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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121,
+November, 1867, 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 20, No. 121, November, 1867
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 9, 2009 [EBook #28285]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by Cornell University Digital Collections.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._
+
+
+VOL. XX.--NOVEMBER, 1867.--NO. CXXI.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by TICKNOR AND
+FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article.
+
+
+
+
+THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY CONSULTS WITH JACOB PENHALLOW, ESQUIRE.
+
+Lawyer Penhallow was seated in his study, his day's work over, his feet
+in slippers, after the comfortable but inelegant fashion which Sir
+Walter Scott reprobates, amusing himself with a volume of old Reports.
+He was a knowing man enough, a keen country lawyer, but honest, and
+therefore less ready to suspect the honesty of others. He had a great
+belief in his young partner's ability, and, though he knew him to be
+astute, did not think him capable of roguery.
+
+It was at his request that Mr. Bradshaw had undertaken his journey,
+which, as he believed,--and as Mr. Bradshaw had still stronger evidence
+of a strictly confidential nature which led him to feel sure,--would end
+in the final settlement of the great land claim in favor of their
+client. The case had been dragging along from year to year, like an
+English chancery suit; and while courts and lawyers and witnesses had
+been sleeping, the property had been steadily growing. A railroad had
+passed close to one margin of the township, some mines had been opened
+in the county, in which a village calling itself a city had grown big
+enough to have a newspaper and Fourth of July orations. It was plain
+that the successful issue of the long process would make the heirs of
+the late Malachi Withers possessors of an ample fortune, and it was also
+plain that the firm of Penhallow and Bradshaw were like to receive, in
+such case, the largest fee that had gladdened the professional existence
+of its members.
+
+Mr. Penhallow had his book open before him, but his thoughts were
+wandering from the page. He was thinking of his absent partner, and the
+probable results of his expedition. What would be the consequence if all
+this property came into the possession of Silence Withers? Could she
+have any liberal intentions with reference to Myrtle Hazard, the young
+girl who had grown up with her, or was the common impression true, that
+she was bent on endowing an institution, and thus securing for herself a
+favorable consideration in the higher courts, where her beneficiaries
+would be, it might be supposed, influential advocates? He could not help
+thinking that Mr. Bradshaw believed that Myrtle Hazard would eventually
+come to a part at least of this inheritance. For the story was, that he
+was paying his court to the young lady whenever he got an opportunity,
+and that he was cultivating an intimacy with Miss Cynthia Badlam.
+"Bradshaw wouldn't make a move in that direction," Mr. Penhallow said to
+himself, "until he felt pretty sure that it was going to be a paying
+business. If he was only a young minister now, there'd be no difficulty
+about it. Let any man, young or old, in a clerical white cravat, step up
+to Myrtle Hazard, and ask her to be miserable in his company through
+this wretched life, and Aunt Silence would very likely give them her
+blessing, and add something to it that the man in the white cravat would
+think worth even more than that was. But I don't know what she'll say to
+Bradshaw. Perhaps he'd better have a hint to go to meeting a little more
+regularly. However, I suppose he knows what he's about."
+
+He was thinking all this over when a visitor was announced, and Mr.
+Byles Gridley entered the study.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley said, wiping his forehead.
+"Quite warm, isn't it, this evening?"
+
+"Warm!" said Mr. Penhallow, "I should think it would freeze pretty thick
+to-night. I should have asked you to come up to the fire and warm
+yourself. But take off your coat, Mr. Gridley,--very glad to see you.
+You don't come to the house half as often as you come to the office. Sit
+down, sit down."
+
+Mr. Gridley took off his outside coat and sat down. "He does look warm,
+doesn't he?" Mr. Penhallow thought. "Wonder what has heated up the old
+gentleman so. Find out quick enough, for he always goes straight to
+business."
+
+"Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley began at once, "I have come on a very grave
+matter, in which you are interested as well as myself, and I wish to
+lay the whole of it before you as explicitly as I can, so that we may
+settle this night before I go what is to be done. I am afraid the good
+standing of your partner, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, is concerned in
+the matter. Would it be a surprise to you, if he had carried his
+acuteness in some particular case like the one I am to mention beyond
+the prescribed limits?"
+
+The question was put so diplomatically that there was no chance for an
+indignant denial of the possibility of Mr. Bradshaw's being involved in
+any discreditable transaction.
+
+"It is possible," he answered, "that Bradshaw's keen wits may have
+betrayed him into sharper practice than I should altogether approve in
+any business we carried on together. He is a very knowing young man, but
+I can't think he is foolish enough, to say nothing of his honesty, to
+make any false step of the kind you seem to hint. I think he might on
+occasion go pretty near the line, but I don't believe he would cross
+it."
+
+"Permit me a few questions, Mr. Penhallow. You settled the estate of the
+late Malachi Withers, did you not?"
+
+"Mr. Wibird and myself settled it together."
+
+"Have you received any papers from any of the family since the
+settlement of the estate?"
+
+"Let me see. Yes; a roll of old plans of the Withers Place, and so
+forth,--not of much use, but labelled and kept. An old trunk with
+letters and account-books, some of them in Dutch,--mere curiosities. A
+year ago or more, I remember that Silence sent me over some papers she
+had found in an odd corner,--the old man hid things like a magpie. I
+looked over most of them,--trumpery not worth keeping,--old leases and
+so forth."
+
+"Do you recollect giving some of them to Mr. Bradshaw to look over?"
+
+"Now I come to think of it, I believe I did; but he reported to me, if I
+remember right, that they amounted to nothing."
+
+"If any of those papers were of importance, should you think your junior
+partner ought to keep them from your knowledge?"
+
+"I need not answer that question, Mr. Gridley. Will you be so good as to
+come at once to the facts on which you found your suspicions, and which
+lead you to put these questions to me?"
+
+Thereupon Mr. Gridley proceeded to state succinctly the singular
+behavior of Murray Bradshaw in taking one paper from a number handed to
+him by Mr. Penhallow, and concealing it in a volume. He related how he
+was just on the point of taking out the volume which contained the
+paper, when Mr. Bradshaw entered and disconcerted him. He had, however,
+noticed three spots on the paper by which he should know it anywhere. He
+then repeated the substance of Kitty Fagan's story, accenting the fact
+that she too noticed three remarkable spots on the paper which Mr.
+Bradshaw had pointed out to Miss Badlam as the one so important to both
+of them. Here he rested the case for the moment.
+
+Mr. Penhallow looked thoughtful. There was something questionable in the
+aspect of this business. It did obviously suggest the idea of an
+underhand arrangement with Miss Cynthia, possibly involving some very
+grave consequences. It would have been most desirable, he said, to have
+ascertained what these papers, or rather this particular paper, to which
+so much importance was attached, amounted to. Without that knowledge
+there was nothing, after all, which it might not be possible to explain.
+He might have laid aside the spotted paper to examine for some object of
+mere curiosity. It was certainly odd that the one the Fagan woman had
+seen should present three spots so like those on the other paper, but
+people did sometimes throw _treys_ at backgammon, and that which not
+rarely happened with two dice of six faces _might_ happen if they had
+sixty or six hundred faces. On the whole, he did not see that there was
+any ground, so far, for anything more than a vague suspicion. He
+thought it not unlikely that Mr. Bradshaw was a little smitten with the
+young lady up at The Poplars, and that he had made some diplomatic
+overtures to the duenna, after the approved method of suitors. She was
+young for Bradshaw,--very young,--but he knew his own affairs. If he
+chose to make love to a child, it was natural enough that he should
+begin by courting her nurse.
+
+Master Byles Gridley lost himself for half a minute in a most
+discreditable inward discussion as to whether Laura Penhallow was
+probably one or two years older than Mr. Bradshaw. That was his way,--he
+could not help it. He could not think of anything without these mental
+parentheses. But he came back to business at the end of his half-minute.
+
+"I can lay the package before you at this moment, Mr. Penhallow. I have
+induced that woman in whose charge it was left to intrust it to my
+keeping, with the express intention of showing it to you. But it is
+protected by a seal, as I have told you, which I should on no account
+presume to meddle with."
+
+Mr. Gridley took out the package of papers.
+
+"How damp it is!" Mr. Penhallow said; "must have been lying in some very
+moist neighborhood."
+
+"Very," Mr. Gridley answered, with a peculiar expression which said,
+"Never mind about that."
+
+"Did the party give you possession of these documents without making any
+effort to retain them?" the lawyer asked.
+
+"Not precisely. It cost some effort to induce Miss Badlam to let them go
+out of her hands. I hope you think I was justified in making the effort
+I did, not without a considerable strain upon my feelings, as well as
+her own, to get hold of the papers?"
+
+"That will depend something on what the papers prove to be, Mr. Gridley.
+A man takes a certain responsibility in doing just what you have done.
+If, for instance, it should prove that this envelope contained matters
+relating solely to private transactions between Mr. Bradshaw and Miss
+Badlam, concerning no one but themselves,--and if the words on the back
+of the envelope and the seal had been put there merely as a protection
+for a package containing private papers of a delicate but perfectly
+legitimate character--"
+
+The lawyer paused, as careful experts do, after bending the bow of an
+hypothesis, before letting the arrow go. Mr. Gridley felt very warm
+indeed, uncomfortably so, and applied his handkerchief to his face.
+Couldn't be anything in such a violent supposition as that,--and yet
+such a crafty fellow as that Bradshaw,--what trick was he not up to?
+Absurd! Cynthia was not acting,--Rachel wouldn't be equal to such a
+performance!--"why then, Mr. Gridley," the lawyer continued, "I don't
+see but what my partner would have you at an advantage, and, if disposed
+to make you uncomfortable, could do so pretty effectively. But this, you
+understand, is only a supposed case, and not a very likely one. I don't
+think it would have been prudent in you to meddle with that seal. But it
+is a very different matter with regard to myself. It makes no
+difference, so far as I am concerned, where this package came from, or
+how it was obtained. It is just as absolutely within my control as any
+piece of property I call my own. I should not hesitate, if I saw fit, to
+break this seal at once, and proceed to the examination of any papers
+contained within the envelope. If I found any paper of the slightest
+importance relating to the estate, I should act as if it had never been
+out of my possession.
+
+"Suppose, however, I chose to know what was in the package, and, having
+ascertained, act my judgment about returning it to the party from whom
+you obtained it. In such case I might see fit to restore, or cause it to
+be restored, to the party, without any marks of violence having been
+used being apparent. If everything is not right, probably no questions
+would be asked by the party having charge of the package. If there is no
+underhand work going on, and the papers are what they profess to be,
+nobody is compromised but yourself, so far as I can see, and you are
+compromised at any rate, Mr. Gridley, at least in the good graces of the
+party from whom you obtained the documents. Tell that party that I took
+the package without opening it, and shall return it, very likely,
+without breaking the seal. Will consider of the matter, say a couple of
+days. Then you shall hear from me, and she shall hear from you. So. So.
+Yes, that's it. A nice business. A thing to sleep on. You had better
+leave the whole matter of dealing with the package to me. If I see fit
+to send it back with the seal unbroken, that is my affair. But keep
+perfectly quiet, if you please, Mr. Gridley, about the whole matter. Mr.
+Bradshaw is off, as you know, and the business on which he is gone is
+important,--very important. He can be depended on for that; he has acted
+all along as if he had a personal interest in the success of our firm
+beyond his legal relation to it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Penhallow's light burned very late in the office that night, and the
+following one. He looked troubled and absent-minded, and, when Miss
+Laura ventured to ask him how long Mr. Bradshaw was like to be gone,
+answered her in such a way that the girl who waited at table concluded
+that he didn't mean to have Miss Laury keep company with Mr. Bradshaw,
+or he'd never have spoke so dreadful hash to her when she ahst about
+him.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+SUSAN POSEY'S TRIAL.
+
+A day or two after Myrtle Hazard returned to the village, Master Byles
+Gridley, accompanied by Gifted Hopkins, followed her, as has been
+already mentioned, to the same scene of the principal events of this
+narrative. The young man had been persuaded that it would be doing
+injustice to his talents to crowd their fruit prematurely upon the
+market. He carried his manuscript back with him, having relinquished the
+idea of publishing for the present. Master Byles Gridley, on the other
+hand, had in his pocket a very flattering proposal from the same
+publisher to whom he had introduced the young poet, for a new and
+revised edition of his work, "Thoughts on the Universe," which was to be
+remodelled in some respects, and to have a new title not quite so
+formidable to the average reader.
+
+It would be hardly fair to Susan Posey to describe with what delight and
+innocent enthusiasm she welcomed back Gifted Hopkins. She had been so
+lonely since he was away! She had read such of his poems as she
+possessed--duplicates of his printed ones, or autographs which he had
+kindly written out for her--over and over again, not without the sweet
+tribute of feminine sensibility, which is the most precious of all
+testimonials to a poet's power over the heart. True, her love belonged
+to another,--but then she was so used to Gifted! She did so love to hear
+him read his poems,--and Clement had never written that "little bit of a
+poem to Susie," which she had asked him for so long ago! She received
+him therefore with open arms,--not literally, of course, which would
+have been a breach of duty and propriety, but in a figurative sense,
+which it is hoped no reader will interpret to her discredit.
+
+The young poet was in need of consolation. It is true that he had seen
+many remarkable sights during his visit to the city; that he had got
+"smarted up," as his mother called it, a good deal; that he had been to
+Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's party, where he had looked upon life in all its
+splendors; and that he brought back many interesting experiences, which
+would serve to enliven his conversation for a long time. But he had
+failed in the great enterprise he had undertaken. He was forced to
+confess to his revered parent, and his esteemed friend Susan Posey, that
+his genius, which was freely acknowledged, was not thought to be quite
+ripe as yet. He told the young lady some particulars of his visit to the
+publisher, how he had listened with great interest to one of his
+poems,--"The Triumph of Song,"--how he had treated him with marked and
+flattering attention; but that he advised him not to risk anything
+prematurely, giving him the hope that _by and by_ he would be admitted
+into that series of illustrious authors which it was the publisher's
+privilege to present to the reading public. In short, he was advised not
+to print. That was the net total of the matter, and it was a pang to the
+susceptible heart of the poet. He had hoped to have come home enriched
+by the sale of his copyright, and with the prospect of seeing his name
+before long on the back of a handsome volume.
+
+Gifted's mother did all in her power to console him in his
+disappointment.--There was plenty of jealous people always that wanted
+to keep young folks from rising in the world. Never mind, she didn't
+believe but what Gifted could make jest as good verses as any of them
+that they kept such a talk about.--She had a fear that he might pine
+away in consequence of the mental excitement he had gone through, and
+solicited his appetite with her choicest appliances,--of which he
+partook in a measure which showed that there was no immediate cause of
+alarm.
+
+But Susan Posey was more than a consoler,--she was an angel to him in
+this time of his disappointment. "Read me all the poems over again," she
+said,--"it is almost the only pleasure I have left, to hear you read
+your beautiful verses." Clement Lindsay had not written to Susan quite
+as often of late as at some former periods of the history of their love.
+Perhaps it was that which had made her look paler than usual for some
+little time. Something was evidently preying on her. Her only delight
+seemed to be in listening to Gifted as he read, sometimes with fine
+declamatory emphasis, sometimes in low, tremulous tones, the various
+poems enshrined in his manuscript. At other times she was sad, and more
+than once Mrs. Hopkins had seen a tear steal down her innocent cheek,
+when there seemed to be no special cause for grief. She ventured to
+speak of it to Master Byles Gridley.
+
+"Our Susan's in trouble, Mr. Gridley, for some reason or other that's
+unbeknown to me, and I can't help wishing you could jest have a few
+words with her. You're a kind of a grandfather, you know, to all the
+young folks, and they'd tell you pretty much everything about
+themselves. I calc'late she isn't at ease in her mind about somethin' or
+other, and I kind o' think, Mr. Gridley, you could coax it out of her."
+
+"Was there ever anything like it?" said Master Byles Gridley to himself.
+"I shall have all the young folks in Oxbow Village to take care of at
+this rate! Susan Posey in trouble, too! Well, well, well, it's easier to
+get a birch-bark canoe off the shallows than a big ship off the rocks.
+Susan Posey's trouble will be come at easily enough; but Myrtle Hazard
+floats in deeper water. We must make Susan Posey tell her own story, or
+let her tell it, for it will all come out of itself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I am going to dust the books in the open shelves this morning. I wonder
+if Miss Susan Posey wouldn't like to help for half an hour or so,"
+Master Gridley remarked at the breakfast-table.
+
+The amiable girl's very pleasant countenance lighted up at the thought
+of obliging the old man who had been so kind to her and so liberal to
+her friend, the poet. She would be delighted to help him; she would dust
+them all for him, if he wanted her to. No, Master Gridley said, he
+always wanted to have a hand in it; and, besides, such a little body as
+she was could not lift those great folios out of the lower shelves
+without overstraining herself; she might handle the musketry and the
+light artillery, but he must deal with the heavy guns himself. "As low
+down as the octavos, Susan Posey, you shall govern; below that, the
+Salic law."
+
+Susan did not know much about the Salic law; but she knew he meant that
+he would dust the big books and she would attend to the little ones.
+
+A very young and a very pretty girl is sometimes quite charming in a
+costume which thinks of nothing less than of being attractive. Susan
+appeared after breakfast in the study, her head bound with a kerchief of
+bright pattern, a little jacket she had outgrown buttoned, in spite of
+opposition, close about her up to the throat, round which a white
+handkerchief was loosely tied, and a pair of old gauntlets protecting
+her hands, so that she suggested something between a gypsy, a jaunty
+_soubrette_, and the _fille du regiment_.
+
+Master Gridley took out a great volume from the lower shelf,--a folio in
+massive oaken covers with clasps like prison hinges, bearing the stately
+colophon, white on a ground of vermilion, of Nicholas Jenson and his
+associates. He opened the volume,--paused over its blue and scarlet
+initial letter,--he turned page after page, admiring its brilliant
+characters, its broad, white marginal rivers, and the narrower white
+creek that separated the black-typed twin-columns,--he turned back to
+the beginning and read the commendatory paragraph, "_Nam ipsorum omnia
+fulgent tum correctione dignissima, tum cura imprimendo splendida ac
+miranda_," and began reading, "_Incipit proemium super apparatum
+decretalium_ ..." when it suddenly occurred to him that this was not
+exactly doing what he had undertaken to do, and he began whisking an
+ancient bandanna about the ears of the venerable volume. All this time
+Miss Susan Posey was catching the little books by the small of their
+backs, pulling them out, opening them, and clapping them together,
+'p-'p-'p! 'p-'p-'p! and carefully caressing all their edges with a
+regular professional dusting-cloth, so persuasively that they yielded up
+every particle that a year had drifted upon them, and came forth
+refreshed and rejuvenated. This process went on for a while, until Susan
+had worked down among the octavos, and Master Gridley had worked up
+among the quartos. He had got hold of Calmet's Dictionary, and was
+caught by the article Solomon, so that he forgot his occupation again.
+All at once it struck him that everything was very silent,--the
+'p-'p-'p! of clapping the books had ceased, and the light rustle of
+Susan's dress was no longer heard. He looked up and saw her standing
+perfectly still, with a book in one hand and her duster in the other.
+She was lost in thought, and by the shadow on her face and the
+glistening of her blue eyes he knew it was her hidden sorrow that had
+just come back to her. Master Gridley shut up his book, leaving Solomon
+to his fate, like the worthy Benedictine he was reading, without
+discussing the question whether he was saved or not.
+
+"Susan Posey, child, what is your trouble?"
+
+Poor Susan was in the state of unstable equilibrium which the least
+touch upsets, and fell to crying. It took her some time to get down the
+waves of emotion so that speech would live upon them. At last it
+ventured out,--showing at intervals, like the boat rising on the billow,
+sinking into the hollow, and climbing again into notice.
+
+"O Mr. Grid--ley--I can't--I can't--tell you or--any--body--what's the
+mat--mat--matter.--My heart will br--br--break."
+
+"No, no, no, child," said Mr. Gridley, sympathetically stirred a little
+himself by the sight of Susan in tears and sobbing and catching her
+breath, "that mustn't be, Susan Posey. Come off the steps, Susan Posey,
+and stop dusting the books,--I can finish them,--and tell me all about
+your troubles. I will try to help you out of them, and I have begun to
+think I know how to help young people pretty well. I have had some
+experience at it."
+
+But Susan cried and sobbed all the more uncontrollably and convulsively.
+Master Gridley thought he had better lead her at once to what he felt
+pretty sure was the source of her troubles, and that, when she had had
+her cry out, she would probably make the hole in the ice he had broken
+big enough in a very few minutes.
+
+"I think something has gone wrong between you and your friend, the young
+gentleman with whom you are in intimate relations, my child, and I think
+you had better talk freely with me, for I can perhaps give you a little
+counsel that will be of service."
+
+Susan cried herself quiet at last. "There's nobody in the world like
+you, Mr. Gridley," she said, "and I've been wanting to tell you
+something ever so long. My friend--Mr. Clem--Clement Lindsay doesn't
+care for me as he used to,--I know he doesn't. He hasn't written to me
+for--I don't know but it's a month. And O Mr. Gridley! he's such a great
+man, and I am such a simple person,--I can't help thinking--he would be
+happier with somebody else than poor little Susan Posey!"
+
+This last touch of self-pity overcame her, as it is so apt to do those
+who indulge in that delightful misery, and she broke up badly, as a
+horse-fancier would say, so that it was some little time before she
+recovered her conversational road-gait.
+
+"O Mr. Gridley," she began again, at length, "if I only dared to tell
+him what I think,--that perhaps it would be happier for us both--if we
+could forget each other! Ought I not to tell him so? _Don't_ you think
+he would find another to make him happy? _Wouldn't_ he forgive me for
+telling him he was free? _Were_ we not too young to know each other's
+hearts when we promised each other that we would love as long as we
+lived? _Sha'n't_ I write him a letter this very day and tell him all?
+_Do_ you think it would be wrong in me to do it? O Mr. Gridley, it makes
+me almost crazy to think about it. Clement must be free! I cannot,
+cannot hold him to a promise he doesn't want to keep."
+
+There were so many questions in this eloquent rhapsody of Susan's that
+they neutralized each other, as one might say, and Master Gridley had
+time for reflection. His thoughts went on something in this way:--
+
+"Pretty clear case! Guess Mr. Clement can make up his mind to it. Put it
+well, didn't she? Not a word about our little Gifted! That's the
+trouble. Poets! how they do bewitch these school-girls! And having a
+chance every day, too, how could you expect her to stand it?" Then
+aloud: "Susan Posey, you are a good, honest little girl as ever was. I
+think you and Clement _were_ too hasty in coming together for life
+before you knew what life meant. I think if you write Clement a letter,
+telling him that you cannot help fearing that you two are not perfectly
+adapted to each other, on account of certain differences for which
+neither of you is responsible, and that you propose that each should
+release the other from the pledge given so long ago,--in that case, I
+say, I believe he will think no worse of you for so doing, and may
+perhaps agree that it is best for both of you to seek your happiness
+elsewhere than in each other."
+
+The book-dusting came to as abrupt a close as the reading of Lancelot.
+Susan went straight to her room, dried her tears so as to write in a
+fair hand, but had to stop every few lines and take a turn at the
+"dust-layers," as Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's friend used to call the
+fountains of sensibility. It would seem like betraying Susan's
+confidence to reveal the contents of this letter, but the reader may be
+assured that it was simple and sincere and very sweetly written, without
+the slightest allusion to any other young man, whether of the poetical
+or cheaper human varieties.
+
+It was not long before Susan received a reply from Clement Lindsay. It
+was as kind and generous and noble as she could have asked. It was
+affectionate, as a very amiable brother's letter might be, and candidly
+appreciative of the reasons Susan had assigned for her proposal. He gave
+her back her freedom,--not that he should cease to feel an interest in
+her, always. He accepted his own release, not that he would ever think
+she could be indifferent to his future fortunes. And within a very brief
+period of time after sending his answer to Susan Posey, whether he
+wished to see her in person, or whether he had some other motive, he had
+packed his trunk, and made his excuses for an absence of uncertain
+length at the studio, and was on his way to Oxbow Village.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+JUST AS YOU EXPECTED.
+
+The spring of 1861 had now arrived,--that eventful spring which was to
+lift the curtain and show the first scene of the first act in the mighty
+drama which fixed the eyes of mankind during four bloody years. The
+little schemes of little people were going on in all our cities and
+villages without thought of the fearful convulsion which was soon coming
+to shatter the hopes and prospects of millions. Our little Oxbow
+Village, which held itself by no means the least of human centres, was
+the scene of its own commotions, as intense and exciting to those
+concerned as if the destiny of the nation had been involved in them.
+
+Mr. Clement Lindsay appeared suddenly in that important locality, and
+repaired to his accustomed quarters at the house of Deacon Rumrill. That
+worthy person received him with a certain gravity of manner, caused by
+his recollection of the involuntary transgression into which Mr. Lindsay
+had led him by his present of Ivanhoe. He was, on the whole, glad to see
+him, for his finances were not yet wholly recovered from the injury
+inflicted on them by the devouring element. But he could not forget
+that his boarder had betrayed him into a breach of the fourth
+commandment, and that the strict eyes of his clergyman had detected him
+in the very commission of the offence. He had no sooner seen Mr. Clement
+comfortably installed, therefore, than he presented himself at the door
+of his chamber with the book, enveloped in strong paper and very
+securely tied round with a stout string.
+
+"Here is your vollum, Mr. Lindsay," the Deacon said. "I understand it is
+not the work of that great and good mahn who I thought wrote it. I did
+not see anything immoral in it as fur as I read, but it belongs to what
+I consider a very dangerous class of publications. These novels and
+romances are awfully destructive to our youth. I should recommend you,
+as a young mahn of principle, to burn the vollum. At least I hope you
+will not leave it about anywhere unless it is carefully tied up. I have
+written upon the paper round it to warn off all the young persons of my
+household from meddling with it."
+
+True enough, Mr. Clement saw in strong black letters on the back of the
+paper wrapping his unfortunate Ivanhoe,--
+
+    "DANGEROUS READING FOR CHRISTIAN YOUTH.
+
+    "TOUCH NOT THE UNCLEAN THING."
+
+"I thought you said you had Scott's picture hung up in your parlor,
+Deacon Rumrill," he said, a little amused with the worthy man's fear and
+precautions.
+
+"It is _the great_ Scott's likeness that I have in my parlor," he said;
+"I will show it to you if you will come with me."
+
+Mr. Clement followed the Deacon into that sacred apartment.
+
+"That is the portrait of the great Scott," he said, pointing to an
+engraving of a heavy-looking person whose phrenological developments
+were a somewhat striking contrast to those of the distinguished Sir
+Walter.
+
+"I will take good care that none of your young people see this volume,"
+Mr. Clement said; "I trust you read it yourself, however, and found
+something to please you in it. I am sure you are safe from being harmed
+by any such book. Didn't you have to finish it, Deacon, after you had
+once begun?"
+
+"Well,--I--I--perused a consid'able portion of the work," the Deacon
+answered, in a way that led Mr. Clement to think he had not stopped much
+short of _Finis_. "Anything new in the city?"
+
+"Nothing except what you've all had,--Confederate States establishing an
+army and all that,--not very new either. What has been going on here
+lately, Deacon?"
+
+"Well, Mr. Lindsay, not a great deal. My new barn is pretty nigh done.
+I've got as fine a litter of pigs as ever you see. I don't know whether
+you're a judge of pigs or no. The Hazard gal's come back, spilt, pooty
+much, I guess. Been to one o' them fashionable schools,--I've heerd that
+she's learnt to dance. I've heerd say that that Hopkins boy's round the
+Posey gal,--come to think, she's the one you went with some when you was
+here,--I'm gettin' kind o' forgetful. Old Doctor Hurlbut's pretty
+low,--ninety-four year old,--born in '67,--folks ain't ginerally very
+spry after they're ninety, but he held out wonderful."
+
+"How's Mr. Bradshaw?"
+
+"Well, the young squire, he's off travellin' somewhere in the West, or
+to Washin'ton, or somewhere else,--I don't jestly know where. They say
+that he's follerin' up the courts in the business about old Malachi's
+estate. I don' know much about it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The news got round Oxbow Village very speedily that Mr. Clement Lindsay,
+generally considered the accepted lover of Miss Susan Posey, had arrived
+in that place. Now it had come to be the common talk of the village that
+young Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey were getting to be mighty thick
+with each other, and the prevailing idea was that Clement's visit had
+reference to that state of affairs. Some said that Susan had given her
+young man the mitten, meaning thereby that she had signified that his
+services as a suitor were dispensed with. Others thought there was only
+a wavering in her affection for her lover, and that he feared for her
+constancy, and had come to vindicate his rights.
+
+Some of the young fellows, who were doubtless envious of Gifted's
+popularity with the fair sex, attempted in the most unjustifiable manner
+to play upon his susceptible nature. One of them informed him that he
+had seen that Lindsay fellah raound taown with the darndest big stick y'
+ever did see. Looked kind o' savage and wild like. Another one told him
+that perhaps he'd better keep a little shady; that are chap that had got
+the mittin was praowlin' abaout with a pistil,--one o' them Darringers
+abaout as long as your thumb, an' 'll fire a bullet as big as a
+potato-ball,--a fellah carries one in his breeches-pocket, an' shoots y'
+right threugh his own pahnts, withaout ever takin' on it aout of his
+pocket. The stable-keeper, who it may be remembered once exchanged a few
+playful words with Mr. Gridley, got a hint from some of these unfeeling
+young men, and offered the resources of his stable to the youth supposed
+to be in peril.
+
+"I've got a faäst colt, Mr. Hopkins, that'll put twenty mild between you
+an' this here village, as quick as any four huffs'll dew it in this here
+caounty, if you _should_ want to git away suddin. I've heern tell there
+was some lookin' raound here that wouldn't be wholesome to meet,--jest
+say the word, Mr. Hopkins, an' I'll have ye on that are colt's back in
+less than no time, an' start ye off full jump. There's a good many
+that's kind o' worried for fear something might happen to ye, Mr.
+Hopkins,--y' see fellahs don't like to have other chaps cuttin' on 'em
+aout with their gals."
+
+Gifted Hopkins had become excessively nervous by this time. It is true
+that everything in his intimacy with Susan Posey so far might come under
+the general head of friendship; but he was conscious that something more
+was in both their thoughts. Susan had given him mysterious hints that
+her relations with Clement had undergone a change, but had never had
+quite courage enough, perhaps had too much delicacy, to reveal the whole
+truth.
+
+Gifted was walking home, deeply immersed in thoughts excited by the
+hints which had been thus wantonly thrown out to inflame his
+imagination, when all at once, on lifting his eyes, he saw Clement
+Lindsay coming straight towards him. Gifted was unarmed, except with a
+pair of blunt scissors, which he carried habitually in his pocket. What
+should he do? Should he fly? But he was never a good runner, being apt
+to find himself scant o' breath, like Hamlet, after violent exercise.
+His demeanor on the occasion, did credit to his sense of his own
+virtuous conduct and his self-possession. He put his hand out, while yet
+at a considerable distance, and marched up towards Clement, smiling with
+all the native amiability which belonged to him.
+
+To his infinite relief, Clement put out _his_ hand to grasp the one
+offered him, and greeted the young poet in the most frank and cordial
+manner.
+
+"And how is Miss Susan Posey, Mr. Hopkins?" asked Clement, in the most
+cheerful tone. "It is a long while since I have seen her, and you must
+tell her that I hope I shall not leave the village without finding time
+to call upon her. She and I are good friends always, Mr. Hopkins, though
+perhaps I shall not be quite so often at your mother's as I was during
+my last visit to Oxbow Village."
+
+Gifted felt somewhat as the subject of one of those old-fashioned forms
+of argument, formerly much employed to convince men of error in matters
+of religion, must have felt when the official who superintended the
+stretching-machine said, "Slack up!"
+
+He told Mr. Clement all about Susan, and was on the point of saying
+that if he, Mr. Clement, did not claim any engrossing interest in her,
+he, Gifted, was ready to offer her the devotion of a poet's heart. Mr.
+Clement, however, had so many other questions to ask him about everybody
+in the village, more particularly concerning certain young persons in
+whom he seemed to be specially interested, that there was no chance to
+work in his own revelations of sentiment.
+
+Clement Lindsay had come to Oxbow Village with a single purpose. He
+could now venture to trust himself in the presence of Myrtle Hazard. He
+was free, and he knew nothing to show that she had lost the liberty of
+disposing of her heart. But after an experience such as he had gone
+through, he was naturally distrustful of himself, and inclined to be
+cautious and reserved in yielding to a new passion. Should he tell her
+the true relations in which they stood to each other,--that she owed her
+life to him, and that he had very nearly sacrificed his own in saving
+hers? Why not? He had a claim on her gratitude for what he had done in
+her behalf, and out of this gratitude there might naturally spring a
+warmer feeling.
+
+No, he could not try to win her affections by showing that he had paid
+for them beforehand. She seemed to be utterly unconscious of the fact
+that it was he who had been with her in the abyss of waters. If the
+thought came to her of itself, and she ever asked him, it would be time
+enough to tell her the story. If not, the moment might arrive when he
+could reveal to her the truth that he was her deliverer, without
+accusing himself of bribing her woman's heart to reward him for his
+services. He would wait for that moment.
+
+It was the most natural thing in the world that Mr. Lindsay, a young
+gentleman from the city, should call to see Miss Hazard, a young lady
+whom he had met recently at a party. To that pleasing duty he addressed
+himself the evening after his arrival.
+
+"The young gentleman's goin' a courtin', I calc'late," was the remark
+of the Deacon's wife when she saw what a handsome figure Mr. Clement
+was making at the tea-table.
+
+"A very hahnsome young mahn," the Deacon replied, "and looks as if he
+might know consid'able. An architect, you know,--a sort of a builder.
+Wonder if he hasn't got any good plans for a hahnsome pigsty. I suppose
+he'd charge somethin' for one, but it couldn't be much, an' he could
+take it out in board."
+
+"Better ask him," his wife said; "he looks mighty pleasant; there's
+nothin' lost by askin', an' a good deal got sometimes, grandma used to
+say."
+
+The Deacon followed her advice. Mr. Clement was perfectly good-natured
+about it, asked the Deacon the number of snouts in his menagerie, got an
+idea of the accommodations required, and sketched the plan of a neat and
+appropriate edifice for the _Porcellarium_, as Master Gridley afterwards
+pleasantly christened it, which was carried out by the carpenter, and
+stands to this day a monument of his obliging disposition, and a proof
+that there is nothing so humble that taste cannot be shown in it.
+
+"What'll be your charge for the plan of the pigsty, Mr. Lindsay?" the
+Deacon inquired with an air of interest,--he might have been involved
+more deeply than he had intended. "How much should you call about right
+for the picter an' figgerin'?"
+
+"O, you're quite welcome to my sketch of a plan, Deacon. I've seen much
+showier buildings tenanted by animals not very different from those your
+edifice is meant for."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Clement found the three ladies sitting together in the chill, dim
+parlor at The Poplars. They had one of the city papers spread out on the
+table, and Myrtle was reading aloud the last news from Charleston
+Harbor. She rose as Mr. Clement entered, and stepped forward to meet
+him. It was a strange impression this young man produced upon her,--not
+through the common channels of the intelligence,--not exactly that
+"magnetic" influence of which she had had experience at a former time.
+It did not overcome her as at the moment of their second meeting. But it
+was something she must struggle against, and she had force and pride and
+training enough now to maintain her usual tranquillity, in spite of a
+certain inward commotion which seemed to reach her breathing and her
+pulse by some strange, inexplicable mechanism.
+
+Myrtle, it must be remembered, was no longer the simple country girl who
+had run away at fifteen, but a young lady of seventeen, who had learned
+all that more than a year's diligence at a great school could teach her,
+who had been much with girls of taste and of culture, and was familiar
+with the style and manners of those who came from what considered itself
+the supreme order in the social hierarchy. Her natural love for
+picturesque adornment was qualified by a knowledge of the prevailing
+modes not usual in so small a place as Oxbow Village. All this had not
+failed to produce its impression on those about her. Persons who, like
+Miss Silence Withers, believe, not in education, inasmuch as there is no
+healthy nature to be educated, but in transformation, worry about their
+charges up to a certain period of their lives. Then, if the
+transformation does not come, they seem to think their cares and duties
+are at an end, and, considering their theories of human destiny, usually
+accept the situation with wonderful complacency. This was the stage
+which Miss Silence Withers had reached with reference to Myrtle. It made
+her infinitely more agreeable, or less disagreeable, as the reader may
+choose one or the other statement, than when she was always fretting
+about her "responsibility." She even began to take an interest in some
+of Myrtle's worldly experiences, and something like a smile would now
+and then disarrange the chief-mourner stillness of her features, as
+Myrtle would tell some lively story she had brought away from the gay
+society she had frequented.
+
+Cynthia Badlam kept her keen eyes on her like a hawk. Murray Bradshaw
+was away, and here was this handsome and agreeable youth coming in to
+poach on the preserve of which she considered herself the gamekeeper.
+What did it mean? She had heard the story about Susan's being off with
+her old love and on with a new one. Ah ha! this is the game, is it?
+
+Clement Lindsay passed not so much a pleasant evening, as one of
+strange, perplexed, and mingled delight and inward conflict. He had
+found his marble once more turned to flesh and blood, and breathing
+before him. This was the woman he was born for; her form was fit to
+model his proudest ideal from,--her eyes melted him when they rested for
+an instant on his face,--her voice reached those hidden sensibilities of
+his inmost nature, which never betray their existence until the outward
+chord to which they vibrate in response sends its message to stir them.
+But was she not already pledged to that other,--that cold-blooded,
+contriving, venal, cynical, selfish, polished, fascinating man of the
+world, whose artful strategy would pass with nine women out of ten for
+the most romantic devotion?
+
+If he had known the impression he made, he would have felt less anxiety
+with reference to this particular possibility. Miss Silence expressed
+herself gratified with his appearance, and thought he looked like a good
+young man,--he reminded her of a young friend of hers who--[It was the
+same who had gone to one of the cannibal islands as a missionary,--and
+stayed there.] Myrtle was very quiet. She had nothing to say about
+Clement, except that she had met him at a party in the city, and found
+him agreeable. Miss Cynthia wrote a letter to Murray Bradshaw that very
+evening, telling him that he had better come back to Oxbow Village as
+quickly as he could, unless he wished to find his place occupied by an
+intruder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the mean time, the country was watching the garrison in Charleston
+Harbor. All at once the first gun of the four years' cannonade hurled
+its ball against the walls of Fort Sumter. There was no hamlet in the
+land which the reverberations of that cannon-roar did not reach. There
+was no valley so darkened by overshadowing hills that it did not see the
+American flag hauled down on the 13th of April. There was no loyal heart
+in the North that did not answer to the call of the country to its
+defenders which went forth two days later. The great tide of feeling
+reached the locality where the lesser events of our narrative were
+occurring. A meeting of the citizens was instantly called. The venerable
+Father Pemberton opened it with a prayer that filled every soul with
+courage and high resolve. The young farmers and mechanics of that whole
+region joined the companies to which they belonged, or organized in
+squads and marched at once, or got ready to march, to the scene of
+conflict.
+
+The contagion of warlike patriotism reached the most peacefully inclined
+young persons.
+
+"My country calls me," Gifted Hopkins said to Susan Posey, "and I am
+preparing to obey her summons. If I can pass the medical examination,
+which it is possible I may, though I fear my constitution _may_ be
+thought too weak, and if no obstacle impedes me, I think of marching in
+the ranks of the Oxbow Invincibles. If I go, Susan, and if I fall, will
+you not remember me ... as one who ... cherished the tenderest ...
+sentiments ... towards you ... and who had looked forward to the time
+when ... when...."
+
+His eyes told the rest. He loved!
+
+Susan forgot all the rules of reserve to which she had been trained.
+What were cold conventionalities at such a moment? "Never! never!" she
+said, throwing her arms about his neck and mingling her tears with his,
+which were flowing freely. "Your country does not need your sword,...
+but it does need ... your pen. Your poems will inspire ... our
+soldiers.... The Oxbow Invincibles will march to victory, singing your
+songs.... If you go ... and if you ... fall.... O Gifted!... I ... I ...
+yes I ... shall die too!"
+
+His love was returned. He was blest!
+
+"Susan," he said, "my own Susan, I yield to your wishes, at every
+sacrifice. Henceforth they will be my law. Yes, I will stay and
+encourage my brave countrymen to go forward to the bloody field. My
+voice shall urge them on to the battle-ground. I will give my dearest
+breath to stimulate their ardor.... O Susan! My own, own Susan!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While these interesting events had been going on beneath the modest roof
+of the Widow Hopkins, affairs had been rapidly hastening to a similar
+conclusion under the statelier shadow of The Poplars. Clement Lindsay
+was so well received at his first visit that he ventured to repeat it
+several times, with so short intervals that it implied something more
+than a common interest in one of the members of the household. There was
+no room for doubt who this could be, and Myrtle Hazard could not help
+seeing that she was the object of his undisguised admiration. The belief
+was now general in the village that Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey were
+either engaged, or on the point of being so; and it was equally
+understood that, whatever might be the explanation, she and her former
+lover had parted company in an amicable manner.
+
+Love works very strange transformations in young women. Sometimes it
+leads them to try every mode of adding to their attractions,--their
+whole thought is how to be most lovely in the eyes they would fill so as
+to keep out all other images. Poor darlings! We smile at their little
+vanities, as if they were very trivial things compared with the last
+Congressman's speech or the great election sermon; but Nature knows well
+what she is about. The maiden's ribbon or ruffle means a great deal more
+for her than the judge's wig or the priest's surplice.
+
+It was not in this way that the gentle emotion awaking in the breast of
+Myrtle Hazard betrayed itself. As the thought dawned in her
+consciousness that she was loved, a change came over her such as the
+spirit that protected her, according to the harmless fancy she had
+inherited, might have wept for joy to behold, if tears could flow from
+angelic eyes. She forgot herself and her ambitions,--the thought of
+shining in the great world died out in the presence of new visions of a
+future in which she was not to be her own,--of feelings in the depth of
+which the shallow vanities which had drawn her young eyes to them for a
+while seemed less than nothing. Myrtle had not hitherto said to herself
+that Clement was her lover, yet her whole nature was expanding and
+deepening in the light of that friendship which any other eye could have
+known at a glance for the great passion.
+
+Cynthia Badlam wrote a pressing letter to Murray Bradshaw. "There is no
+time to be lost; she is bewitched, and will be gone beyond hope if this
+business is not put a stop to."
+
+Love moves in an accelerating ratio; and there comes a time when the
+progress of the passion escapes from all human formulæ, and brings two
+young hearts, which had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer
+together, into complete union, with a suddenness that puts an infinity
+between the moment when all is told and that which went just before.
+
+They were sitting together by themselves in the dimly lighted parlor.
+They had told each other many experiences of their past lives, very
+freely, as two intimate friends of different sex might do. Clement had
+happened to allude to Susan, speaking very kindly and tenderly of her.
+He hoped this youth to whom she was attached would make her life happy.
+"You know how simple-hearted and good she is; her image will always be a
+pleasant one in my memory,--second to but one other."
+
+Myrtie ought, according to the common rules of conversation, to have
+asked, _What other?_ but she did not. She may have looked as if she
+wanted to ask,--she may have blushed or turned pale,--perhaps she could
+not trust her voice; but whatever the reason was, she sat still, with
+downcast eyes. Clement waited a reasonable time, but, finding it was of
+no use, began again.
+
+"_Your_ image is the one other,--the only one, let me say, for all else
+fades in its presence,--your image fills all my thought. Will you trust
+your life and happiness with one who can offer you so little beside his
+love? You know my whole heart is yours."
+
+Whether Myrtle said anything in reply or not,--whether she acted like
+Coleridge's Genevieve,--that is, "fled to him and wept," or suffered her
+feelings to betray themselves in some less startling confession, we will
+leave untold. Her answer, spoken or silent, could not have been a cruel
+one, for in another moment Clement was pressing his lips to hers; after
+the manner of accepted lovers.
+
+"Our lips have met to-day for the second time," he said, presently.
+
+She looked at him in wonder. What did he mean? The second time! How
+assuredly he spoke! She looked him calmly in the face, and awaited his
+explanation.
+
+"I have a singular story to tell you. On the morning of the 16th of
+June, now nearly two years ago, I was sitting in my room at Alderbank,
+some twenty miles down the river, when I heard a cry for help coming
+from the river. I ran down to the bank, and there I saw a boy in an old
+boat--"
+
+When it came to the "boy" in the old boat, Myrtle's cheeks flamed so
+that she could not bear it, and she covered her face with both her
+hands. But Clement told his story calmly through to the end, sliding
+gently over its later incidents, for Myrtle's heart was throbbing
+violently, and her breath a little catching and sighing, as when she had
+first lived with the new life his breath had given her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Why did you ask me for myself, when you could have claimed me?" she
+said.
+
+"I wanted a free gift, Myrtle," Clement answered, "and I have it."
+
+They sat in silence, lost in the sense of that new life which had
+suddenly risen on their souls.
+
+The door-bell rang sharply. Kitty Fagan answered its summons, and
+presently entered the parlor and announced that Mr. Bradshaw was in the
+library, and wished to see the ladies.
+
+
+
+
+OPINIONS OF THE LATE DR. NOTT RESPECTING BOOKS, STUDIES, AND ORATORS.
+
+
+During the summer of 1833, several professional gentlemen, clergymen,
+lawyers, and educators were spending their vacation at Saratoga Springs.
+Among them was Dr. Nott. He was then regarded as a veteran teacher,
+whose long experience and acknowledged wisdom gave a peculiar value to
+his matured opinions. The younger members of this little circle of
+scholars, taking their ease at their inn, purposely sought to "draw out"
+the Doctor upon those topics in which they felt an especial interest.
+They were, therefore, in their leisure moments, constantly hearing and
+asking him questions. One of them, then a tutor in Dartmouth College,
+took notes of the conversations, and the following dialogue is copied
+from his manuscript:--
+
+_Mr. C._ "Doctor, how long have you been at the head of Union College?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "Thirty years. I am the oldest _president_ in the United
+States, though not the oldest man in office. I cannot drop down anywhere
+in the Union without meeting some one of my _children_."
+
+_Mr. C._ "And that, too, though so many of them are dead! I believe that
+nearly half of my class are dead!"
+
+_Dr. N._ "Indeed! That is a large proportion to die so soon. I think it
+remarkable that so few deaths have occurred among the members of the
+college since I have been connected with it. I can distinctly recollect
+all the individuals who have died at college, and during thirty years
+there have been but _seven_. The proportion has been less than one third
+of one per cent. Very many have died, however, very soon after leaving
+college. Two or three in almost every class have died within a year
+after they have graduated. I have been at a loss as to the cause of this
+marked difference. I can assign no other than the sudden change which
+then takes place in the student's whole manner and habits of living,
+diet, &c."
+
+_Mr. C._ "How do the students generally answer the expectations they
+have raised during their college course?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "I have been rarely disappointed. I have found my little
+anticipatory notes generally fulfilled. I recollect, however, one class,
+which graduated four or five years ago, in regard to which I have been
+very happily disappointed. It had given us more trouble, and there were
+more sceptics in it than in any other class we ever had. But now every
+one of those infidels except _one_ is studying for the ministry."
+
+_Mr. C._ "What course do you take with a sceptical student?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "I remember a very interesting case I had several years ago.
+There was a young man in college of fine talents, an excellent and
+exemplary student, but an atheist. He roomed near me. I was interested
+in him; but I feared his influence. It was very injurious in college,
+and yet he did nothing worthy of censure. I called him one day to my
+study. I questioned him familiarly and kindly in relation to his
+speculative views. He said he was not an atheist, but had very serious
+doubts and difficulties on the subject, and frankly stated them to me. I
+did not talk with him _religiously_, but as a philosopher. I did not
+think he would bear it. I told him that I felt a peculiar sympathy with
+young men in his state of mind; for once, during the French Revolution,
+I had been troubled with the same difficulties myself. I had been over
+that whole ground; and would gladly assist his inquiries, and direct him
+to such authors as I thought would aid him in his investigations after
+truth. As he left my study, I said, 'Now, I expect yet to see you a
+minister of the Gospel!' He returned to his room; he paced it with
+emotion; said he to his room-mate (these facts his room-mate
+communicated to me within a year), 'What do you think the President
+says?' 'I don't know.' 'He says he expects yet to see me a minister. I a
+minister! I a minister!'--and he continued to walk the room, and
+reiterate the words. No immediate effect on his character was produced.
+But the _prophetic_ words (for so he seemed to regard them) clung to him
+as a magic talisman, and would never leave his mind; and he is now a
+pious man, and a student in divinity."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Doctor, we have been seeking amusement and profit by some
+exercises in elocution. Mr. G---- and myself have been trying to read
+Shakespeare a little; but some gentlemen here have had some qualms of
+conscience as to the propriety of it, and have condemned the reading of
+Shakespeare as demoralizing. What is your opinion, sir?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "Why, as to that matter, sir, I always say to my young men,
+'Gentlemen, if you wish to get a knowledge of the world and of human
+nature, read the Bible. The Bible is the first and best book that can be
+studied for the exhibition of human character; and the man who goes out
+into the world expecting to find men just such as Moses and Paul have
+represented them will never be disappointed. If you are contented to
+read nothing but your Bibles, _well, you have it all there_. But if you
+will read any other books, read Homer and Shakespeare. They come nearer,
+in my estimation, to Moses and Paul, in their delineations of human
+character, than any other authors I am acquainted with. I would have
+every young man read Shakespeare. I have always taught my children to
+read it.' Ministers, as a class, know less practically of human nature
+than any other _class_ of men. As I belong to the fraternity, I can say
+this without prejudice. Men are reserved in the presence of a
+respectable clergyman. I might live in Schenectady, and discharge all my
+appropriate duties from year to year, and never hear an oath, nor see a
+man drunk; and if some one should ask me, 'What sort of a population
+have you in Schenectady? Are they a moral people? Do they swear? Do they
+get drunk?' for aught that I had seen or heard, I might answer, 'This
+is, after all, a very decent world. There is very little vice in it.
+People have entirely left off the sin of profaneness; and, as to
+intemperance, there is very little of that.' But I can put on my old
+great-coat, and an old slouching hat, and in five minutes place myself
+amid the scenes of blasphemy and vice and misery, which I never could
+have believed to exist if I had not seen them. So a man may walk along
+Broadway, and think to himself, 'What a fine place this is! How civil
+the people are! What a decent and orderly and virtuous city New York
+is!'--while, at the same time, within thirty rods of him are scenes of
+pollution and crime such as none but an eyewitness can adequately
+imagine. I would have a minister _see_ the world for himself. _It is
+rotten to the core._ Ministers ordinarily see only the brighter side of
+the world. Almost everybody treats them with civility; the religious,
+with peculiar kindness and attention. Hence they are apt to think too
+well of the world. Lawyers, on the other hand, think too ill of it. They
+see only, or for the most part, its worst side. They are brought in
+contact with dishonesty and villany in their worst developments. I have
+observed, in doing business with lawyers, that they are exceedingly
+hawk-eyed, and jealous of everybody. The omission of a word or letter in
+a will, they will scan with the closest scrutiny; and while I could see
+no use for any but the most concise and simple terms to express the
+wishes of the testator, a lawyer would be satisfied with nothing but the
+most precise and formal instrument, stuffed full of legal _caveats_ and
+technicalities."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Which do you think excels in eloquence, the bar or the
+pulpit?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "The bar."
+
+_Mr. C._ "To what causes do you ascribe the superiority?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "The superior influence of things of sight over those of faith.
+The nearness of objects enhances their importance. The subjects on which
+the lawyer speaks come home to men's business and bosoms. Some present,
+immediate object is to be gained. The lawyer _feels_, and he aims to
+accomplish something. But ministers have plunged into the metaphysics of
+religion, and gone about to inculcate the peculiarities of a system, and
+have neither felt themselves, nor been able to make others feel. It has
+long been a most interesting question to me, Why is the ministry so
+inefficient? It has seemed to me, that, with the thousands of pulpits in
+this country for a theatre to act on, and the eye and ear of the whole
+community thus opened to us, we might _overturn the world_. Some ascribe
+this want of efficiency to human depravity. That is not the sole cause
+of it. The clergy want knowledge of human nature. They want directness
+of appeal. They want the same go-ahead common-sense way of interesting
+men which lawyers have."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Ought they not to cultivate elocution?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "It seems to me that at those institutions where they pay the
+most attention to elocution they speak the worst. I have no faith in
+artificial eloquence. Teach men to think and feel, and, when they have
+anything to the purpose to say, they can say it. I should about as soon
+think of teaching a man to weep, or to laugh, or to swallow, as to speak
+when he has anything to say."
+
+_Mr. C._ "How, then, do you account for the astonishing power of some
+tragedians?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "Ah! the speaking in the theatre is all overacted. There is no
+nature in it. Those actors, placed in a public assembly, and called upon
+to address men on some real and momentous occasion, would utterly fail
+to touch men's hearts, while some plain country-man, who had never
+learned a rule of art, would find his way at once to the fountains of
+feeling and action within them. The secret of the influence which is
+felt in the acting of the teatre is _not_ that it is natural. Let a
+_real tragedy_ be acted, and let men _believe_ that a _real_ scene is
+before them, and the theatre would be deserted. No audience in this
+country could bear the presentation of a natural and real tragedy. Men
+go to the theatre to be amused. The scenery, the music, the attitudes,
+the gesticulations, all unite to fix attention and amuse; but the
+eloquence, so called, of the theatre, is all factitious, and is no more
+adapted to the real occasions of life than would be the recitative in
+singing, and it pleases on the same principle that _this does_."
+
+_Mr. C._ "But, Doctor, why was it that, when Cooke or Kean appeared on
+the stage, he engrossed all eyes and ears, and nothing was heard or seen
+or thought of but himself? The acting of Kean was just as irresistible
+as the whirlwind. He would take up an audience of three thousand in his
+fist, as it were, and carry them just where he pleased, through every
+extreme of passion."
+
+_Dr. N._ "because these actors were great men. Cooke, as far as I have
+been able to learn, (I never saw him,--I had once an engagement to meet
+him in Philadelphia, but he was drunk at the time, and disappointed me,)
+was perfectly _natural_. So I suppose Kean to have been. So Garrick was,
+and Talma. And the secret of the influence of these men was, that they
+burst the bonds of art and histrionic trick, and stood before their
+audience in their untrammelled natural strength. Garrick, at his first
+appearance, could not command an audience. It was first necessary for
+him entirely to revolutionize the English stage.
+
+"Ministers have, very often, a sanctimonious tone, which by many is
+deemed a symbol of goodness. I would not say it is a symbol of
+hypocrisy, as many very pious men have it. One man acquires a tone, and
+those who study with him learn to associate it with his piety, and come
+to esteem it an essential part of ministerial qualification. But,
+instead of its being to me evidence of feeling, it evinces, in every
+degree of it, want of feeling; and whenever a man rises in his religious
+feelings sufficiently high, he will break away from the shackles of his
+perverse habit, and speak in the tone of nature.
+
+"The most eloquent preacher I have ever heard was Dr. L----. General
+Hamilton at the bar was unrivalled. I heard his great effort in the case
+of People _versus_ Croswell, for a libel upon Jefferson. There was a
+curious changing of sides in the position of the advocates. Spencer, the
+Attorney-General, who had long been climbing the ladder of democracy,
+managed the cause for the people; and Hamilton, esteemed an old-school
+Federalist, appeared as the champion of a free press. Of course, it
+afforded the better opportunity of witnessing the professional skill and
+rhetorical power of the respective advocates.
+
+"Spencer, in the course of his plea, had occasion to refer to certain
+decisions of Lord Mansfield, and embraced the opportunity of introducing
+a splendid _ad captandum_ eulogium on his Lordship,--'A name born for
+immortality; whose sun of fame would never set, but still hold its
+course in the heavens, when the humble names of his antagonist and
+himself should have sunk beneath the waves of oblivion.'
+
+"Hamilton was evidently nettled at this invidious and unnecessary
+comparison, and cast about in his mind how he might retort upon Spencer.
+I do not know that my conjecture is right; but it has always seemed to
+me that his reason for introducing his repartee to Spencer in the odd
+place where he did, just after a most eloquent and pathetic peroration,
+was something as follows--'I have now constructed and arranged my
+argument, and the thread of it must not be broken by the intervention of
+any such extraneous matter. Neither will it do to separate my peroration
+from the main body of my argument. I must, then, give up the opportunity
+of retorting at all, or tack it on after the whole, and take the risk of
+destroying the effect of my argument.'
+
+"He rose, and went through his argument, which was a tissue of the
+clearest, most powerful, and triumphant reasoning. He turned every
+position of his opponent, and took and dismantled every fortification.
+But his peroration was inimitably fine. As he went on to depict the
+horrors consequent upon a muzzled press, there was not a dry eye in the
+court-house. It was the most perfect triumph of eloquence over the
+passions of men I ever witnessed.
+
+"When he had thus brought his speech to its proper, and what would have
+been a perfect close, he suddenly changed his tone, and, in a strain of
+consummate and powerful irony, began to rally his antagonist. He
+assented to the gentleman's eulogium upon Lord Mansfield. It was
+deserved. He acknowledged the justice of his remarks in relation to
+himself (Hamilton) and his ephemeral fame; but he did not see why the
+gentleman should have included himself in the same oblivious sentence.
+His course hitherto in the race of fame had been as successful, for
+aught he knew, as was ever his Lordship's. His strides had been as long
+and as rapid. His disposition, too, to run the race was as eager, and he
+knew no reason why he might not yet soar on stronger pinions, and reach
+a loftier height, than his Lordship had done.
+
+"During the whole reply, the audience were in a titter; and he sat down
+amidst a burst of incontrollable laughter. Said Spencer to him
+frowningly, (I sat by the side of the judges on the bench, and both
+Hamilton and Spencer were within arm's length of me,) 'What do you mean,
+sir?' Said Hamilton, with an arch smile, 'Nothing but a mere
+compliment.' 'Very well, sir, I desire no more such compliments.'"
+
+_Mr. C._ "What was the difference between the oratory of Hamilton and
+that of Burr?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "Burr, above all men whom I ever knew, possessed the most
+consummate tact in evading and covering up the arguments of his
+opponent. His great art was to throw dust in the eyes of the jury, and
+make them believe that there was neither force nor sense nor anything
+else in the arguments of the opposite counsel. He never met a position,
+nor answered an argument, but threw around them the mist of sophistry,
+and thus weakened their force. He was the _prince of plausibilities_. He
+was always on the right side (in his own opinion), and always perfectly
+confident.
+
+"Hamilton, on the other hand, allowed to the arguments of his opponent
+all the weight that could ever be fairly claimed for them, and attacked
+and demolished them with the club of Hercules. He would never engage in
+a cause unless he believed he was on the side of justice; and he often
+threw into the scale of his client the whole weight of his personal
+character and opinion. His opponents frequently complained of the undue
+influence he thus exerted upon the court."
+
+_Mr. C._ "You have heard Webster, I suppose."
+
+_Dr. N._ "I have never heard him speak. I have the pleasure of a slight
+personal acquaintance with him, and, from what I know of him, should
+think he would have less power over the passions of men than Hamilton.
+He is a giant, and deals with _great principles_ rather than passions.
+
+"Bishop McIlvaine will always be heard. He has an elegant form, a fine
+voice, and a brilliant imagination, and he can carry an audience just
+where he pleases."
+
+_Mr. C._ "You, of course, have heard Dr. Cox."
+
+_Dr. N._ "Yes, often. He is an original, powerful man, unequal in his
+performances: sometimes he hits, sometimes he misses; sometimes he rises
+to the sublimity of powerful speaking, and at others sinks below the
+common level."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Have you read his book on Quakerism?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "As much of it as I can. Some Presbyterians like it. For my
+part, I confess I do not. He carries his anti-Quaker antipathies too
+far. It is perfectly natural he should do so. Men who go over from one
+denomination to another always stand up more than straight, and for two
+reasons;--first, to satisfy their new friends that they have heartily
+renounced their former error; secondly, to convince their former friends
+that they had good reasons for desertion. Baptists who have become such
+from Presbyterians are uniformly the most bigoted, and _vice versa_.
+
+"I am disgusted and grieved with the religious controversies of the
+present age. The divisions of schools, old school and new school, and
+the polemical zeal and fury with which the contest is waged, are
+entirely foreign from the true spirit of Christianity. The Christianity
+of the age is, in my view, most unamiable. It has none of those lovely,
+mellow features which distinguished primitive Christianity. If
+Christianity as it now exists should be propagated over the world, and
+thus the millennium be introduced, we should need two or three more
+millenniums before the world would be fit to live in."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Why do you judge so, Doctor?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "By the style of our religious periodicals. If I had suddenly
+dropped down here, and wished to ascertain at a bird's-eye view the
+religious and moral state of the community, I would call for the papers
+and magazines, and when I had glanced at them I should pronounce that
+community to be in a low moral and religious state which could tolerate
+such periodicals. A bad paper cannot live in a good community.
+
+"I have been especially grieved and offended with the recent Catholic
+controversy. I abhor much in the Catholic religion; but, nevertheless, I
+believe there is a great deal of religion in that Church. I do not like
+the condemnation of men in classes. I would not, in controversy with the
+Catholics, render railing for railing. They cannot be put down so. They
+must be charmed down by kindness and love."
+
+_Mr. C._ "I have been much amused by reading that controversy."
+
+_Dr. N._ "My dear sir, I am sorry to hear you say so. You cannot have
+read that controversy with pleasure, without having been made a worse
+man by it."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Why, I was amused by it, I suppose, just as I should be amused
+by seeing a gladiator's show."
+
+_Dr. N._ "Just so; a very good comparison,--a very accurate comparison!
+It is a mere gladiatorial contest; and the object of it, I fear, is not
+so much truth as victory."
+
+_Mr. C._ "But Luther fought so, Doctor."
+
+_Dr. N._ "I know it; and I have no sympathy with that trait in the
+character of Luther. The world owes more, perhaps, to Martin Luther
+than to any other man who has ever lived; and as God makes the wrath of
+man to praise him, and restrains the remainder, so he raised up Luther
+as an instrument adapted to his age and the circumstances of the times.
+But Luther's character in some of its features was harsh, rugged, and
+unlovely; and in these it was not founded upon the Gospel.
+
+"Compare him with St. Paul. Once they were placed in circumstances
+almost identically the same. Luther's friends were endeavoring to
+dissuade him from going to Worms, on account of apprehended danger. Said
+Luther, 'If there were as many devils at Worms as there are tiles on the
+roofs of the houses, I would go.'
+
+"When Paul's friends at Cæsarea wept, and besought him not to go up to
+Jerusalem, knowing the things which would befall him there, 'What mean
+ye,' said he, 'to weep, and break my heart? For I am ready, not to be
+bound only, but to die also at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord
+Jesus.'
+
+"Many a bold, reckless man of the world could have said what Luther
+said. None but a Christian could have uttered the words of Paul."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Was it not in part a constitutional difference? Peter and Paul
+were very different men; so, if Luther had not been a Christian, he
+would have exhibited the same rugged features of character."
+
+_Dr. N._ "That is just the point, sir. These traits in his character
+were no part of his Christianity. They existed, not in consequence, but
+in spite, of his religion. I want to see, in Christian character, the
+rich, deep, mellow tint of the Scriptures."
+
+
+
+
+CRETAN DAYS.
+
+
+I.
+
+CANEA.
+
+It was by a happy chance that my first acquaintance with Crete and the
+Cretans was made just previous to the outbreak of the insurrection which
+has just now brought the island so strongly to the attention of the
+world, and which will prevent any future traveller of this generation
+from seeing it, as I saw it, at the highest point of that comparative
+material prosperity which thirty-five years of such peace as Christian
+lands enjoy under Turkish rule had created, and before the beginning of
+that course of destruction which has now made the island one expanse of
+poverty and ruin. It was in the beginning of the last year of the
+administration of Ismael Pacha, in August, 1865, that, blockaded a month
+in Syra by cholera, I finally got passage on a twenty-ton yacht
+belonging to an English resident of that place, and made a loitering
+three days' run to Canea.
+
+Crete, though _never_ visited by cholera, was in quarantine at all Greek
+ports, and intercourse with the great world was limited to occasional
+voyages of the little caïques of the island to Syra, where they endured
+two weeks' quarantine, and whence they brought back the mails and a
+cargo of supplies, so that any arrival was an event to the Cydonians,
+and that of a yacht flying the English and American flags at once was
+enough to turn out the entire population. The fitful northerly breeze
+had kept us the whole afternoon in sight of the port; and it was only as
+sunset closed the doors of the health-office that we dropped anchor in
+the middle of the little harbor,--the wondering centre of attraction to
+a wondering town, whose folk came to assist at the sunsetting and our
+arrival. Lazy soldiers, lying at full length on the old bronze cannon of
+the batteries, looked out at us, only raising their heads from their
+crossed arms; grave Turks, smoking their nargiles in front of the cafés
+that open on the Marina, turned their chairs round to look at us without
+stopping their hubble-bubbling; and all about us, where nothing else
+was, a line of motley humanity--Greek, Turk, Egyptian, Nubian,
+Abyssinian, under hats, caps, tarbouches, turbans, hats Persian and
+ecclesiastical, and no hats at all--half circled us with mute and mostly
+stupid admiration.
+
+It was my first experience of a Turkish town, and perhaps I was more
+struck with the dilapidation and evident decay than I ought to have
+been. The sea-wall of the massive Venetian fortification seemed
+crumbling and carious; the earth-work above it was half washed away; the
+semicircle of houses on the Marina looked seedy and tottering; the
+Marina itself was in places under-cut and falling into the water; and
+above us, overtopping the whole city, the Pacha's palace, built on the
+still substantial, though time-worn and neglected walls of the old
+Venetian citadel, reared a lath-and-plaster shabbiness against the glow
+of the western sky, reminding one of an American seaside hotel in the
+last stages of popularity and profitable tenancy,--great gaps in the
+plaster showing the flimsiness of the construction, while a coating of
+unmitigated whitewash almost defied the sunset glow to modify it. On the
+western point of the crescent of the Marina, under the height on which
+stands the palace, is a domed mosque,--one large central dome surrounded
+by little ones,--with a not ugly minaret, slightly cracked by
+earthquakes, standing at one side in a little cemetery, among whose
+turbaned tombstones grow a palm and an olive tree, and beyond which the
+khan (also serving as custom-house), a two-story house of the Venetian
+days, relieves the dreary white with a wash of ochre, stained and
+streaked to any tint almost. A little nearer the bottom of the port is
+an old Venetian gate, which once shut the Marina in at night while the
+custom-house guard slept, and over the keystone of which the Lion of St.
+Mark's still turns his mutilated head to the sea.
+
+On the whole, the look of the thing was not unpicturesque, except for
+the hopeless whiteness and shabbiness of the principal architectural
+features, and especially the "Konak" (palace), which was, beyond all
+disguise of light or circumstance, an eyesore and a nuisance, the more
+so that its foundations were fine old brown stone masonry, delicious in
+color, solid, and showing at one end a pointed arched vault, with its
+portward end fallen down to show the interior, and crowned with an
+enormous mass of cactus. On the south side, invisible from the port, are
+three fine Gothic windows, now filled up, but preserving the traceries.
+The palace could scarcely have had a nobler site, or the site a more
+ignoble occupancy.
+
+Too late for pratique, we had nothing to do but turn in early, and get
+ready to go ashore at sunrise.
+
+Once landed, I began to wish that the comparison I had drawn for the
+Konak was a more just one, and that inside its card-board classicalism
+could be found the slightest approach to American hospitality. Not an
+inn of any kind exists in Canea: a dirty, dingy restaurant, which called
+itself "The Guest-House of the Spheres," offered one small bedroom,
+which the filth of the place, with its suggestions of bugs and fleas,
+forbade the title of a sleeping-room. While the yacht stayed I had a
+bed; but after that it was a dreary prospect for a man who had intended
+living at his ease in his inn the rest of the summer. And here let me,
+once for all, give due credit to Crete, and say that, though there is
+not from one end of the island to the other an inn, the stranger will
+never wait long, even in the smallest village, to know where he may
+sleep, and will rarely find a greater difficulty than to reconcile the
+rival claims to the honor of his presence. In my case, I had no greatly
+prolonged anxiety, and accepted the proffered hospitality of Mr. Alexis,
+then Vice-Consul of the United States of America, and now Dutch Consul,
+to whom most of the few travellers in Crete are more or less under
+obligations.
+
+I thoroughly enjoyed some days of careless loafing about Canea. I have
+intimated my slight experience of Turkish towns; and if the critic
+should think it worth while to remark that I should have seen
+Constantinople and Cairo, Smyrna and Salonica, before attempting to
+describe one, I admit the justice of the criticism, and pass over
+readily all that is Turkish in Canea, the more that it is mainly of
+negative or destructive character. What remains of interest in Canea is
+Venetian, though of that there is almost nothing which represents the
+great period of the sea-republic, except the fine, and in most parts
+well-conditioned walls. Here and there a double-arched window, with a
+bit of fine carving in the capitals, peeps out from the jutting
+uglinesses of seraglio windows, close latticed and mysterious; one or
+two fine doorways, neglected and battered as to their ornamentation,
+some coats of arms, three or four arched gateways, and as many
+fountains, are all that will catch the eye of the artist inside the
+walls, unless it be the port, with its quaint and picturesque boats of
+antique pattern.
+
+Canea had its west-end in what is now known as the Castelli,--the slight
+elevation on which, most probably, the ancient city was built, and on
+which stood the Venetian citadel, and the aristocratic quarter, enclosed
+and gated with an interior wall, whose circuit may still be traced in
+occasional glimpses of the brown stone above and between the Turkish
+houses. The Castelli of to-day is the principal street of this quarter,
+running through its centre, and guarded by the gates whose arches
+remain, valueless and without portcullis, but showing in their present
+state how strong a defence was needed to assure the patricians in their
+slumbers against any importunate attempts of their malcontent subjects
+and fellow-townsmen to clear off the score which the infamous government
+of the Republic accumulated. One doorway in this street struck me
+particularly, from the exquisite ornamentation of its stone doorway; but
+the palace to which it opened is abandoned, and in ruins. Most of the
+better class of these houses are in the same state, modern repair being
+only a shabby patching up and whitewashing. The quarter is inhabited
+almost entirely by Mussulmans; and, though habitable houses are greatly
+in demand in the business parts of Canea, and many of these old palaces
+could be made available at a small cost, their owners have so little
+energy, or so great an aversion to new-comers and Christians, that none
+of them are put under repairs.
+
+On the walls of the city are many old bronze guns of both Venetian and
+Turkish manufacture. The former still bear the Lion of St. Mark's, and
+one long nine-pounder is exquisitely ornamented with a reticulation of
+vines cast in relief over the whole length of it. It bears the name of
+Albergetti, its founder. The only modern guns I saw were half a dozen
+heavy cast-iron thirty-two-pounders of Liege, and a few light bronze
+guns on the battery commanding the entrance of the harbor. The whole
+circuit of the walls is still furnished with the ancient bronze guns, of
+which several are of about twelve-inch calibre, with their stone balls
+still lying by them.
+
+The harbor of Canea approximates in form to a clumsy L, the bottom of
+the letter forming the basin in the centre of which our yacht was
+moored, with a longer recess running eastward from the entrance, and
+divided from the open sea only by a reef on which the mole is built,
+following the direction of the coast at this part of the island. The
+narrow entrance is at the exterior angle of the L, between the
+water-battery and the lighthouse; and in the interior angle are the
+Castelli, Konak, &c. Along the inner side of the eastern recess, and
+across its extremity, is a line of galley-houses,--the penitential
+offering, it is said, of a patrician exiled here, to purchase his
+repatriation. Earthquakes have rent their walls, decay has followed
+disuse, for the harbor has now become so filled up that only a small
+boat can get into the furthermost of the arches, and the greater part of
+the galley-houses have dry land out to their entrances, and the
+ship-yard of to-day is in the vacant space left by the fall of two or
+three of them.
+
+As might be expected, Canea is a very dull city. Out of the highway of
+Eastern trade or travel, whoever visits it must do so for itself alone,
+for the arts of amusing idlers and luring travellers are unknown to it.
+The only amusements for summer are a nargile on the Marina, studying
+primitive civilization the while, during the twilight hours, and the
+afternoon circuit of the ramparts, where every day at five o'clock an
+execrable band tortures the most familiar arias with clangor of
+discordant brass. From the ramparts we overlooked the plain, bounded by
+Mount Malaxa, above which loomed the Aspravouna, showing late in summer
+strips of snow in the ravines that furrowed the bare crystalline peaks,
+brown and gray and parched with the drought of three months. The Cretan
+summer runs rainless from June to October; and the only relief to the
+aridity of the landscape is formed by the olive-orchards, covering
+nearly the whole expanse between the sea sands and the treeless ridge of
+Malaxa with so luxuriant a green, that, accustomed to the olive of
+Italy, I could scarcely believe these to be the same trees. This I at
+first supposed to be owing to some peculiarity of the plain, but
+subsequently found it to be characteristic of the Cretan olive; and I
+remember hearing Captain Brine of the Racer express the same surprise I
+myself felt on first seeing the olive here. The trees are like
+river-side willows in early summer.
+
+To get a clear comprehension of the position of Canea and the ancient
+advantages of Cydonia, its local predecessor, and at the same time of
+the whole northwestern district of Crete, one must ascend the hills of
+the Akroteri,--at least the first ridge, from which the view is superb.
+The Aspravouna towers higher: we look into the gorges of the Malaxa
+ridge, and up the ravine of Theriso, to the mountains about Laki,--an
+immemorial strong-hold of the Cretans, behind which, a sure and
+impregnable refuge to brave men, is the great plain of Omalos. Farther
+on are the hills of Selinos and Kisamos, sending off northward two long
+parallel ridges of considerable altitude, the peninsula of Grabusa, the
+ancient Corycus, the western land of Crete, and, from where we look,
+visible in portions above the nearer ridge of Cape Spada, the Dictynnian
+peninsula, which divides the plain of Cydonia from that of Kisamon and
+Polyrrhenia, and, but for the glimpses of Corycus above it, shutting in
+our view, as it bounds the territory dependent on the ancient city.
+
+No site in Crete is more distinctly recognizable from the indications of
+the ancient geographers than Cydonia. It had "a port with shoals
+outside," and from this elevation one looks directly down the longer
+fork of the harbor, and can see how the mole is built on a black reef,
+whose detached masses extend from the lighthouse eastward to the corner
+of the city wall, which is built out to meet it, and then descends to
+the mole, with which it is continuous. Beyond the entrance of the
+harbor, the reef again appears, gradually nearing the shore; and beyond
+this, as far as the eye can reach, are no rocks,--no Other nook where a
+galley could have taken refuge.
+
+How the hearts of the Pelasgian wanderers must have bounded when their
+exploring prows pushed into this nook, which offered them shelter from
+all winds that blow! It was a site to gladden the eyes of those builders
+of cities. Up above them, the bluff rock waiting for the layers of huge
+stones,--the eastern nook of the port more perfectly protected than the
+southern, which receives more or less the swell from the northerly
+winds, and whose inner shore of hard sand tempted the weary
+keels,--while all around stretched a wide, fertile, and then probably
+forest-clad plain, doubtless abounding in the stags for which the
+district was long famous. Here the restless race "located," and seem to
+have prospered in the days of those brave men who lived before
+Agamemnon, to whom and to whose allies in the Trojan war they seem to
+have given much the same trouble that their reputed descendants, the
+Sphakiotes, did to the Cretan Assembly of 1866, not being either then or
+now over-devoted to Panhellenism, though never averse to a comfortable
+fight.
+
+Pashley quotes a Latin author to show that Cydonia was one of the most
+ancient, if not the most ancient, of Cretan cities,--"Cnossus and
+Erythræa, and, as the Greeks say, Cydonia, mother of cities." The
+alleged foundation of the city by Agamemnon was clearly, if anything,
+only a revival of the more ancient city; and after him successive
+colonizations rolled their waves in on this beautiful shore, obedient to
+its irresistible attraction. Dorian, Samiote, Roman, followed, adding
+new blood, and perhaps new wealth; and when finally, in the degradation
+of the Byzantine empire, Venice took possession of Crete, Cydonia had so
+far passed into insignificance, that, "seeking a place to build a
+fortress to quell the turbulent Greeks," she refounded Cydonia, and
+called it Canea,--an evident corruption of the old name. With all this
+building and rebuilding, nothing remains, of the ancient city. A mass of
+masonry near the Mussulman cemetery, which Chevalier in 1699 saw covered
+with a mosaic pavement, is still visible, but is Roman work, rubble and
+mortar. As Pashley says, the modern walls of Canea would have been
+sufficient to consume all vestiges of the ancient building. The
+citations he gives ought to put at rest all question, of the identity of
+Canea with Cydonia, and we shall presently see the only serious
+objection which has been raised against it disappear under an
+examination of the geological character of the plain.[A]
+
+Looking from our hill-top southwestwardly across the plain, the eye is
+carried between two low ranges of hills into a valley which seems a
+continuation of this plain. Here runs the Iardanos, along which,
+according to Homer, the Cydonians dwelt. But it is now in no point of
+its course nearer than ten miles to Canea. This discrepancy troubled the
+early travellers, who were finally inclined to solve the riddle by
+supposing Cydonia to have been a district, and not a city merely. But
+study the plain a little, or Spratt's chart of it, and we shall see that
+from that far-off river-bed an almost unbroken and very gentle
+inclination leads through the plain, by the rear of the city, to the bay
+of Suda, a considerable ridge rising between it and the sea.
+
+Suppose the mountains reclothed with forests, the hillsides pierced with
+perennial springs, and the flowing of the waters, not, as now, fitful
+and impetuous, but copious and constant. Then dam up the narrow opening
+the river has cut through the coast line of hills, in its direct course
+from the mountains to the sea, with a smaller and similar one cut by a
+stream coming down from Theriso, and you have the whole water sheet of
+the north side of the Aspravouna emptying into the bay of Suda. In this
+supposed route of the Iardanos (now the Platanos), just where it
+commences its cutting through the hills, is a large marsh, the remnant
+of what was once a lake of a mile or more in width, when the Iardanos,
+then a gentle, bounteous river, turned from its present course to run
+eastward, and deposit its washings where they made the marshes of
+Tuzla, and the shallows at the head of Suda Bay. Civilization,
+ship-building, commerce, carried away the forests; and, thus changed[B]
+into a furious mountain torrent,--three months a roaring flood which no
+bridge can stride, and the rest of the year almost a dry pebbled
+bed,--the Iardanos made a straight cut for the sea, drained its lake,
+forgot its old courses, and changed, in time, its name; and _so_ it
+happens that the Cydonians no longer dwell along the Iardanos.
+
+While we are on our look-out, let us try to study out another puzzle,
+which even Spratt left in doubt, i. e. the site of Pergamos. We know
+that it was near both Cydonia and Achaia, and Spratt pretty conclusively
+fixes the latter on the Dictynnian peninsula; so that it must have been
+in our present field of view. Looking this over, we can see but one
+point of land which offers the indispensable requisites for a city of
+the heroic ages, and that is the site of the modern Platania, midway
+between Canea and the peninsula,--a bold hill with a nearly
+perpendicular face to the north and east, and so abrupt on the west as
+to be easily fortified, and connected with the hills on the south by a
+narrow neck of hill,--such a site, in fact, as any one familiar with
+Pelasgic remains would seek at once in a country where any such remains
+existed. The fact that no remains exist to show that an ancient city
+stood here proves no more than at Canea; while the fact that none of the
+possible sites in the neighborhood show any such remains is conclusive
+against them, as no modern cities are there to consume the ancient
+masonry. In our researches in the island, we shall almost invariably
+find that, where there are remains of ancient cities, there is no modern
+town, and that, where a modern town stands on an ancient site
+determined, there are few, if any, antique vestiges. The reason is
+evident,--the ruins serve as quarry. The change of name even proves more
+for our hypothesis than against it. The plane-tree was not in ancient
+times so rare in the island as now, and would hardly have then given a
+name to a city, while now it not only names Platania, but the river
+even,--a grove of plane-trees occupying the valley between the city and
+the mouth of the river. The probability is, then, that the names of both
+are synchronous; and it would be useless to look for any Platania in
+ancient times, or any vestige of the name "Pergamos" in modern times,
+while, if the ancient city stood on a site now abandoned, we should in
+all probability find both ruins and name to indicate the locality.
+
+The conjecture of Spratt, that Pergamos was near Pyrgos Pori is only a
+conjecture, Pyrgos being too common a name for any strongly situated
+village or ruin to have any significance. A city at that locality would,
+moreover, have been cut off from all sea approach by the Iardanos in its
+ancient course; and as Pergamos was one of those cities founded by the
+wanderers from Troy,--either, they say, by Agamemnon or Æneas,--it would
+probably not have been founded on an inland site, or even on a river
+navigable, as the Iardanos must have been, for small craft, the access
+to which would be commanded by Aptera, Minoa, and Cydonia. So far as
+conjecture goes, it seems to me much more likely that Hagia Irene--which
+Spratt supposes the ancient city--was Achaia, the location of which he
+avoids by supposing it a district, rather than a city, forgetting that
+in those days no one dwelt outside of city walls. My hypothesis, coupled
+with that of the identity of Platania with Pergamos, would satisfy all
+the exigencies of the case, which that of neither Spratt nor Pashley
+does. For the rest, Pergamos is mainly interesting as the burial-place
+of Lycurgus.
+
+From our point of view on the Akroteri, we see the whole domain of
+Cydonia,--as at our left Suda Bay terminates the view, (on the first
+plateau eastward of the bay Aptera presided,) while the Dictynnian hills
+divide it from the plain of Kisamos to the west, and the mountains rise
+abruptly to the south;--a little kingdom well defined, one of the most
+perfectly beautiful territories the tourist can find, and still
+fertile,--though the hills have forgotten their fruit and the plain its
+river,--and capable of sustaining a much larger population than it now
+supports, if the Mohammedan blight were off it.
+
+Almost at the foot of the ridge where we stand is a beautiful example of
+a Venetian fortified country-house,--a little castle, turreted and
+loop-holed, with a drawbridge thrown from a tower rising opposite the
+doorway, and still in excellent preservation. Other similar houses may
+be seen, but I have nowhere in the island found one so fine as this. At
+the farther edge of the plain, lying along under the hills, is a
+succession of white villages,--Zukalaria, Nerokouro (running water),
+Murnies, celebrated for its oranges and the brutal and gratuitous
+massacre by Mustapha Pacha (late Imperial Commissioner), in 1833,
+Boutzounaria (dripping water), first place of assembling of the Cretan
+malcontents in 1866, Perivolia, Galatas, Hagia Marina, and Platania, by
+the sea.
+
+Off Platania is the island of St. Theodore, whose fortress, defended by
+the Venetian mercenaries against the Turks, showed one of those examples
+of heroic constancy we so generally and erroneously attribute to
+patriotic courage; for, defying the enemy to the last, the garrison
+defended the castle until the Turks had stormed and filled it with their
+numbers, and then blew it up, destroying every one within the walls. The
+foundations still remain, but level with the cemented floor; everything
+is razed cleanly, while the fragments lie along the slopes like the
+ejections of a volcano.
+
+Midway between the Akroteri and Canea lies Kalepa, a suburb where most
+of the foreign consuls reside in summer, with many of the wealthier
+Khaniotes, and the only place in the vicinity where the summer can be
+passed in comfort. A few houses are fitted with European improvements,
+but the greater part are the simple and cheerless residences of the
+Cretan peasant, furnished with the merest necessities of existence. Even
+here, in the most prosperous of the villages I have been in, life is,
+for most of the people, only a struggle against poverty, thrift being
+impossible where every surplus meets a new impost. Many houses are still
+in ruins from the devastations of 1821-1830, showing how incompletely
+the island had recovered from that war before being plunged into another
+more destructive still. From the ravages of this, however, Kalepa is
+saved so far,--thanks to a few consular residents,--but saved alone of
+all the villages of the plain country.
+
+If it be true that civilization is determined by natural advantages, it
+must be that Cydonia was the "mother of cities," at least of all the
+Hellenic realm, for no more enchanting or tempting site have I ever
+known through travel or description. With its climate of paradisiacal
+softness and healthfulness, and the beauty of its framing hills,--fanned
+in summer by the north winds from the Ægean and by south winds tempered
+by the snows of the Aspravouna,--with a winter in which vegetation never
+ceases and frost never comes,--with its garden-like plain and its
+old-time river, and its port unexceptionable in ancient times,--nothing
+was wanting to render prosperity and security complete in former days,
+as nothing but freedom is wanting now to restore both, and make the city
+the most attractive place in the classical world. Hitherto, its charms
+have but tempted invasion, and its fertility has only grown harvests for
+the sword. Here began the Cretan conquest by Metellus; here began the
+movements which, one after the other, have shaken the Ottoman chain only
+to make it heavier; and here began the latest struggle, which, so long
+and gallantly upheld, may finally bring back to Crete the civilization
+born on her shores, but for so many centuries an exile.
+
+
+II.
+
+THE AKROTERI.
+
+Not to make one's first excursion from Canea to the Akroteri, with its
+convent of the Hagia Triada (Holy Trinity), and its sacred Grotto of St.
+John, would be _lesa maestà_ to the Khaniotes, who regard a pilgrimage
+to the latter as entitling one to a Hadjiship.
+
+The ride (or walk, which I recommend, in preference, to good
+pedestrians) is a delightful one in early summer; and, even after the
+heats of August have browned the plain of the Akroteri, an early start
+from Canea will leave a memory of breezy upland with wide expanse of
+mountain and sea,--including some of the most picturesque views to be
+found in Crete,--and of the rich odors of many aromatic herbs and
+flowers, through whose rifled sweets the Akroteri is famous for its
+honey. A three hours' ride--first up the zigzag road that climbs the
+ridge above Kalepa, and then over an undulating plain sparsely dotted
+with hamlets and clouded here and there with olive-orchards--brings one,
+with a sufficient appreciation of good cheer, and clean, cool rooms,
+shade, and quiet, into the cloistered court of Hagia Triada, a
+semi-military building of the Venetian days. Still unfinished, the
+Turkish conquest having interrupted its progress, with all other in the
+seventeenth century. In the centre of the quadrangle, round which are
+the rooms of the monks and the guest-rooms, stands the church, an
+edifice nondescript as to style, with a façade of a species of Venetian
+Doric, fronting a building whose plan is a Latin cross, and whose roof
+observes Byzantine tradition. On the entablature over the doorway are
+the dedicatory Greek capitals, [Greek: BGYTHTP],--the meaning of which
+none of the priests could tell me, though a duplicate inscription in
+Latin and Greek beside the door told by whom the convent was built; and
+the Hegoumenos added the tradition, that the two founders, being
+converted by an extraordinary illumination from the Latin to the Greek
+Church, gave an edifying proof of their devotion to their new creed by
+erecting this convent.
+
+The Hegoumenos was a Sphakiote, a very shrewd, clear-headed and
+energetic man, and, though betraying no great familiarity with books or
+dogmas, showed that he was a better fisher in those waters where men are
+to be caught than most of his _confrères_ of any creed. He had that
+manner of innate authority which never fails to impose itself on the
+indecisions and self-distrusts of the mass of men, and which in a wider
+circle of ambition would certainly have won him a larger place. Like the
+Hegoumenos of every other Greek convent, he was elected by the monks,
+and, though completely in the hands of his brethren, and at any time
+liable to be removed by another election, the subordination to him was
+perfect as could have been imagined. It was a curious exemplification of
+the force of democracy. Yet not only in Hagia Triada, but in other
+Cretan convents, I have seen how the mass of men find their governors as
+surely and wisely, and often more fitly, than if they had had men born
+to the place, or appointed by some superior hierarchy.
+
+In Italy I had always been accustomed to find the convents posted on the
+hill-tops, and almost inaccessible; but in Crete the loveliest valleys
+are almost certain to have been chosen as their locations. The convent
+of the Hagia Triada is indeed on a plain, but at the foot of the range
+of hills which skirts the Akroteri to the north, and is thus almost shut
+in from two sides, while to the south the plain extends to Suda Bay,
+which is hidden in the chasm between the Akroteri and Mount Malaxa, and
+beyond which the mountains of Sphakia rise in picturesque and alluring
+redundance of ravine and massive rock. All the nearer plain is green
+with the olive-orchards, and the road which approaches the front
+entrance is flanked with two lines of cypresses, and carob-trees grow up
+the rocky heights overlooking the convent, where no other tree will
+grow. The hum of bees filled the air, and mingled with the notes of
+nightingales (poetically fabled to sing _only_ by night), the chirping
+of multitudinous sparrows, wrens, and linnets, and the twittering of
+swallows. At the outer gate sat two or three aged monks, picturesque and
+sculpturesque at once, like enchanted porters at the doors of some
+spellbound palace, their long, gray beards and sunken, listless eyes
+according with their own and the convent's external dilapidation.
+
+The beauty and quiet of the place were almost enchantment enough to
+account for the gray-headed porters, their immobility and longevity, and
+I longed to draw the charm over me. But I was one of a party which had
+come under the inspiration of the most inane motive of travel,--the
+desire to see all there was to be seen; and so, after a half-hour's
+repose, and the usual refreshments,--preserved fruits and a glass of
+water, followed by coffee,--we enlisted the Hegoumenos in our party, and
+set out for the grotto, taking in the way Hagios Joannes, a still more
+incomplete and still more secluded convent than Hagia Triada, among the
+hills between the latter and the sea. The road which we followed would
+be called by no means a bad road for Crete, but anywhere else would be
+execrable,--a mere bridle-path through a gorge in a range of hills from
+which all the soil seems to have been washed with most of the small
+stones, and where, with much precaution, your beast goes picking his way
+as if in a laborious, slow-paced minuet. The convent stands in an
+opening of the hills, on a little bit of comparatively plain land,-a
+half-finished battlemented square pile, offering defence against a
+slight attack; but the monks said that the Turks always found the road
+so bad that they never came to attack them during any of the island
+wars, though Hagia Triada was twice pillaged. The comparative poverty
+of Hagios Joannes may have had something to do with its exemption, but
+the road would defend it from my encroachments forever; and, in fact,
+visitors only pass it on the way to the grottoes and convent of
+Katholikon, which lie near the opening of the gorge, where it becomes a
+wild glen, and approaches the sea. The path, descending, led us to the
+Cave of the Bear, where we had arranged to lunch, and the bounties of
+Canea, spread on the ground in the mouth of the cave, went to repair the
+wear and tear of body and temper caused by the badness of the road. The
+cave derives its name from a mass of stalactite which has a traceable
+resemblance to a bear, but it had no further interest than being our
+lunching-place. Here the road became so bad that even a donkey could not
+follow it, and we clambered down on foot by zigzag and rock stair to the
+mouth of the Cave of St. John. Caves _per se_ have no kind of attraction
+to me. Stalactite and stalagmite are pretty much the same: so, half the
+way in, I made excuse of the fatigue of some of the ladies, and,
+determining to go no farther, proved my gallantry by stopping to keep
+them company, thus abandoning my Hadjiship, which can only be claimed
+when the inner chamber is attained. If, then, the reader would know
+more, he must consult the guide-book, when there is one; and meanwhile
+let me assure him, on the authority of Pashley, that the cave is four
+hundred and seventy feet deep, and, on that of my more persevering
+fellow-visitors, that at the bottom is a chamber, very fine and imposing
+by torchlight, where is a couch of natural formation on which died the
+saint, leaving his name with his bones and the odor of his sanctity. The
+story is that this St. John--neither the Baptist nor the Evangelist, but
+a hermit of Crete--centuries ago made his abode here, and lived many
+years without seeing the face of another man. Lest he should in daylight
+chance upon his abhorred and outcast brethren, or any of them, he only
+ventured out at night, and lived on what he could find in other people's
+gardens or orchards. Happening one night to be discovered in the act of
+laying in a provision of corn, he was mistaken for a thief, and received
+an arrow from the owner of the provision. He crawled back, mortally
+wounded, to his grotto, and never came out again except in the shape of
+relics.
+
+The convent of Katholikon, long abandoned, did not invite entrance: a
+Venetian bridge spans the ravine, and gave access to the chapel for the
+hermits whose little dens still remain on the other side, the denizens
+having long since deserted them. Down by the sea are some Venetian
+ruins, a boat-house, and some masonry of a landing. I advise travellers
+who will visit Katholikon, its cave and hermitages, to order a boat
+round from Canea to meet them at this place, and then go home in
+comfort,--the only point to be gained from going back by land being a
+more thorough experience of Cretan roads. To those who intend seeing the
+rest of the island, opportunities will not lack for this; to others, the
+knowledge is superfluous. A careful horse will make his way down, but he
+ought to be strong to get up. Mine was not; and, in climbing, his force
+or his footing failed him, and over he went backwards, and I narrowly
+escaped being crushed under him. Stunned and half bewildered by the
+fall,--for I had struck on my back amongst sharp stones, with one of
+which my head had made intimate acquaintance,--I managed, I know not
+how, to extricate myself from the flourish of legs; the horse lying more
+helpless than myself in the narrow path between two slopes of stone, and
+vainly plunging to get over on his side. He finally completed his
+somerset, to the confusion of the line of equestrians behind, the
+nearest of whom were speedily dismounted; and the chances of a kicking
+match among the quadrupeds were good for a moment, until two prompt
+Arabs, in attendance on Miss T----, restored the disorderly elements to
+peace. Sore, bleeding, and faint, I lay awhile on a bed of wild thyme,
+until I began to feel the good effects of a cordial administered by the
+_patéras_, and we resumed our file, most of the party returning directly
+to Canea,--myself, with a companion who served as guide and interpreter,
+passing the night at the convent, the good Hegoumenos being urgent in
+his entreaties that the whole company would likewise honor his roof.
+None of the ladies felt inclined to do so, and perhaps it was just as
+well for their repose that they did not; for, clean as the rooms of the
+convent were, and white as was the linen, there were discomforts which,
+though infinitely small, were infinitely numerous, and, by the law of
+majorities, our tormentors turned us out of bed to pass the night in the
+open air,--a change always safe, and even delightful at this season, in
+Crete.
+
+The Greek convent is a true hostel; no one is refused admission and
+hospitality,--no restrictions on the gentler sex make it impossible for
+real parties of pleasure to visit its beautiful valley,--no Pharisaic
+rigidity of self-denial makes it imperative to refuse visitors good
+cheer, though the community observe their long and trying fasts with a
+severity which puts to shame abstinence in Catholic countries. (The
+Greek fasts two hundred and forty-six days out of three hundred and
+sixty-five, and most of this time not even fish is allowed, while part
+of the time oil, milk, and shell-fish are also forbidden.) And the
+welcome is no mere show of kindliness; the longer you stay at the
+convent, the better the monks are pleased, and staying longer than you
+intended is the highest compliment you can pay them. What change a
+larger acquaintance with the world will produce, of course I cannot say,
+or how much the spirit of hospitality will diminish by an increase of
+the calls on it; but now no English country-house makes you more at home
+than a Cretan convent.
+
+In the morning, the _patéras_ guided us to a peak, near the northeastern
+point of the Akroteri, whence we could overlook, not only the peninsula
+and Suda Bay, but the Apokorona, the coast from Cape Spada to Cape
+Stavros, the Rhiza as far as the mountains of Kisamos, Mount Ida, and
+the mountains of Sphakia, Lampe, and even, in the dim distance,
+Lassithe. Included in the field of view were the sites of seven of the
+Cretan cities of _early_ days, not counting Minoa and Canea, hidden from
+view. On the north, we had the Greek islands Cerigotto, Cerigo, Milo,
+Santorini, and others less prominent. It was my intention to return by
+the shore of Suda Bay, in order to visit Minoa, but the badness of the
+roads, and the utter want of interest in the intermediate distance,
+determined me to visit that part of the Akroteri by boat at a later
+period.
+
+Returning to the convent, we had not long to wait for a capital
+dinner,--soup, a boiled chicken, mutton stewed with artichokes and
+beans, new honey, and rice prepared with milk, sugar, and spices, with a
+dessert of figs and grapes. The wine of the convent had a bitter taste,
+from an herb steeped in it, which was preferable to the pitch of Greek
+wines, but still not a desirable addition. One of the monks, who had a
+small property close by the convent, brought us a bottle of wine of his
+own production, which was one of the best I have ever tasted in the
+East, and to my mind better than that of Cyprus. With coffee and
+cigarettes we stretched ourselves on the sofas before the windows,
+through which the east wind blew the odors extorted from the fragrant
+herbs and flowers by the overpowering sun. No other sound than the hum
+of the bees darting past with unwearying haste, and the chirping of a
+few birds amongst the olives, disturbed the air, and the monks left us
+to dream or doze as we pleased. The charm of the place was complete, and
+it would not have been a penance to make the convent a summer's abode.
+The fleas were a drawback, surely; but nowhere in Crete can one get away
+from that plague, and at Hagia Triada they were less offensive, as I
+learned by later experience, than in many other convents, and even in
+most private houses.
+
+When, the sun cooling his fires, we ordered our steeds out, and prepared
+to return, the whole _personnel_ of the convent came to assist, with the
+inhabitants of a little village adjoining, which finds protection and
+Christian charity from the convent. The monks, excepting two or three,
+seemed of an ignorant and boorish quality, but hard-working and
+kind-hearted. Here, evidently, a certain kind of bliss was in ignorance,
+and the most learned were not wise enough to be accused of much folly.
+The Hegoumenos, in bidding us good by, begged us warmly to come again
+and stay long,--a month at least. All joined in the kindly wish; and we
+rode back through the lengthening olive shadows, which never had fitter
+accompaniment than in the peace and content which the convent promised
+us, and I am sure not vainly. Not that I am a believer in the peace that
+does not come of fighting,--the retreat before battle,--or think that
+quiet and laziness are one. Content is a piggish virtue and one which no
+earnest soul can abide in, and unsleeping ambition is the only Jacob's
+ladder; but when my reader is tired of struggling, and must repose, I am
+sure that he (or she, even) would find in Hagia Triada such peace and
+content as may be healthfully known, and no begrudging of the solace and
+satisfaction to heretics. It seems to me that only those who have no
+right to a quiet life envy it in others, and, as our monks earn their
+right to be charitable, they are not envious, even with sinners.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] As I shall have constant occasion to draw from Pashley information
+and quotations which my own classical reading, time, and library
+facilities do not permit me even to verify, I shall, once for all,
+confess indebtedness for almost all the classical knowledge I possess of
+the island, as well as for almost all the topographical information and
+direction in my visits to antique sites, to either him or Spratt,
+without whose invaluable researches the half of Crete would still be in
+a measure _terra incognita_. What I hope to add to the knowledge of
+Crete will be in a different vein from theirs.
+
+[B] Consult Marsh's "Man and Nature."
+
+
+
+
+CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC.
+
+BY THE PROFESSOR EMERITUS Of DEAD AND LIVE LANGUAGES.
+
+([Greek: Phi. Beta. Kappa.]--CAMBRIDGE, 1867.)
+
+
+    You bid me sing,--can I forget
+      The classic ode of days gone by,--
+    How belle Fifine and jeune Lisette
+      Exclaimed, "Anacreon, geron ei"?
+    "Regardez donc," those ladies said,--
+      "You're getting bald and wrinkled too:
+    When summer's roses all are shed,
+      Love's nullum ite, voyez-vous!"
+
+    In vain ce brave Anacreon's cry,
+      "Of Love alone my banjo sings"
+    (Erota mounon). "Etiam si,--
+      Eh b'en?" replied the saucy things,--
+    "Go find a maid whose hair is gray,
+      And strike your lyre,--we sha'n't complain;
+    But parce nobis, s'il vous plait,--
+      Voilà Adolphe! Voilà Eugène!"
+
+    Ah, jeune Lisette! Ah, belle Fifine!
+      Anacreon's lesson all must learn;
+    'O kairos oxus; Spring is green;
+      But Acer Hyems waits his turn!
+    I hear you whispering from the dust,
+      "Tiens, mon cher, c'est toujours so,--
+    The brightest blade grows dim with rust,
+      The fairest meadow white with snow!"
+
+    You do not mean it! _Not_ encore?
+      _Another_ string of playday rhymes?
+    You've heard me--nonne est?--before,
+      Multoties,--more than twenty times;
+    Non possum,--vraiment,--pas du tout,
+      I cannot! I am loath to shirk;
+    But who will listen if I do,
+      My memory makes such shocking work?
+
+    Ginosko, Scio. Yes, I'm told
+      Some ancients like my rusty lay,
+    As Grandpa Noah loved the old
+      Red-sandstone march of Jubal's day
+    I used to carol like the birds,
+      But time my wits has quite unfixed,
+    Et quoad verba,--for my words,--
+      Ciel! Eheu! Whe-ew!--how they're mixed!
+
+    Mehercle! Zeu! Diable! how
+      My thoughts were dressed when I was young
+    But tempus fugit! see them now
+      Half clad in rags of every tongue!
+    O philoi, fratres, chers amis!
+      I dare not court the youthful Muse,
+    For fear her sharp response should be,
+      "Papa Anacreon, please excuse!"
