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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85,
+November, 1864, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 21, 2008 [EBook #24885]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NOVEMBER 1864 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by Cornell University Digital Collections).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. XIV.--NOVEMBER, 1864.--NO. LXXXV.
+
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by TICKNOR AND
+FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article.
+
+
+
+
+LEAVES FROM AN OFFICER'S JOURNAL.
+
+
+I.
+
+[I wish to record, as truthfully as I may, the beginnings of a momentous
+experiment, which, by proving the aptitude of the freed slaves for
+military drill and discipline, their ardent loyalty, their courage under
+fire, and their self-control in success, contributed somewhat towards
+solving the problem of the war, and towards remoulding the destinies of
+two races on this continent.
+
+During a civil war events succeed each other so rapidly that these
+earlier incidents are long since overshadowed. The colored soldiery are
+now numbered no longer by hundreds, but by tens of thousands. Yet there
+was a period when the whole enterprise seemed the most daring of
+innovations, and during those months the demeanor of this particular
+regiment, the First South Carolina, was watched with microscopic
+scrutiny by friends and foes. Its officers had reason to know this,
+since the slightest camp-incidents sometimes came back to them,
+magnified and distorted, in anxious letters of inquiry from remote parts
+of the Union. It was no pleasant thing to live in this glare of
+criticism; but it guarantied the honesty of any success, while fearfully
+multiplying the penalties, had there been a failure. A single mutiny, a
+single rout, a stampede of desertions,--and there perhaps might not have
+been, within this century, another systematic effort to arm the negro.
+
+It is possible, therefore, that some extracts from a diary kept during
+that period may still have an interest; for there is nothing in human
+history so momentous as the transit of a race from chattel-slavery to
+armed freedom; nor can this change be photographed save by the actual
+contemporaneous words of those who saw it in the process. Perhaps there
+may also appear an element of dramatic interest in the record, when one
+considers that here, in the delightful regions of Port Royal, the
+descendants of the Puritan and the Huguenot, after two centuries, came
+face to face,--and that sons of Massachusetts, reversing the boastful
+threat which has become historic, here called the roll, upon
+South-Carolina soil, of her slaves, now freemen in arms.]
+
+
+                                 CAMP SAXTON, near Beaufort, S. C.
+                                              _November 24, 1862._
+
+Yesterday afternoon we were steaming over a summer sea, the deck level
+as a parlor-floor, no land in sight, no sail, until at last appeared one
+light-house, said to be Cape Romaine, and then a line of trees and two
+distant vessels and nothing more. The sun set, a great illuminated
+bubble, submerged in one vast bank of rosy suffusion; it grew dark;
+after tea all were on deck, the people sang hymns; then the moon set, a
+moon two days old, a curved pencil of light, reclining backwards on a
+radiant couch which seemed to rise from the waves to receive it; it sank
+slowly, and the last tip wavered and went down like the mast of a vessel
+of the skies. Towards morning the boat stopped, and when I came on deck,
+before six,--
+
+    "The watch-lights glittered on the land,
+      The ship-lights on the sea."
+
+Hilton Head lay on one side, the gunboats on the other; all that was raw
+and bare in the low buildings of the new settlement was softened into
+picturesqueness by the early light. Stars were still overhead, gulls
+wheeled and shrieked, and the broad river rippled duskily towards
+Beaufort.
+
+The shores were low and wooded, like any New-England shore; there were a
+few gunboats, twenty schooners, and some steamers, among them the famous
+"Planter," which Robert Small, the slave, presented to the nation. The
+river-banks were soft and graceful, though low, and as we steamed up to
+Beaufort on the flood-tide this morning, it seemed almost as fair as the
+smooth and lovely canals which Stedman traversed to meet his negro
+soldiers in Surinam. The air was cool as at home, yet the foliage seemed
+green, glimpses of stiff tropical vegetation appeared along the banks,
+with great clumps of shrubs whose pale seed-vessels looked like tardy
+blossoms. Then we saw on a picturesque point an old plantation, with
+stately magnolia avenue, decaying house, and tiny church amid the woods,
+reminding me of Virginia; behind it stood a neat encampment of white
+tents, "and there," said my companion, "is your future regiment of negro
+soldiers."
+
+Three miles farther brought us to the pretty town of Beaufort, with its
+stately houses amid Southern foliage. Reporting to General Saxton, I had
+the luck to encounter a company of my destined command, marched in to be
+mustered into the United States service. They were without arms, and all
+looked as thoroughly black as the most faithful philanthropist could
+desire; there did not seem to be so much as a mulatto among them. Their
+coloring suited me, all but the legs, which were clad in a lively
+scarlet, as intolerable to my eyes as if I had been a turkey. I saw them
+mustered; General Saxton talked to them a little, in his direct, manly
+way; they gave close attention, though their faces looked impenetrable.
+Then I conversed with some of them. The first to whom I spoke had been
+wounded in a small expedition after lumber, from which a party had just
+returned, and in which they had been under fire and had done very well.
+I said, pointing to his lame arm,--
+
+"Did you think that was more than you bargained for, my man?"
+
+His answer came promptly and stoutly,--
+
+"I been a-tinking, Mas'r, _dat's jess what I went for_."
+
+I thought this did well enough for my very first interchange of dialogue
+with my recruits.
+
+
+                                         _November 27, 1862._
+
+Thanksgiving-Day; it is the first moment I have had for writing during
+these three days, which have installed me into a new mode of life so
+thoroughly that they seem three years. Scarcely pausing in New York or
+in Beaufort, there seems to have been for me but one step from the camp
+of a Massachusetts regiment to this one, and that step over leagues of
+waves.
+
+It is a holiday wherever General Saxton's proclamation reaches. The
+chilly sunshine and the pale blue river seem like New England, but those
+alone. The air is full of noisy drumming and of gunshots; for the
+prize-shooting is our great celebration of the day, and the drumming is
+chronic. My young barbarians are all at play. I look out from the broken
+windows of this forlorn plantation-house, through avenues of great
+live-oaks, with their hard, shining leaves, and their branches hung with
+a universal drapery of soft, long moss, like fringe-trees struck with
+grayness. Below, the sandy soil, scantly covered with coarse grass,
+bristles with sharp palmettoes and aloes; all the vegetation is stiff,
+shining, semi-tropical, with nothing soft or delicate in its texture.
+Numerous plantation-buildings totter around, all slovenly and
+unattractive, while the interspaces are filled with all manner of wreck
+and refuse, pigs, fowls, dogs, and omnipresent Ethiopian infancy. All
+this is the universal Southern panorama; but five minutes' walk beyond
+the hovels and the live-oaks bring one to something so un-Southern that
+the whole Southern coast at this moment trembles at the suggestion of
+such a thing,--the camp of a regiment of freed slaves.
+
+One adapts one's self so readily to new surroundings that already the
+full zest of the novelty seems passing away from my perceptions, and I
+write these lines in an eager effort to retain all I can. Already I am
+growing used to the experience, at first so novel, of living among five
+hundred men, and scarce a white face to be seen,--of seeing them go
+through all their daily processes, eating, frolicking, talking, just as
+if they were white. Each day at dress-parade I stand with the customary
+folding of the arms before a regimental line of countenances so black
+that I can hardly tell whether the men stand steadily or not; black is
+every hand which moves in ready cadence as I vociferate, "Battalion!
+Shoulder arms!" nor is it till the line of white officers moves forward,
+as parade is dismissed, that I am reminded that my own face is not the
+color of coal.
+
+The first few days on duty with a new regiment must be devoted almost
+wholly to tightening reins; in this process one deals chiefly with the
+officers, and I have as yet had but little personal intercourse with the
+men. They concern me chiefly in bulk, as so many consumers of rations,
+wearers of uniforms, bearers of muskets. But as the machine comes into
+shape, I am beginning to decipher the individual parts. At first, of
+course, they all looked just alike; the variety comes afterwards, and
+they are just as distinguishable, the officers say, as so many whites.
+Most of them are wholly raw, but there are many who have already been
+for months in camp in the abortive "Hunter Regiment," yet in that loose
+kind of way which, like average militia-training, is a doubtful
+advantage. I notice that some companies, too, look darker than others,
+though all are purer African than I expected. This is said to be partly
+a geographical difference between the South-Carolina and Florida men.
+When the Rebels evacuated this region, they probably took with them the
+house-servants, including most of the mixed blood, so that the residuum
+seems very black. But the men brought from Fernandina the other day
+average lighter in complexion, and look more intelligent, and they
+certainly take wonderfully to the drill.
+
+It needs but a few days to show up the absurdity of distrusting the
+military availability of these people. They have quite as much average
+comprehension as whites of the need of the thing, as much courage, (I
+doubt not,) as much previous knowledge of the gun, and, above all, a
+readiness of ear and of imitation, which, for purposes of drill,
+counterbalances any defect of mental training. To learn the drill, one
+does not want a set of college professors; one wants a squad of eager,
+active, pliant school-boys; and the more childlike these pupils are, the
+better. There is no trouble about the drill; they will surpass whites
+in that. As to camp-life, they have little to sacrifice, they are better
+fed, housed, and clothed than ever in their lives before, and they
+appear to have fewer inconvenient vices. They are simple, docile, and
+affectionate almost to the point of absurdity. The same men who stood
+fire in open field with perfect coolness, on the late expedition, have
+come to me blubbering in the most irresistibly ludicrous manner on being
+transferred from one company in the regiment to another.
+
+In noticing the squad-drills, I perceive that the men learn less
+laboriously than whites that "double, double, toil and trouble," which
+is the elementary vexation of the drill-master,--that they more rarely
+mistake their left for their right,--and are more grave and sedate while
+under instruction. The extremes of jollity and sobriety, being greater
+with them, are less liable to be intermingled; these companies can be
+driven with a looser rein than my former one, for they restrain
+themselves; but the moment they are dismissed from drill, every tongue
+is relaxed and every ivory tooth visible. This morning I wandered about
+where the different companies were target-shooting, and their glee was
+contagious. Such exulting shouts of, "Ki! ole man," when some steady old
+turkey-shooter brought his gun down for an instant's aim, and then
+unerringly hit the mark; and then, when some unwary youth fired his
+piece into the ground at half-cock, such infinite guffawing and delight,
+such rolling over and over on the grass, such dances of ecstasy, as made
+the "Ethiopian minstrelsy" of the stage appear a feeble imitation.
+
+_Evening._--Better still was a scene on which I stumbled to-night.
+Strolling in the cool moonlight, I was attracted by a brilliant light
+beneath the trees, and cautiously approached it. A circle of thirty or
+forty soldiers sat around a roaring fire, while one old uncle, Cato by
+name, was narrating an interminable tale, to the insatiable delight of
+his audience. I came up into the dusky background, perceived only by a
+few, and he still continued. It was a narrative, dramatized to the last
+degree, of his adventures in escaping from his master to the Union
+vessels; and even I, who have heard the stories of Harriet Tubman, and
+such wonderful slave-comedians, never witnessed such a piece of acting.
+When I came upon the scene, he had just come unexpectedly upon a
+plantation-house, and, putting a bold face upon it, had walked up to the
+door.
+
+"Den I go up to de white man, very humble, and say, would he please gib
+ole man a mouthful for eat?
+
+"He say, he must hab de valeration of half a dollar.
+
+"Den I look berry sorry, and turn for go away.
+
+"Den he say, I might gib him dat hatchet I had.
+
+"Den I say," (this in a tragic vein,) "dat I must hab dat hatchet for
+defend myself _from de dogs_!"
+
+[Immense applause, and one appreciating auditor says, chuckling, "Dat
+was your _arms_, ole man," which brings down the house again.]
+
+"Den he say, de Yankee pickets was near by, and I must be very keerful.
+
+"Den I say, 'Good Lord, Mas'r, am dey?'"
+
+Words cannot express the complete dissimulation with which these accents
+of terror were uttered,--this being precisely the piece of information
+he wished to obtain.
+
+Then he narrated his devices to get into the house at night and obtain
+some food,--how a dog flew at him,--how the whole household, black and
+white, rose in pursuit,--how he scrambled under a hedge and over a high
+fence, etc.,--all in a style of which Gough alone among orators can give
+the faintest impression, so thoroughly dramatized was every syllable.
+
+Then he described his reaching the river-side at last, and trying to
+decide whether certain vessels held friends or foes.
+
+"Den I see guns on board, and sure sartin he Union boat, and I pop my
+head up. Den I been-a-tink [think] Seceshkey hab guns too, and my head
+go down again. Den I bide in de bush till morning. Den I open my bundle,
+and take ole white shirt and tie him on ole pole and wave him, and ebry
+time de wind blow, I been-a-tremble, and drap down in de
+bushes,"--because, being between two fires, he doubted whether friend or
+foe would see his signal first. And so on, with a succession of tricks
+beyond Molière, of acts of caution, foresight, patient cunning, which
+were listened to with infinite gusto and perfect comprehension by every
+listener.
+
+And all this to a bivouac of negro soldiers, with the brilliant fire
+lighting up their red trousers and gleaming from their shining black
+faces,--eyes and teeth all white with tumultuous glee. Overhead, the
+mighty limbs of a great live-oak, with the weird moss swaying in the
+smoke, and the high moon gleaming faintly through.
+
+Yet to-morrow strangers will remark on the hopeless, impenetrable
+stupidity in the daylight faces of many of these very men, the solid
+mask under which Nature has concealed all this wealth of mother-wit.
+This very comedian is one to whom one might point, as he hoed lazily in
+a cotton-field, as a being the light of whose brain had utterly gone
+out; and this scene seems like coming by night upon some conclave of
+black beetles, and finding them engaged, with green-room and
+foot-lights, in enacting "Poor Pillicoddy." This is their university;
+every young Sambo before me, as he turned over the sweet-potatoes and
+pea-nuts which were roasting in the ashes, listened with reverence to
+the wiles of the ancient Ulysses, and meditated the same. It is Nature's
+compensation; oppression simply crushes the upper faculties of the head,
+and crowds everything into the perceptive organs. Cato, thou reasonest
+well! When I get into any serious scrape, in an enemy's country, may I
+be lucky enough to have you at my elbow, to pull me out of it!
+
+The men seem to have enjoyed the novel event of Thanksgiving-Day; they
+have had company and regimental prize-shootings, a minimum of speeches
+and a maximum of dinner. Bill of fare: two beef-cattle and a thousand
+oranges. The oranges cost a cent apiece, and the cattle were Secesh,
+bestowed by General Saxby, as they all call him.
+
+
+                                              _December 1, 1862._
+
+How absurd is the impression bequeathed by Slavery in regard to these
+Southern blacks, that they are sluggish and inefficient in labor! Last
+night, after a hard day's work, (our guns and the remainder of our tents
+being just issued,) an order came from Beaufort that we should be ready
+in the evening to unload a steamboat's cargo of boards, being some of
+those captured by them a few weeks since, and now assigned for their
+use. I wondered if the men would grumble at the night-work; but the
+steamboat arrived by seven, and it was bright moonlight when they went
+at it. Never have I beheld such a jolly scene of labor. Tugging these
+wet and heavy boards over a bridge of boats ashore, then across the
+slimy beach at low tide, then up a steep bank, and all in one great
+uproar of merriment for two hours. Running most of the time, chattering
+all the time, snatching the boards from each other's backs as if they
+were some coveted treasure, getting up eager rivalries between different
+companies, pouring great choruses of ridicule on the heads of all
+shirkers, they made the whole scene so enlivening that I gladly stayed
+out in the moonlight for the whole time to watch it. And all this
+without any urging or any promised reward, but simply as the most
+natural way of doing the thing. The steamboat-captain declared that they
+unloaded the ten thousand feet of boards quicker than any white gang
+could have done it; and they felt it so little, that, when, later in the
+night, I reproached one whom I found sitting by a camp-fire, cooking a
+surreptitious opossum, telling him that he ought to be asleep after such
+a job of work, he answered, with the broadest grin,--
+
+"Oh, no, Cunnel, da's no work at all, Cunnel; dat only jess enough _for
+stretch we_."
+
+
+                                              _December 2, 1862._
+
+I believe I have not yet enumerated the probable drawbacks to the
+success of this regiment, if any. We are exposed to no direct annoyance
+from the white regiments, being out of their way; and we have as yet no
+discomforts or privations which we do not share with them. I do not as
+yet see the slightest obstacle, in the nature of the blacks, to making
+them good soldiers,--but rather the contrary. They take readily to
+drill, and do not object to discipline; they are not especially dull or
+inattentive; they seem fully to understand the importance of the
+contest, and of their share in it. They show no jealousy or suspicion
+towards their officers.
+
+They do show these feelings, however, towards the Government itself; and
+no one can wonder. Here lies the drawback to rapid recruiting. Were this
+a wholly new regiment, it would have been full to overflowing, I am
+satisfied, ere now. The trouble is in the legacy of bitter distrust
+bequeathed by the abortive regiment of General Hunter,--into which they
+were driven like cattle, kept for several months in camp, and then
+turned off without a shilling, by order of the War Department. The
+formation of that regiment was on the whole a great injury to this one;
+and the men who came from it, though the best soldiers we have in other
+respects, are the least sanguine and cheerful; while those who now
+refuse to enlist have a great influence in deterring others. Our
+soldiers are constantly twitted by their families and friends with their
+prospect of risking their lives in the service, and being paid nothing;
+and it is in vain that we read them the instructions of the Secretary of
+War to General Saxton, promising them the full pay of soldiers. They
+only half believe it.[A]
+
+Another drawback is that some of the white soldiers delight in
+frightening the women on the plantations with doleful tales of plans for
+putting us in the front rank in all battles, and such silly talk,--the
+object being, perhaps, to prevent our being employed on active service
+at all. All these considerations they feel precisely as white men
+would,--no less, no more; and it is the comparative freedom from such
+unfavorable influences which makes the Florida men seem more bold and
+manly, as they undoubtedly do. To-day General Saxton has returned from
+Fernandina with seventy-six recruits, and the eagerness of the captains
+to secure them was a sight to see. Yet they cannot deny that some of the
+very best men in the regiment are South Carolinians.
+
+
+                            _December 3, 1862._--7 P. M.
+
+What a life is this I lead! It is a dark, mild, drizzling evening, and
+as the foggy air breeds sand-flies, so it calls out melodies and strange
+antics from this mysterious race of grown-up children with whom my lot
+is cast. All over the camp the lights glimmer in the tents, and as I sit
+at my desk in the open doorway, there come mingled sounds of stir and
+glee. Boys laugh and shout,--a feeble flute stirs somewhere in some
+tent, not an officer's,--a drum throbs far away in another,--wild
+kildeer-plover flit and wail above us, like the haunting souls of dead
+slavemasters,--and from a neighboring cook-fire comes the monotonous
+sound of that strange festival, half powwow, half prayer-meeting, which
+they know only as a "shout." These fires are usually inclosed in a
+little booth, made neatly of palm-leaves and covered in at top, a
+regular native African hut, in short, such as is pictured in books, and
+such as I once got up from dried palm-leaves, for a fair, at home. This
+hut is now crammed with men, singing at the top of their voices, in one
+of their quaint, monotonous, endless, negro-Methodist chants, with
+obscure syllables recurring constantly, and slight variations
+interwoven, all accompanied with a regular drumming of the feet and
+clapping of the hands, like castanets. Then the excitement spreads:
+inside and outside the inclosure men begin to quiver and dance, others
+join, a circle forms, winding monotonously round some one in the centre;
+some "heel and toe" tumultuously, others merely tremble and stagger on,
+others stoop and rise, others whirl, others caper sideways, all keep
+steadily circling like dervishes; spectators applaud special strokes of
+skill; my approach only enlivens the scene; the circle enlarges, louder
+grows the singing, rousing shouts of encouragement come in, half
+bacchanalian, half devout, "Wake 'em, brudder!" "Stan' up to 'em,
+brudder!"--and still the ceaseless drumming and clapping, in perfect
+cadence, goes steadily on. Suddenly there comes a sort of _snap_, and
+the spell breaks, amid general sighing and laughter. And this not rarely
+and occasionally, but night after night,--while in other parts of the
+camp the soberest prayers and exhortations are proceeding sedately.
+
+A simple and lovable people, whose graces seem to come by nature, and
+whose vices by training. Some of the best superintendents confirm the
+early tales of innocence, and Dr. Zachos told me last night that on his
+plantation, a sequestered one, "they had absolutely no vices." Nor have
+these men of mine yet shown any worth mentioning; since I took command I
+have heard of no man intoxicated, and there has been but one small
+quarrel. I suppose that scarcely a white regiment in the army shows so
+little swearing. Take the "Progressive Friends" and put them in red
+trousers, and I verily believe they would fill a guard-house sooner than
+these men. If camp-regulations are violated, it seems to be usually
+through heedlessness. They love passionately three things, besides their
+spiritual incantations,--namely, sugar, home, and tobacco. This last
+affection brings tears to their eyes, almost, when they speak of their
+urgent need of pay: they speak of their last-remembered quid as if it
+were some deceased relative, too early lost, and to be mourned forever.
+As for sugar, no white man can drink coffee after they have sweetened it
+to their liking.
+
+I see that the pride which military life creates may cause the
+plantation-trickeries to diminish. For instance, these men make the most
+admirable sentinels. It is far harder to pass the camp-lines at night
+than in the camp from which I came; and I have seen none of that
+disposition to connive at the offences of members of one's own company
+which is so troublesome among white soldiers. Nor are they lazy, either
+about work or drill; in all respects they seem better material for
+soldiers than I had dared to hope.
+
+There is one company in particular, all Florida men, which I certainly
+think the finest-looking company I ever saw, white or black; they range
+admirably in size, have remarkable erectness and ease of carriage, and
+really march splendidly. Not a visitor but notices them; yet they have
+been under drill only a fortnight, and a part only two days. They have
+all been slaves, and very few are even mulattoes.
+
+
+                                              _December 4, 1862._
+
+"Dwelling in tents, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." This condition is
+certainly mine,--and with a multitude of patriarchs beside, not to
+mention Cæsar and Pompey, Hercules and Bacchus.
+
+A moving life, tented at night, this experience has been mine in civil
+society, if society be civil before the luxurious forest-fires of Maine
+and the Adirondack, or upon the lonely prairies of Kansas. But a
+stationary tent-life, deliberately going to housekeeping under canvas,
+I have never had before, though in our barrack-life at "Camp Wool" I
+often wished for it.
+
+The accommodations here are about as liberal as my quarters there, two
+wall-tents being placed end to end, for office and bed-room, and
+separated at will by a "fly" of canvas. There is a good board floor and
+mop-board, effectually excluding dampness and draughts, and everything
+but sand, which on windy days penetrates everywhere. The
+office-furniture consists of a good desk or secretary, a very clumsy and
+disastrous settee, and a remarkable chair. The desk is a bequest of the
+slaveholders, and the settee of the slaves, being ecclesiastical in its
+origin, and appertaining to the little old church or "praise-house," now
+used for commissary purposes. The chair is a composite structure: I
+found a cane seat on a dust-heap, which a black sergeant combined with
+two legs from a broken bedstead and two more from an oak-bough. I sit on
+it with a pride of conscious invention, mitigated by profound
+insecurity. Bedroom-furniture, a couch made of gun-boxes covered with
+condemned blankets, another settee, two pails, a tin cup, tin basin, (we
+prize any tin or wooden ware as savages prize iron,) and a valise,
+regulation-size. Seriously considered, nothing more appears needful,
+unless ambition might crave another chair for company, and, perhaps,
+something for a wash-stand higher than a settee.
+
+To-day it rains hard, and the wind quivers through the closed canvas,
+and makes one feel at sea. All the talk of the camp outside is fused
+into a cheerful and indistinguishable murmur, pierced through at every
+moment by the wail of the hovering plover. Sometimes a face, black or
+white, peers through the entrance with some message. Since the light
+readily penetrates, though the rain cannot, the tent conveys a feeling
+of charmed security, as if an invisible boundary checked the pattering
+drops and held the moaning wind. The front tent I share, as yet, with my
+adjutant; in the inner apartment I reign supreme, bounded in a nutshell,
+with no bad dreams.
+
+In all pleasant weather the outer "fly" is open, and men pass and
+repass, a chattering throng. I think of Emerson's Saadi, "As thou
+sittest at thy door, on the desert's yellow floor,"--for these bare
+sand-plains, gray above, are always yellow when upturned, and there
+seems a tinge of Orientalism in all our life.
+
+Thrice a day we go to the plantation-houses for our meals,
+camp-arrangements being yet very imperfect. The officers board in
+different messes, the adjutant and I still clinging to the household of
+William Washington,--William the quiet and the courteous, the pattern of
+house-servants, William the noiseless, the observing, the
+discriminating, who knows everything that can be got and how to cook it.
+William and his tidy, lady-like little spouse Hetty--a pair of wedded
+lovers, if ever I saw one--set our table in their one room, half-way
+between an unglazed window and a large wood-fire, such as is often
+welcome. Thanks to the adjutant, we are provided with the social
+magnificence of napkins; while (lest pride take too high a flight) our
+table-cloth consists of two "New York Tribunes" and a "Leslie's
+Pictorial." Every steamer brings us a clean table-cloth. Here are we
+forever supplied with pork and oysters and sweet-potatoes and rice and
+hominy and corn-bread and milk; also mysterious griddle-cakes of
+corn and pumpkin; also preserves made of pumpkin-chips, and other
+fanciful productions of Ethiop art. Mr. E. promised the
+plantation-superintendents who should come down here "all the luxuries
+of home," and we certainly have much apparent, if little real variety.
+Once William produced with some palpitation something fricasseed, which
+he boldly termed chicken; it was very small, and seemed in some
+undeveloped condition of ante-natal toughness. After the meal, he
+frankly avowed it for squirrel.
+
+
+                                              _December 5, 1862._
+
+Give these people their tongues, their feet, and their leisure, and they
+are happy. At every twilight the air is full of singing, talking, and
+clapping of hands in unison. One of their favorite songs is full of
+plaintive cadences; it is not, I think, a Methodist tune, and I wonder
+where they obtained a chant of such beauty.
+
+    "I can't stay behind, my Lord, I can't stay behind!
+    Oh, my father is gone, my father is gone,
+    My father is gone into heaven, my Lord!
+          I can't stay behind!
+    Dere's room enough, room enough,
+    Room enough in de heaven for de sojer:
+          Can't stay behind!"
+
+It always excites them to have us looking on, yet they sing these songs
+at all times and seasons. I have heard this very song dimly droning on
+near midnight, and, tracing it into the recesses of a cook-house, have
+found an old fellow coiled away among the pots and provisions, chanting
+away with his "Can't stay behind, sinner," till I made him leave his
+song behind.
+
+This evening, after working themselves up to the highest pitch, a party
+suddenly rushed off, got a barrel, and mounted some man upon it, who
+said, "Gib anoder song, boys, and I'se gib you a speech." After some
+hesitation and sundry shouts of "Rise de sing, somebody," and "Stan' up
+for Jesus, brudder," irreverently put in by the juveniles, they got upon
+the John Brown song, always a favorite, adding a jubilant verse which I
+had never before heard,--"We'll beat Beauregard on de clare
+battle-field." Then came the promised speech, and then no less than
+seven other speeches by as many men, on a variety of barrels, each
+orator being affectionately tugged to the pedestal and set on end by his
+special constituency. Every speech was good, without exception; with the
+queerest oddities of phrase and pronunciation, there was an invariable
+enthusiasm, a pungency of statement, and an understanding of the points
+at issue, which made them all rather thrilling. Those long-winded slaves
+in "Among the Pines" seemed rather fictitious and literary in
+comparison. The most eloquent, perhaps, was Corporal Prince Lambkin,
+just arrived from Fernandina, who evidently had a previous reputation
+among them. His historical references were very interesting: he reminded
+them that he had predicted this war ever since Fremont's time, to which
+some of the crowd assented; he gave a very intelligent account of that
+Presidential campaign, and then described most impressively the secret
+anxiety of the slaves in Florida to know all about President Lincoln's
+election, and told how they all refused to work on the fourth of March,
+expecting their freedom to date from that day. He finally brought out
+one of the few really impressive appeals for the American flag that I
+have ever heard. "Our mas'rs dey hab lib under de flag, dey got dere
+wealth under it, and ebryting beautiful for dere chilen. Under it dey
+hab grind us up, and put us in dere pocket for money. But de fus' minute
+dey tink dat ole nag mean freedom for we colored people, dey pull it
+right down, and run up de rag ob dere own." (Immense applause.) "But
+we'll neber desert de ole flag, boys, neber; we hab lib under it for
+_eighteen hundred sixty-two years_, and we'll die for it now." With
+which overpowering discharge of chronology-at-long-range, this most
+effective of stump-speeches closed. I see already with relief that there
+will be small demand in this regiment for harangues from the officers;
+give the men an empty barrel for a stump, and they will do their own
+exhortation.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] With what utter humiliation were we, their officers, obliged to
+confess to them, eighteen months afterwards, that it was their distrust
+which was wise, and our faith in the pledges of the United States
+Government which was foolishness!
+
+
+
+
+RICHES.
+
+
+    Pluck color from the morning sky,
+      And wear it as thy diadem;
+    Nor pass the wayside flowers by,
+        But star thy robes with them.
+
+    Far in the temple of the sun
+      The vestal fires of being burn;
+    Thence beauty's finest fibres run,
+        And weave where'er we turn.
+
+    Thy plumes are in the yellow corn,--
+      But chief the gold of priceless days
+    In bosom of thy friend is borne,
+        Coined in his kindly rays.
+
+    Here lies thy wealth, go gather it,--
+      The mine is near, its deeps explore,
+    And freely give love, metal, wit,--
+        Thine is the exhaustless ore:
+
+    Thine are the precious stones whereon
+      The weary pass grief's flooded ford,
+    And thine the jewelled pavement won
+        By those who love the Lord.
+
+
+
+
+THE VENGEANCE OF DOMINIC DE GOURGUES.
+
+
+There was a gentleman of Mont-de-Marsan, Dominic de Gourgues, a soldier
+of ancient birth and high renown. That he was a Huguenot is not certain.
+The Spanish annalist calls him a "terrible heretic"; but the French
+Jesuit, Charlevoix, anxious that the faithful should share the glory of
+his exploits, affirms, that, like his ancestors before him, he was a
+good Catholic. If so, his faith sat lightly upon him; and Catholic or
+heretic, he hated the Spaniards with a mortal hate. Fighting in the
+Italian wars,--for, from boyhood, he was wedded to the sword,--they had
+taken him prisoner near Siena, where he had signalized himself by a
+fiery and determined bravery. With brutal insult, they chained him to
+the oar as a galley-slave. After long endurance of this ignominy, the
+Turks had captured the vessel and carried her to Constantinople. It was
+but a change of tyrants; but, soon after, putting out on a cruise,
+Gourgues still at the oar, a galley of the Maltese knights hove in
+sight, bore down on the prize, recaptured her, and set the prisoner
+free. For several years after, his restless spirit found escape in
+voyages to Africa, Brazil, and regions yet more remote. His naval repute
+rose high, but his grudge against the Spaniards still rankled within
+him; and when, returned from his rovings, he learned the tidings from
+Florida, his hot Gascon blood boiled with fury.
+
+The honor of France had been foully stained, and there was none to wipe
+away the shame. The faction-ridden King was dumb. The nobles who
+surrounded him were in the Spanish interest. Then, since they proved
+recreant, he, Dominic de Gourgues, a simple gentleman, would take upon
+him to avenge the wrong, and restore the dimmed lustre of the French
+name. He sold his inheritance, borrowed money from his brother, who held
+a high post in Guienne, and equipped three small vessels, navigable by
+sail or oar. On board he placed a hundred arquebusiers and eighty
+sailors, prepared to fight on land, if need were. The noted Blaise de
+Montluc, then lieutenant for the King in Guienne, gave him a commission
+to make war on the negroes of Benin, that is, to kidnap them as slaves,
+an adventure then held honorable.
+
+His true design was locked within his own breast. He mustered his
+followers, feasted them,--not a few were of rank equal to his own,--and,
+on the twenty-second of August, 1567, sailed from the mouth of the
+Charente. Off Cape Finisterre, so violent a storm buffeted his ships
+that his men clamored to return; but Gourgues's spirit prevailed. He
+bore away for Barbary, and, landing at the Rio del Oro, refreshed and
+cheered them as he best might. Thence he sailed to Cape Blanco, where
+the jealous Portuguese, who had a fort in the neighborhood, set upon him
+three negro chiefs. Gourgues beat them off, and remained master of the
+harbor; whence, however, he soon voyaged onward to Cape Verd, and,
+steering westward, made for the West Indies. Here, advancing from island
+to island, he came to Hispaniola, where, between the fury of a hurricane
+at sea and the jealousy of the Spaniards on shore, he was in no small
+jeopardy,--"the Spaniards," exclaims the indignant journalist, "who
+think that this New World was made for nobody but them, and that no
+other man living has a right to move or breathe here!" Gourgues landed,
+however, obtained the water of which he was in need, and steered for
+Cape San Antonio, in Cuba. There he gathered his followers about him,
+and addressed them with his fiery Gascon eloquence. For the first time,
+he told them his true purpose. He inveighed against Spanish cruelty. He
+painted, with angry rhetoric, the butcheries of Fort Caroline and St.
+Augustine.
+
+"What disgrace," he cried, "if such an insult should pass unpunished!
+What glory to us, if we revenge it! To this I have devoted my fortune. I
+relied on you. I thought you jealous enough of your country's glory to
+sacrifice life itself in a cause like this. Was I deceived? I will show
+you the way; I will be always at your head; I will bear the brunt of
+danger. Will you refuse to follow me?"
+
+At first his startled hearers listened in silence; but soon the passions
+of that adventurous age rose responsive to his words. The sparks fell
+among gunpowder. The combustible French nature burst into flame. The
+enthusiasm of the soldiers rose to such a pitch that Gourgues had much
+ado to make them wait till the moon was full before tempting the perils
+of the Bahama Channel. His time came at length. The moon rode high above
+the lonely sea, and, silvered in its light, the ships of the avenger
+held their course.
+
+But how, meanwhile, had it fared with the Spaniards in Florida? The
+good-will of the Indians had vanished. The French had been obtrusive and
+vexatious guests; but their worst trespasses had been mercy and
+tenderness, to the daily outrage of the new-comers. Friendship had
+changed to aversion, aversion to hatred, hatred to open war. The
+forest-paths were beset; stragglers were cut off; and woe to the
+Spaniard who should venture after nightfall beyond call of the outposts!
+Menendez, however, had strengthened himself in his new conquest. St.
+Augustine was well fortified; Fort Caroline, now Fort San Mateo, was
+repaired; and two redoubts were thrown up to guard the mouth of the
+River of May. Thence, on an afternoon in April, the Spaniards saw three
+sail steering northward. Unsuspicious of an enemy, their batteries
+boomed a salute. Gourgues's ships replied, then stood out to sea, and
+were lost in the shades of evening.
+
+They kept their course all night, and, as day broke, anchored at the
+mouth of a river, the St. Mary's or the Santilla, by their reckoning
+fifteen leagues north of the River of May. Here, as it grew light,
+Gourgues saw the borders of the sea thronged with savages, armed and
+plumed for war. They, too, had mistaken the strangers for Spaniards, and
+mustered to meet their tyrants at the landing. But in the French ships
+there was a trumpeter who had been long in Florida, and knew the Indians
+well. He went towards them in a boat, with many gestures of friendship;
+and no sooner was he recognized than the naked crowd, with yelps of
+delight, danced for joy about the sands. Why had he ever left them? they
+asked; and why had he not returned before? The intercourse thus
+auspiciously begun was actively kept up. Gourgues told the principal
+chief--who was no other than Satouriona, of old the ally of the
+French--that he had come to visit them, make friendship with them, and
+bring them presents. At this last announcement, so grateful to Indian
+ears, the dancing was renewed with double zeal. The next morning was
+named for a grand council. Satouriona sent runners to summon all Indians
+within call; while Gourgues, for safety, brought his vessels within the
+mouth of the river.
+
+Morning came, and the woods were thronged with congregated warriors.
+Gourgues and his soldiers landed with martial pomp. In token of mutual
+confidence, the French laid aside their arquebuses, the Indians their
+bows and arrows. Satouriona came to meet the strangers, and seated their
+commander at his side, on a wooden stool, draped and cushioned with the
+gray Spanish moss. Two old Indians cleared the spot of brambles, weeds,
+and grass; and, their task finished, the tribesmen took their places in
+a ring, row within row, standing, sitting, and crouching on the ground,
+a dusky concourse, plumed in festal array, waiting with grave visages
+and eyes intent. Gourgues was about to speak, when the chief, who, says
+the narrator, had not learned French manners, rose and anticipated him.
+He broke into a vehement harangue; and the cruelty of the Spaniards was
+the burden of his words.
+
+Since the French fort was taken, he said, the Indians had not had one
+happy day. The Spaniards drove them from their cabins, stole their corn,
+ravished their wives and daughters, and killed their children; and all
+this they had endured because they loved the French. There was a French
+boy who had escaped from the massacre at the fort. They had found him in
+the woods, and though the Spaniards, who wished to kill him, demanded
+that they should give him up, they had kept him for his friends.
+
+"Look!" pursued the chief, "here he is!"--and he brought forward a youth
+of sixteen, named Pierre Debré, who became at once of the greatest
+service to the French, his knowledge of the Indian language making him
+an excellent interpreter.
+
+Delighted as he was at this outburst against the Spaniards, Gourgues by
+no means saw fit to display the full extent of his satisfaction. He
+thanked the Indians for their good-will, exhorted them to continue in
+it, and pronounced an ill-merited eulogy on the greatness and goodness
+of his King. As for the Spaniards, he said, their day of reckoning was
+at hand; and if the Indians had been abused for their love of the
+French, the French would be their avengers. Here Satouriona forgot his
+dignity, and leaped up for joy.
+
+"What!" he cried, "will you fight the Spaniards?"
+
+"I came here," replied Gourgues, "only to reconnoitre the country and
+make friends with you, then to go back and bring more soldiers; but when
+I hear what you are suffering from them, I wish to fall upon them this
+very day, and rescue you from their tyranny." And, all around the ring,
+a clamor of applauding voices greeted his words.
+
+"But you will do your part," pursued the Frenchman; "you will not leave
+us all the honor."
+
+"We will go," replied Satouriona, "and die with you, if need be."
+
+"Then, if we fight, we ought to fight at once. How soon can you have
+your warriors ready to march?"
+
+The chief asked three days for preparation. Gourgues cautioned him to
+secrecy, lest the Spaniards should take alarm.
+
+"Never fear," was the answer; "we hate them more than you do."
+
+Then came a distribution of gifts,--knives, hatchets, mirrors, bells,
+and beads,--while the warrior-rabble crowded to receive them, with eager
+faces, and tawny arms outstretched. The distribution over, Gourgues
+asked the chiefs if there was any other matter in which he could serve
+them. On this, pointing at his shirt, they expressed a peculiar
+admiration for that garment, and begged each to have one, to be worn at
+feasts and councils during life, and in their graves after death.
+Gourgues complied; and his grateful confederates were soon stalking
+about him, fluttering in the spoils of his ravished wardrobe.
+
+To learn the strength and position of the Spaniards, Gourgues now sent
+out three scouts; and with them went Olotoraca, Satouriona's nephew, a
+young brave of great renown.
+
+The chief, eager to prove his good faith, gave as hostages his only son
+and his favorite wife. They were sent on board the ships, while the
+savage concourse dispersed to their encampments, with leaping, stamping,
+dancing, and whoops of jubilation.
+
+The day appointed came, and with it the savage army, hideous in
+war-paint and plumed for battle. Their ceremonies began. The woods rang
+back their songs and yells, as with frantic gesticulations they
+brandished their war-clubs and vaunted their deeds of prowess. Then they
+drank the black drink, endowed with mystic virtues to steel them against
+hardship and danger; and Gourgues himself pretended to swallow the
+nauseous decoction.
+
+These ceremonies consumed the day. It was evening before the allies
+filed off into their forests, and took the path for the Spanish forts.
+The French, on their part, were to repair by sea to the rendezvous.
+Gourgues mustered and addressed his men. It was needless: their ardor
+was at fever-height. They broke in upon his words, and demanded to be
+led at once against the enemy. Francis Bourdelois, with twenty sailors,
+was left with the ships. Gourgues affectionately bade him farewell.
+
+"If I am slain in this most just enterprise," he said, "I leave all in
+your charge, and pray you to carry back my soldiers to France."
+
+There were many embracings among the excited Frenchmen,--many
+sympathetic tears from those who were to stay behind,--many messages
+left with them for wives, children, friends, and mistresses; and then
+this valiant handful pushed their boats from shore. It was a
+hare-brained venture, for, as young Debré had assured them, the
+Spaniards on the River of May were four hundred in number, secure behind
+their ramparts.
+
+Hour after hour the sailors pulled at the oar. They glided slowly past
+the sombre shores by the shimmering moonlight, the sound of the
+murmuring surf and the moaning pine-trees. In the gray of the morning,
+they came to the mouth of a river, probably the Nassau; and here a
+northeast wind set in with a violence that almost wrecked their boats.
+Their Indian allies were waiting on the bank, but for a while the gale
+delayed their crossing. The bolder French would lose no time, rowed
+through the tossing waves, and, landing safely, left their boats, and
+pushed into the forest. Gourgues took the lead, in breastplate and
+back-piece. At his side marched the young chief Olotoraca, a French pike
+in his hand; and the files of arquebuse-men and armed sailors followed
+close behind. They plunged through swamps, hewed their way through
+brambly thickets and the matted intricacies of the forests, and, at five
+in the afternoon, wellnigh spent with fatigue and hunger, came to a
+river or inlet of the sea, not far from the first Spanish fort. Here
+they found three hundred Indians waiting for them.
+
+Tired as he was, Gourgues would not rest. He would fain attack at
+daybreak, and with ten arquebusiers and his Indian guide he set forth to
+reconnoitre. Night closed upon him. It was a vain task to struggle on,
+in pitchy darkness, among trunks of trees, fallen logs, tangled vines,
+and swollen streams. Gourgues returned, anxious and gloomy. An Indian
+chief approached him, read through the darkness his perturbed look, and
+offered to lead him by a better path along the margin of the sea.
+Gourgues joyfully assented, and ordered all his men to march. The
+Indians, better skilled in woodcraft, chose the shorter course through
+the forest.
+
+The French forgot their weariness, and pressed on at speed. At dawn they
+and their allies met on the bank of a stream, beyond which, and very
+near, was the fort. But the tide was in. They essayed to cross in vain.
+Greatly vexed,--for he had hoped to take the enemy asleep,--Gourgues
+withdrew his soldiers into the forest, where they were no sooner
+ensconced than a drenching rain fell, and they had much ado to keep
+their gun-matches burning. The light grew apace. Gourgues plainly saw
+the fort, whose defences seemed slight and unfinished. He even saw the
+Spaniards at work within. A feverish interval elapsed. At length the
+tide was out,--so far, at least, that the stream was fordable. A little
+higher up, a clump of woods lay between it and the fort. Behind this
+friendly screen the passage was begun. Each man tied his powder-flask to
+his steel cap, held his arquebuse above his head with one hand and
+grasped his sword with the other. The channel was a bed of oysters. The
+sharp shells cut their feet as they waded through. But the farther bank
+was gained. They emerged from the water, drenched, lacerated, bleeding,
+but with unabated mettle. Under cover of the trees Gourgues set them in
+array. They stood with kindling eyes, and hearts throbbing, but not with
+fear. Gourgues pointed to the Spanish fort, seen by glimpses between the
+bushes and brown trunks. "Look!" he said, "there are the robbers who
+have stolen this land from our King; there are the murderers who have
+butchered our countrymen!" With voices eager, fierce, but half
+suppressed, they demanded to be led on.
+
+Gourgues gave the word. Cazenove, his lieutenant, with thirty men,
+pushed for the fort-gate; himself, with the main body, for the glacis.
+It was near noon; the Spaniards had just risen from table, and, says the
+narrative, "were still picking their teeth," when a startled cry rang in
+their ears,--
+
+"To arms! to arms! The French are coming! the French are coming!"
+
+It was the voice of a cannoneer who had that moment mounted the rampart
+and seen the assailants advancing in unbroken ranks, with heads lowered
+and weapons at the charge. He fired his cannon among them. He even had
+time to load and fire again, when the light-limbed Olotoraca bounded
+forward, ran up the glacis, leaped the unfinished ditch, and drove his
+pike through the Spaniard from breast to back. Gourgues was now on the
+glacis, when he heard Cazenove shouting from the gate that the Spaniards
+were escaping on that side. He turned and led his men thither at a run.
+In a moment, the fugitives, sixty in all, were inclosed between his
+party and that of his lieutenant. The Indians, too, came leaping to the
+spot. Not a Spaniard escaped. All were cut down but a few, reserved by
+Gourgues for a more inglorious end.
+
+Meanwhile the Spaniards in the other fort, on the opposite shore,
+cannonaded the victors without ceasing. The latter turned four captured
+guns against them. One of Gourgues's boats, a very large one, had been
+brought along-shore. He entered it, with eighty soldiers, and pushed for
+the farther bank. With loud yells, the Indians leaped into the water.
+From shore to shore, the St. John's was alive with them. Each held his
+bow and arrows aloft in one hand, while he swam with the other. A panic
+seized the garrison as they saw the savage multitude. They broke out of
+the fort and fled into the forest. But the French had already landed;
+and throwing themselves in the path of the fugitives, they greeted them
+with a storm of lead. The terrified wretches recoiled; but flight was
+vain. The Indian whoop rang behind them; war-clubs and arrows finished
+the work. Gourgues's utmost efforts saved but fifteen,--saved them, not
+out of mercy, but from a refinement of vengeance.
+
+The next day was Quasimodo Sunday, or the Sunday after Easter. Gourgues
+and his men remained quiet, making ladders for the assault on Fort San
+Mateo. Meanwhile the whole forest was in arms, and, far and near, the
+Indians were wild with excitement. They beset the Spanish fort till not
+a soldier could venture out. The garrison, conscious of their danger,
+though ignorant of its extent, devised an expedient to gain information,
+and one of them, painted and feathered like an Indian, ventured within
+Gourgues's outposts. He himself chanced to be at hand, and by his side
+walked his constant attendant, Olotoraca. The keen-eyed young savage
+pierced the cheat at a glance. The spy was seized, and, being examined,
+declared that there were two hundred and sixty Spaniards in San Mateo,
+that they believed the French to be two thousand, and were so frightened
+that they did not know what they did.
+
+Gourgues, well pleased, pushed on to attack them. On Monday evening he
+sent forward the Indians to ambush themselves on both sides of the fort.
+In the morning he followed with his Frenchmen; and as the glittering
+ranks came into view, defiling between the forest and the river, the
+Spaniards opened on them with culverins from a projecting bastion. The
+French took cover in the forest with which the hills below and behind
+the fort were densely overgrown. Here, ensconced in the edge of the
+woods, where, himself unseen, he could survey the whole extent of the
+defences, Gourgues presently descried a strong party of Spaniards
+issuing from their works, crossing the ditch, and advancing to
+reconnoitre. On this, returning to his men, he sent Cazenove, with a
+detachment, to station himself at a point well hidden by trees on the
+flank of the Spaniards. The latter, with strange infatuation, continued
+their advance. Gourgues and his followers pushed on through the thickets
+to meet them. As the Spaniards reached the edge of the clearing, a
+deadly fire blazed in their faces, and before the smoke cleared, the
+French were among them, sword in hand. The survivors would have fled;
+but Cazenove's detachment fell upon their rear, and all were killed or
+taken.
+
+When their comrades in the fort beheld their fate, a panic seized them.
+Conscious of their own deeds, perpetrated on this very spot, they could
+hope no mercy. Their terror multiplied immeasurably the numbers of their
+enemy. They deserted the fort in a body, and fled into the woods most
+remote from the French. But here a deadlier foe awaited them; for a host
+of Indians leaped up from ambush. Then rose those hideous war-cries
+which have curdled the boldest blood and blanched the manliest cheek.
+Then the forest-warriors, with savage ecstasy, wreaked their long
+arrears of vengeance. The French, too, hastened to the spot, and lent
+their swords to the slaughter. A few prisoners were saved alive; the
+rest were slain; and thus did the Spaniards make bloody atonement for
+the butchery of Fort Caroline.
+
+But Gourgues's vengeance was not yet appeased. Hard by the fort, the
+trees were pointed out to him on which Menendez had hanged his captives,
+and placed over them the inscription,--"Not as Frenchmen, but as
+Lutherans."
+
+Gourgues ordered the Spanish prisoners to be led thither.
+
+"Did you think," he sternly said, as the pallid wretches stood ranged
+before him, "that so vile a treachery, so detestable a cruelty, against
+a King so potent and a nation so generous, would go unpunished? I, one
+of the humblest gentlemen among my King's subjects, have charged myself
+with avenging it. Even if the Most Christian and the Most Catholic Kings
+had been enemies, at deadly war, such perfidy and extreme cruelty would
+still have been unpardonable. Now that they are friends and close
+allies, there is no name vile enough to brand your deeds, no punishment
+sharp enough to requite them. But though you cannot suffer as you
+deserve, you shall suffer all that an enemy can honorably inflict, that
+your example may teach others to observe the peace and alliance which
+you have so perfidiously violated."
+
+They were hanged where the French had hung before them; and over them
+was nailed the inscription, burned with a hot iron on a tablet of
+pine,--"Not as Spaniards, but as Traitors, Robbers, and Murderers."
+
+Gourgues's mission was fulfilled. To occupy the country had never been
+his intention; nor was it possible, for the Spaniards were still in
+force at St. Augustine. His was a whirlwind-visitation,--to ravage,
+ruin, and vanish. He harangued the Indians, and exhorted them to
+demolish the fort. They fell to the work with a keen alacrity, and in
+less than a day not one stone was left on another.
+
+Gourgues returned to the forts at the mouth of the river, destroyed them
+also, and took up his march for his ships. It was a triumphal
+procession. The Indians thronged around the victors with gifts of fish
+and game; and an old woman declared that she was now ready to die, since
+she had seen the French once more.
+
+The ships were ready for sea. Gourgues bade his disconsolate allies
+farewell, and nothing would content them but a promise to return soon.
+Before embarking, he addressed his own men:--
+
+"My friends, let us give thanks to God for the success He has granted
+us. It is He who saved us from tempests; it is He who inclined the
+hearts of the Indians towards us; it is He who blinded the understanding
+of the Spaniards. They were four to one in forts well armed and
+provisioned. We had nothing but our right; and yet we have conquered.
+Not to our own strength, but to God only, we owe our victory. Then let
+us thank Him, my friends; let us never forget His favors; and let us
+pray that He may continue them, saving us from dangers, and guiding us
+safely home. Let us pray, too, that He may so dispose the hearts of men
+that our perils and toils may find favor in the eyes of our King and of
+all France, since all we have done was done for the King's service and
+for the honor of our country."
+
+Thus Spaniards and Frenchmen alike laid their reeking swords on God's
+altar.
+
+Gourgues sailed on the third of May, and, gazing back along their
+foaming wake, the adventurers looked their last on the scene of their
+exploits. Their success had had its price. A few of their number had
+fallen, and hardships still awaited the survivors. Gourgues, however,
+reached Rochelle on the day of Pentecost, and the Huguenot citizens
+greeted him with all honor. At court it fared worse with him. The King,
+still obsequious to Spain, looked on him coldly and askance. The Spanish
+minister demanded his head. It was hinted to him that he was not safe,
+and he withdrew to Rouen, where he found asylum among his friends. His
+fortune was gone; debts contracted for his expedition weighed heavily on
+him; and for years he lived in obscurity, almost in misery. At length a
+dawn brightened for him. Elizabeth of England learned his merits and
+his misfortunes, and invited him to enter her service. The King, who,
+says the Jesuit historian, had always at heart been delighted with his
+achievement, openly restored him to favor; while, some years later, Don
+Antonio tendered him command of his fleet to defend his right to the
+crown of Portugal against Philip II. Gourgues, happy once more to cross
+swords with the Spaniards, gladly embraced this offer; but, on his way
+to join the Portuguese prince, he died at Tours of a sudden illness. The
+French mourned the loss of the man who had wiped a blot from the
+national scutcheon, and respected his memory as that of one of the best
+captains of his time. And, in truth, if a zealous patriotism, a fiery
+valor, and skilful leadership are worthy of honor, then is such tribute
+due to Dominic de Gourgues, despite the shadowing vices which even the
+spirit of that wild age can only palliate, the personal hate that aided
+the impulse of his patriotism, and the implacable cruelty that sullied
+his courage.
+
+Romantic as his exploit was, it lacked the fulness of poetic justice,
+since the chief offender escaped him. While Gourgues was sailing towards
+Florida, Menendez was in Spain, high in favor at court, where he told to
+approving ears how he had butchered the heretics. Borgia, the sainted
+General of the Jesuits, was his fast friend; and two years later, when
+he returned to America, the Pope, Paul V., regarding him as an
+instrument for the conversion of the Indians, wrote him a letter with
+his benediction. He reëstablished his power in Florida, rebuilt Fort San
+Mateo, and taught the Indians that death or flight was the only refuge
+from Spanish tyranny. They murdered his missionaries and spurned their
+doctrine. "The Devil is the best thing in the world," they cried; "we
+adore him; he makes men brave." Even the Jesuits despaired, and
+abandoned Florida in disgust.
+
+Menendez was summoned home, where fresh honors awaited him from the
+crown, though, according to the somewhat doubtful assertion of the
+heretical Grotius, his deeds had left a stain upon his name among the
+people. He was given command of the armada of three hundred sail and
+twenty thousand men, which, in 1574, was gathered at Santander against
+England and Flanders. But now, at the climax of his fortunes, his career
+was abruptly closed. He died suddenly, at the age of fifty-five. What
+caused his death? Grotius affirms that he killed himself; but, in his
+eagerness to point the moral of his story, he seems to have overstepped
+the bounds of historic truth. The Spanish bigot was rarely a suicide,
+for the rights of Christian burial and repose in consecrated ground were
+denied to the remains of the self-murderer. There is positive evidence,
+too, in a codicil to the will of Menendez, dated at Santander on the
+fifteenth of September, 1574, that he was on that day seriously ill,
+though, as the instrument declares, "sound of mind." There is reason,
+then, to believe that this pious cut-throat died a natural death,
+crowned with honors, and compassed by the consolations of his religion.
+
+It was he who crushed French Protestantism in America. To plant
+religious freedom on this Western soil was not the mission of France. It
+was for her to rear in Northern forests the banner of Absolutism and of
+Rome; while, among the rocks of Massachusetts, England and Calvin
+fronted her in dogged and deadly opposition.
+
+Civilization in North America found its pioneer, its forlorn hope, less
+in England than in France. For, long before the ice-crusted pines of
+Plymouth had listened to the rugged psalmody of the Puritan, the
+solitudes of Western New York and the shadowy wilderness of Lake Huron
+were trodden by the iron heel of the soldier and the sandalled foot of
+the Franciscan friar. They who bore the fleur-de-lis were always in the
+van, patient, daring, indomitable. And foremost on this bright roll of
+forest-chivalry stands the half-forgotten name of Samuel de Champlain.
+
+
+
+
+LINA.
+
+
+The evenings were always dull and long to those of us who were too far
+from home to make it worth while to leave the school for the eight weeks
+of holiday. It was dreary indeed sitting in the great school-room, with
+its long rows of empty desks, with nothing before one to break the
+monotony of the four walls but the great map of France and the big dusty
+cross with its dingy wreath of _immortelles_. It is true, we did not
+bewail the absence of our companions. In fact, it was with a tranquil
+sense of security that I began my work every morning in vacation,
+knowing that I should find all my books in my desk, and my pens and
+pencils undisturbed; for among the _pensionnaires_ there existed a
+strong tendency to communistic principles. Still, when all the noisy
+crew had departed, the house seemed lonely, the dining-room with its
+three bare tables looked desolate, and an unnatural stillness reigned in
+the shady pathways of the garden. You might wander from room to room,
+and up and down the stairs, and to and fro in the long passages, and
+meet no one. Fräulein Christine was with her "_Liebes Mütterchen_" in
+Strasburg, and Mademoiselle had left her weary post in the middle of the
+school-room for her quiet village-home in Normandy. Madame herself
+remained almost entirely invisible, shut up in the sanctity of her own
+rooms; and so the whole house had a sense of stillness that seemed only
+heightened by the glory of the autumn sunshine, and the hum of bees and
+rustle of leaves that filled the air outside.
+
+The house was old; it had been a grand mansion once, before the days of
+the Revolution, and had probably been the residence of some of the stiff
+old worthies whose portraits hung in dreary dignity in the disused dusty
+galleries of the _château_, which now, turned into a _citadelle_, stood
+upon a high point of the cliffs commanding the town. The term _rambling_
+might well be applied to this house, for in its eccentric construction
+it seemed to have wandered at will half-way up the hill-side on which it
+was built. It had wings and abutments, and flights of stone steps
+leading from one part to another. There was "_la grande maison de
+Madame_," "_la maison du jardin_," and "_la maison de Monsieur_." This
+last, half hidden in trees, was _terra incognita_ to the girls; but
+often in an evening, after we had seen him wending his way across the
+garden with his lantern from _la grande maison_, where he had been
+spending the evening with Madame, did we hear Monsieur playing on his
+organ glorious "bits" of Cherubini and Bach.
+
+We were conscious that this odd little man carried on a system of
+espionage through the half-closed slats of his shutters, the effects of
+which we were continually made to feel; this, and the mystery that
+enveloped his small abode, where he worked all day among his bottles and
+retorts, made Monsieur appear somewhat of an ogre in our eyes. There was
+always a sense of freedom in the upper garden, which was out of the
+range of his windows, and where he never came. That pleasant upper
+garden, what a paradise it was, with its long sunny walks within the
+shelter of high walls! The trim stateliness of the ancient splendor had
+run to luxuriant disorder, and thick tangles of rare roses swung abroad
+their boughs above great beds of lilies-of-the-valley and periwinkle
+which had overrun their borders and crept into the walks.
+
+During the vacation, we who stayed had the privilege of going into the
+upper garden. Obtaining the key from Justine, we would wander first
+along the shady pathways of the lower garden, past the flower-beds where
+the girls during recess-times worked and gossiped and quarrelled,--their
+quick French tongues reminding one of a colony of sparrows,--then,
+turning the stubborn lock of the heavy door that opened on the flight
+of mossy steps, we came into that region of stillness and delight, the
+upper garden.
+
+Oh, the pleasant autumn afternoons spent sitting together on the mossy
+walk between the box-hedges, the hum of bees and the scent of roses
+filling the air, and the sweet monotonous murmur of the sea on the
+shingly beach in our ears! For, mounting still higher by terraces and
+another flight of steps through a tumble-down gateway, you came upon the
+open cliffs; and the long blue line of the sea and the fresh sea-breeze
+greeted you with a thousand thoughts of home. For England lay beyond the
+trembling blue line.
+
+I remember it was one of these autumn afternoons, that, coming down from
+practising, with my music-books under my arm, I met Justine, the genius
+of the _ménage_, cook and housekeeper in one, a shrewd woman, who had
+three objects in life,--to manage _les bêtes_, as she condescendingly
+termed the other servants, to please Madame, whom she adored, and to go
+to church every Sunday and _grande fête_. Justine was coming in from the
+garden, with a basket on her arm, in which lay two pigeons that she had
+just killed. On her fingers she twirled the gory scissors with which she
+had performed the deed.
+
+"Good day, Justine! How is Madame?"
+
+"Madame is well, thank you, Mademoiselle,--a little headache, that is
+all,--that comes of so much learning and writing at night. _Mais voilà
+une femme superbe!_ I go to make her a little dinner of these," pointing
+to the pigeons.
+
+"Justine, _ma bonne_, won't you give us the key this afternoon?"
+
+Justine stops suddenly and clasps her fat hands emphatically over the
+lid of her basket.
+
+"I had almost forgotten, Mademoiselle. Madame desired me to tell the
+_demoiselles_ that she comes down this evening to sit in the _cabinet de
+musique_."
+
+I was delighted with this piece of intelligence, and ran to tell the
+others. It was not often that Madame deigned to come down-stairs of an
+evening, and were always glad when she did. In the first place, it was a
+pleasant break in the monotony of the general routine to sit and work
+and draw, instead of studying in the empty school-room; and secondly, it
+was delightful to be with Madame, when she threw off the character of
+preceptress,--for at such times she was infinitely agreeable,
+entertaining us in her bright French manner as if we had been her
+guests.
+
+Madame had a way of charming all who approached her, from Adelaide
+Sloper's rich, vulgar father, who, when he came to see his daughter, was
+entertained by Madame _au salon_, and who was overheard to declare, as
+he got into his grand carriage, that "that Frenchwoman was the finest
+woman, by Jove, he'd ever seen!" to the tiny witch Élise, whom nobody
+could manage, but who, at the first rustle of Madame's gown, would cease
+from her mischief, fold her small hands, and, sinking her bead-like
+black eyes, look as demure as such a sprite could. We all adored
+Madame,--not that she herself was very good, though she was pious in her
+way, too. She fasted and went regularly to confession and to all the
+_offices_, and sometimes at the passing of the Host I have seen her
+kneeling in the dusty street in a new dress, and I don't know what more
+you could expect from a Frenchwoman.
+
+Then she was so pretty, and there was a nameless grace in her attitude.
+She seemed to me so beautiful, as she stood at her desk, with one hand
+resting on her open book, tall, with something almost imperious in her
+figure, her head bent, but her deep, lovely gray eyes looking quietly
+before her and seeming to take in at once the whole school-room with an
+expression of keen intelligence. She was highly cultivated, and had read
+widely in many languages; but she wore her learning as gracefully as a
+bird does its lovely plumage.
+
+There was a latent desire for sway in her character. She delighted in
+the homage of those about her, and seldom failed to win it from any one
+with whom she came in contact. Mademoiselle, who did all the hard work
+of the teaching, and was only half paid for it, wore out her strength
+and energy and youth day by day at her desk in the middle of the
+school-room, and thought Madame the perfection of women; and her sallow,
+thin face would flush with pleasure, if Madame gave her a look or one of
+her soft smiles in passing.
+
+At half-past seven that evening we were seated round the table with our
+work, awaiting the entrance of Madame. Presently she glided in, holding
+in her arms a bureau-drawer filled with piles of letters.
+
+"I propose to tell you a story, _mes chères_," she said, as she seated
+herself and folded her white hands over one of the thick bundles that
+she had taken from the drawer.
+
+"You have all heard me speak of Lina Dale, my English governess before I
+had Mary Gibson. Mary Gibson is an excellent girl, but she has not the
+talent that Lina had. Lina's father was a Captain Dale, a half-pay
+officer, whom I had once seen on business about a pupil of mine who had
+crossed the Channel under his care. A surly, morose man he appeared to
+me, rough towards his wife, a meek, worn-out looking old lady, who spoke
+with a hesitating, apologetic manner and a nervous movement of the
+head,--a habit I thought she must have contracted from a constant fear
+of being pounced upon, as you say, by her husband. I always pitied her
+_de tout mon coeur_, but she possessed neither tact nor intellect, and
+was _très ennuyeuse_.
+
+"It was one cold day in winter that Justine told me there was a
+_demoiselle au salon_ who wished to see me. I found standing by the
+table a young lady,--a figure that would strike you at once. She turned
+as I entered the room, and her manner was dignified and self-possessed.
+She was not pretty, but her face was a remarkable one: thick dark hair
+above a low forehead, the eyelids somewhat too drooping over the
+singular dark eyes, that looked out beneath them with an expression of
+concentrated thought. 'That girl is like Charlotte Corday,' I said to
+Monsieur afterwards: 'it is a character of great energy and enthusiasm,
+frozen by the hardness and uncongeniality of her fate.' For in this
+interview she told me that she sought a situation in my school, and that
+she felt confidence in offering herself,--that the state of her father's
+affairs did not render this step necessary, but that circumstances of
+which she would not speak made her home unhappy and most unattractive to
+her. All this she said in a calm and perfectly unexcited manner, as if
+relating the details of a matter of business. For a moment I trembled
+lest she had come to make me her confidante in a family-quarrel; but I
+was soon relieved from this apprehension, for, after she had stated the
+fact, she referred to it no more, but went on to speak upon general
+subjects, which she did with great intelligence. Her good sense
+impressed me so much that before she left the house I had engaged her.
+
+"A few days afterwards she was established here, and had adapted herself
+to all our modes of life in a way that astonished me. She went about all
+her duties quietly, and with the greatest order and precision. Her
+classes were the most orderly in the school, and in a short time her
+authority was acknowledged by all the girls. There were few who did not
+admire her, and not one who dared to set her at defiance. By degrees her
+quiet, unobtrusive industry won upon my confidence; I felt glad to show
+by charges of responsibility my regard for a person of so sound a
+judgment and so reserved a temper, and very soon I had given over to her
+care the supervision of English books for the girls' reading, the
+posting and receiving from the post-office of all the English letters,
+both my own and those of the English girls in the _pension_. During the
+two years and a half of her stay here, these duties were fulfilled by
+Lina with unremitting care and punctuality.
+
+"About this time I had commenced a correspondence, through Lina, with a
+Mrs. E. Baxter, of Bristol, in England, who had, it seemed, known Lina
+for many years, and who, understanding, as she mysteriously hinted, how
+unhappy her home must be, begged her to come and live with her and
+undertake for a time the education of her little girl, a child of ten.
+Here are her letters; this is one of the first: you see how warmly, how
+affectionately, she speaks of Lina, and how delicately she made this
+proposal, 'so that dear Lina's sensitive, proud nature might not be able
+to imagine itself wounded.'
+
+"As Mrs. Baxter offered her a much larger salary than I gave her, I told
+Lina that I thought she ought to accept the offer of her friend. She
+quietly and firmly declined.
+
+"'Miss Dale,' I said, 'you must not stand in the way of your own good
+out of any sense of obligation to me. I cannot allow you to do so.'
+
+"'I do not do so, Madame La P----re,' she answered. 'I prefer to stay
+with you to going even to Mrs. Baxter's, whom I love sincerely. She is
+an excellent and most faithful friend, but I am better and safer here
+with you.'
+
+"She looked steadily at me as she began the sentence, but dropped her
+eyes suddenly as she said the last words.
+
+"'Lina,' I said, (it was in the evening, as I was leaving the
+class-room, and all the _élèves_ had already gone,) 'carry me up some of
+these books to my room,--I have more than usual to-night'; for I saw
+there was something hidden behind this reserved manner, and felt
+interested.
+
+"She took the books, and followed me. As she laid them down and arranged
+them in order on the table, I closed the door and said,--
+
+"'Miss Dale, you have not looked very well lately, I think; I have
+several times intended to tell you, that, if you would like to go home
+some Saturday and spend the Sunday with your parents, you can do so.'
+(Her family was then living at Kenneville, a village about twelve miles
+from here.) 'I have noticed that you have never asked permission to do
+this, and thought you might be waiting till I mentioned it myself.'
+
+"She started as I said the word 'home.'
+
+"'No, no,' she said, almost vehemently, 'I cannot go home, I do not wish
+to'; and then she continued, in her usually cold, quiet manner,--'You
+remember, perhaps, Madame, that I am not happily circumstanced at home.'
+
+"She pondered a moment, and then said, as if she had made up her mind
+about something,--
+
+"'After all, I may as well tell you, Madame, all about it, as by doing
+so some things in my conduct that may have seemed strange to you will be
+cleared up,--that is, if you choose to hear?'
+
+"'Certainly, _ma chère_,' I replied. 'I should be glad to hear all you
+have to tell me. Sit down here.'
+
+"She still remained standing, however, before me, her eyelids
+drooping,--not shyly, for her eyes had a steady, abstracted expression,
+as if she were arranging her facts in systematic order so as to tell me
+her story in her usual clear, business-like manner.
+
+"'You know, Madame, my father is guardian to two brothers, the sons of
+an old army-friend of his, who died in India when his two sons were
+quite boys, leaving his cousin, Colonel Lucas, together with my father,
+joint guardians of his children. The boys, during school or college
+vacations, spent the time partly at our house and partly at the house of
+Colonel Lucas. They both seemed like brothers to me. As time went on,
+Frank, the elder, began to spend all his vacations with us; and when he
+left Oxford, and ought to have commenced his studies for the bar, he
+continually put off the time of going up to London, where he was to
+enter the office of a lawyer, and stayed on from week to week at home,
+to teach me German, as he said. I knew he was rich, and that in three
+years he would come into the possession of a large fortune; but I knew
+also how bad it was for a young man to have no profession; and when I
+saw my father seemed indifferent on the subject, I used to urge Frank
+the more not to waste his time. But he generally only laughed, though at
+times he would seem vexed at my earnestness, and would ask me why I
+should wish him to do what he did not want to do; and then,--and
+then,--this was one evening after we had been on the boat together all
+the afternoon, and were walking up home,--then, Madame, he told me he
+loved me, that he would go to London, study law, or do anything I said,
+if I would marry him. Oh, Madame, this was dreadful to me! I was stunned
+and bewildered. I had never fancied such a thing possible; the very idea
+was unnatural. I had thought of Frank as a boy always; now, in a moment,
+he was converted into a man, full of the determination of a selfish
+purpose. I could not answer him composedly, and entreated him to leave
+me. He misinterpreted my dismay, and went at once to my father. When I
+came in, that evening, having somewhat regained my composure, though
+with a sick feeling of dread and bewilderment in my heart, my father met
+me with unusual kindness, kissed me as he had not done for years, and
+led me towards Frank, who was standing near my mother. She had been
+crying, I saw, and her face wore a strange expression of anxiety and
+nervous joy as she looked at me. I turned away from Frank, and threw
+myself down on the floor by my mother.
+
+"'"Thank Heaven, Lina!" I heard her whisper; "God bless you, my child!
+you have saved me years of bitterness."
+
+"'I exclaimed,--"I cannot marry Frank,--I don't love him, mother,--don't
+try to make me!"
+
+"'Ah, Madame, it was dreadful! I don't know how I bore it. My father
+stormed, and my mother cried, and poured forth such entreaties and
+persuasions,--telling me I mistook my heart, and that I should learn to
+love Frank, and about duty as a daughter to my father, and, oh, I don't
+know what beside!--and Frank stood by, silent and pale, and with a look
+I had never seen before of unrelenting, passionate, pitiless love.
+
+"'Oh,' sighed Lina, 'it was hard, with no one to take my part! but the
+hardest was yet to come.
+
+"'Days and weeks passed on, and I was miserable beyond what I can tell
+you. Nothing more was said on the subject, however, except by Frank, who
+tortured me by alternate entreaties and reproaches, and sometimes by
+occasional fits of thoughtfulness and kindness, in which he would leave
+me to myself, only appealing to me by unobtrusive acts of courtesy and
+devotion, which gave me more pain than either reproach or entreaty. But
+if it had not been for these days of comparative calm and quiet, I
+should hardly have been able to bear what followed. As it was, I had
+time to collect my strength and plan my line of conduct.
+
+"'One night my father called me into his room. I saw by his manner that
+he was much excited. My mother was there also; she looked alarmed, and
+glanced from my father to me anxiously and inquiringly. You know mamma
+has very little strength of character, Madame. I could not hope for help
+from her; so I called up all my resolution, knowing that some trial was
+before me. I can hardly tell you what I heard then, Madame, it was such
+disgrace,' said Lina, raising her eyes slowly and fixing them a moment
+on mine, while a sudden, curious, embarrassed expression passed over her
+face, such as is accompanied in other persons by a painful flush, but
+which left her face pale and cold, causing no change in color.
+
+"'My father told me, Madame, that some unfortunate speculations which he
+had undertaken, and in which he had used the fortune of Frank intrusted
+to his care, had failed, and that, when Frank became four-and-twenty, at
+which time, according to his father's will, he was to enter upon his
+property, his own wrong-doing would be discovered, and thence-forward he
+would be at the mercy of his ward. Frank had, indeed, already learned
+how great a wrong had been done him. My mother clung to me, weakly
+pouring forth laudations on the generosity of Frank, who, through his
+affection for me, was willing to forgive all this injury. Was I not
+grateful? Why did I not go to him and tell him that the devotion of my
+life would be a poor recompense for such generosity? Oh, Madame, it was
+dreadful! I was not grateful at all; I hated him; and the misery of
+having to decide thus the fate of my father was intolerable.'
+
+"'But what did the young man himself say to all this, Lina?' I inquired;
+'did he never speak to you on the subject?'
+
+"'Yes,' she replied; and after he had spoken quite bitterly against my
+father, (they never liked each other,) he said, that, however he might
+feel towards him as his guardian, there was nothing that he could not
+forget and forgive in the father of his wife,--which did not make me
+respect him any more, you may be sure, and showed me that it was useless
+to appeal to his generosity. My life now was miserable indeed.
+
+"'About this time, my aunt in Scotland sent for me to pay her a visit.
+She was in failing health, and wanted cheerful companionship, and I had
+always been a favorite with her as a child. She lived alone with a
+couple of old servants in a small village far in the wilds of ----shire.
+My father, of course, opposed my going, alleging, as his reason, the
+long journey (we were then living in W----, in Shropshire) that I should
+have to take alone. To my astonishment, Frank took my part, insisting on
+my being allowed to go. Whether it was that he thought that when far
+away from home, in the seclusion of the Scotch village where my aunt
+lived, I should think more kindly of him, or whether he wished to touch
+me by a show of magnanimity, I cannot tell; but so it was, and I went.'
+
+"Lina here paused a moment, thoughtfully.
+
+"'But, Lina,' I said, 'if the young man was well educated, rich, and
+seemed only to have the one fault of loving you so well, why would you
+not marry him? _Ma chère_,' I said, 'you throw away your good fate. You
+see what a service it would be to your family. (I speak as your friend,
+you comprehend.) You save your father; you make the young man happy; all
+could be arranged so charmingly! I should like to see you married, _ma
+chère_; and then, your duty as a daughter!'
+
+"'Oh, yes, yes! she cried; 'I would do, oh, anything almost, to shield
+my poor father and mother! Perhaps once, _once_, I might; but it is too
+late now. I cannot marry Frank. Oh, Madame, it is as impossible as if I
+were dead!'
+
+"'This is a strange story, Lina,' I said. 'What do you mean? Tell me, my
+child, or I shall think you crazy.'
+
+"She laid her head on her hands, which were clasped on the top of the
+escritoire, and half whispered,--
+
+"'I am engaged,--I am married to some one else.'
+
+"I sprang from my seat, and caught her hands.
+
+"'You married, Lina? you? the quiet girl who has been teaching the
+children so well all these months?'
+
+"'Yes, Madame,' she said, with all her usual composure, 'and to a man I
+love with my whole soul, with my whole life. The future may seem dim,
+but I have little fear when I remember I am Arthur's wife, and that his
+love will be strong to help me whenever I relieve him of the promise I
+have obliged him to make not to reveal our marriage. Frank will be
+three-and-twenty in one year and a half from now; till then, he cannot,
+without great difficulty, harm my father, and by that time I trust his
+fancy for me will have passed away, and he will be willing to treat with
+my father about his property without personal feeling to aggravate his
+sense of the wrong that has been done him. He is in the East now with
+Colonel Lucas, his other guardian, who has not been without his
+suspicions of Frank's liking for me, and is not at all unwilling, I
+think, to keep him out of the way for a while.'
+
+"'Does no one know of this, Lina?' I asked, 'no one suspect it?'
+
+"'Only two persons,' she replied,--'indeed, I may as well tell you at
+once, Madame,--beside Mrs. Baxter and her husband, at whose house the
+ceremony took place. They were then staying in the neighborhood of
+H----, a few miles from my aunt's house. It was at Mrs. Baxter's I first
+met Arthur: he was a distant connection of hers. He and his Cousin
+Marmaduke had come up for the shooting and fishing for a few weeks in
+the autumn. My aunt was a genial, bright old lady, fond of the society
+of young people, spite of her ill health, and invited the young men
+frequently to her house. In that way I saw a great deal of them both.'
+
+"'Who was the gentleman, Lina? Had you seen him before this visit? But,'
+seeing she hesitated, 'if you do not wish to disclose more, say so
+frankly; what you have already told me I will guard as a secret,--you
+need not fear.'
+
+"'Oh, Madame,' interrupted Lina, suddenly throwing herself on the floor
+at my feet, 'it's not that,--do not say that, dear Madame! It is a great
+comfort to me to tell you all this; sometimes I feel so lonely when by
+any chance I do not get a letter from him the day I expect one.'
+
+"Her voice faltered, and she leaned forward, burying her face in her
+hands; I saw her breast shaken with weeping.
+
+"'Tell me all, _ma pauvre petite_!' I said; 'tell me everything.'
+
+"Then seeing she still continued weeping, I said, playfully,--
+
+"'So you get letters from him, do you? I have never known this. You
+know, _ma chérie_, that that is against the rules of my _pension_; but
+when people are married,--_c'est une autre chose_! But how is it that I
+have never found this out? Ah, because you have charge of all the
+letters to and from the post!'
+
+"'Yes, Madame,' she said, looking up with a smile. 'I have sometimes
+felt so unhappy, because I seemed to be doing a _dishonest_ thing; but
+it would have been so hard to go without them, and I knew how kind and
+good you were. If you would like to see one of his letters,' she
+continued, half shyly, but with dignified gravity, 'I have one here';
+and she drew a large letter from her pocket and handed it to me.
+
+"Here it is," said Madame, taking the first from the bundle in her hand.
+
+The handwriting was firm and regular; the letter was long, but, though
+the whole breathed but one feeling of the deepest and tenderest
+affection, it was hardly what would be called a "love-letter." There
+were criticisms of new works, and further references to books of a kind
+that showed the writer to be a man of scholarly tastes. After we had
+looked at this one, Madame handed us others from the packet, all marked
+by the same characteristics as the first. Here and there were little
+pictures of the writer's every-day life. He told of his being out on the
+moors at sunrise shooting with his Cousin Marmaduke, or riding round the
+estate giving orders about the transplanting of certain trees, "which
+are set as you have suggested, and are growing as fast as they can till
+you come to walk under their shade," or in the library at evening, when
+the place beside him seems so void where she should be. Then there were
+other letters, speaking of ---- ----, the poet, who was coming down to
+spend a few weeks with him, and write verses under his elms at Aylesford
+Grange; but in one and all Lina was the central idea round which all
+other interests merely turned, and the source from which all else drew
+its charm.
+
+"As soon," said Madame, continuing her narration, "as I had finished
+reading the letter, I entreated Lina to go on with her curious history.
+
+"'I met Arthur,' she said, 'first at Mrs. Baxter's, as I said before. He
+is the noblest man I have ever known,--so good, so clever, so pure in
+heart! His Cousin Marmaduke, who was there at the same time, paid me
+great attention, but I never liked him; there was always something
+repulsive to me in his black eyes; I never trusted him; and beside
+Arthur,--oh, it seemed like the contrast between night and day! I don't
+know why it was, Madame, but I never felt that he loved Arthur really,
+though Arthur had done a great deal for him, got him his commission in
+the army, and paid off some of his debts; but he never seemed as if he
+quite forgave Arthur for standing in the way of his being the lord of
+the manor himself and possessor of Aylesford. There are some
+mean-spirited people who are proud too. They can receive favors, while
+they resent the obligation. He was of that kind, I think, and hated
+Arthur for his very generosity.
+
+"'One evening, as I was walking up the shrubbery, I met Marmaduke. He
+had ridden over with Arthur, as they often did, to spend the evening. He
+had caught sight of me, he said, as they came up the avenue, and, under
+pretext of something being wrong with his horse's bridle, had stopped,
+and let Arthur go on to the house alone. He had long waited for this
+opportunity of speaking to me alone, he said, as I must have known.
+Then, amid the basest of vague insinuations against Arthur, he dared to
+proffer me his odious love. Oh, Madame, I was angry! A woman cannot bear
+feigned love,--it stings like hatred; still less can she bear to hear
+one she loves spoken of as I had heard him speak of Arthur. I hardly
+know what I said, but it must have expressed my feeling; for he tried to
+taunt me in return with being in love with Arthur and _Aylesford_. I
+only smiled, and walked on. Then he sprang after me, and vowed I should
+not leave him so,--that he loved me madly, spite of my scorn, spite of
+my foolish words. He knew well I did not love Arthur, that I was
+ambitious only. So was he,--and so determined in his purpose, that he
+was sure to succeed in it, spite of everything. "For there are few
+things," he added, "that can stand against my settled will. Beware,
+then, how you cross it, sweet Lina!" I shook my cloak loose from his
+hand, for his words sent a thrill of horror through me, and rushed on,
+speechless with indignation, to the house. Two days after this I became
+engaged to Arthur. How happy we were!' said Lina, a dreamy expression
+passing over her face at the retrospect.
+
+"'I told Arthur everything about my home; but I did not tell him of my
+conversation with Marmaduke in the shrubbery, because I could not bear
+to give him the pain which a discovery of his cousin's baseness would
+have caused him. Marmaduke, I perceived, knew that I had not betrayed
+him; for one night, as I was sitting at the piano, he thanked me
+hastily, as he turned over the leaf of my music-book, for a generous
+proof of confidence. I took no notice of these words, but was conscious
+of a flush of indignation at the word _confidence_.
+
+"'Arthur and I were always together; we read together, and talked over
+our past and future lives. Nothing now troubled me. He took all the
+burden and anxiety of my life to himself, and with his love added a
+sense of peace and security most exquisite to me.
+
+"'I told him all the miserable story of Frank, and he listened gravely;
+but though it certainly troubled him, it never seemed to daunt him for
+an instant. So gentle as he is, nothing ever could shake him. I was so
+happy then, that I could not feel angry even with Marmaduke; and as he
+seemed to be willing to forget the past, we became somewhat more
+friendly towards each other. But if I ever happened to be alone with
+him, even for a moment, the recollection of our talk in the shrubbery
+would come to my mind, and the old feeling of anger would spring up
+again, the effort to suppress which was so painful that I always avoided
+being with him, unless Arthur were by also.
+
+"'One day there came a letter from my father,--and what its character
+was you may suppose, when I tell you that it made me utterly forget my
+present happiness. At the end of the letter he commanded me to return
+home immediately. It came one evening: I read and re-read its cruel
+words till I could bear no more. I saw Arthur standing in the twilight
+below my window, and went down and laid the letter silently in his
+hands. When he had finished reading it, he came slowly towards me. I
+shall never forget his look as he took my hands in his and drew me to
+him, looking into my face so earnestly. Then he said, in a low, grave
+voice, "Lina, do you love me? Then we must be married at once,--do not
+be afraid,--perhaps to-night. I fear your father may follow that letter
+very soon. You have suffered too much already. You have no one but me to
+look to. Heaven knows I do not think alone of my own happiness."'
+
+"Lina paused a moment. 'I yielded,' she said. 'I could have followed him
+blindly then anywhere! So that evening, in the drawing-room, with Mr.
+and Mrs. Baxter and Marmaduke as witnesses, we were married by a Scotch
+clergyman (there was no clergyman of our own Church within twenty
+miles). The ceremony was very simple. As the last words were being
+pronounced, some one entered the room hastily, and there was whispering
+and confusion for a moment or two, and when I rose from my knees the
+first words that greeted me were the intelligence that my aunt was
+dangerously ill, and had sent a special messenger for me. Late as it
+was, I prepared instantly to accompany the man back to H----. I was
+stung with self-reproaches at the thought of my aunt lying, as I
+fancied, dying without me near her, and peremptorily refused to allow
+Arthur to accompany me on my long drive.
+
+"'That was the last time I saw him. The next day he was called away on
+important business, which admitted of no delay. I remained with my poor
+aunt till her death, which took place at the end of that week, three
+days after my marriage. Then my parents came for me. My father's manner
+was unusually kind; my poor mother's expressions of love went to my
+heart. Frank was not at home, they said, but had gone up to London to
+prepare for his journey to the East. They had determined to reside for a
+while in France, and they promised that he should not be informed of my
+being with them, if I would consent to accompany them. I yielded to
+their solicitations, parted with my true friend Mrs. Baxter, and crossed
+the Channel with them. At the end of three weeks I discovered that my
+father had broken his word and informed Frank by letter of my being with
+them. Then I fled to you, having heard of the position vacant in your
+_pension_. I have tried to do my duty here, and to merit in some degree
+your kindness. With you I am happier than I could be with any one but
+Arthur. Arthur has learned to love you too: will you read this letter
+speaking of you?' drawing a letter from her pocket.
+
+"This is it," said Madame, taking one from the pile, and pointing out
+the passage.
+
+"I am weary of my life, sometimes, without you,--here, where you ought
+to be,--_your home_, Lina! I wander through the rooms that I have
+prepared with such delight for you, and think of the time when you will
+be here,--mistress of all!... When will you come, my wife? I think and
+dream in this way till I am haunted by the ghost of the future. I get
+morbid, and fancy all kinds of dangers that may happen to my darling, so
+far away from me; and then I am ready to go at once to you and break
+down all barriers and bear you away.... I thank Heaven you have so good
+a friend in '_Madame_.' I long for the time to come when I may greet her
+as one of my best friends for your sake. In the mean time, I have
+selected an Indian cabinet, the grotesque delicate work of which would
+please your quaint fancy, which I trust she will accept, if you will
+join me in the gift. I shall have an opportunity of sending it in a few
+weeks.... Mrs. Eldridge, my dear old housekeeper, has just been in. She
+wishes to know whether the new curtains of the little library are to be
+crimson or gray. She little knows what confusion she causes me! She
+knows not that I am no longer master here! I tell her I will deliberate
+on the point, and she retires mystified by my unusual indecision. So
+write quickly and make known your desires, if you wish to save me from
+an imputation of becoming, as the good old-lady says, 'a little set and
+bachelor-like in my ways.' Marmaduke and ---- come down next week to
+shoot.... You say, wait till spring, when things will be more propitious
+for disclosing our marriage. I have also another scheme which will be
+ripened by spring. I shall disclose our marriage, and propose to your
+father to make him independent of his ward. No one, certainly, has a
+better right to do this than his son-in-law; and then----But I hardly
+dare to think of the happiness that will be mine when nothing but death
+can part us any more!"
+
+"One evening about this time," continued Madame, "about a week after
+Lina had shown me this letter, I came down into the _cabinet de musique_
+on my way to the garden to take my usual evening walk on the terrace,
+and saw Lina standing by the piano with her bonnet on and her shawl laid
+beside her. In her hand she held letters, one of which she had that
+moment unsealed. She had, I knew, just returned from the post-office.
+
+"'I have a letter here from Mrs. Baxter, Madame,' she said. 'She writes
+to me in great distress; the two children, Minnie and Louisa, whom she
+was so anxious to send here, are both ill with scarlet-fever. But here
+is your letter; she will no doubt tell you everything herself.'
+
+"I took the letter and seated myself, and was soon absorbed in the poor
+mother's hurried and almost incoherent relation, when suddenly I was
+startled by a gesture or sound from Lina that made me look up hastily.
+She stood with the letter she had been reading crushed in her hand, her
+face wearing an expression of agony. For a moment she swayed to and fro
+with her hand outstretched to catch a chair for support, but before I
+could reach her she had fallen heavily to the floor. I called Justine,
+and we raised her to a chair. I stood by her supporting her head on my
+breast, while Justine ran for camphor and _eau-de-vie_. It was some time
+before she recovered her consciousness; she then slowly opened her eyes
+and fixed them wonderingly on me, but with no look of recognition in
+them. A long shiver passed over her, and she sighed heavily once or
+twice as she looked vacantly at the letter on the floor. I was
+terrified, and seized the letter, to gain, if possible, some explanation
+of the miserable state of the poor girl.
+
+"I found that the envelope contained three letters: one from Marmaduke
+Kirkdale; one from the housekeeper, Mrs. Eldridge; and this scrap from
+Arthur.
+
+
+    "LETTER OF MARMADUKE.
+
+"'MY DEAR MADAM,--I have heavy tidings to send you. While out shooting
+yesterday morning in the Low Copse, Mr. ----, Arthur, and myself became
+separated: Mr. ----, who had been my companion, keeping on an open path;
+I going down towards the pool to beat up a thicket and start the game.
+Arthur I supposed was with the gamekeeper, a little distance in advance
+of us. Would that it had been so! As I came up to join the others I
+heard the report of a gun, and hastening towards the spot whence the
+sound seemed to come, I found my poor cousin lying upon the ground, and
+at first supposed, that, in leaping the fence, he had received a sudden
+blow from a branch, which had stunned him; but on kneeling down to raise
+him, I perceived he was bleeding profusely from a wound in the throat,
+and was perfectly unconscious. Mr. ---- came up almost at the moment,
+and while the gamekeeper and I bore Arthur to a farm-house hard by, he
+went off to call the nearest doctor. Everything has been done that skill
+and care could devise. The physician from B---- is here, besides Mr.
+Gordon, the village-surgeon. They pronounce the wound very serious, but
+still hold out hopes that with great care he may yet recover. There is
+no doubt that in leaping the hedge, and holding his gun carelessly, my
+cousin had inflicted this terrible injury on himself. He is, however,
+too weak to make it safe to ask him any explanation of the accident. The
+doctors insist on perfect quiet and rest, and say, that, owing to the
+unremitting care we have been able to give him, he has done much better
+than they could have hoped for. If fever can be prevented, all may yet
+go well; for myself, I believe strongly in Arthur's robust constitution.
+
+"'_Friday night._--Arthur was doing very well till about two o'clock
+this morning. The housekeeper and I were with him. Mr. ---- had gone to
+take some rest. Suddenly Arthur raised himself, and asked for paper and
+pencil. I remonstrated with him, fearing the effects of exertion. When,
+however, I found Mr. ----(who had been called in by Mrs. Eldridge)
+declared his judgment in favor of compliance, I yielded, and, supported
+by the housekeeper, my cousin wrote a few almost illegible words. He had
+scarcely signed his name when he fell back,--the exertion, as I had
+feared, had been too much for him. After this he sank rapidly. He died
+at six o'clock this morning.
+
+"'I hold my cousin's place now by his death. I am ready to do so fully.
+
+"'I am yours as YOU WILL,
+
+                                   "'MAR'KE C. KIRKDALE.'
+
+
+    "LETTER OF THE HOUSEKEEPER.
+
+"'RESPECTED MADAM--I do not know that I have any right presuming to
+meddle with affairs that don't belong to my walk in life, far be it from
+me to do so, especially to one that whatever they may say seems always
+like my mistress to me--owing to the last words my poor dear Mr. Arthur
+ever spoke was, She is my wife, my own wife, let no one gainsay it,
+which at the time I did not take in fairly, being almost broken down
+with sorrow, for I had nursed him as a baby, Madam, and loved him humbly
+as my own son, no lady could have loved him better, which having lost
+him and all this trouble (my heart seeming fairly broke) makes me write,
+respected Madam, worse than usual, never having been a scholar, he
+always wrote them for me, God bless him. You won't think me presuming,
+Madam, when I say these things never having had the honour of seeing
+you, but you are the only person who can feel for me under these
+circumstances of trial more than any others. For to see them going
+through the house looking into precious drawers and burning papers in
+the library fire and turning on a person like a Tiger, though he may be
+a gentleman (though how of that family that always was remarkable gentle
+spoken I cannot tell.) There never were two cousins differenter. I never
+can regard him as my master, never. I would sooner leave the old place
+and beg my bread than feel _him_ master after my blessed Mr. Arthur, not
+that I'd speak evil of the family. But God Almighty reads the hearts of
+men, and I only hope some may come out clear in appearing at the
+Judgment, and mayn't disgrace the Family then--for to say that my Mr.
+Arthur never made a will when twice he's spoke to me upon the subject,
+always trusting me, Madam, telling me where he kept it in the library,
+and though it's not to be found the house through, still I know it must
+be somewhere, for I'd trust his word against a thousand. I shall ask Mr.
+---- to forward this present not knowing your address, he is a kind
+gentleman and a true friend. I send you the little scrap of paper with
+the last words he ever wrote. _Some_ may say it's no good and
+unreadable, but I took care that them that didn't value it didn't get
+it, though they did search everywhere, and looked so black when it
+couldn't be found being in my pocket at the time. I present my services,
+honoured Madam, and my dutiful affection for the sake of him that's
+gone.
+
+                                    "'ELIZABETH ELDRIDGE.'
+
+
+    "LETTER OF ARTHUR.
+
+"'Only a moment or so left to me. Goodbye, my Lina! I am dying--and
+without you near me. We have waited so long! It is hard to leave you
+alone in the world, darling. Come and live here--your own home. If you
+had been here but one day, things might have been otherwise. Take care
+of the poor--keep Mrs. Eldridge with you, she is faithful and
+true--true--she knows--God keep you, darling. I am so weak--there is no
+hope.
+
+                                             "'ARTHUR KIRKDALE.'
+
+"For three days Lina lay on her bed almost without giving a sign of
+life,--her face rigid and colorless. She refused to eat, and only when I
+myself used my authority with her did any nourishment pass her lips. On
+the evening of the third day I became alarmed, and determined to send
+for a physician. I told Justine to despatch one of the servants for Dr.
+B----, but to request him to come after five o'clock, when I should have
+returned from vespers, as I wished to see him myself. I gave my
+directions to Justine as we stood together at the foot of Lina's bed, in
+so low a whisper as to prevent, as I thought, the possibility of her
+hearing me. Great, then, was my astonishment, when, on leaving my room,
+ready for church, I met Lina on the staircase. Her face was very pale,
+and she clung to the banisters for support as she descended. Before I
+could express my surprise, she said,--
+
+"'I feel very much better, Madame, and if you please will call the class
+for English lesson at six.'
+
+"I told her she must go back to her room,--that she should not have
+risen without my knowledge.
+
+"'I must have occupation,' she replied; 'it is much better for me.'
+
+"I felt she was right, and let her go down,--and that evening she held
+her class as usual. So she continued, day after day, her accustomed
+round of duties, with all her usual precision and care. Her self-control
+annoyed me. She passed to and fro in the house, her face pale and wan,
+though with a composed expression, and all my earnest entreaties that
+she should seek rest or relaxation were met by the same calm refusal.
+Saturday came, and I was glad to see she showed something like interest
+in the prospect of the letters from England that would arrive that day,
+and begged me to allow her to go as usual to get them at the
+post-office. I willingly acceded to her request, thinking the fresh air
+and sea-breeze would do her good. She returned with several letters, and
+brought them to me, seeming to desire my company while she read them.
+One was from Marmaduke, one from Mr. R----, her husband's lawyer in
+Lincoln. The former puzzled me; it was vague and threatening, and yet
+there were expressions in it almost befitting a love-letter. Lina read
+it to me with hardly any change of expression, but dropped it from her
+fingers as she finished it, with a look of mingled indifference and
+disgust. The grave, business-like letter of the lawyer had still less
+effect upon her. I read it to her,--for, although in English, I had no
+difficulty in making out every syllable, so distinctly was it written,
+and with such legal precision. It informed Lina that Mr. R----felt some
+apprehension of her having trouble in substantiating her marriage, that
+his conversation with Mr. Marmaduke Kirkdale had been (although somewhat
+vague on the part of the latter) wholly unsatisfactory. This, and the
+fact that no will had as yet been found among her husband's papers, made
+him fear that she might be involved in lengthy and perhaps annoying
+legal proceedings. At the close, he desired her to write out a careful
+account of all the circumstances of her marriage, as it was most
+important that he should know all the details of the case.
+
+"'These things weary me so!' said Lina; 'but it does not matter,' she
+added, sighing; 'for _his_ sake I must do this.'
+
+"The few contemptuous words in answer to Marmaduke's letter were soon
+written, and she then began her reply to the letter of her lawyer. This
+seemed to cost her a great effort; she sighed frequently as she wrote,
+and at the end of two hours, as she finished the last words, her head
+fell on the sheet of paper before her, and she burst into tears. I could
+not try to check this outburst of grief, knowing that it must be a
+great relief to her overtaxed system after the strain of the last few
+days. She was soon again calm, and resumed her writing. A letter to her
+parents, informing them of her secret marriage and sudden widowhood, was
+next written, and Lina, in her plain bonnet and shawl and closely
+veiled, set off with the three letters to the post-office."
+
+Here Madame paused. She smiled faintly.
+
+"I find that I have become again unconsciously, interested in Lina, as I
+have told her story, and I hesitate to approach the _dénoûment_;
+but"--and she sighed delicately, not sufficiently to disperse the
+smile--"I must go through with this, as Lina herself used to say. One
+night about this time I had been writing late, and it was past midnight
+when I descended with my lamp in my hand to go the round of the
+class-rooms, as is my wont before retiring to rest. I paused, as I
+passed down the school-room, opposite the _Sainte Croix_, and repeated
+my _salut_ before the Holy Emblem. As I finished the last words, my eyes
+fell on a small slip of paper lying on Lina's desk, on which my own name
+was written three times, in what appeared my own handwriting,--Jeanne
+Cliniè La P----re. A cold shudder ran through me, as if I had heard my
+name in the accents of my _double_. Obeying a sudden impulse, I opened
+Lina's desk, and seized the papers within. Uppermost lay a thick
+_cahier_, in which, in Lina's writing, were what at first seemed copies
+of all the letters she had received from England within the last few
+months. There were also facsimiles of letters to me from Mrs. Baxter,
+Mr. A. Kirkdale, and others. Then there were draughts of the same
+letters, written in the various handwritings with which I had become
+familiar, as those of Lina's and my own English correspondents. Here and
+there were improvements and corrections in Lina's own writing. Below
+these lay piles of letters,--a bundle of ten letters of my own, forming
+part of my correspondence with Mrs. Baxter, and which I had intrusted to
+Lina at various times to post. These were without envelopes, and simply
+tied together. I sat there for more than an hour, stupefied by this
+strange revelation; and then, taking the bundle of my own letters
+addressed to Mrs. Baxter, I went to my room.
+
+"Next morning, when I descended to the school-room, I glanced, in
+passing, at Lina, and thought I perceived a slightly fluttered,
+disturbed expression in her face; but I continued the usual routine of
+the morning's work without speaking to her. After class was over, I sent
+for her to come to my room. I myself was much disturbed; _she_ was
+perfectly calm and collected; but as I laid the bundle of my own letters
+to Mrs. Baxter on the table, and demanded an explanation of their being
+found in her desk, she turned pale, and snatched up the packet and held
+it tightly. To my question, she answered that I evidently did her great
+wrong, but she was used to being misunderstood; that the kindness I had
+shown her entitled me to an explanation, which she would not otherwise
+have given.
+
+"'It is a weakness that I am ashamed of that has caused this trouble,'
+she said. 'I have sat up in the lonely nights and read and re-read my
+letters, and then I began to copy them, copied even the handwriting,
+till I grew very perfect in it, and then I could not bear to destroy any
+of those precious words, but kept them, as I thought, in secret,--but
+now some one has _basely taken them from my desk_, and brought them to
+you. As for your letters to Mrs. Baxter, there are, I see, only one or
+two here. Give me only time and you shall have that cleared up also. I
+will write to Mrs. Baxter, beg her to explain how she let these letters
+get out of her possession, and ask her to inclose all the rest of your
+letters to her. I will take care that her answer shall come _through the
+post-office_, and not, as heretofore, inclosed in a letter to _me_; so
+that you may feel quite sure that there is no mistake, Madame La
+P----re.'
+
+"I felt baffled and guilty before her; and the next three days were
+most uncomfortable. I could not but feel _gênée_ with Lina, while she
+maintained the character of wounded innocence. The evening of the third
+day, Justine handed to me a large packet which the postman had just
+brought, and upon which there were ten francs to pay. It was directed to
+me in Mrs. Baxter's well-known handwriting. I tore open the cover, and a
+shower of letters fell on the table. _All_ my letters to Mrs. Baxter,
+and one from herself, entreating to know the reason of this 'singular
+request of dear Lina's.' I was disconcerted and relieved at once, when,
+turning the wrapper listlessly in my fingers, my eye suddenly caught, on
+the reverse side, and _printed_ in large letters, these words,--'This
+packet was sent to the Postmaster in Bristol to be reposted to ----.'
+That was the end of it. I had paid ten francs for learning the agreeable
+fact that I had been duped,--for the satisfaction of knowing that for
+two years and a half I had been wasting my sympathy and even tears on a
+set of purely imaginary characters and the little _intrigante_ who had
+befooled me.
+
+"When I showed Lina the printed words on the wrapper, she turned very
+pale, but maintained a stubborn silence to all my reproaches.
+
+"'How could you deceive me so?'
+
+"'I don't know.'
+
+"'What reason _could_ you have?'
+
+"'None.'
+
+"'Lina! was there a particle of truth in anything you have told me?'
+
+"'No, Madame.'
+
+"This was all I could get from her; but as she left the room, she turned
+and said, looking at me half reproachfully, half maliciously,--
+
+"'I suppose we had better part now. At any rate, you will at least own
+that I have interested you, Madame!'
+
+"She left me two days afterwards, and the last I heard of her was in the
+situation of companion to a Russian Countess, with whom she was an
+immense favorite. She made some effort to gain possession of these
+letters; but I reminded her, that, as they had been written exclusively
+for my benefit, I considered I had a right to keep them. To this she
+simply answered, 'Very well, Madame.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to add that the story of Lina Dale is
+told here precisely as related to us by Madame La P----re, of course
+excepting the necessary changes in the names of places and persons. The
+three letters are not copies of the original ones in the possession of
+Madame La P----re, but a close transcript of them from memory,--the
+substance of them is identical, and in many instances the words also.
+The extraordinary power shown by Lina Dale in maintaining the character
+she had assumed and sustained during two years and a half was fully
+carried out by the skill and cleverness of her pretended correspondence;
+and in reading over these piles of letters, so full of originality, one
+could not but feel regret at the perversion of powers so
+remarkable,--powers which might have been developed by healthy action
+into means of usefulness and good.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS.
+
+
+FOURTH PAPER.
+
+Lamb's time, after his manumission from India-House, seems to have hung
+rather heavily upon his hands. Though the "birds of the air" were not so
+free as he was then, I fear they were a great deal happier and vastly
+more contented than our liberated and idle old clerk. Though in the
+first flush and excitement of his freedom from his six-and-thirty years'
+confinement in a counting-house,--(he entered the office a dark-haired,
+bright-eyed, light-hearted boy; he left it a decrepit, silver-haired,
+rather melancholy, somewhat disappointed man, whose spirits, as he
+himself confesseth, had grown gray before his hair,)--though, when in
+the dizzy and happy early hours of his freedom, Elia exultingly wrote
+(and felt) that "a man can never have too much time to himself," the
+honeymoon (if I may so express it) of his emancipation from the
+
+    "Dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood"
+
+was not fairly over before he felt that man's true element is
+labor,--that occupation, which in his younger days he had called a
+"fiend," was in very truth an angel,--the angel of contentment and joy.
+Doctor Johnson stoutly maintained by both tongue and pen, that, in
+general, no one could be virtuous or happy who was not completely
+employed. Not only the bread we eat, but the true pleasures and real
+enjoyments of life, must be earned by the sweat of the brow. The poor
+old mill-horse, turned loose in the pasture on Sundays, seems sadly to
+miss his accustomed daily round of weary labor; the retired
+tallow-chandler, whose story has pointed so many morals and adorned so
+many tales, would have died of inertia and ennui in less than six months
+after his retirement from business, had not his successor kindly allowed
+him to help on melting-days; and methinks the very ghosts of certain
+busy and energetic men must fret and fume at the idle and inactive state
+of their shadowy and incorporal selves; nor, unless--as some hope and
+believe--we are to have our familiar and customary tasks and duties to
+perform in heaven, could their souls be happy and contented in Paradise.
+
+But--after this rather foolish and wholly unnecessary digression--to
+return to Lamb. Elia, who had while a toil-worn clerk so carefully and
+frugally husbanded every odd moment and spare hour of time,--who, after
+his day's labor at India-House was over, had read so many massive old
+folios, and written so many pleasant pages for the pleasure and
+solacement of himself, and a choice and select number of men and
+women,--now that he had the whole long day to himself, read but little,
+and wrote but seldom.
+
+And as for those long walks in the country, which he talked of so fondly
+in some of his letters to his friends,--those walks to Hoddesdon, to
+Amwell, to Windsor, and other towns and villages in the near vicinity of
+London, which he had enjoyed in anticipation a few years before he had
+the leisure actually to take them,--those long walks on "fine
+Isaac-Walton mornings," were found to be, it must be confessed, rather
+tiresome and unsatisfactory. They were most melancholy failures, when
+compared--as Elia could not help comparing them--with the pleasant walks
+he and Mary had taken years before to Enfield, and Potter's-Bar, and
+Waltham. Nay, even the "saunterings in Bond Street," the "digressions
+into Soho," to explore book-stalls, the visits to print-shops and
+picture-galleries, soon ceased to afford Lamb much real pleasure or
+enjoyment. Yea, London itself, with all its wonders and marvels, with
+all its (to him) memories and associations, he found to be, to one who
+had nothing to do but wander idly and purposeless through her thronged
+and busy streets and thoroughfares,--a mere looker-on in Vienna,--a
+somewhat dreary and melancholy place. Indeed, the London of 1825-30 was
+a far different place to Elia from the London of twenty years before,
+when he resided at No. 4, Inner-Temple Lane, (near the place of his
+"kindly engendure,") and gave his famous Wednesday-evening parties,
+("Oh!" exclaims Hazlitt, "for the pen of John Buncle to consecrate a
+_petit souvenir_ to their memory!") and when Jem White, and Ned P----,
+and Holcroft, and Captain Burney, and other of his old friends and
+jovial companions were alive and merry.
+
+And now, in these later years and altered times, when even the old
+memories and the old associations seemed to have lost their power over
+him, and gone were most of "the old familiar faces," and when he felt as
+if the game of life were scarcely worth the candle, our melancholy and
+forlorn old humorist thus sadly and pathetically writes to the Quaker
+poet:--"But town, with all my native hankering after it, is not what it
+was. The streets, the shops, are left, but all old friends are gone. And
+in London I was frightfully convinced of this, as I passed houses and
+places, empty caskets now. I have ceased to care almost about anybody.
+The bodies I cared for are in graves or dispersed. My old chums, that
+lived so long and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away. When I took
+leave of our adopted young friend at Charing Cross, 'twas a heavy
+unfeeling rain, and I had nowhere to go. Home have I none, and not a
+sympathizing house to turn to in the great city. Never did the waters of
+heaven pour down on a forlorner head. Yet I tried ten days at a sort of
+friend's house, but it was large and straggling,--one of the individuals
+of my old long knot of friends, card-players, pleasant companions, that
+have tumbled to pieces, into dust and other things; and I got home on
+Thursday, convinced that it was better to get home to my hole at
+Enfield, and hide like a sick cat in my corner." And at Enfield Elia was
+far from being happy or contented. Winter, however,--"confining,
+room-keeping winter," with its short days and long evenings, and cozy,
+comfortable fireside and cheerful candle-light,--he succeeded in passing
+tolerably pleasantly there; but the "deadly long days" of
+summer--"all-day days," he called them, "with but a half-hour's
+candle-light, and no fire-light"--were fearfully dull, wearisome, and
+unprofitable to him, "a scorner of the fields," an exile from London.
+And he thought, as he strolled through the green lanes and along the
+pleasant country-roads in the vicinity of Enfield, of the days when he
+was
+
+    "A clerk in London gay,"
+
+and sighed for the drudgery and confinement of the counting-house, and
+longed to take his seat again at his old desk at India-House. In brief,
+Lamb felt that he should be happier and better, if he had something to
+do. And partly to amuse himself, and partly to assist a friend, he
+employed himself for a few months in a pleasant and congenial task. "I
+am going through a course of reading at the Museum," he writes to
+Bernard Barton,--"the Garrick plays, out of part of which I formed my
+Specimens. I have two thousand to go through; and in a few weeks have
+despatched the tithe of 'em. It is a sort of office-work to me; hours,
+ten to four, the same. It does me good. Men must have regular occupation
+that have been used to it." And in another (later) letter to Barton he
+says, "I am giving the fruit of my old play-reading to Hone, who sets
+forth a portion weekly in the 'Table-Book.'" And he not only furnished
+the "Table-Book" with specimens of the Garrick plays, but he wrote for
+that work, and the "Every-Day Book," a number of pleasant,
+characteristic little sketches and essays. We herewith present the
+reader with one of the best and most remarkable of these articles. Of
+course all will observe, and admire, the humorous, yet very gentle,
+loving, almost pathetic manner in which Elia describes the person and
+character of Mary's old usher,--
+
+
+CAPTAIN STARKEY.
+
+To the Editor of the "Every-Day Book":--
+
+DEAR SIR,--I read your account of this unfortunate being, and his
+forlorn piece of self-history, with that smile of half-interest which
+the annals of insignificance excite, till I came to where he says, "I
+was bound apprentice to Mr. William Bird, an eminent writer, and teacher
+of languages and mathematics," etc.; when I started as one does on the
+recognition of an old acquaintance in a supposed stranger. This, then,
+was that Starkey of whom I have heard my sister relate so many pleasant
+anecdotes, and whom, never having seen, I yet seem almost to remember.
+For nearly fifty years she had lost all sight of him; and, behold! the
+gentle usher of her youth, grown into an aged beggar, dubbed with an
+opprobrious title to which he had no pretensions, an object and a
+May-game! To what base purposes may we not return! What may not have
+been the meek creature's sufferings, what his wanderings, before he
+finally settled down in the comparative comfort of an old hospitaller of
+the almonry of Newcastle? And is poor Starkey dead?
+
+I was a scholar of that "eminent writer" that he speaks of; but Starkey
+had quitted the school about a year before I came to it. Still the odor
+of his merits had left a fragrancy upon the recollection of the elder
+pupils. The school-room stands where it did, looking into a discolored,
+dingy garden, in the passage leading from Fetter Lane into Bartlett's
+Buildings. It is still a school,--though the main prop, alas! has fallen
+so ingloriously,--and bears a Latin inscription over the entrance in the
+lane, which was unknown in our humbler times. Heaven knows what
+"languages" were taught in it then! I am sure that neither my sister nor
+myself brought any out of it but a little of our native English. By
+"mathematics," reader, must be understood "cyphering." It was, in fact,
+a humble day-school, at which reading and writing were taught to us boys
+in the morning, and the same slender erudition was communicated to the
+girls, our sisters, etc., in the evening. Now Starkey presided, under
+Bird, over both establishments. In my time, Mr. Cook, now or lately a
+respectable singer and performer at Drury-Lane Theatre, and nephew to
+Mr. Bird, had succeeded to him. I well remember Bird. He was a squat,
+corpulent, middle-sized man, with something of the gentleman about him,
+and that peculiar mild tone--especially while he was inflicting
+punishment--which is so much more terrible to children than the angriest
+looks and gestures. Whippings were not frequent; but when they took
+place, the correction was performed in a private room adjoining, where
+we could only hear the plaints, but saw nothing. This heightened the
+decorum and the solemnity. But the ordinary public chastisement was the
+bastinado, a stroke or two on the palm with that almost obsolete weapon
+now, the ferule. A ferule was a sort of flat ruler, widened at the
+inflicting end into a shape resembling a pear,--but nothing like so
+sweet,--with a delectable hole in the middle to raise blisters, like a
+cupping-glass. I have an intense recollection of that disused instrument
+of torture, and the malignancy, in proportion to the apparent mildness,
+with which its strokes were applied. The idea of a rod is accompanied
+with something ludicrous; but by no process can I look back upon this
+blister-raiser with anything but unmingled horror. To make him look more
+formidable,--if a pedagogue had need of these heightenings,--Bird wore
+one of those flowered Indian gowns formerly in use with schoolmasters,
+the strange figures upon which we used to interpret into hieroglyphics
+of pain and suffering. But, boyish fears apart, Bird, I believe, was, in
+the main, a humane and judicious master.
+
+Oh, how I remember our legs wedged into those uncomfortable sloping
+desks, where we sat elbowing each other; and the injunctions to attain a
+free hand, unattainable in that position; the first copy I wrote after,
+with its moral lesson, "Art improves Nature"; the still earlier
+pot-hooks and the hangers, some traces of which I fear may yet be
+apparent in this manuscript; the truant looks sidelong to the garden,
+which seemed a mockery of our imprisonment; the prize for best spelling,
+which had almost turned my head, and which to this day I cannot reflect
+upon without a vanity which I ought to be ashamed of; our little leaden
+inkstands, not separately subsisting, but sunk into the desks; the
+bright, punctually washed morning fingers, darkening gradually with
+another and another ink-spot! What a world of little associated
+circumstances, pains, and pleasures, mingling their quotas of pleasure,
+arise at the reading of those few simple words,--"Mr. William Bird, an
+eminent writer, and teacher of languages and mathematics, in Fetter
+Lane, Holborn"!
+
+Poor Starkey, when young, had that peculiar stamp of old-fashionedness
+in his face which makes it impossible for a beholder to predicate any
+particular age in the object. You can scarce make a guess between
+seventeen and seven-and-thirty. This antique cast always seems to
+promise ill-luck and penury. Yet it seems he was not always the abject
+thing he came to. My sister, who well remembers him, can hardly forgive
+Mr. Thomas Ranson for making an etching so unlike her idea of him when
+he was a youthful teacher at Mr. Bird's school. Old age and poverty--a
+life-long poverty, she thinks--could at no time have so effaced the
+marks of native gentility which were once so visible in a face otherwise
+strikingly ugly, thin, and care-worn. From her recollections of him, she
+thinks that he would have wanted bread before he would have begged or
+borrowed a half-penny. "If any of the girls," she says, "who were my
+school-fellows, should be reading, through their aged spectacles,
+tidings from the dead of their youthful friend Starkey, they will feel a
+pang, as I do, at ever having teased his gentle spirit." They were big
+girls, it seems, too old to attend his instructions with the silence
+necessary; and however old age and a long state of beggary seem to have
+reduced his writing faculties to a state of imbecility, in those days
+his language occasionally rose to the bold and figurative: for, when he
+was in despair to stop their chattering, his ordinary phrase was,
+"Ladies, if you will not hold your peace, not all the powers in heaven
+can make you!" Once he was missing for a day or two: he had run away. A
+little, old, unhappy-looking man brought him back,--it was his
+father,--and he did no business in the school that day, but sat moping
+in a corner, with his hands before his face; and the girls, his
+tormentors, in pity for his case, for the rest of that day forbore to
+annoy him. "I had been there but a few months," adds she, "when Starkey,
+who was the chief instructor of us girls, communicated to us, as a
+profound secret, that the tragedy of 'Cato' was shortly to be acted by
+the elder boys, and that we were to be invited to the representation."
+That Starkey lent a helping hand in fashioning the actors, she
+remembers; and but for his unfortunate person, he might have had some
+distinguished part in the scene to enact. As it was, he had the arduous
+task of prompter assigned to him; and his feeble voice was heard clear
+and distinct, repeating the text during the whole performance. She
+describes her recollection of the cast of characters, even now, with a
+relish. Martia, by the handsome Edgar Hickman, who afterwards went to
+Africa, and of whom she never afterwards heard tidings; Lucia, by Master
+Walker, whose sister was her particular friend; Cato, by John Hunter, a
+masterly declaimer, but a plain boy, and shorter by the head than his
+two sons in the scene, etc. In conclusion, Starkey appears to have been
+one of those mild spirits, which, not originally deficient in
+understanding, are crushed by penury into dejection and feebleness. He
+might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society, if
+Fortune had taken him into a very little fostering; but wanting that, he
+became a Captain,--a by-word,--and lived and died a broken bulrush.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perhaps the reader would be pleased to see another of Elia's
+contributions to Hone's "Every-Day Book." For, though Lamb's articles in
+that amusing and very entertaining miscellany are not very highly
+finished or very carefully elaborated, they contain many touches of his
+delicious humor and exquisite pathos, and are, indeed, replete with the
+quaint beauties and beautiful oddities of his very original and very
+delightful genius.
+
+Sterne's sentimental description of the Dead Ass is immortal; but few of
+the readers and admirers of Charles Lamb know that he, who wrote so
+eloquently and pathetically in defence of Beggars and of
+Chimney-Sweepers, and who so ably and successfully vindicated the little
+innocent hare from the charge--made "by Linnæus perchance, or
+Buffon"--of being a timid animal, indited an essay on the same
+long-eared and loud-voiced quadruped.
+
+
+THE ASS.
+
+Mr. Collier, in his "Poetical Decameron," (Third Conversation,) notices
+a tract printed in 1595, with the author's initials only, A. B.,
+entitled, "The Nobleness of the Asse: a work rare, learned, and
+excellent." He has selected the following pretty passage from it:--"He
+[the ass] refuseth no burthen; he goes whither he is sent, without any
+contradiction. He lifts not his foote against any one; he bytes not; he
+is no fugitive, nor malicious affected. He doth all things in good sort,
+and to his liking that hath cause to employ him. If strokes be given
+him, he cares not for them; and, as out modern poet singeth,--
+
+    'Thou wouldst (perhaps) he should become thy foe,
+    And to that end dost beat him many times:
+    He cares not for himselfe, much lesse thy blow.'"[B]
+
+Certainly Nature, foreseeing the cruel usage which this useful servant
+to man should receive at man's hand, did prudently in furnishing him
+with a tegument impervious to ordinary stripes. The malice of a child or
+a weak hand can make feeble impressions on him. His back offers no mark
+to a puny foeman. To a common whip or switch his hide presents an
+absolute insensibility. You might as well pretend to scourge a
+school-boy with a tough pair of leather breeches on. His jerkin is well
+fortified; and therefore the costermongers "between the years 1790 and
+1800" did more politicly than piously in lifting up a part of his upper
+garment. I well remember that beastly and bloody custom. I have often
+longed to see one of those refiners in discipline himself at the cart's
+tail, with just such a convenient spot laid bare to the tender mercies
+of the whipster. But, since Nature has resumed her rights, it is to be
+hoped that this patient creature does not suffer to extremities,--and
+that to the savages who still belabor his poor carcass with their blows
+(considering the sort of anvil they are laid upon,) he might in some
+sort, if he could speak, exclaim, with the philosopher, "Lay on! you
+beat but upon the case of Anaxarchus."
+
+Contemplating this natural safeguard, this fortified exterior, it is
+with pain I view the sleek, foppish, combed, and curried person of this
+animal as he is transmuted and disnaturalized at watering-places, etc.,
+where they affect to make a palfrey of him. Fie on all such
+sophistications! It will never do, Master Groom! Something of his honest
+shaggy exterior will still peep up in spite of you,--his good, rough,
+native, pine-apple coating. You cannot "refine a scorpion into a fish,
+though you rinse it and scour it with ever so cleanly cookery."[C]
+
+The modern poet quoted by A. B. proceeds to celebrate a virtue for which
+no one to this day had been aware that the ass was remarkable:--
+
+    "One other gift this beast hath as his owne,
+    Wherewith the rest could not be furnishèd;
+    On man himselfe the same was not bestowne:
+    To wit, on him is ne'er engenderèd
+    The hatefull vermine that doth teare the skin,
+    And to the bode [body] doth make his passage in."
+
+And truly, when one thinks on the suit of impenetrable armor with which
+Nature (like Vulcan to another Achilles) has provided him, these subtle
+enemies to _our_ repose would have shown some dexterity in getting into
+_his_ quarters. As the bogs of Ireland by tradition expel toads and
+reptiles, he may well defy these small deer in his fastnesses. It seems
+the latter had not arrived at the exquisite policy adopted by the human
+vermin "between 1790 and 1800."
+
+But the most singular and delightful gift of the ass, according to the
+writer of this pamphlet, is his _voice_, the "goodly, sweet, and
+continual brayings" of which, "whereof they forme a melodious and
+proportionable kinde of musicke," seem to have affected him with no
+ordinary pleasure. "Nor thinke I," he adds, "that any of our immoderate
+musitians can deny but that their song is full of exceeding pleasure to
+be heard; because therein is to be discerned both concord, discord,
+singing in the meane, the beginning to sing in large compasse, then
+following on to rise and fall, the halfe note, whole note, musicke of
+five voices, firme singing by four voices, three together, or one voice
+and a halfe. Then their variable contrarieties amongst them, when one
+delivers forth a long tenor or a short, the pausing for time, breathing
+in measure, breaking the minim or very least moment of time. Last of
+all, to heare the musicke of five or six voices chaunged to so many of
+asses is amongst them to heare a song of world without end."
+
+There is no accounting for ears, or for that laudable enthusiasm with
+which an author is tempted to invest a favorite subject with the most
+incompatible perfections. I should otherwise, for my own taste, have
+been inclined rather to have given a place to these extraordinary
+musicians at that banquet of nothing-less-than-sweet sounds, imagined by
+old Jeremy Collier, (Essays, 1698, part ii., On Music,) where, after
+describing the inspiriting effects of martial music in a battle, he
+hazards an ingenious conjecture, whether a sort of _anti-music_ might
+not be invented, which should have quite the contrary effect of "sinking
+the spirits, shaking the nerves, curdling the blood, and inspiring
+despair and cowardice and consternation." "'T is probable," he says,
+"the roaring of lions, the warbling of cats and screech-owls, together
+with a mixture of the howling of dogs, judiciously imitated and
+compounded, might go a great way in this invention." The dose, we
+confess, is pretty potent, and skilfully enough prepared. But what shall
+we say to the ass of Silenus, who, if we may trust to classic lore, by
+his own proper sounds, without thanks to cat or screech-owl, dismayed
+and put to rout a whole army of giants? Here was _anti-music_ with a
+vengeance,--a whole _Pan-Dis-Harmonicon_ in a single lungs of leather!
+
+But I keep you trifling too long on this asinine subject. I have already
+passed the _Pons Asinorum_, and will desist, remembering the old
+pedantic pun of Jem Boyer, my schoolmaster:--
+
+     "Ass _in præsenti_ seldom makes a WISE MAN _in futuro_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lamb not only had a passionate fondness for old books and old friends,
+but he loved the old associations. He was no admirer of your modern
+improvements. Unlike Dr. Johnson, he did not go into the "most stately
+shops," but purchased his books and engravings at the stalls and from
+second-hand dealers. In his eyes, the old Inner-Temple Church was a
+handsomer and statelier structure than the finest Cathedral in England;
+and to his ear, as well as to the ear of Will Honeycomb, the old
+familiar cries of the peripatetic London merchants were more musical
+than the songs of larks and nightingales. It grieved him sorely to see
+an old building demolished which he had passed and repassed for years,
+in his daily walks to and from his business,--or an old custom
+abolished, whose observance he had witnessed when a child. "The
+disappearance of the old clock from St. Dunstan's Church," says Mr.
+Moxon, in his pleasant tribute to Lamb's memory in Leigh Hunt's Journal,
+"drew tears from his eyes; nor could he ever pass without emotion the
+place where Exeter Change once stood. The removal had spoiled a reality
+in Gay. 'The passer-by,' he said, 'no longer saw the combs dangle in his
+face.' This almost broke his heart." And he begins the following little
+"essaykin" with a lamentation over the disappearance from the streets of
+London of the tinman's old original sign, and a sigh for "the good old
+modes of our ancestors."
+
+What he says of maiden aunts and their pets is delightful, and
+pleasantly reminds the reader of Addison's account of Sam Trusty's visit
+to the Widow Feeble.
+
+
+IN RE SQUIRRELS.
+
+What is gone with the cages, with the climbing squirrel and bells to
+them, which were formerly the indispensable appendage to the outside of
+a tinman's shop, and were, in fact, the only live signs? One, we
+believe, still hangs out on Holborn; but they are fast vanishing with
+the good old modes of our ancestors. They seem to have been superseded
+by that still more ingenious refinement of modern humanity, the
+tread-mill, in which _human_ squirrels still perform a similar round of
+ceaseless, improgressive clambering, which must be nuts to them.
+
+We almost doubt the fact of the teeth of this creature being so purely
+orange-colored as Mr. Urban's correspondent gives out. One of our old
+poets--and they were pretty sharp observers of Nature--describes them as
+brown. But perhaps the naturalist referred to meant "of the color of a
+Maltese orange,"[D] which is rather more obfuscated than your fruit of
+Seville or St. Michael's, and may help to reconcile the difference. We
+cannot speak from observation; but we remember at school getting our
+fingers into the orangery of one of these little gentry, (not having a
+due caution of the traps set there,) and the result proved sourer than
+lemons. The author of the "Task" somewhere speaks of their anger as
+being "insignificantly fierce"; but we found the demonstration of it on
+this occasion quite as significant as we desired, and have not been
+disposed since to look any of these "gift horses" in the mouth. Maiden
+aunts keep these "small deer," as they do parrots, to bite people's
+fingers, on purpose to give them good advice "not to venture so near the
+cage another time." As for their "six quavers divided into three quavers
+and a dotted crotchet," I suppose they may go into Jeremy Bentham's next
+budget of Fallacies, along with the "melodious and proportionable kinde
+of musicke," recorded in your last number, of another highly gifted
+animal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although Lamb took little, if any, interest in public affairs, and,
+indeed, knew about as much of the events and occurrences of the day as
+the sublime, abstracted dancing-master immortalized in one of the
+letters to Manning, he appears to have been profoundly and painfully
+impressed by the fate of Fauntleroy, the forger. He thought and talked
+of Fauntleroy by day, and dreamed of Fauntleroy at night. And on the day
+after the execution of that unfortunate man, Lamb, thus solemnly, yet
+humorously withal, writes to his good friend Bernard Barton, poet and
+bank-officer:--
+
+"And now, my dear Sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of
+yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate
+Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes
+around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed
+to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become
+more impressive than usual with the charge of them. Who that standeth
+knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most willing to
+believe, have never deviated into others' property. You think it
+impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence; but so
+thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at last
+have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are a
+banker, or, at least, the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the
+subject; but cash must pass through your hands, sometimes to a great
+amount. If, in an unguarded hour----But I will hope better. Consider the
+scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go
+to see a Quaker hanged that would be indifferent to the fate of a
+Presbyterian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the
+sale of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations! I
+tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of
+the law, at one time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged
+as I, in my own presumption, am ready, too ready, to do myself. What are
+we better than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is
+there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I
+ask you? Think on these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of
+my own fingers,--not for their resemblance to the ape tribe, (which is
+something,) but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of
+picking, fingering, etc."
+
+And a few months after writing the above letter, Lamb contributed to
+"The London Magazine,"--then in its decadence, but among whose "creaking
+rafters" Elia fondly lingered, "like the last rat,"--to this (his
+favorite periodical) he contributed a brief, but beautiful paper,
+suggested by Fauntleroy's sad story. The article is entitled "The Last
+Peach," and purports to be written by a bank-officer (possibly the
+author had Barton in his mind while writing it) who fears he may become
+a second Fauntleroy. The piece contains one or two delightful passages,
+and is, in fact, full of happy touches and felicitous bits of
+description. Very charming (to me, at least) is the account of the
+plucking of the last peach, and very touching is the allusion to the
+babe Fauntleroy. But good wine (or a good peach) needs no bush; and
+therefore, without further comment or commendation, I present "The Last
+Peach" to the appreciative reader. He will find it to be, unless I am a
+very poor judge of the article, a peach of excellent quality and of a
+peculiarly fine flavor.
+
+The garden in which grew the tree on which "lingered the one last peach"
+belonged to "Blakesmoor," the fine old family-mansion of the Plummers of
+Hertfordshire, in whose family Lamb's maternal grandmother--"the
+grandame" of his poem of that name, and the "great-grandmother Field" of
+Elia's "Dream-Children"--was housekeeper for many years.
+
+
+THE LAST PEACH.
+
+I am the miserablest man living. Give me counsel, dear Editor. I was
+bred up in the strictest principles of honesty, and have passed my life
+in punctual adherence to them. Integrity might be said to be ingrained
+in our family. Yet I live in constant fear of one day coming to the
+gallows.
+
+Till the latter end of last autumn, I never experienced these feelings
+of self-mistrust, which ever since have embittered my existence. From
+the apprehension of that unfortunate man[E] whose story began to make so
+great an impression upon the public about that time, I date my horrors.
+I never can get it out of my head that I shall some time or other commit
+a forgery, or do some equally vile thing. To make matters worse, I am in
+a banking-house. I sit surrounded with a cluster of bank-notes. These
+were formerly no more to me than meat to a butcher's dog. They are now
+as toads and aspics. I feel all day like one situated amidst gins and
+pitfalls. Sovereigns, which I once took such pleasure in counting out,
+and scraping up with my little tin shovel, (at which I was the most
+expert in the banking-house,) now scald my hands. When I go to sign my
+name, I set down that of another person, or write my own in a
+counterfeit character. I am beset with temptations without motive. I
+want no more wealth than I possess. A more contented being than myself,
+as to money-matters, exists not. What should I fear?
+
+When a child, I was once let loose, by favor of a nobleman's gardener,
+into his Lordship's magnificent fruit-garden, with full leave to pull
+the currants and the gooseberries; only I was interdicted from touching
+the wall-fruit. Indeed, at that season (it was the end of autumn) there
+was little left. Only on the south wall (can I forget the hot feel of
+the brick-work?) lingered the one last peach. Now peaches are a fruit
+which I always had, and still have, an almost utter aversion to. There
+is something to my palate singularly harsh and repulsive in the flavor
+of them. I know not by what demon of contradiction inspired, but I was
+haunted with an irresistible desire to pluck it. Tear myself as often as
+I would from the spot, I found myself still recurring to it, till,
+maddening with desire, (desire I cannot call it,) with wilfulness
+rather,--without appetite, (against appetite, I may call it,) in an evil
+hour I reached out my hand, and plucked it. Some few rain-drops just
+then fell; the sky, from a bright day, became overcast; and I was a type
+of our first parents, after eating of that fatal fruit. I felt myself
+naked and ashamed, stripped of my virtue, spiritless. The downy fruit,
+whose sight rather than savor had tempted me, dropped from my hand,
+never to be tasted. All the commentators in the world cannot persuade me
+but that the Hebrew word, in the second chapter of Genesis, translated
+apple, should be rendered peach. Only this way can I reconcile that
+mysterious story.
+
+Just such a child at thirty am I among the cash and valuables, longing
+to pluck, without an idea of enjoyment further. I cannot reason myself
+out of these fears: I dare not laugh at them. I was tenderly and
+lovingly brought up. What then? Who that in life's entrance had seen the
+babe F----, from the lap stretching out his little fond mouth to catch
+the maternal kiss, could have predicted, or as much as imagined, that
+life's very different exit? The sight of my own fingers torments me,
+they seem so admirably constructed for--pilfering. Then that jugular
+vein, which I have in common----; in an emphatic sense may I say with
+David, I am "fearfully made." All my mirth is poisoned by these unhappy
+suggestions. If, to dissipate reflection, I hum a tune, it changes to
+the "Lamentations of a Sinner." My very dreams are tainted. I awake with
+a shocking feeling of my hand in some pocket.
+
+Advise me, dear Editor, on this painful heart-malady. Tell me, do you
+feel anything allied to it in yourself? Do you never feel an itching, as
+it were,--a _dactylomania_,--or am I alone? You have my honest
+confession. My next may appear from Bow Street.
+
+                                               SUSPENSURUS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Delightful as the essays of Elia are, Lamb did not spend all the "riches
+of his wit" in their production. His letters--so full are they of "the
+salt and fineness of wit,"--so richly humorous and so deliciously
+droll,--so rammed and crammed with the oddest conceits and the wildest
+fancies, and the quaintest, queerest thoughts, ideas, and
+speculations--are scarcely inferior to his essays. Indeed, some of the
+best and most admired of the essays are but extended letters. The germ
+of the immortal dissertation on "Roast Pig" is contained in a letter to
+Coleridge; the essay entitled "Distant Correspondents" is hardly more
+than a transcript of a private letter to Barron Field; and the original
+sketch of "The Gentle Giantess" was given in a letter to Miss
+Wordsworth.
+
+In the following letter--which is not included in Talfourd's "Life and
+Letters of Charles Lamb," and will therefore be new to most
+readers--Lamb writes very much in the manner in which Shakspeare's fools
+and jesters--in some respects the wisest and thoughtfullest characters
+in his works--talk. If his words be "light as air," they vent "truths
+deep as the centre." If the Fool in "Lear" had written letters to his
+friends and acquaintances, I think they would have marvellously
+resembled this epistle to Patmore; and if, in saying this, I compliment
+the Fool, I hope I do not derogate from the genius of Elia. Jaques, it
+will be remembered, after hearing the "motley fool" moral on the time,
+declared that "motley's the only wear"; and I opine that Lamb would
+consider it no small praise to be likened, in wit, wisdom, and
+eloquence, to Touchstone, or to the Clown in "Twelfth Night."
+
+
+TO P. G. PATMORE.
+
+DEAR P.,--I am poorly. I have been to a funeral, where I made a pun, to
+the consternation of the rest of the mourners; and we had wine. I can't
+describe to you the howl which the widow set up at proper intervals.
+Dash could; for it was not unlike what he makes.
+
+The letter I sent you was directed to the care of E. White, India House,
+for Mrs. Hazlitt: _which_ Mrs. Hazlitt I don't yet know; but A. has
+taken it to France on speculation. Really it is embarrassing. There is
+Mrs. present H., Mrs. late H., and Mrs. John H.; and to which of the
+three Mrs. Wigginses it appertains I don't know. I wanted to open it;
+but it's transportation.
+
+I am sorry you are plagued about your book. I would strongly recommend
+you to take for one story Massinger's "Old Law." It is exquisite. I can
+think of no other.
+
+Dash is frightful this morning. He whines and stands up on his
+hind-legs. He misses Beckey, who is gone to town. I took him to Barnet
+the other day; and he couldn't eat his victuals after it. Pray God his
+intellects be not slipping.
+
+Mary is gone out for some soles. I suppose it's no use to ask you to
+come and partake of 'em, else there's a steam-vessel.
+
+I am doing a tragi-comedy in two acts, and have got on tolerably; but it
+will be refused, or worse. I never had luck with anything my name was
+put to.
+
+Oh, I am so poorly! I _waked_ it at my cousin's the bookbinder's, who is
+now with God; or, if he is not, it's no fault of mine.
+
+We hope the frank wines do not disagree with Mrs. Patmore. By the way, I
+like her.
+
+Did you ever taste frogs? Get them, if you can. They are little Liliput
+rabbits, only a thought nicer.
+
+Christ, how sick I am!--not of the world, but of the widow's shrub.
+She's sworn under six thousand pounds; but I think she perjured herself.
+She howls in E _la_; and I comfort her in B flat. You understand music?
+
+If you haven't got Massinger, you have nothing to do but go to the first
+bibliothèque you can light upon at Boulogne, and ask for it (Gifford's
+edition); and if they haven't got it, you can have "Athalie," par
+Monsieur Racine, and make the best of it; but that "Old Law" 's
+delicious!
+
+"No shrimps!" (That's in answer to Mary's question about how the soles
+are to be done.)
+
+I am uncertain where this _wandering_ letter may reach you. What you
+mean by "poste restante," God knows. Do you mean I must pay the postage?
+So I do, to Dover.
+
+We had a merry passage with the widow at the Commons. She was
+howling,--part howling, and part giving directions to the
+proctor,--when, crash! down went my sister through a crazy chair, and
+made the clerks grin; and I grinned, and the widow tittered; _and then I
+knew that she was not inconsolable_. Mary was more frightened than hurt.
+
+She'd make a good match for anybody (by "she," I mean the widow).
+
+    "If he bring but a _relict_ away,
+    He is happy, nor heard to complain."
+
+                           _Shenstone._
+
+Procter has got a wen growing out at the nape of his neck, which his
+wife wants him to have cut off: but I think it rather an agreeable
+excrescence; like his poetry, redundant. Hone has hanged himself for
+debt. Godwin was taken up for picking pockets. Beckey takes to bad
+courses. Her father was blown up in a steam-machine. The coroner found
+it insanity. I should not like him to sit on my letter.[F]
+
+Do you observe my direction? Is it Gaelic?--classical?
+
+Do try and get some frogs. You must ask for "grenouilles" (green-eels).
+They don't understand "frogs"; though it's a common phrase with us.
+
+If you go through Bulloign [Boulogne], inquire if old Godfrey is living,
+and how he got home from the Crusades. He must be a very old man now.
+
+If there is anything new in politics or literature in France, keep it
+till I see you again; for I'm in no hurry. Chatty-Briant [Châteaubriand]
+is well, I hope.
+
+I think I have no more news; only give both our loves ("all three," says
+Dash) to Mrs. Patmore, and bid her get quite well, as I am at present,
+bating qualms, and the grief incident to losing a valuable relation.
+
+                       C. L.
+
+    LONDRES, July 19, 1827.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of all the essays of Elia, the paper on "Roast Pig" is perhaps the most
+read, the most quoted, the most admired. 'T is even better, says an
+epicurean friend of mine, than the "crisp, tawny, well-watched, not
+over-roasted crackling" it descants upon so eloquently. Certainly Lamb
+never writes so richly and so delightfully as when he discourses of the
+dainties and delicacies of the table.
+
+Though all our readers are doubtlessly familiar with Elia's beautiful
+little article entitled "Thoughts on Presents of Game," very few of them
+have read the letter he wrote in acknowledgment of a present of a pig
+from a farmer and his wife. 'T is a rare bit, a choice morsel of Lamb's
+best and most delicious humor, and will be perused with great pleasure
+and satisfaction by all admirers of its witty and eccentric author. Here
+it is.
+
+
+TO A FARMER AND HIS WIFE.
+
+                                      _Twelfth Day, 1823._
+
+The pig was above my feeble praise. It was a dear pigmy. There was some
+contention as to who should have the ears; but, in spite of his
+obstinacy, (deaf as these little creatures are to advice,) I contrived
+to get at one of them.
+
+It came in boots, too, which I took as a favor. Generally these pretty
+toes--pretty toes!--are missing; but I suppose he wore them to look
+taller.
+
+He must have been the least of his race. His little foots would have
+gone into the silver slipper. I take him to have been a Chinese and a
+female.
+
+If Evelyn could have seen him, he would never have farrowed two such
+prodigious volumes; seeing how much good can be contained in--how small
+a compass!
+
+He crackled delicately.
+
+I left a blank at the top of my letter, not being determined which to
+address it to: so farmer and farmer's wife will please to divide our
+thanks. May your granaries be full, and your rats empty, and your
+chickens plump, and your envious neighbors lean, and your laborers busy,
+and you as idle and as happy as the day is long!
+
+
+VIVE L'AGRICULTURE!
+
+    How do you make your pigs so little?
+    They are vastly engaging at the age:
+        I was so myself.
+    Now I am a disagreeable old hog,
+    A middle-aged gentleman-and-a-half.
+    My faculties, thank God, are not much impaired!
+
+I have my sight, hearing, taste, pretty perfect; and can read the Lord's
+Prayer in common type, by the help of a candle, without making many
+mistakes.
+
+Believe me, that, while my faculties last, I shall ever cherish a proper
+appreciation of your many kindnesses in this way, and that the last
+lingering relish of past favors upon my dying memory will be the smack
+of that little ear. It was the left ear, which is lucky. Many happy
+returns,--not of the pig, but of the New Year, to both!
+
+Mary, for her share of the pig and the memoirs, desires to send the
+same.
+
+            Yours truly,
+                 C. LAMB.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[B] "Who this modern poet was," says Mr. Collier, "is a secret worth
+discovering." The wood-cut on the title of the pamphlet is an ass with a
+wreath of laurel round his neck.
+
+[C] Milton, _from memory_.
+
+[D] Fletcher, in the "Faithful Shepherdess." The Satyr offers to Clorin
+
+"grapes whose lusty blood Is the learned poet's good; Sweeter yet did
+never crown The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown Than the _squirrels'
+teeth_ that crack them."
+
+[E] Fauntleroy.
+
+[F] The reader, says Mr. Patmore, need not be told that all the above
+items of home-news are pure fiction.
+
+
+
+
+TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
+
+ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.
+
+NOVEMBER 3, 1864.
+
+
+    Calm priest of Nature, her maternal hand
+      Led thee, a reverent child,
+    To mountain-altars, by the lonely strand,
+      And through the forest wild.
+
+    Haunting her temple, filled with love and awe,
+      To thy responsive youth
+    The harmonies of her benignant law
+      Revealed consoling truth.
+
+    Thenceforth, when toiling in the grasp of Care
+      Amid the eager throng,
+    A votive seer, her greetings thou didst bear,
+      Her oracles prolong.
+
+    The vagrant winds and the far heaving main
+      Breathed in thy chastened rhyme,
+    Their latent music to the soul again,
+      Above the din of time.
+
+    The seasons, at thy call, renewed the spell
+      That thrilled our better years,
+    The primal wonder o'er our spirits fell,
+      And woke the fount of tears.
+
+    And Faith's monition, like an organ's strain,
+      Followed the sea-bird's flight,
+    The river's bounteous flow, the ripening grain,
+      And stars' unfathomed light.
+
+    In the dank woods and where the meadows gleam,
+      The lowliest flower that smiled
+    To wisdom's vigil or to fancy's dream
+      Thy gentle thought beguiled.
+
+    They win fond glances in the prairie's sweep,
+      And where the moss-clumps lie,
+    A welcome find when through the mould they creep,
+      A requiem when they die.
+
+    Unstained thy song with passion's fitful hues
+      Or pleasure's reckless breath,
+    For Nature's beauty to thy virgin muse
+      Was solemnized by death.
+
+    O'er life's majestic realm and dread repose,
+      Entranced with holy calm,
+    From the rapt soul of boyhood then uprose
+     The memorable psalm.
+
+    And roaming lone beneath the woodland shades,
+      Thy meditative prayer
+    In the umbrageous aisles and choral glades
+      We murmur unaware;
+
+    Or track the ages with prophetic cheer,
+      Lured by thy chant sublime,
+    Till bigotry and kingcraft disappear
+      In Freedom's chosen clime,--
+
+    While on her ramparts with intrepid mien,
+      O'er faction's angry sea,
+    Thy voice proclaims, undaunted and serene,
+      The watchwords of the free.
+
+    Not in vague tones or tricks of verbal art
+      The plaint and pæan rung:
+    Thine the clear utterance of an earnest heart,
+      The limpid Saxon tongue.
+
+    Our country's minstrel! in whose crystal verse
+      With tranquil joy we trace
+    Her native glories, and the tale rehearse
+      Of her primeval race,--
+
+    Blest are thy laurels, that unchallenged crown
+      Worn brow and silver hair,
+    For truth and manhood consecrate renown,
+      And her pure triumph share!
+
+
+
+
+HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS
+
+BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.
+
+
+X.
+
+Our gallant Bob Stephens, into whose life-boat our Marianne has been
+received, has lately taken the mania of house-building into his head.
+Bob is somewhat fastidious, difficult to please, fond of domesticities
+and individualities; and such a man never can fit himself into a house
+built by another, and accordingly house-building has always been his
+favorite mental recreation. During all his courtship as much time was
+taken up in planning a future house as if he had money to build one, and
+all Marianne's patterns, and the backs of half their letters, were
+scrawled with ground-plans and elevations. But latterly this chronic
+disposition has been quickened into an acute form by the falling-in of
+some few thousands to their domestic treasury,--left as the sole
+residuum of a painstaking old aunt, who took it into her head to make a
+will in Bob's favor, leaving, among other good things, a nice little bit
+of land in a rural district half an hour's railroad-ride from Boston.
+
+So now ground-plans thicken, and my wife is being consulted morning,
+noon, and night, and I never come into the room without finding their
+heads close together over a paper, and hearing Bob expatiate on his
+favorite idea of a library. He appears to have got so far as this, that
+the ceiling is to be of carved oak, with ribs running to a boss
+overhead, and finished mediævally with ultramarine blue and
+gilding,--and then away he goes sketching Gothic patterns of
+book-shelves which require only experienced carvers, and the wherewithal
+to pay them, to be the divinest things in the world.
+
+Marianne is exercised about china-closets and pantries, and about a
+bed-room on the ground-door,--for, like all other women of our days, she
+expects not to have strength enough to run up-stairs oftener than once
+or twice a week; and my wife, who is a native genius in this line, and
+has planned in her time dozens of houses for acquaintances, wherein they
+are at this moment living happily, goes over every day with her pencil
+and ruler the work of rearranging the plans, according as the ideas of
+the young couple veer and vary.
+
+One day Bob is importuned to give two feet off from his library for a
+closet in the bed-room,--but resists like a Trojan. The next morning,
+being mollified by private domestic supplications, Bob yields, and my
+wife rubs out the lines of yesterday, two feet come off the library, and
+a closet is constructed. But now the parlor proves too narrow,--the
+parlor-wall must be moved two feet into the hall. Bob declares this will
+spoil the symmetry of the latter, and if there is anything he wants, it
+is a wide, generous, ample hall to step into when you open the
+front-door.
+
+"Well, then," says Marianne, "let's put two feet more into the width of
+the house."
+
+"Can't, on account of the expense, you see," says Bob. "You see, every
+additional foot of outside wall necessitates so many more bricks, so
+much more flooring, so much more roofing, etc."
+
+And my wife, with thoughtful brow, looks over the plans, and considers
+how two feet more are to be got into the parlor without moving any of
+the walls.
+
+"I say," says Bob, bending over her shoulder, "here, take your two feet
+in the parlor, and put two more feet on to the other side of the
+hall-stairs"; and he dashes heavily with his pencil.
+
+"Oh, Bob!" exclaims Marianne, "there are the kitchen-pantries! you ruin
+them,--and no place for the cellar-stairs!"
+
+"Hang the pantries and cellar-stairs!" says Bob, "Mother must find a
+place for them somewhere else. I say the house must be roomy and
+cheerful, and pantries and those things may take care of themselves;
+they can be put _somewhere_ well enough. No fear but you will find a
+place for them somewhere. What do you women always want such a great
+enormous kitchen for?"
+
+"It is not any larger than is necessary," said my wife, thoughtfully;
+"nothing is gained by taking off from it."
+
+"What if you should put it all down into a basement," suggests Bob, "and
+so get it all out of sight together?"
+
+"Never, if it can be helped," said my wife. "Basement-kitchens are
+necessary evils, only to be tolerated in cities where land is too dear
+to afford any other."
+
+So goes the discussion till the trio agree to sleep over it. The next
+morning an inspiration visits my wife's pillow. She is up and seizes
+plans and paper, and before six o'clock has enlarged the parlor very
+cleverly, by throwing out a bow-window. So waxes and wanes the
+prospective house, innocently battered down and rebuilt with
+India-rubber and black-lead. Doors are cut out to-night, and walled up
+to-morrow,--windows knocked out here and put in there, as some observer
+suggests possibilities of too much or too little draught. Now all seems
+finished, when, lo, a discovery! There is no fireplace nor stove-flue in
+my lady's bed-room, and can be none without moving the bathing-room.
+Pencil and India-rubber are busy again, and for a while the whole house
+seems to threaten to fall to pieces with the confusion of the moving;
+the bath-room wanders like a ghost, now invading a closet, now
+threatening the tranquillity of the parlor, till at last it is laid by
+some unheard-of calculations of my wife's, and sinks to rest in a place
+so much better that everybody wonders it never was thought of before.
+
+"Papa," said Jennie, "it appears to me people don't exactly know what
+they want when they build; why don't you write a paper on
+house-building?"
+
+"I have thought of it," said I, with the air of a man called to settle
+some great reform. "It must be entirely because Christopher has not
+written that our young people and mamma are tangling themselves daily in
+webs which are untangled the next day."
+
+"You see," said Jennie, "they have only just so much money, and they
+want everything they can think of under the sun. There's Bob been
+studying architectural antiquities, and nobody knows what, and sketching
+all sorts of curly-whorlies; and Marianne has her notions about a parlor
+and boudoir and china-closets and bedroom-closets; and Bob wants a
+baronial hall; and mamma stands out for linen-closets and bathing-rooms
+and all that; and so among them all it will just end in getting them
+head over ears in debt."
+
+The thing struck me as not improbable.
+
+"I don't know, Jennie, whether my writing an article is going to prevent
+all this; but as my time in the 'Atlantic' is coming round, I may as
+well write on what I am obliged to think of, and so I will give a paper
+on the subject to enliven our next evening's session."
+
+So that evening, when Bob and Marianne had dropped in as usual, and
+while the customary work of drawing and rubbing-out was going on at Mrs.
+Crowfield's sofa, I produced my paper and read as follows:--
+
+
+OUR HOUSE.
+
+There is a place called "Our House," which everybody knows of. The
+sailor talks of it in his dreams at sea. The wounded soldier, turning in
+his uneasy hospital-bed, brightens at the word,--it is like the dropping
+of cool water in the desert, like the touch of cool fingers on a burning
+brow. "Our house," he says feebly, and the light comes back into his dim
+eyes,--for all homely charities, all fond thoughts, all purities, all
+that man loves on earth or hopes for in heaven, rise with the word.
+
+"Our house" may be in any style of architecture, low or high. It may be
+the brown old farm-house, with its tall well-sweep, or the one-story
+gambrel-roofed cottage, or the large, square, white house, with green
+blinds, under the wind-swung elms of a century, or it may be the
+log-cabin of the wilderness, with its one room,--still there is a spell
+in the memory of it beyond all conjurations. Its stone and brick and
+mortar are like no other; its very clapboards and shingles are dear to
+us, powerful to bring back the memories of early days, and all that is
+sacred in home-love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Papa is getting quite sentimental," whispered Jennie, loud enough for
+me to hear. I shook my head at her impressively, and went on undaunted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is no one fact of our human existence that has a stronger
+influence upon us than the house we dwell in,--especially that in which
+our earlier and more impressible years are spent. The building and
+arrangement of a house influence the health, the comfort, the morals,
+the religion. There have been houses built so devoid of all
+consideration for the occupants, so rambling and hap-hazard in the
+disposal of rooms, so sunless and cheerless and wholly without snugness
+or privacy, as to make it seem impossible to live a joyous, generous,
+rational, religious family-life in them.
+
+There are, we shame to say, in our cities _things_ called houses, built
+and rented by people who walk erect and have the general air and manner
+of civilized and Christianized men, which are so inhuman in their
+building that they can only be called snares and traps for
+souls,--places where children cannot well escape growing up filthy and
+impure,--places where to form a home is impossible, and to live a
+decent, Christian life would require miraculous strength.
+
+A celebrated British philanthropist, who had devoted much study to the
+dwellings of the poor, gave it as his opinion that temperance-societies
+were a hopeless undertaking in London, unless these dwellings underwent
+a transformation. They were so squalid, so dark, so comfortless, so
+constantly pressing upon the senses foulness, pain, and inconvenience,
+that it was only by being drugged with gin and opium that their
+miserable inhabitants could find heart to drag on life from day to day.
+He had himself tried the experiment of reforming a drunkard by taking
+him from one of these loathsome dens and enabling him to rent a tenement
+in a block of model lodging-houses which had been built under his
+supervision. The young man had been a designer of figures for prints; he
+was of a delicate frame, and a nervous, susceptible temperament. Shut in
+one miserable room with his wife and little children, without the
+possibility of pure air, with only filthy, fetid water to drink, with
+the noise of other miserable families resounding through the thin
+partitions, what possibility was there of doing anything except by the
+help of stimulants, which for a brief hour lifted him above the
+perception of these miseries? Changed at once to a neat flat, where, for
+the same rent as his former den, he had three good rooms, with water for
+drinking, house-service, and bathing freely supplied, and the blessed
+sunshine and air coming in through windows well arranged for
+ventilation, he became in a few weeks a new man. In the charms of the
+little spot which he could call home, its quiet, its order, his former
+talent came back to him, and he found strength, in pure air and pure
+water and those purer thoughts of which they are the emblems, to abandon
+burning and stupefying stimulants.
+
+The influence of dwelling-houses for good or for evil--their influence
+on the brain, the nerves, and, through these, on the heart and life--is
+one of those things that cannot be enough pondered by those who build
+houses to sell or rent.
+
+Something more generous ought to inspire a man than merely the
+percentage which he can get for his money. He who would build houses
+should think a little on the subject. He should reflect what houses are
+for,--what they may be made to do for human beings. The great majority
+of houses in cities are not built by the indwellers themselves,--they
+are built _for_ them, by those who invest their money in this way, with
+little other thought than the percentage which the investment will
+return.
+
+For persons of ample fortune there are, indeed, palatial residences,
+with all that wealth can do to render life delightful. But in that class
+of houses which must be the lot of the large majority, those which must
+be chosen by young men in the beginning of life, when means are
+comparatively restricted, there is yet wide room for thought and the
+judicious application of money.
+
+In looking over houses to be rented by persons of moderate means, one
+cannot help longing to build,--one sees so many ways in which the same
+sum which built an inconvenient and unpleasant house might have been
+made to build a delightful one.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That's so!" said Bob, with emphasis. "Don't you remember, Marianne, how
+many dismal, commonplace, shabby houses we trailed through?"
+
+"Yes," said Marianne. "You remember those houses with such little
+squeezed rooms and that flourishing staircase, with the colored-glass
+china-closet window and no butler's sink?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob; "and those astonishing, abominable stone abortions that
+adorned the door-steps. People do lay out a deal of money to make houses
+look ugly, it must be confessed."
+
+"One would willingly," said Marianne, "dispense with frightful stone
+ornaments in front, and with heavy mouldings inside, which are of no
+possible use or beauty, and with showy plaster cornices and
+centre-pieces in the parlor-ceilings, and even with marble mantels, for
+the luxury of hot and cold water in each chamber, and a couple of
+comfortable bath-rooms. Then, the disposition of windows and doors is so
+wholly without regard to convenience! How often we find rooms, meant for
+bed-rooms, where really there is no good place for either bed or
+dressing-table!"
+
+Here my wife looked up, having just finished re-drawing the plans to the
+latest alteration.
+
+"One of the greatest reforms that could be, in these reforming days,"
+she observed, "would be to have women architects. The mischief with
+houses built to rent is that they are all mere male contrivances. No
+woman would ever plan chambers where there is no earthly place to set a
+bed except against a window or door, or waste the room in entries that
+might be made into closets. I don't see, for my part, _apropos_ to the
+modern movement for opening new professions to the female sex, why there
+should not be well-educated female architects. The planning and
+arrangement of houses, and the laying-out of grounds, are a fair subject
+of womanly knowledge and taste. It is the teaching of Nature. What would
+anybody think of a bluebird's nest that had been built entirely by Mr.
+Blue without the help of his wife?"
+
+"My dear," said I, "you must positively send a paper on this subject to
+the next Woman's-Rights Convention."
+
+"I am of Sojourner Truth's opinion," said my wife,--"that the best way
+to prove the propriety of one's doing anything is to go and _do it_. A
+woman who should have energy to go through the preparatory studies and
+set to work in this field would, I am sure, soon find employment."
+
+"If she did as well as you would do, my dear," said I. "There are plenty
+of young women in our Boston high-schools who are going through higher
+fields of mathematics than are required by the architect, and the
+schools for design show the flexibility and fertility of the female
+pencil. The thing appears to me altogether more feasible than many other
+openings which have been suggested to woman."
+
+"Well," said Jennie, "isn't papa ever to go on with his paper?"
+
+I continued:--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What ought "our house" to be? Could any other question be asked
+admitting in its details of such varied answers,--answers various as the
+means, the character, and situation of different individuals? But there
+are great wants pertaining to every human being, into which all lesser
+ones run. There are things in a house that every one, high or low, rich
+or poor, ought, according to his means, to seek. I think I shall class
+them according to the elemental division of the old philosophers,--Fire,
+Air, Earth, and Water. These form the groundwork of this _need-be_,--the
+_sine-qua-nons_ of a house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Fire, air, earth, and water! I don't understand," said Jennie.
+
+"Wait a little till you do, then," said I. "I will try to make my
+meaning plain."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first object of a house is shelter from the elements. This object is
+effected by a tent or wigwam which keeps off rain and wind. The first
+disadvantage of this shelter is, that the vital air which you take into
+your lungs, and on the purity of which depends the purity of blood and
+brain and nerve, is vitiated. In the wigwam or tent you are constantly
+taking in poison, more or less active, with every inspiration. Napoleon
+had his army sleep without tents. He stated, that, from experience, he
+found it more healthy; and wonderful have been the instances of delicate
+persons gaining constantly in vigor from being obliged, in the midst of
+hardships, to sleep constantly in the open air. Now the first problem in
+house-building is to combine the advantage of shelter with the fresh
+elasticity of out-door air. I am not going to give here a treatise on
+ventilation, but merely to say, in general terms, that the first object
+of a house-builder or contriver should be to make a healthy house, and
+the first requisite of a healthy house is a pure, sweet, elastic air.
+
+I am in favor, therefore, of those plans of house-building which have
+wide central spaces, whether halls or courts, into which all the rooms
+open, and which necessarily preserve a body of fresh air for the use of
+them all. In hot climates this is the object of the central court which
+cuts into the body of the house, with its fountain and flowers, and its
+galleries, into which the various apartments open. When people are
+restricted for space, and cannot afford to give up wide central portions
+of the house for the mere purposes of passage, this central hall can be
+made a pleasant sitting-room. With tables, chairs, bookcases, and sofas
+comfortably disposed, this ample central room above and below is, in
+many respects, the most agreeable lounging-room of the house; while the
+parlors below and the chambers above, opening upon it, form agreeable
+withdrawing-rooms for purposes of greater privacy.
+
+It is customary with many persons to sleep with bed-room windows
+open,--a very imperfect, and often dangerous mode of procuring that
+supply of fresh air which a sleeping-room requires. In a house
+constructed in the manner indicated, windows might be freely left open
+in these central halls, producing there a constant movement of air, and
+the doors of the bed-rooms placed ajar, when a very slight opening in
+the windows would create a free circulation through the apartments.
+
+In the planning of a house, thought should be had as to the general
+disposition of the windows, and the quarters from which favoring breezes
+may be expected should be carefully considered. Windows should be so
+arranged that draughts of air can be thrown quite through and across the
+house. How often have we seen pale mothers and drooping babes fanning
+and panting during some of our hot days on the sunny side of a house,
+while the breeze that should have cooled them beat in vain against a
+dead wall! One longs sometimes to knock holes through partitions and let
+in the air of heaven.
+
+No other gift of God, so precious, so inspiring, is treated with such
+utter irreverence and contempt in the calculations of us mortals as this
+same air of heaven. A sermon on oxygen, if one had a preacher who
+understood the subject, might do more to repress sin than the most
+orthodox discourse to show when and how and why sin came. A minister
+gets up in a crowded lecture-room, where the mephitic air almost makes
+the candles burn blue, and bewails the deadness of the church,--the
+church the while, drugged by the poisoned air, growing sleepier and
+sleepier, though they feel dreadfully wicked for being so.
+
+Little Jim, who, fresh from his afternoon's rambles in the fields, last
+evening said his prayers dutifully, and lay down to sleep in a most
+Christian frame, this morning sits up in bed with his hair bristling
+with crossness, strikes at his nurse, and declares he won't say his
+prayers,--that he don't want to be good. The simple difference is, that
+the child, having slept in a close box of a room, his brain all night
+fed by poison, is in a mild state of moral insanity. Delicate women
+remark that it takes them till eleven or twelve o'clock to get up their
+strength in the morning. Query,--Do they sleep with closed windows and
+doors, and with heavy bed-curtains?
+
+The houses built by our ancestors were better ventilated in certain
+respects than modern ones, with all their improvements. The great
+central chimney, with its open fireplaces in the different rooms,
+created a constant current which carried off foul and vitiated air. In
+these days, how common is it to provide rooms with only a flue for a
+stove! This flue is kept shut in summer, and in winter opened only to
+admit a close stove, which burns away the vital portion of the air quite
+as fast as the occupants breathe it away. The sealing-up of fireplaces
+and introduction of air-tight stoves may, doubtless, be a saving of
+fuel: it saves, too, more than that; in thousands and thousands of cases
+it has saved people from all further human wants, and put an end forever
+to any needs short of the six feet of narrow earth which are man's only
+inalienable property. In other words, since the invention of air-tight
+stoves, thousands have died of slow poison. It is a terrible thing to
+reflect upon, that our Northern winters last from November to May, six
+long months, in which many families confine themselves to one room, of
+which every window-crack has been carefully calked to make it air-tight,
+where an air-tight stove keeps the atmosphere at a temperature between
+eighty and ninety, and the inmates sitting there with all their winter
+clothes on become enervated both by the heat and by the poisoned air,
+for which there is no escape but the occasional opening of a door.
+
+It is no wonder that the first result of all this is such a delicacy of
+skin and lungs that about half the inmates are obliged to give up going
+into the open air during the six cold months, because they invariably
+catch cold, if they do so. It is no wonder that the cold caught about
+the first of December has by the first of March become a fixed
+consumption, and that the opening of the spring, which ought to bring
+life and health, in so many cases brings death.
