; and the fury that possessed me seemed to pass over and take up
+its abode with him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Will you pay me?' he demanded, fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>"'My friend,' said I, 'it is impossible.' And I repeated my proposition
+to call and settle with him in a day or two.</p>
+
+<p>"'And you will not pay me now?' he vociferated.</p>
+
+<p>"'My friend, I cannot.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Then I know what I shall do!' turning away with a gesture of rage.</p>
+
+<p>"'I have done what I could, now you shall try what you can,' I answered,
+mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>&Eacute;coutez donc!</i>' he hissed, turning once more upon me. 'I go to Madam,
+I demand my pay of her. What do you say to that?'</p>
+
+<p>"A few minutes before I should have been overwhelmed by the suggestion.
+I was not pleased with it now. No man who has enjoyed the society of
+ladies, and fancied that he appeared smart in their presence, fancies
+the idea of being utterly shamed and humiliated in their eyes. I ought
+to have had the courage to say to Mrs. Waldoborough, when she had the
+coolness to send me off with the <i>coup&eacute;</i>, instead of my dinner: 'Excuse
+me, Madam, I have not the money to pay this man!'</p>
+
+<p>"It would have been bitter, that confession;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> but better one pill at the
+beginning of a malady than a whole boxful afterwards. Better truth,
+anyhow, though it kills you, than a precarious existence on false
+appearances. I had, by my own folly, through toadyism in the first place
+and moral cowardice afterwards, placed myself in an embarrassing and
+ludicrous position; and I must take the consequences.</p>
+
+<p>"'Very well,' said I, 'if you are absolutely bent on having your money
+to-night, I suppose that it is the best thing you can do. But say to
+Madam that I expect my uncle by the next steamer; that I wished you to
+wait till his arrival for your pay; and that you not only refused, but
+put me to a great deal of trouble. It is nothing extraordinary,' I
+continued, in the hope to soften him, 'for gay young men, Americans, to
+be without money for a few days in Paris, expecting remittances from
+home; and you fellows ought to be more accommodating.'</p>
+
+<p>"'True! true!' says the driver, turning again to go. 'But I must have my
+pay all the same. I shall tell Madam what you say.'</p>
+
+<p>"He was going. And now happened one of those wonderful things which
+sometimes occur in real life, but which, in novels, we pronounce
+improbable. Whilst we were speaking a train arrived; and I noticed a
+little withered old man,&mdash;a little smirking mummy of a man,&mdash;with a face
+all wrinkles and smiles, coming out of the building with his coat on his
+arm. I noticed him, because he was so ancient and dried up, and yet so
+happy, whilst I was so young and fresh, and yet so miserable. And I was
+wondering at his self-satisfaction, when I saw&mdash;what think
+you?&mdash;something fall to the ground from the waist-pocket of the coat he
+carried on his arm! It was&mdash;will you believe it?&mdash;a pocket-book!&mdash;a fat
+pocket-book, a respectable, well-worn pocket-book!&mdash;the pocket-book of a
+millionnaire, by Jove! I pounced upon it, like an eagle upon a rabbit.
+He was passing on when I ran after him, politely called his attention,
+and surprised him with a presentation of what he supposed was all the
+time conveyed safely in his coat.</p>
+
+<p>"'Is it possible!' said he, in very poor French, which betrayed him to
+be a foreigner like myself. 'You are very kind,&mdash;very honest,&mdash;very
+obliging, very obliging indeed!'</p>
+
+<p>"If thanks and smiles would answer my purpose, I had them in profusion.
+He looked to see that the pocket-book had not been opened, and thanked
+me again and again. He seemed very anxious to do the polite thing, yet
+still more anxious to be passing on. But I would not let him pass on; I
+held him with my glittering eye.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah!' said he, 'perhaps you won't feel yourself injured by the
+offer,'&mdash;for he saw that I was well dressed, and probably hesitated on
+that account to reward me,&mdash;'perhaps you will take something for your
+honesty, for your trouble.' And putting his hand in his pantaloons
+pocket, he took it out again, with the palm covered with glittering gold
+pieces.</p>
+
+<p>"'Sir,' said I, 'I am ashamed to accept anything for so trifling a
+service; but I owe this man here,&mdash;how much is it now?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ten francs and a half,' says the driver, whom I had stopped just in
+time.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ten francs and a half,' I repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Mais n'oubliez pas la boisson</i>,' he added, his persuasive smile
+returning.</p>
+
+<p>"'With something for his dram,' I continued: 'which if you will have the
+kindness to pay him, and at the same time give me your address, I will
+see that the money is returned to you without fail in a day or two.'</p>
+
+<p>"The smiling little man paid the money on the spot; saying it was of no
+consequence, and neglecting to give me his address. And he went his way
+well satisfied, and the driver went his, also well satisfied; and I went
+mine, infinitely better satisfied, I imagine, than either of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I had got rid of Madam Waldoborough's carriage, and learned a
+lesson which, I think, will last me the rest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> of my life. If ever again
+I run after great folks, or place myself in a false position through
+folly or cowardice, may the Fates confound me! But I must haste and tell
+you the curious <i>d&eacute;nouement</i> of the affair.</p>
+
+<p>"I was not so anxious to cultivate Madam's acquaintance <i>after</i> riding
+in her carriage, you may well believe. For months I did not see her. At
+last my Todworth cousin and her yellow-complexioned husband came to
+town, and I went with my uncle to call upon them at Meurice's Hotel.
+They were delighted to see me, and fondly pressed me to come and take a
+room adjoining their suite, as I did at Cox's. A card was brought in. My
+cousin smiled, and directed that the visitor should be admitted. There
+was a rustle,&mdash;a volume of flounces came sweeping in,&mdash;a well-remembered
+voice cried, 'My dear Louise!'&mdash;and my Todworth cousin was clasped in
+the buxom embrace of Madam Waldoborough.</p>
+
+<p>"But what did I behold? Following in Madam's wake, like a skiff towed at
+the stern of a rushing side-wheel steamer, a dapper little old man, a
+withered little old man, a gayly smiling little old man, whose
+countenance was somehow strangely familiar to me. I considered him a
+moment, and the scene in the Rue St. Lazare, with the <i>coup&eacute;</i> driver and
+the man with the pocket-book, flashed across my mind. This was the man!
+I remembered him well; but he had evidently forgotten me.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam released Louise from her divine large arms, and greeted the
+yellow-complexioned one. Then she was introduced to my uncle. Then the
+bride said, 'You know my cousin Herbert, I believe?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah, yes!' says the Waldoborough, who had glanced at me curiously, but
+doubtfully, 'I recognize him now!' giving me a smile and two fingers. 'I
+thought I had seen him somewhere. You have been to one or two of my
+receptions, haven't you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I have not yet had that pleasure,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah, I remember now! You called one morning, didn't you? And we went
+somewhere together,&mdash;where did we go?&mdash;or was it some other gentleman?'</p>
+
+<p>"I said I thought it must have been some other gentleman; for indeed I
+could hardly believe now that I was that fool.</p>
+
+<p>"'Very likely,' said she; 'for I see so many,&mdash;my receptions, you know,
+Louise, are always so crowded! But, dear me, what am I thinking of?
+Where are you, my love?' and the steamer brought the skiff alongside.</p>
+
+<p>"'Louise, and gentlemen,' then said my lady, with a magnificent
+courtesy, the very wind of which I feared would blow him away,&mdash;but he
+advanced triumphantly, bowing and smiling extravagantly,&mdash;'allow me the
+happiness of presenting to you Mr. John Waldoborough, my husband.'</p>
+
+<p>"How I refrained from shrieking and throwing myself on the floor, I
+never well knew; for I declare to you, I was never so caught by surprise
+and tickled through and through by any <i>d&eacute;nouement</i> or situation, in or
+off the stage! To think that pigmy, that wart, that little grimacing
+monkey of a man, parchment-faced, antique,&mdash;a mere moneybag on two
+sticks,&mdash;should be the husband of the great and glorious Madam
+Waldoborough! His wondrous self-satisfaction was accounted for.
+Moreover, I saw that Heaven's justice was done: Madam's husband had paid
+for Madam's carriage!"</p>
+
+<p>Here Herbert concluded his story. And it was time; for the day had
+closed, as we walked up and down, and the sudden November night had come
+on. Gas-light had replaced the light of the sun throughout the streets
+of the city. The brilliant cressets of the Place de la Concorde flamed
+like a constellation; and the Avenue des Champs &Eacute;lys&eacute;es, with its rows
+of lamps, and the throngs of carriages, each bearing now its lighted
+lantern, moving along that far-extending slope, looked like a new Milky
+Way, fenced with lustrous stars, and swarming with meteoric fire-flies.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PASSAGES_FROM_HAWTHORNES_NOTE-BOOKS" id="PASSAGES_FROM_HAWTHORNES_NOTE-BOOKS"></a>PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>IV.</h3>
+
+<p><i>Salem, August 22d, 1837.</i>&mdash;A walk yesterday afternoon down to the
+Juniper and Winter Island. Singular effect of partial sunshine, the sky
+being broadly and heavily clouded, and land and sea, in consequence,
+being generally overspread with a sombre gloom. But the sunshine,
+somehow or other, found its way between the interstices of the clouds,
+and illuminated some of the distant objects very vividly. The white
+sails of a ship caught it, and gleamed brilliant as sunny snow, the hull
+being scarcely visible, and the sea around dark; other smaller vessels
+too, so that they looked like heavenly-winged things just alighting on a
+dismal world. Shifting their sails, perhaps, or going on another tack,
+they almost disappear at once in the obscure distance. Islands are seen
+in summer sunshine and green glory; their rocks also sunny and their
+beaches white; while other islands, for no apparent reason, are in deep
+shade, and share the gloom of the rest of the world. Sometimes part of
+an island is illuminated and part dark. When the sunshine falls on a
+very distant island, nearer ones being in shade, it seems greatly to
+extend the bounds of visible space, and put the horizon to a farther
+distance. The sea roughly rushing against the shore, and dashing against
+the rocks, and grating back over the sands. A boat a little way from the
+shore, tossing and swinging at anchor. Beach birds flitting from place
+to place.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The family seat of the Hawthornes is Wigcastle, Wigton, Wiltshire. The
+present head of the family, now residing there, is Hugh Hawthorne.
+William Hawthorne, who came over in 1635-6, was a younger brother of the
+family.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A young man and girl meet together, each in search of a person to be
+known by some particular sign. They watch and wait a great while for
+that person to pass. At last some casual circumstance discloses that
+each is the one that the other is waiting for. Moral,&mdash;that what we need
+for our happiness is often close at hand, if we knew but how to seek for
+it.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The journal of a human heart for a single day in ordinary circumstances.
+The lights and shadows that flit across it; its internal vicissitudes.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Distrust to be thus exemplified:&mdash;Various good and desirable things to
+be presented to a young man, and offered to his acceptance,&mdash;as a
+friend, a wife, a fortune; but he to refuse them all, suspecting that it
+is merely a delusion. Yet all to be real, and he to be told so, when too
+late.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A man tries to be happy in love; he cannot sincerely give his heart, and
+the affair seems all a dream. In domestic life, the same; in politics, a
+seeming patriot; but still he is sincere, and all seems like a theatre.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An old man, on a summer day, sits on a hill-top, or on the observatory
+of his house, and sees the sunshine pass from one object to another
+connected with the events of his past life,&mdash;as the school-house, the
+place where his wife lived in her maidenhood,&mdash;its setting beams falling
+on the churchyard.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An idle man's pleasures and occupations and thoughts during a day spent
+by the sea-shore: among them, that of sitting on the top of a cliff, and
+throwing stones at his own shadow, far below.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A blind man to set forth on a walk through ways unknown to him, and to
+trust to the guidance of anybody who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> will take the trouble; the
+different characters who would undertake it: some mischievous, some
+well-meaning, but incapable; perhaps one blind man undertakes to lead
+another. At last, possibly, he rejects all guidance, and blunders on by
+himself.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In the cabinet of the Essex Historical Society, old portraits.&mdash;Governor
+Leverett; a dark moustachioed face, the figure two-thirds length,
+clothed in a sort of frock coat, buttoned, and a broad sword-belt girded
+round the waist, and fastened with a large steel buckle; the hilt of the
+sword steel,&mdash;altogether very striking. Sir William Pepperell in English
+regimentals, coat, waistcoat, and breeches, all of red broadcloth,
+richly gold-embroidered; he holds a general's truncheon in his right
+hand, and extends the left towards the batteries erected against
+Louisbourg, in the country near which he is standing. Endicott,
+Pyncheon, and others, in scarlet robes, bands, &amp;c. Half a dozen or more
+family portraits of the Olivers, some in plain dresses, brown, crimson,
+or claret; others with gorgeous gold-embroidered waistcoats, descending
+almost to the knees, so as to form the most conspicuous article of
+dress. Ladies, with lace ruffles, the painting of which, in one of the
+pictures, cost five guineas. Peter Oliver, who was crazy, used to fight
+with these family pictures in the old Mansion House; and the face and
+breast of one lady bear cuts and stabs inflicted by him. Miniatures in
+oil, with the paint peeling off, of stern, old, yellow faces. Oliver
+Cromwell, apparently an old picture, half length or one third, in an
+oval frame, probably painted for some New England partisan. Some
+pictures that had been partly obliterated by scrubbing with sand. The
+dresses, embroidery, laces of the Oliver family are generally better
+done than the faces. Governor Leverett's gloves,&mdash;the glove-part of
+coarse leather, but round the wrist a deep three or four inch border of
+spangles and silver embroidery. Old drinking-glasses, with tall stalks.
+A black glass bottle, stamped with the name of Philip English, with a
+broad bottom. The baby-linen, &amp;c. of Governor Bradford of Plymouth
+colony. Old manuscript sermons, some written in shorthand, others in a
+hand that seems learnt from print.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing gives a stronger idea of old worm-eaten aristocracy&mdash;of a family
+being crazy with age, and of its being time that it was extinct&mdash;than
+these black, dusty, faded, antique-dressed portraits, such as those of
+the Oliver family; the identical old white wig of an ancient minister
+producing somewhat the impression that his very scalp, or some other
+portion of his personal self, would do.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The excruciating agonies which Nature inflicts on men (who break her
+laws) to be represented as the work of human tormentors; as the gout, by
+screwing the toes. Thus we might find that worse than the tortures of
+the Spanish Inquisition are daily suffered without exciting notice.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Suppose a married couple fondly attached to one another, and to think
+that they lived solely for one another; then it to be found out that
+they were divorced, or that they might separate if they chose. What
+would be its effect?</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Monday, August 27th.</i>&mdash;Went to Boston last Wednesday. Remarkables:&mdash;An
+author at the American Stationers' Company, slapping his hand on his
+manuscript, and crying, "I'm going to publish."&mdash;An excursion aboard a
+steamboat to Thompson's Island, to visit the Manual Labor School for
+boys. Aboard the steamboat several poets and various other authors; a
+Commodore,&mdash;Colton, a small, dark brown, sickly man, with a good deal of
+roughness in his address; Mr. Waterston, talking poetry and philosophy.
+Examination and exhibition of the boys, little tanned agriculturists.
+After examination, a stroll round the island, examining the products, as
+wheat in sheaves on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> stubble-field; oats, somewhat blighted and
+spoiled; great pumpkins elsewhere; pastures; mowing ground;&mdash;all
+cultivated by the boys. Their residence, a great brick building, painted
+green, and standing on the summit of a rising ground, exposed to the
+winds of the bay. Vessels flitting past; great ships, with intricacy of
+rigging and various sails; schooners, sloops, with their one or two
+broad sheets of canvas: going on different tacks, so that the spectator
+might think that there was a different wind for each vessel, or that
+they scudded across the sea spontaneously, whither their own wills led
+them. The farm boys remain insulated, looking at the passing show,
+within sight of the city, yet having nothing to do with it; beholding
+their fellow-creatures skimming by them in winged machines, and
+steamboats snorting and puffing through the waves. Methinks an island
+would be the most desirable of all landed property, for it seems like a
+little world by itself; and the water may answer instead of the
+atmosphere that surrounds planets. The boys swinging, two together,
+standing up, and almost causing the ropes and their bodies to stretch
+out horizontally. On our departure, they ranged themselves on the rails
+of the fence, and, being dressed in blue, looked not unlike a flock of
+pigeons.</p>
+
+<p>On Friday, a visit to the Navy Yard at Charlestown, in company with the
+Naval Officer of Boston, and Cilley. Dined aboard the revenue cutter
+Hamilton. A pretty cabin, finished off with bird's-eye maple and
+mahogany; two looking-glasses. Two officers in blue frocks, with a
+stripe of lace on each shoulder. Dinner, chowder, fried fish, corned
+beef,&mdash;claret, afterwards champagne. The waiter tells the Captain of the
+cutter that Captain Percival (Commander of the Navy Yard) is sitting on
+the deck of the anchor hoy, (which lies inside of the cutter,) smoking
+his cigar. The Captain sends him a glass of champagne, and inquires of
+the waiter what Percival says to it. "He said, sir, 'What does he send
+me this damned stuff for?' but drinks, nevertheless." The Captain
+characterizes Percival as the roughest old devil that ever was in his
+manners, but a kind, good-hearted man at bottom. By and by comes in the
+steward. "Captain Percival is coming aboard of you, sir." "Well, ask him
+to walk down into the cabin"; and shortly down comes old Captain
+Percival, a white-haired, thin-visaged, weather-worn old gentleman, in a
+blue Quaker-cut coat, with tarnished lace and brass buttons, a pair of
+drab pantaloons, and brown waistcoat. There was an eccentric expression
+in his face, which seemed partly wilful, partly natural. He has not
+risen to his present rank in the regular line of the profession; but
+entered the navy as a sailing-master, and has all the roughness of that
+class of officers. Nevertheless, he knows how to behave and to talk like
+a gentleman. Sitting down, and taking in hand a glass of champagne, he
+began a lecture on economy, and how well it was that Uncle Sam had a
+broad back, being compelled to bear so many burdens as were laid on
+it,&mdash;alluding to the table covered with wine-bottles. Then he spoke of
+the fitting up of the cabin with expensive woods,&mdash;of the brooch in
+Captain Scott's bosom. Then he proceeded to discourse of politics,
+taking the opposite side to Cilley, and arguing with much pertinacity.
+He seems to have moulded and shaped himself to his own whims, till a
+sort of rough affectation has become thoroughly imbued throughout a
+kindly nature. He is full of antique prejudices against the modern
+fashions of the younger officers, their moustaches and such fripperies,
+and prophesies little better than disgrace in case of another war;
+owning that the boys would fight for their country, and die for her, but
+denying that there are any officers now like Hull and Stuart, whose
+exploits, nevertheless, he greatly depreciated, saying that the Boxer
+and Enterprise fought the only equal battle which we won during the war;
+and that, in that action, an officer had proposed to haul down the stars
+and stripes, and a common sailor threatened to cut him to pieces,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> if he
+should do so. He spoke of Bainbridge as a sot and a poltroon, who wanted
+to run from the Macedonian, pretending to take her for a line-of-battle
+ship; of Commodore Elliot as a liar; but praised Commodore Downes in the
+highest terms. Percival seems to be the very pattern of old integrity;
+taking as much care of Uncle Sam's interests as if all the money
+expended were to come out of his own pocket. This quality was displayed
+in his resistance to the demand of a new patent capstan for the
+revenue-cutter, which, however, Scott is resolved in such a sailor-like
+way to get, that he will probably succeed. Percival spoke to me of how
+his business in the yard absorbed him, especially the fitting of the
+Columbus seventy-four, of which ship he discoursed with great
+enthusiasm. He seems to have no ambition beyond his present duties,
+perhaps never had any; at any rate, he now passes his life with a sort
+of gruff contentedness, grumbling and growling, yet in good humor
+enough. He is conscious of his peculiarities; for when I asked him
+whether it would be well to make a naval officer Secretary of the Navy,
+he said, "God forbid, for that an old sailor was always full of
+prejudices and stubborn whim-whams," instancing himself; whereto I
+agreed. We went round the Navy Yard with Percival and Commodore Downes,
+the latter a sailor and a gentleman too, with rather more of the ocean
+than the drawing-room about him, but courteous, frank, and good-natured.
+We looked at rope-walks, rigging-lofts, ships in the stocks; and saw the
+sailors of the station laughing and sporting with great mirth and
+cheerfulness, which the Commodore said was much increased at sea. We
+returned to the wharf at Boston in the cutter's boat. Captain Scott, of
+the cutter, told me a singular story of what occurred during the action
+between the Constitution and Macedonian,&mdash;he being powder-monkey aboard
+the former ship. A cannon-shot came through the ship's side, and a man's
+head was struck off, probably by a splinter, for it was done without
+bruising the head or body, as clean as by a razor. Well, the man was
+walking pretty briskly at the time of the accident; and Scott seriously
+affirmed that he kept walking onward at the same pace, with two jets of
+blood gushing from his headless trunk, till, after going about twenty
+feet without a head, he sunk down at once, with his legs under him.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>[In corroboration of the truth of this, see Lord Bacon, Century IV. of
+his Sylva Sylvarum, or Natural History, in Ten Centuries, paragraph
+400.]</p>
+
+<p>On Saturday, I called to see E. H&mdash;&mdash;, having previously appointed a
+meeting for the purpose of inquiring about our name. He is an old
+bachelor, and truly forlorn. The pride of ancestry seems to be his great
+hobby. He had a good many papers in his desk at the Custom-House, which
+he produced and dissertated upon, and afterwards went with me to his
+sister's, and showed me an old book, with a record of the children of
+the first emigrant, (who came over two hundred years ago,) in his own
+handwriting. E&mdash;&mdash;'s manners are gentlemanly, and he seems to be very
+well informed. At a little distance, I think, one would take him to be
+not much over thirty; but nearer to hand one finds him to look rather
+venerable,&mdash;perhaps fifty or more. He is nervous, and his hands shook
+while he was looking over the papers, as if he had been startled by my
+visit; and when we came to the crossings of streets, he darted across,
+cautioning me, as if both were in great danger to be run over.
+Nevertheless, being very quick-tempered, he would face the Devil if at
+all irritated. He gave a most forlorn description of his life; how, when
+he came to Salem, there was nobody except Mr. &mdash;&mdash; whom he cared about
+seeing; how his position prevented him from accepting of civilities,
+because he had no home where he could return them; in short, he seemed
+about as miserable a being as is to be found anywhere,&mdash;lonely, and with
+the sensitiveness to feel his loneliness, and capacities, now withered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>
+to have enjoyed the sweets of life. I suppose he is comfortable enough
+when busied in his duties at the Custom-House; for when I spoke to him
+at my entrance, he was too much absorbed to hear me at first. As we
+walked, he kept telling stories of the family, which seemed to have
+comprised many oddities, eccentric men and women, recluses and other
+kinds,&mdash;one of old Philip English, (a Jersey man, the name originally
+L'Anglais,) who had been persecuted by John Hawthorne, of witch-time
+memory, and a violent quarrel ensued. When Philip lay on his death-bed,
+he consented to forgive his persecutor; "But if I get well," said he,
+"I'll be damned if I forgive him!" This Philip left daughters, one of
+whom married, I believe, the son of the persecuting John, and thus all
+the legitimate blood of English is in our family. E&mdash;&mdash; passed from the
+matters of birth, pedigree, and ancestral pride to give vent to the most
+arrant democracy and locofocoism that I ever happened to hear, saying
+that nobody ought to possess wealth longer than his own life, and that
+then it should return to the people, &amp;c. He says old S. I&mdash;&mdash; has a
+great fund of traditions about the family, which she learned from her
+mother or grandmother, (I forget which,) one of them being a Hawthorne.
+The old lady was a very proud woman, and, as E&mdash;&mdash; says, "proud of being
+proud," and so is S. I&mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><i>October 7th, 1837.</i>&mdash;A walk in Northfields in the afternoon. Bright
+sunshine and autumnal warmth, giving a sensation quite unlike the same
+degree of warmth in summer. Oaks,&mdash;some brown, some reddish, some still
+green; walnuts, yellow,&mdash;fallen leaves and acorns lying beneath; the
+footsteps crumple them in walking. In sunny spots beneath the trees,
+where green grass is overstrewn by the dry, fallen foliage, as I passed
+I disturbed multitudes of grasshoppers basking in the warm sunshine; and
+they began to hop, hop, hop, pattering on the dry leaves like big and
+heavy drops of a thunder-shower. They were invisible till they hopped.
+Boys gathering walnuts. Passed an orchard, where two men were gathering
+the apples. A wagon, with barrels, stood among the trees; the men's
+coats flung on the fence; the apples lay in heaps, and each of the men
+was up in a separate tree. They conversed together in loud voices, which
+the air caused to ring still louder, jeering each other, boasting of
+their own feats in shaking down the apples. One got into, the very top
+of his tree, and gave a long and mighty shake, and the big apples came
+down thump, thump, bushels hitting on the ground at once. "There! did
+you ever hear anything like that?" cried he. This sunny scene was
+pretty. A horse feeding apart, belonging to the wagon. The
+barberry-bushes have some red fruit on them, but they are frost-bitten.
+The rose-bushes have their scarlet hips.</p>
+
+<p>Distant clumps of trees, now that the variegated foliage adorns them,
+have a phantasmagorian, an apparition-like appearance. They seem to be
+of some kindred to the crimson and gold cloud-islands. It would not be
+strange to see phantoms peeping forth from their recesses. When the sun
+was almost below the horizon, his rays, gilding the upper branches of a
+yellow walnut-tree, had an airy and beautiful effect,&mdash;the gentle
+contrast between the tint of the yellow in the shade, and its ethereal
+gold in the fading sunshine. The woods that crown distant uplands were
+seen to great advantage in these last rays, for the sunshine perfectly
+marked out and distinguished every shade of color, varnishing them as it
+were; while, the country round, both hill and plain, being in gloomy
+shadow, the woods looked the brighter for it.</p>
+
+<p>The tide, being high, had flowed almost into the Cold Spring, so its
+small current hardly issued forth from the basin. As I approached, two
+little eels, about as long as my finger, and slender in proportion,
+wriggled out of the basin. They had come from the salt water. An
+Indian-corn field, as yet unharvested,&mdash;huge, golden pumpkins scattered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span>
+among the hills of corn,&mdash;a noble-looking fruit. After the sun was down,
+the sky was deeply dyed with a broad sweep of gold, high towards the
+zenith; not flaming brightly, but of a somewhat dusky gold. A piece of
+water extending towards the west, between high banks, caught the
+reflection, and appeared like a sheet of brighter and more glistening
+gold than the sky which made it bright.</p>
+
+<p>Dandelions and blue flowers are still growing in sunny places. Saw in a
+barn a prodigious treasure of onions in their silvery coats, exhaling a
+penetrating perfume.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>How exceeding bright looks the sunshine, casually reflected from a
+looking-glass into a gloomy region of the chamber, distinctly marking
+out the figures and colors of the paper hangings, which are scarcely
+seen elsewhere. It is like the light of mind thrown on an obscure
+subject.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Man's finest workmanship, the closer you observe it, the more
+imperfections it shows; as in a piece of polished steel a microscope
+will discover a rough surface. Whereas, what may look coarse and rough
+in Nature's workmanship will show an infinitely minute perfection, the
+closer you look into it. The reason of the minute superiority of
+Nature's work over man's is, that the former works from the innermost
+germ, while the latter works merely superficially.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Standing in the cross-road that leads by the Mineral Spring, and looking
+towards an opposite shore of the lake, an ascending bank, with a dense
+border of trees, green, yellow, red, russet, all bright colors,
+brightened by the mild brilliancy of the descending sun; it was strange
+to recognize the sober old friends of spring and summer in this new
+dress. By the by, a pretty riddle or fable might be made out of the
+changes in apparel of the familiar trees round a house, adapted for
+children. But in the lake, beneath the aforesaid border of trees,&mdash;the
+water being, not rippled, but its glassy surface somewhat moved and
+shaken by the remote agitation of a breeze that was breathing on the
+outer lake,&mdash;this being in a sort of bay,&mdash;in the slightly agitated
+mirror, the variegated trees were reflected dreamily and indistinctly; a
+broad belt of bright and diversified colors shining in the water
+beneath. Sometimes the image of a tree might be almost traced; then
+nothing but this sweep of broken rainbow. It was like the recollection
+of the real scene in an observer's mind,&mdash;a confused radiance.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A whirlwind, whirling the dried leaves round in a circle, not very
+violently.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To well consider the characters of a family of persons in a certain
+condition,&mdash;in poverty, for instance,&mdash;and endeavor to judge how an
+altered condition would affect the character of each.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The aromatic odor of peat smoke in the sunny autumnal air is very
+pleasant.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><i>Salem, October 14th, 1837.</i>&mdash;A walk through Beverly to Browne's Hill,
+and home by the iron factory. A bright, cool afternoon. The trees, in a
+large part of the space through which I passed, appeared to be in their
+fullest glory, bright red, yellow, some of a tender green, appearing at
+a distance as if bedecked with new foliage, though this emerald tint was
+likewise the effect of frost. In some places, large tracts of ground
+were covered as with a scarlet cloth,&mdash;the underbrush being thus
+colored. The general character of these autumnal colors is not gaudy,
+scarcely gay; there is something too deep and rich in it: it is gorgeous
+and magnificent, but with a sobriety diffused. The pastures at the foot
+of Browne's Hill were plentifully covered with barberry-bushes, the
+leaves of which were reddish, and they were hung with a prodigious
+quantity of berries. From the summit of the hill, looking down a tract
+of woodland at a considerable distance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> so that the interstices between
+the trees could not be seen, their tops presented an unbroken level, and
+seemed somewhat like a richly variegated carpet. The prospect from the
+hill is wide and interesting; but methinks it is pleasanter in the more
+immediate vicinity of the hill than miles away. It is agreeable to look
+down at the square patches of corn-field, or of potato-ground, or of
+cabbages still green, or of beets looking red,&mdash;all a man's farm, in
+short,&mdash;each portion of which he considers separately so important,
+while you take in the whole at a glance. Then to cast your eye over so
+many different establishments at once, and rapidly compare them,&mdash;here a
+house of gentility, with shady old yellow-leaved elms hanging around it;
+there a new little white dwelling; there an old farm-house; to see the
+barns and sheds and all the outhouses clustered together; to comprehend
+the oneness and exclusiveness and what constitutes the peculiarity of
+each of so many establishments, and to have in your mind a multitude of
+them, each of which is the most important part of the world to those who
+live in it,&mdash;this really enlarges the mind, and you come down the hill
+somewhat wiser than you go up. Pleasant to look over an orchard far
+below, and see the trees, each casting its own shadow; the white spires
+of meeting-houses; a sheet of water, partly seen among swelling lands.
+This Browne's Hill is a long ridge, lying in the midst of a large, level
+plain; it looks at a distance somewhat like a whale, with its head and
+tail under water, but its immense back protruding, with steep sides, and
+a gradual curve along its length. When you have climbed it on one side,
+and gaze from the summit at the other, you feel as if you had made a
+discovery,&mdash;the landscape being quite different on the two sides. The
+cellar of the house which formerly crowned the hill, and used to be
+named Browne's Folly, still remains, two grass-grown and shallow
+hollows, on the highest part of the ridge. The house consisted of two
+wings, each perhaps sixty feet in length, united by a middle part, in
+which was the entrance-hall, and which looked lengthwise along the hill.
+The foundation of a spacious porch may be traced on either side of the
+central portion; some of the stones still remain; but even where they
+are gone, the line of the porch is still traceable by the greener
+verdure. In the cellar, or rather in the two cellars, grow one or two
+barberry-bushes, with frost-bitten fruit; there is also yarrow with its
+white flower, and yellow dandelions. The cellars are still deep enough
+to shelter a person, all but his head at least, from the wind on the
+summit of the hill; but they are all grass-grown. A line of trees seems
+to have been planted along the ridge of the hill. The edifice must have
+made quite a magnificent appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Characteristics during the walk:&mdash;Apple-trees with only here and there
+an apple on the boughs, among the thinned leaves, the relics of a
+gathering. In others you observe a rustling, and see the boughs shaking
+and hear the apples thumping down, without seeing the person who does
+it. Apples scattered by the wayside, some with pieces bitten out, others
+entire, which you pick up, and taste, and find them harsh, crabbed
+cider-apples though they have a pretty, waxen appearance. In sunny spots
+of woodland, boys in search or nuts, looking picturesque among the
+scarlet and golden foliage. There is something in this sunny autumnal
+atmosphere that gives a peculiar effect to laughter and joyous
+voices,&mdash;it makes them infinitely more elastic and gladsome than at
+other seasons. Heaps of dry leaves, tossed together by the wind, as if
+for a couch and lounging-place for the weary traveller, while the sun is
+warming it for him. Golden pumpkins and squashes, heaped in the angle of
+a house, till they reach the lower windows. Ox-teams, laden with a
+rustling load of Indian corn, in the stalk and ear. When an inlet of the
+sea runs far up into the country, you stare to see a large schooner
+appear amid the rural landscape; she is unloading a cargo of wood, moist
+with rain or salt water that has dashed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> over it. Perhaps you hear the
+sound of an axe in the woodland; occasionally, the report of a
+fowling-piece. The travellers in the early part of the afternoon look
+warm and comfortable, as if taking a summer drive; but as eve draws
+nearer, you meet them well wrapped in top-coats or cloaks, or rough,
+great surtouts, and red-nosed withal, seeming to take no great comfort,
+but pressing homeward. The characteristic conversation among teamsters
+and country squires, where the ascent of a hill causes the chaise to go
+at the same pace as an ox-team,&mdash;perhaps discussing the qualities of a
+yoke of oxen. The cold, blue aspects of sheets of water. Some of the
+country shops with the doors closed; others still open as in summer. I
+meet a wood-sawyer, with his horse and saw on his shoulders, returning
+from work. As night draws on, you begin to see the gleaming of fires on
+the ceilings in the houses which you pass. The comfortless appearance of
+houses at bleak and bare spots,&mdash;you wonder how there can be any
+enjoyment in them. I meet a girl in a chintz gown, with a small shawl on
+her shoulders, white stockings, and summer morocco shoes,&mdash;it looks
+observable. Turkeys, queer, solemn objects, in black attire, grazing
+about, and trying to peck the fallen apples, which slip away from their
+bills.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><i>October 16th, 1837.</i>&mdash;Spent the whole afternoon in a ramble to the
+sea-shore, near Phillips's Beach. A beautiful, warm, sunny afternoon,
+the very pleasantest day, probably, that there has been in the whole
+course of the year. People at work, harvesting, without their coats.
+Cocks, with their squad of hens, in the grass-fields, hunting
+grasshoppers, chasing them eagerly with outspread wings, appearing to
+take much interest in the sport, apart from the profit. Other hens
+picking up the ears of Indian corn. Grasshoppers, flies, and flying
+insects of all sorts, are more abundant in these warm autumnal days than
+I have seen them at any other time. Yellow butterflies flutter about in
+the sunshine, singly, by pairs, or more, and are wafted on the gentle
+gales. The crickets begin to sing early in the afternoon, and sometimes
+a locust may be heard. In some warm spots, a pleasant buzz of many
+insects.</p>
+
+<p>Crossed the fields near Brookhouse's villa, and came upon a long
+beach,&mdash;at least a mile long, I should think,&mdash;terminated by craggy
+rocks at either end, and backed by a high, broken bank, the grassy
+summit of which, year by year, is continually breaking away, and
+precipitated to the bottom. At the foot of the bank, in some parts, is a
+vast number of pebbles and paving-stones, rolled up thither by the sea
+long ago. The beach is of a brown sand, with hardly any pebbles
+intermixed upon it. When the tide is part way down, there is a margin of
+several yards from the water's edge, along the whole mile length of the
+beach, which glistens like a mirror, and reflects objects, and shines
+bright in the sunshine, the sand being wet to that distance from the
+water. Above this margin the sand is not wet, and grows less and less
+damp the farther towards the bank you keep. In some places your footstep
+is perfectly implanted, showing the whole shape, and the square toe, and
+every nail in the heel of your boot. Elsewhere, the impression is
+imperfect, and even when you stamp, you cannot imprint the whole. As you
+tread, a dry spot flashes around your step, and grows moist as you lift
+your foot again. Pleasant to pass along this extensive walk, watching
+the surf-wave;&mdash;how sometimes it seems to make a feint of breaking, but
+dies away ineffectually, merely kissing the strand; then, after many
+such abortive efforts, it gathers itself, and forms a high wall, and
+rolls onward, heightening and heightening, without foam at the summit of
+the green line, and at last throws itself fiercely on the beach, with a
+loud roar, the spray flying above. As you walk along, you are preceded
+by a flock of twenty or thirty beach birds, which are seeking, I
+suppose, for food on the margin of the surf, yet seem to be merely
+sporting, chasing the sea as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> it retires, and running up before the
+impending wave. Sometimes they let it bear them off their feet, and
+float lightly on its breaking summit: sometimes they flutter and seem to
+rest on the feathery spray. They are little birds with gray backs and
+snow-white breasts; their images may be seen in the wet sand almost or
+full as distinctly as the reality. Their legs are long. As you draw
+near, they take a flight of a score of yards or more, and then
+recommence their dalliance with the surf-wave. You may behold their
+multitudinous little tracks all along your way. Before you reach the end
+of the beach, you become quite attached to these little sea-birds, and
+take much interest in their occupations. After passing in one direction,
+it is pleasant then to retrace your footsteps. Your tracks being all
+traceable, you may recall the whole mood and occupation of your mind
+during your first passage. Here you turned somewhat aside to pick up a
+shell that you saw nearer the water's edge. Here you examined a long
+sea-weed, and trailed its length after you for a considerable distance.
+Here the effect of the wide sea struck you suddenly. Here you fronted
+the ocean, looking at a sail, distant in the sunny blue. Here you looked
+at some plant on the bank. Here some vagary of mind seems to have
+bewildered you; for your tracks go round and round, and interchange each
+other without visible reason. Here you picked up pebbles and skipped
+them upon the water. Here you wrote names and drew faces with a razor
+sea-shell in the sand.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving the beach, clambered over crags, all shattered and tossed
+about everyhow; in some parts curiously worn and hollowed out, almost
+into caverns. The rock, shagged with sea-weed,&mdash;in some places, a thick
+carpet of sea-weed laid over the pebbles, into which your foot would
+sink. Deep tanks among these rocks, which the sea replenishes at high
+tide, and then leaves the bottom all covered with various sorts of
+sea-plants, as if it were some sea-monster's private garden. I saw a
+crab in one of them; five-fingers too. From the edge of the rocks, you
+may look off into deep, deep water, even at low tide. Among the rocks, I
+found a great bird, whether a wild-goose, a loon, or an albatross, I
+scarcely know. It was in such a position that I almost fancied it might
+be asleep, and therefore drew near softly, lest it should take flight;
+but it was dead, and stirred not when I touched it. Sometimes a dead
+fish was cast up. A ledge of rocks, with a beacon upon it, looking like
+a monument erected to those who have perished by shipwreck. The smoked,
+extempore fireplace where a party cooked their fish. About midway on the
+beach, a fresh-water brooklet flows towards the sea. Where it leaves the
+land, it is quite a rippling little current; but in flowing across the
+sand, it grows shallower and more shallow, and at last is quite lost,
+and dies in the effort to carry its little tribute to the main.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An article to be made of telling the stories of the tiles of an
+old-fashioned chimney-piece to a child.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A person conscious that he was soon to die, the humor in which he would
+pay his last visit to familiar persons and things.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A description of the various classes of hotels and taverns, and the
+prominent personages in each. There should be some story connected with
+it,&mdash;as of a person commencing with boarding at a great hotel, and
+gradually, as his means grew less, descending in life, till he got below
+ground into a cellar.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A person to be in the possession of something as perfect as mortal man
+has a right to demand; he tries to make it better, and ruins it
+entirely.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A person to spend all his life and splendid talents in trying to achieve
+something naturally impossible,&mdash;as to make a conquest over Nature.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Meditations about the main gas-pipe of a great city,&mdash;if the supply were
+to be stopped, what would happen? How many different scenes it sheds
+light on? It might be made emblematical of something.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><i>December 6th, 1837.</i>&mdash;A fairy tale about chasing Echo to her
+hiding-place. Echo is the voice of a reflection in a mirror.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A house to be built over a natural spring of inflammable gas, and to be
+constantly illuminated therewith. What moral could be drawn from this?
+It is carburetted hydrogen gas, and is cooled from a soft shale or
+slate, which is sometimes bituminous, and contains more or less
+carbonate of lime. It appears in the vicinity of Lockport and Niagara
+Falls, and elsewhere in New York. I believe it indicates coal. At
+Fredonia, the whole village is lighted by it. Elsewhere, a farm-house
+was lighted by it, and no other fuel used in the coldest weather.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Gnomes, or other mischievous little fiends, to be represented as
+burrowing in the hollow teeth of some person who has subjected himself
+to their power. It should be a child's story. This should be one of many
+modes of petty torment. They should be contrasted with beneficent
+fairies, who minister to the pleasures of the good.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A man will undergo great toil and hardship for ends that must be many
+years distant,&mdash;as wealth or fame,&mdash;but none for an end that may be
+close at hand,&mdash;as the joys of heaven.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Insincerity in a man's own heart must make all his enjoyments, all that
+concerns him, unreal; so that his whole life must seem like a merely
+dramatic representation. And this would be the case, even though he were
+surrounded by true-hearted relatives and friends.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A company of men, none of whom have anything worth hoping for on earth,
+yet who do not look forward to anything beyond earth!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Sorrow to be personified, and its effect on a family represented by the
+way in which the members of the family regard this dark-clad and
+sad-browed inmate.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A story to show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one
+another.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To personify winds of various characters.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A man living a wicked life in one place, and simultaneously a virtuous
+and religious one in another.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An ornament to be worn about the person of a lady,&mdash;as a jewelled heart.
+After many years, it happens to be broken or unscrewed, and a poisonous
+odor comes out.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Lieutenant F. W&mdash;&mdash; of the navy was an inveterate duellist and an
+unerring shot. He had taken offence at Lieutenant F&mdash;&mdash;, and endeavored
+to draw him into a duel, following him to the Mediterranean for that
+purpose, and harassing him intolerably. At last, both parties being in
+Massachusetts, F&mdash;&mdash; determined to fight, and applied to Lieutenant
+A&mdash;&mdash; to be his second. A&mdash;&mdash; examined into the merits of the quarrel,
+and came to the conclusion that F&mdash;&mdash; had not given F. W&mdash;&mdash; justifiable
+cause for driving him to a duel, and that he ought not to be shot. He
+instructed F&mdash;&mdash; in the use of the pistol, and, before the meeting,
+warned him, by all means, to get the first fire; for that, if F. W&mdash;&mdash;
+fired first, he, F&mdash;&mdash;, was infallibly a dead man, as his antagonist
+could shoot to a hair's breadth. The parties met; and F&mdash;&mdash;, firing
+immediately on the word's being given, shot F. W&mdash;&mdash; through the heart.
+F. W&mdash;&mdash;, with a most savage expression of countenance, fired, after the
+bullet had gone through his heart, and when the blood had entirely left
+his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> face, and shot away one of F&mdash;&mdash;'s side-locks. His face probably
+looked as if he were already in the infernal regions; but afterwards it
+assumed an angelic calmness and repose.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A company of persons to drink a certain medicinal preparation, which
+would prove a poison, or the contrary, according to their different
+characters.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Many persons, without a consciousness of so doing, to contribute to some
+one end; as to a beggar's feast, made up of broken victuals from many
+tables; or a patch carpet, woven of shreds from innumerable garments.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Some very famous jewel or other thing, much talked of all over the
+world. Some person to meet with it, and get possession of it in some
+unexpected manner, amid homely circumstances.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To poison a person or a party of persons with the sacramental wine.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A cloud in the shape of an old woman kneeling, with arms extended
+towards the moon.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>On being transported to strange scenes, we feel as if all were unreal.
+This is but the perception of the true unreality of earthly things, made
+evident by the want of congruity between ourselves and them. By and by
+we become mutually adapted, and the perception is lost.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>An old looking-glass. Somebody finds out the secret of making all the
+images that have been reflected in it pass back again across its
+surface.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Our Indian races having reared no monuments, like the Greeks, Romans,
+and Egyptians, when they have disappeared from the earth, their history
+will appear a fable, and they misty phantoms.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A woman to sympathize with all emotions, but to have none of her own.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A portrait of a person in New England to be recognized as of the same
+person represented by a portrait, in Old England. Having distinguished
+himself there, he had suddenly vanished, and had never been heard of
+till he was thus discovered to be identical with a distinguished man in
+New England.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="SAINTE-BEUVE" id="SAINTE-BEUVE"></a>SAINTE-BEUVE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The lives of French men of letters, at least during the last two
+centuries, have never been isolated or obscure. Had Rousseau been born
+on the borders of Loch Lomond, he might have proved in his own person,
+and without interruption, the superiority of the savage state; and after
+his death the information in regard to him would have been fragmentary
+and uncertain. But born on the shores of Lake Leman, centralization laid
+its grasp upon him, drew him into the vortex of the "great world," and
+caused his name to figure in all the questions, the quarrels, and the
+scandals of his day.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, that literature is a far more important element of society
+in France than elsewhere. We seldom think of a French author, without
+recalling the history and the manners of his time. In reading a French
+play, though it be a tragedy of Racine or a comedy of Moli&egrave;re, we are
+reminded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> of the spectators before whom it was brought out. In reading a
+French book, though it be Pascal's "Thoughts" or the "Characters" of La
+Bruy&egrave;re, our minds are continually diverted from the matter of the work
+to the circumstances under which it was written and the public for whom
+it was intended.</p>
+
+<p>Generally, indeed, the author, however full of his subject, has
+evidently been thinking of his readers. His tone is that of a speaker
+with his audience before him. Madame de Sta&euml;l actually composed in
+conversation, and her works are little more than imperfect records of
+her eloquent discourse. Innumerable productions have been read aloud, or
+handed round in private coteries, before being revised and published.
+The very excellence of the workmanship, if nothing else, shows that the
+article is "custom made." Even if the matter be poor, the writing is
+almost sure to be good. French literature abounds, beyond every other,
+in <i>readable</i> books,&mdash;books such as are welcomed by the mass of
+cultivated persons. It excels, in short, as a literature of the <i>salon</i>,
+rather than of the study.</p>
+
+<p>As a natural corollary, criticism occupies a more distinct and prominent
+place in the literature of France than in that of any other nation.
+Every writer is sure of being heard, sure of being discussed, sure of
+being judged. This may not always have been favorable to originality. A
+fixed standard,&mdash;which is a necessary consequence,&mdash;though the guardian
+of taste, is a bar to innovation. When, however, the bar has been
+actually crossed, when encroachment has once obtained a footing, French
+criticism is swift to adjust itself to the new conditions imposed upon
+it, to widen its sphere and to institute fresh comparisons.</p>
+
+<p>The present position of French criticism, its connection with the
+general course of literature and of society from the fall of the first
+Empire to the establishment of the second,&mdash;a period of remarkable
+effervescence and even fertility,&mdash;will be best illustrated by a sketch
+of the writings and career of M. Sainte-Beuve. He is, it is true, one of
+a group, compromising such critics as Villemain, Cousin, Vinet, Planche,
+Taine, and Scherer; but his name is more intimately associated than any
+of these with the progress and fluctuations of opinion and of taste. His
+notices of his contemporaries have been by far the most copious and
+assiduous. His literary life, extending over forty years, embraces the
+rise and the decline of what is known as the Romantic School; and during
+all this period his course, whether we regard it as that of a leader or
+of a follower, has harmonized singularily with the tendencies of the
+age.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was born at Boulogne&mdash;a town not fruitful
+in distinguished names&mdash;on the 23d of December, 1804. His father, who
+had held an employment under the government, died two days before the
+birth of the son. His mother was the daughter of an Englishwoman,&mdash;a
+circumstance which has been thought to account for the appreciation he
+has shown of English poetry. The notion would be more plausible if there
+were any poetry which he has failed to appreciate. But when it is added
+that she was a woman of remarkable intelligence and sensibility, we
+recognize a fact of which the influence can neither be doubted nor
+defined.</p>
+
+<p>After several years of prepatory instruction at a boarding-school in his
+native place, he was sent to Paris, when thirteen years old, and entered
+successively in several of the educational establishments which had
+succeeded to the ancient University. His studies, everywhere crowned
+with honors, were completed by a second course of rhetoric at the
+Coll&eacute;ge Bourbon, in 1822. He afterwards, however, attended the lectures
+of Guizot, Villemain, and other distinguished professors at the
+Sorbonne. A hostile critic, though seven years his junior, professes to
+retain a distinct recollection of him at this period: "Among the most
+assiduous and most attentive auditors was a young man whose face,
+irregular in outline<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> but marvellously intelligent, reflected every
+thought and image of the speaker, almost as rivers reflect the landscape
+that unrolls itself along their banks. When I add that the volatile
+waves incessantly efface what they have just before reflected, the
+comparison will appear only the more exact." To an impartial inquirer it
+might appear singularly inexact; but having picked up the shaft, we
+shall not at present stop to examine whether it be poisoned.</p>
+
+<p>On quitting college, M. Sainte-Beuve made choice of medicine as his
+profession. He threw himself with enthusiasm into the study of anatomy,
+and soon qualified himself for an appointment as <i>externe</i> at the
+Hospital of Saint Louis. This ardor, however, far from indicating the
+particular bent of his mind, proceeded from that eager curiosity which
+is ready to enter every avenue and knock at every door by which the
+domain of knowledge can be approached. With the faculties he was endowed
+with, and the training he had received, it was impossible that he should
+lose in any special pursuit his interest in general literature. His
+fellow-townsman and former master in rhetoric, M. Dubois, having become
+the principal editor of the newly founded "Globe," invited his
+co-operation. Accordingly, in 1824, he began to contribute critical and
+historical articles to that journal; and three years later he resigned
+his post at the hospital, with the purpose of devoting himself
+exclusively to literary pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>The period was in the highest degree favorable to the development and
+display of his talent. The literary revolution, which in Germany and
+England had already passed through its principal stages, had as yet
+scarcely penetrated into France. It had been heralded, indeed, by
+Chateaubriand, at the beginning of the century; and Madame de Sta&euml;l,
+some few years later, had come into contact with the reigning chiefs of
+German literature, and had made known to her countrymen their character
+and activity. But the energies of France were then absorbed in
+enterprises of another kind. It was not till peace had been restored,
+and a new generation, ardent, susceptible, as eager for novelty as the
+veterans were impatient of it, had come upon the stage, that the
+requisite impulse was given. Victor Hugo, Lamartine, M&eacute;rim&eacute;e, Alfred de
+Vigny, and other young men of genius, were just opening the assault on
+the citadel of <i>classicisme</i>. Conventional rules were set at defiance;
+the authorities that had so long held sway were summoned to abdicate;
+nature, truth, above all passion, were invoked as the sources of
+inspiration, the law-givers of the imagination, the sole arbiters of
+style. As usual, the movement extended beyond its legitimate sphere. Not
+only the forms, but the ideas, not only the traditions, but the
+novelties, of the eighteenth century were to be discarded. In fact, the
+period, though favorable to literary development, was, on the surface at
+least, one of political and religious reaction; and reaction often
+assumes the aspect of progress, nay, in some cases is identical with
+progress. Most of the poets, dramatists, and other writers of the
+Romantic School were, either by affinity or predilection, legitimists
+and neo-Catholics. Gothic art, medi&aelig;val sentiment, the ancient monarchy
+and the ancient creed, were blended in their programme with the
+abrogation of the "unities," and a greater license of poetical
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>Imbued with the precepts of a former age, and fresh from the study of
+its masterpieces, M. Sainte-Beuve was at first repelled by the mutinous
+attitude of the new aspirants. He made his <i>d&eacute;but</i> in an attack upon the
+"Odes and Ballads" of Victor Hugo. But his opposition quickly yielded to
+the force of the attraction. Nature had given him a peculiar mobility of
+temperament, and a strong instinctive sense of beauty under every
+diversity of form. Moreover, resistance would have been useless and
+Quixotic. In literature, as in politics, dynasties perish through their
+own weakness. The classical school of France had no living
+representative<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> around whom its adherents could have rallied. Its only
+watchword was "The Past," which is always an omen of defeat.</p>
+
+<p>Properly speaking, therefore, M. Sainte-Beuve began his career, not as
+an opponent, but as the champion of the new school. He entered into
+personal and intimate relations with its leaders, joined, as a member of
+the <i>C&eacute;nacle</i>, in the discussion of their plans, attended the private
+readings of "Cromwell" and other works by which the breach was to be
+forced, and took upon himself the task of justifying innovation, and
+securing its reception with a hesitating public. Hence his criticism at
+this period was, as he himself has styled it, "polemical" and
+"aggressive." It was, however, neither violent nor sophistical. On the
+contrary, it was distinguished by the candor and the suavity of its
+tone. Goethe, who watched from afar a movement which, directly or
+indirectly, owed much to German inspiration, was particularly struck
+with this trait. "Our scholars," he remarked to Eckermann, "think it
+necessary to hate whoever differs from them in opinion; but the writers
+in the Globe know how to blame with refinement and courtesy."</p>
+
+<p>At home many, without being converted, were propitiated, and some, while
+still hostile or indifferent to the new literature, became warmly
+interested in its advocate. At the suggestion of Daunou, one of the most
+distinguished among the survivors of the Revolutionary epoch, he
+undertook a work on early French literature, with the intention of
+competing for a prize offered by the Academy. But his plan soon deviated
+from that which had been assigned; and his researches, more limited in
+their scope, but far deeper and more minute, than had been demanded,
+gave birth to a volume, published in 1828, under the title of <i>Tableau
+historique et critique de la Po&eacute;sie fran&ccedil;aise et du Th&eacute;&acirc;tre fran&ccedil;ais au
+seizi&egrave;me Si&eacute;cle</i>. It was received with general favor. Some of the
+author's principles were strenuously disputed; but he was admitted to
+have made many discoveries in literary history, and to have introduced
+an entirely new method of criticism. Perhaps it would be more correct to
+say, that he had carried the torch of an enlightened judgment into a
+period which the brilliancy of succeeding epochs had thrown into
+obscurity.</p>
+
+<p>In 1829 M. Sainte-Beuve published a volume of poetry, <i>Po&eacute;sies de Joseph
+Delorme</i>, followed, in 1830, by another, entitled <i>Consolations</i>, and
+some years later by a third, <i>Pens&eacute;es d'Ao&ucirc;t</i>. Although different
+degrees of merit have been assigned to these productions, their general
+character is the same. They exhibit, not the fire and inspiration of the
+true poetical temperament, but the experiments of a mind gifted with
+delicacy of sentiment and susceptible of varied impressions, in quest of
+appropriate forms and a deeper comprehension of the sources from which
+language derives its power as a vehicle of art. The influence of
+Wordsworth is observable in a studied familiarity of diction, as well as
+in the tendency to versify every thought or emotion suggested by daily
+observation. These peculiarities, coupled with the frequency of bold
+ellipses, provoked discussion, and seemed to promise a fresh expansion
+of poetical forms, in a somewhat different direction from that of the
+Romanticists. But it was not in this department that M. Sainte-Beuve was
+destined to become the founder of a school. His poetical talent, though
+unquestionable, had been bestowed, not as a special attribute, but as an
+auxiliary of other faculties granted in a larger measure. He has himself
+not only recognized its limits, but shown an inclination to underrate
+its value. "I have often thought," he remarks in one of his later
+papers, "that a critic who would attain to largeness of view would be
+better without any artistic faculty of his own. Goethe alone, by the
+universality of his poetical genius, was able to apply it in the
+estimation of what others had produced; in every species of composition
+he was entitled to say, 'Had I chosen, I could have given a perfect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span>
+specimen of this.' But one who possesses only a single circumscribed
+talent should, in becoming a critic, forget it, bury it, and confess to
+himself that Nature is more bountiful and more varied than she showed
+herself in creating him. Incomplete artists, let us strive for an
+intelligence wider than our own talent,&mdash;than the best we are capable of
+producing."</p>
+
+<p>To the same period&mdash;perhaps to the same spirit of investigation and
+experiment&mdash;belongs the single prose work of fancy which has proceeded
+from his pen. It is a species of romance, bearing the title of
+<i>Volupt&eacute;</i>, and designed to exhibit the struggle between the senses and
+the soul, or, more strictly speaking, the effect upon the intellectual
+nature of an early captivity to the pleasures of sense. The hero,
+Amaury, after a youth of indulgence, finds himself in the prime of his
+manhood, with his powers of perception and of thought vigorous and
+matured, but incapable of acting, of willing, or of loving. He inspires
+love, but cannot return it; he feels, he admires, but he shrinks from
+any step demanding resolution or self-devotion. Hence, instead of
+conferring happiness, he makes victims,&mdash;victims not of an active, but
+of a merely passive and negative egotism. A conjunction of circumstances
+brings him to a sudden and vivid realization of his condition and its
+results. Instead of escaping by suicide, as might be expected,&mdash;and as
+would probably have been the case if Werther had not forestalled
+him,&mdash;he breaks loose from his thraldom by a supreme effort, and finds
+in the faith and sacrifices of a religious life the means of restoration
+and of permanent freedom. He enters a seminary, is ordained priest, and
+performs the funeral rites of the woman whose affection for him had been
+the most ardent and exalted, and whom his purified heart could have best
+repaid.</p>
+
+<p>In form, the work is an autobiography. The thoughts with which it teems
+are delicate and subtile; the style, somewhat labored and over-refined,
+is in contrast with that of the <i>Po&eacute;sies</i>, while it betrays the same
+struggle for a greater amplitude and independence. In point of art the
+book appears to us a failure. The theme is not objectionable in itself.
+It is similar to that of many works which have sprung from certain
+phases of individual experience. But if such experience is to be
+idealized, its origin should disappear. Shakespeare may have undergone
+all the conflicts of doubt and irresolution represented in "Hamlet"; but
+in reading "Hamlet" we think, not of Shakespeare's conflicts, but of our
+own. <i>Volupt&eacute;</i> is too palpably a confession. The story is not a
+creation; it has been simply evolved by that process of thought which
+transports a particular idiosyncrasy into conditions and circumstances
+where it becomes a kind of destiny and a subject of speculation. Reality
+is wanting, for the very reason that the Imagination, after being called
+into play, has proved too feeble for her office. Herein Amaury differs
+widely from Ren&eacute;. Apart from the difference of power, Chateaubriand had
+poured out his entire self; he had transcended the limits of his actual
+life, but never those of his mental experience. M. Sainte-Beuve had felt
+only a part of what he sought to depict; the rest he had conjectured or
+borrowed. The pages which describe the hero's impressions and emotions
+in consecrating himself to the service of the Church were written by
+Lacordaire. They are a faithful transcript from nature, but from a
+nature not at all resembling that to which they have been applied. The
+circumstances under which the book was composed will exhibit the
+difference. The author was then intimate with Lamennais, whose eloquent
+voice, soon afterwards to be raised in support of the opposite cause,
+was proclaiming the sternest doctrines of a renovated Catholicism. A
+spell which acted so widely and so marvellously could not be altogether
+unfelt by a mind whose peculiar property it was to yield itself to every
+influence in order to extort its secret and comprehend its power. Beyond
+this point the magic failed. "In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> all my transitions,"&mdash;thus he has
+written of himself,&mdash;"I have never alienated my judgment and my will; I
+have never pledged my belief. But I had a power of comprehending persons
+and things which gave rise to the strongest hopes on the part of those
+who wished to convert me and who thought me entirely their own." Thus
+Lamartine, in a rapturous strain, had congratulated himself on having
+been the instrument of saving his friend from the abysm of unbelief.
+When Lamennais was forming the group of disciples who retired with him
+to La Chesnaye, M. Sainte-Beuve was invited to join them. While
+declining the proposal, he imagined the position in which he might have
+been led to embrace it, and&mdash;wrote <i>Volupt&eacute;</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The revolution of 1830, with the events that led to it, marks a
+turning-point in literary as well as in political history. The public
+mind was in a state of ebullition very unlike that of an ordinary
+political contest, in which one party pulls while the other applies the
+drag, one seeks to maintain, the other to destroy. All parties were
+pulling in different directions; all sought to destroy, in order to
+reconstruct; principles, except with the extremists, were simply
+expedients, adopted to-day, abandoned on the morrow. Nor is this to be
+explained, as English writers generally explain it, by the mere
+volatility of the French temperament. In England, an established basis
+of political power is slowly but constantly expanding; privilege
+crumbles and wears away under the gradual action of democracy;
+concession on the one side, moderation on the other, are perfectly
+feasible, and obviate the necessity for sudden ruptures and violent
+transitions. But in France the question created by past convulsions, and
+left unsolved by recent experiments, was this: What <i>is</i> the basis of
+power? Privilege had been so shorn that those who desired to make that
+the foundation were necessarily not conservatives, but reactionists. On
+the other hand, if popular power were to be accepted in its widest
+sense, then a thousand questions, a thousand differences of opinion in
+regard to the mode, the form, the application, would naturally spring
+up. Besides, would it not be safer, wiser, to modify ideas by
+experience, to look abroad for patterns, to seek for an equilibrium, a
+<i>juste milieu</i>? Thus there was a diversity of systems, but all
+contemplative of change. No one was in favor of standing still, for
+there was nothing to stand upon. In a word, the agitation was not so
+much one of measures, of principles, or of prejudices, as of ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Now in an agitation of this kind, literary men&mdash;that is to say, the men
+whose business is to think&mdash;are likely to be active, and in France, at
+least, are apt to become prominent and influential. But they, of all
+men, by the very fact that they think, are least under the control of
+party affinities and fixed doctrines, the most liable to be swayed by
+discussion and reflection. Hence the spectacle, so frequent at that time
+and since, of men distinguished in the world of letters passing from the
+ranks of the legitimists into those of the republicans, from the
+advocacy of papal supremacy in temporal affairs to that of popular
+supremacy in religious affairs, from the defence of a landed aristocracy
+to the demand for a community of property; and afterwards, in many
+instances, returning with the backward current, abjuring freedom and
+embracing imperialism.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of M. Sainte-Beuve the changes were neither so abrupt nor so
+complete as in that of many others. But his course was still more
+meandering, skirting the bases of opposite systems, abiding with none.
+Never a blind adherent or a vehement opponent, he glided almost
+imperceptibly from camp to camp. He consorted, as we have seen, with
+legitimists and neo-Catholics, and allowed himself to be reckoned as one
+of them. Through the columns of the Globe, which had now become the
+organ of the Saint-Simonians, he invited the Romanticists to "step forth
+from the circle of pure art, and diffuse the doctrines of a progressive
+humanity." On the advent of Louis Philippe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> he was inclined to accept
+the constitutional <i>r&eacute;gime</i> as the triumph of good sense, as affording a
+practical solution and a promise of stability. But he appears soon to
+have lost his faith in a government too narrow in policy, too timid in
+action, too vulgar in aspect, to satisfy a cultivated Parisian taste.</p>
+
+<p>A similar flexibility will be noticed in his literary judgments. Shall
+we then pronounce him a very chameleon in politics and in art? Shall we
+say, with the critic already quoted, M. de Pontmartin, that his mental
+hues have been simply reflections, effaced as rapidly as they were made?
+On the contrary, we believe that he, of all men, has retained the
+various impressions he has once received. Unlike so many others, who, in
+changing their views, have contradicted all their former utterances,
+disowned their former selves, undergone a sort of bisection into two
+irreconcilable halves, M. Sainte-Beuve has linked one opinion with
+another, modified each by its opposite, and thus preserved his
+continuity and cohesion. "Everything has two names," to use his own
+expression, and he has never been content with knowing only one of them.
+Guided by a sympathetic intelligence, adopting, not symbols, but ideas,
+he has, by force of penetration and comprehension, extracted the essence
+of each doctrine in turn. His changes therefore indicate, not
+superficiality, but depth. He is no more chargeable with volatility than
+society itself. Like it he is a seeker, listening to every proposition,
+accepting what is vital, rejecting what is merely formal. There is not
+one of the systems which have been presented, however contrasted they
+may appear, but has left its impress upon society,&mdash;not one but has left
+its impress on the mind and opinions of M. Sainte-Beuve.</p>
+
+<p>In one particular&mdash;the most essential, in reality, of all&mdash;his constancy
+has been remarkable. He has remained true to his vocation. At the moment
+when his literary brethren, availing themselves of the opening we have
+noticed, were rushing into public life,&mdash;scholars and professors
+becoming ambassadors and ministers of state, poets and novelists
+mounting the tribune and the hustings, historians descending into the
+arena of political journalism,&mdash;M. Sainte-Beuve settled himself more
+firmly in the chair of criticism, concentrating his powers on the
+specialty to which they were so peculiarly adapted. His opportunities
+for doing this more effectively were themselves among the results of the
+events already mentioned. A greater freedom and activity of discussion
+demanded new and ampler organs. Cliques had been broken up; co-workers,
+brought together by sympathy, separated by the clash of opinions and
+ambitions, had dispersed; both in literature and in politics a wider,
+more inquisitive, more sympathetic public was to be addressed. Already
+in 1829, V&eacute;ron, one of those shrewd and speculative&mdash;we hardly know
+whether to call them men of business or adventurers, who foresee such
+occasions, had set up the <i>Revue de Paris</i>, on a more extended plan than
+that of any previous French journal of the kind. The opening article of
+the first number was from the pen of M. Sainte-Beuve. But this
+undertaking was subsequently merged in that of the <i>Revue des Deux
+Mondes</i>, which, after one or two abortive beginnings, was fairly started
+in January, 1831, and soon assumed the position it has ever since
+retained, at the head of the publications of its class. It enlisted
+among its contributors nearly all the leading writers of the day, none
+of whom was so regular and permanent, none of whom did so much to build
+up its reputation and confer upon it the stamp of authority, as M.
+Sainte-Beuve. His connection with it extended over seventeen years, the
+period between the last two revolutions. His papers seem to have
+averaged five or six a year. They form, with those which had been
+previously inserted in the <i>Revue de Paris</i>, a series of <i>Portraits</i>,
+now embraced in seven volumes, and divided, somewhat arbitrarily, into
+<i>Portraits litt&eacute;raires</i>, <i>Portraits contemporains</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> and <i>Portraits de
+Femmes</i>. The names included, which with few exceptions are those of
+French writers, belong to different epochs, different schools, and
+different departments of literature. Many are famous; some are obscure;
+not a few, which had before been overlooked or overshadowed, owe the
+recognition they have since received to their admission into a gallery
+where the places have been assigned and the lights distributed by no
+partial or incompetent umpire.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of any kind of literature, but especially in that of
+criticism, it is interesting to have an author's own ideas of his office
+and art. The motto of the Edinburgh Review&mdash;"<i>Judex damnatur cum nocens
+absolvitur</i>"&mdash;was a very good indication of the spirit of its founders,
+whose legal habits and aspirations naturally suggested the spectacle of
+a court, in which the critic as judge was to sit upon the bench, and the
+author as prisoner was to stand at the bar. Had Jeffries, instead of
+Jeffrey, presided over the assizes, they could not have been gayer or
+bloodier. It is interesting to remember that among the criminals
+sentenced without reprieve were the greatest poet and the most original
+thinker of the time. A journal which has earned something of the
+prestige that attached to the youthful Edinburgh takes a not very
+different view of its own functions. "An author may wince under
+criticism," say the writers of the Saturday Review; "but is the master
+to leave off flogging because the pupil roars?" Here, too, the notion of
+the relative position of author and critic is perfectly natural. Young
+gentlemen, with a lively recollection of their own construings and
+birchings, are only too happy in the opportunity of sitting with bent
+brows and uplifted rod, watching for a false quantity or similar
+peccadillo, which may justify a withering rebuke or a vigorous
+flagellation. If we add, that these writers exhibit that accuracy of
+statement which usually accompanies the assumption of infallibility, and
+that their English is of that prim and painful kind, common to
+pedagogues, which betrays a constant fear of being caught tripping while
+engaged in correcting others, the comparison&mdash;to cite once more M. de
+Pontmartin&mdash;"will appear only the more exact." We forbear to descend to
+a far lower class, judges who know nothing of law, masters who have
+never been scholars, truly "incomplete artists" who cannot "forget or
+bury" their own extremely "circumscribed talent," but who are perfectly
+willing to bury, and would fain induce the world to forget, that of
+every suspected rival.</p>
+
+<p>Had M. Sainte-Beuve entered upon his task with similar conceptions and
+associations, his early anatomical studies would perhaps have suggested
+the patient under the scalpel as an appropriate device. But we are in
+danger of dishonoring him by the mere supposition. Scattered through his
+works&mdash;beginning with the earliest and coming down to the latest&mdash;we
+find such sentences as the following: "The critical spirit is in its
+nature facile, insinuating, mobile, and comprehensive; it is a great and
+limpid river, which winds and spreads itself around the productions and
+the monuments of genius." "The best and surest way to penetrate and to
+judge any writer, any man, is to listen to him,&mdash;to listen long and
+intently: do not press him; let him move and display himself with
+freedom, and <i>of</i> himself he will tell you all <i>about</i> himself; he will
+imprint himself upon your mind. Be assured that in the long run no man,
+no writer, above all no poet, will preserve his secret." "It is by
+virtue of an exquisite analogy that the word 'taste' has prevailed over
+the word 'judgment.' Judgment! I know minds which possess it in a high
+degree, but which are yet wanting in taste; for taste expresses what is
+finest and most instinctive in an organ which is at once the most
+delicate and the most complex." "To know how to read a book, judging it
+as we go along, but never ceasing to <i>taste</i> it,&mdash;in this consists
+almost the whole art of criticism." "What Bacon says as to the proper
+mode of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> educing the natural meaning from Scripture may be applied to
+ancient writings of all kinds, or even to the most modern. The best and
+sweetest criticism is that which exudes from a good book, not pressed as
+in a wine-press, but squeezed gently in a free reading. I love that
+criticism should be an <i>emanation</i> from the book." "Whenever I speak of
+a writer, I prefer to exhibit him in the brightest and happiest hour of
+his talent, to place him, if possible, directly under the rays." "The
+greatest triumph of criticism is when it recognizes the arrival of a
+power, the advent of a genius." "I cannot admit that the best mode of
+correcting a talent which is in process of development is to begin by
+throwing an inkstand at its head." "I am almost frightened at seeing to
+what an extent literary criticism becomes difficult, when it refrains
+from arrogance and from insult, claiming for itself both an honest
+freedom of judgment and the right to participate largely in the
+bestowment of deserved praise, as well as to maintain a certain
+cordiality even in its reservations." "If Diderot was as far as possible
+from being a dramatic poet, if he was destitute of that supreme creative
+power which involves the transformation of an author's own personality,
+he possessed, on the other hand, in the highest degree, that faculty of
+demi-metamorphosis which is the exercise and the triumph of criticism,
+and which consists in putting one's self in the the place of the author,
+occupying the point of view to the subject under examination, and
+reading every writing in the spirit by which it was dictated."</p>
+
+<p>Let us admit that these are not so much absolute principles of criticism
+as the features which characterize that of the writer himself and the
+method which he has almost involuntarily pursued. Let us admit this, and
+in doing so we concede to him all the qualities that are rarest and most
+desirable in his art,&mdash;impartiality, sincerity, disinterestedness;
+freedom from theory, from passion, and from prejudice; insight,
+comprehension, sensitiveness to every trait and every kind of beauty and
+of power; a patient ardor and pure delight in acquisition, and a
+generous desire, in the interest of literature itself, to communicate
+the results and inspire similar feelings. Without denying that all good
+criticism will partake more or less largely of these qualities, or that
+some of them have been more abundantly possessed, more profoundly
+applied, by others, we believe that it would be difficult to cite an
+instance in which they have been so entirely combined or so continuously
+exercised. M. Sainte-Beuve is pre-eminently an <i>artist</i> in criticism. He
+has exhibited that self-absorption which it is easy to imagine, easy to
+find examples of, in poetry, in painting, and in music, but which in
+criticism had hitherto been hardly conceivable. "There is in him," wrote
+Gustave Planche in 1834,&mdash;and the force of the eulogy is in no degree
+impaired by subsequent censures from the same quarter,&mdash;"a happy
+mingling of enthusiasm and curiosity, renewed in proportion as they are
+appeased, and enrolled in the service of all nascent or unrecognized
+abilities.... He speaks the truth for the sole pleasure of speaking it,
+and asks no gratitude either from the disciples whom he initiates or
+from the new deities whom he exalts.... Whenever he finds a poet not
+sufficiently listened to, he aims to enlarge the audience, erects a
+stage on which to place him, and arranges everything for enabling him to
+produce the fullest effect.... Before him French criticism, when it was
+not either acrimonious or simply learned, consisted in a mere
+commonplace repetition of precepts and formulas of which the sense had
+been lost. His perpetual mobility is but a constant good faith; he
+believes in the most opposite schools, because believing is with him
+only a mode of comprehending."</p>
+
+<p>Let it not be supposed from this description that M. Sainte-Beuve is
+wanting in acuteness, that his enthusiasm predominates over his
+sagacity. On the contrary, there is no keener eye than his for whatever
+is false, pretentious, or unsound. His sure instinct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> quickly separates
+the gold from the alloy. Unlike the critics of the <i>nil admirari</i>
+school, whose reluctance to trust themselves to their emotions proceeds
+in great part from the absence of this instinct, he is proof against the
+approaches of the charlatan, and has never debased the word "art" by
+applying it to a mere melodramatic mechanism. But he rightly considers
+the office of the detector as insignificant in comparison with that of
+the discoverer, and his glow of satisfaction is reserved for the nobler
+employment. The points on which he insists are the obligation of
+honestly desiring to understand an author; the impropriety of fastening
+on defects, or of simply balancing between defects and merits; the duty
+of approving with heartiness and warmth, in place of that cold-blooded
+moderation which he pronounces, with Vauvenargues, "a sure sign of
+mediocrity." If, therefore, we say that his is only one species of
+criticism, we cannot deny its claim to be entitled the "criticism of
+<i>appreciation</i>." It is thus the exact reverse of that species to which
+we have before alluded, and which deserves to be called the "criticism
+of <i>depreciation</i>."</p>
+
+<p>We come now to the particular characteristics of the <i>Portraits</i>, the
+manner in which the author has there applied his principles. "I have
+never," he remarks in a recent defence, "vaunted my method as a
+discovery, or affected to guard it as a secret." It involves, however,
+both the one and the other. The discovery consists in the perception of
+the truth that an author is always in his works; that he cannot help
+being there; that no reticence, no pretences, no disguises, will avail
+to hide him. The secret lies in the skill with which the search is
+pursued and the object revealed. We do not, of course, mean to say that
+M. Sainte-Beuve is the originator of biographical criticism, which in
+England especially, favored by the portly Reviews, has been carried to
+an extent undreamt of elsewhere. But in general it may be noticed that
+English articles of this kind have been simply biographies accompanied
+with criticism; their model is to be found in Johnson's "Lives of the
+Poets." The critical articles of Mr. Carlyle are a striking exception.
+Of Carlyle it may be said, as it has been said of M. Sainte-Beuve, that
+"what chiefly interests him in a book is the author, and in the author
+the very mystery of his personality." In other words, each looks upon a
+literary work, not as the production of certain impersonal intellectual
+faculties, but as a manifestation of the author in the totality of his
+nature. But while the point of view is thus identical, there is little
+similarity in the treatment. In the one case a powerful imagination
+causes the figure to stand out in bold relief, while a luminous humor
+plays upon every feature. The method of the <i>Portraits</i>&mdash;again we cite
+the author's own language&mdash;is "descriptive, analytical, inquisitive." We
+are led along through a series of details, each lightly touched, each
+contributing to the elucidation of the enigma, by a train of closely
+linked and subtile observation, which penetrates all the obscurities,
+unravels all the intricacies, of the subject. And the result is, not
+that broad but mingled conception which arises from personal intimacy or
+from the art which simulates it, but that idea, that distilled essence,
+which is obtained when what is most characteristic, what is purely
+mental and individual, has been selected and condensed.</p>
+
+<p>The sympathetic nature of the critic displays itself in his general
+treatment of the theme, in the post of observation which he chooses. He
+is not an advocate or an apologist. But the opinions in which he does
+not coincide, the defects which he has no interest in concealing, he
+sets in their natural connection, and regards as portions of a living
+organism. Put before him a nature the most opposite to his own,&mdash;narrow,
+rigorous, systematic. Shall he oppose or condemn it because of this
+contrariety? But why, then, has he himself been endowed with suppleness
+and insight, why is he a critic, unless that he may enter into other
+minds see as they have seen, feel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> as they have felt? He must get to the
+centre before he can trace the limits and imperfections. Once there,
+once identified with his object, he can observe its irregularities
+without being irritated or perturbed. As for that Rhadamanthine
+criticism which sits aloof from its object, and treats every aberration
+from a straight line as something abnormal and abominable, he leaves it
+to the immaculate. In truth, such criticism, with all its pretences to
+authority, is open to this fatal objection,&mdash;it tends to destroy our
+relish for literature; instead of stimulating the appetite, it creates
+disgust.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> How different is the effect produced by the <i>Portraits</i>! Of
+all criticism they have the most power to refresh our interest in
+familiar topics, and to kindle curiosity in regard to those with which
+we are unacquainted. They serve as the best possible introduction to the
+study of the works themselves, to which, accordingly, they have in many
+cases been prefixed. They put us in the proper disposition for <i>tasting</i>
+as we read. Often they are guides with which we could hardly dispense.
+M. Sainte-Beuve is never more happy than in dealing with complexities or
+contradictions, with characters that puzzle the ordinary observer, with
+harmonies which are hidden in discords. Of women, it has been well said,
+he writes "as if he were one of them." Like Thackeray, like Balzac, he
+knows their secret. So, too, the spirit of a particular epoch or a
+particular school is seized, its successive phases are distinguished,
+with a nicety defying competition. Especially is this applicable to the
+developments of the present century. Who, indeed, was so competent to
+describe its parties and conflicts, its emotions and languors, as one
+who had shared in all its transitions, in all its experiences?</p>
+
+<p>The style of the <i>Portraits</i> might form the subject of a separate study.
+Abjuring antithesis and epigram on the one hand, pomp and declamation on
+the other, it has yet none of the limpidity, the rapid flow, the
+incisive directness, of classical French prose. On the contrary, it is
+full of shadings and undulations. It abounds in caressing epithets, and
+in figures sometimes elaborated and prolonged to the last degree,
+sometimes clustered and contrasted like flowers in a bouquet. After a
+continuous reading a sense of luxury steals over us; we seem to be
+surrounded by the rich draperies and scented atmosphere of a boudoir.
+Yet the term "florid" will not apply to what is everywhere pervaded by
+an exquisite harmony and taste. Simplicity of expression, energy of
+tone, would be out of place, where the thought is so subtile and
+refined, the glow of feeling so soft and restrained, the mind so
+absorbed in the effort to catch every echo, every reflection, floating
+across the field of its survey. Difficult as it is to convey any
+adequate notion of such a style by mere description, it would be at
+least as difficult to do justice to its peculiarities in a translation.
+Our impressions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> of it may perhaps be best summed up by saying that it
+is the farthest remove from oratory, and the nearest approach to poetry,
+of any prose not professedly idyllic or lyric with which we are
+acquainted.</p>
+
+<p>It has been stated by the author himself, as one defect in his criticism
+at this period, that it was not "conclusive." It was perfectly sincere,
+but not equally frank. In fact, it was not full-grown. A mind like that
+of M. Sainte-Beuve is slow in arriving at maturity. It is quick to
+comprehend; but the very breadth of its comprehension and the variety of
+its researches make it tardy in attaining that completeness and
+decision, that air of mastery, which less capacious minds assume through
+the mere instinct, and as the outward sign, of virility. He has himself
+indicated the distinction in his notice of M. Taine, whom he describes
+as "entering the arena fully armed and equipped, taking his place with a
+precision, a vigor of expression, a concentration and absoluteness of
+thought, which he applies in turn to the most opposite subjects, without
+ever forgetting his own identity or losing faith in his system." There
+were, however, in the case of M. Sainte-Beuve, further impediments to
+the assumption of an explicit and confident tone. Among the authors whom
+he was called upon to criticise were his acknowledged leaders, those by
+whom he had been initiated into the mysteries of modern art. Though he
+was fast outgrowing their influence, he was in no haste to proclaim his
+independence. An indefatigable student, he was accumulating stores of
+material without as yet drawing upon them to any proportionate extent,
+or putting forth all the strength with which they supplied him. Besides
+the "Portraits," his only other work during this period was his "History
+of Port Royal," the five volumes of which were published at long
+intervals. Social relations, too, exerted a restraining influence. His
+position in the world of letters was generally recognized, and had
+brought him the distinctions and rewards which France has it in her
+power to bestow. In 1840 he was appointed one of the conservators of the
+Mazarine Library. In 1845 he was elected to the French Academy. He lived
+on terms of intimacy with men of all parties, and with the highest in
+every party. He moved in the <i>&eacute;lite</i> of Parisian society, accepting
+rather than claiming its attentions, but fully sensible of its charms.
+All these circumstances combined to prolong, in his case, that season
+when, though the fruit has formed, the blossoms have not yet fallen,
+when the mind still yields itself to illusions as if loath to be
+disenchanted. His sincere admiration for the genius of Chateaubriand did
+not blind him to the monstrosities or the littlenesses by which it was
+disfigured. But should he rudely break the spell in the presence of the
+enchanter? should he disturb the veneration that encircled his decline?
+should he steel himself against the gracious pleadings of Madame
+R&eacute;camier, and throw a bomb-shell into that circle of which no one could
+better appreciate the seductive repose? He chose rather to limit the
+scope of his judgment, to look at the object solely on its attractive
+side, to postpone <i>reservations</i> which would have had the effect of a
+revolt.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the extent of his concessions has been much exaggerated. No
+extravagant laudations ever fell from his pen. Moreover, his gradual
+emancipation, so to speak, is apparent in his writings,&mdash;in the last
+volumes of his "Port Royal" and in the later "Portraits." It was
+facilitated by the waning power displayed in the productions of some
+with whom he had been closely associated. It was suddenly completed by
+an event of which the momentous and wide-spread consequences are still
+felt,&mdash;the Revolution of February, 1848.</p>
+
+<p>M. Sainte-Beuve has given a curious account of the immediate effect of
+that event upon his own external circumstances and position. Some
+lurking irony may be suspected,&mdash;a disposition to reduce the apparent
+magnitude of a great political convulsion by setting it in juxtaposition
+with its more trivial results. But as the narrative is characteristic,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span>
+and contains some passages that throw light upon the author's habits and
+sentiments, we give it, very slightly abridged, in his own words. It is
+prefixed to a course of lectures on Chateaubriand and his literary
+friends, delivered at Li&eacute;ge in 1848-49.</p>
+
+<p>"In October, 1847, in my capacity as one of the Conservators of the
+Mazarine Library, I occupied rooms at the Institute, where I had a
+chimney that smoked. With the view of guarding against this
+inconvenience before the winter should have set in, I summoned the
+<i>fumiste</i> of the establishment, who, after entering into details and
+fixing upon the remedy,&mdash;some contrivance on the roof in the nature of a
+hooded chimney-pot,&mdash;observed that the expense, amounting to a hundred
+francs or so, was one of those which are chargeable to the landlord,
+that is to say, in this case, the government. Consequently I made a
+requisition on the Minister to whose department it belonged; the work
+was executed, and I thought no more of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Some months later, the Revolution of the 24th of February broke out. I
+perceived from the first day all the importance of that event, but also
+its prematureness. Without being one of those who regretted the fall of
+a dynasty or of a political system, I grieved for a civilization which
+seemed to me for the moment greatly compromised. I did not, however,
+indulge in the gloomy anticipations which I saw had taken possession of
+many who the day before had professed themselves republicans, but who
+were now surprised, and even alarmed, at their own success. I thought we
+should get out of this, as we had already got out of so many other
+embarrassments. I reflected that History has more than one road by which
+to advance; and I awaited the development of facts with the curiosity of
+an observer, closely blended, I must confess, with the anxieties of a
+citizen.</p>
+
+<p>"About a month later, towards the end of March, I was told by a friend
+that M. Jean Reynaud, who then filled an office which, though nominally
+in the department of Public Instruction, corresponded in fact with that
+of Under-Secretary of State, wished to see me. I had been well
+acquainted with M. Reynaud for seventeen or eighteen years, and had
+dined with him, in company with M. Charton, on Wednesday, the 25th of
+February preceding, while the Revolution was in full blast. Profiting by
+a short truce which had suddenly intervened on the afternoon of that
+day, I had been able to traverse the Champs-&Eacute;lys&eacute;es, at the farther end
+of which he lived, and to keep an appointment dating from several days
+before. On that Wednesday, at six o'clock in the evening, I did not
+expect, and as little did M. Reynaud himself expect, that two days later
+he would be holding the post of quasi-minister in the department of
+Public Instruction. I heard with pleasure of his appointment, in
+conjunction with that of M. Carnot and M. Charton, for I knew their
+perfect integrity.</p>
+
+<p>"Summoned then, about a month after these events, by M. Reynaud, and
+having entered his office and approached him with my ordinary air, I saw
+in his countenance a look of consternation. He informed me that
+something very grave had taken place, and that this something concerned
+me; that certain lists specifying the sums distributed by the late
+government, with the names of the recipients, had been seized at the
+Tuileries; that my name had been found in them; that it occurred several
+times, with a sum&mdash;with sums&mdash;of a considerable amount attached to it.
+At first I began to laugh; but perceiving that M. Reynaud did not laugh,
+and receiving from him repeated appeals to my recollection, I began to
+ply him with questions in return. He was unable to enter into any exact
+details; but he assured me that the fact was certain,&mdash;that he had
+verified it with his own eyes; and as his alarm evidently proceeded from
+his friendship, I could not doubt the reality of what he had told me.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that, by my manner of replying on the instant, I convinced
+him of the existence of some error or some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> fraud. But I perceived that
+there were others, near him, behind him, who would be less easily
+convinced. As soon, therefore, as I had returned home, I addressed to
+the <i>Journal des D&eacute;bats</i> a letter of denial, a defiance to calumny, in
+the tone natural to honorable persons and such as feel secure in their
+own innocence. This letter furnished M. Reynaud with a weapon against my
+accusers behind the scene. As a proof that he accepted both the
+sentiment and the terms, he caused it to be inserted in the <i>Moniteur</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"However, I was not entirely satisfied; I wished to bring the affair
+fully to light. I made attempts to procure the lists in question. I went
+to see M. Taschereau, who was publishing them in his <i>Revue
+r&eacute;trospective</i>; I saw M. Landrin, the Attorney-General of the Republic;
+I even caused inquiries to be made of the former Ministers, then in
+London, with whom I had had the honor of being personally acquainted. No
+result; nobody understood to what my questions had reference. Wearied
+out at last, I discontinued the pursuit, though without dismissing the
+subject from my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"I will get to the bottom of this affair. There was in the department of
+Public Instruction a man newly elevated to power, who honored me with an
+enmity already of long standing. I have never in my life met M. G&eacute;nin; I
+have never once seen his face; but the fact is that he has always
+detested me, has often in his writings made me the object of his satire,
+and in his critical articles especially has ridiculed me to the extent
+of his powers. I did not suit this writer, whom all his friends
+pronounced a man of intellect; I appeared to him affected and full of
+mannerisms; and to me, on the other hand, he perhaps appeared neither so
+subtile, nor so refined, nor so original, as he seemed to others. Now M.
+G&eacute;nin, who had been intrusted, after the 24th of February, 1848, with
+the distribution of the papers in the Bureau of Public Instruction, was
+undoubtedly the person who had availed himself of the list in which my
+name was said to figure, for the purpose of bringing an accusation
+against my honor. He was himself a man of probity, but one who, in the
+violence of his prejudices and the acerbity of his disposition, could
+hardly stop short of actions positively bad.</p>
+
+<p>"If M. G&eacute;nin had lived in the world, in society, during the fifteen
+years previous to 1848 which I had passed in it, he would have
+comprehended how a man of letters, without fortune, without ambition, of
+retiring manners, and keeping strictly to his own place, may yet&mdash;by his
+intellect perhaps, by his character, by his tact, and by his general
+conduct&mdash;obtain an honorable and agreeable position, and live with
+persons of every rank, the most distinguished in their several
+walks,&mdash;persons not precisely of his own class,&mdash;on that insensible
+footing of equality which is, or which was, the charm and honor of
+social life in France. For my own part, during those years,&mdash;happy ones
+I may call them,&mdash;I had endeavored, not without a fair degree of
+success, to arrange an existence combining dignity with ease. To write
+from time to time things which it might be agreeable to read; to read
+what was not only agreeable but instructive; above all, not to write too
+much, to cultivate friendships, to keep the mind at liberty for the
+intercourse of each day and be able to draw upon it without fear of
+exhausting it; giving more to one's intimates than to the public, and
+reserving the finest and tenderest thoughts, the flower of one's nature,
+for the inner sanctuary;&mdash;such was the mode of life I had conceived as
+suitable to a literary knight, who should not allow has professional
+pursuits and associations to domineer over and repress the essential
+elements of his heart and soul. Since then necessity has seized upon me
+and constrained me to renounce what I considered the only happiness. It
+is gone, it has forever vanished, that better time, adorned with study
+and leisure, passed in a chosen circle, where I once received, from a
+fair friend whose loss has been irreparable, this charming counsel
+insinuated in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> form of praise: 'If you think yourself dependent on
+the approbation of certain people, believe me, that others are dependent
+upon yours. And what better, sweeter bond can there be between persons
+who esteem each other, than this mutual dependence on moral approbation,
+balancing, so to speak, one's own sentiment of freedom. <i>To desire to
+please and at the same time to remain free</i>,&mdash;this is the rule we ought
+to follow.' I accepted the motto; I promised myself to be faithful to it
+in all that I might write; my productions at that period will show
+perhaps the degree in which I was influenced by it. But I perceive that
+I have strayed from my text.</p>
+
+<p>"I had forgotten to mention that, on the same day on which I wrote the
+letter inserted first in the <i>Journal des D&eacute;bats</i>, and afterwards in the
+<i>Moniteur</i>, I forwarded to Messieurs Reynaud and Carnot the resignation
+of my place at the Mazarine. I did not wish to expose myself to
+interrogatories and explanations where I could be less sure of being
+questioned in a friendly spirit and listened to with confidence. From
+the moment of taking this step there was no longer much choice for me. I
+had to live by my pen; and during the year 1848, literature in my
+understanding of that term&mdash;and indeed literature of every kind&mdash;formed
+one of those branches of industry, devoted to the production of
+luxuries, which were struck with a sudden interdict, a temporary death.
+I was asked in conversation if I knew any man of letters who would
+accept a place in Belgium as professor of French literature. Learning
+that the vacancy was at the University of Li&eacute;ge, I offered myself. I
+went to Brussels to confer on the project with M. Charles Rogier,
+Minister of the Interior, whom I had known a long time, and I accepted
+with gratitude the propositions that were made to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I left France in October, 1848. The press of Paris noticed my departure
+only with raillery. When a man of letters has no party, no followers, at
+his back, when he takes his way alone and independently, the least that
+can be expected is that the world should give itself the pleasure of
+insulting him a little on his passage. In Belgium I met with unexpected
+difficulties, thrown in my way by hostile compatriots. Pamphlets
+containing incredible calumnies were published against me. I have reason
+to speak with praise of the youth of Belgium, who decided to wait, and
+to judge me only by my acts and words. In spite of obstacles I
+succeeded. The present book, which was entirely composed and was to have
+been published before the end of 1849, represents one of the two courses
+which I delivered.</p>
+
+<p>"P.S. I had almost forgotten to recur to the famous lists. The one
+containing my name appeared at last in the <i>Revue r&eacute;trospective</i>. 'M.
+Sainte-Beuve, 100 francs,'&mdash;this was what was to be read there. The
+fabulous ciphers had vanished. On seeing this entry a ray of light
+dawned upon my memory. I recollected my smoky chimney of 1847, the
+repair of which was to have cost about that sum. But for this incident,
+I should never have been led to deliver the course now submitted to the
+reader, and the one circumstance has occasioned my mention of the
+other."</p>
+
+<p>It must be confessed that the chimney that drove M. Sainte-Beuve into
+temporary exile, and led to the production of a work in which his views
+on many important topics were enunciated with a clearness and force he
+had hitherto held in reserve, had smoked to some purpose. We may be
+permitted to believe that his integrity had never been seriously
+questioned; that the pretext for a brief abandonment of his beloved
+Paris while she was in a state of excitement and dishabille had not been
+altogether unwelcome. Though no admirer of the government of Louis
+Philippe, he had, as he still acknowledges, appreciated "the mildness of
+that <i>r&eacute;gime</i>, its humanity, and the facilities it afforded for
+intellectual culture and the development of pacific interests of every
+kind." The sudden overthrow, the turmoil, the vagaries that ensued, were
+little to his taste. He was content<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> to stand aside, availing himself of
+the general dislocation to look around and choose for himself a new
+field, a more independent position.</p>
+
+<p>Here then begins the third, and, as we must suppose, the final stage of
+his career. In September, 1849, he returned to Paris, feeling "a great
+need of activity," as if his mind had been "refreshed by a year of study
+and solitude." What was he to undertake? No sooner did the question
+arise, than an answer presented itself in the form of an offer from one
+whose coadjutor he had become on a previous and similar occasion. M. le
+docteur V&eacute;ron, now the proprietor of the <i>Constitutionnel</i>, and as
+sagacious as ever in catering for the public taste, proposed to him to
+furnish every Monday an article on some literary topic. The notion of
+writing for the masses, of adapting his style to the requirements of a
+newspaper, gave him a momentary shock. Hitherto he had addressed only
+the most select audiences. But, after all, he was conscious of an almost
+boundless versatility, and no plan could better satisfy the desire which
+he had long felt of becoming "a critic in the full sense of the word,
+with the advantages of ripeness and perhaps of boldness." Such a change
+would be suited also to the new aspect of society. In literature it was
+no longer the time for training, tending, and watering, but the season
+of gathering the fruit, selecting the good and rejecting the unsound.
+Romanticism as a school had done its work and was now extinct. Every one
+went his separate way. Questions of form were no longer mooted; the
+public tolerated everything. Whoever had an idea on any subject wrote
+about it, and whoever chose to write was a <i>litt&eacute;rateur</i>. "With such a
+noise in the streets it was necessary to raise one's voice in order to
+be heard. Accordingly," says M. Sainte-Beuve, "I set to work for the
+first time on that kind of criticism, frank and outspoken, which belongs
+to the open country and the broad day."</p>
+
+<p>With the old manner he laid aside the old title. The term <i>Portraits</i>,
+which in its literary signification recalled the times of the
+Rochefoucaulds and the S&eacute;vign&eacute;s, was exchanged for the more modern one
+of Conversations,&mdash;<i>Causeries de Lundis</i>. Begun in the <i>Constitutionnel</i>
+on the 1st of October, 1849, they were continued three years later in
+the <i>Moniteur</i>, and in 1861 again resumed, under the title of <i>Nouveaux
+Lundis</i>, in the first-named journal, where they are still in progress.
+More than once the author has intimated his intention to bring them to a
+close. But neither his own powers nor the appetite of his readers having
+suffered any abatement, one series has followed upon another, until, in
+their reprinted form, they now fill nineteen volumes, while more are
+eagerly expected.</p>
+
+<p>The transformation of style which was visible at the very outset is one
+of the miracles of literary art. Simplicity, swiftness, precision, all
+the qualities which were conspicuously absent, we will not say wanting,
+in the <i>Portraits</i>,&mdash;these are the characteristics, and that in a
+surpassing degree, of the <i>Causeries</i>. The whole arrangement, too, is
+different. There is no preluding, there are no intricate harmonies: the
+key-note is struck in the opening chord, and the theme is kept
+conspicuously in view throughout all the modulations. The papers at once
+acquired a popularity which of course had never attended the earlier
+ones. "He has not the time to make them bad," was the praise accorded by
+some of their admirers, and smilingly accepted by the author. But is
+this indeed the explanation? Had he merely taken to "dashing off" his
+thoughts, after the general manner of newspaper writers? Had he deserted
+"art," and fallen back upon the crudities misnamed "nature"? If such had
+been the case, there would have been no occasion for the present notice.
+His fame would long since have been buried under the rubbish he had
+himself piled up. The fact is very different. "Natural fluency"&mdash;that is
+to say, the inborn capacity of the writer&mdash;he undoubtedly possessed; but
+"acquired difficulty,"&mdash;this was the school in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span> which he had practised,
+this was the discipline which enabled him, when the need arose, to carry
+on a campaign of forced marches, brilliant and incessant skirmishes,
+without severing his lines or suffering a mishap. It was in wielding the
+lance that he had acquired the vigor and agility to handle the javelin
+with consummate address. Contrasted as are his earlier and later styles,
+they have some essential qualities in common;&mdash;an exquisite fitness of
+expression; a total exemption from harshness, vulgarity, and all the
+vices that have grown so common; a method, a sequence, which is at once
+the closest and the least obtrusive to be found in any prose of the
+present day.</p>
+
+<p>We pass from the style to the substance. The criticism, as we have seen,
+was to be "frank and outspoken." It became so at a single bound. The
+subject of the second number of the <i>Causeries</i> was the <i>Confidences</i> of
+M. de Lamartine, and the article opens with these words: "And why, then,
+should I not speak of it? I know the difficulty of speaking of it with
+propriety; the time of illusions and of complaisances has passed; it is
+absolutely necessary to speak truths; and this may seem cruel, so well
+chosen is the moment. Yet when such a man as M. de Lamartine has deemed
+it becoming not to close the year 1848 without giving to the public the
+confessions of his youth and crowning his political career with idyls,
+shall criticism hesitate to follow him and to say what it thinks of his
+book? shall it exhibit a discretion and a shamefacedness for which no
+one, the author least of all, would care?" And what follows? An
+outpouring of ridicule, of severity, such as the same book received from
+so many quarters? Nothing of the sort; nothing more than a thoroughly
+candid and discriminating judgment, never over-stepping the bounds of
+courtesy, never exaggerating a defect or concealing a beauty. A talk
+might be raised about the inconsistency with a former tone; but if the
+fact was made apparent that the later effusions of a tender and
+melodious, but shallow Muse, were but dilutions, ever more watery and
+insipid, of the first sweet and abundant flow, was the critic or the
+poet at fault?</p>
+
+<p>And so it has been in all the subsequent articles of M. Sainte-Beuve. It
+matters not who or what is the subject,&mdash;let it be a long-established
+reputation, like that of M. Guizot; a youthful aspirant, such as M.
+Hyppolite Rigault and many others; a brother critic, like M.
+Prevost-Paradol; a fanatical controversialist, like M. Veuillot; a
+personal friend, like M. Flaubert; or a bitter and unscrupulous
+assailant, like M. de Pontmartin,&mdash;the treatment is ever the same,
+sincere, impartial, unaffected. "To say nothing of writers, even of
+those who are the most opposed to us, but what their judicious friends
+already think and would be forced to admit,&mdash;this is the height of my
+ambition." Such was his proclamation, such has been his practice. No one
+has ever been bold enough to gainsay it. An equity so great, so
+unvarying, has almost staggered his brethren of the craft. "It is grand,
+it is royal," says M. Scherer,&mdash;who has himself approached near enough
+to the same summit to appreciate its height,&mdash;"only in him it cannot be
+called a virtue: it belongs to the intellect, which in him is blended
+with the character."</p>
+
+<p>"But he professes neutrality! He has no doctrines, no belief, no
+emotions! He discusses everything, not with any regard to the eternal
+considerations of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, but solely in
+the view of literature and art!" So cry certain voices, loudest among
+them that of M. de Pontmartin. It is certainly somewhat surprising that
+a man without opinions, without emotions, should be made the object of
+violent attacks, that according to M. de Pontmartin himself, whose
+authority, however, upon this point we may take the liberty of
+rejecting, there should be "few men more generally hated." Mere jealousy
+can have nothing to do with it. "There is not," remarks M. Scherer, "the
+trace of a literary rivalry to be found in his whole career." The truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span>
+is, that M. Sainte-Beuve has, on all the subjects he has examined,
+convictions which are strong, decided, earnestly and powerfully
+maintained. But he differs from the rest of us in this, that he not only
+professes, but enforces, a perfect freedom of opinion, a perfect
+equality in discussion. In religion he attaches more importance to the
+sentiment than to the creed. In morals he sets up a higher standard than
+conventionalism. In politics, as we shall presently see, he has even
+given in his adhesion to a system; but, treating politics, like
+medicine, as an experimental science, he refuses to see in any system an
+article of faith to be adopted and proclaimed irrespective of its
+results. In questions of literature and art he declines to apply any
+test but the principles of art, the literary taste "pure and simple." In
+all matters he prefers to look at the practical rather than the dogmatic
+side, to study living forces rather than dead forms. Hence the charge of
+indifference. He would better please those who differ from him, were he
+one-sided, narrow, rancorous. It is because his armor is without a flaw
+that they detest him.<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a></p>
+
+<p>We have spoken frequently of M. de Pontmartin. It is time to speak of
+him a little more definitely. As M. Sainte-Beuve has remarked, "the
+subject is not a difficult one." He belongs to the old aristocracy, and
+takes care that his readers shall not forget the fact. In religion and
+politics&mdash;with him, as with so many others, the two words have much the
+same meaning&mdash;he adheres consistently and chivalrously to causes once
+great and resplendent, now only fit subjects for elegies. As a writer,
+he is a master of the <i>critique spirituelle</i>,&mdash;that species which is so
+brilliant in display, so unsubstantial in results. He sparkles and
+glows; but his light only directs the brown nightingale where to find
+its repast. Armed cap-&agrave;-pie, glittering with epigram, rhetoric, and
+irony, he entered the lists against M. Sainte-Beuve, ostensibly to
+defend the reputation of Chateaubriand, provoked in reality by the
+causes already noticed. We have no space for the controversy that
+ensued. It is worthy of remark that the assault was directed, not
+against the censures which had been passed upon Chateaubriand,&mdash;M. de
+Pontmartin took good care not to aim at his adversary's shield,&mdash;but
+against the motives which had led to their suppression while the object
+was alive, and to their publication after he was dead. Now there are in
+the book on Chateaubriand some disclosures which might better have been
+spared. But in determining motives we shall go utterly astray if we
+leave character out of sight; and the whole career of M. Sainte-Beuve
+rises up against the implication that he was prompted in this instance
+by any other impulse than that spirit of investigation, that desire to
+penetrate to the heart of his subject, to unveil truth and dissipate
+illusions, which has grown stronger and more imperative at every step of
+his advance. We pass over his immediate replies. When, in the regular
+course of his avocation, he found an opportunity for expressing his
+opinion of M. de Pontmartin, he did it in a characteristic manner. There
+is not a particle of temper, not the slightest assumption of
+superiority, in the article. It is not "scathing" or "crushing,"&mdash;as we
+have seen it described. It has all the keenness, merely because it has
+all the simplicity, of truth. The playful but searching satire which the
+author has ever at command just touches the declamation of his opponent,
+and it falls like a house of cards. He sums up with a judgment as fair
+and as calm as if he had been speaking of a writer of some distant
+period. Astonished at the sleight of hand which had disarmed, and at the
+generosity which had spared him, M. de Pontmartin, in the first moment
+of his defeat,&mdash;before he had had time to recover his (bad) temper, to
+arm himself for more fiery assaults<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> to be followed by fresh
+overthrows,&mdash;declared that, in spite of the susceptibility of his
+friends, he himself was well satisfied with a criticism which "assigned
+to him nearly all the merit to which he could pretend," and in which,
+"for the first time in his literary life, he had seen himself discussed,
+appreciated, and valued without either the indulgences of friendship or
+the violence of hatred."</p>
+
+<p>One point still remains to be touched upon. M. Sainte-Beuve has been
+from the first a steady supporter of the present Empire. This of course
+accounts for a portion of the enmity with which he has been "honored."