+
+    Adieu! I've trod my annual track
+      How long!--let others count the miles,--
+    And peddled out my rhyming pack
+      To friends who always paid in smiles.
+    So, laissez-moi! some youthful wit
+      No doubt has wares he wants to show;
+    And I am asking, "Let me sit,"
+      Dum ille clamat, "Dos pou sto!"
+
+
+
+
+THE ROSE ROLLINS.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+"It was a Sunday evening that was coming on, you see, and there was a
+full moon, and all the willagers would be out to church, because there
+was a rewival a-going on, and, thinks says I, he'll walk into his sleep,
+like as not, and he'll be wisible to one and he'll be wisible to all,
+and I must adopt the adwice that's been adwised me, whether it's quite
+adwisable or not; so I gets the clothes-line, and I cuts off about five
+yards, and I slips it under my piller before I goes to--before I retires
+to rest. The clothes-line was a new hempen one, and strong as could be.
+Well, he was no sooner asleep than up I riz, and slips the line from
+under my piller, and I ties my arm to his'n with a knot that couldn't be
+ontied easy. And now, thinks says I to myself, you get away and walk
+into your sleep if you can! But you'll see directly that I was adwised
+bad.
+
+"Just as the meetin' folks was a-goin' home, I, bein' about half asleep,
+feels somethin' pullin' and pullin' onto my arm, and says I, 'Let go!'
+and nothin' answered, and then says I, 'Let go, I tell you!' and, bless
+you! I had no more than got the words out of my mouth when down I comes
+onto the floor, piller and all! I knowed then, right away, what was the
+matter,--he was a-walkin' into his sleep. 'O, stop,' says I, 'just for a
+minute, till I ontie myself!'
+
+"'Divel a bit!' says he, and with that he strode off, and me headlong at
+his heels!"
+
+"My little wentersome one!" says John; and finding that that but very
+inadequately expressed what he felt, he repeated it, with slight
+alteration, "My wentersome little one!" at the same time lifting his
+eyes to heaven and shaking his finger in a menacing way at the air.
+
+"Me--your own--headlong at his heels," whispered the widow, softly. And
+then she boxed his ear with the tips of her fingers, and then he said he
+would love to have her a-boxin' on 'em forever, and then she laughed
+incredulously, and then she went on:--
+
+'Stop, you willain, till I ontie myself,' says I.
+
+"'Ontie me, you wixen!' says he, 'who cares whether you are ontied or
+not?' and he histed the winder,--a two-story winder it was,--and out he
+went!"
+
+"My brain is a-reelin'!" cries John. "You poor dewoted dove!"
+
+"Dewoted, sure enough," says the widow, "and dewoted you'd 'a' thought
+if you'd 'a' seen me; for up he hists the winder, and out he goes. Now
+there was the framework of a new house--a great skeleton like--standin'
+alongside of us, and into that he waults, and I waults after him,--for
+what could I do but wault?--and away he goes from beam to beam, and from
+jice to jice, and from scantlin' to scantlin', waultin' up and up, and
+me waultin' after,--for what could I do but wault?--and cryin' with all
+my might, 'You willain!' and he a-cryin' back, 'You wixen!' and the moon
+a-shinin' like a blaze, and the meetin' folks goin' by, and my
+night-gownd a-floppin', and both of us plain wisible!
+
+"'Help! murder!' I cries, for my salwation depended on it, and, seein'
+the meetin' folks adwance, he just waulted from the timber onto which we
+stood right into the thin and insupportable air--"
+
+"And dragged you after him? Lord 'a' mercy!" cried John.
+
+"No," says the widow, speaking with great calmness; "my presence of mind
+never forsook me,--I was an undertaker's daughter, and adwantage of
+birth prewailed over the disadwantage of position,--I waulted down the
+tother side; and there we hung balanced into the air, and there we would
+have hung all night but for the accident of the rewival.
+
+"When they cut us down,--which one of the rewival folks did with his
+jack-knife,--I woluntarily fainted away, and was carried in for dead,
+and didn't rewive, and wouldn't rewive, for hours and hours. La me! I
+was so ashamed!"
+
+"I wish it had been my forten to carry you into the house," says John.
+
+"So do I," says the widow; "but let us be thankful that the wicissitudes
+of life have driv us together at last."
+
+"At last, sure enough," says John; "you speak wisdom when you don't know
+on 't, you dove of doves!"
+
+She bent her eyes upon him in tender inquiry, in answer to which he
+said, "At last it is, sweetheart, for you don't know that I loved you
+when I was a youngster not more 'n a dozen year old!"
+
+"Loved _me_, captain! It isn't creditable! Tell me all about it. Are you
+sure?"
+
+"Just as sure on 't as I be of anything; just as sure as I be that I
+love you now."
+
+"Tell me all about it, I'm dying to know; it seems like some wild
+novelty, to be sure."
+
+"Yes, you're right, it is like a novelty if it was only writ out, and it
+don't seem creditable, but it's true; I'm just as sure on 't as I be of
+anything,--just as sure as I be that I love you now!"
+
+"O captain!"
+
+"Yes, my own Rose, I loved you when I was a little lad,--loved you just
+as I did the mornin' star,--loved you and worshipped you from far away.
+What a spry little thing you was, a-hoppin' about among the mahogany and
+walnut stuff like a young sparrer! O, how I've watched and follered you
+with my eyes when you didn't dream on 't!"
+
+"But, John, my nerves are a woman's, remember, and you mustn't keep them
+a-strain so long; they're wery much weakened by all this."
+
+"Ay, to be sure," says John; "your nerves be a woman's, to say nothin'
+of your curosity bein' a woman's!"
+
+And he laughed with as much heartiness at her expense as though she had
+been his wife already.
+
+"John!" This with tender reproach, and he resumed, in a tone of
+respectful and lover-like humility.
+
+"Wa'n't your name Rose Rollins afore you was jined to the
+vagabond,--wagabond, that is to say,--afore you was dethroned; and
+didn't you live in Fust Street, opposite them old tenement housen knowed
+as Baker's Row?"
+
+"Of course I did, John, in the yaller brick with the shop in the corner,
+and the entrance embellished with a beautiful sign,--three coffins, with
+their leds turned back so as to reweal the satin linin's, and my
+father's name in letters that represented silver screws! A stroke of
+genius that design was!--the sign of the three coffins, two of them
+sideways and one end; my father's name--Farewell Rollins, wery
+appropriate to his business as it turned out--in letters that they was
+modelled after silver screws."
+
+"Three on 'em, two sideways and one end?" says John; "and the name,
+Farewell Rollins, shaped arter silver screws! Why, as you be a livin'
+cretur, you're the very--wery--little gal I was in love with; and many a
+day, dark enough otherwise with poverty and sorrer, you've lighted up
+with your purty golden head!" And then he tells her, by way of
+illustrating the depth and sincerity of his early attachment, that it
+once happened to him to have an orange given him at Christmas time; and
+that, although he had never tasted an orange in all his born days,
+except through a confectioner's window-glass, he without hesitation
+tossed it over the wall into her father's yard, hoping that she, who ate
+oranges every day, might possibly have his added to the rest. And he
+concluded with, "Such was the nater of my feelin's for you even then."
+
+"And the nater of your feelin's, John, was not only wergin' close upon
+the feelin's of love," says the milliner, deeply touched, "but they was
+love,--love of the wiolentest kind!"
+
+And then she says that, if she can only find in the town an orange as
+big as the full moon, she'll buy it, let it cost what it will, and give
+it to him.
+
+And then she says, playfully tapping his chin, "I only wish them
+feelin's had hild."
+
+"You wish them feelin's had hild!" says John, leaning his face still
+lower to the touches of her pretty hands; and then in his reverence he
+addressed her in the third person, saying, "How sweetly prowokin' she
+is!"
+
+Then, very earnestly, "They hev hild all these years, them feelin's hev,
+and they hev been rewived this day in all their wiolence; and the
+beautiful curls that used to shine down all the daffodils are just as
+soft and as golden as ever!" Here he ventured to touch the ends of the
+long-admired tresses; but he did not see that they were both thin and
+faded, and that the parting was very, very wide. "Ay, it's the same
+bright head," he went on, "that's been a-shinin' all these years so far
+away that I never expected to put my rough hand on 't,--not, anyhow,
+afore I'd crossed the dark ferry, and got refined into a spirit. And
+now, just think! here you be, a-sailin' in my little wessel, that I'd
+christened 'The Rose Rollins' for your memory's sake,--a-sailin' by my
+side in all the freshness and bloom of your perfect beauty!"
+
+The milliner laughed, well pleased with the compliment, and said that,
+when one charm wanished, another took its place sometimes; so that, if
+we only kept up our witality, we didn't look much the worse for all our
+years. "Now you, for instance, could never have been handsomer than you
+are to-day!" she concluded, pointing her theory with that kindly method
+so characteristic of women.
+
+His face had been drawing nearer to hers all the while she spoke, so
+that his eyes were quite looking into hers now. "I'm broke a leetle,"
+says he, "I know it; but when I see myself in these lovely
+lookin'-glasses I do look right nice, for all." And then he went on with
+his story.
+
+"I was a'most forgettin' on 't," he said; "but what wonder!
+
+"My father was a sailor; and the last time he ever went out was as one
+of the crew of the Dauphin, of Nantucket, Captain Griscom,--how well I
+remember it! though I was a little chap then,--about seven year old, I
+guess. The Dauphin was a whaler, you must know, and Captain Griscom as
+rough and hard as the sea-rocks themselves. I seen him once; and I've
+got a picter in my mind of his furrered, weather-beat face, and eyes
+that was more like the bulb of some pison plant than anything else,--so
+blue, and dull, and lackin' all human expression. His ear was like a dry
+knot,--seemed as if 't would break off if you touched it, and his nose
+wa' n't much better. He wa' n't a man that any child would ever go
+nigh,--anyhow I couldn't. My father was high-sperited,--too
+high-sperited for his sitooation, as'll be showed by an' by.
+
+"My mother was a little, pale woman, with blue eyes, and hair as soft as
+flax. You've seen her, I dare say, for she took in washin', and used to
+hang the things on the ruf, and I would go up with her under pertence of
+helpin', but more, I'm afeard, because I could the better see into your
+door-yard, and maybe get a glimpse o' you. Well, my father used to tell
+her, 'Katura,' he would say, 'arter one more voyage I'll leave the sea,
+for then I shall be rich enough to buy an acre o' ground somewheres
+where I can hear the waters a-lappin' on the sand; and we'll build a
+snug little house, and send our boy to school, and you sha' n't wash no
+more, for you ain't strong, Katura,--not nigh so strong as you used to
+be,--I can see that plain enough.' Then the tears would come to my
+mother's eyes; for a tender word was always touchin' to her, and seein'
+on 'em my father would make haste to say, pattin' of her cheek, that,
+although some o' the airly roses was gone, she wa' n't a mite less
+purty than she used to be! and then she'd wipe her eyes and smile agin,
+and arter a little smoothin' up of her hair, or carefuller pinnin' of
+her handkerchief, light his pipe for him, and fetch the big chair out of
+the corner; and then she'd set herself to darnin' of his socks, or
+patchin' of his jackets, and so they'd pass an evenin' happy as could
+be,--my father singin' a sea-song, or a love-song, maybe, first or last.
+
+"We lived in the last house o' the Row,--the housen was all poor enough,
+you mind, but ourn was the very poorest on 'em, and then we had the top
+floor,--one room and a pantry bein' all, exceptin' the ruf, which was
+flat, and which we had the privilege on for a yard, in consideration of
+a dollar extra a month. 'Have the ruf, be sure, Katura!' my father would
+say. 'What's a dollar?' and he'd slap his hand down as though 't was
+full o' dollars, but 't wa' n't, and mother always paid the extra dollar
+out of her own airnin's, but feelin' all the time a'most as if he'd paid
+it, just because of the generous way he had o' speekin'. I remember the
+last time father sailed with the Dauphin, as I was sayin'
+afore,--remember it just as though it was yesterday. It was a mornin' in
+winter,--the twenty-third o' December, and snow a-lyin' on the ground. I
+could see his tracks along the walk for a week arter he was gone, and
+then the snow begun to melt; thawin' and freezin' together at first, and
+then a clean thaw, so the tracks filled up with water, and arter another
+week I couldn't find no trace on 'em.
+
+"'Take good care o' your mother, my lad!' he said, 'take the best o'
+care on her! I'll be home afore long, for good and all, to take care on
+her myself; it won't be but two or three year at the outside,'--and he
+give my shoulder a little shake, and then he slipped a quarter-dollar
+into my hand. And then he turned to her. 'Three year ain't long,
+Katura,' he says; 'why, they'll fly round just like so many hours,
+a'most, and fust thing you know you'll hear my step a-comin' up the
+stair! Have everything you want, good wife, and don't work hard; you
+know its agin my will that you should,--these pale cheeks make me a
+little afeard; but, arter all, you'll come round with the daisies, I
+guess.' And with that he turned from her, and writ a little with his
+finger on the table, and then he chirked up like, and buttoned his
+jacket quick, and went out the door just as though he wa' n't a-goin' no
+furder than across the street.
+
+"The minute follerin', mother went up to the house-ruf. She wanted to
+see arter the washed things, she said, how they was a-dryin' and all;
+but I knowd well enough she wanted to see arter him, and didn't pull at
+her skirt and foller, as I generally did. I stayed down stairs, and, to
+kind o' break up my sorrer, I chucked my head aginst the knob that was
+atop o' the andiron! A curus way to git relief; but my diversions, them
+times, was somewhat limited.
+
+"When my mother came down agin, there wa' n't no tears in her eyes, but
+they had a kind of a fur-reachin' look, as if they was a-gazin' clear
+across the salt seas; and they never lost that look arterwards. It was
+wofuller than tears, that look was,--'cause it seemed as if it was arter
+somethin' that wa'n't to be found on this airth.
+
+"I hung round her, and when she did n't say nothin' I told her I was
+goin' to be the best boy that ever was, and build all the fires, and
+help her to keep things snug; and that I could make my old shoes last
+three year, till father would come home. I was sure on 't, with one new
+pair o' half-soles, and one new pair o' toe-caps, anyhow.
+
+"Then she took me on her knee, and leaned her face agin mine, and said I
+was the best child in all the world, and she hoped yet to see the time
+that I'd hev as nice shoes and other things as I deserved. I slipped the
+ring up and down her finger, as she held me so, a-talkin' to me, and at
+last I said, 'This ring is too big, mother; what made you get such a
+big one?' And then she said, 'Your father give it to me long ago, my
+child, and it wa'n't none too big at fust; it's the fault of the
+finger,--that is getting too thin'; and then she took the ring off,--it
+was a leetle slim thing,--and put it in an old teapot that was kept on
+the top shelf of the cupboard. She was afeared she'd either lose it off
+her hand, she said, or break it on the washboard. She didn't say nothin'
+furder, but I see she thought that the losin' on 't would be the
+dreadfullest misfortin that could happen to her.
+
+"It would take too long, and wear out your patience, I calculate, if I
+was to tell you of all the troubles we hed arter the sailin' of the
+Dauphin, and troubles ain't interestin' to hear on, nohow; so I'll pass
+'em by, trustin' your lively imagination to picter on 'em out.
+
+"Well, when the three year was purty near up, she used to say to me
+every day, 'Where do you 'spose poor father is? And what will he think
+of his little boy when he sees him?' And then she would answer her own
+question, and say, 'He'll think he's a little man,--that 's what he'll
+think.' And with such like talk she seemed to get a sort of comfort,
+somehow. From her, more than from anything I knowed myself, I got a fine
+notion o' my father; among other things, I thought he was the biggest
+man in the world, and I used to spekilate as to whether Mr. Farewell
+Rollins had a coffin in his shop that would be long enough for him, if
+he should happen to die at home. I didn't s'pose he had, and the thought
+of what it would cost to get one big enough caused me a good deal of
+sorrer. More 'n this, I thought he must have wonderful powers, and that
+he could make me a kite that would fly to the moon, or, if he chose, dip
+all the water out o' the sea with mother's long-handled gourd.
+
+"These thoughts give me a good deal o' satisfaction, but there was times
+that nothin' I could git out o' myself could chirk me up; and them
+times I always betook myself to the andirons, and bobbed my head agin
+the top on 'em, and that was sure to fetch me round.
+
+"I longed for my father to come back, as much, maybe, that Rose Rollins
+might see what a big man he was, as for anything else. I guessed she'd
+begin to notice of us some when the Dauphin come in! Hows'ever, the
+three year went by, and no Dauphin come in; and then the eyes o' my
+mother began to look, not only as if they was a-gazin' away across the
+salt sea, but clean into eternity. Her cheeks fell in like a pie that
+has been sot in a cellar for a week arter the bakin' on't, and her arm
+showed in her sleeve no bigger than a broomstick. I was a'most afeared
+on her sometimes, her forehead come to look so like yaller glass, and as
+if I could see right into it, if I only tried; and them times I thumped
+my head uncommon hard on the knobs of the andirons,--they was a
+blessin', Rose,--and I used to spekilate as to what folks did that wa'
+n't rich enough to hev 'em. My mother got so weak, arter a while, that
+she would sometimes sit by the side o' the tub and wash; and it was
+astonishin' to me to see what great sheets and bed-quilts she could
+wring dry them times; and it was astonishin', too, that she could keep
+her hands in freezin' water, day arter day, and be none the wuss for it;
+but she always said she wa' n't,--in, fact, she used to tell me she
+thought it done her good; and, happy enough for me! I never thought o'
+doubtin' of her for many a long day arterwards.
+
+"Many a time she give me the last bit o' bread, and said she wa' n't
+hungry, and once when I broke my slice in two, and offered her part
+back, she said, 'No, Johnny, I don't think I feel so well for eatin'.
+Rich food,' she said, 'didn't suit her constitution. And so, if we
+happened to hev meat or butter, she put it all on my plate. When it come
+to be my share to work without eatin', then I understood.
+
+"Many a time o' nights I heard her a-turnin' and moanin' in her sleep,
+as if soul and body was clean wore out; and at last I went to the lady
+that lived in the house with the painted door, and fitted young ladies
+with corsets, and sold them pomatum that made the hair grow to their
+heels,--so she said,--and told how my mother moaned in the night as if
+she was a-bein' drownded in the sea; and she told me it was a nasty
+habit some folks had,--mostly because they slept too sound,--and that,
+if I would give her a rough shake, she guessed she would come out all
+right. I tried to believe her on account o' the pomatum and the painted
+door, partly; but it wa'n't in the heart o' me to give the rough shake,
+and I never done it, thank the Lord!
+
+"Sometimes the fine lady would come in with her sewin'-work to bring us
+a little sunshine, she used to say, and I'm sure she never brought
+nothin' else, nor that neither, that anybody could see; and I always
+noticed that my mother felt a good deal less cheerful arter one o' these
+visits.
+
+"'Why don't you ride out, Mrs. Chidlaw?' she would say, 'and why don't
+you call the doctor? and why don't you wear warm flannels?' and then why
+didn't she do a thousand things that wa'n't to be thought on, 'cause
+they wa'n't in the nater o' the case; and then she would go away, sayin'
+she would run in another time and bring more sunshine!
+
+"My mother generally cried for a spell arter one o' these bright
+mornin's; and I didn't wonder, for it seemed to me as if the scent o'
+the pomatum was pison, and all the air was heavy like, arter one o' the
+visits.
+
+"She used to set up o'nights, a-workin', my mother did, long beyond
+midnight sometimes. 'What makes you, mother?' I would say. 'O, 'cause I
+like it, John!' she 'd answer, so lively like; and then she 'd begin to
+hum a tune, maybe, as if she was overflowin' with sperits.
+
+"She didn't seem to need sleep no more, she said, and, besides, she
+wanted to be wide awake when father come. So night arter night she would
+set by our one taller candle, a-mendin' of my jackets, and a-darnin' of
+my stockin's, and a-straightenin' and a stiffenin' up of the run-down
+heels of my old shoes.
+
+"'I don't care nothin' about 'em, mother,' I would say. 'I 'd just as
+lives be a wearin' on 'em ragged as not, and you 've chores enough
+without a-mindin' of me so much.' But she always said that, whether or
+not I cared for myself, she cared for me, and that she wanted I should
+look as smart as anybody's boy, so that father would be proud on me when
+he come home; concludin' with 'He must sartainly come now afore long.'
+
+"Many a time I've waked up of a winter night and found her woollen
+petticoat spread onto my bed, and she ashiverin' by the dyin' fire. One
+mornin' she surprised me uncommon by holdin' of a cap afore my eyes. 'A
+new one made of the old one,' says she, 'but you 'd never dream on 't,
+would you, Johnny?'
+
+"I hung it on the chair-post, and then I stood off, fairly dazzled, so
+gret was my admiration on 't. It was my old cap, be sure; but then it
+was all brushed up and pressed into shape, and lined anew with one o'
+the sleeves of my mother's silk weddin'-gown.. It wa' n't to be wore no
+longer every day, so she said, but must be put on the upper shelf o' the
+cupboard with her ring and her Sunday shawl, and kep' nice agin the time
+father should come home. I suffered, on givin' on 't up, the most
+tormentin' pangs, and had to bob my head agin the andirons considerable
+longer than common afore I come round. I was bent on wearin' on't in the
+sight of Rose Rollins,--that's you,--and forcin' on her to see the silk
+linin' some ways, and I planned out warious stratagems to that end. But
+mother said, 'No, Johnny, keep it nice just a leetle bit, till poor
+father comes.' And arter that she pacified me by takin' on 't down from
+time to time and allowin' of me to wear it as much as two or three
+minutes sometimes. The linin' was pea-green; and I've often thought
+since it was a leetle too fine for the tother part, which was
+seal-skin, and wore tolerable bare,--I havin' wore it, not off and on,
+but steady on, from the time I left off my bunnet that was made of the
+end of my cradle-quilt; but I didn't calculate it was too fine then, and
+I made a pint o' standin' on a chair afore the lookin'-glass, or else
+afore the winder towards your 'us, all the whilst I was a-wearin' on 't.
+It worried me a good deal, them times, to decide which I 'd rather
+do,--look at myself, or hev you look at me!
+
+"I used to tease mother to put the white shawl round her shoulders.
+'Just for a minute,' I would say; but she always answered, 'One of these
+days, Johnny; it 's all wrapt up with camp-phire, and I don't want to be
+gettin' on 't down!' I understood well enough that it was to be got out
+when the great day come.
+
+"'Suppose, Johnny,' says she, one day, 'we cut off some of our luxuries,
+and save up to buy somethin' nice for poor father agin he comes home!' I
+was struck favorable with the idee of the present, but what luxuries was
+to be cut off I didn't see clear.
+
+"There's the candle, for one thing!' says mother. 'Taller's taller, at
+the best o' times; and the few chores I do at night I can do just as
+well by the light of a pine-knot.'
+
+"Butter, she said, wa' n't healthy for her, nor milk, nor meat, nor
+sugar, nor no such things, so it would all be easy enough for her. She
+only hesitated on my account. But I spoke up ever so brave. 'I don't
+mind,' says I; 'it'll be good fun, in fact, just to see how leetle we
+can live on!' And I think yet my mind was some expanded by that
+experience,--it driv me to such curus devices. At fust I took leetle
+bites off my cake, and leetle sips of my porridge; but I found a more
+effective plan afore long, for looks goes a good ways, and even when we
+deceive ourselves it kind o' helps us. Well, I took to hevin' my
+porridge in a shaller plate, so that there seemed twice as much on 't as
+there really was, and to hollerin' my cake out from the under side, so
+that, when it was reduced to a mere shell, it still represented what it
+wa' n't; a trick that I found to work very slick, especially when I
+imagined Rose a-lookin' at my shaller plate, and not knowin' how deep it
+was.
+
+"'Won't we hev a beautiful surprise, though, for poor father!' my mother
+would say, when my spoon touched bottom, and it always touched bottom
+premature; and then we would talk of what we should buy, and I would be
+carried away like, and forget myself.
+
+"A fur hat was talked on in our fust wild enthusiasm, but that idee was
+gin up arter we'd gone about among the stores; and we settled final on
+'t a pair o' square-toed brogans, with nails in the heels on 'em.
+
+"'Let 'em be good sewed shoes, and not peg,' says my mother, when she
+give the shoemaker his order, 'and make 'em up just as soon as possible.
+You see my husband may be here any day now; and we mean to hev a great
+surprise for him,--Johnny and me.'
+
+"The shoemaker, to my surprise,--for I expected him to enter into it
+with as much enthusiasm as we,--hesitated, said he was pressed heavy
+with work just then, and that he thought she had best go to some other
+shop! I didn't understand the meanin' on 't at all; but my mother did,
+and told him she could pay him aforehand, if he wanted it; at which he
+brightened up, and said, come to think on 't, he could make the brogans
+right away.
+
+"Sure enough, they was finished at the appinted time, and I carried 'em
+home, with the money that come back in change inside o' one on 'em.
+
+"'Why, Johnny,' says mother, when she counted it, her face all
+a-glowin', 'here's enough left to buy a handkerchief for your father!'
+
+"Then she counted it agin, and said there was enough, she was a'most
+sure on 't. It mightn't get a silk one, not pure silk, but if she could
+only find somethin' with a leetle mixter o' cotton in 't, why it would
+look nearly as well,--the difference would never be knowed across the
+house.
+
+"She wanted a new gingham apron for herself; but that wa' n't bought,
+and all the money, as I have guessed sence, went into the handkerchief.
+And a purty one it was, too,--yaller-colored, with a red border, and an
+anchor worked in one corner on 't with blue-silk yarn.
+
+"So the fine presents was put away on the top shelf o' the cupboard,
+with the cap and the ring and the shawl, and there they stayed, week in
+and week out, and still the Dauphin didn't come in. I could see that my
+mother was a-growin' uneasy, more and more, though she never said
+nothin' to me that was discouragin'. She'd set sometimes for an hour
+a-lookin' straight into the air, and then she went up to the ruf more 'n
+common to look arter the things a-dryin' there.
+
+"One day there come on snow and sleet, but for all that she stayed
+aloft, just as though the sun had been a-shinin'; and at last, when the
+dusk had gathered so that she couldn't see no longer, she come down with
+a gret heap o' wet things, in her arms, and all of a shiver.
+
+"Her hand shook as she sot down to bind shoes,--she had took to bindin'
+of shoes some them times, not bein' so strong as she used to be for the
+washin'; but arter a while she fell of a tremble all over. 'It's no
+use,' says she, 'I ain't good for nothin' no more,' and she put away the
+bindin' and cowered close over the ashes.
+
+"I wanted to lay on a big stick, but she said no, she'd go to bed, and
+get warm there; but she didn't get warm, not even when I had piled all
+the things I could rake and scrape over the bed-quilt, for I could see
+them tremblin' together like a heap o' dry leaves.
+
+"I went to the lady with the painted door, and she promised to come in
+and see my mother early in the mornin'; but in the mornin', when I went
+agin, she said she had so many corsets to fit that it wa' n't
+possible,--that I must tell my mother she sent a great deal o' love, and
+hoped she'd be better very soon.
+
+"I didn't go arter her no more, and all that day and the next my poor
+mother lay, now a-burnin' and now a-freezin', but by and by she got
+better, and sot up in bed some, havin' my little chair agin her back;
+and so she finished bindin' o' the shoes, and I carried on 'em home, she
+a-chargin' me twenty times afore I sot out to take care and not lose the
+money I got for bindin' on 'em. 'And don't forget to stop at the store,'
+she said, 'and buy me a quarter o' tea, as you come back, Johnny.'
+
+"But, after all, I went home without the tea, or the money either.
+
+"In the fust place, the shoemaker said my mother had disappinted him in
+not sendin' the work home when she promised; and when I said she was
+sick, he answered that that wa 'n't his look-out; and then he eyed the
+work sharply, sayin', at last, that he couldn't pay for them sort o'
+stitches, and he wouldn't give out no more bindin' neither, and that I
+might go with a hop, skip, and jump, and tell my mother so; and he waved
+his hand, with a big boot-last in it, as though, if I didn't hop quick,
+he'd be glad to help me for'a'd himself.
+
+"'Never mind, Johnny,' says mother, as I leaned my head on her piller,
+a-cryin', and told her what the shoemaker had said, 'it'll all be right
+when father comes back.'
+
+"She didn't mind about the tea, she said, water would serve just as
+well; and then, arter pickin' at the bed-clothes a leetle, she said she
+felt sleepy, and turned her face to the wall.
+
+"All winter long she was sick, and there was heart-breakin' things all
+the while comin' to pass; but I'd rather not tell on 'em.
+
+"Spring come round at last,--as come it will, whether them that watch
+for its comin' are cryin' or laughin',--and the sun shined in at the
+south winder and made a patch o' gold on the floor,--all we had, to be
+sure,--when one day comes the news we had been a-lookin' for so
+long,--the Dauphin was a-comin' in!
+
+"'And me here in bed!' says my mother; 'that'll never do. How
+good-for-nothin' I be!'
+
+"Then she told me to run and fetch her best gown out of the chest, and
+she was out o' bed the next minute; and though she looked as pale as the
+sheet she managed somehow to dress herself. Then she told me to fetch
+her the lookin'-glass where she sot by the bedside; and when she seen
+her face the tears came to her eyes, and one little low moan, that
+seemed away down in her heart, made me shudder. 'I don't care for my own
+sake,' she said, puttin' her arm across my neck; 'but what will your
+father think o' me?'
+
+"Then she sot the glass up afore her, and combed her hair half a dozen
+different ways, but none on 'em suited. She didn't look like herself,
+she said, nohow; and then she told me to climb to the upper shelf and
+git down the fine shawl, and see if that would mend matters any.
+
+"I fetched the ring too; but it wouldn't stay on a single finger; and so
+she give it to me, smilin', and sayin' I might wear it till she got
+well.
+
+"I sot the house in order myself, with her a-tellin' on me some about
+things. The two silver teaspoons was burnished up, and stuck for show
+into the edge of the dresser; the three glass tumblers was sot forth in
+full view; and the tin coffee-pot, so high and so narrer at the top, was
+turned sideways on the shelf, so as to make the most on 't; and the
+little brown earthen-ware teapot was histed atop o' that. We had a dozen
+eggs we had been a-savin', for we kep' a hen on the ruf, and them I took
+and sot endwise in the sand-bowl, so that, to all appearance, the whole
+bowl was full of eggs; and I raly thought the appintments, one and all,
+made us look considerable like rich folks.
+
+"'Do go up to the ruf, Johnny, my child,' says my mother, at last, 'and
+see what you will see.'
+
+"She had sot two hours, with her shawl held just so across her bosom,
+and was a-growin' impatient and faint like.
+
+"She looked at me so eager, when I come down, I could hardly bear to
+tell her that I could only just see the Dauphin a-lyin' out, and that
+she looked black and ugly, and that I couldn't see nothin' furder. But I
+did tell it, and then come another o' them little low moans away down in
+her heart. Directly, though, she smiled agin, and told me to go to the
+chest and open the till, and get the table-cloth and the pewter platter
+that I would find there. 'We must have our supper-table shine its best
+to-night,' she said.
+
+"Agin and agin I went up to the ruf, but I didn't see nothin' no time
+except the whaler a-lyin' a little out, and lookin' black and ugly, as
+if there wa'n't no good a-comin' with her.
+
+"At last evenin' fell, and then my mother crept to the winder, and got
+her face agin the pane, and such a look of wistfulness come to her eyes
+as I had never seen in 'em afore.
+
+"She didn't say nothin' no more, and I didn't say nothin'; it was an
+awful silence, but somethin' appeared to keep us from breakin' on 't.
+
+"The shadders had gathered so that the street was all dusky; for there
+wa'n't no lamps at our end o' the street,--when all at once mother was
+a-standin' up, and holdin' out her arms. The next minute she says, 'Run
+to the door, Johnny; I ain't quite sure whether or not it's him!' And
+she sunk down, tremblin', and all of a heap.
+
+"I could hear the stairs a creakin' under the tread of heavy steps, and
+when I got to the door there was two men a comin' up instead o' one.
+'It's him! mother! it's him!' I shouted with all my might, for I see a
+sailor's cap and jacket, and took the rest for granted. I swung the door
+wide, and stood a-dancin' in it, and yet I didn't like the looks o'
+neither on 'em; only I thought I ought to be glad, and so I danced for
+pertended joy. 'Get out o' the way! you sassy lad!' says one o' the men,
+and he led the tother right past me into the house, I follerin' along
+behind, but neither on 'em noticin' of me in the least; and there sot my
+mother, dead still on her chair, just as if she was froze into stone.
+'Here he is,' says the man that was leadin' of him,--'here's John
+Chidlaw, what there is left on him!' Then he give me a push toward him,
+and nodded to my mother like, a-drawin' his mouth into such queer shapes
+that I couldn't tell whether he was a-laughin' or cryin', and I didn't
+know which I ought to do neither.
+
+"By this time the man that I partly took to be my father was a-backin'
+furder and furder from us, and at last he got clean agin the jamb o' the
+chimney, and then he looked up wild, as if he was a looking at the sky,
+and directly he spoke. 'This'll be a stiff blow,' says he. 'We're struck
+aft, and we'll be in the trough of the sea in a minute! God help us
+all!' And with that he began to climb up the shelves o' the cupboard, as
+though he was a climbin' into a ship's riggin'.
+
+"Next thing I seen, mother had got to him, somehow, and was a-holdin'
+round his neck, and talkin' to him in tones as sweet and coaxin' as
+though he had been a sick baby. 'Don't you know me, John?' she
+says,--'your own Katura, that you left so long ago!' He didn't answer
+her at all; he didn't seem to see her, but kep' right on, a-talkin'
+about the ship not bein' able to lift herself, and about the rudder
+bein' tore away, and a leak som'er's, and settin' of a gang o' hands at
+the pumps, and gettin' of the cargo up, and the dear knows what all! I
+didn't understand a word on 't, and, besides that, I was afeard on him.
+
+"'Tell 'em about the last whale we ketched, Jack,--that big bull that so
+nigh upsot us all. Come, that's a story worth while!' It was the man
+that had led him in who said this; and he laughed loud, and slapped him
+on the shoulder as he said it; and then he looked at my mother and
+winked, and drawed his mouth queer agin.
+
+"My father kind o' come to himself like now, and seatin' himself astride
+a chair, and with his face to the back on 't, he began:--
+
+"We was a cruisin' about in the South Pacific, when, between three and
+four in the afternoon of an August day, we bein' in latitude forty at
+the time, the man on the look-out at the fore-topmast-head cried out
+that a whale had broke water in plain view of our ship, and on her
+weather bow.
+
+"'Where away, sir? and what do you call her?' shouts the captain,
+hailin' the mast-head.
+
+"'Sperm whale, sir, three pints on the weather-bow, and about two miles
+off!'
+
+"'Keep a sharp eye, and sing out when the ship heads for her!'
+
+"'Ay, ay, sir.'
+
+"The captain went aloft with his spy-glass. 'Keep her away!' was his
+next order to the man at the helm.
+
+"'Steady!' sung out the mast-head.
+
+"'Steady it is!' answered the wheel.
+
+"'Square in the after-yards, and call all hands!'
+
+"'Ay, ay, sir.'
+
+"'Forward there! Haul the mainsail up, and square the yards!'
+
+"'Steady, steady!' sings out the mast-head.
+
+"'Steady it is!' answers the wheel.
+
+"'Call all hands!' shouts the captain, in a voice like a tempest.
+
+"The main hatches was off, and the men mostly in the blubber-room,
+engaged, some on 'em, in mincin' and pikin' pieces of blanket and horse
+from one tub to another, and some was a-tendin' fires, and some
+a-fillin' casks with hot ile from the cooler; but quick as lightnin' all
+the deck is thronged, like the street of a city when there is a cry of
+fire.
+
+"'There she blows! O, she's a beauty, a regular old sog!' sings the
+mast-head.
+
+"'Slack down the fires! Quick, by G--!' shouts the captain in a voice
+like thunder.
+
+"'She peaks her flukes, and goes down!' cries the mast-head.
+
+"'A sharp eye, sir! Mind where she comes up!'
+
+"'Ay, ay, sir!'
+
+"'Get your boats ready, lads, and stand by to lower away!'
+
+"The men work as for life,--the boat-bottoms are tallered, the
+boat-tackle-falls laid down, so as to run clear, the tub o' line and
+the harpoons got in, the gripes cast clear, and each boat's crew by the
+side o' their boat.
+
+"'Hoist and swing! Lower away!'
+
+"In a moment we're off, bendin' to our oars, every man on us, eager to
+see who will be up first. The whale was under half an hour; but at last
+we get sight o' the signal at the main, which tells us that she's up
+agin.
+
+"'Down to your oars, lads! Give way hard!' says the captain.
+
+"I got the palm o' my hand under the abaft oar, so as with each stroke
+to throw a part of my weight agin it, and our boat leapt for'a'd across
+the water, spring arter spring, like a tiger,--her length and twice her
+length afore the others in a minute.
+
+"'She's an eighty-barrel! right ahead! Give way, my boys!' cries the
+captain, encouragin' on us. And all our strength was put to the oar.
+
+"'Spring harder, boys! Harder! If she blows agin, some on you'll have an
+iron into her afore five minutes!' Then to the whale,--a-standin' with
+his legs wide, and bendin' for'a'd like,--'O, you're a beauty! Ahoy!
+ahoy! and let us fasten!'
+
+"We was nearly out of sight of our ship now, but we could see the smoke
+of her try-works still standin' black above her, though the fires had
+been slacked so long.
+
+"All at once the whale blowed agin; and we could see her plain now,
+lyin' like a log, not more 'n twenty rods ahead. A little more hard
+pullin', and 'Stand up!' says the Captain, and then, 'Give me the first
+chance at her!' I was a-steerin' and I steered him steady, closer,
+closer, alongside a'most, and give his iron the best chance possible;
+but it grazed off, and she settled quietly under, all but her head.
+
+"'That wa'n't quite low enough,' says he. 'Another lance!'
+
+"This failed too, and she settled clean under. Every man was quiverin'
+with excitement; but I watched calmly, and, as soon as I spied her
+whitenin' under water, I sent my lance arter her without orders, and by
+good forten sunk it into her very life--full length.
+
+"She throwed out a great spout o' blood, and dashed furiously under.
+
+"'God help us! She'll come up so as to upset our boat!' cries the
+captain. 'Every man here at her, when she comes in sight!'
+
+"He had hardly done speakin' when I felt a great knock, and at the same
+time seen somethin' a-flyin' through the air. She had just grazed us,
+shovin' our boat aside as a pig shoves his trough, and was breakin'
+water not a stone's throw ahead.
+
+"The captain had gone overboard; but we obeyed his last words before we
+looked arter him, and had a dozen irons into her afore you could 'a'
+said Jack Robinson! Down she went agin, pullin' the line arter her, coil
+on coil; but the pain wouldn't allow her to stay down long, and directly
+she was out agin, thrashin' the water with her flukes till it was all
+churned up like blubbers o'blood,--for her side was bristlin' with
+harpoons, and the life pourin' out on her like rain out of a
+thunder-cloud.
+
+"Meantime the captain had been hauled aboard, and as he sunk down on an
+oar,--for he couldn't stand,--all his shirt and hair a-drippin' red, his
+cold, spiteful eye shot into me like a bullet, and says I to the mate,
+'I'm a doomed man.'"
+
+"Then my father began ramblin' wildly about goin' overboard himself, and
+how he seen a stream o' fire afore his eyes as he sunk into the cold and
+dark; and how there came an awful pressure on his brain, and a roarin'
+in his ears; and how the strength went out of his thighs, and was as if
+the marrer was cut,--how he heard a gurglin', and felt suffocation, and
+then clean lost himself!"
+
+At this point John Chidlaw ceased to be master of his voice, and all at
+once hid his face in his arms. When the woman who had been listening so
+attentively, getting one of his rough hands upon her knee, stroked it
+gently, without a word, and by and by he returned her a little
+pressure, and then, steadying himself up, he said: "It ain't no use to
+think on't, Rose,--it's all over now, and they've met beyond the seas o'
+time, my poor father and mother, for they both crossed long ago,--met,
+and knowed each other, I hope, but the one never come to himself here,
+nor recognized the other. My mother took straight to her bed; and when
+she wore the white shawl agin, and had it drawed across her bosom, it
+was for that journey from which none on us come back."
+
+"Dear John," says Rose, very softly,--all the coquette gone,--only the
+woman left. And presently he was strong enough to go on.
+
+"It was a good many year," he said, "not till I was a'most a man, before
+I came to understand rightly what it was that sot my father crazy. The
+captain had been agin him all along on account of his too much sperit,
+and that capterin' o' the whale finished up the business, and pinted his
+fate. It wa'n't long arter this till Captain Griscom found occasion to
+treat him very hardly, which bein' resented only by a look, he ordered
+him down below to be flogged! This, Rose, was what broke the spirit on
+him; he was never himself arterwards, never knowed nothin' at all clear,
+exceptin' about the takin' o' that whale; and that he told over and over
+a hundred times, arter that fust time, just as I've told it to you, but
+all before it and all behind it was shadders, till the great shadder of
+all came over him.
+
+"When I come to hear on 't, I said I hoped my father would meet that
+'ere captain som'er's on the seas of eternity, and flog him within an
+inch of his life; and I ha'n't repented the sayin' on't yet."
+
+The tide had come up while John Chidlaw was telling his story, and his
+little boat slid off the bar directly, when, taking up the oars, he soon
+brought her to land.
+
+"Bless your dear heart, John!" says Rose, pointing back to the boat's
+name, as he handed her ashore, "would you believe I was so stupid as
+not to see that the name o' your wessel was the same as my own? I read
+it the _Rose Rolling_, to be sure!"
+
+But John maintained that she was not stupid a single bit nor mite, but,
+on the contrary, smart altogether beyond the common. "To come so nigh
+the truth," says he, "and yet not get hold on 't, arter all, is a leetle
+the slickest thing yet!"
+
+And then he told, as they walked home together,--he with three bandboxes
+in one arm, and her on the other,--all about his weary years of hardship
+and poverty, and all about the beginning of his good fortune, the
+running away of the horse and of the little girl who drew him after her,
+because she reminded him so much of Rose herself as she used to be when
+he looked down upon her so fondly from the roof in Baker's Row,--told
+her of the child's father, and how he set him up in business,--of his
+prosperity since, ending with her taking passage with him, which he said
+was the best fortune of all.
+
+"That was luck," says he, "that no words can shadder forth!" And then he
+said, "I oughtn't to call it luck, my dear; it was just an intervention
+of Divine Providence!" Then he corrected himself. "An interwention o'
+Diwine Providence," says he,--"that's what it was!" And he hugged the
+very bandboxes till he fairly stove them in.
+
+About a month after this blessed luck, the milliner's shop was closed
+one day at an unusually early hour, and the white-muslin curtains at the
+parlor windows above might have been noticed to nutter and sway, as with
+some gay excitement indoors. And so indeed there was. John had taken his
+Rose for good and all, and the little parlor was full of glad hearts and
+merry feet. All the milliner's apprentices and sewing-girls of the
+neighborhood were there, bright as so many butterflies, laughing, and
+nodding, and whispering one another, and dropping their eyes before the
+young sailors, and teamsters, and other fine fellows, who were serving
+them with a generosity that was only equalled by their admiration.
+Coffee, cakes, cheese, chowder, bottled beer, fruits, and hot
+bannocks,--the lasses had them all at once, and the lads would have been
+glad to give them even more.
+
+And John, grown ten years younger that day, kept all the while (being
+forced to turn his head away now and then to receive congratulations)
+one foot under the table, and against the soft slipper and silken
+stocking of Rose, lest at any moment she might be caught up into heaven,
+and so vanish out of his sight; and she, in turn, kept fond watch of
+him, pressing the oranges upon him with almost importunate solicitude.
+Perhaps she remembered that one which he had parted with for her sake,
+when he used to look down upon her from the roof of Baker's Row with
+such hopeless and helpless admiration.
+
+
+
+
+ARE THE CHILDREN AT HOME?
+
+
+    Each day when the glow of sunset
+      Fades in the western sky,
+    And the wee ones, tired of playing,
+      Go tripping lightly by,
+    I steal away from my husband,
+      Asleep in his easy-chair,
+    And watch from the open doorway
+      Their faces fresh and fair.
+
+    Alone in the dear old homestead
+      That once was full of life,
+    Ringing with girlish laughter,
+      Echoing boyish strife,
+    We two are waiting together;
+      And oft, as the shadows come,
+    With tremulous voice he calls me,
+      "It is night! are the children home?"
+
+    "Yes, love!" I answer him gently,
+      "They're all home long ago";--
+    And I sing, in my quivering treble,
+      A song so soft and low,
+    Till the old man drops to slumber,
+      With his head upon his hand,
+    And I tell to myself the number
+      Home in the better land.
+
+    Home, where never a sorrow
+      Shall dim their eyes with tears!
+    Where the smile of God is on them
+      Through all the summer years!
+
+    I know!--yet my arms are empty,
+      That fondly folded seven,
+    And the mother heart within me
+      Is almost starved for heaven.
+
+    Sometimes, in the dusk of evening,
+      I only shut my eyes,
+    And the children are all about me,
+      A vision from the skies:
+    The babes whose dimpled fingers
+      Lost the way to my breast,
+    And the beautiful ones, the angels,
+      Passed to the world of the blessed.
+
+    With never a cloud upon them,
+      I see their radiant brows:
+    My boys that I gave to freedom,--
+      The red sword sealed their vows!
+    In a tangled Southern forest,
+      Twin brothers, bold and brave,
+    They fell; and the flag they died for,
+      Thank God! floats over their grave.
+
+    A breath, and the vision is lifted
+      Away on wings of light,
+    And again we two are together,
+      All alone in the night.
+    They tell me his mind is failing,
+      But I smile at idle fears;
+    He is only back with the children,
+      In the dear and peaceful years.
+
+    And still as the summer sunset
+      Fades away in the west,
+    And the wee ones, tired of playing,
+      Go trooping home to rest,
+    My husband calls from his corner,
+      "Say, love! have the children come?"
+    And I answer, with eyes uplifted,
+      "Yes, dear! they are all at home!"
+
+
+
+
+IN THE GRAY GOTH.
+
+
+If the wick of the big oil lamp had been cut straight, I don't believe
+it would ever have happened.
+
+Where is the poker, Johnny? Can't you push back that for'ard log a
+little? Dear, dear! Well, it doesn't make much difference, does it?
+Something always seems to ail your Massachusetts fires; your hickory is
+green, and your maple is gnarly, and the worms eat out your oak like a
+sponge. I haven't seen anything like what I call a fire,--not since Mary
+Ann was married, and I came here to stay. "As long as you live, father,"
+she said; and in that very letter she told me I should always have an
+open fire, and how she wouldn't let Jacob put in the air-tight in the
+sitting-room, but had the fireplace kept on purpose. Mary Ann was a good
+girl always, if I remember straight, and I'm sure I don't complain.
+Isn't that a pine-knot at the bottom of the basket? There! that's
+better.
+
+Let me see; I began to tell you something, didn't I? O yes; about that
+winter of '41. I remember now. I declare, I can't get over it, to think
+you never heard about it, and you twenty-four year old come Christmas.
+You don't know much more, either, about Maine folks and Maine fashions
+than you do about China,--though it's small wonder, for the matter of
+that, you were such a little shaver when Uncle Jed took you. There were
+a great many of us, it seems to me, that year, I 'most forget how
+many;--we buried the twins next summer, didn't we?--then there was Mary
+Ann, and little Nancy, and--well, coffee was dearer than ever I'd seen
+it, I know, about that time, and butter selling for nothing; we just
+threw our milk away, and there wasn't any market for eggs; besides
+doctor's bills and Isaac to be sent to school; so it seemed to be the
+best thing, though your mother took on pretty badly about it at first.
+Jedediah has been good to you, I'm sure, and brought you up
+religious,--though you've cost him a sight, spending three hundred and
+fifty dollars a year at Amherst College.
+
+But, as I was going to say, when I started to talk about '41,--to tell
+the truth, Johnny, I'm always a long while coming to it, I believe. I'm
+getting to be an old man,--a little of a coward, maybe, and sometimes,
+when I sit alone here nights, and think it over, it's just like the
+toothache, Johnny. As I was saying, if she had cut that wick straight, I
+do believe it wouldn't have happened,--though it isn't that I mean to
+lay the blame on her _now_.
+
+I'd been out at work all day about the place, slicking things up for
+to-morrow; there was a gap in the barn-yard fence to mend,--I left that
+till the last thing, I remember,--I remember everything, some way or
+other, that happened that day,--and there was a new roof to put on the
+pig-pen, and the grape-vine needed an extra layer of straw, and the
+latch was loose on the south barn door; then I had to go round and take
+a last look at the sheep, and toss down an extra forkful for the cows,
+and go into the stall to have a talk with Ben, and unbutton the coop
+door to see if the hens looked warm,--just to tuck 'em up, as you might
+say. I always felt sort of homesick--though I wouldn't have owned up to
+it, not even to Nancy--saying good by to the creeturs the night before I
+went in. There, now! it beats all, to think you don't know what I'm
+talking about, and you a lumberman's son. "Going in" is going up into
+the woods, you know, to cut and haul for the winter,--up, sometimes, a
+hundred miles deep,--in in the fall and out in the spring; whole gangs
+of us shut up there sometimes for six months, then down with the
+freshets on the logs, and all summer to work the farm,--a merry sort of
+life when you get used to it, Johnny; but it was a great while ago, and
+it seems to me as if it must have been very cold.--Isn't there a little
+draft coming in at the pantry door?
+
+So when I'd said good by to the creeturs,--I remember just as plain how
+Ben put his great neck on my shoulder and whinnied like a baby,--that
+horse knew when the season came round and I was going in, just as well
+as I did,--I tinkered up the barn-yard fence, and locked the doors, and
+went in to supper.
+
+I gave my finger a knock with the hammer, which may have had something
+to do with it, for a man doesn't feel very good-natured when he's been
+green enough to do a thing like that, and he doesn't like to say it
+aches either. But if there is anything I can't bear it is lamp-smoke; it
+always did put me out, and I expect it always will. Nancy knew what a
+fuss I made about it, and she was always very careful not to hector me
+with it I ought to have remembered that, but I didn't. She had lighted
+the company lamp on purpose, too, because it was my last night. I liked
+it better than the tallow candle.
+
+So I came in, stamping off the snow, and they were all in there about
+the fire,--the twins, and Mary Ann, and the rest; baby was sick, and
+Nancy was walking back and forth with him, with little Nancy pulling at
+her gown. You were the baby then, I believe, Johnny; but there always
+was a baby, and I don't rightly remember. The room was so black with
+smoke, that they all looked as if they were swimming round and round in
+it. I guess coming in from the cold, and the pain in my finger and all,
+it made me a bit sick. At any rate, I threw open the window and blew out
+the light, as mad as a hornet.
+
+"Nancy," said I, "this room would strangle a dog, and you might have
+known it, if you'd had two eyes to see what you were about. There, now!
+I've tipped the lamp over, and you just get a cloth and wipe up the
+oil."
+
+"Dear me!" said she, lighting a candle, and she spoke up very soft, too.
+"Please, Aaron, don't let the cold in on baby. I'm sorry it was smoking,
+but I never knew a thing about it; he's been fretting and taking on so
+the last hour, I didn't notice anyway."
+
+"That's just what you ought to have done," says I, madder than ever.
+"You know how I hate the stuff, and you ought to have cared more about
+me than to choke me up with it this way the last night before going in."
+
+Nancy was a patient, gentle-spoken sort of woman, and would bear a good
+deal from a fellow; but she used to fire up sometimes, and that was more
+than she could stand. "You don't deserve to be cared about, for speaking
+like that!" says she, with her cheeks as red as peat-coals.
+
+That was right before the children. Mary Ann's eyes were as big as
+saucers, and little Nancy was crying at the top of her lungs, with the
+baby tuning in, so we knew it was time to stop. But stopping wasn't
+ending; and folks can look things that they don't say.
+
+We sat down to supper as glum as pump-handles; there were some
+fritters--I never knew anybody beat your mother at fritters--smoking hot
+off the stove, and some maple molasses in one of the best chiny teacups;
+I knew well enough it was just on purpose for my last night, but I never
+had a word to say, and Nancy crumbed up the children's bread with a
+jerk. Her cheeks didn't grow any whiter; it seemed as if they would
+blaze right up,--I couldn't help looking at them, for all I pretended
+not to, for she looked just like a pictur. Some women always are pretty
+when they are put out,--and then again, some ain't; it appears to me
+there's a great difference in women, very much as there is in hens; now,
+there was your aunt Deborah,--but there, I won't get on that track now,
+only so far as to say that when she was flustered up she used to go red
+all over, something like a piny, which didn't seem to have just the same
+effect.
+
+That supper was a very dreary sort of supper, with the baby crying, and
+Nancy getting up between the mouthfuls to walk up and down the room with
+him; he was a heavy little chap for a ten-month-old, and I think she
+must have been tuckered out with him all day. I didn't think about it
+then; a man doesn't notice such things when he's angry,--it isn't in
+him. I can't say but _she_ would if I'd been in her place. I just eat up
+the fritters and the maple molasses,--seems to me I told her she ought
+not to use the best chiny cup, but I'm not just sure,--and then I took
+my pipe, and sat down in the corner.
+
+I watched her putting the children to bed; they made her a great deal of
+bother, squirming off of her lap and running round barefoot. Sometimes I
+used to hold them and talk to them and help her a bit, when I felt
+good-natured, but I just sat and smoked, and let them alone. I was all
+worked up about that lamp-wick, and I thought, you see, if she hadn't
+had any feelings for me there was no need of my having any for her,--if
+she had cut the wick, I'd have taken the babies; she hadn't cut the
+wick, and I wouldn't take the babies; she might see it if she wanted to,
+and think what she pleased. I had been badly treated, and I meant to
+show it.
+
+It is strange, Johnny, it really does seem to me very strange, how easy
+it is in this world to be always taking care of our _rights_. I've
+thought a great deal about it since I've been growing old, and there
+seems to me a good many things we'd better look after fust.
+
+But you see I hadn't found that out in '41, and so I sat in the corner,
+and felt very much abused. I can't say but what Nancy had pretty much
+the same idea; for when the young ones were all in bed at last, she took
+her knitting and sat down the other side of the fire, sort of turning
+her head round and looking up at the ceiling, as if she were trying her
+best to forget I was there. That was a way she had when I was courting,
+and we went along to huskings together, with the moon shining round.
+
+Well, I kept on smoking, and she kept on looking at the ceiling, and
+nobody said a word for a while, till by and by the fire burnt down, and
+she got up and put on a fresh log.
+
+"You're dreadful wasteful with the wood, Nancy," says I, bound to say
+something cross, and that was all I could think of.
+
+"Take care of your own fire, then," says she, throwing the log down and
+standing up as straight as she could stand. "I think it's a pity if you
+haven't anything better to do, the last night before going in, than to
+pick everything I do to pieces this way, and I tired enough to drop,
+carrying that great crying child in my arms all day. You ought to be
+ashamed of yourself, Aaron Hollis!"
+
+Now if she had cried a little, very like I should have given up, and
+that would have been the end of it, for I never could bear to see a
+woman cry; it goes against the grain. But your mother wasn't one of the
+crying sort, and she didn't feel like it that night.
+
+She just stood up there by the fireplace, as proud as Queen Victory,--I
+don't blame her, Johnny,--O no, I don't blame her; she had the right of
+it there, I _ought_ to have been ashamed of myself; but a man never
+likes to hear that from other folks, and I put my pipe down on the
+chimney-shelf so hard I heard it snap like ice, and I stood up too, and
+said--but no matter what I said, I guess. A man's quarrels with his wife
+always make me think of what the Scripture says about other folks not
+intermeddling. They're things, in my opinion, that don't concern anybody
+else as a general thing, and I couldn't tell what I said without telling
+what she said, and I'd rather not do that. Your mother was as good and
+patient-tempered a woman as ever lived, Johnny, and she didn't mean it,
+and it was I that set her on. Besides, my words were worst of the two.
+
+Well, well, I'll hurry along just here, for it's not a time I like to
+think about; but we had it back and forth there for half an hour, till
+we had angered each other up so I couldn't stand it, and I lifted up my
+hand,--I would have struck her if she hadn't been a woman.
+
+"Well," says I, "Nancy Hollis, I'm sorry for the day I married you, and
+that's the truth, if ever I spoke a true word in my life!"
+
+I wouldn't have told you that now if you could understand the rest
+without. I'd give the world, Johnny,--I'd give the world and all those
+coupon bonds Jedediah invested for me if I could anyway forget it; but I
+said it, and I can't.
+
+Well, I've seen your mother look 'most all sorts of ways in the course
+of her life, but I never saw her before, and I never saw her since, look
+as she looked that minute. All the blaze went out in her cheeks, as if
+somebody had thrown cold water on it, and she stood there stock still,
+so white I thought she would drop.
+
+"Aaron--" she began, and stopped to catch her breath, "Aaron--" but she
+couldn't get any farther; she just caught hold of a little shawl she had
+on with both her hands, as if she thought she could hold herself up by
+it, and walked right out of the room. I knew she had gone to bed, for I
+heard her go up and shut the door. I stood there a few minutes with my
+hands in my pockets, whistling Yankee Doodle. Your mother used to say
+men were queer folks, Johnny; they always whistled up the gayest when
+they felt the wust. Then I went to the closet and got another pipe, and
+I didn't go up stairs till it was smoked out.
+
+When I was a young man, Johnny, I used to be that sort of fellow that
+couldn't bear to give up beat. I'd acted like a brute, and I knew it,
+but I was too spunky to say so. So I says to myself, "If she won't make
+up first, I won't, and that's the end on't." Very likely she said the
+same thing, for your mother was a spirited sort of woman when her
+temper _was_ up; so there we were, more like enemies sworn against each
+other than man and wife who had loved each other true for fifteen
+years,--a whole winter, and danger, and death perhaps, coming between
+us, too.
+
+It may seem very queer to you, Johnny,--it did to me when I was your
+age, and didn't know any more than you do,--how folks can work
+themselves up into great quarrels out of such little things; but they
+do, and into worse, if it's a man who likes his own way, and a woman
+that knows how to talk. It's my opinion, two thirds of all the divorce
+cases in the law-books just grow up out of things no bigger than that
+lamp-wick.
+
+But how people that ever loved each other could come to hard words like
+that, you don't see? Well, ha, ha! Johnny, that amuses me, that really
+does amuse me, for I never saw a young man nor a young woman
+either,--and young men and young women in general are very much like
+fresh-hatched chickens, to my mind, and know just about as much of the
+world, Johnny,--well, I never saw one yet who didn't say that very
+thing. And what's more, I never saw one who could get it into his head
+that old folks knew better.
+
+But I say I had loved your mother true, Johnny, and she had loved me
+true, for more than fifteen years; and I loved her more the fifteenth
+year than I did the first, and we couldn't have got along without each
+other, any more than you could get along if somebody cut your heart
+right out. We had laughed together and cried together; we had been sick,
+and we'd been well together; we'd had our hard times and our pleasant
+times right along, side by side; we'd christened the babies, and we'd
+buried 'em, holding on to each other's hand; we had grown along year
+after year, through ups and downs and downs and ups, just like one
+person, and there wasn't any more dividing of us. But for all that we'd
+been put out, and we'd had our two ways, and we had spoken our sharp
+words like any other two folks, and this wasn't our first quarrel by any
+means.
+
+I tell you, Johnny, young folks they start in life with very pretty
+ideas,--very pretty. But take it as a general thing, they don't know any
+more what they're talking about than they do about each other, and they
+don't know any more about each other than they do about the man in the
+moon. They begin very nice, with their new carpets and teaspoons, and a
+little mending to do, and coming home early evenings to talk; but by and
+by the shine wears off. Then come the babies, and worry and wear and
+temper. About that time they begin to be a little acquainted, and to
+find out that there are two wills and two sets of habits to be fitted
+somehow. It takes them anywhere along from one year to three to get
+jostled down together. As for smoothing off, there's more or less of
+that to be done always.
+
+Well, I didn't sleep very well that night, dropping into naps and waking
+up. The baby was worrying over his teeth every half-hour, and Nancy
+getting up to walk him off to sleep in her arms,--it was the only way
+you _would_ be hushed up, and you'd lie and yell till somebody did it.
+
+Now, it wasn't many times since we'd been married that I had let her do
+that thing all night long. I used to have a way of getting up to take my
+turn, and sending her off to sleep. It isn't a man's business, some
+folks say. I don't know anything about that; maybe, if I'd been broiling
+my brain in book learning all day till come night, and I was hard put to
+it to get my sleep anyhow, like the parson there, it wouldn't; but all I
+know is, what if I had been breaking my back in the potato-patch since
+morning? so she'd broken her's over the oven; and what if I did need
+nine hours' sound sleep? I could chop and saw without it next day, just
+as well as she could do the ironing, to say nothing of my being a great
+stout fellow,--there wasn't a chap for ten miles round with my
+muscle,--and she with those blue veins on her forehead. Howsomever that
+may be, I wasn't used to letting her do it by herself, and so I lay with
+my eyes shut, and pretended that I was asleep; for I didn't feel like
+giving in, and speaking up gentle, not about that nor anything else.
+
+I could see her though, between my eyelashes, and I lay there, every
+time I woke up, and watched her walking back and forth, back and forth,
+up and down, with the heavy little fellow in her arms, all night long.
+
+Sometimes, Johnny, when I'm gone to bed now of a winter night, I think I
+see her in her white nightgown with her red-plaid shawl pinned over her
+shoulders and over the baby, walking up and down, and up and down. I
+shut my eyes, but there she is, and I open them again, but I see her all
+the same.
+
+I was off very early in the morning; I don't think it could have been
+much after three o'clock when I woke up. Nancy had my breakfast all laid
+out overnight, except the coffee, and we had fixed it that I was to make
+up the fire, and get off without waking her, if the baby was very bad.
+At least, that was the way I wanted it; but she stuck to it she should
+be up,--that was before there'd been any words between us.
+
+The room was very gray and still,--I remember just how it looked, with
+Nancy's clothes on a chair, and the baby's shoes lying round. She had
+got him off to sleep in his cradle, and had dropped into a nap, poor
+thing! with her face as white as the sheet, from watching.
+
+I stopped when I was dressed, halfway out of the room, and looked round
+at it,--it was so white, Johnny! It would be a long time before I should
+see it again,--five months were a long time; then there was the risk,
+coming down in the freshets, and the words I'd said last night. I
+thought, you see, if I should kiss it once,--I needn't wake her
+up,--maybe I should go off feeling better. So I stood there looking: she
+was lying so still, I couldn't see any more stir to her than if she had
+her breath held in. I wish I had done it, Johnny,--I can't get over
+wishing I'd done it, yet. But I was just too proud, and I turned round
+and went out, and shut the door.
+
+We were going to meet down at the post-office, the whole gang of us, and
+I had quite a spell to walk. I was going in on Bob Stokes's team. I
+remember how fast I walked with my hands in my pockets, looking along up
+at the stars,--the sun was putting them out pretty fast,--and trying not
+to think of Nancy. But I didn't think of anything else.
+
+It was so early, that there wasn't many folks about to see us off; but
+Bob Stokes's wife,--she lived nigh the office, just across the
+road,--she was there to say good by, kissing of him, and crying on his
+shoulder. I don't know what difference that should make with Bob Stokes,
+but I snapped him up well, when he came along, and said good morning.
+
+There were twenty-one of us just, on that gang, in on contract for Dove
+and Beadle. Dove and Beadle did about the heaviest thing on woodland of
+anybody, about that time. Good, steady men we were, most of us,--none of
+your blundering Irish, that wouldn't know a maple from a hickory, with
+their gin-bottles in their pockets,--but our solid, Down-East Yankee
+heads, owning their farms all along the river, with schooling enough to
+know what they were about 'lection day. You didn't catch any of _us_
+voting your new-fangled tickets when we had meant to go up on Whig, for
+want of knowing the difference, nor visa vussy. To say nothing of Bob
+Stokes, and Holt, and me, and another fellow,--I forget his name,--being
+members in good and reg'lar standing, and paying in our five dollars to
+the parson every quarter, charitable.
+
+Yes, though I say it that shouldn't say it, we were as fine a looking
+gang as any in the county, starting off that morning in our red
+uniform,--Nancy took a sight of pains with my shirt, sewing it up stout,
+for fear it should bother me ripping, and I with nobody to take a
+stitch for me all winter. The boys went off in good spirits, singing
+till they were out of sight of town, and waving their caps at their
+wives and babies standing in the window along on the way. I didn't sing.
+I thought the wind blew too hard,--seems to me that was the reason,--I'm
+sure there must have been a reason, for I had a voice of my own in those
+days, and had led the choir perpetual for five years.
+
+We weren't going in very deep; Dove and Beadle's lots lay about thirty
+miles from the nearest house; and a straggling, lonely sort of place
+that was too, five miles out of the village, with nobody but a dog and a
+deaf old woman in it. Sometimes, as I was telling you, we had been in a
+hundred miles from any human creature but ourselves.
+
+It took us two days to get there though, with the oxen; and the teams
+were loaded down well, with so many axes and the pork-barrels;--I don't
+know anything like pork for hefting down more than you expect it to,
+reasonable. It was one of your ugly gray days, growing dark at four
+o'clock, with snow in the air, when we hauled up in the lonely place.
+The trees were blazed pretty thick, I remember, especially the pines;
+Dove and Beadle always had that done up prompt in October. It's pretty
+work going in blazing while the sun is warm, and the woods like a great
+bonfire with the maples. I used to like it, but your mother wouldn't
+hear of it when she could help herself, it kept me away so long.
+
+It's queer, Johnny, how we do remember things that ain't of no account;
+but I remember, as plainly as if it were yesterday morning, just how
+everything looked that night, when the teams came up, one by one, and we
+went to work spry to get to rights before the sun went down.
+
+There were three shanties,--they don't often have more than two or three
+in one place,--they were empty, and the snow had drifted in; Bob
+Stokes's oxen were fagged out, with their heads hanging down, and the
+horses were whinnying for their supper. Holt had one of his great
+brush-fires going,--there was nobody like Holt for making fires,--and
+the boys were hurrying round in their red shirts, shouting at the oxen,
+and singing a little, some of them low, under their breath, to keep
+their spirits up. There was snow as far as you could see,--down the
+cart-path, and all around, and away into the woods; and there was snow
+in the sky now, setting in for a regular nor'easter. The trees stood up
+straight all around without any leaves, and under the bushes it was as
+black as pitch.
+
+"Five months," said I to myself,--"five months!"
+
+"What in time's the matter with you, Hollis?" says Bob Stokes, with a
+great slap on my arm; "you're giving that 'ere ox molasses on his hay!"
+
+Sure enough I was, and he said I acted like a dazed creatur, and very
+likely I did. But I couldn't have told Bob the reason. You see, I knew
+Nancy was just drawing up her little rocking-chair--the one with the
+green cushion--close by the fire, sitting there with the children to
+wait for the tea to boil. And I knew--I couldn't help knowing, if I'd
+tried hard for it--how she was crying away softly in the dark, so that
+none of them could see her, to think of the words we'd said, and I gone
+in without ever making of them up. I was sorry for them then. O Johnny,
+I was sorry, and she was thirty miles away. I'd got to be sorry five
+months, thirty miles away, and couldn't let her know.
+
+The boys said I was poor company that first week, and I shouldn't wonder
+if I was. I couldn't seem to get over it any way, to think I couldn't
+let her know.
+
+If I could have sent her a scrap of a letter, or a message, or
+something, I should have felt better. But there wasn't any chance of
+that this long time, unless we got out of pork or fodder, and had to
+send down,--which we didn't expect to, for we'd laid in more than
+usual.
+
+We had two pretty rough weeks' work to begin with, for the worst storms
+of the season set in, and kept in, and I never saw their like, before or
+since. It seemed as if there'd never be an end to them. Storm after
+storm, blow after blow, freeze after freeze; half a day's sunshine, and
+then at it again! We were well tired of it before they stopped; it made
+the boys homesick.
+
+However, we kept at work pretty brisk,--lumbermen aren't the fellows to
+be put out for a snow-storm,--cutting and hauling and sawing, out in the
+sleet and wind. Bob Stokes froze his left foot that second week, and I
+was frost-bitten pretty badly myself. Cullen--he was the boss--he was
+well out of sorts, I tell you, before the sun came out, and cross enough
+to bite a ten-penny nail in two.
+
+But when the sun _is_ out, it isn't so bad a kind of life, after all. At
+work all day, with a good hot dinner in the middle; then back to the
+shanties at dark, to as rousing a fire and tiptop swagan as anybody
+could ask for. Holt was cook that season, and Holt couldn't be beaten on
+his swagan.
+
+Now you don't mean to say you don't know what swagan is? Well, well! To
+think of it! All I have to say is, you don't know what's good then.
+Beans and pork and bread and molasses,--that's swagan,--all stirred up
+in a great kettle, and boiled together; and I don't know anything--not
+even your mother's fritters--I'd give more for a taste of now. We just
+about lived on that; there's nothing you can cut and haul all day on
+like swagan. Besides that, we used to have doughnuts,--you don't know
+what doughnuts are here in Massachusetts; as big as a dinner-plate,
+those doughnuts were, and--well, a little hard, perhaps. They used to
+have it about in Bangor that we used them for clock pendulums, but I
+don't know about that.
+
+I used to think a great deal about Nancy nights, when we were sitting up
+by the fire,--we had our fire right in the middle of the hut, you know,
+with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. When supper was eaten, the
+boys all sat up around it, and told stories, and sang, and cracked their
+jokes; then they had their backgammon and cards; we got sleepy early,
+along about nine or ten o'clock, and turned in under the roof with our
+blankets. The roof sloped down, you know, to the ground; so we lay with
+our heads in under the little eaves, and our feet to the fire,--ten or
+twelve of us to a shanty, all round in a row. They built the huts up
+like a baby's cob-house, with the logs fitted in together. I used to
+think a great deal about your mother, as I was saying; sometimes I would
+lie awake when the rest were off as sound as a top, and think about her.
+Maybe it was foolish, and I'm sure I wouldn't have told anybody of it;
+but I couldn't get rid of the notion that something might happen to her
+or to me before five months were out, and I with those words unforgiven.
+
+Then, perhaps, when I went to sleep, I would dream about her, walking
+back and forth, up and down, in her nightgown and little red shawl, with
+the great heavy baby in her arms.
+
+So it went along till come the last of January, when one day I saw the
+boys all standing round in a heap, and talking.
+
+"What's the matter?" says I.
+
+"Pork's given out," says Bob, with a whistle. "Beadle got that last lot
+from Jenkins there, his son-in-law, and it's sp'ilt. I could have told
+him that beforehand. Never knew Jenkins to do the fair thing by anybody
+yet."
+
+"Who's going down?" said I, stopping short. I felt the blood run all
+over my face, like a woman's.
+
+"Cullen hasn't made up his mind yet," says Bob, walking off.
+
+Now you see there wasn't a man on the ground who wouldn't jump at the
+chance to go; it broke up the winter for them, and sometimes they could
+run in home for half an hour, driving by; so there wasn't much of a hope
+for me. But I went straight to Mr. Cullen.
+
+"Too late! Just promised Jim Jacobs," said he, speaking up quick; it was
+just business to him, you know.
+
+I turned off, and I didn't say a word. I wouldn't have believed it, I
+never would have believed it, that I could have felt so cut up about
+such a little thing. Cullen looked round at me sharp.
+
+"Hilloa, Hollis!" said he. "What's to pay?"
+
+"Nothing, thank you, sir," says I, and walked off, whistling.
+
+I had a little talk with Jim alone. He said he would take good care of
+something I'd give him, and carry it straight. So when night came I went
+and borrowed Mr. Cullen's pencil, and Holt tore me off a bit of clean
+brown paper he found in the flour-barrel, and I went off among the trees
+with it alone. I built a little fire for myself out of a
+huckleberry-bush, and sat down there on the snow to write. I couldn't do
+it in the shanty, with the noise and singing. The little brown paper
+wouldn't hold much; but these were the words I wrote,--I remember every
+one of them,--it is curious now I should, and that more than twenty
+years ago:--
+
+"Dear Nancy,"--that was it,--"Dear Nancy, I can't get over it, and I
+take them all back. And if anything happens coming down on the logs--"
+
+I couldn't finish that anyhow, so I just wrote "Aaron" down in the
+corner, and folded the brown paper up. It didn't look any more like
+"Aaron" than it did like "Abimelech," though; for I didn't see a single
+letter I wrote,--not one.
+
+After that I went to bed, and wished I was Jim Jacobs.
+
+Next morning somebody woke me up with a push, and there was the boss.
+
+"Why, Mr. Cullen!" says I, with a jump.
+
+"Hurry up, man, and eat your breakfast," said he; "Jacobs is down sick
+with his cold."
+
+"_Oh!_" said I.
+
+"You and the pork must be back here day after to-morrow,--so be spry,"
+said he.
+
+I rather think I was, Johnny.
+
+It was just eight o'clock when I started; it took some time to get
+breakfast, and feed the nags, and get orders. I stood there, slapping
+the snow with my whip, crazy to be off, hearing the last of what Mr.
+Cullen had to say.
+
+They gave me the two horses,--we hadn't but two,--oxen are tougher for
+going in, as a general thing,--and the lightest team on the ground; it
+was considerably lighter than Bob Stokes's. If it hadn't been for the
+snow, I might have put the thing through in two days, but the snow was
+up to the creatures' knees in the shady places all along; off from the
+road, in among the gullies, you could stick a four-foot measure down
+anywhere. So they didn't look for me back before Wednesday night.
+
+"I must have that pork Wednesday night sure," says Cullen.
+
+"Well, sir," says I, "you shall have it Wednesday noon, Providence
+permitting; and you shall have it Wednesday night anyway."
+
+"You will have a storm to do it in, I'm afraid," said he, looking at the
+clouds, just as I was whipping up. "You're all right on the road, I
+suppose?"
+
+"All right," said I; and I'm sure I ought to have been, for the times
+I'd been over it.
+
+Bess and Beauty--they were the horses, and of all the ugly nags that
+ever I saw Beauty was the ugliest--started off on a round trot, slewing
+along down the hill; they knew they were going home just as well as I
+did. I looked back, as we turned the corner, to see the boys standing
+round in their red shirts, with the snow behind them, and the fire, and
+the shanties. I felt a mite lonely when I couldn't see them any more;
+the snow was so dead still, and there were thirty miles of it to cross
+before I could see human face again.
+
+The clouds had an ugly look,--a few flakes had failed already,--and the
+snow was purple, deep in as far as you could see under the trees.
+Something made me think of Ben Gurnell, as I drove on, looking along
+down the road to keep it straight. You never heard about it? Poor Ben!
+Poor Ben! It was in '37, that was; he had been out hunting up blazed
+trees, they said, and wandered away somehow into the Gray Goth, and went
+over,--it was two hundred feet; they didn't find him not till
+spring,--just a little heap of bones; his wife had them taken home and
+buried, and by and by they had to take her away to a hospital in
+Portland,--she talked so horribly, and thought she saw bones round
+everywhere.
+
+There is no place like the woods for bringing a storm down on you quick;
+the trees are so thick you don't mind the first few flakes, till, first
+you know, there's a whirl of 'em, and the wind is up.
+
+I was minding less about it than usual, for I was thinking of
+Nannie,--that's what I used to call her, Johnny, when she was a girl,
+but it seems a long time ago, that does. I was thinking how surprised
+she'd be, and pleased. I knew she would be pleased. I didn't think so
+poorly of her as to suppose she wasn't just as sorry now as I was for
+what had happened. I knew well enough how she would jump and throw down
+her sewing with a little scream, and run and put her arms about my neck
+and cry, and couldn't help herself.
+
+So I didn't mind about the snow, for planning it all out, till all at
+once I looked up, and something slashed into my eyes and stung me,--it
+was sleet.
+
+"Oho!" said I to myself, with a whistle,--it was a very long whistle,
+Johnny; I knew well enough then it was no play-work I had before me till
+the sun went down, nor till morning either.
+
+That was about noon,--it couldn't have been half an hour since I'd eaten
+my dinner; I eat it driving, for I couldn't bear to waste time.
+
+The road wasn't broken there an inch, and the trees were thin; there'd
+been a clearing there years ago, and wide, white level places wound off
+among the trees; one looked as much like a road as another, for the
+matter of that. I pulled my visor down over my eyes to keep the sleet
+out,--after they're stung too much they're good for nothing to see with,
+and I _must_ see, if I meant to keep that road.
+
+It began to be cold. You don't know what it is to be cold, you don't,
+Johnny, in the warm gentleman's life you've lived. I was used to Maine
+forests, and I was used to January, but that was what I call cold.
+
+The wind blew from the ocean, straight as an arrow. The sleet blew every
+way,--into your eyes, down your neck, in like a knife into your cheeks.
+I could feel the snow crunching in under the runners, crisp, turned to
+ice in a minute. I reached out to give Bess a cut on the neck, and the
+sleeve of my coat was stiff as pasteboard before I bent my elbow up
+again.
+
+If you looked up at the sky, your eyes were shut with a snap as if
+somebody'd shot them. If you looked in under the trees, you could see
+the icicles a minute, and the purple shadows. If you looked straight
+ahead, you couldn't see a thing.
+
+By and by I thought I had dropped the reins; I looked at my hands, and
+there I was holding them tight. I knew then that it was time to get out
+and walk.
+
+I didn't try much after that to look ahead; it was of no use, for the
+sleet was fine, like needles, twenty of 'em in your eye at a wink; then
+it was growing dark. Bess and Beauty knew the road as well as I did, so
+I had to trust to them. I thought I must be coming near the clearing
+where I'd counted on putting up overnight, in case I couldn't reach the
+deaf old woman's.
+
+There was a man just out of Bangor the winter before, walking just so
+beside his team, and he kept on walking, some folks said, after the
+breath was gone, and they found him frozen up against the sleigh-poles.
+I would have given a good deal if I needn't have thought of that just
+then. But I did, and I kept walking on.
+
+Pretty soon Bess stopped short. Beauty was pulling on,--Beauty always
+did pull on,--but she stopped too. I couldn't stop so easily, so I
+walked along like a machine, up on a line with the creaturs' ears. I
+_did_ stop then, or you never would have heard this story, Johnny.
+
+Two paces,--and those two hundred feet shot down like a plummet. A great
+cloud of snow-flakes puffed up over the edge. There were rocks at my
+right hand, and rocks at my left. There was the sky overhead. I was in
+the Gray Goth!
+
+I sat down, as weak as a baby. If I didn't think of Ben Gurnell then, I
+never thought of him. It roused me up a bit, perhaps, for I had the
+sense left to know that I couldn't afford to sit down just yet, and I
+remembered a shanty that I must have passed without seeing; it was just
+at the opening of the place where the rocks narrowed, built, as they
+build their light-houses, to warn folks to one side. There was a log or
+something put up after Gurnell went over, but it was of no account,
+coming on it suddenly. There was no going any farther that night, that
+was clear; so I put about into the hut, and got my fire going, and Bess
+and Beauty and I, we slept together.
+
+It was an outlandish name to give it, seems to me, anyway. I don't know
+what a Goth is, Johnny; maybe you do. There was a great figger up on the
+rock, about eight feet high; some folks thought it looked like a man. I
+never thought so before, but that night it did kind of stare in through
+the door as natural as life.
+
+When I woke up in the morning I thought I was on fire. I stirred and
+turned over, and I was ice. My tongue was swollen up so I couldn't
+swallow without strangling. I crawled up to my feet, and every bone in
+me was stiff as a shingle.
+
+Bess was looking hard at me, whinnying for her breakfast. "Bess," says
+I, very slow, "we must get home--to-night--_any_--how."
+
+I pushed open the door. It creaked out into a great drift, and slammed
+back. I squeezed through and limped out. The shanty stood up a little,
+in the highest part of the Goth. I went down a little,--I went as far as
+I could go. There was a pole lying there, blown down in the night; it
+came about up to my head. I sunk it into the snow, and drew it up.
+
+Just six feet.
+
+I went back to Bess and Beauty, and I shut the door. I told them I
+couldn't help it,--something ailed my arms,--I couldn't shovel them out
+to-day. I must lie down and wait till to-morrow.
+
+I waited till to-morrow. It snowed all day, and it snowed all night. It
+was snowing when I pushed the door out again into the drift. I went back
+and lay down. I didn't seem to care.
+
+The third day the sun came out, and I thought about Nannie. I was going
+to surprise her. She would jump up and run and put her arms about my
+neck. I took the shovel, and crawled out on my hands and knees. I dug it
+down, and fell over on it like a baby.
+
+After that, I understood. I'd never had a fever in my life, and it's not
+strange that I shouldn't have known before.
+
+It came all over me in a minute, I think. I couldn't shovel through.
+Nobody could hear. I might call, and I might shout. By and by the fire
+would go out. Nancy would not come. Nancy did not know. Nancy and I
+should never kiss and make up now.
+
+I struck my arm out into the air, and shouted out her name, and yelled
+it out. Then I crawled out once more into the drift.
+
+I tell you, Johnny, I was a stout-hearted man, who'd never known a fear.
+I could freeze. I could burn up there alone in the horrid place with
+fever. I could starve. It wasn't death nor awfulness I couldn't
+face,--not that, not _that_; but I loved her true, I say,--I loved her
+true, and I'd spoken my last words to her, my very last; I had left her
+_those_ to remember, day in and day out, and year upon year, as long as
+she remembered her husband, as long as she remembered anything.
+
+I think I must have gone pretty nearly mad with the fever and the
+thinking. I fell down there like a log, and lay groaning, "God Almighty!
+God Almighty!" over and over, not knowing what it was that I was saying,
+till the words strangled in my throat.
+
+Next day, I was too weak so much as to push open the door. I crawled
+around the hut on my knees, with my hands up over my head, shouting out
+as I did before, and fell, a helpless heap, into the corner; after that
+I never stirred.
+
+How many days had gone, or how many nights, I had no more notion than
+the dead. I knew afterwards; when I knew how they waited and expected
+and talked and grew anxious, and sent down home to see if I was there,
+and how she--But no matter, no matter about that.
+
+I used to scoop up a little snow when I woke up from the stupors. The
+bread was the other side of the fire; I couldn't reach round. Beauty eat
+it up one day; I saw her. Then the wood was used up. I clawed out chips
+with my nails from the old rotten logs the shanty was made of, and kept
+up a little blaze. By and by I couldn't pull any more. Then there were
+only some coals,--then a little spark. I blew at that spark a long
+while,--I hadn't much breath. One night it went out, and the wind blew
+in. One day I opened my eyes, and Bess had fallen down in the corner,
+dead and stiff. Beauty had pushed out of the door somehow and gone. I
+shut up my eyes. I don't think I cared about seeing Bess,--I can't
+remember very well.
+
+Sometimes I thought Nancy was there in the plaid shawl, walking round
+the ashes where the spark went out. Then again I thought Mary Ann was
+there, and Isaac, and the baby. But they never were. I used to wonder
+if I wasn't dead, and hadn't made a mistake about the place that I was
+going to.
+
+One day there was a noise. I had heard a great many noises, so I didn't
+take much notice. It came up crunching on the snow, and I didn't know
+but it was Gabriel or somebody with his chariot. Then I thought more
+likely it was a wolf.
+
+Pretty soon I looked up, and the door was open; some men were coming in,
+and a woman. She was ahead of them all, she was; she came in with a
+great spring, and had my head against her neck, and her arm holding me
+up, and her cheek down to mine, with her dear, sweet, warm breath all
+over me; and that was all I knew.
+
+Well, there was brandy, and there was a fire, and there were blankets,
+and there was hot water, and I don't know what; but warmer than all the
+rest I felt her breath against my cheek, and her arms about my neck, and
+her long hair, which she had wrapped all in, about my hands.
+
+So by and by my voice came. "Nannie!" said I.
+
+"O don't!" said she, and first I knew she was crying.
+
+"But I will," says I, "for I'm sorry."
+
+"Well, so am I," says she.
+
+Said I, "I thought I was dead, and hadn't made up, Nannie."
+
+"O _dear_!" said she; and down fell a great hot splash right on my face.
+
+Says I, "It was all me, for I ought to have gone back and kissed you."
+
+"No, it was _me_," said she, "for I wasn't asleep, not any such thing. I
+peeked out, this way, through my lashes, to see if you wouldn't come
+back. I meant to wake up then. Dear me!" says she, "to think what a
+couple of fools we were, now!"
+
+"Nannie," says I, "you can let the lamp smoke all you want to!"
+
+"Aaron--" she began, just as she had begun that other night, "Aaron--"
+but she didn't finish, and--Well, well, no matter; I guess you don't
+want to hear any more, do you?
+
+But sometimes I think, Johnny, when it comes my time to go,--if ever it
+does,--I've waited a good while for it,--the first thing I shall see
+will be her face, looking as it looked at me just then.
+
+
+
+
+BUSY BRAINS.
+
+A CHAPTER OF LITERARY ANECDOTE.
+
+
+Of all working systems, the Mind seems most pertinacious in concealing
+the method of its operations. "No admittance" is inscribed upon the door
+of the laboratories of the brain. Approaching a psychological inquiry is
+like entering a manufactory: curious to observe its ingenious processes,
+we find that, though we may penetrate its court-yard and ware-rooms,
+every precaution is taken by its polite proprietors to prevent our
+interrogating its workmen or understanding its methods. The intellect
+often displays proudly her works; she has the assurance to attempt to
+answer questions about all things else in heaven and earth; but when her
+life is the subject of inquiry, that life seems to elude her own
+observation. We see in the evening sky stars so dim that the eye cannot
+fix upon them; we only catch glimpses of them when we are looking at
+some other point aside; the moment we turn the eye full upon them, they
+are lost to our sight. This covert and transient vision is the best
+which men have ever yet caught of the Mind, which they have studied so
+long to know. The metaphysicians look directly at it, and to them it is
+invisible, and they cannot agree what it is, nor how it moves. And when
+we look aside at the anatomy and physiology of the human frame, or, on
+the other hand, at the complex and endless variety of human actions and
+human experience, we catch only a partial and unsatisfactory glimpse of
+the soul which is beyond.
+
+Thought, as we have suggested, will uncover to us almost anything sooner
+than the secrets of its own power. It has explained much about the
+conditions of rapid vegetation, and how to procure profitable crops from
+the earth; but how little has it yet disclosed of the conditions which
+secure vigorous thinking, and best promote the development of truth!
+
+But some one may say: "I supposed that the conditions of mental activity
+were well known; they are quiet, peace of mind, neither too much nor too
+little food, and a subject which interests the feelings, or effectually
+calls forth the powers of the mind."
+
+Though you know all this, you are in ignorance still. Truly a savage
+might profess the art of agriculture in this fashion; for all this is
+only as if one were to say that the conditions of success in farming
+were to be where there were no earthquakes or avalanches, that is, to be
+quiet; to have the ground cleared of trees, that is, to have the mind
+free from cares and the shadows of sorrows; to have neither too much nor
+too little sunshine and rain, that is, to be properly fed; and to have
+good seed to put into the ground, that is, to engage the mind with a
+topic which it will expand and reproduce. After all these things have
+been secured, it is only a sort of barbaric husbandry that we have
+practised. The common and rude experience of men, laboring without
+thinking about their labor, teaches these things, and the very
+beginnings of the art and science of Intellectual Economy come beyond
+and after these.
+
+What shall we say of those moods which every student passes through,
+which turn and return upon the mind, irresistible and mysterious? What
+are the causes of those strange and delightful exaltations of mind in
+which thought runs like a clock when the pendulum is off, and crowds a
+week of existence into an hour of time? Whence are those dull days which
+come so unexpectedly, and sometimes lead a troop of dull followers, to
+interrupt our life's work for a week at a time? Where are we to search
+for obstructions in the channels of the mind when ideas will not flow?
+How is it that, after a period of clearness and activity in thought, the
+brain grows indolent, and, without a feeling of illness, or even of
+fatigue, work lags and stops? By what right is it that, at times, each
+faculty in our possession seems to grow independent, and refuses to
+return to its task at our call? What are the secret psychological
+conditions which influence the mental powers as strangely as if there
+were a goblin who had power to mesmerize Fancy and put it to sleep, to
+lock up Imagination in a dreary den of commonplaces, to blindfold
+Attention and make sport of his vain groping, and to send sober Reason
+off on foolish errands, so that Mistress Soul has not a servant left?
+
+Such variations of mental power, which we call moods of mind, are often
+caused, doubtless, by ill-health, or by fatigue, or by some irregularity
+of habit, or by anxiety of mind; but the experience of every student
+will probably attest the existence of such variations where none of
+these causes can be assigned. There are moods which we cannot trace to
+illness, or weariness, or external circumstances. Men are prone to
+regard them as whims, which sometimes they struggle against and
+sometimes they yield to, but at all times wonder at.
+
+The connection of the mind and body, and the dependence of the mind upon
+the health and vigor of the body, have been much dwelt upon; and we
+cannot be too deeply sensible of the debt which the student owes to
+those who have made this truth prominent to him. But, after all, it is
+wonderful with how much independence of bodily suffering--and even of
+suffering in the brain--the mind carries itself, and this fact seems
+worthy of more distinct recognition than it has received. It
+significantly confirms our belief in the existence of an immaterial
+principle, or soul, superior to the mere functions of the brain. Great
+and healthful mental activity often exists in a disordered body; and
+biographical literature is full of illustrations of the power of a
+strong will to accomplish brilliant results while the system is agitated
+by physical distress.
+
+Campbell, the poet, pursued his regular habit of writing every day, even
+under the pressure of much bodily pain.
+
+Cowper never, when it was possible to perform his task, excused his
+frail and desponding body from attendance in his little summer-house,
+morning and afternoon, until his forty lines of Homer were arrayed in
+English dress. The ballad of "John Gilpin" originated during one of his
+illnesses. With the hope of diverting his mind during an unusually
+severe attack of gloom, Lady Austen related to him the history of the
+renowned citizen, which she had heard in her childhood. The tale made a
+vivid impression, and the next morning he told her that the ludicrous
+incident had convulsed him with laughter during the night, and that he
+had embodied the whole into a ballad.
+
+Paley's last, and perhaps, for his day, his greatest work,--his "Natural
+Theology,"--was principally composed during the period in which he was
+subject to attacks of that terribly malady, nephralgia.
+
+So great was the delicacy of John Locke's constitution, that he was not
+capable of a laborious application to the medical art, which was his
+profession; and it is not improbable that his principal motive in
+studying it was that he might be qualified, when necessary, to act as
+his own physician. His difficulty was a lung complaint, or asthma; but
+his biographer says: "It occasioned disturbance to no person but
+himself, and persons might be with him without any other concern than
+that created by seeing him suffer." Notwithstanding this permanent
+suffering, his works are alike laborious and voluminous.
+
+Robert Hall, in the period when his intellectual power was most
+vigorous, pursued his daily studies almost regardless of the pain which
+was his companion through life. Dr. Gregory pursued a course of study
+with him in metaphysics and in mathematics; and he writes: "On entering
+his room in the morning, I could at once tell whether or not his night
+had been refreshing; for if it had, I found him at the table, the books
+to be studied ready, and a vacant chair set for me. If his night had
+been restless, and the pain still continued, I found him lying on the
+sofa, or, more frequently, upon three chairs, on which he could obtain
+an easier position. At such seasons, scarcely ever did a complaint issue
+from his lips; but, inviting me to take the sofa, our reading
+commenced.... Sometimes, when he was suffering more than usual, he
+proposed a walk in the fields, where, with the appropriate book as our
+companion, we could pursue the subject. If _he_ was the preceptor, as
+was commonly the case in these peripatetic lectures, he soon lost the
+sense of pain, and nearly as soon escaped from our author, whoever he
+might be, and expatiated at large upon some train of inquiry or
+explication which our course of reading had suggested. As his thoughts
+enkindled, both his steps and his words became quicker, until erelong it
+was difficult to say whether the body or the mind were brought most upon
+the stretch in keeping up with him."
+
+Hannah More, who wrote many volumes, and accumulated a fortune of nearly
+a hundred and fifty thousand dollars from them, was an invalid. In her
+early life, as well as in her declining years, she was subject to
+successive illnesses, which threw great impediments in the way of her
+intellectual exertions. Morning headaches prevented her from rising
+early. She used to say that her frequent attacks of illness were a great
+blessing to her, independently of the prime benefit of cheapening life
+and teaching patience; for they induced a habit of industry not natural
+to her, and taught her to make the most of her _well_ days. She
+laughingly added, it had taught her also to contrive employments for her
+sick ones; that from habit she had learned to suit her occupations to
+every gradation of the measure of capacity she possessed. "I never," she
+said, "afford a moment of a healthy day to transcribe, or put stops, or
+cross _t_'s or dot my _i_'s. So that I find the lowest stage of my
+understanding may be turned to some account, and save better days for
+better things. I have learned from it also to avoid procrastination, and
+that idleness which often attends unbroken health."
+
+Baxter, one of the most voluminous of English writers, was an invalid.
+After speaking of his multifarious labors as pastor, preacher, and also
+surgeon to the poor in general, he says these were but his relaxation;
+his writing was his chief labor, which went slowly on, for he had no
+amanuensis, and his weakness took up so much of his time. "All the pains
+that my infirmities ever brought on me," he adds, "were never half so
+grievous and afflictive as the unavoidable loss of time which they
+occasioned. I could not bear, through the weakness of my stomach, to
+rise before seven, and afterwards not till much later; and some
+infirmities I labored under made it above an hour before I could be
+dressed. An hour I must have of necessity to walk before dinner, and
+another before supper, and after supper I could seldom study." He is
+described as one of the most diseased men that ever reached the full
+limit of human life, entering upon mature life diseased and sore from
+head to foot, and with the symptoms of old age. His "Saint's Rest" was
+written as his meditation in a severe illness, and after he had been
+given up by his physicians.
+
+Lindley Murray commenced his work as a grammarian, and his other
+writings, after disease had fixed upon his declining years. Having
+successively engaged in the practice of law, and in mercantile pursuits,
+and having retired from the latter with some property, he fell into
+ill-health, which compelled him to go abroad, and kept him an exile
+through the remainder of his long life. The disease with which he was
+afflicted was a weakness in the lower limbs, which precluded him from
+walking, and, after a time, from taking any exercise whatever. He was
+thus imprisoned, as it were, in a country-seat, near York, in England;
+and here he commenced those literary labors, which, so far from being
+forbidden by his illness, did much to alleviate his sufferings. He says:
+"In the course of my literary labors, I found that the mental exercise
+which accompanied them was not a little beneficial to my health. The
+motives which excited me to write, and the objects which I hoped to
+accomplish, were of a nature calculated to cheer the mind, and to give
+the animal spirits a salutary impulse. I am persuaded that, if I had
+suffered my time to pass away with little or no employment, my health
+would have been still more impaired, my spirits depressed, and perhaps
+my life considerably shortened."
+
+Of Lord Jeffrey, who was a very hard-working man, it is said that one of
+his cures for a headache was to sit down and clear up a deep legal
+question.
+
+The cases of Pascal, Dr. Johnson, Channing, and others, will doubtless
+occur to the reader. It will suffice here to mention one more,--that of
+William of Orange, whose vigorous, comprehensive, and untiring intellect
+through a long course of years wielded and shaped the destinies of
+England, and enabled him, if not to make a more brilliant page in
+history, yet to leave a more enduring monument in human institutions
+than any other man of his age. Macaulay thus graphically describes him:
+"The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable, because his
+physical organization was unusually delicate. From a child he had been
+weak and sickly. In the prime of manhood, his complaints had been
+aggravated by a severe attack of small-pox. He was asthmatic and
+consumptive. His slender frame was shaken by a constant hoarse cough. He
+could not sleep unless his head was propped by several pillows, and
+could scarcely draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel
+headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion soon fatigued him. The
+physicians constantly kept up the hopes of his enemies by fixing some
+date beyond which, if there were anything certain in medical science, it
+was impossible that his broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through
+a life which was one long disease, the force of his mind never failed,
+on any great occasion, to bear up his suffering and languid body."
+
+Let the weak and feeble of body, therefore, take courage of heart; and
+let the robust student be admonished that he cannot excuse _all_ his
+inactive days upon the ground of indisposition.
+
+Fatigue is an enemy which every hard-working brain knows of; but it is
+an enemy, not of the workman, but only of the taskmaster. The student
+may resort to what healthful contrivances he pleases to avoid fatigue;
+but when it appears, he should not excuse himself, but yield to its
+impulse. He should learn to distinguish indolence, and other
+counterfeits, from that genuine weariness which makes the sleep of a
+laboring man sweet. Weariness is the best friend of labor, just as the
+toothache is the best friend of sound teeth. Weariness is an angel. When
+the proper end of your day has come, she hovers over your desk, and, if
+you are careless of the time, she breathes a misty breath upon your
+eyelids, and loads your pen with an invisible weight; the shadow of her
+gray wings dims your page, and her throbbing hand upon your forehead
+admonishes you of her presence. Let her visits be few and far between,
+and it is well; but you will never regret that you entertained her even
+unawares. You may avoid, but never resist her. She comes from Heaven to
+save life.
+
+But comes there never into your study a little imp of darkness,--of
+intellectual darkness, we mean,--whose efforts to imitate the gentle
+interference of fatigue are as grotesque as they are vexatious, and who
+does not succeed in deceiving, however readily one may sometimes fall in
+with his humor? The heavy pen, the dull page, the wandering thoughts,
+sometimes interrupt the most successful currents of labor, in those
+morning hours, and in the fresh days after vacations, when we cannot
+find the excuse of weariness. There is an indisposition to continuous
+labor, which is utterly different from fatigue.
+
+John Foster declared: "I have no power of getting fast forward in any
+literary task; it costs me far more labor than any other mortal who has
+been in the habit so long. I have the most extreme and invariable
+repugnance to all literary labors of any kind, and almost all mental
+labor. When I have anything of the kind to do, I linger hours and hours
+before I can resolutely set about it, and days and weeks if it is some
+task more than ordinary."
+
+Dr. Humphrey recommends that the unwilling thoughts be frightened to
+their task by the same means which Lord Jeffrey used to drive out a
+headache. He says, in his letters to his son: "When you sit down to
+write, you sometimes will, no doubt, find it difficult to collect your
+scattered thoughts at the moment, and fix them upon the subject. If, in
+these cases, you take up a newspaper, or whatever other light reading
+may happen to be at hand, with the hope of luring the truants back, you
+will be disappointed. Nothing but stern and decided measures will
+answer. I would advise you to resort at once to geometry or conic
+sections, or some other equally inexorable discipline to settle the
+business. I have myself often called in the aid of Euclid for a few
+moments, and always with good success. A little wholesome schooling of
+the mind upon lines and angles and proportions, when it is not in the
+right mood for study, will commonly make it quite willing to exchange
+them for the labor of composition, as the easier task of the two."
+
+There is sound philosophy perhaps in this recommendation. Many persons
+have observed that the preliminary process of "composing the thoughts"
+is one which requires a little time and effort, especially where one
+comes to his subject from a period of exercise, or repose, or any other
+condition in which the brain has not been active. The functional
+activity of the brain depends on the copious supply of the arterial
+blood, its activity varying with that supply, increasing as that supply
+is greater, and relaxing when it is diminished. But unlike other organs
+of the body, the brain is densely packed in an unyielding cavity, and
+there must be room made for this increased volume of circulation
+whenever it takes place. This is accomplished, physiologists tell us, in
+the cerebro-spinal fluid, the quantity of which has been estimated at
+two ounces. This fluid is readily absorbed and as readily reproduced,
+and thus its quantity varies in a certain inverse proportion to the
+volume of the circulation of blood in the brain; and by this means an
+equality of pressure is secured throughout all the variations in the
+force of the circulation. The act of adjustment between this balancing
+fluid and the blood requires a little period for its completion, and
+therefore the brain cannot instantaneously be brought to its maximum
+action.
+
+Hence, where the circulation has been diverted from the brain, and the
+proposed mental effort requires it to be vigorously revived in the
+brain, time must be allowed for this process of adjustment, and room
+must be made for the needed supply of blood; and perhaps a familiar
+demonstration in mathematics, which fixes the attention, and will
+instantly detect any delinquency of that faculty, may often be one of
+the best modes of employing this transition period, and aiding the
+change.
+
+We may observe here the singular paradox, which we believe that the
+philosophy of the mind and the experience of the scholar equally
+establish, that what are usually called the heaviest or severest
+subjects of thought are the least exhausting to the thinker. How many
+students, like Chief-Justice Parsons, have been accustomed, when
+fatigued with the labor of deep research, or exhausted by continued
+train of thought upon one subject, to relax the mind with arithmetical
+or geometrical problems. Isaac Newton could, month after month, spend in
+the profoundest problems of pure mathematics twice as many hours in the
+day as Walter Scott could give to the composition of what we call light
+reading; and it will be found that mathematicians, theologians, and
+metaphysicians have been able to sustain more protracted labor, and with
+less injury, than have poets and novelists. There are not wanting
+reasons which aid us to understand this paradox, but we will not enter
+upon them here.
+
+Irregularities of habit will doubtless disturb the action of the mind.