+
+We hear of the lean condition in which the poor bears emerge from their
+six-months' wintering, during which they subsist on the fat which they
+have acquired the previous summer. Even so in our long winters,
+multitudes of delicate people subsist on the daily waning strength which
+they acquired in the season when windows and doors were open, and fresh
+air was a constant luxury. No wonder we hear of spring fever and spring
+biliousness, and have thousands of nostrums for clearing the blood in
+the spring. All these things are the pantings and palpitations of a
+system run down under slow poison, unable to get a step farther. Better,
+far better, the old houses of the olden time, with their great roaring
+fires, and their bed-rooms where the snow came in and the wintry winds
+whistled. Then, to be sure, you froze your back while you burned your
+face, your water froze nightly in your pitcher, your breath congealed
+in ice-wreaths on the blankets, and you could write your name on the
+pretty snow-wreath that had sifted in through the window-cracks. But you
+woke full of life and vigor,--you looked out into whirling snow-storms
+without a shiver, and thought nothing of plunging through drifts as high
+as your head on your daily way to school. You jingled in sleighs, you
+snowballed, you lived in snow like a snow-bird, and your blood coursed
+and tingled, in full tide of good, merry, real life, through your
+veins,--none of the slow-creeping, black blood which clogs the brain and
+lies like a weight on the vital wheels!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Mercy upon us, papa!" said Jennie, "I hope we need not go back to such
+houses!"
+
+"No, my dear," I replied. "I only said that such houses were better than
+those which are all winter closed by double windows and burnt-out
+air-tight stoves."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The perfect house is one in which there is a constant escape of every
+foul and vitiated particle of air through one opening, while a constant
+supply of fresh out-door air is admitted by another. In winter, this
+out-door air must pass through some process by which it is brought up to
+a temperate warmth.
+
+Take a single room, and suppose on one side a current of out-door air
+which has been warmed by passing through the air-chamber of a modern
+furnace. Its temperature need not be above sixty-five,--it answers
+breathing purposes better at that. On the other side of the room let
+there be an open wood- or coal-fire. One cannot conceive the purposes of
+warmth and ventilation more perfectly combined.
+
+Suppose a house with a great central hall, into which a current of
+fresh, temperately warmed air is continually pouring. Each chamber
+opening upon this hall has a chimney up whose flue the rarefied air is
+constantly passing, drawing up with it all the foul and poisonous gases.
+That house is well ventilated, and in a way that need bring no dangerous
+draughts upon the most delicate invalid. For the better securing of
+privacy in sleeping-rooms, we have seen two doors employed, one of which
+is made with slats, like a window-blind, so that air is freely
+transmitted without exposing the interior.
+
+When we speak of fresh air, we insist on the full rigor of the term. It
+must not be the air of a cellar, heavily laden with the poisonous
+nitrogen of turnips and cabbages, but good, fresh, out-door air from a
+cold-air pipe so placed as not to get the lower stratum near the ground,
+where heavy damps and exhalations collect, but high up in just the
+clearest and most elastic region.
+
+The conclusion of the whole matter is, that, as all of man's and woman's
+peace and comfort, all their love, all their amiability, all their
+religion, have got to come to them, while they live in this world,
+through the medium of the brain,--and as black, uncleansed blood acts on
+the brain as a poison, and as no other than black, uncleansed blood can
+be got by the lungs out of impure air,--the first object of the man who
+builds a house is to secure a pure and healthy atmosphere therein.
+
+Therefore, in allotting expenses, set this down as a _must-be_: "Our
+house must have fresh air,--everywhere, at all times, winter and
+summer." Whether we have stone facings or no,--whether our parlor has
+cornices or marble mantels or no,--whether our doors are machine-made or
+hand-made. All our fixtures shall be of the plainest and simplest, but
+we will have fresh air. We will open our door with a latch and string,
+if we cannot afford lock and knob and fresh air too,--but in our house
+we will live cleanly and Christianly. We will no more breathe the foul
+air rejected from a neighbor's lungs than we will use a neighbor's
+tooth-brush and hair-brush. Such is the first essential of "our
+house,"--the first great element of human health and happiness,--AIR.
+
+"I say, Marianne," said Bob, "have we got fireplaces in our chambers?"
+
+"Mamma took care of that," said Marianne.
+
+"You may be quite sure," said I, "if your mother has had a hand in
+planning your house, that the ventilation is cared for."
+
+It must be confessed that Bob's principal idea in a house had been a
+Gothic library, and his mind had labored more on the possibility of
+adapting some favorite bits from the baronial antiquities to modern
+needs than on anything so terrestrial as air. Therefore he awoke as from
+a dream, and taking two or three monstrous inhalations, he seized the
+plans and began looking over them with new energy. Meanwhile I went on
+with my prelection.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The second great vital element for which provision must be made in "our
+house" is FIRE. By which I do not mean merely artificial fire, but fire
+in all its extent and branches,--the heavenly fire which God sends us
+daily on the bright wings of sunbeams, as well as the mimic fires by
+which we warm our dwellings, cook our food, and light our nightly
+darkness.
+
+To begin, then, with heavenly fire or sunshine. If God's gift of vital
+air is neglected and undervalued, His gift of sunshine appears to be
+hated. There are many houses where not a cent has been expended on
+ventilation, but where hundreds of dollars have been freely lavished to
+keep out the sunshine. The chamber, truly, is tight as a box,--it has no
+fireplace, not even a ventilator opening into the stove-flue; but, oh,
+joy and gladness! it has outside blinds and inside folding-shutters, so
+that in the brightest of days we may create there a darkness that may be
+felt. To observe the generality of New-England houses, a spectator might
+imagine that they were planned for the torrid zone, where the great
+object is to keep out a furnace-draught of burning air.
+
+But let us look over the months of our calendar. In which of them do we
+not need fires on our hearths? We will venture to say that from October
+to June all families, whether they actually have it or not, would be the
+more comfortable for a morning and evening fire. For eight months in the
+year the weather varies on the scale of cool, cold, colder, and
+freezing; and for all the four other months what is the number of days
+that really require the torrid-zone system of shutting up houses? We all
+know that extreme heat is the exception, and not the rule.
+
+Yet let anybody travel, as I did last year, through the valley of the
+Connecticut, and observe the houses. All clean and white and neat and
+well-to-do, with their turfy yards and their breezy great elms,--but all
+shut up from basement to attic, as if the inmates had all sold out and
+gone to China. Not a window-blind open above or below. Is the house
+inhabited? No,--yes,--there is a faint stream of blue smoke from the
+kitchen-chimney, and half a window-blind open in some distant back-part
+of the house. They are living there in the dim shadows, bleaching like
+potato-sprouts in the cellar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I can tell you why they do it, papa," said Jennie,--"it's the flies,
+and flies are certainly worthy to be one of the plagues of Egypt. I
+can't myself blame people that shut up their rooms and darken their
+houses in fly-time,--do you, mamma?"
+
+"Not in extreme cases; though I think there is but a short season when
+this is necessary; yet the habit of shutting up lasts the year round,
+and gives to New-England villages that dead, silent, cold, uninhabited
+look which is so peculiar."
+
+"The one fact that a traveller would gather in passing through our
+villages would be this," said I, "that the people live in their houses
+and in the dark. Rarely do you see doors and windows open, people
+sitting at them, chairs in the yard, and signs that the inhabitants are
+living out-of-doors."
+
+"Well," said Jennie, "I have told you why, for I have been at Uncle
+Peter's in summer, and aunt does her spring-cleaning in May, and then
+she shuts all the blinds and drops all the curtains, and the house stays
+clean till October. That's the whole of it. If she had all her windows
+open, there would be paint and windows to be cleaned every week,--and
+who is to do it? For my part, I can't much blame her."
+
+"Well," said I, "I have my doubts about the sovereign efficacy of living
+in the dark, even if the great object of existence were to be rid of
+flies. I remember, during this same journey, stopping for a day or two
+at a country boarding-house which was dark as Egypt from cellar to
+garret. The long, dim, gloomy dining-room was first closed by outside
+blinds, and then by impenetrable paper curtains, notwithstanding which
+it swarmed and buzzed like a beehive. You found where the cake-plate was
+by the buzz which your hand made, if you chanced to reach in that
+direction. It was disagreeable, because in the darkness flies could not
+always be distinguished from huckleberries; and I couldn't help wishing,
+that, since we must have the flies, we might at least have the light and
+air to console us under them. People darken their rooms and shut up
+every avenue of out-door enjoyment, and sit and think of nothing but
+flies; in fact, flies are all they have left. No wonder they become
+morbid on the subject."
+
+"Well, now, papa talks just like a man,--doesn't he?" said Jennie. "He
+hasn't the responsibility of keeping things clean. I wonder what he
+would do, if he were a housekeeper."
+
+"Do? I will tell you. I would do the best I could. I would shut my eyes
+on fly-specks, and open them on the beauties of Nature. I would let the
+cheerful sun in all day long, in all but the few summer days when
+coolness is the one thing needful: those days may be soon numbered every
+year. I would make a calculation in the spring how much it would cost to
+hire a woman to keep my windows and paint clean, and I would do with one
+less gown and have her; and when I had spent all I could afford on
+cleaning windows and paint, I would harden my heart and turn off my
+eyes, and enjoy my sunshine and my fresh air, my breezes, and all that
+can be seen through the picture-windows of an open, airy house, and snap
+my fingers at the flies. There you have it."
+
+"Papa's hobby is sunshine," said Marianne.
+
+"Why shouldn't it be? Was God mistaken, when He made the sun? Did He
+make him for us to hold a life's battle with? Is that vital power which
+reddens the cheek of the peach and pours sweetness through the fruits
+and flowers of no use to us? Look at plants that grow without sun,--wan,
+pale, long-visaged, holding feeble, imploring hands of supplication
+towards the light. Can human beings afford to throw away a vitalizing
+force so pungent, so exhilarating? You remember the experiment of a
+prison, where one row of cells had daily sunshine, and the others none.
+With the same regimen, the same cleanliness, the same care, the inmates
+of the sunless cells were visited with sickness and death in double
+measure. Our whole population in New England are groaning and suffering
+under afflictions, the result of a depressed vitality,--neuralgia, with
+a new ache for every day of the year, rheumatism, consumption, general
+debility; for all these a thousand nostrums are daily advertised, and
+money enough is spent on them to equip an army, while we are fighting
+against, wasting, and throwing away with both hands that blessed
+influence which comes nearest to pure vitality of anything God has
+given.
+
+"Who is it that the Bible describes as a sun, arising with healing in
+his wings? Surely, that sunshine which is the chosen type and image of
+His love must be healing through all the recesses of our daily life,
+drying damp and mould, defending from moth and rust, sweetening ill
+smells, clearing from the nerves the vapors of melancholy, making life
+cheery. If I did not know Him, I should certainly adore and worship the
+sun, the most blessed and beautiful image of Him among things visible.
+In the land of Egypt, in the day of God's wrath, there was darkness, but
+in the land of Goshen there was light. I am a Goshenite, and mean to
+walk in the light, and forswear the works of darkness.--But to proceed
+with our reading."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Our house" shall be set on a southeast line, so that there shall not be
+a sunless room in it, and windows shall be so arranged that it can be
+traversed and transpierced through and through with those bright shafts
+of life which come straight from God.
+
+"Our house" shall not be blockaded with a dank, dripping mass of
+shrubbery set plumb against the windows, keeping out light and air.
+There shall be room all round it for breezes to sweep, and sunshine to
+sweeten and dry and vivify; and I would warn all good souls who begin
+life by setting out two little evergreen-trees within a foot of each of
+their front-windows, that these trees will grow and increase till their
+front-rooms will be brooded over by a sombre, stifling shadow fit only
+for ravens to croak in.
+
+One would think, by the way some people hasten to convert a very narrow
+front-yard into a dismal jungle, that the only danger of our New-England
+climate was sunstroke. Ah, in those drizzling months which form at least
+one-half of our life here, what sullen, censorious, uncomfortable,
+unhealthy thoughts are bred of living in dark, chilly rooms, behind such
+dripping thickets! Our neighbors' faults assume a deeper hue,--life
+seems a dismal thing,--our very religion grows mouldy.
+
+My idea of a house is, that, as far as is consistent with shelter and
+reasonable privacy, it should give you on first entering an open,
+breezy, out-door freshness of sensation. Every window should be a
+picture; sun and trees and clouds and green grass should seem never to
+be far from us. "Our house" may shade, but not darken us. "Our house"
+shall have bow-windows, many, sunny, and airy,--not for the purpose of
+being cleaned and shut up, but to be open and enjoyed. There shall be
+long verandas above and below, where invalids may walk dry-shod, and
+enjoy open-air recreation in wettest weather. In short, I will try to
+have "our house" combine as far as possible the sunny, joyous, fresh
+life of a gypsy in the fields and woods with the quiet and neatness and
+comfort and shelter of a roof, rooms, floors, and carpets.
+
+After heavenly fire, I have a word to say of earthly, artificial fires.
+Furnaces, whether of hot water, steam, or hot air, are all healthy and
+admirable provisions for warming our houses during the eight or nine
+months of our year that we must have artificial heat, if only, as I have
+said, fireplaces keep up a current of ventilation.
+
+The kitchen-range with its water-back I humbly salute. It is a great
+throbbing heart, and sends its warm tides of cleansing, comforting fluid
+all through the house. One could wish that this friendly dragon could be
+in some way moderated in his appetite for coal,--he does consume without
+mercy, it must be confessed,--but then, great is the work he has to do.
+At any hour of day or night in the most distant part of your house, you
+have but to turn a stop-cock and your red dragon sends you hot water for
+your needs; your washing-day becomes a mere play-day; your pantry has
+its ever-ready supply; and then, by a little judicious care in arranging
+apartments and economizing heat, a range may make two or three chambers
+comfortable in winter weather. A range with a water-back is among the
+_must-bes_ in "our house."
+
+Then, as to the evening light,--I know nothing as yet better than gas,
+where it can be had. I would certainly not have a house without it. The
+great objection to it is the danger of its escape through imperfect
+fixtures. But it must not do this: a fluid that kills a tree or a plant
+with one breath must certainly be a dangerous ingredient in the
+atmosphere, and if admitted into houses, must be introduced with every
+safeguard.
+
+There are families living in the country who make their own gas by a
+very simple process. This is worth an inquiry from those who build.
+There are also contrivances now advertised, with good testimonials, of
+domestic machines for generating gas, said to be perfectly safe, simple
+to be managed, and producing a light superior to that of the city
+gas-works. This also is worth an inquiry, when "our house" is to be in
+the country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now I come to the next great vital element for which "our house"
+must provide,--WATER. "Water, water everywhere,"--it must be plentiful,
+it must be easy to get at, it must be pure. Our ancestors had some
+excellent ideas in home-living and house-building. Their houses were,
+generally speaking, very sensibly contrived,--roomy, airy, and
+comfortable; but in their water-arrangements they had little mercy on
+womankind. The well was out in the yard; and in winter one must flounder
+through snow and bring up the ice-bound bucket, before one could fill
+the tea-kettle for breakfast. For a sovereign princess of the republic
+this was hardly respectful or respectable. Wells have come somewhat
+nearer in modern times; but the idea of a constant supply of fresh water
+by the simple turning of a stop-cock has not yet visited the great body
+of our houses. Were we free to build "our house" just as we wish it,
+there should be a bath-room to every two or three inmates, and the hot
+and cold water should circulate to every chamber.
+
+Among our _must-bes_, we would lay by a generous sum for plumbing. Let
+us have our bath-rooms, and our arrangements for cleanliness and health
+in kitchen and pantry; and afterwards let the quality of our lumber and
+the style of our finishings be according to the sum we have left. The
+power to command a warm bath in a house at any hour of day or night is
+better in bringing up a family of children than any amount of ready
+medicine. In three-quarters of childish ailments the warm bath is an
+almost immediate remedy. Bad colds, incipient fevers, rheumatisms,
+convulsions, neuralgias innumerable, are washed off in their first
+beginnings, and run down the lead pipes into oblivion. Have, then, O
+friend, all the water in your house that you can afford, and enlarge
+your ideas of the worth of it, that you _may_ afford a great deal. A
+bathing-room is nothing to you that requires an hour of lifting and
+fire-making to prepare it for use. The apparatus is too cumbrous,--you
+do not turn to it. But when your chamber opens upon a neat, quiet little
+nook, and you have only to turn your stop-cocks and all is ready, your
+remedy is at hand,--you use it constantly. You are waked in the night by
+a scream, and find little Tom sitting up, wild with burning fever. In
+three minutes he is in the bath, quieted and comfortable; you get him
+back, cooled and tranquil, to his little crib, and in the morning he
+wakes as if nothing had happened.
+
+Why should not so invaluable and simple a remedy for disease, such a
+preservative of health, such a comfort, such a stimulus, be considered
+as much a matter-of-course in a house as a kitchen-chimney? At least
+there should be one bath-room always in order, so arranged that all the
+family can have access to it, if one cannot afford the luxury of many.
+
+A house in which water is universally and skilfully distributed is so
+much easier to take care of as almost to verify the saying of a friend,
+that his house was so contrived that it did its own work: one had better
+do without carpets on the floors, without stuffed sofas and
+rocking-chairs, and secure this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, papa," said Marianne, "you have made out all your four elements
+in your house except one. I can't imagine what you want of _earth_."
+
+"I thought," said Jennie, "that the less of our common mother we had in
+our houses, the better housekeepers we were."
+
+"My dears," said I, "we philosophers must give an occasional dip into
+the mystical, and say something apparently absurd for the purpose of
+explaining that we mean nothing in particular by it. It gives common
+people an idea of our sagacity, to find how clear we come out of our
+apparent contradictions and absurdities. Listen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the fourth requisite of "our house," EARTH, let me point you to your
+mother's plant-window, and beg you to remember the fact that through our
+long, dreary winters we are never a month without flowers, and the vivid
+interest which always attaches to growing things. The perfect house, as
+I conceive it, is to combine as many of the advantages of living out of
+doors as may be consistent with warmth and shelter, and one of these is
+the sympathy with green and growing things. Plants are nearer in their
+relations to human health and vigor than is often imagined. The
+cheerfulness that well-kept plants impart to a room comes not merely
+from gratification of the eye,--there is a healthful exhalation from
+them, they are a corrective of the impurities of the atmosphere. Plants,
+too, are valuable as tests of the vitality of the atmosphere; their
+drooping and failure convey to us information that something is amiss
+with it. A lady once told me that she could never raise plants in her
+parlors on account of the gas and anthracite coal. I answered, "Are you
+not afraid to live and bring up your children in an atmosphere which
+blights your plants?" If the gas escapes from the pipes, and the red-hot
+anthracite coal or the red-hot air-tight stove burns out all the vital
+part of the air, so that healthy plants in a few days wither and begin
+to drop their leaves, it is a sign that the air must be looked to and
+reformed. It is a fatal augury for a room that plants cannot be made to
+thrive in it. Plants should not turn pale, be long-jointed, long-leaved,
+and spindling; and where they grow in this way, we may be certain that
+there is a want of vitality for human beings. But where plants appear as
+they do in the open air, with vigorous, stocky growth, and
+short-stemmed, deep-green leaves, we may believe the conditions of that
+atmosphere are healthy for human lungs.
+
+It is pleasant to see how the custom of plant-growing has spread through
+our country. In how many farm-house windows do we see petunias and
+nasturtiums vivid with bloom while snows are whirling without, and how
+much brightness have those cheap enjoyments shed on the lives of those
+who cared for them! We do not believe there is a human being who would
+not become a passionate lover of plants, if circumstances once made it
+imperative to tend upon, and watch the growth of one. The history of
+Picciola for substance has been lived over and over by many a man and
+woman who once did not know that there was a particle of plant-love in
+their souls. But to the proper care of plants in pots there are many
+hindrances and drawbacks. The dust chokes the little pores of their
+green lungs, and they require constant showering; and to carry all one's
+plants to a sink or porch for this purpose is a labor which many will
+not endure. Consequently plants often do not get a showering once a
+month. We should try to imitate more closely the action of Mother
+Nature, who washes every green child of hers nightly with dews, which
+lie glittering on its leaves till morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yes, there it is!" said Jennie. "I think I could manage with plants, if
+it were not for this eternal showering and washing they seem to require
+to keep them fresh. They are always tempting one to spatter the carpet
+and surrounding furniture, which are not equally benefited by the
+libation."
+
+"It is partly for that very reason," I replied, "that the plan of 'our
+house' provides for the introduction of Mother Earth, as you will see."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A perfect house, according to my idea, should always include in it a
+little compartment where plants can be kept, can be watered, can be
+defended from the dust, and have the sunshine and all the conditions of
+growth.
+
+People have generally supposed a conservatory to be one of the last
+trappings of wealth,--something not to be thought of for those in modest
+circumstances. But is this so? You have a bow-window in your parlor.
+Leave out the flooring, fill the space with rich earth, close it from
+the parlor by glass doors, and you have room for enough plants and
+flowers to keep you gay and happy all winter. If on the south side,
+where the sunbeams have power, it requires no heat but that which warms
+the parlor, and the comfort of it is incalculable, and the expense a
+mere trifle greater than that of the bow-window alone.
+
+In larger houses a larger space might be appropriated in this way. We
+will not call it a conservatory, because that name suggests ideas of
+gardeners and mysteries of culture and rare plants which bring all sorts
+of care and expense in their train. We would rather call it a greenery,
+a room floored with earth, with glass sides to admit the sun,--and let
+it open on as many other rooms of the house as possible.
+
+Why should not the dining-room and parlor be all winter connected by a
+spot of green and flowers, with plants, mosses, and ferns for the
+shadowy portions, and such simple blooms as petunias and nasturtiums
+garlanding the sunny portion near the windows? If near the waterworks,
+this greenery might be enlivened by the play of a fountain, whose
+constant spray would give that softness to the air which is so often
+burned away by the dry heat of the furnace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"And do you really think, papa, that houses built in this way are a
+practical result to be aimed at?" said Jennie. "To me it seems like a
+dream of the Alhambra."
+
+"Yet I happen to have seen real people in our day living in just such a
+house," said I. "I could point you, this very hour, to a cottage, which
+in style of building is the plainest possible, which unites many of the
+best ideas of a true house. My dear, can you sketch the ground-plan of
+that house we saw in Brighton?"
+
+"Here it is," said my wife, after a few dashes with her pencil,--"an
+inexpensive house, yet one of the pleasantest I ever saw."
+
+[Illustration: _c_, China-closet. _p_, Passage. _d_, Kitchen-closet.]
+
+"This cottage, which might, at the rate of prices before the war, have
+been built for five thousand dollars, has many of the requirements which
+I seek for a house. It has two stories, and a tier of very pleasant
+attic-rooms, two bathing-rooms, and the water carried into each story.
+The parlor and dining-room both look into a little bower, where a
+fountain is ever playing into a little marble basin, and which all the
+year through has its green and bloom. It is heated simply from the
+furnace by a register, like any other room of the house, and requires no
+more care than a delicate woman could easily give. The brightness and
+cheerfulness it brings during our long, dreary winters is incredible."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But one caution is necessary in all such appendages. The earth must be
+thoroughly underdrained to prevent the vapors of stagnant water, and
+have a large admixture of broken charcoal to obviate the consequences of
+vegetable decomposition. Great care must be taken that there be no
+leaves left to fall and decay on the ground, since vegetable exhalations
+poison the air. With these precautions such a plot will soften and
+purify the air of a house.
+
+Where the means do not allow even so small a conservatory, a recessed
+window might be fitted with a deep box, which should have a drain-pipe
+at the bottom, and a thick layer of broken charcoal and gravel, with a
+mixture of fine wood-soil and sand for the top stratum. Here ivies may
+be planted, which will run and twine and strike their little tendrils
+here and there, and give the room in time the aspect of a bower; the
+various greenhouse nasturtiums will make winter gorgeous with blossoms.
+In windows unblest by sunshine--and, alas, such are many!--one can
+cultivate ferns and mosses; the winter-growing ferns, of which there are
+many varieties, can be mixed with mosses and woodland flowers.
+
+Early in February, when the cheerless frosts of winter seem most
+wearisome, the common blue violet, wood-anemone, hepatica, or
+rock-columbine, if planted in this way, will begin to bloom. The common
+partridge-berry, with its brilliant scarlet fruit and dark green leaves,
+will also grow finely in such situations, and have a beautiful effect.
+These things require daily showering to keep them fresh, and the
+moisture arising from them will soften and freshen the too dry air of
+heated winter rooms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus I have been through my four essential elements in
+house-building,--air, fire, water, and earth. I would provide for these
+before anything else. After they are secured, I would gratify my taste
+and fancy as far as possible in other ways. I quite agree with Bob in
+hating commonplace houses, and longing for some little bit of
+architectural effect, and I grieve profoundly that every step in that
+direction must cost so much. I have also a taste for niceness of finish.
+I have no objection to silver-plated door-locks and hinges, none to
+windows which are an entire plate of clear glass; I congratulate
+neighbors who are so fortunate as to be able to get them, and after I
+had put all the essentials into a house, I would have these too, if I
+had the means.
+
+But if all my wood-work were to be without groove or moulding, if my
+mantels were to be of simple wood, if my doors were all to be
+machine-made, and my lumber of the second quality, I would have my
+bath-rooms, my conservatory, my sunny bow-windows, and my perfect
+ventilation,--and my house would then be so pleasant, and every one in
+it in such a cheerful mood, that it would verily seem to be ceiled with
+cedar.
+
+Speaking of ceiling with cedar, I have one thing more to say. We
+Americans have a country abounding in beautiful timber, of whose
+beauties we know nothing, on account of the pernicious and stupid habit
+of covering it with white paint.
+
+The celebrated zebra-wood with its golden stripes cannot exceed in
+quaint beauty the grain of unpainted chestnut, prepared simply with a
+coat or two of oil. The butternut has a rich golden brown, the very
+darling color of painters,--a shade so rich, and grain so beautiful,
+that it is of itself as charming to look at as a rich picture. The
+black-walnut, with its heavy depth of tone, works in well as an adjunct;
+and as to oak, what can we say enough of its quaint and many shadings?
+Even common pine, which has been considered not decent to look upon till
+hastily shrouded in a friendly blanket of white paint, has, when oiled
+and varnished, the beauty of satin-wood. The second quality of pine,
+which has what are called _shakes_ in it, under this mode of treatment
+often shows clouds and veins equal in beauty to the choicest woods. The
+cost of such a finish is greatly less than that of the old method, and
+it saves those days and weeks of cleaning which are demanded by white
+paint, while its general tone is softer and more harmonious. Experiments
+in color may be tried in the combination of these woods, which at small
+expense produce the most charming effects.
+
+As to paper-hangings, we are proud to say that our American
+manufacturers now furnish all that can be desired. There are some
+branches of design where artistic, ingenious France must still excel
+us,--but whoso has a house to fit up, let him first look at what his own
+country has to show, and he will be astonished.
+
+There is one topic in house-building on which I would add a few words.
+The difficulty of procuring and keeping good servants, which must long
+be one of our chief domestic troubles, warns us so to arrange our houses
+that we shall need as few as possible. There is the greatest conceivable
+difference in the planning and building of houses as to the amount of
+work which will be necessary to keep them in respectable condition. Some
+houses require a perfect staff of house-maids;--there are plated hinges
+to be rubbed, paint to be cleaned, with intricacies of moulding and
+carving which daily consume hours of dusting to preserve them from a
+slovenly look. Simple finish, unpainted wood, a general distribution of
+water through the dwelling, will enable a very large house to be cared
+for by one pair of hands, and yet maintain a creditable appearance.
+
+In kitchens one servant may perform the work of two by a close packing
+of all the conveniences for cooking and such arrangements as shall save
+time and steps. Washing-day may be divested of its terrors by suitable
+provisions for water, hot and cold, by wringers, which save at once the
+strength of the linen and of the laundress, and by drying-closets
+connected with ranges, where articles can in a few moments be perfectly
+dried. These, with the use of a small mangle, such as is now common in
+America, reduce the labors of the laundry one-half.
+
+There are many more things which might be said of "our house," and
+Christopher may, perhaps, find some other opportunity to say them. For
+the present his pen is tired and ceaseth.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW SCHOOL OF BIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+Poor Rachel, passing slowly away from the world that had so applauded
+her hollow, but brilliant career, tasted the bitterness of death in
+reflecting that she should so soon be given over to the worms and the
+biographers. Fortunate Rachel, resting in serene confidence that the two
+would be fellow-laborers! It is the unhappy fate of her survivors to
+have reached a day in which biographers have grown impatient of the
+decorous delay which their lowly coadjutors demand. They can no longer
+wait for the lingering soul to yield up its title-deeds before they
+enter in and take possession; but, fired with an evil energy, they
+outstrip the worms and torment us before the time.
+
+Curiosity is undoubtedly one of the heaven-appointed passions of the
+human animal. Dear to the heart of man has ever been his neighbor's
+business. Precious in the eyes of woman is the linen-closet of that
+neighbor's wife. During its tender teething infancy, the world's sobs
+could always be soothed into smiles by an open bureau with large
+liberty to upheave its contents from turret to foundation-stone. As the
+infant world ascended from cambric and dimity to broadcloth and
+crinoline, its propensity for investigation grew stronger. It loved not
+bureaus less, but a great many other things more. What sad consequences
+might have ensued, had this passion been left to forage for itself, no
+one can tell. But, by the wonderful principle of adaptation which
+obtains throughout the universe, the love of receiving information is
+met and mastered by the love of imparting information. As much pleasure
+as it gives Angelina to learn how many towels and table-cloths go into
+Seraphina's wedding-outfit, so much, yea, more, swells in Cherubella's
+bosom at being able to present to her friend this apple from the tree of
+knowledge. The worthy Muggins finds no small consolation for the loss of
+his overcoat and umbrella from the front entry in the exhilaration he
+experiences while relating to each member of his ever-revolving circle
+of friends the details of his loss,--the suspicion, the search, the
+certainty,--the conjectures, suggestions, and emotions of himself and
+his family.
+
+Hence these tears which we are about to shed. For, betwixt the love of
+hearing on the one side, and the love of telling, on the other, small
+space remains on which one may adventure to set the sole of his foot and
+feel safe from the spoiler. There is of course a legitimate
+gratification for every legitimate desire,--the desire to know our
+neighbors' affairs among others. But there is a limit to this
+gratification, and it is hinted at by legal enactments. The law justly
+enough bounds a man's power over his possessions. For twenty-one years
+after his generation has passed away, his dead hand may rule the wealth
+which its living skill amassed. Then it dies another death, draws back
+into a deeper grave, and has henceforth no more power than any
+sister-clod. But, except as a penalty for crime, the law awards to a man
+right to his own possessions through life; and the personal facts and
+circumstances of his life have usually been considered among his
+closest, most inalienable possessions.
+
+Alas, that the times are changed, and we be all dead men so far as
+concerns immunity from publication! There is no manner of advantage in
+being alive. The sole safety is to lie flat on the earth along with
+one's generation. The moment an audacious head is lifted one inch above
+the general level, pop! goes the unerring rifle of some biographical
+sharp-shooter, and it is all over with the unhappy owner. A perfectly
+respectable and well-meaning man, suffering under the accumulated pains
+of Presidentship, has the additional and entirely undeserved ignominy of
+being hawked about the country as the "Pioneer Boy." A statesman whose
+reputation for integrity has been worth millions to the land, and whose
+patriotism should have won him a better fate, is stigmatized in
+duodecimo as the "Ferry Boy." An innocent and popular Governor is
+fastened in the pillory under the thin disguise of the "Bobbin Boy."
+Every victorious advance of our grand army is followed by a long
+procession of biographical statistics. A brave man leading his troops to
+victory may escape the bullets and bayonets of the foe, but he is sure
+to be transfixed to the sides of a newspaper with the pen of some
+cannibal entomologist. We are thrilled to-day with the telegram
+announcing the brilliant and successful charge made by General Smith's
+command; and according to that inevitable law of succession by which the
+sun his daily round of duty runs, we shall be thrilled to-morrow with
+the startling announcement that "General Smith was born in ----," etc.,
+etc., etc.
+
+Unquestionably, there is somewhere in the land a regularly organized
+biographical bureau, by which every man, President or private, has his
+lot apportioned him,--one mulcted in a folio, the other in a paragraph.
+If we examine somewhat closely the features of this peculiar
+institution, we shall learn that a distinguishing characteristic of the
+new school of biography is the astonishing familiarity shown by the
+narrator with the circumstances, the conversations, and the very
+thoughts of remarkable boys in their early life. The incidents of
+childhood are usually forgotten before the man's renown has given them
+any importance; the few anecdotes which tradition has preserved are
+seized upon with the utmost avidity and placed in the most conspicuous
+position; but in these later books we have illustrious children
+portrayed with a Pre-Raphaelitic and most prodigal pencil.
+
+Take the opening scene in a garden where "Nat"--we must protest against
+this irreverent abbreviation of the name of that honored Governor whose
+life in little we are about to behold--and his father are at work.
+
+"'There, Nat, if you plant and hoe your squashes with care, you will
+raise a nice parcel of them on this piece of ground. It is good soil for
+squashes.'
+
+"'How many seeds shall I put into a hill?' inquired Nat.
+
+"'Seven or eight. It is well to put in enough, as some of them may not
+come up, and when they get to growing well, pull up all but four in a
+hill. You must not have your hills too near together,--they should be
+five feet apart, and then the vines will cover the ground all over. I
+should think there would be room for fifty hills on this patch of
+ground.'
+
+"'How many squashes do you think I shall raise, father?'
+
+"'Well,' said his father, smiling, 'that is hard telling. We won't count
+the chickens before they are hatched. But if you are industrious, and
+take very good care indeed of your vines, stir the ground often and keep
+out all the weeds and kill the bugs, I have little doubt that you will
+get well paid for your labor.'
+
+"'If I have fifty hills,' said Nat, 'and four vines in each hill, I
+shall have two hundred vines in all; and if there is one squash on each
+vine, there will be two hundred squashes.'
+
+"'Yes; but there are so many _ifs_ about it, that you may be
+disappointed after all. Perhaps the bugs will destroy half your vines.'
+
+"'I can kill the bugs,' said Nat.
+
+"'Perhaps dry weather will wither them all up.'
+
+"'I can water them every day, if they need it.'
+
+"'That is certainly having good courage, Nat,' added his father; 'but if
+you conquer the bugs, and get around the dry weather, it may be too wet
+and blast your vines,--or there may be such a hail-storm as I have known
+several times in my life, and cut them to pieces.'
+
+"'I don't think there will be such a hail-storm this year; there never
+was one like it since I can remember.'
+
+"'I hope there won't be,' replied his father. 'It is well to look on the
+bright side, and hope for the best, for it keeps the courage up. It is
+also well to look out for disappointment. I know a gentleman who thought
+he would raise some ducks,'" etc., etc., etc.
+
+We are told that this scene was enacted about thirty-five years ago,
+and, as if we should not be sufficiently lost in admiration of that
+wonderful memory which enabled somebody to retain so long, and restore
+so unimpaired, the words and deeds of that distant May morning, we are
+further informed that the author is "obliged to pass over much that
+belongs to the patch of squashes"! "Is it possible?" one is led to
+exclaim. We should certainly have supposed that this report was
+exhaustive. We can hardly conceive that any further interest should
+inhere in that patch of squashes; whereas it seems that the half was not
+told us. Nor is this the sole instance. Records equally minute of
+conversations equally brilliant are lavished on page after page with a
+recklessness of expenditure that argues unlimited wealth,--conversations
+between the Boy and his father, between the Boy and his mother, between
+the Boy's father and mother, between the Boy's neighbors about the Boy,
+in which his numerous excellences are set in the strongest light,
+exhortations of the Boy's teacher to his school, play-ground talk of
+the Boy and his fellow-boys,--among whom the Boy invariably stands head
+and shoulders higher than they. We fear the world of boys has hitherto
+been much demoralized by being informed that many distinguished men were
+but dull fellows in the school-house, or unnoticed on the play-ground.
+But we have changed all that. The Bobbin Boy was the most industrious,
+the most persevering, the most self-reliant, the most virtuous, the most
+exemplary of all the boys of his time. So was the Ferry Boy, and the
+Pioneer Boy so. "Nat"--we blame and protest, but we join in the plan of
+using this undignified _sobriquet_--Nat was the one that swam three rods
+under water; Nat astonished the school with the eloquence of his
+declamation; it was Nat that got all the glory of the games; it was of
+no use for any one to try for any prize where Nat was a competitor. And
+as Nat's neighbors thought of Nat, so thought Abe's--we shudder at the
+sound--Abe's neighbors of Abe, the Pioneer Boy. Of what Salmon's
+neighbors said about Salmon we are not so well informed; but we have no
+doubt they often exclaimed one to another,--
+
+    "Was never Salmon yet that shone so fair
+    Among the stakes on Dee!"
+
+Nor are the Boys backward in having a tolerably good opinion of their
+own goodness.
+
+"Never swear, my son," says Abe's mother to the infant Abe.
+
+"I never do," says Abraham.
+
+"Boys are likely to want their own way, and spend their time in
+idleness," says the mother of a President, upon another occasion.
+
+"I sha'n't," responds virtuous Abraham.
+
+"Always speak the truth, my son."
+
+"I do tell the truth," was "Abraham's usual reply."
+
+"When a boy gets to going to the tavern to smoke and swear," says Nat's
+mother, "he is almost sure to drink, and become a ruined man."
+
+"I never do smoke, mother," replies Nat, pouring cataracts of innocence.
+"I never go to the stable nor tavern. I don't associate with Sam and Ben
+Drake, nor with James Cole, nor with Oliver Fowle, more than I can help.
+For I know they are bad boys. I see that the worst scholars at school
+are those who are said to disobey their parents, and every one of them
+are poor scholars, and they use profane language."
+
+Virtue so immaculate at so tender an age seems to us, we are forced to
+admit, unnatural. The boys that have fallen in our way have never been
+in the habit of making profound moral reflections, and we cannot resist
+the unpleasant suspicion that Nat had just been playing at marbles for
+"havings" with Cole, Fowle, and both the Drakes at the village-inn, and,
+having found this vegetable repast too strong for his digestion, went
+home to his mother and wreaked his discomfort on edifying moral maxims.
+Or else he was a prig.
+
+The unusual and highly exciting nature of the incidents recorded in
+these biographies must be their excuse for a seeming violation of
+privacy. When a rare and precious gem is in question, one must not be
+over-scrupulous about breaking open the casket. What puerile prejudice
+in favor of privacy can rear its head in face of the statement which
+tells us that at the age of seven years our honored President--may he
+still continue such!--"devoted himself to learning to read with an
+energy and enthusiasm that insured success"?--such success that we learn
+"he could read _some_ when he left school."
+
+At the age of nine he shot a turkey!
+
+Soon after,--for here we are involved in a chronological haze,--he began
+to "take lessons in penmanship with the most enthusiastic ardor."
+
+Subsequently, "there, on the soil of Indiana, ABRAHAM LINCOLN WROTE HIS
+NAME, WITH A STICK, in large characters,--a sort of prophetic act, that
+students of history may love to ponder. For, since that day, he has
+'gone up higher,' and written his name, by public acts, on the annals of
+every State in the Union."
+
+He wrote a letter.
+
+He rescued a toad from cruel boys,--for, though "he could kill game for
+food as a necessity, and dangerous wild animals, his soul shrunk from
+torturing even a fly." Dear heart, we can easily believe that!
+
+He bought a Ramsay's "Life of Washington," and paid for it with the
+labor of his own hands.
+
+He helped to save a drunkard's life. "He thought more of the drunkard's
+safety than he did of his own ease. And there are many of his personal
+acquaintances in our land who will bear witness, that, from that day to
+this, this amiable quality of heart has won him admiring friends."
+
+He took a flat-boat to New Orleans, and defended her against the
+negroes, who, poor fellows, were not prophetic enough to see that they
+were plotting against their Deliverer.
+
+He "always had much _dry_ wit about him that kept _oozing_ out"!
+
+We have given a bird's-eye view of the main incidents of his boyhood,
+for we cannot quite agree with our author in thinking that his "old
+grammar laid the foundation, in part, of Abraham's future character,"
+seeing we have previously been told that he had "become the most
+important man in the place," and we have the same writer's authority for
+believing that "the habits of life are usually fixed by the time a lad
+is fifteen years of age." Nor can we admit that his grammar even "taught
+him the rudiments of his native language," when we have been having
+proof upon proof, for two hundred and eighty-six pages, that he was
+already familiar with its rudiments. We are equally skeptical as to
+whether it really "opened the golden gate of knowledge" for him: we
+should certainty say that this gate had stood ajar, at least, for years.
+Indeed, that portion of his history which relates to grammar seems to us
+by far the most unsatisfactory of all. In his honesty, in his
+penmanship, in his kindness of heart, in his wit, dry or damp, we feel a
+confidence which not even the shock of political campaigns has been able
+to move. But in respect of grammar we find ourselves in a state of the
+most painful uncertainty. We have never regarded it as our beloved
+President's strong point, but we have considered any linguistic defect
+more than atoned for by the hearty, timely, sturdy, plain sense which
+appeals so directly and forcibly to the good sense of others. This book
+calls up a distressing doubt, and a doubt that strikes at vital
+interests. "Grammar," our President is reported to have said before he
+had cast the integuments of a grocer's clerk, "Grammar is the art of
+speaking and writing the English language with propriety"! Is this a
+definition, we sorrowfully ask, becoming an American citizen? It has,
+indeed, in many respects the qualities of a perfect definition. It is
+deep; it is accurate; it is exhaustive; but it is _not_ loyal. Coming
+from the lips of a subject of Great Britain, it would not surprise us.
+An Englishman undoubtedly believes that grammar is the art of speaking
+and writing the English language with propriety. All the grammatical
+research that preceded the establishment of his mother-tongue was but
+the collection of fuel to feed the flame of its glory; all that follows
+will be to diffuse the light of that flame to the ends of the earth.
+Greek, Latin, Sanscrit, were but stepping-stones to the English
+language. Philology _per se_ is a myth. The English language in its
+completeness is the completion of grammatical science. To that all
+knowledge tends; from that all honor radiates. So claims proud Britain's
+prouder son. But can an American tamely submit to such a monopoly? Is
+not grammar rather, or at least quite as much, the art of speaking and
+writing the _American_ language correctly, and shall he sit calmly by
+and witness this gross outrage upon his dearest rights? But, as our
+author would say, we "must not dwell," and most gladly do we leave this
+unpleasant branch of a very pleasant subject, inwardly supplicating,
+that, whatever disaster is yet to befall us, we may be spared the pang
+of suspecting that our revered President, so stanch against the Rebels,
+so unflinching for the Slave, is in danger of lowering his lofty crest
+before the rampant British lion! In view of such a calamity, one can
+only say in the words of that distinguished British citizen who, living
+in England in the full light of the nineteenth century, must be supposed
+to have reached the summit of grammatical excellence,--
+
+    "Gin I mun doy I mun doy, an' loife they says is sweet,
+    But gin I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn' abear to see it."
+
+The life of the Ferry Boy was scarcely less adventurous than that of the
+Pioneer Boy, and was, indeed, in some respects its counterpart. As the
+latter learned to write on the tops of stools, so the former learned to
+read on bits of birch-bark. At an early period of his existence he broke
+a capful of eggs. He owned a calf. He caught an eel. He put salt on a
+bird's tail and learned his first lesson of the deceitfulness of the
+human heart. He walked to Niagara Falls from Buffalo. He got lost in the
+woods. He went to live with his uncle in Ohio, where he displayed spirit
+and killed a pig. Here also occurred a "prophecy" almost as striking as
+the Pioneer Boy's writing his name with a stick. "Salmon" wished to go
+swimming. "The Bishop said, 'No!' adding, 'Why, Salmon, the country
+might lose its future President, if you should get drowned!' This was
+the first time his name had ever been mentioned in connection with that
+high office; and the remark, coming from the grave Bishop's lips, must
+have made a strong impression on him. Was it prophetic?" Let us assume
+that it was, although it must for the present be ranked with what is
+theologically called "unfulfilled prophecy." We cannot, at any rate, be
+too thankful that the only occasion on which it was ever hinted to an
+American boy that he might one day become President has not been
+suffered to pass into oblivion, but has found in this little volume a
+monument more durable than brass. To go on with our inventory. A whole
+flock of thirteen pigeons shot by the Ferry Boy answered through their
+misty shroud to the Pioneer Boy's turkey which called to them aloud. He
+taught school two weeks, and then had leave to resign. He went to
+Washington and said his prayers like a good boy: we trust he has kept up
+the practice ever since.
+
+From such a record there is but one inference: if the man is not
+President, he ought to be!
+
+One great element in the success which these little books have met, the
+one fact which, we are persuaded, accounts for the quiet, but
+significant "twenty-sixth thousand" that we find on the title-page of
+one of them, is the pains which their authors take to make their meaning
+clear. They do not, like too many of our modern authors, leave a book
+half written, forcing the reader to finish their work as he goes along.
+They are instant, in season and out of season, with explanation,
+illustration, reflection, until the idea is, so to speak, reduced to
+pulp, and the reader has nothing to perform save the act of deglutition.
+
+"When he ['Nat'] was only four years old, and was learning to read
+little words of two letters, he came across one about which he had quite
+a dispute with his teacher. It was INN.
+
+"'What is that?' asked his teacher.
+
+"'I-double n,' he answered.
+
+"'What does i-double n spell?'
+
+"'Tavern,' was his quick reply.
+
+"The teacher smiled, and said, 'No; it spells INN. Now read it again.'
+
+"'I-double n--tavern,' said he.
+
+"'I told you that it did not spell tavern, it spells INN. Now pronounce
+it correctly.'
+
+"'It _do_ spell tavern,' said he.
+
+"The teacher was finally obliged to give it up, and let him enjoy his
+own opinion. She probably called him obstinate, although there was
+nothing of the kind about him, as we shall see. His mother took up the
+matter at home, but failed to convince him that i-double n did not spell
+tavern. It was not until some time after that he changed his opinion on
+this important subject.
+
+"That this instance was no evidence of obstinacy in Nat, but only of a
+disposition to think 'on his own hook,' is evident from the following
+circumstances. There was a picture of a public-house in his book against
+the word INN, with the old-fashioned sign-post in front, on which a sign
+was swinging. Near his father's, also, stood a public-house, which
+everybody called a _tavern_, with a tall post and sign in front of it,
+exactly like that in his book; and Nat said within himself, 'If Mr.
+Morse's house [the landlord[G]] is a tavern, then this is a tavern in my
+book.' He cared little how it was spelled; if it did not spell tavern,
+'_it ought to_,' he thought. Children believe what they _see_, more than
+what they hear. What they lack in reason and judgment they make up in
+eyes. So Nat had seen the _tavern_ near his father's house again and
+again, and he had stopped to look at the sign in front of it a great
+many times, and his eyes told him it was just like that in the book;
+therefore it was his deliberate opinion that i-double n spelt tavern,
+and he was not to be beaten out of an opinion that was based on such
+clear evidence. It was a good sign in Nat. It was true of the three men
+to whom we have just referred,--Bowditch, Davy, and Buxton. From their
+childhood they thought for themselves, so that, when they became men,
+they defended their opinions against imposing opposition. True, a youth
+must not be too forward in advancing his ideas, especially if they do
+not harmonize with those of older persons. Self-esteem and
+self-confidence should be guarded against. Still, in avoiding these
+evils, he is not obliged to believe anything just because he is told so.
+It is better for him to understand the reason of things, and believe
+them on that account."
+
+Would our Parks, our Palfreys, our Prescotts, our Emersons, have
+expounded this matter so clearly? Most assuredly not. They would have
+left us in the Cimmerian darkness of dreary conjecture regarding the
+causes of Nat's strange opinion, and the lessons to be drawn from it. Or
+if they had condescended to explanation, it would have been comprised in
+a curt phrase or two. No boundary-line between a virtue and its vice
+would have been drawn so that a wayfaring man, though a fool, should not
+err in following it. This author has struck the golden mean. There is
+just enough, and not too much.
+
+Again,--
+
+"'I should rather be in prison, than to sit up nights studying as you
+do.'
+
+"'I really enjoy it, David.'
+
+"'I can hardly credit it.'
+
+"'Then you think I do not speak the truth?'
+
+"'Oh, no!... I only meant to say that I cannot understand it.'
+
+"Allusion is here made to an important fact. David could not understand
+how Abraham could possess such a love of knowledge as to lead him to
+forego all social pleasures, be willing to wear a threadbare coat, live
+on the coarsest fare, and labor hard all day, and sit up half the night,
+for the sake of learning. But there is just that power in the love of
+knowledge, and it was this that caused Lincoln to derive happiness from
+doing what would have been a source of misery to David. Some of the most
+marked instances of self-forgetfulness recorded are connected with the
+pursuit of knowledge. Archimedes was so much in love with the studies of
+his profession, that, etc., etc. Professor Heyne, of Göttingen," etc.,
+etc., etc.--A clearer explanation than this we have rarely met with
+outside the realm of mathematical demonstration.
+
+A shorter example of the same judicious oversight we have when "in
+rushed Nat, under great excitement, with his eyes 'as large as saucers,'
+to use a hyperbole, which means only that his eyes looked very large
+indeed." The impression which would have been made upon the rising
+generation, had the testimony been allowed to go forth without its
+corrective, that upon a certain occasion _any_ Governor's eyes were
+really as large as saucers, even very small tea-saucers, is such as the
+imagination refuses to dwell on.
+
+This exuberance of illustration increases the value of these books in
+another respect. To use a homely phrase, we get more than we bargained
+for. Ostensibly engaged with the life of the Bobbin Boy, we are covertly
+introduced to the majority of all the boys that ever were born and came
+to anything. The advertised story is a kind of mother-hen who gathers
+under her wings a numerous brood of biographical chicks. Quantities of
+recondite erudition are poured out on the slightest provocation. Nat's
+unquestioned superiority to his schoolmates evokes a disquisition for
+the encouragement of dull boys, in which we are told that "the great
+philosopher, Newton, was one of the dullest scholars in school when he
+was twelve years old. Doctor Isaac Barrow was such a dull, pugnacious,
+stupid fellow, etc., etc. The father of Doctor Adam Clarke, the
+commentator, called his boy, etc. Cortina," (vernacular for Cortona,
+probably,) "a renowned painter, was nicknamed, etc., etc. When the
+mother of Sheridan once, etc., etc. One teacher sent Chatterton home,
+etc. Napoleon and Wellington, etc., etc. And Sir Walter Scott was
+named," etc., etc., etc. All of which makes very pleasantly diversified
+reading. Nat's kindness of heart paves the way to our learning, that,
+"at the age of ten or twelve years, John Howard, the philanthropist, was
+not distinguished above the mass of boys around him, except for the
+kindness of his heart, and boyish deeds of benevolence. It was so with
+Wilberforce, whose efforts, etc., etc., etc. And Buxton, whose
+self-sacrificing heart," etc., etc. While Nat is swimming four rods
+under water, we on shore are acquiring useful knowledge of the
+Rothschilds, of Samuel Budget, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Buxton again, Sir
+Walter Scott again, and the Duke of Wellington again. Nat walks to
+Prospect Hill, and is attended by a suite consisting of Sir Francis
+Chantrey, "the gifted poet Burns," "the late Hugh Miller," etc., who
+also loved to look at prospects. Nat organized a debating-society,
+(which by the way was, "in respect of unanimity of feeling and action, a
+lesson to most legislative bodies, and to the Congress of the United
+States in particular." Congress of the United States, are you
+listening?) and "such an organization has proved a valuable means of
+improvement to many persons." Witness "the Irish orator, Curran," with
+biography; "a living American statesman," with biography; the "highly
+distinguished statesman, Canning," more biography; "Henry Clay, the
+American orator," with autobiography; and a meteoric shower of lesser
+biographies emanating from Tremont Temple. Nat carried a book in his
+pocket, and "Pockets have been of great service to self-made men. A more
+useful invention was never known, and hundreds are now living who will
+have occasion to speak well of pockets till they die, because they were
+so handy to carry a book. Roger Sherman had one when he was a
+hard-working shoemaker, etc., etc., etc. Napoleon had one in which he
+carried the Iliad when, etc. etc., etc. Hugh Miller had one, etc., etc.,
+etc. Elihu Burritt had one," etc., etc., for three pages, to which we
+might add, from the best authority, the striking fact which our author,
+notwithstanding the wide range of his reading, seems unaccountably to
+have missed,--
+
+    "Lyddy Locket lost her pocket,
+      Lyddy Fisher found it,
+    Lyddy Fisher gave it to Mr. Gaines,
+      And Mr. Gaines ground it."
+
+Allusion is here made to an important fact. _Mr. Gaines was a miller!_
+
+Yet, with all this elucidation, we take shame to ourselves for admitting
+that there are points which, after all, we do not comprehend. They may
+be trivial; but in making up testimony, it is the little things which
+have weight. Trifles light as air are confirmation strong as proofs of
+Holy Writ, and confutation no less strong. When, as a proof of Nat's
+ardor in the pursuit of knowledge, we are told that he walked ten miles
+after a hard day's work to hear Daniel Webster, and then _stood_ through
+the oration in front of the platform, because he could see the speaker
+better,--and when, turning to the next page, we are told that he was so
+much interested that he "would have _sat_ entranced till morning, if the
+gifted orator had continued to pour forth his eloquence,"--what are we
+to believe? When we are bidden to "listen to the gifted orator, as the
+flowing periods come burning from his soul on fire, riveting the
+attention," etc., is it a river, or is it a fire, or is it a hammer and
+anvil, that we have in our mind's eye, Horatio? When Nat "waxed warmer
+and warmer, as he advanced, and spoke in a flow of eloquence and choice
+selection of words that was unusual for one of his age," did he come out
+dry-shod? We are told of his visit to the Boston bookstores,--that he
+examined the books "outside before he stepped in. _He read the title of
+each volume upon the back, and some he took up and examined_," but we
+have no explanation of this extraordinary behavior. "It was thus with"
+Abraham. "The manner in which Abraham made progress in penmanship,
+writing on slabs and trees, on the ground and in the snow, anywhere that
+he could find a place, reminds us forcibly of Pascal, who demonstrated
+the first thirty-two propositions of Euclid in his boyhood, without the
+aid of a teacher." We not only are not forcibly reminded of Pascal, but
+we are not reminded of Pascal at all. The boy who imitates on slabs
+mechanical lines which he has been taught, and he who originates
+mathematical problems and theorems, may be as like as my fingers to my
+fingers, but--alas, that it is forbidden to say--we do not see it. When
+Mr. Elkins told Abraham he would make a good pioneer boy, and "'What's a
+pioneer boy?' asked Abraham," why was Mr. Elkins "quite amused at this
+inquiry"? and why did he "exercise his risibles for a minute" before
+replying? When Mr. Stuart offered young Mr. Lincoln the use of his
+law-books, and young Mr. Lincoln answered,--very properly, we should
+say,--"You are very generous indeed. I could never repay you for such
+generosity," why did Mr. Stuart respond, "shaking his sides with
+laughter"? We do not wish to be too inquisitive, but few things are more
+trying to a sensitive person than to see others overwhelmed with
+merriment in which, from ignorance, he cannot share.
+
+Want of space forbids us to do more than touch lightly upon the many
+excellences of these books. We have given extracts enough to enable our
+readers to see for themselves the severe elegance of style, the
+compactness and force of the narrative, the verisimilitude of the
+characters, the unity of plan, and the cogency of the reasoning. We
+trust they will also perceive the great moral effect that cannot fail to
+be produced. Such books are specially adapted to meet a daily increasing
+want. Our American youth are too apt to value virtue for its own sake.
+They are in imminent danger of giving themselves over to integrity, to
+industry, perseverance, and single-mindedness, without looking forward
+to those posts of usefulness for which these qualities eminently fit
+them. Fired with the love of learning, they are languid in claiming the
+honors which learning has to bestow. Eager to become worthy of the
+highest places, they make no effort to secure the places to which their
+worth points them. Political supineness is the bane of our society. The
+one great need is to rouse the ambition of boys, and wake them to
+political aspiration. To such objects such books tend; and who would
+hesitate at any sacrifice of his prejudices in favor of privacy, when
+such is the end to be obtained? Breathes there the man with soul so dead
+who would not lay upon the altar his father, his mother, his sisters,
+not to say his uncles and cousins, nay, the inmost sanctities of his
+home, to enable American boys to fasten their eyes upon the White House?
+Would he refuse, at the call of patriotism, to spread before the public
+the very secrets of his heart, the struggles of his closet, his
+communion with his God?
+
+As a collateral result of this new school of biography, we can but
+admire the new form in which Nemesis appears. The day of rich relations
+is gone by. No longer can stern Uncle Bishops lord it over their obscure
+nephews, for ever before their eyes will flaunt the possible book which
+will one day lay open to a gazing world all their weakness and their
+evil behavior. Let not wicked or disagreeable relatives imagine
+henceforth that they may safely indulge in small tyrannies, neglects, or
+other peccadilloes; for no robin-redbreast will piously cover them with
+leaves, but that which is done in the ear shall be proclaimed upon the
+house-tops, nor can they tell from what quarter the trumpet shall sound.
+The unkempt boy, the sullen girl in the chimney-corner, may be the
+Narcissus or nymph in whose orisons all their sins shall be remembered.
+
+    "You that executors be made,
+      And overseers eke
+    Of children that be fatherless,
+      And infants mild and meek,
+    Take you example by this thing,
+      And yield to each his right,
+    Lest God with such like misery
+      Your wicked minds requite."
+
+In view of which benefits, and others "too numerous to mention," we
+humbly beg pardon for the petulance which disfigures the commencement of
+our paper, and desire to use all our influence to induce all persons of
+distinction meekly and humanely to lay open to the dear, curious world
+their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor.
+
+But, however beneficial and delightful it is for a friend to impale a
+friend before the public gaze, we do not think that even Job himself
+would have desired that his adversary should write a book about him. In
+the motives that prompted, in the grace of the doing, in the good that
+will result, we can forgive the deed when friend portrays friend; but we
+cannot be lenient when a hostile hand exposes the life to which we have
+no right. We would fain borrow the type and the energy of Reginald
+Bazalgette to enforce our opinion that it is "ABBOMMANNABEL," and the
+innocence of Pet Marjorie to declare it "the most Devilish thing." Yet
+in a loyal, respectable, religious newspaper we lately saw a biography
+of Mr. Vallandigham which puts to the blush all previous achievements in
+the line of contemporary history. It is not so much that we are let into
+the family-secrets, but the family-secrets are spread out before us, as
+the fruits of that species of domestic taxation known as "the presents"
+are spread out on the piano at certain wedding-festivals. We are led
+back to first principles, to the early married life of the parent
+Vallandighams. The mother is portrayed with a vigorous feminine pencil,
+and certainly looks extremely well on canvas. Clement's relations to her
+are shown to be exemplary. There is excuse for this in the attacks which
+have been made upon him in the relation of son. But upon what grounds
+are Clement's sisters' homes invaded? Because a man is disloyal and
+craven, shall we inform the world that his brother was crossed in love?
+Still more shall his wife be taken in hand, and receive what even the
+late Mr. Smallweed would have considered a thorough "shaking-up"? "If
+they were all starving," declares the energetic narrator, "she could not
+earn a cent in any way whatever, so utterly helpless is this fine
+Southern lady. She will not sleep, unless the light is kept burning all
+night in her room, for fear 'something might happen'; and when a slight
+matter crosses her feelings, she lies in bed for several days." Tut,
+tut, dear lady! surely this once thy zeal hath outrun thy discretion.
+Clement L. Vallandigham's public course is a proper target for all loyal
+shafts, but prithee let the poor lady, his wife, remain in peace,--such
+peace as she can command. It is bad enough to be his wife, without being
+overborne with the additional burden of her own personal foibles. One
+can be daughter, sister, friend, without impeachment of one's sagacity
+or integrity; but it is such a dreadful indorsement of a man to marry
+him! Her own consciousness must be sufficiently grievous; pray do not
+irritate it into downright madness. Nay, what, after all, are the so
+heinous faults upon which you animadvert? She cannot earn a cent: that
+may be her misfortune, it need not be her fault. Perhaps Clement, like
+Albano, and all good husbands, "never loved to see the sweet form
+anywhere else than, like other butterflies, by his side among the
+flowers." She will keep a light burning in her room, forsooth. Have we
+not all our pet hobgoblins? We know an excellent woman who once sat
+curled up in an arm-chair all night for fear of a mouse! And is it not a
+well-understood thing that nothing so baffles midnight burglars as a
+burning candle? "When a light matter crosses her feelings, she lies in
+bed for several days." Infinitely better than to go sulking about the
+house with that "injured-innocence" air which makes a man feel as if he
+were an assaulter and batterer with intent to kill. Blessings rest upon
+those charming sensible women, who, when they feel cross, as we all do
+at times, will go to bed and sleep it away! No, let us everywhere put
+down treason and ostracize traitors. It is lawful to suspend "_naso
+adunco_" those whom we may not otherwise suspend. But even traitors have
+rights which white men and white women are bound to respect. We will
+crush them, if we can, but we will crush them in open field, by fair
+fight,--not by stealing into their bedchambers to stab them through the
+heart of a wife.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[G] The meaning of this is, that Mr. Morse was the landlord, not the
+house. Of course a house could not be a landlord; still less could it be
+a landlord to itself.--_Note by Reviewer._
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST RALLY.
+
+NOVEMBER, 1864.
+
+
+    Rally! rally! rally!
+      Arouse the slumbering land!
+    Rally! rally! from mountain and valley,
+      And up from the ocean-strand!
+    Ye sons of the West, America's best!
+      New Hampshire's men of might!
+    From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,
+      And rally to the fight!
+
+    Armies of untried heroes,
+      Disguised in craftsman and clerk!
+    Ye men of the coast, invincible host!
+      Come, every one, to the work,--
+    From the fisherman gray as the salt-sea spray
+      That on Long Island breaks,
+    To the youth who tills the uttermost hills
+      By the blue northwestern lakes!
+
+    And ye Freedmen! rally, rally
+      To the banners of the North!
+    Through the shattered door of bondage pour
+      Your swarthy legions forth!
+    Kentuckians! ye of Tennessee
+      Who scorned the despot's sway!
+    To all, to all, the bugle-call
+      Of Freedom sounds to-day!
+
+    Old men shall fight with the ballot,
+      Weapon the last and best,--
+    And the bayonet, with blood red-wet,
+      Shall write the will of the rest;
+    And the boys shall fill men's places,
+      And the little maiden rock
+    Her doll as she sits with her grandam and knits
+      An unknown hero's sock.
+
+    And the hearts of heroic mothers,
+      And the deeds of noble wives,
+    With their power to bless shall aid no less
+      Than the brave who give their lives.
+    The rich their gold shall bring, and the old
+      Shall help us with their prayers;
+    While hovering hosts of pallid ghosts
+      Attend us unawares.
+
+    From the ghastly fields of Shiloh
+      Muster the phantom bands,
+    From Virginia's swamps, and Death's white camps
+      On Carolina sands;
+    From Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg,
+      I see them gathering fast;
+    And up from Manassas, what is it that passes
+      Like thin clouds in the blast?
+
+    From the Wilderness, where blanches
+      The nameless skeleton;
+    From Vicksburg's slaughter and red-streaked water,
+      And the trenches of Donelson;
+    From the cruel, cruel prisons,
+      Where their bodies pined away,
+    From groaning decks, from sunken wrecks,
+      They gather with us to-day.
+
+    And they say to us, "Rally! rally!
+      The work is almost done!
+    Ye harvesters, sally from mountain and valley
+      And reap the fields we won!
+    We sowed for endless years of peace,
+      We harrowed and watered well;
+    Our dying deeds were the scattered seeds:
+      Shall they perish where they fell?"
+
+    And their brothers, left behind them
+      In the deadly roar and clash
+    Of cannon and sword, by fort and ford,
+      And the carbine's quivering flash,--
+    Before the Rebel citadel
+      Just trembling to its fall,
+    From Georgia's glens, from Florida's fens,
+      For us they call, they call!
+
+    The life-blood of the tyrant
+      Is ebbing fast away;
+    Victory waits at her opening gates,
+      And smiles on our array;
+    With solemn eyes the Centuries
+      Before us watching stand,
+    And Love lets down his starry crown
+      To bless the future land.
+
+    One more sublime endeavor,
+      And behold the dawn of Peace!
+    One more endeavor, and war forever
+      Throughout the land shall cease!
+    For ever and ever the vanquished power
+      Of Slavery shall be slain,
+    And Freedom's stained and trampled flower
+      Shall blossom white again!
+
+    Then rally! rally! rally!
+      Make tumult in the land!
+    Ye foresters, rally from mountain and valley!
+      Ye fishermen, from the strand!
+    Brave sons of the West, America's best!
+      New England's men of might!
+    From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,
+      And rally to the fight!
+
+
+
+
+FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION.
+
+
+In all historical studies we should still bear in mind the difference
+between the point of view from which one looks at events and that from
+which they were seen by the actors themselves. We all act under the
+influence of ideas. Even those who speak of theories with contempt are
+none the less the unconscious disciples of some theory, none the less
+busied in working out some problems of the great theory of life. Much as
+they fancy themselves to differ from the speculative man, they differ
+from him only in contenting themselves with seeing the path as it lies
+at their feet, while he strives to embrace it all, starting-point and
+end, in one comprehensive view. And thus in looking back upon the past
+we are irresistibly led to arrange the events of history, as we arrange
+the facts of a science, in their appropriate classes and under their
+respective laws. And thus, too, these events give us the true measure of
+the intellectual and moral culture of the times, the extent to which
+just ideas prevailed therein upon all the duties and functions of
+private and public life. Tried by the standard of absolute truth and
+right, grievously would they all fall short,--and we, too, with them.
+Judged by the human standard of progressive development and gradual
+growth,--the only standard to which the man of the beam can venture,
+unrebuked, to bring the man with the mote,--we shall find much in them
+all to sadden us, and much, also, in which we can all sincerely rejoice.
+
+In judging, therefore, the political acts of our ancestors, we have a
+right to bring them to the standard of the political science of their
+age, but we have no right to bring them to the higher standard of our
+own. Montesquieu could give them but an imperfect clue to the labyrinth
+in which they found themselves involved; and yet no one had seen farther
+into the mysteries of social and political organization than
+Montesquieu. Hume had scattered brilliant rays on dark places, and
+started ideas which, once at work in the mind, would never rest till
+they had evolved momentous truths and overthrown long-standing errors.
+But no one had yet seen, with Adam Smith, that labor was the original
+source of every form of wealth,--that the farmer, the merchant, the
+manufacturer, were all equally the instruments of national
+prosperity,--or demonstrated as unanswerably as he did that nations grow
+rich and powerful by giving as they receive, and that the good of one is
+the good of all. The world had not yet seen that fierce conflict between
+antagonistic principles which she was soon to see in the French
+Revolution; nor had political science yet recorded those daring
+experiments in remoulding society, those constitutions framed in
+closets, discussed in clubs, accepted and overthrown with equal
+demonstrations of popular zeal, and which, expressing in their terrible
+energy the universal dissatisfaction with past and present, the
+universal grasping at a brighter future, have met and answered so many
+grave questions,--questions neither propounded nor solved in any of the
+two hundred constitutions which Aristotle studied in order to prepare
+himself for the composition of his "Politics." The world had not yet
+seen a powerful nation tottering on the brink of anarchy, with all the
+elements of prosperity in her bosom,--nor a bankrupt state sustaining a
+war that demanded annual millions, and growing daily in wealth and
+power,--nor the economical phenomena which followed the reopening of
+Continental commerce in 1814,--nor the still more startling phenomena
+which a few years later attended England's return to specie-payments and
+a specie-currency,--nor statesmen setting themselves gravely down with
+the map before them to the final settlement of Europe, and, while the
+ink was yet fresh on their protocols, seeing all the results of their
+combined wisdom set at nought by the inexorable development of the
+fundamental principle which they had refused to recognize.
+
+But we have seen these things, and, having seen them, unconsciously
+apply the knowledge derived from them in our judgment of events to which
+we have no right to apply it. We condemn errors which we should never
+have detected without the aid of a light which was hidden from our
+fathers, and will still be dwelling upon shortcomings which nothing
+could have avoided but a general diffusion of that wisdom which
+Providence never vouchsafes except as a gift to a few exalted minds.
+Every school-boy has his text-book of political economy now: but many
+can remember when these books first made their appearance in schools;
+and so late as 1820 the Professor of History in English Cambridge
+publicly lamented that there was no work upon this vital subject which
+he could put into the hands of his classes.
+
+When, therefore, our fathers found themselves face to face with the
+complex questions of finance, they naturally fell back upon the
+experience and devices of their past history: they did as in such
+emergencies men always do,--they tried to meet the present difficulty
+without weighing maturely the future difficulties. The present was at
+the door, palpable, stern, urgent, relentless; and as they looked at it,
+they could see nothing beyond half so full of perplexity and danger.
+They hoped, as in the face of all history and all experience men will
+ever hope, that out of those depths which their feeble eyes were unable
+to penetrate something would yet arise in their hour of need to avert
+the peril and snatch them from the precipice. Their past history had its
+lessons of encouragement, some thought, and, some thought, of warning.
+They seized the example, but the admonition passed by unheeded.
+
+Short as the chronological record of American history then was, that
+exchange of the products of labor which so speedily grows up into
+commerce had already passed through all its phases, from direct barter
+to bank-notes and bills of exchange. Men gave what they wanted less to
+get what they wanted more, the products of industry without doors for
+the products of industry within doors; and it was only when they felt
+the necessity of adding to their stock of luxuries or conveniences from
+a distance that they experienced the want of money. Prices naturally
+found their own level,--were what, when left to themselves they always
+are, the natural expression of the relations between demand and supply.
+Tobacco stood the Virginian in stead of money long after money had
+become abundant; procuring him corn, meat, raiment. More than once, too,
+it procured him something better still. In the very same year in which
+the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, history tells us, ninety maidens of
+"virtuous education and demeanor" landed in Virginia; the next year
+brought sixty more; and, provident industry reaping its own reward, he
+whose busy hands had raised the largest crop of tobacco was enabled to
+make the first choice of a wife. And it must have been an edifying and
+pleasant spectacle to see each stalwart Virginian pressing on towards
+the landing with his bundle of tobacco on his back, and walking
+deliberately home again with an affectionate wife under his arm.
+
+But already there was a pernicious principle at work,--protested against
+by experience wherever tried, and still repeatedly tried anew,--the
+assumption by Government of the power to regulate the prices of goods.
+The first instance carries us back to 1618, and thinking men still
+believed it possible in 1777. The right to regulate the prices of labor
+was its natural corollary, bringing with it the power of creating legal
+tenders and the various representatives of value, without any
+correspondent measures for creating the value itself, or, in simpler
+words, paper-money without capital. And thus, logically as well as
+historically, we reach the first issue of paper-money in 1690, that year
+so memorable as the year of the first Congress.
+
+New England, encouraged by a successful expedition against Port Royal,
+made an attempt upon Quebec. Confident of success, she sent forth her
+little army without providing the means of paying it. The soldiers came
+back soured by disaster and fatigue, and, not yet up to the standard of
+'76, were upon the point of mutinying for their pay. To escape the
+immediate danger, Massachusetts bethought her of bills of credit. They
+were issued, accepted, and redeemed, although the first holders suffered
+great losses, and the last holders or the speculators were the only ones
+that found them faithful pledges. The flood-gates once opened, the water
+poured in amain. Every pressing emergency afforded a pretext for a new
+issue. Other Colonies followed the seductive example. Paper was soon
+issued to make money plenty. Men's minds became familiar with the idea,
+as they saw the convenient substitute passing freely from hand to hand.
+Accepted at market, accepted at the retail store, accepted in the
+counting-room, accepted for taxes, everywhere a legal tender, it seemed
+adequate to all the demands of domestic trade. But erelong came undue
+fluctuations of prices, depreciations, failures,--all the well-known
+indications of an unsound currency. England interposed to protect her
+own merchants, to whom American paper-money was utterly worthless; and
+Parliament stripped it of its value as a legal tender. Men's minds were
+divided. They had never before been called upon to discuss such
+questions upon such a scale or in such a form. They were at a loss for
+the principle, still enveloped in the multitude and variety of
+conflicting theories and obstinate facts.
+
+One fact, however, was clearly established,--that a government could, in
+great needs, make paper fulfil, for a while, the office of money; and if
+a regular government, why not also a revolutionary government, sustained
+and accepted by the people? Here, then, begins the history of the
+Continental money,--the principal chapter in the financial history of
+the Revolution,--leading us, like all such histories, over ground
+thick-strown with unheeded admonitions and neglected warnings, through a
+round of constantly recurring phenomena, varied only here and there by
+modifications in the circumstances under which they appear.
+
+It is much to be regretted that we have no record of the discussions
+through which Congress reached the resolves of June 22, 1775: "That a
+sum not exceeding two millions of Spanish milled dollars be emitted by
+the Congress in bills of credit for the defence of America. That the
+twelve confederated Colonies" (Georgia, it will be remembered, had not
+yet sent delegates) "be pledged for the redemption of the bills of
+credit now to be emitted." We do not even know positively that there was
+any discussion. If there was, it is not difficult to conceive how some
+of the reasoning ran,--how each had arguments and examples from his own
+Colony: how confidently Pennsylvanians would speak of the security which
+they had given to their paper; how confidently Virginians would assert
+that even the greatest straits might be passed without having recourse
+to so dangerous a medium; how all the facts in the history of
+paper-money would be brought forward to prove both sides of the
+question, but how the underlying principle, subtile, impalpable, might
+still elude them all, as for thirty-five years longer it still continued
+to elude wise statesmen and thoughtful economists; how, at last, some
+impatient spirit, breaking through the untimely delay, sternly asked
+them what else they proposed to do. By what alchemy would they create
+gold and silver? By what magic would they fill the coffers which their
+non-exportation resolutions had kept empty, or bring in the supplies
+which their non-importation resolutions had cut off? What arguments of
+their devising would induce a people in arms against taxation to submit
+to tenfold heavier taxes than those which they had indignantly repelled?
+Necessity, inexorable necessity, was now their lawgiver; they had
+adopted an army, they must support it; they had voted pay to their
+officers, they must devise the means of giving their vote effect; arms,
+ammunition, camp-equipage, everything was to be provided for. The people
+were full of ardor, glowing with fiery zeal; your promise to pay will be
+received like payment; your commands will be instantly obeyed. Every
+hour's delay imperils the sacred cause, chills the holy enthusiasm;
+action, prompt, energetic, resolute action, is what the crisis calls
+for. Men must see that we are in earnest; the enemy must see it; nothing
+else will bring them to terms; nothing else will give us a lasting
+peace: and in such a peace how easily, how cheerfully, shall we all
+unite in paying the debt which won for us so inestimable a blessing!
+
+It would have been difficult to deny the force of such an appeal. There
+were doubtless men there who believed firmly in the virtue of the
+people,--who thought, that, after the proof which the people had given
+of their readiness to sacrifice the interests of the present moment to
+the interests of a day and a posterity that they might not live to see,
+it would be worse than skepticism to call it in question. But even these
+men might hesitate about the form of the sacrifice they called for, for
+they knew how often men are governed by names, and that their minds
+might revolt at the idea of a formal tax, although they would submit to
+pay it fifty-fold under the name of depreciation. Even at this day,
+with all our additional light,--the combined light of science and of
+experience,--it is difficult to see what else they could have done
+without strengthening dangerously the hands of their domestic enemies.
+Nor let this be taken as a proof that they engaged rashly in an unequal
+contest, even though it was necessarily in part a war of paper against
+gold. They have been accused of this by their friends as well as by
+their enemies: they have been accused of sacrificing a positive good to
+an uncertain hope,--of suffering their passions to hurry them into a war
+for which they had made no adequate preparation, and had not the means
+of making any,--that they wilfully, almost wantonly, incurred the
+fearful responsibility of staking the lives and fortunes of those who
+were looking to them for guidance upon the chances of a single cast. But
+the accusation is unjust. As far as human foresight could reach, they
+had calculated these chances carefully. They knew the tenure by which
+they held their authority, and that, if they ran counter to the popular
+will, the people would fall from them,--that, if they should fail in
+making their position good, they would be the first, almost the only
+victims,--that, then as ever, "the thunderbolts on highest mountains
+light." Charles Carroll added "of Carrollton" to his name, so that, if
+the Declaration he was setting it to should bring forfeiture and
+confiscation, there might be no mistake about the victim. Nor was it
+without a touch of sober earnestness that Harrison, bulky and fat, said
+to the lean and shadowy Gerry, as he laid down his pen,--"When
+hanging-time comes, I shall have the advantage of you. I shall be dead
+in a second, while you will be kicking in the air half an hour after I
+am gone." But they knew also, that, if there are dangers which we do not
+perceive till we come full upon them, there are likewise helps which we
+do not see till we find ourselves face to face with them,--and that in
+the life of nations, as in the life of individuals, there are moments
+when all that the wisest and most conscientious can do is to see that
+everything is in its place, every man at his post, and resolutely bide
+the shock.
+
+While this subject was pressing upon Congress, it was occupying no less
+seriously leading minds in the different Colonies. All felt that the
+success of the experiment must chiefly depend upon the degree of
+security that could be given to the bills. But how to reach that
+necessary degree was a perplexing question. Three ways were suggested in
+the New-York Convention: that Congress should fix upon a sum, assign
+each Colony its proportion, and the issue be made by the Colony upon its
+own responsibility; or that the United Colonies should make the issue,
+each Colony pledging itself to redeem the part that fell to it; or,
+lastly, that, Congress issuing the sum, and each Colony assuming its
+proportionate responsibility, the Colonies should still be bound as a
+whole to make up for the failure of any individual Colony to redeem its
+share. The latter was proposed by the Convention as offering greater
+chances of security, and tending at the same time to strengthen the bond
+of union. It was in nearly this form, also, that it came from Congress.
+
+No time was now lost in carrying the resolution into effect. The next
+day, Tuesday, June 23, the number, denomination, and form of the bills
+were decided in a Committee of the Whole. It was resolved to make bills
+of eight denominations, from one to eight, and issue forty-nine thousand
+of each, completing the two millions by eleven thousand eight hundred of
+twenty dollars each. The form of the bill was to be,--
+
+     _Continental Currency._
+
+     _No. Dollars._
+
+     _This bill entitles the bearer to receive ---- Spanish milled
+     dollars or the value thereof in gold or silver, according to
+     the resolutions of the Congress held at Philadelphia on the
+     10th day of May_, A. D. 1775.
+
+In the same sitting a committee of five was appointed "to get proper
+plates engraved, to provide paper, and to agree with printers to print
+the above bills." Both Franklin and John Adams were on this committee.
+
+Had they lived in 1862 instead of 1775, how their doors would have been
+beset by engravers and paper-dealers and printers! What baskets of
+letters would have been poured upon their tables! How would they have
+dreaded the sound of the knocker or the cry of the postman! But, alas!
+paper was so far from abundant that generals were often reduced to hard
+straits for enough of it to write their reports and despatches on; and
+that Congressmen were not much better off will be believed when we find
+John Adams sending his wife a sheet or two at a time under the same
+envelope with his own letters. Printers there were, as many, perhaps, as
+the business of the country required, but not enough for the eager
+contention which the announcement of Government work to be done excites
+among us in these days. And of engravers there were but four between
+Maine and Georgia. Of these four, one was Paul Revere of the midnight
+ride, the Boston boy of Huguenot blood whose self-taught graver had
+celebrated the repeal of the Stamp Act, condemned to perpetual derision
+the rescinders of 1768, and told the story of the Boston Massacre,--who,
+when the first grand jury under the new organization was drawn, had met
+the judge with, "I refuse to sarve,"--a scientific mechanic,--a leader
+at the Tea-party,--a soldier of the old war,--prepared to serve in this
+war, too, with sword, or graver, or science,--fitting carriages, at
+Washington's command, to the cannon from which the retreating English
+had knocked off the trunnions, learning how to make powder at the
+command of the Provincial Congress, and setting up the first powder-mill
+ever built in Massachusetts.
+
+No mere engraver's task for him, this engraving the first bill-plates of
+Continental Currency! How he must have warmed over the design! how
+carefully he must have chosen his copper! how buoyantly he must have
+plied his graver, harassed by no doubts, disturbed by no misgivings of
+the double mission which those little plates were to perform,--the good
+one first, thank God! but then how fatal a one afterward!--but resolved
+and hopeful as on that April night when he spurred his horse from
+cottage to hamlet, rousing the sleepers with the cry, long unheard in
+the sweet valleys of New England, "Up! up! the enemy is coming!"
+
+The paper of these bills was thick, so thick that the enemy called it
+the paste-board money of the rebels. Plate, paper, and printing, all had
+little in common with the elaborate finish and delicate texture of a
+modern bank-note. To sign them was too hard a tax upon Congressmen
+already taxed to the full measure of their working-time by committees
+and protracted daily sessions; and so a committee of twenty-eight
+gentlemen not in Congress was employed to sign and number them,
+receiving in compensation one dollar and a third for every thousand
+bills.
+
+Meanwhile loud calls for money were daily reaching the doors of
+Congress. Everywhere money was wanted,--money to buy guns, money to buy
+powder, money to buy provisions, money to send officers to their posts,
+money to march troops to their stations, money to speed messengers to
+and fro, money for the wants of to-day, money to pay for what had
+already been done, and still more money to insure the right doing of
+what was yet to do: Washington wanted it; Lee wanted it; Schuyler wanted
+it: from north to south, from seaboard to inland, one deep, monotonous,
+menacing cry,--"Money, or our hands are powerless!"
+
+How long would these two millions stand such a drain? Spent before they
+were received, hardly touching the Treasury-chest as a starting-place
+before they flew on the wings of the morning to gladden thousands of
+expectant hearts with a brief respite from one of their many cares.
+Relief there certainly was,--neither long, indeed, nor lasting, but
+still relief. Good Whigs received the bills, as they did everything
+else that came from Congress, with unquestioning confidence. Tories
+turned from them in derision, and refused to give their goods for them.
+Whereupon Congress took the matter under consideration, and told them
+that they must. It was soon seen that another million would be wanted,
+and in July a second issue was resolved on. All-devouring war had soon
+swallowed these also. Three more millions were ordered in November. But
+the war was to end soon,--by June, '76, at the latest. All their
+expenditures were calculated upon this supposition; and wealth flowing
+in under the auspices of a just and equable accommodation with their
+reconciled mother, these millions which had served them so well in the
+hour of need would soon be paid by a happy and grateful people from an
+abundant treasury.
+
+But early in 1776 reports came of English negotiations for foreign
+mercenaries to help put down the rebellion,--reports which soon took the
+shape of positive information. No immediate end of the war now: already,
+too, independence was looming up on the turbid horizon; already the
+current was bearing them onward, deep, swift, irresistible: and thus
+seizing still more eagerly upon the future, they poured out other four
+millions in February, five millions in May, five millions in July. The
+Confederacy was not yet formed; the Declaration of Independence had
+nothing yet to authenticate it but the signatures of John Hancock and
+Charles Thompson; and the republic that was to be was already solemnly
+pledged to the payment of twenty millions of dollars.
+
+Thus far men's faith had not faltered. They saw the necessity and
+accepted it, giving their goods and their labor unhesitatingly for a
+slip of paper which derived all its value from the resolves of a body of
+men who might, upon a reverse, be thrown down as rapidly as they had
+been set up. And then whom were they to look to for indemnification? But
+now began a sensible depreciation,--slight, indeed, at first, but
+ominous. Congress took the alarm, and resolved upon a loan,--resolved to
+borrow directly what they had hitherto borrowed indirectly, the goods
+and the labor of their constituents. Accordingly, on the third of
+October, a resolve was passed for raising five millions of dollars at
+four per cent; and in order to make it convenient to lenders,
+loan-offices were established in every Colony with a commissioner for
+each.
+
+Money came in slowly, but ran out so fast that in November Congress
+ordered weekly returns from the Treasury, not, of sums on hand, but of
+what parts of the last emission remained unexpended. The campaign of '77
+was at hand; how the campaign of '76 would close was yet uncertain. The
+same impenetrable veil that hid Trenton and Princeton from their eyes
+concealed the disasters of Fort Washington and the Jerseys. They still
+looked hopefully to the lower line of the Hudson. They resolved,
+therefore, to make an immediate effort to supply the Treasury by a
+lottery to be drawn at Philadelphia.
+
+A lottery,--does not the word carry one back, a great many years back,
+to other times and other manners? The Articles of War were now on the
+table of Congress for revision, and in the second and third of those
+articles officers and soldiers had been earnestly recommended to attend
+divine service diligently, and to refrain, under grave penalties, from
+profane cursing or swearing. And here legislators deliberately set
+themselves to raise money by means which we have deliberately condemned
+as gambling. But years were yet to pass before statesmen, or the people
+rather, were brought to feel that the lottery-office and gaming-table
+stand side by side on the same broad highway.
+
+No such thoughts troubled the minds of our forefathers, well stored as
+those minds were with human and divine lore; but, going to work without
+a scruple, they prepared an elaborate scheme and fixed the first of
+March for the day of drawing,--"or sooner, if sooner full." It was not
+full, however, nor was it full when the subject next came up. Tickets
+were sold; committees sat; Congress returned to the subject from time
+to time: but what with the incipient depreciation of the bills of
+credit, the rising prices of goods and provisions, and the incessant
+calls upon every purse for public and private purposes, the lottery
+failed to commend itself either to speculators or to the bulk of the
+people. Some good Whigs bought tickets from principle, and, like many of
+the good Whigs who took the bills of credit for the same reason, lost
+their money.
+
+In the same November the Treasury was ordered to make every preparation
+for a new issue; and to meet the wants of the retail trade, it was
+resolved at the same time to issue five hundred thousand dollars in
+bills of two-thirds, one-third, one-sixth, and one-ninth of a dollar.
+Evident as it ought now to have been that nothing but taxation could
+relieve them, they still shrank from it. "Do you think, Gentlemen," said
+a member, "that I will consent to load my constituents with taxes, when
+we can send to our printer and get a wagon-load of money, one quire of
+which will pay for the whole?" It was so easy a way of making money that
+men seemed to be getting into the humor of it.
+
+The campaign of '77, like the campaign of '76, was fought upon
+paper-money without any material depreciation. The bills could never be
+signed as fast as they were called for. But this could not last. The
+public mind was growing anxious. Extensive interests, in some cases
+whole fortunes, were becoming involved in the question of ultimate
+payment. The alarm gained upon Congress. Burgoyne, indeed, was
+conquered; but a more powerful, more insidious enemy, one to whom they
+themselves had opened the gate, was already within their works and fast
+making his way to the heart of the citadel. The depreciation had reached
+four for one, and there was but one way to prevent it from going lower.
+Congress deliberated anxiously. Thus far the public faith had supported
+the war. But, they reasoned, the quantity of the money for which this
+faith stood pledged already exceeded the demands of commerce, and hence
+its value was proportionably reduced. Add to this the arts of open and
+secret enemies, the avidity of professed friends, and the scarcity of
+foreign commodities, and it is easy to account for the depreciation.
+"The consequences were equally obvious and alarming,"--"depravity of
+morals, decay of public virtue, a precarious supply for the war,
+debasement of the public faith, injustice to individuals, and the
+destruction of the safety, honor, and independence of the United
+States." But "a reasonable and effectual remedy" was still within their
+reach, and therefore, "with mature deliberation and the most earnest
+solicitude," they recommended the raising by taxes on the different
+States, in proportion to their population, five millions of dollars in
+quarterly payments, for the service of 1778.
+
+But having explained, justified, and recommended, the power of Congress
+ceased. Like the Confederation, it had no right of coercion, no
+machinery of its own for acting upon the States. And, unhappily, the
+States, pressed by their individual wants, feeling keenly their
+individual sacrifices and dangers, failed to see that the nearest road
+to relief lay through the odious portal of taxation. Had the mysterious
+words that Dante read on the gates of Hell been written on it, they
+could not have shrunk from it with a more instinctive feeling:--
+
+    "All hope abandon, ye who enter here!"
+
+Some States paid, some did not pay. The sums that came in were wholly
+insufficient to relieve the actual pressure, and that pressure,
+unrelieved, grew daily more severe. They had tried the regulating of
+prices,--they had tried loans,--they had tried a lottery; and now they
+were forced back again to their earliest and most dangerous expedient,
+paper-money. New floods poured forth, and the parched earth drank them
+greedily up. One may almost fancy, as he looks at the tables, that he
+sees the shadowy form of sickly Credit tottering feebly forth to catch a
+gleam of sunshine, a breath of pure air, while myriads of little
+sprites, each bearing in his hand an emblazoned scroll with
+"Depreciation" written upon it in big yellow letters, dance merrily
+around him, thrusting the bitter record in his face, whichever way he
+turns, with gibes and taunts and demoniac laughter. But his course was
+almost ended: the grave was nigh, an unhonored grave; and as eager hands
+heaped the earth upon his faded form, a stern voice bade men remember
+that they who strayed from the path as he had done must sooner or later
+find a grave like his.
+
+It was not without a desperate struggle that Congress saw the rapid
+decline and shameful death of its currency. The ground was fought
+manfully, foot by foot, inch by inch. The idea that money derived its
+value from acts of government seemed to have taken deep hold of their
+minds, and their policy was in perfect harmony with their belief. In
+January, 1776, they had solemnly resolved that everybody who refused to
+accept their bills, or did anything to obstruct the circulation of them,
+should, upon due conviction, "be deemed, published, and treated as an
+enemy of his country, and be precluded from all trade or intercourse
+with the inhabitants of these Colonies." And to enforce it there were
+Committees of Inspection, whose power seldom lay idle in their hands,
+whose eyes were never sealed in slumber. In this work, which seemed good
+in their eyes, the State Assemblies and Conventions and Committees of
+Safety joined heart and hand with Congress. Tender-laws were tried, and
+the relentless hunt of creditor after debtor became a flight of the
+recusant creditor from the debtor eager to wipe out his responsibility
+for gold or silver with a ream or two of paper. Limitation of prices was
+tried, and produced its natural results,--discontent, insufficient
+supplies, heavy losses. Threatening resolves were renewed, and fell
+powerless. It was hoped that some relief might come from the sales of
+confiscated property; but property changed hands, and the Treasury was
+none the better off: just as in France, a few years later, the whole
+landed property of the kingdom changed hands, and left the government
+assignats what it found them,--bits of waste-paper.
+
+Meanwhile speculation ran riot. Every form of wastefulness and
+extravagance prevailed in town and country,--nowhere more than at
+Philadelphia, under the very eyes of Congress,--luxury of dress, luxury
+of equipage, luxury of the table. We are told of one entertainment at
+which eight hundred pounds were spent in pastry. As I read the private
+letters of those days, I sometimes feel as a man would feel who should
+be permitted to look down upon a foundering ship whose crew were
+preparing for death by breaking open the steward's room and drinking
+themselves into madness.
+
+An earnest appeal was made to the States. The sober eloquence and
+profound statesmanship of John Jay were employed to bring the subject
+before the country in its true light and manifold bearings,--the state
+of the Treasury, the results of loans and of taxes, and the nature and
+amount of the obligations incurred. The natural value and wealth of the
+country were held to view as the foundations on which Congress had
+undertaken to build up a system of public finances, beginning with bills
+of Credit because there was no nation they could have borrowed of,
+coming next to loans, and thus "unavoidably creating a public debt: a
+debt of $159,948,880, in emissions,--$7,545,196-67/90, in money borrowed
+before the first of March, 1778, with the interest payable in
+France,--$26,188,909, money borrowed since the first of March, 1778,
+with interest due in America,--about $4,000,000, of money due abroad."
+The taxes had brought in only $3,027,560; so that all the money supplied
+to Congress by the people was but $36,701,665-67/90.
+
+"Judge, then, of the necessity of emissions, and learn from whom and
+whence that necessity arose. We are also to inform you, that, on the
+first day of September instant, we resolved that we would on no account
+whatever emit more bills of credit than to make the whole amount of
+such bills two hundred million dollars; and as the sum emitted and in
+circulation amounted to $159,948,880, and the sum of $40,051,120
+remained to complete the two hundred million above mentioned, we, on the
+third day of September instant, further resolved that we would emit such
+part only of the said sum as should be absolutely necessary for public
+exigencies before adequate supplies could otherwise be obtained, relying
+for such ratios on the exertions of the several States."
+
+Coming to the depreciation, they reduce the causes to three
+kinds,--natural, or artificial, or both. The natural cause was the
+excess of the supply over the demands of commerce; the artificial cause
+was a distrust of the ability or inclination of the United States to
+redeem their bills; and assuming that both causes have combined in
+producing the depreciation of the Continental money, they proceed to
+prove that there can be no doubt of the ability of the United States to
+pay their debt, and none of their inclination. Under the head of
+inclination the argument is divided into three parts:--
+
+First, Whether, and in what manner, the faith of the United States has
+been pledged for the redemption of their bills.
+
+Second, Whether they have put themselves in a political capacity to
+redeem them.
+
+Third, Whether, admitting the two former propositions, there is any
+reason to apprehend a wanton violation of the public faith. The idea
+that Congress can destroy the money, because Congress made it, is
+treated with scorn.
+
+"A bankrupt, faithless Republic would be a novelty in the political
+world.... The pride of America revolts from the idea; her citizens know
+for what purposes these emissions were made, and have repeatedly
+plighted their faith for the redemption of them; they are to be found in
+every man's possession, and every man is interested in their being
+redeemed.... Provide for continuing your armies in the field till
+victory and peace shall lead them home, and avoid the reproach of
+permitting the currency to depreciate in your hands, when, by yielding a
+part to taxes and loans, the whole might have been appreciated and
+preserved. Humanity as well as justice makes this demand upon you; the
+complaints of ruined widows and the cries of fatherless children, whose
+whole support has been placed in your hands and melted away, have
+doubtless reached you: take care that they ascend no higher....
+Determine to finish the contest as you began it, honestly and
+gloriously. Let it never be said that America had no sooner become
+independent than she became insolvent."
+
+But it was not only the Continental money that was blocking up the
+channels through which a sound currency would have carried vigor and
+health. The States had their debts and their paper-money too,--wheel
+within wheel of complicated, desperate insolvency. The two hundred
+millions had been issued and spent. There was no money to send to
+Washington for his army, and he was compelled for a while to support
+them by seizing the articles he needed, and giving certificates in
+return. The States were called upon for specific supplies, beef, pork,
+flour, for the use of the army,--a method so expensive, irregular, and
+partial, that it was soon abandoned. One chance remained: to call in the
+old money by taxes, and burn it as soon as it was in; then to issue a
+new paper,--one of the new for every twenty of the old; and the whole of
+the old was cancelled, to issue only ten millions of the new,--four
+millions of it subject to the order of Congress, and the remaining six
+to be divided among the States: the whole redeemable in specie within
+six years, and bearing till then an interest of five per cent., payable
+in specie annually or on redemption, at the option of the holder. By
+this skilful change of base it was hoped that a bold front could still
+be presented to the enemy, and the field, which had been so long and so
+obstinately contested, be finally won.
+
+But the day of expedients was past. The zeal which had blazed forth with
+such energy at the beginning of the war was fast sinking to a fitful,
+smouldering flame. Individual interests were again taking the precedence
+of general interests. The moral sense of the people had contracted a
+deadly taint from daily contact with corruption. The spirit of gambling,
+confined in the beginning and lost to the eye, like Le Sage's Devil, had
+swollen to its full proportions, and, in the garb of speculation, was
+undermining the foundations of society. Rogues were growing rich; the
+honest men who were not already poor were daily growing poor. The laws
+that had been made in the view of propping the currency had served only
+to countenance unscrupulous men in paying their debts at a discount
+ruinous to the creditor. The laws against forestallers and engrossers,
+who, it was currently believed, were leagued against both army and
+country, were powerless, as such laws always are. Even Washington wished
+for a gallows like Haman's to hang them on; but the army was kept
+starving none the less.
+
+The seasons themselves--God's visible agents--seemed to combine against
+our cause. The years 1779 and 1780 were years of small crops. The winter
+of 1780 was severe far beyond the common severity even of a Northern
+winter. Provisions were scarce, suffering universal. Farmers, as if
+forgetting their dependence on rain and sunshine, had planted less than
+usual,--some from disaffection, some because they were irritated at
+having to give up their corn and cattle for worthless bills, and
+certificates which might prove equally worthless. Some, who were within
+reach of the enemy, preferred to sell to them, for they paid in silver
+and gold. There were riots in Philadelphia, put down at the point of the
+sword. There was mutiny in the army, and this, too, was put down by the
+strong hand,--though the fearful sufferings which had caused it
+justified it almost in the eye of sober reason.
+
+It is easy to see why farmers should have been loath to raise more than
+they needed for their own use,--why merchants should have been unwilling
+to lay in stores which they might be compelled to sell at prices so
+truly nominal that the money which they received would often sink to
+half they had taken it for before they were able to pass it. But it is
+not so easy to see why this wretched substitute for values should have
+circulated so freely to the very last. Even at two hundred for one, with
+the knowledge that the next twenty-four hours might make that two
+hundred two hundred and fifty, or even more, without the slightest hope
+that it would ever be redeemed at its nominal value, it would still buy
+everything that was to be sold,--provisions, goods, houses, lands, even
+hard money itself. Down to its last gasp there were speculations afoot
+to take advantage of the differences in the degree of its worthlessness
+at different places, and buy it up in one place to sell it at
+another,--to buy it in Philadelphia at two hundred and twenty-five for
+one, and sell it in Boston at seventy-five for one. It was possible, if
+the ball passed quickly from hand to hand, that some might gain; it was
+very manifest that some must lose: and thus outcrops that pernicious
+doctrine, that true, life-giving, health-diffusing commerce consists in
+stripping one to clothe another.
+
+And thus we reach the memorable year 1781, the great, decisive year of
+the war. While Greene was fighting Cornwallis and Rawdon, and Washington
+watching eagerly for an opportunity to strike at Clinton, Congress was
+busy making up its accounts. One circumstance told for them. There was
+no longer the same dearth of gold and silver which had embarrassed them
+so much at the beginning of the war. A gainful commerce was now opened
+with the West Indies. The French army and the French fleet were here,
+and hard money with them. Louis-d'ors and livres and Spanish
+dollars,--how welcome must their pleasant faces have looked, after this
+long, long absence! With what a thrill must the hand which had touched
+nothing for years but Continental bills have closed upon solid gold and
+silver! It is easy to conceive that a new spirit must soon have
+manifested itself in the wide circle of contractors and agents,--that
+shopkeepers must speedily have discovered that their business was
+shifting its ground as they obtained a reliable standard for counting
+their losses and gains,--that every branch of commerce must have felt a
+new vigor diffusing itself through its veins. But it is equally evident,
+that, while the gold and silver which flowed in upon them from these
+sources strengthened the people for the work they were to do and the
+burdens they were to bear, the comparisons they were daily making
+between fluctuating paper and steadfast metal were not of a nature to
+strengthen their faith in money that could be made by a turn of the
+printing-press and a few strokes of the pen.
+
+Another circumstance told for them, too. The accession of Maryland had
+fulfilled the conditions for the acceptance of the Confederation so long
+held in abeyance, and the finances were taken from a board and intrusted
+to the hands of a skilful and energetic financier. Robert Morris, who
+had protested energetically against the tender-laws, made
+specie-payments the condition of his acceptance of office; and on the
+twenty-second of May, though not without a struggle, Congress resolved
+"that the whole debts already due by the United States be liquidated as
+soon as may be to their specie-value, and funded, if agreeable to the
+creditors, as a loan upon interest; that the States be severally
+informed that the calculations of the expenses of the present campaign
+are made in solid coin, and therefore that the requisitions from them
+respectively, being grounded on those calculations, must be complied
+with in such manner as effectually to answer the purpose designed; that,
+experience having evinced the inefficacy of all attempts to support the
+credit of paper-money by compulsory acts, it is recommended to such
+States, where laws making paper-bills a tender yet exist, to repeal the
+same."
+
+Another public body, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania,
+dealt it another blow, fixing the ratio at which it was to be received
+in public payments at one hundred and seventy-five for one. Circulation
+ceased. In a short time the money that had been carted to and fro in
+reams disappeared from the shop, the counting-room, the market. All
+dealings were in hard money. Gold and silver resumed their legitimate
+sway, and men began to look hopefully forward to a return of economy,
+frugality, and an invigorating commerce.
+
+The Superintendent of Finance set himself seriously to his task. One
+great obstacle had been removed; one great and decisive step had been
+made towards the restoration of that sense of security without which
+industry and enterprise are powerless. As a merchant, he was familiar
+with the resources of the country; as a Member of Congress, he was
+familiar with the wants of Government. His resources were taxes and
+loans; his obligations, an old debt and a daily expenditure. Opposed as
+he was to the irresponsible currency which had brought the country to
+the brink of ruin, he was a believer in banks and bills resting on a
+secure basis. One of his earliest measures was to prepare, with the aid
+of his Assistant-Superintendent, Gouverneur Morris, a plan of a bank,
+which soon after, with the sanction of Congress, went into operation as
+the Bank of North America. Small as the capital with which it started
+was,--only four hundred thousand dollars,--its influence was immediately
+felt throughout the country. It gave an impulse to legitimate enterprise
+which had long been wanting, and a confidence to buyer and seller which
+they had not felt since the first year of the war. In his public
+operations the Superintendent used it freely, and, using it at the same
+time wisely, was enabled to call upon it for aid to the full extent of
+its ability without impairing its strength.
+
+Henceforth the financial history of the Revolution, although it loses
+none of its importance, loses much of its narrative-interest. No longer
+a hand-to-hand conflict between coin and paper,--no longer the
+melancholy spectacle of wise men doing unwise things, and honorable men
+doing things which, in any other form, they would have been the first to
+brand with dishonor,--it still continues a long, a wearisome, and often
+a mortifying struggle: men knowing their duty and refusing to do it,
+knowing consequences and yet blindly shutting their eyes to them. I will
+give but one example.
+
+After a careful estimate of the operations of 1782, Congress had called
+upon the States for eight millions. Up to January, 1783, only four
+hundred and twenty thousand had come into the Treasury. Four hundred
+thousand Treasury-notes were almost due; the funds in Europe were
+overdrawn to the amount of five hundred thousand by the sale of drafts.
+But Morris, waiting only to cover himself by a special authorization of
+Congress, made fresh sales upon the hopes of the Dutch loan and the
+possibility of a new French loan, and still held on--as cautiously as he
+could, but ever boldly and skilfully--his anxious way through the rocks
+and shoals that menaced him on every side. He was rewarded, as such men
+too often are, by calumny and suspicion. But when men came to look
+closely at his acts, comparing his means with his wants, and the
+expenditure of the Treasury Board with the expenditure of the Finance
+Office, it was seen and acknowledged that he had saved the country
+thirteen millions a year in hard money.
+
+And now, from our stand-point of the Peace,--from 1783,--let us give a
+parting glance at the ground over which we have passed. We see thirteen
+Colonies, united by interest, divided by habits, association, and
+tradition, engaging in a doubtful contest with one of the most powerful
+and energetic nations which the world had ever seen; we see them begin,
+as men always do, with very imperfect conceptions of the time it would
+last, the lengths to which it would carry them, or the sacrifices it
+would impose; we see them boldly adopting some measures, timidly
+shrinking from others,--reasoning justly about some things, reasoning
+falsely about things equally important,--endowed at times with singular
+foresight, visited at times by incomprehensible blindness: boatmen on a
+mighty river, strong themselves and resolute and skilful, plying their
+oars manfully from first to last, but borne onward by a current which no
+human science could measure, no human strength could resist.
+
+They knew that the resources of the country were exhaustless; and they
+threw themselves upon those resources in the only way by which they
+could reach them. Their bills of credit were the offspring of enthusiasm
+and faith. The enthusiasm grew chill, the faith failed. With a little
+more enthusiasm, the people would cheerfully have submitted to taxation;
+with a little more faith, the Congress would have taxed them. In the
+end, the people paid for the shortcomings of their enthusiasm by seventy
+millions of indirect taxation,--taxation through depreciation; the
+Congress paid for the shortcomings of their faith by the loss of
+confidence and respect. The war left them with a Federal debt of seventy
+million dollars, and State debts of nearly twenty-six millions.
+
+Could this have been avoided? Could they have done otherwise? It is
+easy, when the battle is won, to tell how victory might have been bought
+cheaper,--when the campaign is ended, to show what might perhaps have
+brought it to an earlier and more glorious close. It is easy for us,
+with the whole field before us, to see that from the beginning, from the
+very first start, although the formula was _Taxation_, the principle was
+_Independence_; but before we venture to pass sentence, ought we not to
+pause and weigh well our judgment and our words,--we who, in the fiercer
+contest through which we are passing, have so long failed to see, that,
+while the formula is _Secession_, the principle is _Slavery_?
+
+
+
+
+THROUGH-TICKETS TO SAN FRANCISCO: A PROPHECY.
+
+
+We write this article in September. Within a few days, and without much
+heralding, has occurred an event of prime importance to our country's
+future. This is the opening from New York to St. Louis of a continuous
+broad-gauge line under the title of the Atlantic and Great Western
+Railway. This line is twelve hundred miles long, and pursues the
+following route: By the New York and Erie Road, from New York to the
+station of Salamanca; thence, by a separate road of the Atlantic and
+Great Western, to Dayton, Ohio; thence, over the Cincinnati, Hamilton,
+and Dayton Road, to Cincinnati; and finally, by the Ohio and Mississippi
+Road, to St. Louis. The first excursion-train accomplished the whole
+distance in forty-four hours. We understand that the regular
+express-trains of the line will be required to make equally good
+time,--ultimately, perhaps, to reduce the time to forty hours.
+
+This valuable connection has been mainly effected by the energy and
+talents of two men. Mr. James McHenry, a Pennsylvanian by birth, but of
+late years resident abroad, has raised twenty million dollars for the
+project in the money-markets of England, Spain, and Germany, the bonds
+of the Company obtaining ready sale upon the guaranty of his personal
+high character for uprightness and financial ability. Mr. Thomas W.
+Kennard, an engineer and capitalist of large views, discretion, and
+experience, has managed the interests of the project here at home,
+securing the hearty cooperation and good-will of all the roads now made
+continuous, and bringing the enterprise to a successful issue with a
+skill possible only to first-class commercial genius. The former of
+these gentlemen is Financial Director and Contractor, the latter,
+Engineer-in-Chief, Vice-President, and General Manager of the line. At
+any other period than this their success would have been widely talked
+of as a great national benefit. Even now let us not forget the
+public-spirited men whose hopeful hands, in the midst of blood and din,
+have been sowing seeds of commercial prosperity to glorify with their
+perfected harvest the day of our National triumph and reunion.
+
+This work is the first instalment of the greatest popular enterprise in
+the world, the initial fulfilment of a promise which America has made to
+herself and all the other nations,--one which shall be completely
+fulfilled only when an iron highway stretches across her entire breadth,
+from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. As a people we have grudged
+neither time nor money to the accomplishment of this end. We have dared
+the fiery desert and the frozen mountaintop, the demons of thirst,
+starvation, and savage warfare. Our foremost scientific men, for the
+sake of the great national enterprise, have taken their lives in their
+hands, going out to meet peril and privation with the cheerful constancy
+of apostles and martyrs. The record of expeditions bearing either
+directly or indirectly on the subject of the Pacific Railroad is one to
+which every American citizen must point with a pride none the less
+hearty for the fact that its route has not yet been absolutely decided.
+The one curse mingled with a young republic's many blessings is the
+intrusion of political influences into the dispassionate field of
+national enterprise. We might have determined the line of our Pacific
+Road before the breaking out of the Rebellion, and by this time its
+first or Great-Plains section should have been in running order, but for
+the partisan jealousies which prevailed in high places between the
+advocates of the different routes. Slavery, that _enfant gâté_ of our
+old-school and now happily obsolete statecraft, insisted on the
+expensive toy of a southern and unpractical line, until our
+representatives, harassed by the problem how to gratify her without
+incurring the contempt of the financial world, gave over to the drift of
+events the settlement of their country's chief commercial question. We
+are now in a position to decide coolly; no entangling alliances with a
+dead-weight social system bias our plain judgment of practical pros and
+cons; but the opportunity for decision arrives a little too late and a
+little too early for action. Congress, the legitimate custodian of the
+Pacific Railroad, may be said to have passed the last four years in
+climbing to the level of the country's vital exigency. Till Congress
+reaches that and understands it fully, there is no surplus energy to be
+thrown away on the else paramount matters of a peaceful age.
+
+But it must not be forgotten that the Pacific Railroad stands next to
+the maintenance of National Unity on the docket of causes for
+adjudication by our representative tribunal. The people have filed it
+away till the grand appeal is settled; but they have not forgotten it.
+
+It is none the pleasanter thought to them because they have no time to
+talk about it, that the great highway of the continent has been left,
+_pendente lite_, in the hands of squabbling speculators, and that
+personal recriminations bar the progress of our commerce between sea and
+sea. The indifference of our public trustees to the disgraceful
+controversies which have embarrassed work on the eastern end of the line
+is itself not a disgrace only because human power is limited to the care
+of one great matter at a time. The first Congress that meets under the
+olive of an honorable peace must at once take the Pacific Railroad into
+the Nation's hands, and prosecute it as the Nation's matter, with a
+liberal-mindedness learned from the conduct of a great war. Next to the
+salvation of the Union, the completion of the Pacific Road most fully
+justifies prompt action and comparative disregard of expenditure.
+
+It is not our purpose, nor is this the place, to dictate to our
+legislators either the precise line of their own action or that of the
+road. It is still proper to say that the arrangements thus far entered
+into with private contractors have proved inadequate to the
+accomplishment and unworthy of the character of the enterprise. Whatever
+may be the details of the improved plan, it must embrace a sterner
+national surveillance over the execution of the project, and a direct
+national assumption of its prime responsibility.
+
+It is a mistaken notion to suppose that the Pacific-Railroad question
+rests on the same principles as that of our minor internal improvements.
+It calls for no reopening of the long-hushed controversy between
+Democracy and Whiggism. The best thinkers of the day are universally
+agreed to deprecate legislation in every case where private enterprise
+will do its office. No good political economist approves the
+emasculation of private effort by Government subsidy. The people are
+averse to statutory crutches and go-carts, wherever it is possible for
+them to walk alone. We feel distrust of the railroad which asks
+monopoly-privileges. The sight of a Governmental prop under any
+ostensibly commercial concern warns an American from its neighborhood.
+He has learned that true prestige lies with the people,--that there is
+no vital warmth in official patronage. Even within the memory of young
+men a great change for the better has taken place in our commercial
+manliness. Out first-class public enterprises blush to take Government
+help, as their directors might blush, if at the close of an interview
+Mr. Lincoln "tipped" them like school-boys with a holiday handful of
+greenbacks. There is no doubt that the ideal principle of democratic
+progress demands the absolute non-interference of Government in all
+enterprises whose benefit accrues to a part of its citizens, or which
+can be stimulated into life by the spontaneous operation of popular
+interest.
+
+But facts are not ideal, and absolute principles in their practical
+application make head only by a curved line of compromise with the
+facts. The philosopher cannot go faster than the people. Certain courses
+are proper for certain stages of development. Few New-York Democrats now
+denounce the building of "Clinton's Ditch," and the fact that a majority
+approved of it as a sufficient evidence that it was a measure suited to
+the period; though even an old Whig at this day could not approve of a
+State canal under the auspices of Governor Seymour. Here are the two
+great questions which at any time must regulate the exertion of
+Governmental power: Is the enterprise vitally important? and, Will it be
+accomplished by private effort?
+
+Because the Nation in several eminent instances saw the former question
+answered affirmatively and the latter negatively, it centralized a
+certain amount of authority for the construction of fortresses and the
+maintenance of a military force. These matters vitally concerned the
+entire people, yet the ordinary _stimuli_ to private enterprise were
+quite inadequate to securing their accomplishment.
+
+The Pacific Railroad stands on precisely the same grounds. It concerns
+the entire population of the United States, but no ordinary
+business-organization of citizens will ever accomplish it alone. The
+mere cost of its construction might stagger the most audacious
+financier; but that is a minor obstacle. No doubt the city of New York
+and the State of California contain capital enough for the completion of
+the entire road,--would subscribe to it, too, upon sufficient
+guaranties. But who is to give those guaranties? Whose credit is broad
+enough to secure them? Our Atlantic capitalists have too often been
+defrauded by stock-companies of moderate liabilities and immediately
+under their own eyes, to feel quite comfortable about putting millions
+into the hands of private operators, who shall presently have the Rocky
+Mountains between them and their bondholders. In the case of almost any
+other railroad-enterprise this objection might be answered by the
+proposal to build the line with the subscriptions of people living on
+its route. But this line must take a route without people, and bring
+people to the route. Certain other roads are guarantied by the pledge of
+their way-freight business. This road must be completed before such a
+business exists; the business must be the product of the road. The
+ordinary principle of demand and supply is reversed in its application
+to this case. Supply must precede demand. Furnish the Pacific Railroad
+to the continent, and the continent in ten years will give it all the
+business it can do. Wait fifty years for the continent to take the
+initiative, and there will not yet be enough business to build the road.
+
+This enterprise must be looked at in the light of a cash-advance from
+California and the Eastern States to the Plains, the Mountains, and the
+Desert, secured by a pledge of all the mineral and agricultural wealth
+of the party of the second part, guarantied by the prospective myriads
+of settlers whom the road shall bring to tracts now lying waste through
+the mere lack of its existence. In the course of the present article we
+shall endeavor to show the solidity of this security, the responsibility
+of these indorsers. While we counsel confidence to the capital which
+must build the road, we feel it imperative upon the National Government
+to enforce its position as that capital's trustee. That capital for the
+most part lies east of the Missouri and west of the Sierra Nevada.
+Between these two boundaries the road must run for eighteen hundred
+miles through a region where capital may well be cautious of intrusting
+its life to any less potent authority than that of the Nation itself.
+
+The claims of the Pacific Railroad have usually been urged upon the
+ground of its benefit to its _termini_. This ground is adequate to
+justify any advance of capital by the cities of New York and San
+Francisco. With the completion of the road, San Francisco necessarily
+becomes a depot for the entire China trade of the United States, and an
+entrepot for much of that between China and Western Europe. With the
+development of our Japanese relations, still another stream of wealth,
+now incalculable, must flow in through the Golden Gate. In the reverse
+current of Asiatic commerce, New York's position at the eastern terminus
+of the continental belt gives her a similar share. The gold-transport
+and the entire fast-freight business of New York and San Francisco,
+now transacted at an enormous expense by Wells and Fargo's Express,
+must be transferred _en masse_ to the Pacific Road; while the
+passenger-carriage, now devolving on Isthmus steamers and overland
+stages, may be passed, practically entire, to the credit of the new
+line. Certainly, no traveller who has once purchased bitter experience
+with his ticket on Mr. Vanderbilt's line will ever again patronize that
+enterprising capitalist, unless he sells his ships and becomes a
+stockholder in the Pacific Railroad. The most enthusiastic lover of the
+sea must abjure his predilections, when brought to the ordeal of the
+steamer Champion. Crowded like rabbits in a hutch or captives in the
+Libby into such indecent propinquity with his kind that the third day
+out makes him a misanthrope,--fed on the putrid remains of the last
+trip's commissariat, turkeys which drop out of their skins while the
+cook is larding them in the galley, beef which maybe eaten as
+spoon-meat, and tea apparently made with bilge-water,--sleeping or
+vainly trying to sleep in an unventilated dungeon which should be called
+death instead of berth, where the reek of the aforesaid putridities
+awakes him to breakfast without aid of gong,--propelled by a
+second-hand engine, whose every wheeze threatens the terrors of
+dissolution,--morally certain, that, if his floating sty from any cause
+ceases to float, there are not boats enough to save an eighth of the
+passengers,--he must admire the ocean with a true poet's enthusiasm, if
+he can brave the Champion a second time.
+
+The considerations we have mentioned should be sufficiently operative
+with the capitalists of New York and California, and, as such, are those
+most prominently urged by the friends of the road. It would, however, be
+a great mistake to regard the through-business an all-comprehensive, in
+enumerating the sources of profit to be relied on by the enterprise. For
+a better understanding of that immense way-trade which lies between the
+oceans, waiting only for the whistle of the steam-genie to wake it into
+vigorous life, let us treat the entire line as already continuous from
+New York to San Francisco, and make an excursion to the Pacific on its
+prophetic rails. We will suppose the track a uniform broad gauge, as it
+ought to be,--the Pacific Road connecting at St. Louis with the Atlantic
+and Great Western by powerful boats, like those in use at Havre de
+Grace, capable of ferrying the heaviest cars between the Illinois and
+Missouri shores. We will take the liberty of constructing for ourselves
+the remainder of the still undecided route to the Pacific. We run our
+ideal broad gauge as follows:--
+
+From St. Louis to Jefferson City; thence by the shortest line to the
+Kansas-River crossing; thence to Leavenworth (where St. Joseph, makes
+connection by a branch-track); thence to that bend of the Republican
+Fork which nearest approaches the Little Blue; thence along the bottoms
+of the Republican to the foot of the high divide out of which it is
+believed to rise, and which also serves for the water-shed between the
+Platte and Arkansas; and thence skirting the bluffs a distance of about
+one hundred miles to Denver. At Denver we find two branches making
+junctions with our line: one connects us with Central City, the great
+mining-town of Colorado, by a series of grades which might appall the
+Pennsylvania Central; the other threads the foot-hills and _mesas_
+between Denver and the Fontaine-qui-Bouille Spa at Colorado City, with
+the possibility of its being extended in time to Cañon City on the
+Arkansas. From Denver we strike for the nearest point on the
+Cache-la-Poudre, follow its bed as far as practicable, and rise from
+that level to the grand plateau of the Laramie Plains. Running through
+these Plains, we cross the Big and the Little Laramie Rivers, here
+shallow streams, crystal clear, and scarcely wider than the Housatonic
+at Pittsfield. Just after leaving the Plains, we cross Medicine Bow,--a
+mere brook,--and a few hours later the North Fork of the Platte, which
+eccentrically turns up in this most unexpected quarter, running nearly
+due north from a source which cannot be very far off. The rope-ferry by
+which the writer last crossed this picturesque and rapid stream we have
+replaced by a strong iron bridge. Leaving the west end of that bridge,
+we look out of the rear car and send our final message to the Atlantic
+by the last stream which we shall find going thither. A stupendous, but
+not impracticable, system of grades next carries us over the axial
+water-shed of the continent, by the way of Bridger's Pass. One hundred
+and fifty miles of tortuous descent brings us to Green River,--the
+stream which farther down becomes the mysterious Colorado, and seeks the
+Pacific by the Gulf of California. After crossing the Green by another
+iron bridge substituted for rope-ferriage, our first important station
+will be Fort Bridger. Leaving there, we almost immediately enter the
+galleries of the Wahsatch Range, which form a continuous pass across
+Bear River and into the tremendous _cañons_ conducting down to Salt-Lake
+City. From Salt Lake we pursue the shortest practicable route through
+the Desert to the Ruby-Valley Pass of the Humboldt Mountains; we cross
+that range to enter another desert, descend to the Sink of Carson, and
+reascend to Carson City, thence going nearly due north till we strike
+the line of the Truckee Pass, (where a branch connects us with the
+principal Washoe mines,) and thence to Sacramento by the long-projected
+California section of the Pacific Railroad. Another proposed, but still
+ideal, road completes our connection with the Western Ocean by way of
+Stockton, San José, and San Francisco.
+
+We do not pretend to assert that the route indicated is in all respects
+the most economical and practicable; a good deal more surveying must be
+done before that can be said of any entire route, though we think it may
+fairly be claimed for our ideal section between St. Louis and Denver. We
+have chosen this route because along its course are more completely
+represented the natural features to which in any case the Pacific
+Railroad must look for all its primary obstacles and part of its
+subsequent profits.
+
+To complete the conception as its reality must in time be completed, let
+us unite our Trans-Missouri portion with the Atlantic and Great Western
+Railway, under the all-inclusive title of the Atlantic and Pacific
+Railroad. It will not be very far out of the way to regard thirty-eight
+hundred miles as the entire length of the line. On the Atlantic and
+Great Western section express-trains will run at a speed of twenty-seven
+miles an hour, including stops; but to provide against every detention,
+let us slow our through-express to twenty-five miles. At this rate we
+shall traverse the continent in six days and eight hours. In other
+words, the San-Francisco gentleman who left the Jersey depot by the five
+o'clock Atlantic and Pacific express-train on Monday morning may
+reasonably expect (allowing for difference of longitude) to be in the
+bosom of his family just in time to accompany them to morning service on
+the following Sunday.
+
+We will suppose our packing accomplished the day before we set out.
+During the evening we send our watches to get the exact Washington time.
+The schedule of the entire road is based upon that time; and a thousand
+inconveniences, once endured by the traveller between New York and St.
+Louis, are thereby avoided. It is not necessary to alter one's watch
+with every new conductor. We no longer grow dizzy with a horrible
+uncertainty on the subject of what-'s-o'clock,--ignorant whether we are
+running on New-York time, Dayton time, Cincinnati time, or St. Louis
+time,--whether, indeed, all time be not a pure subjective notion, and
+any o'clock at all a mere popular delusion. For the introduction of a
+uniform standard we have originally to thank the Atlantic and Great
+Western Railway.
+
+In comfort and elegance the second-class cars of the Atlantic and
+Pacific Road correspond to the omnivorous cars in use on our railroads
+generally. But we are a family-party, have nearly a week of travel
+before us, and prefer to sacrifice our money rather than our comfort. It
+costs a third, perhaps one-half more, to take first-class tickets; but
+these secure us a compartment entirely to ourselves,--fitted up with all
+the luxury of a lady's boudoir. We have comfortable arm-chairs to sit in
+all day, the latest improvement in folding-beds to sleep in at night.
+Our mirror, water-tank, basin, and all our toilet-arrangements are
+independent of the rest of the train. We have a table in the centre of
+our compartment for cards or luncheon. If we are wise, we have also
+brought along three or four Champagne-baskets stocked with private
+commissariat-stores, which make us quite independent of that black-art
+known as Western cookery. These contain sardines (half-boxes are the
+most practically useful size for a small party); chow-chow;
+_pâtés-de-foie-gras_; a selection of various potted meats; a few hundred
+_Zwiebacks_ from our Berlin baker, and as many sticks of Italian bread
+from our Milanese; a dozen pounds of hard-tack, and a half-dozen of
+soda-crackers; an assortment of canned fruits, including, as absolute
+essentials, peaches and the Shaker apple-butter; a pot of anchovy-paste;
+a dozen half-pint boxes of concentrated coffee, and as many of condensed
+milk, both, as the writer has abundantly tested, prepared with
+unrivalled excellence by an establishment in Boston; a tin box
+containing ten pounds of lump-sugar; a kettle and gas-stove, to be
+attached by a flexible tube to one of the burners lighting the
+compartment; a dozen bottles of lemon-syrup; and whatever stores, in the
+way of wines, liquors, and cigars, may strike the fancy of the party.
+This may seem an ambitious outfit, but for the first year of the Pacific
+Railroad it will be an absolutely necessary one. As civilization spreads
+westward along the grand iron conductor of the continent, our national
+gastronomy will develop itself in company with all the other arts; but
+for the present it is safe to assume that outside of our private stores
+we shall not find a good cup of coffee after we leave St. Louis, or
+decent bread of any kind between Denver and Sacramento.
+
+We seat ourselves in our comfortable arm-chairs, without the
+mortification of removing single gentlemen and the trouble of reversing
+seats to accommodate our party. The ladies are not compelled to sit in
+isolation, by the side of passengers who use the car-floor as a
+spittoon. We may chat together upon family-matters without awakening the
+vivid interest of any mother-in-Israel mounting guard in front of us
+over a bandbox. The gentlemen may smoke, if the ladies like it, and, so
+long as they keep the windows open, nobody shall say them nay. We all
+enjoy a sense of security and independence, which is like occupying a
+well-provisioned Gibraltar on wheels. If we have a sick friend with us,
+he need never leave his mattress till he reaches San Francisco.
+Should his situation become critical _en route_, the best medical
+attendance is at hand,--every through-train being obliged by statute
+to carry a first-class physician and surgeon, with a well-stocked
+apothecary-compartment. But our present party are all of them in fine
+health and spirits; so we may dismiss the doctor's shop from our
+consideration.
+
+The whistle blows just as the ladies have hung their bonnets in the
+rack, and the gentlemen exchanged their boots for slippers. We wave
+adieu to the Atlantic coast and the friends who have come to see us
+off. A few minutes more, and we pass through the Bergen Tunnel. The
+remainder of the day is spent amid that wild mountain and forest
+scenery which the Erie Railroad has made familiar to the whole
+travelling-population of our Eastern States. At Salamanca we strike the
+Atlantic and Great Western's separate line. On the way thence to Dayton
+we shall pass a number of long trains, made up of platform-cars heavily
+laden with barrels carrying East the riches of the Pennsylvania
+oil-region. These have connected with our main road by a couple of
+branches built especially for the accommodation of the petroleum-trade.
+From Dayton to Cincinnati we shall traverse one of the finest
+farming-regions of the world, meeting trains laden with beeves, swine,
+packed pork, lard, grain, corn, potatoes, and every variety of produce
+that bears transportation. By this time, also, Ohio vine-culture has
+attained a development which justifies an occasional train entirely
+devoted to pipes of still Catawba and baskets of the sparkling brands.
+
+From Cincinnati to St. Louis by way of Vincennes, we run through the
+southern portions of Indiana and Illinois, threading varied and
+picturesque scenery all the way, unless we have seen the Egyptian
+prairies so many times before that they pall on us before we reach the
+Mississippi bluff opposite St. Louis. Till we strike the prairie, our
+course is among bold, well-timbered hills, which now and then we are
+obliged to tunnel, and by the side of charming pastoral streams whose
+green bottom-land is shaded by noble plane-trees and cotton-woods.
+Certain passages in the scenery between Cincinnati and Vincennes are
+beautiful as a dream of fairy-land. Every few miles we continue to meet
+freight-trains laden with all the well-known products of the Western
+field and dairy. Twice, before we reach St. Louis, a splendid cortege of
+passenger-carriages shall whiz by us on the southern track,--and each
+time we shall have seen the daily through-express from San Francisco.
+
+The St. Louis through-passengers will be ready, on our arrival, in cars
+of their own. We shall switch them on behind us with little over
+half-an-hour's detention, and strike for Leavenworth, taking Jefferson
+City by the way. The country we now traverse is rolling, well watered,
+and well timbered along the streams. Our road has so stimulated
+production in the mines of Missouri that we frequently pass on the
+switch a freight-train taking out bar and pig iron to San Francisco, or
+on the other track a train laden with copper ore going to the East for
+reduction. We have hitherto said nothing of the innumerable trains which
+pass us or switch out of our way, carrying through-freight between New
+York and San Francisco. We are still surrounded by excellent
+farming-land, a fine grain, fruit, and general-produce country. Not till
+we leave Leavenworth can we be said fairly to have entered the central
+wilds of the continent. We are now west of the Missouri River, and for a
+distance of two hundred miles farther shall traverse a country
+possessing certain individual characteristics which entitle it to a name
+of its own among the divisions of our physical geography. This is the
+proper place for an indication of those divisions, generalized to the
+broadest terms.
+
+In passing from sea to sea, the American traveller crosses ten
+well-defined regions:--
+
+1. The Atlantic slope of the Alleghany Range.
+
+2. The eastern incline of the Mississippi basin.
+
+3. The high divides of the short Missouri tributaries.
+
+4. The Great Plains proper.
+
+5. The Rocky-Mountain system of ridges and intramontane plateaus.
+
+6. The Great Desert, broken by frequent uplifts, and divided by the
+Humboldt Range.
+
+7. The Sierra-Nevada mountain-system.
+
+8. The basin of the Sacramento River.
+
+9. The mountain-system of the Coast Range.
+
+10. The narrow Pacific slope.
+
+By attending to these distinctions with map in hand we shall gain some
+adequate idea of the surface of our continent. The first and second of
+the regions we have left behind us, and at Leavenworth are well out upon
+the third. It would not be just to call it prairie,--and it is equally
+distinct from the true Plains. As a grain and grass land, Illinois
+nowhere rivals it; but its surface is remarkably different from that of
+the prairies east of the Mississippi. It may be described as an
+alternation of lofty bluffs and sinuous ravines,--the former known as
+"divides," the latter as "draws." The top of these divides preserves one
+general level,--leading naturally to the hypothesis that all the draws
+are valleys of erosion in a tract of alluvial deposit originally uniform
+with the plateaus of the divides. Some of the larger draws still serve
+as the channels of unfailing streams; most of them carry more or less
+water during the rainy season; few of them are dry all the year round.
+The river-bottoms which traverse this region are thickly fringed with
+cotton-wood and elm timber; but it is a rare thing to encounter trees on
+the top of a divide. The fertility of the soil is boundless. Every
+species of grass flourishes or may flourish here, with a luxuriance
+unrivalled on the continent. Of the tract embraced between the Little
+Blue and the Republican Fork of the Kaw this is especially true. The
+climate is so mild and uniform that cattle may be kept at pasture the
+whole year round. Haymaking and the building of barns are works of
+supererogation. The wild grass cures spontaneously on the ground. To
+provide shelter against exceptional cases of climatic rigor,--an unusual
+"cold snap," or a fall of snow which lies more than a day or two,--the
+_ranchero_ constructs for his cattle a simple corral, or, at most, a
+rude shed. The utmost complication which can occur in his business is a
+stampede; and few of our Eastern farmers' boys would hesitate to
+exchange their scythes, hay-cutters, corn-shellers, and mash-tubs for
+the saddle of his spirited Indian pony and his three days' hunt after
+estrays. Over this entire region the cereals thrive splendidly. The wild
+plum is so abundant and delicious as to suggest the most favorable
+adaptation to the other stone-fruits. Every vegetable that has been
+tried in the loam of the river-bottoms succeeds perfectly. There is just
+reason to think that vine-culture might reach a development along the
+southern slope of the Republican Bluffs not surpassed in the most
+favorable positions east of California. We believe it no exaggeration to
+say that this region needs only culture (and that of the easiest kind)
+to become the garden of the continent. Its mineral wealth has received
+scanty examination; yet we know that it contains numerous beds of
+tertiary coal, and easily worked iron-deposits, in the form both of
+hydrated oxide and black scale.
+
+On our way through this region we strike the Republican bottom near Lat.
+39° 30' N., and Long. 97° 20' W. We are now in the primest part of the
+buffalo-pasture. As we wind along the base of the steep Republican
+Bluffs, and the edges of those green amphitheatres made by their
+alternate approach and retrocession, our whistle scares a picket-line of
+giant bulls, guarding a divide across the stream, and with tails in air,
+heads at the down charge, they scour away at a lumbering cow-gallop, to
+tell the main herd of a progress more resistless than their own. Or,
+perhaps, our experience of the buffaloes is a more inconvenient one. We
+may find the main herd crossing our track in their migration from the
+Republican to the Platte. In such case, there will be a detention of
+several hours, as the current of a main herd is not fordable by any
+known human mechanism. The halt will be taken advantage of by timid
+spectators looking safely out of car-windows,--by _bonâ-fide_ hunters,
+who want fresh meat, and take along the tidbits of their game to be
+cooked for them at the next dinner-station,--and by excited
+pseudo-hunters, who will bang away with their rifles at the defenceless
+herd, until the ground flows with useless blood, and somebody suggests
+to them that they might as well call it sportsmanship to fire into a
+farmer's cow-yard, resting over the top-rail.
+
+Now and then we shall whirl through a village of chattering
+prairie-dogs, send a hen-turkey rattling off her nest in a thicket on
+the river's edge, or perhaps surprise even an antelope sufficiently
+close to point out to the ladies from our window the exquisite flight of
+that swiftest and most beautiful creature in our American fauna. But our
+road will not be in running order very long before this sight becomes
+the rarest of the rare. The stolid buffalo will continue to wear his old
+paths long after the human presence has driven every antelope into
+invisible fastnesses.
+
+At intervals along the Republican bottom we shall find ranches springing
+up under the auspices of our road; immense grain-fields yellowing toward
+harvest; great herds of domestic cattle grazing haunch-deep through the
+boundless swales of billowing wild grass; with all the other indications
+of a prosperous farming settlement, which, keeping pace with the
+progress of the road, shall eventually become one of the richest
+agricultural communities in the world, and continuous for over two
+hundred miles. Here and there we pass a lateral excavation in the face
+of the bluff where some enterprising settler has opened a tertiary
+coal-vein, a deposit of iron-ore, or a bed of soft limestone suitable
+for both flux and mortar purposes. The way-freight trains that meet us
+now are mainly laden with the wealth of the grazier, the farmer, and the
+gardener, competing with their brethren of the Upper Mississippi for the
+markets of St. Louis and New Orleans. Iron-ore, coal, and limestone may
+form a portion of the cargoes,--but in process of time the mutual
+vicinity of these minerals will become sufficiently suggestive to induce
+the erection of smelting-furnaces _in situ_, and then their combined
+product will travel the road in the form of pigs.
+
+A little to the westward of a line drawn due south from Fort Kearney to
+the Republican we shall find a comparatively abrupt and unexplained
+change taking place in the scenery. Our green river-bottoms will give
+way to tracts of the color and seemingly of the sterility proper to an
+ash-heap. Our bluffs will recede, grow higher, and exchange their flat
+_mesa_-like surfaces for a curved contour, imitating the mountainous
+formation on a reduced scale. For long distances the vast gray level
+around us will be dotted with conical sand-dunes, forever piling up and
+tearing down as the wind shifts, with a tendency to bestow their gritty
+compliments in the eyes of passengers occupying windward seats on the
+train. The lovely blossoms of the running-poppy no longer mat the earth
+with blots of crimson fire; no more does the sweet breath of eglantine
+and sensitive-brier float in at the window as we whirl by a sheltered
+recess of the divides; the countless wild varieties of bean and pea no
+longer charm us with a rainbow prodigality of pink, blue, scarlet,
+purple, white, and magenta blossoms. The very trees by the river's brink
+become puny and stunted; the evergreens begin to replace the deciduous
+growths; in the shade of dwarfed and desiccated cedars we look vainly
+for the snowy or azure bells of the three-petalled campanula. Gaunt,
+staring sunflowers, and humbler _compositæ_ of yellow tinge, stay with
+us a little longer than those darlings of our earlier scenery; but
+before we have gone many miles the last conspicuous wave of fresh
+vegetation breaks hopelessly on a thirsty sand-hill, and we are given
+over to a wilderness of cacti. Here and there occurs a sightly clump of
+waxen yellow blossoms, where these vegetable hedgehogs are in their
+holiday attire,--but it must be confessed that the view is a melancholy
+change from our recent affluence of beauty. With the other succulent
+plants, the rich herbage of the prairie has entirely disappeared. There
+is not a blade of anything which an Eastern grazier would recognize as
+grass between this boundary and the Rocky Mountains. As we whiz over
+these wastes at railroad-speed, we shall be apt to pronounce them
+absolutely sterile. When we stop at the next coaling-station, let us
+examine the matter more closely. The ground proves to be covered with
+minute gray spirals of herbage, like a crop of vegetable corkscrews, an
+inch or two in height, and to all appearance dry as wool. This is the
+"_grama_" or "buffalo-grass," and, despite its look of utter
+desiccation, is highly nutritious. It is almost the entire winter
+dependence of the buffalo-herds, and domestic cattle soon learn to
+prefer it to all other feed. Its existence, together with the wide group
+of changes which we have noticed, denotes that we have passed the
+threshold of the fourth grand continental division, and are now in the
+region of the Plains proper.
+
+Ex-Governor Gilpin of Colorado, in his "Central Gold Region," very truly
+styles the Plains "the pastoral area of the continent." The Plains are
+set apart for grazing purposes by the method of exclusion. There is
+nothing else that can be done with them. Rain seldom falls on them. The
+shallow rivers, like the Platte, which wander through them, are too far
+apart to be used economically for their general irrigation. Only such
+herbage may be expected to thrive here as can live on its own
+condensation of water from a sensibly dry atmosphere. Manifestly, art
+can do nothing for the improvement of such a tract. It must be left to
+fulfil its natural function, as the great continental pasture. Along the
+banks of the rivers run narrow strips of alluvial soil, liable to yearly
+inundation; and these may be made amenable to the ordinary processes of
+agriculture. On these the herdsman may raise the grain and vegetables
+necessary for his own consumption. But the vast area of the region seems
+inevitably set apart for the one sole business of cattle-raising, and
+all the way-freight trains which pass us here are laden with beeves for
+the St. Louis market, or dairy-produce for all the markets of the world.
+We have never tasted _grama_-cheese, but have a theory that its
+individual piquancy must equal that of the delicious _Schabzieger_.
+
+Far off on the gray level we shall still see the antelope. His tribe is
+coextensive with three-fourths of the continent. No sterility
+discourages him. He seems as thrifty on the wiry _grama_ as among the
+most succulent grasses of the Republican. The sneaking coyote and a
+number of larger wolves put in an occasional appearance. Birds of the
+hawk and raven families are common. The waters swarm with numerous
+varieties of duck. It surprises us at this utmost distance from the
+maritime border to see flocks of Arctic gulls circling around the low
+sand-hills, and sickle-bill curlews wheeling high in air above their
+broods. Before we get far into this region we shall notice that one of
+its most typical features is the alkali-pool. Every few miles we come to
+a shallow basin of stagnant water saturated with salts of soda and
+potash. Still another characteristic of the Plains is their tremendous
+rainless thunder-storms. If we are fortunate enough to encounter one of
+these, we shall witness in one hour more atmospheric perturbation than
+has occurred within our whole previous experience on the Atlantic slope.
+The lightning for half a night will light the sky with an almost
+continuous glare, brighter than noonday; all the parks of artillery on
+earth could not make such a constant deafening roar as those iron clouds
+in the heaven; and though the wind will not be able to blow the train
+backward, as we have seen it treat a four-mule stage, it will be likely
+to do its next best thing, heaping sand on the track till the engine has
+to slow and send men ahead with shovels.
+
+Entering the Denver depot, we shall find a busy scene. All that immense
+freight-business between the Missouri and the Colorado mining-towns,
+which formerly strung the overland road with wagons drawn by six yoke
+of oxen each, has now been transferred to the railroad. The switches are
+crowded with cars getting unloaded, or waiting their turn to be. What is
+their freight? Rather ask what it is not. For the present, Colorado
+imports everything except the most perishable commodities,--and that
+which pays for all. If you would see _that_, ask the express-messenger
+on the train going East in five minutes to lift the lid of one of those
+heavy iron trunks in his car. Your eyes are dazzled by the yellow gleam
+of a king's ransom. It is a day's harvest of ingots from the stamps of
+Central City, on its way to square accounts with New York for the
+contents of one of those freight-trains.
+
+At Denver we reach the edge of the Rocky-Mountain foot-hills; the grand
+snow-peak of Mount Rosalie, rivalling Mont Blanc in height and majesty,
+though forty miles away, seems to rise just behind the town; thence
+southerly toward Pike's and northerly toward Long's Peak, the billowing
+ridges stretch away brown and bare, save where the climbing lines of
+sombre green mark their pine-fringed gorges, or the everlasting ice
+pencils their crests with an edge of opal. Still we do not leave the
+Plains region. We glide through the thronged streets of the growing
+city, cross the South Platte by a short bridge, and strike nearly due
+north along the edge of the mountain-range, over a broad plateau which
+still bears the characteristic _grama_. Not until we enter the _cañon_
+of the Cache-la-Poudre, a hundred miles from Denver by the road, can we
+consider ourselves fairly out of the Plains, and in the fifth great
+region of the continent, the Rocky-Mountain system of ridges and
+intramontane plateaus.
+
+Before we begin this portion of our journey, let us examine, in the
+light of that already accomplished, an assertion made early in this
+article to the effect that the Pacific Railroad must precede and create
+the business which shall support it. The consideration shall be brief as
+a mathematical process.
+
+The river-bottoms and divides along the Lower Republican are peculiarly
+suited to the raising of farm-produce. But so long as they had no avenue
+to a market, they might have been fertile as Paradise without alluring
+settlers to cultivate them. The natural advantages of a country are
+developed not as a matter of taste, but as a matter of profit. The crops
+which can be raised to best advantage in this region are the crops which
+without a railroad must rot on the ground. No man can be expected to
+settle in a new country from pure Quixotism,--and nothing but the
+railroad would make anything else of his expenditure of energies beyond
+the needs of self-support. The Plains are the natural pasture of the
+continent; but they have no natural fascination for the white man which
+can induce him to take up his residence there for cattle-breeding _en
+amateur_. The greatest enthusiast in butter and cheese would scarcely
+care to accumulate mountains of rancid firkins and boxes for the mere
+gratification of fancy. Access to a market is his only justification for
+spending a nomadic lifetime among herds, or a fortune on churns and
+presses. The settlement of the country must precede the birth of its
+industries, and the Pacific Road is the absolutely essential stimulus to
+such settlement.
+
+As we converse, we are beginning our climb toward the snow. A series of
+steep grades, mainly following the bed of that wildly picturesque and
+roaring torrent, the Cache-la-Poudre, take us up through the Cheyenne
+Pass to the Laramie Plains. In reaching the head of the Cache-la-Poudre
+we have familiarized ourselves with the ridges of the system; we are now
+to learn what is meant by the intramontane plateaus. The Laramie Plains
+form the most remarkable plateau of the Rocky Range,--one of the most
+remarkable anywhere in the known world. Through a series of savage
+_cañons_ we enter what appears to us a reproduction of the prairies east
+of the Mississippi,--a level and luxuriantly grassy plain, bright with
+unknown flowers, alive with startled antelope, threaded by the clear
+currents of both the Laramie Rivers, and rejoicing in an atmosphere
+which exhilarates like the fresh-brewed nectar of Olympus. Bounded on
+the east by the great ridge we have just passed, northerly by a
+continuation of the Wind-River Range and Laramie Peak, southerly by a
+magnificent transverse bar of naked mountains running parallel with the
+Wind-River Range, and westward by a staircase of sterile divides which
+we must climb to reach the base of Elk Mountain and find its giant mass
+towering into the eternal snows three thousand feet farther above our
+heads,--this plateau is a prairie fifty miles square, lifted bodily
+eight thousand feet into the air. It is difficult for us to roll over
+this Elysian mead walled in by these tremendous ranges, and think of the
+commercial uses to which the level might be put; but from its elevation
+and its natural crop we may pronounce it a grazing tract of splendid
+capabilities, unsuited to artificial culture.
+
+Another series of grades takes us past the base of Elk Mountain to a
+broad and sandy cactus-plain, whence we descend among curious trap and
+sandstone formations, simulating human architecture, to the crossing of
+the North Platte. A little farther on, so close to the snow-line that we
+shiver under the white ridges with a reflected chill, we cross the axial
+ridge of the continent, and begin our descent toward Salt Lake by the
+noble gallery of Bridger's Pass. The springs along our way become
+tinctured with sulphur, alkali, and salt. We know, when we stop at a
+station to drink, that we are drawing near the primeval basin of a
+stagnant sea, now shrunk to its final pool in Salt Lake, but once in
+size a rival of the Mediterranean. We pass over an alternation of
+mountain-grades and sandy levels, cross the Green or Upper Colorado
+River, stop for five minutes at the Fort-Bridger station, thread the
+sinuous galleries of the Wahsatch, and come down from a savage
+wilderness of sage-brush, granite, and red sandstone, into the luxuriant
+green pastures of Mormondom, heavy with crops and irrigated from the
+snow-peaks. Thence, one of the numerous _cañons_--Emigrant or Parley's
+most likely--conducts us to the mountain-walled level of Salt-Lake City.
+
+We have now traversed the most difficult part of our road. Its
+Rocky-Mountain section has cost more capital, labor, and engineering
+skill than all the rest together. The return for this vast expenditure
+must be no less vast,--but it will be rendered slowly. It does not lie
+on the surface or just beneath the surface, as in the pastoral and
+agricultural regions. It is almost entirely mineral, and must be mined
+by the hardest work. But it ranges through all the metallic wealth of
+Nature, from gold to iron, and no conceivable stimulus short of a
+Pacific Railroad could ever have been adequate to bring it forth.
+
+We shall find the import trade of Salt Lake by the railroad to consist
+chiefly of emigrants and their chattels. If Brigham Young be still
+living, his favorite policy of non-intercourse with the Gentiles may
+also somewhat diminish the export business of the road. But human nature
+cannot forever resist the currents of commercial interest; and the
+Mormon settlements possess so many advantages for the economical
+production of certain staples, that we need not be surprised to find
+trains leaving Salt-Lake City with sorghum and cotton for San Francisco,
+and raw silk for all the markets of the East.
+
+From Salt-Lake City to the Humboldt Mountains, we pass between isolated
+uplifts of trap and granite, over a comparatively level desert of sand
+and snowy alkali. The terrors of this journey, as performed by
+horse-carriage, have been fully depicted in our last April number. We
+may laugh at them now. The question which principally interests us,
+after we have blunted the first edge of our wonder at the sublime
+sterility of the Desert, is what conceivable use this waste can be made
+to subserve. Before the railroad, that question had but a single
+answer,--the inculcation of contentment, by contrast with the most
+disagreeable surroundings in which one might anywhere else be placed.
+Perhaps it is over-sanguine to conceive of a further answer even now. If
+there be any, it is this: In its crudest state the alkaline earth of the
+Desert is sufficiently pure to make violent effervesence with acids. No
+elaborate process is required to turn it into commercial soda and
+potash. Coal has been already found in Utah. Silex exists abundantly in
+all the Desert uplifts. Why should not the greatest glass-works in the
+world be reared along the Desert section of the Pacific Road? and why
+should not the entire market of the Pacific Coast be supplied with
+refined alkalies from the same tract? Given the completed railroad, and
+neither of these projects exceeds commercial possibility.
+
+We cross the Humboldt Mountains by a series of grades shorter than that
+which conducts us over the Rocky system, but full as difficult in
+proportion. We descend into a second instalment of Desert on the other
+side; but the general sterility is now occasionally broken by oases,
+moist green _cañons_, and living springs. A hundred miles west of the
+Humboldt Pass we come to the mining-settlements of Reese River, gaining
+a new increment to the business of the road in the transportation of
+silver to San Francisco, and every conceivable necessary of life to the
+mines.--Within the last eighteen months eleven hundred dollars in gold
+have been paid for the carriage by wagon of a single set of
+amalgamating-apparatus from Virginia City to Reese, a distance of two
+hundred miles. The price of the commonest necessaries at the Reese-River
+mines has reached the highest point of the old California markets in
+'49,--and no attainable means of transport have been adequate to supply
+the demand.
+
+From Reese River to Carson we traverse a broken, rocky, and sterile
+tract, with occasional fertile patches and a belt along the Carson River
+susceptible of cultivation. The foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada
+gradually shut us round, and at Carson we begin penetrating the main
+system through a series of magnificent galleries between precipices of
+porphyritic granite, leading nearly northward to the Truckee Pass. The
+grades we now encounter are as tremendous as any in the Rocky-Mountain
+system. Just before entering the main pass we come to the junction of a
+branch-road from Virginia City. The train which stops at the fork to let
+us go ahead is carrying down several tons of silver "bricks" from the
+Washoe mines to Kellogg and Hewston's, the great assay and refining firm
+of San Francisco. The pass takes us across the summit-line of the range,
+but not out of the environment of its mountains. We penetrate granite
+fastnesses and descend blood-chilling inclines, span roaring chasms and
+glide under solemn roofs of lofty mountain-pine, until in the
+neighborhood of Centralia we begin for the first time to see the
+agricultural tract of the Golden State.
+
+Between ranches, placer-diggings, and small settlements, we now thread
+our comparatively level way to Sacramento. Here we are met by the chief
+affluent of this end of the Pacific Road,--the long-projected, greatly
+needed, and now finally accomplished line between Sacramento and
+Portland. This enterprise has done for the Sacramento and Willamette
+valleys the same good offices of development performed by our grand line
+for all the central continent. The noble orchards, pastures,
+grain-lands, and gardens of Northern California and Oregon are now
+provided with a market. Their wastes are brought under cultivation,
+their mines are opened, their entire area is settled by a class of men
+who work under the stimulus of certain profit. The Northern
+freight-trains waiting at Sacramento to make a junction with our road
+are loaded with the produce of one of the richest agricultural regions
+in the world, now flowing to its first remunerative market. All this
+must pay toll to our road, and here is another source of profit.
+
+Crossing a number of tributaries to the Sacramento, and intersecting
+mines, ranches, and settlements, as before, we follow a nearly straight
+level to Stockton. Then turning westerly, we cross the San Joaquin, pass
+almost beneath the shadow of grand old Monte Diablo, glide among the
+vines and olives of San José Mission, and curve round the southern bend
+of the lovely bay to the queenly city of San Francisco. One of Leland's
+carriages awaits us at the terminus. We are driven to the most
+delightful hotel on the continent, and find our old friend, the
+Occidental, altered in no respect save size, which the growing demands
+of the Pacific New York, since the completion of our inter-oceanic line,
+have compelled Leland to quadruple. We are on time,--six days and eight
+hours exactly. Or, assuming the San-Francisco standard, we have gained
+three hours on the sun, and, instead of taking a two-o'clock lunch, as
+our friends are doing in New York, sit down to an eleven-o'clock
+breakfast crowned with melons, grapes, and strawberries, in the sweet
+seclusion of the Ladies' Ordinary.
+
+Is not all this worth doing in reality?
+
+
+
+
+SEA-HOURS WITH A DYSPEPTIC.
+
+BY HIS SATELLITE.
+
+
+I.--PRELUSIVE.
+
+There are a good many fictions in the world. I will mention one:--the
+propeller Markerstown. The bulletins and placards of her owners soar
+high in the realms of fancy; like Sirens, they sing delightful
+songs,--and all about "the A 1 fast-sailing, commodious, first-class
+steam-packet Markerstown." Such is the soaring fiction: now let us look
+at the sore fact. The "A 1" is, I take it, simply the "Ai!" of the Greek
+chorus new-vamped for modern wear,--a drear wail well suited to the
+victims of the Markerstown. As to sailing qualities:--we know, of
+course, that all speed is relative. For a sea-comet, the Markerstown
+would be somewhat leisurely, though answering well for an oceanic fixed
+star, having no perceptible motion. One man on board--the Captain--was
+accommodated: the kidnapped all suffered. Whether the Markerstown should
+be reckoned as first-class or last-class is a question depending simply
+on where the counting begins, and which way it runs. "Steam-packet" she
+was indeed, though not in the most desirable way. Her steam was "packit"
+(_Scotticè_) too close for safety, but lay quite too loose for speed.
+The kidnapped were all "packit," and "weel packit." How I came to be one
+of them, and how by this mystic union I halved my joys and doubled my
+griefs, as the naughty ones say of wedlock, will soon appear.
+
+One brilliant fancy-flight I forgot to mention. The craft in question
+was boldly proclaimed as "new." New, indeed, she might have been: so
+were once the Ark, the Argo, the Old Téméraire, the Constitution, and
+sundry other hulks of celebrity. Yet it is not mere rhetoric to say,
+that, if the eyes of the second and third Presidents of these United
+States never, in their declining years, beheld the good ship
+Markerstown, it was only from lack of wholesome curiosity.
+
+This pleasing list of attractions was wont to make an occasional
+trip--should I not rather say saunter?--to the New-World Levant, the
+Yankee Eöthen. The time consumed was theoretically a day and a half,
+but practically a day or two longer. Tired as I was of the sluttish
+land, the clean sea had an inviting look. Dusty car and ringing rail
+wore no Circean graces, when the long-haired mermaid, decked in robes of
+comely green, looked out from her bower beneath the waves, and beckoned
+me to come. What more welcome than her sea-green home? What sight finer
+than the myriad diamond-sparkles in her eye? What sound sweeter than the
+murmurs of her soothing, never-ceasing voice? What perfume so rare as
+the crisp fragrance breathing from her robes? What so thrilling, so
+magnetically ecstatic, as her tumultuous heaving, and the lithe,
+undulating buoyancy of her mazy footfalls?
+
+It is proper to state here, as an act of justice to others, and to save
+myself from the charge of lunacy, that the Markerstown was a mere
+interloper. Our covetous, good old uncle had set his eye on the regular
+steamer of the line, and his greedy fingers had taken her away to Dixie,
+where her decks were now swarming with blue coats and black heels. The
+peaceful Markerstown, being exempt by reason of physical
+disqualifications, tarried behind as home-guard substitute for her
+warlike sister. Ignorant of the change, I secured my passage, paid for
+my ticket, sent down my trunks, and presented myself at the gangway one
+sweltering afternoon in the latter part of June, a few minutes before
+the hour set for sailing. There was nothing in the aspect of things to
+indicate a speedy departure. On the contrary, the tardy craft had just
+arrived, and was intensely busy in letting off steam and discharging
+cargo. The mate was quite sure--and so was I--that she wouldn't weigh
+anchor before early next morning. The prospect was not enrapturing.
+Confusion, dirt, pandemoniac noise, long delay, and over all a
+blistering sun, were ill suited to bring peace to the embezzled seeker
+after pleasure.
+
+As a relief from the horrid din on deck, I made my way to the cabin. It
+was a place well named, being cabined, cribbed, confined, in quite an
+unprecedented degree. It was then and there that I first saw the subject
+of this sketch,--the Peptic Martyr. Unknowingly, I was face to face with
+my Man of Destiny. Shipmate, Philosopher, Martyr, Rhapsodist, Mentor,
+Bon-Vivant, Düspeptos,--these are but a few of the various disks
+which I came at last to see in this gem of first water. Even now, in
+memory, the subject looms vast before me, and the freighted pen halts.
+Bear with me: let us pause for one moment. Matter like this asks a new
+strophe.
+
+
+II.--THE BURDEN OF THE SONG.
+
+Düspeptos was sitting on a common mohair sofa, surrounded by some
+half-dozen or more of his fellow-victims. It is stated that
+Themistocles, before his ocean-raid at Salamis, sacrificed three young
+men to Bacchus the Devourer. The Markerstown, in sailing out upon the
+great deep, immolated at least twelve, old and young, as a festive
+holocaust to Neptune the Nauseator. Here in their sacrificial crate were
+the luckless scapegoats, sad-eyed prey of the propeller. It was easy to
+see, at the first glance, that the Martyr was the central sun round
+which clustered the planets of propitiation. Born king, he asserted his
+kingship, and all yielded from the beginning to his sway. Ears and
+mouths opened toward him the liege. Upon the magnet of his voice hung
+the eager atoms. There was a filmy, distant look in the eyes of the
+listeners, as of men rapt with the mystic utterances of a seer. My
+entrance unheralded broke up the monologue, whatever it was. But seeing
+the true sacrificial look on my brow, all at once, from chief to sutler,
+confessed a brother. To me then turning, Düspeptos, king of men,
+spoke winged words:--
+
+"'Pears t' me, stranger, you look kind o' streaked. Ken I do anythin'
+for ye? Wal, I s'pose th' old tub's caught you too, so we ken jest count
+y' in along o' this 'ere crowd. Reg'lar fix, now, a'n't it? 'T's wut I
+call pooty kinky. Dern'd 'f I'd 'a' come, 'f I'd 'a' known th' old
+butter-box was goin' to be s' frisky. Lively's a young colt now, a'n't
+she? Kicks up her heels, an' scampers off te'ble smart, don't she? 'S
+never seen an ekul yit for punctooality an' speed. When she doos tech
+the loocifer, an' cooks up her steam in her high old pepper-box, jest
+you mind me, boys, there'll be a high old time. Wun't say much, but
+there'll be fizzin', sure,--mebby suthin' more,--mebby reg'lar snorter,
+a jo-fired jolly good bust-up. Mebby th' wun't be no weepin' an'
+gahnishin' o' teeth about these parts along towards mornin'. Who knows?
+Natur' will work. Th' old scow's got to go accordin' to law,--that's one
+sahtisfahction, sartin. 'S a cause for all these things. An' ef she doos
+kind o' rip an' tear, she's got to go b' Gunter. She's bound to foller
+her constitootion as she understan's it, an' to stan' up for the great
+principal of ekul freedom for all. Hope they'll be keerful to save some
+o' the pieces. 'S a good deal o' comfort 'n these loose fragments. 'S
+nuthin' like the raäl odds an' ends--the Simon-pure, ginooine
+article--to bind up the broken heart an' make the mourners joyful. No
+tellin' how much good they do in restorin' gratitood to Providence, an'
+smoothin' things over,--kind o' make matters easy, you know.
+Interestin', too, to hev in the house,--pleasin' ornaments on the
+mantel-piece to show to friends an' vis'ters. They allers like to hear
+the story 'n connection with the native specimens, an' everybody feels
+happified an' thankful. Yes, after all, th'r' is a master lot of solid
+comfort in a raäl substantial accident right in the buzzum of a
+family,--none o' your three-cent fizzles, but a true-blue afflictin'
+dispensation. 'S a heap o' pleasin' an' valooable associations
+a-clusterin' round."
+
+Here the vocal one paused for an instant, to draw breath, and rally for
+another raid. Feeling his little army now well in hand, he burned for
+fresh conquests. In glancing triumphantly around, his eye fell on a
+certain benign smile then flitting over the face of his predestined
+Satellite. Complacently nodding thereto, straightway the Peptic spoke:--
+
+"I s'pose this 'ere group 's all insured, everythin' right an' tight an'
+all square up t' the hub. Suthin' hahnsum for the widders an' orphans.
+These little nest-eggs allers sort o' handy,--grease the ways, an' slick
+things up ship-shape. Survivors bless the rod, an' fix up everythin'
+round the house in apple-pie order. I hev known men that was so te'ble
+pertickler allers to save the Company, that nuthin' ever did, n' ever
+could happen. An' the despairin' friends kep' waitin' an' waitin', but
+'t was no sort o' use; they never got a red. 'T's wut I call bein'
+desput keerful, an' sailin' pooty consid'able close to the wind. 'T's
+like old Deacon Skillins's hoss, down to Mudville, that was so dreffle
+conscientious he couldn't eat oats. No accountin' for tastes. Free
+country, anyhow. Ef anybody likes to be fussy an' ructious 'n little
+things, why, there's nuthin' to hender him from hevin' his own way. But
+it don't exackly hev an hon'able look to common-sense folks.
+
+"Ef the clipper's a free-agent, she'll blow up, sure, jest to git out o'
+sin an' misery. But ef so be she's bonyfihd predestined, she'll hev to
+travel in the vale o' puhbation a spell longer, 'cause her cup a'n't
+full yit, not by a long chalk. S'posin' she doos start out mellifloous,
+what then? Don't imagine, my feller-sinners, that the danger's all
+over,--no, it's only jest begun. Things ahead 's a good deal wuss. Steam
+'s pooty bad, but 't a'n't a circumstahnce to the blamed grease. 'T's
+the grease that doos the mischief, an' plays the dickens with human
+natur'. Down in th' army, they say, biscuits kills more'n bullets; an'
+it's gospil truth, every word on 't, perticklerly ef the biscuits is
+hot, an' pooty wal fried up in grease. Fryin' 's the great mortal sin,
+the parient of all misery. The hull world's full of it, but the sea 's a
+master sight fuller 'n the land. Somehow 'nother, grease takes kind o'
+easy to salt water,--sailors wun't hev nothin' but a fry. Jest you give
+'em plenty o' fat, an' they wun't ask no favors o' nobody. These 'ere
+puhpellers 's the wust sinners of 'em all, an' somehow hev a good deal
+more 'n their own share o' fat. They kind o' borrer from mackerellers
+an' side-wheelers both together, an' mix 't all up 't oncet. My friends,
+ef you a'n't desput anxious to see glory from this 'ere deck, be
+virtoous, an' observe the golden rule: Don't tech, don't g' nigh the
+p'is'n upus-tree of gravy; beware o' the dorg called hot biscuits; take
+keer o' the grease, an' the stomach'll take keer of itself. Fact is, my
+beloved brethren, I've ben a fust-chop dyspeptic for the best part o' my
+life, an' I'm pooty wal posted in what I'm talkin' about. What I don't
+know on this 'ere subjick a'n't wuth knowin'."