+In 1852 he received the appointment of Professor of Latin in the Coll&eacute;ge
+de France; but his opening lecture was interrupted by the clamors of the
+students, and the course was never resumed. From 1857 to 1861 he held a
+position in connection with the superintendence of the &Eacute;cole Normale. In
+April, 1865, he was raised to the dignity of a Senator. No one, so far
+as we know, in France,&mdash;no one out of France, so far as we know, but a
+Saturday Reviewer,<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a>&mdash;has ever been foolish enough to insinuate that he
+had purchased his elevation by a sacrifice of principle. It seems to us
+that the grounds on which such a man defends a system still on its
+probation before the world are worth examining. He has stated them more
+than once with his usual clearness and frankness. We extract some
+passages, with only the slight verbal alterations indispensable for
+condensation.</p>
+
+<p>"Liberty! the name is so beautiful, so responsive to our noblest
+aspirations, that we hesitate to analyze it. But politics are, after
+all, not a mere matter of enthusiasm. I ask, therefore, of what liberty
+we are disputing? The word conveys many different ideas. Have we to do
+with an article of faith, some divine dogma not to be touched without
+sacrilege? Modern liberty, which keeps altogether in view the security
+of the individual, the free exercise of his faculties, is a very complex
+thing. If under a bad government, though it be in form republican, I
+cannot walk the streets with safety at night, then my liberty is
+curtailed. On the other hand, every advantage, every improvement, which
+science, civilization, a good police, or a watchful and philanthropic
+government furnishes to the masses and to individuals, is a liberty
+acquired, a liberty not the less practical, positive, and fruitful for
+being unwritten, unestablished by any charter. These, I shall be told,
+are 'little liberties.' I do not call them such. But we have a greater
+and more essential one,&mdash;the right of the representatives of the nation
+to discuss and vote on the budget; and this supposes others,&mdash;it brings
+with it publicity, and the liberty of touching upon such questions in
+the press. Here the difference of opinion is one of degree; some demand
+an unqualified freedom of discussion, others stop at a point more or
+less advanced.</p>
+
+<p>"In human society, liberty, like everything else, is relative, and
+dependent on a multitude of circumstances. A sober, orderly, laborious,
+educated people can support a larger dose than one less richly gifted in
+these respects. Liberty is, thank God! a progressive conquest; that
+portion of it which is denied us to-day we can always hope to acquire
+to-morrow. Let us develop, as far as it lies with us, intelligence,
+morality, habits of industry, in all the classes of society; that done,
+we may die tranquilly; France will be free, not with that absolute
+freedom which is not of this world, but with the relative freedom which
+corresponds with the imperfect, but perfectible, conditions of our
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>"This, however, will not satisfy those who are faithful to the primary
+idea of liberty as absolute and indivisible. After every concession,
+there must still remain two distinct classes of minds, divided by a
+broad line of demarcation.</p>
+
+<p>"One embraces those who hold firmly to that generous inspiration which,
+under all diversities of time and circumstances, has had the same moral
+source; who contend that such champions of liberty as Brutus, William of
+Orange,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> De Witt, Chatham, however haughty and aristocratic the ideas of
+some of them, were yet of the same political faith, filled with ideas of
+human nobleness and dignity, conceding much, if not to the masses, at
+least to the advanced and enlightened classes which in their eyes
+represented humanity. Thinkers of this kind are not far to seek; witness
+Scherer, R&eacute;musat, Tocqueville,&mdash;the last of whom was so imbued and
+penetrated with the idea that all his language vibrated with it; and,
+most striking example of all, that great minister too early removed,
+Cavour, who, confident in the patriotic sentiment of his countrymen,
+adopted it as a principle and a point of honor not to govern or reform
+without letting the air of liberty blow and even bluster around him.</p>
+
+<p>"It will not be said that I undervalue this class. I will come boldly to
+the other, composed of those who are neither servile not absolutists,&mdash;I
+repel this name, in my turn, with all the pride to which every sincere
+conviction has a right,&mdash;but who believe that humanity has in all times
+owed much to the mind and character of particular individuals; that
+there have always been, and always will be, what were formerly called
+heroes, what under one name or another are to be recognized as
+directors, guides, superior men,&mdash;men who, whether born or raised to
+power, cause their countrymen, their contemporaries, to take some of
+those decisive steps which would otherwise have been retarded or
+indefinitely adjourned. I picture to myself the first progress of
+society as having taken place in this way: tribes or collections of men
+stop short at a stage of civilization which indolence or ignorance leads
+them to be content with; in order that they shall pass beyond it, it is
+necessary that a superior and far-seeing mind, the civilizer, should
+assist them, should draw them to himself, raise them a degree by sheer
+force, as in the 'Deluge' of Poussin, those on the upper terraces
+stretch their hands to those below, clutch and lift them up. But
+humanity, I shall be told, is at last emancipated; it has no longer any
+deluge to fear; it has attained its majority; it finds within itself all
+the motives and stimulants to action; light circulates; every one has
+the right to speak and to be heard; the sum total of all opinions, the
+net result of discussion, may be accepted as the voice of truth itself!
+I do not deny that in certain questions of general interest and utility,
+on which every one may be tolerably well informed, the voice of all has,
+in our mild and instructed ages, its share of reason, and even of
+wisdom; ideas ripen by the mere conjunction of forces and the course of
+the seasons. And yet has routine altogether ceased? Is prejudice, that
+monster with a thousand forms which has the quality of never recognizing
+its own visage, as far removed as we flatter ourselves? Is progress,
+true progress, as entirely the order of the day as it is believed to be?
+How many steps are there still to take,&mdash;steps which I am persuaded
+never will be taken save by the impulsion and at the signal of a firm
+and vigorous head, which shall take the direction upon itself!</p>
+
+<p>"Some years since there was a question about finishing the Louvre. Could
+it of could it not be done? A great Assembly, when consulted, declared
+it to be impracticable. It was in fact impracticable under the
+conditions which then existed. Yet within the short period that has
+since elapsed, the Louvre has been finished. This instance is for me
+only a symbol. How many moral Louvres remain to be completed!</p>
+
+<p>"There are governments which have for their principle resistance and
+obstruction; but there are also governments of initiation. Governments
+founded on pure liberty are not necessarily the most active. Free
+assemblies are better suited to put the drag upon the wheels, to check
+them when they go too fast, than to accelerate them. Like criticism,
+which is in fact their province and their strength, they excel in
+warning and in hindering rather than in undertaking. The eternal problem
+is to reconcile, to balance, authority and liberty, using sometimes the
+one, sometimes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> the other. In this double play theory may be at fault,
+but practical ability will always triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"Some nations, it was lately said by a liberal, have tried to dispense
+with great men, and have succeeded. There is a perspective to
+contemplate! Let us not, however, in France, try too often to dispense
+with them. The greatest of our moralists, he who knew us best, has said
+of man in general, what is true of the French nature in particular, that
+we have more force than will. Let us hope that this latter quality may
+not fail us too long or in too many cases; and, that it may be
+efficacious, there is nothing like a man, a determined and sovereign
+will, at the head of the nation.</p>
+
+<p>"I appreciate human dignity as much as others. Woe to him who would seek
+to diminish the force of this moral spring; he would cripple at a blow
+all the virtues. I do not, however, place this noblest of sentiments on
+the somewhat isolated height where it is put by the exclusive adorers of
+liberty. Let us not confound dignity with mere loftiness. Moreover, by
+the side of dignity let us never forget that other inspiring sentiment,
+which is at least its equal in value, humanity; that is to say, the
+remembrance, the care, of that great number who are condemned to a life
+of poverty and suffering, and whose precarious condition will not endure
+those obstacles, retardments, and delays that belong to every plan of
+amelioration founded on agitation and a conflict of systems and ideas. I
+am far from imputing to the worshippers of liberty a disregard of this
+humane and generous feeling. But with them the means is more sacred than
+the end. They would rather take but one step in the path of true
+progress, than be projected two by an adverse principle. Their political
+religion is stronger than mine. Mine is not proof against experience.</p>
+
+<p>"If a question were put to us in a general way, Which is the better for
+a people, self-government, full discussion, decisions in accordance with
+good sense, and submitted to by all&mdash;or government by one, however
+able?&mdash;it would be only too easy to decide. But the practical question
+is, Given such a nation, with such a character, with such a history, in
+such a position,&mdash;does it, can it, wish to govern itself by itself?
+would not the end be anarchy? We talk of principles; let us not leave
+out of sight France, which is for us the first and most sacred of
+principles. Some have their idol in Rome and the Vatican; others in
+Westminster and the English Parliament; meanwhile, what becomes of poor
+France, which is neither Roman nor English, and which does not wish to
+be either?</p>
+
+<p>"No, without doubt, all is not perfect. Let us accept it on the
+condition of correcting and improving it. Examine the character,
+original and altogether modern, of this new Empire, which sincerely has
+no desire to repress liberty, which has acquired glory, and in which the
+august chain of tradition is already renewed. What a <i>r&ocirc;le</i> does it
+offer to young and intelligent minds, to generous minds, which, putting
+apart secondary questions and disengaging themselves from formulas,
+should be willing to seize and comprehend their entire epoch, accepting
+all that it contains! What a problem in politics, in public economy, in
+popular utility, that of seeking and aiding to prepare the way for such
+a future as is possible for France, as is now grandly opening before
+her, with a chief who has in his hand the power of Louis XIV., and in
+his heart the democratic principles of the Revolution,&mdash;for he has them,
+and his race is bound to have them!"</p>
+
+<p>This, it will be perceived, is an application of the ideas of Mr.
+Carlyle, modified by the special views and characteristics of the
+writer, and adapted to the circumstances and necessities of the
+particular case. It has far less similarity with the doctrines so
+pompously announced, so vaguely applied, in the <i>Vie de Jules C&eacute;sar</i>. It
+does not lie open to the criticism which that clumsy and feeble apology
+seemed intended to provoke, and which it had received at the competent
+hands of M.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> Scherer. We have here no mysterious revelations of the
+designs of Providence, no intimations that the world was created as a
+theatre for the exaltation of certain godlike individuals. The question,
+as presented by M. Sainte-Beuve, is a practical one, and as such we
+accept it. We believe with him in the necessity for great men, in the
+guidance of heroes. We believe with M. Scherer in the animating forces
+of liberty, in its activity and power as an essential principle of
+progress and civilization. That the combination may exist is attested by
+such examples as William of Orange, Count Cavour, Abraham Lincoln.</p>
+
+<p>It all comes, therefore, to this single inquiry: Is the present ruler of
+France a great man, a hero? Is he the enlightened leader whom a nation
+may and confidently follow? Has he the genius and the will to solve the
+problem before him, to reconcile liberty with authority? Posterity alone
+will be able to pronounce with unanimity. For ourselves, we must answer
+in the negative. We do not denounce him, we believe it absurd to
+denounce him, as a conspirator or a usurper. If he was a conspirator,
+France was his accomplice. There cannot be a doubt that the nation not
+only was ready to accept him, but sought him; not indeed for his
+personal qualities, not as recognizing its appointed guide, but from the
+recollections and the hopes of which his name was the symbol. We
+acknowledge, too, his obvious abilities; we acknowledge the material and
+economical improvements which his government has inaugurated. But we
+fail to see the "moral Louvres" which he has opened; we fail to see in
+his character any evidences of the moral power which can alone inspire
+such improvements; we fail to see in his reign any principle of
+"initiation," save that which the Ruler of the universe has implanted in
+every system and in every government. Yet we concede the right of others
+to think differently on these points, without being suspected of moral
+obtuseness or obliquity. Especially can we comprehend how a patriotic
+Frenchman should choose to accept all the conditions of his epoch, and
+embrace every opportunity of aiding in the task of correction and
+amelioration.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>We are unwilling to emerge from our subject at its least agreeable
+angle. Our strain, however feeble, shall not close with a discord. And
+indeed, in looking back, we are pained to perceive how slight is the
+justice we have been able to render to the rare combination of powers
+exhibited in the works we have enumerated. We have left unnoticed the
+wonderful extent and accuracy of the learning, the compass and
+profundity of the thought, the inexhaustible spirit, ever preserving the
+happy mean between mental languor and nervous excitement. In these
+twenty-seven volumes of criticism, scarcely an error has been detected,
+scarcely a single repetition is met with; there is scarcely a page which
+a reader, unpressed for time, would be inclined to skip. Where you least
+agree with the author, there you will perhaps have the most reason to
+thank him for his hints and elucidations. Is it not then with reason
+that M. Sainte-Beuve has been styled "the prince of contemporaneous
+criticism"? His decisions have been accepted by the public, and he has
+founded a school which does honor to France.</p>
+
+<p>How is it that our own language offers no such example? How is it that
+the English literature of the present century, superior to that of
+France in so many departments, richer therefore in the material of
+criticism, has nothing to show in this way, we will not say equal,
+but&mdash;taking quantity as well as quality into the account&mdash;in any degree
+similar? How is it that nothing has been written on the highest minds
+and chief productions of the day&mdash;on Tennyson, on Thackeray, on
+Carlyle&mdash;which is worth preserving or remembering? Is it that criticism
+has been almost abandoned to a class of writers who have no sense of
+their responsibilities, no enlightened interest in their art, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span>
+liberality of views,&mdash;who make their position and the influence attached
+to it subservient either to their interests or to their vanity? Descend,
+gentlemen reviewers, from the heights on which you have perched
+yourselves; lay aside your airs and your tricks, your pretences and
+affectations! Have the honesty not to misrepresent your author, the
+decency not to abuse him, the patience to read, and if possible to
+understand him! Point out his blemishes, correct his blunders, castigate
+his faults; it is your duty,&mdash;he himself will have reason to thank you.
+But do not approach him with arrogance or a supercilious coldness; do
+not, if your knowledge be less than his, seek to mask your ignorance
+with the deformity of conceit; do not treat him as a criminal or as a
+dunce, unless he happens really to be one. Above all, do not, by dint of
+<i>judging</i>, vitiate your faculty of <i>tasting</i>. Recognize the importance,
+the inestimable virtues, of that quality which you have piqued
+yourselves on despising,&mdash;that <i>sympathy</i> which is the sum of
+experience, the condition of insight, the root of tolerance, the seal of
+culture!</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> At the moment when we are sending this sketch to press a
+specimen of the sort of criticism to which we have alluded comes to us
+in the form of an article in the Quarterly Review for January,&mdash;the
+subject, M. Sainte-Beuve himself. One wonders how it is that the writer,
+who, if really familiar with the productions he criticises, must have
+been indebted to them for many hours of enjoyment, much curious
+information, and a multitude of suggestions and stimulants to
+reflection, should have had no feeling of kindliness or gratitude for
+the author. But then the question comes up, Was he in reality familiar
+with the works? Several of his statements might provoke a doubt upon
+this point. We cite a single example. Speaking of M. Sainte-Beuve's
+temporary connection with the Saint-Simonians, he says: "For a brief
+season he appears to have felt some of the zeal of a neophyte,
+<i>speaking</i> the <i>speech</i> and <i>talking</i> the vague nonsense of his new
+friends. But soon his native good-sense seems to have perceived that the
+whole thing was only a fevered dream of a diseased age." Now the
+reviewer, if he knows anything of the doctrines in question, is entitled
+to express his opinion of them, even if he does it in tautological and
+slipshod English. But he has no right to attribute his own opinions to
+M. Sainte-Beuve, who is so far from holding them that, in articles
+written so lately as in 1861 (<i>Nouveaux Lundis</i>, I.), he has not only
+traced the <i>enduring</i> influence of Saint-Simonianism upon some of the
+ablest minds in France, but has contended that what were once considered
+the wildest dreams of that system have since been substantially
+realized. Perhaps the reviewer thinks that, as M. Sainte-Beuve is "a
+chameleon," with scarcely one single fixed opinion on any problem,
+literary, philosophical, political, or religious, there can be no harm
+in fathering upon him any notion from whatever source. But on one point
+at least&mdash;the duty of being accurate in the statement of other persons'
+opinions&mdash;M. Sainte-Beuve has shown an unwavering consistency.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> Here is, quite <i>apropos</i>, a frank admission to that effect
+from the Quarterly Reviewer before mentioned: "We confess we should be
+glad to meet with some passages in the writings of M. Sainte-Beuve which
+would prove him capable of downright scorn or anger." Yes, but if they
+had been there, how stern would have been the rebuke!</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> A Quarterly Reviewer must now be added.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="DE_SPIRIDIONE_EPISCOPO" id="DE_SPIRIDIONE_EPISCOPO"></a>DE SPIRIDIONE EPISCOPO.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">This is the story of Spiridion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bishop of Cyprus by the grace of God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Told by Ruffinus in his history.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A fair and stately lady was Iren&eacute;,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spiridion's daughter, and in all the isle<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was none so proud; if that indeed be pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The haughty conscience of great truthfulness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which makes the spirit faithful unto death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And martyrdom itself a little thing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There came a stranger to Spiridion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wealthy merchant from the Syrian land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who, greeting, said: "Good father, I have here<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A golden casket filled with Roman coin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Eastern gems of cost uncountable.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great are the dangers of the rocky road,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">False as a serpent is the purple sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he who carries wealth in foreign lands<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Carries his death, too often, near his heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And finds life's poison where he hoped to find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against its pains a pleasant antidote.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I pray you, keep for me these gems in trust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And give them to me when I come again."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Spiridion listened with a friendly smile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And answered thus the dark-browed Syrian:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Here is a better guardian of gold,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My daughter, sir. The people of the coast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are wont to say that, if she broke her faith,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Silver and gold themselves would lose their shine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She is our island's trusty treasurer."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Then," said the Syrian, "she shall be mine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As well as theirs,"&mdash;and saying this he gave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The casket with the jewels to her hand.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Right earnestly the lady answered him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As one who slowly turns some curious thought:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Sir, you have called this treasure <i>life and death</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which in your Eastern lore, as I have read,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is the symbolic phrase of Deity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the most potent phrase to sway the world.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With life to death I'll guard the gems for you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And dead or living give them back again."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now while the merchant went to distant Rome<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fair Iren&eacute; died a sudden death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the land went mourning for the maid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on the roads and in the palaces<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was one long wail for her by night and day.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While thus they grieved, the Syrian came again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, after fit delay, in proper time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Went to the father, to Spiridion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Condoling with him on his daughter's death<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In many a sad and gentle Eastern phrase,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deep tinctured with a strange philosophy.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now when they had awhile consumed their grief<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Outspoke the Bishop: "Syrian, it is well<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If this sad death be not more sad for us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And most especially more sad for thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than thou hast dreamed of." Here he checked his speech,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then, as if in utter agony,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Burst forth with&mdash;"She is gone! and all thy store,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It too is gone: she only upon earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Knew where 't was hidden,&mdash;and she trusted none.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O God, be merciful! What shall I do?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then on him gravely looked the Syrian<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With grand, calm mien, as almost pitying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And said: "O father, can this be thy <i>faith</i>?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man of the West, how little didst thou know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wondrous nature of that girl now dead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hast thou ne'er heard that they who once become<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faithful to death are masters over death?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And here and there on earth a woman lives<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose eyes proclaim the mighty victory won.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Give me thy hand and lead me to the bier:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou know'st it is not all of death to die."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He took his hand and led him to the bier,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And they beheld the Beautiful in Death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The perfect loveliness of Grecian form<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Inspired by Egypt's solemn mystery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A single pause in the eternity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Present, Past, and Future all in one.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Awhile they stood and gazed upon the Dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then Spiridion spoke, as one inspired:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"O God! thou wert our witness,&mdash;make it known!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He paused in solemn awe, for at the word<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There came an awful sign. The dead white hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was lifted, and Iren&eacute;'s eyes unclosed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beaming with light as only angels' beam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from the cold white lips there came a voice:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"<i>The gems lie hidden in the garden wall.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>God bless thee, father, for thy constant love!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>God bless thee, Syrian, for thy faith in me!</i>"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">This is the story of Spiridion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And of his daughter, faithful unto death.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_STRUGGLE_FOR_SHELTER" id="A_STRUGGLE_FOR_SHELTER"></a>A STRUGGLE FOR SHELTER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Having, in "A Letter to a Young Housekeeper," held counsel with her
+whose home is made by a noble husband, it is no less pleasant to recall
+the claims of her whose home is made by herself; who, instead of keeping
+house for two, keeps house for but one, and whose stars have not yet led
+her on either to matrimony or to Washington Territory.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe, in a late number of the Atlantic, has discoursed admirably
+on the woman question of how to get occupation; a point to be equally
+anxious upon is that of how to get a shelter. It is often easier to get
+a husband than either. Perhaps every one knows the exceeding difficulty
+with which, in our large cities, the single woman obtains even a room
+wherein to lodge; but only the victims can know the real distresses it
+involves. In the capital, where noble women are chiefly needed, to begin
+homeless is a positive peril; and to stand on the surest integrity is
+only to fall at last. If one apply at the boarding-houses it is either
+to be instantly rebuffed by learning that no rooms are let to ladies, or
+more delicately parried by being told that the terms are forty dollars a
+week! If one have attractions and friends, it is equivocal; if one have
+them not, it is equally desperate. Should Minerva herself alight there
+with a purse that would not compass Willard's, one cannot imagine what
+would become of her. She would probably be seen wandering at late night,
+with bedimmed stars and bedraggled gauze, until some vigorous officer
+should lead her to the station-house for vagrancy. Thus when fascination
+and forlornness are at equal discount, when powers and penuries go down
+together, and common and uncommon sense fail alike, to what natural
+feeling shall one hope to appeal? There is no sound spot of humanity
+left to rest upon. It is a dilemma that is nothing but horns.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly it is a trifle better in New England; but here, as elsewhere,
+the chief enemy of woman is woman. It is women who keep our houses for
+boarding and lodging, and, with a few radiant exceptions, it is they who
+never take ladies. If by any chance a foothold be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> obtained there, the
+only safety is in keeping it with stern self-denial of all outside
+pleasures or excursions. Surrender for a week, and you return to that
+door only to hear that two gentlemen have taken your room, and that they
+will pay more. You ask for an attic. Just now there are two gentlemen
+there. Will there be a place under the eaves? Possibly, next week. But
+before then the two gentlemen are on hand again, have unpacked their
+vials of unctuous hair-oil, and are happily snuggled under the eaves.
+Indeed, they seem to make long journeys expressly to head one off, and
+to be where they should not be. They are on time always, and in at the
+winning. Some day one will pathetically die of two gentlemen on the
+brain; and the doctor will only call it congestion. O for a new Knight
+of a Sorrowful Figure, to demolish all such ubiquitous persons! I have
+sometimes had as many as three of my engaged rooms at a time occupied by
+these perpetual individuals,&mdash;myself waiting a-tremble on the portico.
+Then it struck me that, if there were really any more gentlemen in
+Washington Territory than here, women had better not go there.</p>
+
+<p>Out of this exigency has arisen a grand vision of mine to build a flat
+of five or six rooms; a single landing of dining- and drawing-rooms,
+boudoir, bedroom, and kitchen with its apartment for a domestic. And,
+either by lounge-bedstead or famous Plympton, there should be the
+possibility of sleeping in every apartment but the kitchen. This would
+be such sweet revenge for one whom the Fates had driven about for five
+years to hunt lodgings. I would gormandize on bedrooms,&mdash;like Cromwell
+resting in a different one every night,&mdash;and the empty ones filling with
+forlornest of females, provided one need not do the honors at their
+table in the morning and hear how they have slept. There should be
+alcoves too, with statues; and unexpected niches of rooms crimson with
+drapery, "fit to soothe the imagination with privacy"; and oh! perhaps
+somewhere a bit of a conservatory and a fountain,&mdash;did not Mrs. Stowe
+tell us of these too? Here one could dwell snugly as in the petals of a
+rose, or expansively as in a banyan-tree, undisturbed alike from
+gentlemen in black or women in white, liable only to the elements and to
+mortality.</p>
+
+<p>If only this castle were as attainable as that of Thoreau!&mdash;which was to
+consist of but one room, with one door to enter it, and where "some
+should live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some
+on settles,&mdash;some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some
+aloft on rafters with the spiders if they chose."</p>
+
+<p>But on the <i>terra firma</i> of realities one's trouble is somewhat
+mitigated by the fact that, when all is said and done, the
+boarding-houses are usually so poor, that, having entered them, one's
+effort to get admitted is rather exceeded by one's desire to depart. The
+meats are all cooked together with one universal gravy;&mdash;beef is pork,
+and lamb is pork, each passing round the swinal sin; the vegetables
+often seem to know but one common kettle, for turnip is onion, and
+squash is onion; while the corn-cake has soda for sugar, and the bread
+is sour and drab-colored, much resembling slices of Kossuth hat.</p>
+
+<p>From these facts grew the experiment of becoming housekeeper
+extraordinary to myself,&mdash;a strait to which many a one is likely to be
+driven, unless we are to have something better than can be offered by
+the present system of boarding-houses. For since one's castle was not
+yet builded outside of the brain, it only took a little Quixotism of
+imagination to consider as castles all these four-story brick houses
+with placards affixed of "Rooms to be let," and to secure the most
+eligible corner in one of these at moderate rent.</p>
+
+<p>This of course is not so easy to do; but at last a <i>petite</i> room seemed
+to be struck out from the white heat of luck,&mdash;so <i>petite</i>!&mdash;six feet by
+thirteen feet, two carpet-breadths wide and four masculine strides long;
+one flight up, and just large enough to sheathe one's self in;
+high-walled and corniced, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> on the one hand a charming bay-window
+looking three ways, and cheerily catching the sunlight early and late;
+on the other, an open grate fire, fit to illuminate the gray Boston
+mornings,&mdash;though, when the brilliant sun came round full at noon, there
+seemed no fire till that was gone. I strove to forget that it might have
+been a doctor's consulting office, and three days after there blossomed
+out of it seven several apartments; the inevitable curtain across the
+corner giving a wardrobe and bath; the short side of the room, with
+desk, a library; the long side, with sofa, a bedchamber; the upper end,
+with table, a dining-hall; the cupboard and region about the hearth, a
+kitchen; while the remainder, with a lively camp-stool chair that
+balanced about anywhere and doubled into nothing when desired, was
+drawing-room,&mdash;that is, it was drawing-room wherever the chair was
+drawn. In this apartment everything was handy. One could sit in the
+centre thereof, and, by a little dexterous tacking to north or south,
+reach every article in it. But when a lad whose occasional infirmity was
+fainting was proposed to build the fire, it became necessary to decline,
+on the ground that there really was not room enough, unless he were so
+kind as to faint up chimney. A genuine bower it was, but not a Boffin's
+Bower, where the wedded occupants suited their contrary tastes by having
+part sanded-floor for Mr. Boffin, and part high-colored carpet for Mrs.
+Boffin,&mdash;"comfort on one side and fashion on the other." In this the
+walls were hung with pictures, and the windows with lace, while the
+corner curtain was a gorgeous piano cover. Mr. Boffin not being here, it
+was both comfort and fashion all round.</p>
+
+<p>In this minute way of living, the first visiting messages could only
+include the announcement of dainty regards, and of readiness to receive
+friends one by one; and dining messages could only entreat "the best one
+to come to the <i>petite</i> one on Thursday, for sake of a suggestion of
+pigeons' wings." Assuredly none would have voted any exquisite thing out
+of place, from a dish of lampreys, that favorite viand of kings, to the
+common delicacy of Rome, a stew of nightingales' tongues. And so compact
+were all the arrangements, that a brilliant friend was fain to declare
+that the hostess should certainly live on condensed milk.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, it was the grand concentration of having wardrobe and bath
+together that caused a very singular mishap. One morning, being in
+clumsy-fingered haste to get to a train, I summarily dropped my bonnet
+into the wash-bowl. This was not a very dry joke, but having mopped up
+the article as well as possible, I put it on and departed with usual
+hilarity,&mdash;still remembering what it was to have the kindest fortune in
+the world, and that one should not expect so rare a life as mine without
+an occasional disaster.</p>
+
+<p>But none need undertake a plan of this sort on the theology of Widow
+Bedott's hymn, "K. K., Kant Kalkerlate"; for in this song of life on six
+feet by thirteen, calculation is the sole rhyme for salvation. We have
+heard of dying by inches: this is living by inches. If there be not
+floor-room, then perhaps there is wall-room, and every possible article
+must be made to hang, from the boot-bag and umbrella behind the curtain
+to the pretty market-basket, so toy-like, in the corner. Indeed, it is
+the chief charm of a camp-stool chair that this too, when off duty, may
+be hung upon the wall, like a hunter's saddle when the chase is ended.
+Only see that all the screws are in stoutly, so that in some
+entertaining hour various items of your wardrobe or adornments do not
+bring their owner to sudden grief.</p>
+
+<p>As might be anticipated, it was rather a struggle to get condensed; and
+afterward, too, there were fleeting phases of feeling about it all. For
+at times it is not pleasant to connect the day of the week chiefly with
+its being the day to clean one's cupboard or lamp-chimney. Often, too,
+during a very nice breakfast, one is ready to vow that she will never do
+otherwise than board herself; and while despatching the work after,
+equally ready to vow that she will take flight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span> from this as soon as
+possible. Sometimes, also, one gets a little too much of herself, and an
+overdose in this direction is about as bad as most insufferable things.
+But then there must be seasons of discouragement in everything. They
+inhere to all human enterprises, just as measles and whooping-cough to
+childhood. It is well to remember as they pass how rarely it is that
+they prove fatal.</p>
+
+<p>And wherefore discouraged, indeed? Is it not the charm of life that
+nothing is final,&mdash;not even death itself? In this strange existence,
+with its great and rapid transitions, happy events are always imminent.
+One may be performing her own menialities to-day, and to-morrow, in an
+ambassador's carriage, be folded in a fur robe with couchant lions upon
+it; to-day be quartered in a single attic, to-morrow be treading the
+tapestries of her own drawing-rooms. Thus the golden Fate turns and
+keeps turning; it is only when, through frigidness or fear, we refuse to
+revolve with it, that there ensues the discord of despair.</p>
+
+<p>But instead of going to a Walden and camping on the shady edges of the
+world, to see what could be done without civilization, I preferred to
+camp down in the heart of civilization, and see what could be done with
+it;&mdash;not to fly the world, but to face it, and give it a new emphasis,
+if so it should be; to conjure it a little, and strike out new
+combinations of good cheer and good fellowship. In fact, it seems to me
+ever that the wild heart of romance and adventure abides no more with
+rough, uncouth nature than with humanity and art. To sit under the pines
+and watch the squirrels run, or down in the bush-tangles of the
+Penobscot and see the Indians row, is to me no more than when Gottschalk
+wheels his piano out upon the broad, lone piazza of his house on the
+crater's edge, and rolls forth music to the mountains and stars. Here
+too are mystery, poesy, and a perpetual horizon.</p>
+
+<p>This for romance; but true adventure abides most where most the forces
+of humanity are. So I camped down in the heart of things, surely; for in
+the next room were a child, kitten, and canary; in the basement was a
+sewing-machine; while across the entry were a piano, flute, and
+music-box. But Providence, that ever takes care of its own, did ever
+prevent all these from performing at once, or the grand seraglio of
+Satan would have been nothing to it.</p>
+
+<p>But if in getting a room one is haunted by the two gentlemen, in getting
+furniture and provisions one is afterward haunted by the "family"
+relation. It is a result of the youthfulness of our civilization, that
+as yet it is cumbrous and unwieldy. We do not yet master it, but are
+mastered by it; and nowhere in America will one find the charming
+arrangements for single living which have filled the Old World with
+delightful haunts for the students of every land. As yet we provide for
+people, not persons; and the needs of the single woman are no more
+considered in business than in boarding. Forever she is reminded of the
+Scripture, "He setteth the solitary in families"; and forever it seems
+that all must be set there but herself. For nice crockery is sold by the
+set, knives and forks by the half-dozen, the best coal by the half-ton;
+the tin-pans are immense, and suggest a family Thanksgiving; pokers
+gigantic, fit only to be wielded by the father of a family; and at
+market the game is found with feet tied together in clever family
+bunches, while one is equally troubled to get a chop or a steak, because
+it will spoil the family roast,&mdash;and as to a bit of venison for
+breakfast, it may be had by taking two haunches and a saddle. In
+desperation she exclaims with O'Grady of Arrah na Pogue, "O father Adam,
+why had you not died with all your ribs left in your body!" For since
+there is neither place nor provision for her in the world, why indeed
+should she have come?</p>
+
+<p>Having once, on a fruitless tour through Faneuil Hall Market for a
+single slice of beef, come to the last stall, and here finding nothing
+less than a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> sirloin of six pounds, which was not to be cut, I could
+only answer imploringly, "But pray, what is one person to do with a
+sirloin of six pounds?" A relenting smile swept over the stern butcher's
+face. "I <i>will</i> cut it!" he said, brandishing the knife at once. "Thank
+you," I cried, with a gush of emotion; for he seemed a really religious
+man. He comprehended that there was at least one solitary whom the Lord
+had not set in a family. I took the number of his stall.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it yet too late to be grateful to him who proposed breaking a
+bundle of cutlery in my behalf. He too realized the situation, and saw
+that by no possibility could one person gracefully get on with six
+knives and forks at once.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, since one's single wants are not regularly met by this system of
+things, the only way at present to get them answered is by favor. So
+that the first item in setting up an establishment is not only to bring
+one's resources about one, but to find the people of the trade who will
+assist in the gladdest way. One wants the right stripe in the morning
+and evening papers, but none the less happy are just the right merchant
+and just the right menial. Since all of life may be rounded into rhythm,
+shall we not even consult the harmonies in a grocer or an upholsterer?
+Personal power can be carried into every department. It is well to find
+where one's word has weight, then always say the word there. This is a
+part of the quest which makes life a perpetual adventure; and there is
+nothing more piquant than to go on an exploring tour for one's
+affinities among the trades. It is perhaps rather more of the
+sensational than the sentimental, and might be marked in the private
+note-book with famous headings, like those of the New York papers on a
+balloon marriage, as, The last affinity item! A raid among the
+magnetisms! or, Hifalutin among prunes! However, in some subtile way,
+one soon divines on entering a store whether she is to be well served
+there, and must follow with tact the undercurrent in the shop as well as
+in the <i>salon</i>. If it be not the right encounter, ask for something
+there is not, and pass on to the next. Thus, "my grocer" apologizes for
+keeping honey, because I do not eat sweets, and proposes to open the
+butter trade because it is so annoying to go about for butter; "my
+stoveman" descends from the stilts of the firm, looking after these
+chimney affairs himself; "my carpenter" says, "Shure, an' ye don't owe
+<i>me</i> onything; I'd work for ye grat-tis if I could"; "my cabinet-dealer"
+sends tables and wardrobes at midnight if desired, and takes them back
+and sells them over the next day; even the washerwoman is an affinity,
+exclaiming, "Shure, an' ye naid n't think I'll be chargin' ye with all
+the collars an' ruffles ye put in,&mdash;shure, an' I'll not."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it sounds a little egotistic to say "my grocer," &amp;c., but is not
+this the way that heads of families talk, and am I not head and family
+too? At least the solitary may soothe themselves with the family sounds.
+Indeed, it soon appears that all these faithful servers are like to
+become so radical a part of the my and mine of existence, as to make it
+really alarming. When one's comfort is thus bound up in fire-boy and
+washerwoman, alas! what will become of the grand philosophy of
+Epictetus?</p>
+
+<p>To begin housekeeping proper, one will need at least a bread-knife and
+tumbler, a gridiron and individual salt,&mdash;cost eighty-four cents. My
+list also includes for kitchen and table use:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Tin saucepan</td><td align='right'>.40</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;" &nbsp;&nbsp;baking-pan</td><td align='right'>.23</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;" &nbsp;&nbsp;oyster pail</td><td align='right'>.25</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2 breakfast plates</td><td align='right'>.20</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4 tea plates</td><td align='right'>.32</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cup (and cover to mimic sugar-bowl)</td><td align='right'>.15</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Mixing spoon</td><td align='right'>.15</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Pint bowl</td><td align='right'>.20</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Butter jar</td><td align='right'>.35</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2 knives and forks</td><td align='right'>.45</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2 saucers</td><td align='right'>.14</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2 minute platters</td><td align='right'>.18</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 " vegetable-dish</td><td align='right'>.10</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3 individual butter-plates</td><td align='right'>.18</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>$3.30</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The aforementioned gridiron, &amp;c.</td><td align='right'>.84</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sum total</td><td align='right'>$4.14</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To this should be added a small iron frying-pan for gravied meats. The
+quart pail usually did duty for vegetables, the saucepan for soup, while
+prime chops and steaks appeared from the gridiron. Tea-spoons are not
+included, nor any tea things whatever. These excepted, it will be seen
+that less than five dollars gives a full housekeeping apparatus, with
+pretty white crockery enough to invite a dinner guest.</p>
+
+<p>The provisions for one week were:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Bread and rolls</td><td align='right'>.59</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4 pears and 1/2 lb. grapes</td><td align='right'>.28</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 lb. butter</td><td align='right'>.55</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp; granulated sugar</td><td align='right'>.22</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp; corn starch</td><td align='right'>.16</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;" &nbsp;&nbsp;salt</td><td align='right'>.05</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1/4 lb. pepper</td><td align='right'>.15</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1/2 lb. halibut</td><td align='right'>.25</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3/4 lb. steak</td><td align='right'>.30</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 quail</td><td align='right'>.40</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 pint cranberries</td><td align='right'>.08</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Celery</td><td align='right'>.05</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 peck potatoes and turnips</td><td align='right'>.40</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Pickles, 1 pint bottle</td><td align='right'>.37</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>$3.85</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>At the end of the week there was stock unused to the amount of $1.00,
+making $2.85 for actual board, (I did not dine out once,) and this
+included the most expensive meats, which one might not always care to
+get; for it is not parsimony that often prefers a sirloin steak at
+thirty cents to a tenderloin at forty cents. But this note may be added.
+Don't buy quails, they are all gizzard and feathers; and don't buy
+halibut, till you have inquired the price. It will also be perceived
+that beverages are not mentioned. None of that seven million pounds of
+tea shipped from China last September ever came to my shores. If this
+article were added, there would come in large complications of furniture
+and food, beside the obligation of being on the stairs at early hours in
+fearful dishabille, watching for the milkman, as I have seen my
+sister-lodgers.</p>
+
+<p>The pecuniary result is, that, for less than three dollars per week and
+the work, one may have the best food in the market; for three dollars
+and no work, one may have the very worst in the world.</p>
+
+<p>For any ordinary amount of cooking, an open grate is admirable, though
+it do not furnish that convenient stove-pipe whereon lady boarders can
+smooth out their ribbons, &amp;c.; but it is accessible, and draws the
+culinary odors speedily out of the room. At least it is admirable from
+fall to the middle of December, when you find that it draws the heat, as
+well as the odors, up chimney; then you will get a "Fairy" stove of the
+smallest size, with a portable oven, and fairly go into winter quarters.
+But by the grate one may boil, broil, and toast, if not roast; for I
+used with delight to cook apples on the cool corners, giving them a turn
+between sentences as I read or wrote. They seemed to have a higher
+flavor, being seasoned with thoughts; but it was not equally sure if the
+thoughts were better for being seasoned with apple. However, one must
+not count herself so <i>recherch&eacute;</i> as Schiller, who could only write when
+his desk was full of rotten apples.</p>
+
+<p>Still the grate has no oven, and the chief difficulty is in bread. One
+starts bravely on the baker's article, but such is the excess of yeast
+that the bitterness becomes intolerable. Then one begins to perambulate
+the city, and thinks she has a prize in this or that brand,&mdash;is enamored
+of Brigham's Graham biscuits, hot twice a week, or of Parker's
+rolls,&mdash;but soon eats through novelty to the core, and that is always
+hops. Thus one goes from baker to baker, but it is only a hopping from
+hops to hops. I see with malicious joy that the exportation tariff is to
+be removed from hops.</p>
+
+<p>As to crackers, they are of course no more available than pine splints,
+though the Graham variety is the best. Aerated bread is probably the
+most healthful, but this is pitiable to live on; it tastes like salted
+flannel.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, let me confess to the use of a friendly oven near by, and from
+this came every week the indispensable Graham cakes, which are the
+despair of all the cooks. Of course, on this point it is impossible,
+without seeing their experiment, to say why it failed;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span> but all the
+given conditions being met, if the cakes were tough, there was probably
+too much meal; if soggy, too little. Also the latest improvement is not
+to cut them in diamonds, but to roll them into various forms. After
+scalding, the dough is just too soft to be handled easily; it is then to
+be dropped into meal upon the board, separating it in small quantities
+with a spoon or knife, and rolling lightly in the meal into small
+biscuits, rolls, or any form desired. But do not work in any of the
+meal. Possibly some of the failures come from disregard of this; for the
+meal which is added after, being unscalded, is not light, and would only
+clog the cakes. And, in eating, the biscuits should be broken, never
+sliced. They are in their prime when hot, quite as much as Ward
+Beecher's famous apple-pie; but, unlike that, may be freshened afterward
+by dipping in cold water and heating in a quick oven just before wanted.
+In other words, they may be regenerated by immersion.</p>
+
+<p>As to the system of this minute household,&mdash;if any should be curious to
+know,&mdash;it was to have breakfast-dishes despatched, with the dinner
+vegetables pared, at half past nine, <span class="smcap">a. m.</span>; dinner out of hand by two,
+<span class="smcap">p. m.</span>; bread and butter and Cochituate precisely at six, <span class="smcap">p. m.</span></p>
+
+<p>In one of Mr. and Mrs. Hall's "Memories of Authors," mention is made of
+a little Miss Spence, who, with rather limited arrangements in two
+rooms, used to give literary tea-parties, and was shrewdly suspected of
+keeping her butter in a wash-bowl. I did not follow any such underhanded
+proceeding. I kept my butter on the balcony. All-out-doors was my
+refrigerator; and if one will look abroad some cool, glittering night,
+he may yet see my oyster-pail hung by a star, or swinging on the horns
+of a new moon.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it is fair to mention, however, that on one glittering night the
+mercury fell below zero, and the windows all froze hard down, and there
+was the butter locked on the outer side! And oh! it is such a trying
+calamity to be frozen in from one's butter! But after this experience
+the housekeeper shrewdly watches for these episodes of weather, and
+takes the jar in of a night. So it is that eternal vigilance is the
+price even of butter.</p>
+
+<p>Still it seemed that, with careful and economizing mind, on six feet by
+thirteen it was not only possible to live, but to take table-boarders.
+Certainly nothing could be gayer, unless to ramble delightfully forever
+in one of those orange-colored ambrotype-saloons, drawn by milk-white
+oxen; or to quarter like Gavroche of <i>Les Miserables</i> among the ribs of
+the plaster elephant in the Bastile; or more pensively to abide in the
+crannied boat-cabin of the Peggotys, watching the tide sweep out and in.</p>
+
+<p>This must be the weird, barbaric side of the before-named brick and
+mortar flat of five rooms.</p>
+
+<p>Pope, the tragedian, said that he knew of but one crime a man could
+commit,&mdash;peppering a rump steak. It is an argument for boarding one's
+self that all these comfortable crimes thus become feasible. One may
+even butter her bread on three sides with impunity; or eat tamarinds at
+every meal, running the risk of her own grimaces; or take her stewed
+cherries with curious, undivided interest as to whether a sweet or sour
+one will come next (dried cherries are a great consolation); and, being
+allowed to help herself, can the better bring all the edibles to an end
+at once upon her plate,&mdash;an indication of Providence that the proper
+feast is finished. Wonderfully independent all this! Life with the
+genuine bachelor flavor. As L. remarked, even the small broom in the
+corner had a sturdy little way of standing alone.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there is nothing finer than the throng of fancies that comes in
+a solitary breakfast. Then one reaches hands of greeting to all the lone
+artists taking their morning <i>acquavite</i> in Rome; to the young students
+of Germany at their early coffee and eggs; even remembering the lively
+<i>grisette</i> of Paris, as, with a parting fillip to her canary, she flits
+forth from her upper room; and finally drinks to the memory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> of our own
+Irving at his bachelor breakfast among the fountains and flowers in the
+Court of Lions at the Alhambra.</p>
+
+<p>And very sweet, too, it is, in the fall of the day, to sit by the rich,
+ruby coals, and think of those who are far, until they come near; and of
+that which is hoped for, until it seems that which is; to sit and dream,
+till</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"The breath of the great Lord God divine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stirs the little red rose of a room."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This it is to keep house with a bread-knife and tumbler, a gridiron and
+an individual salt. This it is to vitally understand the <i>multum in
+parvo</i> of existence. This it is to have used and mastered civilization.</p>
+
+<p>But the total pecuniary result is, that the rent of the very smallest
+room in central location&mdash;at the hub of the hub&mdash;will not be less than
+three dollars per week, without light, heat, or furniture. Fire, and a
+boy to make it, will be two dollars per week; light seventy-five cents
+if gas, twenty-five cents if kerosene; this, with board at three
+dollars, washing at one dollar per dozen, and the constant Tribune,
+etc., brings one up to the pretty little sum of ten dollars per week,
+without a single item of luxury, unless daily papers can be called
+luxurious. Or, should one go out to breakfasts and dinners, nothing
+tolerable can be had under five dollars per week; and this gives a total
+of twelve dollars. Then, to complete one's life, there must be clothing,
+literature, perhaps travel and hospitality, making nearly as much more;
+and to crown it, there must be the single woman's favorite lecturer or
+<i>prima donna</i>; for ah! we too, in some form, must have our cigars and
+champagne. A round thousand a year for ever so small a package of
+humanity!</p>
+
+<p>And of course, as goods are higher in small quantities, so in living by
+this individual way it will be discovered that prices are prodigious,
+but that weights and measures are not. After opening the small purse
+regularly at half-hour intervals for several weeks, one at length finds
+herself opening it when there is nothing to be bought, from mere
+muscular habit. Altogether it is easy to spend as much as a second-rate
+Congressman, without any of his accommodations. This is wherein one does
+not master civilization.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McCulloch, in his Report on the Treasury, suggested an increase of
+salary for certain subordinates in his department, declaring that they
+could not support their families in due rank on four, five, or even six
+thousand dollars a year. It is easy to believe it. It is easy to believe
+anything that may be stated with regard to money, except that one will
+ever be able to get enough of it to cover these terrible charges. The
+entire fabric of things rests on money; and our prices would drive a
+respectable Frenchman into suicide. O poor Robin Ruff! alas for your
+grand visions that you sang so glowingly to dear Gaffer Green! In this
+age of the world, O what could you do, or where could you go, e'en on a
+thousand pounds a year, poor Robin Ruff?</p>
+
+<p>And so long as each must keep her separate establishment, it will not be
+found possible to reduce living much below the present figures. But
+London has more wisely met the pressure of the times in those
+magnificent clubhouses, which have made Pall Mall almost a solid square
+of palaces hardly inferior to the homes of the nobility themselves. Each
+of these houses has its hundreds of members, who really fare
+sumptuously, having all the luxuries of wealth on the prices that one
+pays here for poverty. The food is furnished by the best purveyors, and
+charged to the consumers at cost; all other expenses of the
+establishment being met by the members' initiation fees, ranging from
+&pound;32 entrance fee and &pound;11 annual subscription, to &pound;9 and &pound;6 for entrance
+and subscription. Being admirably officered and planned throughout,
+these gigantic households are systematized to the beautiful smoothness
+of small ones; their phrase of "fare-well" is one of epicurean
+invitation, not of dismissal; while such are the combined luxuriousness
+and economy that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span> says one authority, "the modern London club is a
+realization of a Utopian c&oelig;nobium,&mdash;a sort of lay convent, rivalling
+the celebrated Abbey of Thelem&eacute;, with the agreeable motto of <i>Fais ce
+que voudras</i>, instead of monastic discipline."</p>
+
+<p>Of course, New York also has followed suit, and there, too, clubs are
+trumps; but, according to "The Nation," with this remarkable exception,
+that "at these houses the leading idea seems to be, not to furnish the
+members at cost price, but to increase the finances with a view to some
+future expenditure." The writer reasonably observes, that "what a man
+wants is his breakfast or dinner cheaper than he can get it at the
+hotel, and not to pay thirty or sixty dollars annually in order that ten
+years hence the club may have a new building farther up town." And
+Boston has followed New York, with its trio of well-known clubs,
+differing also from those of London in having poorer appointments and
+the highest conceivable charges.</p>
+
+<p>But most of these clubs do not include lodgings, and none of them
+include ladies. It remains for America to give us the club complete in
+both. There is every reason why women should secure elegant and
+economical homes in this way. Indeed, in the present state of things,
+there seems no other way to secure them. There is no remedy but in a
+system of judicious clubbing. Since this phase of the world seems made
+up for the family relation, then ladies must make themselves into a sort
+of family to face it. Where is the coming man who shall communicate this
+art of clubbing, which has not yet even been admitted into the feminine
+dialect? Mr. Mercer is doing for the women who wish to go out in the
+world that which womanly gratitude can but lightly repay.<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> Where is
+the kindly, honest-hearted Mr. Mercer who shall further a like
+enterprise here,&mdash;a provision of quarters for those who can pay
+reasonably and who do not wish to go away? This would be a genuine
+Stay-at-home Club, a Can't-get-away Club of the very happiest sort. And
+this alone can put life in our noble cities, where active-brained women
+love to be, on something like possible terms.</p>
+
+<p>In Miss Howitt's "Art Student at Munich,"&mdash;a charming sketch, by the
+way, of women living <i>en bachelier</i> abroad,&mdash;we find one young
+enthusiast idealizing upon this very need of feminine life, which she
+christens an Associated Home. In her artistic mind it takes the form of
+an outer and inner sisterhood,&mdash;the inner devoted to culture, the outer
+attending to the useful, ready alike to broil a steak or toe a stocking
+for the more ethereal ones of the household. This is all quite amiably
+intended, but no queen-bee and common-bee scheme of the sort seems to be
+either generous or practicable. It involves at once too much caste and
+too much contact. We do not wish to find servants or scrubs in our
+sisters, nor do we wish at all times even to see our sisters. There must
+be elbow-room for mood and temperament, as well as high walls of
+defence. The social element is too shy and elusive, and will not, like a
+monkey, perform on demand; therefore our plan abjures all these poetic
+organizations, which have a great deal of cant and very little good
+companionship; it has no sentimentalism to offer, proposing an
+association of purses rather than of persons,&mdash;a household on the base
+of protection rather than of society,&mdash;a mere combining for privileges
+and against prices. It is resolved into a simple matter of business; and
+the only help women need is that of an organizing brain to put
+themselves into this associate form, whereby they can meet the existing
+state of things with somewhat of human comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Are we never to obtain even this, until the golden doors of the
+Millennium swing open? Ah, then indeed one must melt a little, looking
+regretfully back to Brook Farm, undismayed by the fearful Zenobia;
+looking leniently toward Wallingford, Lebanon, and Haryard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span> Anything
+for wholesome diet, free life, and a quiet refuge.</p>
+
+<p>But whether to live alone or together, the first want is of
+houses,&mdash;which is another hitch in the social system. In the city a
+building-lot is an incipient fortune; and the large sum paid for it is
+the beginning of reasons for the large rent of the building that is put
+upon it. But then if ground is costly, air is cheap,&mdash;land is high, but
+sky is low; and one need have but very little earth to a great deal of
+house. A writer, describing the London of thirty years ago, speaks of
+the huge, narrow dwellings, full five stories high, and says that the
+agility with which the inmates "ran up and down, and perched on the
+different stories, gave the idea of a cage with its birds and sticks";
+and the like figure seems to have occurred to the queer Mademoiselle
+Marchand of "Denise," who, as she toiled to her eyrie on the topmost
+landing, exclaimed, "One would think these houses were built by a winged
+race, who only used stairs when they were moulting!" But these same
+lofty houses are the very thing we must have to-day, all but the running
+up and down. Build us houses up, and up, as high as they will stand;
+give us plenty of sky-parlors, but also plenty of steam-elevators to go
+to and from "my lady's chamber." It is not a wise economy to devote
+one's precious power to this enormous amount of stair-work. It is not a
+kind of exercise that is sanitive. The Evans House and Hotel Pelham, for
+instance, are very pretty Bostonianisms, but all their rooms within
+range of ordinary means are beyond the range of ordinary strength. The
+achievement of twenty flights a day, back and forth, would leave but
+small surplus of vigor. While the steam power is there for heating
+purposes, why not use some of it to propel the passengers up and down
+that wilderness of rosy boudoirs? Is there any reason why this
+labor-saving machine, the steam-elevator, which we now associate with
+Fifth Avenue luxury, should not be the common possession of all our
+large tenanted buildings? And is there any reason, indeed, in our houses
+being no better appointed than the English houses of thirty years ago?
+Ruskin has been honorably named for renting a few cottages with an eye
+to his tenants as well as himself; but the men who in our crowded cities
+shall erect these mammoth rental establishments, with steam access to
+every story, will build their own best monuments for posterity. We
+commend it to capitalists as a chance to invest in a generous fame.
+Until this is done, we shall even disapprove of bestowing any more
+mansions upon our beloved General Grant. It is not gallant. Until then,
+too, how shall one ever pass that venerable Park Street Church of
+Boston, without the irreverent sigh of "What capital lodgings it would
+make!" Those three little windows in the curve, looking up and down the
+street, and into the ever-fascinating Atlantic establishment; the lucky
+tower, into which one might retreat, pen in hand, if not wishing to be
+at home to callers nor abroad to himself,&mdash;Carlyle-like, making the
+library at the top of the house; and all within glance of the dominating
+State-House, whither one might steal up for an occasional lunch of
+oratory or a digest of laws. We also hear of a new hotel being builded
+on Tremont Street, and wonder if there will be any rooms fit for ladies,
+and whether one of those in the loft will rent for as much as a charming
+villa should command.</p>
+
+<p>But while we ask now for immediate relief by clubs and rental
+establishments, the great practical and artistic problem of America
+still remains in learning to manage its civilization; in acquiring a
+forecaste, a system, that meets individual wants; in adjusting resource
+to requirement. Then we shall not be driven into association. It is
+jocosely said, that in the West, whose rivers are shallow and uncertain,
+the steamers are built to run on a heavy dew. Allowing for the joke,
+this is not more nice than wise. To be dexterous, fine-fingered, facile!
+How perfect is the response in all the petty personalities of politics!
+In this America, where all men aspire, and more men get office<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span> than one
+would think there were offices to get, what miracles of adroitness! It
+is one perpetual, Turn, turn again, Lord Mayor! If but half the genius
+were diverted from office-getting to house-building, what towering
+results! But since it is the misery of a republic that politics is
+supreme, and that a people who govern themselves can have little leisure
+for anything else, I have sometimes feared that the only way to get
+these woman questions through is by tacking them on to politics. If,
+then, any of our masculine friends now go to Congress on an amelioration
+of labor, Heaven speed the day when they can only go on an amelioration
+of lodgings.</p>
+
+<p>But on this side of the question we as yet hold close to the leeward.
+For to make it political, women must have political power, the power of
+the ballot; and this claim she chooses to defer to the more oppressed
+race,&mdash;chooses first to secure justice to all men, before entering the
+long campaign of justice to women.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, we young housekeepers, who are neither capitalists to build
+what we need, nor politicians to procure it builded, can only live on
+these real-unreal lives as we may. But sometimes, when the city lamps
+are agleam in the early evening, we go out for a walk of romance upon
+the brilliant avenue near by, gazing eagerly into those superb
+drawing-rooms where the curtains are kindly lifted a little, and tempted
+to ring at the door on a false errand where they are not,&mdash;simply to get
+a peep at the captivating comfort inside. And thus we too possess houses
+and homes; with all these to enjoy and none of them to care for, why may
+not one easily remain the wealthiest person in the universe? Ah, no one
+knows what riches we have in our thoughts, and how little bliss there is
+in the world that we have not!</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> Since the above was written, there have been serious
+charges against Mr. Mercer, but our praise must remain until the case
+shall be more fairly made up.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="DOCTOR_JOHNS" id="DOCTOR_JOHNS"></a>DOCTOR JOHNS.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>LIII.</h3>
+
+<p>Reuben, meantime, is leading a dashing life in the city. The Brindlock
+family have taken him to their arms again as freely and heartily as if
+he had never entered the fold over which the good Doctor exercised
+pastoral care, and as if he had never strayed from it again.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you 't would be all right, Mabel," said Mr. Brindlock to his
+wife; and neither of them ever rallied him upon his bootless experience
+in that direction.</p>
+
+<p>But the kindly aunt had not forborne (how could she?) certain pertinent
+inquiries in regard to the pretty Miss Maverick, under which Reuben had
+shown considerable disposition to flinch; although he vainly fancied
+that he stood the interrogation with a high hand. Mrs. Brindlock drew
+her own conclusions, but was not greatly disturbed by them. Why should
+she be, indeed? Reuben, with his present most promising establishment in
+business, and with a face and air that insured him a cordial welcome in
+that circle of wealthy acquaintances which Mrs. Brindlock especially
+cultivated, was counted a <i>bon parti</i>, independent of his position as
+presumptive heir to a large share of the Brindlock estate.</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice since his leave of Ashfield he has astonished the good
+people there by a dashing visit. Perhaps he has enjoyed (such things are
+sometimes enjoyed) setting forth before the quiet parishioners of his
+father his new consequence as a man of the world and of large moneyed
+prospects. It is even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> possible that he may have entertained agreeably
+the fancy of dazing the eyes of both Rose and Ad&egrave;le with the glitter of
+his city distinctions. But their admiration, if they felt any, was not
+flatteringly expressed. Ad&egrave;le, indeed, was always graciously kind, and,
+seeing his confirmed godlessness, tortured herself secretly with the
+thought that, but for her rebuff, he might have made a better fight
+against the bedevilments of the world, and lived a truer and purer life.
+All that, however, was irrevocably past. As for Rose, if there crept
+into her little prayers a touch of sentiment as she pleaded for the
+backslidden son of the minister, her prayers were none the worse for it.
+Such trace of sentimental color&mdash;like the blush upon her fair
+cheek&mdash;gave a completed beauty to her appeals.</p>
+
+<p>Reuben saw that Phil was terribly in earnest in his love, and he
+fancied, with some twinges, that he saw indications on the part of Ad&egrave;le
+of its being not wholly unacceptable. Rose, too, seemed not disinclined
+to receive the assiduous attentions of the young minister, who had
+become a frequent visitor in the Elderkin household, and who preached
+with an unction and an earnestness that touched her heart, and that made
+her sigh despondingly over the outcast son of the old pastor. Watching
+these things with a look studiedly careless and indifferent, Reuben felt
+himself cut off more than ever from such charms or virtues as might
+possibly have belonged to continued association with the companions of
+his boyhood, and nerved himself for a new and firmer grip upon those
+pleasures of the outer world which had not yet proved an illusion. There
+were moments&mdash;mostly drifting over him in silent night-hours, within his
+old chamber at the parsonage&mdash;when it seemed to him that he had made a
+losing game of it. The sparkling eyes of Ad&egrave;le, suffused with tears,&mdash;as
+in that memorable interview of the garden,&mdash;beam upon him, promising, as
+then, other guidance; they gain new brilliance, and wear stronger
+entreaty, as they shine lovingly upon him from the distance&mdash;growing
+greater and greater&mdash;which now lies between them. Her beauty, her grace,
+her tenderness, now that they are utterly beyond reach, are tenfold
+enticing; and in that other sphere to which, in his night revery, they
+seem translated, the joyous face of Rose, like that of an attendant
+angel, looks down regretfully, full of a capacity for love to which he
+must be a stranger.</p>
+
+<p>He is wakened by the bells next morning,&mdash;a Sunday morning, may be.
+There they go,&mdash;he sees them from the window,&mdash;the two comely damsels,
+picking their way through the light, fresh-fallen snow of March. Going
+possibly to teach the catechism; he sneers at this thought, for he is
+awake now. Has the world no richer gift in store for him? That Sophie
+Bowrigg is a great fortune, a superb dancer, a gorgeous armful of a
+woman. What if they were to join their fortunes and come back some day
+to dazzle these quiet townsfolk with the splendor of their life? His
+visits in Ashfield grow shorter and more rare. There is nothing
+particularly alluring. We shall not meet him there again until we meet
+him for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Catesby is an "acceptable preacher." He unfolds the orthodox
+doctrines with more grace than had belonged to the manner of the Doctor,
+and illustrates them from time to time with a certain youthful glow, and
+touches of passionate exhortation, which for many years the Ashfield
+pulpit had not known. The old ladies befriend him and pet him in their
+kindly way; and if at times his speculative humor (which he is not
+wholly without) leads him beyond the bounds of the accepted doctrines,
+he compounds the matter by strong assertion of those sturdy generalities
+which lie at the bottom of the orthodox creed.</p>
+
+<p>But his self-control is not so apparent in his social intercourse; and
+before he has been three months in Ashfield, he has given tongue to
+gossip, and all the old ladies comment upon his enslavement to the
+pretty Rose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span> Elderkin. And they talk by the book; he is desperately
+enamored. Young clergymen have this way of falling, at sight, into the
+toils, which is vastly refreshing to middle-aged observers. But we have
+no occasion to detail his experience. An incident only of his recreative
+pursuits in this direction belongs to our narrative.</p>
+
+<p>Upon one of the botanical excursions of later spring which he had
+inaugurated, and to which the maidenly modesty of Rose had suggested
+that Ad&egrave;le should make a party, the young Catesby (who was a native of
+Eastern Massachusetts) had asked in his <i>na&iuml;ve</i> manner after her family
+connections. An uncle of his had known a Mr. Maverick, who had long been
+a resident of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>"It may possibly be some relation of yours, Miss Maverick," said the
+young minister.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you recall the first name?" said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Catesby hesitated in that interesting way in which lovers are wont
+to hesitate. No, he did not remember; but he was a jovial,
+generous-hearted man, (he had heard his uncle often describe him,) who
+must be now some fifty or sixty years old.&mdash;"Frank Maverick, to be sure;
+I have the name."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it is my father," said Ad&egrave;le with a swift, happy rush of color to
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>"O no, Miss Maverick," said the young Catesby with a smile, "that is
+quite impossible. The gentleman of whom I speak, and my uncle visited
+him only three years ago, is a confirmed bachelor, and he had rallied
+him, I remember, upon never having married."</p>
+
+<p>The color left the cheeks of Ad&egrave;le.</p>
+
+<p>"Frank, did you say?" persisted Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Frank was the name," said the innocent young clergyman; "and he was a
+merchant, if I remember rightly, somewhere upon the Mediterranean."</p>
+
+<p>"It's very strange," said Rose, turning to Ad&egrave;le.</p>
+
+<p>And Ad&egrave;le, all her color gone, had the fortitude to pat Rose lovingly
+upon the shoulder, and to say, with a forced smile, "Life is very
+strange, Rose."</p>
+
+<p>But from this time till they reached home,&mdash;fortunately not far
+away,&mdash;Ad&egrave;le said nothing more. Rose remarked an unwonted pallor in her
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"You are tired, Ad&egrave;le," said she; "you are so pale!"</p>
+
+<p>"Child," said Ad&egrave;le, tapping her again, in a womanly way that was
+strange to her companion, "you have color for us both."</p>
+
+<p>At this, her reserve of dignity and fortitude being now wellnigh spent,
+she rushed away to her chamber. What wonder if she sought the little
+crucifix, sole memento of the unknown mother, and glued it to her lips,
+as she fell upon her knees by the bedside, and uttered such a prayer for
+help and strength as had never uttered before?</p>
+
+<p>"It is true! it is true! I see it now. The child of shame! The child of
+shame! O my father, my father! what wrong have you done me!" And again
+she prays for help and strength.</p>
+
+<p>There is not a doubt in her mind where the truth lies. In a moment her
+thought has flashed over the whole chain of evidence. The father's
+studied silence; her alienation from any home of her own; the mysterious
+hints of the Doctor; and the strange communication of Reuben,&mdash;all come
+up in stately array and confound her with the bitter truth. There is a
+little miniature of her father which she has kept among her choicest
+treasures. She seeks it now. Is it to throw it away in scorn? No, no,
+no. Our affections are after all not submissible to strict moral
+regimen. It is with set teeth and a hard look in her eye that she
+regards it at first; then her eyes suffuse with tears while she looks,
+and she kisses it passionately again and again.</p>
+
+<p>"Can there be some horrible mistake in all this?" she asks herself. At
+the thought she slips on hat and shawl and glides noiselessly down the
+stairs, (not for the world would she have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> interrupted!) and walks
+swiftly away to her old home at the parsonage.</p>
+
+<p>Dame Tourtelot meets her and says, "Good evening, Miss Adeel."</p>
+
+<p>And Ad&egrave;le, in a voice so firm that it does not seem her own, says, "Good
+evening, Miss Tourtelot." She wonders greatly at her own calmness.</p>
+
+
+<h3>LIV.</h3>
+
+<p>The Doctor is alone in his study when Ad&egrave;le comes in upon him, and she
+has reached his chair and dropped upon her knees beside him before he
+has time to rise.</p>
+
+<p>"New Papa, you have been so kind to me! I know the truth now,&mdash;the
+mystery, the shame";&mdash;and she dropped her head upon his knees.</p>
+
+<p>"Adaly, Adaly, my dear child!" said the old man with a great tremor in
+his voice, "what does this mean?"</p>
+
+<p>She was sobbing, sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>"Adaly, my child, what can I do for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pray for me, New Papa!" and she lifted her eyes upon him with a tender,
+appealing look.</p>
+
+<p>"Always, always, Adaly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, New Papa,&mdash;tell me honestly,&mdash;is it not true that I can call
+no one mother,&mdash;that I never could?"</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor trembled: he would have given ten years of his life to have
+been able to challenge her story, to disabuse her mind of the belief
+which he saw was fastened past all recall. "Adaly," said he, "Christ
+befriended the Magdalen,&mdash;how much more you, then, if so be you are the
+unoffending child of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it! I knew it!" and she fell to sobbing again upon the knee of
+the old gentleman, in a wild, passionate way.</p>
+
+<p>In such supreme moments the mind reaches its decisions with electrical
+rapidity. Even as she leaned there, her thought flashed upon that poor
+Madame Arles who had so befriended her,&mdash;against whom they had cautioned
+her, who had shown such intense emotion at their first meeting, who had
+summoned her at the last, and who had died with that wailing cry, "<i>Ma
+fille!</i>" upon her lip. Yes, yes, her mother indeed, who died in her
+arms! (she can never forget that death-clasp.)</p>
+
+<p>She hints as much to the Doctor, who, in view of his recent
+communication from Maverick, will not gainsay her.</p>
+
+<p>When she moved away at last, as if for a leave-taking, silent and
+humiliated, the old man said to her, "My child, are you not still my
+Adaly? God is no respecter of persons; his ministers should be like
+him."</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon Ad&egrave;le came and kissed him with a warmth that reminded him of
+days long past.</p>
+
+<p>She rejoiced in not having encountered the gray, keen eyes of the
+spinster. She knew they would read unfailingly the whole extent of the
+revelation that had dawned upon her. That the spinster herself knew the
+truth, and had long known it, she was sure; and she recalled with a
+shudder the look of those uncanny eyes upon the evening of their little
+frolic at the Elderkins. She dreaded the thought of ever meeting them
+again, and still more the thought of listening to the stiff, cold words
+of consolation which she knew she would count it her duty to administer.</p>
+
+<p>It was dusk when she left the Doctor's door; he would have attended, but
+she begged to be alone. It was an April evening, the chilliness of the
+earth just yielding to the coming summer; the frogs clamorous in all the
+near pools, and filling the air with the harsh uproar of their voices;
+the delicate grass-blades were just thrusting their tips through the
+brown web of the old year's growth, and in sunny, close-trodden spots
+showing a mat of green, while the fleecy brown blossoms of the elm were
+tufting all the spray of the embowering trees. Here and there a village
+loiterer greeted her kindly. They all knew Miss Ad&egrave;le. "They will all
+know it to-morrow," she thought, "and then&mdash;then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>With a swift but unsteady step she makes her way to the little
+graveyard; she had gone there often, and there were those who said
+wantonly that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> went to say her prayers before the little cross upon
+the tombstone she had placed over the grave of Madame Arles. Now she
+threw herself prone upon the little hillock, with a low, sharp cry of
+distress, like that of a wounded bird,&mdash;"My mother! my mother!"</p>
+
+<p>Every word, every look of tenderness which the dead woman had lavished,
+she recalls now with a terrible distinctness. Those loud, vague appeals
+of her delirium come to her recollection with a meaning in them that is
+only too plain; and then the tight, passionate clasp, when, strained to
+her bosom, relief came at last. Ad&egrave;le lies there unconscious of the
+time, until the night dews warn her away; she staggers through the gate.
+Where next? She fancies they must know it all at the Elderkins',&mdash;that
+she has no right there. Is she not an estray upon the world? Shall she
+not&mdash;as well first as last&mdash;wander forth, homeless as she is, into the
+night? And true to these despairing thoughts, she hurries away farther
+and farther from the town. The frogs croak monotonously in all the
+marshes, as if in mockery of her grief. On some near tree an owl is
+hooting, with a voice that is strangely and pitifully human. Presently
+an outlying farm-house shows its cheery, hospitable light through the
+window-panes, and she is tempted to shorten her steps and steal a look
+into the room where the family sits grouped around the firelight. No
+such sanctuary for her ever was or ever can be. Even the lowing of a cow
+in the yard, and the answering bleat of a calf within the barn, seem to
+mock the outcast.</p>
+
+<p>On she passes, scarce knowing whither her hurrying steps are bearing
+her, until at last she spies a low building in the fields away upon her
+right, which she knows. It is the home of that outlawed woman where
+Madame Arles had died. Here at least she will be met with sympathy, even
+if the truth were wholly known; and yet perhaps last of all places would
+she have it known there. She taps at the door; she has wandered out of
+her way, and asks for a moment's rest. The little boy of the house, when
+he has made out the visitor by a few furtive peeps from behind the
+mother's chair, comes to her fawningly and familiarly; and as Ad&egrave;le
+looks into his bright, fearless eyes, a new courage seems to possess
+her. God's children, all of us; and He careth even for the sparrows. She
+will conquer her despairing weakness; she will accept her cross and bear
+it resolutely. By slow degrees she is won over by the frolicsome humor
+of the curly-pated boy, who never once quits her side, into cheerful
+prattle with him. And when at last, fairly rested, she would set off on
+her return, the lone woman says she will see her safely as far as the
+village street; the boy, too, insists doggedly upon attending them; and
+so, with her hand tightly clasped in the hand of the lad, Ad&egrave;le makes
+her way back into the town. Along the street she passes, even under the
+windows of the parsonage, with her hand still locked in that of the
+outlawed boy; and she wonders if in broad day the same courage would be
+meted to her? They only part when within sight of the broad glow of
+light from the Elderkin windows; and here Ad&egrave;le, taking out her purse,
+counts out the half of her money and places it in the hands of the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"We will share and share alike, Willie," said she, "But never tell who
+gave you this."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Miss Maverick, it's too much," said the woman.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's not," said the boy, clutching it eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>With a parting good-night, Ad&egrave;le darted within the gate, and opened
+softly the door, determined to meet courageously whatever rebuffs might
+be in store for her.</p>
+
+
+<h3>LV.</h3>
+
+<p>Rose has detailed the story of the occurrence, with the innocent
+curiosity of girlhood, to the Squire and Mrs. Elderkin (Phil being just
+now away). The Squire, as he hears it, has passed a significant look
+across to Mrs. Elderkin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's very queer, isn't it?" asked Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Very," said the Squire, who had for some time cherished suspicions of
+certain awkward relations existing between Maverick and the mother of
+Ad&egrave;le, but never so decided as this story would seem to warrant. "And
+what said Ad&egrave;le?" continued he.</p>
+
+<p>"It disturbed her, I think, papa; she didn't seem at all herself."</p>
+
+<p>"Rose, my dear," said the kindly old gentleman, "there is some unlucky
+family difference between Mr. and Mrs. Maverick, and I dare say the talk
+was unpleasant to Ad&egrave;le; if I were you, I wouldn't allude to it again;
+don't mention it, please, Rose."</p>
+
+<p>If it could be possible, good Mrs. Elderkin greeted Ad&egrave;le as she came in
+more warmly than ever. "You must be careful, my dear, of these first
+spring days of ours; you are late to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says Ad&egrave;le, "I was gone longer than I thought. I rambled off to
+the churchyard, and I have been at the Doctor's."</p>
+
+<p>Again the old people exchanged glances.</p>
+
+<p>Why does she find herself watching their looks so curiously? Yet there
+is nothing but kindness in them. She is glad Phil is not there.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning the Squire stepped over at an early hour to the
+parsonage, and by an adroit question or two, which the good Doctor had
+neither the art nor the disposition to evade, unriddled the whole truth
+with respect to the parentage of Ad&egrave;le. The Doctor also advised him of
+the delusion of the poor girl with respect to Madame Arles, and how he
+had considered it unwise to attempt any explanation until he should hear
+further from Mr. Maverick, whose recent letter he counted it his duty to
+lay before Mr. Elderkin.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a sad business," said he.</p>
+
+<p>And the Doctor, "<i>The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at
+what they stumble.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The Squire walks home in a brown study. Like all the rest, he has been
+charmed with the liveliness and grace of Ad&egrave;le; over and over he has
+said to his boy, "How fares it, Phil? Why, at your age, my boy, I should
+have had her in the toils long ago."</p>
+
+<p>Since her domestication under his own roof, the old gentleman's liking
+for her had grown tenfold strong; he had familiarized himself with the
+idea of counting her one of his own flock. But, the child of a
+French&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, we will see what the old lady may say," reflected he. And
+he took the first private occasion to lay the matter before Mrs.
+Elderkin.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, mother, the suspicions of last night are all true,&mdash;true as a
+book."</p>
+
+<p>"God help the poor child, then!" said Madam, holding up her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course He'll do that, wife. But what say you to Phil's marriage now?
+Does it look as tempting as it did?"</p>
+
+<p>The old lady reflected a moment, lifting her hand to smooth the hair
+upon her temple, as if in aid of her thought, then said,&mdash;"Giles, you
+know the world better than I; you know best what may be well for the
+boy. I love Ad&egrave;le very much; I do not believe that I should love her any
+less if she were the wife of Phil. But you know best, Giles; you must
+decide."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a good woman!" said the Squire; and he stayed his pace up and
+down the room to lay his hand approvingly upon the head of the old lady,
+touching as tenderly those gray locks as ever he had done in earlier
+years the ripples of golden brown.</p>
+
+<p>In a few days Phil returns,&mdash;blithe, hopeful, winsome as ever. He is
+puzzled, however, by the grave manner of the Squire, when he takes him
+aside, after the first hearty greetings, and says, "Phil, my lad, how
+fares it with the love matter? Have things come to a crisis, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, father?" and Phil blushes like a boy of ten.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to ask, Philip," said the old gentleman, measuredly, "if you
+have made any positive declaration to Miss Maverick."</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," said Phil, with a modest frankness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Very good, my son, very good. And now, Phil, I would wait a
+little,&mdash;take time for reflection; don't do anything rashly. It's an
+important step to take."</p>
+
+<p>"But, father," says Phil, puzzled by the old gentleman's manner, "what
+does this mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Philip," said the Squire, with a seriousness that seemed almost comical
+by its excess, "would you really marry Ad&egrave;le?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, if I could," said Phil.</p>
+
+<p>"Tut, tut, Phil! It's the old hot blood in him!" (He says this, as if to
+himself.) "Philip, I wouldn't do so, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>And thereupon he gives him in his way a story of the revelations of the
+last few days.</p>
+
+<p>At the first, Phil is disposed to an indignant denial, as if by no
+possibility any indignity could attach to the name or associations of
+Ad&egrave;le. But in the whirl of his feeling he remembered that interview with
+Reuben, and his boast that Phil could not affront the conventionalities
+of the world. It confirmed the truth to him in a moment. Reuben then had
+known the whole, and had been disinterestedly generous. Should he be any
+less so?</p>
+
+<p>"Well, father," said Phil, after a minute or two of silence, "I don't
+think the story changes my mind one whit. I would marry her to-morrow,
+if I could," and he looked the Squire fairly and squarely in the face.</p>
+
+<p>"Gad, boy," said the old gentleman, "you must love her as I loved your
+mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I do," said Phil,&mdash;"that is if I win her. I don't think she's to
+be had for the asking."</p>
+
+<p>"Aha! the pinch lies there, eh?" said the Squire, and he said it in
+better humor than he would have said it ten days before. "What's the
+trouble, Philip?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, I think she always had a tenderness for Reuben; I think she
+loves him now in her heart."</p>
+
+<p>"So, so! The wind lies there, eh? Well, let it bide, my boy; let it bide
+awhile. We shall know something more of the matter soon."</p>
+
+<p>And there the discourse of the Squire ended.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, however, Rose and Ad&egrave;le are having a little private interview
+above stairs, which in its subject-matter is not wholly unrelated to the
+same theme.</p>
+
+<p>"Rose," Ad&egrave;le had said, as she fondled her in her winning way, "your
+brother Phil has been very kind to me."</p>
+
+<p>"He always meant to be," said Rose, with a charming glow upon her face.</p>
+
+<p>"He always <i>has</i> been," said Ad&egrave;le; "but, dear Rose, I know I can talk
+as plainly to you as to another self almost."</p>
+
+<p>"You can,&mdash;you can, Ady," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought," continued Ad&egrave;le, "though I know it is very unmaidenly
+in me to say it, that Phil was disposed sometimes to talk even more
+warmly than he has ever talked, and to ask me to be a nearer friend to
+him even than you, dear Rose. May be it is only my own vanity that leads
+me sometimes to suspect this."</p>
+
+<p>"O, I hope it may be true!" burst forth Rose.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope <i>not</i>," said Ad&egrave;le, with a voice so gravely earnest that Rose
+shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>"O Ady, you don't mean it! you who are so good, so kind! Phil's heart
+will break."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that," said Ad&egrave;le, with a faint hard smile, in which her
+womanly vanity struggled with her resolution. "And whatever might have
+been, that which I have hinted at <i>must</i> not be now, dear Rose. You will
+know some day why&mdash;why it would be ungrateful in me to determine
+otherwise. Promise me, darling, that you will discourage any inclination
+toward it, wherever you can best do so. Promise me, dear Rose!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really, truly mean it?" said the other, with a disappointment
+she but poorly concealed.</p>
+
+<p>"With all my heart, I do," said Ad&egrave;le.</p>
+
+<p>And Rose promised, while she threw herself upon the neck of Ad&egrave;le and
+said, "I am so sorry! It will be such a blow to poor Phil!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After this, things went on very much in their old way. To the great
+relief of Ad&egrave;le there was no explosive village demonstration of the news
+which had come home so cruelly to herself. The Doctor had given an
+admonition to the young minister, and the old Squire had told him, in a
+pointed and confidential way, that he had heard of his inquiries and
+assertions with respect to Mr. Maverick, and begged to hint that the
+relations between the father and the mother of Ad&egrave;le were not of the
+happiest, and it was quite possible that Mr. Maverick had assumed
+latterly the name of a bachelor; it was not, however, a very profitable
+subject of the speculation or of gossip, and if he valued the favor of
+the young ladies he would forbear all allusion to it. A suggestion which
+Mr. Catesby was not slow to accept religiously, and scrupulously to bear
+in mind.</p>
+
+<p>Phil was as hot a lover as ever, though for a time a little more
+distant: and the poor fellow remarked a new timidity and reserve about
+Ad&egrave;le, which, so far from abating, only fed the flame; and there is no
+knowing to what reach it might have blazed out, if a trifling little
+circumstance had not paralyzed his zeal.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time, Phil had been used to bring home a rare flower or two
+as a gift for Ad&egrave;le, which Rose had always lovingly arranged in some
+coquettish fashion, either upon the bosom or in the hair of Ad&egrave;le; but a
+new and late gift of this kind&mdash;a little tuft of the trailing arbutus
+which he has clambered over miles of woodland to secure&mdash;is not worn by
+Ad&egrave;le, but by Rose, who glances into the astounded face of Phil with a
+pretty, demure look of penitence.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Rose," says he, seizing his chance for a private word,&mdash;"that's
+not for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it, Phil; Ad&egrave;le gave it to me."</p>
+
+<p>"And that's her favorite flower."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Phil," and there is a shake in her voice now. "I think she's grown
+tired of such gifts, Phil";&mdash;whereat she glances keenly and pitifully at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Truly</i>, Rose?" says Phil, with the color on a sudden quitting his
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly,&mdash;truly, Phil,"&mdash;and in spite of herself the pretty hazel eyes
+are brimming full, and, under pretence of some household duty, she
+dashes away. For a moment Phil stands confounded. Then, through his set
+teeth, he growls, "I was a fool not to have known it!"</p>
+
+<p>But Phil was not a fool, but a sturdy, brave-hearted fellow, who bore
+whatever blows fortune gave him, or seemed to give, with a courage that
+had a fine elastic temper in it. He may have made his business
+engagements at the river or in the city a little more frequent and
+prolonged after this; but always there was the same deferential show of
+tender feeling toward his father's guest, whenever he happened in
+Ashfield. Indeed, he felt immensely comforted by a little report which
+Rose made to him in her most despairing manner. Ad&egrave;le had told her that
+she "would never, never marry."</p>
+
+<p>There are a great many mothers of fine families who have made such a
+speech at twenty or thereabout; and Phil knew it.</p>
+
+
+<h3>LVI.</h3>
+
+<p>We by no means intend to represent our friend Ad&egrave;le as altogether a
+saint. Such creatures are very rare, and not always the most lovable,
+according to our poor human ways of thinking; but she may possibly grow
+into saintship, in view of a certain sturdy religious sense of duty that
+belongs to her, and a faith that is always glowing. At present she is a
+high-spirited, sensitive girl,&mdash;not without her pride and her lesser
+vanities, not without an immense capacity for loving and being loved,
+but just now trembling under that shock to her sensibilities which we
+have detailed,&mdash;but never fainting, never despairing. Not even
+relinquishing her pride, but guarding it with triple defences, by her
+reserve in respect to Phil, as well as by a certain new dignity of
+manner which has grown out of her conflict with the opprobrium<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span> that
+seems to threaten, for no fault of her own.</p>
+
+<p>Ad&egrave;le sees clearly now the full burden of Reuben's proposal to cherish
+and guard her against whatever indignities might threaten; she sees more
+clearly than ever the rich, impulsive generosity of his nature
+reflected, and it disturbs her grievously to think that she had met it
+only with reproach. The thought of the mad, wild, godless career upon
+which he may have entered, and of which the village gossips are full, is
+hardly more afflictive to her than her recollection of that frank,
+self-sacrificing generosity, so ignobly requited. She longs in her heart
+to clear the debt,&mdash;to tell him what grateful sense she has of his
+intended kindness. But how? Should she,&mdash;being what she is,&mdash;even by a
+word, seem to invite a return of that devotion which may be was but the
+passion of an hour, and which it were fatal to renew? Her pride revolts
+at this. And yet&mdash;and yet&mdash;so brave a generosity shall not be wholly
+unacknowledged. She writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Reuben, I know now the full weight of the favor of what you promised to
+bestow upon me when I so blindly reproached you with intrusion upon my
+private griefs. Forgive me, Reuben! I thank you now, late as it is, with
+my whole heart. It is needless to tell you how I came to know what,
+perhaps, I had better never have known, but which must always have
+overhung me as a dark cloud charged with a blasting fate. This
+knowledge, dear Reuben, which separates us so surely and so widely,
+relieves me of the embarrassment which I might otherwise have felt in
+telling you of my lasting gratitude, and (if as a sister I may say it)
+my love. If your kind heart could so overflow with pity then, you will
+surely pity me the more now; yet not <i>too much</i>, Reuben, for my pride as
+a woman is as strong as ever. The world was made for me, as much as it
+was made for others; and if I bear its blight, I will find some flowers
+yet to cherish. I do not count it altogether so grim and odious a
+world,&mdash;even under the broken light which shines upon it for me,&mdash;as in
+your last visits you seemed disposed to reckon it.</p>
+
+<p>"And this reminds me, Reuben, that I have told you frankly how the cloud
+which overhung me has opened with a terrible surety. How is it with the
+cloud that lay upon you? Is there any light? Ah, Reuben, when I recall
+those days in which long ago your faith in something better beyond this
+world than lies in it seemed to be so much stronger and firmer than
+mine, and when your trust was so confident as to make mine stronger, it
+seems like a strange dream to me,&mdash;all the more when now you, who should
+reason more justly than I, believe in 'nothing,' (was not that your last
+word?)&mdash;and yet, dear Reuben, I cling,&mdash;I cling. Do you remember the old
+hymn I sung in those days:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Ingemisco tanquam reus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Culpa rubet vultus meus;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Supplicanti parce, Deus.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Even the old Doctor, who was so troubled by the Romish hymns, said it
+must have been written by a good man."</p>
+
+<p>Much more she writes in this vein, but returns ever and again to that
+noble generosity of his,&mdash;her delicacy struggling throughout with her
+tender gratitude,&mdash;yet she fails not to show a deep, earnest
+undercurrent of affection, which surely might develop under sympathy
+into a very fever of love. Will it not touch the heart of Reuben? Will
+it not divert him from the trail where he wanders blindly? If we have
+read his character rightly, surely this letter, in which a delicate
+sensibility hardly veils a great passionate wealth of feeling, will stir
+him to a new and more hopeful venture.</p>
+
+<p>God send that the letter may reach him safely!</p>
+
+<p>For a long time Ad&egrave;le has not written to Reuben, and it occurs to her,
+as she strolls away toward the village post, that to mail it herself may
+possibly provoke new town gossip. In this perplexity she presently
+encounters her boy friend, Arthur, who for a handful of pennies, and
+under injunction of secrecy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> cheerfully undertakes the duty. To the
+house of the lad's mother, far away as it was, Ad&egrave;le had wandered
+frequently of late, and had borne away from time to time some trifling
+memento of the dead one whose memory so endeared the spot. It happens
+that she continues her stroll thither on this occasion; and the poor
+woman, toward whom Ad&egrave;le's charities have flowed with a profusion that
+has astounded the Doctor, repays some new gift by placing in her hands a
+little embroidered kerchief, "too fine for such as she," which had
+belonged to Madame Arles. A flimsy bit of muslin daintily embroidered;
+but there is a name stitched upon its corner, for which Ad&egrave;le treasures
+it past all reckoning,&mdash;the name of <i>Julie Chalet</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It was as if the dead one had suddenly come back and whispered it in her
+ear,&mdash;Julie Chalet. The spring birds sung the name in chorus as she
+walked home; and on the grave-stone, under the cross, she seemed to see
+it cut upon the marble,&mdash;Julie Chalet.</p>
+
+<p>Ad&egrave;le has written to her father, of course, in those days when the first
+shock of the new revelation had passed. How could she do otherwise? If
+she has poured out the bitterness of her grief and of her isolation, she
+has mercifully spared him any reproach!</p>
+
+<p>"I think I now understand," she writes, "the reason of your long absence
+from me. Whatever other griefs I bear, I will not believe that it has
+been from lack of affection for me. I recall that day, dear papa, when,
+with my head lying on your bosom, you said to me, 'She is unworthy; I
+will love you for both.' You must! But was she, papa, so utterly
+unworthy? I think I have known her; nay, I feel almost sure,&mdash;sure that
+these arms held her in the moment when she breathed adieu to the world.
+If ever bad, I am sure that she must have grown into goodness. I cannot,
+I will not, think otherwise. I can tell you so many of her kind deeds as
+will take away your condemnation. In this hope I live, dear papa.</p>
+
+<p>"I have found her true name too, at last,&mdash;Julie Chalet,&mdash;is it not so?
+I wonder with what feeling you will read it; will it be with a wakened
+fondness? will it be with loathing? I tremble while I ask. You shall go
+with me (will you not?) <i>to her grave</i>; and there a kind Heaven will put
+in our hearts what memories are best.</p>
+
+<p>"I know now the secret of your caution in respect to Reuben; you have
+been unwilling that <i>your child</i> should bring any possible shame to the
+household of a friend! Trust to me,&mdash;trust to <i>me</i>, papa, your
+sensitiveness cannot possibly be keener, if it be more generous, than my
+own. Yet I have never told you&mdash;what I have since learned&mdash;of the
+unselfish devotion of Reuben, which declared itself when he knew
+all,&mdash;all. Would I not be almost tempted to thank him with&mdash;myself? Yet,
+trust me, if I have written him with an almost unmaidenly warmth, I have
+called to his mind the great gulf that <i>must</i> lie between us.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the old godmother, of whom you used to speak, still alive? It seems
+that I should love to hang about her neck in memory of days gone; it
+seems that I should love the warm sky under which I was born,&mdash;I am sure
+I should love the olive orchards, and the vines, and the light upon the
+sea. I feel as if I were living in chains now. When, when will you come
+to break them, and set me free?"</p>
+
+<p>In those days of May, when the leaflets were unfolding, and when the
+downy bluebells were lifting their clustered blossoms filled with a
+mysterious fragrance, like the breath of young babes, Ad&egrave;le loved to
+linger in the study of the parsonage; more than ever the good Doctor
+seemed a "New Papa,"&mdash;more than ever his eye dwelt upon her with a
+parental smile. It was not that she loved Rose less, that she lingered
+here so long; but she could not shake off the conviction that some day
+soon Rose might shrink from her. The good Doctor never would. Nor can it
+be counted strange if there, in the study so familiar to her childhood,
+she should recall the days when she had frolicked down the orchard,
+when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> Reuben had gathered flowers for her, when life seemed enchanting.
+Was it enchanting now?</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor was always gravely kind. "Have courage, Adaly, have courage!"
+he was wont to say, "God orders all things right."</p>
+
+<p>And somehow, when she hears him say it, she believes it more than ever.</p>
+
+<p>Ten days, a fortnight, and a month pass, and there is no acknowledgment
+from Reuben of her grateful letter. He does not count it worth his
+while, apparently, to break his long silence; or, possibly, he is too
+much engrossed with livelier interests to give a thought to this episode
+of his old life in Ashfield. Ad&egrave;le is disturbed by it; but the very
+disturbance gives her new courage to combat faithfully the difficulties
+of her position. "One cheering word I would have thought he might have
+given me," said she.</p>
+
+<p>The appeal to her father, too, has no answer. Before it reaches its
+destination, Maverick has taken ship for America; and, singularly
+enough, it is fated that the letter of Ad&egrave;le should be first opened and
+read&mdash;by her mother.</p>
+
+
+<h3>LVII.</h3>
+
+<p>Some time in mid-May of this year Maverick writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Johns,&mdash;I shall again greet you, God willing, in your own home,
+some forty days hence, and I shall come as a repentant Benedick; for I
+now wear the dignities of a married man. Your kind letter counted for a
+great deal toward my determination; but I will not affect to conceal
+from you, that my tender interest in the future of Ad&egrave;le counted for a
+great deal more. As I had supposed, the communication to Julie (which I
+effected through her brother) that her child was still living, and
+living motherless, woke all the tenderness of her nature. I cannot say
+that the sudden change in her inclinations was any way flattering to me;
+but knowing her recent religious austerities, I was prepared for this. I
+shall not undertake to describe to you our first interview, which I can
+never forget. It belongs to those heart-secrets which cannot be spoken
+of; but this much I may tell you,&mdash;that, if there was no kindling of the
+old and wayward love, there grew out of it a respect for her present
+severity and elevation of character that I had never anticipated. At our
+age, indeed, (though, when I think of it, I must be many years your
+junior,) a respect for womanly character most legitimately takes the
+place of that disorderly sentiment which twenty years ago blazed out in
+passion.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been married according to the rites of the Romish Church. If I
+had proposed other ceremony, more agreeable to your views, I am
+confident that she would not have listened to me. She is wrapped as
+steadfastly in her creed as ever you in yours. To do otherwise in so
+sacred a matter&mdash;and with her it wore solely that aspect&mdash;than as her
+Church commands, would have been to do foully and vainly. I had prepared
+you, I think, for her perversity in this matter; nor do I think that all
+your zeal and powers of persuasion could make her recreant to the faith
+for which she has immolated all the womanly vanities which certainly
+once belonged to her. Indeed, the only trace of worldliness which I see
+in her is her intense yearning toward our dear Ad&egrave;le, and her passionate
+longing to clasp her child once more to her heart. Nor will I conceal
+from you that she hopes, with all the fervor of a mother's hope, to wean
+her from what she counts the heretical opinions under which she has been
+reared, and to bring her into the fold of the faithful.</p>
+
+<p>"You will naturally ask, my dear Johns, why I do not combat this; but I
+am too old and too far spent for a fight about creeds. I should have
+made a lame fight on that score at any day; but now my main concern, it
+would seem, should be to look out personally for the creed which has
+most of mercy in it. If I seem to speak triflingly, my dear Johns, I
+pray you excuse me; it is only my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span> business way of stating the actual
+facts in the case. As for Madame Maverick, I am sure you will find no
+trifling in her (if you ever meet her); she is terribly in earnest. I
+tell her she would have made a magnificent lady prioress, whereat she
+thumbs her beads and whispers a Latin distich, as if she were exorcising
+a demon. Yet I should do wrong if I were to represent her as always
+severe, even upon such a theme; there certainly belongs to her a tender,
+appealing manner (reminding of Ad&egrave;le in a way that brings tears to my
+eyes); but it is always bounded by allegiance to her sworn faith. You
+will think it an exaggeration, but she reminds me at times of those
+women of the New Testament (which I have not altogether forgotten) who
+gave up all for the following of the Master. If I were in your study, my
+dear Johns, you might ask me who those women were? And for my soul I
+could not tell you. Yet I have a vague recollection that there were
+those who showed a beautiful devotion to the Christian faith, that
+somehow sublimated their lives and memories. Again, I feel constrained
+to put before you another feature in her character, which I am confident
+will make you feel kindly toward her; my home near to Marseilles, which
+has been but a gypsy home for so many years, she has taken under her
+hand, and by its new appointments and order has convicted me of the
+losses I have felt so long. True, you might object to the <i>oratoire</i>;
+but in all else I am confident you would approve, and in all else
+felicitate Ad&egrave;le upon the home which was preparing for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Maverick will not sail with me for America; although the
+marriage, under French law, may have admitted Ad&egrave;le to all rights and
+even social immunities, yet I have represented that another law and
+custom rules with you. Whatever opprobrium might attach to the mother,
+Julie, with her exalted religious sentiment, would not weigh for a
+moment; but as regards Ad&egrave;le, she manifests a strange tenderness. To
+spare her any pang, or possible pangs, she is content to wait. I have
+feared, too, I must confess, that any undue expression of condemnation
+or distrust might work revulsion of her own feeling. But while she
+assents,&mdash;with some reluctance, I must admit,&mdash;to this plan of deferring
+her meeting with Ad&egrave;le, on whom all her affections seem to centre, she
+insists, in a way that I find it difficult to combat, upon her child's
+speedy return. That her passionate love will insure entire devotion on
+the part of Ad&egrave;le, I cannot doubt. And how the anti-Romish faith which
+must have been instilled in the dear girl by your teachings, as well as
+by her associations, may withstand the earnest attack of Madame
+Maverick, I cannot tell. I have a fear it may lead to some dismal
+complications. You know what the earnestness of your own faith is; but I
+don't think you yet know the earnestness of an opposing faith, with a
+Frenchwoman to back it. Even as I write, she comes to cast a glance at
+my work, and says, 'Monsieur Maverick,' (she called me Frank once,)
+'what are you saying there to the heretical Doctor?'</p>
+
+<p>"Whereupon I translate for her ear a sentence or two. 'Tell him,' says
+she, 'that I thank him for his kindness; tell him besides, that I can in
+no way better atone for the guiltiness of the past, than by bringing
+back this wandering lamb into the true fold. Only when we kneel before
+the same altar, her hand in mine, can I feel that she is truly my
+child.'</p>
+
+<p>"I fear greatly this zeal may prove infectious.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, my dear Johns, in regard to the revelation to Ad&egrave;le of what is
+written here,&mdash;of the whole truth, in short, for it must come out,&mdash;I
+haven't the heart or the courage to make it myself. I must throw myself
+on your charity. For Heaven's sake, tell the story as kindly as you can.
+Don't let her think too harshly of me. See to it, I pray, that my name
+don't become a bugbear in the village. I have pretty broad shoulders,
+and could bear it, if I only were to be sufferer; but I am sure 't would
+react fearfully on the sensibilities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> of poor Ad&egrave;le. <i>That</i> sin is past
+cure and past preachment; no good can come from trumpeting wrath against
+it. Do me this favor, Johns, and you will find me a more willing
+listener in what is to come. I can't promise, indeed, to accept all your
+dogmas; there is a thick crust of the world on me, and I doubt if you
+could force them through it; but, for Ad&egrave;le's sake, I think I could
+become a very orderly and presentable person, even for a New England
+meeting-house. I will make a beginning now by turning over the little
+property which you hold for Ad&egrave;le, in trust, for disbursement in your
+parish charities. The dear child won't need it, and the parish may."</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor was happy to be relieved of the worst part of the revelation;
+but he had yet to communicate the fact that the mother was still alive,
+and (what was to him worst of all) that she was imbruted with the
+delusions of the Romish Church. He chose his hour, and, meeting her upon
+the village street, asked her into his study.</p>
+
+<p>"Adaly, your father is coming. He will be here within a month."</p>
+
+<p>"At last! at last!" said she, with a cry of joy.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Adaly," continued he, with great gravity, "I have perhaps led you
+into error. Your mother, Adaly,&mdash;your mother is still living."</p>
+
+<p>"Living!" and an expression almost of radiance shot over the fair face.
+But in an instant it was gone. Was not the poor lady she had so
+religiously mourned over her mother? That death embrace and the tomb
+were, then, only solemn mockeries! With a frightful alertness her
+thought ran to them,&mdash;weighed them. "New Papa," said she, approaching
+him with a gravity that matched his own, "is this some new delusion? Is
+it true? Has he written me?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has not written you, my child; but I have a letter, informing me of
+his marriage, and begging me to make the revelation to you as kindly as
+I might."</p>
+
+<p>"Marriage! Marriage to whom?" says Ad&egrave;le, her eyes flashing fire, and
+her lips showing a tempest of scarce controllable feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"Marriage to your mother, Adaly. He would be just at last."</p>
+
+<p>"O my God!" exclaimed Ad&egrave;le, with a burst of tears. "It's false! I shall
+never see my mother again in this world. I know it! I know it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Adaly, my child, consider!" said the old gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Ad&egrave;le did not heed him. She was lost in her own griefs. She could only
+exclaim, "O my father! my father!"</p>
+
+<p>The old Doctor was greatly moved; he laid down his spectacles, and paced
+up and down the room. The earnestness of her doubt made him almost
+believe that he was himself deceived.</p>
+
+<p>"Can it be? can it be?" he muttered, half under breath, while Ad&egrave;le sat
+drooping in her chair. "May be the instinct of the poor girl is right,
+after all," thought he,&mdash;"sin is so full of disguises."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment there is a sharp tap at the door, and Miss Eliza steps
+in, the bearer of a letter from Reuben.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="KILLED_AT_THE_FORD" id="KILLED_AT_THE_FORD"></a>KILLED AT THE FORD</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He is dead, the beautiful youth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He, the life and light of us all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose voice was blithe as a bugle call,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom all eyes followed with one consent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hushed all murmurs of discontent.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Only last night, as we rode along<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down the dark of the mountain gap,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To visit the picket-guard at the ford,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Little dreaming of any mishap,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was humming the words of some old song:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Two red roses he had on his cap<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And another he bore at the point of his sword."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sudden and swift a whistling ball<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came out of a wood, and the voice was still;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Something I heard in the darkness fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for a moment my blood grew chill;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a room where some one is lying dead;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he made no answer to what I said.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We lifted him up on his saddle again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And through the mire and the mist and the rain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Carried him back to the silent camp,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And laid him as if asleep on his bed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I saw by the light of the surgeon's lamp<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two white roses upon his cheeks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And one just over his heart blood-red!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And I saw in a vision how far and fleet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That fatal bullet went speeding forth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till it reached a town in the distant North,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till it reached a house in a sunny street,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without a murmur, without a cry;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a bell was tolled in that far-off town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For one who had passed from cross to crown,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the neighbors wondered that she should die.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_LATE_INSURRECTION_IN_JAMAICA" id="THE_LATE_INSURRECTION_IN_JAMAICA"></a>THE LATE INSURRECTION IN JAMAICA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>If Cuba be the Queen of the Antilles, then fairest of the sisterhood
+which adorn her regal state is Jamaica. A land of streams and mountains,
+from the one it derives almost inexhaustible fertility of valleys and
+plains; from the other, enchanting prospects, which challenge comparison
+with the scenery even of Tyrol and Switzerland. Tropical along its
+shores, temperate up its steep hills, the sun of Africa on its plains,
+the frosts of New England in its mountains, there is scarcely a luxury
+of the South or a comfort of the North which may not be cultivated to
+advantage somewhere within its borders. Here is the natural home of the
+sugar-cane; and it is scarcely a figure of speech to say that the sugar
+supply of the world might come from the teeming bosom of this little
+island. Here too are slopes of hills, and broad savannas, where "the
+grass may almost be <i>seen</i> growing," and where may be bred cattle fit to
+compete with the far-famed herds of England. The forests are full of
+mahogany and logwood. The surrounding waters swarm with fish of every
+variety, and of the finest flavor. Nominally, at least, the people are
+free and self-governed; and if, under propitious skies, the burdens
+either of the private home or of the state are heavy and crushing, it is
+because of mismanagement and not of necessity. To a casual observer,
+therefore, it would seem as if nowhere in the same space were gathered
+more elements of wealth, prosperity, and happiness than in Jamaica.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Yet Jamaica is poor and discontented, and from year to year is growing
+more miserable and more full of complaints. While on the little island
+of Barbadoes, which is flat and comparatively destitute of natural
+beauty, the inhabitant is proud to the verge of the ludicrous of his
+home, the Jamaican, dwelling amid scenes of perpetual loveliness,
+despises his native soil. And not without reason. For Jamaica presents
+that saddest and least flattering sight, a land sinking into hopeless
+ruin. Her plantations are left uncultivated. Her cities look time-worn
+and crumbling. Her fields, which once blossomed like the rose, are
+relapsing into the wilderness. She does not feed her people. She does
+not clothe them. She does not furnish them shelter. With three hundred
+and fifty thousand negroes she has not sufficient labor. With twenty
+thousand whites she has not employers enough who are capable of managing
+wisely and paying honestly what labor she has. With a soil which Nature
+has made one broad pasture, she does not raise the half of her own beef
+and pork. With plains which ought to be waving with luxuriant harvests
+of wheat and corn, her children are fed from our overflowing granaries.
+With woods filled with trees fit for building, she sends all the way to
+the Provinces for shingles, joist, and boards. On her two hundred swift,
+sparkling rivers there was not, in 1850, a single saw-mill. In an age of
+invention and labor-saving machines, the plough is to her a modern
+innovation; and her laborers still scratch the soil which they seek to
+till with tools of the Middle Ages. Even the production of sugar, to
+which she has sacrificed every other industrial interest, has sunk from
+the boasted hundred and fifty thousand hogsheads of the last century, to
+a meagre yearly crop of thirty thousand. Nine tenths of her proprietors
+are absentees. More than that proportion of her great estates are
+ruinously mortgaged. A tourist gives as the final evidence of
+exhaustion, that Jamaica has no amusements, no circus, no theatre, no
+opera, none of the pleasant trifles which surplus wealth creates.</p>
+
+<p>Nor are the moral aspects any more encouraging. Slavery, dying, cursed
+the soil with its fatal bequest, contempt for labor; and the years which
+have elapsed since emancipation have done little or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> nothing to give to
+the toiler conscious dignity and worth. The bondsman, scarcely yet freed
+from all his chains, naturally enough thinks that, "if Massa will not
+work," it is the highest gentility in him not to work either, and sighs
+for a few acres whereon he may live in sluggish content. And his quondam
+master, left to his own resources, will not any more than before put his
+shoulder to the work; and, though sunk himself in sloth, ceases not to
+complain of another's indolence. The spirit of caste is still
+relentless. The white man despises the black man, and, if he can, cheats
+him and tramples upon him. The black man, in return, suspects and fears
+his old oppressor, and sometimes, goaded to desperation, turns upon him.
+A perpetual discontent has always brooded over Jamaica; and it is
+recorded that no less than thirty bloody rebellions have left their
+crimson stains on her ignoble annals.</p>
+
+<p>It is in vain to inquire for the causes of this physical and moral
+decay. For every class has its special complaint, every traveller his
+favorite theory, and every political economist his sufficient
+explanation. But let the cause be what it may, the fact stands out black
+and repulsive. Jamaica, which came from the hand of the Creator a fair
+and well-watered garden, has presented for more than half a century that
+melancholy spectacle, too common in Equatorial America, of a land rich
+in every natural advantage, and yet through the misfortune or folly of
+its people plunged in poverty and misery.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The world at large had become tired of the griefs of Jamaica, and
+reconciled itself to her wretchedness as a foregone conclusion, when the
+events of last October lent a fresh and terrible interest to her
+history. An insurrection, including in its purpose the murder of every
+white man on the island, has been quenched in the blood of its leaders,
+say the Governor of Jamaica and his defenders. An insignificant riot has
+been followed by a wholesale and indiscriminate massacre, sparing not
+even the women and children, reply their opponents.</p>
+
+<p>Admitting for a moment the whole planter theory of a general
+insurrection, the question inevitably arises, What are the causes which
+would prompt such a rebellion, and which, while they do not justify
+violence, furnish reasons why every humane mind should desire to treat
+with leniency the errors, and even the crimes, of an ignorant and
+oppressed race? The ordinary burden of the Jamaica negro is far from a
+light one. The yearly expense of his government is not less than a
+million dollars, or about three dollars for every man, woman, and child
+on the island. The executive and judicial departments are on a scale of
+expense which would befit a continent. The Governor receives a salary of
+forty thousand dollars, the Chief Justice fifteen thousand dollars, the
+Associate Justices ten thousand dollars. The ecclesiastical
+establishment, which ministers little or nothing to the religious wants
+of the colored race, absorbs another huge portion of the public revenue.
+And all this magnificence of expenditure in a population of twenty
+thousand bankrupt whites and three hundred and fifty thousand half-naked
+blacks. If, now, the negro believed that this burden was distributed
+evenly, he might bear it with patience. But he does not believe so. He
+is sure, on the contrary, that the white man, who controls legislation,
+so assesses the revenue that it shall relieve the rich and burden the
+poor. He tells you that the luxuries of the planter are admitted at a
+nominal duty, while the coarse fabrics with which he must clothe himself
+and family pay forty per cent; that while the planter's huge hogshead of
+seventeen hundred pounds' weight pays only an excise of three shillings,
+the hard-raised barrel of his home produce of two hundred pounds must
+pay two shillings; that every miserable mule-cart of the petty
+land-owner is subjected to eighteen shillings license, while the great
+ox-carts of the thousand-acre plantation go untaxed,&mdash;a law under which
+the number of little carts in one district<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> sunk from five hundred to
+less than two hundred, and with it sunk who shall tell how much growing
+enterprise. These complaints may be unjust, but the negro believes in
+them, and they chafe and exasperate him.</p>
+
+<p>Another important question is, What is the ability of the negro to bear
+these burdens? A defender of the planters gravely asserts "that the
+negro demands a price for his labor which would be exorbitant in any
+part of the world." What is that exorbitant price? An able-bodied
+agricultural laborer in Jamaica receives from eighteen to thirty cents a
+day; and, if he is both fortunate and industrious, may net for a year's
+work the fabulous sum of from fifty to eighty dollars. And this in a
+country which is one of the dearest in the world; where the necessaries
+of life are always at war prices; where flour is now twenty dollars a
+barrel, and eggs are fifty cents a dozen, and butter is forty cents a
+pound, and ham twenty-five, and beef and mutton still higher.</p>
+
+<p>Did the laborer actually receive his pittance, his lot might be more
+tolerable. But it is the almost universal complaint, that, either from
+inability or disinclination, the planter does not keep his agreements.