+The mental power that is thrown away and wasted by recklessness in this
+respect is incalculable. But there are variations in mental power in the
+midst of health, in the absence of fatigue, and under the most regular
+habits. Perhaps few authors have more carefully adapted their habits to
+their work, or ordered their method of life with a more quiet equality,
+than did Milton. He went to bed uniformly at nine o'clock.[C] He rose in
+the summer generally at four, and in winter at five. When, contrary to
+his usual custom, he indulged himself with longer rest, he employed a
+person to read to him from the time of his waking to that of his rising.
+The opening of his day was uniformly consecrated to religion. A chapter
+of the Hebrew Scriptures being read to him as soon as he was up, he
+passed the subsequent interval till seven o'clock in private meditation.
+From seven till twelve he either studied, listened while some author was
+read to him, or dictated as some friendly hand supplied him with its
+pen. At twelve commenced his hour of exercise, which before his
+blindness was usually passed in his garden or in walking, and afterward
+for the most part in the swing which he had contrived for the purpose of
+exercise. His early and frugal dinner succeeded, and when it was
+finished he resigned himself to the recreation of music, by which he
+found his mind at once gratified and restored. He played on the organ,
+and sang, or his wife sang for him. From his music he returned with
+fresh vigor to his books or his composition. At six he admitted the
+visits of his friends; he took his abstemious supper, of olives or some
+light thing, at eight; and at nine, having smoked a pipe and drank a
+glass of water, he retired. Yet in the midst of this clock-like
+regularity his labors were broken by frequent unfruitful seasons.
+Symmons says of him, that "he frequently composed in the night, when his
+unpremeditated verse would sometimes flow in a torrent, tinder the
+impulse, as it were, of some strange poetical fury; and in these
+peculiar moments of inspiration, his amanuensis, who was generally his
+daughter, was summoned by the bell to arrest the verses as they came,
+and to commit them to the security of writing.... Some days would elapse
+undistinguished by a verse, while on others he would dictate thirty or
+forty lines.... Labor would often be ineffectual to obtain what often
+would be gratuitously offered to him; and his imagination, which at one
+instant would refuse a flower to his most strenuous cultivation, would
+at another time shoot up into spontaneous and abundant vegetation." He
+seldom wrote any in the summer.
+
+Cowper said that _he_ composed best in winter, because then he could
+find nothing else to do but think; and he contrasted himself in this
+respect with other poets, who have found an inspiration in the
+attractive scenes of the more genial seasons.
+
+The biographer of Campbell has given us the following anecdote with
+respect to the oft-quoted lines,
+
+    "'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
+    And coming events cast their shadows before."
+
+The happy thought first presented itself to his mind during a visit at
+Minto. He had gone early to bed, and, still meditating on "Lochiel's
+Warning," fell fast asleep. During the night he suddenly awoke,
+repeating, "Events to come cast their shadows before"! This was the very
+thought for which he had been hunting the whole week. He rang the bell
+more than once with increasing force. At last, surprised and annoyed by
+so unseasonable a peal, the servant appeared. The poet was sitting with
+one foot in the bed, and the other on the floor, with an air of mixed
+impatience and inspiration. "Sir, are you ill?" inquired the servant.
+"Ill! never better in my life. Leave me the candle, and oblige me with a
+cup of tea as soon as possible." He then started to his feet, seized
+hold of his pen, and wrote down the happy thought, but as he wrote
+changed the words "events to come" into "coming events," as it now
+stands in the text. Looking at his watch he observed that it was two
+o'clock, the right hour for a poet's dream; and over his cup of tea he
+completed his first sketch of "Lochiel."
+
+Nor is this capriciousness exclusively the attribute of the poetic Muse.
+
+Calvin, who studied and wrote in bed, if he felt his facility of
+composition quitting him, as not unfrequently he did, gave up writing
+and composing, and went about his out-door duties for days, weeks, and
+months together. But as soon as he felt the inspiration again, he went
+back to his bed, and his secretary set to work forthwith.
+
+Dr. Edward Robinson was always under the necessity of waiting upon his
+moods in composition. He wondered at the men who can write when they
+will. Sometimes for days together he could make no headway in his higher
+tasks.
+
+There are avocations, like those of the advocate, the preacher, the
+journalist, which must be pursued continuously, well or ill, and in
+spite of such variations of feeling. In these labors men doubtless learn
+to disregard in some degree these moods of mind; but the variable
+quality of the productions of one man on different days confirms what
+testimony we have of their existence.
+
+The zeal or the indifference, the clearness or the dulness, the
+quickness or the sluggishness of thought, are doubtless to some degree
+determined by the methods of labor into which the person falls, and by
+the incidental habits and circumstances of his life. It is wonderful
+what a vast fund of information and suggestion upon these and kindred
+points of mental phenomena is found in the experience of the great
+industrial class of the intellectual world recorded in biographical and
+historical literature. Let us then visit some of the busiest and most
+successful scholars, philosophers, poets, writers, and preachers; let us
+peep through the window of biography into the library, the cabinet, and
+the office. Let us watch the habits of some of these busy-brained men,
+these great masters of the intellectual world. Let us note what helps
+and what hindrances they have found; how they have driven their work, or
+how they have been driven by it, and what is the nature and degree of
+the systems which they have adopted in ordering their hours of labor and
+of relaxation.
+
+We will visit them as we find them, without looking for examples of
+excellence or warnings of carelessness, and will leave the reader to
+make his own inferences.
+
+The poet Southey, who is said to have been, perhaps, more continually
+employed than any other writer of his generation, was habitually an
+early riser, but he never encroached upon the hours of the night. He
+gives the following account of his day, as he employed it at the age of
+thirty-two: "Three pages of history after breakfast (equivalent to five
+in small quarto printing), then to transcribe and copy for the press, or
+to make my selections and biographies, or what else suits my humor, till
+dinner-time. From dinner till tea, I write letters, read, see the
+newspaper, and very often indulge in a siesta, for sleep agrees with me,
+and I have a good substantial theory to prove that it must; for as a man
+who walks much requires to sit down and rest himself, so does the brain,
+if it be the part most worked, require its repose. Well, after tea I go
+to poetry, and correct and rewrite and copy till I am tired, and then
+turn to anything else till supper." At the age of fifty-five, his life
+varied but little from this sketch. When it is said that his breakfast
+was at nine, after a little reading, his dinner at four, tea at six, and
+supper at half past nine, and that the intervals, except the time
+regularly devoted to a walk, between two and four, and a short sleep
+before tea, were occupied with reading and writing, the outline of his
+day during those long seasons when he was in full work will have been
+given. After supper, when the business of the day seemed to be over,
+though he generally took a book, he remained with his family, and was
+ready to enter into conversation, to amuse and to be amused. During the
+several years that he was partially employed upon the life of Dr. Bell,
+he devoted two hours before breakfast to it in the summer, and as much
+time as there was daylight for during the winter months, that it might
+not interfere with the usual occupations of the day. Of himself, at the
+age of sixty, at a time when he was thus engaged every morning at work
+away from his home, he says: "I get out of bed as the clock strikes
+six, and shut the house door after me as it strikes seven. After two
+hours' work, home to breakfast; after which my son engages me till about
+half past ten, and, when the post brings no letters that interest or
+trouble me, by eleven I have done with the newspaper, and can then set
+about what is properly the business of the day. But I am liable to
+frequent interruptions, so that there are not many mornings in which I
+can command from two to three unbroken hours at the desk. At two I take
+my daily walk, be the weather what it may, and when the weather permits,
+with a book in my hand. Dinner at four, read about half an hour, then
+take to the sofa with a different book, and after a few pages get my
+soundest sleep, till summoned to tea at six. My best time during the
+winter is by candlelight; twilight interferes with it a little, and in
+the season of company I can never count upon an evening's work. Supper
+at half past nine, after which I read an hour, and then to bed. The
+greatest part of my miscellaneous work is done in the odds and ends of
+time."
+
+Shelley rose early in the morning, walked and read before breakfast,
+took that meal sparingly, wrote and studied the greater part of the
+morning, walked and read again, dined on vegetables (for he took neither
+meat nor wine), conversed with his friends (to whom his house was ever
+open), again walked out, and usually finished with reading to his wife
+till ten o'clock, when he went to bed. This was his daily existence. His
+book was generally Plato, or Homer, or one of the Greek tragedians, or
+the Bible, in which last he took a great interest. Out of twenty-four
+hours he frequently read sixteen. "He wrote his Prometheus," says
+Willis, "in the baths of Caracalla, near the Coliseum." It was his
+favorite haunt in Rome.
+
+The poet Campbell thus describes his labors, when in London, at the age
+of fifty-five: "I get up at seven, write letters for the Polish
+Association, until half past nine, breakfast, go to the club and read
+the newspapers till twelve. Then I sit down to my studies, and, with
+many interruptions, do what I can till four. I then walk round the Park
+and generally dine out at six. Between nine and ten I return to
+chambers, read a book or write a letter, and go to bed always before
+twelve." "His correspondence," says his biographer, "occupied four hours
+every morning, in French, German, and Latin. He could seldom act with
+the moderation necessary for his health. Whatever object he once took in
+hand, he determined to carry out, and found no rest until it was
+accomplished." Whatever he wrote during his connection with the New
+Monthly and the Metropolitan was written hurriedly. If a subject was
+proposed for the end of a month, he seldom gave it a thought until it
+was no longer possible to delay the task. He would then sit down in the
+quietest corner of his chambers, or, if quiet was not to be found in
+town, he would start off to the country, and there, shut in among the
+green fields, complete his task. When sixty-two years old, he says: "I
+am only six hours out of the twenty-four in bed. I study twelve, and
+walk six. Oranges, exercise, and early rising serve to keep me
+flourishing."
+
+"Procter (Barry Cornwall) usually writes," says Willis, "in a small
+closet adjoining his library. There is just room enough in it for a desk
+and two chairs, and his favorite books, miniature likenesses of authors,
+manuscripts, &c., piled around in true poetical confusion." He confines
+his labors to the daytime, eschewing evening work. In a letter to a
+friend, some years ago, he wrote: "I hope you will not continue to give
+up your nights to literary undertakings. Believe me (who have suffered
+bitterly for this imprudence) that nothing in the world of letters is
+worth the sacrifice of health and strength and animal spirits which will
+certainly follow this excess of labor."
+
+Cowper, at the age of fifty-three, and at a busy period of his life,
+says: "The morning is my writing time, and in the morning I have no
+spirits. So much the worse for my correspondents. Sleep, that refreshes
+my body, seems to cripple me in every other respect. As the evening
+approaches I grow more alert, and when I am retiring to bed am more fit
+for mental occupation than at any other time. So it fares with us whom
+they call nervous."
+
+He was very assiduous in labor. While he was translating Homer, he says:
+"As soon as breakfast is over, I retire to my nutshell of a
+summer-house, which is my verse manufactory, and here I abide seldom
+less than three hours, and not often more." This little summer-house,
+which he called his boudoir, was not much bigger than a sedan-chair; the
+door of it opened into the garden, which was covered with pinks, roses,
+and honeysuckles. The window opened into his neighbor's orchard. He
+says: "It formerly served an apothecary, now dead, as a smoking-room;
+and under my feet is a trapdoor, which once covered a hole in the ground
+where he kept his bottles. At present, however, it is dedicated to
+sublimer uses. Having lined it with garden mats, and furnished it with a
+table and two chairs, here I write all that I write in summer-time,
+whether to my friends or to the public.... In the afternoon I return to
+it again, and all the daylight that follows, except what is sometimes
+devoted to a walk, is given to Homer." In the evening he devoted himself
+to transcribing, so that his mornings and evenings were, for the most
+part, completely engaged. He read also, but less than he wrote; "for I
+must have bodily exercise," he said, "and therefore never let a day pass
+without it." His walk was usually in the afternoon.
+
+Lord Byron, who used to sit up at night writing "Don Juan," (which he
+did under the influence of gin and water,) rose late in the morning.
+Leigh Hunt thus describes him: "He breakfasted, read, lounged about,
+singing an air, generally out of Rossini, and in a swaggering style,
+though in a voice at once small and veiled; then took a bath and was
+dressed, and coming down stairs, was heard, still singing, in the
+court-yard, out of which the garden ascended at the back of the house.
+The servants at the same time brought out two or three chairs. We then
+lounged about, or sat and talked. In the course of an hour or two, being
+an early riser, I used to go in to dinner. Lord Byron either stayed a
+little longer, or went up stairs to his books and his couch. When the
+heat of the day declined we rode out, either on horseback or in a
+barouche, generally towards the forest. He was a good rider, graceful,
+and kept a firm seat. In the evening I seldom saw him. He recreated
+himself in the balcony, or with a book; and at night, when I went to
+bed, he was just thinking of setting to work with 'Don Juan.' His
+favorite reading was history and travels. His favorite authors were
+Bayle and Gibbon. His favorite recreation was boating." Byron had
+prodigious facility of composition. He was fond of suppers, and in
+London, after supping at Rogers's and eating heartily, he would go home
+and throw off sixty or eighty verses, which he would send to press the
+next morning.
+
+Goldsmith's desultory habits are quite characteristic. Irving says: "It
+was his custom during the summer-time, when pressed by a multiplicity of
+literary jobs, or urged to the accomplishment of some particular task,
+to take country lodgings a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow
+or Edgeware road, and bury himself there for weeks and months together.
+Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his room, at other times
+he would stroll out along the lanes and hedgerows, and, taking out paper
+and pencil, note down thoughts to be expanded and corrected at home."
+Though he engaged to board with the family, his meals were generally
+sent to him in his room, in which he passed the most of his time,
+negligently dressed, with his shirt-collar open, busily engaged in
+writing. Sometimes, probably when in moods of composition, he would
+wander into the kitchen, without noticing any one, stand musing with his
+back to the fire, and then hurry off again to his room, no doubt to
+commit to paper some thought which had struck him. He was subject to
+fits of wakefulness, and read much in bed; if not disposed to read, he
+still kept the candle burning; if he wished to extinguish it, and it was
+out of his reach, he flung his slipper at it, which would be found in
+the morning near the overturned candlestick, daubed with grease. He is
+said to have considered four lines of poetry a day good work.
+
+He commenced his poem of "The Traveller" in Switzerland, but long kept
+it back from publication, till Johnson's praise of it induced him to
+prepare it for the press. It is said that, while for two years previous
+to its publication he was employed in the drudgery of laborious
+compilations for the booksellers, his few vacant hours were fondly
+devoted to the patient revisal and correction of this his greatest poem;
+pruning its luxuriances, or supplying its defects, till it appeared at
+length finished with exactness and polished into beauty. While writing
+his History of England, he would read Hume, Rapin-Thoyras, Carte, and
+Kennet, in the morning, make a few notes, ramble with a friend into the
+country about the skirts of "Merry Islington," return to a temperate
+dinner and cheerful evening, and, before going to bed, write off what
+had arranged itself in his head from the studies of the morning. In this
+way he took a more general view of the subject, and wrote in a more free
+and fluent style than if he had been mousing at the time among
+authorities. The influence of this way of composing history is plainly
+seen in the entertaining, but not immortal, volumes it produced.
+
+Douglas Jerrold's day of labor may be sketched thus. At eight o'clock he
+breakfasts on cold new milk, toast, bacon, watercresses, and perhaps
+strawberries. Then he makes long examination of the papers, cutting out
+bits of news. The study is a snug room filled with books and pictures;
+its furniture is of solid oak. There work begins. If it be a comedy, he
+will now and then walk rapidly up and down the room, talking wildly to
+himself, and laughing as he hits upon a good point. Suddenly the pen
+will be put down, and through a little conservatory, without seeing
+anybody, he will pass out into the garden for a little while, talking to
+the gardeners, walking, &c. In again, and vehemently to work. The
+thought has come; and, in letters smaller than the type in which they
+shall be set, it is unrolled along the little blue slips of paper. A
+crust of bread and glass of wine are brought in, but no word is spoken.
+The work goes rapidly forward, and halts at last suddenly. The pen is
+dashed aside, a few letters, seldom more than three lines in each, are
+written and despatched to the post, and then again into the garden,
+visits to the horse, cow, and fowls, then another long turn around the
+lawn, and at last a seat with a quaint old volume in the tent under the
+mulberry-tree. Friends come,--walks and conversation. A very simple
+dinner at four. Then a short nap--forty winks--upon the great sofa in
+the study; another long stroll over the lawn while tea is prepared. Over
+the tea-table are jokes of all kinds, as at dinner. In the later years
+of his life, Jerrold seldom wrote after dinner; and his evenings were
+usually spent alone in his study, reading, writing letters, &c.
+Sometimes he would join the family circle for half an hour before going
+to bed at ten; but his rule was a solitary evening in the study with his
+books.
+
+Dickens's favorite time for composition is said to be in the morning.
+Powell, in his "Notices of Living Authors of England," says that he
+writes till about one or two o'clock, when he lunches, and afterwards
+takes a walk for a couple of hours; returns to dinner, and gives the
+evening to his own or a friend's fireside. Sometimes his method of labor
+is much more intense and unremitting. Of his delightful little Christmas
+book, "The Chimes," the author says, in a letter to a friend, that he
+shut himself up for one month close and tight over it. "All my
+affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and I became as
+haggard as a murderer long before I wrote, 'The End.' When I had done
+that, like 'The Man of Thessaly,' who, having scratched his eyes out in
+a quickset hedge, plunged into a bramble-bush to scratch them in again,
+I fled to Venice to recover the composure I had disturbed." When his
+imagination begins to outline a new novel, with vague thoughts rife
+within him, he goes "wandering about at night into the strangest
+places," he says, "seeking rest and finding none."
+
+Bulwer accomplishes his voluminous productions in about three hours a
+day, usually from ten until one, and seldom later, writing all with his
+own hand. Composition was at first very laborious to him, but he gave
+himself sedulously to mastering its difficulties; and is said to have
+rewritten some of his briefer productions eight or nine times before
+publication. He now writes very rapidly, averaging, it is said, twenty
+octavo pages a day. He says of himself in a letter to a friend: "I
+literatize away the morning, ride at three, go to bathe at five, dine at
+six, and get through the evening as I best may, sometimes by correcting
+a proof."
+
+Charles Anthon, so well known to the classical students of this
+generation, was accustomed, for many years at least, constantly to
+retire at ten and rise at four, so that a large part of his day's work
+was done by breakfast-time; and it was this untiring industry that
+enabled him, despite his incessant labors both in college and in school,
+to produce some fifty volumes.
+
+Gibbon always studied with his pen in hand, and for the purpose of his
+history he practised laboriously the formation of his style of writing.
+The first chapter of his history he rewrote three times, and the second
+and third chapters twice, before he was satisfied with them; but after
+thus getting under way, the greater part of his manuscript was sent to
+the press in the first rough draft, without any intermediate copy being
+made. After completing his great history, he congratulated himself upon
+having accomplished a long, but temperate labor, without fatiguing
+either the mind or the body. "Happily for my eyes," he said, "I have
+always closed my studies with the day and commonly with the morning."
+When he had accomplished the labors of the morning in the library, he
+preferred recreation and social enjoyments rather than any exercise of
+mind. He gives the following account of his sensations on accomplishing
+his great work. "It was on the day, or rather night, of June 27, 1787,
+between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of
+the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen,
+I took several turns in a covered walk of acacias. I will not dissemble
+the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the
+establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober
+melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an
+everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion."
+
+This reminds us of the emotions which Noah Webster describes as
+overwhelming him when he reached the close of his dictionary. "When I
+finished my copy," says Dr. Webster, "I was sitting at my table in
+Cambridge, England, January, 1825. When I arrived at the last word, I
+was seized with a tremor that made it difficult to proceed. I, however,
+summoned up my strength to finish the work, and then, walking about the
+room, I soon recovered."
+
+Buckle, even more systematically and laboriously than ever did Gibbon,
+devoted himself to the formation of his style of writing as a special
+preparation for entering upon the composition of his history. In his
+later years he abandoned the custom of writing at night, and it was his
+usual practice to lay aside his pen by three o'clock in the afternoon.
+When at home in London, he spent an hour or so at noon in walking about
+the city, frequently dined out, and read an hour after coming home. He
+went to dinner-parties exclusively, it is said, because they took less
+time than others.
+
+Sir William Jones while in India began his studies with the dawn, and in
+seasons of intermission from professional duty continued them throughout
+the day; meditation retraced and confirmed what reading had collected or
+investigation discovered. With respect to the division of his time, he
+wrote on a small piece of paper these lines:--
+
+    "SIR EDWARD COKE.
+
+    "Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,
+     Four spend in prayer,--the rest on nature fix."
+
+    "RATHER,
+
+    "Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
+     Ten to the world allot,--and _all_ to heaven."
+
+Of Chief-justice Parsons of Massachusetts, his son says: "It is
+literally true that for fifty years he was always reading or writing
+when not obliged to be doing something else. He had, fortunately for
+himself, many interruptions, but he avoided them as far as he could; and
+there were weeks, and I believe consecutive months, when he passed
+nearly two thirds of his day with books and papers.... He very seldom
+took exercise for exercise' sake. Excepting an infrequent walk of some
+minutes in the long entry which ran through the middle of his house, he
+almost never walked for mere exercise, until an attack of illness. After
+that he sometimes, though rarely, took a walk about the streets or on
+the Common.... His office was always in his dwelling-house. There he sat
+all the day, but his evenings were invariably spent in the large common
+sitting-room. He had his chair by the fireside, and a small table near
+it on which the evening's supply of books was placed. There he sat,
+always reading, (seldom writing in the evening or out of his office,)
+but never disturbed by any noise or frolic which might be going on. If
+anybody, young or old, appealed to him, he was always ready to answer;
+and sometimes, though not very often, would join in a game or play, and
+then return to his books.... I have never known him wholly unoccupied
+at any time whatsoever. He was always doing something, with books, pen,
+or instrument, or engaged in conversation."
+
+Judge Story arose at seven in summer and at half past seven in
+winter,--never earlier. If breakfast was not ready, he went at once to
+his library, and occupied the interval, whether it was five minutes or
+fifty, in writing. When the family assembled, he was called, and
+breakfasted with them. After breakfast he sat in the drawing-room, and
+spent from half to three quarters of an hour in reading the newspapers
+of the day. He then returned to his study, and wrote until the bell
+sounded for his lecture at the Law School. After lecturing for two, and
+sometimes three hours, he returned to his study, and worked until two
+o'clock, when he was called to dinner. To his dinner--which on his part
+was always simple--he gave an hour, and then again betook himself to his
+study, where in the winter time he worked as long as the daylight
+lasted, unless called away by a visitor, or obliged to attend a
+moot-court. Then he came down and joined the family, and work for the
+day was over. During the evening he was rarely without company; but if
+alone he read some new publication, sometimes corrected a proof-sheet,
+listened to music, talked with the family, or played backgammon. In the
+summer afternoons he left his library towards twilight. Generally the
+summer afternoon was varied three or four times a week in fair weather
+by a drive of about an hour in the country in an open chaise. At ten or
+half past he retired for the night, never varying a half-hour from this
+time. The exercise he took was almost entirely incidental to his duties,
+and consisted in driving to Boston to hold his court, or attend to other
+business, and in walking to and from the Law School. His real exercise
+was in talking. His diet was exceedingly simple. His lectures were
+wholly extemporary, or delivered without minutes, and no record was ever
+made of them by himself. After an interruption of hours, and even of
+days, he could take up the pen and continue a sentence which he had left
+half-written, without reading back, going on with the same certainty and
+rapidity as if he had never been stopped.
+
+While Lord Jeffrey was judge, during the sittings of the court, the
+performance of his official duties exhausted nearly his whole day, the
+evenings especially; and his spare time, whether during his sittings or
+in vacation, was given to society, to correspondence, to walking, to
+lounging in his garden, and to reading.
+
+John C. Calhoun was an arduous student, and very simple in his habits.
+He avoided all stimulants. When at home, he rose at daybreak, and, if
+weather permitted, took a walk over his farm. He breakfasted at half
+past seven, and then retired to his office, which stood near his house,
+where he wrote till dinner-time, or three o'clock. After dinner he read
+or conversed with his family till sunset, when he took another walk. His
+tea hour was eight. He then joined the family, and read or talked till
+ten, when he retired.
+
+Dr. Arnold of Rugby began lessons at seven; and, with the interval of
+breakfast, they lasted till nearly three. Then he would walk with his
+pupils, and dine at half past five. At seven he usually had some lessons
+on hand; and "it was only when they were all gathered up in the
+drawing-room after tea," says Mr. Stanley, "amidst young men on all
+sides of him, that he would commence work for himself in writing his
+sermons or Roman History." In a letter Dr. Arnold said: "from about a
+quarter before nine till ten o'clock every evening I am at liberty, and
+enjoy my wife's company fully; during this time I read aloud to her,--I
+am now reading to her Herodotus, translating as I go on,--or write my
+sermons, or write letters." His favorite recreations were
+horseback-riding, walking, and playing with his children.
+
+Florence Nightingale, in advising that the sick be not suddenly
+interrupted so as to distract their attention, says that the rule
+applies to the well quite as much as to the sick. She adds: "I have
+never known persons who exposed themselves for years to constant
+interruptions who did not muddle away their intellects by it at last."
+Dr. Arnold seems to be an exception.
+
+The elder Alexander, the Princeton theologian, was another exception to
+Florence Nightingale's rule. It was his peculiarity that he seemed
+incapable of being interrupted. Except in hours of devotion, his study
+was always free to his children, even the youngest; noise made no
+difference; their books and toys were on his floor, and two or three
+would be clambering upon him while he was handling a folio or had the
+pen in his hand. Nor was this while engaged in the mechanical part of an
+author's work. His door was always open to the children; they burst in
+freely without any signal, and he always looked up with a smile of
+welcome; and he declared that he often could think to most purpose when
+there was a clatter of little voices around him. His voluminous works,
+which he commenced to publish late in life, do not indicate that he
+underwent a "muddling" process.
+
+Johnson used to assert that a man could write just as well at one time
+as another, and as well in one place as another, if he would only set
+himself doggedly about it.
+
+Dr. Channing's habits of labor when at home in Boston are thus
+described. "The sun is just rising, and the fires are scarcely lighted,
+when, with a rapid step, Dr. Channing enters his study. He has been
+watchful during many hours, his brain teeming, and under the excitement
+of his morning bath he longs to use the earliest hours for work.... His
+first act is to write down the thoughts which have been given in his
+vigils; next he reads a chapter or more in Griesbach's edition of the
+Greek Testament, and, after a quick glance over the newspapers of the
+day, he takes his light repast. Morning prayers follow, and then he
+retires to his study-table. If he is reading, you will at once notice
+this peculiarity, that he studies pen in hand, and that his book is
+crowded with folded sheets of paper, which continually multiply as
+trains of thought are suggested. These notes are rarely quotations, but
+chiefly questions and answers, qualifications, condensed statements,
+germs of interesting views; and when the volume is finished, they are
+carefully selected, arranged, and under distinct heads placed among
+other papers in a secretary. If he is writing, unless making preparation
+for the pulpit or for publication, the same process of accumulating
+notes is continued, which, at the end of each day or week, are filed.
+The interior of the secretary is filled with heaps of similar notes,
+arranged in order, with titles over each compartment. When a topic is to
+be treated at length in a sermon or essay, these notes are consulted,
+reviewed, and arranged. He first draws up a skeleton of his subject,
+selecting with special care and making prominent the central principle
+that gives it unity, and from which branch forth correlative
+considerations. Until perfectly clear in his own mind as to the
+essential truth of this main view, he cannot proceed. Questions are
+raised, objections considered, etc., the ground cleared, in a word, and
+the granite foundation laid bare for the cornerstone. And now the work
+goes rapidly forward. With flying pen he makes a rough draft of all that
+he intends to say, on sheets of paper folded lengthwise, leaving half of
+each page bare. He then reads over what he has written, and on the
+vacant half-page supplies defects, strikes out redundances, indicates
+the needless qualification, and modifies expressions. Thus sure of his
+thought and aim, conscientiously prepared, he abandons himself to the
+ardor of composition.... By noon his power of study is spent, and he
+walks, visits, etc. After dinner he lies for a time upon the sofa, and
+walks again, or drives into the country. Sunset he keeps as a holy hour.
+During the winter twilight he likes to be silent and alone.... At tea he
+listens to reading for an hour or more, leading conversation, etc.
+Evenings he gives up to social enjoyments."
+
+Mr. Buckle's method of making his researches, and preserving memoranda
+of the results for subsequent use in composition, was similar to Dr.
+Channing's, as we may infer from a note in his History. Dr. Channing
+spent his vacations at Newport, where his time was thus allotted:--Rose
+very early, walked, etc. Breakfasted on coarse wheat-bread and cream,
+with a cup of tea. Then went to his study. Every hour or half-hour, more
+or less, he threw his gown around him, and took a turn in the garden for
+a few minutes. After a few hours of work he was exhausted for the day,
+and read and conversed till dinner. The afternoon was given up to
+excursions, and the evening to society.
+
+Dr. Doddridge, in reference to his work, "The Paraphrase on the New
+Testament," said that its being written at all was owing to the
+difference between rising at five and at seven o'clock in the morning.
+"A remark similar to this," says Albert Barnes, "will explain all that I
+have done. Whatever I have accomplished in the way of commenting on the
+Scriptures is to be traced to the fact of rising at four in the morning,
+and to the time thus secured, which I thought might properly be employed
+in a work not immediately connected with my pastoral labors. That habit
+I have now pursued for many years.... All my Commentaries on the
+Scriptures have been written before nine o'clock in the morning. At the
+very beginning, now more than thirty years ago, I adopted a resolution
+to stop writing on these Notes when the clock struck nine. This
+resolution I have invariably adhered to, not unfrequently finishing my
+morning task in the midst of a paragraph, and sometimes even in the
+midst of a sentence.... In the recollection now of the past, I refer to
+these morning hours, to the stillness and quiet of my room in this house
+of God, when I have been permitted to 'prevent the dawning of the
+morning' in the study of the Bible, while the inhabitants of the great
+city were slumbering round about me, and before the cares of the day and
+its direct responsibilities came upon me,--I refer to these scenes as
+among the happiest portions of my life.... Manuscripts, when a man
+writes every day, even though he writes but little, accumulate. Dr.
+Johnson was once asked how it was that the Christian Fathers, and the
+men of other times, could find leisure to fill so many folios with the
+productions of their pens. 'Nothing is easier,' said he; and he at once
+began a calculation to show what would be the effect, in the ordinary
+term of a man's life, if he wrote only one octavo page in a day; and the
+question was solved.... In this manner manuscripts accumulated on my
+hands until I have been surprised to find that, by this slow and steady
+process, I have been enabled to prepare eleven volumes of Commentary on
+the New Testament, and five on portions of the Old Testament."
+
+Isaac Barrow was a very early riser, and with two exceptions very
+temperate in his habits. He indulged greatly in all kinds of fruit;
+alleging that, if the immoderate use of it killed hundreds in autumn, it
+was the means of preserving thousands throughout the year. But he was
+fonder still of tobacco. He believed that it helped to compose and
+regulate his thoughts. (He died, we may add, from the use of opium.) It
+was his plan, in whatever he was engaged, to prosecute it till he had
+brought it to a termination. He said he could not easily draw his
+thoughts from one thing to another. The morning was his favorite time
+for study. He kept a tinder-box in his apartment, and, during all of the
+winter and some of the autumn months, rose before it was light. He
+would sometimes rise at night, burn out his candle, and return to bed.
+
+Zwingli is described as indefatigable in study. From daybreak until ten
+o'clock he used to read, write, and translate. After dinner he listened
+to those who had any news to give him, or who required his advice; he
+then would walk out with some of his friends, and visit his flock. At
+two o'clock he resumed his studies. He took a short walk after supper,
+and then wrote his letters, which often occupied him until midnight. He
+always worked standing, and never permitted himself to be disturbed
+except for some very important cause.
+
+Melancthon was usually in his study at two or three o'clock in the
+morning, both in summer and winter. "It was during these early hours,"
+says D'Aubigné, "that his best works were written." During the day he
+read three or four lectures, attended to the conferences of the
+professors, and after that labored till supper-time. He retired about
+nine. He would not open any letters in the evening, in order that his
+sleep might not be disturbed. He usually drank a glass of wine before
+supper. He generally took one simple meal a day, and never more than
+two, and always dined regularly at a fixed hour. He enjoyed but few
+healthy days in his life, and was frequently troubled with
+sleeplessness. His manuscripts usually lay on the table, exposed to the
+view of every visitor, so that he was robbed of several. When he had
+invited any of his friends to his house, he used to beg one of them to
+read, before sitting down to table, some small composition in prose or
+verse.
+
+There is an interest of a peculiar nature in thus visiting the haunts
+and witnessing the labors of scholars, philosophers, and poets, which
+arises from the stimulus it affords us in turning again to our own
+humbler but kindred work. Whatever brings us into sympathy with the
+great and the noble thinkers enlarges and lifts our thoughts.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[C] In his youth he studied till midnight; but, warned by the early
+decay of sight and his disordered health, he afterwards changed his
+hours.
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A QUACK.
+
+IN TWO PARTS.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+I solemnly believe that I should have continued to succeed in the
+virtuous practice of my profession, if it had not happened that fate was
+once more unkind to me, by throwing in my path one of my old
+acquaintances. I had had a consultation one day with the famous
+homoeopath, Dr. Zwanzig; and as we walked away we were busily
+discussing the case of a poor consumptive fellow who had previously lost
+a leg. In consequence of this defect, Dr. Zwanzig considered that the
+ten-thousandth of a grain of _Aur._[D] would be an over-dose, and that
+it must be fractioned so as to allow for the departed leg, otherwise the
+rest of the man would be getting a leg-dose too much. I was particularly
+struck with this view of the case, but I was still more, and less
+pleasingly, impressed with the sight of my quondam patient, Stagers, who
+nodded to me familiarly from the opposite pavement.
+
+I was not at all surprised when, that evening quite late, I found this
+worthy seated waiting in my office. I looked around uneasily, which was
+clearly understood by my friend, who retorted, "Ain't took nothin', Doc.
+You don't seem right awful glad to see me. You needn't be afraid,--I've
+only fetched you a job, and a right good one too."
+
+I replied, that I had my regular business, that I preferred he should
+get some one else, and pretty generally made Mr. Stagers conscious that
+I had had enough of him.
+
+I did not ask him to sit down, and, just as I supposed him about to
+leave, he seated himself with a grin, remarking, "No use, Doc. Got to go
+into it this one time."
+
+At this I naturally enough grew angry, and used several rather violent
+phrases.
+
+"No use, Doc," remarked Stagers.
+
+Then I softened down, and laughed a little, treated the thing as a joke,
+whatever it was, for I dreaded to hear.
+
+But Stagers was fate. Stagers was inevitable. "Won't do, Doc,--not even
+money wouldn't get you off."
+
+"No?" said I interrogatively, and as coolly as I could, contriving at
+the same time to move towards the window. It was summer, the sashes were
+up, the shutters drawn in, and a policeman whom I knew was lounging
+opposite, as I had noticed when I entered. I would give Stagers a scare
+anyhow; charge him with theft,--anything but get mixed up with his kind
+again.
+
+He must have understood me, the scoundrel, for in an instant I felt a
+cold ring of steel against my ear, and a tiger clutch on my cravat. "Sit
+down," he said; "what a fool you are. Guess you've forgot that there
+coroner's business." Needless to say, I obeyed. "Best not try that
+again," continued my guest. "Wait a moment,"--and, rising, he closed the
+windows.
+
+There was no resource left but to listen; and what followed I shall
+condense, rather than relate it in the language employed by my friend
+Mr. Stagers.
+
+It appeared that another acquaintance, Mr. File, had been guilty of a
+cold-blooded and long-premeditated murder, for which he had been tried
+and convicted. He now lay in jail awaiting his execution, which was to
+take place at Carsonville, Ohio, one month after the date at which I
+heard of him anew. It seemed that, with Stagers and others, he had
+formed a band of counterfeiters in the West, where he had thus acquired
+a fortune so considerable that I was amazed at his having allowed his
+passions to seduce him into unprofitable crime. In his agony he
+unfortunately thought of me, and had bribed Stagers largely in order
+that he might be induced to find me. When the narration had reached this
+stage, and I had been made fully to understand that I was now and
+hereafter under the sharp eye of Stagers and his friends, that, in a
+word, escape was out of the question, I turned on my tormentor.
+
+"And what does all this mean?" I said; "what does File expect me to do?"
+
+"Don't believe he exactly knows," said Stagers; "something or other to
+get him clear of hemp."
+
+"But what stuff!" I replied. "How can I help him? What possible
+influence could I exert?"
+
+"Can't say," answered Stagers imperturbably; "File has a notion you're
+most cunning enough for anything. Best try somethin', Doc."
+
+"And what if I won't do it?" said I. "What does it matter to me, if the
+rascal swings or no?"
+
+"Keep cool. Doc," returned Stagers, "I'm only agent in this here
+business. My principal, that's File, he says, 'Tell Sandcraft to find
+some way to get me clear. Once out, I give him ten thousand dollars. If
+he don't turn up something that'll suit, I'll blow about that coroner
+business, and break him up generally.'"
+
+"You don't mean," said I, in a cold sweat,--"you don't mean that, if I
+can't do this impossible thing, he will inform on me?"
+
+"Just so," returned Stagers. "Got a cigar, Doc?"
+
+I only half heard him. What a frightful position. I had been leading a
+happy and an increasingly comfortable life,--no scrapes, and no dangers;
+and here, on a sudden, I had presented to me the alternative of saving a
+wretch from the gallows, or of spending unlimited years in a State
+penitentiary. As for the money, it became as dead leaves for this once
+only in my life. My brain seemed to be spinning in its case; lights came
+and went before my eyes. In my ears were the sounds of waters. I grew
+weak all over.
+
+"Cheer up a little," said Stagers. "Here, take a nip of whiskey. Things
+ain't at the worst, by a good bit. You just get ready, and we'll start
+by the morning train. Guess you'll try out something smart enough, as we
+travel along. Ain't got a heap of time to lose."
+
+I was silent. A great anguish had me in its grip. I might writhe and
+bite as I would, it was to be all in vain. Hideous plans arose to my
+ingenuity, born of this agony of terror and fear. I could murder
+Stagers, but what good would that do. As to File, he was safe from my
+hand. At last I became too confused to think any longer. "When do we
+leave?" I said, feebly.
+
+"At six to-morrow," he returned.
+
+How I was watched and guarded, and how hurried over a thousand miles of
+rail to my fate, little concerns us now. I find it dreadful to recall it
+to memory. Above all, an aching eagerness for revenge upon the man who
+had caused me these sufferings predominated in my mind. Could I not fool
+the wretch and save myself? On a sudden an idea came to my
+consciousness, like a sketch on an artist's paper. Then it grew, and
+formed itself, became possible, probable, it seemed to me sure. "Ah,"
+said I, "Stagers, give me something to eat and drink." I had not tasted
+food for two days.
+
+Within a day or two after my arrival, I was enabled to see File in his
+cell,--on the plea of being a clergyman from his native place.
+
+I found that I had not miscalculated my danger. The man did not appear
+to have the least idea as to how I was to help him. He only knew that I
+was in his power, and he used his control to insure that something more
+potent than friendship should be enlisted on his behalf. As the days
+went by, this behavior grew to be a frightful thing to witness. He
+threatened, flattered, implored, offered to double the sum he had
+promised, if I would but save him. As for myself, I had gradually become
+clear as to my course of action, and only anxious to get through with
+the matter. At last, a few days before the time appointed for the
+execution, I set about explaining to File my plan of saving him. At
+first I found this a very difficult task; but as he grew to understand
+that any other escape was impossible, he consented to my scheme, which I
+will now briefly explain.
+
+I proposed, on the evening before the execution, to make an opening in
+the man's windpipe, low down in the neck, and where he could conceal it
+by a loose cravat. As the noose would be above this point, I explained
+that he would be able to breathe through the aperture, and that, even if
+stupefied, he could easily be revived if we should be able to prevent
+his being hanged too long. My friend had some absurd misgivings lest his
+neck should be broken by the fall; but as to this I was able to reassure
+him, upon the best scientific authority. There were certain other and
+minor questions, as to the effects of sudden, nearly complete cessation
+of the supply of blood to the brain; but with these physiological
+refinements I thought it needlessly cruel to distract a man in his
+peculiar position. Perhaps I shall be doing injustice to my own
+intellect if I do not hasten to state that I had not the remotest belief
+in the efficacy of my plan for any purpose except to extricate me from a
+very uncomfortable position.
+
+On the morning of the day before the execution, I made ready everything
+that I could possibly need. So far our plans, or rather mine, had worked
+to a marvel. Certain of File's old accomplices succeeded in bribing the
+hangman to shorten the time of suspension. Arrangements were made also
+to secure me two hours alone with the prisoner, so that nothing seemed
+to be wanting. I had assured File that I would not see him again
+previous to the operation, but during the morning I was seized with a
+feverish impatience, which luckily prompted me to visit him once more.
+As usual, I was admitted readily, and nearly reached his cell, when I
+became aware from the sound of voices heard through the grating in the
+door that there was a visitor in the cell. "Who is with him?" I inquired
+of the warden.
+
+"The doctor," he replied.
+
+"Doctor?" I said. "What doctor?"
+
+"O, the jail physician," he returned. "I was to come back in half an
+hour and let him out; but he's got a quarter to stay as yet. Shall I
+admit you, or will you wait?"
+
+"No," I replied. "It is hardly right to interrupt them. I will walk in
+the corridor for ten minutes or so, and then you can send the turnkey to
+let me in."
+
+"Very good," he returned, and left me.
+
+As soon as I was alone, I cautiously advanced up the entry, and stood
+alongside of the door, through the barred grating of which I was able
+readily to hear what went on within. The first words I caught were
+these:--
+
+"And you tell me, Doctor, that, even if a man's windpipe was open, the
+hanging would kill him,--are you sure?"
+
+"Yes," returned the other, "I believe there would be no doubt of it. I
+cannot see how escape would be possible; but let me ask you," he went on
+more gravely, "why you have sent for me to ask all these singular
+questions. You cannot have the faintest hope of escape, and least of all
+in such a manner as this. I advise you to think rather on the fate which
+is inevitable. You must, I fear, have much to reflect upon."
+
+"But," said File, "if I wanted to try this plan of mine, couldn't some
+one be found to help me, say if he was to make twenty thousand or so by
+it?"
+
+"If you mean me," answered the doctor, "some one cannot be found,
+neither for twenty nor for fifty thousand dollars. Besides, if any one
+were wicked enough to venture on such an attempt, he would only be
+deceiving you with a hope which would be utterly vain."
+
+I understood all this, with an increasing fear in my mind. The prisoner
+was cunning enough to want to make sure that I was not playing him
+false.
+
+After a pause, he said, "Well, Doctor, you know a poor devil in my fix
+will clutch at straws. Hope I haven't offended you."
+
+"Not the least!" returned the doctor. "Shall I send to Mr. Smith?" This
+was my present name,--in fact I was known as the Rev. Mr. Eliphalet
+Smith.
+
+"I would like it," answered File; "but as you go out, tell the warden I
+want to see him immediately about a matter of great importance."
+
+At this stage, I began to conceive very distinctly that the time had
+arrived when it would be wiser for me to make my escape, if this step
+were yet possible. Accordingly I waited until I heard the doctor rise,
+and at once stepped quietly away to the far end of the corridor, which I
+had scarcely reached when the door which closed it was opened by a
+turnkey who had come to relieve the doctor. Of course my own peril was
+imminent. If the turnkey mentioned my near presence to the prisoner,
+immediate disclosure and arrest would follow. If time were allowed for
+the warden to obey the request from File, that he would visit him at
+once, I might gain thus half an hour, but hardly more. I therefore said
+to the officer: "Tell the warden that the doctor wishes to remain an
+hour longer with the prisoner, and that I shall return myself at the end
+of that time."
+
+"Very good, sir," said the turnkey, allowing me to pass out, and
+relocking the door; "I'll tell him."
+
+In a few moments I was outside of the jail gate, and saw my
+fellow-clergyman, Mr. Stagers, in full broadcloth and white tie, coming
+down the street towards me. As usual he was on guard; but this time he
+had to deal with a man grown perfectly desperate, with everything to
+win, and nothing to lose. My plans were made, and, wild as they were, I
+thought them worth the trying. I must evade this man's terrible watch.
+How keen it was, you cannot imagine; but it was aided by three of the
+infamous gang to which File had belonged, for without these spies no one
+person could possibly have sustained so perfect a system.
+
+I took Stagers's arm. "What time," said I, "does the first train start
+for Dayton?"
+
+"At twelve," said the other; "what do you want?"
+
+"How far is it?" I continued.
+
+"About fifteen miles," he replied.
+
+"Good; I can get back by eight o'clock to-night."
+
+"Easily," said Stagers, "_if_ you go. What is it you want?"
+
+"I want," said I, "a smaller tube, to put in the windpipe. Must have it,
+in fact."
+
+"Well, I don't like it," said he, "but the thing's got to go through
+somehow. If you must go, I will go along myself. Can't lose sight of
+you, Doc, just at present. You're monstrous precious. Did you tell
+File?"
+
+"Yes," said I. "He's all right. Come. We've no time to lose." Nor had
+we. Within twenty minutes we were seated in the last car of a long
+train, and running at the rate of twenty miles an hour towards Dayton.
+In about ten minutes I asked Stagers for a cigar.
+
+"Can't smoke here," said he.
+
+"No," I answered; "I'll go forward into the smoking-car."
+
+"Come along, then," said he, and we went through the train accordingly.
+I was not sorry he had gone with me when I found in the smoking-car one
+of the spies who had been watching me so constantly. Stagers nodded to
+him and grinned at me, and we sat down together.
+
+"Chut," said I, "dropped my cigar. Left it on the window-ledge, in the
+hindmost car. Be back in a moment." This time, for a wonder, Stagers
+allowed me to leave unaccompanied. I hastened through to the back car,
+and gained the platform at its nearer end, where I instantly cut the
+signal cord. Then I knelt down, and, waiting until the two cars ran
+together, I removed the connecting pin. The next moment I leaped to my
+feet, and screwed up the brake wheel, so as to check the pace of the
+car. Instantly the distance widened between me and the flying train. A
+few moments more, and the pace of my own car slackened, while the
+hurrying train flew around a distant curve. I did not wait for my own
+car to stop entirely before I slipped down off the steps, leaving the
+other passengers to dispose of themselves as they might until their
+absence should be discovered and the rest of the train return.
+
+As I wish rather to illustrate my very remarkable professional career,
+than to amuse by describing its mere incidents, I shall not linger to
+tell how I succeeded, at last, in reaching St. Louis. Fortunately, I had
+never ceased to anticipate a moment when escape from File and his
+friends would be possible, so that I always carried about with me the
+funds with which I had hastily provided myself upon leaving. The whole
+amount did not exceed a hundred dollars; but with this, and a gold watch
+worth as much more, I hoped to be able to subsist until my own ingenuity
+enabled me to provide more liberally for the future. Naturally enough, I
+scanned the papers closely, to discover some account of File's death,
+and of the disclosures concerning myself which he was only too likely to
+have made. I met with a full account of his execution, but with no
+allusion to myself, an omission which I felt fearful was due only to a
+desire on the part of the police to avoid alarming me in such a way as
+to keep them from pouncing upon me on my way home. Be this as it may,
+from that time to the present hour I have remained ignorant as to
+whether or not the villain betrayed my part in that curious coroner's
+inquest.
+
+Before many days I had resolved to make another and a bold venture.
+Accordingly appeared in the St. Louis papers an advertisement to the
+effect that Dr. Von Ingenhoff, the well-known German physician, who had
+spent two years on the plains acquiring a knowledge of Indian medicine,
+was prepared to treat all diseases by vegetable remedies alone. Dr. Von
+Ingenhoff would remain in St. Louis for two weeks, and was to be found
+at the Grayson House every day from ten until two o'clock.
+
+To my delight I got two patients the first day. The next I had twice as
+many; when at once I hired two connecting rooms, and made a very useful
+arrangement, which I may describe dramatically in the following way.
+
+There being two or three patients waiting while I finish my cigar and
+morning julep, there enters a respectable looking old gentleman, who
+inquires briskly of the patients if this is really Dr. Von Ingenhoff's.
+He is told it is.
+
+"Ah," says he, "I shall be delighted to see him; five years ago I was
+scalped on the plains, and now"--exhibiting a well-covered head--"you
+see what the Doctor did for me. 'T isn't any wonder I've come fifty
+miles to see him. Any of you been scalped, gentlemen?"
+
+To none of them had this misfortune arrived as yet; but, like most folks
+in the lower ranks of life and some in the upper ones, it was pleasant
+to find a genial person who would listen to their account of their own
+symptoms. Presently, after hearing enough, the old gentleman pulls out a
+large watch. "Bless me! it's late. I must call again. May I trouble you,
+sir, to say to the Doctor that his old friend, Governor Brown, called to
+see him, and will drop in again to-morrow. Don't forget: Governor Brown
+of Arkansas." A moment later the Governor visited me by a side-door,
+with his account of the symptoms of my patients. Enter a tall
+Hoosier,--the Governor having retired. "Now, Doc," says Hoosier, "I've
+been handled awful these two years back." "Stop," I exclaim, "open your
+eyes. There now, let me see," taking his pulse as I speak. "Ah, you've
+a pain there, and you can't sleep. Cocktails don't agree any longer.
+Weren't you bit by a dog two years ago?" "I was," says the Hoosier, in
+amazement. "Sir," I reply, "you have chronic hydrophobia. It's the water
+in the cocktails that disagrees with you. My bitters will cure in a
+week, sir."
+
+The astonishment of my friend at these accurate revelations may be
+imagined. He is allowed to wait for his medicine in the ante-room, where
+the chances are in favor of his relating how wonderfully I had told all
+his symptoms at a glance.
+
+Governor Brown of Arkansas was a small but clever actor, whom I met in
+the billiard-room, and who, day after day, in varying disguises and
+modes, played off the same trick, to our great mutual advantage.
+
+At my friend's suggestion, we very soon added to our resources by the
+purchase of two electro-magnetic batteries. This special means of
+treating all classes of maladies has advantages which are altogether
+peculiar. In the first place, you instruct your patient that the
+treatment is of necessity a long one. A striking mode of putting it is
+to say, "Sir, you have been six months getting ill, it will require six
+months for a cure." There is a correct sound about such a phrase, and it
+is sure to satisfy. Two sittings a week, at three dollars a sitting,
+pays pretty well. In many cases the patient gets well while you are
+electrifying him. Whether or not the electricity cures him is a thing I
+shall never know. If, however, he begins to show signs of impatience,
+you advise him that he will require a year's treatment, and suggest that
+it will be economical for him to buy a battery and use it at home. Under
+this advice he pays you twenty dollars for an instrument which cost you
+ten, and you are rid of a troublesome case.
+
+If the reader has followed me closely, he will have learned that I am a
+man of large views in my profession, and of a very justifiable
+ambition. The idea had often occurred to me of combining in one
+establishment all the various modes of practice which are known as
+irregular. This, as will be understood, is merely a more liberal
+rendering of the same idea which prompted me to unite in my own business
+homoeopathy and the ordinary practice of medicine. I proposed to my
+partner, accordingly, to combine with our present business that of
+spiritualism, which I knew had been very profitably turned to account in
+connection with medical practice. As soon as he agreed to this plan,
+which, by the way, I hoped to enlarge, so as to include all the
+available isms, I set about making such preparations as were necessary.
+I remembered to have read somewhere, that a Doctor Schiff had shown that
+you could produce remarkably clever knockings, so called, by voluntarily
+dislocating the great toe and then forcibly drawing it back again into
+its socket. A still better noise could be made by throwing the tendon of
+the peroneus longus muscle out of the hollow in which it lies, alongside
+of the ankle. After some effort I was able to accomplish both feats
+quite readily, and could occasion a remarkable variety of sounds,
+according to the power which I employed or the positions which I
+occupied at the time. As to all other matters, I trusted to the
+suggestions of my own ingenuity, which, as a rule, has rarely failed me.
+
+The largest success attended the novel plan which my lucky genius had
+devised; so that soon we actually began to divide large profits, and to
+lay by a portion of our savings. It is, of course, not to be supposed
+that this desirable result was attained without many annoyances and some
+positive danger. My spiritual revelations, medical and other, were, as
+may be supposed, only more or less happy guesses; but in this, as in
+predictions as to the weather and other events, the rare successes
+always get more prominence in the minds of men than the numerous
+failures. Moreover, whenever a person has been fool enough to resort to
+folks like myself, he is always glad to be able to defend his conduct by
+bringing forward every possible proof of skill on the part of the man he
+has consulted. These considerations, and a certain love of mysterious or
+unusual means, I have commonly found sufficient to secure an ample share
+of gullible individuals; while I may add, that, as a rule, those who
+would be shrewd enough to understand and expose us are wise enough to
+keep away altogether. Such as did come were, as a rule, easy enough to
+manage, but now and then we hit upon some utterly exceptional patient,
+who was both fool enough to consult me and clever enough to know he had
+been swindled. When such a fellow made a fuss, it was occasionally
+necessary to return his money, if it was found impossible to bully him
+into silence. In one or two instances, where I had promised a cure upon
+prepayment of two or three hundred dollars, I was either sued or
+threatened with suit, and had to refund a part or the whole of the
+amount; but most folks preferred to hold their tongues, rather than
+expose to the world the extent of their own folly.
+
+In one case I suffered personally to a degree which I never can recall
+without a distinct sense of annoyance, both at my own want of care and
+at the disgusting consequences which it brought upon me.
+
+Early one morning an old gentleman called, in a state of the utmost
+agitation, and explained that he desired to consult the spirits as to a
+heavy loss which he had experienced the night before. He had left, he
+said, a sum of money in his pantaloons-pocket, upon going to bed. In the
+morning he had changed his clothes, and gone out, forgetting to remove
+the notes. Returning in an hour in great haste, he discovered that the
+garment still lay upon the chair where he had thrown it, but that the
+money was missing. I at once desired him to be seated, and proceeded to
+ask him certain questions, in a chatty way, about the habits of his
+household, the amount lost, and the like, expecting thus to get some
+clew which would enable me to make my spirits display the requisite
+share of sagacity in pointing out the thief. I learned readily that he
+was an old and wealthy man, a little close too, I suspected; and that he
+lived in a large house, with but two servants, and an only son about
+twenty-one years old. The servants were both elderly women, who had
+lived in the household many years, and were probably innocent.
+Unluckily, remembering my own youthful career, I presently reached the
+conclusion that the young man had been the delinquent. When I ventured
+to inquire a little as to his character and habits, the old gentleman
+cut me very short, remarking that he came to ask questions, and not to
+be questioned, and that he desired at once to consult the spirits. Upon
+this I sat down at a table, and, after a brief silence, demanded in a
+solemn voice if there were present any spirits. By industriously
+cracking my big-toe joint, I was enabled to represent at once the
+presence of a numerous assembly of these worthies. Then I inquired if
+any one of them had been present when the robbery was effected. A prompt
+double-knock replied in the affirmative. I may say here, by the way,
+that the unanimity of the spirits as to their use of two knocks for yes,
+and one for no, is a very remarkable point; and shows, if it shows
+anything, how perfect and universal must be the social intercourse of
+the respected departed. It is worthy of note, also, that if the spirit,
+I will not say the medium, perceives, after one knock, that it were
+wiser to say yes, he can conveniently add the second tap. Some such
+arrangement in real life would, it appears to me, be very desirable.
+
+To return to the subject. As soon as I explained that the spirit who
+answered had been a witness of the theft, the old man became strangely
+agitated. "Who was it?" said he. At once the spirit indicated a desire
+to use the alphabet. As we went over the letters, (always a slow method,
+but useful when you want to observe excitable people,) my visitor kept
+saying, "Quicker. Go quicker." At length the spirit spelt out the words,
+"I know not his name." "Was it," said the gentleman,--"was it a--was it
+one of my household?" I knocked yes, without hesitation; who else could
+it have been? "Excuse me," he went on, "if I ask you for a little wine."
+This I gave him. He continued, "Was it Susan, or Ellen? answer
+instantly."
+
+"No,--No."
+
+"Was it--" He paused. "If I ask a question mentally, will the spirits
+reply?" I knew what he meant. He wanted to ask if it was his son, but
+did not wish to speak openly.
+
+"Ask," said I.
+
+"I have," he returned.
+
+I hesitated. It was rarely my policy to commit myself definitely; yet
+here I fancied, from the facts of the case, and his own terrible
+anxiety, that he suspected or more than suspected his son as the guilty
+person. I became sure of this as I studied his face. At all events it
+would be easy to deny or explain, in case of trouble; and after all,
+what slander was there in two knocks! I struck twice as usual.
+
+Instantly the old gentleman rose up, very white, but quite firm.
+"There," he said, and cast a bank-note on the table, "I thank you";--and
+bending his head on his breast, walked, as I thought with great effort,
+out of the room.
+
+On the following morning, as I made my first appearance in my outer
+room, which contained at least a dozen persons awaiting advice, who
+should I see standing by the window but the old gentleman with
+sandy-gray hair. Along with him was a stout young man, with a decided
+red head, and mustache and whiskers to match. Probably the son, thought
+I,--ardent temperament, remorse,--come to confess, etc. Except as to the
+temper, I was never more mistaken in my life. I was about to go
+regularly through my patients, when the old gentleman began to speak.
+
+"I called, Doctor," said he, "to explain the little matter about which
+I--about which I--"
+
+"Troubled your spirits yesterday," added the youth jocosely, pulling his
+mustache.
+
+"Beg pardon," I returned. "Had we not better talk this over in private?
+Come into my office," I added, touching the lad on the arm.
+
+Would you believe it?--he took out his handkerchief, and dusted the
+place I had touched. "Better not," he said. "Go on, father; let us get
+done with this den."
+
+"Gentlemen," said the elder person, addressing the patients, "I called
+here yesterday, like a fool, to ask who had stolen from me a sum of
+money, which I believed I left in my room on going out in the morning.
+This doctor here and his spirits contrived to make me suspect my only
+son. Well, I charged him at once with the crime, as soon as I got back
+home; and what do you think he did. He said, 'Father, let us go up
+stairs and look for it, and--'"
+
+Here the young man broke in with "Come, father, don't worry yourself for
+nothing"; and then, turning, added, "To cut the thing short, he found
+the notes under his candlestick, where he had left them on going to bed.
+This is all of it. We came here to stop this fellow" (by which he meant
+me) "from carrying a slander further. I advise you, good people, to
+profit by the matter, and to look up a more honest doctor, if doctoring
+be what you want."
+
+As soon as he had ended, I remarked solemnly: "The words of the spirits
+are not my words. Who shall hold them accountable?"
+
+"Nonsense," said the young man. "Come, father," and they left the room.
+
+Now was the time to retrieve my character. "Gentlemen," said I, "you
+have heard this very singular account. Trusting the spirits utterly and
+entirely as I do, it occurs to me that there is no reason why they may
+not after all have been right in their suspicions of this young person.
+Who can say that, overcome by remorse, he may not have seized the time
+of his father's absence to replace the money?"
+
+To my amazement up gets a little old man from the corner. "Well, you are
+a low cuss," said he; and, taking up a basket beside him, hobbled out of
+the room. You maybe sure I said some pretty sharp things to him, for I
+was out of humor to begin with, and it is one thing to be insulted by a
+stout young man, and quite another to be abused by a wretched old
+cripple. However, he went away, and I supposed, for my part, that I was
+done with the whole business.
+
+An hour later, however, I heard a rough knock at my door, and, opening
+it hastily, saw my red-headed young man with the cripple.
+
+"Now," said the former, catching me by the collar, and pulling me into
+the room among my patients, "I want to know, my man, if this doctor said
+that it was likely I was the thief, after all?"
+
+"That's what he said," replied the cripple; "just about that, sir."
+
+I do not desire to dwell on the after conduct of this hot-headed young
+man. It was the more disgraceful, as I offered but little resistance,
+and endured a beating such as I would have hesitated to inflict upon a
+dog. Nor was this all; he warned me that, if I dared to remain in the
+city after a week, he would shoot me. In the East I should have thought
+but little of such a threat, but here it was only too likely to be
+practically carried out. Accordingly, with much grief and reluctance, I
+collected my whole fortune, which now amounted to at least seven
+thousand dollars, and turned my back upon this ungrateful town. I am
+sorry to say that I also left behind me the last of my good luck, as
+hereafter I was to encounter only one calamity after another.
+
+Travelling slowly eastward, my spirits began at last to rise to their
+usual level, and when I arrived in Boston I set myself to thinking how
+best I could contrive to enjoy life, and at the same time to increase my
+means.
+
+On former occasions I was a moneyless adventurer; now I possessed
+sufficient capital, and was able and ready to embark in whatever
+promised the best returns with the smallest personal risk. Several
+schemes presented themselves as worthy the application of industry and
+talent, but none of them altogether suited my tastes. I thought at times
+of travelling as a Physiological Lecturer, combining with it the
+business of a practitioner. Scare the audience at night with an
+enumeration of symptoms which belong to ten out of every dozen of
+healthy people, and then doctor such of them as are gulls enough to
+consult me next day. The bigger the fright, the better the pay. I was a
+little timid, however, about facing large audiences, as a man will be
+naturally if he has lived a life of adventure, so that, upon due
+consideration, I gave up the idea altogether.
+
+The patent-medicine business also looked well enough, but it is somewhat
+overdone at all times, and requires a heavy outlay, with the possible
+result of ill-success. Indeed, I believe fifty quack remedies fail for
+one that succeeds; and millions must have been wasted in placards,
+bills, and advertisements, which never returned half their value to the
+speculator. If I live, I think I shall beguile my time with writing the
+lives of the principal quacks who have met with success. They are few in
+number, after all, as any one must know who recalls the countless
+remedies which are puffed awhile on the fences, and disappear to be
+heard of no more.
+
+Lastly, I inclined for a while to undertake a private insane asylum,
+which appeared to me to offer facilities for money-making; as to which,
+however, I may have been deceived by the writings of certain popular
+novelists. I went so far, I may say, as actually to visit Concord for
+the purpose of finding a pleasant locality and a suitable atmosphere;
+but, upon due reflection, abandoned my plan as involving too much
+personal labor to suit one of my easy frame of mind.
+
+Tired at last of idleness and of lounging on the Common, I engaged in
+two or three little ventures of a semi-professional character, such as
+an exhibition of laughing-gas; advertising to cure cancer; send ten
+stamps by mail to J. B., and receive an infallible receipt, etc. I did
+not find, however, that these little enterprises prospered well in New
+England, and I had recalled to me very forcibly a story which my
+grandfather was fond of relating to me in my boyhood. It briefly
+narrated how certain very knowing flies went to get molasses, and how it
+ended by the molasses getting them. This, indeed, was precisely what
+happened to me in all my little efforts to better myself in the Northern
+States, until at length my misfortunes climaxed in total and unexpected
+ruin.
+
+The event which deprived me of the hard-won earnings of years of
+ingenious industry was brought about by the baseness of a man who was
+concerned with me in purchasing drugs for exportation to the Confederate
+States. Unluckily, I was obliged to employ as my agent a long-legged
+sea-captain from Maine. With his aid, I invested in this enterprise
+about six thousand dollars, which I reasonably hoped to quadruple. Our
+arrangements were cleverly made to run the blockade at Charleston, and
+we were to sail on a certain Thursday morning in September, 1863. I sent
+my clothes on board, and went down the evening before to go on board,
+but found that the little schooner had been hauled out from the pier.
+The captain, who met me at this time, endeavored to get a boat in order
+to ferry us to the ship, but the night was stormy, and we were obliged
+to return to our lodgings. Early next day I dressed and went to the
+captain's room, which proved to be empty. I was instantly filled with
+doubt, and ran frantically to the foot of Long Wharf, where, to my
+horror, I could see no signs of schooner or captain. Neither have I ever
+again set eyes on them from that time to this. I immediately lodged
+information with the police as to the unpatriotic designs of the rascal
+who had swindled me, but whether or not justice ever overtook him I am
+unable to say.
+
+It was, as I perceived, such utterly spilt milk as to be little worth
+lamenting; and I therefore set to work with my accustomed energy to
+utilize on my own behalf the resources of my medical education, which so
+often before had saved me from want. The war, then raging at its height,
+appeared to me to offer numerous opportunities to men of talent. The
+path which I chose myself was apparently a humble one, but it enabled me
+to make very agreeable use of my professional knowledge, and afforded
+rapid and secure returns, without any other investment than a little
+knowledge cautiously employed. In the first place, I deposited my small
+remnant of property in a safe bank, and then proceeded to Providence,
+where, as I had heard, patriotic persons were giving very large bounties
+in order, I suppose, to insure to the government the services of better
+men than themselves. On my arrival I lost no time in offering myself as
+a substitute, and was readily accepted, and very soon mustered into the
+Twentieth Rhode Island. Three months were passed, in camp, during which
+period I received bounties to the extent of six hundred and fifty
+dollars, with which I tranquilly deserted about two hours before the
+regiment left for the field. With the product of my industry I returned
+to Boston, and deposited all but enough to carry me to New York, where
+within a month I enlisted twice, earning on each occasion four hundred
+dollars.
+
+My next essay was in Philadelphia, which I approached, even after some
+years of absence, with a good deal of doubt. It was an ill-omened place
+for me; for although I got nearly seven hundred dollars by entering the
+service as a substitute for an editor,--whose pen, I presume, was
+mightier than his sword,--I was disagreeably surprised by being hastily
+forwarded to the front under a foxy young lieutenant, who brutally shot
+down a poor devil in the streets of Baltimore for attempting to desert.
+At this point I began to make use of my medical skill, for I did not in
+the least degree fancy being shot, either because of deserting or of not
+deserting. It happened, therefore, that a day or two later, while in
+Washington, I was seized in the street with a fit, which perfectly
+imposed upon the officer in charge, and caused him to leave me at the
+Douglas Hospital. Here I found it necessary to perform fits about twice
+a week; and as there were several real epileptics in the wards I had a
+capital chance of studying their symptoms, which finally I learned to
+imitate with the utmost cleverness.
+
+I soon got to know three or four men, who, like myself, were personally
+averse to bullets, and who were simulating other forms of disease with
+more or less success. One of them suffered with rheumatism of the back,
+and walked about bent like an old man; another, who had been to the
+front, was palsied in the left arm; and a third kept open an ulcer on
+the leg, by rubbing in a little antimonial ointment, which I sold him at
+five dollars a box, and bought at fifty cents.
+
+A change in the hospital staff brought all of us to grief. The new
+surgeon was a quiet, gentlemanly person, with pleasant blue eyes and
+clearly cut features, and a way of looking you through without saying
+much. I felt so safe myself that I watched his procedures with just that
+kind of enjoyment which one clever man takes in seeing another at work.
+
+The first inspection settled two of us, "Another back case," said the
+ward surgeon to his senior.
+
+"Back hurt you?" says the latter, mildly.
+
+"Yes, sir; run over by a howitzer; ain't never been straight since."
+
+"A howitzer!" says the surgeon. "Lean forward, my man, so as to touch
+the floor,--so. That will do." Then, turning to his aid, he said,
+"Prepare this man's discharge papers."
+
+"His discharge, sir?"
+
+"Yes, I said that. Who's next?"
+
+"Thank you, sir," groaned the man with the back. "How soon, sir, do you
+think it will be?"
+
+"Ah, not less than a month," replied the surgeon, and passed on.
+
+Now as it was unpleasant to be bent like a letter V, and as the patient
+presumed that his discharge was secure, he naturally took to himself a
+little relaxation in the way of becoming straighter. Unluckily, those
+nice blue eyes were everywhere at all hours; and, one fine morning,
+Smithson was appalled at finding himself in a detachment bound for the
+field, and bearing on his descriptive list an ill-natured endorsement
+about his malady.
+
+The surgeon came next on O'Callahan. "Where's your cap, my man?"
+
+"On my head, yer honor," said the other, insolently. "I've a paralytics
+in my arm."
+
+"Humph!" cried the surgeon. "You have another hand."
+
+"An' it's not rigulation to saloot with yer left," said the Irishman,
+with a grin, while the patients around us began to laugh.
+
+"How did it happen?" said the surgeon.
+
+"I was shot in the shoulder," answered the patient, "about three months
+ago, sir. I haven't stirred it since."
+
+The surgeon looked at the scar.
+
+"So recently?" said he. "The scar looks older; and, by the way, doctor,"
+to his junior, "it could not have gone near the nerves. Bring the
+battery, orderly."
+
+In a few moments the surgeon was testing, one after another, the various
+muscles. At last he stopped. "Send this man away with the next
+detachment. Not a word, my man. You are a rascal, and a disgrace to
+these good fellows who have been among the bullets."
+
+The man muttered something, I did not hear what.
+
+"Put this man in the guard-house," cried the surgeon; and so passed on,
+without smile or frown.
+
+As to the ulcer case, to my amusement he was put in bed, and his leg
+locked up in a wooden splint, which effectually prevented him from
+touching the part diseased. It healed in ten days, and he too went as
+food for powder.
+
+As for myself, he asked me a few questions, and, requesting to be sent
+for during my next fit, left me alone.
+
+I was of course on my guard, and took care to have my attacks only in
+his absence, or to have them over before he arrived.
+
+At length, one morning, in spite of my care, he chanced to be in the
+ward, when I fell at the door. I was carried in and laid on a bed,
+apparently in strong convulsions. Presently I felt a finger on my
+eyelid, and as it was raised, saw the surgeon standing beside me. To
+escape his scrutiny, I became more violent in my motions. He stopped a
+moment, and looked at me steadily. "Poor fellow!" said he, to my great
+relief, as I felt at once that I had successfully deceived him. Then he
+turned to the ward doctor and remarked: "Take care he does not hurt his
+head against the bed; and, by the by, doctor, do you remember the test
+we applied in Smith's case? Just tickle the soles of his feet, and see
+if it will cause those backward spasms of the head."
+
+The aid obeyed him, and, very naturally, I jerked my head backwards as
+hard as I could.
+
+"That will answer," said the surgeon, to my horror. "A clever rogue.
+Send him to the guard-house when he gets over it."
+
+"Happy had I been if my ill-luck had ended here; but, as I crossed the
+yard, an officer stopped me. To my disgust it was the captain of my old
+Rhode Island company.
+
+"Halloa!" said he; "keep that fellow safe. I know him."
+
+To cut short a long story; I was tried, convicted, and forced to refund
+the Rhode Island bounty, for by ill luck they found my bank-book among
+my papers. I was finally sent to Fort Mifflin for a year, and kept at
+hard labor, handling and carrying shot, policing the ground, picking up
+cigar-stumps, and other like unpleasant occupations.
+
+Upon my release, I went at once to Boston, where I had about two
+thousand dollars in bank. I spent nearly all of the latter sum before I
+could prevail upon myself to settle down to some mode of making a
+livelihood; and I was about to engage in business as a vender of lottery
+policies, when I first began to feel a strange sense of lassitude, which
+soon increased so as quite to disable me from work of any kind. Month
+after month passed away, while my money lessened, and this terrible
+sense of weariness still went on from bad to worse. At last one day,
+after nearly a year had elapsed, I perceived on my face a large brown
+patch of color, in consequence of which I went in some alarm to consult
+a well-known physician. He asked me a multitude of tiresome questions,
+and at last wrote off a prescription, which I immediately read. It was a
+preparation of iron.
+
+"What do you think," said I, "is the matter with me, doctor?"
+
+"I am afraid," said he, "that you have a very serious trouble,--what we
+call Addison's disease."
+
+"What's that?" said I.
+
+"I do not think you would comprehend it," he replied. "It is an
+affection of the supra-renal capsules."
+
+I dimly remembered that there were such organs, and that nobody knew
+what they were meant for. It seemed the doctors had found a use for them
+at last.
+
+"Is it a dangerous disease?" I said.
+
+"I fear so," he answered.
+
+"Don't you know," I asked, "what's the truth about it?"
+
+"Well," he returned gravely, "I am sorry to tell you it is a very
+dangerous malady."
+
+"Nonsense," said I, "I don't believe it,"--for I thought it was only a
+doctor's trick, and one I had tried often enough myself.
+
+"Thank you," said he, "you are a very ill man, and a fool besides. Good
+morning." He forgot to ask for a fee, and I remembered not to offer one.
+
+Several months went by; my money was gone; my clothes were ragged, and,
+like my body, nearly worn out; and I am an inmate of a hospital. To-day
+I feel weaker than when I first began to write. How it will end I do not
+know. If I die, the doctor will get this pleasant history; and if I
+live, I shall burn it, and, as soon as I get a little money, I will set
+out to look for my little sister, about whom I dreamed last night. What
+I dreamed was not very agreeable. I thought I was walking up one of the
+vilest streets near my old office, when a girl spoke to me,--a
+shameless, worn creature, with great sad eyes, not so wicked as the rest
+of her face. Suddenly she screamed aloud, "Brother! Brother!" and then,
+remembering what she had been,--with her round, girlish, innocent face,
+and fair hair,--and seeing what she was, I awoke, and cursed myself in
+the darkness for the evil I had done in the days of my youth.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[D] _Aurum_, used in religious melancholy (see Jahr,) and not a bad
+remedy, it strikes me.
+
+
+
+
+"THE LIE."
+
+
+Many years ago--now more than two hundred and fifty--some one in England
+wrote a short poem bearing the above emphatic title, which deservedly
+holds a place in the collections of old English poetry at the present
+day. It is a striking production, familiar, no doubt, to most lovers of
+ancient verse, and, although numbering only about a dozen stanzas, has
+outlasted many a ponderous folio.
+
+I say, indefinitely enough, that this little poem was written by _some_
+one, and strange as it may appear, the name of that one is still in
+doubt. Its authorship was attributed, by Bishop Percy and others, to Sir
+Walter Raleigh, and sometimes with the fanciful addition, that he wrote
+it the night before his execution. The piece, however, was extant many
+years before the world was disgraced by that deed of wickedness.
+
+After a while it began to be questioned whether the verses were really
+written by Sir Walter. Some old-poetry mouser appears to have lighted on
+an ancient folio volume, the work of Joshua Sylvester, and found among
+its contents a poem called "The Soul's Errand," which, it would seem,
+was thought to be the same that had been credited to Sir Walter Raleigh
+under the title of "The Lie."
+
+Joshua Sylvester was in his day a writer of some note. Colley Cibber, in
+his "Lives of the Poets," is quite lavish in his praise, and says his
+brethren in the sacred art called him the "Silver-tongued." The same
+phrase has been applied to others.
+
+In his "Specimens of Early English Poets," Ellis "restores" the poem,
+with the title of "The Soul's Errand," to Sylvester, as its "ancient
+proprietor, till a more authorized claimant shall be produced."
+
+Chambers, in his "Cyclopædia of English Literature," prints the poem,
+with the title of "The Soul's Errand," and he also gives it to
+Sylvester, "as the now generally received author of an impressive piece,
+long ascribed to Raleigh."
+
+Sir Egerton Brydges, in his "Censura Literaria," doubts Percy's right to
+credit Sir Walter with the poem of "The Lie," of which he says there is
+a "parody" in the folio edition of Sylvester's works, where it is
+entitled "The Soul's Errand."
+
+The veteran J. Payne Collier, the _emendator_ of Shakespeare, has
+recently put forth a work, in four volumes, entitled "A Bibliographical
+and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language." In
+this work he claims the authorship of "The Lie," "otherwise called 'The
+Soul's Errand,'" for Sir Walter Raleigh, and rests his authority on a
+manuscript copy "of the time," headed, "Sir Walter Wrawly his Lye." He
+quotes the poem at length, beginning,
+
+    "_Hence_, soule, the bodies guest."
+
+All other copies that I have seen read, "_Go_, soul," which I think will
+be deemed the more fitting word.
+
+Collier does not allude to Sylvester in connection with this poem, but
+introduces him in another article, and treats him somewhat cavalierly,
+as "a mere literary adventurer and translating drudge." "When he died,"
+Collier says, "is not precisely known." He might have known, since there
+were records all round him to show that Sylvester died in Holland, in
+September, 1618. His great contemporary, Sir Walter Raleigh, was
+beheaded in October, one month after.
+
+(By the way, Payne Collier holds out marvellously. Here is his new work,
+dated 1866, and I have near me his "Poetical Decameron," published in
+1820, _forty-six_ years ago.)
+
+Ritson, a noted reaper in the "old fields," supposes, that "The Lie" was
+written by Francis Davison; and in Kerl's "Comprehensive Grammar," among
+many poetical extracts, I find two stanzas of the poem quoted as written
+by Barnfield,--probably Richard. These two writers were of Raleigh's
+time, but I think their claims may be readily dismissed. Supposing that
+"The Lie" was written by either Joshua Sylvester or Sir Walter Raleigh,
+I shall try to show that it was not written by Sylvester, and that he
+has wrongfully enjoyed the credit of its authorship.
+
+Critics and collators have for years been doubting about the authorship
+of this little poem, written over two centuries and a half ago; and, so
+far as I can ascertain, not one of them has ever discovered, what is
+the simple fact, that there were _two_ poems instead of _one_, similar
+in scope and spirit, but still two poems,--"The Lie" _and_ "The Soul's
+Errand."
+
+I have said that Sir Egerton Brydges alludes to a "parody" of "The Lie,"
+in Sylvester's volume, there called "The Soul's Errand." In that volume
+I find what Sir Egerton calls a "parody." It is, in reality, another
+poem, bearing the title of "The Soul's Errand," consisting of _twenty_
+stanzas, all of four lines each, excepting the first stanza, which has
+six. "The Lie" consists of but _thirteen_ stanzas, of six lines each,
+the fifth and sixth of which may be termed the refrain or burden of the
+piece. I annex copies of the two poems; Sir Walter's (so called) is
+taken from Percy's "Reliques," and Sylvester's is copied from his own
+folio.
+
+On comparing the two pieces, it will be seen that they begin alike, and
+go on nearly alike for a few stanzas, when they diverge, and are then
+entirely different from each other to the end. I do not find that this
+difference has ever been pointed out, and am therefore left to suppose
+that it never was discovered. At this late day conjectures are not worth
+much, but it would appear that, the opening stanzas of the two poems
+being similar, their identity was at some time carelessly taken for
+granted by some collector, who read only the initial stanzas, and thus
+ignorantly deprived Sir Walter of "The Lie," and gave it to Sylvester,
+with the title of "The Soul's Errand."
+
+This, however, is certain: "The Soul's Errand," so called, of _thirteen_
+stanzas, given to us by Ellis and by Chambers as Sylvester's, is not the
+poem that Sylvester wrote under that title, and we have his own
+authority for saying so. His poem of _twenty_ stanzas, bearing that
+title, does not appear to have ever been reprinted, and it is believed
+cannot now be found anywhere out of his own book. Ellis, it is plain, is
+not to be trusted. Professing to be exact, he refers for his authority
+to page 652 of Sylvester's works, and then proceeds to print a poem as
+his which is not there. Had he read the page he quotes so carefully, he
+would have seen that "The Lie" and "The Soul's Errand" were two separate
+productions, alike only in the six stanzas taken from the former and
+included in the latter.
+
+We learn that Sir Walter Raleigh's poems were never all collected into a
+volume, and, further, we learn that "The Lie," as a separate piece, was
+attributed to him at an early period. Payne Collier, as I have said,
+prints it as his, from a manuscript "of the time"; and in an elaborate
+article on Raleigh, in the North British Review, copied into Littell's
+Living Age, of June 9, 1855, the able reviewer refers particularly to
+"The Lie," "saddest of poems," as Sir Walter's, and adds in a note that
+"it is to be found in a manuscript of 1596." This would make the piece
+two hundred and seventy years old. When and by whom it was first taken
+from Sir Walter and given to Sylvester, with the altered title, and why
+Sylvester incorporated into his poem of "The Soul's Errand" six stanzas
+belonging to "The Lie," can now, of course, never be known.
+
+I find that I have been indulging in quite a flow of words about a few
+old verses; but then they _are_ verses, and such as one should not be
+robbed of. They have lived through centuries of time, and outlived
+generations of ambitious penmen, and the true name of the author ought
+to live with them. Long ago, when a school-boy, I used to read and
+repeat "The Lie," and it was then the undoubted work of Sir Walter
+Raleigh. In after years, on looking into various volumes of old English
+poetry, I was told that "The Lie" was _not_ "The Lie," and was not
+written by Sir Walter Raleigh; that the true title of the piece was "The
+Soul's Errand," and that the real author of it was a certain Joshua
+Sylvester. Unwilling to displace the brave knight from the niche he had
+graced so long, I hunted up Sylvester's old folio, and the result of my
+search may be found in these imperfect remarks.
+
+Frankly, I would fain believe that "The Lie" was written by Sir Walter.
+It is true I am not able to prove it, but I think I prove that it was
+not written by Sylvester. He wrote another poem, "The Soul's Errand,"
+and he is welcome to it; that is, he is welcome to fourteen of its
+twenty stanzas,--the other six do not belong to him. Give him also,
+painstaking man! due laudation for his version of the "Divine Du
+Bartas," of which formidable work anyone who has the courage to grapple
+with its six hundred and fifty-odd folio pages may know where to find a
+copy.
+
+But Sir Walter Raleigh,--heroic Sir Walter,--he is before me bodily,
+running his fingers along the sharp edge of the fatal axe, and calmly
+laying his noble head on the block.
+
+    "The good Knight is dust,
+    And his sword is rust";
+
+but I want to feel that he left behind him, as the offspring of his
+great brain, one of the most impressive poems of his time,--ay, and
+indeed of any time.
+
+
+THE LYE.
+
+BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
+
+    Goe, soule, the bodies guest,
+      Upon a thanklesse arrant;
+    Feare not to touche the best,
+      The truth shall be thy warrant:
+        Goe, since I needs must dye,
+        And give the world the lye.
+
+    Goe tell the court, it glowes
+      And shines like rotten wood;
+    Goe tell the church it showes
+      What's good, and doth no good:
+        If church and court reply,
+        Then give them both the lye.
+
+    Tell potentates they live
+      Acting by others actions:
+    Not lov'd unlesse they give,
+      Not strong but by their factions:
+        If potentates reply,
+        Give potentates the lye.
+
+    Tell men of high condition,
+      That rule affairs of state,
+    Their purpose is ambition,
+      Their practise only hate;
+        And if they once reply,
+        Then give them all the lye.
+
+    Tell them that brave it most,
+      They beg for more by spending,
+    Who in their greatest cost
+      Seek nothing but commending:
+        And if they make reply,
+        Spare not to give the lye.
+
+    Tell zeale, it lacks devotion;
+      Tell love, it is but lust;
+    Tell time, it is but motion;
+      Tell flesh, it is but dust;
+        And wish them not reply,
+        For thou must give the lye.
+
+    Tell age, it daily wasteth;
+      Tell honour, how it alters;
+    Tell beauty, how she blasteth;
+      Tell favour, how she falters;
+        And as they shall reply,
+        Give each of them the lye.
+
+    Tell wit, how much it wrangles
+      In tickle points of nicenesse;
+    Tell wisedome, she entangles
+      Herselfe in over-wisenesse:
+        And if they do reply,
+        Straight give them both the lye.
+
+    Tell physicke of her boldnesse;
+      Tell skill, it is pretension;
+    Tell charity of coldness;
+      Tell law, it is contention;
+        And as they yield reply,
+        So give them still the lye.
+
+    Tell fortune of her blindnesse;
+      Tell nature of decay;
+    Tell friendship of unkindnesse;
+      Tell justice of delay:
+        And if they dare reply,
+        Then give them all the lye.
+
+    Tell arts, they have no soundnesse,
+      But vary by esteeming;
+    Tell schooles they want profoundnesse,
+      And stand too much on seeming:
+        If arts and schooles reply,
+        Give arts and schooles the lye.
+
+    Tell faith, it's fled the citie;
+      Tell how the countrey erreth;
+    Tell, manhood shakes off pitie;
+      Tell, vertue least preferreth;
+        And, if they doe reply,
+        Spare not to give the lye.
+
+    So, when thou hast, as I
+      Commanded thee, done blabbing,
+    Athough to give the lye
+      Deserves no less than stabbing,
+        Yet stab at thee who will,
+        No stab the soule can kill.
+
+
+THE SOULES ERRAND.
+
+BY JOSUAH SYLVESTER.
+
+    Goe Soule, the bodies guest,
+    Upon a thanklesse Errand,
+    Feare not to touch the best,
+    The Truth shall be thy warrant:
+      Goe thou, since I must die,
+      And give the world the lye.
+
+    Goe tell the Court it glowes,
+    And shines like rotten wood;
+    Say to the Church it showes
+    What's good, but doth not good.
+
+    Tell Potentates they live,
+    Acting by others Action,
+    Not lov'd unlesse they give,
+    Not strong, but by a faction.
+
+    Tell men of high condition,
+    That in Affaires of State
+    Their purpose is ambition,
+    Their practice only hate.
+
+    Goe tell the young Nobility,
+    They doe degenerate,
+    Wasting their large ability,
+    In things effeminate.
+
+    Tell those that brave it most,
+    They beg for more by spending,
+    And, in their greatest cost,
+    Seeke but a self-commending.
+
+    Tell Zeale it wants Devotion,
+    Tell Love it is but Lust,
+    Tell Priests they hunt Promotion,
+    Tell Flesh it is but Dust.
+
+    Say Souldiers are the Sink
+    Of Sinne to all the Realme;
+    Given all to whores and drink,
+    To quarrell and blaspheme.
+
+    Tell Townesmen, that because that
+    They pranck their Brides so proud,
+    Too many times it drawes that
+    Which makes them beetle-brow'd.
+
+    Goe tell the Palace-Dames
+    They paint their parboil'd faces,
+    Seeking by greater shames
+    To cover lesse disgraces.
+
+    Say to the City-wives,
+    Through their excessive brav'ry,
+    Their Husband hardly thrives,
+    But rather lives in Slav'ry.
+
+    Tell London Youths that Dice,
+    Faire Queanes, fine Clothes, full Bouls,
+    Consume the cursed price
+    Of their dead-Fathers Soules.
+
+    Say Maidens are too coy
+    To them that chastely seeke them,
+    And yet are apt to toy
+    With baser Jacks that like them.
+
+    Tell Poets of our dayes
+    They doe profane the Muses,
+    In soothing Sin with praise,
+    That all the world abuses.
+
+    Tell Tradesmen waight and measure
+    They craftily abuse,
+    Thereby to heap-up treasure,
+    Though Heav'n thereby they lose.
+
+    Goe tell the vitious rich,
+    By usury to gaine
+    Their fingers alwaies itch,
+    To soules and bodies paine.
+
+    Yea tell the wretched poore
+    That they the wealthy hate,
+    And grudge to see at doore
+    Another in their state.
+
+    Tell all the world throughout
+    That all's but vanity,
+    Her pleasures doe but flout
+    With sly security.
+
+    Tell Kings and Beggars base,
+    Yea tell both young and old,
+    They all are in one case,
+    And must all to the mould.
+
+    And now kinde Host adieu,
+    Rest thou in earthly Tombe,
+    Till Christ shall all renew,
+    And then I'll thee resume.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOWERY AT NIGHT.
+
+
+Coming up from one of the Brooklyn ferries, after dark, on a sultry
+summer evening, I take my way through the close-built district of New
+York City still known as "The Swamp." The narrow streets of the place
+are deserted by this time, but they have been lively enough during the
+day with the busy leather-dealers and their teams; for this is the great
+hide and leather mart of the city, as any one might guess even now in
+the gloom by the pungent odors that arise on every side. The heavy iron
+doors and window-shutters of the buildings have been locked and barred
+for the night; and the thick atmosphere of the place appears to affect
+the gas-lights, which burn sickly and dim in the street lanterns. Nobody
+lives here at night. The footfalls of the solitary policeman give out a
+hollow sound as he paces the narrow _trottoir_ of Ferry Street, in the
+heart of "The Swamp." Over two hundred years ago, when Governor Peter
+Stuyvesant pastured his flocks and herds hereabouts, the wayfarer would
+have been more likely to mark a solitary heron than a solitary
+policeman; for it was really a swamp then, and much earth-work must have
+been expended in making the solid ground whereon the buildings now
+stand. Neither is it probable that, even on the most sultry of summer
+nights, the nose of old Mynheer Stuyvesant would have been saluted with
+odors of morocco leather, such as fill the air of "The Swamp" to-night.
+The wild swamp-flowers, though, gave out some faint perfumes to the
+night air in those olden times; but the place could hardly have been so
+still of a summer night as it is now, for the booming of the bullfrog
+and the piping of his lesser kin must have made night resonant here, and
+it is reasonable to surmise that owls hooted in the cedar-trees that
+hung over the tawny sedges of the swamp. "Jack-o'-Lantern" was the only
+inhabitant who burned gas hereabouts in those times, and he manufactured
+his own. The nocturnal raccoon edged his way through the alders here, in
+the old summer nights, and the muskrat built his house among the reeds.
+Not a raccoon nor a muskrat is the wayfarer likely to meet with here
+to-night; but the gray rat of civilization is to be dimly discerned, as
+he lopes along the gutters in his nightly prowl.
+
+There is something very bewildering to the untutored mind in the
+announcements on the dim, stony door-posts of the stores. Here it is set
+forth that "Kids and Gorings" are the staple of the concern. Puzzling
+though the inscription is to me, yet I recognize in it something that is
+pastoral and significant; for there were kids that skipped, probably,
+and bulls that gored, when the grass was green here. "Oak and Hemlock
+Leather," on the next door-post, reads well, for it is redolent of
+glades that were old before the masonry that now prevails here had been
+dreamed of. Here we have an announcement of "Russet Roans"; and the next
+merchant, who is apparently a cannibal or a ghoul, deliberately notifies
+the public that he deals in "Hatters' Skins." Many of the door-posts
+announce "Findings" and "Skivers"; and upon one of them I note the
+somewhat remarkable intimation of "Pulled Wool." Gold Street, also, is
+redolent of all these things, as I turn into it, nor is there any
+remission of the pungent trade-stenches of the district until I have
+gained a good distance up Spruce Street, toward the City Hall Park. Here
+the Bowery proper, viewed as a great artery of New York trade and
+travel, may be said to begin. The first reach of it is called Chatham
+Street; and, having plunged into this, I have nothing before me now but
+Bowery for a distance of nearly two miles.
+
+Leaving behind me, then, the twinkling lights of the newspaper buildings
+and those of the City Hall Park northward along Chatham Street I bend my
+loitering steps. Israel predominates here,--Israel, with its traditional
+stock in trade of cheap clothing, and bawbles that are made to wear, but
+not to wear long. The shops here are mostly small, and quite open to the
+street in front, which gives the place a bazaar-like appearance in
+summer. Economy in space is practised to the utmost. It is curious to
+observe how closely crowded the goods (bads might be a more appropriate
+term for most of them) are outside the shops, as well as inside. The
+fronts of the houses are festooned with raiment of all kinds, until they
+look like tents made of variegated dry-goods. Here is a stall so
+confined that the occupant, rocking in his chair near the farther end of
+it, stretches his slippered feet well out upon the threshold. It is near
+closing time now, and many of the dealers, with their wives and
+children, are sitting out in front of their shops, and, if not under
+their own vines and fig-trees, at least under their own gaudy flannels
+and "loud-patterned" cotton goods, which are waving overhead in the
+sluggish evening breeze. Nothing can be more suggestive of lazily
+industrious Jewry than this short, thick-set clothier, with the curved
+nose, and spiral, oily hair, who sits out on the sidewalk and blows
+clouds from his meerschaum pipe. The women who lounge here are generally
+stoutish and slatternly, with few clothes on, but plenty of frowzy hair.
+Here and there one may see a pretty face among the younger girls; and it
+is sad to reflect that these little Hebrew maids will become stout and
+slatternly by and by, and have hooked noses like their mothers, and
+double chins. The labels on the ready-made clothing are curious in their
+way. Here a pair of trousers in glaring brown and yellow stripes is
+ticketed with the alluring word, "Lovely." Other garments are offered to
+the public, with such guaranties as "Original," "Genteel," "Excelsior,"
+and "Our Own." There is not an article among them but has its ticket of
+recommendation, and another card affixed to each sets forth the lowest
+price for which it is to be had. The number and variety of hats on show
+along this queer arcade are very characteristic of the people, with whom
+hats have long been a traditional article of commerce. Dimly-lighted
+cellars, down precipitous flights of narrow, dirty steps, up which come
+fumes of coffee and cooked viands, are to be seen at short intervals,
+and these restaurants are supported mainly by the denizens of the
+street. Shops in the windows of which blazes much cheap jewelry abound,
+and there are also many tobacconists on a small scale.
+
+The lights of Chatham Square twinkle out now; and here I pause before a
+feature very peculiar to the Bowery,--one of those large, open shops in
+which vociferous salesmen address from galleries a motley crowd of men
+and women. One fellow in dirty shirt-sleeves and a Turkish cap
+flourishes aloft something which looks like a fan, but proves, on closer
+inspection, to be a group composed of several pocket-combs, a razor, and
+other small articles, constituting in all a "lot." This he offers, with
+stentorian utterances, for a price "a hundred per cent less, _you_ bet,
+than you kin buy 'em for on Broadway." Other salesmen lean furiously
+over the gallery railing, flourishing shirts, stockings, and garments of
+every kind, mentionable and unmentionable, in the faces of the gaping
+loafers below. Sometimes a particular "lot" will attract the attention
+of a spectator, and he will chaffer about it for a while; but the sales
+do not often appear to be very brisk. The people one sees in these
+places are very characteristic of the Bowery. Many of them are what the
+police call "hard cases,"--men, with coarse, bulldog features, their
+mustaches trimmed very close, and dyed with something that gives them a
+foxy-black hue. Women, many of them with children in their arms, have
+come to look out for bargains. Near the entrance, which is quite open to
+the street, there stands a man with a light cane in his hand, which he
+lays every now and then over the shoulders of some objectionable youth
+marked by him in the crowd. The objectionable youth is a pickpocket, or
+a "sneak-thief," or both, and the man with the cane is the private
+detective attached to the place. He is well acquainted with the regular
+thieves of these localities, and his business is to "spot" them, and
+keep them from edging in among the loose articles lying about the store.
+He says that there area great many notorious pickpockets in the crowd,
+and he looks like one who knows.
+
+Here and there along the Bowery small, shrivelled Chinamen stand by
+rickety tables, on which a few boxes of cheap cigars are exposed for
+sale. These foreigners look uneasy in their Bowery clothes, which are of
+the cheapest quality sold at the places just mentioned. Some of them
+wear the traditional queue, but they wind it very closely round their
+heads, probably to avoid the derision of the street boys, to whom a
+Chinaman's "tail" offers a temptation not to be resisted. Others have
+allowed their hair to grow in the ordinary manner. They are not
+communicative when addressed, which may be due, perhaps, to the fact,
+that but few of them possess more of the English language than is
+necessary for the purposes of trade. Fireworks and tobacco are the
+principal articles in which these New York Chinamen deal.
+
+Everybody who passes through the Bowery, and more especially at night,
+must have observed the remarkable prevalence of small children there.
+Swarms of well-clad little boys and girls, belonging to the
+shop-keepers, sport before the doors until a late hour at night. Here is
+a group of extremely diminutive ones, dancing an elf-like measure to the
+music of an itinerant organist. Darting about, here, there, and
+everywhere, are packs of ragged little urchins. They paddle along in the
+dirty gutter, the black ooze from which they spatter over the passers on
+the sidewalk, and run with confiding recklessness against the legs of
+hurrying pedestrians. Ragged and poor as they certainly are, they do not
+often ask for alms, but continually give themselves up, with wild
+_abandon_, to chasing each other in and out between the obstacles on the
+sidewalk. Boys of a better class carry on business here. Watch this one
+selling fans: he is so well dressed, and so genteel in appearance, that
+it is easy to see his livelihood does not altogether hang upon a
+commercial venture so small as the one in which he is at present
+engaged. That boy has evidently a mercantile turn, and may be a leading
+city man yet. Farther on, four smart-looking youngsters are indulging in
+some very frothy beverage at a street soda-water bar. High words are
+bandied about concerning the quality of the "stamps" offered by them in
+change, the genuine character of which has been challenged by a boy of
+their own size, who seems to be in charge of the concern. Numbers of
+these cheap soda-water stalls are to be seen in the Bowery; and they
+appear to drive a good business generally, notwithstanding the
+lager-beer saloons that so generally abound. Many larger establishments
+for the sale of temperance drinks are open here during the summer
+months. I notice a good number of people going to and from a large one,
+the entrance of which is so wide and high that it realizes the idea of
+"open house," and within which there are a great number of taps from
+which soda-water, ready mingled with all the various kinds of syrups, is
+drawn.
+
+Let us cross over the Bowery, and take a look at Division Street, which
+diverges from it at the neck of Chatham Square, and is one of the
+curiosities of the district. It is a narrow street, very brilliantly
+lighted up on one side by the show-windows of the milliners' shops; and
+a marvellously long row of milliners it is, never ending until it runs
+against a druggist just where Bayard Street makes an angle with
+Division. Every window and every show-case by the thresholds is filled
+with a curious variety of infinitesimally small bonnets and hats, some
+in a skeleton state, others bedizened in all the fancy modes of the
+season. Division Street may be termed the milliners' quarter of New York
+City. Most of the goods displayed here are of a "sensation" character,
+but that is just what pays on the east side. Yet I would not be
+understood here as meaning to disparage the west side; and indeed I have
+been told that ladies from the most fashionable quarters of the city are
+not above buying their millinery in Division Street. Numbers of young
+girls are passing to and fro here, pausing ever and anon to gaze in at
+the windows with longing eyes. If there be "sermons in stones," so are
+there also in show-cases, and many a sad romance of won and lost grows
+out of the latter too. The shop-girls have nearly got through their work
+now, and they lean against the door-posts or stand out on the sidewalk,
+gossiping in groups of twos and threes. You will observe that there is
+not a single milliner's shop on the other side of the street. The
+dealers there are mostly in the hardware and grocery lines, or they
+represent commerce as tobacconists, confectioners, and such like; but
+they have nearly all shut up for the night, and the glory of the gas is
+on the milliner side of the way alone. All along the Bowery the same
+order of things may be observed to prevail,--the west side being chiefly
+devoted to the dry-goods trade, while the hardware dealers, grocers,
+restaurateurs, and numerous other tradespeople occupy the east side.
+
+And now again up the Bowery,--where the lights appear to stretch away
+into almost endless space. The numerous lines of horse-cars pass and
+repass each other in long perspective, their lights twinkling like
+constellations on the rampage, as they run to and fro. The jingle of
+their harness-bells is pleasant of a sultry night, recalling the
+sleigh-bells of bracing winter. And the bells have something suggestive
+in them, too, of the old Bowery pastures, where the flocks and herds
+roamed at large, and the cow-bells rang bass to the shrill treble that
+came from the bell-wethers of the flock. But here we have something that
+is hardly so pastoral in its associations. Out from the portals of a
+large theatre issues a crowd of roughs, who elbow and jostle each other
+in their anxiety to reach the nearest place where bad liquor can be had.
+To-night the theatre has been given over to the gymnasts of the
+"prize-ring," and they have had a sparring exhibition there. Three or
+four interesting English pugilists, lately arrived in the city, have
+been showing their mettle with the gloves on; and, although a dollar a
+head is the usual admission fee on such occasions, the entertainment is
+always sure to bring together an immense crowd of the rough class. A
+little later, and another dense throng will emerge from the Old Bowery
+Theatre, just over the way. It will be a very mixed crowd of men, women,
+and children,--the street-boys, with their wondrous variety of sharp
+faces, owlish faces, wicked faces, and ragged clothes, being constant
+patrons of this popular east-side theatre. Not far from this are the
+most dangerous corners and lurking-places to be found anywhere in the
+Bowery. Here thieves and rowdies of the worst description hang about the
+doors of the low bar-rooms in the neighborhood, in gangs of five or six,
+all ready at a signal to concentrate their forces for a rescue, a
+robbery, or a row of any sort in which plunder may be secured. There are
+policemen in the Bowery, of course; but in many cases the tactics of the
+thieves prove to be too much for these guardians of the public peace.
+One night, for instance, in the merry month of May of this year, a gang
+of about a dozen armed ruffians boarded a Third Avenue horse-car
+somewhere in these latitudes, knocked down the conductor with a
+slung-shot, robbed and otherwise maltreated several of the passengers,
+and got clear away before the first policeman had made his appearance.
+Such incidents are by no means uncommon in the Bowery and its purlieus
+at night. It is quite different now, remember, from the Bowery it was
+when old Peter Stuyvesant used to dot its cow-paths with the tip of his
+wooden leg.