+
+
+III.--RECITATIVE
+
+How much farther the Martyr's appeal might have gone can never be known,
+as the height of his great argument was cut short at this point by the
+appearance of the Pontifex Maximus in person on the stage of action. The
+fated victims were to be made ready for the coming sacrifice. The
+oracle, it seems, had declared that Neptune would not smile, unless two
+were cribbed together in one pen,--that the arrangement of these pairs
+should be left with the lot of the bean,--and that as the beans went, so
+must go the victims. Inexorable Fate would allow no reversal of her
+decrees. Soon the beans were rattling in the hat of the Pontifex, and,
+_mirabile!_ pen No. 1 fell to Düspeptos and his Satellite elect.
+
+The immediate effects of this bean--whether white, black, Pythagorean,
+Lima, kidney, or what not--were three-fold: 1. A pump-handle
+hand-shaking; 2. A very thorough diagnosis of the weather, including a
+rapid sketch by Düspeptos of the leading principles of caloric,
+pneumatics, and hygrology; 3. An exchange of cards. That of which I was
+the recipient consisted of a sheet of paste-board, rather begrimed and
+wrinkled, of nearly the same dimensions as the Atlantic (Monthly, not
+Ocean). The name and address occupied the middle of one side of the
+document, while all the remaining space was filled in with manifold
+closest scribblings in lead-pencil,--apparently notes, memoranda, and
+the like. These were not at all private, so the new-found partner of my
+bosom assured me. In fact, I should do well to look at them, and make
+myself master of their contents. My friends also might find profit
+therein. Stray hints might undoubtedly be gathered from them which would
+lay open to my eyes the secret things of Nature and life. Thrusting it
+into my pocket for the moment, I feasted myself in imagination with the
+treasure that was mine, anticipating the happy hour that should make my
+hope fruition. Then we, first elect of the bean, set ourselves to
+determine the _status quo ante bellum_. And here came in once more the
+fabaceous maker and marker of destiny, saying that blind justice
+decreed, that, inasmuch as sound is wont to rise, he who was noonday
+Sayer and midnight Snorer should couch below, while the Hearer should
+circle above,--plainly a wise provision, that the good things of
+Providence might not be wasted. Both Damon and Pythias agreed, that, for
+once at least, the oracle was not ambiguous.
+
+All things being at last arranged, the Rhapsodist took his leave for the
+present, going, as he informed me, on an errand of mercy for his
+stomach. The magazine aboard ship being of dubious character, he had
+prevailed on himself to supply his concern with a limited number of
+first-class cereals with his own _imprimatur_,--copyright and profits to
+be in his own hands. As some consolation for his absence, I was favored
+with a brief oral treatise on Fats, considered both dietetically and
+ethically, with an appendix, somewhat _à la_ Liebig, on the nature, use,
+and effects of tissue-making and heat-making food, nitrogen, carbon,
+and the like. By way of improvement, a brilliant peroration was added,
+supposed to be addressed through me to the mothers of America, urging
+them to bring up the rising generation fatless. Thus only might war
+cease, justice prevail, love reign, humanity rise, and a golden age come
+back again to a world-wide Arcadia. Fat and Anti-Fat! Eros and Anteros,
+Strophe and Antistrophe. Or, better, the old primeval tale,--Jove and
+the Titans, Theseus and the Centaurs, Bellerophon and the Chimæra, Thor
+and the Giants, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Good and Evil, Water and Fire, Light
+and Darkness. The world has told it over from the beginning.
+
+And do you ask what manner of man was the Fatless one? You shall see
+him. His most striking feature was a fur cap,--weight some four pounds,
+I should judge. I think he was born with this cap, and will die with it,
+for 90° Fahrenheit seemed no temptation to uncover. Boots came second in
+rank, but twelfth or so in number,--weight probably on a par with the
+leaded brogans of the little wind-driven poetaster of old. Between these
+two extremes might be found about five feet ten of humanity, lank,
+sapless, and stooping. The seedy drapery of the figure hung in lean,
+reproachful wrinkles. The flabby trousers seemed to say: "Give! give!"
+The hollow waistcoat murmured: "Pad, oh! pad me with hot biscuits!" The
+loose coat swung and sighed for forbidden fruit: "Fill me with fat!" A
+dry, coppery face found pointed expression in the nose, which hung like
+a rigid sentinel over the thin-lipped mouth,--like Victor Hugo's Javert,
+loyal, untiring, merciless. No traitorous comfits ever passed that
+guard; no death-laden bark sailed by that sleepless quarantine. The
+small ferret-eyes which looked nervously out from under bushy
+brows, roaming, but never resting, were of the true Minerva
+tint,--yellow-green. The encircling rings told of unsettled weather.
+While elf-locks and straggling whiskers marked the man careless of
+forms, the narrow, knotted brow suggested the thinker persistent in the
+one idea:--
+
+          "deep on his front engraven,
+    Deliberation sat and _peptic_ care."
+
+Not over beds of roses had he walked to ascend the heights. Those boots
+in which he shambled along his martyr-course were filled with peas. He
+had learned in suffering what he taught in sing-song. The wreath of
+wormwood was his, and the statue of brass. _Io triumphe!_
+
+His gait was a swift, uncertain shuffle, a compromise between a saunter
+and a dog-trot. The arms hung straight and stiff from the narrow
+shoulders, like the radii of a governor, diverging more or less
+according to the rate of speed. When the scourge of his Dæmon lashed him
+along furiously, they stood fast at forty-five degrees. His eyes peered
+suspiciously around, as he lumbered on, watchful for the avenger of fat,
+who, perhaps, was even now at his heels. A slouch-hat, crowning hollow
+eyes and haggard beard, filled him with joy: it marked a bran-bread man
+and a brother. He smiled approvingly at a shrivelled form with hobbling
+gait; but from the fat and the rubicund he turned with severest frown.
+They were fleshly sinners, insults to himself, corrupters of youth,
+gorged drones, law-breakers. He was ready to say, with the statesman of
+old: "What use can the state turn a man's body to, when all between the
+throat and the groin is taken up by the belly?" He had vowed eternal
+hostility to all such, and from the folds of his toga was continually
+shaking out war. He was of the race sung by the bard, who
+
+    "Quarrel with mince-pies, and disparage
+    Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge,
+    Fat pig and goose itself oppose,
+    And blaspheme custard through the nose."
+
+Every chance-comer was instantaneously gauged as dyspeptic or eupeptic,
+friend or foe. On the march, Javert was on the alert, snuffing up the
+air, until some savory odor crossed his path, when he would shut himself
+up, like a snail within his shell. Yet he was not sleeping, for no
+titbit ever passed the portals beneath. Perhaps, however, they were
+themselves trusty now, having made habit a second nature. I cannot
+imagine them watering at sight of any dainty.
+
+I have heard it said that certain orders of beings are able to improvise
+or to interchange organs, just as need calls. Thus a polyp, if hard put
+to it, may shift what little brain and stomach happen to be in his
+possession. You may say that he carries his heart in his hand. He can
+take his stomach, and dump it down in brain-case or thorax, just as he
+fancies,--can organize viscera and victory anywhere, at any moment; and
+all works merrily. The Fatless was similar, yet different. His stomach
+changed not its local habitation, was never victorious; yet, from cap to
+boot, it was ubiquitous and despotic. Brain and heel alike felt
+themselves to be mere squatters on another's soil, and had a vague idea
+that the rightful lord might some day come to oust them, and build up a
+new capital in these far-away districts. Sometimes they went so far as
+to style themselves his proconsuls and lieutenants, but they were never
+suffered to do more than simply to register the decrees of the central
+power. Düspeptos was king only in name,--_roi fainéant_. Gaster was
+the power behind the throne,--the Mayor of the Palace,--the great
+Grand-Vizier. Nought went merrily, for he ruled with a rod of iron.
+Every day his strange freaks set the empire topsy-turvy. Every day there
+was growling and ill-feeling at his whimsical tyranny,--but nothing
+more. Secession was as impossible as in the day of Menenius Agrippa.
+
+Looking at it another way, Gaster might be called the object-glass
+through which Düspeptos looked out upon the world,--a glass always
+bubbly, distorted, and cracked, generally filmy and smoky, never
+achromatic, and decidedly the worse for wear. I think that the world
+thus seen must have had a very odd look to him. His most fitting
+salutation to each fellow-peptic, as he crossed the field of vision,
+would have been the Chinese form of greeting: "How is your stomach? Have
+you eaten your rice?" or, perhaps, the Egyptian style: "How do you
+perspire?" With him, the peptic bond was the only real one; all others
+were shams. All sin was peptic in origin: Eve ate an apple which
+disagreed with her. The only satisfactory atonement, therefore, must be
+gastric. All reforms hitherto had profited nothing, because they had
+been either cerebral or cardiac. None had started squarely from Gaster,
+the true centre. Moral reform was better than intellectual, since the
+heart lay nearer than the head to the stomach. Phalansteries,
+Pantisocracies, Unitary Homes, Asylums, Houses of Refuge,--these were
+all mere makeshifts. The hope of the world lay in Hygeian Institutes.
+Heroes of heart and brain must bow before the hero of the stomach.
+Judged by any right test of greatness, Graham was more a man than was
+Napoleon or John Howard. He that ruled his stomach was greater than he
+who took a city. Béranger's Roi d'Yvetot, who ate four meals a day,--the
+Esquimaux, with his daily twenty-pound quantum of train-oil, gravy, and
+tallow-candles,--the alderman puffing over callipash and callipee,--the
+backwoodsman hungering after fattest of pork,--such men as these were no
+common sinners: they were assassins who struck at the very fountain of
+life, and throttled a human stomach. Pancreatic meant pancreative.
+Gastric juice was the long-sought elixir. The liver was the lever of the
+higher life. Along the biliary duct led the road to glory. All the
+essence of character, life, power, virtue, success, and their
+opposites,--all the decrees of Fate even,--were daily concocted by
+curious chemistry within that dark laboratory lying between the
+oesophagus and the portal vein. There were brewed the reeking
+ingredients that fertilize the fungus of Crime; there was made to bloom
+the bright star-flower of Innocence; there was forged the anchor of
+Hope; there were twisted the threads of the rotten cable of Despair;
+there Faith built her cross; there Love vivified the heart, and Hate
+dyed it; there Remorse sharpened his tooth; there Jealousy tinged his
+eye with emerald; there was quarried the horse-block from which dark
+Care leaped into the saddle behind the rider; there were puffed out the
+smoke-wreaths of Doubt; there were blown the bubbles of Phantasy; there
+sprouted the seeds of Madness; and there, down in the icy vaults, Death
+froze his finger for the last, cold touch.
+
+
+IV.--HARMONICS.
+
+Ah! but the card? you ask. Yes, here it is.
+
+     --------------------------------
+    |                                |
+    | NAPHTALI RINK,                 |
+    | 51 Early Avenue.               |
+    | (At the Hygienic Institute.)   |
+    |                                |
+     --------------------------------
+
+Of course, this is only in miniature, and represents every way but a
+very small part of the document, the address being but a drop in the
+superscriptive surge,--a rivulet of text meandering through a meadow of
+marginalia. Inasmuch as Düspeptos courted the widest publicity for
+these stomachic scraps, no scruples of delicacy forbid me to jot down
+here some few of them. He thought them fitted for the race,--the more
+readers the better: perhaps it may be, the more the merrier. If called
+upon to classify them, I should put them all under the genus Gastric
+Scholia. The different species and varieties it is hardly worth while to
+enter upon here. There were intuitions, recollections, and glosses,
+apparently set down in a fragmentary way from time to time, in a most
+minute and distinct text. Very probably they were hints of thoughts
+designed to be worked up in a more formal way. Whether the quotations
+were taken at first or second hand I cannot say; but internal evidence
+would seem to indicate that many of them might have been clippings from
+the columns of "The Old Lancaster Day-Book." It is, perhaps, worthy of
+note that Mr. Rink was, in fact, a man of rather more thought and
+general information than one might suppose, if judging him merely by his
+uncouth grammar, and the clipped coin of his jangling speech:--
+
+    "His voice was nasal with the twang
+    That spoiled the hymns when Cromwell's army sang."
+
+Now, then, O reader, returning from this feast of fat things, I lay
+before you the scraps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Character is Digestion."
+
+"There's been a good deal of high-fangled nonsense written about genius.
+One man says it's in the head; another, that it comes from the heart,
+etc., etc. The fact is, they're all wrong. Genius lies in the stomach.
+Who ever knew a fat genius? Now there's De Quincey,--he says, in his
+outlandish way, that genius is the synthesis of the intellect with the
+moral nature. No such thing; and a man who sinned day and night against
+his stomach, and swilled opium as he did, couldn't be expected to know.
+If there's any synthesis at all about it, it's the synthesis of the
+stomach with the liver."
+
+"What a complete knowledge of human nature Sam Slick shows, when he
+says, 'A bilious cheek and a sour temper are like the Siamese twins:
+there's a nateral cord of union atween them. The one is a sign with the
+name of the firm written on it in long letters.'"
+
+"The French are a mighty cute people. They know a thing or two about as
+well as the next man. There's a heap of truth and poetry in these maxims
+of one of their writers: 'Indigestion is the remorse of a guilty
+stomach'; 'Happiness consists in a hard heart and a good digestion.'"
+
+"The old tempter--the original Jacobs--was called in Hebrew a _nachash_,
+so I'm told. But folks don't seem to understand exactly what this
+_nachash_ was. Some say it was a rattlesnake, some a straddle-bug. Old
+Dr. Adam Clarke, I've heard, vowed it was a monkey. They're all out of
+their reckoning. It's as plain as a pikestaff that it was nothing but
+Fried Fat cooked up to order, and it's been a-tempting weak sisters ever
+since. That's what's the matter."
+
+"Let me make the bran-bread of a nation, and I care not who makes its
+laws."
+
+"It makes me master-sick to hear all these fellows who've just made out
+to scrape together a few postage-stamps laying down their three-cent
+notions about the way to get on in the world, the rules for success, and
+all that. Just as if a couple of greenbacks could make a blind man see
+clean through a millstone! They're like these old nursing grannies: No.
+1 thinks catnip is the only thing; No. 2 believes there's nothing like
+sage-tea and mustard-poultice; No. 3 swears by burdock. The truth
+is,--and men might as well own up to it first as last,--success depends
+on bile."
+
+"Shakspeare was a man who was pretty well posted in human nature all
+round,--knew the kitchen about as well as the parlor. He knocks on the
+head the sin of stuffing, in 'All's Well that Ends Well,' where he
+speaks of the man that 'dies with feeding his own stomach.' In 'Timon of
+Athens' there's a chap who 'greases his pure mind,' probably with fried
+sausages, gravy, and such like trash. The fellow in 'Macbeth' who has
+'eaten of the insane root' was meant, I calculate, as a hard rap on
+tobacco-chewers (and smokers too); he called it _root_, instead of
+_leaf_, just to cover up his tracks. What a splendid thought that is in
+'Love's Labor's Lost': 'Fat paunches have lean pates'! Everybody knows
+how Julius Cæsar turned up his nose at fat men. The poet never could
+stand frying; he calls it, in 'Macbeth,' 'the young fry of treachery.'
+Probably he'd had more taste of the traitor than was good for him. Has a
+good slap somewhere on the critter that 'devours up all the fry it
+finds.' I reckon that Shakspeare always set a proper valuation on human
+digestion; 'cause when he speaks of a man with a good stomach,--an
+excellent stomach,--he always has a good word for him, and kind of
+strokes down his fur the right way of the grain; but he comes down
+dreadful strong on the lout that has no stomach, as he calls it. In
+'Henry IV.,' he says, 'the cook helps to make the gluttony.' I estimate
+that that one sentence alone, if he'd never writ another word, would
+have made him immortal. If I had my way, I'd have it printed in gold
+letters a foot long, and sot up before every cook-stove in the land. But
+just see what a man he was! This very same play that tells the disease
+prescribes the cure, that is, 'the remainder-biscuit,'--a knock-down
+proof to any man with a knowledge-box that Graham-bread was known and
+appreciated in those days, and that Shakspeare himself had cut his own
+eye-teeth on it."
+
+"A broken heart is only another name for an everlasting indigestion."
+
+"History is merely a record of indigestions,--a calendar of the foremost
+stomachs of the age. The destinies of nations hang on the bowels of
+princes. Internal wars come from intestine rebellion. The rising within
+is father to the insurrection without. The fountain of a national crisis
+is always found under the waistcoat of one man. There's Napoleon
+I.,--what settled him for good was just that greasy mutton-chop stewed
+up in onions, which he took for his grub at Leipsic. If he'd only
+ordered a couple of slices of dry Graham-toast, with a cup of weak black
+tea, he'd have saved his stomach, and whipped 'em, sure; and matters and
+things in Europe would have had a different look all round ever since."
+
+"Emerson is a man who once in a while gets a little inkling of the
+truth. I see he says that the creed lies in the biliary duct. That's
+good orthodox doctrine, I don't care who says it."
+
+"Buckwheat-cakes are now leading us back to barbarism faster than the
+printing-press ever carried us forward towards civilization."
+
+"Temperament means nothing more nor less than just quantity and quality
+of bile. That old sawbones, Hippocrates, came mighty near hitting the
+nail square on the head more 'n two thousand year ago, but he felt kind
+of uncertain, and didn't exactly know what he was driving at. The old
+heathen made out just four humors, as he called 'em,--the sanguineous,
+phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. If he'd only made one step more
+on to the other side of the fence, he'd have cracked the nut, and picked
+the kernel, certain. Those four different humors are only four different
+ways of modifying bile with fat."
+
+"Every man is dyspeptic. Tell me his dyspepsy, and I'll tell you what he
+is."
+
+"In sick-headache, a heaping tablespoonful each of salt and common
+mustard, stirred into a pint of hot water, and drank without breathing,
+will generally produce an immediate effect. (_Mem._ But Graham-biscuit
+is better in the long run.)"
+
+"Society is the meeting of a gang of incurables, who come together to
+talk over their dyspepsies. And everybody takes his turn in furnishing
+fodder to keep the thing going hot-foot."
+
+"Professor Bache says sea-sickness comes from the head, 'cause a man
+gets dizzy in trying to get used to the teetering of the ship. All
+nonsense. The Professor may be posted in the survey of the coast, but he
+don't know the lay of the land in the interior. Sea-sickness comes from
+the stomach: just offer a man a mouthful of fried salt pork."
+
+"It's stated that some old bookworm of a Dutchman, with a jaw-breaking
+name that I can't recollect, has an idea, that, 'if we could penetrate
+into the secret foundations of human events, we should frequently find
+the misfortunes of one man caused by the intestines of another.' There's
+not the least doubt of it,--true of one man or a million."
+
+"Fate is Fat: Fat is Fate."
+
+
+V.--NOCTURNE.
+
+    Romanza (_affettuoso_).
+    The Choral Gamut (_con espressione_).
+
+Was that seething sun never again to plunge his lurid face beneath the
+waves of old Ocean? Had some latter-day Joshua arisen, and with stern
+fiat nailed him in mid-heavens, blazing forever? To me as slowly rolled
+the westering orb down that final slope as ever turned the wheel of
+Fortune to Murad the Unlucky. Perchance the sun-god had turned cook, and
+now, burning with 'prentice zeal, and scoffing at Düspeptos and all
+sound hygiene, was aiming to make of this terrestrial ball one
+illimitable fry turned over and well done,--a fry ever doing and never
+done, which should simmer and fizzle on eternally down the ages. An
+abstract fry--let me here record it--suits me passing well; yet I like
+not the concrete and personal broil. I trip gayly to a feast, prepared
+to eat, but not, as in the supper of Polonius, to be eaten. I have very
+little of the martyr-stuff about me. It is well, it is glorious, to read
+of those fine things; but does any man relish the application of the
+_Hoc age_? To beatified Lawrence I gladly pay meet tribute of tears and
+praise. Let the luckless one ask of me no more; let him call only upon
+the succulent; let him recruit among the full ranks of the adipose. Be
+it mine to lay these spare-ribs athwart no gridiron more fervid than the
+pavement of his own monumental Escurial. _Suum cuique._
+
+So, albeit in a melting mood, I gazed listlessly upon the brazen
+firmament, with no fellow-feeling for those hot culinary bars. The
+broiling glow was not at all tempting: I think it would have staggered
+even the gay salamander that is said to accept so thoroughly the gospel
+of caloric. And what was the Markerstown without the Great Captain? What
+was the Victory with no Nelson? Hence, like the patriarch, I went out to
+meditate at the eventide. But, alack! there were no camels, no Rebekah,
+no comfort. Even in subterranean grots there was nothing drawn but
+Tropic's XXX. Every water-cock let on a geyser. But by-and-by Apollo
+Archimagirus, wearying of gastronomy, stayed his hand, moistened the
+fierce flames, jerked the half-fried earth out into free space, pocketed
+his stew-pan, and flung himself supperless to bed. No more, for the
+nonce at least, should that new Lycidas--the cosmical gridiron--flame in
+the forehead of the evening sky. Anon came twilight, dusk, darkness, and
+all the pleasant charities of deep night. Behind the veil of night are
+sometimes done evil deeds. The snail has been known to start before his
+time. Laying down these general postulates, I drew therefrom, late in
+the sultry gloom, this particular inference: Cæsar's shallop might
+possibly breast the deep before dawn; and if Cæsar was not on hand, she
+would carry his fortunes, but not him. Forthwith, groping through the
+obscurity, I found my fears without foundation. The shallop was
+quiescent in a remarkable degree, and thoroughly tethered.
+
+Deep darkness reigned throughout the little kingdom. Silence brooded
+over all, save now and then when some vocal nose, informed by murky
+visions of the night, brayed out its stertorous tale to the unheeding
+air. At times a shrill, sharp pipe, screaming with gusts of horror,
+split my unexpectant ear. With this wrangled fitfully the cracked
+clarionet of some peevish brother. Ever and anon some vast nostril,
+punctually thundering, hurled forth the relentless growl of the
+bassoon,--a very mountain of sound, which crushed all before it, and
+made the shuddering timbers crack and reel. A pensive flute vainly
+poured, in swift recurring gushes, its rhythmic oil upon the roaring
+billows. From some melodious swain came a freakish fiddling, which
+leaped and danced like mad, now here, now there, like an audible
+will-o'-the-wisp. A dolorous whistle chimed harmonies, and with regular
+sibilation came to time, quavering out the chromatic moments of this
+nasal hour. High over all floated a faint whisper,--a song-cloud rising
+from the dream-mist of a peaceful breast,--a revelation timidly exhaled
+to the disembodied spirits of the air. Its hazy lullaby breathed down as
+from distant heights, and murmured of celestial rest. Its soul was like
+a star, and dwelt apart.
+
+Save this feeling symphony, all was still. No light shone upon the
+tuneful beaks. Like Theseus, I picked my way along, guided by an
+Ariadne's thread. My Ariadne was a slumbering orchestra deftly spinning
+out a thick proboscis-chord of such stuff as dreams are made of. Taking
+this web in my ear, I safely traversed the labyrinth, and meandered at
+last into pen No. 1. In placing my foot on the edge of the under-world
+crib, I unwittingly pressed some secret spring which straight swung wide
+the portals of a precipitate dawn.
+
+
+VI.--THE PEPTIC SYMPHONY.
+
+    A.--Andante (_smorzando_).
+    B.--Adagio (_crescendo_).
+    C.--Allegro (_sforzando_).
+
+Instantaneously rose resplendent
+
+    THE MIDNIGHT SUN.
+
+_The Luminary._--Hullo!
+
+_The Satellite._--Ah! got back? Is that you, Mr. Rink?
+
+_The Luminary._--Wal, ef 't a'n't me, 't 's my nose. Mebby y' a'n't
+aware, young man, that you planted your shoe-leather on my olfactory?
+
+_The Satellite._--Indeed, no, Sir. I thought I felt something under my
+foot, as I was getting up. So it seems it was your nose. Beg your
+pardon, Sir,--entirely unintentional. Hope I----
+
+_The Luminary._--Who's your shoemaker? What do you wear for cow-hide?
+
+_The Satellite._--An excellent artist, a long way from Paris. I have on
+at this moment a very neat thing in English gaiters, of respectable
+dimensions, toe-corners sharp as Damascus blade, three-fourths of an
+inch in sole, one and a half inches in heel, with a plenty of half-inch,
+cast-steel nails all round,--quite a neat thing, I assure you.
+
+_The Luminary._--Whew!
+
+_The Satellite._--But I hope, Sir, I haven't injured your nose?
+
+_The Luminary._--Can't tell jest yit. Anyhow, you gev me a proper
+sneezer, a most pertickler hahnsome socdolager, I vum! Landed jest below
+the peepers. But hold on till mornin', an' see how breakfast sets. I
+allers estimate the nose by the stomach. Ef I find my stomach's all
+right, 't 'll be a sure sign that the smellers are pooty rugged.
+
+_The Satellite._--That's rather an odd idea. I was aware that the nose
+is a natural guide to the stomach, but didn't know that the reverse
+would hold good. What is the----
+
+_The Luminary._--Poor rule that wun't work both ways. Six of one and
+half a dozen of the other. Do you s'pose the nose could afford to work
+free gratis for the stomach, with plenty to do an' nothin' to git? No,
+Sir, not by a jugful! People that want favors mustn't be stingy in
+givin' on 'em. It's on the scratch-my-back-an'-I'll-tickle-your-elbow
+system. The stomach's got to keep up his eend o' the rope, or he'll jest
+go under, sure. One good turn deserves another, you know.
+
+_The Satellite._--Yes, a very pretty theory, and certainly a just one.
+Quite on the Mutual-Benefit principle. Still, I should be inclined to
+doubt whether there are facts sufficient to sustain it.
+
+_The Luminary._--Wal, my hearty, you jest belay a bit up there; clew
+down your hatches ship-shape, git everythin' all trig, an' lay to. Why,
+my Christian friend, I intend to post you up thoroughly. Your
+edication's been neglected. Facts? Facts? Bless your noddle, there's
+plenty on 'em, ef a man knows beans. Now I'm jest a-goin' to let
+daylight into that little knowledge-box o' yourn, an' fill it with good,
+wholesome idees, clean up to the brim, an' runnin' over,--good, honest,
+Shaker measure. I'll give ye more new wrinkles afore mornin' than ever
+you dreamed of in your physiology, valooable hints, an' nuthin' to pay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Being now securely camped on my mountain-height, I peered out upon the
+horizon beneath, and signified to the Luminary that the gas might at
+once be turned on full blaze.
+
+            "As when the sun new risen
+    Looks through the horizontal misty air,"
+
+so gleamed, no longer nebulous, but now full-orbed, the bright star
+Diætetica,--a central sun, holding within its ample bosom the star-dust
+of whole galaxies, infinite gastric constellations.
+
+_The Luminary._--"Any fool'll allow that there's nerves, an' plenty on
+'em, all over the body. All these nerves come from the stomach. Fact is,
+they're the stomach's errand-boys. They run round an' do his chores jest
+as he says, an' then trot back ag'in. He's an awful hard master,
+though,--likes to shirk, an' makes 'em lug round all his baggage an'
+chicken-fixin's. When he gits grumpy, which is pooty consid'able often,
+he's death on some on 'em,--jest walks into 'em like chain-lightnin'
+into a gooseberry-bush. When he's gouty, he kicks up a most etarnal
+touse with the great-toe nerve, an' slaps it right into him fore an'
+aft, the wust kind. Folks hev asked me why the gout pitches into the
+great toe wuss than the rest on 'em. It's jest as nateral as Natur'. I
+cal'late it's a special Providence for the benefit of the hull human
+family, to hang out a big sign jest where folks ken see it, to show up
+the man who's ben an' sinned ag'inst his stomach. When he limps round in
+flannel, he's a conspicoous hobblin' advertisement, a fust-cut lecterer
+on temperance, an' the horrible example to boot. Now you know the way
+the stomach an' nerves fay in.
+
+"Wal, then ag'in, there's another set,--the stomach's own
+blood-relations. He's head o' the family, an' they all work in together
+nice an' handy, jest as slick as grease. Lam ary one on 'em, an' you got
+to lam the whole boodle. Jest like a hornet's nest: shake a stick at ary
+one o' the group, an' they all come buzzin' round te'ble miffy in less
+'n no time. There's the nose,--he wears a coat jest as well 's the
+stomach: he's the stomach's favorite grandson, the Benjamin of the
+flock. Say anythin' to him, an' the stomach takes it up; say anythin' to
+the stomach, an' he takes it up. All in a family-way, ye see. Love me,
+love my dorg. There's no disputin' the fact, that you can't kill ary one
+on 'em without walkin' over the dead body of the others. You can't whip
+ary one on 'em except over the others' shoulders. Now you know who the
+nose is, who his connections are, an' what's his geneology. He's
+descended from the stomach in the second degree, an' will be heir to all
+the property, ef so be he's true to himself an' the family. Ef he a'n't,
+th' old man'll cut him off with a shillin', sure.
+
+"Now dyspepsy's of two kinds,--the mucous an' the nervous; an' as I'm a
+sinner, every mother's son an' daughter has got one on 'em. The nervous,
+as you will naterally s'pose from my remarks, is a sort o' hired
+help,--friend o' the family, like a poor relation,--handy to hev in the
+house, an' all that. The other allers takes pot-luck with the family,
+runs in an' out jest as he pleases,--chip o' the old block, one o' the
+same crowd, you know. It's considered ruther more hon'able, in course,
+to hev this one. None o' the man-waiter or sarvant-gal about him. A chap
+with the mucous looks kind o' slick an' smooth, an' feels his oats pooty
+wal; but a codger with the nervous is sort o' thin an' wild-like.
+Wholesalers ginerally hev the fust, an' retailers the second; though,
+'casionally, I hev known exceptions. A bank-president invariably has the
+second; an' I never seen an apple-woman without the other. All accordin'
+to Natur', ye see. But either on 'em 'll do. Take jest whichever you can
+git,--that's my advice,--an' thank Providence. They'll either on 'em be
+faithful friends, never desert ye, cling closer than a brother, never
+say die, stick to ye, in p'int o' fact, like a sick kitten to a hot
+brick. It's jest as I said,--every critter's got one on 'em. But there's
+no two men alike, so there's no two dyspepsies alike. There never was,
+an' never will be. 'T 's exackly like the human family, divided into two
+great classes, black an' white, long-heel an' short-heel. Jes' so ...
+nervous ... mucous ... Magna Charta ... Palladium of our liberties ...
+ark of our safety ... manifest destiny ... Constitootion of our
+forefathers ... fit, bled, an' died ... independence forever ... one an'
+inseparable ... last drop o' blood...."
+
+How it was I don't quite know; but I think that at this point the
+Luminary must have sunk below the horizon. Possibly his Satellite may
+have suffered an eclipse in this quarter of the heavens. I can barely
+recall a thin doze, in which these last eloquent fragments, transfigured
+into sprites and kobolds, wearing a most diabolical grin, seemed to be
+chasing each other in furious and endless succession through my brain,
+or playing at hide-and-seek among the convolutions of the cerebrum.
+After a while, they wearied of this rare sport, scampered away, and left
+me in profound sleep till morning.
+
+
+VII.--MATINS.
+
+Whank!--tick-a-lick!--ker-thump!--swoosh!--Whank!--tick-a-lick!--
+ker-thump!--swoosh!--These were the sounds that first greeted my opening
+ears. So, then, we were fairly under way, advancing, if not rejoicing.
+Our freighted Icarus was soaring on well-oiled wings: how soon might his
+waxy pinions droop under the fierce gaze of the sun! At least it was a
+satisfaction to know that thus far the gloomy forebodings of the Seer
+had not been fulfilled. On looking out through a six-inch rose-window, I
+saw joyous daylight dancing over the boundless, placid waters,--not a
+speck of land in sight. We must have started long since; but my eyes,
+fast sealed under the opiate rays of the Luminary, had hitherto refused
+to ope their lids to the garish beams of his rival. Soon I heard beneath
+a rustling snap, as of a bow, and suddenly there sped forth the twanging
+shaft of the
+
+_First Victim._--I say!
+
+_Second Victim._--Very sensible, but brief. Give us another bit.
+
+_First Victim._--How are ye this mornin'?
+
+_Second Victim._--Utterly glorified. Delicious sleep,--splendid
+day,--balmy air, with condiments thrown in. I hope you are nicely
+to-day?
+
+_First Victim._--Wal, no, can't say I be. Feel sort o' seedy like,--feel
+jest 's ef I'd ben creouped up in a sugar-box. Couldn't even git a
+cat-nap,--didn't sleep a wink.
+
+_Second Victim._--That's bad, indeed; but the bracing air here will
+soon----
+
+_First Victim._--Air! That 'ere dock-smell nigh finished me. No
+skim-milk smell about that, but the ginooine jam,--an awful pooty
+nosegay! 'T was reg'lar rank p'is'n. Never see anythin' like it. Oh,
+'twas te'ble! Took hold o' my nose dreffle bad; I'm afeard my stomach'll
+be a goner. 'T wa'n't none o' yer sober perfumes nuther, but kind o'
+half-seas-over all the time, an' pooty consid'able in the wind. Judge
+there's ben a large fatality in cats lately. Ugh! that blamed
+dock-smell! Never forgit it the longest day I live. Don't b'lieve I
+breathed oncet all night.
+
+_Second Victim._--Yes, it was slightly aromatic, I confess,--'Sabæan
+odors from the spicy shores of Araby the Blest,'--you know what Milton
+says. But there's one great comfort: this thick night-air is so very
+healthy, you know. I think you made a very great mistake, Mr. Rink, in
+not inhaling it thoroughly. I kept pumping it in all night, from a sense
+of duty, at forty bellows-power.
+
+_First Victim._--(Rising, and dragging up to the mountain-crib the
+artillery of a ghostly face, and training it point-blank at Second
+Victim.)--Young man, don't trifle!
+
+_Second Victim._--Pardon me, Sir, I am not trifling, I have sound
+reasons for what I say. Your education, Sir, has apparently been
+neglected. Wait one moment, and I'll give you a new idea, which will
+contribute materially to your happiness. You will at once admit, I take
+it, that oxygen and carbonic acid stand at opposite poles in their
+relations to the respiratory system; also, that said dock-smell was a
+mixture of carbonic acid of various kinds, and of different degrees of
+intensity; and, lastly, that animal and vegetable life are complements
+of each other,--correlatives, so to speak.
+
+_First Victim._--Sartin: that's Natur' an' common sense.
+
+_Second Victim._--Now, then, plants naturally absorb carbonic acid and
+give off oxygen during daylight. At night, the process is reversed: then
+they absorb oxygen and give off carbonic acid. In a similar, but reverse
+way, man, who was plainly intended to inhale oxygen and exhale carbonic
+acid in his waking hours, should, in his sleeping hours, in order to be
+consistent with himself and with Nature, inhale only dense carbonic acid
+and exhale oxygen. Men and plants make Nature's see-saw: one goes up as
+the other goes down. Hence it follows as a logical sequence, that the
+truly wise man, who seeks to comply with the laws of Nature, and to
+fulfil the great ends of his existence, will choose for his
+sleeping-apartment the closest quarters possible, and will welcome the
+fumes which would be noisome by day. For my part, therefore, I feel
+profoundly grateful even for one night of this little crib. It has
+already done much for me. I feel confident that it has contributed
+greatly to my span of life. I am deeply beholden to the owners, to the
+captain, yea, to all the crew. And for the blessed dock-smell I shall
+ever be thankful:--
+
+     "'T were worth ten years of mortal life, One glance at its
+     array."
+
+It will not be amiss to say to you, Mr. Rink, that this theory is
+sanctioned by one of the leading ornaments of the French Academy. He has
+advocated it, in an elaborate treatise, with an eloquence and power
+worthy of its distinguished author. He shows, in passages of singular
+purity, that beasts, whose instincts teach them far more of the laws of
+Nature than our reason teaches us, always retire to sleep in a place
+where they can obtain the closest, healthiest air. In the last
+communication sent to me on this subject by the learned Professor, he
+proves conclusively that----
+
+_First Victim._ (His artillery now rumbling down the heights on the full
+gallop.)--I snum, that's awful! Wal, I never see,--'t beats the Dutch!
+No kind o' use talkin' with sech a chap. Never see so much nonsense in
+one head 's that critter's got in his.
+
+
+VIII.--JENTACULAR.
+
+A barrow-tone full of groan and creak, trundling along through the
+well-known bravura commencing,--
+
+    "In Köln, a town of monks and bones," etc.
+
+Yes, the aroma was highly complicate, but not, like the poet, of
+imagination all compact. It was not Frangipanni, though in part an
+eternal perfume; nor was it Bergamot, or Attar, or Millefleurs, or
+Jockey-Club, or New-Mown Hay. No, it was none of these. What was it,
+then? you ask. I dissected it as well as I could, though not with entire
+success; but I will tell you the members of this body of death, so far
+as I found them. I do not for a moment doubt that it was made up of at
+least the two-and-seventy several parts which bloomed in the bouquet
+plucked by the bard in Hermann's land; yet my feeble sense could not
+distinguish all. There was unquestionably a fry,--nay, several; the
+fumes of coffee soared riotous; I could detect hot biscuits distinctly;
+the sausage asked a foremost place; pancakes, griddle-cakes, dough-nuts,
+gravies, and sauces, all struggled for precedence; the land and the sea
+waged internecine war for place, through their representative fries of
+steak and mackerel; and as the unctuous pork--no nursling of the flock,
+but seasoned in ripe old age with salt not Attic--rooted its way into
+the front rank, I thought of the wisdom of Moses. All these were, so to
+speak, the mere outlying flakes, the feathery curls, of the balmy
+cirro-cumulus, whose huge bulk arose out of the bowels of the ship
+itself. Up and down, in and out, here and there, into every chink and
+crevice, rolled the blue-white incense-cloud, dense as the cottony puff
+at the mouths of the guns in Vernet's "Siege of Algiers." Or you might
+say that these were but the flying-buttresses, the floriated pinnacles,
+the frets, and the gargoyles of a great frowzy cathedral lying vast and
+solid far below.
+
+The Captain sat at the head of the table; next him was the fixed star
+Düspeptos, with Satellite stationary on the right quarter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Eupeptos._--Coffee,--that's good. John, fill my cup. Have it strong,
+mind,--no milk.
+
+_Düspeptos._ (Placing hand remonstratingly on arm of Eupeptos.)--My
+friend, man's life a'n't more'n a span, anyhow; yourn wun't be wuth
+more'n half a span. Don't ye do it.
+
+_Eupeptos._ (Gayly.)--_Dum vivimus, vivamus._ Try a cup, Mr. Rink.
+
+_Düspeptos._--No, Sir. Thousan' dollars'd be no objick at all.
+There'd be a dead Rink layin' round in less 'n half a shake. I'd want a
+permit from the undertaker fust, an' hev my measure for a patent casket
+to order. This child a'n't anxious to cut stick yit awhile.
+
+_Eupeptos._--I'm very much of Voltaire's way of thinking about coffee. I
+don't know but I would agree with Mackintosh, that the measure of a
+man's brains is the amount of coffee he drinks. I like it in the French
+style, all but the _lait_; that destroys the flavor, besides making it
+despicably weak. Have a hot biscuit, Mr. Rink? I'm afraid they're like
+Gilpin,--carry weight, you know. But try one, won't you?
+
+_Düspeptos._--I'm shot ef I do. Don't hev any more o' yer nonsense,
+young man, or I'll git ructions.
+
+_Eupeptos._--All right. Advance, pancakes! Here's a prime one, steaming
+hot, crisp and fizzling. Allow me to put it on your plate, Sir?
+
+_Düspeptos._--Not by a long chalk. Hands off, I tell ye, or there'll
+be a free fight afore shortly. You'd better make up yer mind to oncet
+thet this 'ere thing a'n't goin' to ram nohow.
+
+_Eupeptos._--Sorry I can't suit you. Better luck next time. Ah! here's
+the very thing. Waiter, pass the fried steak, salt mackerel, and fried
+potatoes to Mr. Rink.
+
+_Düspeptos._--Wun't stan' it,--I snore I wun't! I tell ye, I'm
+gittin' master-riled. Jest you take yer own fodder, an' keep quiet.
+
+_Eupeptos._--Pardon me, Sir, but my eye has just fallen on yonder dish
+of dough-nuts, faced by those incense-breathing griddle-cakes. Look
+slightly soggy, but not disagreeable. This sea-air, you know, gives a
+man a tremendous appetite for anything, and the digestion of an ostrich.
+Risk it, won't you?
+
+_Düspeptos._ (With determined air, clenching knife and fork pointing
+skywards.)--Stranger, le' 's come to a distinct understandin' on this
+subjick afore we git much older. You know puffickly wal what I am,--a
+confirmed dyspeptic for twenty-five year. An' I a'n't ashamed on it,
+nuther; but I'm proud to say I glory in it. You know puffickly wal what
+my notions is about all this 'ere stuff, an' still you keep stickin' it
+into my face. Now, ef you want me to lambaste ye, I'm the man to do it,
+an' do it hahnsome. But ef yer life a'n't insured clean up to the hub,
+an' ef ye've got any survivin' friends, I advise ye not to tote any more
+o' that 'ere grub in this direction. I give ye fair warnin',--yer've
+raised my dander, an' put my Ebenezer up. I'd jest as lieves wallop ye
+as eat, an' ten times lieveser.
+
+_Eupeptos._--Really, Sir, no offence intended. I saw that your taste was
+delicate, and offered you these various tit-bits in the hope that some
+one of them might prove acceptable. But pray, Sir, do not starve
+yourself on my account. What in the world can you eat? Do not, I beseech
+you, by undue fasting, deprive the world of so distinguished----
+
+_Düspeptos._ (Mollifying.)--Fact is, I knew jest how 't was goin' to
+be. They allers fry everythin' an' cook it up in grease, so no
+respectable man can git any decent vittles t' eat. So I jest went out
+an' laid in plenty o' my own provender,--suthin' reliable an' wholesome,
+ye know. Brought aboard a firkin o' Graham-biscuit,--jest the meal mixed
+up with water,--no salt, no emptins, no nuthin'. 'T's the healthiest
+thing out o' jail. It's Natur's own food, an' the best eatin' I know.
+Raäl good flavor, git 'em good, besides bein' puffickly harmless an'
+salubrious. I cal'late I've got enough to run the machine, an' keep it
+all trig up to concert-pitch, till I git ashore, ef so be th' old tub
+don't send us to Davy Jones's locker. Here, try one,--I've got a
+plenty,--an' you'll say they're fust-rate. Leave them 'ere pancakes, an'
+all that p'is'n truck. Arter you take one o' these, you'll never tech
+nuthin' else.
+
+_Eupeptos._--Thank you, Sir, but if it's all the same to you, please
+excuse me this time. I have other fish to fry. In fact, Sir, I am
+entirely destitute of equanimity, and have no particle of stability in
+my disposition. Not a drop of Scotch blood in my veins.
+
+_Düspeptos._--There's no oats about these; an' ef there was, 't
+wouldn't hurt ye none. It's jest the kernel an' the shell mixed up
+together.
+
+_Eupeptos._--Dangerous combination. I have no military
+ambition,--wouldn't give a rush for a spread eagle,--don't like the
+braying by a mortar.
+
+_Düspeptos._--Wal, I mout as wal vamose, 's long as I've hove in my
+rations. Already gone risin' a good half-ounce above my or'nary
+'lowance. 'T wun't do to dissipate, even ef a feller a'n't to hum an'
+nobody's the wiser. Natur' allers makes ye foot the bill all the same on
+sea an' shore.
+
+_Eupeptos._ (Trolling in a low voice the celebrated barcarole,
+
+    "My bark is by the shore," etc.)--
+
+Stay, oh, stay, gentle stranger! See yon sausage fatly floating! Be not
+dogged to go, but come! Prithee, return once more to the festive board!
+Lo! this--the fattest of the flock--shall be thy portion, most favored
+Benjamin!
+
+_Düspeptos._ (--Muttering in the distance.)--That feller's a raäl
+jo-fired numbskull. He don't know any more about the fust principles o'
+human natur' than the babe unborn. Reg'lar goney. Dunno whether he's
+jokin' or in sober airnest. Good mind to sail into him anyhow. Guess 't
+'ll do, though, to leave him to Natur'. He'll stuff himself to death
+fast enough ... pitchin' into p'is'n ... sexton ... six-board box ...
+coroner's verdick ... run over by a fry ... engineer did his dooty....
+
+
+IX.--FINALE (_con motivo._)
+
+But time would fail me to tell you of the myriad golden spangles so
+thickly stitched into the hurrying web of those fustian hours. Oh! that
+dim crepuscular time, when, with toe set to toe squarely on the scratch,
+we stood up to one another, with eyes glaring through the gloaming, and
+gave and took manfully, fighting out anew the old battles of the Bourbon
+_vs._ China, of King James _vs._ Virginia, of Graham _vs._ Greece! I
+could tell you of the siesta of the new Prometheus, when, perched on the
+Mount Caucasus of a bleak chain-cable, he gave himself postprandially,
+in full livery of seisin, to the vulturous sun. Wasted, yet daily
+renewed, enduring, yet murmuring not, he hurled defiance at Fat, scoffed
+at the vain rage of Jupiter Pinguis, and proffered to the world below a
+new life in his fiery gift of stale bran-bread. Would you could have
+heard that vesper hymn stealing hirsute through the mellow evening-air!
+It sung the Peptic Saints and Martyrs, explored the bowels of old Time,
+and at last died away in dulcet cadence as it chanted the glories of the
+coming Age of Grits. Again, in the silent night-watches, did sage Mentor
+become vocal, going over afresh the story of the Nervous and the Mucous,
+classifying their victims, generalizing laws, discriminating the various
+dyspepsies of the nations, and summing up at last the inestimable
+benefits conferred by our modern dyspepsy on the character, the
+literature, and the life of this nineteenth century.
+
+Once more--for the last time--did the sable robe inwrap us.
+Once more the night-blooming cereus oped its dank petals; and
+amid its murky fragrance I sank to rest. When I woke, the
+whank!--tick-a-lick!--whank!--tick-a-lick!--had ceased, and we were
+safely moored. I leaped lightly to the shore, and, reverently stooping,
+saluted with fond gratitude my Mother Earth. Rising, I beheld for the
+last time the gaunt form of the Martyr standing on the deck,--a bar
+sinister sable blazoned athwart the golden shield of the climbing sun.
+And once more he lift up his voice:--
+
+"Hullo! What! up killick an' off a'ready? Ye'r' bound to go it full
+chisel any way,--don't mean to hev grass grow under your heels, that's
+sartin. Wal, 't 's the early bird thet ketches the worm; an' it's the
+early worm thet gits picked, too,--recollember that. I cal'late you
+reckon the Markerstown's about played out, an' a'n't exackly wut she's
+cracked up to be. It's pooty plain thet that 'ere blamed grease has ben
+one too many for ye, arter all yer lingo. Ef a man will dance, he's got
+to pay the fiddler. You can't go it on tick with Natur'; she's some on a
+trade, an' her motto is, 'Down with the dosh.' Ef you think you can play
+'possum, an' pull the wool over her eyes, jest try it on, that's all;
+you'll find, my venerable hero, thet you're shinnin' a greased pole for
+the sake of a bogus fo'pence-ha'penny on top.
+
+"Now, young man, afore you hurry up your cakes much further, I've got
+jest two words to say to ye. Don't cut it too fat, or you'll flummux by
+the way, an' leave nuthin' but a grease-spot. Don't dawdle round doin'
+nuthin' but stuffin' yerself to kill. Don't act like a gonus,--don't
+hanker arter the flesh-pots. Wake up, peel your eyes, an' do suthin' for
+a dyspeptic world, for sufferin' sinners, for yerself. Allers stick
+close to Natur' an' hyg'ene. Drop yer nonsense, an' come over an' j'in
+us, an' we'll make a new man of ye,--jest as good as wheat. You're on
+the road to ruin now; but we'll take ye, an' build ye up, give ye tall
+feed, an' warrant ye fust-cut health an' happiness. No cure, no pay. An'
+look here, keep that 'ere card I gev ye continooally on hand, an'
+peroose it day an' night. I tell ye it'll be the makin' on ye. An' don't
+forgit the golden rule:--Don't tech, don't g' nigh the p'is'n upus-tree
+of gravy; beware o' the dorg called hot biscuits; take keer o' the
+grease, an' the stomach'll take keer of itself. Ef you're in want o'
+bran-bread at any time, let me know, an' I'm your man,--Rink by name,
+an' Rink by natur'. An' ef so be you ever come within ten mile o' where
+I hang out, jest tie right up on the spot, without the slightest
+ceremony or delayance, an' take things puffickly free an' easy like.
+Wal, my hearty, I see ye're on the skedaddle. Take keer o'
+yerself,--yourn till death, N. Rink."
+
+
+
+
+THE TWENTIETH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
+
+
+The country is now on the eve of an election the importance of which it
+would be impossible to overrate. Yet a few days, and it will be decided
+whether the people of the United States shall condemn their own conduct,
+by cashiering an Administration which they called upon to make war on
+the rebellious slaveholders of the South, or support that Administration
+in the strenuous endeavors which it is making to effect the
+reconstruction of the Republic, and the destruction of Slavery. It is to
+insult the intelligence and patriotism of the American people to
+entertain any serious doubt as to the issue of the contest. It can have
+but one issue, unless the country has lost its senses,--and never has it
+given better evidence of its sobriety, firmness, and rectitude of
+purpose than it now daily affords. Were the contest one relating to the
+conduct of the war, and had the Democratic party assumed a position of
+unquestionable loyalty, there would be some room for doubting who is to
+be our next President. It is impossible that a contest of proportions so
+vast should not have afforded ground for some complaint, on the score of
+its management. To suppose that the action of Government has been on all
+occasions exactly what it should have been is to suppose something so
+utterly out of the nature of things that it presents itself to no mind.
+Errors are unavoidable even in the ordinary affairs of common life, and
+their number and their magnitude increase with the importance of the
+business, and the greatness of the stage on which it is transacted. We
+have never claimed perfection for the Federal Administration, though we
+have ever been ready to do justice to the success which it has achieved
+on many occasions and to the excellence of its intentions on all. Had
+the Democrats called upon the country to displace the Administration
+because it had not done all that it should have done, promising to do
+more themselves against the Rebels than President Lincoln and his
+associates had effected, the result of the Presidential election might
+be involved in some doubt; for the people desire to see the Rebellion
+brought to an end, and the Democratic party has a great name as a ruling
+political organization, its history, during most of the present century,
+being virtually the history of the American nation. But, with a want of
+wisdom that shows how much it has lost in losing that Southern lead
+which had so much to do with its success in politics, it chose to place
+itself in opposition to the national sentiment, instead of adopting it,
+guiding it, and profiting from its existence. The errors of the various
+parties that have been opposed to it have often been matter for mirth to
+the Democratic party, as well they may have been; but neither
+Federalists, nor National Republicans, nor Whigs, nor Know-Nothings, nor
+Republicans were ever guilty of a blunder so enormous as that which this
+party itself perpetrated at Chicago, when it virtually announced its
+readiness to surrender the country into the hands of the men who have so
+pertinaciously sought its destruction for the last four years. So
+strange has been its action, that we should be ashamed to have dreamed
+that any party could be guilty of it. Yet it is a living fact that the
+Democratic party, in spite of its loud claims to strict nationality of
+purpose, has so conducted itself as to show that it is willing to
+complete the work which the slaveholders began, and not only to submit
+to the terms which the Rebels would dictate, but to tear the Union still
+further to pieces, if indeed it would leave any two States in a united
+condition. Thus acting, that party has defeated itself, and reduced the
+action of the people to a mere, though a mighty, formality. Either this
+is a plain statement of the case, or this nation is about to give a
+practical answer to Bishop Butler's famous question, "What if a whole
+community were to go mad?" For the ratification of the Chicago Platform
+by the people would be an indorsement of violence and disorder, a direct
+approval of wilful rebellion, and an announcement that every election
+held in this country is to be followed by a revolutionary outbreak,
+until our condition shall have become even worse than that of Mexico,
+and we shall be ready to welcome the arrival, in the train of some
+European army, of a cadet of some imperial or royal house, whose
+"mission" it should be to restore order in the once United States, while
+anarchy should be kept at a distance by a liberal exhibition of French
+or German bayonets. What has happened to Mexico would assuredly happen
+here, if we should allow the country to Mexicanize itself at the bidding
+of Belmont and Co.
+
+But it may be said, it is unjust to attribute to the masses of the
+Democratic party intentions so bad as those of which we have spoken.
+That party, in past times, has done great things for the land, has
+always professed the highest patriotism, and its name and fame are most
+intimately associated with some of the noblest passages in the history
+of the Republic. All this is very true. We admit, what is indeed
+self-evident, that the Democratic party has done great things for the
+country, and that it can look back with just pride over the country's
+history, until a comparatively recent period; and we do not attribute to
+the masses composing it any other than the best intentions. It is not of
+those masses that we have spoken. The sentiment of patriotism is ever
+strong with the body of the people. The number of men who would wilfully
+injure their country has never been large in any age. But it is not the
+less true that parties are but too often the blind tools of leaders, of
+men whose only interest in their country is to use it for their own
+purposes, to make all they can out of it, and at its expense. The
+Democratic party has always been a disciplined party, and nothing is
+more notorious in its history than its submissiveness to its leaders.
+This has been the chief cause of its almost unbroken career of success;
+and it has been its pride and its boast that it has been well-trained,
+obedient, and consequently successful, while all other parties have been
+quarrelsome and impatient of discipline, and consequently have risen
+only to endure through a few years of sickly existence, and then to pass
+away. The Federalists, the National Republicans, the Antimasons, the
+Whigs, and the Know-Nothings have each appeared, flourished for a short
+time, and then passed to the limbo of factions lost to earth. This
+discipline of the Democracy has not been without its uses, and the
+country occasionally has profited from it; but now it is to be abused,
+through application to the service of the Great Anarch at Richmond. The
+Rebel power, which our fleets and armies are steadily reducing day by
+day, is to be saved from overthrow, and its agents from the severe and
+just punishment which should be visited upon them for their great and
+unprovoked crime,--if they are to be saved therefrom,--through the
+action of the Democratic party, as it calls itself, and which purposes
+to go to the assistance of the slaveholders in war, as formerly it went
+to their assistance in peace, the meekest and most faithful and most
+useful of their slaves. The Democratic party, as a party, instead of
+being the sword of the Republic, purposes being the shield of the
+Rebellion. Such is the intention of its leaders, who control the
+disciplined masses, if their words have any meaning; and, so far as they
+have been able to act, their actions correspond strictly with their
+words. The Chicago Convention, which consisted of the _crème de la
+crème_ of the Democracy, had not a word to say against either the Rebels
+or the Rebellion, while it had not words enough, or words not strong
+enough, to employ in denouncing those whose sole offence consists in
+their efforts to conquer the Rebels and to put down the Rebellion. With
+a perversion of history that is quite without a parallel even in the
+hardy falsehood of American politics, the responsibility for the war was
+placed to the account of the loyal men of the country, and not to the
+account of the traitors, who brought it upon the nation by a fierce
+forcing-process. The speech of Mr. Horatio Seymour, who presided over
+the Belmont band, is, as it were, a bill of indictment preferred against
+the American Republic; for Governor Seymour, though not famous for his
+courage, has boldness sufficient to do that which a far greater man said
+he would not do,--he has indicted a whole people. It follows from this
+condemnation of the Federal Government for making war on the Rebels, and
+this failure to condemn the Rebels for making war on the Federal
+Government, that the Democrats, should they succeed in electing their
+candidates, would pursue a course exactly the opposite of that which
+they denounce. They would withdraw the nation from the contest, and
+acknowledge the independence of the Southern Confederacy; and then they
+would make such a treaty with its leading and dominant interest as
+should place the United States in the condition of dependency with
+reference to the South. That such would be their course is not only
+fairly inferrible from the views embodied in the Chicago Platform, and
+from the speeches made in the Chicago Convention, but it is what Mr.
+Pendleton, the Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency, has said it
+is our duty to do so, so far as relates to acknowledging the
+Confederacy. He has deliberately said, that, if we cannot "conciliate"
+the Rebels, and "persuade" them to come back into the Union, we should
+allow them to depart in peace. Such is the doctrine of the gentleman who
+was placed on the Democratic ticket with General McClellan for the
+avowed purpose of rendering that ticket palatable to the Peace men. No
+man can vote for General McClellan without by the same act voting for
+Mr. Pendleton; and we know that Mr. Pendleton has declared himself ready
+to let the Rebels rend the Union to tatters, and that he has opposed the
+prosecution of the war. General McClellan is mortal, and, if elected,
+might die long before his Presidential term should be out, like General
+Taylor, or immediately after it should begin, like General Harrison.
+Then Mr. Pendleton would become President, like Mr. Tyler, in 1841, who
+cheated the Whigs, or like Mr. Fillmore, in 1850, who cheated everybody.
+Nor is it by any means certain that General McClellan would not, once
+elected, consider himself the Chicago Platform, as Mr. Buchanan avowed
+himself to be the Cincinnati Platform. He has written a letter, to be
+sure, in which he has given it to be understood that he is in favor of
+continuing the war against the Rebels until they shall be subdued; but
+so did Mr. Polk, twenty yearn ago, write a letter on the Tariff of 1842
+that was even more satisfactory to the Democratic Protectionists of
+those days than the letter of General McClellan can be to the War
+Democrats of these days. All of us recollect the famous Democratic
+blazon of 1844,--"Polk, Dallas, and the Tariff of '42!" It was under
+that sign that the Democrats conquered in Pennsylvania; and had they not
+conquered in Pennsylvania, they themselves would have been conquered in
+the nation. Mr. Polk and Mr. Dallas were the chief instruments used to
+break down the Tariff of '42, in less than two years after they had been
+elected to the first and second offices of the nation because they were
+believed to be its most ardent friends. Mr. Polk, as President,
+recommended that it should be changed, and employed all the influence of
+his high station to get the Tariff Bill of 1846 through Congress; and
+Mr. Dallas, who had been nominated for the Vice-Presidency with the
+express purpose of "catching" the votes of Protectionists, gave his
+casting vote in the Senate in favor of the new bill, which meant the
+repeal of the Tariff of '42. The Democrats are playing the same game now
+that they played in 1844, with this difference, that the stakes are ten
+thousand times greater now than they were then, and that their manner of
+play is far hardier than it was twenty years since. Then, the question,
+though important, related only to a point of internal policy; now, it
+relates to the national existence. Then, the Free-Traders did not
+offensively proclaim their intention to cheat the Protectionists; now,
+Mr. Fernando Wood and Mr. Vallandigham, and other leaders of the extreme
+left of the Democratic party, with insulting candor, avow that to cheat
+the country is the purpose which that party has in view. Mr.
+Vallandigham, who made the Chicago Platform, explicitly declares that
+that Platform and General McClellan's letter of acceptance do not agree;
+at the same time Mr. Wood, who is for peace to the knife, calmly tells
+us that General McClellan, as President, would do the work of the
+Democracy,--and we need no Daniel to interpret Mr. Wood's words. We mean
+no disrespect to General McClellan, on the contrary we treat him with
+perfect respect, when we say that we do not believe he has a higher
+sense of honor than Mr. Polk possessed; and as Mr. Polk became a tool in
+the hands of a faction,--being a Protectionist during the contest of
+'44, and an Anti-Protectionist after that contest had been decided in
+his favor,--so is it intended that General McClellan shall become a tool
+in the hands of another faction. Mr. Polk was employed to effect the
+destruction of a "black tariff": General McClellan is employed to
+destroy a nation that is supposed to be given up to "black
+republicanism." We do not believe that the soldier will be found so
+successful an instrument as the civilian proved to be.
+
+An ounce of fact is supposed to be worth a ton of theory; and the facts
+of the last four or five years admit of our believing the worst that can
+be suspected of the purposes of the Democratic party. It is not
+uncharitable to say that the leaders and managers of that party
+contemplate, in the event of their triumph in November, the surrender of
+the country to the slaveholding oligarchy; in the event of their defeat
+by a small majority, the extension of the civil war over the North. Four
+years ago we could not be made to believe that Secession was a possible
+thing. We admitted that there were Secessionists at the South, but we
+could not be made to believe in the possibility of Secession. Even
+"South Carolina couldn't be kicked out of the Union," it was commonly
+said in the North. There were but few disunionists at the South, almost
+everybody said, and almost everybody believed what was said concerning
+the state of Southern opinion. In a few weeks we saw, not South Carolina
+kicked out of the Union, but South Carolina kicking the Union away from
+her. In a few months we saw eleven States take themselves out of the
+Union, form themselves into a Confederacy, and raise great armies to
+fight against the Union. Yet it is certain that in the month of
+November, 1860, there were not twenty thousand resolute disunionists in
+all the Slaveholding States, leaving South Carolina and Mississippi
+aside,--and not above fifty thousand in all the South, including
+Mississippi and South Carolina. How, then, came it to pass that nearly
+the whole of the population of the South became Rebels in so short a
+time? Because they were under the dominion of their leading men, who
+took them from the right road, and conducted them into the slough of
+rebellion. Because they were encouraged so to act by the Northern
+Democracy as made rebellion inevitable. The Northern Democratic press
+and Northern Democratic orators held such language respecting "Southern
+rights" as induced even loyal Southrons to suppose that Slavery was to
+be openly recognized by the Constitution, and spread over the nation.
+The President of the United States, a Northern Democrat, gravely
+declared that there existed no right in the Government to coerce a
+seceding State, which was all that the most determined Secessionist
+could ask. Instead of doing anything to strengthen the position of the
+federal Government, the President did all that he could to assist the
+Secessionists, and left the country naked to their attacks; and he
+parted on the best of terms with those Rebels who left his Cabinet,
+where they had long been busy in organizing resistance to Federal
+authority. The leaders of the Northern Democracy, far from exhibiting a
+loyal spirit, urged the slaveholders to make demands which were at war
+with the Constitution and the laws, and which could not have been
+complied with, unless it had been meant to admit that there was no
+binding force in existing institutions, the validity of which had not
+once been called in question for seventy-two years. The real
+Secessionists of the South, Rhett and Yancey and their followers,
+availed themselves of the existing state of affairs, and precipitated
+rebellion,--a step which they never would have taken, had they not been
+assured that no resistance would be made to their action so long as Mr.
+Buchanan should remain in the Presidency, and that he would be supported
+by the leaders of the Northern Democracy, who would take their followers
+with them along the road that led to the Union's dissolution. South
+Carolina, rabid as she was, did not rebel until the last Democratic
+President of the United States had publicly assured her that he would do
+nothing to prevent her from reducing the Calhoun theory to practice; and
+had she not rebelled, not another State would have left the Union. The
+opportunity that she could not get under President Jackson she obtained
+under President Buchanan,--and she did not hesitate to make the most of
+that opportunity, all indeed that could be made of it, well knowing that
+it could not be expected again to occur.
+
+With these facts before them, the American people should be prepared for
+further rebellious action on the part of that faction whose creed it is
+that rebellion is right when directed against the ascendency of their
+political opponents. They have done their utmost to assist the Rebels
+all through the war, and the great riots in New York last year were the
+legitimate consequences of their doctrine, if not of their labors. We
+know that organizations hostile to the Union have been formed in the
+West, and that there was to have been a rising there, had any striking
+successes been achieved by the Confederate forces during the last six
+months. Nothing but the vigor and the victories of Grant and Sherman and
+Farragut saved the North from becoming the scene of civil war in 1864.
+Nothing but the vigor and union of the people in their political
+capacity can keep civil war from the North hereafter. The followers of
+the Seymours and other ultra Democrats of the North are not more loyal
+than were nine-tenths of the Southern people in 1860. Few of them now
+think of becoming rebels, but they would as readily rebel as did the
+Southern men who have filled the armies of Lee and Beauregard, and who
+have poured out their blood so lavishly to destroy that nation which
+owes its existence to the labors of Southern men, to the exertions of
+Washington, Jefferson, Henry, and others, natives of the very States
+that have done most in the cause of destruction. The sentiment of
+nationality is no stronger among Northern Democrats than it was among
+Southern Democrats; and as the latter were converted into traitors at
+the bidding of a few leading politicians whose plans were favored by
+circumstances, so would the former become traitors at the first signal
+to any move that _their_ leaders should make. As to the two classes of
+leaders, the Southern men are far superior in every manly quality to
+those Northern men who are doing their work. It is possible that the men
+of the South really did believe that their property was in danger, and
+it is beyond dispute that they were alarmed about their political power;
+but the men of the North who sympathize with them, and who are prepared
+to aid them at the first opportunity that shall offer to strike an
+effective blow, well knew that the victorious Republicans had neither
+the will nor the power to injure Southern property or to weaken the
+protection it enjoyed under the Constitution. Their hostility to the
+Union is purely gratuitous, or springs from motives of the most sordid
+character.
+
+There is but one way to meet the danger that threatens us,--a danger
+that really is greater than that with which we were threatened in 1860,
+and which we have the advantage of seeing, whereas we could see nothing
+in that year. We must strengthen the Government, make it literally
+irresistible, by clothing it with the whole of that power which proceeds
+from an emphatic and unmistakable expression of the popular will. Give
+Mr. Lincoln, in the approaching election, the strength that comes from a
+united people, and we shall have peace maintained throughout the North,
+and peace restored to the South. Reëlect him by a small majority, and
+there will be civil war in the North, and a revival of warlike spirit in
+the South. Elect General McClellan, and we shall have to choose between
+constant warfare, as a consequence of having approved of Secession by
+approving of the Chicago Platform,--which is Secession formally
+democratized,--and despotism, the only thing that would save us from
+anarchy. Anarchy is the one thing that men will not, because they
+cannot, long endure. Order is indeed now and forever Heaven's first law,
+and order society must and will have. Order is just as compatible with
+constitutional government as it is with despotic government; but to have
+it in connection with freedom, in other words, with the existence of a
+constitutional polity, the people must do their whole duty. They must
+rise above the prejudices of party and of faction, and see nothing but
+their country and liberty. They must show that they are worthy of
+freedom, or they cannot long have it. Now is the time to prove that the
+American people know the difference between liberty and license, by
+their support of the party of order and constitutional government, and
+by administering a thorough rebuke to those licentious men who are
+seeking to overwhelm the country and its Constitution in a common ruin.
+
+Of President Lincoln's reëlection no doubt can be entertained, whether
+we judge of the issue by the condition of the country, or by the
+sentiments that should animate the great majority of the people, and by
+which, we are convinced, that majority is animated. The Union candidate,
+no matter what his name or antecedents, should be elected by a majority
+so great as to "coerce" the turbulent portion of the Democracy into
+submission to the laws of the land, and into respect for the popular
+will, the last thing for which Democrats have any respect. Had the Union
+National Convention seen fit to place a new man in nomination, it would
+have been the duty of the voters to support him with all the means
+honestly at their command; but we must say that there is a peculiar
+obligation upon Americans to reëlect Mr. Lincoln, and to reëlect him by
+a vote that should surprise even the most sanguine and hopeful of his
+friends. The war from which the nation, and the whole world, have been
+made to suffer so much, and from the effects of which mankind will be
+long in recovering, was made because of Mr. Lincoln's election to the
+Presidency. The North was to be punished for having had the audacity to
+elect him even when the Democracy were divided, and the success of the
+Republican candidate was a thing of course. He, a mere man of the
+people, should never become _President of the United States_! The most
+good-natured of men, it is known that his success made him an object of
+personal aversion to the Southern leaders. They did their worst to
+prevent his becoming President of the Republic, and in that way they
+wronged and insulted the people far more than they wronged and insulted
+the man whom the people had elected to the highest post in the land; and
+the people are bound, by way of vindicating their dignity and
+establishing their power, to make Mr. Lincoln President of the _United_
+States, to compel the acknowledgment of his legal right to be the chief
+magistrate of the nation as unreservedly, from South Carolina as from
+Massachusetts. His authority should be admitted as fully in Virginia as
+it is in New York, in Georgia and Alabama as in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
+This can follow only from his reëlection; and it can follow only from
+his reëlection by a decisive majority. That insolent spirit which led
+the South to become so easy a prey to the Secession faction, when not a
+tenth part of its people were Secessionists, should be thoroughly,
+emphatically rebuked, and its chief representatives severely punished,
+by extorting from the rebellious section a practical admission of the
+enormity of the crime of which it was guilty when it resisted the lawful
+authority of a President who was chosen in strict accordance with the
+requirements of the Constitution, and who entertained no more intention
+of interfering with the constitutional rights of the South than he
+thought of instituting a crusade for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.
+The majesty of the law should be asserted and established, and that can
+best be done by placing President Lincoln a second time at the head of
+the Republic, the revolt of the slaveholders being directed against him
+personally as well as against that principle of which he was the legally
+elected representative. In him the spirit of order is incarnate; and his
+reëlection by a great popular vote would be the establishment of the
+fact that under our system it is possible to maintain order, and to
+humiliate and subdue the children of anarchy.
+
+President Lincoln should be reëlected, if for no other reason, that
+there may go forth to the world a pointed approval of his conduct from
+his constituents. As we have said, we do not claim perfection for the
+policy and acts of the Administration; but we are of opinion that its
+mistakes have been no greater than in most instances would have been
+committed by any body of men that could have been selected from the
+entire population of the country. Take the policy that has been pursued
+with reference to Slavery. Many of us thought that the President issued
+his Emancipation Proclamation at least a year too late; but we must now
+see that the time selected for its promulgation was as skilfully chosen
+as its aim was laudable. Had it come out a year earlier, in 1861, the
+friends of the Rebels could have said, with much plausibility, that its
+appearance had rendered a restoration of the Union impossible, and that
+the slaveholders had no longer any hope of having their property-rights
+respected under the Federal Constitution. But by allowing seventeen
+months to elapse before issuing it, the President compelled the Rebels
+to commit themselves absolutely to the cause of the Union's overthrow
+without reference to any attack that had been made on Slavery in a time
+of war. It has not, therefore, been in the power of their allies here to
+say that the issuing of the Proclamation placed an impassable gulf
+between the Union and the Confederacy; for the Confederates were as loud
+in their declarations that they never would return into the Union before
+the Proclamation appeared as they have been since its appearance. They
+were caught completely, and deprived of the only pretence that could
+have been invented for their benefit, by themselves or by their friends.
+The adoption of an Emancipation policy did not cause us the loss of one
+friend in the South, while it gained friends for our cause in every
+country that felt an interest in our struggle. It prevented the
+acknowledgment of the Southern Confederacy by France, and by other
+nations, as French example would have found prompt imitation. Its
+appearance was the turning event of the war, and it was most happily
+timed for both foreign and domestic effect. It will be the noblest fact
+in President Lincoln's history, that by the same action he announced
+freedom to four millions of bondmen, and secured his country against
+even the possibility of foreign mediation, foreign intervention, and
+foreign war.
+
+The political state of the country, as indicated by the result of recent
+elections, is not without interest, in connection with the Presidential
+contest. Since the nomination of General McClellan, elections have been
+held in several States for local officers and Members of Congress, and
+the results are highly favorable to the Union cause. The first election
+was held in Vermont, and the Union party reëlected their candidate for
+Governor, and all their candidates for Members of Congress, by a
+majority of more than twenty thousand. They have also a great majority
+in the Legislature, the Democrats not choosing so much as one Senator,
+and but few Members of the House of Representatives. The election in
+Maine took place but six days after that of Vermont, and with similar
+results. The Union candidate for Governor was reëlected, by a majority
+that is stated at sixteen thousand. Every Congressional District was
+carried by the Union men. In one district a Democrat was elected in
+1862, at the time when the Administration was very unpopular because of
+the military failures that were so common in the summer of that dark and
+eventful year. His majority was one hundred and twenty-seven. At the
+late election his constituents refused to reëlect him, and his place was
+bestowed on a friend of the Administration, whose majority is said to be
+about two thousand. The majorities of the other candidates were much
+larger, in two instances exceeding four thousand each. The State
+Legislature elected on the same day is of Administration politics in the
+proportion of five to one. These two States may be said to represent
+both of the old parties that existed in New England during the thirty
+years that followed the Presidential election of 1824. Vermont was of
+National-Republican or Whig politics down to 1854, and always voted
+against Democratic candidates for the Presidency. Maine was almost as
+strongly Democratic in her opinions and action as Vermont was
+Anti-Democratic, voting but once, in 1840, against a Democratic
+candidate for the Presidency, in twenty-four years. Her electoral votes
+were given for General Jackson in 1832, for Mr. Van Buren in 1836, for
+Mr. Polk in 1844, for General Cass in 1848, and for General Pierce in
+1852. Yet she has acted politically with Vermont for more than ten
+years, both States supporting Colonel Fremont in 1856, and Mr. Lincoln
+in 1860,--a striking proof of the levelling effect of that pro-slavery
+policy and action which have characterized the Democratic party ever
+since the inauguration of President Pierce, in 1853. Had the Democratic
+party not gone over to the support of the slaveholding interest, Maine
+would have been a Democratic State at this day.
+
+There were important elections held on the 11th of October in the great
+and influential States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, and the
+verdicts which should be pronounced by these States were expected with
+an interest which it was impossible to increase, as it was felt that
+they would go far toward deciding the event of the Presidential contest.
+Vermont's action might be attributed to her determined and
+long-continued opposition to the Democratic party, which no change in
+others could operate to lessen; and the course of Maine could be
+attributed to her "Yankee" character and position: but Pennsylvania has
+generally been Democratic in her decisions, and she has nothing of the
+Yankee about her, while Ohio and Indiana are thoroughly Western in all
+respects. Down to a few days before the time for voting, the common
+opinion was, that Pennsylvania would give a respectable majority for the
+Union candidates, that Ohio would pronounce the same way by a great
+majority, and that Indiana would be found with the Democrats; but early
+in October doubts began to prevail with respect to the action of
+Pennsylvania, though no one could say why they came to exist. What
+happened showed that the change in feeling did not unfaithfully
+foreshadow the change that had taken place in the second State of the
+Union. Ohio's decision was not different from what had been expected,
+her Union majority being not less than fifty thousand, including the
+soldiers' vote. Indiana's action astonished every one. Instead of
+furnishing evidence that General McClellan's nomination had been
+beneficial to his party, the event in the Hoosier State led to the
+opposite conclusion. The Democratic majority in that State in 1862 was
+ten thousand, and that it could be overcome, or materially reduced, was
+not thought possible. Yet the voting done there on the 11th of October
+terminated most disastrously for the Democrats, the popular majority
+against them being not less than twenty thousand, while they lost
+several Members of Congress, among them Mr. Voorhees, who is to Indiana
+what Mr. Vallandigham is to Ohio, only that he has a little more
+prudence than the Ohioan. Indiana was the only one of the States in
+which a Governor was chosen, which made the returns easy of attainment.
+Governor Morton, who is reëlected, "stumped" the State; and to his
+exertions, no doubt, much of the Union success is due. In Pennsylvania,
+at the time we write, it is not settled which party has the majority on
+the home vote; but, as the soldiers vote in the proportion of about
+eleven to two for the Republican candidates, the majority of the latter
+will be good,--and it will be increased at the November election.
+
+The States that voted on the 11th of October give sixty electoral votes,
+or two more than half the number necessary for a choice of President.
+They are all certain to be given for Mr. Lincoln, as also are the votes
+of the six New England States, and those of New York, Illinois,
+Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, West Virginia, and
+California, making 189 in all, the States mentioned being entitled to
+the following votes:--Massachusetts 12, Maine 7, New Hampshire 5,
+Vermont 5, Rhode Island 4, Connecticut 6, New York 33, Pennsylvania 26,
+Ohio 21, Indiana 13, Illinois 16, Michigan 8, Minnesota 4, Wisconsin 8,
+Iowa 8, Kansas 3, West Virginia 5, and California 5. And so ABRAHAM
+LINCOLN and ANDREW JOHNSON will be President and Vice-President of the
+United States for the four years that shall begin on the 4th of March,
+1865.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+     _An American Dictionary of the English Language._ By NOAH
+     WEBSTER, LL.D. Thoroughly revised, and greatly enlarged and
+     improved, by CHAUNCEY A. GOODRICH, LL.D., etc., and NOAH
+     PORTER, D.D., etc. Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam. Royal
+     4to. pp. lxxii., 1768.
+
+Beyond cavil, this portly and handsome volume makes good the claim which
+is set forth on the title-page. The revision which the old edition has
+undergone is manifestly a most thorough one, extending to every
+department of the work, and to its minutest details. The enlargement it
+has received is very considerable, the size of the page having been
+increased, and more than eighty pages added to the number contained in
+the previous or "Pictorial" edition. The improvements are not only
+really such, but they are so many and so great that they amount to a
+complete remodelling of the work; and hence the objections heretofore
+brought against it--many of them very justly--have, for the most part,
+no longer any validity or pertinency. It may be questioned, however,
+whether the Dictionary, in view of the manifold and extensive changes
+which have been made in its matter and plan, should not be said to have
+been _based_ on that of Dr. Webster rather than to be _by_ him. St.
+Anthony's shirt cannot be patched and patched forever and still remain
+St. Anthony's shirt. But there is doubtless much virtue in a name, and,
+so long as the publishers have given us a truly excellent work, it
+matters little by what title they choose to call it.
+
+We are amazed at the vastness of the vocabulary, which embraces upwards
+of one hundred and fourteen thousand words, being some ten thousand
+more, it is claimed, than any other word-book of the language. Such
+unexampled fulness would be apt to excite a suspicion that a
+deliberately adopted system of crimping had been carried on within the
+tempting domains of the natural sciences, to furnish recruits for this
+enormous army of vocables. But we do not find, upon a pretty careful
+examination, that many terms of this sort have been admitted which are
+not fairly entitled to a place in a popular lexicon.
+
+In the matter of definition, we can unqualifiedly commend the principles
+by which the editor and his coadjutors appear to have been guided,
+notwithstanding an occasional failure to carry out these principles with
+entire consistency. The crying fault of mistaking different applications
+of a meaning of a word for essentially different significations--the
+head and front of Dr. Webster's offending as a definer, and not of Dr.
+Webster only, but of almost all other lexicographers--has generally been
+avoided in this edition. The philosophical analysis, the orderly
+arrangement of meanings, the simplicity, comprehensiveness, and
+precision of statement, the freedom from prejudice, crotchets, and
+dogmatism, the good taste and good sense, which characterize this
+portion of the work, are deserving of the fullest recognition and the
+highest praise.
+
+In the department of etymology, the revision has been thorough indeed,
+and, as all the world knows, the Dictionary stood sadly enough in need
+of it. But we were not prepared for so entire and fearless an
+overhauling of Dr. Webster's "Old Curiosity Shop," or for a contribution
+to philological science so valuable and original. It is not too much to
+say that no other English dictionary, and no special treatise on English
+etymology, that has yet appeared, can compare with it. As a fitting
+introduction to the subject, a "Brief History of the English Language,"
+by Professor James Hadley, is prefixed to the vocabulary, and will well
+repay careful study.
+
+No excellences, however, we apprehend, in definition or etymology will
+reconcile scholars to those peculiarities of spelling which are commonly
+known as Websterianisms, and which, with a few exceptions, are retained
+in the edition before us. The pages of this magazine are evidence that
+we ourselves regard them with no favor. But we are bound, in common
+honesty, to state, that, in every case in which Dr. Webster's
+orthography is given, it is accompanied by the common spelling, and
+thus the user of the book is left at liberty to take his choice of
+modes. We are also bound, in common fairness, to admit that many, if not
+all, of the quite limited number of changes put forward in the later
+editions of the Dictionary are, in themselves considered, unquestionable
+improvements, and that, if adopted by the whole English-writing public
+on both sides of the water, or even in this country alone, would redeem
+our common language from some of the gross anomalies and grievous
+confusion which now make it a monster among the graphic systems of the
+world, and a stumbling-block and stone of offence to all who undertake
+to learn it. Furthermore, it must be conceded that almost all our
+lexicographers have been nearly or quite as ready as Dr. Webster to
+attempt improvements in orthography, though they may have shown more
+discretion than he. It is not generally known, we suspect, but it is
+none the less a fact, that Johnson, Todd, Perry, Smart, Worcester, and
+various other eminent orthographers, have all deviated more or less from
+actual usage, in order to carry out some "principle" or "analogy" of the
+language, or to give sanction and authority to some individual fancy of
+their own. So much may be said in defence of Dr. Webster against the
+ignorant vituperation with which he has often been assailed. But, on the
+other hand, he is fairly open to the charge of having violated his own
+canons in repeated instances. To take a single case, why should he not
+have spelt _until_ with two _l_s, instead of one,--as he does "distill,"
+"fulfill," etc.,--when it was so desirable to complete an analogy, and
+when he had for it the warrant of a very common, if not the most
+reputable, usage? Again, it seems to us, that, if our orthography is to
+be reformed at all, it should be reformed not indifferently, but
+altogether; for it is, beyond controversy, atrociously bad, poorly
+fulfilling, as Professor Hadley justly remarks, (p. xxviii.,) its
+original and proper office of indicating pronunciation, while it no
+better fufils the improper office, which some would assert for it, of a
+guide to etymology. Emendations on the here-a-little-there-a-little
+plan, while they do no harm, do little good. They are but topical
+remedies, which cannot restore the pristine vigor of a ruined
+constitution. What we need is a reform as thorough-going as that which
+has been effected in the Spanish language. Shall we ever have it? or
+will the irrational conservatism of the educated classes, in all time to
+come, prevent a consummation so desirable, and so desiderated by the
+philologist? Max Müller thinks that perhaps our posterity, some three
+hundred years hence, may write as they speak,--in other words, that our
+orthography will by that time have become a phonetic one. It is not safe
+to prophesy; but, whether such a result comes soon or late, the credit
+of having accomplished it will not be due to those "half-learned and
+parcel-learned" persons who consider the present written form of the
+language as a thing "taboo," and look with such horror upon all attempts
+to better its condition.
+
+As regards pronunciation, we think this will be generally considered one
+of the strong points of the new Dictionary. The introductory treatise on
+the "Principles of Pronunciation" is a comprehensive, instructive, and
+eminently practical, though not very philosophically constructed,
+exposition of the subject of English orthoëpy. It contains an analysis
+and description of the elementary sounds of the language, a discussion
+of certain questions about which orthoëpists are at variance, and a
+useful collection of facts, rules, and directions respecting a variety
+of other matters falling within its scope. As a sort of pendant to this,
+we have a "Synopsis of Words differently pronounced by Different
+Orthoëpists," which those who regulate their pronunciation by written
+authorities or opinions may find it useful to consult. The
+pronunciations given in the body of the work appear to be conformed to
+the usage of the best speakers. We notice with gratification that such
+vulgarisms as ab´do-men, pus´sl (for pust´ule!), s_w_ord (for sord),
+etc., no longer continue to deface the book.
+
+A large number of wood-cuts, mostly selected with good judgment and
+skilfully engraved, adorn the pages, and throw light upon the
+definitions. Besides being inserted in the vocabulary in connection with
+the words they illustrate, they are brought together, in a classified
+form, at the end of the volume. This is claimed as an "obvious
+advantage."
+
+We have left ourselves but little space to notice the very rich and
+attractive Appendix, the first fifty pages of which are taken up with
+an "Explanatory and Pronouncing Vocabulary of the Names of Noted
+Fictitious Persons and Places," etc., by William A. Wheeler. The
+conception of such a work was singularly happy, as well as original,
+and, on the whole, the task has been executed with commendable fidelity
+and discretion. That occasional omissions and mistakes should be
+discovered will probably surprise no one less than the author. Attention
+has elsewhere been publicly called, in particular, to the fact that Owen
+Meredith is given as the pseudonyme of Sir Bulwer Lytton instead of his
+son, E. R. Bulwer: this would seem to be a bad blunder, but we
+understand that it was a mere error of oversight, and that it was
+corrected before the Dictionary was fairly in the market. If other
+mistakes should be brought to light,--and what work of such multiplicity
+was ever free from them?--Mr. Wheeler will doubtless call to mind,
+and his readers must not forget, the eloquent excuse which Dr.
+Johnson offers, in the preface to his Dictionary, for his own
+shortcomings:--"That sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise
+vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses
+of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in
+vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he
+knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his
+thoughts to-morrow." The "Pronouncing Vocabularies of Modern
+Geographical and Biographical Names, by J. Thomas, M. D.," are evidently
+the product of laborious and conscientious research; and, while we
+differ widely from Dr. Thomas on various points, general and particular,
+we must allow that his vocabularies are as yet the only ones of the kind
+which approximate with any nearness to the character of an authoritative
+standard. The other Vocabularies or "Tables" of the Appendix seem also
+to have been prepared with sound judgment and much painstaking, but we
+cannot dwell upon them.
+
+To sum up, in all the essential points of a good dictionary,--in the
+amplitude and selectness of its vocabulary, in the fulness and
+perspicacity of its definitions, in its orthoëpy and (_cum grano salis_)
+its orthography, in its new and trustworthy etymologies, in the
+elaborate, but not too learned treatises of its Introduction, in its
+carefully prepared and valuable appendices,--briefly, in its general
+accuracy, completeness, and practical utility,--the work is one which
+none who read or write can henceforward afford to dispense with.
+
+Mindful of the old adage, we have instituted no comparison between
+Webster and Worcester. If the latter, excellent as it is, should now be
+found in some respects inferior to the former, it is to be remembered
+that the present edition of Webster has the great advantage of being
+four or five years later in point of time, and that it has been enriched
+by the use of materials which were not accessible to Worcester. We are
+glad to see a handsome tribute to the learning and industry of Dr.
+Worcester, and an honest acknowledgment of indebtedness to his labors,
+in Professor Porter's Preface. This is as it should be; and we hope that
+the publishers, on both sides, acting in the same spirit, will forego
+all unfriendly controversy. Let there be no new War of the Dictionaries.
+The world is wide enough for both, and both are monuments of industry,
+judgment, and erudition, in the highest degree creditable to American
+scholarship, and unequalled by anything that has yet been done by
+English philologists of the present century.
+
+
+     _Dramatis Personæ._ By ROBERT BROWNING. Boston: Ticknor and
+     Fields.
+
+The title of this new volume of poems expresses the peculiarity which we
+find in everything that Mr. Browning composes. Notwithstanding the
+remoteness of his moods, and the curious subtilty with which he follows
+the trace of exceptional feelings, he impersonates dramatically: there
+may be few such people as these choice acquaintances of his genius, but
+they are persons, and not mere figures labelled with a thought. Pippa,
+Guendolen, Luria, the Duchess, Bishop Blougram, Frà Lippo Lippi, are
+persons, however much they may be given to episodes and reverie. You
+find a great deal that is irrelevant to the thorough working-out of a
+character, much that is not simply individual: Mr. Browning gets
+sometimes in the way, so that you lose sight of his companion, but it
+is not as Punch's master overzealously pulls the wires of his puppets.
+You would not say that a man can find many such companions, but you
+cannot deny that they are vividly described. Perhaps they appear in only
+one or two moods, but these have individual life. They are discovered in
+rare exalted or peculiar moments, but these are in costume and bathed in
+color. Shutting and opening many doors, balked at one vestibule and
+traversing another, suddenly you surprise the lord or mistress of the
+mansion, or from some threshold you silently observe their secret
+passion, which is unconscious of the daylight, and is caught in all its
+frankness. You come upon people, and not upon pictures in a house.
+
+But the pictures, too, in all Mr. Browning's interiors, seem to have
+grown out of the life of the persons. He has not merely come in and hung
+them up, as poor artist or upholsterer, to make a sumptuous house for
+fine people to move into. The character in any one of his poems seems to
+have devised the furnishing: it is distinct, exterior, not always
+helping or expressing the character's thought, sometimes to be referred
+to that only with an effort, but still no other character could have so
+furnished his house. You can find the individuality everywhere, if you
+care to take the trouble. But if you are in haste, or do not
+particularly sympathize with the person whose drama you surprise, you
+and he will be together like vagrants in a gallery, who long for a
+catalogue, dislocate their necks, and anathematize the whole collection.
+But do not then say that you have gauged and criticized the life that
+streams from Mr. Browning's pen.
+
+How vivid and personal is, for instance, "Pictor Ignotus," one of the
+earlier poems! The painter is no longer unknown, for his mood betrays
+and describes him. It is not merely his speaking in the first person
+which saves him from melting into an abstraction, but it is that the "I"
+takes flesh and lives; the poet dramatizes or _shows_ him.
+
+Of this class of poems is the one entitled "Abt Vogler" in the present
+volume. The Abbot was a famous musician and organist, the teacher of
+Meyerbeer. Concerning the new kind of organ which he invented, and which
+he called an "Orchestricon," we know nothing, save that its effects were
+merely amplifications of those belonging to an organ. The poem describes
+the awe and rapture which fill the soul of a great organist when the
+instrument shudders, soars, rejoices in his inspiration. It is not the
+description of a musical mood, but the showing of a man who has the
+mood. It is the exultation and religious feeling of a man in the very
+act. The noble lines are not fine things attempting to set forth the
+metaphysics of musical expression and enjoyment, but they represent a
+man at the very climax of his musical passion. Is the effect any the
+less dramatic because the man is not committing a murder, or conspiring,
+or seducing, or overreaching, or infecting an honest ear with jealousy?
+It is not so theatrical, because the emotion itself is not so broad and
+popular, but its inmost genius is dramatic.
+
+"A Death in the Desert" is another poem that attempts to restore a
+fleeting moment, full of profound thought and feeling, by giving it
+individuals, and showing them living in it, instead of meditating about
+it with fine after-thoughts. Pamphylax describes the death of St. John
+in a desert cave. At first the individuals are clearly seen; but the
+poem soon lapses into philosophizing, and winds up with theology. Still,
+here is the power of reproducing the tone and sentiments of a
+long-buried and forgotten epoch, as if the matters involved had
+immediate interest and were vigorously mauled in all the newspapers. St.
+John might have died last week, or we might be Syrian converts of the
+second century, dissolved in tenderness at the thought that the Beloved
+Disciple at last had gone to lay his head again upon the Master's bosom.
+The poem talks as if it were trying to satisfy this mixture of memory
+and curiosity.
+
+Some of the best lines ever written by Mr. Browning are here. Take
+these, for instance. Pamphylax, reporting John's last words, as the
+hoary life flickered and clung, gives this:--
+
+        "A stick, once fire from end to end;
+    Now ashes, save the tip that holds a spark!
+    Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, spreads itself
+    A little where the fire was: thus I urge
+    The soul that served me, till it task once more
+    What ashes of my brain have kept their shape,
+    And these make effort on the last o' the flesh,
+    Trying to taste again the truth of things."
+
+And after recalling the inspirations of Patmos:--
+
+    "But at the last, why, I seemed left alive
+    Like a sea-jelly weak on Patmos strand,
+    To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I fared
+    When there was mid-sea, and the mighty things.
+
+       *    *    *
+
+    Yet now I wake in such decrepitude
+    As I had slidden down and fallen afar,
+    Past even the presence of my former self,
+    Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap,
+    Till I am found away from my own world,
+    Feeling for foothold through a blank profound."
+
+The poem entitled "Caliban upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology in the
+Island," has for a motto, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an
+one as thyself." Caliban talks to himself about "that other, whom his
+dam called God." Setebos is the great First Cause as conceived and
+dreaded in the heart of a Caliban. The poem is by no means a caricature
+of the natural theology which springs from selfishness and fear. All the
+phenomena of the world are neither
+
+            "right nor wrong in Him,
+    Nor kind nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.
+    'Am strong myself, compared to yonder crabs
+    That march now from the mountain to the sea;
+    Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
+    Loving not, hating not, just choosing so."
+
+The materialist who believes in Forces is brother to the Calvinist who
+preaches Sovereignty and the Divine Decrees. The preacher lets loose
+upon the imagination of mankind a Setebos, who after death will plague
+his enemies and feast his friends. The materialist believes, with
+Caliban, that
+
+          "He doth his worst in this our life,
+    Giving just respite lest we die through pain,
+    Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end."
+
+The grave irony of this poem so bespatters the theologian's God with his
+own mud that we dread the image and recoil. From the unsparing vigor of
+these lines we turn for relief to "Rabbi Ben Ezra" and "Prospice." In
+both of these we have glimpses of Mr. Browning's true theology, which is
+the faith of his whole soul in the excellence of that world whose beauty
+he interprets, of the human nature whose capacity he does so much to
+"keep in repute," and of the Infinite Love.
+
+        "Praise be Thine!
+    I see the whole design,
+    I, who saw Power, shall see Love perfect too:
+    Perfect I call thy plan:
+    Thanks that I was a man!
+    Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what Thou shalt do!"
+
+We find in this new volume more distinct and tranquil expressions of Mr.
+Browning's thought upon the relation of the finite to the infinite than
+he has given us before. And his pen has turned with freedom and
+satisfaction towards these things, as if the imagination had broken new
+outlets for itself through the world's beautiful horizon into the great
+sea. How "like one entire and perfect chrysolite" is the little piece
+called "Prospice"! But we are all the more surprised to see occasionally
+a touch of the genuine British denseness, whenever he recollects that
+there are such people as Strauss, Bishop Colenso, and the men of the
+"Essays and Reviews" prowling around the preserve where the ill-kept
+Thirty-Nine Articles still find a little short grass to nibble. When we
+read the last three verses of "Gold Hair," we set him down for a
+High-Church bigot: the English discussions upon points of exegesis and
+theology appear to him threatening to prove the Christian faith false,
+but for his part he still sees reasons to suppose it true, and this,
+among others, that it taught Original Sin, the Corruption of Man's
+Heart! We escape from this to "Rabbi Ben Ezra" for reassurance, not
+greatly minding the inconsistency that then appears, but confirmed in an
+old opinion of ours, that John Bull, in this matter of theology, has his
+mumps and scarlatina very late, and they are likely to go hard with a
+constitution that is weaned from the pure truth of things.
+
+"Gold Hair," notwithstanding its picturesque lines, is weak and
+inconclusive. Its moral is conventional, while the incident is too
+far-fetched for sympathy. The series of little poems called "James Lee"
+is full of beauties, but it is too vague to make a firm impression. We
+suppose it tells the story of love that exaggerates a common nature,
+clings to it, and shrivels away. What can be finer than the way in which
+an unsatisfied heart makes the wind the interpreter of its pain and
+dread? This is the sixth poem, "Under the Cliff."
+
+    "Or wouldst thou rather that I understand
+      Thy will to help me?--like the dog I found
+    Once, pacing sad this solitary strand,
+      Who would not take my food, poor hound,
+    But whined and licked my hand."
+
+But in this very poem the figure of the nun is artificial, and
+interrupts the pathetic feeling. And we cannot make anything out of the
+piece, "Beside the Drawing-Board," unless we first detach it from its
+position in the series, and like it alone. On the whole, many fine lines
+are here, but no real person and no poetic impression.
+
+Neither the dramatic nor the lyrical quality appears in this volume as
+it did once in the splendid "Bells and Pomegranates," which gave us such
+vivid shapes, and emotions so consistent and sustained, even though they
+were so often flawed by over-reflection. In this volume the purposes are
+less palpable, and the pen seems to have pursued them with less tenacity
+than usual. It has the air of having been scraped together. Yet how
+charming is "Confessions," and "Youth and Art," and "A Likeness"!
+Besides these, the best pieces are those which touch upon the highest
+themes.
+
+"Mr. Sludge, the Medium," cannot be called a poem. It would not be
+possible to write satire, epic, idyl, not even elegy, upon that
+"rat-hole philosophy," as Mr. Emerson once styled the new fetichism of
+the mahogany tables. It has not one element that asks the sense of
+beauty to incorporate it, or challenges the weapon of wit to transfix
+it. It is humiliating, but not pathetic, not even when yearning hearts
+are trying to pretend that their first-born vibrates to them through a
+stranger's and a hireling's mind. It is not even grotesque, but it is
+gross, and flat, and stale; its messages are fatuous, its machinery the
+rickety heirlooms of old humbugs of Greece and Alexandria. No thrill, no
+terror, no true awe, nothing but "goose-flesh" and disgust, creep from
+the medium's presence. Pegasus need not be saddled; summon, rather, the
+police.
+
+Yet this composition, which Mr. Browning must have undertaken in a
+moment of high indignation, with the motive of self-relief, is full of
+common sense. Mr. Sludge's vindication of his career turns upon the
+point that people like on the whole to be deceived, especially in
+matters relating to the invisible world. Sludge must be right in this;
+otherwise the theologians would not have had such a successful run. The
+facile and eager "circle" betrays the imaginative medium into reporting
+what it appears most to desire. The superstition of the people excites
+and feeds his own. He is only one against a crowd which deluges him with
+its expectation, and resents a scarcity of the supernatural. Mr. Sludge
+is not so much to blame: the people at length push the thing so far that
+he is obliged to cheat in self-defence. And when a man tasks his wits
+successfully, if it be only to mislead the witless, he has a sense of
+satisfaction in the effort akin to that of the rhetorician and the
+quack.
+
+But shrewdness and good sense cannot make a poem by assuming the measure
+of blank verse. And a few Yankee phrases are pasted into Mr. Sludge's
+talk, such as "stiffish cock-tail," "V-notes," "sniggering," allusions
+to "Greeley's newspaper," Beacon Street, etc.: there is no character in
+them at all. Mr. Sludge is a bad Yankee, as well as impudent pleader.
+The lines never sparkle, even with the poet's indignation, but they seem
+to be all the time blown into a forced vivacity and heat. Nemesis
+attends the poet who plunges his arm for a subject into this burrow of
+Spiritualism.
+
+Let us pass from this to note the noble lesson that the last poem,
+entitled "Epilogue," conveys. Three speakers tell in turn their feeling
+of the Divine Presence. The first intones the old Hebrew notion, loved
+by the childhood of all races and countries, that the Lord's Face fills
+His earthly temple at stated periods, culminating with the human glory
+of psalms and hallelujahs, to absorb and shine in the rejoicing of the
+worshippers, to sink back again into the invisible upon the dying
+strain. The second speaker describes the reaction, when the enthusiastic
+belief of early times is replaced by a dull sense that no Face shines,
+by a doubt if beyond the darkness and the distance there be yet a God
+who will answer to the old rapture, a sun to rise when man's heart
+rises, a love corresponding to his ecstasy:--
+
+      "Where may hide what came and loved our clay?
+    How shall the sage detect in yon expanse
+    The star which chose to stoop and stay for us?
+    Unroll the records!"
+
+But the third speaker bids the records be closed, that man may worship
+the God who lives, instead of regretting that He lived of old. Take the
+least man, observe his head and heart, find how he differs from every
+other man; see how Nature by degrees grows around him, to nourish,
+infold, and set him off, to enrich him with opportunities, as if he were
+her only foster-child, and to flatter thus every other man in turn,
+making him her darling as though in expectation of finding no other,
+till, having extorted all his worth and beauty, and cherished him to the
+utmost of his possible life, she rolls away elsewhere, continually
+keeping up this pageant of humanity:--
+
+    "Why, where's the need of Temple, when the walls
+    O' the world are that? What use of swells and falls
+    From Levites' choir, Priests' cries, and trumpet-calls?
+    That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,
+    Or decomposes but to recompose,
+    Become my universe that feels and knows!"
+
+This is the true religion, hallowing the poet's gifts and inviting them
+to celebrate and express it. We wish that the lines would let their
+meaning meet us with a more level gaze. In the poems of this class there
+is riper thought and a clearer intuition, toward which all the previous
+poems of Mr. Browning appear to have struggled, faring from the East to
+contribute myrrh, frankincense, and gems to this simplicity.
+
+
+
+
+RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS
+
+RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+
+Flirtations in Fashionable Life. By Catherine Sinclair. Author of
+"Beatrice," "Modern Accomplishments," etc. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson
+& Brothers. 16mo. pp. 424. $2.00.
+
+School Economy. A Treatise on the Preparation, Organization,
+Employments, Government, and Authorities of Schools. By James Pyle
+Wickersham, A. M., Principal of the Pennsylvania State Normal School,
+Millersville, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo.
+pp. xviii., 381. $1.50.
+
+Hand-Book of the United States Navy: Being a Compilation of all the
+Principal Events in the History of every Vessel of the United States
+Navy. From April, 1861, to May, 1864. Compiled and arranged by B. S.
+Osbon. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 16mo. pp. iv., 277. $2.50.
+
+The Pride of Life. By Jane, Lady Scott, "Daughter-in-Law of Sir Walter
+Scott," and Author of "The Henpecked Husband." Philadelphia. T. B.
+Peterson & Brothers. 16mo. pp. 384. $2.00.
+
+The Wrong of Slavery, the Right of Emancipation, and the Future of the
+African Race in the United States. By Robert Dale Owen. Philadelphia. J.
+B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 246. $1.25.
+
+The Army Ration. How to diminish its Weight and Bulk, secure Economy in
+its Administration, avoid Waste, and increase the Comfort, Efficiency,
+and Mobility of Troops. By E. N. Horsford. New York. D. Van Nostrand.
+8vo. paper, pp. 37. 25 cents.
+
+Chimasia: A Reply to Longfellow's Theologian; and other Poems. By
+Orthos. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 96. $1.00.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No.
+85, November, 1864, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NOVEMBER 1864 ***
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85,
+November, 1864, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 21, 2008 [EBook #24885]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NOVEMBER 1864 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by Cornell University Digital Collections).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h4>THE</h4>
+
+<h1>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h1>
+
+<h2>A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.</h2>
+
+<h3>VOL. XIV.&mdash;NOVEMBER, 1864.&mdash;NO. LXXXV.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by <span class="smcap">Ticknor and
+Fields</span>, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.</p>
+
+<p class="notes">Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article. Table of contents created for the HTML version.</p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#LEAVES_FROM_AN_OFFICERS_JOURNAL"><b>LEAVES FROM AN OFFICER'S JOURNAL.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#RICHES"><b>RICHES.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_VENGEANCE_OF_DOMINIC_DE_GOURGUES"><b>THE VENGEANCE OF DOMINIC DE GOURGUES.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#LINA"><b>LINA.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHARLES_LAMBS_UNCOLLECTED_WRITINGS"><b>CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#TO_WILLIAM_CULLEN_BRYANT"><b>TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#HOUSE_AND_HOME_PAPERS"><b>HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_NEW_SCHOOL_OF_BIOGRAPHY"><b>THE NEW SCHOOL OF BIOGRAPHY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_LAST_RALLY"><b>THE LAST RALLY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#FINANCES_OF_THE_REVOLUTION"><b>FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THROUGH-TICKETS_TO_SAN_FRANCISCO_A_PROPHECY"><b>THROUGH-TICKETS TO SAN FRANCISCO: A PROPHECY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#SEA-HOURS_WITH_A_DYSPEPTIC"><b>SEA-HOURS WITH A DYSPEPTIC.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_TWENTIETH_PRESIDENTIAL_ELECTION"><b>THE TWENTIETH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"><b>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS"><b>RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS</b></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="LEAVES_FROM_AN_OFFICERS_JOURNAL" id="LEAVES_FROM_AN_OFFICERS_JOURNAL"></a>LEAVES FROM AN OFFICER'S JOURNAL.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>I.</h3>
+
+<p>[I wish to record, as truthfully as I may, the beginnings of a momentous
+experiment, which, by proving the aptitude of the freed slaves for
+military drill and discipline, their ardent loyalty, their courage under
+fire, and their self-control in success, contributed somewhat towards
+solving the problem of the war, and towards remoulding the destinies of
+two races on this continent.</p>
+
+<p>During a civil war events succeed each other so rapidly that these
+earlier incidents are long since overshadowed. The colored soldiery are
+now numbered no longer by hundreds, but by tens of thousands. Yet there
+was a period when the whole enterprise seemed the most daring of
+innovations, and during those months the demeanor of this particular
+regiment, the First South Carolina, was watched with microscopic
+scrutiny by friends and foes. Its officers had reason to know this,
+since the slightest camp-incidents sometimes came back to them,
+magnified and distorted, in anxious letters of inquiry from remote parts
+of the Union. It was no pleasant thing to live in this glare of
+criticism; but it guarantied the honesty of any success, while fearfully
+multiplying the penalties, had there been a failure. A single mutiny, a
+single rout, a stampede of desertions,&mdash;and there perhaps might not have
+been, within this century, another systematic effort to arm the negro.</p>
+
+<p>It is possible, therefore, that some extracts from a diary kept during
+that period may still have an interest; for there is nothing in human
+history so momentous as the transit of a race from chattel-slavery to
+armed freedom; nor can this change be photographed save by the actual
+contemporaneous words of those who saw it in the process. Perhaps there
+may also appear an element of dramatic interest in the record, when one
+considers that here, in the delightful regions of Port Royal, the
+descendants of the Puritan and the Huguenot, after two centuries, came
+face to face,&mdash;and that sons of Massachusetts, reversing the boastful
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span>threat which has become historic, here called the roll, upon
+South-Carolina soil, of her slaves, now freemen in arms.]</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Camp Saxton</span>, near Beaufort, S. C.<br />
+<i>November 24, 1862.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>Yesterday afternoon we were steaming over a summer sea, the deck level
+as a parlor-floor, no land in sight, no sail, until at last appeared one
+light-house, said to be Cape Romaine, and then a line of trees and two
+distant vessels and nothing more. The sun set, a great illuminated
+bubble, submerged in one vast bank of rosy suffusion; it grew dark;
+after tea all were on deck, the people sang hymns; then the moon set, a
+moon two days old, a curved pencil of light, reclining backwards on a
+radiant couch which seemed to rise from the waves to receive it; it sank
+slowly, and the last tip wavered and went down like the mast of a vessel
+of the skies. Towards morning the boat stopped, and when I came on deck,
+before six,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The watch-lights glittered on the land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The ship-lights on the sea."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Hilton Head lay on one side, the gunboats on the other; all that was raw
+and bare in the low buildings of the new settlement was softened into
+picturesqueness by the early light. Stars were still overhead, gulls
+wheeled and shrieked, and the broad river rippled duskily towards
+Beaufort.</p>
+
+<p>The shores were low and wooded, like any New-England shore; there were a
+few gunboats, twenty schooners, and some steamers, among them the famous
+"Planter," which Robert Small, the slave, presented to the nation. The
+river-banks were soft and graceful, though low, and as we steamed up to
+Beaufort on the flood-tide this morning, it seemed almost as fair as the
+smooth and lovely canals which Stedman traversed to meet his negro
+soldiers in Surinam. The air was cool as at home, yet the foliage seemed
+green, glimpses of stiff tropical vegetation appeared along the banks,
+with great clumps of shrubs whose pale seed-vessels looked like tardy
+blossoms. Then we saw on a picturesque point an old plantation, with
+stately magnolia avenue, decaying house, and tiny church amid the woods,
+reminding me of Virginia; behind it stood a neat encampment of white
+tents, "and there," said my companion, "is your future regiment of negro
+soldiers."</p>
+
+<p>Three miles farther brought us to the pretty town of Beaufort, with its
+stately houses amid Southern foliage. Reporting to General Saxton, I had
+the luck to encounter a company of my destined command, marched in to be
+mustered into the United States service. They were without arms, and all
+looked as thoroughly black as the most faithful philanthropist could
+desire; there did not seem to be so much as a mulatto among them. Their
+coloring suited me, all but the legs, which were clad in a lively
+scarlet, as intolerable to my eyes as if I had been a turkey. I saw them
+mustered; General Saxton talked to them a little, in his direct, manly
+way; they gave close attention, though their faces looked impenetrable.
+Then I conversed with some of them. The first to whom I spoke had been
+wounded in a small expedition after lumber, from which a party had just
+returned, and in which they had been under fire and had done very well.
+I said, pointing to his lame arm,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Did you think that was more than you bargained for, my man?"</p>
+
+<p>His answer came promptly and stoutly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I been a-tinking, Mas'r, <i>dat's jess what I went for</i>."</p>
+
+<p>I thought this did well enough for my very first interchange of dialogue
+with my recruits.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>November 27, 1862.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>Thanksgiving-Day; it is the first moment I have had for writing during
+these three days, which have installed me into a new mode of life so
+thoroughly that they seem three years. Scarcely pausing in New York or
+in Beaufort, there seems to have been for me but one step from the camp
+of a Massachusetts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span> regiment to this one, and that step over leagues of
+waves.</p>
+
+<p>It is a holiday wherever General Saxton's proclamation reaches. The
+chilly sunshine and the pale blue river seem like New England, but those
+alone. The air is full of noisy drumming and of gunshots; for the
+prize-shooting is our great celebration of the day, and the drumming is
+chronic. My young barbarians are all at play. I look out from the broken
+windows of this forlorn plantation-house, through avenues of great
+live-oaks, with their hard, shining leaves, and their branches hung with
+a universal drapery of soft, long moss, like fringe-trees struck with
+grayness. Below, the sandy soil, scantly covered with coarse grass,
+bristles with sharp palmettoes and aloes; all the vegetation is stiff,
+shining, semi-tropical, with nothing soft or delicate in its texture.
+Numerous plantation-buildings totter around, all slovenly and
+unattractive, while the interspaces are filled with all manner of wreck
+and refuse, pigs, fowls, dogs, and omnipresent Ethiopian infancy. All
+this is the universal Southern panorama; but five minutes' walk beyond
+the hovels and the live-oaks bring one to something so un-Southern that
+the whole Southern coast at this moment trembles at the suggestion of
+such a thing,&mdash;the camp of a regiment of freed slaves.</p>
+
+<p>One adapts one's self so readily to new surroundings that already the
+full zest of the novelty seems passing away from my perceptions, and I
+write these lines in an eager effort to retain all I can. Already I am
+growing used to the experience, at first so novel, of living among five
+hundred men, and scarce a white face to be seen,&mdash;of seeing them go
+through all their daily processes, eating, frolicking, talking, just as
+if they were white. Each day at dress-parade I stand with the customary
+folding of the arms before a regimental line of countenances so black
+that I can hardly tell whether the men stand steadily or not; black is
+every hand which moves in ready cadence as I vociferate, "Battalion!
+Shoulder arms!" nor is it till the line of white officers moves forward,
+as parade is dismissed, that I am reminded that my own face is not the
+color of coal.</p>
+
+<p>The first few days on duty with a new regiment must be devoted almost
+wholly to tightening reins; in this process one deals chiefly with the
+officers, and I have as yet had but little personal intercourse with the
+men. They concern me chiefly in bulk, as so many consumers of rations,
+wearers of uniforms, bearers of muskets. But as the machine comes into
+shape, I am beginning to decipher the individual parts. At first, of
+course, they all looked just alike; the variety comes afterwards, and
+they are just as distinguishable, the officers say, as so many whites.
+Most of them are wholly raw, but there are many who have already been
+for months in camp in the abortive "Hunter Regiment," yet in that loose
+kind of way which, like average militia-training, is a doubtful
+advantage. I notice that some companies, too, look darker than others,
+though all are purer African than I expected. This is said to be partly
+a geographical difference between the South-Carolina and Florida men.
+When the Rebels evacuated this region, they probably took with them the
+house-servants, including most of the mixed blood, so that the residuum
+seems very black. But the men brought from Fernandina the other day
+average lighter in complexion, and look more intelligent, and they
+certainly take wonderfully to the drill.</p>
+
+<p>It needs but a few days to show up the absurdity of distrusting the
+military availability of these people. They have quite as much average
+comprehension as whites of the need of the thing, as much courage, (I
+doubt not,) as much previous knowledge of the gun, and, above all, a
+readiness of ear and of imitation, which, for purposes of drill,
+counterbalances any defect of mental training. To learn the drill, one
+does not want a set of college professors; one wants a squad of eager,
+active, pliant school-boys; and the more childlike these pupils are, the
+better.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span> There is no trouble about the drill; they will surpass whites
+in that. As to camp-life, they have little to sacrifice, they are better
+fed, housed, and clothed than ever in their lives before, and they
+appear to have fewer inconvenient vices. They are simple, docile, and
+affectionate almost to the point of absurdity. The same men who stood
+fire in open field with perfect coolness, on the late expedition, have
+come to me blubbering in the most irresistibly ludicrous manner on being
+transferred from one company in the regiment to another.</p>
+
+<p>In noticing the squad-drills, I perceive that the men learn less
+laboriously than whites that "double, double, toil and trouble," which
+is the elementary vexation of the drill-master,&mdash;that they more rarely
+mistake their left for their right,&mdash;and are more grave and sedate while
+under instruction. The extremes of jollity and sobriety, being greater
+with them, are less liable to be intermingled; these companies can be
+driven with a looser rein than my former one, for they restrain
+themselves; but the moment they are dismissed from drill, every tongue
+is relaxed and every ivory tooth visible. This morning I wandered about
+where the different companies were target-shooting, and their glee was
+contagious. Such exulting shouts of, "Ki! ole man," when some steady old
+turkey-shooter brought his gun down for an instant's aim, and then
+unerringly hit the mark; and then, when some unwary youth fired his
+piece into the ground at half-cock, such infinite guffawing and delight,
+such rolling over and over on the grass, such dances of ecstasy, as made
+the "Ethiopian minstrelsy" of the stage appear a feeble imitation.</p>
+
+<p><i>Evening.</i>&mdash;Better still was a scene on which I stumbled to-night.
+Strolling in the cool moonlight, I was attracted by a brilliant light
+beneath the trees, and cautiously approached it. A circle of thirty or
+forty soldiers sat around a roaring fire, while one old uncle, Cato by
+name, was narrating an interminable tale, to the insatiable delight of
+his audience. I came up into the dusky background, perceived only by a
+few, and he still continued. It was a narrative, dramatized to the last
+degree, of his adventures in escaping from his master to the Union
+vessels; and even I, who have heard the stories of Harriet Tubman, and
+such wonderful slave-comedians, never witnessed such a piece of acting.
+When I came upon the scene, he had just come unexpectedly upon a
+plantation-house, and, putting a bold face upon it, had walked up to the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"Den I go up to de white man, very humble, and say, would he please gib
+ole man a mouthful for eat?</p>
+
+<p>"He say, he must hab de valeration of half a dollar.</p>
+
+<p>"Den I look berry sorry, and turn for go away.</p>
+
+<p>"Den he say, I might gib him dat hatchet I had.</p>
+
+<p>"Den I say," (this in a tragic vein,) "dat I must hab dat hatchet for
+defend myself <i>from de dogs</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>[Immense applause, and one appreciating auditor says, chuckling, "Dat
+was your <i>arms</i>, ole man," which brings down the house again.]</p>
+
+<p>"Den he say, de Yankee pickets was near by, and I must be very keerful.</p>
+
+<p>"Den I say, 'Good Lord, Mas'r, am dey?'"</p>
+
+<p>Words cannot express the complete dissimulation with which these accents
+of terror were uttered,&mdash;this being precisely the piece of information
+he wished to obtain.</p>
+
+<p>Then he narrated his devices to get into the house at night and obtain
+some food,&mdash;how a dog flew at him,&mdash;how the whole household, black and
+white, rose in pursuit,&mdash;how he scrambled under a hedge and over a high
+fence, etc.,&mdash;all in a style of which Gough alone among orators can give
+the faintest impression, so thoroughly dramatized was every syllable.</p>
+
+<p>Then he described his reaching the river-side at last, and trying to
+decide whether certain vessels held friends or foes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Den I see guns on board, and sure sartin he Union boat, and I pop my
+head up. Den I been-a-tink [think] Seceshkey hab guns too, and my head
+go down again. Den I bide in de bush till morning. Den I open my bundle,
+and take ole white shirt and tie him on ole pole and wave him, and ebry
+time de wind blow, I been-a-tremble, and drap down in de
+bushes,"&mdash;because, being between two fires, he doubted whether friend or
+foe would see his signal first. And so on, with a succession of tricks
+beyond Moli&egrave;re, of acts of caution, foresight, patient cunning, which
+were listened to with infinite gusto and perfect comprehension by every
+listener.</p>
+
+<p>And all this to a bivouac of negro soldiers, with the brilliant fire
+lighting up their red trousers and gleaming from their shining black
+faces,&mdash;eyes and teeth all white with tumultuous glee. Overhead, the
+mighty limbs of a great live-oak, with the weird moss swaying in the
+smoke, and the high moon gleaming faintly through.</p>
+
+<p>Yet to-morrow strangers will remark on the hopeless, impenetrable
+stupidity in the daylight faces of many of these very men, the solid
+mask under which Nature has concealed all this wealth of mother-wit.
+This very comedian is one to whom one might point, as he hoed lazily in
+a cotton-field, as a being the light of whose brain had utterly gone
+out; and this scene seems like coming by night upon some conclave of
+black beetles, and finding them engaged, with green-room and
+foot-lights, in enacting "Poor Pillicoddy." This is their university;
+every young Sambo before me, as he turned over the sweet-potatoes and
+pea-nuts which were roasting in the ashes, listened with reverence to
+the wiles of the ancient Ulysses, and meditated the same. It is Nature's
+compensation; oppression simply crushes the upper faculties of the head,
+and crowds everything into the perceptive organs. Cato, thou reasonest
+well! When I get into any serious scrape, in an enemy's country, may I
+be lucky enough to have you at my elbow, to pull me out of it!</p>
+
+<p>The men seem to have enjoyed the novel event of Thanksgiving-Day; they
+have had company and regimental prize-shootings, a minimum of speeches
+and a maximum of dinner. Bill of fare: two beef-cattle and a thousand
+oranges. The oranges cost a cent apiece, and the cattle were Secesh,
+bestowed by General Saxby, as they all call him.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>December 1, 1862.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>How absurd is the impression bequeathed by Slavery in regard to these
+Southern blacks, that they are sluggish and inefficient in labor! Last
+night, after a hard day's work, (our guns and the remainder of our tents
+being just issued,) an order came from Beaufort that we should be ready
+in the evening to unload a steamboat's cargo of boards, being some of
+those captured by them a few weeks since, and now assigned for their
+use. I wondered if the men would grumble at the night-work; but the
+steamboat arrived by seven, and it was bright moonlight when they went
+at it. Never have I beheld such a jolly scene of labor. Tugging these
+wet and heavy boards over a bridge of boats ashore, then across the
+slimy beach at low tide, then up a steep bank, and all in one great
+uproar of merriment for two hours. Running most of the time, chattering
+all the time, snatching the boards from each other's backs as if they
+were some coveted treasure, getting up eager rivalries between different
+companies, pouring great choruses of ridicule on the heads of all
+shirkers, they made the whole scene so enlivening that I gladly stayed
+out in the moonlight for the whole time to watch it. And all this
+without any urging or any promised reward, but simply as the most
+natural way of doing the thing. The steamboat-captain declared that they
+unloaded the ten thousand feet of boards quicker than any white gang
+could have done it; and they felt it so little, that, when, later in the
+night, I reproached one whom I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span> found sitting by a camp-fire, cooking a
+surreptitious opossum, telling him that he ought to be asleep after such
+a job of work, he answered, with the broadest grin,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, Cunnel, da's no work at all, Cunnel; dat only jess enough <i>for
+stretch we</i>."</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>December 2, 1862.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>I believe I have not yet enumerated the probable drawbacks to the
+success of this regiment, if any. We are exposed to no direct annoyance
+from the white regiments, being out of their way; and we have as yet no
+discomforts or privations which we do not share with them. I do not as
+yet see the slightest obstacle, in the nature of the blacks, to making
+them good soldiers,&mdash;but rather the contrary. They take readily to
+drill, and do not object to discipline; they are not especially dull or
+inattentive; they seem fully to understand the importance of the
+contest, and of their share in it. They show no jealousy or suspicion
+towards their officers.</p>
+
+<p>They do show these feelings, however, towards the Government itself; and
+no one can wonder. Here lies the drawback to rapid recruiting. Were this
+a wholly new regiment, it would have been full to overflowing, I am
+satisfied, ere now. The trouble is in the legacy of bitter distrust
+bequeathed by the abortive regiment of General Hunter,&mdash;into which they
+were driven like cattle, kept for several months in camp, and then
+turned off without a shilling, by order of the War Department. The
+formation of that regiment was on the whole a great injury to this one;
+and the men who came from it, though the best soldiers we have in other
+respects, are the least sanguine and cheerful; while those who now
+refuse to enlist have a great influence in deterring others. Our
+soldiers are constantly twitted by their families and friends with their
+prospect of risking their lives in the service, and being paid nothing;
+and it is in vain that we read them the instructions of the Secretary of
+War to General Saxton, promising them the full pay of soldiers. They
+only half believe it.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<p>Another drawback is that some of the white soldiers delight in
+frightening the women on the plantations with doleful tales of plans for
+putting us in the front rank in all battles, and such silly talk,&mdash;the
+object being, perhaps, to prevent our being employed on active service
+at all. All these considerations they feel precisely as white men
+would,&mdash;no less, no more; and it is the comparative freedom from such
+unfavorable influences which makes the Florida men seem more bold and
+manly, as they undoubtedly do. To-day General Saxton has returned from
+Fernandina with seventy-six recruits, and the eagerness of the captains
+to secure them was a sight to see. Yet they cannot deny that some of the
+very best men in the regiment are South Carolinians.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>December 3, 1862.</i>&mdash;7 p. m.
+</p>
+
+<p>What a life is this I lead! It is a dark, mild, drizzling evening, and
+as the foggy air breeds sand-flies, so it calls out melodies and strange
+antics from this mysterious race of grown-up children with whom my lot
+is cast. All over the camp the lights glimmer in the tents, and as I sit
+at my desk in the open doorway, there come mingled sounds of stir and
+glee. Boys laugh and shout,&mdash;a feeble flute stirs somewhere in some
+tent, not an officer's,&mdash;a drum throbs far away in another,&mdash;wild
+kildeer-plover flit and wail above us, like the haunting souls of dead
+slavemasters,&mdash;and from a neighboring cook-fire comes the monotonous
+sound of that strange festival, half powwow, half prayer-meeting, which
+they know only as a "shout." These fires are usually inclosed in a
+little booth, made neatly of palm-leaves and covered in at top, a
+regular native African hut,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span> in short, such as is pictured in books, and
+such as I once got up from dried palm-leaves, for a fair, at home. This
+hut is now crammed with men, singing at the top of their voices, in one
+of their quaint, monotonous, endless, negro-Methodist chants, with
+obscure syllables recurring constantly, and slight variations
+interwoven, all accompanied with a regular drumming of the feet and
+clapping of the hands, like castanets. Then the excitement spreads:
+inside and outside the inclosure men begin to quiver and dance, others
+join, a circle forms, winding monotonously round some one in the centre;
+some "heel and toe" tumultuously, others merely tremble and stagger on,
+others stoop and rise, others whirl, others caper sideways, all keep
+steadily circling like dervishes; spectators applaud special strokes of
+skill; my approach only enlivens the scene; the circle enlarges, louder
+grows the singing, rousing shouts of encouragement come in, half
+bacchanalian, half devout, "Wake 'em, brudder!" "Stan' up to 'em,
+brudder!"&mdash;and still the ceaseless drumming and clapping, in perfect
+cadence, goes steadily on. Suddenly there comes a sort of <i>snap</i>, and
+the spell breaks, amid general sighing and laughter. And this not rarely
+and occasionally, but night after night,&mdash;while in other parts of the
+camp the soberest prayers and exhortations are proceeding sedately.</p>
+
+<p>A simple and lovable people, whose graces seem to come by nature, and
+whose vices by training. Some of the best superintendents confirm the
+early tales of innocence, and Dr. Zachos told me last night that on his
+plantation, a sequestered one, "they had absolutely no vices." Nor have
+these men of mine yet shown any worth mentioning; since I took command I
+have heard of no man intoxicated, and there has been but one small
+quarrel. I suppose that scarcely a white regiment in the army shows so
+little swearing. Take the "Progressive Friends" and put them in red
+trousers, and I verily believe they would fill a guard-house sooner than
+these men. If camp-regulations are violated, it seems to be usually
+through heedlessness. They love passionately three things, besides their
+spiritual incantations,&mdash;namely, sugar, home, and tobacco. This last
+affection brings tears to their eyes, almost, when they speak of their
+urgent need of pay: they speak of their last-remembered quid as if it
+were some deceased relative, too early lost, and to be mourned forever.
+As for sugar, no white man can drink coffee after they have sweetened it
+to their liking.</p>
+
+<p>I see that the pride which military life creates may cause the
+plantation-trickeries to diminish. For instance, these men make the most
+admirable sentinels. It is far harder to pass the camp-lines at night
+than in the camp from which I came; and I have seen none of that
+disposition to connive at the offences of members of one's own company
+which is so troublesome among white soldiers. Nor are they lazy, either
+about work or drill; in all respects they seem better material for
+soldiers than I had dared to hope.</p>
+
+<p>There is one company in particular, all Florida men, which I certainly
+think the finest-looking company I ever saw, white or black; they range
+admirably in size, have remarkable erectness and ease of carriage, and
+really march splendidly. Not a visitor but notices them; yet they have
+been under drill only a fortnight, and a part only two days. They have
+all been slaves, and very few are even mulattoes.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>December 4, 1862.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>"Dwelling in tents, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." This condition is
+certainly mine,&mdash;and with a multitude of patriarchs beside, not to
+mention C&aelig;sar and Pompey, Hercules and Bacchus.</p>
+
+<p>A moving life, tented at night, this experience has been mine in civil
+society, if society be civil before the luxurious forest-fires of Maine
+and the Adirondack, or upon the lonely prairies of Kansas. But a
+stationary tent-life, deliberately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span> going to housekeeping under canvas,
+I have never had before, though in our barrack-life at "Camp Wool" I
+often wished for it.</p>
+
+<p>The accommodations here are about as liberal as my quarters there, two
+wall-tents being placed end to end, for office and bed-room, and
+separated at will by a "fly" of canvas. There is a good board floor and
+mop-board, effectually excluding dampness and draughts, and everything
+but sand, which on windy days penetrates everywhere. The
+office-furniture consists of a good desk or secretary, a very clumsy and
+disastrous settee, and a remarkable chair. The desk is a bequest of the
+slaveholders, and the settee of the slaves, being ecclesiastical in its
+origin, and appertaining to the little old church or "praise-house," now
+used for commissary purposes. The chair is a composite structure: I
+found a cane seat on a dust-heap, which a black sergeant combined with
+two legs from a broken bedstead and two more from an oak-bough. I sit on
+it with a pride of conscious invention, mitigated by profound
+insecurity. Bedroom-furniture, a couch made of gun-boxes covered with
+condemned blankets, another settee, two pails, a tin cup, tin basin, (we
+prize any tin or wooden ware as savages prize iron,) and a valise,
+regulation-size. Seriously considered, nothing more appears needful,
+unless ambition might crave another chair for company, and, perhaps,
+something for a wash-stand higher than a settee.</p>
+
+<p>To-day it rains hard, and the wind quivers through the closed canvas,
+and makes one feel at sea. All the talk of the camp outside is fused
+into a cheerful and indistinguishable murmur, pierced through at every
+moment by the wail of the hovering plover. Sometimes a face, black or
+white, peers through the entrance with some message. Since the light
+readily penetrates, though the rain cannot, the tent conveys a feeling
+of charmed security, as if an invisible boundary checked the pattering
+drops and held the moaning wind. The front tent I share, as yet, with my
+adjutant; in the inner apartment I reign supreme, bounded in a nutshell,
+with no bad dreams.</p>
+
+<p>In all pleasant weather the outer "fly" is open, and men pass and
+repass, a chattering throng. I think of Emerson's Saadi, "As thou
+sittest at thy door, on the desert's yellow floor,"&mdash;for these bare
+sand-plains, gray above, are always yellow when upturned, and there
+seems a tinge of Orientalism in all our life.</p>
+
+<p>Thrice a day we go to the plantation-houses for our meals,
+camp-arrangements being yet very imperfect. The officers board in
+different messes, the adjutant and I still clinging to the household of
+William Washington,&mdash;William the quiet and the courteous, the pattern of
+house-servants, William the noiseless, the observing, the
+discriminating, who knows everything that can be got and how to cook it.
+William and his tidy, lady-like little spouse Hetty&mdash;a pair of wedded
+lovers, if ever I saw one&mdash;set our table in their one room, half-way
+between an unglazed window and a large wood-fire, such as is often
+welcome. Thanks to the adjutant, we are provided with the social
+magnificence of napkins; while (lest pride take too high a flight) our
+table-cloth consists of two "New York Tribunes" and a "Leslie's
+Pictorial." Every steamer brings us a clean table-cloth. Here are we
+forever supplied with pork and oysters and sweet-potatoes and rice and
+hominy and corn-bread and milk; also mysterious griddle-cakes of corn
+and pumpkin; also preserves made of pumpkin-chips, and other fanciful
+productions of Ethiop art. Mr. E. promised the
+plantation-superintendents who should come down here "all the luxuries
+of home," and we certainly have much apparent, if little real variety.
+Once William produced with some palpitation something fricasseed, which
+he boldly termed chicken; it was very small, and seemed in some
+undeveloped condition of ante-natal toughness. After the meal, he
+frankly avowed it for squirrel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>December 5, 1862.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>Give these people their tongues, their feet, and their leisure, and they
+are happy. At every twilight the air is full of singing, talking, and
+clapping of hands in unison. One of their favorite songs is full of
+plaintive cadences; it is not, I think, a Methodist tune, and I wonder
+where they obtained a chant of such beauty.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I can't stay behind, my Lord, I can't stay behind!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, my father is gone, my father is gone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My father is gone into heaven, my Lord!<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">I can't stay behind!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dere's room enough, room enough,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Room enough in de heaven for de sojer:<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Can't stay behind!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It always excites them to have us looking on, yet they sing these songs
+at all times and seasons. I have heard this very song dimly droning on
+near midnight, and, tracing it into the recesses of a cook-house, have
+found an old fellow coiled away among the pots and provisions, chanting
+away with his "Can't stay behind, sinner," till I made him leave his
+song behind.</p>
+
+<p>This evening, after working themselves up to the highest pitch, a party
+suddenly rushed off, got a barrel, and mounted some man upon it, who
+said, "Gib anoder song, boys, and I'se gib you a speech." After some
+hesitation and sundry shouts of "Rise de sing, somebody," and "Stan' up
+for Jesus, brudder," irreverently put in by the juveniles, they got upon
+the John Brown song, always a favorite, adding a jubilant verse which I
+had never before heard,&mdash;"We'll beat Beauregard on de clare
+battle-field." Then came the promised speech, and then no less than
+seven other speeches by as many men, on a variety of barrels, each
+orator being affectionately tugged to the pedestal and set on end by his
+special constituency. Every speech was good, without exception; with the
+queerest oddities of phrase and pronunciation, there was an invariable
+enthusiasm, a pungency of statement, and an understanding of the points
+at issue, which made them all rather thrilling. Those long-winded slaves
+in "Among the Pines" seemed rather fictitious and literary in
+comparison. The most eloquent, perhaps, was Corporal Prince Lambkin,
+just arrived from Fernandina, who evidently had a previous reputation
+among them. His historical references were very interesting: he reminded
+them that he had predicted this war ever since Fremont's time, to which
+some of the crowd assented; he gave a very intelligent account of that
+Presidential campaign, and then described most impressively the secret
+anxiety of the slaves in Florida to know all about President Lincoln's
+election, and told how they all refused to work on the fourth of March,
+expecting their freedom to date from that day. He finally brought out
+one of the few really impressive appeals for the American flag that I
+have ever heard. "Our mas'rs dey hab lib under de flag, dey got dere
+wealth under it, and ebryting beautiful for dere chilen. Under it dey
+hab grind us up, and put us in dere pocket for money. But de fus' minute
+dey tink dat ole nag mean freedom for we colored people, dey pull it
+right down, and run up de rag ob dere own." (Immense applause.) "But
+we'll neber desert de ole flag, boys, neber; we hab lib under it for
+<i>eighteen hundred sixty-two years</i>, and we'll die for it now." With
+which overpowering discharge of chronology-at-long-range, this most
+effective of stump-speeches closed. I see already with relief that there
+will be small demand in this regiment for harangues from the officers;
+give the men an empty barrel for a stump, and they will do their own
+exhortation.</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> With what utter humiliation were we, their officers,
+obliged to confess to them, eighteen months afterwards, that it was
+their distrust which was wise, and our faith in the pledges of the
+United States Government which was foolishness!</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="RICHES" id="RICHES"></a>RICHES.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Pluck color from the morning sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And wear it as thy diadem;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor pass the wayside flowers by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">But star thy robes with them.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Far in the temple of the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The vestal fires of being burn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thence beauty's finest fibres run,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And weave where'er we turn.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thy plumes are in the yellow corn,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But chief the gold of priceless days<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In bosom of thy friend is borne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Coined in his kindly rays.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Here lies thy wealth, go gather it,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The mine is near, its deeps explore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And freely give love, metal, wit,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thine is the exhaustless ore:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thine are the precious stones whereon<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The weary pass grief's flooded ford,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thine the jewelled pavement won<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">By those who love the Lord.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_VENGEANCE_OF_DOMINIC_DE_GOURGUES" id="THE_VENGEANCE_OF_DOMINIC_DE_GOURGUES"></a>THE VENGEANCE OF DOMINIC DE GOURGUES.</h2>
+
+
+<p>There was a gentleman of Mont-de-Marsan, Dominic de Gourgues, a soldier
+of ancient birth and high renown. That he was a Huguenot is not certain.
+The Spanish annalist calls him a "terrible heretic"; but the French
+Jesuit, Charlevoix, anxious that the faithful should share the glory of
+his exploits, affirms, that, like his ancestors before him, he was a
+good Catholic. If so, his faith sat lightly upon him; and Catholic or
+heretic, he hated the Spaniards with a mortal hate. Fighting in the
+Italian wars,&mdash;for, from boyhood, he was wedded to the sword,&mdash;they had
+taken him prisoner near Siena, where he had signalized himself by a
+fiery and determined bravery. With brutal insult, they chained him to
+the oar as a galley-slave. After long endurance of this ignominy, the
+Turks had captured the vessel and carried her to Constantinople. It was
+but a change of tyrants; but, soon after, putting out on a cruise,
+Gourgues still at the oar, a galley of the Maltese knights hove in
+sight, bore down on the prize, recaptured her, and set the prisoner
+free. For several years after, his restless spirit found escape in
+voyages to Africa, Brazil, and regions yet more remote. His naval repute
+rose high, but his grudge against the Spaniards still rankled within
+him; and when, returned from his rovings, he learned the tidings from
+Florida,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span> his hot Gascon blood boiled with fury.</p>
+
+<p>The honor of France had been foully stained, and there was none to wipe
+away the shame. The faction-ridden King was dumb. The nobles who
+surrounded him were in the Spanish interest. Then, since they proved
+recreant, he, Dominic de Gourgues, a simple gentleman, would take upon
+him to avenge the wrong, and restore the dimmed lustre of the French
+name. He sold his inheritance, borrowed money from his brother, who held
+a high post in Guienne, and equipped three small vessels, navigable by
+sail or oar. On board he placed a hundred arquebusiers and eighty
+sailors, prepared to fight on land, if need were. The noted Blaise de
+Montluc, then lieutenant for the King in Guienne, gave him a commission
+to make war on the negroes of Benin, that is, to kidnap them as slaves,
+an adventure then held honorable.</p>
+
+<p>His true design was locked within his own breast. He mustered his
+followers, feasted them,&mdash;not a few were of rank equal to his own,&mdash;and,
+on the twenty-second of August, 1567, sailed from the mouth of the
+Charente. Off Cape Finisterre, so violent a storm buffeted his ships
+that his men clamored to return; but Gourgues's spirit prevailed. He
+bore away for Barbary, and, landing at the Rio del Oro, refreshed and
+cheered them as he best might. Thence he sailed to Cape Blanco, where
+the jealous Portuguese, who had a fort in the neighborhood, set upon him
+three negro chiefs. Gourgues beat them off, and remained master of the
+harbor; whence, however, he soon voyaged onward to Cape Verd, and,
+steering westward, made for the West Indies. Here, advancing from island
+to island, he came to Hispaniola, where, between the fury of a hurricane
+at sea and the jealousy of the Spaniards on shore, he was in no small
+jeopardy,&mdash;"the Spaniards," exclaims the indignant journalist, "who
+think that this New World was made for nobody but them, and that no
+other man living has a right to move or breathe here!" Gourgues landed,
+however, obtained the water of which he was in need, and steered for
+Cape San Antonio, in Cuba. There he gathered his followers about him,
+and addressed them with his fiery Gascon eloquence. For the first time,
+he told them his true purpose. He inveighed against Spanish cruelty. He
+painted, with angry rhetoric, the butcheries of Fort Caroline and St.
+Augustine.</p>
+
+<p>"What disgrace," he cried, "if such an insult should pass unpunished!
+What glory to us, if we revenge it! To this I have devoted my fortune. I
+relied on you. I thought you jealous enough of your country's glory to
+sacrifice life itself in a cause like this. Was I deceived? I will show
+you the way; I will be always at your head; I will bear the brunt of
+danger. Will you refuse to follow me?"</p>
+
+<p>At first his startled hearers listened in silence; but soon the passions
+of that adventurous age rose responsive to his words. The sparks fell
+among gunpowder. The combustible French nature burst into flame. The
+enthusiasm of the soldiers rose to such a pitch that Gourgues had much
+ado to make them wait till the moon was full before tempting the perils
+of the Bahama Channel. His time came at length. The moon rode high above
+the lonely sea, and, silvered in its light, the ships of the avenger
+held their course.</p>
+
+<p>But how, meanwhile, had it fared with the Spaniards in Florida? The
+good-will of the Indians had vanished. The French had been obtrusive and
+vexatious guests; but their worst trespasses had been mercy and
+tenderness, to the daily outrage of the new-comers. Friendship had
+changed to aversion, aversion to hatred, hatred to open war. The
+forest-paths were beset; stragglers were cut off; and woe to the
+Spaniard who should venture after nightfall beyond call of the outposts!
+Menendez, however, had strengthened himself in his new conquest. St.
+Augustine was well fortified; Fort Caroline, now Fort San<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> Mateo, was
+repaired; and two redoubts were thrown up to guard the mouth of the
+River of May. Thence, on an afternoon in April, the Spaniards saw three
+sail steering northward. Unsuspicious of an enemy, their batteries
+boomed a salute. Gourgues's ships replied, then stood out to sea, and
+were lost in the shades of evening.</p>
+
+<p>They kept their course all night, and, as day broke, anchored at the
+mouth of a river, the St. Mary's or the Santilla, by their reckoning
+fifteen leagues north of the River of May. Here, as it grew light,
+Gourgues saw the borders of the sea thronged with savages, armed and
+plumed for war. They, too, had mistaken the strangers for Spaniards, and
+mustered to meet their tyrants at the landing. But in the French ships
+there was a trumpeter who had been long in Florida, and knew the Indians
+well. He went towards them in a boat, with many gestures of friendship;
+and no sooner was he recognized than the naked crowd, with yelps of
+delight, danced for joy about the sands. Why had he ever left them? they
+asked; and why had he not returned before? The intercourse thus
+auspiciously begun was actively kept up. Gourgues told the principal
+chief&mdash;who was no other than Satouriona, of old the ally of the
+French&mdash;that he had come to visit them, make friendship with them, and
+bring them presents. At this last announcement, so grateful to Indian
+ears, the dancing was renewed with double zeal. The next morning was
+named for a grand council. Satouriona sent runners to summon all Indians
+within call; while Gourgues, for safety, brought his vessels within the
+mouth of the river.</p>
+
+<p>Morning came, and the woods were thronged with congregated warriors.
+Gourgues and his soldiers landed with martial pomp. In token of mutual
+confidence, the French laid aside their arquebuses, the Indians their
+bows and arrows. Satouriona came to meet the strangers, and seated their
+commander at his side, on a wooden stool, draped and cushioned with the
+gray Spanish moss. Two old Indians cleared the spot of brambles, weeds,
+and grass; and, their task finished, the tribesmen took their places in
+a ring, row within row, standing, sitting, and crouching on the ground,
+a dusky concourse, plumed in festal array, waiting with grave visages
+and eyes intent. Gourgues was about to speak, when the chief, who, says
+the narrator, had not learned French manners, rose and anticipated him.
+He broke into a vehement harangue; and the cruelty of the Spaniards was
+the burden of his words.</p>
+
+<p>Since the French fort was taken, he said, the Indians had not had one
+happy day. The Spaniards drove them from their cabins, stole their corn,
+ravished their wives and daughters, and killed their children; and all
+this they had endured because they loved the French. There was a French
+boy who had escaped from the massacre at the fort. They had found him in
+the woods, and though the Spaniards, who wished to kill him, demanded
+that they should give him up, they had kept him for his friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" pursued the chief, "here he is!"&mdash;and he brought forward a youth
+of sixteen, named Pierre Debr&eacute;, who became at once of the greatest
+service to the French, his knowledge of the Indian language making him
+an excellent interpreter.</p>
+
+<p>Delighted as he was at this outburst against the Spaniards, Gourgues by
+no means saw fit to display the full extent of his satisfaction. He
+thanked the Indians for their good-will, exhorted them to continue in
+it, and pronounced an ill-merited eulogy on the greatness and goodness
+of his King. As for the Spaniards, he said, their day of reckoning was
+at hand; and if the Indians had been abused for their love of the
+French, the French would be their avengers. Here Satouriona forgot his
+dignity, and leaped up for joy.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" he cried, "will you fight the Spaniards?"</p>
+
+<p>"I came here," replied Gourgues, "only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span> to reconnoitre the country and
+make friends with you, then to go back and bring more soldiers; but when
+I hear what you are suffering from them, I wish to fall upon them this
+very day, and rescue you from their tyranny." And, all around the ring,
+a clamor of applauding voices greeted his words.</p>
+
+<p>"But you will do your part," pursued the Frenchman; "you will not leave
+us all the honor."</p>
+
+<p>"We will go," replied Satouriona, "and die with you, if need be."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, if we fight, we ought to fight at once. How soon can you have
+your warriors ready to march?"</p>
+
+<p>The chief asked three days for preparation. Gourgues cautioned him to
+secrecy, lest the Spaniards should take alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"Never fear," was the answer; "we hate them more than you do."</p>
+
+<p>Then came a distribution of gifts,&mdash;knives, hatchets, mirrors, bells,
+and beads,&mdash;while the warrior-rabble crowded to receive them, with eager
+faces, and tawny arms outstretched. The distribution over, Gourgues
+asked the chiefs if there was any other matter in which he could serve
+them. On this, pointing at his shirt, they expressed a peculiar
+admiration for that garment, and begged each to have one, to be worn at
+feasts and councils during life, and in their graves after death.
+Gourgues complied; and his grateful confederates were soon stalking
+about him, fluttering in the spoils of his ravished wardrobe.</p>
+
+<p>To learn the strength and position of the Spaniards, Gourgues now sent
+out three scouts; and with them went Olotoraca, Satouriona's nephew, a
+young brave of great renown.</p>
+
+<p>The chief, eager to prove his good faith, gave as hostages his only son
+and his favorite wife. They were sent on board the ships, while the
+savage concourse dispersed to their encampments, with leaping, stamping,
+dancing, and whoops of jubilation.</p>
+
+<p>The day appointed came, and with it the savage army, hideous in
+war-paint and plumed for battle. Their ceremonies began. The woods rang
+back their songs and yells, as with frantic gesticulations they
+brandished their war-clubs and vaunted their deeds of prowess. Then they
+drank the black drink, endowed with mystic virtues to steel them against
+hardship and danger; and Gourgues himself pretended to swallow the
+nauseous decoction.</p>
+
+<p>These ceremonies consumed the day. It was evening before the allies
+filed off into their forests, and took the path for the Spanish forts.
+The French, on their part, were to repair by sea to the rendezvous.
+Gourgues mustered and addressed his men. It was needless: their ardor
+was at fever-height. They broke in upon his words, and demanded to be
+led at once against the enemy. Francis Bourdelois, with twenty sailors,
+was left with the ships. Gourgues affectionately bade him farewell.</p>
+
+<p>"If I am slain in this most just enterprise," he said, "I leave all in
+your charge, and pray you to carry back my soldiers to France."</p>
+
+<p>There were many embracings among the excited Frenchmen,&mdash;many
+sympathetic tears from those who were to stay behind,&mdash;many messages
+left with them for wives, children, friends, and mistresses; and then
+this valiant handful pushed their boats from shore. It was a
+hare-brained venture, for, as young Debr&eacute; had assured them, the
+Spaniards on the River of May were four hundred in number, secure behind
+their ramparts.</p>
+
+<p>Hour after hour the sailors pulled at the oar. They glided slowly past
+the sombre shores by the shimmering moonlight, the sound of the
+murmuring surf and the moaning pine-trees. In the gray of the morning,
+they came to the mouth of a river, probably the Nassau; and here a
+northeast wind set in with a violence that almost wrecked their boats.
+Their Indian allies were waiting on the bank, but for a while the gale
+delayed their crossing. The bolder French would lose no time, rowed
+through the tossing waves, and, landing safely, left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span> their boats, and
+pushed into the forest. Gourgues took the lead, in breastplate and
+back-piece. At his side marched the young chief Olotoraca, a French pike
+in his hand; and the files of arquebuse-men and armed sailors followed
+close behind. They plunged through swamps, hewed their way through
+brambly thickets and the matted intricacies of the forests, and, at five
+in the afternoon, wellnigh spent with fatigue and hunger, came to a
+river or inlet of the sea, not far from the first Spanish fort. Here
+they found three hundred Indians waiting for them.</p>
+
+<p>Tired as he was, Gourgues would not rest. He would fain attack at
+daybreak, and with ten arquebusiers and his Indian guide he set forth to
+reconnoitre. Night closed upon him. It was a vain task to struggle on,
+in pitchy darkness, among trunks of trees, fallen logs, tangled vines,
+and swollen streams. Gourgues returned, anxious and gloomy. An Indian
+chief approached him, read through the darkness his perturbed look, and
+offered to lead him by a better path along the margin of the sea.
+Gourgues joyfully assented, and ordered all his men to march. The
+Indians, better skilled in woodcraft, chose the shorter course through
+the forest.</p>
+
+<p>The French forgot their weariness, and pressed on at speed. At dawn they
+and their allies met on the bank of a stream, beyond which, and very
+near, was the fort. But the tide was in. They essayed to cross in vain.
+Greatly vexed,&mdash;for he had hoped to take the enemy asleep,&mdash;Gourgues
+withdrew his soldiers into the forest, where they were no sooner
+ensconced than a drenching rain fell, and they had much ado to keep
+their gun-matches burning. The light grew apace. Gourgues plainly saw
+the fort, whose defences seemed slight and unfinished. He even saw the
+Spaniards at work within. A feverish interval elapsed. At length the
+tide was out,&mdash;so far, at least, that the stream was fordable. A little
+higher up, a clump of woods lay between it and the fort. Behind this
+friendly screen the passage was begun. Each man tied his powder-flask to
+his steel cap, held his arquebuse above his head with one hand and
+grasped his sword with the other. The channel was a bed of oysters. The
+sharp shells cut their feet as they waded through. But the farther bank
+was gained. They emerged from the water, drenched, lacerated, bleeding,
+but with unabated mettle. Under cover of the trees Gourgues set them in
+array. They stood with kindling eyes, and hearts throbbing, but not with
+fear. Gourgues pointed to the Spanish fort, seen by glimpses between the
+bushes and brown trunks. "Look!" he said, "there are the robbers who
+have stolen this land from our King; there are the murderers who have
+butchered our countrymen!" With voices eager, fierce, but half
+suppressed, they demanded to be led on.</p>
+
+<p>Gourgues gave the word. Cazenove, his lieutenant, with thirty men,
+pushed for the fort-gate; himself, with the main body, for the glacis.
+It was near noon; the Spaniards had just risen from table, and, says the
+narrative, "were still picking their teeth," when a startled cry rang in
+their ears,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To arms! to arms! The French are coming! the French are coming!"</p>
+
+<p>It was the voice of a cannoneer who had that moment mounted the rampart
+and seen the assailants advancing in unbroken ranks, with heads lowered
+and weapons at the charge. He fired his cannon among them. He even had
+time to load and fire again, when the light-limbed Olotoraca bounded
+forward, ran up the glacis, leaped the unfinished ditch, and drove his
+pike through the Spaniard from breast to back. Gourgues was now on the
+glacis, when he heard Cazenove shouting from the gate that the Spaniards
+were escaping on that side. He turned and led his men thither at a run.
+In a moment, the fugitives, sixty in all, were inclosed between his
+party and that of his lieutenant. The Indians, too, came leaping to the
+spot. Not a Spaniard escaped. All were cut down but a few, reserved by
+Gourgues for a more inglorious end.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the Spaniards in the other fort, on the opposite shore,
+cannonaded the victors without ceasing. The latter turned four captured
+guns against them. One of Gourgues's boats, a very large one, had been
+brought along-shore. He entered it, with eighty soldiers, and pushed for
+the farther bank. With loud yells, the Indians leaped into the water.
+From shore to shore, the St. John's was alive with them. Each held his
+bow and arrows aloft in one hand, while he swam with the other. A panic
+seized the garrison as they saw the savage multitude. They broke out of
+the fort and fled into the forest. But the French had already landed;
+and throwing themselves in the path of the fugitives, they greeted them
+with a storm of lead. The terrified wretches recoiled; but flight was
+vain. The Indian whoop rang behind them; war-clubs and arrows finished
+the work. Gourgues's utmost efforts saved but fifteen,&mdash;saved them, not
+out of mercy, but from a refinement of vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>The next day was Quasimodo Sunday, or the Sunday after Easter. Gourgues
+and his men remained quiet, making ladders for the assault on Fort San
+Mateo. Meanwhile the whole forest was in arms, and, far and near, the
+Indians were wild with excitement. They beset the Spanish fort till not
+a soldier could venture out. The garrison, conscious of their danger,
+though ignorant of its extent, devised an expedient to gain information,
+and one of them, painted and feathered like an Indian, ventured within
+Gourgues's outposts. He himself chanced to be at hand, and by his side
+walked his constant attendant, Olotoraca. The keen-eyed young savage
+pierced the cheat at a glance. The spy was seized, and, being examined,
+declared that there were two hundred and sixty Spaniards in San Mateo,
+that they believed the French to be two thousand, and were so frightened
+that they did not know what they did.</p>
+
+<p>Gourgues, well pleased, pushed on to attack them. On Monday evening he
+sent forward the Indians to ambush themselves on both sides of the fort.
+In the morning he followed with his Frenchmen; and as the glittering
+ranks came into view, defiling between the forest and the river, the
+Spaniards opened on them with culverins from a projecting bastion. The
+French took cover in the forest with which the hills below and behind
+the fort were densely overgrown. Here, ensconced in the edge of the
+woods, where, himself unseen, he could survey the whole extent of the
+defences, Gourgues presently descried a strong party of Spaniards
+issuing from their works, crossing the ditch, and advancing to
+reconnoitre. On this, returning to his men, he sent Cazenove, with a
+detachment, to station himself at a point well hidden by trees on the
+flank of the Spaniards. The latter, with strange infatuation, continued
+their advance. Gourgues and his followers pushed on through the thickets
+to meet them. As the Spaniards reached the edge of the clearing, a
+deadly fire blazed in their faces, and before the smoke cleared, the
+French were among them, sword in hand. The survivors would have fled;
+but Cazenove's detachment fell upon their rear, and all were killed or
+taken.</p>
+
+<p>When their comrades in the fort beheld their fate, a panic seized them.
+Conscious of their own deeds, perpetrated on this very spot, they could
+hope no mercy. Their terror multiplied immeasurably the numbers of their
+enemy. They deserted the fort in a body, and fled into the woods most
+remote from the French. But here a deadlier foe awaited them; for a host
+of Indians leaped up from ambush. Then rose those hideous war-cries
+which have curdled the boldest blood and blanched the manliest cheek.
+Then the forest-warriors, with savage ecstasy, wreaked their long
+arrears of vengeance. The French, too, hastened to the spot, and lent
+their swords to the slaughter. A few prisoners were saved alive; the
+rest were slain; and thus did the Spaniards make bloody atonement for
+the butchery of Fort Caroline.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Gourgues's vengeance was not yet appeased. Hard by the fort, the
+trees were pointed out to him on which Menendez had hanged his captives,
+and placed over them the inscription,&mdash;"Not as Frenchmen, but as
+Lutherans."</p>
+
+<p>Gourgues ordered the Spanish prisoners to be led thither.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you think," he sternly said, as the pallid wretches stood ranged
+before him, "that so vile a treachery, so detestable a cruelty, against
+a King so potent and a nation so generous, would go unpunished? I, one
+of the humblest gentlemen among my King's subjects, have charged myself
+with avenging it. Even if the Most Christian and the Most Catholic Kings
+had been enemies, at deadly war, such perfidy and extreme cruelty would
+still have been unpardonable. Now that they are friends and close
+allies, there is no name vile enough to brand your deeds, no punishment
+sharp enough to requite them. But though you cannot suffer as you
+deserve, you shall suffer all that an enemy can honorably inflict, that
+your example may teach others to observe the peace and alliance which
+you have so perfidiously violated."</p>
+
+<p>They were hanged where the French had hung before them; and over them
+was nailed the inscription, burned with a hot iron on a tablet of
+pine,&mdash;"Not as Spaniards, but as Traitors, Robbers, and Murderers."</p>
+
+<p>Gourgues's mission was fulfilled. To occupy the country had never been
+his intention; nor was it possible, for the Spaniards were still in
+force at St. Augustine. His was a whirlwind-visitation,&mdash;to ravage,
+ruin, and vanish. He harangued the Indians, and exhorted them to
+demolish the fort. They fell to the work with a keen alacrity, and in
+less than a day not one stone was left on another.</p>
+
+<p>Gourgues returned to the forts at the mouth of the river, destroyed them
+also, and took up his march for his ships. It was a triumphal
+procession. The Indians thronged around the victors with gifts of fish
+and game; and an old woman declared that she was now ready to die, since
+she had seen the French once more.</p>
+
+<p>The ships were ready for sea. Gourgues bade his disconsolate allies
+farewell, and nothing would content them but a promise to return soon.
+Before embarking, he addressed his own men:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My friends, let us give thanks to God for the success He has granted
+us. It is He who saved us from tempests; it is He who inclined the
+hearts of the Indians towards us; it is He who blinded the understanding
+of the Spaniards. They were four to one in forts well armed and
+provisioned. We had nothing but our right; and yet we have conquered.
+Not to our own strength, but to God only, we owe our victory. Then let
+us thank Him, my friends; let us never forget His favors; and let us
+pray that He may continue them, saving us from dangers, and guiding us
+safely home. Let us pray, too, that He may so dispose the hearts of men
+that our perils and toils may find favor in the eyes of our King and of
+all France, since all we have done was done for the King's service and
+for the honor of our country."</p>
+
+<p>Thus Spaniards and Frenchmen alike laid their reeking swords on God's
+altar.</p>
+
+<p>Gourgues sailed on the third of May, and, gazing back along their
+foaming wake, the adventurers looked their last on the scene of their
+exploits. Their success had had its price. A few of their number had
+fallen, and hardships still awaited the survivors. Gourgues, however,
+reached Rochelle on the day of Pentecost, and the Huguenot citizens
+greeted him with all honor. At court it fared worse with him. The King,
+still obsequious to Spain, looked on him coldly and askance. The Spanish
+minister demanded his head. It was hinted to him that he was not safe,
+and he withdrew to Rouen, where he found asylum among his friends. His
+fortune was gone; debts contracted for his expedition weighed heavily on
+him; and for years he lived in obscurity, almost in misery. At length a
+dawn brightened for him. Elizabeth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span> of England learned his merits and
+his misfortunes, and invited him to enter her service. The King, who,
+says the Jesuit historian, had always at heart been delighted with his
+achievement, openly restored him to favor; while, some years later, Don
+Antonio tendered him command of his fleet to defend his right to the
+crown of Portugal against Philip II. Gourgues, happy once more to cross
+swords with the Spaniards, gladly embraced this offer; but, on his way
+to join the Portuguese prince, he died at Tours of a sudden illness. The
+French mourned the loss of the man who had wiped a blot from the
+national scutcheon, and respected his memory as that of one of the best
+captains of his time. And, in truth, if a zealous patriotism, a fiery
+valor, and skilful leadership are worthy of honor, then is such tribute
+due to Dominic de Gourgues, despite the shadowing vices which even the
+spirit of that wild age can only palliate, the personal hate that aided
+the impulse of his patriotism, and the implacable cruelty that sullied
+his courage.</p>
+
+<p>Romantic as his exploit was, it lacked the fulness of poetic justice,
+since the chief offender escaped him. While Gourgues was sailing towards
+Florida, Menendez was in Spain, high in favor at court, where he told to
+approving ears how he had butchered the heretics. Borgia, the sainted
+General of the Jesuits, was his fast friend; and two years later, when
+he returned to America, the Pope, Paul V., regarding him as an
+instrument for the conversion of the Indians, wrote him a letter with
+his benediction. He re&euml;stablished his power in Florida, rebuilt Fort San
+Mateo, and taught the Indians that death or flight was the only refuge
+from Spanish tyranny. They murdered his missionaries and spurned their
+doctrine. "The Devil is the best thing in the world," they cried; "we
+adore him; he makes men brave." Even the Jesuits despaired, and
+abandoned Florida in disgust.</p>
+
+<p>Menendez was summoned home, where fresh honors awaited him from the
+crown, though, according to the somewhat doubtful assertion of the
+heretical Grotius, his deeds had left a stain upon his name among the
+people. He was given command of the armada of three hundred sail and
+twenty thousand men, which, in 1574, was gathered at Santander against
+England and Flanders. But now, at the climax of his fortunes, his career
+was abruptly closed. He died suddenly, at the age of fifty-five. What
+caused his death? Grotius affirms that he killed himself; but, in his
+eagerness to point the moral of his story, he seems to have overstepped
+the bounds of historic truth. The Spanish bigot was rarely a suicide,
+for the rights of Christian burial and repose in consecrated ground were
+denied to the remains of the self-murderer. There is positive evidence,
+too, in a codicil to the will of Menendez, dated at Santander on the
+fifteenth of September, 1574, that he was on that day seriously ill,
+though, as the instrument declares, "sound of mind." There is reason,
+then, to believe that this pious cut-throat died a natural death,
+crowned with honors, and compassed by the consolations of his religion.</p>
+
+<p>It was he who crushed French Protestantism in America. To plant
+religious freedom on this Western soil was not the mission of France. It
+was for her to rear in Northern forests the banner of Absolutism and of
+Rome; while, among the rocks of Massachusetts, England and Calvin
+fronted her in dogged and deadly opposition.</p>
+
+<p>Civilization in North America found its pioneer, its forlorn hope, less
+in England than in France. For, long before the ice-crusted pines of
+Plymouth had listened to the rugged psalmody of the Puritan, the
+solitudes of Western New York and the shadowy wilderness of Lake Huron
+were trodden by the iron heel of the soldier and the sandalled foot of
+the Franciscan friar. They who bore the fleur-de-lis were always in the
+van, patient, daring, indomitable. And foremost on this bright roll of
+forest-chivalry stands the half-forgotten name of Samuel de Champlain.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="LINA" id="LINA"></a>LINA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The evenings were always dull and long to those of us who were too far
+from home to make it worth while to leave the school for the eight weeks
+of holiday. It was dreary indeed sitting in the great school-room, with
+its long rows of empty desks, with nothing before one to break the
+monotony of the four walls but the great map of France and the big dusty
+cross with its dingy wreath of <i>immortelles</i>. It is true, we did not
+bewail the absence of our companions. In fact, it was with a tranquil
+sense of security that I began my work every morning in vacation,
+knowing that I should find all my books in my desk, and my pens and
+pencils undisturbed; for among the <i>pensionnaires</i> there existed a
+strong tendency to communistic principles. Still, when all the noisy
+crew had departed, the house seemed lonely, the dining-room with its
+three bare tables looked desolate, and an unnatural stillness reigned in
+the shady pathways of the garden. You might wander from room to room,
+and up and down the stairs, and to and fro in the long passages, and
+meet no one. Fr&auml;ulein Christine was with her "<i>Liebes M&uuml;tterchen</i>" in
+Strasburg, and Mademoiselle had left her weary post in the middle of the
+school-room for her quiet village-home in Normandy. Madame herself
+remained almost entirely invisible, shut up in the sanctity of her own
+rooms; and so the whole house had a sense of stillness that seemed only
+heightened by the glory of the autumn sunshine, and the hum of bees and
+rustle of leaves that filled the air outside.</p>
+
+<p>The house was old; it had been a grand mansion once, before the days of
+the Revolution, and had probably been the residence of some of the stiff
+old worthies whose portraits hung in dreary dignity in the disused dusty
+galleries of the <i>ch&acirc;teau</i>, which now, turned into a <i>citadelle</i>, stood
+upon a high point of the cliffs commanding the town. The term <i>rambling</i>
+might well be applied to this house, for in its eccentric construction
+it seemed to have wandered at will half-way up the hill-side on which it
+was built. It had wings and abutments, and flights of stone steps
+leading from one part to another. There was "<i>la grande maison de
+Madame</i>," "<i>la maison du jardin</i>," and "<i>la maison de Monsieur</i>." This
+last, half hidden in trees, was <i>terra incognita</i> to the girls; but
+often in an evening, after we had seen him wending his way across the
+garden with his lantern from <i>la grande maison</i>, where he had been
+spending the evening with Madame, did we hear Monsieur playing on his
+organ glorious "bits" of Cherubini and Bach.</p>
+
+<p>We were conscious that this odd little man carried on a system of
+espionage through the half-closed slats of his shutters, the effects of
+which we were continually made to feel; this, and the mystery that
+enveloped his small abode, where he worked all day among his bottles and
+retorts, made Monsieur appear somewhat of an ogre in our eyes. There was
+always a sense of freedom in the upper garden, which was out of the
+range of his windows, and where he never came. That pleasant upper
+garden, what a paradise it was, with its long sunny walks within the
+shelter of high walls! The trim stateliness of the ancient splendor had
+run to luxuriant disorder, and thick tangles of rare roses swung abroad
+their boughs above great beds of lilies-of-the-valley and periwinkle
+which had overrun their borders and crept into the walks.</p>
+
+<p>During the vacation, we who stayed had the privilege of going into the
+upper garden. Obtaining the key from Justine, we would wander first
+along the shady pathways of the lower garden, past the flower-beds where
+the girls during recess-times worked and gossiped and quarrelled,&mdash;their
+quick French tongues reminding one of a colony of sparrows,&mdash;then,
+turning the stubborn lock of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span> heavy door that opened on the flight
+of mossy steps, we came into that region of stillness and delight, the
+upper garden.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the pleasant autumn afternoons spent sitting together on the mossy
+walk between the box-hedges, the hum of bees and the scent of roses
+filling the air, and the sweet monotonous murmur of the sea on the
+shingly beach in our ears! For, mounting still higher by terraces and
+another flight of steps through a tumble-down gateway, you came upon the
+open cliffs; and the long blue line of the sea and the fresh sea-breeze
+greeted you with a thousand thoughts of home. For England lay beyond the
+trembling blue line.</p>
+
+<p>I remember it was one of these autumn afternoons, that, coming down from
+practising, with my music-books under my arm, I met Justine, the genius
+of the <i>m&eacute;nage</i>, cook and housekeeper in one, a shrewd woman, who had
+three objects in life,&mdash;to manage <i>les b&ecirc;tes</i>, as she condescendingly
+termed the other servants, to please Madame, whom she adored, and to go
+to church every Sunday and <i>grande f&ecirc;te</i>. Justine was coming in from the
+garden, with a basket on her arm, in which lay two pigeons that she had
+just killed. On her fingers she twirled the gory scissors with which she
+had performed the deed.</p>
+
+<p>"Good day, Justine! How is Madame?"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame is well, thank you, Mademoiselle,&mdash;a little headache, that is
+all,&mdash;that comes of so much learning and writing at night. <i>Mais voil&agrave;
+une femme superbe!</i> I go to make her a little dinner of these," pointing
+to the pigeons.</p>
+
+<p>"Justine, <i>ma bonne</i>, won't you give us the key this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>Justine stops suddenly and clasps her fat hands emphatically over the
+lid of her basket.</p>
+
+<p>"I had almost forgotten, Mademoiselle. Madame desired me to tell the
+<i>demoiselles</i> that she comes down this evening to sit in the <i>cabinet de
+musique</i>."</p>
+
+<p>I was delighted with this piece of intelligence, and ran to tell the
+others. It was not often that Madame deigned to come down-stairs of an
+evening, and were always glad when she did. In the first place, it was a
+pleasant break in the monotony of the general routine to sit and work
+and draw, instead of studying in the empty school-room; and secondly, it
+was delightful to be with Madame, when she threw off the character of
+preceptress,&mdash;for at such times she was infinitely agreeable,
+entertaining us in her bright French manner as if we had been her
+guests.</p>
+
+<p>Madame had a way of charming all who approached her, from Adelaide
+Sloper's rich, vulgar father, who, when he came to see his daughter, was
+entertained by Madame <i>au salon</i>, and who was overheard to declare, as
+he got into his grand carriage, that "that Frenchwoman was the finest
+woman, by Jove, he'd ever seen!" to the tiny witch &Eacute;lise, whom nobody
+could manage, but who, at the first rustle of Madame's gown, would cease
+from her mischief, fold her small hands, and, sinking her bead-like
+black eyes, look as demure as such a sprite could. We all adored
+Madame,&mdash;not that she herself was very good, though she was pious in her
+way, too. She fasted and went regularly to confession and to all the
+<i>offices</i>, and sometimes at the passing of the Host I have seen her
+kneeling in the dusty street in a new dress, and I don't know what more
+you could expect from a Frenchwoman.</p>
+
+<p>Then she was so pretty, and there was a nameless grace in her attitude.