+Sometimes the overseer, when the work has been done, and well done,
+arbitrarily retains a quarter, or even a half, of the stipulated wages.
+The negro says he has no chance for redress; that even a written
+agreement is worth no more than a blank paper, for the magistrates are
+either all planters, or their dependents, and have no ears to hear the
+cry of the lowly. Add now to all this the fact, that the last few
+seasons have been unfavorable to agriculture; that planters and peasants
+alike are even more than usually poor; that in whole districts the
+blacks are destitute, their children up to the age of ten or twelve
+years from absolute necessity going about stark naked, and their men and
+women wearing only rags and streamers, which do not preserve even the
+show of decency;&mdash;and is there not sufficient reason, not indeed to
+justify murder and arson, but why a whole race of suffering and
+excitable people should not be stamped as fiends in human shape for the
+outrages of a few of their number?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Turn now to the actual scene of conflict. In a little triangular tract
+of country on the east shore of Jamaica, hemmed in between the sea and
+the Blue Mountains, twenty-five miles long and two thirds as wide,
+occurred in October last what Governor Eyre has seen fit to dignify with
+the name of an insurrection. The first act of violence was committed at
+Morant Bay,&mdash;a town where it is said that no missionary to the blacks
+has been permitted to live for thirty-five years,&mdash;in the parish of St.
+Thomas in the East,&mdash;that very St. Thomas, possibly, whose court-house
+was called forty years ago the "hell of Jamaica," and where is preserved
+as a pleasant relic of the past a record book wherein the curious
+traveller reads the prices paid in the palmy days of slavery for cutting
+off the ears and legs, and slitting the noses, of runaway negroes. Had
+these negroes of Morant Bay any special causes of exasperation? They
+had. Their complaint was threefold. First, that the only magistrate who
+protected their interests had been arbitrarily removed. Second, that a
+plantation claimed by them to be deserted was as arbitrarily adjudged to
+be the rightful property of a white man. Third, that the plucking of
+fruit by the wayside, which had been a custom from time immemorial, and
+which resembled the plucking of ears of corn under the Jewish law, was
+by new regulations made a crime. Thus matters stood on the day of the
+outbreak; a general condition of poverty and discontent throughout the
+island; a special condition of exasperation in the parish of St. Thomas
+in the East, and particularly at Morant Bay.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>On the 7th of last October, a negro was arrested for picking two
+cocoanuts, value threepence. This arrest had every exasperating
+condition. The fruit was taken from a plantation whose title was
+disputed, and upon which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> negroes had squatted. The law which made
+the plucking of fruit a crime was itself peculiarly obnoxious. The
+magistrate before whom the offence was to be tried, rightly or wrongly,
+was accused by the blacks of gross partiality and injustice. The accused
+man was followed to the court by a crowd of his friends, armed, it is
+said, with clubs, though this latter statement seems to be doubtful.
+When a sentence of four shillings' fine, or, in default of payment,
+thirty days' imprisonment, was imposed, the award was received in
+silence. But when the costs were adjudged to be twelve shillings and
+sixpence, there were murmurs. Some tumultuously advised the man not to
+pay. Some, believing the case involved the title to the land, told him
+to appeal to a higher court. The magistrate ordered the arrest of all
+noisy persons. But these fled to the street, and, shielded by the
+citizens, escaped. The next day but one, six constables armed with a
+warrant proceeded to Stony Gut, the scene of the original arrest, to
+take into custody twenty-eight persons accused of riot. But they were
+forcibly resisted, handcuffed with their own irons, and forced
+ignominiously to take their way back. Some of the arrests, however, were
+made quietly a little time after.</p>
+
+<p>On the 11th of October dawned an eventful day. The magistrates were
+assembled in the court-house at Morant Bay for the purpose of examining
+the prisoners. The court-house was guarded by twenty armed volunteers, a
+body apparently of local militia. Some four or five hundred excited
+blacks surrounded the court-house, armed with bludgeons, grasping
+stones. What led to a collision can never be known. Very probably
+missiles were thrown at the guard. At any rate the officer in command
+ordered them to fire upon the crowd, and fifteen of the rioters fell
+dead or wounded. Then all restraint was at an end. The negroes threw
+themselves with incredible fury upon the guard, drove them into the
+court-house, summoned them to surrender at discretion, then set fire to
+the building, and murdered, with many circumstances of atrocity, the
+unhappy inmates, as they sought to flee. Sixteen were killed, and
+eighteen wounded, while a few escaped unharmed, by the help of the
+negroes themselves. This was the beginning and the end of the famous
+armed insurrection, so far as it ever was armed insurrection. The
+rioters dispersed. The spirit of insubordination spread to the
+plantations. There was general confusion, some destruction of property,
+some robbery. The whites were filled with alarm. Many left all and fled.
+The most exaggerated reports obtained credence. But if we except a Mr.
+Hine, who had rendered himself especially unpopular, and who was
+murdered on his plantation, not one white man appears to have been
+killed in cold blood, and not one white woman or child suffered from
+violence of any sort. Facts to the contrary may yet come to light.
+Official reports may reveal some secret chapter of bloodshed. But the
+chances of such a revelation are small enough. Three months have elapsed
+since the first tidings of the outbreak reached the mother country.
+There has been a great excitement; investigation has been demanded;
+facts have been called for; the defenders of the planters have been
+defied to produce facts. Meanwhile the Governor of Jamaica has written
+home repeated despatches; the commander of the military forces which
+crushed the rebellion has visited England; the planters' journals have
+come laden with vulgar abuse of the negro, and with all sorts of evil
+surmises as to his motives and purposes; letters have been received from
+Jamaica from persons in every position in life; and still no new
+facts,&mdash;not so much as one clear accusation of any further fatal
+violence. The conclusion is irresistible, that this was a riot, and not
+an insurrection; and that it began and ended, so far as armed force was
+concerned, at Morant Bay, on that unhappy day, the 11th of last October.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be denied that the occurrences of that day were marked by
+some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span> circumstances of painful ferocity. Men were literally hacked to
+pieces, crying for mercy. One man's tongue was cut from his mouth even
+while he lived. Another, escaping, was thrown back into the burning
+building, and roasted to death. The joints of the hand of the dead chief
+magistrate were dissevered by the blacks, who cried out exultingly,
+"This hand will write no more lying despatches to the Queen." But the
+events of that day were marked also by instances of humanity. The clerk
+of the court was rescued by his negro servant, who thrust him beneath
+the floor, and, watching his opportunity, conveyed him to the shelter of
+the woods next morning. A child, who happened to be with his father in
+the court-house, was snatched up by a negro woman, who, at the risk of
+her own life, carried him to a place of safety. But admitting the worst
+charges, any one who remembers the New York riot of 1863 will be slow to
+assert that this black mob exhibited any barbarity which has not been
+more than emulated by white mobs. Shocking enough the details are; but
+human action always and with every race is ferocious, when once the
+restraints of self-control and the law are thrown off.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>With a people so excitable as the blacks of Jamaica, and among whom
+there existed so many causes of disaffection, the greatest promptitude
+of action was a virtue. Had Governor Eyre marched with a military force
+into the district, had he crushed out every vestige of armed resistance,
+had he brought before proper tribunals and punished with severity all
+persons who were convicted of any complicity in these outrages, he would
+have merited the praise of every good man. What he did was to let loose
+upon a little district, unmuzzled, the dogs of war. What he did was to
+gather from all quarters an armed force, a motley crew, regulars and
+militia, sailors and landsmen, black and white, and permit them to hold
+for fourteen long days a saturnalia of blood. What he did was to summon
+the savage Maroon tribes to the feast of death, that by their barbaric
+warfare they might add yet one more shade of gloom to the picture. The
+official accounts are enough to blanch the cheek with horror. In two
+days after the riot martial law was declared. In four, the outbreak was
+hemmed into narrow quarters. In a week, it ceased to exist in any shape.
+Yet the work of death went on. Bands of maddened soldiers pierced the
+country in every direction. Men were arrested upon the slightest
+suspicion. Every petty officer constituted himself a judge; every
+private soldier became an executioner. If the black man fled, he was
+shot as a rebel; if he surrendered, he was hung on the same pretext,
+after the most summary trial. If the number of prisoners became
+inconveniently large, they were shot, or else whipped and let go,
+apparently according to the whim of the officer in command. Women were
+seized, stripped half naked, and thrown among the vulgar soldiery to be
+scourged. The estimate is that five hundred and fifty were hung by order
+of drum-head court-martials, five hundred destroyed by the Maroons, two
+thousand shot by the soldiery, and that three hundred women were catted,
+and how many men nobody presumes even to guess. One asks, At what
+expense of life to the victors was all this slaughter accomplished? And
+he reads, that not one soldier was killed, that not one soldier was
+wounded, that not one soldier received so much as a scratch, unless from
+the bushes through which he pursued his human prey. It was not war: it
+was a massacre. These poor people fled like panic-struck sheep, and the
+soldiery tracked them like wolves. The human heart could wish to take
+refuge in incredulity, but alas! the worst testimony of all is found in
+the official reports of the actors themselves.</p>
+
+<p>A few terrible anecdotes will give reality to the picture. George
+Marshall, a mulatto, was taken up with others as a straggler, and
+ordered to receive fifty lashes. With each lash the unfortunate man
+gritted his teeth and turned his head, whether from pain or anger is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span>
+uncertain. The provost-marshal construed this into a threatening look,
+and ordered him to be hung, which was done. There was no proof whatever
+that Marshall had any connection with the riot. A company of Maroons
+discovered a body of blacks, men, women, and children, who had taken
+refuge up in the trees, and stood and deliberately shot them, one by
+one, until they had all fallen, and the ground beneath was thickly
+strewn with their dead bodies. On a plantation between Morant Bay and
+Port Antonio the people were led by evil example into some acts of riot
+and pillage. But even in the midst of their license they sent word to
+the English gentleman who had charge of the plantation, that, if he and
+his family remained quiet, they should be protected. So rapidly did the
+spirit of rioting burn itself out, that on the next Sunday, only four
+days after the first outbreak at Morant Bay, he rode down to the estate,
+conducted a religious service as usual, speaking boldly to the people of
+the folly and sin of their course, and counselling them to return
+quietly to their work. His words were so well received, that on Monday
+morning he started for the plantation, purposing to appoint for the
+workmen their tasks, as the best possible way of keeping them out of
+mischief. As he drew near, he heard firing, and the first sight which
+greeted him was a negro shot down. The village was in possession of a
+small company of soldiers, without even a subaltern to control them.
+Without pretence of a trial, they were shooting the people one by one,
+as they were pointed out to them by a petty constable. On their march,
+these very soldiers had been ordered to fire upon every one who ran
+away, and they fired at every bush at random, never stopping to count
+the slain.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can exceed the horrible frankness of the reports of the
+officers. Here is Lieutenant Aldcock's language: "On returning to Golden
+Grove in the evening, sixty-seven prisoners were sent in by the Maroons.
+I disposed of as many as possible, but was too tired to continue after
+dark. On the morning of the 24th, I started for Morant Bay, having first
+flogged four, and hung six rebels." Here is a gem from Captain Ford:
+"The black troops are more successful than ours in catching horses;
+nearly all of them are mounted. They shot about one hundred and sixty
+people in their march from Port Antonio to Manchioneal, hanged seven in
+Manchioneal, and shot three on their way here. This is a picture of
+martial law. The soldiers enjoy it." Now consider a moment this killing
+of one hundred and sixty people on the way from Port Antonio. The
+distance traversed in a direct line was about twelve miles. There are no
+large towns on the line of march; and if you suppose that the rural
+population had here the average density of the island, there could not
+have been, in a belt of country one mile wide and the twelve miles long,
+over five hundred people; and we are forced to the conclusion, that
+these restorers of peace cleaned a strip a mile wide of every man and
+every well-grown boy. "And the soldiers enjoy it!" And the officers
+glory in it! Nothing was permitted to stop or clog the death mills. At
+Morant Bay, "to save time," two court-martials were formed. No time was
+lost in proceeding to business. "Each five minutes condemned rebels were
+taken down under escort awaiting their doom." Only three brought before
+these terrible tribunals escaped death. The court, composed exclusively
+of military and naval officers, spared none; every one brought before it
+was hanged. How many other such courts were at work does not appear; but
+it is evident not less than ten or a dozen. And subalterns, who ought
+not to have been intrusted with the charge of a score of men, assumed
+the dread power of life and death over poor wretches snatched from their
+homes, and given neither time nor opportunity for defence. Yet all this
+does not satisfy the remorseless planter. When, in a parish of thirty
+thousand people, two or three thousand sleep in bloody graves, and at
+least as many more have been pitilessly scourged, he calls "the clemency
+of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span> authorities extraordinary," and says, "that it comes too soon."
+No wonder that such a record as this stirred to its depth the popular
+heart of England. And it is the only relieving feature, that the
+indignation thus aroused has overridden all opposition, silenced all
+paltry excuses, and forced the government to appoint a Commission of
+Inquiry, and pending that inquiry to suspend Governor Eyre from his
+office.</p>
+
+<p>One case, that of the judicial murder of Mr. Gordon, has properly
+awakened great attention. Mr. Gordon was the very magistrate whose
+removal from office created so much discontent in the whole parish of
+St. Thomas in the East. He was a colored man with a very slight infusion
+of black blood. His father was an Englishman, and he himself was bred in
+England and married an English lady. He was wealthy, and the owner of a
+great plantation. A bitter and fearless opponent of what he considered
+to be the oppression of the planters, they in turn concentrated upon him
+all their anger and malice, while the negroes looked up to him as their
+hope and defence. The mere statement of the facts indicates that, if Mr.
+Gordon was to be tried at all, the investigation should have been
+patient, open, and thorough, granting to the accused every opportunity
+of defence. What did take place was this. Mr. Gordon was at Kingston,
+forty miles away from the scene of action. As soon as he learned that a
+warrant was out for his arrest, he surrendered himself, and was hurried
+away from the place where civil law was supreme to the scene of martial
+law at Morant Bay. Without a friend to defend him, with no opportunity
+to procure rebutting evidence, he was brought before a court of three
+subalterns, and, after what was called "a very patient trial" of four or
+five hours, sentenced to be hanged. Not one insult was spared. When he
+was marched up from the wharf, the sailors were permitted to heap upon
+him every opprobrious epithet. Before his execution "his black coat and
+vest were taken from him as a prize by one soldier, his spectacles by
+another; so," as an officer boasts, "he was treated not differently from
+the common herd." The accusation was, that he had plotted a wide-spread
+and diabolical rebellion. The only evidence which has been submitted
+proves him guilty of intemperate language, and an abounding sympathy for
+the poor and oppressed.<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a> In his last letter to his wife, written just
+before his execution, he uses language which has the stamp of truth upon
+it. "I do not deserve my sentence, for I never advised or took part in
+the insurrection. All I ever did was to recommend the people who
+complained to seek redress in a legitimate way. It is, however, the will
+of God that I should thus suffer in obeying his command to relieve the
+poor and needy, and so far as I was able to protect the oppressed. And
+glory be to His name, and I thank Him that I suffer in such a cause."
+But it matters not of what Mr. Gordon was guilty; the method of the
+proceedings, the dragging him from civil protection, the deprivation of
+all proper opportunity for defence, the putting him to death as it were
+in a corner, were all subversive of personal rights and safety. The
+highest authority in England has declared the whole trial an illegality.
+And the circumstances of the hour, when every vestige, ever pretence, of
+armed resistance had been swept away, left no excuse for over-stepping
+the bounds of legal authority.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is proper that full weight should be given to the alleged
+justification of these enormities. A diabolical plot existed, whose
+meshes included the whole island, and whose purpose was to put to death
+every white man and to outrage every white woman. This is what the
+Governor asserts. This is what the Assembly reiterates. This is the
+charge upon which every appeal of the Jamaican journals turns. The whole
+truth we probably never shall know. The men who could best reveal it are
+silent in the graves which lawless violence has dug for them, and will
+bear no testimony except at the bar or Eternal Justice. The report of
+the Committee of Inquiry will no doubt shed some light. Pending that
+inquiry there are considerations which strike every one. If for two
+years a bloody insurrection had been plotted, and the outbreak at Morant
+Bay was the first stroke to toward its accomplishment, is it credible
+that these truculent rebels should submit themselves as sheep to the
+slaughter,&mdash;that not one band should be found to strike a manly blow for
+life and liberty? If such an insurrection had its roots in every part of
+the island, is it credible, that, while the whole military and naval
+force, and no small part of the white inhabitants, were engaged in
+putting down the thirty thousand of their brethren in St. Thomas and
+Portland parishes, the three hundred thousand blacks all over the island
+should remain peaceable and law-abiding? And it is to be noticed that,
+since the reign of terror has subsided a little, those who know the
+negroes best, the missionaries who labor among them, express the most
+hearty contempt for these charges. But suppose that the negro had
+plotted insurrection, diabolical, satanic, would that be any excuse for
+wholesale slaughter, without forms of law, when all resistance was at an
+end? We know that the South plotted and consummated rebellion; that her
+people have slain three hundred thousand of our sons on the
+battle-field; that more than thirty thousand have wasted and died of
+slow torture in her prisons; that whenever the secrets of that
+charnel-house, Southern life, are disclosed, they will tell of thousands
+of Unionists who were hung, who were shot, who were burned at the stake,
+who were hunted by dogs, who were scourged to death with whips, and all
+because they were faithful to their country. And knowing all this, is
+there a man of the North who, when military resistance has ceased, would
+march our armies southward, hang every tenth man, shoot every fourth,
+scourge as many more, and suffer a wild soldiery to strip half naked and
+score with cruel whips thousands of the women? And does it alter the
+moral aspect of the case, that these things are transacted on a little
+island of the sea, and not on a continent,&mdash;or that the skin of the
+sufferer is black instead of white?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The use men seek to make of events reveals often the motives which they
+carried into the transaction of these events. Never was this more true
+of any body of people than of the planters of Jamaica. The Kingston
+Journal, an opposition, but not radical paper, boldly asserts, that the
+press has been gagged because it urged upon government the necessity of
+reform; that it has not dared to comment upon current facts, lest it
+should come under grave suspicion; that "now, when the greatest order
+prevails, and there is not the remotest probability of another outbreak,
+we <i>dare</i> not comment upon events, which, for the good of all classes,
+ought to be calmly and fully discussed." A significant commentary upon
+these statements is the fact that Mr. Levien, the editor of a Jamaica
+paper, was arrested, because in an editorial he boldly condemned the
+trial and execution of Mr. Gordon. And it is probable that he escaped
+paying dearly for his courage, only because the Chief Justice of Jamaica
+declared the whole law under which he was arrested unconstitutional, and
+dismissed the case. A still more significant commentary upon these
+statements is that other fact, that, in the midst of what they averred
+were the throes of a great rebellion, the members of the Assembly
+proceeded to destroy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> the very foundations of civil and religious
+liberty and of the freedom of the press. They proposed to give the
+Governor almost despotic authority, by surrendering the franchise of the
+Assembly, and vesting its power in a council of twenty-four, half of
+whom should be appointed by the Governor himself, and half elected by
+the people from the list only of those who had estates worth more than
+fifteen hundred dollars a year, or a salary of more than twenty-five
+hundred dollars. All social worship, all conference and prayer meetings,
+and even family prayers, if more than two strangers were present, were
+to be interdicted, unless, indeed, they were conducted by a minister of
+a favored sect. The denominations who had chiefly ministered to the
+blacks were to be placed under such disabilities as should greatly
+limit, or else destroy, their usefulness. And to round out and complete
+the circle of despotism, this proposition, was introduced,&mdash;"that if
+anything is contained in any printed paper which may be considered
+seditious, or that may be adjudged so by any court which the Governor
+may appoint, the writer shall be sentenced to hard labor in the
+penitentiary for seven years." It is idle to suppose that these measures
+will be sanctioned by the Queen; but they show what feelings burn in the
+breasts of the planters, and admonish us to receive with caution any
+statements which they may make concerning other classes of the
+community.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>This Jamaica "insurrection," whose origin, growth, and extinguishment in
+blood have now been traced, has been the cause of we know not how many
+oracular warnings from the lips of those who have not been distinguished
+by any hearty attachment to the rights of the black. "See now," they
+say, "what is the peril of emancipating these blacks." "Behold what
+comes of educating this people up to the capacity of mischief."
+"Acknowledge now that not even the gift of universal suffrage will
+elevate and soften a race at once fickle and ferocious. There is no
+safety but in keeping them under. Stop in your perilous experiments
+while you can."</p>
+
+<p>So long as the accounts of this outbreak are at once so conflicting and
+so colored by party feeling, it may not be easy to say what are its
+positive lessons. But it is easy to tell some things which it does not
+teach.</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>first</i> place, it does not teach the danger of conferring the
+right to vote upon the negro, for the negro of Jamaica has never
+attained to that privilege. His traducers cry out, "What a race! The
+best fed, the best clothed, the best sheltered, the least worked
+peasantry on the face of the earth! Free! Free to make their own laws,
+to choose their own rulers, to govern themselves! And yet they are
+discontented!" Turn now and inquire what are the facts about their
+governing themselves. True, no law says the negro shall not vote, but
+the qualification is made so high that it is impossible that he should
+vote. In a country where wages are scarcely a quarter of a dollar a day,
+he is required to have an estate worth thirty dollars a year, or an
+income of one hundred and forty dollars a year, or to pay taxes of
+fifteen dollars a year. Suppose now that in New England a law were
+passed that no man should vote who had not an estate worth two hundred
+dollars a year, or an income of one thousand dollars, or who did not pay
+one hundred dollars yearly tax,&mdash;and this, considering the difference of
+wages, is scarcely as high a qualification as that of Jamaica,&mdash;and how
+large a proportion of our people would obtain the privileges of a voter?
+In fact, in Jamaica only three thousand vote, or about one twenty-fifth
+of the adult males. Is it not just possible that the discontent there
+may grow out of aspirations for self-government, and for the dignity and
+privileges, as well as the name, of freemen? May not the outbreak teach
+the danger of not allowing the negro to vote?</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>second</i> place, this rebellion does not teach the danger of
+educating the negro; for the negro of Jamaica never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span> has been educated.
+While the government has wrung from his scanty wages a million dollars,
+it pays the Governor alone more than three times the sum it appropriates
+to education. It doles out for the education of seventy-five thousand
+children the pittance of twelve thousand five hundred dollars. Did not
+the negro himself eke out this bounty from his own little savings, not
+one in a dozen of the children would ever enter a school-room or see a
+book. As it is, only one sixth part of the children are, or ever were,
+under instruction. And the instruction they receive is too often from
+persons themselves illiterate and full of superstition, but who are the
+best teachers who can be obtained with limited means. Consider, then,
+the real condition of affairs,&mdash;three hundred and fifty thousand blacks,
+a large share of them children or grandchildren of those who were
+brought from Africa, with the wild blood of their fathers scarcely
+diluted in their veins, with all the old traditions of Fetichism and Obi
+worship fresh in their minds, altogether uneducated, or at best half
+educated; consider what virgin soil is here for every vile superstition,
+what a field for the demagogue to cultivate, and then decide whether it
+might not be safer, after all, to educate the negro in Jamaica.</p>
+
+<p>This insurrection does not teach, in the <i>third</i> place, the danger of
+obliterating the lines of caste, for in Jamaica those lines have never
+been obliterated, or even made faint. It may be doubted whether there
+was ever a moment when the ill-dissembled contempt of the whites, and
+the distrust of the blacks, were more profound then now. An intelligent
+observer declared, in 1850, that the gap between the blacks and whites
+had been steadily increasing ever since emancipation. And ten years
+later the Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society records, "that, as
+a general statement, there is no generous feeling in the relations
+between employer and employed. The negro can expect nothing but barest
+justice, and is happy if he gets that." Can there be any safety for the
+minority, when the majority, which numbers fifteen to one, has such a
+sense of injustice rankling in its breast? One wades through the late
+reprints of the Jamaica journals, column after column, page after page,
+filled with coarse invective, with bitter denunciation, with injurious
+suspicion; sees with what terrible relish the sufferings of these
+deluded people are recorded; marks how the heroism which goes to the
+scaffold without a tremor, and looks undeserved death in the face
+without a fear, is travestied; shudders to hear the planters, after
+thousands have been slain, yet cry for more blood; and then he puts the
+paper down and says, "Here in this language is material enough out of
+which to create a dozen bloody rebellions." How any race with the blood
+of the tropics boiling in their veins, with the traditions of old
+oppressions burning in their memory, can ever forget or forgive this
+language and these unbridled outrages is inconceivable. He is mad who
+does not see that the gulf of caste, too wide before, has widened and
+deepened almost unfathomably by the influence of the events of the last
+few months. He is mad, too, who thinks that Morant Bay, or the parish of
+St. Thomas in the East, with their unshrived dead, is a safer place for
+a white man to dwell in than it was six months ago.</p>
+
+<p>It is too early to gather up all the lessons of this last of the almost
+innumerable outbreaks in Jamaica. They may never be gathered up. But one
+lesson stands out prominently, and that is, the safety of justice. We
+cannot bring perfect equality upon the earth. It is not desirable
+perhaps that we should. To the end of time, probably, there will be rich
+and poor, high and low, weak and strong, black and white. But we can be
+just. We can recognize every man as a child of God. We can grant to him
+all the rights, all the privileges, and all the opportunities which
+belong to a man. That is a lesson which Jamaica has never learned, and
+therefore she sits under the shadow of her mountains, by the side of the
+restless sea, clothed in garments of wretchedness.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> Since the above was written, despatches and explanations
+have been received from Governor Eyre, and published; also an unofficial
+account of the trial of Mr. Gordon, from the pen of a reporter who was
+present. It is to be regretted that these papers do not relieve the
+authorities from the charge of atrocious and illegal cruelty in the
+slightest degree. Neither does the evidence in any way justify the legal
+or illegal murder of Mr. Gordon. While in November there was an evident
+desire to boast of the number and severity of the punishments which had
+been inflicted upon the unfortunate blacks, there is as evident a desire
+in January to show that the number of those who perished has been
+greatly exaggerated. But it is difficult to see how the actors propose
+to refute statements for which they themselves furnished the materials.
+One agreeable fact comes out in these papers, that the British home
+authorities never committed themselves to a support of the conduct of
+the Jamaican officials. On the contrary, it now appears that Mr.
+Cardwell, the British Colonial Secretary, from the beginning intimated
+very clearly his doubt on the propriety of the proceedings, especially
+in the case of Mr. Gordon.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_CHIMNEY-CORNER_FOR_1866" id="THE_CHIMNEY-CORNER_FOR_1866"></a>THE CHIMNEY-CORNER FOR 1866.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>IV.</h3>
+
+<h4>DRESS, OR WHO MAKES THE FASHIONS.</h4>
+
+<p>The door of my study being open, I heard in the distant parlor a sort of
+flutter of silken wings, and chatter of bird-like voices, which told me
+that a covey of Jennie's pretty young street birds had just alighted
+there. I could not forbear a peep at the rosy faces that glanced out
+under pheasants' tails, doves' wings, and nodding hummingbirds, and made
+one or two errands in that direction only that I might gratify my eyes
+with a look at them.</p>
+
+<p>Your nice young girl, of good family and good breeding, is always a
+pretty object, and, for my part, I regularly lose my heart (in a sort of
+figurative way) to every fresh, charming creature that trips across my
+path. All their mysterious rattle-traps and whirligigs,&mdash;their curls and
+networks and crimples and rimples and crisping-pins,&mdash;their little
+absurdities, if you will,&mdash;have to me a sort of charm, like the tricks
+and stammerings of a curly-headed child. I should have made a very poor
+censor if I had been put in Cato's place: the witches would have thrown
+all my wisdom into some private chip-basket of their own, and walked off
+with it in triumph. Never a girl bows to me that I do not see in her eye
+a twinkle of confidence that she could, if she chose, make an old fool
+of me. I surrender at discretion on first sight.</p>
+
+<p>Jennie's friends are nice girls,&mdash;the flowers of good, staid, sensible
+families,&mdash;not heathen blossoms nursed in the hot-bed heat of wild,
+high-flying, fashionable society. They have been duly and truly taught
+and brought up, by good mothers and painstaking aunties, to understand
+in their infancy that handsome is that handsome does; that little girls
+must not be vain of their pretty red shoes and nice curls, and must
+remember that it is better to be good than to be handsome; with all
+other wholesome truisms of the kind. They have been to school, and had
+their minds improved in all modern ways,&mdash;have calculated eclipses, and
+read Virgil, Schiller, and La Fontaine, and understand all about the
+geological strata, and the different systems of metaphysics,&mdash;so that a
+person reading the list of their acquirements might be a little appalled
+at the prospect of entering into conversation with them. For all these
+reasons I listened quite indulgently to the animated conversation that
+was going on about&mdash;Well!</p>
+
+<p>What <i>do</i> girls generally talk about, when a knot of them get together?
+Not, I believe, about the sources of the Nile, or the precession of the
+equinoxes, or the nature of the human understanding, or Dante, or
+Shakespeare, or Milton, although they have learned all about them in
+school; but upon a theme much nearer and dearer,&mdash;the one all-pervading
+feminine topic ever since Eve started the first toilet of fig-leaves;
+and as I caught now and then a phrase of their chatter, I jotted it down
+in pure amusement, giving to each charming speaker the name of the bird
+under whose colors she was sailing.</p>
+
+<p>"For my part," said little Humming-Bird, "I'm quite worn out with
+sewing; the fashions are all <i>so</i> different from what they were last
+year, that everything has to be made over."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it dreadful!" said Pheasant. "There's my new mauve silk dress! it
+was a very expensive silk, and I haven't worn it more than three or four
+times, and it really looks quite dowdy; and I can't get Patterson to do
+it over for me for this party. Well, really, I shall have to give up
+company because I have nothing to wear."</p>
+
+<p>"Who <i>does</i> set the fashions, I wonder,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> said Humming-Bird; "they seem
+now-a-days to whirl faster and faster, till really they don't leave one
+time for anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Dove, "I haven't a moment for reading, or drawing, or
+keeping up my music. The fact is, now-a-days, to keep one's self
+properly dressed is all one can do. If I were <i>grande dame</i> now, and had
+only to send an order to my milliner and dressmaker, I might be
+beautifully dressed all the time without giving much thought to it
+myself; and that is what I should like. But this constant planning about
+one's toilet, changing your buttons and your fringes and your
+bonnet-trimmings and your hats every other day, and then being
+behindhand! It is really too fatiguing.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Jennie, "I never pretend to keep up. I never expect to be
+in the front rank of fashion, but no girl wants to be behind every one;
+nobody wants to have people say, 'Do see what an old-times,
+rubbishy-looking creature <i>that</i> is.' And now, with my small means and
+conscience, (for I have a conscience in this matter, and don't wish to
+spend any more time and money than is needed to keep one's self fresh
+and tasteful,) I find my dress quite a fatiguing care."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, girls," said Humming-Bird, "do you really know, I have
+sometimes thought I should like to be a nun, just to get rid of all this
+labor. If I once gave up dress altogether, and knew I was to have
+nothing but one plain robe tied round my waist with a cord, it does seem
+to me as if it would be a perfect repose,&mdash;only one is a Protestant, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>Now, as Humming-Bird was the most notoriously dressy individual in the
+little circle, this suggestion was received with quite a laugh. But Dove
+took it up.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, really," she said, "when dear Mr. S&mdash;&mdash; preaches those saintly
+sermons to us about our baptismal vows, and the nobleness of an
+unworldly life, and calls on us to live for something purer and higher
+than we are living for, I confess that sometimes all my life seems to me
+a mere sham,&mdash;that I am going to church, and saying solemn words, and
+being wrought up by solemn music, and uttering most solemn vows and
+prayers, all to no purpose; and then I come away and look at my life,
+all resolving itself into a fritter about dress, and sewing-silk, cord,
+braid, and buttons,&mdash;the next fashion of bonnets,&mdash;how to make my old
+dresses answer instead of new,&mdash;how to keep the air of the world, while
+in my heart I am cherishing something higher and better. If there's
+anything I detest it is hypocrisy; and sometimes the life I lead looks
+like it. But how to get out of it? what to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure," said Humming-Bird, "that taking care of my clothes and going
+into company is, frankly, <i>all</i> I do. If I go to parties, as other girls
+do, and make calls, and keep dressed,&mdash;you know papa is not rich, and
+one must do these things economically,&mdash;it really does take all the time
+I have. When I was confirmed the Bishop talked to us so sweetly, and I
+really meant sincerely to be a good girl,&mdash;to be as good as I knew how;
+but now, when they talk about fighting the good fight and running the
+Christian race, I feel very mean and little, for I am sure this isn't
+doing it. But what is,&mdash;and who is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Betsey Titcomb is doing it, I suppose," said Pheasant.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Betsey!" said Humming-Bird, "well, she is. She spends <i>all</i> her
+money in doing good. She goes around visiting the poor all the time. She
+is a perfect saint;&mdash;but O girls, how she looks! Well, now, I confess,
+when I think I must look like Aunt Betsey, my courage gives out. <i>Is</i> it
+necessary to go without hoops, and look like a dipped candle, in order
+to be unworldly? Must one wear such a fright of a bonnet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Jennie, "I think not. I think Miss Betsey Titcomb, good as
+she is, injures the cause of goodness by making it outwardly repulsive.
+I really think, if she would take some pains with her dress, and spend
+upon her own wardrobe a little of the money<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> she gives away, that she
+might have influence in leading others to higher aims; now all her
+influence is against it. Her <i>outr&eacute;</i> and repulsive exterior arrays our
+natural and innocent feelings against goodness; for surely it is natural
+and innocent to wish to look well, and I am really afraid a great many
+of us are more afraid of being thought ridiculous than of being wicked."</p>
+
+<p>"And after all," said Pheasant, "you know Mr. St. Clair says, 'Dress is
+one of the fine arts,' and if it is, why of course we ought to cultivate
+it. Certainly, well-dressed men and women are more agreeable objects
+than rude and unkempt ones. There must be somebody whose mission it is
+to preside over the agreeable arts of life; and I suppose it falls to
+'us girls.' That's the way I comfort myself, at all events. Then I must
+confess that I do like dress; I'm not cultivated enough to be a painter
+or a poet, and I have all my artistic nature, such as it is, in dress. I
+love harmonies of color, exact shades and matches; I love to see a
+uniform idea carried all through a woman's toilet,&mdash;her dress, her
+bonnet, her gloves, her shoes, her pocket-handkerchief and cuffs, her
+very parasol, all in correspondence."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear," said Jennie, "anything of this kind must take a
+fortune!"</p>
+
+<p>"And if I had a fortune, I'm pretty sure I should spend a good deal of
+it in this way," said Pheasant. "I can imagine such completeness of
+toilet as I have never seen. How I would like the means to show what I
+could do! My life, now, is perpetual disquiet. I always feel shabby. My
+things must all be bought at hap-hazard, as they can be got out of my
+poor little allowance,&mdash;and things are getting so horridly dear! Only
+think of it, girls! gloves at two and a quarter! and boots at seven,
+eight, and ten dollars! and then, as you say, the fashions changing so!
+Why, I bought a sack last fall and gave forty dollars for it, and this
+winter I'm wearing it, to be sure, but it has no style at all,&mdash;looks
+quite antiquated!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now I say," said Jennie, "that you are really morbid on the subject of
+dress; you are fastidious and particular and exacting in your ideas in a
+way that really ought to be put down. There is not a girl of our set
+that dresses as nicely as you do, except Emma Seyton, and her father,
+you know, has no end of income."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Jennie," said Pheasant. "I think I really look like a beggar;
+but then, I bear it as well as I can, because, you see, I know papa does
+all for us he can, and I won't be extravagant. But I do think, as
+Humming-Bird says, that it would be a great relief to give it up
+altogether and retire from the world; or, as Cousin John says, climb a
+tree and pull it up after you, and so be in peace."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Jennie, "all this seems to have come on since the war. It
+seems to me that not only has everything doubled in price, but all the
+habits of the world seem to require that you shall have double the
+quantity of everything. Two or three years ago a good balmoral skirt was
+a fixed fact; it was a convenient thing for sloppy, unpleasant weather.
+But now, dear me! there is no end to them. They cost fifteen and twenty
+dollars; and girls that I know have one or two every season, besides all
+sorts of quilled and embroidered and ruffled and tucked and flounced
+ones. Then, in dressing one's hair, what a perfect overflow there is of
+all manner of waterfalls, and braids, and rats and mice, and curls, and
+combs; when three or four years ago we combed our own hair innocently
+behind our ears, and put flowers in it, and thought we looked nicely at
+our evening parties! I don't believe we look any better now, when we are
+dressed, than we did then,&mdash;so what's the use?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, did you ever see such a tyranny as this of fashion?" said
+Humming-Bird. "We know it's silly, but we all bow down before it; we are
+afraid of our lives before it; and who makes all this and sets it going?
+The Paris milliners, the Empress, or who?"</p>
+
+<p>"The question where fashions come from is like the question where pins
+go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span> to," said Pheasant. "Think of the thousands and millions of pins
+that are being used every year, and not one of them worn out. Where do
+they all go to? One would expect to find a pin mine somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Victor Hugo says they go into the sewers in Paris," said Jennie.</p>
+
+<p>"And the fashions come from a source about as pure," said I, from the
+next room.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless me, Jennie, do tell us if your father has been listening to us
+all this time!" was the next exclamation; and forthwith there was a whir
+and rustle of the silken wings, as the whole troop fluttered into my
+study.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mr. Crowfield, you are too bad!" said Humming-Bird, as she perched
+upon a corner of my study-table, and put her little feet upon an old
+"Froissart" which filled the arm-chair.</p>
+
+<p>"To be listening to our nonsense!" said Pheasant.</p>
+
+<p>"Lying in wait for us!" said Dove.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, you have brought us all down on you," said Humming-Bird,
+"and you won't find it so easy to be rid of us. You will have to answer
+all our questions."</p>
+
+<p>"My dears, I am at your service, as far as mortal man may be," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said Humming-Bird, "tell us all about everything,&mdash;how
+things come to be as they are. Who makes the fashions?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it is universally admitted that, in the matter of feminine
+toilet, France rules the world," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"But who rules France?" said Pheasant. "Who decides what the fashions
+shall be there?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the great misfortune of the civilized world, at the present
+hour," said I, "that the state of morals in France is apparently at the
+very lowest ebb, and consequently the leadership of fashion is entirely
+in the hands of a class of women who could not be admitted into good
+society, in any country. Women who can never have the name of wife,&mdash;who
+know none of the ties of family,&mdash;these are the dictators whose dress
+and equipage and appointments give the law, first to France, and through
+France to the civilized world. Such was the confession of Monsieur
+Dupin, made in a late speech before the French Senate, and acknowledged,
+with murmurs of assent on all sides, to be the truth. This is the reason
+why the fashions have such an utter disregard of all those laws of
+prudence and economy which regulate the expenditures of families. They
+are made by women whose sole and only hold on life is personal
+attractiveness, and with whom to keep this up, at any cost, is a
+desperate necessity. No moral quality, no association of purity, truth,
+modesty, self-denial, or family love, comes in to hallow the atmosphere
+about them, and create a sphere of loveliness which brightens as mere
+physical beauty fades. The ravages of time and dissipation must be made
+up by an unceasing study of the arts of the toilet. Artists of all
+sorts, moving in their train, rack all the stores of ancient and modern
+art for the picturesque, the dazzling, the grotesque; and so, lest these
+Circes of society should carry all before them, and enchant every
+husband, brother, and lover, the staid and lawful Penelopes leave the
+hearth and home to follow in their triumphal march and imitate their
+arts. Thus it goes in France; and in England, virtuous and domestic
+princesses and peeresses must take obediently what has been decreed by
+their rulers in the <i>demi-monde</i> of France; and we in America have
+leaders of fashion, who make it their pride and glory to turn New York
+into Paris, and to keep even step with everything that is going on
+there. So the whole world of womankind is marching under the command of
+these leaders. The love of dress and glitter and fashion is getting to
+be a morbid, unhealthy epidemic, which really eats away the nobleness
+and purity of women.</p>
+
+<p>"In France, as Monsieur Dupin, Edmond About, and Michelet tell us, the
+extravagant demands of love for dress lead women to contract debts
+unknown to their husbands, and sign obligations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span> which are paid by the
+sacrifice of honor, and thus the purity of the family is continually
+undermined. In England there is a voice of complaint, sounding from the
+leading periodicals, that the extravagant demands of female fashion are
+bringing distress into families, and making marriages impossible; and
+something of the same sort seems to have begun here. We are across the
+Atlantic, to be sure; but we feel the swirl and drift of the great
+whirlpool; only, fortunately, we are far enough off to be able to see
+whither things are tending, and to stop ourselves if we will.</p>
+
+<p>"We have just come through a great struggle, in which our women have
+borne an heroic part,&mdash;have shown themselves capable of any kind of
+endurance and self-sacrifice; and now we are in that reconstructive
+state which makes it of the greatest consequence to ourselves and the
+world that we understand our own institutions and position, and learn
+that, instead of following the corrupt and worn-out ways of the Old
+World, we are called on to set the example of a new state of
+society,&mdash;noble, simple, pure, and religious; and women can do more
+towards this even than men, for women are the real architects of
+society.</p>
+
+<p>"Viewed in this light, even the small, frittering cares of woman's
+life&mdash;the attention to buttons, trimmings, thread, and sewing-silk&mdash;may
+be an expression of their patriotism and their religion. A noble-hearted
+woman puts a noble meaning into even the commonplace details of life.
+The women of America can, if they choose, hold back their country from
+following in the wake of old, corrupt, worn-out, effeminate European
+society, and make America the leader of the world in all that is good."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure," said Humming-Bird, "we all would like to be noble and
+heroic. During the war, I did so long to be a man! I felt so poor and
+insignificant because I was nothing but a girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well," said Pheasant, "but then one wants to do something worth
+doing, if one is going to do anything. One would like to be grand and
+heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be <i>very</i>
+something, <i>very</i> great, <i>very</i> heroic; or if not that, then at least
+very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity
+that bores me."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, I suppose, you agree with the man we read of, who buried his one
+talent in the earth, as hardly worth caring for."</p>
+
+<p>"To say the truth, I always had something of a sympathy for that man,"
+said Pheasant. "I can't enjoy goodness and heroism in hom&oelig;opathic
+doses. I want something appreciable. What I can do, being a woman, is a
+very different thing from what I should try to do if I were a man, and
+had a man's chances: it is so much less&mdash;so poor&mdash;that it is scarcely
+worth trying for."</p>
+
+<p>"You remember," said I, "the apothegm of one of the old divines, that if
+two angels were sent down from heaven, the one to govern a kingdom, and
+the other to sweep a street, they would not feel any disposition to
+change works."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that just shows that they are angels, and not mortals," said
+Pheasant; "but we poor human beings see things differently."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet, my child, what could Grant or Sherman have done, if it had not
+been for the thousands of brave privates who were content to do each
+their imperceptible little,&mdash;if it had not been for the poor, unnoticed,
+faithful, never-failing common soldiers, who did the work and bore the
+suffering? No <i>one</i> man saved our country, or could save it; nor could
+the men have saved it without the women. Every mother that said to her
+son, Go; every wife that strengthened the hands of her husband; every
+girl who sent courageous letters to her betrothed; every woman who
+worked for a fair; every grandam whose trembling hands knit stockings
+and scraped lint; every little maiden who hemmed shirts and made
+comfort-bags for soldiers,&mdash;each and all have been the joint doers of a
+great heroic work, the doing of which has been the regeneration of our
+era. A whole generation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span> has learned the luxury of thinking heroic
+thoughts and being conversant with heroic deeds, and I have faith to
+believe that all this is not to go out in a mere crush of fashionable
+luxury and folly and frivolous emptiness,&mdash;but that our girls are going
+to merit the high praise given us by De Tocqueville, when he placed
+first among the causes of our prosperity the <i>noble character of
+American women</i>. Because foolish female persons in New York are striving
+to outdo the <i>demi-monde</i> of Paris in extravagance, it must not follow
+that every sensible and patriotic matron, and every nice, modest young
+girl, must forthwith, and without inquiry, rush as far after them as
+they possibly can. Because Mrs. Shoddy opens a ball in a
+two-thousand-dollar lace dress, every girl in the land need not look
+with shame on her modest white muslin. Somewhere between the fast women
+of Paris and the daughters of Christian American families there should
+be established a <i>cordon sanitaire</i>, to keep out the contagion of
+manners, customs, and habits with which a noble-minded, religious
+democratic people ought to have nothing to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Well now, Mr. Crowfield," said the Dove, "since you speak us so fair,
+and expect so much of us, we must of course try not to fall below your
+compliments; but, after all, tell us what is the right standard about
+dress. Now we have daily lectures about this at home. Aunt Maria says
+that she never saw such times as these, when mothers and daughters,
+church-members and worldly people, all seem to be going one way, and sit
+down together and talk, as they will, on dress and fashion,&mdash;how to have
+this made and that altered. We used to be taught, she said, that
+church-members had higher things to think of,&mdash;that their thoughts ought
+to be fixed on something better, and that they ought to restrain the
+vanity and worldliness of children and young people; but now, she says,
+even before a girl is born, dress is the one thing needful,&mdash;the great
+thing to be thought of; and so, in every step of the way upward, her
+little shoes, and her little bonnets, and her little dresses, and her
+corals and her ribbons, are constantly being discussed in her presence,
+as the one all-important object of life. Aunt Maria thinks mamma is
+dreadful, because she has maternal yearnings over our toilet successes
+and fortunes; and we secretly think she is rather soured by old age, and
+has forgotten how a girl feels."</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," said I, "that the love of dress and outside show has been
+always such an exacting and absorbing tendency, that it seems to have
+furnished work for religionists and economists, in all ages, to keep it
+within bounds. Various religious bodies, at the outset, adopted severe
+rules in protest against it The Quakers and the Methodists prescribed
+certain fixed modes of costume as a barrier against its frivolities and
+follies. In the Romish Church an entrance on any religious order
+prescribed entire and total renunciation of all thought and care for the
+beautiful in person or apparel, as the first step towards saintship. The
+costume of the <i>religieuse</i> seemed to be purposely intended to imitate
+the shroudings and swathings of a corpse and the lugubrious color of a
+pall, so as forever to remind the wearer that she was dead to the world
+of ornament and physical beauty. All great Christian preachers and
+reformers have levelled their artillery against the toilet, from the
+time of St. Jerome downward; and Tom Moore has put into beautiful and
+graceful verse St. Jerome's admonitions to the fair church-goers of his
+time.</p>
+
+
+<h3>'WHO IS THE MAID?</h3>
+
+<h4>'ST. JEROME'S LOVE.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Who is the maid my spirit seeks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through cold reproof and slander's blight?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has <i>she</i> Love's roses on her cheeks?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is <i>hers</i> an eye of this world's light?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No: wan and sunk with midnight prayer<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Are the pale looks of her I love;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or if, at times, a light be there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Its beam is kindled from above.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'I chose not her, my heart's elect,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From those who seek their Maker's shrine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In gems and garlands proudly decked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As if themselves were things divine.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">No: Heaven but faintly warms the breast<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That beats beneath a broidered veil;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she who comes in glittering vest<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To mourn her frailty still is frail.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Not so the faded form I prize<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And love, because its bloom is gone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The glory in those sainted eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is all the grace <i>her</i> brow puts on.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So touching, as that form's decay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which, like the altar's trembling light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In holy lustre wastes away.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"But the defect of all these modes of warfare on the elegances and
+refinements of the toilet was that they were too indiscriminate. They
+were in reality founded on a false principle. They took for granted that
+there was something radically corrupt and wicked in the body and in the
+physical system. According to this mode of viewing things, the body was
+a loathsome and pestilent prison, in which the soul was locked up and
+enslaved, and the eyes, the ears, the taste, the smell, were all so many
+corrupt traitors in conspiracy to poison her. Physical beauty of every
+sort was a snare, a Circean enchantment, to be valiantly contended with
+and straitly eschewed. Hence they preached, not moderation, but total
+abstinence from all pursuit of physical grace and beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, a resistance founded on an over-statement is constantly tending to
+reaction. People always have a tendency to begin thinking for
+themselves; and when they so think, they perceive that a good and wise
+God would not have framed our bodies with such exquisite care only to
+corrupt our souls,&mdash;that physical beauty, being created in such profuse
+abundance around us, and we being possessed with such a longing for it,
+must have its uses, its legitimate sphere of exercise. Even the poor,
+shrouded nun, as she walks the convent garden, cannot help asking
+herself why, if the crimson velvet of the rose was made by God, all
+colors except black and white are sinful for her; and the modest Quaker,
+after hanging all her house and dressing all her children in drab,
+cannot but marvel at the sudden outstreaking of blue and yellow and
+crimson in the tulip-beds under her window, and reflect how very
+differently the great All-Father arrays the world's housekeeping. The
+consequence of all this has been, that the reforms based upon these
+severe and exclusive views have gradually gone backward. The Quaker
+dress is imperceptibly and gracefully melting away into a refined
+simplicity of modern costume, which in many cases seems to be the
+perfection of taste. The obvious reflection, that one color of the
+rainbow is quite as much of God as another, has led the children of
+gentle dove-colored mothers to appear in shades of rose-color, blue, and
+lilac; and wise elders have said, it is not so much the color or the
+shape that we object to, as giving too much time and too much money,&mdash;if
+the heart is right with God and man, the bonnet ribbon may be of any
+shade you please."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you think," said Pheasant, "that a certain fixed dress,
+marking the unworldly character of a religious order, is desirable? Now,
+I have said before that I am very fond of dress. I have a passion for
+beauty and completeness in it; and as long as I am in the world and
+obliged to dress as the world does, it constantly haunts me, and tempts
+me to give more time, more thought, more money, to these things than I
+really think they are worth. But I can conceive of giving up this thing
+altogether as being much easier than regulating it to the precise point.
+I never read of a nun's taking the veil, without a certain thrill of
+sympathy. To cut off one's hair, to take off and cast from her, one by
+one, all one's trinkets and jewels, to lie down and have the pall thrown
+over one, and feel one's self, once for all, dead to the world,&mdash;I
+cannot help feeling as if this were real, thorough, noble renunciation,
+and as if one might rise up from it with a grand, calm consciousness of
+having risen to a higher and purer atmosphere, and got above all the
+littlenesses and distractions that beset us here. So I have heard
+charming young Quaker girls, who, in more thoughtless days,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span> indulged in
+what for them was a slight shading of worldly conformity, say that it
+was to them a blessed rest when they put on the strict, plain dress, and
+felt that they really had taken up the cross and turned their backs on
+the world. I can conceive of doing this, much more easily than I can of
+striking the exact line between worldly conformity and noble aspiration,
+in the life I live now."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child," said I, "we all overlook one great leading principle of
+our nature, and that is, that we are made to find a higher pleasure in
+self-sacrifice than in any form of self-indulgence. There is something
+grand and pathetic in the idea of an entire self-surrender, to which
+every human soul leaps up, as we do to the sound of martial music.</p>
+
+<p>"How many boys of Boston and New York, who had lived effeminate and idle
+lives, felt this new power uprising in them in our war! How they
+embraced the dirt and discomfort and fatigue and watchings and toils of
+camp-life with an eagerness of zest which they had never felt in the
+pursuit of mere pleasure, and wrote home burning letters that they never
+were so happy in their lives! It was not that dirt and fatigue and
+discomfort and watchings and weariness were in themselves agreeable, but
+it was a joy to feel themselves able to bear all and surrender all for
+something higher than self. Many a poor Battery bully of New York, many
+a street rowdy, felt uplifted by the discovery that he too had hid away
+under the dirt and dust of his former life this divine and precious
+jewel. He leaped for joy to find that he too could be a hero. Think of
+the hundreds of thousands of plain, ordinary workingmen, and of
+seemingly ordinary boys, who, but for such a crisis, might have passed
+through life never knowing this to be in them, and who courageously
+endured hunger and thirst and cold, and separation from dearest friends,
+for days and weeks and months, when they might, at any day, have bought
+a respite by deserting their country's flag! Starving boys, sick at
+heart, dizzy in head, pining for home and mother, still found warmth and
+comfort in the one thought that they could suffer, die, for their
+country; and the graves at Salisbury and Andersonville show in how many
+souls this noble power of self-sacrifice to the higher good was
+lodged,&mdash;how many there were, even in the humblest walks of life, who
+preferred death by torture to life in dishonor.</p>
+
+<p>"It is this heroic element in man and woman that makes self-sacrifice an
+ennobling and purifying ordeal in any religious profession. The man
+really is taken into a higher region of his own nature, and finds a
+pleasure in the exercise of higher faculties which he did not suppose
+himself to possess. Whatever sacrifice is supposed to be duty, whether
+the supposition be really correct or not, has in it an ennobling and
+purifying power; and thus the eras of conversion from one form of the
+Christian religion to another are often marked with a real and permanent
+exaltation of the whole character. But it does not follow that certain
+religious beliefs and ordinances are in themselves just, because they
+thus touch the great heroic master-chord of the human soul. To wear
+sackcloth and sleep on a plank may have been of use to many souls, as
+symbolizing the awakening of this higher nature; but, still, the
+religion of the New Testament is plainly one which calls to no such
+outward and evident sacrifices.</p>
+
+<p>"It was John the Baptist, and not the Messiah, who dwelt in the
+wilderness and wore garments of camel's hair; and Jesus was commented
+on, not for his asceticism, but for his cheerful, social acceptance of
+the average innocent wants and enjoyments of humanity. 'The Son of man
+came eating and drinking.' The great, and never-ceasing, and utter
+self-sacrifice of his life was not signified by any peculiarity of
+costume, or language, or manner; it showed itself only as it
+unconsciously welled up in all his words and actions, in his estimates
+of life, in all that marked him out as a being of a higher and holier
+sphere."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you do not believe in influencing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span> this subject of dress by
+religious persons' adopting any particular laws of costume?" said
+Pheasant.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not see it to be possible," said I, "considering how society is
+made up. There are such differences of taste and character,&mdash;people move
+in such different spheres, are influenced by such different
+circumstances,&mdash;that all we can do is to lay down certain great
+principles, and leave it to every one to apply them according to
+individual needs."</p>
+
+<p>"But what are these principles? There is the grand inquiry."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said I, "let us feel our way. In the first place, then, we are
+all agreed in one starting-point,&mdash;that beauty is not to be considered
+as a bad thing,&mdash;that the love of ornament in our outward and physical
+life is not a sinful or a dangerous feeling, and only leads to evil, as
+all other innocent things do, by being used in wrong ways. So far we are
+all agreed, are we not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said all the voices.</p>
+
+<p>"It is, therefore, neither wicked nor silly nor weak-minded to like
+beautiful dress, and all that goes to make it up. Jewelry, diamonds,
+pearls, emeralds, rubies, and all sorts of pretty things that are made
+of them, are as lawful and innocent objects of admiration and desire, as
+flowers or birds or butterflies, or the tints of evening skies. Gems, in
+fact, are a species of mineral flower; they are the blossoms of the
+dark, hard mine; and what they want in perfume, they make up in
+durability. The best Christian in the world may, without the least
+inconsistency, admire them, and say, as a charming, benevolent old
+Quaker lady once said to me, 'I do so love to look at beautiful
+jewelry!' The love of beautiful dress, in itself, therefore, so far from
+being in a bad sense worldly, may be the same indication of a refined
+and poetical nature that is given by the love of flowers and of natural
+objects.</p>
+
+<p>"In the third place, there is nothing in itself wrong, or unworthy a
+rational being, in a certain degree of attention to the fashion of
+society in our costume. It is not wrong to be annoyed at unnecessary
+departures from the commonly received practices of good society in the
+matter of the arrangement of our toilet; and it would indicate rather an
+unamiable want of sympathy with our fellow-beings, if we were not
+willing, for the most part, to follow what they indicate to be agreeable
+in the disposition of our outward affairs."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I must say, Mr. Crowfield, you are allowing us all a very
+generous margin," said Humming-Bird.</p>
+
+<p>"But, now," said I, "I am coming to the restrictions. When is love of
+dress excessive and wrong? To this I answer by stating my faith in one
+of old Plato's ideas, in which he speaks of beauty and its uses. He says
+there were two impersonations of beauty worshipped under the name of
+Venus in the ancient times,&mdash;the one celestial, born of the highest
+gods, the other earthly. To the earthly Venus the sacrifices were such
+as were more trivial; to the celestial, such as were more holy. 'The
+worship of the earthly Venus,' he says, 'sends us oftentimes on unworthy
+and trivial errands, but the worship of the celestial to high and
+honorable friendships, to noble aspirations and heroic actions.'</p>
+
+<p>"Now it seems to me that, if we bear in mind this truth in regard to
+beauty, we shall have a test with which to try ourselves in the matter
+of physical adornment. We are always excessive when we sacrifice the
+higher beauty to attain the lower one. A woman who will sacrifice
+domestic affection, conscience, self-respect, honor, to love of dress,
+we all agree, loves dress too much. She loses the true and higher beauty
+of womanhood for the lower beauty of gems and flowers and colors. A girl
+who sacrifices to dress all her time, all her strength, all her money,
+to the neglect of the cultivation of her mind and heart, and to the
+neglect of the claims of others on her helpfulness, is sacrificing the
+higher to the lower beauty. Her fault is not the love of beauty, but
+loving the wrong and inferior kind.</p>
+
+<p>"It is remarkable that the directions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> of Holy Writ, in regard to the
+female dress, should distinctly take note of this difference between the
+higher and the lower beauty which we find in the works of Plato. The
+Apostle gives no rule, no specific costume, which should mark the
+Christian woman from the Pagan; but says, 'whose adorning, let it not be
+that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or
+of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in
+that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet
+spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.' The gold and gems
+and apparel are not forbidden; but we are told not to depend on them for
+beauty, to the neglect of those imperishable, immortal graces that
+belong to the soul. The makers of fashion among whom Christian women
+lived when the Apostle wrote, were the same class of brilliant and
+worthless Aspasias who make the fashions of modern Paris; and all
+womankind was sunk into slavish adoration of mere physical adornment
+when the Gospel sent forth among them this call to the culture of a
+higher and immortal beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"In fine, girls," said I, "you may try yourselves by this standard. You
+love dress too much when you care more for your outward adornings than
+for your inward dispositions,&mdash;when it afflicts you more to have torn
+your dress than to have lost your temper,&mdash;when you are more troubled by
+an ill-fitting gown than by a neglected duty,&mdash;when you are less
+concerned at having made an unjust comment, or spread a scandalous
+report, than at having worn a <i>pass&eacute;e</i> bonnet,&mdash;when you are less
+troubled at the thought of being found at the last great feast without
+the wedding garment, than at being found at the party to-night in the
+fashion of last year. No Christian woman, as I view it, ought to give
+such attention to her dress as to allow it to take up <i>all</i> of three
+very important things, viz.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>All</i> her time.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>All</i> her strength.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>All</i> her money.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whoever does this lives not the Christian, but the Pagan life,&mdash;worships
+not at the Christian's altar of our Lord Jesus, but at the shrine of the
+lower Venus of Corinth and Rome."</p>
+
+<p>"O now, Mr. Crowfield, you frighten me," said Humming-Bird. "I'm so
+afraid, do you know, that I am doing exactly that."</p>
+
+<p>"And so am I," said Pheasant; "and yet, certainly, it is not what I mean
+or intend to do."</p>
+
+<p>"But how to help it," said Dove.</p>
+
+<p>"My dears," said I, "where there is a will, there is a way. Only resolve
+that you will put the true beauty first,&mdash;that, even if you do have to
+seem unfashionable, you will follow the highest beauty of
+womanhood,&mdash;and the battle is half gained. Only resolve that your time,
+your strength, your money, such as you have, shall not all&mdash;nor more
+than half&mdash;be given to mere outward adornment, and you will go right. It
+requires only an army of girls animated with this noble purpose to
+declare independence in America, and emancipate us from the decrees and
+tyrannies of French actresses and ballet-dancers. <i>En avant</i>, girls! You
+yet can, if you will, save the republic."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_PRESIDENT_AND_CONGRESS" id="THE_PRESIDENT_AND_CONGRESS"></a>THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The President of the United States was not elected to the office he
+holds by the voice of the people of the loyal States; in voting for him
+as Vice-President nobody dreamed that, by the assassination of Mr.
+Lincoln, he would constitutionally succeed to the more important post.
+The persons who now form the Congress of the United States <i>were</i>
+elected by the people or the States for the exact positions they hold.
+In any comparison between the two as to the direct derivation of their
+power from the people and the States, Congress has everything in its
+favor; Mr. Johnson, nothing. The immense power he enjoys, a power not
+merely greater than that of Queen Victoria, but greater than that of
+Earl Russell, the real British Executive, is the result not of design,
+but of accident. That the executive power he holds is legitimate, within
+its just constitutional bounds, must not blind us to the fact that it
+did not have its origin in the popular vote, especially now when he is
+appealing to the people to support him against their direct
+representatives.</p>
+
+<p>For the event which the Union party of the country was so anxious to
+avert, but which some clearly foresaw as inevitable, has occurred; the
+President has come to an open rupture with Congress on the question of
+reconstruction. No one who has witnessed during the past eight months
+the humiliating expedients to which even statesmen and patriots have
+resorted, in order to avoid giving Mr. Johnson offence, without at the
+same time sacrificing all decent regard for their own convictions and
+the will of the people, can assert that this rupture was provoked by
+Congress. The President has, on the whole, been treated with singular
+tenderness by the national party whose just expectations he has
+disappointed; the opposition to his schemes has, indeed, exhibited, if
+anything, too much of the style of "bated breath" to befit the dignity
+of independent legislators; and the only result of this timorous dissent
+has been to inflame him with the notion that the public men who offered
+it were conscious that the people were on his side, and concealed
+anxiety for their own popularity under a feigned indisposition to
+quarrel with him.</p>
+
+<p>The President seems to belong to that class of men who act not so much
+from principles as from moods; as his moods vary, his conduct changes;
+but while he is possessed by one of them, his mind is inaccessible to
+evidence which does not sustain his dominant feeling, and uninfluenced
+by arguments which do not confirm his dominant ideas. Mr. Covode and Mr.
+Schurz could get no hearing from him, because they were sent south to
+collect evidence while he was in one mood, and had to report the results
+of their investigations when he had passed into another. This
+peculiarity of his mind makes the idea of a "Johnson party" so difficult
+of realization; for a party cannot be founded on a man, unless that
+man's intellect and integrity are so manifestly pre-eminent as to dwarf
+all comparison with others, or unless his conduct obeys laws, and can
+therefore be calculated. Thus the gentlemen who spoke for him in New
+York, on the 22d of February, at the time he was speaking for himself in
+Washington, found that they were unwittingly his opponents, while
+appearing as his mouth-pieces, and had accordingly to send telegrams to
+Washington of such fond servility, that the vindication of their
+partisanship could only be made at the expense of provoking the hilarity
+of the public. But one principle, taken up from personal feeling, at the
+time he resented the idea that "Tennessee had ever gone out of the
+Union," has had a mischievous influence in directing his policy, though
+it has never been consistently carried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> out; for Mr. Johnson's mode of
+dealing with a principle is strikingly individual. He uses it to justify
+his doing what he desires, while he does not allow it to restrain him
+from doing what he pleases. The principle which he thus adopted was,
+that the seceded States had never been out of the Union as <i>States</i>. It
+would seem to be clear that, constitutionally speaking, a State in the
+American Union is a vital part of the government, to which, at the same
+time, it owes allegiance. The seceded States solemnly, by conventions of
+their people, broke away from this allegiance, and have not, up to the
+present moment, formed a part of the government. The condition in which
+they were left by their own acts may be variously stated; it may be said
+that they were "States out of practical relations to the Union,"&mdash;which
+is simply to decline venturing farther than one step in the analysis of
+their condition,&mdash;or "States in rebellion," or "States whose governments
+have lapsed," or "Territories"; but certainly, neither in principle nor
+in fact, were they States in the Union, according to the constitutional
+meaning of that phrase. The one thing certain is, that their criminal
+acts did not affect at all the rights of the United States over their
+geographical limits and population; for these rights were given by
+conventions of the people of all the States, and could not therefore be
+abrogated by the will of the particular States that rebelled. Whether or
+not the word "Territories" fits their condition, it is plain that they
+cannot be brought back to their old "practical relations to the Union"
+without a process similar to that by which Territories are organized
+into States and brought into the Union. If they were, during the
+Rebellion, States in the Union, then the only clause in the Constitution
+which covers their case is that in which each house of Congress is
+authorized "to compel the attendance of absent members"; but, even
+conceding that we have waged war in the character of a colossal
+sergeant-at-arms, we should, by another clause of the Constitution, be
+bound to compel their attendance as members, only to punish their
+absence as traitors.</p>
+
+<p>Still, even if we should admit, against all the facts and logic of the
+case, that the Rebel communities have never been out of the Union as
+States, it is plain that the conduct of the Executive has not, until
+recently, conformed to that theory. He violated it constantly in the
+processes of his scheme of reconstruction, only to make it reappear as
+mandatory in the results. All the steps he took in creating State
+governments were necessarily subversive of universally recognized State
+rights. The Secessionists had done their work so completely, as regards
+their respective localities, that there was left no possible organic
+connection between the old States and any new ones which might be
+organized under the lead of the Federal government. The only persons who
+could properly call State conventions were disqualified, by treason, for
+the office, and might have been hanged as traitors while occupied in
+preserving unbroken the unity of their State life. In other words, the
+only persons competent to act constitutionally were the persons
+constitutionally incompetent to act,&mdash;a gigantic practical bull and
+absurdity, which met Mr. Johnson as the first logical consequence of his
+fundamental maxim. He accordingly was forced to go to work as if no
+principle hampered him. He assumed, at the start, the most radical and
+important of all State rights; that is, from a mixed <i>population</i> of
+black and white freemen he selected a certain number, whose
+distinguishing mark was color; and these persons were, after they had
+taken an extra-constitutional oath, constituted by him the <i>people</i> of
+each of the seceded States. A provisional governor, nominated by
+himself, directed this people, constituted such by himself, to elect
+delegates to a convention which was to pass ordinances dictated by
+himself. In this, he may have simply accepted the condition of things;
+he may have done the best with the materials he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> to work with; still
+he plainly did not deal with South Carolina, Mississippi, and the rest,
+as if they were States that "had never been out of the Union," and
+entitled to any of the rights enjoyed by Pennsylvania or New York. But
+the hybrid States, which are thus purely his own creations, he now
+presents, in a veto message, to the Senate of the United States as the
+equals of the States it represents; informs that body that he is
+constitutionally the President of the States he has made, as well as the
+President of the States which have not enjoyed the advantage of his
+formative hand; and unmistakably hints that Congress, unless it admits
+the representatives of the States he has reconstructed, is not a
+complete and competent legislative body for the whole Union,&mdash;is, in
+plain words, a <i>Rump</i>. The President, to be sure, qualifies his
+suggestion by asking for the admission only of loyal men, who can take
+the oaths. But is it not plain that Congress, if it admits Senators and
+Representatives, admits the States from which they come? The
+Constitution says that "the Senate of the United States shall be
+composed of two Senators from each <i>State</i>"; that "the House of
+Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by
+the people of the several <i>States</i>." Now let us suppose that some of the
+South Carolina members are admitted on the President's plan, and that
+others are rejected. What is the result? Is not South Carolina in the
+Union? Can a fraction of the State be in, and another fraction out, by
+the terms of the United States Constitution? Are not the "loyal men" in
+for their term of office simply, and the State in permanently? The
+proposition to let in what are called loyal men, and then afterwards to
+debate the terms on which the States which sent them shall be admitted,
+might be seriously discussed in a Fenian Congress, but it would prove
+too much for the gravity of an American assembly. The President thinks
+Congress is bound to admit "loyal men"; but in conceding this claim,
+would not the great legislative bodies of the nation practically confess
+that they had no right or power to exact guaranties, no business
+whatever with "reconstruction"? It is the office of the President, it
+seems, to reconstruct States; the duty of Congress is confined to
+accepting, placidly, the results of his work. Such is the only logical
+inference from Mr. Johnson's last position. And thus a man, who was
+intended by the people who voted for him to have no other connection
+with reconstruction than what a casting vote in the Senate might
+possibly give him, has taken the whole vast subject into his exclusive
+control. Was there ever acted on the stage of history such a travesty of
+constitutional government?</p>
+
+<p>The loyal States, indeed, come out of the war separated from the
+disloyal, not by such thin partitions as the President so cavalierly
+breaks through, but by a great sea of blood. It is across that we must
+survey their rights and duties; it is with that in view we must settle
+the terms of their readmission. It is idle to apply to 1866 the
+word-twisting of 1860. The Rebel communities which began the war are not
+the same communities which were recognized as States in the Union before
+the war occurred. No sophistry that perplexes the brain of the people
+can prevent this fact being felt in their hearts. The proposition that
+States can plunge into rebellion, and, after waging against the
+government a war which is put down only at the expense of enormous
+sacrifices of treasure and blood, can, when defeated, return <i>of right</i>
+to form a part of the government they have labored to subvert, is a
+proposition so repugnant to common sense that its acceptance by the
+people would send them down a step in the zo&ouml;logical scale. Have we been
+fighting in order to compel the South to resume its reluctant <i>r&ocirc;le</i> of
+governing us? Are we to be told that the States which have sent mourning
+into every loyal family in the land, and which have loaded every loyal
+laborer's back with a new and unexampled burden of taxation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span> have the
+same right to seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives which
+New York and Illinois can claim? The question is not whether the
+victorious party shall exercise magnanimity and mercy, whether it shall
+attempt to heal wounds rather than open them afresh, but whether its
+legal representatives, constituting, as it was supposed, the legislative
+department of the United States government, shall have anything to do
+with the matter at all. The President seems to think they have not; and
+finding that Congress, by immense majorities, declined to abdicate its
+functions, he and his partisans appealed to such legislative assemblies
+as could be extemporized for the occasion. Congress did not fairly
+represent the people of the whole Union; and Mr. Johnson accordingly
+unfolded his measures to a body which, in his opinion, we must suppose
+did, namely, a Copperhead mob which gathered under his windows at
+Washington. The Secretary of State addressed a meeting in New York,
+assembled in a hall which is the very symbol of mutation. Some
+collectors and postmasters have, we believe, been kind enough to take
+upon themselves the trouble of calling similar legislative assemblies in
+their respective cities; and Keokuk, it is well known, has won deserved
+celebrity for the rapidity with which its gathering of publicists passed
+the President's plan. Still more important, perhaps, is the unanimity
+with which the "James Page Library Company," of Philadelphia, fulfilled
+its duty of legislating for the whole republic. This mode of taking the
+opinion of the people, if considered merely as an innocent amusement of
+great officials, may be harmless; but political farces played by actors
+who do not seem to take their own jokes sometimes lead to serious
+consequences; and the effect upon the South of suggesting that the
+Congress of the United States not only misrepresents its constituents,
+but excludes "loyal men" who have a right to seats, cannot but give
+fierce additional stimulants to Southern disaffection.</p>
+
+<p>We are accordingly, it would seem, in danger of having a President, who
+is at variance with nearly two thirds of Congress, using his whole
+executive power and influence against the party he was supposed to
+represent, and having on his side the Southerners who made the
+Rebellion, the Northerners whose sympathies were on the side of the
+Rebellion, a small collection of Republican politicians called "the
+President's friends," and the undefined political force passing under
+the name of "the Blairs." But Congress is stronger than the whole body
+of its opponents, and is backed by the great mass of the loyal people,
+determined not to surrender all the advantages of the position which has
+been gained by the profuse shedding of so much loyal blood.</p>
+
+<p>"Constitutional government is on trial" in this contest; and Mr. Johnson
+seems neither to have the constitutional instinct in his blood, nor the
+constitutional principle in his brain. The position of the President of
+the United States is analogous, not so much to that of a Napoleon or a
+Bismark, as to that of an English prime-minister. In the theory and
+ordinary working of the government, he is one of a body of statesmen,
+agreeing in their general views, and elected by the same party; what are
+called his measures are passed by Congress, because the majority of
+Congress and he are in general accord on all important questions; and it
+is against the whole idea of constitutional government that the
+executive <i>will</i> is a fair offset to the legislative <i>reason</i>,&mdash;that one
+man is the equal of the whole body of the people's representatives. The
+powers of an executive are of such a character, that, pushed wilfully to
+their ultimate expression, they can absorb all the other departments of
+the government, as when James the Second practically repealed laws by
+pushing to its abstract logical consequences his undoubted power of
+pardon; but a constitutional government implies, as a condition of its
+existence, that the executive will have that kind of mind and temper
+which instinctively recognizes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> the practical limitations of powers in
+themselves vague; for if the executive can defy the legislature, the
+legislature can bring the whole government to an end by a simple refusal
+to grant supplies. In his Washington speech, the President selected for
+special attack the chairman of the House Committee of Ways and Means,
+and the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; but it
+would be difficult to conjecture how he could carry on the government
+without the aid of what these men represent, for Mr. Stevens pays him
+his salary, and Mr. Sumner gives effect to his treaties. Bismark, in
+Prussia, snaps his fingers in the faces of the Prussian Chambers, and
+still contrives to get along very comfortably; but an American President
+does not enjoy similar advantages. He can follow his own will or caprice
+only by the toleration of the legislative body he defames and
+disregards. His great power is the veto; but the perverse use of this
+could easily be checked by the perverse use of many a legislative power
+which a mere majority of Congress can effectively use. The fallacy of
+the argument of "the President's friends," in their proposition that
+Congress should settle the dispute by the easy method of allowing Mr.
+Johnson to have his own way, consists in its entire oversight of the
+essential character of constitutional government.</p>
+
+<p>And now what would be the consequences of the yielding of Congress in
+this struggle? The first effect would be the concession that, in respect
+to the most important matter that will probably ever be brought before
+the United States government, the executive branch was everything, and
+the legislative nothing. The second effect would be, that the Rebel
+Slates would re-enter the Union, not only without giving additional
+guaranties for their good behavior, but with the elated feeling that
+they had gained a great triumph over the "fanatical" North. The third
+effect would be the establishment of the principle, that they had never
+been out of the Union as States; that, accordingly, a doubt was over the
+legality of the legislation which had been transacted in the absence of
+their representatives; and that, Congress having, for the past five
+years, represented only a section of the country, that section was alone
+bound by its measures. The moment it is admitted that the national
+legislature, as now constituted, is an incomplete body, and that it
+needs Southern "loyal men" to make its laws operative over the South, a
+whole brood of deductive reasoners will spring up in that region, eager
+to carry the principle out to its remotest logical consequences. After
+two or three of those cotton crops on which some persons rely so much to
+make the South contented have given it the requisite leisure to follow
+long trains of reasoning, it will by degrees convince itself that the
+whole national legislation during the war, including the debt and the
+Anti-Slavery Amendment, was unconstitutional, and that, as far as it
+concerns the Southern States, it is void, and should be of no effect.
+Persons who are accustomed to nickname as "radicals" all those statesmen
+who do not consider that the removal of an immediate inconvenience
+exhausts the whole science of practical politics, are wont to make merry
+over this possibility of Southern repudiation, or to look down upon its
+fanatical suggesters with the benevolent pity of serenely superior
+intelligence; but nobody who has watched the steps by which Calhoun's
+logic was inwrought into the substance of the Southern mind,&mdash;nobody who
+has noted the process by which the justification of one of the bloodiest
+rebellions in the history of the world was deduced from the definition
+of an abstraction,&mdash;nobody who explores the meaning of the phrase,
+common in many mouths, that "the South <i>thought</i> itself in the
+right,"&mdash;will doubt that the seeming bugbear may turn out a dreadful
+reality. It is impossible, in fact, for the most far-sighted mind to
+predict all the evils which may flow from the heedless adoption of a
+vicious principle; if the war has not taught us this, it has taught us
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not to be supposed that Congress<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> will yield, for to yield
+would be to commit suicide. There is not an interest in the nation which
+is not concerned in its adherence to the principle, that in it the whole
+legislative power of the United States government is vested, and that it
+has the right to exact irreversible guaranties of the Rebel States as
+the conditions of the admission of their Senators and Representatives.
+They are not <i>in</i> the Union until they are in its government; and
+Congress has the same power to keep them out that it has to let them in.
+By the very nature of the case, the whole question must be left to its
+judgment of what is necessary for the public safety and honor. Its
+members may be mistaken, but the only method to correct their mistake is
+to elect other persons in their places, when their limited period of
+service has expired; and any new Congress will, unless it is
+scandalously neglectful of the public interests, admit the Rebel States
+to their old places in the Union, not because it <i>must</i>, but because it
+thinks that a sufficient number of guaranties have been obtained to
+render their admission prudent and safe. It is in this form that the
+subject is coming before the people in the autumn elections; and this
+explains the eager haste of the President's friends to forestall and
+mislead the public mind, and sacrifice a great party, founded on
+principles, to the will of an individual, veering with his moods.</p>
+
+<p>We think, if the vote were taken now, that Congress would be
+overwhelmingly sustained by the people. We think this, in spite of such
+expressions of the popular will as found vent in the President's meeting
+at Washington and Mr. Seward's meeting in New York,&mdash;in spite even of
+the resolutions of Keokuk and the address of the "James Page Library
+Company" of Philadelphia,&mdash;in spite, above all, of the perfect felicity
+in which, if we may believe the Secretary of State, the President's
+speech left the American people. The loyal men of the loyal States do
+not intend that the war they carried on for great ends shall pass into
+history as the bloodiest of all purposeless farces, beginning in an
+ecstasy of public spirit and ending in an ignominious surrender of the
+advantages of hard-won victory. They demand such guaranties, in the
+shape of amendments to the Constitution, as shall insure security for
+the future from such evils as have scourged them in the past; and these
+guaranties they do not think have been yet obtained. They make this
+demand in no spirit of rancorous hostility to the South, for they
+require nothing which it is not for the permanent welfare of the South
+to grant. They feel that, if a settlement is patched up on the
+President's plan, it will leave Southern society a prey to most of the
+influences which have so long been its curse, which have narrowed its
+patriotism, checked its progress, vitiated its character, educated it in
+disloyalty, and impelled it into war. They desire that a settlement
+shall be effected which shall make the South republican, like the North,
+homogeneous with it in institutions, as well as nominally united to it
+under one government,&mdash;a settlement which shall annihilate the accursed
+heresy of Secession by extinguishing the accursed prejudice of caste.</p>
+
+<p>Such a settlement the people have not in the "President's plan." What
+confidence, indeed, can they place in the professions of the cunning
+Southern politicians who have taken the President captive, and used him
+as an instrument while seeming to obey him as agents? There is something
+to make us distrust the stability of the firmest and most upright
+statesman in the spectacle of that remarkable conquest. Mr. Johnson,
+when elected, appeared to represent the most violent radical ideas and
+the most vindictive passions engendered by the war. He spoke as if the
+blacks were to find in him a Moses, and the Rebels a Nemesis. It seemed
+as if there could not be in the whole land a sufficient number of
+sour-apple trees to furnish hanging accommodations for the possible
+victims of his patriotic wrath. One almost feared that reconciliation
+would be indefinitely postponed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> by the relentless severity with which
+he would visit treason with death. But the Southern politicians, finding
+that further military resistance was hopeless, resorted at once to their
+old game of intrigue and management, and proved that, fresh as they were
+from the experience of violent methods, they had not forgotten their old
+art of manipulating Presidents. They adapted themselves with marvellous
+flexibility to the changed condition of things, in order to become
+masters of the situation, and began to declaim in favor of the Union,
+even while their curses against it were yet echoing in the air. They
+wheedled the President into pardoning, in the place of hanging them;
+they made themselves serviceable agents in carrying out his plan of
+reconstruction; they gave up what it was impossible for them to retain,
+in order to retain what it would destroy their influence to give up;
+they got possession of him to the extent of insinuating subtly into his
+mind ideas which they made him think he himself originated; and finally
+they capped the climax of their skilful audacity, by taking him out of
+"practical relations" with the party to which he was indebted for his
+elevation, and made him the representative of the small party which
+voted against him, and of the defeated Rebel Confederacy, which, of
+course, could not do even that. The Southern politicians have succeeded
+in many shrewd political contrivances in the course of our history, but
+this last is certainly their masterpiece. Its only parallel or precedent
+is to be found in Richard's wooing of Anne:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"What! I, that killed her husband and his father,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To take her in her heart's extremest hate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bleeding witness of my hatred by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I no friends to back my suit withal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the plain devil, and dissembling looks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet to win her,&mdash;all the world to nothing!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Now can the people trust these politicians to the extent of placing in
+their hands the powers of their State governments, and the
+representative power of their States in Congress, without exacting
+irreversible guaranties necessary for the public safety? Can the people
+uphold, as against Congress, a President whose mind seems to be so much
+under the influence of these men that he publicly insults the
+legislature of the nation? Is the President to be supported because he
+sustains State Rights against Centralization? The only centralization
+which is to be feared, in this case, is the centralization of all the
+powers of the government in its executive branch. Is the President to be
+supported because he represents the principle of "no taxation without
+representation"? The object of Congress is to see to it that there shall
+not be a "representation" which, in respect to the national debt, shall
+endeavor to abolish "taxation" altogether,&mdash;which, in respect to the
+freedmen, shall tax permanently a population it misrepresents,&mdash;which,
+in respect to the balance of political power, shall use the black
+freemen as a basis of representation, while it excludes them from having
+a voice in the selection of the representatives. Is the President to be
+supported because he is determined the defeated South shall not be
+oppressed? The purpose of Congress is not to commit, but prevent
+oppression; not to oppress the Rebel whites, but to guard from
+oppression the loyal blacks; not to refuse full political privileges to
+the late armed enemies of the nation, but to avoid the intolerable
+ignominy of giving those enemies the power to play the robber and tyrant
+over its true and tried friends. Is the President to be supported
+because he is magnanimous and merciful? Congress doubts the magnanimity
+which sacrifices the innocent in order to propitiate the guilty, and the
+mercy which abandons the helpless and weak to the covetousness of the
+powerful and strong. Is the President to be supported because he aims to
+represent the whole people? Congress may well suspect that he represents
+the least patriotic portion, especially when he puts a stigma on all
+ardent loyalty by denouncing as equally traitorous the "extremists of
+both sections," and thus makes no distinction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span> between the "fanaticism"
+which perilled everything in fighting <i>for</i> the government, and the
+"fanaticism" which perilled everything in fighting <i>against</i> it. And,
+finally, is the President to be supported because he is the champion of
+conciliation and peace? Congress believes that his conciliation is the
+compromise of vital principles; that his peace is the surrender of human
+rights; that his plan but postpones the operation of causes of discord
+it fails to eradicate; and that, if the war has taught us nothing else,
+it has taught us this,&mdash;spreading it out indeed before all eyes in
+letters of fire and blood,&mdash;that no conciliation is possible which
+sacrifices the defenceless, and that no peace is permanent which is
+unfounded in justice.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="GRIFFITH_GAUNT_OR_JEALOUSY" id="GRIFFITH_GAUNT_OR_JEALOUSY"></a>GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV.</h3>
+
+<p>One day, at dinner, Father Francis let them know that he was ordered to
+another part of the county, and should no longer be able to enjoy their
+hospitality. "I am sorry for it," said Griffith, heartily; and Mrs.
+Gaunt echoed him out of politeness; but, when husband and wife came to
+talk it over in private, she let out all of a sudden, and for the first
+time, that the spiritual coldness of her governor had been a great
+misfortune to her all these years. "His mind," said she, "is set on
+earthly things. Instead of helping the angels to raise my thoughts to
+heaven and heavenly things, he drags me down to earth. O that man's soul
+was born without wings!"</p>
+
+<p>Griffith ventured to suggest that Francis was, nevertheless, an honest
+man, and no mischief-maker.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt soon disposed of this, "O, there are plenty of honest men in
+the world," said she; "but in one's spiritual director one needs
+something more than that, and I have pined for it like a thirsty soul in
+the desert all these years. Poor good man, I love him dearly; but, thank
+Heaven, he is going."</p>
+
+<p>The next time Francis came, Mrs. Gaunt took an opportunity to inquire,
+but in the most delicate way, who was to be his successor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said he, "I fear you will have no one for the present: I mean no
+one very fit to direct you in practical matters; but in all that tends
+directly to the welfare of the soul you will have one young in years but
+old in good works, and very much my superior in piety."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you do yourself injustice, Father," said Mrs. Gaunt, sweetly.
+She was always polite; and, to be always polite, you must be sometimes
+insincere.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my daughter," said Father Francis, quietly, "thank God, I know my
+own defects, and they teach me a little humility. I discharge my
+religious duties punctually, and find them wholesome and composing; but
+I lack that holy unction, that spiritual imagination, by which more
+favored Christians have fitted themselves to converse with angels. I
+have too much body, I suppose and too little soul. I own to you that I
+cannot look forward to the hour of death as a happy release from the
+burden of the flesh. Life is pleasant to me; immortality tempts me not;
+the pure in heart delight me; but in the sentimental part of religion I
+feel myself dry and barren. I fear God, and desire to do his will; but I
+cannot love him as the saints have done; my spirit is too dull, too
+gross. I have often been unable to keep pace with you in your pious and
+lofty aspirations; and this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> softens my regret at quitting you; for you
+will be in better hands, my daughter."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt was touched by her old friend's humility, and gave him both
+hands, with the tears in her eyes. But she said nothing; the subject was
+delicate; and really she could not honestly contradict him.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two afterwards he brought his successor to the house; a man so
+remarkable that Mrs. Gaunt almost started at first sight of him. Born of
+an Italian mother, his skin was dark, and his eyes coal-black; yet his
+ample but symmetrical forehead was singularly white and delicate. Very
+tall and spare, and both face and figure were of that exalted kind which
+make ordinary beauty seem dross. In short, he was one of those ethereal
+priests the Roman Catholic Church produces every now and then by way of
+incredible contrast to the thickset peasants in black that form her
+staple. This Brother Leonard looked and moved like a being who had come
+down from some higher sphere to pay the world a very little visit, and
+be very kind and patient with it all the time.</p>
+
+<p>He was presented to Mrs. Gaunt, and bowed calmly, coldly, and with a
+certain mixture of humility and superiority, and gave her but one
+tranquil glance, then turned his eyes inward as before.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt, on the contrary, was almost fluttered at being presented so
+suddenly to one who seemed to her Religion embodied. She blushed, and
+looked timidly at him, and was anxious not to make an unfavorable
+impression.</p>
+
+<p>She found it, however, very difficult to make any impression at all.
+Leonard had no small talk, and met her advances in that line with
+courteous monosyllables; and when she, upon this, turned and chatted
+with Father Francis, he did not wait for an opening to strike in, but
+sought a shelter from her commonplaces in his own thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Then Mrs. Gaunt yielded to her genuine impulse, and began to talk about
+the prospects of the Church, and what might be done to reconvert the
+British Isles to the true faith. Her cheek flushed, and her eye shone
+with the theme; and Francis smiled paternally; but the young priest drew
+back. Mrs. Gaunt saw in a moment that he disapproved of a woman meddling
+with so high a matter uninvited. If he had said so, she had spirit
+enough to have resisted; but the cold, lofty look of polite but grave
+disapproval dashed her courage and reduced her to silence.</p>
+
+<p>She soon recovered so far as to be piqued. She gave her whole attention
+to Francis, and, on parting with her guests, she courtesied coldly to
+Leonard, and said to Francis, "Ah, my dear friend, I foresee I shall
+miss you terribly."</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid this pretty speech was intended as a side cut at Leonard.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But on the impassive ice the lightnings play."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Her new confessor retired, and left her with a sense of inferiority,
+which would have been pleasing to her woman's nature if Leonard himself
+had appeared less conscious of it, and had shown ever so little approval
+of herself; but, impressed upon her too sharply, it piqued and mortified
+her.</p>
+
+<p>However, like a gallant champion, she awaited another encounter. She so
+rarely failed to please, she could not accept defeat.</p>
+
+<p>Father Francis departed.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt soon found that she really missed him. She had got into a
+habit of running to her confessor twice a week, and to her director
+nearly every day that he did not come of his own accord to her.</p>
+
+<p>Her good sense showed her at once she must not take up Brother Leonard's
+time in this way. She went a long time, for her, without confession; at
+last she sent a line to Leonard asking him when it would be convenient
+to him to confess her. Leonard wrote back to say that he received
+penitents in the chapel for two hours after matins every Monday,
+Tuesday, and Saturday.</p>
+
+<p>This implied, first come, first served; and was rather galling to Mrs.
+Gaunt.</p>
+
+<p>However, she rode one morning, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span> her groom behind her, and had to
+wait until an old woman in a red cloak and black bonnet was first
+disposed of. She confessed a heap. And presently the soft but chill
+tones of Brother Leonard broke in with these freezing words: "My
+daughter, excuse me; but confession is one thing, gossip about ourselves
+is another."</p>
+
+<p>This distinction was fine, but fatal. The next minute the fair penitent
+was in her carriage, her eyes filled with tears of mortification.</p>
+
+<p>"The man is a spiritual machine," said she; and her pride was mortified
+to the core.</p>
+
+<p>In these happy days she used to open her heart to her husband; and she
+went so far as to say some bitter little feminine things of her new
+confessor before him.</p>
+
+<p>He took no notice at first; but at last he said one day: "Well, I am of
+you mind; he is very poor company compared with that jovial old blade,
+Francis. But why so many words, Kate? You don't use to bite twice at a
+cherry; if the milk-sop is not to your taste, give him the sack and be
+d&mdash;&mdash;d to him." And with this homely advice Squire Gaunt dismissed the
+matter and went to the stable to give his mare a ball.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>So you see Mrs. Gaunt was discontented with Francis for not being an
+enthusiast, and nettled with Leonard for being one.</p>
+
+<p>The very next Sunday morning she went and heard Leonard preach. His
+first sermon was an era in her life. After twenty years of pulpit
+prosers, there suddenly rose before her a sacred orator; an orator born;
+blest with that divine and thrilling eloquence that no heart can really
+resist. He prepared his great theme with art at first; but, once warm,
+it carried him away, and his hearers went with him like so many straws
+on the flood, and in the exercise of this great gift the whole man
+seemed transfigured; abroad, he was a languid, rather slouching priest,
+who crept about, a picture of delicate humility, but with a shade of
+meanness; for, religious prejudice apart, it is ignoble to sweep the
+wall in passing as he did, and eye the ground: but, once in the pulpit,
+his figure rose and swelled majestically, and seemed to fly over them
+all like a guardian angel's; his sallow cheek burned, his great Italian
+eye shot black lightning at the impenitent, and melted ineffably when he
+soothed the sorrowful.</p>
+
+<p>Observe that great, mean, brown bird in the Zo&ouml;logical Gardens, which
+sits so tame on its perch, and droops and slouches like a drowsy duck!
+That is the great and soaring eagle. Who would believe it, to look at
+him? Yet all he wants is to be put in his right place instead of his
+wrong. He is not himself in man's cages, belonging to God's sky. Even so
+Leonard was abroad in the world, but at home in the pulpit; and so he
+somewhat crept and slouched about the parish, but soared like an eagle
+in his native air.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt sat thrilled, enraptured, melted. She hung upon his words;
+and when they ceased, she still sat motionless, spell-bound; loath to
+believe that accents so divine could really come to an end.</p>
+
+<p>Even whilst all the rest were dispersing, she sat quite still, and
+closed her eyes. For her soul was too high-strung now to endure the
+chit-chat she knew would attack her on the road home,&mdash;chit-chat that
+had been welcome enough coming home from other preachers.</p>
+
+<p>And by this means she came hot and undiluted to her husband; she laid
+her white hand on his shoulder, and said, "O Griffith, I have heard the
+voice of God."</p>
+
+<p>Griffith looked alarmed, and rather shocked than elated.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt observed that, and tacked on, "Speaking by the lips of his
+servant." But she fired again the next moment, and said, "The grave hath
+given us back St. Paul in the Church's need; and I have heard him this
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens! where?"</p>
+
+<p>"At St. Mary's Chapel."</p>
+
+<p>Then Griffith looked very incredulous. Then she gushed out with, "What,
+because it is a small chapel, you think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span> a great saint cannot be in it.
+Why, our Saviour was born in a stable, if you go to that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but my dear, consider," said Griffith; "who ever heard of
+comparing a living man to St. Paul, for preaching? Why, he was an
+apostle, for one thing; and there are no apostles now-a-days. He made
+Felix tremble on his throne, and almost persuaded Whatsename, another
+heathen gentleman, to be a Christian."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true," said the lady, thoughtfully; "but he sent one man that
+<i>we</i> know of to sleep. Catch Brother Leonard sending any man to sleep!
+And then nobody will ever say of <i>him</i> that he was long preaching."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I do say it," replied Griffith. "By the same token, I have been
+waiting dinner for you this half-hour, along of his preaching."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that's because you did not hear him," retorted Mrs. Gaunt; "if you
+had, it would have seemed too short, and you would have forgotten all
+about your dinner for once."</p>
+
+<p>Griffith made no reply. He even looked vexed at her enthusiastic
+admiration. She saw, and said no more. But after dinner she retired to
+the grove, and thought of the sermon and the preacher: thought of them
+all the more that she was discouraged from enlarging on them. And it
+would have been kinder, and also wiser, of Griffith, if he had
+encouraged her to let out her heart to him on this subject, although it
+did not happen to interest him. A husband should not chill an
+enthusiastic wife, and, above all, should never separate himself from
+her favorite topic, when she loves him well enough to try and share it
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt, however, though her feelings were quick, was not cursed with
+a sickly or irritable sensibility; nor, on the other hand, was she one
+of those lovely little bores who cannot keep their tongues off their
+favorite theme. She quietly let the subject drop for a whole week; but
+the next Sunday morning she asked her husband if he would do her a
+little favor.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm more likely to say ay than nay," was the cheerful reply.</p>
+
+<p>"It is just to go to chapel with me; and then you can judge for
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Griffith looked rather sheepish at this proposal; and he said he could
+not very well do that.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, dearest, just for once?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see, parties run so high in this parish; and everything one
+does is noted. Why, if I was to go to chapel, they'd say directly, 'Look
+at Griffith Gaunt, he is so tied to his wife's apron he is going to give
+up the faith of his ancestors.'"</p>
+
+<p>"The faith of your ancestors! That is a good jest. The faith of your
+grandfather at the outside: the faith of your ancestors was the faith of
+mine and me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't let us differ about a word," said Griffith; "you know what
+I mean. Did ever I ask you to go to church with me? and if I were to ask
+you, would you go?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt colored; but would not give in. "That is not the same thing,"
+said she. "I do profess religion: you do not. You scarce think of God on
+week-days; and, indeed, never mention his name, except in the way of
+swearing; and on Sunday you go to church&mdash;for what? to doze before
+dinner, you know you do. Come now, with you 't is no question of
+religion, but just of nap or no nap: for Brother Leonard won't let you
+sleep, I warn you fairly."</p>
+
+<p>Griffith shook his head. "You are too hard on me, wife. I know I am not
+so good as you are, and never shall be; but that is not the fault of the
+Protestant faith, which hath reared so many holy men: and some of 'em
+our <i>ancestors</i> burnt alive, and will burn in hell themselves for the
+deed. But, look you, sweetheart, if I'm not a saint I'm a gentleman,
+and, say I wear my faith loose, I won't drag it in the dirt none the
+more for that. So you must excuse me."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt was staggered; and if Griffith had said no more, I think she
+would have withdrawn her request, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span> so the matter ended. But persons
+unversed in argument can seldom let well alone; and this simple Squire
+must needs go on to say, "Besides, Kate, it would come to the parson's
+ears, and he is a friend of mine, you know. Why, I shall be sure to meet
+him to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," retorted the lady, "by the cover-side. Well, when you do, tell him
+you refused your wife your company for fear of offending the religious
+views of a fox-hunting parson."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Kate," said Griffith, "this is not to ask thy man to go with thee;
+'t is to say go he must, willy nilly." With that he rose and rang the
+bell. "Order the chariot," said he, "I am to go with our dame."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt's face beamed with gratified pride and affection.</p>
+
+<p>The chariot came round, and Griffith handed his dame in. He then gave an
+involuntary sigh, and followed her with a hang-dog look.</p>
+
+<p>She heard the sigh, and saw the look, and laid her hand quickly on his
+shoulder, and said, gently but coldly, "Stay you at home, my dear. We
+shall meet at dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"As you will," said he, cheerfully: and they went their several ways. He
+congratulated himself on her clemency, and his own escape.</p>
+
+<p>She went along, sorrowful at having to drink so great a bliss alone; and
+thought it unkind and stupid of Griffith not to yield with a good grace
+if he could yield at all: and, indeed, women seem cleverer than men in
+this, that, when they resign their wills, they do it graciously and not
+by halves. Perhaps they are more accustomed to knock under; and you know
+practice makes perfect.</p>
+
+<p>But every smaller feeling was swept away by the preacher, and Mrs. Gaunt
+came home full of pious and lofty thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>She found her husband seated at the dinner-table, with one turnip before
+him; and even that was not comestible; for it was his grandfather's
+watch, with a face about the size of a new-born child's. "Forty-five
+minutes past one, Kate," said he, ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why not bid them serve the dinner?" said she with an air of
+consummate indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"What, dine alone o' Sunday? Why, you know I couldn't eat a morsel
+without you, set opposite."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt smiled affectionately. "Well then, my dear, we had better
+order dinner an hour later next Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"But that will upset the servants, and spoil their Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"And am I to be their slave?" said Mrs. Gaunt, getting a little warm.
+"Dinner! dinner! What? shall I starve my soul, by hurrying away from the
+oracles of God to a sirloin? O these gross appetites! how they deaden
+the immortal half, and wall out Heaven's music! For my part, I wish
+there was no such thing as eating and drinking. 'T is like falling from
+Heaven down into the mud, to come back from such divine discourse and be
+greeted with 'Dinner! dinner! dinner!'"</p>
+
+<p>The next Sunday, after waiting half an hour for her, Griffith began his
+dinner without her.</p>
+
+<p>And this time, on her arrival, instead of remonstrating with her, he
+excused himself. "Nothing," said he, "upsets a man's temper like waiting
+for his dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but you have not waited."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I did, a good half-hour. Till I could wait no longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dear, if I were you I would not have waited at all, or else
+waited till your wife came home."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, dame, that is all very well for you to say. You could live on
+hearing of sermons and smelling to rosebuds. You don't know what 't is
+to be a hungry man."</p>
+
+<p>The next Sunday he sat sadly down, and finished his dinner without her.
+And she came home and sat down to half-empty dishes; and ate much less
+than she used when she had him to keep her company in it.</p>
+
+<p>Griffith, looking on disconsolate, told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span> her she was more like a bird
+pecking than a Christian eating of a Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>"No matter, child," said she; "so long as my soul is filled with the
+bread of Heaven."</p>
+
+<p>Leonard's eloquence suffered no diminution, either in quantity or
+quality; and, after a while, Gaunt gave up his rule of never dining
+abroad on the Sunday. If his wife was not punctual, his stomach was; and
+he had not the same temptation to dine at home he used to have.</p>
+
+<p>And indeed, by degrees, instead of quietly enjoying his wife's company
+on that sweet day, he got to see less of her than on the week-days.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI.</h3>
+
+<p>Your mechanical preacher flings his words out happy-go-lucky; but the
+pulpit orator, like every other orator, feels his people's pulse as he
+speaks, and vibrates with them, and they with him.</p>
+
+<p>So Leonard soon discovered he had a great listener in Mrs. Gaunt: she
+was always there whenever he preached, and her rapt attention never
+flagged. Her gray eyes never left his face, and, being upturned, the
+full orbs came out in all their grandeur, and seemed an angel's, come
+down from heaven to hear him: for, indeed, to a very dark man, as
+Leonard was, the gentle radiance of a true Saxon beauty seems always
+more or less angelic.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees this face became a help to the orator. In preaching he looked
+sometimes to it for sympathy, and lo, it was sure to be melting with
+sympathy. Was he led on to higher or deeper thoughts than most of his
+congregation could understand, he looked to this face to understand him;
+and lo, it had quite understood him, and was beaming with intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>From a help and an encouragement it became a comfort and a delight to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>On leaving the pulpit and cooling, he remembered its owner was no angel,
+but a woman of the world, and had put him frivolous questions.</p>
+
+<p>The illusion, however, was so beautiful, that Leonard, being an
+imaginative man, was unwilling to dispel it by coming into familiar
+contact with Mrs. Gaunt. So he used to make his assistant visit her, and
+receive her when she came to confess, which was very rarely; for she was
+discouraged by her first reception.</p>
+
+<p>Brother Leonard lived in a sort of dwarf monastery, consisting of two
+cottages, an oratory, and a sepulchre. The two latter were old, but the
+cottages had been built expressly for him and another seminary priest
+who had been invited from France. Inside, these cottages were little
+more than ceils; only the bigger had a kitchen which was a glorious
+place compared with the parlor; for it was illuminated with bright
+pewter plates, copper vessels, brass candlesticks, and a nice clean
+woman, with a plain gown kilted over a quilted silk petticoat; Betty
+Scarf, an old servant of Mrs. Gaunt's, who had married, and was now the
+Widow Gough.</p>
+
+<p>She stood at the gate one day, as Mrs. Gaunt drove by; and courtesied,
+all beaming.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt stopped the carriage, and made some kind and patronizing
+inquiries about her; and it ended in Betty asking her to come in and see
+her place. Mrs. Gaunt looked a little shy at that, and did not move.
+"Nay, they are both abroad till supper time," said Betty, reading her in
+a moment by the light of sex. Then Mrs. Gaunt smiled, and got out of her
+carriage. Betty took her in and showed her everything in doors and out.
+Mrs. Gaunt looked mighty demure and dignified, but scanned everything
+closely, only without seeming too curious.</p>
+
+<p>The cold gloom of the parlor struck her. She shuddered, and said, "This
+would give me the vapors. But, doubtless, angels come and brighten it
+for <i>him</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Not always," said Betty. "I do see him with his head in his hand by the
+hour, and hear him sigh ever so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span> loud as I pass the door. Why, one day
+he was fain to have me and my spinning-wheel aside him. Says he, 'Let me
+hear thy busy wheel, and see thee ply it.' 'And welcome,' says I. So I
+sat in his room, and span, and he sat a gloating of me as if he had
+never seen a woman spin hemp afore (he is a very simple man): and
+presently says he&mdash;but what signifies what <i>he</i> said?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Betty; if you please! I am much interested in him. He preaches so
+divinely."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," said Betty, "that's his gift. But a poor trencher-man; and I
+declare I'm ashamed to eat all the vittels that are eaten here, and me
+but a woman."</p>
+
+<p>"But what did he say to you that time?" asked Mrs. Gaunt, a little
+impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>Betty cudgelled her memory. "Well, says he, 'My daughter,' (the poor
+soul always calls me his daughter, and me old enough to be his mother
+mostly,) says he, 'how comes it that you are never wearied, nor cast
+down, and yet you but serve a sinner like yourself; but I do often droop
+in my Master's service, and He is the Lord of heaven and earth?' Says I,
+'I'll tell ye, sir: because ye don't eat enough o' vittels.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What an answer!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, 't is the truth, dame. And says I, 'If I was to be always fasting,
+like as you be, d' ye think I should have the heart to work from morn
+till night?' Now, wasn't I right?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know till I hear what answer he made," said Mrs. Gaunt, with
+mean caution.</p>
+
+<p>"O, he shook his head, and said he ate mortal food enow, (poor simple
+body!) but drank too little of grace divine. That were his word."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt was a good deal struck and affected by this revelation, and
+astonished at the slighting tone Betty took in speaking of so remarkable
+a man. The saying that "No man is a hero to his valet" was not yet
+current, or perhaps she would have been less surprised at that.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! poor man," said she, "and is it so? To hear him, I thought his
+soul was borne up night and day by angels' pinions&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The widow interrupted her. "Ay, you hear him preach, and it is like
+God's trumpet mostly, and so much I say for him in all companies. But I
+see him directly after; he totters in to this very room, and sits him
+down pale and panting, and one time like to swoon, and another all for
+crying, and then he is ever so dull and sad for the whole afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"And nobody knows this but you? You have got my old petticoat still, I
+see. I must look you up another."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very good, dame, I am sure. 'T will not come amiss; I've only
+this for Sundays and all. No, my lady, not a soul but me and you. I'm
+not one as tells tales out of doors, but I don't mind you, dame; you are
+my old mistress, and a discreet woman. 'T will go no further than your
+ear."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt told her she might rely on that. The widow then inquired
+after Mrs. Gaunt's little girl, and admired her dress, and described her
+own ailments, and poured out a continuous stream of topics bearing no
+affinity to each other except that they were all of them not worth
+mentioning. And all the while she thus discoursed, Mrs. Gaunt's
+thoughtful eyes looked straight over the chatterbox's white cap, and
+explored vacancy; and by and by she broke the current of twaddle with
+the majestic air of a camelopard marching across a running gutter.</p>
+
+<p>"Betsy Gough," said she, "I am thinking."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gough was struck dumb by an announcement so singular.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard, and I have read, that great and pious and learned men are
+often to seek in little simple things, such as plain bodies have at
+their fingers' ends. So, now, if you and I could only teach him
+something for all he has taught us! And, to be sure, we ought to be kind
+to him if we can; for O Betty, my woman, 't is a poor vanity to go and
+despise the great, and the learned,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span> and the sainted, because forsooth
+we find them out in some one little weakness,&mdash;we that are all made up
+of weaknesses and defects. So, now, I sit me down in his very chair, so.