+
+Everywhere within the limits of the sidewalk, and sometimes out upon the
+pavement beyond, stand fruit-stalls loaded with oranges, apples, nuts,
+and all such fruits as are seasonable and plenty. There are tables on
+which pink, pulpy melons, flecked with the jet-black seeds, are set
+forth in slices, to tempt thirsty passengers; tables upon which large
+rocks of candy are broken up into nuggets to suit customers; and tables
+upon which bananas alone are exposed for sale. The lamps upon all these
+flame and smoke in the fitful whiffs of night air. The weighing-machine
+man is here, with a blazing light suspended in front of his brazen disk;
+and, as I pass on, I notice that the man who exhibits the moon is
+dismounting his big telescope, for the night is clouding fast, and his
+occupation is gone. Two small girls are scraping doleful strains from
+the sad catgut of violins nearly as big as themselves. They have long
+been frequenters of the Bowery at night, and were much smaller than
+their fiddles when I first saw them here. Off the sidewalk, upon the
+pavement of the street, there is a crowd of men and boys, closely
+grouped around something in the way of a show. As I approach, old voices
+of the once familiar woodlands and farm-yards greet my ear. I listen to
+them, for a brief moment, rapt. Alas! they are spurious. They emanate
+from a dirty man, who stands in the centre of the group, with a small
+wooden box slung before him. By his side stands his torch-bearer, who
+illuminates him with a lamp suspended from a long pole. The performer
+takes something from his mouth, and, having made a laudatory address
+regarding its merits, replaces it between his teeth, and resumes his
+imitations of many birds and quadrupeds. His mocking-bird is very fair;
+his thrush, passable; but his canary less successful, being rather too
+reedy and harsh. Farm-yard sounds are thrown off with considerable
+imitative power. His pig is so good, indeed, that it invites a
+purchaser, who puts one of the calls into his mouth, and frightfully
+distorts his features in his wretched efforts to produce the desired
+grunts and squeaks. The crowing of cocks, the neighing of horses, the
+lowing of cows, and the bleating of sheep follow in succession,--sounds
+so appropriate to the memories of the Bowery that was, that one is
+tempted to applaud the rascal in spite of the swindle he is practising
+on the crowd. Of course, with the exception of the bird-songs, none of
+these sounds are produced by the aid of the calls, but are simply the
+fruit of long and assiduous practice on the part of the gifted
+performer.
+
+On, on, still up the Bowery, of which the end is not yet. Great numbers
+of people are passing to and fro, an excess of the feminine element
+being generally observable. The sidewalks are cumbered with rough wooden
+cases. As in Chatham Street, the shop-keepers--or "merchants," if they
+insist on being so designated--are sitting, mostly, outside their doors.
+Garlands of hosiery and forests of hoop-skirts wave beneath the
+awnings,--for most of the Bowery shops have awnings,--making the
+sidewalk in front of them a sort of arcade for the display of their
+goods. But the time has come now for taking in all these waving things
+for the night, and the young men and girls of the shops are unhooking
+them with long poles, or handing them down from step-ladders planted in
+the middle of the sidewalk. Ranged outside the larger establishments
+are rows of headless dummies, intended to represent the female form
+divine, and to show off on their inanimate busts and shoulders the
+sweetest assortments ever seen of new things in summer fashions. These
+headless dummies of the Bowery have a very ghastly look at night. They
+suggest a procession of the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives, who, true to
+their instincts while in life, nightly revisit the "ladies' furnishing
+establishments" here, to rummage among scarfs and ribbons, and don for
+the brief hour before cock-crow the valuable stuffs and stuffings that
+are yet so dear to them.
+
+Yonder is a group curious for color, and one well worth the
+consideration of a painter who has a fancy for striking effects. A negro
+girl with hot corn for sale stands just outside the reflection from a
+druggist's window, the bars of red and green light from the colored jars
+in which fall weirdly on the faces of two men who are buying from her.
+The trade in boots and shoes is briskly carried on, even at this late
+hour of the night. In the Bowery this trade is very extensive. Long
+strings of boots and shoes hang from the door-posts. Trays of the same
+articles are displayed outside, and it seems an easy matter for any
+nocturnal prowler to help himself, _en passant_, from the boxes full of
+cordwainers' work that stand on the edge of the footway next the street.
+On the eastern side of the way, there are fewer lights to be seen now
+than there were an hour ago. The tradespeople over there, generally,
+have put up their shutters, and the time for closing the
+drinking-saloons is at hand; but lights are yet lingering in the
+pawnbroker's establishments, for the _Mont de Piété_ is an institution
+of an extremely wakeful, not to say wide-awake, kind.
+
+Now the Bowery widens gradually to the northward, and may be likened to
+a river that turns to an estuary ere it joins the waters of the main.
+The vast and hideous brown-stone delta of the Cooper Institute divides
+it into two channels,--Third Avenue to the right, Fourth Avenue to the
+left. Properly the Bowery may be said to end here; but only a few
+blocks farther on, at the corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street,
+is marked the spot where stood the gateway leading to the original
+_Bouwery_, the old mansion in which Peter Stuyvesant dwelt when New
+Amsterdam was, but as yet no New York. And here, till within a few
+months, stood the traditional Stuyvesant pear-tree, said to have been
+brought from Holland, and planted by the hands of the old Dutch Governor
+himself. Spring-time after spring-time, until within a year or two past,
+the Stuyvesant pear-tree used to blossom, and its blossoms run to fruit.
+It lived, in a very gnarled and rheumatic condition, until the 26th of
+February last, when it sank quietly down to rest, and nothing but the
+rusty old iron railing is left to show where it stood.
+
+
+
+
+STEPHEN C. FOSTER AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY.
+
+
+Thirty-six years ago a young man, about twenty-five years of age, of a
+commanding height,--six feet full, the heels of his boots not included
+in the reckoning,--and dressed in scrupulous keeping with the fashion of
+the time, might have been seen sauntering idly along one of the
+principal streets of Cincinnati. To the few who could claim acquaintance
+with him he was known as an actor, playing at the time referred to a
+short engagement as light comedian in a theatre of that city. He does
+not seem to have attained to any noticeable degree of eminence in his
+profession, but he had established for himself a reputation among jolly
+fellows in a social way. He could tell a story, sing a song, and dance a
+hornpipe, after a style which, however unequal to complete success on
+the stage, proved, in private performance to select circles rendered
+appreciative by accessory refreshments, famously triumphant always. If
+it must be confessed that he was deficient in the more profound
+qualities, it is not to be inferred that he was destitute of all the
+distinguishing, though shallower, virtues of character. He had the
+merit, too, of a proper appreciation of his own capacity; and his aims
+never rose above that capacity. As a superficial man he dealt with
+superficial things, and his dealings were marked by tact and shrewdness.
+In his sphere he was proficient, and he kept his wits upon the alert for
+everything that might be turned to professional and profitable use. Thus
+it was that, as he sauntered along one of the main thoroughfares of
+Cincinnati, as has been written, his attention was suddenly arrested by
+a voice ringing clear and full above the noises of the street, and
+giving utterance, in an unmistakable dialect, to the refrain of a song
+to this effect:--
+
+    "Turn about an' wheel about do jis so,
+    An' ebery time I run about I jump Jim Crow."
+
+Struck by the peculiarities of the performance, so unique in style,
+matter, and "character" of delivery, the player listened on. Were not
+these elements--was the suggestion of the instant--which might admit of
+higher than mere street or stable-yard development? As a national or
+"race" illustration, behind the footlights, might not "Jim Crow" and a
+black face tickle the fancy of pit and circle, as well as the "Sprig of
+Shillalah" and a red nose? Out of the suggestion leaped the
+determination; and so it chanced that the casual hearing of a song
+trolled by a negro stage-driver, lolling lazily on the box of his
+vehicle, gave origin to a school of music destined to excel in
+popularity all others, and to make the name of the obscure actor, W. D.
+RICE, famous.
+
+As his engagement at Cincinnati had nearly expired, Rice deemed it
+expedient to postpone a public venture in the newly projected line until
+the opening of a fresh engagement should assure him opportunity to share
+fairly the benefit expected to grow out of the experiment. This
+engagement had already been entered into; and accordingly, shortly
+after, in the autumn of 1830, he left Cincinnati for Pittsburg.
+
+The old theatre of Pittsburg occupied the site of the present one, on
+Fifth Street. It was an unpretending structure, rudely built of boards,
+and of moderate proportions, but sufficient, nevertheless, to satisfy
+the taste and secure the comfort of the few who dared to face
+consequences and lend patronage to an establishment under the ban of the
+Scotch-Irish Calvinists. Entering upon duty at the "Old Drury" of the
+"Birmingham of America," Rice prepared to take advantage of his
+opportunity. There was a negro in attendance at Griffith's Hotel, on
+Wood Street, named Cuff,--an exquisite specimen of his sort,--who won a
+precarious subsistence by letting his open mouth as a mark for boys to
+pitch pennies into, at three paces, and by carrying the trunks of
+passengers from the steamboats to the hotels. Cuff was precisely the
+subject for Rice's purpose. Slight persuasion induced him to accompany
+the actor to the theatre, where he was led through the private entrance,
+and quietly ensconced behind the scenes. After the play, Rice, having
+shaded his own countenance to the "contraband" hue, ordered Cuff to
+disrobe, and proceeded to invest himself in the cast-off apparel. When
+the arrangements were complete, the bell rang, and Rice, habited in an
+old coat forlornly dilapidated, with a pair of shoes composed equally of
+patches and places for patches on his feet, and wearing a coarse straw
+hat in a melancholy condition of rent and collapse over a dense black
+wig of matted moss, waddled into view. The extraordinary apparition
+produced an instant effect. The crash of peanuts ceased in the pit, and
+through the circles passed a murmur and a bustle of liveliest
+expectation. The orchestra opened with a short prelude, and to its
+accompaniment Rice began to sing, delivering the first line by way of
+introductory recitative:--
+
+    "O, Jim Crow's come to town, as you all must know,
+    An' he wheel about, he turn about, he do jis so,
+    An' ebery time he wheel about he jump Jim Crow."
+
+The effect was electric. Such a thunder of applause as followed was
+never heard before within the shell of that old theatre. With each
+succeeding couplet and refrain the uproar was renewed, until presently,
+when the performer, gathering courage from the favorable temper of his
+audience, ventured to improvise matter for his distiches from familiarly
+known local incidents, the demonstrations were deafening.
+
+Now it happened that Cuff, who meanwhile was crouching in dishabille
+under concealment of a projecting _flat_ behind the performer, by some
+means received intelligence, at this point, of the near approach of a
+steamer to the Monongahela Wharf. Between himself and others of his
+color in the same line of business, and especially as regarded a certain
+formidable competitor called Ginger, there existed an active rivalry in
+the baggage-carrying business. For Cuff to allow Ginger the advantage of
+an undisputed descent upon the luggage of the approaching vessel would
+be not only to forfeit all "considerations" from the passengers, but, by
+proving him a laggard in his calling, to cast a damaging blemish upon
+his reputation. Liberally as he might lend himself to a friend, it could
+not be done at that sacrifice. After a minute or two of fidgety waiting
+for the song to end, Cuff's patience could endure no longer, and,
+cautiously hazarding a glimpse of his profile beyond the edge of the
+flat, he called in a hurried whisper: "Massa Rice, Massa Rice, must
+have my clo'se! Massa Griffif wants me,--steamboat's comin'!"
+
+The appeal was fruitless. Massa Rice did not hear it, for a happy hit at
+an unpopular city functionary had set the audience in a roar in which
+all other sounds were lost. Waiting some moments longer, the restless
+Cuff, thrusting his visage from under cover into full three-quarter view
+this time, again charged upon the singer in the same words, but with
+more emphatic voice: "Massa Rice, Massa Rice, must have my clo'se! Massa
+Griffif wants me,--_steamboat's comin'!_"
+
+A still more successful couplet brought a still more tempestuous
+response, and the invocation of the baggage-carrier was unheard and
+unheeded. Driven to desperation, and forgetful in the emergency of every
+sense of propriety, Cuff, in ludicrous undress as he was, started from
+his place, rushed upon the stage, and, laying his hand upon the
+performer's shoulder, called out excitedly: "Massa Rice, Massa Rice, gi'
+me nigga's hat,--nigga's coat,--nigga's shoes,--gi' me nigga's t'ings!
+Massa Griffif wants 'im,--STEAMBOAT'S COMIN'!!"
+
+The incident was the touch, in the mirthful experience of that night,
+that passed endurance. Pit and circles were one scene of such convulsive
+merriment that it was impossible to proceed in the performance; and the
+extinguishment of the footlights, the fall of the curtain, and the
+throwing wide of the doors for exit, indicated that the entertainment
+was ended.
+
+Such were the circumstances--authentic in every particular--under which
+the first work of the distinct art of Negro Minstrelsy was presented.
+
+Next day found the song of Jim Crow, in one style of delivery or
+another, on everybody's tongue. Clerks hummed it serving customers at
+shop counters, artisans thundered it at their toils to the time-beat of
+sledge and of tilt-hammer, boys whistled it on the streets, ladies
+warbled it in parlors, and house-maids repeated it to the clink of
+crockery in kitchens. Rice made up his mind to profit further by its
+popularity: he determined to publish it. Mr. W. C. Peters, afterwards of
+Cincinnati, and well known as a composer and publisher, was at that time
+a music-dealer on Market Street in Pittsburg. Rice, ignorant himself of
+the simplest elements of musical science, waited upon Mr. Peters, and
+solicited his co-operation in the preparation of his song for the press.
+Some difficulty was experienced before Rice could be induced to consent
+to the correction of certain trifling informalities, rhythmical mainly,
+in his melody; but, yielding finally, the air as it now stands, with a
+pianoforte accompaniment by Mr. Peters, was put upon paper. The
+manuscript was put into the hands of Mr. John Newton, who reproduced it
+on stone with an elaborately embellished title-page, including a
+portrait of the subject of the song, precisely as it has been copied
+through succeeding editions to the present time. It was the first
+specimen of lithography ever executed in Pittsburg.
+
+Jim Crow was repeated nightly throughout the season at the theatre; and
+when that was ended, Scale's Long Room, at the corner of Third and
+Market streets, was engaged for rehearsals exclusively in the Ethiopian
+line. "Clar de Kitchen" soon appeared as a companion piece, followed
+speedily by "Lucy Long," "Sich a Gittin' up Stairs," "Long-Tail Blue,"
+and so on, until quite a _repertoire_ was at command from which to
+select for an evening's entertainment.
+
+Rice remained in Pittsburg some two years. He then visited Philadelphia,
+Boston, and New York, whence he sailed for England, where he met with
+high favor in his novel character, married, and remained for some time.
+He then returned to New York, and shortly afterwards died.
+
+With Rice's retirement his art seems to have dropped into disuse as a
+feature of theatrical entertainment, and thenceforward, for many years,
+to have survived only in the performances of circuses and menageries.
+Between acts the _extravaganzaist_ in cork and wool would appear, and to
+the song of "Coal-Black Rose," or "Jim along Joe," or "Sittin' on a
+Rail," command, with the clown and monkey, full share of admiration in
+the arena. At first he performed _solus_, and to the accompaniment of
+the "show" band; but the school was progressive; couples presently
+appeared, and, dispensing with the aid of foreign instruments, delivered
+their melodies to the more appropriate music of the banjo. To the banjo,
+in a short time, were added the bones. The art had now outgrown its
+infancy, and, disdaining a subordinate existence, boldly seceded from
+the society of harlequin and the tumblers, and met the world as an
+independent institution. Singers organized themselves into quartet
+bands; added a fiddle and tambourine to their instruments--perhaps we
+should say implements--of music; introduced the hoe-down and the
+conundrum to fill up the intervals of performance; rented halls, and,
+peregrinating from city to city and from town to town, went on and
+prospered.
+
+One of the earliest companies of this sort was organized and sustained
+under the leadership of Nelson Kneass, who, while skilful in his
+manipulations of the banjo, was quite an accomplished pianist besides,
+as well as a favorite ballad-singer. He had some pretensions as a
+composer, but has left his name identified with no work of any interest.
+His company met with such success in Pittsburg, that its visits were
+repeated from season to season, until about the year 1845, when Mr.
+Murphy, the leading caricaturist, determining to resume the business in
+private life which he had laid aside on going upon the stage, the
+company was disbanded.
+
+Up to this period, if negro minstrelsy had made some progress, it was
+not marked by much improvement. Its charm lay essentially in its
+simplicity, and to give it full development, retaining unimpaired
+meanwhile such original excellences as Nature in Sambo shapes and
+inspires, was the task of the time. But the task fell into bungling
+hands. The intuitive utterance of the art was misapprehended or
+perverted altogether. Its naïve misconceits were construed into coarse
+blunders; its pleasing incongruities were resolved into meaningless
+jargon. Gibberish became the staple of its composition. Slang phrases
+and crude jests, all odds and ends of vulgar sentiment, without regard
+to the idiosyncrasies of the negro, were caught up, jumbled together
+into rhyme, and, rendered into the lingo presumed to be genuine, were
+ready for the stage. The wit of the performance was made to consist in
+quibble and equivoke, and in the misuse of language, after the fashion,
+but without the refinement, of Mrs. Partington. The character of the
+music underwent a change. Original airs were composed from time to time,
+but the songs were more generally adaptations of tunes in vogue among
+Hard-Shell Baptists in Tennessee and at Methodist camp-meetings in
+Kentucky, and of backwoods melodies, such as had been invented for
+native ballads by "settlement" masters and brought into general
+circulation by stage-drivers, wagoners, cattle--drovers, and other such
+itinerants of earlier days. Music of the concert-room was also drafted
+into the service, and selections from the inferior operas, with the
+necessary mutilations of the text, of course; so that the whole school
+of negro minstrelsy threatened a lapse, when its course of decline was
+suddenly and effectually arrested.
+
+A certain Mr. Andrews, dealer in confections, cakes, and ices, being
+stirred by a spirit of enterprise, rented, in the year 1845, a
+second-floor hall on Wood Street, Pittsburgh supplied it with seats and
+small tables, advertised largely, employed cheap attractions,--living
+statues, songs, dances, &c.,--a stage, hired a piano, and, upon the
+dissolution of his band, engaged the services of Nelson Kneass as
+musician and manager. Admittance was free, the ten-cent ticket required
+at the door being received at its cost value within towards the payment
+of whatever might be called for at the tables. To keep alive the
+interest of the enterprise, premiums were offered, from time to time, of
+a bracelet for the best conundrum, a ring with a ruby setting for the
+best comic song, and a golden chain for the best sentimental song. The
+most and perhaps only really valuable reward--a genuine and very pretty
+silver cup, exhibited night after night, beforehand--was promised to the
+author of the best original negro song, to be presented before a certain
+date, and to be decided upon by a committee designated for the purpose
+by the audience at that time.
+
+Quite a large array of competitors entered the lists; but the contest
+would be hardly worthy of mention, save as it was the occasion of the
+first appearance of him who was to prove the reformer of his art, and to
+a sketch of whose career the foregoing pages are chiefly preliminary.
+
+Stephen Collins Foster was born in Alleghany, Pennsylvania, on the 4th
+of July, 1826. He was the youngest child of his father, William B.
+Foster,--originally a merchant of Pittsburg, and afterwards Mayor of his
+native city, member of the State Legislature, and a Federal officer
+under President Buchanan, with whom he was closely connected by
+marriage. The evidences of a musical capacity of no common order were
+apparent in Stephen at an early period. Going into a shop, one day, when
+about seven years old, he picked up a flageolet, the first he had ever
+seen, and comprehending, after an experiment or two, the order of the
+scale on the instrument, was able in a few minutes, uninstructed, to
+play any of the simple tunes within the octave with which he was
+acquainted. A Thespian society, composed of boys in their higher teens,
+was organized in Alleghany, into which Stephen, although but in his
+ninth year, was admitted, and of which, from his agreeable rendering of
+the favorite airs of the day, he soon became the leading attraction.
+
+At thirteen years of age, he made his first attempt at composition,
+producing for a public occasion at the seminary in Athens, Ohio, where
+he was a student at the time, the "Tioga Waltz," which, although quite a
+pretty affair, he never thought worthy of preservation. In the same
+year, shortly afterwards, he composed music to the song commencing,
+"Sadly to mine heart appealing," now embraced in the list of his
+publications, but not brought out until many years later.
+
+Stephen was a boy of delicate constitution, not addicted to the active
+sports or any of the more vigorous habits of boys of his age. His only
+companions were a few intimate friends, and, thus secluded, his
+character naturally took a sensitive, meditative cast, and his growing
+disrelish for severer tasks was confirmed. As has been intimated, he
+entered as a pupil at Athens; but as the course of instruction in that
+institution was not in harmony with his tastes, he soon withdrew,
+applying himself afterwards to the study of the French and German
+languages (a ready fluency in both of which he finally acquired), and
+especially to the art dearer than all other studies. A recluse, owning
+and soliciting no guidance but that of his text-book, in the quiet of
+the woods, or, if that were inaccessible, the retirement of his chamber,
+he devoted himself to this art.
+
+At the age of sixteen he composed and published the song, "Open thy
+Lattice, Love," which was admired, but did not meet with extraordinary
+success. In the year following he went to Cincinnati, entering the
+counting-room of his brother, and discharging the duties of his place
+with faithfulness and ability. His spare hours were still devoted,
+however, to his favorite pursuit, although his productions were chiefly
+preserved in manuscript, and kept for the private entertainment of his
+friends. He continued with his brother nearly three years.
+
+At the time Mr. Andrews of Pittsburg offered a silver cup for the best
+original negro song, Mr. Morrison Foster sent to his brother Stephen a
+copy of the advertisement announcing the fact, with a letter urging him
+to become a competitor for the prize. These saloon entertainments
+occupied a neutral ground, upon which eschewers of theatrical delights
+could meet with the abetters of play-house amusements,--a consideration
+of ruling importance in Pittsburg, where so many of the sterling
+population carry with them to this day, by legitimate inheritance, the
+stanch old Cameronian fidelity to Presbyterian creed and practice.
+Morrison, believing that these concerts would afford an excellent
+opportunity for the genius of his brother to appeal to the public,
+persisted in urging him to compete for the prize, until Stephen, who at
+first expressed a dislike to appear under such circumstances, finally
+yielded, and in due time forwarded a melody entitled, "'Way down South,
+whar de Corn grows." When the eventful night came, the various pieces in
+competition were rendered to the audience by Nelson Kneass to his own
+accompaniment on the piano. The audience expressed by their applause a
+decided preference for Stephen's melody; but the committee appointed to
+sit in judgment decided in favor of some one else, himself and his song
+never heard of afterwards, and the author of "'Way down South" forfeited
+the cup. But Mr. Kneass appreciated the merit of the composition, and
+promptly, next morning, made application at the proper office for a
+copyright in his own name as author, when Mr. Morrison Foster, happening
+in at the moment, interposed, and frustrated the discreditable
+intention.
+
+This experiment of Foster's, if it fell short of the expectation of his
+friends, served, notwithstanding, a profitable purpose, for it led him
+to a critical investigation of the school of music to which it belonged.
+This school had been--was yet--unquestionably popular. To what, then,
+was it indebted for its captivating points? It was to its truth to
+Nature in her simplest and most childlike mood.
+
+Settled as to theory, Foster applied himself to the task of its
+exemplification. Two attempts were made while he yet remained in
+Cincinnati, the pencil-drafts of which, however, were laid aside for the
+time being in his portfolio. His shrinking nature held timidly back at
+the thought of a venture before the public; and so the case stood until
+he reappeared in Pittsburg.
+
+The Presidential campaign of 1844 was distinguished by political
+song-singing. Clubs for that purpose were organized in all the cities
+and towns and hamlets,--clubs for the platform, clubs for the street,
+clubs for the parlor, Whig clubs, Democratic clubs. Ballads innumerable
+to airs indefinite, new and old, filled the land,--Irish ballads, German
+ballads, Yankee ballads, and, preferred over all, negro ballads. So
+enthusiastic grew the popular feeling in this direction, that, when the
+November crisis was come and gone, the peculiar institution would not
+succumb to the limitation, but lived on. Partisan temper faded out; the
+fires of strife died down, but clubs sat perseveringly in their places,
+and in sounds, if not in sentiment, attuned to the old melodies, kept up
+the practice of the mad and merry time.
+
+Among other organizations that thus lingered on was one, composed of
+half a dozen young men, since grown into graver habits, with
+Foster--home again, and a link once more in the circle of his
+intimates--at its head. The negro airs were still the favorites; but the
+collection, from frequent repetition, at length began to grow stale. One
+night, as a revival measure for the club, and as an opportunity for
+himself, Foster hinted that, with their permission, he would offer for
+trial an effort of his own. Accordingly he set to work; and at their
+next meeting laid before them a song entitled "Louisiana Belle." The
+piece elicited unanimous applause. Its success in the club-room opened
+to it a wider field, each member acting as an agent of dissemination
+outside, so that in the course of a few nights the song was sung in
+almost every parlor in Pittsburgh. Foster then brought to light his
+portfolio specimens, since universally known as "Uncle Ned," and "O
+Susanna!" The favor with which these latter were received surpassed even
+that rewarding the "Louisiana Belle." Although limited to the one slow
+process of communication,--from mouth to ear,--their fame spread far and
+wide, until from the drawing-rooms of Cincinnati they were introduced
+into its concert-halls, and there became known to Mr. W. C. Peters, who
+at once addressed letters requesting copies for publication. These were
+cheerfully furnished by the author. He did not look for remuneration.
+For "Uncle Ned," which first appeared (in 1847), he received none; "O
+Susanna!" soon followed, and "imagine my delight," he writes, "in
+receiving one hundred dollars in cash! Though this song was not
+successful," he continues, "yet the two fifty-dollar bills I received
+for it had the effect of starting me on my present vocation of
+song-writer." In pursuance of this decision, he entered into
+arrangements with new publishers, chiefly with Firth, Pond, & Co. of New
+York, set himself to work, and began to pour out his productions with
+astonishing rapidity.
+
+Out of the list, embracing about one hundred and fifty of his songs, the
+most flatteringly received among his negro melodies were those already
+enumerated, followed by "Nelly was a Lady," in 1849; "My Old Kentucky
+Home," and "Camptown Races," in 1850; "Old Folks at Home," in 1851;
+"Massa's in the Cold Ground," in 1852; "O Boys, carry me 'long," in
+1853; "Hard Times come again no more," in 1854; "'Way down South," and
+"O Lemuel," in 1858; "Old Black Joe," in 1860; and (noticeable only as
+his last in that line) "Don't bet your Money on the Shanghai," in 1861.
+
+In all these compositions Foster adheres scrupulously to his theory
+adopted at the outset. His verses are distinguished by a _naïveté_
+characteristic and appropriate, but consistent at the same time with
+common sense. Enough of the negro dialect is retained to preserve
+distinction, but not to offend. The sentiment is given in plain phrase
+and under homely illustration; but it is a sentiment nevertheless. The
+melodies are of twin birth literally with the verses, for Foster thought
+in tune as he traced in rhyme, and traced in rhyme as he thought in
+tune. Of easy modulation, severely simple in their structure, his airs
+have yet the graceful proportions, animated with the fervor,
+unostentatious but all-subduing, of certain of the old hymns (not the
+chorals) derived from our fathers of a hundred years ago.
+
+That he had struck upon the true way to the common heart, the successes
+attending his efforts surely demonstrate. His songs had an unparalleled
+circulation. The commissions accruing to the author on the sales of "Old
+Folks" alone amounted to fifteen thousand dollars. For permission to
+have his name printed on its title-page, as an advertising scheme, Mr.
+Christy paid five hundred dollars. Applications were unceasing from the
+various publishers of the country for some share, at least, of his
+patronage, and upon terms that might have seduced almost any one else;
+but the publishers with whom he originally engaged had won his esteem,
+and Foster adhered to them faithfully. Artists of the highest
+distinction favored him with their friendship; and Herz, Sivori, Ole
+Bull, Thalberg, were alike ready to approve his genius, and to testify
+that approval in the choice of his melodies as themes about which to
+weave their witcheries of embellishment. Complimentary letters from men
+of literary note poured in upon him; among others, one full of generous
+encouragement from Washington Irving, dearly prized and carefully
+treasured to the day of Foster's death. Similar missives reached him
+from across the seas,--from strangers and from travellers in lands far
+remote; and he learned that, while "O Susanna!" was the familiar song of
+the cottager of the Clyde, "Uncle Ned" was known to the dweller in tents
+among the Pyramids.
+
+Of his sentimental songs, "Ah, may the Red Rose live alway!" "Maggie by
+my Side," "Jennie with the Light-Brown Hair," "Willie, we have missed
+you," "I see her still in my Dreams," "Wilt thou be gone, Love" (a duet,
+the words adapted from a well-known scene in Romeo and Juliet), and
+"Come where my Love lies dreaming" (quartet), are among the leading
+favorites. "I see her still in my Dreams" appeared in 1861, shortly
+after the death of his mother, and is a tribute to the memory of her to
+whom he was devotedly attached. The verses to most of these airs--to all
+the successful ones--were of his own composition. Indeed, he could
+seldom satisfy himself in his "settings" of the stanzas of others. If
+the metrical and symmetrical features of the lines in hand chanced to
+disagree with his conception of the motion and proportion befitting in a
+musical interpretation; if the sentiment were one that failed, whether
+from lack of appreciation or of sympathy on his part, to command
+absolute approval; or if the terms employed were not of a precise thread
+and tension,--if they were wanting, however minutely, in _vibratory_
+qualities,--of commensurate extent would be the failure attending the
+translation.
+
+The last three years of his life Mr. Foster passed in New York. During
+all that time, his efforts, with perhaps one exception, were limited to
+the production of songs of a pensive character. The loss of his mother
+seems to have left an ineffaceable impression of melancholy upon his
+mind, and inspired such songs as "I dream of my Mother," "I'll be Home
+To-morrow," "Leave me with my Mother," and "Bury me in the Morning." He
+died, after a brief illness, on the 13th of January, 1864. His remains
+reached Pittsburg on the 20th, and were conveyed to Trinity Church,
+where on the day following, in the presence of a large assembly,
+appropriate and impressive ceremonies took place, the choral services
+being sustained by a company of his former friends and associates. His
+body was then carried to the Alleghany Cemetery, and, to the music of
+"Old Folks at Home," finally committed to the grave.
+
+Mr. Foster was married, on the 22d of July, 1850, to Miss Jane D.
+McDowell of Pittsburg, who, with her daughter and only child, Marian,
+twelve years of age at the date of his death, still survives him. He was
+of rather less than medium height, of slight frame, with parts well
+proportioned, and showing to advantage in repose, although not entirely
+so in action. His shoulders were marked by a slight droop,--the result
+of a habit of walking with his eyes fixed upon the ground a pace or two
+in advance of his feet. He nearly always when he ventured out, which was
+not often, walked alone. Arrived at the street-crossings, he would
+frequently pause, raise himself, cast a glance at the surroundings, and
+if he saw an acquaintance nod to him in token of recognition, and then,
+relapsing into the old posture, resume his way. At such times,--indeed,
+at any time,--while he did not repel, he took no pains to invite
+society. He was entertaining in conversation, although a certain
+hesitancy, from want of words and not from any organic defect, gave a
+broken style to his speech. For his study he selected a room in the
+topmost story of his house, farthest removed from the street, and was
+careful to have the floor of the apartment, and the avenues of approach
+to it, thickly carpeted, to exclude as effectually as possible all
+noises, inside as well as outside of his own premises. The furniture of
+this room consisted of a chair, a lounge, a table, a music-rack, and a
+piano. From the sanctum so chosen, seldom opened to others, and never
+allowed upon any pretence to be disarranged, came his choicest
+compositions. His disposition was naturally amiable, although, from the
+tax imposed by close application to study upon his nervous system, he
+was liable to fits of fretfulness and scepticism that, only occasional
+and transient as they were, told nevertheless with disturbing effect
+upon his temper. In the same unfortunate direction was the tendency of a
+habit grown insidiously upon him,--a habit against the damning control
+of which (as no one better than the writer of this article knows) he
+wrestled with an earnestness indescribable, resorting to all the
+remedial expedients which professional skill or his own experience could
+suggest, but never entirely delivering himself from its inexorable
+mastery.
+
+In the true estimate of genius, its achievements only approximate the
+highest standard of excellence as they are representative, or
+illustrative, of important truth. They are only great as they are good.
+If Mr. Foster's art embodied no higher idea than the vulgar notion of
+the negro as a man-monkey,--a thing of tricks and antics,--a funny
+specimen of superior gorilla,--then it might have proved a tolerable
+catch-penny affair, and commanded an admiration among boys of various
+growths until its novelty wore off. But the art in his hands teemed with
+a nobler significance. It dealt, in its simplicity, with universal
+sympathies, and taught us all to feel with the slaves the lowly joys and
+sorrows it celebrated.
+
+May the time be far in the future ere lips fail to move to its music, or
+hearts to respond to its influence, and may we who owe him so much
+preserve gratefully the memory of the master, STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER.
+
+
+
+
+THE FEAST OF HARVEST.
+
+
+    The fair Earth smiled and turned herself and woke,
+      And to the Sun with nuptial greeting said:--
+    "I had a dream, wherein it seemed men broke
+      A sovran league, and long years fought and bled,
+    Till down my sweet sides ran my children's gore,
+      And all my beautiful garments were made red,
+        And all my fertile fields were thicket-grown,
+      Nor could thy dear light reach me through the air;
+    At last a voice cried, 'Let them strive no more!'
+      Then music breathed, and lo! from my despair
+        I wake to joy,--yet would not joy alone!
+
+    "For, hark! I hear a murmur on the meads,--
+      Where as of old my children seek my face,--
+    The low of kine, the peaceful tramp of steeds,
+      Blithe shouts of men in many a pastoral place,
+    The noise of tilth through all my goodliest land;
+      And happy laughter of a dusky race
+        Whose brethren lift them from their ancient toil,
+      Saying: 'The year of jubilee has come;
+    Gather the gifts of Earth with equal hand;
+        Henceforth ye too may share the birthright soil,
+      The corn, the wine, and all the harvest-home.'
+
+    "O, my dear lord, my radiant bridegroom, look!
+      Behold their joy who sorrowed in my dreams,--
+    The sword a share, the spear a pruning-hook;
+      Lo, I awake, and turn me toward thy beams
+    Even as a bride again! O, shed thy light
+      Upon my fruitful places in full streams!
+        Let there be yield for every living thing;
+      The land is fallow,--let there be increase
+    After the darkness of the sterile night;
+      Ay, let us twain a festival of Peace
+        Prepare, and hither all my nations bring!"
+
+    The fair Earth spake: the glad Sun speeded forth,
+      Hearing her matron words, and backward drave
+    To frozen caves the icy Wind of the North,--
+      And bade the South Wind from the tropic wave
+    Bring watery vapors over river and plain,--
+      And bade the East Wind cross her path, and lave
+        The lowlands, emptying there her laden mist,--
+      And bade the Wind of the West, the best wind, blow
+    After the early and the latter rain,--
+        And beamed himself, and oft the sweet Earth kissed,
+      While her swift servitors sped to and fro.
+
+    Forthwith the troop that, at the beck of Earth,
+      Foster her children, brought a glorious store
+    Of viands, food of immemorial worth,
+      Her earliest gifts, her tenderest evermore.
+    First came the Silvery Spirit, whose marshalled files
+      Climb up the glades in billowy breakers hoar,
+        Nodding their crests,--and at his side there sped
+      The Golden Spirit, whose yellow harvests trail
+    Across the continents and fringe the isles,
+      And freight men's argosies where'er they sail:
+        O, what a wealth of sheaves he there outspread!
+
+    Came the dear Spirit whom Earth doth love the best,
+      Fragrant of clover-bloom and new-mown hay,
+    Beneath whose mantle weary ones find rest,
+      On whose green skirts the little children play:
+    She bore the food our patient cattle crave.
+      Next, robed in silk, with tassels scattering spray,
+        Followed the generous Spirit of the Maize,--
+      And many a kindred shape of high renown
+    Bore in the clustering grape, the fruits that wave
+        On orchard branches or in gardens blaze,
+      And those the wind-shook forest hurtles down.
+
+    Even thus they laid a great and marvellous feast,
+      And Earth her children summoned joyously,
+    Throughout that goodliest land wherein had ceased
+      The vision of battle, and with glad hands free
+    These took their fill, and plenteous measures poured,
+      Beside, for those who dwelt beyond the sea;
+        Praise, like an incense, upward rose to Heaven
+      For that full harvest,--and the autumnal Sun
+    Stayed long above,--and ever at the board,
+        Peace, white-robed angel, held the high seat given,
+      And War far off withdrew his visage dun.
+
+
+
+
+A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER.
+
+
+It is the misfortune of American biography that it must needs be more or
+less provincial, and that, contrary to what might have been predicted,
+this quality in it predominates in proportion as the country grows
+larger. Wanting any great and acknowledged centre of national life and
+thought, our expansion has hitherto been rather aggregation than growth;
+reputations must be hammered out thin to cover so wide a surface, and
+the substance of most hardly holds out to the boundaries of a single
+State. Our very history wants unity, and down to the Revolution the
+attention is wearied and confused by having to divide itself among
+thirteen parallel threads, instead of being concentred on a single clew.
+A sense of remoteness and seclusion comes over us as we read, and we
+cannot help asking ourselves, "Were _not_ these things done in a
+corner?" Notoriety may be achieved in a narrow sphere, but fame demands
+for its evidence a more distant and prolonged reverberation. To the
+world at large we were but a short column of figures in the corner of a
+blue-book, New England exporting so much salt-fish, timber, and Medford
+rum, Virginia so many hogshead of tobacco, and buying with the proceeds
+a certain amount of English manufactures. The story of our early
+colonization had a certain moral interest, to be sure, but was
+altogether inferior in picturesque fascination to that of Mexico or
+Peru. The lives of our worthies, like that of our nation, are bare of
+those foregone and far-reaching associations with names, the
+divining-rods of fancy, which the soldiers and civilians of the Old
+World get for nothing by the mere accident of birth. Their historians
+and biographers have succeeded to the good-will, as well as to the
+long-established stand, of the shop of glory. Time is, after all, the
+greatest of poets, and the sons of Memory stand a better chance of being
+the heirs of Fame. The philosophic poet may find a proud solace in
+saying,
+
+    "Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
+    Trita solo";
+
+but all the while he has the splendid centuries of Greece and Rome
+behind him, and can begin his poem with invoking a goddess from whom
+legend derived the planter of his race. His eyes looked out on a
+landscape saturated with glorious recollections; he had seen Cæsar, and
+heard Cicero. But who shall conjure with Saugus or Cato Four
+Corners,--with Israel Putnam or Return Jonathan Meigs? We have been
+transplanted, and for us the long hierarchical succession of history is
+broken. The Past has not laid its venerable hands upon us in
+consecration, conveying to us that mysterious influence whose force is
+in its continuity. We are to Europe as the Church of England to her of
+Rome. The latter old lady may be the Scarlet Woman, or the Beast with
+ten horns, if you will, but hers are all the heirlooms, hers that vast
+spiritual estate of tradition, nowhere yet everywhere, whose revenues
+are none the less fruitful for being levied on the imagination. We may
+claim that England's history is also ours, but it is a _de jure_, and
+not a _de facto_ property that we have in it,--something that may be
+proved indeed, yet is a merely intellectual satisfaction, and does not
+savor of the realty. Have we not seen the mockery crown and sceptre of
+the exiled Stuarts in St. Peter's? the medal struck so lately as 1784
+with its legend, HEN IX MAG BRIT ET HIB REX, whose contractions but
+faintly typify the scantness of the fact?
+
+As the novelist complains that our society wants that sharp contrast of
+character and costume which comes of caste, so in the narrative of our
+historians we miss what may be called background and perspective, as if
+the events and the actors in them failed of that cumulative interest
+which only a long historical entail can give. Relatively, the crusade of
+Sir William Pepperell was of more consequence than that of St. Louis,
+and yet forgive us, injured shade of the second American baronet, if we
+find the narrative of Joinville more interesting than your despatches to
+Governor Shirley. Relatively, the insurrection of that Daniel whose
+Irish patronymic Shea was euphonized into Shays, as a set-off for the
+debasing of French _chaise_ into _shay_, was more dangerous than that of
+Charles Edward; but for some reason or other (as vice sometimes has the
+advantage of virtue) the latter is more enticing to the imagination, and
+the least authentic relic of it in song or story has a relish denied to
+the painful industry of Minot. Our events seem to fall short of that
+colossal proportion which befits the monumental style. Look grave as we
+will, there is something ludicrous in Counsellor Keane's pig being the
+pivot of a revolution. We are of yesterday, and it is to no purpose that
+our political augurs divine from the flight of our eagles that
+to-morrow shall be ours, and flatter us with an all-hail hereafter.
+Things do really gain in greatness by being acted on a great and
+cosmopolitan stage, because there is inspiration in the thronged
+audience, and the nearer match that puts men on their mettle. Webster
+was more largely endowed by nature than Fox, and Fisher Ames not much
+below Burke as a talker; but what a difference in the intellectual
+training, in the literary culture and associations, in the whole social
+outfit, of the men who were their antagonists and companions! It should
+seem that, if it be collision with other minds and with events that
+strikes or draws the fire from a man, then the quality of those might
+have something to do with the quality of the fire,--whether it shall be
+culinary or electric. We have never known the varied stimulus, the
+inexorable criticism, the many-sided opportunity of a great metropolis,
+the inspiring reinforcement of an undivided national consciousness. In
+everything but trade we have missed the invigoration of foreign rivalry.
+We may prove that we are this and that and the other,--our
+Fourth-of-July orators have proved it time and again,--the census has
+proved it; but the Muses are women, and have no great fancy for
+statistics, though easily silenced by them. We are great, we are rich,
+we are all kinds of good things; but did it never occur to you that
+somehow we are not interesting, except as a phenomenon? It may safely be
+affirmed that for one cultivated man in this country who studies
+American, there are fifty who study European history, ancient or modern.
+
+Till within a year or two we have been as distant and obscure to the
+eyes of Europe as Ecuador to our own. Every day brings us nearer,
+enables us to see the Old World more clearly, and by inevitable
+comparison to judge ourselves with some closer approach to our real
+value. This has its advantage so long as our culture is, as for a long
+time it must be, European; for we shall be little better than apes and
+parrots till we are forced to measure our muscle with the trained and
+practised champions of that elder civilization. We have at length
+established our claim to the noblesse of the sword, the first step still
+of every nation that would make its entry into the best society of
+history. To maintain ourselves there, we must achieve an equality in the
+more exclusive circle of culture, and to that end must submit ourselves
+to the European standard of intellectual weights and measures. That we
+have made the hitherto biggest gun might excite apprehension (were there
+a dearth of iron), but can never exact respect. That our pianos and
+patent reapers have won medals does but confirm us in our mechanic and
+material measure of merit. We must contribute something more than mere
+contrivances for the saving of labor, which we have been only too ready
+to misapply in the domain of thought and the higher kinds of invention.
+In those Olympic games where nations contend for truly immortal wreaths,
+it may well be questioned whether a mowing-machine would stand much
+chance in the chariot-races,--whether a piano, though made by a
+chevalier, could compete successfully for the prize of music.
+
+We shall have to be content for a good while yet with our provincialism,
+and must strive to make the best of it. In it lies the germ of
+nationality, and that is, after all, the prime condition of all
+thorough-bred greatness of character. To this choicest fruit of a
+healthy life, well rooted in native soil, and drawing prosperous prices
+thence, nationality gives the keenest flavor. Mr. Lincoln was an
+original man, and in so far a great man; yet it was the Americanism of
+his every thought, word, and act which not only made his influence
+equally at home in East and West, but drew the eyes of the outside
+world, and was the pedestal that lifted him where he could be seen by
+them. Lincoln showed that native force may transcend local boundaries,
+but the growth of such nationality is hindered and hampered by our
+division into so many half-independent communities, each with its
+objects of county ambition, and its public men great to the borders of
+their district. In this way our standard of greatness is insensibly
+debased. To receive any national appointment, a man must have gone
+through precisely the worst training for it; he must have so far
+narrowed and belittled himself with State politics as to be acceptable
+at home. In this way a man may become chairman of the Committee on
+Foreign Affairs, because he knows how to pack a caucus in Catawampus
+County, or sent ambassador to Barataria, because he has drunk bad
+whiskey with every voter in Wildcat City. Should we ever attain to a
+conscious nationality, it will have the advantage of lessening the
+number of our great men, and widening our appreciation to the larger
+scale of the two or three that are left,--if there should be so many.
+Meanwhile we offer a premium to the production of great men in a small
+way, by inviting each State to set up the statues of two of its
+immortals in the Capitol. What a niggardly percentage! Already we are
+embarrassed, not to find the two, but to choose among the crowd of
+candidates. Well, seventy-odd heroes in about as many years is pretty
+well for a young nation. We do not envy most of them their eternal
+martyrdom in marble, their pillory of indiscrimination. We fancy even
+native tourists pausing before the greater part of the effigies, and,
+after reading the names, asking desperately, "Who was _he_?" Nay, if
+they should say, "Who the devil was _he_?" it were a pardonable
+invocation, for none so fit as the Prince of Darkness to act as
+_cicerone_ among such palpable obscurities. We recall the court-yard of
+the Uffizj at Florence. That also is not free of parish celebrities; but
+Dante, Galileo, Michael Angelo, Macchiavelli,--shall the inventor of the
+sewing-machine, even with the button-holing improvement, let us say,
+match with these, or with far lesser than these? Perhaps he was more
+practically useful than any one of these, or all of them together, but
+the soul is sensible of a sad difference somewhere. These also were
+citizens of a provincial capital; so were the greater part of Plutarch's
+heroes. Did they have a better chance than we moderns,--than we
+Americans? At any rate they have the start of us, and we must confess
+that
+
+    "By bed and table they lord it o'er us,
+    Our elder brothers, but one in blood."
+
+Yes, one in blood; that is the hardest part of it. Is our provincialism
+then in some great measure due to our absorption in the practical, as we
+politely call it, meaning the material,--to our habit of estimating
+greatness by the square mile and the hundredweight? Even during our war,
+in the midst of that almost unrivalled stress of soul, were not our
+speakers and newspapers so enslaved to the vulgar habit as to boast ten
+times of the thousands of square miles it covered with armed men, for
+once that they alluded to the motive that gave it all its meaning and
+its splendor? Perhaps it was as well that they did not exploit that
+passion of patriotism as an advertisement in the style of Barnum or
+Perham. "I scale one hundred and eighty pounds, but when I'm mad I weigh
+two ton," said the Kentuckian, with a true notion of moral avoirdupois.
+That ideal kind of weight is wonderfully increased by a national
+feeling, whereby one man is conscious that thirty millions of men go
+into the balance with him. The Roman in ancient, and the Englishman in
+modern times, have been most conscious of this representative solidity,
+and wherever one of them went there stood Rome or England in his shoes.
+We have made some advance in the right direction. Our civil war, by the
+breadth of its proportions and the implacability of its demands, forced
+us to admit a truer valuation, and gave us, in our own despite, great
+soldiers and sailors, allowed for such by all the world. The harder
+problems it has left behind may in time compel us to have great
+statesmen, with views capable of reaching beyond the next election. The
+criticism of Europe alone can rescue us from the provincialism of an
+over or false estimate of ourselves. Let us be thankful, and not angry,
+that we must accept it as our touchstone. Our stamp has so often been
+impressed upon base metal, that we cannot expect it to be taken on
+trust, but we may be sure that true gold will be equally persuasive the
+world over. Real manhood and honest achievement are nowhere provincial,
+but enter the select society of all time on an even footing.
+
+Spanish America might be a good glass for us to look into. Those
+Catharine-wheel republics, always in revolution while the powder lasts,
+and sure to burn the fingers of whoever attempts intervention, have also
+their great men, as placidly ignored by us as our own by jealous Europe.
+The following passage from the life of Don Simon Bolivar might allay
+many _motus animorum_, if rightly pondered. Bolivar, then a youth, was
+travelling in Italy, and his biographer tells us that "near Castiglione
+he was present at the grand review made by Napoleon of the columns
+defiling into the plain large enough to contain sixty thousand men. The
+throne was situated on an eminence that overlooked the plain, and
+Napoleon on several occasions looked through a glass at Bolivar and his
+companions, who were at the base of the hill. The hero Cæsar could not
+imagine that he beheld the liberator of the world of Columbus!" And
+small blame to him, one would say. We are not, then, it seems, the only
+foundling of Columbus, as we are so apt to take for granted. The great
+Genoese did not, as we supposed, draw that first star-guided furrow
+across the vague of waters with a single eye to the future greatness of
+the United States. And have we not sometimes, like the enthusiastic
+biographer, fancied the Old World staring through all its telescopes at
+us, and wondered that it did not recognize in us what we were fully
+persuaded we were _going_ to be and do?
+
+Our American life is dreadfully barren of those elements of the social
+picturesque which give piquancy to anecdote. And without anecdote, what
+is biography, of even history, which is only biography on a larger
+scale? Clio, though she take airs on herself, and pretend to be
+"philosophy teaching by example," is, after all, but a gossip who has
+borrowed Fame's speaking-trumpet, and should be figured with a teacup
+instead of a scroll in her hand. How much has she not owed of late to
+the tittle-tattle of her gillflirt sister Thalia? In what gutters has
+not Macaulay raked for the brilliant bits with which he has put together
+his admirable mosaic picture of England under the last two Stuarts? Even
+Mommsen himself, who dislikes Plutarch's method as much as Montaigne
+loved it, cannot get or give a lively notion of ancient Rome, without
+running to the comic poets and the anecdote-mongers. He gives us the
+very beef-tea of history, nourishing and even palatable enough,
+excellently portable for a memory that, must carry her own packs, and
+can afford little luggage; but for our own part, we prefer a full,
+old-fashioned meal, with its side-dishes of spicy gossip, and its last
+relish, the Stilton of scandal, so it be not too high. One volume of
+contemporary memoirs, stuffed though it be with lies, (for lies to be
+good for anything must have a potential probability, must even be true
+so far as their moral and social setting is concerned,) will throw more
+light into the dark backward of time than the gravest Camden or Thuanus.
+If St. Simon is not accurate, is he any the less essentially _true_? No
+history gives us so clear an understanding of the moral condition of
+average men after the restoration of the Stuarts as the unconscious
+blabbings of the Puritan tailor's son, with his two consciences, as it
+were,--an inward, still sensitive in spots, though mostly toughened to
+India-rubber, and good rather for rubbing out old scores than retaining
+them, and an outward, alert, and termagantly effective in Mrs. Pepys.
+But we can have no St. Simons or Pepyses till we have a Paris or London
+to delocalize our gossip and give it historic breadth. All our capitals
+are fractional, merely greater or smaller gatherings of men, centres of
+business rather than of action or influence. Each contains so many
+souls, but is not, as the word "capital" implies, the true head of a
+community and seat of its common soul.
+
+Has not life itself perhaps become a little more prosaic than it once
+was? As the clearing away of the woods scants the streams, may not our
+civilization have dried up some feeders that helped to swell the current
+of individual and personal force? We have sometimes thought that the
+stricter definition and consequent seclusion from each other of the
+different callings in modern times, as it narrowed the chance of
+developing and giving variety to character, lessened also the interest
+of biography. Formerly arts and arms were not divided by so impassable a
+barrier as now. There was hardly such a thing as a _pékin_. Cæsar gets
+up from writing his Latin Grammar to conquer Gaul, change the course of
+history, and make so many things possible,--among the rest our English
+language and Shakespeare. Horace had been a colonel; and from Æschylus,
+who fought at Marathon, to Ben Jonson, who trailed a pike in the Low
+Countries, the list of martial civilians is a long one. A man's
+education seems more complete who has smelt hostile powder from a less
+æsthetic distance than Goethe. It raises our confidence in Sir Kenelm
+Digby as a physicist, that he is able to illustrate some theory of
+acoustics in his Treatise of Bodies by instancing the effect of his guns
+in a sea-fight off Scanderoon. One would expect the proportions of
+character to be enlarged by such variety and contrast of experience.
+Perhaps it will by and by appear that our own civil war has done
+something for us in this way. Colonel Higginson comes down from his
+pulpit to draw on his jackboots, and thenceforth rides in our
+imagination alongside of John Bunyan and Bishop Compton. To have stored
+moral capital enough to meet the drafts of Death at sight, must be an
+unmatched tonic. We saw our light-hearted youth come back with the
+modest gravity of age, as if they had learned to throw out pickets
+against a surprise of any weak point in their temperament. Perhaps that
+American shiftiness, so often complained of, may not be so bad a thing,
+if, by bringing men acquainted with every humor of fortune and human
+nature, it puts them in fuller possession of themselves.
+
+But with whatever drawbacks in special circumstances, the main interest
+of biography must always lie in the amount of character or essential
+manhood which the subject of it reveals to us, and events are of import
+only as means to that end. It is true that lofty and far-seen exigencies
+may give greater opportunity to some men, whose energy is more sharply
+spurred by the shout of a multitude than by the grudging _Well done!_ of
+conscience. Some theorists have too hastily assumed that, as the power
+of public opinion increases, the force of private character, or what we
+call originality, is absorbed into and diluted by it. But we think
+Horace was right in putting tyrant and mob on a level as the trainers
+and tests of a man's solid quality. The amount of resistance of which
+one is capable to whatever lies outside the conscience, is of more
+consequence than all other faculties together; and democracy, perhaps,
+tries this by pressure in more directions, and with a more continuous
+strain, than any other form of society. In Josiah Quincy we have an
+example of character trained and shaped, under the nearest approach to a
+pure democracy the world has ever seen, to a firmness, unity, and
+self-centred poise that recall the finer types of antiquity, in whom the
+public and private man was so wholly of a piece that they were truly
+everywhere at home, for the same sincerity of nature that dignified the
+hearth carried also a charm of homeliness into the forum. The phrase "a
+great public character," once common, seems to be going out of fashion,
+perhaps because there are fewer examples of the thing. It fits Josiah
+Quincy exactly. Active in civic and academic duties till beyond the
+ordinary period of man, at fourscore and ten his pen, voice, and
+venerable presence were still efficient in public affairs. A score of
+years after the energies of even vigorous men are declining or spent,
+his mind and character made themselves felt as in their prime. A true
+pillar of house and state, he stood unflinchingly upright under whatever
+burden might be laid upon him. The French Revolutionists aped what was
+itself but a parody of the elder republic, with their hair _à la_ Brutus
+and their pedantic moralities _à la_ Cato Minor, but this man
+unconsciously was the antique Roman they laboriously went about to be.
+Others have filled places more conspicuous, few have made the place they
+filled so conspicuous by an exact and disinterested performance of duty.
+
+In the biography of Mr. Quincy by his son, there is something of the
+provincialism of which we have spoken as inherent in most American works
+of the kind. His was a Boston life in the strictest sense. But
+provincialism is relative, and where it has a flavor of its own, as in
+Scotland, it is often agreeable in proportion to its very intensity. The
+Massachusetts in which Mr. Quincy's habits of thought were acquired was
+a very different Massachusetts from that in which we of later
+generations have been bred. Till after he had passed middle life, Boston
+was more truly a capital than any other city in America, before or
+since, except possibly Charleston. The acknowledged head of New England,
+with a population of wellnigh purely English descent, mostly derived
+from the earlier emigration, with ancestral traditions and inspiring
+memories of its own, it had made its name familiar in both worlds, and
+was both historically and politically more important than at any later
+period. The Revolution had not interrupted, but rather given a freer
+current to the tendencies of its past. Both by its history and position,
+the town had what the French call a solidarity, an almost personal
+consciousness, rare anywhere, rare especially in America, and more than
+ever since our enormous importation of fellow-citizens to whom America
+means merely shop, or meat three times a day. Boston has been called the
+"American Athens." Æsthetically, the comparison is ludicrous, but
+politically it was more reasonable. Its population was homogeneous, and
+there were leading families; while the form of government by
+town-meeting, and the facility of social and civic intercourse, gave
+great influence to popular personal qualities and opportunity to new
+men. A wide commerce, while it had insensibly softened the asperities of
+Puritanism and imported enough foreign refinement to humanize not enough
+foreign luxury to corrupt, had not essentially qualified the native tone
+of the town. Retired sea-captains (true brothers of Chaucer's Shipman),
+whose exploits had kindled the imagination of Burke, added a not
+unpleasant savor of salt to society. They belonged to the old school of
+Gilbert, Hawkins, Frobisher, and Drake, parcel-soldiers all of them, who
+had commanded armed ships and had tales to tell of gallant fights with
+privateers or pirates, truest representatives of those Vikings who, if
+trade in lumber or peltry was dull, would make themselves Dukes of
+Dublin or Earls of Orkney. If trade pinches the mind, commerce
+liberalizes it; and Boston was also advantaged with the neighborhood of
+the country's oldest College, which maintained the wholesome traditions
+of culture,--where Homer and Horace are familiar there is a certain
+amount of cosmopolitanism,--and would not allow bigotry to become
+despotism. Manners were more self-respectful, and therefore more
+respectful of others, and personal sensitiveness was fenced with more of
+that ceremonial with which society armed itself when it surrendered the
+ruder protection of the sword. We had not then seen a Governor in his
+chamber at the State-House with his hat on, a cigar in his mouth, and
+his feet upon the stove. Domestic service, in spite of the proverb, was
+not seldom an inheritance, nor was household peace dependent on the whim
+of a foreign armed neutrality in the kitchen. Servant and master were of
+one stock; there was decent authority and becoming respect; the
+tradition of the Old World lingered after its superstition had passed
+away. There was an aristocracy such as is healthful in a well-ordered
+community, founded on public service, and hereditary so long as the
+virtue which was its patent was not escheated. The clergy, no longer
+hedged by the reverence exacted by sacerdotal caste, were more than
+repaid by the consideration willingly paid to superior culture. What
+changes, many of them for the better, some of them surely for the worse,
+and all of them inevitable, did not Josiah Quincy see in that wellnigh
+secular life which linked the war of independence to the war of
+nationality! We seemed to see a type of them the other day in a colored
+man standing with an air of comfortable self-possession while his boots
+were brushed by a youth of catholic neutral tint, but whom nature had
+planned for white. The same eyes that had looked on Gage's red-coats,
+saw Colonel Shaw's negro regiment march out of Boston in the national
+blue. Seldom has a life, itself actively associated with public affairs,
+spanned so wide a chasm for the imagination. Oglethorpe's offers a
+parallel,--the aide-de-camp of Prince Eugene calling on John Adams,
+American Ambassador to England. Most long lives resemble those threads
+of gossamer, the nearest approach to nothing unmeaningly prolonged,
+scarce visible pathway of some worm from his cradle to his grave; but
+Quincy's was strung with seventy active years, each one a rounded bead
+of usefulness and service.
+
+Mr. Quincy was a Bostonian of the purest type. Since the settlement of
+the town, there had been a colonel of the Boston regiment in every
+generation of his family. He lived to see a grandson brevetted with the
+same title for gallantry in the field. Only child of one among the most
+eminent advocates of the Revolution, and who but for his untimely death
+would have been a leading actor in it, his earliest recollections
+belonged to the heroic period in the history of his native town. With
+that history his life was thenceforth intimately united by offices of
+public trust, as Representative in Congress, State Senator, Mayor, and
+President of the University, to a period beyond the ordinary span of
+mortals. Even after he had passed ninety, he would not claim to be
+_emeritus_, but came forward to brace his townsmen with a courage and
+warm them with a fire younger than their own. The legend of Colonel
+Goffe at Deerfield became a reality to the eyes of this generation. The
+New England breed is running out, we are told! This was in all ways a
+beautiful and fortunate life,--fortunate in the goods of this
+world,--fortunate, above all, in the force of character which makes
+fortune secondary and subservient. We are fond in this country of what
+are called self-made men (as if real success could ever be other); and
+this is all very well, provided they make something worth having of
+themselves. Otherwise it is not so well, and the examples of such are at
+best but stuff for the Alnaschar dreams of a false democracy. The gist
+of the matter is not where a man starts from, but where he comes out. We
+are glad to have the biography of one who, beginning as a gentleman,
+kept himself such to the end,--who, with no necessity of labor, left
+behind him an amount of thoroughly done work such as few have
+accomplished with the mighty help of hunger. Some kind of pace may be
+got out of the veriest jade by the near prospect of oats; but the
+thorough-bred has the spur in his blood.
+
+Mr. Edmund Quincy has told the story of his father's life with the skill
+and good taste that might have been expected from the author of
+"Wensley." Considering natural partialities, he has shown a discretion
+of which we are oftener reminded by missing than by meeting it. He has
+given extracts enough from speeches to show their bearing and
+quality,--from letters, to recall bygone modes of thought and indicate
+many-sided friendly relations with good and eminent men; above all, he
+has lost no opportunity to illustrate that life of the past, near in
+date, yet alien in manners, whose current glides so imperceptibly from
+one generation into another that we fail to mark the shiftings of its
+bed or the change in its nature wrought by the affluents that discharge
+into it on all sides,--here a stream bred in the hills to sweeten, there
+the sewerage of some great city to corrupt. We cannot but lament that
+Mr. Quincy did not earlier begin to keep a diary. "Miss not the
+discourses of the elders," though put now in the Apocrypha, is a wise
+precept, but incomplete unless we add, "Nor cease from recording
+whatsoever thing thou hast gathered therefrom,"--so ready is Oblivion
+with her fatal shears. The somewhat greasy heap of a literary
+rag-and-bone-picker, like Athenæus, is turned to gold by time. Even the
+_Virgilium vide tantum_ of Dryden about Milton, and of Pope again about
+Dryden, is worth having, and gives a pleasant fillip to the fancy. There
+is much of this quality in Mr. Edmund Quincy's book, enough to make us
+wish there were more. We get a glimpse of President Washington, in 1795,
+who reminded Mr. Quincy "of the gentlemen who used to come to Boston in
+those days to attend the General Court from Hampden or Franklin County,
+in the western part of the State. A little stiff in his person, not a
+little formal in his manners, not particularly at ease in the presence
+of strangers. He had the air of a country-gentleman not accustomed to
+mix much in society, perfectly polite, but not easy in his address and
+conversation, and not graceful in his gait and movements." Our figures
+of Washington have been so long equestrian, that it is pleasant to meet
+him dismounted for once. In the same way we get a card of invitation to
+a dinner of sixty covers at John Hancock's, and see the rather
+light-weighted great man wheeled round the room (for he had adopted
+Lord Chatham's convenient trick of the gout) to converse with his
+guests. In another place we are presented, with Mr. Merry, the English
+Minister, to Jefferson, whom we find in an unofficial costume of studied
+slovenliness, intended as a snub to haughty Albion. Slippers down at the
+heel and a dirty shirt become weapons of diplomacy and threaten more
+serious war. Thus many a door into the past, long irrevocably shut upon
+us, is set ajar, and we of the younger generation on the landing catch
+peeps of distinguished men, and bits of their table-talk. We drive in
+from Mr. Lyman's beautiful seat at Waltham (unique at that day in its
+stately swans and half-shy, half-familiar deer) with John Adams, who
+tells us that Dr. Priestley looked on the French monarchy as the tenth
+horn of the Beast in Revelations,--a horn that has set more sober wits
+dancing than that of Huon of Bordeaux. Those were days, we are inclined
+to think, of more solid and elegant hospitality than our own,--the
+elegance of manners, at once more courtly and more frugal, of men who
+had better uses for wealth than merely to display it. Dinners have more
+courses now, and, like the Gascon in the old story, who could not see
+the town for the houses, we miss the real dinner in the multiplicity of
+its details. We might seek long before we found so good cheer, so good
+company, or so good talk as our fathers had at Lieutenant-Governor
+Winthrop's or Senator Cabot's.
+
+We shall not do Mr. Edmund Quincy the wrong of picking out in advance
+all the plums in his volume, leaving to the reader only the less savory
+mixture that held them together,--a kind of filling unavoidable in books
+of this kind, and too apt to be what boys at boarding-school call
+_stick-jaw_, but of which there is no more than could not be helped
+here, and that light and palatable. But here and there is a passage
+where we cannot refrain, for there is a smack of Jack Horner in all of
+us, and a reviewer were nothing without it. Josiah Quincy was born in
+1772. His father, returning from a mission to England, died in sight of
+the dear New England shore three years later. His young widow was worthy
+of him, and of the son whose character she was to have so large a share
+in forming. There is something very touching and beautiful in this
+little picture of her which Mr. Quincy drew in his extreme old age.
+
+"My mother imbibed, as was usual with the women of the period, the
+spirit of the times. Patriotism was not then a profession, but an
+energetic principle beating in the heart and active in the life. The
+death of my father, under circumstances now the subject of history, had
+overwhelmed her with grief. She viewed him as a victim in the cause of
+freedom, and cultivated his memory with veneration, regarding him as a
+martyr, falling, as did his friend Warren, in the defence of the
+liberties of his country. These circumstances gave a pathos and
+vehemence to her grief, which, after the first violence of passion had
+subsided, sought consolation in earnest and solicitous fulfilment of
+duty to the representative of his memory and of their mutual affections.
+Love and reverence for the memory of his father was early impressed on
+the mind of her son, and worn into his heart by her sadness and tears.
+She cultivated the memory of my father in my heart and affections, even
+in my earliest childhood, by reading to me passages from the poets, and
+obliging me to learn by heart and repeat such as were best adapted to
+her own circumstances and feelings. Among others, the whole leave-taking
+of Hector and Andromache, in the sixth book of Pope's Homer, was one of
+her favorite lessons, which she made me learn and frequently repeat. Her
+imagination, probably, found consolation in the repetition of lines
+which brought to mind and seemed to typify her own great bereavement.
+
+    'And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be,--
+    A widow I, a helpless orphan he?'
+
+These lines, and the whole tenor of Andromache's address and
+circumstances, she identified with her own sufferings, which seemed
+relieved by the tears my repetition of them drew from her."
+
+Pope's Homer is not Homer, perhaps; but how many noble natures have felt
+its elation, how many bruised spirits the solace of its bracing, if
+monotonous melody! To us there is something inexpressibly tender in this
+instinct of the widowed mother to find consolation in the idealization
+of her grief by mingling it with those sorrows which genius has turned
+into the perennial delight of mankind. This was a kind of sentiment that
+was healthy for her boy, refining without unnerving, and associating his
+father's memory with a noble company unassailable by time. It was
+through this lady, whose image looks down on us out of the past, so full
+of sweetness and refinement, that Mr. Quincy became of kin with Mr.
+Wendell Phillips, so justly eminent as a speaker. There is something
+nearer than cater-cousinship in a certain impetuous audacity of temper
+common to them both.
+
+When six years old, Mr. Quincy was sent to Phillips Academy at Andover,
+where he remained till he entered college. His form-fellow here was a
+man of thirty, who had been a surgeon in the Continental Army, and whose
+character and adventures might almost seem borrowed from a romance of
+Smollett. Under Principal Pearson, the lad, though a near relative of
+the founder of the school, seems to have endured all that severity of
+the old _a posteriori_ method of teaching which still smarted in
+Tusser's memory when he sang,
+
+    "From Paul's I went, to Eton sent,
+    To learn straightways the Latin phrase,
+    Where fifty-three stripes given to me
+    At once I had."
+
+The young victim of the wisdom of Solomon was boarded with the parish
+minister, in whose kindness he found a lenitive for the scholastic
+discipline he underwent. This gentleman had been a soldier in the
+Colonial service, and Mr. Quincy afterwards gave as a reason for his
+mildness, that, "while a sergeant at Castle William, he had seen
+something of mankind." This, no doubt, would be a better preparative for
+successful dealing with the young than is generally thought. However,
+the birch was then the only classic tree, and every round in the ladder
+of learning was made of its inspiring wood. Dr. Pearson, perhaps,
+thought he was only doing justice to his pupil's claims of kindred by
+giving him a larger share of the educational advantages which the
+neighboring forest afforded. The vividness with which this system is
+always remembered by those who have been subjected to it would seem to
+show that it really enlivened the attention, and thereby invigorated the
+memory, nay, might even raise some question as to what part of the
+person is chosen by the mother of the Muses for her residence. With an
+appetite for the classics quickened by "Cheever's Accidence," and such
+other preliminary whets as were then in vogue, young Quincy entered
+college, where he spent the usual four years, and was graduated with the
+highest honors of his class. The amount of Latin and Greek imparted to
+the students of that day was not very great. They were carried through
+Horace, Sallust, and the _De Oratoribus_ of Cicero, and read portions of
+Livy, Xenophon, and Homer. Yet the chief end of classical studies was
+perhaps as often reached then as now, in giving young men a love for
+something apart from and above the more vulgar associations of life. Mr.
+Quincy, at least, retained to the last a fondness for certain Latin
+authors. While he was President of the College, he told a gentleman,
+from whom we received the story, that, "if he were imprisoned, and
+allowed to choose one book for his amusement, that one should be
+Horace."
+
+In 1797, Mr. Quincy was married to Miss Eliza Susan Morton of New York,
+a union which lasted in unbroken happiness for more than fifty years.
+His case might be cited among the leading ones in support of the old
+poet's axiom, that
+
+    "He never loved, that loved not at first sight";
+
+for he saw, wooed, and won in a week. In later life he tried in a most
+amusing way to account for this rashness, and to find reasons of
+settled gravity for the happy inspiration of his heart. He cites the
+evidence of Judge Sedgwick, of Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Wolcott, of the Rev.
+Dr. Smith, and others, to the wisdom of his choice. But it does not
+appear that he consulted them beforehand. If love were not too cunning
+for that, what would become of the charming idyl, renewed in all its
+wonder and freshness for every generation? Let us be thankful that in
+every man's life there is a holiday of romance, an illumination of the
+senses by the soul, that makes him a poet while it lasts. Mr. Quincy
+caught the enchantment through his ears, a song of Burns heard from the
+next room conveying the infection,--a fact still inexplicable to him
+after lifelong meditation thereon, as he "was not very impressible by
+music"! To us there is something very characteristic in this rapid
+energy of Mr. Quincy, something very delightful in his naïve account of
+the affair. It needs the magic of no Dr. Heidegger to make these dried
+roses, that drop from between the leaves of a volume shut for seventy
+years, bloom again in all their sweetness. Mr. Edmund Quincy tells us
+his mother was "not handsome"; but those who remember the gracious
+dignity of her old age will hardly agree with him. She must always have
+had that highest kind of beauty which grows more beautiful with years,
+and keeps the eyes young, as if with a sort of partial connivance of
+Time.
+
+We do not propose to follow Mr. Quincy closely through his whole public
+life, which, beginning with his thirty-second, ended with his
+seventy-third year. He entered Congress as the representative of a party
+privately the most respectable, publicly the least sagacious, among all
+those which under different names have divided the country. The
+Federalists were the only proper tones our politics have ever produced,
+whose conservatism truly represented an idea, and not a mere selfish
+interest,--men who honestly distrusted democracy, and stood up for
+experience, or the tradition which they believed for such, against
+empiricism. During his Congressional career, the government was little
+more than an _attaché_ of the French legation, and the opposition to
+which he belonged a helpless _revenant_ from the dead and buried
+Colonial past. There are some questions whose interest dies the moment
+they are settled; others, into which a moral element enters that hinders
+them from being settled, though they may be decided. It is hard to
+revive any enthusiasm about the _Embargo_, though it once could inspire
+the boyish Muse of Bryant, or in the impressment quarrel, though the
+Trent difficulty for a time rekindled its old animosities. The stars in
+their courses fought against Mr. Quincy's party, which was not in
+sympathy with the instincts of the people, groping about for some
+principle of nationality, and finding a substitute for it in hatred of
+England. But there are several things which still make his career in
+Congress interesting to us, because they illustrate the personal
+character of the man. He prepared himself honestly for his duties, by a
+thorough study of whatever could make him efficient in them. It was not
+enough that he could make a good speech; he wished also to have
+something to say. In Congress, as everywhere else, _quod voluit valde
+voluit_; and he threw a fervor into the most temporary topic, as if his
+eternal salvation depended upon it. He had not merely, as the French
+say, the courage of his opinions, but his opinions became principles,
+and gave him that gallantry of fanaticism which made him always ready to
+head a forlorn hope,--the more ready, perhaps, that it was a forlorn
+hope. This is not the humor of a statesman,--no, unless he holds a
+position like that of Pitt, and can charge a whole people with his own
+enthusiasm, and then we call it genius. Mr. Quincy had the moral
+firmness which enabled him to decline a duel without any loss of
+personal _prestige_. His opposition to the Louisiana purchase
+illustrates that Roman quality in him to which we have alluded. He
+would not conclude the purchase till each of the old thirteen States had
+signified its assent. He was reluctant to endow a Sabine city with the
+privilege of Roman citizenship. It is worth nothing, that while in
+Congress, and afterwards in the State Senate, many of his phrases became
+the catchwords of party politics. He always dared to say what others
+deemed it more prudent only to think, and whatever he said he
+intensified with the whole ardor of his temperament. It is this which
+makes Mr. Quincy's speeches good reading still, even when the topics
+they discussed were ephemeral. In one respect he is distinguished from
+the politicians, and must rank with the far-seeing statesmen of his
+time. He early foresaw and denounced the political danger with which the
+slave power threatened the Union. His fears, it is true, were aroused
+for the balance of power between the old States, rather than by any
+moral sensitiveness, which would, indeed, have been an anachronism at
+that time. But the Civil War justified his prescience.
+
+It was as Mayor of his native city that his remarkable qualities as an
+administrator were first called into requisition and adequately
+displayed. He organized the city government, and put it in working
+order. To him we owe many reforms in police, in the management of the
+poor, and other kindred matters,--much in the way of cure, still more,
+in that of prevention. The place demanded a man of courage and firmness,
+and found those qualities almost superabundantly in him. His virtues
+lost him his office, as such virtues are only too apt to do in peaceful
+times, where they are felt more as a restraint than a protection. His
+address on laying down the mayoralty is very characteristic. We quote
+the concluding sentences:--
+
+"And now, gentlemen, standing as I do in this relation for the last time
+in your presence and that of my fellow-citizens, about to surrender
+forever a station full of difficulty, of labor and temptation, in which
+I have been called to very arduous duties, affecting the rights,
+property, and at times the liberty of others; concerning which the
+perfect line of rectitude--though desired--was not always to be clearly
+discerned; in which great interests have been placed within my control,
+under circumstances in which it would have been easy to advance private
+ends and sinister projects;--under these circumstances, I inquire, as I
+have a right to inquire,--for in the recent contest insinuations have
+been cast against my integrity,--in this long management of your
+affairs, whatever errors have been committed,--and doubtless there have
+been many,--have you found in me anything selfish, anything personal,
+anything mercenary? In the simple language of an ancient seer, I say,
+'Behold, here I am; witness against me. Whom have I defrauded? Whom have
+I oppressed? At whose hands have I received any bribe?'
+
+"Six years ago, when I had the honor first to address the City Council,
+in anticipation of the event which has now occurred, the following
+expressions were used: 'In administering the police, in executing the
+laws, in protecting the rights and promoting the prosperity of the city,
+its first officer will be necessarily beset and assailed by individual
+interests, by rival projects, by personal influences, by party passions.
+The more firm and inflexible he is in maintaining the rights and in
+pursuing the interests of the city, the greater is the probability of
+his becoming obnoxious to the censure of all whom he causes to be
+prosecuted or punished, of all whose passions he thwarts, of all whose
+interests he opposes.'
+
+"The day and the event have come. I retire--as in that first address I
+told my fellow-citizens, 'If, in conformity with the experience of other
+republics, faithful exertions should be followed by loss of favor and
+confidence,' I should retire--'rejoicing, not, indeed, with a public and
+patriotic, but with a private and individual joy'; for I shall retire
+with a consciousness weighed against which all _human suffrages_ are but
+as the light dust of the balance."
+
+Of his mayoralty we have another anecdote quite Roman in color. He was
+in the habit of riding early in the morning through the various streets
+that he might look into everything with his own eyes. He was once
+arrested on a malicious charge of violating the city ordinance against
+fast driving. He might have resisted, but he appeared in court and paid
+the fine, because it would serve as a good example "that no citizen was
+above the law."
+
+Hardly had Mr. Quincy given up the government of the city, when he was
+called to that of the College. It is here that his stately figure is
+associated most intimately and warmly with the recollections of the
+greater number who hold his memory dear. Almost everybody looks back
+regretfully to the days of some Consul Plancus. Never were eyes so
+bright, never had wine so much wit and good-fellowship in it, never were
+we ourselves so capable of the various great things we have never done.
+Nor is it merely the sunset of life that casts such a ravishing light on
+the past, and makes the western windows of those homes of fancy we have
+left forever tremble with a sentiment of such sweet regret. We set great
+store by what we had, and cannot have again, however indifferent in
+itself, and what is past is infinitely past. This is especially true of
+college life, when we first assume the titles without the
+responsibilities of manhood, and the President of our year is apt to
+become our Plancus very early. Popular or not while in office, an
+ex-president is always sure of enthusiastic cheers at every college
+festival. Mr. Quincy had many qualities calculated to win favor with the
+young,--that one above all which is sure to do it, indomitable pluck.
+With him the dignity was in the man, not in the office. He had some of
+those little oddities, too, which afford amusement without contempt, and
+which rather tend to heighten than diminish personal attachment to
+superiors in station. His punctuality at prayers, and in dropping asleep
+there, his forgetfulness of names, his singular inability to make even
+the shortest offhand speech to the students,--all the more singular in a
+practised orator,--his occasional absorption of mind, leading him to
+hand you his sand-box instead of the leave of absence he had just dried
+with it,--the old-fashioned courtesy of his, "Sir, your servant," as he
+bowed you out of his study,--all tended to make him popular. He had also
+a little of what is somewhat contradictorily called dry humor, not
+without influence in his relations with the students. In taking leave of
+the graduating class, he was in the habit of paying them whatever honest
+compliment he could. Who, of a certain year which shall be nameless,
+will ever forget the gravity with which he assured them that they were
+"the _best-dressed_ class that had passed through college during his
+administration"? How sincerely kind he was, how considerate of youthful
+levity, will always be gratefully remembered by whoever had occasion to
+experience it. A visitor not long before his death found him burning
+some memoranda of college peccadilloes, lest they should ever rise up in
+judgment against the men eminent in Church and State who had been guilty
+of them. One great element of his popularity with the students was his
+_esprit de corps_. However strict in discipline, he was always on _our_
+side as respected the outside world. Of his efficiency, no higher
+testimony could be asked than that of his successor, Dr. Walker. Here
+also many reforms date from his time. He had that happiest combination
+for a wise vigor in the conduct of affairs,--he was a conservative with
+an open mind.
+
+One would be apt to think that, in the various offices which Mr. Quincy
+successively filled, he would have found enough to do. But his
+indefatigable activity overflowed. Even as a man of letters, he occupies
+no inconsiderable place. His "History of Harvard College" is a valuable
+and entertaining treatment of a subject not wanting in natural dryness.
+His "Municipal History of Boston" his "History of the Boston Athenæum,"
+and his "Life of Colonel Shaw" have permanent interest and value. All
+these were works demanding no little labor and research, and the
+thoroughness of their workmanship makes them remarkable as the
+by-productions of a busy man. Having consented, when more than eighty,
+to write a memoir of John Quincy Adams, to be published in the
+"Proceedings" of the Massachusetts Historical Society, he was obliged to
+excuse himself. On account of his age? Not at all, but because the work
+had grown to be a volume under his weariless hand. _Ohne Hast ohne
+Rast_, was as true of him as of Goethe. We find the explanation of his
+accomplishing so much in a rule of life which he gave, when President,
+to a young man employed as his secretary, and who was a little
+behindhand with his work: "When you have a number of duties to perform,
+always do the most disagreeable one first." No advice could have been
+more in character.
+
+Perhaps the most beautiful part of Mr. Quincy's life was his old age.
+What in most men is decay, was in him but beneficent prolongation and
+adjournment. His interest in affairs unabated, his judgment undimmed,
+his fire unchilled, his last years were indeed "lovely as a Lapland
+night." Till within a year or two of its fall, there were no signs of
+dilapidation in that stately edifice. Singularly felicitous was Mr.
+Winthrop's application to him of Wordsworth's verses:--
+
+    "The monumental pomp of age
+    Was in that goodly personage."
+
+Everything that Macbeth foreboded the want of, he had in deserved
+abundance,--the love, the honor, the obedience, the troops of friends.
+His equanimity was beautiful. He loved life, as men of large vitality
+always do, but he did not fear to lose life by changing the scene of it.
+Visiting him in his ninetieth year with a friend, he said to us, among
+other things: "I have no desire to die, but also no reluctance. Indeed,
+I have a considerable curiosity about the other world. I have never been
+to Europe, you know." Even in his extreme senescence there was an April
+mood somewhere in his nature "that put a spirit of youth in everything."
+He seemed to feel that he could draw against an unlimited credit of
+years. When eighty-two, he said smilingly to a young man just returned
+from a foreign tour, "Well, well, I mean to go myself when I am old
+enough to profit by it." We have seen many old men whose lives were mere
+waste and desolation, who made longevity disreputable by their untimely
+persistence in it; but in Mr. Quincy's length of years there was nothing
+that was not venerable. To him it was fulfilment, not deprivation; the
+days were marked to the last for what they brought, not for what they
+took away.
+
+The memory of what Mr. Quincy did will be lost in the crowd of newer
+activities; it is the memory of what he was that is precious to us.
+_Bonum virum facile crederes, magnum libenter._ If John Winthrop be the
+highest type of the men who shaped New England, we can find no better
+one of those whom New England has shaped than Josiah Quincy. It is a
+figure that we can contemplate with more than satisfaction,--a figure of
+admirable example in a democracy as that of a model citizen. His courage
+and high-mindedness were personal to him; let us believe that his
+integrity, his industry, his love of letters, his devotion to duty, go
+in some sort to the credit of the society which gave him birth and
+formed his character. In one respect he is especially interesting to us,
+as belonging to a class of men of whom he was the last representative,
+and whose like we shall never see again. Born and bred in an age of
+greater social distinctions than ours, he was an aristocrat in a sense
+that is good even in a republic. He had the sense of a certain personal
+dignity _inherent_ in him, and which could not be alienated by any whim
+of the popular will. There is no stouter buckler than this for
+independence of spirit, no surer guaranty of that courtesy which, in its
+consideration of others, is but paying a debt of self-respect. During
+his presidency, Mr. Quincy was once riding to Cambridge in a crowded
+omnibus. A colored woman got in, and could nowhere find a seat. The
+President instantly gave her his own, and stood the rest of the way, a
+silent rebuke of the general rudeness. He was a man of quality in the
+true sense,--of quality not hereditary, but personal. Position might be
+taken from him, but _he_ remained where he was. In what he valued most,
+his sense of personal worth, the world's opinion could neither help nor
+hinder. We do not mean that this was conscious in him; if it had been,
+it would have been a weakness. It was an instinct, and acted with the
+force and promptitude proper to such. Let us hope that the scramble of
+democracy will give us something as good; anything of so classic dignity
+we shall not look to see again.
+
+Josiah Quincy was no seeker of office; from first to last he and it were
+drawn together by the mutual attraction of need and fitness, and it
+clung to him as most men cling to it. The people often make blunders in
+their choice; they are apt to mistake presence of speech for presence of
+mind; they love so to help a man rise from the ranks, that they will
+spoil a good demagogue to make a bad general; a great many faults may be
+laid at their door, but they are not fairly to be charged with
+fickleness. They are constant to whoever is constant to his real self,
+to the best manhood that is in him, and not to the mere selfishness, the
+_antica lupa_ so cunning to hide herself in the sheep's fleece even from
+ourselves. It is true, the contemporary world is apt to be the gull of
+brilliant parts, and the maker of a lucky poem or picture or statue,
+the winner of a lucky battle, gets perhaps more than is due to the solid
+result of his triumph. It is time that fit honor should be paid also to
+him who shows a genius for public usefulness, for the achievement of
+character, who shapes his life to a certain classic proportion, and
+comes off conqueror on those inward fields where something more than
+mere talent is demanded for victory. The memory of such men should be
+cherished as the most precious inheritance which one generation can
+bequeath to the next. However it might be with popular favor, public
+respect followed Mr. Quincy unwaveringly for seventy years, and it was
+because he had never forfeited his own. In this, it appears to us, lies
+the lesson of his life, and his claim upon our grateful recollection. It
+is this which makes him an example, while the careers of so many of our
+prominent men are only useful for warning. As regards history, his
+greatness was narrowly provincial; but if the measure of deeds be the
+spirit in which they are done, that fidelity to instant duty, which,
+according to Herbert, makes an action fine, then his length of years
+should be very precious to us for its lesson. Talleyrand, whose life may
+be compared with his for the strange vicissitude which it witnessed,
+carried with him out of the world the respect of no man, least of all
+his own; and how many of our own public men have we seen whose old age
+but accumulated a disregard which they would gladly have exchanged for
+oblivion! In Quincy the public fidelity was loyal to the private, and
+the withdrawal of his old age was into a sanctuary,--a diminution of
+publicity with addition of influence.
+
+    "Conclude we, then, felicity consists
+    Not in exterior fortunes....
+    Sacred felicity doth ne'er extend
+    Beyond itself....
+    The swelling of an outward fortune can
+    Create a prosperous, not a happy man."
+
+
+
+
+THE CONSPIRACY AT WASHINGTON.
+
+
+The people of the United States now have the mortification of standing
+before the world in the attitude of a swindled democracy. Their
+collective will is crossed by the will of one individual, whose only
+title to such autocracy is in the fact that he has cheated and betrayed
+those who elected him. There might be some little compensation for this
+outrage, if the man himself possessed any of those commanding qualities
+of mind and disposition which ordinarily distinguish usurpers; but it is
+the peculiarity of Mr. Johnson that the indignation excited by his
+claims is only equalled by the contempt excited by his character. He is
+despised even by those he benefits, and his nominal supporters feel
+ashamed of the trickster and apostate, while condescending to reap the
+advantages of his faithlessness. No party in the South or in the North
+thinks of selecting him as its candidate, for the vices and weaknesses
+which make an excellent accomplice and tool are not those which any
+party would consider desirable in a leader. Whatever office-seekers,
+partisans, traitors, and public enemies may find in Mr. Johnson, it is
+certain that they find in him nothing to respect. He is cursed with that
+form of moral disease which sometimes renders a man ridiculous,
+sometimes infamous, but which never renders him respectable,--namely,
+vanity of will. Other men may be vain of their talents and
+accomplishments, but he is vain of the personal pronoun itself, utterly
+regardless of what it covers and includes. Reason, conscience,
+understanding, have no impersonality to him. When he uses the words, he
+uses them as synonymes of his determinations, or as decorative terms
+into which it pleases him to translate the rough vernacular of his
+wilfulness and caprices. The "Constitution," also, a word constantly
+profaned by his lips, is not so much, as he uses it, the Constitution of
+the United States as the moral and mental constitution of Andrew
+Johnson, which, in his view, is the one primary fact to which all other
+facts must be subordinate. His gross inconsistencies of opinion and
+policy, his shameless betrayal of his party, his incapacity to hold
+himself to his word, his hatred of a cause the moment its defenders
+cease to flatter him, his habit of administering laws he has vetoed, on
+the principle that they do not mean what he vetoed them for meaning, his
+delight in little tricks of low cunning,--in short, all the immoral and
+unreasonable acts of his administration have their central source in a
+passionate sense of self-importance, inflaming a mind of extremely
+limited capacity.
+
+Such a person, whose mere presence in the executive chair of a
+constitutional country is itself "a high crime and misdemeanor," is of
+course the natural prey of demagogues, and he now appears to be
+surrounded by demagogues of the most desperate class. His advisers are
+conspirators, and they have so wrought on his vulgar and malignant
+nature that the question of his impeachment has now come to be merged in
+the more momentous question whether he will submit to be impeached.
+Constitutionally, there is no limit to the power of Congress in this
+respect but that which Congress may itself impose. The power is plain,
+and there can be no revision of the judgment of the Senate by any other
+power in the government. But Mr. Johnson thinks, or says he thinks, that
+Congress itself, as at present constituted, is unconstitutional. He
+believes, or says he believes, that the defeated Rebel States whose
+representatives Congress now excludes are as much States in the Union,
+and as much entitled to representation, as New York or Ohio. As he
+specially represents the defeated Rebel States, it is hardly to be
+supposed that he will consent to be punished for crimes committed in
+their behalf by a Congress from which their representatives are
+excluded; and it is also to be presumed that the measures he is now
+taking to obstruct the operation of the laws of Congress relating to
+reconstruction are but preliminary to a design to resist Congress
+itself.
+
+The madness of such a scheme leads judicious people to disbelieve in its
+possibility; but in respect to Mr. Johnson it has been found that the
+only way to prevent the occurrence of mischief is to diffuse extensively
+among the people the suspicion that it is meditated. Judicious and
+dispassionate persons are often poor judges of what men of fierce
+passions and distempered minds will do; for they unconsciously attribute
+to such men some of their own ideas of honesty, propriety, and regard
+for the public welfare. The legislators whom Louis Napoleon outwitted
+were overthrown, because, bad as their opinion of him was, it was not so
+bad as events proved it ought to have been. In the case of Mr. Johnson,
+there is not the same excuse for misconception, since his cunning is
+utterly divorced from sagacity, and he has not the intelligence to
+conceal what his impulses prompt him to attempt. The kind of man he is
+would seem to be obvious to the most superficial observer; the natural
+inference is, therefore, that he will act after his kind; but this is an
+inference which dispassionate statesmen have hesitated fully to draw.
+They have been continually surprised at acts which they should have
+foreseen. They were surprised that, during the months he was left to his
+own devices and to the counsels of Southern politicians, he matured his
+policy of reconstruction. They were surprised that he would not abandon
+his policy rather than break with the Republican party. They were
+surprised when they learned that he meditated a _coup d'état_ on the
+assembling of the Fortieth Congress. They were surprised when they found
+that no law could be made which would bind him according to its intent.
+They were surprised when, as soon as Congress adjourned, he began to
+take measures which can have no other intelligible purpose than that of
+making him master of Congress when it reassembles. And to crown all,
+though it has been apparent since February, 1866, that he was the enemy
+of the country, they have still had technical reasons for retaining him
+as the proper executive of its laws.
+
+It would then seem that, in dealing with such a man as Andrew Johnson,
+it is the part of wisdom to suspect the worst. Without any special
+knowledge of the treasonable intrigue now going on in Washington, it is
+still possible to fathom the President's designs, and to understand the
+resources on which he relies. In the first place, his conceit makes him
+believe that he is the first man in the nation, and that he is not only
+adored at the South, but popular at the North. The slightest sign of
+reaction in Northern and Western elections he considers a testimony to
+his individual merit, and an indorsement of his policy. In case he
+refuses to recognize the present Congress, turns its members by military
+power out of their seats, and appeals for support to the white
+population of the Rebel as well as Loyal States, he will count on being
+sustained by the nation. The Democratic party agrees with him as far as
+regards the constitutionality of the laws which he will, in the name of
+the Constitution, be compelled to disregard in order to get possession
+of the military power of the country; and he thinks that party will
+support him in resuming those functions as commander-in-chief of which
+he has been deprived by a "usurping" Congress. The army and navy, with
+all Republican officers removed, including, of course, General Grant and
+Admiral Farragut, he thinks will obey his orders. The South, he
+supposes, will rally round him to a man. The thoroughly Rebel military
+organization in Maryland, controlled by a Governor after his own heart,
+will interpose obstacles to the passage of troops from the Northern
+States to Washington. The Democrats in those States will do all they
+can to prevent troops from being sent. Before there could be any
+efficient military organization in the Loyal States brought to bear on
+his dictatorship, he expects to have a Congress of "the whole nation"
+around him, of which at least a majority will be defeated Rebels and
+Copperheads. The whole thing is to be done in the name of the
+Constitution; and the Proclamation he has issued to all officers of the
+United States, civil and military, telling them to obey the Constitution
+(i. e. Mr. Johnson), may be considered the first step in the development
+of the scheme.
+
+It is needless to say that such a scheme could only find hospitable
+reception in the head of a spiteful, inflated, and unprincipled egotist,
+for such an egotist Mr. Johnson assuredly is. It is needless to say that
+it would break down through the refusal of General Grant to give up his
+command, and through the refusal of the great body of the army to obey
+the President; for the danger is not so much the success of the attempt
+as the convulsion which, the mere attempt would occasion. That the
+danger is a serious one, provided the October and November elections
+show a considerable Republican loss, is evident from a consideration of
+the President's position. He has already gone far enough in his course
+to exasperate Congress, and unite its Republican members, conservative
+and radical, in favor of his impeachment. Without going over the long
+list of delinquencies and usurpations which would justify that measure,
+it is sufficient to name the recent Proclamation of Amnesty as an act
+which promises to secure it. That Proclamation is a plain violation of
+the Constitution as the Constitution is understood by Congress; and it
+is upon the Congressional interpretation of the Constitution that, in
+the matter of impeachment, the President must stand or fall. Congress,
+by giving the power of granting amnesty to Mr. Lincoln, evidently
+conceived that it was not a power given to him by the Constitution; by
+taking it away from Mr. Johnson, it as evidently conceived that it
+could not be exercised by him except by usurpation. In usurping this
+power, Mr. Johnson must have known that his act belonged, in the opinion
+of Congress, to the class of "high crimes and misdemeanors," for the
+commission of which the Constitution expressly provides that Presidents
+may be impeached; and he must also have known that Congress, in judging
+of his infractions of the Constitution, would be bound neither by his
+individual opinion of his constitutional powers nor by the opinion of
+the Supreme Court, but was at perfect liberty to act on its own
+interpretation of his constitutional duty. It is not therefore to be
+supposed that he intended to limit his defiance of Congress to the mere
+issuing of the Amnesty Proclamation, especially as the principle on
+which that Proclamation was issued would cover his refusal to carry out
+the whole Congressional plan of reconstruction. His conviction or
+assertion that Congress has no right to withhold from him the power to
+pardon defeated rebels and public enemies by the wholesale, is certainly
+not greater or more emphatic than his conviction or assertion that, in
+its plan of reconstruction, Congress has granted to subordinates powers
+which constitutionally belong to him. If he can exalt his will over
+Congress in the one case, there is no reason why he should not do it in
+the other.
+
+Indeed, in the Proclamation of Amnesty, Mr. Johnson practically claims
+that his power to grant pardons extends to a dispensing power over the
+laws. But it is evident that the Constitution, in giving the President
+the power to pardon criminals, does not give him the power to dispense
+with the laws against crime. At one period, Mr. Johnson seems to have
+done this in respect to the crime of counterfeiting, by his repeated
+pardons extended to convicted counterfeiters.--Still there is a broad
+line of distinction between the abuse of this power to pardon criminals
+after conviction, and the assumption of power to restore to whole
+classes of traitors and public enemies their forfeited rights of
+citizenship. By the pardon of murderers and counterfeiters, the
+President cannot much increase the number of his political supporters;
+by the pardon of traitors and public enemies, he may build up a party to
+support him in his struggle against the legislative department of the
+government. The reasons which have induced Mr. Johnson to dispense with
+the laws against treason are political reasons, and bear no relation to
+his prerogative of mercy. Nobody pretends that he pardoned
+counterfeiters because they were his political partisans; everybody
+knows he pardons traitors and public enemies in order to gain their
+influence and votes. A public enemy himself, and leagued with public
+enemies, he has the impudence to claim that he is constitutionally
+capable of perverting his power to pardon into a power to gain political
+support in his schemes against the loyal nation.
+
+But it is not probable that the President will limit his usurpations to
+a measure whose chief significance consists in its preliminary
+character. Before Congress meets in November, he will doubtless have
+followed it up by others which will make his impeachment a matter of
+certainty. The only method of preventing him from resisting impeachment
+by force, is an awakening of the people to the fact that the final
+battle against reviving rebellion is yet to be fought at the polls. Any
+apathy or divisions among Republicans in the State elections in October
+and November, resulting in a decrease of their vote, will embolden Mr.
+Johnson to venture his meditated _coup d'état_. He never will submit to
+be impeached and removed from office unless Congress is sustained by a
+majority of the people so great as to frighten him into submission.
+Elated by a little victory, he can only be depressed by a ruinous
+defeat; and such a defeat it is the solemn duty of the people to prepare
+for him. Even into his conceited brain must be driven the idea that his
+contemplated enterprise is hopeless, and that, in attempting to commit
+the greatest of political crimes, he would succeed only in committing
+the most enormous of political blunders.
+
+Still, it is not to be concealed that there are circumstances in the
+present political condition of the country which may give the President
+just that degree of apparent popular support which is all he needs to
+stimulate him into open rebellion against the laws. It is, of course,
+his duty to recognize the people of the United States in their
+representatives in the Fortieth Congress; but, on the other hand, it is
+the character of his mind to regard the people as multiplied duplicates
+of himself, and a mob yelling for "Andy" under his windows is to him
+more representative of the people than the delegates of twenty States.
+In the autumn elections only two Representatives to Congress will be
+chosen; the political strife will relate generally to local questions
+and candidates; and it is to be feared that the Republicans will not be
+sufficiently alive to the fact, that divisions on local questions and
+candidates will be considered at Washington as significant of a change
+in the public mind on the great national question which it is the
+business of the Fortieth Congress to settle. That Congress needs the
+moral support of a great Republican vote _now_, and will obtain it
+provided the people are roused to a conviction of its necessity. But a
+large and influential portion of the Republican party is composed of
+business men, whose occupations disconnect them from politics except in
+important exigencies, and who can with difficulty be made to believe
+that politics is a part of their business, as long as the safety of
+their business is not threatened by civil disorders. They think the
+reconstruction question is practically settled, and when you speak to
+them of plots such as are now hatching in Washington, and which seem as
+preposterous as the story of a sensational novel, their incredulity
+confirms them in the notion that it is safe to allow things to take
+their course. Their very good sense makes them blind to the designs of
+such a Bobadil-Cromwell as Andrew Johnson. The great body of the
+Republican party, indeed, shows at present a little of the exhaustion
+which is apt to follow a series of victories, and exhibits altogether
+too much of the confidence which so often attends an incompleted
+triumph.
+
+The Democratic party, on the contrary, is all alive, and is preparing
+for one last desperate attempt to recover its old position in the
+nation. Its leaders fear that, if the Congressional plan of
+reconstruction be carried out, it will result in republicanizing the
+Southern States. This would be the political extinction of their party.
+In fighting against that plan, they are, therefore, fighting for life,
+and are accordingly more than usually profligate in the character of the
+stimulants they address to whatever meanness, baseness, dishonesty,
+lawlessness, and ignorance there may be in the nation. Taxation presses
+hard on the people, and they have not hesitated to propose repudiation
+of the public debt as the means of relief. The argument is addressed to
+ignorance and passion, for Mirabeau hit the reason of the case when he
+defined repudiation as taxation in its most cruel and iniquitous form.
+But the method of repudiation which the Democratic leaders propose to
+follow is of all methods the worst and most calamitous. They would make
+the dollar a mere form of expression by the issue of an additional
+billion or two of greenbacks, and then "pay off" the debt in the
+currency they had done all they could to render worthless. In other
+words they would not only swindle the public creditor, but wreck all
+values. A party which advocates such a scheme as this, to save it from
+the death it deserves, would have no hesitation in risking a civil
+convulsion for the same purpose. Indeed, the reopening of the civil war
+would not produce half the misery which would be created by the adoption
+of their project to dilute the currency.
+
+Now, if by apathy on the part of Republicans and audacity on the part
+of Democrats the autumn elections result unfavorably, it will then be
+universally seen how true was Senator Sumner's remark made in January
+last, that "Andrew Johnson, who came to supreme power by a bloody
+accident, has become the successor of Jefferson Davis in the spirit by
+which he is governed, and in the mischief he is inflicting on the
+country"; that "the President of the Rebellion is revived in the
+President of the United States." What this man now proposes to do has
+been impressively stated by Senator Thayer of Nebraska, in a public
+address at Cincinnati: "I declare," he said, "upon my responsibility as
+a Senator of the United States, that to-day Andrew Johnson meditates and
+designs forcible resistance to the authority of Congress. I make this
+statement deliberately, having received it from an unquestioned and
+unquestionable authority." It would seem that this authority could be
+none other than the authority of the Acting Secretary of War and General
+of the Army of the United States, who, reticent as he is, does not
+pretend to withhold his opinion that the country is in imminent peril,
+and in peril from the action of the President. But it is by some
+considered a sufficient reply to such statements, that, if Mr. Johnson
+should overturn the legislative department of the government, there
+would be an uprising of the people which would soon sweep him and his
+supporters from the face of the earth. This may be very true, but we
+should prefer a less Mexican manner of ascertaining public sentiment.
+Without leaving their peaceful occupations, the people can do by their
+votes all that it is proposed they shall do by their muskets. It is
+hardly necessary that a million or half a million of men should go to
+Washington to speak their mind to Mr. Johnson, when a ballot-box close
+at hand will save them the expense and trouble. It will, indeed, be
+infinitely disgraceful to the nation if Mr. Johnson dares to put his
+purpose into act, for his courage to violate his own duty will come from
+the neglect of the people to perform theirs. Let the great uprising of
+the citizens of the Republic be at the polls this autumn, and there will
+be no need of a fight in the winter. The House of Representatives, which
+has the sole power of impeachment, will in all probability impeach the
+President. The Senate, which has the sole power to try impeachments,
+will in all probability find him guilty, by the requisite two thirds of
+its members, of the charges preferred by the House. And he himself,
+cowed by the popular verdict against his contemplated crime, and
+hopeless of escaping from the punishment of past delinquencies by a new
+act of treason, will submit to be removed from the office he has too
+long been allowed to dishonor.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+    _The New Life of_ DANTE ALIGHIERI. Translated by CHARLES ELIOT
+    NORTON. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.