+She seemed to me so beautiful, as she stood at her desk, with one hand
+resting on her open book, tall, with something almost imperious in her
+figure, her head bent, but her deep, lovely gray eyes looking quietly
+before her and seeming to take in at once the whole school-room with an
+expression of keen intelligence. She was highly cultivated, and had read
+widely in many languages; but she wore her learning as gracefully as a
+bird does its lovely plumage.</p>
+
+<p>There was a latent desire for sway in her character. She delighted in
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span> homage of those about her, and seldom failed to win it from any one
+with whom she came in contact. Mademoiselle, who did all the hard work
+of the teaching, and was only half paid for it, wore out her strength
+and energy and youth day by day at her desk in the middle of the
+school-room, and thought Madame the perfection of women; and her sallow,
+thin face would flush with pleasure, if Madame gave her a look or one of
+her soft smiles in passing.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past seven that evening we were seated round the table with our
+work, awaiting the entrance of Madame. Presently she glided in, holding
+in her arms a bureau-drawer filled with piles of letters.</p>
+
+<p>"I propose to tell you a story, <i>mes ch&egrave;res</i>," she said, as she seated
+herself and folded her white hands over one of the thick bundles that
+she had taken from the drawer.</p>
+
+<p>"You have all heard me speak of Lina Dale, my English governess before I
+had Mary Gibson. Mary Gibson is an excellent girl, but she has not the
+talent that Lina had. Lina's father was a Captain Dale, a half-pay
+officer, whom I had once seen on business about a pupil of mine who had
+crossed the Channel under his care. A surly, morose man he appeared to
+me, rough towards his wife, a meek, worn-out looking old lady, who spoke
+with a hesitating, apologetic manner and a nervous movement of the
+head,&mdash;a habit I thought she must have contracted from a constant fear
+of being pounced upon, as you say, by her husband. I always pitied her
+<i>de tout mon c&oelig;ur</i>, but she possessed neither tact nor intellect, and
+was <i>tr&egrave;s ennuyeuse</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"It was one cold day in winter that Justine told me there was a
+<i>demoiselle au salon</i> who wished to see me. I found standing by the
+table a young lady,&mdash;a figure that would strike you at once. She turned
+as I entered the room, and her manner was dignified and self-possessed.
+She was not pretty, but her face was a remarkable one: thick dark hair
+above a low forehead, the eyelids somewhat too drooping over the
+singular dark eyes, that looked out beneath them with an expression of
+concentrated thought. 'That girl is like Charlotte Corday,' I said to
+Monsieur afterwards: 'it is a character of great energy and enthusiasm,
+frozen by the hardness and uncongeniality of her fate.' For in this
+interview she told me that she sought a situation in my school, and that
+she felt confidence in offering herself,&mdash;that the state of her father's
+affairs did not render this step necessary, but that circumstances of
+which she would not speak made her home unhappy and most unattractive to
+her. All this she said in a calm and perfectly unexcited manner, as if
+relating the details of a matter of business. For a moment I trembled
+lest she had come to make me her confidante in a family-quarrel; but I
+was soon relieved from this apprehension, for, after she had stated the
+fact, she referred to it no more, but went on to speak upon general
+subjects, which she did with great intelligence. Her good sense
+impressed me so much that before she left the house I had engaged her.</p>
+
+<p>"A few days afterwards she was established here, and had adapted herself
+to all our modes of life in a way that astonished me. She went about all
+her duties quietly, and with the greatest order and precision. Her
+classes were the most orderly in the school, and in a short time her
+authority was acknowledged by all the girls. There were few who did not
+admire her, and not one who dared to set her at defiance. By degrees her
+quiet, unobtrusive industry won upon my confidence; I felt glad to show
+by charges of responsibility my regard for a person of so sound a
+judgment and so reserved a temper, and very soon I had given over to her
+care the supervision of English books for the girls' reading, the
+posting and receiving from the post-office of all the English letters,
+both my own and those of the English girls in the <i>pension</i>. During the
+two years and a half of her stay here, these duties were fulfilled by
+Lina with unremitting care and punctuality.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"About this time I had commenced a correspondence, through Lina, with a
+Mrs. E. Baxter, of Bristol, in England, who had, it seemed, known Lina
+for many years, and who, understanding, as she mysteriously hinted, how
+unhappy her home must be, begged her to come and live with her and
+undertake for a time the education of her little girl, a child of ten.
+Here are her letters; this is one of the first: you see how warmly, how
+affectionately, she speaks of Lina, and how delicately she made this
+proposal, 'so that dear Lina's sensitive, proud nature might not be able
+to imagine itself wounded.'</p>
+
+<p>"As Mrs. Baxter offered her a much larger salary than I gave her, I told
+Lina that I thought she ought to accept the offer of her friend. She
+quietly and firmly declined.</p>
+
+<p>"'Miss Dale,' I said, 'you must not stand in the way of your own good
+out of any sense of obligation to me. I cannot allow you to do so.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I do not do so, Madame La P&mdash;&mdash;re,' she answered. 'I prefer to stay
+with you to going even to Mrs. Baxter's, whom I love sincerely. She is
+an excellent and most faithful friend, but I am better and safer here
+with you.'</p>
+
+<p>"She looked steadily at me as she began the sentence, but dropped her
+eyes suddenly as she said the last words.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lina,' I said, (it was in the evening, as I was leaving the
+class-room, and all the <i>&eacute;l&egrave;ves</i> had already gone,) 'carry me up some of
+these books to my room,&mdash;I have more than usual to-night'; for I saw
+there was something hidden behind this reserved manner, and felt
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>"She took the books, and followed me. As she laid them down and arranged
+them in order on the table, I closed the door and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Miss Dale, you have not looked very well lately, I think; I have
+several times intended to tell you, that, if you would like to go home
+some Saturday and spend the Sunday with your parents, you can do so.'
+(Her family was then living at Kenneville, a village about twelve miles
+from here.) 'I have noticed that you have never asked permission to do
+this, and thought you might be waiting till I mentioned it myself.'</p>
+
+<p>"She started as I said the word 'home.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, no,' she said, almost vehemently, 'I cannot go home, I do not wish
+to'; and then she continued, in her usually cold, quiet manner,&mdash;'You
+remember, perhaps, Madame, that I am not happily circumstanced at home.'</p>
+
+<p>"She pondered a moment, and then said, as if she had made up her mind
+about something,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'After all, I may as well tell you, Madame, all about it, as by doing
+so some things in my conduct that may have seemed strange to you will be
+cleared up,&mdash;that is, if you choose to hear?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Certainly, <i>ma ch&egrave;re</i>,' I replied. 'I should be glad to hear all you
+have to tell me. Sit down here.'</p>
+
+<p>"She still remained standing, however, before me, her eyelids
+drooping,&mdash;not shyly, for her eyes had a steady, abstracted expression,
+as if she were arranging her facts in systematic order so as to tell me
+her story in her usual clear, business-like manner.</p>
+
+<p>"'You know, Madame, my father is guardian to two brothers, the sons of
+an old army-friend of his, who died in India when his two sons were
+quite boys, leaving his cousin, Colonel Lucas, together with my father,
+joint guardians of his children. The boys, during school or college
+vacations, spent the time partly at our house and partly at the house of
+Colonel Lucas. They both seemed like brothers to me. As time went on,
+Frank, the elder, began to spend all his vacations with us; and when he
+left Oxford, and ought to have commenced his studies for the bar, he
+continually put off the time of going up to London, where he was to
+enter the office of a lawyer, and stayed on from week to week at home,
+to teach me German, as he said. I knew he was rich, and that in three
+years he would come into the possession of a large fortune; but I knew
+also how bad it was for a young man to have no profession; and when I
+saw my father seemed indifferent on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span> subject, I used to urge Frank
+the more not to waste his time. But he generally only laughed, though at
+times he would seem vexed at my earnestness, and would ask me why I
+should wish him to do what he did not want to do; and then,&mdash;and
+then,&mdash;this was one evening after we had been on the boat together all
+the afternoon, and were walking up home,&mdash;then, Madame, he told me he
+loved me, that he would go to London, study law, or do anything I said,
+if I would marry him. Oh, Madame, this was dreadful to me! I was stunned
+and bewildered. I had never fancied such a thing possible; the very idea
+was unnatural. I had thought of Frank as a boy always; now, in a moment,
+he was converted into a man, full of the determination of a selfish
+purpose. I could not answer him composedly, and entreated him to leave
+me. He misinterpreted my dismay, and went at once to my father. When I
+came in, that evening, having somewhat regained my composure, though
+with a sick feeling of dread and bewilderment in my heart, my father met
+me with unusual kindness, kissed me as he had not done for years, and
+led me towards Frank, who was standing near my mother. She had been
+crying, I saw, and her face wore a strange expression of anxiety and
+nervous joy as she looked at me. I turned away from Frank, and threw
+myself down on the floor by my mother.</p>
+
+<p>"'"Thank Heaven, Lina!" I heard her whisper; "God bless you, my child!
+you have saved me years of bitterness."</p>
+
+<p>"'I exclaimed,&mdash;"I cannot marry Frank,&mdash;I don't love him, mother,&mdash;don't
+try to make me!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah, Madame, it was dreadful! I don't know how I bore it. My father
+stormed, and my mother cried, and poured forth such entreaties and
+persuasions,&mdash;telling me I mistook my heart, and that I should learn to
+love Frank, and about duty as a daughter to my father, and, oh, I don't
+know what beside!&mdash;and Frank stood by, silent and pale, and with a look
+I had never seen before of unrelenting, passionate, pitiless love.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh,' sighed Lina, 'it was hard, with no one to take my part! but the
+hardest was yet to come.</p>
+
+<p>"'Days and weeks passed on, and I was miserable beyond what I can tell
+you. Nothing more was said on the subject, however, except by Frank, who
+tortured me by alternate entreaties and reproaches, and sometimes by
+occasional fits of thoughtfulness and kindness, in which he would leave
+me to myself, only appealing to me by unobtrusive acts of courtesy and
+devotion, which gave me more pain than either reproach or entreaty. But
+if it had not been for these days of comparative calm and quiet, I
+should hardly have been able to bear what followed. As it was, I had
+time to collect my strength and plan my line of conduct.</p>
+
+<p>"'One night my father called me into his room. I saw by his manner that
+he was much excited. My mother was there also; she looked alarmed, and
+glanced from my father to me anxiously and inquiringly. You know mamma
+has very little strength of character, Madame. I could not hope for help
+from her; so I called up all my resolution, knowing that some trial was
+before me. I can hardly tell you what I heard then, Madame, it was such
+disgrace,' said Lina, raising her eyes slowly and fixing them a moment
+on mine, while a sudden, curious, embarrassed expression passed over her
+face, such as is accompanied in other persons by a painful flush, but
+which left her face pale and cold, causing no change in color.</p>
+
+<p>"'My father told me, Madame, that some unfortunate speculations which he
+had undertaken, and in which he had used the fortune of Frank intrusted
+to his care, had failed, and that, when Frank became four-and-twenty, at
+which time, according to his father's will, he was to enter upon his
+property, his own wrong-doing would be discovered, and thence-forward he
+would be at the mercy of his ward. Frank had, indeed, already learned
+how great a wrong had been done him. My mother clung to me, weakly
+pouring forth laudations on the generosity of Frank, who, through his
+affection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span> for me, was willing to forgive all this injury. Was I not
+grateful? Why did I not go to him and tell him that the devotion of my
+life would be a poor recompense for such generosity? Oh, Madame, it was
+dreadful! I was not grateful at all; I hated him; and the misery of
+having to decide thus the fate of my father was intolerable.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But what did the young man himself say to all this, Lina?' I inquired;
+'did he never speak to you on the subject?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' she replied; and after he had spoken quite bitterly against my
+father, (they never liked each other,) he said, that, however he might
+feel towards him as his guardian, there was nothing that he could not
+forget and forgive in the father of his wife,&mdash;which did not make me
+respect him any more, you may be sure, and showed me that it was useless
+to appeal to his generosity. My life now was miserable indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"'About this time, my aunt in Scotland sent for me to pay her a visit.
+She was in failing health, and wanted cheerful companionship, and I had
+always been a favorite with her as a child. She lived alone with a
+couple of old servants in a small village far in the wilds of &mdash;&mdash;shire.
+My father, of course, opposed my going, alleging, as his reason, the
+long journey (we were then living in W&mdash;&mdash;, in Shropshire) that I should
+have to take alone. To my astonishment, Frank took my part, insisting on
+my being allowed to go. Whether it was that he thought that when far
+away from home, in the seclusion of the Scotch village where my aunt
+lived, I should think more kindly of him, or whether he wished to touch
+me by a show of magnanimity, I cannot tell; but so it was, and I went.'</p>
+
+<p>"Lina here paused a moment, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"'But, Lina,' I said, 'if the young man was well educated, rich, and
+seemed only to have the one fault of loving you so well, why would you
+not marry him? <i>Ma ch&egrave;re</i>,' I said, 'you throw away your good fate. You
+see what a service it would be to your family. (I speak as your friend,
+you comprehend.) You save your father; you make the young man happy; all
+could be arranged so charmingly! I should like to see you married, <i>ma
+ch&egrave;re</i>; and then, your duty as a daughter!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, yes, yes! she cried; 'I would do, oh, anything almost, to shield
+my poor father and mother! Perhaps once, <i>once</i>, I might; but it is too
+late now. I cannot marry Frank. Oh, Madame, it is as impossible as if I
+were dead!'</p>
+
+<p>"'This is a strange story, Lina,' I said. 'What do you mean? Tell me, my
+child, or I shall think you crazy.'</p>
+
+<p>"She laid her head on her hands, which were clasped on the top of the
+escritoire, and half whispered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'I am engaged,&mdash;I am married to some one else.'</p>
+
+<p>"I sprang from my seat, and caught her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"'You married, Lina? you? the quiet girl who has been teaching the
+children so well all these months?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, Madame,' she said, with all her usual composure, 'and to a man I
+love with my whole soul, with my whole life. The future may seem dim,
+but I have little fear when I remember I am Arthur's wife, and that his
+love will be strong to help me whenever I relieve him of the promise I
+have obliged him to make not to reveal our marriage. Frank will be
+three-and-twenty in one year and a half from now; till then, he cannot,
+without great difficulty, harm my father, and by that time I trust his
+fancy for me will have passed away, and he will be willing to treat with
+my father about his property without personal feeling to aggravate his
+sense of the wrong that has been done him. He is in the East now with
+Colonel Lucas, his other guardian, who has not been without his
+suspicions of Frank's liking for me, and is not at all unwilling, I
+think, to keep him out of the way for a while.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Does no one know of this, Lina?' I asked, 'no one suspect it?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Only two persons,' she replied,&mdash;'indeed, I may as well tell you at
+once, Madame,&mdash;beside<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span> Mrs. Baxter and her husband, at whose house the
+ceremony took place. They were then staying in the neighborhood of
+H&mdash;&mdash;, a few miles from my aunt's house. It was at Mrs. Baxter's I first
+met Arthur: he was a distant connection of hers. He and his Cousin
+Marmaduke had come up for the shooting and fishing for a few weeks in
+the autumn. My aunt was a genial, bright old lady, fond of the society
+of young people, spite of her ill health, and invited the young men
+frequently to her house. In that way I saw a great deal of them both.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Who was the gentleman, Lina? Had you seen him before this visit? But,'
+seeing she hesitated, 'if you do not wish to disclose more, say so
+frankly; what you have already told me I will guard as a secret,&mdash;you
+need not fear.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, Madame,' interrupted Lina, suddenly throwing herself on the floor
+at my feet, 'it's not that,&mdash;do not say that, dear Madame! It is a great
+comfort to me to tell you all this; sometimes I feel so lonely when by
+any chance I do not get a letter from him the day I expect one.'</p>
+
+<p>"Her voice faltered, and she leaned forward, burying her face in her
+hands; I saw her breast shaken with weeping.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tell me all, <i>ma pauvre petite</i>!' I said; 'tell me everything.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then seeing she still continued weeping, I said, playfully,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'So you get letters from him, do you? I have never known this. You
+know, <i>ma ch&eacute;rie</i>, that that is against the rules of my <i>pension</i>; but
+when people are married,&mdash;<i>c'est une autre chose</i>! But how is it that I
+have never found this out? Ah, because you have charge of all the
+letters to and from the post!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, Madame,' she said, looking up with a smile. 'I have sometimes
+felt so unhappy, because I seemed to be doing a <i>dishonest</i> thing; but
+it would have been so hard to go without them, and I knew how kind and
+good you were. If you would like to see one of his letters,' she
+continued, half shyly, but with dignified gravity, 'I have one here';
+and she drew a large letter from her pocket and handed it to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is," said Madame, taking the first from the bundle in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>The handwriting was firm and regular; the letter was long, but, though
+the whole breathed but one feeling of the deepest and tenderest
+affection, it was hardly what would be called a "love-letter." There
+were criticisms of new works, and further references to books of a kind
+that showed the writer to be a man of scholarly tastes. After we had
+looked at this one, Madame handed us others from the packet, all marked
+by the same characteristics as the first. Here and there were little
+pictures of the writer's every-day life. He told of his being out on the
+moors at sunrise shooting with his Cousin Marmaduke, or riding round the
+estate giving orders about the transplanting of certain trees, "which
+are set as you have suggested, and are growing as fast as they can till
+you come to walk under their shade," or in the library at evening, when
+the place beside him seems so void where she should be. Then there were
+other letters, speaking of &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;, the poet, who was coming down to
+spend a few weeks with him, and write verses under his elms at Aylesford
+Grange; but in one and all Lina was the central idea round which all
+other interests merely turned, and the source from which all else drew
+its charm.</p>
+
+<p>"As soon," said Madame, continuing her narration, "as I had finished
+reading the letter, I entreated Lina to go on with her curious history.</p>
+
+<p>"'I met Arthur,' she said, 'first at Mrs. Baxter's, as I said before. He
+is the noblest man I have ever known,&mdash;so good, so clever, so pure in
+heart! His Cousin Marmaduke, who was there at the same time, paid me
+great attention, but I never liked him; there was always something
+repulsive to me in his black eyes; I never trusted him; and beside
+Arthur,&mdash;oh, it seemed like the contrast between night and day! I don't
+know why it was, Madame, but I never felt that he loved Arthur really,
+though Arthur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span> had done a great deal for him, got him his commission in
+the army, and paid off some of his debts; but he never seemed as if he
+quite forgave Arthur for standing in the way of his being the lord of
+the manor himself and possessor of Aylesford. There are some
+mean-spirited people who are proud too. They can receive favors, while
+they resent the obligation. He was of that kind, I think, and hated
+Arthur for his very generosity.</p>
+
+<p>"'One evening, as I was walking up the shrubbery, I met Marmaduke. He
+had ridden over with Arthur, as they often did, to spend the evening. He
+had caught sight of me, he said, as they came up the avenue, and, under
+pretext of something being wrong with his horse's bridle, had stopped,
+and let Arthur go on to the house alone. He had long waited for this
+opportunity of speaking to me alone, he said, as I must have known.
+Then, amid the basest of vague insinuations against Arthur, he dared to
+proffer me his odious love. Oh, Madame, I was angry! A woman cannot bear
+feigned love,&mdash;it stings like hatred; still less can she bear to hear
+one she loves spoken of as I had heard him speak of Arthur. I hardly
+know what I said, but it must have expressed my feeling; for he tried to
+taunt me in return with being in love with Arthur and <i>Aylesford</i>. I
+only smiled, and walked on. Then he sprang after me, and vowed I should
+not leave him so,&mdash;that he loved me madly, spite of my scorn, spite of
+my foolish words. He knew well I did not love Arthur, that I was
+ambitious only. So was he,&mdash;and so determined in his purpose, that he
+was sure to succeed in it, spite of everything. "For there are few
+things," he added, "that can stand against my settled will. Beware,
+then, how you cross it, sweet Lina!" I shook my cloak loose from his
+hand, for his words sent a thrill of horror through me, and rushed on,
+speechless with indignation, to the house. Two days after this I became
+engaged to Arthur. How happy we were!' said Lina, a dreamy expression
+passing over her face at the retrospect.</p>
+
+<p>"'I told Arthur everything about my home; but I did not tell him of my
+conversation with Marmaduke in the shrubbery, because I could not bear
+to give him the pain which a discovery of his cousin's baseness would
+have caused him. Marmaduke, I perceived, knew that I had not betrayed
+him; for one night, as I was sitting at the piano, he thanked me
+hastily, as he turned over the leaf of my music-book, for a generous
+proof of confidence. I took no notice of these words, but was conscious
+of a flush of indignation at the word <i>confidence</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"'Arthur and I were always together; we read together, and talked over
+our past and future lives. Nothing now troubled me. He took all the
+burden and anxiety of my life to himself, and with his love added a
+sense of peace and security most exquisite to me.</p>
+
+<p>"'I told him all the miserable story of Frank, and he listened gravely;
+but though it certainly troubled him, it never seemed to daunt him for
+an instant. So gentle as he is, nothing ever could shake him. I was so
+happy then, that I could not feel angry even with Marmaduke; and as he
+seemed to be willing to forget the past, we became somewhat more
+friendly towards each other. But if I ever happened to be alone with
+him, even for a moment, the recollection of our talk in the shrubbery
+would come to my mind, and the old feeling of anger would spring up
+again, the effort to suppress which was so painful that I always avoided
+being with him, unless Arthur were by also.</p>
+
+<p>"'One day there came a letter from my father,&mdash;and what its character
+was you may suppose, when I tell you that it made me utterly forget my
+present happiness. At the end of the letter he commanded me to return
+home immediately. It came one evening: I read and re-read its cruel
+words till I could bear no more. I saw Arthur standing in the twilight
+below my window, and went down and laid the letter silently in his
+hands. When he had finished reading it, he came slowly towards me. I
+shall never forget his look as he took my hands in his and drew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span> me to
+him, looking into my face so earnestly. Then he said, in a low, grave
+voice, "Lina, do you love me? Then we must be married at once,&mdash;do not
+be afraid,&mdash;perhaps to-night. I fear your father may follow that letter
+very soon. You have suffered too much already. You have no one but me to
+look to. Heaven knows I do not think alone of my own happiness."'</p>
+
+<p>"Lina paused a moment. 'I yielded,' she said. 'I could have followed him
+blindly then anywhere! So that evening, in the drawing-room, with Mr.
+and Mrs. Baxter and Marmaduke as witnesses, we were married by a Scotch
+clergyman (there was no clergyman of our own Church within twenty
+miles). The ceremony was very simple. As the last words were being
+pronounced, some one entered the room hastily, and there was whispering
+and confusion for a moment or two, and when I rose from my knees the
+first words that greeted me were the intelligence that my aunt was
+dangerously ill, and had sent a special messenger for me. Late as it
+was, I prepared instantly to accompany the man back to H&mdash;&mdash;. I was
+stung with self-reproaches at the thought of my aunt lying, as I
+fancied, dying without me near her, and peremptorily refused to allow
+Arthur to accompany me on my long drive.</p>
+
+<p>"'That was the last time I saw him. The next day he was called away on
+important business, which admitted of no delay. I remained with my poor
+aunt till her death, which took place at the end of that week, three
+days after my marriage. Then my parents came for me. My father's manner
+was unusually kind; my poor mother's expressions of love went to my
+heart. Frank was not at home, they said, but had gone up to London to
+prepare for his journey to the East. They had determined to reside for a
+while in France, and they promised that he should not be informed of my
+being with them, if I would consent to accompany them. I yielded to
+their solicitations, parted with my true friend Mrs. Baxter, and crossed
+the Channel with them. At the end of three weeks I discovered that my
+father had broken his word and informed Frank by letter of my being with
+them. Then I fled to you, having heard of the position vacant in your
+<i>pension</i>. I have tried to do my duty here, and to merit in some degree
+your kindness. With you I am happier than I could be with any one but
+Arthur. Arthur has learned to love you too: will you read this letter
+speaking of you?' drawing a letter from her pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"This is it," said Madame, taking one from the pile, and pointing out
+the passage.</p>
+
+<p>"I am weary of my life, sometimes, without you,&mdash;here, where you ought
+to be,&mdash;<i>your home</i>, Lina! I wander through the rooms that I have
+prepared with such delight for you, and think of the time when you will
+be here,&mdash;mistress of all!... When will you come, my wife? I think and
+dream in this way till I am haunted by the ghost of the future. I get
+morbid, and fancy all kinds of dangers that may happen to my darling, so
+far away from me; and then I am ready to go at once to you and break
+down all barriers and bear you away.... I thank Heaven you have so good
+a friend in '<i>Madame</i>.' I long for the time to come when I may greet her
+as one of my best friends for your sake. In the mean time, I have
+selected an Indian cabinet, the grotesque delicate work of which would
+please your quaint fancy, which I trust she will accept, if you will
+join me in the gift. I shall have an opportunity of sending it in a few
+weeks.... Mrs. Eldridge, my dear old housekeeper, has just been in. She
+wishes to know whether the new curtains of the little library are to be
+crimson or gray. She little knows what confusion she causes me! She
+knows not that I am no longer master here! I tell her I will deliberate
+on the point, and she retires mystified by my unusual indecision. So
+write quickly and make known your desires, if you wish to save me from
+an imputation of becoming, as the good old-lady says, 'a little set and
+bachelor-like in my ways.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span> Marmaduke and &mdash;&mdash; come down next week to
+shoot.... You say, wait till spring, when things will be more propitious
+for disclosing our marriage. I have also another scheme which will be
+ripened by spring. I shall disclose our marriage, and propose to your
+father to make him independent of his ward. No one, certainly, has a
+better right to do this than his son-in-law; and then&mdash;&mdash;But I hardly
+dare to think of the happiness that will be mine when nothing but death
+can part us any more!"</p>
+
+<p>"One evening about this time," continued Madame, "about a week after
+Lina had shown me this letter, I came down into the <i>cabinet de musique</i>
+on my way to the garden to take my usual evening walk on the terrace,
+and saw Lina standing by the piano with her bonnet on and her shawl laid
+beside her. In her hand she held letters, one of which she had that
+moment unsealed. She had, I knew, just returned from the post-office.</p>
+
+<p>"'I have a letter here from Mrs. Baxter, Madame,' she said. 'She writes
+to me in great distress; the two children, Minnie and Louisa, whom she
+was so anxious to send here, are both ill with scarlet-fever. But here
+is your letter; she will no doubt tell you everything herself.'</p>
+
+<p>"I took the letter and seated myself, and was soon absorbed in the poor
+mother's hurried and almost incoherent relation, when suddenly I was
+startled by a gesture or sound from Lina that made me look up hastily.
+She stood with the letter she had been reading crushed in her hand, her
+face wearing an expression of agony. For a moment she swayed to and fro
+with her hand outstretched to catch a chair for support, but before I
+could reach her she had fallen heavily to the floor. I called Justine,
+and we raised her to a chair. I stood by her supporting her head on my
+breast, while Justine ran for camphor and <i>eau-de-vie</i>. It was some time
+before she recovered her consciousness; she then slowly opened her eyes
+and fixed them wonderingly on me, but with no look of recognition in
+them. A long shiver passed over her, and she sighed heavily once or
+twice as she looked vacantly at the letter on the floor. I was
+terrified, and seized the letter, to gain, if possible, some explanation
+of the miserable state of the poor girl.</p>
+
+<p>"I found that the envelope contained three letters: one from Marmaduke
+Kirkdale; one from the housekeeper, Mrs. Eldridge; and this scrap from
+Arthur.</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"LETTER OF MARMADUKE.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"'<span class="smcap">My Dear Madam</span>,&mdash;I have heavy tidings to send you. While out shooting
+yesterday morning in the Low Copse, Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, Arthur, and myself became
+separated: Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, who had been my companion, keeping on an open path;
+I going down towards the pool to beat up a thicket and start the game.
+Arthur I supposed was with the gamekeeper, a little distance in advance
+of us. Would that it had been so! As I came up to join the others I
+heard the report of a gun, and hastening towards the spot whence the
+sound seemed to come, I found my poor cousin lying upon the ground, and
+at first supposed, that, in leaping the fence, he had received a sudden
+blow from a branch, which had stunned him; but on kneeling down to raise
+him, I perceived he was bleeding profusely from a wound in the throat,
+and was perfectly unconscious. Mr. &mdash;&mdash; came up almost at the moment,
+and while the gamekeeper and I bore Arthur to a farm-house hard by, he
+went off to call the nearest doctor. Everything has been done that skill
+and care could devise. The physician from B&mdash;&mdash; is here, besides Mr.
+Gordon, the village-surgeon. They pronounce the wound very serious, but
+still hold out hopes that with great care he may yet recover. There is
+no doubt that in leaping the hedge, and holding his gun carelessly, my
+cousin had inflicted this terrible injury on himself. He is, however,
+too weak to make it safe to ask him any explanation of the accident. The
+doctors insist on perfect quiet and rest, and say, that, owing to the
+unremitting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span> care we have been able to give him, he has done much better
+than they could have hoped for. If fever can be prevented, all may yet
+go well; for myself, I believe strongly in Arthur's robust constitution.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Friday night.</i>&mdash;Arthur was doing very well till about two o'clock
+this morning. The housekeeper and I were with him. Mr. &mdash;&mdash; had gone to
+take some rest. Suddenly Arthur raised himself, and asked for paper and
+pencil. I remonstrated with him, fearing the effects of exertion. When,
+however, I found Mr. &mdash;&mdash;(who had been called in by Mrs. Eldridge)
+declared his judgment in favor of compliance, I yielded, and, supported
+by the housekeeper, my cousin wrote a few almost illegible words. He had
+scarcely signed his name when he fell back,&mdash;the exertion, as I had
+feared, had been too much for him. After this he sank rapidly. He died
+at six o'clock this morning.</p>
+
+<p>"'I hold my cousin's place now by his death. I am ready to do so fully.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am yours as <span class="smcap">you will</span>,</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">"'<span class="smcap">Mar'ke C. Kirkdale.</span>'</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"LETTER OF THE HOUSEKEEPER.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"'<span class="smcap">Respected Madam</span>&mdash;I do not know that I have any right presuming to
+meddle with affairs that don't belong to my walk in life, far be it from
+me to do so, especially to one that whatever they may say seems always
+like my mistress to me&mdash;owing to the last words my poor dear Mr. Arthur
+ever spoke was, She is my wife, my own wife, let no one gainsay it,
+which at the time I did not take in fairly, being almost broken down
+with sorrow, for I had nursed him as a baby, Madam, and loved him humbly
+as my own son, no lady could have loved him better, which having lost
+him and all this trouble (my heart seeming fairly broke) makes me write,
+respected Madam, worse than usual, never having been a scholar, he
+always wrote them for me, God bless him. You won't think me presuming,
+Madam, when I say these things never having had the honour of seeing
+you, but you are the only person who can feel for me under these
+circumstances of trial more than any others. For to see them going
+through the house looking into precious drawers and burning papers in
+the library fire and turning on a person like a Tiger, though he may be
+a gentleman (though how of that family that always was remarkable gentle
+spoken I cannot tell.) There never were two cousins differenter. I never
+can regard him as my master, never. I would sooner leave the old place
+and beg my bread than feel <i>him</i> master after my blessed Mr. Arthur, not
+that I'd speak evil of the family. But God Almighty reads the hearts of
+men, and I only hope some may come out clear in appearing at the
+Judgment, and mayn't disgrace the Family then&mdash;for to say that my Mr.
+Arthur never made a will when twice he's spoke to me upon the subject,
+always trusting me, Madam, telling me where he kept it in the library,
+and though it's not to be found the house through, still I know it must
+be somewhere, for I'd trust his word against a thousand. I shall ask Mr.
+---- to forward this present not knowing your address, he is a kind
+gentleman and a true friend. I send you the little scrap of paper with
+the last words he ever wrote. <i>Some</i> may say it's no good and
+unreadable, but I took care that them that didn't value it didn't get
+it, though they did search everywhere, and looked so black when it
+couldn't be found being in my pocket at the time. I present my services,
+honoured Madam, and my dutiful affection for the sake of him that's
+gone.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">"'<span class="smcap">Elizabeth Eldridge.</span>'</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"LETTER OF ARTHUR.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"'Only a moment or so left to me. Goodbye, my Lina! I am dying&mdash;and
+without you near me. We have waited so long! It is hard to leave you
+alone in the world, darling. Come and live here&mdash;your own home. If you
+had been here but one day, things might have been otherwise. Take care
+of the poor&mdash;keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span> Mrs. Eldridge with you, she is faithful and
+true&mdash;true&mdash;she knows&mdash;God keep you, darling. I am so weak&mdash;there is no
+hope.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">"'<span class="smcap">Arthur Kirkdale.</span>'</p>
+
+
+<p>"For three days Lina lay on her bed almost without giving a sign of
+life,&mdash;her face rigid and colorless. She refused to eat, and only when I
+myself used my authority with her did any nourishment pass her lips. On
+the evening of the third day I became alarmed, and determined to send
+for a physician. I told Justine to despatch one of the servants for Dr.
+B&mdash;&mdash;, but to request him to come after five o'clock, when I should have
+returned from vespers, as I wished to see him myself. I gave my
+directions to Justine as we stood together at the foot of Lina's bed, in
+so low a whisper as to prevent, as I thought, the possibility of her
+hearing me. Great, then, was my astonishment, when, on leaving my room,
+ready for church, I met Lina on the staircase. Her face was very pale,
+and she clung to the banisters for support as she descended. Before I
+could express my surprise, she said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'I feel very much better, Madame, and if you please will call the class
+for English lesson at six.'</p>
+
+<p>"I told her she must go back to her room,&mdash;that she should not have
+risen without my knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>"'I must have occupation,' she replied; 'it is much better for me.'</p>
+
+<p>"I felt she was right, and let her go down,&mdash;and that evening she held
+her class as usual. So she continued, day after day, her accustomed
+round of duties, with all her usual precision and care. Her self-control
+annoyed me. She passed to and fro in the house, her face pale and wan,
+though with a composed expression, and all my earnest entreaties that
+she should seek rest or relaxation were met by the same calm refusal.
+Saturday came, and I was glad to see she showed something like interest
+in the prospect of the letters from England that would arrive that day,
+and begged me to allow her to go as usual to get them at the
+post-office. I willingly acceded to her request, thinking the fresh air
+and sea-breeze would do her good. She returned with several letters, and
+brought them to me, seeming to desire my company while she read them.
+One was from Marmaduke, one from Mr. R&mdash;&mdash;, her husband's lawyer in
+Lincoln. The former puzzled me; it was vague and threatening, and yet
+there were expressions in it almost befitting a love-letter. Lina read
+it to me with hardly any change of expression, but dropped it from her
+fingers as she finished it, with a look of mingled indifference and
+disgust. The grave, business-like letter of the lawyer had still less
+effect upon her. I read it to her,&mdash;for, although in English, I had no
+difficulty in making out every syllable, so distinctly was it written,
+and with such legal precision. It informed Lina that Mr. R&mdash;&mdash;felt some
+apprehension of her having trouble in substantiating her marriage, that
+his conversation with Mr. Marmaduke Kirkdale had been (although somewhat
+vague on the part of the latter) wholly unsatisfactory. This, and the
+fact that no will had as yet been found among her husband's papers, made
+him fear that she might be involved in lengthy and perhaps annoying
+legal proceedings. At the close, he desired her to write out a careful
+account of all the circumstances of her marriage, as it was most
+important that he should know all the details of the case.</p>
+
+<p>"'These things weary me so!' said Lina; 'but it does not matter,' she
+added, sighing; 'for <i>his</i> sake I must do this.'</p>
+
+<p>"The few contemptuous words in answer to Marmaduke's letter were soon
+written, and she then began her reply to the letter of her lawyer. This
+seemed to cost her a great effort; she sighed frequently as she wrote,
+and at the end of two hours, as she finished the last words, her head
+fell on the sheet of paper before her, and she burst into tears. I could
+not try to check this outburst of grief, knowing that it must be a
+great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span> relief to her overtaxed system after the strain of the last few
+days. She was soon again calm, and resumed her writing. A letter to her
+parents, informing them of her secret marriage and sudden widowhood, was
+next written, and Lina, in her plain bonnet and shawl and closely
+veiled, set off with the three letters to the post-office."</p>
+
+<p>Here Madame paused. She smiled faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"I find that I have become again unconsciously, interested in Lina, as I
+have told her story, and I hesitate to approach the <i>d&eacute;no&ucirc;ment</i>;
+but"&mdash;and she sighed delicately, not sufficiently to disperse the
+smile&mdash;"I must go through with this, as Lina herself used to say. One
+night about this time I had been writing late, and it was past midnight
+when I descended with my lamp in my hand to go the round of the
+class-rooms, as is my wont before retiring to rest. I paused, as I
+passed down the school-room, opposite the <i>Sainte Croix</i>, and repeated
+my <i>salut</i> before the Holy Emblem. As I finished the last words, my eyes
+fell on a small slip of paper lying on Lina's desk, on which my own name
+was written three times, in what appeared my own handwriting,&mdash;Jeanne
+Clini&egrave; La P&mdash;&mdash;re. A cold shudder ran through me, as if I had heard my
+name in the accents of my <i>double</i>. Obeying a sudden impulse, I opened
+Lina's desk, and seized the papers within. Uppermost lay a thick
+<i>cahier</i>, in which, in Lina's writing, were what at first seemed copies
+of all the letters she had received from England within the last few
+months. There were also facsimiles of letters to me from Mrs. Baxter,
+Mr. A. Kirkdale, and others. Then there were draughts of the same
+letters, written in the various handwritings with which I had become
+familiar, as those of Lina's and my own English correspondents. Here and
+there were improvements and corrections in Lina's own writing. Below
+these lay piles of letters,&mdash;a bundle of ten letters of my own, forming
+part of my correspondence with Mrs. Baxter, and which I had intrusted to
+Lina at various times to post. These were without envelopes, and simply
+tied together. I sat there for more than an hour, stupefied by this
+strange revelation; and then, taking the bundle of my own letters
+addressed to Mrs. Baxter, I went to my room.</p>
+
+<p>"Next morning, when I descended to the school-room, I glanced, in
+passing, at Lina, and thought I perceived a slightly fluttered,
+disturbed expression in her face; but I continued the usual routine of
+the morning's work without speaking to her. After class was over, I sent
+for her to come to my room. I myself was much disturbed; <i>she</i> was
+perfectly calm and collected; but as I laid the bundle of my own letters
+to Mrs. Baxter on the table, and demanded an explanation of their being
+found in her desk, she turned pale, and snatched up the packet and held
+it tightly. To my question, she answered that I evidently did her great
+wrong, but she was used to being misunderstood; that the kindness I had
+shown her entitled me to an explanation, which she would not otherwise
+have given.</p>
+
+<p>"'It is a weakness that I am ashamed of that has caused this trouble,'
+she said. 'I have sat up in the lonely nights and read and re-read my
+letters, and then I began to copy them, copied even the handwriting,
+till I grew very perfect in it, and then I could not bear to destroy any
+of those precious words, but kept them, as I thought, in secret,&mdash;but
+now some one has <i>basely taken them from my desk</i>, and brought them to
+you. As for your letters to Mrs. Baxter, there are, I see, only one or
+two here. Give me only time and you shall have that cleared up also. I
+will write to Mrs. Baxter, beg her to explain how she let these letters
+get out of her possession, and ask her to inclose all the rest of your
+letters to her. I will take care that her answer shall come <i>through the
+post-office</i>, and not, as heretofore, inclosed in a letter to <i>me</i>; so
+that you may feel quite sure that there is no mistake, Madame La
+P&mdash;&mdash;re.'</p>
+
+<p>"I felt baffled and guilty before her;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span> and the next three days were
+most uncomfortable. I could not but feel <i>g&ecirc;n&eacute;e</i> with Lina, while she
+maintained the character of wounded innocence. The evening of the third
+day, Justine handed to me a large packet which the postman had just
+brought, and upon which there were ten francs to pay. It was directed to
+me in Mrs. Baxter's well-known handwriting. I tore open the cover, and a
+shower of letters fell on the table. <i>All</i> my letters to Mrs. Baxter,
+and one from herself, entreating to know the reason of this 'singular
+request of dear Lina's.' I was disconcerted and relieved at once, when,
+turning the wrapper listlessly in my fingers, my eye suddenly caught, on
+the reverse side, and <i>printed</i> in large letters, these words,&mdash;'This
+packet was sent to the Postmaster in Bristol to be reposted to &mdash;&mdash;.'
+That was the end of it. I had paid ten francs for learning the agreeable
+fact that I had been duped,&mdash;for the satisfaction of knowing that for
+two years and a half I had been wasting my sympathy and even tears on a
+set of purely imaginary characters and the little <i>intrigante</i> who had
+befooled me.</p>
+
+<p>"When I showed Lina the printed words on the wrapper, she turned very
+pale, but maintained a stubborn silence to all my reproaches.</p>
+
+<p>"'How could you deceive me so?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't know.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What reason <i>could</i> you have?'</p>
+
+<p>"'None.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Lina! was there a particle of truth in anything you have told me?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>"This was all I could get from her; but as she left the room, she turned
+and said, looking at me half reproachfully, half maliciously,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'I suppose we had better part now. At any rate, you will at least own
+that I have interested you, Madame!'</p>
+
+<p>"She left me two days afterwards, and the last I heard of her was in the
+situation of companion to a Russian Countess, with whom she was an
+immense favorite. She made some effort to gain possession of these
+letters; but I reminded her, that, as they had been written exclusively
+for my benefit, I considered I had a right to keep them. To this she
+simply answered, 'Very well, Madame.'"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to add that the story of Lina Dale is
+told here precisely as related to us by Madame La P&mdash;&mdash;re, of course
+excepting the necessary changes in the names of places and persons. The
+three letters are not copies of the original ones in the possession of
+Madame La P&mdash;&mdash;re, but a close transcript of them from memory,&mdash;the
+substance of them is identical, and in many instances the words also.
+The extraordinary power shown by Lina Dale in maintaining the character
+she had assumed and sustained during two years and a half was fully
+carried out by the skill and cleverness of her pretended correspondence;
+and in reading over these piles of letters, so full of originality, one
+could not but feel regret at the perversion of powers so
+remarkable,&mdash;powers which might have been developed by healthy action
+into means of usefulness and good.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHARLES_LAMBS_UNCOLLECTED_WRITINGS" id="CHARLES_LAMBS_UNCOLLECTED_WRITINGS"></a>CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>FOURTH PAPER.</h3>
+
+<p>Lamb's time, after his manumission from India-House, seems to have hung
+rather heavily upon his hands. Though the "birds of the air" were not so
+free as he was then, I fear they were a great deal happier and vastly
+more contented than our liberated and idle old clerk. Though in the
+first flush and excitement of his freedom from his six-and-thirty years'
+confinement in a counting-house,&mdash;(he entered the office a dark-haired,
+bright-eyed, light-hearted boy; he left it a decrepit, silver-haired,
+rather melancholy, somewhat disappointed man, whose spirits, as he
+himself confesseth, had grown gray before his hair,)&mdash;though, when in
+the dizzy and happy early hours of his freedom, Elia exultingly wrote
+(and felt) that "a man can never have too much time to himself," the
+honeymoon (if I may so express it) of his emancipation from the</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>was not fairly over before he felt that man's true element is
+labor,&mdash;that occupation, which in his younger days he had called a
+"fiend," was in very truth an angel,&mdash;the angel of contentment and joy.
+Doctor Johnson stoutly maintained by both tongue and pen, that, in
+general, no one could be virtuous or happy who was not completely
+employed. Not only the bread we eat, but the true pleasures and real
+enjoyments of life, must be earned by the sweat of the brow. The poor
+old mill-horse, turned loose in the pasture on Sundays, seems sadly to
+miss his accustomed daily round of weary labor; the retired
+tallow-chandler, whose story has pointed so many morals and adorned so
+many tales, would have died of inertia and ennui in less than six months
+after his retirement from business, had not his successor kindly allowed
+him to help on melting-days; and methinks the very ghosts of certain
+busy and energetic men must fret and fume at the idle and inactive state
+of their shadowy and incorporal selves; nor, unless&mdash;as some hope and
+believe&mdash;we are to have our familiar and customary tasks and duties to
+perform in heaven, could their souls be happy and contented in Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>But&mdash;after this rather foolish and wholly unnecessary digression&mdash;to
+return to Lamb. Elia, who had while a toil-worn clerk so carefully and
+frugally husbanded every odd moment and spare hour of time,&mdash;who, after
+his day's labor at India-House was over, had read so many massive old
+folios, and written so many pleasant pages for the pleasure and
+solacement of himself, and a choice and select number of men and
+women,&mdash;now that he had the whole long day to himself, read but little,
+and wrote but seldom.</p>
+
+<p>And as for those long walks in the country, which he talked of so fondly
+in some of his letters to his friends,&mdash;those walks to Hoddesdon, to
+Amwell, to Windsor, and other towns and villages in the near vicinity of
+London, which he had enjoyed in anticipation a few years before he had
+the leisure actually to take them,&mdash;those long walks on "fine
+Isaac-Walton mornings," were found to be, it must be confessed, rather
+tiresome and unsatisfactory. They were most melancholy failures, when
+compared&mdash;as Elia could not help comparing them&mdash;with the pleasant walks
+he and Mary had taken years before to Enfield, and Potter's-Bar, and
+Waltham. Nay, even the "saunterings in Bond Street," the "digressions
+into Soho," to explore book-stalls, the visits to print-shops and
+picture-galleries, soon ceased to afford Lamb much real pleasure or
+enjoyment. Yea, London itself, with all its wonders and marvels, with
+all its (to him) memories<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span> and associations, he found to be, to one who
+had nothing to do but wander idly and purposeless through her thronged
+and busy streets and thoroughfares,&mdash;a mere looker-on in Vienna,&mdash;a
+somewhat dreary and melancholy place. Indeed, the London of 1825-30 was
+a far different place to Elia from the London of twenty years before,
+when he resided at No. 4, Inner-Temple Lane, (near the place of his
+"kindly engendure,") and gave his famous Wednesday-evening parties,
+("Oh!" exclaims Hazlitt, "for the pen of John Buncle to consecrate a
+<i>petit souvenir</i> to their memory!") and when Jem White, and Ned P&mdash;&mdash;,
+and Holcroft, and Captain Burney, and other of his old friends and
+jovial companions were alive and merry.</p>
+
+<p>And now, in these later years and altered times, when even the old
+memories and the old associations seemed to have lost their power over
+him, and gone were most of "the old familiar faces," and when he felt as
+if the game of life were scarcely worth the candle, our melancholy and
+forlorn old humorist thus sadly and pathetically writes to the Quaker
+poet:&mdash;"But town, with all my native hankering after it, is not what it
+was. The streets, the shops, are left, but all old friends are gone. And
+in London I was frightfully convinced of this, as I passed houses and
+places, empty caskets now. I have ceased to care almost about anybody.
+The bodies I cared for are in graves or dispersed. My old chums, that
+lived so long and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away. When I took
+leave of our adopted young friend at Charing Cross, 'twas a heavy
+unfeeling rain, and I had nowhere to go. Home have I none, and not a
+sympathizing house to turn to in the great city. Never did the waters of
+heaven pour down on a forlorner head. Yet I tried ten days at a sort of
+friend's house, but it was large and straggling,&mdash;one of the individuals
+of my old long knot of friends, card-players, pleasant companions, that
+have tumbled to pieces, into dust and other things; and I got home on
+Thursday, convinced that it was better to get home to my hole at
+Enfield, and hide like a sick cat in my corner." And at Enfield Elia was
+far from being happy or contented. Winter, however,&mdash;"confining,
+room-keeping winter," with its short days and long evenings, and cozy,
+comfortable fireside and cheerful candle-light,&mdash;he succeeded in passing
+tolerably pleasantly there; but the "deadly long days" of
+summer&mdash;"all-day days," he called them, "with but a half-hour's
+candle-light, and no fire-light"&mdash;were fearfully dull, wearisome, and
+unprofitable to him, "a scorner of the fields," an exile from London.
+And he thought, as he strolled through the green lanes and along the
+pleasant country-roads in the vicinity of Enfield, of the days when he
+was</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A clerk in London gay,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and sighed for the drudgery and confinement of the counting-house, and
+longed to take his seat again at his old desk at India-House. In brief,
+Lamb felt that he should be happier and better, if he had something to
+do. And partly to amuse himself, and partly to assist a friend, he
+employed himself for a few months in a pleasant and congenial task. "I
+am going through a course of reading at the Museum," he writes to
+Bernard Barton,&mdash;"the Garrick plays, out of part of which I formed my
+Specimens. I have two thousand to go through; and in a few weeks have
+despatched the tithe of 'em. It is a sort of office-work to me; hours,
+ten to four, the same. It does me good. Men must have regular occupation
+that have been used to it." And in another (later) letter to Barton he
+says, "I am giving the fruit of my old play-reading to Hone, who sets
+forth a portion weekly in the 'Table-Book.'" And he not only furnished
+the "Table-Book" with specimens of the Garrick plays, but he wrote for
+that work, and the "Every-Day Book," a number of pleasant,
+characteristic little sketches and essays. We herewith present the
+reader with one of the best and most remarkable of these articles. Of
+course all will observe, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span> admire, the humorous, yet very gentle,
+loving, almost pathetic manner in which Elia describes the person and
+character of Mary's old usher,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<h4>CAPTAIN STARKEY.</h4>
+
+<p>To the Editor of the "Every-Day Book":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,&mdash;I read your account of this unfortunate being, and his
+forlorn piece of self-history, with that smile of half-interest which
+the annals of insignificance excite, till I came to where he says, "I
+was bound apprentice to Mr. William Bird, an eminent writer, and teacher
+of languages and mathematics," etc.; when I started as one does on the
+recognition of an old acquaintance in a supposed stranger. This, then,
+was that Starkey of whom I have heard my sister relate so many pleasant
+anecdotes, and whom, never having seen, I yet seem almost to remember.
+For nearly fifty years she had lost all sight of him; and, behold! the
+gentle usher of her youth, grown into an aged beggar, dubbed with an
+opprobrious title to which he had no pretensions, an object and a
+May-game! To what base purposes may we not return! What may not have
+been the meek creature's sufferings, what his wanderings, before he
+finally settled down in the comparative comfort of an old hospitaller of
+the almonry of Newcastle? And is poor Starkey dead?</p>
+
+<p>I was a scholar of that "eminent writer" that he speaks of; but Starkey
+had quitted the school about a year before I came to it. Still the odor
+of his merits had left a fragrancy upon the recollection of the elder
+pupils. The school-room stands where it did, looking into a discolored,
+dingy garden, in the passage leading from Fetter Lane into Bartlett's
+Buildings. It is still a school,&mdash;though the main prop, alas! has fallen
+so ingloriously,&mdash;and bears a Latin inscription over the entrance in the
+lane, which was unknown in our humbler times. Heaven knows what
+"languages" were taught in it then! I am sure that neither my sister nor
+myself brought any out of it but a little of our native English. By
+"mathematics," reader, must be understood "cyphering." It was, in fact,
+a humble day-school, at which reading and writing were taught to us boys
+in the morning, and the same slender erudition was communicated to the
+girls, our sisters, etc., in the evening. Now Starkey presided, under
+Bird, over both establishments. In my time, Mr. Cook, now or lately a
+respectable singer and performer at Drury-Lane Theatre, and nephew to
+Mr. Bird, had succeeded to him. I well remember Bird. He was a squat,
+corpulent, middle-sized man, with something of the gentleman about him,
+and that peculiar mild tone&mdash;especially while he was inflicting
+punishment&mdash;which is so much more terrible to children than the angriest
+looks and gestures. Whippings were not frequent; but when they took
+place, the correction was performed in a private room adjoining, where
+we could only hear the plaints, but saw nothing. This heightened the
+decorum and the solemnity. But the ordinary public chastisement was the
+bastinado, a stroke or two on the palm with that almost obsolete weapon
+now, the ferule. A ferule was a sort of flat ruler, widened at the
+inflicting end into a shape resembling a pear,&mdash;but nothing like so
+sweet,&mdash;with a delectable hole in the middle to raise blisters, like a
+cupping-glass. I have an intense recollection of that disused instrument
+of torture, and the malignancy, in proportion to the apparent mildness,
+with which its strokes were applied. The idea of a rod is accompanied
+with something ludicrous; but by no process can I look back upon this
+blister-raiser with anything but unmingled horror. To make him look more
+formidable,&mdash;if a pedagogue had need of these heightenings,&mdash;Bird wore
+one of those flowered Indian gowns formerly in use with schoolmasters,
+the strange figures upon which we used to interpret into hieroglyphics
+of pain and suffering. But, boyish fears apart, Bird, I believe, was, in
+the main, a humane and judicious master.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Oh, how I remember our legs wedged into those uncomfortable sloping
+desks, where we sat elbowing each other; and the injunctions to attain a
+free hand, unattainable in that position; the first copy I wrote after,
+with its moral lesson, "Art improves Nature"; the still earlier
+pot-hooks and the hangers, some traces of which I fear may yet be
+apparent in this manuscript; the truant looks sidelong to the garden,
+which seemed a mockery of our imprisonment; the prize for best spelling,
+which had almost turned my head, and which to this day I cannot reflect
+upon without a vanity which I ought to be ashamed of; our little leaden
+inkstands, not separately subsisting, but sunk into the desks; the
+bright, punctually washed morning fingers, darkening gradually with
+another and another ink-spot! What a world of little associated
+circumstances, pains, and pleasures, mingling their quotas of pleasure,
+arise at the reading of those few simple words,&mdash;"Mr. William Bird, an
+eminent writer, and teacher of languages and mathematics, in Fetter
+Lane, Holborn"!</p>
+
+<p>Poor Starkey, when young, had that peculiar stamp of old-fashionedness
+in his face which makes it impossible for a beholder to predicate any
+particular age in the object. You can scarce make a guess between
+seventeen and seven-and-thirty. This antique cast always seems to
+promise ill-luck and penury. Yet it seems he was not always the abject
+thing he came to. My sister, who well remembers him, can hardly forgive
+Mr. Thomas Ranson for making an etching so unlike her idea of him when
+he was a youthful teacher at Mr. Bird's school. Old age and poverty&mdash;a
+life-long poverty, she thinks&mdash;could at no time have so effaced the
+marks of native gentility which were once so visible in a face otherwise
+strikingly ugly, thin, and care-worn. From her recollections of him, she
+thinks that he would have wanted bread before he would have begged or
+borrowed a half-penny. "If any of the girls," she says, "who were my
+school-fellows, should be reading, through their aged spectacles,
+tidings from the dead of their youthful friend Starkey, they will feel a
+pang, as I do, at ever having teased his gentle spirit." They were big
+girls, it seems, too old to attend his instructions with the silence
+necessary; and however old age and a long state of beggary seem to have
+reduced his writing faculties to a state of imbecility, in those days
+his language occasionally rose to the bold and figurative: for, when he
+was in despair to stop their chattering, his ordinary phrase was,
+"Ladies, if you will not hold your peace, not all the powers in heaven
+can make you!" Once he was missing for a day or two: he had run away. A
+little, old, unhappy-looking man brought him back,&mdash;it was his
+father,&mdash;and he did no business in the school that day, but sat moping
+in a corner, with his hands before his face; and the girls, his
+tormentors, in pity for his case, for the rest of that day forbore to
+annoy him. "I had been there but a few months," adds she, "when Starkey,
+who was the chief instructor of us girls, communicated to us, as a
+profound secret, that the tragedy of 'Cato' was shortly to be acted by
+the elder boys, and that we were to be invited to the representation."
+That Starkey lent a helping hand in fashioning the actors, she
+remembers; and but for his unfortunate person, he might have had some
+distinguished part in the scene to enact. As it was, he had the arduous
+task of prompter assigned to him; and his feeble voice was heard clear
+and distinct, repeating the text during the whole performance. She
+describes her recollection of the cast of characters, even now, with a
+relish. Martia, by the handsome Edgar Hickman, who afterwards went to
+Africa, and of whom she never afterwards heard tidings; Lucia, by Master
+Walker, whose sister was her particular friend; Cato, by John Hunter, a
+masterly declaimer, but a plain boy, and shorter by the head than his
+two sons in the scene, etc. In conclusion, Starkey appears to have been
+one of those mild spirits, which, not originally deficient in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span>
+understanding, are crushed by penury into dejection and feebleness. He
+might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society, if
+Fortune had taken him into a very little fostering; but wanting that, he
+became a Captain,&mdash;a by-word,&mdash;and lived and died a broken bulrush.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Perhaps the reader would be pleased to see another of Elia's
+contributions to Hone's "Every-Day Book." For, though Lamb's articles in
+that amusing and very entertaining miscellany are not very highly
+finished or very carefully elaborated, they contain many touches of his
+delicious humor and exquisite pathos, and are, indeed, replete with the
+quaint beauties and beautiful oddities of his very original and very
+delightful genius.</p>
+
+<p>Sterne's sentimental description of the Dead Ass is immortal; but few of
+the readers and admirers of Charles Lamb know that he, who wrote so
+eloquently and pathetically in defence of Beggars and of
+Chimney-Sweepers, and who so ably and successfully vindicated the little
+innocent hare from the charge&mdash;made "by Linn&aelig;us perchance, or
+Buffon"&mdash;of being a timid animal, indited an essay on the same
+long-eared and loud-voiced quadruped.</p>
+
+
+<h4>THE ASS.</h4>
+
+<p>Mr. Collier, in his "Poetical Decameron," (Third Conversation,) notices
+a tract printed in 1595, with the author's initials only, A. B.,
+entitled, "The Nobleness of the Asse: a work rare, learned, and
+excellent." He has selected the following pretty passage from it:&mdash;"He
+[the ass] refuseth no burthen; he goes whither he is sent, without any
+contradiction. He lifts not his foote against any one; he bytes not; he
+is no fugitive, nor malicious affected. He doth all things in good sort,
+and to his liking that hath cause to employ him. If strokes be given
+him, he cares not for them; and, as out modern poet singeth,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Thou wouldst (perhaps) he should become thy foe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to that end dost beat him many times:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cares not for himselfe, much lesse thy blow.'"<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Certainly Nature, foreseeing the cruel usage which this useful servant
+to man should receive at man's hand, did prudently in furnishing him
+with a tegument impervious to ordinary stripes. The malice of a child or
+a weak hand can make feeble impressions on him. His back offers no mark
+to a puny foeman. To a common whip or switch his hide presents an
+absolute insensibility. You might as well pretend to scourge a
+school-boy with a tough pair of leather breeches on. His jerkin is well
+fortified; and therefore the costermongers "between the years 1790 and
+1800" did more politicly than piously in lifting up a part of his upper
+garment. I well remember that beastly and bloody custom. I have often
+longed to see one of those refiners in discipline himself at the cart's
+tail, with just such a convenient spot laid bare to the tender mercies
+of the whipster. But, since Nature has resumed her rights, it is to be
+hoped that this patient creature does not suffer to extremities,&mdash;and
+that to the savages who still belabor his poor carcass with their blows
+(considering the sort of anvil they are laid upon,) he might in some
+sort, if he could speak, exclaim, with the philosopher, "Lay on! you
+beat but upon the case of Anaxarchus."</p>
+
+<p>Contemplating this natural safeguard, this fortified exterior, it is
+with pain I view the sleek, foppish, combed, and curried person of this
+animal as he is transmuted and disnaturalized at watering-places, etc.,
+where they affect to make a palfrey of him. Fie on all such
+sophistications! It will never do, Master Groom! Something of his honest
+shaggy exterior will still peep up in spite of you,&mdash;his good, rough,
+native, pine-apple coating. You cannot "refine a scorpion into a fish,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span>
+though you rinse it and scour it with ever so cleanly cookery."<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></p>
+
+<p>The modern poet quoted by A. B. proceeds to celebrate a virtue for which
+no one to this day had been aware that the ass was remarkable:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"One other gift this beast hath as his owne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherewith the rest could not be furnish&egrave;d;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On man himselfe the same was not bestowne:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To wit, on him is ne'er engender&egrave;d<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hatefull vermine that doth teare the skin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to the bode [body] doth make his passage in."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And truly, when one thinks on the suit of impenetrable armor with which
+Nature (like Vulcan to another Achilles) has provided him, these subtle
+enemies to <i>our</i> repose would have shown some dexterity in getting into
+<i>his</i> quarters. As the bogs of Ireland by tradition expel toads and
+reptiles, he may well defy these small deer in his fastnesses. It seems
+the latter had not arrived at the exquisite policy adopted by the human
+vermin "between 1790 and 1800."</p>
+
+<p>But the most singular and delightful gift of the ass, according to the
+writer of this pamphlet, is his <i>voice</i>, the "goodly, sweet, and
+continual brayings" of which, "whereof they forme a melodious and
+proportionable kinde of musicke," seem to have affected him with no
+ordinary pleasure. "Nor thinke I," he adds, "that any of our immoderate
+musitians can deny but that their song is full of exceeding pleasure to
+be heard; because therein is to be discerned both concord, discord,
+singing in the meane, the beginning to sing in large compasse, then
+following on to rise and fall, the halfe note, whole note, musicke of
+five voices, firme singing by four voices, three together, or one voice
+and a halfe. Then their variable contrarieties amongst them, when one
+delivers forth a long tenor or a short, the pausing for time, breathing
+in measure, breaking the minim or very least moment of time. Last of
+all, to heare the musicke of five or six voices chaunged to so many of
+asses is amongst them to heare a song of world without end."</p>
+
+<p>There is no accounting for ears, or for that laudable enthusiasm with
+which an author is tempted to invest a favorite subject with the most
+incompatible perfections. I should otherwise, for my own taste, have
+been inclined rather to have given a place to these extraordinary
+musicians at that banquet of nothing-less-than-sweet sounds, imagined by
+old Jeremy Collier, (Essays, 1698, part ii., On Music,) where, after
+describing the inspiriting effects of martial music in a battle, he
+hazards an ingenious conjecture, whether a sort of <i>anti-music</i> might
+not be invented, which should have quite the contrary effect of "sinking
+the spirits, shaking the nerves, curdling the blood, and inspiring
+despair and cowardice and consternation." "'T is probable," he says,
+"the roaring of lions, the warbling of cats and screech-owls, together
+with a mixture of the howling of dogs, judiciously imitated and
+compounded, might go a great way in this invention." The dose, we
+confess, is pretty potent, and skilfully enough prepared. But what shall
+we say to the ass of Silenus, who, if we may trust to classic lore, by
+his own proper sounds, without thanks to cat or screech-owl, dismayed
+and put to rout a whole army of giants? Here was <i>anti-music</i> with a
+vengeance,&mdash;a whole <i>Pan-Dis-Harmonicon</i> in a single lungs of leather!</p>
+
+<p>But I keep you trifling too long on this asinine subject. I have already
+passed the <i>Pons Asinorum</i>, and will desist, remembering the old
+pedantic pun of Jem Boyer, my schoolmaster:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Ass <i>in pr&aelig;senti</i> seldom makes a <span class="smcap">wise man</span> <i>in futuro</i>."</p></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Lamb not only had a passionate fondness for old books and old friends,
+but he loved the old associations. He was no admirer of your modern
+improvements. Unlike Dr. Johnson, he did not go into the "most stately
+shops," but purchased his books and engravings at the stalls and from
+second-hand dealers. In his eyes, the old Inner-Temple Church was a
+handsomer and statelier structure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span> than the finest Cathedral in England;
+and to his ear, as well as to the ear of Will Honeycomb, the old
+familiar cries of the peripatetic London merchants were more musical
+than the songs of larks and nightingales. It grieved him sorely to see
+an old building demolished which he had passed and repassed for years,
+in his daily walks to and from his business,&mdash;or an old custom
+abolished, whose observance he had witnessed when a child. "The
+disappearance of the old clock from St. Dunstan's Church," says Mr.
+Moxon, in his pleasant tribute to Lamb's memory in Leigh Hunt's Journal,
+"drew tears from his eyes; nor could he ever pass without emotion the
+place where Exeter Change once stood. The removal had spoiled a reality
+in Gay. 'The passer-by,' he said, 'no longer saw the combs dangle in his
+face.' This almost broke his heart." And he begins the following little
+"essaykin" with a lamentation over the disappearance from the streets of
+London of the tinman's old original sign, and a sigh for "the good old
+modes of our ancestors."</p>
+
+<p>What he says of maiden aunts and their pets is delightful, and
+pleasantly reminds the reader of Addison's account of Sam Trusty's visit
+to the Widow Feeble.</p>
+
+
+<h4>IN RE SQUIRRELS.</h4>
+
+<p>What is gone with the cages, with the climbing squirrel and bells to
+them, which were formerly the indispensable appendage to the outside of
+a tinman's shop, and were, in fact, the only live signs? One, we
+believe, still hangs out on Holborn; but they are fast vanishing with
+the good old modes of our ancestors. They seem to have been superseded
+by that still more ingenious refinement of modern humanity, the
+tread-mill, in which <i>human</i> squirrels still perform a similar round of
+ceaseless, improgressive clambering, which must be nuts to them.</p>
+
+<p>We almost doubt the fact of the teeth of this creature being so purely
+orange-colored as Mr. Urban's correspondent gives out. One of our old
+poets&mdash;and they were pretty sharp observers of Nature&mdash;describes them as
+brown. But perhaps the naturalist referred to meant "of the color of a
+Maltese orange,"<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> which is rather more obfuscated than your fruit of
+Seville or St. Michael's, and may help to reconcile the difference. We
+cannot speak from observation; but we remember at school getting our
+fingers into the orangery of one of these little gentry, (not having a
+due caution of the traps set there,) and the result proved sourer than
+lemons. The author of the "Task" somewhere speaks of their anger as
+being "insignificantly fierce"; but we found the demonstration of it on
+this occasion quite as significant as we desired, and have not been
+disposed since to look any of these "gift horses" in the mouth. Maiden
+aunts keep these "small deer," as they do parrots, to bite people's
+fingers, on purpose to give them good advice "not to venture so near the
+cage another time." As for their "six quavers divided into three quavers
+and a dotted crotchet," I suppose they may go into Jeremy Bentham's next
+budget of Fallacies, along with the "melodious and proportionable kinde
+of musicke," recorded in your last number, of another highly gifted
+animal.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Although Lamb took little, if any, interest in public affairs, and,
+indeed, knew about as much of the events and occurrences of the day as
+the sublime, abstracted dancing-master immortalized in one of the
+letters to Manning, he appears to have been profoundly and painfully
+impressed by the fate of Fauntleroy, the forger. He thought and talked
+of Fauntleroy by day, and dreamed of Fauntleroy at night. And on the day
+after the execution of that unfortunate man, Lamb, thus solemnly, yet
+humorously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span> withal, writes to his good friend Bernard Barton, poet and
+bank-officer:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And now, my dear Sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of
+yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate
+Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes
+around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed
+to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become
+more impressive than usual with the charge of them. Who that standeth
+knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most willing to
+believe, have never deviated into others' property. You think it
+impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence; but so
+thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at last
+have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are a
+banker, or, at least, the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the
+subject; but cash must pass through your hands, sometimes to a great
+amount. If, in an unguarded hour&mdash;&mdash;But I will hope better. Consider the
+scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go
+to see a Quaker hanged that would be indifferent to the fate of a
+Presbyterian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the
+sale of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations! I
+tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of
+the law, at one time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged
+as I, in my own presumption, am ready, too ready, to do myself. What are
+we better than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is
+there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I
+ask you? Think on these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of
+my own fingers,&mdash;not for their resemblance to the ape tribe, (which is
+something,) but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of
+picking, fingering, etc."</p>
+
+<p>And a few months after writing the above letter, Lamb contributed to
+"The London Magazine,"&mdash;then in its decadence, but among whose "creaking
+rafters" Elia fondly lingered, "like the last rat,"&mdash;to this (his
+favorite periodical) he contributed a brief, but beautiful paper,
+suggested by Fauntleroy's sad story. The article is entitled "The Last
+Peach," and purports to be written by a bank-officer (possibly the
+author had Barton in his mind while writing it) who fears he may become
+a second Fauntleroy. The piece contains one or two delightful passages,
+and is, in fact, full of happy touches and felicitous bits of
+description. Very charming (to me, at least) is the account of the
+plucking of the last peach, and very touching is the allusion to the
+babe Fauntleroy. But good wine (or a good peach) needs no bush; and
+therefore, without further comment or commendation, I present "The Last
+Peach" to the appreciative reader. He will find it to be, unless I am a
+very poor judge of the article, a peach of excellent quality and of a
+peculiarly fine flavor.</p>
+
+<p>The garden in which grew the tree on which "lingered the one last peach"
+belonged to "Blakesmoor," the fine old family-mansion of the Plummers of
+Hertfordshire, in whose family Lamb's maternal grandmother&mdash;"the
+grandame" of his poem of that name, and the "great-grandmother Field" of
+Elia's "Dream-Children"&mdash;was housekeeper for many years.</p>
+
+
+<h4>THE LAST PEACH.</h4>
+
+<p>I am the miserablest man living. Give me counsel, dear Editor. I was
+bred up in the strictest principles of honesty, and have passed my life
+in punctual adherence to them. Integrity might be said to be ingrained
+in our family. Yet I live in constant fear of one day coming to the
+gallows.</p>
+
+<p>Till the latter end of last autumn, I never experienced these feelings
+of self-mistrust, which ever since have embittered my existence. From
+the apprehension of that unfortunate man<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> whose story began to make so
+great an impression<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span> upon the public about that time, I date my horrors.
+I never can get it out of my head that I shall some time or other commit
+a forgery, or do some equally vile thing. To make matters worse, I am in
+a banking-house. I sit surrounded with a cluster of bank-notes. These
+were formerly no more to me than meat to a butcher's dog. They are now
+as toads and aspics. I feel all day like one situated amidst gins and
+pitfalls. Sovereigns, which I once took such pleasure in counting out,
+and scraping up with my little tin shovel, (at which I was the most
+expert in the banking-house,) now scald my hands. When I go to sign my
+name, I set down that of another person, or write my own in a
+counterfeit character. I am beset with temptations without motive. I
+want no more wealth than I possess. A more contented being than myself,
+as to money-matters, exists not. What should I fear?</p>
+
+<p>When a child, I was once let loose, by favor of a nobleman's gardener,
+into his Lordship's magnificent fruit-garden, with full leave to pull
+the currants and the gooseberries; only I was interdicted from touching
+the wall-fruit. Indeed, at that season (it was the end of autumn) there
+was little left. Only on the south wall (can I forget the hot feel of
+the brick-work?) lingered the one last peach. Now peaches are a fruit
+which I always had, and still have, an almost utter aversion to. There
+is something to my palate singularly harsh and repulsive in the flavor
+of them. I know not by what demon of contradiction inspired, but I was
+haunted with an irresistible desire to pluck it. Tear myself as often as
+I would from the spot, I found myself still recurring to it, till,
+maddening with desire, (desire I cannot call it,) with wilfulness
+rather,&mdash;without appetite, (against appetite, I may call it,) in an evil
+hour I reached out my hand, and plucked it. Some few rain-drops just
+then fell; the sky, from a bright day, became overcast; and I was a type
+of our first parents, after eating of that fatal fruit. I felt myself
+naked and ashamed, stripped of my virtue, spiritless. The downy fruit,
+whose sight rather than savor had tempted me, dropped from my hand,
+never to be tasted. All the commentators in the world cannot persuade me
+but that the Hebrew word, in the second chapter of Genesis, translated
+apple, should be rendered peach. Only this way can I reconcile that
+mysterious story.</p>
+
+<p>Just such a child at thirty am I among the cash and valuables, longing
+to pluck, without an idea of enjoyment further. I cannot reason myself
+out of these fears: I dare not laugh at them. I was tenderly and
+lovingly brought up. What then? Who that in life's entrance had seen the
+babe F&mdash;&mdash;, from the lap stretching out his little fond mouth to catch
+the maternal kiss, could have predicted, or as much as imagined, that
+life's very different exit? The sight of my own fingers torments me,
+they seem so admirably constructed for&mdash;pilfering. Then that jugular
+vein, which I have in common&mdash;&mdash;; in an emphatic sense may I say with
+David, I am "fearfully made." All my mirth is poisoned by these unhappy
+suggestions. If, to dissipate reflection, I hum a tune, it changes to
+the "Lamentations of a Sinner." My very dreams are tainted. I awake with
+a shocking feeling of my hand in some pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Advise me, dear Editor, on this painful heart-malady. Tell me, do you
+feel anything allied to it in yourself? Do you never feel an itching, as
+it were,&mdash;a <i>dactylomania</i>,&mdash;or am I alone? You have my honest
+confession. My next may appear from Bow Street.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Suspensurus.</span></p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Delightful as the essays of Elia are, Lamb did not spend all the "riches
+of his wit" in their production. His letters&mdash;so full are they of "the
+salt and fineness of wit,"&mdash;so richly humorous and so deliciously
+droll,&mdash;so rammed and crammed with the oddest conceits and the wildest
+fancies, and the quaintest, queerest thoughts, ideas, and
+speculations&mdash;are scarcely inferior to his essays. Indeed, some of the
+best and most admired<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span> of the essays are but extended letters. The germ
+of the immortal dissertation on "Roast Pig" is contained in a letter to
+Coleridge; the essay entitled "Distant Correspondents" is hardly more
+than a transcript of a private letter to Barron Field; and the original
+sketch of "The Gentle Giantess" was given in a letter to Miss
+Wordsworth.</p>
+
+<p>In the following letter&mdash;which is not included in Talfourd's "Life and
+Letters of Charles Lamb," and will therefore be new to most
+readers&mdash;Lamb writes very much in the manner in which Shakspeare's fools
+and jesters&mdash;in some respects the wisest and thoughtfullest characters
+in his works&mdash;talk. If his words be "light as air," they vent "truths
+deep as the centre." If the Fool in "Lear" had written letters to his
+friends and acquaintances, I think they would have marvellously
+resembled this epistle to Patmore; and if, in saying this, I compliment
+the Fool, I hope I do not derogate from the genius of Elia. Jaques, it
+will be remembered, after hearing the "motley fool" moral on the time,
+declared that "motley's the only wear"; and I opine that Lamb would
+consider it no small praise to be likened, in wit, wisdom, and
+eloquence, to Touchstone, or to the Clown in "Twelfth Night."</p>
+
+
+<h4>TO P. G. PATMORE.</h4>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear P.</span>,&mdash;I am poorly. I have been to a funeral, where I made a pun, to
+the consternation of the rest of the mourners; and we had wine. I can't
+describe to you the howl which the widow set up at proper intervals.
+Dash could; for it was not unlike what he makes.</p>
+
+<p>The letter I sent you was directed to the care of E. White, India House,
+for Mrs. Hazlitt: <i>which</i> Mrs. Hazlitt I don't yet know; but A. has
+taken it to France on speculation. Really it is embarrassing. There is
+Mrs. present H., Mrs. late H., and Mrs. John H.; and to which of the
+three Mrs. Wigginses it appertains I don't know. I wanted to open it;
+but it's transportation.</p>
+
+<p>I am sorry you are plagued about your book. I would strongly recommend
+you to take for one story Massinger's "Old Law." It is exquisite. I can
+think of no other.</p>
+
+<p>Dash is frightful this morning. He whines and stands up on his
+hind-legs. He misses Beckey, who is gone to town. I took him to Barnet
+the other day; and he couldn't eat his victuals after it. Pray God his
+intellects be not slipping.</p>
+
+<p>Mary is gone out for some soles. I suppose it's no use to ask you to
+come and partake of 'em, else there's a steam-vessel.</p>
+
+<p>I am doing a tragi-comedy in two acts, and have got on tolerably; but it
+will be refused, or worse. I never had luck with anything my name was
+put to.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, I am so poorly! I <i>waked</i> it at my cousin's the bookbinder's, who is
+now with God; or, if he is not, it's no fault of mine.</p>
+
+<p>We hope the frank wines do not disagree with Mrs. Patmore. By the way, I
+like her.</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever taste frogs? Get them, if you can. They are little Liliput
+rabbits, only a thought nicer.</p>
+
+<p>Christ, how sick I am!&mdash;not of the world, but of the widow's shrub.
+She's sworn under six thousand pounds; but I think she perjured herself.
+She howls in E <i>la</i>; and I comfort her in B flat. You understand music?</p>
+
+<p>If you haven't got Massinger, you have nothing to do but go to the first
+biblioth&egrave;que you can light upon at Boulogne, and ask for it (Gifford's
+edition); and if they haven't got it, you can have "Athalie," par
+Monsieur Racine, and make the best of it; but that "Old Law" 's
+delicious!</p>
+
+<p>"No shrimps!" (That's in answer to Mary's question about how the soles
+are to be done.)</p>
+
+<p>I am uncertain where this <i>wandering</i> letter may reach you. What you
+mean by "poste restante," God knows. Do you mean I must pay the postage?
+So I do, to Dover.</p>
+
+<p>We had a merry passage with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span> widow at the Commons. She was
+howling,&mdash;part howling, and part giving directions to the
+proctor,&mdash;when, crash! down went my sister through a crazy chair, and
+made the clerks grin; and I grinned, and the widow tittered; <i>and then I
+knew that she was not inconsolable</i>. Mary was more frightened than hurt.</p>
+
+<p>She'd make a good match for anybody (by "she," I mean the widow).</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"If he bring but a <i>relict</i> away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He is happy, nor heard to complain."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i23"><i>Shenstone.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Procter has got a wen growing out at the nape of his neck, which his
+wife wants him to have cut off: but I think it rather an agreeable
+excrescence; like his poetry, redundant. Hone has hanged himself for
+debt. Godwin was taken up for picking pockets. Beckey takes to bad
+courses. Her father was blown up in a steam-machine. The coroner found
+it insanity. I should not like him to sit on my letter.<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a></p>
+
+<p>Do you observe my direction? Is it Gaelic?&mdash;classical?</p>
+
+<p>Do try and get some frogs. You must ask for "grenouilles" (green-eels).
+They don't understand "frogs"; though it's a common phrase with us.</p>
+
+<p>If you go through Bulloign [Boulogne], inquire if old Godfrey is living,
+and how he got home from the Crusades. He must be a very old man now.</p>
+
+<p>If there is anything new in politics or literature in France, keep it
+till I see you again; for I'm in no hurry. Chatty-Briant [Ch&acirc;teaubriand]
+is well, I hope.</p>
+
+<p>I think I have no more news; only give both our loves ("all three," says
+Dash) to Mrs. Patmore, and bid her get quite well, as I am at present,
+bating qualms, and the grief incident to losing a valuable relation.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">C. L.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Londres</span>, July 19, 1827.</p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Of all the essays of Elia, the paper on "Roast Pig" is perhaps the most
+read, the most quoted, the most admired. 'T is even better, says an
+epicurean friend of mine, than the "crisp, tawny, well-watched, not
+over-roasted crackling" it descants upon so eloquently. Certainly Lamb
+never writes so richly and so delightfully as when he discourses of the
+dainties and delicacies of the table.</p>
+
+<p>Though all our readers are doubtlessly familiar with Elia's beautiful
+little article entitled "Thoughts on Presents of Game," very few of them
+have read the letter he wrote in acknowledgment of a present of a pig
+from a farmer and his wife. 'T is a rare bit, a choice morsel of Lamb's
+best and most delicious humor, and will be perused with great pleasure
+and satisfaction by all admirers of its witty and eccentric author. Here
+it is.</p>
+
+
+<h4>TO A FARMER AND HIS WIFE.</h4>
+
+<p class="right">
+<i>Twelfth Day, 1823.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>The pig was above my feeble praise. It was a dear pigmy. There was some
+contention as to who should have the ears; but, in spite of his
+obstinacy, (deaf as these little creatures are to advice,) I contrived
+to get at one of them.</p>
+
+<p>It came in boots, too, which I took as a favor. Generally these pretty
+toes&mdash;pretty toes!&mdash;are missing; but I suppose he wore them to look
+taller.</p>
+
+<p>He must have been the least of his race. His little foots would have
+gone into the silver slipper. I take him to have been a Chinese and a
+female.</p>
+
+<p>If Evelyn could have seen him, he would never have farrowed two such
+prodigious volumes; seeing how much good can be contained in&mdash;how small
+a compass!</p>
+
+<p>He crackled delicately.</p>
+
+<p>I left a blank at the top of my letter, not being determined which to
+address it to: so farmer and farmer's wife will please to divide our
+thanks. May your granaries be full, and your rats empty, and your
+chickens plump, and your envious neighbors lean, and your laborers busy,
+and you as idle and as happy as the day is long!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Vive l'Agriculture!</span></h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How do you make your pigs so little?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are vastly engaging at the age:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I was so myself.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now I am a disagreeable old hog,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A middle-aged gentleman-and-a-half.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My faculties, thank God, are not much impaired!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I have my sight, hearing, taste, pretty perfect; and can read the Lord's
+Prayer in common type, by the help of a candle, without making many
+mistakes.</p>
+
+<p>Believe me, that, while my faculties last, I shall ever cherish a proper
+appreciation of your many kindnesses in this way, and that the last
+lingering relish of past favors upon my dying memory will be the smack
+of that little ear. It was the left ear, which is lucky. Many happy
+returns,&mdash;not of the pig, but of the New Year, to both!</p>
+
+<p>Mary, for her share of the pig and the memoirs, desires to send the
+same.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">Yours truly,<br />
+<span class="smcap">C. Lamb</span>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<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> "Who this modern poet was," says Mr. Collier, "is a secret
+worth discovering." The wood-cut on the title of the pamphlet is an ass
+with a wreath of laurel round his neck.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> Milton, <i>from memory</i>.</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> Fletcher, in the "Faithful Shepherdess." The Satyr offers
+to Clorin
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"grapes whose lusty blood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is the learned poet's good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweeter yet did never crown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than the <i>squirrels' teeth</i> that crack them."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</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> Fauntleroy.</p></div>
+
+<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> The reader, says Mr. Patmore, need not be told that all the
+above items of home-news are pure fiction.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="TO_WILLIAM_CULLEN_BRYANT" id="TO_WILLIAM_CULLEN_BRYANT"></a>TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.</h3>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">November 3, 1864.</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Calm priest of Nature, her maternal hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Led thee, a reverent child,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To mountain-altars, by the lonely strand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And through the forest wild.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Haunting her temple, filled with love and awe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To thy responsive youth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The harmonies of her benignant law<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Revealed consoling truth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thenceforth, when toiling in the grasp of Care<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Amid the eager throng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A votive seer, her greetings thou didst bear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her oracles prolong.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The vagrant winds and the far heaving main<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Breathed in thy chastened rhyme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their latent music to the soul again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Above the din of time.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The seasons, at thy call, renewed the spell<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That thrilled our better years,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The primal wonder o'er our spirits fell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And woke the fount of tears.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And Faith's monition, like an organ's strain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Followed the sea-bird's flight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The river's bounteous flow, the ripening grain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And stars' unfathomed light.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In the dank woods and where the meadows gleam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The lowliest flower that smiled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To wisdom's vigil or to fancy's dream<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thy gentle thought beguiled.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They win fond glances in the prairie's sweep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And where the moss-clumps lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A welcome find when through the mould they creep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A requiem when they die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Unstained thy song with passion's fitful hues<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or pleasure's reckless breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Nature's beauty to thy virgin muse<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was solemnized by death.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O'er life's majestic realm and dread repose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Entranced with holy calm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the rapt soul of boyhood then uprose<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The memorable psalm.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And roaming lone beneath the woodland shades,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thy meditative prayer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the umbrageous aisles and choral glades<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We murmur unaware;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Or track the ages with prophetic cheer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lured by thy chant sublime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till bigotry and kingcraft disappear<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In Freedom's chosen clime,&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">While on her ramparts with intrepid mien,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O'er faction's angry sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy voice proclaims, undaunted and serene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The watchwords of the free.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not in vague tones or tricks of verbal art<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The plaint and p&aelig;an rung:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thine the clear utterance of an earnest heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The limpid Saxon tongue.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Our country's minstrel! in whose crystal verse<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With tranquil joy we trace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her native glories, and the tale rehearse<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of her primeval race,&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Blest are thy laurels, that unchallenged crown<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Worn brow and silver hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For truth and manhood consecrate renown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And her pure triumph share!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="HOUSE_AND_HOME_PAPERS" id="HOUSE_AND_HOME_PAPERS"></a>HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS</h2>
+
+<h3>BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>X.</h4>
+
+<p>Our gallant Bob Stephens, into whose life-boat our Marianne has been
+received, has lately taken the mania of house-building into his head.
+Bob is somewhat fastidious, difficult to please, fond of domesticities
+and individualities; and such a man never can fit himself into a house
+built by another, and accordingly house-building has always been his
+favorite mental recreation. During all his courtship as much time was
+taken up in planning a future house as if he had money to build one, and
+all Marianne's patterns, and the backs of half their letters, were
+scrawled with ground-plans and elevations. But latterly this chronic
+disposition has been quickened into an acute form by the falling-in of
+some few thousands to their domestic treasury,&mdash;left as the sole
+residuum of a painstaking old aunt, who took it into her head to make a
+will in Bob's favor, leaving, among other good things, a nice little bit
+of land in a rural district half an hour's railroad-ride from Boston.</p>
+
+<p>So now ground-plans thicken, and my wife is being consulted morning,
+noon, and night, and I never come into the room without finding their
+heads close together over a paper, and hearing Bob expatiate on his
+favorite idea of a library. He appears to have got so far as this, that
+the ceiling is to be of carved oak, with ribs running to a boss
+overhead, and finished medi&aelig;vally with ultramarine blue and
+gilding,&mdash;and then away he goes sketching Gothic patterns of
+book-shelves which require only experienced carvers, and the wherewithal
+to pay them, to be the divinest things in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Marianne is exercised about china-closets and pantries, and about a
+bed-room on the ground-door,&mdash;for, like all other women of our days, she
+expects not to have strength enough to run up-stairs oftener than once
+or twice a week; and my wife, who is a native genius in this line, and
+has planned in her time dozens of houses for acquaintances, wherein they
+are at this moment living happily, goes over every day with her pencil
+and ruler the work of rearranging the plans, according as the ideas of
+the young couple veer and vary.</p>
+
+<p>One day Bob is importuned to give two feet off from his library for a
+closet in the bed-room,&mdash;but resists like a Trojan. The next morning,
+being mollified by private domestic supplications, Bob yields, and my
+wife rubs out the lines of yesterday, two feet come off the library, and
+a closet is constructed. But now the parlor proves too narrow,&mdash;the
+parlor-wall must be moved two feet into the hall. Bob declares this will
+spoil the symmetry of the latter, and if there is anything he wants, it
+is a wide, generous, ample hall to step into when you open the
+front-door.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," says Marianne, "let's put two feet more into the width of
+the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't, on account of the expense, you see," says Bob. "You see, every
+additional foot of outside wall necessitates so many more bricks, so
+much more flooring, so much more roofing, etc."</p>
+
+<p>And my wife, with thoughtful brow, looks over the plans, and considers
+how two feet more are to be got into the parlor without moving any of
+the walls.</p>
+
+<p>"I say," says Bob, bending over her shoulder, "here, take your two feet
+in the parlor, and put two more feet on to the other side of the
+hall-stairs"; and he dashes heavily with his pencil.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Bob!" exclaims Marianne, "there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</a></span> are the kitchen-pantries! you ruin
+them,&mdash;and no place for the cellar-stairs!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hang the pantries and cellar-stairs!" says Bob, "Mother must find a
+place for them somewhere else. I say the house must be roomy and
+cheerful, and pantries and those things may take care of themselves;
+they can be put <i>somewhere</i> well enough. No fear but you will find a
+place for them somewhere. What do you women always want such a great
+enormous kitchen for?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not any larger than is necessary," said my wife, thoughtfully;
+"nothing is gained by taking off from it."</p>
+
+<p>"What if you should put it all down into a basement," suggests Bob, "and
+so get it all out of sight together?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, if it can be helped," said my wife. "Basement-kitchens are
+necessary evils, only to be tolerated in cities where land is too dear
+to afford any other."</p>
+
+<p>So goes the discussion till the trio agree to sleep over it. The next
+morning an inspiration visits my wife's pillow. She is up and seizes
+plans and paper, and before six o'clock has enlarged the parlor very
+cleverly, by throwing out a bow-window. So waxes and wanes the
+prospective house, innocently battered down and rebuilt with
+India-rubber and black-lead. Doors are cut out to-night, and walled up
+to-morrow,&mdash;windows knocked out here and put in there, as some observer
+suggests possibilities of too much or too little draught. Now all seems
+finished, when, lo, a discovery! There is no fireplace nor stove-flue in
+my lady's bed-room, and can be none without moving the bathing-room.
+Pencil and India-rubber are busy again, and for a while the whole house
+seems to threaten to fall to pieces with the confusion of the moving;
+the bath-room wanders like a ghost, now invading a closet, now
+threatening the tranquillity of the parlor, till at last it is laid by
+some unheard-of calculations of my wife's, and sinks to rest in a place
+so much better that everybody wonders it never was thought of before.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa," said Jennie, "it appears to me people don't exactly know what
+they want when they build; why don't you write a paper on
+house-building?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought of it," said I, with the air of a man called to settle
+some great reform. "It must be entirely because Christopher has not
+written that our young people and mamma are tangling themselves daily in
+webs which are untangled the next day."</p>
+
+<p>"You see," said Jennie, "they have only just so much money, and they
+want everything they can think of under the sun. There's Bob been
+studying architectural antiquities, and nobody knows what, and sketching
+all sorts of curly-whorlies; and Marianne has her notions about a parlor
+and boudoir and china-closets and bedroom-closets; and Bob wants a
+baronial hall; and mamma stands out for linen-closets and bathing-rooms
+and all that; and so among them all it will just end in getting them
+head over ears in debt."</p>
+
+<p>The thing struck me as not improbable.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Jennie, whether my writing an article is going to prevent
+all this; but as my time in the 'Atlantic' is coming round, I may as
+well write on what I am obliged to think of, and so I will give a paper
+on the subject to enliven our next evening's session."</p>
+
+<p>So that evening, when Bob and Marianne had dropped in as usual, and
+while the customary work of drawing and rubbing-out was going on at Mrs.
+Crowfield's sofa, I produced my paper and read as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<h4>OUR HOUSE.</h4>
+
+<p>There is a place called "Our House," which everybody knows of. The
+sailor talks of it in his dreams at sea. The wounded soldier, turning in
+his uneasy hospital-bed, brightens at the word,&mdash;it is like the dropping
+of cool water in the desert, like the touch of cool fingers on a burning
+brow. "Our house," he says feebly, and the light comes back into his dim
+eyes,&mdash;for all homely charities, all fond thoughts, all purities, all
+that man loves on earth or hopes for in heaven, rise with the word.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Our house" may be in any style of architecture, low or high. It may be
+the brown old farm-house, with its tall well-sweep, or the one-story
+gambrel-roofed cottage, or the large, square, white house, with green
+blinds, under the wind-swung elms of a century, or it may be the
+log-cabin of the wilderness, with its one room,&mdash;still there is a spell
+in the memory of it beyond all conjurations. Its stone and brick and
+mortar are like no other; its very clapboards and shingles are dear to
+us, powerful to bring back the memories of early days, and all that is
+sacred in home-love.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Papa is getting quite sentimental," whispered Jennie, loud enough for
+me to hear. I shook my head at her impressively, and went on undaunted.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>There is no one fact of our human existence that has a stronger
+influence upon us than the house we dwell in,&mdash;especially that in which
+our earlier and more impressible years are spent. The building and
+arrangement of a house influence the health, the comfort, the morals,
+the religion. There have been houses built so devoid of all
+consideration for the occupants, so rambling and hap-hazard in the
+disposal of rooms, so sunless and cheerless and wholly without snugness
+or privacy, as to make it seem impossible to live a joyous, generous,
+rational, religious family-life in them.</p>
+
+<p>There are, we shame to say, in our cities <i>things</i> called houses, built
+and rented by people who walk erect and have the general air and manner
+of civilized and Christianized men, which are so inhuman in their
+building that they can only be called snares and traps for
+souls,&mdash;places where children cannot well escape growing up filthy and
+impure,&mdash;places where to form a home is impossible, and to live a
+decent, Christian life would require miraculous strength.</p>
+
+<p>A celebrated British philanthropist, who had devoted much study to the
+dwellings of the poor, gave it as his opinion that temperance-societies
+were a hopeless undertaking in London, unless these dwellings underwent
+a transformation. They were so squalid, so dark, so comfortless, so
+constantly pressing upon the senses foulness, pain, and inconvenience,
+that it was only by being drugged with gin and opium that their
+miserable inhabitants could find heart to drag on life from day to day.
+He had himself tried the experiment of reforming a drunkard by taking
+him from one of these loathsome dens and enabling him to rent a tenement
+in a block of model lodging-houses which had been built under his
+supervision. The young man had been a designer of figures for prints; he
+was of a delicate frame, and a nervous, susceptible temperament. Shut in
+one miserable room with his wife and little children, without the
+possibility of pure air, with only filthy, fetid water to drink, with
+the noise of other miserable families resounding through the thin
+partitions, what possibility was there of doing anything except by the
+help of stimulants, which for a brief hour lifted him above the
+perception of these miseries? Changed at once to a neat flat, where, for
+the same rent as his former den, he had three good rooms, with water for
+drinking, house-service, and bathing freely supplied, and the blessed
+sunshine and air coming in through windows well arranged for
+ventilation, he became in a few weeks a new man. In the charms of the
+little spot which he could call home, its quiet, its order, his former
+talent came back to him, and he found strength, in pure air and pure
+water and those purer thoughts of which they are the emblems, to abandon
+burning and stupefying stimulants.</p>
+
+<p>The influence of dwelling-houses for good or for evil&mdash;their influence
+on the brain, the nerves, and, through these, on the heart and life&mdash;is
+one of those things that cannot be enough pondered by those who build
+houses to sell or rent.</p>
+
+<p>Something more generous ought to inspire a man than merely the
+percentage which he can get for his money. He who would build houses
+should think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</a></span> a little on the subject. He should reflect what houses are
+for,&mdash;what they may be made to do for human beings. The great majority
+of houses in cities are not built by the indwellers themselves,&mdash;they
+are built <i>for</i> them, by those who invest their money in this way, with
+little other thought than the percentage which the investment will
+return.</p>
+
+<p>For persons of ample fortune there are, indeed, palatial residences,
+with all that wealth can do to render life delightful. But in that class
+of houses which must be the lot of the large majority, those which must
+be chosen by young men in the beginning of life, when means are
+comparatively restricted, there is yet wide room for thought and the
+judicious application of money.</p>
+
+<p>In looking over houses to be rented by persons of moderate means, one
+cannot help longing to build,&mdash;one sees so many ways in which the same
+sum which built an inconvenient and unpleasant house might have been
+made to build a delightful one.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"That's so!" said Bob, with emphasis. "Don't you remember, Marianne, how
+many dismal, commonplace, shabby houses we trailed through?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Marianne. "You remember those houses with such little
+squeezed rooms and that flourishing staircase, with the colored-glass
+china-closet window and no butler's sink?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Bob; "and those astonishing, abominable stone abortions that
+adorned the door-steps. People do lay out a deal of money to make houses
+look ugly, it must be confessed."</p>
+
+<p>"One would willingly," said Marianne, "dispense with frightful stone
+ornaments in front, and with heavy mouldings inside, which are of no
+possible use or beauty, and with showy plaster cornices and
+centre-pieces in the parlor-ceilings, and even with marble mantels, for
+the luxury of hot and cold water in each chamber, and a couple of
+comfortable bath-rooms. Then, the disposition of windows and doors is so
+wholly without regard to convenience! How often we find rooms, meant for
+bed-rooms, where really there is no good place for either bed or
+dressing-table!"</p>
+
+<p>Here my wife looked up, having just finished re-drawing the plans to the
+latest alteration.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the greatest reforms that could be, in these reforming days,"
+she observed, "would be to have women architects. The mischief with
+houses built to rent is that they are all mere male contrivances. No
+woman would ever plan chambers where there is no earthly place to set a
+bed except against a window or door, or waste the room in entries that
+might be made into closets. I don't see, for my part, <i>apropos</i> to the
+modern movement for opening new professions to the female sex, why there
+should not be well-educated female architects. The planning and
+arrangement of houses, and the laying-out of grounds, are a fair subject
+of womanly knowledge and taste. It is the teaching of Nature. What would
+anybody think of a bluebird's nest that had been built entirely by Mr.
+Blue without the help of his wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," said I, "you must positively send a paper on this subject to
+the next Woman's-Rights Convention."</p>
+
+<p>"I am of Sojourner Truth's opinion," said my wife,&mdash;"that the best way
+to prove the propriety of one's doing anything is to go and <i>do it</i>. A
+woman who should have energy to go through the preparatory studies and
+set to work in this field would, I am sure, soon find employment."</p>
+
+<p>"If she did as well as you would do, my dear," said I. "There are plenty
+of young women in our Boston high-schools who are going through higher
+fields of mathematics than are required by the architect, and the
+schools for design show the flexibility and fertility of the female
+pencil. The thing appears to me altogether more feasible than many other
+openings which have been suggested to woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Jennie, "isn't papa ever to go on with his paper?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I continued:&mdash;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>What ought "our house" to be? Could any other question be asked
+admitting in its details of such varied answers,&mdash;answers various as the
+means, the character, and situation of different individuals? But there
+are great wants pertaining to every human being, into which all lesser
+ones run. There are things in a house that every one, high or low, rich
+or poor, ought, according to his means, to seek. I think I shall class
+them according to the elemental division of the old philosophers,&mdash;Fire,
+Air, Earth, and Water. These form the groundwork of this <i>need-be</i>,&mdash;the
+<i>sine-qua-nons</i> of a house.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Fire, air, earth, and water! I don't understand," said Jennie.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a little till you do, then," said I. "I will try to make my
+meaning plain."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The first object of a house is shelter from the elements. This object is
+effected by a tent or wigwam which keeps off rain and wind. The first
+disadvantage of this shelter is, that the vital air which you take into
+your lungs, and on the purity of which depends the purity of blood and
+brain and nerve, is vitiated. In the wigwam or tent you are constantly
+taking in poison, more or less active, with every inspiration. Napoleon
+had his army sleep without tents. He stated, that, from experience, he
+found it more healthy; and wonderful have been the instances of delicate
+persons gaining constantly in vigor from being obliged, in the midst of
+hardships, to sleep constantly in the open air. Now the first problem in
+house-building is to combine the advantage of shelter with the fresh
+elasticity of out-door air. I am not going to give here a treatise on
+ventilation, but merely to say, in general terms, that the first object
+of a house-builder or contriver should be to make a healthy house, and
+the first requisite of a healthy house is a pure, sweet, elastic air.</p>
+
+<p>I am in favor, therefore, of those plans of house-building which have
+wide central spaces, whether halls or courts, into which all the rooms
+open, and which necessarily preserve a body of fresh air for the use of
+them all. In hot climates this is the object of the central court which
+cuts into the body of the house, with its fountain and flowers, and its
+galleries, into which the various apartments open. When people are
+restricted for space, and cannot afford to give up wide central portions
+of the house for the mere purposes of passage, this central hall can be
+made a pleasant sitting-room. With tables, chairs, bookcases, and sofas
+comfortably disposed, this ample central room above and below is, in
+many respects, the most agreeable lounging-room of the house; while the
+parlors below and the chambers above, opening upon it, form agreeable
+withdrawing-rooms for purposes of greater privacy.</p>
+
+<p>It is customary with many persons to sleep with bed-room windows
+open,&mdash;a very imperfect, and often dangerous mode of procuring that
+supply of fresh air which a sleeping-room requires. In a house
+constructed in the manner indicated, windows might be freely left open
+in these central halls, producing there a constant movement of air, and
+the doors of the bed-rooms placed ajar, when a very slight opening in
+the windows would create a free circulation through the apartments.</p>
+
+<p>In the planning of a house, thought should be had as to the general
+disposition of the windows, and the quarters from which favoring breezes
+may be expected should be carefully considered. Windows should be so
+arranged that draughts of air can be thrown quite through and across the
+house. How often have we seen pale mothers and drooping babes fanning
+and panting during some of our hot days on the sunny side of a house,
+while the breeze that should have cooled them beat in vain against a
+dead wall! One longs sometimes to knock holes through partitions and let
+in the air of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>No other gift of God, so precious, so inspiring,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</a></span> is treated with such
+utter irreverence and contempt in the calculations of us mortals as this
+same air of heaven. A sermon on oxygen, if one had a preacher who
+understood the subject, might do more to repress sin than the most
+orthodox discourse to show when and how and why sin came. A minister
+gets up in a crowded lecture-room, where the mephitic air almost makes
+the candles burn blue, and bewails the deadness of the church,&mdash;the
+church the while, drugged by the poisoned air, growing sleepier and
+sleepier, though they feel dreadfully wicked for being so.</p>
+
+<p>Little Jim, who, fresh from his afternoon's rambles in the fields, last
+evening said his prayers dutifully, and lay down to sleep in a most
+Christian frame, this morning sits up in bed with his hair bristling
+with crossness, strikes at his nurse, and declares he won't say his
+prayers,&mdash;that he don't want to be good. The simple difference is, that
+the child, having slept in a close box of a room, his brain all night
+fed by poison, is in a mild state of moral insanity. Delicate women
+remark that it takes them till eleven or twelve o'clock to get up their
+strength in the morning. Query,&mdash;Do they sleep with closed windows and
+doors, and with heavy bed-curtains?</p>
+
+<p>The houses built by our ancestors were better ventilated in certain
+respects than modern ones, with all their improvements. The great
+central chimney, with its open fireplaces in the different rooms,
+created a constant current which carried off foul and vitiated air. In
+these days, how common is it to provide rooms with only a flue for a
+stove! This flue is kept shut in summer, and in winter opened only to
+admit a close stove, which burns away the vital portion of the air quite
+as fast as the occupants breathe it away. The sealing-up of fireplaces
+and introduction of air-tight stoves may, doubtless, be a saving of
+fuel: it saves, too, more than that; in thousands and thousands of cases
+it has saved people from all further human wants, and put an end forever
+to any needs short of the six feet of narrow earth which are man's only
+inalienable property. In other words, since the invention of air-tight
+stoves, thousands have died of slow poison. It is a terrible thing to
+reflect upon, that our Northern winters last from November to May, six
+long months, in which many families confine themselves to one room, of
+which every window-crack has been carefully calked to make it air-tight,
+where an air-tight stove keeps the atmosphere at a temperature between
+eighty and ninety, and the inmates sitting there with all their winter
+clothes on become enervated both by the heat and by the poisoned air,
+for which there is no escape but the occasional opening of a door.</p>
+
+<p>It is no wonder that the first result of all this is such a delicacy of
+skin and lungs that about half the inmates are obliged to give up going
+into the open air during the six cold months, because they invariably
+catch cold, if they do so. It is no wonder that the cold caught about
+the first of December has by the first of March become a fixed
+consumption, and that the opening of the spring, which ought to bring
+life and health, in so many cases brings death.</p>
+
+<p>We hear of the lean condition in which the poor bears emerge from their
+six-months' wintering, during which they subsist on the fat which they
+have acquired the previous summer. Even so in our long winters,
+multitudes of delicate people subsist on the daily waning strength which
+they acquired in the season when windows and doors were open, and fresh
+air was a constant luxury. No wonder we hear of spring fever and spring
+biliousness, and have thousands of nostrums for clearing the blood in
+the spring. All these things are the pantings and palpitations of a
+system run down under slow poison, unable to get a step farther. Better,
+far better, the old houses of the olden time, with their great roaring
+fires, and their bed-rooms where the snow came in and the wintry winds
+whistled. Then, to be sure, you froze your back while you burned your
+face, your water froze nightly in your pitcher, your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</a></span> breath congealed
+in ice-wreaths on the blankets, and you could write your name on the
+pretty snow-wreath that had sifted in through the window-cracks. But you
+woke full of life and vigor,&mdash;you looked out into whirling snow-storms
+without a shiver, and thought nothing of plunging through drifts as high
+as your head on your daily way to school. You jingled in sleighs, you
+snowballed, you lived in snow like a snow-bird, and your blood coursed
+and tingled, in full tide of good, merry, real life, through your
+veins,&mdash;none of the slow-creeping, black blood which clogs the brain and
+lies like a weight on the vital wheels!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Mercy upon us, papa!" said Jennie, "I hope we need not go back to such
+houses!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear," I replied. "I only said that such houses were better than
+those which are all winter closed by double windows and burnt-out
+air-tight stoves."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The perfect house is one in which there is a constant escape of every
+foul and vitiated particle of air through one opening, while a constant
+supply of fresh out-door air is admitted by another. In winter, this
+out-door air must pass through some process by which it is brought up to
+a temperate warmth.</p>
+
+<p>Take a single room, and suppose on one side a current of out-door air
+which has been warmed by passing through the air-chamber of a modern
+furnace. Its temperature need not be above sixty-five,&mdash;it answers
+breathing purposes better at that. On the other side of the room let
+there be an open wood- or coal-fire. One cannot conceive the purposes of
+warmth and ventilation more perfectly combined.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose a house with a great central hall, into which a current of
+fresh, temperately warmed air is continually pouring. Each chamber
+opening upon this hall has a chimney up whose flue the rarefied air is
+constantly passing, drawing up with it all the foul and poisonous gases.
+That house is well ventilated, and in a way that need bring no dangerous
+draughts upon the most delicate invalid. For the better securing of
+privacy in sleeping-rooms, we have seen two doors employed, one of which
+is made with slats, like a window-blind, so that air is freely
+transmitted without exposing the interior.</p>
+
+<p>When we speak of fresh air, we insist on the full rigor of the term. It
+must not be the air of a cellar, heavily laden with the poisonous
+nitrogen of turnips and cabbages, but good, fresh, out-door air from a
+cold-air pipe so placed as not to get the lower stratum near the ground,
+where heavy damps and exhalations collect, but high up in just the
+clearest and most elastic region.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion of the whole matter is, that, as all of man's and woman's
+peace and comfort, all their love, all their amiability, all their
+religion, have got to come to them, while they live in this world,
+through the medium of the brain,&mdash;and as black, uncleansed blood acts on
+the brain as a poison, and as no other than black, uncleansed blood can
+be got by the lungs out of impure air,&mdash;the first object of the man who
+builds a house is to secure a pure and healthy atmosphere therein.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, in allotting expenses, set this down as a <i>must-be</i>: "Our
+house must have fresh air,&mdash;everywhere, at all times, winter and
+summer." Whether we have stone facings or no,&mdash;whether our parlor has
+cornices or marble mantels or no,&mdash;whether our doors are machine-made or
+hand-made. All our fixtures shall be of the plainest and simplest, but
+we will have fresh air. We will open our door with a latch and string,
+if we cannot afford lock and knob and fresh air too,&mdash;but in our house
+we will live cleanly and Christianly. We will no more breathe the foul
+air rejected from a neighbor's lungs than we will use a neighbor's
+tooth-brush and hair-brush. Such is the first essential of "our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</a></span>
+house,"&mdash;the first great element of human health and happiness,&mdash;<span class="smcap">Air.</span></p>
+
+<p>"I say, Marianne," said Bob, "have we got fireplaces in our chambers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma took care of that," said Marianne.</p>
+
+<p>"You may be quite sure," said I, "if your mother has had a hand in
+planning your house, that the ventilation is cared for."</p>
+
+<p>It must be confessed that Bob's principal idea in a house had been a
+Gothic library, and his mind had labored more on the possibility of
+adapting some favorite bits from the baronial antiquities to modern
+needs than on anything so terrestrial as air. Therefore he awoke as from
+a dream, and taking two or three monstrous inhalations, he seized the
+plans and began looking over them with new energy. Meanwhile I went on
+with my prelection.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The second great vital element for which provision must be made in "our
+house" is <span class="smcap">Fire</span>. By which I do not mean merely artificial fire, but fire
+in all its extent and branches,&mdash;the heavenly fire which God sends us
+daily on the bright wings of sunbeams, as well as the mimic fires by
+which we warm our dwellings, cook our food, and light our nightly
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>To begin, then, with heavenly fire or sunshine. If God's gift of vital
+air is neglected and undervalued, His gift of sunshine appears to be
+hated. There are many houses where not a cent has been expended on
+ventilation, but where hundreds of dollars have been freely lavished to
+keep out the sunshine. The chamber, truly, is tight as a box,&mdash;it has no
+fireplace, not even a ventilator opening into the stove-flue; but, oh,
+joy and gladness! it has outside blinds and inside folding-shutters, so
+that in the brightest of days we may create there a darkness that may be
+felt. To observe the generality of New-England houses, a spectator might
+imagine that they were planned for the torrid zone, where the great
+object is to keep out a furnace-draught of burning air.</p>
+
+<p>But let us look over the months of our calendar. In which of them do we
+not need fires on our hearths? We will venture to say that from October
+to June all families, whether they actually have it or not, would be the
+more comfortable for a morning and evening fire. For eight months in the
+year the weather varies on the scale of cool, cold, colder, and
+freezing; and for all the four other months what is the number of days
+that really require the torrid-zone system of shutting up houses? We all
+know that extreme heat is the exception, and not the rule.</p>
+
+<p>Yet let anybody travel, as I did last year, through the valley of the
+Connecticut, and observe the houses. All clean and white and neat and
+well-to-do, with their turfy yards and their breezy great elms,&mdash;but all
+shut up from basement to attic, as if the inmates had all sold out and
+gone to China. Not a window-blind open above or below. Is the house
+inhabited? No,&mdash;yes,&mdash;there is a faint stream of blue smoke from the
+kitchen-chimney, and half a window-blind open in some distant back-part
+of the house. They are living there in the dim shadows, bleaching like
+potato-sprouts in the cellar.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"I can tell you why they do it, papa," said Jennie,&mdash;"it's the flies,
+and flies are certainly worthy to be one of the plagues of Egypt. I
+can't myself blame people that shut up their rooms and darken their
+houses in fly-time,&mdash;do you, mamma?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in extreme cases; though I think there is but a short season when
+this is necessary; yet the habit of shutting up lasts the year round,
+and gives to New-England villages that dead, silent, cold, uninhabited
+look which is so peculiar."</p>
+
+<p>"The one fact that a traveller would gather in passing through our
+villages would be this," said I, "that the people live in their houses
+and in the dark. Rarely do you see doors and windows open, people
+sitting at them, chairs in the yard, and signs that the inhabitants are
+living out-of-doors."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Jennie, "I have told you why, for I have been at Uncle
+Peter's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</a></span> in summer, and aunt does her spring-cleaning in May, and then
+she shuts all the blinds and drops all the curtains, and the house stays
+clean till October. That's the whole of it. If she had all her windows
+open, there would be paint and windows to be cleaned every week,&mdash;and
+who is to do it? For my part, I can't much blame her."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said I, "I have my doubts about the sovereign efficacy of living
+in the dark, even if the great object of existence were to be rid of
+flies. I remember, during this same journey, stopping for a day or two
+at a country boarding-house which was dark as Egypt from cellar to
+garret. The long, dim, gloomy dining-room was first closed by outside
+blinds, and then by impenetrable paper curtains, notwithstanding which
+it swarmed and buzzed like a beehive. You found where the cake-plate was
+by the buzz which your hand made, if you chanced to reach in that
+direction. It was disagreeable, because in the darkness flies could not
+always be distinguished from huckleberries; and I couldn't help wishing,
+that, since we must have the flies, we might at least have the light and
+air to console us under them. People darken their rooms and shut up
+every avenue of out-door enjoyment, and sit and think of nothing but
+flies; in fact, flies are all they have left. No wonder they become
+morbid on the subject."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, papa talks just like a man,&mdash;doesn't he?" said Jennie. "He
+hasn't the responsibility of keeping things clean. I wonder what he
+would do, if he were a housekeeper."</p>
+
+<p>"Do? I will tell you. I would do the best I could. I would shut my eyes
+on fly-specks, and open them on the beauties of Nature. I would let the
+cheerful sun in all day long, in all but the few summer days when
+coolness is the one thing needful: those days may be soon numbered every
+year. I would make a calculation in the spring how much it would cost to
+hire a woman to keep my windows and paint clean, and I would do with one
+less gown and have her; and when I had spent all I could afford on
+cleaning windows and paint, I would harden my heart and turn off my
+eyes, and enjoy my sunshine and my fresh air, my breezes, and all that
+can be seen through the picture-windows of an open, airy house, and snap
+my fingers at the flies. There you have it."</p>
+
+<p>"Papa's hobby is sunshine," said Marianne.</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't it be? Was God mistaken, when He made the sun? Did He
+make him for us to hold a life's battle with? Is that vital power which
+reddens the cheek of the peach and pours sweetness through the fruits
+and flowers of no use to us? Look at plants that grow without sun,&mdash;wan,
+pale, long-visaged, holding feeble, imploring hands of supplication
+towards the light. Can human beings afford to throw away a vitalizing
+force so pungent, so exhilarating? You remember the experiment of a
+prison, where one row of cells had daily sunshine, and the others none.
+With the same regimen, the same cleanliness, the same care, the inmates
+of the sunless cells were visited with sickness and death in double
+measure. Our whole population in New England are groaning and suffering
+under afflictions, the result of a depressed vitality,&mdash;neuralgia, with
+a new ache for every day of the year, rheumatism, consumption, general
+debility; for all these a thousand nostrums are daily advertised, and
+money enough is spent on them to equip an army, while we are fighting
+against, wasting, and throwing away with both hands that blessed
+influence which comes nearest to pure vitality of anything God has
+given.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it that the Bible describes as a sun, arising with healing in
+his wings? Surely, that sunshine which is the chosen type and image of
+His love must be healing through all the recesses of our daily life,
+drying damp and mould, defending from moth and rust, sweetening ill
+smells, clearing from the nerves the vapors of melancholy, making life
+cheery. If I did not know Him, I should certainly adore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</a></span> and worship the
+sun, the most blessed and beautiful image of Him among things visible.
+In the land of Egypt, in the day of God's wrath, there was darkness, but
+in the land of Goshen there was light. I am a Goshenite, and mean to
+walk in the light, and forswear the works of darkness.&mdash;But to proceed
+with our reading."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Our house" shall be set on a southeast line, so that there shall not be
+a sunless room in it, and windows shall be so arranged that it can be
+traversed and transpierced through and through with those bright shafts
+of life which come straight from God.</p>
+
+<p>"Our house" shall not be blockaded with a dank, dripping mass of
+shrubbery set plumb against the windows, keeping out light and air.
+There shall be room all round it for breezes to sweep, and sunshine to
+sweeten and dry and vivify; and I would warn all good souls who begin
+life by setting out two little evergreen-trees within a foot of each of
+their front-windows, that these trees will grow and increase till their
+front-rooms will be brooded over by a sombre, stifling shadow fit only
+for ravens to croak in.</p>
+
+<p>One would think, by the way some people hasten to convert a very narrow
+front-yard into a dismal jungle, that the only danger of our New-England
+climate was sunstroke. Ah, in those drizzling months which form at least
+one-half of our life here, what sullen, censorious, uncomfortable,
+unhealthy thoughts are bred of living in dark, chilly rooms, behind such
+dripping thickets! Our neighbors' faults assume a deeper hue,&mdash;life
+seems a dismal thing,&mdash;our very religion grows mouldy.</p>
+
+<p>My idea of a house is, that, as far as is consistent with shelter and
+reasonable privacy, it should give you on first entering an open,
+breezy, out-door freshness of sensation. Every window should be a
+picture; sun and trees and clouds and green grass should seem never to
+be far from us. "Our house" may shade, but not darken us. "Our house"
+shall have bow-windows, many, sunny, and airy,&mdash;not for the purpose of
+being cleaned and shut up, but to be open and enjoyed. There shall be
+long verandas above and below, where invalids may walk dry-shod, and
+enjoy open-air recreation in wettest weather. In short, I will try to
+have "our house" combine as far as possible the sunny, joyous, fresh
+life of a gypsy in the fields and woods with the quiet and neatness and
+comfort and shelter of a roof, rooms, floors, and carpets.</p>
+
+<p>After heavenly fire, I have a word to say of earthly, artificial fires.
+Furnaces, whether of hot water, steam, or hot air, are all healthy and
+admirable provisions for warming our houses during the eight or nine
+months of our year that we must have artificial heat, if only, as I have
+said, fireplaces keep up a current of ventilation.</p>
+
+<p>The kitchen-range with its water-back I humbly salute. It is a great
+throbbing heart, and sends its warm tides of cleansing, comforting fluid
+all through the house. One could wish that this friendly dragon could be
+in some way moderated in his appetite for coal,&mdash;he does consume without
+mercy, it must be confessed,&mdash;but then, great is the work he has to do.
+At any hour of day or night in the most distant part of your house, you
+have but to turn a stop-cock and your red dragon sends you hot water for
+your needs; your washing-day becomes a mere play-day; your pantry has
+its ever-ready supply; and then, by a little judicious care in arranging
+apartments and economizing heat, a range may make two or three chambers
+comfortable in winter weather. A range with a water-back is among the
+<i>must-bes</i> in "our house."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as to the evening light,&mdash;I know nothing as yet better than gas,
+where it can be had. I would certainly not have a house without it. The
+great objection to it is the danger of its escape through imperfect
+fixtures. But it must not do this: a fluid that kills a tree or a plant
+with one breath must certainly be a dangerous ingredient in the
+atmosphere, and if admitted into houses, must be introduced with every
+safeguard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There are families living in the country who make their own gas by a
+very simple process. This is worth an inquiry from those who build.
+There are also contrivances now advertised, with good testimonials, of
+domestic machines for generating gas, said to be perfectly safe, simple
+to be managed, and producing a light superior to that of the city
+gas-works. This also is worth an inquiry, when "our house" is to be in
+the country.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>And now I come to the next great vital element for which "our house"
+must provide,&mdash;<span class="smcap">water</span>. "Water, water everywhere,"&mdash;it must be plentiful,
+it must be easy to get at, it must be pure. Our ancestors had some
+excellent ideas in home-living and house-building. Their houses were,
+generally speaking, very sensibly contrived,&mdash;roomy, airy, and
+comfortable; but in their water-arrangements they had little mercy on
+womankind. The well was out in the yard; and in winter one must flounder
+through snow and bring up the ice-bound bucket, before one could fill
+the tea-kettle for breakfast. For a sovereign princess of the republic
+this was hardly respectful or respectable. Wells have come somewhat
+nearer in modern times; but the idea of a constant supply of fresh water
+by the simple turning of a stop-cock has not yet visited the great body
+of our houses. Were we free to build "our house" just as we wish it,
+there should be a bath-room to every two or three inmates, and the hot
+and cold water should circulate to every chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Among our <i>must-bes</i>, we would lay by a generous sum for plumbing. Let
+us have our bath-rooms, and our arrangements for cleanliness and health
+in kitchen and pantry; and afterwards let the quality of our lumber and
+the style of our finishings be according to the sum we have left. The
+power to command a warm bath in a house at any hour of day or night is
+better in bringing up a family of children than any amount of ready
+medicine. In three-quarters of childish ailments the warm bath is an
+almost immediate remedy. Bad colds, incipient fevers, rheumatisms,
+convulsions, neuralgias innumerable, are washed off in their first
+beginnings, and run down the lead pipes into oblivion. Have, then, O
+friend, all the water in your house that you can afford, and enlarge
+your ideas of the worth of it, that you <i>may</i> afford a great deal. A
+bathing-room is nothing to you that requires an hour of lifting and
+fire-making to prepare it for use. The apparatus is too cumbrous,&mdash;you
+do not turn to it. But when your chamber opens upon a neat, quiet little
+nook, and you have only to turn your stop-cocks and all is ready, your
+remedy is at hand,&mdash;you use it constantly. You are waked in the night by
+a scream, and find little Tom sitting up, wild with burning fever. In
+three minutes he is in the bath, quieted and comfortable; you get him
+back, cooled and tranquil, to his little crib, and in the morning he
+wakes as if nothing had happened.</p>
+
+<p>Why should not so invaluable and simple a remedy for disease, such a
+preservative of health, such a comfort, such a stimulus, be considered
+as much a matter-of-course in a house as a kitchen-chimney? At least
+there should be one bath-room always in order, so arranged that all the
+family can have access to it, if one cannot afford the luxury of many.</p>
+
+<p>A house in which water is universally and skilfully distributed is so
+much easier to take care of as almost to verify the saying of a friend,
+that his house was so contrived that it did its own work: one had better
+do without carpets on the floors, without stuffed sofas and
+rocking-chairs, and secure this.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Well, papa," said Marianne, "you have made out all your four elements
+in your house except one. I can't imagine what you want of <i>earth</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought," said Jennie, "that the less of our common mother we had in
+our houses, the better housekeepers we were."</p>
+
+<p>"My dears," said I, "we philosophers must give an occasional dip into
+the mystical, and say something apparently absurd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</a></span> for the purpose of
+explaining that we mean nothing in particular by it. It gives common
+people an idea of our sagacity, to find how clear we come out of our
+apparent contradictions and absurdities. Listen."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>For the fourth requisite of "our house," <span class="smcap">Earth</span>, let me point you to your
+mother's plant-window, and beg you to remember the fact that through our
+long, dreary winters we are never a month without flowers, and the vivid
+interest which always attaches to growing things. The perfect house, as
+I conceive it, is to combine as many of the advantages of living out of
+doors as may be consistent with warmth and shelter, and one of these is
+the sympathy with green and growing things. Plants are nearer in their
+relations to human health and vigor than is often imagined. The
+cheerfulness that well-kept plants impart to a room comes not merely
+from gratification of the eye,&mdash;there is a healthful exhalation from
+them, they are a corrective of the impurities of the atmosphere. Plants,
+too, are valuable as tests of the vitality of the atmosphere; their
+drooping and failure convey to us information that something is amiss
+with it. A lady once told me that she could never raise plants in her
+parlors on account of the gas and anthracite coal. I answered, "Are you
+not afraid to live and bring up your children in an atmosphere which
+blights your plants?" If the gas escapes from the pipes, and the red-hot
+anthracite coal or the red-hot air-tight stove burns out all the vital
+part of the air, so that healthy plants in a few days wither and begin
+to drop their leaves, it is a sign that the air must be looked to and
+reformed. It is a fatal augury for a room that plants cannot be made to
+thrive in it. Plants should not turn pale, be long-jointed, long-leaved,
+and spindling; and where they grow in this way, we may be certain that
+there is a want of vitality for human beings. But where plants appear as
+they do in the open air, with vigorous, stocky growth, and
+short-stemmed, deep-green leaves, we may believe the conditions of that
+atmosphere are healthy for human lungs.</p>
+
+<p>It is pleasant to see how the custom of plant-growing has spread through
+our country. In how many farm-house windows do we see petunias and
+nasturtiums vivid with bloom while snows are whirling without, and how
+much brightness have those cheap enjoyments shed on the lives of those
+who cared for them! We do not believe there is a human being who would
+not become a passionate lover of plants, if circumstances once made it
+imperative to tend upon, and watch the growth of one. The history of
+Picciola for substance has been lived over and over by many a man and
+woman who once did not know that there was a particle of plant-love in
+their souls. But to the proper care of plants in pots there are many
+hindrances and drawbacks. The dust chokes the little pores of their
+green lungs, and they require constant showering; and to carry all one's
+plants to a sink or porch for this purpose is a labor which many will
+not endure. Consequently plants often do not get a showering once a
+month. We should try to imitate more closely the action of Mother
+Nature, who washes every green child of hers nightly with dews, which
+lie glittering on its leaves till morning.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Yes, there it is!" said Jennie. "I think I could manage with plants, if
+it were not for this eternal showering and washing they seem to require
+to keep them fresh. They are always tempting one to spatter the carpet
+and surrounding furniture, which are not equally benefited by the
+libation."</p>
+
+<p>"It is partly for that very reason," I replied, "that the plan of 'our
+house' provides for the introduction of Mother Earth, as you will see."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A perfect house, according to my idea, should always include in it a
+little compartment where plants can be kept, can be watered, can be
+defended from the dust, and have the sunshine and all the conditions of
+growth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>People have generally supposed a conservatory to be one of the last
+trappings of wealth,&mdash;something not to be thought of for those in modest
+circumstances. But is this so? You have a bow-window in your parlor.
+Leave out the flooring, fill the space with rich earth, close it from
+the parlor by glass doors, and you have room for enough plants and
+flowers to keep you gay and happy all winter. If on the south side,
+where the sunbeams have power, it requires no heat but that which warms
+the parlor, and the comfort of it is incalculable, and the expense a
+mere trifle greater than that of the bow-window alone.</p>
+
+<p>In larger houses a larger space might be appropriated in this way. We
+will not call it a conservatory, because that name suggests ideas of
+gardeners and mysteries of culture and rare plants which bring all sorts
+of care and expense in their train. We would rather call it a greenery,
+a room floored with earth, with glass sides to admit the sun,&mdash;and let
+it open on as many other rooms of the house as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Why should not the dining-room and parlor be all winter connected by a
+spot of green and flowers, with plants, mosses, and ferns for the
+shadowy portions, and such simple blooms as petunias and nasturtiums
+garlanding the sunny portion near the windows? If near the waterworks,
+this greenery might be enlivened by the play of a fountain, whose
+constant spray would give that softness to the air which is so often
+burned away by the dry heat of the furnace.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"And do you really think, papa, that houses built in this way are a
+practical result to be aimed at?" said Jennie. "To me it seems like a
+dream of the Alhambra."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet I happen to have seen real people in our day living in just such a
+house," said I. "I could point you, this very hour, to a cottage, which
+in style of building is the plainest possible, which unites many of the
+best ideas of a true house. My dear, can you sketch the ground-plan of
+that house we saw in Brighton?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is," said my wife, after a few dashes with her pencil,&mdash;"an
+inexpensive house, yet one of the pleasantest I ever saw."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image1.jpg" width="450" height="299" alt="c, China-closet. p, Passage. d, Kitchen-closet." title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"This cottage, which might, at the rate of prices before the war, have
+been built for five thousand dollars, has many of the requirements which
+I seek for a house. It has two stories, and a tier of very pleasant
+attic-rooms, two bathing-rooms, and the water carried into each story.
+The parlor and dining-room both look into a little bower, where a
+fountain is ever playing into a little marble basin, and which all the
+year through has its green and bloom. It is heated simply from the
+furnace by a register, like any other room of the house, and requires no
+more care than a delicate woman could easily give. The brightness and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</a></span>
+cheerfulness it brings during our long, dreary winters is incredible."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>But one caution is necessary in all such appendages. The earth must be
+thoroughly underdrained to prevent the vapors of stagnant water, and
+have a large admixture of broken charcoal to obviate the consequences of
+vegetable decomposition. Great care must be taken that there be no
+leaves left to fall and decay on the ground, since vegetable exhalations
+poison the air. With these precautions such a plot will soften and
+purify the air of a house.</p>
+
+<p>Where the means do not allow even so small a conservatory, a recessed
+window might be fitted with a deep box, which should have a drain-pipe
+at the bottom, and a thick layer of broken charcoal and gravel, with a
+mixture of fine wood-soil and sand for the top stratum. Here ivies may
+be planted, which will run and twine and strike their little tendrils
+here and there, and give the room in time the aspect of a bower; the
+various greenhouse nasturtiums will make winter gorgeous with blossoms.
+In windows unblest by sunshine&mdash;and, alas, such are many!&mdash;one can
+cultivate ferns and mosses; the winter-growing ferns, of which there are
+many varieties, can be mixed with mosses and woodland flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Early in February, when the cheerless frosts of winter seem most
+wearisome, the common blue violet, wood-anemone, hepatica, or
+rock-columbine, if planted in this way, will begin to bloom. The common
+partridge-berry, with its brilliant scarlet fruit and dark green leaves,
+will also grow finely in such situations, and have a beautiful effect.
+These things require daily showering to keep them fresh, and the
+moisture arising from them will soften and freshen the too dry air of
+heated winter rooms.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Thus I have been through my four essential elements in
+house-building,&mdash;air, fire, water, and earth. I would provide for these
+before anything else. After they are secured, I would gratify my taste
+and fancy as far as possible in other ways. I quite agree with Bob in
+hating commonplace houses, and longing for some little bit of
+architectural effect, and I grieve profoundly that every step in that
+direction must cost so much. I have also a taste for niceness of finish.
+I have no objection to silver-plated door-locks and hinges, none to
+windows which are an entire plate of clear glass; I congratulate
+neighbors who are so fortunate as to be able to get them, and after I
+had put all the essentials into a house, I would have these too, if I
+had the means.</p>
+
+<p>But if all my wood-work were to be without groove or moulding, if my
+mantels were to be of simple wood, if my doors were all to be
+machine-made, and my lumber of the second quality, I would have my
+bath-rooms, my conservatory, my sunny bow-windows, and my perfect
+ventilation,&mdash;and my house would then be so pleasant, and every one in
+it in such a cheerful mood, that it would verily seem to be ceiled with
+cedar.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of ceiling with cedar, I have one thing more to say. We
+Americans have a country abounding in beautiful timber, of whose
+beauties we know nothing, on account of the pernicious and stupid habit
+of covering it with white paint.</p>
+
+<p>The celebrated zebra-wood with its golden stripes cannot exceed in
+quaint beauty the grain of unpainted chestnut, prepared simply with a
+coat or two of oil. The butternut has a rich golden brown, the very
+darling color of painters,&mdash;a shade so rich, and grain so beautiful,
+that it is of itself as charming to look at as a rich picture. The
+black-walnut, with its heavy depth of tone, works in well as an adjunct;
+and as to oak, what can we say enough of its quaint and many shadings?
+Even common pine, which has been considered not decent to look upon till
+hastily shrouded in a friendly blanket of white paint, has, when oiled
+and varnished, the beauty of satin-wood. The second quality of pine,
+which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</a></span> has what are called <i>shakes</i> in it, under this mode of treatment
+often shows clouds and veins equal in beauty to the choicest woods. The
+cost of such a finish is greatly less than that of the old method, and
+it saves those days and weeks of cleaning which are demanded by white
+paint, while its general tone is softer and more harmonious. Experiments
+in color may be tried in the combination of these woods, which at small
+expense produce the most charming effects.</p>
+
+<p>As to paper-hangings, we are proud to say that our American
+manufacturers now furnish all that can be desired. There are some
+branches of design where artistic, ingenious France must still excel
+us,&mdash;but whoso has a house to fit up, let him first look at what his own
+country has to show, and he will be astonished.</p>
+
+<p>There is one topic in house-building on which I would add a few words.
+The difficulty of procuring and keeping good servants, which must long
+be one of our chief domestic troubles, warns us so to arrange our houses
+that we shall need as few as possible. There is the greatest conceivable
+difference in the planning and building of houses as to the amount of
+work which will be necessary to keep them in respectable condition. Some
+houses require a perfect staff of house-maids;&mdash;there are plated hinges
+to be rubbed, paint to be cleaned, with intricacies of moulding and
+carving which daily consume hours of dusting to preserve them from a
+slovenly look. Simple finish, unpainted wood, a general distribution of
+water through the dwelling, will enable a very large house to be cared
+for by one pair of hands, and yet maintain a creditable appearance.</p>
+
+<p>In kitchens one servant may perform the work of two by a close packing
+of all the conveniences for cooking and such arrangements as shall save
+time and steps. Washing-day may be divested of its terrors by suitable
+provisions for water, hot and cold, by wringers, which save at once the
+strength of the linen and of the laundress, and by drying-closets
+connected with ranges, where articles can in a few moments be perfectly
+dried. These, with the use of a small mangle, such as is now common in
+America, reduce the labors of the laundry one-half.</p>
+
+<p>There are many more things which might be said of "our house," and
+Christopher may, perhaps, find some other opportunity to say them. For
+the present his pen is tired and ceaseth.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_NEW_SCHOOL_OF_BIOGRAPHY" id="THE_NEW_SCHOOL_OF_BIOGRAPHY"></a>THE NEW SCHOOL OF BIOGRAPHY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Poor Rachel, passing slowly away from the world that had so applauded
+her hollow, but brilliant career, tasted the bitterness of death in
+reflecting that she should so soon be given over to the worms and the
+biographers. Fortunate Rachel, resting in serene confidence that the two
+would be fellow-laborers! It is the unhappy fate of her survivors to
+have reached a day in which biographers have grown impatient of the
+decorous delay which their lowly coadjutors demand. They can no longer
+wait for the lingering soul to yield up its title-deeds before they
+enter in and take possession; but, fired with an evil energy, they
+outstrip the worms and torment us before the time.</p>
+
+<p>Curiosity is undoubtedly one of the heaven-appointed passions of the
+human animal. Dear to the heart of man has ever been his neighbor's
+business. Precious in the eyes of woman is the linen-closet of that
+neighbor's wife. During its tender teething infancy, the world's sobs
+could always be soothed into smiles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</a></span> by an open bureau with large
+liberty to upheave its contents from turret to foundation-stone. As the
+infant world ascended from cambric and dimity to broadcloth and
+crinoline, its propensity for investigation grew stronger. It loved not
+bureaus less, but a great many other things more. What sad consequences
+might have ensued, had this passion been left to forage for itself, no
+one can tell. But, by the wonderful principle of adaptation which
+obtains throughout the universe, the love of receiving information is
+met and mastered by the love of imparting information. As much pleasure
+as it gives Angelina to learn how many towels and table-cloths go into
+Seraphina's wedding-outfit, so much, yea, more, swells in Cherubella's
+bosom at being able to present to her friend this apple from the tree of
+knowledge. The worthy Muggins finds no small consolation for the loss of
+his overcoat and umbrella from the front entry in the exhilaration he
+experiences while relating to each member of his ever-revolving circle
+of friends the details of his loss,&mdash;the suspicion, the search, the
+certainty,&mdash;the conjectures, suggestions, and emotions of himself and
+his family.</p>
+
+<p>Hence these tears which we are about to shed. For, betwixt the love of
+hearing on the one side, and the love of telling, on the other, small
+space remains on which one may adventure to set the sole of his foot and
+feel safe from the spoiler. There is of course a legitimate
+gratification for every legitimate desire,&mdash;the desire to know our
+neighbors' affairs among others. But there is a limit to this
+gratification, and it is hinted at by legal enactments. The law justly
+enough bounds a man's power over his possessions. For twenty-one years
+after his generation has passed away, his dead hand may rule the wealth
+which its living skill amassed. Then it dies another death, draws back
+into a deeper grave, and has henceforth no more power than any
+sister-clod. But, except as a penalty for crime, the law awards to a man
+right to his own possessions through life; and the personal facts and
+circumstances of his life have usually been considered among his
+closest, most inalienable possessions.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, that the times are changed, and we be all dead men so far as
+concerns immunity from publication! There is no manner of advantage in
+being alive. The sole safety is to lie flat on the earth along with
+one's generation. The moment an audacious head is lifted one inch above
+the general level, pop! goes the unerring rifle of some biographical
+sharp-shooter, and it is all over with the unhappy owner. A perfectly
+respectable and well-meaning man, suffering under the accumulated pains
+of Presidentship, has the additional and entirely undeserved ignominy of
+being hawked about the country as the "Pioneer Boy." A statesman whose
+reputation for integrity has been worth millions to the land, and whose
+patriotism should have won him a better fate, is stigmatized in
+duodecimo as the "Ferry Boy." An innocent and popular Governor is
+fastened in the pillory under the thin disguise of the "Bobbin Boy."
+Every victorious advance of our grand army is followed by a long
+procession of biographical statistics. A brave man leading his troops to
+victory may escape the bullets and bayonets of the foe, but he is sure
+to be transfixed to the sides of a newspaper with the pen of some
+cannibal entomologist. We are thrilled to-day with the telegram
+announcing the brilliant and successful charge made by General Smith's
+command; and according to that inevitable law of succession by which the
+sun his daily round of duty runs, we shall be thrilled to-morrow with
+the startling announcement that "General Smith was born in &mdash;&mdash;," etc.,
+etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>Unquestionably, there is somewhere in the land a regularly organized
+biographical bureau, by which every man, President or private, has his
+lot apportioned him,&mdash;one mulcted in a folio, the other in a paragraph.
+If we examine somewhat closely the features of this peculiar
+institution, we shall learn that a distinguishing characteristic of the
+new school<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</a></span> of biography is the astonishing familiarity shown by the
+narrator with the circumstances, the conversations, and the very
+thoughts of remarkable boys in their early life. The incidents of
+childhood are usually forgotten before the man's renown has given them
+any importance; the few anecdotes which tradition has preserved are
+seized upon with the utmost avidity and placed in the most conspicuous
+position; but in these later books we have illustrious children
+portrayed with a Pre-Raphaelitic and most prodigal pencil.</p>
+
+<p>Take the opening scene in a garden where "Nat"&mdash;we must protest against
+this irreverent abbreviation of the name of that honored Governor whose
+life in little we are about to behold&mdash;and his father are at work.</p>
+
+<p>"'There, Nat, if you plant and hoe your squashes with care, you will
+raise a nice parcel of them on this piece of ground. It is good soil for
+squashes.'</p>
+
+<p>"'How many seeds shall I put into a hill?' inquired Nat.</p>
+
+<p>"'Seven or eight. It is well to put in enough, as some of them may not
+come up, and when they get to growing well, pull up all but four in a
+hill. You must not have your hills too near together,&mdash;they should be
+five feet apart, and then the vines will cover the ground all over. I
+should think there would be room for fifty hills on this patch of
+ground.'</p>
+
+<p>"'How many squashes do you think I shall raise, father?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' said his father, smiling, 'that is hard telling. We won't count
+the chickens before they are hatched. But if you are industrious, and
+take very good care indeed of your vines, stir the ground often and keep
+out all the weeds and kill the bugs, I have little doubt that you will
+get well paid for your labor.'</p>
+
+<p>"'If I have fifty hills,' said Nat, 'and four vines in each hill, I
+shall have two hundred vines in all; and if there is one squash on each
+vine, there will be two hundred squashes.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes; but there are so many <i>ifs</i> about it, that you may be
+disappointed after all. Perhaps the bugs will destroy half your vines.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I can kill the bugs,' said Nat.</p>
+
+<p>"'Perhaps dry weather will wither them all up.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I can water them every day, if they need it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'That is certainly having good courage, Nat,' added his father; 'but if
+you conquer the bugs, and get around the dry weather, it may be too wet
+and blast your vines,&mdash;or there may be such a hail-storm as I have known
+several times in my life, and cut them to pieces.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't think there will be such a hail-storm this year; there never
+was one like it since I can remember.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I hope there won't be,' replied his father. 'It is well to look on the
+bright side, and hope for the best, for it keeps the courage up. It is
+also well to look out for disappointment. I know a gentleman who thought
+he would raise some ducks,'" etc., etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>We are told that this scene was enacted about thirty-five years ago,
+and, as if we should not be sufficiently lost in admiration of that
+wonderful memory which enabled somebody to retain so long, and restore
+so unimpaired, the words and deeds of that distant May morning, we are
+further informed that the author is "obliged to pass over much that
+belongs to the patch of squashes"! "Is it possible?" one is led to
+exclaim. We should certainly have supposed that this report was
+exhaustive. We can hardly conceive that any further interest should
+inhere in that patch of squashes; whereas it seems that the half was not
+told us. Nor is this the sole instance. Records equally minute of
+conversations equally brilliant are lavished on page after page with a
+recklessness of expenditure that argues unlimited wealth,&mdash;conversations
+between the Boy and his father, between the Boy and his mother, between
+the Boy's father and mother, between the Boy's neighbors about the Boy,
+in which his numerous excellences are set in the strongest light,
+exhortations of the Boy's teacher to his school, play-ground talk of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</a></span>
+the Boy and his fellow-boys,&mdash;among whom the Boy invariably stands head
+and shoulders higher than they. We fear the world of boys has hitherto
+been much demoralized by being informed that many distinguished men were
+but dull fellows in the school-house, or unnoticed on the play-ground.
+But we have changed all that. The Bobbin Boy was the most industrious,
+the most persevering, the most self-reliant, the most virtuous, the most
+exemplary of all the boys of his time. So was the Ferry Boy, and the
+Pioneer Boy so. "Nat"&mdash;we blame and protest, but we join in the plan of
+using this undignified <i>sobriquet</i>&mdash;Nat was the one that swam three rods
+under water; Nat astonished the school with the eloquence of his
+declamation; it was Nat that got all the glory of the games; it was of
+no use for any one to try for any prize where Nat was a competitor. And
+as Nat's neighbors thought of Nat, so thought Abe's&mdash;we shudder at the
+sound&mdash;Abe's neighbors of Abe, the Pioneer Boy. Of what Salmon's
+neighbors said about Salmon we are not so well informed; but we have no
+doubt they often exclaimed one to another,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Was never Salmon yet that shone so fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Among the stakes on Dee!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Nor are the Boys backward in having a tolerably good opinion of their
+own goodness.</p>
+
+<p>"Never swear, my son," says Abe's mother to the infant Abe.</p>
+
+<p>"I never do," says Abraham.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys are likely to want their own way, and spend their time in
+idleness," says the mother of a President, upon another occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"I sha'n't," responds virtuous Abraham.</p>
+
+<p>"Always speak the truth, my son."</p>
+
+<p>"I do tell the truth," was "Abraham's usual reply."</p>
+
+<p>"When a boy gets to going to the tavern to smoke and swear," says Nat's
+mother, "he is almost sure to drink, and become a ruined man."</p>
+
+<p>"I never do smoke, mother," replies Nat, pouring cataracts of innocence.
+"I never go to the stable nor tavern. I don't associate with Sam and Ben
+Drake, nor with James Cole, nor with Oliver Fowle, more than I can help.
+For I know they are bad boys. I see that the worst scholars at school
+are those who are said to disobey their parents, and every one of them
+are poor scholars, and they use profane language."</p>
+
+<p>Virtue so immaculate at so tender an age seems to us, we are forced to
+admit, unnatural. The boys that have fallen in our way have never been
+in the habit of making profound moral reflections, and we cannot resist
+the unpleasant suspicion that Nat had just been playing at marbles for
+"havings" with Cole, Fowle, and both the Drakes at the village-inn, and,
+having found this vegetable repast too strong for his digestion, went
+home to his mother and wreaked his discomfort on edifying moral maxims.
+Or else he was a prig.</p>
+
+<p>The unusual and highly exciting nature of the incidents recorded in
+these biographies must be their excuse for a seeming violation of
+privacy. When a rare and precious gem is in question, one must not be
+over-scrupulous about breaking open the casket. What puerile prejudice
+in favor of privacy can rear its head in face of the statement which
+tells us that at the age of seven years our honored President&mdash;may he
+still continue such!&mdash;"devoted himself to learning to read with an
+energy and enthusiasm that insured success"?&mdash;such success that we learn
+"he could read <i>some</i> when he left school."</p>
+
+<p>At the age of nine he shot a turkey!</p>
+
+<p>Soon after,&mdash;for here we are involved in a chronological haze,&mdash;he began
+to "take lessons in penmanship with the most enthusiastic ardor."</p>
+
+<p>Subsequently, "there, on the soil of Indiana, <span class="smcap">Abraham Lincoln wrote his
+name, with a stick</span>, in large characters,&mdash;a sort of prophetic act, that
+students of history may love to ponder. For, since that day, he has
+'gone up higher,' and written his name, by public acts, on the annals of
+every State in the Union."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He wrote a letter.</p>
+
+<p>He rescued a toad from cruel boys,&mdash;for, though "he could kill game for
+food as a necessity, and dangerous wild animals, his soul shrunk from
+torturing even a fly." Dear heart, we can easily believe that!</p>
+
+<p>He bought a Ramsay's "Life of Washington," and paid for it with the
+labor of his own hands.</p>
+
+<p>He helped to save a drunkard's life. "He thought more of the drunkard's
+safety than he did of his own ease. And there are many of his personal
+acquaintances in our land who will bear witness, that, from that day to
+this, this amiable quality of heart has won him admiring friends."</p>
+
+<p>He took a flat-boat to New Orleans, and defended her against the
+negroes, who, poor fellows, were not prophetic enough to see that they
+were plotting against their Deliverer.</p>
+
+<p>He "always had much <i>dry</i> wit about him that kept <i>oozing</i> out"!</p>
+
+<p>We have given a bird's-eye view of the main incidents of his boyhood,
+for we cannot quite agree with our author in thinking that his "old
+grammar laid the foundation, in part, of Abraham's future character,"
+seeing we have previously been told that he had "become the most
+important man in the place," and we have the same writer's authority for
+believing that "the habits of life are usually fixed by the time a lad
+is fifteen years of age." Nor can we admit that his grammar even "taught
+him the rudiments of his native language," when we have been having
+proof upon proof, for two hundred and eighty-six pages, that he was
+already familiar with its rudiments. We are equally skeptical as to
+whether it really "opened the golden gate of knowledge" for him: we
+should certainty say that this gate had stood ajar, at least, for years.
+Indeed, that portion of his history which relates to grammar seems to us
+by far the most unsatisfactory of all. In his honesty, in his
+penmanship, in his kindness of heart, in his wit, dry or damp, we feel a
+confidence which not even the shock of political campaigns has been able
+to move. But in respect of grammar we find ourselves in a state of the
+most painful uncertainty. We have never regarded it as our beloved
+President's strong point, but we have considered any linguistic defect
+more than atoned for by the hearty, timely, sturdy, plain sense which
+appeals so directly and forcibly to the good sense of others. This book
+calls up a distressing doubt, and a doubt that strikes at vital
+interests. "Grammar," our President is reported to have said before he
+had cast the integuments of a grocer's clerk, "Grammar is the art of
+speaking and writing the English language with propriety"! Is this a
+definition, we sorrowfully ask, becoming an American citizen? It has,
+indeed, in many respects the qualities of a perfect definition. It is
+deep; it is accurate; it is exhaustive; but it is <i>not</i> loyal. Coming
+from the lips of a subject of Great Britain, it would not surprise us.
+An Englishman undoubtedly believes that grammar is the art of speaking
+and writing the English language with propriety. All the grammatical
+research that preceded the establishment of his mother-tongue was but
+the collection of fuel to feed the flame of its glory; all that follows
+will be to diffuse the light of that flame to the ends of the earth.
+Greek, Latin, Sanscrit, were but stepping-stones to the English
+language. Philology <i>per se</i> is a myth. The English language in its
+completeness is the completion of grammatical science. To that all
+knowledge tends; from that all honor radiates. So claims proud Britain's
+prouder son. But can an American tamely submit to such a monopoly? Is
+not grammar rather, or at least quite as much, the art of speaking and
+writing the <i>American</i> language correctly, and shall he sit calmly by
+and witness this gross outrage upon his dearest rights? But, as our
+author would say, we "must not dwell," and most gladly do we leave this
+unpleasant branch of a very pleasant subject, inwardly supplicating,
+that, whatever disaster is yet to befall us, we may be spared the pang
+of suspecting that our revered President, so stanch against the Rebels,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</a></span>
+so unflinching for the Slave, is in danger of lowering his lofty crest
+before the rampant British lion! In view of such a calamity, one can
+only say in the words of that distinguished British citizen who, living
+in England in the full light of the nineteenth century, must be supposed
+to have reached the summit of grammatical excellence,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Gin I mun doy I mun doy, an' loife they says is sweet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But gin I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn' abear to see it."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The life of the Ferry Boy was scarcely less adventurous than that of the
+Pioneer Boy, and was, indeed, in some respects its counterpart. As the
+latter learned to write on the tops of stools, so the former learned to
+read on bits of birch-bark. At an early period of his existence he broke
+a capful of eggs. He owned a calf. He caught an eel. He put salt on a
+bird's tail and learned his first lesson of the deceitfulness of the
+human heart. He walked to Niagara Falls from Buffalo. He got lost in the
+woods. He went to live with his uncle in Ohio, where he displayed spirit
+and killed a pig. Here also occurred a "prophecy" almost as striking as
+the Pioneer Boy's writing his name with a stick. "Salmon" wished to go
+swimming. "The Bishop said, 'No!' adding, 'Why, Salmon, the country
+might lose its future President, if you should get drowned!' This was
+the first time his name had ever been mentioned in connection with that
+high office; and the remark, coming from the grave Bishop's lips, must
+have made a strong impression on him. Was it prophetic?" Let us assume
+that it was, although it must for the present be ranked with what is
+theologically called "unfulfilled prophecy." We cannot, at any rate, be
+too thankful that the only occasion on which it was ever hinted to an
+American boy that he might one day become President has not been
+suffered to pass into oblivion, but has found in this little volume a
+monument more durable than brass. To go on with our inventory. A whole
+flock of thirteen pigeons shot by the Ferry Boy answered through their
+misty shroud to the Pioneer Boy's turkey which called to them aloud. He
+taught school two weeks, and then had leave to resign. He went to
+Washington and said his prayers like a good boy: we trust he has kept up
+the practice ever since.</p>
+
+<p>From such a record there is but one inference: if the man is not
+President, he ought to be!</p>
+
+<p>One great element in the success which these little books have met, the
+one fact which, we are persuaded, accounts for the quiet, but
+significant "twenty-sixth thousand" that we find on the title-page of
+one of them, is the pains which their authors take to make their meaning
+clear. They do not, like too many of our modern authors, leave a book
+half written, forcing the reader to finish their work as he goes along.
+They are instant, in season and out of season, with explanation,
+illustration, reflection, until the idea is, so to speak, reduced to
+pulp, and the reader has nothing to perform save the act of deglutition.</p>
+
+<p>"When he ['Nat'] was only four years old, and was learning to read
+little words of two letters, he came across one about which he had quite
+a dispute with his teacher. It was <span class="smcap">inn</span>.</p>
+
+<p>"'What is that?' asked his teacher.</p>
+
+<p>"'I-double n,' he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"'What does i-double n spell?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Tavern,' was his quick reply.</p>
+
+<p>"The teacher smiled, and said, 'No; it spells <span class="smcap">inn</span>. Now read it again.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I-double n&mdash;tavern,' said he.</p>
+
+<p>"'I told you that it did not spell tavern, it spells <span class="smcap">inn</span>. Now pronounce
+it correctly.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It <i>do</i> spell tavern,' said he.</p>
+
+<p>"The teacher was finally obliged to give it up, and let him enjoy his
+own opinion. She probably called him obstinate, although there was
+nothing of the kind about him, as we shall see. His mother took up the
+matter at home, but failed to convince him that i-double n did not spell
+tavern. It was not until some time after that he changed his opinion on
+this important subject.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That this instance was no evidence of obstinacy in Nat, but only of a
+disposition to think 'on his own hook,' is evident from the following
+circumstances. There was a picture of a public-house in his book against
+the word <span class="smcap">inn</span>, with the old-fashioned sign-post in front, on which a sign
+was swinging. Near his father's, also, stood a public-house, which
+everybody called a <i>tavern</i>, with a tall post and sign in front of it,
+exactly like that in his book; and Nat said within himself, 'If Mr.
+Morse's house [the landlord<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a>] is a tavern, then this is a tavern in my
+book.' He cared little how it was spelled; if it did not spell tavern,
+'<i>it ought to</i>,' he thought. Children believe what they <i>see</i>, more than
+what they hear. What they lack in reason and judgment they make up in
+eyes. So Nat had seen the <i>tavern</i> near his father's house again and
+again, and he had stopped to look at the sign in front of it a great
+many times, and his eyes told him it was just like that in the book;
+therefore it was his deliberate opinion that i-double n spelt tavern,
+and he was not to be beaten out of an opinion that was based on such
+clear evidence. It was a good sign in Nat. It was true of the three men
+to whom we have just referred,&mdash;Bowditch, Davy, and Buxton. From their
+childhood they thought for themselves, so that, when they became men,
+they defended their opinions against imposing opposition. True, a youth
+must not be too forward in advancing his ideas, especially if they do
+not harmonize with those of older persons. Self-esteem and
+self-confidence should be guarded against. Still, in avoiding these
+evils, he is not obliged to believe anything just because he is told so.