+And sit you there. Now let us, you and me, look at his room quietly, all
+over, and see what is wanting."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"First and foremost methinks this window should be filled with geraniums
+and jessamine and so forth. With all his learning perhaps he has to be
+taught, the color of flowers and golden green leaves, with the sun
+shining through, how it soothes the eye and relieves the spirits; yet
+every woman born knows that. Then do but see this bare table! a purple
+cloth on that, I say."</p>
+
+<p>"Which he will fling it out of the window, I say."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, for I'll embroider a cross in the middle with gold braid. Then a
+rose-colored blind would not be amiss; and there must be a good mirror
+facing the window; but, indeed, if I had my way, I'd paint these horrid
+walls the first thing."</p>
+
+<p>"How you run on, dame! Bless your heart, you'd turn his den into a
+palace; he won't suffer that. He is all for self-mortification, poor
+simple soul."</p>
+
+<p>"O, not all at once, I did not mean," said Mrs. Gaunt; "but by little
+and little, you know. We must begin with the flowers: God made them; and
+so to be sure he will not spurn <i>them</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Betty began to enter into the plot. "Ay, ay," said she: "the flowers
+first; and so creep on. But naught will avail to make a man of him so
+long as he eats but of eggs and garden-stuff, like the beasts of the
+field, 'that to-day are, and to-morrow are cast into the oven.'"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt smiled at this ambitious attempt of the widow to apply
+Scripture. Then she said, rather timidly, "Could you make his eggs into
+omelets? and so pound in a little meat with your small herbs; I dare say
+he would be none the wiser, and he so bent on high and heavenly things."</p>
+
+<p>"You may take your oath of that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then. And I shall send you some stock from the castle, and you
+can cook his vegetables in good strong gravy, unbeknown."</p>
+
+<p>The Widow Gough chuckled aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"But stay," said Mrs. Gaunt; "for us to play the woman so, and delude a
+saint for his mere bodily weal, will it not be a sin, and a sacrilege to
+boot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let that flea stick in the wall," said Betty, contemptuously. "Find you
+the meat, and I'll find the deceit: for he is as poor as a rat into the
+bargain. Nay, nay, God Almighty will never have the heart to burn us two
+for such a trifle. Why 't is no more than cheating a froward child into
+taking 's physic."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt got into her carriage and went home, thinking all the way.
+What she had heard filled her with feelings strangely but sweetly
+composed of veneration and pity. In that Leonard was a great orator and
+a high-minded priest, she revered him; in that he was solitary and sad,
+she pitied him; in that he wanted common sense, she felt like a mother,
+and must take him under her wing. All true women love to protect;
+perhaps it is a part of the great maternal element: but to protect a
+man, and yet look up to him, this is delicious. It satisfies their
+double craving; it takes them by both breasts, as the saying is.</p>
+
+<p>Leonard, in truth, was one of those high-strung men who pay for their
+periods of religious rapture by hours of melancholy. This oscillation of
+the spirits in extraordinary men appears to be more or less a law of
+nature; and this the Widow Gough was not aware of.</p>
+
+<p>The very next Sunday, while he was preaching, she and Mrs. Gaunt's
+gardener were filling his bow-window with flower-pots, the flowers in
+full bloom and leaf. The said window was large and had a broad sill
+outside, and inside, one of the old-fashioned high window-seats that
+follow the shape of the window. Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves,
+sent up a cart-load of flower-pots,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span> and Betty and the gardener arranged
+at least eighty of them, small and great, inside and outside the window.</p>
+
+<p>When Leonard returned from preaching, Betty was at the door to watch. He
+came past the window with his hands on his breast, and his eyes on the
+ground, and never saw the flowers in his own window. Betty was
+disgusted. However, she followed him stealthily as he went to his room,
+and she heard a profound "Ah!" burst from him.</p>
+
+<p>She bustled in and found him standing in a rapture, with the blood
+mantling in his pale cheeks, and his dark eyes glowing.</p>
+
+<p>"Now blessed be the heart that hath conceived this thing, and the hand
+that hath done it," said he. "My poor room, it is a bower of roses, all
+beauty and fragrance."</p>
+
+<p>And he sat down, inhaling them and looking at them; and a dreamy, tender
+complacency crept over his heart, and softened his noble features
+exquisitely.</p>
+
+<p>Widow Gough, red with gratified pride, stood watching him, and admiring
+him; but, indeed, she often admired him, though she had got into a way
+of decrying him.</p>
+
+<p>But at last she lost patience at his want of curiosity; that being a
+defect she was free from herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye don't ask me who sent them," said she, reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay," said he; "prithee do not tell me: let me divine."</p>
+
+<p>"Divine, then," said Betty, roughly. "Which I suppose you means
+'guess.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, but let me be quiet awhile," said he, imploringly; "let me sit
+down and fancy that I am a holy man, and some angel hath turned my cave
+into a Paradise."</p>
+
+<p>"No more an angel than I am," said the practical widow. "But, now I
+think on 't, y' are not to know who 't was. Them as sent them they bade
+me hold my tongue."</p>
+
+<p>This was not true; but Betty, being herself given to unwise revelations
+and superfluous secrecy, chose suddenly to assume that this business was
+to be clandestine.</p>
+
+<p>The priest turned his eye inwards and meditated.</p>
+
+<p>"I see who it is," said he, with an air of absolute conviction. "It must
+be the lady who comes always when I preach, and her face like none
+other; it beams with divine intelligence. I will make her all the return
+we poor priests can make to our benefactors. I will pray for her soul
+here among the flowers God has made, and she has given his servant to
+glorify his dwelling. My daughter, you may retire."</p>
+
+<p>This last with surprising, gentle dignity; so Betty went off rather
+abashed, and avenged herself by adulterating the holy man's innutritious
+food with Mrs. Gaunt's good gravy; while he prayed fervently for her
+eternal weal among the flowers she had given him.</p>
+
+<p>Now Mrs. Gaunt, after eight years of married life, was too sensible and
+dignified a woman to make a romantic mystery out of nothing. She
+concealed the gravy, because there secrecy was necessary; but she never
+dreamed of hiding that she had sent her spiritual adviser a load of
+flowers. She did not tell her neighbors, for she was not ostentatious;
+but she told her husband, who grunted, but did not object.</p>
+
+<p>But Betty's nonsense lent an air of romance and mystery that was well
+adapted to captivate the imagination of a young, ardent, and solitary
+spirit like Leonard.</p>
+
+<p>He would have called on the lady he suspected, and thanked her for her
+kindness. But this, he feared, would be unwelcome, since she chose to be
+his unknown benefactress. It would be ill taste in him to tell her he
+had found her out: it might offend her sensibility, and then she would
+draw in.</p>
+
+<p>He kept his gratitude, therefore, to himself, and did not cool it by
+utterance. He often sat among the flowers, in a sweet revery, enjoying
+their color and fragrance; and sometimes he would shut his eyes, and
+call up the angelical face, with great, celestial, upturned orbs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span> and
+fancy it among her own flowers, and the queen of them all.</p>
+
+<p>These day-dreams did not at that time interfere with his religious
+duties. They only took the place of those occasional hours when, partly
+by the reaction consequent on great religious fervor, partly by
+exhaustion of the body weakened by fasts, partly by the natural delicacy
+of his fibre and the tenderness of his disposition, his soul used to be
+sad.</p>
+
+<p>By and by these languid hours, sad no longer, became sweet and dear to
+him. He had something so interesting to think of, to dream about. He had
+a Madonna that cared for him in secret.</p>
+
+<p>She was human; but good, beautiful, and wise. She came to his sermons,
+and understood every word.</p>
+
+<p>"And she knows me better than I know myself," said he; "since I had
+these flowers from her hand, I am another man."</p>
+
+<p>One day he came into his room and found two watering-pots there. One was
+large and had a rose to it, the other small and with a plain spout.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said he; and colored with delight. He called Betty, and asked her
+who had brought them.</p>
+
+<p>"How should I know?" said she, roughly. "I dare say they dropped from
+heaven. See, there is a cross painted on 'em in gold letters."</p>
+
+<p>"And so there is!" said Leonard, and crossed himself.</p>
+
+<p>"That means nobody is to use them but you, I trow," said Betty, rather
+crossly.</p>
+
+<p>The priest's cheek colored high. "I will use them this instant," said
+he. "I will revive my drooping children as they have revived me." And he
+caught up a watering-pot with ardor.</p>
+
+<p>"What, with the sun hot upon 'em?" screamed Betty. "Well, saving your
+presence, you <i>are</i> a simple man."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, good Betty, 't is the sun that makes them faint," objected the
+priest, timidly, and with the utmost humility of manner, though Betty's
+tone would have irritated a smaller mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," said she, softening; "but ye see it never rains with a hot
+sun, and the flowers they know that; and look to be watered after
+Nature, or else they take it amiss. You, and all your sort, sir, you
+think to be stronger than Nature; you do fast and pray all day, and
+won't look at a woman like other men; and now you wants to water the
+very flowers at noon!"</p>
+
+<p>"Betty," said Leonard smiling, "I yield to thy superior wisdom, and I
+will water them at morn and eve. In truth we have all much to learn: let
+us try and teach one another as kindly as we can."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd teach me to be as humble as you be," blurted out Betty,
+with something very like a sob: "and more respectful to my betters,"
+added she, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>Watering the flowers she had given him became a solace and a delight to
+the solitary priest: he always watered them with his own hands, and felt
+quite paternal over them.</p>
+
+<p>One evening Mrs. Gaunt rode by with Griffith, and saw him watering them.
+His tall figure, graceful, though inclined to stoop, bent over them with
+feminine delicacy; and the simple act, which would have been nothing in
+vulgar hands, seemed to Mrs. Gaunt so earnest, tender, and delicate in
+him, that her eyes filled, and she murmured, "Poor Brother Leonard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what's wrong with him now?" asked Griffith, a little peevishly.</p>
+
+<p>"That was him watering the flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"O, is that all?" said Griffith, carelessly.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Leonard said to himself, "I go too little abroad among my people." He
+made a little round, and it ended in Hernshaw Castle.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt was out.</p>
+
+<p>He looked disappointed; so the servant suggested that perhaps she was in
+the Dame's haunt: he pointed to the grove.</p>
+
+<p>Leonard followed his direction, and soon found himself, for the first
+time, in that sombre, solemn retreat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was a hot summer day, and the grove was delicious. It was also a
+place well suited to the imaginative and religious mind of the Italian.</p>
+
+<p>He walked slowly to and fro, in religious meditation. Indeed, he had
+nearly thought out his next sermon, when his meditative eye happened to
+fall on a terrestrial object that startled and thrilled him. Yet it was
+only a lady's glove. It lay at the foot of a rude wooden seat beneath a
+gigantic pine.</p>
+
+<p>He stooped and picked it up. He opened the little fingers, and called up
+in fancy the white and tapering hand that glove could fit. He laid the
+glove softly on his own palm, and eyed it with dreamy tenderness. "So
+this is the hand that hath solaced my loneliness," said he: "a hand fair
+as that angelical face, and sweet as the kind heart that doeth good by
+stealth."</p>
+
+<p>Then, forgetting for a moment, as lofty spirits will, the difference
+between <i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i>, he put the little glove in his bosom, and
+paced thoughtfully home through the woods, that were separated from the
+grove only by one meadow: and so he missed the owner of the glove, for
+she had returned home while he was meditating in her favorite haunt.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Leonard, amongst his other accomplishments, could draw and paint with no
+mean skill. In one of those hours that used to be of melancholy, but now
+were hours of dreamy complacency, he took out his pencils and endeavored
+to sketch the inspired face that he had learned to preach to, and now to
+dwell on with gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>Clearly as he saw it before him, he could not reproduce it to his own
+satisfaction. After many failures he got very near the mark: yet still
+something was wanting.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as a last resource, he actually took his sketch to church with
+him, and in preaching made certain pauses, and, with a very few touches,
+perfected the likeness; then, on his return home, threw himself on his
+knees and prayed forgiveness of God with many sighs and tears, and hid
+the sacrilegious drawing out of his own sight.</p>
+
+<p>Two days after, he was at work coloring it; and the hours flew by like
+minutes, as he laid the mellow, melting tints on with infinite care and
+delicacy. <i>Labor ipse voluptas.</i></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt heard Leonard had called on her in person. She was pleased at
+that, and it encouraged her to carry out her whole design.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, one afternoon, when she knew Leonard would be at vespers,
+she sent on a loaded pony-cart, and followed it on horseback.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was all hurry-skurry with Betty and her, to get their dark deeds
+done before their victim's return.</p>
+
+<p>These good creatures set the mirror opposite the flowery window, and so
+made the room a very bower. They fixed a magnificent crucifix of ivory
+and gold over the mantel-piece, and they took away his hassock of rushes
+and substituted a <i>prie-dieu</i> of rich crimson velvet. All that remained
+was to put their blue cover, with its golden cross, on the table. To do
+this, however, they had to remove the priest's papers and things: they
+were covered with a cloth. Mrs. Gaunt felt them under it.</p>
+
+<p>"But perhaps he will be angry if we move his papers," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Not he," said Betty. "He has no secrets from God or man."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, <i>I</i> won't take it on me," said Mrs. Gaunt, merrily. "I leave that
+to you." And she turned her back and settled the mirror, officiously,
+leaving all the other responsibilities to Betty.</p>
+
+<p>The sturdy widow laughed at her scruples, and whipped off the cloth
+without ceremony. But soon her laugh stopped mighty short, and she
+uttered an exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" said Mrs. Gaunt, turning her head sharply round.</p>
+
+<p>"A wench's glove, as I'm a living sinner," groaned Betty.</p>
+
+<p>A poor little glove lay on the table; and both women eyed it like
+basilisks a moment. Then Betty pounced on it and examined it with the
+fierce keenness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span> of her sex in such conjunctures, searching for a name
+or a clew.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to this rapidity, Mrs. Gaunt, who stood at some distance, had not
+time to observe the button on the glove, or she would have recognized
+her own property.</p>
+
+<p>"He have had a hussy with him unbeknown," said Betty, "and she have left
+her glove. 'T is easy to get in by the window and out again. Only let me
+catch her! I'll tear her eyes out, and give him my mind. I'll have no
+young hussies creeping in an' out where I be."</p>
+
+<p>Thus spoke the simple woman, venting her coarse domestic jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>The gentlewoman said nothing, but a strange feeling traversed her heart
+for the first time in her life.</p>
+
+<p>It was a little chill, it was a little ache, it was a little sense of
+sickness; none of these violent, yet all distinct. And all about what?
+After this curious, novel spasm at the heart, she began to be ashamed of
+herself for having had such a feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Betty held her out the glove: and she recognized it directly, and turned
+as red as fire.</p>
+
+<p>"You know whose 't is?" said Betty, keenly.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt was on her guard in a moment. "Why, Betty," said she, "for
+shame! 't is some penitent hath left her glove after confession. Would
+you belie a good man for that? O, fie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" said Betty, doubtfully. "Then why keep it under cover? Now you
+can read, dame; let us see if there isn't a letter or so writ by the
+hand as owns this very glove."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt declined, with cold dignity, to pry into Brother Leonard's
+manuscripts.</p>
+
+<p>Her eye, however, darted sidelong at them, and told another tale; and,
+if she had been there alone, perhaps, the daughter of Eve would have
+predominated.</p>
+
+<p>Betty, inflamed by the glove, rummaged the papers in search of female
+handwriting. She could tell that from a man's, though she could not read
+either.</p>
+
+<p>But there is a handwriting that the most ignorant can read at sight; and
+so Betty's researches were not in vain: hidden under several sheets of
+paper, she found a picture. She gave but one glance at it, and screamed
+out: "There, didn't I tell you? Here she is! the brazen,
+red-haired&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lawk a daisy! why, 't is yourself</span>."</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII.</h3>
+
+<p>"Me!" cried Mrs. Gaunt, in amazement: then she ran to the picture, and
+at sight of it every other sentiment gave way for a moment to gratified
+vanity. "Nay," said she, beaming and blushing, "I was never half so
+beautiful. What heavenly eyes!"</p>
+
+<p>"The fellows to 'em be in your own head, dame, this moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Seeing is believing," said Mrs. Gaunt, gayly, and in a moment she was
+at the priest's mirror, and inspected her eyes minutely, cocking her
+head this way and that. She ended by shaking it, and saying, "No. He has
+flattered them prodigiously."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a jot," said Betty. "If you could see yourself in chapel, you do
+turn 'em up just so, and the white shows all round." Then she tapped the
+picture with her finger: "O them eyes! they were never made for the good
+of his soul,&mdash;poor simple man!"</p>
+
+<p>Betty said this with sudden gravity: and now Mrs. Gaunt began to feel
+very awkward. "Mr. Gaunt would give fifty pounds for this," said she, to
+gain time: and, while she uttered that sentence, she whipped on her
+armor.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what I think," said she, calmly, "he wished to paint a
+Madonna; and he must take some woman's face to aid his fancy. All the
+painters are driven to that. So he just took the best that came to hand,
+and that is not saying much, for this is a rare ill-favored parish: and
+he has made an angel of her, a very angel. There, hide Me away again, or
+I shall long for Me&mdash;to show to my husband. I must be going; I wouldn't
+be caught here <i>now</i> for a pension."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, if ye must," said Betty; "but when will ye come again?" (She
+hadn't got the petticoat yet.)</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" said Mrs. Gaunt, "I have done all I can for him; and perhaps
+more than I ought. But there's nothing to hinder you from coming to me.
+I'll be as good as my word; and I have an old Paduasoy, besides, you can
+perhaps do something with it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very good, dame," said Betty, courtesying.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt then hurried away, and Betty looked after her very
+expressively, and shook her head. She had a female instinct that some
+mischief or other was brewing.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt went home in a revery.</p>
+
+<p>At the gate she found her husband, and asked him to take a turn in the
+garden with her.</p>
+
+<p>He complied; and she intended to tell him a portion, at least, of what
+had occurred. She began timidly, after this fashion: "My dear, Brother
+Leonard is <i>so</i> grateful for your flowers," and then hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure he is very welcome," said Griffith. "Why doesn't he sup with
+us, and be sociable, as Father Francis used? Invite him; let him know he
+will be welcome."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt blushed; and objected. "He never calls on us."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, every man to his taste," said Griffith, indifferently, and
+proceeded to talk to her about his farm, and a sorrel mare with a white
+mane and tail that he had seen, and thought it would suit her.</p>
+
+<p>She humored him, and affected a great interest in all this, and had not
+the courage to force the other topic on.</p>
+
+<p>Next Sunday morning, after a very silent breakfast, she burst out,
+almost violently, "Griffith, I shall go to the parish church with you,
+and then we will dine together afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean it, Kate," said he, delighted.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but I do. Although you refused to go to chapel with me."</p>
+
+<p>They went to church together, and Mrs. Gaunt's appearance there created
+no small sensation. She was conscious of that, but hid it, and conducted
+herself admirably. Her mind seemed entirely given to the service, and to
+a dull sermon that followed.</p>
+
+<p>But at dinner she broke out, "Well, give me your church for a sleeping
+draught. You all slumbered, more or less: those that survived the
+drowsy, droning prayers sank under the dry, dull, dreary discourse. You
+snored, for one."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, I hope not, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"You did then, as loud as your bass fiddle."</p>
+
+<p>"And you sat there and let me!" said Griffith, reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure I did. I was too good a wife, and too good a Christian, to
+wake you. Sleep is good for the body, and twaddle is not good for the
+soul. I'd have slept too, if I could; but with me going to chapel, I'm
+not used to sleep at that time o' day. You can't sleep, and Brother
+Leonard speaking."</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon came Mrs. Gough, all in her best. Mrs. Gaunt had her
+into her bedroom, and gave her the promised petticoat, and the old
+Paduasoy gown; and then, as ladies will, when their hand is once in,
+added first one thing, then another, till there was quite a large
+bundle.</p>
+
+<p>"But how is it you are here so soon?" asked Mrs. Gaunt.</p>
+
+<p>"O, we had next to no sermon to-day. He couldn't make no hand of it:
+dawdled on a bit; then gave us his blessing, and bundled us out."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I've lost nothing," said Mrs. Gaunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Not you. Well, I don't know. Mayhap if you had been there he'd have
+preached his best. But la! we warn't worth it."</p>
+
+<p>At this conjecture Mrs. Gaunt's face burned, but she said nothing: only
+she cut the interview short, and dismissed Betty with her bundle.</p>
+
+<p>As Betty crossed the landing, Mrs. Gaunt's new lady's-maid, Caroline
+Ryder, stepped accidentally, on purpose, out of an adjoining room, in
+which she had been lurking, and lifted her black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span> brows in affected
+surprise. "What, are you going to strip the house, my woman?" said she,
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Betty put down the bundle, and set her arms akimbo. "There is none on 't
+stolen, any way," said she.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline's black eyes flashed fire at this, and her cheek lost color;
+but she parried the innuendo skilfully. "Taking my perquisites on the
+sly,&mdash;that is not so very far from stealing."</p>
+
+<p>"O, there's plenty left for you, my fine lady. Besides, you don't want
+<i>her</i>; you can set your cap at the master, they say. I'm too old for
+that, and too honest into the bargain."</p>
+
+<p>"Too ill-favored, you mean, ye old harridan," said Ryder,
+contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>But, for reasons hereafter to be dealt with, Betty's thrust went home:
+and the pair were mortal enemies from that hour.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt came down from her room discomposed: from that she became
+restless and irritable; so much so, indeed, that at last Mr. Gaunt told
+her, good-humoredly enough, if going to church made her ill (meaning
+peevish), she had better go to chapel. "You are right," said she, "and
+so I will."</p>
+
+<p>The next Sunday she was at her post in good time.</p>
+
+<p>The preacher cast an anxious glance around to see if she was there. Her
+quick eye saw that glance, and it gave her a demure pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>This day he was more eloquent than ever: and he delivered a beautiful
+passage concerning those who do good in secret. In uttering these
+eloquent sentences his cheek glowed, and he could not deny himself the
+pleasure of looking down at the lovely face that was turned up to him.
+Probably his look was more expressive than he intended: the celestial
+eyes sank under it, and were abashed, and the fair cheek burned: and
+then so did Leonard's at that.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, subtly yet effectually, did these two minds communicate in a crowd
+that never noticed nor suspected the delicate interchange of sentiment
+that was going on under their very eyes.</p>
+
+<p>In a general way compliments did not seduce Mrs. Gaunt: she was well
+used to them, for one thing. But to be praised in that sacred edifice,
+and from the pulpit, and by such an orator as Leonard, and to be praised
+in words so sacred and beautiful that the ears around her drank them
+with delight,&mdash;all this made her heart beat, and filled her with soft
+and sweet complacency.</p>
+
+<p>And then to be thanked in public, yet, as it were, clandestinely, this
+gratified the furtive tendency of woman.</p>
+
+<p>There was no irritability this afternoon; but a gentle radiance that
+diffused itself on all around, and made the whole household
+happy,&mdash;especially Griffith, whose pipe she filled, for once, with her
+own white hand, and talked dogs, horses, calves, hinds, cows, politics,
+markets, hay, to please him: and seemed interested in them all.</p>
+
+<p>But the next day she changed: ill at ease, and out of spirits, and could
+settle to nothing.</p>
+
+<p>It was very hot for one thing: and, altogether, a sort of lassitude and
+distaste for everything overpowered her, and she retired into the grove,
+and sat languidly on a seat with half-closed eyes.</p>
+
+<p>But her meditations were no longer so calm and speculative as
+heretofore. She found her mind constantly recurring to one person, and,
+above all, to the discovery she had made of her portrait in his
+possession. She had turned it off to Betty Gough; but here, in her calm
+solitude and umbrageous twilight, her mind crept out of its cave, like
+wild and timid things at dusk, and whispered to her heart that Leonard
+perhaps admired her more than was safe or prudent.</p>
+
+<p>Then this alarmed her, yet caused her a secret complacency: and that,
+her furtive satisfaction, alarmed her still more.</p>
+
+<p>Now, while she sat thus absorbed, she heard a gentle footstep coming
+near. She looked up, and there was Leonard close to her; standing
+meekly, with his arms crossed upon his bosom.</p>
+
+<p>His being there so pat upon her thoughts scared her out of her habitual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span>
+self-command. She started up, with a faint cry, and stood panting, as if
+about to fly, with her beautiful eyes turned large upon him.</p>
+
+<p>He put forth a deprecating hand, and soothed her. "Forgive me, madam,"
+said he; "I have unawares intruded on your privacy; I will retire."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," said she, falteringly, "you are welcome. But no one comes here;
+so I was startled." Then, recovering herself, "Excuse my ill-manners. 'T
+is so strange that you should come to me here, of all places."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, my daughter," said the priest, "not so very strange: contemplative
+minds love such places. Calling one day to see you, I found this sweet
+and solemn grove; the like I never saw in England: and to-day I returned
+in hopes to profit by it. Do but look around at these tall columns; how
+calm, how reverend! 'T is God's own temple, not built with hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed it is," said Mrs. Gaunt, earnestly. Then, like a woman as she
+was, "So you came to see my trees, not me."</p>
+
+<p>Leonard blushed. "I did not design to return without paying my respects
+to her who owns this temple, and is worthy of it; nay, I beg you not to
+think me ungrateful."</p>
+
+<p>His humility and gentle but earnest voice made Mrs. Gaunt ashamed of her
+petulance. She smiled sweetly, and looked pleased. However, erelong, she
+attacked him again. "Father Francis used to visit us often," said she.
+"He made friends with my husband, too. And I never lacked an adviser
+while he was here."</p>
+
+<p>Leonard looked so confused at this second reproach that Mrs. Gaunt's
+heart began to yearn. However, he said humbly that Francis was a secular
+priest, whereas he was convent-bred. He added, that by his years and
+experience Francis was better fitted to advise persons of her age and
+sex, in matters secular, than he was. He concluded timidly that he was
+ready, nevertheless, to try and advise her; but could not, in such
+matters, assume the authority that belongs to age and knowledge of the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, nay," said she, earnestly, "guide and direct my soul, and I am
+content."</p>
+
+<p>He said, yes! that was his duty and his right.</p>
+
+<p>Then, after a certain hesitation, which at once let her know what was
+coming, he began to thank her, with infinite grace and sweetness, for
+her kindness to him.</p>
+
+<p>She looked him full in the face, and said she was not aware of any
+kindness she had shown him worth speaking of.</p>
+
+<p>"That but shows," said he, "how natural it is to you to do acts of
+goodness. My poor room is a very bower now, and I am happy in it. I used
+to feel very sad there at times; but your hand has cured me."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gaunt colored beautifully. "You make me ashamed," said she. "Things
+are come to a pass indeed, if a lady may not send a few flowers and
+things to her spiritual father without being thanked for it. And, O,
+sir, what are earthly flowers compared with those blossoms of the soul
+you have shed so liberally over us? Our immortal parts were all asleep
+when you came here and wakened them by the fire of your words.
+Eloquence! 't was a thing I had read of, but never heard, nor thought to
+hear. Methought the orators and poets of the Church were all in their
+graves this thousand years, and she must go all the way to heaven that
+would hear the soul's true music. But I know better now."</p>
+
+<p>Leonard colored high with pleasure, "Such praise from you is too sweet,"
+he muttered. "I must not court it. The heart is full of vanity." And he
+deprecated further eulogy, by a movement of the hand extremely refined,
+and, in fact, rather feminine.</p>
+
+<p>Deferring to his wish Mrs. Gaunt glided to other matters, and was
+naturally led to speak of the prospects of their Church, and the
+possibility of reconverting these islands. This had been the dream of
+her young heart; but marriage and maternity, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span> universal coldness
+with which the subject had been received, had chilled her so, that of
+late years she had almost ceased to speak of it. Even Leonard, on a
+former occasion, had listened coldly to her; but now his heart was open
+to her. He was, in fact, quite as enthusiastic on this point as ever she
+had been; and then he had digested his aspirations into clearer forms.
+Not only had he resolved that Great Britain must be reconverted, but had
+planned the way to do it. His cheek glowed, his eyes gleamed, and he
+poured out his hopes and his plans before her with an eloquence that few
+mortals could have resisted.</p>
+
+<p>As for this, his hearer, she was quite carried away by it. She joined
+herself to his plans on the spot; she begged, with tears in her eyes, to
+be permitted to support him in this great cause. She devoted to it her
+substance, her influence, and every gift that God had given her: the
+hours passed like minutes in this high converse; and when the tinkling
+of the little bell at a distance summoned him to vespers, he left her
+with a gentle regret he scarcely tried to conceal, and she went slowly
+in like one in a dream, and the world seemed dead to her forever.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Nevertheless, when Mrs. Ryder, combing out her long hair, gave one
+inadvertent tug, the fair enthusiast came back to earth, and asked her,
+rather sharply, who her head was running on.</p>
+
+<p>Ryder, a very handsome young woman, with fine black eyes, made no reply,
+but only drew her breath audibly hard.</p>
+
+<p>I do not very much wonder at that, nor at my having to answer that
+question for Mrs. Ryder. For her head was at that moment running, like
+any other woman's, on the man she was in love with.</p>
+
+<p>And the man she was in love with was the husband of the lady whose hair
+she was combing, and who put her that curious question&mdash;plump.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES" id="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"></a>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</h2>
+
+
+<p><i>The Resources of California, comprising Agriculture, Mining, Geography,
+Climate, Commerce, &amp;c., and the Past and Future Development of the
+State.</i> By <span class="smcap">John S. Hittell</span>. Second Edition, with an Appendix on Oregon
+and Washington Territory. San Francisco: A. Roman &amp; Co. New York: W. J.
+Widdleton.</p>
+
+<p>This is a book almost as encyclopedic as its title would indicate; and
+is evidently written with a desire to say everything which the theme
+permits, and to say it truly. It answers almost every question that an
+intelligent person can ask, in respect to California, besides a good
+many which few intelligent persons know enough to propound. And it is a
+proof of its honesty that it does not, after all, make California
+overpoweringly attractive, whether in respect of climate, society, or
+business. This is saying a good deal, when we consider that the Preface
+sums up the allurements of the Pacific coast in a single sentence
+covering two and a half pages.</p>
+
+<p>The philosophy of the author is sometimes rather bewildering, as where
+he defines "universal suffrage" to mean that "every sane adult white
+male citizen, not a felon, may vote at every election." (p. 349.) His
+general statements, too, are apt to be rather sweeping. For instance, he
+says, in two different passages, that, "so far as we know, the climate
+of San Francisco is the most equable and the mildest in the world." (pp.
+29, 431.) Yet he puts the extremes of temperature in this favored
+climate at +25&deg; and +97&deg; Fahrenheit; while at Fayal, in the Azores, the
+recorded extremes are, if we mistake not, +40&deg; and +85&deg;; and no doubt
+there are other temperate climates as uniform.</p>
+
+<p>One might object, too, from the side of severe science, to his devoting
+the "Reptile"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span> department of his zo&ouml;logical section chiefly to spiders,
+with incidental remarks on fleas and mosquitos. Perhaps it is to balance
+Captain Stedman in Surinam, who under the head of "Insects" discourses
+chiefly of vampyre-bats.</p>
+
+<p>The wonders of the Yo-semite valley he describes as well as most people;
+and faithfully contends for their superiority to those of Niagara,
+where, as he plaintively observes, "a day or two is enough," while one
+could contentedly remain for months among the California wonders. He
+shows, however, that his memories of Atlantic civilization are still
+painfully vivid, when he counsels the beholder of the Mariposa grove to
+lie on his back, and think of Trinity Church steeple. Might not one also
+beguile a third day at Niagara by reflections on the Croton Aqueduct?</p>
+
+<p>But these little glimpses of the author's personality make the book only
+the more entertaining, and give spice to the really vast mass of
+accurate information which it conveys. There are few passages which one
+can call actually imaginative, unless one includes under that head the
+description (page 40) of that experiment "common in the Eastern cities,"
+where a man dressed in woollen, by sliding on a carpet a few steps,
+accumulates enough personal electricity to light gas with his fingers.
+This familiar process, it appears, is impossible in California, and so
+far his descriptions of that climate convey a sense of safety. Yet even
+one seasoned to such wonders as these might be startled, for a moment,
+before his account of the mountain sheep (<i>Ovis montana</i>). This
+ponderous animal, weighing three hundred and fifty pounds, has a
+sportive habit of leaping headlong from precipices one hundred feet
+high, and alighting on its horns, which, being strong and elastic, throw
+him ten or fifteen feet into the air, "and the next time he alights on
+his feet all right." (p. 124.) "Mountaineers assert" this; and after
+this it can be hardly doubted that the products of the human
+imagination, in California, are on a scale of Yo-semite magnificence.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>The American Republic: its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny.</i> By
+<span class="smcap">O. A. Brownson, LL. D.</span> New York: P. O'Shea.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Brownson's influence over the American people, which had dwindled
+pretty nearly to zero at the beginning of the war, revived with that
+revival of the old Adam which made him a patriot, and thus showed him
+rather in the light of a heretic. This book sets him right (or wrong)
+again, and his temporary partnership with "humanitarians" may be
+regarded as closed by official notification. In a volume which might
+well be compressed into one fourth its present size, he covers a great
+deal of ground, and has pungent suggestions on both sides of a great
+many questions. Even in the Preface he announces his abandonment of the
+doctrine of State sovereignty, after holding it for thirty-three years,
+and at once proceeds to explain how, in a profounder sense, he holds it
+more thoroughly than ever. In the chapter on "Secession," which is the
+best in the book, he indorses Charles Sumner's theory of State suicide;
+holds that the Southern States are now "under the Union, not of it," and
+seems quite inclined to pardon Mr. Lincoln for abolishing slavery by
+proclamation. On the other hand, he scouts the theory that the Rebels
+committed treason, in any moral sense, and proclaims that we are all
+"willing and proud to be their countrymen, fellow-citizens, and
+friends." "There need be no fear to trust them now." To hang or exile
+them would be worse than "deporting four millions of negroes and colored
+men." (pp. 335-338.)</p>
+
+<p>It must, indeed, be owned that our author has apparently reverted to an
+amount of colorphobia which must cheer the hearts of the Hibernian
+portion of his co-religionists. Ignoring the past in a way which seems
+almost wilful, he declares that the freedman has no capacity of
+patriotism, no sort of appreciation of the question at stake; and that
+he would, if enfranchised, invariably vote with his former master. "In
+any contest between North and South, they would take, to a man, the
+Southern side." (pp. 346, 376.) Nevertheless, he thinks that the negro
+will be ultimately enfranchised, "and the danger is, that it will be
+attempted too soon." If, indeed, it be postponed, he seems to think the
+negro may, by the blessing of Providence, "melt away." (p. 437.) What a
+pity that the obstinate fellow, with all the aid now being contributed
+in the way of assassination, so steadfastly refuses to melt!</p>
+
+<p>Against the Abolitionists, also, Mr. Brownson is still ready to break a
+lance, with the hearty unreasoning hostility of the good old times.
+"Wendell Phillips is as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span> far removed from true Christian civilization as
+was John C. Calhoun, and William Lloyd Garrison is as much of a
+barbarian and despot in principle and tendency as Jefferson Davis." (p.
+355.) This touch of righteous indignation is less crushing, however,
+than his covert attacks upon our two great generals. For in one place he
+enumerates as typical warriors "McClellan, Grant, and Sherman," and in
+another place, "Halleck, Grant, and Sherman." This is indeed the very
+refinement of unkindness.</p>
+
+<p>Of a standing army Mr. Brownson thinks well, and wishes it to number a
+hundred thousand; but his reason for the faith that is in him is a
+little unexpected. He thinks it useful because "it creates honorable
+places for gentlemen or the sons of gentlemen without wealth." (p. 386.)
+Touching our naturalized foreigners, he admits that they have been
+rather a source of embarrassment in recruiting for our armies (p. 381);
+but consoles himself by hinting, with his accustomed modesty, that "the
+best things written on the controversy have been by Catholics." (p.
+378.)</p>
+
+<p>He sees danger in the horizon, and frankly avows it. It is none of the
+commonplace perils, however,&mdash;national bankruptcy, revival of the slave
+power, oppression of Southern loyalists. A wholly new and profounder
+terror is that which his penetrating eye evokes from the future. It is,
+that, if matters go on as now, foreign observers will never clearly
+understand whether it was the "territorial democracy" or the
+"humanitarian democracy" which really triumphed in the late contest!
+"The danger now is, that the Union victory will, at home and abroad, be
+interpreted as a victory won in the interest of social or humanitarian
+democracy. It was because they regarded the war waged on the side of the
+Union as waged in the interest of this terrible democracy, that our
+bishops and clergy sympathized so little with the government in
+prosecuting it; not, as some imagined, because they were disloyal.... If
+the victory of the Union should turn out to be a victory for the
+humanitarian democracy, the civilized world will have no reason to
+applaud it." (pp. 365, 366.)</p>
+
+<p>After this passage, it is needless to say that its author is the same
+Mr. Brownson whom the American people long since tried and found wanting
+as a safe or wise counsellor; the same of whom the Roman Catholic Church
+one day assumed the responsibility, and found the task more onerous than
+had been expected. He retains his arrogance, his gladiatorial skill, his
+habit of sweeping assertion; but perhaps his virulence is softened, save
+where some unhappy "humanitarian" is under dissection. Enough remains of
+the habit, however, to make his worst pages the raciest, and to render
+it a sharp self-satire when he proclaims, at the very outset, that a
+constitutional treatise should be written "with temper."</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Across the Continent: a Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the
+Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax.</i> By <span class="smcap">Samuel Bowles</span>,
+Editor of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican. Springfield, Mass.: Samuel
+Bowles &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>Since Mr. Greeley set the example, it has been the manifest destiny of
+every enterprising journalist to take an occasional trip across the
+continent, and personally inspect his subscribers. The latest overland
+Odyssey of this kind&mdash;transacted by three silent editors and one very
+public Speaker&mdash;is recorded in Mr. Bowles's new book; which proceeds, as
+one may observe, from his own publishing office and bindery, and may
+therefore almost claim, like the quaint little books presented by the
+eccentric Quincy Tufts to Harvard College Library, to have been
+"written, printed, and bound by the same hand."</p>
+
+<p>Journalism is a good training, in some ways, for a trip like this. It
+implies a quick eye for facts, a good memory for figures, a hearty faith
+in the national bird, and a boundless appetite for new acquaintances.
+Every Eastern editor, moreover, is sure to find old neighbors throughout
+the West; and he who escorts a rising politician has all the world for a
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>The result is, in this case, a thoroughly American book,&mdash;American in
+the sense of to-day, if not according to the point of view of the
+millennium. It is American in its vast applications of arithmetic; in
+the facility with which it brings the breadth of a continent within the
+limits of a summer's ride; in the eloquence which rises to sublimity
+over mining stock, and dwindles to the verge of commonplace before
+unmarketable natural beauties. Of course, it is the best book on the
+theme it handles, for it is the latest; it is lively, readable,
+instructive;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span> but no descriptions of those changing regions can last
+much longer than an almanac, and this will retain its place only until
+the coming of the next editorial pilgrim.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Esperance.</i> By <span class="smcap">Meta Lander</span>, author of "Light on the Dark River,"
+"Marion Graham," &amp;c. New York: Sheldon &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>Can it be possible that any literature of the world now yields
+sentimental novels so vague and immature as those which America brings
+forth? Or is it that their Transatlantic compeers float away and
+dissolve by their own feebleness before they reach our shores?</p>
+
+<p>"Cry, Esperance! Percy! and set on." This Shakespearian motto might have
+appeared upon the title-page of this volume; but there is nothing so
+vivacious upon that page, nor indeed on any other. The name of the book
+comes from that of the heroine, who was baptized Hope. But the friend of
+her soul was wont to call her Esperance, "in her wooing moods," and from
+this simple application of the French dictionary results the title of
+the romance. Even this does not close the catalogue of the heroine's pet
+names however, for in moments of yet higher ecstasy, when she rides
+sublime upon the storm of passion, she is styled, not without scientific
+appropriateness, "Espy."</p>
+
+<p>Esperance is a young girl who seeks her destiny. She also has her
+"wooing moods," during which, on small provocation, she "hastily pens a
+few lines"&mdash;of verse such as no young lady's diary should be without.
+She has, moreover, her intervals of sternness, when she boxes ears; now
+in case of her father, unfilially, and anon in more righteous conflict
+with her step-mother's wicked lover. But her demonstrations do not
+usually take the brief form of blows, but the more formidable shape of
+words. Indeed, it takes a good many words to meet the innumerable crises
+of her daily life; and, to do her justice, the more desperate the
+emergencies, the better she likes them. Anguish is heaped upon her,
+father and mother desert her, several eligible lovers jilt her,&mdash;she
+would be much obliged to you to point out any specific sorrow of which
+at least one good specimen has not occurred within her experience. There
+is a distressing casualty to every chapter, and then come in the
+poisoned arrows! "Once in the room, I bolted the door and threw
+myself&mdash;not on the bed&mdash;the floor better suited my mood. And there I
+lay, with reeling senses, and a brain on fire, while in my trampled and
+bruised heart were wildly struggling tenderness and scorn, love and
+hate, life and death.... The slow-moving hours tolled a mournful
+requiem, as the long procession of stricken hopes and joys were borne
+onward to their death and burial. And I, the victim, turned
+executioner."</p>
+
+<p>The French dictionary extends onward from the title-page, and haunts
+these impassioned pages. Phrases of a recondite and elaborate
+description, such as "<i>Oui, monsieur</i>," "<i>Tr&egrave;s-bien</i>," and "<i>Entrez</i>,"
+adorn the sportive conversation of this cultivated circle. Sometimes,
+with higher flight, some one essays to gambol in the Latin tongue: "It
+seemed to me that old Tempus must have taken to himself a new pair of
+wings to have <i>fugited</i> so rapidly as he did." Yet the French and the
+Latin are better than the English; for the main body of the book, while
+breaking no important law of morals or of grammar, is scarcely adapted
+for any phase of human existence beyond the boarding-school. It seems
+rather hard, perhaps, to devote serious censure to a thing so frail; but
+without a little homely truth, how are we ever to get beyond this
+bread-and-butter epoch of American fiction?</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds: with Notices of Some of his
+Contemporaries.</i> Commenced by <span class="smcap">Charles Robert Leslie, R. A.</span> Continued and
+concluded by <span class="smcap">Tom Taylor, M. A.</span> London: John Murray. 2 vols. 8vo.</p>
+
+<p>"When, in 1832," writes C. R. Leslie, "Constable exhibited his 'Opening
+of Waterloo Bridge,' it was placed in the school of painting,&mdash;one of
+the small rooms in Somerset House. A sea-piece, by Turner, was next to
+it,&mdash;a gray picture, beautiful and true, but with no positive color in
+any part of it. Constable's 'Waterloo' seemed as if painted with liquid
+gold and silver, and Turner came several times into the room while he
+was heightening with vermilion and lake the decorations and flags of the
+city barges. Turner stood behind him, looking from the 'Waterloo' to his
+own picture, and at last brought his palette from the great room where
+he was touching another picture, and, putting a round daub of red<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span> lead,
+somewhat bigger than a shilling, on his gray sea, went away without
+saying a word. The intensity of the red lead, made more vivid by the
+coolness of his picture, caused even the vermilion and lake of Constable
+to look weak. I came into the room just as Turner left it. 'He has been
+here,' said Constable, 'and fired a gun.'"</p>
+
+<p>Twenty years ago the erratic life of Haydon the artist was dashed
+suddenly and violently out by his own hand. Men brought the cold light
+of their judgment then, and overspread his character, forgetful of the
+fires of his genius; but Mr. Tom Taylor remembered the burning spirit,
+memorable to the soul of art, and he published two volumes containing
+Haydon's autobiography and journals, which have set a seal upon his
+memory, and lead us to thank the man who has done for Haydon what Turner
+did for his own picture,&mdash;fired a gun.</p>
+
+<p>Since Haydon's Autobiography was published, Mr. Taylor has not been
+idle. Some of the purest and most popular plays now upon the stage we
+owe to his hand. The face of the <i>blas&eacute;</i> theatre-goer shines when his
+play is announced for the evening; and even the long-visaged critic,
+fond of talking of the <i>d&eacute;cadence</i> of the modern stage, has been known
+to appear punctually in his seat when Tom Taylor's play was to lead off
+the performance.</p>
+
+<p>The days of Burton have passed, and the echoes of roof-splitting
+laughter he excited have died away; but while the remembrance of "lovely
+things" remains with us, those who were fortunate enough to have seen
+Mr. Taylor's play of "Helping Hands," as performed at Burton's Theatre
+in New York, will be sure never to forget it.</p>
+
+<p>We should be glad, if space permitted, to speak of Mr. Taylor in the
+several branches of literature wherein he has become distinguished; but
+it is chiefly with him as a biographer, and principally with one
+biography, we are concerned here.</p>
+
+<p>Six years ago, Leslie's "Biographical Recollections" were given to the
+world by the hand of the same editor. There are few books more
+delightful of this kind in our language; and no small share of the
+interest results from the conscientious work Mr. Taylor has put into the
+study of Mr. Leslie's pictures, and his recognition of him as
+distinctively a literary painter, possessing a kindly brotherhood to
+Washington Irving in the subtile humor he loved to depict.</p>
+
+<p>We remember having the good fortune once to meet Mr. Taylor, while he
+was preparing this book, and being impressed with the idea that he had
+committed Mr. Leslie's paintings to memory, as one of the necessary
+preliminaries in order to do justice to his subject. He had that day
+returned from a pilgrimage to one of the pictures, and was able to
+inform the artists who were present with regard to the smallest
+accessory. We fancied, had painting, and not penning, been his forte, he
+could have reproduced the picture for us on the spot, could we, at the
+same time, have transformed the table-cloth into a canvas.</p>
+
+<p>In the Preface to the Recollections of Leslie, we are told that the
+reason his autobiography ends abruptly was not because of Mr. Leslie's
+failing health, "but because all the time he could spare from painting
+was, during the last year of his life, occupied by him in writing the
+Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, at which he worked hard even a month before
+his death." When the Leslie papers were put into Mr. Taylor's hands,
+this Life, then in a fragmentary condition, being hardly more than
+memoranda, for the most part, also came into his possession. And it
+having been his "lot," as he has elsewhere said, to have the materials
+for two artistic biographies already intrusted to his care, he must have
+accepted the third, thus silently bestowed, as the especial legacy of
+his friend.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, by education and by accident, (if we may choose to consider
+it such,) setting aside Mr. Taylor's natural ability for the labor, he
+found himself pre-eminently elected to complete and issue the "Life and
+Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds." The request of Mr. Murray, the publisher,
+appears, however, to have spurred him to the actual acceptance of the
+work. Some idea of these volumes, with their varied interest of life and
+art, may be briefly conveyed by quoting from the Preface, where Mr.
+Taylor writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The life of a painter, more than most men, as a rule, derives its
+interest from his work and from the people he paints. When his sitters
+are the chief men and women of his time, for beauty, genius, rank,
+power, wit, goodness, or even fashion and folly, this interest is
+heightened. It culminates when the painter is the equal and honored
+associate of his sitters. All these conditions concur in the case of
+Reynolds. It is impossible to write a Life and Times of the painter
+without passing in review&mdash;hasty and brief as it must be&mdash;the great
+facts of politics, literature, and manners during his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span> busy life, which
+touched, often very closely, the chief actors in a drama taking in the
+most stirring events of the last century, and containing the germs of
+many things that have materially operated to shape our arts, manners,
+and institutions.</p>
+
+<p>"By the use of these materials, I have attempted to carry out Mr.
+Leslie's intention of presenting Sir Joshua in his true character, as
+the genial centre of a most various and brilliant society, as well as
+the transmitter of its chief figures to our time by his potent art."</p>
+
+<p>It is only by turning over the pages of each chapter, and observing
+closely the brackets wherein Mr. Taylor's portion of the work is
+enclosed, that we discover how great his labor has been, and how well
+fulfilled. His interpolations are flung, like the Fribourg Bridge, fine
+and strong, welding together opposing points, and never inserted like a
+wedge. A happy instance of this appears in the first volume, where Mr.
+Taylor says, speaking of Johnson, after the death of his mother, "The
+regard of such men as Reynolds was henceforth the best comfort of that
+great, solitary heart; and the painter's purse and house and pen were
+alike at his friend's service." "For example," Leslie continues, "in
+this year Reynolds wrote three papers for the 'Idler.' 'I have heard Sir
+Joshua say,' observes Northcote, 'that Johnson required them from him on
+a sudden emergency, and on that account he sat up the whole night to
+complete them in time; and by it he was so much disordered, that it
+produced a vertigo in his head.'"</p>
+
+<p>The story of Reynolds's youth is a happier one than is often recorded of
+young artists. His father was too wise and too kind to cross the natural
+proclivities of the boy, although he does appear to have wavered for a
+moment when Joshua declared he "had rather be an apothecary than an
+<i>ordinary</i> painter." He was, however, early apprenticed to Hudson, the
+first portrait-painter of his time in England. But hardly two years had
+elapsed before the master saw himself eclipsed, and the two separated
+without great waste of love on the part of Hudson. From that moment,
+Reynolds's career was decided. He put the mannerism of his former master
+away from his pictures when he distanced himself from his studio, and,
+going soon after to the Continent, devoted himself to the study of great
+works of art. With what vigor and faithfulness this labor was pursued,
+the Roman and Venetian note-books testify. "For the studies he made from
+Raphael," writes Leslie, "he paid dearly; for he caught so severe a cold
+in the chambers of the Vatican as to occasion a deafness which obliged
+him to use an ear-trumpet for the remainder of his life."</p>
+
+<p>The fertility and inexhaustibility of power shown by Sir Joshua Reynolds
+have seldom, if ever, been surpassed in the history of Art. In the
+"Catalogue Raisonn&eacute;e" of his paintings, soon to be given to the public,
+nearly three thousand pictures will be enumerated. Many of these were,
+of course, finished by his assistants, according to the fashion of the
+time, but the expression of the face remains to attest the master's
+hand. (Unless, perchance, the head may have dropped off the canvas
+entirely, as happened once, when an unfortunate youth, who had borrowed
+one of his fine pictures to copy, was carrying it home under his arm.)</p>
+
+<p>In the record for the year 1758, we are startled by the number of one
+hundred and fifty sitters. And although this was probably the busiest
+year of his life, our astonishment never wanes while observing the
+ceaseless industry of every moment of his career, during the seventh day
+as well as the other six; and this, too, in spite of a promise won from
+him by Dr. Johnson, when on his death-bed, that he would never use his
+pencil on a Sunday. But the habit of a long working life was too strong
+upon him, and he soon persuaded himself that it was better to have made
+the promise than distress a dying friend, although he did not intend to
+observe it strictly.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Joshua possessed the high art of inciting himself to work by
+repeatedly soliciting the most beautiful and most interesting persons of
+the time to sit to him. The lovely face of Kitty Fisher was painted by
+him five times, and no less frequently that of the charming actress,
+Mrs. Abington, who was also noted for her <i>bel esprit</i>, and was
+evidently a favorite with the great painter. There are two or three
+pictures of Mrs. Siddons by his hand, and many of the beautiful Maria
+Countess Waldegrave, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester, a lock of whose
+"delicate golden-brown" hair was found by Mr. Taylor in a side-pocket of
+one of Sir Joshua's note-books,&mdash;"loveliest of all, whom Reynolds seems
+never to have been tired of painting, nor she of sitting to him."</p>
+
+<p>Of his numerous and invaluable pictures of Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith and
+Admiral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span> Keppel, it is hardly necessary to speak. Many of them are well
+known to us from engravings.</p>
+
+<p>To a painter, this Life is of incalculable interest and value. The
+account of his manner of handling "the vehicles" is minute and faithful;
+and if, as Northcote complained, who was a pupil of Reynolds, Sir Joshua
+could not teach, he could only show you how he worked,&mdash;many an artist
+can gather from these pages what Northcote gathered by looking from
+palette to canvas. The descriptions of some of the paintings are rich in
+color, and are worthy of the highest praise.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Joshua Reynolds is one of the few men of genius who have been also
+men of society. In his note-books for the year, sometimes the number of
+engagements for dinners and visits would preponderate over the number of
+his sitters, and sometimes the scale would be about equal. Yet the
+amount of the latter was always astonishingly large. Perhaps no man,
+through a long series of years, was more esteemed and sought by the most
+honorable in society than he; while his diary, with its meagre jottings,
+brings before us a motley and phantasmagorical procession of the wisest
+and wittiest, the most beautiful and most notorious men and women of
+that period, who thronged his studio. We can see the bitterest political
+opponents passing each other upon the threshold of his painting-room,
+and, what was far more agreeable to Sir Joshua than having to do with
+these stormy petrels, we can see the worshipping knight and his lovely
+mistress, or the fair-cheeked children of many a lady whom he had
+painted, years before, in the first blossoming of her own youth.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleness and natural amiability of his disposition eminently
+fitted him for the high social position he attained; but the fervor he
+felt for his work made him forget everything foreign to it until the
+hour arrived when he must leave his painting-room. He was fond of
+receiving company, especially at dinner, and his dinners were always
+most agreeable. He often annoyed his sister, Miss Reynolds, who presided
+over his household for a time, by inviting any friends who might happen
+into his studio in the morning to come to dine with him at night, quite
+forgetting that the number of seats he had provided was already filled
+by guests previously asked. The result was what might be expected, and
+it was often simply bare good fortune if everybody had enough to eat.
+But, "though the dinner might be careless and inelegant, and the
+servants awkward and too few," the talk was always pleasant, and no
+invitations to dine were more eagerly accepted than his.</p>
+
+<p>It was on the principle, perhaps, that "to the feasts of the good the
+good come uninvited," that Dr. Johnson made it a point to be present on
+these occasions, and was seldom welcomed otherwise than most cordially
+by Sir Joshua. On one occasion, however, when another guest was expected
+to converse, Sir Joshua was really vexed to find Dr. Johnson in the
+drawing-room, and would hardly speak to him. Miss Reynolds, who appears
+to have been one of the "unappreciated and misunderstood" women who
+thought she was a painter when she was not, and of whose copies Sir
+Joshua said, "They make other people laugh, and me cry," became a great
+favorite with Dr. Johnson, who probably knew how to sympathize with the
+morbid sensitiveness of the poor lady. She seems never to have tired of
+pouring tea for him! He, in return, wrote doggerel verses to her over
+the tea-tray in this fashion:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I therefore pray thee, Renny dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That thou wilt give to me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With cream and sugar softened well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Another dish of tea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Nor fear that I, my gentle maid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall long detain the cup,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When once unto the bottom I<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Have drunk the liquor up.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yet hear, alas! this mournful truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor hear it with a frown:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou canst not make the tea so fast<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As I can gulp it down."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No.
+102, April, 1866, by Various
+
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,10206 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102,
+April, 1866, 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 17, No. 102, April, 1866
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: May 9, 2007 [EBook #21408]
+
+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, Science, Art, and Politics._
+
+VOL. XVII.--APRIL, 1866.--NO. CII.
+
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, 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.
+
+
+
+
+LAST DAYS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
+
+
+PART I.
+
+When, in October, 1864, the European steamer brought us the intelligence
+of Walter Savage Landor's death, which occurred the month previous at
+Florence, newspaper readers asked, "Who is Landor?" The few who remember
+him remotely through the medium of Mr. Hillard's selections from his
+writings exclaimed, "What! Did he not die long ago?" The half-dozen
+Americans really familiar with this author knew that the fire of a
+genius unequalled in its way had gone out. Two or three, who were
+acquainted with the man even better than with his books, sighed, and
+thanked God! They thanked God that the old man's prayer had at last been
+answered, and that the curtain had been drawn on a life which in reality
+terminated ten years before, when old age became more than ripe. But
+Landor's walk into the dark valley was slow and majestic. Death fought
+long and desperately before he could claim his victim; and it was not
+until the last three years that body and mind grew thoroughly apathetic.
+"I have lost my intellect," said Landor, nearly two years ago: "for this
+I care not; but alas! I have lost my teeth and cannot eat!" Was it not
+time for him to go?
+
+    "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
+
+The glory of old age ceases when second childishness and oblivion begin;
+therefore we thanked God for His goodness in taking the lonely old man
+home.
+
+Long as was Landor's life and literary career, little is known of him
+personally. There are glimpses of him in Lady Blessington's Memoirs; and
+Emerson, in his "English Traits," describes two interviews with him in
+1843 at his Florentine villa. "I found him noble and courteous, living
+in a cloud of pictures.... I had inferred from his books, or magnified
+from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath,--an untamable
+petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just or not, but
+certainly on this May-day his courtesy veiled that haughty mind, and he
+was the most patient and gentle of hosts." According to the world's
+opinion, it was not always "May-day" with Landor, for the world neither
+preaches nor practices that rarity, human charity. Its instinct is a
+species of divining-rod, the virtue of which seems to be limited to a
+fatal facility in discovering frailty. Great men and women live in glass
+houses, and what passer-by can resist the temptation to throw stones? Is
+it generous, or even just, in scoffers who are safely hidden behind
+bricks and mortar, to take advantage of the glass? Could they show a
+nobler record if subjected to equally close scrutiny? Worshippers, too,
+at the shrines of inspiration are prone to look for ideal lives in their
+elect, forgetting that the divine afflatus is, after all, a gift,--that
+great thoughts are not the daily food of even the finest intellects. It
+is a necessity of nature for valleys to lie beneath the lofty mountain
+peaks that daringly pierce the sky; and it would seem as though the
+artist-temperament, after rising to sublime heights of ecstasy, plunged
+into corresponding depths, showing thereby the supremacy of the man over
+the god. Then is there much sighing and shaking of heads at the failings
+of genius, whereas genius in its depths sinks no lower than the ordinary
+level of mankind. It simply proves its title-deeds to mortality.
+Humanity at best is weak, and can only be divine by flashes. The Pythia
+was a stupid old woman, saving when she sat upon the tripod. Seeing
+genius to the best advantage in its work,--not always, but most
+frequently,--they are wisest who love the artist without demanding
+personal perfection. It is rational to conclude that the loftiest
+possible genius should be allied to the most perfect specimen of man,
+heart holding equal sway with head. A great man, however, need not be a
+great artist,--that is, of course, understood; but time ought to prove
+that the highest form of art can only emanate from the noblest type of
+humanity. The most glorious inspirations must flow through the purest
+channels. But this is the genius of the future, as far removed from what
+is best known as order is removed from chaos. The genius most familiar
+is not often founded on common sense; the _plus_ of one faculty denotes
+the _minus_ of another; and matter-of-fact people, who rule the
+world,--as they should,--and who have never dreamed of an inclination
+from the perpendicular, bestow little patience and less sympathy on
+vagaries, moral and mental, than, partly natural, are aggravated by that
+"capacity for joy" which "admits temptation."
+
+Landor's characteristic fault, in fact his vice, was that of a temper so
+undisciplined and impulsive as to be somewhat hurricanic in its
+consequences, though, not unlike the Australian boomerang, it frequently
+returned whence it came, and injured no one but the possessor.
+Circumstances aggravated, rather than diminished, this Landorian
+idiosyncrasy. Born in prosperity, heir to a large landed estate, and
+educated in aristocratic traditions, Walter Savage Landor began life
+without a struggle, and throughout a long career remained master of the
+situation, independent of the world and its favors. Perhaps too much
+freedom is as unfortunate in its results upon character as too much
+dependence. A nature to be properly developed should receive as well as
+give; otherwise it must be an angelic disposition that does not become
+tyrannical. All animated nature is despotic, the strong preying upon the
+weak. If men and women do not devour one another, it is merely because
+they dare not. The law of self-preservation prevents them from becoming
+anthropophagi. A knowledge that the eater may in his turn be eaten, is
+not appetizing. Materially and professionally successful, possessed of a
+physique that did honor to his ancestors and Nature, no shadows fell on
+Landor's path to chasten his spirit. Trials he endured of a private
+nature grievous in the extreme, yet calculated to harden rather than
+soften the heart,--trials of which others were partially the cause, and
+which probably need not have been had his character been understood and
+rightly dealt with. There is a soothing system for men as well as
+horses,--even for human Cruisers,--and the Rarey who reduces it to a
+science will deserve the world's everlasting gratitude. Powerful natures
+are likely to be as strong in their weaknesses as in their virtues;
+this, however, is a reckoning entirely too rational to be largely
+indulged in by the packed jury that holds inquest over the bodies,
+rather than the souls, of men. In his old age at least, Landor's
+irascibility amounted to temporary madness, for which he was no more
+responsible than is the sick man for the feverish ravings of delirium.
+That miserable law-suit at Bath, which has done so much to drag the name
+of Landor into the mire, would never have been prosecuted had its
+instigators had any respect for themselves or any decent appreciation of
+their victim.
+
+But Landor in his best moods was chivalry incarnate. His courtly manners
+toward ladies were particularly noticeable from the rarity of so much
+external polish in the new school of Anglo-Saxon gallantry. It was a
+pleasure to receive compliments from him; for they generally lay
+imbedded in the _sauce piquante_ of a _bon mot_. Having one day dropped
+his spectacles, which were picked up and presented to him by an American
+girl, Landor quickly exclaimed, with a grace not to be translated into
+words, "Ah, this is not the first time you have caught my eyes!" It was
+to the same young lady that he addressed this heretofore unpublished
+poem:--
+
+    "TO K. F.
+
+    "Kisses in former times I've seen,
+    Which, I confess it, raised my spleen;
+    They were contrived by Love to mock
+    The battledoor and shuttlecock.
+    Given, returned,--how strange a play,
+    Where neither loses all the day,
+    And both are, even when night sets in,
+    Again as ready to begin!
+    I am not sure I have not played
+    This very game with some fair maid.
+    Perhaps it was a dream; but this
+    I _know_ was not; I _know_ a kiss
+    Was given me in the sight of more
+    Than ever saw me kissed before.
+    Modest as winged angels are,
+    And no less brave and no less fair,
+    She came across, nor greatly feared,
+    The horrid brake of wintry beard.
+
+    "WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
+
+    "Sienna, July, 1860."
+
+The following papers, in so far as they relate to Landor personally, are
+not reminiscences of him in the zenith of fame. They contain glimpses of
+the old man of Florence in the years 1859, 1860, and 1861, just before
+the intellectual light began to flicker and go out. Even then Landor was
+cleverer, and, provided he was properly approached, more interesting
+than many younger men of genius. I shall ever esteem it one of the great
+privileges of my life that I was permitted to know him well, and call
+him friend. These papers are given to the public with the hope that they
+may be of more than ordinary interest to the intelligent reader, and
+that they may delineate Landor in more truthful colors than those in
+which he has heretofore been painted. In repeating conversations, I have
+endeavored to stand in the background, where I very properly belong. For
+the inevitable egotism of the personal pronoun, I hope to be pardoned by
+all charitable souls. That Landor, the octogenarian, has not been
+photographed by a more competent person, is certainly not my fault.
+Having had the good fortune to enjoy opportunities beyond my deserts, I
+should have shown a great want of appreciation had I not availed myself
+of them. If, in referring to Landor, I avoid the prefix "Mr.," it is
+because I feel, with Lady Blessington, that "there are some people, and
+he is of those, whom one cannot designate as 'Mr.' I should as soon
+think of adding the word to his name, as, in talking of some of the
+great writers of old, to prefix it to theirs."
+
+It was a modest house in a modest street that Landor inhabited during
+the last six years of his life. Tourists can have no recollection of the
+_Via Nunziatina_, directly back of the "Carmine" in the old part of
+Florence; but there is no loving lounger about those picturesque streets
+that does not remember how, strolling up the _Via dei Seragli_, one
+encounters the old shrine to the Madonna, which marks the entrance to
+that street made historical henceforth for having sheltered a great
+English writer. There, half-way down the _via_, in that little two-story
+_casa_, No. 2671, dwelt Walter Savage Landor, with his English
+housekeeper and _cameriera_. Sitting-room, bed-room, and dining-room
+opened into each other; and in the former he was always found, in a
+large arm-chair, surrounded by paintings; for he declared he could not
+live without them. His snowy hair and beard of patriarchal proportions,
+clear, keen, gray eyes, and grand head made the old poet greatly
+resemble Michel Angelo's world-renowned masterpiece of "Moses"; nor was
+the formation of Landor's forehead unlike that of Shakespeare. "If, as
+you declare," said he, jokingly, one day, "I look like that meekest of
+men, Moses and Shakespeare, I ought to be exceedingly good and somewhat
+clever."
+
+At Landor's feet was always crouched a beautiful Pomeranian dog, the
+gift of his kind American friend, William W. Story. The affection
+existing between "Gaillo" and his master was really touching. Gaillo's
+eyes were always turned towards Landor's; and upon the least
+encouragement, the dog would jump into his lap, lay his head most
+lovingly upon his master's neck, and generally deport himself in a very
+human manner. "Gaillo is such a dear dog!" said Landor, one day, while
+patting him. "We are very fond of each other, and always have a game of
+play after dinner; sometimes, when he is very good, we have two. I am
+sure I could not live, if he died; and I know that, when I am gone, he
+will grieve for me." Thereupon Gaillo wagged his tail, and looked
+piteously into _padrone's_ face, as much as to say he would be grieved
+indeed. Upon being asked if he thought dogs would be admitted into
+heaven, Landor answered: "And, pray, why not? They have all of the good
+and none of the bad qualities of man." No matter upon what subject
+conversation turned, Gaillo's feelings were consulted. He was the only
+and chosen companion of Landor in his walks; but few of the Florentines
+who stopped to remark the _vecchio con quel bel canino_, knew how great
+was the man upon whom they thus commented.
+
+It is seldom that England gives birth to so rampant a republican as
+Landor. Born on the 30th of January, two years before our Declaration of
+Independence, it is probable that the volcanic action of those troublous
+times had no little influence in permeating the mind of the embryo poet
+with that enthusiasm for and love of liberty for which he was
+distinguished in maturer years. From early youth, Landor was a poor
+respecter of royalty and rank _per se_. He often related, with great
+good-humor, an incident of his boyhood which brought his democratic
+ideas into domestic disgrace. An influential bishop of the Church of
+England, happening to dine with young Landor's father one day, assailed
+Porson, and, with self-assumed superiority, thinking to annihilate the
+old Grecian, exclaimed "_We_ have no opinion of his scholarship." Irate
+at this stupid pronunciamento against so renowned a man, young Landor
+looked up, and, with a sarcasm the point of which was not in the least
+blunted by age, retorted, "_We_, my Lord?" Of course such unheard of
+audacity and contempt of my Lord Bishop's capacity for criticism was
+severely reprobated by Landor Senior; but no amount of reproof could
+force his son into a confession of sorrow.
+
+"At Oxford," said Landor, "I was about the first student who wore his
+hair without powder. 'Take care,' said my tutor. 'They will stone you
+for a republican.' The Whigs (not the wigs) were then unpopular; but I
+stuck to my plain hair and queue tied with black ribbon."
+
+Of Landor's mature opinion of republics in general we glean much from a
+passage of the "Pentameron," in which the author adorns Petrarca with
+his own fine thoughts.
+
+"When the familiars of absolute princes taunt us, as they are wont to
+do, with the only apothegm they ever learnt by heart,--namely, that it
+is better to be ruled by one master than by many,--I quite agree with
+them; unity of power being the principle of republicanism, while the
+principle of despotism is division and delegation. In the one system,
+every man conducts his own affairs, either personally or through the
+agency of some trustworthy representative, which is essentially the
+same: in the other system, no man, in quality of citizen, has any
+affairs of his own to conduct; but a tutor has been as much set over him
+as over a lunatic, as little with his option or consent, and without any
+provision, as there is in the case of the lunatic, for returning reason.
+Meanwhile, the spirit of republics is omnipresent in them, as active in
+the particles as in the mass, in the circumference as in the centre.
+Eternal it must be, as truth and justice are, although not stationary."
+
+Let Europeans who, having predicted dismemberment of our Union,
+proclaimed death to democracy, and those thoughtless Americans who
+believe that liberty cannot survive the destruction of our Republic,
+think well of what great men have written. Though North America were
+submerged to-morrow, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans rushing over our
+buried hopes to a riotous embrace, republicanism would live as long as
+the elements endure,--borne on every wind, inhaled in every breath of
+air, abiding its opportunity to become an active principle. Absorbed in
+our own peculiar form of egotism, we believe that a Supreme Being has
+cast the cause of humanity upon one die, to prosper or perish by the
+chances of our game. What belittling of the Almighty! what magnifying of
+ourselves!
+
+Though often urged, Landor never became a candidate for Parliamentary
+honors. Political wire-pulling was not to the taste of a man who,
+notwithstanding large landed interests, could say: "I never was at a
+public dinner, at a club or hustings. I never influenced or attempted to
+influence a vote, and yet many, and not only my own tenants, have asked
+me to whom they should give theirs." Nor was he ever presented at court,
+although a presentation would have been at the request of the (at that
+time) Regent. Landor would not countenance a system of court-favor that
+opens its arms to every noodle wearing an officer's uniform, and almost
+universally turns its back upon intellect. He put not his faith in
+princes, and of titles says: "Formerly titles were inherited by men who
+could not write; they now are conferred on men who will not let others.
+Theirs may have been the darker age; ours is the duller. In theirs a
+high spirit was provoked; in ours, proscribed. In theirs the bravest
+were pre-eminent; in ours, the basest."
+
+Although a democrat, Landor was not indifferent to the good name of his
+own ancestors, not because of a long pedigree, but because many of these
+ancestors were historical personages and served their country long and
+well. That stock must be worthy of honorable mention which, extending
+with its ramifications over several centuries, gives to the world its
+finest fruit in its latest scion. It is a satisfaction to spring from
+hidalgo blood when the advantages of gentle rearing are demonstrated by
+being greater than one's fathers. In Lander's most admirable "Citation
+and Examination of William Shakespeare," the youngster whom Sir Silas
+Gough declares to be as "deep as the big tankard" says, "out of his own
+head":--"Hardly any man is ashamed of being inferior to his ancestors,
+although it is the very thing at which the great should blush, if,
+indeed, the great in general descended from the worthy. I did expect to
+see the day, and, although I shall not see it, it must come at last,
+when he shall be treated as a madman or an impostor who dares to claim
+nobility or precedency, and cannot show his family name in the history
+of his country. Even he who can show it, and who cannot write his own
+under it in the same or as goodly characters, must submit to the
+imputation of degeneracy, from which the lowly and obscure are exempt."
+Good old Penn, too, is made a lay figure upon which Landor dressed his
+thoughts, when the Quaker tells Lord Peterborough: "Of all pride,
+however, and all folly, the grossest is where a man who possesses no
+merit in himself shall pretend to an equality with one who does possess
+it, and shall found this pretension on no better plea or title than
+that, although he hath it not, his grandfather had. I would use no
+violence or coercion with any rational creature; but, rather than that
+such a bestiality in a human form should run about the streets uncured,
+I would shout like a stripling for the farrier at his furnace, and
+unthong the drenching horn from my stable-door." Landor could write his
+name under that of his family in as goodly characters, therefore he was
+not ashamed to relate anecdotes of his forefathers. It was with honest
+satisfaction that he perpetuated the memory of two of these worthies in
+the "Imaginary Conversations" between King Henry IV. and Sir Arnold
+Savage, and Oliver Cromwell and Walter Noble. "Sir Arnold, according to
+Elsynge, 'was the first who appears _upon any record_' to have been
+appointed to the dignity of Speaker in the House of Commons, as now
+constituted. He was elected a second time, four years afterwards, a rare
+honor in earlier days; and during this presidency he headed the Commons,
+and delivered their resolutions in the plain words recorded by
+Hakewell." These "plain words" were, that no subsidy should be granted
+to Henry IV. until every cause of public grievance had been removed.
+Landor came rightly by his independence of thought. "Walter Noble
+represented the city of Lichfield; he lived familiarly with the best
+patriots of the age, remonstrated with Cromwell, and retired from public
+life on the punishment of Charles."
+
+Landor was very fond of selecting the grand old Roundheads for his
+conversations. In their society he was most at home, and with them he
+was able to air his pet opinions. Good Andrew Marvell, a man after the
+author's own heart, discourses upon this matter of family: "Between the
+titled man of ancient and the titled man of recent date, the difference,
+if any, is in favor of the last. Suppose them both raised for merit,
+(here, indeed, we do come to theory!) the benefits that society has
+received from him are nearer us.... Some of us may look back six or
+seven centuries, and find a stout ruffian at the beginning." In England,
+where the institutions are such that a title of nobility is considered
+by the majority to be the highest reward attainable by merit, it is not
+surprising that the great god of Rank should be worshipped at the family
+altar of Form. In England, too, it must be acknowledged that men of rank
+are men of education, frequently of culture, and are useful to the
+nation as patrons of art and of science; therefore nobility frequently
+means absolute gentility. But in America what good can be said of those
+who, living upon the fortunes of fathers or grandfathers, amassed in
+honest trade,--residents of a particular street which is thereby
+rendered pluperfectly genteel,--with no recommendation but that derived
+from fashion and idleness,--draw the lines of social demarcation more
+closely than they are drawn in Europe, intellect and accomplishments
+being systematically snubbed where the possessors cannot show their
+family passes? Is not this attempt to graft the foibles of an older and
+more corrupt civilization upon our institutions, a disgrace to
+republicanism? Were the truth known, we should be able to report the
+existence of many advocates of monarchy, a privileged class, and an
+established church, among those into whose ancestry it would be unsafe
+to dig deeper than a second generation; by digging deeper we might touch
+sugar or tumble into a vat of molasses, and then what blushes for false
+pride!
+
+A very different idea of a great man from that of the vulgar do we get
+out of Landor's writings. His Diogenes tells us, (and very like the
+original seeker after honesty do we take him to be,) that "the great
+man is he who hath nothing to fear and nothing to hope from another. It
+is he who, while he demonstrates the iniquity of the laws and is able to
+correct them, obeys them peaceably. It is he who looks on the ambitious
+both as weak and fraudulent. It is he who hath no disposition or
+occasion for any kind of conceit, no reason for being or for appearing
+different from what he is. It is he who can call together the most
+select company when it pleases him." And Petrarca says that "Time the
+Sovran is first to discover the truly great." Yet, though we put faith
+in the justice of posterity, even Time plays many a one false through
+misplaced favoritism. "They, O Timotheus," exclaims the imaginary
+Lucian, "who survive the wreck of ages, are by no means, as a body, most
+worthy of our admiration. It is in these wrecks as in those at sea,--the
+best things are not always saved. Hencoops and empty barrels bob upon
+the surface, under a serene and smiling sky, when the graven or depicted
+images of the gods are scattered on invisible rocks, and when those who
+most resembled them in knowledge and beneficence are devoured by cold
+monsters below." We claim, however, that Lucian's theory is good for
+this world only, as we believe that soul, though it may be temporarily
+wrecked, speeds on to the inevitable justice of eternity. And can we,
+now that the fever of military glory is upon us, remember that, great as
+may be the man who conquers his country's enemies upon the battle-field,
+he is far greater who conquers the prejudices of his age and instils
+into groping masses the doctrines of a more glorious civilization?
+
+    "For civilisation perfected
+    Is fully developed Christianity."
+
+Every generation has two or three such men; no age has enough moral
+courage to give birth to more. They live under protest,--thought alone
+is free,--and when these men, fifty years in advance of their times,
+proclaim God's truth with the enthusiasm begotten of religion,
+grub-worms that rule the great _status quo_ sting the prophets with all
+the virus of their nature, and render each step forward as difficult as
+was once the passage of the Simplon. There is no stumbling-block like
+that of ignorance, and he who would remove it must wear the holy crown
+of thorns. We speak of the horrors of the Inquisition as things of the
+past. Are we so sure of this? Has not prejudice invented most exquisite
+tortures for reformers of all ages? America has her sins to answer for
+in this respect.
+
+    "Because ye prosper in God's name,
+          With a claim.
+    To honor in the old world's sight,
+    Yet do the fiend's work perfectly
+    In strangling martyrs,--for this lie
+    This is the curse."
+
+On the stubbornness of _Status Quo_ none have written better than
+Landor. "Unbendingness, in the moral as in the vegetable world, is an
+indication as frequently of unsoundness as of strength. Indeed, wise
+men, kings as well as others, have been free from it. Stiff necks are
+diseased ones."
+
+It was impossible to be in Landor's society a half-hour and not reap
+advantage. His great learning, varied information, extensive
+acquaintance with the world's celebrities, ready wit, and even readier
+repartee, rendered his conversation wonderfully entertaining. He would
+narrate anecdote after anecdote with surprising accuracy, being
+possessed of a singularly retentive memory, that could refer to a
+catalogue of notables far longer than Don Giovanni's picture-gallery of
+conquests. Names, it is true, he was frequently unable to recall, and
+supplied their place with a "God bless my soul, I forget everything";
+but facts were indelibly stamped upon his mind. He referred back to the
+year _one_ with as much facility as a person of the rising generation
+invokes the shade of some deed dead a few years. I looked with wonder
+upon a person who remembered Napoleon Bonaparte as a slender young man,
+and listened with delight to a voice from so dim a past. "I was in
+Paris," said Landor one day, "at the time that Bonaparte made his
+entrance as First Consul. I was standing within a few feet of him when
+he passed, and had a capital good look at him. He was exceedingly
+handsome then, with a rich olive complexion and oval face, youthful as a
+girl's. Near him rode Murat, mounted upon a gold-clad charger,--and very
+handsome he was too, but coxcombical."
+
+Like the rest of human kind, Landor had his prejudices,--they were very
+many. Foremost among them was an antipathy to the Bonaparte family. It
+is not necessary to have known him personally to be aware of his
+detestation of the first Napoleon, as in the conversation between
+himself, an English and a Florentine visitor, he gives expression to a
+generous indignation, which may well be inserted here, as it contains
+the pith of what Landor repeated in many a social talk. "This Holy
+Alliance will soon appear unholy to every nation in Europe. I despised
+Napoleon in the plenitude of his power no less than others despise him
+in the solitude of his exile: I thought him no less an impostor when he
+took the ermine, than when he took the emetic. I confess I do not love
+him the better, as some mercenaries in England and Scotland do, for
+having been the enemy of my country; nor should I love him the less for
+it, had his enmity been principled and manly. In what manner did this
+cruel wretch treat his enthusiastic admirer and humble follower,
+Toussaint l'Ouverture? He was thrown into a subterranean call, solitary,
+dark, damp, pestiferously unclean, where rheumatism racked his limbs,
+and where famine terminated his existence." Again, in his written
+opinions of Caesar, Cromwell, Milton, and Bonaparte, Landor criticises
+the career of the latter with no fondness, but with much truth, and
+justly says, that "Napoleon, in the last years of his sovereignty,
+fought without aim, vanquished without glory, and perished without
+defeat."
+
+Great as was Landor's dislike to the uncle, it paled before his
+detestation of the reigning Emperor,--a detestation too general to be
+designated an idiosyncrasy on the part of the poet. We always knew who
+was meant when a sentence was prefaced with "that rascal" or "that
+scoundrel,"--such were the epithets substituted for the name of Louis
+Napoleon. Believing the third Napoleon to be the worst enemy of his
+foster-mother, Italy, as well as of France, Landor bestowed upon him
+less love, if possible, than the majority of Englishmen. Having been
+personally acquainted with the Emperor when he lived in England as an
+exile, Landor, unlike many of Napoleon's enemies, acknowledged the
+superiority of his intellect. "I used to see a great deal of the Prince
+when he was in London. I met him very frequently of an evening at Lady
+Blessington's, and had many conversations with him, as he always sought
+me and made himself particularly civil. He was a very clever man, well
+informed on most subjects. The fops used to laugh at him, and call him a
+bore. A coxcombical young lord came up to me one evening after the
+Prince had taken his leave, and said, 'Mr. Landor, how _can_ you talk to
+that fool, Prince Napoleon?' To which I replied, 'My Lord, it takes a
+fool to find out that he is not a wise man!' His Lordship retired
+somewhat discomfited," added Landor with a laugh, "The Prince presented
+me with his work on Artillery, and invited me to his house. He had a
+very handsome establishment, and was not at all the poor man he is so
+often said to have been." Of this book Landor writes in an article to
+the "Quarterly Review" (I think): "If it is any honor, it has been
+conferred on me to have received from Napoleon's heir the literary work
+he composed in prison, well knowing, as he did, and expressing his
+regret for, my sentiments on his uncle. The explosion of the first
+cannon against Rome threw us apart forever." I shall not soon forget
+Landor's lively narration of Napoleon's escape from the prison at Ham,
+given in the same language in which it was told to him by the Prince. I
+would feign repeat it here, were it not that an account of this
+wonderful escape found its way into print some years ago. _Apropos_ of
+Napoleon, an old friend of Landor's told me that, while in London, the
+Prince was in the habit of calling upon him after dinner. He would sip
+_cafe noir_, smoke a cigar, ply his host with every conceivable
+question, but otherwise maintain a dignified reticence. It seems then
+that Louis Napoleon is indebted to nature, as well as to art, for his
+masterly ability in keeping his own counsel.
+
+Among other persons of note encountered by Landor at Lady Blessington's
+was Rachel. It was many years ago, before her star had attained its
+zenith. "She took tea with her Ladyship, and was accompanied by a female
+attendant, her mother I think. Rachel had very little to say, and left
+early, as she had an engagement at the theatre. There was nothing
+particularly noticeable in her appearance, but she was very ladylike. I
+never met her again."
+
+Landor entertained a genuine affection for the memory of Lady
+Blessington. "Ah, there was a woman!" he exclaimed one day with a sigh.
+"I never knew so brilliant and witty a person in conversation. She was
+most generous too, and kind-hearted. I never heard her make an
+ill-natured remark. It was my custom to visit her whenever the laurel
+was in bloom; and as the season approached, she would write me a note,
+saying, 'Gore House expects you, for the laurel has begun to blossom.' I
+never see laurel now, that it does not make me sad, for it recalls her
+to me so vividly. During these visits I never saw Lady Blessington until
+dinner-time. She always breakfasted in her own room, and wrote during
+the morning. She wrote very well, too; her style was pure. In the
+evening her drawing-room was thrown open to her friends, except when she
+attended the opera. Her opera-box faced the Queen's, and a formidable
+rival she was to her Majesty."
+
+"D'Orsay was an Apollo in beauty, very amiable, and had considerable
+talent for modelling." Taking me into his little back sitting-room,
+Landor brought out a small album, and, passing over the likenesses of
+several old friends, among whom were Southey, Porson, Napier, and other
+celebrities, he held up an engraving of Lady Blessington. Upon my
+remarking its beauty, Landor replied: "That was taken at the age of
+fifty, so you can imagine how beautiful she must have been in her youth.
+Her voice and laugh were very musical." Then, turning to a young lady
+present, Landor made her an exceedingly neat compliment, by saying,
+"_Your_ voice reminds me very vividly of Lady Blessington's. Perhaps,"
+he continued with a smile, "this is the reason why my old, deaf ears
+never lose a word when you are speaking." Driving along the north side
+of the Arno, one summer's day, Landor gazed sadly at a terrace
+overlooking the water, and said: "Many a delightful evening have I spent
+on that terrace with Lord and Lady Blessington. There we used to take
+our tea. They once visited Florence for no other purpose than to see me.
+Was not that friendly? They are both dead now, and I am doomed to live
+on. When Lady Blessington died, I was asked to write a Latin epitaph for
+her tomb, which I did; but some officious person thought to improve the
+Latin before it was engraved, and ruined it."
+
+This friendship was fully reciprocated by Lady Blessington, who, in her
+letters to Landor, refers no less than three times to those "calm nights
+on the terrace of the Casa Pelosi." "I send you," she writes, "the
+engraving, and have only to wish that it may sometimes remind you of the
+original.... Five fleeting years have gone by since our delicious
+evenings on the lovely Arno,--evenings never to be forgotten, and the
+recollections of which ought to cement the friendships then formed."
+Again, in her books of travel,--the "Idler in France" and "Idler in
+Italy,"--Lady Blessington pays the very highest tribute to Landor's
+heart, as well as intellect, and declares his real conversations to be
+quite as delightful as his imaginary ones. She who will live long in
+history as the friend of great men now lies "beneath the chestnut shade
+of Saint Germain"; and Landor, with the indignation of one who loved
+her, has turned to D'Orsay, asking
+
+    "Who was it squandered all her wealth,
+    And swept away the bloom of health?"
+
+Although a Latinist, Landor did not approve of making those who have
+passed away doubly dead to a majority of the living by Latin eulogy. In
+an interesting conversation he gives the following opinion: "Although I
+have written at various times a great number of such inscriptions"
+(Latin), "as parts of literature, yet I think nothing is so absurd, if
+you only inscribe them on a tomb. Why should extremely few persons, the
+least capable, perhaps, of sympathy, be invited to sympathize, while
+thousands are excluded from it by the iron grate of a dead language?
+Those who read a Latin inscription are the most likely to know already
+the character of the defunct, and no new feelings are to be excited in
+them; but the language of the country tells the ignorant who he was that
+lies under the turf before them; and, if he was a stranger, it
+naturalizes him among them; it gives him friends and relations; it
+brings to him and detains about him some who may imitate, many who will
+lament him. We have no right to deprive any one of a tender sentiment,
+by talking in an unknown tongue to him, when his heart would listen and
+answer to his own; we have no right to turn a chapel into a library,
+locking it with a key which the lawful proprietors cannot turn."
+
+I once asked Landor to describe Wordsworth's personal appearance. He
+laughed and replied: "The best description I can give you of Wordsworth
+is the one that Hazlitt gave _me_. Hazlitt's voice was very deep and
+gruff, and he peppered his sentences very bountifully with 'sirs.' In
+speaking to me of Wordsworth, he said: 'Well, sir, did you ever see a
+horse, sir?' 'Yes.' 'Then, sir, you have seen Wordsworth, sir! He looks
+exactly like a horse, sir, and a very long-faced horse at that, sir!'
+And he did look like a horse," added Landor.
+
+Those who have seen good likenesses of Wordsworth will readily remark
+this resemblance. A greater length of ear would liken the Lake poet to
+an animal of less dignity.
+
+Continuing the conversation thus begun, Landor said: "I saw a great deal
+of Hazlitt when he was in Florence. He called upon me frequently, and a
+funny fellow he was. He used to say to me: 'Mr. Landor, I like you,
+sir,--I like you very much, sir,--you're an honest man, sir; but I don't
+approve, sir, of a great deal that you have written, sir. You must
+reform some of your opinions, sir.'" And again Landor laughed with great
+good-will.
+
+"I regret that I saw Charles Lamb but once," replied Landor, in answer
+to many questions asked concerning this delightful man and writer. "Lamb
+sent word by Southey" (I think it was Southey) "that he would be very
+happy to see me, whereupon we made him a visit. He had then retired from
+the India House, and lived at Enfield. He was most charming in
+conversation, and his smile impressed me as being particularly genial.
+His sister also was a very agreeable person. During my visit, Lamb rose,
+went to a table in the centre of the room, and took up a book, out of
+which he read aloud. Soon shutting it, he turned to me, saying: 'Is not
+what I have been reading exceedingly good?' 'Very good,' I replied.
+Thereupon Lamb burst out laughing, and exclaimed: 'Did one ever know so
+conceited a man as Mr. Landor? He has actually praised his own ideas!'
+It was now my turn to laugh, as I had not the slightest remembrance of
+having written what Lamb had read."
+
+Are there many to whom the following lines will not be better than new?
+
+    "Once, and only once, have I seen thy face,
+    Elia! once only has thy tripping tongue
+    Run o'er my breast, yet never has been left
+    Impression on it stronger or more sweet.
+    Cordial old man! what youth was in thy years,
+    What wisdom in thy levity! what truth
+    In every utterance of that purest soul!
+    Few are the spirits of the glorified
+    I'd spring to earlier at the gate of Heaven."
+
+Being asked if he had met Byron, Landor replied: "I never saw Byron but
+once, and then accidentally. I went into a perfumery shop in London to
+purchase a pot of the ottar of roses, which at that time was very rare
+and expensive. As I entered the shop a handsome young man, with a slight
+limp in his walk, passed me and went out. The shopkeeper directed my
+attention to him, saying: 'Do you know who that is, sir?' 'No,' I
+answered. 'That is the young Lord Byron.' He had been purchasing some
+fancy soaps, and at that time was the fashion. I never desired to meet
+him."
+
+As all the world knows, there was little love lost between these two
+great writers; but it was the man, not the poet, that Landor so
+cordially disliked.
+
+
+
+
+MY ANNUAL.
+
+FOR THE "BOYS OF '29."
+
+
+    How long will this harp which you once loved to hear
+    Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear?
+    How long stir the echoes it wakened of old,
+    While its strings were unbroken, untarnished its gold?
+
+    Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do you wrong;
+    The heart, the heart only, shall throb in my song;
+    It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes,--
+    "We will bid our old harper play on till he dies."
+
+    Though Youth, the fair angel that looked o'er the strings,
+    Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings,
+    Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone,
+    It is still the old harp that was always your own.
+
+    I claim not its music,--each note it affords
+    I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords;
+    I know you will listen and love to the last,
+    For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past.
+
+    Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold
+    No craftsman could string and no artisan mould;
+    He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres
+    That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs.
+
+    Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings,
+    Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings;
+    Those shapes are the phantoms of years that have fled,
+    Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed.
+
+    Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this,
+    Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss;
+    The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will,
+    Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still.
+
+    The bird wanders careless while Summer is green,
+    The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen;
+    When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed,
+    The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest.
+
+    Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling
+    Is the light of our year, is the gem in its ring,
+    So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget
+    The rays it has lost, and its border of jet.
+
+    While round us the many-hued halo is shed,
+    How dear are the living, how near are the dead!
+    One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below,
+    Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow!
+
+    Not life shall enlarge it, nor death shall divide,--
+    No brother new-born finds his place at my side;
+    No titles shall freeze us, no grandeurs infest,--
+    His Honor, His Worship, are boys like the rest.
+
+    Some won the world's homage,--their names we hold dear,--
+    But Friendship, not Fame, is the countersign here;
+    Make room by the conqueror crowned in the strife
+    For the comrade that limps from the battle of life!
+
+    What tongue talks of battle? Too long we have heard
+    In sorrow, in anguish, that terrible word;
+    It reddened the sunshine, it crimsoned the wave,
+    It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our brave.
+
+    Peace, Peace, comes at last, with her garland of white;
+    Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to-night;
+    The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun;
+    We echo its words,--We are One! We are One!
+
+
+
+
+WERE THEY CRICKETS?
+
+
+About seven years ago, (it is possible that some of my readers may
+recall it,) the following paragraph appeared in the New York daily
+papers;--
+
+     "MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.--A young man named George Snyder
+     left the residence of his parents in Thirty-Third Street, last
+     Friday evening without his hat and taking nothing with him but
+     the suit which he was wearing (dark doeskin pants, and
+     invisible-green coat), and has not yet been heard from. It is
+     feared that he has wandered, in some sudden mental derangement,
+     off the wharves. Any information which may lead to his
+     discovery will be gratefully received by the distressed
+     parents."
+
+No information was ever received until the 1st of April last, when the
+missing man himself returned to his father's house, as mysteriously as
+he went, and was welcomed as one risen from the dead. I am that George
+Snyder, and propose to give now a brief account of that strange going
+and coming. Since April last I have been engaged, as well as the
+excitement of listening to the narrative of the great events which had
+taken place in my native land during my absence would allow me, in
+preparing for publication a history of my observations, made during the
+six years' absence; but of this history I can now give merely an
+outline.
+
+On the night of my departure, November 5, 1858, I was sitting in my own
+room, studying Gauss's "Theoria Motus"; and, as was often the case with
+me, I grew so absorbed in the study as to lose all consciousness of
+outward things beyond the limits of the single page before me. I had
+forgotten the time of night,--nay, I could not have recalled the time of
+my life, whether I was in college or had graduated, whether I had
+entered on my profession or was preparing for it. My loss of the sense
+of space was as absolute as my loss of the sense of time, and I could
+not have said whether I was in my father's house in New York, or in my
+room in Wentworth Hall, or in my office in Jersey City. I only knew that
+the page, illuminated by a drop gas-light, was before me, and on it the
+record of that brilliant triumph of the human intellect, the deduction
+of a planet's entire orbit from observations of its position.
+
+As I sat thus absorbed, my attention was partially diverted by a slight
+tapping, as if upon the very table upon which my book was resting.
+Without raising my eyes from the page, I allowed my thoughts to wander,
+as I inquired within myself what could have produced the noise. Could it
+be that I was thus suddenly "developed as a medium," and that the spirit
+of some departed friend wished to communicate with me? I rejected the
+thought instantly, for I was no believer in modern necromancy. But no
+sooner had I mentally decided that this was not the true explanation
+than I began to feel my right hand tremble in an unnatural manner, and
+my fingers close against my will around a pencil which I had been
+loosely holding. Then suddenly, upon the paper on which I
+had been occasionally filling out the omitted links in Gauss's
+mathematical reasoning, my hand, against my will, legibly scrawled,
+"_Copernicus_,"--upon which a renewed tapping was heard upon the table.
+I sprang out of my chair, as one startled out of sleep, and looked about
+the room. My full consciousness of time and place returned, and I saw
+nothing unusual about my apartment; there were the books, the chairs,
+and even the table, standing in motionless silence as usual. I concluded
+that my late hours and excessive concentration on my studies had made me
+nervous, or else that I had had a dream. I closed the book and prepared
+to go to bed. Like school-boy whistling to keep his courage up, I began
+to talk aloud, saying: "I wish Copernicus would really come and carry me
+off to explore the solar system; I fancy that I could make a better
+report than Andrew Jackson Davis has done."
+
+I tremble even now as I recall the instantaneous effect of those words.
+While I was still speaking, all earthly things vanished suddenly from my
+sight. There was no floor beneath me, no ceiling above, no walls around.
+There was even no earth below me, and no sky above. Look where I would,
+nothing was visible but my own body. My clothing shone with a pale blue
+light, by which I could peer into the surrounding darkness to the
+distance, as I should judge, of about twenty or thirty feet. I was
+apparently hanging, like a planet, in mid-ether, resting upon nothing.
+Horrible amazement seized me, as the conviction flashed through me like
+an electric shock that I must have lost my reason. In a few moments,
+however, this terror subsided; I felt certain that my thoughts were
+rational, and concluded that it was some affection of the optic nerve.
+But in a very few seconds I discovered by internal sensations that I was
+in motion, in a rapid, irregular, and accelerating motion. Awful horror
+again seized me; I screamed out a despairing cry for help, and fainted.
+
+When I recovered from the swoon, I found myself lying on a grassy bank
+near a sea-shore, with strange trees waving over me. The sun was
+apparently an hour high. I was dressed as on the preceding evening,
+without a hat. The air was deliciously mild, the landscape before me
+lovely and grand. I said to myself: "This is a beautiful dream; it must
+be a dream." But it was too real, and I said, "Can it be that I am
+asleep?" I pinched my arms, I went to the sea and dipped my head in the
+waters,--'t was in vain; I could not awake myself, because I was already
+awake.
+
+"No!" I replied, "you are not awake." Do you not remember that saying of
+Engel, that when men dream of asking whether they are awake, they always
+dream that they answer yes? But I said, I will apply two tests of my own
+which have often, when I was dreaming, convinced me that I was asleep
+and thus enabled me to awake. I gathered some pebbles and began to count
+them and lay them in heaps, and count them over again. There were no
+discrepancies between my counts; I was awake. Then I took out my pencil
+and memorandum-book to see whether I could solve an equation. But my
+hand was seized with trembling, and wrote without my assistance or
+guidance these words: "I, Copernicus, will comfort your friends. Be
+calm, be happy, you shall return and reap a peculiar glory. You, first
+of the inhabitants of Earth, have visited another planet while in the
+flesh. You are on an island in the tropical regions of Mars. I will take
+you home when you desire it,--only not now."
+
+It would be in vain for me to attempt to recall and to describe the
+whirling tumult of thoughts and emotions which this message created. I
+sat down upon the grass, and for a time was incapable of deliberate
+thought or action. At length I arose and paced up and down the turf,
+staring around upon the changeless blue of the seaward horizon, the
+heaving swell of the ocean, the restless surf fretting against the
+shore, and the motionless hills that rose behind each other inland, and
+lured the eye to a distant group of mountains. The coloring of sea and
+land was wonderfully fine; both seemed formed of similar translucent
+purple; and despite the excited state of my feelings and the stupendous
+nature of the words which I had just seen written by my own pencil, I
+was impressed with a sense of grandeur and of beauty which presently
+filled me with faith and hope. I assured myself that the spirit to whom
+permission had been given thus to transport me from my home was as kind
+as he was powerful. He had set me down in a beautiful country, he had
+promised to return me home when I desired it,--"only not now";--by which
+I concluded that he wished me to think calmly over the question before
+asking to return. And why, I added, should I be in haste? Copernicus, if
+it be he, promises to comfort my parents,--the island looks fertile,--if
+I find no inhabitants, I can be a new Robinson Crusoe,--and when I have
+explored the island thoroughly, I will ask this spirit to carry me back
+to New York, where I shall publish my observations, and add a new
+chapter to our knowledge of the solar system.
+
+I walked toward the mountains, among strange shrubs, and under strange
+trees. Some were in blossom, others laden with fruit, all in luxuriant
+foliage. As I walked on, the scenery became more and more charming; but
+I saw no signs of man, nor even of birds, nor beasts. Beautiful
+butterflies and other insects were abundant; in a little stream I saw
+minnows, and a fish elegantly striped with silver and gold; and as I
+followed up the brook, occasionally a frog, startled at my approach,
+leaped from the bank and dived into the water with a familiar cry. I
+wandered on until I judged it to be nearly noon, and, growing hungry,
+ventured to taste a fruit which looked more edible than any I had seen.
+To my delight I found it as delicious as a paw-paw. I dined on them
+heartily, and, sitting under the shade of the low trees from which I had
+gathered them, I fell into a reverie which ended in a sound sleep.
+
+When I awoke it was night. I walked out of the little grove in which I
+was sheltered, that I might have a clearer view of the stars. I soon
+recognized the constellations with which I had been familiar for years,
+though in somewhat new positions. Conspicuous near, the horizon was the
+"Milk Dipper" of Sagittarius, and I instantly noticed, with a thrill of
+intense surprise, that the planet Mars was missing! When I had first
+awakened, and stepped out of the grove, I had only a dim remembrance in
+my mind of having rambled in the fields and fallen asleep on the grass;
+but this planet missing in the constellation Sagittarius recalled to me
+at once my miraculous position on the planet Mars. Here was a
+confirmation unexpected and irrefragable of the truth of what Copernicus
+had written by my hand. The excited whirl of thoughts and emotions thus
+revived banished sleep, and I walked back and forward under the grove,
+and out on the open turf, gazing again and again at the constellation in
+which, only two days before, I had from the Jersey City ferryboat seen
+the now missing planet. At length Sagittarius sank behind the mountains,
+and the Twins arose out of the sea. With new wonder and admiration I
+beheld in Castor's knee the steady lustre of a planet which I had not
+known before,--an overwhelming proof of the reality of my asserted
+position on the planet Mars. For as this new planet was exactly in the
+opposite pole of the point whence Mars was missing, what could it be but
+my native Earth seen as a planet from that planet which had now become
+my earth? You may imagine that this new vision excited me too much to
+allow sleep to overpower me again until nearly daybreak.
+
+When I awoke, the sun was far above the waves. I breakfasted upon my
+newly tasted fruit, and resumed my journey toward the mountains in the
+west. An hour's walk brought me to the spot where I first saw the
+inhabitants of the island. I shall never forget a single feature of that
+landscape. The mingled delight at seeing them, and astonishment after
+looking a few moments at them, have photographed the whole surrounding
+scene to its minutest details indelibly upon my memory. I had ascended a
+little eminence in the principal valley of a brook, (which I had been
+following nearly from its outlet,) when suddenly the mountains, of which
+I had lost sight for a time, rose up before me in sublime strength, no
+longer of translucent purple, but revealing, under the direct light,
+their rugged solidity. On my right, in the foreground, were lofty black
+cliffs, made darker by being seen lying in their own shadow. On my left,
+green hills, in varying forms, stretched almost an interminable
+distance, varying also in their color and depth of shade. At the foot of
+the cliffs, in full sight, but too distant to be distinctly heard, the
+brook leaped along its rocky bed in a succession of scrambling
+cataracts, until it was in a perfect foam with the exertion. I sat upon
+a stone, gazing upon this valley, calmed, soothed, charmed with its
+beauty, and was speculating upon the cause of the ruddy purplish hue
+which I still noticed in the landscape, as I had the day before, when I
+heard a choir of half a dozen voices, apparently on the nearest cliff,
+joining in a Haydn-like hymn of praise. I drew nearer to the spot, and
+soon satisfied myself that all the sounds proceeded from one man sitting
+alone on a projecting rock. I listened to him attentively, vainly
+endeavoring to imagine how he produced such a volume of sounds, and
+delighted with the beautiful melody and exquisite harmony of his
+polyphonous song. When he ceased to sing, I stepped out in front of him
+and hailed him with a hearty "Good morning!" What was my astonishment to
+see him instantly unfurl a prodigious pair of wings, and fly off the
+rock. Hovering over me for a little while, evidently as much astonished
+at me as I at him, he flew away, and presently returned with a
+companion. They alighted near me, and began, as I thought, to sing, but
+in a very fragmentary way. I afterwards found that they were in
+conversation. I spoke to them, and, concealing my fears, endeavored by
+various signs to intimate my friendly disposition. They were not very
+backward in meeting my advances; and yet I soon discovered that,
+although they were two to one against me, they were as much alarmed as
+I; whereupon I became greatly reassured. It was not long before we had
+exchanged presents of wild fruits, and they had begun, by dumb show, and
+beckoning, and the utterance of soothing sounds, to invite me to
+accompany them. We proceeded slowly, for they could not be satisfied in
+their examination of me, nor I in my examination of them; and yet we
+rather preferred to keep out of each other's reach. Two points in them
+chiefly attracted my attention. One was their prodigious wings, which
+they folded into a very small compass when they walked. The other was
+their peculiar language, not being any _articulate_ speech, but only the
+utterance of vowel-sounds of musical quality, which seemed to come from
+several voices at once, and that not from the mouth, but, as I then
+thought, from all parts of their bodies.
+
+At length we reached a charming arbor, into which they conducted me.
+This arbor was built of some sort of bamboo or cane, woven together into
+a coarse lattice-work, the roof being made of the same and covered with
+huge leaves, perhaps of some palm. I call it an arbor, because the
+latticed sides were covered with flowering vines, of great variety and
+beauty. Within were bamboo seats and a table, whose material I afterward
+discovered was the dried leaves of a gigantic flag, flattened and made
+hard by a peculiar process of drawing them between joints of bamboo,
+somewhat as cane is pressed between rollers. Upon the table were
+numerous manuscripts, written, as I afterwards learned, on a paper made
+of the same flag. These manuscripts were removed, and a repast set on
+the table by servants, as I then took them to be, who brought it in from
+an adjoining arbor; but I found afterwards that they were members of the
+family, and that the relation of servant and master was not known among
+the inhabitants of the island. When these new members of the family
+first came to the arbor in which I and my two captors, as they
+considered themselves, were sitting, they started back, terrified at my
+appearance; and it was with great difficulty that my captors prevailed
+upon them to enter. This further encouraged me in the faith that they
+were a timid and inoffensive people. Their noonday meal, of which they
+gave me a part, (although they did not invite me to come to the table
+with them,) gave me still greater assurance, since I found it composed
+wholly of fruits and cereals. After their dinner, during which it was
+evident that they were engaged in a very lively discussion of their
+visitor or captive, some of the family flew away, and in the course of
+an hour returned, accompanied by half a dozen others, whom I afterwards
+found were the most learned naturalists of my captor's acquaintance. I
+was invited by pantomime to walk out into the open air, and of course
+accepted the invitation. Never was there such a Babel of musical tones
+as that which assailed my ears while these six learned--(what shall I
+call them? since their own name is not expressible by the letters of any
+alphabet)--learned men discussed me from every point of view. The mild
+and inoffensive appearance of the people, and the evident kindness
+mingled with their curiosity, had entirely disarmed my suspicions, and I
+as gladly showed them what I could do as I watched to see their habits.
+The whole afternoon was passed in exhibiting to these strange beings all
+of the various gaits and modes of motion and gymnastic exercises which I
+had ever learned.
+
+After supper my captor led me to a separate arbor, and pointed to a bed
+of soft, white straw, upon which I immediately stretched myself, and he
+retired. Presently I arose and attempted to go out, but found that he
+had fastened the door on the outside. It was not pleasant to find myself
+a prisoner; but that subject was instantly driven from my mind as I
+looked out through the lattice and saw Sagittarius, with no signs of the
+planet Mars. I returned to my straw; and, after the excitement of the
+day had subsided, I fell asleep and slept until after sunrise. My captor
+soon after appeared, bringing a basket of delicious fruits and bread.
+When I had eaten freely, he allowed me to wander at will, setting first
+a boy on top of my arbor, apparently to watch that I did not wander out
+of sight. I walked about and found that the homestead of my captor
+consisted of seven arbors in a grove of fruit-trees, with about a dozen
+acres of corn adjoining. This corn is a perennial, like our grass, and a
+field once planted yields in good land fifteen or twenty crops with only
+the labor of gathering. It then becomes exhausted, and the canes are
+burnt at a particular season, which destroys the roots, and prepares the
+ground admirably for fruit-trees. There were no stables about the place,
+and there are no horses nor cows on the island,--indeed, frogs and toads
+are the highest vertebrates known there.
+
+About the middle of the forenoon, my host, or captor, came, guided by
+his boy, who, flying from arbor to arbor and from tree to tree, had kept
+me in sight during my ramble. He brought with him seven others, bearing
+a hammock through the air, four flying on either side, and lowered it
+near me in the field. He then made signs to me to lie in the hammock. It
+was with some difficulty that I persuaded myself to risk it; but I
+thought at last that, after coming safely from the Earth to Mars, I
+would not shrink from a little excursion in the atmosphere of that
+planet. I laid myself in the hammock, and soon saw that the seven
+friends of my host were as much afraid of taking it up as I had been of
+getting in it. However, they mustered courage, and, spreading their
+wings, raised me up in the air. I was, I suppose, a deal heavier than
+they expected; for they set me down upon the top of the first knoll in
+their path, and set me down so suddenly that I was aware of their
+intention only by being dashed against the ground. I sprang up, and
+began to rub the bruised spots, while my winged bearers folded their
+wings, and lay panting on the turf. They had not taken me a half-mile.