+
+In "The New Life" Dante tells how first he met Beatrice and loved her;
+but how he feigned that it was another lady he loved, making a defence
+of her and others still that his real passion might not be known; how
+Beatrice would not salute him, believing him false and inconstant with
+these ladies, her friends; how being at a banquet where she was, he was
+so visibly stricken with love that some of the ladies derided him; how
+Beatrice's father died, and how Dante himself fell ill; how Beatrice
+quitted the city, and soon after the world; and how Dante was so
+grateful to another lady who pitied his affliction that his heart turned
+toward her in love, but he restrained it, and remained true to Beatrice
+forever. Part of this is told as the experience of children in years,
+Dante being nine at the time he first sees his love, and she of "a very
+youthful age"; but the narrative then extends over the course of sixteen
+years. The incidents of the slight history furnish occasion for sonnets
+and canzonets, which often repeat the facts and sentiments of the prose,
+and which are again elaborately expounded.
+
+Such is "The New Life,"--a medley of passionate feeling, of vaguest
+narrative, of scholastic pedantry. It is readily conceivable that to
+transfer such a work to another tongue with verbal truth, and without
+lapse from the peculiar spirit of the original, is a labor of great and
+unusual difficulty. The slightest awkwardness in the translation of
+these mystical passages of prose and rhyme connected by a thread of fact
+so fragile and so subtle that we must seem to have done it violence in
+touching it, would be almost fatal to the reader's enjoyment, or even
+patience. Their version demands deep knowledge, not only of the language
+in which they first took form, but of all the civil and intellectual
+conditions of the time and country in which they were produced, as well
+as the utmost fidelity, and exquisite delicacy of taste. It appears to
+us that Mr. Norton has met these requirements, and executed his task
+with signal grace and success.
+
+The translator of the "Vita Nuova" has not departed from the principle
+which Mr. Longfellow's translation of the "Commedia" is to render sole
+in the version of poetry. Indeed, there was a greater need, if possible,
+of literalness in rendering the less than the greater work, while the
+temptations to "improvement" and modification of the original must have
+been even more constant. Yet there is a very notable difference between
+Mr. Longfellow's literality and Mr. Norton's, which strikes at first
+glance, and which goes to prove that within his proper limits the
+literal translator can always find room for the play of individual
+feeling. Mr. Longfellow seems to have developed to its utmost the Latin
+element in our poetical diction, and to have found in words of a kindred
+stock the best interpretation of the Italian, while Mr. Norton
+instinctively chooses for the rendering of Dante's tenderness and
+simplicity a diction almost as purely Saxon as that of the Bible. This
+gives the prose of "The New Life" with all its proper archaic quality;
+and those who read the following sonnet can well believe that it is not
+unjust to the beauty of the verse:--
+
+    "So gentle and so modest doth appear
+      My lady when she giveth her salute,
+      That every tongue becometh, trembling, mute;
+      Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare.
+    Although she hears her praises, she doth go
+      Benignly vested with humility;
+      And like a thing come down, she seems to be,
+      From heaven to earth, a miracle to show.
+    So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh,
+      She gives the heart a sweetness through the eyes,
+      Which none can understand who doth not prove.
+    And from her countenance there seems to move
+      A spirit sweet, and in Love's very guise,
+      Who to the soul is ever saying, Sigh!"
+
+Mr. Norton has in all cases kept to the metres of the original, but in
+most of the canzonets has sacrificed rhyme to literality,--a sacrifice
+which we are inclined to regret, chiefly because the translator has
+elsewhere shown that the closest fidelity need not involve the loss of
+any charm of the original. "We have not room here to make any general
+comparison of Mr. Norton's version with the Italian, but we cannot deny
+ourselves the pleasure of giving the following sonnet, so exquisite in
+both tongues, for the better proof of what we say in praise of the
+translator:--
+
+    "Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore;
+      Per che si fa gentil ciocch' ella mira:
+      Ove ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira,
+      E cui saluta fa tremar to core.
+    Sicchè bassando 'l viso tutto smuore,
+      Ed ogni suo difetto allor sospira:
+      Fugge dinanzi a lei superbia ed ira.
+      Aiutatenmi, donne, a farle onore.
+    Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile
+      Nasce nel core, a chi parlar la sente,
+      Onde è laudato chi prima la vide.
+    Quel, ch' ella par, quando un poco sorride,
+      Non si puo dicer, nè tenerc a mente;
+      Si è nuovo miracolo, e gentile."
+
+        *       *       *       *
+
+    "Within her eyes my lady beareth Love,
+      So that whom she regards as gentle made;
+      All toward her turn, where'er her path is laid,
+      And whom she greets, his heart doth trembling move;
+    So that with face cast down, all pale to view,
+      For every fault of his he then doth sigh;
+      Anger and pride away before her fly:--
+      Assist me, dames, to pay her honor due.
+    All sweetness truly, every humble thought,
+      The heart of him who hears her speak doth hold;
+      Whence he is blessed who hath her seen erewhile.
+    What seems she when a little she doth smile
+      Cannot be kept in mind, cannot be told,
+      Such strange and gentle miracle is wrought."
+
+The poems are of course rendered with varying degrees of felicity, and
+this we think one of the happiest versions; though few in their
+literality lack that ease and naturalness of movement supposed to be the
+gift solely of those wonder-workers who render the "spirit" of an
+author, while disdaining a "slavish fidelity" to his words,--who as
+painters would portray a man's expression without troubling themselves
+to reproduce his features.
+
+It appears to us that generally the sonnets are translated better than
+the canzonets, and that where Mr. Norton has found the rhyme quite
+indispensable, he has all the more successfully performed his task. In
+the prose there is naturally less inequality, and here, where excellence
+is quite as important as in the verse, the translator's work is
+irreproachable. His vigilant taste seems never to have failed him in the
+choice of words which should keep at once all the dignity and all the
+quaintness of the original, while they faithfully reported its sense.
+
+The essays appended to the translation assemble from Italian and English
+writings all the criticism that is necessary to the enjoyment of "The
+New Life," and include many valuable and interesting comments by the
+translator upon the work itself, and the spirit of the age and country
+in which it was written.
+
+The notes, which, like the essays, are pervaded by Mr. Norton's graceful
+and conscientious scholarship, are not less useful and attractive.
+
+We do not know that we can better express our very high estimate of the
+work as a whole, than by saying that it is the fit companion of Mr.
+Longfellow's unmatched version of the "Divina Commedia," with which it
+is likewise uniform in faultless mechanical execution.
+
+
+    _The Bulls and the Jonathans; comprising John Bull and Brother
+    Jonathan, and John Bull in America._ By JAMES K. PAULDING.
+    Edited by WILLIAM I. PAULDING. New York: Charles Scribner and
+    Company.
+
+"John Bull and Brother Jonathan" is an allegory, conveying in a strain
+of fatiguing drollery the history of the relations between Great Britain
+and the United States previous to the war of 1812, and reflecting the
+popular feeling with regard to some of the English tourists who overran
+us after the conclusion of peace. In this ponderous travesty John Bull
+of Bullock is England, and Brother Jonathan the United States; Napoleon
+figures as Beau Napperty, Louis XVI. as Louis Baboon, and France as
+Frogmore. It could not have been a hard thing to write in its day, and
+we suppose that it must once have amused people, though it is not easy
+to understand bow they could ever have read it through.
+
+"John Bull in America" is a satire, again, upon the book-making
+tourists, and the ideas of our country generally accepted from them in
+England. It is in the form of a narrative, and probably does not
+exaggerate the stories told of us by Captain Ashe, Mr. Richard
+Parkinson, Farmer Faux, Captain Hamilton, Captain Hall, and a tribe of
+now-forgotten travellers, who wrote of adventure in the United States
+when, as Mr. Dickens intimates, one of the readiest means of literary
+success in England was to visit the Americans and abuse them in a book.
+Mr. Paulding's parody gives the idea that their lies were rather dull
+and foolish, and that the parodist's work was not so entirely a
+diversion as one might think. He wrote for a generation now passing
+away, and it is all but impossible for us to enter into the feeling that
+animated him and his readers. For this reason, perhaps, we fail to enjoy
+his book, though we are not entirely persuaded that we should have found
+it humorous when it first appeared.
+
+
+    _The Life and Death of Jason._ A Poem. By WILLIAM MORRIS.
+    Boston: Roberts Brothers.
+
+Whether the reader shall enjoy and admire this poem or not, depends
+almost solely upon the idea with which he comes to its perusal. If he
+expects to find it a work of genius, with an authentic and absolute
+claim upon his interest, he will be disappointed. If he is prepared to
+see in it a labor of the most patient and wonderful ingenuity, to behold
+the miracle of an Englishman of our day writing exactly in the spirit of
+the heroic ages, with no thought or feeling suggested by the experience
+of the last two thousand years, it will fully answer his expectations.
+The work is so far Greek as to read in many parts like Chapman's
+translation of the Odyssey; though it must be confessed that Homer is,
+if not a better Pagan, at least a greater poet than Mr. Morris. Indeed,
+it appears to us that Mr. Morris's success is almost wholly in the
+reflected sentiment and color of his work, and it seems, therefore, to
+have no positive value, and to add nothing to the variety of letters or
+intellectual life. It is a kind of performance in which failure is
+intolerably offensive, and triumph more to be wondered at than praised.
+For to be more or less than Greek in it is to be ridiculous, and to be
+just Greek is to be what has already perfectly and sufficiently been. If
+one wished to breathe the atmosphere of Greek poetry, with its sensuous
+love of beauty and of life, its pathetic acceptance of events as fate,
+its warped and unbalanced conscience, its abhorrence of death, and its
+conception of a future sad as annihilation, we had already the Greek
+poets; and does it profit us that Mr. Morris can produce just their
+effects and nothing more in us?
+
+We are glad to acknowledge his transcendent talent, and we have felt in
+reading his poem all the pleasure that faultless workmanship can give.
+He is alert and sure in the management of his materials; his
+descriptions of sentiment and nature are so clever, and his handling of
+a familiar plot so excellent, that he carries you with him to the end,
+and leaves you unfatigued, but sensible of no addition to your stock of
+ideas and feelings.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No.
+121, November, 1867, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121,
+November, 1867, 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 20, No. 121, November, 1867
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 9, 2009 [EBook #28285]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by Cornell University Digital Collections.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span></p>
+
+<h4>THE</h4>
+
+<h1>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h1>
+
+<h2><i>A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics.</i></h2>
+
+
+<h3>VOL. XX.&mdash;NOVEMBER, 1867.&mdash;NO. CXXI.</h3>
+
+<p>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, 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 has been created for the HTML version.</p>
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#THE_GUARDIAN_ANGEL"><b>THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#OPINIONS_OF_THE_LATE_DR_NOTT_RESPECTING_BOOKS_STUDIES_AND_ORATORS"><b>OPINIONS OF THE LATE DR. NOTT RESPECTING BOOKS, STUDIES, AND ORATORS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CRETAN_DAYS"><b>CRETAN DAYS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHANSON_WITHOUT_MUSIC"><b>CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_ROSE_ROLLINS"><b>THE ROSE ROLLINS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#ARE_THE_CHILDREN_AT_HOME"><b>ARE THE CHILDREN AT HOME?</b></a><br />
+<a href="#IN_THE_GRAY_GOTH"><b>IN THE GRAY GOTH.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#BUSY_BRAINS"><b>BUSY BRAINS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_AUTOBIOGRAPHY_OF_A_QUACK"><b>THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A QUACK.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_LIE"><b>"THE LIE."</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_BOWERY_AT_NIGHT"><b>THE BOWERY AT NIGHT.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#STEPHEN_C_FOSTER_AND_NEGRO_MINSTRELSY"><b>STEPHEN C. FOSTER AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_FEAST_OF_HARVEST"><b>THE FEAST OF HARVEST.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#A_GREAT_PUBLIC_CHARACTER"><b>A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_CONSPIRACY_AT_WASHINGTON"><b>THE CONSPIRACY AT WASHINGTON,</b></a><br />
+<a href="#REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"><b>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</b></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_GUARDIAN_ANGEL" id="THE_GUARDIAN_ANGEL"></a>THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.</h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXI.</h3>
+
+<h4>MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY CONSULTS WITH JACOB PENHALLOW, ESQUIRE.</h4>
+
+<p>Lawyer Penhallow was seated in his study, his day's work over, his feet
+in slippers, after the comfortable but inelegant fashion which Sir
+Walter Scott reprobates, amusing himself with a volume of old Reports.
+He was a knowing man enough, a keen country lawyer, but honest, and
+therefore less ready to suspect the honesty of others. He had a great
+belief in his young partner's ability, and, though he knew him to be
+astute, did not think him capable of roguery.</p>
+
+<p>It was at his request that Mr. Bradshaw had undertaken his journey,
+which, as he believed,&mdash;and as Mr. Bradshaw had still stronger evidence
+of a strictly confidential nature which led him to feel sure,&mdash;would end
+in the final settlement of the great land claim in favor of their
+client. The case had been dragging along from year to year, like an
+English chancery suit; and while courts and lawyers and witnesses had
+been sleeping, the property had been steadily growing. A railroad had
+passed close to one margin of the township, some mines had been opened
+in the county, in which a village calling itself a city had grown big
+enough to have a newspaper and Fourth of July orations. It was plain
+that the successful issue of the long process would make the heirs of
+the late Malachi Withers possessors of an ample fortune, and it was also
+plain that the firm of Penhallow and Bradshaw were like to receive, in
+such case, the largest fee that had gladdened the professional existence
+of its members.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Penhallow had his book open before him, but his thoughts were
+wandering from the page. He was thinking of his absent partner, and the
+probable results of his expedition. What would be the consequence if all
+this property came into the possession of Silence Withers? Could she
+have any liberal intentions with reference to Myrtle Hazard, the young
+girl who had grown up with her, or was the common impression true, that
+she was bent on endowing an institution, and thus securing for herself a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span>favorable consideration in the higher courts, where her beneficiaries
+would be, it might be supposed, influential advocates? He could not help
+thinking that Mr. Bradshaw believed that Myrtle Hazard would eventually
+come to a part at least of this inheritance. For the story was, that he
+was paying his court to the young lady whenever he got an opportunity,
+and that he was cultivating an intimacy with Miss Cynthia Badlam.
+"Bradshaw wouldn't make a move in that direction," Mr. Penhallow said to
+himself, "until he felt pretty sure that it was going to be a paying
+business. If he was only a young minister now, there'd be no difficulty
+about it. Let any man, young or old, in a clerical white cravat, step up
+to Myrtle Hazard, and ask her to be miserable in his company through
+this wretched life, and Aunt Silence would very likely give them her
+blessing, and add something to it that the man in the white cravat would
+think worth even more than that was. But I don't know what she'll say to
+Bradshaw. Perhaps he'd better have a hint to go to meeting a little more
+regularly. However, I suppose he knows what he's about."</p>
+
+<p>He was thinking all this over when a visitor was announced, and Mr.
+Byles Gridley entered the study.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley said, wiping his forehead.
+"Quite warm, isn't it, this evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"Warm!" said Mr. Penhallow, "I should think it would freeze pretty thick
+to-night. I should have asked you to come up to the fire and warm
+yourself. But take off your coat, Mr. Gridley,&mdash;very glad to see you.
+You don't come to the house half as often as you come to the office. Sit
+down, sit down."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gridley took off his outside coat and sat down. "He does look warm,
+doesn't he?" Mr. Penhallow thought. "Wonder what has heated up the old
+gentleman so. Find out quick enough, for he always goes straight to
+business."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley began at once, "I have come on a very grave
+matter, in which you are interested as well as myself, and I wish to
+lay the whole of it before you as explicitly as I can, so that we may
+settle this night before I go what is to be done. I am afraid the good
+standing of your partner, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, is concerned in
+the matter. Would it be a surprise to you, if he had carried his
+acuteness in some particular case like the one I am to mention beyond
+the prescribed limits?"</p>
+
+<p>The question was put so diplomatically that there was no chance for an
+indignant denial of the possibility of Mr. Bradshaw's being involved in
+any discreditable transaction.</p>
+
+<p>"It is possible," he answered, "that Bradshaw's keen wits may have
+betrayed him into sharper practice than I should altogether approve in
+any business we carried on together. He is a very knowing young man, but
+I can't think he is foolish enough, to say nothing of his honesty, to
+make any false step of the kind you seem to hint. I think he might on
+occasion go pretty near the line, but I don't believe he would cross
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Permit me a few questions, Mr. Penhallow. You settled the estate of the
+late Malachi Withers, did you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Wibird and myself settled it together."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you received any papers from any of the family since the
+settlement of the estate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see. Yes; a roll of old plans of the Withers Place, and so
+forth,&mdash;not of much use, but labelled and kept. An old trunk with
+letters and account-books, some of them in Dutch,&mdash;mere curiosities. A
+year ago or more, I remember that Silence sent me over some papers she
+had found in an odd corner,&mdash;the old man hid things like a magpie. I
+looked over most of them,&mdash;trumpery not worth keeping,&mdash;old leases and
+so forth."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you recollect giving some of them to Mr. Bradshaw to look over?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now I come to think of it, I believe I did; but he reported to me, if I
+remember right, that they amounted to nothing."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If any of those papers were of importance, should you think your junior
+partner ought to keep them from your knowledge?"</p>
+
+<p>"I need not answer that question, Mr. Gridley. Will you be so good as to
+come at once to the facts on which you found your suspicions, and which
+lead you to put these questions to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon Mr. Gridley proceeded to state succinctly the singular
+behavior of Murray Bradshaw in taking one paper from a number handed to
+him by Mr. Penhallow, and concealing it in a volume. He related how he
+was just on the point of taking out the volume which contained the
+paper, when Mr. Bradshaw entered and disconcerted him. He had, however,
+noticed three spots on the paper by which he should know it anywhere. He
+then repeated the substance of Kitty Fagan's story, accenting the fact
+that she too noticed three remarkable spots on the paper which Mr.
+Bradshaw had pointed out to Miss Badlam as the one so important to both
+of them. Here he rested the case for the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Penhallow looked thoughtful. There was something questionable in the
+aspect of this business. It did obviously suggest the idea of an
+underhand arrangement with Miss Cynthia, possibly involving some very
+grave consequences. It would have been most desirable, he said, to have
+ascertained what these papers, or rather this particular paper, to which
+so much importance was attached, amounted to. Without that knowledge
+there was nothing, after all, which it might not be possible to explain.
+He might have laid aside the spotted paper to examine for some object of
+mere curiosity. It was certainly odd that the one the Fagan woman had
+seen should present three spots so like those on the other paper, but
+people did sometimes throw <i>treys</i> at backgammon, and that which not
+rarely happened with two dice of six faces <i>might</i> happen if they had
+sixty or six hundred faces. On the whole, he did not see that there was
+any ground, so far, for anything more than a vague suspicion. He
+thought it not unlikely that Mr. Bradshaw was a little smitten with the
+young lady up at The Poplars, and that he had made some diplomatic
+overtures to the duenna, after the approved method of suitors. She was
+young for Bradshaw,&mdash;very young,&mdash;but he knew his own affairs. If he
+chose to make love to a child, it was natural enough that he should
+begin by courting her nurse.</p>
+
+<p>Master Byles Gridley lost himself for half a minute in a most
+discreditable inward discussion as to whether Laura Penhallow was
+probably one or two years older than Mr. Bradshaw. That was his way,&mdash;he
+could not help it. He could not think of anything without these mental
+parentheses. But he came back to business at the end of his half-minute.</p>
+
+<p>"I can lay the package before you at this moment, Mr. Penhallow. I have
+induced that woman in whose charge it was left to intrust it to my
+keeping, with the express intention of showing it to you. But it is
+protected by a seal, as I have told you, which I should on no account
+presume to meddle with."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gridley took out the package of papers.</p>
+
+<p>"How damp it is!" Mr. Penhallow said; "must have been lying in some very
+moist neighborhood."</p>
+
+<p>"Very," Mr. Gridley answered, with a peculiar expression which said,
+"Never mind about that."</p>
+
+<p>"Did the party give you possession of these documents without making any
+effort to retain them?" the lawyer asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not precisely. It cost some effort to induce Miss Badlam to let them go
+out of her hands. I hope you think I was justified in making the effort
+I did, not without a considerable strain upon my feelings, as well as
+her own, to get hold of the papers?"</p>
+
+<p>"That will depend something on what the papers prove to be, Mr. Gridley.
+A man takes a certain responsibility in doing just what you have done.
+If, for instance, it should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span> prove that this envelope contained matters
+relating solely to private transactions between Mr. Bradshaw and Miss
+Badlam, concerning no one but themselves,&mdash;and if the words on the back
+of the envelope and the seal had been put there merely as a protection
+for a package containing private papers of a delicate but perfectly
+legitimate character&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer paused, as careful experts do, after bending the bow of an
+hypothesis, before letting the arrow go. Mr. Gridley felt very warm
+indeed, uncomfortably so, and applied his handkerchief to his face.
+Couldn't be anything in such a violent supposition as that,&mdash;and yet
+such a crafty fellow as that Bradshaw,&mdash;what trick was he not up to?
+Absurd! Cynthia was not acting,&mdash;Rachel wouldn't be equal to such a
+performance!&mdash;"why then, Mr. Gridley," the lawyer continued, "I don't
+see but what my partner would have you at an advantage, and, if disposed
+to make you uncomfortable, could do so pretty effectively. But this, you
+understand, is only a supposed case, and not a very likely one. I don't
+think it would have been prudent in you to meddle with that seal. But it
+is a very different matter with regard to myself. It makes no
+difference, so far as I am concerned, where this package came from, or
+how it was obtained. It is just as absolutely within my control as any
+piece of property I call my own. I should not hesitate, if I saw fit, to
+break this seal at once, and proceed to the examination of any papers
+contained within the envelope. If I found any paper of the slightest
+importance relating to the estate, I should act as if it had never been
+out of my possession.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose, however, I chose to know what was in the package, and, having
+ascertained, act my judgment about returning it to the party from whom
+you obtained it. In such case I might see fit to restore, or cause it to
+be restored, to the party, without any marks of violence having been
+used being apparent. If everything is not right, probably no questions
+would be asked by the party having charge of the package. If there is no
+underhand work going on, and the papers are what they profess to be,
+nobody is compromised but yourself, so far as I can see, and you are
+compromised at any rate, Mr. Gridley, at least in the good graces of the
+party from whom you obtained the documents. Tell that party that I took
+the package without opening it, and shall return it, very likely,
+without breaking the seal. Will consider of the matter, say a couple of
+days. Then you shall hear from me, and she shall hear from you. So. So.
+Yes, that's it. A nice business. A thing to sleep on. You had better
+leave the whole matter of dealing with the package to me. If I see fit
+to send it back with the seal unbroken, that is my affair. But keep
+perfectly quiet, if you please, Mr. Gridley, about the whole matter. Mr.
+Bradshaw is off, as you know, and the business on which he is gone is
+important,&mdash;very important. He can be depended on for that; he has acted
+all along as if he had a personal interest in the success of our firm
+beyond his legal relation to it."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mr. Penhallow's light burned very late in the office that night, and the
+following one. He looked troubled and absent-minded, and, when Miss
+Laura ventured to ask him how long Mr. Bradshaw was like to be gone,
+answered her in such a way that the girl who waited at table concluded
+that he didn't mean to have Miss Laury keep company with Mr. Bradshaw,
+or he'd never have spoke so dreadful hash to her when she ahst about
+him.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXII.</h3>
+
+<h4>SUSAN POSEY'S TRIAL.</h4>
+
+<p>A day or two after Myrtle Hazard returned to the village, Master Byles
+Gridley, accompanied by Gifted Hopkins, followed her, as has been
+already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span> mentioned, to the same scene of the principal events of this
+narrative. The young man had been persuaded that it would be doing
+injustice to his talents to crowd their fruit prematurely upon the
+market. He carried his manuscript back with him, having relinquished the
+idea of publishing for the present. Master Byles Gridley, on the other
+hand, had in his pocket a very flattering proposal from the same
+publisher to whom he had introduced the young poet, for a new and
+revised edition of his work, "Thoughts on the Universe," which was to be
+remodelled in some respects, and to have a new title not quite so
+formidable to the average reader.</p>
+
+<p>It would be hardly fair to Susan Posey to describe with what delight and
+innocent enthusiasm she welcomed back Gifted Hopkins. She had been so
+lonely since he was away! She had read such of his poems as she
+possessed&mdash;duplicates of his printed ones, or autographs which he had
+kindly written out for her&mdash;over and over again, not without the sweet
+tribute of feminine sensibility, which is the most precious of all
+testimonials to a poet's power over the heart. True, her love belonged
+to another,&mdash;but then she was so used to Gifted! She did so love to hear
+him read his poems,&mdash;and Clement had never written that "little bit of a
+poem to Susie," which she had asked him for so long ago! She received
+him therefore with open arms,&mdash;not literally, of course, which would
+have been a breach of duty and propriety, but in a figurative sense,
+which it is hoped no reader will interpret to her discredit.</p>
+
+<p>The young poet was in need of consolation. It is true that he had seen
+many remarkable sights during his visit to the city; that he had got
+"smarted up," as his mother called it, a good deal; that he had been to
+Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's party, where he had looked upon life in all its
+splendors; and that he brought back many interesting experiences, which
+would serve to enliven his conversation for a long time. But he had
+failed in the great enterprise he had undertaken. He was forced to
+confess to his revered parent, and his esteemed friend Susan Posey, that
+his genius, which was freely acknowledged, was not thought to be quite
+ripe as yet. He told the young lady some particulars of his visit to the
+publisher, how he had listened with great interest to one of his
+poems,&mdash;"The Triumph of Song,"&mdash;how he had treated him with marked and
+flattering attention; but that he advised him not to risk anything
+prematurely, giving him the hope that <i>by and by</i> he would be admitted
+into that series of illustrious authors which it was the publisher's
+privilege to present to the reading public. In short, he was advised not
+to print. That was the net total of the matter, and it was a pang to the
+susceptible heart of the poet. He had hoped to have come home enriched
+by the sale of his copyright, and with the prospect of seeing his name
+before long on the back of a handsome volume.</p>
+
+<p>Gifted's mother did all in her power to console him in his
+disappointment.&mdash;There was plenty of jealous people always that wanted
+to keep young folks from rising in the world. Never mind, she didn't
+believe but what Gifted could make jest as good verses as any of them
+that they kept such a talk about.&mdash;She had a fear that he might pine
+away in consequence of the mental excitement he had gone through, and
+solicited his appetite with her choicest appliances,&mdash;of which he
+partook in a measure which showed that there was no immediate cause of
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>But Susan Posey was more than a consoler,&mdash;she was an angel to him in
+this time of his disappointment. "Read me all the poems over again," she
+said,&mdash;"it is almost the only pleasure I have left, to hear you read
+your beautiful verses." Clement Lindsay had not written to Susan quite
+as often of late as at some former periods of the history of their love.
+Perhaps it was that which had made her look paler<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span> than usual for some
+little time. Something was evidently preying on her. Her only delight
+seemed to be in listening to Gifted as he read, sometimes with fine
+declamatory emphasis, sometimes in low, tremulous tones, the various
+poems enshrined in his manuscript. At other times she was sad, and more
+than once Mrs. Hopkins had seen a tear steal down her innocent cheek,
+when there seemed to be no special cause for grief. She ventured to
+speak of it to Master Byles Gridley.</p>
+
+<p>"Our Susan's in trouble, Mr. Gridley, for some reason or other that's
+unbeknown to me, and I can't help wishing you could jest have a few
+words with her. You're a kind of a grandfather, you know, to all the
+young folks, and they'd tell you pretty much everything about
+themselves. I calc'late she isn't at ease in her mind about somethin' or
+other, and I kind o' think, Mr. Gridley, you could coax it out of her."</p>
+
+<p>"Was there ever anything like it?" said Master Byles Gridley to himself.
+"I shall have all the young folks in Oxbow Village to take care of at
+this rate! Susan Posey in trouble, too! Well, well, well, it's easier to
+get a birch-bark canoe off the shallows than a big ship off the rocks.
+Susan Posey's trouble will be come at easily enough; but Myrtle Hazard
+floats in deeper water. We must make Susan Posey tell her own story, or
+let her tell it, for it will all come out of itself."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"I am going to dust the books in the open shelves this morning. I wonder
+if Miss Susan Posey wouldn't like to help for half an hour or so,"
+Master Gridley remarked at the breakfast-table.</p>
+
+<p>The amiable girl's very pleasant countenance lighted up at the thought
+of obliging the old man who had been so kind to her and so liberal to
+her friend, the poet. She would be delighted to help him; she would dust
+them all for him, if he wanted her to. No, Master Gridley said, he
+always wanted to have a hand in it; and, besides, such a little body as
+she was could not lift those great folios out of the lower shelves
+without overstraining herself; she might handle the musketry and the
+light artillery, but he must deal with the heavy guns himself. "As low
+down as the octavos, Susan Posey, you shall govern; below that, the
+Salic law."</p>
+
+<p>Susan did not know much about the Salic law; but she knew he meant that
+he would dust the big books and she would attend to the little ones.</p>
+
+<p>A very young and a very pretty girl is sometimes quite charming in a
+costume which thinks of nothing less than of being attractive. Susan
+appeared after breakfast in the study, her head bound with a kerchief of
+bright pattern, a little jacket she had outgrown buttoned, in spite of
+opposition, close about her up to the throat, round which a white
+handkerchief was loosely tied, and a pair of old gauntlets protecting
+her hands, so that she suggested something between a gypsy, a jaunty
+<i>soubrette</i>, and the <i>fille du regiment</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Master Gridley took out a great volume from the lower shelf,&mdash;a folio in
+massive oaken covers with clasps like prison hinges, bearing the stately
+colophon, white on a ground of vermilion, of Nicholas Jenson and his
+associates. He opened the volume,&mdash;paused over its blue and scarlet
+initial letter,&mdash;he turned page after page, admiring its brilliant
+characters, its broad, white marginal rivers, and the narrower white
+creek that separated the black-typed twin-columns,&mdash;he turned back to
+the beginning and read the commendatory paragraph, "<i>Nam ipsorum omnia
+fulgent tum correctione dignissima, tum cura imprimendo splendida ac
+miranda</i>," and began reading, "<i>Incipit proemium super apparatum
+decretalium</i> ..." when it suddenly occurred to him that this was not
+exactly doing what he had undertaken to do, and he began whisking an
+ancient bandanna about the ears of the venerable volume. All this time
+Miss Susan Posey was catching the little books by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span> small of their
+backs, pulling them out, opening them, and clapping them together,
+'p-'p-'p! 'p-'p-'p! and carefully caressing all their edges with a
+regular professional dusting-cloth, so persuasively that they yielded up
+every particle that a year had drifted upon them, and came forth
+refreshed and rejuvenated. This process went on for a while, until Susan
+had worked down among the octavos, and Master Gridley had worked up
+among the quartos. He had got hold of Calmet's Dictionary, and was
+caught by the article Solomon, so that he forgot his occupation again.
+All at once it struck him that everything was very silent,&mdash;the
+'p-'p-'p! of clapping the books had ceased, and the light rustle of
+Susan's dress was no longer heard. He looked up and saw her standing
+perfectly still, with a book in one hand and her duster in the other.
+She was lost in thought, and by the shadow on her face and the
+glistening of her blue eyes he knew it was her hidden sorrow that had
+just come back to her. Master Gridley shut up his book, leaving Solomon
+to his fate, like the worthy Benedictine he was reading, without
+discussing the question whether he was saved or not.</p>
+
+<p>"Susan Posey, child, what is your trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>Poor Susan was in the state of unstable equilibrium which the least
+touch upsets, and fell to crying. It took her some time to get down the
+waves of emotion so that speech would live upon them. At last it
+ventured out,&mdash;showing at intervals, like the boat rising on the billow,
+sinking into the hollow, and climbing again into notice.</p>
+
+<p>"O Mr. Grid&mdash;ley&mdash;I can't&mdash;I can't&mdash;tell you or&mdash;any&mdash;body&mdash;what's the
+mat&mdash;mat&mdash;matter.&mdash;My heart will br&mdash;br&mdash;break."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no, child," said Mr. Gridley, sympathetically stirred a little
+himself by the sight of Susan in tears and sobbing and catching her
+breath, "that mustn't be, Susan Posey. Come off the steps, Susan Posey,
+and stop dusting the books,&mdash;I can finish them,&mdash;and tell me all about
+your troubles. I will try to help you out of them, and I have begun to
+think I know how to help young people pretty well. I have had some
+experience at it."</p>
+
+<p>But Susan cried and sobbed all the more uncontrollably and convulsively.
+Master Gridley thought he had better lead her at once to what he felt
+pretty sure was the source of her troubles, and that, when she had had
+her cry out, she would probably make the hole in the ice he had broken
+big enough in a very few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"I think something has gone wrong between you and your friend, the young
+gentleman with whom you are in intimate relations, my child, and I think
+you had better talk freely with me, for I can perhaps give you a little
+counsel that will be of service."</p>
+
+<p>Susan cried herself quiet at last. "There's nobody in the world like
+you, Mr. Gridley," she said, "and I've been wanting to tell you
+something ever so long. My friend&mdash;Mr. Clem&mdash;Clement Lindsay doesn't
+care for me as he used to,&mdash;I know he doesn't. He hasn't written to me
+for&mdash;I don't know but it's a month. And O Mr. Gridley! he's such a great
+man, and I am such a simple person,&mdash;I can't help thinking&mdash;he would be
+happier with somebody else than poor little Susan Posey!"</p>
+
+<p>This last touch of self-pity overcame her, as it is so apt to do those
+who indulge in that delightful misery, and she broke up badly, as a
+horse-fancier would say, so that it was some little time before she
+recovered her conversational road-gait.</p>
+
+<p>"O Mr. Gridley," she began again, at length, "if I only dared to tell
+him what I think,&mdash;that perhaps it would be happier for us both&mdash;if we
+could forget each other! Ought I not to tell him so? <i>Don't</i> you think
+he would find another to make him happy? <i>Wouldn't</i> he forgive me for
+telling him he was free? <i>Were</i> we not too young to know each other's
+hearts when we promised each other that we would love as long as we
+lived? <i>Sha'n't</i> I write him a letter this very day and tell him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span> all?
+<i>Do</i> you think it would be wrong in me to do it? O Mr. Gridley, it makes
+me almost crazy to think about it. Clement must be free! I cannot,
+cannot hold him to a promise he doesn't want to keep."</p>
+
+<p>There were so many questions in this eloquent rhapsody of Susan's that
+they neutralized each other, as one might say, and Master Gridley had
+time for reflection. His thoughts went on something in this way:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty clear case! Guess Mr. Clement can make up his mind to it. Put it
+well, didn't she? Not a word about our little Gifted! That's the
+trouble. Poets! how they do bewitch these school-girls! And having a
+chance every day, too, how could you expect her to stand it?" Then
+aloud: "Susan Posey, you are a good, honest little girl as ever was. I
+think you and Clement <i>were</i> too hasty in coming together for life
+before you knew what life meant. I think if you write Clement a letter,
+telling him that you cannot help fearing that you two are not perfectly
+adapted to each other, on account of certain differences for which
+neither of you is responsible, and that you propose that each should
+release the other from the pledge given so long ago,&mdash;in that case, I
+say, I believe he will think no worse of you for so doing, and may
+perhaps agree that it is best for both of you to seek your happiness
+elsewhere than in each other."</p>
+
+<p>The book-dusting came to as abrupt a close as the reading of Lancelot.
+Susan went straight to her room, dried her tears so as to write in a
+fair hand, but had to stop every few lines and take a turn at the
+"dust-layers," as Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's friend used to call the
+fountains of sensibility. It would seem like betraying Susan's
+confidence to reveal the contents of this letter, but the reader may be
+assured that it was simple and sincere and very sweetly written, without
+the slightest allusion to any other young man, whether of the poetical
+or cheaper human varieties.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before Susan received a reply from Clement Lindsay. It
+was as kind and generous and noble as she could have asked. It was
+affectionate, as a very amiable brother's letter might be, and candidly
+appreciative of the reasons Susan had assigned for her proposal. He gave
+her back her freedom,&mdash;not that he should cease to feel an interest in
+her, always. He accepted his own release, not that he would ever think
+she could be indifferent to his future fortunes. And within a very brief
+period of time after sending his answer to Susan Posey, whether he
+wished to see her in person, or whether he had some other motive, he had
+packed his trunk, and made his excuses for an absence of uncertain
+length at the studio, and was on his way to Oxbow Village.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h3>
+
+<h4>JUST AS YOU EXPECTED.</h4>
+
+<p>The spring of 1861 had now arrived,&mdash;that eventful spring which was to
+lift the curtain and show the first scene of the first act in the mighty
+drama which fixed the eyes of mankind during four bloody years. The
+little schemes of little people were going on in all our cities and
+villages without thought of the fearful convulsion which was soon coming
+to shatter the hopes and prospects of millions. Our little Oxbow
+Village, which held itself by no means the least of human centres, was
+the scene of its own commotions, as intense and exciting to those
+concerned as if the destiny of the nation had been involved in them.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Clement Lindsay appeared suddenly in that important locality, and
+repaired to his accustomed quarters at the house of Deacon Rumrill. That
+worthy person received him with a certain gravity of manner, caused by
+his recollection of the involuntary transgression into which Mr. Lindsay
+had led him by his present of Ivanhoe. He was, on the whole, glad to see
+him, for his finances were not yet wholly recovered from the injury
+inflicted on them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span> by the devouring element. But he could not forget
+that his boarder had betrayed him into a breach of the fourth
+commandment, and that the strict eyes of his clergyman had detected him
+in the very commission of the offence. He had no sooner seen Mr. Clement
+comfortably installed, therefore, than he presented himself at the door
+of his chamber with the book, enveloped in strong paper and very
+securely tied round with a stout string.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is your vollum, Mr. Lindsay," the Deacon said. "I understand it is
+not the work of that great and good mahn who I thought wrote it. I did
+not see anything immoral in it as fur as I read, but it belongs to what
+I consider a very dangerous class of publications. These novels and
+romances are awfully destructive to our youth. I should recommend you,
+as a young mahn of principle, to burn the vollum. At least I hope you
+will not leave it about anywhere unless it is carefully tied up. I have
+written upon the paper round it to warn off all the young persons of my
+household from meddling with it."</p>
+
+<p>True enough, Mr. Clement saw in strong black letters on the back of the
+paper wrapping his unfortunate Ivanhoe,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">Dangerous reading for Christian youth.</span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">Touch not the unclean thing.</span>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"I thought you said you had Scott's picture hung up in your parlor,
+Deacon Rumrill," he said, a little amused with the worthy man's fear and
+precautions.</p>
+
+<p>"It is <i>the great</i> Scott's likeness that I have in my parlor," he said;
+"I will show it to you if you will come with me."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Clement followed the Deacon into that sacred apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the portrait of the great Scott," he said, pointing to an
+engraving of a heavy-looking person whose phrenological developments
+were a somewhat striking contrast to those of the distinguished Sir
+Walter.</p>
+
+<p>"I will take good care that none of your young people see this volume,"
+Mr. Clement said; "I trust you read it yourself, however, and found
+something to please you in it. I am sure you are safe from being harmed
+by any such book. Didn't you have to finish it, Deacon, after you had
+once begun?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well,&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;perused a consid'able portion of the work," the Deacon
+answered, in a way that led Mr. Clement to think he had not stopped much
+short of <i>Finis</i>. "Anything new in the city?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing except what you've all had,&mdash;Confederate States establishing an
+army and all that,&mdash;not very new either. What has been going on here
+lately, Deacon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Lindsay, not a great deal. My new barn is pretty nigh done.
+I've got as fine a litter of pigs as ever you see. I don't know whether
+you're a judge of pigs or no. The Hazard gal's come back, spilt, pooty
+much, I guess. Been to one o' them fashionable schools,&mdash;I've heerd that
+she's learnt to dance. I've heerd say that that Hopkins boy's round the
+Posey gal,&mdash;come to think, she's the one you went with some when you was
+here,&mdash;I'm gettin' kind o' forgetful. Old Doctor Hurlbut's pretty
+low,&mdash;ninety-four year old,&mdash;born in '67,&mdash;folks ain't ginerally very
+spry after they're ninety, but he held out wonderful."</p>
+
+<p>"How's Mr. Bradshaw?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the young squire, he's off travellin' somewhere in the West, or
+to Washin'ton, or somewhere else,&mdash;I don't jestly know where. They say
+that he's follerin' up the courts in the business about old Malachi's
+estate. I don' know much about it."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The news got round Oxbow Village very speedily that Mr. Clement Lindsay,
+generally considered the accepted lover of Miss Susan Posey, had arrived
+in that place. Now it had come to be the common talk of the village that
+young Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey were getting to be mighty thick
+with each other, and the prevailing idea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span> was that Clement's visit had
+reference to that state of affairs. Some said that Susan had given her
+young man the mitten, meaning thereby that she had signified that his
+services as a suitor were dispensed with. Others thought there was only
+a wavering in her affection for her lover, and that he feared for her
+constancy, and had come to vindicate his rights.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the young fellows, who were doubtless envious of Gifted's
+popularity with the fair sex, attempted in the most unjustifiable manner
+to play upon his susceptible nature. One of them informed him that he
+had seen that Lindsay fellah raound taown with the darndest big stick y'
+ever did see. Looked kind o' savage and wild like. Another one told him
+that perhaps he'd better keep a little shady; that are chap that had got
+the mittin was praowlin' abaout with a pistil,&mdash;one o' them Darringers
+abaout as long as your thumb, an' 'll fire a bullet as big as a
+potato-ball,&mdash;a fellah carries one in his breeches-pocket, an' shoots y'
+right threugh his own pahnts, withaout ever takin' on it aout of his
+pocket. The stable-keeper, who it may be remembered once exchanged a few
+playful words with Mr. Gridley, got a hint from some of these unfeeling
+young men, and offered the resources of his stable to the youth supposed
+to be in peril.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a fa&auml;st colt, Mr. Hopkins, that'll put twenty mild between you
+an' this here village, as quick as any four huffs'll dew it in this here
+caounty, if you <i>should</i> want to git away suddin. I've heern tell there
+was some lookin' raound here that wouldn't be wholesome to meet,&mdash;jest
+say the word, Mr. Hopkins, an' I'll have ye on that are colt's back in
+less than no time, an' start ye off full jump. There's a good many
+that's kind o' worried for fear something might happen to ye, Mr.
+Hopkins,&mdash;y' see fellahs don't like to have other chaps cuttin' on 'em
+aout with their gals."</p>
+
+<p>Gifted Hopkins had become excessively nervous by this time. It is true
+that everything in his intimacy with Susan Posey so far might come under
+the general head of friendship; but he was conscious that something more
+was in both their thoughts. Susan had given him mysterious hints that
+her relations with Clement had undergone a change, but had never had
+quite courage enough, perhaps had too much delicacy, to reveal the whole
+truth.</p>
+
+<p>Gifted was walking home, deeply immersed in thoughts excited by the
+hints which had been thus wantonly thrown out to inflame his
+imagination, when all at once, on lifting his eyes, he saw Clement
+Lindsay coming straight towards him. Gifted was unarmed, except with a
+pair of blunt scissors, which he carried habitually in his pocket. What
+should he do? Should he fly? But he was never a good runner, being apt
+to find himself scant o' breath, like Hamlet, after violent exercise.
+His demeanor on the occasion, did credit to his sense of his own
+virtuous conduct and his self-possession. He put his hand out, while yet
+at a considerable distance, and marched up towards Clement, smiling with
+all the native amiability which belonged to him.</p>
+
+<p>To his infinite relief, Clement put out <i>his</i> hand to grasp the one
+offered him, and greeted the young poet in the most frank and cordial
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>"And how is Miss Susan Posey, Mr. Hopkins?" asked Clement, in the most
+cheerful tone. "It is a long while since I have seen her, and you must
+tell her that I hope I shall not leave the village without finding time
+to call upon her. She and I are good friends always, Mr. Hopkins, though
+perhaps I shall not be quite so often at your mother's as I was during
+my last visit to Oxbow Village."</p>
+
+<p>Gifted felt somewhat as the subject of one of those old-fashioned forms
+of argument, formerly much employed to convince men of error in matters
+of religion, must have felt when the official who superintended the
+stretching-machine said, "Slack up!"</p>
+
+<p>He told Mr. Clement all about Susan, and was on the point of saying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span>
+that if he, Mr. Clement, did not claim any engrossing interest in her,
+he, Gifted, was ready to offer her the devotion of a poet's heart. Mr.
+Clement, however, had so many other questions to ask him about everybody
+in the village, more particularly concerning certain young persons in
+whom he seemed to be specially interested, that there was no chance to
+work in his own revelations of sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>Clement Lindsay had come to Oxbow Village with a single purpose. He
+could now venture to trust himself in the presence of Myrtle Hazard. He
+was free, and he knew nothing to show that she had lost the liberty of
+disposing of her heart. But after an experience such as he had gone
+through, he was naturally distrustful of himself, and inclined to be
+cautious and reserved in yielding to a new passion. Should he tell her
+the true relations in which they stood to each other,&mdash;that she owed her
+life to him, and that he had very nearly sacrificed his own in saving
+hers? Why not? He had a claim on her gratitude for what he had done in
+her behalf, and out of this gratitude there might naturally spring a
+warmer feeling.</p>
+
+<p>No, he could not try to win her affections by showing that he had paid
+for them beforehand. She seemed to be utterly unconscious of the fact
+that it was he who had been with her in the abyss of waters. If the
+thought came to her of itself, and she ever asked him, it would be time
+enough to tell her the story. If not, the moment might arrive when he
+could reveal to her the truth that he was her deliverer, without
+accusing himself of bribing her woman's heart to reward him for his
+services. He would wait for that moment.</p>
+
+<p>It was the most natural thing in the world that Mr. Lindsay, a young
+gentleman from the city, should call to see Miss Hazard, a young lady
+whom he had met recently at a party. To that pleasing duty he addressed
+himself the evening after his arrival.</p>
+
+<p>"The young gentleman's goin' a courtin', I calc'late," was the remark
+of the Deacon's wife when she saw what a handsome figure Mr. Clement
+was making at the tea-table.</p>
+
+<p>"A very hahnsome young mahn," the Deacon replied, "and looks as if he
+might know consid'able. An architect, you know,&mdash;a sort of a builder.
+Wonder if he hasn't got any good plans for a hahnsome pigsty. I suppose
+he'd charge somethin' for one, but it couldn't be much, an' he could
+take it out in board."</p>
+
+<p>"Better ask him," his wife said; "he looks mighty pleasant; there's
+nothin' lost by askin', an' a good deal got sometimes, grandma used to
+say."</p>
+
+<p>The Deacon followed her advice. Mr. Clement was perfectly good-natured
+about it, asked the Deacon the number of snouts in his menagerie, got an
+idea of the accommodations required, and sketched the plan of a neat and
+appropriate edifice for the <i>Porcellarium</i>, as Master Gridley afterwards
+pleasantly christened it, which was carried out by the carpenter, and
+stands to this day a monument of his obliging disposition, and a proof
+that there is nothing so humble that taste cannot be shown in it.</p>
+
+<p>"What'll be your charge for the plan of the pigsty, Mr. Lindsay?" the
+Deacon inquired with an air of interest,&mdash;he might have been involved
+more deeply than he had intended. "How much should you call about right
+for the picter an' figgerin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"O, you're quite welcome to my sketch of a plan, Deacon. I've seen much
+showier buildings tenanted by animals not very different from those your
+edifice is meant for."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mr. Clement found the three ladies sitting together in the chill, dim
+parlor at The Poplars. They had one of the city papers spread out on the
+table, and Myrtle was reading aloud the last news from Charleston
+Harbor. She rose as Mr. Clement entered, and stepped forward to meet
+him. It was a strange impression this young man produced upon her,&mdash;not
+through the common channels of the intelligence,&mdash;not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span> exactly that
+"magnetic" influence of which she had had experience at a former time.
+It did not overcome her as at the moment of their second meeting. But it
+was something she must struggle against, and she had force and pride and
+training enough now to maintain her usual tranquillity, in spite of a
+certain inward commotion which seemed to reach her breathing and her
+pulse by some strange, inexplicable mechanism.</p>
+
+<p>Myrtle, it must be remembered, was no longer the simple country girl who
+had run away at fifteen, but a young lady of seventeen, who had learned
+all that more than a year's diligence at a great school could teach her,
+who had been much with girls of taste and of culture, and was familiar
+with the style and manners of those who came from what considered itself
+the supreme order in the social hierarchy. Her natural love for
+picturesque adornment was qualified by a knowledge of the prevailing
+modes not usual in so small a place as Oxbow Village. All this had not
+failed to produce its impression on those about her. Persons who, like
+Miss Silence Withers, believe, not in education, inasmuch as there is no
+healthy nature to be educated, but in transformation, worry about their
+charges up to a certain period of their lives. Then, if the
+transformation does not come, they seem to think their cares and duties
+are at an end, and, considering their theories of human destiny, usually
+accept the situation with wonderful complacency. This was the stage
+which Miss Silence Withers had reached with reference to Myrtle. It made
+her infinitely more agreeable, or less disagreeable, as the reader may
+choose one or the other statement, than when she was always fretting
+about her "responsibility." She even began to take an interest in some
+of Myrtle's worldly experiences, and something like a smile would now
+and then disarrange the chief-mourner stillness of her features, as
+Myrtle would tell some lively story she had brought away from the gay
+society she had frequented.</p>
+
+<p>Cynthia Badlam kept her keen eyes on her like a hawk. Murray Bradshaw
+was away, and here was this handsome and agreeable youth coming in to
+poach on the preserve of which she considered herself the gamekeeper.
+What did it mean? She had heard the story about Susan's being off with
+her old love and on with a new one. Ah ha! this is the game, is it?</p>
+
+<p>Clement Lindsay passed not so much a pleasant evening, as one of
+strange, perplexed, and mingled delight and inward conflict. He had
+found his marble once more turned to flesh and blood, and breathing
+before him. This was the woman he was born for; her form was fit to
+model his proudest ideal from,&mdash;her eyes melted him when they rested for
+an instant on his face,&mdash;her voice reached those hidden sensibilities of
+his inmost nature, which never betray their existence until the outward
+chord to which they vibrate in response sends its message to stir them.
+But was she not already pledged to that other,&mdash;that cold-blooded,
+contriving, venal, cynical, selfish, polished, fascinating man of the
+world, whose artful strategy would pass with nine women out of ten for
+the most romantic devotion?</p>
+
+<p>If he had known the impression he made, he would have felt less anxiety
+with reference to this particular possibility. Miss Silence expressed
+herself gratified with his appearance, and thought he looked like a good
+young man,&mdash;he reminded her of a young friend of hers who&mdash;[It was the
+same who had gone to one of the cannibal islands as a missionary,&mdash;and
+stayed there.] Myrtle was very quiet. She had nothing to say about
+Clement, except that she had met him at a party in the city, and found
+him agreeable. Miss Cynthia wrote a letter to Murray Bradshaw that very
+evening, telling him that he had better come back to Oxbow Village as
+quickly as he could, unless he wished to find his place occupied by an
+intruder.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In the mean time, the country was watching the garrison in Charleston<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span>
+Harbor. All at once the first gun of the four years' cannonade hurled
+its ball against the walls of Fort Sumter. There was no hamlet in the
+land which the reverberations of that cannon-roar did not reach. There
+was no valley so darkened by overshadowing hills that it did not see the
+American flag hauled down on the 13th of April. There was no loyal heart
+in the North that did not answer to the call of the country to its
+defenders which went forth two days later. The great tide of feeling
+reached the locality where the lesser events of our narrative were
+occurring. A meeting of the citizens was instantly called. The venerable
+Father Pemberton opened it with a prayer that filled every soul with
+courage and high resolve. The young farmers and mechanics of that whole
+region joined the companies to which they belonged, or organized in
+squads and marched at once, or got ready to march, to the scene of
+conflict.</p>
+
+<p>The contagion of warlike patriotism reached the most peacefully inclined
+young persons.</p>
+
+<p>"My country calls me," Gifted Hopkins said to Susan Posey, "and I am
+preparing to obey her summons. If I can pass the medical examination,
+which it is possible I may, though I fear my constitution <i>may</i> be
+thought too weak, and if no obstacle impedes me, I think of marching in
+the ranks of the Oxbow Invincibles. If I go, Susan, and if I fall, will
+you not remember me ... as one who ... cherished the tenderest ...
+sentiments ... towards you ... and who had looked forward to the time
+when ... when...."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes told the rest. He loved!</p>
+
+<p>Susan forgot all the rules of reserve to which she had been trained.
+What were cold conventionalities at such a moment? "Never! never!" she
+said, throwing her arms about his neck and mingling her tears with his,
+which were flowing freely. "Your country does not need your sword,...
+but it does need ... your pen. Your poems will inspire ... our
+soldiers.... The Oxbow Invincibles will march to victory, singing your
+songs.... If you go ... and if you ... fall.... O Gifted!... I ... I ...
+yes I ... shall die too!"</p>
+
+<p>His love was returned. He was blest!</p>
+
+<p>"Susan," he said, "my own Susan, I yield to your wishes, at every
+sacrifice. Henceforth they will be my law. Yes, I will stay and
+encourage my brave countrymen to go forward to the bloody field. My
+voice shall urge them on to the battle-ground. I will give my dearest
+breath to stimulate their ardor.... O Susan! My own, own Susan!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>While these interesting events had been going on beneath the modest roof
+of the Widow Hopkins, affairs had been rapidly hastening to a similar
+conclusion under the statelier shadow of The Poplars. Clement Lindsay
+was so well received at his first visit that he ventured to repeat it
+several times, with so short intervals that it implied something more
+than a common interest in one of the members of the household. There was
+no room for doubt who this could be, and Myrtle Hazard could not help
+seeing that she was the object of his undisguised admiration. The belief
+was now general in the village that Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey were
+either engaged, or on the point of being so; and it was equally
+understood that, whatever might be the explanation, she and her former
+lover had parted company in an amicable manner.</p>
+
+<p>Love works very strange transformations in young women. Sometimes it
+leads them to try every mode of adding to their attractions,&mdash;their
+whole thought is how to be most lovely in the eyes they would fill so as
+to keep out all other images. Poor darlings! We smile at their little
+vanities, as if they were very trivial things compared with the last
+Congressman's speech or the great election sermon; but Nature knows well
+what she is about. The maiden's ribbon or ruffle means a great deal more
+for her than the judge's wig or the priest's surplice.</p>
+
+<p>It was not in this way that the gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span> emotion awaking in the breast of
+Myrtle Hazard betrayed itself. As the thought dawned in her
+consciousness that she was loved, a change came over her such as the
+spirit that protected her, according to the harmless fancy she had
+inherited, might have wept for joy to behold, if tears could flow from
+angelic eyes. She forgot herself and her ambitions,&mdash;the thought of
+shining in the great world died out in the presence of new visions of a
+future in which she was not to be her own,&mdash;of feelings in the depth of
+which the shallow vanities which had drawn her young eyes to them for a
+while seemed less than nothing. Myrtle had not hitherto said to herself
+that Clement was her lover, yet her whole nature was expanding and
+deepening in the light of that friendship which any other eye could have
+known at a glance for the great passion.</p>
+
+<p>Cynthia Badlam wrote a pressing letter to Murray Bradshaw. "There is no
+time to be lost; she is bewitched, and will be gone beyond hope if this
+business is not put a stop to."</p>
+
+<p>Love moves in an accelerating ratio; and there comes a time when the
+progress of the passion escapes from all human formul&aelig;, and brings two
+young hearts, which had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer
+together, into complete union, with a suddenness that puts an infinity
+between the moment when all is told and that which went just before.</p>
+
+<p>They were sitting together by themselves in the dimly lighted parlor.
+They had told each other many experiences of their past lives, very
+freely, as two intimate friends of different sex might do. Clement had
+happened to allude to Susan, speaking very kindly and tenderly of her.
+He hoped this youth to whom she was attached would make her life happy.
+"You know how simple-hearted and good she is; her image will always be a
+pleasant one in my memory,&mdash;second to but one other."</p>
+
+<p>Myrtie ought, according to the common rules of conversation, to have
+asked, <i>What other?</i> but she did not. She may have looked as if she
+wanted to ask,&mdash;she may have blushed or turned pale,&mdash;perhaps she could
+not trust her voice; but whatever the reason was, she sat still, with
+downcast eyes. Clement waited a reasonable time, but, finding it was of
+no use, began again.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Your</i> image is the one other,&mdash;the only one, let me say, for all else
+fades in its presence,&mdash;your image fills all my thought. Will you trust
+your life and happiness with one who can offer you so little beside his
+love? You know my whole heart is yours."</p>
+
+<p>Whether Myrtle said anything in reply or not,&mdash;whether she acted like
+Coleridge's Genevieve,&mdash;that is, "fled to him and wept," or suffered her
+feelings to betray themselves in some less startling confession, we will
+leave untold. Her answer, spoken or silent, could not have been a cruel
+one, for in another moment Clement was pressing his lips to hers; after
+the manner of accepted lovers.</p>
+
+<p>"Our lips have met to-day for the second time," he said, presently.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him in wonder. What did he mean? The second time! How
+assuredly he spoke! She looked him calmly in the face, and awaited his
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a singular story to tell you. On the morning of the 16th of
+June, now nearly two years ago, I was sitting in my room at Alderbank,
+some twenty miles down the river, when I heard a cry for help coming
+from the river. I ran down to the bank, and there I saw a boy in an old
+boat&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>When it came to the "boy" in the old boat, Myrtle's cheeks flamed so
+that she could not bear it, and she covered her face with both her
+hands. But Clement told his story calmly through to the end, sliding
+gently over its later incidents, for Myrtle's heart was throbbing
+violently, and her breath a little catching and sighing, as when she had
+first lived with the new life his breath had given her.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Why did you ask me for myself, when you could have claimed me?" she
+said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I wanted a free gift, Myrtle," Clement answered, "and I have it."</p>
+
+<p>They sat in silence, lost in the sense of that new life which had
+suddenly risen on their souls.</p>
+
+<p>The door-bell rang sharply. Kitty Fagan answered its summons, and
+presently entered the parlor and announced that Mr. Bradshaw was in the
+library, and wished to see the ladies.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="OPINIONS_OF_THE_LATE_DR_NOTT_RESPECTING_BOOKS_STUDIES_AND_ORATORS" id="OPINIONS_OF_THE_LATE_DR_NOTT_RESPECTING_BOOKS_STUDIES_AND_ORATORS"></a>OPINIONS OF THE LATE DR. NOTT RESPECTING BOOKS, STUDIES, AND ORATORS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>During the summer of 1833, several professional gentlemen, clergymen,
+lawyers, and educators were spending their vacation at Saratoga Springs.
+Among them was Dr. Nott. He was then regarded as a veteran teacher,
+whose long experience and acknowledged wisdom gave a peculiar value to
+his matured opinions. The younger members of this little circle of
+scholars, taking their ease at their inn, purposely sought to "draw out"
+the Doctor upon those topics in which they felt an especial interest.
+They were, therefore, in their leisure moments, constantly hearing and
+asking him questions. One of them, then a tutor in Dartmouth College,
+took notes of the conversations, and the following dialogue is copied
+from his manuscript:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "Doctor, how long have you been at the head of Union College?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "Thirty years. I am the oldest <i>president</i> in the United
+States, though not the oldest man in office. I cannot drop down anywhere
+in the Union without meeting some one of my <i>children</i>."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "And that, too, though so many of them are dead! I believe that
+nearly half of my class are dead!"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "Indeed! That is a large proportion to die so soon. I think it
+remarkable that so few deaths have occurred among the members of the
+college since I have been connected with it. I can distinctly recollect
+all the individuals who have died at college, and during thirty years
+there have been but <i>seven</i>. The proportion has been less than one third
+of one per cent. Very many have died, however, very soon after leaving
+college. Two or three in almost every class have died within a year
+after they have graduated. I have been at a loss as to the cause of this
+marked difference. I can assign no other than the sudden change which
+then takes place in the student's whole manner and habits of living,
+diet, &amp;c."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "How do the students generally answer the expectations they
+have raised during their college course?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "I have been rarely disappointed. I have found my little
+anticipatory notes generally fulfilled. I recollect, however, one class,
+which graduated four or five years ago, in regard to which I have been
+very happily disappointed. It had given us more trouble, and there were
+more sceptics in it than in any other class we ever had. But now every
+one of those infidels except <i>one</i> is studying for the ministry."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "What course do you take with a sceptical student?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "I remember a very interesting case I had several years ago.
+There was a young man in college of fine talents, an excellent and
+exemplary student, but an atheist. He roomed near me. I was interested
+in him; but I feared his influence. It was very injurious in college,
+and yet he did nothing worthy of censure. I called him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span> one day to my
+study. I questioned him familiarly and kindly in relation to his
+speculative views. He said he was not an atheist, but had very serious
+doubts and difficulties on the subject, and frankly stated them to me. I
+did not talk with him <i>religiously</i>, but as a philosopher. I did not
+think he would bear it. I told him that I felt a peculiar sympathy with
+young men in his state of mind; for once, during the French Revolution,
+I had been troubled with the same difficulties myself. I had been over
+that whole ground; and would gladly assist his inquiries, and direct him
+to such authors as I thought would aid him in his investigations after
+truth. As he left my study, I said, 'Now, I expect yet to see you a
+minister of the Gospel!' He returned to his room; he paced it with
+emotion; said he to his room-mate (these facts his room-mate
+communicated to me within a year), 'What do you think the President
+says?' 'I don't know.' 'He says he expects yet to see me a minister. I a
+minister! I a minister!'&mdash;and he continued to walk the room, and
+reiterate the words. No immediate effect on his character was produced.
+But the <i>prophetic</i> words (for so he seemed to regard them) clung to him
+as a magic talisman, and would never leave his mind; and he is now a
+pious man, and a student in divinity."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "Doctor, we have been seeking amusement and profit by some
+exercises in elocution. Mr. G&mdash;&mdash; and myself have been trying to read
+Shakespeare a little; but some gentlemen here have had some qualms of
+conscience as to the propriety of it, and have condemned the reading of
+Shakespeare as demoralizing. What is your opinion, sir?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "Why, as to that matter, sir, I always say to my young men,
+'Gentlemen, if you wish to get a knowledge of the world and of human
+nature, read the Bible. The Bible is the first and best book that can be
+studied for the exhibition of human character; and the man who goes out
+into the world expecting to find men just such as Moses and Paul have
+represented them will never be disappointed. If you are contented to
+read nothing but your Bibles, <i>well, you have it all there</i>. But if you
+will read any other books, read Homer and Shakespeare. They come nearer,
+in my estimation, to Moses and Paul, in their delineations of human
+character, than any other authors I am acquainted with. I would have
+every young man read Shakespeare. I have always taught my children to
+read it.' Ministers, as a class, know less practically of human nature
+than any other <i>class</i> of men. As I belong to the fraternity, I can say
+this without prejudice. Men are reserved in the presence of a
+respectable clergyman. I might live in Schenectady, and discharge all my
+appropriate duties from year to year, and never hear an oath, nor see a
+man drunk; and if some one should ask me, 'What sort of a population
+have you in Schenectady? Are they a moral people? Do they swear? Do they
+get drunk?' for aught that I had seen or heard, I might answer, 'This
+is, after all, a very decent world. There is very little vice in it.
+People have entirely left off the sin of profaneness; and, as to
+intemperance, there is very little of that.' But I can put on my old
+great-coat, and an old slouching hat, and in five minutes place myself
+amid the scenes of blasphemy and vice and misery, which I never could
+have believed to exist if I had not seen them. So a man may walk along
+Broadway, and think to himself, 'What a fine place this is! How civil
+the people are! What a decent and orderly and virtuous city New York
+is!'&mdash;while, at the same time, within thirty rods of him are scenes of
+pollution and crime such as none but an eyewitness can adequately
+imagine. I would have a minister <i>see</i> the world for himself. <i>It is
+rotten to the core.</i> Ministers ordinarily see only the brighter side of
+the world. Almost everybody treats them with civility; the religious,
+with peculiar kindness and attention. Hence they are apt to think too
+well of the world. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span>Lawyers, on the other hand, think too ill of it. They see only, or for
+the most part, its worst side. They are brought in contact with
+dishonesty and villany in their worst developments. I have observed, in
+doing business with lawyers, that they are exceedingly hawk-eyed, and
+jealous of everybody. The omission of a word or letter in a will, they
+will scan with the closest scrutiny; and while I could see no use for
+any but the most concise and simple terms to express the wishes of the
+testator, a lawyer would be satisfied with nothing but the most precise
+and formal instrument, stuffed full of legal <i>caveats</i> and
+technicalities."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "Which do you think excels in eloquence, the bar or the
+pulpit?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "The bar."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "To what causes do you ascribe the superiority?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "The superior influence of things of sight over those of faith.
+The nearness of objects enhances their importance. The subjects on which
+the lawyer speaks come home to men's business and bosoms. Some present,
+immediate object is to be gained. The lawyer <i>feels</i>, and he aims to
+accomplish something. But ministers have plunged into the metaphysics of
+religion, and gone about to inculcate the peculiarities of a system, and
+have neither felt themselves, nor been able to make others feel. It has
+long been a most interesting question to me, Why is the ministry so
+inefficient? It has seemed to me, that, with the thousands of pulpits in
+this country for a theatre to act on, and the eye and ear of the whole
+community thus opened to us, we might <i>overturn the world</i>. Some ascribe
+this want of efficiency to human depravity. That is not the sole cause
+of it. The clergy want knowledge of human nature. They want directness
+of appeal. They want the same go-ahead common-sense way of interesting
+men which lawyers have."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "Ought they not to cultivate elocution?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "It seems to me that at those institutions where they pay the
+most attention to elocution they speak the worst. I have no faith in
+artificial eloquence. Teach men to think and feel, and, when they have
+anything to the purpose to say, they can say it. I should about as soon
+think of teaching a man to weep, or to laugh, or to swallow, as to speak
+when he has anything to say."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "How, then, do you account for the astonishing power of some
+tragedians?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "Ah! the speaking in the theatre is all overacted. There is no
+nature in it. Those actors, placed in a public assembly, and called upon
+to address men on some real and momentous occasion, would utterly fail
+to touch men's hearts, while some plain country-man, who had never
+learned a rule of art, would find his way at once to the fountains of
+feeling and action within them. The secret of the influence which is
+felt in the acting of the teatre is <i>not</i> that it is natural. Let a
+<i>real tragedy</i> be acted, and let men <i>believe</i> that a <i>real</i> scene is
+before them, and the theatre would be deserted. No audience in this
+country could bear the presentation of a natural and real tragedy. Men
+go to the theatre to be amused. The scenery, the music, the attitudes,
+the gesticulations, all unite to fix attention and amuse; but the
+eloquence, so called, of the theatre, is all factitious, and is no more
+adapted to the real occasions of life than would be the recitative in
+singing, and it pleases on the same principle that <i>this does</i>."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "But, Doctor, why was it that, when Cooke or Kean appeared on
+the stage, he engrossed all eyes and ears, and nothing was heard or seen
+or thought of but himself? The acting of Kean was just as irresistible
+as the whirlwind. He would take up an audience of three thousand in his
+fist, as it were, and carry them just where he pleased, through every
+extreme of passion."</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "because these actors were great men. Cooke, as far as I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span>
+been able to learn, (I never saw him,&mdash;I had once an engagement to meet
+him in Philadelphia, but he was drunk at the time, and disappointed me,)
+was perfectly <i>natural</i>. So I suppose Kean to have been. So Garrick was,
+and Talma. And the secret of the influence of these men was, that they
+burst the bonds of art and histrionic trick, and stood before their
+audience in their untrammelled natural strength. Garrick, at his first
+appearance, could not command an audience. It was first necessary for
+him entirely to revolutionize the English stage.</p>
+
+<p>"Ministers have, very often, a sanctimonious tone, which by many is
+deemed a symbol of goodness. I would not say it is a symbol of
+hypocrisy, as many very pious men have it. One man acquires a tone, and
+those who study with him learn to associate it with his piety, and come
+to esteem it an essential part of ministerial qualification. But,
+instead of its being to me evidence of feeling, it evinces, in every
+degree of it, want of feeling; and whenever a man rises in his religious
+feelings sufficiently high, he will break away from the shackles of his
+perverse habit, and speak in the tone of nature.</p>
+
+<p>"The most eloquent preacher I have ever heard was Dr. L&mdash;&mdash;. General
+Hamilton at the bar was unrivalled. I heard his great effort in the case
+of People <i>versus</i> Croswell, for a libel upon Jefferson. There was a
+curious changing of sides in the position of the advocates. Spencer, the
+Attorney-General, who had long been climbing the ladder of democracy,
+managed the cause for the people; and Hamilton, esteemed an old-school
+Federalist, appeared as the champion of a free press. Of course, it
+afforded the better opportunity of witnessing the professional skill and
+rhetorical power of the respective advocates.</p>
+
+<p>"Spencer, in the course of his plea, had occasion to refer to certain
+decisions of Lord Mansfield, and embraced the opportunity of introducing
+a splendid <i>ad captandum</i> eulogium on his Lordship,&mdash;'A name born for
+immortality; whose sun of fame would never set, but still hold its
+course in the heavens, when the humble names of his antagonist and
+himself should have sunk beneath the waves of oblivion.'</p>
+
+<p>"Hamilton was evidently nettled at this invidious and unnecessary
+comparison, and cast about in his mind how he might retort upon Spencer.
+I do not know that my conjecture is right; but it has always seemed to
+me that his reason for introducing his repartee to Spencer in the odd
+place where he did, just after a most eloquent and pathetic peroration,
+was something as follows&mdash;'I have now constructed and arranged my
+argument, and the thread of it must not be broken by the intervention of
+any such extraneous matter. Neither will it do to separate my peroration
+from the main body of my argument. I must, then, give up the opportunity
+of retorting at all, or tack it on after the whole, and take the risk of
+destroying the effect of my argument.'</p>
+
+<p>"He rose, and went through his argument, which was a tissue of the
+clearest, most powerful, and triumphant reasoning. He turned every
+position of his opponent, and took and dismantled every fortification.
+But his peroration was inimitably fine. As he went on to depict the
+horrors consequent upon a muzzled press, there was not a dry eye in the
+court-house. It was the most perfect triumph of eloquence over the
+passions of men I ever witnessed.</p>
+
+<p>"When he had thus brought his speech to its proper, and what would have
+been a perfect close, he suddenly changed his tone, and, in a strain of
+consummate and powerful irony, began to rally his antagonist. He
+assented to the gentleman's eulogium upon Lord Mansfield. It was
+deserved. He acknowledged the justice of his remarks in relation to
+himself (Hamilton) and his ephemeral fame; but he did not see why the
+gentleman should have included himself in the same oblivious sentence.
+His course hitherto in the race of fame had been as successful, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span>
+aught he knew, as was ever his Lordship's. His strides had been as long
+and as rapid. His disposition, too, to run the race was as eager, and he
+knew no reason why he might not yet soar on stronger pinions, and reach
+a loftier height, than his Lordship had done.</p>
+
+<p>"During the whole reply, the audience were in a titter; and he sat down
+amidst a burst of incontrollable laughter. Said Spencer to him
+frowningly, (I sat by the side of the judges on the bench, and both
+Hamilton and Spencer were within arm's length of me,) 'What do you mean,
+sir?' Said Hamilton, with an arch smile, 'Nothing but a mere
+compliment.' 'Very well, sir, I desire no more such compliments.'"</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "What was the difference between the oratory of Hamilton and
+that of Burr?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "Burr, above all men whom I ever knew, possessed the most
+consummate tact in evading and covering up the arguments of his
+opponent. His great art was to throw dust in the eyes of the jury, and
+make them believe that there was neither force nor sense nor anything
+else in the arguments of the opposite counsel. He never met a position,
+nor answered an argument, but threw around them the mist of sophistry,
+and thus weakened their force. He was the <i>prince of plausibilities</i>. He
+was always on the right side (in his own opinion), and always perfectly
+confident.</p>
+
+<p>"Hamilton, on the other hand, allowed to the arguments of his opponent
+all the weight that could ever be fairly claimed for them, and attacked
+and demolished them with the club of Hercules. He would never engage in
+a cause unless he believed he was on the side of justice; and he often
+threw into the scale of his client the whole weight of his personal
+character and opinion. His opponents frequently complained of the undue
+influence he thus exerted upon the court."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "You have heard Webster, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "I have never heard him speak. I have the pleasure of a slight
+personal acquaintance with him, and, from what I know of him, should
+think he would have less power over the passions of men than Hamilton.
+He is a giant, and deals with <i>great principles</i> rather than passions.</p>
+
+<p>"Bishop McIlvaine will always be heard. He has an elegant form, a fine
+voice, and a brilliant imagination, and he can carry an audience just
+where he pleases."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "You, of course, have heard Dr. Cox."</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "Yes, often. He is an original, powerful man, unequal in his
+performances: sometimes he hits, sometimes he misses; sometimes he rises
+to the sublimity of powerful speaking, and at others sinks below the
+common level."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "Have you read his book on Quakerism?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "As much of it as I can. Some Presbyterians like it. For my
+part, I confess I do not. He carries his anti-Quaker antipathies too
+far. It is perfectly natural he should do so. Men who go over from one
+denomination to another always stand up more than straight, and for two
+reasons;&mdash;first, to satisfy their new friends that they have heartily
+renounced their former error; secondly, to convince their former friends
+that they had good reasons for desertion. Baptists who have become such
+from Presbyterians are uniformly the most bigoted, and <i>vice versa</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"I am disgusted and grieved with the religious controversies of the
+present age. The divisions of schools, old school and new school, and
+the polemical zeal and fury with which the contest is waged, are
+entirely foreign from the true spirit of Christianity. The Christianity
+of the age is, in my view, most unamiable. It has none of those lovely,
+mellow features which distinguished primitive Christianity. If
+Christianity as it now exists should be propagated over the world, and
+thus the millennium be introduced, we should need two or three more
+millenniums<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> before the world would be fit to live in."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "Why do you judge so, Doctor?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "By the style of our religious periodicals. If I had suddenly
+dropped down here, and wished to ascertain at a bird's-eye view the
+religious and moral state of the community, I would call for the papers
+and magazines, and when I had glanced at them I should pronounce that
+community to be in a low moral and religious state which could tolerate
+such periodicals. A bad paper cannot live in a good community.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been especially grieved and offended with the recent Catholic
+controversy. I abhor much in the Catholic religion; but, nevertheless, I
+believe there is a great deal of religion in that Church. I do not like
+the condemnation of men in classes. I would not, in controversy with the
+Catholics, render railing for railing. They cannot be put down so. They
+must be charmed down by kindness and love."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "I have been much amused by reading that controversy."</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "My dear sir, I am sorry to hear you say so. You cannot have
+read that controversy with pleasure, without having been made a worse
+man by it."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "Why, I was amused by it, I suppose, just as I should be amused
+by seeing a gladiator's show."</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "Just so; a very good comparison,&mdash;a very accurate comparison!
+It is a mere gladiatorial contest; and the object of it, I fear, is not
+so much truth as victory."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "But Luther fought so, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "I know it; and I have no sympathy with that trait in the
+character of Luther. The world owes more, perhaps, to Martin Luther
+than to any other man who has ever lived; and as God makes the wrath of
+man to praise him, and restrains the remainder, so he raised up Luther
+as an instrument adapted to his age and the circumstances of the times.
+But Luther's character in some of its features was harsh, rugged, and
+unlovely; and in these it was not founded upon the Gospel.</p>
+
+<p>"Compare him with St. Paul. Once they were placed in circumstances
+almost identically the same. Luther's friends were endeavoring to
+dissuade him from going to Worms, on account of apprehended danger. Said
+Luther, 'If there were as many devils at Worms as there are tiles on the
+roofs of the houses, I would go.'</p>
+
+<p>"When Paul's friends at C&aelig;sarea wept, and besought him not to go up to
+Jerusalem, knowing the things which would befall him there, 'What mean
+ye,' said he, 'to weep, and break my heart? For I am ready, not to be
+bound only, but to die also at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord
+Jesus.'</p>
+
+<p>"Many a bold, reckless man of the world could have said what Luther
+said. None but a Christian could have uttered the words of Paul."</p>
+
+<p><i>Mr. C.</i> "Was it not in part a constitutional difference? Peter and Paul
+were very different men; so, if Luther had not been a Christian, he
+would have exhibited the same rugged features of character."</p>
+
+<p><i>Dr. N.</i> "That is just the point, sir. These traits in his character
+were no part of his Christianity. They existed, not in consequence, but
+in spite, of his religion. I want to see, in Christian character, the
+rich, deep, mellow tint of the Scriptures."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CRETAN_DAYS" id="CRETAN_DAYS"></a>CRETAN DAYS.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>I.</h3>
+
+<h4>CANEA.</h4>
+
+<p>It was by a happy chance that my first acquaintance with Crete and the
+Cretans was made just previous to the outbreak of the insurrection which
+has just now brought the island so strongly to the attention of the
+world, and which will prevent any future traveller of this generation
+from seeing it, as I saw it, at the highest point of that comparative
+material prosperity which thirty-five years of such peace as Christian
+lands enjoy under Turkish rule had created, and before the beginning of
+that course of destruction which has now made the island one expanse of
+poverty and ruin. It was in the beginning of the last year of the
+administration of Ismael Pacha, in August, 1865, that, blockaded a month
+in Syra by cholera, I finally got passage on a twenty-ton yacht
+belonging to an English resident of that place, and made a loitering
+three days' run to Canea.</p>
+
+<p>Crete, though <i>never</i> visited by cholera, was in quarantine at all Greek
+ports, and intercourse with the great world was limited to occasional
+voyages of the little ca&iuml;ques of the island to Syra, where they endured
+two weeks' quarantine, and whence they brought back the mails and a
+cargo of supplies, so that any arrival was an event to the Cydonians,
+and that of a yacht flying the English and American flags at once was
+enough to turn out the entire population. The fitful northerly breeze
+had kept us the whole afternoon in sight of the port; and it was only as
+sunset closed the doors of the health-office that we dropped anchor in
+the middle of the little harbor,&mdash;the wondering centre of attraction to
+a wondering town, whose folk came to assist at the sunsetting and our
+arrival. Lazy soldiers, lying at full length on the old bronze cannon of
+the batteries, looked out at us, only raising their heads from their
+crossed arms; grave Turks, smoking their nargiles in front of the caf&eacute;s
+that open on the Marina, turned their chairs round to look at us without
+stopping their hubble-bubbling; and all about us, where nothing else
+was, a line of motley humanity&mdash;Greek, Turk, Egyptian, Nubian,
+Abyssinian, under hats, caps, tarbouches, turbans, hats Persian and
+ecclesiastical, and no hats at all&mdash;half circled us with mute and mostly
+stupid admiration.</p>
+
+<p>It was my first experience of a Turkish town, and perhaps I was more
+struck with the dilapidation and evident decay than I ought to have
+been. The sea-wall of the massive Venetian fortification seemed
+crumbling and carious; the earth-work above it was half washed away; the
+semicircle of houses on the Marina looked seedy and tottering; the
+Marina itself was in places under-cut and falling into the water; and
+above us, overtopping the whole city, the Pacha's palace, built on the
+still substantial, though time-worn and neglected walls of the old
+Venetian citadel, reared a lath-and-plaster shabbiness against the glow
+of the western sky, reminding one of an American seaside hotel in the
+last stages of popularity and profitable tenancy,&mdash;great gaps in the
+plaster showing the flimsiness of the construction, while a coating of
+unmitigated whitewash almost defied the sunset glow to modify it. On the
+western point of the crescent of the Marina, under the height on which
+stands the palace, is a domed mosque,&mdash;one large central dome surrounded
+by little ones,&mdash;with a not ugly minaret, slightly cracked by
+earthquakes, standing at one side in a little cemetery, among whose
+turbaned tombstones grow a palm and an olive tree, and beyond which the
+khan (also serving as custom-house), a two-story house of the Venetian
+days, relieves the dreary white with a wash of ochre, stained and
+streaked to any tint almost.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span> A little nearer the bottom of the port is
+an old Venetian gate, which once shut the Marina in at night while the
+custom-house guard slept, and over the keystone of which the Lion of St.
+Mark's still turns his mutilated head to the sea.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, the look of the thing was not unpicturesque, except for
+the hopeless whiteness and shabbiness of the principal architectural
+features, and especially the "Konak" (palace), which was, beyond all
+disguise of light or circumstance, an eyesore and a nuisance, the more
+so that its foundations were fine old brown stone masonry, delicious in
+color, solid, and showing at one end a pointed arched vault, with its
+portward end fallen down to show the interior, and crowned with an
+enormous mass of cactus. On the south side, invisible from the port, are
+three fine Gothic windows, now filled up, but preserving the traceries.
+The palace could scarcely have had a nobler site, or the site a more
+ignoble occupancy.</p>
+
+<p>Too late for pratique, we had nothing to do but turn in early, and get
+ready to go ashore at sunrise.</p>
+
+<p>Once landed, I began to wish that the comparison I had drawn for the
+Konak was a more just one, and that inside its card-board classicalism
+could be found the slightest approach to American hospitality. Not an
+inn of any kind exists in Canea: a dirty, dingy restaurant, which called
+itself "The Guest-House of the Spheres," offered one small bedroom,
+which the filth of the place, with its suggestions of bugs and fleas,
+forbade the title of a sleeping-room. While the yacht stayed I had a
+bed; but after that it was a dreary prospect for a man who had intended
+living at his ease in his inn the rest of the summer. And here let me,
+once for all, give due credit to Crete, and say that, though there is
+not from one end of the island to the other an inn, the stranger will
+never wait long, even in the smallest village, to know where he may
+sleep, and will rarely find a greater difficulty than to reconcile the
+rival claims to the honor of his presence. In my case, I had no greatly
+prolonged anxiety, and accepted the proffered hospitality of Mr. Alexis,
+then Vice-Consul of the United States of America, and now Dutch Consul,
+to whom most of the few travellers in Crete are more or less under
+obligations.</p>
+
+<p>I thoroughly enjoyed some days of careless loafing about Canea. I have
+intimated my slight experience of Turkish towns; and if the critic
+should think it worth while to remark that I should have seen
+Constantinople and Cairo, Smyrna and Salonica, before attempting to
+describe one, I admit the justice of the criticism, and pass over
+readily all that is Turkish in Canea, the more that it is mainly of
+negative or destructive character. What remains of interest in Canea is
+Venetian, though of that there is almost nothing which represents the
+great period of the sea-republic, except the fine, and in most parts
+well-conditioned walls. Here and there a double-arched window, with a
+bit of fine carving in the capitals, peeps out from the jutting
+uglinesses of seraglio windows, close latticed and mysterious; one or
+two fine doorways, neglected and battered as to their ornamentation,
+some coats of arms, three or four arched gateways, and as many
+fountains, are all that will catch the eye of the artist inside the
+walls, unless it be the port, with its quaint and picturesque boats of
+antique pattern.</p>
+
+<p>Canea had its west-end in what is now known as the Castelli,&mdash;the slight
+elevation on which, most probably, the ancient city was built, and on
+which stood the Venetian citadel, and the aristocratic quarter, enclosed
+and gated with an interior wall, whose circuit may still be traced in
+occasional glimpses of the brown stone above and between the Turkish
+houses. The Castelli of to-day is the principal street of this quarter,
+running through its centre, and guarded by the gates whose arches
+remain, valueless and without portcullis, but showing in their present
+state how strong a defence was needed to assure the patricians in their
+slumbers against any importunate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span> attempts of their malcontent subjects
+and fellow-townsmen to clear off the score which the infamous government
+of the Republic accumulated. One doorway in this street struck me
+particularly, from the exquisite ornamentation of its stone doorway; but
+the palace to which it opened is abandoned, and in ruins. Most of the
+better class of these houses are in the same state, modern repair being
+only a shabby patching up and whitewashing. The quarter is inhabited
+almost entirely by Mussulmans; and, though habitable houses are greatly
+in demand in the business parts of Canea, and many of these old palaces
+could be made available at a small cost, their owners have so little
+energy, or so great an aversion to new-comers and Christians, that none
+of them are put under repairs.</p>
+
+<p>On the walls of the city are many old bronze guns of both Venetian and
+Turkish manufacture. The former still bear the Lion of St. Mark's, and
+one long nine-pounder is exquisitely ornamented with a reticulation of
+vines cast in relief over the whole length of it. It bears the name of
+Albergetti, its founder. The only modern guns I saw were half a dozen
+heavy cast-iron thirty-two-pounders of Liege, and a few light bronze
+guns on the battery commanding the entrance of the harbor. The whole
+circuit of the walls is still furnished with the ancient bronze guns, of
+which several are of about twelve-inch calibre, with their stone balls
+still lying by them.</p>
+
+<p>The harbor of Canea approximates in form to a clumsy L, the bottom of
+the letter forming the basin in the centre of which our yacht was
+moored, with a longer recess running eastward from the entrance, and
+divided from the open sea only by a reef on which the mole is built,
+following the direction of the coast at this part of the island. The
+narrow entrance is at the exterior angle of the L, between the
+water-battery and the lighthouse; and in the interior angle are the
+Castelli, Konak, &amp;c. Along the inner side of the eastern recess, and
+across its extremity, is a line of galley-houses,&mdash;the penitential
+offering, it is said, of a patrician exiled here, to purchase his
+repatriation. Earthquakes have rent their walls, decay has followed
+disuse, for the harbor has now become so filled up that only a small
+boat can get into the furthermost of the arches, and the greater part of
+the galley-houses have dry land out to their entrances, and the
+ship-yard of to-day is in the vacant space left by the fall of two or
+three of them.</p>
+
+<p>As might be expected, Canea is a very dull city. Out of the highway of
+Eastern trade or travel, whoever visits it must do so for itself alone,
+for the arts of amusing idlers and luring travellers are unknown to it.
+The only amusements for summer are a nargile on the Marina, studying
+primitive civilization the while, during the twilight hours, and the
+afternoon circuit of the ramparts, where every day at five o'clock an
+execrable band tortures the most familiar arias with clangor of
+discordant brass. From the ramparts we overlooked the plain, bounded by
+Mount Malaxa, above which loomed the Aspravouna, showing late in summer
+strips of snow in the ravines that furrowed the bare crystalline peaks,
+brown and gray and parched with the drought of three months. The Cretan
+summer runs rainless from June to October; and the only relief to the
+aridity of the landscape is formed by the olive-orchards, covering
+nearly the whole expanse between the sea sands and the treeless ridge of
+Malaxa with so luxuriant a green, that, accustomed to the olive of
+Italy, I could scarcely believe these to be the same trees. This I at
+first supposed to be owing to some peculiarity of the plain, but
+subsequently found it to be characteristic of the Cretan olive; and I
+remember hearing Captain Brine of the Racer express the same surprise I
+myself felt on first seeing the olive here. The trees are like
+river-side willows in early summer.</p>
+
+<p>To get a clear comprehension of the position of Canea and the ancient
+advantages of Cydonia, its local predecessor, and at the same time of
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span> whole northwestern district of Crete, one must ascend the hills of
+the Akroteri,&mdash;at least the first ridge, from which the view is superb.
+The Aspravouna towers higher: we look into the gorges of the Malaxa
+ridge, and up the ravine of Theriso, to the mountains about Laki,&mdash;an
+immemorial strong-hold of the Cretans, behind which, a sure and
+impregnable refuge to brave men, is the great plain of Omalos. Farther
+on are the hills of Selinos and Kisamos, sending off northward two long
+parallel ridges of considerable altitude, the peninsula of Grabusa, the
+ancient Corycus, the western land of Crete, and, from where we look,
+visible in portions above the nearer ridge of Cape Spada, the Dictynnian
+peninsula, which divides the plain of Cydonia from that of Kisamon and
+Polyrrhenia, and, but for the glimpses of Corycus above it, shutting in
+our view, as it bounds the territory dependent on the ancient city.</p>
+
+<p>No site in Crete is more distinctly recognizable from the indications of
+the ancient geographers than Cydonia. It had "a port with shoals
+outside," and from this elevation one looks directly down the longer
+fork of the harbor, and can see how the mole is built on a black reef,
+whose detached masses extend from the lighthouse eastward to the corner
+of the city wall, which is built out to meet it, and then descends to
+the mole, with which it is continuous. Beyond the entrance of the
+harbor, the reef again appears, gradually nearing the shore; and beyond
+this, as far as the eye can reach, are no rocks,&mdash;no Other nook where a
+galley could have taken refuge.</p>
+
+<p>How the hearts of the Pelasgian wanderers must have bounded when their
+exploring prows pushed into this nook, which offered them shelter from
+all winds that blow! It was a site to gladden the eyes of those builders
+of cities. Up above them, the bluff rock waiting for the layers of huge
+stones,&mdash;the eastern nook of the port more perfectly protected than the
+southern, which receives more or less the swell from the northerly
+winds, and whose inner shore of hard sand tempted the weary
+keels,&mdash;while all around stretched a wide, fertile, and then probably
+forest-clad plain, doubtless abounding in the stags for which the
+district was long famous. Here the restless race "located," and seem to
+have prospered in the days of those brave men who lived before
+Agamemnon, to whom and to whose allies in the Trojan war they seem to
+have given much the same trouble that their reputed descendants, the
+Sphakiotes, did to the Cretan Assembly of 1866, not being either then or
+now over-devoted to Panhellenism, though never averse to a comfortable
+fight.</p>
+
+<p>Pashley quotes a Latin author to show that Cydonia was one of the most
+ancient, if not the most ancient, of Cretan cities,&mdash;"Cnossus and
+Erythr&aelig;a, and, as the Greeks say, Cydonia, mother of cities." The
+alleged foundation of the city by Agamemnon was clearly, if anything,
+only a revival of the more ancient city; and after him successive
+colonizations rolled their waves in on this beautiful shore, obedient to
+its irresistible attraction. Dorian, Samiote, Roman, followed, adding
+new blood, and perhaps new wealth; and when finally, in the degradation
+of the Byzantine empire, Venice took possession of Crete, Cydonia had so
+far passed into insignificance, that, "seeking a place to build a
+fortress to quell the turbulent Greeks," she refounded Cydonia, and
+called it Canea,&mdash;an evident corruption of the old name. With all this
+building and rebuilding, nothing remains, of the ancient city. A mass of
+masonry near the Mussulman cemetery, which Chevalier in 1699 saw covered
+with a mosaic pavement, is still visible, but is Roman work, rubble and
+mortar. As Pashley says, the modern walls of Canea would have been
+sufficient to consume all vestiges of the ancient building. The
+citations he gives ought to put at rest all question, of the identity of
+Canea with Cydonia, and we shall presently see the only serious
+objection which has been raised against it disappear under an
+examination<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span> of the geological character of the plain.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<p>Looking from our hill-top southwestwardly across the plain, the eye is
+carried between two low ranges of hills into a valley which seems a
+continuation of this plain. Here runs the Iardanos, along which,
+according to Homer, the Cydonians dwelt. But it is now in no point of
+its course nearer than ten miles to Canea. This discrepancy troubled the
+early travellers, who were finally inclined to solve the riddle by
+supposing Cydonia to have been a district, and not a city merely. But
+study the plain a little, or Spratt's chart of it, and we shall see that
+from that far-off river-bed an almost unbroken and very gentle
+inclination leads through the plain, by the rear of the city, to the bay
+of Suda, a considerable ridge rising between it and the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose the mountains reclothed with forests, the hillsides pierced with
+perennial springs, and the flowing of the waters, not, as now, fitful
+and impetuous, but copious and constant. Then dam up the narrow opening
+the river has cut through the coast line of hills, in its direct course
+from the mountains to the sea, with a smaller and similar one cut by a
+stream coming down from Theriso, and you have the whole water sheet of
+the north side of the Aspravouna emptying into the bay of Suda. In this
+supposed route of the Iardanos (now the Platanos), just where it
+commences its cutting through the hills, is a large marsh, the remnant
+of what was once a lake of a mile or more in width, when the Iardanos,
+then a gentle, bounteous river, turned from its present course to run
+eastward, and deposit its washings where they made the marshes of
+Tuzla, and the shallows at the head of Suda Bay. Civilization,
+ship-building, commerce, carried away the forests; and, thus changed<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a>
+into a furious mountain torrent,&mdash;three months a roaring flood which no
+bridge can stride, and the rest of the year almost a dry pebbled
+bed,&mdash;the Iardanos made a straight cut for the sea, drained its lake,
+forgot its old courses, and changed, in time, its name; and <i>so</i> it
+happens that the Cydonians no longer dwell along the Iardanos.</p>
+
+<p>While we are on our look-out, let us try to study out another puzzle,
+which even Spratt left in doubt, i. e. the site of Pergamos. We know
+that it was near both Cydonia and Achaia, and Spratt pretty conclusively
+fixes the latter on the Dictynnian peninsula; so that it must have been
+in our present field of view. Looking this over, we can see but one
+point of land which offers the indispensable requisites for a city of
+the heroic ages, and that is the site of the modern Platania, midway
+between Canea and the peninsula,&mdash;a bold hill with a nearly
+perpendicular face to the north and east, and so abrupt on the west as
+to be easily fortified, and connected with the hills on the south by a
+narrow neck of hill,&mdash;such a site, in fact, as any one familiar with
+Pelasgic remains would seek at once in a country where any such remains
+existed. The fact that no remains exist to show that an ancient city
+stood here proves no more than at Canea; while the fact that none of the
+possible sites in the neighborhood show any such remains is conclusive
+against them, as no modern cities are there to consume the ancient
+masonry. In our researches in the island, we shall almost invariably
+find that, where there are remains of ancient cities, there is no modern
+town, and that, where a modern town stands on an ancient site
+determined, there are few, if any, antique vestiges. The reason is
+evident,&mdash;the ruins serve as quarry. The change of name even proves more
+for our hypothesis than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span> against it. The plane-tree was not in ancient
+times so rare in the island as now, and would hardly have then given a
+name to a city, while now it not only names Platania, but the river
+even,&mdash;a grove of plane-trees occupying the valley between the city and
+the mouth of the river. The probability is, then, that the names of both
+are synchronous; and it would be useless to look for any Platania in
+ancient times, or any vestige of the name "Pergamos" in modern times,
+while, if the ancient city stood on a site now abandoned, we should in
+all probability find both ruins and name to indicate the locality.</p>
+
+<p>The conjecture of Spratt, that Pergamos was near Pyrgos Pori is only a
+conjecture, Pyrgos being too common a name for any strongly situated
+village or ruin to have any significance. A city at that locality would,
+moreover, have been cut off from all sea approach by the Iardanos in its
+ancient course; and as Pergamos was one of those cities founded by the
+wanderers from Troy,&mdash;either, they say, by Agamemnon or &AElig;neas,&mdash;it would
+probably not have been founded on an inland site, or even on a river
+navigable, as the Iardanos must have been, for small craft, the access
+to which would be commanded by Aptera, Minoa, and Cydonia. So far as
+conjecture goes, it seems to me much more likely that Hagia Irene&mdash;which
+Spratt supposes the ancient city&mdash;was Achaia, the location of which he
+avoids by supposing it a district, rather than a city, forgetting that
+in those days no one dwelt outside of city walls. My hypothesis, coupled
+with that of the identity of Platania with Pergamos, would satisfy all
+the exigencies of the case, which that of neither Spratt nor Pashley
+does. For the rest, Pergamos is mainly interesting as the burial-place
+of Lycurgus.</p>
+
+<p>From our point of view on the Akroteri, we see the whole domain of
+Cydonia,&mdash;as at our left Suda Bay terminates the view, (on the first
+plateau eastward of the bay Aptera presided,) while the Dictynnian hills
+divide it from the plain of Kisamos to the west, and the mountains rise
+abruptly to the south;&mdash;a little kingdom well defined, one of the most
+perfectly beautiful territories the tourist can find, and still
+fertile,&mdash;though the hills have forgotten their fruit and the plain its
+river,&mdash;and capable of sustaining a much larger population than it now
+supports, if the Mohammedan blight were off it.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the foot of the ridge where we stand is a beautiful example of
+a Venetian fortified country-house,&mdash;a little castle, turreted and
+loop-holed, with a drawbridge thrown from a tower rising opposite the
+doorway, and still in excellent preservation. Other similar houses may
+be seen, but I have nowhere in the island found one so fine as this. At
+the farther edge of the plain, lying along under the hills, is a
+succession of white villages,&mdash;Zukalaria, Nerokouro (running water),
+Murnies, celebrated for its oranges and the brutal and gratuitous
+massacre by Mustapha Pacha (late Imperial Commissioner), in 1833,
+Boutzounaria (dripping water), first place of assembling of the Cretan
+malcontents in 1866, Perivolia, Galatas, Hagia Marina, and Platania, by
+the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Off Platania is the island of St. Theodore, whose fortress, defended by
+the Venetian mercenaries against the Turks, showed one of those examples
+of heroic constancy we so generally and erroneously attribute to
+patriotic courage; for, defying the enemy to the last, the garrison
+defended the castle until the Turks had stormed and filled it with their
+numbers, and then blew it up, destroying every one within the walls. The
+foundations still remain, but level with the cemented floor; everything
+is razed cleanly, while the fragments lie along the slopes like the
+ejections of a volcano.</p>
+
+<p>Midway between the Akroteri and Canea lies Kalepa, a suburb where most
+of the foreign consuls reside in summer, with many of the wealthier
+Khaniotes, and the only place in the vicinity where the summer can be
+passed in comfort. A few houses are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span> fitted with European improvements,
+but the greater part are the simple and cheerless residences of the
+Cretan peasant, furnished with the merest necessities of existence. Even
+here, in the most prosperous of the villages I have been in, life is,
+for most of the people, only a struggle against poverty, thrift being
+impossible where every surplus meets a new impost. Many houses are still
+in ruins from the devastations of 1821-1830, showing how incompletely
+the island had recovered from that war before being plunged into another
+more destructive still. From the ravages of this, however, Kalepa is
+saved so far,&mdash;thanks to a few consular residents,&mdash;but saved alone of
+all the villages of the plain country.</p>
+
+<p>If it be true that civilization is determined by natural advantages, it
+must be that Cydonia was the "mother of cities," at least of all the
+Hellenic realm, for no more enchanting or tempting site have I ever
+known through travel or description. With its climate of paradisiacal
+softness and healthfulness, and the beauty of its framing hills,&mdash;fanned
+in summer by the north winds from the &AElig;gean and by south winds tempered
+by the snows of the Aspravouna,&mdash;with a winter in which vegetation never
+ceases and frost never comes,&mdash;with its garden-like plain and its
+old-time river, and its port unexceptionable in ancient times,&mdash;nothing
+was wanting to render prosperity and security complete in former days,
+as nothing but freedom is wanting now to restore both, and make the city
+the most attractive place in the classical world. Hitherto, its charms
+have but tempted invasion, and its fertility has only grown harvests for
+the sword. Here began the Cretan conquest by Metellus; here began the
+movements which, one after the other, have shaken the Ottoman chain only
+to make it heavier; and here began the latest struggle, which, so long
+and gallantly upheld, may finally bring back to Crete the civilization
+born on her shores, but for so many centuries an exile.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE AKROTERI.</h4>
+
+<p>Not to make one's first excursion from Canea to the Akroteri, with its
+convent of the Hagia Triada (Holy Trinity), and its sacred Grotto of St.