+It is better for him to understand the reason of things, and believe
+them on that account."</p>
+
+<p>Would our Parks, our Palfreys, our Prescotts, our Emersons, have
+expounded this matter so clearly? Most assuredly not. They would have
+left us in the Cimmerian darkness of dreary conjecture regarding the
+causes of Nat's strange opinion, and the lessons to be drawn from it. Or
+if they had condescended to explanation, it would have been comprised in
+a curt phrase or two. No boundary-line between a virtue and its vice
+would have been drawn so that a wayfaring man, though a fool, should not
+err in following it. This author has struck the golden mean. There is
+just enough, and not too much.</p>
+
+<p>Again,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'I should rather be in prison, than to sit up nights studying as you
+do.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I really enjoy it, David.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I can hardly credit it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Then you think I do not speak the truth?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, no!... I only meant to say that I cannot understand it.'</p>
+
+<p>"Allusion is here made to an important fact. David could not understand
+how Abraham could possess such a love of knowledge as to lead him to
+forego all social pleasures, be willing to wear a threadbare coat, live
+on the coarsest fare, and labor hard all day, and sit up half the night,
+for the sake of learning. But there is just that power in the love of
+knowledge, and it was this that caused Lincoln to derive happiness from
+doing what would have been a source of misery to David. Some of the most
+marked instances of self-forgetfulness recorded are connected with the
+pursuit of knowledge. Archimedes was so much in love with the studies of
+his profession, that, etc., etc. Professor Heyne, of G&ouml;ttingen," etc.,
+etc., etc.&mdash;A clearer explanation than this we have rarely met with
+outside the realm of mathematical demonstration.</p>
+
+<p>A shorter example of the same judicious oversight we have when "in
+rushed Nat, under great excitement, with his eyes 'as large as saucers,'
+to use a hyperbole, which means only that his eyes looked very large
+indeed." The impression which would have been made upon the rising
+generation, had the testimony<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[Pg 586]</a></span> been allowed to go forth without its
+corrective, that upon a certain occasion <i>any</i> Governor's eyes were
+really as large as saucers, even very small tea-saucers, is such as the
+imagination refuses to dwell on.</p>
+
+<p>This exuberance of illustration increases the value of these books in
+another respect. To use a homely phrase, we get more than we bargained
+for. Ostensibly engaged with the life of the Bobbin Boy, we are covertly
+introduced to the majority of all the boys that ever were born and came
+to anything. The advertised story is a kind of mother-hen who gathers
+under her wings a numerous brood of biographical chicks. Quantities of
+recondite erudition are poured out on the slightest provocation. Nat's
+unquestioned superiority to his schoolmates evokes a disquisition for
+the encouragement of dull boys, in which we are told that "the great
+philosopher, Newton, was one of the dullest scholars in school when he
+was twelve years old. Doctor Isaac Barrow was such a dull, pugnacious,
+stupid fellow, etc., etc. The father of Doctor Adam Clarke, the
+commentator, called his boy, etc. Cortina," (vernacular for Cortona,
+probably,) "a renowned painter, was nicknamed, etc., etc. When the
+mother of Sheridan once, etc., etc. One teacher sent Chatterton home,
+etc. Napoleon and Wellington, etc., etc. And Sir Walter Scott was
+named," etc., etc., etc. All of which makes very pleasantly diversified
+reading. Nat's kindness of heart paves the way to our learning, that,
+"at the age of ten or twelve years, John Howard, the philanthropist, was
+not distinguished above the mass of boys around him, except for the
+kindness of his heart, and boyish deeds of benevolence. It was so with
+Wilberforce, whose efforts, etc., etc., etc. And Buxton, whose
+self-sacrificing heart," etc., etc. While Nat is swimming four rods
+under water, we on shore are acquiring useful knowledge of the
+Rothschilds, of Samuel Budget, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Buxton again, Sir
+Walter Scott again, and the Duke of Wellington again. Nat walks to
+Prospect Hill, and is attended by a suite consisting of Sir Francis
+Chantrey, "the gifted poet Burns," "the late Hugh Miller," etc., who
+also loved to look at prospects. Nat organized a debating-society,
+(which by the way was, "in respect of unanimity of feeling and action, a
+lesson to most legislative bodies, and to the Congress of the United
+States in particular." Congress of the United States, are you
+listening?) and "such an organization has proved a valuable means of
+improvement to many persons." Witness "the Irish orator, Curran," with
+biography; "a living American statesman," with biography; the "highly
+distinguished statesman, Canning," more biography; "Henry Clay, the
+American orator," with autobiography; and a meteoric shower of lesser
+biographies emanating from Tremont Temple. Nat carried a book in his
+pocket, and "Pockets have been of great service to self-made men. A more
+useful invention was never known, and hundreds are now living who will
+have occasion to speak well of pockets till they die, because they were
+so handy to carry a book. Roger Sherman had one when he was a
+hard-working shoemaker, etc., etc., etc. Napoleon had one in which he
+carried the Iliad when, etc. etc., etc. Hugh Miller had one, etc., etc.,
+etc. Elihu Burritt had one," etc., etc., for three pages, to which we
+might add, from the best authority, the striking fact which our author,
+notwithstanding the wide range of his reading, seems unaccountably to
+have missed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Lyddy Locket lost her pocket,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lyddy Fisher found it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lyddy Fisher gave it to Mr. Gaines,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And Mr. Gaines ground it."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Allusion is here made to an important fact. <i>Mr. Gaines was a miller!</i></p>
+
+<p>Yet, with all this elucidation, we take shame to ourselves for admitting
+that there are points which, after all, we do not comprehend. They may
+be trivial; but in making up testimony, it is the little things which
+have weight. Trifles light as air are confirmation strong as proofs of
+Holy Writ, and confutation no less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[Pg 587]</a></span> strong. When, as a proof of Nat's
+ardor in the pursuit of knowledge, we are told that he walked ten miles
+after a hard day's work to hear Daniel Webster, and then <i>stood</i> through
+the oration in front of the platform, because he could see the speaker
+better,&mdash;and when, turning to the next page, we are told that he was so
+much interested that he "would have <i>sat</i> entranced till morning, if the
+gifted orator had continued to pour forth his eloquence,"&mdash;what are we
+to believe? When we are bidden to "listen to the gifted orator, as the
+flowing periods come burning from his soul on fire, riveting the
+attention," etc., is it a river, or is it a fire, or is it a hammer and
+anvil, that we have in our mind's eye, Horatio? When Nat "waxed warmer
+and warmer, as he advanced, and spoke in a flow of eloquence and choice
+selection of words that was unusual for one of his age," did he come out
+dry-shod? We are told of his visit to the Boston bookstores,&mdash;that he
+examined the books "outside before he stepped in. <i>He read the title of
+each volume upon the back, and some he took up and examined</i>," but we
+have no explanation of this extraordinary behavior. "It was thus with"
+Abraham. "The manner in which Abraham made progress in penmanship,
+writing on slabs and trees, on the ground and in the snow, anywhere that
+he could find a place, reminds us forcibly of Pascal, who demonstrated
+the first thirty-two propositions of Euclid in his boyhood, without the
+aid of a teacher." We not only are not forcibly reminded of Pascal, but
+we are not reminded of Pascal at all. The boy who imitates on slabs
+mechanical lines which he has been taught, and he who originates
+mathematical problems and theorems, may be as like as my fingers to my
+fingers, but&mdash;alas, that it is forbidden to say&mdash;we do not see it. When
+Mr. Elkins told Abraham he would make a good pioneer boy, and "'What's a
+pioneer boy?' asked Abraham," why was Mr. Elkins "quite amused at this
+inquiry"? and why did he "exercise his risibles for a minute" before
+replying? When Mr. Stuart offered young Mr. Lincoln the use of his
+law-books, and young Mr. Lincoln answered,&mdash;very properly, we should
+say,&mdash;"You are very generous indeed. I could never repay you for such
+generosity," why did Mr. Stuart respond, "shaking his sides with
+laughter"? We do not wish to be too inquisitive, but few things are more
+trying to a sensitive person than to see others overwhelmed with
+merriment in which, from ignorance, he cannot share.</p>
+
+<p>Want of space forbids us to do more than touch lightly upon the many
+excellences of these books. We have given extracts enough to enable our
+readers to see for themselves the severe elegance of style, the
+compactness and force of the narrative, the verisimilitude of the
+characters, the unity of plan, and the cogency of the reasoning. We
+trust they will also perceive the great moral effect that cannot fail to
+be produced. Such books are specially adapted to meet a daily increasing
+want. Our American youth are too apt to value virtue for its own sake.
+They are in imminent danger of giving themselves over to integrity, to
+industry, perseverance, and single-mindedness, without looking forward
+to those posts of usefulness for which these qualities eminently fit
+them. Fired with the love of learning, they are languid in claiming the
+honors which learning has to bestow. Eager to become worthy of the
+highest places, they make no effort to secure the places to which their
+worth points them. Political supineness is the bane of our society. The
+one great need is to rouse the ambition of boys, and wake them to
+political aspiration. To such objects such books tend; and who would
+hesitate at any sacrifice of his prejudices in favor of privacy, when
+such is the end to be obtained? Breathes there the man with soul so dead
+who would not lay upon the altar his father, his mother, his sisters,
+not to say his uncles and cousins, nay, the inmost sanctities of his
+home, to enable American boys to fasten their eyes upon the White House?
+Would he refuse,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_588" id="Page_588">[Pg 588]</a></span> at the call of patriotism, to spread before the public
+the very secrets of his heart, the struggles of his closet, his
+communion with his God?</p>
+
+<p>As a collateral result of this new school of biography, we can but
+admire the new form in which Nemesis appears. The day of rich relations
+is gone by. No longer can stern Uncle Bishops lord it over their obscure
+nephews, for ever before their eyes will flaunt the possible book which
+will one day lay open to a gazing world all their weakness and their
+evil behavior. Let not wicked or disagreeable relatives imagine
+henceforth that they may safely indulge in small tyrannies, neglects, or
+other peccadilloes; for no robin-redbreast will piously cover them with
+leaves, but that which is done in the ear shall be proclaimed upon the
+house-tops, nor can they tell from what quarter the trumpet shall sound.
+The unkempt boy, the sullen girl in the chimney-corner, may be the
+Narcissus or nymph in whose orisons all their sins shall be remembered.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"You that executors be made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And overseers eke<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of children that be fatherless,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And infants mild and meek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take you example by this thing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And yield to each his right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lest God with such like misery<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Your wicked minds requite."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In view of which benefits, and others "too numerous to mention," we
+humbly beg pardon for the petulance which disfigures the commencement of
+our paper, and desire to use all our influence to induce all persons of
+distinction meekly and humanely to lay open to the dear, curious world
+their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor.</p>
+
+<p>But, however beneficial and delightful it is for a friend to impale a
+friend before the public gaze, we do not think that even Job himself
+would have desired that his adversary should write a book about him. In
+the motives that prompted, in the grace of the doing, in the good that
+will result, we can forgive the deed when friend portrays friend; but we
+cannot be lenient when a hostile hand exposes the life to which we have
+no right. We would fain borrow the type and the energy of Reginald
+Bazalgette to enforce our opinion that it is "<span class="smcap">abbommannabel</span>," and the
+innocence of Pet Marjorie to declare it "the most Devilish thing." Yet
+in a loyal, respectable, religious newspaper we lately saw a biography
+of Mr. Vallandigham which puts to the blush all previous achievements in
+the line of contemporary history. It is not so much that we are let into
+the family-secrets, but the family-secrets are spread out before us, as
+the fruits of that species of domestic taxation known as "the presents"
+are spread out on the piano at certain wedding-festivals. We are led
+back to first principles, to the early married life of the parent
+Vallandighams. The mother is portrayed with a vigorous feminine pencil,
+and certainly looks extremely well on canvas. Clement's relations to her
+are shown to be exemplary. There is excuse for this in the attacks which
+have been made upon him in the relation of son. But upon what grounds
+are Clement's sisters' homes invaded? Because a man is disloyal and
+craven, shall we inform the world that his brother was crossed in love?
+Still more shall his wife be taken in hand, and receive what even the
+late Mr. Smallweed would have considered a thorough "shaking-up"? "If
+they were all starving," declares the energetic narrator, "she could not
+earn a cent in any way whatever, so utterly helpless is this fine
+Southern lady. She will not sleep, unless the light is kept burning all
+night in her room, for fear 'something might happen'; and when a slight
+matter crosses her feelings, she lies in bed for several days." Tut,
+tut, dear lady! surely this once thy zeal hath outrun thy discretion.
+Clement L. Vallandigham's public course is a proper target for all loyal
+shafts, but prithee let the poor lady, his wife, remain in peace,&mdash;such
+peace as she can command. It is bad enough to be his wife, without being
+overborne with the additional burden of her own personal foibles. One
+can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[Pg 589]</a></span> be daughter, sister, friend, without impeachment of one's sagacity
+or integrity; but it is such a dreadful indorsement of a man to marry
+him! Her own consciousness must be sufficiently grievous; pray do not
+irritate it into downright madness. Nay, what, after all, are the so
+heinous faults upon which you animadvert? She cannot earn a cent: that
+may be her misfortune, it need not be her fault. Perhaps Clement, like
+Albano, and all good husbands, "never loved to see the sweet form
+anywhere else than, like other butterflies, by his side among the
+flowers." She will keep a light burning in her room, forsooth. Have we
+not all our pet hobgoblins? We know an excellent woman who once sat
+curled up in an arm-chair all night for fear of a mouse! And is it not a
+well-understood thing that nothing so baffles midnight burglars as a
+burning candle? "When a light matter crosses her feelings, she lies in
+bed for several days." Infinitely better than to go sulking about the
+house with that "injured-innocence" air which makes a man feel as if he
+were an assaulter and batterer with intent to kill. Blessings rest upon
+those charming sensible women, who, when they feel cross, as we all do
+at times, will go to bed and sleep it away! No, let us everywhere put
+down treason and ostracize traitors. It is lawful to suspend "<i>naso
+adunco</i>" those whom we may not otherwise suspend. But even traitors have
+rights which white men and white women are bound to respect. We will
+crush them, if we can, but we will crush them in open field, by fair
+fight,&mdash;not by stealing into their bedchambers to stab them through the
+heart of a wife.</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> The meaning of this is, that Mr. Morse was the landlord,
+not the house. Of course a house could not be a landlord; still less
+could it be a landlord to itself.&mdash;<i>Note by Reviewer.</i></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_LAST_RALLY" id="THE_LAST_RALLY"></a>THE LAST RALLY.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">November</span>, 1864.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Rally! rally! rally!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Arouse the slumbering land!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rally! rally! from mountain and valley,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And up from the ocean-strand!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye sons of the West, America's best!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">New Hampshire's men of might!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And rally to the fight!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Armies of untried heroes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Disguised in craftsman and clerk!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye men of the coast, invincible host!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Come, every one, to the work,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the fisherman gray as the salt-sea spray<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That on Long Island breaks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the youth who tills the uttermost hills<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By the blue northwestern lakes!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And ye Freedmen! rally, rally<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the banners of the North!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the shattered door of bondage pour<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Your swarthy legions forth!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_590" id="Page_590">[Pg 590]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Kentuckians! ye of Tennessee<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who scorned the despot's sway!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To all, to all, the bugle-call<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of Freedom sounds to-day!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Old men shall fight with the ballot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Weapon the last and best,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the bayonet, with blood red-wet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall write the will of the rest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the boys shall fill men's places,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the little maiden rock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her doll as she sits with her grandam and knits<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An unknown hero's sock.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the hearts of heroic mothers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the deeds of noble wives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With their power to bless shall aid no less<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Than the brave who give their lives.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rich their gold shall bring, and the old<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall help us with their prayers;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While hovering hosts of pallid ghosts<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Attend us unawares.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">From the ghastly fields of Shiloh<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Muster the phantom bands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Virginia's swamps, and Death's white camps<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On Carolina sands;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I see them gathering fast;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And up from Manassas, what is it that passes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like thin clouds in the blast?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">From the Wilderness, where blanches<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The nameless skeleton;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Vicksburg's slaughter and red-streaked water,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the trenches of Donelson;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the cruel, cruel prisons,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where their bodies pined away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From groaning decks, from sunken wrecks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They gather with us to-day.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And they say to us, "Rally! rally!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The work is almost done!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye harvesters, sally from mountain and valley<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And reap the fields we won!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We sowed for endless years of peace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We harrowed and watered well;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our dying deeds were the scattered seeds:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall they perish where they fell?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And their brothers, left behind them<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the deadly roar and clash<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of cannon and sword, by fort and ford,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the carbine's quivering flash,&mdash;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_591" id="Page_591">[Pg 591]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the Rebel citadel<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Just trembling to its fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Georgia's glens, from Florida's fens,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For us they call, they call!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The life-blood of the tyrant<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is ebbing fast away;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Victory waits at her opening gates,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And smiles on our array;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With solemn eyes the Centuries<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Before us watching stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Love lets down his starry crown<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To bless the future land.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">One more sublime endeavor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And behold the dawn of Peace!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One more endeavor, and war forever<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Throughout the land shall cease!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For ever and ever the vanquished power<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of Slavery shall be slain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Freedom's stained and trampled flower<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall blossom white again!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then rally! rally! rally!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Make tumult in the land!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye foresters, rally from mountain and valley!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ye fishermen, from the strand!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brave sons of the West, America's best!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">New England's men of might!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And rally to the fight!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="FINANCES_OF_THE_REVOLUTION" id="FINANCES_OF_THE_REVOLUTION"></a>FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In all historical studies we should still bear in mind the difference
+between the point of view from which one looks at events and that from
+which they were seen by the actors themselves. We all act under the
+influence of ideas. Even those who speak of theories with contempt are
+none the less the unconscious disciples of some theory, none the less
+busied in working out some problems of the great theory of life. Much as
+they fancy themselves to differ from the speculative man, they differ
+from him only in contenting themselves with seeing the path as it lies
+at their feet, while he strives to embrace it all, starting-point and
+end, in one comprehensive view. And thus in looking back upon the past
+we are irresistibly led to arrange the events of history, as we arrange
+the facts of a science, in their appropriate classes and under their
+respective laws. And thus, too, these events give us the true measure of
+the intellectual and moral culture of the times, the extent to which
+just ideas prevailed therein upon all the duties and functions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_592" id="Page_592">[Pg 592]</a></span> of
+private and public life. Tried by the standard of absolute truth and
+right, grievously would they all fall short,&mdash;and we, too, with them.
+Judged by the human standard of progressive development and gradual
+growth,&mdash;the only standard to which the man of the beam can venture,
+unrebuked, to bring the man with the mote,&mdash;we shall find much in them
+all to sadden us, and much, also, in which we can all sincerely rejoice.</p>
+
+<p>In judging, therefore, the political acts of our ancestors, we have a
+right to bring them to the standard of the political science of their
+age, but we have no right to bring them to the higher standard of our
+own. Montesquieu could give them but an imperfect clue to the labyrinth
+in which they found themselves involved; and yet no one had seen farther
+into the mysteries of social and political organization than
+Montesquieu. Hume had scattered brilliant rays on dark places, and
+started ideas which, once at work in the mind, would never rest till
+they had evolved momentous truths and overthrown long-standing errors.
+But no one had yet seen, with Adam Smith, that labor was the original
+source of every form of wealth,&mdash;that the farmer, the merchant, the
+manufacturer, were all equally the instruments of national
+prosperity,&mdash;or demonstrated as unanswerably as he did that nations grow
+rich and powerful by giving as they receive, and that the good of one is
+the good of all. The world had not yet seen that fierce conflict between
+antagonistic principles which she was soon to see in the French
+Revolution; nor had political science yet recorded those daring
+experiments in remoulding society, those constitutions framed in
+closets, discussed in clubs, accepted and overthrown with equal
+demonstrations of popular zeal, and which, expressing in their terrible
+energy the universal dissatisfaction with past and present, the
+universal grasping at a brighter future, have met and answered so many
+grave questions,&mdash;questions neither propounded nor solved in any of the
+two hundred constitutions which Aristotle studied in order to prepare
+himself for the composition of his "Politics." The world had not yet
+seen a powerful nation tottering on the brink of anarchy, with all the
+elements of prosperity in her bosom,&mdash;nor a bankrupt state sustaining a
+war that demanded annual millions, and growing daily in wealth and
+power,&mdash;nor the economical phenomena which followed the reopening of
+Continental commerce in 1814,&mdash;nor the still more startling phenomena
+which a few years later attended England's return to specie-payments and
+a specie-currency,&mdash;nor statesmen setting themselves gravely down with
+the map before them to the final settlement of Europe, and, while the
+ink was yet fresh on their protocols, seeing all the results of their
+combined wisdom set at nought by the inexorable development of the
+fundamental principle which they had refused to recognize.</p>
+
+<p>But we have seen these things, and, having seen them, unconsciously
+apply the knowledge derived from them in our judgment of events to which
+we have no right to apply it. We condemn errors which we should never
+have detected without the aid of a light which was hidden from our
+fathers, and will still be dwelling upon shortcomings which nothing
+could have avoided but a general diffusion of that wisdom which
+Providence never vouchsafes except as a gift to a few exalted minds.
+Every school-boy has his text-book of political economy now: but many
+can remember when these books first made their appearance in schools;
+and so late as 1820 the Professor of History in English Cambridge
+publicly lamented that there was no work upon this vital subject which
+he could put into the hands of his classes.</p>
+
+<p>When, therefore, our fathers found themselves face to face with the
+complex questions of finance, they naturally fell back upon the
+experience and devices of their past history: they did as in such
+emergencies men always do,&mdash;they tried to meet the present difficulty
+without weighing maturely the future difficulties. The present was at
+the door, palpable, stern, urgent, relentless; and as they looked at it,
+they could see nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_593" id="Page_593">[Pg 593]</a></span> beyond half so full of perplexity and danger.
+They hoped, as in the face of all history and all experience men will
+ever hope, that out of those depths which their feeble eyes were unable
+to penetrate something would yet arise in their hour of need to avert
+the peril and snatch them from the precipice. Their past history had its
+lessons of encouragement, some thought, and, some thought, of warning.
+They seized the example, but the admonition passed by unheeded.</p>
+
+<p>Short as the chronological record of American history then was, that
+exchange of the products of labor which so speedily grows up into
+commerce had already passed through all its phases, from direct barter
+to bank-notes and bills of exchange. Men gave what they wanted less to
+get what they wanted more, the products of industry without doors for
+the products of industry within doors; and it was only when they felt
+the necessity of adding to their stock of luxuries or conveniences from
+a distance that they experienced the want of money. Prices naturally
+found their own level,&mdash;were what, when left to themselves they always
+are, the natural expression of the relations between demand and supply.
+Tobacco stood the Virginian in stead of money long after money had
+become abundant; procuring him corn, meat, raiment. More than once, too,
+it procured him something better still. In the very same year in which
+the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, history tells us, ninety maidens of
+"virtuous education and demeanor" landed in Virginia; the next year
+brought sixty more; and, provident industry reaping its own reward, he
+whose busy hands had raised the largest crop of tobacco was enabled to
+make the first choice of a wife. And it must have been an edifying and
+pleasant spectacle to see each stalwart Virginian pressing on towards
+the landing with his bundle of tobacco on his back, and walking
+deliberately home again with an affectionate wife under his arm.</p>
+
+<p>But already there was a pernicious principle at work,&mdash;protested against
+by experience wherever tried, and still repeatedly tried anew,&mdash;the
+assumption by Government of the power to regulate the prices of goods.
+The first instance carries us back to 1618, and thinking men still
+believed it possible in 1777. The right to regulate the prices of labor
+was its natural corollary, bringing with it the power of creating legal
+tenders and the various representatives of value, without any
+correspondent measures for creating the value itself, or, in simpler
+words, paper-money without capital. And thus, logically as well as
+historically, we reach the first issue of paper-money in 1690, that year
+so memorable as the year of the first Congress.</p>
+
+<p>New England, encouraged by a successful expedition against Port Royal,
+made an attempt upon Quebec. Confident of success, she sent forth her
+little army without providing the means of paying it. The soldiers came
+back soured by disaster and fatigue, and, not yet up to the standard of
+'76, were upon the point of mutinying for their pay. To escape the
+immediate danger, Massachusetts bethought her of bills of credit. They
+were issued, accepted, and redeemed, although the first holders suffered
+great losses, and the last holders or the speculators were the only ones
+that found them faithful pledges. The flood-gates once opened, the water
+poured in amain. Every pressing emergency afforded a pretext for a new
+issue. Other Colonies followed the seductive example. Paper was soon
+issued to make money plenty. Men's minds became familiar with the idea,
+as they saw the convenient substitute passing freely from hand to hand.
+Accepted at market, accepted at the retail store, accepted in the
+counting-room, accepted for taxes, everywhere a legal tender, it seemed
+adequate to all the demands of domestic trade. But erelong came undue
+fluctuations of prices, depreciations, failures,&mdash;all the well-known
+indications of an unsound currency. England interposed to protect her
+own merchants, to whom American paper-money was utterly worthless; and
+Parliament<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_594" id="Page_594">[Pg 594]</a></span> stripped it of its value as a legal tender. Men's minds were
+divided. They had never before been called upon to discuss such
+questions upon such a scale or in such a form. They were at a loss for
+the principle, still enveloped in the multitude and variety of
+conflicting theories and obstinate facts.</p>
+
+<p>One fact, however, was clearly established,&mdash;that a government could, in
+great needs, make paper fulfil, for a while, the office of money; and if
+a regular government, why not also a revolutionary government, sustained
+and accepted by the people? Here, then, begins the history of the
+Continental money,&mdash;the principal chapter in the financial history of
+the Revolution,&mdash;leading us, like all such histories, over ground
+thick-strown with unheeded admonitions and neglected warnings, through a
+round of constantly recurring phenomena, varied only here and there by
+modifications in the circumstances under which they appear.</p>
+
+<p>It is much to be regretted that we have no record of the discussions
+through which Congress reached the resolves of June 22, 1775: "That a
+sum not exceeding two millions of Spanish milled dollars be emitted by
+the Congress in bills of credit for the defence of America. That the
+twelve confederated Colonies" (Georgia, it will be remembered, had not
+yet sent delegates) "be pledged for the redemption of the bills of
+credit now to be emitted." We do not even know positively that there was
+any discussion. If there was, it is not difficult to conceive how some
+of the reasoning ran,&mdash;how each had arguments and examples from his own
+Colony: how confidently Pennsylvanians would speak of the security which
+they had given to their paper; how confidently Virginians would assert
+that even the greatest straits might be passed without having recourse
+to so dangerous a medium; how all the facts in the history of
+paper-money would be brought forward to prove both sides of the
+question, but how the underlying principle, subtile, impalpable, might
+still elude them all, as for thirty-five years longer it still continued
+to elude wise statesmen and thoughtful economists; how, at last, some
+impatient spirit, breaking through the untimely delay, sternly asked
+them what else they proposed to do. By what alchemy would they create
+gold and silver? By what magic would they fill the coffers which their
+non-exportation resolutions had kept empty, or bring in the supplies
+which their non-importation resolutions had cut off? What arguments of
+their devising would induce a people in arms against taxation to submit
+to tenfold heavier taxes than those which they had indignantly repelled?
+Necessity, inexorable necessity, was now their lawgiver; they had
+adopted an army, they must support it; they had voted pay to their
+officers, they must devise the means of giving their vote effect; arms,
+ammunition, camp-equipage, everything was to be provided for. The people
+were full of ardor, glowing with fiery zeal; your promise to pay will be
+received like payment; your commands will be instantly obeyed. Every
+hour's delay imperils the sacred cause, chills the holy enthusiasm;
+action, prompt, energetic, resolute action, is what the crisis calls
+for. Men must see that we are in earnest; the enemy must see it; nothing
+else will bring them to terms; nothing else will give us a lasting
+peace: and in such a peace how easily, how cheerfully, shall we all
+unite in paying the debt which won for us so inestimable a blessing!</p>
+
+<p>It would have been difficult to deny the force of such an appeal. There
+were doubtless men there who believed firmly in the virtue of the
+people,&mdash;who thought, that, after the proof which the people had given
+of their readiness to sacrifice the interests of the present moment to
+the interests of a day and a posterity that they might not live to see,
+it would be worse than skepticism to call it in question. But even these
+men might hesitate about the form of the sacrifice they called for, for
+they knew how often men are governed by names, and that their minds
+might revolt at the idea of a formal tax, although they would submit to
+pay it fifty-fold under the name of depreciation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_595" id="Page_595">[Pg 595]</a></span> Even at this day,
+with all our additional light,&mdash;the combined light of science and of
+experience,&mdash;it is difficult to see what else they could have done
+without strengthening dangerously the hands of their domestic enemies.
+Nor let this be taken as a proof that they engaged rashly in an unequal
+contest, even though it was necessarily in part a war of paper against
+gold. They have been accused of this by their friends as well as by
+their enemies: they have been accused of sacrificing a positive good to
+an uncertain hope,&mdash;of suffering their passions to hurry them into a war
+for which they had made no adequate preparation, and had not the means
+of making any,&mdash;that they wilfully, almost wantonly, incurred the
+fearful responsibility of staking the lives and fortunes of those who
+were looking to them for guidance upon the chances of a single cast. But
+the accusation is unjust. As far as human foresight could reach, they
+had calculated these chances carefully. They knew the tenure by which
+they held their authority, and that, if they ran counter to the popular
+will, the people would fall from them,&mdash;that, if they should fail in
+making their position good, they would be the first, almost the only
+victims,&mdash;that, then as ever, "the thunderbolts on highest mountains
+light." Charles Carroll added "of Carrollton" to his name, so that, if
+the Declaration he was setting it to should bring forfeiture and
+confiscation, there might be no mistake about the victim. Nor was it
+without a touch of sober earnestness that Harrison, bulky and fat, said
+to the lean and shadowy Gerry, as he laid down his pen,&mdash;"When
+hanging-time comes, I shall have the advantage of you. I shall be dead
+in a second, while you will be kicking in the air half an hour after I
+am gone." But they knew also, that, if there are dangers which we do not
+perceive till we come full upon them, there are likewise helps which we
+do not see till we find ourselves face to face with them,&mdash;and that in
+the life of nations, as in the life of individuals, there are moments
+when all that the wisest and most conscientious can do is to see that
+everything is in its place, every man at his post, and resolutely bide
+the shock.</p>
+
+<p>While this subject was pressing upon Congress, it was occupying no less
+seriously leading minds in the different Colonies. All felt that the
+success of the experiment must chiefly depend upon the degree of
+security that could be given to the bills. But how to reach that
+necessary degree was a perplexing question. Three ways were suggested in
+the New-York Convention: that Congress should fix upon a sum, assign
+each Colony its proportion, and the issue be made by the Colony upon its
+own responsibility; or that the United Colonies should make the issue,
+each Colony pledging itself to redeem the part that fell to it; or,
+lastly, that, Congress issuing the sum, and each Colony assuming its
+proportionate responsibility, the Colonies should still be bound as a
+whole to make up for the failure of any individual Colony to redeem its
+share. The latter was proposed by the Convention as offering greater
+chances of security, and tending at the same time to strengthen the bond
+of union. It was in nearly this form, also, that it came from Congress.</p>
+
+<p>No time was now lost in carrying the resolution into effect. The next
+day, Tuesday, June 23, the number, denomination, and form of the bills
+were decided in a Committee of the Whole. It was resolved to make bills
+of eight denominations, from one to eight, and issue forty-nine thousand
+of each, completing the two millions by eleven thousand eight hundred of
+twenty dollars each. The form of the bill was to be,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Continental Currency.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>No.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Dollars.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>This bill entitles the bearer to receive &mdash;&mdash; Spanish milled
+dollars or the value thereof in gold or silver, according to
+the resolutions of the Congress held at Philadelphia on the
+10th day of May</i>, <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 1775.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_596" id="Page_596">[Pg 596]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the same sitting a committee of five was appointed "to get proper
+plates engraved, to provide paper, and to agree with printers to print
+the above bills." Both Franklin and John Adams were on this committee.</p>
+
+<p>Had they lived in 1862 instead of 1775, how their doors would have been
+beset by engravers and paper-dealers and printers! What baskets of
+letters would have been poured upon their tables! How would they have
+dreaded the sound of the knocker or the cry of the postman! But, alas!
+paper was so far from abundant that generals were often reduced to hard
+straits for enough of it to write their reports and despatches on; and
+that Congressmen were not much better off will be believed when we find
+John Adams sending his wife a sheet or two at a time under the same
+envelope with his own letters. Printers there were, as many, perhaps, as
+the business of the country required, but not enough for the eager
+contention which the announcement of Government work to be done excites
+among us in these days. And of engravers there were but four between
+Maine and Georgia. Of these four, one was Paul Revere of the midnight
+ride, the Boston boy of Huguenot blood whose self-taught graver had
+celebrated the repeal of the Stamp Act, condemned to perpetual derision
+the rescinders of 1768, and told the story of the Boston Massacre,&mdash;who,
+when the first grand jury under the new organization was drawn, had met
+the judge with, "I refuse to sarve,"&mdash;a scientific mechanic,&mdash;a leader
+at the Tea-party,&mdash;a soldier of the old war,&mdash;prepared to serve in this
+war, too, with sword, or graver, or science,&mdash;fitting carriages, at
+Washington's command, to the cannon from which the retreating English
+had knocked off the trunnions, learning how to make powder at the
+command of the Provincial Congress, and setting up the first powder-mill
+ever built in Massachusetts.</p>
+
+<p>No mere engraver's task for him, this engraving the first bill-plates of
+Continental Currency! How he must have warmed over the design! how
+carefully he must have chosen his copper! how buoyantly he must have
+plied his graver, harassed by no doubts, disturbed by no misgivings of
+the double mission which those little plates were to perform,&mdash;the good
+one first, thank God! but then how fatal a one afterward!&mdash;but resolved
+and hopeful as on that April night when he spurred his horse from
+cottage to hamlet, rousing the sleepers with the cry, long unheard in
+the sweet valleys of New England, "Up! up! the enemy is coming!"</p>
+
+<p>The paper of these bills was thick, so thick that the enemy called it
+the paste-board money of the rebels. Plate, paper, and printing, all had
+little in common with the elaborate finish and delicate texture of a
+modern bank-note. To sign them was too hard a tax upon Congressmen
+already taxed to the full measure of their working-time by committees
+and protracted daily sessions; and so a committee of twenty-eight
+gentlemen not in Congress was employed to sign and number them,
+receiving in compensation one dollar and a third for every thousand
+bills.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile loud calls for money were daily reaching the doors of
+Congress. Everywhere money was wanted,&mdash;money to buy guns, money to buy
+powder, money to buy provisions, money to send officers to their posts,
+money to march troops to their stations, money to speed messengers to
+and fro, money for the wants of to-day, money to pay for what had
+already been done, and still more money to insure the right doing of
+what was yet to do: Washington wanted it; Lee wanted it; Schuyler wanted
+it: from north to south, from seaboard to inland, one deep, monotonous,
+menacing cry,&mdash;"Money, or our hands are powerless!"</p>
+
+<p>How long would these two millions stand such a drain? Spent before they
+were received, hardly touching the Treasury-chest as a starting-place
+before they flew on the wings of the morning to gladden thousands of
+expectant hearts with a brief respite from one of their many cares.
+Relief there certainly was,&mdash;neither long, indeed, nor lasting, but
+still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_597" id="Page_597">[Pg 597]</a></span> relief. Good Whigs received the bills, as they did everything
+else that came from Congress, with unquestioning confidence. Tories
+turned from them in derision, and refused to give their goods for them.
+Whereupon Congress took the matter under consideration, and told them
+that they must. It was soon seen that another million would be wanted,
+and in July a second issue was resolved on. All-devouring war had soon
+swallowed these also. Three more millions were ordered in November. But
+the war was to end soon,&mdash;by June, '76, at the latest. All their
+expenditures were calculated upon this supposition; and wealth flowing
+in under the auspices of a just and equable accommodation with their
+reconciled mother, these millions which had served them so well in the
+hour of need would soon be paid by a happy and grateful people from an
+abundant treasury.</p>
+
+<p>But early in 1776 reports came of English negotiations for foreign
+mercenaries to help put down the rebellion,&mdash;reports which soon took the
+shape of positive information. No immediate end of the war now: already,
+too, independence was looming up on the turbid horizon; already the
+current was bearing them onward, deep, swift, irresistible: and thus
+seizing still more eagerly upon the future, they poured out other four
+millions in February, five millions in May, five millions in July. The
+Confederacy was not yet formed; the Declaration of Independence had
+nothing yet to authenticate it but the signatures of John Hancock and
+Charles Thompson; and the republic that was to be was already solemnly
+pledged to the payment of twenty millions of dollars.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far men's faith had not faltered. They saw the necessity and
+accepted it, giving their goods and their labor unhesitatingly for a
+slip of paper which derived all its value from the resolves of a body of
+men who might, upon a reverse, be thrown down as rapidly as they had
+been set up. And then whom were they to look to for indemnification? But
+now began a sensible depreciation,&mdash;slight, indeed, at first, but
+ominous. Congress took the alarm, and resolved upon a loan,&mdash;resolved to
+borrow directly what they had hitherto borrowed indirectly, the goods
+and the labor of their constituents. Accordingly, on the third of
+October, a resolve was passed for raising five millions of dollars at
+four per cent; and in order to make it convenient to lenders,
+loan-offices were established in every Colony with a commissioner for
+each.</p>
+
+<p>Money came in slowly, but ran out so fast that in November Congress
+ordered weekly returns from the Treasury, not, of sums on hand, but of
+what parts of the last emission remained unexpended. The campaign of '77
+was at hand; how the campaign of '76 would close was yet uncertain. The
+same impenetrable veil that hid Trenton and Princeton from their eyes
+concealed the disasters of Fort Washington and the Jerseys. They still
+looked hopefully to the lower line of the Hudson. They resolved,
+therefore, to make an immediate effort to supply the Treasury by a
+lottery to be drawn at Philadelphia.</p>
+
+<p>A lottery,&mdash;does not the word carry one back, a great many years back,
+to other times and other manners? The Articles of War were now on the
+table of Congress for revision, and in the second and third of those
+articles officers and soldiers had been earnestly recommended to attend
+divine service diligently, and to refrain, under grave penalties, from
+profane cursing or swearing. And here legislators deliberately set
+themselves to raise money by means which we have deliberately condemned
+as gambling. But years were yet to pass before statesmen, or the people
+rather, were brought to feel that the lottery-office and gaming-table
+stand side by side on the same broad highway.</p>
+
+<p>No such thoughts troubled the minds of our forefathers, well stored as
+those minds were with human and divine lore; but, going to work without
+a scruple, they prepared an elaborate scheme and fixed the first of
+March for the day of drawing,&mdash;"or sooner, if sooner full." It was not
+full, however, nor was it full when the subject next came up. Tickets
+were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_598" id="Page_598">[Pg 598]</a></span> sold; committees sat; Congress returned to the subject from time
+to time: but what with the incipient depreciation of the bills of
+credit, the rising prices of goods and provisions, and the incessant
+calls upon every purse for public and private purposes, the lottery
+failed to commend itself either to speculators or to the bulk of the
+people. Some good Whigs bought tickets from principle, and, like many of
+the good Whigs who took the bills of credit for the same reason, lost
+their money.</p>
+
+<p>In the same November the Treasury was ordered to make every preparation
+for a new issue; and to meet the wants of the retail trade, it was
+resolved at the same time to issue five hundred thousand dollars in
+bills of two-thirds, one-third, one-sixth, and one-ninth of a dollar.
+Evident as it ought now to have been that nothing but taxation could
+relieve them, they still shrank from it. "Do you think, Gentlemen," said
+a member, "that I will consent to load my constituents with taxes, when
+we can send to our printer and get a wagon-load of money, one quire of
+which will pay for the whole?" It was so easy a way of making money that
+men seemed to be getting into the humor of it.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of '77, like the campaign of '76, was fought upon
+paper-money without any material depreciation. The bills could never be
+signed as fast as they were called for. But this could not last. The
+public mind was growing anxious. Extensive interests, in some cases
+whole fortunes, were becoming involved in the question of ultimate
+payment. The alarm gained upon Congress. Burgoyne, indeed, was
+conquered; but a more powerful, more insidious enemy, one to whom they
+themselves had opened the gate, was already within their works and fast
+making his way to the heart of the citadel. The depreciation had reached
+four for one, and there was but one way to prevent it from going lower.
+Congress deliberated anxiously. Thus far the public faith had supported
+the war. But, they reasoned, the quantity of the money for which this
+faith stood pledged already exceeded the demands of commerce, and hence
+its value was proportionably reduced. Add to this the arts of open and
+secret enemies, the avidity of professed friends, and the scarcity of
+foreign commodities, and it is easy to account for the depreciation.
+"The consequences were equally obvious and alarming,"&mdash;"depravity of
+morals, decay of public virtue, a precarious supply for the war,
+debasement of the public faith, injustice to individuals, and the
+destruction of the safety, honor, and independence of the United
+States." But "a reasonable and effectual remedy" was still within their
+reach, and therefore, "with mature deliberation and the most earnest
+solicitude," they recommended the raising by taxes on the different
+States, in proportion to their population, five millions of dollars in
+quarterly payments, for the service of 1778.</p>
+
+<p>But having explained, justified, and recommended, the power of Congress
+ceased. Like the Confederation, it had no right of coercion, no
+machinery of its own for acting upon the States. And, unhappily, the
+States, pressed by their individual wants, feeling keenly their
+individual sacrifices and dangers, failed to see that the nearest road
+to relief lay through the odious portal of taxation. Had the mysterious
+words that Dante read on the gates of Hell been written on it, they
+could not have shrunk from it with a more instinctive feeling:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"All hope abandon, ye who enter here!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Some States paid, some did not pay. The sums that came in were wholly
+insufficient to relieve the actual pressure, and that pressure,
+unrelieved, grew daily more severe. They had tried the regulating of
+prices,&mdash;they had tried loans,&mdash;they had tried a lottery; and now they
+were forced back again to their earliest and most dangerous expedient,
+paper-money. New floods poured forth, and the parched earth drank them
+greedily up. One may almost fancy, as he looks at the tables, that he
+sees the shadowy form of sickly Credit tottering feebly forth to catch a
+gleam of sunshine, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_599" id="Page_599">[Pg 599]</a></span> breath of pure air, while myriads of little
+sprites, each bearing in his hand an emblazoned scroll with
+"Depreciation" written upon it in big yellow letters, dance merrily
+around him, thrusting the bitter record in his face, whichever way he
+turns, with gibes and taunts and demoniac laughter. But his course was
+almost ended: the grave was nigh, an unhonored grave; and as eager hands
+heaped the earth upon his faded form, a stern voice bade men remember
+that they who strayed from the path as he had done must sooner or later
+find a grave like his.</p>
+
+<p>It was not without a desperate struggle that Congress saw the rapid
+decline and shameful death of its currency. The ground was fought
+manfully, foot by foot, inch by inch. The idea that money derived its
+value from acts of government seemed to have taken deep hold of their
+minds, and their policy was in perfect harmony with their belief. In
+January, 1776, they had solemnly resolved that everybody who refused to
+accept their bills, or did anything to obstruct the circulation of them,
+should, upon due conviction, "be deemed, published, and treated as an
+enemy of his country, and be precluded from all trade or intercourse
+with the inhabitants of these Colonies." And to enforce it there were
+Committees of Inspection, whose power seldom lay idle in their hands,
+whose eyes were never sealed in slumber. In this work, which seemed good
+in their eyes, the State Assemblies and Conventions and Committees of
+Safety joined heart and hand with Congress. Tender-laws were tried, and
+the relentless hunt of creditor after debtor became a flight of the
+recusant creditor from the debtor eager to wipe out his responsibility
+for gold or silver with a ream or two of paper. Limitation of prices was
+tried, and produced its natural results,&mdash;discontent, insufficient
+supplies, heavy losses. Threatening resolves were renewed, and fell
+powerless. It was hoped that some relief might come from the sales of
+confiscated property; but property changed hands, and the Treasury was
+none the better off: just as in France, a few years later, the whole
+landed property of the kingdom changed hands, and left the government
+assignats what it found them,&mdash;bits of waste-paper.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile speculation ran riot. Every form of wastefulness and
+extravagance prevailed in town and country,&mdash;nowhere more than at
+Philadelphia, under the very eyes of Congress,&mdash;luxury of dress, luxury
+of equipage, luxury of the table. We are told of one entertainment at
+which eight hundred pounds were spent in pastry. As I read the private
+letters of those days, I sometimes feel as a man would feel who should
+be permitted to look down upon a foundering ship whose crew were
+preparing for death by breaking open the steward's room and drinking
+themselves into madness.</p>
+
+<p>An earnest appeal was made to the States. The sober eloquence and
+profound statesmanship of John Jay were employed to bring the subject
+before the country in its true light and manifold bearings,&mdash;the state
+of the Treasury, the results of loans and of taxes, and the nature and
+amount of the obligations incurred. The natural value and wealth of the
+country were held to view as the foundations on which Congress had
+undertaken to build up a system of public finances, beginning with bills
+of Credit because there was no nation they could have borrowed of,
+coming next to loans, and thus "unavoidably creating a public debt: a
+debt of $159,948,880, in emissions,&mdash;$7,545,196-67/90, in money borrowed
+before the first of March, 1778, with the interest payable in
+France,&mdash;$26,188,909, money borrowed since the first of March, 1778,
+with interest due in America,&mdash;about $4,000,000, of money due abroad."
+The taxes had brought in only $3,027,560; so that all the money supplied
+to Congress by the people was but $36,701,665-67/90.</p>
+
+<p>"Judge, then, of the necessity of emissions, and learn from whom and
+whence that necessity arose. We are also to inform you, that, on the
+first day of September instant, we resolved that we would on no account
+whatever emit more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_600" id="Page_600">[Pg 600]</a></span> bills of credit than to make the whole amount of
+such bills two hundred million dollars; and as the sum emitted and in
+circulation amounted to $159,948,880, and the sum of $40,051,120
+remained to complete the two hundred million above mentioned, we, on the
+third day of September instant, further resolved that we would emit such
+part only of the said sum as should be absolutely necessary for public
+exigencies before adequate supplies could otherwise be obtained, relying
+for such ratios on the exertions of the several States."</p>
+
+<p>Coming to the depreciation, they reduce the causes to three
+kinds,&mdash;natural, or artificial, or both. The natural cause was the
+excess of the supply over the demands of commerce; the artificial cause
+was a distrust of the ability or inclination of the United States to
+redeem their bills; and assuming that both causes have combined in
+producing the depreciation of the Continental money, they proceed to
+prove that there can be no doubt of the ability of the United States to
+pay their debt, and none of their inclination. Under the head of
+inclination the argument is divided into three parts:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>First, Whether, and in what manner, the faith of the United States has
+been pledged for the redemption of their bills.</p>
+
+<p>Second, Whether they have put themselves in a political capacity to
+redeem them.</p>
+
+<p>Third, Whether, admitting the two former propositions, there is any
+reason to apprehend a wanton violation of the public faith. The idea
+that Congress can destroy the money, because Congress made it, is
+treated with scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"A bankrupt, faithless Republic would be a novelty in the political
+world.... The pride of America revolts from the idea; her citizens know
+for what purposes these emissions were made, and have repeatedly
+plighted their faith for the redemption of them; they are to be found in
+every man's possession, and every man is interested in their being
+redeemed.... Provide for continuing your armies in the field till
+victory and peace shall lead them home, and avoid the reproach of
+permitting the currency to depreciate in your hands, when, by yielding a
+part to taxes and loans, the whole might have been appreciated and
+preserved. Humanity as well as justice makes this demand upon you; the
+complaints of ruined widows and the cries of fatherless children, whose
+whole support has been placed in your hands and melted away, have
+doubtless reached you: take care that they ascend no higher....
+Determine to finish the contest as you began it, honestly and
+gloriously. Let it never be said that America had no sooner become
+independent than she became insolvent."</p>
+
+<p>But it was not only the Continental money that was blocking up the
+channels through which a sound currency would have carried vigor and
+health. The States had their debts and their paper-money too,&mdash;wheel
+within wheel of complicated, desperate insolvency. The two hundred
+millions had been issued and spent. There was no money to send to
+Washington for his army, and he was compelled for a while to support
+them by seizing the articles he needed, and giving certificates in
+return. The States were called upon for specific supplies, beef, pork,
+flour, for the use of the army,&mdash;a method so expensive, irregular, and
+partial, that it was soon abandoned. One chance remained: to call in the
+old money by taxes, and burn it as soon as it was in; then to issue a
+new paper,&mdash;one of the new for every twenty of the old; and the whole of
+the old was cancelled, to issue only ten millions of the new,&mdash;four
+millions of it subject to the order of Congress, and the remaining six
+to be divided among the States: the whole redeemable in specie within
+six years, and bearing till then an interest of five per cent., payable
+in specie annually or on redemption, at the option of the holder. By
+this skilful change of base it was hoped that a bold front could still
+be presented to the enemy, and the field, which had been so long and so
+obstinately contested, be finally won.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_601" id="Page_601">[Pg 601]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the day of expedients was past. The zeal which had blazed forth with
+such energy at the beginning of the war was fast sinking to a fitful,
+smouldering flame. Individual interests were again taking the precedence
+of general interests. The moral sense of the people had contracted a
+deadly taint from daily contact with corruption. The spirit of gambling,
+confined in the beginning and lost to the eye, like Le Sage's Devil, had
+swollen to its full proportions, and, in the garb of speculation, was
+undermining the foundations of society. Rogues were growing rich; the
+honest men who were not already poor were daily growing poor. The laws
+that had been made in the view of propping the currency had served only
+to countenance unscrupulous men in paying their debts at a discount
+ruinous to the creditor. The laws against forestallers and engrossers,
+who, it was currently believed, were leagued against both army and
+country, were powerless, as such laws always are. Even Washington wished
+for a gallows like Haman's to hang them on; but the army was kept
+starving none the less.</p>
+
+<p>The seasons themselves&mdash;God's visible agents&mdash;seemed to combine against
+our cause. The years 1779 and 1780 were years of small crops. The winter
+of 1780 was severe far beyond the common severity even of a Northern
+winter. Provisions were scarce, suffering universal. Farmers, as if
+forgetting their dependence on rain and sunshine, had planted less than
+usual,&mdash;some from disaffection, some because they were irritated at
+having to give up their corn and cattle for worthless bills, and
+certificates which might prove equally worthless. Some, who were within
+reach of the enemy, preferred to sell to them, for they paid in silver
+and gold. There were riots in Philadelphia, put down at the point of the
+sword. There was mutiny in the army, and this, too, was put down by the
+strong hand,&mdash;though the fearful sufferings which had caused it
+justified it almost in the eye of sober reason.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to see why farmers should have been loath to raise more than
+they needed for their own use,&mdash;why merchants should have been unwilling
+to lay in stores which they might be compelled to sell at prices so
+truly nominal that the money which they received would often sink to
+half they had taken it for before they were able to pass it. But it is
+not so easy to see why this wretched substitute for values should have
+circulated so freely to the very last. Even at two hundred for one, with
+the knowledge that the next twenty-four hours might make that two
+hundred two hundred and fifty, or even more, without the slightest hope
+that it would ever be redeemed at its nominal value, it would still buy
+everything that was to be sold,&mdash;provisions, goods, houses, lands, even
+hard money itself. Down to its last gasp there were speculations afoot
+to take advantage of the differences in the degree of its worthlessness
+at different places, and buy it up in one place to sell it at
+another,&mdash;to buy it in Philadelphia at two hundred and twenty-five for
+one, and sell it in Boston at seventy-five for one. It was possible, if
+the ball passed quickly from hand to hand, that some might gain; it was
+very manifest that some must lose: and thus outcrops that pernicious
+doctrine, that true, life-giving, health-diffusing commerce consists in
+stripping one to clothe another.</p>
+
+<p>And thus we reach the memorable year 1781, the great, decisive year of
+the war. While Greene was fighting Cornwallis and Rawdon, and Washington
+watching eagerly for an opportunity to strike at Clinton, Congress was
+busy making up its accounts. One circumstance told for them. There was
+no longer the same dearth of gold and silver which had embarrassed them
+so much at the beginning of the war. A gainful commerce was now opened
+with the West Indies. The French army and the French fleet were here,
+and hard money with them. Louis-d'ors and livres and Spanish
+dollars,&mdash;how welcome must their pleasant faces have looked, after this
+long, long absence! With what a thrill must the hand which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_602" id="Page_602">[Pg 602]</a></span> had touched
+nothing for years but Continental bills have closed upon solid gold and
+silver! It is easy to conceive that a new spirit must soon have
+manifested itself in the wide circle of contractors and agents,&mdash;that
+shopkeepers must speedily have discovered that their business was
+shifting its ground as they obtained a reliable standard for counting
+their losses and gains,&mdash;that every branch of commerce must have felt a
+new vigor diffusing itself through its veins. But it is equally evident,
+that, while the gold and silver which flowed in upon them from these
+sources strengthened the people for the work they were to do and the
+burdens they were to bear, the comparisons they were daily making
+between fluctuating paper and steadfast metal were not of a nature to
+strengthen their faith in money that could be made by a turn of the
+printing-press and a few strokes of the pen.</p>
+
+<p>Another circumstance told for them, too. The accession of Maryland had
+fulfilled the conditions for the acceptance of the Confederation so long
+held in abeyance, and the finances were taken from a board and intrusted
+to the hands of a skilful and energetic financier. Robert Morris, who
+had protested energetically against the tender-laws, made
+specie-payments the condition of his acceptance of office; and on the
+twenty-second of May, though not without a struggle, Congress resolved
+"that the whole debts already due by the United States be liquidated as
+soon as may be to their specie-value, and funded, if agreeable to the
+creditors, as a loan upon interest; that the States be severally
+informed that the calculations of the expenses of the present campaign
+are made in solid coin, and therefore that the requisitions from them
+respectively, being grounded on those calculations, must be complied
+with in such manner as effectually to answer the purpose designed; that,
+experience having evinced the inefficacy of all attempts to support the
+credit of paper-money by compulsory acts, it is recommended to such
+States, where laws making paper-bills a tender yet exist, to repeal the
+same."</p>
+
+<p>Another public body, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania,
+dealt it another blow, fixing the ratio at which it was to be received
+in public payments at one hundred and seventy-five for one. Circulation
+ceased. In a short time the money that had been carted to and fro in
+reams disappeared from the shop, the counting-room, the market. All
+dealings were in hard money. Gold and silver resumed their legitimate
+sway, and men began to look hopefully forward to a return of economy,
+frugality, and an invigorating commerce.</p>
+
+<p>The Superintendent of Finance set himself seriously to his task. One
+great obstacle had been removed; one great and decisive step had been
+made towards the restoration of that sense of security without which
+industry and enterprise are powerless. As a merchant, he was familiar
+with the resources of the country; as a Member of Congress, he was
+familiar with the wants of Government. His resources were taxes and
+loans; his obligations, an old debt and a daily expenditure. Opposed as
+he was to the irresponsible currency which had brought the country to
+the brink of ruin, he was a believer in banks and bills resting on a
+secure basis. One of his earliest measures was to prepare, with the aid
+of his Assistant-Superintendent, Gouverneur Morris, a plan of a bank,
+which soon after, with the sanction of Congress, went into operation as
+the Bank of North America. Small as the capital with which it started
+was,&mdash;only four hundred thousand dollars,&mdash;its influence was immediately
+felt throughout the country. It gave an impulse to legitimate enterprise
+which had long been wanting, and a confidence to buyer and seller which
+they had not felt since the first year of the war. In his public
+operations the Superintendent used it freely, and, using it at the same
+time wisely, was enabled to call upon it for aid to the full extent of
+its ability without impairing its strength.</p>
+
+<p>Henceforth the financial history of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_603" id="Page_603">[Pg 603]</a></span> Revolution, although it loses
+none of its importance, loses much of its narrative-interest. No longer
+a hand-to-hand conflict between coin and paper,&mdash;no longer the
+melancholy spectacle of wise men doing unwise things, and honorable men
+doing things which, in any other form, they would have been the first to
+brand with dishonor,&mdash;it still continues a long, a wearisome, and often
+a mortifying struggle: men knowing their duty and refusing to do it,
+knowing consequences and yet blindly shutting their eyes to them. I will
+give but one example.</p>
+
+<p>After a careful estimate of the operations of 1782, Congress had called
+upon the States for eight millions. Up to January, 1783, only four
+hundred and twenty thousand had come into the Treasury. Four hundred
+thousand Treasury-notes were almost due; the funds in Europe were
+overdrawn to the amount of five hundred thousand by the sale of drafts.
+But Morris, waiting only to cover himself by a special authorization of
+Congress, made fresh sales upon the hopes of the Dutch loan and the
+possibility of a new French loan, and still held on&mdash;as cautiously as he
+could, but ever boldly and skilfully&mdash;his anxious way through the rocks
+and shoals that menaced him on every side. He was rewarded, as such men
+too often are, by calumny and suspicion. But when men came to look
+closely at his acts, comparing his means with his wants, and the
+expenditure of the Treasury Board with the expenditure of the Finance
+Office, it was seen and acknowledged that he had saved the country
+thirteen millions a year in hard money.</p>
+
+<p>And now, from our stand-point of the Peace,&mdash;from 1783,&mdash;let us give a
+parting glance at the ground over which we have passed. We see thirteen
+Colonies, united by interest, divided by habits, association, and
+tradition, engaging in a doubtful contest with one of the most powerful
+and energetic nations which the world had ever seen; we see them begin,
+as men always do, with very imperfect conceptions of the time it would
+last, the lengths to which it would carry them, or the sacrifices it
+would impose; we see them boldly adopting some measures, timidly
+shrinking from others,&mdash;reasoning justly about some things, reasoning
+falsely about things equally important,&mdash;endowed at times with singular
+foresight, visited at times by incomprehensible blindness: boatmen on a
+mighty river, strong themselves and resolute and skilful, plying their
+oars manfully from first to last, but borne onward by a current which no
+human science could measure, no human strength could resist.</p>
+
+<p>They knew that the resources of the country were exhaustless; and they
+threw themselves upon those resources in the only way by which they
+could reach them. Their bills of credit were the offspring of enthusiasm
+and faith. The enthusiasm grew chill, the faith failed. With a little
+more enthusiasm, the people would cheerfully have submitted to taxation;
+with a little more faith, the Congress would have taxed them. In the
+end, the people paid for the shortcomings of their enthusiasm by seventy
+millions of indirect taxation,&mdash;taxation through depreciation; the
+Congress paid for the shortcomings of their faith by the loss of
+confidence and respect. The war left them with a Federal debt of seventy
+million dollars, and State debts of nearly twenty-six millions.</p>
+
+<p>Could this have been avoided? Could they have done otherwise? It is
+easy, when the battle is won, to tell how victory might have been bought
+cheaper,&mdash;when the campaign is ended, to show what might perhaps have
+brought it to an earlier and more glorious close. It is easy for us,
+with the whole field before us, to see that from the beginning, from the
+very first start, although the formula was <i>Taxation</i>, the principle was
+<i>Independence</i>; but before we venture to pass sentence, ought we not to
+pause and weigh well our judgment and our words,&mdash;we who, in the fiercer
+contest through which we are passing, have so long failed to see, that,
+while the formula is <i>Secession</i>, the principle is <i>Slavery</i>?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_604" id="Page_604">[Pg 604]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THROUGH-TICKETS_TO_SAN_FRANCISCO_A_PROPHECY" id="THROUGH-TICKETS_TO_SAN_FRANCISCO_A_PROPHECY"></a>THROUGH-TICKETS TO SAN FRANCISCO: A PROPHECY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>We write this article in September. Within a few days, and without much
+heralding, has occurred an event of prime importance to our country's
+future. This is the opening from New York to St. Louis of a continuous
+broad-gauge line under the title of the Atlantic and Great Western
+Railway. This line is twelve hundred miles long, and pursues the
+following route: By the New York and Erie Road, from New York to the
+station of Salamanca; thence, by a separate road of the Atlantic and
+Great Western, to Dayton, Ohio; thence, over the Cincinnati, Hamilton,
+and Dayton Road, to Cincinnati; and finally, by the Ohio and Mississippi
+Road, to St. Louis. The first excursion-train accomplished the whole
+distance in forty-four hours. We understand that the regular
+express-trains of the line will be required to make equally good
+time,&mdash;ultimately, perhaps, to reduce the time to forty hours.</p>
+
+<p>This valuable connection has been mainly effected by the energy and
+talents of two men. Mr. James McHenry, a Pennsylvanian by birth, but of
+late years resident abroad, has raised twenty million dollars for the
+project in the money-markets of England, Spain, and Germany, the bonds
+of the Company obtaining ready sale upon the guaranty of his personal
+high character for uprightness and financial ability. Mr. Thomas W.
+Kennard, an engineer and capitalist of large views, discretion, and
+experience, has managed the interests of the project here at home,
+securing the hearty cooperation and good-will of all the roads now made
+continuous, and bringing the enterprise to a successful issue with a
+skill possible only to first-class commercial genius. The former of
+these gentlemen is Financial Director and Contractor, the latter,
+Engineer-in-Chief, Vice-President, and General Manager of the line. At
+any other period than this their success would have been widely talked
+of as a great national benefit. Even now let us not forget the
+public-spirited men whose hopeful hands, in the midst of blood and din,
+have been sowing seeds of commercial prosperity to glorify with their
+perfected harvest the day of our National triumph and reunion.</p>
+
+<p>This work is the first instalment of the greatest popular enterprise in
+the world, the initial fulfilment of a promise which America has made to
+herself and all the other nations,&mdash;one which shall be completely
+fulfilled only when an iron highway stretches across her entire breadth,
+from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. As a people we have grudged
+neither time nor money to the accomplishment of this end. We have dared
+the fiery desert and the frozen mountaintop, the demons of thirst,
+starvation, and savage warfare. Our foremost scientific men, for the
+sake of the great national enterprise, have taken their lives in their
+hands, going out to meet peril and privation with the cheerful constancy
+of apostles and martyrs. The record of expeditions bearing either
+directly or indirectly on the subject of the Pacific Railroad is one to
+which every American citizen must point with a pride none the less
+hearty for the fact that its route has not yet been absolutely decided.
+The one curse mingled with a young republic's many blessings is the
+intrusion of political influences into the dispassionate field of
+national enterprise. We might have determined the line of our Pacific
+Road before the breaking out of the Rebellion, and by this time its
+first or Great-Plains section should have been in running order, but for
+the partisan jealousies which prevailed in high places between the
+advocates of the different routes. Slavery, that <i>enfant g&acirc;t&eacute;</i> of our
+old-school and now happily obsolete statecraft, insisted on the
+expensive toy of a southern and unpractical line, until our
+representatives, harassed by the problem how to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_605" id="Page_605">[Pg 605]</a></span> gratify her without
+incurring the contempt of the financial world, gave over to the drift of
+events the settlement of their country's chief commercial question. We
+are now in a position to decide coolly; no entangling alliances with a
+dead-weight social system bias our plain judgment of practical pros and
+cons; but the opportunity for decision arrives a little too late and a
+little too early for action. Congress, the legitimate custodian of the
+Pacific Railroad, may be said to have passed the last four years in
+climbing to the level of the country's vital exigency. Till Congress
+reaches that and understands it fully, there is no surplus energy to be
+thrown away on the else paramount matters of a peaceful age.</p>
+
+<p>But it must not be forgotten that the Pacific Railroad stands next to
+the maintenance of National Unity on the docket of causes for
+adjudication by our representative tribunal. The people have filed it
+away till the grand appeal is settled; but they have not forgotten it.</p>
+
+<p>It is none the pleasanter thought to them because they have no time to
+talk about it, that the great highway of the continent has been left,
+<i>pendente lite</i>, in the hands of squabbling speculators, and that
+personal recriminations bar the progress of our commerce between sea and
+sea. The indifference of our public trustees to the disgraceful
+controversies which have embarrassed work on the eastern end of the line
+is itself not a disgrace only because human power is limited to the care
+of one great matter at a time. The first Congress that meets under the
+olive of an honorable peace must at once take the Pacific Railroad into
+the Nation's hands, and prosecute it as the Nation's matter, with a
+liberal-mindedness learned from the conduct of a great war. Next to the
+salvation of the Union, the completion of the Pacific Road most fully
+justifies prompt action and comparative disregard of expenditure.</p>
+
+<p>It is not our purpose, nor is this the place, to dictate to our
+legislators either the precise line of their own action or that of the
+road. It is still proper to say that the arrangements thus far entered
+into with private contractors have proved inadequate to the
+accomplishment and unworthy of the character of the enterprise. Whatever
+may be the details of the improved plan, it must embrace a sterner
+national surveillance over the execution of the project, and a direct
+national assumption of its prime responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>It is a mistaken notion to suppose that the Pacific-Railroad question
+rests on the same principles as that of our minor internal improvements.
+It calls for no reopening of the long-hushed controversy between
+Democracy and Whiggism. The best thinkers of the day are universally
+agreed to deprecate legislation in every case where private enterprise
+will do its office. No good political economist approves the
+emasculation of private effort by Government subsidy. The people are
+averse to statutory crutches and go-carts, wherever it is possible for
+them to walk alone. We feel distrust of the railroad which asks
+monopoly-privileges. The sight of a Governmental prop under any
+ostensibly commercial concern warns an American from its neighborhood.
+He has learned that true prestige lies with the people,&mdash;that there is
+no vital warmth in official patronage. Even within the memory of young
+men a great change for the better has taken place in our commercial
+manliness. Out first-class public enterprises blush to take Government
+help, as their directors might blush, if at the close of an interview
+Mr. Lincoln "tipped" them like school-boys with a holiday handful of
+greenbacks. There is no doubt that the ideal principle of democratic
+progress demands the absolute non-interference of Government in all
+enterprises whose benefit accrues to a part of its citizens, or which
+can be stimulated into life by the spontaneous operation of popular
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>But facts are not ideal, and absolute principles in their practical
+application make head only by a curved line of compromise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_606" id="Page_606">[Pg 606]</a></span> with the
+facts. The philosopher cannot go faster than the people. Certain courses
+are proper for certain stages of development. Few New-York Democrats now
+denounce the building of "Clinton's Ditch," and the fact that a majority
+approved of it as a sufficient evidence that it was a measure suited to
+the period; though even an old Whig at this day could not approve of a
+State canal under the auspices of Governor Seymour. Here are the two
+great questions which at any time must regulate the exertion of
+Governmental power: Is the enterprise vitally important? and, Will it be
+accomplished by private effort?</p>
+
+<p>Because the Nation in several eminent instances saw the former question
+answered affirmatively and the latter negatively, it centralized a
+certain amount of authority for the construction of fortresses and the
+maintenance of a military force. These matters vitally concerned the
+entire people, yet the ordinary <i>stimuli</i> to private enterprise were
+quite inadequate to securing their accomplishment.</p>
+
+<p>The Pacific Railroad stands on precisely the same grounds. It concerns
+the entire population of the United States, but no ordinary
+business-organization of citizens will ever accomplish it alone. The
+mere cost of its construction might stagger the most audacious
+financier; but that is a minor obstacle. No doubt the city of New York
+and the State of California contain capital enough for the completion of
+the entire road,&mdash;would subscribe to it, too, upon sufficient
+guaranties. But who is to give those guaranties? Whose credit is broad
+enough to secure them? Our Atlantic capitalists have too often been
+defrauded by stock-companies of moderate liabilities and immediately
+under their own eyes, to feel quite comfortable about putting millions
+into the hands of private operators, who shall presently have the Rocky
+Mountains between them and their bondholders. In the case of almost any
+other railroad-enterprise this objection might be answered by the
+proposal to build the line with the subscriptions of people living on
+its route. But this line must take a route without people, and bring
+people to the route. Certain other roads are guarantied by the pledge of
+their way-freight business. This road must be completed before such a
+business exists; the business must be the product of the road. The
+ordinary principle of demand and supply is reversed in its application
+to this case. Supply must precede demand. Furnish the Pacific Railroad
+to the continent, and the continent in ten years will give it all the
+business it can do. Wait fifty years for the continent to take the
+initiative, and there will not yet be enough business to build the road.</p>
+
+<p>This enterprise must be looked at in the light of a cash-advance from
+California and the Eastern States to the Plains, the Mountains, and the
+Desert, secured by a pledge of all the mineral and agricultural wealth
+of the party of the second part, guarantied by the prospective myriads
+of settlers whom the road shall bring to tracts now lying waste through
+the mere lack of its existence. In the course of the present article we
+shall endeavor to show the solidity of this security, the responsibility
+of these indorsers. While we counsel confidence to the capital which
+must build the road, we feel it imperative upon the National Government
+to enforce its position as that capital's trustee. That capital for the
+most part lies east of the Missouri and west of the Sierra Nevada.
+Between these two boundaries the road must run for eighteen hundred
+miles through a region where capital may well be cautious of intrusting
+its life to any less potent authority than that of the Nation itself.</p>
+
+<p>The claims of the Pacific Railroad have usually been urged upon the
+ground of its benefit to its <i>termini</i>. This ground is adequate to
+justify any advance of capital by the cities of New York and San
+Francisco. With the completion of the road, San Francisco necessarily
+becomes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_607" id="Page_607">[Pg 607]</a></span> a depot for the entire China trade of the United States, and an
+entrepot for much of that between China and Western Europe. With the
+development of our Japanese relations, still another stream of wealth,
+now incalculable, must flow in through the Golden Gate. In the reverse
+current of Asiatic commerce, New York's position at the eastern terminus
+of the continental belt gives her a similar share. The gold-transport
+and the entire fast-freight business of New York and San Francisco, now
+transacted at an enormous expense by Wells and Fargo's Express, must be
+transferred <i>en masse</i> to the Pacific Road; while the
+passenger-carriage, now devolving on Isthmus steamers and overland
+stages, may be passed, practically entire, to the credit of the new
+line. Certainly, no traveller who has once purchased bitter experience
+with his ticket on Mr. Vanderbilt's line will ever again patronize that
+enterprising capitalist, unless he sells his ships and becomes a
+stockholder in the Pacific Railroad. The most enthusiastic lover of the
+sea must abjure his predilections, when brought to the ordeal of the
+steamer Champion. Crowded like rabbits in a hutch or captives in the
+Libby into such indecent propinquity with his kind that the third day
+out makes him a misanthrope,&mdash;fed on the putrid remains of the last
+trip's commissariat, turkeys which drop out of their skins while the
+cook is larding them in the galley, beef which maybe eaten as
+spoon-meat, and tea apparently made with bilge-water,&mdash;sleeping or
+vainly trying to sleep in an unventilated dungeon which should be called
+death instead of berth, where the reek of the aforesaid putridities
+awakes him to breakfast without aid of gong,&mdash;propelled by a second-hand
+engine, whose every wheeze threatens the terrors of
+dissolution,&mdash;morally certain, that, if his floating sty from any cause
+ceases to float, there are not boats enough to save an eighth of the
+passengers,&mdash;he must admire the ocean with a true poet's enthusiasm, if
+he can brave the Champion a second time.</p>
+
+<p>The considerations we have mentioned should be sufficiently operative
+with the capitalists of New York and California, and, as such, are those
+most prominently urged by the friends of the road. It would, however, be
+a great mistake to regard the through-business an all-comprehensive, in
+enumerating the sources of profit to be relied on by the enterprise. For
+a better understanding of that immense way-trade which lies between the
+oceans, waiting only for the whistle of the steam-genie to wake it into
+vigorous life, let us treat the entire line as already continuous from
+New York to San Francisco, and make an excursion to the Pacific on its
+prophetic rails. We will suppose the track a uniform broad gauge, as it
+ought to be,&mdash;the Pacific Road connecting at St. Louis with the Atlantic
+and Great Western by powerful boats, like those in use at Havre de
+Grace, capable of ferrying the heaviest cars between the Illinois and
+Missouri shores. We will take the liberty of constructing for ourselves
+the remainder of the still undecided route to the Pacific. We run our
+ideal broad gauge as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>From St. Louis to Jefferson City; thence by the shortest line to the
+Kansas-River crossing; thence to Leavenworth (where St. Joseph, makes
+connection by a branch-track); thence to that bend of the Republican
+Fork which nearest approaches the Little Blue; thence along the bottoms
+of the Republican to the foot of the high divide out of which it is
+believed to rise, and which also serves for the water-shed between the
+Platte and Arkansas; and thence skirting the bluffs a distance of about
+one hundred miles to Denver. At Denver we find two branches making
+junctions with our line: one connects us with Central City, the great
+mining-town of Colorado, by a series of grades which might appall the
+Pennsylvania Central; the other threads the foot-hills and <i>mesas</i>
+between Denver and the Fontaine-qui-Bouille Spa at Colorado City, with
+the possibility of its being extended in time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_608" id="Page_608">[Pg 608]</a></span> to Ca&ntilde;on City on the
+Arkansas. From Denver we strike for the nearest point on the
+Cache-la-Poudre, follow its bed as far as practicable, and rise from
+that level to the grand plateau of the Laramie Plains. Running through
+these Plains, we cross the Big and the Little Laramie Rivers, here
+shallow streams, crystal clear, and scarcely wider than the Housatonic
+at Pittsfield. Just after leaving the Plains, we cross Medicine Bow,&mdash;a
+mere brook,&mdash;and a few hours later the North Fork of the Platte, which
+eccentrically turns up in this most unexpected quarter, running nearly
+due north from a source which cannot be very far off. The rope-ferry by
+which the writer last crossed this picturesque and rapid stream we have
+replaced by a strong iron bridge. Leaving the west end of that bridge,
+we look out of the rear car and send our final message to the Atlantic
+by the last stream which we shall find going thither. A stupendous, but
+not impracticable, system of grades next carries us over the axial
+water-shed of the continent, by the way of Bridger's Pass. One hundred
+and fifty miles of tortuous descent brings us to Green River,&mdash;the
+stream which farther down becomes the mysterious Colorado, and seeks the
+Pacific by the Gulf of California. After crossing the Green by another
+iron bridge substituted for rope-ferriage, our first important station
+will be Fort Bridger. Leaving there, we almost immediately enter the
+galleries of the Wahsatch Range, which form a continuous pass across
+Bear River and into the tremendous <i>ca&ntilde;ons</i> conducting down to Salt-Lake
+City. From Salt Lake we pursue the shortest practicable route through
+the Desert to the Ruby-Valley Pass of the Humboldt Mountains; we cross
+that range to enter another desert, descend to the Sink of Carson, and
+reascend to Carson City, thence going nearly due north till we strike
+the line of the Truckee Pass, (where a branch connects us with the
+principal Washoe mines,) and thence to Sacramento by the long-projected
+California section of the Pacific Railroad. Another proposed, but still
+ideal, road completes our connection with the Western Ocean by way of
+Stockton, San Jos&eacute;, and San Francisco.</p>
+
+<p>We do not pretend to assert that the route indicated is in all respects
+the most economical and practicable; a good deal more surveying must be
+done before that can be said of any entire route, though we think it may
+fairly be claimed for our ideal section between St. Louis and Denver. We
+have chosen this route because along its course are more completely
+represented the natural features to which in any case the Pacific
+Railroad must look for all its primary obstacles and part of its
+subsequent profits.</p>
+
+<p>To complete the conception as its reality must in time be completed, let
+us unite our Trans-Missouri portion with the Atlantic and Great Western
+Railway, under the all-inclusive title of the Atlantic and Pacific
+Railroad. It will not be very far out of the way to regard thirty-eight
+hundred miles as the entire length of the line. On the Atlantic and
+Great Western section express-trains will run at a speed of twenty-seven
+miles an hour, including stops; but to provide against every detention,
+let us slow our through-express to twenty-five miles. At this rate we
+shall traverse the continent in six days and eight hours. In other
+words, the San-Francisco gentleman who left the Jersey depot by the five
+o'clock Atlantic and Pacific express-train on Monday morning may
+reasonably expect (allowing for difference of longitude) to be in the
+bosom of his family just in time to accompany them to morning service on
+the following Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>We will suppose our packing accomplished the day before we set out.
+During the evening we send our watches to get the exact Washington time.
+The schedule of the entire road is based upon that time; and a thousand
+inconveniences, once endured by the traveller between New York and St.
+Louis, are thereby avoided. It is not necessary to alter one's watch
+with every new conductor. We no longer grow dizzy with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_609" id="Page_609">[Pg 609]</a></span> a horrible
+uncertainty on the subject of what-'s-o'clock,&mdash;ignorant whether we are
+running on New-York time, Dayton time, Cincinnati time, or St. Louis
+time,&mdash;whether, indeed, all time be not a pure subjective notion, and
+any o'clock at all a mere popular delusion. For the introduction of a
+uniform standard we have originally to thank the Atlantic and Great
+Western Railway.</p>
+
+<p>In comfort and elegance the second-class cars of the Atlantic and
+Pacific Road correspond to the omnivorous cars in use on our railroads
+generally. But we are a family-party, have nearly a week of travel
+before us, and prefer to sacrifice our money rather than our comfort. It
+costs a third, perhaps one-half more, to take first-class tickets; but
+these secure us a compartment entirely to ourselves,&mdash;fitted up with all
+the luxury of a lady's boudoir. We have comfortable arm-chairs to sit in
+all day, the latest improvement in folding-beds to sleep in at night.
+Our mirror, water-tank, basin, and all our toilet-arrangements are
+independent of the rest of the train. We have a table in the centre of
+our compartment for cards or luncheon. If we are wise, we have also
+brought along three or four Champagne-baskets stocked with private
+commissariat-stores, which make us quite independent of that black-art
+known as Western cookery. These contain sardines (half-boxes are the
+most practically useful size for a small party); chow-chow;
+<i>p&acirc;t&eacute;s-de-foie-gras</i>; a selection of various potted meats; a few hundred
+<i>Zwiebacks</i> from our Berlin baker, and as many sticks of Italian bread
+from our Milanese; a dozen pounds of hard-tack, and a half-dozen of
+soda-crackers; an assortment of canned fruits, including, as absolute
+essentials, peaches and the Shaker apple-butter; a pot of anchovy-paste;
+a dozen half-pint boxes of concentrated coffee, and as many of condensed
+milk, both, as the writer has abundantly tested, prepared with
+unrivalled excellence by an establishment in Boston; a tin box
+containing ten pounds of lump-sugar; a kettle and gas-stove, to be
+attached by a flexible tube to one of the burners lighting the
+compartment; a dozen bottles of lemon-syrup; and whatever stores, in the
+way of wines, liquors, and cigars, may strike the fancy of the party.
+This may seem an ambitious outfit, but for the first year of the Pacific
+Railroad it will be an absolutely necessary one. As civilization spreads
+westward along the grand iron conductor of the continent, our national
+gastronomy will develop itself in company with all the other arts; but
+for the present it is safe to assume that outside of our private stores
+we shall not find a good cup of coffee after we leave St. Louis, or
+decent bread of any kind between Denver and Sacramento.</p>
+
+<p>We seat ourselves in our comfortable arm-chairs, without the
+mortification of removing single gentlemen and the trouble of reversing
+seats to accommodate our party. The ladies are not compelled to sit in
+isolation, by the side of passengers who use the car-floor as a
+spittoon. We may chat together upon family-matters without awakening the
+vivid interest of any mother-in-Israel mounting guard in front of us
+over a bandbox. The gentlemen may smoke, if the ladies like it, and, so
+long as they keep the windows open, nobody shall say them nay. We all
+enjoy a sense of security and independence, which is like occupying a
+well-provisioned Gibraltar on wheels. If we have a sick friend with us,
+he need never leave his mattress till he reaches San Francisco. Should
+his situation become critical <i>en route</i>, the best medical attendance is
+at hand,&mdash;every through-train being obliged by statute to carry a
+first-class physician and surgeon, with a well-stocked
+apothecary-compartment. But our present party are all of them in fine
+health and spirits; so we may dismiss the doctor's shop from our
+consideration.</p>
+
+<p>The whistle blows just as the ladies have hung their bonnets in the
+rack, and the gentlemen exchanged their boots for slippers. We wave
+adieu to the Atlantic coast and the friends who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_610" id="Page_610">[Pg 610]</a></span> have come to see us
+off. A few minutes more, and we pass through the Bergen Tunnel. The
+remainder of the day is spent amid that wild mountain and forest scenery
+which the Erie Railroad has made familiar to the whole
+travelling-population of our Eastern States. At Salamanca we strike the
+Atlantic and Great Western's separate line. On the way thence to Dayton
+we shall pass a number of long trains, made up of platform-cars heavily
+laden with barrels carrying East the riches of the Pennsylvania
+oil-region. These have connected with our main road by a couple of
+branches built especially for the accommodation of the petroleum-trade.
+From Dayton to Cincinnati we shall traverse one of the finest
+farming-regions of the world, meeting trains laden with beeves, swine,
+packed pork, lard, grain, corn, potatoes, and every variety of produce
+that bears transportation. By this time, also, Ohio vine-culture has
+attained a development which justifies an occasional train entirely
+devoted to pipes of still Catawba and baskets of the sparkling brands.</p>
+
+<p>From Cincinnati to St. Louis by way of Vincennes, we run through the
+southern portions of Indiana and Illinois, threading varied and
+picturesque scenery all the way, unless we have seen the Egyptian
+prairies so many times before that they pall on us before we reach the
+Mississippi bluff opposite St. Louis. Till we strike the prairie, our
+course is among bold, well-timbered hills, which now and then we are
+obliged to tunnel, and by the side of charming pastoral streams whose
+green bottom-land is shaded by noble plane-trees and cotton-woods.
+Certain passages in the scenery between Cincinnati and Vincennes are
+beautiful as a dream of fairy-land. Every few miles we continue to meet
+freight-trains laden with all the well-known products of the Western
+field and dairy. Twice, before we reach St. Louis, a splendid cortege of
+passenger-carriages shall whiz by us on the southern track,&mdash;and each
+time we shall have seen the daily through-express from San Francisco.</p>
+
+<p>The St. Louis through-passengers will be ready, on our arrival, in cars
+of their own. We shall switch them on behind us with little over
+half-an-hour's detention, and strike for Leavenworth, taking Jefferson
+City by the way. The country we now traverse is rolling, well watered,
+and well timbered along the streams. Our road has so stimulated
+production in the mines of Missouri that we frequently pass on the
+switch a freight-train taking out bar and pig iron to San Francisco, or
+on the other track a train laden with copper ore going to the East for
+reduction. We have hitherto said nothing of the innumerable trains which
+pass us or switch out of our way, carrying through-freight between New
+York and San Francisco. We are still surrounded by excellent
+farming-land, a fine grain, fruit, and general-produce country. Not till
+we leave Leavenworth can we be said fairly to have entered the central
+wilds of the continent. We are now west of the Missouri River, and for a
+distance of two hundred miles farther shall traverse a country
+possessing certain individual characteristics which entitle it to a name
+of its own among the divisions of our physical geography. This is the
+proper place for an indication of those divisions, generalized to the
+broadest terms.</p>
+
+<p>In passing from sea to sea, the American traveller crosses ten
+well-defined regions:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. The Atlantic slope of the Alleghany Range.</p>
+
+<p>2. The eastern incline of the Mississippi basin.</p>
+
+<p>3. The high divides of the short Missouri tributaries.</p>
+
+<p>4. The Great Plains proper.</p>
+
+<p>5. The Rocky-Mountain system of ridges and intramontane plateaus.</p>
+
+<p>6. The Great Desert, broken by frequent uplifts, and divided by the
+Humboldt Range.</p>
+
+<p>7. The Sierra-Nevada mountain-system.</p>
+
+<p>8. The basin of the Sacramento River.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_611" id="Page_611">[Pg 611]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>9. The mountain-system of the Coast Range.</p>
+
+<p>10. The narrow Pacific slope.</p>
+
+<p>By attending to these distinctions with map in hand we shall gain some
+adequate idea of the surface of our continent. The first and second of
+the regions we have left behind us, and at Leavenworth are well out upon
+the third. It would not be just to call it prairie,&mdash;and it is equally
+distinct from the true Plains. As a grain and grass land, Illinois
+nowhere rivals it; but its surface is remarkably different from that of
+the prairies east of the Mississippi. It may be described as an
+alternation of lofty bluffs and sinuous ravines,&mdash;the former known as
+"divides," the latter as "draws." The top of these divides preserves one
+general level,&mdash;leading naturally to the hypothesis that all the draws
+are valleys of erosion in a tract of alluvial deposit originally uniform
+with the plateaus of the divides. Some of the larger draws still serve
+as the channels of unfailing streams; most of them carry more or less
+water during the rainy season; few of them are dry all the year round.
+The river-bottoms which traverse this region are thickly fringed with
+cotton-wood and elm timber; but it is a rare thing to encounter trees on
+the top of a divide. The fertility of the soil is boundless. Every
+species of grass flourishes or may flourish here, with a luxuriance
+unrivalled on the continent. Of the tract embraced between the Little
+Blue and the Republican Fork of the Kaw this is especially true. The
+climate is so mild and uniform that cattle may be kept at pasture the
+whole year round. Haymaking and the building of barns are works of
+supererogation. The wild grass cures spontaneously on the ground. To
+provide shelter against exceptional cases of climatic rigor,&mdash;an unusual
+"cold snap," or a fall of snow which lies more than a day or two,&mdash;the
+<i>ranchero</i> constructs for his cattle a simple corral, or, at most, a
+rude shed. The utmost complication which can occur in his business is a
+stampede; and few of our Eastern farmers' boys would hesitate to
+exchange their scythes, hay-cutters, corn-shellers, and mash-tubs for
+the saddle of his spirited Indian pony and his three days' hunt after
+estrays. Over this entire region the cereals thrive splendidly. The wild
+plum is so abundant and delicious as to suggest the most favorable
+adaptation to the other stone-fruits. Every vegetable that has been
+tried in the loam of the river-bottoms succeeds perfectly. There is just
+reason to think that vine-culture might reach a development along the
+southern slope of the Republican Bluffs not surpassed in the most
+favorable positions east of California. We believe it no exaggeration to
+say that this region needs only culture (and that of the easiest kind)
+to become the garden of the continent. Its mineral wealth has received
+scanty examination; yet we know that it contains numerous beds of
+tertiary coal, and easily worked iron-deposits, in the form both of
+hydrated oxide and black scale.</p>
+
+<p>On our way through this region we strike the Republican bottom near Lat.
+39&deg; 30' N., and Long. 97&deg; 20' W. We are now in the primest part of the
+buffalo-pasture. As we wind along the base of the steep Republican
+Bluffs, and the edges of those green amphitheatres made by their
+alternate approach and retrocession, our whistle scares a picket-line of
+giant bulls, guarding a divide across the stream, and with tails in air,
+heads at the down charge, they scour away at a lumbering cow-gallop, to
+tell the main herd of a progress more resistless than their own. Or,
+perhaps, our experience of the buffaloes is a more inconvenient one. We
+may find the main herd crossing our track in their migration from the
+Republican to the Platte. In such case, there will be a detention of
+several hours, as the current of a main herd is not fordable by any
+known human mechanism. The halt will be taken advantage of by timid
+spectators looking safely out of car-windows,&mdash;by <i>bon&acirc;-fide</i> hunters,
+who want fresh meat, and take along the tidbits of their game to be
+cooked for them at the next dinner-station,&mdash;and by excited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_612" id="Page_612">[Pg 612]</a></span>
+pseudo-hunters, who will bang away with their rifles at the defenceless
+herd, until the ground flows with useless blood, and somebody suggests
+to them that they might as well call it sportsmanship to fire into a
+farmer's cow-yard, resting over the top-rail.</p>
+
+<p>Now and then we shall whirl through a village of chattering
+prairie-dogs, send a hen-turkey rattling off her nest in a thicket on
+the river's edge, or perhaps surprise even an antelope sufficiently
+close to point out to the ladies from our window the exquisite flight of
+that swiftest and most beautiful creature in our American fauna. But our
+road will not be in running order very long before this sight becomes
+the rarest of the rare. The stolid buffalo will continue to wear his old
+paths long after the human presence has driven every antelope into
+invisible fastnesses.</p>
+
+<p>At intervals along the Republican bottom we shall find ranches springing
+up under the auspices of our road; immense grain-fields yellowing toward
+harvest; great herds of domestic cattle grazing haunch-deep through the
+boundless swales of billowing wild grass; with all the other indications
+of a prosperous farming settlement, which, keeping pace with the
+progress of the road, shall eventually become one of the richest
+agricultural communities in the world, and continuous for over two
+hundred miles. Here and there we pass a lateral excavation in the face
+of the bluff where some enterprising settler has opened a tertiary
+coal-vein, a deposit of iron-ore, or a bed of soft limestone suitable
+for both flux and mortar purposes. The way-freight trains that meet us
+now are mainly laden with the wealth of the grazier, the farmer, and the
+gardener, competing with their brethren of the Upper Mississippi for the
+markets of St. Louis and New Orleans. Iron-ore, coal, and limestone may
+form a portion of the cargoes,&mdash;but in process of time the mutual
+vicinity of these minerals will become sufficiently suggestive to induce
+the erection of smelting-furnaces <i>in situ</i>, and then their combined
+product will travel the road in the form of pigs.</p>
+
+<p>A little to the westward of a line drawn due south from Fort Kearney to
+the Republican we shall find a comparatively abrupt and unexplained
+change taking place in the scenery. Our green river-bottoms will give
+way to tracts of the color and seemingly of the sterility proper to an
+ash-heap. Our bluffs will recede, grow higher, and exchange their flat
+<i>mesa</i>-like surfaces for a curved contour, imitating the mountainous
+formation on a reduced scale. For long distances the vast gray level
+around us will be dotted with conical sand-dunes, forever piling up and
+tearing down as the wind shifts, with a tendency to bestow their gritty
+compliments in the eyes of passengers occupying windward seats on the
+train. The lovely blossoms of the running-poppy no longer mat the earth
+with blots of crimson fire; no more does the sweet breath of eglantine
+and sensitive-brier float in at the window as we whirl by a sheltered
+recess of the divides; the countless wild varieties of bean and pea no
+longer charm us with a rainbow prodigality of pink, blue, scarlet,
+purple, white, and magenta blossoms. The very trees by the river's brink
+become puny and stunted; the evergreens begin to replace the deciduous
+growths; in the shade of dwarfed and desiccated cedars we look vainly
+for the snowy or azure bells of the three-petalled campanula. Gaunt,
+staring sunflowers, and humbler <i>composit&aelig;</i> of yellow tinge, stay with
+us a little longer than those darlings of our earlier scenery; but
+before we have gone many miles the last conspicuous wave of fresh
+vegetation breaks hopelessly on a thirsty sand-hill, and we are given
+over to a wilderness of cacti. Here and there occurs a sightly clump of
+waxen yellow blossoms, where these vegetable hedgehogs are in their
+holiday attire,&mdash;but it must be confessed that the view is a melancholy
+change from our recent affluence of beauty. With the other succulent
+plants, the rich herbage of the prairie has entirely disappeared. There
+is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_613" id="Page_613">[Pg 613]</a></span> a blade of anything which an Eastern grazier would recognize as
+grass between this boundary and the Rocky Mountains. As we whiz over
+these wastes at railroad-speed, we shall be apt to pronounce them
+absolutely sterile. When we stop at the next coaling-station, let us
+examine the matter more closely. The ground proves to be covered with
+minute gray spirals of herbage, like a crop of vegetable corkscrews, an
+inch or two in height, and to all appearance dry as wool. This is the
+"<i>grama</i>" or "buffalo-grass," and, despite its look of utter
+desiccation, is highly nutritious. It is almost the entire winter
+dependence of the buffalo-herds, and domestic cattle soon learn to
+prefer it to all other feed. Its existence, together with the wide group
+of changes which we have noticed, denotes that we have passed the
+threshold of the fourth grand continental division, and are now in the
+region of the Plains proper.</p>
+
+<p>Ex-Governor Gilpin of Colorado, in his "Central Gold Region," very truly
+styles the Plains "the pastoral area of the continent." The Plains are
+set apart for grazing purposes by the method of exclusion. There is
+nothing else that can be done with them. Rain seldom falls on them. The
+shallow rivers, like the Platte, which wander through them, are too far
+apart to be used economically for their general irrigation. Only such
+herbage may be expected to thrive here as can live on its own
+condensation of water from a sensibly dry atmosphere. Manifestly, art
+can do nothing for the improvement of such a tract. It must be left to
+fulfil its natural function, as the great continental pasture. Along the
+banks of the rivers run narrow strips of alluvial soil, liable to yearly
+inundation; and these may be made amenable to the ordinary processes of
+agriculture. On these the herdsman may raise the grain and vegetables
+necessary for his own consumption. But the vast area of the region seems
+inevitably set apart for the one sole business of cattle-raising, and
+all the way-freight trains which pass us here are laden with beeves for
+the St. Louis market, or dairy-produce for all the markets of the world.
+We have never tasted <i>grama</i>-cheese, but have a theory that its
+individual piquancy must equal that of the delicious <i>Schabzieger</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Far off on the gray level we shall still see the antelope. His tribe is
+coextensive with three-fourths of the continent. No sterility
+discourages him. He seems as thrifty on the wiry <i>grama</i> as among the
+most succulent grasses of the Republican. The sneaking coyote and a
+number of larger wolves put in an occasional appearance. Birds of the
+hawk and raven families are common. The waters swarm with numerous
+varieties of duck. It surprises us at this utmost distance from the
+maritime border to see flocks of Arctic gulls circling around the low
+sand-hills, and sickle-bill curlews wheeling high in air above their
+broods. Before we get far into this region we shall notice that one of
+its most typical features is the alkali-pool. Every few miles we come to
+a shallow basin of stagnant water saturated with salts of soda and
+potash. Still another characteristic of the Plains is their tremendous
+rainless thunder-storms. If we are fortunate enough to encounter one of
+these, we shall witness in one hour more atmospheric perturbation than
+has occurred within our whole previous experience on the Atlantic slope.
+The lightning for half a night will light the sky with an almost
+continuous glare, brighter than noonday; all the parks of artillery on
+earth could not make such a constant deafening roar as those iron clouds
+in the heaven; and though the wind will not be able to blow the train
+backward, as we have seen it treat a four-mule stage, it will be likely
+to do its next best thing, heaping sand on the track till the engine has
+to slow and send men ahead with shovels.</p>
+
+<p>Entering the Denver depot, we shall find a busy scene. All that immense
+freight-business between the Missouri and the Colorado mining-towns,
+which formerly strung the overland road with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_614" id="Page_614">[Pg 614]</a></span> wagons drawn by six yoke
+of oxen each, has now been transferred to the railroad. The switches are
+crowded with cars getting unloaded, or waiting their turn to be. What is
+their freight? Rather ask what it is not. For the present, Colorado
+imports everything except the most perishable commodities,&mdash;and that
+which pays for all. If you would see <i>that</i>, ask the express-messenger
+on the train going East in five minutes to lift the lid of one of those
+heavy iron trunks in his car. Your eyes are dazzled by the yellow gleam
+of a king's ransom. It is a day's harvest of ingots from the stamps of
+Central City, on its way to square accounts with New York for the
+contents of one of those freight-trains.</p>
+
+<p>At Denver we reach the edge of the Rocky-Mountain foot-hills; the grand
+snow-peak of Mount Rosalie, rivalling Mont Blanc in height and majesty,
+though forty miles away, seems to rise just behind the town; thence
+southerly toward Pike's and northerly toward Long's Peak, the billowing
+ridges stretch away brown and bare, save where the climbing lines of
+sombre green mark their pine-fringed gorges, or the everlasting ice
+pencils their crests with an edge of opal. Still we do not leave the
+Plains region. We glide through the thronged streets of the growing
+city, cross the South Platte by a short bridge, and strike nearly due
+north along the edge of the mountain-range, over a broad plateau which
+still bears the characteristic <i>grama</i>. Not until we enter the <i>ca&ntilde;on</i>
+of the Cache-la-Poudre, a hundred miles from Denver by the road, can we
+consider ourselves fairly out of the Plains, and in the fifth great
+region of the continent, the Rocky-Mountain system of ridges and
+intramontane plateaus.</p>
+
+<p>Before we begin this portion of our journey, let us examine, in the
+light of that already accomplished, an assertion made early in this
+article to the effect that the Pacific Railroad must precede and create
+the business which shall support it. The consideration shall be brief as
+a mathematical process.</p>
+
+<p>The river-bottoms and divides along the Lower Republican are peculiarly
+suited to the raising of farm-produce. But so long as they had no avenue
+to a market, they might have been fertile as Paradise without alluring
+settlers to cultivate them. The natural advantages of a country are
+developed not as a matter of taste, but as a matter of profit. The crops
+which can be raised to best advantage in this region are the crops which
+without a railroad must rot on the ground. No man can be expected to
+settle in a new country from pure Quixotism,&mdash;and nothing but the
+railroad would make anything else of his expenditure of energies beyond
+the needs of self-support. The Plains are the natural pasture of the
+continent; but they have no natural fascination for the white man which
+can induce him to take up his residence there for cattle-breeding <i>en
+amateur</i>. The greatest enthusiast in butter and cheese would scarcely
+care to accumulate mountains of rancid firkins and boxes for the mere
+gratification of fancy. Access to a market is his only justification for
+spending a nomadic lifetime among herds, or a fortune on churns and
+presses. The settlement of the country must precede the birth of its
+industries, and the Pacific Road is the absolutely essential stimulus to
+such settlement.</p>
+
+<p>As we converse, we are beginning our climb toward the snow. A series of
+steep grades, mainly following the bed of that wildly picturesque and
+roaring torrent, the Cache-la-Poudre, take us up through the Cheyenne
+Pass to the Laramie Plains. In reaching the head of the Cache-la-Poudre
+we have familiarized ourselves with the ridges of the system; we are now
+to learn what is meant by the intramontane plateaus. The Laramie Plains
+form the most remarkable plateau of the Rocky Range,&mdash;one of the most
+remarkable anywhere in the known world. Through a series of savage
+<i>ca&ntilde;ons</i> we enter what appears to us a reproduction of the prairies east
+of the Mississippi,&mdash;a level and luxuriantly grassy plain, bright with
+unknown flowers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_615" id="Page_615">[Pg 615]</a></span> alive with startled antelope, threaded by the clear
+currents of both the Laramie Rivers, and rejoicing in an atmosphere
+which exhilarates like the fresh-brewed nectar of Olympus. Bounded on
+the east by the great ridge we have just passed, northerly by a
+continuation of the Wind-River Range and Laramie Peak, southerly by a
+magnificent transverse bar of naked mountains running parallel with the
+Wind-River Range, and westward by a staircase of sterile divides which
+we must climb to reach the base of Elk Mountain and find its giant mass
+towering into the eternal snows three thousand feet farther above our
+heads,&mdash;this plateau is a prairie fifty miles square, lifted bodily
+eight thousand feet into the air. It is difficult for us to roll over
+this Elysian mead walled in by these tremendous ranges, and think of the
+commercial uses to which the level might be put; but from its elevation
+and its natural crop we may pronounce it a grazing tract of splendid
+capabilities, unsuited to artificial culture.</p>
+
+<p>Another series of grades takes us past the base of Elk Mountain to a
+broad and sandy cactus-plain, whence we descend among curious trap and
+sandstone formations, simulating human architecture, to the crossing of
+the North Platte. A little farther on, so close to the snow-line that we
+shiver under the white ridges with a reflected chill, we cross the axial
+ridge of the continent, and begin our descent toward Salt Lake by the
+noble gallery of Bridger's Pass. The springs along our way become
+tinctured with sulphur, alkali, and salt. We know, when we stop at a
+station to drink, that we are drawing near the primeval basin of a
+stagnant sea, now shrunk to its final pool in Salt Lake, but once in
+size a rival of the Mediterranean. We pass over an alternation of
+mountain-grades and sandy levels, cross the Green or Upper Colorado
+River, stop for five minutes at the Fort-Bridger station, thread the
+sinuous galleries of the Wahsatch, and come down from a savage
+wilderness of sage-brush, granite, and red sandstone, into the luxuriant
+green pastures of Mormondom, heavy with crops and irrigated from the
+snow-peaks. Thence, one of the numerous <i>ca&ntilde;ons</i>&mdash;Emigrant or Parley's
+most likely&mdash;conducts us to the mountain-walled level of Salt-Lake City.</p>
+
+<p>We have now traversed the most difficult part of our road. Its
+Rocky-Mountain section has cost more capital, labor, and engineering
+skill than all the rest together. The return for this vast expenditure
+must be no less vast,&mdash;but it will be rendered slowly. It does not lie
+on the surface or just beneath the surface, as in the pastoral and
+agricultural regions. It is almost entirely mineral, and must be mined
+by the hardest work. But it ranges through all the metallic wealth of
+Nature, from gold to iron, and no conceivable stimulus short of a
+Pacific Railroad could ever have been adequate to bring it forth.</p>
+
+<p>We shall find the import trade of Salt Lake by the railroad to consist
+chiefly of emigrants and their chattels. If Brigham Young be still
+living, his favorite policy of non-intercourse with the Gentiles may
+also somewhat diminish the export business of the road. But human nature
+cannot forever resist the currents of commercial interest; and the
+Mormon settlements possess so many advantages for the economical
+production of certain staples, that we need not be surprised to find
+trains leaving Salt-Lake City with sorghum and cotton for San Francisco,
+and raw silk for all the markets of the East.</p>
+
+<p>From Salt-Lake City to the Humboldt Mountains, we pass between isolated
+uplifts of trap and granite, over a comparatively level desert of sand
+and snowy alkali. The terrors of this journey, as performed by
+horse-carriage, have been fully depicted in our last April number. We
+may laugh at them now. The question which principally interests us,
+after we have blunted the first edge of our wonder at the sublime
+sterility of the Desert, is what conceivable use this waste can be made
+to subserve. Before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_616" id="Page_616">[Pg 616]</a></span> railroad, that question had but a single
+answer,&mdash;the inculcation of contentment, by contrast with the most
+disagreeable surroundings in which one might anywhere else be placed.
+Perhaps it is over-sanguine to conceive of a further answer even now. If
+there be any, it is this: In its crudest state the alkaline earth of the
+Desert is sufficiently pure to make violent effervesence with acids. No
+elaborate process is required to turn it into commercial soda and
+potash. Coal has been already found in Utah. Silex exists abundantly in
+all the Desert uplifts. Why should not the greatest glass-works in the
+world be reared along the Desert section of the Pacific Road? and why
+should not the entire market of the Pacific Coast be supplied with
+refined alkalies from the same tract? Given the completed railroad, and
+neither of these projects exceeds commercial possibility.</p>
+
+<p>We cross the Humboldt Mountains by a series of grades shorter than that
+which conducts us over the Rocky system, but full as difficult in
+proportion. We descend into a second instalment of Desert on the other
+side; but the general sterility is now occasionally broken by oases,
+moist green <i>ca&ntilde;ons</i>, and living springs. A hundred miles west of the
+Humboldt Pass we come to the mining-settlements of Reese River, gaining
+a new increment to the business of the road in the transportation of
+silver to San Francisco, and every conceivable necessary of life to the
+mines.&mdash;Within the last eighteen months eleven hundred dollars in gold
+have been paid for the carriage by wagon of a single set of
+amalgamating-apparatus from Virginia City to Reese, a distance of two
+hundred miles. The price of the commonest necessaries at the Reese-River
+mines has reached the highest point of the old California markets in
+'49,&mdash;and no attainable means of transport have been adequate to supply
+the demand.</p>
+
+<p>From Reese River to Carson we traverse a broken, rocky, and sterile
+tract, with occasional fertile patches and a belt along the Carson River
+susceptible of cultivation. The foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada
+gradually shut us round, and at Carson we begin penetrating the main
+system through a series of magnificent galleries between precipices of
+porphyritic granite, leading nearly northward to the Truckee Pass. The
+grades we now encounter are as tremendous as any in the Rocky-Mountain
+system. Just before entering the main pass we come to the junction of a
+branch-road from Virginia City. The train which stops at the fork to let
+us go ahead is carrying down several tons of silver "bricks" from the
+Washoe mines to Kellogg and Hewston's, the great assay and refining firm
+of San Francisco. The pass takes us across the summit-line of the range,
+but not out of the environment of its mountains. We penetrate granite
+fastnesses and descend blood-chilling inclines, span roaring chasms and
+glide under solemn roofs of lofty mountain-pine, until in the
+neighborhood of Centralia we begin for the first time to see the
+agricultural tract of the Golden State.</p>
+
+<p>Between ranches, placer-diggings, and small settlements, we now thread
+our comparatively level way to Sacramento. Here we are met by the chief
+affluent of this end of the Pacific Road,&mdash;the long-projected, greatly
+needed, and now finally accomplished line between Sacramento and
+Portland. This enterprise has done for the Sacramento and Willamette
+valleys the same good offices of development performed by our grand line
+for all the central continent. The noble orchards, pastures,
+grain-lands, and gardens of Northern California and Oregon are now
+provided with a market. Their wastes are brought under cultivation,
+their mines are opened, their entire area is settled by a class of men
+who work under the stimulus of certain profit. The Northern
+freight-trains waiting at Sacramento to make a junction with our road
+are loaded with the produce of one of the richest agricultural regions
+in the world, now flowing to its first remunerative market. All this
+must pay toll to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_617" id="Page_617">[Pg 617]</a></span> our road, and here is another source of profit.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing a number of tributaries to the Sacramento, and intersecting
+mines, ranches, and settlements, as before, we follow a nearly straight
+level to Stockton. Then turning westerly, we cross the San Joaquin, pass
+almost beneath the shadow of grand old Monte Diablo, glide among the
+vines and olives of San Jos&eacute; Mission, and curve round the southern bend
+of the lovely bay to the queenly city of San Francisco. One of Leland's
+carriages awaits us at the terminus. We are driven to the most
+delightful hotel on the continent, and find our old friend, the
+Occidental, altered in no respect save size, which the growing demands
+of the Pacific New York, since the completion of our inter-oceanic line,
+have compelled Leland to quadruple. We are on time,&mdash;six days and eight
+hours exactly. Or, assuming the San-Francisco standard, we have gained
+three hours on the sun, and, instead of taking a two-o'clock lunch, as
+our friends are doing in New York, sit down to an eleven-o'clock
+breakfast crowned with melons, grapes, and strawberries, in the sweet
+seclusion of the Ladies' Ordinary.</p>
+
+<p>Is not all this worth doing in reality?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="SEA-HOURS_WITH_A_DYSPEPTIC" id="SEA-HOURS_WITH_A_DYSPEPTIC"></a>SEA-HOURS WITH A DYSPEPTIC.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY HIS SATELLITE.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>I.&mdash;PRELUSIVE.</h4>
+
+<p>There are a good many fictions in the world. I will mention one:&mdash;the
+propeller Markerstown. The bulletins and placards of her owners soar
+high in the realms of fancy; like Sirens, they sing delightful
+songs,&mdash;and all about "the A 1 fast-sailing, commodious, first-class
+steam-packet Markerstown." Such is the soaring fiction: now let us look
+at the sore fact. The "A 1" is, I take it, simply the "Ai!" of the Greek
+chorus new-vamped for modern wear,&mdash;a drear wail well suited to the
+victims of the Markerstown. As to sailing qualities:&mdash;we know, of
+course, that all speed is relative. For a sea-comet, the Markerstown
+would be somewhat leisurely, though answering well for an oceanic fixed
+star, having no perceptible motion. One man on board&mdash;the Captain&mdash;was
+accommodated: the kidnapped all suffered. Whether the Markerstown should
+be reckoned as first-class or last-class is a question depending simply
+on where the counting begins, and which way it runs. "Steam-packet" she
+was indeed, though not in the most desirable way. Her steam was "packit"
+(<i>Scottic&egrave;</i>) too close for safety, but lay quite too loose for speed.
+The kidnapped were all "packit," and "weel packit." How I came to be one
+of them, and how by this mystic union I halved my joys and doubled my
+griefs, as the naughty ones say of wedlock, will soon appear.</p>
+
+<p>One brilliant fancy-flight I forgot to mention. The craft in question
+was boldly proclaimed as "new." New, indeed, she might have been: so
+were once the Ark, the Argo, the Old T&eacute;m&eacute;raire, the Constitution, and
+sundry other hulks of celebrity. Yet it is not mere rhetoric to say,
+that, if the eyes of the second and third Presidents of these United
+States never, in their declining years, beheld the good ship
+Markerstown, it was only from lack of wholesome curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>This pleasing list of attractions was wont to make an occasional
+trip&mdash;should I not rather say saunter?&mdash;to the New-World Levant, the
+Yankee E&ouml;then. The time consumed was theoretically a day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_618" id="Page_618">[Pg 618]</a></span> and a half,
+but practically a day or two longer. Tired as I was of the sluttish
+land, the clean sea had an inviting look. Dusty car and ringing rail
+wore no Circean graces, when the long-haired mermaid, decked in robes of
+comely green, looked out from her bower beneath the waves, and beckoned
+me to come. What more welcome than her sea-green home? What sight finer
+than the myriad diamond-sparkles in her eye? What sound sweeter than the
+murmurs of her soothing, never-ceasing voice? What perfume so rare as
+the crisp fragrance breathing from her robes? What so thrilling, so
+magnetically ecstatic, as her tumultuous heaving, and the lithe,
+undulating buoyancy of her mazy footfalls?</p>
+
+<p>It is proper to state here, as an act of justice to others, and to save
+myself from the charge of lunacy, that the Markerstown was a mere
+interloper. Our covetous, good old uncle had set his eye on the regular
+steamer of the line, and his greedy fingers had taken her away to Dixie,
+where her decks were now swarming with blue coats and black heels. The
+peaceful Markerstown, being exempt by reason of physical
+disqualifications, tarried behind as home-guard substitute for her
+warlike sister. Ignorant of the change, I secured my passage, paid for
+my ticket, sent down my trunks, and presented myself at the gangway one
+sweltering afternoon in the latter part of June, a few minutes before
+the hour set for sailing. There was nothing in the aspect of things to
+indicate a speedy departure. On the contrary, the tardy craft had just
+arrived, and was intensely busy in letting off steam and discharging
+cargo. The mate was quite sure&mdash;and so was I&mdash;that she wouldn't weigh
+anchor before early next morning. The prospect was not enrapturing.
+Confusion, dirt, pandemoniac noise, long delay, and over all a
+blistering sun, were ill suited to bring peace to the embezzled seeker
+after pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>As a relief from the horrid din on deck, I made my way to the cabin. It
+was a place well named, being cabined, cribbed, confined, in quite an
+unprecedented degree. It was then and there that I first saw the subject
+of this sketch,&mdash;the Peptic Martyr. Unknowingly, I was face to face with
+my Man of Destiny. Shipmate, Philosopher, Martyr, Rhapsodist, Mentor,
+Bon-Vivant, D&#363;speptos,&mdash;these are but a few of the various disks
+which I came at last to see in this gem of first water. Even now, in
+memory, the subject looms vast before me, and the freighted pen halts.
+Bear with me: let us pause for one moment. Matter like this asks a new
+strophe.</p>
+
+
+<h4>II.&mdash;THE BURDEN OF THE SONG.</h4>
+
+<p>D&#363;speptos was sitting on a common mohair sofa, surrounded by some
+half-dozen or more of his fellow-victims. It is stated that
+Themistocles, before his ocean-raid at Salamis, sacrificed three young
+men to Bacchus the Devourer. The Markerstown, in sailing out upon the
+great deep, immolated at least twelve, old and young, as a festive
+holocaust to Neptune the Nauseator. Here in their sacrificial crate were
+the luckless scapegoats, sad-eyed prey of the propeller. It was easy to
+see, at the first glance, that the Martyr was the central sun round
+which clustered the planets of propitiation. Born king, he asserted his
+kingship, and all yielded from the beginning to his sway. Ears and
+mouths opened toward him the liege. Upon the magnet of his voice hung
+the eager atoms. There was a filmy, distant look in the eyes of the
+listeners, as of men rapt with the mystic utterances of a seer. My
+entrance unheralded broke up the monologue, whatever it was. But seeing
+the true sacrificial look on my brow, all at once, from chief to sutler,
+confessed a brother. To me then turning, D&#363;speptos, king of men,
+spoke winged words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Pears t' me, stranger, you look kind o' streaked. Ken I do anythin'
+for ye? Wal, I s'pose th' old tub's caught you too, so we ken jest count
+y' in along o' this 'ere crowd. Reg'lar fix,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_619" id="Page_619">[Pg 619]</a></span> now, a'n't it? 'T's wut I
+call pooty kinky. Dern'd 'f I'd 'a' come, 'f I'd 'a' known th' old
+butter-box was goin' to be s' frisky. Lively's a young colt now, a'n't
+she? Kicks up her heels, an' scampers off te'ble smart, don't she? 'S
+never seen an ekul yit for punctooality an' speed. When she doos tech
+the loocifer, an' cooks up her steam in her high old pepper-box, jest
+you mind me, boys, there'll be a high old time. Wun't say much, but
+there'll be fizzin', sure,&mdash;mebby suthin' more,&mdash;mebby reg'lar snorter,
+a jo-fired jolly good bust-up. Mebby th' wun't be no weepin' an'
+gahnishin' o' teeth about these parts along towards mornin'. Who knows?
+Natur' will work. Th' old scow's got to go accordin' to law,&mdash;that's one
+sahtisfahction, sartin. 'S a cause for all these things. An' ef she doos
+kind o' rip an' tear, she's got to go b' Gunter. She's bound to foller
+her constitootion as she understan's it, an' to stan' up for the great
+principal of ekul freedom for all. Hope they'll be keerful to save some
+o' the pieces. 'S a good deal o' comfort 'n these loose fragments. 'S
+nuthin' like the ra&auml;l odds an' ends&mdash;the Simon-pure, ginooine
+article&mdash;to bind up the broken heart an' make the mourners joyful. No
+tellin' how much good they do in restorin' gratitood to Providence, an'
+smoothin' things over,&mdash;kind o' make matters easy, you know.
+Interestin', too, to hev in the house,&mdash;pleasin' ornaments on the
+mantel-piece to show to friends an' vis'ters. They allers like to hear
+the story 'n connection with the native specimens, an' everybody feels
+happified an' thankful. Yes, after all, th'r' is a master lot of solid
+comfort in a ra&auml;l substantial accident right in the buzzum of a
+family,&mdash;none o' your three-cent fizzles, but a true-blue afflictin'
+dispensation. 'S a heap o' pleasin' an' valooable associations
+a-clusterin' round."</p>
+
+<p>Here the vocal one paused for an instant, to draw breath, and rally for
+another raid. Feeling his little army now well in hand, he burned for
+fresh conquests. In glancing triumphantly around, his eye fell on a
+certain benign smile then flitting over the face of his predestined
+Satellite. Complacently nodding thereto, straightway the Peptic spoke:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I s'pose this 'ere group 's all insured, everythin' right an' tight an'
+all square up t' the hub. Suthin' hahnsum for the widders an' orphans.
+These little nest-eggs allers sort o' handy,&mdash;grease the ways, an' slick
+things up ship-shape. Survivors bless the rod, an' fix up everythin'
+round the house in apple-pie order. I hev known men that was so te'ble
+pertickler allers to save the Company, that nuthin' ever did, n' ever
+could happen. An' the despairin' friends kep' waitin' an' waitin', but
+'t was no sort o' use; they never got a red. 'T's wut I call bein'
+desput keerful, an' sailin' pooty consid'able close to the wind. 'T's
+like old Deacon Skillins's hoss, down to Mudville, that was so dreffle
+conscientious he couldn't eat oats. No accountin' for tastes. Free
+country, anyhow. Ef anybody likes to be fussy an' ructious 'n little
+things, why, there's nuthin' to hender him from hevin' his own way. But
+it don't exackly hev an hon'able look to common-sense folks.</p>
+
+<p>"Ef the clipper's a free-agent, she'll blow up, sure, jest to git out o'
+sin an' misery. But ef so be she's bonyfihd predestined, she'll hev to
+travel in the vale o' puhbation a spell longer, 'cause her cup a'n't
+full yit, not by a long chalk. S'posin' she doos start out mellifloous,
+what then? Don't imagine, my feller-sinners, that the danger's all
+over,&mdash;no, it's only jest begun. Things ahead 's a good deal wuss. Steam
+'s pooty bad, but 't a'n't a circumstahnce to the blamed grease. 'T's
+the grease that doos the mischief, an' plays the dickens with human
+natur'. Down in th' army, they say, biscuits kills more'n bullets; an'
+it's gospil truth, every word on 't, perticklerly ef the biscuits is
+hot, an' pooty wal fried up in grease. Fryin' 's the great mortal sin,
+the parient of all misery. The hull world's full of it, but the sea 's a
+master sight fuller 'n the land. Somehow 'nother, grease takes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_620" id="Page_620">[Pg 620]</a></span> kind o'
+easy to salt water,&mdash;sailors wun't hev nothin' but a fry. Jest you give
+'em plenty o' fat, an' they wun't ask no favors o' nobody. These 'ere
+puhpellers 's the wust sinners of 'em all, an' somehow hev a good deal
+more 'n their own share o' fat. They kind o' borrer from mackerellers
+an' side-wheelers both together, an' mix 't all up 't oncet. My friends,
+ef you a'n't desput anxious to see glory from this 'ere deck, be
+virtoous, an' observe the golden rule: Don't tech, don't g' nigh the
+p'is'n upus-tree of gravy; beware o' the dorg called hot biscuits; take
+keer o' the grease, an' the stomach'll take keer of itself. Fact is, my
+beloved brethren, I've ben a fust-chop dyspeptic for the best part o' my
+life, an' I'm pooty wal posted in what I'm talkin' about. What I don't
+know on this 'ere subjick a'n't wuth knowin'."</p>
+
+
+<h4>III.&mdash;RECITATIVE</h4>
+
+<p>How much farther the Martyr's appeal might have gone can never be known,
+as the height of his great argument was cut short at this point by the
+appearance of the Pontifex Maximus in person on the stage of action. The
+fated victims were to be made ready for the coming sacrifice. The
+oracle, it seems, had declared that Neptune would not smile, unless two
+were cribbed together in one pen,&mdash;that the arrangement of these pairs
+should be left with the lot of the bean,&mdash;and that as the beans went, so
+must go the victims. Inexorable Fate would allow no reversal of her
+decrees. Soon the beans were rattling in the hat of the Pontifex, and,
+<i>mirabile!</i> pen No. 1 fell to D&#363;speptos and his Satellite elect.</p>
+
+<p>The immediate effects of this bean&mdash;whether white, black, Pythagorean,
+Lima, kidney, or what not&mdash;were three-fold: 1. A pump-handle
+hand-shaking; 2. A very thorough diagnosis of the weather, including a
+rapid sketch by D&#363;speptos of the leading principles of caloric,
+pneumatics, and hygrology; 3. An exchange of cards. That of which I was
+the recipient consisted of a sheet of paste-board, rather begrimed and
+wrinkled, of nearly the same dimensions as the Atlantic (Monthly, not
+Ocean). The name and address occupied the middle of one side of the
+document, while all the remaining space was filled in with manifold
+closest scribblings in lead-pencil,&mdash;apparently notes, memoranda, and
+the like. These were not at all private, so the new-found partner of my
+bosom assured me. In fact, I should do well to look at them, and make
+myself master of their contents. My friends also might find profit
+therein. Stray hints might undoubtedly be gathered from them which would
+lay open to my eyes the secret things of Nature and life. Thrusting it
+into my pocket for the moment, I feasted myself in imagination with the
+treasure that was mine, anticipating the happy hour that should make my
+hope fruition. Then we, first elect of the bean, set ourselves to
+determine the <i>status quo ante bellum</i>. And here came in once more the
+fabaceous maker and marker of destiny, saying that blind justice
+decreed, that, inasmuch as sound is wont to rise, he who was noonday
+Sayer and midnight Snorer should couch below, while the Hearer should
+circle above,&mdash;plainly a wise provision, that the good things of
+Providence might not be wasted. Both Damon and Pythias agreed, that, for
+once at least, the oracle was not ambiguous.</p>
+
+<p>All things being at last arranged, the Rhapsodist took his leave for the
+present, going, as he informed me, on an errand of mercy for his
+stomach. The magazine aboard ship being of dubious character, he had
+prevailed on himself to supply his concern with a limited number of
+first-class cereals with his own <i>imprimatur</i>,&mdash;copyright and profits to
+be in his own hands. As some consolation for his absence, I was favored
+with a brief oral treatise on Fats, considered both dietetically and
+ethically, with an appendix, somewhat <i>&agrave; la</i> Liebig, on the nature, use,
+and effects of tissue-making and heat-making food, nitrogen, carbon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_621" id="Page_621">[Pg 621]</a></span>
+and the like. By way of improvement, a brilliant peroration was added,
+supposed to be addressed through me to the mothers of America, urging
+them to bring up the rising generation fatless. Thus only might war
+cease, justice prevail, love reign, humanity rise, and a golden age come
+back again to a world-wide Arcadia. Fat and Anti-Fat! Eros and Anteros,
+Strophe and Antistrophe. Or, better, the old primeval tale,&mdash;Jove and
+the Titans, Theseus and the Centaurs, Bellerophon and the Chim&aelig;ra, Thor
+and the Giants, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Good and Evil, Water and Fire, Light
+and Darkness. The world has told it over from the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>And do you ask what manner of man was the Fatless one? You shall see
+him. His most striking feature was a fur cap,&mdash;weight some four pounds,
+I should judge. I think he was born with this cap, and will die with it,
+for 90&deg; Fahrenheit seemed no temptation to uncover. Boots came second in
+rank, but twelfth or so in number,&mdash;weight probably on a par with the
+leaded brogans of the little wind-driven poetaster of old. Between these
+two extremes might be found about five feet ten of humanity, lank,
+sapless, and stooping. The seedy drapery of the figure hung in lean,
+reproachful wrinkles. The flabby trousers seemed to say: "Give! give!"
+The hollow waistcoat murmured: "Pad, oh! pad me with hot biscuits!" The
+loose coat swung and sighed for forbidden fruit: "Fill me with fat!" A
+dry, coppery face found pointed expression in the nose, which hung like
+a rigid sentinel over the thin-lipped mouth,&mdash;like Victor Hugo's Javert,
+loyal, untiring, merciless. No traitorous comfits ever passed that
+guard; no death-laden bark sailed by that sleepless quarantine. The
+small ferret-eyes which looked nervously out from under bushy brows,
+roaming, but never resting, were of the true Minerva
+tint,&mdash;yellow-green. The encircling rings told of unsettled weather.
+While elf-locks and straggling whiskers marked the man careless of
+forms, the narrow, knotted brow suggested the thinker persistent in the
+one idea:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"deep on his front engraven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deliberation sat and <i>peptic</i> care."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Not over beds of roses had he walked to ascend the heights. Those boots
+in which he shambled along his martyr-course were filled with peas. He
+had learned in suffering what he taught in sing-song. The wreath of
+wormwood was his, and the statue of brass. <i>Io triumphe!</i></p>
+
+<p>His gait was a swift, uncertain shuffle, a compromise between a saunter
+and a dog-trot. The arms hung straight and stiff from the narrow
+shoulders, like the radii of a governor, diverging more or less
+according to the rate of speed. When the scourge of his D&aelig;mon lashed him
+along furiously, they stood fast at forty-five degrees. His eyes peered
+suspiciously around, as he lumbered on, watchful for the avenger of fat,
+who, perhaps, was even now at his heels. A slouch-hat, crowning hollow
+eyes and haggard beard, filled him with joy: it marked a bran-bread man
+and a brother. He smiled approvingly at a shrivelled form with hobbling
+gait; but from the fat and the rubicund he turned with severest frown.
+They were fleshly sinners, insults to himself, corrupters of youth,
+gorged drones, law-breakers. He was ready to say, with the statesman of
+old: "What use can the state turn a man's body to, when all between the
+throat and the groin is taken up by the belly?" He had vowed eternal
+hostility to all such, and from the folds of his toga was continually
+shaking out war. He was of the race sung by the bard, who</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Quarrel with mince-pies, and disparage<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fat pig and goose itself oppose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And blaspheme custard through the nose."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Every chance-comer was instantaneously gauged as dyspeptic or eupeptic,
+friend or foe. On the march, Javert was on the alert, snuffing up the
+air, until some savory odor crossed his path, when he would shut himself
+up, like a snail within his shell. Yet he was not sleeping, for no
+titbit ever passed the portals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_622" id="Page_622">[Pg 622]</a></span> beneath. Perhaps, however, they were
+themselves trusty now, having made habit a second nature. I cannot
+imagine them watering at sight of any dainty.</p>
+
+<p>I have heard it said that certain orders of beings are able to improvise
+or to interchange organs, just as need calls. Thus a polyp, if hard put
+to it, may shift what little brain and stomach happen to be in his
+possession. You may say that he carries his heart in his hand. He can
+take his stomach, and dump it down in brain-case or thorax, just as he
+fancies,&mdash;can organize viscera and victory anywhere, at any moment; and
+all works merrily. The Fatless was similar, yet different. His stomach
+changed not its local habitation, was never victorious; yet, from cap to
+boot, it was ubiquitous and despotic. Brain and heel alike felt
+themselves to be mere squatters on another's soil, and had a vague idea
+that the rightful lord might some day come to oust them, and build up a
+new capital in these far-away districts. Sometimes they went so far as
+to style themselves his proconsuls and lieutenants, but they were never
+suffered to do more than simply to register the decrees of the central
+power. D&#363;speptos was king only in name,&mdash;<i>roi fain&eacute;ant</i>. Gaster was
+the power behind the throne,&mdash;the Mayor of the Palace,&mdash;the great
+Grand-Vizier. Nought went merrily, for he ruled with a rod of iron.
+Every day his strange freaks set the empire topsy-turvy. Every day there
+was growling and ill-feeling at his whimsical tyranny,&mdash;but nothing
+more. Secession was as impossible as in the day of Menenius Agrippa.</p>
+
+<p>Looking at it another way, Gaster might be called the object-glass
+through which D&#363;speptos looked out upon the world,&mdash;a glass always
+bubbly, distorted, and cracked, generally filmy and smoky, never
+achromatic, and decidedly the worse for wear. I think that the world
+thus seen must have had a very odd look to him. His most fitting
+salutation to each fellow-peptic, as he crossed the field of vision,
+would have been the Chinese form of greeting: "How is your stomach? Have
+you eaten your rice?" or, perhaps, the Egyptian style: "How do you
+perspire?" With him, the peptic bond was the only real one; all others
+were shams. All sin was peptic in origin: Eve ate an apple which
+disagreed with her. The only satisfactory atonement, therefore, must be
+gastric. All reforms hitherto had profited nothing, because they had
+been either cerebral or cardiac. None had started squarely from Gaster,
+the true centre. Moral reform was better than intellectual, since the
+heart lay nearer than the head to the stomach. Phalansteries,
+Pantisocracies, Unitary Homes, Asylums, Houses of Refuge,&mdash;these were
+all mere makeshifts. The hope of the world lay in Hygeian Institutes.
+Heroes of heart and brain must bow before the hero of the stomach.
+Judged by any right test of greatness, Graham was more a man than was
+Napoleon or John Howard. He that ruled his stomach was greater than he
+who took a city. B&eacute;ranger's Roi d'Yvetot, who ate four meals a day,&mdash;the
+Esquimaux, with his daily twenty-pound quantum of train-oil, gravy, and
+tallow-candles,&mdash;the alderman puffing over callipash and callipee,&mdash;the
+backwoodsman hungering after fattest of pork,&mdash;such men as these were no
+common sinners: they were assassins who struck at the very fountain of
+life, and throttled a human stomach. Pancreatic meant pancreative.
+Gastric juice was the long-sought elixir. The liver was the lever of the
+higher life. Along the biliary duct led the road to glory. All the
+essence of character, life, power, virtue, success, and their
+opposites,&mdash;all the decrees of Fate even,&mdash;were daily concocted by
+curious chemistry within that dark laboratory lying between the
+&oelig;sophagus and the portal vein. There were brewed the reeking
+ingredients that fertilize the fungus of Crime; there was made to bloom
+the bright star-flower of Innocence; there was forged the anchor of
+Hope; there were twisted the threads of the rotten cable of Despair;
+there Faith built her cross; there Love vivified the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_623" id="Page_623">[Pg 623]</a></span> heart, and Hate
+dyed it; there Remorse sharpened his tooth; there Jealousy tinged his
+eye with emerald; there was quarried the horse-block from which dark
+Care leaped into the saddle behind the rider; there were puffed out the
+smoke-wreaths of Doubt; there were blown the bubbles of Phantasy; there
+sprouted the seeds of Madness; and there, down in the icy vaults, Death
+froze his finger for the last, cold touch.</p>
+
+
+<h4>IV.&mdash;HARMONICS.</h4>
+
+<p>Ah! but the card? you ask. Yes, here it is.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Naphtali Rink</span>,<br />
+51 Early Avenue.              <br />
+(At the Hygienic Institute.)   <br /></p>
+
+<p>Of course, this is only in miniature, and represents every way but a
+very small part of the document, the address being but a drop in the
+superscriptive surge,&mdash;a rivulet of text meandering through a meadow of
+marginalia. Inasmuch as D&#363;speptos courted the widest publicity for
+these stomachic scraps, no scruples of delicacy forbid me to jot down
+here some few of them. He thought them fitted for the race,&mdash;the more
+readers the better: perhaps it may be, the more the merrier. If called
+upon to classify them, I should put them all under the genus Gastric
+Scholia. The different species and varieties it is hardly worth while to
+enter upon here. There were intuitions, recollections, and glosses,
+apparently set down in a fragmentary way from time to time, in a most
+minute and distinct text. Very probably they were hints of thoughts
+designed to be worked up in a more formal way. Whether the quotations
+were taken at first or second hand I cannot say; but internal evidence
+would seem to indicate that many of them might have been clippings from
+the columns of "The Old Lancaster Day-Book." It is, perhaps, worthy of
+note that Mr. Rink was, in fact, a man of rather more thought and
+general information than one might suppose, if judging him merely by his
+uncouth grammar, and the clipped coin of his jangling speech:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"His voice was nasal with the twang<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That spoiled the hymns when Cromwell's army sang."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Now, then, O reader, returning from this feast of fat things, I lay
+before you the scraps.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Character is Digestion."</p>
+
+<p>"There's been a good deal of high-fangled nonsense written about genius.
+One man says it's in the head; another, that it comes from the heart,
+etc., etc. The fact is, they're all wrong. Genius lies in the stomach.
+Who ever knew a fat genius? Now there's De Quincey,&mdash;he says, in his
+outlandish way, that genius is the synthesis of the intellect with the
+moral nature. No such thing; and a man who sinned day and night against
+his stomach, and swilled opium as he did, couldn't be expected to know.
+If there's any synthesis at all about it, it's the synthesis of the
+stomach with the liver."</p>
+
+<p>"What a complete knowledge of human nature Sam Slick shows, when he
+says, 'A bilious cheek and a sour temper are like the Siamese twins:
+there's a nateral cord of union atween them. The one is a sign with the
+name of the firm written on it in long letters.'"</p>
+
+<p>"The French are a mighty cute people. They know a thing or two about as
+well as the next man. There's a heap of truth and poetry in these maxims
+of one of their writers: 'Indigestion is the remorse of a guilty
+stomach'; 'Happiness consists in a hard heart and a good digestion.'"</p>
+
+<p>"The old tempter&mdash;the original Jacobs&mdash;was called in Hebrew a <i>nachash</i>,
+so I'm told. But folks don't seem to understand exactly what this
+<i>nachash</i> was. Some say it was a rattlesnake, some a straddle-bug. Old
+Dr. Adam Clarke, I've heard, vowed it was a monkey. They're all out of
+their reckoning. It's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_624" id="Page_624">[Pg 624]</a></span> as plain as a pikestaff that it was nothing but
+Fried Fat cooked up to order, and it's been a-tempting weak sisters ever
+since. That's what's the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me make the bran-bread of a nation, and I care not who makes its
+laws."</p>
+
+<p>"It makes me master-sick to hear all these fellows who've just made out
+to scrape together a few postage-stamps laying down their three-cent
+notions about the way to get on in the world, the rules for success, and
+all that. Just as if a couple of greenbacks could make a blind man see
+clean through a millstone! They're like these old nursing grannies: No.
+1 thinks catnip is the only thing; No. 2 believes there's nothing like
+sage-tea and mustard-poultice; No. 3 swears by burdock. The truth
+is,&mdash;and men might as well own up to it first as last,&mdash;success depends
+on bile."</p>
+
+<p>"Shakspeare was a man who was pretty well posted in human nature all
+round,&mdash;knew the kitchen about as well as the parlor. He knocks on the
+head the sin of stuffing, in 'All's Well that Ends Well,' where he
+speaks of the man that 'dies with feeding his own stomach.' In 'Timon of
+Athens' there's a chap who 'greases his pure mind,' probably with fried
+sausages, gravy, and such like trash. The fellow in 'Macbeth' who has
+'eaten of the insane root' was meant, I calculate, as a hard rap on
+tobacco-chewers (and smokers too); he called it <i>root</i>, instead of
+<i>leaf</i>, just to cover up his tracks. What a splendid thought that is in
+'Love's Labor's Lost': 'Fat paunches have lean pates'! Everybody knows
+how Julius C&aelig;sar turned up his nose at fat men. The poet never could
+stand frying; he calls it, in 'Macbeth,' 'the young fry of treachery.'
+Probably he'd had more taste of the traitor than was good for him. Has a
+good slap somewhere on the critter that 'devours up all the fry it
+finds.' I reckon that Shakspeare always set a proper valuation on human
+digestion; 'cause when he speaks of a man with a good stomach,&mdash;an
+excellent stomach,&mdash;he always has a good word for him, and kind of
+strokes down his fur the right way of the grain; but he comes down
+dreadful strong on the lout that has no stomach, as he calls it. In
+'Henry IV.,' he says, 'the cook helps to make the gluttony.' I estimate
+that that one sentence alone, if he'd never writ another word, would
+have made him immortal. If I had my way, I'd have it printed in gold
+letters a foot long, and sot up before every cook-stove in the land. But
+just see what a man he was! This very same play that tells the disease
+prescribes the cure, that is, 'the remainder-biscuit,'&mdash;a knock-down
+proof to any man with a knowledge-box that Graham-bread was known and
+appreciated in those days, and that Shakspeare himself had cut his own
+eye-teeth on it."</p>
+
+<p>"A broken heart is only another name for an everlasting indigestion."</p>
+
+<p>"History is merely a record of indigestions,&mdash;a calendar of the foremost
+stomachs of the age. The destinies of nations hang on the bowels of
+princes. Internal wars come from intestine rebellion. The rising within
+is father to the insurrection without. The fountain of a national crisis
+is always found under the waistcoat of one man. There's Napoleon
+I.,&mdash;what settled him for good was just that greasy mutton-chop stewed
+up in onions, which he took for his grub at Leipsic. If he'd only
+ordered a couple of slices of dry Graham-toast, with a cup of weak black
+tea, he'd have saved his stomach, and whipped 'em, sure; and matters and
+things in Europe would have had a different look all round ever since."</p>
+
+<p>"Emerson is a man who once in a while gets a little inkling of the
+truth. I see he says that the creed lies in the biliary duct. That's
+good orthodox doctrine, I don't care who says it."</p>
+
+<p>"Buckwheat-cakes are now leading us back to barbarism faster than the
+printing-press ever carried us forward towards civilization."</p>
+
+<p>"Temperament means nothing more nor less than just quantity and quality
+of bile. That old sawbones, Hippocrates, came mighty near hitting the
+nail square<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_625" id="Page_625">[Pg 625]</a></span> on the head more 'n two thousand year ago, but he felt kind
+of uncertain, and didn't exactly know what he was driving at. The old
+heathen made out just four humors, as he called 'em,&mdash;the sanguineous,
+phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. If he'd only made one step more
+on to the other side of the fence, he'd have cracked the nut, and picked
+the kernel, certain. Those four different humors are only four different
+ways of modifying bile with fat."</p>
+
+<p>"Every man is dyspeptic. Tell me his dyspepsy, and I'll tell you what he
+is."</p>
+
+<p>"In sick-headache, a heaping tablespoonful each of salt and common
+mustard, stirred into a pint of hot water, and drank without breathing,
+will generally produce an immediate effect. (<i>Mem.</i> But Graham-biscuit
+is better in the long run.)"</p>
+
+<p>"Society is the meeting of a gang of incurables, who come together to
+talk over their dyspepsies. And everybody takes his turn in furnishing
+fodder to keep the thing going hot-foot."</p>
+
+<p>"Professor Bache says sea-sickness comes from the head, 'cause a man
+gets dizzy in trying to get used to the teetering of the ship. All
+nonsense. The Professor may be posted in the survey of the coast, but he
+don't know the lay of the land in the interior. Sea-sickness comes from
+the stomach: just offer a man a mouthful of fried salt pork."</p>
+
+<p>"It's stated that some old bookworm of a Dutchman, with a jaw-breaking
+name that I can't recollect, has an idea, that, 'if we could penetrate
+into the secret foundations of human events, we should frequently find
+the misfortunes of one man caused by the intestines of another.' There's
+not the least doubt of it,&mdash;true of one man or a million."</p>
+
+<p>"Fate is Fat: Fat is Fate."</p>
+
+
+<h4>V.&mdash;NOCTURNE.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Romanza (<i>affettuoso</i>).<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Choral Gamut (<i>con espressione</i>).<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Was that seething sun never again to plunge his lurid face beneath the
+waves of old Ocean? Had some latter-day Joshua arisen, and with stern
+fiat nailed him in mid-heavens, blazing forever? To me as slowly rolled
+the westering orb down that final slope as ever turned the wheel of
+Fortune to Murad the Unlucky. Perchance the sun-god had turned cook, and
+now, burning with 'prentice zeal, and scoffing at D&#363;speptos and all
+sound hygiene, was aiming to make of this terrestrial ball one
+illimitable fry turned over and well done,&mdash;a fry ever doing and never
+done, which should simmer and fizzle on eternally down the ages. An
+abstract fry&mdash;let me here record it&mdash;suits me passing well; yet I like
+not the concrete and personal broil. I trip gayly to a feast, prepared
+to eat, but not, as in the supper of Polonius, to be eaten. I have very
+little of the martyr-stuff about me. It is well, it is glorious, to read
+of those fine things; but does any man relish the application of the
+<i>Hoc age</i>? To beatified Lawrence I gladly pay meet tribute of tears and
+praise. Let the luckless one ask of me no more; let him call only upon
+the succulent; let him recruit among the full ranks of the adipose. Be
+it mine to lay these spare-ribs athwart no gridiron more fervid than the
+pavement of his own monumental Escurial. <i>Suum cuique.</i></p>
+
+<p>So, albeit in a melting mood, I gazed listlessly upon the brazen
+firmament, with no fellow-feeling for those hot culinary bars. The
+broiling glow was not at all tempting: I think it would have staggered
+even the gay salamander that is said to accept so thoroughly the gospel
+of caloric. And what was the Markerstown without the Great Captain? What
+was the Victory with no Nelson? Hence, like the patriarch, I went out to
+meditate at the eventide. But, alack! there were no camels, no Rebekah,
+no comfort. Even in subterranean grots there was nothing drawn but
+Tropic's XXX. Every water-cock let on a geyser. But by-and-by Apollo
+Archimagirus, wearying of gastronomy, stayed his hand, moistened the
+fierce flames, jerked the half-fried earth out into free space, pocketed
+his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_626" id="Page_626">[Pg 626]</a></span> stew-pan, and flung himself supperless to bed. No more, for the
+nonce at least, should that new Lycidas&mdash;the cosmical gridiron&mdash;flame in
+the forehead of the evening sky. Anon came twilight, dusk, darkness, and
+all the pleasant charities of deep night. Behind the veil of night are
+sometimes done evil deeds. The snail has been known to start before his
+time. Laying down these general postulates, I drew therefrom, late in
+the sultry gloom, this particular inference: C&aelig;sar's shallop might
+possibly breast the deep before dawn; and if C&aelig;sar was not on hand, she
+would carry his fortunes, but not him. Forthwith, groping through the
+obscurity, I found my fears without foundation. The shallop was
+quiescent in a remarkable degree, and thoroughly tethered.</p>
+
+<p>Deep darkness reigned throughout the little kingdom. Silence brooded
+over all, save now and then when some vocal nose, informed by murky
+visions of the night, brayed out its stertorous tale to the unheeding
+air. At times a shrill, sharp pipe, screaming with gusts of horror,
+split my unexpectant ear. With this wrangled fitfully the cracked
+clarionet of some peevish brother. Ever and anon some vast nostril,
+punctually thundering, hurled forth the relentless growl of the
+bassoon,&mdash;a very mountain of sound, which crushed all before it, and
+made the shuddering timbers crack and reel. A pensive flute vainly
+poured, in swift recurring gushes, its rhythmic oil upon the roaring
+billows. From some melodious swain came a freakish fiddling, which
+leaped and danced like mad, now here, now there, like an audible
+will-o'-the-wisp. A dolorous whistle chimed harmonies, and with regular
+sibilation came to time, quavering out the chromatic moments of this
+nasal hour. High over all floated a faint whisper,&mdash;a song-cloud rising
+from the dream-mist of a peaceful breast,&mdash;a revelation timidly exhaled
+to the disembodied spirits of the air. Its hazy lullaby breathed down as
+from distant heights, and murmured of celestial rest. Its soul was like
+a star, and dwelt apart.</p>
+
+<p>Save this feeling symphony, all was still. No light shone upon the
+tuneful beaks. Like Theseus, I picked my way along, guided by an
+Ariadne's thread. My Ariadne was a slumbering orchestra deftly spinning
+out a thick proboscis-chord of such stuff as dreams are made of. Taking
+this web in my ear, I safely traversed the labyrinth, and meandered at
+last into pen No. 1. In placing my foot on the edge of the under-world
+crib, I unwittingly pressed some secret spring which straight swung wide
+the portals of a precipitate dawn.</p>
+
+
+<h4>VI.&mdash;THE PEPTIC SYMPHONY.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A.&mdash;Andante (<i>smorzando</i>).<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">B.&mdash;Adagio (<i>crescendo</i>).<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">C.&mdash;Allegro (<i>sforzando</i>).<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Instantaneously rose resplendent</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The Midnight Sun</span>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><i>The Luminary.</i>&mdash;Hullo!</p>
+
+<p><i>The Satellite.</i>&mdash;Ah! got back? Is that you, Mr. Rink?</p>
+
+<p><i>The Luminary.</i>&mdash;Wal, ef 't a'n't me, 't 's my nose. Mebby y' a'n't
+aware, young man, that you planted your shoe-leather on my olfactory?</p>
+
+<p><i>The Satellite.</i>&mdash;Indeed, no, Sir. I thought I felt something under my
+foot, as I was getting up. So it seems it was your nose. Beg your
+pardon, Sir,&mdash;entirely unintentional. Hope I&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>The Luminary.</i>&mdash;Who's your shoemaker? What do you wear for cow-hide?</p>
+
+<p><i>The Satellite.</i>&mdash;An excellent artist, a long way from Paris. I have on
+at this moment a very neat thing in English gaiters, of respectable
+dimensions, toe-corners sharp as Damascus blade, three-fourths of an
+inch in sole, one and a half inches in heel, with a plenty of half-inch,
+cast-steel nails all round,&mdash;quite a neat thing, I assure you.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Luminary.</i>&mdash;Whew!</p>
+
+<p><i>The Satellite.</i>&mdash;But I hope, Sir, I haven't injured your nose?</p>
+
+<p><i>The Luminary.</i>&mdash;Can't tell jest yit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_627" id="Page_627">[Pg 627]</a></span> Anyhow, you gev me a proper
+sneezer, a most pertickler hahnsome socdolager, I vum! Landed jest below
+the peepers. But hold on till mornin', an' see how breakfast sets. I
+allers estimate the nose by the stomach. Ef I find my stomach's all
+right, 't 'll be a sure sign that the smellers are pooty rugged.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Satellite.</i>&mdash;That's rather an odd idea. I was aware that the nose
+is a natural guide to the stomach, but didn't know that the reverse
+would hold good. What is the&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>The Luminary.</i>&mdash;Poor rule that wun't work both ways. Six of one and
+half a dozen of the other. Do you s'pose the nose could afford to work
+free gratis for the stomach, with plenty to do an' nothin' to git? No,
+Sir, not by a jugful! People that want favors mustn't be stingy in
+givin' on 'em. It's on the scratch-my-back-an'-I'll-tickle-your-elbow
+system. The stomach's got to keep up his eend o' the rope, or he'll jest
+go under, sure. One good turn deserves another, you know.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Satellite.</i>&mdash;Yes, a very pretty theory, and certainly a just one.
+Quite on the Mutual-Benefit principle. Still, I should be inclined to
+doubt whether there are facts sufficient to sustain it.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Luminary.</i>&mdash;Wal, my hearty, you jest belay a bit up there; clew
+down your hatches ship-shape, git everythin' all trig, an' lay to. Why,
+my Christian friend, I intend to post you up thoroughly. Your
+edication's been neglected. Facts? Facts? Bless your noddle, there's
+plenty on 'em, ef a man knows beans. Now I'm jest a-goin' to let
+daylight into that little knowledge-box o' yourn, an' fill it with good,
+wholesome idees, clean up to the brim, an' runnin' over,&mdash;good, honest,
+Shaker measure. I'll give ye more new wrinkles afore mornin' than ever
+you dreamed of in your physiology, valooable hints, an' nuthin' to pay.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Being now securely camped on my mountain-height, I peered out upon the
+horizon beneath, and signified to the Luminary that the gas might at
+once be turned on full blaze.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"As when the sun new risen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Looks through the horizontal misty air,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>so gleamed, no longer nebulous, but now full-orbed, the bright star
+Di&aelig;tetica,&mdash;a central sun, holding within its ample bosom the star-dust
+of whole galaxies, infinite gastric constellations.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Luminary.</i>&mdash;"Any fool'll allow that there's nerves, an' plenty on
+'em, all over the body. All these nerves come from the stomach. Fact is,
+they're the stomach's errand-boys. They run round an' do his chores jest
+as he says, an' then trot back ag'in. He's an awful hard master,
+though,&mdash;likes to shirk, an' makes 'em lug round all his baggage an'
+chicken-fixin's. When he gits grumpy, which is pooty consid'able often,
+he's death on some on 'em,&mdash;jest walks into 'em like chain-lightnin'
+into a gooseberry-bush. When he's gouty, he kicks up a most etarnal
+touse with the great-toe nerve, an' slaps it right into him fore an'
+aft, the wust kind. Folks hev asked me why the gout pitches into the
+great toe wuss than the rest on 'em. It's jest as nateral as Natur'. I
+cal'late it's a special Providence for the benefit of the hull human
+family, to hang out a big sign jest where folks ken see it, to show up
+the man who's ben an' sinned ag'inst his stomach. When he limps round in
+flannel, he's a conspicoous hobblin' advertisement, a fust-cut lecterer
+on temperance, an' the horrible example to boot. Now you know the way
+the stomach an' nerves fay in.</p>
+
+<p>"Wal, then ag'in, there's another set,&mdash;the stomach's own
+blood-relations. He's head o' the family, an' they all work in together
+nice an' handy, jest as slick as grease. Lam ary one on 'em, an' you got
+to lam the whole boodle. Jest like a hornet's nest: shake a stick at ary
+one o' the group, an' they all come buzzin' round te'ble miffy in less
+'n no time. There's the nose,&mdash;he wears a coat jest as well 's the
+stomach: he's the stomach's favorite grandson, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_628" id="Page_628">[Pg 628]</a></span> Benjamin of the
+flock. Say anythin' to him, an' the stomach takes it up; say anythin' to
+the stomach, an' he takes it up. All in a family-way, ye see. Love me,
+love my dorg. There's no disputin' the fact, that you can't kill ary one
+on 'em without walkin' over the dead body of the others. You can't whip
+ary one on 'em except over the others' shoulders. Now you know who the
+nose is, who his connections are, an' what's his geneology. He's
+descended from the stomach in the second degree, an' will be heir to all
+the property, ef so be he's true to himself an' the family. Ef he a'n't,
+th' old man'll cut him off with a shillin', sure.</p>
+
+<p>"Now dyspepsy's of two kinds,&mdash;the mucous an' the nervous; an' as I'm a
+sinner, every mother's son an' daughter has got one on 'em. The nervous,
+as you will naterally s'pose from my remarks, is a sort o' hired
+help,&mdash;friend o' the family, like a poor relation,&mdash;handy to hev in the
+house, an' all that. The other allers takes pot-luck with the family,
+runs in an' out jest as he pleases,&mdash;chip o' the old block, one o' the
+same crowd, you know. It's considered ruther more hon'able, in course,
+to hev this one. None o' the man-waiter or sarvant-gal about him. A chap
+with the mucous looks kind o' slick an' smooth, an' feels his oats pooty
+wal; but a codger with the nervous is sort o' thin an' wild-like.
+Wholesalers ginerally hev the fust, an' retailers the second; though,
+'casionally, I hev known exceptions. A bank-president invariably has the
+second; an' I never seen an apple-woman without the other. All accordin'
+to Natur', ye see. But either on 'em 'll do. Take jest whichever you can
+git,&mdash;that's my advice,&mdash;an' thank Providence. They'll either on 'em be
+faithful friends, never desert ye, cling closer than a brother, never
+say die, stick to ye, in p'int o' fact, like a sick kitten to a hot
+brick. It's jest as I said,&mdash;every critter's got one on 'em. But there's
+no two men alike, so there's no two dyspepsies alike. There never was,
+an' never will be. 'T 's exackly like the human family, divided into two
+great classes, black an' white, long-heel an' short-heel. Jes' so ...
+nervous ... mucous ... Magna Charta ... Palladium of our liberties ...
+ark of our safety ... manifest destiny ... Constitootion of our
+forefathers ... fit, bled, an' died ... independence forever ... one an'
+inseparable ... last drop o' blood...."</p>
+
+<p>How it was I don't quite know; but I think that at this point the
+Luminary must have sunk below the horizon. Possibly his Satellite may
+have suffered an eclipse in this quarter of the heavens. I can barely
+recall a thin doze, in which these last eloquent fragments, transfigured
+into sprites and kobolds, wearing a most diabolical grin, seemed to be
+chasing each other in furious and endless succession through my brain,
+or playing at hide-and-seek among the convolutions of the cerebrum.
+After a while, they wearied of this rare sport, scampered away, and left
+me in profound sleep till morning.</p>
+
+
+<h4>VII.&mdash;MATINS.</h4>
+
+<p>Whank!&mdash;tick-a-lick!&mdash;ker-thump!&mdash;swoosh!&mdash;Whank!&mdash;tick-a-lick!&mdash;ker-thump!&mdash;swoosh!&mdash;These
+were the sounds that first greeted my opening ears. So, then, we were
+fairly under way, advancing, if not rejoicing. Our freighted Icarus was
+soaring on well-oiled wings: how soon might his waxy pinions droop under
+the fierce gaze of the sun! At least it was a satisfaction to know that
+thus far the gloomy forebodings of the Seer had not been fulfilled. On
+looking out through a six-inch rose-window, I saw joyous daylight
+dancing over the boundless, placid waters,&mdash;not a speck of land in
+sight. We must have started long since; but my eyes, fast sealed under
+the opiate rays of the Luminary, had hitherto refused to ope their lids
+to the garish beams of his rival. Soon I heard beneath a rustling snap,
+as of a bow, and suddenly there sped forth the twanging shaft of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_629" id="Page_629">[Pg 629]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>First Victim.</i>&mdash;I say!</p>
+
+<p><i>Second Victim.</i>&mdash;Very sensible, but brief. Give us another bit.</p>
+
+<p><i>First Victim.</i>&mdash;How are ye this mornin'?</p>
+
+<p><i>Second Victim.</i>&mdash;Utterly glorified. Delicious sleep,&mdash;splendid
+day,&mdash;balmy air, with condiments thrown in. I hope you are nicely
+to-day?</p>
+
+<p><i>First Victim.</i>&mdash;Wal, no, can't say I be. Feel sort o' seedy like,&mdash;feel
+jest 's ef I'd ben creouped up in a sugar-box. Couldn't even git a
+cat-nap,&mdash;didn't sleep a wink.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second Victim.</i>&mdash;That's bad, indeed; but the bracing air here will
+soon&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>First Victim.</i>&mdash;Air! That 'ere dock-smell nigh finished me. No
+skim-milk smell about that, but the ginooine jam,&mdash;an awful pooty
+nosegay! 'T was reg'lar rank p'is'n. Never see anythin' like it. Oh,
+'twas te'ble! Took hold o' my nose dreffle bad; I'm afeard my stomach'll
+be a goner. 'T wa'n't none o' yer sober perfumes nuther, but kind o'
+half-seas-over all the time, an' pooty consid'able in the wind. Judge
+there's ben a large fatality in cats lately. Ugh! that blamed
+dock-smell! Never forgit it the longest day I live. Don't b'lieve I
+breathed oncet all night.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second Victim.</i>&mdash;Yes, it was slightly aromatic, I confess,&mdash;'Sab&aelig;an
+odors from the spicy shores of Araby the Blest,'&mdash;you know what Milton
+says. But there's one great comfort: this thick night-air is so very
+healthy, you know. I think you made a very great mistake, Mr. Rink, in
+not inhaling it thoroughly. I kept pumping it in all night, from a sense
+of duty, at forty bellows-power.</p>
+
+<p><i>First Victim.</i>&mdash;(Rising, and dragging up to the mountain-crib the
+artillery of a ghostly face, and training it point-blank at Second
+Victim.)&mdash;Young man, don't trifle!</p>
+
+<p><i>Second Victim.</i>&mdash;Pardon me, Sir, I am not trifling, I have sound
+reasons for what I say. Your education, Sir, has apparently been
+neglected. Wait one moment, and I'll give you a new idea, which will
+contribute materially to your happiness. You will at once admit, I take
+it, that oxygen and carbonic acid stand at opposite poles in their
+relations to the respiratory system; also, that said dock-smell was a
+mixture of carbonic acid of various kinds, and of different degrees of
+intensity; and, lastly, that animal and vegetable life are complements
+of each other,&mdash;correlatives, so to speak.</p>
+
+<p><i>First Victim.</i>&mdash;Sartin: that's Natur' an' common sense.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second Victim.</i>&mdash;Now, then, plants naturally absorb carbonic acid and
+give off oxygen during daylight. At night, the process is reversed: then
+they absorb oxygen and give off carbonic acid. In a similar, but reverse
+way, man, who was plainly intended to inhale oxygen and exhale carbonic
+acid in his waking hours, should, in his sleeping hours, in order to be
+consistent with himself and with Nature, inhale only dense carbonic acid
+and exhale oxygen. Men and plants make Nature's see-saw: one goes up as
+the other goes down. Hence it follows as a logical sequence, that the
+truly wise man, who seeks to comply with the laws of Nature, and to
+fulfil the great ends of his existence, will choose for his
+sleeping-apartment the closest quarters possible, and will welcome the
+fumes which would be noisome by day. For my part, therefore, I feel
+profoundly grateful even for one night of this little crib. It has
+already done much for me. I feel confident that it has contributed
+greatly to my span of life. I am deeply beholden to the owners, to the
+captain, yea, to all the crew. And for the blessed dock-smell I shall
+ever be thankful:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"'T were worth ten years of mortal life, One glance at its
+array."</p></div>
+
+<p>It will not be amiss to say to you, Mr. Rink, that this theory is
+sanctioned by one of the leading ornaments of the French Academy. He has
+advocated it, in an elaborate treatise, with an eloquence and power
+worthy of its distinguished author. He shows, in passages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_630" id="Page_630">[Pg 630]</a></span> of singular
+purity, that beasts, whose instincts teach them far more of the laws of
+Nature than our reason teaches us, always retire to sleep in a place
+where they can obtain the closest, healthiest air. In the last
+communication sent to me on this subject by the learned Professor, he
+proves conclusively that&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>First Victim.</i> (His artillery now rumbling down the heights on the full
+gallop.)&mdash;I snum, that's awful! Wal, I never see,&mdash;'t beats the Dutch!
+No kind o' use talkin' with sech a chap. Never see so much nonsense in
+one head 's that critter's got in his.</p>
+
+
+<h4>VIII.&mdash;JENTACULAR.</h4>
+
+<p>A barrow-tone full of groan and creak, trundling along through the
+well-known bravura commencing,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In K&ouml;ln, a town of monks and bones," etc.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Yes, the aroma was highly complicate, but not, like the poet, of
+imagination all compact. It was not Frangipanni, though in part an
+eternal perfume; nor was it Bergamot, or Attar, or Millefleurs, or
+Jockey-Club, or New-Mown Hay. No, it was none of these. What was it,
+then? you ask. I dissected it as well as I could, though not with entire
+success; but I will tell you the members of this body of death, so far
+as I found them. I do not for a moment doubt that it was made up of at
+least the two-and-seventy several parts which bloomed in the bouquet
+plucked by the bard in Hermann's land; yet my feeble sense could not
+distinguish all. There was unquestionably a fry,&mdash;nay, several; the
+fumes of coffee soared riotous; I could detect hot biscuits distinctly;
+the sausage asked a foremost place; pancakes, griddle-cakes, dough-nuts,
+gravies, and sauces, all struggled for precedence; the land and the sea
+waged internecine war for place, through their representative fries of
+steak and mackerel; and as the unctuous pork&mdash;no nursling of the flock,
+but seasoned in ripe old age with salt not Attic&mdash;rooted its way into
+the front rank, I thought of the wisdom of Moses. All these were, so to
+speak, the mere outlying flakes, the feathery curls, of the balmy
+cirro-cumulus, whose huge bulk arose out of the bowels of the ship
+itself. Up and down, in and out, here and there, into every chink and
+crevice, rolled the blue-white incense-cloud, dense as the cottony puff
+at the mouths of the guns in Vernet's "Siege of Algiers." Or you might
+say that these were but the flying-buttresses, the floriated pinnacles,
+the frets, and the gargoyles of a great frowzy cathedral lying vast and
+solid far below.</p>
+
+<p>The Captain sat at the head of the table; next him was the fixed star
+D&#363;speptos, with Satellite stationary on the right quarter.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><i>Eupeptos.</i>&mdash;Coffee,&mdash;that's good. John, fill my cup. Have it strong,
+mind,&mdash;no milk.</p>
+
+<p><i>D&#363;speptos.</i> (Placing hand remonstratingly on arm of Eupeptos.)&mdash;My
+friend, man's life a'n't more'n a span, anyhow; yourn wun't be wuth
+more'n half a span. Don't ye do it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eupeptos.</i> (Gayly.)&mdash;<i>Dum vivimus, vivamus.</i> Try a cup, Mr. Rink.</p>
+
+<p><i>D&#363;speptos.</i>&mdash;No, Sir. Thousan' dollars'd be no objick at all.
+There'd be a dead Rink layin' round in less 'n half a shake. I'd want a
+permit from the undertaker fust, an' hev my measure for a patent casket
+to order. This child a'n't anxious to cut stick yit awhile.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eupeptos.</i>&mdash;I'm very much of Voltaire's way of thinking about coffee. I
+don't know but I would agree with Mackintosh, that the measure of a
+man's brains is the amount of coffee he drinks. I like it in the French
+style, all but the <i>lait</i>; that destroys the flavor, besides making it
+despicably weak. Have a hot biscuit, Mr. Rink? I'm afraid they're like
+Gilpin,&mdash;carry weight, you know. But try one, won't you?</p>
+
+<p><i>D&#363;speptos.</i>&mdash;I'm shot ef I do. Don't hev any more o' yer nonsense,
+young man, or I'll git ructions.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eupeptos.</i>&mdash;All right. Advance, pancakes! Here's a prime one, steaming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_631" id="Page_631">[Pg 631]</a></span>
+hot, crisp and fizzling. Allow me to put it on your plate, Sir?</p>
+
+<p><i>D&#363;speptos.</i>&mdash;Not by a long chalk. Hands off, I tell ye, or there'll
+be a free fight afore shortly. You'd better make up yer mind to oncet
+thet this 'ere thing a'n't goin' to ram nohow.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eupeptos.</i>&mdash;Sorry I can't suit you. Better luck next time. Ah! here's
+the very thing. Waiter, pass the fried steak, salt mackerel, and fried
+potatoes to Mr. Rink.</p>
+
+<p><i>D&#363;speptos.</i>&mdash;Wun't stan' it,&mdash;I snore I wun't! I tell ye, I'm
+gittin' master-riled. Jest you take yer own fodder, an' keep quiet.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eupeptos.</i>&mdash;Pardon me, Sir, but my eye has just fallen on yonder dish
+of dough-nuts, faced by those incense-breathing griddle-cakes. Look
+slightly soggy, but not disagreeable. This sea-air, you know, gives a
+man a tremendous appetite for anything, and the digestion of an ostrich.
+Risk it, won't you?</p>
+
+<p><i>D&#363;speptos.</i> (With determined air, clenching knife and fork pointing
+skywards.)&mdash;Stranger, le' 's come to a distinct understandin' on this
+subjick afore we git much older. You know puffickly wal what I am,&mdash;a
+confirmed dyspeptic for twenty-five year. An' I a'n't ashamed on it,
+nuther; but I'm proud to say I glory in it. You know puffickly wal what
+my notions is about all this 'ere stuff, an' still you keep stickin' it
+into my face. Now, ef you want me to lambaste ye, I'm the man to do it,
+an' do it hahnsome. But ef yer life a'n't insured clean up to the hub,
+an' ef ye've got any survivin' friends, I advise ye not to tote any more
+o' that 'ere grub in this direction. I give ye fair warnin',&mdash;yer've
+raised my dander, an' put my Ebenezer up. I'd jest as lieves wallop ye
+as eat, an' ten times lieveser.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eupeptos.</i>&mdash;Really, Sir, no offence intended. I saw that your taste was
+delicate, and offered you these various tit-bits in the hope that some
+one of them might prove acceptable. But pray, Sir, do not starve
+yourself on my account. What in the world can you eat? Do not, I beseech
+you, by undue fasting, deprive the world of so distinguished&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>D&#363;speptos.</i> (Mollifying.)&mdash;Fact is, I knew jest how 't was goin' to
+be. They allers fry everythin' an' cook it up in grease, so no
+respectable man can git any decent vittles t' eat. So I jest went out
+an' laid in plenty o' my own provender,&mdash;suthin' reliable an' wholesome,
+ye know. Brought aboard a firkin o' Graham-biscuit,&mdash;jest the meal mixed
+up with water,&mdash;no salt, no emptins, no nuthin'. 'T's the healthiest
+thing out o' jail. It's Natur's own food, an' the best eatin' I know.
+Ra&auml;l good flavor, git 'em good, besides bein' puffickly harmless an'
+salubrious. I cal'late I've got enough to run the machine, an' keep it
+all trig up to concert-pitch, till I git ashore, ef so be th' old tub
+don't send us to Davy Jones's locker. Here, try one,&mdash;I've got a
+plenty,&mdash;an' you'll say they're fust-rate. Leave them 'ere pancakes, an'
+all that p'is'n truck. Arter you take one o' these, you'll never tech
+nuthin' else.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eupeptos.</i>&mdash;Thank you, Sir, but if it's all the same to you, please
+excuse me this time. I have other fish to fry. In fact, Sir, I am
+entirely destitute of equanimity, and have no particle of stability in
+my disposition. Not a drop of Scotch blood in my veins.</p>
+
+<p><i>D&#363;speptos.</i>&mdash;There's no oats about these; an' ef there was, 't
+wouldn't hurt ye none. It's jest the kernel an' the shell mixed up
+together.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eupeptos.</i>&mdash;Dangerous combination. I have no military
+ambition,&mdash;wouldn't give a rush for a spread eagle,&mdash;don't like the
+braying by a mortar.</p>
+
+<p><i>D&#363;speptos.</i>&mdash;Wal, I mout as wal vamose, 's long as I've hove in my
+rations. Already gone risin' a good half-ounce above my or'nary
+'lowance. 'T wun't do to dissipate, even ef a feller a'n't to hum an'
+nobody's the wiser. Natur' allers makes ye foot the bill all the same on
+sea an' shore.</p>
+
+<p><i>Eupeptos.</i> (Trolling in a low voice the celebrated barcarole,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"My bark is by the shore," etc.)&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_632" id="Page_632">[Pg 632]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>Stay, oh, stay, gentle stranger! See yon sausage fatly floating! Be not
+dogged to go, but come! Prithee, return once more to the festive board!