+When they were rested, my host motioned to me to resume my place; and
+the eight again bore me, with more deliberate stroke, a full mile before
+dropping me again. But they were so much exhausted, and took so long to
+rest, that I suggested, by signs and motions, that I should rather walk;
+and so for the next mile they carried the empty hammock, flying very
+slowly, while I walked rapidly, or ran, after them. When, in my turn, I
+became exhausted, they motioned me into the hammock again. In this way,
+partly by being carried and partly on my own feet, I at length reached
+an immense arbor, in which several hundred of these creatures were
+assembled. It was the regular day of meeting for their Society of
+Natural History. One of our party first went in, and, I suppose,
+announced our arrival, then came out and spoke to my captor, who
+beckoned me to follow, and led me in. I was placed on a platform, and he
+then made a polyphonous speech, without a consonant sound in it;
+describing, as I afterwards learned, the history of my discovery and
+capture, and going into some speculations on my nature. Then the
+principal men crowded about me and felt me, and led me about the hall,
+until, what with the landings of the hammock and the handling of these
+sons of Mars, I was sore and wearied beyond expression.
+
+At length I was taken to a small arbor, where I was allowed to rest and
+to take food. The Society then, as I have since been told, held a long
+discussion, and finally appointed a committee to examine me, observe my
+habits, and report at the next regular meeting. There is no moon at
+Mars; but the regular meeting was on the twenty-eighth day
+following,--the seven notes of music having given them the idea of
+weeks.
+
+Extra ropes were then attached to the hammock, (which was built for the
+use of the infirm and aged, but the weight of these creatures is scarce
+half that of men,) and sixteen of them carried me back to my captor's
+homestead. That night I fell asleep before it was dark enough to see the
+stars, and assure myself, by a glance at the Milk Dipper, that it was
+not all a dream; but I awoke before daylight, and gazed through the
+lattice at the Twins, and at the Earth, shining with steady lustre upon
+Castor's knee.
+
+I will not weary the reader with details from my journal of each
+succeeding day. The committee came day after day and studied me. They
+induced me to lay aside part of my clothing that they might examine me
+more minutely, especially about the joints of the ankle, the knee,
+shoulder, and elbow; and were never weary of examining my neck and
+spinal column. I could not talk to them, and they had never seen a
+vertebrate higher in organization than their frogs and toads; wherefore,
+at the end of four weeks, they reported "that I was a new and wonderful
+gigantic Batrachian"; that "they recommended the Society to purchase me,
+and, after studying my habits thoroughly, dissect me, and mount my
+skeleton." Of which report I was, of course, in blessed ignorance for a
+long, long while.
+
+So my captor and his friends took the kindest care of me, and endeavored
+to amuse and instruct me, and also to find out what I would do if left
+to myself,--taking notes assiduously for the memoirs of their Society. I
+can assure the reader that I, on my part, was not idle, but took notes
+of them with equal diligence, at which imitation of their actions they
+were greatly amused. But I flatter myself that, when my notes, now in
+the hands of the Smithsonian Institution, are published, with the
+comments of the learned naturalists to whom the Institution has referred
+them, they will be found to embody the most valuable contributions to
+science. My own view of the inhabitants of Mars is that they are
+Rational Articulates. Rational they certainly are, and, although I am no
+naturalist, I venture to pronounce them Articulates. I do not mean
+anything disrespectful to these learned inhabitants of Mars in saying
+that their figure and movements reminded me of crickets: for I never
+have watched the black field-crickets in New England, standing on tiptoe
+to reach a blade of grass, without a feeling of admiration at their
+gentlemanly figure and the gracefulness of their air. But what is more
+important, I am told that Articulates breathe through spiracles in the
+sides of their bodies; and I know that these planetary men breathe
+through six mouths, three on either side of the body, entirely different
+in appearance and character from the seventh mouth in their face,
+through which they eat.
+
+In the volumes of notes which will be published by the Smithsonian
+Institution as soon as the necessary engravings can be finished, will
+also appear all that I was able to learn concerning the natural history
+of that planet, under the strict limitation, to which I was subjected,
+of bringing to Earth nothing but what I could carry about my own
+person.[A]
+
+I was, myself, particularly interested in investigating the Martial
+language, which differs entirely from our terrestrial tongues in not
+being articulate. Each of the six lateral mouths of these curious men is
+capable of sounding only one vowel, and of varying its musical pitch
+about five or six semitones. Thus, their six mouths give them a range of
+two and a half or three octaves. The right-hand lowest mouth is lowest
+in pitch, and gives a sound resembling the double _o_ in _moon_; the
+next lowest in pitch is the lowest left-hand mouth, and its vowel is
+more like _o_ in _note_. Thus they alternate, the highest left-hand
+mouth being highest in pitch, and uttering a sound resembling a long
+_ee_. The sound of each of the six is so individual, that, before I had
+been there six months, I could recognize, even in a stranger, the tones
+of each one of the six mouths. But they seldom use one mouth at a time.
+Their simplest ideas, such as the names of the most familiar objects,
+are expressed by brief melodic phrases, uttered by one mouth alone.
+Closely allied ideas are expressed by the same phrase uttered by a
+different mouth, and so with a different vowel-sound. But most ideas are
+complex; and these are expressed in the Mavortian speech by chords, or
+discords, produced by using two or more mouths at once. A few music
+types will illustrate this, by examples, better than any verbal
+description can do.
+
+[Illustration: {Music} A tree. Fruit. A fruit-tree. Do. in leaf and
+blossom. Do. in leaf and fruit. A dead fruit-tree]
+
+The signification of these chords is by no means arbitrary; but, on the
+contrary, their application is according to fixed rules and according to
+aesthetic principles; so that the highest poetry of these people becomes,
+in the very process of utterance, the finest music; while the utterance
+of base sentiments, or of fustian, becomes, by the very nature of the
+language, discordant, or at best vapid and unmelodious.
+
+It will readily be imagined that I was a very long while in learning to
+understand a speech so entirely different in all its principles from our
+earthly tongues. And when I began to comprehend it, as spoken by my new
+friends, I was unable, having but one mouth, to express anything but the
+simplest ideas. However, I had Yankee ingenuity enough to supply in some
+measure my want of lateral mouths.
+
+My captor daily allowed me more and more freedom, and at length
+permitted me to wander freely over the whole island, simply taking the
+precaution to send a boy with me as a companion and guide, in case I
+should lose my way. In one of these rambles I discovered a swamp of
+bamboos, and by the aid of my pocket-knife cut down several and carried
+them home. Then, with great difficulty and interminable labor, I managed
+to make a sort of small organ, a very rude affair, with six kinds of
+pipes, six of each kind. A bamboo pipe, with a reed tongue of the same
+material, or even one with a flute action, was not so sweet in tone as
+the voice of my friends; but they saw what I was trying to do, and
+could, after growing familiar with the sound of my pipes, decipher my
+meaning. The astonishment of my captor and his family at finding that
+their monster Batrachian could not only express simple ideas with his
+one mouth, but all the most complex notions by pieces of bamboo fastened
+together and held on his knees before him, was beyond measure. From this
+time my progress in learning their speech was very rapid; and within a
+year from the completion of my organ I could converse fluently with
+them. Of course, I had not mastered all the intricacies of their tongue,
+and even up to the time of my leaving them I felt that I was a mere
+learner; nevertheless, I could understand the main drift of all that
+they said; and what was equally gratifying to me, I could express to
+them almost anything expressible in English, and they understood me.
+
+My life now became a very happy one; I became sincerely attached to my
+captor and to his family, and was charmed with their good sense and
+their kind feeling. I flatter myself also that they, in their turn, were
+not only proud of their Batrachian, but grew fond of him. They showed me
+more and more attention, gave me a seat at their table, and furnished me
+with clothes of their own fashion. I must confess, however, that the
+openings on the sides for their mouths, and on the back for their wings,
+were rather troublesome to me, and occasioned me several severe colds,
+until I taught them to make my vesture close about my chest.
+
+When visitors came to their house I was always invited to bring out my
+organ and converse with them. Strangers found some difficulty in
+understanding me; but with the family I conversed with perfect ease, and
+they interpreted for me. I found that the universal theory concerning me
+was, that I came from beyond a range of mountains on the nearest
+continent, beyond which no explorations had ever been made. Concerning
+my mode of crossing the steep and lofty barrier on the continent, and
+the deep, wide strait which separated the island from the mainland, they
+speculated in vain. I humored this theory at first, as far as I could
+without positive statements of falsehood, for I knew that, if I told the
+truth, it would be absolutely incredible to them; and I did not reveal
+to my Martial friends my own terrestrial, to them celestial character,
+until just before my departure.
+
+But my psychical character perplexed them much more than my zooelogical.
+It seems that these islanders had been accustomed to call themselves, in
+their own tongue, "rational animals with sentiments of justice and
+piety,"--all which, be it remembered, is expressed in their wonderful
+language by a simple harmonic progression of four full chords.[B] But
+here was a Batrachian,--one of the lower orders of creation, in their
+view,--from whom the Almighty had withheld the gift of a rational soul,
+who nevertheless appeared to reason as soundly as they,--to understand
+all their ideas,--not only repeating their sentences on his bamboo
+pipes, but commenting intelligently on them; and who not only gave these
+proofs of an understanding mind, but of a heart and soul, manifesting
+almost Mavortian affection for his captor's family, and occasionally
+betraying even the existence of some religious sentiments. Was all this
+delusive? Did this Batrachian really possess a rational soul, with
+sentiments of piety and justice, or only a wonderfully constructive
+faculty of imitation?
+
+Reader, in your pride of Caucasian blood, you may think it incredible
+that such doubts should have been entertained concerning a man whose
+father is from one of the best families in Holland, whose mother is
+descended from, good English stock, and who himself exhibits sufficient
+intelligence to write this narrative; but nevertheless such doubts were
+actually entertained by a large proportion of the inhabitants of the
+island. Not only did the members of their Society of Natural History
+become warmly interested in the discussion, but finally the whole
+population of the island took sides on the question, and debated it with
+great warmth. The area of their country is about the same as that of
+Great Britain; but as they have no law of primogeniture, nor entailment
+of estates, nor hereditary rank, they have no poverty and no
+over-population; all of the inhabitants were happy and well-educated,
+all had abundant leisure, and all were ready to examine the evidence
+concerning the wonderful Batrachian that was said to have come ashore on
+the eastern side of their island.
+
+But alas! even in this well-governed and happy community, not every
+man's opinion was free from error, nor every man's temper free from
+prejudice and passion. Those who insisted that my bamboo music was only
+a parrot-like imitation of their speech accused those who held that I
+was really rational of the crime of exalting a Batrachian into equality
+with "rational animals with sentiments of justice and piety"; and the
+accused party, after a little natural shrinking from so bold a position,
+finally confessed the crime, by acknowledging that they thought that I
+was at least entitled to all the rights of their race. Here was the
+beginning of a feud which presently waxed as hot as that between the
+Big-Endians and the Little-Endians of Liliput.
+
+I have no doubt in my own mind that the temper displayed in this
+controversy sprang partly from causes which had been in operation for
+many years before my visit. Somewhere about the middle of the last
+century, (I am speaking now of terrestrial dates, translating their long
+years and odd numeral scale into ours,) a colony from the mainland had
+settled at one end of their island, and were still living among them.
+These continental men differed somewhat in figure and stature from the
+islanders, and their wings were of a dusky hue, while the islanders'
+wings were distinctly purple in their tone. These colonists were looked
+upon by most of the islanders as an inferior race, and there had been
+very few cases of intermarriage between them. These few cases had,
+however, led to some earnest discussions. Some maintained that it was
+only a want of good taste in a Purple-wing to be willing to marry a
+Dusky-wing, but that it was not a thing forbidden by morality or to be
+forbidden by law. Others maintained that such intermarriage was against
+nature, against public order and morality, and should be prohibited.
+Nay, some went so far as to say that these Dusky-wings were intruders,
+who ought to be sent back to their native continent; that the island was
+the Purple-wings' country, and that the Purple-wings should have
+absolute control over it, and ought not to suffer any other race to
+participate in its advantages.
+
+This division of opinion and feeling concerning the Dusky-wings,
+although deep and earnest, had not led to much open debate; the people
+of the island were very hospitable and polite, and they refrained to a
+great extent from showing their prejudices against the colonists. But my
+arrival gave them an opportunity of saying with open frankness many
+things which, although said concerning me, were meant and understood as
+referring to the immigrants from the continent. The Dusky-wings
+themselves said but little; they were quiet, inoffensive, affectionate
+people, who were somewhat wounded occasionally by the scorn of a
+Purple-wing, but simply went on minding their own business, and showing
+kindness to all persons alike.
+
+The aborigines of the island, outnumbering the others by twenty to one,
+discussed me and my position with eager warmth. On the one hand, it was
+argued that I was a Batrachian,--of a high species, it was granted, but
+still only an animal; that, if I really had reason and sentiments, they
+must be of a low order; that certainly I had no social nor legal rights
+which their race were bound to respect; that I was the property of my
+captor, by right of discovery, and he had absolute rights over me as a
+chattel; that he might sell me or use me as lawfully as he could sell or
+use clothing, food, or books; that he might compel me to work for him;
+and that he even had a right to poison me (as they poisoned troublesome
+insects) whenever he was tired of the burden of my support, or wished to
+study my anatomy.
+
+On the other hand, it was maintained that the fact of my being a
+Batrachian had no bearing on my moral rights, and ought not to have upon
+my social and legal rights. The capacity which I had for understanding
+the moral law and for feeling injustice gave me a claim to justice.
+Whoever has the moral sense to claim rights is by that very endowment
+vested with rights. "The true brotherhood between us rational animals,"
+said this party, "is founded in our rationality and in our sentiments of
+justice and piety, and not in our animal nature. But this Batrachian,
+although belonging to the lower orders of animal nature, partakes with
+us of reason and of the sentiments of justice and piety. He is therefore
+our brother, and his rights are as sacred as our own. He is the guest,
+and not the chattel, of the family who discovered him. To sell him or to
+buy him, to force him to labor against his will, to hold his life less
+sacred than our own, would be criminal."
+
+Of course I knew nothing of all this until I had been there for several
+years, and acquired a tolerable familiarity with their speech. Indeed,
+it required a considerable time for the feud to arrive at its highest.
+But at length party strife concerning me and concerning the relative
+superiority of the two races rose to such a pitch, that I seriously
+feared lest I should be the innocent cause of a civil war in this once
+happy island. Moreover, I saw that my presence was becoming a source of
+serious inconvenience to my host and to his family. They were attached
+to me, that I could not doubt; but neither could I doubt that it was
+unpleasant to them to have old acquaintances decline any further
+intercourse with them because they had allowed a Batrachian to sit at
+table with them.
+
+Very reluctantly I decided that I would ask Copernicus to restore me to
+my own family on Earth. First I broke the matter cautiously to my host,
+and explained to him confidentially my real origin and my intended
+return. He was astonished beyond measure at my revelation, and I could
+with difficulty persuade him that I was not of celestial nature. We
+talked it over daily for several weeks, and then explained it to the
+family, and afterwards to a select circle of friends, who were to
+publish it after my departure, and give to the whole island their first
+notions of _terrestrial_ geography and history. Finally, I decided upon
+a night in which I would depart, and at bed-time bade the family good
+by. At midnight I filled my pockets and sundry satchels with my
+note-books, specimens of dried plants, insects, fragments of minerals,
+etc., and, hanging these satchels on my arms, called on Copernicus to
+fulfil his promise. Instantly all things disappeared again from my view;
+I was floating with my satchels in mid-ether, and fell into a trance.
+When I awaked, I was in my father's house in New York. How long the
+passage required, I have no means of determining.
+
+The present brief sketch of my life upon the planet Mars is designed
+partly to call attention to the volumes which I am preparing, in
+conjunction with more learned and more scientific _collaborateurs_, for
+immediate publication by the Smithsonian Institution, and partly for the
+gratification of readers who may never see those ponderous quartos.
+
+I will only add, that, since my return to Earth, I have never been able
+to obtain any information either from Copernicus or from any other of
+the illustrious dead, except through the pages of their printed works.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] The strangeness of my adventures will be so apt to breed incredulity
+among those unacquainted with my character, that I add some certificates
+from the highest names known to science.
+
+     "New York, June 13, 1865.--Three plants, submitted to me by Mr.
+     George Snyder for examination, prove to be totally unlike any
+     botanical family hitherto known or described in any books to
+     which I have access.
+
+     "ROBERT BROWN, _Prof. Bott. Col., Coll. N. Y._"
+
+     "New York, June 15, 1865.--Mr. George Snyder. Dear Sir: Your
+     mineral gives, in the spectroscope, three elegant red bands and
+     one blue band; and certainly contains a new metal hitherto
+     unknown to chemistry.
+
+     "R. BUNSEN, _Prof. Chem., N. Y. Free Acad._"
+
+     "Cambridge, Mass., June, 18, 1863.--Mr. George Snyder has
+     placed in my hands three insects, belonging to three new
+     families of Orthoptera, differing widely from all previously
+     known.
+
+     "KIRBY SPENCE, _Assist. Ent., Mus. Comp. Zoeol._"
+
+[B] These chords are those of E, A, B, E, whence the creatures might be
+called _Eabes_.
+
+
+
+
+MADAM WALDOBOROUGH'S CARRIAGE.
+
+
+On a bright particular afternoon, in the month of November, 1855, I met
+on the Avenue des Champs Elysees, in Paris, my young friend Herbert
+J----.
+
+After many desolate days of wind and rain and falling leaves, the city
+had thrown off her wet rags, so to speak, and arrayed herself in the
+gorgeous apparel of one of the most golden and perfect Sundays of the
+season. "All the world" was out of doors. The Boulevards, the Bois de
+Boulogne, the bridges over the Seine, all the public promenades and
+gardens, swarmed with joyous multitudes. The Champs Elysees, and the
+long avenue leading up to the Barriere de l'Etoile, appeared one mighty
+river, an Amazon of many-colored human life. The finest July weather had
+not produced such a superb display; for now the people of fashion, who
+had passed the summer at their country-seats, or in Switzerland, or
+among the Pyrenees, reappeared in their showy equipages. The tide, which
+had been flowing to the Bois de Boulogne ever since two o'clock, had
+turned, and was pouring back into Paris. For miles, up and down, on
+either side of the city-wall, extended the glittering train of vehicles.
+The three broad, open gateways of the Barriere proved insufficient
+channels; and far as you could see, along the Avenue de l'Imperatrice,
+stood three seemingly endless rows of carriages, closely crowded, unable
+to advance, waiting for the Barriere de l'Etoile to discharge its
+surplus living waters. Detachments of the mounted city guard, and long
+lines of police, regulated the flow; while at the Barriere an extra
+force of customhouse officers fulfilled the necessary formality of
+casting an eye of inspection into each vehicle as it passed, to see that
+nothing was smuggled.
+
+Just below the Barriere, as I was moving with the stream of pedestrians,
+I met Herbert. He turned and took my arm. As he did so, I noticed that
+he lifted his bran-new Parisian hat towards heaven, saluting with a
+lofty flourish one of the carriages that passed the gate.
+
+It was a dashy barouche, drawn by a glossy-black span, and occupied by
+two ladies and a lapdog. A driver on the box, and a footman perched
+behind, both in livery,--long coats, white gloves, and gold bands on
+their hats,--completed the establishment The ladies sat facing each
+other, and their mingled, effervescing skirts and flounces filled the
+cup of the vehicle quite to over-foaming, like a Rochelle powder, nearly
+drowning the brave spaniel, whose sturdy little nose was elevated, for
+air, just above the surge.
+
+Both ladies recognized my friend, and she who sat, or rather reclined,
+(for such a luxurious, languishing attitude can hardly be called a
+sitting posture.) fairy-like, in the hinder part of the shell, bestowed
+upon him a very gracious, condescending smile. She was a most imposing
+creature,--in freshness of complexion, in physical development, and,
+above all, in amplitude and magnificence of attire, a full-blown rose of
+a woman,--aged, I should say, about forty.
+
+"Don't you know that turn-out?" said Herbert, as the shallop with its
+lovely freight floated on in the current.
+
+"I am not so fortunate," I replied.
+
+"Good gracious! miserable man! Where do you live? In what obscure
+society have you buried yourself? Not to know MADAM WALDOBOROUGH'S
+CARRIAGE!"
+
+This was spoken in a tone of humorous extravagance which piqued my
+curiosity. Behind the ostentatious deference with which he had raised
+his hat to the sky, beneath the respectful awe with which he spoke the
+lady's name, I detected irony and a spirit of mischief.
+
+"Who is Madam Waldoborough? and what about her carriage?"
+
+"Who is Madam Waldoborough?" echoed Herbert, with mock astonishment;
+"that an American, six months in Paris, should ask that question! An
+American woman, and a woman of fortune, sir; and, which is more, of
+fashion; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any in
+Messina or elsewhere;--one that occupies a position, go to! and receives
+on Thursday evenings, go to! and that hath ambassadors at her table, and
+everything handsome about her! And as for her carriage," he continued,
+coming down from his Dogberrian strain of eloquence, "it is the very
+identical carriage which I didn't ride in once!"
+
+"How was that?"
+
+"I'll tell you; for it was a curious adventure, and as it was a very
+useful lesson to me, so you may take warning by my experience, and, if
+ever she invites you to ride with her, as she did me, beware! beware!
+her flashing eyes, her floating hair!--do not accept, or, before
+accepting, take Iago's advice, and put money in your purse: PUT MONEY IN
+YOUR PURSE! I'll tell you why.
+
+"But, in the first place, I must explain how I came to be without money
+in mine, so soon after arriving in Paris, where so much of the article
+is necessary. My woes all arise from vanity. That is the rock, that is
+the quicksand, that is the maelstrom. I presume you don't know anybody
+else who is afflicted with that complaint? If you do, I'll but teach you
+how to tell my story, and that will cure him; or, at least, it ought to.
+
+"You see, in crossing over to Liverpool in the steamer, I became
+acquainted with a charming young lady, who proved to be a second-cousin
+of my father's. She belongs to the aristocratic branch of our family.
+Every family tree has an aristocratic branch, or bough, or little twig
+at least, I believe. She was a Todworth; and having always heard my
+other relations mention with immense pride and respect the
+Todworths,--as if it was one of the solid satisfactions of life to be
+able to speak of 'my uncle Todworth,' or 'my cousins the Todworths,'--I
+was prepared to appreciate my extreme good fortune. She was a bride,
+setting out on her wedding tour. She had married a sallow, bilious,
+perfumed, very disagreeable fellow,--except that he too was an
+aristocrat, and a millionnaire besides, which made him very agreeable;
+at least, I thought so. That was before I rode in Madam Waldoborough's
+carriage: since which era in my life I have slightly changed my habits
+of thinking on these subjects.
+
+"Well, the fair bride was most gratifyingly affable, and cousined me to
+my heart's content. Her husband was no less friendly: they not only
+petted me, but I think they really liked me; and by the time we reached
+London I was on as affectionately familiar terms with them as a younger
+brother could have been. If I had been a Todworth, they couldn't have
+made more of me. They insisted on my going to the same hotel with them,
+and taking a room adjoining their suite. This was a happiness to which I
+had but one objection,--my limited pecuniary resources. My family are
+neither aristocrats nor millionnaires; and economy required that I
+should place myself in humble and inexpensive lodgings for the two or
+three weeks I was to spend in London. But vanity! vanity! I was actually
+ashamed, sir, to do the honest and true thing,--afraid of disgracing my
+branch of the family in the eyes of the Todworth branch, and of losing
+the fine friends I had made, by confessing my poverty. The bride, I
+confess, was a delightful companion; but I know other ladies just as
+interesting, although they do not happen to be Todworths. For her sake,
+personally, I should never have thought of committing the folly; and
+still less, I assure you, for that piece of perfumed and
+yellow-complexioned politeness, her husband. It was pride, sir, pride
+that ruined me. They went to Cox's Hotel, in Jermyn Street; and I,
+simpleton as I was, went with them,--for that was before I rode in Madam
+Waldoborough's carriage.
+
+"Cox's, I fancy, is the crack hotel of London. Lady Byron boarded there;
+the author of 'Childe Harold' himself used to stop there; Tom Moore
+wrote a few of his last songs and drank a good many of his last bottles
+of wine there; my Lords Tom, Dick, and Harry,--the Duke of Dash, Sir
+Edward Splash, and Viscount Flash,--these and other notables always
+honor Cox's when they go to town. So _we_ honored Cox's. And a very
+quiet, orderly, well-kept tavern we found it. I think Mr. Cox must have
+a good housekeeper. He has been fortunate in securing a very excellent
+cook. I should judge that he had engaged some of the finest gentlemen in
+England to act as waiters. Their manners would do credit to any
+potentate in Europe: there is that calm self-possession about them, that
+serious dignity of deportment, sustained by a secure sense of the mighty
+importance of their mission to the world which strikes a beholder with
+awe. I was made to feel very inferior in their presence. We dined at a
+private table, and these ministers of state waited upon us. They brought
+us the morning paper on a silver salver; they presented it as if it had
+been a mission from a king to a king. Whenever we went out or came in,
+there stood two of those magnates, in white waistcoats and white gloves,
+to open the folding-doors for us, with stately mien. You would have said
+it was the Lord High Chamberlain and his deputy, and that I was at least
+Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. I tried to receive
+these overpowering attentions with an air of easy indifference, like one
+who had been all his life accustomed to that sort of thing, you know;
+but I was oppressed with a terrible sense of being out of my place. I
+couldn't help feeling that these serene and lofty highnesses knew
+perfectly well that I was a green Yankee boy, with less than fifty
+pounds in my pocket; and I fancied that, behind the mask of gravity each
+imperturbable countenance wore, there was always lurking a smile of
+contempt.
+
+"But this was not the worst of it. I suffered from another cause. If
+noblemen were my attendants, I must expect to maintain noblemen. All
+that ceremony and deportment must go into the bill. With this view of
+the case, I could not look at their white kids without feeling sick at
+heart; white waistcoats became a terror; the sight of an august
+neckcloth, bowing its solemn attentions to me, depressed my very soul.
+The folding-doors, on golden hinges turning,--figuratively, at least, if
+not literally, like those of Milton's heaven,--grated as horrible
+discords on my secret ear as the gates of Milton's other place. It was
+my gold that helped to make those hinges. And this I endured merely for
+the sake of enjoying the society, not of my dear newly-found cousins,
+but of two phantoms, intangible, unsatisfactory, unreal that hovered
+over their heads,--the phantom of wealth and the still more empty
+phantom of social position. But all this, understand, was _before_ I
+rode in Madam Waldoborough's carriage.
+
+"Well, I saw London in company with my aristocratic relatives, and paid
+a good deal more for the show, and really profited less by it, than if I
+had gone about the business in my own deliberate and humble way.
+Everything was, of course, done in the most lordly and costly manner
+known. Instead of walking to this place or that, or taking an omnibus or
+a cab, we rolled magnificently in our carriage. I suppose the happy
+bridegroom would willingly have defrayed all these expenses, if I had
+wished him to do so; but pride prompted me to pay my share. So it
+happened that, during nine days in London, I spent as much as would have
+lasted me as many weeks, if I had been as wise as I was vain,--that is,
+if I had ridden in Madam Waldoborough's carriage _before_ I went to
+England.
+
+"When I saw how things were going, bankruptcy staring me in the face,
+ruin yawning at my feet, I was suddenly seized with an irresistible
+desire to go on to Paris, I had a French fever of the most violent
+character. I declared myself sick of the soot and smoke uproar of the
+great Babel,--I even spoke slightingly of Cox's Hotel, as if I had been
+used to better things,--and I called for my bill. Heavens and earth, how
+I trembled! Did ever a condemned wretch feel as faint at the sight of
+the priest coming to bid him prepare for the gallows, as I did at the
+sight of one of those sublime functionaries bringing me my doom on a
+silver salver? Every pore opened; a clammy perspiration broke out all
+over me; I reached forth a shaking hand, and thanked his highness with a
+ghastly smile.
+
+"A few figures told my fate. The convict who hears his death-sentence
+may still hope for a reprieve; but figures are inexorable, figures
+cannot lie. My bill at Cox's was in pounds, shillings, and pence,
+amounting to just eleven dollars a day. Eleven times nine are
+ninety-nine. It was so near a round hundred, it seemed a bitter mockery
+not to say a hundred, and have done with it, instead of scrupulously
+stopping to consider a single paltry dollar. I was reminded of the boy
+whose father bragged of killing nine hundred and ninety-nine pigeons at
+one shot. Somebody asked why he didn't say a thousand. 'Thunder!' says
+the boy, 'do you suppose my father would lie just for one pigeon?' I
+told the story, to show my cousins how coolly I received the bill, and
+paid it,--coined my heart and dropped my blood for drachmas, rather than
+appear mean in presence of my relatives, although I knew that a portion
+of the charge was for the bridal arrangements for which the bridegroom
+alone was responsible.
+
+"This drained my purse so nearly dry that I had only just money enough
+left to take me to Paris, and pay for a week's lodging or so in advance.
+They urged me to remain and go to Scotland with them; but I tore myself
+away, and fled to France. I would not permit them to accompany me to the
+railroad station, and see me off; for I was unwilling that they should
+know I was going to economize my finances by purchasing a second-class
+ticket. From the life I had been leading at Cox's to a second-class
+passage to Paris was that step from the sublime to the ridiculous which
+I did not wish to be seen taking. I think I'd have thrown myself into
+the Thames before I would thus have exposed myself; for, as I tell you,
+I had not yet been honored with a seat in Madame Waldoborough's
+carriage.
+
+"It is certainly a grand thing to keep grand company; but if ever I felt
+a sense of relief, it was when I found myself free from my cousins,
+emancipated from the fearful bondage of keeping up such expensive
+appearances; when I found myself seated on the hard, cushionless bench
+of the second-class car, and nibbled my crackers at my leisure,
+unoppressed by the awful presence of those grandees in white waistcoats,
+and by the more awful presence of a condemning conscience within myself.
+
+"I nibbled my crackers, and they tasted sweeter than Cox's best dinners;
+I nibbled, and contemplated my late experiences; nibbled, and was almost
+persuaded to be a Christian,--that is, to forswear thenceforth and
+forever all company which I could not afford to keep, all appearances
+which were not honest, all foolish pride, and silly ambition, and moral
+cowardice;--as I did after I had ridden in a certain carriage I have
+mentioned, and which I am coming to now as fast as possible.
+
+"I had lost nearly all my money and a good share of my self-respect by
+the course I had taken, and I could think of only one substantial
+advantage which I had gained. That was a note of introduction from my
+lovely cousin to Madame Waldoborough. That would be of inestimable value
+to me in Paris. It would give me access to the best society, and secure
+to me, a stranger many privileges which could not otherwise be obtained.
+'Perhaps, after all,' thought I, as I read over the flattering contents
+of the unsealed note,--'perhaps, after all, I shall find this worth
+quite as much as it has cost me.' O, had I foreseen that it was actually
+destined to procure me an invitation to ride out with Madam
+Waldoborough herself, shouldn't I have been elated?
+
+"I reached Paris, took a cheap lodging, and waited for the arrival of my
+uncle's goods destined for the Great Exhibition,--for to look after
+them, (I could speak French, you know,) and to assist in having them
+properly placed, was the main business that had brought me here. I also
+waited anxiously for my uncle and a fresh supply of funds. In the mean
+time I delivered my letters of introduction, and made a few
+acquaintances. Twice I called at Madam Waldoborough's hotel, but did not
+see her; she was out. So at least the servants said, but I suspect they
+lied; for, the second time I was told so, I noticed, O, the most
+splendid turn-out!--the same you just saw pass--waiting in the
+carriage-way before her door, with the driver on the box, and the
+footman holding open the silver-handled and escutchioned panel that
+served as a door to the barouche, as if expecting some grand personage
+to get in.
+
+"'Some distinguished visitor, perhaps,' thought I; 'or, it may be, Madam
+Waldoborough herself; instead of being out, she is just going out, and
+in five minutes the servant's lie will be a truth.' Sure enough, before
+I left the street--for I may as well confess that curiosity caused me to
+linger a little--my lady herself appeared in all her glory, and bounced
+into the barouche with a vigor that made it rock quite unromantically;
+for she is not frail, she is not a butterfly, as you perceived. I
+recognized her from a description I had received from my cousin the
+bride. She was accompanied by that meagre, smart little sprite of a
+French girl, whom Madam always takes with her,--to talk French with, and
+to be waited upon by her, she says; but rather, I believe, by way of a
+contrast to set off her own brilliant complexion and imperial
+proportions. It is Juno and Arachne. The divine orbs of the goddess
+turned haughtily upon me, but did not see me,--looked through and beyond
+me, as if I had been nothing but gossamer, feathers, air; and the little
+black, bead-like eyes of the insect pierced me maliciously an instant,
+as the barouche dashed past, and disappeared in the Rue de Rivoli. I was
+humiliated; I felt that I was recognized,--known as the rash youth who
+had just called at the Hotel de Waldoborough, been told that Madam was
+out, and had stopped outside to catch the hotel in a lie. It is very
+singular--how do you explain it?--that it should have seemed to me the
+circumstance was something, not for Madam, but for me to be ashamed of!
+I don't believe that the color of her peachy cheeks was heightened the
+shadow of a shade; but as for me, I blushed to the tips of my ears.
+
+"You may believe that I did not go away in such a cheerful frame of mind
+as might have encouraged me to repeat my call in a hurry. I just coldly
+enclosed to her my cousin's letter of introduction, along with my
+address; and said to myself, 'Now, she'll know what a deuse of a fellow
+she has slighted: she'll know she has put an affront upon a connection
+of the Todworths!' I was very silly, you see, for I had not yet--but I
+am coming to that part of my story.
+
+"Well, returning to my lodgings a few days afterwards, I found a note
+which had been left for me by a liveried footman,--Madam Waldoborough's
+footman, O heaven! I was thrown into great trepidation by the stupendous
+event, and eagerly inquired if Madam herself was in her carriage, and
+was immensely relieved to learn she was not; for, unspeakably gratifying
+as such condescension, such an Olympian compliment, would have been
+under other circumstances, I should have felt it more than offset by the
+mortification of knowing that she knew, that her own eyes had beheld,
+the very humble quarter in which a lack of means had compelled me to
+locate myself.
+
+"I turned from that frightful possibility to the note itself. It was
+everything I could have asked. It was ambrosia, it was nectar. I had
+done a big thing when I fired the Todworth gun: it had brought the enemy
+to terms. My cousin was complimented, and I was welcomed to Paris,
+and--THE HOTEL WALDOBOROUGH!
+
+"'Why have you not called to see me?' the note inquired, with charming
+innocence. 'I shall be at home to-morrow morning at two o'clock; cannot
+you give me the pleasure of greeting so near a relative of my dear,
+delightful Louise?'
+
+"Of course, I would afford her that pleasure! 'O, what a thing it is,' I
+said to myself, 'to be a third cousin to a Todworth!' But the two
+o'clock in the morning,--how should I manage that? I had not supposed
+that fashionable people in Paris got up so early, much less received
+visitors at that wonderful hour. But, on reflection, I concluded that
+two in the morning meant two in the afternoon; for I had heard that the
+great folks commenced their day at about that time.
+
+"At two o'clock, accordingly, the next afternoon,--excuse me, O ye
+fashionable ones! I mean the next morning,--I sallied forth from my
+little barren room in the Rue des Vieux Augustins, and proceeded to
+Madam's ancient palace in the Rue St. Martin, dressed in my best, and
+palpitating with a sense of the honor I was doing myself. This time the
+_concierge_ smiled encouragingly, and ascertained for me that Madam
+_was_ at home. I ascended the polished marble staircase to a saloon on
+the first floor, where I was requested to have the _obligeance
+d'attendre un petit moment_, until Madam should be informed of my
+arrival.
+
+"It was a very large, and, I must admit, a very respectable saloon,
+although not exactly what I had expected to see at the very summit of
+the social Olympus. I dropped into a fauteuil near a centre-table, on
+which there was a fantastical silver-wrought card-basket. What struck me
+particularly about the basket was a well-known little Todworth envelope,
+superscribed in the delicate handwriting of my aristocratic cousin,--my
+letter of introduction, in fact,--displayed upon the very top of the
+pile of billets and cards. My own card I did not see; but in looking for
+it I discovered some curious specimens of foreign orthography,--one
+dainty little note to '_Madame Valtobureau_'; another laboriously
+addressed to '_M. et Mme. Jean Val-d'eau-Berot_'; and still a third, in
+which the name was conscientiously and industriously written out,
+'_Oualdobeurreaux_. This last, as an instance of spelling an English
+word _a la Francaise_, I thought a remarkable success, and very
+creditable to people who speak of _Lor Berong_, meaning Lord Byron,
+(_Be-wrong_ is good!) and talk glibly about _Frongclang_, and
+_Vashangtong_, meaning the great philosopher, and the Father of his
+Country.
+
+"I was trying to amuse myself with these orthographical curiosities, yet
+waiting anxiously all the while for the appearance of that illustrious
+ornament of her sex, to whom they were addressed; and the servant's
+'_petit moment_' had become a good _petit quart d'heure_, when the
+drawing-room door opened, and in glided, not the Goddess, but the
+Spider.
+
+"She had come to beg Monsieur (that was me) to have the bounty to excuse
+Madam (that was the Waldoborough), who had caused herself to be waited
+for, and who, I was assured, would give herself '_le plaisir de me voir
+dans un tout petit moment_.' So saying, with a smile, she seated
+herself; and, discovering that I was an American, began to talk bad
+English to me. I may say execrable English; for it is a habit your
+Frenchwoman often has, to abandon her own facile and fluent vernacular,
+which she speaks so charmingly, in order to show off a wretched
+smattering she may have acquired of your language,--from politeness,
+possibly, but I rather think from vanity. In the mean time Arachne
+busied her long agile fingers with some very appropriate embroidery; and
+busied her mind, too, I couldn't help thinking, weaving some intricate
+web of mischief,--for her eyes sparkled as they looked at me with a
+certain gleeful, malicious expression,--seeming to say, 'You have walked
+into my parlor, Mr. Fly, and I am sure to entangle you!' which made me
+feel uncomfortable.
+
+"The '_tout petit moment_' had become another good quarter of an hour,
+when the door again opened, and Madam--Madam herself--the Waldoborough
+appeared! Did you ever see flounces? did you ever witness expansion?
+have your eyes ever beheld the--so to speak--new-risen sun trailing
+clouds of glory over the threshold of the dawn? You should have seen
+Madam enter that room; you should have seen the effulgence of the
+greeting smile she gave me; then you wouldn't wonder that I was dazzled.
+
+"She filled and overflowed with her magnificence the most royal fauteuil
+in the saloon, and talked to me of my Todworth cousin, and of my
+Todworth cousin's husband, and of London, and America,--occasionally
+turning aside to show off her bad French by speaking to the Spider,
+until another quarter of an hour had elapsed. Then Paris was mentioned;
+one of us happened to speak of the Gobelins,--I cannot now recall which
+it was first uttered that fatal word to me, the direful spring of woes
+unnumbered! Had I visited the Gobelins? I had not, but I anticipated
+having that pleasure soon.
+
+"'Long as I have lived in Paris, I have never yet been to the Gobelins!'
+says Mrs. Waldoborough. '_Mademoiselle_' (that was Arachne) '_m'accuse
+toujours d'avoir tort, et me dit que je dois y aller, n'est ce pas,
+Mademoiselle?_'
+
+"'_Certainement!_' says Mademoiselle, emphatically; and in return for
+Madam's ill-spoken French, she added in English, of even worse quality,
+that the Gobelins' manufacture of tapisserie and carpet, was the place
+the moz curiouze and interressante which one could go see in Paris.
+
+"'_C'est ce qu'elle dit toujours_,' says the Waldoborough. 'But I make
+great allowances for her opinions, since she is an enthusiast with
+regard to everything that pertains to weaving.'
+
+"'Very natural that she should be, being a Spider,' I thought, but did
+not say so.
+
+"'However,' Madam continued, 'I should like extremely well to go there,
+if I could ever get the time. _Quand aurai-je le tems, Mademoiselle?_'
+
+"'I sink zis af'noon is more time zan you have anozer day, Madame,' says
+the Spider.
+
+"So the net was completed, and I was caught thus: Mrs. Waldoborough,
+with an hospitable glance at me, referred the proposition; and I said,
+if she would like to go that day, she must not let me hinder her, and
+offered to take my leave; and Arachne said, 'Monsieur perhaps he like go
+too?' And as Madam suggested ordering the carriage for the purpose, of
+course I jumped at the chance. To ride in that carriage! with the
+Waldoborough herself! with the driver before and the footman behind, in
+livery! O ye gods!
+
+"I was abandoned to intoxicating dreams of ambition, whilst Madam went
+to prepare herself, and Mademoiselle to order the carriage. It was not
+long before I heard a vehicle enter the court-yard, turn, and stop in
+the carriage-way, I tried to catch a glimpse of it from the window, but
+saw it only in imagination,--that barouche of barouches, which is
+Waldoborough's! I imagined myself seated luxuriously in that shell, with
+Madam by my side, rolling through the streets of Paris in even greater
+state than I had rolled through London with my Todworth cousin. I was
+impatient to be experiencing the new sensation. The moments dragged:
+five, ten, fifteen minutes at least elapsed, and all the while the
+carriage and I were waiting. Then appeared--who do you suppose? The
+Spider, dressed for an excursion. 'So she is going too!' thought I, not
+very well pleased. She had in her arms--what do you suppose? A
+confounded little lapdog,--the spaniel you saw just now with his nose
+just above the crinoline.
+
+"'Monsieur,' says she, 'I desire make you know the King Francois.' I
+hate lapdogs; but, in order to be civil, I offered to pat his majesty
+on the head. That, however, did not seem to be court-etiquette; and I
+got snapped at by the little despot. 'Our compagnon of voyage,' says
+Mademoiselle, pacifying him with caresses.
+
+"'So, he is going too?' thought I,--so unreasonable as to feel a little
+dissatisfied; as if I had a right to say who should or who should not
+ride in Madam Waldoborough's carriage.
+
+"Mademoiselle sat with her hat on, and held the pup; and I sat with my
+hat in my hand, and held my peace; and she talked bad English to me, and
+good French to the dog, for, may be, ten minutes longer, when the
+Waldoborough swept in, arrayed for the occasion, and said, '_Maintenant
+nous irons_.' That was the signal for descending: as we did so, Madam
+casually remarked, that something was the matter with one of the
+Waldoborough horses, but that she had not thought it worth the while to
+give up our visit to the Gobelins on that account, since a _coupe_ would
+answer our purpose;--and the _coupes_ in that quarter were really very
+respectable!
+
+"This considerate remark was as a feather-bed to break the frightful
+fall before me. You think I tumbled down the Waldoborough stairs? Worse
+than that: I dropped headlong, precipitately, from the heights of fairy
+dreams to low actuality; all the way down, down, down, from the
+Waldoborough barouche to a hired coach, a _voiture de remise_, that
+stood in its place at the door!
+
+"'Mademoiselle suggested that it would be quite as well to go in a
+_coupe_,' says Mrs. Waldoborough, as she got in.
+
+"'O certainly,' I replied, with preternatural cheerfulness. But I could
+have killed the Spider; for I suspected this was a part of the plot she
+had been weaving to entangle me.
+
+"It was a vehicle with two horses and seats for four; one driver in a
+red face,--the common livery of your Paris hackman; but no footman, no
+footman, no footman!" Hubert repeated, with a groan. "Not so much as a
+little tiger clinging to the straps behind! I comforted myself, however,
+with the reflection that beggars must not be choosers; that, if I rode
+with Madam, I must accept her style of turn-out; and that if I was a
+good boy, and went in the _coupe_ this time, I might go in the barouche
+the next.
+
+"Madam occupied the back seat--the seat of honor in a coach--with whom,
+do you suppose? Me? No, sir! With the Spider? Not even with the Spider!
+With the lapdog, sir! And I was forced to content myself with a seat by
+Arachne's side, facing the royal pair.
+
+"'_Aux Gobelins_,' says Mrs. Waldoborough, to the driver; '_mais allez
+par l'Hotel de Ville, le pont Louis Philippe, el l'eglise de Notre
+Dame,--n'est-ce pas?_' referring the question to me.
+
+"I said, 'As you please.' And the red-faced driver said, '_Bien,
+Madame!_' as he shut us into the coach. And off we went by the Hotel de
+Ville, the Pont Louis Philippe, and Notre Dame, accordingly.
+
+"We stopped a few minutes to look at the Cathedral front; then rattled
+on, up the Quai and across the Pont de l'Archeveche, and through the
+crooked, countless streets until we reached the Gobelins; and I must
+confess I did not yet experience any of the sublime emotions I had
+counted upon in riding with the distinguished Madam Waldoborough.
+
+"You have been to the Gobelins? If you haven't, you must go there,--not
+with two ladies and a lapdog, as I did, but independently, and you will
+find the visit well worth the trouble. The establishment derives its
+name from an obscure wool-dyer of the fifteenth century, Jean Gobelin,
+whose little workshop has grown to be one of the most extensive and
+magnificent carpet and tapestry manufactories in the world.
+
+"We found liveried attendants stationed at every door and turning-point,
+to direct the crowds of visitors and to keep out dogs. No dog could be
+admitted except in arms. I suggested that King Francis should be left in
+the coach; upon which Mrs. Waldoborough asked, reproachfully, 'Could I
+be so cruel?' and the Spider looked at me as if I had been an American
+savage. To atone for my inhumanity, I offered to carry the cur; he was
+put into my arms at once; and so it happened that I walked through that
+wonderful series of rooms, hung with tapestries of the richest
+description, of the times of Francis I., Louis XIV., and so forth, with
+a detested lapdog in my hands. However, I showed my heroism by enduring
+my fate without a murmur, and quoting Tennyson for the gratification of
+Mrs. Waldoborough, who was reminded of the corridors of 'The Palace of
+Art.'
+
+    'Some were hung with arras green and blue,
+      Showing a gaudy summer-morn,
+    Where with puffed cheek the belted hunter blew
+        His wreathed bugle-horn.'
+
+    'One showed an iron coast, and angry waves.
+      You seemed to hear them climb and fall,
+    And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,
+        Beneath the windy wall.'
+
+    'Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasped,
+      From off her shoulder backward borne:
+    From one hand drooped a crocus: one hand grasped
+        The mild bull's golden horn.'
+
+And so forth, and so on. I continued my citations in order to keep
+Madam's mouth shut; for she annoyed me exceedingly by telling everybody
+she had occasion to speak with who she was.
+
+"'_Je suis Madame Waldoborough; et je desire savoir_' this thing, or
+that,--whatever she wished to inquire about; as if all the world knew of
+her fame, and she had only to state, 'I am that distinguished
+personage,' in order to command the utmost deference and respect.
+
+"From the show-rooms we passed on to the work-rooms, where we found the
+patient weavers sitting or standing at the back side of their pieces,
+with their baskets of many-colored spools at their sides, and the
+paintings they were copying behind them, slowly building up their
+imitative fabrics, loop after loop, and stitch after stitch, by hand.
+Madam told the workmen who she was, and learned that one had been at
+work six months on his picture; it was a female figure kneeling to a
+colossal pair of legs, destined to support a warrior, whose upper
+proportions waited to be drawn out of the spool-baskets. Another had
+been a year at work on a headless Virgin with a babe in her arms,
+finished only to the eyes. Sometimes ten, or even twenty years, are
+expended by one man upon a single piece of tapestry; but the patience of
+the workmen is not more wonderful than the art with which they select
+and blend their colors, passing from the softest to the most brilliant
+shades, without fault, as the work they are copying requires.
+
+"From the tapestry-weaving we passed on to the carpet-weaving rooms,
+where the workmen have the right side of their fabric before them, and
+the designs to be copied over their heads. Some of the patterns were of
+the most gorgeous description,--vines, scrolls, flowers, birds, lions,
+men; and the way they passed from the reflecting brain through the
+fingers of the weaver into the woollen texture was marvellous to behold.
+I could have spent some hours in the establishment pleasantly enough,
+watching the operatives, but for that terrible annoyance, the dog in my
+arms. I could not put him down, and I could not ask the ladies to take
+him. The Spider was in her element; she forgot everything but the toil
+of her fellow-spiders, and it was almost impossible to get her away from
+any piece she once became interested in. Madam, busy in telling who she
+was and asking questions, gave me little attention; so that I found
+myself more in the position of a lackey than a companion. I had
+regretted that her footman did not accompany us; but what need was there
+of a footman as long as she had me?
+
+"In half and hour I had become weary of the lapdog and the Gobelins, and
+wished to get away. But no,--Madam must tell more people who she was,
+and make further inquiries; and as for Arachne, I believe she would have
+remained there until this time. Another half-hour, and another, and
+still the good part of another, exhausted the strength of my arms and
+the endurance of my soul, until at last Mrs. Waldoborough said, '_Eh
+bien, nous avons tout vu, n'est-ce pas? Allons donc!_' And we
+_allonged_.
+
+"We found our _coupe_ waiting for us, and I thrust his majesty King
+Francis into it rather unceremoniously. Now you must know that all this
+time Mrs. Waldoborough had not the remotest idea but that she was
+treating me with all due civility. She is one of your thoroughly
+egotistical, self-absorbed women, accustomed to receiving homage, who
+appear to consider that to breathe in their presence and attend upon
+them is sufficient honor and happiness for anybody.
+
+"'Never mind,' thought I, 'she'll invite me to dinner, and may be I
+shall meet an ambassador!'
+
+"Arrived at the Hotel Waldoborough, accordingly, I stepped out of the
+_coupe_, and helped out the ladies and the lapdog, and was going in with
+them, as a matter of course. But the Spider said, 'Do not give yourself
+ze pain, Monsieur!' and relieved me of King Francis. And Madam said,
+'Shall I order the driver to be paid? or will you retain the _coupe_?
+You will want it to take you home. Well, good day,'--offering me two
+fingers to shake. 'I am very happy to have met you; and I hope I shall
+see you at my next reception. Thursday evening, remember; I receive
+Thursday evenings. _Cocher, vous emporterez ce monsieur chez lui,
+comprennez?_'
+
+"'_Bien, Madame!_' says the _cocher_.
+
+"'_Bon jour, Monsieur!_' says Arachne, gayly, tripping up the stairs
+with the king in her arms.
+
+"I was stunned. For a minute I did not know very well what I was about;
+indeed, I should have done very differently if I had had my wits about
+me. I stepped back into the _coupe_,--weary, disheartened, hungry; my
+dinner hour was past long ago; it was now approaching Madam's dinner
+hour, and I was sent away fasting. What was worse, the _coupe_ left for
+me to pay for. It was three hours since it had been ordered; price, two
+francs an hour; total, six francs. I had given the driver my address,
+and we were clattering away towards the Rue des Vieux Augustins, when I
+remembered, with a sinking of the heart I trust you may never
+experience, that I had not six francs in the world,--at least in this
+part of the world,--thanks to my Todworth cousin; that I had, in fact,
+only fifteen paltry sous in my pocket!
+
+"Here was a scrape! I had ridden in Madam Waldoborough's carriage with a
+vengeance! Six francs to pay! and how was I ever to pay it? '_Cocher!
+cocher!_' I cried out, despairingly, '_attendez!_'
+
+"'_Qu'est-il?_' says the _cocher_, stopping promptly.
+
+"Struck with the appalling thought that every additional rod we
+travelled involved an increase of expense, my first impulse was to jump
+out and dismiss him. But then came the more frightful nightmare fancy,
+that it was not possible to dismiss him unless I could pay him! I must
+keep him with me until I could devise some means of raising the six
+francs, which an hour later would be eight francs, and an hour later ten
+francs, and so forth. Every moment that I delayed payment swelled the
+debt; like a ruinous rate of interest, and diminished the possibility of
+ever being able to pay him at all. And of course I could not keep him
+with me forever,--go about the world henceforth in a hired coach, with a
+driver and span of horses impossible to get rid of.
+
+"'_Que veut Monsieur?_' says the driver, looking over at me with his red
+face, and waiting for my orders.
+
+"That recalled me from my hideous revery. I knew I might as well be
+travelling as standing still, since he was to be paid by the hour; so I
+said, 'Drive on, drive faster!'
+
+"I had one hope,--that on reaching my lodgings I might prevail upon the
+_concierge_ to pay for the coach. I stepped out with alacrity, said
+gayly to my coachman, '_Combien est-ce que je vous dois?_' and put my
+hand in among my fifteen sous with an air of confidence.
+
+"The driver looked at his watch, and said, with business-like
+exactness, '_Six francs vingt-cinq centimes, Monsieur._' _Vingt-cinq
+centimes!_ My debt had increased five cents whilst I had been thinking
+about it! '_Avec quelque-chose pour la boisson_,' he added with a
+persuasive smile. With a trifle besides for drink-money,--for that every
+French driver expects.
+
+"Then I appeared to discover, to my surprise, that I had not the change;
+so I cried out to the old woman in the porter's lodge, 'Give this man
+five francs for me, will you?' 'Five francs!' echoed the ogress with
+astonishment: '_Monsieur, je n'ai pas le sou!_'
+
+"I might have known it; of course she wouldn't have a sou for a poor
+devil like me; but the reply fell upon my heart like a death sentence.
+
+"I then proposed to call at the driver's stand and pay him in a day or
+two, if he would trust me. He smiled and shook his head.
+
+"'Very well,' said I, stepping back into the coach, 'drive to number
+five, Cite Odiot.' I had an acquaintance there, of whom I thought I
+might possibly borrow. The coachman drove away cheerfully, seeming to be
+perfectly well satisfied with the state of things: he was master of the
+situation,--he was having employment, his pay was going on, and he could
+hold me in pledge for the money. We reached the Cite Odiot: I ran in at
+number five, and up stairs to my friend's room. It was locked; he was
+away from home.
+
+"I had but one other acquaintance in Paris on whom I could venture to
+call for a loan of a few francs; and he lived far away, across the
+Seine, in the Rue Racine. There seemed to be no alternative; so away we
+posted, carrying my ever-increasing debt, dragging at each remove a
+lengthening chain. We reached the Rue Racine; I found my friend; I wrung
+his hand. 'For Heaven's sake,' said I, 'help me to get rid of this Old
+Man of the Sea,--this elephant won in a raffle!'
+
+"I explained. He laughed. 'What a funny adventure!' says he. 'And how
+curious that at this time, of all others, I haven't ten sous in the
+world! But I'll tell you what I can do,' says he.
+
+"'For mercy's sake, what?'
+
+"'I can get you out of the building by a private passage, take you
+through into the Rue de la Harpe, and let you escape. Your coachman will
+remain waiting for you at the door until you have traversed half Paris.
+That will be a capital point to the joke,--a splendid _finale_ for your
+little comedy!'
+
+"I confess to you that, perplexed and desperate as I was, I felt for an
+instant tempted to accept this infamous suggestion. Not that I would
+willingly have wronged the coachman; but since there was no hope of
+doing him justice, why not do the best thing for myself? If I could not
+save my honor, I might at least save my person. And I own that the
+picture of him which presented itself to my mind, waiting at the door so
+complacently, so stolidly, intent only on sticking by me at the rate of
+two francs an hour until paid off,--without feeling a shadow of sympathy
+for my distress, but secretly laughing at it, doubtless,--that provoked
+me; and I was pleased to think of him waiting there still, after I
+should have escaped, until at last his beaming red face would suddenly
+grow purple with wrath, and his placidity change to consternation, on
+discovering that he had been outwitted. But I knew too well what he
+would do. He would report me to the police! Worse than that, he would
+report me to Madam Waldoborough!
+
+"Already I fancied him, with his whip under his arm, smilingly taking
+off his hat, and extending his hand to the amazed and indignant lady,
+with a polite request that she would pay for that _coupe_! What _coupe_?
+And he would tell his story, and the Goddess would be thunderstruck; and
+the eyes of the Spider would sparkle wickedly; and I should be damned
+forever!
+
+"Then I could see the Parisian detectives--the best in the world--going
+to take down from the lady's lips a minute description of the
+adventurer, the swindler, who had imposed upon them, and attempted to
+cheat a poor hack-driver out of his hard-earned wages! Then would
+appear the reports in the newspapers,--how a well-dressed young man, an
+American, Monsieur X., (or perhaps my name would be given,) had been the
+means of enlivening the fashionable circles of Paris with a choice bit
+of scandal, by inviting a very distinguished lady, also an American,
+(whose Thursday evening receptions we well know, attended by some of the
+most illustrious French and foreign residents in the metropolis,) to
+accompany him on a tour of inspection to the Gobelins, and had
+afterwards been guilty of the unexampled baseness of leaving the _coupe_
+he had employed standing, unpaid, at the door of a certain house in the
+Rue Racine, whilst he escaped by a private passage into the Rue de la
+Harpe, and so forth, and so forth. I saw it all. I blushed, I shuddered
+at the fancied ignominy of the exposure.
+
+"'No,' said I; 't is impossible! If you can't help me to the money, I
+must try--but where, how can I hope to raise eight francs, (for it is
+four hours by this time, to say nothing of the drink-money!)--how can I
+ever hope to raise that sum in Paris?'
+
+"'You can pawn your watch,' says my false friend, rubbing his hands, and
+smiling, as if he really enjoyed the comicality of the thing.
+
+"But I had already eaten my watch, as the French say: it had been a week
+at the Mont de Piete.
+
+"'Your coat then,' says my counsellor, with good-mannered unconcern.
+
+"'And go in my shirt-sleeves?' for I had placed my trunk and its
+contents in the charge of my landlord, as security for the payment of my
+board and room-rent.
+
+"'In that case, I don't see what you will do, unless you take my
+original advice, and dodge the fellow.'
+
+"I left my fair-weather acquaintance in disgust, and went off, literally
+staggering under the load, the ever-increasing load, the Pelion upon
+Ossa, of francs, francs, francs,--despair, despair, despair.
+
+"'_Eh bien?_' says the driver, interrogatively, as I went out to him.
+
+"'_Pas de chance!_' And I ordered him to drive back to the Cite Odiot.
+
+"'_Bien!_' says he, polite as ever, cheery as ever; and away we went
+again, back across the Seine, up the Champs Elysees, into the Rue de
+l'Oratoire, to the Cite,--my stomach faint, my head aching, my thoughts
+whirling, and the carriage wheels rattling, clattering, chattering all
+the way, 'Two francs an hour and drink-money! Two francs an hour and
+drink-money!'
+
+"Once more I tried my luck at number five, and was filled with
+exasperation and dismay to find that my friend had been home, and gone
+off again in great haste, with a portmanteau in his hand.
+
+"Where had he gone? Nobody knew; but he had given his key to the
+house-servant, saying he would be absent several days.
+
+"'_Pensez-vous qu'il est alle a Londres?_' I hurriedly inquired.
+
+"'_Monsieur, je n'en sais rien_,' was the calm, decisive response.
+
+"I knew he often went to London; and now my only hope was to catch him
+at one of the railway stations. But by which route would he be like to
+go? I thought of only one, that by way of Calais, by which I had come,
+and I ordered my coachman to drive with all speed to the Northern
+Railway Station. He looked a little glum at this, and his '_Bien!_'
+sounded a good deal like the 'bang' of the coach-door, as he shut it
+rather sharply in my face.
+
+"Again we were off, my head hotter than ever, my feet like ice, and the
+coach-wheels saying vivaciously, as before, 'Two francs an hour, and
+drink-money! Two francs an hour, and drink-money!' I was terribly afraid
+we should be too late; but on arriving at the station, I found there was
+no train at all. One had left in the afternoon, and another would leave
+late in the evening. Then I happened to think there were other routes to
+London, by the way of Dieppe and Havre. My friend might have gone by one
+of those! Yes, there was a train at about that time, my driver somewhat
+sullenly informed me,--for he was fast losing his cheerfulness: perhaps
+it was his supper-time, or perhaps he was in a hurry for his
+drink-money. Did he know where the stations were? Know? of course he
+did! There was but one terminus for both routes; that was in the Rue St.
+Lazare. Could he reach it before the train started? Possibly; but his
+horses were jaded; they needed feeding. And why didn't I tell him before
+that I wished to stop there? for we had come through the Rue St. Lazare,
+and actually passed the railway station there, on our way from the Cite
+Odiot! That was vexing to think of, but there was no help for it; so
+back we flew on our course, to catch, if possible the train, and my
+friend, who I was certain was going in it.
+
+"We reached the Lazarus Street Station; and I, all in a frenzy of
+apprehension, rushed in, to experience one of those fearful trials of
+temper to which nervous men--especially nervous Americans in Paris--are
+sometimes subject. The train was about starting; but, owing to the
+strict regulations which are everywhere enforced on French railways, I
+could not even force myself into the passenger-room,--much less get
+through the gate, and past the guard, to the platform where the cars
+were standing. Nobody could enter there without a ticket. My friend was
+going, and I could not rush in and catch him, and borrow my--ten francs,
+I suppose, by that time, because I had not a ticket, nor money to buy a
+ticket! I laugh now at the image of myself, as I must have appeared
+then,--frantically explaining what I could of the circumstances to any
+of the officials who would hear me,--pouring forth torrents of broken
+and hardly intelligible French, now shrieking to make myself understood,
+and now groaning with despair,--questioning, cursing, imploring,--and
+receiving the invariable, the inexorable reply, always polite, but
+always firm,--
+
+"'ON NE PASSE PAS, MONSIEUR.'
+
+"Absolutely no admittance! And while I was convulsing myself in vain,
+the train started! It was off,--my friend was gone, and I was ruined
+forever!
+
+"When the worst has happened, and we feel that it is so, and our own
+efforts are no longer of any avail, then we become calm: the heart
+accepts the fate it knows to be inevitable. The bankrupt, after all his
+anxious nights and terrible days of struggle, is almost happy at last,
+when all is over. Even the convict sleeps soundly on the night preceding
+his execution. Just so I recovered my self-possession and equanimity
+after the train had departed.
+
+"I went back to my hackman. His serenity had vanished as mine had
+arrived; and the fury that possessed me seemed to pass over and take up
+its abode with him.
+
+"'Will you pay me?' he demanded, fiercely.
+
+"'My friend,' said I, 'it is impossible.' And I repeated my proposition
+to call and settle with him in a day or two.
+
+"'And you will not pay me now?' he vociferated.
+
+"'My friend, I cannot.'
+
+"'Then I know what I shall do!' turning away with a gesture of rage.
+
+"'I have done what I could, now you shall try what you can,' I answered,
+mildly.
+
+"'_Ecoutez donc!_' he hissed, turning once more upon me. 'I go to Madam,
+I demand my pay of her. What do you say to that?'
+
+"A few minutes before I should have been overwhelmed by the suggestion.
+I was not pleased with it now. No man who has enjoyed the society of
+ladies, and fancied that he appeared smart in their presence, fancies
+the idea of being utterly shamed and humiliated in their eyes. I ought
+to have had the courage to say to Mrs. Waldoborough, when she had the
+coolness to send me off with the _coupe_, instead of my dinner: 'Excuse
+me, Madam, I have not the money to pay this man!'
+
+"It would have been bitter, that confession; but better one pill at the
+beginning of a malady than a whole boxful afterwards. Better truth,
+anyhow, though it kills you, than a precarious existence on false
+appearances. I had, by my own folly, through toadyism in the first place
+and moral cowardice afterwards, placed myself in an embarrassing and
+ludicrous position; and I must take the consequences.
+
+"'Very well,' said I, 'if you are absolutely bent on having your money
+to-night, I suppose that it is the best thing you can do. But say to
+Madam that I expect my uncle by the next steamer; that I wished you to
+wait till his arrival for your pay; and that you not only refused, but
+put me to a great deal of trouble. It is nothing extraordinary,' I
+continued, in the hope to soften him, 'for gay young men, Americans, to
+be without money for a few days in Paris, expecting remittances from
+home; and you fellows ought to be more accommodating.'
+
+"'True! true!' says the driver, turning again to go. 'But I must have my
+pay all the same. I shall tell Madam what you say.'
+
+"He was going. And now happened one of those wonderful things which
+sometimes occur in real life, but which, in novels, we pronounce
+improbable. Whilst we were speaking a train arrived; and I noticed a
+little withered old man,--a little smirking mummy of a man,--with a face
+all wrinkles and smiles, coming out of the building with his coat on his
+arm. I noticed him, because he was so ancient and dried up, and yet so
+happy, whilst I was so young and fresh, and yet so miserable. And I was
+wondering at his self-satisfaction, when I saw--what think
+you?--something fall to the ground from the waist-pocket of the coat he
+carried on his arm! It was--will you believe it?--a pocket-book!--a fat
+pocket-book, a respectable, well-worn pocket-book!--the pocket-book of a
+millionnaire, by Jove! I pounced upon it, like an eagle upon a rabbit.
+He was passing on when I ran after him, politely called his attention,
+and surprised him with a presentation of what he supposed was all the
+time conveyed safely in his coat.
+
+"'Is it possible!' said he, in very poor French, which betrayed him to
+be a foreigner like myself. 'You are very kind,--very honest,--very
+obliging, very obliging indeed!'
+
+"If thanks and smiles would answer my purpose, I had them in profusion.
+He looked to see that the pocket-book had not been opened, and thanked
+me again and again. He seemed very anxious to do the polite thing, yet
+still more anxious to be passing on. But I would not let him pass on; I
+held him with my glittering eye.
+
+"'Ah!' said he, 'perhaps you won't feel yourself injured by the
+offer,'--for he saw that I was well dressed, and probably hesitated on
+that account to reward me,--'perhaps you will take something for your
+honesty, for your trouble.' And putting his hand in his pantaloons
+pocket, he took it out again, with the palm covered with glittering gold
+pieces.
+
+"'Sir,' said I, 'I am ashamed to accept anything for so trifling a
+service; but I owe this man here,--how much is it now?'
+
+"'Ten francs and a half,' says the driver, whom I had stopped just in
+time.
+
+"'Ten francs and a half,' I repeated.
+
+"'_Mais n'oubliez pas la boisson_,' he added, his persuasive smile
+returning.
+
+"'With something for his dram,' I continued: 'which if you will have the
+kindness to pay him, and at the same time give me your address, I will
+see that the money is returned to you without fail in a day or two.'
+
+"The smiling little man paid the money on the spot; saying it was of no
+consequence, and neglecting to give me his address. And he went his way
+well satisfied, and the driver went his, also well satisfied; and I went
+mine, infinitely better satisfied, I imagine, than either of them.
+
+"Well, I had got rid of Madam Waldoborough's carriage, and learned a
+lesson which, I think, will last me the rest of my life. If ever again
+I run after great folks, or place myself in a false position through
+folly or cowardice, may the Fates confound me! But I must haste and tell
+you the curious _denouement_ of the affair.
+
+"I was not so anxious to cultivate Madam's acquaintance _after_ riding
+in her carriage, you may well believe. For months I did not see her. At
+last my Todworth cousin and her yellow-complexioned husband came to
+town, and I went with my uncle to call upon them at Meurice's Hotel.
+They were delighted to see me, and fondly pressed me to come and take a
+room adjoining their suite, as I did at Cox's. A card was brought in. My
+cousin smiled, and directed that the visitor should be admitted. There
+was a rustle,--a volume of flounces came sweeping in,--a well-remembered
+voice cried, 'My dear Louise!'--and my Todworth cousin was clasped in
+the buxom embrace of Madam Waldoborough.
+
+"But what did I behold? Following in Madam's wake, like a skiff towed at
+the stern of a rushing side-wheel steamer, a dapper little old man, a
+withered little old man, a gayly smiling little old man, whose
+countenance was somehow strangely familiar to me. I considered him a
+moment, and the scene in the Rue St. Lazare, with the _coupe_ driver and
+the man with the pocket-book, flashed across my mind. This was the man!
+I remembered him well; but he had evidently forgotten me.
+
+"Madam released Louise from her divine large arms, and greeted the
+yellow-complexioned one. Then she was introduced to my uncle. Then the
+bride said, 'You know my cousin Herbert, I believe?'
+
+"'Ah, yes!' says the Waldoborough, who had glanced at me curiously, but
+doubtfully, 'I recognize him now!' giving me a smile and two fingers. 'I
+thought I had seen him somewhere. You have been to one or two of my
+receptions, haven't you?'
+
+"'I have not yet had that pleasure,' said I.
+
+"'Ah, I remember now! You called one morning, didn't you? And we went
+somewhere together,--where did we go?--or was it some other gentleman?'
+
+"I said I thought it must have been some other gentleman; for indeed I
+could hardly believe now that I was that fool.
+
+"'Very likely,' said she; 'for I see so many,--my receptions, you know,
+Louise, are always so crowded! But, dear me, what am I thinking of?
+Where are you, my love?' and the steamer brought the skiff alongside.
+
+"'Louise, and gentlemen,' then said my lady, with a magnificent
+courtesy, the very wind of which I feared would blow him away,--but he
+advanced triumphantly, bowing and smiling extravagantly,--'allow me the
+happiness of presenting to you Mr. John Waldoborough, my husband.'
+
+"How I refrained from shrieking and throwing myself on the floor, I
+never well knew; for I declare to you, I was never so caught by surprise
+and tickled through and through by any _denouement_ or situation, in or
+off the stage! To think that pigmy, that wart, that little grimacing
+monkey of a man, parchment-faced, antique,--a mere moneybag on two
+sticks,--should be the husband of the great and glorious Madam
+Waldoborough! His wondrous self-satisfaction was accounted for.
+Moreover, I saw that Heaven's justice was done: Madam's husband had paid
+for Madam's carriage!"
+
+Here Herbert concluded his story. And it was time; for the day had
+closed, as we walked up and down, and the sudden November night had come
+on. Gas-light had replaced the light of the sun throughout the streets
+of the city. The brilliant cressets of the Place de la Concorde flamed
+like a constellation; and the Avenue des Champs Elysees, with its rows
+of lamps, and the throngs of carriages, each bearing now its lighted
+lantern, moving along that far-extending slope, looked like a new Milky
+Way, fenced with lustrous stars, and swarming with meteoric fire-flies.
+
+
+
+
+PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.
+
+
+IV.
+
+_Salem, August 22d, 1837._--A walk yesterday afternoon down to the
+Juniper and Winter Island. Singular effect of partial sunshine, the sky
+being broadly and heavily clouded, and land and sea, in consequence,
+being generally overspread with a sombre gloom. But the sunshine,
+somehow or other, found its way between the interstices of the clouds,
+and illuminated some of the distant objects very vividly. The white
+sails of a ship caught it, and gleamed brilliant as sunny snow, the hull
+being scarcely visible, and the sea around dark; other smaller vessels
+too, so that they looked like heavenly-winged things just alighting on a
+dismal world. Shifting their sails, perhaps, or going on another tack,
+they almost disappear at once in the obscure distance. Islands are seen
+in summer sunshine and green glory; their rocks also sunny and their
+beaches white; while other islands, for no apparent reason, are in deep
+shade, and share the gloom of the rest of the world. Sometimes part of
+an island is illuminated and part dark. When the sunshine falls on a
+very distant island, nearer ones being in shade, it seems greatly to
+extend the bounds of visible space, and put the horizon to a farther
+distance. The sea roughly rushing against the shore, and dashing against
+the rocks, and grating back over the sands. A boat a little way from the
+shore, tossing and swinging at anchor. Beach birds flitting from place
+to place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The family seat of the Hawthornes is Wigcastle, Wigton, Wiltshire. The
+present head of the family, now residing there, is Hugh Hawthorne.
+William Hawthorne, who came over in 1635-6, was a younger brother of the
+family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A young man and girl meet together, each in search of a person to be
+known by some particular sign. They watch and wait a great while for
+that person to pass. At last some casual circumstance discloses that
+each is the one that the other is waiting for. Moral,--that what we need
+for our happiness is often close at hand, if we knew but how to seek for
+it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The journal of a human heart for a single day in ordinary circumstances.
+The lights and shadows that flit across it; its internal vicissitudes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Distrust to be thus exemplified:--Various good and desirable things to
+be presented to a young man, and offered to his acceptance,--as a
+friend, a wife, a fortune; but he to refuse them all, suspecting that it
+is merely a delusion. Yet all to be real, and he to be told so, when too
+late.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man tries to be happy in love; he cannot sincerely give his heart, and
+the affair seems all a dream. In domestic life, the same; in politics, a
+seeming patriot; but still he is sincere, and all seems like a theatre.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An old man, on a summer day, sits on a hill-top, or on the observatory
+of his house, and sees the sunshine pass from one object to another
+connected with the events of his past life,--as the school-house, the
+place where his wife lived in her maidenhood,--its setting beams falling
+on the churchyard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An idle man's pleasures and occupations and thoughts during a day spent
+by the sea-shore: among them, that of sitting on the top of a cliff, and
+throwing stones at his own shadow, far below.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A blind man to set forth on a walk through ways unknown to him, and to
+trust to the guidance of anybody who will take the trouble; the
+different characters who would undertake it: some mischievous, some
+well-meaning, but incapable; perhaps one blind man undertakes to lead
+another. At last, possibly, he rejects all guidance, and blunders on by
+himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the cabinet of the Essex Historical Society, old portraits.--Governor
+Leverett; a dark moustachioed face, the figure two-thirds length,
+clothed in a sort of frock coat, buttoned, and a broad sword-belt girded
+round the waist, and fastened with a large steel buckle; the hilt of the
+sword steel,--altogether very striking. Sir William Pepperell in English
+regimentals, coat, waistcoat, and breeches, all of red broadcloth,
+richly gold-embroidered; he holds a general's truncheon in his right
+hand, and extends the left towards the batteries erected against
+Louisbourg, in the country near which he is standing. Endicott,
+Pyncheon, and others, in scarlet robes, bands, &c. Half a dozen or more
+family portraits of the Olivers, some in plain dresses, brown, crimson,
+or claret; others with gorgeous gold-embroidered waistcoats, descending
+almost to the knees, so as to form the most conspicuous article of
+dress. Ladies, with lace ruffles, the painting of which, in one of the
+pictures, cost five guineas. Peter Oliver, who was crazy, used to fight
+with these family pictures in the old Mansion House; and the face and
+breast of one lady bear cuts and stabs inflicted by him. Miniatures in
+oil, with the paint peeling off, of stern, old, yellow faces. Oliver
+Cromwell, apparently an old picture, half length or one third, in an
+oval frame, probably painted for some New England partisan. Some
+pictures that had been partly obliterated by scrubbing with sand. The
+dresses, embroidery, laces of the Oliver family are generally better
+done than the faces. Governor Leverett's gloves,--the glove-part of
+coarse leather, but round the wrist a deep three or four inch border of
+spangles and silver embroidery. Old drinking-glasses, with tall stalks.
+A black glass bottle, stamped with the name of Philip English, with a
+broad bottom. The baby-linen, &c. of Governor Bradford of Plymouth
+colony. Old manuscript sermons, some written in shorthand, others in a
+hand that seems learnt from print.
+
+Nothing gives a stronger idea of old worm-eaten aristocracy--of a family
+being crazy with age, and of its being time that it was extinct--than
+these black, dusty, faded, antique-dressed portraits, such as those of
+the Oliver family; the identical old white wig of an ancient minister
+producing somewhat the impression that his very scalp, or some other
+portion of his personal self, would do.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The excruciating agonies which Nature inflicts on men (who break her
+laws) to be represented as the work of human tormentors; as the gout, by
+screwing the toes. Thus we might find that worse than the tortures of
+the Spanish Inquisition are daily suffered without exciting notice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suppose a married couple fondly attached to one another, and to think
+that they lived solely for one another; then it to be found out that
+they were divorced, or that they might separate if they chose. What
+would be its effect?
+
+
+_Monday, August 27th._--Went to Boston last Wednesday. Remarkables:--An
+author at the American Stationers' Company, slapping his hand on his
+manuscript, and crying, "I'm going to publish."--An excursion aboard a
+steamboat to Thompson's Island, to visit the Manual Labor School for
+boys. Aboard the steamboat several poets and various other authors; a
+Commodore,--Colton, a small, dark brown, sickly man, with a good deal of
+roughness in his address; Mr. Waterston, talking poetry and philosophy.
+Examination and exhibition of the boys, little tanned agriculturists.
+After examination, a stroll round the island, examining the products, as
+wheat in sheaves on the stubble-field; oats, somewhat blighted and
+spoiled; great pumpkins elsewhere; pastures; mowing ground;--all
+cultivated by the boys. Their residence, a great brick building, painted
+green, and standing on the summit of a rising ground, exposed to the
+winds of the bay. Vessels flitting past; great ships, with intricacy of
+rigging and various sails; schooners, sloops, with their one or two
+broad sheets of canvas: going on different tacks, so that the spectator
+might think that there was a different wind for each vessel, or that
+they scudded across the sea spontaneously, whither their own wills led
+them. The farm boys remain insulated, looking at the passing show,
+within sight of the city, yet having nothing to do with it; beholding
+their fellow-creatures skimming by them in winged machines, and
+steamboats snorting and puffing through the waves. Methinks an island
+would be the most desirable of all landed property, for it seems like a
+little world by itself; and the water may answer instead of the
+atmosphere that surrounds planets. The boys swinging, two together,
+standing up, and almost causing the ropes and their bodies to stretch
+out horizontally. On our departure, they ranged themselves on the rails
+of the fence, and, being dressed in blue, looked not unlike a flock of
+pigeons.
+
+On Friday, a visit to the Navy Yard at Charlestown, in company with the
+Naval Officer of Boston, and Cilley. Dined aboard the revenue cutter
+Hamilton. A pretty cabin, finished off with bird's-eye maple and
+mahogany; two looking-glasses. Two officers in blue frocks, with a
+stripe of lace on each shoulder. Dinner, chowder, fried fish, corned
+beef,--claret, afterwards champagne. The waiter tells the Captain of the
+cutter that Captain Percival (Commander of the Navy Yard) is sitting on
+the deck of the anchor hoy, (which lies inside of the cutter,) smoking
+his cigar. The Captain sends him a glass of champagne, and inquires of
+the waiter what Percival says to it. "He said, sir, 'What does he send
+me this damned stuff for?' but drinks, nevertheless." The Captain
+characterizes Percival as the roughest old devil that ever was in his
+manners, but a kind, good-hearted man at bottom. By and by comes in the
+steward. "Captain Percival is coming aboard of you, sir." "Well, ask him
+to walk down into the cabin"; and shortly down comes old Captain
+Percival, a white-haired, thin-visaged, weather-worn old gentleman, in a
+blue Quaker-cut coat, with tarnished lace and brass buttons, a pair of
+drab pantaloons, and brown waistcoat. There was an eccentric expression
+in his face, which seemed partly wilful, partly natural. He has not
+risen to his present rank in the regular line of the profession; but
+entered the navy as a sailing-master, and has all the roughness of that
+class of officers. Nevertheless, he knows how to behave and to talk like
+a gentleman. Sitting down, and taking in hand a glass of champagne, he
+began a lecture on economy, and how well it was that Uncle Sam had a
+broad back, being compelled to bear so many burdens as were laid on
+it,--alluding to the table covered with wine-bottles. Then he spoke of
+the fitting up of the cabin with expensive woods,--of the brooch in
+Captain Scott's bosom. Then he proceeded to discourse of politics,
+taking the opposite side to Cilley, and arguing with much pertinacity.
+He seems to have moulded and shaped himself to his own whims, till a
+sort of rough affectation has become thoroughly imbued throughout a
+kindly nature. He is full of antique prejudices against the modern
+fashions of the younger officers, their moustaches and such fripperies,
+and prophesies little better than disgrace in case of another war;
+owning that the boys would fight for their country, and die for her, but
+denying that there are any officers now like Hull and Stuart, whose
+exploits, nevertheless, he greatly depreciated, saying that the Boxer
+and Enterprise fought the only equal battle which we won during the war;
+and that, in that action, an officer had proposed to haul down the stars
+and stripes, and a common sailor threatened to cut him to pieces, if he
+should do so. He spoke of Bainbridge as a sot and a poltroon, who wanted
+to run from the Macedonian, pretending to take her for a line-of-battle
+ship; of Commodore Elliot as a liar; but praised Commodore Downes in the
+highest terms. Percival seems to be the very pattern of old integrity;
+taking as much care of Uncle Sam's interests as if all the money
+expended were to come out of his own pocket. This quality was displayed
+in his resistance to the demand of a new patent capstan for the
+revenue-cutter, which, however, Scott is resolved in such a sailor-like
+way to get, that he will probably succeed. Percival spoke to me of how
+his business in the yard absorbed him, especially the fitting of the
+Columbus seventy-four, of which ship he discoursed with great
+enthusiasm. He seems to have no ambition beyond his present duties,
+perhaps never had any; at any rate, he now passes his life with a sort
+of gruff contentedness, grumbling and growling, yet in good humor
+enough. He is conscious of his peculiarities; for when I asked him
+whether it would be well to make a naval officer Secretary of the Navy,
+he said, "God forbid, for that an old sailor was always full of
+prejudices and stubborn whim-whams," instancing himself; whereto I
+agreed. We went round the Navy Yard with Percival and Commodore Downes,
+the latter a sailor and a gentleman too, with rather more of the ocean
+than the drawing-room about him, but courteous, frank, and good-natured.
+We looked at rope-walks, rigging-lofts, ships in the stocks; and saw the
+sailors of the station laughing and sporting with great mirth and
+cheerfulness, which the Commodore said was much increased at sea. We
+returned to the wharf at Boston in the cutter's boat. Captain Scott, of
+the cutter, told me a singular story of what occurred during the action
+between the Constitution and Macedonian,--he being powder-monkey aboard
+the former ship. A cannon-shot came through the ship's side, and a man's
+head was struck off, probably by a splinter, for it was done without
+bruising the head or body, as clean as by a razor. Well, the man was
+walking pretty briskly at the time of the accident; and Scott seriously
+affirmed that he kept walking onward at the same pace, with two jets of
+blood gushing from his headless trunk, till, after going about twenty
+feet without a head, he sunk down at once, with his legs under him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[In corroboration of the truth of this, see Lord Bacon, Century IV. of
+his Sylva Sylvarum, or Natural History, in Ten Centuries, paragraph
+400.]
+
+On Saturday, I called to see E. H----, having previously appointed a
+meeting for the purpose of inquiring about our name. He is an old
+bachelor, and truly forlorn. The pride of ancestry seems to be his great
+hobby. He had a good many papers in his desk at the Custom-House, which
+he produced and dissertated upon, and afterwards went with me to his
+sister's, and showed me an old book, with a record of the children of
+the first emigrant, (who came over two hundred years ago,) in his own
+handwriting. E----'s manners are gentlemanly, and he seems to be very
+well informed. At a little distance, I think, one would take him to be
+not much over thirty; but nearer to hand one finds him to look rather
+venerable,--perhaps fifty or more. He is nervous, and his hands shook
+while he was looking over the papers, as if he had been startled by my
+visit; and when we came to the crossings of streets, he darted across,
+cautioning me, as if both were in great danger to be run over.
+Nevertheless, being very quick-tempered, he would face the Devil if at
+all irritated. He gave a most forlorn description of his life; how, when
+he came to Salem, there was nobody except Mr. ---- whom he cared about
+seeing; how his position prevented him from accepting of civilities,
+because he had no home where he could return them; in short, he seemed
+about as miserable a being as is to be found anywhere,--lonely, and with
+the sensitiveness to feel his loneliness, and capacities, now withered,
+to have enjoyed the sweets of life. I suppose he is comfortable enough
+when busied in his duties at the Custom-House; for when I spoke to him
+at my entrance, he was too much absorbed to hear me at first. As we
+walked, he kept telling stories of the family, which seemed to have
+comprised many oddities, eccentric men and women, recluses and other
+kinds,--one of old Philip English, (a Jersey man, the name originally
+L'Anglais,) who had been persecuted by John Hawthorne, of witch-time
+memory, and a violent quarrel ensued. When Philip lay on his death-bed,
+he consented to forgive his persecutor; "But if I get well," said he,
+"I'll be damned if I forgive him!" This Philip left daughters, one of
+whom married, I believe, the son of the persecuting John, and thus all
+the legitimate blood of English is in our family. E---- passed from the
+matters of birth, pedigree, and ancestral pride to give vent to the most
+arrant democracy and locofocoism that I ever happened to hear, saying
+that nobody ought to possess wealth longer than his own life, and that
+then it should return to the people, &c. He says old S. I---- has a
+great fund of traditions about the family, which she learned from her
+mother or grandmother, (I forget which,) one of them being a Hawthorne.
+The old lady was a very proud woman, and, as E---- says, "proud of being
+proud," and so is S. I----.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_October 7th, 1837._--A walk in Northfields in the afternoon. Bright
+sunshine and autumnal warmth, giving a sensation quite unlike the same
+degree of warmth in summer. Oaks,--some brown, some reddish, some still
+green; walnuts, yellow,--fallen leaves and acorns lying beneath; the
+footsteps crumple them in walking. In sunny spots beneath the trees,
+where green grass is overstrewn by the dry, fallen foliage, as I passed
+I disturbed multitudes of grasshoppers basking in the warm sunshine; and
+they began to hop, hop, hop, pattering on the dry leaves like big and
+heavy drops of a thunder-shower. They were invisible till they hopped.
+Boys gathering walnuts. Passed an orchard, where two men were gathering
+the apples. A wagon, with barrels, stood among the trees; the men's
+coats flung on the fence; the apples lay in heaps, and each of the men
+was up in a separate tree. They conversed together in loud voices, which
+the air caused to ring still louder, jeering each other, boasting of
+their own feats in shaking down the apples. One got into, the very top
+of his tree, and gave a long and mighty shake, and the big apples came
+down thump, thump, bushels hitting on the ground at once. "There! did
+you ever hear anything like that?" cried he. This sunny scene was
+pretty. A horse feeding apart, belonging to the wagon. The
+barberry-bushes have some red fruit on them, but they are frost-bitten.
+The rose-bushes have their scarlet hips.
+
+Distant clumps of trees, now that the variegated foliage adorns them,
+have a phantasmagorian, an apparition-like appearance. They seem to be
+of some kindred to the crimson and gold cloud-islands. It would not be
+strange to see phantoms peeping forth from their recesses. When the sun
+was almost below the horizon, his rays, gilding the upper branches of a
+yellow walnut-tree, had an airy and beautiful effect,--the gentle
+contrast between the tint of the yellow in the shade, and its ethereal
+gold in the fading sunshine. The woods that crown distant uplands were
+seen to great advantage in these last rays, for the sunshine perfectly
+marked out and distinguished every shade of color, varnishing them as it
+were; while, the country round, both hill and plain, being in gloomy
+shadow, the woods looked the brighter for it.
+
+The tide, being high, had flowed almost into the Cold Spring, so its
+small current hardly issued forth from the basin. As I approached, two
+little eels, about as long as my finger, and slender in proportion,
+wriggled out of the basin. They had come from the salt water. An
+Indian-corn field, as yet unharvested,--huge, golden pumpkins scattered
+among the hills of corn,--a noble-looking fruit. After the sun was down,
+the sky was deeply dyed with a broad sweep of gold, high towards the
+zenith; not flaming brightly, but of a somewhat dusky gold. A piece of
+water extending towards the west, between high banks, caught the
+reflection, and appeared like a sheet of brighter and more glistening
+gold than the sky which made it bright.
+
+Dandelions and blue flowers are still growing in sunny places. Saw in a
+barn a prodigious treasure of onions in their silvery coats, exhaling a
+penetrating perfume.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How exceeding bright looks the sunshine, casually reflected from a
+looking-glass into a gloomy region of the chamber, distinctly marking
+out the figures and colors of the paper hangings, which are scarcely
+seen elsewhere. It is like the light of mind thrown on an obscure
+subject.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Man's finest workmanship, the closer you observe it, the more
+imperfections it shows; as in a piece of polished steel a microscope
+will discover a rough surface. Whereas, what may look coarse and rough
+in Nature's workmanship will show an infinitely minute perfection, the
+closer you look into it. The reason of the minute superiority of
+Nature's work over man's is, that the former works from the innermost
+germ, while the latter works merely superficially.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Standing in the cross-road that leads by the Mineral Spring, and looking
+towards an opposite shore of the lake, an ascending bank, with a dense
+border of trees, green, yellow, red, russet, all bright colors,
+brightened by the mild brilliancy of the descending sun; it was strange
+to recognize the sober old friends of spring and summer in this new
+dress. By the by, a pretty riddle or fable might be made out of the
+changes in apparel of the familiar trees round a house, adapted for
+children. But in the lake, beneath the aforesaid border of trees,--the
+water being, not rippled, but its glassy surface somewhat moved and
+shaken by the remote agitation of a breeze that was breathing on the
+outer lake,--this being in a sort of bay,--in the slightly agitated
+mirror, the variegated trees were reflected dreamily and indistinctly; a
+broad belt of bright and diversified colors shining in the water
+beneath. Sometimes the image of a tree might be almost traced; then
+nothing but this sweep of broken rainbow. It was like the recollection
+of the real scene in an observer's mind,--a confused radiance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A whirlwind, whirling the dried leaves round in a circle, not very
+violently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To well consider the characters of a family of persons in a certain
+condition,--in poverty, for instance,--and endeavor to judge how an
+altered condition would affect the character of each.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The aromatic odor of peat smoke in the sunny autumnal air is very
+pleasant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Salem, October 14th, 1837._--A walk through Beverly to Browne's Hill,
+and home by the iron factory. A bright, cool afternoon. The trees, in a
+large part of the space through which I passed, appeared to be in their
+fullest glory, bright red, yellow, some of a tender green, appearing at
+a distance as if bedecked with new foliage, though this emerald tint was
+likewise the effect of frost. In some places, large tracts of ground
+were covered as with a scarlet cloth,--the underbrush being thus
+colored. The general character of these autumnal colors is not gaudy,
+scarcely gay; there is something too deep and rich in it: it is gorgeous
+and magnificent, but with a sobriety diffused. The pastures at the foot
+of Browne's Hill were plentifully covered with barberry-bushes, the
+leaves of which were reddish, and they were hung with a prodigious
+quantity of berries. From the summit of the hill, looking down a tract
+of woodland at a considerable distance, so that the interstices between
+the trees could not be seen, their tops presented an unbroken level, and
+seemed somewhat like a richly variegated carpet. The prospect from the
+hill is wide and interesting; but methinks it is pleasanter in the more
+immediate vicinity of the hill than miles away. It is agreeable to look
+down at the square patches of corn-field, or of potato-ground, or of
+cabbages still green, or of beets looking red,--all a man's farm, in
+short,--each portion of which he considers separately so important,
+while you take in the whole at a glance. Then to cast your eye over so
+many different establishments at once, and rapidly compare them,--here a
+house of gentility, with shady old yellow-leaved elms hanging around it;
+there a new little white dwelling; there an old farm-house; to see the
+barns and sheds and all the outhouses clustered together; to comprehend
+the oneness and exclusiveness and what constitutes the peculiarity of
+each of so many establishments, and to have in your mind a multitude of
+them, each of which is the most important part of the world to those who
+live in it,--this really enlarges the mind, and you come down the hill
+somewhat wiser than you go up. Pleasant to look over an orchard far
+below, and see the trees, each casting its own shadow; the white spires
+of meeting-houses; a sheet of water, partly seen among swelling lands.
+This Browne's Hill is a long ridge, lying in the midst of a large, level
+plain; it looks at a distance somewhat like a whale, with its head and
+tail under water, but its immense back protruding, with steep sides, and
+a gradual curve along its length. When you have climbed it on one side,
+and gaze from the summit at the other, you feel as if you had made a
+discovery,--the landscape being quite different on the two sides. The
+cellar of the house which formerly crowned the hill, and used to be
+named Browne's Folly, still remains, two grass-grown and shallow
+hollows, on the highest part of the ridge. The house consisted of two
+wings, each perhaps sixty feet in length, united by a middle part, in
+which was the entrance-hall, and which looked lengthwise along the hill.
+The foundation of a spacious porch may be traced on either side of the
+central portion; some of the stones still remain; but even where they
+are gone, the line of the porch is still traceable by the greener
+verdure. In the cellar, or rather in the two cellars, grow one or two
+barberry-bushes, with frost-bitten fruit; there is also yarrow with its
+white flower, and yellow dandelions. The cellars are still deep enough
+to shelter a person, all but his head at least, from the wind on the
+summit of the hill; but they are all grass-grown. A line of trees seems
+to have been planted along the ridge of the hill. The edifice must have
+made quite a magnificent appearance.
+
+Characteristics during the walk:--Apple-trees with only here and there
+an apple on the boughs, among the thinned leaves, the relics of a
+gathering. In others you observe a rustling, and see the boughs shaking
+and hear the apples thumping down, without seeing the person who does
+it. Apples scattered by the wayside, some with pieces bitten out, others
+entire, which you pick up, and taste, and find them harsh, crabbed
+cider-apples though they have a pretty, waxen appearance. In sunny spots
+of woodland, boys in search or nuts, looking picturesque among the
+scarlet and golden foliage. There is something in this sunny autumnal
+atmosphere that gives a peculiar effect to laughter and joyous
+voices,--it makes them infinitely more elastic and gladsome than at
+other seasons. Heaps of dry leaves, tossed together by the wind, as if
+for a couch and lounging-place for the weary traveller, while the sun is
+warming it for him. Golden pumpkins and squashes, heaped in the angle of
+a house, till they reach the lower windows. Ox-teams, laden with a
+rustling load of Indian corn, in the stalk and ear. When an inlet of the
+sea runs far up into the country, you stare to see a large schooner
+appear amid the rural landscape; she is unloading a cargo of wood, moist
+with rain or salt water that has dashed over it. Perhaps you hear the
+sound of an axe in the woodland; occasionally, the report of a
+fowling-piece. The travellers in the early part of the afternoon look
+warm and comfortable, as if taking a summer drive; but as eve draws
+nearer, you meet them well wrapped in top-coats or cloaks, or rough,
+great surtouts, and red-nosed withal, seeming to take no great comfort,
+but pressing homeward. The characteristic conversation among teamsters
+and country squires, where the ascent of a hill causes the chaise to go
+at the same pace as an ox-team,--perhaps discussing the qualities of a
+yoke of oxen. The cold, blue aspects of sheets of water. Some of the
+country shops with the doors closed; others still open as in summer. I
+meet a wood-sawyer, with his horse and saw on his shoulders, returning
+from work. As night draws on, you begin to see the gleaming of fires on
+the ceilings in the houses which you pass. The comfortless appearance of
+houses at bleak and bare spots,--you wonder how there can be any
+enjoyment in them. I meet a girl in a chintz gown, with a small shawl on
+her shoulders, white stockings, and summer morocco shoes,--it looks
+observable. Turkeys, queer, solemn objects, in black attire, grazing
+about, and trying to peck the fallen apples, which slip away from their
+bills.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_October 16th, 1837._--Spent the whole afternoon in a ramble to the
+sea-shore, near Phillips's Beach. A beautiful, warm, sunny afternoon,
+the very pleasantest day, probably, that there has been in the whole
+course of the year. People at work, harvesting, without their coats.
+Cocks, with their squad of hens, in the grass-fields, hunting
+grasshoppers, chasing them eagerly with outspread wings, appearing to
+take much interest in the sport, apart from the profit. Other hens
+picking up the ears of Indian corn. Grasshoppers, flies, and flying
+insects of all sorts, are more abundant in these warm autumnal days than
+I have seen them at any other time. Yellow butterflies flutter about in
+the sunshine, singly, by pairs, or more, and are wafted on the gentle
+gales. The crickets begin to sing early in the afternoon, and sometimes
+a locust may be heard. In some warm spots, a pleasant buzz of many
+insects.
+
+Crossed the fields near Brookhouse's villa, and came upon a long
+beach,--at least a mile long, I should think,--terminated by craggy
+rocks at either end, and backed by a high, broken bank, the grassy
+summit of which, year by year, is continually breaking away, and
+precipitated to the bottom. At the foot of the bank, in some parts, is a
+vast number of pebbles and paving-stones, rolled up thither by the sea
+long ago. The beach is of a brown sand, with hardly any pebbles
+intermixed upon it. When the tide is part way down, there is a margin of
+several yards from the water's edge, along the whole mile length of the
+beach, which glistens like a mirror, and reflects objects, and shines
+bright in the sunshine, the sand being wet to that distance from the
+water. Above this margin the sand is not wet, and grows less and less
+damp the farther towards the bank you keep. In some places your footstep
+is perfectly implanted, showing the whole shape, and the square toe, and
+every nail in the heel of your boot. Elsewhere, the impression is
+imperfect, and even when you stamp, you cannot imprint the whole. As you
+tread, a dry spot flashes around your step, and grows moist as you lift
+your foot again. Pleasant to pass along this extensive walk, watching
+the surf-wave;--how sometimes it seems to make a feint of breaking, but
+dies away ineffectually, merely kissing the strand; then, after many
+such abortive efforts, it gathers itself, and forms a high wall, and
+rolls onward, heightening and heightening, without foam at the summit of
+the green line, and at last throws itself fiercely on the beach, with a
+loud roar, the spray flying above. As you walk along, you are preceded
+by a flock of twenty or thirty beach birds, which are seeking, I
+suppose, for food on the margin of the surf, yet seem to be merely
+sporting, chasing the sea as it retires, and running up before the
+impending wave. Sometimes they let it bear them off their feet, and
+float lightly on its breaking summit: sometimes they flutter and seem to
+rest on the feathery spray. They are little birds with gray backs and
+snow-white breasts; their images may be seen in the wet sand almost or
+full as distinctly as the reality. Their legs are long. As you draw
+near, they take a flight of a score of yards or more, and then
+recommence their dalliance with the surf-wave. You may behold their
+multitudinous little tracks all along your way. Before you reach the end
+of the beach, you become quite attached to these little sea-birds, and
+take much interest in their occupations. After passing in one direction,
+it is pleasant then to retrace your footsteps. Your tracks being all
+traceable, you may recall the whole mood and occupation of your mind
+during your first passage. Here you turned somewhat aside to pick up a
+shell that you saw nearer the water's edge. Here you examined a long
+sea-weed, and trailed its length after you for a considerable distance.
+Here the effect of the wide sea struck you suddenly. Here you fronted
+the ocean, looking at a sail, distant in the sunny blue. Here you looked
+at some plant on the bank. Here some vagary of mind seems to have
+bewildered you; for your tracks go round and round, and interchange each
+other without visible reason. Here you picked up pebbles and skipped
+them upon the water. Here you wrote names and drew faces with a razor
+sea-shell in the sand.
+
+After leaving the beach, clambered over crags, all shattered and tossed
+about everyhow; in some parts curiously worn and hollowed out, almost
+into caverns. The rock, shagged with sea-weed,--in some places, a thick
+carpet of sea-weed laid over the pebbles, into which your foot would
+sink. Deep tanks among these rocks, which the sea replenishes at high
+tide, and then leaves the bottom all covered with various sorts of
+sea-plants, as if it were some sea-monster's private garden. I saw a
+crab in one of them; five-fingers too. From the edge of the rocks, you
+may look off into deep, deep water, even at low tide. Among the rocks, I
+found a great bird, whether a wild-goose, a loon, or an albatross, I
+scarcely know. It was in such a position that I almost fancied it might
+be asleep, and therefore drew near softly, lest it should take flight;
+but it was dead, and stirred not when I touched it. Sometimes a dead
+fish was cast up. A ledge of rocks, with a beacon upon it, looking like
+a monument erected to those who have perished by shipwreck. The smoked,
+extempore fireplace where a party cooked their fish. About midway on the
+beach, a fresh-water brooklet flows towards the sea. Where it leaves the
+land, it is quite a rippling little current; but in flowing across the
+sand, it grows shallower and more shallow, and at last is quite lost,
+and dies in the effort to carry its little tribute to the main.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An article to be made of telling the stories of the tiles of an
+old-fashioned chimney-piece to a child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A person conscious that he was soon to die, the humor in which he would
+pay his last visit to familiar persons and things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A description of the various classes of hotels and taverns, and the
+prominent personages in each. There should be some story connected with
+it,--as of a person commencing with boarding at a great hotel, and
+gradually, as his means grew less, descending in life, till he got below
+ground into a cellar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A person to be in the possession of something as perfect as mortal man
+has a right to demand; he tries to make it better, and ruins it
+entirely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A person to spend all his life and splendid talents in trying to achieve
+something naturally impossible,--as to make a conquest over Nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meditations about the main gas-pipe of a great city,--if the supply were
+to be stopped, what would happen? How many different scenes it sheds
+light on? It might be made emblematical of something.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_December 6th, 1837._--A fairy tale about chasing Echo to her
+hiding-place. Echo is the voice of a reflection in a mirror.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A house to be built over a natural spring of inflammable gas, and to be
+constantly illuminated therewith. What moral could be drawn from this?
+It is carburetted hydrogen gas, and is cooled from a soft shale or
+slate, which is sometimes bituminous, and contains more or less
+carbonate of lime. It appears in the vicinity of Lockport and Niagara
+Falls, and elsewhere in New York. I believe it indicates coal. At
+Fredonia, the whole village is lighted by it. Elsewhere, a farm-house
+was lighted by it, and no other fuel used in the coldest weather.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gnomes, or other mischievous little fiends, to be represented as
+burrowing in the hollow teeth of some person who has subjected himself
+to their power. It should be a child's story. This should be one of many
+modes of petty torment. They should be contrasted with beneficent
+fairies, who minister to the pleasures of the good.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man will undergo great toil and hardship for ends that must be many
+years distant,--as wealth or fame,--but none for an end that may be
+close at hand,--as the joys of heaven.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Insincerity in a man's own heart must make all his enjoyments, all that
+concerns him, unreal; so that his whole life must seem like a merely
+dramatic representation. And this would be the case, even though he were
+surrounded by true-hearted relatives and friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A company of men, none of whom have anything worth hoping for on earth,
+yet who do not look forward to anything beyond earth!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sorrow to be personified, and its effect on a family represented by the
+way in which the members of the family regard this dark-clad and
+sad-browed inmate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A story to show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one
+another.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To personify winds of various characters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man living a wicked life in one place, and simultaneously a virtuous
+and religious one in another.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An ornament to be worn about the person of a lady,--as a jewelled heart.
+After many years, it happens to be broken or unscrewed, and a poisonous
+odor comes out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lieutenant F. W---- of the navy was an inveterate duellist and an
+unerring shot. He had taken offence at Lieutenant F----, and endeavored
+to draw him into a duel, following him to the Mediterranean for that
+purpose, and harassing him intolerably. At last, both parties being in
+Massachusetts, F---- determined to fight, and applied to Lieutenant
+A---- to be his second. A---- examined into the merits of the quarrel,
+and came to the conclusion that F---- had not given F. W---- justifiable
+cause for driving him to a duel, and that he ought not to be shot. He
+instructed F---- in the use of the pistol, and, before the meeting,
+warned him, by all means, to get the first fire; for that, if F. W----
+fired first, he, F----, was infallibly a dead man, as his antagonist
+could shoot to a hair's breadth. The parties met; and F----, firing
+immediately on the word's being given, shot F. W---- through the heart.
+F. W----, with a most savage expression of countenance, fired, after the
+bullet had gone through his heart, and when the blood had entirely left
+his face, and shot away one of F----'s side-locks. His face probably
+looked as if he were already in the infernal regions; but afterwards it
+assumed an angelic calmness and repose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A company of persons to drink a certain medicinal preparation, which
+would prove a poison, or the contrary, according to their different
+characters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many persons, without a consciousness of so doing, to contribute to some
+one end; as to a beggar's feast, made up of broken victuals from many
+tables; or a patch carpet, woven of shreds from innumerable garments.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some very famous jewel or other thing, much talked of all over the
+world. Some person to meet with it, and get possession of it in some
+unexpected manner, amid homely circumstances.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To poison a person or a party of persons with the sacramental wine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A cloud in the shape of an old woman kneeling, with arms extended
+towards the moon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On being transported to strange scenes, we feel as if all were unreal.
+This is but the perception of the true unreality of earthly things, made
+evident by the want of congruity between ourselves and them. By and by
+we become mutually adapted, and the perception is lost.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An old looking-glass. Somebody finds out the secret of making all the
+images that have been reflected in it pass back again across its
+surface.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our Indian races having reared no monuments, like the Greeks, Romans,
+and Egyptians, when they have disappeared from the earth, their history
+will appear a fable, and they misty phantoms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A woman to sympathize with all emotions, but to have none of her own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A portrait of a person in New England to be recognized as of the same
+person represented by a portrait, in Old England. Having distinguished
+himself there, he had suddenly vanished, and had never been heard of
+till he was thus discovered to be identical with a distinguished man in
+New England.
+
+
+
+
+SAINTE-BEUVE.
+
+
+The lives of French men of letters, at least during the last two
+centuries, have never been isolated or obscure. Had Rousseau been born
+on the borders of Loch Lomond, he might have proved in his own person,
+and without interruption, the superiority of the savage state; and after
+his death the information in regard to him would have been fragmentary
+and uncertain. But born on the shores of Lake Leman, centralization laid
+its grasp upon him, drew him into the vortex of the "great world," and
+caused his name to figure in all the questions, the quarrels, and the
+scandals of his day.
+
+The truth is, that literature is a far more important element of society
+in France than elsewhere. We seldom think of a French author, without
+recalling the history and the manners of his time. In reading a French
+play, though it be a tragedy of Racine or a comedy of Moliere, we are
+reminded of the spectators before whom it was brought out. In reading a
+French book, though it be Pascal's "Thoughts" or the "Characters" of La
+Bruyere, our minds are continually diverted from the matter of the work
+to the circumstances under which it was written and the public for whom
+it was intended.
+
+Generally, indeed, the author, however full of his subject, has
+evidently been thinking of his readers. His tone is that of a speaker
+with his audience before him. Madame de Stael actually composed in
+conversation, and her works are little more than imperfect records of
+her eloquent discourse. Innumerable productions have been read aloud, or
+handed round in private coteries, before being revised and published.