+John, would be <i>lesa maest&agrave;</i> to the Khaniotes, who regard a pilgrimage
+to the latter as entitling one to a Hadjiship.</p>
+
+<p>The ride (or walk, which I recommend, in preference, to good
+pedestrians) is a delightful one in early summer; and, even after the
+heats of August have browned the plain of the Akroteri, an early start
+from Canea will leave a memory of breezy upland with wide expanse of
+mountain and sea,&mdash;including some of the most picturesque views to be
+found in Crete,&mdash;and of the rich odors of many aromatic herbs and
+flowers, through whose rifled sweets the Akroteri is famous for its
+honey. A three hours' ride&mdash;first up the zigzag road that climbs the
+ridge above Kalepa, and then over an undulating plain sparsely dotted
+with hamlets and clouded here and there with olive-orchards&mdash;brings one,
+with a sufficient appreciation of good cheer, and clean, cool rooms,
+shade, and quiet, into the cloistered court of Hagia Triada, a
+semi-military building of the Venetian days. Still unfinished, the
+Turkish conquest having interrupted its progress, with all other in the
+seventeenth century. In the centre of the quadrangle, round which are
+the rooms of the monks and the guest-rooms, stands the church, an
+edifice nondescript as to style, with a fa&ccedil;ade of a species of Venetian
+Doric, fronting a building whose plan is a Latin cross, and whose roof
+observes Byzantine tradition. On the entablature over the doorway are
+the dedicatory Greek capitals, &#914;&#915;&#933;&#920;&#928;,&mdash;the meaning of which
+none of the priests could tell me, though a duplicate inscription in
+Latin and Greek beside the door told by whom the convent was built; and
+the Hegoumenos added the tradition, that the two founders, being
+converted by an extraordinary illumination<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span> from the Latin to the Greek
+Church, gave an edifying proof of their devotion to their new creed by
+erecting this convent.</p>
+
+<p>The Hegoumenos was a Sphakiote, a very shrewd, clear-headed and
+energetic man, and, though betraying no great familiarity with books or
+dogmas, showed that he was a better fisher in those waters where men are
+to be caught than most of his <i>confr&egrave;res</i> of any creed. He had that
+manner of innate authority which never fails to impose itself on the
+indecisions and self-distrusts of the mass of men, and which in a wider
+circle of ambition would certainly have won him a larger place. Like the
+Hegoumenos of every other Greek convent, he was elected by the monks,
+and, though completely in the hands of his brethren, and at any time
+liable to be removed by another election, the subordination to him was
+perfect as could have been imagined. It was a curious exemplification of
+the force of democracy. Yet not only in Hagia Triada, but in other
+Cretan convents, I have seen how the mass of men find their governors as
+surely and wisely, and often more fitly, than if they had had men born
+to the place, or appointed by some superior hierarchy.</p>
+
+<p>In Italy I had always been accustomed to find the convents posted on the
+hill-tops, and almost inaccessible; but in Crete the loveliest valleys
+are almost certain to have been chosen as their locations. The convent
+of the Hagia Triada is indeed on a plain, but at the foot of the range
+of hills which skirts the Akroteri to the north, and is thus almost shut
+in from two sides, while to the south the plain extends to Suda Bay,
+which is hidden in the chasm between the Akroteri and Mount Malaxa, and
+beyond which the mountains of Sphakia rise in picturesque and alluring
+redundance of ravine and massive rock. All the nearer plain is green
+with the olive-orchards, and the road which approaches the front
+entrance is flanked with two lines of cypresses, and carob-trees grow up
+the rocky heights overlooking the convent, where no other tree will
+grow. The hum of bees filled the air, and mingled with the notes of
+nightingales (poetically fabled to sing <i>only</i> by night), the chirping
+of multitudinous sparrows, wrens, and linnets, and the twittering of
+swallows. At the outer gate sat two or three aged monks, picturesque and
+sculpturesque at once, like enchanted porters at the doors of some
+spellbound palace, their long, gray beards and sunken, listless eyes
+according with their own and the convent's external dilapidation.</p>
+
+<p>The beauty and quiet of the place were almost enchantment enough to
+account for the gray-headed porters, their immobility and longevity, and
+I longed to draw the charm over me. But I was one of a party which had
+come under the inspiration of the most inane motive of travel,&mdash;the
+desire to see all there was to be seen; and so, after a half-hour's
+repose, and the usual refreshments,&mdash;preserved fruits and a glass of
+water, followed by coffee,&mdash;we enlisted the Hegoumenos in our party, and
+set out for the grotto, taking in the way Hagios Joannes, a still more
+incomplete and still more secluded convent than Hagia Triada, among the
+hills between the latter and the sea. The road which we followed would
+be called by no means a bad road for Crete, but anywhere else would be
+execrable,&mdash;a mere bridle-path through a gorge in a range of hills from
+which all the soil seems to have been washed with most of the small
+stones, and where, with much precaution, your beast goes picking his way
+as if in a laborious, slow-paced minuet. The convent stands in an
+opening of the hills, on a little bit of comparatively plain land,-a
+half-finished battlemented square pile, offering defence against a
+slight attack; but the monks said that the Turks always found the road
+so bad that they never came to attack them during any of the island
+wars, though Hagia Triada was twice pillaged. The comparative<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span> poverty
+of Hagios Joannes may have had something to do with its exemption, but
+the road would defend it from my encroachments forever; and, in fact,
+visitors only pass it on the way to the grottoes and convent of
+Katholikon, which lie near the opening of the gorge, where it becomes a
+wild glen, and approaches the sea. The path, descending, led us to the
+Cave of the Bear, where we had arranged to lunch, and the bounties of
+Canea, spread on the ground in the mouth of the cave, went to repair the
+wear and tear of body and temper caused by the badness of the road. The
+cave derives its name from a mass of stalactite which has a traceable
+resemblance to a bear, but it had no further interest than being our
+lunching-place. Here the road became so bad that even a donkey could not
+follow it, and we clambered down on foot by zigzag and rock stair to the
+mouth of the Cave of St. John. Caves <i>per se</i> have no kind of attraction
+to me. Stalactite and stalagmite are pretty much the same: so, half the
+way in, I made excuse of the fatigue of some of the ladies, and,
+determining to go no farther, proved my gallantry by stopping to keep
+them company, thus abandoning my Hadjiship, which can only be claimed
+when the inner chamber is attained. If, then, the reader would know
+more, he must consult the guide-book, when there is one; and meanwhile
+let me assure him, on the authority of Pashley, that the cave is four
+hundred and seventy feet deep, and, on that of my more persevering
+fellow-visitors, that at the bottom is a chamber, very fine and imposing
+by torchlight, where is a couch of natural formation on which died the
+saint, leaving his name with his bones and the odor of his sanctity. The
+story is that this St. John&mdash;neither the Baptist nor the Evangelist, but
+a hermit of Crete&mdash;centuries ago made his abode here, and lived many
+years without seeing the face of another man. Lest he should in daylight
+chance upon his abhorred and outcast brethren, or any of them, he only
+ventured out at night, and lived on what he could find in other people's
+gardens or orchards. Happening one night to be discovered in the act of
+laying in a provision of corn, he was mistaken for a thief, and received
+an arrow from the owner of the provision. He crawled back, mortally
+wounded, to his grotto, and never came out again except in the shape of
+relics.</p>
+
+<p>The convent of Katholikon, long abandoned, did not invite entrance: a
+Venetian bridge spans the ravine, and gave access to the chapel for the
+hermits whose little dens still remain on the other side, the denizens
+having long since deserted them. Down by the sea are some Venetian
+ruins, a boat-house, and some masonry of a landing. I advise travellers
+who will visit Katholikon, its cave and hermitages, to order a boat
+round from Canea to meet them at this place, and then go home in
+comfort,&mdash;the only point to be gained from going back by land being a
+more thorough experience of Cretan roads. To those who intend seeing the
+rest of the island, opportunities will not lack for this; to others, the
+knowledge is superfluous. A careful horse will make his way down, but he
+ought to be strong to get up. Mine was not; and, in climbing, his force
+or his footing failed him, and over he went backwards, and I narrowly
+escaped being crushed under him. Stunned and half bewildered by the
+fall,&mdash;for I had struck on my back amongst sharp stones, with one of
+which my head had made intimate acquaintance,&mdash;I managed, I know not
+how, to extricate myself from the flourish of legs; the horse lying more
+helpless than myself in the narrow path between two slopes of stone, and
+vainly plunging to get over on his side. He finally completed his
+somerset, to the confusion of the line of equestrians behind, the
+nearest of whom were speedily dismounted; and the chances of a kicking
+match among the quadrupeds were good for a moment, until two prompt
+Arabs, in attendance on Miss T&mdash;&mdash;, restored the disorderly elements<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span> to
+peace. Sore, bleeding, and faint, I lay awhile on a bed of wild thyme,
+until I began to feel the good effects of a cordial administered by the
+<i>pat&eacute;ras</i>, and we resumed our file, most of the party returning directly
+to Canea,&mdash;myself, with a companion who served as guide and interpreter,
+passing the night at the convent, the good Hegoumenos being urgent in
+his entreaties that the whole company would likewise honor his roof.
+None of the ladies felt inclined to do so, and perhaps it was just as
+well for their repose that they did not; for, clean as the rooms of the
+convent were, and white as was the linen, there were discomforts which,
+though infinitely small, were infinitely numerous, and, by the law of
+majorities, our tormentors turned us out of bed to pass the night in the
+open air,&mdash;a change always safe, and even delightful at this season, in
+Crete.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek convent is a true hostel; no one is refused admission and
+hospitality,&mdash;no restrictions on the gentler sex make it impossible for
+real parties of pleasure to visit its beautiful valley,&mdash;no Pharisaic
+rigidity of self-denial makes it imperative to refuse visitors good
+cheer, though the community observe their long and trying fasts with a
+severity which puts to shame abstinence in Catholic countries. (The
+Greek fasts two hundred and forty-six days out of three hundred and
+sixty-five, and most of this time not even fish is allowed, while part
+of the time oil, milk, and shell-fish are also forbidden.) And the
+welcome is no mere show of kindliness; the longer you stay at the
+convent, the better the monks are pleased, and staying longer than you
+intended is the highest compliment you can pay them. What change a
+larger acquaintance with the world will produce, of course I cannot say,
+or how much the spirit of hospitality will diminish by an increase of
+the calls on it; but now no English country-house makes you more at home
+than a Cretan convent.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, the <i>pat&eacute;ras</i> guided us to a peak, near the northeastern
+point of the Akroteri, whence we could overlook, not only the peninsula
+and Suda Bay, but the Apokorona, the coast from Cape Spada to Cape
+Stavros, the Rhiza as far as the mountains of Kisamos, Mount Ida, and
+the mountains of Sphakia, Lampe, and even, in the dim distance,
+Lassithe. Included in the field of view were the sites of seven of the
+Cretan cities of <i>early</i> days, not counting Minoa and Canea, hidden from
+view. On the north, we had the Greek islands Cerigotto, Cerigo, Milo,
+Santorini, and others less prominent. It was my intention to return by
+the shore of Suda Bay, in order to visit Minoa, but the badness of the
+roads, and the utter want of interest in the intermediate distance,
+determined me to visit that part of the Akroteri by boat at a later
+period.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the convent, we had not long to wait for a capital
+dinner,&mdash;soup, a boiled chicken, mutton stewed with artichokes and
+beans, new honey, and rice prepared with milk, sugar, and spices, with a
+dessert of figs and grapes. The wine of the convent had a bitter taste,
+from an herb steeped in it, which was preferable to the pitch of Greek
+wines, but still not a desirable addition. One of the monks, who had a
+small property close by the convent, brought us a bottle of wine of his
+own production, which was one of the best I have ever tasted in the
+East, and to my mind better than that of Cyprus. With coffee and
+cigarettes we stretched ourselves on the sofas before the windows,
+through which the east wind blew the odors extorted from the fragrant
+herbs and flowers by the overpowering sun. No other sound than the hum
+of the bees darting past with unwearying haste, and the chirping of a
+few birds amongst the olives, disturbed the air, and the monks left us
+to dream or doze as we pleased. The charm of the place was complete, and
+it would not have been a penance to make the convent a summer's abode.
+The fleas were a drawback, surely; but nowhere in Crete can one get away
+from that plague, and at Hagia Triada they were less offensive,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span> as I
+learned by later experience, than in many other convents, and even in
+most private houses.</p>
+
+<p>When, the sun cooling his fires, we ordered our steeds out, and prepared
+to return, the whole <i>personnel</i> of the convent came to assist, with the
+inhabitants of a little village adjoining, which finds protection and
+Christian charity from the convent. The monks, excepting two or three,
+seemed of an ignorant and boorish quality, but hard-working and
+kind-hearted. Here, evidently, a certain kind of bliss was in ignorance,
+and the most learned were not wise enough to be accused of much folly.
+The Hegoumenos, in bidding us good by, begged us warmly to come again
+and stay long,&mdash;a month at least. All joined in the kindly wish; and we
+rode back through the lengthening olive shadows, which never had fitter
+accompaniment than in the peace and content which the convent promised
+us, and I am sure not vainly. Not that I am a believer in the peace that
+does not come of fighting,&mdash;the retreat before battle,&mdash;or think that
+quiet and laziness are one. Content is a piggish virtue and one which no
+earnest soul can abide in, and unsleeping ambition is the only Jacob's
+ladder; but when my reader is tired of struggling, and must repose, I am
+sure that he (or she, even) would find in Hagia Triada such peace and
+content as may be healthfully known, and no begrudging of the solace and
+satisfaction to heretics. It seems to me that only those who have no
+right to a quiet life envy it in others, and, as our monks earn their
+right to be charitable, they are not envious, even with sinners.</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> As I shall have constant occasion to draw from Pashley
+information and quotations which my own classical reading, time, and
+library facilities do not permit me even to verify, I shall, once for
+all, confess indebtedness for almost all the classical knowledge I
+possess of the island, as well as for almost all the topographical
+information and direction in my visits to antique sites, to either him
+or Spratt, without whose invaluable researches the half of Crete would
+still be in a measure <i>terra incognita</i>. What I hope to add to the
+knowledge of Crete will be in a different vein from theirs.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Consult Marsh's "Man and Nature."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHANSON_WITHOUT_MUSIC" id="CHANSON_WITHOUT_MUSIC"></a>CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE PROFESSOR EMERITUS Of DEAD AND LIVE LANGUAGES.</h3>
+
+<h3>(&#934;&#914;&#922;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cambridge</span>, 1867.)</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You bid me sing,&mdash;can I forget<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The classic ode of days gone by,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How belle Fifine and jeune Lisette<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Exclaimed, "Anacre&#333;n, ger&#333;n ei"?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Regardez donc," those ladies said,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"You're getting bald and wrinkled too:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When summer's roses all are shed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Love's nullum ite, voyez-vous!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In vain ce brave Anacreon's cry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Of Love alone my banjo sings"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Er&#333;ta mounon). "Etiam si,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Eh b'en?" replied the saucy things,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Go find a maid whose hair is gray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And strike your lyre,&mdash;we sha'n't complain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But parce nobis, s'il vous plait,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Voil&agrave; Adolphe! Voil&agrave; Eug&egrave;ne!"<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ah, jeune Lisette! Ah, belle Fifine!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Anacreon's lesson all must learn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'O kairos ox&#363;s; Spring is green;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But Acer Hyems waits his turn!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I hear you whispering from the dust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Tiens, mon cher, c'est toujours so,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The brightest blade grows dim with rust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The fairest meadow white with snow!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You do not mean it! <i>Not</i> encore?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Another</i> string of playday rhymes?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You've heard me&mdash;nonne est?&mdash;before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Multoties,&mdash;more than twenty times;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Non possum,&mdash;vraiment,&mdash;pas du tout,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I cannot! I am loath to shirk;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But who will listen if I do,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My memory makes such shocking work?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Gin&#333;sko, Scio. Yes, I'm told<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Some ancients like my rusty lay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As Grandpa Noah loved the old<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Red-sandstone march of Jubal's day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I used to carol like the birds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But time my wits has quite unfixed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et quoad verba,&mdash;for my words,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ciel! Eheu! Whe-ew!&mdash;how they're mixed!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mehercle! Zeu! Diable! how<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My thoughts were dressed when I was young<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But tempus fugit! see them now<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Half clad in rags of every tongue!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O philoi, fratres, chers amis!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I dare not court the youthful Muse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For fear her sharp response should be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Papa Anacreon, please excuse!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Adieu! I've trod my annual track<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How long!&mdash;let others count the miles,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And peddled out my rhyming pack<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To friends who always paid in smiles.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So, laissez-moi! some youthful wit<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No doubt has wares he wants to show;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I am asking, "Let me sit,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dum ille clamat, "Dos pou sto!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_ROSE_ROLLINS" id="THE_ROSE_ROLLINS"></a>THE ROSE ROLLINS.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>PART II.</h3>
+
+<p>"It was a Sunday evening that was coming on, you see, and there was a
+full moon, and all the willagers would be out to church, because there
+was a rewival a-going on, and, thinks says I, he'll walk into his sleep,
+like as not, and he'll be wisible to one and he'll be wisible to all,
+and I must adopt the adwice that's been adwised me, whether it's quite
+adwisable or not; so I gets the clothes-line, and I cuts off about five
+yards, and I slips it under my piller before I goes to&mdash;before I retires
+to rest. The clothes-line was a new hempen one, and strong as could be.
+Well, he was no sooner asleep than up I riz, and slips the line from
+under my piller, and I ties my arm to his'n with a knot that couldn't be
+ontied easy. And now, thinks says I to myself, you get away and walk
+into your sleep if you can! But you'll see directly that I was adwised
+bad.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as the meetin' folks was a-goin' home, I, bein' about half asleep,
+feels somethin' pullin' and pullin' onto my arm, and says I, 'Let go!'
+and nothin' answered, and then says I, 'Let go, I tell you!' and, bless
+you! I had no more than got the words out of my mouth when down I comes
+onto the floor, piller and all! I knowed then, right away, what was the
+matter,&mdash;he was a-walkin' into his sleep. 'O, stop,' says I, 'just for a
+minute, till I ontie myself!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Divel a bit!' says he, and with that he strode off, and me headlong at
+his heels!"</p>
+
+<p>"My little wentersome one!" says John; and finding that that but very
+inadequately expressed what he felt, he repeated it, with slight
+alteration, "My wentersome little one!" at the same time lifting his
+eyes to heaven and shaking his finger in a menacing way at the air.</p>
+
+<p>"Me&mdash;your own&mdash;headlong at his heels," whispered the widow, softly. And
+then she boxed his ear with the tips of her fingers, and then he said he
+would love to have her a-boxin' on 'em forever, and then she laughed
+incredulously, and then she went on:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Stop, you willain, till I ontie myself,' says I.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ontie me, you wixen!' says he, 'who cares whether you are ontied or
+not?' and he histed the winder,&mdash;a two-story winder it was,&mdash;and out he
+went!"</p>
+
+<p>"My brain is a-reelin'!" cries John. "You poor dewoted dove!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dewoted, sure enough," says the widow, "and dewoted you'd 'a' thought
+if you'd 'a' seen me; for up he hists the winder, and out he goes. Now
+there was the framework of a new house&mdash;a great skeleton like&mdash;standin'
+alongside of us, and into that he waults, and I waults after him,&mdash;for
+what could I do but wault?&mdash;and away he goes from beam to beam, and from
+jice to jice, and from scantlin' to scantlin', waultin' up and up, and
+me waultin' after,&mdash;for what could I do but wault?&mdash;and cryin' with all
+my might, 'You willain!' and he a-cryin' back, 'You wixen!' and the moon
+a-shinin' like a blaze, and the meetin' folks goin' by, and my
+night-gownd a-floppin', and both of us plain wisible!</p>
+
+<p>"'Help! murder!' I cries, for my salwation depended on it, and, seein'
+the meetin' folks adwance, he just waulted from the timber onto which we
+stood right into the thin and insupportable air&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And dragged you after him? Lord 'a' mercy!" cried John.</p>
+
+<p>"No," says the widow, speaking with great calmness; "my presence of mind
+never forsook me,&mdash;I was an undertaker's daughter, and adwantage of
+birth prewailed over the disadwantage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span> of position,&mdash;I waulted down the
+tother side; and there we hung balanced into the air, and there we would
+have hung all night but for the accident of the rewival.</p>
+
+<p>"When they cut us down,&mdash;which one of the rewival folks did with his
+jack-knife,&mdash;I woluntarily fainted away, and was carried in for dead,
+and didn't rewive, and wouldn't rewive, for hours and hours. La me! I
+was so ashamed!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish it had been my forten to carry you into the house," says John.</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," says the widow; "but let us be thankful that the wicissitudes
+of life have driv us together at last."</p>
+
+<p>"At last, sure enough," says John; "you speak wisdom when you don't know
+on 't, you dove of doves!"</p>
+
+<p>She bent her eyes upon him in tender inquiry, in answer to which he
+said, "At last it is, sweetheart, for you don't know that I loved you
+when I was a youngster not more 'n a dozen year old!"</p>
+
+<p>"Loved <i>me</i>, captain! It isn't creditable! Tell me all about it. Are you
+sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just as sure on 't as I be of anything; just as sure as I be that I
+love you now."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me all about it, I'm dying to know; it seems like some wild
+novelty, to be sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you're right, it is like a novelty if it was only writ out, and it
+don't seem creditable, but it's true; I'm just as sure on 't as I be of
+anything,&mdash;just as sure as I be that I love you now!"</p>
+
+<p>"O captain!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my own Rose, I loved you when I was a little lad,&mdash;loved you just
+as I did the mornin' star,&mdash;loved you and worshipped you from far away.
+What a spry little thing you was, a-hoppin' about among the mahogany and
+walnut stuff like a young sparrer! O, how I've watched and follered you
+with my eyes when you didn't dream on 't!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, John, my nerves are a woman's, remember, and you mustn't keep them
+a-strain so long; they're wery much weakened by all this."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, to be sure," says John; "your nerves be a woman's, to say nothin'
+of your curosity bein' a woman's!"</p>
+
+<p>And he laughed with as much heartiness at her expense as though she had
+been his wife already.</p>
+
+<p>"John!" This with tender reproach, and he resumed, in a tone of
+respectful and lover-like humility.</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'n't your name Rose Rollins afore you was jined to the
+vagabond,&mdash;wagabond, that is to say,&mdash;afore you was dethroned; and
+didn't you live in Fust Street, opposite them old tenement housen knowed
+as Baker's Row?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I did, John, in the yaller brick with the shop in the corner,
+and the entrance embellished with a beautiful sign,&mdash;three coffins, with
+their leds turned back so as to reweal the satin linin's, and my
+father's name in letters that represented silver screws! A stroke of
+genius that design was!&mdash;the sign of the three coffins, two of them
+sideways and one end; my father's name&mdash;Farewell Rollins, wery
+appropriate to his business as it turned out&mdash;in letters that they was
+modelled after silver screws."</p>
+
+<p>"Three on 'em, two sideways and one end?" says John; "and the name,
+Farewell Rollins, shaped arter silver screws! Why, as you be a livin'
+cretur, you're the very&mdash;wery&mdash;little gal I was in love with; and many a
+day, dark enough otherwise with poverty and sorrer, you've lighted up
+with your purty golden head!" And then he tells her, by way of
+illustrating the depth and sincerity of his early attachment, that it
+once happened to him to have an orange given him at Christmas time; and
+that, although he had never tasted an orange in all his born days,
+except through a confectioner's window-glass, he without hesitation
+tossed it over the wall into her father's yard, hoping that she, who ate
+oranges every day, might possibly have his added to the rest. And he
+concluded with, "Such was the nater of my feelin's for you even then."</p>
+
+<p>"And the nater of your feelin's, John, was not only wergin' close upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span>
+the feelin's of love," says the milliner, deeply touched, "but they was
+love,&mdash;love of the wiolentest kind!"</p>
+
+<p>And then she says that, if she can only find in the town an orange as
+big as the full moon, she'll buy it, let it cost what it will, and give
+it to him.</p>
+
+<p>And then she says, playfully tapping his chin, "I only wish them
+feelin's had hild."</p>
+
+<p>"You wish them feelin's had hild!" says John, leaning his face still
+lower to the touches of her pretty hands; and then in his reverence he
+addressed her in the third person, saying, "How sweetly prowokin' she
+is!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, very earnestly, "They hev hild all these years, them feelin's hev,
+and they hev been rewived this day in all their wiolence; and the
+beautiful curls that used to shine down all the daffodils are just as
+soft and as golden as ever!" Here he ventured to touch the ends of the
+long-admired tresses; but he did not see that they were both thin and
+faded, and that the parting was very, very wide. "Ay, it's the same
+bright head," he went on, "that's been a-shinin' all these years so far
+away that I never expected to put my rough hand on 't,&mdash;not, anyhow,
+afore I'd crossed the dark ferry, and got refined into a spirit. And
+now, just think! here you be, a-sailin' in my little wessel, that I'd
+christened 'The Rose Rollins' for your memory's sake,&mdash;a-sailin' by my
+side in all the freshness and bloom of your perfect beauty!"</p>
+
+<p>The milliner laughed, well pleased with the compliment, and said that,
+when one charm wanished, another took its place sometimes; so that, if
+we only kept up our witality, we didn't look much the worse for all our
+years. "Now you, for instance, could never have been handsomer than you
+are to-day!" she concluded, pointing her theory with that kindly method
+so characteristic of women.</p>
+
+<p>His face had been drawing nearer to hers all the while she spoke, so
+that his eyes were quite looking into hers now. "I'm broke a leetle,"
+says he, "I know it; but when I see myself in these lovely
+lookin'-glasses I do look right nice, for all." And then he went on with
+his story.</p>
+
+<p>"I was a'most forgettin' on 't," he said; "but what wonder!</p>
+
+<p>"My father was a sailor; and the last time he ever went out was as one
+of the crew of the Dauphin, of Nantucket, Captain Griscom,&mdash;how well I
+remember it! though I was a little chap then,&mdash;about seven year old, I
+guess. The Dauphin was a whaler, you must know, and Captain Griscom as
+rough and hard as the sea-rocks themselves. I seen him once; and I've
+got a picter in my mind of his furrered, weather-beat face, and eyes
+that was more like the bulb of some pison plant than anything else,&mdash;so
+blue, and dull, and lackin' all human expression. His ear was like a dry
+knot,&mdash;seemed as if 't would break off if you touched it, and his nose
+wa' n't much better. He wa' n't a man that any child would ever go
+nigh,&mdash;anyhow I couldn't. My father was high-sperited,&mdash;too
+high-sperited for his sitooation, as'll be showed by an' by.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was a little, pale woman, with blue eyes, and hair as soft as
+flax. You've seen her, I dare say, for she took in washin', and used to
+hang the things on the ruf, and I would go up with her under pertence of
+helpin', but more, I'm afeard, because I could the better see into your
+door-yard, and maybe get a glimpse o' you. Well, my father used to tell
+her, 'Katura,' he would say, 'arter one more voyage I'll leave the sea,
+for then I shall be rich enough to buy an acre o' ground somewheres
+where I can hear the waters a-lappin' on the sand; and we'll build a
+snug little house, and send our boy to school, and you sha' n't wash no
+more, for you ain't strong, Katura,&mdash;not nigh so strong as you used to
+be,&mdash;I can see that plain enough.' Then the tears would come to my
+mother's eyes; for a tender word was always touchin' to her, and seein'
+on 'em my father would make haste to say, pattin' of her cheek, that,
+although<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span> some o' the airly roses was gone, she wa' n't a mite less
+purty than she used to be! and then she'd wipe her eyes and smile agin,
+and arter a little smoothin' up of her hair, or carefuller pinnin' of
+her handkerchief, light his pipe for him, and fetch the big chair out of
+the corner; and then she'd set herself to darnin' of his socks, or
+patchin' of his jackets, and so they'd pass an evenin' happy as could
+be,&mdash;my father singin' a sea-song, or a love-song, maybe, first or last.</p>
+
+<p>"We lived in the last house o' the Row,&mdash;the housen was all poor enough,
+you mind, but ourn was the very poorest on 'em, and then we had the top
+floor,&mdash;one room and a pantry bein' all, exceptin' the ruf, which was
+flat, and which we had the privilege on for a yard, in consideration of
+a dollar extra a month. 'Have the ruf, be sure, Katura!' my father would
+say. 'What's a dollar?' and he'd slap his hand down as though 't was
+full o' dollars, but 't wa' n't, and mother always paid the extra dollar
+out of her own airnin's, but feelin' all the time a'most as if he'd paid
+it, just because of the generous way he had o' speekin'. I remember the
+last time father sailed with the Dauphin, as I was sayin'
+afore,&mdash;remember it just as though it was yesterday. It was a mornin' in
+winter,&mdash;the twenty-third o' December, and snow a-lyin' on the ground. I
+could see his tracks along the walk for a week arter he was gone, and
+then the snow begun to melt; thawin' and freezin' together at first, and
+then a clean thaw, so the tracks filled up with water, and arter another
+week I couldn't find no trace on 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"'Take good care o' your mother, my lad!' he said, 'take the best o'
+care on her! I'll be home afore long, for good and all, to take care on
+her myself; it won't be but two or three year at the outside,'&mdash;and he
+give my shoulder a little shake, and then he slipped a quarter-dollar
+into my hand. And then he turned to her. 'Three year ain't long,
+Katura,' he says; 'why, they'll fly round just like so many hours,
+a'most, and fust thing you know you'll hear my step a-comin' up the
+stair! Have everything you want, good wife, and don't work hard; you
+know its agin my will that you should,&mdash;these pale cheeks make me a
+little afeard; but, arter all, you'll come round with the daisies, I
+guess.' And with that he turned from her, and writ a little with his
+finger on the table, and then he chirked up like, and buttoned his
+jacket quick, and went out the door just as though he wa' n't a-goin' no
+furder than across the street.</p>
+
+<p>"The minute follerin', mother went up to the house-ruf. She wanted to
+see arter the washed things, she said, how they was a-dryin' and all;
+but I knowd well enough she wanted to see arter him, and didn't pull at
+her skirt and foller, as I generally did. I stayed down stairs, and, to
+kind o' break up my sorrer, I chucked my head aginst the knob that was
+atop o' the andiron! A curus way to git relief; but my diversions, them
+times, was somewhat limited.</p>
+
+<p>"When my mother came down agin, there wa' n't no tears in her eyes, but
+they had a kind of a fur-reachin' look, as if they was a-gazin' clear
+across the salt seas; and they never lost that look arterwards. It was
+wofuller than tears, that look was,&mdash;'cause it seemed as if it was arter
+somethin' that wa'n't to be found on this airth.</p>
+
+<p>"I hung round her, and when she did n't say nothin' I told her I was
+goin' to be the best boy that ever was, and build all the fires, and
+help her to keep things snug; and that I could make my old shoes last
+three year, till father would come home. I was sure on 't, with one new
+pair o' half-soles, and one new pair o' toe-caps, anyhow.</p>
+
+<p>"Then she took me on her knee, and leaned her face agin mine, and said I
+was the best child in all the world, and she hoped yet to see the time
+that I'd hev as nice shoes and other things as I deserved. I slipped the
+ring up and down her finger, as she held me so, a-talkin' to me, and at
+last I said, 'This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span> ring is too big, mother; what made you get such a
+big one?' And then she said, 'Your father give it to me long ago, my
+child, and it wa'n't none too big at fust; it's the fault of the
+finger,&mdash;that is getting too thin'; and then she took the ring off,&mdash;it
+was a leetle slim thing,&mdash;and put it in an old teapot that was kept on
+the top shelf of the cupboard. She was afeared she'd either lose it off
+her hand, she said, or break it on the washboard. She didn't say nothin'
+furder, but I see she thought that the losin' on 't would be the
+dreadfullest misfortin that could happen to her.</p>
+
+<p>"It would take too long, and wear out your patience, I calculate, if I
+was to tell you of all the troubles we hed arter the sailin' of the
+Dauphin, and troubles ain't interestin' to hear on, nohow; so I'll pass
+'em by, trustin' your lively imagination to picter on 'em out.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when the three year was purty near up, she used to say to me
+every day, 'Where do you 'spose poor father is? And what will he think
+of his little boy when he sees him?' And then she would answer her own
+question, and say, 'He'll think he's a little man,&mdash;that 's what he'll
+think.' And with such like talk she seemed to get a sort of comfort,
+somehow. From her, more than from anything I knowed myself, I got a fine
+notion o' my father; among other things, I thought he was the biggest
+man in the world, and I used to spekilate as to whether Mr. Farewell
+Rollins had a coffin in his shop that would be long enough for him, if
+he should happen to die at home. I didn't s'pose he had, and the thought
+of what it would cost to get one big enough caused me a good deal of
+sorrer. More 'n this, I thought he must have wonderful powers, and that
+he could make me a kite that would fly to the moon, or, if he chose, dip
+all the water out o' the sea with mother's long-handled gourd.</p>
+
+<p>"These thoughts give me a good deal o' satisfaction, but there was times
+that nothin' I could git out o' myself could chirk me up; and them
+times I always betook myself to the andirons, and bobbed my head agin
+the top on 'em, and that was sure to fetch me round.</p>
+
+<p>"I longed for my father to come back, as much, maybe, that Rose Rollins
+might see what a big man he was, as for anything else. I guessed she'd
+begin to notice of us some when the Dauphin come in! Hows'ever, the
+three year went by, and no Dauphin come in; and then the eyes o' my
+mother began to look, not only as if they was a-gazin' away across the
+salt sea, but clean into eternity. Her cheeks fell in like a pie that
+has been sot in a cellar for a week arter the bakin' on't, and her arm
+showed in her sleeve no bigger than a broomstick. I was a'most afeared
+on her sometimes, her forehead come to look so like yaller glass, and as
+if I could see right into it, if I only tried; and them times I thumped
+my head uncommon hard on the knobs of the andirons,&mdash;they was a
+blessin', Rose,&mdash;and I used to spekilate as to what folks did that wa'
+n't rich enough to hev 'em. My mother got so weak, arter a while, that
+she would sometimes sit by the side o' the tub and wash; and it was
+astonishin' to me to see what great sheets and bed-quilts she could
+wring dry them times; and it was astonishin', too, that she could keep
+her hands in freezin' water, day arter day, and be none the wuss for it;
+but she always said she wa' n't,&mdash;in, fact, she used to tell me she
+thought it done her good; and, happy enough for me! I never thought o'
+doubtin' of her for many a long day arterwards.</p>
+
+<p>"Many a time she give me the last bit o' bread, and said she wa' n't
+hungry, and once when I broke my slice in two, and offered her part
+back, she said, 'No, Johnny, I don't think I feel so well for eatin'.
+Rich food,' she said, 'didn't suit her constitution. And so, if we
+happened to hev meat or butter, she put it all on my plate. When it come
+to be my share to work without eatin', then I understood.</p>
+
+<p>"Many a time o' nights I heard her a-turnin' and moanin' in her sleep,
+as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span> soul and body was clean wore out; and at last I went to the lady
+that lived in the house with the painted door, and fitted young ladies
+with corsets, and sold them pomatum that made the hair grow to their
+heels,&mdash;so she said,&mdash;and told how my mother moaned in the night as if
+she was a-bein' drownded in the sea; and she told me it was a nasty
+habit some folks had,&mdash;mostly because they slept too sound,&mdash;and that,
+if I would give her a rough shake, she guessed she would come out all
+right. I tried to believe her on account o' the pomatum and the painted
+door, partly; but it wa'n't in the heart o' me to give the rough shake,
+and I never done it, thank the Lord!</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes the fine lady would come in with her sewin'-work to bring us
+a little sunshine, she used to say, and I'm sure she never brought
+nothin' else, nor that neither, that anybody could see; and I always
+noticed that my mother felt a good deal less cheerful arter one o' these
+visits.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why don't you ride out, Mrs. Chidlaw?' she would say, 'and why don't
+you call the doctor? and why don't you wear warm flannels?' and then why
+didn't she do a thousand things that wa'n't to be thought on, 'cause
+they wa'n't in the nater o' the case; and then she would go away, sayin'
+she would run in another time and bring more sunshine!</p>
+
+<p>"My mother generally cried for a spell arter one o' these bright
+mornin's; and I didn't wonder, for it seemed to me as if the scent o'
+the pomatum was pison, and all the air was heavy like, arter one o' the
+visits.</p>
+
+<p>"She used to set up o'nights, a-workin', my mother did, long beyond
+midnight sometimes. 'What makes you, mother?' I would say. 'O, 'cause I
+like it, John!' she 'd answer, so lively like; and then she 'd begin to
+hum a tune, maybe, as if she was overflowin' with sperits.</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't seem to need sleep no more, she said, and, besides, she
+wanted to be wide awake when father come. So night arter night she would
+set by our one taller candle, a-mendin' of my jackets, and a-darnin' of
+my stockin's, and a-straightenin' and a stiffenin' up of the run-down
+heels of my old shoes.</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't care nothin' about 'em, mother,' I would say. 'I 'd just as
+lives be a wearin' on 'em ragged as not, and you 've chores enough
+without a-mindin' of me so much.' But she always said that, whether or
+not I cared for myself, she cared for me, and that she wanted I should
+look as smart as anybody's boy, so that father would be proud on me when
+he come home; concludin' with 'He must sartainly come now afore long.'</p>
+
+<p>"Many a time I've waked up of a winter night and found her woollen
+petticoat spread onto my bed, and she ashiverin' by the dyin' fire. One
+mornin' she surprised me uncommon by holdin' of a cap afore my eyes. 'A
+new one made of the old one,' says she, 'but you 'd never dream on 't,
+would you, Johnny?'</p>
+
+<p>"I hung it on the chair-post, and then I stood off, fairly dazzled, so
+gret was my admiration on 't. It was my old cap, be sure; but then it
+was all brushed up and pressed into shape, and lined anew with one o'
+the sleeves of my mother's silk weddin'-gown.. It wa' n't to be wore no
+longer every day, so she said, but must be put on the upper shelf o' the
+cupboard with her ring and her Sunday shawl, and kep' nice agin the time
+father should come home. I suffered, on givin' on 't up, the most
+tormentin' pangs, and had to bob my head agin the andirons considerable
+longer than common afore I come round. I was bent on wearin' on't in the
+sight of Rose Rollins,&mdash;that's you,&mdash;and forcin' on her to see the silk
+linin' some ways, and I planned out warious stratagems to that end. But
+mother said, 'No, Johnny, keep it nice just a leetle bit, till poor
+father comes.' And arter that she pacified me by takin' on 't down from
+time to time and allowin' of me to wear it as much as two or three
+minutes sometimes. The linin' was pea-green; and I've often thought
+since it was a leetle too fine for the tother part,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span> which was
+seal-skin, and wore tolerable bare,&mdash;I havin' wore it, not off and on,
+but steady on, from the time I left off my bunnet that was made of the
+end of my cradle-quilt; but I didn't calculate it was too fine then, and
+I made a pint o' standin' on a chair afore the lookin'-glass, or else
+afore the winder towards your 'us, all the whilst I was a-wearin' on 't.
+It worried me a good deal, them times, to decide which I 'd rather
+do,&mdash;look at myself, or hev you look at me!</p>
+
+<p>"I used to tease mother to put the white shawl round her shoulders.
+'Just for a minute,' I would say; but she always answered, 'One of these
+days, Johnny; it 's all wrapt up with camp-phire, and I don't want to be
+gettin' on 't down!' I understood well enough that it was to be got out
+when the great day come.</p>
+
+<p>"'Suppose, Johnny,' says she, one day, 'we cut off some of our luxuries,
+and save up to buy somethin' nice for poor father agin he comes home!' I
+was struck favorable with the idee of the present, but what luxuries was
+to be cut off I didn't see clear.</p>
+
+<p>"There's the candle, for one thing!' says mother. 'Taller's taller, at
+the best o' times; and the few chores I do at night I can do just as
+well by the light of a pine-knot.'</p>
+
+<p>"Butter, she said, wa' n't healthy for her, nor milk, nor meat, nor
+sugar, nor no such things, so it would all be easy enough for her. She
+only hesitated on my account. But I spoke up ever so brave. 'I don't
+mind,' says I; 'it'll be good fun, in fact, just to see how leetle we
+can live on!' And I think yet my mind was some expanded by that
+experience,&mdash;it driv me to such curus devices. At fust I took leetle
+bites off my cake, and leetle sips of my porridge; but I found a more
+effective plan afore long, for looks goes a good ways, and even when we
+deceive ourselves it kind o' helps us. Well, I took to hevin' my
+porridge in a shaller plate, so that there seemed twice as much on 't as
+there really was, and to hollerin' my cake out from the under side, so
+that, when it was reduced to a mere shell, it still represented what it
+wa' n't; a trick that I found to work very slick, especially when I
+imagined Rose a-lookin' at my shaller plate, and not knowin' how deep it
+was.</p>
+
+<p>"'Won't we hev a beautiful surprise, though, for poor father!' my mother
+would say, when my spoon touched bottom, and it always touched bottom
+premature; and then we would talk of what we should buy, and I would be
+carried away like, and forget myself.</p>
+
+<p>"A fur hat was talked on in our fust wild enthusiasm, but that idee was
+gin up arter we'd gone about among the stores; and we settled final on
+'t a pair o' square-toed brogans, with nails in the heels on 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"'Let 'em be good sewed shoes, and not peg,' says my mother, when she
+give the shoemaker his order, 'and make 'em up just as soon as possible.
+You see my husband may be here any day now; and we mean to hev a great
+surprise for him,&mdash;Johnny and me.'</p>
+
+<p>"The shoemaker, to my surprise,&mdash;for I expected him to enter into it
+with as much enthusiasm as we,&mdash;hesitated, said he was pressed heavy
+with work just then, and that he thought she had best go to some other
+shop! I didn't understand the meanin' on 't at all; but my mother did,
+and told him she could pay him aforehand, if he wanted it; at which he
+brightened up, and said, come to think on 't, he could make the brogans
+right away.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure enough, they was finished at the appinted time, and I carried 'em
+home, with the money that come back in change inside o' one on 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, Johnny,' says mother, when she counted it, her face all
+a-glowin', 'here's enough left to buy a handkerchief for your father!'</p>
+
+<p>"Then she counted it agin, and said there was enough, she was a'most
+sure on 't. It mightn't get a silk one, not pure silk, but if she could
+only find somethin' with a leetle mixter o' cotton in 't, why it would
+look nearly as well,&mdash;the difference would never be knowed across the
+house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She wanted a new gingham apron for herself; but that wa' n't bought,
+and all the money, as I have guessed sence, went into the handkerchief.
+And a purty one it was, too,&mdash;yaller-colored, with a red border, and an
+anchor worked in one corner on 't with blue-silk yarn.</p>
+
+<p>"So the fine presents was put away on the top shelf o' the cupboard,
+with the cap and the ring and the shawl, and there they stayed, week in
+and week out, and still the Dauphin didn't come in. I could see that my
+mother was a-growin' uneasy, more and more, though she never said
+nothin' to me that was discouragin'. She'd set sometimes for an hour
+a-lookin' straight into the air, and then she went up to the ruf more 'n
+common to look arter the things a-dryin' there.</p>
+
+<p>"One day there come on snow and sleet, but for all that she stayed
+aloft, just as though the sun had been a-shinin'; and at last, when the
+dusk had gathered so that she couldn't see no longer, she come down with
+a gret heap o' wet things, in her arms, and all of a shiver.</p>
+
+<p>"Her hand shook as she sot down to bind shoes,&mdash;she had took to bindin'
+of shoes some them times, not bein' so strong as she used to be for the
+washin'; but arter a while she fell of a tremble all over. 'It's no
+use,' says she, 'I ain't good for nothin' no more,' and she put away the
+bindin' and cowered close over the ashes.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to lay on a big stick, but she said no, she'd go to bed, and
+get warm there; but she didn't get warm, not even when I had piled all
+the things I could rake and scrape over the bed-quilt, for I could see
+them tremblin' together like a heap o' dry leaves.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to the lady with the painted door, and she promised to come in
+and see my mother early in the mornin'; but in the mornin', when I went
+agin, she said she had so many corsets to fit that it wa' n't
+possible,&mdash;that I must tell my mother she sent a great deal o' love, and
+hoped she'd be better very soon.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't go arter her no more, and all that day and the next my poor
+mother lay, now a-burnin' and now a-freezin', but by and by she got
+better, and sot up in bed some, havin' my little chair agin her back;
+and so she finished bindin' o' the shoes, and I carried on 'em home, she
+a-chargin' me twenty times afore I sot out to take care and not lose the
+money I got for bindin' on 'em. 'And don't forget to stop at the store,'
+she said, 'and buy me a quarter o' tea, as you come back, Johnny.'</p>
+
+<p>"But, after all, I went home without the tea, or the money either.</p>
+
+<p>"In the fust place, the shoemaker said my mother had disappinted him in
+not sendin' the work home when she promised; and when I said she was
+sick, he answered that that wa 'n't his look-out; and then he eyed the
+work sharply, sayin', at last, that he couldn't pay for them sort o'
+stitches, and he wouldn't give out no more bindin' neither, and that I
+might go with a hop, skip, and jump, and tell my mother so; and he waved
+his hand, with a big boot-last in it, as though, if I didn't hop quick,
+he'd be glad to help me for'a'd himself.</p>
+
+<p>"'Never mind, Johnny,' says mother, as I leaned my head on her piller,
+a-cryin', and told her what the shoemaker had said, 'it'll all be right
+when father comes back.'</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't mind about the tea, she said, water would serve just as
+well; and then, arter pickin' at the bed-clothes a leetle, she said she
+felt sleepy, and turned her face to the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"All winter long she was sick, and there was heart-breakin' things all
+the while comin' to pass; but I'd rather not tell on 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"Spring come round at last,&mdash;as come it will, whether them that watch
+for its comin' are cryin' or laughin',&mdash;and the sun shined in at the
+south winder and made a patch o' gold on the floor,&mdash;all we had, to be
+sure,&mdash;when one day comes the news we had been a-lookin' for so
+long,&mdash;the Dauphin was a-comin' in!</p>
+
+<p>"'And me here in bed!' says my mother; 'that'll never do. How
+good-for-nothin' I be!'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then she told me to run and fetch her best gown out of the chest, and
+she was out o' bed the next minute; and though she looked as pale as the
+sheet she managed somehow to dress herself. Then she told me to fetch
+her the lookin'-glass where she sot by the bedside; and when she seen
+her face the tears came to her eyes, and one little low moan, that
+seemed away down in her heart, made me shudder. 'I don't care for my own
+sake,' she said, puttin' her arm across my neck; 'but what will your
+father think o' me?'</p>
+
+<p>"Then she sot the glass up afore her, and combed her hair half a dozen
+different ways, but none on 'em suited. She didn't look like herself,
+she said, nohow; and then she told me to climb to the upper shelf and
+git down the fine shawl, and see if that would mend matters any.</p>
+
+<p>"I fetched the ring too; but it wouldn't stay on a single finger; and so
+she give it to me, smilin', and sayin' I might wear it till she got
+well.</p>
+
+<p>"I sot the house in order myself, with her a-tellin' on me some about
+things. The two silver teaspoons was burnished up, and stuck for show
+into the edge of the dresser; the three glass tumblers was sot forth in
+full view; and the tin coffee-pot, so high and so narrer at the top, was
+turned sideways on the shelf, so as to make the most on 't; and the
+little brown earthen-ware teapot was histed atop o' that. We had a dozen
+eggs we had been a-savin', for we kep' a hen on the ruf, and them I took
+and sot endwise in the sand-bowl, so that, to all appearance, the whole
+bowl was full of eggs; and I raly thought the appintments, one and all,
+made us look considerable like rich folks.</p>
+
+<p>"'Do go up to the ruf, Johnny, my child,' says my mother, at last, 'and
+see what you will see.'</p>
+
+<p>"She had sot two hours, with her shawl held just so across her bosom,
+and was a-growin' impatient and faint like.</p>
+
+<p>"She looked at me so eager, when I come down, I could hardly bear to
+tell her that I could only just see the Dauphin a-lyin' out, and that
+she looked black and ugly, and that I couldn't see nothin' furder. But I
+did tell it, and then come another o' them little low moans away down in
+her heart. Directly, though, she smiled agin, and told me to go to the
+chest and open the till, and get the table-cloth and the pewter platter
+that I would find there. 'We must have our supper-table shine its best
+to-night,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Agin and agin I went up to the ruf, but I didn't see nothin' no time
+except the whaler a-lyin' a little out, and lookin' black and ugly, as
+if there wa'n't no good a-comin' with her.</p>
+
+<p>"At last evenin' fell, and then my mother crept to the winder, and got
+her face agin the pane, and such a look of wistfulness come to her eyes
+as I had never seen in 'em afore.</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't say nothin' no more, and I didn't say nothin'; it was an
+awful silence, but somethin' appeared to keep us from breakin' on 't.</p>
+
+<p>"The shadders had gathered so that the street was all dusky; for there
+wa'n't no lamps at our end o' the street,&mdash;when all at once mother was
+a-standin' up, and holdin' out her arms. The next minute she says, 'Run
+to the door, Johnny; I ain't quite sure whether or not it's him!' And
+she sunk down, tremblin', and all of a heap.</p>
+
+<p>"I could hear the stairs a creakin' under the tread of heavy steps, and
+when I got to the door there was two men a comin' up instead o' one.
+'It's him! mother! it's him!' I shouted with all my might, for I see a
+sailor's cap and jacket, and took the rest for granted. I swung the door
+wide, and stood a-dancin' in it, and yet I didn't like the looks o'
+neither on 'em; only I thought I ought to be glad, and so I danced for
+pertended joy. 'Get out o' the way! you sassy lad!' says one o' the men,
+and he led the tother right past me into the house, I follerin' along
+behind, but neither on 'em noticin' of me in the least; and there sot my
+mother, dead still on her chair, just as if she was froze into stone.
+'Here he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span> is,' says the man that was leadin' of him,&mdash;'here's John
+Chidlaw, what there is left on him!' Then he give me a push toward him,
+and nodded to my mother like, a-drawin' his mouth into such queer shapes
+that I couldn't tell whether he was a-laughin' or cryin', and I didn't
+know which I ought to do neither.</p>
+
+<p>"By this time the man that I partly took to be my father was a-backin'
+furder and furder from us, and at last he got clean agin the jamb o' the
+chimney, and then he looked up wild, as if he was a looking at the sky,
+and directly he spoke. 'This'll be a stiff blow,' says he. 'We're struck
+aft, and we'll be in the trough of the sea in a minute! God help us
+all!' And with that he began to climb up the shelves o' the cupboard, as
+though he was a climbin' into a ship's riggin'.</p>
+
+<p>"Next thing I seen, mother had got to him, somehow, and was a-holdin'
+round his neck, and talkin' to him in tones as sweet and coaxin' as
+though he had been a sick baby. 'Don't you know me, John?' she
+says,&mdash;'your own Katura, that you left so long ago!' He didn't answer
+her at all; he didn't seem to see her, but kep' right on, a-talkin'
+about the ship not bein' able to lift herself, and about the rudder
+bein' tore away, and a leak som'er's, and settin' of a gang o' hands at
+the pumps, and gettin' of the cargo up, and the dear knows what all! I
+didn't understand a word on 't, and, besides that, I was afeard on him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tell 'em about the last whale we ketched, Jack,&mdash;that big bull that so
+nigh upsot us all. Come, that's a story worth while!' It was the man
+that had led him in who said this; and he laughed loud, and slapped him
+on the shoulder as he said it; and then he looked at my mother and
+winked, and drawed his mouth queer agin.</p>
+
+<p>"My father kind o' come to himself like now, and seatin' himself astride
+a chair, and with his face to the back on 't, he began:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We was a cruisin' about in the South Pacific, when, between three and
+four in the afternoon of an August day, we bein' in latitude forty at
+the time, the man on the look-out at the fore-topmast-head cried out
+that a whale had broke water in plain view of our ship, and on her
+weather bow.</p>
+
+<p>"'Where away, sir? and what do you call her?' shouts the captain,
+hailin' the mast-head.</p>
+
+<p>"'Sperm whale, sir, three pints on the weather-bow, and about two miles
+off!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Keep a sharp eye, and sing out when the ship heads for her!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ay, ay, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>"The captain went aloft with his spy-glass. 'Keep her away!' was his
+next order to the man at the helm.</p>
+
+<p>"'Steady!' sung out the mast-head.</p>
+
+<p>"'Steady it is!' answered the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>"'Square in the after-yards, and call all hands!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ay, ay, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Forward there! Haul the mainsail up, and square the yards!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Steady, steady!' sings out the mast-head.</p>
+
+<p>"'Steady it is!' answers the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>"'Call all hands!' shouts the captain, in a voice like a tempest.</p>
+
+<p>"The main hatches was off, and the men mostly in the blubber-room,
+engaged, some on 'em, in mincin' and pikin' pieces of blanket and horse
+from one tub to another, and some was a-tendin' fires, and some
+a-fillin' casks with hot ile from the cooler; but quick as lightnin' all
+the deck is thronged, like the street of a city when there is a cry of
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"'There she blows! O, she's a beauty, a regular old sog!' sings the
+mast-head.</p>
+
+<p>"'Slack down the fires! Quick, by G&mdash;!' shouts the captain in a voice
+like thunder.</p>
+
+<p>"'She peaks her flukes, and goes down!' cries the mast-head.</p>
+
+<p>"'A sharp eye, sir! Mind where she comes up!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ay, ay, sir!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Get your boats ready, lads, and stand by to lower away!'</p>
+
+<p>"The men work as for life,&mdash;the boat-bottoms are tallered, the
+boat-tackle-falls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span> laid down, so as to run clear, the tub o' line and
+the harpoons got in, the gripes cast clear, and each boat's crew by the
+side o' their boat.</p>
+
+<p>"'Hoist and swing! Lower away!'</p>
+
+<p>"In a moment we're off, bendin' to our oars, every man on us, eager to
+see who will be up first. The whale was under half an hour; but at last
+we get sight o' the signal at the main, which tells us that she's up
+agin.</p>
+
+<p>"'Down to your oars, lads! Give way hard!' says the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"I got the palm o' my hand under the abaft oar, so as with each stroke
+to throw a part of my weight agin it, and our boat leapt for'a'd across
+the water, spring arter spring, like a tiger,&mdash;her length and twice her
+length afore the others in a minute.</p>
+
+<p>"'She's an eighty-barrel! right ahead! Give way, my boys!' cries the
+captain, encouragin' on us. And all our strength was put to the oar.</p>
+
+<p>"'Spring harder, boys! Harder! If she blows agin, some on you'll have an
+iron into her afore five minutes!' Then to the whale,&mdash;a-standin' with
+his legs wide, and bendin' for'a'd like,&mdash;'O, you're a beauty! Ahoy!
+ahoy! and let us fasten!'</p>
+
+<p>"We was nearly out of sight of our ship now, but we could see the smoke
+of her try-works still standin' black above her, though the fires had
+been slacked so long.</p>
+
+<p>"All at once the whale blowed agin; and we could see her plain now,
+lyin' like a log, not more 'n twenty rods ahead. A little more hard
+pullin', and 'Stand up!' says the Captain, and then, 'Give me the first
+chance at her!' I was a-steerin' and I steered him steady, closer,
+closer, alongside a'most, and give his iron the best chance possible;
+but it grazed off, and she settled quietly under, all but her head.</p>
+
+<p>"'That wa'n't quite low enough,' says he. 'Another lance!'</p>
+
+<p>"This failed too, and she settled clean under. Every man was quiverin'
+with excitement; but I watched calmly, and, as soon as I spied her
+whitenin' under water, I sent my lance arter her without orders, and by
+good forten sunk it into her very life&mdash;full length.</p>
+
+<p>"She throwed out a great spout o' blood, and dashed furiously under.</p>
+
+<p>"'God help us! She'll come up so as to upset our boat!' cries the
+captain. 'Every man here at her, when she comes in sight!'</p>
+
+<p>"He had hardly done speakin' when I felt a great knock, and at the same
+time seen somethin' a-flyin' through the air. She had just grazed us,
+shovin' our boat aside as a pig shoves his trough, and was breakin'
+water not a stone's throw ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"The captain had gone overboard; but we obeyed his last words before we
+looked arter him, and had a dozen irons into her afore you could 'a'
+said Jack Robinson! Down she went agin, pullin' the line arter her, coil
+on coil; but the pain wouldn't allow her to stay down long, and directly
+she was out agin, thrashin' the water with her flukes till it was all
+churned up like blubbers o'blood,&mdash;for her side was bristlin' with
+harpoons, and the life pourin' out on her like rain out of a
+thunder-cloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Meantime the captain had been hauled aboard, and as he sunk down on an
+oar,&mdash;for he couldn't stand,&mdash;all his shirt and hair a-drippin' red, his
+cold, spiteful eye shot into me like a bullet, and says I to the mate,
+'I'm a doomed man.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Then my father began ramblin' wildly about goin' overboard himself, and
+how he seen a stream o' fire afore his eyes as he sunk into the cold and
+dark; and how there came an awful pressure on his brain, and a roarin'
+in his ears; and how the strength went out of his thighs, and was as if
+the marrer was cut,&mdash;how he heard a gurglin', and felt suffocation, and
+then clean lost himself!"</p>
+
+<p>At this point John Chidlaw ceased to be master of his voice, and all at
+once hid his face in his arms. When the woman who had been listening so
+attentively, getting one of his rough hands upon her knee, stroked it
+gently,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span> without a word, and by and by he returned her a little
+pressure, and then, steadying himself up, he said: "It ain't no use to
+think on't, Rose,&mdash;it's all over now, and they've met beyond the seas o'
+time, my poor father and mother, for they both crossed long ago,&mdash;met,
+and knowed each other, I hope, but the one never come to himself here,
+nor recognized the other. My mother took straight to her bed; and when
+she wore the white shawl agin, and had it drawed across her bosom, it
+was for that journey from which none on us come back."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear John," says Rose, very softly,&mdash;all the coquette gone,&mdash;only the
+woman left. And presently he was strong enough to go on.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a good many year," he said, "not till I was a'most a man, before
+I came to understand rightly what it was that sot my father crazy. The
+captain had been agin him all along on account of his too much sperit,
+and that capterin' o' the whale finished up the business, and pinted his
+fate. It wa'n't long arter this till Captain Griscom found occasion to
+treat him very hardly, which bein' resented only by a look, he ordered
+him down below to be flogged! This, Rose, was what broke the spirit on
+him; he was never himself arterwards, never knowed nothin' at all clear,
+exceptin' about the takin' o' that whale; and that he told over and over
+a hundred times, arter that fust time, just as I've told it to you, but
+all before it and all behind it was shadders, till the great shadder of
+all came over him.</p>
+
+<p>"When I come to hear on 't, I said I hoped my father would meet that
+'ere captain som'er's on the seas of eternity, and flog him within an
+inch of his life; and I ha'n't repented the sayin' on't yet."</p>
+
+<p>The tide had come up while John Chidlaw was telling his story, and his
+little boat slid off the bar directly, when, taking up the oars, he soon
+brought her to land.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless your dear heart, John!" says Rose, pointing back to the boat's
+name, as he handed her ashore, "would you believe I was so stupid as
+not to see that the name o' your wessel was the same as my own? I read
+it the <i>Rose Rolling</i>, to be sure!"</p>
+
+<p>But John maintained that she was not stupid a single bit nor mite, but,
+on the contrary, smart altogether beyond the common. "To come so nigh
+the truth," says he, "and yet not get hold on 't, arter all, is a leetle
+the slickest thing yet!"</p>
+
+<p>And then he told, as they walked home together,&mdash;he with three bandboxes
+in one arm, and her on the other,&mdash;all about his weary years of hardship
+and poverty, and all about the beginning of his good fortune, the
+running away of the horse and of the little girl who drew him after her,
+because she reminded him so much of Rose herself as she used to be when
+he looked down upon her so fondly from the roof in Baker's Row,&mdash;told
+her of the child's father, and how he set him up in business,&mdash;of his
+prosperity since, ending with her taking passage with him, which he said
+was the best fortune of all.</p>
+
+<p>"That was luck," says he, "that no words can shadder forth!" And then he
+said, "I oughtn't to call it luck, my dear; it was just an intervention
+of Divine Providence!" Then he corrected himself. "An interwention o'
+Diwine Providence," says he,&mdash;"that's what it was!" And he hugged the
+very bandboxes till he fairly stove them in.</p>
+
+<p>About a month after this blessed luck, the milliner's shop was closed
+one day at an unusually early hour, and the white-muslin curtains at the
+parlor windows above might have been noticed to nutter and sway, as with
+some gay excitement indoors. And so indeed there was. John had taken his
+Rose for good and all, and the little parlor was full of glad hearts and
+merry feet. All the milliner's apprentices and sewing-girls of the
+neighborhood were there, bright as so many butterflies, laughing, and
+nodding, and whispering one another, and dropping their eyes before the
+young sailors, and teamsters,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span> and other fine fellows, who were serving
+them with a generosity that was only equalled by their admiration.
+Coffee, cakes, cheese, chowder, bottled beer, fruits, and hot
+bannocks,&mdash;the lasses had them all at once, and the lads would have been
+glad to give them even more.</p>
+
+<p>And John, grown ten years younger that day, kept all the while (being
+forced to turn his head away now and then to receive congratulations)
+one foot under the table, and against the soft slipper and silken
+stocking of Rose, lest at any moment she might be caught up into heaven,
+and so vanish out of his sight; and she, in turn, kept fond watch of
+him, pressing the oranges upon him with almost importunate solicitude.
+Perhaps she remembered that one which he had parted with for her sake,
+when he used to look down upon her from the roof of Baker's Row with
+such hopeless and helpless admiration.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="ARE_THE_CHILDREN_AT_HOME" id="ARE_THE_CHILDREN_AT_HOME"></a>ARE THE CHILDREN AT HOME?</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Each day when the glow of sunset<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fades in the western sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the wee ones, tired of playing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Go tripping lightly by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I steal away from my husband,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Asleep in his easy-chair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And watch from the open doorway<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their faces fresh and fair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Alone in the dear old homestead<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That once was full of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ringing with girlish laughter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Echoing boyish strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We two are waiting together;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And oft, as the shadows come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With tremulous voice he calls me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"It is night! are the children home?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yes, love!" I answer him gently,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"They're all home long ago";&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I sing, in my quivering treble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A song so soft and low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the old man drops to slumber,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With his head upon his hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I tell to myself the number<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Home in the better land.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Home, where never a sorrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall dim their eyes with tears!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the smile of God is on them<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through all the summer years!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I know!&mdash;yet my arms are empty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That fondly folded seven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the mother heart within me<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is almost starved for heaven.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sometimes, in the dusk of evening,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I only shut my eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the children are all about me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A vision from the skies:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The babes whose dimpled fingers<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lost the way to my breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the beautiful ones, the angels,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Passed to the world of the blessed.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With never a cloud upon them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I see their radiant brows:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My boys that I gave to freedom,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The red sword sealed their vows!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a tangled Southern forest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Twin brothers, bold and brave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They fell; and the flag they died for,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thank God! floats over their grave.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A breath, and the vision is lifted<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Away on wings of light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And again we two are together,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All alone in the night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They tell me his mind is failing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But I smile at idle fears;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He is only back with the children,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the dear and peaceful years.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And still as the summer sunset<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fades away in the west,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the wee ones, tired of playing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Go trooping home to rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My husband calls from his corner,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Say, love! have the children come?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I answer, with eyes uplifted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Yes, dear! they are all at home!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IN_THE_GRAY_GOTH" id="IN_THE_GRAY_GOTH"></a>IN THE GRAY GOTH.</h2>
+
+
+<p>If the wick of the big oil lamp had been cut straight, I don't believe
+it would ever have happened.</p>
+
+<p>Where is the poker, Johnny? Can't you push back that for'ard log a
+little? Dear, dear! Well, it doesn't make much difference, does it?
+Something always seems to ail your Massachusetts fires; your hickory is
+green, and your maple is gnarly, and the worms eat out your oak like a
+sponge. I haven't seen anything like what I call a fire,&mdash;not since Mary
+Ann was married, and I came here to stay. "As long as you live, father,"
+she said; and in that very letter she told me I should always have an
+open fire, and how she wouldn't let Jacob put in the air-tight in the
+sitting-room, but had the fireplace kept on purpose. Mary Ann was a good
+girl always, if I remember straight, and I'm sure I don't complain.
+Isn't that a pine-knot at the bottom of the basket? There! that's
+better.</p>
+
+<p>Let me see; I began to tell you something, didn't I? O yes; about that
+winter of '41. I remember now. I declare, I can't get over it, to think
+you never heard about it, and you twenty-four year old come Christmas.
+You don't know much more, either, about Maine folks and Maine fashions
+than you do about China,&mdash;though it's small wonder, for the matter of
+that, you were such a little shaver when Uncle Jed took you. There were
+a great many of us, it seems to me, that year, I 'most forget how
+many;&mdash;we buried the twins next summer, didn't we?&mdash;then there was Mary
+Ann, and little Nancy, and&mdash;well, coffee was dearer than ever I'd seen
+it, I know, about that time, and butter selling for nothing; we just
+threw our milk away, and there wasn't any market for eggs; besides
+doctor's bills and Isaac to be sent to school; so it seemed to be the
+best thing, though your mother took on pretty badly about it at first.
+Jedediah has been good to you, I'm sure, and brought you up
+religious,&mdash;though you've cost him a sight, spending three hundred and
+fifty dollars a year at Amherst College.</p>
+
+<p>But, as I was going to say, when I started to talk about '41,&mdash;to tell
+the truth, Johnny, I'm always a long while coming to it, I believe. I'm
+getting to be an old man,&mdash;a little of a coward, maybe, and sometimes,
+when I sit alone here nights, and think it over, it's just like the
+toothache, Johnny. As I was saying, if she had cut that wick straight, I
+do believe it wouldn't have happened,&mdash;though it isn't that I mean to
+lay the blame on her <i>now</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I'd been out at work all day about the place, slicking things up for
+to-morrow; there was a gap in the barn-yard fence to mend,&mdash;I left that
+till the last thing, I remember,&mdash;I remember everything, some way or
+other, that happened that day,&mdash;and there was a new roof to put on the
+pig-pen, and the grape-vine needed an extra layer of straw, and the
+latch was loose on the south barn door; then I had to go round and take
+a last look at the sheep, and toss down an extra forkful for the cows,
+and go into the stall to have a talk with Ben, and unbutton the coop
+door to see if the hens looked warm,&mdash;just to tuck 'em up, as you might
+say. I always felt sort of homesick&mdash;though I wouldn't have owned up to
+it, not even to Nancy&mdash;saying good by to the creeturs the night before I
+went in. There, now! it beats all, to think you don't know what I'm
+talking about, and you a lumberman's son. "Going in" is going up into
+the woods, you know, to cut and haul for the winter,&mdash;up, sometimes, a
+hundred miles deep,&mdash;in in the fall and out in the spring; whole gangs
+of us shut up there sometimes for six months, then down with the
+freshets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span> on the logs, and all summer to work the farm,&mdash;a merry sort of
+life when you get used to it, Johnny; but it was a great while ago, and
+it seems to me as if it must have been very cold.&mdash;Isn't there a little
+draft coming in at the pantry door?</p>
+
+<p>So when I'd said good by to the creeturs,&mdash;I remember just as plain how
+Ben put his great neck on my shoulder and whinnied like a baby,&mdash;that
+horse knew when the season came round and I was going in, just as well
+as I did,&mdash;I tinkered up the barn-yard fence, and locked the doors, and
+went in to supper.</p>
+
+<p>I gave my finger a knock with the hammer, which may have had something
+to do with it, for a man doesn't feel very good-natured when he's been
+green enough to do a thing like that, and he doesn't like to say it
+aches either. But if there is anything I can't bear it is lamp-smoke; it
+always did put me out, and I expect it always will. Nancy knew what a
+fuss I made about it, and she was always very careful not to hector me
+with it I ought to have remembered that, but I didn't. She had lighted
+the company lamp on purpose, too, because it was my last night. I liked
+it better than the tallow candle.</p>
+
+<p>So I came in, stamping off the snow, and they were all in there about
+the fire,&mdash;the twins, and Mary Ann, and the rest; baby was sick, and
+Nancy was walking back and forth with him, with little Nancy pulling at
+her gown. You were the baby then, I believe, Johnny; but there always
+was a baby, and I don't rightly remember. The room was so black with
+smoke, that they all looked as if they were swimming round and round in
+it. I guess coming in from the cold, and the pain in my finger and all,
+it made me a bit sick. At any rate, I threw open the window and blew out
+the light, as mad as a hornet.</p>
+
+<p>"Nancy," said I, "this room would strangle a dog, and you might have
+known it, if you'd had two eyes to see what you were about. There, now!
+I've tipped the lamp over, and you just get a cloth and wipe up the
+oil."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" said she, lighting a candle, and she spoke up very soft, too.
+"Please, Aaron, don't let the cold in on baby. I'm sorry it was smoking,
+but I never knew a thing about it; he's been fretting and taking on so
+the last hour, I didn't notice anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what you ought to have done," says I, madder than ever.
+"You know how I hate the stuff, and you ought to have cared more about
+me than to choke me up with it this way the last night before going in."</p>
+
+<p>Nancy was a patient, gentle-spoken sort of woman, and would bear a good
+deal from a fellow; but she used to fire up sometimes, and that was more
+than she could stand. "You don't deserve to be cared about, for speaking
+like that!" says she, with her cheeks as red as peat-coals.</p>
+
+<p>That was right before the children. Mary Ann's eyes were as big as
+saucers, and little Nancy was crying at the top of her lungs, with the
+baby tuning in, so we knew it was time to stop. But stopping wasn't
+ending; and folks can look things that they don't say.</p>
+
+<p>We sat down to supper as glum as pump-handles; there were some
+fritters&mdash;I never knew anybody beat your mother at fritters&mdash;smoking hot
+off the stove, and some maple molasses in one of the best chiny teacups;
+I knew well enough it was just on purpose for my last night, but I never
+had a word to say, and Nancy crumbed up the children's bread with a
+jerk. Her cheeks didn't grow any whiter; it seemed as if they would
+blaze right up,&mdash;I couldn't help looking at them, for all I pretended
+not to, for she looked just like a pictur. Some women always are pretty
+when they are put out,&mdash;and then again, some ain't; it appears to me
+there's a great difference in women, very much as there is in hens; now,
+there was your aunt Deborah,&mdash;but there, I won't get on that track now,
+only so far as to say that when she was flustered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span> up she used to go red
+all over, something like a piny, which didn't seem to have just the same
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>That supper was a very dreary sort of supper, with the baby crying, and
+Nancy getting up between the mouthfuls to walk up and down the room with
+him; he was a heavy little chap for a ten-month-old, and I think she
+must have been tuckered out with him all day. I didn't think about it
+then; a man doesn't notice such things when he's angry,&mdash;it isn't in
+him. I can't say but <i>she</i> would if I'd been in her place. I just eat up
+the fritters and the maple molasses,&mdash;seems to me I told her she ought
+not to use the best chiny cup, but I'm not just sure,&mdash;and then I took
+my pipe, and sat down in the corner.</p>
+
+<p>I watched her putting the children to bed; they made her a great deal of
+bother, squirming off of her lap and running round barefoot. Sometimes I
+used to hold them and talk to them and help her a bit, when I felt
+good-natured, but I just sat and smoked, and let them alone. I was all
+worked up about that lamp-wick, and I thought, you see, if she hadn't
+had any feelings for me there was no need of my having any for her,&mdash;if
+she had cut the wick, I'd have taken the babies; she hadn't cut the
+wick, and I wouldn't take the babies; she might see it if she wanted to,
+and think what she pleased. I had been badly treated, and I meant to
+show it.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange, Johnny, it really does seem to me very strange, how easy
+it is in this world to be always taking care of our <i>rights</i>. I've
+thought a great deal about it since I've been growing old, and there
+seems to me a good many things we'd better look after fust.</p>
+
+<p>But you see I hadn't found that out in '41, and so I sat in the corner,
+and felt very much abused. I can't say but what Nancy had pretty much
+the same idea; for when the young ones were all in bed at last, she took
+her knitting and sat down the other side of the fire, sort of turning
+her head round and looking up at the ceiling, as if she were trying her
+best to forget I was there. That was a way she had when I was courting,
+and we went along to huskings together, with the moon shining round.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I kept on smoking, and she kept on looking at the ceiling, and
+nobody said a word for a while, till by and by the fire burnt down, and
+she got up and put on a fresh log.</p>
+
+<p>"You're dreadful wasteful with the wood, Nancy," says I, bound to say
+something cross, and that was all I could think of.</p>
+
+<p>"Take care of your own fire, then," says she, throwing the log down and
+standing up as straight as she could stand. "I think it's a pity if you
+haven't anything better to do, the last night before going in, than to
+pick everything I do to pieces this way, and I tired enough to drop,
+carrying that great crying child in my arms all day. You ought to be
+ashamed of yourself, Aaron Hollis!"</p>
+
+<p>Now if she had cried a little, very like I should have given up, and
+that would have been the end of it, for I never could bear to see a
+woman cry; it goes against the grain. But your mother wasn't one of the
+crying sort, and she didn't feel like it that night.</p>
+
+<p>She just stood up there by the fireplace, as proud as Queen Victory,&mdash;I
+don't blame her, Johnny,&mdash;O no, I don't blame her; she had the right of
+it there, I <i>ought</i> to have been ashamed of myself; but a man never
+likes to hear that from other folks, and I put my pipe down on the
+chimney-shelf so hard I heard it snap like ice, and I stood up too, and
+said&mdash;but no matter what I said, I guess. A man's quarrels with his wife
+always make me think of what the Scripture says about other folks not
+intermeddling. They're things, in my opinion, that don't concern anybody
+else as a general thing, and I couldn't tell what I said without telling
+what she said, and I'd rather not do that. Your mother was as good and
+patient-tempered a woman as ever lived, Johnny, and she didn't mean it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span>
+and it was I that set her on. Besides, my words were worst of the two.</p>
+
+<p>Well, well, I'll hurry along just here, for it's not a time I like to
+think about; but we had it back and forth there for half an hour, till
+we had angered each other up so I couldn't stand it, and I lifted up my
+hand,&mdash;I would have struck her if she hadn't been a woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says I, "Nancy Hollis, I'm sorry for the day I married you, and
+that's the truth, if ever I spoke a true word in my life!"</p>
+
+<p>I wouldn't have told you that now if you could understand the rest
+without. I'd give the world, Johnny,&mdash;I'd give the world and all those
+coupon bonds Jedediah invested for me if I could anyway forget it; but I
+said it, and I can't.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I've seen your mother look 'most all sorts of ways in the course
+of her life, but I never saw her before, and I never saw her since, look
+as she looked that minute. All the blaze went out in her cheeks, as if
+somebody had thrown cold water on it, and she stood there stock still,
+so white I thought she would drop.</p>
+
+<p>"Aaron&mdash;" she began, and stopped to catch her breath, "Aaron&mdash;" but she
+couldn't get any farther; she just caught hold of a little shawl she had
+on with both her hands, as if she thought she could hold herself up by
+it, and walked right out of the room. I knew she had gone to bed, for I
+heard her go up and shut the door. I stood there a few minutes with my
+hands in my pockets, whistling Yankee Doodle. Your mother used to say
+men were queer folks, Johnny; they always whistled up the gayest when
+they felt the wust. Then I went to the closet and got another pipe, and
+I didn't go up stairs till it was smoked out.</p>
+
+<p>When I was a young man, Johnny, I used to be that sort of fellow that
+couldn't bear to give up beat. I'd acted like a brute, and I knew it,
+but I was too spunky to say so. So I says to myself, "If she won't make
+up first, I won't, and that's the end on't." Very likely she said the
+same thing, for your mother was a spirited sort of woman when her
+temper <i>was</i> up; so there we were, more like enemies sworn against each
+other than man and wife who had loved each other true for fifteen
+years,&mdash;a whole winter, and danger, and death perhaps, coming between
+us, too.</p>
+
+<p>It may seem very queer to you, Johnny,&mdash;it did to me when I was your
+age, and didn't know any more than you do,&mdash;how folks can work
+themselves up into great quarrels out of such little things; but they
+do, and into worse, if it's a man who likes his own way, and a woman
+that knows how to talk. It's my opinion, two thirds of all the divorce
+cases in the law-books just grow up out of things no bigger than that
+lamp-wick.</p>
+
+<p>But how people that ever loved each other could come to hard words like
+that, you don't see? Well, ha, ha! Johnny, that amuses me, that really
+does amuse me, for I never saw a young man nor a young woman
+either,&mdash;and young men and young women in general are very much like
+fresh-hatched chickens, to my mind, and know just about as much of the
+world, Johnny,&mdash;well, I never saw one yet who didn't say that very
+thing. And what's more, I never saw one who could get it into his head
+that old folks knew better.</p>
+
+<p>But I say I had loved your mother true, Johnny, and she had loved me
+true, for more than fifteen years; and I loved her more the fifteenth
+year than I did the first, and we couldn't have got along without each
+other, any more than you could get along if somebody cut your heart
+right out. We had laughed together and cried together; we had been sick,
+and we'd been well together; we'd had our hard times and our pleasant
+times right along, side by side; we'd christened the babies, and we'd
+buried 'em, holding on to each other's hand; we had grown along year
+after year, through ups and downs and downs and ups, just like one
+person, and there wasn't any more dividing of us. But for all that we'd
+been put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span> out, and we'd had our two ways, and we had spoken our sharp
+words like any other two folks, and this wasn't our first quarrel by any
+means.</p>
+
+<p>I tell you, Johnny, young folks they start in life with very pretty
+ideas,&mdash;very pretty. But take it as a general thing, they don't know any
+more what they're talking about than they do about each other, and they
+don't know any more about each other than they do about the man in the
+moon. They begin very nice, with their new carpets and teaspoons, and a
+little mending to do, and coming home early evenings to talk; but by and
+by the shine wears off. Then come the babies, and worry and wear and
+temper. About that time they begin to be a little acquainted, and to
+find out that there are two wills and two sets of habits to be fitted
+somehow. It takes them anywhere along from one year to three to get
+jostled down together. As for smoothing off, there's more or less of
+that to be done always.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I didn't sleep very well that night, dropping into naps and waking
+up. The baby was worrying over his teeth every half-hour, and Nancy
+getting up to walk him off to sleep in her arms,&mdash;it was the only way
+you <i>would</i> be hushed up, and you'd lie and yell till somebody did it.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it wasn't many times since we'd been married that I had let her do
+that thing all night long. I used to have a way of getting up to take my
+turn, and sending her off to sleep. It isn't a man's business, some
+folks say. I don't know anything about that; maybe, if I'd been broiling
+my brain in book learning all day till come night, and I was hard put to
+it to get my sleep anyhow, like the parson there, it wouldn't; but all I
+know is, what if I had been breaking my back in the potato-patch since
+morning? so she'd broken her's over the oven; and what if I did need
+nine hours' sound sleep? I could chop and saw without it next day, just
+as well as she could do the ironing, to say nothing of my being a great
+stout fellow,&mdash;there wasn't a chap for ten miles round with my
+muscle,&mdash;and she with those blue veins on her forehead. Howsomever that
+may be, I wasn't used to letting her do it by herself, and so I lay with
+my eyes shut, and pretended that I was asleep; for I didn't feel like
+giving in, and speaking up gentle, not about that nor anything else.</p>
+
+<p>I could see her though, between my eyelashes, and I lay there, every
+time I woke up, and watched her walking back and forth, back and forth,
+up and down, with the heavy little fellow in her arms, all night long.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, Johnny, when I'm gone to bed now of a winter night, I think I
+see her in her white nightgown with her red-plaid shawl pinned over her
+shoulders and over the baby, walking up and down, and up and down. I
+shut my eyes, but there she is, and I open them again, but I see her all
+the same.</p>
+
+<p>I was off very early in the morning; I don't think it could have been
+much after three o'clock when I woke up. Nancy had my breakfast all laid
+out overnight, except the coffee, and we had fixed it that I was to make
+up the fire, and get off without waking her, if the baby was very bad.
+At least, that was the way I wanted it; but she stuck to it she should
+be up,&mdash;that was before there'd been any words between us.</p>
+
+<p>The room was very gray and still,&mdash;I remember just how it looked, with
+Nancy's clothes on a chair, and the baby's shoes lying round. She had
+got him off to sleep in his cradle, and had dropped into a nap, poor
+thing! with her face as white as the sheet, from watching.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped when I was dressed, halfway out of the room, and looked round
+at it,&mdash;it was so white, Johnny! It would be a long time before I should
+see it again,&mdash;five months were a long time; then there was the risk,
+coming down in the freshets, and the words I'd said last night. I
+thought, you see, if I should kiss it once,&mdash;I needn't wake her
+up,&mdash;maybe I should go off feeling better. So I stood there looking: she
+was lying so still, I couldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span> see any more stir to her than if she had
+her breath held in. I wish I had done it, Johnny,&mdash;I can't get over
+wishing I'd done it, yet. But I was just too proud, and I turned round
+and went out, and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>We were going to meet down at the post-office, the whole gang of us, and
+I had quite a spell to walk. I was going in on Bob Stokes's team. I
+remember how fast I walked with my hands in my pockets, looking along up
+at the stars,&mdash;the sun was putting them out pretty fast,&mdash;and trying not
+to think of Nancy. But I didn't think of anything else.</p>
+
+<p>It was so early, that there wasn't many folks about to see us off; but
+Bob Stokes's wife,&mdash;she lived nigh the office, just across the
+road,&mdash;she was there to say good by, kissing of him, and crying on his
+shoulder. I don't know what difference that should make with Bob Stokes,
+but I snapped him up well, when he came along, and said good morning.</p>
+
+<p>There were twenty-one of us just, on that gang, in on contract for Dove
+and Beadle. Dove and Beadle did about the heaviest thing on woodland of
+anybody, about that time. Good, steady men we were, most of us,&mdash;none of
+your blundering Irish, that wouldn't know a maple from a hickory, with
+their gin-bottles in their pockets,&mdash;but our solid, Down-East Yankee
+heads, owning their farms all along the river, with schooling enough to
+know what they were about 'lection day. You didn't catch any of <i>us</i>
+voting your new-fangled tickets when we had meant to go up on Whig, for
+want of knowing the difference, nor visa vussy. To say nothing of Bob
+Stokes, and Holt, and me, and another fellow,&mdash;I forget his name,&mdash;being
+members in good and reg'lar standing, and paying in our five dollars to
+the parson every quarter, charitable.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, though I say it that shouldn't say it, we were as fine a looking
+gang as any in the county, starting off that morning in our red
+uniform,&mdash;Nancy took a sight of pains with my shirt, sewing it up stout,
+for fear it should bother me ripping, and I with nobody to take a
+stitch for me all winter. The boys went off in good spirits, singing
+till they were out of sight of town, and waving their caps at their
+wives and babies standing in the window along on the way. I didn't sing.
+I thought the wind blew too hard,&mdash;seems to me that was the reason,&mdash;I'm
+sure there must have been a reason, for I had a voice of my own in those
+days, and had led the choir perpetual for five years.</p>
+
+<p>We weren't going in very deep; Dove and Beadle's lots lay about thirty
+miles from the nearest house; and a straggling, lonely sort of place
+that was too, five miles out of the village, with nobody but a dog and a
+deaf old woman in it. Sometimes, as I was telling you, we had been in a
+hundred miles from any human creature but ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>It took us two days to get there though, with the oxen; and the teams
+were loaded down well, with so many axes and the pork-barrels;&mdash;I don't
+know anything like pork for hefting down more than you expect it to,
+reasonable. It was one of your ugly gray days, growing dark at four
+o'clock, with snow in the air, when we hauled up in the lonely place.
+The trees were blazed pretty thick, I remember, especially the pines;
+Dove and Beadle always had that done up prompt in October. It's pretty
+work going in blazing while the sun is warm, and the woods like a great
+bonfire with the maples. I used to like it, but your mother wouldn't
+hear of it when she could help herself, it kept me away so long.</p>
+
+<p>It's queer, Johnny, how we do remember things that ain't of no account;
+but I remember, as plainly as if it were yesterday morning, just how
+everything looked that night, when the teams came up, one by one, and we
+went to work spry to get to rights before the sun went down.</p>
+
+<p>There were three shanties,&mdash;they don't often have more than two or three
+in one place,&mdash;they were empty, and the snow had drifted in; Bob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span>
+Stokes's oxen were fagged out, with their heads hanging down, and the
+horses were whinnying for their supper. Holt had one of his great
+brush-fires going,&mdash;there was nobody like Holt for making fires,&mdash;and
+the boys were hurrying round in their red shirts, shouting at the oxen,
+and singing a little, some of them low, under their breath, to keep
+their spirits up. There was snow as far as you could see,&mdash;down the
+cart-path, and all around, and away into the woods; and there was snow
+in the sky now, setting in for a regular nor'easter. The trees stood up
+straight all around without any leaves, and under the bushes it was as
+black as pitch.</p>
+
+<p>"Five months," said I to myself,&mdash;"five months!"</p>
+
+<p>"What in time's the matter with you, Hollis?" says Bob Stokes, with a
+great slap on my arm; "you're giving that 'ere ox molasses on his hay!"</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough I was, and he said I acted like a dazed creatur, and very
+likely I did. But I couldn't have told Bob the reason. You see, I knew
+Nancy was just drawing up her little rocking-chair&mdash;the one with the
+green cushion&mdash;close by the fire, sitting there with the children to
+wait for the tea to boil. And I knew&mdash;I couldn't help knowing, if I'd
+tried hard for it&mdash;how she was crying away softly in the dark, so that
+none of them could see her, to think of the words we'd said, and I gone
+in without ever making of them up. I was sorry for them then. O Johnny,
+I was sorry, and she was thirty miles away. I'd got to be sorry five
+months, thirty miles away, and couldn't let her know.</p>
+
+<p>The boys said I was poor company that first week, and I shouldn't wonder
+if I was. I couldn't seem to get over it any way, to think I couldn't
+let her know.</p>
+
+<p>If I could have sent her a scrap of a letter, or a message, or
+something, I should have felt better. But there wasn't any chance of
+that this long time, unless we got out of pork or fodder, and had to
+send down,&mdash;which we didn't expect to, for we'd laid in more than
+usual.</p>
+
+<p>We had two pretty rough weeks' work to begin with, for the worst storms
+of the season set in, and kept in, and I never saw their like, before or
+since. It seemed as if there'd never be an end to them. Storm after
+storm, blow after blow, freeze after freeze; half a day's sunshine, and
+then at it again! We were well tired of it before they stopped; it made
+the boys homesick.</p>
+
+<p>However, we kept at work pretty brisk,&mdash;lumbermen aren't the fellows to
+be put out for a snow-storm,&mdash;cutting and hauling and sawing, out in the
+sleet and wind. Bob Stokes froze his left foot that second week, and I
+was frost-bitten pretty badly myself. Cullen&mdash;he was the boss&mdash;he was
+well out of sorts, I tell you, before the sun came out, and cross enough
+to bite a ten-penny nail in two.</p>
+
+<p>But when the sun <i>is</i> out, it isn't so bad a kind of life, after all. At
+work all day, with a good hot dinner in the middle; then back to the
+shanties at dark, to as rousing a fire and tiptop swagan as anybody
+could ask for. Holt was cook that season, and Holt couldn't be beaten on
+his swagan.</p>
+
+<p>Now you don't mean to say you don't know what swagan is? Well, well! To
+think of it! All I have to say is, you don't know what's good then.
+Beans and pork and bread and molasses,&mdash;that's swagan,&mdash;all stirred up
+in a great kettle, and boiled together; and I don't know anything&mdash;not
+even your mother's fritters&mdash;I'd give more for a taste of now. We just
+about lived on that; there's nothing you can cut and haul all day on
+like swagan. Besides that, we used to have doughnuts,&mdash;you don't know
+what doughnuts are here in Massachusetts; as big as a dinner-plate,
+those doughnuts were, and&mdash;well, a little hard, perhaps. They used to
+have it about in Bangor that we used them for clock pendulums, but I
+don't know about that.</p>
+
+<p>I used to think a great deal about Nancy nights, when we were sitting up
+by the fire,&mdash;we had our fire right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</a></span> in the middle of the hut, you know,
+with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. When supper was eaten, the
+boys all sat up around it, and told stories, and sang, and cracked their
+jokes; then they had their backgammon and cards; we got sleepy early,
+along about nine or ten o'clock, and turned in under the roof with our
+blankets. The roof sloped down, you know, to the ground; so we lay with
+our heads in under the little eaves, and our feet to the fire,&mdash;ten or
+twelve of us to a shanty, all round in a row. They built the huts up
+like a baby's cob-house, with the logs fitted in together. I used to
+think a great deal about your mother, as I was saying; sometimes I would
+lie awake when the rest were off as sound as a top, and think about her.
+Maybe it was foolish, and I'm sure I wouldn't have told anybody of it;
+but I couldn't get rid of the notion that something might happen to her
+or to me before five months were out, and I with those words unforgiven.</p>
+
+<p>Then, perhaps, when I went to sleep, I would dream about her, walking
+back and forth, up and down, in her nightgown and little red shawl, with
+the great heavy baby in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>So it went along till come the last of January, when one day I saw the
+boys all standing round in a heap, and talking.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Pork's given out," says Bob, with a whistle. "Beadle got that last lot
+from Jenkins there, his son-in-law, and it's sp'ilt. I could have told
+him that beforehand. Never knew Jenkins to do the fair thing by anybody
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's going down?" said I, stopping short. I felt the blood run all
+over my face, like a woman's.</p>
+
+<p>"Cullen hasn't made up his mind yet," says Bob, walking off.</p>
+
+<p>Now you see there wasn't a man on the ground who wouldn't jump at the
+chance to go; it broke up the winter for them, and sometimes they could
+run in home for half an hour, driving by; so there wasn't much of a hope
+for me. But I went straight to Mr. Cullen.</p>
+
+<p>"Too late! Just promised Jim Jacobs," said he, speaking up quick; it was
+just business to him, you know.</p>
+
+<p>I turned off, and I didn't say a word. I wouldn't have believed it, I
+never would have believed it, that I could have felt so cut up about
+such a little thing. Cullen looked round at me sharp.</p>
+
+<p>"Hilloa, Hollis!" said he. "What's to pay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, thank you, sir," says I, and walked off, whistling.</p>
+
+<p>I had a little talk with Jim alone. He said he would take good care of
+something I'd give him, and carry it straight. So when night came I went
+and borrowed Mr. Cullen's pencil, and Holt tore me off a bit of clean
+brown paper he found in the flour-barrel, and I went off among the trees
+with it alone. I built a little fire for myself out of a
+huckleberry-bush, and sat down there on the snow to write. I couldn't do
+it in the shanty, with the noise and singing. The little brown paper
+wouldn't hold much; but these were the words I wrote,&mdash;I remember every
+one of them,&mdash;it is curious now I should, and that more than twenty
+years ago:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Nancy,"&mdash;that was it,&mdash;"Dear Nancy, I can't get over it, and I
+take them all back. And if anything happens coming down on the logs&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't finish that anyhow, so I just wrote "Aaron" down in the
+corner, and folded the brown paper up. It didn't look any more like
+"Aaron" than it did like "Abimelech," though; for I didn't see a single
+letter I wrote,&mdash;not one.</p>
+
+<p>After that I went to bed, and wished I was Jim Jacobs.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning somebody woke me up with a push, and there was the boss.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mr. Cullen!" says I, with a jump.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry up, man, and eat your breakfast," said he; "Jacobs is down sick
+with his cold."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oh!</i>" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"You and the pork must be back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</a></span> here day after to-morrow,&mdash;so be spry,"
+said he.</p>
+
+<p>I rather think I was, Johnny.</p>
+
+<p>It was just eight o'clock when I started; it took some time to get
+breakfast, and feed the nags, and get orders. I stood there, slapping
+the snow with my whip, crazy to be off, hearing the last of what Mr.
+Cullen had to say.</p>
+
+<p>They gave me the two horses,&mdash;we hadn't but two,&mdash;oxen are tougher for
+going in, as a general thing,&mdash;and the lightest team on the ground; it
+was considerably lighter than Bob Stokes's. If it hadn't been for the
+snow, I might have put the thing through in two days, but the snow was
+up to the creatures' knees in the shady places all along; off from the
+road, in among the gullies, you could stick a four-foot measure down
+anywhere. So they didn't look for me back before Wednesday night.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have that pork Wednesday night sure," says Cullen.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," says I, "you shall have it Wednesday noon, Providence
+permitting; and you shall have it Wednesday night anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"You will have a storm to do it in, I'm afraid," said he, looking at the
+clouds, just as I was whipping up. "You're all right on the road, I
+suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said I; and I'm sure I ought to have been, for the times
+I'd been over it.</p>
+
+<p>Bess and Beauty&mdash;they were the horses, and of all the ugly nags that
+ever I saw Beauty was the ugliest&mdash;started off on a round trot, slewing
+along down the hill; they knew they were going home just as well as I
+did. I looked back, as we turned the corner, to see the boys standing
+round in their red shirts, with the snow behind them, and the fire, and
+the shanties. I felt a mite lonely when I couldn't see them any more;
+the snow was so dead still, and there were thirty miles of it to cross
+before I could see human face again.</p>
+
+<p>The clouds had an ugly look,&mdash;a few flakes had failed already,&mdash;and the
+snow was purple, deep in as far as you could see under the trees.
+Something made me think of Ben Gurnell, as I drove on, looking along
+down the road to keep it straight. You never heard about it? Poor Ben!
+Poor Ben! It was in '37, that was; he had been out hunting up blazed
+trees, they said, and wandered away somehow into the Gray Goth, and went
+over,&mdash;it was two hundred feet; they didn't find him not till
+spring,&mdash;just a little heap of bones; his wife had them taken home and
+buried, and by and by they had to take her away to a hospital in
+Portland,&mdash;she talked so horribly, and thought she saw bones round
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>There is no place like the woods for bringing a storm down on you quick;
+the trees are so thick you don't mind the first few flakes, till, first
+you know, there's a whirl of 'em, and the wind is up.</p>
+
+<p>I was minding less about it than usual, for I was thinking of
+Nannie,&mdash;that's what I used to call her, Johnny, when she was a girl,
+but it seems a long time ago, that does. I was thinking how surprised
+she'd be, and pleased. I knew she would be pleased. I didn't think so
+poorly of her as to suppose she wasn't just as sorry now as I was for
+what had happened. I knew well enough how she would jump and throw down
+her sewing with a little scream, and run and put her arms about my neck
+and cry, and couldn't help herself.</p>
+
+<p>So I didn't mind about the snow, for planning it all out, till all at
+once I looked up, and something slashed into my eyes and stung me,&mdash;it
+was sleet.</p>
+
+<p>"Oho!" said I to myself, with a whistle,&mdash;it was a very long whistle,
+Johnny; I knew well enough then it was no play-work I had before me till
+the sun went down, nor till morning either.</p>
+
+<p>That was about noon,&mdash;it couldn't have been half an hour since I'd eaten
+my dinner; I eat it driving, for I couldn't bear to waste time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The road wasn't broken there an inch, and the trees were thin; there'd
+been a clearing there years ago, and wide, white level places wound off
+among the trees; one looked as much like a road as another, for the
+matter of that. I pulled my visor down over my eyes to keep the sleet
+out,&mdash;after they're stung too much they're good for nothing to see with,
+and I <i>must</i> see, if I meant to keep that road.</p>
+
+<p>It began to be cold. You don't know what it is to be cold, you don't,
+Johnny, in the warm gentleman's life you've lived. I was used to Maine
+forests, and I was used to January, but that was what I call cold.</p>
+
+<p>The wind blew from the ocean, straight as an arrow. The sleet blew every
+way,&mdash;into your eyes, down your neck, in like a knife into your cheeks.
+I could feel the snow crunching in under the runners, crisp, turned to
+ice in a minute. I reached out to give Bess a cut on the neck, and the
+sleeve of my coat was stiff as pasteboard before I bent my elbow up
+again.</p>
+
+<p>If you looked up at the sky, your eyes were shut with a snap as if
+somebody'd shot them. If you looked in under the trees, you could see
+the icicles a minute, and the purple shadows. If you looked straight
+ahead, you couldn't see a thing.</p>
+
+<p>By and by I thought I had dropped the reins; I looked at my hands, and
+there I was holding them tight. I knew then that it was time to get out
+and walk.</p>
+
+<p>I didn't try much after that to look ahead; it was of no use, for the
+sleet was fine, like needles, twenty of 'em in your eye at a wink; then
+it was growing dark. Bess and Beauty knew the road as well as I did, so
+I had to trust to them. I thought I must be coming near the clearing
+where I'd counted on putting up overnight, in case I couldn't reach the
+deaf old woman's.</p>
+
+<p>There was a man just out of Bangor the winter before, walking just so
+beside his team, and he kept on walking, some folks said, after the
+breath was gone, and they found him frozen up against the sleigh-poles.
+I would have given a good deal if I needn't have thought of that just
+then. But I did, and I kept walking on.</p>
+
+<p>Pretty soon Bess stopped short. Beauty was pulling on,&mdash;Beauty always
+did pull on,&mdash;but she stopped too. I couldn't stop so easily, so I
+walked along like a machine, up on a line with the creaturs' ears. I
+<i>did</i> stop then, or you never would have heard this story, Johnny.</p>
+
+<p>Two paces,&mdash;and those two hundred feet shot down like a plummet. A great
+cloud of snow-flakes puffed up over the edge. There were rocks at my
+right hand, and rocks at my left. There was the sky overhead. I was in
+the Gray Goth!</p>
+
+<p>I sat down, as weak as a baby. If I didn't think of Ben Gurnell then, I
+never thought of him. It roused me up a bit, perhaps, for I had the
+sense left to know that I couldn't afford to sit down just yet, and I
+remembered a shanty that I must have passed without seeing; it was just
+at the opening of the place where the rocks narrowed, built, as they
+build their light-houses, to warn folks to one side. There was a log or
+something put up after Gurnell went over, but it was of no account,
+coming on it suddenly. There was no going any farther that night, that
+was clear; so I put about into the hut, and got my fire going, and Bess
+and Beauty and I, we slept together.</p>
+
+<p>It was an outlandish name to give it, seems to me, anyway. I don't know
+what a Goth is, Johnny; maybe you do. There was a great figger up on the
+rock, about eight feet high; some folks thought it looked like a man. I
+never thought so before, but that night it did kind of stare in through
+the door as natural as life.</p>
+
+<p>When I woke up in the morning I thought I was on fire. I stirred and
+turned over, and I was ice. My tongue was swollen up so I couldn't
+swallow without strangling. I crawled up to my feet, and every bone in
+me was stiff as a shingle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Bess was looking hard at me, whinnying for her breakfast. "Bess," says
+I, very slow, "we must get home&mdash;to-night&mdash;<i>any</i>&mdash;how."</p>
+
+<p>I pushed open the door. It creaked out into a great drift, and slammed
+back. I squeezed through and limped out. The shanty stood up a little,
+in the highest part of the Goth. I went down a little,&mdash;I went as far as
+I could go. There was a pole lying there, blown down in the night; it
+came about up to my head. I sunk it into the snow, and drew it up.</p>
+
+<p>Just six feet.</p>
+
+<p>I went back to Bess and Beauty, and I shut the door. I told them I
+couldn't help it,&mdash;something ailed my arms,&mdash;I couldn't shovel them out
+to-day. I must lie down and wait till to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>I waited till to-morrow. It snowed all day, and it snowed all night. It
+was snowing when I pushed the door out again into the drift. I went back
+and lay down. I didn't seem to care.</p>
+
+<p>The third day the sun came out, and I thought about Nannie. I was going
+to surprise her. She would jump up and run and put her arms about my
+neck. I took the shovel, and crawled out on my hands and knees. I dug it
+down, and fell over on it like a baby.</p>
+
+<p>After that, I understood. I'd never had a fever in my life, and it's not
+strange that I shouldn't have known before.</p>
+
+<p>It came all over me in a minute, I think. I couldn't shovel through.
+Nobody could hear. I might call, and I might shout. By and by the fire
+would go out. Nancy would not come. Nancy did not know. Nancy and I
+should never kiss and make up now.</p>
+
+<p>I struck my arm out into the air, and shouted out her name, and yelled
+it out. Then I crawled out once more into the drift.</p>
+
+<p>I tell you, Johnny, I was a stout-hearted man, who'd never known a fear.
+I could freeze. I could burn up there alone in the horrid place with
+fever. I could starve. It wasn't death nor awfulness I couldn't
+face,&mdash;not that, not <i>that</i>; but I loved her true, I say,&mdash;I loved her
+true, and I'd spoken my last words to her, my very last; I had left her
+<i>those</i> to remember, day in and day out, and year upon year, as long as
+she remembered her husband, as long as she remembered anything.</p>
+
+<p>I think I must have gone pretty nearly mad with the fever and the
+thinking. I fell down there like a log, and lay groaning, "God Almighty!