+Lo! this&mdash;the fattest of the flock&mdash;shall be thy portion, most favored
+Benjamin!</p>
+
+<p><i>D&#363;speptos.</i> (&mdash;Muttering in the distance.)&mdash;That feller's a ra&auml;l
+jo-fired numbskull. He don't know any more about the fust principles o'
+human natur' than the babe unborn. Reg'lar goney. Dunno whether he's
+jokin' or in sober airnest. Good mind to sail into him anyhow. Guess 't
+'ll do, though, to leave him to Natur'. He'll stuff himself to death
+fast enough ... pitchin' into p'is'n ... sexton ... six-board box ...
+coroner's verdick ... run over by a fry ... engineer did his dooty....</p>
+
+
+<h4>IX.&mdash;FINALE (<i>con motivo.</i>)</h4>
+
+<p>But time would fail me to tell you of the myriad golden spangles so
+thickly stitched into the hurrying web of those fustian hours. Oh! that
+dim crepuscular time, when, with toe set to toe squarely on the scratch,
+we stood up to one another, with eyes glaring through the gloaming, and
+gave and took manfully, fighting out anew the old battles of the Bourbon
+<i>vs.</i> China, of King James <i>vs.</i> Virginia, of Graham <i>vs.</i> Greece! I
+could tell you of the siesta of the new Prometheus, when, perched on the
+Mount Caucasus of a bleak chain-cable, he gave himself postprandially,
+in full livery of seisin, to the vulturous sun. Wasted, yet daily
+renewed, enduring, yet murmuring not, he hurled defiance at Fat, scoffed
+at the vain rage of Jupiter Pinguis, and proffered to the world below a
+new life in his fiery gift of stale bran-bread. Would you could have
+heard that vesper hymn stealing hirsute through the mellow evening-air!
+It sung the Peptic Saints and Martyrs, explored the bowels of old Time,
+and at last died away in dulcet cadence as it chanted the glories of the
+coming Age of Grits. Again, in the silent night-watches, did sage Mentor
+become vocal, going over afresh the story of the Nervous and the Mucous,
+classifying their victims, generalizing laws, discriminating the various
+dyspepsies of the nations, and summing up at last the inestimable
+benefits conferred by our modern dyspepsy on the character, the
+literature, and the life of this nineteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Once more&mdash;for the last time&mdash;did the sable robe inwrap us. Once more
+the night-blooming cereus oped its dank petals; and amid its murky
+fragrance I sank to rest. When I woke, the
+whank!&mdash;tick-a-lick!&mdash;whank!&mdash;tick-a-lick!&mdash;had ceased, and we were
+safely moored. I leaped lightly to the shore, and, reverently stooping,
+saluted with fond gratitude my Mother Earth. Rising, I beheld for the
+last time the gaunt form of the Martyr standing on the deck,&mdash;a bar
+sinister sable blazoned athwart the golden shield of the climbing sun.
+And once more he lift up his voice:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! What! up killick an' off a'ready? Ye'r' bound to go it full
+chisel any way,&mdash;don't mean to hev grass grow under your heels, that's
+sartin. Wal, 't 's the early bird thet ketches the worm; an' it's the
+early worm thet gits picked, too,&mdash;recollember that. I cal'late you
+reckon the Markerstown's about played out, an' a'n't exackly wut she's
+cracked up to be. It's pooty plain thet that 'ere blamed grease has ben
+one too many for ye, arter all yer lingo. Ef a man will dance, he's got
+to pay the fiddler. You can't go it on tick with Natur'; she's some on a
+trade, an' her motto is, 'Down with the dosh.' Ef you think you can play
+'possum, an' pull the wool over her eyes, jest try it on, that's all;
+you'll find, my venerable hero, thet you're shinnin' a greased pole for
+the sake of a bogus fo'pence-ha'penny on top.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, young man, afore you hurry up your cakes much further, I've got
+jest two words to say to ye. Don't cut it too fat, or you'll flummux by
+the way, an' leave nuthin' but a grease-spot. Don't dawdle round doin'
+nuthin' but stuffin' yerself to kill. Don't act like a gonus,&mdash;don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_633" id="Page_633">[Pg 633]</a></span>
+hanker arter the flesh-pots. Wake up, peel your eyes, an' do suthin' for
+a dyspeptic world, for sufferin' sinners, for yerself. Allers stick
+close to Natur' an' hyg'ene. Drop yer nonsense, an' come over an' j'in
+us, an' we'll make a new man of ye,&mdash;jest as good as wheat. You're on
+the road to ruin now; but we'll take ye, an' build ye up, give ye tall
+feed, an' warrant ye fust-cut health an' happiness. No cure, no pay. An'
+look here, keep that 'ere card I gev ye continooally on hand, an'
+peroose it day an' night. I tell ye it'll be the makin' on ye. An' don't
+forgit the golden rule:&mdash;Don't tech, don't g' nigh the p'is'n upus-tree
+of gravy; beware o' the dorg called hot biscuits; take keer o' the
+grease, an' the stomach'll take keer of itself. Ef you're in want o'
+bran-bread at any time, let me know, an' I'm your man,&mdash;Rink by name,
+an' Rink by natur'. An' ef so be you ever come within ten mile o' where
+I hang out, jest tie right up on the spot, without the slightest
+ceremony or delayance, an' take things puffickly free an' easy like.
+Wal, my hearty, I see ye're on the skedaddle. Take keer o'
+yerself,&mdash;yourn till death, N. Rink."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_TWENTIETH_PRESIDENTIAL_ELECTION" id="THE_TWENTIETH_PRESIDENTIAL_ELECTION"></a>THE TWENTIETH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The country is now on the eve of an election the importance of which it
+would be impossible to overrate. Yet a few days, and it will be decided
+whether the people of the United States shall condemn their own conduct,
+by cashiering an Administration which they called upon to make war on
+the rebellious slaveholders of the South, or support that Administration
+in the strenuous endeavors which it is making to effect the
+reconstruction of the Republic, and the destruction of Slavery. It is to
+insult the intelligence and patriotism of the American people to
+entertain any serious doubt as to the issue of the contest. It can have
+but one issue, unless the country has lost its senses,&mdash;and never has it
+given better evidence of its sobriety, firmness, and rectitude of
+purpose than it now daily affords. Were the contest one relating to the
+conduct of the war, and had the Democratic party assumed a position of
+unquestionable loyalty, there would be some room for doubting who is to
+be our next President. It is impossible that a contest of proportions so
+vast should not have afforded ground for some complaint, on the score of
+its management. To suppose that the action of Government has been on all
+occasions exactly what it should have been is to suppose something so
+utterly out of the nature of things that it presents itself to no mind.
+Errors are unavoidable even in the ordinary affairs of common life, and
+their number and their magnitude increase with the importance of the
+business, and the greatness of the stage on which it is transacted. We
+have never claimed perfection for the Federal Administration, though we
+have ever been ready to do justice to the success which it has achieved
+on many occasions and to the excellence of its intentions on all. Had
+the Democrats called upon the country to displace the Administration
+because it had not done all that it should have done, promising to do
+more themselves against the Rebels than President Lincoln and his
+associates had effected, the result of the Presidential election might
+be involved in some doubt; for the people desire to see the Rebellion
+brought to an end, and the Democratic party has a great name as a ruling
+political organization, its history, during most of the present century,
+being virtually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_634" id="Page_634">[Pg 634]</a></span> the history of the American nation. But, with a want of
+wisdom that shows how much it has lost in losing that Southern lead
+which had so much to do with its success in politics, it chose to place
+itself in opposition to the national sentiment, instead of adopting it,
+guiding it, and profiting from its existence. The errors of the various
+parties that have been opposed to it have often been matter for mirth to
+the Democratic party, as well they may have been; but neither
+Federalists, nor National Republicans, nor Whigs, nor Know-Nothings, nor
+Republicans were ever guilty of a blunder so enormous as that which this
+party itself perpetrated at Chicago, when it virtually announced its
+readiness to surrender the country into the hands of the men who have so
+pertinaciously sought its destruction for the last four years. So
+strange has been its action, that we should be ashamed to have dreamed
+that any party could be guilty of it. Yet it is a living fact that the
+Democratic party, in spite of its loud claims to strict nationality of
+purpose, has so conducted itself as to show that it is willing to
+complete the work which the slaveholders began, and not only to submit
+to the terms which the Rebels would dictate, but to tear the Union still
+further to pieces, if indeed it would leave any two States in a united
+condition. Thus acting, that party has defeated itself, and reduced the
+action of the people to a mere, though a mighty, formality. Either this
+is a plain statement of the case, or this nation is about to give a
+practical answer to Bishop Butler's famous question, "What if a whole
+community were to go mad?" For the ratification of the Chicago Platform
+by the people would be an indorsement of violence and disorder, a direct
+approval of wilful rebellion, and an announcement that every election
+held in this country is to be followed by a revolutionary outbreak,
+until our condition shall have become even worse than that of Mexico,
+and we shall be ready to welcome the arrival, in the train of some
+European army, of a cadet of some imperial or royal house, whose
+"mission" it should be to restore order in the once United States, while
+anarchy should be kept at a distance by a liberal exhibition of French
+or German bayonets. What has happened to Mexico would assuredly happen
+here, if we should allow the country to Mexicanize itself at the bidding
+of Belmont and Co.</p>
+
+<p>But it may be said, it is unjust to attribute to the masses of the
+Democratic party intentions so bad as those of which we have spoken.
+That party, in past times, has done great things for the land, has
+always professed the highest patriotism, and its name and fame are most
+intimately associated with some of the noblest passages in the history
+of the Republic. All this is very true. We admit, what is indeed
+self-evident, that the Democratic party has done great things for the
+country, and that it can look back with just pride over the country's
+history, until a comparatively recent period; and we do not attribute to
+the masses composing it any other than the best intentions. It is not of
+those masses that we have spoken. The sentiment of patriotism is ever
+strong with the body of the people. The number of men who would wilfully
+injure their country has never been large in any age. But it is not the
+less true that parties are but too often the blind tools of leaders, of
+men whose only interest in their country is to use it for their own
+purposes, to make all they can out of it, and at its expense. The
+Democratic party has always been a disciplined party, and nothing is
+more notorious in its history than its submissiveness to its leaders.
+This has been the chief cause of its almost unbroken career of success;
+and it has been its pride and its boast that it has been well-trained,
+obedient, and consequently successful, while all other parties have been
+quarrelsome and impatient of discipline, and consequently have risen
+only to endure through a few years of sickly existence, and then to pass
+away. The Federalists,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_635" id="Page_635">[Pg 635]</a></span> the National Republicans, the Antimasons, the
+Whigs, and the Know-Nothings have each appeared, flourished for a short
+time, and then passed to the limbo of factions lost to earth. This
+discipline of the Democracy has not been without its uses, and the
+country occasionally has profited from it; but now it is to be abused,
+through application to the service of the Great Anarch at Richmond. The
+Rebel power, which our fleets and armies are steadily reducing day by
+day, is to be saved from overthrow, and its agents from the severe and
+just punishment which should be visited upon them for their great and
+unprovoked crime,&mdash;if they are to be saved therefrom,&mdash;through the
+action of the Democratic party, as it calls itself, and which purposes
+to go to the assistance of the slaveholders in war, as formerly it went
+to their assistance in peace, the meekest and most faithful and most
+useful of their slaves. The Democratic party, as a party, instead of
+being the sword of the Republic, purposes being the shield of the
+Rebellion. Such is the intention of its leaders, who control the
+disciplined masses, if their words have any meaning; and, so far as they
+have been able to act, their actions correspond strictly with their
+words. The Chicago Convention, which consisted of the <i>cr&egrave;me de la
+cr&egrave;me</i> of the Democracy, had not a word to say against either the Rebels
+or the Rebellion, while it had not words enough, or words not strong
+enough, to employ in denouncing those whose sole offence consists in
+their efforts to conquer the Rebels and to put down the Rebellion. With
+a perversion of history that is quite without a parallel even in the
+hardy falsehood of American politics, the responsibility for the war was
+placed to the account of the loyal men of the country, and not to the
+account of the traitors, who brought it upon the nation by a fierce
+forcing-process. The speech of Mr. Horatio Seymour, who presided over
+the Belmont band, is, as it were, a bill of indictment preferred against
+the American Republic; for Governor Seymour, though not famous for his
+courage, has boldness sufficient to do that which a far greater man said
+he would not do,&mdash;he has indicted a whole people. It follows from this
+condemnation of the Federal Government for making war on the Rebels, and
+this failure to condemn the Rebels for making war on the Federal
+Government, that the Democrats, should they succeed in electing their
+candidates, would pursue a course exactly the opposite of that which
+they denounce. They would withdraw the nation from the contest, and
+acknowledge the independence of the Southern Confederacy; and then they
+would make such a treaty with its leading and dominant interest as
+should place the United States in the condition of dependency with
+reference to the South. That such would be their course is not only
+fairly inferrible from the views embodied in the Chicago Platform, and
+from the speeches made in the Chicago Convention, but it is what Mr.
+Pendleton, the Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency, has said it
+is our duty to do so, so far as relates to acknowledging the
+Confederacy. He has deliberately said, that, if we cannot "conciliate"
+the Rebels, and "persuade" them to come back into the Union, we should
+allow them to depart in peace. Such is the doctrine of the gentleman who
+was placed on the Democratic ticket with General McClellan for the
+avowed purpose of rendering that ticket palatable to the Peace men. No
+man can vote for General McClellan without by the same act voting for
+Mr. Pendleton; and we know that Mr. Pendleton has declared himself ready
+to let the Rebels rend the Union to tatters, and that he has opposed the
+prosecution of the war. General McClellan is mortal, and, if elected,
+might die long before his Presidential term should be out, like General
+Taylor, or immediately after it should begin, like General Harrison.
+Then Mr. Pendleton would become President, like Mr. Tyler, in 1841, who
+cheated the Whigs, or like Mr. Fillmore, in 1850, who cheated everybody.
+Nor is it by any means certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_636" id="Page_636">[Pg 636]</a></span> that General McClellan would not, once
+elected, consider himself the Chicago Platform, as Mr. Buchanan avowed
+himself to be the Cincinnati Platform. He has written a letter, to be
+sure, in which he has given it to be understood that he is in favor of
+continuing the war against the Rebels until they shall be subdued; but
+so did Mr. Polk, twenty yearn ago, write a letter on the Tariff of 1842
+that was even more satisfactory to the Democratic Protectionists of
+those days than the letter of General McClellan can be to the War
+Democrats of these days. All of us recollect the famous Democratic
+blazon of 1844,&mdash;"Polk, Dallas, and the Tariff of '42!" It was under
+that sign that the Democrats conquered in Pennsylvania; and had they not
+conquered in Pennsylvania, they themselves would have been conquered in
+the nation. Mr. Polk and Mr. Dallas were the chief instruments used to
+break down the Tariff of '42, in less than two years after they had been
+elected to the first and second offices of the nation because they were
+believed to be its most ardent friends. Mr. Polk, as President,
+recommended that it should be changed, and employed all the influence of
+his high station to get the Tariff Bill of 1846 through Congress; and
+Mr. Dallas, who had been nominated for the Vice-Presidency with the
+express purpose of "catching" the votes of Protectionists, gave his
+casting vote in the Senate in favor of the new bill, which meant the
+repeal of the Tariff of '42. The Democrats are playing the same game now
+that they played in 1844, with this difference, that the stakes are ten
+thousand times greater now than they were then, and that their manner of
+play is far hardier than it was twenty years since. Then, the question,
+though important, related only to a point of internal policy; now, it
+relates to the national existence. Then, the Free-Traders did not
+offensively proclaim their intention to cheat the Protectionists; now,
+Mr. Fernando Wood and Mr. Vallandigham, and other leaders of the extreme
+left of the Democratic party, with insulting candor, avow that to cheat
+the country is the purpose which that party has in view. Mr.
+Vallandigham, who made the Chicago Platform, explicitly declares that
+that Platform and General McClellan's letter of acceptance do not agree;
+at the same time Mr. Wood, who is for peace to the knife, calmly tells
+us that General McClellan, as President, would do the work of the
+Democracy,&mdash;and we need no Daniel to interpret Mr. Wood's words. We mean
+no disrespect to General McClellan, on the contrary we treat him with
+perfect respect, when we say that we do not believe he has a higher
+sense of honor than Mr. Polk possessed; and as Mr. Polk became a tool in
+the hands of a faction,&mdash;being a Protectionist during the contest of
+'44, and an Anti-Protectionist after that contest had been decided in
+his favor,&mdash;so is it intended that General McClellan shall become a tool
+in the hands of another faction. Mr. Polk was employed to effect the
+destruction of a "black tariff": General McClellan is employed to
+destroy a nation that is supposed to be given up to "black
+republicanism." We do not believe that the soldier will be found so
+successful an instrument as the civilian proved to be.</p>
+
+<p>An ounce of fact is supposed to be worth a ton of theory; and the facts
+of the last four or five years admit of our believing the worst that can
+be suspected of the purposes of the Democratic party. It is not
+uncharitable to say that the leaders and managers of that party
+contemplate, in the event of their triumph in November, the surrender of
+the country to the slaveholding oligarchy; in the event of their defeat
+by a small majority, the extension of the civil war over the North. Four
+years ago we could not be made to believe that Secession was a possible
+thing. We admitted that there were Secessionists at the South, but we
+could not be made to believe in the possibility of Secession. Even
+"South Carolina couldn't be kicked out of the Union," it was commonly
+said in the North. There were but few disunionists<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_637" id="Page_637">[Pg 637]</a></span> at the South, almost
+everybody said, and almost everybody believed what was said concerning
+the state of Southern opinion. In a few weeks we saw, not South Carolina
+kicked out of the Union, but South Carolina kicking the Union away from
+her. In a few months we saw eleven States take themselves out of the
+Union, form themselves into a Confederacy, and raise great armies to
+fight against the Union. Yet it is certain that in the month of
+November, 1860, there were not twenty thousand resolute disunionists in
+all the Slaveholding States, leaving South Carolina and Mississippi
+aside,&mdash;and not above fifty thousand in all the South, including
+Mississippi and South Carolina. How, then, came it to pass that nearly
+the whole of the population of the South became Rebels in so short a
+time? Because they were under the dominion of their leading men, who
+took them from the right road, and conducted them into the slough of
+rebellion. Because they were encouraged so to act by the Northern
+Democracy as made rebellion inevitable. The Northern Democratic press
+and Northern Democratic orators held such language respecting "Southern
+rights" as induced even loyal Southrons to suppose that Slavery was to
+be openly recognized by the Constitution, and spread over the nation.
+The President of the United States, a Northern Democrat, gravely
+declared that there existed no right in the Government to coerce a
+seceding State, which was all that the most determined Secessionist
+could ask. Instead of doing anything to strengthen the position of the
+federal Government, the President did all that he could to assist the
+Secessionists, and left the country naked to their attacks; and he
+parted on the best of terms with those Rebels who left his Cabinet,
+where they had long been busy in organizing resistance to Federal
+authority. The leaders of the Northern Democracy, far from exhibiting a
+loyal spirit, urged the slaveholders to make demands which were at war
+with the Constitution and the laws, and which could not have been
+complied with, unless it had been meant to admit that there was no
+binding force in existing institutions, the validity of which had not
+once been called in question for seventy-two years. The real
+Secessionists of the South, Rhett and Yancey and their followers,
+availed themselves of the existing state of affairs, and precipitated
+rebellion,&mdash;a step which they never would have taken, had they not been
+assured that no resistance would be made to their action so long as Mr.
+Buchanan should remain in the Presidency, and that he would be supported
+by the leaders of the Northern Democracy, who would take their followers
+with them along the road that led to the Union's dissolution. South
+Carolina, rabid as she was, did not rebel until the last Democratic
+President of the United States had publicly assured her that he would do
+nothing to prevent her from reducing the Calhoun theory to practice; and
+had she not rebelled, not another State would have left the Union. The
+opportunity that she could not get under President Jackson she obtained
+under President Buchanan,&mdash;and she did not hesitate to make the most of
+that opportunity, all indeed that could be made of it, well knowing that
+it could not be expected again to occur.</p>
+
+<p>With these facts before them, the American people should be prepared for
+further rebellious action on the part of that faction whose creed it is
+that rebellion is right when directed against the ascendency of their
+political opponents. They have done their utmost to assist the Rebels
+all through the war, and the great riots in New York last year were the
+legitimate consequences of their doctrine, if not of their labors. We
+know that organizations hostile to the Union have been formed in the
+West, and that there was to have been a rising there, had any striking
+successes been achieved by the Confederate forces during the last six
+months. Nothing but the vigor and the victories of Grant and Sherman and
+Farragut saved the North from becoming the scene of civil war in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_638" id="Page_638">[Pg 638]</a></span> 1864.
+Nothing but the vigor and union of the people in their political
+capacity can keep civil war from the North hereafter. The followers of
+the Seymours and other ultra Democrats of the North are not more loyal
+than were nine-tenths of the Southern people in 1860. Few of them now
+think of becoming rebels, but they would as readily rebel as did the
+Southern men who have filled the armies of Lee and Beauregard, and who
+have poured out their blood so lavishly to destroy that nation which
+owes its existence to the labors of Southern men, to the exertions of
+Washington, Jefferson, Henry, and others, natives of the very States
+that have done most in the cause of destruction. The sentiment of
+nationality is no stronger among Northern Democrats than it was among
+Southern Democrats; and as the latter were converted into traitors at
+the bidding of a few leading politicians whose plans were favored by
+circumstances, so would the former become traitors at the first signal
+to any move that <i>their</i> leaders should make. As to the two classes of
+leaders, the Southern men are far superior in every manly quality to
+those Northern men who are doing their work. It is possible that the men
+of the South really did believe that their property was in danger, and
+it is beyond dispute that they were alarmed about their political power;
+but the men of the North who sympathize with them, and who are prepared
+to aid them at the first opportunity that shall offer to strike an
+effective blow, well knew that the victorious Republicans had neither
+the will nor the power to injure Southern property or to weaken the
+protection it enjoyed under the Constitution. Their hostility to the
+Union is purely gratuitous, or springs from motives of the most sordid
+character.</p>
+
+<p>There is but one way to meet the danger that threatens us,&mdash;a danger
+that really is greater than that with which we were threatened in 1860,
+and which we have the advantage of seeing, whereas we could see nothing
+in that year. We must strengthen the Government, make it literally
+irresistible, by clothing it with the whole of that power which proceeds
+from an emphatic and unmistakable expression of the popular will. Give
+Mr. Lincoln, in the approaching election, the strength that comes from a
+united people, and we shall have peace maintained throughout the North,
+and peace restored to the South. Re&euml;lect him by a small majority, and
+there will be civil war in the North, and a revival of warlike spirit in
+the South. Elect General McClellan, and we shall have to choose between
+constant warfare, as a consequence of having approved of Secession by
+approving of the Chicago Platform,&mdash;which is Secession formally
+democratized,&mdash;and despotism, the only thing that would save us from
+anarchy. Anarchy is the one thing that men will not, because they
+cannot, long endure. Order is indeed now and forever Heaven's first law,
+and order society must and will have. Order is just as compatible with
+constitutional government as it is with despotic government; but to have
+it in connection with freedom, in other words, with the existence of a
+constitutional polity, the people must do their whole duty. They must
+rise above the prejudices of party and of faction, and see nothing but
+their country and liberty. They must show that they are worthy of
+freedom, or they cannot long have it. Now is the time to prove that the
+American people know the difference between liberty and license, by
+their support of the party of order and constitutional government, and
+by administering a thorough rebuke to those licentious men who are
+seeking to overwhelm the country and its Constitution in a common ruin.</p>
+
+<p>Of President Lincoln's re&euml;lection no doubt can be entertained, whether
+we judge of the issue by the condition of the country, or by the
+sentiments that should animate the great majority of the people, and by
+which, we are convinced, that majority is animated. The Union candidate,
+no matter what his name or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_639" id="Page_639">[Pg 639]</a></span> antecedents, should be elected by a majority
+so great as to "coerce" the turbulent portion of the Democracy into
+submission to the laws of the land, and into respect for the popular
+will, the last thing for which Democrats have any respect. Had the Union
+National Convention seen fit to place a new man in nomination, it would
+have been the duty of the voters to support him with all the means
+honestly at their command; but we must say that there is a peculiar
+obligation upon Americans to re&euml;lect Mr. Lincoln, and to re&euml;lect him by
+a vote that should surprise even the most sanguine and hopeful of his
+friends. The war from which the nation, and the whole world, have been
+made to suffer so much, and from the effects of which mankind will be
+long in recovering, was made because of Mr. Lincoln's election to the
+Presidency. The North was to be punished for having had the audacity to
+elect him even when the Democracy were divided, and the success of the
+Republican candidate was a thing of course. He, a mere man of the
+people, should never become <i>President of the United States</i>! The most
+good-natured of men, it is known that his success made him an object of
+personal aversion to the Southern leaders. They did their worst to
+prevent his becoming President of the Republic, and in that way they
+wronged and insulted the people far more than they wronged and insulted
+the man whom the people had elected to the highest post in the land; and
+the people are bound, by way of vindicating their dignity and
+establishing their power, to make Mr. Lincoln President of the <i>United</i>
+States, to compel the acknowledgment of his legal right to be the chief
+magistrate of the nation as unreservedly, from South Carolina as from
+Massachusetts. His authority should be admitted as fully in Virginia as
+it is in New York, in Georgia and Alabama as in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
+This can follow only from his re&euml;lection; and it can follow only from
+his re&euml;lection by a decisive majority. That insolent spirit which led
+the South to become so easy a prey to the Secession faction, when not a
+tenth part of its people were Secessionists, should be thoroughly,
+emphatically rebuked, and its chief representatives severely punished,
+by extorting from the rebellious section a practical admission of the
+enormity of the crime of which it was guilty when it resisted the lawful
+authority of a President who was chosen in strict accordance with the
+requirements of the Constitution, and who entertained no more intention
+of interfering with the constitutional rights of the South than he
+thought of instituting a crusade for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.
+The majesty of the law should be asserted and established, and that can
+best be done by placing President Lincoln a second time at the head of
+the Republic, the revolt of the slaveholders being directed against him
+personally as well as against that principle of which he was the legally
+elected representative. In him the spirit of order is incarnate; and his
+re&euml;lection by a great popular vote would be the establishment of the
+fact that under our system it is possible to maintain order, and to
+humiliate and subdue the children of anarchy.</p>
+
+<p>President Lincoln should be re&euml;lected, if for no other reason, that
+there may go forth to the world a pointed approval of his conduct from
+his constituents. As we have said, we do not claim perfection for the
+policy and acts of the Administration; but we are of opinion that its
+mistakes have been no greater than in most instances would have been
+committed by any body of men that could have been selected from the
+entire population of the country. Take the policy that has been pursued
+with reference to Slavery. Many of us thought that the President issued
+his Emancipation Proclamation at least a year too late; but we must now
+see that the time selected for its promulgation was as skilfully chosen
+as its aim was laudable. Had it come out a year earlier, in 1861, the
+friends of the Rebels could have said, with much plausibility, that its
+appearance had rendered a restoration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_640" id="Page_640">[Pg 640]</a></span> of the Union impossible, and that
+the slaveholders had no longer any hope of having their property-rights
+respected under the Federal Constitution. But by allowing seventeen
+months to elapse before issuing it, the President compelled the Rebels
+to commit themselves absolutely to the cause of the Union's overthrow
+without reference to any attack that had been made on Slavery in a time
+of war. It has not, therefore, been in the power of their allies here to
+say that the issuing of the Proclamation placed an impassable gulf
+between the Union and the Confederacy; for the Confederates were as loud
+in their declarations that they never would return into the Union before
+the Proclamation appeared as they have been since its appearance. They
+were caught completely, and deprived of the only pretence that could
+have been invented for their benefit, by themselves or by their friends.
+The adoption of an Emancipation policy did not cause us the loss of one
+friend in the South, while it gained friends for our cause in every
+country that felt an interest in our struggle. It prevented the
+acknowledgment of the Southern Confederacy by France, and by other
+nations, as French example would have found prompt imitation. Its
+appearance was the turning event of the war, and it was most happily
+timed for both foreign and domestic effect. It will be the noblest fact
+in President Lincoln's history, that by the same action he announced
+freedom to four millions of bondmen, and secured his country against
+even the possibility of foreign mediation, foreign intervention, and
+foreign war.</p>
+
+<p>The political state of the country, as indicated by the result of recent
+elections, is not without interest, in connection with the Presidential
+contest. Since the nomination of General McClellan, elections have been
+held in several States for local officers and Members of Congress, and
+the results are highly favorable to the Union cause. The first election
+was held in Vermont, and the Union party re&euml;lected their candidate for
+Governor, and all their candidates for Members of Congress, by a
+majority of more than twenty thousand. They have also a great majority
+in the Legislature, the Democrats not choosing so much as one Senator,
+and but few Members of the House of Representatives. The election in
+Maine took place but six days after that of Vermont, and with similar
+results. The Union candidate for Governor was re&euml;lected, by a majority
+that is stated at sixteen thousand. Every Congressional District was
+carried by the Union men. In one district a Democrat was elected in
+1862, at the time when the Administration was very unpopular because of
+the military failures that were so common in the summer of that dark and
+eventful year. His majority was one hundred and twenty-seven. At the
+late election his constituents refused to re&euml;lect him, and his place was
+bestowed on a friend of the Administration, whose majority is said to be
+about two thousand. The majorities of the other candidates were much
+larger, in two instances exceeding four thousand each. The State
+Legislature elected on the same day is of Administration politics in the
+proportion of five to one. These two States may be said to represent
+both of the old parties that existed in New England during the thirty
+years that followed the Presidential election of 1824. Vermont was of
+National-Republican or Whig politics down to 1854, and always voted
+against Democratic candidates for the Presidency. Maine was almost as
+strongly Democratic in her opinions and action as Vermont was
+Anti-Democratic, voting but once, in 1840, against a Democratic
+candidate for the Presidency, in twenty-four years. Her electoral votes
+were given for General Jackson in 1832, for Mr. Van Buren in 1836, for
+Mr. Polk in 1844, for General Cass in 1848, and for General Pierce in
+1852. Yet she has acted politically with Vermont for more than ten
+years, both States supporting Colonel Fremont in 1856, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_641" id="Page_641">[Pg 641]</a></span> Mr. Lincoln
+in 1860,&mdash;a striking proof of the levelling effect of that pro-slavery
+policy and action which have characterized the Democratic party ever
+since the inauguration of President Pierce, in 1853. Had the Democratic
+party not gone over to the support of the slaveholding interest, Maine
+would have been a Democratic State at this day.</p>
+
+<p>There were important elections held on the 11th of October in the great
+and influential States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, and the
+verdicts which should be pronounced by these States were expected with
+an interest which it was impossible to increase, as it was felt that
+they would go far toward deciding the event of the Presidential contest.
+Vermont's action might be attributed to her determined and
+long-continued opposition to the Democratic party, which no change in
+others could operate to lessen; and the course of Maine could be
+attributed to her "Yankee" character and position: but Pennsylvania has
+generally been Democratic in her decisions, and she has nothing of the
+Yankee about her, while Ohio and Indiana are thoroughly Western in all
+respects. Down to a few days before the time for voting, the common
+opinion was, that Pennsylvania would give a respectable majority for the
+Union candidates, that Ohio would pronounce the same way by a great
+majority, and that Indiana would be found with the Democrats; but early
+in October doubts began to prevail with respect to the action of
+Pennsylvania, though no one could say why they came to exist. What
+happened showed that the change in feeling did not unfaithfully
+foreshadow the change that had taken place in the second State of the
+Union. Ohio's decision was not different from what had been expected,
+her Union majority being not less than fifty thousand, including the
+soldiers' vote. Indiana's action astonished every one. Instead of
+furnishing evidence that General McClellan's nomination had been
+beneficial to his party, the event in the Hoosier State led to the
+opposite conclusion. The Democratic majority in that State in 1862 was
+ten thousand, and that it could be overcome, or materially reduced, was
+not thought possible. Yet the voting done there on the 11th of October
+terminated most disastrously for the Democrats, the popular majority
+against them being not less than twenty thousand, while they lost
+several Members of Congress, among them Mr. Voorhees, who is to Indiana
+what Mr. Vallandigham is to Ohio, only that he has a little more
+prudence than the Ohioan. Indiana was the only one of the States in
+which a Governor was chosen, which made the returns easy of attainment.
+Governor Morton, who is re&euml;lected, "stumped" the State; and to his
+exertions, no doubt, much of the Union success is due. In Pennsylvania,
+at the time we write, it is not settled which party has the majority on
+the home vote; but, as the soldiers vote in the proportion of about
+eleven to two for the Republican candidates, the majority of the latter
+will be good,&mdash;and it will be increased at the November election.</p>
+
+<p>The States that voted on the 11th of October give sixty electoral votes,
+or two more than half the number necessary for a choice of President.
+They are all certain to be given for Mr. Lincoln, as also are the votes
+of the six New England States, and those of New York, Illinois,
+Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, West Virginia, and
+California, making 189 in all, the States mentioned being entitled to
+the following votes:&mdash;Massachusetts 12, Maine 7, New Hampshire 5,
+Vermont 5, Rhode Island 4, Connecticut 6, New York 33, Pennsylvania 26,
+Ohio 21, Indiana 13, Illinois 16, Michigan 8, Minnesota 4, Wisconsin 8,
+Iowa 8, Kansas 3, West Virginia 5, and California 5. And so <span class="smcap">Abraham
+Lincoln</span> and <span class="smcap">Andrew Johnson</span> will be President and Vice-President of the
+United States for the four years that shall begin on the 4th of March,
+1865.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_642" id="Page_642">[Pg 642]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES" id="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"></a>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>An American Dictionary of the English Language.</i> By <span class="smcap">Noah
+Webster, LL.D.</span> Thoroughly revised, and greatly enlarged and
+improved, by <span class="smcap">Chauncey A. Goodrich, LL.D.</span>, etc., and <span class="smcap">Noah
+Porter, D.D.</span>, etc. Springfield, Mass.: G. &amp; C. Merriam. Royal
+4to. pp. lxxii., 1768.</p></div>
+
+<p>Beyond cavil, this portly and handsome volume makes good the claim which
+is set forth on the title-page. The revision which the old edition has
+undergone is manifestly a most thorough one, extending to every
+department of the work, and to its minutest details. The enlargement it
+has received is very considerable, the size of the page having been
+increased, and more than eighty pages added to the number contained in
+the previous or "Pictorial" edition. The improvements are not only
+really such, but they are so many and so great that they amount to a
+complete remodelling of the work; and hence the objections heretofore
+brought against it&mdash;many of them very justly&mdash;have, for the most part,
+no longer any validity or pertinency. It may be questioned, however,
+whether the Dictionary, in view of the manifold and extensive changes
+which have been made in its matter and plan, should not be said to have
+been <i>based</i> on that of Dr. Webster rather than to be <i>by</i> him. St.
+Anthony's shirt cannot be patched and patched forever and still remain
+St. Anthony's shirt. But there is doubtless much virtue in a name, and,
+so long as the publishers have given us a truly excellent work, it
+matters little by what title they choose to call it.</p>
+
+<p>We are amazed at the vastness of the vocabulary, which embraces upwards
+of one hundred and fourteen thousand words, being some ten thousand
+more, it is claimed, than any other word-book of the language. Such
+unexampled fulness would be apt to excite a suspicion that a
+deliberately adopted system of crimping had been carried on within the
+tempting domains of the natural sciences, to furnish recruits for this
+enormous army of vocables. But we do not find, upon a pretty careful
+examination, that many terms of this sort have been admitted which are
+not fairly entitled to a place in a popular lexicon.</p>
+
+<p>In the matter of definition, we can unqualifiedly commend the principles
+by which the editor and his coadjutors appear to have been guided,
+notwithstanding an occasional failure to carry out these principles with
+entire consistency. The crying fault of mistaking different applications
+of a meaning of a word for essentially different significations&mdash;the
+head and front of Dr. Webster's offending as a definer, and not of Dr.
+Webster only, but of almost all other lexicographers&mdash;has generally been
+avoided in this edition. The philosophical analysis, the orderly
+arrangement of meanings, the simplicity, comprehensiveness, and
+precision of statement, the freedom from prejudice, crotchets, and
+dogmatism, the good taste and good sense, which characterize this
+portion of the work, are deserving of the fullest recognition and the
+highest praise.</p>
+
+<p>In the department of etymology, the revision has been thorough indeed,
+and, as all the world knows, the Dictionary stood sadly enough in need
+of it. But we were not prepared for so entire and fearless an
+overhauling of Dr. Webster's "Old Curiosity Shop," or for a contribution
+to philological science so valuable and original. It is not too much to
+say that no other English dictionary, and no special treatise on English
+etymology, that has yet appeared, can compare with it. As a fitting
+introduction to the subject, a "Brief History of the English Language,"
+by Professor James Hadley, is prefixed to the vocabulary, and will well
+repay careful study.</p>
+
+<p>No excellences, however, we apprehend, in definition or etymology will
+reconcile scholars to those peculiarities of spelling which are commonly
+known as Websterianisms, and which, with a few exceptions, are retained
+in the edition before us. The pages of this magazine are evidence that
+we ourselves regard them with no favor. But we are bound, in common
+honesty, to state, that, in every case in which Dr. Webster's
+orthography is given, it is accompanied by the common spelling, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_643" id="Page_643">[Pg 643]</a></span>
+thus the user of the book is left at liberty to take his choice of
+modes. We are also bound, in common fairness, to admit that many, if not
+all, of the quite limited number of changes put forward in the later
+editions of the Dictionary are, in themselves considered, unquestionable
+improvements, and that, if adopted by the whole English-writing public
+on both sides of the water, or even in this country alone, would redeem
+our common language from some of the gross anomalies and grievous
+confusion which now make it a monster among the graphic systems of the
+world, and a stumbling-block and stone of offence to all who undertake
+to learn it. Furthermore, it must be conceded that almost all our
+lexicographers have been nearly or quite as ready as Dr. Webster to
+attempt improvements in orthography, though they may have shown more
+discretion than he. It is not generally known, we suspect, but it is
+none the less a fact, that Johnson, Todd, Perry, Smart, Worcester, and
+various other eminent orthographers, have all deviated more or less from
+actual usage, in order to carry out some "principle" or "analogy" of the
+language, or to give sanction and authority to some individual fancy of
+their own. So much may be said in defence of Dr. Webster against the
+ignorant vituperation with which he has often been assailed. But, on the
+other hand, he is fairly open to the charge of having violated his own
+canons in repeated instances. To take a single case, why should he not
+have spelt <i>until</i> with two <i>l</i>s, instead of one,&mdash;as he does "distill,"
+"fulfill," etc.,&mdash;when it was so desirable to complete an analogy, and
+when he had for it the warrant of a very common, if not the most
+reputable, usage? Again, it seems to us, that, if our orthography is to
+be reformed at all, it should be reformed not indifferently, but
+altogether; for it is, beyond controversy, atrociously bad, poorly
+fulfilling, as Professor Hadley justly remarks, (p. xxviii.,) its
+original and proper office of indicating pronunciation, while it no
+better fufils the improper office, which some would assert for it, of a
+guide to etymology. Emendations on the here-a-little-there-a-little
+plan, while they do no harm, do little good. They are but topical
+remedies, which cannot restore the pristine vigor of a ruined
+constitution. What we need is a reform as thorough-going as that which
+has been effected in the Spanish language. Shall we ever have it? or
+will the irrational conservatism of the educated classes, in all time to
+come, prevent a consummation so desirable, and so desiderated by the
+philologist? Max M&uuml;ller thinks that perhaps our posterity, some three
+hundred years hence, may write as they speak,&mdash;in other words, that our
+orthography will by that time have become a phonetic one. It is not safe
+to prophesy; but, whether such a result comes soon or late, the credit
+of having accomplished it will not be due to those "half-learned and
+parcel-learned" persons who consider the present written form of the
+language as a thing "taboo," and look with such horror upon all attempts
+to better its condition.</p>
+
+<p>As regards pronunciation, we think this will be generally considered one
+of the strong points of the new Dictionary. The introductory treatise on
+the "Principles of Pronunciation" is a comprehensive, instructive, and
+eminently practical, though not very philosophically constructed,
+exposition of the subject of English ortho&euml;py. It contains an analysis
+and description of the elementary sounds of the language, a discussion
+of certain questions about which ortho&euml;pists are at variance, and a
+useful collection of facts, rules, and directions respecting a variety
+of other matters falling within its scope. As a sort of pendant to this,
+we have a "Synopsis of Words differently pronounced by Different
+Ortho&euml;pists," which those who regulate their pronunciation by written
+authorities or opinions may find it useful to consult. The
+pronunciations given in the body of the work appear to be conformed to
+the usage of the best speakers. We notice with gratification that such
+vulgarisms as ab&acute;do-men, pus&acute;sl (for pust&acute;ule!), s<i>w</i>ord (for s[=o]rd),
+etc., no longer continue to deface the book.</p>
+
+<p>A large number of wood-cuts, mostly selected with good judgment and
+skilfully engraved, adorn the pages, and throw light upon the
+definitions. Besides being inserted in the vocabulary in connection with
+the words they illustrate, they are brought together, in a classified
+form, at the end of the volume. This is claimed as an "obvious
+advantage."</p>
+
+<p>We have left ourselves but little space to notice the very rich and
+attractive Appendix, the first fifty pages of which are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_644" id="Page_644">[Pg 644]</a></span> taken up with
+an "Explanatory and Pronouncing Vocabulary of the Names of Noted
+Fictitious Persons and Places," etc., by William A. Wheeler. The
+conception of such a work was singularly happy, as well as original,
+and, on the whole, the task has been executed with commendable fidelity
+and discretion. That occasional omissions and mistakes should be
+discovered will probably surprise no one less than the author. Attention
+has elsewhere been publicly called, in particular, to the fact that Owen
+Meredith is given as the pseudonyme of Sir Bulwer Lytton instead of his
+son, E. R. Bulwer: this would seem to be a bad blunder, but we
+understand that it was a mere error of oversight, and that it was
+corrected before the Dictionary was fairly in the market. If other
+mistakes should be brought to light,&mdash;and what work of such multiplicity
+was ever free from them?&mdash;Mr. Wheeler will doubtless call to mind, and
+his readers must not forget, the eloquent excuse which Dr. Johnson
+offers, in the preface to his Dictionary, for his own
+shortcomings:&mdash;"That sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise
+vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses
+of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in
+vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he
+knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his
+thoughts to-morrow." The "Pronouncing Vocabularies of Modern
+Geographical and Biographical Names, by J. Thomas, M. D.," are evidently
+the product of laborious and conscientious research; and, while we
+differ widely from Dr. Thomas on various points, general and particular,
+we must allow that his vocabularies are as yet the only ones of the kind
+which approximate with any nearness to the character of an authoritative
+standard. The other Vocabularies or "Tables" of the Appendix seem also
+to have been prepared with sound judgment and much painstaking, but we
+cannot dwell upon them.</p>
+
+<p>To sum up, in all the essential points of a good dictionary,&mdash;in the
+amplitude and selectness of its vocabulary, in the fulness and
+perspicacity of its definitions, in its ortho&euml;py and (<i>cum grano salis</i>)
+its orthography, in its new and trustworthy etymologies, in the
+elaborate, but not too learned treatises of its Introduction, in its
+carefully prepared and valuable appendices,&mdash;briefly, in its general
+accuracy, completeness, and practical utility,&mdash;the work is one which
+none who read or write can henceforward afford to dispense with.</p>
+
+<p>Mindful of the old adage, we have instituted no comparison between
+Webster and Worcester. If the latter, excellent as it is, should now be
+found in some respects inferior to the former, it is to be remembered
+that the present edition of Webster has the great advantage of being
+four or five years later in point of time, and that it has been enriched
+by the use of materials which were not accessible to Worcester. We are
+glad to see a handsome tribute to the learning and industry of Dr.
+Worcester, and an honest acknowledgment of indebtedness to his labors,
+in Professor Porter's Preface. This is as it should be; and we hope that
+the publishers, on both sides, acting in the same spirit, will forego
+all unfriendly controversy. Let there be no new War of the Dictionaries.
+The world is wide enough for both, and both are monuments of industry,
+judgment, and erudition, in the highest degree creditable to American
+scholarship, and unequalled by anything that has yet been done by
+English philologists of the present century.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Dramatis Person&aelig;.</i> By <span class="smcap">Robert Browning</span>. Boston: Ticknor and
+Fields.</p></div>
+
+<p>The title of this new volume of poems expresses the peculiarity which we
+find in everything that Mr. Browning composes. Notwithstanding the
+remoteness of his moods, and the curious subtilty with which he follows
+the trace of exceptional feelings, he impersonates dramatically: there
+may be few such people as these choice acquaintances of his genius, but
+they are persons, and not mere figures labelled with a thought. Pippa,
+Guendolen, Luria, the Duchess, Bishop Blougram, Fr&agrave; Lippo Lippi, are
+persons, however much they may be given to episodes and reverie. You
+find a great deal that is irrelevant to the thorough working-out of a
+character, much that is not simply individual: Mr. Browning gets
+sometimes in the way, so that you lose sight of his companion, but it
+is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_645" id="Page_645">[Pg 645]</a></span> not as Punch's master overzealously pulls the wires of his puppets.
+You would not say that a man can find many such companions, but you
+cannot deny that they are vividly described. Perhaps they appear in only
+one or two moods, but these have individual life. They are discovered in
+rare exalted or peculiar moments, but these are in costume and bathed in
+color. Shutting and opening many doors, balked at one vestibule and
+traversing another, suddenly you surprise the lord or mistress of the
+mansion, or from some threshold you silently observe their secret
+passion, which is unconscious of the daylight, and is caught in all its
+frankness. You come upon people, and not upon pictures in a house.</p>
+
+<p>But the pictures, too, in all Mr. Browning's interiors, seem to have
+grown out of the life of the persons. He has not merely come in and hung
+them up, as poor artist or upholsterer, to make a sumptuous house for
+fine people to move into. The character in any one of his poems seems to
+have devised the furnishing: it is distinct, exterior, not always
+helping or expressing the character's thought, sometimes to be referred
+to that only with an effort, but still no other character could have so
+furnished his house. You can find the individuality everywhere, if you
+care to take the trouble. But if you are in haste, or do not
+particularly sympathize with the person whose drama you surprise, you
+and he will be together like vagrants in a gallery, who long for a
+catalogue, dislocate their necks, and anathematize the whole collection.
+But do not then say that you have gauged and criticized the life that
+streams from Mr. Browning's pen.</p>
+
+<p>How vivid and personal is, for instance, "Pictor Ignotus," one of the
+earlier poems! The painter is no longer unknown, for his mood betrays
+and describes him. It is not merely his speaking in the first person
+which saves him from melting into an abstraction, but it is that the "I"
+takes flesh and lives; the poet dramatizes or <i>shows</i> him.</p>
+
+<p>Of this class of poems is the one entitled "Abt Vogler" in the present
+volume. The Abbot was a famous musician and organist, the teacher of
+Meyerbeer. Concerning the new kind of organ which he invented, and which
+he called an "Orchestricon," we know nothing, save that its effects were
+merely amplifications of those belonging to an organ. The poem describes
+the awe and rapture which fill the soul of a great organist when the
+instrument shudders, soars, rejoices in his inspiration. It is not the
+description of a musical mood, but the showing of a man who has the
+mood. It is the exultation and religious feeling of a man in the very
+act. The noble lines are not fine things attempting to set forth the
+metaphysics of musical expression and enjoyment, but they represent a
+man at the very climax of his musical passion. Is the effect any the
+less dramatic because the man is not committing a murder, or conspiring,
+or seducing, or overreaching, or infecting an honest ear with jealousy?
+It is not so theatrical, because the emotion itself is not so broad and
+popular, but its inmost genius is dramatic.</p>
+
+<p>"A Death in the Desert" is another poem that attempts to restore a
+fleeting moment, full of profound thought and feeling, by giving it
+individuals, and showing them living in it, instead of meditating about
+it with fine after-thoughts. Pamphylax describes the death of St. John
+in a desert cave. At first the individuals are clearly seen; but the
+poem soon lapses into philosophizing, and winds up with theology. Still,
+here is the power of reproducing the tone and sentiments of a
+long-buried and forgotten epoch, as if the matters involved had
+immediate interest and were vigorously mauled in all the newspapers. St.
+John might have died last week, or we might be Syrian converts of the
+second century, dissolved in tenderness at the thought that the Beloved
+Disciple at last had gone to lay his head again upon the Master's bosom.
+The poem talks as if it were trying to satisfy this mixture of memory
+and curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the best lines ever written by Mr. Browning are here. Take
+these, for instance. Pamphylax, reporting John's last words, as the
+hoary life flickered and clung, gives this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"A stick, once fire from end to end;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now ashes, save the tip that holds a spark!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, spreads itself<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A little where the fire was: thus I urge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The soul that served me, till it task once more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_646" id="Page_646">[Pg 646]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What ashes of my brain have kept their shape,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And these make effort on the last o' the flesh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trying to taste again the truth of things."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And after recalling the inspirations of Patmos:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But at the last, why, I seemed left alive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a sea-jelly weak on Patmos strand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I fared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When there was mid-sea, and the mighty things.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">*    *    *<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet now I wake in such decrepitude<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As I had slidden down and fallen afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past even the presence of my former self,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till I am found away from my own world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Feeling for foothold through a blank profound."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The poem entitled "Caliban upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology in the
+Island," has for a motto, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an
+one as thyself." Caliban talks to himself about "that other, whom his
+dam called God." Setebos is the great First Cause as conceived and
+dreaded in the heart of a Caliban. The poem is by no means a caricature
+of the natural theology which springs from selfishness and fear. All the
+phenomena of the world are neither</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"right nor wrong in Him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor kind nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Am strong myself, compared to yonder crabs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That march now from the mountain to the sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Loving not, hating not, just choosing so."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The materialist who believes in Forces is brother to the Calvinist who
+preaches Sovereignty and the Divine Decrees. The preacher lets loose
+upon the imagination of mankind a Setebos, who after death will plague
+his enemies and feast his friends. The materialist believes, with
+Caliban, that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"He doth his worst in this our life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Giving just respite lest we die through pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saving last pain for worst,&mdash;with which, an end."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The grave irony of this poem so bespatters the theologian's God with his
+own mud that we dread the image and recoil. From the unsparing vigor of
+these lines we turn for relief to "Rabbi Ben Ezra" and "Prospice." In
+both of these we have glimpses of Mr. Browning's true theology, which is
+the faith of his whole soul in the excellence of that world whose beauty
+he interprets, of the human nature whose capacity he does so much to
+"keep in repute," and of the Infinite Love.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Praise be Thine!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I see the whole design,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I, who saw Power, shall see Love perfect too:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perfect I call thy plan:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thanks that I was a man!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Maker, remake, complete,&mdash;I trust what Thou shalt do!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>We find in this new volume more distinct and tranquil expressions of Mr.
+Browning's thought upon the relation of the finite to the infinite than
+he has given us before. And his pen has turned with freedom and
+satisfaction towards these things, as if the imagination had broken new
+outlets for itself through the world's beautiful horizon into the great
+sea. How "like one entire and perfect chrysolite" is the little piece
+called "Prospice"! But we are all the more surprised to see occasionally
+a touch of the genuine British denseness, whenever he recollects that
+there are such people as Strauss, Bishop Colenso, and the men of the
+"Essays and Reviews" prowling around the preserve where the ill-kept
+Thirty-Nine Articles still find a little short grass to nibble. When we
+read the last three verses of "Gold Hair," we set him down for a
+High-Church bigot: the English discussions upon points of exegesis and
+theology appear to him threatening to prove the Christian faith false,
+but for his part he still sees reasons to suppose it true, and this,
+among others, that it taught Original Sin, the Corruption of Man's
+Heart! We escape from this to "Rabbi Ben Ezra" for reassurance, not
+greatly minding the inconsistency that then appears, but confirmed in an
+old opinion of ours, that John Bull, in this matter of theology, has his
+mumps and scarlatina very late, and they are likely to go hard with a
+constitution that is weaned from the pure truth of things.</p>
+
+<p>"Gold Hair," notwithstanding its picturesque lines, is weak and
+inconclusive. Its moral is conventional, while the incident is too
+far-fetched for sympathy. The series of little poems called "James Lee"
+is full of beauties, but it is too vague to make a firm impression. We
+suppose it tells the story of love that exaggerates a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_647" id="Page_647">[Pg 647]</a></span> common nature,
+clings to it, and shrivels away. What can be finer than the way in which
+an unsatisfied heart makes the wind the interpreter of its pain and
+dread? This is the sixth poem, "Under the Cliff."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Or wouldst thou rather that I understand<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thy will to help me?&mdash;like the dog I found<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Once, pacing sad this solitary strand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who would not take my food, poor hound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But whined and licked my hand."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But in this very poem the figure of the nun is artificial, and
+interrupts the pathetic feeling. And we cannot make anything out of the
+piece, "Beside the Drawing-Board," unless we first detach it from its
+position in the series, and like it alone. On the whole, many fine lines
+are here, but no real person and no poetic impression.</p>
+
+<p>Neither the dramatic nor the lyrical quality appears in this volume as
+it did once in the splendid "Bells and Pomegranates," which gave us such
+vivid shapes, and emotions so consistent and sustained, even though they
+were so often flawed by over-reflection. In this volume the purposes are
+less palpable, and the pen seems to have pursued them with less tenacity
+than usual. It has the air of having been scraped together. Yet how
+charming is "Confessions," and "Youth and Art," and "A Likeness"!
+Besides these, the best pieces are those which touch upon the highest
+themes.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Sludge, the Medium," cannot be called a poem. It would not be
+possible to write satire, epic, idyl, not even elegy, upon that
+"rat-hole philosophy," as Mr. Emerson once styled the new fetichism of
+the mahogany tables. It has not one element that asks the sense of
+beauty to incorporate it, or challenges the weapon of wit to transfix
+it. It is humiliating, but not pathetic, not even when yearning hearts
+are trying to pretend that their first-born vibrates to them through a
+stranger's and a hireling's mind. It is not even grotesque, but it is
+gross, and flat, and stale; its messages are fatuous, its machinery the
+rickety heirlooms of old humbugs of Greece and Alexandria. No thrill, no
+terror, no true awe, nothing but "goose-flesh" and disgust, creep from
+the medium's presence. Pegasus need not be saddled; summon, rather, the
+police.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this composition, which Mr. Browning must have undertaken in a
+moment of high indignation, with the motive of self-relief, is full of
+common sense. Mr. Sludge's vindication of his career turns upon the
+point that people like on the whole to be deceived, especially in
+matters relating to the invisible world. Sludge must be right in this;
+otherwise the theologians would not have had such a successful run. The
+facile and eager "circle" betrays the imaginative medium into reporting
+what it appears most to desire. The superstition of the people excites
+and feeds his own. He is only one against a crowd which deluges him with
+its expectation, and resents a scarcity of the supernatural. Mr. Sludge
+is not so much to blame: the people at length push the thing so far that
+he is obliged to cheat in self-defence. And when a man tasks his wits
+successfully, if it be only to mislead the witless, he has a sense of
+satisfaction in the effort akin to that of the rhetorician and the
+quack.</p>
+
+<p>But shrewdness and good sense cannot make a poem by assuming the measure
+of blank verse. And a few Yankee phrases are pasted into Mr. Sludge's
+talk, such as "stiffish cock-tail," "V-notes," "sniggering," allusions
+to "Greeley's newspaper," Beacon Street, etc.: there is no character in
+them at all. Mr. Sludge is a bad Yankee, as well as impudent pleader.
+The lines never sparkle, even with the poet's indignation, but they seem
+to be all the time blown into a forced vivacity and heat. Nemesis
+attends the poet who plunges his arm for a subject into this burrow of
+Spiritualism.</p>
+
+<p>Let us pass from this to note the noble lesson that the last poem,
+entitled "Epilogue," conveys. Three speakers tell in turn their feeling
+of the Divine Presence. The first intones the old Hebrew notion, loved
+by the childhood of all races and countries, that the Lord's Face fills
+His earthly temple at stated periods, culminating with the human glory
+of psalms and hallelujahs, to absorb and shine in the rejoicing of the
+worshippers, to sink back again into the invisible upon the dying
+strain. The second speaker describes the reaction, when the enthusiastic
+belief of early times is replaced by a dull sense that no Face shines,
+by a doubt if beyond the darkness and the distance there be yet a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_648" id="Page_648">[Pg 648]</a></span> God
+who will answer to the old rapture, a sun to rise when man's heart
+rises, a love corresponding to his ecstasy:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Where may hide what came and loved our clay?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How shall the sage detect in yon expanse<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The star which chose to stoop and stay for us?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unroll the records!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But the third speaker bids the records be closed, that man may worship
+the God who lives, instead of regretting that He lived of old. Take the
+least man, observe his head and heart, find how he differs from every
+other man; see how Nature by degrees grows around him, to nourish,
+infold, and set him off, to enrich him with opportunities, as if he were
+her only foster-child, and to flatter thus every other man in turn,
+making him her darling as though in expectation of finding no other,
+till, having extorted all his worth and beauty, and cherished him to the
+utmost of his possible life, she rolls away elsewhere, continually
+keeping up this pageant of humanity:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Why, where's the need of Temple, when the walls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O' the world are that? What use of swells and falls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Levites' choir, Priests' cries, and trumpet-calls?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or decomposes but to recompose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Become my universe that feels and knows!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This is the true religion, hallowing the poet's gifts and inviting them
+to celebrate and express it. We wish that the lines would let their
+meaning meet us with a more level gaze. In the poems of this class there
+is riper thought and a clearer intuition, toward which all the previous
+poems of Mr. Browning appear to have struggled, faring from the East to
+contribute myrrh, frankincense, and gems to this simplicity.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS" id="RECENT_AMERICAN_PUBLICATIONS"></a>RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS</h2>
+
+<h3>RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Flirtations in Fashionable Life. By Catherine Sinclair. Author of
+"Beatrice," "Modern Accomplishments," etc. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson
+&amp; Brothers. 16mo. pp. 424. $2.00.</p>
+
+<p>School Economy. A Treatise on the Preparation, Organization,
+Employments, Government, and Authorities of Schools. By James Pyle
+Wickersham, A. M., Principal of the Pennsylvania State Normal School,
+Millersville, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott &amp; Co. 12mo.
+pp. xviii., 381. $1.50.</p>
+
+<p>Hand-Book of the United States Navy: Being a Compilation of all the
+Principal Events in the History of every Vessel of the United States
+Navy. From April, 1861, to May, 1864. Compiled and arranged by B. S.
+Osbon. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 16mo. pp. iv., 277. $2.50.</p>
+
+<p>The Pride of Life. By Jane, Lady Scott, "Daughter-in-Law of Sir Walter
+Scott," and Author of "The Henpecked Husband." Philadelphia. T. B.
+Peterson &amp; Brothers. 16mo. pp. 384. $2.00.</p>
+
+<p>The Wrong of Slavery, the Right of Emancipation, and the Future of the
+African Race in the United States. By Robert Dale Owen. Philadelphia. J.
+B. Lippincott &amp; Co. 12mo. pp. 246. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p>The Army Ration. How to diminish its Weight and Bulk, secure Economy in
+its Administration, avoid Waste, and increase the Comfort, Efficiency,
+and Mobility of Troops. By E. N. Horsford. New York. D. Van Nostrand.
+8vo. paper, pp. 37. 25 cents.</p>
+
+<p>Chimasia: A Reply to Longfellow's Theologian; and other Poems. By
+Orthos. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott &amp; Co. 12mo. pp. 96. $1.00.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No.
+85, November, 1864, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NOVEMBER 1864 ***
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,8872 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85,
+November, 1864, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 21, 2008 [EBook #24885]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NOVEMBER 1864 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by Cornell University Digital Collections).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
+
+VOL. XIV.--NOVEMBER, 1864.--NO. LXXXV.
+
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by TICKNOR AND
+FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article.
+
+
+
+
+LEAVES FROM AN OFFICER'S JOURNAL.
+
+
+I.
+
+[I wish to record, as truthfully as I may, the beginnings of a momentous
+experiment, which, by proving the aptitude of the freed slaves for
+military drill and discipline, their ardent loyalty, their courage under
+fire, and their self-control in success, contributed somewhat towards
+solving the problem of the war, and towards remoulding the destinies of
+two races on this continent.
+
+During a civil war events succeed each other so rapidly that these
+earlier incidents are long since overshadowed. The colored soldiery are
+now numbered no longer by hundreds, but by tens of thousands. Yet there
+was a period when the whole enterprise seemed the most daring of
+innovations, and during those months the demeanor of this particular
+regiment, the First South Carolina, was watched with microscopic
+scrutiny by friends and foes. Its officers had reason to know this,
+since the slightest camp-incidents sometimes came back to them,
+magnified and distorted, in anxious letters of inquiry from remote parts
+of the Union. It was no pleasant thing to live in this glare of
+criticism; but it guarantied the honesty of any success, while fearfully
+multiplying the penalties, had there been a failure. A single mutiny, a
+single rout, a stampede of desertions,--and there perhaps might not have
+been, within this century, another systematic effort to arm the negro.
+
+It is possible, therefore, that some extracts from a diary kept during
+that period may still have an interest; for there is nothing in human
+history so momentous as the transit of a race from chattel-slavery to
+armed freedom; nor can this change be photographed save by the actual
+contemporaneous words of those who saw it in the process. Perhaps there
+may also appear an element of dramatic interest in the record, when one
+considers that here, in the delightful regions of Port Royal, the
+descendants of the Puritan and the Huguenot, after two centuries, came
+face to face,--and that sons of Massachusetts, reversing the boastful
+threat which has become historic, here called the roll, upon
+South-Carolina soil, of her slaves, now freemen in arms.]
+
+
+                                 CAMP SAXTON, near Beaufort, S. C.
+                                              _November 24, 1862._
+
+Yesterday afternoon we were steaming over a summer sea, the deck level
+as a parlor-floor, no land in sight, no sail, until at last appeared one
+light-house, said to be Cape Romaine, and then a line of trees and two
+distant vessels and nothing more. The sun set, a great illuminated
+bubble, submerged in one vast bank of rosy suffusion; it grew dark;
+after tea all were on deck, the people sang hymns; then the moon set, a
+moon two days old, a curved pencil of light, reclining backwards on a
+radiant couch which seemed to rise from the waves to receive it; it sank
+slowly, and the last tip wavered and went down like the mast of a vessel
+of the skies. Towards morning the boat stopped, and when I came on deck,
+before six,--
+
+    "The watch-lights glittered on the land,
+      The ship-lights on the sea."
+
+Hilton Head lay on one side, the gunboats on the other; all that was raw
+and bare in the low buildings of the new settlement was softened into
+picturesqueness by the early light. Stars were still overhead, gulls
+wheeled and shrieked, and the broad river rippled duskily towards
+Beaufort.
+
+The shores were low and wooded, like any New-England shore; there were a
+few gunboats, twenty schooners, and some steamers, among them the famous
+"Planter," which Robert Small, the slave, presented to the nation. The
+river-banks were soft and graceful, though low, and as we steamed up to
+Beaufort on the flood-tide this morning, it seemed almost as fair as the
+smooth and lovely canals which Stedman traversed to meet his negro
+soldiers in Surinam. The air was cool as at home, yet the foliage seemed
+green, glimpses of stiff tropical vegetation appeared along the banks,
+with great clumps of shrubs whose pale seed-vessels looked like tardy
+blossoms. Then we saw on a picturesque point an old plantation, with
+stately magnolia avenue, decaying house, and tiny church amid the woods,
+reminding me of Virginia; behind it stood a neat encampment of white
+tents, "and there," said my companion, "is your future regiment of negro
+soldiers."
+
+Three miles farther brought us to the pretty town of Beaufort, with its
+stately houses amid Southern foliage. Reporting to General Saxton, I had
+the luck to encounter a company of my destined command, marched in to be
+mustered into the United States service. They were without arms, and all
+looked as thoroughly black as the most faithful philanthropist could
+desire; there did not seem to be so much as a mulatto among them. Their
+coloring suited me, all but the legs, which were clad in a lively
+scarlet, as intolerable to my eyes as if I had been a turkey. I saw them
+mustered; General Saxton talked to them a little, in his direct, manly
+way; they gave close attention, though their faces looked impenetrable.
+Then I conversed with some of them. The first to whom I spoke had been
+wounded in a small expedition after lumber, from which a party had just
+returned, and in which they had been under fire and had done very well.
+I said, pointing to his lame arm,--
+
+"Did you think that was more than you bargained for, my man?"
+
+His answer came promptly and stoutly,--
+
+"I been a-tinking, Mas'r, _dat's jess what I went for_."
+
+I thought this did well enough for my very first interchange of dialogue
+with my recruits.
+
+
+                                         _November 27, 1862._
+
+Thanksgiving-Day; it is the first moment I have had for writing during
+these three days, which have installed me into a new mode of life so
+thoroughly that they seem three years. Scarcely pausing in New York or
+in Beaufort, there seems to have been for me but one step from the camp
+of a Massachusetts regiment to this one, and that step over leagues of
+waves.
+
+It is a holiday wherever General Saxton's proclamation reaches. The
+chilly sunshine and the pale blue river seem like New England, but those
+alone. The air is full of noisy drumming and of gunshots; for the
+prize-shooting is our great celebration of the day, and the drumming is
+chronic. My young barbarians are all at play. I look out from the broken
+windows of this forlorn plantation-house, through avenues of great
+live-oaks, with their hard, shining leaves, and their branches hung with
+a universal drapery of soft, long moss, like fringe-trees struck with
+grayness. Below, the sandy soil, scantly covered with coarse grass,
+bristles with sharp palmettoes and aloes; all the vegetation is stiff,
+shining, semi-tropical, with nothing soft or delicate in its texture.
+Numerous plantation-buildings totter around, all slovenly and
+unattractive, while the interspaces are filled with all manner of wreck
+and refuse, pigs, fowls, dogs, and omnipresent Ethiopian infancy. All
+this is the universal Southern panorama; but five minutes' walk beyond
+the hovels and the live-oaks bring one to something so un-Southern that
+the whole Southern coast at this moment trembles at the suggestion of
+such a thing,--the camp of a regiment of freed slaves.
+
+One adapts one's self so readily to new surroundings that already the
+full zest of the novelty seems passing away from my perceptions, and I
+write these lines in an eager effort to retain all I can. Already I am
+growing used to the experience, at first so novel, of living among five
+hundred men, and scarce a white face to be seen,--of seeing them go
+through all their daily processes, eating, frolicking, talking, just as
+if they were white. Each day at dress-parade I stand with the customary
+folding of the arms before a regimental line of countenances so black
+that I can hardly tell whether the men stand steadily or not; black is
+every hand which moves in ready cadence as I vociferate, "Battalion!
+Shoulder arms!" nor is it till the line of white officers moves forward,
+as parade is dismissed, that I am reminded that my own face is not the
+color of coal.
+
+The first few days on duty with a new regiment must be devoted almost
+wholly to tightening reins; in this process one deals chiefly with the
+officers, and I have as yet had but little personal intercourse with the
+men. They concern me chiefly in bulk, as so many consumers of rations,
+wearers of uniforms, bearers of muskets. But as the machine comes into
+shape, I am beginning to decipher the individual parts. At first, of
+course, they all looked just alike; the variety comes afterwards, and
+they are just as distinguishable, the officers say, as so many whites.
+Most of them are wholly raw, but there are many who have already been
+for months in camp in the abortive "Hunter Regiment," yet in that loose
+kind of way which, like average militia-training, is a doubtful
+advantage. I notice that some companies, too, look darker than others,
+though all are purer African than I expected. This is said to be partly
+a geographical difference between the South-Carolina and Florida men.
+When the Rebels evacuated this region, they probably took with them the
+house-servants, including most of the mixed blood, so that the residuum
+seems very black. But the men brought from Fernandina the other day
+average lighter in complexion, and look more intelligent, and they
+certainly take wonderfully to the drill.
+
+It needs but a few days to show up the absurdity of distrusting the
+military availability of these people. They have quite as much average
+comprehension as whites of the need of the thing, as much courage, (I
+doubt not,) as much previous knowledge of the gun, and, above all, a
+readiness of ear and of imitation, which, for purposes of drill,
+counterbalances any defect of mental training. To learn the drill, one
+does not want a set of college professors; one wants a squad of eager,
+active, pliant school-boys; and the more childlike these pupils are, the
+better. There is no trouble about the drill; they will surpass whites
+in that. As to camp-life, they have little to sacrifice, they are better
+fed, housed, and clothed than ever in their lives before, and they
+appear to have fewer inconvenient vices. They are simple, docile, and
+affectionate almost to the point of absurdity. The same men who stood
+fire in open field with perfect coolness, on the late expedition, have
+come to me blubbering in the most irresistibly ludicrous manner on being
+transferred from one company in the regiment to another.
+
+In noticing the squad-drills, I perceive that the men learn less
+laboriously than whites that "double, double, toil and trouble," which
+is the elementary vexation of the drill-master,--that they more rarely
+mistake their left for their right,--and are more grave and sedate while
+under instruction. The extremes of jollity and sobriety, being greater
+with them, are less liable to be intermingled; these companies can be
+driven with a looser rein than my former one, for they restrain
+themselves; but the moment they are dismissed from drill, every tongue
+is relaxed and every ivory tooth visible. This morning I wandered about
+where the different companies were target-shooting, and their glee was
+contagious. Such exulting shouts of, "Ki! ole man," when some steady old
+turkey-shooter brought his gun down for an instant's aim, and then
+unerringly hit the mark; and then, when some unwary youth fired his
+piece into the ground at half-cock, such infinite guffawing and delight,
+such rolling over and over on the grass, such dances of ecstasy, as made
+the "Ethiopian minstrelsy" of the stage appear a feeble imitation.
+
+_Evening._--Better still was a scene on which I stumbled to-night.
+Strolling in the cool moonlight, I was attracted by a brilliant light
+beneath the trees, and cautiously approached it. A circle of thirty or
+forty soldiers sat around a roaring fire, while one old uncle, Cato by
+name, was narrating an interminable tale, to the insatiable delight of
+his audience. I came up into the dusky background, perceived only by a
+few, and he still continued. It was a narrative, dramatized to the last
+degree, of his adventures in escaping from his master to the Union
+vessels; and even I, who have heard the stories of Harriet Tubman, and
+such wonderful slave-comedians, never witnessed such a piece of acting.
+When I came upon the scene, he had just come unexpectedly upon a
+plantation-house, and, putting a bold face upon it, had walked up to the
+door.
+
+"Den I go up to de white man, very humble, and say, would he please gib
+ole man a mouthful for eat?
+
+"He say, he must hab de valeration of half a dollar.
+
+"Den I look berry sorry, and turn for go away.
+
+"Den he say, I might gib him dat hatchet I had.
+
+"Den I say," (this in a tragic vein,) "dat I must hab dat hatchet for
+defend myself _from de dogs_!"
+
+[Immense applause, and one appreciating auditor says, chuckling, "Dat
+was your _arms_, ole man," which brings down the house again.]
+
+"Den he say, de Yankee pickets was near by, and I must be very keerful.
+
+"Den I say, 'Good Lord, Mas'r, am dey?'"
+
+Words cannot express the complete dissimulation with which these accents
+of terror were uttered,--this being precisely the piece of information
+he wished to obtain.
+
+Then he narrated his devices to get into the house at night and obtain
+some food,--how a dog flew at him,--how the whole household, black and
+white, rose in pursuit,--how he scrambled under a hedge and over a high
+fence, etc.,--all in a style of which Gough alone among orators can give
+the faintest impression, so thoroughly dramatized was every syllable.
+
+Then he described his reaching the river-side at last, and trying to
+decide whether certain vessels held friends or foes.
+
+"Den I see guns on board, and sure sartin he Union boat, and I pop my
+head up. Den I been-a-tink [think] Seceshkey hab guns too, and my head
+go down again. Den I bide in de bush till morning. Den I open my bundle,
+and take ole white shirt and tie him on ole pole and wave him, and ebry
+time de wind blow, I been-a-tremble, and drap down in de
+bushes,"--because, being between two fires, he doubted whether friend or
+foe would see his signal first. And so on, with a succession of tricks
+beyond Moliere, of acts of caution, foresight, patient cunning, which
+were listened to with infinite gusto and perfect comprehension by every
+listener.
+
+And all this to a bivouac of negro soldiers, with the brilliant fire
+lighting up their red trousers and gleaming from their shining black
+faces,--eyes and teeth all white with tumultuous glee. Overhead, the
+mighty limbs of a great live-oak, with the weird moss swaying in the
+smoke, and the high moon gleaming faintly through.
+
+Yet to-morrow strangers will remark on the hopeless, impenetrable
+stupidity in the daylight faces of many of these very men, the solid
+mask under which Nature has concealed all this wealth of mother-wit.
+This very comedian is one to whom one might point, as he hoed lazily in
+a cotton-field, as a being the light of whose brain had utterly gone
+out; and this scene seems like coming by night upon some conclave of
+black beetles, and finding them engaged, with green-room and
+foot-lights, in enacting "Poor Pillicoddy." This is their university;
+every young Sambo before me, as he turned over the sweet-potatoes and
+pea-nuts which were roasting in the ashes, listened with reverence to
+the wiles of the ancient Ulysses, and meditated the same. It is Nature's
+compensation; oppression simply crushes the upper faculties of the head,
+and crowds everything into the perceptive organs. Cato, thou reasonest
+well! When I get into any serious scrape, in an enemy's country, may I
+be lucky enough to have you at my elbow, to pull me out of it!
+
+The men seem to have enjoyed the novel event of Thanksgiving-Day; they
+have had company and regimental prize-shootings, a minimum of speeches
+and a maximum of dinner. Bill of fare: two beef-cattle and a thousand
+oranges. The oranges cost a cent apiece, and the cattle were Secesh,
+bestowed by General Saxby, as they all call him.
+
+
+                                              _December 1, 1862._
+
+How absurd is the impression bequeathed by Slavery in regard to these
+Southern blacks, that they are sluggish and inefficient in labor! Last
+night, after a hard day's work, (our guns and the remainder of our tents
+being just issued,) an order came from Beaufort that we should be ready
+in the evening to unload a steamboat's cargo of boards, being some of
+those captured by them a few weeks since, and now assigned for their
+use. I wondered if the men would grumble at the night-work; but the
+steamboat arrived by seven, and it was bright moonlight when they went
+at it. Never have I beheld such a jolly scene of labor. Tugging these
+wet and heavy boards over a bridge of boats ashore, then across the
+slimy beach at low tide, then up a steep bank, and all in one great
+uproar of merriment for two hours. Running most of the time, chattering
+all the time, snatching the boards from each other's backs as if they
+were some coveted treasure, getting up eager rivalries between different
+companies, pouring great choruses of ridicule on the heads of all
+shirkers, they made the whole scene so enlivening that I gladly stayed
+out in the moonlight for the whole time to watch it. And all this
+without any urging or any promised reward, but simply as the most
+natural way of doing the thing. The steamboat-captain declared that they
+unloaded the ten thousand feet of boards quicker than any white gang
+could have done it; and they felt it so little, that, when, later in the
+night, I reproached one whom I found sitting by a camp-fire, cooking a
+surreptitious opossum, telling him that he ought to be asleep after such
+a job of work, he answered, with the broadest grin,--
+
+"Oh, no, Cunnel, da's no work at all, Cunnel; dat only jess enough _for
+stretch we_."
+
+
+                                              _December 2, 1862._
+
+I believe I have not yet enumerated the probable drawbacks to the
+success of this regiment, if any. We are exposed to no direct annoyance
+from the white regiments, being out of their way; and we have as yet no
+discomforts or privations which we do not share with them. I do not as
+yet see the slightest obstacle, in the nature of the blacks, to making
+them good soldiers,--but rather the contrary. They take readily to
+drill, and do not object to discipline; they are not especially dull or
+inattentive; they seem fully to understand the importance of the
+contest, and of their share in it. They show no jealousy or suspicion
+towards their officers.
+
+They do show these feelings, however, towards the Government itself; and
+no one can wonder. Here lies the drawback to rapid recruiting. Were this
+a wholly new regiment, it would have been full to overflowing, I am
+satisfied, ere now. The trouble is in the legacy of bitter distrust
+bequeathed by the abortive regiment of General Hunter,--into which they
+were driven like cattle, kept for several months in camp, and then
+turned off without a shilling, by order of the War Department. The
+formation of that regiment was on the whole a great injury to this one;
+and the men who came from it, though the best soldiers we have in other
+respects, are the least sanguine and cheerful; while those who now
+refuse to enlist have a great influence in deterring others. Our
+soldiers are constantly twitted by their families and friends with their
+prospect of risking their lives in the service, and being paid nothing;
+and it is in vain that we read them the instructions of the Secretary of
+War to General Saxton, promising them the full pay of soldiers. They
+only half believe it.[A]
+
+Another drawback is that some of the white soldiers delight in
+frightening the women on the plantations with doleful tales of plans for
+putting us in the front rank in all battles, and such silly talk,--the
+object being, perhaps, to prevent our being employed on active service
+at all. All these considerations they feel precisely as white men
+would,--no less, no more; and it is the comparative freedom from such
+unfavorable influences which makes the Florida men seem more bold and
+manly, as they undoubtedly do. To-day General Saxton has returned from
+Fernandina with seventy-six recruits, and the eagerness of the captains
+to secure them was a sight to see. Yet they cannot deny that some of the
+very best men in the regiment are South Carolinians.
+
+
+                            _December 3, 1862._--7 P. M.
+
+What a life is this I lead! It is a dark, mild, drizzling evening, and
+as the foggy air breeds sand-flies, so it calls out melodies and strange
+antics from this mysterious race of grown-up children with whom my lot
+is cast. All over the camp the lights glimmer in the tents, and as I sit
+at my desk in the open doorway, there come mingled sounds of stir and
+glee. Boys laugh and shout,--a feeble flute stirs somewhere in some
+tent, not an officer's,--a drum throbs far away in another,--wild
+kildeer-plover flit and wail above us, like the haunting souls of dead
+slavemasters,--and from a neighboring cook-fire comes the monotonous
+sound of that strange festival, half powwow, half prayer-meeting, which
+they know only as a "shout." These fires are usually inclosed in a
+little booth, made neatly of palm-leaves and covered in at top, a
+regular native African hut, in short, such as is pictured in books, and
+such as I once got up from dried palm-leaves, for a fair, at home. This
+hut is now crammed with men, singing at the top of their voices, in one
+of their quaint, monotonous, endless, negro-Methodist chants, with
+obscure syllables recurring constantly, and slight variations
+interwoven, all accompanied with a regular drumming of the feet and
+clapping of the hands, like castanets. Then the excitement spreads:
+inside and outside the inclosure men begin to quiver and dance, others
+join, a circle forms, winding monotonously round some one in the centre;
+some "heel and toe" tumultuously, others merely tremble and stagger on,
+others stoop and rise, others whirl, others caper sideways, all keep
+steadily circling like dervishes; spectators applaud special strokes of
+skill; my approach only enlivens the scene; the circle enlarges, louder
+grows the singing, rousing shouts of encouragement come in, half
+bacchanalian, half devout, "Wake 'em, brudder!" "Stan' up to 'em,
+brudder!"--and still the ceaseless drumming and clapping, in perfect
+cadence, goes steadily on. Suddenly there comes a sort of _snap_, and
+the spell breaks, amid general sighing and laughter. And this not rarely
+and occasionally, but night after night,--while in other parts of the
+camp the soberest prayers and exhortations are proceeding sedately.
+
+A simple and lovable people, whose graces seem to come by nature, and
+whose vices by training. Some of the best superintendents confirm the
+early tales of innocence, and Dr. Zachos told me last night that on his
+plantation, a sequestered one, "they had absolutely no vices." Nor have
+these men of mine yet shown any worth mentioning; since I took command I
+have heard of no man intoxicated, and there has been but one small
+quarrel. I suppose that scarcely a white regiment in the army shows so
+little swearing. Take the "Progressive Friends" and put them in red
+trousers, and I verily believe they would fill a guard-house sooner than
+these men. If camp-regulations are violated, it seems to be usually
+through heedlessness. They love passionately three things, besides their
+spiritual incantations,--namely, sugar, home, and tobacco. This last
+affection brings tears to their eyes, almost, when they speak of their
+urgent need of pay: they speak of their last-remembered quid as if it
+were some deceased relative, too early lost, and to be mourned forever.
+As for sugar, no white man can drink coffee after they have sweetened it
+to their liking.
+
+I see that the pride which military life creates may cause the
+plantation-trickeries to diminish. For instance, these men make the most
+admirable sentinels. It is far harder to pass the camp-lines at night
+than in the camp from which I came; and I have seen none of that
+disposition to connive at the offences of members of one's own company
+which is so troublesome among white soldiers. Nor are they lazy, either
+about work or drill; in all respects they seem better material for
+soldiers than I had dared to hope.
+
+There is one company in particular, all Florida men, which I certainly
+think the finest-looking company I ever saw, white or black; they range
+admirably in size, have remarkable erectness and ease of carriage, and
+really march splendidly. Not a visitor but notices them; yet they have
+been under drill only a fortnight, and a part only two days. They have
+all been slaves, and very few are even mulattoes.
+
+
+                                              _December 4, 1862._
+
+"Dwelling in tents, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." This condition is
+certainly mine,--and with a multitude of patriarchs beside, not to
+mention Caesar and Pompey, Hercules and Bacchus.
+
+A moving life, tented at night, this experience has been mine in civil
+society, if society be civil before the luxurious forest-fires of Maine
+and the Adirondack, or upon the lonely prairies of Kansas. But a
+stationary tent-life, deliberately going to housekeeping under canvas,
+I have never had before, though in our barrack-life at "Camp Wool" I
+often wished for it.
+
+The accommodations here are about as liberal as my quarters there, two
+wall-tents being placed end to end, for office and bed-room, and
+separated at will by a "fly" of canvas. There is a good board floor and
+mop-board, effectually excluding dampness and draughts, and everything
+but sand, which on windy days penetrates everywhere. The
+office-furniture consists of a good desk or secretary, a very clumsy and
+disastrous settee, and a remarkable chair. The desk is a bequest of the
+slaveholders, and the settee of the slaves, being ecclesiastical in its
+origin, and appertaining to the little old church or "praise-house," now
+used for commissary purposes. The chair is a composite structure: I
+found a cane seat on a dust-heap, which a black sergeant combined with
+two legs from a broken bedstead and two more from an oak-bough. I sit on
+it with a pride of conscious invention, mitigated by profound
+insecurity. Bedroom-furniture, a couch made of gun-boxes covered with
+condemned blankets, another settee, two pails, a tin cup, tin basin, (we
+prize any tin or wooden ware as savages prize iron,) and a valise,
+regulation-size. Seriously considered, nothing more appears needful,
+unless ambition might crave another chair for company, and, perhaps,
+something for a wash-stand higher than a settee.
+
+To-day it rains hard, and the wind quivers through the closed canvas,
+and makes one feel at sea. All the talk of the camp outside is fused
+into a cheerful and indistinguishable murmur, pierced through at every
+moment by the wail of the hovering plover. Sometimes a face, black or
+white, peers through the entrance with some message. Since the light
+readily penetrates, though the rain cannot, the tent conveys a feeling
+of charmed security, as if an invisible boundary checked the pattering
+drops and held the moaning wind. The front tent I share, as yet, with my
+adjutant; in the inner apartment I reign supreme, bounded in a nutshell,
+with no bad dreams.
+
+In all pleasant weather the outer "fly" is open, and men pass and
+repass, a chattering throng. I think of Emerson's Saadi, "As thou
+sittest at thy door, on the desert's yellow floor,"--for these bare
+sand-plains, gray above, are always yellow when upturned, and there
+seems a tinge of Orientalism in all our life.
+
+Thrice a day we go to the plantation-houses for our meals,
+camp-arrangements being yet very imperfect. The officers board in
+different messes, the adjutant and I still clinging to the household of
+William Washington,--William the quiet and the courteous, the pattern of
+house-servants, William the noiseless, the observing, the
+discriminating, who knows everything that can be got and how to cook it.
+William and his tidy, lady-like little spouse Hetty--a pair of wedded
+lovers, if ever I saw one--set our table in their one room, half-way
+between an unglazed window and a large wood-fire, such as is often
+welcome. Thanks to the adjutant, we are provided with the social
+magnificence of napkins; while (lest pride take too high a flight) our
+table-cloth consists of two "New York Tribunes" and a "Leslie's
+Pictorial." Every steamer brings us a clean table-cloth. Here are we
+forever supplied with pork and oysters and sweet-potatoes and rice and
+hominy and corn-bread and milk; also mysterious griddle-cakes of
+corn and pumpkin; also preserves made of pumpkin-chips, and other
+fanciful productions of Ethiop art. Mr. E. promised the
+plantation-superintendents who should come down here "all the luxuries
+of home," and we certainly have much apparent, if little real variety.
+Once William produced with some palpitation something fricasseed, which
+he boldly termed chicken; it was very small, and seemed in some
+undeveloped condition of ante-natal toughness. After the meal, he
+frankly avowed it for squirrel.
+
+
+                                              _December 5, 1862._
+
+Give these people their tongues, their feet, and their leisure, and they
+are happy. At every twilight the air is full of singing, talking, and
+clapping of hands in unison. One of their favorite songs is full of
+plaintive cadences; it is not, I think, a Methodist tune, and I wonder
+where they obtained a chant of such beauty.
+
+    "I can't stay behind, my Lord, I can't stay behind!
+    Oh, my father is gone, my father is gone,
+    My father is gone into heaven, my Lord!
+          I can't stay behind!
+    Dere's room enough, room enough,
+    Room enough in de heaven for de sojer:
+          Can't stay behind!"
+
+It always excites them to have us looking on, yet they sing these songs
+at all times and seasons. I have heard this very song dimly droning on
+near midnight, and, tracing it into the recesses of a cook-house, have
+found an old fellow coiled away among the pots and provisions, chanting
+away with his "Can't stay behind, sinner," till I made him leave his
+song behind.
+
+This evening, after working themselves up to the highest pitch, a party
+suddenly rushed off, got a barrel, and mounted some man upon it, who
+said, "Gib anoder song, boys, and I'se gib you a speech." After some
+hesitation and sundry shouts of "Rise de sing, somebody," and "Stan' up
+for Jesus, brudder," irreverently put in by the juveniles, they got upon
+the John Brown song, always a favorite, adding a jubilant verse which I
+had never before heard,--"We'll beat Beauregard on de clare
+battle-field." Then came the promised speech, and then no less than
+seven other speeches by as many men, on a variety of barrels, each
+orator being affectionately tugged to the pedestal and set on end by his
+special constituency. Every speech was good, without exception; with the
+queerest oddities of phrase and pronunciation, there was an invariable
+enthusiasm, a pungency of statement, and an understanding of the points
+at issue, which made them all rather thrilling. Those long-winded slaves
+in "Among the Pines" seemed rather fictitious and literary in
+comparison. The most eloquent, perhaps, was Corporal Prince Lambkin,
+just arrived from Fernandina, who evidently had a previous reputation
+among them. His historical references were very interesting: he reminded
+them that he had predicted this war ever since Fremont's time, to which
+some of the crowd assented; he gave a very intelligent account of that
+Presidential campaign, and then described most impressively the secret
+anxiety of the slaves in Florida to know all about President Lincoln's
+election, and told how they all refused to work on the fourth of March,
+expecting their freedom to date from that day. He finally brought out
+one of the few really impressive appeals for the American flag that I
+have ever heard. "Our mas'rs dey hab lib under de flag, dey got dere
+wealth under it, and ebryting beautiful for dere chilen. Under it dey
+hab grind us up, and put us in dere pocket for money. But de fus' minute
+dey tink dat ole nag mean freedom for we colored people, dey pull it
+right down, and run up de rag ob dere own." (Immense applause.) "But
+we'll neber desert de ole flag, boys, neber; we hab lib under it for
+_eighteen hundred sixty-two years_, and we'll die for it now." With
+which overpowering discharge of chronology-at-long-range, this most
+effective of stump-speeches closed. I see already with relief that there
+will be small demand in this regiment for harangues from the officers;
+give the men an empty barrel for a stump, and they will do their own
+exhortation.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] With what utter humiliation were we, their officers, obliged to
+confess to them, eighteen months afterwards, that it was their distrust
+which was wise, and our faith in the pledges of the United States
+Government which was foolishness!
+
+
+
+
+RICHES.
+
+
+    Pluck color from the morning sky,
+      And wear it as thy diadem;
+    Nor pass the wayside flowers by,
+        But star thy robes with them.
+
+    Far in the temple of the sun
+      The vestal fires of being burn;
+    Thence beauty's finest fibres run,
+        And weave where'er we turn.
+
+    Thy plumes are in the yellow corn,--
+      But chief the gold of priceless days
+    In bosom of thy friend is borne,
+        Coined in his kindly rays.
+
+    Here lies thy wealth, go gather it,--
+      The mine is near, its deeps explore,
+    And freely give love, metal, wit,--
+        Thine is the exhaustless ore:
+
+    Thine are the precious stones whereon
+      The weary pass grief's flooded ford,
+    And thine the jewelled pavement won
+        By those who love the Lord.
+
+
+
+
+THE VENGEANCE OF DOMINIC DE GOURGUES.
+
+
+There was a gentleman of Mont-de-Marsan, Dominic de Gourgues, a soldier
+of ancient birth and high renown. That he was a Huguenot is not certain.
+The Spanish annalist calls him a "terrible heretic"; but the French
+Jesuit, Charlevoix, anxious that the faithful should share the glory of
+his exploits, affirms, that, like his ancestors before him, he was a
+good Catholic. If so, his faith sat lightly upon him; and Catholic or
+heretic, he hated the Spaniards with a mortal hate. Fighting in the
+Italian wars,--for, from boyhood, he was wedded to the sword,--they had
+taken him prisoner near Siena, where he had signalized himself by a
+fiery and determined bravery. With brutal insult, they chained him to
+the oar as a galley-slave. After long endurance of this ignominy, the
+Turks had captured the vessel and carried her to Constantinople. It was
+but a change of tyrants; but, soon after, putting out on a cruise,
+Gourgues still at the oar, a galley of the Maltese knights hove in
+sight, bore down on the prize, recaptured her, and set the prisoner
+free. For several years after, his restless spirit found escape in
+voyages to Africa, Brazil, and regions yet more remote. His naval repute
+rose high, but his grudge against the Spaniards still rankled within
+him; and when, returned from his rovings, he learned the tidings from
+Florida, his hot Gascon blood boiled with fury.
+
+The honor of France had been foully stained, and there was none to wipe
+away the shame. The faction-ridden King was dumb. The nobles who
+surrounded him were in the Spanish interest. Then, since they proved
+recreant, he, Dominic de Gourgues, a simple gentleman, would take upon
+him to avenge the wrong, and restore the dimmed lustre of the French
+name. He sold his inheritance, borrowed money from his brother, who held
+a high post in Guienne, and equipped three small vessels, navigable by
+sail or oar. On board he placed a hundred arquebusiers and eighty
+sailors, prepared to fight on land, if need were. The noted Blaise de
+Montluc, then lieutenant for the King in Guienne, gave him a commission
+to make war on the negroes of Benin, that is, to kidnap them as slaves,
+an adventure then held honorable.
+
+His true design was locked within his own breast. He mustered his
+followers, feasted them,--not a few were of rank equal to his own,--and,
+on the twenty-second of August, 1567, sailed from the mouth of the
+Charente. Off Cape Finisterre, so violent a storm buffeted his ships
+that his men clamored to return; but Gourgues's spirit prevailed. He
+bore away for Barbary, and, landing at the Rio del Oro, refreshed and
+cheered them as he best might. Thence he sailed to Cape Blanco, where
+the jealous Portuguese, who had a fort in the neighborhood, set upon him
+three negro chiefs. Gourgues beat them off, and remained master of the
+harbor; whence, however, he soon voyaged onward to Cape Verd, and,
+steering westward, made for the West Indies. Here, advancing from island
+to island, he came to Hispaniola, where, between the fury of a hurricane
+at sea and the jealousy of the Spaniards on shore, he was in no small
+jeopardy,--"the Spaniards," exclaims the indignant journalist, "who
+think that this New World was made for nobody but them, and that no
+other man living has a right to move or breathe here!" Gourgues landed,
+however, obtained the water of which he was in need, and steered for
+Cape San Antonio, in Cuba. There he gathered his followers about him,
+and addressed them with his fiery Gascon eloquence. For the first time,
+he told them his true purpose. He inveighed against Spanish cruelty. He
+painted, with angry rhetoric, the butcheries of Fort Caroline and St.
+Augustine.
+
+"What disgrace," he cried, "if such an insult should pass unpunished!
+What glory to us, if we revenge it! To this I have devoted my fortune. I
+relied on you. I thought you jealous enough of your country's glory to
+sacrifice life itself in a cause like this. Was I deceived? I will show
+you the way; I will be always at your head; I will bear the brunt of
+danger. Will you refuse to follow me?"
+
+At first his startled hearers listened in silence; but soon the passions
+of that adventurous age rose responsive to his words. The sparks fell
+among gunpowder. The combustible French nature burst into flame. The
+enthusiasm of the soldiers rose to such a pitch that Gourgues had much
+ado to make them wait till the moon was full before tempting the perils
+of the Bahama Channel. His time came at length. The moon rode high above
+the lonely sea, and, silvered in its light, the ships of the avenger
+held their course.
+
+But how, meanwhile, had it fared with the Spaniards in Florida? The
+good-will of the Indians had vanished. The French had been obtrusive and
+vexatious guests; but their worst trespasses had been mercy and
+tenderness, to the daily outrage of the new-comers. Friendship had
+changed to aversion, aversion to hatred, hatred to open war. The
+forest-paths were beset; stragglers were cut off; and woe to the
+Spaniard who should venture after nightfall beyond call of the outposts!
+Menendez, however, had strengthened himself in his new conquest. St.
+Augustine was well fortified; Fort Caroline, now Fort San Mateo, was
+repaired; and two redoubts were thrown up to guard the mouth of the
+River of May. Thence, on an afternoon in April, the Spaniards saw three
+sail steering northward. Unsuspicious of an enemy, their batteries
+boomed a salute. Gourgues's ships replied, then stood out to sea, and
+were lost in the shades of evening.
+
+They kept their course all night, and, as day broke, anchored at the
+mouth of a river, the St. Mary's or the Santilla, by their reckoning
+fifteen leagues north of the River of May. Here, as it grew light,
+Gourgues saw the borders of the sea thronged with savages, armed and
+plumed for war. They, too, had mistaken the strangers for Spaniards, and
+mustered to meet their tyrants at the landing. But in the French ships
+there was a trumpeter who had been long in Florida, and knew the Indians
+well. He went towards them in a boat, with many gestures of friendship;
+and no sooner was he recognized than the naked crowd, with yelps of
+delight, danced for joy about the sands. Why had he ever left them? they
+asked; and why had he not returned before? The intercourse thus
+auspiciously begun was actively kept up. Gourgues told the principal
+chief--who was no other than Satouriona, of old the ally of the
+French--that he had come to visit them, make friendship with them, and
+bring them presents. At this last announcement, so grateful to Indian
+ears, the dancing was renewed with double zeal. The next morning was
+named for a grand council. Satouriona sent runners to summon all Indians
+within call; while Gourgues, for safety, brought his vessels within the
+mouth of the river.
+
+Morning came, and the woods were thronged with congregated warriors.
+Gourgues and his soldiers landed with martial pomp. In token of mutual
+confidence, the French laid aside their arquebuses, the Indians their
+bows and arrows. Satouriona came to meet the strangers, and seated their
+commander at his side, on a wooden stool, draped and cushioned with the
+gray Spanish moss. Two old Indians cleared the spot of brambles, weeds,
+and grass; and, their task finished, the tribesmen took their places in
+a ring, row within row, standing, sitting, and crouching on the ground,
+a dusky concourse, plumed in festal array, waiting with grave visages
+and eyes intent. Gourgues was about to speak, when the chief, who, says
+the narrator, had not learned French manners, rose and anticipated him.
+He broke into a vehement harangue; and the cruelty of the Spaniards was
+the burden of his words.
+
+Since the French fort was taken, he said, the Indians had not had one
+happy day. The Spaniards drove them from their cabins, stole their corn,
+ravished their wives and daughters, and killed their children; and all
+this they had endured because they loved the French. There was a French
+boy who had escaped from the massacre at the fort. They had found him in
+the woods, and though the Spaniards, who wished to kill him, demanded
+that they should give him up, they had kept him for his friends.
+
+"Look!" pursued the chief, "here he is!"--and he brought forward a youth
+of sixteen, named Pierre Debre, who became at once of the greatest
+service to the French, his knowledge of the Indian language making him
+an excellent interpreter.
+
+Delighted as he was at this outburst against the Spaniards, Gourgues by
+no means saw fit to display the full extent of his satisfaction. He
+thanked the Indians for their good-will, exhorted them to continue in
+it, and pronounced an ill-merited eulogy on the greatness and goodness
+of his King. As for the Spaniards, he said, their day of reckoning was
+at hand; and if the Indians had been abused for their love of the
+French, the French would be their avengers. Here Satouriona forgot his
+dignity, and leaped up for joy.
+
+"What!" he cried, "will you fight the Spaniards?"
+
+"I came here," replied Gourgues, "only to reconnoitre the country and
+make friends with you, then to go back and bring more soldiers; but when
+I hear what you are suffering from them, I wish to fall upon them this
+very day, and rescue you from their tyranny." And, all around the ring,
+a clamor of applauding voices greeted his words.
+
+"But you will do your part," pursued the Frenchman; "you will not leave
+us all the honor."
+
+"We will go," replied Satouriona, "and die with you, if need be."
+
+"Then, if we fight, we ought to fight at once. How soon can you have
+your warriors ready to march?"
+
+The chief asked three days for preparation. Gourgues cautioned him to
+secrecy, lest the Spaniards should take alarm.
+
+"Never fear," was the answer; "we hate them more than you do."
+
+Then came a distribution of gifts,--knives, hatchets, mirrors, bells,
+and beads,--while the warrior-rabble crowded to receive them, with eager
+faces, and tawny arms outstretched. The distribution over, Gourgues
+asked the chiefs if there was any other matter in which he could serve
+them. On this, pointing at his shirt, they expressed a peculiar
+admiration for that garment, and begged each to have one, to be worn at
+feasts and councils during life, and in their graves after death.
+Gourgues complied; and his grateful confederates were soon stalking
+about him, fluttering in the spoils of his ravished wardrobe.
+
+To learn the strength and position of the Spaniards, Gourgues now sent
+out three scouts; and with them went Olotoraca, Satouriona's nephew, a
+young brave of great renown.
+
+The chief, eager to prove his good faith, gave as hostages his only son
+and his favorite wife. They were sent on board the ships, while the
+savage concourse dispersed to their encampments, with leaping, stamping,
+dancing, and whoops of jubilation.
+
+The day appointed came, and with it the savage army, hideous in
+war-paint and plumed for battle. Their ceremonies began. The woods rang
+back their songs and yells, as with frantic gesticulations they
+brandished their war-clubs and vaunted their deeds of prowess. Then they
+drank the black drink, endowed with mystic virtues to steel them against
+hardship and danger; and Gourgues himself pretended to swallow the
+nauseous decoction.
+
+These ceremonies consumed the day. It was evening before the allies
+filed off into their forests, and took the path for the Spanish forts.
+The French, on their part, were to repair by sea to the rendezvous.
+Gourgues mustered and addressed his men. It was needless: their ardor
+was at fever-height. They broke in upon his words, and demanded to be
+led at once against the enemy. Francis Bourdelois, with twenty sailors,
+was left with the ships. Gourgues affectionately bade him farewell.
+
+"If I am slain in this most just enterprise," he said, "I leave all in
+your charge, and pray you to carry back my soldiers to France."
+
+There were many embracings among the excited Frenchmen,--many
+sympathetic tears from those who were to stay behind,--many messages
+left with them for wives, children, friends, and mistresses; and then
+this valiant handful pushed their boats from shore. It was a
+hare-brained venture, for, as young Debre had assured them, the
+Spaniards on the River of May were four hundred in number, secure behind
+their ramparts.
+
+Hour after hour the sailors pulled at the oar. They glided slowly past
+the sombre shores by the shimmering moonlight, the sound of the
+murmuring surf and the moaning pine-trees. In the gray of the morning,
+they came to the mouth of a river, probably the Nassau; and here a
+northeast wind set in with a violence that almost wrecked their boats.
+Their Indian allies were waiting on the bank, but for a while the gale
+delayed their crossing. The bolder French would lose no time, rowed
+through the tossing waves, and, landing safely, left their boats, and
+pushed into the forest. Gourgues took the lead, in breastplate and
+back-piece. At his side marched the young chief Olotoraca, a French pike
+in his hand; and the files of arquebuse-men and armed sailors followed
+close behind. They plunged through swamps, hewed their way through
+brambly thickets and the matted intricacies of the forests, and, at five
+in the afternoon, wellnigh spent with fatigue and hunger, came to a
+river or inlet of the sea, not far from the first Spanish fort. Here
+they found three hundred Indians waiting for them.
+
+Tired as he was, Gourgues would not rest. He would fain attack at
+daybreak, and with ten arquebusiers and his Indian guide he set forth to
+reconnoitre. Night closed upon him. It was a vain task to struggle on,
+in pitchy darkness, among trunks of trees, fallen logs, tangled vines,
+and swollen streams. Gourgues returned, anxious and gloomy. An Indian
+chief approached him, read through the darkness his perturbed look, and
+offered to lead him by a better path along the margin of the sea.
+Gourgues joyfully assented, and ordered all his men to march. The
+Indians, better skilled in woodcraft, chose the shorter course through
+the forest.
+
+The French forgot their weariness, and pressed on at speed. At dawn they
+and their allies met on the bank of a stream, beyond which, and very
+near, was the fort. But the tide was in. They essayed to cross in vain.
+Greatly vexed,--for he had hoped to take the enemy asleep,--Gourgues
+withdrew his soldiers into the forest, where they were no sooner
+ensconced than a drenching rain fell, and they had much ado to keep
+their gun-matches burning. The light grew apace. Gourgues plainly saw
+the fort, whose defences seemed slight and unfinished. He even saw the
+Spaniards at work within. A feverish interval elapsed. At length the
+tide was out,--so far, at least, that the stream was fordable. A little
+higher up, a clump of woods lay between it and the fort. Behind this
+friendly screen the passage was begun. Each man tied his powder-flask to
+his steel cap, held his arquebuse above his head with one hand and
+grasped his sword with the other. The channel was a bed of oysters. The
+sharp shells cut their feet as they waded through. But the farther bank
+was gained. They emerged from the water, drenched, lacerated, bleeding,
+but with unabated mettle. Under cover of the trees Gourgues set them in
+array. They stood with kindling eyes, and hearts throbbing, but not with
+fear. Gourgues pointed to the Spanish fort, seen by glimpses between the
+bushes and brown trunks. "Look!" he said, "there are the robbers who
+have stolen this land from our King; there are the murderers who have
+butchered our countrymen!" With voices eager, fierce, but half
+suppressed, they demanded to be led on.
+
+Gourgues gave the word. Cazenove, his lieutenant, with thirty men,
+pushed for the fort-gate; himself, with the main body, for the glacis.
+It was near noon; the Spaniards had just risen from table, and, says the
+narrative, "were still picking their teeth," when a startled cry rang in
+their ears,--
+
+"To arms! to arms! The French are coming! the French are coming!"
+
+It was the voice of a cannoneer who had that moment mounted the rampart
+and seen the assailants advancing in unbroken ranks, with heads lowered
+and weapons at the charge. He fired his cannon among them. He even had
+time to load and fire again, when the light-limbed Olotoraca bounded
+forward, ran up the glacis, leaped the unfinished ditch, and drove his
+pike through the Spaniard from breast to back. Gourgues was now on the
+glacis, when he heard Cazenove shouting from the gate that the Spaniards
+were escaping on that side. He turned and led his men thither at a run.
+In a moment, the fugitives, sixty in all, were inclosed between his
+party and that of his lieutenant. The Indians, too, came leaping to the
+spot. Not a Spaniard escaped. All were cut down but a few, reserved by
+Gourgues for a more inglorious end.
+
+Meanwhile the Spaniards in the other fort, on the opposite shore,
+cannonaded the victors without ceasing. The latter turned four captured
+guns against them. One of Gourgues's boats, a very large one, had been
+brought along-shore. He entered it, with eighty soldiers, and pushed for
+the farther bank. With loud yells, the Indians leaped into the water.
+From shore to shore, the St. John's was alive with them. Each held his
+bow and arrows aloft in one hand, while he swam with the other. A panic
+seized the garrison as they saw the savage multitude. They broke out of
+the fort and fled into the forest. But the French had already landed;
+and throwing themselves in the path of the fugitives, they greeted them
+with a storm of lead. The terrified wretches recoiled; but flight was
+vain. The Indian whoop rang behind them; war-clubs and arrows finished
+the work. Gourgues's utmost efforts saved but fifteen,--saved them, not
+out of mercy, but from a refinement of vengeance.
+
+The next day was Quasimodo Sunday, or the Sunday after Easter. Gourgues
+and his men remained quiet, making ladders for the assault on Fort San
+Mateo. Meanwhile the whole forest was in arms, and, far and near, the
+Indians were wild with excitement. They beset the Spanish fort till not
+a soldier could venture out. The garrison, conscious of their danger,
+though ignorant of its extent, devised an expedient to gain information,
+and one of them, painted and feathered like an Indian, ventured within
+Gourgues's outposts. He himself chanced to be at hand, and by his side
+walked his constant attendant, Olotoraca. The keen-eyed young savage
+pierced the cheat at a glance. The spy was seized, and, being examined,
+declared that there were two hundred and sixty Spaniards in San Mateo,
+that they believed the French to be two thousand, and were so frightened
+that they did not know what they did.
+
+Gourgues, well pleased, pushed on to attack them. On Monday evening he
+sent forward the Indians to ambush themselves on both sides of the fort.
+In the morning he followed with his Frenchmen; and as the glittering
+ranks came into view, defiling between the forest and the river, the
+Spaniards opened on them with culverins from a projecting bastion. The
+French took cover in the forest with which the hills below and behind
+the fort were densely overgrown. Here, ensconced in the edge of the
+woods, where, himself unseen, he could survey the whole extent of the
+defences, Gourgues presently descried a strong party of Spaniards
+issuing from their works, crossing the ditch, and advancing to
+reconnoitre. On this, returning to his men, he sent Cazenove, with a
+detachment, to station himself at a point well hidden by trees on the
+flank of the Spaniards. The latter, with strange infatuation, continued
+their advance. Gourgues and his followers pushed on through the thickets
+to meet them. As the Spaniards reached the edge of the clearing, a
+deadly fire blazed in their faces, and before the smoke cleared, the
+French were among them, sword in hand. The survivors would have fled;
+but Cazenove's detachment fell upon their rear, and all were killed or
+taken.
+
+When their comrades in the fort beheld their fate, a panic seized them.
+Conscious of their own deeds, perpetrated on this very spot, they could
+hope no mercy. Their terror multiplied immeasurably the numbers of their
+enemy. They deserted the fort in a body, and fled into the woods most
+remote from the French. But here a deadlier foe awaited them; for a host
+of Indians leaped up from ambush. Then rose those hideous war-cries
+which have curdled the boldest blood and blanched the manliest cheek.
+Then the forest-warriors, with savage ecstasy, wreaked their long
+arrears of vengeance. The French, too, hastened to the spot, and lent
+their swords to the slaughter. A few prisoners were saved alive; the
+rest were slain; and thus did the Spaniards make bloody atonement for
+the butchery of Fort Caroline.
+
+But Gourgues's vengeance was not yet appeased. Hard by the fort, the
+trees were pointed out to him on which Menendez had hanged his captives,
+and placed over them the inscription,--"Not as Frenchmen, but as
+Lutherans."
+
+Gourgues ordered the Spanish prisoners to be led thither.
+
+"Did you think," he sternly said, as the pallid wretches stood ranged
+before him, "that so vile a treachery, so detestable a cruelty, against
+a King so potent and a nation so generous, would go unpunished? I, one
+of the humblest gentlemen among my King's subjects, have charged myself
+with avenging it. Even if the Most Christian and the Most Catholic Kings
+had been enemies, at deadly war, such perfidy and extreme cruelty would
+still have been unpardonable. Now that they are friends and close
+allies, there is no name vile enough to brand your deeds, no punishment
+sharp enough to requite them. But though you cannot suffer as you
+deserve, you shall suffer all that an enemy can honorably inflict, that
+your example may teach others to observe the peace and alliance which
+you have so perfidiously violated."
+
+They were hanged where the French had hung before them; and over them
+was nailed the inscription, burned with a hot iron on a tablet of
+pine,--"Not as Spaniards, but as Traitors, Robbers, and Murderers."
+
+Gourgues's mission was fulfilled. To occupy the country had never been
+his intention; nor was it possible, for the Spaniards were still in
+force at St. Augustine. His was a whirlwind-visitation,--to ravage,
+ruin, and vanish. He harangued the Indians, and exhorted them to
+demolish the fort. They fell to the work with a keen alacrity, and in
+less than a day not one stone was left on another.
+
+Gourgues returned to the forts at the mouth of the river, destroyed them
+also, and took up his march for his ships. It was a triumphal
+procession. The Indians thronged around the victors with gifts of fish
+and game; and an old woman declared that she was now ready to die, since
+she had seen the French once more.
+
+The ships were ready for sea. Gourgues bade his disconsolate allies
+farewell, and nothing would content them but a promise to return soon.
+Before embarking, he addressed his own men:--
+
+"My friends, let us give thanks to God for the success He has granted
+us. It is He who saved us from tempests; it is He who inclined the
+hearts of the Indians towards us; it is He who blinded the understanding
+of the Spaniards. They were four to one in forts well armed and
+provisioned. We had nothing but our right; and yet we have conquered.
+Not to our own strength, but to God only, we owe our victory. Then let
+us thank Him, my friends; let us never forget His favors; and let us
+pray that He may continue them, saving us from dangers, and guiding us
+safely home. Let us pray, too, that He may so dispose the hearts of men
+that our perils and toils may find favor in the eyes of our King and of
+all France, since all we have done was done for the King's service and
+for the honor of our country."
+
+Thus Spaniards and Frenchmen alike laid their reeking swords on God's
+altar.
+
+Gourgues sailed on the third of May, and, gazing back along their
+foaming wake, the adventurers looked their last on the scene of their
+exploits. Their success had had its price. A few of their number had
+fallen, and hardships still awaited the survivors. Gourgues, however,
+reached Rochelle on the day of Pentecost, and the Huguenot citizens
+greeted him with all honor. At court it fared worse with him. The King,
+still obsequious to Spain, looked on him coldly and askance. The Spanish
+minister demanded his head. It was hinted to him that he was not safe,
+and he withdrew to Rouen, where he found asylum among his friends. His
+fortune was gone; debts contracted for his expedition weighed heavily on
+him; and for years he lived in obscurity, almost in misery. At length a
+dawn brightened for him. Elizabeth of England learned his merits and
+his misfortunes, and invited him to enter her service. The King, who,
+says the Jesuit historian, had always at heart been delighted with his
+achievement, openly restored him to favor; while, some years later, Don
+Antonio tendered him command of his fleet to defend his right to the
+crown of Portugal against Philip II. Gourgues, happy once more to cross
+swords with the Spaniards, gladly embraced this offer; but, on his way
+to join the Portuguese prince, he died at Tours of a sudden illness. The
+French mourned the loss of the man who had wiped a blot from the
+national scutcheon, and respected his memory as that of one of the best
+captains of his time. And, in truth, if a zealous patriotism, a fiery
+valor, and skilful leadership are worthy of honor, then is such tribute
+due to Dominic de Gourgues, despite the shadowing vices which even the
+spirit of that wild age can only palliate, the personal hate that aided
+the impulse of his patriotism, and the implacable cruelty that sullied
+his courage.
+
+Romantic as his exploit was, it lacked the fulness of poetic justice,
+since the chief offender escaped him. While Gourgues was sailing towards
+Florida, Menendez was in Spain, high in favor at court, where he told to
+approving ears how he had butchered the heretics. Borgia, the sainted
+General of the Jesuits, was his fast friend; and two years later, when
+he returned to America, the Pope, Paul V., regarding him as an
+instrument for the conversion of the Indians, wrote him a letter with
+his benediction. He reestablished his power in Florida, rebuilt Fort San
+Mateo, and taught the Indians that death or flight was the only refuge
+from Spanish tyranny. They murdered his missionaries and spurned their
+doctrine. "The Devil is the best thing in the world," they cried; "we
+adore him; he makes men brave." Even the Jesuits despaired, and
+abandoned Florida in disgust.
+
+Menendez was summoned home, where fresh honors awaited him from the
+crown, though, according to the somewhat doubtful assertion of the
+heretical Grotius, his deeds had left a stain upon his name among the
+people. He was given command of the armada of three hundred sail and
+twenty thousand men, which, in 1574, was gathered at Santander against
+England and Flanders. But now, at the climax of his fortunes, his career
+was abruptly closed. He died suddenly, at the age of fifty-five. What
+caused his death? Grotius affirms that he killed himself; but, in his
+eagerness to point the moral of his story, he seems to have overstepped
+the bounds of historic truth. The Spanish bigot was rarely a suicide,
+for the rights of Christian burial and repose in consecrated ground were
+denied to the remains of the self-murderer. There is positive evidence,
+too, in a codicil to the will of Menendez, dated at Santander on the
+fifteenth of September, 1574, that he was on that day seriously ill,
+though, as the instrument declares, "sound of mind." There is reason,
+then, to believe that this pious cut-throat died a natural death,
+crowned with honors, and compassed by the consolations of his religion.
+
+It was he who crushed French Protestantism in America. To plant
+religious freedom on this Western soil was not the mission of France. It
+was for her to rear in Northern forests the banner of Absolutism and of
+Rome; while, among the rocks of Massachusetts, England and Calvin
+fronted her in dogged and deadly opposition.
+
+Civilization in North America found its pioneer, its forlorn hope, less
+in England than in France. For, long before the ice-crusted pines of
+Plymouth had listened to the rugged psalmody of the Puritan, the
+solitudes of Western New York and the shadowy wilderness of Lake Huron
+were trodden by the iron heel of the soldier and the sandalled foot of
+the Franciscan friar. They who bore the fleur-de-lis were always in the
+van, patient, daring, indomitable. And foremost on this bright roll of
+forest-chivalry stands the half-forgotten name of Samuel de Champlain.
+
+
+
+
+LINA.
+
+
+The evenings were always dull and long to those of us who were too far
+from home to make it worth while to leave the school for the eight weeks
+of holiday. It was dreary indeed sitting in the great school-room, with
+its long rows of empty desks, with nothing before one to break the
+monotony of the four walls but the great map of France and the big dusty
+cross with its dingy wreath of _immortelles_. It is true, we did not
+bewail the absence of our companions. In fact, it was with a tranquil
+sense of security that I began my work every morning in vacation,
+knowing that I should find all my books in my desk, and my pens and
+pencils undisturbed; for among the _pensionnaires_ there existed a
+strong tendency to communistic principles. Still, when all the noisy
+crew had departed, the house seemed lonely, the dining-room with its
+three bare tables looked desolate, and an unnatural stillness reigned in
+the shady pathways of the garden. You might wander from room to room,
+and up and down the stairs, and to and fro in the long passages, and
+meet no one. Fraeulein Christine was with her "_Liebes Muetterchen_" in
+Strasburg, and Mademoiselle had left her weary post in the middle of the
+school-room for her quiet village-home in Normandy. Madame herself
+remained almost entirely invisible, shut up in the sanctity of her own
+rooms; and so the whole house had a sense of stillness that seemed only
+heightened by the glory of the autumn sunshine, and the hum of bees and
+rustle of leaves that filled the air outside.
+
+The house was old; it had been a grand mansion once, before the days of
+the Revolution, and had probably been the residence of some of the stiff
+old worthies whose portraits hung in dreary dignity in the disused dusty
+galleries of the _chateau_, which now, turned into a _citadelle_, stood
+upon a high point of the cliffs commanding the town. The term _rambling_
+might well be applied to this house, for in its eccentric construction
+it seemed to have wandered at will half-way up the hill-side on which it
+was built. It had wings and abutments, and flights of stone steps
+leading from one part to another. There was "_la grande maison de
+Madame_," "_la maison du jardin_," and "_la maison de Monsieur_." This
+last, half hidden in trees, was _terra incognita_ to the girls; but
+often in an evening, after we had seen him wending his way across the
+garden with his lantern from _la grande maison_, where he had been
+spending the evening with Madame, did we hear Monsieur playing on his
+organ glorious "bits" of Cherubini and Bach.
+
+We were conscious that this odd little man carried on a system of
+espionage through the half-closed slats of his shutters, the effects of
+which we were continually made to feel; this, and the mystery that
+enveloped his small abode, where he worked all day among his bottles and
+retorts, made Monsieur appear somewhat of an ogre in our eyes. There was
+always a sense of freedom in the upper garden, which was out of the
+range of his windows, and where he never came. That pleasant upper
+garden, what a paradise it was, with its long sunny walks within the
+shelter of high walls! The trim stateliness of the ancient splendor had
+run to luxuriant disorder, and thick tangles of rare roses swung abroad
+their boughs above great beds of lilies-of-the-valley and periwinkle
+which had overrun their borders and crept into the walks.
+
+During the vacation, we who stayed had the privilege of going into the
+upper garden. Obtaining the key from Justine, we would wander first
+along the shady pathways of the lower garden, past the flower-beds where
+the girls during recess-times worked and gossiped and quarrelled,--their
+quick French tongues reminding one of a colony of sparrows,--then,
+turning the stubborn lock of the heavy door that opened on the flight
+of mossy steps, we came into that region of stillness and delight, the
+upper garden.
+
+Oh, the pleasant autumn afternoons spent sitting together on the mossy
+walk between the box-hedges, the hum of bees and the scent of roses
+filling the air, and the sweet monotonous murmur of the sea on the
+shingly beach in our ears! For, mounting still higher by terraces and
+another flight of steps through a tumble-down gateway, you came upon the
+open cliffs; and the long blue line of the sea and the fresh sea-breeze
+greeted you with a thousand thoughts of home. For England lay beyond the
+trembling blue line.
+
+I remember it was one of these autumn afternoons, that, coming down from
+practising, with my music-books under my arm, I met Justine, the genius
+of the _menage_, cook and housekeeper in one, a shrewd woman, who had
+three objects in life,--to manage _les betes_, as she condescendingly
+termed the other servants, to please Madame, whom she adored, and to go
+to church every Sunday and _grande fete_. Justine was coming in from the
+garden, with a basket on her arm, in which lay two pigeons that she had
+just killed. On her fingers she twirled the gory scissors with which she
+had performed the deed.
+
+"Good day, Justine! How is Madame?"
+
+"Madame is well, thank you, Mademoiselle,--a little headache, that is
+all,--that comes of so much learning and writing at night. _Mais voila
+une femme superbe!_ I go to make her a little dinner of these," pointing
+to the pigeons.
+
+"Justine, _ma bonne_, won't you give us the key this afternoon?"
+
+Justine stops suddenly and clasps her fat hands emphatically over the
+lid of her basket.
+
+"I had almost forgotten, Mademoiselle. Madame desired me to tell the
+_demoiselles_ that she comes down this evening to sit in the _cabinet de
+musique_."
+
+I was delighted with this piece of intelligence, and ran to tell the
+others. It was not often that Madame deigned to come down-stairs of an
+evening, and were always glad when she did. In the first place, it was a
+pleasant break in the monotony of the general routine to sit and work
+and draw, instead of studying in the empty school-room; and secondly, it
+was delightful to be with Madame, when she threw off the character of
+preceptress,--for at such times she was infinitely agreeable,
+entertaining us in her bright French manner as if we had been her
+guests.
+
+Madame had a way of charming all who approached her, from Adelaide
+Sloper's rich, vulgar father, who, when he came to see his daughter, was
+entertained by Madame _au salon_, and who was overheard to declare, as
+he got into his grand carriage, that "that Frenchwoman was the finest
+woman, by Jove, he'd ever seen!" to the tiny witch Elise, whom nobody
+could manage, but who, at the first rustle of Madame's gown, would cease
+from her mischief, fold her small hands, and, sinking her bead-like
+black eyes, look as demure as such a sprite could. We all adored
+Madame,--not that she herself was very good, though she was pious in her
+way, too. She fasted and went regularly to confession and to all the
+_offices_, and sometimes at the passing of the Host I have seen her
+kneeling in the dusty street in a new dress, and I don't know what more
+you could expect from a Frenchwoman.
+
+Then she was so pretty, and there was a nameless grace in her attitude.
+She seemed to me so beautiful, as she stood at her desk, with one hand
+resting on her open book, tall, with something almost imperious in her
+figure, her head bent, but her deep, lovely gray eyes looking quietly
+before her and seeming to take in at once the whole school-room with an
+expression of keen intelligence. She was highly cultivated, and had read
+widely in many languages; but she wore her learning as gracefully as a
+bird does its lovely plumage.
+
+There was a latent desire for sway in her character. She delighted in
+the homage of those about her, and seldom failed to win it from any one
+with whom she came in contact. Mademoiselle, who did all the hard work
+of the teaching, and was only half paid for it, wore out her strength
+and energy and youth day by day at her desk in the middle of the
+school-room, and thought Madame the perfection of women; and her sallow,
+thin face would flush with pleasure, if Madame gave her a look or one of
+her soft smiles in passing.
+
+At half-past seven that evening we were seated round the table with our
+work, awaiting the entrance of Madame. Presently she glided in, holding
+in her arms a bureau-drawer filled with piles of letters.
+
+"I propose to tell you a story, _mes cheres_," she said, as she seated
+herself and folded her white hands over one of the thick bundles that
+she had taken from the drawer.
+
+"You have all heard me speak of Lina Dale, my English governess before I
+had Mary Gibson. Mary Gibson is an excellent girl, but she has not the
+talent that Lina had. Lina's father was a Captain Dale, a half-pay
+officer, whom I had once seen on business about a pupil of mine who had
+crossed the Channel under his care. A surly, morose man he appeared to
+me, rough towards his wife, a meek, worn-out looking old lady, who spoke
+with a hesitating, apologetic manner and a nervous movement of the
+head,--a habit I thought she must have contracted from a constant fear
+of being pounced upon, as you say, by her husband. I always pitied her
+_de tout mon coeur_, but she possessed neither tact nor intellect, and
+was _tres ennuyeuse_.
+
+"It was one cold day in winter that Justine told me there was a
+_demoiselle au salon_ who wished to see me. I found standing by the
+table a young lady,--a figure that would strike you at once. She turned
+as I entered the room, and her manner was dignified and self-possessed.
+She was not pretty, but her face was a remarkable one: thick dark hair
+above a low forehead, the eyelids somewhat too drooping over the
+singular dark eyes, that looked out beneath them with an expression of
+concentrated thought. 'That girl is like Charlotte Corday,' I said to
+Monsieur afterwards: 'it is a character of great energy and enthusiasm,
+frozen by the hardness and uncongeniality of her fate.' For in this
+interview she told me that she sought a situation in my school, and that
+she felt confidence in offering herself,--that the state of her father's
+affairs did not render this step necessary, but that circumstances of
+which she would not speak made her home unhappy and most unattractive to
+her. All this she said in a calm and perfectly unexcited manner, as if
+relating the details of a matter of business. For a moment I trembled
+lest she had come to make me her confidante in a family-quarrel; but I
+was soon relieved from this apprehension, for, after she had stated the
+fact, she referred to it no more, but went on to speak upon general
+subjects, which she did with great intelligence. Her good sense
+impressed me so much that before she left the house I had engaged her.
+
+"A few days afterwards she was established here, and had adapted herself
+to all our modes of life in a way that astonished me. She went about all
+her duties quietly, and with the greatest order and precision. Her
+classes were the most orderly in the school, and in a short time her
+authority was acknowledged by all the girls. There were few who did not
+admire her, and not one who dared to set her at defiance. By degrees her
+quiet, unobtrusive industry won upon my confidence; I felt glad to show
+by charges of responsibility my regard for a person of so sound a
+judgment and so reserved a temper, and very soon I had given over to her
+care the supervision of English books for the girls' reading, the
+posting and receiving from the post-office of all the English letters,
+both my own and those of the English girls in the _pension_. During the
+two years and a half of her stay here, these duties were fulfilled by
+Lina with unremitting care and punctuality.
+
+"About this time I had commenced a correspondence, through Lina, with a
+Mrs. E. Baxter, of Bristol, in England, who had, it seemed, known Lina
+for many years, and who, understanding, as she mysteriously hinted, how
+unhappy her home must be, begged her to come and live with her and
+undertake for a time the education of her little girl, a child of ten.
+Here are her letters; this is one of the first: you see how warmly, how
+affectionately, she speaks of Lina, and how delicately she made this
+proposal, 'so that dear Lina's sensitive, proud nature might not be able
+to imagine itself wounded.'
+
+"As Mrs. Baxter offered her a much larger salary than I gave her, I told
+Lina that I thought she ought to accept the offer of her friend. She
+quietly and firmly declined.
+
+"'Miss Dale,' I said, 'you must not stand in the way of your own good
+out of any sense of obligation to me. I cannot allow you to do so.'
+
+"'I do not do so, Madame La P----re,' she answered. 'I prefer to stay
+with you to going even to Mrs. Baxter's, whom I love sincerely. She is
+an excellent and most faithful friend, but I am better and safer here
+with you.'
+
+"She looked steadily at me as she began the sentence, but dropped her
+eyes suddenly as she said the last words.
+
+"'Lina,' I said, (it was in the evening, as I was leaving the
+class-room, and all the _eleves_ had already gone,) 'carry me up some of
+these books to my room,--I have more than usual to-night'; for I saw
+there was something hidden behind this reserved manner, and felt
+interested.
+
+"She took the books, and followed me. As she laid them down and arranged
+them in order on the table, I closed the door and said,--
+
+"'Miss Dale, you have not looked very well lately, I think; I have
+several times intended to tell you, that, if you would like to go home
+some Saturday and spend the Sunday with your parents, you can do so.'
+(Her family was then living at Kenneville, a village about twelve miles
+from here.) 'I have noticed that you have never asked permission to do
+this, and thought you might be waiting till I mentioned it myself.'
+
+"She started as I said the word 'home.'
+
+"'No, no,' she said, almost vehemently, 'I cannot go home, I do not wish
+to'; and then she continued, in her usually cold, quiet manner,--'You
+remember, perhaps, Madame, that I am not happily circumstanced at home.'
+
+"She pondered a moment, and then said, as if she had made up her mind
+about something,--
+
+"'After all, I may as well tell you, Madame, all about it, as by doing
+so some things in my conduct that may have seemed strange to you will be
+cleared up,--that is, if you choose to hear?'
+
+"'Certainly, _ma chere_,' I replied. 'I should be glad to hear all you
+have to tell me. Sit down here.'
+
+"She still remained standing, however, before me, her eyelids
+drooping,--not shyly, for her eyes had a steady, abstracted expression,
+as if she were arranging her facts in systematic order so as to tell me
+her story in her usual clear, business-like manner.
+
+"'You know, Madame, my father is guardian to two brothers, the sons of
+an old army-friend of his, who died in India when his two sons were
+quite boys, leaving his cousin, Colonel Lucas, together with my father,
+joint guardians of his children. The boys, during school or college
+vacations, spent the time partly at our house and partly at the house of
+Colonel Lucas. They both seemed like brothers to me. As time went on,
+Frank, the elder, began to spend all his vacations with us; and when he
+left Oxford, and ought to have commenced his studies for the bar, he
+continually put off the time of going up to London, where he was to
+enter the office of a lawyer, and stayed on from week to week at home,
+to teach me German, as he said. I knew he was rich, and that in three
+years he would come into the possession of a large fortune; but I knew
+also how bad it was for a young man to have no profession; and when I
+saw my father seemed indifferent on the subject, I used to urge Frank
+the more not to waste his time. But he generally only laughed, though at
+times he would seem vexed at my earnestness, and would ask me why I
+should wish him to do what he did not want to do; and then,--and
+then,--this was one evening after we had been on the boat together all
+the afternoon, and were walking up home,--then, Madame, he told me he
+loved me, that he would go to London, study law, or do anything I said,
+if I would marry him. Oh, Madame, this was dreadful to me! I was stunned
+and bewildered. I had never fancied such a thing possible; the very idea
+was unnatural. I had thought of Frank as a boy always; now, in a moment,
+he was converted into a man, full of the determination of a selfish
+purpose. I could not answer him composedly, and entreated him to leave
+me. He misinterpreted my dismay, and went at once to my father. When I
+came in, that evening, having somewhat regained my composure, though
+with a sick feeling of dread and bewilderment in my heart, my father met
+me with unusual kindness, kissed me as he had not done for years, and
+led me towards Frank, who was standing near my mother. She had been
+crying, I saw, and her face wore a strange expression of anxiety and
+nervous joy as she looked at me. I turned away from Frank, and threw
+myself down on the floor by my mother.
+
+"'"Thank Heaven, Lina!" I heard her whisper; "God bless you, my child!
+you have saved me years of bitterness."
+
+"'I exclaimed,--"I cannot marry Frank,--I don't love him, mother,--don't
+try to make me!"
+
+"'Ah, Madame, it was dreadful! I don't know how I bore it. My father
+stormed, and my mother cried, and poured forth such entreaties and
+persuasions,--telling me I mistook my heart, and that I should learn to
+love Frank, and about duty as a daughter to my father, and, oh, I don't
+know what beside!--and Frank stood by, silent and pale, and with a look
+I had never seen before of unrelenting, passionate, pitiless love.
+
+"'Oh,' sighed Lina, 'it was hard, with no one to take my part! but the
+hardest was yet to come.
+
+"'Days and weeks passed on, and I was miserable beyond what I can tell
+you. Nothing more was said on the subject, however, except by Frank, who
+tortured me by alternate entreaties and reproaches, and sometimes by
+occasional fits of thoughtfulness and kindness, in which he would leave
+me to myself, only appealing to me by unobtrusive acts of courtesy and
+devotion, which gave me more pain than either reproach or entreaty. But
+if it had not been for these days of comparative calm and quiet, I
+should hardly have been able to bear what followed. As it was, I had
+time to collect my strength and plan my line of conduct.
+
+"'One night my father called me into his room. I saw by his manner that
+he was much excited. My mother was there also; she looked alarmed, and
+glanced from my father to me anxiously and inquiringly. You know mamma
+has very little strength of character, Madame. I could not hope for help
+from her; so I called up all my resolution, knowing that some trial was
+before me. I can hardly tell you what I heard then, Madame, it was such
+disgrace,' said Lina, raising her eyes slowly and fixing them a moment
+on mine, while a sudden, curious, embarrassed expression passed over her
+face, such as is accompanied in other persons by a painful flush, but
+which left her face pale and cold, causing no change in color.
+
+"'My father told me, Madame, that some unfortunate speculations which he
+had undertaken, and in which he had used the fortune of Frank intrusted
+to his care, had failed, and that, when Frank became four-and-twenty, at
+which time, according to his father's will, he was to enter upon his
+property, his own wrong-doing would be discovered, and thence-forward he
+would be at the mercy of his ward. Frank had, indeed, already learned
+how great a wrong had been done him. My mother clung to me, weakly
+pouring forth laudations on the generosity of Frank, who, through his
+affection for me, was willing to forgive all this injury. Was I not
+grateful? Why did I not go to him and tell him that the devotion of my
+life would be a poor recompense for such generosity? Oh, Madame, it was
+dreadful! I was not grateful at all; I hated him; and the misery of
+having to decide thus the fate of my father was intolerable.'
+
+"'But what did the young man himself say to all this, Lina?' I inquired;
+'did he never speak to you on the subject?'
+
+"'Yes,' she replied; and after he had spoken quite bitterly against my
+father, (they never liked each other,) he said, that, however he might
+feel towards him as his guardian, there was nothing that he could not
+forget and forgive in the father of his wife,--which did not make me
+respect him any more, you may be sure, and showed me that it was useless
+to appeal to his generosity. My life now was miserable indeed.
+
+"'About this time, my aunt in Scotland sent for me to pay her a visit.
+She was in failing health, and wanted cheerful companionship, and I had
+always been a favorite with her as a child. She lived alone with a
+couple of old servants in a small village far in the wilds of ----shire.
+My father, of course, opposed my going, alleging, as his reason, the
+long journey (we were then living in W----, in Shropshire) that I should
+have to take alone. To my astonishment, Frank took my part, insisting on
+my being allowed to go. Whether it was that he thought that when far
+away from home, in the seclusion of the Scotch village where my aunt
+lived, I should think more kindly of him, or whether he wished to touch
+me by a show of magnanimity, I cannot tell; but so it was, and I went.'
+
+"Lina here paused a moment, thoughtfully.
+
+"'But, Lina,' I said, 'if the young man was well educated, rich, and
+seemed only to have the one fault of loving you so well, why would you
+not marry him? _Ma chere_,' I said, 'you throw away your good fate. You
+see what a service it would be to your family. (I speak as your friend,
+you comprehend.) You save your father; you make the young man happy; all
+could be arranged so charmingly! I should like to see you married, _ma
+chere_; and then, your duty as a daughter!'
+
+"'Oh, yes, yes! she cried; 'I would do, oh, anything almost, to shield
+my poor father and mother! Perhaps once, _once_, I might; but it is too
+late now. I cannot marry Frank. Oh, Madame, it is as impossible as if I
+were dead!'
+
+"'This is a strange story, Lina,' I said. 'What do you mean? Tell me, my
+child, or I shall think you crazy.'
+
+"She laid her head on her hands, which were clasped on the top of the
+escritoire, and half whispered,--
+
+"'I am engaged,--I am married to some one else.'
+
+"I sprang from my seat, and caught her hands.
+
+"'You married, Lina? you? the quiet girl who has been teaching the
+children so well all these months?'
+
+"'Yes, Madame,' she said, with all her usual composure, 'and to a man I
+love with my whole soul, with my whole life. The future may seem dim,
+but I have little fear when I remember I am Arthur's wife, and that his
+love will be strong to help me whenever I relieve him of the promise I
+have obliged him to make not to reveal our marriage. Frank will be
+three-and-twenty in one year and a half from now; till then, he cannot,
+without great difficulty, harm my father, and by that time I trust his
+fancy for me will have passed away, and he will be willing to treat with
+my father about his property without personal feeling to aggravate his
+sense of the wrong that has been done him. He is in the East now with
+Colonel Lucas, his other guardian, who has not been without his
+suspicions of Frank's liking for me, and is not at all unwilling, I
+think, to keep him out of the way for a while.'
+
+"'Does no one know of this, Lina?' I asked, 'no one suspect it?'
+
+"'Only two persons,' she replied,--'indeed, I may as well tell you at
+once, Madame,--beside Mrs. Baxter and her husband, at whose house the
+ceremony took place. They were then staying in the neighborhood of
+H----, a few miles from my aunt's house. It was at Mrs. Baxter's I first
+met Arthur: he was a distant connection of hers. He and his Cousin
+Marmaduke had come up for the shooting and fishing for a few weeks in
+the autumn. My aunt was a genial, bright old lady, fond of the society
+of young people, spite of her ill health, and invited the young men
+frequently to her house. In that way I saw a great deal of them both.'
+
+"'Who was the gentleman, Lina? Had you seen him before this visit? But,'
+seeing she hesitated, 'if you do not wish to disclose more, say so
+frankly; what you have already told me I will guard as a secret,--you
+need not fear.'
+
+"'Oh, Madame,' interrupted Lina, suddenly throwing herself on the floor
+at my feet, 'it's not that,--do not say that, dear Madame! It is a great
+comfort to me to tell you all this; sometimes I feel so lonely when by
+any chance I do not get a letter from him the day I expect one.'
+
+"Her voice faltered, and she leaned forward, burying her face in her
+hands; I saw her breast shaken with weeping.
+
+"'Tell me all, _ma pauvre petite_!' I said; 'tell me everything.'
+
+"Then seeing she still continued weeping, I said, playfully,--
+
+"'So you get letters from him, do you? I have never known this. You
+know, _ma cherie_, that that is against the rules of my _pension_; but
+when people are married,--_c'est une autre chose_! But how is it that I
+have never found this out? Ah, because you have charge of all the
+letters to and from the post!'
+
+"'Yes, Madame,' she said, looking up with a smile. 'I have sometimes
+felt so unhappy, because I seemed to be doing a _dishonest_ thing; but
+it would have been so hard to go without them, and I knew how kind and
+good you were. If you would like to see one of his letters,' she
+continued, half shyly, but with dignified gravity, 'I have one here';
+and she drew a large letter from her pocket and handed it to me.
+
+"Here it is," said Madame, taking the first from the bundle in her hand.
+
+The handwriting was firm and regular; the letter was long, but, though
+the whole breathed but one feeling of the deepest and tenderest
+affection, it was hardly what would be called a "love-letter." There
+were criticisms of new works, and further references to books of a kind
+that showed the writer to be a man of scholarly tastes. After we had
+looked at this one, Madame handed us others from the packet, all marked
+by the same characteristics as the first. Here and there were little
+pictures of the writer's every-day life. He told of his being out on the
+moors at sunrise shooting with his Cousin Marmaduke, or riding round the
+estate giving orders about the transplanting of certain trees, "which
+are set as you have suggested, and are growing as fast as they can till
+you come to walk under their shade," or in the library at evening, when
+the place beside him seems so void where she should be. Then there were
+other letters, speaking of ---- ----, the poet, who was coming down to
+spend a few weeks with him, and write verses under his elms at Aylesford
+Grange; but in one and all Lina was the central idea round which all
+other interests merely turned, and the source from which all else drew
+its charm.
+
+"As soon," said Madame, continuing her narration, "as I had finished
+reading the letter, I entreated Lina to go on with her curious history.
+
+"'I met Arthur,' she said, 'first at Mrs. Baxter's, as I said before. He
+is the noblest man I have ever known,--so good, so clever, so pure in
+heart! His Cousin Marmaduke, who was there at the same time, paid me
+great attention, but I never liked him; there was always something
+repulsive to me in his black eyes; I never trusted him; and beside
+Arthur,--oh, it seemed like the contrast between night and day! I don't
+know why it was, Madame, but I never felt that he loved Arthur really,
+though Arthur had done a great deal for him, got him his commission in
+the army, and paid off some of his debts; but he never seemed as if he
+quite forgave Arthur for standing in the way of his being the lord of
+the manor himself and possessor of Aylesford. There are some
+mean-spirited people who are proud too. They can receive favors, while
+they resent the obligation. He was of that kind, I think, and hated
+Arthur for his very generosity.
+
+"'One evening, as I was walking up the shrubbery, I met Marmaduke. He
+had ridden over with Arthur, as they often did, to spend the evening. He
+had caught sight of me, he said, as they came up the avenue, and, under
+pretext of something being wrong with his horse's bridle, had stopped,
+and let Arthur go on to the house alone. He had long waited for this
+opportunity of speaking to me alone, he said, as I must have known.
+Then, amid the basest of vague insinuations against Arthur, he dared to
+proffer me his odious love. Oh, Madame, I was angry! A woman cannot bear
+feigned love,--it stings like hatred; still less can she bear to hear
+one she loves spoken of as I had heard him speak of Arthur. I hardly
+know what I said, but it must have expressed my feeling; for he tried to
+taunt me in return with being in love with Arthur and _Aylesford_. I
+only smiled, and walked on. Then he sprang after me, and vowed I should
+not leave him so,--that he loved me madly, spite of my scorn, spite of
+my foolish words. He knew well I did not love Arthur, that I was
+ambitious only. So was he,--and so determined in his purpose, that he
+was sure to succeed in it, spite of everything. "For there are few
+things," he added, "that can stand against my settled will. Beware,
+then, how you cross it, sweet Lina!" I shook my cloak loose from his
+hand, for his words sent a thrill of horror through me, and rushed on,
+speechless with indignation, to the house. Two days after this I became
+engaged to Arthur. How happy we were!' said Lina, a dreamy expression
+passing over her face at the retrospect.
+
+"'I told Arthur everything about my home; but I did not tell him of my
+conversation with Marmaduke in the shrubbery, because I could not bear
+to give him the pain which a discovery of his cousin's baseness would
+have caused him. Marmaduke, I perceived, knew that I had not betrayed
+him; for one night, as I was sitting at the piano, he thanked me
+hastily, as he turned over the leaf of my music-book, for a generous
+proof of confidence. I took no notice of these words, but was conscious
+of a flush of indignation at the word _confidence_.
+
+"'Arthur and I were always together; we read together, and talked over
+our past and future lives. Nothing now troubled me. He took all the
+burden and anxiety of my life to himself, and with his love added a
+sense of peace and security most exquisite to me.
+
+"'I told him all the miserable story of Frank, and he listened gravely;
+but though it certainly troubled him, it never seemed to daunt him for
+an instant. So gentle as he is, nothing ever could shake him. I was so
+happy then, that I could not feel angry even with Marmaduke; and as he
+seemed to be willing to forget the past, we became somewhat more
+friendly towards each other. But if I ever happened to be alone with
+him, even for a moment, the recollection of our talk in the shrubbery
+would come to my mind, and the old feeling of anger would spring up
+again, the effort to suppress which was so painful that I always avoided
+being with him, unless Arthur were by also.
+
+"'One day there came a letter from my father,--and what its character
+was you may suppose, when I tell you that it made me utterly forget my
+present happiness. At the end of the letter he commanded me to return
+home immediately. It came one evening: I read and re-read its cruel
+words till I could bear no more. I saw Arthur standing in the twilight
+below my window, and went down and laid the letter silently in his
+hands. When he had finished reading it, he came slowly towards me. I
+shall never forget his look as he took my hands in his and drew me to
+him, looking into my face so earnestly. Then he said, in a low, grave
+voice, "Lina, do you love me? Then we must be married at once,--do not
+be afraid,--perhaps to-night. I fear your father may follow that letter
+very soon. You have suffered too much already. You have no one but me to
+look to. Heaven knows I do not think alone of my own happiness."'
+
+"Lina paused a moment. 'I yielded,' she said. 'I could have followed him
+blindly then anywhere! So that evening, in the drawing-room, with Mr.
+and Mrs. Baxter and Marmaduke as witnesses, we were married by a Scotch
+clergyman (there was no clergyman of our own Church within twenty
+miles). The ceremony was very simple. As the last words were being
+pronounced, some one entered the room hastily, and there was whispering
+and confusion for a moment or two, and when I rose from my knees the
+first words that greeted me were the intelligence that my aunt was
+dangerously ill, and had sent a special messenger for me. Late as it
+was, I prepared instantly to accompany the man back to H----. I was
+stung with self-reproaches at the thought of my aunt lying, as I
+fancied, dying without me near her, and peremptorily refused to allow
+Arthur to accompany me on my long drive.
+
+"'That was the last time I saw him. The next day he was called away on
+important business, which admitted of no delay. I remained with my poor
+aunt till her death, which took place at the end of that week, three
+days after my marriage. Then my parents came for me. My father's manner
+was unusually kind; my poor mother's expressions of love went to my
+heart. Frank was not at home, they said, but had gone up to London to
+prepare for his journey to the East. They had determined to reside for a
+while in France, and they promised that he should not be informed of my
+being with them, if I would consent to accompany them. I yielded to
+their solicitations, parted with my true friend Mrs. Baxter, and crossed
+the Channel with them. At the end of three weeks I discovered that my
+father had broken his word and informed Frank by letter of my being with
+them. Then I fled to you, having heard of the position vacant in your
+_pension_. I have tried to do my duty here, and to merit in some degree
+your kindness. With you I am happier than I could be with any one but
+Arthur. Arthur has learned to love you too: will you read this letter
+speaking of you?' drawing a letter from her pocket.
+
+"This is it," said Madame, taking one from the pile, and pointing out
+the passage.
+
+"I am weary of my life, sometimes, without you,--here, where you ought
+to be,--_your home_, Lina! I wander through the rooms that I have
+prepared with such delight for you, and think of the time when you will
+be here,--mistress of all!... When will you come, my wife? I think and
+dream in this way till I am haunted by the ghost of the future. I get
+morbid, and fancy all kinds of dangers that may happen to my darling, so
+far away from me; and then I am ready to go at once to you and break
+down all barriers and bear you away.... I thank Heaven you have so good
+a friend in '_Madame_.' I long for the time to come when I may greet her
+as one of my best friends for your sake. In the mean time, I have
+selected an Indian cabinet, the grotesque delicate work of which would
+please your quaint fancy, which I trust she will accept, if you will
+join me in the gift. I shall have an opportunity of sending it in a few
+weeks.... Mrs. Eldridge, my dear old housekeeper, has just been in. She
+wishes to know whether the new curtains of the little library are to be
+crimson or gray. She little knows what confusion she causes me! She
+knows not that I am no longer master here! I tell her I will deliberate
+on the point, and she retires mystified by my unusual indecision. So
+write quickly and make known your desires, if you wish to save me from
+an imputation of becoming, as the good old-lady says, 'a little set and
+bachelor-like in my ways.' Marmaduke and ---- come down next week to
+shoot.... You say, wait till spring, when things will be more propitious
+for disclosing our marriage. I have also another scheme which will be
+ripened by spring. I shall disclose our marriage, and propose to your
+father to make him independent of his ward. No one, certainly, has a
+better right to do this than his son-in-law; and then----But I hardly
+dare to think of the happiness that will be mine when nothing but death
+can part us any more!"
+
+"One evening about this time," continued Madame, "about a week after
+Lina had shown me this letter, I came down into the _cabinet de musique_
+on my way to the garden to take my usual evening walk on the terrace,
+and saw Lina standing by the piano with her bonnet on and her shawl laid
+beside her. In her hand she held letters, one of which she had that
+moment unsealed. She had, I knew, just returned from the post-office.
+
+"'I have a letter here from Mrs. Baxter, Madame,' she said. 'She writes
+to me in great distress; the two children, Minnie and Louisa, whom she
+was so anxious to send here, are both ill with scarlet-fever. But here
+is your letter; she will no doubt tell you everything herself.'
+
+"I took the letter and seated myself, and was soon absorbed in the poor
+mother's hurried and almost incoherent relation, when suddenly I was
+startled by a gesture or sound from Lina that made me look up hastily.
+She stood with the letter she had been reading crushed in her hand, her
+face wearing an expression of agony. For a moment she swayed to and fro
+with her hand outstretched to catch a chair for support, but before I
+could reach her she had fallen heavily to the floor. I called Justine,
+and we raised her to a chair. I stood by her supporting her head on my
+breast, while Justine ran for camphor and _eau-de-vie_. It was some time
+before she recovered her consciousness; she then slowly opened her eyes
+and fixed them wonderingly on me, but with no look of recognition in
+them. A long shiver passed over her, and she sighed heavily once or
+twice as she looked vacantly at the letter on the floor. I was
+terrified, and seized the letter, to gain, if possible, some explanation
+of the miserable state of the poor girl.
+
+"I found that the envelope contained three letters: one from Marmaduke
+Kirkdale; one from the housekeeper, Mrs. Eldridge; and this scrap from
+Arthur.
+
+
+    "LETTER OF MARMADUKE.
+
+"'MY DEAR MADAM,--I have heavy tidings to send you. While out shooting
+yesterday morning in the Low Copse, Mr. ----, Arthur, and myself became
+separated: Mr. ----, who had been my companion, keeping on an open path;
+I going down towards the pool to beat up a thicket and start the game.
+Arthur I supposed was with the gamekeeper, a little distance in advance
+of us. Would that it had been so! As I came up to join the others I
+heard the report of a gun, and hastening towards the spot whence the
+sound seemed to come, I found my poor cousin lying upon the ground, and
+at first supposed, that, in leaping the fence, he had received a sudden
+blow from a branch, which had stunned him; but on kneeling down to raise
+him, I perceived he was bleeding profusely from a wound in the throat,
+and was perfectly unconscious. Mr. ---- came up almost at the moment,
+and while the gamekeeper and I bore Arthur to a farm-house hard by, he
+went off to call the nearest doctor. Everything has been done that skill
+and care could devise. The physician from B---- is here, besides Mr.
+Gordon, the village-surgeon. They pronounce the wound very serious, but
+still hold out hopes that with great care he may yet recover. There is
+no doubt that in leaping the hedge, and holding his gun carelessly, my
+cousin had inflicted this terrible injury on himself. He is, however,
+too weak to make it safe to ask him any explanation of the accident. The
+doctors insist on perfect quiet and rest, and say, that, owing to the
+unremitting care we have been able to give him, he has done much better
+than they could have hoped for. If fever can be prevented, all may yet
+go well; for myself, I believe strongly in Arthur's robust constitution.
+
+"'_Friday night._--Arthur was doing very well till about two o'clock
+this morning. The housekeeper and I were with him. Mr. ---- had gone to
+take some rest. Suddenly Arthur raised himself, and asked for paper and
+pencil. I remonstrated with him, fearing the effects of exertion. When,
+however, I found Mr. ----(who had been called in by Mrs. Eldridge)
+declared his judgment in favor of compliance, I yielded, and, supported
+by the housekeeper, my cousin wrote a few almost illegible words. He had
+scarcely signed his name when he fell back,--the exertion, as I had
+feared, had been too much for him. After this he sank rapidly. He died
+at six o'clock this morning.
+
+"'I hold my cousin's place now by his death. I am ready to do so fully.
+
+"'I am yours as YOU WILL,
+
+                                   "'MAR'KE C. KIRKDALE.'
+
+
+    "LETTER OF THE HOUSEKEEPER.
+
+"'RESPECTED MADAM--I do not know that I have any right presuming to
+meddle with affairs that don't belong to my walk in life, far be it from
+me to do so, especially to one that whatever they may say seems always
+like my mistress to me--owing to the last words my poor dear Mr. Arthur
+ever spoke was, She is my wife, my own wife, let no one gainsay it,
+which at the time I did not take in fairly, being almost broken down
+with sorrow, for I had nursed him as a baby, Madam, and loved him humbly
+as my own son, no lady could have loved him better, which having lost
+him and all this trouble (my heart seeming fairly broke) makes me write,
+respected Madam, worse than usual, never having been a scholar, he
+always wrote them for me, God bless him. You won't think me presuming,
+Madam, when I say these things never having had the honour of seeing
+you, but you are the only person who can feel for me under these
+circumstances of trial more than any others. For to see them going
+through the house looking into precious drawers and burning papers in
+the library fire and turning on a person like a Tiger, though he may be
+a gentleman (though how of that family that always was remarkable gentle
+spoken I cannot tell.) There never were two cousins differenter. I never
+can regard him as my master, never. I would sooner leave the old place
+and beg my bread than feel _him_ master after my blessed Mr. Arthur, not
+that I'd speak evil of the family. But God Almighty reads the hearts of
+men, and I only hope some may come out clear in appearing at the
+Judgment, and mayn't disgrace the Family then--for to say that my Mr.
+Arthur never made a will when twice he's spoke to me upon the subject,
+always trusting me, Madam, telling me where he kept it in the library,
+and though it's not to be found the house through, still I know it must
+be somewhere, for I'd trust his word against a thousand. I shall ask Mr.
+---- to forward this present not knowing your address, he is a kind
+gentleman and a true friend. I send you the little scrap of paper with
+the last words he ever wrote. _Some_ may say it's no good and
+unreadable, but I took care that them that didn't value it didn't get
+it, though they did search everywhere, and looked so black when it
+couldn't be found being in my pocket at the time. I present my services,
+honoured Madam, and my dutiful affection for the sake of him that's
+gone.
+
+                                    "'ELIZABETH ELDRIDGE.'
+
+
+    "LETTER OF ARTHUR.
+
+"'Only a moment or so left to me. Goodbye, my Lina! I am dying--and
+without you near me. We have waited so long! It is hard to leave you
+alone in the world, darling. Come and live here--your own home. If you
+had been here but one day, things might have been otherwise. Take care
+of the poor--keep Mrs. Eldridge with you, she is faithful and
+true--true--she knows--God keep you, darling. I am so weak--there is no
+hope.
+
+                                             "'ARTHUR KIRKDALE.'
+
+"For three days Lina lay on her bed almost without giving a sign of
+life,--her face rigid and colorless. She refused to eat, and only when I
+myself used my authority with her did any nourishment pass her lips. On
+the evening of the third day I became alarmed, and determined to send
+for a physician. I told Justine to despatch one of the servants for Dr.
+B----, but to request him to come after five o'clock, when I should have
+returned from vespers, as I wished to see him myself. I gave my
+directions to Justine as we stood together at the foot of Lina's bed, in
+so low a whisper as to prevent, as I thought, the possibility of her
+hearing me. Great, then, was my astonishment, when, on leaving my room,
+ready for church, I met Lina on the staircase. Her face was very pale,
+and she clung to the banisters for support as she descended. Before I
+could express my surprise, she said,--
+
+"'I feel very much better, Madame, and if you please will call the class
+for English lesson at six.'
+
+"I told her she must go back to her room,--that she should not have
+risen without my knowledge.
+
+"'I must have occupation,' she replied; 'it is much better for me.'
+
+"I felt she was right, and let her go down,--and that evening she held
+her class as usual. So she continued, day after day, her accustomed
+round of duties, with all her usual precision and care. Her self-control
+annoyed me. She passed to and fro in the house, her face pale and wan,
+though with a composed expression, and all my earnest entreaties that
+she should seek rest or relaxation were met by the same calm refusal.
+Saturday came, and I was glad to see she showed something like interest
+in the prospect of the letters from England that would arrive that day,
+and begged me to allow her to go as usual to get them at the
+post-office. I willingly acceded to her request, thinking the fresh air
+and sea-breeze would do her good. She returned with several letters, and
+brought them to me, seeming to desire my company while she read them.
+One was from Marmaduke, one from Mr. R----, her husband's lawyer in
+Lincoln. The former puzzled me; it was vague and threatening, and yet
+there were expressions in it almost befitting a love-letter. Lina read
+it to me with hardly any change of expression, but dropped it from her
+fingers as she finished it, with a look of mingled indifference and
+disgust. The grave, business-like letter of the lawyer had still less
+effect upon her. I read it to her,--for, although in English, I had no
+difficulty in making out every syllable, so distinctly was it written,
+and with such legal precision. It informed Lina that Mr. R----felt some
+apprehension of her having trouble in substantiating her marriage, that
+his conversation with Mr. Marmaduke Kirkdale had been (although somewhat
+vague on the part of the latter) wholly unsatisfactory. This, and the
+fact that no will had as yet been found among her husband's papers, made
+him fear that she might be involved in lengthy and perhaps annoying
+legal proceedings. At the close, he desired her to write out a careful
+account of all the circumstances of her marriage, as it was most
+important that he should know all the details of the case.
+
+"'These things weary me so!' said Lina; 'but it does not matter,' she
+added, sighing; 'for _his_ sake I must do this.'
+
+"The few contemptuous words in answer to Marmaduke's letter were soon
+written, and she then began her reply to the letter of her lawyer. This
+seemed to cost her a great effort; she sighed frequently as she wrote,
+and at the end of two hours, as she finished the last words, her head
+fell on the sheet of paper before her, and she burst into tears. I could
+not try to check this outburst of grief, knowing that it must be a
+great relief to her overtaxed system after the strain of the last few
+days. She was soon again calm, and resumed her writing. A letter to her
+parents, informing them of her secret marriage and sudden widowhood, was
+next written, and Lina, in her plain bonnet and shawl and closely
+veiled, set off with the three letters to the post-office."
+
+Here Madame paused. She smiled faintly.
+
+"I find that I have become again unconsciously, interested in Lina, as I
+have told her story, and I hesitate to approach the _denoument_;
+but"--and she sighed delicately, not sufficiently to disperse the
+smile--"I must go through with this, as Lina herself used to say. One
+night about this time I had been writing late, and it was past midnight
+when I descended with my lamp in my hand to go the round of the
+class-rooms, as is my wont before retiring to rest. I paused, as I
+passed down the school-room, opposite the _Sainte Croix_, and repeated
+my _salut_ before the Holy Emblem. As I finished the last words, my eyes
+fell on a small slip of paper lying on Lina's desk, on which my own name
+was written three times, in what appeared my own handwriting,--Jeanne
+Clinie La P----re. A cold shudder ran through me, as if I had heard my
+name in the accents of my _double_. Obeying a sudden impulse, I opened
+Lina's desk, and seized the papers within. Uppermost lay a thick
+_cahier_, in which, in Lina's writing, were what at first seemed copies
+of all the letters she had received from England within the last few
+months. There were also facsimiles of letters to me from Mrs. Baxter,
+Mr. A. Kirkdale, and others. Then there were draughts of the same
+letters, written in the various handwritings with which I had become
+familiar, as those of Lina's and my own English correspondents. Here and
+there were improvements and corrections in Lina's own writing. Below
+these lay piles of letters,--a bundle of ten letters of my own, forming
+part of my correspondence with Mrs. Baxter, and which I had intrusted to
+Lina at various times to post. These were without envelopes, and simply
+tied together. I sat there for more than an hour, stupefied by this
+strange revelation; and then, taking the bundle of my own letters
+addressed to Mrs. Baxter, I went to my room.
+
+"Next morning, when I descended to the school-room, I glanced, in
+passing, at Lina, and thought I perceived a slightly fluttered,
+disturbed expression in her face; but I continued the usual routine of
+the morning's work without speaking to her. After class was over, I sent
+for her to come to my room. I myself was much disturbed; _she_ was
+perfectly calm and collected; but as I laid the bundle of my own letters
+to Mrs. Baxter on the table, and demanded an explanation of their being
+found in her desk, she turned pale, and snatched up the packet and held
+it tightly. To my question, she answered that I evidently did her great
+wrong, but she was used to being misunderstood; that the kindness I had
+shown her entitled me to an explanation, which she would not otherwise
+have given.
+
+"'It is a weakness that I am ashamed of that has caused this trouble,'
+she said. 'I have sat up in the lonely nights and read and re-read my
+letters, and then I began to copy them, copied even the handwriting,
+till I grew very perfect in it, and then I could not bear to destroy any
+of those precious words, but kept them, as I thought, in secret,--but
+now some one has _basely taken them from my desk_, and brought them to
+you. As for your letters to Mrs. Baxter, there are, I see, only one or
+two here. Give me only time and you shall have that cleared up also. I
+will write to Mrs. Baxter, beg her to explain how she let these letters
+get out of her possession, and ask her to inclose all the rest of your
+letters to her. I will take care that her answer shall come _through the
+post-office_, and not, as heretofore, inclosed in a letter to _me_; so
+that you may feel quite sure that there is no mistake, Madame La
+P----re.'
+
+"I felt baffled and guilty before her; and the next three days were
+most uncomfortable. I could not but feel _genee_ with Lina, while she
+maintained the character of wounded innocence. The evening of the third
+day, Justine handed to me a large packet which the postman had just
+brought, and upon which there were ten francs to pay. It was directed to
+me in Mrs. Baxter's well-known handwriting. I tore open the cover, and a
+shower of letters fell on the table. _All_ my letters to Mrs. Baxter,
+and one from herself, entreating to know the reason of this 'singular
+request of dear Lina's.' I was disconcerted and relieved at once, when,
+turning the wrapper listlessly in my fingers, my eye suddenly caught, on
+the reverse side, and _printed_ in large letters, these words,--'This
+packet was sent to the Postmaster in Bristol to be reposted to ----.'
+That was the end of it. I had paid ten francs for learning the agreeable
+fact that I had been duped,--for the satisfaction of knowing that for
+two years and a half I had been wasting my sympathy and even tears on a
+set of purely imaginary characters and the little _intrigante_ who had
+befooled me.
+
+"When I showed Lina the printed words on the wrapper, she turned very
+pale, but maintained a stubborn silence to all my reproaches.
+
+"'How could you deceive me so?'
+
+"'I don't know.'
+
+"'What reason _could_ you have?'
+
+"'None.'
+
+"'Lina! was there a particle of truth in anything you have told me?'
+
+"'No, Madame.'