+The very excellence of the workmanship, if nothing else, shows that the
+article is "custom made." Even if the matter be poor, the writing is
+almost sure to be good. French literature abounds, beyond every other,
+in _readable_ books,--books such as are welcomed by the mass of
+cultivated persons. It excels, in short, as a literature of the _salon_,
+rather than of the study.
+
+As a natural corollary, criticism occupies a more distinct and prominent
+place in the literature of France than in that of any other nation.
+Every writer is sure of being heard, sure of being discussed, sure of
+being judged. This may not always have been favorable to originality. A
+fixed standard,--which is a necessary consequence,--though the guardian
+of taste, is a bar to innovation. When, however, the bar has been
+actually crossed, when encroachment has once obtained a footing, French
+criticism is swift to adjust itself to the new conditions imposed upon
+it, to widen its sphere and to institute fresh comparisons.
+
+The present position of French criticism, its connection with the
+general course of literature and of society from the fall of the first
+Empire to the establishment of the second,--a period of remarkable
+effervescence and even fertility,--will be best illustrated by a sketch
+of the writings and career of M. Sainte-Beuve. He is, it is true, one of
+a group, compromising such critics as Villemain, Cousin, Vinet, Planche,
+Taine, and Scherer; but his name is more intimately associated than any
+of these with the progress and fluctuations of opinion and of taste. His
+notices of his contemporaries have been by far the most copious and
+assiduous. His literary life, extending over forty years, embraces the
+rise and the decline of what is known as the Romantic School; and during
+all this period his course, whether we regard it as that of a leader or
+of a follower, has harmonized singularily with the tendencies of the
+age.
+
+Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was born at Boulogne--a town not fruitful
+in distinguished names--on the 23d of December, 1804. His father, who
+had held an employment under the government, died two days before the
+birth of the son. His mother was the daughter of an Englishwoman,--a
+circumstance which has been thought to account for the appreciation he
+has shown of English poetry. The notion would be more plausible if there
+were any poetry which he has failed to appreciate. But when it is added
+that she was a woman of remarkable intelligence and sensibility, we
+recognize a fact of which the influence can neither be doubted nor
+defined.
+
+After several years of prepatory instruction at a boarding-school in his
+native place, he was sent to Paris, when thirteen years old, and entered
+successively in several of the educational establishments which had
+succeeded to the ancient University. His studies, everywhere crowned
+with honors, were completed by a second course of rhetoric at the
+College Bourbon, in 1822. He afterwards, however, attended the lectures
+of Guizot, Villemain, and other distinguished professors at the
+Sorbonne. A hostile critic, though seven years his junior, professes to
+retain a distinct recollection of him at this period: "Among the most
+assiduous and most attentive auditors was a young man whose face,
+irregular in outline but marvellously intelligent, reflected every
+thought and image of the speaker, almost as rivers reflect the landscape
+that unrolls itself along their banks. When I add that the volatile
+waves incessantly efface what they have just before reflected, the
+comparison will appear only the more exact." To an impartial inquirer it
+might appear singularly inexact; but having picked up the shaft, we
+shall not at present stop to examine whether it be poisoned.
+
+On quitting college, M. Sainte-Beuve made choice of medicine as his
+profession. He threw himself with enthusiasm into the study of anatomy,
+and soon qualified himself for an appointment as _externe_ at the
+Hospital of Saint Louis. This ardor, however, far from indicating the
+particular bent of his mind, proceeded from that eager curiosity which
+is ready to enter every avenue and knock at every door by which the
+domain of knowledge can be approached. With the faculties he was endowed
+with, and the training he had received, it was impossible that he should
+lose in any special pursuit his interest in general literature. His
+fellow-townsman and former master in rhetoric, M. Dubois, having become
+the principal editor of the newly founded "Globe," invited his
+co-operation. Accordingly, in 1824, he began to contribute critical and
+historical articles to that journal; and three years later he resigned
+his post at the hospital, with the purpose of devoting himself
+exclusively to literary pursuits.
+
+The period was in the highest degree favorable to the development and
+display of his talent. The literary revolution, which in Germany and
+England had already passed through its principal stages, had as yet
+scarcely penetrated into France. It had been heralded, indeed, by
+Chateaubriand, at the beginning of the century; and Madame de Stael,
+some few years later, had come into contact with the reigning chiefs of
+German literature, and had made known to her countrymen their character
+and activity. But the energies of France were then absorbed in
+enterprises of another kind. It was not till peace had been restored,
+and a new generation, ardent, susceptible, as eager for novelty as the
+veterans were impatient of it, had come upon the stage, that the
+requisite impulse was given. Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Merimee, Alfred de
+Vigny, and other young men of genius, were just opening the assault on
+the citadel of _classicisme_. Conventional rules were set at defiance;
+the authorities that had so long held sway were summoned to abdicate;
+nature, truth, above all passion, were invoked as the sources of
+inspiration, the law-givers of the imagination, the sole arbiters of
+style. As usual, the movement extended beyond its legitimate sphere. Not
+only the forms, but the ideas, not only the traditions, but the
+novelties, of the eighteenth century were to be discarded. In fact, the
+period, though favorable to literary development, was, on the surface at
+least, one of political and religious reaction; and reaction often
+assumes the aspect of progress, nay, in some cases is identical with
+progress. Most of the poets, dramatists, and other writers of the
+Romantic School were, either by affinity or predilection, legitimists
+and neo-Catholics. Gothic art, mediaeval sentiment, the ancient monarchy
+and the ancient creed, were blended in their programme with the
+abrogation of the "unities," and a greater license of poetical
+expression.
+
+Imbued with the precepts of a former age, and fresh from the study of
+its masterpieces, M. Sainte-Beuve was at first repelled by the mutinous
+attitude of the new aspirants. He made his _debut_ in an attack upon the
+"Odes and Ballads" of Victor Hugo. But his opposition quickly yielded to
+the force of the attraction. Nature had given him a peculiar mobility of
+temperament, and a strong instinctive sense of beauty under every
+diversity of form. Moreover, resistance would have been useless and
+Quixotic. In literature, as in politics, dynasties perish through their
+own weakness. The classical school of France had no living
+representative around whom its adherents could have rallied. Its only
+watchword was "The Past," which is always an omen of defeat.
+
+Properly speaking, therefore, M. Sainte-Beuve began his career, not as
+an opponent, but as the champion of the new school. He entered into
+personal and intimate relations with its leaders, joined, as a member of
+the _Cenacle_, in the discussion of their plans, attended the private
+readings of "Cromwell" and other works by which the breach was to be
+forced, and took upon himself the task of justifying innovation, and
+securing its reception with a hesitating public. Hence his criticism at
+this period was, as he himself has styled it, "polemical" and
+"aggressive." It was, however, neither violent nor sophistical. On the
+contrary, it was distinguished by the candor and the suavity of its
+tone. Goethe, who watched from afar a movement which, directly or
+indirectly, owed much to German inspiration, was particularly struck
+with this trait. "Our scholars," he remarked to Eckermann, "think it
+necessary to hate whoever differs from them in opinion; but the writers
+in the Globe know how to blame with refinement and courtesy."
+
+At home many, without being converted, were propitiated, and some, while
+still hostile or indifferent to the new literature, became warmly
+interested in its advocate. At the suggestion of Daunou, one of the most
+distinguished among the survivors of the Revolutionary epoch, he
+undertook a work on early French literature, with the intention of
+competing for a prize offered by the Academy. But his plan soon deviated
+from that which had been assigned; and his researches, more limited in
+their scope, but far deeper and more minute, than had been demanded,
+gave birth to a volume, published in 1828, under the title of _Tableau
+historique et critique de la Poesie francaise et du Theatre francais au
+seizieme Siecle_. It was received with general favor. Some of the
+author's principles were strenuously disputed; but he was admitted to
+have made many discoveries in literary history, and to have introduced
+an entirely new method of criticism. Perhaps it would be more correct to
+say, that he had carried the torch of an enlightened judgment into a
+period which the brilliancy of succeeding epochs had thrown into
+obscurity.
+
+In 1829 M. Sainte-Beuve published a volume of poetry, _Poesies de Joseph
+Delorme_, followed, in 1830, by another, entitled _Consolations_, and
+some years later by a third, _Pensees d'Aout_. Although different
+degrees of merit have been assigned to these productions, their general
+character is the same. They exhibit, not the fire and inspiration of the
+true poetical temperament, but the experiments of a mind gifted with
+delicacy of sentiment and susceptible of varied impressions, in quest of
+appropriate forms and a deeper comprehension of the sources from which
+language derives its power as a vehicle of art. The influence of
+Wordsworth is observable in a studied familiarity of diction, as well as
+in the tendency to versify every thought or emotion suggested by daily
+observation. These peculiarities, coupled with the frequency of bold
+ellipses, provoked discussion, and seemed to promise a fresh expansion
+of poetical forms, in a somewhat different direction from that of the
+Romanticists. But it was not in this department that M. Sainte-Beuve was
+destined to become the founder of a school. His poetical talent, though
+unquestionable, had been bestowed, not as a special attribute, but as an
+auxiliary of other faculties granted in a larger measure. He has himself
+not only recognized its limits, but shown an inclination to underrate
+its value. "I have often thought," he remarks in one of his later
+papers, "that a critic who would attain to largeness of view would be
+better without any artistic faculty of his own. Goethe alone, by the
+universality of his poetical genius, was able to apply it in the
+estimation of what others had produced; in every species of composition
+he was entitled to say, 'Had I chosen, I could have given a perfect
+specimen of this.' But one who possesses only a single circumscribed
+talent should, in becoming a critic, forget it, bury it, and confess to
+himself that Nature is more bountiful and more varied than she showed
+herself in creating him. Incomplete artists, let us strive for an
+intelligence wider than our own talent,--than the best we are capable of
+producing."
+
+To the same period--perhaps to the same spirit of investigation and
+experiment--belongs the single prose work of fancy which has proceeded
+from his pen. It is a species of romance, bearing the title of
+_Volupte_, and designed to exhibit the struggle between the senses and
+the soul, or, more strictly speaking, the effect upon the intellectual
+nature of an early captivity to the pleasures of sense. The hero,
+Amaury, after a youth of indulgence, finds himself in the prime of his
+manhood, with his powers of perception and of thought vigorous and
+matured, but incapable of acting, of willing, or of loving. He inspires
+love, but cannot return it; he feels, he admires, but he shrinks from
+any step demanding resolution or self-devotion. Hence, instead of
+conferring happiness, he makes victims,--victims not of an active, but
+of a merely passive and negative egotism. A conjunction of circumstances
+brings him to a sudden and vivid realization of his condition and its
+results. Instead of escaping by suicide, as might be expected,--and as
+would probably have been the case if Werther had not forestalled
+him,--he breaks loose from his thraldom by a supreme effort, and finds
+in the faith and sacrifices of a religious life the means of restoration
+and of permanent freedom. He enters a seminary, is ordained priest, and
+performs the funeral rites of the woman whose affection for him had been
+the most ardent and exalted, and whom his purified heart could have best
+repaid.
+
+In form, the work is an autobiography. The thoughts with which it teems
+are delicate and subtile; the style, somewhat labored and over-refined,
+is in contrast with that of the _Poesies_, while it betrays the same
+struggle for a greater amplitude and independence. In point of art the
+book appears to us a failure. The theme is not objectionable in itself.
+It is similar to that of many works which have sprung from certain
+phases of individual experience. But if such experience is to be
+idealized, its origin should disappear. Shakespeare may have undergone
+all the conflicts of doubt and irresolution represented in "Hamlet"; but
+in reading "Hamlet" we think, not of Shakespeare's conflicts, but of our
+own. _Volupte_ is too palpably a confession. The story is not a
+creation; it has been simply evolved by that process of thought which
+transports a particular idiosyncrasy into conditions and circumstances
+where it becomes a kind of destiny and a subject of speculation. Reality
+is wanting, for the very reason that the Imagination, after being called
+into play, has proved too feeble for her office. Herein Amaury differs
+widely from Rene. Apart from the difference of power, Chateaubriand had
+poured out his entire self; he had transcended the limits of his actual
+life, but never those of his mental experience. M. Sainte-Beuve had felt
+only a part of what he sought to depict; the rest he had conjectured or
+borrowed. The pages which describe the hero's impressions and emotions
+in consecrating himself to the service of the Church were written by
+Lacordaire. They are a faithful transcript from nature, but from a
+nature not at all resembling that to which they have been applied. The
+circumstances under which the book was composed will exhibit the
+difference. The author was then intimate with Lamennais, whose eloquent
+voice, soon afterwards to be raised in support of the opposite cause,
+was proclaiming the sternest doctrines of a renovated Catholicism. A
+spell which acted so widely and so marvellously could not be altogether
+unfelt by a mind whose peculiar property it was to yield itself to every
+influence in order to extort its secret and comprehend its power. Beyond
+this point the magic failed. "In all my transitions,"--thus he has
+written of himself,--"I have never alienated my judgment and my will; I
+have never pledged my belief. But I had a power of comprehending persons
+and things which gave rise to the strongest hopes on the part of those
+who wished to convert me and who thought me entirely their own." Thus
+Lamartine, in a rapturous strain, had congratulated himself on having
+been the instrument of saving his friend from the abysm of unbelief.
+When Lamennais was forming the group of disciples who retired with him
+to La Chesnaye, M. Sainte-Beuve was invited to join them. While
+declining the proposal, he imagined the position in which he might have
+been led to embrace it, and--wrote _Volupte_.
+
+The revolution of 1830, with the events that led to it, marks a
+turning-point in literary as well as in political history. The public
+mind was in a state of ebullition very unlike that of an ordinary
+political contest, in which one party pulls while the other applies the
+drag, one seeks to maintain, the other to destroy. All parties were
+pulling in different directions; all sought to destroy, in order to
+reconstruct; principles, except with the extremists, were simply
+expedients, adopted to-day, abandoned on the morrow. Nor is this to be
+explained, as English writers generally explain it, by the mere
+volatility of the French temperament. In England, an established basis
+of political power is slowly but constantly expanding; privilege
+crumbles and wears away under the gradual action of democracy;
+concession on the one side, moderation on the other, are perfectly
+feasible, and obviate the necessity for sudden ruptures and violent
+transitions. But in France the question created by past convulsions, and
+left unsolved by recent experiments, was this: What _is_ the basis of
+power? Privilege had been so shorn that those who desired to make that
+the foundation were necessarily not conservatives, but reactionists. On
+the other hand, if popular power were to be accepted in its widest
+sense, then a thousand questions, a thousand differences of opinion in
+regard to the mode, the form, the application, would naturally spring
+up. Besides, would it not be safer, wiser, to modify ideas by
+experience, to look abroad for patterns, to seek for an equilibrium, a
+_juste milieu_? Thus there was a diversity of systems, but all
+contemplative of change. No one was in favor of standing still, for
+there was nothing to stand upon. In a word, the agitation was not so
+much one of measures, of principles, or of prejudices, as of ideas.
+
+Now in an agitation of this kind, literary men--that is to say, the men
+whose business is to think--are likely to be active, and in France, at
+least, are apt to become prominent and influential. But they, of all
+men, by the very fact that they think, are least under the control of
+party affinities and fixed doctrines, the most liable to be swayed by
+discussion and reflection. Hence the spectacle, so frequent at that time
+and since, of men distinguished in the world of letters passing from the
+ranks of the legitimists into those of the republicans, from the
+advocacy of papal supremacy in temporal affairs to that of popular
+supremacy in religious affairs, from the defence of a landed aristocracy
+to the demand for a community of property; and afterwards, in many
+instances, returning with the backward current, abjuring freedom and
+embracing imperialism.
+
+In the case of M. Sainte-Beuve the changes were neither so abrupt nor so
+complete as in that of many others. But his course was still more
+meandering, skirting the bases of opposite systems, abiding with none.
+Never a blind adherent or a vehement opponent, he glided almost
+imperceptibly from camp to camp. He consorted, as we have seen, with
+legitimists and neo-Catholics, and allowed himself to be reckoned as one
+of them. Through the columns of the Globe, which had now become the
+organ of the Saint-Simonians, he invited the Romanticists to "step forth
+from the circle of pure art, and diffuse the doctrines of a progressive
+humanity." On the advent of Louis Philippe, he was inclined to accept
+the constitutional _regime_ as the triumph of good sense, as affording a
+practical solution and a promise of stability. But he appears soon to
+have lost his faith in a government too narrow in policy, too timid in
+action, too vulgar in aspect, to satisfy a cultivated Parisian taste.
+
+A similar flexibility will be noticed in his literary judgments. Shall
+we then pronounce him a very chameleon in politics and in art? Shall we
+say, with the critic already quoted, M. de Pontmartin, that his mental
+hues have been simply reflections, effaced as rapidly as they were made?
+On the contrary, we believe that he, of all men, has retained the
+various impressions he has once received. Unlike so many others, who, in
+changing their views, have contradicted all their former utterances,
+disowned their former selves, undergone a sort of bisection into two
+irreconcilable halves, M. Sainte-Beuve has linked one opinion with
+another, modified each by its opposite, and thus preserved his
+continuity and cohesion. "Everything has two names," to use his own
+expression, and he has never been content with knowing only one of them.
+Guided by a sympathetic intelligence, adopting, not symbols, but ideas,
+he has, by force of penetration and comprehension, extracted the essence
+of each doctrine in turn. His changes therefore indicate, not
+superficiality, but depth. He is no more chargeable with volatility than
+society itself. Like it he is a seeker, listening to every proposition,
+accepting what is vital, rejecting what is merely formal. There is not
+one of the systems which have been presented, however contrasted they
+may appear, but has left its impress upon society,--not one but has left
+its impress on the mind and opinions of M. Sainte-Beuve.
+
+In one particular--the most essential, in reality, of all--his constancy
+has been remarkable. He has remained true to his vocation. At the moment
+when his literary brethren, availing themselves of the opening we have
+noticed, were rushing into public life,--scholars and professors
+becoming ambassadors and ministers of state, poets and novelists
+mounting the tribune and the hustings, historians descending into the
+arena of political journalism,--M. Sainte-Beuve settled himself more
+firmly in the chair of criticism, concentrating his powers on the
+specialty to which they were so peculiarly adapted. His opportunities
+for doing this more effectively were themselves among the results of the
+events already mentioned. A greater freedom and activity of discussion
+demanded new and ampler organs. Cliques had been broken up; co-workers,
+brought together by sympathy, separated by the clash of opinions and
+ambitions, had dispersed; both in literature and in politics a wider,
+more inquisitive, more sympathetic public was to be addressed. Already
+in 1829, Veron, one of those shrewd and speculative--we hardly know
+whether to call them men of business or adventurers, who foresee such
+occasions, had set up the _Revue de Paris_, on a more extended plan than
+that of any previous French journal of the kind. The opening article of
+the first number was from the pen of M. Sainte-Beuve. But this
+undertaking was subsequently merged in that of the _Revue des Deux
+Mondes_, which, after one or two abortive beginnings, was fairly started
+in January, 1831, and soon assumed the position it has ever since
+retained, at the head of the publications of its class. It enlisted
+among its contributors nearly all the leading writers of the day, none
+of whom was so regular and permanent, none of whom did so much to build
+up its reputation and confer upon it the stamp of authority, as M.
+Sainte-Beuve. His connection with it extended over seventeen years, the
+period between the last two revolutions. His papers seem to have
+averaged five or six a year. They form, with those which had been
+previously inserted in the _Revue de Paris_, a series of _Portraits_,
+now embraced in seven volumes, and divided, somewhat arbitrarily, into
+_Portraits litteraires_, _Portraits contemporains_, and _Portraits de
+Femmes_. The names included, which with few exceptions are those of
+French writers, belong to different epochs, different schools, and
+different departments of literature. Many are famous; some are obscure;
+not a few, which had before been overlooked or overshadowed, owe the
+recognition they have since received to their admission into a gallery
+where the places have been assigned and the lights distributed by no
+partial or incompetent umpire.
+
+In the case of any kind of literature, but especially in that of
+criticism, it is interesting to have an author's own ideas of his office
+and art. The motto of the Edinburgh Review--"_Judex damnatur cum nocens
+absolvitur_"--was a very good indication of the spirit of its founders,
+whose legal habits and aspirations naturally suggested the spectacle of
+a court, in which the critic as judge was to sit upon the bench, and the
+author as prisoner was to stand at the bar. Had Jeffries, instead of
+Jeffrey, presided over the assizes, they could not have been gayer or
+bloodier. It is interesting to remember that among the criminals
+sentenced without reprieve were the greatest poet and the most original
+thinker of the time. A journal which has earned something of the
+prestige that attached to the youthful Edinburgh takes a not very
+different view of its own functions. "An author may wince under
+criticism," say the writers of the Saturday Review; "but is the master
+to leave off flogging because the pupil roars?" Here, too, the notion of
+the relative position of author and critic is perfectly natural. Young
+gentlemen, with a lively recollection of their own construings and
+birchings, are only too happy in the opportunity of sitting with bent
+brows and uplifted rod, watching for a false quantity or similar
+peccadillo, which may justify a withering rebuke or a vigorous
+flagellation. If we add, that these writers exhibit that accuracy of
+statement which usually accompanies the assumption of infallibility, and
+that their English is of that prim and painful kind, common to
+pedagogues, which betrays a constant fear of being caught tripping while
+engaged in correcting others, the comparison--to cite once more M. de
+Pontmartin--"will appear only the more exact." We forbear to descend to
+a far lower class, judges who know nothing of law, masters who have
+never been scholars, truly "incomplete artists" who cannot "forget or
+bury" their own extremely "circumscribed talent," but who are perfectly
+willing to bury, and would fain induce the world to forget, that of
+every suspected rival.
+
+Had M. Sainte-Beuve entered upon his task with similar conceptions and
+associations, his early anatomical studies would perhaps have suggested
+the patient under the scalpel as an appropriate device. But we are in
+danger of dishonoring him by the mere supposition. Scattered through his
+works--beginning with the earliest and coming down to the latest--we
+find such sentences as the following: "The critical spirit is in its
+nature facile, insinuating, mobile, and comprehensive; it is a great and
+limpid river, which winds and spreads itself around the productions and
+the monuments of genius." "The best and surest way to penetrate and to
+judge any writer, any man, is to listen to him,--to listen long and
+intently: do not press him; let him move and display himself with
+freedom, and _of_ himself he will tell you all _about_ himself; he will
+imprint himself upon your mind. Be assured that in the long run no man,
+no writer, above all no poet, will preserve his secret." "It is by
+virtue of an exquisite analogy that the word 'taste' has prevailed over
+the word 'judgment.' Judgment! I know minds which possess it in a high
+degree, but which are yet wanting in taste; for taste expresses what is
+finest and most instinctive in an organ which is at once the most
+delicate and the most complex." "To know how to read a book, judging it
+as we go along, but never ceasing to _taste_ it,--in this consists
+almost the whole art of criticism." "What Bacon says as to the proper
+mode of educing the natural meaning from Scripture may be applied to
+ancient writings of all kinds, or even to the most modern. The best and
+sweetest criticism is that which exudes from a good book, not pressed as
+in a wine-press, but squeezed gently in a free reading. I love that
+criticism should be an _emanation_ from the book." "Whenever I speak of
+a writer, I prefer to exhibit him in the brightest and happiest hour of
+his talent, to place him, if possible, directly under the rays." "The
+greatest triumph of criticism is when it recognizes the arrival of a
+power, the advent of a genius." "I cannot admit that the best mode of
+correcting a talent which is in process of development is to begin by
+throwing an inkstand at its head." "I am almost frightened at seeing to
+what an extent literary criticism becomes difficult, when it refrains
+from arrogance and from insult, claiming for itself both an honest
+freedom of judgment and the right to participate largely in the
+bestowment of deserved praise, as well as to maintain a certain
+cordiality even in its reservations." "If Diderot was as far as possible
+from being a dramatic poet, if he was destitute of that supreme creative
+power which involves the transformation of an author's own personality,
+he possessed, on the other hand, in the highest degree, that faculty of
+demi-metamorphosis which is the exercise and the triumph of criticism,
+and which consists in putting one's self in the the place of the author,
+occupying the point of view to the subject under examination, and
+reading every writing in the spirit by which it was dictated."
+
+Let us admit that these are not so much absolute principles of criticism
+as the features which characterize that of the writer himself and the
+method which he has almost involuntarily pursued. Let us admit this, and
+in doing so we concede to him all the qualities that are rarest and most
+desirable in his art,--impartiality, sincerity, disinterestedness;
+freedom from theory, from passion, and from prejudice; insight,
+comprehension, sensitiveness to every trait and every kind of beauty and
+of power; a patient ardor and pure delight in acquisition, and a
+generous desire, in the interest of literature itself, to communicate
+the results and inspire similar feelings. Without denying that all good
+criticism will partake more or less largely of these qualities, or that
+some of them have been more abundantly possessed, more profoundly
+applied, by others, we believe that it would be difficult to cite an
+instance in which they have been so entirely combined or so continuously
+exercised. M. Sainte-Beuve is pre-eminently an _artist_ in criticism. He
+has exhibited that self-absorption which it is easy to imagine, easy to
+find examples of, in poetry, in painting, and in music, but which in
+criticism had hitherto been hardly conceivable. "There is in him," wrote
+Gustave Planche in 1834,--and the force of the eulogy is in no degree
+impaired by subsequent censures from the same quarter,--"a happy
+mingling of enthusiasm and curiosity, renewed in proportion as they are
+appeased, and enrolled in the service of all nascent or unrecognized
+abilities.... He speaks the truth for the sole pleasure of speaking it,
+and asks no gratitude either from the disciples whom he initiates or
+from the new deities whom he exalts.... Whenever he finds a poet not
+sufficiently listened to, he aims to enlarge the audience, erects a
+stage on which to place him, and arranges everything for enabling him to
+produce the fullest effect.... Before him French criticism, when it was
+not either acrimonious or simply learned, consisted in a mere
+commonplace repetition of precepts and formulas of which the sense had
+been lost. His perpetual mobility is but a constant good faith; he
+believes in the most opposite schools, because believing is with him
+only a mode of comprehending."
+
+Let it not be supposed from this description that M. Sainte-Beuve is
+wanting in acuteness, that his enthusiasm predominates over his
+sagacity. On the contrary, there is no keener eye than his for whatever
+is false, pretentious, or unsound. His sure instinct quickly separates
+the gold from the alloy. Unlike the critics of the _nil admirari_
+school, whose reluctance to trust themselves to their emotions proceeds
+in great part from the absence of this instinct, he is proof against the
+approaches of the charlatan, and has never debased the word "art" by
+applying it to a mere melodramatic mechanism. But he rightly considers
+the office of the detector as insignificant in comparison with that of
+the discoverer, and his glow of satisfaction is reserved for the nobler
+employment. The points on which he insists are the obligation of
+honestly desiring to understand an author; the impropriety of fastening
+on defects, or of simply balancing between defects and merits; the duty
+of approving with heartiness and warmth, in place of that cold-blooded
+moderation which he pronounces, with Vauvenargues, "a sure sign of
+mediocrity." If, therefore, we say that his is only one species of
+criticism, we cannot deny its claim to be entitled the "criticism of
+_appreciation_." It is thus the exact reverse of that species to which
+we have before alluded, and which deserves to be called the "criticism
+of _depreciation_."
+
+We come now to the particular characteristics of the _Portraits_, the
+manner in which the author has there applied his principles. "I have
+never," he remarks in a recent defence, "vaunted my method as a
+discovery, or affected to guard it as a secret." It involves, however,
+both the one and the other. The discovery consists in the perception of
+the truth that an author is always in his works; that he cannot help
+being there; that no reticence, no pretences, no disguises, will avail
+to hide him. The secret lies in the skill with which the search is
+pursued and the object revealed. We do not, of course, mean to say that
+M. Sainte-Beuve is the originator of biographical criticism, which in
+England especially, favored by the portly Reviews, has been carried to
+an extent undreamt of elsewhere. But in general it may be noticed that
+English articles of this kind have been simply biographies accompanied
+with criticism; their model is to be found in Johnson's "Lives of the
+Poets." The critical articles of Mr. Carlyle are a striking exception.
+Of Carlyle it may be said, as it has been said of M. Sainte-Beuve, that
+"what chiefly interests him in a book is the author, and in the author
+the very mystery of his personality." In other words, each looks upon a
+literary work, not as the production of certain impersonal intellectual
+faculties, but as a manifestation of the author in the totality of his
+nature. But while the point of view is thus identical, there is little
+similarity in the treatment. In the one case a powerful imagination
+causes the figure to stand out in bold relief, while a luminous humor
+plays upon every feature. The method of the _Portraits_--again we cite
+the author's own language--is "descriptive, analytical, inquisitive." We
+are led along through a series of details, each lightly touched, each
+contributing to the elucidation of the enigma, by a train of closely
+linked and subtile observation, which penetrates all the obscurities,
+unravels all the intricacies, of the subject. And the result is, not
+that broad but mingled conception which arises from personal intimacy or
+from the art which simulates it, but that idea, that distilled essence,
+which is obtained when what is most characteristic, what is purely
+mental and individual, has been selected and condensed.
+
+The sympathetic nature of the critic displays itself in his general
+treatment of the theme, in the post of observation which he chooses. He
+is not an advocate or an apologist. But the opinions in which he does
+not coincide, the defects which he has no interest in concealing, he
+sets in their natural connection, and regards as portions of a living
+organism. Put before him a nature the most opposite to his own,--narrow,
+rigorous, systematic. Shall he oppose or condemn it because of this
+contrariety? But why, then, has he himself been endowed with suppleness
+and insight, why is he a critic, unless that he may enter into other
+minds see as they have seen, feel as they have felt? He must get to the
+centre before he can trace the limits and imperfections. Once there,
+once identified with his object, he can observe its irregularities
+without being irritated or perturbed. As for that Rhadamanthine
+criticism which sits aloof from its object, and treats every aberration
+from a straight line as something abnormal and abominable, he leaves it
+to the immaculate. In truth, such criticism, with all its pretences to
+authority, is open to this fatal objection,--it tends to destroy our
+relish for literature; instead of stimulating the appetite, it creates
+disgust.[C] How different is the effect produced by the _Portraits_! Of
+all criticism they have the most power to refresh our interest in
+familiar topics, and to kindle curiosity in regard to those with which
+we are unacquainted. They serve as the best possible introduction to the
+study of the works themselves, to which, accordingly, they have in many
+cases been prefixed. They put us in the proper disposition for _tasting_
+as we read. Often they are guides with which we could hardly dispense.
+M. Sainte-Beuve is never more happy than in dealing with complexities or
+contradictions, with characters that puzzle the ordinary observer, with
+harmonies which are hidden in discords. Of women, it has been well said,
+he writes "as if he were one of them." Like Thackeray, like Balzac, he
+knows their secret. So, too, the spirit of a particular epoch or a
+particular school is seized, its successive phases are distinguished,
+with a nicety defying competition. Especially is this applicable to the
+developments of the present century. Who, indeed, was so competent to
+describe its parties and conflicts, its emotions and languors, as one
+who had shared in all its transitions, in all its experiences?
+
+The style of the _Portraits_ might form the subject of a separate study.
+Abjuring antithesis and epigram on the one hand, pomp and declamation on
+the other, it has yet none of the limpidity, the rapid flow, the
+incisive directness, of classical French prose. On the contrary, it is
+full of shadings and undulations. It abounds in caressing epithets, and
+in figures sometimes elaborated and prolonged to the last degree,
+sometimes clustered and contrasted like flowers in a bouquet. After a
+continuous reading a sense of luxury steals over us; we seem to be
+surrounded by the rich draperies and scented atmosphere of a boudoir.
+Yet the term "florid" will not apply to what is everywhere pervaded by
+an exquisite harmony and taste. Simplicity of expression, energy of
+tone, would be out of place, where the thought is so subtile and
+refined, the glow of feeling so soft and restrained, the mind so
+absorbed in the effort to catch every echo, every reflection, floating
+across the field of its survey. Difficult as it is to convey any
+adequate notion of such a style by mere description, it would be at
+least as difficult to do justice to its peculiarities in a translation.
+Our impressions of it may perhaps be best summed up by saying that it
+is the farthest remove from oratory, and the nearest approach to poetry,
+of any prose not professedly idyllic or lyric with which we are
+acquainted.
+
+It has been stated by the author himself, as one defect in his criticism
+at this period, that it was not "conclusive." It was perfectly sincere,
+but not equally frank. In fact, it was not full-grown. A mind like that
+of M. Sainte-Beuve is slow in arriving at maturity. It is quick to
+comprehend; but the very breadth of its comprehension and the variety of
+its researches make it tardy in attaining that completeness and
+decision, that air of mastery, which less capacious minds assume through
+the mere instinct, and as the outward sign, of virility. He has himself
+indicated the distinction in his notice of M. Taine, whom he describes
+as "entering the arena fully armed and equipped, taking his place with a
+precision, a vigor of expression, a concentration and absoluteness of
+thought, which he applies in turn to the most opposite subjects, without
+ever forgetting his own identity or losing faith in his system." There
+were, however, in the case of M. Sainte-Beuve, further impediments to
+the assumption of an explicit and confident tone. Among the authors whom
+he was called upon to criticise were his acknowledged leaders, those by
+whom he had been initiated into the mysteries of modern art. Though he
+was fast outgrowing their influence, he was in no haste to proclaim his
+independence. An indefatigable student, he was accumulating stores of
+material without as yet drawing upon them to any proportionate extent,
+or putting forth all the strength with which they supplied him. Besides
+the "Portraits," his only other work during this period was his "History
+of Port Royal," the five volumes of which were published at long
+intervals. Social relations, too, exerted a restraining influence. His
+position in the world of letters was generally recognized, and had
+brought him the distinctions and rewards which France has it in her
+power to bestow. In 1840 he was appointed one of the conservators of the
+Mazarine Library. In 1845 he was elected to the French Academy. He lived
+on terms of intimacy with men of all parties, and with the highest in
+every party. He moved in the _elite_ of Parisian society, accepting
+rather than claiming its attentions, but fully sensible of its charms.
+All these circumstances combined to prolong, in his case, that season
+when, though the fruit has formed, the blossoms have not yet fallen,
+when the mind still yields itself to illusions as if loath to be
+disenchanted. His sincere admiration for the genius of Chateaubriand did
+not blind him to the monstrosities or the littlenesses by which it was
+disfigured. But should he rudely break the spell in the presence of the
+enchanter? should he disturb the veneration that encircled his decline?
+should he steel himself against the gracious pleadings of Madame
+Recamier, and throw a bomb-shell into that circle of which no one could
+better appreciate the seductive repose? He chose rather to limit the
+scope of his judgment, to look at the object solely on its attractive
+side, to postpone _reservations_ which would have had the effect of a
+revolt.
+
+Yet the extent of his concessions has been much exaggerated. No
+extravagant laudations ever fell from his pen. Moreover, his gradual
+emancipation, so to speak, is apparent in his writings,--in the last
+volumes of his "Port Royal" and in the later "Portraits." It was
+facilitated by the waning power displayed in the productions of some
+with whom he had been closely associated. It was suddenly completed by
+an event of which the momentous and wide-spread consequences are still
+felt,--the Revolution of February, 1848.
+
+M. Sainte-Beuve has given a curious account of the immediate effect of
+that event upon his own external circumstances and position. Some
+lurking irony may be suspected,--a disposition to reduce the apparent
+magnitude of a great political convulsion by setting it in juxtaposition
+with its more trivial results. But as the narrative is characteristic,
+and contains some passages that throw light upon the author's habits and
+sentiments, we give it, very slightly abridged, in his own words. It is
+prefixed to a course of lectures on Chateaubriand and his literary
+friends, delivered at Liege in 1848-49.
+
+"In October, 1847, in my capacity as one of the Conservators of the
+Mazarine Library, I occupied rooms at the Institute, where I had a
+chimney that smoked. With the view of guarding against this
+inconvenience before the winter should have set in, I summoned the
+_fumiste_ of the establishment, who, after entering into details and
+fixing upon the remedy,--some contrivance on the roof in the nature of a
+hooded chimney-pot,--observed that the expense, amounting to a hundred
+francs or so, was one of those which are chargeable to the landlord,
+that is to say, in this case, the government. Consequently I made a
+requisition on the Minister to whose department it belonged; the work
+was executed, and I thought no more of it.
+
+"Some months later, the Revolution of the 24th of February broke out. I
+perceived from the first day all the importance of that event, but also
+its prematureness. Without being one of those who regretted the fall of
+a dynasty or of a political system, I grieved for a civilization which
+seemed to me for the moment greatly compromised. I did not, however,
+indulge in the gloomy anticipations which I saw had taken possession of
+many who the day before had professed themselves republicans, but who
+were now surprised, and even alarmed, at their own success. I thought we
+should get out of this, as we had already got out of so many other
+embarrassments. I reflected that History has more than one road by which
+to advance; and I awaited the development of facts with the curiosity of
+an observer, closely blended, I must confess, with the anxieties of a
+citizen.
+
+"About a month later, towards the end of March, I was told by a friend
+that M. Jean Reynaud, who then filled an office which, though nominally
+in the department of Public Instruction, corresponded in fact with that
+of Under-Secretary of State, wished to see me. I had been well
+acquainted with M. Reynaud for seventeen or eighteen years, and had
+dined with him, in company with M. Charton, on Wednesday, the 25th of
+February preceding, while the Revolution was in full blast. Profiting by
+a short truce which had suddenly intervened on the afternoon of that
+day, I had been able to traverse the Champs-Elysees, at the farther end
+of which he lived, and to keep an appointment dating from several days
+before. On that Wednesday, at six o'clock in the evening, I did not
+expect, and as little did M. Reynaud himself expect, that two days later
+he would be holding the post of quasi-minister in the department of
+Public Instruction. I heard with pleasure of his appointment, in
+conjunction with that of M. Carnot and M. Charton, for I knew their
+perfect integrity.
+
+"Summoned then, about a month after these events, by M. Reynaud, and
+having entered his office and approached him with my ordinary air, I saw
+in his countenance a look of consternation. He informed me that
+something very grave had taken place, and that this something concerned
+me; that certain lists specifying the sums distributed by the late
+government, with the names of the recipients, had been seized at the
+Tuileries; that my name had been found in them; that it occurred several
+times, with a sum--with sums--of a considerable amount attached to it.
+At first I began to laugh; but perceiving that M. Reynaud did not laugh,
+and receiving from him repeated appeals to my recollection, I began to
+ply him with questions in return. He was unable to enter into any exact
+details; but he assured me that the fact was certain,--that he had
+verified it with his own eyes; and as his alarm evidently proceeded from
+his friendship, I could not doubt the reality of what he had told me.
+
+"I believe that, by my manner of replying on the instant, I convinced
+him of the existence of some error or some fraud. But I perceived that
+there were others, near him, behind him, who would be less easily
+convinced. As soon, therefore, as I had returned home, I addressed to
+the _Journal des Debats_ a letter of denial, a defiance to calumny, in
+the tone natural to honorable persons and such as feel secure in their
+own innocence. This letter furnished M. Reynaud with a weapon against my
+accusers behind the scene. As a proof that he accepted both the
+sentiment and the terms, he caused it to be inserted in the _Moniteur_.
+
+"However, I was not entirely satisfied; I wished to bring the affair
+fully to light. I made attempts to procure the lists in question. I went
+to see M. Taschereau, who was publishing them in his _Revue
+retrospective_; I saw M. Landrin, the Attorney-General of the Republic;
+I even caused inquiries to be made of the former Ministers, then in
+London, with whom I had had the honor of being personally acquainted. No
+result; nobody understood to what my questions had reference. Wearied
+out at last, I discontinued the pursuit, though without dismissing the
+subject from my thoughts.
+
+"I will get to the bottom of this affair. There was in the department of
+Public Instruction a man newly elevated to power, who honored me with an
+enmity already of long standing. I have never in my life met M. Genin; I
+have never once seen his face; but the fact is that he has always
+detested me, has often in his writings made me the object of his satire,
+and in his critical articles especially has ridiculed me to the extent
+of his powers. I did not suit this writer, whom all his friends
+pronounced a man of intellect; I appeared to him affected and full of
+mannerisms; and to me, on the other hand, he perhaps appeared neither so
+subtile, nor so refined, nor so original, as he seemed to others. Now M.
+Genin, who had been intrusted, after the 24th of February, 1848, with
+the distribution of the papers in the Bureau of Public Instruction, was
+undoubtedly the person who had availed himself of the list in which my
+name was said to figure, for the purpose of bringing an accusation
+against my honor. He was himself a man of probity, but one who, in the
+violence of his prejudices and the acerbity of his disposition, could
+hardly stop short of actions positively bad.
+
+"If M. Genin had lived in the world, in society, during the fifteen
+years previous to 1848 which I had passed in it, he would have
+comprehended how a man of letters, without fortune, without ambition, of
+retiring manners, and keeping strictly to his own place, may yet--by his
+intellect perhaps, by his character, by his tact, and by his general
+conduct--obtain an honorable and agreeable position, and live with
+persons of every rank, the most distinguished in their several
+walks,--persons not precisely of his own class,--on that insensible
+footing of equality which is, or which was, the charm and honor of
+social life in France. For my own part, during those years,--happy ones
+I may call them,--I had endeavored, not without a fair degree of
+success, to arrange an existence combining dignity with ease. To write
+from time to time things which it might be agreeable to read; to read
+what was not only agreeable but instructive; above all, not to write too
+much, to cultivate friendships, to keep the mind at liberty for the
+intercourse of each day and be able to draw upon it without fear of
+exhausting it; giving more to one's intimates than to the public, and
+reserving the finest and tenderest thoughts, the flower of one's nature,
+for the inner sanctuary;--such was the mode of life I had conceived as
+suitable to a literary knight, who should not allow has professional
+pursuits and associations to domineer over and repress the essential
+elements of his heart and soul. Since then necessity has seized upon me
+and constrained me to renounce what I considered the only happiness. It
+is gone, it has forever vanished, that better time, adorned with study
+and leisure, passed in a chosen circle, where I once received, from a
+fair friend whose loss has been irreparable, this charming counsel
+insinuated in the form of praise: 'If you think yourself dependent on
+the approbation of certain people, believe me, that others are dependent
+upon yours. And what better, sweeter bond can there be between persons
+who esteem each other, than this mutual dependence on moral approbation,
+balancing, so to speak, one's own sentiment of freedom. _To desire to
+please and at the same time to remain free_,--this is the rule we ought
+to follow.' I accepted the motto; I promised myself to be faithful to it
+in all that I might write; my productions at that period will show
+perhaps the degree in which I was influenced by it. But I perceive that
+I have strayed from my text.
+
+"I had forgotten to mention that, on the same day on which I wrote the
+letter inserted first in the _Journal des Debats_, and afterwards in the
+_Moniteur_, I forwarded to Messieurs Reynaud and Carnot the resignation
+of my place at the Mazarine. I did not wish to expose myself to
+interrogatories and explanations where I could be less sure of being
+questioned in a friendly spirit and listened to with confidence. From
+the moment of taking this step there was no longer much choice for me. I
+had to live by my pen; and during the year 1848, literature in my
+understanding of that term--and indeed literature of every kind--formed
+one of those branches of industry, devoted to the production of
+luxuries, which were struck with a sudden interdict, a temporary death.
+I was asked in conversation if I knew any man of letters who would
+accept a place in Belgium as professor of French literature. Learning
+that the vacancy was at the University of Liege, I offered myself. I
+went to Brussels to confer on the project with M. Charles Rogier,
+Minister of the Interior, whom I had known a long time, and I accepted
+with gratitude the propositions that were made to me.
+
+"I left France in October, 1848. The press of Paris noticed my departure
+only with raillery. When a man of letters has no party, no followers, at
+his back, when he takes his way alone and independently, the least that
+can be expected is that the world should give itself the pleasure of
+insulting him a little on his passage. In Belgium I met with unexpected
+difficulties, thrown in my way by hostile compatriots. Pamphlets
+containing incredible calumnies were published against me. I have reason
+to speak with praise of the youth of Belgium, who decided to wait, and
+to judge me only by my acts and words. In spite of obstacles I
+succeeded. The present book, which was entirely composed and was to have
+been published before the end of 1849, represents one of the two courses
+which I delivered.
+
+"P.S. I had almost forgotten to recur to the famous lists. The one
+containing my name appeared at last in the _Revue retrospective_. 'M.
+Sainte-Beuve, 100 francs,'--this was what was to be read there. The
+fabulous ciphers had vanished. On seeing this entry a ray of light
+dawned upon my memory. I recollected my smoky chimney of 1847, the
+repair of which was to have cost about that sum. But for this incident,
+I should never have been led to deliver the course now submitted to the
+reader, and the one circumstance has occasioned my mention of the
+other."
+
+It must be confessed that the chimney that drove M. Sainte-Beuve into
+temporary exile, and led to the production of a work in which his views
+on many important topics were enunciated with a clearness and force he
+had hitherto held in reserve, had smoked to some purpose. We may be
+permitted to believe that his integrity had never been seriously
+questioned; that the pretext for a brief abandonment of his beloved
+Paris while she was in a state of excitement and dishabille had not been
+altogether unwelcome. Though no admirer of the government of Louis
+Philippe, he had, as he still acknowledges, appreciated "the mildness of
+that _regime_, its humanity, and the facilities it afforded for
+intellectual culture and the development of pacific interests of every
+kind." The sudden overthrow, the turmoil, the vagaries that ensued, were
+little to his taste. He was content to stand aside, availing himself of
+the general dislocation to look around and choose for himself a new
+field, a more independent position.
+
+Here then begins the third, and, as we must suppose, the final stage of
+his career. In September, 1849, he returned to Paris, feeling "a great
+need of activity," as if his mind had been "refreshed by a year of study
+and solitude." What was he to undertake? No sooner did the question
+arise, than an answer presented itself in the form of an offer from one
+whose coadjutor he had become on a previous and similar occasion. M. le
+docteur Veron, now the proprietor of the _Constitutionnel_, and as
+sagacious as ever in catering for the public taste, proposed to him to
+furnish every Monday an article on some literary topic. The notion of
+writing for the masses, of adapting his style to the requirements of a
+newspaper, gave him a momentary shock. Hitherto he had addressed only
+the most select audiences. But, after all, he was conscious of an almost
+boundless versatility, and no plan could better satisfy the desire which
+he had long felt of becoming "a critic in the full sense of the word,
+with the advantages of ripeness and perhaps of boldness." Such a change
+would be suited also to the new aspect of society. In literature it was
+no longer the time for training, tending, and watering, but the season
+of gathering the fruit, selecting the good and rejecting the unsound.
+Romanticism as a school had done its work and was now extinct. Every one
+went his separate way. Questions of form were no longer mooted; the
+public tolerated everything. Whoever had an idea on any subject wrote
+about it, and whoever chose to write was a _litterateur_. "With such a
+noise in the streets it was necessary to raise one's voice in order to
+be heard. Accordingly," says M. Sainte-Beuve, "I set to work for the
+first time on that kind of criticism, frank and outspoken, which belongs
+to the open country and the broad day."
+
+With the old manner he laid aside the old title. The term _Portraits_,
+which in its literary signification recalled the times of the
+Rochefoucaulds and the Sevignes, was exchanged for the more modern one
+of Conversations,--_Causeries de Lundis_. Begun in the _Constitutionnel_
+on the 1st of October, 1849, they were continued three years later in
+the _Moniteur_, and in 1861 again resumed, under the title of _Nouveaux
+Lundis_, in the first-named journal, where they are still in progress.
+More than once the author has intimated his intention to bring them to a
+close. But neither his own powers nor the appetite of his readers having
+suffered any abatement, one series has followed upon another, until, in
+their reprinted form, they now fill nineteen volumes, while more are
+eagerly expected.
+
+The transformation of style which was visible at the very outset is one
+of the miracles of literary art. Simplicity, swiftness, precision, all
+the qualities which were conspicuously absent, we will not say wanting,
+in the _Portraits_,--these are the characteristics, and that in a
+surpassing degree, of the _Causeries_. The whole arrangement, too, is
+different. There is no preluding, there are no intricate harmonies: the
+key-note is struck in the opening chord, and the theme is kept
+conspicuously in view throughout all the modulations. The papers at once
+acquired a popularity which of course had never attended the earlier
+ones. "He has not the time to make them bad," was the praise accorded by
+some of their admirers, and smilingly accepted by the author. But is
+this indeed the explanation? Had he merely taken to "dashing off" his
+thoughts, after the general manner of newspaper writers? Had he deserted
+"art," and fallen back upon the crudities misnamed "nature"? If such had
+been the case, there would have been no occasion for the present notice.
+His fame would long since have been buried under the rubbish he had
+himself piled up. The fact is very different. "Natural fluency"--that is
+to say, the inborn capacity of the writer--he undoubtedly possessed; but
+"acquired difficulty,"--this was the school in which he had practised,
+this was the discipline which enabled him, when the need arose, to carry
+on a campaign of forced marches, brilliant and incessant skirmishes,
+without severing his lines or suffering a mishap. It was in wielding the
+lance that he had acquired the vigor and agility to handle the javelin
+with consummate address. Contrasted as are his earlier and later styles,
+they have some essential qualities in common;--an exquisite fitness of
+expression; a total exemption from harshness, vulgarity, and all the
+vices that have grown so common; a method, a sequence, which is at once
+the closest and the least obtrusive to be found in any prose of the
+present day.
+
+We pass from the style to the substance. The criticism, as we have seen,
+was to be "frank and outspoken." It became so at a single bound. The
+subject of the second number of the _Causeries_ was the _Confidences_ of
+M. de Lamartine, and the article opens with these words: "And why, then,
+should I not speak of it? I know the difficulty of speaking of it with
+propriety; the time of illusions and of complaisances has passed; it is
+absolutely necessary to speak truths; and this may seem cruel, so well
+chosen is the moment. Yet when such a man as M. de Lamartine has deemed
+it becoming not to close the year 1848 without giving to the public the
+confessions of his youth and crowning his political career with idyls,
+shall criticism hesitate to follow him and to say what it thinks of his
+book? shall it exhibit a discretion and a shamefacedness for which no
+one, the author least of all, would care?" And what follows? An
+outpouring of ridicule, of severity, such as the same book received from
+so many quarters? Nothing of the sort; nothing more than a thoroughly
+candid and discriminating judgment, never over-stepping the bounds of
+courtesy, never exaggerating a defect or concealing a beauty. A talk
+might be raised about the inconsistency with a former tone; but if the
+fact was made apparent that the later effusions of a tender and
+melodious, but shallow Muse, were but dilutions, ever more watery and
+insipid, of the first sweet and abundant flow, was the critic or the
+poet at fault?
+
+And so it has been in all the subsequent articles of M. Sainte-Beuve. It
+matters not who or what is the subject,--let it be a long-established
+reputation, like that of M. Guizot; a youthful aspirant, such as M.
+Hyppolite Rigault and many others; a brother critic, like M.
+Prevost-Paradol; a fanatical controversialist, like M. Veuillot; a
+personal friend, like M. Flaubert; or a bitter and unscrupulous
+assailant, like M. de Pontmartin,--the treatment is ever the same,
+sincere, impartial, unaffected. "To say nothing of writers, even of
+those who are the most opposed to us, but what their judicious friends
+already think and would be forced to admit,--this is the height of my
+ambition." Such was his proclamation, such has been his practice. No one
+has ever been bold enough to gainsay it. An equity so great, so
+unvarying, has almost staggered his brethren of the craft. "It is grand,
+it is royal," says M. Scherer,--who has himself approached near enough
+to the same summit to appreciate its height,--"only in him it cannot be
+called a virtue: it belongs to the intellect, which in him is blended
+with the character."
+
+"But he professes neutrality! He has no doctrines, no belief, no
+emotions! He discusses everything, not with any regard to the eternal
+considerations of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, but solely in
+the view of literature and art!" So cry certain voices, loudest among
+them that of M. de Pontmartin. It is certainly somewhat surprising that
+a man without opinions, without emotions, should be made the object of
+violent attacks, that according to M. de Pontmartin himself, whose
+authority, however, upon this point we may take the liberty of
+rejecting, there should be "few men more generally hated." Mere jealousy
+can have nothing to do with it. "There is not," remarks M. Scherer, "the
+trace of a literary rivalry to be found in his whole career." The truth
+is, that M. Sainte-Beuve has, on all the subjects he has examined,
+convictions which are strong, decided, earnestly and powerfully
+maintained. But he differs from the rest of us in this, that he not only
+professes, but enforces, a perfect freedom of opinion, a perfect
+equality in discussion. In religion he attaches more importance to the
+sentiment than to the creed. In morals he sets up a higher standard than
+conventionalism. In politics, as we shall presently see, he has even
+given in his adhesion to a system; but, treating politics, like
+medicine, as an experimental science, he refuses to see in any system an
+article of faith to be adopted and proclaimed irrespective of its
+results. In questions of literature and art he declines to apply any
+test but the principles of art, the literary taste "pure and simple." In
+all matters he prefers to look at the practical rather than the dogmatic
+side, to study living forces rather than dead forms. Hence the charge of
+indifference. He would better please those who differ from him, were he
+one-sided, narrow, rancorous. It is because his armor is without a flaw
+that they detest him.[D]
+
+We have spoken frequently of M. de Pontmartin. It is time to speak of
+him a little more definitely. As M. Sainte-Beuve has remarked, "the
+subject is not a difficult one." He belongs to the old aristocracy, and
+takes care that his readers shall not forget the fact. In religion and
+politics--with him, as with so many others, the two words have much the
+same meaning--he adheres consistently and chivalrously to causes once
+great and resplendent, now only fit subjects for elegies. As a writer,
+he is a master of the _critique spirituelle_,--that species which is so
+brilliant in display, so unsubstantial in results. He sparkles and
+glows; but his light only directs the brown nightingale where to find
+its repast. Armed cap-a-pie, glittering with epigram, rhetoric, and
+irony, he entered the lists against M. Sainte-Beuve, ostensibly to
+defend the reputation of Chateaubriand, provoked in reality by the
+causes already noticed. We have no space for the controversy that
+ensued. It is worthy of remark that the assault was directed, not
+against the censures which had been passed upon Chateaubriand,--M. de
+Pontmartin took good care not to aim at his adversary's shield,--but
+against the motives which had led to their suppression while the object
+was alive, and to their publication after he was dead. Now there are in
+the book on Chateaubriand some disclosures which might better have been
+spared. But in determining motives we shall go utterly astray if we
+leave character out of sight; and the whole career of M. Sainte-Beuve
+rises up against the implication that he was prompted in this instance
+by any other impulse than that spirit of investigation, that desire to
+penetrate to the heart of his subject, to unveil truth and dissipate
+illusions, which has grown stronger and more imperative at every step of
+his advance. We pass over his immediate replies. When, in the regular
+course of his avocation, he found an opportunity for expressing his
+opinion of M. de Pontmartin, he did it in a characteristic manner. There
+is not a particle of temper, not the slightest assumption of
+superiority, in the article. It is not "scathing" or "crushing,"--as we
+have seen it described. It has all the keenness, merely because it has
+all the simplicity, of truth. The playful but searching satire which the
+author has ever at command just touches the declamation of his opponent,
+and it falls like a house of cards. He sums up with a judgment as fair
+and as calm as if he had been speaking of a writer of some distant
+period. Astonished at the sleight of hand which had disarmed, and at the
+generosity which had spared him, M. de Pontmartin, in the first moment
+of his defeat,--before he had had time to recover his (bad) temper, to
+arm himself for more fiery assaults to be followed by fresh
+overthrows,--declared that, in spite of the susceptibility of his
+friends, he himself was well satisfied with a criticism which "assigned
+to him nearly all the merit to which he could pretend," and in which,
+"for the first time in his literary life, he had seen himself discussed,
+appreciated, and valued without either the indulgences of friendship or
+the violence of hatred."
+
+One point still remains to be touched upon. M. Sainte-Beuve has been
+from the first a steady supporter of the present Empire. This of course
+accounts for a portion of the enmity with which he has been "honored."
+In 1852 he received the appointment of Professor of Latin in the College
+de France; but his opening lecture was interrupted by the clamors of the
+students, and the course was never resumed. From 1857 to 1861 he held a
+position in connection with the superintendence of the Ecole Normale. In
+April, 1865, he was raised to the dignity of a Senator. No one, so far
+as we know, in France,--no one out of France, so far as we know, but a
+Saturday Reviewer,[E]--has ever been foolish enough to insinuate that he
+had purchased his elevation by a sacrifice of principle. It seems to us
+that the grounds on which such a man defends a system still on its
+probation before the world are worth examining. He has stated them more
+than once with his usual clearness and frankness. We extract some
+passages, with only the slight verbal alterations indispensable for
+condensation.
+
+"Liberty! the name is so beautiful, so responsive to our noblest
+aspirations, that we hesitate to analyze it. But politics are, after
+all, not a mere matter of enthusiasm. I ask, therefore, of what liberty
+we are disputing? The word conveys many different ideas. Have we to do
+with an article of faith, some divine dogma not to be touched without
+sacrilege? Modern liberty, which keeps altogether in view the security
+of the individual, the free exercise of his faculties, is a very complex
+thing. If under a bad government, though it be in form republican, I
+cannot walk the streets with safety at night, then my liberty is
+curtailed. On the other hand, every advantage, every improvement, which
+science, civilization, a good police, or a watchful and philanthropic
+government furnishes to the masses and to individuals, is a liberty
+acquired, a liberty not the less practical, positive, and fruitful for
+being unwritten, unestablished by any charter. These, I shall be told,
+are 'little liberties.' I do not call them such. But we have a greater
+and more essential one,--the right of the representatives of the nation
+to discuss and vote on the budget; and this supposes others,--it brings
+with it publicity, and the liberty of touching upon such questions in
+the press. Here the difference of opinion is one of degree; some demand
+an unqualified freedom of discussion, others stop at a point more or
+less advanced.
+
+"In human society, liberty, like everything else, is relative, and
+dependent on a multitude of circumstances. A sober, orderly, laborious,
+educated people can support a larger dose than one less richly gifted in
+these respects. Liberty is, thank God! a progressive conquest; that
+portion of it which is denied us to-day we can always hope to acquire
+to-morrow. Let us develop, as far as it lies with us, intelligence,
+morality, habits of industry, in all the classes of society; that done,
+we may die tranquilly; France will be free, not with that absolute
+freedom which is not of this world, but with the relative freedom which
+corresponds with the imperfect, but perfectible, conditions of our
+nature.
+
+"This, however, will not satisfy those who are faithful to the primary
+idea of liberty as absolute and indivisible. After every concession,
+there must still remain two distinct classes of minds, divided by a
+broad line of demarcation.
+
+"One embraces those who hold firmly to that generous inspiration which,
+under all diversities of time and circumstances, has had the same moral
+source; who contend that such champions of liberty as Brutus, William of
+Orange, De Witt, Chatham, however haughty and aristocratic the ideas of
+some of them, were yet of the same political faith, filled with ideas of
+human nobleness and dignity, conceding much, if not to the masses, at
+least to the advanced and enlightened classes which in their eyes
+represented humanity. Thinkers of this kind are not far to seek; witness
+Scherer, Remusat, Tocqueville,--the last of whom was so imbued and
+penetrated with the idea that all his language vibrated with it; and,
+most striking example of all, that great minister too early removed,
+Cavour, who, confident in the patriotic sentiment of his countrymen,
+adopted it as a principle and a point of honor not to govern or reform
+without letting the air of liberty blow and even bluster around him.
+
+"It will not be said that I undervalue this class. I will come boldly to
+the other, composed of those who are neither servile not absolutists,--I
+repel this name, in my turn, with all the pride to which every sincere
+conviction has a right,--but who believe that humanity has in all times
+owed much to the mind and character of particular individuals; that
+there have always been, and always will be, what were formerly called
+heroes, what under one name or another are to be recognized as
+directors, guides, superior men,--men who, whether born or raised to
+power, cause their countrymen, their contemporaries, to take some of
+those decisive steps which would otherwise have been retarded or
+indefinitely adjourned. I picture to myself the first progress of
+society as having taken place in this way: tribes or collections of men
+stop short at a stage of civilization which indolence or ignorance leads
+them to be content with; in order that they shall pass beyond it, it is
+necessary that a superior and far-seeing mind, the civilizer, should
+assist them, should draw them to himself, raise them a degree by sheer
+force, as in the 'Deluge' of Poussin, those on the upper terraces
+stretch their hands to those below, clutch and lift them up. But
+humanity, I shall be told, is at last emancipated; it has no longer any
+deluge to fear; it has attained its majority; it finds within itself all
+the motives and stimulants to action; light circulates; every one has
+the right to speak and to be heard; the sum total of all opinions, the
+net result of discussion, may be accepted as the voice of truth itself!
+I do not deny that in certain questions of general interest and utility,
+on which every one may be tolerably well informed, the voice of all has,
+in our mild and instructed ages, its share of reason, and even of
+wisdom; ideas ripen by the mere conjunction of forces and the course of
+the seasons. And yet has routine altogether ceased? Is prejudice, that
+monster with a thousand forms which has the quality of never recognizing
+its own visage, as far removed as we flatter ourselves? Is progress,
+true progress, as entirely the order of the day as it is believed to be?
+How many steps are there still to take,--steps which I am persuaded
+never will be taken save by the impulsion and at the signal of a firm
+and vigorous head, which shall take the direction upon itself!
+
+"Some years since there was a question about finishing the Louvre. Could
+it of could it not be done? A great Assembly, when consulted, declared
+it to be impracticable. It was in fact impracticable under the
+conditions which then existed. Yet within the short period that has
+since elapsed, the Louvre has been finished. This instance is for me
+only a symbol. How many moral Louvres remain to be completed!
+
+"There are governments which have for their principle resistance and
+obstruction; but there are also governments of initiation. Governments
+founded on pure liberty are not necessarily the most active. Free
+assemblies are better suited to put the drag upon the wheels, to check
+them when they go too fast, than to accelerate them. Like criticism,
+which is in fact their province and their strength, they excel in
+warning and in hindering rather than in undertaking. The eternal problem
+is to reconcile, to balance, authority and liberty, using sometimes the
+one, sometimes the other. In this double play theory may be at fault,
+but practical ability will always triumph.
+
+"Some nations, it was lately said by a liberal, have tried to dispense
+with great men, and have succeeded. There is a perspective to
+contemplate! Let us not, however, in France, try too often to dispense
+with them. The greatest of our moralists, he who knew us best, has said
+of man in general, what is true of the French nature in particular, that
+we have more force than will. Let us hope that this latter quality may
+not fail us too long or in too many cases; and, that it may be
+efficacious, there is nothing like a man, a determined and sovereign
+will, at the head of the nation.
+
+"I appreciate human dignity as much as others. Woe to him who would seek
+to diminish the force of this moral spring; he would cripple at a blow
+all the virtues. I do not, however, place this noblest of sentiments on
+the somewhat isolated height where it is put by the exclusive adorers of
+liberty. Let us not confound dignity with mere loftiness. Moreover, by
+the side of dignity let us never forget that other inspiring sentiment,
+which is at least its equal in value, humanity; that is to say, the
+remembrance, the care, of that great number who are condemned to a life
+of poverty and suffering, and whose precarious condition will not endure
+those obstacles, retardments, and delays that belong to every plan of
+amelioration founded on agitation and a conflict of systems and ideas. I
+am far from imputing to the worshippers of liberty a disregard of this
+humane and generous feeling. But with them the means is more sacred than
+the end. They would rather take but one step in the path of true
+progress, than be projected two by an adverse principle. Their political
+religion is stronger than mine. Mine is not proof against experience.
+
+"If a question were put to us in a general way, Which is the better for
+a people, self-government, full discussion, decisions in accordance with
+good sense, and submitted to by all--or government by one, however
+able?--it would be only too easy to decide. But the practical question
+is, Given such a nation, with such a character, with such a history, in
+such a position,--does it, can it, wish to govern itself by itself?
+would not the end be anarchy? We talk of principles; let us not leave
+out of sight France, which is for us the first and most sacred of
+principles. Some have their idol in Rome and the Vatican; others in
+Westminster and the English Parliament; meanwhile, what becomes of poor
+France, which is neither Roman nor English, and which does not wish to
+be either?
+
+"No, without doubt, all is not perfect. Let us accept it on the
+condition of correcting and improving it. Examine the character,
+original and altogether modern, of this new Empire, which sincerely has
+no desire to repress liberty, which has acquired glory, and in which the
+august chain of tradition is already renewed. What a _role_ does it
+offer to young and intelligent minds, to generous minds, which, putting
+apart secondary questions and disengaging themselves from formulas,
+should be willing to seize and comprehend their entire epoch, accepting
+all that it contains! What a problem in politics, in public economy, in
+popular utility, that of seeking and aiding to prepare the way for such
+a future as is possible for France, as is now grandly opening before
+her, with a chief who has in his hand the power of Louis XIV., and in
+his heart the democratic principles of the Revolution,--for he has them,
+and his race is bound to have them!"
+
+This, it will be perceived, is an application of the ideas of Mr.
+Carlyle, modified by the special views and characteristics of the
+writer, and adapted to the circumstances and necessities of the
+particular case. It has far less similarity with the doctrines so
+pompously announced, so vaguely applied, in the _Vie de Jules Cesar_. It
+does not lie open to the criticism which that clumsy and feeble apology
+seemed intended to provoke, and which it had received at the competent
+hands of M. Scherer. We have here no mysterious revelations of the
+designs of Providence, no intimations that the world was created as a
+theatre for the exaltation of certain godlike individuals. The question,
+as presented by M. Sainte-Beuve, is a practical one, and as such we
+accept it. We believe with him in the necessity for great men, in the
+guidance of heroes. We believe with M. Scherer in the animating forces
+of liberty, in its activity and power as an essential principle of
+progress and civilization. That the combination may exist is attested by
+such examples as William of Orange, Count Cavour, Abraham Lincoln.
+
+It all comes, therefore, to this single inquiry: Is the present ruler of
+France a great man, a hero? Is he the enlightened leader whom a nation
+may and confidently follow? Has he the genius and the will to solve the
+problem before him, to reconcile liberty with authority? Posterity alone
+will be able to pronounce with unanimity. For ourselves, we must answer
+in the negative. We do not denounce him, we believe it absurd to
+denounce him, as a conspirator or a usurper. If he was a conspirator,
+France was his accomplice. There cannot be a doubt that the nation not
+only was ready to accept him, but sought him; not indeed for his
+personal qualities, not as recognizing its appointed guide, but from the
+recollections and the hopes of which his name was the symbol. We
+acknowledge, too, his obvious abilities; we acknowledge the material and
+economical improvements which his government has inaugurated. But we
+fail to see the "moral Louvres" which he has opened; we fail to see in
+his character any evidences of the moral power which can alone inspire
+such improvements; we fail to see in his reign any principle of
+"initiation," save that which the Ruler of the universe has implanted in
+every system and in every government. Yet we concede the right of others
+to think differently on these points, without being suspected of moral
+obtuseness or obliquity. Especially can we comprehend how a patriotic
+Frenchman should choose to accept all the conditions of his epoch, and
+embrace every opportunity of aiding in the task of correction and
+amelioration.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We are unwilling to emerge from our subject at its least agreeable
+angle. Our strain, however feeble, shall not close with a discord. And
+indeed, in looking back, we are pained to perceive how slight is the
+justice we have been able to render to the rare combination of powers
+exhibited in the works we have enumerated. We have left unnoticed the
+wonderful extent and accuracy of the learning, the compass and
+profundity of the thought, the inexhaustible spirit, ever preserving the
+happy mean between mental languor and nervous excitement. In these
+twenty-seven volumes of criticism, scarcely an error has been detected,
+scarcely a single repetition is met with; there is scarcely a page which
+a reader, unpressed for time, would be inclined to skip. Where you least
+agree with the author, there you will perhaps have the most reason to
+thank him for his hints and elucidations. Is it not then with reason
+that M. Sainte-Beuve has been styled "the prince of contemporaneous
+criticism"? His decisions have been accepted by the public, and he has
+founded a school which does honor to France.
+
+How is it that our own language offers no such example? How is it that
+the English literature of the present century, superior to that of
+France in so many departments, richer therefore in the material of
+criticism, has nothing to show in this way, we will not say equal,
+but--taking quantity as well as quality into the account--in any degree
+similar? How is it that nothing has been written on the highest minds
+and chief productions of the day--on Tennyson, on Thackeray, on
+Carlyle--which is worth preserving or remembering? Is it that criticism
+has been almost abandoned to a class of writers who have no sense of
+their responsibilities, no enlightened interest in their art, no
+liberality of views,--who make their position and the influence attached
+to it subservient either to their interests or to their vanity? Descend,
+gentlemen reviewers, from the heights on which you have perched
+yourselves; lay aside your airs and your tricks, your pretences and
+affectations! Have the honesty not to misrepresent your author, the
+decency not to abuse him, the patience to read, and if possible to
+understand him! Point out his blemishes, correct his blunders, castigate
+his faults; it is your duty,--he himself will have reason to thank you.
+But do not approach him with arrogance or a supercilious coldness; do
+not, if your knowledge be less than his, seek to mask your ignorance
+with the deformity of conceit; do not treat him as a criminal or as a
+dunce, unless he happens really to be one. Above all, do not, by dint of
+_judging_, vitiate your faculty of _tasting_. Recognize the importance,
+the inestimable virtues, of that quality which you have piqued
+yourselves on despising,--that _sympathy_ which is the sum of
+experience, the condition of insight, the root of tolerance, the seal of
+culture!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[C] At the moment when we are sending this sketch to press a specimen of
+the sort of criticism to which we have alluded comes to us in the form
+of an article in the Quarterly Review for January,--the subject, M.
+Sainte-Beuve himself. One wonders how it is that the writer, who, if
+really familiar with the productions he criticises, must have been
+indebted to them for many hours of enjoyment, much curious information,
+and a multitude of suggestions and stimulants to reflection, should have
+had no feeling of kindliness or gratitude for the author. But then the
+question comes up, Was he in reality familiar with the works? Several of
+his statements might provoke a doubt upon this point. We cite a single
+example. Speaking of M. Sainte-Beuve's temporary connection with the
+Saint-Simonians, he says: "For a brief season he appears to have felt
+some of the zeal of a neophyte, _speaking_ the _speech_ and _talking_
+the vague nonsense of his new friends. But soon his native good-sense
+seems to have perceived that the whole thing was only a fevered dream of
+a diseased age." Now the reviewer, if he knows anything of the doctrines
+in question, is entitled to express his opinion of them, even if he does
+it in tautological and slipshod English. But he has no right to
+attribute his own opinions to M. Sainte-Beuve, who is so far from
+holding them that, in articles written so lately as in 1861 (_Nouveaux
+Lundis_, I.), he has not only traced the _enduring_ influence of
+Saint-Simonianism upon some of the ablest minds in France, but has
+contended that what were once considered the wildest dreams of that
+system have since been substantially realized. Perhaps the reviewer
+thinks that, as M. Sainte-Beuve is "a chameleon," with scarcely one
+single fixed opinion on any problem, literary, philosophical, political,
+or religious, there can be no harm in fathering upon him any notion from
+whatever source. But on one point at least--the duty of being accurate
+in the statement of other persons' opinions--M. Sainte-Beuve has shown
+an unwavering consistency.
+
+[D] Here is, quite _apropos_, a frank admission to that effect from the
+Quarterly Reviewer before mentioned: "We confess we should be glad to
+meet with some passages in the writings of M. Sainte-Beuve which would
+prove him capable of downright scorn or anger." Yes, but if they had
+been there, how stern would have been the rebuke!
+
+[E] A Quarterly Reviewer must now be added.
+
+
+
+
+DE SPIRIDIONE EPISCOPO.
+
+
+    This is the story of Spiridion,
+    Bishop of Cyprus by the grace of God,
+    Told by Ruffinus in his history.
+
+    A fair and stately lady was Irene,
+    Spiridion's daughter, and in all the isle
+    Was none so proud; if that indeed be pride,
+    The haughty conscience of great truthfulness,
+    Which makes the spirit faithful unto death,
+    And martyrdom itself a little thing.
+
+    There came a stranger to Spiridion,
+    A wealthy merchant from the Syrian land,
+    Who, greeting, said: "Good father, I have here
+    A golden casket filled with Roman coin
+    And Eastern gems of cost uncountable.
+    Great are the dangers of the rocky road,
+    False as a serpent is the purple sea,
+    And he who carries wealth in foreign lands
+    Carries his death, too often, near his heart,
+    And finds life's poison where he hoped to find
+    Against its pains a pleasant antidote.
+    I pray you, keep for me these gems in trust,
+    And give them to me when I come again."
+
+    Spiridion listened with a friendly smile,
+    And answered thus the dark-browed Syrian:
+    "Here is a better guardian of gold,--
+    My daughter, sir. The people of the coast
+    Are wont to say that, if she broke her faith,
+    Silver and gold themselves would lose their shine.
+    She is our island's trusty treasurer."
+    "Then," said the Syrian, "she shall be mine
+    As well as theirs,"--and saying this he gave
+    The casket with the jewels to her hand.
+
+    Right earnestly the lady answered him,
+    As one who slowly turns some curious thought:
+    "Sir, you have called this treasure _life and death_,
+    Which in your Eastern lore, as I have read,
+    Is the symbolic phrase of Deity,
+    And the most potent phrase to sway the world.
+    With life to death I'll guard the gems for you,
+    And dead or living give them back again."
+
+    Now while the merchant went to distant Rome
+    The fair Irene died a sudden death,
+    And all the land went mourning for the maid,
+    And on the roads and in the palaces
+    Was one long wail for her by night and day.
+    While thus they grieved, the Syrian came again,
+    And, after fit delay, in proper time
+    Went to the father, to Spiridion,
+    Condoling with him on his daughter's death
+    In many a sad and gentle Eastern phrase,
+    Deep tinctured with a strange philosophy.
+
+    Now when they had awhile consumed their grief
+    Outspoke the Bishop: "Syrian, it is well
+    If this sad death be not more sad for us,
+    And most especially more sad for thee,
+    Than thou hast dreamed of." Here he checked his speech,
+    And then, as if in utter agony,
+    Burst forth with--"She is gone! and all thy store,
+    It too is gone: she only upon earth
+    Knew where 't was hidden,--and she trusted none.
+    O God, be merciful! What shall I do?"
+
+    Then on him gravely looked the Syrian
+    With grand, calm mien, as almost pitying,
+    And said: "O father, can this be thy _faith_?
+    Man of the West, how little didst thou know
+    The wondrous nature of that girl now dead.
+    Hast thou ne'er heard that they who once become
+    Faithful to death are masters over death?
+    And here and there on earth a woman lives
+    Whose eyes proclaim the mighty victory won.
+    Give me thy hand and lead me to the bier:
+    Thou know'st it is not all of death to die."
+
+    He took his hand and led him to the bier,
+    And they beheld the Beautiful in Death,
+    The perfect loveliness of Grecian form
+    Inspired by Egypt's solemn mystery.
+    A single pause in the eternity,
+    The Present, Past, and Future all in one.
+
+    Awhile they stood and gazed upon the Dead,
+    And then Spiridion spoke, as one inspired:
+    "O God! thou wert our witness,--make it known!"
+    He paused in solemn awe, for at the word
+    There came an awful sign. The dead white hand
+    Was lifted, and Irene's eyes unclosed,
+    Beaming with light as only angels' beam,
+    And from the cold white lips there came a voice:
+    "_The gems lie hidden in the garden wall._
+    _God bless thee, father, for thy constant love!_
+    _God bless thee, Syrian, for thy faith in me!_"
+
+    This is the story of Spiridion,
+    And of his daughter, faithful unto death.
+
+
+
+
+A STRUGGLE FOR SHELTER.
+
+
+Having, in "A Letter to a Young Housekeeper," held counsel with her
+whose home is made by a noble husband, it is no less pleasant to recall
+the claims of her whose home is made by herself; who, instead of keeping
+house for two, keeps house for but one, and whose stars have not yet led
+her on either to matrimony or to Washington Territory.
+
+Mrs. Stowe, in a late number of the Atlantic, has discoursed admirably
+on the woman question of how to get occupation; a point to be equally
+anxious upon is that of how to get a shelter. It is often easier to get
+a husband than either. Perhaps every one knows the exceeding difficulty
+with which, in our large cities, the single woman obtains even a room
+wherein to lodge; but only the victims can know the real distresses it
+involves. In the capital, where noble women are chiefly needed, to begin
+homeless is a positive peril; and to stand on the surest integrity is
+only to fall at last. If one apply at the boarding-houses it is either
+to be instantly rebuffed by learning that no rooms are let to ladies, or
+more delicately parried by being told that the terms are forty dollars a
+week! If one have attractions and friends, it is equivocal; if one have
+them not, it is equally desperate. Should Minerva herself alight there
+with a purse that would not compass Willard's, one cannot imagine what
+would become of her. She would probably be seen wandering at late night,
+with bedimmed stars and bedraggled gauze, until some vigorous officer
+should lead her to the station-house for vagrancy. Thus when fascination
+and forlornness are at equal discount, when powers and penuries go down
+together, and common and uncommon sense fail alike, to what natural
+feeling shall one hope to appeal? There is no sound spot of humanity
+left to rest upon. It is a dilemma that is nothing but horns.
+
+Possibly it is a trifle better in New England; but here, as elsewhere,
+the chief enemy of woman is woman. It is women who keep our houses for
+boarding and lodging, and, with a few radiant exceptions, it is they who
+never take ladies. If by any chance a foothold be obtained there, the
+only safety is in keeping it with stern self-denial of all outside
+pleasures or excursions. Surrender for a week, and you return to that
+door only to hear that two gentlemen have taken your room, and that they
+will pay more. You ask for an attic. Just now there are two gentlemen
+there. Will there be a place under the eaves? Possibly, next week. But
+before then the two gentlemen are on hand again, have unpacked their
+vials of unctuous hair-oil, and are happily snuggled under the eaves.
+Indeed, they seem to make long journeys expressly to head one off, and
+to be where they should not be. They are on time always, and in at the
+winning. Some day one will pathetically die of two gentlemen on the
+brain; and the doctor will only call it congestion. O for a new Knight
+of a Sorrowful Figure, to demolish all such ubiquitous persons! I have
+sometimes had as many as three of my engaged rooms at a time occupied by
+these perpetual individuals,--myself waiting a-tremble on the portico.
+Then it struck me that, if there were really any more gentlemen in
+Washington Territory than here, women had better not go there.
+
+Out of this exigency has arisen a grand vision of mine to build a flat
+of five or six rooms; a single landing of dining- and drawing-rooms,
+boudoir, bedroom, and kitchen with its apartment for a domestic. And,
+either by lounge-bedstead or famous Plympton, there should be the
+possibility of sleeping in every apartment but the kitchen. This would
+be such sweet revenge for one whom the Fates had driven about for five
+years to hunt lodgings. I would gormandize on bedrooms,--like Cromwell
+resting in a different one every night,--and the empty ones filling with
+forlornest of females, provided one need not do the honors at their
+table in the morning and hear how they have slept. There should be
+alcoves too, with statues; and unexpected niches of rooms crimson with
+drapery, "fit to soothe the imagination with privacy"; and oh! perhaps
+somewhere a bit of a conservatory and a fountain,--did not Mrs. Stowe
+tell us of these too? Here one could dwell snugly as in the petals of a
+rose, or expansively as in a banyan-tree, undisturbed alike from
+gentlemen in black or women in white, liable only to the elements and to
+mortality.
+
+If only this castle were as attainable as that of Thoreau!--which was to
+consist of but one room, with one door to enter it, and where "some
+should live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some
+on settles,--some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some
+aloft on rafters with the spiders if they chose."
+
+But on the _terra firma_ of realities one's trouble is somewhat
+mitigated by the fact that, when all is said and done, the
+boarding-houses are usually so poor, that, having entered them, one's
+effort to get admitted is rather exceeded by one's desire to depart. The
+meats are all cooked together with one universal gravy;--beef is pork,
+and lamb is pork, each passing round the swinal sin; the vegetables
+often seem to know but one common kettle, for turnip is onion, and
+squash is onion; while the corn-cake has soda for sugar, and the bread
+is sour and drab-colored, much resembling slices of Kossuth hat.
+
+From these facts grew the experiment of becoming housekeeper
+extraordinary to myself,--a strait to which many a one is likely to be
+driven, unless we are to have something better than can be offered by
+the present system of boarding-houses. For since one's castle was not
+yet builded outside of the brain, it only took a little Quixotism of
+imagination to consider as castles all these four-story brick houses
+with placards affixed of "Rooms to be let," and to secure the most
+eligible corner in one of these at moderate rent.
+
+This of course is not so easy to do; but at last a _petite_ room seemed
+to be struck out from the white heat of luck,--so _petite_!--six feet by
+thirteen feet, two carpet-breadths wide and four masculine strides long;
+one flight up, and just large enough to sheathe one's self in;
+high-walled and corniced, with on the one hand a charming bay-window
+looking three ways, and cheerily catching the sunlight early and late;
+on the other, an open grate fire, fit to illuminate the gray Boston
+mornings,--though, when the brilliant sun came round full at noon, there
+seemed no fire till that was gone. I strove to forget that it might have
+been a doctor's consulting office, and three days after there blossomed
+out of it seven several apartments; the inevitable curtain across the
+corner giving a wardrobe and bath; the short side of the room, with
+desk, a library; the long side, with sofa, a bedchamber; the upper end,
+with table, a dining-hall; the cupboard and region about the hearth, a
+kitchen; while the remainder, with a lively camp-stool chair that
+balanced about anywhere and doubled into nothing when desired, was
+drawing-room,--that is, it was drawing-room wherever the chair was
+drawn. In this apartment everything was handy. One could sit in the
+centre thereof, and, by a little dexterous tacking to north or south,
+reach every article in it. But when a lad whose occasional infirmity was
+fainting was proposed to build the fire, it became necessary to decline,
+on the ground that there really was not room enough, unless he were so
+kind as to faint up chimney. A genuine bower it was, but not a Boffin's
+Bower, where the wedded occupants suited their contrary tastes by having
+part sanded-floor for Mr. Boffin, and part high-colored carpet for Mrs.
+Boffin,--"comfort on one side and fashion on the other." In this the
+walls were hung with pictures, and the windows with lace, while the
+corner curtain was a gorgeous piano cover. Mr. Boffin not being here, it
+was both comfort and fashion all round.
+
+In this minute way of living, the first visiting messages could only
+include the announcement of dainty regards, and of readiness to receive
+friends one by one; and dining messages could only entreat "the best one
+to come to the _petite_ one on Thursday, for sake of a suggestion of
+pigeons' wings." Assuredly none would have voted any exquisite thing out
+of place, from a dish of lampreys, that favorite viand of kings, to the
+common delicacy of Rome, a stew of nightingales' tongues. And so compact
+were all the arrangements, that a brilliant friend was fain to declare
+that the hostess should certainly live on condensed milk.
+
+Indeed, it was the grand concentration of having wardrobe and bath
+together that caused a very singular mishap. One morning, being in
+clumsy-fingered haste to get to a train, I summarily dropped my bonnet
+into the wash-bowl. This was not a very dry joke, but having mopped up
+the article as well as possible, I put it on and departed with usual
+hilarity,--still remembering what it was to have the kindest fortune in
+the world, and that one should not expect so rare a life as mine without
+an occasional disaster.
+
+But none need undertake a plan of this sort on the theology of Widow
+Bedott's hymn, "K. K., Kant Kalkerlate"; for in this song of life on six
+feet by thirteen, calculation is the sole rhyme for salvation. We have
+heard of dying by inches: this is living by inches. If there be not
+floor-room, then perhaps there is wall-room, and every possible article
+must be made to hang, from the boot-bag and umbrella behind the curtain
+to the pretty market-basket, so toy-like, in the corner. Indeed, it is
+the chief charm of a camp-stool chair that this too, when off duty, may
+be hung upon the wall, like a hunter's saddle when the chase is ended.
+Only see that all the screws are in stoutly, so that in some
+entertaining hour various items of your wardrobe or adornments do not
+bring their owner to sudden grief.
+
+As might be anticipated, it was rather a struggle to get condensed; and
+afterward, too, there were fleeting phases of feeling about it all. For
+at times it is not pleasant to connect the day of the week chiefly with
+its being the day to clean one's cupboard or lamp-chimney. Often, too,
+during a very nice breakfast, one is ready to vow that she will never do
+otherwise than board herself; and while despatching the work after,
+equally ready to vow that she will take flight from this as soon as
+possible. Sometimes, also, one gets a little too much of herself, and an
+overdose in this direction is about as bad as most insufferable things.
+But then there must be seasons of discouragement in everything. They
+inhere to all human enterprises, just as measles and whooping-cough to
+childhood. It is well to remember as they pass how rarely it is that
+they prove fatal.
+
+And wherefore discouraged, indeed? Is it not the charm of life that
+nothing is final,--not even death itself? In this strange existence,
+with its great and rapid transitions, happy events are always imminent.
+One may be performing her own menialities to-day, and to-morrow, in an
+ambassador's carriage, be folded in a fur robe with couchant lions upon
+it; to-day be quartered in a single attic, to-morrow be treading the
+tapestries of her own drawing-rooms. Thus the golden Fate turns and
+keeps turning; it is only when, through frigidness or fear, we refuse to
+revolve with it, that there ensues the discord of despair.
+
+But instead of going to a Walden and camping on the shady edges of the
+world, to see what could be done without civilization, I preferred to
+camp down in the heart of civilization, and see what could be done with
+it;--not to fly the world, but to face it, and give it a new emphasis,
+if so it should be; to conjure it a little, and strike out new
+combinations of good cheer and good fellowship. In fact, it seems to me
+ever that the wild heart of romance and adventure abides no more with
+rough, uncouth nature than with humanity and art. To sit under the pines
+and watch the squirrels run, or down in the bush-tangles of the
+Penobscot and see the Indians row, is to me no more than when Gottschalk
+wheels his piano out upon the broad, lone piazza of his house on the
+crater's edge, and rolls forth music to the mountains and stars. Here
+too are mystery, poesy, and a perpetual horizon.
+
+This for romance; but true adventure abides most where most the forces
+of humanity are. So I camped down in the heart of things, surely; for in
+the next room were a child, kitten, and canary; in the basement was a
+sewing-machine; while across the entry were a piano, flute, and
+music-box. But Providence, that ever takes care of its own, did ever
+prevent all these from performing at once, or the grand seraglio of
+Satan would have been nothing to it.
+
+But if in getting a room one is haunted by the two gentlemen, in getting
+furniture and provisions one is afterward haunted by the "family"
+relation. It is a result of the youthfulness of our civilization, that
+as yet it is cumbrous and unwieldy. We do not yet master it, but are
+mastered by it; and nowhere in America will one find the charming
+arrangements for single living which have filled the Old World with
+delightful haunts for the students of every land. As yet we provide for
+people, not persons; and the needs of the single woman are no more
+considered in business than in boarding. Forever she is reminded of the
+Scripture, "He setteth the solitary in families"; and forever it seems
+that all must be set there but herself. For nice crockery is sold by the
+set, knives and forks by the half-dozen, the best coal by the half-ton;
+the tin-pans are immense, and suggest a family Thanksgiving; pokers
+gigantic, fit only to be wielded by the father of a family; and at
+market the game is found with feet tied together in clever family
+bunches, while one is equally troubled to get a chop or a steak, because
+it will spoil the family roast,--and as to a bit of venison for
+breakfast, it may be had by taking two haunches and a saddle. In
+desperation she exclaims with O'Grady of Arrah na Pogue, "O father Adam,
+why had you not died with all your ribs left in your body!" For since
+there is neither place nor provision for her in the world, why indeed
+should she have come?
+
+Having once, on a fruitless tour through Faneuil Hall Market for a
+single slice of beef, come to the last stall, and here finding nothing
+less than a sirloin of six pounds, which was not to be cut, I could
+only answer imploringly, "But pray, what is one person to do with a
+sirloin of six pounds?" A relenting smile swept over the stern butcher's
+face. "I _will_ cut it!" he said, brandishing the knife at once. "Thank
+you," I cried, with a gush of emotion; for he seemed a really religious
+man. He comprehended that there was at least one solitary whom the Lord
+had not set in a family. I took the number of his stall.
+
+Nor is it yet too late to be grateful to him who proposed breaking a
+bundle of cutlery in my behalf. He too realized the situation, and saw
+that by no possibility could one person gracefully get on with six
+knives and forks at once.
+
+Indeed, since one's single wants are not regularly met by this system of
+things, the only way at present to get them answered is by favor. So
+that the first item in setting up an establishment is not only to bring
+one's resources about one, but to find the people of the trade who will
+assist in the gladdest way. One wants the right stripe in the morning
+and evening papers, but none the less happy are just the right merchant
+and just the right menial. Since all of life may be rounded into rhythm,
+shall we not even consult the harmonies in a grocer or an upholsterer?
+Personal power can be carried into every department. It is well to find
+where one's word has weight, then always say the word there. This is a
+part of the quest which makes life a perpetual adventure; and there is
+nothing more piquant than to go on an exploring tour for one's
+affinities among the trades. It is perhaps rather more of the
+sensational than the sentimental, and might be marked in the private
+note-book with famous headings, like those of the New York papers on a
+balloon marriage, as, The last affinity item! A raid among the
+magnetisms! or, Hifalutin among prunes! However, in some subtile way,
+one soon divines on entering a store whether she is to be well served
+there, and must follow with tact the undercurrent in the shop as well as
+in the _salon_. If it be not the right encounter, ask for something
+there is not, and pass on to the next. Thus, "my grocer" apologizes for
+keeping honey, because I do not eat sweets, and proposes to open the
+butter trade because it is so annoying to go about for butter; "my
+stoveman" descends from the stilts of the firm, looking after these
+chimney affairs himself; "my carpenter" says, "Shure, an' ye don't owe
+_me_ onything; I'd work for ye grat-tis if I could"; "my cabinet-dealer"
+sends tables and wardrobes at midnight if desired, and takes them back
+and sells them over the next day; even the washerwoman is an affinity,
+exclaiming, "Shure, an' ye naid n't think I'll be chargin' ye with all
+the collars an' ruffles ye put in,--shure, an' I'll not."
+
+Perhaps it sounds a little egotistic to say "my grocer," &c., but is not
+this the way that heads of families talk, and am I not head and family
+too? At least the solitary may soothe themselves with the family sounds.
+Indeed, it soon appears that all these faithful servers are like to
+become so radical a part of the my and mine of existence, as to make it
+really alarming. When one's comfort is thus bound up in fire-boy and
+washerwoman, alas! what will become of the grand philosophy of
+Epictetus?
+
+To begin housekeeping proper, one will need at least a bread-knife and
+tumbler, a gridiron and individual salt,--cost eighty-four cents. My
+list also includes for kitchen and table use:--
+
+    Tin saucepan                          .40
+     " baking-pan                         .23
+     " oyster pail                        .25
+    2 breakfast plates                    .20
+    4 tea plates                          .32
+    Cup (and cover to mimic sugar-bowl)   .15
+    Mixing spoon                          .15
+    Pint bowl                             .20
+    Butter jar                            .35
+    2 knives and forks                    .45
+    2 saucers                             .14
+    2 minute platters                     .18
+    1 " vegetable-dish                    .10
+    3 individual butter-plates            .18
+                                         ----
+                                        $3.30
+    The aforementioned gridiron, &c.      .84
+                                         ----
+             Sum total                  $4.14
+
+To this should be added a small iron frying-pan for gravied meats. The
+quart pail usually did duty for vegetables, the saucepan for soup, while
+prime chops and steaks appeared from the gridiron. Tea-spoons are not
+included, nor any tea things whatever. These excepted, it will be seen
+that less than five dollars gives a full housekeeping apparatus, with
+pretty white crockery enough to invite a dinner guest.
+
+The provisions for one week were:--
+
+    Bread and rolls                .59
+    4 pears and 1/2 lb. grapes     .28
+    1 lb. butter                   .55
+      " granulated sugar           .22
+      " corn starch                .16
+      " salt                       .05
+    1/4 lb. pepper                 .15
+    1/2 lb. halibut                .25
+    3/4 lb. steak                  .30
+    1 quail                        .40
+    1 pint cranberries             .08
+    Celery                         .05
+    1 peck potatoes and turnips    .40
+    Pickles, 1 pint bottle         .37
+                                  ----
+                                 $3.85
+
+At the end of the week there was stock unused to the amount of $1.00,
+making $2.85 for actual board, (I did not dine out once,) and this
+included the most expensive meats, which one might not always care to
+get; for it is not parsimony that often prefers a sirloin steak at
+thirty cents to a tenderloin at forty cents. But this note may be added.
+Don't buy quails, they are all gizzard and feathers; and don't buy
+halibut, till you have inquired the price. It will also be perceived
+that beverages are not mentioned. None of that seven million pounds of
+tea shipped from China last September ever came to my shores. If this
+article were added, there would come in large complications of furniture
+and food, beside the obligation of being on the stairs at early hours in
+fearful dishabille, watching for the milkman, as I have seen my
+sister-lodgers.
+
+The pecuniary result is, that, for less than three dollars per week and
+the work, one may have the best food in the market; for three dollars
+and no work, one may have the very worst in the world.
+
+For any ordinary amount of cooking, an open grate is admirable, though
+it do not furnish that convenient stove-pipe whereon lady boarders can
+smooth out their ribbons, &c.; but it is accessible, and draws the
+culinary odors speedily out of the room. At least it is admirable from
+fall to the middle of December, when you find that it draws the heat, as
+well as the odors, up chimney; then you will get a "Fairy" stove of the
+smallest size, with a portable oven, and fairly go into winter quarters.
+But by the grate one may boil, broil, and toast, if not roast; for I
+used with delight to cook apples on the cool corners, giving them a turn
+between sentences as I read or wrote. They seemed to have a higher
+flavor, being seasoned with thoughts; but it was not equally sure if the
+thoughts were better for being seasoned with apple. However, one must
+not count herself so _recherche_ as Schiller, who could only write when
+his desk was full of rotten apples.
+
+Still the grate has no oven, and the chief difficulty is in bread. One
+starts bravely on the baker's article, but such is the excess of yeast
+that the bitterness becomes intolerable. Then one begins to perambulate
+the city, and thinks she has a prize in this or that brand,--is enamored
+of Brigham's Graham biscuits, hot twice a week, or of Parker's
+rolls,--but soon eats through novelty to the core, and that is always
+hops. Thus one goes from baker to baker, but it is only a hopping from
+hops to hops. I see with malicious joy that the exportation tariff is to
+be removed from hops.
+
+As to crackers, they are of course no more available than pine splints,
+though the Graham variety is the best. Aerated bread is probably the
+most healthful, but this is pitiable to live on; it tastes like salted
+flannel.
+
+Finally, let me confess to the use of a friendly oven near by, and from
+this came every week the indispensable Graham cakes, which are the
+despair of all the cooks. Of course, on this point it is impossible,
+without seeing their experiment, to say why it failed; but all the
+given conditions being met, if the cakes were tough, there was probably
+too much meal; if soggy, too little. Also the latest improvement is not
+to cut them in diamonds, but to roll them into various forms. After
+scalding, the dough is just too soft to be handled easily; it is then to
+be dropped into meal upon the board, separating it in small quantities
+with a spoon or knife, and rolling lightly in the meal into small
+biscuits, rolls, or any form desired. But do not work in any of the
+meal. Possibly some of the failures come from disregard of this; for the
+meal which is added after, being unscalded, is not light, and would only
+clog the cakes. And, in eating, the biscuits should be broken, never
+sliced. They are in their prime when hot, quite as much as Ward
+Beecher's famous apple-pie; but, unlike that, may be freshened afterward
+by dipping in cold water and heating in a quick oven just before wanted.
+In other words, they may be regenerated by immersion.
+
+As to the system of this minute household,--if any should be curious to
+know,--it was to have breakfast-dishes despatched, with the dinner
+vegetables pared, at half past nine, A. M.; dinner out of hand by two,
+P. M.; bread and butter and Cochituate precisely at six, P. M.
+
+In one of Mr. and Mrs. Hall's "Memories of Authors," mention is made of
+a little Miss Spence, who, with rather limited arrangements in two
+rooms, used to give literary tea-parties, and was shrewdly suspected of
+keeping her butter in a wash-bowl. I did not follow any such underhanded
+proceeding. I kept my butter on the balcony. All-out-doors was my
+refrigerator; and if one will look abroad some cool, glittering night,
+he may yet see my oyster-pail hung by a star, or swinging on the horns
+of a new moon.
+
+Perhaps it is fair to mention, however, that on one glittering night the
+mercury fell below zero, and the windows all froze hard down, and there
+was the butter locked on the outer side! And oh! it is such a trying
+calamity to be frozen in from one's butter! But after this experience
+the housekeeper shrewdly watches for these episodes of weather, and
+takes the jar in of a night. So it is that eternal vigilance is the
+price even of butter.
+
+Still it seemed that, with careful and economizing mind, on six feet by
+thirteen it was not only possible to live, but to take table-boarders.
+Certainly nothing could be gayer, unless to ramble delightfully forever
+in one of those orange-colored ambrotype-saloons, drawn by milk-white
+oxen; or to quarter like Gavroche of _Les Miserables_ among the ribs of
+the plaster elephant in the Bastile; or more pensively to abide in the
+crannied boat-cabin of the Peggotys, watching the tide sweep out and in.
+
+This must be the weird, barbaric side of the before-named brick and
+mortar flat of five rooms.
+
+Pope, the tragedian, said that he knew of but one crime a man could
+commit,--peppering a rump steak. It is an argument for boarding one's
+self that all these comfortable crimes thus become feasible. One may
+even butter her bread on three sides with impunity; or eat tamarinds at
+every meal, running the risk of her own grimaces; or take her stewed
+cherries with curious, undivided interest as to whether a sweet or sour
+one will come next (dried cherries are a great consolation); and, being
+allowed to help herself, can the better bring all the edibles to an end
+at once upon her plate,--an indication of Providence that the proper
+feast is finished. Wonderfully independent all this! Life with the
+genuine bachelor flavor. As L. remarked, even the small broom in the
+corner had a sturdy little way of standing alone.
+
+Perhaps there is nothing finer than the throng of fancies that comes in
+a solitary breakfast. Then one reaches hands of greeting to all the lone
+artists taking their morning _acquavite_ in Rome; to the young students
+of Germany at their early coffee and eggs; even remembering the lively
+_grisette_ of Paris, as, with a parting fillip to her canary, she flits
+forth from her upper room; and finally drinks to the memory of our own
+Irving at his bachelor breakfast among the fountains and flowers in the
+Court of Lions at the Alhambra.
+
+And very sweet, too, it is, in the fall of the day, to sit by the rich,
+ruby coals, and think of those who are far, until they come near; and of
+that which is hoped for, until it seems that which is; to sit and dream,
+till
+
+        "The breath of the great Lord God divine
+    Stirs the little red rose of a room."
+
+This it is to keep house with a bread-knife and tumbler, a gridiron and
+an individual salt. This it is to vitally understand the _multum in
+parvo_ of existence. This it is to have used and mastered civilization.
+
+But the total pecuniary result is, that the rent of the very smallest
+room in central location--at the hub of the hub--will not be less than
+three dollars per week, without light, heat, or furniture. Fire, and a
+boy to make it, will be two dollars per week; light seventy-five cents
+if gas, twenty-five cents if kerosene; this, with board at three
+dollars, washing at one dollar per dozen, and the constant Tribune,
+etc., brings one up to the pretty little sum of ten dollars per week,
+without a single item of luxury, unless daily papers can be called
+luxurious. Or, should one go out to breakfasts and dinners, nothing
+tolerable can be had under five dollars per week; and this gives a total
+of twelve dollars. Then, to complete one's life, there must be clothing,
+literature, perhaps travel and hospitality, making nearly as much more;
+and to crown it, there must be the single woman's favorite lecturer or
+_prima donna_; for ah! we too, in some form, must have our cigars and
+champagne. A round thousand a year for ever so small a package of
+humanity!
+
+And of course, as goods are higher in small quantities, so in living by
+this individual way it will be discovered that prices are prodigious,
+but that weights and measures are not. After opening the small purse
+regularly at half-hour intervals for several weeks, one at length finds
+herself opening it when there is nothing to be bought, from mere
+muscular habit. Altogether it is easy to spend as much as a second-rate
+Congressman, without any of his accommodations. This is wherein one does
+not master civilization.
+
+Mr. McCulloch, in his Report on the Treasury, suggested an increase of
+salary for certain subordinates in his department, declaring that they
+could not support their families in due rank on four, five, or even six
+thousand dollars a year. It is easy to believe it. It is easy to believe
+anything that may be stated with regard to money, except that one will
+ever be able to get enough of it to cover these terrible charges. The
+entire fabric of things rests on money; and our prices would drive a
+respectable Frenchman into suicide. O poor Robin Ruff! alas for your
+grand visions that you sang so glowingly to dear Gaffer Green! In this
+age of the world, O what could you do, or where could you go, e'en on a
+thousand pounds a year, poor Robin Ruff?
+
+And so long as each must keep her separate establishment, it will not be
+found possible to reduce living much below the present figures. But
+London has more wisely met the pressure of the times in those
+magnificent clubhouses, which have made Pall Mall almost a solid square
+of palaces hardly inferior to the homes of the nobility themselves. Each
+of these houses has its hundreds of members, who really fare
+sumptuously, having all the luxuries of wealth on the prices that one
+pays here for poverty. The food is furnished by the best purveyors, and
+charged to the consumers at cost; all other expenses of the
+establishment being met by the members' initiation fees, ranging from
+L32 entrance fee and L11 annual subscription, to L9 and L6 for entrance
+and subscription. Being admirably officered and planned throughout,
+these gigantic households are systematized to the beautiful smoothness
+of small ones; their phrase of "fare-well" is one of epicurean
+invitation, not of dismissal; while such are the combined luxuriousness
+and economy that, says one authority, "the modern London club is a
+realization of a Utopian coenobium,--a sort of lay convent, rivalling
+the celebrated Abbey of Theleme, with the agreeable motto of _Fais ce
+que voudras_, instead of monastic discipline."
+
+Of course, New York also has followed suit, and there, too, clubs are
+trumps; but, according to "The Nation," with this remarkable exception,
+that "at these houses the leading idea seems to be, not to furnish the
+members at cost price, but to increase the finances with a view to some
+future expenditure." The writer reasonably observes, that "what a man
+wants is his breakfast or dinner cheaper than he can get it at the
+hotel, and not to pay thirty or sixty dollars annually in order that ten
+years hence the club may have a new building farther up town." And
+Boston has followed New York, with its trio of well-known clubs,
+differing also from those of London in having poorer appointments and
+the highest conceivable charges.
+
+But most of these clubs do not include lodgings, and none of them
+include ladies. It remains for America to give us the club complete in
+both. There is every reason why women should secure elegant and
+economical homes in this way. Indeed, in the present state of things,
+there seems no other way to secure them. There is no remedy but in a
+system of judicious clubbing. Since this phase of the world seems made
+up for the family relation, then ladies must make themselves into a sort
+of family to face it. Where is the coming man who shall communicate this
+art of clubbing, which has not yet even been admitted into the feminine
+dialect? Mr. Mercer is doing for the women who wish to go out in the
+world that which womanly gratitude can but lightly repay.[F] Where is
+the kindly, honest-hearted Mr. Mercer who shall further a like
+enterprise here,--a provision of quarters for those who can pay
+reasonably and who do not wish to go away? This would be a genuine
+Stay-at-home Club, a Can't-get-away Club of the very happiest sort. And
+this alone can put life in our noble cities, where active-brained women
+love to be, on something like possible terms.
+
+In Miss Howitt's "Art Student at Munich,"--a charming sketch, by the
+way, of women living _en bachelier_ abroad,--we find one young
+enthusiast idealizing upon this very need of feminine life, which she
+christens an Associated Home. In her artistic mind it takes the form of
+an outer and inner sisterhood,--the inner devoted to culture, the outer
+attending to the useful, ready alike to broil a steak or toe a stocking
+for the more ethereal ones of the household. This is all quite amiably
+intended, but no queen-bee and common-bee scheme of the sort seems to be
+either generous or practicable. It involves at once too much caste and
+too much contact. We do not wish to find servants or scrubs in our
+sisters, nor do we wish at all times even to see our sisters. There must
+be elbow-room for mood and temperament, as well as high walls of
+defence. The social element is too shy and elusive, and will not, like a
+monkey, perform on demand; therefore our plan abjures all these poetic
+organizations, which have a great deal of cant and very little good
+companionship; it has no sentimentalism to offer, proposing an
+association of purses rather than of persons,--a household on the base
+of protection rather than of society,--a mere combining for privileges
+and against prices. It is resolved into a simple matter of business; and
+the only help women need is that of an organizing brain to put
+themselves into this associate form, whereby they can meet the existing
+state of things with somewhat of human comfort.
+
+Are we never to obtain even this, until the golden doors of the
+Millennium swing open? Ah, then indeed one must melt a little, looking
+regretfully back to Brook Farm, undismayed by the fearful Zenobia;
+looking leniently toward Wallingford, Lebanon, and Haryard. Anything
+for wholesome diet, free life, and a quiet refuge.