+God Almighty!" over and over, not knowing what it was that I was saying,
+till the words strangled in my throat.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, I was too weak so much as to push open the door. I crawled
+around the hut on my knees, with my hands up over my head, shouting out
+as I did before, and fell, a helpless heap, into the corner; after that
+I never stirred.</p>
+
+<p>How many days had gone, or how many nights, I had no more notion than
+the dead. I knew afterwards; when I knew how they waited and expected
+and talked and grew anxious, and sent down home to see if I was there,
+and how she&mdash;But no matter, no matter about that.</p>
+
+<p>I used to scoop up a little snow when I woke up from the stupors. The
+bread was the other side of the fire; I couldn't reach round. Beauty eat
+it up one day; I saw her. Then the wood was used up. I clawed out chips
+with my nails from the old rotten logs the shanty was made of, and kept
+up a little blaze. By and by I couldn't pull any more. Then there were
+only some coals,&mdash;then a little spark. I blew at that spark a long
+while,&mdash;I hadn't much breath. One night it went out, and the wind blew
+in. One day I opened my eyes, and Bess had fallen down in the corner,
+dead and stiff. Beauty had pushed out of the door somehow and gone. I
+shut up my eyes. I don't think I cared about seeing Bess,&mdash;I can't
+remember very well.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes I thought Nancy was there in the plaid shawl, walking round
+the ashes where the spark went out. Then again I thought Mary Ann was
+there, and Isaac, and the baby. But they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</a></span> never were. I used to wonder
+if I wasn't dead, and hadn't made a mistake about the place that I was
+going to.</p>
+
+<p>One day there was a noise. I had heard a great many noises, so I didn't
+take much notice. It came up crunching on the snow, and I didn't know
+but it was Gabriel or somebody with his chariot. Then I thought more
+likely it was a wolf.</p>
+
+<p>Pretty soon I looked up, and the door was open; some men were coming in,
+and a woman. She was ahead of them all, she was; she came in with a
+great spring, and had my head against her neck, and her arm holding me
+up, and her cheek down to mine, with her dear, sweet, warm breath all
+over me; and that was all I knew.</p>
+
+<p>Well, there was brandy, and there was a fire, and there were blankets,
+and there was hot water, and I don't know what; but warmer than all the
+rest I felt her breath against my cheek, and her arms about my neck, and
+her long hair, which she had wrapped all in, about my hands.</p>
+
+<p>So by and by my voice came. "Nannie!" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"O don't!" said she, and first I knew she was crying.</p>
+
+<p>"But I will," says I, "for I'm sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, so am I," says she.</p>
+
+<p>Said I, "I thought I was dead, and hadn't made up, Nannie."</p>
+
+<p>"O <i>dear</i>!" said she; and down fell a great hot splash right on my face.</p>
+
+<p>Says I, "It was all me, for I ought to have gone back and kissed you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it was <i>me</i>," said she, "for I wasn't asleep, not any such thing. I
+peeked out, this way, through my lashes, to see if you wouldn't come
+back. I meant to wake up then. Dear me!" says she, "to think what a
+couple of fools we were, now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nannie," says I, "you can let the lamp smoke all you want to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Aaron&mdash;" she began, just as she had begun that other night, "Aaron&mdash;"
+but she didn't finish, and&mdash;Well, well, no matter; I guess you don't
+want to hear any more, do you?</p>
+
+<p>But sometimes I think, Johnny, when it comes my time to go,&mdash;if ever it
+does,&mdash;I've waited a good while for it,&mdash;the first thing I shall see
+will be her face, looking as it looked at me just then.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="BUSY_BRAINS" id="BUSY_BRAINS"></a>BUSY BRAINS.</h2>
+
+<h3>A CHAPTER OF LITERARY ANECDOTE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Of all working systems, the Mind seems most pertinacious in concealing
+the method of its operations. "No admittance" is inscribed upon the door
+of the laboratories of the brain. Approaching a psychological inquiry is
+like entering a manufactory: curious to observe its ingenious processes,
+we find that, though we may penetrate its court-yard and ware-rooms,
+every precaution is taken by its polite proprietors to prevent our
+interrogating its workmen or understanding its methods. The intellect
+often displays proudly her works; she has the assurance to attempt to
+answer questions about all things else in heaven and earth; but when her
+life is the subject of inquiry, that life seems to elude her own
+observation. We see in the evening sky stars so dim that the eye cannot
+fix upon them; we only catch glimpses of them when we are looking at
+some other point aside; the moment we turn the eye full upon them, they
+are lost to our sight. This covert and transient vision is the best
+which men have ever yet caught of the Mind, which they have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</a></span> studied so
+long to know. The metaphysicians look directly at it, and to them it is
+invisible, and they cannot agree what it is, nor how it moves. And when
+we look aside at the anatomy and physiology of the human frame, or, on
+the other hand, at the complex and endless variety of human actions and
+human experience, we catch only a partial and unsatisfactory glimpse of
+the soul which is beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Thought, as we have suggested, will uncover to us almost anything sooner
+than the secrets of its own power. It has explained much about the
+conditions of rapid vegetation, and how to procure profitable crops from
+the earth; but how little has it yet disclosed of the conditions which
+secure vigorous thinking, and best promote the development of truth!</p>
+
+<p>But some one may say: "I supposed that the conditions of mental activity
+were well known; they are quiet, peace of mind, neither too much nor too
+little food, and a subject which interests the feelings, or effectually
+calls forth the powers of the mind."</p>
+
+<p>Though you know all this, you are in ignorance still. Truly a savage
+might profess the art of agriculture in this fashion; for all this is
+only as if one were to say that the conditions of success in farming
+were to be where there were no earthquakes or avalanches, that is, to be
+quiet; to have the ground cleared of trees, that is, to have the mind
+free from cares and the shadows of sorrows; to have neither too much nor
+too little sunshine and rain, that is, to be properly fed; and to have
+good seed to put into the ground, that is, to engage the mind with a
+topic which it will expand and reproduce. After all these things have
+been secured, it is only a sort of barbaric husbandry that we have
+practised. The common and rude experience of men, laboring without
+thinking about their labor, teaches these things, and the very
+beginnings of the art and science of Intellectual Economy come beyond
+and after these.</p>
+
+<p>What shall we say of those moods which every student passes through,
+which turn and return upon the mind, irresistible and mysterious? What
+are the causes of those strange and delightful exaltations of mind in
+which thought runs like a clock when the pendulum is off, and crowds a
+week of existence into an hour of time? Whence are those dull days which
+come so unexpectedly, and sometimes lead a troop of dull followers, to
+interrupt our life's work for a week at a time? Where are we to search
+for obstructions in the channels of the mind when ideas will not flow?
+How is it that, after a period of clearness and activity in thought, the
+brain grows indolent, and, without a feeling of illness, or even of
+fatigue, work lags and stops? By what right is it that, at times, each
+faculty in our possession seems to grow independent, and refuses to
+return to its task at our call? What are the secret psychological
+conditions which influence the mental powers as strangely as if there
+were a goblin who had power to mesmerize Fancy and put it to sleep, to
+lock up Imagination in a dreary den of commonplaces, to blindfold
+Attention and make sport of his vain groping, and to send sober Reason
+off on foolish errands, so that Mistress Soul has not a servant left?</p>
+
+<p>Such variations of mental power, which we call moods of mind, are often
+caused, doubtless, by ill-health, or by fatigue, or by some irregularity
+of habit, or by anxiety of mind; but the experience of every student
+will probably attest the existence of such variations where none of
+these causes can be assigned. There are moods which we cannot trace to
+illness, or weariness, or external circumstances. Men are prone to
+regard them as whims, which sometimes they struggle against and
+sometimes they yield to, but at all times wonder at.</p>
+
+<p>The connection of the mind and body, and the dependence of the mind upon
+the health and vigor of the body, have been much dwelt upon; and we
+cannot be too deeply sensible of the debt which the student owes to
+those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</a></span> who have made this truth prominent to him. But, after all, it is
+wonderful with how much independence of bodily suffering&mdash;and even of
+suffering in the brain&mdash;the mind carries itself, and this fact seems
+worthy of more distinct recognition than it has received. It
+significantly confirms our belief in the existence of an immaterial
+principle, or soul, superior to the mere functions of the brain. Great
+and healthful mental activity often exists in a disordered body; and
+biographical literature is full of illustrations of the power of a
+strong will to accomplish brilliant results while the system is agitated
+by physical distress.</p>
+
+<p>Campbell, the poet, pursued his regular habit of writing every day, even
+under the pressure of much bodily pain.</p>
+
+<p>Cowper never, when it was possible to perform his task, excused his
+frail and desponding body from attendance in his little summer-house,
+morning and afternoon, until his forty lines of Homer were arrayed in
+English dress. The ballad of "John Gilpin" originated during one of his
+illnesses. With the hope of diverting his mind during an unusually
+severe attack of gloom, Lady Austen related to him the history of the
+renowned citizen, which she had heard in her childhood. The tale made a
+vivid impression, and the next morning he told her that the ludicrous
+incident had convulsed him with laughter during the night, and that he
+had embodied the whole into a ballad.</p>
+
+<p>Paley's last, and perhaps, for his day, his greatest work,&mdash;his "Natural
+Theology,"&mdash;was principally composed during the period in which he was
+subject to attacks of that terribly malady, nephralgia.</p>
+
+<p>So great was the delicacy of John Locke's constitution, that he was not
+capable of a laborious application to the medical art, which was his
+profession; and it is not improbable that his principal motive in
+studying it was that he might be qualified, when necessary, to act as
+his own physician. His difficulty was a lung complaint, or asthma; but
+his biographer says: "It occasioned disturbance to no person but
+himself, and persons might be with him without any other concern than
+that created by seeing him suffer." Notwithstanding this permanent
+suffering, his works are alike laborious and voluminous.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Hall, in the period when his intellectual power was most
+vigorous, pursued his daily studies almost regardless of the pain which
+was his companion through life. Dr. Gregory pursued a course of study
+with him in metaphysics and in mathematics; and he writes: "On entering
+his room in the morning, I could at once tell whether or not his night
+had been refreshing; for if it had, I found him at the table, the books
+to be studied ready, and a vacant chair set for me. If his night had
+been restless, and the pain still continued, I found him lying on the
+sofa, or, more frequently, upon three chairs, on which he could obtain
+an easier position. At such seasons, scarcely ever did a complaint issue
+from his lips; but, inviting me to take the sofa, our reading
+commenced.... Sometimes, when he was suffering more than usual, he
+proposed a walk in the fields, where, with the appropriate book as our
+companion, we could pursue the subject. If <i>he</i> was the preceptor, as
+was commonly the case in these peripatetic lectures, he soon lost the
+sense of pain, and nearly as soon escaped from our author, whoever he
+might be, and expatiated at large upon some train of inquiry or
+explication which our course of reading had suggested. As his thoughts
+enkindled, both his steps and his words became quicker, until erelong it
+was difficult to say whether the body or the mind were brought most upon
+the stretch in keeping up with him."</p>
+
+<p>Hannah More, who wrote many volumes, and accumulated a fortune of nearly
+a hundred and fifty thousand dollars from them, was an invalid. In her
+early life, as well as in her declining<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</a></span> years, she was subject to
+successive illnesses, which threw great impediments in the way of her
+intellectual exertions. Morning headaches prevented her from rising
+early. She used to say that her frequent attacks of illness were a great
+blessing to her, independently of the prime benefit of cheapening life
+and teaching patience; for they induced a habit of industry not natural
+to her, and taught her to make the most of her <i>well</i> days. She
+laughingly added, it had taught her also to contrive employments for her
+sick ones; that from habit she had learned to suit her occupations to
+every gradation of the measure of capacity she possessed. "I never," she
+said, "afford a moment of a healthy day to transcribe, or put stops, or
+cross <i>t</i>'s or dot my <i>i</i>'s. So that I find the lowest stage of my
+understanding may be turned to some account, and save better days for
+better things. I have learned from it also to avoid procrastination, and
+that idleness which often attends unbroken health."</p>
+
+<p>Baxter, one of the most voluminous of English writers, was an invalid.
+After speaking of his multifarious labors as pastor, preacher, and also
+surgeon to the poor in general, he says these were but his relaxation;
+his writing was his chief labor, which went slowly on, for he had no
+amanuensis, and his weakness took up so much of his time. "All the pains
+that my infirmities ever brought on me," he adds, "were never half so
+grievous and afflictive as the unavoidable loss of time which they
+occasioned. I could not bear, through the weakness of my stomach, to
+rise before seven, and afterwards not till much later; and some
+infirmities I labored under made it above an hour before I could be
+dressed. An hour I must have of necessity to walk before dinner, and
+another before supper, and after supper I could seldom study." He is
+described as one of the most diseased men that ever reached the full
+limit of human life, entering upon mature life diseased and sore from
+head to foot, and with the symptoms of old age. His "Saint's Rest" was
+written as his meditation in a severe illness, and after he had been
+given up by his physicians.</p>
+
+<p>Lindley Murray commenced his work as a grammarian, and his other
+writings, after disease had fixed upon his declining years. Having
+successively engaged in the practice of law, and in mercantile pursuits,
+and having retired from the latter with some property, he fell into
+ill-health, which compelled him to go abroad, and kept him an exile
+through the remainder of his long life. The disease with which he was
+afflicted was a weakness in the lower limbs, which precluded him from
+walking, and, after a time, from taking any exercise whatever. He was
+thus imprisoned, as it were, in a country-seat, near York, in England;
+and here he commenced those literary labors, which, so far from being
+forbidden by his illness, did much to alleviate his sufferings. He says:
+"In the course of my literary labors, I found that the mental exercise
+which accompanied them was not a little beneficial to my health. The
+motives which excited me to write, and the objects which I hoped to
+accomplish, were of a nature calculated to cheer the mind, and to give
+the animal spirits a salutary impulse. I am persuaded that, if I had
+suffered my time to pass away with little or no employment, my health
+would have been still more impaired, my spirits depressed, and perhaps
+my life considerably shortened."</p>
+
+<p>Of Lord Jeffrey, who was a very hard-working man, it is said that one of
+his cures for a headache was to sit down and clear up a deep legal
+question.</p>
+
+<p>The cases of Pascal, Dr. Johnson, Channing, and others, will doubtless
+occur to the reader. It will suffice here to mention one more,&mdash;that of
+William of Orange, whose vigorous, comprehensive, and untiring intellect
+through a long course of years wielded and shaped the destinies of
+England, and enabled him, if not to make a more brilliant page in
+history, yet to leave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</a></span> a more enduring monument in human institutions
+than any other man of his age. Macaulay thus graphically describes him:
+"The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable, because his
+physical organization was unusually delicate. From a child he had been
+weak and sickly. In the prime of manhood, his complaints had been
+aggravated by a severe attack of small-pox. He was asthmatic and
+consumptive. His slender frame was shaken by a constant hoarse cough. He
+could not sleep unless his head was propped by several pillows, and
+could scarcely draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel
+headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion soon fatigued him. The
+physicians constantly kept up the hopes of his enemies by fixing some
+date beyond which, if there were anything certain in medical science, it
+was impossible that his broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through
+a life which was one long disease, the force of his mind never failed,
+on any great occasion, to bear up his suffering and languid body."</p>
+
+<p>Let the weak and feeble of body, therefore, take courage of heart; and
+let the robust student be admonished that he cannot excuse <i>all</i> his
+inactive days upon the ground of indisposition.</p>
+
+<p>Fatigue is an enemy which every hard-working brain knows of; but it is
+an enemy, not of the workman, but only of the taskmaster. The student
+may resort to what healthful contrivances he pleases to avoid fatigue;
+but when it appears, he should not excuse himself, but yield to its
+impulse. He should learn to distinguish indolence, and other
+counterfeits, from that genuine weariness which makes the sleep of a
+laboring man sweet. Weariness is the best friend of labor, just as the
+toothache is the best friend of sound teeth. Weariness is an angel. When
+the proper end of your day has come, she hovers over your desk, and, if
+you are careless of the time, she breathes a misty breath upon your
+eyelids, and loads your pen with an invisible weight; the shadow of her
+gray wings dims your page, and her throbbing hand upon your forehead
+admonishes you of her presence. Let her visits be few and far between,
+and it is well; but you will never regret that you entertained her even
+unawares. You may avoid, but never resist her. She comes from Heaven to
+save life.</p>
+
+<p>But comes there never into your study a little imp of darkness,&mdash;of
+intellectual darkness, we mean,&mdash;whose efforts to imitate the gentle
+interference of fatigue are as grotesque as they are vexatious, and who
+does not succeed in deceiving, however readily one may sometimes fall in
+with his humor? The heavy pen, the dull page, the wandering thoughts,
+sometimes interrupt the most successful currents of labor, in those
+morning hours, and in the fresh days after vacations, when we cannot
+find the excuse of weariness. There is an indisposition to continuous
+labor, which is utterly different from fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>John Foster declared: "I have no power of getting fast forward in any
+literary task; it costs me far more labor than any other mortal who has
+been in the habit so long. I have the most extreme and invariable
+repugnance to all literary labors of any kind, and almost all mental
+labor. When I have anything of the kind to do, I linger hours and hours
+before I can resolutely set about it, and days and weeks if it is some
+task more than ordinary."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Humphrey recommends that the unwilling thoughts be frightened to
+their task by the same means which Lord Jeffrey used to drive out a
+headache. He says, in his letters to his son: "When you sit down to
+write, you sometimes will, no doubt, find it difficult to collect your
+scattered thoughts at the moment, and fix them upon the subject. If, in
+these cases, you take up a newspaper, or whatever other light reading
+may happen to be at hand, with the hope of luring the truants back, you
+will be disappointed. Nothing but stern and decided measures<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</a></span> will
+answer. I would advise you to resort at once to geometry or conic
+sections, or some other equally inexorable discipline to settle the
+business. I have myself often called in the aid of Euclid for a few
+moments, and always with good success. A little wholesome schooling of
+the mind upon lines and angles and proportions, when it is not in the
+right mood for study, will commonly make it quite willing to exchange
+them for the labor of composition, as the easier task of the two."</p>
+
+<p>There is sound philosophy perhaps in this recommendation. Many persons
+have observed that the preliminary process of "composing the thoughts"
+is one which requires a little time and effort, especially where one
+comes to his subject from a period of exercise, or repose, or any other
+condition in which the brain has not been active. The functional
+activity of the brain depends on the copious supply of the arterial
+blood, its activity varying with that supply, increasing as that supply
+is greater, and relaxing when it is diminished. But unlike other organs
+of the body, the brain is densely packed in an unyielding cavity, and
+there must be room made for this increased volume of circulation
+whenever it takes place. This is accomplished, physiologists tell us, in
+the cerebro-spinal fluid, the quantity of which has been estimated at
+two ounces. This fluid is readily absorbed and as readily reproduced,
+and thus its quantity varies in a certain inverse proportion to the
+volume of the circulation of blood in the brain; and by this means an
+equality of pressure is secured throughout all the variations in the
+force of the circulation. The act of adjustment between this balancing
+fluid and the blood requires a little period for its completion, and
+therefore the brain cannot instantaneously be brought to its maximum
+action.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, where the circulation has been diverted from the brain, and the
+proposed mental effort requires it to be vigorously revived in the
+brain, time must be allowed for this process of adjustment, and room
+must be made for the needed supply of blood; and perhaps a familiar
+demonstration in mathematics, which fixes the attention, and will
+instantly detect any delinquency of that faculty, may often be one of
+the best modes of employing this transition period, and aiding the
+change.</p>
+
+<p>We may observe here the singular paradox, which we believe that the
+philosophy of the mind and the experience of the scholar equally
+establish, that what are usually called the heaviest or severest
+subjects of thought are the least exhausting to the thinker. How many
+students, like Chief-Justice Parsons, have been accustomed, when
+fatigued with the labor of deep research, or exhausted by continued
+train of thought upon one subject, to relax the mind with arithmetical
+or geometrical problems. Isaac Newton could, month after month, spend in
+the profoundest problems of pure mathematics twice as many hours in the
+day as Walter Scott could give to the composition of what we call light
+reading; and it will be found that mathematicians, theologians, and
+metaphysicians have been able to sustain more protracted labor, and with
+less injury, than have poets and novelists. There are not wanting
+reasons which aid us to understand this paradox, but we will not enter
+upon them here.</p>
+
+<p>Irregularities of habit will doubtless disturb the action of the mind.
+The mental power that is thrown away and wasted by recklessness in this
+respect is incalculable. But there are variations in mental power in the
+midst of health, in the absence of fatigue, and under the most regular
+habits. Perhaps few authors have more carefully adapted their habits to
+their work, or ordered their method of life with a more quiet equality,
+than did Milton. He went to bed uniformly at nine o'clock.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> He rose in
+the summer generally at four, and in winter at five. When, contrary to
+his usual custom, he indulged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</a></span> himself with longer rest, he employed a
+person to read to him from the time of his waking to that of his rising.
+The opening of his day was uniformly consecrated to religion. A chapter
+of the Hebrew Scriptures being read to him as soon as he was up, he
+passed the subsequent interval till seven o'clock in private meditation.
+From seven till twelve he either studied, listened while some author was
+read to him, or dictated as some friendly hand supplied him with its
+pen. At twelve commenced his hour of exercise, which before his
+blindness was usually passed in his garden or in walking, and afterward
+for the most part in the swing which he had contrived for the purpose of
+exercise. His early and frugal dinner succeeded, and when it was
+finished he resigned himself to the recreation of music, by which he
+found his mind at once gratified and restored. He played on the organ,
+and sang, or his wife sang for him. From his music he returned with
+fresh vigor to his books or his composition. At six he admitted the
+visits of his friends; he took his abstemious supper, of olives or some
+light thing, at eight; and at nine, having smoked a pipe and drank a
+glass of water, he retired. Yet in the midst of this clock-like
+regularity his labors were broken by frequent unfruitful seasons.
+Symmons says of him, that "he frequently composed in the night, when his
+unpremeditated verse would sometimes flow in a torrent, tinder the
+impulse, as it were, of some strange poetical fury; and in these
+peculiar moments of inspiration, his amanuensis, who was generally his
+daughter, was summoned by the bell to arrest the verses as they came,
+and to commit them to the security of writing.... Some days would elapse
+undistinguished by a verse, while on others he would dictate thirty or
+forty lines.... Labor would often be ineffectual to obtain what often
+would be gratuitously offered to him; and his imagination, which at one
+instant would refuse a flower to his most strenuous cultivation, would
+at another time shoot up into spontaneous and abundant vegetation." He
+seldom wrote any in the summer.</p>
+
+<p>Cowper said that <i>he</i> composed best in winter, because then he could
+find nothing else to do but think; and he contrasted himself in this
+respect with other poets, who have found an inspiration in the
+attractive scenes of the more genial seasons.</p>
+
+<p>The biographer of Campbell has given us the following anecdote with
+respect to the oft-quoted lines,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And coming events cast their shadows before."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The happy thought first presented itself to his mind during a visit at
+Minto. He had gone early to bed, and, still meditating on "Lochiel's
+Warning," fell fast asleep. During the night he suddenly awoke,
+repeating, "Events to come cast their shadows before"! This was the very
+thought for which he had been hunting the whole week. He rang the bell
+more than once with increasing force. At last, surprised and annoyed by
+so unseasonable a peal, the servant appeared. The poet was sitting with
+one foot in the bed, and the other on the floor, with an air of mixed
+impatience and inspiration. "Sir, are you ill?" inquired the servant.
+"Ill! never better in my life. Leave me the candle, and oblige me with a
+cup of tea as soon as possible." He then started to his feet, seized
+hold of his pen, and wrote down the happy thought, but as he wrote
+changed the words "events to come" into "coming events," as it now
+stands in the text. Looking at his watch he observed that it was two
+o'clock, the right hour for a poet's dream; and over his cup of tea he
+completed his first sketch of "Lochiel."</p>
+
+<p>Nor is this capriciousness exclusively the attribute of the poetic Muse.</p>
+
+<p>Calvin, who studied and wrote in bed, if he felt his facility of
+composition quitting him, as not unfrequently he did, gave up writing
+and composing, and went about his out-door duties for days, weeks, and
+months together.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</a></span> But as soon as he felt the inspiration again, he went
+back to his bed, and his secretary set to work forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Edward Robinson was always under the necessity of waiting upon his
+moods in composition. He wondered at the men who can write when they
+will. Sometimes for days together he could make no headway in his higher
+tasks.</p>
+
+<p>There are avocations, like those of the advocate, the preacher, the
+journalist, which must be pursued continuously, well or ill, and in
+spite of such variations of feeling. In these labors men doubtless learn
+to disregard in some degree these moods of mind; but the variable
+quality of the productions of one man on different days confirms what
+testimony we have of their existence.</p>
+
+<p>The zeal or the indifference, the clearness or the dulness, the
+quickness or the sluggishness of thought, are doubtless to some degree
+determined by the methods of labor into which the person falls, and by
+the incidental habits and circumstances of his life. It is wonderful
+what a vast fund of information and suggestion upon these and kindred
+points of mental phenomena is found in the experience of the great
+industrial class of the intellectual world recorded in biographical and
+historical literature. Let us then visit some of the busiest and most
+successful scholars, philosophers, poets, writers, and preachers; let us
+peep through the window of biography into the library, the cabinet, and
+the office. Let us watch the habits of some of these busy-brained men,
+these great masters of the intellectual world. Let us note what helps
+and what hindrances they have found; how they have driven their work, or
+how they have been driven by it, and what is the nature and degree of
+the systems which they have adopted in ordering their hours of labor and
+of relaxation.</p>
+
+<p>We will visit them as we find them, without looking for examples of
+excellence or warnings of carelessness, and will leave the reader to
+make his own inferences.</p>
+
+<p>The poet Southey, who is said to have been, perhaps, more continually
+employed than any other writer of his generation, was habitually an
+early riser, but he never encroached upon the hours of the night. He
+gives the following account of his day, as he employed it at the age of
+thirty-two: "Three pages of history after breakfast (equivalent to five
+in small quarto printing), then to transcribe and copy for the press, or
+to make my selections and biographies, or what else suits my humor, till
+dinner-time. From dinner till tea, I write letters, read, see the
+newspaper, and very often indulge in a siesta, for sleep agrees with me,
+and I have a good substantial theory to prove that it must; for as a man
+who walks much requires to sit down and rest himself, so does the brain,
+if it be the part most worked, require its repose. Well, after tea I go
+to poetry, and correct and rewrite and copy till I am tired, and then
+turn to anything else till supper." At the age of fifty-five, his life
+varied but little from this sketch. When it is said that his breakfast
+was at nine, after a little reading, his dinner at four, tea at six, and
+supper at half past nine, and that the intervals, except the time
+regularly devoted to a walk, between two and four, and a short sleep
+before tea, were occupied with reading and writing, the outline of his
+day during those long seasons when he was in full work will have been
+given. After supper, when the business of the day seemed to be over,
+though he generally took a book, he remained with his family, and was
+ready to enter into conversation, to amuse and to be amused. During the
+several years that he was partially employed upon the life of Dr. Bell,
+he devoted two hours before breakfast to it in the summer, and as much
+time as there was daylight for during the winter months, that it might
+not interfere with the usual occupations of the day. Of himself, at the
+age of sixty, at a time when he was thus engaged every morning at work
+away from his home, he says: "I get out of bed as the clock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</a></span> strikes
+six, and shut the house door after me as it strikes seven. After two
+hours' work, home to breakfast; after which my son engages me till about
+half past ten, and, when the post brings no letters that interest or
+trouble me, by eleven I have done with the newspaper, and can then set
+about what is properly the business of the day. But I am liable to
+frequent interruptions, so that there are not many mornings in which I
+can command from two to three unbroken hours at the desk. At two I take
+my daily walk, be the weather what it may, and when the weather permits,
+with a book in my hand. Dinner at four, read about half an hour, then
+take to the sofa with a different book, and after a few pages get my
+soundest sleep, till summoned to tea at six. My best time during the
+winter is by candlelight; twilight interferes with it a little, and in
+the season of company I can never count upon an evening's work. Supper
+at half past nine, after which I read an hour, and then to bed. The
+greatest part of my miscellaneous work is done in the odds and ends of
+time."</p>
+
+<p>Shelley rose early in the morning, walked and read before breakfast,
+took that meal sparingly, wrote and studied the greater part of the
+morning, walked and read again, dined on vegetables (for he took neither
+meat nor wine), conversed with his friends (to whom his house was ever
+open), again walked out, and usually finished with reading to his wife
+till ten o'clock, when he went to bed. This was his daily existence. His
+book was generally Plato, or Homer, or one of the Greek tragedians, or
+the Bible, in which last he took a great interest. Out of twenty-four
+hours he frequently read sixteen. "He wrote his Prometheus," says
+Willis, "in the baths of Caracalla, near the Coliseum." It was his
+favorite haunt in Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The poet Campbell thus describes his labors, when in London, at the age
+of fifty-five: "I get up at seven, write letters for the Polish
+Association, until half past nine, breakfast, go to the club and read
+the newspapers till twelve. Then I sit down to my studies, and, with
+many interruptions, do what I can till four. I then walk round the Park
+and generally dine out at six. Between nine and ten I return to
+chambers, read a book or write a letter, and go to bed always before
+twelve." "His correspondence," says his biographer, "occupied four hours
+every morning, in French, German, and Latin. He could seldom act with
+the moderation necessary for his health. Whatever object he once took in
+hand, he determined to carry out, and found no rest until it was
+accomplished." Whatever he wrote during his connection with the New
+Monthly and the Metropolitan was written hurriedly. If a subject was
+proposed for the end of a month, he seldom gave it a thought until it
+was no longer possible to delay the task. He would then sit down in the
+quietest corner of his chambers, or, if quiet was not to be found in
+town, he would start off to the country, and there, shut in among the
+green fields, complete his task. When sixty-two years old, he says: "I
+am only six hours out of the twenty-four in bed. I study twelve, and
+walk six. Oranges, exercise, and early rising serve to keep me
+flourishing."</p>
+
+<p>"Procter (Barry Cornwall) usually writes," says Willis, "in a small
+closet adjoining his library. There is just room enough in it for a desk
+and two chairs, and his favorite books, miniature likenesses of authors,
+manuscripts, &amp;c., piled around in true poetical confusion." He confines
+his labors to the daytime, eschewing evening work. In a letter to a
+friend, some years ago, he wrote: "I hope you will not continue to give
+up your nights to literary undertakings. Believe me (who have suffered
+bitterly for this imprudence) that nothing in the world of letters is
+worth the sacrifice of health and strength and animal spirits which will
+certainly follow this excess of labor."</p>
+
+<p>Cowper, at the age of fifty-three, and at a busy period of his life,
+says: "The morning is my writing time, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</a></span> in the morning I have no
+spirits. So much the worse for my correspondents. Sleep, that refreshes
+my body, seems to cripple me in every other respect. As the evening
+approaches I grow more alert, and when I am retiring to bed am more fit
+for mental occupation than at any other time. So it fares with us whom
+they call nervous."</p>
+
+<p>He was very assiduous in labor. While he was translating Homer, he says:
+"As soon as breakfast is over, I retire to my nutshell of a
+summer-house, which is my verse manufactory, and here I abide seldom
+less than three hours, and not often more." This little summer-house,
+which he called his boudoir, was not much bigger than a sedan-chair; the
+door of it opened into the garden, which was covered with pinks, roses,
+and honeysuckles. The window opened into his neighbor's orchard. He
+says: "It formerly served an apothecary, now dead, as a smoking-room;
+and under my feet is a trapdoor, which once covered a hole in the ground
+where he kept his bottles. At present, however, it is dedicated to
+sublimer uses. Having lined it with garden mats, and furnished it with a
+table and two chairs, here I write all that I write in summer-time,
+whether to my friends or to the public.... In the afternoon I return to
+it again, and all the daylight that follows, except what is sometimes
+devoted to a walk, is given to Homer." In the evening he devoted himself
+to transcribing, so that his mornings and evenings were, for the most
+part, completely engaged. He read also, but less than he wrote; "for I
+must have bodily exercise," he said, "and therefore never let a day pass
+without it." His walk was usually in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Byron, who used to sit up at night writing "Don Juan," (which he
+did under the influence of gin and water,) rose late in the morning.
+Leigh Hunt thus describes him: "He breakfasted, read, lounged about,
+singing an air, generally out of Rossini, and in a swaggering style,
+though in a voice at once small and veiled; then took a bath and was
+dressed, and coming down stairs, was heard, still singing, in the
+court-yard, out of which the garden ascended at the back of the house.
+The servants at the same time brought out two or three chairs. We then
+lounged about, or sat and talked. In the course of an hour or two, being
+an early riser, I used to go in to dinner. Lord Byron either stayed a
+little longer, or went up stairs to his books and his couch. When the
+heat of the day declined we rode out, either on horseback or in a
+barouche, generally towards the forest. He was a good rider, graceful,
+and kept a firm seat. In the evening I seldom saw him. He recreated
+himself in the balcony, or with a book; and at night, when I went to
+bed, he was just thinking of setting to work with 'Don Juan.' His
+favorite reading was history and travels. His favorite authors were
+Bayle and Gibbon. His favorite recreation was boating." Byron had
+prodigious facility of composition. He was fond of suppers, and in
+London, after supping at Rogers's and eating heartily, he would go home
+and throw off sixty or eighty verses, which he would send to press the
+next morning.</p>
+
+<p>Goldsmith's desultory habits are quite characteristic. Irving says: "It
+was his custom during the summer-time, when pressed by a multiplicity of
+literary jobs, or urged to the accomplishment of some particular task,
+to take country lodgings a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow
+or Edgeware road, and bury himself there for weeks and months together.
+Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his room, at other times
+he would stroll out along the lanes and hedgerows, and, taking out paper
+and pencil, note down thoughts to be expanded and corrected at home."
+Though he engaged to board with the family, his meals were generally
+sent to him in his room, in which he passed the most of his time,
+negligently dressed, with his shirt-collar open, busily engaged in
+writing. Sometimes, probably when in moods of composition, he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</a></span>
+wander into the kitchen, without noticing any one, stand musing with his
+back to the fire, and then hurry off again to his room, no doubt to
+commit to paper some thought which had struck him. He was subject to
+fits of wakefulness, and read much in bed; if not disposed to read, he
+still kept the candle burning; if he wished to extinguish it, and it was
+out of his reach, he flung his slipper at it, which would be found in
+the morning near the overturned candlestick, daubed with grease. He is
+said to have considered four lines of poetry a day good work.</p>
+
+<p>He commenced his poem of "The Traveller" in Switzerland, but long kept
+it back from publication, till Johnson's praise of it induced him to
+prepare it for the press. It is said that, while for two years previous
+to its publication he was employed in the drudgery of laborious
+compilations for the booksellers, his few vacant hours were fondly
+devoted to the patient revisal and correction of this his greatest poem;
+pruning its luxuriances, or supplying its defects, till it appeared at
+length finished with exactness and polished into beauty. While writing
+his History of England, he would read Hume, Rapin-Thoyras, Carte, and
+Kennet, in the morning, make a few notes, ramble with a friend into the
+country about the skirts of "Merry Islington," return to a temperate
+dinner and cheerful evening, and, before going to bed, write off what
+had arranged itself in his head from the studies of the morning. In this
+way he took a more general view of the subject, and wrote in a more free
+and fluent style than if he had been mousing at the time among
+authorities. The influence of this way of composing history is plainly
+seen in the entertaining, but not immortal, volumes it produced.</p>
+
+<p>Douglas Jerrold's day of labor may be sketched thus. At eight o'clock he
+breakfasts on cold new milk, toast, bacon, watercresses, and perhaps
+strawberries. Then he makes long examination of the papers, cutting out
+bits of news. The study is a snug room filled with books and pictures;
+its furniture is of solid oak. There work begins. If it be a comedy, he
+will now and then walk rapidly up and down the room, talking wildly to
+himself, and laughing as he hits upon a good point. Suddenly the pen
+will be put down, and through a little conservatory, without seeing
+anybody, he will pass out into the garden for a little while, talking to
+the gardeners, walking, &amp;c. In again, and vehemently to work. The
+thought has come; and, in letters smaller than the type in which they
+shall be set, it is unrolled along the little blue slips of paper. A
+crust of bread and glass of wine are brought in, but no word is spoken.
+The work goes rapidly forward, and halts at last suddenly. The pen is
+dashed aside, a few letters, seldom more than three lines in each, are
+written and despatched to the post, and then again into the garden,
+visits to the horse, cow, and fowls, then another long turn around the
+lawn, and at last a seat with a quaint old volume in the tent under the
+mulberry-tree. Friends come,&mdash;walks and conversation. A very simple
+dinner at four. Then a short nap&mdash;forty winks&mdash;upon the great sofa in
+the study; another long stroll over the lawn while tea is prepared. Over
+the tea-table are jokes of all kinds, as at dinner. In the later years
+of his life, Jerrold seldom wrote after dinner; and his evenings were
+usually spent alone in his study, reading, writing letters, &amp;c.
+Sometimes he would join the family circle for half an hour before going
+to bed at ten; but his rule was a solitary evening in the study with his
+books.</p>
+
+<p>Dickens's favorite time for composition is said to be in the morning.
+Powell, in his "Notices of Living Authors of England," says that he
+writes till about one or two o'clock, when he lunches, and afterwards
+takes a walk for a couple of hours; returns to dinner, and gives the
+evening to his own or a friend's fireside. Sometimes his method of labor
+is much more intense and unremitting. Of his delightful little Christmas
+book, "The Chimes," the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</a></span> author says, in a letter to a friend, that he
+shut himself up for one month close and tight over it. "All my
+affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and I became as
+haggard as a murderer long before I wrote, 'The End.' When I had done
+that, like 'The Man of Thessaly,' who, having scratched his eyes out in
+a quickset hedge, plunged into a bramble-bush to scratch them in again,
+I fled to Venice to recover the composure I had disturbed." When his
+imagination begins to outline a new novel, with vague thoughts rife
+within him, he goes "wandering about at night into the strangest
+places," he says, "seeking rest and finding none."</p>
+
+<p>Bulwer accomplishes his voluminous productions in about three hours a
+day, usually from ten until one, and seldom later, writing all with his
+own hand. Composition was at first very laborious to him, but he gave
+himself sedulously to mastering its difficulties; and is said to have
+rewritten some of his briefer productions eight or nine times before
+publication. He now writes very rapidly, averaging, it is said, twenty
+octavo pages a day. He says of himself in a letter to a friend: "I
+literatize away the morning, ride at three, go to bathe at five, dine at
+six, and get through the evening as I best may, sometimes by correcting
+a proof."</p>
+
+<p>Charles Anthon, so well known to the classical students of this
+generation, was accustomed, for many years at least, constantly to
+retire at ten and rise at four, so that a large part of his day's work
+was done by breakfast-time; and it was this untiring industry that
+enabled him, despite his incessant labors both in college and in school,
+to produce some fifty volumes.</p>
+
+<p>Gibbon always studied with his pen in hand, and for the purpose of his
+history he practised laboriously the formation of his style of writing.
+The first chapter of his history he rewrote three times, and the second
+and third chapters twice, before he was satisfied with them; but after
+thus getting under way, the greater part of his manuscript was sent to
+the press in the first rough draft, without any intermediate copy being
+made. After completing his great history, he congratulated himself upon
+having accomplished a long, but temperate labor, without fatiguing
+either the mind or the body. "Happily for my eyes," he said, "I have
+always closed my studies with the day and commonly with the morning."
+When he had accomplished the labors of the morning in the library, he
+preferred recreation and social enjoyments rather than any exercise of
+mind. He gives the following account of his sensations on accomplishing
+his great work. "It was on the day, or rather night, of June 27, 1787,
+between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of
+the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen,
+I took several turns in a covered walk of acacias. I will not dissemble
+the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the
+establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober
+melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an
+everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion."</p>
+
+<p>This reminds us of the emotions which Noah Webster describes as
+overwhelming him when he reached the close of his dictionary. "When I
+finished my copy," says Dr. Webster, "I was sitting at my table in
+Cambridge, England, January, 1825. When I arrived at the last word, I
+was seized with a tremor that made it difficult to proceed. I, however,
+summoned up my strength to finish the work, and then, walking about the
+room, I soon recovered."</p>
+
+<p>Buckle, even more systematically and laboriously than ever did Gibbon,
+devoted himself to the formation of his style of writing as a special
+preparation for entering upon the composition of his history. In his
+later years he abandoned the custom of writing at night, and it was his
+usual practice to lay aside his pen by three o'clock in the afternoon.
+When at home in London, he spent an hour or so at noon in walking about
+the city, frequently dined out,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</a></span> and read an hour after coming home. He
+went to dinner-parties exclusively, it is said, because they took less
+time than others.</p>
+
+<p>Sir William Jones while in India began his studies with the dawn, and in
+seasons of intermission from professional duty continued them throughout
+the day; meditation retraced and confirmed what reading had collected or
+investigation discovered. With respect to the division of his time, he
+wrote on a small piece of paper these lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">Sir Edward Coke</span>.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Four spend in prayer,&mdash;the rest on nature fix."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">Rather</span>,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Ten to the world allot,&mdash;and <i>all</i> to heaven."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Of Chief-justice Parsons of Massachusetts, his son says: "It is
+literally true that for fifty years he was always reading or writing
+when not obliged to be doing something else. He had, fortunately for
+himself, many interruptions, but he avoided them as far as he could; and
+there were weeks, and I believe consecutive months, when he passed
+nearly two thirds of his day with books and papers.... He very seldom
+took exercise for exercise' sake. Excepting an infrequent walk of some
+minutes in the long entry which ran through the middle of his house, he
+almost never walked for mere exercise, until an attack of illness. After
+that he sometimes, though rarely, took a walk about the streets or on
+the Common.... His office was always in his dwelling-house. There he sat
+all the day, but his evenings were invariably spent in the large common
+sitting-room. He had his chair by the fireside, and a small table near
+it on which the evening's supply of books was placed. There he sat,
+always reading, (seldom writing in the evening or out of his office,)
+but never disturbed by any noise or frolic which might be going on. If
+anybody, young or old, appealed to him, he was always ready to answer;
+and sometimes, though not very often, would join in a game or play, and
+then return to his books.... I have never known him wholly unoccupied
+at any time whatsoever. He was always doing something, with books, pen,
+or instrument, or engaged in conversation."</p>
+
+<p>Judge Story arose at seven in summer and at half past seven in
+winter,&mdash;never earlier. If breakfast was not ready, he went at once to
+his library, and occupied the interval, whether it was five minutes or
+fifty, in writing. When the family assembled, he was called, and
+breakfasted with them. After breakfast he sat in the drawing-room, and
+spent from half to three quarters of an hour in reading the newspapers
+of the day. He then returned to his study, and wrote until the bell
+sounded for his lecture at the Law School. After lecturing for two, and
+sometimes three hours, he returned to his study, and worked until two
+o'clock, when he was called to dinner. To his dinner&mdash;which on his part
+was always simple&mdash;he gave an hour, and then again betook himself to his
+study, where in the winter time he worked as long as the daylight
+lasted, unless called away by a visitor, or obliged to attend a
+moot-court. Then he came down and joined the family, and work for the
+day was over. During the evening he was rarely without company; but if
+alone he read some new publication, sometimes corrected a proof-sheet,
+listened to music, talked with the family, or played backgammon. In the
+summer afternoons he left his library towards twilight. Generally the
+summer afternoon was varied three or four times a week in fair weather
+by a drive of about an hour in the country in an open chaise. At ten or
+half past he retired for the night, never varying a half-hour from this
+time. The exercise he took was almost entirely incidental to his duties,
+and consisted in driving to Boston to hold his court, or attend to other
+business, and in walking to and from the Law School. His real exercise
+was in talking. His diet was exceedingly simple. His lectures were
+wholly extemporary, or delivered without minutes, and no record was ever
+made of them by himself. After an interruption<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</a></span> of hours, and even of
+days, he could take up the pen and continue a sentence which he had left
+half-written, without reading back, going on with the same certainty and
+rapidity as if he had never been stopped.</p>
+
+<p>While Lord Jeffrey was judge, during the sittings of the court, the
+performance of his official duties exhausted nearly his whole day, the
+evenings especially; and his spare time, whether during his sittings or
+in vacation, was given to society, to correspondence, to walking, to
+lounging in his garden, and to reading.</p>
+
+<p>John C. Calhoun was an arduous student, and very simple in his habits.
+He avoided all stimulants. When at home, he rose at daybreak, and, if
+weather permitted, took a walk over his farm. He breakfasted at half
+past seven, and then retired to his office, which stood near his house,
+where he wrote till dinner-time, or three o'clock. After dinner he read
+or conversed with his family till sunset, when he took another walk. His
+tea hour was eight. He then joined the family, and read or talked till
+ten, when he retired.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Arnold of Rugby began lessons at seven; and, with the interval of
+breakfast, they lasted till nearly three. Then he would walk with his
+pupils, and dine at half past five. At seven he usually had some lessons
+on hand; and "it was only when they were all gathered up in the
+drawing-room after tea," says Mr. Stanley, "amidst young men on all
+sides of him, that he would commence work for himself in writing his
+sermons or Roman History." In a letter Dr. Arnold said: "from about a
+quarter before nine till ten o'clock every evening I am at liberty, and
+enjoy my wife's company fully; during this time I read aloud to her,&mdash;I
+am now reading to her Herodotus, translating as I go on,&mdash;or write my
+sermons, or write letters." His favorite recreations were
+horseback-riding, walking, and playing with his children.</p>
+
+<p>Florence Nightingale, in advising that the sick be not suddenly
+interrupted so as to distract their attention, says that the rule
+applies to the well quite as much as to the sick. She adds: "I have
+never known persons who exposed themselves for years to constant
+interruptions who did not muddle away their intellects by it at last."
+Dr. Arnold seems to be an exception.</p>
+
+<p>The elder Alexander, the Princeton theologian, was another exception to
+Florence Nightingale's rule. It was his peculiarity that he seemed
+incapable of being interrupted. Except in hours of devotion, his study
+was always free to his children, even the youngest; noise made no
+difference; their books and toys were on his floor, and two or three
+would be clambering upon him while he was handling a folio or had the
+pen in his hand. Nor was this while engaged in the mechanical part of an
+author's work. His door was always open to the children; they burst in
+freely without any signal, and he always looked up with a smile of
+welcome; and he declared that he often could think to most purpose when
+there was a clatter of little voices around him. His voluminous works,
+which he commenced to publish late in life, do not indicate that he
+underwent a "muddling" process.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson used to assert that a man could write just as well at one time
+as another, and as well in one place as another, if he would only set
+himself doggedly about it.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Channing's habits of labor when at home in Boston are thus
+described. "The sun is just rising, and the fires are scarcely lighted,
+when, with a rapid step, Dr. Channing enters his study. He has been
+watchful during many hours, his brain teeming, and under the excitement
+of his morning bath he longs to use the earliest hours for work.... His
+first act is to write down the thoughts which have been given in his
+vigils; next he reads a chapter or more in Griesbach's edition of the
+Greek Testament, and, after a quick glance over the newspapers of the
+day, he takes his light repast.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</a></span> Morning prayers follow, and then he
+retires to his study-table. If he is reading, you will at once notice
+this peculiarity, that he studies pen in hand, and that his book is
+crowded with folded sheets of paper, which continually multiply as
+trains of thought are suggested. These notes are rarely quotations, but
+chiefly questions and answers, qualifications, condensed statements,
+germs of interesting views; and when the volume is finished, they are
+carefully selected, arranged, and under distinct heads placed among
+other papers in a secretary. If he is writing, unless making preparation
+for the pulpit or for publication, the same process of accumulating
+notes is continued, which, at the end of each day or week, are filed.
+The interior of the secretary is filled with heaps of similar notes,
+arranged in order, with titles over each compartment. When a topic is to
+be treated at length in a sermon or essay, these notes are consulted,
+reviewed, and arranged. He first draws up a skeleton of his subject,
+selecting with special care and making prominent the central principle
+that gives it unity, and from which branch forth correlative
+considerations. Until perfectly clear in his own mind as to the
+essential truth of this main view, he cannot proceed. Questions are
+raised, objections considered, etc., the ground cleared, in a word, and
+the granite foundation laid bare for the cornerstone. And now the work
+goes rapidly forward. With flying pen he makes a rough draft of all that
+he intends to say, on sheets of paper folded lengthwise, leaving half of
+each page bare. He then reads over what he has written, and on the
+vacant half-page supplies defects, strikes out redundances, indicates
+the needless qualification, and modifies expressions. Thus sure of his
+thought and aim, conscientiously prepared, he abandons himself to the
+ardor of composition.... By noon his power of study is spent, and he
+walks, visits, etc. After dinner he lies for a time upon the sofa, and
+walks again, or drives into the country. Sunset he keeps as a holy hour.
+During the winter twilight he likes to be silent and alone.... At tea he
+listens to reading for an hour or more, leading conversation, etc.
+Evenings he gives up to social enjoyments."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Buckle's method of making his researches, and preserving memoranda
+of the results for subsequent use in composition, was similar to Dr.
+Channing's, as we may infer from a note in his History. Dr. Channing
+spent his vacations at Newport, where his time was thus allotted:&mdash;Rose
+very early, walked, etc. Breakfasted on coarse wheat-bread and cream,
+with a cup of tea. Then went to his study. Every hour or half-hour, more
+or less, he threw his gown around him, and took a turn in the garden for
+a few minutes. After a few hours of work he was exhausted for the day,
+and read and conversed till dinner. The afternoon was given up to
+excursions, and the evening to society.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Doddridge, in reference to his work, "The Paraphrase on the New
+Testament," said that its being written at all was owing to the
+difference between rising at five and at seven o'clock in the morning.
+"A remark similar to this," says Albert Barnes, "will explain all that I
+have done. Whatever I have accomplished in the way of commenting on the
+Scriptures is to be traced to the fact of rising at four in the morning,
+and to the time thus secured, which I thought might properly be employed
+in a work not immediately connected with my pastoral labors. That habit
+I have now pursued for many years.... All my Commentaries on the
+Scriptures have been written before nine o'clock in the morning. At the
+very beginning, now more than thirty years ago, I adopted a resolution
+to stop writing on these Notes when the clock struck nine. This
+resolution I have invariably adhered to, not unfrequently finishing my
+morning task in the midst of a paragraph, and sometimes even in the
+midst of a sentence.... In the recollection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</a></span> now of the past, I refer to
+these morning hours, to the stillness and quiet of my room in this house
+of God, when I have been permitted to 'prevent the dawning of the
+morning' in the study of the Bible, while the inhabitants of the great
+city were slumbering round about me, and before the cares of the day and
+its direct responsibilities came upon me,&mdash;I refer to these scenes as
+among the happiest portions of my life.... Manuscripts, when a man
+writes every day, even though he writes but little, accumulate. Dr.
+Johnson was once asked how it was that the Christian Fathers, and the
+men of other times, could find leisure to fill so many folios with the
+productions of their pens. 'Nothing is easier,' said he; and he at once
+began a calculation to show what would be the effect, in the ordinary
+term of a man's life, if he wrote only one octavo page in a day; and the
+question was solved.... In this manner manuscripts accumulated on my
+hands until I have been surprised to find that, by this slow and steady
+process, I have been enabled to prepare eleven volumes of Commentary on
+the New Testament, and five on portions of the Old Testament."</p>
+
+<p>Isaac Barrow was a very early riser, and with two exceptions very
+temperate in his habits. He indulged greatly in all kinds of fruit;
+alleging that, if the immoderate use of it killed hundreds in autumn, it
+was the means of preserving thousands throughout the year. But he was
+fonder still of tobacco. He believed that it helped to compose and
+regulate his thoughts. (He died, we may add, from the use of opium.) It
+was his plan, in whatever he was engaged, to prosecute it till he had
+brought it to a termination. He said he could not easily draw his
+thoughts from one thing to another. The morning was his favorite time
+for study. He kept a tinder-box in his apartment, and, during all of the
+winter and some of the autumn months, rose before it was light. He
+would sometimes rise at night, burn out his candle, and return to bed.</p>
+
+<p>Zwingli is described as indefatigable in study. From daybreak until ten
+o'clock he used to read, write, and translate. After dinner he listened
+to those who had any news to give him, or who required his advice; he
+then would walk out with some of his friends, and visit his flock. At
+two o'clock he resumed his studies. He took a short walk after supper,
+and then wrote his letters, which often occupied him until midnight. He
+always worked standing, and never permitted himself to be disturbed
+except for some very important cause.</p>
+
+<p>Melancthon was usually in his study at two or three o'clock in the
+morning, both in summer and winter. "It was during these early hours,"
+says D'Aubign&eacute;, "that his best works were written." During the day he
+read three or four lectures, attended to the conferences of the
+professors, and after that labored till supper-time. He retired about
+nine. He would not open any letters in the evening, in order that his
+sleep might not be disturbed. He usually drank a glass of wine before
+supper. He generally took one simple meal a day, and never more than
+two, and always dined regularly at a fixed hour. He enjoyed but few
+healthy days in his life, and was frequently troubled with
+sleeplessness. His manuscripts usually lay on the table, exposed to the
+view of every visitor, so that he was robbed of several. When he had
+invited any of his friends to his house, he used to beg one of them to
+read, before sitting down to table, some small composition in prose or
+verse.</p>
+
+<p>There is an interest of a peculiar nature in thus visiting the haunts
+and witnessing the labors of scholars, philosophers, and poets, which
+arises from the stimulus it affords us in turning again to our own
+humbler but kindred work. Whatever brings us into sympathy with the
+great and the noble thinkers enlarges and lifts our thoughts.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> In his youth he studied till midnight; but, warned by the
+early decay of sight and his disordered health, he afterwards changed
+his hours.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[Pg 586]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_AUTOBIOGRAPHY_OF_A_QUACK" id="THE_AUTOBIOGRAPHY_OF_A_QUACK"></a>THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A QUACK.</h2>
+
+<h3>IN TWO PARTS.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>PART II.</h4>
+
+<p>I solemnly believe that I should have continued to succeed in the
+virtuous practice of my profession, if it had not happened that fate was
+once more unkind to me, by throwing in my path one of my old
+acquaintances. I had had a consultation one day with the famous
+hom&oelig;opath, Dr. Zwanzig; and as we walked away we were busily
+discussing the case of a poor consumptive fellow who had previously lost
+a leg. In consequence of this defect, Dr. Zwanzig considered that the
+ten-thousandth of a grain of <i>Aur.</i><a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> would be an over-dose, and that
+it must be fractioned so as to allow for the departed leg, otherwise the
+rest of the man would be getting a leg-dose too much. I was particularly
+struck with this view of the case, but I was still more, and less
+pleasingly, impressed with the sight of my quondam patient, Stagers, who
+nodded to me familiarly from the opposite pavement.</p>
+
+<p>I was not at all surprised when, that evening quite late, I found this
+worthy seated waiting in my office. I looked around uneasily, which was
+clearly understood by my friend, who retorted, "Ain't took nothin', Doc.
+You don't seem right awful glad to see me. You needn't be afraid,&mdash;I've
+only fetched you a job, and a right good one too."</p>
+
+<p>I replied, that I had my regular business, that I preferred he should
+get some one else, and pretty generally made Mr. Stagers conscious that
+I had had enough of him.</p>
+
+<p>I did not ask him to sit down, and, just as I supposed him about to
+leave, he seated himself with a grin, remarking, "No use, Doc. Got to go
+into it this one time."</p>
+
+<p>At this I naturally enough grew angry, and used several rather violent
+phrases.</p>
+
+<p>"No use, Doc," remarked Stagers.</p>
+
+<p>Then I softened down, and laughed a little, treated the thing as a joke,
+whatever it was, for I dreaded to hear.</p>
+
+<p>But Stagers was fate. Stagers was inevitable. "Won't do, Doc,&mdash;not even
+money wouldn't get you off."</p>
+
+<p>"No?" said I interrogatively, and as coolly as I could, contriving at
+the same time to move towards the window. It was summer, the sashes were
+up, the shutters drawn in, and a policeman whom I knew was lounging
+opposite, as I had noticed when I entered. I would give Stagers a scare
+anyhow; charge him with theft,&mdash;anything but get mixed up with his kind
+again.</p>
+
+<p>He must have understood me, the scoundrel, for in an instant I felt a
+cold ring of steel against my ear, and a tiger clutch on my cravat. "Sit
+down," he said; "what a fool you are. Guess you've forgot that there
+coroner's business." Needless to say, I obeyed. "Best not try that
+again," continued my guest. "Wait a moment,"&mdash;and, rising, he closed the
+windows.</p>
+
+<p>There was no resource left but to listen; and what followed I shall
+condense, rather than relate it in the language employed by my friend
+Mr. Stagers.</p>
+
+<p>It appeared that another acquaintance, Mr. File, had been guilty of a
+cold-blooded and long-premeditated murder, for which he had been tried
+and convicted. He now lay in jail awaiting his execution, which was to
+take place at Carsonville, Ohio, one month after the date at which I
+heard of him anew. It seemed that, with Stagers and others, he had
+formed a band of counterfeiters in the West,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[Pg 587]</a></span> where he had thus acquired
+a fortune so considerable that I was amazed at his having allowed his
+passions to seduce him into unprofitable crime. In his agony he
+unfortunately thought of me, and had bribed Stagers largely in order
+that he might be induced to find me. When the narration had reached this
+stage, and I had been made fully to understand that I was now and
+hereafter under the sharp eye of Stagers and his friends, that, in a
+word, escape was out of the question, I turned on my tormentor.</p>
+
+<p>"And what does all this mean?" I said; "what does File expect me to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't believe he exactly knows," said Stagers; "something or other to
+get him clear of hemp."</p>
+
+<p>"But what stuff!" I replied. "How can I help him? What possible
+influence could I exert?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't say," answered Stagers imperturbably; "File has a notion you're
+most cunning enough for anything. Best try somethin', Doc."</p>
+
+<p>"And what if I won't do it?" said I. "What does it matter to me, if the
+rascal swings or no?"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep cool. Doc," returned Stagers, "I'm only agent in this here
+business. My principal, that's File, he says, 'Tell Sandcraft to find
+some way to get me clear. Once out, I give him ten thousand dollars. If
+he don't turn up something that'll suit, I'll blow about that coroner
+business, and break him up generally.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean," said I, in a cold sweat,&mdash;"you don't mean that, if I
+can't do this impossible thing, he will inform on me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," returned Stagers. "Got a cigar, Doc?"</p>
+
+<p>I only half heard him. What a frightful position. I had been leading a
+happy and an increasingly comfortable life,&mdash;no scrapes, and no dangers;
+and here, on a sudden, I had presented to me the alternative of saving a
+wretch from the gallows, or of spending unlimited years in a State
+penitentiary. As for the money, it became as dead leaves for this once
+only in my life. My brain seemed to be spinning in its case; lights came
+and went before my eyes. In my ears were the sounds of waters. I grew
+weak all over.</p>
+
+<p>"Cheer up a little," said Stagers. "Here, take a nip of whiskey. Things
+ain't at the worst, by a good bit. You just get ready, and we'll start
+by the morning train. Guess you'll try out something smart enough, as we
+travel along. Ain't got a heap of time to lose."</p>
+
+<p>I was silent. A great anguish had me in its grip. I might writhe and
+bite as I would, it was to be all in vain. Hideous plans arose to my
+ingenuity, born of this agony of terror and fear. I could murder
+Stagers, but what good would that do. As to File, he was safe from my
+hand. At last I became too confused to think any longer. "When do we
+leave?" I said, feebly.</p>
+
+<p>"At six to-morrow," he returned.</p>
+
+<p>How I was watched and guarded, and how hurried over a thousand miles of
+rail to my fate, little concerns us now. I find it dreadful to recall it
+to memory. Above all, an aching eagerness for revenge upon the man who
+had caused me these sufferings predominated in my mind. Could I not fool
+the wretch and save myself? On a sudden an idea came to my
+consciousness, like a sketch on an artist's paper. Then it grew, and
+formed itself, became possible, probable, it seemed to me sure. "Ah,"
+said I, "Stagers, give me something to eat and drink." I had not tasted
+food for two days.</p>
+
+<p>Within a day or two after my arrival, I was enabled to see File in his
+cell,&mdash;on the plea of being a clergyman from his native place.</p>
+
+<p>I found that I had not miscalculated my danger. The man did not appear
+to have the least idea as to how I was to help him. He only knew that I
+was in his power, and he used his control to insure that something more
+potent than friendship should be enlisted on his behalf. As the days
+went by, this behavior grew to be a frightful thing to witness. He
+threatened, flattered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_588" id="Page_588">[Pg 588]</a></span> implored, offered to double the sum he had
+promised, if I would but save him. As for myself, I had gradually become
+clear as to my course of action, and only anxious to get through with
+the matter. At last, a few days before the time appointed for the
+execution, I set about explaining to File my plan of saving him. At
+first I found this a very difficult task; but as he grew to understand
+that any other escape was impossible, he consented to my scheme, which I
+will now briefly explain.</p>
+
+<p>I proposed, on the evening before the execution, to make an opening in
+the man's windpipe, low down in the neck, and where he could conceal it
+by a loose cravat. As the noose would be above this point, I explained
+that he would be able to breathe through the aperture, and that, even if
+stupefied, he could easily be revived if we should be able to prevent
+his being hanged too long. My friend had some absurd misgivings lest his
+neck should be broken by the fall; but as to this I was able to reassure
+him, upon the best scientific authority. There were certain other and
+minor questions, as to the effects of sudden, nearly complete cessation
+of the supply of blood to the brain; but with these physiological
+refinements I thought it needlessly cruel to distract a man in his
+peculiar position. Perhaps I shall be doing injustice to my own
+intellect if I do not hasten to state that I had not the remotest belief
+in the efficacy of my plan for any purpose except to extricate me from a
+very uncomfortable position.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the day before the execution, I made ready everything
+that I could possibly need. So far our plans, or rather mine, had worked
+to a marvel. Certain of File's old accomplices succeeded in bribing the
+hangman to shorten the time of suspension. Arrangements were made also
+to secure me two hours alone with the prisoner, so that nothing seemed
+to be wanting. I had assured File that I would not see him again
+previous to the operation, but during the morning I was seized with a
+feverish impatience, which luckily prompted me to visit him once more.
+As usual, I was admitted readily, and nearly reached his cell, when I
+became aware from the sound of voices heard through the grating in the
+door that there was a visitor in the cell. "Who is with him?" I inquired
+of the warden.</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor?" I said. "What doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"O, the jail physician," he returned. "I was to come back in half an
+hour and let him out; but he's got a quarter to stay as yet. Shall I
+admit you, or will you wait?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I replied. "It is hardly right to interrupt them. I will walk in
+the corridor for ten minutes or so, and then you can send the turnkey to
+let me in."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," he returned, and left me.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as I was alone, I cautiously advanced up the entry, and stood
+alongside of the door, through the barred grating of which I was able
+readily to hear what went on within. The first words I caught were
+these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And you tell me, Doctor, that, even if a man's windpipe was open, the
+hanging would kill him,&mdash;are you sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," returned the other, "I believe there would be no doubt of it. I
+cannot see how escape would be possible; but let me ask you," he went on
+more gravely, "why you have sent for me to ask all these singular
+questions. You cannot have the faintest hope of escape, and least of all
+in such a manner as this. I advise you to think rather on the fate which
+is inevitable. You must, I fear, have much to reflect upon."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said File, "if I wanted to try this plan of mine, couldn't some
+one be found to help me, say if he was to make twenty thousand or so by
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean me," answered the doctor, "some one cannot be found,
+neither for twenty nor for fifty thousand dollars. Besides, if any one
+were wicked enough to venture on such an attempt, he would only be
+deceiving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[Pg 589]</a></span> you with a hope which would be utterly vain."</p>
+
+<p>I understood all this, with an increasing fear in my mind. The prisoner
+was cunning enough to want to make sure that I was not playing him
+false.</p>
+
+<p>After a pause, he said, "Well, Doctor, you know a poor devil in my fix
+will clutch at straws. Hope I haven't offended you."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the least!" returned the doctor. "Shall I send to Mr. Smith?" This
+was my present name,&mdash;in fact I was known as the Rev. Mr. Eliphalet
+Smith.</p>
+
+<p>"I would like it," answered File; "but as you go out, tell the warden I
+want to see him immediately about a matter of great importance."</p>
+
+<p>At this stage, I began to conceive very distinctly that the time had
+arrived when it would be wiser for me to make my escape, if this step
+were yet possible. Accordingly I waited until I heard the doctor rise,
+and at once stepped quietly away to the far end of the corridor, which I
+had scarcely reached when the door which closed it was opened by a
+turnkey who had come to relieve the doctor. Of course my own peril was
+imminent. If the turnkey mentioned my near presence to the prisoner,
+immediate disclosure and arrest would follow. If time were allowed for
+the warden to obey the request from File, that he would visit him at
+once, I might gain thus half an hour, but hardly more. I therefore said
+to the officer: "Tell the warden that the doctor wishes to remain an
+hour longer with the prisoner, and that I shall return myself at the end
+of that time."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, sir," said the turnkey, allowing me to pass out, and
+relocking the door; "I'll tell him."</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments I was outside of the jail gate, and saw my
+fellow-clergyman, Mr. Stagers, in full broadcloth and white tie, coming
+down the street towards me. As usual he was on guard; but this time he
+had to deal with a man grown perfectly desperate, with everything to
+win, and nothing to lose. My plans were made, and, wild as they were, I
+thought them worth the trying. I must evade this man's terrible watch.
+How keen it was, you cannot imagine; but it was aided by three of the
+infamous gang to which File had belonged, for without these spies no one
+person could possibly have sustained so perfect a system.</p>
+
+<p>I took Stagers's arm. "What time," said I, "does the first train start
+for Dayton?"</p>
+
+<p>"At twelve," said the other; "what do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"How far is it?" I continued.</p>
+
+<p>"About fifteen miles," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Good; I can get back by eight o'clock to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Easily," said Stagers, "<i>if</i> you go. What is it you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want," said I, "a smaller tube, to put in the windpipe. Must have it,
+in fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't like it," said he, "but the thing's got to go through
+somehow. If you must go, I will go along myself. Can't lose sight of
+you, Doc, just at present. You're monstrous precious. Did you tell
+File?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said I. "He's all right. Come. We've no time to lose." Nor had
+we. Within twenty minutes we were seated in the last car of a long
+train, and running at the rate of twenty miles an hour towards Dayton.
+In about ten minutes I asked Stagers for a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't smoke here," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I answered; "I'll go forward into the smoking-car."</p>
+
+<p>"Come along, then," said he, and we went through the train accordingly.
+I was not sorry he had gone with me when I found in the smoking-car one
+of the spies who had been watching me so constantly. Stagers nodded to
+him and grinned at me, and we sat down together.</p>
+
+<p>"Chut," said I, "dropped my cigar. Left it on the window-ledge, in the
+hindmost car. Be back in a moment." This time, for a wonder, Stagers
+allowed me to leave unaccompanied. I hastened through to the back car,
+and gained the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_590" id="Page_590">[Pg 590]</a></span> platform at its nearer end, where I instantly cut the
+signal cord. Then I knelt down, and, waiting until the two cars ran
+together, I removed the connecting pin. The next moment I leaped to my
+feet, and screwed up the brake wheel, so as to check the pace of the
+car. Instantly the distance widened between me and the flying train. A
+few moments more, and the pace of my own car slackened, while the
+hurrying train flew around a distant curve. I did not wait for my own
+car to stop entirely before I slipped down off the steps, leaving the
+other passengers to dispose of themselves as they might until their
+absence should be discovered and the rest of the train return.</p>
+
+<p>As I wish rather to illustrate my very remarkable professional career,
+than to amuse by describing its mere incidents, I shall not linger to
+tell how I succeeded, at last, in reaching St. Louis. Fortunately, I had
+never ceased to anticipate a moment when escape from File and his
+friends would be possible, so that I always carried about with me the
+funds with which I had hastily provided myself upon leaving. The whole
+amount did not exceed a hundred dollars; but with this, and a gold watch
+worth as much more, I hoped to be able to subsist until my own ingenuity
+enabled me to provide more liberally for the future. Naturally enough, I
+scanned the papers closely, to discover some account of File's death,
+and of the disclosures concerning myself which he was only too likely to
+have made. I met with a full account of his execution, but with no
+allusion to myself, an omission which I felt fearful was due only to a
+desire on the part of the police to avoid alarming me in such a way as
+to keep them from pouncing upon me on my way home. Be this as it may,
+from that time to the present hour I have remained ignorant as to
+whether or not the villain betrayed my part in that curious coroner's
+inquest.</p>
+
+<p>Before many days I had resolved to make another and a bold venture.
+Accordingly appeared in the St. Louis papers an advertisement to the
+effect that Dr. Von Ingenhoff, the well-known German physician, who had
+spent two years on the plains acquiring a knowledge of Indian medicine,
+was prepared to treat all diseases by vegetable remedies alone. Dr. Von
+Ingenhoff would remain in St. Louis for two weeks, and was to be found
+at the Grayson House every day from ten until two o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>To my delight I got two patients the first day. The next I had twice as
+many; when at once I hired two connecting rooms, and made a very useful
+arrangement, which I may describe dramatically in the following way.</p>
+
+<p>There being two or three patients waiting while I finish my cigar and
+morning julep, there enters a respectable looking old gentleman, who
+inquires briskly of the patients if this is really Dr. Von Ingenhoff's.
+He is told it is.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," says he, "I shall be delighted to see him; five years ago I was
+scalped on the plains, and now"&mdash;exhibiting a well-covered head&mdash;"you
+see what the Doctor did for me. 'T isn't any wonder I've come fifty
+miles to see him. Any of you been scalped, gentlemen?"</p>
+
+<p>To none of them had this misfortune arrived as yet; but, like most folks
+in the lower ranks of life and some in the upper ones, it was pleasant
+to find a genial person who would listen to their account of their own
+symptoms. Presently, after hearing enough, the old gentleman pulls out a
+large watch. "Bless me! it's late. I must call again. May I trouble you,
+sir, to say to the Doctor that his old friend, Governor Brown, called to
+see him, and will drop in again to-morrow. Don't forget: Governor Brown
+of Arkansas." A moment later the Governor visited me by a side-door,
+with his account of the symptoms of my patients. Enter a tall
+Hoosier,&mdash;the Governor having retired. "Now, Doc," says Hoosier, "I've
+been handled awful these two years back." "Stop," I exclaim, "open your
+eyes. There now, let me see," taking his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_591" id="Page_591">[Pg 591]</a></span> pulse as I speak. "Ah, you've
+a pain there, and you can't sleep. Cocktails don't agree any longer.
+Weren't you bit by a dog two years ago?" "I was," says the Hoosier, in
+amazement. "Sir," I reply, "you have chronic hydrophobia. It's the water
+in the cocktails that disagrees with you. My bitters will cure in a
+week, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The astonishment of my friend at these accurate revelations may be
+imagined. He is allowed to wait for his medicine in the ante-room, where
+the chances are in favor of his relating how wonderfully I had told all
+his symptoms at a glance.</p>
+
+<p>Governor Brown of Arkansas was a small but clever actor, whom I met in
+the billiard-room, and who, day after day, in varying disguises and
+modes, played off the same trick, to our great mutual advantage.</p>
+
+<p>At my friend's suggestion, we very soon added to our resources by the
+purchase of two electro-magnetic batteries. This special means of
+treating all classes of maladies has advantages which are altogether
+peculiar. In the first place, you instruct your patient that the
+treatment is of necessity a long one. A striking mode of putting it is
+to say, "Sir, you have been six months getting ill, it will require six
+months for a cure." There is a correct sound about such a phrase, and it
+is sure to satisfy. Two sittings a week, at three dollars a sitting,
+pays pretty well. In many cases the patient gets well while you are
+electrifying him. Whether or not the electricity cures him is a thing I
+shall never know. If, however, he begins to show signs of impatience,
+you advise him that he will require a year's treatment, and suggest that
+it will be economical for him to buy a battery and use it at home. Under
+this advice he pays you twenty dollars for an instrument which cost you
+ten, and you are rid of a troublesome case.</p>
+
+<p>If the reader has followed me closely, he will have learned that I am a
+man of large views in my profession, and of a very justifiable
+ambition. The idea had often occurred to me of combining in one
+establishment all the various modes of practice which are known as
+irregular. This, as will be understood, is merely a more liberal
+rendering of the same idea which prompted me to unite in my own business
+hom&oelig;opathy and the ordinary practice of medicine. I proposed to my
+partner, accordingly, to combine with our present business that of
+spiritualism, which I knew had been very profitably turned to account in
+connection with medical practice. As soon as he agreed to this plan,
+which, by the way, I hoped to enlarge, so as to include all the
+available isms, I set about making such preparations as were necessary.
+I remembered to have read somewhere, that a Doctor Schiff had shown that
+you could produce remarkably clever knockings, so called, by voluntarily
+dislocating the great toe and then forcibly drawing it back again into
+its socket. A still better noise could be made by throwing the tendon of
+the peroneus longus muscle out of the hollow in which it lies, alongside
+of the ankle. After some effort I was able to accomplish both feats
+quite readily, and could occasion a remarkable variety of sounds,
+according to the power which I employed or the positions which I
+occupied at the time. As to all other matters, I trusted to the
+suggestions of my own ingenuity, which, as a rule, has rarely failed me.</p>
+
+<p>The largest success attended the novel plan which my lucky genius had
+devised; so that soon we actually began to divide large profits, and to
+lay by a portion of our savings. It is, of course, not to be supposed
+that this desirable result was attained without many annoyances and some
+positive danger. My spiritual revelations, medical and other, were, as
+may be supposed, only more or less happy guesses; but in this, as in
+predictions as to the weather and other events, the rare successes
+always get more prominence in the minds of men than the numerous
+failures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_592" id="Page_592">[Pg 592]</a></span> Moreover, whenever a person has been fool enough to resort to
+folks like myself, he is always glad to be able to defend his conduct by
+bringing forward every possible proof of skill on the part of the man he
+has consulted. These considerations, and a certain love of mysterious or
+unusual means, I have commonly found sufficient to secure an ample share
+of gullible individuals; while I may add, that, as a rule, those who
+would be shrewd enough to understand and expose us are wise enough to
+keep away altogether. Such as did come were, as a rule, easy enough to
+manage, but now and then we hit upon some utterly exceptional patient,
+who was both fool enough to consult me and clever enough to know he had
+been swindled. When such a fellow made a fuss, it was occasionally
+necessary to return his money, if it was found impossible to bully him
+into silence. In one or two instances, where I had promised a cure upon
+prepayment of two or three hundred dollars, I was either sued or
+threatened with suit, and had to refund a part or the whole of the
+amount; but most folks preferred to hold their tongues, rather than
+expose to the world the extent of their own folly.</p>
+
+<p>In one case I suffered personally to a degree which I never can recall
+without a distinct sense of annoyance, both at my own want of care and
+at the disgusting consequences which it brought upon me.</p>
+
+<p>Early one morning an old gentleman called, in a state of the utmost
+agitation, and explained that he desired to consult the spirits as to a
+heavy loss which he had experienced the night before. He had left, he
+said, a sum of money in his pantaloons-pocket, upon going to bed. In the
+morning he had changed his clothes, and gone out, forgetting to remove
+the notes. Returning in an hour in great haste, he discovered that the
+garment still lay upon the chair where he had thrown it, but that the
+money was missing. I at once desired him to be seated, and proceeded to
+ask him certain questions, in a chatty way, about the habits of his
+household, the amount lost, and the like, expecting thus to get some
+clew which would enable me to make my spirits display the requisite
+share of sagacity in pointing out the thief. I learned readily that he
+was an old and wealthy man, a little close too, I suspected; and that he
+lived in a large house, with but two servants, and an only son about
+twenty-one years old. The servants were both elderly women, who had
+lived in the household many years, and were probably innocent.
+Unluckily, remembering my own youthful career, I presently reached the
+conclusion that the young man had been the delinquent. When I ventured
+to inquire a little as to his character and habits, the old gentleman
+cut me very short, remarking that he came to ask questions, and not to
+be questioned, and that he desired at once to consult the spirits. Upon
+this I sat down at a table, and, after a brief silence, demanded in a
+solemn voice if there were present any spirits. By industriously
+cracking my big-toe joint, I was enabled to represent at once the
+presence of a numerous assembly of these worthies. Then I inquired if
+any one of them had been present when the robbery was effected. A prompt
+double-knock replied in the affirmative. I may say here, by the way,
+that the unanimity of the spirits as to their use of two knocks for yes,
+and one for no, is a very remarkable point; and shows, if it shows
+anything, how perfect and universal must be the social intercourse of
+the respected departed. It is worthy of note, also, that if the spirit,
+I will not say the medium, perceives, after one knock, that it were
+wiser to say yes, he can conveniently add the second tap. Some such
+arrangement in real life would, it appears to me, be very desirable.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the subject. As soon as I explained that the spirit who
+answered had been a witness of the theft, the old man became strangely
+agitated. "Who was it?" said he. At once the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_593" id="Page_593">[Pg 593]</a></span> spirit indicated a desire
+to use the alphabet. As we went over the letters, (always a slow method,
+but useful when you want to observe excitable people,) my visitor kept
+saying, "Quicker. Go quicker." At length the spirit spelt out the words,
+"I know not his name." "Was it," said the gentleman,&mdash;"was it a&mdash;was it
+one of my household?" I knocked yes, without hesitation; who else could
+it have been? "Excuse me," he went on, "if I ask you for a little wine."
+This I gave him. He continued, "Was it Susan, or Ellen? answer
+instantly."</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;No."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it&mdash;" He paused. "If I ask a question mentally, will the spirits
+reply?" I knew what he meant. He wanted to ask if it was his son, but
+did not wish to speak openly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"I have," he returned.</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated. It was rarely my policy to commit myself definitely; yet
+here I fancied, from the facts of the case, and his own terrible
+anxiety, that he suspected or more than suspected his son as the guilty
+person. I became sure of this as I studied his face. At all events it
+would be easy to deny or explain, in case of trouble; and after all,
+what slander was there in two knocks! I struck twice as usual.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly the old gentleman rose up, very white, but quite firm.
+"There," he said, and cast a bank-note on the table, "I thank you";&mdash;and
+bending his head on his breast, walked, as I thought with great effort,
+out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>On the following morning, as I made my first appearance in my outer
+room, which contained at least a dozen persons awaiting advice, who
+should I see standing by the window but the old gentleman with
+sandy-gray hair. Along with him was a stout young man, with a decided
+red head, and mustache and whiskers to match. Probably the son, thought
+I,&mdash;ardent temperament, remorse,&mdash;come to confess, etc. Except as to the
+temper, I was never more mistaken in my life. I was about to go
+regularly through my patients, when the old gentleman began to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"I called, Doctor," said he, "to explain the little matter about which
+I&mdash;about which I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Troubled your spirits yesterday," added the youth jocosely, pulling his
+mustache.</p>
+
+<p>"Beg pardon," I returned. "Had we not better talk this over in private?
+Come into my office," I added, touching the lad on the arm.</p>
+
+<p>Would you believe it?&mdash;he took out his handkerchief, and dusted the
+place I had touched. "Better not," he said. "Go on, father; let us get
+done with this den."</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said the elder person, addressing the patients, "I called
+here yesterday, like a fool, to ask who had stolen from me a sum of
+money, which I believed I left in my room on going out in the morning.
+This doctor here and his spirits contrived to make me suspect my only
+son. Well, I charged him at once with the crime, as soon as I got back
+home; and what do you think he did. He said, 'Father, let us go up
+stairs and look for it, and&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>Here the young man broke in with "Come, father, don't worry yourself for
+nothing"; and then, turning, added, "To cut the thing short, he found
+the notes under his candlestick, where he had left them on going to bed.
+This is all of it. We came here to stop this fellow" (by which he meant
+me) "from carrying a slander further. I advise you, good people, to
+profit by the matter, and to look up a more honest doctor, if doctoring
+be what you want."</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he had ended, I remarked solemnly: "The words of the spirits
+are not my words. Who shall hold them accountable?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," said the young man. "Come, father," and they left the room.</p>
+
+<p>Now was the time to retrieve my character. "Gentlemen," said I, "you
+have heard this very singular account. Trusting the spirits utterly and
+entirely as I do, it occurs to me that there is no reason why they may
+not after all have been right in their suspicions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_594" id="Page_594">[Pg 594]</a></span> of this young person.
+Who can say that, overcome by remorse, he may not have seized the time
+of his father's absence to replace the money?"</p>
+
+<p>To my amazement up gets a little old man from the corner. "Well, you are
+a low cuss," said he; and, taking up a basket beside him, hobbled out of
+the room. You maybe sure I said some pretty sharp things to him, for I
+was out of humor to begin with, and it is one thing to be insulted by a
+stout young man, and quite another to be abused by a wretched old
+cripple. However, he went away, and I supposed, for my part, that I was
+done with the whole business.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later, however, I heard a rough knock at my door, and, opening
+it hastily, saw my red-headed young man with the cripple.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the former, catching me by the collar, and pulling me into
+the room among my patients, "I want to know, my man, if this doctor said
+that it was likely I was the thief, after all?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what he said," replied the cripple; "just about that, sir."</p>
+
+<p>I do not desire to dwell on the after conduct of this hot-headed young
+man. It was the more disgraceful, as I offered but little resistance,
+and endured a beating such as I would have hesitated to inflict upon a
+dog. Nor was this all; he warned me that, if I dared to remain in the
+city after a week, he would shoot me. In the East I should have thought
+but little of such a threat, but here it was only too likely to be
+practically carried out. Accordingly, with much grief and reluctance, I
+collected my whole fortune, which now amounted to at least seven
+thousand dollars, and turned my back upon this ungrateful town. I am
+sorry to say that I also left behind me the last of my good luck, as
+hereafter I was to encounter only one calamity after another.</p>
+
+<p>Travelling slowly eastward, my spirits began at last to rise to their
+usual level, and when I arrived in Boston I set myself to thinking how
+best I could contrive to enjoy life, and at the same time to increase my
+means.</p>
+
+<p>On former occasions I was a moneyless adventurer; now I possessed
+sufficient capital, and was able and ready to embark in whatever
+promised the best returns with the smallest personal risk. Several
+schemes presented themselves as worthy the application of industry and
+talent, but none of them altogether suited my tastes. I thought at times
+of travelling as a Physiological Lecturer, combining with it the
+business of a practitioner. Scare the audience at night with an
+enumeration of symptoms which belong to ten out of every dozen of
+healthy people, and then doctor such of them as are gulls enough to
+consult me next day. The bigger the fright, the better the pay. I was a
+little timid, however, about facing large audiences, as a man will be
+naturally if he has lived a life of adventure, so that, upon due
+consideration, I gave up the idea altogether.</p>
+
+<p>The patent-medicine business also looked well enough, but it is somewhat
+overdone at all times, and requires a heavy outlay, with the possible
+result of ill-success. Indeed, I believe fifty quack remedies fail for
+one that succeeds; and millions must have been wasted in placards,
+bills, and advertisements, which never returned half their value to the
+speculator. If I live, I think I shall beguile my time with writing the
+lives of the principal quacks who have met with success. They are few in
+number, after all, as any one must know who recalls the countless
+remedies which are puffed awhile on the fences, and disappear to be
+heard of no more.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, I inclined for a while to undertake a private insane asylum,
+which appeared to me to offer facilities for money-making; as to which,
+however, I may have been deceived by the writings of certain popular
+novelists. I went so far, I may say, as actually to visit Concord for
+the purpose of finding a pleasant locality and a suitable atmosphere;
+but, upon due reflection, abandoned my plan as involving too much
+personal labor to suit one of my easy frame of mind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_595" id="Page_595">[Pg 595]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Tired at last of idleness and of lounging on the Common, I engaged in
+two or three little ventures of a semi-professional character, such as
+an exhibition of laughing-gas; advertising to cure cancer; send ten
+stamps by mail to J. B., and receive an infallible receipt, etc. I did
+not find, however, that these little enterprises prospered well in New
+England, and I had recalled to me very forcibly a story which my
+grandfather was fond of relating to me in my boyhood. It briefly
+narrated how certain very knowing flies went to get molasses, and how it
+ended by the molasses getting them. This, indeed, was precisely what
+happened to me in all my little efforts to better myself in the Northern
+States, until at length my misfortunes climaxed in total and unexpected
+ruin.</p>
+
+<p>The event which deprived me of the hard-won earnings of years of
+ingenious industry was brought about by the baseness of a man who was
+concerned with me in purchasing drugs for exportation to the Confederate
+States. Unluckily, I was obliged to employ as my agent a long-legged
+sea-captain from Maine. With his aid, I invested in this enterprise
+about six thousand dollars, which I reasonably hoped to quadruple. Our
+arrangements were cleverly made to run the blockade at Charleston, and
+we were to sail on a certain Thursday morning in September, 1863. I sent
+my clothes on board, and went down the evening before to go on board,
+but found that the little schooner had been hauled out from the pier.
+The captain, who met me at this time, endeavored to get a boat in order
+to ferry us to the ship, but the night was stormy, and we were obliged
+to return to our lodgings. Early next day I dressed and went to the
+captain's room, which proved to be empty. I was instantly filled with
+doubt, and ran frantically to the foot of Long Wharf, where, to my
+horror, I could see no signs of schooner or captain. Neither have I ever
+again set eyes on them from that time to this. I immediately lodged
+information with the police as to the unpatriotic designs of the rascal
+who had swindled me, but whether or not justice ever overtook him I am
+unable to say.</p>
+
+<p>It was, as I perceived, such utterly spilt milk as to be little worth
+lamenting; and I therefore set to work with my accustomed energy to
+utilize on my own behalf the resources of my medical education, which so
+often before had saved me from want. The war, then raging at its height,
+appeared to me to offer numerous opportunities to men of talent. The
+path which I chose myself was apparently a humble one, but it enabled me
+to make very agreeable use of my professional knowledge, and afforded
+rapid and secure returns, without any other investment than a little
+knowledge cautiously employed. In the first place, I deposited my small
+remnant of property in a safe bank, and then proceeded to Providence,
+where, as I had heard, patriotic persons were giving very large bounties
+in order, I suppose, to insure to the government the services of better
+men than themselves. On my arrival I lost no time in offering myself as
+a substitute, and was readily accepted, and very soon mustered into the
+Twentieth Rhode Island. Three months were passed, in camp, during which
+period I received bounties to the extent of six hundred and fifty
+dollars, with which I tranquilly deserted about two hours before the
+regiment left for the field. With the product of my industry I returned
+to Boston, and deposited all but enough to carry me to New York, where
+within a month I enlisted twice, earning on each occasion four hundred
+dollars.</p>
+
+<p>My next essay was in Philadelphia, which I approached, even after some
+years of absence, with a good deal of doubt. It was an ill-omened place
+for me; for although I got nearly seven hundred dollars by entering the
+service as a substitute for an editor,&mdash;whose pen, I presume, was
+mightier than his sword,&mdash;I was disagreeably surprised by being hastily
+forwarded to the front<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_596" id="Page_596">[Pg 596]</a></span> under a foxy young lieutenant, who brutally shot
+down a poor devil in the streets of Baltimore for attempting to desert.
+At this point I began to make use of my medical skill, for I did not in
+the least degree fancy being shot, either because of deserting or of not
+deserting. It happened, therefore, that a day or two later, while in
+Washington, I was seized in the street with a fit, which perfectly
+imposed upon the officer in charge, and caused him to leave me at the
+Douglas Hospital. Here I found it necessary to perform fits about twice
+a week; and as there were several real epileptics in the wards I had a
+capital chance of studying their symptoms, which finally I learned to
+imitate with the utmost cleverness.</p>
+
+<p>I soon got to know three or four men, who, like myself, were personally
+averse to bullets, and who were simulating other forms of disease with
+more or less success. One of them suffered with rheumatism of the back,
+and walked about bent like an old man; another, who had been to the
+front, was palsied in the left arm; and a third kept open an ulcer on
+the leg, by rubbing in a little antimonial ointment, which I sold him at
+five dollars a box, and bought at fifty cents.</p>
+
+<p>A change in the hospital staff brought all of us to grief. The new
+surgeon was a quiet, gentlemanly person, with pleasant blue eyes and
+clearly cut features, and a way of looking you through without saying
+much. I felt so safe myself that I watched his procedures with just that
+kind of enjoyment which one clever man takes in seeing another at work.</p>
+
+<p>The first inspection settled two of us, "Another back case," said the
+ward surgeon to his senior.</p>
+
+<p>"Back hurt you?" says the latter, mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; run over by a howitzer; ain't never been straight since."</p>
+
+<p>"A howitzer!" says the surgeon. "Lean forward, my man, so as to touch
+the floor,&mdash;so. That will do." Then, turning to his aid, he said,
+"Prepare this man's discharge papers."</p>
+
+<p>"His discharge, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I said that. Who's next?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir," groaned the man with the back. "How soon, sir, do you
+think it will be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, not less than a month," replied the surgeon, and passed on.</p>
+
+<p>Now as it was unpleasant to be bent like a letter V, and as the patient
+presumed that his discharge was secure, he naturally took to himself a
+little relaxation in the way of becoming straighter. Unluckily, those
+nice blue eyes were everywhere at all hours; and, one fine morning,
+Smithson was appalled at finding himself in a detachment bound for the
+field, and bearing on his descriptive list an ill-natured endorsement
+about his malady.</p>
+
+<p>The surgeon came next on O'Callahan. "Where's your cap, my man?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my head, yer honor," said the other, insolently. "I've a paralytics
+in my arm."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" cried the surgeon. "You have another hand."</p>
+
+<p>"An' it's not rigulation to saloot with yer left," said the Irishman,
+with a grin, while the patients around us began to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"How did it happen?" said the surgeon.</p>
+
+<p>"I was shot in the shoulder," answered the patient, "about three months
+ago, sir. I haven't stirred it since."</p>
+
+<p>The surgeon looked at the scar.</p>
+
+<p>"So recently?" said he. "The scar looks older; and, by the way, doctor,"
+to his junior, "it could not have gone near the nerves. Bring the
+battery, orderly."</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments the surgeon was testing, one after another, the various
+muscles. At last he stopped. "Send this man away with the next
+detachment. Not a word, my man. You are a rascal, and a disgrace to
+these good fellows who have been among the bullets."</p>
+
+<p>The man muttered something, I did not hear what.</p>
+
+<p>"Put this man in the guard-house," cried the surgeon; and so passed on,
+without smile or frown.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_597" id="Page_597">[Pg 597]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As to the ulcer case, to my amusement he was put in bed, and his leg
+locked up in a wooden splint, which effectually prevented him from
+touching the part diseased. It healed in ten days, and he too went as
+food for powder.</p>
+
+<p>As for myself, he asked me a few questions, and, requesting to be sent
+for during my next fit, left me alone.</p>
+
+<p>I was of course on my guard, and took care to have my attacks only in
+his absence, or to have them over before he arrived.</p>
+
+<p>At length, one morning, in spite of my care, he chanced to be in the
+ward, when I fell at the door. I was carried in and laid on a bed,
+apparently in strong convulsions. Presently I felt a finger on my
+eyelid, and as it was raised, saw the surgeon standing beside me. To
+escape his scrutiny, I became more violent in my motions. He stopped a
+moment, and looked at me steadily. "Poor fellow!" said he, to my great
+relief, as I felt at once that I had successfully deceived him. Then he
+turned to the ward doctor and remarked: "Take care he does not hurt his
+head against the bed; and, by the by, doctor, do you remember the test
+we applied in Smith's case? Just tickle the soles of his feet, and see
+if it will cause those backward spasms of the head."</p>
+
+<p>The aid obeyed him, and, very naturally, I jerked my head backwards as
+hard as I could.</p>
+
+<p>"That will answer," said the surgeon, to my horror. "A clever rogue.
+Send him to the guard-house when he gets over it."</p>
+
+<p>"Happy had I been if my ill-luck had ended here; but, as I crossed the
+yard, an officer stopped me. To my disgust it was the captain of my old
+Rhode Island company.</p>
+
+<p>"Halloa!" said he; "keep that fellow safe. I know him."</p>
+
+<p>To cut short a long story; I was tried, convicted, and forced to refund
+the Rhode Island bounty, for by ill luck they found my bank-book among
+my papers. I was finally sent to Fort Mifflin for a year, and kept at
+hard labor, handling and carrying shot, policing the ground, picking up
+cigar-stumps, and other like unpleasant occupations.</p>
+
+<p>Upon my release, I went at once to Boston, where I had about two
+thousand dollars in bank. I spent nearly all of the latter sum before I
+could prevail upon myself to settle down to some mode of making a
+livelihood; and I was about to engage in business as a vender of lottery
+policies, when I first began to feel a strange sense of lassitude, which
+soon increased so as quite to disable me from work of any kind. Month
+after month passed away, while my money lessened, and this terrible
+sense of weariness still went on from bad to worse. At last one day,
+after nearly a year had elapsed, I perceived on my face a large brown
+patch of color, in consequence of which I went in some alarm to consult
+a well-known physician. He asked me a multitude of tiresome questions,
+and at last wrote off a prescription, which I immediately read. It was a
+preparation of iron.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think," said I, "is the matter with me, doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," said he, "that you have a very serious trouble,&mdash;what we
+call Addison's disease."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think you would comprehend it," he replied. "It is an
+affection of the supra-renal capsules."</p>
+
+<p>I dimly remembered that there were such organs, and that nobody knew
+what they were meant for. It seemed the doctors had found a use for them
+at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it a dangerous disease?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear so," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know," I asked, "what's the truth about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he returned gravely, "I am sorry to tell you it is a very
+dangerous malady."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," said I, "I don't believe it,"&mdash;for I thought it was only a
+doctor's trick, and one I had tried often enough myself.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said he, "you are a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_598" id="Page_598">[Pg 598]</a></span> very ill man, and a fool besides. Good
+morning." He forgot to ask for a fee, and I remembered not to offer one.</p>
+
+<p>Several months went by; my money was gone; my clothes were ragged, and,
+like my body, nearly worn out; and I am an inmate of a hospital. To-day
+I feel weaker than when I first began to write. How it will end I do not
+know. If I die, the doctor will get this pleasant history; and if I
+live, I shall burn it, and, as soon as I get a little money, I will set
+out to look for my little sister, about whom I dreamed last night. What
+I dreamed was not very agreeable. I thought I was walking up one of the
+vilest streets near my old office, when a girl spoke to me,&mdash;a
+shameless, worn creature, with great sad eyes, not so wicked as the rest
+of her face. Suddenly she screamed aloud, "Brother! Brother!" and then,
+remembering what she had been,&mdash;with her round, girlish, innocent face,
+and fair hair,&mdash;and seeing what she was, I awoke, and cursed myself in
+the darkness for the evil I had done in the days of my youth.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<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> <i>Aurum</i>, used in religious melancholy (see Jahr,) and not a
+bad remedy, it strikes me.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_LIE" id="THE_LIE"></a>"THE LIE."</h2>
+
+
+<p>Many years ago&mdash;now more than two hundred and fifty&mdash;some one in England
+wrote a short poem bearing the above emphatic title, which deservedly
+holds a place in the collections of old English poetry at the present
+day. It is a striking production, familiar, no doubt, to most lovers of
+ancient verse, and, although numbering only about a dozen stanzas, has
+outlasted many a ponderous folio.</p>
+
+<p>I say, indefinitely enough, that this little poem was written by <i>some</i>
+one, and strange as it may appear, the name of that one is still in
+doubt. Its authorship was attributed, by Bishop Percy and others, to Sir
+Walter Raleigh, and sometimes with the fanciful addition, that he wrote
+it the night before his execution. The piece, however, was extant many
+years before the world was disgraced by that deed of wickedness.</p>
+
+<p>After a while it began to be questioned whether the verses were really
+written by Sir Walter. Some old-poetry mouser appears to have lighted on
+an ancient folio volume, the work of Joshua Sylvester, and found among
+its contents a poem called "The Soul's Errand," which, it would seem,
+was thought to be the same that had been credited to Sir Walter Raleigh
+under the title of "The Lie."</p>
+
+<p>Joshua Sylvester was in his day a writer of some note. Colley Cibber, in
+his "Lives of the Poets," is quite lavish in his praise, and says his
+brethren in the sacred art called him the "Silver-tongued." The same
+phrase has been applied to others.</p>
+
+<p>In his "Specimens of Early English Poets," Ellis "restores" the poem,
+with the title of "The Soul's Errand," to Sylvester, as its "ancient
+proprietor, till a more authorized claimant shall be produced."</p>
+
+<p>Chambers, in his "Cyclop&aelig;dia of English Literature," prints the poem,
+with the title of "The Soul's Errand," and he also gives it to
+Sylvester, "as the now generally received author of an impressive piece,
+long ascribed to Raleigh."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Egerton Brydges, in his "Censura Literaria," doubts Percy's right to
+credit Sir Walter with the poem of "The Lie," of which he says there is
+a "parody" in the folio edition of Sylvester's works, where it is
+entitled "The Soul's Errand."</p>
+
+<p>The veteran J. Payne Collier, the <i>emendator</i> of Shakespeare, has
+recently put forth a work, in four volumes, entitled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_599" id="Page_599">[Pg 599]</a></span> "A Bibliographical
+and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language." In
+this work he claims the authorship of "The Lie," "otherwise called 'The
+Soul's Errand,'" for Sir Walter Raleigh, and rests his authority on a
+manuscript copy "of the time," headed, "Sir Walter Wrawly his Lye." He
+quotes the poem at length, beginning,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Hence</i>, soule, the bodies guest."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>All other copies that I have seen read, "<i>Go</i>, soul," which I think will
+be deemed the more fitting word.</p>
+
+<p>Collier does not allude to Sylvester in connection with this poem, but
+introduces him in another article, and treats him somewhat cavalierly,
+as "a mere literary adventurer and translating drudge." "When he died,"
+Collier says, "is not precisely known." He might have known, since there
+were records all round him to show that Sylvester died in Holland, in
+September, 1618. His great contemporary, Sir Walter Raleigh, was
+beheaded in October, one month after.</p>
+
+<p>(By the way, Payne Collier holds out marvellously. Here is his new work,
+dated 1866, and I have near me his "Poetical Decameron," published in
+1820, <i>forty-six</i> years ago.)</p>
+
+<p>Ritson, a noted reaper in the "old fields," supposes, that "The Lie" was
+written by Francis Davison; and in Kerl's "Comprehensive Grammar," among
+many poetical extracts, I find two stanzas of the poem quoted as written
+by Barnfield,&mdash;probably Richard. These two writers were of Raleigh's
+time, but I think their claims may be readily dismissed. Supposing that
+"The Lie" was written by either Joshua Sylvester or Sir Walter Raleigh,
+I shall try to show that it was not written by Sylvester, and that he
+has wrongfully enjoyed the credit of its authorship.</p>
+
+<p>Critics and collators have for years been doubting about the authorship
+of this little poem, written over two centuries and a half ago; and, so
+far as I can ascertain, not one of them has ever discovered, what is
+the simple fact, that there were <i>two</i> poems instead of <i>one</i>, similar
+in scope and spirit, but still two poems,&mdash;"The Lie" <i>and</i> "The Soul's
+Errand."</p>
+
+<p>I have said that Sir Egerton Brydges alludes to a "parody" of "The Lie,"
+in Sylvester's volume, there called "The Soul's Errand." In that volume
+I find what Sir Egerton calls a "parody." It is, in reality, another
+poem, bearing the title of "The Soul's Errand," consisting of <i>twenty</i>
+stanzas, all of four lines each, excepting the first stanza, which has
+six. "The Lie" consists of but <i>thirteen</i> stanzas, of six lines each,
+the fifth and sixth of which may be termed the refrain or burden of the
+piece. I annex copies of the two poems; Sir Walter's (so called) is
+taken from Percy's "Reliques," and Sylvester's is copied from his own
+folio.</p>
+
+<p>On comparing the two pieces, it will be seen that they begin alike, and
+go on nearly alike for a few stanzas, when they diverge, and are then
+entirely different from each other to the end. I do not find that this
+difference has ever been pointed out, and am therefore left to suppose
+that it never was discovered. At this late day conjectures are not worth
+much, but it would appear that, the opening stanzas of the two poems
+being similar, their identity was at some time carelessly taken for
+granted by some collector, who read only the initial stanzas, and thus
+ignorantly deprived Sir Walter of "The Lie," and gave it to Sylvester,
+with the title of "The Soul's Errand."</p>
+
+<p>This, however, is certain: "The Soul's Errand," so called, of <i>thirteen</i>
+stanzas, given to us by Ellis and by Chambers as Sylvester's, is not the
+poem that Sylvester wrote under that title, and we have his own
+authority for saying so. His poem of <i>twenty</i> stanzas, bearing that
+title, does not appear to have ever been reprinted, and it is believed
+cannot now be found anywhere out of his own book. Ellis, it is plain, is
+not to be trusted. Professing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_600" id="Page_600">[Pg 600]</a></span> to be exact, he refers for his authority
+to page 652 of Sylvester's works, and then proceeds to print a poem as
+his which is not there. Had he read the page he quotes so carefully, he
+would have seen that "The Lie" and "The Soul's Errand" were two separate
+productions, alike only in the six stanzas taken from the former and
+included in the latter.</p>
+
+<p>We learn that Sir Walter Raleigh's poems were never all collected into a
+volume, and, further, we learn that "The Lie," as a separate piece, was
+attributed to him at an early period. Payne Collier, as I have said,
+prints it as his, from a manuscript "of the time"; and in an elaborate
+article on Raleigh, in the North British Review, copied into Littell's
+Living Age, of June 9, 1855, the able reviewer refers particularly to
+"The Lie," "saddest of poems," as Sir Walter's, and adds in a note that
+"it is to be found in a manuscript of 1596." This would make the piece
+two hundred and seventy years old. When and by whom it was first taken
+from Sir Walter and given to Sylvester, with the altered title, and why
+Sylvester incorporated into his poem of "The Soul's Errand" six stanzas
+belonging to "The Lie," can now, of course, never be known.</p>
+
+<p>I find that I have been indulging in quite a flow of words about a few
+old verses; but then they <i>are</i> verses, and such as one should not be
+robbed of. They have lived through centuries of time, and outlived
+generations of ambitious penmen, and the true name of the author ought
+to live with them. Long ago, when a school-boy, I used to read and
+repeat "The Lie," and it was then the undoubted work of Sir Walter
+Raleigh. In after years, on looking into various volumes of old English
+poetry, I was told that "The Lie" was <i>not</i> "The Lie," and was not
+written by Sir Walter Raleigh; that the true title of the piece was "The
+Soul's Errand," and that the real author of it was a certain Joshua
+Sylvester. Unwilling to displace the brave knight from the niche he had
+graced so long, I hunted up Sylvester's old folio, and the result of my
+search may be found in these imperfect remarks.</p>
+
+<p>Frankly, I would fain believe that "The Lie" was written by Sir Walter.