+
+"This was all I could get from her; but as she left the room, she turned
+and said, looking at me half reproachfully, half maliciously,--
+
+"'I suppose we had better part now. At any rate, you will at least own
+that I have interested you, Madame!'
+
+"She left me two days afterwards, and the last I heard of her was in the
+situation of companion to a Russian Countess, with whom she was an
+immense favorite. She made some effort to gain possession of these
+letters; but I reminded her, that, as they had been written exclusively
+for my benefit, I considered I had a right to keep them. To this she
+simply answered, 'Very well, Madame.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to add that the story of Lina Dale is
+told here precisely as related to us by Madame La P----re, of course
+excepting the necessary changes in the names of places and persons. The
+three letters are not copies of the original ones in the possession of
+Madame La P----re, but a close transcript of them from memory,--the
+substance of them is identical, and in many instances the words also.
+The extraordinary power shown by Lina Dale in maintaining the character
+she had assumed and sustained during two years and a half was fully
+carried out by the skill and cleverness of her pretended correspondence;
+and in reading over these piles of letters, so full of originality, one
+could not but feel regret at the perversion of powers so
+remarkable,--powers which might have been developed by healthy action
+into means of usefulness and good.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS.
+
+
+FOURTH PAPER.
+
+Lamb's time, after his manumission from India-House, seems to have hung
+rather heavily upon his hands. Though the "birds of the air" were not so
+free as he was then, I fear they were a great deal happier and vastly
+more contented than our liberated and idle old clerk. Though in the
+first flush and excitement of his freedom from his six-and-thirty years'
+confinement in a counting-house,--(he entered the office a dark-haired,
+bright-eyed, light-hearted boy; he left it a decrepit, silver-haired,
+rather melancholy, somewhat disappointed man, whose spirits, as he
+himself confesseth, had grown gray before his hair,)--though, when in
+the dizzy and happy early hours of his freedom, Elia exultingly wrote
+(and felt) that "a man can never have too much time to himself," the
+honeymoon (if I may so express it) of his emancipation from the
+
+    "Dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood"
+
+was not fairly over before he felt that man's true element is
+labor,--that occupation, which in his younger days he had called a
+"fiend," was in very truth an angel,--the angel of contentment and joy.
+Doctor Johnson stoutly maintained by both tongue and pen, that, in
+general, no one could be virtuous or happy who was not completely
+employed. Not only the bread we eat, but the true pleasures and real
+enjoyments of life, must be earned by the sweat of the brow. The poor
+old mill-horse, turned loose in the pasture on Sundays, seems sadly to
+miss his accustomed daily round of weary labor; the retired
+tallow-chandler, whose story has pointed so many morals and adorned so
+many tales, would have died of inertia and ennui in less than six months
+after his retirement from business, had not his successor kindly allowed
+him to help on melting-days; and methinks the very ghosts of certain
+busy and energetic men must fret and fume at the idle and inactive state
+of their shadowy and incorporal selves; nor, unless--as some hope and
+believe--we are to have our familiar and customary tasks and duties to
+perform in heaven, could their souls be happy and contented in Paradise.
+
+But--after this rather foolish and wholly unnecessary digression--to
+return to Lamb. Elia, who had while a toil-worn clerk so carefully and
+frugally husbanded every odd moment and spare hour of time,--who, after
+his day's labor at India-House was over, had read so many massive old
+folios, and written so many pleasant pages for the pleasure and
+solacement of himself, and a choice and select number of men and
+women,--now that he had the whole long day to himself, read but little,
+and wrote but seldom.
+
+And as for those long walks in the country, which he talked of so fondly
+in some of his letters to his friends,--those walks to Hoddesdon, to
+Amwell, to Windsor, and other towns and villages in the near vicinity of
+London, which he had enjoyed in anticipation a few years before he had
+the leisure actually to take them,--those long walks on "fine
+Isaac-Walton mornings," were found to be, it must be confessed, rather
+tiresome and unsatisfactory. They were most melancholy failures, when
+compared--as Elia could not help comparing them--with the pleasant walks
+he and Mary had taken years before to Enfield, and Potter's-Bar, and
+Waltham. Nay, even the "saunterings in Bond Street," the "digressions
+into Soho," to explore book-stalls, the visits to print-shops and
+picture-galleries, soon ceased to afford Lamb much real pleasure or
+enjoyment. Yea, London itself, with all its wonders and marvels, with
+all its (to him) memories and associations, he found to be, to one who
+had nothing to do but wander idly and purposeless through her thronged
+and busy streets and thoroughfares,--a mere looker-on in Vienna,--a
+somewhat dreary and melancholy place. Indeed, the London of 1825-30 was
+a far different place to Elia from the London of twenty years before,
+when he resided at No. 4, Inner-Temple Lane, (near the place of his
+"kindly engendure,") and gave his famous Wednesday-evening parties,
+("Oh!" exclaims Hazlitt, "for the pen of John Buncle to consecrate a
+_petit souvenir_ to their memory!") and when Jem White, and Ned P----,
+and Holcroft, and Captain Burney, and other of his old friends and
+jovial companions were alive and merry.
+
+And now, in these later years and altered times, when even the old
+memories and the old associations seemed to have lost their power over
+him, and gone were most of "the old familiar faces," and when he felt as
+if the game of life were scarcely worth the candle, our melancholy and
+forlorn old humorist thus sadly and pathetically writes to the Quaker
+poet:--"But town, with all my native hankering after it, is not what it
+was. The streets, the shops, are left, but all old friends are gone. And
+in London I was frightfully convinced of this, as I passed houses and
+places, empty caskets now. I have ceased to care almost about anybody.
+The bodies I cared for are in graves or dispersed. My old chums, that
+lived so long and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away. When I took
+leave of our adopted young friend at Charing Cross, 'twas a heavy
+unfeeling rain, and I had nowhere to go. Home have I none, and not a
+sympathizing house to turn to in the great city. Never did the waters of
+heaven pour down on a forlorner head. Yet I tried ten days at a sort of
+friend's house, but it was large and straggling,--one of the individuals
+of my old long knot of friends, card-players, pleasant companions, that
+have tumbled to pieces, into dust and other things; and I got home on
+Thursday, convinced that it was better to get home to my hole at
+Enfield, and hide like a sick cat in my corner." And at Enfield Elia was
+far from being happy or contented. Winter, however,--"confining,
+room-keeping winter," with its short days and long evenings, and cozy,
+comfortable fireside and cheerful candle-light,--he succeeded in passing
+tolerably pleasantly there; but the "deadly long days" of
+summer--"all-day days," he called them, "with but a half-hour's
+candle-light, and no fire-light"--were fearfully dull, wearisome, and
+unprofitable to him, "a scorner of the fields," an exile from London.
+And he thought, as he strolled through the green lanes and along the
+pleasant country-roads in the vicinity of Enfield, of the days when he
+was
+
+    "A clerk in London gay,"
+
+and sighed for the drudgery and confinement of the counting-house, and
+longed to take his seat again at his old desk at India-House. In brief,
+Lamb felt that he should be happier and better, if he had something to
+do. And partly to amuse himself, and partly to assist a friend, he
+employed himself for a few months in a pleasant and congenial task. "I
+am going through a course of reading at the Museum," he writes to
+Bernard Barton,--"the Garrick plays, out of part of which I formed my
+Specimens. I have two thousand to go through; and in a few weeks have
+despatched the tithe of 'em. It is a sort of office-work to me; hours,
+ten to four, the same. It does me good. Men must have regular occupation
+that have been used to it." And in another (later) letter to Barton he
+says, "I am giving the fruit of my old play-reading to Hone, who sets
+forth a portion weekly in the 'Table-Book.'" And he not only furnished
+the "Table-Book" with specimens of the Garrick plays, but he wrote for
+that work, and the "Every-Day Book," a number of pleasant,
+characteristic little sketches and essays. We herewith present the
+reader with one of the best and most remarkable of these articles. Of
+course all will observe, and admire, the humorous, yet very gentle,
+loving, almost pathetic manner in which Elia describes the person and
+character of Mary's old usher,--
+
+
+CAPTAIN STARKEY.
+
+To the Editor of the "Every-Day Book":--
+
+DEAR SIR,--I read your account of this unfortunate being, and his
+forlorn piece of self-history, with that smile of half-interest which
+the annals of insignificance excite, till I came to where he says, "I
+was bound apprentice to Mr. William Bird, an eminent writer, and teacher
+of languages and mathematics," etc.; when I started as one does on the
+recognition of an old acquaintance in a supposed stranger. This, then,
+was that Starkey of whom I have heard my sister relate so many pleasant
+anecdotes, and whom, never having seen, I yet seem almost to remember.
+For nearly fifty years she had lost all sight of him; and, behold! the
+gentle usher of her youth, grown into an aged beggar, dubbed with an
+opprobrious title to which he had no pretensions, an object and a
+May-game! To what base purposes may we not return! What may not have
+been the meek creature's sufferings, what his wanderings, before he
+finally settled down in the comparative comfort of an old hospitaller of
+the almonry of Newcastle? And is poor Starkey dead?
+
+I was a scholar of that "eminent writer" that he speaks of; but Starkey
+had quitted the school about a year before I came to it. Still the odor
+of his merits had left a fragrancy upon the recollection of the elder
+pupils. The school-room stands where it did, looking into a discolored,
+dingy garden, in the passage leading from Fetter Lane into Bartlett's
+Buildings. It is still a school,--though the main prop, alas! has fallen
+so ingloriously,--and bears a Latin inscription over the entrance in the
+lane, which was unknown in our humbler times. Heaven knows what
+"languages" were taught in it then! I am sure that neither my sister nor
+myself brought any out of it but a little of our native English. By
+"mathematics," reader, must be understood "cyphering." It was, in fact,
+a humble day-school, at which reading and writing were taught to us boys
+in the morning, and the same slender erudition was communicated to the
+girls, our sisters, etc., in the evening. Now Starkey presided, under
+Bird, over both establishments. In my time, Mr. Cook, now or lately a
+respectable singer and performer at Drury-Lane Theatre, and nephew to
+Mr. Bird, had succeeded to him. I well remember Bird. He was a squat,
+corpulent, middle-sized man, with something of the gentleman about him,
+and that peculiar mild tone--especially while he was inflicting
+punishment--which is so much more terrible to children than the angriest
+looks and gestures. Whippings were not frequent; but when they took
+place, the correction was performed in a private room adjoining, where
+we could only hear the plaints, but saw nothing. This heightened the
+decorum and the solemnity. But the ordinary public chastisement was the
+bastinado, a stroke or two on the palm with that almost obsolete weapon
+now, the ferule. A ferule was a sort of flat ruler, widened at the
+inflicting end into a shape resembling a pear,--but nothing like so
+sweet,--with a delectable hole in the middle to raise blisters, like a
+cupping-glass. I have an intense recollection of that disused instrument
+of torture, and the malignancy, in proportion to the apparent mildness,
+with which its strokes were applied. The idea of a rod is accompanied
+with something ludicrous; but by no process can I look back upon this
+blister-raiser with anything but unmingled horror. To make him look more
+formidable,--if a pedagogue had need of these heightenings,--Bird wore
+one of those flowered Indian gowns formerly in use with schoolmasters,
+the strange figures upon which we used to interpret into hieroglyphics
+of pain and suffering. But, boyish fears apart, Bird, I believe, was, in
+the main, a humane and judicious master.
+
+Oh, how I remember our legs wedged into those uncomfortable sloping
+desks, where we sat elbowing each other; and the injunctions to attain a
+free hand, unattainable in that position; the first copy I wrote after,
+with its moral lesson, "Art improves Nature"; the still earlier
+pot-hooks and the hangers, some traces of which I fear may yet be
+apparent in this manuscript; the truant looks sidelong to the garden,
+which seemed a mockery of our imprisonment; the prize for best spelling,
+which had almost turned my head, and which to this day I cannot reflect
+upon without a vanity which I ought to be ashamed of; our little leaden
+inkstands, not separately subsisting, but sunk into the desks; the
+bright, punctually washed morning fingers, darkening gradually with
+another and another ink-spot! What a world of little associated
+circumstances, pains, and pleasures, mingling their quotas of pleasure,
+arise at the reading of those few simple words,--"Mr. William Bird, an
+eminent writer, and teacher of languages and mathematics, in Fetter
+Lane, Holborn"!
+
+Poor Starkey, when young, had that peculiar stamp of old-fashionedness
+in his face which makes it impossible for a beholder to predicate any
+particular age in the object. You can scarce make a guess between
+seventeen and seven-and-thirty. This antique cast always seems to
+promise ill-luck and penury. Yet it seems he was not always the abject
+thing he came to. My sister, who well remembers him, can hardly forgive
+Mr. Thomas Ranson for making an etching so unlike her idea of him when
+he was a youthful teacher at Mr. Bird's school. Old age and poverty--a
+life-long poverty, she thinks--could at no time have so effaced the
+marks of native gentility which were once so visible in a face otherwise
+strikingly ugly, thin, and care-worn. From her recollections of him, she
+thinks that he would have wanted bread before he would have begged or
+borrowed a half-penny. "If any of the girls," she says, "who were my
+school-fellows, should be reading, through their aged spectacles,
+tidings from the dead of their youthful friend Starkey, they will feel a
+pang, as I do, at ever having teased his gentle spirit." They were big
+girls, it seems, too old to attend his instructions with the silence
+necessary; and however old age and a long state of beggary seem to have
+reduced his writing faculties to a state of imbecility, in those days
+his language occasionally rose to the bold and figurative: for, when he
+was in despair to stop their chattering, his ordinary phrase was,
+"Ladies, if you will not hold your peace, not all the powers in heaven
+can make you!" Once he was missing for a day or two: he had run away. A
+little, old, unhappy-looking man brought him back,--it was his
+father,--and he did no business in the school that day, but sat moping
+in a corner, with his hands before his face; and the girls, his
+tormentors, in pity for his case, for the rest of that day forbore to
+annoy him. "I had been there but a few months," adds she, "when Starkey,
+who was the chief instructor of us girls, communicated to us, as a
+profound secret, that the tragedy of 'Cato' was shortly to be acted by
+the elder boys, and that we were to be invited to the representation."
+That Starkey lent a helping hand in fashioning the actors, she
+remembers; and but for his unfortunate person, he might have had some
+distinguished part in the scene to enact. As it was, he had the arduous
+task of prompter assigned to him; and his feeble voice was heard clear
+and distinct, repeating the text during the whole performance. She
+describes her recollection of the cast of characters, even now, with a
+relish. Martia, by the handsome Edgar Hickman, who afterwards went to
+Africa, and of whom she never afterwards heard tidings; Lucia, by Master
+Walker, whose sister was her particular friend; Cato, by John Hunter, a
+masterly declaimer, but a plain boy, and shorter by the head than his
+two sons in the scene, etc. In conclusion, Starkey appears to have been
+one of those mild spirits, which, not originally deficient in
+understanding, are crushed by penury into dejection and feebleness. He
+might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society, if
+Fortune had taken him into a very little fostering; but wanting that, he
+became a Captain,--a by-word,--and lived and died a broken bulrush.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perhaps the reader would be pleased to see another of Elia's
+contributions to Hone's "Every-Day Book." For, though Lamb's articles in
+that amusing and very entertaining miscellany are not very highly
+finished or very carefully elaborated, they contain many touches of his
+delicious humor and exquisite pathos, and are, indeed, replete with the
+quaint beauties and beautiful oddities of his very original and very
+delightful genius.
+
+Sterne's sentimental description of the Dead Ass is immortal; but few of
+the readers and admirers of Charles Lamb know that he, who wrote so
+eloquently and pathetically in defence of Beggars and of
+Chimney-Sweepers, and who so ably and successfully vindicated the little
+innocent hare from the charge--made "by Linnaeus perchance, or
+Buffon"--of being a timid animal, indited an essay on the same
+long-eared and loud-voiced quadruped.
+
+
+THE ASS.
+
+Mr. Collier, in his "Poetical Decameron," (Third Conversation,) notices
+a tract printed in 1595, with the author's initials only, A. B.,
+entitled, "The Nobleness of the Asse: a work rare, learned, and
+excellent." He has selected the following pretty passage from it:--"He
+[the ass] refuseth no burthen; he goes whither he is sent, without any
+contradiction. He lifts not his foote against any one; he bytes not; he
+is no fugitive, nor malicious affected. He doth all things in good sort,
+and to his liking that hath cause to employ him. If strokes be given
+him, he cares not for them; and, as out modern poet singeth,--
+
+    'Thou wouldst (perhaps) he should become thy foe,
+    And to that end dost beat him many times:
+    He cares not for himselfe, much lesse thy blow.'"[B]
+
+Certainly Nature, foreseeing the cruel usage which this useful servant
+to man should receive at man's hand, did prudently in furnishing him
+with a tegument impervious to ordinary stripes. The malice of a child or
+a weak hand can make feeble impressions on him. His back offers no mark
+to a puny foeman. To a common whip or switch his hide presents an
+absolute insensibility. You might as well pretend to scourge a
+school-boy with a tough pair of leather breeches on. His jerkin is well
+fortified; and therefore the costermongers "between the years 1790 and
+1800" did more politicly than piously in lifting up a part of his upper
+garment. I well remember that beastly and bloody custom. I have often
+longed to see one of those refiners in discipline himself at the cart's
+tail, with just such a convenient spot laid bare to the tender mercies
+of the whipster. But, since Nature has resumed her rights, it is to be
+hoped that this patient creature does not suffer to extremities,--and
+that to the savages who still belabor his poor carcass with their blows
+(considering the sort of anvil they are laid upon,) he might in some
+sort, if he could speak, exclaim, with the philosopher, "Lay on! you
+beat but upon the case of Anaxarchus."
+
+Contemplating this natural safeguard, this fortified exterior, it is
+with pain I view the sleek, foppish, combed, and curried person of this
+animal as he is transmuted and disnaturalized at watering-places, etc.,
+where they affect to make a palfrey of him. Fie on all such
+sophistications! It will never do, Master Groom! Something of his honest
+shaggy exterior will still peep up in spite of you,--his good, rough,
+native, pine-apple coating. You cannot "refine a scorpion into a fish,
+though you rinse it and scour it with ever so cleanly cookery."[C]
+
+The modern poet quoted by A. B. proceeds to celebrate a virtue for which
+no one to this day had been aware that the ass was remarkable:--
+
+    "One other gift this beast hath as his owne,
+    Wherewith the rest could not be furnished;
+    On man himselfe the same was not bestowne:
+    To wit, on him is ne'er engendered
+    The hatefull vermine that doth teare the skin,
+    And to the bode [body] doth make his passage in."
+
+And truly, when one thinks on the suit of impenetrable armor with which
+Nature (like Vulcan to another Achilles) has provided him, these subtle
+enemies to _our_ repose would have shown some dexterity in getting into
+_his_ quarters. As the bogs of Ireland by tradition expel toads and
+reptiles, he may well defy these small deer in his fastnesses. It seems
+the latter had not arrived at the exquisite policy adopted by the human
+vermin "between 1790 and 1800."
+
+But the most singular and delightful gift of the ass, according to the
+writer of this pamphlet, is his _voice_, the "goodly, sweet, and
+continual brayings" of which, "whereof they forme a melodious and
+proportionable kinde of musicke," seem to have affected him with no
+ordinary pleasure. "Nor thinke I," he adds, "that any of our immoderate
+musitians can deny but that their song is full of exceeding pleasure to
+be heard; because therein is to be discerned both concord, discord,
+singing in the meane, the beginning to sing in large compasse, then
+following on to rise and fall, the halfe note, whole note, musicke of
+five voices, firme singing by four voices, three together, or one voice
+and a halfe. Then their variable contrarieties amongst them, when one
+delivers forth a long tenor or a short, the pausing for time, breathing
+in measure, breaking the minim or very least moment of time. Last of
+all, to heare the musicke of five or six voices chaunged to so many of
+asses is amongst them to heare a song of world without end."
+
+There is no accounting for ears, or for that laudable enthusiasm with
+which an author is tempted to invest a favorite subject with the most
+incompatible perfections. I should otherwise, for my own taste, have
+been inclined rather to have given a place to these extraordinary
+musicians at that banquet of nothing-less-than-sweet sounds, imagined by
+old Jeremy Collier, (Essays, 1698, part ii., On Music,) where, after
+describing the inspiriting effects of martial music in a battle, he
+hazards an ingenious conjecture, whether a sort of _anti-music_ might
+not be invented, which should have quite the contrary effect of "sinking
+the spirits, shaking the nerves, curdling the blood, and inspiring
+despair and cowardice and consternation." "'T is probable," he says,
+"the roaring of lions, the warbling of cats and screech-owls, together
+with a mixture of the howling of dogs, judiciously imitated and
+compounded, might go a great way in this invention." The dose, we
+confess, is pretty potent, and skilfully enough prepared. But what shall
+we say to the ass of Silenus, who, if we may trust to classic lore, by
+his own proper sounds, without thanks to cat or screech-owl, dismayed
+and put to rout a whole army of giants? Here was _anti-music_ with a
+vengeance,--a whole _Pan-Dis-Harmonicon_ in a single lungs of leather!
+
+But I keep you trifling too long on this asinine subject. I have already
+passed the _Pons Asinorum_, and will desist, remembering the old
+pedantic pun of Jem Boyer, my schoolmaster:--
+
+     "Ass _in praesenti_ seldom makes a WISE MAN _in futuro_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lamb not only had a passionate fondness for old books and old friends,
+but he loved the old associations. He was no admirer of your modern
+improvements. Unlike Dr. Johnson, he did not go into the "most stately
+shops," but purchased his books and engravings at the stalls and from
+second-hand dealers. In his eyes, the old Inner-Temple Church was a
+handsomer and statelier structure than the finest Cathedral in England;
+and to his ear, as well as to the ear of Will Honeycomb, the old
+familiar cries of the peripatetic London merchants were more musical
+than the songs of larks and nightingales. It grieved him sorely to see
+an old building demolished which he had passed and repassed for years,
+in his daily walks to and from his business,--or an old custom
+abolished, whose observance he had witnessed when a child. "The
+disappearance of the old clock from St. Dunstan's Church," says Mr.
+Moxon, in his pleasant tribute to Lamb's memory in Leigh Hunt's Journal,
+"drew tears from his eyes; nor could he ever pass without emotion the
+place where Exeter Change once stood. The removal had spoiled a reality
+in Gay. 'The passer-by,' he said, 'no longer saw the combs dangle in his
+face.' This almost broke his heart." And he begins the following little
+"essaykin" with a lamentation over the disappearance from the streets of
+London of the tinman's old original sign, and a sigh for "the good old
+modes of our ancestors."
+
+What he says of maiden aunts and their pets is delightful, and
+pleasantly reminds the reader of Addison's account of Sam Trusty's visit
+to the Widow Feeble.
+
+
+IN RE SQUIRRELS.
+
+What is gone with the cages, with the climbing squirrel and bells to
+them, which were formerly the indispensable appendage to the outside of
+a tinman's shop, and were, in fact, the only live signs? One, we
+believe, still hangs out on Holborn; but they are fast vanishing with
+the good old modes of our ancestors. They seem to have been superseded
+by that still more ingenious refinement of modern humanity, the
+tread-mill, in which _human_ squirrels still perform a similar round of
+ceaseless, improgressive clambering, which must be nuts to them.
+
+We almost doubt the fact of the teeth of this creature being so purely
+orange-colored as Mr. Urban's correspondent gives out. One of our old
+poets--and they were pretty sharp observers of Nature--describes them as
+brown. But perhaps the naturalist referred to meant "of the color of a
+Maltese orange,"[D] which is rather more obfuscated than your fruit of
+Seville or St. Michael's, and may help to reconcile the difference. We
+cannot speak from observation; but we remember at school getting our
+fingers into the orangery of one of these little gentry, (not having a
+due caution of the traps set there,) and the result proved sourer than
+lemons. The author of the "Task" somewhere speaks of their anger as
+being "insignificantly fierce"; but we found the demonstration of it on
+this occasion quite as significant as we desired, and have not been
+disposed since to look any of these "gift horses" in the mouth. Maiden
+aunts keep these "small deer," as they do parrots, to bite people's
+fingers, on purpose to give them good advice "not to venture so near the
+cage another time." As for their "six quavers divided into three quavers
+and a dotted crotchet," I suppose they may go into Jeremy Bentham's next
+budget of Fallacies, along with the "melodious and proportionable kinde
+of musicke," recorded in your last number, of another highly gifted
+animal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although Lamb took little, if any, interest in public affairs, and,
+indeed, knew about as much of the events and occurrences of the day as
+the sublime, abstracted dancing-master immortalized in one of the
+letters to Manning, he appears to have been profoundly and painfully
+impressed by the fate of Fauntleroy, the forger. He thought and talked
+of Fauntleroy by day, and dreamed of Fauntleroy at night. And on the day
+after the execution of that unfortunate man, Lamb, thus solemnly, yet
+humorously withal, writes to his good friend Bernard Barton, poet and
+bank-officer:--
+
+"And now, my dear Sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of
+yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate
+Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes
+around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed
+to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become
+more impressive than usual with the charge of them. Who that standeth
+knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most willing to
+believe, have never deviated into others' property. You think it
+impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence; but so
+thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at last
+have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are a
+banker, or, at least, the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the
+subject; but cash must pass through your hands, sometimes to a great
+amount. If, in an unguarded hour----But I will hope better. Consider the
+scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go
+to see a Quaker hanged that would be indifferent to the fate of a
+Presbyterian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the
+sale of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations! I
+tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of
+the law, at one time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged
+as I, in my own presumption, am ready, too ready, to do myself. What are
+we better than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is
+there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I
+ask you? Think on these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of
+my own fingers,--not for their resemblance to the ape tribe, (which is
+something,) but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of
+picking, fingering, etc."
+
+And a few months after writing the above letter, Lamb contributed to
+"The London Magazine,"--then in its decadence, but among whose "creaking
+rafters" Elia fondly lingered, "like the last rat,"--to this (his
+favorite periodical) he contributed a brief, but beautiful paper,
+suggested by Fauntleroy's sad story. The article is entitled "The Last
+Peach," and purports to be written by a bank-officer (possibly the
+author had Barton in his mind while writing it) who fears he may become
+a second Fauntleroy. The piece contains one or two delightful passages,
+and is, in fact, full of happy touches and felicitous bits of
+description. Very charming (to me, at least) is the account of the
+plucking of the last peach, and very touching is the allusion to the
+babe Fauntleroy. But good wine (or a good peach) needs no bush; and
+therefore, without further comment or commendation, I present "The Last
+Peach" to the appreciative reader. He will find it to be, unless I am a
+very poor judge of the article, a peach of excellent quality and of a
+peculiarly fine flavor.
+
+The garden in which grew the tree on which "lingered the one last peach"
+belonged to "Blakesmoor," the fine old family-mansion of the Plummers of
+Hertfordshire, in whose family Lamb's maternal grandmother--"the
+grandame" of his poem of that name, and the "great-grandmother Field" of
+Elia's "Dream-Children"--was housekeeper for many years.
+
+
+THE LAST PEACH.
+
+I am the miserablest man living. Give me counsel, dear Editor. I was
+bred up in the strictest principles of honesty, and have passed my life
+in punctual adherence to them. Integrity might be said to be ingrained
+in our family. Yet I live in constant fear of one day coming to the
+gallows.
+
+Till the latter end of last autumn, I never experienced these feelings
+of self-mistrust, which ever since have embittered my existence. From
+the apprehension of that unfortunate man[E] whose story began to make so
+great an impression upon the public about that time, I date my horrors.
+I never can get it out of my head that I shall some time or other commit
+a forgery, or do some equally vile thing. To make matters worse, I am in
+a banking-house. I sit surrounded with a cluster of bank-notes. These
+were formerly no more to me than meat to a butcher's dog. They are now
+as toads and aspics. I feel all day like one situated amidst gins and
+pitfalls. Sovereigns, which I once took such pleasure in counting out,
+and scraping up with my little tin shovel, (at which I was the most
+expert in the banking-house,) now scald my hands. When I go to sign my
+name, I set down that of another person, or write my own in a
+counterfeit character. I am beset with temptations without motive. I
+want no more wealth than I possess. A more contented being than myself,
+as to money-matters, exists not. What should I fear?
+
+When a child, I was once let loose, by favor of a nobleman's gardener,
+into his Lordship's magnificent fruit-garden, with full leave to pull
+the currants and the gooseberries; only I was interdicted from touching
+the wall-fruit. Indeed, at that season (it was the end of autumn) there
+was little left. Only on the south wall (can I forget the hot feel of
+the brick-work?) lingered the one last peach. Now peaches are a fruit
+which I always had, and still have, an almost utter aversion to. There
+is something to my palate singularly harsh and repulsive in the flavor
+of them. I know not by what demon of contradiction inspired, but I was
+haunted with an irresistible desire to pluck it. Tear myself as often as
+I would from the spot, I found myself still recurring to it, till,
+maddening with desire, (desire I cannot call it,) with wilfulness
+rather,--without appetite, (against appetite, I may call it,) in an evil
+hour I reached out my hand, and plucked it. Some few rain-drops just
+then fell; the sky, from a bright day, became overcast; and I was a type
+of our first parents, after eating of that fatal fruit. I felt myself
+naked and ashamed, stripped of my virtue, spiritless. The downy fruit,
+whose sight rather than savor had tempted me, dropped from my hand,
+never to be tasted. All the commentators in the world cannot persuade me
+but that the Hebrew word, in the second chapter of Genesis, translated
+apple, should be rendered peach. Only this way can I reconcile that
+mysterious story.
+
+Just such a child at thirty am I among the cash and valuables, longing
+to pluck, without an idea of enjoyment further. I cannot reason myself
+out of these fears: I dare not laugh at them. I was tenderly and
+lovingly brought up. What then? Who that in life's entrance had seen the
+babe F----, from the lap stretching out his little fond mouth to catch
+the maternal kiss, could have predicted, or as much as imagined, that
+life's very different exit? The sight of my own fingers torments me,
+they seem so admirably constructed for--pilfering. Then that jugular
+vein, which I have in common----; in an emphatic sense may I say with
+David, I am "fearfully made." All my mirth is poisoned by these unhappy
+suggestions. If, to dissipate reflection, I hum a tune, it changes to
+the "Lamentations of a Sinner." My very dreams are tainted. I awake with
+a shocking feeling of my hand in some pocket.
+
+Advise me, dear Editor, on this painful heart-malady. Tell me, do you
+feel anything allied to it in yourself? Do you never feel an itching, as
+it were,--a _dactylomania_,--or am I alone? You have my honest
+confession. My next may appear from Bow Street.
+
+                                               SUSPENSURUS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Delightful as the essays of Elia are, Lamb did not spend all the "riches
+of his wit" in their production. His letters--so full are they of "the
+salt and fineness of wit,"--so richly humorous and so deliciously
+droll,--so rammed and crammed with the oddest conceits and the wildest
+fancies, and the quaintest, queerest thoughts, ideas, and
+speculations--are scarcely inferior to his essays. Indeed, some of the
+best and most admired of the essays are but extended letters. The germ
+of the immortal dissertation on "Roast Pig" is contained in a letter to
+Coleridge; the essay entitled "Distant Correspondents" is hardly more
+than a transcript of a private letter to Barron Field; and the original
+sketch of "The Gentle Giantess" was given in a letter to Miss
+Wordsworth.
+
+In the following letter--which is not included in Talfourd's "Life and
+Letters of Charles Lamb," and will therefore be new to most
+readers--Lamb writes very much in the manner in which Shakspeare's fools
+and jesters--in some respects the wisest and thoughtfullest characters
+in his works--talk. If his words be "light as air," they vent "truths
+deep as the centre." If the Fool in "Lear" had written letters to his
+friends and acquaintances, I think they would have marvellously
+resembled this epistle to Patmore; and if, in saying this, I compliment
+the Fool, I hope I do not derogate from the genius of Elia. Jaques, it
+will be remembered, after hearing the "motley fool" moral on the time,
+declared that "motley's the only wear"; and I opine that Lamb would
+consider it no small praise to be likened, in wit, wisdom, and
+eloquence, to Touchstone, or to the Clown in "Twelfth Night."
+
+
+TO P. G. PATMORE.
+
+DEAR P.,--I am poorly. I have been to a funeral, where I made a pun, to
+the consternation of the rest of the mourners; and we had wine. I can't
+describe to you the howl which the widow set up at proper intervals.
+Dash could; for it was not unlike what he makes.
+
+The letter I sent you was directed to the care of E. White, India House,
+for Mrs. Hazlitt: _which_ Mrs. Hazlitt I don't yet know; but A. has
+taken it to France on speculation. Really it is embarrassing. There is
+Mrs. present H., Mrs. late H., and Mrs. John H.; and to which of the
+three Mrs. Wigginses it appertains I don't know. I wanted to open it;
+but it's transportation.
+
+I am sorry you are plagued about your book. I would strongly recommend
+you to take for one story Massinger's "Old Law." It is exquisite. I can
+think of no other.
+
+Dash is frightful this morning. He whines and stands up on his
+hind-legs. He misses Beckey, who is gone to town. I took him to Barnet
+the other day; and he couldn't eat his victuals after it. Pray God his
+intellects be not slipping.
+
+Mary is gone out for some soles. I suppose it's no use to ask you to
+come and partake of 'em, else there's a steam-vessel.
+
+I am doing a tragi-comedy in two acts, and have got on tolerably; but it
+will be refused, or worse. I never had luck with anything my name was
+put to.
+
+Oh, I am so poorly! I _waked_ it at my cousin's the bookbinder's, who is
+now with God; or, if he is not, it's no fault of mine.
+
+We hope the frank wines do not disagree with Mrs. Patmore. By the way, I
+like her.
+
+Did you ever taste frogs? Get them, if you can. They are little Liliput
+rabbits, only a thought nicer.
+
+Christ, how sick I am!--not of the world, but of the widow's shrub.
+She's sworn under six thousand pounds; but I think she perjured herself.
+She howls in E _la_; and I comfort her in B flat. You understand music?
+
+If you haven't got Massinger, you have nothing to do but go to the first
+bibliotheque you can light upon at Boulogne, and ask for it (Gifford's
+edition); and if they haven't got it, you can have "Athalie," par
+Monsieur Racine, and make the best of it; but that "Old Law" 's
+delicious!
+
+"No shrimps!" (That's in answer to Mary's question about how the soles
+are to be done.)
+
+I am uncertain where this _wandering_ letter may reach you. What you
+mean by "poste restante," God knows. Do you mean I must pay the postage?
+So I do, to Dover.
+
+We had a merry passage with the widow at the Commons. She was
+howling,--part howling, and part giving directions to the
+proctor,--when, crash! down went my sister through a crazy chair, and
+made the clerks grin; and I grinned, and the widow tittered; _and then I
+knew that she was not inconsolable_. Mary was more frightened than hurt.
+
+She'd make a good match for anybody (by "she," I mean the widow).
+
+    "If he bring but a _relict_ away,
+    He is happy, nor heard to complain."
+
+                           _Shenstone._
+
+Procter has got a wen growing out at the nape of his neck, which his
+wife wants him to have cut off: but I think it rather an agreeable
+excrescence; like his poetry, redundant. Hone has hanged himself for
+debt. Godwin was taken up for picking pockets. Beckey takes to bad
+courses. Her father was blown up in a steam-machine. The coroner found
+it insanity. I should not like him to sit on my letter.[F]
+
+Do you observe my direction? Is it Gaelic?--classical?
+
+Do try and get some frogs. You must ask for "grenouilles" (green-eels).
+They don't understand "frogs"; though it's a common phrase with us.
+
+If you go through Bulloign [Boulogne], inquire if old Godfrey is living,
+and how he got home from the Crusades. He must be a very old man now.
+
+If there is anything new in politics or literature in France, keep it
+till I see you again; for I'm in no hurry. Chatty-Briant [Chateaubriand]
+is well, I hope.
+
+I think I have no more news; only give both our loves ("all three," says
+Dash) to Mrs. Patmore, and bid her get quite well, as I am at present,
+bating qualms, and the grief incident to losing a valuable relation.
+
+                       C. L.
+
+    LONDRES, July 19, 1827.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of all the essays of Elia, the paper on "Roast Pig" is perhaps the most
+read, the most quoted, the most admired. 'T is even better, says an
+epicurean friend of mine, than the "crisp, tawny, well-watched, not
+over-roasted crackling" it descants upon so eloquently. Certainly Lamb
+never writes so richly and so delightfully as when he discourses of the
+dainties and delicacies of the table.
+
+Though all our readers are doubtlessly familiar with Elia's beautiful
+little article entitled "Thoughts on Presents of Game," very few of them
+have read the letter he wrote in acknowledgment of a present of a pig
+from a farmer and his wife. 'T is a rare bit, a choice morsel of Lamb's
+best and most delicious humor, and will be perused with great pleasure
+and satisfaction by all admirers of its witty and eccentric author. Here
+it is.
+
+
+TO A FARMER AND HIS WIFE.
+
+                                      _Twelfth Day, 1823._
+
+The pig was above my feeble praise. It was a dear pigmy. There was some
+contention as to who should have the ears; but, in spite of his
+obstinacy, (deaf as these little creatures are to advice,) I contrived
+to get at one of them.
+
+It came in boots, too, which I took as a favor. Generally these pretty
+toes--pretty toes!--are missing; but I suppose he wore them to look
+taller.
+
+He must have been the least of his race. His little foots would have
+gone into the silver slipper. I take him to have been a Chinese and a
+female.
+
+If Evelyn could have seen him, he would never have farrowed two such
+prodigious volumes; seeing how much good can be contained in--how small
+a compass!
+
+He crackled delicately.
+
+I left a blank at the top of my letter, not being determined which to
+address it to: so farmer and farmer's wife will please to divide our
+thanks. May your granaries be full, and your rats empty, and your
+chickens plump, and your envious neighbors lean, and your laborers busy,
+and you as idle and as happy as the day is long!
+
+
+VIVE L'AGRICULTURE!
+
+    How do you make your pigs so little?
+    They are vastly engaging at the age:
+        I was so myself.
+    Now I am a disagreeable old hog,
+    A middle-aged gentleman-and-a-half.
+    My faculties, thank God, are not much impaired!
+
+I have my sight, hearing, taste, pretty perfect; and can read the Lord's
+Prayer in common type, by the help of a candle, without making many
+mistakes.
+
+Believe me, that, while my faculties last, I shall ever cherish a proper
+appreciation of your many kindnesses in this way, and that the last
+lingering relish of past favors upon my dying memory will be the smack
+of that little ear. It was the left ear, which is lucky. Many happy
+returns,--not of the pig, but of the New Year, to both!
+
+Mary, for her share of the pig and the memoirs, desires to send the
+same.
+
+            Yours truly,
+                 C. LAMB.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[B] "Who this modern poet was," says Mr. Collier, "is a secret worth
+discovering." The wood-cut on the title of the pamphlet is an ass with a
+wreath of laurel round his neck.
+
+[C] Milton, _from memory_.
+
+[D] Fletcher, in the "Faithful Shepherdess." The Satyr offers to Clorin
+
+"grapes whose lusty blood Is the learned poet's good; Sweeter yet did
+never crown The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown Than the _squirrels'
+teeth_ that crack them."
+
+[E] Fauntleroy.
+
+[F] The reader, says Mr. Patmore, need not be told that all the above
+items of home-news are pure fiction.
+
+
+
+
+TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
+
+ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.
+
+NOVEMBER 3, 1864.
+
+
+    Calm priest of Nature, her maternal hand
+      Led thee, a reverent child,
+    To mountain-altars, by the lonely strand,
+      And through the forest wild.
+
+    Haunting her temple, filled with love and awe,
+      To thy responsive youth
+    The harmonies of her benignant law
+      Revealed consoling truth.
+
+    Thenceforth, when toiling in the grasp of Care
+      Amid the eager throng,
+    A votive seer, her greetings thou didst bear,
+      Her oracles prolong.
+
+    The vagrant winds and the far heaving main
+      Breathed in thy chastened rhyme,
+    Their latent music to the soul again,
+      Above the din of time.
+
+    The seasons, at thy call, renewed the spell
+      That thrilled our better years,
+    The primal wonder o'er our spirits fell,
+      And woke the fount of tears.
+
+    And Faith's monition, like an organ's strain,
+      Followed the sea-bird's flight,
+    The river's bounteous flow, the ripening grain,
+      And stars' unfathomed light.
+
+    In the dank woods and where the meadows gleam,
+      The lowliest flower that smiled
+    To wisdom's vigil or to fancy's dream
+      Thy gentle thought beguiled.
+
+    They win fond glances in the prairie's sweep,
+      And where the moss-clumps lie,
+    A welcome find when through the mould they creep,
+      A requiem when they die.
+
+    Unstained thy song with passion's fitful hues
+      Or pleasure's reckless breath,
+    For Nature's beauty to thy virgin muse
+      Was solemnized by death.
+
+    O'er life's majestic realm and dread repose,
+      Entranced with holy calm,
+    From the rapt soul of boyhood then uprose
+     The memorable psalm.
+
+    And roaming lone beneath the woodland shades,
+      Thy meditative prayer
+    In the umbrageous aisles and choral glades
+      We murmur unaware;
+
+    Or track the ages with prophetic cheer,
+      Lured by thy chant sublime,
+    Till bigotry and kingcraft disappear
+      In Freedom's chosen clime,--
+
+    While on her ramparts with intrepid mien,
+      O'er faction's angry sea,
+    Thy voice proclaims, undaunted and serene,
+      The watchwords of the free.
+
+    Not in vague tones or tricks of verbal art
+      The plaint and paean rung:
+    Thine the clear utterance of an earnest heart,
+      The limpid Saxon tongue.
+
+    Our country's minstrel! in whose crystal verse
+      With tranquil joy we trace
+    Her native glories, and the tale rehearse
+      Of her primeval race,--
+
+    Blest are thy laurels, that unchallenged crown
+      Worn brow and silver hair,
+    For truth and manhood consecrate renown,
+      And her pure triumph share!
+
+
+
+
+HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS
+
+BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.
+
+
+X.
+
+Our gallant Bob Stephens, into whose life-boat our Marianne has been
+received, has lately taken the mania of house-building into his head.
+Bob is somewhat fastidious, difficult to please, fond of domesticities
+and individualities; and such a man never can fit himself into a house
+built by another, and accordingly house-building has always been his
+favorite mental recreation. During all his courtship as much time was
+taken up in planning a future house as if he had money to build one, and
+all Marianne's patterns, and the backs of half their letters, were
+scrawled with ground-plans and elevations. But latterly this chronic
+disposition has been quickened into an acute form by the falling-in of
+some few thousands to their domestic treasury,--left as the sole
+residuum of a painstaking old aunt, who took it into her head to make a
+will in Bob's favor, leaving, among other good things, a nice little bit
+of land in a rural district half an hour's railroad-ride from Boston.
+
+So now ground-plans thicken, and my wife is being consulted morning,
+noon, and night, and I never come into the room without finding their
+heads close together over a paper, and hearing Bob expatiate on his
+favorite idea of a library. He appears to have got so far as this, that
+the ceiling is to be of carved oak, with ribs running to a boss
+overhead, and finished mediaevally with ultramarine blue and
+gilding,--and then away he goes sketching Gothic patterns of
+book-shelves which require only experienced carvers, and the wherewithal
+to pay them, to be the divinest things in the world.
+
+Marianne is exercised about china-closets and pantries, and about a
+bed-room on the ground-door,--for, like all other women of our days, she
+expects not to have strength enough to run up-stairs oftener than once
+or twice a week; and my wife, who is a native genius in this line, and
+has planned in her time dozens of houses for acquaintances, wherein they
+are at this moment living happily, goes over every day with her pencil
+and ruler the work of rearranging the plans, according as the ideas of
+the young couple veer and vary.
+
+One day Bob is importuned to give two feet off from his library for a
+closet in the bed-room,--but resists like a Trojan. The next morning,
+being mollified by private domestic supplications, Bob yields, and my
+wife rubs out the lines of yesterday, two feet come off the library, and
+a closet is constructed. But now the parlor proves too narrow,--the
+parlor-wall must be moved two feet into the hall. Bob declares this will
+spoil the symmetry of the latter, and if there is anything he wants, it
+is a wide, generous, ample hall to step into when you open the
+front-door.
+
+"Well, then," says Marianne, "let's put two feet more into the width of
+the house."
+
+"Can't, on account of the expense, you see," says Bob. "You see, every
+additional foot of outside wall necessitates so many more bricks, so
+much more flooring, so much more roofing, etc."
+
+And my wife, with thoughtful brow, looks over the plans, and considers
+how two feet more are to be got into the parlor without moving any of
+the walls.
+
+"I say," says Bob, bending over her shoulder, "here, take your two feet
+in the parlor, and put two more feet on to the other side of the
+hall-stairs"; and he dashes heavily with his pencil.
+
+"Oh, Bob!" exclaims Marianne, "there are the kitchen-pantries! you ruin
+them,--and no place for the cellar-stairs!"
+
+"Hang the pantries and cellar-stairs!" says Bob, "Mother must find a
+place for them somewhere else. I say the house must be roomy and
+cheerful, and pantries and those things may take care of themselves;
+they can be put _somewhere_ well enough. No fear but you will find a
+place for them somewhere. What do you women always want such a great
+enormous kitchen for?"
+
+"It is not any larger than is necessary," said my wife, thoughtfully;
+"nothing is gained by taking off from it."
+
+"What if you should put it all down into a basement," suggests Bob, "and
+so get it all out of sight together?"
+
+"Never, if it can be helped," said my wife. "Basement-kitchens are
+necessary evils, only to be tolerated in cities where land is too dear
+to afford any other."
+
+So goes the discussion till the trio agree to sleep over it. The next
+morning an inspiration visits my wife's pillow. She is up and seizes
+plans and paper, and before six o'clock has enlarged the parlor very
+cleverly, by throwing out a bow-window. So waxes and wanes the
+prospective house, innocently battered down and rebuilt with
+India-rubber and black-lead. Doors are cut out to-night, and walled up
+to-morrow,--windows knocked out here and put in there, as some observer
+suggests possibilities of too much or too little draught. Now all seems
+finished, when, lo, a discovery! There is no fireplace nor stove-flue in
+my lady's bed-room, and can be none without moving the bathing-room.
+Pencil and India-rubber are busy again, and for a while the whole house
+seems to threaten to fall to pieces with the confusion of the moving;
+the bath-room wanders like a ghost, now invading a closet, now
+threatening the tranquillity of the parlor, till at last it is laid by
+some unheard-of calculations of my wife's, and sinks to rest in a place
+so much better that everybody wonders it never was thought of before.
+
+"Papa," said Jennie, "it appears to me people don't exactly know what
+they want when they build; why don't you write a paper on
+house-building?"
+
+"I have thought of it," said I, with the air of a man called to settle
+some great reform. "It must be entirely because Christopher has not
+written that our young people and mamma are tangling themselves daily in
+webs which are untangled the next day."
+
+"You see," said Jennie, "they have only just so much money, and they
+want everything they can think of under the sun. There's Bob been
+studying architectural antiquities, and nobody knows what, and sketching
+all sorts of curly-whorlies; and Marianne has her notions about a parlor
+and boudoir and china-closets and bedroom-closets; and Bob wants a
+baronial hall; and mamma stands out for linen-closets and bathing-rooms
+and all that; and so among them all it will just end in getting them
+head over ears in debt."
+
+The thing struck me as not improbable.
+
+"I don't know, Jennie, whether my writing an article is going to prevent
+all this; but as my time in the 'Atlantic' is coming round, I may as
+well write on what I am obliged to think of, and so I will give a paper
+on the subject to enliven our next evening's session."
+
+So that evening, when Bob and Marianne had dropped in as usual, and
+while the customary work of drawing and rubbing-out was going on at Mrs.
+Crowfield's sofa, I produced my paper and read as follows:--
+
+
+OUR HOUSE.
+
+There is a place called "Our House," which everybody knows of. The
+sailor talks of it in his dreams at sea. The wounded soldier, turning in
+his uneasy hospital-bed, brightens at the word,--it is like the dropping
+of cool water in the desert, like the touch of cool fingers on a burning
+brow. "Our house," he says feebly, and the light comes back into his dim
+eyes,--for all homely charities, all fond thoughts, all purities, all
+that man loves on earth or hopes for in heaven, rise with the word.
+
+"Our house" may be in any style of architecture, low or high. It may be
+the brown old farm-house, with its tall well-sweep, or the one-story
+gambrel-roofed cottage, or the large, square, white house, with green
+blinds, under the wind-swung elms of a century, or it may be the
+log-cabin of the wilderness, with its one room,--still there is a spell
+in the memory of it beyond all conjurations. Its stone and brick and
+mortar are like no other; its very clapboards and shingles are dear to
+us, powerful to bring back the memories of early days, and all that is
+sacred in home-love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Papa is getting quite sentimental," whispered Jennie, loud enough for
+me to hear. I shook my head at her impressively, and went on undaunted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is no one fact of our human existence that has a stronger
+influence upon us than the house we dwell in,--especially that in which
+our earlier and more impressible years are spent. The building and
+arrangement of a house influence the health, the comfort, the morals,
+the religion. There have been houses built so devoid of all
+consideration for the occupants, so rambling and hap-hazard in the
+disposal of rooms, so sunless and cheerless and wholly without snugness
+or privacy, as to make it seem impossible to live a joyous, generous,
+rational, religious family-life in them.
+
+There are, we shame to say, in our cities _things_ called houses, built
+and rented by people who walk erect and have the general air and manner
+of civilized and Christianized men, which are so inhuman in their
+building that they can only be called snares and traps for
+souls,--places where children cannot well escape growing up filthy and
+impure,--places where to form a home is impossible, and to live a
+decent, Christian life would require miraculous strength.
+
+A celebrated British philanthropist, who had devoted much study to the
+dwellings of the poor, gave it as his opinion that temperance-societies
+were a hopeless undertaking in London, unless these dwellings underwent
+a transformation. They were so squalid, so dark, so comfortless, so
+constantly pressing upon the senses foulness, pain, and inconvenience,
+that it was only by being drugged with gin and opium that their
+miserable inhabitants could find heart to drag on life from day to day.
+He had himself tried the experiment of reforming a drunkard by taking
+him from one of these loathsome dens and enabling him to rent a tenement
+in a block of model lodging-houses which had been built under his
+supervision. The young man had been a designer of figures for prints; he
+was of a delicate frame, and a nervous, susceptible temperament. Shut in
+one miserable room with his wife and little children, without the
+possibility of pure air, with only filthy, fetid water to drink, with
+the noise of other miserable families resounding through the thin
+partitions, what possibility was there of doing anything except by the
+help of stimulants, which for a brief hour lifted him above the
+perception of these miseries? Changed at once to a neat flat, where, for
+the same rent as his former den, he had three good rooms, with water for
+drinking, house-service, and bathing freely supplied, and the blessed
+sunshine and air coming in through windows well arranged for
+ventilation, he became in a few weeks a new man. In the charms of the
+little spot which he could call home, its quiet, its order, his former
+talent came back to him, and he found strength, in pure air and pure
+water and those purer thoughts of which they are the emblems, to abandon
+burning and stupefying stimulants.
+
+The influence of dwelling-houses for good or for evil--their influence
+on the brain, the nerves, and, through these, on the heart and life--is
+one of those things that cannot be enough pondered by those who build
+houses to sell or rent.
+
+Something more generous ought to inspire a man than merely the
+percentage which he can get for his money. He who would build houses
+should think a little on the subject. He should reflect what houses are
+for,--what they may be made to do for human beings. The great majority
+of houses in cities are not built by the indwellers themselves,--they
+are built _for_ them, by those who invest their money in this way, with
+little other thought than the percentage which the investment will
+return.
+
+For persons of ample fortune there are, indeed, palatial residences,
+with all that wealth can do to render life delightful. But in that class
+of houses which must be the lot of the large majority, those which must
+be chosen by young men in the beginning of life, when means are
+comparatively restricted, there is yet wide room for thought and the
+judicious application of money.
+
+In looking over houses to be rented by persons of moderate means, one
+cannot help longing to build,--one sees so many ways in which the same
+sum which built an inconvenient and unpleasant house might have been
+made to build a delightful one.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That's so!" said Bob, with emphasis. "Don't you remember, Marianne, how
+many dismal, commonplace, shabby houses we trailed through?"
+
+"Yes," said Marianne. "You remember those houses with such little
+squeezed rooms and that flourishing staircase, with the colored-glass
+china-closet window and no butler's sink?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob; "and those astonishing, abominable stone abortions that
+adorned the door-steps. People do lay out a deal of money to make houses
+look ugly, it must be confessed."
+
+"One would willingly," said Marianne, "dispense with frightful stone
+ornaments in front, and with heavy mouldings inside, which are of no
+possible use or beauty, and with showy plaster cornices and
+centre-pieces in the parlor-ceilings, and even with marble mantels, for
+the luxury of hot and cold water in each chamber, and a couple of
+comfortable bath-rooms. Then, the disposition of windows and doors is so
+wholly without regard to convenience! How often we find rooms, meant for
+bed-rooms, where really there is no good place for either bed or
+dressing-table!"
+
+Here my wife looked up, having just finished re-drawing the plans to the
+latest alteration.
+
+"One of the greatest reforms that could be, in these reforming days,"
+she observed, "would be to have women architects. The mischief with
+houses built to rent is that they are all mere male contrivances. No
+woman would ever plan chambers where there is no earthly place to set a
+bed except against a window or door, or waste the room in entries that
+might be made into closets. I don't see, for my part, _apropos_ to the
+modern movement for opening new professions to the female sex, why there
+should not be well-educated female architects. The planning and
+arrangement of houses, and the laying-out of grounds, are a fair subject
+of womanly knowledge and taste. It is the teaching of Nature. What would
+anybody think of a bluebird's nest that had been built entirely by Mr.
+Blue without the help of his wife?"
+
+"My dear," said I, "you must positively send a paper on this subject to
+the next Woman's-Rights Convention."
+
+"I am of Sojourner Truth's opinion," said my wife,--"that the best way
+to prove the propriety of one's doing anything is to go and _do it_. A
+woman who should have energy to go through the preparatory studies and
+set to work in this field would, I am sure, soon find employment."
+
+"If she did as well as you would do, my dear," said I. "There are plenty
+of young women in our Boston high-schools who are going through higher
+fields of mathematics than are required by the architect, and the
+schools for design show the flexibility and fertility of the female
+pencil. The thing appears to me altogether more feasible than many other
+openings which have been suggested to woman."
+
+"Well," said Jennie, "isn't papa ever to go on with his paper?"
+
+I continued:--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What ought "our house" to be? Could any other question be asked
+admitting in its details of such varied answers,--answers various as the
+means, the character, and situation of different individuals? But there
+are great wants pertaining to every human being, into which all lesser
+ones run. There are things in a house that every one, high or low, rich
+or poor, ought, according to his means, to seek. I think I shall class
+them according to the elemental division of the old philosophers,--Fire,
+Air, Earth, and Water. These form the groundwork of this _need-be_,--the
+_sine-qua-nons_ of a house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Fire, air, earth, and water! I don't understand," said Jennie.
+
+"Wait a little till you do, then," said I. "I will try to make my
+meaning plain."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first object of a house is shelter from the elements. This object is
+effected by a tent or wigwam which keeps off rain and wind. The first
+disadvantage of this shelter is, that the vital air which you take into
+your lungs, and on the purity of which depends the purity of blood and
+brain and nerve, is vitiated. In the wigwam or tent you are constantly
+taking in poison, more or less active, with every inspiration. Napoleon
+had his army sleep without tents. He stated, that, from experience, he
+found it more healthy; and wonderful have been the instances of delicate
+persons gaining constantly in vigor from being obliged, in the midst of
+hardships, to sleep constantly in the open air. Now the first problem in
+house-building is to combine the advantage of shelter with the fresh
+elasticity of out-door air. I am not going to give here a treatise on
+ventilation, but merely to say, in general terms, that the first object
+of a house-builder or contriver should be to make a healthy house, and
+the first requisite of a healthy house is a pure, sweet, elastic air.
+
+I am in favor, therefore, of those plans of house-building which have
+wide central spaces, whether halls or courts, into which all the rooms
+open, and which necessarily preserve a body of fresh air for the use of
+them all. In hot climates this is the object of the central court which
+cuts into the body of the house, with its fountain and flowers, and its
+galleries, into which the various apartments open. When people are
+restricted for space, and cannot afford to give up wide central portions
+of the house for the mere purposes of passage, this central hall can be
+made a pleasant sitting-room. With tables, chairs, bookcases, and sofas
+comfortably disposed, this ample central room above and below is, in
+many respects, the most agreeable lounging-room of the house; while the
+parlors below and the chambers above, opening upon it, form agreeable
+withdrawing-rooms for purposes of greater privacy.
+
+It is customary with many persons to sleep with bed-room windows
+open,--a very imperfect, and often dangerous mode of procuring that
+supply of fresh air which a sleeping-room requires. In a house
+constructed in the manner indicated, windows might be freely left open
+in these central halls, producing there a constant movement of air, and
+the doors of the bed-rooms placed ajar, when a very slight opening in
+the windows would create a free circulation through the apartments.
+
+In the planning of a house, thought should be had as to the general
+disposition of the windows, and the quarters from which favoring breezes
+may be expected should be carefully considered. Windows should be so
+arranged that draughts of air can be thrown quite through and across the
+house. How often have we seen pale mothers and drooping babes fanning
+and panting during some of our hot days on the sunny side of a house,
+while the breeze that should have cooled them beat in vain against a
+dead wall! One longs sometimes to knock holes through partitions and let
+in the air of heaven.
+
+No other gift of God, so precious, so inspiring, is treated with such
+utter irreverence and contempt in the calculations of us mortals as this
+same air of heaven. A sermon on oxygen, if one had a preacher who
+understood the subject, might do more to repress sin than the most
+orthodox discourse to show when and how and why sin came. A minister
+gets up in a crowded lecture-room, where the mephitic air almost makes
+the candles burn blue, and bewails the deadness of the church,--the
+church the while, drugged by the poisoned air, growing sleepier and
+sleepier, though they feel dreadfully wicked for being so.
+
+Little Jim, who, fresh from his afternoon's rambles in the fields, last
+evening said his prayers dutifully, and lay down to sleep in a most
+Christian frame, this morning sits up in bed with his hair bristling
+with crossness, strikes at his nurse, and declares he won't say his
+prayers,--that he don't want to be good. The simple difference is, that
+the child, having slept in a close box of a room, his brain all night
+fed by poison, is in a mild state of moral insanity. Delicate women
+remark that it takes them till eleven or twelve o'clock to get up their
+strength in the morning. Query,--Do they sleep with closed windows and
+doors, and with heavy bed-curtains?
+
+The houses built by our ancestors were better ventilated in certain
+respects than modern ones, with all their improvements. The great
+central chimney, with its open fireplaces in the different rooms,
+created a constant current which carried off foul and vitiated air. In
+these days, how common is it to provide rooms with only a flue for a
+stove! This flue is kept shut in summer, and in winter opened only to
+admit a close stove, which burns away the vital portion of the air quite
+as fast as the occupants breathe it away. The sealing-up of fireplaces
+and introduction of air-tight stoves may, doubtless, be a saving of
+fuel: it saves, too, more than that; in thousands and thousands of cases
+it has saved people from all further human wants, and put an end forever
+to any needs short of the six feet of narrow earth which are man's only
+inalienable property. In other words, since the invention of air-tight
+stoves, thousands have died of slow poison. It is a terrible thing to
+reflect upon, that our Northern winters last from November to May, six
+long months, in which many families confine themselves to one room, of
+which every window-crack has been carefully calked to make it air-tight,
+where an air-tight stove keeps the atmosphere at a temperature between
+eighty and ninety, and the inmates sitting there with all their winter
+clothes on become enervated both by the heat and by the poisoned air,
+for which there is no escape but the occasional opening of a door.
+
+It is no wonder that the first result of all this is such a delicacy of
+skin and lungs that about half the inmates are obliged to give up going
+into the open air during the six cold months, because they invariably
+catch cold, if they do so. It is no wonder that the cold caught about
+the first of December has by the first of March become a fixed
+consumption, and that the opening of the spring, which ought to bring
+life and health, in so many cases brings death.
+
+We hear of the lean condition in which the poor bears emerge from their
+six-months' wintering, during which they subsist on the fat which they
+have acquired the previous summer. Even so in our long winters,
+multitudes of delicate people subsist on the daily waning strength which
+they acquired in the season when windows and doors were open, and fresh
+air was a constant luxury. No wonder we hear of spring fever and spring
+biliousness, and have thousands of nostrums for clearing the blood in
+the spring. All these things are the pantings and palpitations of a
+system run down under slow poison, unable to get a step farther. Better,
+far better, the old houses of the olden time, with their great roaring
+fires, and their bed-rooms where the snow came in and the wintry winds
+whistled. Then, to be sure, you froze your back while you burned your
+face, your water froze nightly in your pitcher, your breath congealed
+in ice-wreaths on the blankets, and you could write your name on the
+pretty snow-wreath that had sifted in through the window-cracks. But you
+woke full of life and vigor,--you looked out into whirling snow-storms
+without a shiver, and thought nothing of plunging through drifts as high
+as your head on your daily way to school. You jingled in sleighs, you
+snowballed, you lived in snow like a snow-bird, and your blood coursed
+and tingled, in full tide of good, merry, real life, through your
+veins,--none of the slow-creeping, black blood which clogs the brain and
+lies like a weight on the vital wheels!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Mercy upon us, papa!" said Jennie, "I hope we need not go back to such
+houses!"
+
+"No, my dear," I replied. "I only said that such houses were better than
+those which are all winter closed by double windows and burnt-out
+air-tight stoves."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The perfect house is one in which there is a constant escape of every
+foul and vitiated particle of air through one opening, while a constant
+supply of fresh out-door air is admitted by another. In winter, this
+out-door air must pass through some process by which it is brought up to
+a temperate warmth.
+
+Take a single room, and suppose on one side a current of out-door air
+which has been warmed by passing through the air-chamber of a modern
+furnace. Its temperature need not be above sixty-five,--it answers
+breathing purposes better at that. On the other side of the room let
+there be an open wood- or coal-fire. One cannot conceive the purposes of
+warmth and ventilation more perfectly combined.
+
+Suppose a house with a great central hall, into which a current of
+fresh, temperately warmed air is continually pouring. Each chamber
+opening upon this hall has a chimney up whose flue the rarefied air is
+constantly passing, drawing up with it all the foul and poisonous gases.
+That house is well ventilated, and in a way that need bring no dangerous
+draughts upon the most delicate invalid. For the better securing of
+privacy in sleeping-rooms, we have seen two doors employed, one of which
+is made with slats, like a window-blind, so that air is freely
+transmitted without exposing the interior.
+
+When we speak of fresh air, we insist on the full rigor of the term. It
+must not be the air of a cellar, heavily laden with the poisonous
+nitrogen of turnips and cabbages, but good, fresh, out-door air from a
+cold-air pipe so placed as not to get the lower stratum near the ground,
+where heavy damps and exhalations collect, but high up in just the
+clearest and most elastic region.
+
+The conclusion of the whole matter is, that, as all of man's and woman's
+peace and comfort, all their love, all their amiability, all their
+religion, have got to come to them, while they live in this world,
+through the medium of the brain,--and as black, uncleansed blood acts on
+the brain as a poison, and as no other than black, uncleansed blood can
+be got by the lungs out of impure air,--the first object of the man who
+builds a house is to secure a pure and healthy atmosphere therein.
+
+Therefore, in allotting expenses, set this down as a _must-be_: "Our
+house must have fresh air,--everywhere, at all times, winter and
+summer." Whether we have stone facings or no,--whether our parlor has
+cornices or marble mantels or no,--whether our doors are machine-made or
+hand-made. All our fixtures shall be of the plainest and simplest, but
+we will have fresh air. We will open our door with a latch and string,
+if we cannot afford lock and knob and fresh air too,--but in our house
+we will live cleanly and Christianly. We will no more breathe the foul
+air rejected from a neighbor's lungs than we will use a neighbor's
+tooth-brush and hair-brush. Such is the first essential of "our
+house,"--the first great element of human health and happiness,--AIR.
+
+"I say, Marianne," said Bob, "have we got fireplaces in our chambers?"
+
+"Mamma took care of that," said Marianne.
+
+"You may be quite sure," said I, "if your mother has had a hand in
+planning your house, that the ventilation is cared for."
+
+It must be confessed that Bob's principal idea in a house had been a
+Gothic library, and his mind had labored more on the possibility of
+adapting some favorite bits from the baronial antiquities to modern
+needs than on anything so terrestrial as air. Therefore he awoke as from
+a dream, and taking two or three monstrous inhalations, he seized the
+plans and began looking over them with new energy. Meanwhile I went on
+with my prelection.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The second great vital element for which provision must be made in "our
+house" is FIRE. By which I do not mean merely artificial fire, but fire
+in all its extent and branches,--the heavenly fire which God sends us
+daily on the bright wings of sunbeams, as well as the mimic fires by
+which we warm our dwellings, cook our food, and light our nightly
+darkness.
+
+To begin, then, with heavenly fire or sunshine. If God's gift of vital
+air is neglected and undervalued, His gift of sunshine appears to be
+hated. There are many houses where not a cent has been expended on
+ventilation, but where hundreds of dollars have been freely lavished to
+keep out the sunshine. The chamber, truly, is tight as a box,--it has no
+fireplace, not even a ventilator opening into the stove-flue; but, oh,
+joy and gladness! it has outside blinds and inside folding-shutters, so
+that in the brightest of days we may create there a darkness that may be
+felt. To observe the generality of New-England houses, a spectator might
+imagine that they were planned for the torrid zone, where the great
+object is to keep out a furnace-draught of burning air.
+
+But let us look over the months of our calendar. In which of them do we
+not need fires on our hearths? We will venture to say that from October
+to June all families, whether they actually have it or not, would be the
+more comfortable for a morning and evening fire. For eight months in the
+year the weather varies on the scale of cool, cold, colder, and
+freezing; and for all the four other months what is the number of days
+that really require the torrid-zone system of shutting up houses? We all
+know that extreme heat is the exception, and not the rule.
+
+Yet let anybody travel, as I did last year, through the valley of the
+Connecticut, and observe the houses. All clean and white and neat and
+well-to-do, with their turfy yards and their breezy great elms,--but all
+shut up from basement to attic, as if the inmates had all sold out and
+gone to China. Not a window-blind open above or below. Is the house
+inhabited? No,--yes,--there is a faint stream of blue smoke from the
+kitchen-chimney, and half a window-blind open in some distant back-part
+of the house. They are living there in the dim shadows, bleaching like
+potato-sprouts in the cellar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I can tell you why they do it, papa," said Jennie,--"it's the flies,
+and flies are certainly worthy to be one of the plagues of Egypt. I
+can't myself blame people that shut up their rooms and darken their
+houses in fly-time,--do you, mamma?"
+
+"Not in extreme cases; though I think there is but a short season when
+this is necessary; yet the habit of shutting up lasts the year round,
+and gives to New-England villages that dead, silent, cold, uninhabited
+look which is so peculiar."
+
+"The one fact that a traveller would gather in passing through our
+villages would be this," said I, "that the people live in their houses
+and in the dark. Rarely do you see doors and windows open, people
+sitting at them, chairs in the yard, and signs that the inhabitants are
+living out-of-doors."
+
+"Well," said Jennie, "I have told you why, for I have been at Uncle
+Peter's in summer, and aunt does her spring-cleaning in May, and then
+she shuts all the blinds and drops all the curtains, and the house stays
+clean till October. That's the whole of it. If she had all her windows
+open, there would be paint and windows to be cleaned every week,--and
+who is to do it? For my part, I can't much blame her."
+
+"Well," said I, "I have my doubts about the sovereign efficacy of living
+in the dark, even if the great object of existence were to be rid of
+flies. I remember, during this same journey, stopping for a day or two
+at a country boarding-house which was dark as Egypt from cellar to
+garret. The long, dim, gloomy dining-room was first closed by outside
+blinds, and then by impenetrable paper curtains, notwithstanding which
+it swarmed and buzzed like a beehive. You found where the cake-plate was
+by the buzz which your hand made, if you chanced to reach in that
+direction. It was disagreeable, because in the darkness flies could not
+always be distinguished from huckleberries; and I couldn't help wishing,
+that, since we must have the flies, we might at least have the light and
+air to console us under them. People darken their rooms and shut up
+every avenue of out-door enjoyment, and sit and think of nothing but
+flies; in fact, flies are all they have left. No wonder they become
+morbid on the subject."
+
+"Well, now, papa talks just like a man,--doesn't he?" said Jennie. "He
+hasn't the responsibility of keeping things clean. I wonder what he
+would do, if he were a housekeeper."
+
+"Do? I will tell you. I would do the best I could. I would shut my eyes
+on fly-specks, and open them on the beauties of Nature. I would let the
+cheerful sun in all day long, in all but the few summer days when
+coolness is the one thing needful: those days may be soon numbered every
+year. I would make a calculation in the spring how much it would cost to
+hire a woman to keep my windows and paint clean, and I would do with one
+less gown and have her; and when I had spent all I could afford on
+cleaning windows and paint, I would harden my heart and turn off my
+eyes, and enjoy my sunshine and my fresh air, my breezes, and all that
+can be seen through the picture-windows of an open, airy house, and snap
+my fingers at the flies. There you have it."
+
+"Papa's hobby is sunshine," said Marianne.
+
+"Why shouldn't it be? Was God mistaken, when He made the sun? Did He
+make him for us to hold a life's battle with? Is that vital power which
+reddens the cheek of the peach and pours sweetness through the fruits
+and flowers of no use to us? Look at plants that grow without sun,--wan,
+pale, long-visaged, holding feeble, imploring hands of supplication
+towards the light. Can human beings afford to throw away a vitalizing
+force so pungent, so exhilarating? You remember the experiment of a
+prison, where one row of cells had daily sunshine, and the others none.
+With the same regimen, the same cleanliness, the same care, the inmates
+of the sunless cells were visited with sickness and death in double
+measure. Our whole population in New England are groaning and suffering
+under afflictions, the result of a depressed vitality,--neuralgia, with
+a new ache for every day of the year, rheumatism, consumption, general
+debility; for all these a thousand nostrums are daily advertised, and
+money enough is spent on them to equip an army, while we are fighting
+against, wasting, and throwing away with both hands that blessed
+influence which comes nearest to pure vitality of anything God has
+given.
+
+"Who is it that the Bible describes as a sun, arising with healing in
+his wings? Surely, that sunshine which is the chosen type and image of
+His love must be healing through all the recesses of our daily life,
+drying damp and mould, defending from moth and rust, sweetening ill
+smells, clearing from the nerves the vapors of melancholy, making life
+cheery. If I did not know Him, I should certainly adore and worship the
+sun, the most blessed and beautiful image of Him among things visible.
+In the land of Egypt, in the day of God's wrath, there was darkness, but
+in the land of Goshen there was light. I am a Goshenite, and mean to
+walk in the light, and forswear the works of darkness.--But to proceed
+with our reading."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Our house" shall be set on a southeast line, so that there shall not be
+a sunless room in it, and windows shall be so arranged that it can be
+traversed and transpierced through and through with those bright shafts
+of life which come straight from God.
+
+"Our house" shall not be blockaded with a dank, dripping mass of
+shrubbery set plumb against the windows, keeping out light and air.
+There shall be room all round it for breezes to sweep, and sunshine to
+sweeten and dry and vivify; and I would warn all good souls who begin
+life by setting out two little evergreen-trees within a foot of each of
+their front-windows, that these trees will grow and increase till their
+front-rooms will be brooded over by a sombre, stifling shadow fit only
+for ravens to croak in.
+
+One would think, by the way some people hasten to convert a very narrow
+front-yard into a dismal jungle, that the only danger of our New-England
+climate was sunstroke. Ah, in those drizzling months which form at least
+one-half of our life here, what sullen, censorious, uncomfortable,
+unhealthy thoughts are bred of living in dark, chilly rooms, behind such
+dripping thickets! Our neighbors' faults assume a deeper hue,--life
+seems a dismal thing,--our very religion grows mouldy.
+
+My idea of a house is, that, as far as is consistent with shelter and
+reasonable privacy, it should give you on first entering an open,
+breezy, out-door freshness of sensation. Every window should be a
+picture; sun and trees and clouds and green grass should seem never to
+be far from us. "Our house" may shade, but not darken us. "Our house"
+shall have bow-windows, many, sunny, and airy,--not for the purpose of
+being cleaned and shut up, but to be open and enjoyed. There shall be
+long verandas above and below, where invalids may walk dry-shod, and
+enjoy open-air recreation in wettest weather. In short, I will try to
+have "our house" combine as far as possible the sunny, joyous, fresh
+life of a gypsy in the fields and woods with the quiet and neatness and
+comfort and shelter of a roof, rooms, floors, and carpets.
+
+After heavenly fire, I have a word to say of earthly, artificial fires.
+Furnaces, whether of hot water, steam, or hot air, are all healthy and
+admirable provisions for warming our houses during the eight or nine
+months of our year that we must have artificial heat, if only, as I have
+said, fireplaces keep up a current of ventilation.
+
+The kitchen-range with its water-back I humbly salute. It is a great
+throbbing heart, and sends its warm tides of cleansing, comforting fluid
+all through the house. One could wish that this friendly dragon could be
+in some way moderated in his appetite for coal,--he does consume without
+mercy, it must be confessed,--but then, great is the work he has to do.
+At any hour of day or night in the most distant part of your house, you
+have but to turn a stop-cock and your red dragon sends you hot water for
+your needs; your washing-day becomes a mere play-day; your pantry has
+its ever-ready supply; and then, by a little judicious care in arranging
+apartments and economizing heat, a range may make two or three chambers
+comfortable in winter weather. A range with a water-back is among the
+_must-bes_ in "our house."
+
+Then, as to the evening light,--I know nothing as yet better than gas,
+where it can be had. I would certainly not have a house without it. The
+great objection to it is the danger of its escape through imperfect
+fixtures. But it must not do this: a fluid that kills a tree or a plant
+with one breath must certainly be a dangerous ingredient in the
+atmosphere, and if admitted into houses, must be introduced with every
+safeguard.
+
+There are families living in the country who make their own gas by a
+very simple process. This is worth an inquiry from those who build.
+There are also contrivances now advertised, with good testimonials, of
+domestic machines for generating gas, said to be perfectly safe, simple
+to be managed, and producing a light superior to that of the city
+gas-works. This also is worth an inquiry, when "our house" is to be in
+the country.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now I come to the next great vital element for which "our house"
+must provide,--WATER. "Water, water everywhere,"--it must be plentiful,
+it must be easy to get at, it must be pure. Our ancestors had some
+excellent ideas in home-living and house-building. Their houses were,
+generally speaking, very sensibly contrived,--roomy, airy, and
+comfortable; but in their water-arrangements they had little mercy on
+womankind. The well was out in the yard; and in winter one must flounder
+through snow and bring up the ice-bound bucket, before one could fill
+the tea-kettle for breakfast. For a sovereign princess of the republic
+this was hardly respectful or respectable. Wells have come somewhat
+nearer in modern times; but the idea of a constant supply of fresh water
+by the simple turning of a stop-cock has not yet visited the great body
+of our houses. Were we free to build "our house" just as we wish it,
+there should be a bath-room to every two or three inmates, and the hot
+and cold water should circulate to every chamber.
+
+Among our _must-bes_, we would lay by a generous sum for plumbing. Let
+us have our bath-rooms, and our arrangements for cleanliness and health
+in kitchen and pantry; and afterwards let the quality of our lumber and
+the style of our finishings be according to the sum we have left. The
+power to command a warm bath in a house at any hour of day or night is
+better in bringing up a family of children than any amount of ready
+medicine. In three-quarters of childish ailments the warm bath is an
+almost immediate remedy. Bad colds, incipient fevers, rheumatisms,
+convulsions, neuralgias innumerable, are washed off in their first
+beginnings, and run down the lead pipes into oblivion. Have, then, O
+friend, all the water in your house that you can afford, and enlarge
+your ideas of the worth of it, that you _may_ afford a great deal. A
+bathing-room is nothing to you that requires an hour of lifting and
+fire-making to prepare it for use. The apparatus is too cumbrous,--you
+do not turn to it. But when your chamber opens upon a neat, quiet little
+nook, and you have only to turn your stop-cocks and all is ready, your
+remedy is at hand,--you use it constantly. You are waked in the night by
+a scream, and find little Tom sitting up, wild with burning fever. In
+three minutes he is in the bath, quieted and comfortable; you get him
+back, cooled and tranquil, to his little crib, and in the morning he
+wakes as if nothing had happened.
+
+Why should not so invaluable and simple a remedy for disease, such a
+preservative of health, such a comfort, such a stimulus, be considered
+as much a matter-of-course in a house as a kitchen-chimney? At least
+there should be one bath-room always in order, so arranged that all the
+family can have access to it, if one cannot afford the luxury of many.
+
+A house in which water is universally and skilfully distributed is so
+much easier to take care of as almost to verify the saying of a friend,
+that his house was so contrived that it did its own work: one had better
+do without carpets on the floors, without stuffed sofas and
+rocking-chairs, and secure this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, papa," said Marianne, "you have made out all your four elements
+in your house except one. I can't imagine what you want of _earth_."
+
+"I thought," said Jennie, "that the less of our common mother we had in
+our houses, the better housekeepers we were."
+
+"My dears," said I, "we philosophers must give an occasional dip into
+the mystical, and say something apparently absurd for the purpose of
+explaining that we mean nothing in particular by it. It gives common
+people an idea of our sagacity, to find how clear we come out of our
+apparent contradictions and absurdities. Listen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the fourth requisite of "our house," EARTH, let me point you to your
+mother's plant-window, and beg you to remember the fact that through our
+long, dreary winters we are never a month without flowers, and the vivid
+interest which always attaches to growing things. The perfect house, as
+I conceive it, is to combine as many of the advantages of living out of
+doors as may be consistent with warmth and shelter, and one of these is
+the sympathy with green and growing things. Plants are nearer in their
+relations to human health and vigor than is often imagined. The
+cheerfulness that well-kept plants impart to a room comes not merely
+from gratification of the eye,--there is a healthful exhalation from
+them, they are a corrective of the impurities of the atmosphere. Plants,
+too, are valuable as tests of the vitality of the atmosphere; their
+drooping and failure convey to us information that something is amiss
+with it. A lady once told me that she could never raise plants in her
+parlors on account of the gas and anthracite coal. I answered, "Are you
+not afraid to live and bring up your children in an atmosphere which
+blights your plants?" If the gas escapes from the pipes, and the red-hot
+anthracite coal or the red-hot air-tight stove burns out all the vital
+part of the air, so that healthy plants in a few days wither and begin
+to drop their leaves, it is a sign that the air must be looked to and
+reformed. It is a fatal augury for a room that plants cannot be made to
+thrive in it. Plants should not turn pale, be long-jointed, long-leaved,
+and spindling; and where they grow in this way, we may be certain that
+there is a want of vitality for human beings. But where plants appear as
+they do in the open air, with vigorous, stocky growth, and
+short-stemmed, deep-green leaves, we may believe the conditions of that
+atmosphere are healthy for human lungs.
+
+It is pleasant to see how the custom of plant-growing has spread through
+our country. In how many farm-house windows do we see petunias and
+nasturtiums vivid with bloom while snows are whirling without, and how
+much brightness have those cheap enjoyments shed on the lives of those
+who cared for them! We do not believe there is a human being who would
+not become a passionate lover of plants, if circumstances once made it
+imperative to tend upon, and watch the growth of one. The history of
+Picciola for substance has been lived over and over by many a man and
+woman who once did not know that there was a particle of plant-love in
+their souls. But to the proper care of plants in pots there are many
+hindrances and drawbacks. The dust chokes the little pores of their
+green lungs, and they require constant showering; and to carry all one's
+plants to a sink or porch for this purpose is a labor which many will
+not endure. Consequently plants often do not get a showering once a
+month. We should try to imitate more closely the action of Mother
+Nature, who washes every green child of hers nightly with dews, which
+lie glittering on its leaves till morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yes, there it is!" said Jennie. "I think I could manage with plants, if
+it were not for this eternal showering and washing they seem to require
+to keep them fresh. They are always tempting one to spatter the carpet
+and surrounding furniture, which are not equally benefited by the
+libation."
+
+"It is partly for that very reason," I replied, "that the plan of 'our
+house' provides for the introduction of Mother Earth, as you will see."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A perfect house, according to my idea, should always include in it a
+little compartment where plants can be kept, can be watered, can be
+defended from the dust, and have the sunshine and all the conditions of
+growth.
+
+People have generally supposed a conservatory to be one of the last
+trappings of wealth,--something not to be thought of for those in modest
+circumstances. But is this so? You have a bow-window in your parlor.
+Leave out the flooring, fill the space with rich earth, close it from
+the parlor by glass doors, and you have room for enough plants and
+flowers to keep you gay and happy all winter. If on the south side,
+where the sunbeams have power, it requires no heat but that which warms
+the parlor, and the comfort of it is incalculable, and the expense a
+mere trifle greater than that of the bow-window alone.
+
+In larger houses a larger space might be appropriated in this way. We
+will not call it a conservatory, because that name suggests ideas of
+gardeners and mysteries of culture and rare plants which bring all sorts
+of care and expense in their train. We would rather call it a greenery,
+a room floored with earth, with glass sides to admit the sun,--and let
+it open on as many other rooms of the house as possible.
+
+Why should not the dining-room and parlor be all winter connected by a
+spot of green and flowers, with plants, mosses, and ferns for the
+shadowy portions, and such simple blooms as petunias and nasturtiums
+garlanding the sunny portion near the windows? If near the waterworks,
+this greenery might be enlivened by the play of a fountain, whose
+constant spray would give that softness to the air which is so often
+burned away by the dry heat of the furnace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"And do you really think, papa, that houses built in this way are a
+practical result to be aimed at?" said Jennie. "To me it seems like a
+dream of the Alhambra."
+
+"Yet I happen to have seen real people in our day living in just such a
+house," said I. "I could point you, this very hour, to a cottage, which
+in style of building is the plainest possible, which unites many of the
+best ideas of a true house. My dear, can you sketch the ground-plan of
+that house we saw in Brighton?"
+
+"Here it is," said my wife, after a few dashes with her pencil,--"an
+inexpensive house, yet one of the pleasantest I ever saw."
+
+[Illustration: _c_, China-closet. _p_, Passage. _d_, Kitchen-closet.]
+
+"This cottage, which might, at the rate of prices before the war, have
+been built for five thousand dollars, has many of the requirements which
+I seek for a house. It has two stories, and a tier of very pleasant
+attic-rooms, two bathing-rooms, and the water carried into each story.
+The parlor and dining-room both look into a little bower, where a
+fountain is ever playing into a little marble basin, and which all the
+year through has its green and bloom. It is heated simply from the
+furnace by a register, like any other room of the house, and requires no
+more care than a delicate woman could easily give. The brightness and
+cheerfulness it brings during our long, dreary winters is incredible."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But one caution is necessary in all such appendages. The earth must be
+thoroughly underdrained to prevent the vapors of stagnant water, and
+have a large admixture of broken charcoal to obviate the consequences of
+vegetable decomposition. Great care must be taken that there be no
+leaves left to fall and decay on the ground, since vegetable exhalations
+poison the air. With these precautions such a plot will soften and
+purify the air of a house.
+
+Where the means do not allow even so small a conservatory, a recessed
+window might be fitted with a deep box, which should have a drain-pipe
+at the bottom, and a thick layer of broken charcoal and gravel, with a
+mixture of fine wood-soil and sand for the top stratum. Here ivies may
+be planted, which will run and twine and strike their little tendrils
+here and there, and give the room in time the aspect of a bower; the
+various greenhouse nasturtiums will make winter gorgeous with blossoms.
+In windows unblest by sunshine--and, alas, such are many!--one can
+cultivate ferns and mosses; the winter-growing ferns, of which there are
+many varieties, can be mixed with mosses and woodland flowers.
+
+Early in February, when the cheerless frosts of winter seem most
+wearisome, the common blue violet, wood-anemone, hepatica, or
+rock-columbine, if planted in this way, will begin to bloom. The common
+partridge-berry, with its brilliant scarlet fruit and dark green leaves,
+will also grow finely in such situations, and have a beautiful effect.
+These things require daily showering to keep them fresh, and the
+moisture arising from them will soften and freshen the too dry air of
+heated winter rooms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus I have been through my four essential elements in
+house-building,--air, fire, water, and earth. I would provide for these
+before anything else. After they are secured, I would gratify my taste
+and fancy as far as possible in other ways. I quite agree with Bob in
+hating commonplace houses, and longing for some little bit of
+architectural effect, and I grieve profoundly that every step in that
+direction must cost so much. I have also a taste for niceness of finish.
+I have no objection to silver-plated door-locks and hinges, none to
+windows which are an entire plate of clear glass; I congratulate
+neighbors who are so fortunate as to be able to get them, and after I
+had put all the essentials into a house, I would have these too, if I
+had the means.
+
+But if all my wood-work were to be without groove or moulding, if my
+mantels were to be of simple wood, if my doors were all to be
+machine-made, and my lumber of the second quality, I would have my
+bath-rooms, my conservatory, my sunny bow-windows, and my perfect
+ventilation,--and my house would then be so pleasant, and every one in
+it in such a cheerful mood, that it would verily seem to be ceiled with
+cedar.
+
+Speaking of ceiling with cedar, I have one thing more to say. We
+Americans have a country abounding in beautiful timber, of whose
+beauties we know nothing, on account of the pernicious and stupid habit
+of covering it with white paint.
+
+The celebrated zebra-wood with its golden stripes cannot exceed in
+quaint beauty the grain of unpainted chestnut, prepared simply with a
+coat or two of oil. The butternut has a rich golden brown, the very
+darling color of painters,--a shade so rich, and grain so beautiful,
+that it is of itself as charming to look at as a rich picture. The
+black-walnut, with its heavy depth of tone, works in well as an adjunct;
+and as to oak, what can we say enough of its quaint and many shadings?
+Even common pine, which has been considered not decent to look upon till
+hastily shrouded in a friendly blanket of white paint, has, when oiled
+and varnished, the beauty of satin-wood. The second quality of pine,
+which has what are called _shakes_ in it, under this mode of treatment
+often shows clouds and veins equal in beauty to the choicest woods. The
+cost of such a finish is greatly less than that of the old method, and
+it saves those days and weeks of cleaning which are demanded by white
+paint, while its general tone is softer and more harmonious. Experiments
+in color may be tried in the combination of these woods, which at small
+expense produce the most charming effects.
+
+As to paper-hangings, we are proud to say that our American
+manufacturers now furnish all that can be desired. There are some
+branches of design where artistic, ingenious France must still excel
+us,--but whoso has a house to fit up, let him first look at what his own
+country has to show, and he will be astonished.
+
+There is one topic in house-building on which I would add a few words.
+The difficulty of procuring and keeping good servants, which must long
+be one of our chief domestic troubles, warns us so to arrange our houses
+that we shall need as few as possible. There is the greatest conceivable
+difference in the planning and building of houses as to the amount of
+work which will be necessary to keep them in respectable condition. Some
+houses require a perfect staff of house-maids;--there are plated hinges
+to be rubbed, paint to be cleaned, with intricacies of moulding and
+carving which daily consume hours of dusting to preserve them from a
+slovenly look. Simple finish, unpainted wood, a general distribution of
+water through the dwelling, will enable a very large house to be cared
+for by one pair of hands, and yet maintain a creditable appearance.
+
+In kitchens one servant may perform the work of two by a close packing
+of all the conveniences for cooking and such arrangements as shall save
+time and steps. Washing-day may be divested of its terrors by suitable
+provisions for water, hot and cold, by wringers, which save at once the
+strength of the linen and of the laundress, and by drying-closets
+connected with ranges, where articles can in a few moments be perfectly
+dried. These, with the use of a small mangle, such as is now common in
+America, reduce the labors of the laundry one-half.
+
+There are many more things which might be said of "our house," and
+Christopher may, perhaps, find some other opportunity to say them. For
+the present his pen is tired and ceaseth.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW SCHOOL OF BIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+Poor Rachel, passing slowly away from the world that had so applauded
+her hollow, but brilliant career, tasted the bitterness of death in
+reflecting that she should so soon be given over to the worms and the
+biographers. Fortunate Rachel, resting in serene confidence that the two
+would be fellow-laborers! It is the unhappy fate of her survivors to
+have reached a day in which biographers have grown impatient of the
+decorous delay which their lowly coadjutors demand. They can no longer
+wait for the lingering soul to yield up its title-deeds before they
+enter in and take possession; but, fired with an evil energy, they
+outstrip the worms and torment us before the time.
+
+Curiosity is undoubtedly one of the heaven-appointed passions of the
+human animal. Dear to the heart of man has ever been his neighbor's
+business. Precious in the eyes of woman is the linen-closet of that
+neighbor's wife. During its tender teething infancy, the world's sobs
+could always be soothed into smiles by an open bureau with large
+liberty to upheave its contents from turret to foundation-stone. As the
+infant world ascended from cambric and dimity to broadcloth and
+crinoline, its propensity for investigation grew stronger. It loved not
+bureaus less, but a great many other things more. What sad consequences
+might have ensued, had this passion been left to forage for itself, no
+one can tell. But, by the wonderful principle of adaptation which
+obtains throughout the universe, the love of receiving information is
+met and mastered by the love of imparting information. As much pleasure
+as it gives Angelina to learn how many towels and table-cloths go into
+Seraphina's wedding-outfit, so much, yea, more, swells in Cherubella's
+bosom at being able to present to her friend this apple from the tree of
+knowledge. The worthy Muggins finds no small consolation for the loss of
+his overcoat and umbrella from the front entry in the exhilaration he
+experiences while relating to each member of his ever-revolving circle
+of friends the details of his loss,--the suspicion, the search, the
+certainty,--the conjectures, suggestions, and emotions of himself and
+his family.
+
+Hence these tears which we are about to shed. For, betwixt the love of
+hearing on the one side, and the love of telling, on the other, small
+space remains on which one may adventure to set the sole of his foot and
+feel safe from the spoiler. There is of course a legitimate
+gratification for every legitimate desire,--the desire to know our
+neighbors' affairs among others. But there is a limit to this
+gratification, and it is hinted at by legal enactments. The law justly
+enough bounds a man's power over his possessions. For twenty-one years
+after his generation has passed away, his dead hand may rule the wealth
+which its living skill amassed. Then it dies another death, draws back
+into a deeper grave, and has henceforth no more power than any
+sister-clod. But, except as a penalty for crime, the law awards to a man
+right to his own possessions through life; and the personal facts and
+circumstances of his life have usually been considered among his
+closest, most inalienable possessions.
+
+Alas, that the times are changed, and we be all dead men so far as
+concerns immunity from publication! There is no manner of advantage in
+being alive. The sole safety is to lie flat on the earth along with
+one's generation. The moment an audacious head is lifted one inch above
+the general level, pop! goes the unerring rifle of some biographical
+sharp-shooter, and it is all over with the unhappy owner. A perfectly
+respectable and well-meaning man, suffering under the accumulated pains
+of Presidentship, has the additional and entirely undeserved ignominy of
+being hawked about the country as the "Pioneer Boy." A statesman whose
+reputation for integrity has been worth millions to the land, and whose
+patriotism should have won him a better fate, is stigmatized in
+duodecimo as the "Ferry Boy." An innocent and popular Governor is
+fastened in the pillory under the thin disguise of the "Bobbin Boy."
+Every victorious advance of our grand army is followed by a long
+procession of biographical statistics. A brave man leading his troops to
+victory may escape the bullets and bayonets of the foe, but he is sure
+to be transfixed to the sides of a newspaper with the pen of some
+cannibal entomologist. We are thrilled to-day with the telegram
+announcing the brilliant and successful charge made by General Smith's
+command; and according to that inevitable law of succession by which the
+sun his daily round of duty runs, we shall be thrilled to-morrow with
+the startling announcement that "General Smith was born in ----," etc.,
+etc., etc.
+
+Unquestionably, there is somewhere in the land a regularly organized
+biographical bureau, by which every man, President or private, has his
+lot apportioned him,--one mulcted in a folio, the other in a paragraph.
+If we examine somewhat closely the features of this peculiar
+institution, we shall learn that a distinguishing characteristic of the
+new school of biography is the astonishing familiarity shown by the
+narrator with the circumstances, the conversations, and the very
+thoughts of remarkable boys in their early life. The incidents of
+childhood are usually forgotten before the man's renown has given them
+any importance; the few anecdotes which tradition has preserved are
+seized upon with the utmost avidity and placed in the most conspicuous
+position; but in these later books we have illustrious children
+portrayed with a Pre-Raphaelitic and most prodigal pencil.
+
+Take the opening scene in a garden where "Nat"--we must protest against
+this irreverent abbreviation of the name of that honored Governor whose
+life in little we are about to behold--and his father are at work.
+
+"'There, Nat, if you plant and hoe your squashes with care, you will
+raise a nice parcel of them on this piece of ground. It is good soil for
+squashes.'
+
+"'How many seeds shall I put into a hill?' inquired Nat.
+
+"'Seven or eight. It is well to put in enough, as some of them may not
+come up, and when they get to growing well, pull up all but four in a
+hill. You must not have your hills too near together,--they should be
+five feet apart, and then the vines will cover the ground all over. I
+should think there would be room for fifty hills on this patch of
+ground.'
+
+"'How many squashes do you think I shall raise, father?'
+
+"'Well,' said his father, smiling, 'that is hard telling. We won't count
+the chickens before they are hatched. But if you are industrious, and
+take very good care indeed of your vines, stir the ground often and keep
+out all the weeds and kill the bugs, I have little doubt that you will
+get well paid for your labor.'
+
+"'If I have fifty hills,' said Nat, 'and four vines in each hill, I
+shall have two hundred vines in all; and if there is one squash on each
+vine, there will be two hundred squashes.'
+
+"'Yes; but there are so many _ifs_ about it, that you may be
+disappointed after all. Perhaps the bugs will destroy half your vines.'
+
+"'I can kill the bugs,' said Nat.
+
+"'Perhaps dry weather will wither them all up.'
+
+"'I can water them every day, if they need it.'
+
+"'That is certainly having good courage, Nat,' added his father; 'but if
+you conquer the bugs, and get around the dry weather, it may be too wet
+and blast your vines,--or there may be such a hail-storm as I have known
+several times in my life, and cut them to pieces.'
+
+"'I don't think there will be such a hail-storm this year; there never
+was one like it since I can remember.'
+
+"'I hope there won't be,' replied his father. 'It is well to look on the
+bright side, and hope for the best, for it keeps the courage up. It is
+also well to look out for disappointment. I know a gentleman who thought
+he would raise some ducks,'" etc., etc., etc.
+
+We are told that this scene was enacted about thirty-five years ago,
+and, as if we should not be sufficiently lost in admiration of that
+wonderful memory which enabled somebody to retain so long, and restore
+so unimpaired, the words and deeds of that distant May morning, we are
+further informed that the author is "obliged to pass over much that
+belongs to the patch of squashes"! "Is it possible?" one is led to
+exclaim. We should certainly have supposed that this report was
+exhaustive. We can hardly conceive that any further interest should
+inhere in that patch of squashes; whereas it seems that the half was not
+told us. Nor is this the sole instance. Records equally minute of
+conversations equally brilliant are lavished on page after page with a
+recklessness of expenditure that argues unlimited wealth,--conversations
+between the Boy and his father, between the Boy and his mother, between
+the Boy's father and mother, between the Boy's neighbors about the Boy,
+in which his numerous excellences are set in the strongest light,
+exhortations of the Boy's teacher to his school, play-ground talk of
+the Boy and his fellow-boys,--among whom the Boy invariably stands head
+and shoulders higher than they. We fear the world of boys has hitherto
+been much demoralized by being informed that many distinguished men were
+but dull fellows in the school-house, or unnoticed on the play-ground.
+But we have changed all that. The Bobbin Boy was the most industrious,
+the most persevering, the most self-reliant, the most virtuous, the most
+exemplary of all the boys of his time. So was the Ferry Boy, and the
+Pioneer Boy so. "Nat"--we blame and protest, but we join in the plan of
+using this undignified _sobriquet_--Nat was the one that swam three rods
+under water; Nat astonished the school with the eloquence of his
+declamation; it was Nat that got all the glory of the games; it was of
+no use for any one to try for any prize where Nat was a competitor. And
+as Nat's neighbors thought of Nat, so thought Abe's--we shudder at the
+sound--Abe's neighbors of Abe, the Pioneer Boy. Of what Salmon's
+neighbors said about Salmon we are not so well informed; but we have no
+doubt they often exclaimed one to another,--
+
+    "Was never Salmon yet that shone so fair
+    Among the stakes on Dee!"
+
+Nor are the Boys backward in having a tolerably good opinion of their
+own goodness.
+
+"Never swear, my son," says Abe's mother to the infant Abe.
+
+"I never do," says Abraham.
+
+"Boys are likely to want their own way, and spend their time in
+idleness," says the mother of a President, upon another occasion.
+
+"I sha'n't," responds virtuous Abraham.
+
+"Always speak the truth, my son."
+
+"I do tell the truth," was "Abraham's usual reply."
+
+"When a boy gets to going to the tavern to smoke and swear," says Nat's
+mother, "he is almost sure to drink, and become a ruined man."
+
+"I never do smoke, mother," replies Nat, pouring cataracts of innocence.
+"I never go to the stable nor tavern. I don't associate with Sam and Ben
+Drake, nor with James Cole, nor with Oliver Fowle, more than I can help.
+For I know they are bad boys. I see that the worst scholars at school
+are those who are said to disobey their parents, and every one of them
+are poor scholars, and they use profane language."
+
+Virtue so immaculate at so tender an age seems to us, we are forced to
+admit, unnatural. The boys that have fallen in our way have never been
+in the habit of making profound moral reflections, and we cannot resist
+the unpleasant suspicion that Nat had just been playing at marbles for
+"havings" with Cole, Fowle, and both the Drakes at the village-inn, and,
+having found this vegetable repast too strong for his digestion, went
+home to his mother and wreaked his discomfort on edifying moral maxims.
+Or else he was a prig.
+
+The unusual and highly exciting nature of the incidents recorded in
+these biographies must be their excuse for a seeming violation of
+privacy. When a rare and precious gem is in question, one must not be
+over-scrupulous about breaking open the casket. What puerile prejudice
+in favor of privacy can rear its head in face of the statement which
+tells us that at the age of seven years our honored President--may he
+still continue such!--"devoted himself to learning to read with an
+energy and enthusiasm that insured success"?--such success that we learn
+"he could read _some_ when he left school."
+
+At the age of nine he shot a turkey!
+
+Soon after,--for here we are involved in a chronological haze,--he began
+to "take lessons in penmanship with the most enthusiastic ardor."
+
+Subsequently, "there, on the soil of Indiana, ABRAHAM LINCOLN WROTE HIS
+NAME, WITH A STICK, in large characters,--a sort of prophetic act, that
+students of history may love to ponder. For, since that day, he has
+'gone up higher,' and written his name, by public acts, on the annals of
+every State in the Union."
+
+He wrote a letter.
+
+He rescued a toad from cruel boys,--for, though "he could kill game for
+food as a necessity, and dangerous wild animals, his soul shrunk from
+torturing even a fly." Dear heart, we can easily believe that!
+
+He bought a Ramsay's "Life of Washington," and paid for it with the
+labor of his own hands.
+
+He helped to save a drunkard's life. "He thought more of the drunkard's
+safety than he did of his own ease. And there are many of his personal
+acquaintances in our land who will bear witness, that, from that day to
+this, this amiable quality of heart has won him admiring friends."
+
+He took a flat-boat to New Orleans, and defended her against the
+negroes, who, poor fellows, were not prophetic enough to see that they
+were plotting against their Deliverer.
+
+He "always had much _dry_ wit about him that kept _oozing_ out"!
+
+We have given a bird's-eye view of the main incidents of his boyhood,
+for we cannot quite agree with our author in thinking that his "old
+grammar laid the foundation, in part, of Abraham's future character,"
+seeing we have previously been told that he had "become the most
+important man in the place," and we have the same writer's authority for
+believing that "the habits of life are usually fixed by the time a lad
+is fifteen years of age." Nor can we admit that his grammar even "taught
+him the rudiments of his native language," when we have been having
+proof upon proof, for two hundred and eighty-six pages, that he was
+already familiar with its rudiments. We are equally skeptical as to
+whether it really "opened the golden gate of knowledge" for him: we
+should certainty say that this gate had stood ajar, at least, for years.
+Indeed, that portion of his history which relates to grammar seems to us
+by far the most unsatisfactory of all. In his honesty, in his
+penmanship, in his kindness of heart, in his wit, dry or damp, we feel a
+confidence which not even the shock of political campaigns has been able
+to move. But in respect of grammar we find ourselves in a state of the
+most painful uncertainty. We have never regarded it as our beloved
+President's strong point, but we have considered any linguistic defect
+more than atoned for by the hearty, timely, sturdy, plain sense which
+appeals so directly and forcibly to the good sense of others. This book
+calls up a distressing doubt, and a doubt that strikes at vital
+interests. "Grammar," our President is reported to have said before he
+had cast the integuments of a grocer's clerk, "Grammar is the art of
+speaking and writing the English language with propriety"! Is this a
+definition, we sorrowfully ask, becoming an American citizen? It has,
+indeed, in many respects the qualities of a perfect definition. It is
+deep; it is accurate; it is exhaustive; but it is _not_ loyal. Coming
+from the lips of a subject of Great Britain, it would not surprise us.
+An Englishman undoubtedly believes that grammar is the art of speaking
+and writing the English language with propriety. All the grammatical
+research that preceded the establishment of his mother-tongue was but
+the collection of fuel to feed the flame of its glory; all that follows
+will be to diffuse the light of that flame to the ends of the earth.
+Greek, Latin, Sanscrit, were but stepping-stones to the English
+language. Philology _per se_ is a myth. The English language in its
+completeness is the completion of grammatical science. To that all
+knowledge tends; from that all honor radiates. So claims proud Britain's
+prouder son. But can an American tamely submit to such a monopoly? Is
+not grammar rather, or at least quite as much, the art of speaking and
+writing the _American_ language correctly, and shall he sit calmly by
+and witness this gross outrage upon his dearest rights? But, as our
+author would say, we "must not dwell," and most gladly do we leave this
+unpleasant branch of a very pleasant subject, inwardly supplicating,
+that, whatever disaster is yet to befall us, we may be spared the pang
+of suspecting that our revered President, so stanch against the Rebels,
+so unflinching for the Slave, is in danger of lowering his lofty crest
+before the rampant British lion! In view of such a calamity, one can
+only say in the words of that distinguished British citizen who, living
+in England in the full light of the nineteenth century, must be supposed
+to have reached the summit of grammatical excellence,--
+
+    "Gin I mun doy I mun doy, an' loife they says is sweet,
+    But gin I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn' abear to see it."
+
+The life of the Ferry Boy was scarcely less adventurous than that of the
+Pioneer Boy, and was, indeed, in some respects its counterpart. As the
+latter learned to write on the tops of stools, so the former learned to
+read on bits of birch-bark. At an early period of his existence he broke
+a capful of eggs. He owned a calf. He caught an eel. He put salt on a
+bird's tail and learned his first lesson of the deceitfulness of the
+human heart. He walked to Niagara Falls from Buffalo. He got lost in the
+woods. He went to live with his uncle in Ohio, where he displayed spirit
+and killed a pig. Here also occurred a "prophecy" almost as striking as
+the Pioneer Boy's writing his name with a stick. "Salmon" wished to go
+swimming. "The Bishop said, 'No!' adding, 'Why, Salmon, the country
+might lose its future President, if you should get drowned!' This was
+the first time his name had ever been mentioned in connection with that
+high office; and the remark, coming from the grave Bishop's lips, must
+have made a strong impression on him. Was it prophetic?" Let us assume
+that it was, although it must for the present be ranked with what is
+theologically called "unfulfilled prophecy." We cannot, at any rate, be
+too thankful that the only occasion on which it was ever hinted to an
+American boy that he might one day become President has not been
+suffered to pass into oblivion, but has found in this little volume a
+monument more durable than brass. To go on with our inventory. A whole
+flock of thirteen pigeons shot by the Ferry Boy answered through their
+misty shroud to the Pioneer Boy's turkey which called to them aloud. He
+taught school two weeks, and then had leave to resign. He went to
+Washington and said his prayers like a good boy: we trust he has kept up
+the practice ever since.
+
+From such a record there is but one inference: if the man is not
+President, he ought to be!
+
+One great element in the success which these little books have met, the
+one fact which, we are persuaded, accounts for the quiet, but
+significant "twenty-sixth thousand" that we find on the title-page of
+one of them, is the pains which their authors take to make their meaning
+clear. They do not, like too many of our modern authors, leave a book
+half written, forcing the reader to finish their work as he goes along.
+They are instant, in season and out of season, with explanation,
+illustration, reflection, until the idea is, so to speak, reduced to
+pulp, and the reader has nothing to perform save the act of deglutition.
+
+"When he ['Nat'] was only four years old, and was learning to read
+little words of two letters, he came across one about which he had quite
+a dispute with his teacher. It was INN.
+
+"'What is that?' asked his teacher.
+
+"'I-double n,' he answered.
+
+"'What does i-double n spell?'
+
+"'Tavern,' was his quick reply.
+
+"The teacher smiled, and said, 'No; it spells INN. Now read it again.'
+
+"'I-double n--tavern,' said he.
+
+"'I told you that it did not spell tavern, it spells INN. Now pronounce
+it correctly.'
+
+"'It _do_ spell tavern,' said he.
+
+"The teacher was finally obliged to give it up, and let him enjoy his
+own opinion. She probably called him obstinate, although there was
+nothing of the kind about him, as we shall see. His mother took up the
+matter at home, but failed to convince him that i-double n did not spell
+tavern. It was not until some time after that he changed his opinion on
+this important subject.
+
+"That this instance was no evidence of obstinacy in Nat, but only of a
+disposition to think 'on his own hook,' is evident from the following
+circumstances. There was a picture of a public-house in his book against
+the word INN, with the old-fashioned sign-post in front, on which a sign
+was swinging. Near his father's, also, stood a public-house, which
+everybody called a _tavern_, with a tall post and sign in front of it,
+exactly like that in his book; and Nat said within himself, 'If Mr.
+Morse's house [the landlord[G]] is a tavern, then this is a tavern in my
+book.' He cared little how it was spelled; if it did not spell tavern,
+'_it ought to_,' he thought. Children believe what they _see_, more than
+what they hear. What they lack in reason and judgment they make up in
+eyes. So Nat had seen the _tavern_ near his father's house again and
+again, and he had stopped to look at the sign in front of it a great
+many times, and his eyes told him it was just like that in the book;
+therefore it was his deliberate opinion that i-double n spelt tavern,
+and he was not to be beaten out of an opinion that was based on such
+clear evidence. It was a good sign in Nat. It was true of the three men
+to whom we have just referred,--Bowditch, Davy, and Buxton. From their
+childhood they thought for themselves, so that, when they became men,
+they defended their opinions against imposing opposition. True, a youth
+must not be too forward in advancing his ideas, especially if they do
+not harmonize with those of older persons. Self-esteem and
+self-confidence should be guarded against. Still, in avoiding these
+evils, he is not obliged to believe anything just because he is told so.
+It is better for him to understand the reason of things, and believe
+them on that account."
+
+Would our Parks, our Palfreys, our Prescotts, our Emersons, have
+expounded this matter so clearly? Most assuredly not. They would have
+left us in the Cimmerian darkness of dreary conjecture regarding the
+causes of Nat's strange opinion, and the lessons to be drawn from it. Or
+if they had condescended to explanation, it would have been comprised in
+a curt phrase or two. No boundary-line between a virtue and its vice
+would have been drawn so that a wayfaring man, though a fool, should not
+err in following it. This author has struck the golden mean. There is
+just enough, and not too much.
+
+Again,--
+
+"'I should rather be in prison, than to sit up nights studying as you
+do.'
+
+"'I really enjoy it, David.'
+
+"'I can hardly credit it.'
+
+"'Then you think I do not speak the truth?'
+
+"'Oh, no!... I only meant to say that I cannot understand it.'
+
+"Allusion is here made to an important fact. David could not understand
+how Abraham could possess such a love of knowledge as to lead him to
+forego all social pleasures, be willing to wear a threadbare coat, live
+on the coarsest fare, and labor hard all day, and sit up half the night,
+for the sake of learning. But there is just that power in the love of
+knowledge, and it was this that caused Lincoln to derive happiness from
+doing what would have been a source of misery to David. Some of the most
+marked instances of self-forgetfulness recorded are connected with the
+pursuit of knowledge. Archimedes was so much in love with the studies of
+his profession, that, etc., etc. Professor Heyne, of Goettingen," etc.,
+etc., etc.--A clearer explanation than this we have rarely met with
+outside the realm of mathematical demonstration.
+
+A shorter example of the same judicious oversight we have when "in
+rushed Nat, under great excitement, with his eyes 'as large as saucers,'
+to use a hyperbole, which means only that his eyes looked very large
+indeed." The impression which would have been made upon the rising
+generation, had the testimony been allowed to go forth without its
+corrective, that upon a certain occasion _any_ Governor's eyes were
+really as large as saucers, even very small tea-saucers, is such as the
+imagination refuses to dwell on.
+
+This exuberance of illustration increases the value of these books in
+another respect. To use a homely phrase, we get more than we bargained
+for. Ostensibly engaged with the life of the Bobbin Boy, we are covertly
+introduced to the majority of all the boys that ever were born and came
+to anything. The advertised story is a kind of mother-hen who gathers
+under her wings a numerous brood of biographical chicks. Quantities of
+recondite erudition are poured out on the slightest provocation. Nat's
+unquestioned superiority to his schoolmates evokes a disquisition for
+the encouragement of dull boys, in which we are told that "the great
+philosopher, Newton, was one of the dullest scholars in school when he
+was twelve years old. Doctor Isaac Barrow was such a dull, pugnacious,
+stupid fellow, etc., etc. The father of Doctor Adam Clarke, the
+commentator, called his boy, etc. Cortina," (vernacular for Cortona,
+probably,) "a renowned painter, was nicknamed, etc., etc. When the
+mother of Sheridan once, etc., etc. One teacher sent Chatterton home,
+etc. Napoleon and Wellington, etc., etc. And Sir Walter Scott was
+named," etc., etc., etc. All of which makes very pleasantly diversified
+reading. Nat's kindness of heart paves the way to our learning, that,
+"at the age of ten or twelve years, John Howard, the philanthropist, was
+not distinguished above the mass of boys around him, except for the
+kindness of his heart, and boyish deeds of benevolence. It was so with
+Wilberforce, whose efforts, etc., etc., etc. And Buxton, whose
+self-sacrificing heart," etc., etc. While Nat is swimming four rods
+under water, we on shore are acquiring useful knowledge of the
+Rothschilds, of Samuel Budget, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Buxton again, Sir
+Walter Scott again, and the Duke of Wellington again. Nat walks to
+Prospect Hill, and is attended by a suite consisting of Sir Francis
+Chantrey, "the gifted poet Burns," "the late Hugh Miller," etc., who
+also loved to look at prospects. Nat organized a debating-society,
+(which by the way was, "in respect of unanimity of feeling and action, a
+lesson to most legislative bodies, and to the Congress of the United
+States in particular." Congress of the United States, are you
+listening?) and "such an organization has proved a valuable means of
+improvement to many persons." Witness "the Irish orator, Curran," with
+biography; "a living American statesman," with biography; the "highly
+distinguished statesman, Canning," more biography; "Henry Clay, the
+American orator," with autobiography; and a meteoric shower of lesser
+biographies emanating from Tremont Temple. Nat carried a book in his
+pocket, and "Pockets have been of great service to self-made men. A more
+useful invention was never known, and hundreds are now living who will
+have occasion to speak well of pockets till they die, because they were
+so handy to carry a book. Roger Sherman had one when he was a
+hard-working shoemaker, etc., etc., etc. Napoleon had one in which he
+carried the Iliad when, etc. etc., etc. Hugh Miller had one, etc., etc.,
+etc. Elihu Burritt had one," etc., etc., for three pages, to which we
+might add, from the best authority, the striking fact which our author,
+notwithstanding the wide range of his reading, seems unaccountably to
+have missed,--
+
+    "Lyddy Locket lost her pocket,
+      Lyddy Fisher found it,
+    Lyddy Fisher gave it to Mr. Gaines,
+      And Mr. Gaines ground it."
+
+Allusion is here made to an important fact. _Mr. Gaines was a miller!_
+
+Yet, with all this elucidation, we take shame to ourselves for admitting
+that there are points which, after all, we do not comprehend. They may
+be trivial; but in making up testimony, it is the little things which
+have weight. Trifles light as air are confirmation strong as proofs of
+Holy Writ, and confutation no less strong. When, as a proof of Nat's
+ardor in the pursuit of knowledge, we are told that he walked ten miles
+after a hard day's work to hear Daniel Webster, and then _stood_ through
+the oration in front of the platform, because he could see the speaker
+better,--and when, turning to the next page, we are told that he was so
+much interested that he "would have _sat_ entranced till morning, if the
+gifted orator had continued to pour forth his eloquence,"--what are we
+to believe? When we are bidden to "listen to the gifted orator, as the
+flowing periods come burning from his soul on fire, riveting the
+attention," etc., is it a river, or is it a fire, or is it a hammer and
+anvil, that we have in our mind's eye, Horatio? When Nat "waxed warmer
+and warmer, as he advanced, and spoke in a flow of eloquence and choice
+selection of words that was unusual for one of his age," did he come out
+dry-shod? We are told of his visit to the Boston bookstores,--that he
+examined the books "outside before he stepped in. _He read the title of
+each volume upon the back, and some he took up and examined_," but we
+have no explanation of this extraordinary behavior. "It was thus with"
+Abraham. "The manner in which Abraham made progress in penmanship,
+writing on slabs and trees, on the ground and in the snow, anywhere that
+he could find a place, reminds us forcibly of Pascal, who demonstrated
+the first thirty-two propositions of Euclid in his boyhood, without the
+aid of a teacher." We not only are not forcibly reminded of Pascal, but
+we are not reminded of Pascal at all. The boy who imitates on slabs
+mechanical lines which he has been taught, and he who originates
+mathematical problems and theorems, may be as like as my fingers to my
+fingers, but--alas, that it is forbidden to say--we do not see it. When
+Mr. Elkins told Abraham he would make a good pioneer boy, and "'What's a
+pioneer boy?' asked Abraham," why was Mr. Elkins "quite amused at this
+inquiry"? and why did he "exercise his risibles for a minute" before
+replying? When Mr. Stuart offered young Mr. Lincoln the use of his
+law-books, and young Mr. Lincoln answered,--very properly, we should
+say,--"You are very generous indeed. I could never repay you for such
+generosity," why did Mr. Stuart respond, "shaking his sides with
+laughter"? We do not wish to be too inquisitive, but few things are more
+trying to a sensitive person than to see others overwhelmed with
+merriment in which, from ignorance, he cannot share.
+
+Want of space forbids us to do more than touch lightly upon the many
+excellences of these books. We have given extracts enough to enable our
+readers to see for themselves the severe elegance of style, the
+compactness and force of the narrative, the verisimilitude of the
+characters, the unity of plan, and the cogency of the reasoning. We
+trust they will also perceive the great moral effect that cannot fail to
+be produced. Such books are specially adapted to meet a daily increasing
+want. Our American youth are too apt to value virtue for its own sake.
+They are in imminent danger of giving themselves over to integrity, to
+industry, perseverance, and single-mindedness, without looking forward
+to those posts of usefulness for which these qualities eminently fit
+them. Fired with the love of learning, they are languid in claiming the
+honors which learning has to bestow. Eager to become worthy of the
+highest places, they make no effort to secure the places to which their
+worth points them. Political supineness is the bane of our society. The
+one great need is to rouse the ambition of boys, and wake them to
+political aspiration. To such objects such books tend; and who would
+hesitate at any sacrifice of his prejudices in favor of privacy, when
+such is the end to be obtained? Breathes there the man with soul so dead
+who would not lay upon the altar his father, his mother, his sisters,
+not to say his uncles and cousins, nay, the inmost sanctities of his
+home, to enable American boys to fasten their eyes upon the White House?
+Would he refuse, at the call of patriotism, to spread before the public
+the very secrets of his heart, the struggles of his closet, his
+communion with his God?
+
+As a collateral result of this new school of biography, we can but
+admire the new form in which Nemesis appears. The day of rich relations
+is gone by. No longer can stern Uncle Bishops lord it over their obscure
+nephews, for ever before their eyes will flaunt the possible book which
+will one day lay open to a gazing world all their weakness and their
+evil behavior. Let not wicked or disagreeable relatives imagine
+henceforth that they may safely indulge in small tyrannies, neglects, or
+other peccadilloes; for no robin-redbreast will piously cover them with
+leaves, but that which is done in the ear shall be proclaimed upon the
+house-tops, nor can they tell from what quarter the trumpet shall sound.
+The unkempt boy, the sullen girl in the chimney-corner, may be the
+Narcissus or nymph in whose orisons all their sins shall be remembered.
+
+    "You that executors be made,
+      And overseers eke
+    Of children that be fatherless,
+      And infants mild and meek,
+    Take you example by this thing,
+      And yield to each his right,
+    Lest God with such like misery
+      Your wicked minds requite."
+
+In view of which benefits, and others "too numerous to mention," we
+humbly beg pardon for the petulance which disfigures the commencement of
+our paper, and desire to use all our influence to induce all persons of
+distinction meekly and humanely to lay open to the dear, curious world
+their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor.
+
+But, however beneficial and delightful it is for a friend to impale a
+friend before the public gaze, we do not think that even Job himself
+would have desired that his adversary should write a book about him. In
+the motives that prompted, in the grace of the doing, in the good that
+will result, we can forgive the deed when friend portrays friend; but we
+cannot be lenient when a hostile hand exposes the life to which we have
+no right. We would fain borrow the type and the energy of Reginald
+Bazalgette to enforce our opinion that it is "ABBOMMANNABEL," and the
+innocence of Pet Marjorie to declare it "the most Devilish thing." Yet
+in a loyal, respectable, religious newspaper we lately saw a biography
+of Mr. Vallandigham which puts to the blush all previous achievements in
+the line of contemporary history. It is not so much that we are let into
+the family-secrets, but the family-secrets are spread out before us, as
+the fruits of that species of domestic taxation known as "the presents"
+are spread out on the piano at certain wedding-festivals. We are led
+back to first principles, to the early married life of the parent
+Vallandighams. The mother is portrayed with a vigorous feminine pencil,
+and certainly looks extremely well on canvas. Clement's relations to her
+are shown to be exemplary. There is excuse for this in the attacks which
+have been made upon him in the relation of son. But upon what grounds
+are Clement's sisters' homes invaded? Because a man is disloyal and
+craven, shall we inform the world that his brother was crossed in love?
+Still more shall his wife be taken in hand, and receive what even the
+late Mr. Smallweed would have considered a thorough "shaking-up"? "If
+they were all starving," declares the energetic narrator, "she could not
+earn a cent in any way whatever, so utterly helpless is this fine
+Southern lady. She will not sleep, unless the light is kept burning all
+night in her room, for fear 'something might happen'; and when a slight
+matter crosses her feelings, she lies in bed for several days." Tut,
+tut, dear lady! surely this once thy zeal hath outrun thy discretion.
+Clement L. Vallandigham's public course is a proper target for all loyal
+shafts, but prithee let the poor lady, his wife, remain in peace,--such
+peace as she can command. It is bad enough to be his wife, without being
+overborne with the additional burden of her own personal foibles. One
+can be daughter, sister, friend, without impeachment of one's sagacity
+or integrity; but it is such a dreadful indorsement of a man to marry
+him! Her own consciousness must be sufficiently grievous; pray do not
+irritate it into downright madness. Nay, what, after all, are the so
+heinous faults upon which you animadvert? She cannot earn a cent: that
+may be her misfortune, it need not be her fault. Perhaps Clement, like
+Albano, and all good husbands, "never loved to see the sweet form
+anywhere else than, like other butterflies, by his side among the
+flowers." She will keep a light burning in her room, forsooth. Have we
+not all our pet hobgoblins? We know an excellent woman who once sat
+curled up in an arm-chair all night for fear of a mouse! And is it not a
+well-understood thing that nothing so baffles midnight burglars as a
+burning candle? "When a light matter crosses her feelings, she lies in
+bed for several days." Infinitely better than to go sulking about the
+house with that "injured-innocence" air which makes a man feel as if he
+were an assaulter and batterer with intent to kill. Blessings rest upon
+those charming sensible women, who, when they feel cross, as we all do
+at times, will go to bed and sleep it away! No, let us everywhere put
+down treason and ostracize traitors. It is lawful to suspend "_naso
+adunco_" those whom we may not otherwise suspend. But even traitors have
+rights which white men and white women are bound to respect. We will
+crush them, if we can, but we will crush them in open field, by fair
+fight,--not by stealing into their bedchambers to stab them through the
+heart of a wife.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[G] The meaning of this is, that Mr. Morse was the landlord, not the
+house. Of course a house could not be a landlord; still less could it be
+a landlord to itself.--_Note by Reviewer._
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST RALLY.
+
+NOVEMBER, 1864.
+
+
+    Rally! rally! rally!
+      Arouse the slumbering land!
+    Rally! rally! from mountain and valley,
+      And up from the ocean-strand!
+    Ye sons of the West, America's best!
+      New Hampshire's men of might!
+    From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,
+      And rally to the fight!
+
+    Armies of untried heroes,
+      Disguised in craftsman and clerk!
+    Ye men of the coast, invincible host!
+      Come, every one, to the work,--
+    From the fisherman gray as the salt-sea spray
+      That on Long Island breaks,
+    To the youth who tills the uttermost hills
+      By the blue northwestern lakes!
+
+    And ye Freedmen! rally, rally
+      To the banners of the North!
+    Through the shattered door of bondage pour
+      Your swarthy legions forth!
+    Kentuckians! ye of Tennessee
+      Who scorned the despot's sway!
+    To all, to all, the bugle-call
+      Of Freedom sounds to-day!
+
+    Old men shall fight with the ballot,
+      Weapon the last and best,--
+    And the bayonet, with blood red-wet,
+      Shall write the will of the rest;
+    And the boys shall fill men's places,
+      And the little maiden rock
+    Her doll as she sits with her grandam and knits
+      An unknown hero's sock.
+
+    And the hearts of heroic mothers,
+      And the deeds of noble wives,
+    With their power to bless shall aid no less
+      Than the brave who give their lives.
+    The rich their gold shall bring, and the old
+      Shall help us with their prayers;
+    While hovering hosts of pallid ghosts
+      Attend us unawares.
+
+    From the ghastly fields of Shiloh
+      Muster the phantom bands,
+    From Virginia's swamps, and Death's white camps
+      On Carolina sands;
+    From Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg,
+      I see them gathering fast;
+    And up from Manassas, what is it that passes
+      Like thin clouds in the blast?
+
+    From the Wilderness, where blanches
+      The nameless skeleton;
+    From Vicksburg's slaughter and red-streaked water,
+      And the trenches of Donelson;
+    From the cruel, cruel prisons,
+      Where their bodies pined away,
+    From groaning decks, from sunken wrecks,
+      They gather with us to-day.
+
+    And they say to us, "Rally! rally!
+      The work is almost done!
+    Ye harvesters, sally from mountain and valley
+      And reap the fields we won!
+    We sowed for endless years of peace,
+      We harrowed and watered well;
+    Our dying deeds were the scattered seeds:
+      Shall they perish where they fell?"
+
+    And their brothers, left behind them
+      In the deadly roar and clash
+    Of cannon and sword, by fort and ford,
+      And the carbine's quivering flash,--
+    Before the Rebel citadel
+      Just trembling to its fall,
+    From Georgia's glens, from Florida's fens,
+      For us they call, they call!
+
+    The life-blood of the tyrant
+      Is ebbing fast away;
+    Victory waits at her opening gates,
+      And smiles on our array;
+    With solemn eyes the Centuries
+      Before us watching stand,
+    And Love lets down his starry crown
+      To bless the future land.
+
+    One more sublime endeavor,
+      And behold the dawn of Peace!
+    One more endeavor, and war forever
+      Throughout the land shall cease!
+    For ever and ever the vanquished power
+      Of Slavery shall be slain,
+    And Freedom's stained and trampled flower
+      Shall blossom white again!
+
+    Then rally! rally! rally!
+      Make tumult in the land!
+    Ye foresters, rally from mountain and valley!
+      Ye fishermen, from the strand!
+    Brave sons of the West, America's best!
+      New England's men of might!
+    From prairie and crag unfurl the flag,
+      And rally to the fight!
+
+
+
+
+FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION.
+
+
+In all historical studies we should still bear in mind the difference
+between the point of view from which one looks at events and that from
+which they were seen by the actors themselves. We all act under the
+influence of ideas. Even those who speak of theories with contempt are
+none the less the unconscious disciples of some theory, none the less
+busied in working out some problems of the great theory of life. Much as
+they fancy themselves to differ from the speculative man, they differ
+from him only in contenting themselves with seeing the path as it lies
+at their feet, while he strives to embrace it all, starting-point and
+end, in one comprehensive view. And thus in looking back upon the past
+we are irresistibly led to arrange the events of history, as we arrange
+the facts of a science, in their appropriate classes and under their
+respective laws. And thus, too, these events give us the true measure of
+the intellectual and moral culture of the times, the extent to which
+just ideas prevailed therein upon all the duties and functions of
+private and public life. Tried by the standard of absolute truth and
+right, grievously would they all fall short,--and we, too, with them.
+Judged by the human standard of progressive development and gradual
+growth,--the only standard to which the man of the beam can venture,
+unrebuked, to bring the man with the mote,--we shall find much in them
+all to sadden us, and much, also, in which we can all sincerely rejoice.
+
+In judging, therefore, the political acts of our ancestors, we have a
+right to bring them to the standard of the political science of their
+age, but we have no right to bring them to the higher standard of our
+own. Montesquieu could give them but an imperfect clue to the labyrinth
+in which they found themselves involved; and yet no one had seen farther
+into the mysteries of social and political organization than
+Montesquieu. Hume had scattered brilliant rays on dark places, and
+started ideas which, once at work in the mind, would never rest till
+they had evolved momentous truths and overthrown long-standing errors.
+But no one had yet seen, with Adam Smith, that labor was the original
+source of every form of wealth,--that the farmer, the merchant, the
+manufacturer, were all equally the instruments of national
+prosperity,--or demonstrated as unanswerably as he did that nations grow
+rich and powerful by giving as they receive, and that the good of one is
+the good of all. The world had not yet seen that fierce conflict between
+antagonistic principles which she was soon to see in the French
+Revolution; nor had political science yet recorded those daring
+experiments in remoulding society, those constitutions framed in
+closets, discussed in clubs, accepted and overthrown with equal
+demonstrations of popular zeal, and which, expressing in their terrible
+energy the universal dissatisfaction with past and present, the
+universal grasping at a brighter future, have met and answered so many
+grave questions,--questions neither propounded nor solved in any of the
+two hundred constitutions which Aristotle studied in order to prepare
+himself for the composition of his "Politics." The world had not yet
+seen a powerful nation tottering on the brink of anarchy, with all the
+elements of prosperity in her bosom,--nor a bankrupt state sustaining a
+war that demanded annual millions, and growing daily in wealth and
+power,--nor the economical phenomena which followed the reopening of
+Continental commerce in 1814,--nor the still more startling phenomena
+which a few years later attended England's return to specie-payments and
+a specie-currency,--nor statesmen setting themselves gravely down with
+the map before them to the final settlement of Europe, and, while the
+ink was yet fresh on their protocols, seeing all the results of their
+combined wisdom set at nought by the inexorable development of the
+fundamental principle which they had refused to recognize.
+
+But we have seen these things, and, having seen them, unconsciously
+apply the knowledge derived from them in our judgment of events to which
+we have no right to apply it. We condemn errors which we should never
+have detected without the aid of a light which was hidden from our
+fathers, and will still be dwelling upon shortcomings which nothing
+could have avoided but a general diffusion of that wisdom which
+Providence never vouchsafes except as a gift to a few exalted minds.
+Every school-boy has his text-book of political economy now: but many
+can remember when these books first made their appearance in schools;
+and so late as 1820 the Professor of History in English Cambridge
+publicly lamented that there was no work upon this vital subject which
+he could put into the hands of his classes.
+
+When, therefore, our fathers found themselves face to face with the
+complex questions of finance, they naturally fell back upon the
+experience and devices of their past history: they did as in such
+emergencies men always do,--they tried to meet the present difficulty
+without weighing maturely the future difficulties. The present was at
+the door, palpable, stern, urgent, relentless; and as they looked at it,
+they could see nothing beyond half so full of perplexity and danger.
+They hoped, as in the face of all history and all experience men will
+ever hope, that out of those depths which their feeble eyes were unable
+to penetrate something would yet arise in their hour of need to avert
+the peril and snatch them from the precipice. Their past history had its
+lessons of encouragement, some thought, and, some thought, of warning.
+They seized the example, but the admonition passed by unheeded.
+
+Short as the chronological record of American history then was, that
+exchange of the products of labor which so speedily grows up into
+commerce had already passed through all its phases, from direct barter
+to bank-notes and bills of exchange. Men gave what they wanted less to
+get what they wanted more, the products of industry without doors for
+the products of industry within doors; and it was only when they felt
+the necessity of adding to their stock of luxuries or conveniences from
+a distance that they experienced the want of money. Prices naturally
+found their own level,--were what, when left to themselves they always
+are, the natural expression of the relations between demand and supply.
+Tobacco stood the Virginian in stead of money long after money had
+become abundant; procuring him corn, meat, raiment. More than once, too,
+it procured him something better still. In the very same year in which
+the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, history tells us, ninety maidens of
+"virtuous education and demeanor" landed in Virginia; the next year
+brought sixty more; and, provident industry reaping its own reward, he
+whose busy hands had raised the largest crop of tobacco was enabled to
+make the first choice of a wife. And it must have been an edifying and
+pleasant spectacle to see each stalwart Virginian pressing on towards
+the landing with his bundle of tobacco on his back, and walking
+deliberately home again with an affectionate wife under his arm.
+
+But already there was a pernicious principle at work,--protested against
+by experience wherever tried, and still repeatedly tried anew,--the
+assumption by Government of the power to regulate the prices of goods.
+The first instance carries us back to 1618, and thinking men still
+believed it possible in 1777. The right to regulate the prices of labor
+was its natural corollary, bringing with it the power of creating legal
+tenders and the various representatives of value, without any
+correspondent measures for creating the value itself, or, in simpler
+words, paper-money without capital. And thus, logically as well as
+historically, we reach the first issue of paper-money in 1690, that year
+so memorable as the year of the first Congress.
+
+New England, encouraged by a successful expedition against Port Royal,
+made an attempt upon Quebec. Confident of success, she sent forth her
+little army without providing the means of paying it. The soldiers came
+back soured by disaster and fatigue, and, not yet up to the standard of
+'76, were upon the point of mutinying for their pay. To escape the
+immediate danger, Massachusetts bethought her of bills of credit. They
+were issued, accepted, and redeemed, although the first holders suffered
+great losses, and the last holders or the speculators were the only ones
+that found them faithful pledges. The flood-gates once opened, the water
+poured in amain. Every pressing emergency afforded a pretext for a new
+issue. Other Colonies followed the seductive example. Paper was soon
+issued to make money plenty. Men's minds became familiar with the idea,
+as they saw the convenient substitute passing freely from hand to hand.
+Accepted at market, accepted at the retail store, accepted in the
+counting-room, accepted for taxes, everywhere a legal tender, it seemed
+adequate to all the demands of domestic trade. But erelong came undue
+fluctuations of prices, depreciations, failures,--all the well-known
+indications of an unsound currency. England interposed to protect her
+own merchants, to whom American paper-money was utterly worthless; and
+Parliament stripped it of its value as a legal tender. Men's minds were
+divided. They had never before been called upon to discuss such
+questions upon such a scale or in such a form. They were at a loss for
+the principle, still enveloped in the multitude and variety of
+conflicting theories and obstinate facts.
+
+One fact, however, was clearly established,--that a government could, in
+great needs, make paper fulfil, for a while, the office of money; and if
+a regular government, why not also a revolutionary government, sustained
+and accepted by the people? Here, then, begins the history of the
+Continental money,--the principal chapter in the financial history of
+the Revolution,--leading us, like all such histories, over ground
+thick-strown with unheeded admonitions and neglected warnings, through a
+round of constantly recurring phenomena, varied only here and there by
+modifications in the circumstances under which they appear.
+
+It is much to be regretted that we have no record of the discussions
+through which Congress reached the resolves of June 22, 1775: "That a
+sum not exceeding two millions of Spanish milled dollars be emitted by
+the Congress in bills of credit for the defence of America. That the
+twelve confederated Colonies" (Georgia, it will be remembered, had not
+yet sent delegates) "be pledged for the redemption of the bills of
+credit now to be emitted." We do not even know positively that there was
+any discussion. If there was, it is not difficult to conceive how some
+of the reasoning ran,--how each had arguments and examples from his own
+Colony: how confidently Pennsylvanians would speak of the security which
+they had given to their paper; how confidently Virginians would assert
+that even the greatest straits might be passed without having recourse
+to so dangerous a medium; how all the facts in the history of
+paper-money would be brought forward to prove both sides of the
+question, but how the underlying principle, subtile, impalpable, might
+still elude them all, as for thirty-five years longer it still continued
+to elude wise statesmen and thoughtful economists; how, at last, some
+impatient spirit, breaking through the untimely delay, sternly asked
+them what else they proposed to do. By what alchemy would they create
+gold and silver? By what magic would they fill the coffers which their
+non-exportation resolutions had kept empty, or bring in the supplies
+which their non-importation resolutions had cut off? What arguments of
+their devising would induce a people in arms against taxation to submit
+to tenfold heavier taxes than those which they had indignantly repelled?
+Necessity, inexorable necessity, was now their lawgiver; they had
+adopted an army, they must support it; they had voted pay to their
+officers, they must devise the means of giving their vote effect; arms,
+ammunition, camp-equipage, everything was to be provided for. The people
+were full of ardor, glowing with fiery zeal; your promise to pay will be
+received like payment; your commands will be instantly obeyed. Every
+hour's delay imperils the sacred cause, chills the holy enthusiasm;
+action, prompt, energetic, resolute action, is what the crisis calls
+for. Men must see that we are in earnest; the enemy must see it; nothing
+else will bring them to terms; nothing else will give us a lasting
+peace: and in such a peace how easily, how cheerfully, shall we all
+unite in paying the debt which won for us so inestimable a blessing!
+
+It would have been difficult to deny the force of such an appeal. There
+were doubtless men there who believed firmly in the virtue of the
+people,--who thought, that, after the proof which the people had given
+of their readiness to sacrifice the interests of the present moment to
+the interests of a day and a posterity that they might not live to see,
+it would be worse than skepticism to call it in question. But even these
+men might hesitate about the form of the sacrifice they called for, for
+they knew how often men are governed by names, and that their minds
+might revolt at the idea of a formal tax, although they would submit to
+pay it fifty-fold under the name of depreciation. Even at this day,
+with all our additional light,--the combined light of science and of
+experience,--it is difficult to see what else they could have done
+without strengthening dangerously the hands of their domestic enemies.
+Nor let this be taken as a proof that they engaged rashly in an unequal
+contest, even though it was necessarily in part a war of paper against
+gold. They have been accused of this by their friends as well as by
+their enemies: they have been accused of sacrificing a positive good to
+an uncertain hope,--of suffering their passions to hurry them into a war
+for which they had made no adequate preparation, and had not the means
+of making any,--that they wilfully, almost wantonly, incurred the
+fearful responsibility of staking the lives and fortunes of those who
+were looking to them for guidance upon the chances of a single cast. But
+the accusation is unjust. As far as human foresight could reach, they
+had calculated these chances carefully. They knew the tenure by which
+they held their authority, and that, if they ran counter to the popular
+will, the people would fall from them,--that, if they should fail in
+making their position good, they would be the first, almost the only
+victims,--that, then as ever, "the thunderbolts on highest mountains
+light." Charles Carroll added "of Carrollton" to his name, so that, if
+the Declaration he was setting it to should bring forfeiture and
+confiscation, there might be no mistake about the victim. Nor was it
+without a touch of sober earnestness that Harrison, bulky and fat, said
+to the lean and shadowy Gerry, as he laid down his pen,--"When
+hanging-time comes, I shall have the advantage of you. I shall be dead
+in a second, while you will be kicking in the air half an hour after I
+am gone." But they knew also, that, if there are dangers which we do not
+perceive till we come full upon them, there are likewise helps which we
+do not see till we find ourselves face to face with them,--and that in
+the life of nations, as in the life of individuals, there are moments
+when all that the wisest and most conscientious can do is to see that
+everything is in its place, every man at his post, and resolutely bide
+the shock.
+
+While this subject was pressing upon Congress, it was occupying no less
+seriously leading minds in the different Colonies. All felt that the
+success of the experiment must chiefly depend upon the degree of
+security that could be given to the bills. But how to reach that
+necessary degree was a perplexing question. Three ways were suggested in
+the New-York Convention: that Congress should fix upon a sum, assign
+each Colony its proportion, and the issue be made by the Colony upon its
+own responsibility; or that the United Colonies should make the issue,
+each Colony pledging itself to redeem the part that fell to it; or,
+lastly, that, Congress issuing the sum, and each Colony assuming its
+proportionate responsibility, the Colonies should still be bound as a
+whole to make up for the failure of any individual Colony to redeem its
+share. The latter was proposed by the Convention as offering greater
+chances of security, and tending at the same time to strengthen the bond
+of union. It was in nearly this form, also, that it came from Congress.
+
+No time was now lost in carrying the resolution into effect. The next
+day, Tuesday, June 23, the number, denomination, and form of the bills
+were decided in a Committee of the Whole. It was resolved to make bills
+of eight denominations, from one to eight, and issue forty-nine thousand
+of each, completing the two millions by eleven thousand eight hundred of
+twenty dollars each. The form of the bill was to be,--
+
+     _Continental Currency._
+
+     _No. Dollars._
+
+     _This bill entitles the bearer to receive ---- Spanish milled
+     dollars or the value thereof in gold or silver, according to
+     the resolutions of the Congress held at Philadelphia on the
+     10th day of May_, A. D. 1775.
+
+In the same sitting a committee of five was appointed "to get proper
+plates engraved, to provide paper, and to agree with printers to print
+the above bills." Both Franklin and John Adams were on this committee.
+
+Had they lived in 1862 instead of 1775, how their doors would have been
+beset by engravers and paper-dealers and printers! What baskets of
+letters would have been poured upon their tables! How would they have
+dreaded the sound of the knocker or the cry of the postman! But, alas!
+paper was so far from abundant that generals were often reduced to hard
+straits for enough of it to write their reports and despatches on; and
+that Congressmen were not much better off will be believed when we find
+John Adams sending his wife a sheet or two at a time under the same
+envelope with his own letters. Printers there were, as many, perhaps, as
+the business of the country required, but not enough for the eager
+contention which the announcement of Government work to be done excites
+among us in these days. And of engravers there were but four between
+Maine and Georgia. Of these four, one was Paul Revere of the midnight
+ride, the Boston boy of Huguenot blood whose self-taught graver had
+celebrated the repeal of the Stamp Act, condemned to perpetual derision
+the rescinders of 1768, and told the story of the Boston Massacre,--who,
+when the first grand jury under the new organization was drawn, had met
+the judge with, "I refuse to sarve,"--a scientific mechanic,--a leader
+at the Tea-party,--a soldier of the old war,--prepared to serve in this
+war, too, with sword, or graver, or science,--fitting carriages, at
+Washington's command, to the cannon from which the retreating English
+had knocked off the trunnions, learning how to make powder at the
+command of the Provincial Congress, and setting up the first powder-mill
+ever built in Massachusetts.
+
+No mere engraver's task for him, this engraving the first bill-plates of
+Continental Currency! How he must have warmed over the design! how
+carefully he must have chosen his copper! how buoyantly he must have
+plied his graver, harassed by no doubts, disturbed by no misgivings of
+the double mission which those little plates were to perform,--the good
+one first, thank God! but then how fatal a one afterward!--but resolved
+and hopeful as on that April night when he spurred his horse from
+cottage to hamlet, rousing the sleepers with the cry, long unheard in
+the sweet valleys of New England, "Up! up! the enemy is coming!"
+
+The paper of these bills was thick, so thick that the enemy called it
+the paste-board money of the rebels. Plate, paper, and printing, all had
+little in common with the elaborate finish and delicate texture of a
+modern bank-note. To sign them was too hard a tax upon Congressmen
+already taxed to the full measure of their working-time by committees
+and protracted daily sessions; and so a committee of twenty-eight
+gentlemen not in Congress was employed to sign and number them,
+receiving in compensation one dollar and a third for every thousand
+bills.
+
+Meanwhile loud calls for money were daily reaching the doors of
+Congress. Everywhere money was wanted,--money to buy guns, money to buy
+powder, money to buy provisions, money to send officers to their posts,
+money to march troops to their stations, money to speed messengers to
+and fro, money for the wants of to-day, money to pay for what had
+already been done, and still more money to insure the right doing of
+what was yet to do: Washington wanted it; Lee wanted it; Schuyler wanted
+it: from north to south, from seaboard to inland, one deep, monotonous,
+menacing cry,--"Money, or our hands are powerless!"
+
+How long would these two millions stand such a drain? Spent before they
+were received, hardly touching the Treasury-chest as a starting-place
+before they flew on the wings of the morning to gladden thousands of
+expectant hearts with a brief respite from one of their many cares.
+Relief there certainly was,--neither long, indeed, nor lasting, but
+still relief. Good Whigs received the bills, as they did everything
+else that came from Congress, with unquestioning confidence. Tories
+turned from them in derision, and refused to give their goods for them.
+Whereupon Congress took the matter under consideration, and told them
+that they must. It was soon seen that another million would be wanted,
+and in July a second issue was resolved on. All-devouring war had soon
+swallowed these also. Three more millions were ordered in November. But
+the war was to end soon,--by June, '76, at the latest. All their
+expenditures were calculated upon this supposition; and wealth flowing
+in under the auspices of a just and equable accommodation with their
+reconciled mother, these millions which had served them so well in the
+hour of need would soon be paid by a happy and grateful people from an
+abundant treasury.
+
+But early in 1776 reports came of English negotiations for foreign
+mercenaries to help put down the rebellion,--reports which soon took the
+shape of positive information. No immediate end of the war now: already,
+too, independence was looming up on the turbid horizon; already the
+current was bearing them onward, deep, swift, irresistible: and thus
+seizing still more eagerly upon the future, they poured out other four
+millions in February, five millions in May, five millions in July. The
+Confederacy was not yet formed; the Declaration of Independence had
+nothing yet to authenticate it but the signatures of John Hancock and
+Charles Thompson; and the republic that was to be was already solemnly
+pledged to the payment of twenty millions of dollars.
+
+Thus far men's faith had not faltered. They saw the necessity and
+accepted it, giving their goods and their labor unhesitatingly for a
+slip of paper which derived all its value from the resolves of a body of
+men who might, upon a reverse, be thrown down as rapidly as they had
+been set up. And then whom were they to look to for indemnification? But
+now began a sensible depreciation,--slight, indeed, at first, but
+ominous. Congress took the alarm, and resolved upon a loan,--resolved to
+borrow directly what they had hitherto borrowed indirectly, the goods
+and the labor of their constituents. Accordingly, on the third of
+October, a resolve was passed for raising five millions of dollars at
+four per cent; and in order to make it convenient to lenders,
+loan-offices were established in every Colony with a commissioner for
+each.
+
+Money came in slowly, but ran out so fast that in November Congress
+ordered weekly returns from the Treasury, not, of sums on hand, but of
+what parts of the last emission remained unexpended. The campaign of '77
+was at hand; how the campaign of '76 would close was yet uncertain. The
+same impenetrable veil that hid Trenton and Princeton from their eyes
+concealed the disasters of Fort Washington and the Jerseys. They still
+looked hopefully to the lower line of the Hudson. They resolved,
+therefore, to make an immediate effort to supply the Treasury by a
+lottery to be drawn at Philadelphia.
+
+A lottery,--does not the word carry one back, a great many years back,
+to other times and other manners? The Articles of War were now on the
+table of Congress for revision, and in the second and third of those
+articles officers and soldiers had been earnestly recommended to attend
+divine service diligently, and to refrain, under grave penalties, from
+profane cursing or swearing. And here legislators deliberately set
+themselves to raise money by means which we have deliberately condemned
+as gambling. But years were yet to pass before statesmen, or the people
+rather, were brought to feel that the lottery-office and gaming-table
+stand side by side on the same broad highway.
+
+No such thoughts troubled the minds of our forefathers, well stored as
+those minds were with human and divine lore; but, going to work without
+a scruple, they prepared an elaborate scheme and fixed the first of
+March for the day of drawing,--"or sooner, if sooner full." It was not
+full, however, nor was it full when the subject next came up. Tickets
+were sold; committees sat; Congress returned to the subject from time
+to time: but what with the incipient depreciation of the bills of
+credit, the rising prices of goods and provisions, and the incessant
+calls upon every purse for public and private purposes, the lottery
+failed to commend itself either to speculators or to the bulk of the
+people. Some good Whigs bought tickets from principle, and, like many of
+the good Whigs who took the bills of credit for the same reason, lost
+their money.
+
+In the same November the Treasury was ordered to make every preparation
+for a new issue; and to meet the wants of the retail trade, it was
+resolved at the same time to issue five hundred thousand dollars in
+bills of two-thirds, one-third, one-sixth, and one-ninth of a dollar.
+Evident as it ought now to have been that nothing but taxation could
+relieve them, they still shrank from it. "Do you think, Gentlemen," said
+a member, "that I will consent to load my constituents with taxes, when
+we can send to our printer and get a wagon-load of money, one quire of
+which will pay for the whole?" It was so easy a way of making money that
+men seemed to be getting into the humor of it.
+
+The campaign of '77, like the campaign of '76, was fought upon
+paper-money without any material depreciation. The bills could never be
+signed as fast as they were called for. But this could not last. The
+public mind was growing anxious. Extensive interests, in some cases
+whole fortunes, were becoming involved in the question of ultimate
+payment. The alarm gained upon Congress. Burgoyne, indeed, was
+conquered; but a more powerful, more insidious enemy, one to whom they
+themselves had opened the gate, was already within their works and fast
+making his way to the heart of the citadel. The depreciation had reached
+four for one, and there was but one way to prevent it from going lower.
+Congress deliberated anxiously. Thus far the public faith had supported
+the war. But, they reasoned, the quantity of the money for which this
+faith stood pledged already exceeded the demands of commerce, and hence
+its value was proportionably reduced. Add to this the arts of open and
+secret enemies, the avidity of professed friends, and the scarcity of
+foreign commodities, and it is easy to account for the depreciation.
+"The consequences were equally obvious and alarming,"--"depravity of
+morals, decay of public virtue, a precarious supply for the war,
+debasement of the public faith, injustice to individuals, and the
+destruction of the safety, honor, and independence of the United
+States." But "a reasonable and effectual remedy" was still within their
+reach, and therefore, "with mature deliberation and the most earnest
+solicitude," they recommended the raising by taxes on the different
+States, in proportion to their population, five millions of dollars in
+quarterly payments, for the service of 1778.
+
+But having explained, justified, and recommended, the power of Congress
+ceased. Like the Confederation, it had no right of coercion, no
+machinery of its own for acting upon the States. And, unhappily, the
+States, pressed by their individual wants, feeling keenly their
+individual sacrifices and dangers, failed to see that the nearest road
+to relief lay through the odious portal of taxation. Had the mysterious
+words that Dante read on the gates of Hell been written on it, they
+could not have shrunk from it with a more instinctive feeling:--
+
+    "All hope abandon, ye who enter here!"
+
+Some States paid, some did not pay. The sums that came in were wholly
+insufficient to relieve the actual pressure, and that pressure,
+unrelieved, grew daily more severe. They had tried the regulating of
+prices,--they had tried loans,--they had tried a lottery; and now they
+were forced back again to their earliest and most dangerous expedient,
+paper-money. New floods poured forth, and the parched earth drank them
+greedily up. One may almost fancy, as he looks at the tables, that he
+sees the shadowy form of sickly Credit tottering feebly forth to catch a
+gleam of sunshine, a breath of pure air, while myriads of little
+sprites, each bearing in his hand an emblazoned scroll with
+"Depreciation" written upon it in big yellow letters, dance merrily
+around him, thrusting the bitter record in his face, whichever way he
+turns, with gibes and taunts and demoniac laughter. But his course was
+almost ended: the grave was nigh, an unhonored grave; and as eager hands
+heaped the earth upon his faded form, a stern voice bade men remember
+that they who strayed from the path as he had done must sooner or later
+find a grave like his.
+
+It was not without a desperate struggle that Congress saw the rapid
+decline and shameful death of its currency. The ground was fought
+manfully, foot by foot, inch by inch. The idea that money derived its
+value from acts of government seemed to have taken deep hold of their
+minds, and their policy was in perfect harmony with their belief. In
+January, 1776, they had solemnly resolved that everybody who refused to
+accept their bills, or did anything to obstruct the circulation of them,
+should, upon due conviction, "be deemed, published, and treated as an
+enemy of his country, and be precluded from all trade or intercourse
+with the inhabitants of these Colonies." And to enforce it there were
+Committees of Inspection, whose power seldom lay idle in their hands,
+whose eyes were never sealed in slumber. In this work, which seemed good
+in their eyes, the State Assemblies and Conventions and Committees of
+Safety joined heart and hand with Congress. Tender-laws were tried, and
+the relentless hunt of creditor after debtor became a flight of the
+recusant creditor from the debtor eager to wipe out his responsibility
+for gold or silver with a ream or two of paper. Limitation of prices was
+tried, and produced its natural results,--discontent, insufficient
+supplies, heavy losses. Threatening resolves were renewed, and fell
+powerless. It was hoped that some relief might come from the sales of
+confiscated property; but property changed hands, and the Treasury was
+none the better off: just as in France, a few years later, the whole
+landed property of the kingdom changed hands, and left the government
+assignats what it found them,--bits of waste-paper.
+
+Meanwhile speculation ran riot. Every form of wastefulness and
+extravagance prevailed in town and country,--nowhere more than at
+Philadelphia, under the very eyes of Congress,--luxury of dress, luxury
+of equipage, luxury of the table. We are told of one entertainment at
+which eight hundred pounds were spent in pastry. As I read the private
+letters of those days, I sometimes feel as a man would feel who should
+be permitted to look down upon a foundering ship whose crew were
+preparing for death by breaking open the steward's room and drinking
+themselves into madness.
+
+An earnest appeal was made to the States. The sober eloquence and
+profound statesmanship of John Jay were employed to bring the subject
+before the country in its true light and manifold bearings,--the state
+of the Treasury, the results of loans and of taxes, and the nature and
+amount of the obligations incurred. The natural value and wealth of the
+country were held to view as the foundations on which Congress had
+undertaken to build up a system of public finances, beginning with bills
+of Credit because there was no nation they could have borrowed of,
+coming next to loans, and thus "unavoidably creating a public debt: a
+debt of $159,948,880, in emissions,--$7,545,196-67/90, in money borrowed
+before the first of March, 1778, with the interest payable in
+France,--$26,188,909, money borrowed since the first of March, 1778,
+with interest due in America,--about $4,000,000, of money due abroad."
+The taxes had brought in only $3,027,560; so that all the money supplied
+to Congress by the people was but $36,701,665-67/90.
+
+"Judge, then, of the necessity of emissions, and learn from whom and
+whence that necessity arose. We are also to inform you, that, on the
+first day of September instant, we resolved that we would on no account
+whatever emit more bills of credit than to make the whole amount of
+such bills two hundred million dollars; and as the sum emitted and in
+circulation amounted to $159,948,880, and the sum of $40,051,120
+remained to complete the two hundred million above mentioned, we, on the
+third day of September instant, further resolved that we would emit such
+part only of the said sum as should be absolutely necessary for public
+exigencies before adequate supplies could otherwise be obtained, relying
+for such ratios on the exertions of the several States."
+
+Coming to the depreciation, they reduce the causes to three
+kinds,--natural, or artificial, or both. The natural cause was the
+excess of the supply over the demands of commerce; the artificial cause
+was a distrust of the ability or inclination of the United States to
+redeem their bills; and assuming that both causes have combined in
+producing the depreciation of the Continental money, they proceed to
+prove that there can be no doubt of the ability of the United States to
+pay their debt, and none of their inclination. Under the head of
+inclination the argument is divided into three parts:--
+
+First, Whether, and in what manner, the faith of the United States has
+been pledged for the redemption of their bills.
+
+Second, Whether they have put themselves in a political capacity to
+redeem them.
+
+Third, Whether, admitting the two former propositions, there is any
+reason to apprehend a wanton violation of the public faith. The idea
+that Congress can destroy the money, because Congress made it, is
+treated with scorn.
+
+"A bankrupt, faithless Republic would be a novelty in the political
+world.... The pride of America revolts from the idea; her citizens know
+for what purposes these emissions were made, and have repeatedly
+plighted their faith for the redemption of them; they are to be found in
+every man's possession, and every man is interested in their being
+redeemed.... Provide for continuing your armies in the field till
+victory and peace shall lead them home, and avoid the reproach of
+permitting the currency to depreciate in your hands, when, by yielding a
+part to taxes and loans, the whole might have been appreciated and
+preserved. Humanity as well as justice makes this demand upon you; the
+complaints of ruined widows and the cries of fatherless children, whose
+whole support has been placed in your hands and melted away, have
+doubtless reached you: take care that they ascend no higher....
+Determine to finish the contest as you began it, honestly and
+gloriously. Let it never be said that America had no sooner become
+independent than she became insolvent."
+
+But it was not only the Continental money that was blocking up the
+channels through which a sound currency would have carried vigor and
+health. The States had their debts and their paper-money too,--wheel
+within wheel of complicated, desperate insolvency. The two hundred
+millions had been issued and spent. There was no money to send to
+Washington for his army, and he was compelled for a while to support
+them by seizing the articles he needed, and giving certificates in
+return. The States were called upon for specific supplies, beef, pork,
+flour, for the use of the army,--a method so expensive, irregular, and
+partial, that it was soon abandoned. One chance remained: to call in the
+old money by taxes, and burn it as soon as it was in; then to issue a
+new paper,--one of the new for every twenty of the old; and the whole of
+the old was cancelled, to issue only ten millions of the new,--four
+millions of it subject to the order of Congress, and the remaining six
+to be divided among the States: the whole redeemable in specie within
+six years, and bearing till then an interest of five per cent., payable
+in specie annually or on redemption, at the option of the holder. By
+this skilful change of base it was hoped that a bold front could still
+be presented to the enemy, and the field, which had been so long and so
+obstinately contested, be finally won.
+
+But the day of expedients was past. The zeal which had blazed forth with
+such energy at the beginning of the war was fast sinking to a fitful,
+smouldering flame. Individual interests were again taking the precedence
+of general interests. The moral sense of the people had contracted a
+deadly taint from daily contact with corruption. The spirit of gambling,
+confined in the beginning and lost to the eye, like Le Sage's Devil, had
+swollen to its full proportions, and, in the garb of speculation, was
+undermining the foundations of society. Rogues were growing rich; the
+honest men who were not already poor were daily growing poor. The laws
+that had been made in the view of propping the currency had served only
+to countenance unscrupulous men in paying their debts at a discount
+ruinous to the creditor. The laws against forestallers and engrossers,
+who, it was currently believed, were leagued against both army and
+country, were powerless, as such laws always are. Even Washington wished
+for a gallows like Haman's to hang them on; but the army was kept
+starving none the less.
+
+The seasons themselves--God's visible agents--seemed to combine against
+our cause. The years 1779 and 1780 were years of small crops. The winter
+of 1780 was severe far beyond the common severity even of a Northern
+winter. Provisions were scarce, suffering universal. Farmers, as if
+forgetting their dependence on rain and sunshine, had planted less than
+usual,--some from disaffection, some because they were irritated at
+having to give up their corn and cattle for worthless bills, and
+certificates which might prove equally worthless. Some, who were within
+reach of the enemy, preferred to sell to them, for they paid in silver
+and gold. There were riots in Philadelphia, put down at the point of the
+sword. There was mutiny in the army, and this, too, was put down by the
+strong hand,--though the fearful sufferings which had caused it
+justified it almost in the eye of sober reason.
+
+It is easy to see why farmers should have been loath to raise more than
+they needed for their own use,--why merchants should have been unwilling
+to lay in stores which they might be compelled to sell at prices so
+truly nominal that the money which they received would often sink to
+half they had taken it for before they were able to pass it. But it is
+not so easy to see why this wretched substitute for values should have
+circulated so freely to the very last. Even at two hundred for one, with
+the knowledge that the next twenty-four hours might make that two
+hundred two hundred and fifty, or even more, without the slightest hope
+that it would ever be redeemed at its nominal value, it would still buy
+everything that was to be sold,--provisions, goods, houses, lands, even
+hard money itself. Down to its last gasp there were speculations afoot
+to take advantage of the differences in the degree of its worthlessness
+at different places, and buy it up in one place to sell it at
+another,--to buy it in Philadelphia at two hundred and twenty-five for
+one, and sell it in Boston at seventy-five for one. It was possible, if
+the ball passed quickly from hand to hand, that some might gain; it was
+very manifest that some must lose: and thus outcrops that pernicious
+doctrine, that true, life-giving, health-diffusing commerce consists in
+stripping one to clothe another.
+
+And thus we reach the memorable year 1781, the great, decisive year of
+the war. While Greene was fighting Cornwallis and Rawdon, and Washington
+watching eagerly for an opportunity to strike at Clinton, Congress was
+busy making up its accounts. One circumstance told for them. There was
+no longer the same dearth of gold and silver which had embarrassed them
+so much at the beginning of the war. A gainful commerce was now opened
+with the West Indies. The French army and the French fleet were here,
+and hard money with them. Louis-d'ors and livres and Spanish
+dollars,--how welcome must their pleasant faces have looked, after this
+long, long absence! With what a thrill must the hand which had touched
+nothing for years but Continental bills have closed upon solid gold and
+silver! It is easy to conceive that a new spirit must soon have
+manifested itself in the wide circle of contractors and agents,--that
+shopkeepers must speedily have discovered that their business was
+shifting its ground as they obtained a reliable standard for counting
+their losses and gains,--that every branch of commerce must have felt a
+new vigor diffusing itself through its veins. But it is equally evident,
+that, while the gold and silver which flowed in upon them from these
+sources strengthened the people for the work they were to do and the
+burdens they were to bear, the comparisons they were daily making
+between fluctuating paper and steadfast metal were not of a nature to
+strengthen their faith in money that could be made by a turn of the
+printing-press and a few strokes of the pen.
+
+Another circumstance told for them, too. The accession of Maryland had
+fulfilled the conditions for the acceptance of the Confederation so long
+held in abeyance, and the finances were taken from a board and intrusted
+to the hands of a skilful and energetic financier. Robert Morris, who
+had protested energetically against the tender-laws, made
+specie-payments the condition of his acceptance of office; and on the
+twenty-second of May, though not without a struggle, Congress resolved
+"that the whole debts already due by the United States be liquidated as
+soon as may be to their specie-value, and funded, if agreeable to the
+creditors, as a loan upon interest; that the States be severally
+informed that the calculations of the expenses of the present campaign
+are made in solid coin, and therefore that the requisitions from them
+respectively, being grounded on those calculations, must be complied
+with in such manner as effectually to answer the purpose designed; that,
+experience having evinced the inefficacy of all attempts to support the
+credit of paper-money by compulsory acts, it is recommended to such
+States, where laws making paper-bills a tender yet exist, to repeal the
+same."
+
+Another public body, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania,
+dealt it another blow, fixing the ratio at which it was to be received
+in public payments at one hundred and seventy-five for one. Circulation
+ceased. In a short time the money that had been carted to and fro in
+reams disappeared from the shop, the counting-room, the market. All
+dealings were in hard money. Gold and silver resumed their legitimate
+sway, and men began to look hopefully forward to a return of economy,
+frugality, and an invigorating commerce.