+
+But whether to live alone or together, the first want is of
+houses,--which is another hitch in the social system. In the city a
+building-lot is an incipient fortune; and the large sum paid for it is
+the beginning of reasons for the large rent of the building that is put
+upon it. But then if ground is costly, air is cheap,--land is high, but
+sky is low; and one need have but very little earth to a great deal of
+house. A writer, describing the London of thirty years ago, speaks of
+the huge, narrow dwellings, full five stories high, and says that the
+agility with which the inmates "ran up and down, and perched on the
+different stories, gave the idea of a cage with its birds and sticks";
+and the like figure seems to have occurred to the queer Mademoiselle
+Marchand of "Denise," who, as she toiled to her eyrie on the topmost
+landing, exclaimed, "One would think these houses were built by a winged
+race, who only used stairs when they were moulting!" But these same
+lofty houses are the very thing we must have to-day, all but the running
+up and down. Build us houses up, and up, as high as they will stand;
+give us plenty of sky-parlors, but also plenty of steam-elevators to go
+to and from "my lady's chamber." It is not a wise economy to devote
+one's precious power to this enormous amount of stair-work. It is not a
+kind of exercise that is sanitive. The Evans House and Hotel Pelham, for
+instance, are very pretty Bostonianisms, but all their rooms within
+range of ordinary means are beyond the range of ordinary strength. The
+achievement of twenty flights a day, back and forth, would leave but
+small surplus of vigor. While the steam power is there for heating
+purposes, why not use some of it to propel the passengers up and down
+that wilderness of rosy boudoirs? Is there any reason why this
+labor-saving machine, the steam-elevator, which we now associate with
+Fifth Avenue luxury, should not be the common possession of all our
+large tenanted buildings? And is there any reason, indeed, in our houses
+being no better appointed than the English houses of thirty years ago?
+Ruskin has been honorably named for renting a few cottages with an eye
+to his tenants as well as himself; but the men who in our crowded cities
+shall erect these mammoth rental establishments, with steam access to
+every story, will build their own best monuments for posterity. We
+commend it to capitalists as a chance to invest in a generous fame.
+Until this is done, we shall even disapprove of bestowing any more
+mansions upon our beloved General Grant. It is not gallant. Until then,
+too, how shall one ever pass that venerable Park Street Church of
+Boston, without the irreverent sigh of "What capital lodgings it would
+make!" Those three little windows in the curve, looking up and down the
+street, and into the ever-fascinating Atlantic establishment; the lucky
+tower, into which one might retreat, pen in hand, if not wishing to be
+at home to callers nor abroad to himself,--Carlyle-like, making the
+library at the top of the house; and all within glance of the dominating
+State-House, whither one might steal up for an occasional lunch of
+oratory or a digest of laws. We also hear of a new hotel being builded
+on Tremont Street, and wonder if there will be any rooms fit for ladies,
+and whether one of those in the loft will rent for as much as a charming
+villa should command.
+
+But while we ask now for immediate relief by clubs and rental
+establishments, the great practical and artistic problem of America
+still remains in learning to manage its civilization; in acquiring a
+forecaste, a system, that meets individual wants; in adjusting resource
+to requirement. Then we shall not be driven into association. It is
+jocosely said, that in the West, whose rivers are shallow and uncertain,
+the steamers are built to run on a heavy dew. Allowing for the joke,
+this is not more nice than wise. To be dexterous, fine-fingered, facile!
+How perfect is the response in all the petty personalities of politics!
+In this America, where all men aspire, and more men get office than one
+would think there were offices to get, what miracles of adroitness! It
+is one perpetual, Turn, turn again, Lord Mayor! If but half the genius
+were diverted from office-getting to house-building, what towering
+results! But since it is the misery of a republic that politics is
+supreme, and that a people who govern themselves can have little leisure
+for anything else, I have sometimes feared that the only way to get
+these woman questions through is by tacking them on to politics. If,
+then, any of our masculine friends now go to Congress on an amelioration
+of labor, Heaven speed the day when they can only go on an amelioration
+of lodgings.
+
+But on this side of the question we as yet hold close to the leeward.
+For to make it political, women must have political power, the power of
+the ballot; and this claim she chooses to defer to the more oppressed
+race,--chooses first to secure justice to all men, before entering the
+long campaign of justice to women.
+
+Meanwhile, we young housekeepers, who are neither capitalists to build
+what we need, nor politicians to procure it builded, can only live on
+these real-unreal lives as we may. But sometimes, when the city lamps
+are agleam in the early evening, we go out for a walk of romance upon
+the brilliant avenue near by, gazing eagerly into those superb
+drawing-rooms where the curtains are kindly lifted a little, and tempted
+to ring at the door on a false errand where they are not,--simply to get
+a peep at the captivating comfort inside. And thus we too possess houses
+and homes; with all these to enjoy and none of them to care for, why may
+not one easily remain the wealthiest person in the universe? Ah, no one
+knows what riches we have in our thoughts, and how little bliss there is
+in the world that we have not!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[F] Since the above was written, there have been serious charges against
+Mr. Mercer, but our praise must remain until the case shall be more
+fairly made up.
+
+
+
+
+DOCTOR JOHNS.
+
+
+LIII.
+
+Reuben, meantime, is leading a dashing life in the city. The Brindlock
+family have taken him to their arms again as freely and heartily as if
+he had never entered the fold over which the good Doctor exercised
+pastoral care, and as if he had never strayed from it again.
+
+"I told you 't would be all right, Mabel," said Mr. Brindlock to his
+wife; and neither of them ever rallied him upon his bootless experience
+in that direction.
+
+But the kindly aunt had not forborne (how could she?) certain pertinent
+inquiries in regard to the pretty Miss Maverick, under which Reuben had
+shown considerable disposition to flinch; although he vainly fancied
+that he stood the interrogation with a high hand. Mrs. Brindlock drew
+her own conclusions, but was not greatly disturbed by them. Why should
+she be, indeed? Reuben, with his present most promising establishment in
+business, and with a face and air that insured him a cordial welcome in
+that circle of wealthy acquaintances which Mrs. Brindlock especially
+cultivated, was counted a _bon parti_, independent of his position as
+presumptive heir to a large share of the Brindlock estate.
+
+Once or twice since his leave of Ashfield he has astonished the good
+people there by a dashing visit. Perhaps he has enjoyed (such things are
+sometimes enjoyed) setting forth before the quiet parishioners of his
+father his new consequence as a man of the world and of large moneyed
+prospects. It is even possible that he may have entertained agreeably
+the fancy of dazing the eyes of both Rose and Adele with the glitter of
+his city distinctions. But their admiration, if they felt any, was not
+flatteringly expressed. Adele, indeed, was always graciously kind, and,
+seeing his confirmed godlessness, tortured herself secretly with the
+thought that, but for her rebuff, he might have made a better fight
+against the bedevilments of the world, and lived a truer and purer life.
+All that, however, was irrevocably past. As for Rose, if there crept
+into her little prayers a touch of sentiment as she pleaded for the
+backslidden son of the minister, her prayers were none the worse for it.
+Such trace of sentimental color--like the blush upon her fair
+cheek--gave a completed beauty to her appeals.
+
+Reuben saw that Phil was terribly in earnest in his love, and he
+fancied, with some twinges, that he saw indications on the part of Adele
+of its being not wholly unacceptable. Rose, too, seemed not disinclined
+to receive the assiduous attentions of the young minister, who had
+become a frequent visitor in the Elderkin household, and who preached
+with an unction and an earnestness that touched her heart, and that made
+her sigh despondingly over the outcast son of the old pastor. Watching
+these things with a look studiedly careless and indifferent, Reuben felt
+himself cut off more than ever from such charms or virtues as might
+possibly have belonged to continued association with the companions of
+his boyhood, and nerved himself for a new and firmer grip upon those
+pleasures of the outer world which had not yet proved an illusion. There
+were moments--mostly drifting over him in silent night-hours, within his
+old chamber at the parsonage--when it seemed to him that he had made a
+losing game of it. The sparkling eyes of Adele, suffused with tears,--as
+in that memorable interview of the garden,--beam upon him, promising, as
+then, other guidance; they gain new brilliance, and wear stronger
+entreaty, as they shine lovingly upon him from the distance--growing
+greater and greater--which now lies between them. Her beauty, her grace,
+her tenderness, now that they are utterly beyond reach, are tenfold
+enticing; and in that other sphere to which, in his night revery, they
+seem translated, the joyous face of Rose, like that of an attendant
+angel, looks down regretfully, full of a capacity for love to which he
+must be a stranger.
+
+He is wakened by the bells next morning,--a Sunday morning, may be.
+There they go,--he sees them from the window,--the two comely damsels,
+picking their way through the light, fresh-fallen snow of March. Going
+possibly to teach the catechism; he sneers at this thought, for he is
+awake now. Has the world no richer gift in store for him? That Sophie
+Bowrigg is a great fortune, a superb dancer, a gorgeous armful of a
+woman. What if they were to join their fortunes and come back some day
+to dazzle these quiet townsfolk with the splendor of their life? His
+visits in Ashfield grow shorter and more rare. There is nothing
+particularly alluring. We shall not meet him there again until we meet
+him for the last time.
+
+Mr. Catesby is an "acceptable preacher." He unfolds the orthodox
+doctrines with more grace than had belonged to the manner of the Doctor,
+and illustrates them from time to time with a certain youthful glow, and
+touches of passionate exhortation, which for many years the Ashfield
+pulpit had not known. The old ladies befriend him and pet him in their
+kindly way; and if at times his speculative humor (which he is not
+wholly without) leads him beyond the bounds of the accepted doctrines,
+he compounds the matter by strong assertion of those sturdy generalities
+which lie at the bottom of the orthodox creed.
+
+But his self-control is not so apparent in his social intercourse; and
+before he has been three months in Ashfield, he has given tongue to
+gossip, and all the old ladies comment upon his enslavement to the
+pretty Rose Elderkin. And they talk by the book; he is desperately
+enamored. Young clergymen have this way of falling, at sight, into the
+toils, which is vastly refreshing to middle-aged observers. But we have
+no occasion to detail his experience. An incident only of his recreative
+pursuits in this direction belongs to our narrative.
+
+Upon one of the botanical excursions of later spring which he had
+inaugurated, and to which the maidenly modesty of Rose had suggested
+that Adele should make a party, the young Catesby (who was a native of
+Eastern Massachusetts) had asked in his _naive_ manner after her family
+connections. An uncle of his had known a Mr. Maverick, who had long been
+a resident of Europe.
+
+"It may possibly be some relation of yours, Miss Maverick," said the
+young minister.
+
+"Do you recall the first name?" said Rose.
+
+Mr. Catesby hesitated in that interesting way in which lovers are wont
+to hesitate. No, he did not remember; but he was a jovial,
+generous-hearted man, (he had heard his uncle often describe him,) who
+must be now some fifty or sixty years old.--"Frank Maverick, to be sure;
+I have the name."
+
+"Why, it is my father," said Adele with a swift, happy rush of color to
+her face.
+
+"O no, Miss Maverick," said the young Catesby with a smile, "that is
+quite impossible. The gentleman of whom I speak, and my uncle visited
+him only three years ago, is a confirmed bachelor, and he had rallied
+him, I remember, upon never having married."
+
+The color left the cheeks of Adele.
+
+"Frank, did you say?" persisted Rose.
+
+"Frank was the name," said the innocent young clergyman; "and he was a
+merchant, if I remember rightly, somewhere upon the Mediterranean."
+
+"It's very strange," said Rose, turning to Adele.
+
+And Adele, all her color gone, had the fortitude to pat Rose lovingly
+upon the shoulder, and to say, with a forced smile, "Life is very
+strange, Rose."
+
+But from this time till they reached home,--fortunately not far
+away,--Adele said nothing more. Rose remarked an unwonted pallor in her
+cheeks.
+
+"You are tired, Adele," said she; "you are so pale!"
+
+"Child," said Adele, tapping her again, in a womanly way that was
+strange to her companion, "you have color for us both."
+
+At this, her reserve of dignity and fortitude being now wellnigh spent,
+she rushed away to her chamber. What wonder if she sought the little
+crucifix, sole memento of the unknown mother, and glued it to her lips,
+as she fell upon her knees by the bedside, and uttered such a prayer for
+help and strength as had never uttered before?
+
+"It is true! it is true! I see it now. The child of shame! The child of
+shame! O my father, my father! what wrong have you done me!" And again
+she prays for help and strength.
+
+There is not a doubt in her mind where the truth lies. In a moment her
+thought has flashed over the whole chain of evidence. The father's
+studied silence; her alienation from any home of her own; the mysterious
+hints of the Doctor; and the strange communication of Reuben,--all come
+up in stately array and confound her with the bitter truth. There is a
+little miniature of her father which she has kept among her choicest
+treasures. She seeks it now. Is it to throw it away in scorn? No, no,
+no. Our affections are after all not submissible to strict moral
+regimen. It is with set teeth and a hard look in her eye that she
+regards it at first; then her eyes suffuse with tears while she looks,
+and she kisses it passionately again and again.
+
+"Can there be some horrible mistake in all this?" she asks herself. At
+the thought she slips on hat and shawl and glides noiselessly down the
+stairs, (not for the world would she have been interrupted!) and walks
+swiftly away to her old home at the parsonage.
+
+Dame Tourtelot meets her and says, "Good evening, Miss Adeel."
+
+And Adele, in a voice so firm that it does not seem her own, says, "Good
+evening, Miss Tourtelot." She wonders greatly at her own calmness.
+
+
+LIV.
+
+The Doctor is alone in his study when Adele comes in upon him, and she
+has reached his chair and dropped upon her knees beside him before he
+has time to rise.
+
+"New Papa, you have been so kind to me! I know the truth now,--the
+mystery, the shame";--and she dropped her head upon his knees.
+
+"Adaly, Adaly, my dear child!" said the old man with a great tremor in
+his voice, "what does this mean?"
+
+She was sobbing, sobbing.
+
+"Adaly, my child, what can I do for you?"
+
+"Pray for me, New Papa!" and she lifted her eyes upon him with a tender,
+appealing look.
+
+"Always, always, Adaly!"
+
+"Tell me, New Papa,--tell me honestly,--is it not true that I can call
+no one mother,--that I never could?"
+
+The Doctor trembled: he would have given ten years of his life to have
+been able to challenge her story, to disabuse her mind of the belief
+which he saw was fastened past all recall. "Adaly," said he, "Christ
+befriended the Magdalen,--how much more you, then, if so be you are the
+unoffending child of----"
+
+"I knew it! I knew it!" and she fell to sobbing again upon the knee of
+the old gentleman, in a wild, passionate way.
+
+In such supreme moments the mind reaches its decisions with electrical
+rapidity. Even as she leaned there, her thought flashed upon that poor
+Madame Arles who had so befriended her,--against whom they had cautioned
+her, who had shown such intense emotion at their first meeting, who had
+summoned her at the last, and who had died with that wailing cry, "_Ma
+fille!_" upon her lip. Yes, yes, her mother indeed, who died in her
+arms! (she can never forget that death-clasp.)
+
+She hints as much to the Doctor, who, in view of his recent
+communication from Maverick, will not gainsay her.
+
+When she moved away at last, as if for a leave-taking, silent and
+humiliated, the old man said to her, "My child, are you not still my
+Adaly? God is no respecter of persons; his ministers should be like
+him."
+
+Whereupon Adele came and kissed him with a warmth that reminded him of
+days long past.
+
+She rejoiced in not having encountered the gray, keen eyes of the
+spinster. She knew they would read unfailingly the whole extent of the
+revelation that had dawned upon her. That the spinster herself knew the
+truth, and had long known it, she was sure; and she recalled with a
+shudder the look of those uncanny eyes upon the evening of their little
+frolic at the Elderkins. She dreaded the thought of ever meeting them
+again, and still more the thought of listening to the stiff, cold words
+of consolation which she knew she would count it her duty to administer.
+
+It was dusk when she left the Doctor's door; he would have attended, but
+she begged to be alone. It was an April evening, the chilliness of the
+earth just yielding to the coming summer; the frogs clamorous in all the
+near pools, and filling the air with the harsh uproar of their voices;
+the delicate grass-blades were just thrusting their tips through the
+brown web of the old year's growth, and in sunny, close-trodden spots
+showing a mat of green, while the fleecy brown blossoms of the elm were
+tufting all the spray of the embowering trees. Here and there a village
+loiterer greeted her kindly. They all knew Miss Adele. "They will all
+know it to-morrow," she thought, "and then--then--"
+
+With a swift but unsteady step she makes her way to the little
+graveyard; she had gone there often, and there were those who said
+wantonly that she went to say her prayers before the little cross upon
+the tombstone she had placed over the grave of Madame Arles. Now she
+threw herself prone upon the little hillock, with a low, sharp cry of
+distress, like that of a wounded bird,--"My mother! my mother!"
+
+Every word, every look of tenderness which the dead woman had lavished,
+she recalls now with a terrible distinctness. Those loud, vague appeals
+of her delirium come to her recollection with a meaning in them that is
+only too plain; and then the tight, passionate clasp, when, strained to
+her bosom, relief came at last. Adele lies there unconscious of the
+time, until the night dews warn her away; she staggers through the gate.
+Where next? She fancies they must know it all at the Elderkins',--that
+she has no right there. Is she not an estray upon the world? Shall she
+not--as well first as last--wander forth, homeless as she is, into the
+night? And true to these despairing thoughts, she hurries away farther
+and farther from the town. The frogs croak monotonously in all the
+marshes, as if in mockery of her grief. On some near tree an owl is
+hooting, with a voice that is strangely and pitifully human. Presently
+an outlying farm-house shows its cheery, hospitable light through the
+window-panes, and she is tempted to shorten her steps and steal a look
+into the room where the family sits grouped around the firelight. No
+such sanctuary for her ever was or ever can be. Even the lowing of a cow
+in the yard, and the answering bleat of a calf within the barn, seem to
+mock the outcast.
+
+On she passes, scarce knowing whither her hurrying steps are bearing
+her, until at last she spies a low building in the fields away upon her
+right, which she knows. It is the home of that outlawed woman where
+Madame Arles had died. Here at least she will be met with sympathy, even
+if the truth were wholly known; and yet perhaps last of all places would
+she have it known there. She taps at the door; she has wandered out of
+her way, and asks for a moment's rest. The little boy of the house, when
+he has made out the visitor by a few furtive peeps from behind the
+mother's chair, comes to her fawningly and familiarly; and as Adele
+looks into his bright, fearless eyes, a new courage seems to possess
+her. God's children, all of us; and He careth even for the sparrows. She
+will conquer her despairing weakness; she will accept her cross and bear
+it resolutely. By slow degrees she is won over by the frolicsome humor
+of the curly-pated boy, who never once quits her side, into cheerful
+prattle with him. And when at last, fairly rested, she would set off on
+her return, the lone woman says she will see her safely as far as the
+village street; the boy, too, insists doggedly upon attending them; and
+so, with her hand tightly clasped in the hand of the lad, Adele makes
+her way back into the town. Along the street she passes, even under the
+windows of the parsonage, with her hand still locked in that of the
+outlawed boy; and she wonders if in broad day the same courage would be
+meted to her? They only part when within sight of the broad glow of
+light from the Elderkin windows; and here Adele, taking out her purse,
+counts out the half of her money and places it in the hands of the boy.
+
+"We will share and share alike, Willie," said she, "But never tell who
+gave you this."
+
+"But, Miss Maverick, it's too much," said the woman.
+
+"No, it's not," said the boy, clutching it eagerly.
+
+With a parting good-night, Adele darted within the gate, and opened
+softly the door, determined to meet courageously whatever rebuffs might
+be in store for her.
+
+
+LV.
+
+Rose has detailed the story of the occurrence, with the innocent
+curiosity of girlhood, to the Squire and Mrs. Elderkin (Phil being just
+now away). The Squire, as he hears it, has passed a significant look
+across to Mrs. Elderkin.
+
+"It's very queer, isn't it?" asked Rose.
+
+"Very," said the Squire, who had for some time cherished suspicions of
+certain awkward relations existing between Maverick and the mother of
+Adele, but never so decided as this story would seem to warrant. "And
+what said Adele?" continued he.
+
+"It disturbed her, I think, papa; she didn't seem at all herself."
+
+"Rose, my dear," said the kindly old gentleman, "there is some unlucky
+family difference between Mr. and Mrs. Maverick, and I dare say the talk
+was unpleasant to Adele; if I were you, I wouldn't allude to it again;
+don't mention it, please, Rose."
+
+If it could be possible, good Mrs. Elderkin greeted Adele as she came in
+more warmly than ever. "You must be careful, my dear, of these first
+spring days of ours; you are late to-night."
+
+"Yes," says Adele, "I was gone longer than I thought. I rambled off to
+the churchyard, and I have been at the Doctor's."
+
+Again the old people exchanged glances.
+
+Why does she find herself watching their looks so curiously? Yet there
+is nothing but kindness in them. She is glad Phil is not there.
+
+The next morning the Squire stepped over at an early hour to the
+parsonage, and by an adroit question or two, which the good Doctor had
+neither the art nor the disposition to evade, unriddled the whole truth
+with respect to the parentage of Adele. The Doctor also advised him of
+the delusion of the poor girl with respect to Madame Arles, and how he
+had considered it unwise to attempt any explanation until he should hear
+further from Mr. Maverick, whose recent letter he counted it his duty to
+lay before Mr. Elderkin.
+
+"It's a sad business," said he.
+
+And the Doctor, "_The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at
+what they stumble._"
+
+The Squire walks home in a brown study. Like all the rest, he has been
+charmed with the liveliness and grace of Adele; over and over he has
+said to his boy, "How fares it, Phil? Why, at your age, my boy, I should
+have had her in the toils long ago."
+
+Since her domestication under his own roof, the old gentleman's liking
+for her had grown tenfold strong; he had familiarized himself with the
+idea of counting her one of his own flock. But, the child of a
+French----
+
+"Well, well, we will see what the old lady may say," reflected he. And
+he took the first private occasion to lay the matter before Mrs.
+Elderkin.
+
+"Well, mother, the suspicions of last night are all true,--true as a
+book."
+
+"God help the poor child, then!" said Madam, holding up her hands.
+
+"Of course He'll do that, wife. But what say you to Phil's marriage now?
+Does it look as tempting as it did?"
+
+The old lady reflected a moment, lifting her hand to smooth the hair
+upon her temple, as if in aid of her thought, then said,--"Giles, you
+know the world better than I; you know best what may be well for the
+boy. I love Adele very much; I do not believe that I should love her any
+less if she were the wife of Phil. But you know best, Giles; you must
+decide."
+
+"There's a good woman!" said the Squire; and he stayed his pace up and
+down the room to lay his hand approvingly upon the head of the old lady,
+touching as tenderly those gray locks as ever he had done in earlier
+years the ripples of golden brown.
+
+In a few days Phil returns,--blithe, hopeful, winsome as ever. He is
+puzzled, however, by the grave manner of the Squire, when he takes him
+aside, after the first hearty greetings, and says, "Phil, my lad, how
+fares it with the love matter? Have things come to a crisis, eh?"
+
+"What do you mean, father?" and Phil blushes like a boy of ten.
+
+"I mean to ask, Philip," said the old gentleman, measuredly, "if you
+have made any positive declaration to Miss Maverick."
+
+"Not yet," said Phil, with a modest frankness.
+
+"Very good, my son, very good. And now, Phil, I would wait a
+little,--take time for reflection; don't do anything rashly. It's an
+important step to take."
+
+"But, father," says Phil, puzzled by the old gentleman's manner, "what
+does this mean?"
+
+"Philip," said the Squire, with a seriousness that seemed almost comical
+by its excess, "would you really marry Adele?"
+
+"To-morrow, if I could," said Phil.
+
+"Tut, tut, Phil! It's the old hot blood in him!" (He says this, as if to
+himself.) "Philip, I wouldn't do so, my boy."
+
+And thereupon he gives him in his way a story of the revelations of the
+last few days.
+
+At the first, Phil is disposed to an indignant denial, as if by no
+possibility any indignity could attach to the name or associations of
+Adele. But in the whirl of his feeling he remembered that interview with
+Reuben, and his boast that Phil could not affront the conventionalities
+of the world. It confirmed the truth to him in a moment. Reuben then had
+known the whole, and had been disinterestedly generous. Should he be any
+less so?
+
+"Well, father," said Phil, after a minute or two of silence, "I don't
+think the story changes my mind one whit. I would marry her to-morrow,
+if I could," and he looked the Squire fairly and squarely in the face.
+
+"Gad, boy," said the old gentleman, "you must love her as I loved your
+mother!"
+
+"I hope I do," said Phil,--"that is if I win her. I don't think she's to
+be had for the asking."
+
+"Aha! the pinch lies there, eh?" said the Squire, and he said it in
+better humor than he would have said it ten days before. "What's the
+trouble, Philip?"
+
+"Well, sir, I think she always had a tenderness for Reuben; I think she
+loves him now in her heart."
+
+"So, so! The wind lies there, eh? Well, let it bide, my boy; let it bide
+awhile. We shall know something more of the matter soon."
+
+And there the discourse of the Squire ended.
+
+Meantime, however, Rose and Adele are having a little private interview
+above stairs, which in its subject-matter is not wholly unrelated to the
+same theme.
+
+"Rose," Adele had said, as she fondled her in her winning way, "your
+brother Phil has been very kind to me."
+
+"He always meant to be," said Rose, with a charming glow upon her face.
+
+"He always _has_ been," said Adele; "but, dear Rose, I know I can talk
+as plainly to you as to another self almost."
+
+"You can,--you can, Ady," said she.
+
+"I have thought," continued Adele, "though I know it is very unmaidenly
+in me to say it, that Phil was disposed sometimes to talk even more
+warmly than he has ever talked, and to ask me to be a nearer friend to
+him even than you, dear Rose. May be it is only my own vanity that leads
+me sometimes to suspect this."
+
+"O, I hope it may be true!" burst forth Rose.
+
+"I hope _not_," said Adele, with a voice so gravely earnest that Rose
+shuddered.
+
+"O Ady, you don't mean it! you who are so good, so kind! Phil's heart
+will break."
+
+"I don't think that," said Adele, with a faint hard smile, in which her
+womanly vanity struggled with her resolution. "And whatever might have
+been, that which I have hinted at _must_ not be now, dear Rose. You will
+know some day why--why it would be ungrateful in me to determine
+otherwise. Promise me, darling, that you will discourage any inclination
+toward it, wherever you can best do so. Promise me, dear Rose!"
+
+"Do you really, truly mean it?" said the other, with a disappointment
+she but poorly concealed.
+
+"With all my heart, I do," said Adele.
+
+And Rose promised, while she threw herself upon the neck of Adele and
+said, "I am so sorry! It will be such a blow to poor Phil!"
+
+After this, things went on very much in their old way. To the great
+relief of Adele there was no explosive village demonstration of the news
+which had come home so cruelly to herself. The Doctor had given an
+admonition to the young minister, and the old Squire had told him, in a
+pointed and confidential way, that he had heard of his inquiries and
+assertions with respect to Mr. Maverick, and begged to hint that the
+relations between the father and the mother of Adele were not of the
+happiest, and it was quite possible that Mr. Maverick had assumed
+latterly the name of a bachelor; it was not, however, a very profitable
+subject of the speculation or of gossip, and if he valued the favor of
+the young ladies he would forbear all allusion to it. A suggestion which
+Mr. Catesby was not slow to accept religiously, and scrupulously to bear
+in mind.
+
+Phil was as hot a lover as ever, though for a time a little more
+distant: and the poor fellow remarked a new timidity and reserve about
+Adele, which, so far from abating, only fed the flame; and there is no
+knowing to what reach it might have blazed out, if a trifling little
+circumstance had not paralyzed his zeal.
+
+From time to time, Phil had been used to bring home a rare flower or two
+as a gift for Adele, which Rose had always lovingly arranged in some
+coquettish fashion, either upon the bosom or in the hair of Adele; but a
+new and late gift of this kind--a little tuft of the trailing arbutus
+which he has clambered over miles of woodland to secure--is not worn by
+Adele, but by Rose, who glances into the astounded face of Phil with a
+pretty, demure look of penitence.
+
+"I say, Rose," says he, seizing his chance for a private word,--"that's
+not for you."
+
+"I know it, Phil; Adele gave it to me."
+
+"And that's her favorite flower."
+
+"Yes, Phil," and there is a shake in her voice now. "I think she's grown
+tired of such gifts, Phil";--whereat she glances keenly and pitifully at
+him.
+
+"_Truly_, Rose?" says Phil, with the color on a sudden quitting his
+cheeks.
+
+"Truly,--truly, Phil,"--and in spite of herself the pretty hazel eyes
+are brimming full, and, under pretence of some household duty, she
+dashes away. For a moment Phil stands confounded. Then, through his set
+teeth, he growls, "I was a fool not to have known it!"
+
+But Phil was not a fool, but a sturdy, brave-hearted fellow, who bore
+whatever blows fortune gave him, or seemed to give, with a courage that
+had a fine elastic temper in it. He may have made his business
+engagements at the river or in the city a little more frequent and
+prolonged after this; but always there was the same deferential show of
+tender feeling toward his father's guest, whenever he happened in
+Ashfield. Indeed, he felt immensely comforted by a little report which
+Rose made to him in her most despairing manner. Adele had told her that
+she "would never, never marry."
+
+There are a great many mothers of fine families who have made such a
+speech at twenty or thereabout; and Phil knew it.
+
+
+LVI.
+
+We by no means intend to represent our friend Adele as altogether a
+saint. Such creatures are very rare, and not always the most lovable,
+according to our poor human ways of thinking; but she may possibly grow
+into saintship, in view of a certain sturdy religious sense of duty that
+belongs to her, and a faith that is always glowing. At present she is a
+high-spirited, sensitive girl,--not without her pride and her lesser
+vanities, not without an immense capacity for loving and being loved,
+but just now trembling under that shock to her sensibilities which we
+have detailed,--but never fainting, never despairing. Not even
+relinquishing her pride, but guarding it with triple defences, by her
+reserve in respect to Phil, as well as by a certain new dignity of
+manner which has grown out of her conflict with the opprobrium that
+seems to threaten, for no fault of her own.
+
+Adele sees clearly now the full burden of Reuben's proposal to cherish
+and guard her against whatever indignities might threaten; she sees more
+clearly than ever the rich, impulsive generosity of his nature
+reflected, and it disturbs her grievously to think that she had met it
+only with reproach. The thought of the mad, wild, godless career upon
+which he may have entered, and of which the village gossips are full, is
+hardly more afflictive to her than her recollection of that frank,
+self-sacrificing generosity, so ignobly requited. She longs in her heart
+to clear the debt,--to tell him what grateful sense she has of his
+intended kindness. But how? Should she,--being what she is,--even by a
+word, seem to invite a return of that devotion which may be was but the
+passion of an hour, and which it were fatal to renew? Her pride revolts
+at this. And yet--and yet--so brave a generosity shall not be wholly
+unacknowledged. She writes:--
+
+"Reuben, I know now the full weight of the favor of what you promised to
+bestow upon me when I so blindly reproached you with intrusion upon my
+private griefs. Forgive me, Reuben! I thank you now, late as it is, with
+my whole heart. It is needless to tell you how I came to know what,
+perhaps, I had better never have known, but which must always have
+overhung me as a dark cloud charged with a blasting fate. This
+knowledge, dear Reuben, which separates us so surely and so widely,
+relieves me of the embarrassment which I might otherwise have felt in
+telling you of my lasting gratitude, and (if as a sister I may say it)
+my love. If your kind heart could so overflow with pity then, you will
+surely pity me the more now; yet not _too much_, Reuben, for my pride as
+a woman is as strong as ever. The world was made for me, as much as it
+was made for others; and if I bear its blight, I will find some flowers
+yet to cherish. I do not count it altogether so grim and odious a
+world,--even under the broken light which shines upon it for me,--as in
+your last visits you seemed disposed to reckon it.
+
+"And this reminds me, Reuben, that I have told you frankly how the cloud
+which overhung me has opened with a terrible surety. How is it with the
+cloud that lay upon you? Is there any light? Ah, Reuben, when I recall
+those days in which long ago your faith in something better beyond this
+world than lies in it seemed to be so much stronger and firmer than
+mine, and when your trust was so confident as to make mine stronger, it
+seems like a strange dream to me,--all the more when now you, who should
+reason more justly than I, believe in 'nothing,' (was not that your last
+word?)--and yet, dear Reuben, I cling,--I cling. Do you remember the old
+hymn I sung in those days:--
+
+    'Ingemisco tanquam reus,
+    Culpa rubet vultus meus;
+    Supplicanti parce, Deus.'
+
+Even the old Doctor, who was so troubled by the Romish hymns, said it
+must have been written by a good man."
+
+Much more she writes in this vein, but returns ever and again to that
+noble generosity of his,--her delicacy struggling throughout with her
+tender gratitude,--yet she fails not to show a deep, earnest
+undercurrent of affection, which surely might develop under sympathy
+into a very fever of love. Will it not touch the heart of Reuben? Will
+it not divert him from the trail where he wanders blindly? If we have
+read his character rightly, surely this letter, in which a delicate
+sensibility hardly veils a great passionate wealth of feeling, will stir
+him to a new and more hopeful venture.
+
+God send that the letter may reach him safely!
+
+For a long time Adele has not written to Reuben, and it occurs to her,
+as she strolls away toward the village post, that to mail it herself may
+possibly provoke new town gossip. In this perplexity she presently
+encounters her boy friend, Arthur, who for a handful of pennies, and
+under injunction of secrecy, cheerfully undertakes the duty. To the
+house of the lad's mother, far away as it was, Adele had wandered
+frequently of late, and had borne away from time to time some trifling
+memento of the dead one whose memory so endeared the spot. It happens
+that she continues her stroll thither on this occasion; and the poor
+woman, toward whom Adele's charities have flowed with a profusion that
+has astounded the Doctor, repays some new gift by placing in her hands a
+little embroidered kerchief, "too fine for such as she," which had
+belonged to Madame Arles. A flimsy bit of muslin daintily embroidered;
+but there is a name stitched upon its corner, for which Adele treasures
+it past all reckoning,--the name of _Julie Chalet_.
+
+It was as if the dead one had suddenly come back and whispered it in her
+ear,--Julie Chalet. The spring birds sung the name in chorus as she
+walked home; and on the grave-stone, under the cross, she seemed to see
+it cut upon the marble,--Julie Chalet.
+
+Adele has written to her father, of course, in those days when the first
+shock of the new revelation had passed. How could she do otherwise? If
+she has poured out the bitterness of her grief and of her isolation, she
+has mercifully spared him any reproach!
+
+"I think I now understand," she writes, "the reason of your long absence
+from me. Whatever other griefs I bear, I will not believe that it has
+been from lack of affection for me. I recall that day, dear papa, when,
+with my head lying on your bosom, you said to me, 'She is unworthy; I
+will love you for both.' You must! But was she, papa, so utterly
+unworthy? I think I have known her; nay, I feel almost sure,--sure that
+these arms held her in the moment when she breathed adieu to the world.
+If ever bad, I am sure that she must have grown into goodness. I cannot,
+I will not, think otherwise. I can tell you so many of her kind deeds as
+will take away your condemnation. In this hope I live, dear papa.
+
+"I have found her true name too, at last,--Julie Chalet,--is it not so?
+I wonder with what feeling you will read it; will it be with a wakened
+fondness? will it be with loathing? I tremble while I ask. You shall go
+with me (will you not?) _to her grave_; and there a kind Heaven will put
+in our hearts what memories are best.
+
+"I know now the secret of your caution in respect to Reuben; you have
+been unwilling that _your child_ should bring any possible shame to the
+household of a friend! Trust to me,--trust to _me_, papa, your
+sensitiveness cannot possibly be keener, if it be more generous, than my
+own. Yet I have never told you--what I have since learned--of the
+unselfish devotion of Reuben, which declared itself when he knew
+all,--all. Would I not be almost tempted to thank him with--myself? Yet,
+trust me, if I have written him with an almost unmaidenly warmth, I have
+called to his mind the great gulf that _must_ lie between us.
+
+"Is the old godmother, of whom you used to speak, still alive? It seems
+that I should love to hang about her neck in memory of days gone; it
+seems that I should love the warm sky under which I was born,--I am sure
+I should love the olive orchards, and the vines, and the light upon the
+sea. I feel as if I were living in chains now. When, when will you come
+to break them, and set me free?"
+
+In those days of May, when the leaflets were unfolding, and when the
+downy bluebells were lifting their clustered blossoms filled with a
+mysterious fragrance, like the breath of young babes, Adele loved to
+linger in the study of the parsonage; more than ever the good Doctor
+seemed a "New Papa,"--more than ever his eye dwelt upon her with a
+parental smile. It was not that she loved Rose less, that she lingered
+here so long; but she could not shake off the conviction that some day
+soon Rose might shrink from her. The good Doctor never would. Nor can it
+be counted strange if there, in the study so familiar to her childhood,
+she should recall the days when she had frolicked down the orchard,
+when Reuben had gathered flowers for her, when life seemed enchanting.
+Was it enchanting now?
+
+The Doctor was always gravely kind. "Have courage, Adaly, have courage!"
+he was wont to say, "God orders all things right."
+
+And somehow, when she hears him say it, she believes it more than ever.
+
+Ten days, a fortnight, and a month pass, and there is no acknowledgment
+from Reuben of her grateful letter. He does not count it worth his
+while, apparently, to break his long silence; or, possibly, he is too
+much engrossed with livelier interests to give a thought to this episode
+of his old life in Ashfield. Adele is disturbed by it; but the very
+disturbance gives her new courage to combat faithfully the difficulties
+of her position. "One cheering word I would have thought he might have
+given me," said she.
+
+The appeal to her father, too, has no answer. Before it reaches its
+destination, Maverick has taken ship for America; and, singularly
+enough, it is fated that the letter of Adele should be first opened and
+read--by her mother.
+
+
+LVII.
+
+Some time in mid-May of this year Maverick writes:--
+
+"My dear Johns,--I shall again greet you, God willing, in your own home,
+some forty days hence, and I shall come as a repentant Benedick; for I
+now wear the dignities of a married man. Your kind letter counted for a
+great deal toward my determination; but I will not affect to conceal
+from you, that my tender interest in the future of Adele counted for a
+great deal more. As I had supposed, the communication to Julie (which I
+effected through her brother) that her child was still living, and
+living motherless, woke all the tenderness of her nature. I cannot say
+that the sudden change in her inclinations was any way flattering to me;
+but knowing her recent religious austerities, I was prepared for this. I
+shall not undertake to describe to you our first interview, which I can
+never forget. It belongs to those heart-secrets which cannot be spoken
+of; but this much I may tell you,--that, if there was no kindling of the
+old and wayward love, there grew out of it a respect for her present
+severity and elevation of character that I had never anticipated. At our
+age, indeed, (though, when I think of it, I must be many years your
+junior,) a respect for womanly character most legitimately takes the
+place of that disorderly sentiment which twenty years ago blazed out in
+passion.
+
+"We have been married according to the rites of the Romish Church. If I
+had proposed other ceremony, more agreeable to your views, I am
+confident that she would not have listened to me. She is wrapped as
+steadfastly in her creed as ever you in yours. To do otherwise in so
+sacred a matter--and with her it wore solely that aspect--than as her
+Church commands, would have been to do foully and vainly. I had prepared
+you, I think, for her perversity in this matter; nor do I think that all
+your zeal and powers of persuasion could make her recreant to the faith
+for which she has immolated all the womanly vanities which certainly
+once belonged to her. Indeed, the only trace of worldliness which I see
+in her is her intense yearning toward our dear Adele, and her passionate
+longing to clasp her child once more to her heart. Nor will I conceal
+from you that she hopes, with all the fervor of a mother's hope, to wean
+her from what she counts the heretical opinions under which she has been
+reared, and to bring her into the fold of the faithful.
+
+"You will naturally ask, my dear Johns, why I do not combat this; but I
+am too old and too far spent for a fight about creeds. I should have
+made a lame fight on that score at any day; but now my main concern, it
+would seem, should be to look out personally for the creed which has
+most of mercy in it. If I seem to speak triflingly, my dear Johns, I
+pray you excuse me; it is only my business way of stating the actual
+facts in the case. As for Madame Maverick, I am sure you will find no
+trifling in her (if you ever meet her); she is terribly in earnest. I
+tell her she would have made a magnificent lady prioress, whereat she
+thumbs her beads and whispers a Latin distich, as if she were exorcising
+a demon. Yet I should do wrong if I were to represent her as always
+severe, even upon such a theme; there certainly belongs to her a tender,
+appealing manner (reminding of Adele in a way that brings tears to my
+eyes); but it is always bounded by allegiance to her sworn faith. You
+will think it an exaggeration, but she reminds me at times of those
+women of the New Testament (which I have not altogether forgotten) who
+gave up all for the following of the Master. If I were in your study, my
+dear Johns, you might ask me who those women were? And for my soul I
+could not tell you. Yet I have a vague recollection that there were
+those who showed a beautiful devotion to the Christian faith, that
+somehow sublimated their lives and memories. Again, I feel constrained
+to put before you another feature in her character, which I am confident
+will make you feel kindly toward her; my home near to Marseilles, which
+has been but a gypsy home for so many years, she has taken under her
+hand, and by its new appointments and order has convicted me of the
+losses I have felt so long. True, you might object to the _oratoire_;
+but in all else I am confident you would approve, and in all else
+felicitate Adele upon the home which was preparing for her.
+
+"Madame Maverick will not sail with me for America; although the
+marriage, under French law, may have admitted Adele to all rights and
+even social immunities, yet I have represented that another law and
+custom rules with you. Whatever opprobrium might attach to the mother,
+Julie, with her exalted religious sentiment, would not weigh for a
+moment; but as regards Adele, she manifests a strange tenderness. To
+spare her any pang, or possible pangs, she is content to wait. I have
+feared, too, I must confess, that any undue expression of condemnation
+or distrust might work revulsion of her own feeling. But while she
+assents,--with some reluctance, I must admit,--to this plan of deferring
+her meeting with Adele, on whom all her affections seem to centre, she
+insists, in a way that I find it difficult to combat, upon her child's
+speedy return. That her passionate love will insure entire devotion on
+the part of Adele, I cannot doubt. And how the anti-Romish faith which
+must have been instilled in the dear girl by your teachings, as well as
+by her associations, may withstand the earnest attack of Madame
+Maverick, I cannot tell. I have a fear it may lead to some dismal
+complications. You know what the earnestness of your own faith is; but I
+don't think you yet know the earnestness of an opposing faith, with a
+Frenchwoman to back it. Even as I write, she comes to cast a glance at
+my work, and says, 'Monsieur Maverick,' (she called me Frank once,)
+'what are you saying there to the heretical Doctor?'
+
+"Whereupon I translate for her ear a sentence or two. 'Tell him,' says
+she, 'that I thank him for his kindness; tell him besides, that I can in
+no way better atone for the guiltiness of the past, than by bringing
+back this wandering lamb into the true fold. Only when we kneel before
+the same altar, her hand in mine, can I feel that she is truly my
+child.'
+
+"I fear greatly this zeal may prove infectious.
+
+"And now, my dear Johns, in regard to the revelation to Adele of what is
+written here,--of the whole truth, in short, for it must come out,--I
+haven't the heart or the courage to make it myself. I must throw myself
+on your charity. For Heaven's sake, tell the story as kindly as you can.
+Don't let her think too harshly of me. See to it, I pray, that my name
+don't become a bugbear in the village. I have pretty broad shoulders,
+and could bear it, if I only were to be sufferer; but I am sure 't would
+react fearfully on the sensibilities of poor Adele. _That_ sin is past
+cure and past preachment; no good can come from trumpeting wrath against
+it. Do me this favor, Johns, and you will find me a more willing
+listener in what is to come. I can't promise, indeed, to accept all your
+dogmas; there is a thick crust of the world on me, and I doubt if you
+could force them through it; but, for Adele's sake, I think I could
+become a very orderly and presentable person, even for a New England
+meeting-house. I will make a beginning now by turning over the little
+property which you hold for Adele, in trust, for disbursement in your
+parish charities. The dear child won't need it, and the parish may."
+
+The Doctor was happy to be relieved of the worst part of the revelation;
+but he had yet to communicate the fact that the mother was still alive,
+and (what was to him worst of all) that she was imbruted with the
+delusions of the Romish Church. He chose his hour, and, meeting her upon
+the village street, asked her into his study.
+
+"Adaly, your father is coming. He will be here within a month."
+
+"At last! at last!" said she, with a cry of joy.
+
+"But, Adaly," continued he, with great gravity, "I have perhaps led you
+into error. Your mother, Adaly,--your mother is still living."
+
+"Living!" and an expression almost of radiance shot over the fair face.
+But in an instant it was gone. Was not the poor lady she had so
+religiously mourned over her mother? That death embrace and the tomb
+were, then, only solemn mockeries! With a frightful alertness her
+thought ran to them,--weighed them. "New Papa," said she, approaching
+him with a gravity that matched his own, "is this some new delusion? Is
+it true? Has he written me?"
+
+"He has not written you, my child; but I have a letter, informing me of
+his marriage, and begging me to make the revelation to you as kindly as
+I might."
+
+"Marriage! Marriage to whom?" says Adele, her eyes flashing fire, and
+her lips showing a tempest of scarce controllable feeling.
+
+"Marriage to your mother, Adaly. He would be just at last."
+
+"O my God!" exclaimed Adele, with a burst of tears. "It's false! I shall
+never see my mother again in this world. I know it! I know it!"
+
+"But, Adaly, my child, consider!" said the old gentleman.
+
+Adele did not heed him. She was lost in her own griefs. She could only
+exclaim, "O my father! my father!"
+
+The old Doctor was greatly moved; he laid down his spectacles, and paced
+up and down the room. The earnestness of her doubt made him almost
+believe that he was himself deceived.
+
+"Can it be? can it be?" he muttered, half under breath, while Adele sat
+drooping in her chair. "May be the instinct of the poor girl is right,
+after all," thought he,--"sin is so full of disguises."
+
+At this moment there is a sharp tap at the door, and Miss Eliza steps
+in, the bearer of a letter from Reuben.
+
+
+
+
+KILLED AT THE FORD
+
+
+    He is dead, the beautiful youth,
+    The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,--
+    He, the life and light of us all,
+    Whose voice was blithe as a bugle call,
+    Whom all eyes followed with one consent,
+    The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
+    Hushed all murmurs of discontent.
+
+    Only last night, as we rode along
+    Down the dark of the mountain gap,
+    To visit the picket-guard at the ford,
+    Little dreaming of any mishap,
+    He was humming the words of some old song:
+    "Two red roses he had on his cap
+    And another he bore at the point of his sword."
+
+    Sudden and swift a whistling ball
+    Came out of a wood, and the voice was still;
+    Something I heard in the darkness fall,
+    And for a moment my blood grew chill;
+    I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
+    In a room where some one is lying dead;
+    But he made no answer to what I said.
+
+    We lifted him up on his saddle again,
+    And through the mire and the mist and the rain
+    Carried him back to the silent camp,
+    And laid him as if asleep on his bed;
+    And I saw by the light of the surgeon's lamp
+    Two white roses upon his cheeks,
+    And one just over his heart blood-red!
+
+    And I saw in a vision how far and fleet
+    That fatal bullet went speeding forth,
+    Till it reached a town in the distant North,
+    Till it reached a house in a sunny street,
+    Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat
+    Without a murmur, without a cry;
+    And a bell was tolled in that far-off town,
+    For one who had passed from cross to crown,--
+    And the neighbors wondered that she should die.
+
+
+
+
+THE LATE INSURRECTION IN JAMAICA.
+
+
+If Cuba be the Queen of the Antilles, then fairest of the sisterhood
+which adorn her regal state is Jamaica. A land of streams and mountains,
+from the one it derives almost inexhaustible fertility of valleys and
+plains; from the other, enchanting prospects, which challenge comparison
+with the scenery even of Tyrol and Switzerland. Tropical along its
+shores, temperate up its steep hills, the sun of Africa on its plains,
+the frosts of New England in its mountains, there is scarcely a luxury
+of the South or a comfort of the North which may not be cultivated to
+advantage somewhere within its borders. Here is the natural home of the
+sugar-cane; and it is scarcely a figure of speech to say that the sugar
+supply of the world might come from the teeming bosom of this little
+island. Here too are slopes of hills, and broad savannas, where "the
+grass may almost be _seen_ growing," and where may be bred cattle fit to
+compete with the far-famed herds of England. The forests are full of
+mahogany and logwood. The surrounding waters swarm with fish of every
+variety, and of the finest flavor. Nominally, at least, the people are
+free and self-governed; and if, under propitious skies, the burdens
+either of the private home or of the state are heavy and crushing, it is
+because of mismanagement and not of necessity. To a casual observer,
+therefore, it would seem as if nowhere in the same space were gathered
+more elements of wealth, prosperity, and happiness than in Jamaica.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yet Jamaica is poor and discontented, and from year to year is growing
+more miserable and more full of complaints. While on the little island
+of Barbadoes, which is flat and comparatively destitute of natural
+beauty, the inhabitant is proud to the verge of the ludicrous of his
+home, the Jamaican, dwelling amid scenes of perpetual loveliness,
+despises his native soil. And not without reason. For Jamaica presents
+that saddest and least flattering sight, a land sinking into hopeless
+ruin. Her plantations are left uncultivated. Her cities look time-worn
+and crumbling. Her fields, which once blossomed like the rose, are
+relapsing into the wilderness. She does not feed her people. She does
+not clothe them. She does not furnish them shelter. With three hundred
+and fifty thousand negroes she has not sufficient labor. With twenty
+thousand whites she has not employers enough who are capable of managing
+wisely and paying honestly what labor she has. With a soil which Nature
+has made one broad pasture, she does not raise the half of her own beef
+and pork. With plains which ought to be waving with luxuriant harvests
+of wheat and corn, her children are fed from our overflowing granaries.
+With woods filled with trees fit for building, she sends all the way to
+the Provinces for shingles, joist, and boards. On her two hundred swift,
+sparkling rivers there was not, in 1850, a single saw-mill. In an age of
+invention and labor-saving machines, the plough is to her a modern
+innovation; and her laborers still scratch the soil which they seek to
+till with tools of the Middle Ages. Even the production of sugar, to
+which she has sacrificed every other industrial interest, has sunk from
+the boasted hundred and fifty thousand hogsheads of the last century, to
+a meagre yearly crop of thirty thousand. Nine tenths of her proprietors
+are absentees. More than that proportion of her great estates are
+ruinously mortgaged. A tourist gives as the final evidence of
+exhaustion, that Jamaica has no amusements, no circus, no theatre, no
+opera, none of the pleasant trifles which surplus wealth creates.
+
+Nor are the moral aspects any more encouraging. Slavery, dying, cursed
+the soil with its fatal bequest, contempt for labor; and the years which
+have elapsed since emancipation have done little or nothing to give to
+the toiler conscious dignity and worth. The bondsman, scarcely yet freed
+from all his chains, naturally enough thinks that, "if Massa will not
+work," it is the highest gentility in him not to work either, and sighs
+for a few acres whereon he may live in sluggish content. And his quondam
+master, left to his own resources, will not any more than before put his
+shoulder to the work; and, though sunk himself in sloth, ceases not to
+complain of another's indolence. The spirit of caste is still
+relentless. The white man despises the black man, and, if he can, cheats
+him and tramples upon him. The black man, in return, suspects and fears
+his old oppressor, and sometimes, goaded to desperation, turns upon him.
+A perpetual discontent has always brooded over Jamaica; and it is
+recorded that no less than thirty bloody rebellions have left their
+crimson stains on her ignoble annals.
+
+It is in vain to inquire for the causes of this physical and moral
+decay. For every class has its special complaint, every traveller his
+favorite theory, and every political economist his sufficient
+explanation. But let the cause be what it may, the fact stands out black
+and repulsive. Jamaica, which came from the hand of the Creator a fair
+and well-watered garden, has presented for more than half a century that
+melancholy spectacle, too common in Equatorial America, of a land rich
+in every natural advantage, and yet through the misfortune or folly of
+its people plunged in poverty and misery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The world at large had become tired of the griefs of Jamaica, and
+reconciled itself to her wretchedness as a foregone conclusion, when the
+events of last October lent a fresh and terrible interest to her
+history. An insurrection, including in its purpose the murder of every
+white man on the island, has been quenched in the blood of its leaders,
+say the Governor of Jamaica and his defenders. An insignificant riot has
+been followed by a wholesale and indiscriminate massacre, sparing not
+even the women and children, reply their opponents.
+
+Admitting for a moment the whole planter theory of a general
+insurrection, the question inevitably arises, What are the causes which
+would prompt such a rebellion, and which, while they do not justify
+violence, furnish reasons why every humane mind should desire to treat
+with leniency the errors, and even the crimes, of an ignorant and
+oppressed race? The ordinary burden of the Jamaica negro is far from a
+light one. The yearly expense of his government is not less than a
+million dollars, or about three dollars for every man, woman, and child
+on the island. The executive and judicial departments are on a scale of
+expense which would befit a continent. The Governor receives a salary of
+forty thousand dollars, the Chief Justice fifteen thousand dollars, the
+Associate Justices ten thousand dollars. The ecclesiastical
+establishment, which ministers little or nothing to the religious wants
+of the colored race, absorbs another huge portion of the public revenue.
+And all this magnificence of expenditure in a population of twenty
+thousand bankrupt whites and three hundred and fifty thousand half-naked
+blacks. If, now, the negro believed that this burden was distributed
+evenly, he might bear it with patience. But he does not believe so. He
+is sure, on the contrary, that the white man, who controls legislation,
+so assesses the revenue that it shall relieve the rich and burden the
+poor. He tells you that the luxuries of the planter are admitted at a
+nominal duty, while the coarse fabrics with which he must clothe himself
+and family pay forty per cent; that while the planter's huge hogshead of
+seventeen hundred pounds' weight pays only an excise of three shillings,
+the hard-raised barrel of his home produce of two hundred pounds must
+pay two shillings; that every miserable mule-cart of the petty
+land-owner is subjected to eighteen shillings license, while the great
+ox-carts of the thousand-acre plantation go untaxed,--a law under which
+the number of little carts in one district sunk from five hundred to
+less than two hundred, and with it sunk who shall tell how much growing
+enterprise. These complaints may be unjust, but the negro believes in
+them, and they chafe and exasperate him.
+
+Another important question is, What is the ability of the negro to bear
+these burdens? A defender of the planters gravely asserts "that the
+negro demands a price for his labor which would be exorbitant in any
+part of the world." What is that exorbitant price? An able-bodied
+agricultural laborer in Jamaica receives from eighteen to thirty cents a
+day; and, if he is both fortunate and industrious, may net for a year's
+work the fabulous sum of from fifty to eighty dollars. And this in a
+country which is one of the dearest in the world; where the necessaries
+of life are always at war prices; where flour is now twenty dollars a
+barrel, and eggs are fifty cents a dozen, and butter is forty cents a
+pound, and ham twenty-five, and beef and mutton still higher.
+
+Did the laborer actually receive his pittance, his lot might be more
+tolerable. But it is the almost universal complaint, that, either from
+inability or disinclination, the planter does not keep his agreements.
+Sometimes the overseer, when the work has been done, and well done,
+arbitrarily retains a quarter, or even a half, of the stipulated wages.
+The negro says he has no chance for redress; that even a written
+agreement is worth no more than a blank paper, for the magistrates are
+either all planters, or their dependents, and have no ears to hear the
+cry of the lowly. Add now to all this the fact, that the last few
+seasons have been unfavorable to agriculture; that planters and peasants
+alike are even more than usually poor; that in whole districts the
+blacks are destitute, their children up to the age of ten or twelve
+years from absolute necessity going about stark naked, and their men and
+women wearing only rags and streamers, which do not preserve even the
+show of decency;--and is there not sufficient reason, not indeed to
+justify murder and arson, but why a whole race of suffering and
+excitable people should not be stamped as fiends in human shape for the
+outrages of a few of their number?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Turn now to the actual scene of conflict. In a little triangular tract
+of country on the east shore of Jamaica, hemmed in between the sea and
+the Blue Mountains, twenty-five miles long and two thirds as wide,
+occurred in October last what Governor Eyre has seen fit to dignify with
+the name of an insurrection. The first act of violence was committed at
+Morant Bay,--a town where it is said that no missionary to the blacks
+has been permitted to live for thirty-five years,--in the parish of St.
+Thomas in the East,--that very St. Thomas, possibly, whose court-house
+was called forty years ago the "hell of Jamaica," and where is preserved
+as a pleasant relic of the past a record book wherein the curious
+traveller reads the prices paid in the palmy days of slavery for cutting
+off the ears and legs, and slitting the noses, of runaway negroes. Had
+these negroes of Morant Bay any special causes of exasperation? They
+had. Their complaint was threefold. First, that the only magistrate who
+protected their interests had been arbitrarily removed. Second, that a
+plantation claimed by them to be deserted was as arbitrarily adjudged to
+be the rightful property of a white man. Third, that the plucking of
+fruit by the wayside, which had been a custom from time immemorial, and
+which resembled the plucking of ears of corn under the Jewish law, was
+by new regulations made a crime. Thus matters stood on the day of the
+outbreak; a general condition of poverty and discontent throughout the
+island; a special condition of exasperation in the parish of St. Thomas
+in the East, and particularly at Morant Bay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the 7th of last October, a negro was arrested for picking two
+cocoanuts, value threepence. This arrest had every exasperating
+condition. The fruit was taken from a plantation whose title was
+disputed, and upon which the negroes had squatted. The law which made
+the plucking of fruit a crime was itself peculiarly obnoxious. The
+magistrate before whom the offence was to be tried, rightly or wrongly,
+was accused by the blacks of gross partiality and injustice. The accused
+man was followed to the court by a crowd of his friends, armed, it is
+said, with clubs, though this latter statement seems to be doubtful.
+When a sentence of four shillings' fine, or, in default of payment,
+thirty days' imprisonment, was imposed, the award was received in
+silence. But when the costs were adjudged to be twelve shillings and
+sixpence, there were murmurs. Some tumultuously advised the man not to
+pay. Some, believing the case involved the title to the land, told him
+to appeal to a higher court. The magistrate ordered the arrest of all
+noisy persons. But these fled to the street, and, shielded by the
+citizens, escaped. The next day but one, six constables armed with a
+warrant proceeded to Stony Gut, the scene of the original arrest, to
+take into custody twenty-eight persons accused of riot. But they were
+forcibly resisted, handcuffed with their own irons, and forced
+ignominiously to take their way back. Some of the arrests, however, were
+made quietly a little time after.
+
+On the 11th of October dawned an eventful day. The magistrates were
+assembled in the court-house at Morant Bay for the purpose of examining
+the prisoners. The court-house was guarded by twenty armed volunteers, a
+body apparently of local militia. Some four or five hundred excited
+blacks surrounded the court-house, armed with bludgeons, grasping
+stones. What led to a collision can never be known. Very probably
+missiles were thrown at the guard. At any rate the officer in command
+ordered them to fire upon the crowd, and fifteen of the rioters fell
+dead or wounded. Then all restraint was at an end. The negroes threw
+themselves with incredible fury upon the guard, drove them into the
+court-house, summoned them to surrender at discretion, then set fire to
+the building, and murdered, with many circumstances of atrocity, the
+unhappy inmates, as they sought to flee. Sixteen were killed, and
+eighteen wounded, while a few escaped unharmed, by the help of the
+negroes themselves. This was the beginning and the end of the famous
+armed insurrection, so far as it ever was armed insurrection. The
+rioters dispersed. The spirit of insubordination spread to the
+plantations. There was general confusion, some destruction of property,
+some robbery. The whites were filled with alarm. Many left all and fled.
+The most exaggerated reports obtained credence. But if we except a Mr.
+Hine, who had rendered himself especially unpopular, and who was
+murdered on his plantation, not one white man appears to have been
+killed in cold blood, and not one white woman or child suffered from
+violence of any sort. Facts to the contrary may yet come to light.
+Official reports may reveal some secret chapter of bloodshed. But the
+chances of such a revelation are small enough. Three months have elapsed
+since the first tidings of the outbreak reached the mother country.
+There has been a great excitement; investigation has been demanded;
+facts have been called for; the defenders of the planters have been
+defied to produce facts. Meanwhile the Governor of Jamaica has written
+home repeated despatches; the commander of the military forces which
+crushed the rebellion has visited England; the planters' journals have
+come laden with vulgar abuse of the negro, and with all sorts of evil
+surmises as to his motives and purposes; letters have been received from
+Jamaica from persons in every position in life; and still no new
+facts,--not so much as one clear accusation of any further fatal
+violence. The conclusion is irresistible, that this was a riot, and not
+an insurrection; and that it began and ended, so far as armed force was
+concerned, at Morant Bay, on that unhappy day, the 11th of last October.
+
+It cannot be denied that the occurrences of that day were marked by
+some circumstances of painful ferocity. Men were literally hacked to
+pieces, crying for mercy. One man's tongue was cut from his mouth even
+while he lived. Another, escaping, was thrown back into the burning
+building, and roasted to death. The joints of the hand of the dead chief
+magistrate were dissevered by the blacks, who cried out exultingly,
+"This hand will write no more lying despatches to the Queen." But the
+events of that day were marked also by instances of humanity. The clerk
+of the court was rescued by his negro servant, who thrust him beneath
+the floor, and, watching his opportunity, conveyed him to the shelter of
+the woods next morning. A child, who happened to be with his father in
+the court-house, was snatched up by a negro woman, who, at the risk of
+her own life, carried him to a place of safety. But admitting the worst
+charges, any one who remembers the New York riot of 1863 will be slow to
+assert that this black mob exhibited any barbarity which has not been
+more than emulated by white mobs. Shocking enough the details are; but
+human action always and with every race is ferocious, when once the
+restraints of self-control and the law are thrown off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With a people so excitable as the blacks of Jamaica, and among whom
+there existed so many causes of disaffection, the greatest promptitude
+of action was a virtue. Had Governor Eyre marched with a military force
+into the district, had he crushed out every vestige of armed resistance,
+had he brought before proper tribunals and punished with severity all
+persons who were convicted of any complicity in these outrages, he would
+have merited the praise of every good man. What he did was to let loose
+upon a little district, unmuzzled, the dogs of war. What he did was to
+gather from all quarters an armed force, a motley crew, regulars and
+militia, sailors and landsmen, black and white, and permit them to hold
+for fourteen long days a saturnalia of blood. What he did was to summon
+the savage Maroon tribes to the feast of death, that by their barbaric
+warfare they might add yet one more shade of gloom to the picture. The
+official accounts are enough to blanch the cheek with horror. In two
+days after the riot martial law was declared. In four, the outbreak was
+hemmed into narrow quarters. In a week, it ceased to exist in any shape.
+Yet the work of death went on. Bands of maddened soldiers pierced the
+country in every direction. Men were arrested upon the slightest
+suspicion. Every petty officer constituted himself a judge; every
+private soldier became an executioner. If the black man fled, he was
+shot as a rebel; if he surrendered, he was hung on the same pretext,
+after the most summary trial. If the number of prisoners became
+inconveniently large, they were shot, or else whipped and let go,
+apparently according to the whim of the officer in command. Women were
+seized, stripped half naked, and thrown among the vulgar soldiery to be
+scourged. The estimate is that five hundred and fifty were hung by order
+of drum-head court-martials, five hundred destroyed by the Maroons, two
+thousand shot by the soldiery, and that three hundred women were catted,
+and how many men nobody presumes even to guess. One asks, At what
+expense of life to the victors was all this slaughter accomplished? And
+he reads, that not one soldier was killed, that not one soldier was
+wounded, that not one soldier received so much as a scratch, unless from
+the bushes through which he pursued his human prey. It was not war: it
+was a massacre. These poor people fled like panic-struck sheep, and the
+soldiery tracked them like wolves. The human heart could wish to take
+refuge in incredulity, but alas! the worst testimony of all is found in
+the official reports of the actors themselves.
+
+A few terrible anecdotes will give reality to the picture. George
+Marshall, a mulatto, was taken up with others as a straggler, and
+ordered to receive fifty lashes. With each lash the unfortunate man
+gritted his teeth and turned his head, whether from pain or anger is
+uncertain. The provost-marshal construed this into a threatening look,
+and ordered him to be hung, which was done. There was no proof whatever
+that Marshall had any connection with the riot. A company of Maroons
+discovered a body of blacks, men, women, and children, who had taken
+refuge up in the trees, and stood and deliberately shot them, one by
+one, until they had all fallen, and the ground beneath was thickly
+strewn with their dead bodies. On a plantation between Morant Bay and
+Port Antonio the people were led by evil example into some acts of riot
+and pillage. But even in the midst of their license they sent word to
+the English gentleman who had charge of the plantation, that, if he and
+his family remained quiet, they should be protected. So rapidly did the
+spirit of rioting burn itself out, that on the next Sunday, only four
+days after the first outbreak at Morant Bay, he rode down to the estate,
+conducted a religious service as usual, speaking boldly to the people of
+the folly and sin of their course, and counselling them to return
+quietly to their work. His words were so well received, that on Monday
+morning he started for the plantation, purposing to appoint for the
+workmen their tasks, as the best possible way of keeping them out of
+mischief. As he drew near, he heard firing, and the first sight which
+greeted him was a negro shot down. The village was in possession of a
+small company of soldiers, without even a subaltern to control them.
+Without pretence of a trial, they were shooting the people one by one,
+as they were pointed out to them by a petty constable. On their march,
+these very soldiers had been ordered to fire upon every one who ran
+away, and they fired at every bush at random, never stopping to count
+the slain.
+
+Nothing can exceed the horrible frankness of the reports of the
+officers. Here is Lieutenant Aldcock's language: "On returning to Golden
+Grove in the evening, sixty-seven prisoners were sent in by the Maroons.
+I disposed of as many as possible, but was too tired to continue after
+dark. On the morning of the 24th, I started for Morant Bay, having first
+flogged four, and hung six rebels." Here is a gem from Captain Ford:
+"The black troops are more successful than ours in catching horses;
+nearly all of them are mounted. They shot about one hundred and sixty
+people in their march from Port Antonio to Manchioneal, hanged seven in
+Manchioneal, and shot three on their way here. This is a picture of
+martial law. The soldiers enjoy it." Now consider a moment this killing
+of one hundred and sixty people on the way from Port Antonio. The
+distance traversed in a direct line was about twelve miles. There are no
+large towns on the line of march; and if you suppose that the rural
+population had here the average density of the island, there could not
+have been, in a belt of country one mile wide and the twelve miles long,
+over five hundred people; and we are forced to the conclusion, that
+these restorers of peace cleaned a strip a mile wide of every man and
+every well-grown boy. "And the soldiers enjoy it!" And the officers
+glory in it! Nothing was permitted to stop or clog the death mills. At
+Morant Bay, "to save time," two court-martials were formed. No time was
+lost in proceeding to business. "Each five minutes condemned rebels were
+taken down under escort awaiting their doom." Only three brought before
+these terrible tribunals escaped death. The court, composed exclusively
+of military and naval officers, spared none; every one brought before it
+was hanged. How many other such courts were at work does not appear; but
+it is evident not less than ten or a dozen. And subalterns, who ought
+not to have been intrusted with the charge of a score of men, assumed
+the dread power of life and death over poor wretches snatched from their
+homes, and given neither time nor opportunity for defence. Yet all this
+does not satisfy the remorseless planter. When, in a parish of thirty
+thousand people, two or three thousand sleep in bloody graves, and at
+least as many more have been pitilessly scourged, he calls "the clemency
+of the authorities extraordinary," and says, "that it comes too soon."
+No wonder that such a record as this stirred to its depth the popular
+heart of England. And it is the only relieving feature, that the
+indignation thus aroused has overridden all opposition, silenced all
+paltry excuses, and forced the government to appoint a Commission of
+Inquiry, and pending that inquiry to suspend Governor Eyre from his
+office.
+
+One case, that of the judicial murder of Mr. Gordon, has properly
+awakened great attention. Mr. Gordon was the very magistrate whose
+removal from office created so much discontent in the whole parish of
+St. Thomas in the East. He was a colored man with a very slight infusion
+of black blood. His father was an Englishman, and he himself was bred in
+England and married an English lady. He was wealthy, and the owner of a
+great plantation. A bitter and fearless opponent of what he considered
+to be the oppression of the planters, they in turn concentrated upon him
+all their anger and malice, while the negroes looked up to him as their
+hope and defence. The mere statement of the facts indicates that, if Mr.
+Gordon was to be tried at all, the investigation should have been
+patient, open, and thorough, granting to the accused every opportunity
+of defence. What did take place was this. Mr. Gordon was at Kingston,
+forty miles away from the scene of action. As soon as he learned that a
+warrant was out for his arrest, he surrendered himself, and was hurried
+away from the place where civil law was supreme to the scene of martial
+law at Morant Bay. Without a friend to defend him, with no opportunity
+to procure rebutting evidence, he was brought before a court of three
+subalterns, and, after what was called "a very patient trial" of four or
+five hours, sentenced to be hanged. Not one insult was spared. When he
+was marched up from the wharf, the sailors were permitted to heap upon
+him every opprobrious epithet. Before his execution "his black coat and
+vest were taken from him as a prize by one soldier, his spectacles by
+another; so," as an officer boasts, "he was treated not differently from
+the common herd." The accusation was, that he had plotted a wide-spread
+and diabolical rebellion. The only evidence which has been submitted
+proves him guilty of intemperate language, and an abounding sympathy for
+the poor and oppressed.[G] In his last letter to his wife, written just
+before his execution, he uses language which has the stamp of truth upon
+it. "I do not deserve my sentence, for I never advised or took part in
+the insurrection. All I ever did was to recommend the people who
+complained to seek redress in a legitimate way. It is, however, the will
+of God that I should thus suffer in obeying his command to relieve the
+poor and needy, and so far as I was able to protect the oppressed. And
+glory be to His name, and I thank Him that I suffer in such a cause."
+But it matters not of what Mr. Gordon was guilty; the method of the
+proceedings, the dragging him from civil protection, the deprivation of
+all proper opportunity for defence, the putting him to death as it were
+in a corner, were all subversive of personal rights and safety. The
+highest authority in England has declared the whole trial an illegality.
+And the circumstances of the hour, when every vestige, ever pretence, of
+armed resistance had been swept away, left no excuse for over-stepping
+the bounds of legal authority.
+
+It is proper that full weight should be given to the alleged
+justification of these enormities. A diabolical plot existed, whose
+meshes included the whole island, and whose purpose was to put to death
+every white man and to outrage every white woman. This is what the
+Governor asserts. This is what the Assembly reiterates. This is the
+charge upon which every appeal of the Jamaican journals turns. The whole
+truth we probably never shall know. The men who could best reveal it are
+silent in the graves which lawless violence has dug for them, and will
+bear no testimony except at the bar or Eternal Justice. The report of
+the Committee of Inquiry will no doubt shed some light. Pending that
+inquiry there are considerations which strike every one. If for two
+years a bloody insurrection had been plotted, and the outbreak at Morant
+Bay was the first stroke to toward its accomplishment, is it credible
+that these truculent rebels should submit themselves as sheep to the
+slaughter,--that not one band should be found to strike a manly blow for
+life and liberty? If such an insurrection had its roots in every part of
+the island, is it credible, that, while the whole military and naval
+force, and no small part of the white inhabitants, were engaged in
+putting down the thirty thousand of their brethren in St. Thomas and
+Portland parishes, the three hundred thousand blacks all over the island
+should remain peaceable and law-abiding? And it is to be noticed that,
+since the reign of terror has subsided a little, those who know the
+negroes best, the missionaries who labor among them, express the most
+hearty contempt for these charges. But suppose that the negro had
+plotted insurrection, diabolical, satanic, would that be any excuse for
+wholesale slaughter, without forms of law, when all resistance was at an
+end? We know that the South plotted and consummated rebellion; that her
+people have slain three hundred thousand of our sons on the
+battle-field; that more than thirty thousand have wasted and died of
+slow torture in her prisons; that whenever the secrets of that
+charnel-house, Southern life, are disclosed, they will tell of thousands
+of Unionists who were hung, who were shot, who were burned at the stake,
+who were hunted by dogs, who were scourged to death with whips, and all
+because they were faithful to their country. And knowing all this, is
+there a man of the North who, when military resistance has ceased, would
+march our armies southward, hang every tenth man, shoot every fourth,
+scourge as many more, and suffer a wild soldiery to strip half naked and
+score with cruel whips thousands of the women? And does it alter the
+moral aspect of the case, that these things are transacted on a little
+island of the sea, and not on a continent,--or that the skin of the
+sufferer is black instead of white?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The use men seek to make of events reveals often the motives which they
+carried into the transaction of these events. Never was this more true
+of any body of people than of the planters of Jamaica. The Kingston
+Journal, an opposition, but not radical paper, boldly asserts, that the
+press has been gagged because it urged upon government the necessity of
+reform; that it has not dared to comment upon current facts, lest it
+should come under grave suspicion; that "now, when the greatest order
+prevails, and there is not the remotest probability of another outbreak,
+we _dare_ not comment upon events, which, for the good of all classes,
+ought to be calmly and fully discussed." A significant commentary upon
+these statements is the fact that Mr. Levien, the editor of a Jamaica
+paper, was arrested, because in an editorial he boldly condemned the
+trial and execution of Mr. Gordon. And it is probable that he escaped
+paying dearly for his courage, only because the Chief Justice of Jamaica
+declared the whole law under which he was arrested unconstitutional, and
+dismissed the case. A still more significant commentary upon these
+statements is that other fact, that, in the midst of what they averred
+were the throes of a great rebellion, the members of the Assembly
+proceeded to destroy the very foundations of civil and religious
+liberty and of the freedom of the press. They proposed to give the
+Governor almost despotic authority, by surrendering the franchise of the
+Assembly, and vesting its power in a council of twenty-four, half of
+whom should be appointed by the Governor himself, and half elected by
+the people from the list only of those who had estates worth more than
+fifteen hundred dollars a year, or a salary of more than twenty-five
+hundred dollars. All social worship, all conference and prayer meetings,
+and even family prayers, if more than two strangers were present, were
+to be interdicted, unless, indeed, they were conducted by a minister of
+a favored sect. The denominations who had chiefly ministered to the
+blacks were to be placed under such disabilities as should greatly
+limit, or else destroy, their usefulness. And to round out and complete
+the circle of despotism, this proposition, was introduced,--"that if
+anything is contained in any printed paper which may be considered
+seditious, or that may be adjudged so by any court which the Governor
+may appoint, the writer shall be sentenced to hard labor in the
+penitentiary for seven years." It is idle to suppose that these measures
+will be sanctioned by the Queen; but they show what feelings burn in the
+breasts of the planters, and admonish us to receive with caution any
+statements which they may make concerning other classes of the
+community.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This Jamaica "insurrection," whose origin, growth, and extinguishment in
+blood have now been traced, has been the cause of we know not how many
+oracular warnings from the lips of those who have not been distinguished
+by any hearty attachment to the rights of the black. "See now," they
+say, "what is the peril of emancipating these blacks." "Behold what
+comes of educating this people up to the capacity of mischief."
+"Acknowledge now that not even the gift of universal suffrage will
+elevate and soften a race at once fickle and ferocious. There is no
+safety but in keeping them under. Stop in your perilous experiments
+while you can."
+
+So long as the accounts of this outbreak are at once so conflicting and
+so colored by party feeling, it may not be easy to say what are its
+positive lessons. But it is easy to tell some things which it does not
+teach.
+
+In the _first_ place, it does not teach the danger of conferring the
+right to vote upon the negro, for the negro of Jamaica has never
+attained to that privilege. His traducers cry out, "What a race! The
+best fed, the best clothed, the best sheltered, the least worked
+peasantry on the face of the earth! Free! Free to make their own laws,
+to choose their own rulers, to govern themselves! And yet they are
+discontented!" Turn now and inquire what are the facts about their
+governing themselves. True, no law says the negro shall not vote, but
+the qualification is made so high that it is impossible that he should
+vote. In a country where wages are scarcely a quarter of a dollar a day,
+he is required to have an estate worth thirty dollars a year, or an
+income of one hundred and forty dollars a year, or to pay taxes of
+fifteen dollars a year. Suppose now that in New England a law were
+passed that no man should vote who had not an estate worth two hundred
+dollars a year, or an income of one thousand dollars, or who did not pay
+one hundred dollars yearly tax,--and this, considering the difference of
+wages, is scarcely as high a qualification as that of Jamaica,--and how
+large a proportion of our people would obtain the privileges of a voter?
+In fact, in Jamaica only three thousand vote, or about one twenty-fifth
+of the adult males. Is it not just possible that the discontent there
+may grow out of aspirations for self-government, and for the dignity and
+privileges, as well as the name, of freemen? May not the outbreak teach
+the danger of not allowing the negro to vote?
+
+In the _second_ place, this rebellion does not teach the danger of
+educating the negro; for the negro of Jamaica never has been educated.
+While the government has wrung from his scanty wages a million dollars,
+it pays the Governor alone more than three times the sum it appropriates
+to education. It doles out for the education of seventy-five thousand
+children the pittance of twelve thousand five hundred dollars. Did not
+the negro himself eke out this bounty from his own little savings, not
+one in a dozen of the children would ever enter a school-room or see a
+book. As it is, only one sixth part of the children are, or ever were,
+under instruction. And the instruction they receive is too often from
+persons themselves illiterate and full of superstition, but who are the
+best teachers who can be obtained with limited means. Consider, then,
+the real condition of affairs,--three hundred and fifty thousand blacks,
+a large share of them children or grandchildren of those who were
+brought from Africa, with the wild blood of their fathers scarcely
+diluted in their veins, with all the old traditions of Fetichism and Obi
+worship fresh in their minds, altogether uneducated, or at best half
+educated; consider what virgin soil is here for every vile superstition,
+what a field for the demagogue to cultivate, and then decide whether it
+might not be safer, after all, to educate the negro in Jamaica.
+
+This insurrection does not teach, in the _third_ place, the danger of
+obliterating the lines of caste, for in Jamaica those lines have never
+been obliterated, or even made faint. It may be doubted whether there
+was ever a moment when the ill-dissembled contempt of the whites, and
+the distrust of the blacks, were more profound then now. An intelligent
+observer declared, in 1850, that the gap between the blacks and whites
+had been steadily increasing ever since emancipation. And ten years
+later the Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society records, "that, as
+a general statement, there is no generous feeling in the relations
+between employer and employed. The negro can expect nothing but barest
+justice, and is happy if he gets that." Can there be any safety for the
+minority, when the majority, which numbers fifteen to one, has such a
+sense of injustice rankling in its breast? One wades through the late
+reprints of the Jamaica journals, column after column, page after page,
+filled with coarse invective, with bitter denunciation, with injurious
+suspicion; sees with what terrible relish the sufferings of these
+deluded people are recorded; marks how the heroism which goes to the
+scaffold without a tremor, and looks undeserved death in the face
+without a fear, is travestied; shudders to hear the planters, after
+thousands have been slain, yet cry for more blood; and then he puts the
+paper down and says, "Here in this language is material enough out of
+which to create a dozen bloody rebellions." How any race with the blood
+of the tropics boiling in their veins, with the traditions of old
+oppressions burning in their memory, can ever forget or forgive this
+language and these unbridled outrages is inconceivable. He is mad who
+does not see that the gulf of caste, too wide before, has widened and
+deepened almost unfathomably by the influence of the events of the last
+few months. He is mad, too, who thinks that Morant Bay, or the parish of
+St. Thomas in the East, with their unshrived dead, is a safer place for
+a white man to dwell in than it was six months ago.
+
+It is too early to gather up all the lessons of this last of the almost
+innumerable outbreaks in Jamaica. They may never be gathered up. But one
+lesson stands out prominently, and that is, the safety of justice. We
+cannot bring perfect equality upon the earth. It is not desirable
+perhaps that we should. To the end of time, probably, there will be rich
+and poor, high and low, weak and strong, black and white. But we can be
+just. We can recognize every man as a child of God. We can grant to him
+all the rights, all the privileges, and all the opportunities which
+belong to a man. That is a lesson which Jamaica has never learned, and
+therefore she sits under the shadow of her mountains, by the side of the
+restless sea, clothed in garments of wretchedness.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[G] Since the above was written, despatches and explanations have been
+received from Governor Eyre, and published; also an unofficial account
+of the trial of Mr. Gordon, from the pen of a reporter who was present.
+It is to be regretted that these papers do not relieve the authorities
+from the charge of atrocious and illegal cruelty in the slightest
+degree. Neither does the evidence in any way justify the legal or
+illegal murder of Mr. Gordon. While in November there was an evident
+desire to boast of the number and severity of the punishments which had
+been inflicted upon the unfortunate blacks, there is as evident a desire
+in January to show that the number of those who perished has been
+greatly exaggerated. But it is difficult to see how the actors propose
+to refute statements for which they themselves furnished the materials.
+One agreeable fact comes out in these papers, that the British home
+authorities never committed themselves to a support of the conduct of
+the Jamaican officials. On the contrary, it now appears that Mr.
+Cardwell, the British Colonial Secretary, from the beginning intimated
+very clearly his doubt on the propriety of the proceedings, especially
+in the case of Mr. Gordon.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHIMNEY-CORNER FOR 1866.
+
+
+IV.
+
+DRESS, OR WHO MAKES THE FASHIONS.
+
+The door of my study being open, I heard in the distant parlor a sort of
+flutter of silken wings, and chatter of bird-like voices, which told me
+that a covey of Jennie's pretty young street birds had just alighted
+there. I could not forbear a peep at the rosy faces that glanced out
+under pheasants' tails, doves' wings, and nodding hummingbirds, and made
+one or two errands in that direction only that I might gratify my eyes
+with a look at them.
+
+Your nice young girl, of good family and good breeding, is always a
+pretty object, and, for my part, I regularly lose my heart (in a sort of
+figurative way) to every fresh, charming creature that trips across my
+path. All their mysterious rattle-traps and whirligigs,--their curls and
+networks and crimples and rimples and crisping-pins,--their little
+absurdities, if you will,--have to me a sort of charm, like the tricks
+and stammerings of a curly-headed child. I should have made a very poor
+censor if I had been put in Cato's place: the witches would have thrown
+all my wisdom into some private chip-basket of their own, and walked off
+with it in triumph. Never a girl bows to me that I do not see in her eye
+a twinkle of confidence that she could, if she chose, make an old fool
+of me. I surrender at discretion on first sight.
+
+Jennie's friends are nice girls,--the flowers of good, staid, sensible
+families,--not heathen blossoms nursed in the hot-bed heat of wild,
+high-flying, fashionable society. They have been duly and truly taught
+and brought up, by good mothers and painstaking aunties, to understand
+in their infancy that handsome is that handsome does; that little girls
+must not be vain of their pretty red shoes and nice curls, and must
+remember that it is better to be good than to be handsome; with all
+other wholesome truisms of the kind. They have been to school, and had
+their minds improved in all modern ways,--have calculated eclipses, and
+read Virgil, Schiller, and La Fontaine, and understand all about the
+geological strata, and the different systems of metaphysics,--so that a
+person reading the list of their acquirements might be a little appalled
+at the prospect of entering into conversation with them. For all these
+reasons I listened quite indulgently to the animated conversation that
+was going on about--Well!
+
+What _do_ girls generally talk about, when a knot of them get together?
+Not, I believe, about the sources of the Nile, or the precession of the
+equinoxes, or the nature of the human understanding, or Dante, or
+Shakespeare, or Milton, although they have learned all about them in
+school; but upon a theme much nearer and dearer,--the one all-pervading
+feminine topic ever since Eve started the first toilet of fig-leaves;
+and as I caught now and then a phrase of their chatter, I jotted it down
+in pure amusement, giving to each charming speaker the name of the bird
+under whose colors she was sailing.
+
+"For my part," said little Humming-Bird, "I'm quite worn out with
+sewing; the fashions are all _so_ different from what they were last
+year, that everything has to be made over."
+
+"Isn't it dreadful!" said Pheasant. "There's my new mauve silk dress! it
+was a very expensive silk, and I haven't worn it more than three or four
+times, and it really looks quite dowdy; and I can't get Patterson to do
+it over for me for this party. Well, really, I shall have to give up
+company because I have nothing to wear."
+
+"Who _does_ set the fashions, I wonder," said Humming-Bird; "they seem
+now-a-days to whirl faster and faster, till really they don't leave one
+time for anything."
+
+"Yes," said Dove, "I haven't a moment for reading, or drawing, or
+keeping up my music. The fact is, now-a-days, to keep one's self
+properly dressed is all one can do. If I were _grande dame_ now, and had
+only to send an order to my milliner and dressmaker, I might be
+beautifully dressed all the time without giving much thought to it
+myself; and that is what I should like. But this constant planning about
+one's toilet, changing your buttons and your fringes and your
+bonnet-trimmings and your hats every other day, and then being
+behindhand! It is really too fatiguing.
+
+"Well," said Jennie, "I never pretend to keep up. I never expect to be
+in the front rank of fashion, but no girl wants to be behind every one;
+nobody wants to have people say, 'Do see what an old-times,
+rubbishy-looking creature _that_ is.' And now, with my small means and
+conscience, (for I have a conscience in this matter, and don't wish to
+spend any more time and money than is needed to keep one's self fresh
+and tasteful,) I find my dress quite a fatiguing care."
+
+"Well, now, girls," said Humming-Bird, "do you really know, I have
+sometimes thought I should like to be a nun, just to get rid of all this
+labor. If I once gave up dress altogether, and knew I was to have
+nothing but one plain robe tied round my waist with a cord, it does seem
+to me as if it would be a perfect repose,--only one is a Protestant, you
+know."
+
+Now, as Humming-Bird was the most notoriously dressy individual in the
+little circle, this suggestion was received with quite a laugh. But Dove
+took it up.
+
+"Well, really," she said, "when dear Mr. S---- preaches those saintly
+sermons to us about our baptismal vows, and the nobleness of an
+unworldly life, and calls on us to live for something purer and higher
+than we are living for, I confess that sometimes all my life seems to me
+a mere sham,--that I am going to church, and saying solemn words, and
+being wrought up by solemn music, and uttering most solemn vows and
+prayers, all to no purpose; and then I come away and look at my life,
+all resolving itself into a fritter about dress, and sewing-silk, cord,
+braid, and buttons,--the next fashion of bonnets,--how to make my old
+dresses answer instead of new,--how to keep the air of the world, while
+in my heart I am cherishing something higher and better. If there's
+anything I detest it is hypocrisy; and sometimes the life I lead looks
+like it. But how to get out of it? what to do?"
+
+"I'm sure," said Humming-Bird, "that taking care of my clothes and going
+into company is, frankly, _all_ I do. If I go to parties, as other girls
+do, and make calls, and keep dressed,--you know papa is not rich, and
+one must do these things economically,--it really does take all the time
+I have. When I was confirmed the Bishop talked to us so sweetly, and I
+really meant sincerely to be a good girl,--to be as good as I knew how;
+but now, when they talk about fighting the good fight and running the
+Christian race, I feel very mean and little, for I am sure this isn't
+doing it. But what is,--and who is?"
+
+"Aunt Betsey Titcomb is doing it, I suppose," said Pheasant.
+
+"Aunt Betsey!" said Humming-Bird, "well, she is. She spends _all_ her
+money in doing good. She goes around visiting the poor all the time. She
+is a perfect saint;--but O girls, how she looks! Well, now, I confess,
+when I think I must look like Aunt Betsey, my courage gives out. _Is_ it
+necessary to go without hoops, and look like a dipped candle, in order
+to be unworldly? Must one wear such a fright of a bonnet?"
+
+"No," said Jennie, "I think not. I think Miss Betsey Titcomb, good as
+she is, injures the cause of goodness by making it outwardly repulsive.
+I really think, if she would take some pains with her dress, and spend
+upon her own wardrobe a little of the money she gives away, that she
+might have influence in leading others to higher aims; now all her
+influence is against it. Her _outre_ and repulsive exterior arrays our
+natural and innocent feelings against goodness; for surely it is natural
+and innocent to wish to look well, and I am really afraid a great many
+of us are more afraid of being thought ridiculous than of being wicked."
+
+"And after all," said Pheasant, "you know Mr. St. Clair says, 'Dress is
+one of the fine arts,' and if it is, why of course we ought to cultivate
+it. Certainly, well-dressed men and women are more agreeable objects
+than rude and unkempt ones. There must be somebody whose mission it is
+to preside over the agreeable arts of life; and I suppose it falls to
+'us girls.' That's the way I comfort myself, at all events. Then I must
+confess that I do like dress; I'm not cultivated enough to be a painter
+or a poet, and I have all my artistic nature, such as it is, in dress. I
+love harmonies of color, exact shades and matches; I love to see a
+uniform idea carried all through a woman's toilet,--her dress, her
+bonnet, her gloves, her shoes, her pocket-handkerchief and cuffs, her
+very parasol, all in correspondence."
+
+"But, my dear," said Jennie, "anything of this kind must take a
+fortune!"
+
+"And if I had a fortune, I'm pretty sure I should spend a good deal of
+it in this way," said Pheasant. "I can imagine such completeness of
+toilet as I have never seen. How I would like the means to show what I
+could do! My life, now, is perpetual disquiet. I always feel shabby. My
+things must all be bought at hap-hazard, as they can be got out of my
+poor little allowance,--and things are getting so horridly dear! Only
+think of it, girls! gloves at two and a quarter! and boots at seven,
+eight, and ten dollars! and then, as you say, the fashions changing so!
+Why, I bought a sack last fall and gave forty dollars for it, and this
+winter I'm wearing it, to be sure, but it has no style at all,--looks
+quite antiquated!"
+
+"Now I say," said Jennie, "that you are really morbid on the subject of
+dress; you are fastidious and particular and exacting in your ideas in a
+way that really ought to be put down. There is not a girl of our set
+that dresses as nicely as you do, except Emma Seyton, and her father,
+you know, has no end of income."
+
+"Nonsense, Jennie," said Pheasant. "I think I really look like a beggar;
+but then, I bear it as well as I can, because, you see, I know papa does
+all for us he can, and I won't be extravagant. But I do think, as
+Humming-Bird says, that it would be a great relief to give it up
+altogether and retire from the world; or, as Cousin John says, climb a
+tree and pull it up after you, and so be in peace."
+
+"Well," said Jennie, "all this seems to have come on since the war. It
+seems to me that not only has everything doubled in price, but all the
+habits of the world seem to require that you shall have double the
+quantity of everything. Two or three years ago a good balmoral skirt was
+a fixed fact; it was a convenient thing for sloppy, unpleasant weather.
+But now, dear me! there is no end to them. They cost fifteen and twenty
+dollars; and girls that I know have one or two every season, besides all
+sorts of quilled and embroidered and ruffled and tucked and flounced
+ones. Then, in dressing one's hair, what a perfect overflow there is of
+all manner of waterfalls, and braids, and rats and mice, and curls, and
+combs; when three or four years ago we combed our own hair innocently
+behind our ears, and put flowers in it, and thought we looked nicely at
+our evening parties! I don't believe we look any better now, when we are
+dressed, than we did then,--so what's the use?"
+
+"Well, did you ever see such a tyranny as this of fashion?" said
+Humming-Bird. "We know it's silly, but we all bow down before it; we are
+afraid of our lives before it; and who makes all this and sets it going?
+The Paris milliners, the Empress, or who?"
+
+"The question where fashions come from is like the question where pins
+go to," said Pheasant. "Think of the thousands and millions of pins
+that are being used every year, and not one of them worn out. Where do
+they all go to? One would expect to find a pin mine somewhere."
+
+"Victor Hugo says they go into the sewers in Paris," said Jennie.
+
+"And the fashions come from a source about as pure," said I, from the
+next room.
+
+"Bless me, Jennie, do tell us if your father has been listening to us
+all this time!" was the next exclamation; and forthwith there was a whir
+and rustle of the silken wings, as the whole troop fluttered into my
+study.
+
+"Now, Mr. Crowfield, you are too bad!" said Humming-Bird, as she perched
+upon a corner of my study-table, and put her little feet upon an old
+"Froissart" which filled the arm-chair.
+
+"To be listening to our nonsense!" said Pheasant.
+
+"Lying in wait for us!" said Dove.
+
+"Well, now, you have brought us all down on you," said Humming-Bird,
+"and you won't find it so easy to be rid of us. You will have to answer
+all our questions."
+
+"My dears, I am at your service, as far as mortal man may be," said I.
+
+"Well, then," said Humming-Bird, "tell us all about everything,--how
+things come to be as they are. Who makes the fashions?"
+
+"I believe it is universally admitted that, in the matter of feminine
+toilet, France rules the world," said I.
+
+"But who rules France?" said Pheasant. "Who decides what the fashions
+shall be there?"
+
+"It is the great misfortune of the civilized world, at the present
+hour," said I, "that the state of morals in France is apparently at the
+very lowest ebb, and consequently the leadership of fashion is entirely
+in the hands of a class of women who could not be admitted into good
+society, in any country. Women who can never have the name of wife,--who
+know none of the ties of family,--these are the dictators whose dress
+and equipage and appointments give the law, first to France, and through
+France to the civilized world. Such was the confession of Monsieur
+Dupin, made in a late speech before the French Senate, and acknowledged,
+with murmurs of assent on all sides, to be the truth. This is the reason
+why the fashions have such an utter disregard of all those laws of
+prudence and economy which regulate the expenditures of families. They
+are made by women whose sole and only hold on life is personal
+attractiveness, and with whom to keep this up, at any cost, is a
+desperate necessity. No moral quality, no association of purity, truth,
+modesty, self-denial, or family love, comes in to hallow the atmosphere
+about them, and create a sphere of loveliness which brightens as mere
+physical beauty fades. The ravages of time and dissipation must be made
+up by an unceasing study of the arts of the toilet. Artists of all
+sorts, moving in their train, rack all the stores of ancient and modern
+art for the picturesque, the dazzling, the grotesque; and so, lest these
+Circes of society should carry all before them, and enchant every
+husband, brother, and lover, the staid and lawful Penelopes leave the
+hearth and home to follow in their triumphal march and imitate their
+arts. Thus it goes in France; and in England, virtuous and domestic
+princesses and peeresses must take obediently what has been decreed by
+their rulers in the _demi-monde_ of France; and we in America have
+leaders of fashion, who make it their pride and glory to turn New York
+into Paris, and to keep even step with everything that is going on
+there. So the whole world of womankind is marching under the command of
+these leaders. The love of dress and glitter and fashion is getting to
+be a morbid, unhealthy epidemic, which really eats away the nobleness
+and purity of women.
+
+"In France, as Monsieur Dupin, Edmond About, and Michelet tell us, the
+extravagant demands of love for dress lead women to contract debts
+unknown to their husbands, and sign obligations which are paid by the
+sacrifice of honor, and thus the purity of the family is continually
+undermined. In England there is a voice of complaint, sounding from the
+leading periodicals, that the extravagant demands of female fashion are
+bringing distress into families, and making marriages impossible; and
+something of the same sort seems to have begun here. We are across the
+Atlantic, to be sure; but we feel the swirl and drift of the great
+whirlpool; only, fortunately, we are far enough off to be able to see
+whither things are tending, and to stop ourselves if we will.
+
+"We have just come through a great struggle, in which our women have
+borne an heroic part,--have shown themselves capable of any kind of
+endurance and self-sacrifice; and now we are in that reconstructive
+state which makes it of the greatest consequence to ourselves and the
+world that we understand our own institutions and position, and learn
+that, instead of following the corrupt and worn-out ways of the Old
+World, we are called on to set the example of a new state of
+society,--noble, simple, pure, and religious; and women can do more
+towards this even than men, for women are the real architects of
+society.
+
+"Viewed in this light, even the small, frittering cares of woman's
+life--the attention to buttons, trimmings, thread, and sewing-silk--may
+be an expression of their patriotism and their religion. A noble-hearted
+woman puts a noble meaning into even the commonplace details of life.
+The women of America can, if they choose, hold back their country from
+following in the wake of old, corrupt, worn-out, effeminate European
+society, and make America the leader of the world in all that is good."
+
+"I'm sure," said Humming-Bird, "we all would like to be noble and
+heroic. During the war, I did so long to be a man! I felt so poor and
+insignificant because I was nothing but a girl!"
+
+"Ah, well," said Pheasant, "but then one wants to do something worth
+doing, if one is going to do anything. One would like to be grand and
+heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be _very_
+something, _very_ great, _very_ heroic; or if not that, then at least
+very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity
+that bores me."
+
+"Then, I suppose, you agree with the man we read of, who buried his one
+talent in the earth, as hardly worth caring for."
+
+"To say the truth, I always had something of a sympathy for that man,"
+said Pheasant. "I can't enjoy goodness and heroism in homoeopathic
+doses. I want something appreciable. What I can do, being a woman, is a
+very different thing from what I should try to do if I were a man, and
+had a man's chances: it is so much less--so poor--that it is scarcely
+worth trying for."
+
+"You remember," said I, "the apothegm of one of the old divines, that if
+two angels were sent down from heaven, the one to govern a kingdom, and
+the other to sweep a street, they would not feel any disposition to
+change works."
+
+"Well, that just shows that they are angels, and not mortals," said
+Pheasant; "but we poor human beings see things differently."
+
+"Yet, my child, what could Grant or Sherman have done, if it had not
+been for the thousands of brave privates who were content to do each
+their imperceptible little,--if it had not been for the poor, unnoticed,
+faithful, never-failing common soldiers, who did the work and bore the
+suffering? No _one_ man saved our country, or could save it; nor could
+the men have saved it without the women. Every mother that said to her
+son, Go; every wife that strengthened the hands of her husband; every
+girl who sent courageous letters to her betrothed; every woman who
+worked for a fair; every grandam whose trembling hands knit stockings
+and scraped lint; every little maiden who hemmed shirts and made
+comfort-bags for soldiers,--each and all have been the joint doers of a
+great heroic work, the doing of which has been the regeneration of our
+era. A whole generation has learned the luxury of thinking heroic
+thoughts and being conversant with heroic deeds, and I have faith to
+believe that all this is not to go out in a mere crush of fashionable
+luxury and folly and frivolous emptiness,--but that our girls are going
+to merit the high praise given us by De Tocqueville, when he placed
+first among the causes of our prosperity the _noble character of
+American women_. Because foolish female persons in New York are striving
+to outdo the _demi-monde_ of Paris in extravagance, it must not follow
+that every sensible and patriotic matron, and every nice, modest young
+girl, must forthwith, and without inquiry, rush as far after them as
+they possibly can. Because Mrs. Shoddy opens a ball in a
+two-thousand-dollar lace dress, every girl in the land need not look
+with shame on her modest white muslin. Somewhere between the fast women
+of Paris and the daughters of Christian American families there should
+be established a _cordon sanitaire_, to keep out the contagion of
+manners, customs, and habits with which a noble-minded, religious
+democratic people ought to have nothing to do."
+
+"Well now, Mr. Crowfield," said the Dove, "since you speak us so fair,
+and expect so much of us, we must of course try not to fall below your
+compliments; but, after all, tell us what is the right standard about
+dress. Now we have daily lectures about this at home. Aunt Maria says
+that she never saw such times as these, when mothers and daughters,
+church-members and worldly people, all seem to be going one way, and sit
+down together and talk, as they will, on dress and fashion,--how to have
+this made and that altered. We used to be taught, she said, that
+church-members had higher things to think of,--that their thoughts ought
+to be fixed on something better, and that they ought to restrain the
+vanity and worldliness of children and young people; but now, she says,
+even before a girl is born, dress is the one thing needful,--the great
+thing to be thought of; and so, in every step of the way upward, her
+little shoes, and her little bonnets, and her little dresses, and her
+corals and her ribbons, are constantly being discussed in her presence,
+as the one all-important object of life. Aunt Maria thinks mamma is
+dreadful, because she has maternal yearnings over our toilet successes
+and fortunes; and we secretly think she is rather soured by old age, and
+has forgotten how a girl feels."
+
+"The fact is," said I, "that the love of dress and outside show has been
+always such an exacting and absorbing tendency, that it seems to have
+furnished work for religionists and economists, in all ages, to keep it
+within bounds. Various religious bodies, at the outset, adopted severe
+rules in protest against it The Quakers and the Methodists prescribed
+certain fixed modes of costume as a barrier against its frivolities and
+follies. In the Romish Church an entrance on any religious order
+prescribed entire and total renunciation of all thought and care for the
+beautiful in person or apparel, as the first step towards saintship. The
+costume of the _religieuse_ seemed to be purposely intended to imitate
+the shroudings and swathings of a corpse and the lugubrious color of a
+pall, so as forever to remind the wearer that she was dead to the world
+of ornament and physical beauty. All great Christian preachers and
+reformers have levelled their artillery against the toilet, from the
+time of St. Jerome downward; and Tom Moore has put into beautiful and
+graceful verse St. Jerome's admonitions to the fair church-goers of his
+time.
+
+
+'WHO IS THE MAID?
+
+'ST. JEROME'S LOVE.
+
+    'Who is the maid my spirit seeks,
+      Through cold reproof and slander's blight?
+    Has _she_ Love's roses on her cheeks?
+      Is _hers_ an eye of this world's light?
+    No: wan and sunk with midnight prayer
+      Are the pale looks of her I love;
+    Or if, at times, a light be there,
+      Its beam is kindled from above.
+
+    'I chose not her, my heart's elect,
+      From those who seek their Maker's shrine
+    In gems and garlands proudly decked,
+      As if themselves were things divine.
+    No: Heaven but faintly warms the breast
+      That beats beneath a broidered veil;
+    And she who comes in glittering vest
+      To mourn her frailty still is frail.
+
+    'Not so the faded form I prize
+      And love, because its bloom is gone;
+    The glory in those sainted eyes
+      Is all the grace _her_ brow puts on.
+    And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright,
+      So touching, as that form's decay,
+    Which, like the altar's trembling light,
+      In holy lustre wastes away.'
+
+"But the defect of all these modes of warfare on the elegances and
+refinements of the toilet was that they were too indiscriminate. They
+were in reality founded on a false principle. They took for granted that
+there was something radically corrupt and wicked in the body and in the
+physical system. According to this mode of viewing things, the body was
+a loathsome and pestilent prison, in which the soul was locked up and
+enslaved, and the eyes, the ears, the taste, the smell, were all so many
+corrupt traitors in conspiracy to poison her. Physical beauty of every
+sort was a snare, a Circean enchantment, to be valiantly contended with
+and straitly eschewed. Hence they preached, not moderation, but total
+abstinence from all pursuit of physical grace and beauty.
+
+"Now, a resistance founded on an over-statement is constantly tending to
+reaction. People always have a tendency to begin thinking for
+themselves; and when they so think, they perceive that a good and wise
+God would not have framed our bodies with such exquisite care only to
+corrupt our souls,--that physical beauty, being created in such profuse
+abundance around us, and we being possessed with such a longing for it,
+must have its uses, its legitimate sphere of exercise. Even the poor,
+shrouded nun, as she walks the convent garden, cannot help asking
+herself why, if the crimson velvet of the rose was made by God, all
+colors except black and white are sinful for her; and the modest Quaker,
+after hanging all her house and dressing all her children in drab,
+cannot but marvel at the sudden outstreaking of blue and yellow and
+crimson in the tulip-beds under her window, and reflect how very
+differently the great All-Father arrays the world's housekeeping. The
+consequence of all this has been, that the reforms based upon these
+severe and exclusive views have gradually gone backward. The Quaker
+dress is imperceptibly and gracefully melting away into a refined
+simplicity of modern costume, which in many cases seems to be the
+perfection of taste. The obvious reflection, that one color of the
+rainbow is quite as much of God as another, has led the children of
+gentle dove-colored mothers to appear in shades of rose-color, blue, and
+lilac; and wise elders have said, it is not so much the color or the
+shape that we object to, as giving too much time and too much money,--if
+the heart is right with God and man, the bonnet ribbon may be of any
+shade you please."
+
+"But don't you think," said Pheasant, "that a certain fixed dress,
+marking the unworldly character of a religious order, is desirable? Now,
+I have said before that I am very fond of dress. I have a passion for
+beauty and completeness in it; and as long as I am in the world and
+obliged to dress as the world does, it constantly haunts me, and tempts
+me to give more time, more thought, more money, to these things than I
+really think they are worth. But I can conceive of giving up this thing
+altogether as being much easier than regulating it to the precise point.
+I never read of a nun's taking the veil, without a certain thrill of
+sympathy. To cut off one's hair, to take off and cast from her, one by
+one, all one's trinkets and jewels, to lie down and have the pall thrown
+over one, and feel one's self, once for all, dead to the world,--I
+cannot help feeling as if this were real, thorough, noble renunciation,
+and as if one might rise up from it with a grand, calm consciousness of
+having risen to a higher and purer atmosphere, and got above all the
+littlenesses and distractions that beset us here. So I have heard
+charming young Quaker girls, who, in more thoughtless days, indulged in
+what for them was a slight shading of worldly conformity, say that it
+was to them a blessed rest when they put on the strict, plain dress, and
+felt that they really had taken up the cross and turned their backs on
+the world. I can conceive of doing this, much more easily than I can of
+striking the exact line between worldly conformity and noble aspiration,
+in the life I live now."
+
+"My dear child," said I, "we all overlook one great leading principle of
+our nature, and that is, that we are made to find a higher pleasure in
+self-sacrifice than in any form of self-indulgence. There is something
+grand and pathetic in the idea of an entire self-surrender, to which
+every human soul leaps up, as we do to the sound of martial music.
+
+"How many boys of Boston and New York, who had lived effeminate and idle
+lives, felt this new power uprising in them in our war! How they
+embraced the dirt and discomfort and fatigue and watchings and toils of
+camp-life with an eagerness of zest which they had never felt in the
+pursuit of mere pleasure, and wrote home burning letters that they never
+were so happy in their lives! It was not that dirt and fatigue and
+discomfort and watchings and weariness were in themselves agreeable, but
+it was a joy to feel themselves able to bear all and surrender all for
+something higher than self. Many a poor Battery bully of New York, many
+a street rowdy, felt uplifted by the discovery that he too had hid away
+under the dirt and dust of his former life this divine and precious
+jewel. He leaped for joy to find that he too could be a hero. Think of
+the hundreds of thousands of plain, ordinary workingmen, and of
+seemingly ordinary boys, who, but for such a crisis, might have passed
+through life never knowing this to be in them, and who courageously
+endured hunger and thirst and cold, and separation from dearest friends,
+for days and weeks and months, when they might, at any day, have bought
+a respite by deserting their country's flag! Starving boys, sick at
+heart, dizzy in head, pining for home and mother, still found warmth and
+comfort in the one thought that they could suffer, die, for their
+country; and the graves at Salisbury and Andersonville show in how many
+souls this noble power of self-sacrifice to the higher good was
+lodged,--how many there were, even in the humblest walks of life, who
+preferred death by torture to life in dishonor.
+
+"It is this heroic element in man and woman that makes self-sacrifice an
+ennobling and purifying ordeal in any religious profession. The man
+really is taken into a higher region of his own nature, and finds a
+pleasure in the exercise of higher faculties which he did not suppose
+himself to possess. Whatever sacrifice is supposed to be duty, whether
+the supposition be really correct or not, has in it an ennobling and
+purifying power; and thus the eras of conversion from one form of the
+Christian religion to another are often marked with a real and permanent
+exaltation of the whole character. But it does not follow that certain
+religious beliefs and ordinances are in themselves just, because they
+thus touch the great heroic master-chord of the human soul. To wear
+sackcloth and sleep on a plank may have been of use to many souls, as
+symbolizing the awakening of this higher nature; but, still, the
+religion of the New Testament is plainly one which calls to no such
+outward and evident sacrifices.
+
+"It was John the Baptist, and not the Messiah, who dwelt in the
+wilderness and wore garments of camel's hair; and Jesus was commented
+on, not for his asceticism, but for his cheerful, social acceptance of
+the average innocent wants and enjoyments of humanity. 'The Son of man
+came eating and drinking.' The great, and never-ceasing, and utter
+self-sacrifice of his life was not signified by any peculiarity of
+costume, or language, or manner; it showed itself only as it
+unconsciously welled up in all his words and actions, in his estimates
+of life, in all that marked him out as a being of a higher and holier
+sphere."
+
+"Then you do not believe in influencing this subject of dress by
+religious persons' adopting any particular laws of costume?" said
+Pheasant.
+
+"I do not see it to be possible," said I, "considering how society is
+made up. There are such differences of taste and character,--people move
+in such different spheres, are influenced by such different
+circumstances,--that all we can do is to lay down certain great
+principles, and leave it to every one to apply them according to
+individual needs."
+
+"But what are these principles? There is the grand inquiry."
+
+"Well," said I, "let us feel our way. In the first place, then, we are
+all agreed in one starting-point,--that beauty is not to be considered
+as a bad thing,--that the love of ornament in our outward and physical
+life is not a sinful or a dangerous feeling, and only leads to evil, as
+all other innocent things do, by being used in wrong ways. So far we are
+all agreed, are we not?"
+
+"Certainly," said all the voices.
+
+"It is, therefore, neither wicked nor silly nor weak-minded to like
+beautiful dress, and all that goes to make it up. Jewelry, diamonds,
+pearls, emeralds, rubies, and all sorts of pretty things that are made
+of them, are as lawful and innocent objects of admiration and desire, as
+flowers or birds or butterflies, or the tints of evening skies. Gems, in
+fact, are a species of mineral flower; they are the blossoms of the
+dark, hard mine; and what they want in perfume, they make up in
+durability. The best Christian in the world may, without the least
+inconsistency, admire them, and say, as a charming, benevolent old
+Quaker lady once said to me, 'I do so love to look at beautiful
+jewelry!' The love of beautiful dress, in itself, therefore, so far from
+being in a bad sense worldly, may be the same indication of a refined
+and poetical nature that is given by the love of flowers and of natural
+objects.
+
+"In the third place, there is nothing in itself wrong, or unworthy a
+rational being, in a certain degree of attention to the fashion of
+society in our costume. It is not wrong to be annoyed at unnecessary
+departures from the commonly received practices of good society in the
+matter of the arrangement of our toilet; and it would indicate rather an
+unamiable want of sympathy with our fellow-beings, if we were not
+willing, for the most part, to follow what they indicate to be agreeable
+in the disposition of our outward affairs."
+
+"Well, I must say, Mr. Crowfield, you are allowing us all a very
+generous margin," said Humming-Bird.
+
+"But, now," said I, "I am coming to the restrictions. When is love of
+dress excessive and wrong? To this I answer by stating my faith in one
+of old Plato's ideas, in which he speaks of beauty and its uses. He says
+there were two impersonations of beauty worshipped under the name of
+Venus in the ancient times,--the one celestial, born of the highest
+gods, the other earthly. To the earthly Venus the sacrifices were such
+as were more trivial; to the celestial, such as were more holy. 'The
+worship of the earthly Venus,' he says, 'sends us oftentimes on unworthy
+and trivial errands, but the worship of the celestial to high and
+honorable friendships, to noble aspirations and heroic actions.'
+
+"Now it seems to me that, if we bear in mind this truth in regard to
+beauty, we shall have a test with which to try ourselves in the matter
+of physical adornment. We are always excessive when we sacrifice the
+higher beauty to attain the lower one. A woman who will sacrifice
+domestic affection, conscience, self-respect, honor, to love of dress,
+we all agree, loves dress too much. She loses the true and higher beauty
+of womanhood for the lower beauty of gems and flowers and colors. A girl
+who sacrifices to dress all her time, all her strength, all her money,
+to the neglect of the cultivation of her mind and heart, and to the
+neglect of the claims of others on her helpfulness, is sacrificing the
+higher to the lower beauty. Her fault is not the love of beauty, but
+loving the wrong and inferior kind.
+
+"It is remarkable that the directions of Holy Writ, in regard to the
+female dress, should distinctly take note of this difference between the
+higher and the lower beauty which we find in the works of Plato. The
+Apostle gives no rule, no specific costume, which should mark the
+Christian woman from the Pagan; but says, 'whose adorning, let it not be
+that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or
+of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in
+that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet
+spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.' The gold and gems
+and apparel are not forbidden; but we are told not to depend on them for
+beauty, to the neglect of those imperishable, immortal graces that
+belong to the soul. The makers of fashion among whom Christian women
+lived when the Apostle wrote, were the same class of brilliant and
+worthless Aspasias who make the fashions of modern Paris; and all
+womankind was sunk into slavish adoration of mere physical adornment
+when the Gospel sent forth among them this call to the culture of a
+higher and immortal beauty.
+
+"In fine, girls," said I, "you may try yourselves by this standard. You
+love dress too much when you care more for your outward adornings than
+for your inward dispositions,--when it afflicts you more to have torn
+your dress than to have lost your temper,--when you are more troubled by
+an ill-fitting gown than by a neglected duty,--when you are less
+concerned at having made an unjust comment, or spread a scandalous
+report, than at having worn a _passee_ bonnet,--when you are less
+troubled at the thought of being found at the last great feast without
+the wedding garment, than at being found at the party to-night in the
+fashion of last year. No Christian woman, as I view it, ought to give
+such attention to her dress as to allow it to take up _all_ of three
+very important things, viz.:--
+
+    _All_ her time.
+    _All_ her strength.
+    _All_ her money.
+
+Whoever does this lives not the Christian, but the Pagan life,--worships
+not at the Christian's altar of our Lord Jesus, but at the shrine of the
+lower Venus of Corinth and Rome."
+
+"O now, Mr. Crowfield, you frighten me," said Humming-Bird. "I'm so
+afraid, do you know, that I am doing exactly that."
+
+"And so am I," said Pheasant; "and yet, certainly, it is not what I mean
+or intend to do."
+
+"But how to help it," said Dove.
+
+"My dears," said I, "where there is a will, there is a way. Only resolve
+that you will put the true beauty first,--that, even if you do have to
+seem unfashionable, you will follow the highest beauty of
+womanhood,--and the battle is half gained. Only resolve that your time,
+your strength, your money, such as you have, shall not all--nor more
+than half--be given to mere outward adornment, and you will go right. It
+requires only an army of girls animated with this noble purpose to
+declare independence in America, and emancipate us from the decrees and
+tyrannies of French actresses and ballet-dancers. _En avant_, girls! You
+yet can, if you will, save the republic."
+
+
+
+
+THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS.
+
+
+The President of the United States was not elected to the office he
+holds by the voice of the people of the loyal States; in voting for him
+as Vice-President nobody dreamed that, by the assassination of Mr.
+Lincoln, he would constitutionally succeed to the more important post.
+The persons who now form the Congress of the United States _were_
+elected by the people or the States for the exact positions they hold.
+In any comparison between the two as to the direct derivation of their
+power from the people and the States, Congress has everything in its
+favor; Mr. Johnson, nothing. The immense power he enjoys, a power not
+merely greater than that of Queen Victoria, but greater than that of
+Earl Russell, the real British Executive, is the result not of design,
+but of accident. That the executive power he holds is legitimate, within
+its just constitutional bounds, must not blind us to the fact that it
+did not have its origin in the popular vote, especially now when he is
+appealing to the people to support him against their direct
+representatives.
+
+For the event which the Union party of the country was so anxious to
+avert, but which some clearly foresaw as inevitable, has occurred; the
+President has come to an open rupture with Congress on the question of
+reconstruction. No one who has witnessed during the past eight months
+the humiliating expedients to which even statesmen and patriots have
+resorted, in order to avoid giving Mr. Johnson offence, without at the
+same time sacrificing all decent regard for their own convictions and
+the will of the people, can assert that this rupture was provoked by
+Congress. The President has, on the whole, been treated with singular
+tenderness by the national party whose just expectations he has
+disappointed; the opposition to his schemes has, indeed, exhibited, if
+anything, too much of the style of "bated breath" to befit the dignity
+of independent legislators; and the only result of this timorous dissent
+has been to inflame him with the notion that the public men who offered
+it were conscious that the people were on his side, and concealed
+anxiety for their own popularity under a feigned indisposition to
+quarrel with him.
+
+The President seems to belong to that class of men who act not so much
+from principles as from moods; as his moods vary, his conduct changes;
+but while he is possessed by one of them, his mind is inaccessible to
+evidence which does not sustain his dominant feeling, and uninfluenced
+by arguments which do not confirm his dominant ideas. Mr. Covode and Mr.
+Schurz could get no hearing from him, because they were sent south to
+collect evidence while he was in one mood, and had to report the results
+of their investigations when he had passed into another. This
+peculiarity of his mind makes the idea of a "Johnson party" so difficult
+of realization; for a party cannot be founded on a man, unless that
+man's intellect and integrity are so manifestly pre-eminent as to dwarf
+all comparison with others, or unless his conduct obeys laws, and can
+therefore be calculated. Thus the gentlemen who spoke for him in New
+York, on the 22d of February, at the time he was speaking for himself in
+Washington, found that they were unwittingly his opponents, while
+appearing as his mouth-pieces, and had accordingly to send telegrams to
+Washington of such fond servility, that the vindication of their
+partisanship could only be made at the expense of provoking the hilarity
+of the public. But one principle, taken up from personal feeling, at the
+time he resented the idea that "Tennessee had ever gone out of the
+Union," has had a mischievous influence in directing his policy, though
+it has never been consistently carried out; for Mr. Johnson's mode of
+dealing with a principle is strikingly individual. He uses it to justify
+his doing what he desires, while he does not allow it to restrain him
+from doing what he pleases. The principle which he thus adopted was,
+that the seceded States had never been out of the Union as _States_. It
+would seem to be clear that, constitutionally speaking, a State in the
+American Union is a vital part of the government, to which, at the same
+time, it owes allegiance. The seceded States solemnly, by conventions of
+their people, broke away from this allegiance, and have not, up to the
+present moment, formed a part of the government. The condition in which
+they were left by their own acts may be variously stated; it may be said
+that they were "States out of practical relations to the Union,"--which
+is simply to decline venturing farther than one step in the analysis of
+their condition,--or "States in rebellion," or "States whose governments
+have lapsed," or "Territories"; but certainly, neither in principle nor
+in fact, were they States in the Union, according to the constitutional
+meaning of that phrase. The one thing certain is, that their criminal
+acts did not affect at all the rights of the United States over their
+geographical limits and population; for these rights were given by
+conventions of the people of all the States, and could not therefore be
+abrogated by the will of the particular States that rebelled. Whether or
+not the word "Territories" fits their condition, it is plain that they
+cannot be brought back to their old "practical relations to the Union"
+without a process similar to that by which Territories are organized
+into States and brought into the Union. If they were, during the
+Rebellion, States in the Union, then the only clause in the Constitution
+which covers their case is that in which each house of Congress is
+authorized "to compel the attendance of absent members"; but, even
+conceding that we have waged war in the character of a colossal
+sergeant-at-arms, we should, by another clause of the Constitution, be
+bound to compel their attendance as members, only to punish their
+absence as traitors.
+
+Still, even if we should admit, against all the facts and logic of the
+case, that the Rebel communities have never been out of the Union as
+States, it is plain that the conduct of the Executive has not, until
+recently, conformed to that theory. He violated it constantly in the
+processes of his scheme of reconstruction, only to make it reappear as
+mandatory in the results. All the steps he took in creating State
+governments were necessarily subversive of universally recognized State
+rights. The Secessionists had done their work so completely, as regards
+their respective localities, that there was left no possible organic
+connection between the old States and any new ones which might be
+organized under the lead of the Federal government. The only persons who
+could properly call State conventions were disqualified, by treason, for
+the office, and might have been hanged as traitors while occupied in
+preserving unbroken the unity of their State life. In other words, the
+only persons competent to act constitutionally were the persons
+constitutionally incompetent to act,--a gigantic practical bull and
+absurdity, which met Mr. Johnson as the first logical consequence of his
+fundamental maxim. He accordingly was forced to go to work as if no
+principle hampered him. He assumed, at the start, the most radical and
+important of all State rights; that is, from a mixed _population_ of
+black and white freemen he selected a certain number, whose
+distinguishing mark was color; and these persons were, after they had
+taken an extra-constitutional oath, constituted by him the _people_ of
+each of the seceded States. A provisional governor, nominated by
+himself, directed this people, constituted such by himself, to elect
+delegates to a convention which was to pass ordinances dictated by
+himself. In this, he may have simply accepted the condition of things;
+he may have done the best with the materials he had to work with; still
+he plainly did not deal with South Carolina, Mississippi, and the rest,
+as if they were States that "had never been out of the Union," and
+entitled to any of the rights enjoyed by Pennsylvania or New York. But
+the hybrid States, which are thus purely his own creations, he now
+presents, in a veto message, to the Senate of the United States as the
+equals of the States it represents; informs that body that he is
+constitutionally the President of the States he has made, as well as the
+President of the States which have not enjoyed the advantage of his
+formative hand; and unmistakably hints that Congress, unless it admits
+the representatives of the States he has reconstructed, is not a
+complete and competent legislative body for the whole Union,--is, in
+plain words, a _Rump_. The President, to be sure, qualifies his
+suggestion by asking for the admission only of loyal men, who can take
+the oaths. But is it not plain that Congress, if it admits Senators and
+Representatives, admits the States from which they come? The
+Constitution says that "the Senate of the United States shall be
+composed of two Senators from each _State_"; that "the House of
+Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by
+the people of the several _States_." Now let us suppose that some of the
+South Carolina members are admitted on the President's plan, and that
+others are rejected. What is the result? Is not South Carolina in the
+Union? Can a fraction of the State be in, and another fraction out, by
+the terms of the United States Constitution? Are not the "loyal men" in
+for their term of office simply, and the State in permanently? The
+proposition to let in what are called loyal men, and then afterwards to
+debate the terms on which the States which sent them shall be admitted,
+might be seriously discussed in a Fenian Congress, but it would prove
+too much for the gravity of an American assembly. The President thinks
+Congress is bound to admit "loyal men"; but in conceding this claim,
+would not the great legislative bodies of the nation practically confess
+that they had no right or power to exact guaranties, no business
+whatever with "reconstruction"? It is the office of the President, it
+seems, to reconstruct States; the duty of Congress is confined to
+accepting, placidly, the results of his work. Such is the only logical
+inference from Mr. Johnson's last position. And thus a man, who was
+intended by the people who voted for him to have no other connection
+with reconstruction than what a casting vote in the Senate might
+possibly give him, has taken the whole vast subject into his exclusive
+control. Was there ever acted on the stage of history such a travesty of
+constitutional government?
+
+The loyal States, indeed, come out of the war separated from the
+disloyal, not by such thin partitions as the President so cavalierly
+breaks through, but by a great sea of blood. It is across that we must
+survey their rights and duties; it is with that in view we must settle
+the terms of their readmission. It is idle to apply to 1866 the
+word-twisting of 1860. The Rebel communities which began the war are not
+the same communities which were recognized as States in the Union before
+the war occurred. No sophistry that perplexes the brain of the people
+can prevent this fact being felt in their hearts. The proposition that
+States can plunge into rebellion, and, after waging against the
+government a war which is put down only at the expense of enormous
+sacrifices of treasure and blood, can, when defeated, return _of right_
+to form a part of the government they have labored to subvert, is a
+proposition so repugnant to common sense that its acceptance by the
+people would send them down a step in the zooelogical scale. Have we been
+fighting in order to compel the South to resume its reluctant _role_ of
+governing us? Are we to be told that the States which have sent mourning
+into every loyal family in the land, and which have loaded every loyal
+laborer's back with a new and unexampled burden of taxation, have the
+same right to seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives which
+New York and Illinois can claim? The question is not whether the
+victorious party shall exercise magnanimity and mercy, whether it shall
+attempt to heal wounds rather than open them afresh, but whether its
+legal representatives, constituting, as it was supposed, the legislative
+department of the United States government, shall have anything to do
+with the matter at all. The President seems to think they have not; and
+finding that Congress, by immense majorities, declined to abdicate its
+functions, he and his partisans appealed to such legislative assemblies
+as could be extemporized for the occasion. Congress did not fairly
+represent the people of the whole Union; and Mr. Johnson accordingly
+unfolded his measures to a body which, in his opinion, we must suppose
+did, namely, a Copperhead mob which gathered under his windows at
+Washington. The Secretary of State addressed a meeting in New York,
+assembled in a hall which is the very symbol of mutation. Some
+collectors and postmasters have, we believe, been kind enough to take
+upon themselves the trouble of calling similar legislative assemblies in
+their respective cities; and Keokuk, it is well known, has won deserved
+celebrity for the rapidity with which its gathering of publicists passed
+the President's plan. Still more important, perhaps, is the unanimity
+with which the "James Page Library Company," of Philadelphia, fulfilled
+its duty of legislating for the whole republic. This mode of taking the
+opinion of the people, if considered merely as an innocent amusement of
+great officials, may be harmless; but political farces played by actors
+who do not seem to take their own jokes sometimes lead to serious
+consequences; and the effect upon the South of suggesting that the
+Congress of the United States not only misrepresents its constituents,
+but excludes "loyal men" who have a right to seats, cannot but give
+fierce additional stimulants to Southern disaffection.
+
+We are accordingly, it would seem, in danger of having a President, who
+is at variance with nearly two thirds of Congress, using his whole
+executive power and influence against the party he was supposed to
+represent, and having on his side the Southerners who made the
+Rebellion, the Northerners whose sympathies were on the side of the
+Rebellion, a small collection of Republican politicians called "the
+President's friends," and the undefined political force passing under
+the name of "the Blairs." But Congress is stronger than the whole body
+of its opponents, and is backed by the great mass of the loyal people,
+determined not to surrender all the advantages of the position which has
+been gained by the profuse shedding of so much loyal blood.
+
+"Constitutional government is on trial" in this contest; and Mr. Johnson
+seems neither to have the constitutional instinct in his blood, nor the
+constitutional principle in his brain. The position of the President of
+the United States is analogous, not so much to that of a Napoleon or a
+Bismark, as to that of an English prime-minister. In the theory and
+ordinary working of the government, he is one of a body of statesmen,
+agreeing in their general views, and elected by the same party; what are
+called his measures are passed by Congress, because the majority of
+Congress and he are in general accord on all important questions; and it
+is against the whole idea of constitutional government that the
+executive _will_ is a fair offset to the legislative _reason_,--that one
+man is the equal of the whole body of the people's representatives. The
+powers of an executive are of such a character, that, pushed wilfully to
+their ultimate expression, they can absorb all the other departments of
+the government, as when James the Second practically repealed laws by
+pushing to its abstract logical consequences his undoubted power of
+pardon; but a constitutional government implies, as a condition of its
+existence, that the executive will have that kind of mind and temper
+which instinctively recognizes the practical limitations of powers in
+themselves vague; for if the executive can defy the legislature, the
+legislature can bring the whole government to an end by a simple refusal
+to grant supplies. In his Washington speech, the President selected for
+special attack the chairman of the House Committee of Ways and Means,
+and the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; but it
+would be difficult to conjecture how he could carry on the government
+without the aid of what these men represent, for Mr. Stevens pays him
+his salary, and Mr. Sumner gives effect to his treaties. Bismark, in
+Prussia, snaps his fingers in the faces of the Prussian Chambers, and
+still contrives to get along very comfortably; but an American President
+does not enjoy similar advantages. He can follow his own will or caprice
+only by the toleration of the legislative body he defames and
+disregards. His great power is the veto; but the perverse use of this
+could easily be checked by the perverse use of many a legislative power
+which a mere majority of Congress can effectively use. The fallacy of
+the argument of "the President's friends," in their proposition that
+Congress should settle the dispute by the easy method of allowing Mr.
+Johnson to have his own way, consists in its entire oversight of the
+essential character of constitutional government.
+
+And now what would be the consequences of the yielding of Congress in
+this struggle? The first effect would be the concession that, in respect
+to the most important matter that will probably ever be brought before
+the United States government, the executive branch was everything, and
+the legislative nothing. The second effect would be, that the Rebel
+Slates would re-enter the Union, not only without giving additional
+guaranties for their good behavior, but with the elated feeling that
+they had gained a great triumph over the "fanatical" North. The third
+effect would be the establishment of the principle, that they had never
+been out of the Union as States; that, accordingly, a doubt was over the
+legality of the legislation which had been transacted in the absence of
+their representatives; and that, Congress having, for the past five
+years, represented only a section of the country, that section was alone
+bound by its measures. The moment it is admitted that the national
+legislature, as now constituted, is an incomplete body, and that it
+needs Southern "loyal men" to make its laws operative over the South, a
+whole brood of deductive reasoners will spring up in that region, eager
+to carry the principle out to its remotest logical consequences. After
+two or three of those cotton crops on which some persons rely so much to
+make the South contented have given it the requisite leisure to follow
+long trains of reasoning, it will by degrees convince itself that the
+whole national legislation during the war, including the debt and the
+Anti-Slavery Amendment, was unconstitutional, and that, as far as it
+concerns the Southern States, it is void, and should be of no effect.
+Persons who are accustomed to nickname as "radicals" all those statesmen
+who do not consider that the removal of an immediate inconvenience
+exhausts the whole science of practical politics, are wont to make merry
+over this possibility of Southern repudiation, or to look down upon its
+fanatical suggesters with the benevolent pity of serenely superior
+intelligence; but nobody who has watched the steps by which Calhoun's
+logic was inwrought into the substance of the Southern mind,--nobody who
+has noted the process by which the justification of one of the bloodiest
+rebellions in the history of the world was deduced from the definition
+of an abstraction,--nobody who explores the meaning of the phrase,
+common in many mouths, that "the South _thought_ itself in the
+right,"--will doubt that the seeming bugbear may turn out a dreadful
+reality. It is impossible, in fact, for the most far-sighted mind to
+predict all the evils which may flow from the heedless adoption of a
+vicious principle; if the war has not taught us this, it has taught us
+nothing.
+
+But it is not to be supposed that Congress will yield, for to yield
+would be to commit suicide. There is not an interest in the nation which
+is not concerned in its adherence to the principle, that in it the whole
+legislative power of the United States government is vested, and that it
+has the right to exact irreversible guaranties of the Rebel States as
+the conditions of the admission of their Senators and Representatives.
+They are not _in_ the Union until they are in its government; and
+Congress has the same power to keep them out that it has to let them in.
+By the very nature of the case, the whole question must be left to its
+judgment of what is necessary for the public safety and honor. Its
+members may be mistaken, but the only method to correct their mistake is
+to elect other persons in their places, when their limited period of
+service has expired; and any new Congress will, unless it is
+scandalously neglectful of the public interests, admit the Rebel States
+to their old places in the Union, not because it _must_, but because it
+thinks that a sufficient number of guaranties have been obtained to
+render their admission prudent and safe. It is in this form that the
+subject is coming before the people in the autumn elections; and this
+explains the eager haste of the President's friends to forestall and
+mislead the public mind, and sacrifice a great party, founded on
+principles, to the will of an individual, veering with his moods.
+
+We think, if the vote were taken now, that Congress would be
+overwhelmingly sustained by the people. We think this, in spite of such
+expressions of the popular will as found vent in the President's meeting
+at Washington and Mr. Seward's meeting in New York,--in spite even of
+the resolutions of Keokuk and the address of the "James Page Library
+Company" of Philadelphia,--in spite, above all, of the perfect felicity
+in which, if we may believe the Secretary of State, the President's
+speech left the American people. The loyal men of the loyal States do
+not intend that the war they carried on for great ends shall pass into
+history as the bloodiest of all purposeless farces, beginning in an
+ecstasy of public spirit and ending in an ignominious surrender of the
+advantages of hard-won victory. They demand such guaranties, in the
+shape of amendments to the Constitution, as shall insure security for
+the future from such evils as have scourged them in the past; and these
+guaranties they do not think have been yet obtained. They make this
+demand in no spirit of rancorous hostility to the South, for they
+require nothing which it is not for the permanent welfare of the South
+to grant. They feel that, if a settlement is patched up on the
+President's plan, it will leave Southern society a prey to most of the
+influences which have so long been its curse, which have narrowed its
+patriotism, checked its progress, vitiated its character, educated it in
+disloyalty, and impelled it into war. They desire that a settlement
+shall be effected which shall make the South republican, like the North,
+homogeneous with it in institutions, as well as nominally united to it
+under one government,--a settlement which shall annihilate the accursed
+heresy of Secession by extinguishing the accursed prejudice of caste.
+
+Such a settlement the people have not in the "President's plan." What
+confidence, indeed, can they place in the professions of the cunning
+Southern politicians who have taken the President captive, and used him
+as an instrument while seeming to obey him as agents? There is something
+to make us distrust the stability of the firmest and most upright
+statesman in the spectacle of that remarkable conquest. Mr. Johnson,
+when elected, appeared to represent the most violent radical ideas and
+the most vindictive passions engendered by the war. He spoke as if the
+blacks were to find in him a Moses, and the Rebels a Nemesis. It seemed
+as if there could not be in the whole land a sufficient number of
+sour-apple trees to furnish hanging accommodations for the possible
+victims of his patriotic wrath. One almost feared that reconciliation
+would be indefinitely postponed by the relentless severity with which
+he would visit treason with death. But the Southern politicians, finding
+that further military resistance was hopeless, resorted at once to their
+old game of intrigue and management, and proved that, fresh as they were
+from the experience of violent methods, they had not forgotten their old
+art of manipulating Presidents. They adapted themselves with marvellous
+flexibility to the changed condition of things, in order to become
+masters of the situation, and began to declaim in favor of the Union,
+even while their curses against it were yet echoing in the air. They
+wheedled the President into pardoning, in the place of hanging them;
+they made themselves serviceable agents in carrying out his plan of
+reconstruction; they gave up what it was impossible for them to retain,
+in order to retain what it would destroy their influence to give up;
+they got possession of him to the extent of insinuating subtly into his
+mind ideas which they made him think he himself originated; and finally
+they capped the climax of their skilful audacity, by taking him out of
+"practical relations" with the party to which he was indebted for his
+elevation, and made him the representative of the small party which
+voted against him, and of the defeated Rebel Confederacy, which, of
+course, could not do even that. The Southern politicians have succeeded
+in many shrewd political contrivances in the course of our history, but
+this last is certainly their masterpiece. Its only parallel or precedent
+is to be found in Richard's wooing of Anne:--
+
+    "What! I, that killed her husband and his father,
+    To take her in her heart's extremest hate;
+    With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
+    The bleeding witness of my hatred by,
+    Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
+    And I no friends to back my suit withal,
+    But the plain devil, and dissembling looks,
+    And yet to win her,--all the world to nothing!"
+
+Now can the people trust these politicians to the extent of placing in
+their hands the powers of their State governments, and the
+representative power of their States in Congress, without exacting
+irreversible guaranties necessary for the public safety? Can the people
+uphold, as against Congress, a President whose mind seems to be so much
+under the influence of these men that he publicly insults the
+legislature of the nation? Is the President to be supported because he
+sustains State Rights against Centralization? The only centralization
+which is to be feared, in this case, is the centralization of all the
+powers of the government in its executive branch. Is the President to be
+supported because he represents the principle of "no taxation without
+representation"? The object of Congress is to see to it that there shall
+not be a "representation" which, in respect to the national debt, shall
+endeavor to abolish "taxation" altogether,--which, in respect to the
+freedmen, shall tax permanently a population it misrepresents,--which,
+in respect to the balance of political power, shall use the black
+freemen as a basis of representation, while it excludes them from having
+a voice in the selection of the representatives. Is the President to be
+supported because he is determined the defeated South shall not be
+oppressed? The purpose of Congress is not to commit, but prevent
+oppression; not to oppress the Rebel whites, but to guard from
+oppression the loyal blacks; not to refuse full political privileges to
+the late armed enemies of the nation, but to avoid the intolerable
+ignominy of giving those enemies the power to play the robber and tyrant
+over its true and tried friends. Is the President to be supported
+because he is magnanimous and merciful? Congress doubts the magnanimity
+which sacrifices the innocent in order to propitiate the guilty, and the
+mercy which abandons the helpless and weak to the covetousness of the
+powerful and strong. Is the President to be supported because he aims to
+represent the whole people? Congress may well suspect that he represents
+the least patriotic portion, especially when he puts a stigma on all
+ardent loyalty by denouncing as equally traitorous the "extremists of
+both sections," and thus makes no distinction between the "fanaticism"
+which perilled everything in fighting _for_ the government, and the
+"fanaticism" which perilled everything in fighting _against_ it. And,
+finally, is the President to be supported because he is the champion of
+conciliation and peace? Congress believes that his conciliation is the
+compromise of vital principles; that his peace is the surrender of human
+rights; that his plan but postpones the operation of causes of discord
+it fails to eradicate; and that, if the war has taught us nothing else,
+it has taught us this,--spreading it out indeed before all eyes in
+letters of fire and blood,--that no conciliation is possible which
+sacrifices the defenceless, and that no peace is permanent which is
+unfounded in justice.
+
+
+
+
+GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+One day, at dinner, Father Francis let them know that he was ordered to
+another part of the county, and should no longer be able to enjoy their
+hospitality. "I am sorry for it," said Griffith, heartily; and Mrs.
+Gaunt echoed him out of politeness; but, when husband and wife came to
+talk it over in private, she let out all of a sudden, and for the first
+time, that the spiritual coldness of her governor had been a great
+misfortune to her all these years. "His mind," said she, "is set on
+earthly things. Instead of helping the angels to raise my thoughts to
+heaven and heavenly things, he drags me down to earth. O that man's soul
+was born without wings!"
+
+Griffith ventured to suggest that Francis was, nevertheless, an honest
+man, and no mischief-maker.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt soon disposed of this, "O, there are plenty of honest men in
+the world," said she; "but in one's spiritual director one needs
+something more than that, and I have pined for it like a thirsty soul in
+the desert all these years. Poor good man, I love him dearly; but, thank
+Heaven, he is going."
+
+The next time Francis came, Mrs. Gaunt took an opportunity to inquire,
+but in the most delicate way, who was to be his successor.
+
+"Well," said he, "I fear you will have no one for the present: I mean no
+one very fit to direct you in practical matters; but in all that tends
+directly to the welfare of the soul you will have one young in years but
+old in good works, and very much my superior in piety."
+
+"I think you do yourself injustice, Father," said Mrs. Gaunt, sweetly.
+She was always polite; and, to be always polite, you must be sometimes
+insincere.
+
+"No, my daughter," said Father Francis, quietly, "thank God, I know my
+own defects, and they teach me a little humility. I discharge my
+religious duties punctually, and find them wholesome and composing; but
+I lack that holy unction, that spiritual imagination, by which more
+favored Christians have fitted themselves to converse with angels. I
+have too much body, I suppose and too little soul. I own to you that I
+cannot look forward to the hour of death as a happy release from the
+burden of the flesh. Life is pleasant to me; immortality tempts me not;
+the pure in heart delight me; but in the sentimental part of religion I
+feel myself dry and barren. I fear God, and desire to do his will; but I
+cannot love him as the saints have done; my spirit is too dull, too
+gross. I have often been unable to keep pace with you in your pious and
+lofty aspirations; and this softens my regret at quitting you; for you
+will be in better hands, my daughter."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt was touched by her old friend's humility, and gave him both
+hands, with the tears in her eyes. But she said nothing; the subject was
+delicate; and really she could not honestly contradict him.
+
+A day or two afterwards he brought his successor to the house; a man so
+remarkable that Mrs. Gaunt almost started at first sight of him. Born of
+an Italian mother, his skin was dark, and his eyes coal-black; yet his
+ample but symmetrical forehead was singularly white and delicate. Very
+tall and spare, and both face and figure were of that exalted kind which
+make ordinary beauty seem dross. In short, he was one of those ethereal
+priests the Roman Catholic Church produces every now and then by way of
+incredible contrast to the thickset peasants in black that form her
+staple. This Brother Leonard looked and moved like a being who had come
+down from some higher sphere to pay the world a very little visit, and
+be very kind and patient with it all the time.
+
+He was presented to Mrs. Gaunt, and bowed calmly, coldly, and with a
+certain mixture of humility and superiority, and gave her but one
+tranquil glance, then turned his eyes inward as before.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt, on the contrary, was almost fluttered at being presented so
+suddenly to one who seemed to her Religion embodied. She blushed, and
+looked timidly at him, and was anxious not to make an unfavorable
+impression.
+
+She found it, however, very difficult to make any impression at all.
+Leonard had no small talk, and met her advances in that line with
+courteous monosyllables; and when she, upon this, turned and chatted
+with Father Francis, he did not wait for an opening to strike in, but
+sought a shelter from her commonplaces in his own thoughts.
+
+Then Mrs. Gaunt yielded to her genuine impulse, and began to talk about
+the prospects of the Church, and what might be done to reconvert the
+British Isles to the true faith. Her cheek flushed, and her eye shone
+with the theme; and Francis smiled paternally; but the young priest drew
+back. Mrs. Gaunt saw in a moment that he disapproved of a woman meddling
+with so high a matter uninvited. If he had said so, she had spirit
+enough to have resisted; but the cold, lofty look of polite but grave
+disapproval dashed her courage and reduced her to silence.
+
+She soon recovered so far as to be piqued. She gave her whole attention
+to Francis, and, on parting with her guests, she courtesied coldly to
+Leonard, and said to Francis, "Ah, my dear friend, I foresee I shall
+miss you terribly."
+
+I am afraid this pretty speech was intended as a side cut at Leonard.
+
+    "But on the impassive ice the lightnings play."
+
+Her new confessor retired, and left her with a sense of inferiority,
+which would have been pleasing to her woman's nature if Leonard himself
+had appeared less conscious of it, and had shown ever so little approval
+of herself; but, impressed upon her too sharply, it piqued and mortified
+her.
+
+However, like a gallant champion, she awaited another encounter. She so
+rarely failed to please, she could not accept defeat.
+
+Father Francis departed.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt soon found that she really missed him. She had got into a
+habit of running to her confessor twice a week, and to her director
+nearly every day that he did not come of his own accord to her.
+
+Her good sense showed her at once she must not take up Brother Leonard's
+time in this way. She went a long time, for her, without confession; at
+last she sent a line to Leonard asking him when it would be convenient
+to him to confess her. Leonard wrote back to say that he received
+penitents in the chapel for two hours after matins every Monday,
+Tuesday, and Saturday.
+
+This implied, first come, first served; and was rather galling to Mrs.
+Gaunt.
+
+However, she rode one morning, with her groom behind her, and had to
+wait until an old woman in a red cloak and black bonnet was first
+disposed of. She confessed a heap. And presently the soft but chill
+tones of Brother Leonard broke in with these freezing words: "My
+daughter, excuse me; but confession is one thing, gossip about ourselves
+is another."
+
+This distinction was fine, but fatal. The next minute the fair penitent
+was in her carriage, her eyes filled with tears of mortification.
+
+"The man is a spiritual machine," said she; and her pride was mortified
+to the core.
+
+In these happy days she used to open her heart to her husband; and she
+went so far as to say some bitter little feminine things of her new
+confessor before him.
+
+He took no notice at first; but at last he said one day: "Well, I am of
+you mind; he is very poor company compared with that jovial old blade,
+Francis. But why so many words, Kate? You don't use to bite twice at a
+cherry; if the milk-sop is not to your taste, give him the sack and be
+d----d to him." And with this homely advice Squire Gaunt dismissed the
+matter and went to the stable to give his mare a ball.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So you see Mrs. Gaunt was discontented with Francis for not being an
+enthusiast, and nettled with Leonard for being one.
+
+The very next Sunday morning she went and heard Leonard preach. His
+first sermon was an era in her life. After twenty years of pulpit
+prosers, there suddenly rose before her a sacred orator; an orator born;
+blest with that divine and thrilling eloquence that no heart can really
+resist. He prepared his great theme with art at first; but, once warm,
+it carried him away, and his hearers went with him like so many straws
+on the flood, and in the exercise of this great gift the whole man
+seemed transfigured; abroad, he was a languid, rather slouching priest,
+who crept about, a picture of delicate humility, but with a shade of
+meanness; for, religious prejudice apart, it is ignoble to sweep the
+wall in passing as he did, and eye the ground: but, once in the pulpit,
+his figure rose and swelled majestically, and seemed to fly over them
+all like a guardian angel's; his sallow cheek burned, his great Italian
+eye shot black lightning at the impenitent, and melted ineffably when he
+soothed the sorrowful.
+
+Observe that great, mean, brown bird in the Zooelogical Gardens, which
+sits so tame on its perch, and droops and slouches like a drowsy duck!
+That is the great and soaring eagle. Who would believe it, to look at
+him? Yet all he wants is to be put in his right place instead of his
+wrong. He is not himself in man's cages, belonging to God's sky. Even so
+Leonard was abroad in the world, but at home in the pulpit; and so he
+somewhat crept and slouched about the parish, but soared like an eagle
+in his native air.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt sat thrilled, enraptured, melted. She hung upon his words;
+and when they ceased, she still sat motionless, spell-bound; loath to
+believe that accents so divine could really come to an end.
+
+Even whilst all the rest were dispersing, she sat quite still, and
+closed her eyes. For her soul was too high-strung now to endure the
+chit-chat she knew would attack her on the road home,--chit-chat that
+had been welcome enough coming home from other preachers.
+
+And by this means she came hot and undiluted to her husband; she laid
+her white hand on his shoulder, and said, "O Griffith, I have heard the
+voice of God."
+
+Griffith looked alarmed, and rather shocked than elated.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt observed that, and tacked on, "Speaking by the lips of his
+servant." But she fired again the next moment, and said, "The grave hath
+given us back St. Paul in the Church's need; and I have heard him this
+day."
+
+"Good heavens! where?"
+
+"At St. Mary's Chapel."
+
+Then Griffith looked very incredulous. Then she gushed out with, "What,
+because it is a small chapel, you think a great saint cannot be in it.
+Why, our Saviour was born in a stable, if you go to that."
+
+"Well, but my dear, consider," said Griffith; "who ever heard of
+comparing a living man to St. Paul, for preaching? Why, he was an
+apostle, for one thing; and there are no apostles now-a-days. He made
+Felix tremble on his throne, and almost persuaded Whatsename, another
+heathen gentleman, to be a Christian."
+
+"That is true," said the lady, thoughtfully; "but he sent one man that
+_we_ know of to sleep. Catch Brother Leonard sending any man to sleep!
+And then nobody will ever say of _him_ that he was long preaching."
+
+"Why, I do say it," replied Griffith. "By the same token, I have been
+waiting dinner for you this half-hour, along of his preaching."
+
+"Ah, that's because you did not hear him," retorted Mrs. Gaunt; "if you
+had, it would have seemed too short, and you would have forgotten all
+about your dinner for once."
+
+Griffith made no reply. He even looked vexed at her enthusiastic
+admiration. She saw, and said no more. But after dinner she retired to
+the grove, and thought of the sermon and the preacher: thought of them
+all the more that she was discouraged from enlarging on them. And it
+would have been kinder, and also wiser, of Griffith, if he had
+encouraged her to let out her heart to him on this subject, although it
+did not happen to interest him. A husband should not chill an
+enthusiastic wife, and, above all, should never separate himself from
+her favorite topic, when she loves him well enough to try and share it
+with him.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt, however, though her feelings were quick, was not cursed with
+a sickly or irritable sensibility; nor, on the other hand, was she one
+of those lovely little bores who cannot keep their tongues off their
+favorite theme. She quietly let the subject drop for a whole week; but
+the next Sunday morning she asked her husband if he would do her a
+little favor.
+
+"I'm more likely to say ay than nay," was the cheerful reply.
+
+"It is just to go to chapel with me; and then you can judge for
+yourself."
+
+Griffith looked rather sheepish at this proposal; and he said he could
+not very well do that.
+
+"Why not, dearest, just for once?"
+
+"Well, you see, parties run so high in this parish; and everything one
+does is noted. Why, if I was to go to chapel, they'd say directly, 'Look
+at Griffith Gaunt, he is so tied to his wife's apron he is going to give
+up the faith of his ancestors.'"
+
+"The faith of your ancestors! That is a good jest. The faith of your
+grandfather at the outside: the faith of your ancestors was the faith of
+mine and me."
+
+"Well, don't let us differ about a word," said Griffith; "you know what
+I mean. Did ever I ask you to go to church with me? and if I were to ask
+you, would you go?"
+
+Mrs. Gaunt colored; but would not give in. "That is not the same thing,"
+said she. "I do profess religion: you do not. You scarce think of God on
+week-days; and, indeed, never mention his name, except in the way of
+swearing; and on Sunday you go to church--for what? to doze before
+dinner, you know you do. Come now, with you 't is no question of
+religion, but just of nap or no nap: for Brother Leonard won't let you
+sleep, I warn you fairly."
+
+Griffith shook his head. "You are too hard on me, wife. I know I am not
+so good as you are, and never shall be; but that is not the fault of the
+Protestant faith, which hath reared so many holy men: and some of 'em
+our _ancestors_ burnt alive, and will burn in hell themselves for the
+deed. But, look you, sweetheart, if I'm not a saint I'm a gentleman,
+and, say I wear my faith loose, I won't drag it in the dirt none the
+more for that. So you must excuse me."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt was staggered; and if Griffith had said no more, I think she
+would have withdrawn her request, and so the matter ended. But persons
+unversed in argument can seldom let well alone; and this simple Squire
+must needs go on to say, "Besides, Kate, it would come to the parson's
+ears, and he is a friend of mine, you know. Why, I shall be sure to meet
+him to-morrow."
+
+"Ay," retorted the lady, "by the cover-side. Well, when you do, tell him
+you refused your wife your company for fear of offending the religious
+views of a fox-hunting parson."
+
+"Nay, Kate," said Griffith, "this is not to ask thy man to go with thee;
+'t is to say go he must, willy nilly." With that he rose and rang the
+bell. "Order the chariot," said he, "I am to go with our dame."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt's face beamed with gratified pride and affection.
+
+The chariot came round, and Griffith handed his dame in. He then gave an
+involuntary sigh, and followed her with a hang-dog look.
+
+She heard the sigh, and saw the look, and laid her hand quickly on his
+shoulder, and said, gently but coldly, "Stay you at home, my dear. We
+shall meet at dinner."
+
+"As you will," said he, cheerfully: and they went their several ways. He
+congratulated himself on her clemency, and his own escape.
+
+She went along, sorrowful at having to drink so great a bliss alone; and
+thought it unkind and stupid of Griffith not to yield with a good grace
+if he could yield at all: and, indeed, women seem cleverer than men in
+this, that, when they resign their wills, they do it graciously and not
+by halves. Perhaps they are more accustomed to knock under; and you know
+practice makes perfect.
+
+But every smaller feeling was swept away by the preacher, and Mrs. Gaunt
+came home full of pious and lofty thoughts.
+
+She found her husband seated at the dinner-table, with one turnip before
+him; and even that was not comestible; for it was his grandfather's
+watch, with a face about the size of a new-born child's. "Forty-five
+minutes past one, Kate," said he, ruefully.
+
+"Well, why not bid them serve the dinner?" said she with an air of
+consummate indifference.
+
+"What, dine alone o' Sunday? Why, you know I couldn't eat a morsel
+without you, set opposite."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt smiled affectionately. "Well then, my dear, we had better
+order dinner an hour later next Sunday."
+
+"But that will upset the servants, and spoil their Sunday."
+
+"And am I to be their slave?" said Mrs. Gaunt, getting a little warm.
+"Dinner! dinner! What? shall I starve my soul, by hurrying away from the
+oracles of God to a sirloin? O these gross appetites! how they deaden
+the immortal half, and wall out Heaven's music! For my part, I wish
+there was no such thing as eating and drinking. 'T is like falling from
+Heaven down into the mud, to come back from such divine discourse and be
+greeted with 'Dinner! dinner! dinner!'"
+
+The next Sunday, after waiting half an hour for her, Griffith began his
+dinner without her.
+
+And this time, on her arrival, instead of remonstrating with her, he
+excused himself. "Nothing," said he, "upsets a man's temper like waiting
+for his dinner."
+
+"Well, but you have not waited."
+
+"Yes, I did, a good half-hour. Till I could wait no longer."
+
+"Well, dear, if I were you I would not have waited at all, or else
+waited till your wife came home."
+
+"Ah, dame, that is all very well for you to say. You could live on
+hearing of sermons and smelling to rosebuds. You don't know what 't is
+to be a hungry man."
+
+The next Sunday he sat sadly down, and finished his dinner without her.
+And she came home and sat down to half-empty dishes; and ate much less
+than she used when she had him to keep her company in it.
+
+Griffith, looking on disconsolate, told her she was more like a bird
+pecking than a Christian eating of a Sunday.
+
+"No matter, child," said she; "so long as my soul is filled with the
+bread of Heaven."
+
+Leonard's eloquence suffered no diminution, either in quantity or
+quality; and, after a while, Gaunt gave up his rule of never dining
+abroad on the Sunday. If his wife was not punctual, his stomach was; and
+he had not the same temptation to dine at home he used to have.
+
+And indeed, by degrees, instead of quietly enjoying his wife's company
+on that sweet day, he got to see less of her than on the week-days.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Your mechanical preacher flings his words out happy-go-lucky; but the
+pulpit orator, like every other orator, feels his people's pulse as he
+speaks, and vibrates with them, and they with him.
+
+So Leonard soon discovered he had a great listener in Mrs. Gaunt: she
+was always there whenever he preached, and her rapt attention never
+flagged. Her gray eyes never left his face, and, being upturned, the
+full orbs came out in all their grandeur, and seemed an angel's, come
+down from heaven to hear him: for, indeed, to a very dark man, as
+Leonard was, the gentle radiance of a true Saxon beauty seems always
+more or less angelic.
+
+By degrees this face became a help to the orator. In preaching he looked
+sometimes to it for sympathy, and lo, it was sure to be melting with
+sympathy. Was he led on to higher or deeper thoughts than most of his
+congregation could understand, he looked to this face to understand him;
+and lo, it had quite understood him, and was beaming with intelligence.
+
+From a help and an encouragement it became a comfort and a delight to
+him.
+
+On leaving the pulpit and cooling, he remembered its owner was no angel,
+but a woman of the world, and had put him frivolous questions.
+
+The illusion, however, was so beautiful, that Leonard, being an
+imaginative man, was unwilling to dispel it by coming into familiar
+contact with Mrs. Gaunt. So he used to make his assistant visit her, and
+receive her when she came to confess, which was very rarely; for she was
+discouraged by her first reception.
+
+Brother Leonard lived in a sort of dwarf monastery, consisting of two
+cottages, an oratory, and a sepulchre. The two latter were old, but the
+cottages had been built expressly for him and another seminary priest
+who had been invited from France. Inside, these cottages were little
+more than ceils; only the bigger had a kitchen which was a glorious
+place compared with the parlor; for it was illuminated with bright
+pewter plates, copper vessels, brass candlesticks, and a nice clean
+woman, with a plain gown kilted over a quilted silk petticoat; Betty
+Scarf, an old servant of Mrs. Gaunt's, who had married, and was now the
+Widow Gough.
+
+She stood at the gate one day, as Mrs. Gaunt drove by; and courtesied,
+all beaming.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt stopped the carriage, and made some kind and patronizing
+inquiries about her; and it ended in Betty asking her to come in and see
+her place. Mrs. Gaunt looked a little shy at that, and did not move.
+"Nay, they are both abroad till supper time," said Betty, reading her in
+a moment by the light of sex. Then Mrs. Gaunt smiled, and got out of her
+carriage. Betty took her in and showed her everything in doors and out.
+Mrs. Gaunt looked mighty demure and dignified, but scanned everything
+closely, only without seeming too curious.
+
+The cold gloom of the parlor struck her. She shuddered, and said, "This
+would give me the vapors. But, doubtless, angels come and brighten it
+for _him_."
+
+"Not always," said Betty. "I do see him with his head in his hand by the
+hour, and hear him sigh ever so loud as I pass the door. Why, one day
+he was fain to have me and my spinning-wheel aside him. Says he, 'Let me
+hear thy busy wheel, and see thee ply it.' 'And welcome,' says I. So I
+sat in his room, and span, and he sat a gloating of me as if he had
+never seen a woman spin hemp afore (he is a very simple man): and
+presently says he--but what signifies what _he_ said?"
+
+"Nay, Betty; if you please! I am much interested in him. He preaches so
+divinely."
+
+"Ay," said Betty, "that's his gift. But a poor trencher-man; and I
+declare I'm ashamed to eat all the vittels that are eaten here, and me
+but a woman."
+
+"But what did he say to you that time?" asked Mrs. Gaunt, a little
+impatiently.
+
+Betty cudgelled her memory. "Well, says he, 'My daughter,' (the poor
+soul always calls me his daughter, and me old enough to be his mother
+mostly,) says he, 'how comes it that you are never wearied, nor cast
+down, and yet you but serve a sinner like yourself; but I do often droop
+in my Master's service, and He is the Lord of heaven and earth?' Says I,
+'I'll tell ye, sir: because ye don't eat enough o' vittels.'"
+
+"What an answer!"
+
+"Why, 't is the truth, dame. And says I, 'If I was to be always fasting,
+like as you be, d' ye think I should have the heart to work from morn
+till night?' Now, wasn't I right?"
+
+"I don't know till I hear what answer he made," said Mrs. Gaunt, with
+mean caution.
+
+"O, he shook his head, and said he ate mortal food enow, (poor simple
+body!) but drank too little of grace divine. That were his word."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt was a good deal struck and affected by this revelation, and
+astonished at the slighting tone Betty took in speaking of so remarkable
+a man. The saying that "No man is a hero to his valet" was not yet
+current, or perhaps she would have been less surprised at that.
+
+"Alas! poor man," said she, "and is it so? To hear him, I thought his
+soul was borne up night and day by angels' pinions--"
+
+The widow interrupted her. "Ay, you hear him preach, and it is like
+God's trumpet mostly, and so much I say for him in all companies. But I
+see him directly after; he totters in to this very room, and sits him
+down pale and panting, and one time like to swoon, and another all for
+crying, and then he is ever so dull and sad for the whole afternoon."
+
+"And nobody knows this but you? You have got my old petticoat still, I
+see. I must look you up another."
+
+"You are very good, dame, I am sure. 'T will not come amiss; I've only
+this for Sundays and all. No, my lady, not a soul but me and you. I'm
+not one as tells tales out of doors, but I don't mind you, dame; you are
+my old mistress, and a discreet woman. 'T will go no further than your
+ear."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt told her she might rely on that. The widow then inquired
+after Mrs. Gaunt's little girl, and admired her dress, and described her
+own ailments, and poured out a continuous stream of topics bearing no
+affinity to each other except that they were all of them not worth
+mentioning. And all the while she thus discoursed, Mrs. Gaunt's
+thoughtful eyes looked straight over the chatterbox's white cap, and
+explored vacancy; and by and by she broke the current of twaddle with
+the majestic air of a camelopard marching across a running gutter.
+
+"Betsy Gough," said she, "I am thinking."
+
+Mrs. Gough was struck dumb by an announcement so singular.
+
+"I have heard, and I have read, that great and pious and learned men are
+often to seek in little simple things, such as plain bodies have at
+their fingers' ends. So, now, if you and I could only teach him
+something for all he has taught us! And, to be sure, we ought to be kind
+to him if we can; for O Betty, my woman, 't is a poor vanity to go and
+despise the great, and the learned, and the sainted, because forsooth
+we find them out in some one little weakness,--we that are all made up
+of weaknesses and defects. So, now, I sit me down in his very chair, so.
+And sit you there. Now let us, you and me, look at his room quietly, all
+over, and see what is wanting."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"First and foremost methinks this window should be filled with geraniums
+and jessamine and so forth. With all his learning perhaps he has to be
+taught, the color of flowers and golden green leaves, with the sun
+shining through, how it soothes the eye and relieves the spirits; yet
+every woman born knows that. Then do but see this bare table! a purple
+cloth on that, I say."
+
+"Which he will fling it out of the window, I say."
+
+"Nay, for I'll embroider a cross in the middle with gold braid. Then a
+rose-colored blind would not be amiss; and there must be a good mirror
+facing the window; but, indeed, if I had my way, I'd paint these horrid
+walls the first thing."
+
+"How you run on, dame! Bless your heart, you'd turn his den into a
+palace; he won't suffer that. He is all for self-mortification, poor
+simple soul."
+
+"O, not all at once, I did not mean," said Mrs. Gaunt; "but by little
+and little, you know. We must begin with the flowers: God made them; and
+so to be sure he will not spurn _them_."
+
+Betty began to enter into the plot. "Ay, ay," said she: "the flowers
+first; and so creep on. But naught will avail to make a man of him so
+long as he eats but of eggs and garden-stuff, like the beasts of the
+field, 'that to-day are, and to-morrow are cast into the oven.'"
+
+Mrs. Gaunt smiled at this ambitious attempt of the widow to apply
+Scripture. Then she said, rather timidly, "Could you make his eggs into
+omelets? and so pound in a little meat with your small herbs; I dare say
+he would be none the wiser, and he so bent on high and heavenly things."
+
+"You may take your oath of that."
+
+"Well, then. And I shall send you some stock from the castle, and you
+can cook his vegetables in good strong gravy, unbeknown."
+
+The Widow Gough chuckled aloud.
+
+"But stay," said Mrs. Gaunt; "for us to play the woman so, and delude a
+saint for his mere bodily weal, will it not be a sin, and a sacrilege to
+boot?"
+
+"Let that flea stick in the wall," said Betty, contemptuously. "Find you
+the meat, and I'll find the deceit: for he is as poor as a rat into the
+bargain. Nay, nay, God Almighty will never have the heart to burn us two
+for such a trifle. Why 't is no more than cheating a froward child into
+taking 's physic."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt got into her carriage and went home, thinking all the way.
+What she had heard filled her with feelings strangely but sweetly
+composed of veneration and pity. In that Leonard was a great orator and
+a high-minded priest, she revered him; in that he was solitary and sad,
+she pitied him; in that he wanted common sense, she felt like a mother,
+and must take him under her wing. All true women love to protect;
+perhaps it is a part of the great maternal element: but to protect a
+man, and yet look up to him, this is delicious. It satisfies their
+double craving; it takes them by both breasts, as the saying is.
+
+Leonard, in truth, was one of those high-strung men who pay for their
+periods of religious rapture by hours of melancholy. This oscillation of
+the spirits in extraordinary men appears to be more or less a law of
+nature; and this the Widow Gough was not aware of.
+
+The very next Sunday, while he was preaching, she and Mrs. Gaunt's
+gardener were filling his bow-window with flower-pots, the flowers in
+full bloom and leaf. The said window was large and had a broad sill
+outside, and inside, one of the old-fashioned high window-seats that
+follow the shape of the window. Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves,
+sent up a cart-load of flower-pots, and Betty and the gardener arranged
+at least eighty of them, small and great, inside and outside the window.
+
+When Leonard returned from preaching, Betty was at the door to watch. He
+came past the window with his hands on his breast, and his eyes on the
+ground, and never saw the flowers in his own window. Betty was
+disgusted. However, she followed him stealthily as he went to his room,
+and she heard a profound "Ah!" burst from him.
+
+She bustled in and found him standing in a rapture, with the blood
+mantling in his pale cheeks, and his dark eyes glowing.
+
+"Now blessed be the heart that hath conceived this thing, and the hand
+that hath done it," said he. "My poor room, it is a bower of roses, all
+beauty and fragrance."
+
+And he sat down, inhaling them and looking at them; and a dreamy, tender
+complacency crept over his heart, and softened his noble features
+exquisitely.
+
+Widow Gough, red with gratified pride, stood watching him, and admiring
+him; but, indeed, she often admired him, though she had got into a way
+of decrying him.
+
+But at last she lost patience at his want of curiosity; that being a
+defect she was free from herself.
+
+"Ye don't ask me who sent them," said she, reproachfully.
+
+"Nay, nay," said he; "prithee do not tell me: let me divine."
+
+"Divine, then," said Betty, roughly. "Which I suppose you means
+'guess.'"
+
+"Nay, but let me be quiet awhile," said he, imploringly; "let me sit
+down and fancy that I am a holy man, and some angel hath turned my cave
+into a Paradise."
+
+"No more an angel than I am," said the practical widow. "But, now I
+think on 't, y' are not to know who 't was. Them as sent them they bade
+me hold my tongue."
+
+This was not true; but Betty, being herself given to unwise revelations
+and superfluous secrecy, chose suddenly to assume that this business was
+to be clandestine.
+
+The priest turned his eye inwards and meditated.
+
+"I see who it is," said he, with an air of absolute conviction. "It must
+be the lady who comes always when I preach, and her face like none
+other; it beams with divine intelligence. I will make her all the return
+we poor priests can make to our benefactors. I will pray for her soul
+here among the flowers God has made, and she has given his servant to
+glorify his dwelling. My daughter, you may retire."
+
+This last with surprising, gentle dignity; so Betty went off rather
+abashed, and avenged herself by adulterating the holy man's innutritious
+food with Mrs. Gaunt's good gravy; while he prayed fervently for her
+eternal weal among the flowers she had given him.
+
+Now Mrs. Gaunt, after eight years of married life, was too sensible and
+dignified a woman to make a romantic mystery out of nothing. She
+concealed the gravy, because there secrecy was necessary; but she never
+dreamed of hiding that she had sent her spiritual adviser a load of
+flowers. She did not tell her neighbors, for she was not ostentatious;
+but she told her husband, who grunted, but did not object.
+
+But Betty's nonsense lent an air of romance and mystery that was well
+adapted to captivate the imagination of a young, ardent, and solitary
+spirit like Leonard.
+
+He would have called on the lady he suspected, and thanked her for her
+kindness. But this, he feared, would be unwelcome, since she chose to be
+his unknown benefactress. It would be ill taste in him to tell her he
+had found her out: it might offend her sensibility, and then she would
+draw in.
+
+He kept his gratitude, therefore, to himself, and did not cool it by
+utterance. He often sat among the flowers, in a sweet revery, enjoying
+their color and fragrance; and sometimes he would shut his eyes, and
+call up the angelical face, with great, celestial, upturned orbs, and
+fancy it among her own flowers, and the queen of them all.
+
+These day-dreams did not at that time interfere with his religious
+duties. They only took the place of those occasional hours when, partly
+by the reaction consequent on great religious fervor, partly by
+exhaustion of the body weakened by fasts, partly by the natural delicacy
+of his fibre and the tenderness of his disposition, his soul used to be
+sad.
+
+By and by these languid hours, sad no longer, became sweet and dear to
+him. He had something so interesting to think of, to dream about. He had
+a Madonna that cared for him in secret.
+
+She was human; but good, beautiful, and wise. She came to his sermons,
+and understood every word.
+
+"And she knows me better than I know myself," said he; "since I had
+these flowers from her hand, I am another man."
+
+One day he came into his room and found two watering-pots there. One was
+large and had a rose to it, the other small and with a plain spout.
+
+"Ah!" said he; and colored with delight. He called Betty, and asked her
+who had brought them.
+
+"How should I know?" said she, roughly. "I dare say they dropped from
+heaven. See, there is a cross painted on 'em in gold letters."
+
+"And so there is!" said Leonard, and crossed himself.
+
+"That means nobody is to use them but you, I trow," said Betty, rather
+crossly.
+
+The priest's cheek colored high. "I will use them this instant," said
+he. "I will revive my drooping children as they have revived me." And he
+caught up a watering-pot with ardor.
+
+"What, with the sun hot upon 'em?" screamed Betty. "Well, saving your
+presence, you _are_ a simple man."
+
+"Why, good Betty, 't is the sun that makes them faint," objected the
+priest, timidly, and with the utmost humility of manner, though Betty's
+tone would have irritated a smaller mind.
+
+"Well, well," said she, softening; "but ye see it never rains with a hot
+sun, and the flowers they know that; and look to be watered after
+Nature, or else they take it amiss. You, and all your sort, sir, you
+think to be stronger than Nature; you do fast and pray all day, and
+won't look at a woman like other men; and now you wants to water the
+very flowers at noon!"
+
+"Betty," said Leonard smiling, "I yield to thy superior wisdom, and I
+will water them at morn and eve. In truth we have all much to learn: let
+us try and teach one another as kindly as we can."
+
+"I wish you'd teach me to be as humble as you be," blurted out Betty,
+with something very like a sob: "and more respectful to my betters,"
+added she, angrily.
+
+Watering the flowers she had given him became a solace and a delight to
+the solitary priest: he always watered them with his own hands, and felt
+quite paternal over them.
+
+One evening Mrs. Gaunt rode by with Griffith, and saw him watering them.
+His tall figure, graceful, though inclined to stoop, bent over them with
+feminine delicacy; and the simple act, which would have been nothing in
+vulgar hands, seemed to Mrs. Gaunt so earnest, tender, and delicate in
+him, that her eyes filled, and she murmured, "Poor Brother Leonard!"
+
+"Why, what's wrong with him now?" asked Griffith, a little peevishly.
+
+"That was him watering the flowers."
+
+"O, is that all?" said Griffith, carelessly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Leonard said to himself, "I go too little abroad among my people." He
+made a little round, and it ended in Hernshaw Castle.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt was out.
+
+He looked disappointed; so the servant suggested that perhaps she was in
+the Dame's haunt: he pointed to the grove.
+
+Leonard followed his direction, and soon found himself, for the first
+time, in that sombre, solemn retreat.
+
+It was a hot summer day, and the grove was delicious. It was also a
+place well suited to the imaginative and religious mind of the Italian.
+
+He walked slowly to and fro, in religious meditation. Indeed, he had
+nearly thought out his next sermon, when his meditative eye happened to
+fall on a terrestrial object that startled and thrilled him. Yet it was
+only a lady's glove. It lay at the foot of a rude wooden seat beneath a
+gigantic pine.
+
+He stooped and picked it up. He opened the little fingers, and called up
+in fancy the white and tapering hand that glove could fit. He laid the
+glove softly on his own palm, and eyed it with dreamy tenderness. "So
+this is the hand that hath solaced my loneliness," said he: "a hand fair
+as that angelical face, and sweet as the kind heart that doeth good by
+stealth."
+
+Then, forgetting for a moment, as lofty spirits will, the difference
+between _meum_ and _tuum_, he put the little glove in his bosom, and
+paced thoughtfully home through the woods, that were separated from the
+grove only by one meadow: and so he missed the owner of the glove, for
+she had returned home while he was meditating in her favorite haunt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Leonard, amongst his other accomplishments, could draw and paint with no
+mean skill. In one of those hours that used to be of melancholy, but now
+were hours of dreamy complacency, he took out his pencils and endeavored
+to sketch the inspired face that he had learned to preach to, and now to
+dwell on with gratitude.
+
+Clearly as he saw it before him, he could not reproduce it to his own
+satisfaction. After many failures he got very near the mark: yet still
+something was wanting.
+
+Then, as a last resource, he actually took his sketch to church with
+him, and in preaching made certain pauses, and, with a very few touches,
+perfected the likeness; then, on his return home, threw himself on his
+knees and prayed forgiveness of God with many sighs and tears, and hid
+the sacrilegious drawing out of his own sight.
+
+Two days after, he was at work coloring it; and the hours flew by like
+minutes, as he laid the mellow, melting tints on with infinite care and
+delicacy. _Labor ipse voluptas._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Gaunt heard Leonard had called on her in person. She was pleased at
+that, and it encouraged her to carry out her whole design.
+
+Accordingly, one afternoon, when she knew Leonard would be at vespers,
+she sent on a loaded pony-cart, and followed it on horseback.
+
+Then it was all hurry-skurry with Betty and her, to get their dark deeds
+done before their victim's return.
+
+These good creatures set the mirror opposite the flowery window, and so
+made the room a very bower. They fixed a magnificent crucifix of ivory
+and gold over the mantel-piece, and they took away his hassock of rushes
+and substituted a _prie-dieu_ of rich crimson velvet. All that remained
+was to put their blue cover, with its golden cross, on the table. To do
+this, however, they had to remove the priest's papers and things: they
+were covered with a cloth. Mrs. Gaunt felt them under it.
+
+"But perhaps he will be angry if we move his papers," said she.
+
+"Not he," said Betty. "He has no secrets from God or man."
+
+"Well, _I_ won't take it on me," said Mrs. Gaunt, merrily. "I leave that
+to you." And she turned her back and settled the mirror, officiously,
+leaving all the other responsibilities to Betty.
+
+The sturdy widow laughed at her scruples, and whipped off the cloth
+without ceremony. But soon her laugh stopped mighty short, and she
+uttered an exclamation.
+
+"What is the matter?" said Mrs. Gaunt, turning her head sharply round.
+
+"A wench's glove, as I'm a living sinner," groaned Betty.
+
+A poor little glove lay on the table; and both women eyed it like
+basilisks a moment. Then Betty pounced on it and examined it with the
+fierce keenness of her sex in such conjunctures, searching for a name
+or a clew.
+
+Owing to this rapidity, Mrs. Gaunt, who stood at some distance, had not
+time to observe the button on the glove, or she would have recognized
+her own property.
+
+"He have had a hussy with him unbeknown," said Betty, "and she have left
+her glove. 'T is easy to get in by the window and out again. Only let me
+catch her! I'll tear her eyes out, and give him my mind. I'll have no
+young hussies creeping in an' out where I be."
+
+Thus spoke the simple woman, venting her coarse domestic jealousy.
+
+The gentlewoman said nothing, but a strange feeling traversed her heart
+for the first time in her life.
+
+It was a little chill, it was a little ache, it was a little sense of
+sickness; none of these violent, yet all distinct. And all about what?
+After this curious, novel spasm at the heart, she began to be ashamed of
+herself for having had such a feeling.
+
+Betty held her out the glove: and she recognized it directly, and turned
+as red as fire.
+
+"You know whose 't is?" said Betty, keenly.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt was on her guard in a moment. "Why, Betty," said she, "for
+shame! 't is some penitent hath left her glove after confession. Would
+you belie a good man for that? O, fie!"
+
+"Humph!" said Betty, doubtfully. "Then why keep it under cover? Now you
+can read, dame; let us see if there isn't a letter or so writ by the
+hand as owns this very glove."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt declined, with cold dignity, to pry into Brother Leonard's
+manuscripts.
+
+Her eye, however, darted sidelong at them, and told another tale; and,
+if she had been there alone, perhaps, the daughter of Eve would have
+predominated.
+
+Betty, inflamed by the glove, rummaged the papers in search of female
+handwriting. She could tell that from a man's, though she could not read
+either.
+
+But there is a handwriting that the most ignorant can read at sight; and
+so Betty's researches were not in vain: hidden under several sheets of
+paper, she found a picture. She gave but one glance at it, and screamed
+out: "There, didn't I tell you? Here she is! the brazen,
+red-haired--LAWK A DAISY! WHY, 'T IS YOURSELF."
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+"Me!" cried Mrs. Gaunt, in amazement: then she ran to the picture, and
+at sight of it every other sentiment gave way for a moment to gratified
+vanity. "Nay," said she, beaming and blushing, "I was never half so
+beautiful. What heavenly eyes!"
+
+"The fellows to 'em be in your own head, dame, this moment."
+
+"Seeing is believing," said Mrs. Gaunt, gayly, and in a moment she was
+at the priest's mirror, and inspected her eyes minutely, cocking her
+head this way and that. She ended by shaking it, and saying, "No. He has
+flattered them prodigiously."
+
+"Not a jot," said Betty. "If you could see yourself in chapel, you do
+turn 'em up just so, and the white shows all round." Then she tapped the
+picture with her finger: "O them eyes! they were never made for the good
+of his soul,--poor simple man!"
+
+Betty said this with sudden gravity: and now Mrs. Gaunt began to feel
+very awkward. "Mr. Gaunt would give fifty pounds for this," said she, to
+gain time: and, while she uttered that sentence, she whipped on her
+armor.
+
+"I'll tell you what I think," said she, calmly, "he wished to paint a
+Madonna; and he must take some woman's face to aid his fancy. All the
+painters are driven to that. So he just took the best that came to hand,
+and that is not saying much, for this is a rare ill-favored parish: and
+he has made an angel of her, a very angel. There, hide Me away again, or
+I shall long for Me--to show to my husband. I must be going; I wouldn't
+be caught here _now_ for a pension."
+
+"Well, if ye must," said Betty; "but when will ye come again?" (She
+hadn't got the petticoat yet.)
+
+"Humph!" said Mrs. Gaunt, "I have done all I can for him; and perhaps
+more than I ought. But there's nothing to hinder you from coming to me.
+I'll be as good as my word; and I have an old Paduasoy, besides, you can
+perhaps do something with it."
+
+"You are very good, dame," said Betty, courtesying.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt then hurried away, and Betty looked after her very
+expressively, and shook her head. She had a female instinct that some
+mischief or other was brewing.
+
+Mrs. Gaunt went home in a revery.
+
+At the gate she found her husband, and asked him to take a turn in the
+garden with her.
+
+He complied; and she intended to tell him a portion, at least, of what
+had occurred. She began timidly, after this fashion: "My dear, Brother
+Leonard is _so_ grateful for your flowers," and then hesitated.
+
+"I'm sure he is very welcome," said Griffith. "Why doesn't he sup with
+us, and be sociable, as Father Francis used? Invite him; let him know he
+will be welcome."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt blushed; and objected. "He never calls on us."
+
+"Well, well, every man to his taste," said Griffith, indifferently, and
+proceeded to talk to her about his farm, and a sorrel mare with a white
+mane and tail that he had seen, and thought it would suit her.
+
+She humored him, and affected a great interest in all this, and had not
+the courage to force the other topic on.
+
+Next Sunday morning, after a very silent breakfast, she burst out,
+almost violently, "Griffith, I shall go to the parish church with you,
+and then we will dine together afterwards."
+
+"You don't mean it, Kate," said he, delighted.
+
+"Ay, but I do. Although you refused to go to chapel with me."
+
+They went to church together, and Mrs. Gaunt's appearance there created
+no small sensation. She was conscious of that, but hid it, and conducted
+herself admirably. Her mind seemed entirely given to the service, and to
+a dull sermon that followed.
+
+But at dinner she broke out, "Well, give me your church for a sleeping
+draught. You all slumbered, more or less: those that survived the
+drowsy, droning prayers sank under the dry, dull, dreary discourse. You
+snored, for one."
+
+"Nay, I hope not, my dear."
+
+"You did then, as loud as your bass fiddle."
+
+"And you sat there and let me!" said Griffith, reproachfully.
+
+"To be sure I did. I was too good a wife, and too good a Christian, to
+wake you. Sleep is good for the body, and twaddle is not good for the
+soul. I'd have slept too, if I could; but with me going to chapel, I'm
+not used to sleep at that time o' day. You can't sleep, and Brother
+Leonard speaking."
+
+In the afternoon came Mrs. Gough, all in her best. Mrs. Gaunt had her
+into her bedroom, and gave her the promised petticoat, and the old
+Paduasoy gown; and then, as ladies will, when their hand is once in,
+added first one thing, then another, till there was quite a large
+bundle.
+
+"But how is it you are here so soon?" asked Mrs. Gaunt.
+
+"O, we had next to no sermon to-day. He couldn't make no hand of it:
+dawdled on a bit; then gave us his blessing, and bundled us out."
+
+"Then I've lost nothing," said Mrs. Gaunt.
+
+"Not you. Well, I don't know. Mayhap if you had been there he'd have
+preached his best. But la! we warn't worth it."
+
+At this conjecture Mrs. Gaunt's face burned, but she said nothing: only
+she cut the interview short, and dismissed Betty with her bundle.
+
+As Betty crossed the landing, Mrs. Gaunt's new lady's-maid, Caroline
+Ryder, stepped accidentally, on purpose, out of an adjoining room, in
+which she had been lurking, and lifted her black brows in affected
+surprise. "What, are you going to strip the house, my woman?" said she,
+quietly.
+
+Betty put down the bundle, and set her arms akimbo. "There is none on 't
+stolen, any way," said she.
+
+Caroline's black eyes flashed fire at this, and her cheek lost color;
+but she parried the innuendo skilfully. "Taking my perquisites on the
+sly,--that is not so very far from stealing."
+
+"O, there's plenty left for you, my fine lady. Besides, you don't want
+_her_; you can set your cap at the master, they say. I'm too old for
+that, and too honest into the bargain."
+
+"Too ill-favored, you mean, ye old harridan," said Ryder,
+contemptuously.
+
+But, for reasons hereafter to be dealt with, Betty's thrust went home:
+and the pair were mortal enemies from that hour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Gaunt came down from her room discomposed: from that she became
+restless and irritable; so much so, indeed, that at last Mr. Gaunt told
+her, good-humoredly enough, if going to church made her ill (meaning
+peevish), she had better go to chapel. "You are right," said she, "and
+so I will."
+
+The next Sunday she was at her post in good time.
+
+The preacher cast an anxious glance around to see if she was there. Her
+quick eye saw that glance, and it gave her a demure pleasure.
+
+This day he was more eloquent than ever: and he delivered a beautiful
+passage concerning those who do good in secret. In uttering these
+eloquent sentences his cheek glowed, and he could not deny himself the
+pleasure of looking down at the lovely face that was turned up to him.
+Probably his look was more expressive than he intended: the celestial
+eyes sank under it, and were abashed, and the fair cheek burned: and
+then so did Leonard's at that.
+
+Thus, subtly yet effectually, did these two minds communicate in a crowd
+that never noticed nor suspected the delicate interchange of sentiment
+that was going on under their very eyes.
+
+In a general way compliments did not seduce Mrs. Gaunt: she was well
+used to them, for one thing. But to be praised in that sacred edifice,
+and from the pulpit, and by such an orator as Leonard, and to be praised
+in words so sacred and beautiful that the ears around her drank them
+with delight,--all this made her heart beat, and filled her with soft
+and sweet complacency.
+
+And then to be thanked in public, yet, as it were, clandestinely, this
+gratified the furtive tendency of woman.
+
+There was no irritability this afternoon; but a gentle radiance that
+diffused itself on all around, and made the whole household
+happy,--especially Griffith, whose pipe she filled, for once, with her
+own white hand, and talked dogs, horses, calves, hinds, cows, politics,
+markets, hay, to please him: and seemed interested in them all.
+
+But the next day she changed: ill at ease, and out of spirits, and could
+settle to nothing.
+
+It was very hot for one thing: and, altogether, a sort of lassitude and
+distaste for everything overpowered her, and she retired into the grove,
+and sat languidly on a seat with half-closed eyes.
+
+But her meditations were no longer so calm and speculative as
+heretofore. She found her mind constantly recurring to one person, and,
+above all, to the discovery she had made of her portrait in his
+possession. She had turned it off to Betty Gough; but here, in her calm
+solitude and umbrageous twilight, her mind crept out of its cave, like
+wild and timid things at dusk, and whispered to her heart that Leonard
+perhaps admired her more than was safe or prudent.
+
+Then this alarmed her, yet caused her a secret complacency: and that,
+her furtive satisfaction, alarmed her still more.
+
+Now, while she sat thus absorbed, she heard a gentle footstep coming
+near. She looked up, and there was Leonard close to her; standing
+meekly, with his arms crossed upon his bosom.
+
+His being there so pat upon her thoughts scared her out of her habitual
+self-command. She started up, with a faint cry, and stood panting, as if
+about to fly, with her beautiful eyes turned large upon him.
+
+He put forth a deprecating hand, and soothed her. "Forgive me, madam,"
+said he; "I have unawares intruded on your privacy; I will retire."
+
+"Nay," said she, falteringly, "you are welcome. But no one comes here;
+so I was startled." Then, recovering herself, "Excuse my ill-manners. 'T
+is so strange that you should come to me here, of all places."
+
+"Nay, my daughter," said the priest, "not so very strange: contemplative
+minds love such places. Calling one day to see you, I found this sweet
+and solemn grove; the like I never saw in England: and to-day I returned
+in hopes to profit by it. Do but look around at these tall columns; how
+calm, how reverend! 'T is God's own temple, not built with hands."
+
+"Indeed it is," said Mrs. Gaunt, earnestly. Then, like a woman as she
+was, "So you came to see my trees, not me."
+
+Leonard blushed. "I did not design to return without paying my respects
+to her who owns this temple, and is worthy of it; nay, I beg you not to
+think me ungrateful."
+
+His humility and gentle but earnest voice made Mrs. Gaunt ashamed of her
+petulance. She smiled sweetly, and looked pleased. However, erelong, she
+attacked him again. "Father Francis used to visit us often," said she.
+"He made friends with my husband, too. And I never lacked an adviser
+while he was here."
+
+Leonard looked so confused at this second reproach that Mrs. Gaunt's
+heart began to yearn. However, he said humbly that Francis was a secular
+priest, whereas he was convent-bred. He added, that by his years and
+experience Francis was better fitted to advise persons of her age and
+sex, in matters secular, than he was. He concluded timidly that he was
+ready, nevertheless, to try and advise her; but could not, in such
+matters, assume the authority that belongs to age and knowledge of the
+world.
+
+"Nay, nay," said she, earnestly, "guide and direct my soul, and I am
+content."
+
+He said, yes! that was his duty and his right.
+
+Then, after a certain hesitation, which at once let her know what was
+coming, he began to thank her, with infinite grace and sweetness, for
+her kindness to him.
+
+She looked him full in the face, and said she was not aware of any
+kindness she had shown him worth speaking of.
+
+"That but shows," said he, "how natural it is to you to do acts of
+goodness. My poor room is a very bower now, and I am happy in it. I used
+to feel very sad there at times; but your hand has cured me."
+
+Mrs. Gaunt colored beautifully. "You make me ashamed," said she. "Things
+are come to a pass indeed, if a lady may not send a few flowers and
+things to her spiritual father without being thanked for it. And, O,
+sir, what are earthly flowers compared with those blossoms of the soul
+you have shed so liberally over us? Our immortal parts were all asleep
+when you came here and wakened them by the fire of your words.
+Eloquence! 't was a thing I had read of, but never heard, nor thought to
+hear. Methought the orators and poets of the Church were all in their
+graves this thousand years, and she must go all the way to heaven that
+would hear the soul's true music. But I know better now."
+
+Leonard colored high with pleasure, "Such praise from you is too sweet,"
+he muttered. "I must not court it. The heart is full of vanity." And he
+deprecated further eulogy, by a movement of the hand extremely refined,
+and, in fact, rather feminine.
+
+Deferring to his wish Mrs. Gaunt glided to other matters, and was
+naturally led to speak of the prospects of their Church, and the
+possibility of reconverting these islands. This had been the dream of
+her young heart; but marriage and maternity, and the universal coldness
+with which the subject had been received, had chilled her so, that of
+late years she had almost ceased to speak of it. Even Leonard, on a
+former occasion, had listened coldly to her; but now his heart was open
+to her. He was, in fact, quite as enthusiastic on this point as ever she
+had been; and then he had digested his aspirations into clearer forms.
+Not only had he resolved that Great Britain must be reconverted, but had
+planned the way to do it. His cheek glowed, his eyes gleamed, and he
+poured out his hopes and his plans before her with an eloquence that few
+mortals could have resisted.
+
+As for this, his hearer, she was quite carried away by it. She joined
+herself to his plans on the spot; she begged, with tears in her eyes, to
+be permitted to support him in this great cause. She devoted to it her
+substance, her influence, and every gift that God had given her: the
+hours passed like minutes in this high converse; and when the tinkling
+of the little bell at a distance summoned him to vespers, he left her
+with a gentle regret he scarcely tried to conceal, and she went slowly
+in like one in a dream, and the world seemed dead to her forever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nevertheless, when Mrs. Ryder, combing out her long hair, gave one
+inadvertent tug, the fair enthusiast came back to earth, and asked her,
+rather sharply, who her head was running on.
+
+Ryder, a very handsome young woman, with fine black eyes, made no reply,
+but only drew her breath audibly hard.
+
+I do not very much wonder at that, nor at my having to answer that
+question for Mrs. Ryder. For her head was at that moment running, like
+any other woman's, on the man she was in love with.
+
+And the man she was in love with was the husband of the lady whose hair
+she was combing, and who put her that curious question--plump.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+_The Resources of California, comprising Agriculture, Mining, Geography,
+Climate, Commerce, &c., and the Past and Future Development of the
+State._ By JOHN S. HITTELL. Second Edition, with an Appendix on Oregon
+and Washington Territory. San Francisco: A. Roman & Co. New York: W. J.
+Widdleton.
+
+This is a book almost as encyclopedic as its title would indicate; and
+is evidently written with a desire to say everything which the theme
+permits, and to say it truly. It answers almost every question that an
+intelligent person can ask, in respect to California, besides a good
+many which few intelligent persons know enough to propound. And it is a
+proof of its honesty that it does not, after all, make California
+overpoweringly attractive, whether in respect of climate, society, or
+business. This is saying a good deal, when we consider that the Preface
+sums up the allurements of the Pacific coast in a single sentence
+covering two and a half pages.
+
+The philosophy of the author is sometimes rather bewildering, as where
+he defines "universal suffrage" to mean that "every sane adult white
+male citizen, not a felon, may vote at every election." (p. 349.) His
+general statements, too, are apt to be rather sweeping. For instance, he
+says, in two different passages, that, "so far as we know, the climate
+of San Francisco is the most equable and the mildest in the world." (pp.
+29, 431.) Yet he puts the extremes of temperature in this favored
+climate at +25 deg. and +97 deg. Fahrenheit; while at Fayal, in the Azores, the
+recorded extremes are, if we mistake not, +40 deg. and +85 deg.; and no doubt
+there are other temperate climates as uniform.
+
+One might object, too, from the side of severe science, to his devoting
+the "Reptile" department of his zooelogical section chiefly to spiders,
+with incidental remarks on fleas and mosquitos. Perhaps it is to balance
+Captain Stedman in Surinam, who under the head of "Insects" discourses
+chiefly of vampyre-bats.
+
+The wonders of the Yo-semite valley he describes as well as most people;
+and faithfully contends for their superiority to those of Niagara,
+where, as he plaintively observes, "a day or two is enough," while one
+could contentedly remain for months among the California wonders. He
+shows, however, that his memories of Atlantic civilization are still
+painfully vivid, when he counsels the beholder of the Mariposa grove to
+lie on his back, and think of Trinity Church steeple. Might not one also
+beguile a third day at Niagara by reflections on the Croton Aqueduct?
+
+But these little glimpses of the author's personality make the book only
+the more entertaining, and give spice to the really vast mass of
+accurate information which it conveys. There are few passages which one
+can call actually imaginative, unless one includes under that head the
+description (page 40) of that experiment "common in the Eastern cities,"
+where a man dressed in woollen, by sliding on a carpet a few steps,
+accumulates enough personal electricity to light gas with his fingers.
+This familiar process, it appears, is impossible in California, and so
+far his descriptions of that climate convey a sense of safety. Yet even
+one seasoned to such wonders as these might be startled, for a moment,
+before his account of the mountain sheep (_Ovis montana_). This
+ponderous animal, weighing three hundred and fifty pounds, has a
+sportive habit of leaping headlong from precipices one hundred feet
+high, and alighting on its horns, which, being strong and elastic, throw
+him ten or fifteen feet into the air, "and the next time he alights on
+his feet all right." (p. 124.) "Mountaineers assert" this; and after
+this it can be hardly doubted that the products of the human
+imagination, in California, are on a scale of Yo-semite magnificence.
+
+
+_The American Republic: its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny._ By
+O. A. BROWNSON, LL. D. New York: P. O'Shea.
+
+Mr. Brownson's influence over the American people, which had dwindled
+pretty nearly to zero at the beginning of the war, revived with that
+revival of the old Adam which made him a patriot, and thus showed him
+rather in the light of a heretic. This book sets him right (or wrong)
+again, and his temporary partnership with "humanitarians" may be
+regarded as closed by official notification. In a volume which might
+well be compressed into one fourth its present size, he covers a great
+deal of ground, and has pungent suggestions on both sides of a great
+many questions. Even in the Preface he announces his abandonment of the
+doctrine of State sovereignty, after holding it for thirty-three years,
+and at once proceeds to explain how, in a profounder sense, he holds it
+more thoroughly than ever. In the chapter on "Secession," which is the
+best in the book, he indorses Charles Sumner's theory of State suicide;
+holds that the Southern States are now "under the Union, not of it," and
+seems quite inclined to pardon Mr. Lincoln for abolishing slavery by
+proclamation. On the other hand, he scouts the theory that the Rebels
+committed treason, in any moral sense, and proclaims that we are all
+"willing and proud to be their countrymen, fellow-citizens, and
+friends." "There need be no fear to trust them now." To hang or exile
+them would be worse than "deporting four millions of negroes and colored
+men." (pp. 335-338.)
+
+It must, indeed, be owned that our author has apparently reverted to an
+amount of colorphobia which must cheer the hearts of the Hibernian
+portion of his co-religionists. Ignoring the past in a way which seems
+almost wilful, he declares that the freedman has no capacity of
+patriotism, no sort of appreciation of the question at stake; and that
+he would, if enfranchised, invariably vote with his former master. "In
+any contest between North and South, they would take, to a man, the
+Southern side." (pp. 346, 376.) Nevertheless, he thinks that the negro
+will be ultimately enfranchised, "and the danger is, that it will be
+attempted too soon." If, indeed, it be postponed, he seems to think the
+negro may, by the blessing of Providence, "melt away." (p. 437.) What a
+pity that the obstinate fellow, with all the aid now being contributed
+in the way of assassination, so steadfastly refuses to melt!
+
+Against the Abolitionists, also, Mr. Brownson is still ready to break a
+lance, with the hearty unreasoning hostility of the good old times.
+"Wendell Phillips is as far removed from true Christian civilization as
+was John C. Calhoun, and William Lloyd Garrison is as much of a
+barbarian and despot in principle and tendency as Jefferson Davis." (p.
+355.) This touch of righteous indignation is less crushing, however,
+than his covert attacks upon our two great generals. For in one place he
+enumerates as typical warriors "McClellan, Grant, and Sherman," and in
+another place, "Halleck, Grant, and Sherman." This is indeed the very
+refinement of unkindness.
+
+Of a standing army Mr. Brownson thinks well, and wishes it to number a
+hundred thousand; but his reason for the faith that is in him is a
+little unexpected. He thinks it useful because "it creates honorable
+places for gentlemen or the sons of gentlemen without wealth." (p. 386.)
+Touching our naturalized foreigners, he admits that they have been
+rather a source of embarrassment in recruiting for our armies (p. 381);
+but consoles himself by hinting, with his accustomed modesty, that "the
+best things written on the controversy have been by Catholics." (p.
+378.)
+
+He sees danger in the horizon, and frankly avows it. It is none of the
+commonplace perils, however,--national bankruptcy, revival of the slave
+power, oppression of Southern loyalists. A wholly new and profounder
+terror is that which his penetrating eye evokes from the future. It is,
+that, if matters go on as now, foreign observers will never clearly
+understand whether it was the "territorial democracy" or the
+"humanitarian democracy" which really triumphed in the late contest!
+"The danger now is, that the Union victory will, at home and abroad, be
+interpreted as a victory won in the interest of social or humanitarian
+democracy. It was because they regarded the war waged on the side of the
+Union as waged in the interest of this terrible democracy, that our
+bishops and clergy sympathized so little with the government in
+prosecuting it; not, as some imagined, because they were disloyal.... If
+the victory of the Union should turn out to be a victory for the
+humanitarian democracy, the civilized world will have no reason to
+applaud it." (pp. 365, 366.)
+
+After this passage, it is needless to say that its author is the same
+Mr. Brownson whom the American people long since tried and found wanting
+as a safe or wise counsellor; the same of whom the Roman Catholic Church
+one day assumed the responsibility, and found the task more onerous than
+had been expected. He retains his arrogance, his gladiatorial skill, his
+habit of sweeping assertion; but perhaps his virulence is softened, save
+where some unhappy "humanitarian" is under dissection. Enough remains of
+the habit, however, to make his worst pages the raciest, and to render
+it a sharp self-satire when he proclaims, at the very outset, that a
+constitutional treatise should be written "with temper."
+
+
+_Across the Continent: a Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the
+Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax._ By SAMUEL BOWLES,
+Editor of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican. Springfield, Mass.: Samuel
+Bowles & Co.
+
+Since Mr. Greeley set the example, it has been the manifest destiny of
+every enterprising journalist to take an occasional trip across the
+continent, and personally inspect his subscribers. The latest overland
+Odyssey of this kind--transacted by three silent editors and one very
+public Speaker--is recorded in Mr. Bowles's new book; which proceeds, as
+one may observe, from his own publishing office and bindery, and may
+therefore almost claim, like the quaint little books presented by the
+eccentric Quincy Tufts to Harvard College Library, to have been
+"written, printed, and bound by the same hand."
+
+Journalism is a good training, in some ways, for a trip like this. It
+implies a quick eye for facts, a good memory for figures, a hearty faith
+in the national bird, and a boundless appetite for new acquaintances.
+Every Eastern editor, moreover, is sure to find old neighbors throughout
+the West; and he who escorts a rising politician has all the world for a
+friend.
+
+The result is, in this case, a thoroughly American book,--American in
+the sense of to-day, if not according to the point of view of the
+millennium. It is American in its vast applications of arithmetic; in
+the facility with which it brings the breadth of a continent within the
+limits of a summer's ride; in the eloquence which rises to sublimity
+over mining stock, and dwindles to the verge of commonplace before
+unmarketable natural beauties. Of course, it is the best book on the
+theme it handles, for it is the latest; it is lively, readable,
+instructive; but no descriptions of those changing regions can last
+much longer than an almanac, and this will retain its place only until
+the coming of the next editorial pilgrim.
+
+
+_Esperance._ By META LANDER, author of "Light on the Dark River,"
+"Marion Graham," &c. New York: Sheldon & Co.
+
+Can it be possible that any literature of the world now yields
+sentimental novels so vague and immature as those which America brings
+forth? Or is it that their Transatlantic compeers float away and
+dissolve by their own feebleness before they reach our shores?
+
+"Cry, Esperance! Percy! and set on." This Shakespearian motto might have
+appeared upon the title-page of this volume; but there is nothing so
+vivacious upon that page, nor indeed on any other. The name of the book
+comes from that of the heroine, who was baptized Hope. But the friend of
+her soul was wont to call her Esperance, "in her wooing moods," and from
+this simple application of the French dictionary results the title of
+the romance. Even this does not close the catalogue of the heroine's pet
+names however, for in moments of yet higher ecstasy, when she rides
+sublime upon the storm of passion, she is styled, not without scientific
+appropriateness, "Espy."
+
+Esperance is a young girl who seeks her destiny. She also has her
+"wooing moods," during which, on small provocation, she "hastily pens a
+few lines"--of verse such as no young lady's diary should be without.
+She has, moreover, her intervals of sternness, when she boxes ears; now
+in case of her father, unfilially, and anon in more righteous conflict
+with her step-mother's wicked lover. But her demonstrations do not
+usually take the brief form of blows, but the more formidable shape of
+words. Indeed, it takes a good many words to meet the innumerable crises
+of her daily life; and, to do her justice, the more desperate the
+emergencies, the better she likes them. Anguish is heaped upon her,
+father and mother desert her, several eligible lovers jilt her,--she
+would be much obliged to you to point out any specific sorrow of which
+at least one good specimen has not occurred within her experience. There
+is a distressing casualty to every chapter, and then come in the
+poisoned arrows! "Once in the room, I bolted the door and threw
+myself--not on the bed--the floor better suited my mood. And there I
+lay, with reeling senses, and a brain on fire, while in my trampled and
+bruised heart were wildly struggling tenderness and scorn, love and
+hate, life and death.... The slow-moving hours tolled a mournful
+requiem, as the long procession of stricken hopes and joys were borne
+onward to their death and burial. And I, the victim, turned
+executioner."
+
+The French dictionary extends onward from the title-page, and haunts
+these impassioned pages. Phrases of a recondite and elaborate
+description, such as "_Oui, monsieur_," "_Tres-bien_," and "_Entrez_,"
+adorn the sportive conversation of this cultivated circle. Sometimes,
+with higher flight, some one essays to gambol in the Latin tongue: "It
+seemed to me that old Tempus must have taken to himself a new pair of
+wings to have _fugited_ so rapidly as he did." Yet the French and the
+Latin are better than the English; for the main body of the book, while
+breaking no important law of morals or of grammar, is scarcely adapted
+for any phase of human existence beyond the boarding-school. It seems
+rather hard, perhaps, to devote serious censure to a thing so frail; but
+without a little homely truth, how are we ever to get beyond this
+bread-and-butter epoch of American fiction?
+
+
+_Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds: with Notices of Some of his
+Contemporaries._ Commenced by CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE, R. A. Continued and
+concluded by TOM TAYLOR, M. A. London: John Murray. 2 vols. 8vo.
+
+"When, in 1832," writes C. R. Leslie, "Constable exhibited his 'Opening
+of Waterloo Bridge,' it was placed in the school of painting,--one of
+the small rooms in Somerset House. A sea-piece, by Turner, was next to
+it,--a gray picture, beautiful and true, but with no positive color in
+any part of it. Constable's 'Waterloo' seemed as if painted with liquid
+gold and silver, and Turner came several times into the room while he
+was heightening with vermilion and lake the decorations and flags of the
+city barges. Turner stood behind him, looking from the 'Waterloo' to his
+own picture, and at last brought his palette from the great room where
+he was touching another picture, and, putting a round daub of red lead,
+somewhat bigger than a shilling, on his gray sea, went away without
+saying a word. The intensity of the red lead, made more vivid by the
+coolness of his picture, caused even the vermilion and lake of Constable
+to look weak. I came into the room just as Turner left it. 'He has been
+here,' said Constable, 'and fired a gun.'"
+
+Twenty years ago the erratic life of Haydon the artist was dashed
+suddenly and violently out by his own hand. Men brought the cold light
+of their judgment then, and overspread his character, forgetful of the
+fires of his genius; but Mr. Tom Taylor remembered the burning spirit,
+memorable to the soul of art, and he published two volumes containing
+Haydon's autobiography and journals, which have set a seal upon his
+memory, and lead us to thank the man who has done for Haydon what Turner
+did for his own picture,--fired a gun.
+
+Since Haydon's Autobiography was published, Mr. Taylor has not been
+idle. Some of the purest and most popular plays now upon the stage we
+owe to his hand. The face of the _blase_ theatre-goer shines when his
+play is announced for the evening; and even the long-visaged critic,
+fond of talking of the _decadence_ of the modern stage, has been known
+to appear punctually in his seat when Tom Taylor's play was to lead off
+the performance.
+
+The days of Burton have passed, and the echoes of roof-splitting
+laughter he excited have died away; but while the remembrance of "lovely
+things" remains with us, those who were fortunate enough to have seen
+Mr. Taylor's play of "Helping Hands," as performed at Burton's Theatre
+in New York, will be sure never to forget it.
+
+We should be glad, if space permitted, to speak of Mr. Taylor in the
+several branches of literature wherein he has become distinguished; but
+it is chiefly with him as a biographer, and principally with one
+biography, we are concerned here.
+
+Six years ago, Leslie's "Biographical Recollections" were given to the
+world by the hand of the same editor. There are few books more
+delightful of this kind in our language; and no small share of the
+interest results from the conscientious work Mr. Taylor has put into the
+study of Mr. Leslie's pictures, and his recognition of him as
+distinctively a literary painter, possessing a kindly brotherhood to
+Washington Irving in the subtile humor he loved to depict.
+
+We remember having the good fortune once to meet Mr. Taylor, while he
+was preparing this book, and being impressed with the idea that he had
+committed Mr. Leslie's paintings to memory, as one of the necessary
+preliminaries in order to do justice to his subject. He had that day
+returned from a pilgrimage to one of the pictures, and was able to
+inform the artists who were present with regard to the smallest
+accessory. We fancied, had painting, and not penning, been his forte, he
+could have reproduced the picture for us on the spot, could we, at the
+same time, have transformed the table-cloth into a canvas.
+
+In the Preface to the Recollections of Leslie, we are told that the
+reason his autobiography ends abruptly was not because of Mr. Leslie's
+failing health, "but because all the time he could spare from painting
+was, during the last year of his life, occupied by him in writing the
+Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, at which he worked hard even a month before
+his death." When the Leslie papers were put into Mr. Taylor's hands,
+this Life, then in a fragmentary condition, being hardly more than
+memoranda, for the most part, also came into his possession. And it
+having been his "lot," as he has elsewhere said, to have the materials
+for two artistic biographies already intrusted to his care, he must have
+accepted the third, thus silently bestowed, as the especial legacy of
+his friend.
+
+Therefore, by education and by accident, (if we may choose to consider
+it such,) setting aside Mr. Taylor's natural ability for the labor, he
+found himself pre-eminently elected to complete and issue the "Life and
+Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds." The request of Mr. Murray, the publisher,
+appears, however, to have spurred him to the actual acceptance of the
+work. Some idea of these volumes, with their varied interest of life and
+art, may be briefly conveyed by quoting from the Preface, where Mr.
+Taylor writes:--
+
+"The life of a painter, more than most men, as a rule, derives its
+interest from his work and from the people he paints. When his sitters
+are the chief men and women of his time, for beauty, genius, rank,
+power, wit, goodness, or even fashion and folly, this interest is
+heightened. It culminates when the painter is the equal and honored
+associate of his sitters. All these conditions concur in the case of
+Reynolds. It is impossible to write a Life and Times of the painter
+without passing in review--hasty and brief as it must be--the great
+facts of politics, literature, and manners during his busy life, which
+touched, often very closely, the chief actors in a drama taking in the
+most stirring events of the last century, and containing the germs of
+many things that have materially operated to shape our arts, manners,
+and institutions.
+
+"By the use of these materials, I have attempted to carry out Mr.
+Leslie's intention of presenting Sir Joshua in his true character, as
+the genial centre of a most various and brilliant society, as well as
+the transmitter of its chief figures to our time by his potent art."
+
+It is only by turning over the pages of each chapter, and observing
+closely the brackets wherein Mr. Taylor's portion of the work is
+enclosed, that we discover how great his labor has been, and how well
+fulfilled. His interpolations are flung, like the Fribourg Bridge, fine
+and strong, welding together opposing points, and never inserted like a
+wedge. A happy instance of this appears in the first volume, where Mr.
+Taylor says, speaking of Johnson, after the death of his mother, "The
+regard of such men as Reynolds was henceforth the best comfort of that
+great, solitary heart; and the painter's purse and house and pen were
+alike at his friend's service." "For example," Leslie continues, "in
+this year Reynolds wrote three papers for the 'Idler.' 'I have heard Sir
+Joshua say,' observes Northcote, 'that Johnson required them from him on
+a sudden emergency, and on that account he sat up the whole night to
+complete them in time; and by it he was so much disordered, that it
+produced a vertigo in his head.'"
+
+The story of Reynolds's youth is a happier one than is often recorded of
+young artists. His father was too wise and too kind to cross the natural
+proclivities of the boy, although he does appear to have wavered for a
+moment when Joshua declared he "had rather be an apothecary than an
+_ordinary_ painter." He was, however, early apprenticed to Hudson, the
+first portrait-painter of his time in England. But hardly two years had
+elapsed before the master saw himself eclipsed, and the two separated
+without great waste of love on the part of Hudson. From that moment,
+Reynolds's career was decided. He put the mannerism of his former master
+away from his pictures when he distanced himself from his studio, and,
+going soon after to the Continent, devoted himself to the study of great
+works of art. With what vigor and faithfulness this labor was pursued,
+the Roman and Venetian note-books testify. "For the studies he made from
+Raphael," writes Leslie, "he paid dearly; for he caught so severe a cold
+in the chambers of the Vatican as to occasion a deafness which obliged
+him to use an ear-trumpet for the remainder of his life."
+
+The fertility and inexhaustibility of power shown by Sir Joshua Reynolds
+have seldom, if ever, been surpassed in the history of Art. In the
+"Catalogue Raisonnee" of his paintings, soon to be given to the public,
+nearly three thousand pictures will be enumerated. Many of these were,
+of course, finished by his assistants, according to the fashion of the
+time, but the expression of the face remains to attest the master's
+hand. (Unless, perchance, the head may have dropped off the canvas
+entirely, as happened once, when an unfortunate youth, who had borrowed
+one of his fine pictures to copy, was carrying it home under his arm.)
+
+In the record for the year 1758, we are startled by the number of one
+hundred and fifty sitters. And although this was probably the busiest
+year of his life, our astonishment never wanes while observing the
+ceaseless industry of every moment of his career, during the seventh day
+as well as the other six; and this, too, in spite of a promise won from
+him by Dr. Johnson, when on his death-bed, that he would never use his
+pencil on a Sunday. But the habit of a long working life was too strong
+upon him, and he soon persuaded himself that it was better to have made
+the promise than distress a dying friend, although he did not intend to
+observe it strictly.
+
+Sir Joshua possessed the high art of inciting himself to work by
+repeatedly soliciting the most beautiful and most interesting persons of
+the time to sit to him. The lovely face of Kitty Fisher was painted by
+him five times, and no less frequently that of the charming actress,
+Mrs. Abington, who was also noted for her _bel esprit_, and was
+evidently a favorite with the great painter. There are two or three
+pictures of Mrs. Siddons by his hand, and many of the beautiful Maria
+Countess Waldegrave, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester, a lock of whose
+"delicate golden-brown" hair was found by Mr. Taylor in a side-pocket of
+one of Sir Joshua's note-books,--"loveliest of all, whom Reynolds seems
+never to have been tired of painting, nor she of sitting to him."
+
+Of his numerous and invaluable pictures of Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith and
+Admiral Keppel, it is hardly necessary to speak. Many of them are well
+known to us from engravings.
+
+To a painter, this Life is of incalculable interest and value. The
+account of his manner of handling "the vehicles" is minute and faithful;
+and if, as Northcote complained, who was a pupil of Reynolds, Sir Joshua
+could not teach, he could only show you how he worked,--many an artist
+can gather from these pages what Northcote gathered by looking from
+palette to canvas. The descriptions of some of the paintings are rich in
+color, and are worthy of the highest praise.
+
+Sir Joshua Reynolds is one of the few men of genius who have been also
+men of society. In his note-books for the year, sometimes the number of
+engagements for dinners and visits would preponderate over the number of
+his sitters, and sometimes the scale would be about equal. Yet the
+amount of the latter was always astonishingly large. Perhaps no man,
+through a long series of years, was more esteemed and sought by the most
+honorable in society than he; while his diary, with its meagre jottings,
+brings before us a motley and phantasmagorical procession of the wisest
+and wittiest, the most beautiful and most notorious men and women of
+that period, who thronged his studio. We can see the bitterest political
+opponents passing each other upon the threshold of his painting-room,
+and, what was far more agreeable to Sir Joshua than having to do with
+these stormy petrels, we can see the worshipping knight and his lovely
+mistress, or the fair-cheeked children of many a lady whom he had
+painted, years before, in the first blossoming of her own youth.
+
+The gentleness and natural amiability of his disposition eminently
+fitted him for the high social position he attained; but the fervor he
+felt for his work made him forget everything foreign to it until the
+hour arrived when he must leave his painting-room. He was fond of
+receiving company, especially at dinner, and his dinners were always
+most agreeable. He often annoyed his sister, Miss Reynolds, who presided
+over his household for a time, by inviting any friends who might happen
+into his studio in the morning to come to dine with him at night, quite
+forgetting that the number of seats he had provided was already filled
+by guests previously asked. The result was what might be expected, and
+it was often simply bare good fortune if everybody had enough to eat.
+But, "though the dinner might be careless and inelegant, and the
+servants awkward and too few," the talk was always pleasant, and no
+invitations to dine were more eagerly accepted than his.
+
+It was on the principle, perhaps, that "to the feasts of the good the
+good come uninvited," that Dr. Johnson made it a point to be present on
+these occasions, and was seldom welcomed otherwise than most cordially
+by Sir Joshua. On one occasion, however, when another guest was expected
+to converse, Sir Joshua was really vexed to find Dr. Johnson in the
+drawing-room, and would hardly speak to him. Miss Reynolds, who appears
+to have been one of the "unappreciated and misunderstood" women who
+thought she was a painter when she was not, and of whose copies Sir
+Joshua said, "They make other people laugh, and me cry," became a great
+favorite with Dr. Johnson, who probably knew how to sympathize with the
+morbid sensitiveness of the poor lady. She seems never to have tired of
+pouring tea for him! He, in return, wrote doggerel verses to her over
+the tea-tray in this fashion:--
+
+    "I therefore pray thee, Renny dear,
+      That thou wilt give to me,
+    With cream and sugar softened well,
+      Another dish of tea.
+
+    "Nor fear that I, my gentle maid,
+      Shall long detain the cup,
+    When once unto the bottom I
+      Have drunk the liquor up.
+
+    "Yet hear, alas! this mournful truth,
+      Nor hear it with a frown:
+    Thou canst not make the tea so fast
+      As I can gulp it down."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No.
+102, April, 1866, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***
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