+
+The Superintendent of Finance set himself seriously to his task. One
+great obstacle had been removed; one great and decisive step had been
+made towards the restoration of that sense of security without which
+industry and enterprise are powerless. As a merchant, he was familiar
+with the resources of the country; as a Member of Congress, he was
+familiar with the wants of Government. His resources were taxes and
+loans; his obligations, an old debt and a daily expenditure. Opposed as
+he was to the irresponsible currency which had brought the country to
+the brink of ruin, he was a believer in banks and bills resting on a
+secure basis. One of his earliest measures was to prepare, with the aid
+of his Assistant-Superintendent, Gouverneur Morris, a plan of a bank,
+which soon after, with the sanction of Congress, went into operation as
+the Bank of North America. Small as the capital with which it started
+was,--only four hundred thousand dollars,--its influence was immediately
+felt throughout the country. It gave an impulse to legitimate enterprise
+which had long been wanting, and a confidence to buyer and seller which
+they had not felt since the first year of the war. In his public
+operations the Superintendent used it freely, and, using it at the same
+time wisely, was enabled to call upon it for aid to the full extent of
+its ability without impairing its strength.
+
+Henceforth the financial history of the Revolution, although it loses
+none of its importance, loses much of its narrative-interest. No longer
+a hand-to-hand conflict between coin and paper,--no longer the
+melancholy spectacle of wise men doing unwise things, and honorable men
+doing things which, in any other form, they would have been the first to
+brand with dishonor,--it still continues a long, a wearisome, and often
+a mortifying struggle: men knowing their duty and refusing to do it,
+knowing consequences and yet blindly shutting their eyes to them. I will
+give but one example.
+
+After a careful estimate of the operations of 1782, Congress had called
+upon the States for eight millions. Up to January, 1783, only four
+hundred and twenty thousand had come into the Treasury. Four hundred
+thousand Treasury-notes were almost due; the funds in Europe were
+overdrawn to the amount of five hundred thousand by the sale of drafts.
+But Morris, waiting only to cover himself by a special authorization of
+Congress, made fresh sales upon the hopes of the Dutch loan and the
+possibility of a new French loan, and still held on--as cautiously as he
+could, but ever boldly and skilfully--his anxious way through the rocks
+and shoals that menaced him on every side. He was rewarded, as such men
+too often are, by calumny and suspicion. But when men came to look
+closely at his acts, comparing his means with his wants, and the
+expenditure of the Treasury Board with the expenditure of the Finance
+Office, it was seen and acknowledged that he had saved the country
+thirteen millions a year in hard money.
+
+And now, from our stand-point of the Peace,--from 1783,--let us give a
+parting glance at the ground over which we have passed. We see thirteen
+Colonies, united by interest, divided by habits, association, and
+tradition, engaging in a doubtful contest with one of the most powerful
+and energetic nations which the world had ever seen; we see them begin,
+as men always do, with very imperfect conceptions of the time it would
+last, the lengths to which it would carry them, or the sacrifices it
+would impose; we see them boldly adopting some measures, timidly
+shrinking from others,--reasoning justly about some things, reasoning
+falsely about things equally important,--endowed at times with singular
+foresight, visited at times by incomprehensible blindness: boatmen on a
+mighty river, strong themselves and resolute and skilful, plying their
+oars manfully from first to last, but borne onward by a current which no
+human science could measure, no human strength could resist.
+
+They knew that the resources of the country were exhaustless; and they
+threw themselves upon those resources in the only way by which they
+could reach them. Their bills of credit were the offspring of enthusiasm
+and faith. The enthusiasm grew chill, the faith failed. With a little
+more enthusiasm, the people would cheerfully have submitted to taxation;
+with a little more faith, the Congress would have taxed them. In the
+end, the people paid for the shortcomings of their enthusiasm by seventy
+millions of indirect taxation,--taxation through depreciation; the
+Congress paid for the shortcomings of their faith by the loss of
+confidence and respect. The war left them with a Federal debt of seventy
+million dollars, and State debts of nearly twenty-six millions.
+
+Could this have been avoided? Could they have done otherwise? It is
+easy, when the battle is won, to tell how victory might have been bought
+cheaper,--when the campaign is ended, to show what might perhaps have
+brought it to an earlier and more glorious close. It is easy for us,
+with the whole field before us, to see that from the beginning, from the
+very first start, although the formula was _Taxation_, the principle was
+_Independence_; but before we venture to pass sentence, ought we not to
+pause and weigh well our judgment and our words,--we who, in the fiercer
+contest through which we are passing, have so long failed to see, that,
+while the formula is _Secession_, the principle is _Slavery_?
+
+
+
+
+THROUGH-TICKETS TO SAN FRANCISCO: A PROPHECY.
+
+
+We write this article in September. Within a few days, and without much
+heralding, has occurred an event of prime importance to our country's
+future. This is the opening from New York to St. Louis of a continuous
+broad-gauge line under the title of the Atlantic and Great Western
+Railway. This line is twelve hundred miles long, and pursues the
+following route: By the New York and Erie Road, from New York to the
+station of Salamanca; thence, by a separate road of the Atlantic and
+Great Western, to Dayton, Ohio; thence, over the Cincinnati, Hamilton,
+and Dayton Road, to Cincinnati; and finally, by the Ohio and Mississippi
+Road, to St. Louis. The first excursion-train accomplished the whole
+distance in forty-four hours. We understand that the regular
+express-trains of the line will be required to make equally good
+time,--ultimately, perhaps, to reduce the time to forty hours.
+
+This valuable connection has been mainly effected by the energy and
+talents of two men. Mr. James McHenry, a Pennsylvanian by birth, but of
+late years resident abroad, has raised twenty million dollars for the
+project in the money-markets of England, Spain, and Germany, the bonds
+of the Company obtaining ready sale upon the guaranty of his personal
+high character for uprightness and financial ability. Mr. Thomas W.
+Kennard, an engineer and capitalist of large views, discretion, and
+experience, has managed the interests of the project here at home,
+securing the hearty cooperation and good-will of all the roads now made
+continuous, and bringing the enterprise to a successful issue with a
+skill possible only to first-class commercial genius. The former of
+these gentlemen is Financial Director and Contractor, the latter,
+Engineer-in-Chief, Vice-President, and General Manager of the line. At
+any other period than this their success would have been widely talked
+of as a great national benefit. Even now let us not forget the
+public-spirited men whose hopeful hands, in the midst of blood and din,
+have been sowing seeds of commercial prosperity to glorify with their
+perfected harvest the day of our National triumph and reunion.
+
+This work is the first instalment of the greatest popular enterprise in
+the world, the initial fulfilment of a promise which America has made to
+herself and all the other nations,--one which shall be completely
+fulfilled only when an iron highway stretches across her entire breadth,
+from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. As a people we have grudged
+neither time nor money to the accomplishment of this end. We have dared
+the fiery desert and the frozen mountaintop, the demons of thirst,
+starvation, and savage warfare. Our foremost scientific men, for the
+sake of the great national enterprise, have taken their lives in their
+hands, going out to meet peril and privation with the cheerful constancy
+of apostles and martyrs. The record of expeditions bearing either
+directly or indirectly on the subject of the Pacific Railroad is one to
+which every American citizen must point with a pride none the less
+hearty for the fact that its route has not yet been absolutely decided.
+The one curse mingled with a young republic's many blessings is the
+intrusion of political influences into the dispassionate field of
+national enterprise. We might have determined the line of our Pacific
+Road before the breaking out of the Rebellion, and by this time its
+first or Great-Plains section should have been in running order, but for
+the partisan jealousies which prevailed in high places between the
+advocates of the different routes. Slavery, that _enfant gate_ of our
+old-school and now happily obsolete statecraft, insisted on the
+expensive toy of a southern and unpractical line, until our
+representatives, harassed by the problem how to gratify her without
+incurring the contempt of the financial world, gave over to the drift of
+events the settlement of their country's chief commercial question. We
+are now in a position to decide coolly; no entangling alliances with a
+dead-weight social system bias our plain judgment of practical pros and
+cons; but the opportunity for decision arrives a little too late and a
+little too early for action. Congress, the legitimate custodian of the
+Pacific Railroad, may be said to have passed the last four years in
+climbing to the level of the country's vital exigency. Till Congress
+reaches that and understands it fully, there is no surplus energy to be
+thrown away on the else paramount matters of a peaceful age.
+
+But it must not be forgotten that the Pacific Railroad stands next to
+the maintenance of National Unity on the docket of causes for
+adjudication by our representative tribunal. The people have filed it
+away till the grand appeal is settled; but they have not forgotten it.
+
+It is none the pleasanter thought to them because they have no time to
+talk about it, that the great highway of the continent has been left,
+_pendente lite_, in the hands of squabbling speculators, and that
+personal recriminations bar the progress of our commerce between sea and
+sea. The indifference of our public trustees to the disgraceful
+controversies which have embarrassed work on the eastern end of the line
+is itself not a disgrace only because human power is limited to the care
+of one great matter at a time. The first Congress that meets under the
+olive of an honorable peace must at once take the Pacific Railroad into
+the Nation's hands, and prosecute it as the Nation's matter, with a
+liberal-mindedness learned from the conduct of a great war. Next to the
+salvation of the Union, the completion of the Pacific Road most fully
+justifies prompt action and comparative disregard of expenditure.
+
+It is not our purpose, nor is this the place, to dictate to our
+legislators either the precise line of their own action or that of the
+road. It is still proper to say that the arrangements thus far entered
+into with private contractors have proved inadequate to the
+accomplishment and unworthy of the character of the enterprise. Whatever
+may be the details of the improved plan, it must embrace a sterner
+national surveillance over the execution of the project, and a direct
+national assumption of its prime responsibility.
+
+It is a mistaken notion to suppose that the Pacific-Railroad question
+rests on the same principles as that of our minor internal improvements.
+It calls for no reopening of the long-hushed controversy between
+Democracy and Whiggism. The best thinkers of the day are universally
+agreed to deprecate legislation in every case where private enterprise
+will do its office. No good political economist approves the
+emasculation of private effort by Government subsidy. The people are
+averse to statutory crutches and go-carts, wherever it is possible for
+them to walk alone. We feel distrust of the railroad which asks
+monopoly-privileges. The sight of a Governmental prop under any
+ostensibly commercial concern warns an American from its neighborhood.
+He has learned that true prestige lies with the people,--that there is
+no vital warmth in official patronage. Even within the memory of young
+men a great change for the better has taken place in our commercial
+manliness. Out first-class public enterprises blush to take Government
+help, as their directors might blush, if at the close of an interview
+Mr. Lincoln "tipped" them like school-boys with a holiday handful of
+greenbacks. There is no doubt that the ideal principle of democratic
+progress demands the absolute non-interference of Government in all
+enterprises whose benefit accrues to a part of its citizens, or which
+can be stimulated into life by the spontaneous operation of popular
+interest.
+
+But facts are not ideal, and absolute principles in their practical
+application make head only by a curved line of compromise with the
+facts. The philosopher cannot go faster than the people. Certain courses
+are proper for certain stages of development. Few New-York Democrats now
+denounce the building of "Clinton's Ditch," and the fact that a majority
+approved of it as a sufficient evidence that it was a measure suited to
+the period; though even an old Whig at this day could not approve of a
+State canal under the auspices of Governor Seymour. Here are the two
+great questions which at any time must regulate the exertion of
+Governmental power: Is the enterprise vitally important? and, Will it be
+accomplished by private effort?
+
+Because the Nation in several eminent instances saw the former question
+answered affirmatively and the latter negatively, it centralized a
+certain amount of authority for the construction of fortresses and the
+maintenance of a military force. These matters vitally concerned the
+entire people, yet the ordinary _stimuli_ to private enterprise were
+quite inadequate to securing their accomplishment.
+
+The Pacific Railroad stands on precisely the same grounds. It concerns
+the entire population of the United States, but no ordinary
+business-organization of citizens will ever accomplish it alone. The
+mere cost of its construction might stagger the most audacious
+financier; but that is a minor obstacle. No doubt the city of New York
+and the State of California contain capital enough for the completion of
+the entire road,--would subscribe to it, too, upon sufficient
+guaranties. But who is to give those guaranties? Whose credit is broad
+enough to secure them? Our Atlantic capitalists have too often been
+defrauded by stock-companies of moderate liabilities and immediately
+under their own eyes, to feel quite comfortable about putting millions
+into the hands of private operators, who shall presently have the Rocky
+Mountains between them and their bondholders. In the case of almost any
+other railroad-enterprise this objection might be answered by the
+proposal to build the line with the subscriptions of people living on
+its route. But this line must take a route without people, and bring
+people to the route. Certain other roads are guarantied by the pledge of
+their way-freight business. This road must be completed before such a
+business exists; the business must be the product of the road. The
+ordinary principle of demand and supply is reversed in its application
+to this case. Supply must precede demand. Furnish the Pacific Railroad
+to the continent, and the continent in ten years will give it all the
+business it can do. Wait fifty years for the continent to take the
+initiative, and there will not yet be enough business to build the road.
+
+This enterprise must be looked at in the light of a cash-advance from
+California and the Eastern States to the Plains, the Mountains, and the
+Desert, secured by a pledge of all the mineral and agricultural wealth
+of the party of the second part, guarantied by the prospective myriads
+of settlers whom the road shall bring to tracts now lying waste through
+the mere lack of its existence. In the course of the present article we
+shall endeavor to show the solidity of this security, the responsibility
+of these indorsers. While we counsel confidence to the capital which
+must build the road, we feel it imperative upon the National Government
+to enforce its position as that capital's trustee. That capital for the
+most part lies east of the Missouri and west of the Sierra Nevada.
+Between these two boundaries the road must run for eighteen hundred
+miles through a region where capital may well be cautious of intrusting
+its life to any less potent authority than that of the Nation itself.
+
+The claims of the Pacific Railroad have usually been urged upon the
+ground of its benefit to its _termini_. This ground is adequate to
+justify any advance of capital by the cities of New York and San
+Francisco. With the completion of the road, San Francisco necessarily
+becomes a depot for the entire China trade of the United States, and an
+entrepot for much of that between China and Western Europe. With the
+development of our Japanese relations, still another stream of wealth,
+now incalculable, must flow in through the Golden Gate. In the reverse
+current of Asiatic commerce, New York's position at the eastern terminus
+of the continental belt gives her a similar share. The gold-transport
+and the entire fast-freight business of New York and San Francisco,
+now transacted at an enormous expense by Wells and Fargo's Express,
+must be transferred _en masse_ to the Pacific Road; while the
+passenger-carriage, now devolving on Isthmus steamers and overland
+stages, may be passed, practically entire, to the credit of the new
+line. Certainly, no traveller who has once purchased bitter experience
+with his ticket on Mr. Vanderbilt's line will ever again patronize that
+enterprising capitalist, unless he sells his ships and becomes a
+stockholder in the Pacific Railroad. The most enthusiastic lover of the
+sea must abjure his predilections, when brought to the ordeal of the
+steamer Champion. Crowded like rabbits in a hutch or captives in the
+Libby into such indecent propinquity with his kind that the third day
+out makes him a misanthrope,--fed on the putrid remains of the last
+trip's commissariat, turkeys which drop out of their skins while the
+cook is larding them in the galley, beef which maybe eaten as
+spoon-meat, and tea apparently made with bilge-water,--sleeping or
+vainly trying to sleep in an unventilated dungeon which should be called
+death instead of berth, where the reek of the aforesaid putridities
+awakes him to breakfast without aid of gong,--propelled by a
+second-hand engine, whose every wheeze threatens the terrors of
+dissolution,--morally certain, that, if his floating sty from any cause
+ceases to float, there are not boats enough to save an eighth of the
+passengers,--he must admire the ocean with a true poet's enthusiasm, if
+he can brave the Champion a second time.
+
+The considerations we have mentioned should be sufficiently operative
+with the capitalists of New York and California, and, as such, are those
+most prominently urged by the friends of the road. It would, however, be
+a great mistake to regard the through-business an all-comprehensive, in
+enumerating the sources of profit to be relied on by the enterprise. For
+a better understanding of that immense way-trade which lies between the
+oceans, waiting only for the whistle of the steam-genie to wake it into
+vigorous life, let us treat the entire line as already continuous from
+New York to San Francisco, and make an excursion to the Pacific on its
+prophetic rails. We will suppose the track a uniform broad gauge, as it
+ought to be,--the Pacific Road connecting at St. Louis with the Atlantic
+and Great Western by powerful boats, like those in use at Havre de
+Grace, capable of ferrying the heaviest cars between the Illinois and
+Missouri shores. We will take the liberty of constructing for ourselves
+the remainder of the still undecided route to the Pacific. We run our
+ideal broad gauge as follows:--
+
+From St. Louis to Jefferson City; thence by the shortest line to the
+Kansas-River crossing; thence to Leavenworth (where St. Joseph, makes
+connection by a branch-track); thence to that bend of the Republican
+Fork which nearest approaches the Little Blue; thence along the bottoms
+of the Republican to the foot of the high divide out of which it is
+believed to rise, and which also serves for the water-shed between the
+Platte and Arkansas; and thence skirting the bluffs a distance of about
+one hundred miles to Denver. At Denver we find two branches making
+junctions with our line: one connects us with Central City, the great
+mining-town of Colorado, by a series of grades which might appall the
+Pennsylvania Central; the other threads the foot-hills and _mesas_
+between Denver and the Fontaine-qui-Bouille Spa at Colorado City, with
+the possibility of its being extended in time to Canon City on the
+Arkansas. From Denver we strike for the nearest point on the
+Cache-la-Poudre, follow its bed as far as practicable, and rise from
+that level to the grand plateau of the Laramie Plains. Running through
+these Plains, we cross the Big and the Little Laramie Rivers, here
+shallow streams, crystal clear, and scarcely wider than the Housatonic
+at Pittsfield. Just after leaving the Plains, we cross Medicine Bow,--a
+mere brook,--and a few hours later the North Fork of the Platte, which
+eccentrically turns up in this most unexpected quarter, running nearly
+due north from a source which cannot be very far off. The rope-ferry by
+which the writer last crossed this picturesque and rapid stream we have
+replaced by a strong iron bridge. Leaving the west end of that bridge,
+we look out of the rear car and send our final message to the Atlantic
+by the last stream which we shall find going thither. A stupendous, but
+not impracticable, system of grades next carries us over the axial
+water-shed of the continent, by the way of Bridger's Pass. One hundred
+and fifty miles of tortuous descent brings us to Green River,--the
+stream which farther down becomes the mysterious Colorado, and seeks the
+Pacific by the Gulf of California. After crossing the Green by another
+iron bridge substituted for rope-ferriage, our first important station
+will be Fort Bridger. Leaving there, we almost immediately enter the
+galleries of the Wahsatch Range, which form a continuous pass across
+Bear River and into the tremendous _canons_ conducting down to Salt-Lake
+City. From Salt Lake we pursue the shortest practicable route through
+the Desert to the Ruby-Valley Pass of the Humboldt Mountains; we cross
+that range to enter another desert, descend to the Sink of Carson, and
+reascend to Carson City, thence going nearly due north till we strike
+the line of the Truckee Pass, (where a branch connects us with the
+principal Washoe mines,) and thence to Sacramento by the long-projected
+California section of the Pacific Railroad. Another proposed, but still
+ideal, road completes our connection with the Western Ocean by way of
+Stockton, San Jose, and San Francisco.
+
+We do not pretend to assert that the route indicated is in all respects
+the most economical and practicable; a good deal more surveying must be
+done before that can be said of any entire route, though we think it may
+fairly be claimed for our ideal section between St. Louis and Denver. We
+have chosen this route because along its course are more completely
+represented the natural features to which in any case the Pacific
+Railroad must look for all its primary obstacles and part of its
+subsequent profits.
+
+To complete the conception as its reality must in time be completed, let
+us unite our Trans-Missouri portion with the Atlantic and Great Western
+Railway, under the all-inclusive title of the Atlantic and Pacific
+Railroad. It will not be very far out of the way to regard thirty-eight
+hundred miles as the entire length of the line. On the Atlantic and
+Great Western section express-trains will run at a speed of twenty-seven
+miles an hour, including stops; but to provide against every detention,
+let us slow our through-express to twenty-five miles. At this rate we
+shall traverse the continent in six days and eight hours. In other
+words, the San-Francisco gentleman who left the Jersey depot by the five
+o'clock Atlantic and Pacific express-train on Monday morning may
+reasonably expect (allowing for difference of longitude) to be in the
+bosom of his family just in time to accompany them to morning service on
+the following Sunday.
+
+We will suppose our packing accomplished the day before we set out.
+During the evening we send our watches to get the exact Washington time.
+The schedule of the entire road is based upon that time; and a thousand
+inconveniences, once endured by the traveller between New York and St.
+Louis, are thereby avoided. It is not necessary to alter one's watch
+with every new conductor. We no longer grow dizzy with a horrible
+uncertainty on the subject of what-'s-o'clock,--ignorant whether we are
+running on New-York time, Dayton time, Cincinnati time, or St. Louis
+time,--whether, indeed, all time be not a pure subjective notion, and
+any o'clock at all a mere popular delusion. For the introduction of a
+uniform standard we have originally to thank the Atlantic and Great
+Western Railway.
+
+In comfort and elegance the second-class cars of the Atlantic and
+Pacific Road correspond to the omnivorous cars in use on our railroads
+generally. But we are a family-party, have nearly a week of travel
+before us, and prefer to sacrifice our money rather than our comfort. It
+costs a third, perhaps one-half more, to take first-class tickets; but
+these secure us a compartment entirely to ourselves,--fitted up with all
+the luxury of a lady's boudoir. We have comfortable arm-chairs to sit in
+all day, the latest improvement in folding-beds to sleep in at night.
+Our mirror, water-tank, basin, and all our toilet-arrangements are
+independent of the rest of the train. We have a table in the centre of
+our compartment for cards or luncheon. If we are wise, we have also
+brought along three or four Champagne-baskets stocked with private
+commissariat-stores, which make us quite independent of that black-art
+known as Western cookery. These contain sardines (half-boxes are the
+most practically useful size for a small party); chow-chow;
+_pates-de-foie-gras_; a selection of various potted meats; a few hundred
+_Zwiebacks_ from our Berlin baker, and as many sticks of Italian bread
+from our Milanese; a dozen pounds of hard-tack, and a half-dozen of
+soda-crackers; an assortment of canned fruits, including, as absolute
+essentials, peaches and the Shaker apple-butter; a pot of anchovy-paste;
+a dozen half-pint boxes of concentrated coffee, and as many of condensed
+milk, both, as the writer has abundantly tested, prepared with
+unrivalled excellence by an establishment in Boston; a tin box
+containing ten pounds of lump-sugar; a kettle and gas-stove, to be
+attached by a flexible tube to one of the burners lighting the
+compartment; a dozen bottles of lemon-syrup; and whatever stores, in the
+way of wines, liquors, and cigars, may strike the fancy of the party.
+This may seem an ambitious outfit, but for the first year of the Pacific
+Railroad it will be an absolutely necessary one. As civilization spreads
+westward along the grand iron conductor of the continent, our national
+gastronomy will develop itself in company with all the other arts; but
+for the present it is safe to assume that outside of our private stores
+we shall not find a good cup of coffee after we leave St. Louis, or
+decent bread of any kind between Denver and Sacramento.
+
+We seat ourselves in our comfortable arm-chairs, without the
+mortification of removing single gentlemen and the trouble of reversing
+seats to accommodate our party. The ladies are not compelled to sit in
+isolation, by the side of passengers who use the car-floor as a
+spittoon. We may chat together upon family-matters without awakening the
+vivid interest of any mother-in-Israel mounting guard in front of us
+over a bandbox. The gentlemen may smoke, if the ladies like it, and, so
+long as they keep the windows open, nobody shall say them nay. We all
+enjoy a sense of security and independence, which is like occupying a
+well-provisioned Gibraltar on wheels. If we have a sick friend with us,
+he need never leave his mattress till he reaches San Francisco.
+Should his situation become critical _en route_, the best medical
+attendance is at hand,--every through-train being obliged by statute
+to carry a first-class physician and surgeon, with a well-stocked
+apothecary-compartment. But our present party are all of them in fine
+health and spirits; so we may dismiss the doctor's shop from our
+consideration.
+
+The whistle blows just as the ladies have hung their bonnets in the
+rack, and the gentlemen exchanged their boots for slippers. We wave
+adieu to the Atlantic coast and the friends who have come to see us
+off. A few minutes more, and we pass through the Bergen Tunnel. The
+remainder of the day is spent amid that wild mountain and forest
+scenery which the Erie Railroad has made familiar to the whole
+travelling-population of our Eastern States. At Salamanca we strike the
+Atlantic and Great Western's separate line. On the way thence to Dayton
+we shall pass a number of long trains, made up of platform-cars heavily
+laden with barrels carrying East the riches of the Pennsylvania
+oil-region. These have connected with our main road by a couple of
+branches built especially for the accommodation of the petroleum-trade.
+From Dayton to Cincinnati we shall traverse one of the finest
+farming-regions of the world, meeting trains laden with beeves, swine,
+packed pork, lard, grain, corn, potatoes, and every variety of produce
+that bears transportation. By this time, also, Ohio vine-culture has
+attained a development which justifies an occasional train entirely
+devoted to pipes of still Catawba and baskets of the sparkling brands.
+
+From Cincinnati to St. Louis by way of Vincennes, we run through the
+southern portions of Indiana and Illinois, threading varied and
+picturesque scenery all the way, unless we have seen the Egyptian
+prairies so many times before that they pall on us before we reach the
+Mississippi bluff opposite St. Louis. Till we strike the prairie, our
+course is among bold, well-timbered hills, which now and then we are
+obliged to tunnel, and by the side of charming pastoral streams whose
+green bottom-land is shaded by noble plane-trees and cotton-woods.
+Certain passages in the scenery between Cincinnati and Vincennes are
+beautiful as a dream of fairy-land. Every few miles we continue to meet
+freight-trains laden with all the well-known products of the Western
+field and dairy. Twice, before we reach St. Louis, a splendid cortege of
+passenger-carriages shall whiz by us on the southern track,--and each
+time we shall have seen the daily through-express from San Francisco.
+
+The St. Louis through-passengers will be ready, on our arrival, in cars
+of their own. We shall switch them on behind us with little over
+half-an-hour's detention, and strike for Leavenworth, taking Jefferson
+City by the way. The country we now traverse is rolling, well watered,
+and well timbered along the streams. Our road has so stimulated
+production in the mines of Missouri that we frequently pass on the
+switch a freight-train taking out bar and pig iron to San Francisco, or
+on the other track a train laden with copper ore going to the East for
+reduction. We have hitherto said nothing of the innumerable trains which
+pass us or switch out of our way, carrying through-freight between New
+York and San Francisco. We are still surrounded by excellent
+farming-land, a fine grain, fruit, and general-produce country. Not till
+we leave Leavenworth can we be said fairly to have entered the central
+wilds of the continent. We are now west of the Missouri River, and for a
+distance of two hundred miles farther shall traverse a country
+possessing certain individual characteristics which entitle it to a name
+of its own among the divisions of our physical geography. This is the
+proper place for an indication of those divisions, generalized to the
+broadest terms.
+
+In passing from sea to sea, the American traveller crosses ten
+well-defined regions:--
+
+1. The Atlantic slope of the Alleghany Range.
+
+2. The eastern incline of the Mississippi basin.
+
+3. The high divides of the short Missouri tributaries.
+
+4. The Great Plains proper.
+
+5. The Rocky-Mountain system of ridges and intramontane plateaus.
+
+6. The Great Desert, broken by frequent uplifts, and divided by the
+Humboldt Range.
+
+7. The Sierra-Nevada mountain-system.
+
+8. The basin of the Sacramento River.
+
+9. The mountain-system of the Coast Range.
+
+10. The narrow Pacific slope.
+
+By attending to these distinctions with map in hand we shall gain some
+adequate idea of the surface of our continent. The first and second of
+the regions we have left behind us, and at Leavenworth are well out upon
+the third. It would not be just to call it prairie,--and it is equally
+distinct from the true Plains. As a grain and grass land, Illinois
+nowhere rivals it; but its surface is remarkably different from that of
+the prairies east of the Mississippi. It may be described as an
+alternation of lofty bluffs and sinuous ravines,--the former known as
+"divides," the latter as "draws." The top of these divides preserves one
+general level,--leading naturally to the hypothesis that all the draws
+are valleys of erosion in a tract of alluvial deposit originally uniform
+with the plateaus of the divides. Some of the larger draws still serve
+as the channels of unfailing streams; most of them carry more or less
+water during the rainy season; few of them are dry all the year round.
+The river-bottoms which traverse this region are thickly fringed with
+cotton-wood and elm timber; but it is a rare thing to encounter trees on
+the top of a divide. The fertility of the soil is boundless. Every
+species of grass flourishes or may flourish here, with a luxuriance
+unrivalled on the continent. Of the tract embraced between the Little
+Blue and the Republican Fork of the Kaw this is especially true. The
+climate is so mild and uniform that cattle may be kept at pasture the
+whole year round. Haymaking and the building of barns are works of
+supererogation. The wild grass cures spontaneously on the ground. To
+provide shelter against exceptional cases of climatic rigor,--an unusual
+"cold snap," or a fall of snow which lies more than a day or two,--the
+_ranchero_ constructs for his cattle a simple corral, or, at most, a
+rude shed. The utmost complication which can occur in his business is a
+stampede; and few of our Eastern farmers' boys would hesitate to
+exchange their scythes, hay-cutters, corn-shellers, and mash-tubs for
+the saddle of his spirited Indian pony and his three days' hunt after
+estrays. Over this entire region the cereals thrive splendidly. The wild
+plum is so abundant and delicious as to suggest the most favorable
+adaptation to the other stone-fruits. Every vegetable that has been
+tried in the loam of the river-bottoms succeeds perfectly. There is just
+reason to think that vine-culture might reach a development along the
+southern slope of the Republican Bluffs not surpassed in the most
+favorable positions east of California. We believe it no exaggeration to
+say that this region needs only culture (and that of the easiest kind)
+to become the garden of the continent. Its mineral wealth has received
+scanty examination; yet we know that it contains numerous beds of
+tertiary coal, and easily worked iron-deposits, in the form both of
+hydrated oxide and black scale.
+
+On our way through this region we strike the Republican bottom near Lat.
+39 deg. 30' N., and Long. 97 deg. 20' W. We are now in the primest part of the
+buffalo-pasture. As we wind along the base of the steep Republican
+Bluffs, and the edges of those green amphitheatres made by their
+alternate approach and retrocession, our whistle scares a picket-line of
+giant bulls, guarding a divide across the stream, and with tails in air,
+heads at the down charge, they scour away at a lumbering cow-gallop, to
+tell the main herd of a progress more resistless than their own. Or,
+perhaps, our experience of the buffaloes is a more inconvenient one. We
+may find the main herd crossing our track in their migration from the
+Republican to the Platte. In such case, there will be a detention of
+several hours, as the current of a main herd is not fordable by any
+known human mechanism. The halt will be taken advantage of by timid
+spectators looking safely out of car-windows,--by _bona-fide_ hunters,
+who want fresh meat, and take along the tidbits of their game to be
+cooked for them at the next dinner-station,--and by excited
+pseudo-hunters, who will bang away with their rifles at the defenceless
+herd, until the ground flows with useless blood, and somebody suggests
+to them that they might as well call it sportsmanship to fire into a
+farmer's cow-yard, resting over the top-rail.
+
+Now and then we shall whirl through a village of chattering
+prairie-dogs, send a hen-turkey rattling off her nest in a thicket on
+the river's edge, or perhaps surprise even an antelope sufficiently
+close to point out to the ladies from our window the exquisite flight of
+that swiftest and most beautiful creature in our American fauna. But our
+road will not be in running order very long before this sight becomes
+the rarest of the rare. The stolid buffalo will continue to wear his old
+paths long after the human presence has driven every antelope into
+invisible fastnesses.
+
+At intervals along the Republican bottom we shall find ranches springing
+up under the auspices of our road; immense grain-fields yellowing toward
+harvest; great herds of domestic cattle grazing haunch-deep through the
+boundless swales of billowing wild grass; with all the other indications
+of a prosperous farming settlement, which, keeping pace with the
+progress of the road, shall eventually become one of the richest
+agricultural communities in the world, and continuous for over two
+hundred miles. Here and there we pass a lateral excavation in the face
+of the bluff where some enterprising settler has opened a tertiary
+coal-vein, a deposit of iron-ore, or a bed of soft limestone suitable
+for both flux and mortar purposes. The way-freight trains that meet us
+now are mainly laden with the wealth of the grazier, the farmer, and the
+gardener, competing with their brethren of the Upper Mississippi for the
+markets of St. Louis and New Orleans. Iron-ore, coal, and limestone may
+form a portion of the cargoes,--but in process of time the mutual
+vicinity of these minerals will become sufficiently suggestive to induce
+the erection of smelting-furnaces _in situ_, and then their combined
+product will travel the road in the form of pigs.
+
+A little to the westward of a line drawn due south from Fort Kearney to
+the Republican we shall find a comparatively abrupt and unexplained
+change taking place in the scenery. Our green river-bottoms will give
+way to tracts of the color and seemingly of the sterility proper to an
+ash-heap. Our bluffs will recede, grow higher, and exchange their flat
+_mesa_-like surfaces for a curved contour, imitating the mountainous
+formation on a reduced scale. For long distances the vast gray level
+around us will be dotted with conical sand-dunes, forever piling up and
+tearing down as the wind shifts, with a tendency to bestow their gritty
+compliments in the eyes of passengers occupying windward seats on the
+train. The lovely blossoms of the running-poppy no longer mat the earth
+with blots of crimson fire; no more does the sweet breath of eglantine
+and sensitive-brier float in at the window as we whirl by a sheltered
+recess of the divides; the countless wild varieties of bean and pea no
+longer charm us with a rainbow prodigality of pink, blue, scarlet,
+purple, white, and magenta blossoms. The very trees by the river's brink
+become puny and stunted; the evergreens begin to replace the deciduous
+growths; in the shade of dwarfed and desiccated cedars we look vainly
+for the snowy or azure bells of the three-petalled campanula. Gaunt,
+staring sunflowers, and humbler _compositae_ of yellow tinge, stay with
+us a little longer than those darlings of our earlier scenery; but
+before we have gone many miles the last conspicuous wave of fresh
+vegetation breaks hopelessly on a thirsty sand-hill, and we are given
+over to a wilderness of cacti. Here and there occurs a sightly clump of
+waxen yellow blossoms, where these vegetable hedgehogs are in their
+holiday attire,--but it must be confessed that the view is a melancholy
+change from our recent affluence of beauty. With the other succulent
+plants, the rich herbage of the prairie has entirely disappeared. There
+is not a blade of anything which an Eastern grazier would recognize as
+grass between this boundary and the Rocky Mountains. As we whiz over
+these wastes at railroad-speed, we shall be apt to pronounce them
+absolutely sterile. When we stop at the next coaling-station, let us
+examine the matter more closely. The ground proves to be covered with
+minute gray spirals of herbage, like a crop of vegetable corkscrews, an
+inch or two in height, and to all appearance dry as wool. This is the
+"_grama_" or "buffalo-grass," and, despite its look of utter
+desiccation, is highly nutritious. It is almost the entire winter
+dependence of the buffalo-herds, and domestic cattle soon learn to
+prefer it to all other feed. Its existence, together with the wide group
+of changes which we have noticed, denotes that we have passed the
+threshold of the fourth grand continental division, and are now in the
+region of the Plains proper.
+
+Ex-Governor Gilpin of Colorado, in his "Central Gold Region," very truly
+styles the Plains "the pastoral area of the continent." The Plains are
+set apart for grazing purposes by the method of exclusion. There is
+nothing else that can be done with them. Rain seldom falls on them. The
+shallow rivers, like the Platte, which wander through them, are too far
+apart to be used economically for their general irrigation. Only such
+herbage may be expected to thrive here as can live on its own
+condensation of water from a sensibly dry atmosphere. Manifestly, art
+can do nothing for the improvement of such a tract. It must be left to
+fulfil its natural function, as the great continental pasture. Along the
+banks of the rivers run narrow strips of alluvial soil, liable to yearly
+inundation; and these may be made amenable to the ordinary processes of
+agriculture. On these the herdsman may raise the grain and vegetables
+necessary for his own consumption. But the vast area of the region seems
+inevitably set apart for the one sole business of cattle-raising, and
+all the way-freight trains which pass us here are laden with beeves for
+the St. Louis market, or dairy-produce for all the markets of the world.
+We have never tasted _grama_-cheese, but have a theory that its
+individual piquancy must equal that of the delicious _Schabzieger_.
+
+Far off on the gray level we shall still see the antelope. His tribe is
+coextensive with three-fourths of the continent. No sterility
+discourages him. He seems as thrifty on the wiry _grama_ as among the
+most succulent grasses of the Republican. The sneaking coyote and a
+number of larger wolves put in an occasional appearance. Birds of the
+hawk and raven families are common. The waters swarm with numerous
+varieties of duck. It surprises us at this utmost distance from the
+maritime border to see flocks of Arctic gulls circling around the low
+sand-hills, and sickle-bill curlews wheeling high in air above their
+broods. Before we get far into this region we shall notice that one of
+its most typical features is the alkali-pool. Every few miles we come to
+a shallow basin of stagnant water saturated with salts of soda and
+potash. Still another characteristic of the Plains is their tremendous
+rainless thunder-storms. If we are fortunate enough to encounter one of
+these, we shall witness in one hour more atmospheric perturbation than
+has occurred within our whole previous experience on the Atlantic slope.
+The lightning for half a night will light the sky with an almost
+continuous glare, brighter than noonday; all the parks of artillery on
+earth could not make such a constant deafening roar as those iron clouds
+in the heaven; and though the wind will not be able to blow the train
+backward, as we have seen it treat a four-mule stage, it will be likely
+to do its next best thing, heaping sand on the track till the engine has
+to slow and send men ahead with shovels.
+
+Entering the Denver depot, we shall find a busy scene. All that immense
+freight-business between the Missouri and the Colorado mining-towns,
+which formerly strung the overland road with wagons drawn by six yoke
+of oxen each, has now been transferred to the railroad. The switches are
+crowded with cars getting unloaded, or waiting their turn to be. What is
+their freight? Rather ask what it is not. For the present, Colorado
+imports everything except the most perishable commodities,--and that
+which pays for all. If you would see _that_, ask the express-messenger
+on the train going East in five minutes to lift the lid of one of those
+heavy iron trunks in his car. Your eyes are dazzled by the yellow gleam
+of a king's ransom. It is a day's harvest of ingots from the stamps of
+Central City, on its way to square accounts with New York for the
+contents of one of those freight-trains.
+
+At Denver we reach the edge of the Rocky-Mountain foot-hills; the grand
+snow-peak of Mount Rosalie, rivalling Mont Blanc in height and majesty,
+though forty miles away, seems to rise just behind the town; thence
+southerly toward Pike's and northerly toward Long's Peak, the billowing
+ridges stretch away brown and bare, save where the climbing lines of
+sombre green mark their pine-fringed gorges, or the everlasting ice
+pencils their crests with an edge of opal. Still we do not leave the
+Plains region. We glide through the thronged streets of the growing
+city, cross the South Platte by a short bridge, and strike nearly due
+north along the edge of the mountain-range, over a broad plateau which
+still bears the characteristic _grama_. Not until we enter the _canon_
+of the Cache-la-Poudre, a hundred miles from Denver by the road, can we
+consider ourselves fairly out of the Plains, and in the fifth great
+region of the continent, the Rocky-Mountain system of ridges and
+intramontane plateaus.
+
+Before we begin this portion of our journey, let us examine, in the
+light of that already accomplished, an assertion made early in this
+article to the effect that the Pacific Railroad must precede and create
+the business which shall support it. The consideration shall be brief as
+a mathematical process.
+
+The river-bottoms and divides along the Lower Republican are peculiarly
+suited to the raising of farm-produce. But so long as they had no avenue
+to a market, they might have been fertile as Paradise without alluring
+settlers to cultivate them. The natural advantages of a country are
+developed not as a matter of taste, but as a matter of profit. The crops
+which can be raised to best advantage in this region are the crops which
+without a railroad must rot on the ground. No man can be expected to
+settle in a new country from pure Quixotism,--and nothing but the
+railroad would make anything else of his expenditure of energies beyond
+the needs of self-support. The Plains are the natural pasture of the
+continent; but they have no natural fascination for the white man which
+can induce him to take up his residence there for cattle-breeding _en
+amateur_. The greatest enthusiast in butter and cheese would scarcely
+care to accumulate mountains of rancid firkins and boxes for the mere
+gratification of fancy. Access to a market is his only justification for
+spending a nomadic lifetime among herds, or a fortune on churns and
+presses. The settlement of the country must precede the birth of its
+industries, and the Pacific Road is the absolutely essential stimulus to
+such settlement.
+
+As we converse, we are beginning our climb toward the snow. A series of
+steep grades, mainly following the bed of that wildly picturesque and
+roaring torrent, the Cache-la-Poudre, take us up through the Cheyenne
+Pass to the Laramie Plains. In reaching the head of the Cache-la-Poudre
+we have familiarized ourselves with the ridges of the system; we are now
+to learn what is meant by the intramontane plateaus. The Laramie Plains
+form the most remarkable plateau of the Rocky Range,--one of the most
+remarkable anywhere in the known world. Through a series of savage
+_canons_ we enter what appears to us a reproduction of the prairies east
+of the Mississippi,--a level and luxuriantly grassy plain, bright with
+unknown flowers, alive with startled antelope, threaded by the clear
+currents of both the Laramie Rivers, and rejoicing in an atmosphere
+which exhilarates like the fresh-brewed nectar of Olympus. Bounded on
+the east by the great ridge we have just passed, northerly by a
+continuation of the Wind-River Range and Laramie Peak, southerly by a
+magnificent transverse bar of naked mountains running parallel with the
+Wind-River Range, and westward by a staircase of sterile divides which
+we must climb to reach the base of Elk Mountain and find its giant mass
+towering into the eternal snows three thousand feet farther above our
+heads,--this plateau is a prairie fifty miles square, lifted bodily
+eight thousand feet into the air. It is difficult for us to roll over
+this Elysian mead walled in by these tremendous ranges, and think of the
+commercial uses to which the level might be put; but from its elevation
+and its natural crop we may pronounce it a grazing tract of splendid
+capabilities, unsuited to artificial culture.
+
+Another series of grades takes us past the base of Elk Mountain to a
+broad and sandy cactus-plain, whence we descend among curious trap and
+sandstone formations, simulating human architecture, to the crossing of
+the North Platte. A little farther on, so close to the snow-line that we
+shiver under the white ridges with a reflected chill, we cross the axial
+ridge of the continent, and begin our descent toward Salt Lake by the
+noble gallery of Bridger's Pass. The springs along our way become
+tinctured with sulphur, alkali, and salt. We know, when we stop at a
+station to drink, that we are drawing near the primeval basin of a
+stagnant sea, now shrunk to its final pool in Salt Lake, but once in
+size a rival of the Mediterranean. We pass over an alternation of
+mountain-grades and sandy levels, cross the Green or Upper Colorado
+River, stop for five minutes at the Fort-Bridger station, thread the
+sinuous galleries of the Wahsatch, and come down from a savage
+wilderness of sage-brush, granite, and red sandstone, into the luxuriant
+green pastures of Mormondom, heavy with crops and irrigated from the
+snow-peaks. Thence, one of the numerous _canons_--Emigrant or Parley's
+most likely--conducts us to the mountain-walled level of Salt-Lake City.
+
+We have now traversed the most difficult part of our road. Its
+Rocky-Mountain section has cost more capital, labor, and engineering
+skill than all the rest together. The return for this vast expenditure
+must be no less vast,--but it will be rendered slowly. It does not lie
+on the surface or just beneath the surface, as in the pastoral and
+agricultural regions. It is almost entirely mineral, and must be mined
+by the hardest work. But it ranges through all the metallic wealth of
+Nature, from gold to iron, and no conceivable stimulus short of a
+Pacific Railroad could ever have been adequate to bring it forth.
+
+We shall find the import trade of Salt Lake by the railroad to consist
+chiefly of emigrants and their chattels. If Brigham Young be still
+living, his favorite policy of non-intercourse with the Gentiles may
+also somewhat diminish the export business of the road. But human nature
+cannot forever resist the currents of commercial interest; and the
+Mormon settlements possess so many advantages for the economical
+production of certain staples, that we need not be surprised to find
+trains leaving Salt-Lake City with sorghum and cotton for San Francisco,
+and raw silk for all the markets of the East.
+
+From Salt-Lake City to the Humboldt Mountains, we pass between isolated
+uplifts of trap and granite, over a comparatively level desert of sand
+and snowy alkali. The terrors of this journey, as performed by
+horse-carriage, have been fully depicted in our last April number. We
+may laugh at them now. The question which principally interests us,
+after we have blunted the first edge of our wonder at the sublime
+sterility of the Desert, is what conceivable use this waste can be made
+to subserve. Before the railroad, that question had but a single
+answer,--the inculcation of contentment, by contrast with the most
+disagreeable surroundings in which one might anywhere else be placed.
+Perhaps it is over-sanguine to conceive of a further answer even now. If
+there be any, it is this: In its crudest state the alkaline earth of the
+Desert is sufficiently pure to make violent effervesence with acids. No
+elaborate process is required to turn it into commercial soda and
+potash. Coal has been already found in Utah. Silex exists abundantly in
+all the Desert uplifts. Why should not the greatest glass-works in the
+world be reared along the Desert section of the Pacific Road? and why
+should not the entire market of the Pacific Coast be supplied with
+refined alkalies from the same tract? Given the completed railroad, and
+neither of these projects exceeds commercial possibility.
+
+We cross the Humboldt Mountains by a series of grades shorter than that
+which conducts us over the Rocky system, but full as difficult in
+proportion. We descend into a second instalment of Desert on the other
+side; but the general sterility is now occasionally broken by oases,
+moist green _canons_, and living springs. A hundred miles west of the
+Humboldt Pass we come to the mining-settlements of Reese River, gaining
+a new increment to the business of the road in the transportation of
+silver to San Francisco, and every conceivable necessary of life to the
+mines.--Within the last eighteen months eleven hundred dollars in gold
+have been paid for the carriage by wagon of a single set of
+amalgamating-apparatus from Virginia City to Reese, a distance of two
+hundred miles. The price of the commonest necessaries at the Reese-River
+mines has reached the highest point of the old California markets in
+'49,--and no attainable means of transport have been adequate to supply
+the demand.
+
+From Reese River to Carson we traverse a broken, rocky, and sterile
+tract, with occasional fertile patches and a belt along the Carson River
+susceptible of cultivation. The foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada
+gradually shut us round, and at Carson we begin penetrating the main
+system through a series of magnificent galleries between precipices of
+porphyritic granite, leading nearly northward to the Truckee Pass. The
+grades we now encounter are as tremendous as any in the Rocky-Mountain
+system. Just before entering the main pass we come to the junction of a
+branch-road from Virginia City. The train which stops at the fork to let
+us go ahead is carrying down several tons of silver "bricks" from the
+Washoe mines to Kellogg and Hewston's, the great assay and refining firm
+of San Francisco. The pass takes us across the summit-line of the range,
+but not out of the environment of its mountains. We penetrate granite
+fastnesses and descend blood-chilling inclines, span roaring chasms and
+glide under solemn roofs of lofty mountain-pine, until in the
+neighborhood of Centralia we begin for the first time to see the
+agricultural tract of the Golden State.
+
+Between ranches, placer-diggings, and small settlements, we now thread
+our comparatively level way to Sacramento. Here we are met by the chief
+affluent of this end of the Pacific Road,--the long-projected, greatly
+needed, and now finally accomplished line between Sacramento and
+Portland. This enterprise has done for the Sacramento and Willamette
+valleys the same good offices of development performed by our grand line
+for all the central continent. The noble orchards, pastures,
+grain-lands, and gardens of Northern California and Oregon are now
+provided with a market. Their wastes are brought under cultivation,
+their mines are opened, their entire area is settled by a class of men
+who work under the stimulus of certain profit. The Northern
+freight-trains waiting at Sacramento to make a junction with our road
+are loaded with the produce of one of the richest agricultural regions
+in the world, now flowing to its first remunerative market. All this
+must pay toll to our road, and here is another source of profit.
+
+Crossing a number of tributaries to the Sacramento, and intersecting
+mines, ranches, and settlements, as before, we follow a nearly straight
+level to Stockton. Then turning westerly, we cross the San Joaquin, pass
+almost beneath the shadow of grand old Monte Diablo, glide among the
+vines and olives of San Jose Mission, and curve round the southern bend
+of the lovely bay to the queenly city of San Francisco. One of Leland's
+carriages awaits us at the terminus. We are driven to the most
+delightful hotel on the continent, and find our old friend, the
+Occidental, altered in no respect save size, which the growing demands
+of the Pacific New York, since the completion of our inter-oceanic line,
+have compelled Leland to quadruple. We are on time,--six days and eight
+hours exactly. Or, assuming the San-Francisco standard, we have gained
+three hours on the sun, and, instead of taking a two-o'clock lunch, as
+our friends are doing in New York, sit down to an eleven-o'clock
+breakfast crowned with melons, grapes, and strawberries, in the sweet
+seclusion of the Ladies' Ordinary.
+
+Is not all this worth doing in reality?
+
+
+
+
+SEA-HOURS WITH A DYSPEPTIC.
+
+BY HIS SATELLITE.
+
+
+I.--PRELUSIVE.
+
+There are a good many fictions in the world. I will mention one:--the
+propeller Markerstown. The bulletins and placards of her owners soar
+high in the realms of fancy; like Sirens, they sing delightful
+songs,--and all about "the A 1 fast-sailing, commodious, first-class
+steam-packet Markerstown." Such is the soaring fiction: now let us look
+at the sore fact. The "A 1" is, I take it, simply the "Ai!" of the Greek
+chorus new-vamped for modern wear,--a drear wail well suited to the
+victims of the Markerstown. As to sailing qualities:--we know, of
+course, that all speed is relative. For a sea-comet, the Markerstown
+would be somewhat leisurely, though answering well for an oceanic fixed
+star, having no perceptible motion. One man on board--the Captain--was
+accommodated: the kidnapped all suffered. Whether the Markerstown should
+be reckoned as first-class or last-class is a question depending simply
+on where the counting begins, and which way it runs. "Steam-packet" she
+was indeed, though not in the most desirable way. Her steam was "packit"
+(_Scottice_) too close for safety, but lay quite too loose for speed.
+The kidnapped were all "packit," and "weel packit." How I came to be one
+of them, and how by this mystic union I halved my joys and doubled my
+griefs, as the naughty ones say of wedlock, will soon appear.
+
+One brilliant fancy-flight I forgot to mention. The craft in question
+was boldly proclaimed as "new." New, indeed, she might have been: so
+were once the Ark, the Argo, the Old Temeraire, the Constitution, and
+sundry other hulks of celebrity. Yet it is not mere rhetoric to say,
+that, if the eyes of the second and third Presidents of these United
+States never, in their declining years, beheld the good ship
+Markerstown, it was only from lack of wholesome curiosity.
+
+This pleasing list of attractions was wont to make an occasional
+trip--should I not rather say saunter?--to the New-World Levant, the
+Yankee Eoethen. The time consumed was theoretically a day and a half,
+but practically a day or two longer. Tired as I was of the sluttish
+land, the clean sea had an inviting look. Dusty car and ringing rail
+wore no Circean graces, when the long-haired mermaid, decked in robes of
+comely green, looked out from her bower beneath the waves, and beckoned
+me to come. What more welcome than her sea-green home? What sight finer
+than the myriad diamond-sparkles in her eye? What sound sweeter than the
+murmurs of her soothing, never-ceasing voice? What perfume so rare as
+the crisp fragrance breathing from her robes? What so thrilling, so
+magnetically ecstatic, as her tumultuous heaving, and the lithe,
+undulating buoyancy of her mazy footfalls?
+
+It is proper to state here, as an act of justice to others, and to save
+myself from the charge of lunacy, that the Markerstown was a mere
+interloper. Our covetous, good old uncle had set his eye on the regular
+steamer of the line, and his greedy fingers had taken her away to Dixie,
+where her decks were now swarming with blue coats and black heels. The
+peaceful Markerstown, being exempt by reason of physical
+disqualifications, tarried behind as home-guard substitute for her
+warlike sister. Ignorant of the change, I secured my passage, paid for
+my ticket, sent down my trunks, and presented myself at the gangway one
+sweltering afternoon in the latter part of June, a few minutes before
+the hour set for sailing. There was nothing in the aspect of things to
+indicate a speedy departure. On the contrary, the tardy craft had just
+arrived, and was intensely busy in letting off steam and discharging
+cargo. The mate was quite sure--and so was I--that she wouldn't weigh
+anchor before early next morning. The prospect was not enrapturing.
+Confusion, dirt, pandemoniac noise, long delay, and over all a
+blistering sun, were ill suited to bring peace to the embezzled seeker
+after pleasure.
+
+As a relief from the horrid din on deck, I made my way to the cabin. It
+was a place well named, being cabined, cribbed, confined, in quite an
+unprecedented degree. It was then and there that I first saw the subject
+of this sketch,--the Peptic Martyr. Unknowingly, I was face to face with
+my Man of Destiny. Shipmate, Philosopher, Martyr, Rhapsodist, Mentor,
+Bon-Vivant, Duespeptos,--these are but a few of the various disks
+which I came at last to see in this gem of first water. Even now, in
+memory, the subject looms vast before me, and the freighted pen halts.
+Bear with me: let us pause for one moment. Matter like this asks a new
+strophe.
+
+
+II.--THE BURDEN OF THE SONG.
+
+Duespeptos was sitting on a common mohair sofa, surrounded by some
+half-dozen or more of his fellow-victims. It is stated that
+Themistocles, before his ocean-raid at Salamis, sacrificed three young
+men to Bacchus the Devourer. The Markerstown, in sailing out upon the
+great deep, immolated at least twelve, old and young, as a festive
+holocaust to Neptune the Nauseator. Here in their sacrificial crate were
+the luckless scapegoats, sad-eyed prey of the propeller. It was easy to
+see, at the first glance, that the Martyr was the central sun round
+which clustered the planets of propitiation. Born king, he asserted his
+kingship, and all yielded from the beginning to his sway. Ears and
+mouths opened toward him the liege. Upon the magnet of his voice hung
+the eager atoms. There was a filmy, distant look in the eyes of the
+listeners, as of men rapt with the mystic utterances of a seer. My
+entrance unheralded broke up the monologue, whatever it was. But seeing
+the true sacrificial look on my brow, all at once, from chief to sutler,
+confessed a brother. To me then turning, Duespeptos, king of men,
+spoke winged words:--
+
+"'Pears t' me, stranger, you look kind o' streaked. Ken I do anythin'
+for ye? Wal, I s'pose th' old tub's caught you too, so we ken jest count
+y' in along o' this 'ere crowd. Reg'lar fix, now, a'n't it? 'T's wut I
+call pooty kinky. Dern'd 'f I'd 'a' come, 'f I'd 'a' known th' old
+butter-box was goin' to be s' frisky. Lively's a young colt now, a'n't
+she? Kicks up her heels, an' scampers off te'ble smart, don't she? 'S
+never seen an ekul yit for punctooality an' speed. When she doos tech
+the loocifer, an' cooks up her steam in her high old pepper-box, jest
+you mind me, boys, there'll be a high old time. Wun't say much, but
+there'll be fizzin', sure,--mebby suthin' more,--mebby reg'lar snorter,
+a jo-fired jolly good bust-up. Mebby th' wun't be no weepin' an'
+gahnishin' o' teeth about these parts along towards mornin'. Who knows?
+Natur' will work. Th' old scow's got to go accordin' to law,--that's one
+sahtisfahction, sartin. 'S a cause for all these things. An' ef she doos
+kind o' rip an' tear, she's got to go b' Gunter. She's bound to foller
+her constitootion as she understan's it, an' to stan' up for the great
+principal of ekul freedom for all. Hope they'll be keerful to save some
+o' the pieces. 'S a good deal o' comfort 'n these loose fragments. 'S
+nuthin' like the raael odds an' ends--the Simon-pure, ginooine
+article--to bind up the broken heart an' make the mourners joyful. No
+tellin' how much good they do in restorin' gratitood to Providence, an'
+smoothin' things over,--kind o' make matters easy, you know.
+Interestin', too, to hev in the house,--pleasin' ornaments on the
+mantel-piece to show to friends an' vis'ters. They allers like to hear
+the story 'n connection with the native specimens, an' everybody feels
+happified an' thankful. Yes, after all, th'r' is a master lot of solid
+comfort in a raael substantial accident right in the buzzum of a
+family,--none o' your three-cent fizzles, but a true-blue afflictin'
+dispensation. 'S a heap o' pleasin' an' valooable associations
+a-clusterin' round."
+
+Here the vocal one paused for an instant, to draw breath, and rally for
+another raid. Feeling his little army now well in hand, he burned for
+fresh conquests. In glancing triumphantly around, his eye fell on a
+certain benign smile then flitting over the face of his predestined
+Satellite. Complacently nodding thereto, straightway the Peptic spoke:--
+
+"I s'pose this 'ere group 's all insured, everythin' right an' tight an'
+all square up t' the hub. Suthin' hahnsum for the widders an' orphans.
+These little nest-eggs allers sort o' handy,--grease the ways, an' slick
+things up ship-shape. Survivors bless the rod, an' fix up everythin'
+round the house in apple-pie order. I hev known men that was so te'ble
+pertickler allers to save the Company, that nuthin' ever did, n' ever
+could happen. An' the despairin' friends kep' waitin' an' waitin', but
+'t was no sort o' use; they never got a red. 'T's wut I call bein'
+desput keerful, an' sailin' pooty consid'able close to the wind. 'T's
+like old Deacon Skillins's hoss, down to Mudville, that was so dreffle
+conscientious he couldn't eat oats. No accountin' for tastes. Free
+country, anyhow. Ef anybody likes to be fussy an' ructious 'n little
+things, why, there's nuthin' to hender him from hevin' his own way. But
+it don't exackly hev an hon'able look to common-sense folks.
+
+"Ef the clipper's a free-agent, she'll blow up, sure, jest to git out o'
+sin an' misery. But ef so be she's bonyfihd predestined, she'll hev to
+travel in the vale o' puhbation a spell longer, 'cause her cup a'n't
+full yit, not by a long chalk. S'posin' she doos start out mellifloous,
+what then? Don't imagine, my feller-sinners, that the danger's all
+over,--no, it's only jest begun. Things ahead 's a good deal wuss. Steam
+'s pooty bad, but 't a'n't a circumstahnce to the blamed grease. 'T's
+the grease that doos the mischief, an' plays the dickens with human
+natur'. Down in th' army, they say, biscuits kills more'n bullets; an'
+it's gospil truth, every word on 't, perticklerly ef the biscuits is
+hot, an' pooty wal fried up in grease. Fryin' 's the great mortal sin,
+the parient of all misery. The hull world's full of it, but the sea 's a
+master sight fuller 'n the land. Somehow 'nother, grease takes kind o'
+easy to salt water,--sailors wun't hev nothin' but a fry. Jest you give
+'em plenty o' fat, an' they wun't ask no favors o' nobody. These 'ere
+puhpellers 's the wust sinners of 'em all, an' somehow hev a good deal
+more 'n their own share o' fat. They kind o' borrer from mackerellers
+an' side-wheelers both together, an' mix 't all up 't oncet. My friends,
+ef you a'n't desput anxious to see glory from this 'ere deck, be
+virtoous, an' observe the golden rule: Don't tech, don't g' nigh the
+p'is'n upus-tree of gravy; beware o' the dorg called hot biscuits; take
+keer o' the grease, an' the stomach'll take keer of itself. Fact is, my
+beloved brethren, I've ben a fust-chop dyspeptic for the best part o' my
+life, an' I'm pooty wal posted in what I'm talkin' about. What I don't
+know on this 'ere subjick a'n't wuth knowin'."
+
+
+III.--RECITATIVE
+
+How much farther the Martyr's appeal might have gone can never be known,
+as the height of his great argument was cut short at this point by the
+appearance of the Pontifex Maximus in person on the stage of action. The
+fated victims were to be made ready for the coming sacrifice. The
+oracle, it seems, had declared that Neptune would not smile, unless two
+were cribbed together in one pen,--that the arrangement of these pairs
+should be left with the lot of the bean,--and that as the beans went, so
+must go the victims. Inexorable Fate would allow no reversal of her
+decrees. Soon the beans were rattling in the hat of the Pontifex, and,
+_mirabile!_ pen No. 1 fell to Duespeptos and his Satellite elect.
+
+The immediate effects of this bean--whether white, black, Pythagorean,
+Lima, kidney, or what not--were three-fold: 1. A pump-handle
+hand-shaking; 2. A very thorough diagnosis of the weather, including a
+rapid sketch by Duespeptos of the leading principles of caloric,
+pneumatics, and hygrology; 3. An exchange of cards. That of which I was
+the recipient consisted of a sheet of paste-board, rather begrimed and
+wrinkled, of nearly the same dimensions as the Atlantic (Monthly, not
+Ocean). The name and address occupied the middle of one side of the
+document, while all the remaining space was filled in with manifold
+closest scribblings in lead-pencil,--apparently notes, memoranda, and
+the like. These were not at all private, so the new-found partner of my
+bosom assured me. In fact, I should do well to look at them, and make
+myself master of their contents. My friends also might find profit
+therein. Stray hints might undoubtedly be gathered from them which would
+lay open to my eyes the secret things of Nature and life. Thrusting it
+into my pocket for the moment, I feasted myself in imagination with the
+treasure that was mine, anticipating the happy hour that should make my
+hope fruition. Then we, first elect of the bean, set ourselves to
+determine the _status quo ante bellum_. And here came in once more the
+fabaceous maker and marker of destiny, saying that blind justice
+decreed, that, inasmuch as sound is wont to rise, he who was noonday
+Sayer and midnight Snorer should couch below, while the Hearer should
+circle above,--plainly a wise provision, that the good things of
+Providence might not be wasted. Both Damon and Pythias agreed, that, for
+once at least, the oracle was not ambiguous.
+
+All things being at last arranged, the Rhapsodist took his leave for the
+present, going, as he informed me, on an errand of mercy for his
+stomach. The magazine aboard ship being of dubious character, he had
+prevailed on himself to supply his concern with a limited number of
+first-class cereals with his own _imprimatur_,--copyright and profits to
+be in his own hands. As some consolation for his absence, I was favored
+with a brief oral treatise on Fats, considered both dietetically and
+ethically, with an appendix, somewhat _a la_ Liebig, on the nature, use,
+and effects of tissue-making and heat-making food, nitrogen, carbon,
+and the like. By way of improvement, a brilliant peroration was added,
+supposed to be addressed through me to the mothers of America, urging
+them to bring up the rising generation fatless. Thus only might war
+cease, justice prevail, love reign, humanity rise, and a golden age come
+back again to a world-wide Arcadia. Fat and Anti-Fat! Eros and Anteros,
+Strophe and Antistrophe. Or, better, the old primeval tale,--Jove and
+the Titans, Theseus and the Centaurs, Bellerophon and the Chimaera, Thor
+and the Giants, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Good and Evil, Water and Fire, Light
+and Darkness. The world has told it over from the beginning.
+
+And do you ask what manner of man was the Fatless one? You shall see
+him. His most striking feature was a fur cap,--weight some four pounds,
+I should judge. I think he was born with this cap, and will die with it,
+for 90 deg. Fahrenheit seemed no temptation to uncover. Boots came second in
+rank, but twelfth or so in number,--weight probably on a par with the
+leaded brogans of the little wind-driven poetaster of old. Between these
+two extremes might be found about five feet ten of humanity, lank,
+sapless, and stooping. The seedy drapery of the figure hung in lean,
+reproachful wrinkles. The flabby trousers seemed to say: "Give! give!"
+The hollow waistcoat murmured: "Pad, oh! pad me with hot biscuits!" The
+loose coat swung and sighed for forbidden fruit: "Fill me with fat!" A
+dry, coppery face found pointed expression in the nose, which hung like
+a rigid sentinel over the thin-lipped mouth,--like Victor Hugo's Javert,
+loyal, untiring, merciless. No traitorous comfits ever passed that
+guard; no death-laden bark sailed by that sleepless quarantine. The
+small ferret-eyes which looked nervously out from under bushy
+brows, roaming, but never resting, were of the true Minerva
+tint,--yellow-green. The encircling rings told of unsettled weather.
+While elf-locks and straggling whiskers marked the man careless of
+forms, the narrow, knotted brow suggested the thinker persistent in the
+one idea:--
+
+          "deep on his front engraven,
+    Deliberation sat and _peptic_ care."
+
+Not over beds of roses had he walked to ascend the heights. Those boots
+in which he shambled along his martyr-course were filled with peas. He
+had learned in suffering what he taught in sing-song. The wreath of
+wormwood was his, and the statue of brass. _Io triumphe!_
+
+His gait was a swift, uncertain shuffle, a compromise between a saunter
+and a dog-trot. The arms hung straight and stiff from the narrow
+shoulders, like the radii of a governor, diverging more or less
+according to the rate of speed. When the scourge of his Daemon lashed him
+along furiously, they stood fast at forty-five degrees. His eyes peered
+suspiciously around, as he lumbered on, watchful for the avenger of fat,
+who, perhaps, was even now at his heels. A slouch-hat, crowning hollow
+eyes and haggard beard, filled him with joy: it marked a bran-bread man
+and a brother. He smiled approvingly at a shrivelled form with hobbling
+gait; but from the fat and the rubicund he turned with severest frown.
+They were fleshly sinners, insults to himself, corrupters of youth,
+gorged drones, law-breakers. He was ready to say, with the statesman of
+old: "What use can the state turn a man's body to, when all between the
+throat and the groin is taken up by the belly?" He had vowed eternal
+hostility to all such, and from the folds of his toga was continually
+shaking out war. He was of the race sung by the bard, who
+
+    "Quarrel with mince-pies, and disparage
+    Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge,
+    Fat pig and goose itself oppose,
+    And blaspheme custard through the nose."
+
+Every chance-comer was instantaneously gauged as dyspeptic or eupeptic,
+friend or foe. On the march, Javert was on the alert, snuffing up the
+air, until some savory odor crossed his path, when he would shut himself
+up, like a snail within his shell. Yet he was not sleeping, for no
+titbit ever passed the portals beneath. Perhaps, however, they were
+themselves trusty now, having made habit a second nature. I cannot
+imagine them watering at sight of any dainty.
+
+I have heard it said that certain orders of beings are able to improvise
+or to interchange organs, just as need calls. Thus a polyp, if hard put
+to it, may shift what little brain and stomach happen to be in his
+possession. You may say that he carries his heart in his hand. He can
+take his stomach, and dump it down in brain-case or thorax, just as he
+fancies,--can organize viscera and victory anywhere, at any moment; and
+all works merrily. The Fatless was similar, yet different. His stomach
+changed not its local habitation, was never victorious; yet, from cap to
+boot, it was ubiquitous and despotic. Brain and heel alike felt
+themselves to be mere squatters on another's soil, and had a vague idea
+that the rightful lord might some day come to oust them, and build up a
+new capital in these far-away districts. Sometimes they went so far as
+to style themselves his proconsuls and lieutenants, but they were never
+suffered to do more than simply to register the decrees of the central
+power. Duespeptos was king only in name,--_roi faineant_. Gaster was
+the power behind the throne,--the Mayor of the Palace,--the great
+Grand-Vizier. Nought went merrily, for he ruled with a rod of iron.
+Every day his strange freaks set the empire topsy-turvy. Every day there
+was growling and ill-feeling at his whimsical tyranny,--but nothing
+more. Secession was as impossible as in the day of Menenius Agrippa.
+
+Looking at it another way, Gaster might be called the object-glass
+through which Duespeptos looked out upon the world,--a glass always
+bubbly, distorted, and cracked, generally filmy and smoky, never
+achromatic, and decidedly the worse for wear. I think that the world
+thus seen must have had a very odd look to him. His most fitting
+salutation to each fellow-peptic, as he crossed the field of vision,
+would have been the Chinese form of greeting: "How is your stomach? Have
+you eaten your rice?" or, perhaps, the Egyptian style: "How do you
+perspire?" With him, the peptic bond was the only real one; all others
+were shams. All sin was peptic in origin: Eve ate an apple which
+disagreed with her. The only satisfactory atonement, therefore, must be
+gastric. All reforms hitherto had profited nothing, because they had
+been either cerebral or cardiac. None had started squarely from Gaster,
+the true centre. Moral reform was better than intellectual, since the
+heart lay nearer than the head to the stomach. Phalansteries,
+Pantisocracies, Unitary Homes, Asylums, Houses of Refuge,--these were
+all mere makeshifts. The hope of the world lay in Hygeian Institutes.
+Heroes of heart and brain must bow before the hero of the stomach.
+Judged by any right test of greatness, Graham was more a man than was
+Napoleon or John Howard. He that ruled his stomach was greater than he
+who took a city. Beranger's Roi d'Yvetot, who ate four meals a day,--the
+Esquimaux, with his daily twenty-pound quantum of train-oil, gravy, and
+tallow-candles,--the alderman puffing over callipash and callipee,--the
+backwoodsman hungering after fattest of pork,--such men as these were no
+common sinners: they were assassins who struck at the very fountain of
+life, and throttled a human stomach. Pancreatic meant pancreative.
+Gastric juice was the long-sought elixir. The liver was the lever of the
+higher life. Along the biliary duct led the road to glory. All the
+essence of character, life, power, virtue, success, and their
+opposites,--all the decrees of Fate even,--were daily concocted by
+curious chemistry within that dark laboratory lying between the
+oesophagus and the portal vein. There were brewed the reeking
+ingredients that fertilize the fungus of Crime; there was made to bloom
+the bright star-flower of Innocence; there was forged the anchor of
+Hope; there were twisted the threads of the rotten cable of Despair;
+there Faith built her cross; there Love vivified the heart, and Hate
+dyed it; there Remorse sharpened his tooth; there Jealousy tinged his
+eye with emerald; there was quarried the horse-block from which dark
+Care leaped into the saddle behind the rider; there were puffed out the
+smoke-wreaths of Doubt; there were blown the bubbles of Phantasy; there
+sprouted the seeds of Madness; and there, down in the icy vaults, Death
+froze his finger for the last, cold touch.
+
+
+IV.--HARMONICS.
+
+Ah! but the card? you ask. Yes, here it is.
+
+     --------------------------------
+    |                                |
+    | NAPHTALI RINK,                 |
+    | 51 Early Avenue.               |
+    | (At the Hygienic Institute.)   |
+    |                                |
+     --------------------------------
+
+Of course, this is only in miniature, and represents every way but a
+very small part of the document, the address being but a drop in the
+superscriptive surge,--a rivulet of text meandering through a meadow of
+marginalia. Inasmuch as Duespeptos courted the widest publicity for
+these stomachic scraps, no scruples of delicacy forbid me to jot down
+here some few of them. He thought them fitted for the race,--the more
+readers the better: perhaps it may be, the more the merrier. If called
+upon to classify them, I should put them all under the genus Gastric
+Scholia. The different species and varieties it is hardly worth while to
+enter upon here. There were intuitions, recollections, and glosses,
+apparently set down in a fragmentary way from time to time, in a most
+minute and distinct text. Very probably they were hints of thoughts
+designed to be worked up in a more formal way. Whether the quotations
+were taken at first or second hand I cannot say; but internal evidence
+would seem to indicate that many of them might have been clippings from
+the columns of "The Old Lancaster Day-Book." It is, perhaps, worthy of
+note that Mr. Rink was, in fact, a man of rather more thought and
+general information than one might suppose, if judging him merely by his
+uncouth grammar, and the clipped coin of his jangling speech:--
+
+    "His voice was nasal with the twang
+    That spoiled the hymns when Cromwell's army sang."
+
+Now, then, O reader, returning from this feast of fat things, I lay
+before you the scraps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Character is Digestion."
+
+"There's been a good deal of high-fangled nonsense written about genius.
+One man says it's in the head; another, that it comes from the heart,
+etc., etc. The fact is, they're all wrong. Genius lies in the stomach.
+Who ever knew a fat genius? Now there's De Quincey,--he says, in his
+outlandish way, that genius is the synthesis of the intellect with the
+moral nature. No such thing; and a man who sinned day and night against
+his stomach, and swilled opium as he did, couldn't be expected to know.
+If there's any synthesis at all about it, it's the synthesis of the
+stomach with the liver."
+
+"What a complete knowledge of human nature Sam Slick shows, when he
+says, 'A bilious cheek and a sour temper are like the Siamese twins:
+there's a nateral cord of union atween them. The one is a sign with the
+name of the firm written on it in long letters.'"
+
+"The French are a mighty cute people. They know a thing or two about as
+well as the next man. There's a heap of truth and poetry in these maxims
+of one of their writers: 'Indigestion is the remorse of a guilty
+stomach'; 'Happiness consists in a hard heart and a good digestion.'"
+
+"The old tempter--the original Jacobs--was called in Hebrew a _nachash_,
+so I'm told. But folks don't seem to understand exactly what this
+_nachash_ was. Some say it was a rattlesnake, some a straddle-bug. Old
+Dr. Adam Clarke, I've heard, vowed it was a monkey. They're all out of
+their reckoning. It's as plain as a pikestaff that it was nothing but
+Fried Fat cooked up to order, and it's been a-tempting weak sisters ever
+since. That's what's the matter."
+
+"Let me make the bran-bread of a nation, and I care not who makes its
+laws."
+
+"It makes me master-sick to hear all these fellows who've just made out
+to scrape together a few postage-stamps laying down their three-cent
+notions about the way to get on in the world, the rules for success, and
+all that. Just as if a couple of greenbacks could make a blind man see
+clean through a millstone! They're like these old nursing grannies: No.
+1 thinks catnip is the only thing; No. 2 believes there's nothing like
+sage-tea and mustard-poultice; No. 3 swears by burdock. The truth
+is,--and men might as well own up to it first as last,--success depends
+on bile."
+
+"Shakspeare was a man who was pretty well posted in human nature all
+round,--knew the kitchen about as well as the parlor. He knocks on the
+head the sin of stuffing, in 'All's Well that Ends Well,' where he
+speaks of the man that 'dies with feeding his own stomach.' In 'Timon of
+Athens' there's a chap who 'greases his pure mind,' probably with fried
+sausages, gravy, and such like trash. The fellow in 'Macbeth' who has
+'eaten of the insane root' was meant, I calculate, as a hard rap on
+tobacco-chewers (and smokers too); he called it _root_, instead of
+_leaf_, just to cover up his tracks. What a splendid thought that is in
+'Love's Labor's Lost': 'Fat paunches have lean pates'! Everybody knows
+how Julius Caesar turned up his nose at fat men. The poet never could
+stand frying; he calls it, in 'Macbeth,' 'the young fry of treachery.'
+Probably he'd had more taste of the traitor than was good for him. Has a
+good slap somewhere on the critter that 'devours up all the fry it
+finds.' I reckon that Shakspeare always set a proper valuation on human
+digestion; 'cause when he speaks of a man with a good stomach,--an
+excellent stomach,--he always has a good word for him, and kind of
+strokes down his fur the right way of the grain; but he comes down
+dreadful strong on the lout that has no stomach, as he calls it. In
+'Henry IV.,' he says, 'the cook helps to make the gluttony.' I estimate
+that that one sentence alone, if he'd never writ another word, would
+have made him immortal. If I had my way, I'd have it printed in gold
+letters a foot long, and sot up before every cook-stove in the land. But
+just see what a man he was! This very same play that tells the disease
+prescribes the cure, that is, 'the remainder-biscuit,'--a knock-down
+proof to any man with a knowledge-box that Graham-bread was known and
+appreciated in those days, and that Shakspeare himself had cut his own
+eye-teeth on it."
+
+"A broken heart is only another name for an everlasting indigestion."
+
+"History is merely a record of indigestions,--a calendar of the foremost
+stomachs of the age. The destinies of nations hang on the bowels of
+princes. Internal wars come from intestine rebellion. The rising within
+is father to the insurrection without. The fountain of a national crisis
+is always found under the waistcoat of one man. There's Napoleon
+I.,--what settled him for good was just that greasy mutton-chop stewed
+up in onions, which he took for his grub at Leipsic. If he'd only
+ordered a couple of slices of dry Graham-toast, with a cup of weak black
+tea, he'd have saved his stomach, and whipped 'em, sure; and matters and
+things in Europe would have had a different look all round ever since."
+
+"Emerson is a man who once in a while gets a little inkling of the
+truth. I see he says that the creed lies in the biliary duct. That's
+good orthodox doctrine, I don't care who says it."
+
+"Buckwheat-cakes are now leading us back to barbarism faster than the
+printing-press ever carried us forward towards civilization."
+
+"Temperament means nothing more nor less than just quantity and quality
+of bile. That old sawbones, Hippocrates, came mighty near hitting the
+nail square on the head more 'n two thousand year ago, but he felt kind
+of uncertain, and didn't exactly know what he was driving at. The old
+heathen made out just four humors, as he called 'em,--the sanguineous,
+phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. If he'd only made one step more
+on to the other side of the fence, he'd have cracked the nut, and picked
+the kernel, certain. Those four different humors are only four different
+ways of modifying bile with fat."
+
+"Every man is dyspeptic. Tell me his dyspepsy, and I'll tell you what he
+is."
+
+"In sick-headache, a heaping tablespoonful each of salt and common
+mustard, stirred into a pint of hot water, and drank without breathing,
+will generally produce an immediate effect. (_Mem._ But Graham-biscuit
+is better in the long run.)"
+
+"Society is the meeting of a gang of incurables, who come together to
+talk over their dyspepsies. And everybody takes his turn in furnishing
+fodder to keep the thing going hot-foot."
+
+"Professor Bache says sea-sickness comes from the head, 'cause a man
+gets dizzy in trying to get used to the teetering of the ship. All
+nonsense. The Professor may be posted in the survey of the coast, but he
+don't know the lay of the land in the interior. Sea-sickness comes from
+the stomach: just offer a man a mouthful of fried salt pork."
+
+"It's stated that some old bookworm of a Dutchman, with a jaw-breaking
+name that I can't recollect, has an idea, that, 'if we could penetrate
+into the secret foundations of human events, we should frequently find
+the misfortunes of one man caused by the intestines of another.' There's
+not the least doubt of it,--true of one man or a million."
+
+"Fate is Fat: Fat is Fate."
+
+
+V.--NOCTURNE.
+
+    Romanza (_affettuoso_).
+    The Choral Gamut (_con espressione_).
+
+Was that seething sun never again to plunge his lurid face beneath the
+waves of old Ocean? Had some latter-day Joshua arisen, and with stern
+fiat nailed him in mid-heavens, blazing forever? To me as slowly rolled
+the westering orb down that final slope as ever turned the wheel of
+Fortune to Murad the Unlucky. Perchance the sun-god had turned cook, and
+now, burning with 'prentice zeal, and scoffing at Duespeptos and all
+sound hygiene, was aiming to make of this terrestrial ball one
+illimitable fry turned over and well done,--a fry ever doing and never
+done, which should simmer and fizzle on eternally down the ages. An
+abstract fry--let me here record it--suits me passing well; yet I like
+not the concrete and personal broil. I trip gayly to a feast, prepared
+to eat, but not, as in the supper of Polonius, to be eaten. I have very
+little of the martyr-stuff about me. It is well, it is glorious, to read
+of those fine things; but does any man relish the application of the
+_Hoc age_? To beatified Lawrence I gladly pay meet tribute of tears and
+praise. Let the luckless one ask of me no more; let him call only upon
+the succulent; let him recruit among the full ranks of the adipose. Be
+it mine to lay these spare-ribs athwart no gridiron more fervid than the
+pavement of his own monumental Escurial. _Suum cuique._
+
+So, albeit in a melting mood, I gazed listlessly upon the brazen
+firmament, with no fellow-feeling for those hot culinary bars. The
+broiling glow was not at all tempting: I think it would have staggered
+even the gay salamander that is said to accept so thoroughly the gospel
+of caloric. And what was the Markerstown without the Great Captain? What
+was the Victory with no Nelson? Hence, like the patriarch, I went out to
+meditate at the eventide. But, alack! there were no camels, no Rebekah,
+no comfort. Even in subterranean grots there was nothing drawn but
+Tropic's XXX. Every water-cock let on a geyser. But by-and-by Apollo
+Archimagirus, wearying of gastronomy, stayed his hand, moistened the
+fierce flames, jerked the half-fried earth out into free space, pocketed
+his stew-pan, and flung himself supperless to bed. No more, for the
+nonce at least, should that new Lycidas--the cosmical gridiron--flame in
+the forehead of the evening sky. Anon came twilight, dusk, darkness, and
+all the pleasant charities of deep night. Behind the veil of night are
+sometimes done evil deeds. The snail has been known to start before his
+time. Laying down these general postulates, I drew therefrom, late in
+the sultry gloom, this particular inference: Caesar's shallop might
+possibly breast the deep before dawn; and if Caesar was not on hand, she
+would carry his fortunes, but not him. Forthwith, groping through the
+obscurity, I found my fears without foundation. The shallop was
+quiescent in a remarkable degree, and thoroughly tethered.
+
+Deep darkness reigned throughout the little kingdom. Silence brooded
+over all, save now and then when some vocal nose, informed by murky
+visions of the night, brayed out its stertorous tale to the unheeding
+air. At times a shrill, sharp pipe, screaming with gusts of horror,
+split my unexpectant ear. With this wrangled fitfully the cracked
+clarionet of some peevish brother. Ever and anon some vast nostril,
+punctually thundering, hurled forth the relentless growl of the
+bassoon,--a very mountain of sound, which crushed all before it, and
+made the shuddering timbers crack and reel. A pensive flute vainly
+poured, in swift recurring gushes, its rhythmic oil upon the roaring
+billows. From some melodious swain came a freakish fiddling, which
+leaped and danced like mad, now here, now there, like an audible
+will-o'-the-wisp. A dolorous whistle chimed harmonies, and with regular
+sibilation came to time, quavering out the chromatic moments of this
+nasal hour. High over all floated a faint whisper,--a song-cloud rising
+from the dream-mist of a peaceful breast,--a revelation timidly exhaled
+to the disembodied spirits of the air. Its hazy lullaby breathed down as
+from distant heights, and murmured of celestial rest. Its soul was like
+a star, and dwelt apart.
+
+Save this feeling symphony, all was still. No light shone upon the
+tuneful beaks. Like Theseus, I picked my way along, guided by an
+Ariadne's thread. My Ariadne was a slumbering orchestra deftly spinning
+out a thick proboscis-chord of such stuff as dreams are made of. Taking
+this web in my ear, I safely traversed the labyrinth, and meandered at
+last into pen No. 1. In placing my foot on the edge of the under-world
+crib, I unwittingly pressed some secret spring which straight swung wide
+the portals of a precipitate dawn.
+
+
+VI.--THE PEPTIC SYMPHONY.
+
+    A.--Andante (_smorzando_).
+    B.--Adagio (_crescendo_).
+    C.--Allegro (_sforzando_).
+
+Instantaneously rose resplendent
+
+    THE MIDNIGHT SUN.
+
+_The Luminary._--Hullo!
+
+_The Satellite._--Ah! got back? Is that you, Mr. Rink?
+
+_The Luminary._--Wal, ef 't a'n't me, 't 's my nose. Mebby y' a'n't
+aware, young man, that you planted your shoe-leather on my olfactory?
+
+_The Satellite._--Indeed, no, Sir. I thought I felt something under my
+foot, as I was getting up. So it seems it was your nose. Beg your
+pardon, Sir,--entirely unintentional. Hope I----
+
+_The Luminary._--Who's your shoemaker? What do you wear for cow-hide?
+
+_The Satellite._--An excellent artist, a long way from Paris. I have on
+at this moment a very neat thing in English gaiters, of respectable
+dimensions, toe-corners sharp as Damascus blade, three-fourths of an
+inch in sole, one and a half inches in heel, with a plenty of half-inch,
+cast-steel nails all round,--quite a neat thing, I assure you.
+
+_The Luminary._--Whew!
+
+_The Satellite._--But I hope, Sir, I haven't injured your nose?
+
+_The Luminary._--Can't tell jest yit. Anyhow, you gev me a proper
+sneezer, a most pertickler hahnsome socdolager, I vum! Landed jest below
+the peepers. But hold on till mornin', an' see how breakfast sets. I
+allers estimate the nose by the stomach. Ef I find my stomach's all
+right, 't 'll be a sure sign that the smellers are pooty rugged.
+
+_The Satellite._--That's rather an odd idea. I was aware that the nose
+is a natural guide to the stomach, but didn't know that the reverse
+would hold good. What is the----
+
+_The Luminary._--Poor rule that wun't work both ways. Six of one and
+half a dozen of the other. Do you s'pose the nose could afford to work
+free gratis for the stomach, with plenty to do an' nothin' to git? No,
+Sir, not by a jugful! People that want favors mustn't be stingy in
+givin' on 'em. It's on the scratch-my-back-an'-I'll-tickle-your-elbow
+system. The stomach's got to keep up his eend o' the rope, or he'll jest
+go under, sure. One good turn deserves another, you know.
+
+_The Satellite._--Yes, a very pretty theory, and certainly a just one.
+Quite on the Mutual-Benefit principle. Still, I should be inclined to
+doubt whether there are facts sufficient to sustain it.
+
+_The Luminary._--Wal, my hearty, you jest belay a bit up there; clew
+down your hatches ship-shape, git everythin' all trig, an' lay to. Why,
+my Christian friend, I intend to post you up thoroughly. Your
+edication's been neglected. Facts? Facts? Bless your noddle, there's
+plenty on 'em, ef a man knows beans. Now I'm jest a-goin' to let
+daylight into that little knowledge-box o' yourn, an' fill it with good,
+wholesome idees, clean up to the brim, an' runnin' over,--good, honest,
+Shaker measure. I'll give ye more new wrinkles afore mornin' than ever
+you dreamed of in your physiology, valooable hints, an' nuthin' to pay.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Being now securely camped on my mountain-height, I peered out upon the
+horizon beneath, and signified to the Luminary that the gas might at
+once be turned on full blaze.
+
+            "As when the sun new risen
+    Looks through the horizontal misty air,"
+
+so gleamed, no longer nebulous, but now full-orbed, the bright star
+Diaetetica,--a central sun, holding within its ample bosom the star-dust
+of whole galaxies, infinite gastric constellations.
+
+_The Luminary._--"Any fool'll allow that there's nerves, an' plenty on
+'em, all over the body. All these nerves come from the stomach. Fact is,
+they're the stomach's errand-boys. They run round an' do his chores jest
+as he says, an' then trot back ag'in. He's an awful hard master,
+though,--likes to shirk, an' makes 'em lug round all his baggage an'
+chicken-fixin's. When he gits grumpy, which is pooty consid'able often,
+he's death on some on 'em,--jest walks into 'em like chain-lightnin'
+into a gooseberry-bush. When he's gouty, he kicks up a most etarnal
+touse with the great-toe nerve, an' slaps it right into him fore an'
+aft, the wust kind. Folks hev asked me why the gout pitches into the
+great toe wuss than the rest on 'em. It's jest as nateral as Natur'. I
+cal'late it's a special Providence for the benefit of the hull human
+family, to hang out a big sign jest where folks ken see it, to show up
+the man who's ben an' sinned ag'inst his stomach. When he limps round in
+flannel, he's a conspicoous hobblin' advertisement, a fust-cut lecterer
+on temperance, an' the horrible example to boot. Now you know the way
+the stomach an' nerves fay in.
+
+"Wal, then ag'in, there's another set,--the stomach's own
+blood-relations. He's head o' the family, an' they all work in together
+nice an' handy, jest as slick as grease. Lam ary one on 'em, an' you got
+to lam the whole boodle. Jest like a hornet's nest: shake a stick at ary
+one o' the group, an' they all come buzzin' round te'ble miffy in less
+'n no time. There's the nose,--he wears a coat jest as well 's the
+stomach: he's the stomach's favorite grandson, the Benjamin of the
+flock. Say anythin' to him, an' the stomach takes it up; say anythin' to
+the stomach, an' he takes it up. All in a family-way, ye see. Love me,
+love my dorg. There's no disputin' the fact, that you can't kill ary one
+on 'em without walkin' over the dead body of the others. You can't whip
+ary one on 'em except over the others' shoulders. Now you know who the
+nose is, who his connections are, an' what's his geneology. He's
+descended from the stomach in the second degree, an' will be heir to all
+the property, ef so be he's true to himself an' the family. Ef he a'n't,
+th' old man'll cut him off with a shillin', sure.
+
+"Now dyspepsy's of two kinds,--the mucous an' the nervous; an' as I'm a
+sinner, every mother's son an' daughter has got one on 'em. The nervous,
+as you will naterally s'pose from my remarks, is a sort o' hired
+help,--friend o' the family, like a poor relation,--handy to hev in the
+house, an' all that. The other allers takes pot-luck with the family,
+runs in an' out jest as he pleases,--chip o' the old block, one o' the
+same crowd, you know. It's considered ruther more hon'able, in course,
+to hev this one. None o' the man-waiter or sarvant-gal about him. A chap
+with the mucous looks kind o' slick an' smooth, an' feels his oats pooty
+wal; but a codger with the nervous is sort o' thin an' wild-like.
+Wholesalers ginerally hev the fust, an' retailers the second; though,
+'casionally, I hev known exceptions. A bank-president invariably has the
+second; an' I never seen an apple-woman without the other. All accordin'
+to Natur', ye see. But either on 'em 'll do. Take jest whichever you can
+git,--that's my advice,--an' thank Providence. They'll either on 'em be
+faithful friends, never desert ye, cling closer than a brother, never
+say die, stick to ye, in p'int o' fact, like a sick kitten to a hot
+brick. It's jest as I said,--every critter's got one on 'em. But there's
+no two men alike, so there's no two dyspepsies alike. There never was,
+an' never will be. 'T 's exackly like the human family, divided into two
+great classes, black an' white, long-heel an' short-heel. Jes' so ...
+nervous ... mucous ... Magna Charta ... Palladium of our liberties ...
+ark of our safety ... manifest destiny ... Constitootion of our
+forefathers ... fit, bled, an' died ... independence forever ... one an'
+inseparable ... last drop o' blood...."
+
+How it was I don't quite know; but I think that at this point the
+Luminary must have sunk below the horizon. Possibly his Satellite may
+have suffered an eclipse in this quarter of the heavens. I can barely
+recall a thin doze, in which these last eloquent fragments, transfigured
+into sprites and kobolds, wearing a most diabolical grin, seemed to be
+chasing each other in furious and endless succession through my brain,
+or playing at hide-and-seek among the convolutions of the cerebrum.
+After a while, they wearied of this rare sport, scampered away, and left
+me in profound sleep till morning.
+
+
+VII.--MATINS.
+
+Whank!--tick-a-lick!--ker-thump!--swoosh!--Whank!--tick-a-lick!--
+ker-thump!--swoosh!--These were the sounds that first greeted my opening
+ears. So, then, we were fairly under way, advancing, if not rejoicing.
+Our freighted Icarus was soaring on well-oiled wings: how soon might his
+waxy pinions droop under the fierce gaze of the sun! At least it was a
+satisfaction to know that thus far the gloomy forebodings of the Seer
+had not been fulfilled. On looking out through a six-inch rose-window, I
+saw joyous daylight dancing over the boundless, placid waters,--not a
+speck of land in sight. We must have started long since; but my eyes,
+fast sealed under the opiate rays of the Luminary, had hitherto refused
+to ope their lids to the garish beams of his rival. Soon I heard beneath
+a rustling snap, as of a bow, and suddenly there sped forth the twanging
+shaft of the
+
+_First Victim._--I say!
+
+_Second Victim._--Very sensible, but brief. Give us another bit.
+
+_First Victim._--How are ye this mornin'?
+
+_Second Victim._--Utterly glorified. Delicious sleep,--splendid
+day,--balmy air, with condiments thrown in. I hope you are nicely
+to-day?
+
+_First Victim._--Wal, no, can't say I be. Feel sort o' seedy like,--feel
+jest 's ef I'd ben creouped up in a sugar-box. Couldn't even git a
+cat-nap,--didn't sleep a wink.
+
+_Second Victim._--That's bad, indeed; but the bracing air here will
+soon----
+
+_First Victim._--Air! That 'ere dock-smell nigh finished me. No
+skim-milk smell about that, but the ginooine jam,--an awful pooty
+nosegay! 'T was reg'lar rank p'is'n. Never see anythin' like it. Oh,
+'twas te'ble! Took hold o' my nose dreffle bad; I'm afeard my stomach'll
+be a goner. 'T wa'n't none o' yer sober perfumes nuther, but kind o'
+half-seas-over all the time, an' pooty consid'able in the wind. Judge
+there's ben a large fatality in cats lately. Ugh! that blamed
+dock-smell! Never forgit it the longest day I live. Don't b'lieve I
+breathed oncet all night.
+
+_Second Victim._--Yes, it was slightly aromatic, I confess,--'Sabaean
+odors from the spicy shores of Araby the Blest,'--you know what Milton
+says. But there's one great comfort: this thick night-air is so very
+healthy, you know. I think you made a very great mistake, Mr. Rink, in
+not inhaling it thoroughly. I kept pumping it in all night, from a sense
+of duty, at forty bellows-power.
+
+_First Victim._--(Rising, and dragging up to the mountain-crib the
+artillery of a ghostly face, and training it point-blank at Second
+Victim.)--Young man, don't trifle!
+
+_Second Victim._--Pardon me, Sir, I am not trifling, I have sound
+reasons for what I say. Your education, Sir, has apparently been
+neglected. Wait one moment, and I'll give you a new idea, which will
+contribute materially to your happiness. You will at once admit, I take
+it, that oxygen and carbonic acid stand at opposite poles in their
+relations to the respiratory system; also, that said dock-smell was a
+mixture of carbonic acid of various kinds, and of different degrees of
+intensity; and, lastly, that animal and vegetable life are complements
+of each other,--correlatives, so to speak.
+
+_First Victim._--Sartin: that's Natur' an' common sense.
+
+_Second Victim._--Now, then, plants naturally absorb carbonic acid and
+give off oxygen during daylight. At night, the process is reversed: then
+they absorb oxygen and give off carbonic acid. In a similar, but reverse
+way, man, who was plainly intended to inhale oxygen and exhale carbonic
+acid in his waking hours, should, in his sleeping hours, in order to be
+consistent with himself and with Nature, inhale only dense carbonic acid
+and exhale oxygen. Men and plants make Nature's see-saw: one goes up as
+the other goes down. Hence it follows as a logical sequence, that the
+truly wise man, who seeks to comply with the laws of Nature, and to
+fulfil the great ends of his existence, will choose for his
+sleeping-apartment the closest quarters possible, and will welcome the
+fumes which would be noisome by day. For my part, therefore, I feel
+profoundly grateful even for one night of this little crib. It has
+already done much for me. I feel confident that it has contributed
+greatly to my span of life. I am deeply beholden to the owners, to the
+captain, yea, to all the crew. And for the blessed dock-smell I shall
+ever be thankful:--
+
+     "'T were worth ten years of mortal life, One glance at its
+     array."
+
+It will not be amiss to say to you, Mr. Rink, that this theory is
+sanctioned by one of the leading ornaments of the French Academy. He has
+advocated it, in an elaborate treatise, with an eloquence and power
+worthy of its distinguished author. He shows, in passages of singular
+purity, that beasts, whose instincts teach them far more of the laws of
+Nature than our reason teaches us, always retire to sleep in a place
+where they can obtain the closest, healthiest air. In the last
+communication sent to me on this subject by the learned Professor, he
+proves conclusively that----
+
+_First Victim._ (His artillery now rumbling down the heights on the full
+gallop.)--I snum, that's awful! Wal, I never see,--'t beats the Dutch!
+No kind o' use talkin' with sech a chap. Never see so much nonsense in
+one head 's that critter's got in his.
+
+
+VIII.--JENTACULAR.
+
+A barrow-tone full of groan and creak, trundling along through the
+well-known bravura commencing,--
+
+    "In Koeln, a town of monks and bones," etc.
+
+Yes, the aroma was highly complicate, but not, like the poet, of
+imagination all compact. It was not Frangipanni, though in part an
+eternal perfume; nor was it Bergamot, or Attar, or Millefleurs, or
+Jockey-Club, or New-Mown Hay. No, it was none of these. What was it,
+then? you ask. I dissected it as well as I could, though not with entire
+success; but I will tell you the members of this body of death, so far
+as I found them. I do not for a moment doubt that it was made up of at
+least the two-and-seventy several parts which bloomed in the bouquet
+plucked by the bard in Hermann's land; yet my feeble sense could not
+distinguish all. There was unquestionably a fry,--nay, several; the
+fumes of coffee soared riotous; I could detect hot biscuits distinctly;
+the sausage asked a foremost place; pancakes, griddle-cakes, dough-nuts,
+gravies, and sauces, all struggled for precedence; the land and the sea
+waged internecine war for place, through their representative fries of
+steak and mackerel; and as the unctuous pork--no nursling of the flock,
+but seasoned in ripe old age with salt not Attic--rooted its way into
+the front rank, I thought of the wisdom of Moses. All these were, so to
+speak, the mere outlying flakes, the feathery curls, of the balmy
+cirro-cumulus, whose huge bulk arose out of the bowels of the ship
+itself. Up and down, in and out, here and there, into every chink and
+crevice, rolled the blue-white incense-cloud, dense as the cottony puff
+at the mouths of the guns in Vernet's "Siege of Algiers." Or you might
+say that these were but the flying-buttresses, the floriated pinnacles,
+the frets, and the gargoyles of a great frowzy cathedral lying vast and
+solid far below.
+
+The Captain sat at the head of the table; next him was the fixed star
+Duespeptos, with Satellite stationary on the right quarter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Eupeptos._--Coffee,--that's good. John, fill my cup. Have it strong,
+mind,--no milk.
+
+_Duespeptos._ (Placing hand remonstratingly on arm of Eupeptos.)--My
+friend, man's life a'n't more'n a span, anyhow; yourn wun't be wuth
+more'n half a span. Don't ye do it.
+
+_Eupeptos._ (Gayly.)--_Dum vivimus, vivamus._ Try a cup, Mr. Rink.
+
+_Duespeptos._--No, Sir. Thousan' dollars'd be no objick at all.
+There'd be a dead Rink layin' round in less 'n half a shake. I'd want a
+permit from the undertaker fust, an' hev my measure for a patent casket
+to order. This child a'n't anxious to cut stick yit awhile.
+
+_Eupeptos._--I'm very much of Voltaire's way of thinking about coffee. I
+don't know but I would agree with Mackintosh, that the measure of a
+man's brains is the amount of coffee he drinks. I like it in the French
+style, all but the _lait_; that destroys the flavor, besides making it
+despicably weak. Have a hot biscuit, Mr. Rink? I'm afraid they're like
+Gilpin,--carry weight, you know. But try one, won't you?
+
+_Duespeptos._--I'm shot ef I do. Don't hev any more o' yer nonsense,
+young man, or I'll git ructions.
+
+_Eupeptos._--All right. Advance, pancakes! Here's a prime one, steaming
+hot, crisp and fizzling. Allow me to put it on your plate, Sir?
+
+_Duespeptos._--Not by a long chalk. Hands off, I tell ye, or there'll
+be a free fight afore shortly. You'd better make up yer mind to oncet
+thet this 'ere thing a'n't goin' to ram nohow.
+
+_Eupeptos._--Sorry I can't suit you. Better luck next time. Ah! here's
+the very thing. Waiter, pass the fried steak, salt mackerel, and fried
+potatoes to Mr. Rink.
+
+_Duespeptos._--Wun't stan' it,--I snore I wun't! I tell ye, I'm
+gittin' master-riled. Jest you take yer own fodder, an' keep quiet.
+
+_Eupeptos._--Pardon me, Sir, but my eye has just fallen on yonder dish
+of dough-nuts, faced by those incense-breathing griddle-cakes. Look
+slightly soggy, but not disagreeable. This sea-air, you know, gives a
+man a tremendous appetite for anything, and the digestion of an ostrich.
+Risk it, won't you?
+
+_Duespeptos._ (With determined air, clenching knife and fork pointing
+skywards.)--Stranger, le' 's come to a distinct understandin' on this
+subjick afore we git much older. You know puffickly wal what I am,--a
+confirmed dyspeptic for twenty-five year. An' I a'n't ashamed on it,
+nuther; but I'm proud to say I glory in it. You know puffickly wal what
+my notions is about all this 'ere stuff, an' still you keep stickin' it
+into my face. Now, ef you want me to lambaste ye, I'm the man to do it,
+an' do it hahnsome. But ef yer life a'n't insured clean up to the hub,
+an' ef ye've got any survivin' friends, I advise ye not to tote any more
+o' that 'ere grub in this direction. I give ye fair warnin',--yer've
+raised my dander, an' put my Ebenezer up. I'd jest as lieves wallop ye
+as eat, an' ten times lieveser.
+
+_Eupeptos._--Really, Sir, no offence intended. I saw that your taste was
+delicate, and offered you these various tit-bits in the hope that some
+one of them might prove acceptable. But pray, Sir, do not starve
+yourself on my account. What in the world can you eat? Do not, I beseech
+you, by undue fasting, deprive the world of so distinguished----
+
+_Duespeptos._ (Mollifying.)--Fact is, I knew jest how 't was goin' to
+be. They allers fry everythin' an' cook it up in grease, so no
+respectable man can git any decent vittles t' eat. So I jest went out
+an' laid in plenty o' my own provender,--suthin' reliable an' wholesome,
+ye know. Brought aboard a firkin o' Graham-biscuit,--jest the meal mixed
+up with water,--no salt, no emptins, no nuthin'. 'T's the healthiest
+thing out o' jail. It's Natur's own food, an' the best eatin' I know.
+Raael good flavor, git 'em good, besides bein' puffickly harmless an'
+salubrious. I cal'late I've got enough to run the machine, an' keep it
+all trig up to concert-pitch, till I git ashore, ef so be th' old tub
+don't send us to Davy Jones's locker. Here, try one,--I've got a
+plenty,--an' you'll say they're fust-rate. Leave them 'ere pancakes, an'
+all that p'is'n truck. Arter you take one o' these, you'll never tech
+nuthin' else.
+
+_Eupeptos._--Thank you, Sir, but if it's all the same to you, please
+excuse me this time. I have other fish to fry. In fact, Sir, I am
+entirely destitute of equanimity, and have no particle of stability in
+my disposition. Not a drop of Scotch blood in my veins.
+
+_Duespeptos._--There's no oats about these; an' ef there was, 't
+wouldn't hurt ye none. It's jest the kernel an' the shell mixed up
+together.
+
+_Eupeptos._--Dangerous combination. I have no military
+ambition,--wouldn't give a rush for a spread eagle,--don't like the
+braying by a mortar.
+
+_Duespeptos._--Wal, I mout as wal vamose, 's long as I've hove in my
+rations. Already gone risin' a good half-ounce above my or'nary
+'lowance. 'T wun't do to dissipate, even ef a feller a'n't to hum an'
+nobody's the wiser. Natur' allers makes ye foot the bill all the same on
+sea an' shore.
+
+_Eupeptos._ (Trolling in a low voice the celebrated barcarole,
+
+    "My bark is by the shore," etc.)--
+
+Stay, oh, stay, gentle stranger! See yon sausage fatly floating! Be not
+dogged to go, but come! Prithee, return once more to the festive board!
+Lo! this--the fattest of the flock--shall be thy portion, most favored
+Benjamin!
+
+_Duespeptos._ (--Muttering in the distance.)--That feller's a raael
+jo-fired numbskull. He don't know any more about the fust principles o'
+human natur' than the babe unborn. Reg'lar goney. Dunno whether he's
+jokin' or in sober airnest. Good mind to sail into him anyhow. Guess 't
+'ll do, though, to leave him to Natur'. He'll stuff himself to death
+fast enough ... pitchin' into p'is'n ... sexton ... six-board box ...
+coroner's verdick ... run over by a fry ... engineer did his dooty....
+
+
+IX.--FINALE (_con motivo._)
+
+But time would fail me to tell you of the myriad golden spangles so
+thickly stitched into the hurrying web of those fustian hours. Oh! that
+dim crepuscular time, when, with toe set to toe squarely on the scratch,
+we stood up to one another, with eyes glaring through the gloaming, and
+gave and took manfully, fighting out anew the old battles of the Bourbon
+_vs._ China, of King James _vs._ Virginia, of Graham _vs._ Greece! I
+could tell you of the siesta of the new Prometheus, when, perched on the
+Mount Caucasus of a bleak chain-cable, he gave himself postprandially,
+in full livery of seisin, to the vulturous sun. Wasted, yet daily
+renewed, enduring, yet murmuring not, he hurled defiance at Fat, scoffed
+at the vain rage of Jupiter Pinguis, and proffered to the world below a
+new life in his fiery gift of stale bran-bread. Would you could have
+heard that vesper hymn stealing hirsute through the mellow evening-air!
+It sung the Peptic Saints and Martyrs, explored the bowels of old Time,
+and at last died away in dulcet cadence as it chanted the glories of the
+coming Age of Grits. Again, in the silent night-watches, did sage Mentor
+become vocal, going over afresh the story of the Nervous and the Mucous,
+classifying their victims, generalizing laws, discriminating the various
+dyspepsies of the nations, and summing up at last the inestimable
+benefits conferred by our modern dyspepsy on the character, the
+literature, and the life of this nineteenth century.
+
+Once more--for the last time--did the sable robe inwrap us.
+Once more the night-blooming cereus oped its dank petals; and
+amid its murky fragrance I sank to rest. When I woke, the
+whank!--tick-a-lick!--whank!--tick-a-lick!--had ceased, and we were
+safely moored. I leaped lightly to the shore, and, reverently stooping,
+saluted with fond gratitude my Mother Earth. Rising, I beheld for the
+last time the gaunt form of the Martyr standing on the deck,--a bar
+sinister sable blazoned athwart the golden shield of the climbing sun.
+And once more he lift up his voice:--
+
+"Hullo! What! up killick an' off a'ready? Ye'r' bound to go it full
+chisel any way,--don't mean to hev grass grow under your heels, that's
+sartin. Wal, 't 's the early bird thet ketches the worm; an' it's the
+early worm thet gits picked, too,--recollember that. I cal'late you
+reckon the Markerstown's about played out, an' a'n't exackly wut she's
+cracked up to be. It's pooty plain thet that 'ere blamed grease has ben
+one too many for ye, arter all yer lingo. Ef a man will dance, he's got
+to pay the fiddler. You can't go it on tick with Natur'; she's some on a
+trade, an' her motto is, 'Down with the dosh.' Ef you think you can play
+'possum, an' pull the wool over her eyes, jest try it on, that's all;
+you'll find, my venerable hero, thet you're shinnin' a greased pole for
+the sake of a bogus fo'pence-ha'penny on top.
+
+"Now, young man, afore you hurry up your cakes much further, I've got
+jest two words to say to ye. Don't cut it too fat, or you'll flummux by
+the way, an' leave nuthin' but a grease-spot. Don't dawdle round doin'
+nuthin' but stuffin' yerself to kill. Don't act like a gonus,--don't
+hanker arter the flesh-pots. Wake up, peel your eyes, an' do suthin' for
+a dyspeptic world, for sufferin' sinners, for yerself. Allers stick
+close to Natur' an' hyg'ene. Drop yer nonsense, an' come over an' j'in
+us, an' we'll make a new man of ye,--jest as good as wheat. You're on
+the road to ruin now; but we'll take ye, an' build ye up, give ye tall
+feed, an' warrant ye fust-cut health an' happiness. No cure, no pay. An'
+look here, keep that 'ere card I gev ye continooally on hand, an'
+peroose it day an' night. I tell ye it'll be the makin' on ye. An' don't
+forgit the golden rule:--Don't tech, don't g' nigh the p'is'n upus-tree
+of gravy; beware o' the dorg called hot biscuits; take keer o' the
+grease, an' the stomach'll take keer of itself. Ef you're in want o'
+bran-bread at any time, let me know, an' I'm your man,--Rink by name,
+an' Rink by natur'. An' ef so be you ever come within ten mile o' where
+I hang out, jest tie right up on the spot, without the slightest
+ceremony or delayance, an' take things puffickly free an' easy like.
+Wal, my hearty, I see ye're on the skedaddle. Take keer o'
+yerself,--yourn till death, N. Rink."
+
+
+
+
+THE TWENTIETH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
+
+
+The country is now on the eve of an election the importance of which it
+would be impossible to overrate. Yet a few days, and it will be decided
+whether the people of the United States shall condemn their own conduct,
+by cashiering an Administration which they called upon to make war on
+the rebellious slaveholders of the South, or support that Administration
+in the strenuous endeavors which it is making to effect the
+reconstruction of the Republic, and the destruction of Slavery. It is to
+insult the intelligence and patriotism of the American people to
+entertain any serious doubt as to the issue of the contest. It can have
+but one issue, unless the country has lost its senses,--and never has it
+given better evidence of its sobriety, firmness, and rectitude of
+purpose than it now daily affords. Were the contest one relating to the
+conduct of the war, and had the Democratic party assumed a position of
+unquestionable loyalty, there would be some room for doubting who is to
+be our next President. It is impossible that a contest of proportions so
+vast should not have afforded ground for some complaint, on the score of
+its management. To suppose that the action of Government has been on all
+occasions exactly what it should have been is to suppose something so
+utterly out of the nature of things that it presents itself to no mind.
+Errors are unavoidable even in the ordinary affairs of common life, and
+their number and their magnitude increase with the importance of the
+business, and the greatness of the stage on which it is transacted. We
+have never claimed perfection for the Federal Administration, though we
+have ever been ready to do justice to the success which it has achieved
+on many occasions and to the excellence of its intentions on all. Had
+the Democrats called upon the country to displace the Administration
+because it had not done all that it should have done, promising to do
+more themselves against the Rebels than President Lincoln and his
+associates had effected, the result of the Presidential election might
+be involved in some doubt; for the people desire to see the Rebellion
+brought to an end, and the Democratic party has a great name as a ruling
+political organization, its history, during most of the present century,
+being virtually the history of the American nation. But, with a want of
+wisdom that shows how much it has lost in losing that Southern lead
+which had so much to do with its success in politics, it chose to place
+itself in opposition to the national sentiment, instead of adopting it,
+guiding it, and profiting from its existence. The errors of the various
+parties that have been opposed to it have often been matter for mirth to
+the Democratic party, as well they may have been; but neither
+Federalists, nor National Republicans, nor Whigs, nor Know-Nothings, nor
+Republicans were ever guilty of a blunder so enormous as that which this
+party itself perpetrated at Chicago, when it virtually announced its
+readiness to surrender the country into the hands of the men who have so
+pertinaciously sought its destruction for the last four years. So
+strange has been its action, that we should be ashamed to have dreamed
+that any party could be guilty of it. Yet it is a living fact that the
+Democratic party, in spite of its loud claims to strict nationality of
+purpose, has so conducted itself as to show that it is willing to
+complete the work which the slaveholders began, and not only to submit
+to the terms which the Rebels would dictate, but to tear the Union still
+further to pieces, if indeed it would leave any two States in a united
+condition. Thus acting, that party has defeated itself, and reduced the
+action of the people to a mere, though a mighty, formality. Either this
+is a plain statement of the case, or this nation is about to give a
+practical answer to Bishop Butler's famous question, "What if a whole
+community were to go mad?" For the ratification of the Chicago Platform
+by the people would be an indorsement of violence and disorder, a direct
+approval of wilful rebellion, and an announcement that every election
+held in this country is to be followed by a revolutionary outbreak,
+until our condition shall have become even worse than that of Mexico,
+and we shall be ready to welcome the arrival, in the train of some
+European army, of a cadet of some imperial or royal house, whose
+"mission" it should be to restore order in the once United States, while
+anarchy should be kept at a distance by a liberal exhibition of French
+or German bayonets. What has happened to Mexico would assuredly happen
+here, if we should allow the country to Mexicanize itself at the bidding
+of Belmont and Co.
+
+But it may be said, it is unjust to attribute to the masses of the
+Democratic party intentions so bad as those of which we have spoken.
+That party, in past times, has done great things for the land, has
+always professed the highest patriotism, and its name and fame are most
+intimately associated with some of the noblest passages in the history
+of the Republic. All this is very true. We admit, what is indeed
+self-evident, that the Democratic party has done great things for the
+country, and that it can look back with just pride over the country's
+history, until a comparatively recent period; and we do not attribute to
+the masses composing it any other than the best intentions. It is not of
+those masses that we have spoken. The sentiment of patriotism is ever
+strong with the body of the people. The number of men who would wilfully
+injure their country has never been large in any age. But it is not the
+less true that parties are but too often the blind tools of leaders, of
+men whose only interest in their country is to use it for their own
+purposes, to make all they can out of it, and at its expense. The
+Democratic party has always been a disciplined party, and nothing is
+more notorious in its history than its submissiveness to its leaders.
+This has been the chief cause of its almost unbroken career of success;
+and it has been its pride and its boast that it has been well-trained,
+obedient, and consequently successful, while all other parties have been
+quarrelsome and impatient of discipline, and consequently have risen
+only to endure through a few years of sickly existence, and then to pass
+away. The Federalists, the National Republicans, the Antimasons, the
+Whigs, and the Know-Nothings have each appeared, flourished for a short
+time, and then passed to the limbo of factions lost to earth. This
+discipline of the Democracy has not been without its uses, and the
+country occasionally has profited from it; but now it is to be abused,
+through application to the service of the Great Anarch at Richmond. The
+Rebel power, which our fleets and armies are steadily reducing day by
+day, is to be saved from overthrow, and its agents from the severe and
+just punishment which should be visited upon them for their great and
+unprovoked crime,--if they are to be saved therefrom,--through the
+action of the Democratic party, as it calls itself, and which purposes
+to go to the assistance of the slaveholders in war, as formerly it went
+to their assistance in peace, the meekest and most faithful and most
+useful of their slaves. The Democratic party, as a party, instead of
+being the sword of the Republic, purposes being the shield of the
+Rebellion. Such is the intention of its leaders, who control the
+disciplined masses, if their words have any meaning; and, so far as they
+have been able to act, their actions correspond strictly with their
+words. The Chicago Convention, which consisted of the _creme de la
+creme_ of the Democracy, had not a word to say against either the Rebels
+or the Rebellion, while it had not words enough, or words not strong
+enough, to employ in denouncing those whose sole offence consists in
+their efforts to conquer the Rebels and to put down the Rebellion. With
+a perversion of history that is quite without a parallel even in the
+hardy falsehood of American politics, the responsibility for the war was
+placed to the account of the loyal men of the country, and not to the
+account of the traitors, who brought it upon the nation by a fierce
+forcing-process. The speech of Mr. Horatio Seymour, who presided over
+the Belmont band, is, as it were, a bill of indictment preferred against
+the American Republic; for Governor Seymour, though not famous for his
+courage, has boldness sufficient to do that which a far greater man said
+he would not do,--he has indicted a whole people. It follows from this
+condemnation of the Federal Government for making war on the Rebels, and
+this failure to condemn the Rebels for making war on the Federal
+Government, that the Democrats, should they succeed in electing their
+candidates, would pursue a course exactly the opposite of that which
+they denounce. They would withdraw the nation from the contest, and
+acknowledge the independence of the Southern Confederacy; and then they
+would make such a treaty with its leading and dominant interest as
+should place the United States in the condition of dependency with
+reference to the South. That such would be their course is not only
+fairly inferrible from the views embodied in the Chicago Platform, and
+from the speeches made in the Chicago Convention, but it is what Mr.
+Pendleton, the Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency, has said it
+is our duty to do so, so far as relates to acknowledging the
+Confederacy. He has deliberately said, that, if we cannot "conciliate"
+the Rebels, and "persuade" them to come back into the Union, we should
+allow them to depart in peace. Such is the doctrine of the gentleman who
+was placed on the Democratic ticket with General McClellan for the
+avowed purpose of rendering that ticket palatable to the Peace men. No
+man can vote for General McClellan without by the same act voting for
+Mr. Pendleton; and we know that Mr. Pendleton has declared himself ready
+to let the Rebels rend the Union to tatters, and that he has opposed the
+prosecution of the war. General McClellan is mortal, and, if elected,
+might die long before his Presidential term should be out, like General
+Taylor, or immediately after it should begin, like General Harrison.
+Then Mr. Pendleton would become President, like Mr. Tyler, in 1841, who
+cheated the Whigs, or like Mr. Fillmore, in 1850, who cheated everybody.
+Nor is it by any means certain that General McClellan would not, once
+elected, consider himself the Chicago Platform, as Mr. Buchanan avowed
+himself to be the Cincinnati Platform. He has written a letter, to be
+sure, in which he has given it to be understood that he is in favor of
+continuing the war against the Rebels until they shall be subdued; but
+so did Mr. Polk, twenty yearn ago, write a letter on the Tariff of 1842
+that was even more satisfactory to the Democratic Protectionists of
+those days than the letter of General McClellan can be to the War
+Democrats of these days. All of us recollect the famous Democratic
+blazon of 1844,--"Polk, Dallas, and the Tariff of '42!" It was under
+that sign that the Democrats conquered in Pennsylvania; and had they not
+conquered in Pennsylvania, they themselves would have been conquered in
+the nation. Mr. Polk and Mr. Dallas were the chief instruments used to
+break down the Tariff of '42, in less than two years after they had been
+elected to the first and second offices of the nation because they were
+believed to be its most ardent friends. Mr. Polk, as President,
+recommended that it should be changed, and employed all the influence of
+his high station to get the Tariff Bill of 1846 through Congress; and
+Mr. Dallas, who had been nominated for the Vice-Presidency with the
+express purpose of "catching" the votes of Protectionists, gave his
+casting vote in the Senate in favor of the new bill, which meant the
+repeal of the Tariff of '42. The Democrats are playing the same game now
+that they played in 1844, with this difference, that the stakes are ten
+thousand times greater now than they were then, and that their manner of
+play is far hardier than it was twenty years since. Then, the question,
+though important, related only to a point of internal policy; now, it
+relates to the national existence. Then, the Free-Traders did not
+offensively proclaim their intention to cheat the Protectionists; now,
+Mr. Fernando Wood and Mr. Vallandigham, and other leaders of the extreme
+left of the Democratic party, with insulting candor, avow that to cheat
+the country is the purpose which that party has in view. Mr.
+Vallandigham, who made the Chicago Platform, explicitly declares that
+that Platform and General McClellan's letter of acceptance do not agree;
+at the same time Mr. Wood, who is for peace to the knife, calmly tells
+us that General McClellan, as President, would do the work of the
+Democracy,--and we need no Daniel to interpret Mr. Wood's words. We mean
+no disrespect to General McClellan, on the contrary we treat him with
+perfect respect, when we say that we do not believe he has a higher
+sense of honor than Mr. Polk possessed; and as Mr. Polk became a tool in
+the hands of a faction,--being a Protectionist during the contest of
+'44, and an Anti-Protectionist after that contest had been decided in
+his favor,--so is it intended that General McClellan shall become a tool
+in the hands of another faction. Mr. Polk was employed to effect the
+destruction of a "black tariff": General McClellan is employed to
+destroy a nation that is supposed to be given up to "black
+republicanism." We do not believe that the soldier will be found so
+successful an instrument as the civilian proved to be.
+
+An ounce of fact is supposed to be worth a ton of theory; and the facts
+of the last four or five years admit of our believing the worst that can
+be suspected of the purposes of the Democratic party. It is not
+uncharitable to say that the leaders and managers of that party
+contemplate, in the event of their triumph in November, the surrender of
+the country to the slaveholding oligarchy; in the event of their defeat
+by a small majority, the extension of the civil war over the North. Four
+years ago we could not be made to believe that Secession was a possible
+thing. We admitted that there were Secessionists at the South, but we
+could not be made to believe in the possibility of Secession. Even
+"South Carolina couldn't be kicked out of the Union," it was commonly
+said in the North. There were but few disunionists at the South, almost
+everybody said, and almost everybody believed what was said concerning
+the state of Southern opinion. In a few weeks we saw, not South Carolina
+kicked out of the Union, but South Carolina kicking the Union away from
+her. In a few months we saw eleven States take themselves out of the
+Union, form themselves into a Confederacy, and raise great armies to
+fight against the Union. Yet it is certain that in the month of
+November, 1860, there were not twenty thousand resolute disunionists in
+all the Slaveholding States, leaving South Carolina and Mississippi
+aside,--and not above fifty thousand in all the South, including
+Mississippi and South Carolina. How, then, came it to pass that nearly
+the whole of the population of the South became Rebels in so short a
+time? Because they were under the dominion of their leading men, who
+took them from the right road, and conducted them into the slough of
+rebellion. Because they were encouraged so to act by the Northern
+Democracy as made rebellion inevitable. The Northern Democratic press
+and Northern Democratic orators held such language respecting "Southern
+rights" as induced even loyal Southrons to suppose that Slavery was to
+be openly recognized by the Constitution, and spread over the nation.
+The President of the United States, a Northern Democrat, gravely
+declared that there existed no right in the Government to coerce a
+seceding State, which was all that the most determined Secessionist
+could ask. Instead of doing anything to strengthen the position of the
+federal Government, the President did all that he could to assist the
+Secessionists, and left the country naked to their attacks; and he
+parted on the best of terms with those Rebels who left his Cabinet,
+where they had long been busy in organizing resistance to Federal
+authority. The leaders of the Northern Democracy, far from exhibiting a
+loyal spirit, urged the slaveholders to make demands which were at war
+with the Constitution and the laws, and which could not have been
+complied with, unless it had been meant to admit that there was no
+binding force in existing institutions, the validity of which had not
+once been called in question for seventy-two years. The real
+Secessionists of the South, Rhett and Yancey and their followers,
+availed themselves of the existing state of affairs, and precipitated
+rebellion,--a step which they never would have taken, had they not been
+assured that no resistance would be made to their action so long as Mr.
+Buchanan should remain in the Presidency, and that he would be supported
+by the leaders of the Northern Democracy, who would take their followers
+with them along the road that led to the Union's dissolution. South
+Carolina, rabid as she was, did not rebel until the last Democratic
+President of the United States had publicly assured her that he would do
+nothing to prevent her from reducing the Calhoun theory to practice; and
+had she not rebelled, not another State would have left the Union. The
+opportunity that she could not get under President Jackson she obtained
+under President Buchanan,--and she did not hesitate to make the most of
+that opportunity, all indeed that could be made of it, well knowing that
+it could not be expected again to occur.
+
+With these facts before them, the American people should be prepared for
+further rebellious action on the part of that faction whose creed it is
+that rebellion is right when directed against the ascendency of their
+political opponents. They have done their utmost to assist the Rebels
+all through the war, and the great riots in New York last year were the
+legitimate consequences of their doctrine, if not of their labors. We
+know that organizations hostile to the Union have been formed in the
+West, and that there was to have been a rising there, had any striking
+successes been achieved by the Confederate forces during the last six
+months. Nothing but the vigor and the victories of Grant and Sherman and
+Farragut saved the North from becoming the scene of civil war in 1864.
+Nothing but the vigor and union of the people in their political
+capacity can keep civil war from the North hereafter. The followers of
+the Seymours and other ultra Democrats of the North are not more loyal
+than were nine-tenths of the Southern people in 1860. Few of them now
+think of becoming rebels, but they would as readily rebel as did the
+Southern men who have filled the armies of Lee and Beauregard, and who
+have poured out their blood so lavishly to destroy that nation which
+owes its existence to the labors of Southern men, to the exertions of
+Washington, Jefferson, Henry, and others, natives of the very States
+that have done most in the cause of destruction. The sentiment of
+nationality is no stronger among Northern Democrats than it was among
+Southern Democrats; and as the latter were converted into traitors at
+the bidding of a few leading politicians whose plans were favored by
+circumstances, so would the former become traitors at the first signal
+to any move that _their_ leaders should make. As to the two classes of
+leaders, the Southern men are far superior in every manly quality to
+those Northern men who are doing their work. It is possible that the men
+of the South really did believe that their property was in danger, and
+it is beyond dispute that they were alarmed about their political power;
+but the men of the North who sympathize with them, and who are prepared
+to aid them at the first opportunity that shall offer to strike an
+effective blow, well knew that the victorious Republicans had neither
+the will nor the power to injure Southern property or to weaken the
+protection it enjoyed under the Constitution. Their hostility to the
+Union is purely gratuitous, or springs from motives of the most sordid
+character.
+
+There is but one way to meet the danger that threatens us,--a danger
+that really is greater than that with which we were threatened in 1860,
+and which we have the advantage of seeing, whereas we could see nothing
+in that year. We must strengthen the Government, make it literally
+irresistible, by clothing it with the whole of that power which proceeds
+from an emphatic and unmistakable expression of the popular will. Give
+Mr. Lincoln, in the approaching election, the strength that comes from a
+united people, and we shall have peace maintained throughout the North,
+and peace restored to the South. Reelect him by a small majority, and
+there will be civil war in the North, and a revival of warlike spirit in
+the South. Elect General McClellan, and we shall have to choose between
+constant warfare, as a consequence of having approved of Secession by
+approving of the Chicago Platform,--which is Secession formally
+democratized,--and despotism, the only thing that would save us from
+anarchy. Anarchy is the one thing that men will not, because they
+cannot, long endure. Order is indeed now and forever Heaven's first law,
+and order society must and will have. Order is just as compatible with
+constitutional government as it is with despotic government; but to have
+it in connection with freedom, in other words, with the existence of a
+constitutional polity, the people must do their whole duty. They must
+rise above the prejudices of party and of faction, and see nothing but
+their country and liberty. They must show that they are worthy of
+freedom, or they cannot long have it. Now is the time to prove that the
+American people know the difference between liberty and license, by
+their support of the party of order and constitutional government, and
+by administering a thorough rebuke to those licentious men who are
+seeking to overwhelm the country and its Constitution in a common ruin.
+
+Of President Lincoln's reelection no doubt can be entertained, whether
+we judge of the issue by the condition of the country, or by the
+sentiments that should animate the great majority of the people, and by
+which, we are convinced, that majority is animated. The Union candidate,
+no matter what his name or antecedents, should be elected by a majority
+so great as to "coerce" the turbulent portion of the Democracy into
+submission to the laws of the land, and into respect for the popular
+will, the last thing for which Democrats have any respect. Had the Union
+National Convention seen fit to place a new man in nomination, it would
+have been the duty of the voters to support him with all the means
+honestly at their command; but we must say that there is a peculiar
+obligation upon Americans to reelect Mr. Lincoln, and to reelect him by
+a vote that should surprise even the most sanguine and hopeful of his
+friends. The war from which the nation, and the whole world, have been
+made to suffer so much, and from the effects of which mankind will be
+long in recovering, was made because of Mr. Lincoln's election to the
+Presidency. The North was to be punished for having had the audacity to
+elect him even when the Democracy were divided, and the success of the
+Republican candidate was a thing of course. He, a mere man of the
+people, should never become _President of the United States_! The most
+good-natured of men, it is known that his success made him an object of
+personal aversion to the Southern leaders. They did their worst to
+prevent his becoming President of the Republic, and in that way they
+wronged and insulted the people far more than they wronged and insulted
+the man whom the people had elected to the highest post in the land; and
+the people are bound, by way of vindicating their dignity and
+establishing their power, to make Mr. Lincoln President of the _United_
+States, to compel the acknowledgment of his legal right to be the chief
+magistrate of the nation as unreservedly, from South Carolina as from
+Massachusetts. His authority should be admitted as fully in Virginia as
+it is in New York, in Georgia and Alabama as in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
+This can follow only from his reelection; and it can follow only from
+his reelection by a decisive majority. That insolent spirit which led
+the South to become so easy a prey to the Secession faction, when not a
+tenth part of its people were Secessionists, should be thoroughly,
+emphatically rebuked, and its chief representatives severely punished,
+by extorting from the rebellious section a practical admission of the
+enormity of the crime of which it was guilty when it resisted the lawful
+authority of a President who was chosen in strict accordance with the
+requirements of the Constitution, and who entertained no more intention
+of interfering with the constitutional rights of the South than he
+thought of instituting a crusade for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.
+The majesty of the law should be asserted and established, and that can
+best be done by placing President Lincoln a second time at the head of
+the Republic, the revolt of the slaveholders being directed against him
+personally as well as against that principle of which he was the legally
+elected representative. In him the spirit of order is incarnate; and his
+reelection by a great popular vote would be the establishment of the
+fact that under our system it is possible to maintain order, and to
+humiliate and subdue the children of anarchy.
+
+President Lincoln should be reelected, if for no other reason, that
+there may go forth to the world a pointed approval of his conduct from
+his constituents. As we have said, we do not claim perfection for the
+policy and acts of the Administration; but we are of opinion that its
+mistakes have been no greater than in most instances would have been
+committed by any body of men that could have been selected from the
+entire population of the country. Take the policy that has been pursued
+with reference to Slavery. Many of us thought that the President issued
+his Emancipation Proclamation at least a year too late; but we must now
+see that the time selected for its promulgation was as skilfully chosen
+as its aim was laudable. Had it come out a year earlier, in 1861, the
+friends of the Rebels could have said, with much plausibility, that its
+appearance had rendered a restoration of the Union impossible, and that
+the slaveholders had no longer any hope of having their property-rights
+respected under the Federal Constitution. But by allowing seventeen
+months to elapse before issuing it, the President compelled the Rebels
+to commit themselves absolutely to the cause of the Union's overthrow
+without reference to any attack that had been made on Slavery in a time
+of war. It has not, therefore, been in the power of their allies here to
+say that the issuing of the Proclamation placed an impassable gulf
+between the Union and the Confederacy; for the Confederates were as loud
+in their declarations that they never would return into the Union before
+the Proclamation appeared as they have been since its appearance. They
+were caught completely, and deprived of the only pretence that could
+have been invented for their benefit, by themselves or by their friends.
+The adoption of an Emancipation policy did not cause us the loss of one
+friend in the South, while it gained friends for our cause in every
+country that felt an interest in our struggle. It prevented the
+acknowledgment of the Southern Confederacy by France, and by other
+nations, as French example would have found prompt imitation. Its
+appearance was the turning event of the war, and it was most happily
+timed for both foreign and domestic effect. It will be the noblest fact
+in President Lincoln's history, that by the same action he announced
+freedom to four millions of bondmen, and secured his country against
+even the possibility of foreign mediation, foreign intervention, and
+foreign war.
+
+The political state of the country, as indicated by the result of recent
+elections, is not without interest, in connection with the Presidential
+contest. Since the nomination of General McClellan, elections have been
+held in several States for local officers and Members of Congress, and
+the results are highly favorable to the Union cause. The first election
+was held in Vermont, and the Union party reelected their candidate for
+Governor, and all their candidates for Members of Congress, by a
+majority of more than twenty thousand. They have also a great majority
+in the Legislature, the Democrats not choosing so much as one Senator,
+and but few Members of the House of Representatives. The election in
+Maine took place but six days after that of Vermont, and with similar
+results. The Union candidate for Governor was reelected, by a majority
+that is stated at sixteen thousand. Every Congressional District was
+carried by the Union men. In one district a Democrat was elected in
+1862, at the time when the Administration was very unpopular because of
+the military failures that were so common in the summer of that dark and
+eventful year. His majority was one hundred and twenty-seven. At the
+late election his constituents refused to reelect him, and his place was
+bestowed on a friend of the Administration, whose majority is said to be
+about two thousand. The majorities of the other candidates were much
+larger, in two instances exceeding four thousand each. The State
+Legislature elected on the same day is of Administration politics in the
+proportion of five to one. These two States may be said to represent
+both of the old parties that existed in New England during the thirty
+years that followed the Presidential election of 1824. Vermont was of
+National-Republican or Whig politics down to 1854, and always voted
+against Democratic candidates for the Presidency. Maine was almost as
+strongly Democratic in her opinions and action as Vermont was
+Anti-Democratic, voting but once, in 1840, against a Democratic
+candidate for the Presidency, in twenty-four years. Her electoral votes
+were given for General Jackson in 1832, for Mr. Van Buren in 1836, for
+Mr. Polk in 1844, for General Cass in 1848, and for General Pierce in
+1852. Yet she has acted politically with Vermont for more than ten
+years, both States supporting Colonel Fremont in 1856, and Mr. Lincoln
+in 1860,--a striking proof of the levelling effect of that pro-slavery
+policy and action which have characterized the Democratic party ever
+since the inauguration of President Pierce, in 1853. Had the Democratic
+party not gone over to the support of the slaveholding interest, Maine
+would have been a Democratic State at this day.
+
+There were important elections held on the 11th of October in the great
+and influential States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, and the
+verdicts which should be pronounced by these States were expected with
+an interest which it was impossible to increase, as it was felt that
+they would go far toward deciding the event of the Presidential contest.
+Vermont's action might be attributed to her determined and
+long-continued opposition to the Democratic party, which no change in
+others could operate to lessen; and the course of Maine could be
+attributed to her "Yankee" character and position: but Pennsylvania has
+generally been Democratic in her decisions, and she has nothing of the
+Yankee about her, while Ohio and Indiana are thoroughly Western in all
+respects. Down to a few days before the time for voting, the common
+opinion was, that Pennsylvania would give a respectable majority for the
+Union candidates, that Ohio would pronounce the same way by a great
+majority, and that Indiana would be found with the Democrats; but early
+in October doubts began to prevail with respect to the action of
+Pennsylvania, though no one could say why they came to exist. What
+happened showed that the change in feeling did not unfaithfully
+foreshadow the change that had taken place in the second State of the
+Union. Ohio's decision was not different from what had been expected,
+her Union majority being not less than fifty thousand, including the
+soldiers' vote. Indiana's action astonished every one. Instead of
+furnishing evidence that General McClellan's nomination had been
+beneficial to his party, the event in the Hoosier State led to the
+opposite conclusion. The Democratic majority in that State in 1862 was
+ten thousand, and that it could be overcome, or materially reduced, was
+not thought possible. Yet the voting done there on the 11th of October
+terminated most disastrously for the Democrats, the popular majority
+against them being not less than twenty thousand, while they lost
+several Members of Congress, among them Mr. Voorhees, who is to Indiana
+what Mr. Vallandigham is to Ohio, only that he has a little more
+prudence than the Ohioan. Indiana was the only one of the States in
+which a Governor was chosen, which made the returns easy of attainment.
+Governor Morton, who is reelected, "stumped" the State; and to his
+exertions, no doubt, much of the Union success is due. In Pennsylvania,
+at the time we write, it is not settled which party has the majority on
+the home vote; but, as the soldiers vote in the proportion of about
+eleven to two for the Republican candidates, the majority of the latter
+will be good,--and it will be increased at the November election.
+
+The States that voted on the 11th of October give sixty electoral votes,
+or two more than half the number necessary for a choice of President.
+They are all certain to be given for Mr. Lincoln, as also are the votes
+of the six New England States, and those of New York, Illinois,
+Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, West Virginia, and
+California, making 189 in all, the States mentioned being entitled to
+the following votes:--Massachusetts 12, Maine 7, New Hampshire 5,
+Vermont 5, Rhode Island 4, Connecticut 6, New York 33, Pennsylvania 26,
+Ohio 21, Indiana 13, Illinois 16, Michigan 8, Minnesota 4, Wisconsin 8,
+Iowa 8, Kansas 3, West Virginia 5, and California 5. And so ABRAHAM
+LINCOLN and ANDREW JOHNSON will be President and Vice-President of the
+United States for the four years that shall begin on the 4th of March,
+1865.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+     _An American Dictionary of the English Language._ By NOAH
+     WEBSTER, LL.D. Thoroughly revised, and greatly enlarged and
+     improved, by CHAUNCEY A. GOODRICH, LL.D., etc., and NOAH
+     PORTER, D.D., etc. Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam. Royal
+     4to. pp. lxxii., 1768.
+
+Beyond cavil, this portly and handsome volume makes good the claim which
+is set forth on the title-page. The revision which the old edition has
+undergone is manifestly a most thorough one, extending to every
+department of the work, and to its minutest details. The enlargement it
+has received is very considerable, the size of the page having been
+increased, and more than eighty pages added to the number contained in
+the previous or "Pictorial" edition. The improvements are not only
+really such, but they are so many and so great that they amount to a
+complete remodelling of the work; and hence the objections heretofore
+brought against it--many of them very justly--have, for the most part,
+no longer any validity or pertinency. It may be questioned, however,
+whether the Dictionary, in view of the manifold and extensive changes
+which have been made in its matter and plan, should not be said to have
+been _based_ on that of Dr. Webster rather than to be _by_ him. St.
+Anthony's shirt cannot be patched and patched forever and still remain
+St. Anthony's shirt. But there is doubtless much virtue in a name, and,
+so long as the publishers have given us a truly excellent work, it
+matters little by what title they choose to call it.
+
+We are amazed at the vastness of the vocabulary, which embraces upwards
+of one hundred and fourteen thousand words, being some ten thousand
+more, it is claimed, than any other word-book of the language. Such
+unexampled fulness would be apt to excite a suspicion that a
+deliberately adopted system of crimping had been carried on within the
+tempting domains of the natural sciences, to furnish recruits for this
+enormous army of vocables. But we do not find, upon a pretty careful
+examination, that many terms of this sort have been admitted which are
+not fairly entitled to a place in a popular lexicon.
+
+In the matter of definition, we can unqualifiedly commend the principles
+by which the editor and his coadjutors appear to have been guided,
+notwithstanding an occasional failure to carry out these principles with
+entire consistency. The crying fault of mistaking different applications
+of a meaning of a word for essentially different significations--the
+head and front of Dr. Webster's offending as a definer, and not of Dr.
+Webster only, but of almost all other lexicographers--has generally been
+avoided in this edition. The philosophical analysis, the orderly
+arrangement of meanings, the simplicity, comprehensiveness, and
+precision of statement, the freedom from prejudice, crotchets, and
+dogmatism, the good taste and good sense, which characterize this
+portion of the work, are deserving of the fullest recognition and the
+highest praise.
+
+In the department of etymology, the revision has been thorough indeed,
+and, as all the world knows, the Dictionary stood sadly enough in need
+of it. But we were not prepared for so entire and fearless an
+overhauling of Dr. Webster's "Old Curiosity Shop," or for a contribution
+to philological science so valuable and original. It is not too much to
+say that no other English dictionary, and no special treatise on English
+etymology, that has yet appeared, can compare with it. As a fitting
+introduction to the subject, a "Brief History of the English Language,"
+by Professor James Hadley, is prefixed to the vocabulary, and will well
+repay careful study.
+
+No excellences, however, we apprehend, in definition or etymology will
+reconcile scholars to those peculiarities of spelling which are commonly
+known as Websterianisms, and which, with a few exceptions, are retained
+in the edition before us. The pages of this magazine are evidence that
+we ourselves regard them with no favor. But we are bound, in common
+honesty, to state, that, in every case in which Dr. Webster's
+orthography is given, it is accompanied by the common spelling, and
+thus the user of the book is left at liberty to take his choice of
+modes. We are also bound, in common fairness, to admit that many, if not
+all, of the quite limited number of changes put forward in the later
+editions of the Dictionary are, in themselves considered, unquestionable
+improvements, and that, if adopted by the whole English-writing public
+on both sides of the water, or even in this country alone, would redeem
+our common language from some of the gross anomalies and grievous
+confusion which now make it a monster among the graphic systems of the
+world, and a stumbling-block and stone of offence to all who undertake
+to learn it. Furthermore, it must be conceded that almost all our
+lexicographers have been nearly or quite as ready as Dr. Webster to
+attempt improvements in orthography, though they may have shown more
+discretion than he. It is not generally known, we suspect, but it is
+none the less a fact, that Johnson, Todd, Perry, Smart, Worcester, and
+various other eminent orthographers, have all deviated more or less from
+actual usage, in order to carry out some "principle" or "analogy" of the
+language, or to give sanction and authority to some individual fancy of
+their own. So much may be said in defence of Dr. Webster against the
+ignorant vituperation with which he has often been assailed. But, on the
+other hand, he is fairly open to the charge of having violated his own
+canons in repeated instances. To take a single case, why should he not
+have spelt _until_ with two _l_s, instead of one,--as he does "distill,"
+"fulfill," etc.,--when it was so desirable to complete an analogy, and
+when he had for it the warrant of a very common, if not the most
+reputable, usage? Again, it seems to us, that, if our orthography is to
+be reformed at all, it should be reformed not indifferently, but
+altogether; for it is, beyond controversy, atrociously bad, poorly
+fulfilling, as Professor Hadley justly remarks, (p. xxviii.,) its
+original and proper office of indicating pronunciation, while it no
+better fufils the improper office, which some would assert for it, of a
+guide to etymology. Emendations on the here-a-little-there-a-little
+plan, while they do no harm, do little good. They are but topical
+remedies, which cannot restore the pristine vigor of a ruined
+constitution. What we need is a reform as thorough-going as that which
+has been effected in the Spanish language. Shall we ever have it? or
+will the irrational conservatism of the educated classes, in all time to
+come, prevent a consummation so desirable, and so desiderated by the
+philologist? Max Mueller thinks that perhaps our posterity, some three
+hundred years hence, may write as they speak,--in other words, that our
+orthography will by that time have become a phonetic one. It is not safe
+to prophesy; but, whether such a result comes soon or late, the credit
+of having accomplished it will not be due to those "half-learned and
+parcel-learned" persons who consider the present written form of the
+language as a thing "taboo," and look with such horror upon all attempts
+to better its condition.
+
+As regards pronunciation, we think this will be generally considered one
+of the strong points of the new Dictionary. The introductory treatise on
+the "Principles of Pronunciation" is a comprehensive, instructive, and
+eminently practical, though not very philosophically constructed,
+exposition of the subject of English orthoepy. It contains an analysis
+and description of the elementary sounds of the language, a discussion
+of certain questions about which orthoepists are at variance, and a
+useful collection of facts, rules, and directions respecting a variety
+of other matters falling within its scope. As a sort of pendant to this,
+we have a "Synopsis of Words differently pronounced by Different
+Orthoepists," which those who regulate their pronunciation by written
+authorities or opinions may find it useful to consult. The
+pronunciations given in the body of the work appear to be conformed to
+the usage of the best speakers. We notice with gratification that such
+vulgarisms as ab'do-men, pus'sl (for pust'ule!), s_w_ord (for sord),
+etc., no longer continue to deface the book.
+
+A large number of wood-cuts, mostly selected with good judgment and
+skilfully engraved, adorn the pages, and throw light upon the
+definitions. Besides being inserted in the vocabulary in connection with
+the words they illustrate, they are brought together, in a classified
+form, at the end of the volume. This is claimed as an "obvious
+advantage."
+
+We have left ourselves but little space to notice the very rich and
+attractive Appendix, the first fifty pages of which are taken up with
+an "Explanatory and Pronouncing Vocabulary of the Names of Noted
+Fictitious Persons and Places," etc., by William A. Wheeler. The
+conception of such a work was singularly happy, as well as original,
+and, on the whole, the task has been executed with commendable fidelity
+and discretion. That occasional omissions and mistakes should be
+discovered will probably surprise no one less than the author. Attention
+has elsewhere been publicly called, in particular, to the fact that Owen
+Meredith is given as the pseudonyme of Sir Bulwer Lytton instead of his
+son, E. R. Bulwer: this would seem to be a bad blunder, but we
+understand that it was a mere error of oversight, and that it was
+corrected before the Dictionary was fairly in the market. If other
+mistakes should be brought to light,--and what work of such multiplicity
+was ever free from them?--Mr. Wheeler will doubtless call to mind,
+and his readers must not forget, the eloquent excuse which Dr.
+Johnson offers, in the preface to his Dictionary, for his own
+shortcomings:--"That sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise
+vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses
+of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in
+vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he
+knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his
+thoughts to-morrow." The "Pronouncing Vocabularies of Modern
+Geographical and Biographical Names, by J. Thomas, M. D.," are evidently
+the product of laborious and conscientious research; and, while we
+differ widely from Dr. Thomas on various points, general and particular,
+we must allow that his vocabularies are as yet the only ones of the kind
+which approximate with any nearness to the character of an authoritative
+standard. The other Vocabularies or "Tables" of the Appendix seem also
+to have been prepared with sound judgment and much painstaking, but we
+cannot dwell upon them.
+
+To sum up, in all the essential points of a good dictionary,--in the
+amplitude and selectness of its vocabulary, in the fulness and
+perspicacity of its definitions, in its orthoepy and (_cum grano salis_)
+its orthography, in its new and trustworthy etymologies, in the
+elaborate, but not too learned treatises of its Introduction, in its
+carefully prepared and valuable appendices,--briefly, in its general
+accuracy, completeness, and practical utility,--the work is one which
+none who read or write can henceforward afford to dispense with.
+
+Mindful of the old adage, we have instituted no comparison between
+Webster and Worcester. If the latter, excellent as it is, should now be
+found in some respects inferior to the former, it is to be remembered
+that the present edition of Webster has the great advantage of being
+four or five years later in point of time, and that it has been enriched
+by the use of materials which were not accessible to Worcester. We are
+glad to see a handsome tribute to the learning and industry of Dr.
+Worcester, and an honest acknowledgment of indebtedness to his labors,
+in Professor Porter's Preface. This is as it should be; and we hope that
+the publishers, on both sides, acting in the same spirit, will forego
+all unfriendly controversy. Let there be no new War of the Dictionaries.
+The world is wide enough for both, and both are monuments of industry,
+judgment, and erudition, in the highest degree creditable to American
+scholarship, and unequalled by anything that has yet been done by
+English philologists of the present century.
+
+
+     _Dramatis Personae._ By ROBERT BROWNING. Boston: Ticknor and
+     Fields.
+
+The title of this new volume of poems expresses the peculiarity which we
+find in everything that Mr. Browning composes. Notwithstanding the
+remoteness of his moods, and the curious subtilty with which he follows
+the trace of exceptional feelings, he impersonates dramatically: there
+may be few such people as these choice acquaintances of his genius, but
+they are persons, and not mere figures labelled with a thought. Pippa,
+Guendolen, Luria, the Duchess, Bishop Blougram, Fra Lippo Lippi, are
+persons, however much they may be given to episodes and reverie. You
+find a great deal that is irrelevant to the thorough working-out of a
+character, much that is not simply individual: Mr. Browning gets
+sometimes in the way, so that you lose sight of his companion, but it
+is not as Punch's master overzealously pulls the wires of his puppets.
+You would not say that a man can find many such companions, but you
+cannot deny that they are vividly described. Perhaps they appear in only
+one or two moods, but these have individual life. They are discovered in
+rare exalted or peculiar moments, but these are in costume and bathed in
+color. Shutting and opening many doors, balked at one vestibule and
+traversing another, suddenly you surprise the lord or mistress of the
+mansion, or from some threshold you silently observe their secret
+passion, which is unconscious of the daylight, and is caught in all its
+frankness. You come upon people, and not upon pictures in a house.
+
+But the pictures, too, in all Mr. Browning's interiors, seem to have
+grown out of the life of the persons. He has not merely come in and hung
+them up, as poor artist or upholsterer, to make a sumptuous house for
+fine people to move into. The character in any one of his poems seems to
+have devised the furnishing: it is distinct, exterior, not always
+helping or expressing the character's thought, sometimes to be referred
+to that only with an effort, but still no other character could have so
+furnished his house. You can find the individuality everywhere, if you
+care to take the trouble. But if you are in haste, or do not
+particularly sympathize with the person whose drama you surprise, you
+and he will be together like vagrants in a gallery, who long for a
+catalogue, dislocate their necks, and anathematize the whole collection.
+But do not then say that you have gauged and criticized the life that
+streams from Mr. Browning's pen.
+
+How vivid and personal is, for instance, "Pictor Ignotus," one of the
+earlier poems! The painter is no longer unknown, for his mood betrays
+and describes him. It is not merely his speaking in the first person
+which saves him from melting into an abstraction, but it is that the "I"
+takes flesh and lives; the poet dramatizes or _shows_ him.
+
+Of this class of poems is the one entitled "Abt Vogler" in the present
+volume. The Abbot was a famous musician and organist, the teacher of
+Meyerbeer. Concerning the new kind of organ which he invented, and which
+he called an "Orchestricon," we know nothing, save that its effects were
+merely amplifications of those belonging to an organ. The poem describes
+the awe and rapture which fill the soul of a great organist when the
+instrument shudders, soars, rejoices in his inspiration. It is not the
+description of a musical mood, but the showing of a man who has the
+mood. It is the exultation and religious feeling of a man in the very
+act. The noble lines are not fine things attempting to set forth the
+metaphysics of musical expression and enjoyment, but they represent a
+man at the very climax of his musical passion. Is the effect any the
+less dramatic because the man is not committing a murder, or conspiring,
+or seducing, or overreaching, or infecting an honest ear with jealousy?
+It is not so theatrical, because the emotion itself is not so broad and
+popular, but its inmost genius is dramatic.
+
+"A Death in the Desert" is another poem that attempts to restore a
+fleeting moment, full of profound thought and feeling, by giving it
+individuals, and showing them living in it, instead of meditating about
+it with fine after-thoughts. Pamphylax describes the death of St. John
+in a desert cave. At first the individuals are clearly seen; but the
+poem soon lapses into philosophizing, and winds up with theology. Still,
+here is the power of reproducing the tone and sentiments of a
+long-buried and forgotten epoch, as if the matters involved had
+immediate interest and were vigorously mauled in all the newspapers. St.
+John might have died last week, or we might be Syrian converts of the
+second century, dissolved in tenderness at the thought that the Beloved
+Disciple at last had gone to lay his head again upon the Master's bosom.
+The poem talks as if it were trying to satisfy this mixture of memory
+and curiosity.
+
+Some of the best lines ever written by Mr. Browning are here. Take
+these, for instance. Pamphylax, reporting John's last words, as the
+hoary life flickered and clung, gives this:--
+
+        "A stick, once fire from end to end;
+    Now ashes, save the tip that holds a spark!
+    Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, spreads itself
+    A little where the fire was: thus I urge
+    The soul that served me, till it task once more
+    What ashes of my brain have kept their shape,
+    And these make effort on the last o' the flesh,
+    Trying to taste again the truth of things."
+
+And after recalling the inspirations of Patmos:--
+
+    "But at the last, why, I seemed left alive
+    Like a sea-jelly weak on Patmos strand,
+    To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I fared
+    When there was mid-sea, and the mighty things.
+
+       *    *    *
+
+    Yet now I wake in such decrepitude
+    As I had slidden down and fallen afar,
+    Past even the presence of my former self,
+    Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap,
+    Till I am found away from my own world,
+    Feeling for foothold through a blank profound."
+
+The poem entitled "Caliban upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology in the
+Island," has for a motto, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an
+one as thyself." Caliban talks to himself about "that other, whom his
+dam called God." Setebos is the great First Cause as conceived and
+dreaded in the heart of a Caliban. The poem is by no means a caricature
+of the natural theology which springs from selfishness and fear. All the
+phenomena of the world are neither
+
+            "right nor wrong in Him,
+    Nor kind nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.
+    'Am strong myself, compared to yonder crabs
+    That march now from the mountain to the sea;
+    Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
+    Loving not, hating not, just choosing so."
+
+The materialist who believes in Forces is brother to the Calvinist who
+preaches Sovereignty and the Divine Decrees. The preacher lets loose
+upon the imagination of mankind a Setebos, who after death will plague
+his enemies and feast his friends. The materialist believes, with
+Caliban, that
+
+          "He doth his worst in this our life,
+    Giving just respite lest we die through pain,
+    Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end."
+
+The grave irony of this poem so bespatters the theologian's God with his
+own mud that we dread the image and recoil. From the unsparing vigor of
+these lines we turn for relief to "Rabbi Ben Ezra" and "Prospice." In
+both of these we have glimpses of Mr. Browning's true theology, which is
+the faith of his whole soul in the excellence of that world whose beauty
+he interprets, of the human nature whose capacity he does so much to
+"keep in repute," and of the Infinite Love.
+
+        "Praise be Thine!
+    I see the whole design,
+    I, who saw Power, shall see Love perfect too:
+    Perfect I call thy plan:
+    Thanks that I was a man!
+    Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what Thou shalt do!"
+
+We find in this new volume more distinct and tranquil expressions of Mr.
+Browning's thought upon the relation of the finite to the infinite than
+he has given us before. And his pen has turned with freedom and
+satisfaction towards these things, as if the imagination had broken new
+outlets for itself through the world's beautiful horizon into the great
+sea. How "like one entire and perfect chrysolite" is the little piece
+called "Prospice"! But we are all the more surprised to see occasionally
+a touch of the genuine British denseness, whenever he recollects that
+there are such people as Strauss, Bishop Colenso, and the men of the
+"Essays and Reviews" prowling around the preserve where the ill-kept
+Thirty-Nine Articles still find a little short grass to nibble. When we
+read the last three verses of "Gold Hair," we set him down for a
+High-Church bigot: the English discussions upon points of exegesis and
+theology appear to him threatening to prove the Christian faith false,
+but for his part he still sees reasons to suppose it true, and this,
+among others, that it taught Original Sin, the Corruption of Man's
+Heart! We escape from this to "Rabbi Ben Ezra" for reassurance, not
+greatly minding the inconsistency that then appears, but confirmed in an
+old opinion of ours, that John Bull, in this matter of theology, has his
+mumps and scarlatina very late, and they are likely to go hard with a
+constitution that is weaned from the pure truth of things.
+
+"Gold Hair," notwithstanding its picturesque lines, is weak and
+inconclusive. Its moral is conventional, while the incident is too
+far-fetched for sympathy. The series of little poems called "James Lee"
+is full of beauties, but it is too vague to make a firm impression. We
+suppose it tells the story of love that exaggerates a common nature,
+clings to it, and shrivels away. What can be finer than the way in which
+an unsatisfied heart makes the wind the interpreter of its pain and
+dread? This is the sixth poem, "Under the Cliff."
+
+    "Or wouldst thou rather that I understand
+      Thy will to help me?--like the dog I found
+    Once, pacing sad this solitary strand,
+      Who would not take my food, poor hound,
+    But whined and licked my hand."
+
+But in this very poem the figure of the nun is artificial, and
+interrupts the pathetic feeling. And we cannot make anything out of the
+piece, "Beside the Drawing-Board," unless we first detach it from its
+position in the series, and like it alone. On the whole, many fine lines
+are here, but no real person and no poetic impression.
+
+Neither the dramatic nor the lyrical quality appears in this volume as
+it did once in the splendid "Bells and Pomegranates," which gave us such
+vivid shapes, and emotions so consistent and sustained, even though they
+were so often flawed by over-reflection. In this volume the purposes are
+less palpable, and the pen seems to have pursued them with less tenacity
+than usual. It has the air of having been scraped together. Yet how
+charming is "Confessions," and "Youth and Art," and "A Likeness"!
+Besides these, the best pieces are those which touch upon the highest
+themes.
+
+"Mr. Sludge, the Medium," cannot be called a poem. It would not be
+possible to write satire, epic, idyl, not even elegy, upon that
+"rat-hole philosophy," as Mr. Emerson once styled the new fetichism of
+the mahogany tables. It has not one element that asks the sense of
+beauty to incorporate it, or challenges the weapon of wit to transfix
+it. It is humiliating, but not pathetic, not even when yearning hearts
+are trying to pretend that their first-born vibrates to them through a
+stranger's and a hireling's mind. It is not even grotesque, but it is
+gross, and flat, and stale; its messages are fatuous, its machinery the
+rickety heirlooms of old humbugs of Greece and Alexandria. No thrill, no
+terror, no true awe, nothing but "goose-flesh" and disgust, creep from
+the medium's presence. Pegasus need not be saddled; summon, rather, the
+police.
+
+Yet this composition, which Mr. Browning must have undertaken in a
+moment of high indignation, with the motive of self-relief, is full of
+common sense. Mr. Sludge's vindication of his career turns upon the
+point that people like on the whole to be deceived, especially in
+matters relating to the invisible world. Sludge must be right in this;
+otherwise the theologians would not have had such a successful run. The
+facile and eager "circle" betrays the imaginative medium into reporting
+what it appears most to desire. The superstition of the people excites
+and feeds his own. He is only one against a crowd which deluges him with
+its expectation, and resents a scarcity of the supernatural. Mr. Sludge
+is not so much to blame: the people at length push the thing so far that
+he is obliged to cheat in self-defence. And when a man tasks his wits
+successfully, if it be only to mislead the witless, he has a sense of
+satisfaction in the effort akin to that of the rhetorician and the
+quack.
+
+But shrewdness and good sense cannot make a poem by assuming the measure
+of blank verse. And a few Yankee phrases are pasted into Mr. Sludge's
+talk, such as "stiffish cock-tail," "V-notes," "sniggering," allusions
+to "Greeley's newspaper," Beacon Street, etc.: there is no character in
+them at all. Mr. Sludge is a bad Yankee, as well as impudent pleader.
+The lines never sparkle, even with the poet's indignation, but they seem
+to be all the time blown into a forced vivacity and heat. Nemesis
+attends the poet who plunges his arm for a subject into this burrow of
+Spiritualism.
+
+Let us pass from this to note the noble lesson that the last poem,
+entitled "Epilogue," conveys. Three speakers tell in turn their feeling
+of the Divine Presence. The first intones the old Hebrew notion, loved
+by the childhood of all races and countries, that the Lord's Face fills
+His earthly temple at stated periods, culminating with the human glory
+of psalms and hallelujahs, to absorb and shine in the rejoicing of the
+worshippers, to sink back again into the invisible upon the dying
+strain. The second speaker describes the reaction, when the enthusiastic
+belief of early times is replaced by a dull sense that no Face shines,
+by a doubt if beyond the darkness and the distance there be yet a God
+who will answer to the old rapture, a sun to rise when man's heart
+rises, a love corresponding to his ecstasy:--
+
+      "Where may hide what came and loved our clay?
+    How shall the sage detect in yon expanse
+    The star which chose to stoop and stay for us?
+    Unroll the records!"
+
+But the third speaker bids the records be closed, that man may worship
+the God who lives, instead of regretting that He lived of old. Take the
+least man, observe his head and heart, find how he differs from every
+other man; see how Nature by degrees grows around him, to nourish,
+infold, and set him off, to enrich him with opportunities, as if he were
+her only foster-child, and to flatter thus every other man in turn,
+making him her darling as though in expectation of finding no other,
+till, having extorted all his worth and beauty, and cherished him to the
+utmost of his possible life, she rolls away elsewhere, continually
+keeping up this pageant of humanity:--
+
+    "Why, where's the need of Temple, when the walls
+    O' the world are that? What use of swells and falls
+    From Levites' choir, Priests' cries, and trumpet-calls?
+    That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,
+    Or decomposes but to recompose,
+    Become my universe that feels and knows!"
+
+This is the true religion, hallowing the poet's gifts and inviting them
+to celebrate and express it. We wish that the lines would let their
+meaning meet us with a more level gaze. In the poems of this class there
+is riper thought and a clearer intuition, toward which all the previous
+poems of Mr. Browning appear to have struggled, faring from the East to
+contribute myrrh, frankincense, and gems to this simplicity.
+
+
+
+
+RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS
+
+RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
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+Flirtations in Fashionable Life. By Catherine Sinclair. Author of
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+Employments, Government, and Authorities of Schools. By James Pyle
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+pp. xviii., 381. $1.50.
+
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+Principal Events in the History of every Vessel of the United States
+Navy. From April, 1861, to May, 1864. Compiled and arranged by B. S.
+Osbon. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 16mo. pp. iv., 277. $2.50.
+
+The Pride of Life. By Jane, Lady Scott, "Daughter-in-Law of Sir Walter
+Scott," and Author of "The Henpecked Husband." Philadelphia. T. B.
+Peterson & Brothers. 16mo. pp. 384. $2.00.
+
+The Wrong of Slavery, the Right of Emancipation, and the Future of the
+African Race in the United States. By Robert Dale Owen. Philadelphia. J.
+B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 246. $1.25.
+
+The Army Ration. How to diminish its Weight and Bulk, secure Economy in
+its Administration, avoid Waste, and increase the Comfort, Efficiency,
+and Mobility of Troops. By E. N. Horsford. New York. D. Van Nostrand.
+8vo. paper, pp. 37. 25 cents.
+
+Chimasia: A Reply to Longfellow's Theologian; and other Poems. By
+Orthos. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 96. $1.00.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No.
+85, November, 1864, by Various
+
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