+It is true I am not able to prove it, but I think I prove that it was
+not written by Sylvester. He wrote another poem, "The Soul's Errand,"
+and he is welcome to it; that is, he is welcome to fourteen of its
+twenty stanzas,&mdash;the other six do not belong to him. Give him also,
+painstaking man! due laudation for his version of the "Divine Du
+Bartas," of which formidable work anyone who has the courage to grapple
+with its six hundred and fifty-odd folio pages may know where to find a
+copy.</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Walter Raleigh,&mdash;heroic Sir Walter,&mdash;he is before me bodily,
+running his fingers along the sharp edge of the fatal axe, and calmly
+laying his noble head on the block.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The good Knight is dust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his sword is rust";<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>but I want to feel that he left behind him, as the offspring of his
+great brain, one of the most impressive poems of his time,&mdash;ay, and
+indeed of any time.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE LYE.</h3>
+
+<h4>BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Goe, soule, the bodies guest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon a thanklesse arrant;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Feare not to touche the best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The truth shall be thy warrant:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Goe, since I needs must dye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And give the world the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Goe tell the court, it glowes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And shines like rotten wood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Goe tell the church it showes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What's good, and doth no good:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">If church and court reply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Then give them both the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell potentates they live<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Acting by others actions:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not lov'd unlesse they give,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not strong but by their factions:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">If potentates reply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Give potentates the lye.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_601" id="Page_601">[Pg 601]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell men of high condition,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That rule affairs of state,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their purpose is ambition,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their practise only hate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And if they once reply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Then give them all the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell them that brave it most,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They beg for more by spending,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who in their greatest cost<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Seek nothing but commending:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And if they make reply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Spare not to give the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell zeale, it lacks devotion;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tell love, it is but lust;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell time, it is but motion;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tell flesh, it is but dust;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And wish them not reply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For thou must give the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell age, it daily wasteth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tell honour, how it alters;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell beauty, how she blasteth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tell favour, how she falters;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And as they shall reply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Give each of them the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell wit, how much it wrangles<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In tickle points of nicenesse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell wisedome, she entangles<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Herselfe in over-wisenesse:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And if they do reply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Straight give them both the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell physicke of her boldnesse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tell skill, it is pretension;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell charity of coldness;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tell law, it is contention;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And as they yield reply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">So give them still the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell fortune of her blindnesse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tell nature of decay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell friendship of unkindnesse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tell justice of delay:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And if they dare reply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Then give them all the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell arts, they have no soundnesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But vary by esteeming;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell schooles they want profoundnesse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And stand too much on seeming:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">If arts and schooles reply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Give arts and schooles the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell faith, it's fled the citie;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tell how the countrey erreth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell, manhood shakes off pitie;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tell, vertue least preferreth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And, if they doe reply,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Spare not to give the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So, when thou hast, as I<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Commanded thee, done blabbing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Athough to give the lye<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Deserves no less than stabbing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Yet stab at thee who will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">No stab the soule can kill.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h3>THE SOULES ERRAND.</h3>
+
+<h4>BY JOSUAH SYLVESTER.</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Goe Soule, the bodies guest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon a thanklesse Errand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Feare not to touch the best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Truth shall be thy warrant:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Goe thou, since I must die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And give the world the lye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Goe tell the Court it glowes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shines like rotten wood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Say to the Church it showes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What's good, but doth not good.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell Potentates they live,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Acting by others Action,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not lov'd unlesse they give,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not strong, but by a faction.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell men of high condition,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That in Affaires of State<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their purpose is ambition,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their practice only hate.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Goe tell the young Nobility,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They doe degenerate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wasting their large ability,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In things effeminate.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell those that brave it most,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They beg for more by spending,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, in their greatest cost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seeke but a self-commending.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell Zeale it wants Devotion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell Love it is but Lust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell Priests they hunt Promotion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tell Flesh it is but Dust.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Say Souldiers are the Sink<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Sinne to all the Realme;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Given all to whores and drink,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To quarrell and blaspheme.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell Townesmen, that because that<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They pranck their Brides so proud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Too many times it drawes that<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which makes them beetle-brow'd.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_602" id="Page_602">[Pg 602]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Goe tell the Palace-Dames<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They paint their parboil'd faces,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seeking by greater shames<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To cover lesse disgraces.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Say to the City-wives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through their excessive brav'ry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their Husband hardly thrives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But rather lives in Slav'ry.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell London Youths that Dice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faire Queanes, fine Clothes, full Bouls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Consume the cursed price<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of their dead-Fathers Soules.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Say Maidens are too coy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To them that chastely seeke them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet are apt to toy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With baser Jacks that like them.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell Poets of our dayes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They doe profane the Muses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In soothing Sin with praise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That all the world abuses.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell Tradesmen waight and measure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They craftily abuse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thereby to heap-up treasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though Heav'n thereby they lose.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Goe tell the vitious rich,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By usury to gaine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their fingers alwaies itch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To soules and bodies paine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yea tell the wretched poore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That they the wealthy hate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And grudge to see at doore<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Another in their state.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell all the world throughout<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That all's but vanity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her pleasures doe but flout<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With sly security.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tell Kings and Beggars base,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yea tell both young and old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They all are in one case,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And must all to the mould.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And now kinde Host adieu,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rest thou in earthly Tombe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till Christ shall all renew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then I'll thee resume.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_BOWERY_AT_NIGHT" id="THE_BOWERY_AT_NIGHT"></a>THE BOWERY AT NIGHT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Coming up from one of the Brooklyn ferries, after dark, on a sultry
+summer evening, I take my way through the close-built district of New
+York City still known as "The Swamp." The narrow streets of the place
+are deserted by this time, but they have been lively enough during the
+day with the busy leather-dealers and their teams; for this is the great
+hide and leather mart of the city, as any one might guess even now in
+the gloom by the pungent odors that arise on every side. The heavy iron
+doors and window-shutters of the buildings have been locked and barred
+for the night; and the thick atmosphere of the place appears to affect
+the gas-lights, which burn sickly and dim in the street lanterns. Nobody
+lives here at night. The footfalls of the solitary policeman give out a
+hollow sound as he paces the narrow <i>trottoir</i> of Ferry Street, in the
+heart of "The Swamp." Over two hundred years ago, when Governor Peter
+Stuyvesant pastured his flocks and herds hereabouts, the wayfarer would
+have been more likely to mark a solitary heron than a solitary
+policeman; for it was really a swamp then, and much earth-work must have
+been expended in making the solid ground whereon the buildings now
+stand. Neither is it probable that, even on the most sultry of summer
+nights, the nose of old Mynheer Stuyvesant would have been saluted with
+odors of morocco leather, such as fill the air of "The Swamp" to-night.
+The wild swamp-flowers, though, gave out some faint perfumes to the
+night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_603" id="Page_603">[Pg 603]</a></span> air in those olden times; but the place could hardly have been so
+still of a summer night as it is now, for the booming of the bullfrog
+and the piping of his lesser kin must have made night resonant here, and
+it is reasonable to surmise that owls hooted in the cedar-trees that
+hung over the tawny sedges of the swamp. "Jack-o'-Lantern" was the only
+inhabitant who burned gas hereabouts in those times, and he manufactured
+his own. The nocturnal raccoon edged his way through the alders here, in
+the old summer nights, and the muskrat built his house among the reeds.
+Not a raccoon nor a muskrat is the wayfarer likely to meet with here
+to-night; but the gray rat of civilization is to be dimly discerned, as
+he lopes along the gutters in his nightly prowl.</p>
+
+<p>There is something very bewildering to the untutored mind in the
+announcements on the dim, stony door-posts of the stores. Here it is set
+forth that "Kids and Gorings" are the staple of the concern. Puzzling
+though the inscription is to me, yet I recognize in it something that is
+pastoral and significant; for there were kids that skipped, probably,
+and bulls that gored, when the grass was green here. "Oak and Hemlock
+Leather," on the next door-post, reads well, for it is redolent of
+glades that were old before the masonry that now prevails here had been
+dreamed of. Here we have an announcement of "Russet Roans"; and the next
+merchant, who is apparently a cannibal or a ghoul, deliberately notifies
+the public that he deals in "Hatters' Skins." Many of the door-posts
+announce "Findings" and "Skivers"; and upon one of them I note the
+somewhat remarkable intimation of "Pulled Wool." Gold Street, also, is
+redolent of all these things, as I turn into it, nor is there any
+remission of the pungent trade-stenches of the district until I have
+gained a good distance up Spruce Street, toward the City Hall Park. Here
+the Bowery proper, viewed as a great artery of New York trade and
+travel, may be said to begin. The first reach of it is called Chatham
+Street; and, having plunged into this, I have nothing before me now but
+Bowery for a distance of nearly two miles.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving behind me, then, the twinkling lights of the newspaper buildings
+and those of the City Hall Park northward along Chatham Street I bend my
+loitering steps. Israel predominates here,&mdash;Israel, with its traditional
+stock in trade of cheap clothing, and bawbles that are made to wear, but
+not to wear long. The shops here are mostly small, and quite open to the
+street in front, which gives the place a bazaar-like appearance in
+summer. Economy in space is practised to the utmost. It is curious to
+observe how closely crowded the goods (bads might be a more appropriate
+term for most of them) are outside the shops, as well as inside. The
+fronts of the houses are festooned with raiment of all kinds, until they
+look like tents made of variegated dry-goods. Here is a stall so
+confined that the occupant, rocking in his chair near the farther end of
+it, stretches his slippered feet well out upon the threshold. It is near
+closing time now, and many of the dealers, with their wives and
+children, are sitting out in front of their shops, and, if not under
+their own vines and fig-trees, at least under their own gaudy flannels
+and "loud-patterned" cotton goods, which are waving overhead in the
+sluggish evening breeze. Nothing can be more suggestive of lazily
+industrious Jewry than this short, thick-set clothier, with the curved
+nose, and spiral, oily hair, who sits out on the sidewalk and blows
+clouds from his meerschaum pipe. The women who lounge here are generally
+stoutish and slatternly, with few clothes on, but plenty of frowzy hair.
+Here and there one may see a pretty face among the younger girls; and it
+is sad to reflect that these little Hebrew maids will become stout and
+slatternly by and by, and have hooked noses like their mothers, and
+double chins. The labels on the ready-made clothing are curious in their
+way. Here a pair of trousers in glaring brown and yellow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_604" id="Page_604">[Pg 604]</a></span> stripes is
+ticketed with the alluring word, "Lovely." Other garments are offered to
+the public, with such guaranties as "Original," "Genteel," "Excelsior,"
+and "Our Own." There is not an article among them but has its ticket of
+recommendation, and another card affixed to each sets forth the lowest
+price for which it is to be had. The number and variety of hats on show
+along this queer arcade are very characteristic of the people, with whom
+hats have long been a traditional article of commerce. Dimly-lighted
+cellars, down precipitous flights of narrow, dirty steps, up which come
+fumes of coffee and cooked viands, are to be seen at short intervals,
+and these restaurants are supported mainly by the denizens of the
+street. Shops in the windows of which blazes much cheap jewelry abound,
+and there are also many tobacconists on a small scale.</p>
+
+<p>The lights of Chatham Square twinkle out now; and here I pause before a
+feature very peculiar to the Bowery,&mdash;one of those large, open shops in
+which vociferous salesmen address from galleries a motley crowd of men
+and women. One fellow in dirty shirt-sleeves and a Turkish cap
+flourishes aloft something which looks like a fan, but proves, on closer
+inspection, to be a group composed of several pocket-combs, a razor, and
+other small articles, constituting in all a "lot." This he offers, with
+stentorian utterances, for a price "a hundred per cent less, <i>you</i> bet,
+than you kin buy 'em for on Broadway." Other salesmen lean furiously
+over the gallery railing, flourishing shirts, stockings, and garments of
+every kind, mentionable and unmentionable, in the faces of the gaping
+loafers below. Sometimes a particular "lot" will attract the attention
+of a spectator, and he will chaffer about it for a while; but the sales
+do not often appear to be very brisk. The people one sees in these
+places are very characteristic of the Bowery. Many of them are what the
+police call "hard cases,"&mdash;men, with coarse, bulldog features, their
+mustaches trimmed very close, and dyed with something that gives them a
+foxy-black hue. Women, many of them with children in their arms, have
+come to look out for bargains. Near the entrance, which is quite open to
+the street, there stands a man with a light cane in his hand, which he
+lays every now and then over the shoulders of some objectionable youth
+marked by him in the crowd. The objectionable youth is a pickpocket, or
+a "sneak-thief," or both, and the man with the cane is the private
+detective attached to the place. He is well acquainted with the regular
+thieves of these localities, and his business is to "spot" them, and
+keep them from edging in among the loose articles lying about the store.
+He says that there area great many notorious pickpockets in the crowd,
+and he looks like one who knows.</p>
+
+<p>Here and there along the Bowery small, shrivelled Chinamen stand by
+rickety tables, on which a few boxes of cheap cigars are exposed for
+sale. These foreigners look uneasy in their Bowery clothes, which are of
+the cheapest quality sold at the places just mentioned. Some of them
+wear the traditional queue, but they wind it very closely round their
+heads, probably to avoid the derision of the street boys, to whom a
+Chinaman's "tail" offers a temptation not to be resisted. Others have
+allowed their hair to grow in the ordinary manner. They are not
+communicative when addressed, which may be due, perhaps, to the fact,
+that but few of them possess more of the English language than is
+necessary for the purposes of trade. Fireworks and tobacco are the
+principal articles in which these New York Chinamen deal.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody who passes through the Bowery, and more especially at night,
+must have observed the remarkable prevalence of small children there.
+Swarms of well-clad little boys and girls, belonging to the
+shop-keepers, sport before the doors until a late hour at night. Here is
+a group of extremely diminutive ones, dancing an elf-like measure to the
+music of an itinerant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_605" id="Page_605">[Pg 605]</a></span> organist. Darting about, here, there, and
+everywhere, are packs of ragged little urchins. They paddle along in the
+dirty gutter, the black ooze from which they spatter over the passers on
+the sidewalk, and run with confiding recklessness against the legs of
+hurrying pedestrians. Ragged and poor as they certainly are, they do not
+often ask for alms, but continually give themselves up, with wild
+<i>abandon</i>, to chasing each other in and out between the obstacles on the
+sidewalk. Boys of a better class carry on business here. Watch this one
+selling fans: he is so well dressed, and so genteel in appearance, that
+it is easy to see his livelihood does not altogether hang upon a
+commercial venture so small as the one in which he is at present
+engaged. That boy has evidently a mercantile turn, and may be a leading
+city man yet. Farther on, four smart-looking youngsters are indulging in
+some very frothy beverage at a street soda-water bar. High words are
+bandied about concerning the quality of the "stamps" offered by them in
+change, the genuine character of which has been challenged by a boy of
+their own size, who seems to be in charge of the concern. Numbers of
+these cheap soda-water stalls are to be seen in the Bowery; and they
+appear to drive a good business generally, notwithstanding the
+lager-beer saloons that so generally abound. Many larger establishments
+for the sale of temperance drinks are open here during the summer
+months. I notice a good number of people going to and from a large one,
+the entrance of which is so wide and high that it realizes the idea of
+"open house," and within which there are a great number of taps from
+which soda-water, ready mingled with all the various kinds of syrups, is
+drawn.</p>
+
+<p>Let us cross over the Bowery, and take a look at Division Street, which
+diverges from it at the neck of Chatham Square, and is one of the
+curiosities of the district. It is a narrow street, very brilliantly
+lighted up on one side by the show-windows of the milliners' shops; and
+a marvellously long row of milliners it is, never ending until it runs
+against a druggist just where Bayard Street makes an angle with
+Division. Every window and every show-case by the thresholds is filled
+with a curious variety of infinitesimally small bonnets and hats, some
+in a skeleton state, others bedizened in all the fancy modes of the
+season. Division Street may be termed the milliners' quarter of New York
+City. Most of the goods displayed here are of a "sensation" character,
+but that is just what pays on the east side. Yet I would not be
+understood here as meaning to disparage the west side; and indeed I have
+been told that ladies from the most fashionable quarters of the city are
+not above buying their millinery in Division Street. Numbers of young
+girls are passing to and fro here, pausing ever and anon to gaze in at
+the windows with longing eyes. If there be "sermons in stones," so are
+there also in show-cases, and many a sad romance of won and lost grows
+out of the latter too. The shop-girls have nearly got through their work
+now, and they lean against the door-posts or stand out on the sidewalk,
+gossiping in groups of twos and threes. You will observe that there is
+not a single milliner's shop on the other side of the street. The
+dealers there are mostly in the hardware and grocery lines, or they
+represent commerce as tobacconists, confectioners, and such like; but
+they have nearly all shut up for the night, and the glory of the gas is
+on the milliner side of the way alone. All along the Bowery the same
+order of things may be observed to prevail,&mdash;the west side being chiefly
+devoted to the dry-goods trade, while the hardware dealers, grocers,
+restaurateurs, and numerous other tradespeople occupy the east side.</p>
+
+<p>And now again up the Bowery,&mdash;where the lights appear to stretch away
+into almost endless space. The numerous lines of horse-cars pass and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_606" id="Page_606">[Pg 606]</a></span>
+repass each other in long perspective, their lights twinkling like
+constellations on the rampage, as they run to and fro. The jingle of
+their harness-bells is pleasant of a sultry night, recalling the
+sleigh-bells of bracing winter. And the bells have something suggestive
+in them, too, of the old Bowery pastures, where the flocks and herds
+roamed at large, and the cow-bells rang bass to the shrill treble that
+came from the bell-wethers of the flock. But here we have something that
+is hardly so pastoral in its associations. Out from the portals of a
+large theatre issues a crowd of roughs, who elbow and jostle each other
+in their anxiety to reach the nearest place where bad liquor can be had.
+To-night the theatre has been given over to the gymnasts of the
+"prize-ring," and they have had a sparring exhibition there. Three or
+four interesting English pugilists, lately arrived in the city, have
+been showing their mettle with the gloves on; and, although a dollar a
+head is the usual admission fee on such occasions, the entertainment is
+always sure to bring together an immense crowd of the rough class. A
+little later, and another dense throng will emerge from the Old Bowery
+Theatre, just over the way. It will be a very mixed crowd of men, women,
+and children,&mdash;the street-boys, with their wondrous variety of sharp
+faces, owlish faces, wicked faces, and ragged clothes, being constant
+patrons of this popular east-side theatre. Not far from this are the
+most dangerous corners and lurking-places to be found anywhere in the
+Bowery. Here thieves and rowdies of the worst description hang about the
+doors of the low bar-rooms in the neighborhood, in gangs of five or six,
+all ready at a signal to concentrate their forces for a rescue, a
+robbery, or a row of any sort in which plunder may be secured. There are
+policemen in the Bowery, of course; but in many cases the tactics of the
+thieves prove to be too much for these guardians of the public peace.
+One night, for instance, in the merry month of May of this year, a gang
+of about a dozen armed ruffians boarded a Third Avenue horse-car
+somewhere in these latitudes, knocked down the conductor with a
+slung-shot, robbed and otherwise maltreated several of the passengers,
+and got clear away before the first policeman had made his appearance.
+Such incidents are by no means uncommon in the Bowery and its purlieus
+at night. It is quite different now, remember, from the Bowery it was
+when old Peter Stuyvesant used to dot its cow-paths with the tip of his
+wooden leg.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere within the limits of the sidewalk, and sometimes out upon the
+pavement beyond, stand fruit-stalls loaded with oranges, apples, nuts,
+and all such fruits as are seasonable and plenty. There are tables on
+which pink, pulpy melons, flecked with the jet-black seeds, are set
+forth in slices, to tempt thirsty passengers; tables upon which large
+rocks of candy are broken up into nuggets to suit customers; and tables
+upon which bananas alone are exposed for sale. The lamps upon all these
+flame and smoke in the fitful whiffs of night air. The weighing-machine
+man is here, with a blazing light suspended in front of his brazen disk;
+and, as I pass on, I notice that the man who exhibits the moon is
+dismounting his big telescope, for the night is clouding fast, and his
+occupation is gone. Two small girls are scraping doleful strains from
+the sad catgut of violins nearly as big as themselves. They have long
+been frequenters of the Bowery at night, and were much smaller than
+their fiddles when I first saw them here. Off the sidewalk, upon the
+pavement of the street, there is a crowd of men and boys, closely
+grouped around something in the way of a show. As I approach, old voices
+of the once familiar woodlands and farm-yards greet my ear. I listen to
+them, for a brief moment, rapt. Alas! they are spurious. They emanate
+from a dirty man, who stands in the centre of the group, with a small
+wooden box slung before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_607" id="Page_607">[Pg 607]</a></span> him. By his side stands his torch-bearer, who
+illuminates him with a lamp suspended from a long pole. The performer
+takes something from his mouth, and, having made a laudatory address
+regarding its merits, replaces it between his teeth, and resumes his
+imitations of many birds and quadrupeds. His mocking-bird is very fair;
+his thrush, passable; but his canary less successful, being rather too
+reedy and harsh. Farm-yard sounds are thrown off with considerable
+imitative power. His pig is so good, indeed, that it invites a
+purchaser, who puts one of the calls into his mouth, and frightfully
+distorts his features in his wretched efforts to produce the desired
+grunts and squeaks. The crowing of cocks, the neighing of horses, the
+lowing of cows, and the bleating of sheep follow in succession,&mdash;sounds
+so appropriate to the memories of the Bowery that was, that one is
+tempted to applaud the rascal in spite of the swindle he is practising
+on the crowd. Of course, with the exception of the bird-songs, none of
+these sounds are produced by the aid of the calls, but are simply the
+fruit of long and assiduous practice on the part of the gifted
+performer.</p>
+
+<p>On, on, still up the Bowery, of which the end is not yet. Great numbers
+of people are passing to and fro, an excess of the feminine element
+being generally observable. The sidewalks are cumbered with rough wooden
+cases. As in Chatham Street, the shop-keepers&mdash;or "merchants," if they
+insist on being so designated&mdash;are sitting, mostly, outside their doors.
+Garlands of hosiery and forests of hoop-skirts wave beneath the
+awnings,&mdash;for most of the Bowery shops have awnings,&mdash;making the
+sidewalk in front of them a sort of arcade for the display of their
+goods. But the time has come now for taking in all these waving things
+for the night, and the young men and girls of the shops are unhooking
+them with long poles, or handing them down from step-ladders planted in
+the middle of the sidewalk. Ranged outside the larger establishments
+are rows of headless dummies, intended to represent the female form
+divine, and to show off on their inanimate busts and shoulders the
+sweetest assortments ever seen of new things in summer fashions. These
+headless dummies of the Bowery have a very ghastly look at night. They
+suggest a procession of the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives, who, true to
+their instincts while in life, nightly revisit the "ladies' furnishing
+establishments" here, to rummage among scarfs and ribbons, and don for
+the brief hour before cock-crow the valuable stuffs and stuffings that
+are yet so dear to them.</p>
+
+<p>Yonder is a group curious for color, and one well worth the
+consideration of a painter who has a fancy for striking effects. A negro
+girl with hot corn for sale stands just outside the reflection from a
+druggist's window, the bars of red and green light from the colored jars
+in which fall weirdly on the faces of two men who are buying from her.
+The trade in boots and shoes is briskly carried on, even at this late
+hour of the night. In the Bowery this trade is very extensive. Long
+strings of boots and shoes hang from the door-posts. Trays of the same
+articles are displayed outside, and it seems an easy matter for any
+nocturnal prowler to help himself, <i>en passant</i>, from the boxes full of
+cordwainers' work that stand on the edge of the footway next the street.
+On the eastern side of the way, there are fewer lights to be seen now
+than there were an hour ago. The tradespeople over there, generally,
+have put up their shutters, and the time for closing the
+drinking-saloons is at hand; but lights are yet lingering in the
+pawnbroker's establishments, for the <i>Mont de Pi&eacute;t&eacute;</i> is an institution
+of an extremely wakeful, not to say wide-awake, kind.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Bowery widens gradually to the northward, and may be likened to
+a river that turns to an estuary ere it joins the waters of the main.
+The vast and hideous brown-stone delta of the Cooper Institute divides
+it into two channels,&mdash;Third Avenue to the right, Fourth Avenue to the
+left. Properly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_608" id="Page_608">[Pg 608]</a></span> the Bowery may be said to end here; but only a few
+blocks farther on, at the corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street,
+is marked the spot where stood the gateway leading to the original
+<i>Bouwery</i>, the old mansion in which Peter Stuyvesant dwelt when New
+Amsterdam was, but as yet no New York. And here, till within a few
+months, stood the traditional Stuyvesant pear-tree, said to have been
+brought from Holland, and planted by the hands of the old Dutch Governor
+himself. Spring-time after spring-time, until within a year or two past,
+the Stuyvesant pear-tree used to blossom, and its blossoms run to fruit.
+It lived, in a very gnarled and rheumatic condition, until the 26th of
+February last, when it sank quietly down to rest, and nothing but the
+rusty old iron railing is left to show where it stood.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="STEPHEN_C_FOSTER_AND_NEGRO_MINSTRELSY" id="STEPHEN_C_FOSTER_AND_NEGRO_MINSTRELSY"></a>STEPHEN C. FOSTER AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Thirty-six years ago a young man, about twenty-five years of age, of a
+commanding height,&mdash;six feet full, the heels of his boots not included
+in the reckoning,&mdash;and dressed in scrupulous keeping with the fashion of
+the time, might have been seen sauntering idly along one of the
+principal streets of Cincinnati. To the few who could claim acquaintance
+with him he was known as an actor, playing at the time referred to a
+short engagement as light comedian in a theatre of that city. He does
+not seem to have attained to any noticeable degree of eminence in his
+profession, but he had established for himself a reputation among jolly
+fellows in a social way. He could tell a story, sing a song, and dance a
+hornpipe, after a style which, however unequal to complete success on
+the stage, proved, in private performance to select circles rendered
+appreciative by accessory refreshments, famously triumphant always. If
+it must be confessed that he was deficient in the more profound
+qualities, it is not to be inferred that he was destitute of all the
+distinguishing, though shallower, virtues of character. He had the
+merit, too, of a proper appreciation of his own capacity; and his aims
+never rose above that capacity. As a superficial man he dealt with
+superficial things, and his dealings were marked by tact and shrewdness.
+In his sphere he was proficient, and he kept his wits upon the alert for
+everything that might be turned to professional and profitable use. Thus
+it was that, as he sauntered along one of the main thoroughfares of
+Cincinnati, as has been written, his attention was suddenly arrested by
+a voice ringing clear and full above the noises of the street, and
+giving utterance, in an unmistakable dialect, to the refrain of a song
+to this effect:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Turn about an' wheel about do jis so,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' ebery time I run about I jump Jim Crow."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Struck by the peculiarities of the performance, so unique in style,
+matter, and "character" of delivery, the player listened on. Were not
+these elements&mdash;was the suggestion of the instant&mdash;which might admit of
+higher than mere street or stable-yard development? As a national or
+"race" illustration, behind the footlights, might not "Jim Crow" and a
+black face tickle the fancy of pit and circle, as well as the "Sprig of
+Shillalah" and a red nose? Out of the suggestion leaped the
+determination; and so it chanced that the casual hearing of a song
+trolled by a negro stage-driver, lolling lazily on the box of his
+vehicle, gave origin to a school of music destined to excel in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_609" id="Page_609">[Pg 609]</a></span>
+popularity all others, and to make the name of the obscure actor, <span class="smcap">W. D.
+Rice</span>, famous.</p>
+
+<p>As his engagement at Cincinnati had nearly expired, Rice deemed it
+expedient to postpone a public venture in the newly projected line until
+the opening of a fresh engagement should assure him opportunity to share
+fairly the benefit expected to grow out of the experiment. This
+engagement had already been entered into; and accordingly, shortly
+after, in the autumn of 1830, he left Cincinnati for Pittsburg.</p>
+
+<p>The old theatre of Pittsburg occupied the site of the present one, on
+Fifth Street. It was an unpretending structure, rudely built of boards,
+and of moderate proportions, but sufficient, nevertheless, to satisfy
+the taste and secure the comfort of the few who dared to face
+consequences and lend patronage to an establishment under the ban of the
+Scotch-Irish Calvinists. Entering upon duty at the "Old Drury" of the
+"Birmingham of America," Rice prepared to take advantage of his
+opportunity. There was a negro in attendance at Griffith's Hotel, on
+Wood Street, named Cuff,&mdash;an exquisite specimen of his sort,&mdash;who won a
+precarious subsistence by letting his open mouth as a mark for boys to
+pitch pennies into, at three paces, and by carrying the trunks of
+passengers from the steamboats to the hotels. Cuff was precisely the
+subject for Rice's purpose. Slight persuasion induced him to accompany
+the actor to the theatre, where he was led through the private entrance,
+and quietly ensconced behind the scenes. After the play, Rice, having
+shaded his own countenance to the "contraband" hue, ordered Cuff to
+disrobe, and proceeded to invest himself in the cast-off apparel. When
+the arrangements were complete, the bell rang, and Rice, habited in an
+old coat forlornly dilapidated, with a pair of shoes composed equally of
+patches and places for patches on his feet, and wearing a coarse straw
+hat in a melancholy condition of rent and collapse over a dense black
+wig of matted moss, waddled into view. The extraordinary apparition
+produced an instant effect. The crash of peanuts ceased in the pit, and
+through the circles passed a murmur and a bustle of liveliest
+expectation. The orchestra opened with a short prelude, and to its
+accompaniment Rice began to sing, delivering the first line by way of
+introductory recitative:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O, Jim Crow's come to town, as you all must know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' he wheel about, he turn about, he do jis so,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' ebery time he wheel about he jump Jim Crow."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The effect was electric. Such a thunder of applause as followed was
+never heard before within the shell of that old theatre. With each
+succeeding couplet and refrain the uproar was renewed, until presently,
+when the performer, gathering courage from the favorable temper of his
+audience, ventured to improvise matter for his distiches from familiarly
+known local incidents, the demonstrations were deafening.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened that Cuff, who meanwhile was crouching in dishabille
+under concealment of a projecting <i>flat</i> behind the performer, by some
+means received intelligence, at this point, of the near approach of a
+steamer to the Monongahela Wharf. Between himself and others of his
+color in the same line of business, and especially as regarded a certain
+formidable competitor called Ginger, there existed an active rivalry in
+the baggage-carrying business. For Cuff to allow Ginger the advantage of
+an undisputed descent upon the luggage of the approaching vessel would
+be not only to forfeit all "considerations" from the passengers, but, by
+proving him a laggard in his calling, to cast a damaging blemish upon
+his reputation. Liberally as he might lend himself to a friend, it could
+not be done at that sacrifice. After a minute or two of fidgety waiting
+for the song to end, Cuff's patience could endure no longer, and,
+cautiously hazarding a glimpse of his profile beyond the edge of the
+flat, he called in a hurried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_610" id="Page_610">[Pg 610]</a></span> whisper: "Massa Rice, Massa Rice, must
+have my clo'se! Massa Griffif wants me,&mdash;steamboat's comin'!"</p>
+
+<p>The appeal was fruitless. Massa Rice did not hear it, for a happy hit at
+an unpopular city functionary had set the audience in a roar in which
+all other sounds were lost. Waiting some moments longer, the restless
+Cuff, thrusting his visage from under cover into full three-quarter view
+this time, again charged upon the singer in the same words, but with
+more emphatic voice: "Massa Rice, Massa Rice, must have my clo'se! Massa
+Griffif wants me,&mdash;<i>steamboat's comin'!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>A still more successful couplet brought a still more tempestuous
+response, and the invocation of the baggage-carrier was unheard and
+unheeded. Driven to desperation, and forgetful in the emergency of every
+sense of propriety, Cuff, in ludicrous undress as he was, started from
+his place, rushed upon the stage, and, laying his hand upon the
+performer's shoulder, called out excitedly: "Massa Rice, Massa Rice, gi'
+me nigga's hat,&mdash;nigga's coat,&mdash;nigga's shoes,&mdash;gi' me nigga's t'ings!
+Massa Griffif wants 'im,&mdash;<span class="smcap">steamboat's comin'</span>!!"</p>
+
+<p>The incident was the touch, in the mirthful experience of that night,
+that passed endurance. Pit and circles were one scene of such convulsive
+merriment that it was impossible to proceed in the performance; and the
+extinguishment of the footlights, the fall of the curtain, and the
+throwing wide of the doors for exit, indicated that the entertainment
+was ended.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the circumstances&mdash;authentic in every particular&mdash;under which
+the first work of the distinct art of Negro Minstrelsy was presented.</p>
+
+<p>Next day found the song of Jim Crow, in one style of delivery or
+another, on everybody's tongue. Clerks hummed it serving customers at
+shop counters, artisans thundered it at their toils to the time-beat of
+sledge and of tilt-hammer, boys whistled it on the streets, ladies
+warbled it in parlors, and house-maids repeated it to the clink of
+crockery in kitchens. Rice made up his mind to profit further by its
+popularity: he determined to publish it. Mr. W. C. Peters, afterwards of
+Cincinnati, and well known as a composer and publisher, was at that time
+a music-dealer on Market Street in Pittsburg. Rice, ignorant himself of
+the simplest elements of musical science, waited upon Mr. Peters, and
+solicited his co-operation in the preparation of his song for the press.
+Some difficulty was experienced before Rice could be induced to consent
+to the correction of certain trifling informalities, rhythmical mainly,
+in his melody; but, yielding finally, the air as it now stands, with a
+pianoforte accompaniment by Mr. Peters, was put upon paper. The
+manuscript was put into the hands of Mr. John Newton, who reproduced it
+on stone with an elaborately embellished title-page, including a
+portrait of the subject of the song, precisely as it has been copied
+through succeeding editions to the present time. It was the first
+specimen of lithography ever executed in Pittsburg.</p>
+
+<p>Jim Crow was repeated nightly throughout the season at the theatre; and
+when that was ended, Scale's Long Room, at the corner of Third and
+Market streets, was engaged for rehearsals exclusively in the Ethiopian
+line. "Clar de Kitchen" soon appeared as a companion piece, followed
+speedily by "Lucy Long," "Sich a Gittin' up Stairs," "Long-Tail Blue,"
+and so on, until quite a <i>repertoire</i> was at command from which to
+select for an evening's entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>Rice remained in Pittsburg some two years. He then visited Philadelphia,
+Boston, and New York, whence he sailed for England, where he met with
+high favor in his novel character, married, and remained for some time.
+He then returned to New York, and shortly afterwards died.</p>
+
+<p>With Rice's retirement his art seems to have dropped into disuse as a
+feature of theatrical entertainment, and thenceforward,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_611" id="Page_611">[Pg 611]</a></span> for many years,
+to have survived only in the performances of circuses and menageries.
+Between acts the <i>extravaganzaist</i> in cork and wool would appear, and to
+the song of "Coal-Black Rose," or "Jim along Joe," or "Sittin' on a
+Rail," command, with the clown and monkey, full share of admiration in
+the arena. At first he performed <i>solus</i>, and to the accompaniment of
+the "show" band; but the school was progressive; couples presently
+appeared, and, dispensing with the aid of foreign instruments, delivered
+their melodies to the more appropriate music of the banjo. To the banjo,
+in a short time, were added the bones. The art had now outgrown its
+infancy, and, disdaining a subordinate existence, boldly seceded from
+the society of harlequin and the tumblers, and met the world as an
+independent institution. Singers organized themselves into quartet
+bands; added a fiddle and tambourine to their instruments&mdash;perhaps we
+should say implements&mdash;of music; introduced the hoe-down and the
+conundrum to fill up the intervals of performance; rented halls, and,
+peregrinating from city to city and from town to town, went on and
+prospered.</p>
+
+<p>One of the earliest companies of this sort was organized and sustained
+under the leadership of Nelson Kneass, who, while skilful in his
+manipulations of the banjo, was quite an accomplished pianist besides,
+as well as a favorite ballad-singer. He had some pretensions as a
+composer, but has left his name identified with no work of any interest.
+His company met with such success in Pittsburg, that its visits were
+repeated from season to season, until about the year 1845, when Mr.
+Murphy, the leading caricaturist, determining to resume the business in
+private life which he had laid aside on going upon the stage, the
+company was disbanded.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this period, if negro minstrelsy had made some progress, it was
+not marked by much improvement. Its charm lay essentially in its
+simplicity, and to give it full development, retaining unimpaired
+meanwhile such original excellences as Nature in Sambo shapes and
+inspires, was the task of the time. But the task fell into bungling
+hands. The intuitive utterance of the art was misapprehended or
+perverted altogether. Its na&iuml;ve misconceits were construed into coarse
+blunders; its pleasing incongruities were resolved into meaningless
+jargon. Gibberish became the staple of its composition. Slang phrases
+and crude jests, all odds and ends of vulgar sentiment, without regard
+to the idiosyncrasies of the negro, were caught up, jumbled together
+into rhyme, and, rendered into the lingo presumed to be genuine, were
+ready for the stage. The wit of the performance was made to consist in
+quibble and equivoke, and in the misuse of language, after the fashion,
+but without the refinement, of Mrs. Partington. The character of the
+music underwent a change. Original airs were composed from time to time,
+but the songs were more generally adaptations of tunes in vogue among
+Hard-Shell Baptists in Tennessee and at Methodist camp-meetings in
+Kentucky, and of backwoods melodies, such as had been invented for
+native ballads by "settlement" masters and brought into general
+circulation by stage-drivers, wagoners, cattle&mdash;drovers, and other such
+itinerants of earlier days. Music of the concert-room was also drafted
+into the service, and selections from the inferior operas, with the
+necessary mutilations of the text, of course; so that the whole school
+of negro minstrelsy threatened a lapse, when its course of decline was
+suddenly and effectually arrested.</p>
+
+<p>A certain Mr. Andrews, dealer in confections, cakes, and ices, being
+stirred by a spirit of enterprise, rented, in the year 1845, a
+second-floor hall on Wood Street, Pittsburgh supplied it with seats and
+small tables, advertised largely, employed cheap attractions,&mdash;living
+statues, songs, dances, &amp;c.,&mdash;a stage, hired a piano, and, upon the
+dissolution of his band, engaged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_612" id="Page_612">[Pg 612]</a></span> the services of Nelson Kneass as
+musician and manager. Admittance was free, the ten-cent ticket required
+at the door being received at its cost value within towards the payment
+of whatever might be called for at the tables. To keep alive the
+interest of the enterprise, premiums were offered, from time to time, of
+a bracelet for the best conundrum, a ring with a ruby setting for the
+best comic song, and a golden chain for the best sentimental song. The
+most and perhaps only really valuable reward&mdash;a genuine and very pretty
+silver cup, exhibited night after night, beforehand&mdash;was promised to the
+author of the best original negro song, to be presented before a certain
+date, and to be decided upon by a committee designated for the purpose
+by the audience at that time.</p>
+
+<p>Quite a large array of competitors entered the lists; but the contest
+would be hardly worthy of mention, save as it was the occasion of the
+first appearance of him who was to prove the reformer of his art, and to
+a sketch of whose career the foregoing pages are chiefly preliminary.</p>
+
+<p>Stephen Collins Foster was born in Alleghany, Pennsylvania, on the 4th
+of July, 1826. He was the youngest child of his father, William B.
+Foster,&mdash;originally a merchant of Pittsburg, and afterwards Mayor of his
+native city, member of the State Legislature, and a Federal officer
+under President Buchanan, with whom he was closely connected by
+marriage. The evidences of a musical capacity of no common order were
+apparent in Stephen at an early period. Going into a shop, one day, when
+about seven years old, he picked up a flageolet, the first he had ever
+seen, and comprehending, after an experiment or two, the order of the
+scale on the instrument, was able in a few minutes, uninstructed, to
+play any of the simple tunes within the octave with which he was
+acquainted. A Thespian society, composed of boys in their higher teens,
+was organized in Alleghany, into which Stephen, although but in his
+ninth year, was admitted, and of which, from his agreeable rendering of
+the favorite airs of the day, he soon became the leading attraction.</p>
+
+<p>At thirteen years of age, he made his first attempt at composition,
+producing for a public occasion at the seminary in Athens, Ohio, where
+he was a student at the time, the "Tioga Waltz," which, although quite a
+pretty affair, he never thought worthy of preservation. In the same
+year, shortly afterwards, he composed music to the song commencing,
+"Sadly to mine heart appealing," now embraced in the list of his
+publications, but not brought out until many years later.</p>
+
+<p>Stephen was a boy of delicate constitution, not addicted to the active
+sports or any of the more vigorous habits of boys of his age. His only
+companions were a few intimate friends, and, thus secluded, his
+character naturally took a sensitive, meditative cast, and his growing
+disrelish for severer tasks was confirmed. As has been intimated, he
+entered as a pupil at Athens; but as the course of instruction in that
+institution was not in harmony with his tastes, he soon withdrew,
+applying himself afterwards to the study of the French and German
+languages (a ready fluency in both of which he finally acquired), and
+especially to the art dearer than all other studies. A recluse, owning
+and soliciting no guidance but that of his text-book, in the quiet of
+the woods, or, if that were inaccessible, the retirement of his chamber,
+he devoted himself to this art.</p>
+
+<p>At the age of sixteen he composed and published the song, "Open thy
+Lattice, Love," which was admired, but did not meet with extraordinary
+success. In the year following he went to Cincinnati, entering the
+counting-room of his brother, and discharging the duties of his place
+with faithfulness and ability. His spare hours were still devoted,
+however, to his favorite pursuit, although his productions were chiefly
+preserved in manuscript, and kept for the private entertainment of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_613" id="Page_613">[Pg 613]</a></span> his
+friends. He continued with his brother nearly three years.</p>
+
+<p>At the time Mr. Andrews of Pittsburg offered a silver cup for the best
+original negro song, Mr. Morrison Foster sent to his brother Stephen a
+copy of the advertisement announcing the fact, with a letter urging him
+to become a competitor for the prize. These saloon entertainments
+occupied a neutral ground, upon which eschewers of theatrical delights
+could meet with the abetters of play-house amusements,&mdash;a consideration
+of ruling importance in Pittsburg, where so many of the sterling
+population carry with them to this day, by legitimate inheritance, the
+stanch old Cameronian fidelity to Presbyterian creed and practice.
+Morrison, believing that these concerts would afford an excellent
+opportunity for the genius of his brother to appeal to the public,
+persisted in urging him to compete for the prize, until Stephen, who at
+first expressed a dislike to appear under such circumstances, finally
+yielded, and in due time forwarded a melody entitled, "'Way down South,
+whar de Corn grows." When the eventful night came, the various pieces in
+competition were rendered to the audience by Nelson Kneass to his own
+accompaniment on the piano. The audience expressed by their applause a
+decided preference for Stephen's melody; but the committee appointed to
+sit in judgment decided in favor of some one else, himself and his song
+never heard of afterwards, and the author of "'Way down South" forfeited
+the cup. But Mr. Kneass appreciated the merit of the composition, and
+promptly, next morning, made application at the proper office for a
+copyright in his own name as author, when Mr. Morrison Foster, happening
+in at the moment, interposed, and frustrated the discreditable
+intention.</p>
+
+<p>This experiment of Foster's, if it fell short of the expectation of his
+friends, served, notwithstanding, a profitable purpose, for it led him
+to a critical investigation of the school of music to which it belonged.
+This school had been&mdash;was yet&mdash;unquestionably popular. To what, then,
+was it indebted for its captivating points? It was to its truth to
+Nature in her simplest and most childlike mood.</p>
+
+<p>Settled as to theory, Foster applied himself to the task of its
+exemplification. Two attempts were made while he yet remained in
+Cincinnati, the pencil-drafts of which, however, were laid aside for the
+time being in his portfolio. His shrinking nature held timidly back at
+the thought of a venture before the public; and so the case stood until
+he reappeared in Pittsburg.</p>
+
+<p>The Presidential campaign of 1844 was distinguished by political
+song-singing. Clubs for that purpose were organized in all the cities
+and towns and hamlets,&mdash;clubs for the platform, clubs for the street,
+clubs for the parlor, Whig clubs, Democratic clubs. Ballads innumerable
+to airs indefinite, new and old, filled the land,&mdash;Irish ballads, German
+ballads, Yankee ballads, and, preferred over all, negro ballads. So
+enthusiastic grew the popular feeling in this direction, that, when the
+November crisis was come and gone, the peculiar institution would not
+succumb to the limitation, but lived on. Partisan temper faded out; the
+fires of strife died down, but clubs sat perseveringly in their places,
+and in sounds, if not in sentiment, attuned to the old melodies, kept up
+the practice of the mad and merry time.</p>
+
+<p>Among other organizations that thus lingered on was one, composed of
+half a dozen young men, since grown into graver habits, with
+Foster&mdash;home again, and a link once more in the circle of his
+intimates&mdash;at its head. The negro airs were still the favorites; but the
+collection, from frequent repetition, at length began to grow stale. One
+night, as a revival measure for the club, and as an opportunity for
+himself, Foster hinted that, with their permission, he would offer for
+trial an effort of his own. Accordingly he set to work; and at their
+next meeting laid before them a song entitled "Louisiana Belle." The
+piece elicited unanimous applause. Its success in the club-room<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_614" id="Page_614">[Pg 614]</a></span> opened
+to it a wider field, each member acting as an agent of dissemination
+outside, so that in the course of a few nights the song was sung in
+almost every parlor in Pittsburgh. Foster then brought to light his
+portfolio specimens, since universally known as "Uncle Ned," and "O
+Susanna!" The favor with which these latter were received surpassed even
+that rewarding the "Louisiana Belle." Although limited to the one slow
+process of communication,&mdash;from mouth to ear,&mdash;their fame spread far and
+wide, until from the drawing-rooms of Cincinnati they were introduced
+into its concert-halls, and there became known to Mr. W. C. Peters, who
+at once addressed letters requesting copies for publication. These were
+cheerfully furnished by the author. He did not look for remuneration.
+For "Uncle Ned," which first appeared (in 1847), he received none; "O
+Susanna!" soon followed, and "imagine my delight," he writes, "in
+receiving one hundred dollars in cash! Though this song was not
+successful," he continues, "yet the two fifty-dollar bills I received
+for it had the effect of starting me on my present vocation of
+song-writer." In pursuance of this decision, he entered into
+arrangements with new publishers, chiefly with Firth, Pond, &amp; Co. of New
+York, set himself to work, and began to pour out his productions with
+astonishing rapidity.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the list, embracing about one hundred and fifty of his songs, the
+most flatteringly received among his negro melodies were those already
+enumerated, followed by "Nelly was a Lady," in 1849; "My Old Kentucky
+Home," and "Camptown Races," in 1850; "Old Folks at Home," in 1851;
+"Massa's in the Cold Ground," in 1852; "O Boys, carry me 'long," in
+1853; "Hard Times come again no more," in 1854; "'Way down South," and
+"O Lemuel," in 1858; "Old Black Joe," in 1860; and (noticeable only as
+his last in that line) "Don't bet your Money on the Shanghai," in 1861.</p>
+
+<p>In all these compositions Foster adheres scrupulously to his theory
+adopted at the outset. His verses are distinguished by a <i>na&iuml;vet&eacute;</i>
+characteristic and appropriate, but consistent at the same time with
+common sense. Enough of the negro dialect is retained to preserve
+distinction, but not to offend. The sentiment is given in plain phrase
+and under homely illustration; but it is a sentiment nevertheless. The
+melodies are of twin birth literally with the verses, for Foster thought
+in tune as he traced in rhyme, and traced in rhyme as he thought in
+tune. Of easy modulation, severely simple in their structure, his airs
+have yet the graceful proportions, animated with the fervor,
+unostentatious but all-subduing, of certain of the old hymns (not the
+chorals) derived from our fathers of a hundred years ago.</p>
+
+<p>That he had struck upon the true way to the common heart, the successes
+attending his efforts surely demonstrate. His songs had an unparalleled
+circulation. The commissions accruing to the author on the sales of "Old
+Folks" alone amounted to fifteen thousand dollars. For permission to
+have his name printed on its title-page, as an advertising scheme, Mr.
+Christy paid five hundred dollars. Applications were unceasing from the
+various publishers of the country for some share, at least, of his
+patronage, and upon terms that might have seduced almost any one else;
+but the publishers with whom he originally engaged had won his esteem,
+and Foster adhered to them faithfully. Artists of the highest
+distinction favored him with their friendship; and Herz, Sivori, Ole
+Bull, Thalberg, were alike ready to approve his genius, and to testify
+that approval in the choice of his melodies as themes about which to
+weave their witcheries of embellishment. Complimentary letters from men
+of literary note poured in upon him; among others, one full of generous
+encouragement from Washington Irving, dearly prized and carefully
+treasured to the day of Foster's death. Similar missives reached him
+from across the seas,&mdash;from strangers and from travellers in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_615" id="Page_615">[Pg 615]</a></span> lands far
+remote; and he learned that, while "O Susanna!" was the familiar song of
+the cottager of the Clyde, "Uncle Ned" was known to the dweller in tents
+among the Pyramids.</p>
+
+<p>Of his sentimental songs, "Ah, may the Red Rose live alway!" "Maggie by
+my Side," "Jennie with the Light-Brown Hair," "Willie, we have missed
+you," "I see her still in my Dreams," "Wilt thou be gone, Love" (a duet,
+the words adapted from a well-known scene in Romeo and Juliet), and
+"Come where my Love lies dreaming" (quartet), are among the leading
+favorites. "I see her still in my Dreams" appeared in 1861, shortly
+after the death of his mother, and is a tribute to the memory of her to
+whom he was devotedly attached. The verses to most of these airs&mdash;to all
+the successful ones&mdash;were of his own composition. Indeed, he could
+seldom satisfy himself in his "settings" of the stanzas of others. If
+the metrical and symmetrical features of the lines in hand chanced to
+disagree with his conception of the motion and proportion befitting in a
+musical interpretation; if the sentiment were one that failed, whether
+from lack of appreciation or of sympathy on his part, to command
+absolute approval; or if the terms employed were not of a precise thread
+and tension,&mdash;if they were wanting, however minutely, in <i>vibratory</i>
+qualities,&mdash;of commensurate extent would be the failure attending the
+translation.</p>
+
+<p>The last three years of his life Mr. Foster passed in New York. During
+all that time, his efforts, with perhaps one exception, were limited to
+the production of songs of a pensive character. The loss of his mother
+seems to have left an ineffaceable impression of melancholy upon his
+mind, and inspired such songs as "I dream of my Mother," "I'll be Home
+To-morrow," "Leave me with my Mother," and "Bury me in the Morning." He
+died, after a brief illness, on the 13th of January, 1864. His remains
+reached Pittsburg on the 20th, and were conveyed to Trinity Church,
+where on the day following, in the presence of a large assembly,
+appropriate and impressive ceremonies took place, the choral services
+being sustained by a company of his former friends and associates. His
+body was then carried to the Alleghany Cemetery, and, to the music of
+"Old Folks at Home," finally committed to the grave.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Foster was married, on the 22d of July, 1850, to Miss Jane D.
+McDowell of Pittsburg, who, with her daughter and only child, Marian,
+twelve years of age at the date of his death, still survives him. He was
+of rather less than medium height, of slight frame, with parts well
+proportioned, and showing to advantage in repose, although not entirely
+so in action. His shoulders were marked by a slight droop,&mdash;the result
+of a habit of walking with his eyes fixed upon the ground a pace or two
+in advance of his feet. He nearly always when he ventured out, which was
+not often, walked alone. Arrived at the street-crossings, he would
+frequently pause, raise himself, cast a glance at the surroundings, and
+if he saw an acquaintance nod to him in token of recognition, and then,
+relapsing into the old posture, resume his way. At such times,&mdash;indeed,
+at any time,&mdash;while he did not repel, he took no pains to invite
+society. He was entertaining in conversation, although a certain
+hesitancy, from want of words and not from any organic defect, gave a
+broken style to his speech. For his study he selected a room in the
+topmost story of his house, farthest removed from the street, and was
+careful to have the floor of the apartment, and the avenues of approach
+to it, thickly carpeted, to exclude as effectually as possible all
+noises, inside as well as outside of his own premises. The furniture of
+this room consisted of a chair, a lounge, a table, a music-rack, and a
+piano. From the sanctum so chosen, seldom opened to others, and never
+allowed upon any pretence to be disarranged, came his choicest
+compositions. His disposition was naturally amiable, although, from the
+tax<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_616" id="Page_616">[Pg 616]</a></span> imposed by close application to study upon his nervous system, he
+was liable to fits of fretfulness and scepticism that, only occasional
+and transient as they were, told nevertheless with disturbing effect
+upon his temper. In the same unfortunate direction was the tendency of a
+habit grown insidiously upon him,&mdash;a habit against the damning control
+of which (as no one better than the writer of this article knows) he
+wrestled with an earnestness indescribable, resorting to all the
+remedial expedients which professional skill or his own experience could
+suggest, but never entirely delivering himself from its inexorable
+mastery.</p>
+
+<p>In the true estimate of genius, its achievements only approximate the
+highest standard of excellence as they are representative, or
+illustrative, of important truth. They are only great as they are good.
+If Mr. Foster's art embodied no higher idea than the vulgar notion of
+the negro as a man-monkey,&mdash;a thing of tricks and antics,&mdash;a funny
+specimen of superior gorilla,&mdash;then it might have proved a tolerable
+catch-penny affair, and commanded an admiration among boys of various
+growths until its novelty wore off. But the art in his hands teemed with
+a nobler significance. It dealt, in its simplicity, with universal
+sympathies, and taught us all to feel with the slaves the lowly joys and
+sorrows it celebrated.</p>
+
+<p>May the time be far in the future ere lips fail to move to its music, or
+hearts to respond to its influence, and may we who owe him so much
+preserve gratefully the memory of the master, <span class="smcap">Stephen Collins Foster</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_617" id="Page_617">[Pg 617]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_FEAST_OF_HARVEST" id="THE_FEAST_OF_HARVEST"></a>THE FEAST OF HARVEST.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The fair Earth smiled and turned herself and woke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And to the Sun with nuptial greeting said:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I had a dream, wherein it seemed men broke<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A sovran league, and long years fought and bled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till down my sweet sides ran my children's gore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And all my beautiful garments were made red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And all my fertile fields were thicket-grown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor could thy dear light reach me through the air;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At last a voice cried, 'Let them strive no more!'<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then music breathed, and lo! from my despair<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I wake to joy,&mdash;yet would not joy alone!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"For, hark! I hear a murmur on the meads,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where as of old my children seek my face,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The low of kine, the peaceful tramp of steeds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blithe shouts of men in many a pastoral place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The noise of tilth through all my goodliest land;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And happy laughter of a dusky race<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Whose brethren lift them from their ancient toil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Saying: 'The year of jubilee has come;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gather the gifts of Earth with equal hand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Henceforth ye too may share the birthright soil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The corn, the wine, and all the harvest-home.'<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O, my dear lord, my radiant bridegroom, look!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Behold their joy who sorrowed in my dreams,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sword a share, the spear a pruning-hook;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lo, I awake, and turn me toward thy beams<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even as a bride again! O, shed thy light<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon my fruitful places in full streams!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Let there be yield for every living thing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The land is fallow,&mdash;let there be increase<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">After the darkness of the sterile night;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ay, let us twain a festival of Peace<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Prepare, and hither all my nations bring!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The fair Earth spake: the glad Sun speeded forth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hearing her matron words, and backward drave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To frozen caves the icy Wind of the North,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And bade the South Wind from the tropic wave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bring watery vapors over river and plain,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And bade the East Wind cross her path, and lave<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The lowlands, emptying there her laden mist,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And bade the Wind of the West, the best wind, blow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">After the early and the latter rain,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And beamed himself, and oft the sweet Earth kissed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While her swift servitors sped to and fro.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Forthwith the troop that, at the beck of Earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Foster her children, brought a glorious store<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of viands, food of immemorial worth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her earliest gifts, her tenderest evermore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">First came the Silvery Spirit, whose marshalled files<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Climb up the glades in billowy breakers hoar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Nodding their crests,&mdash;and at his side there sped<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Golden Spirit, whose yellow harvests trail<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across the continents and fringe the isles,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And freight men's argosies where'er they sail:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">O, what a wealth of sheaves he there outspread!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Came the dear Spirit whom Earth doth love the best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fragrant of clover-bloom and new-mown hay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beneath whose mantle weary ones find rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On whose green skirts the little children play:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She bore the food our patient cattle crave.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Next, robed in silk, with tassels scattering spray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Followed the generous Spirit of the Maize,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And many a kindred shape of high renown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bore in the clustering grape, the fruits that wave<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">On orchard branches or in gardens blaze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And those the wind-shook forest hurtles down.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Even thus they laid a great and marvellous feast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And Earth her children summoned joyously,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Throughout that goodliest land wherein had ceased<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The vision of battle, and with glad hands free<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_618" id="Page_618">[Pg 618]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">These took their fill, and plenteous measures poured,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beside, for those who dwelt beyond the sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Praise, like an incense, upward rose to Heaven<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For that full harvest,&mdash;and the autumnal Sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stayed long above,&mdash;and ever at the board,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Peace, white-robed angel, held the high seat given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And War far off withdrew his visage dun.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_GREAT_PUBLIC_CHARACTER" id="A_GREAT_PUBLIC_CHARACTER"></a>A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is the misfortune of American biography that it must needs be more or
+less provincial, and that, contrary to what might have been predicted,
+this quality in it predominates in proportion as the country grows
+larger. Wanting any great and acknowledged centre of national life and
+thought, our expansion has hitherto been rather aggregation than growth;
+reputations must be hammered out thin to cover so wide a surface, and
+the substance of most hardly holds out to the boundaries of a single
+State. Our very history wants unity, and down to the Revolution the
+attention is wearied and confused by having to divide itself among
+thirteen parallel threads, instead of being concentred on a single clew.
+A sense of remoteness and seclusion comes over us as we read, and we
+cannot help asking ourselves, "Were <i>not</i> these things done in a
+corner?" Notoriety may be achieved in a narrow sphere, but fame demands
+for its evidence a more distant and prolonged reverberation. To the
+world at large we were but a short column of figures in the corner of a
+blue-book, New England exporting so much salt-fish, timber, and Medford
+rum, Virginia so many hogshead of tobacco, and buying with the proceeds
+a certain amount of English manufactures. The story of our early
+colonization had a certain moral interest, to be sure, but was
+altogether inferior in picturesque fascination to that of Mexico or
+Peru. The lives of our worthies, like that of our nation, are bare of
+those foregone and far-reaching associations with names, the
+divining-rods of fancy, which the soldiers and civilians of the Old
+World get for nothing by the mere accident of birth. Their historians
+and biographers have succeeded to the good-will, as well as to the
+long-established stand, of the shop of glory. Time is, after all, the
+greatest of poets, and the sons of Memory stand a better chance of being
+the heirs of Fame. The philosophic poet may find a proud solace in
+saying,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trita solo";<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>but all the while he has the splendid centuries of Greece and Rome
+behind him, and can begin his poem with invoking a goddess from whom
+legend derived the planter of his race. His eyes looked out on a
+landscape saturated with glorious recollections; he had seen C&aelig;sar, and
+heard Cicero. But who shall conjure with Saugus or Cato Four
+Corners,&mdash;with Israel Putnam or Return Jonathan Meigs? We have been
+transplanted, and for us the long hierarchical succession of history is
+broken. The Past has not laid its venerable hands upon us in
+consecration, conveying to us that mysterious influence whose force is
+in its continuity. We are to Europe as the Church of England to her of
+Rome. The latter old lady may be the Scarlet Woman, or the Beast with
+ten horns, if you will,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_619" id="Page_619">[Pg 619]</a></span> but hers are all the heirlooms, hers that vast
+spiritual estate of tradition, nowhere yet everywhere, whose revenues
+are none the less fruitful for being levied on the imagination. We may
+claim that England's history is also ours, but it is a <i>de jure</i>, and
+not a <i>de facto</i> property that we have in it,&mdash;something that may be
+proved indeed, yet is a merely intellectual satisfaction, and does not
+savor of the realty. Have we not seen the mockery crown and sceptre of
+the exiled Stuarts in St. Peter's? the medal struck so lately as 1784
+with its legend, <span class="smcap">Hen IX Mag Brit et Hib Rex</span>, whose contractions but
+faintly typify the scantness of the fact?</p>
+
+<p>As the novelist complains that our society wants that sharp contrast of
+character and costume which comes of caste, so in the narrative of our
+historians we miss what may be called background and perspective, as if
+the events and the actors in them failed of that cumulative interest
+which only a long historical entail can give. Relatively, the crusade of
+Sir William Pepperell was of more consequence than that of St. Louis,
+and yet forgive us, injured shade of the second American baronet, if we
+find the narrative of Joinville more interesting than your despatches to
+Governor Shirley. Relatively, the insurrection of that Daniel whose
+Irish patronymic Shea was euphonized into Shays, as a set-off for the
+debasing of French <i>chaise</i> into <i>shay</i>, was more dangerous than that of
+Charles Edward; but for some reason or other (as vice sometimes has the
+advantage of virtue) the latter is more enticing to the imagination, and
+the least authentic relic of it in song or story has a relish denied to
+the painful industry of Minot. Our events seem to fall short of that
+colossal proportion which befits the monumental style. Look grave as we
+will, there is something ludicrous in Counsellor Keane's pig being the
+pivot of a revolution. We are of yesterday, and it is to no purpose that
+our political augurs divine from the flight of our eagles that
+to-morrow shall be ours, and flatter us with an all-hail hereafter.
+Things do really gain in greatness by being acted on a great and
+cosmopolitan stage, because there is inspiration in the thronged
+audience, and the nearer match that puts men on their mettle. Webster
+was more largely endowed by nature than Fox, and Fisher Ames not much
+below Burke as a talker; but what a difference in the intellectual
+training, in the literary culture and associations, in the whole social
+outfit, of the men who were their antagonists and companions! It should
+seem that, if it be collision with other minds and with events that
+strikes or draws the fire from a man, then the quality of those might
+have something to do with the quality of the fire,&mdash;whether it shall be
+culinary or electric. We have never known the varied stimulus, the
+inexorable criticism, the many-sided opportunity of a great metropolis,
+the inspiring reinforcement of an undivided national consciousness. In
+everything but trade we have missed the invigoration of foreign rivalry.
+We may prove that we are this and that and the other,&mdash;our
+Fourth-of-July orators have proved it time and again,&mdash;the census has
+proved it; but the Muses are women, and have no great fancy for
+statistics, though easily silenced by them. We are great, we are rich,
+we are all kinds of good things; but did it never occur to you that
+somehow we are not interesting, except as a phenomenon? It may safely be
+affirmed that for one cultivated man in this country who studies
+American, there are fifty who study European history, ancient or modern.</p>
+
+<p>Till within a year or two we have been as distant and obscure to the
+eyes of Europe as Ecuador to our own. Every day brings us nearer,
+enables us to see the Old World more clearly, and by inevitable
+comparison to judge ourselves with some closer approach to our real
+value. This has its advantage so long as our culture is, as for a long
+time it must be, European; for we shall be little better than apes and
+parrots till we are forced to measure our muscle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_620" id="Page_620">[Pg 620]</a></span> with the trained and
+practised champions of that elder civilization. We have at length
+established our claim to the noblesse of the sword, the first step still
+of every nation that would make its entry into the best society of
+history. To maintain ourselves there, we must achieve an equality in the
+more exclusive circle of culture, and to that end must submit ourselves
+to the European standard of intellectual weights and measures. That we
+have made the hitherto biggest gun might excite apprehension (were there
+a dearth of iron), but can never exact respect. That our pianos and
+patent reapers have won medals does but confirm us in our mechanic and
+material measure of merit. We must contribute something more than mere
+contrivances for the saving of labor, which we have been only too ready
+to misapply in the domain of thought and the higher kinds of invention.
+In those Olympic games where nations contend for truly immortal wreaths,
+it may well be questioned whether a mowing-machine would stand much
+chance in the chariot-races,&mdash;whether a piano, though made by a
+chevalier, could compete successfully for the prize of music.</p>
+
+<p>We shall have to be content for a good while yet with our provincialism,
+and must strive to make the best of it. In it lies the germ of
+nationality, and that is, after all, the prime condition of all
+thorough-bred greatness of character. To this choicest fruit of a
+healthy life, well rooted in native soil, and drawing prosperous prices
+thence, nationality gives the keenest flavor. Mr. Lincoln was an
+original man, and in so far a great man; yet it was the Americanism of
+his every thought, word, and act which not only made his influence
+equally at home in East and West, but drew the eyes of the outside
+world, and was the pedestal that lifted him where he could be seen by
+them. Lincoln showed that native force may transcend local boundaries,
+but the growth of such nationality is hindered and hampered by our
+division into so many half-independent communities, each with its
+objects of county ambition, and its public men great to the borders of
+their district. In this way our standard of greatness is insensibly
+debased. To receive any national appointment, a man must have gone
+through precisely the worst training for it; he must have so far
+narrowed and belittled himself with State politics as to be acceptable
+at home. In this way a man may become chairman of the Committee on
+Foreign Affairs, because he knows how to pack a caucus in Catawampus
+County, or sent ambassador to Barataria, because he has drunk bad
+whiskey with every voter in Wildcat City. Should we ever attain to a
+conscious nationality, it will have the advantage of lessening the
+number of our great men, and widening our appreciation to the larger
+scale of the two or three that are left,&mdash;if there should be so many.
+Meanwhile we offer a premium to the production of great men in a small
+way, by inviting each State to set up the statues of two of its
+immortals in the Capitol. What a niggardly percentage! Already we are
+embarrassed, not to find the two, but to choose among the crowd of
+candidates. Well, seventy-odd heroes in about as many years is pretty
+well for a young nation. We do not envy most of them their eternal
+martyrdom in marble, their pillory of indiscrimination. We fancy even
+native tourists pausing before the greater part of the effigies, and,
+after reading the names, asking desperately, "Who was <i>he</i>?" Nay, if
+they should say, "Who the devil was <i>he</i>?" it were a pardonable
+invocation, for none so fit as the Prince of Darkness to act as
+<i>cicerone</i> among such palpable obscurities. We recall the court-yard of
+the Uffizj at Florence. That also is not free of parish celebrities; but
+Dante, Galileo, Michael Angelo, Macchiavelli,&mdash;shall the inventor of the
+sewing-machine, even with the button-holing improvement, let us say,
+match with these, or with far lesser than these? Perhaps he was more
+practically useful than any one of these, or all of them together, but
+the soul is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_621" id="Page_621">[Pg 621]</a></span> sensible of a sad difference somewhere. These also were
+citizens of a provincial capital; so were the greater part of Plutarch's
+heroes. Did they have a better chance than we moderns,&mdash;than we
+Americans? At any rate they have the start of us, and we must confess
+that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"By bed and table they lord it o'er us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our elder brothers, but one in blood."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Yes, one in blood; that is the hardest part of it. Is our provincialism
+then in some great measure due to our absorption in the practical, as we
+politely call it, meaning the material,&mdash;to our habit of estimating
+greatness by the square mile and the hundredweight? Even during our war,
+in the midst of that almost unrivalled stress of soul, were not our
+speakers and newspapers so enslaved to the vulgar habit as to boast ten
+times of the thousands of square miles it covered with armed men, for
+once that they alluded to the motive that gave it all its meaning and
+its splendor? Perhaps it was as well that they did not exploit that
+passion of patriotism as an advertisement in the style of Barnum or
+Perham. "I scale one hundred and eighty pounds, but when I'm mad I weigh
+two ton," said the Kentuckian, with a true notion of moral avoirdupois.
+That ideal kind of weight is wonderfully increased by a national
+feeling, whereby one man is conscious that thirty millions of men go
+into the balance with him. The Roman in ancient, and the Englishman in
+modern times, have been most conscious of this representative solidity,
+and wherever one of them went there stood Rome or England in his shoes.
+We have made some advance in the right direction. Our civil war, by the
+breadth of its proportions and the implacability of its demands, forced
+us to admit a truer valuation, and gave us, in our own despite, great
+soldiers and sailors, allowed for such by all the world. The harder
+problems it has left behind may in time compel us to have great
+statesmen, with views capable of reaching beyond the next election. The
+criticism of Europe alone can rescue us from the provincialism of an
+over or false estimate of ourselves. Let us be thankful, and not angry,
+that we must accept it as our touchstone. Our stamp has so often been
+impressed upon base metal, that we cannot expect it to be taken on
+trust, but we may be sure that true gold will be equally persuasive the
+world over. Real manhood and honest achievement are nowhere provincial,
+but enter the select society of all time on an even footing.</p>
+
+<p>Spanish America might be a good glass for us to look into. Those
+Catharine-wheel republics, always in revolution while the powder lasts,
+and sure to burn the fingers of whoever attempts intervention, have also
+their great men, as placidly ignored by us as our own by jealous Europe.
+The following passage from the life of Don Simon Bolivar might allay
+many <i>motus animorum</i>, if rightly pondered. Bolivar, then a youth, was
+travelling in Italy, and his biographer tells us that "near Castiglione
+he was present at the grand review made by Napoleon of the columns
+defiling into the plain large enough to contain sixty thousand men. The
+throne was situated on an eminence that overlooked the plain, and
+Napoleon on several occasions looked through a glass at Bolivar and his
+companions, who were at the base of the hill. The hero C&aelig;sar could not
+imagine that he beheld the liberator of the world of Columbus!" And
+small blame to him, one would say. We are not, then, it seems, the only
+foundling of Columbus, as we are so apt to take for granted. The great
+Genoese did not, as we supposed, draw that first star-guided furrow
+across the vague of waters with a single eye to the future greatness of
+the United States. And have we not sometimes, like the enthusiastic
+biographer, fancied the Old World staring through all its telescopes at
+us, and wondered that it did not recognize in us what we were fully
+persuaded we were <i>going</i> to be and do?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_622" id="Page_622">[Pg 622]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Our American life is dreadfully barren of those elements of the social
+picturesque which give piquancy to anecdote. And without anecdote, what
+is biography, of even history, which is only biography on a larger
+scale? Clio, though she take airs on herself, and pretend to be
+"philosophy teaching by example," is, after all, but a gossip who has
+borrowed Fame's speaking-trumpet, and should be figured with a teacup
+instead of a scroll in her hand. How much has she not owed of late to
+the tittle-tattle of her gillflirt sister Thalia? In what gutters has
+not Macaulay raked for the brilliant bits with which he has put together
+his admirable mosaic picture of England under the last two Stuarts? Even
+Mommsen himself, who dislikes Plutarch's method as much as Montaigne
+loved it, cannot get or give a lively notion of ancient Rome, without
+running to the comic poets and the anecdote-mongers. He gives us the
+very beef-tea of history, nourishing and even palatable enough,
+excellently portable for a memory that, must carry her own packs, and
+can afford little luggage; but for our own part, we prefer a full,
+old-fashioned meal, with its side-dishes of spicy gossip, and its last
+relish, the Stilton of scandal, so it be not too high. One volume of
+contemporary memoirs, stuffed though it be with lies, (for lies to be
+good for anything must have a potential probability, must even be true
+so far as their moral and social setting is concerned,) will throw more
+light into the dark backward of time than the gravest Camden or Thuanus.
+If St. Simon is not accurate, is he any the less essentially <i>true</i>? No
+history gives us so clear an understanding of the moral condition of
+average men after the restoration of the Stuarts as the unconscious
+blabbings of the Puritan tailor's son, with his two consciences, as it
+were,&mdash;an inward, still sensitive in spots, though mostly toughened to
+India-rubber, and good rather for rubbing out old scores than retaining
+them, and an outward, alert, and termagantly effective in Mrs. Pepys.
+But we can have no St. Simons or Pepyses till we have a Paris or London
+to delocalize our gossip and give it historic breadth. All our capitals
+are fractional, merely greater or smaller gatherings of men, centres of
+business rather than of action or influence. Each contains so many
+souls, but is not, as the word "capital" implies, the true head of a
+community and seat of its common soul.</p>
+
+<p>Has not life itself perhaps become a little more prosaic than it once
+was? As the clearing away of the woods scants the streams, may not our
+civilization have dried up some feeders that helped to swell the current
+of individual and personal force? We have sometimes thought that the
+stricter definition and consequent seclusion from each other of the
+different callings in modern times, as it narrowed the chance of
+developing and giving variety to character, lessened also the interest
+of biography. Formerly arts and arms were not divided by so impassable a
+barrier as now. There was hardly such a thing as a <i>p&eacute;kin</i>. C&aelig;sar gets
+up from writing his Latin Grammar to conquer Gaul, change the course of
+history, and make so many things possible,&mdash;among the rest our English
+language and Shakespeare. Horace had been a colonel; and from &AElig;schylus,
+who fought at Marathon, to Ben Jonson, who trailed a pike in the Low
+Countries, the list of martial civilians is a long one. A man's
+education seems more complete who has smelt hostile powder from a less
+&aelig;sthetic distance than Goethe. It raises our confidence in Sir Kenelm
+Digby as a physicist, that he is able to illustrate some theory of
+acoustics in his Treatise of Bodies by instancing the effect of his guns
+in a sea-fight off Scanderoon. One would expect the proportions of
+character to be enlarged by such variety and contrast of experience.
+Perhaps it will by and by appear that our own civil war has done
+something for us in this way. Colonel Higginson comes down from his
+pulpit to draw on his jackboots, and thenceforth rides in our
+imagination alongside of John Bunyan and Bishop Compton. To have stored<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_623" id="Page_623">[Pg 623]</a></span>
+moral capital enough to meet the drafts of Death at sight, must be an
+unmatched tonic. We saw our light-hearted youth come back with the
+modest gravity of age, as if they had learned to throw out pickets
+against a surprise of any weak point in their temperament. Perhaps that
+American shiftiness, so often complained of, may not be so bad a thing,
+if, by bringing men acquainted with every humor of fortune and human
+nature, it puts them in fuller possession of themselves.</p>
+
+<p>But with whatever drawbacks in special circumstances, the main interest
+of biography must always lie in the amount of character or essential
+manhood which the subject of it reveals to us, and events are of import
+only as means to that end. It is true that lofty and far-seen exigencies
+may give greater opportunity to some men, whose energy is more sharply
+spurred by the shout of a multitude than by the grudging <i>Well done!</i> of
+conscience. Some theorists have too hastily assumed that, as the power
+of public opinion increases, the force of private character, or what we
+call originality, is absorbed into and diluted by it. But we think
+Horace was right in putting tyrant and mob on a level as the trainers
+and tests of a man's solid quality. The amount of resistance of which
+one is capable to whatever lies outside the conscience, is of more
+consequence than all other faculties together; and democracy, perhaps,
+tries this by pressure in more directions, and with a more continuous
+strain, than any other form of society. In Josiah Quincy we have an
+example of character trained and shaped, under the nearest approach to a
+pure democracy the world has ever seen, to a firmness, unity, and
+self-centred poise that recall the finer types of antiquity, in whom the
+public and private man was so wholly of a piece that they were truly
+everywhere at home, for the same sincerity of nature that dignified the
+hearth carried also a charm of homeliness into the forum. The phrase "a
+great public character," once common, seems to be going out of fashion,
+perhaps because there are fewer examples of the thing. It fits Josiah
+Quincy exactly. Active in civic and academic duties till beyond the
+ordinary period of man, at fourscore and ten his pen, voice, and
+venerable presence were still efficient in public affairs. A score of
+years after the energies of even vigorous men are declining or spent,
+his mind and character made themselves felt as in their prime. A true
+pillar of house and state, he stood unflinchingly upright under whatever
+burden might be laid upon him. The French Revolutionists aped what was
+itself but a parody of the elder republic, with their hair <i>&agrave; la</i> Brutus
+and their pedantic moralities <i>&agrave; la</i> Cato Minor, but this man
+unconsciously was the antique Roman they laboriously went about to be.
+Others have filled places more conspicuous, few have made the place they
+filled so conspicuous by an exact and disinterested performance of duty.</p>
+
+<p>In the biography of Mr. Quincy by his son, there is something of the
+provincialism of which we have spoken as inherent in most American works
+of the kind. His was a Boston life in the strictest sense. But
+provincialism is relative, and where it has a flavor of its own, as in
+Scotland, it is often agreeable in proportion to its very intensity. The
+Massachusetts in which Mr. Quincy's habits of thought were acquired was
+a very different Massachusetts from that in which we of later
+generations have been bred. Till after he had passed middle life, Boston
+was more truly a capital than any other city in America, before or
+since, except possibly Charleston. The acknowledged head of New England,
+with a population of wellnigh purely English descent, mostly derived
+from the earlier emigration, with ancestral traditions and inspiring
+memories of its own, it had made its name familiar in both worlds, and
+was both historically and politically more important than at any later
+period. The Revolution had not interrupted, but rather given a freer
+current to the tendencies of its past. Both by its history and position,
+the town had what the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_624" id="Page_624">[Pg 624]</a></span> French call a solidarity, an almost personal
+consciousness, rare anywhere, rare especially in America, and more than
+ever since our enormous importation of fellow-citizens to whom America
+means merely shop, or meat three times a day. Boston has been called the
+"American Athens." &AElig;sthetically, the comparison is ludicrous, but
+politically it was more reasonable. Its population was homogeneous, and
+there were leading families; while the form of government by
+town-meeting, and the facility of social and civic intercourse, gave
+great influence to popular personal qualities and opportunity to new
+men. A wide commerce, while it had insensibly softened the asperities of
+Puritanism and imported enough foreign refinement to humanize not enough
+foreign luxury to corrupt, had not essentially qualified the native tone
+of the town. Retired sea-captains (true brothers of Chaucer's Shipman),
+whose exploits had kindled the imagination of Burke, added a not
+unpleasant savor of salt to society. They belonged to the old school of
+Gilbert, Hawkins, Frobisher, and Drake, parcel-soldiers all of them, who
+had commanded armed ships and had tales to tell of gallant fights with
+privateers or pirates, truest representatives of those Vikings who, if
+trade in lumber or peltry was dull, would make themselves Dukes of
+Dublin or Earls of Orkney. If trade pinches the mind, commerce
+liberalizes it; and Boston was also advantaged with the neighborhood of
+the country's oldest College, which maintained the wholesome traditions
+of culture,&mdash;where Homer and Horace are familiar there is a certain
+amount of cosmopolitanism,&mdash;and would not allow bigotry to become
+despotism. Manners were more self-respectful, and therefore more
+respectful of others, and personal sensitiveness was fenced with more of
+that ceremonial with which society armed itself when it surrendered the
+ruder protection of the sword. We had not then seen a Governor in his
+chamber at the State-House with his hat on, a cigar in his mouth, and
+his feet upon the stove. Domestic service, in spite of the proverb, was
+not seldom an inheritance, nor was household peace dependent on the whim
+of a foreign armed neutrality in the kitchen. Servant and master were of
+one stock; there was decent authority and becoming respect; the
+tradition of the Old World lingered after its superstition had passed
+away. There was an aristocracy such as is healthful in a well-ordered
+community, founded on public service, and hereditary so long as the
+virtue which was its patent was not escheated. The clergy, no longer
+hedged by the reverence exacted by sacerdotal caste, were more than
+repaid by the consideration willingly paid to superior culture. What
+changes, many of them for the better, some of them surely for the worse,
+and all of them inevitable, did not Josiah Quincy see in that wellnigh
+secular life which linked the war of independence to the war of
+nationality! We seemed to see a type of them the other day in a colored
+man standing with an air of comfortable self-possession while his boots
+were brushed by a youth of catholic neutral tint, but whom nature had
+planned for white. The same eyes that had looked on Gage's red-coats,
+saw Colonel Shaw's negro regiment march out of Boston in the national
+blue. Seldom has a life, itself actively associated with public affairs,
+spanned so wide a chasm for the imagination. Oglethorpe's offers a
+parallel,&mdash;the aide-de-camp of Prince Eugene calling on John Adams,
+American Ambassador to England. Most long lives resemble those threads
+of gossamer, the nearest approach to nothing unmeaningly prolonged,
+scarce visible pathway of some worm from his cradle to his grave; but
+Quincy's was strung with seventy active years, each one a rounded bead
+of usefulness and service.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Quincy was a Bostonian of the purest type. Since the settlement of
+the town, there had been a colonel of the Boston regiment in every
+generation of his family. He lived to see a grandson brevetted with the
+same title for gallantry in the field. Only child of one among the most
+eminent advocates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_625" id="Page_625">[Pg 625]</a></span> of the Revolution, and who but for his untimely death
+would have been a leading actor in it, his earliest recollections
+belonged to the heroic period in the history of his native town. With
+that history his life was thenceforth intimately united by offices of
+public trust, as Representative in Congress, State Senator, Mayor, and
+President of the University, to a period beyond the ordinary span of
+mortals. Even after he had passed ninety, he would not claim to be
+<i>emeritus</i>, but came forward to brace his townsmen with a courage and
+warm them with a fire younger than their own. The legend of Colonel
+Goffe at Deerfield became a reality to the eyes of this generation. The
+New England breed is running out, we are told! This was in all ways a
+beautiful and fortunate life,&mdash;fortunate in the goods of this
+world,&mdash;fortunate, above all, in the force of character which makes
+fortune secondary and subservient. We are fond in this country of what
+are called self-made men (as if real success could ever be other); and
+this is all very well, provided they make something worth having of
+themselves. Otherwise it is not so well, and the examples of such are at
+best but stuff for the Alnaschar dreams of a false democracy. The gist
+of the matter is not where a man starts from, but where he comes out. We
+are glad to have the biography of one who, beginning as a gentleman,
+kept himself such to the end,&mdash;who, with no necessity of labor, left
+behind him an amount of thoroughly done work such as few have
+accomplished with the mighty help of hunger. Some kind of pace may be
+got out of the veriest jade by the near prospect of oats; but the
+thorough-bred has the spur in his blood.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Edmund Quincy has told the story of his father's life with the skill
+and good taste that might have been expected from the author of
+"Wensley." Considering natural partialities, he has shown a discretion
+of which we are oftener reminded by missing than by meeting it. He has
+given extracts enough from speeches to show their bearing and
+quality,&mdash;from letters, to recall bygone modes of thought and indicate
+many-sided friendly relations with good and eminent men; above all, he
+has lost no opportunity to illustrate that life of the past, near in
+date, yet alien in manners, whose current glides so imperceptibly from
+one generation into another that we fail to mark the shiftings of its
+bed or the change in its nature wrought by the affluents that discharge
+into it on all sides,&mdash;here a stream bred in the hills to sweeten, there
+the sewerage of some great city to corrupt. We cannot but lament that
+Mr. Quincy did not earlier begin to keep a diary. "Miss not the
+discourses of the elders," though put now in the Apocrypha, is a wise
+precept, but incomplete unless we add, "Nor cease from recording
+whatsoever thing thou hast gathered therefrom,"&mdash;so ready is Oblivion
+with her fatal shears. The somewhat greasy heap of a literary
+rag-and-bone-picker, like Athen&aelig;us, is turned to gold by time. Even the
+<i>Virgilium vide tantum</i> of Dryden about Milton, and of Pope again about
+Dryden, is worth having, and gives a pleasant fillip to the fancy. There
+is much of this quality in Mr. Edmund Quincy's book, enough to make us
+wish there were more. We get a glimpse of President Washington, in 1795,
+who reminded Mr. Quincy "of the gentlemen who used to come to Boston in
+those days to attend the General Court from Hampden or Franklin County,
+in the western part of the State. A little stiff in his person, not a
+little formal in his manners, not particularly at ease in the presence
+of strangers. He had the air of a country-gentleman not accustomed to
+mix much in society, perfectly polite, but not easy in his address and
+conversation, and not graceful in his gait and movements." Our figures
+of Washington have been so long equestrian, that it is pleasant to meet
+him dismounted for once. In the same way we get a card of invitation to
+a dinner of sixty covers at John Hancock's, and see the rather
+light-weighted great man wheeled round the room (for he had adopted
+Lord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_626" id="Page_626">[Pg 626]</a></span> Chatham's convenient trick of the gout) to converse with his
+guests. In another place we are presented, with Mr. Merry, the English
+Minister, to Jefferson, whom we find in an unofficial costume of studied
+slovenliness, intended as a snub to haughty Albion. Slippers down at the
+heel and a dirty shirt become weapons of diplomacy and threaten more
+serious war. Thus many a door into the past, long irrevocably shut upon
+us, is set ajar, and we of the younger generation on the landing catch
+peeps of distinguished men, and bits of their table-talk. We drive in
+from Mr. Lyman's beautiful seat at Waltham (unique at that day in its
+stately swans and half-shy, half-familiar deer) with John Adams, who
+tells us that Dr. Priestley looked on the French monarchy as the tenth
+horn of the Beast in Revelations,&mdash;a horn that has set more sober wits
+dancing than that of Huon of Bordeaux. Those were days, we are inclined
+to think, of more solid and elegant hospitality than our own,&mdash;the
+elegance of manners, at once more courtly and more frugal, of men who
+had better uses for wealth than merely to display it. Dinners have more
+courses now, and, like the Gascon in the old story, who could not see
+the town for the houses, we miss the real dinner in the multiplicity of
+its details. We might seek long before we found so good cheer, so good
+company, or so good talk as our fathers had at Lieutenant-Governor
+Winthrop's or Senator Cabot's.</p>
+
+<p>We shall not do Mr. Edmund Quincy the wrong of picking out in advance
+all the plums in his volume, leaving to the reader only the less savory
+mixture that held them together,&mdash;a kind of filling unavoidable in books
+of this kind, and too apt to be what boys at boarding-school call
+<i>stick-jaw</i>, but of which there is no more than could not be helped
+here, and that light and palatable. But here and there is a passage
+where we cannot refrain, for there is a smack of Jack Horner in all of
+us, and a reviewer were nothing without it. Josiah Quincy was born in
+1772. His father, returning from a mission to England, died in sight of
+the dear New England shore three years later. His young widow was worthy
+of him, and of the son whose character she was to have so large a share
+in forming. There is something very touching and beautiful in this
+little picture of her which Mr. Quincy drew in his extreme old age.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother imbibed, as was usual with the women of the period, the
+spirit of the times. Patriotism was not then a profession, but an
+energetic principle beating in the heart and active in the life. The
+death of my father, under circumstances now the subject of history, had
+overwhelmed her with grief. She viewed him as a victim in the cause of
+freedom, and cultivated his memory with veneration, regarding him as a
+martyr, falling, as did his friend Warren, in the defence of the
+liberties of his country. These circumstances gave a pathos and
+vehemence to her grief, which, after the first violence of passion had
+subsided, sought consolation in earnest and solicitous fulfilment of
+duty to the representative of his memory and of their mutual affections.
+Love and reverence for the memory of his father was early impressed on
+the mind of her son, and worn into his heart by her sadness and tears.
+She cultivated the memory of my father in my heart and affections, even
+in my earliest childhood, by reading to me passages from the poets, and
+obliging me to learn by heart and repeat such as were best adapted to
+her own circumstances and feelings. Among others, the whole leave-taking
+of Hector and Andromache, in the sixth book of Pope's Homer, was one of
+her favorite lessons, which she made me learn and frequently repeat. Her
+imagination, probably, found consolation in the repetition of lines
+which brought to mind and seemed to typify her own great bereavement.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A widow I, a helpless orphan he?'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>These lines, and the whole tenor of Andromache's address and
+circumstances, she identified with her own sufferings, which seemed
+relieved by the tears my repetition of them drew from her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_627" id="Page_627">[Pg 627]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Pope's Homer is not Homer, perhaps; but how many noble natures have felt
+its elation, how many bruised spirits the solace of its bracing, if
+monotonous melody! To us there is something inexpressibly tender in this
+instinct of the widowed mother to find consolation in the idealization
+of her grief by mingling it with those sorrows which genius has turned
+into the perennial delight of mankind. This was a kind of sentiment that
+was healthy for her boy, refining without unnerving, and associating his
+father's memory with a noble company unassailable by time. It was
+through this lady, whose image looks down on us out of the past, so full
+of sweetness and refinement, that Mr. Quincy became of kin with Mr.
+Wendell Phillips, so justly eminent as a speaker. There is something
+nearer than cater-cousinship in a certain impetuous audacity of temper
+common to them both.</p>
+
+<p>When six years old, Mr. Quincy was sent to Phillips Academy at Andover,
+where he remained till he entered college. His form-fellow here was a
+man of thirty, who had been a surgeon in the Continental Army, and whose
+character and adventures might almost seem borrowed from a romance of
+Smollett. Under Principal Pearson, the lad, though a near relative of
+the founder of the school, seems to have endured all that severity of
+the old <i>a posteriori</i> method of teaching which still smarted in
+Tusser's memory when he sang,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"From Paul's I went, to Eton sent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To learn straightways the Latin phrase,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where fifty-three stripes given to me<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At once I had."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The young victim of the wisdom of Solomon was boarded with the parish
+minister, in whose kindness he found a lenitive for the scholastic
+discipline he underwent. This gentleman had been a soldier in the
+Colonial service, and Mr. Quincy afterwards gave as a reason for his
+mildness, that, "while a sergeant at Castle William, he had seen
+something of mankind." This, no doubt, would be a better preparative for
+successful dealing with the young than is generally thought. However,
+the birch was then the only classic tree, and every round in the ladder
+of learning was made of its inspiring wood. Dr. Pearson, perhaps,
+thought he was only doing justice to his pupil's claims of kindred by
+giving him a larger share of the educational advantages which the
+neighboring forest afforded. The vividness with which this system is
+always remembered by those who have been subjected to it would seem to
+show that it really enlivened the attention, and thereby invigorated the
+memory, nay, might even raise some question as to what part of the
+person is chosen by the mother of the Muses for her residence. With an
+appetite for the classics quickened by "Cheever's Accidence," and such
+other preliminary whets as were then in vogue, young Quincy entered
+college, where he spent the usual four years, and was graduated with the
+highest honors of his class. The amount of Latin and Greek imparted to
+the students of that day was not very great. They were carried through
+Horace, Sallust, and the <i>De Oratoribus</i> of Cicero, and read portions of
+Livy, Xenophon, and Homer. Yet the chief end of classical studies was
+perhaps as often reached then as now, in giving young men a love for
+something apart from and above the more vulgar associations of life. Mr.
+Quincy, at least, retained to the last a fondness for certain Latin
+authors. While he was President of the College, he told a gentleman,
+from whom we received the story, that, "if he were imprisoned, and
+allowed to choose one book for his amusement, that one should be
+Horace."</p>
+
+<p>In 1797, Mr. Quincy was married to Miss Eliza Susan Morton of New York,
+a union which lasted in unbroken happiness for more than fifty years.
+His case might be cited among the leading ones in support of the old
+poet's axiom, that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"He never loved, that loved not at first sight";<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>for he saw, wooed, and won in a week. In later life he tried in a most
+amusing way to account for this rashness, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_628" id="Page_628">[Pg 628]</a></span> to find reasons of
+settled gravity for the happy inspiration of his heart. He cites the
+evidence of Judge Sedgwick, of Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Wolcott, of the Rev.
+Dr. Smith, and others, to the wisdom of his choice. But it does not
+appear that he consulted them beforehand. If love were not too cunning
+for that, what would become of the charming idyl, renewed in all its
+wonder and freshness for every generation? Let us be thankful that in
+every man's life there is a holiday of romance, an illumination of the
+senses by the soul, that makes him a poet while it lasts. Mr. Quincy
+caught the enchantment through his ears, a song of Burns heard from the
+next room conveying the infection,&mdash;a fact still inexplicable to him
+after lifelong meditation thereon, as he "was not very impressible by
+music"! To us there is something very characteristic in this rapid
+energy of Mr. Quincy, something very delightful in his na&iuml;ve account of
+the affair. It needs the magic of no Dr. Heidegger to make these dried
+roses, that drop from between the leaves of a volume shut for seventy
+years, bloom again in all their sweetness. Mr. Edmund Quincy tells us
+his mother was "not handsome"; but those who remember the gracious
+dignity of her old age will hardly agree with him. She must always have
+had that highest kind of beauty which grows more beautiful with years,
+and keeps the eyes young, as if with a sort of partial connivance of
+Time.</p>
+
+<p>We do not propose to follow Mr. Quincy closely through his whole public
+life, which, beginning with his thirty-second, ended with his
+seventy-third year. He entered Congress as the representative of a party
+privately the most respectable, publicly the least sagacious, among all
+those which under different names have divided the country. The
+Federalists were the only proper tones our politics have ever produced,
+whose conservatism truly represented an idea, and not a mere selfish
+interest,&mdash;men who honestly distrusted democracy, and stood up for
+experience, or the tradition which they believed for such, against
+empiricism. During his Congressional career, the government was little
+more than an <i>attach&eacute;</i> of the French legation, and the opposition to
+which he belonged a helpless <i>revenant</i> from the dead and buried
+Colonial past. There are some questions whose interest dies the moment
+they are settled; others, into which a moral element enters that hinders
+them from being settled, though they may be decided. It is hard to
+revive any enthusiasm about the <i>Embargo</i>, though it once could inspire
+the boyish Muse of Bryant, or in the impressment quarrel, though the
+Trent difficulty for a time rekindled its old animosities. The stars in
+their courses fought against Mr. Quincy's party, which was not in
+sympathy with the instincts of the people, groping about for some
+principle of nationality, and finding a substitute for it in hatred of
+England. But there are several things which still make his career in
+Congress interesting to us, because they illustrate the personal
+character of the man. He prepared himself honestly for his duties, by a
+thorough study of whatever could make him efficient in them. It was not
+enough that he could make a good speech; he wished also to have
+something to say. In Congress, as everywhere else, <i>quod voluit valde
+voluit</i>; and he threw a fervor into the most temporary topic, as if his
+eternal salvation depended upon it. He had not merely, as the French
+say, the courage of his opinions, but his opinions became principles,
+and gave him that gallantry of fanaticism which made him always ready to
+head a forlorn hope,&mdash;the more ready, perhaps, that it was a forlorn
+hope. This is not the humor of a statesman,&mdash;no, unless he holds a
+position like that of Pitt, and can charge a whole people with his own
+enthusiasm, and then we call it genius. Mr. Quincy had the moral
+firmness which enabled him to decline a duel without any loss of
+personal <i>prestige</i>. His opposition to the Louisiana purchase
+illustrates that Roman quality in him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_629" id="Page_629">[Pg 629]</a></span> to which we have alluded. He
+would not conclude the purchase till each of the old thirteen States had
+signified its assent. He was reluctant to endow a Sabine city with the
+privilege of Roman citizenship. It is worth nothing, that while in
+Congress, and afterwards in the State Senate, many of his phrases became
+the catchwords of party politics. He always dared to say what others
+deemed it more prudent only to think, and whatever he said he
+intensified with the whole ardor of his temperament. It is this which
+makes Mr. Quincy's speeches good reading still, even when the topics
+they discussed were ephemeral. In one respect he is distinguished from
+the politicians, and must rank with the far-seeing statesmen of his
+time. He early foresaw and denounced the political danger with which the
+slave power threatened the Union. His fears, it is true, were aroused
+for the balance of power between the old States, rather than by any
+moral sensitiveness, which would, indeed, have been an anachronism at
+that time. But the Civil War justified his prescience.</p>
+
+<p>It was as Mayor of his native city that his remarkable qualities as an
+administrator were first called into requisition and adequately
+displayed. He organized the city government, and put it in working
+order. To him we owe many reforms in police, in the management of the
+poor, and other kindred matters,&mdash;much in the way of cure, still more,
+in that of prevention. The place demanded a man of courage and firmness,
+and found those qualities almost superabundantly in him. His virtues
+lost him his office, as such virtues are only too apt to do in peaceful
+times, where they are felt more as a restraint than a protection. His
+address on laying down the mayoralty is very characteristic. We quote
+the concluding sentences:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And now, gentlemen, standing as I do in this relation for the last time
+in your presence and that of my fellow-citizens, about to surrender
+forever a station full of difficulty, of labor and temptation, in which
+I have been called to very arduous duties, affecting the rights,
+property, and at times the liberty of others; concerning which the
+perfect line of rectitude&mdash;though desired&mdash;was not always to be clearly
+discerned; in which great interests have been placed within my control,
+under circumstances in which it would have been easy to advance private
+ends and sinister projects;&mdash;under these circumstances, I inquire, as I
+have a right to inquire,&mdash;for in the recent contest insinuations have
+been cast against my integrity,&mdash;in this long management of your
+affairs, whatever errors have been committed,&mdash;and doubtless there have
+been many,&mdash;have you found in me anything selfish, anything personal,
+anything mercenary? In the simple language of an ancient seer, I say,
+'Behold, here I am; witness against me. Whom have I defrauded? Whom have
+I oppressed? At whose hands have I received any bribe?'</p>
+
+<p>"Six years ago, when I had the honor first to address the City Council,
+in anticipation of the event which has now occurred, the following
+expressions were used: 'In administering the police, in executing the
+laws, in protecting the rights and promoting the prosperity of the city,
+its first officer will be necessarily beset and assailed by individual
+interests, by rival projects, by personal influences, by party passions.
+The more firm and inflexible he is in maintaining the rights and in
+pursuing the interests of the city, the greater is the probability of
+his becoming obnoxious to the censure of all whom he causes to be
+prosecuted or punished, of all whose passions he thwarts, of all whose
+interests he opposes.'</p>
+
+<p>"The day and the event have come. I retire&mdash;as in that first address I
+told my fellow-citizens, 'If, in conformity with the experience of other
+republics, faithful exertions should be followed by loss of favor and
+confidence,' I should retire&mdash;'rejoicing, not, indeed, with a public and
+patriotic, but with a private<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_630" id="Page_630">[Pg 630]</a></span> and individual joy'; for I shall retire
+with a consciousness weighed against which all <i>human suffrages</i> are but
+as the light dust of the balance."</p>
+
+<p>Of his mayoralty we have another anecdote quite Roman in color. He was
+in the habit of riding early in the morning through the various streets
+that he might look into everything with his own eyes. He was once
+arrested on a malicious charge of violating the city ordinance against
+fast driving. He might have resisted, but he appeared in court and paid
+the fine, because it would serve as a good example "that no citizen was
+above the law."</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had Mr. Quincy given up the government of the city, when he was
+called to that of the College. It is here that his stately figure is
+associated most intimately and warmly with the recollections of the
+greater number who hold his memory dear. Almost everybody looks back
+regretfully to the days of some Consul Plancus. Never were eyes so
+bright, never had wine so much wit and good-fellowship in it, never were
+we ourselves so capable of the various great things we have never done.
+Nor is it merely the sunset of life that casts such a ravishing light on
+the past, and makes the western windows of those homes of fancy we have
+left forever tremble with a sentiment of such sweet regret. We set great
+store by what we had, and cannot have again, however indifferent in
+itself, and what is past is infinitely past. This is especially true of
+college life, when we first assume the titles without the
+responsibilities of manhood, and the President of our year is apt to
+become our Plancus very early. Popular or not while in office, an
+ex-president is always sure of enthusiastic cheers at every college
+festival. Mr. Quincy had many qualities calculated to win favor with the
+young,&mdash;that one above all which is sure to do it, indomitable pluck.
+With him the dignity was in the man, not in the office. He had some of
+those little oddities, too, which afford amusement without contempt, and
+which rather tend to heighten than diminish personal attachment to
+superiors in station. His punctuality at prayers, and in dropping asleep
+there, his forgetfulness of names, his singular inability to make even
+the shortest offhand speech to the students,&mdash;all the more singular in a
+practised orator,&mdash;his occasional absorption of mind, leading him to
+hand you his sand-box instead of the leave of absence he had just dried
+with it,&mdash;the old-fashioned courtesy of his, "Sir, your servant," as he
+bowed you out of his study,&mdash;all tended to make him popular. He had also
+a little of what is somewhat contradictorily called dry humor, not
+without influence in his relations with the students. In taking leave of
+the graduating class, he was in the habit of paying them whatever honest
+compliment he could. Who, of a certain year which shall be nameless,
+will ever forget the gravity with which he assured them that they were
+"the <i>best-dressed</i> class that had passed through college during his
+administration"? How sincerely kind he was, how considerate of youthful
+levity, will always be gratefully remembered by whoever had occasion to
+experience it. A visitor not long before his death found him burning
+some memoranda of college peccadilloes, lest they should ever rise up in
+judgment against the men eminent in Church and State who had been guilty
+of them. One great element of his popularity with the students was his
+<i>esprit de corps</i>. However strict in discipline, he was always on <i>our</i>
+side as respected the outside world. Of his efficiency, no higher
+testimony could be asked than that of his successor, Dr. Walker. Here
+also many reforms date from his time. He had that happiest combination
+for a wise vigor in the conduct of affairs,&mdash;he was a conservative with
+an open mind.</p>
+
+<p>One would be apt to think that, in the various offices which Mr. Quincy
+successively filled, he would have found enough to do. But his
+indefatigable activity overflowed. Even as a man of letters, he occupies
+no inconsiderable place. His "History of Harvard College"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_631" id="Page_631">[Pg 631]</a></span> is a valuable
+and entertaining treatment of a subject not wanting in natural dryness.
+His "Municipal History of Boston" his "History of the Boston Athen&aelig;um,"
+and his "Life of Colonel Shaw" have permanent interest and value. All
+these were works demanding no little labor and research, and the
+thoroughness of their workmanship makes them remarkable as the
+by-productions of a busy man. Having consented, when more than eighty,
+to write a memoir of John Quincy Adams, to be published in the
+"Proceedings" of the Massachusetts Historical Society, he was obliged to
+excuse himself. On account of his age? Not at all, but because the work
+had grown to be a volume under his weariless hand. <i>Ohne Hast ohne
+Rast</i>, was as true of him as of Goethe. We find the explanation of his
+accomplishing so much in a rule of life which he gave, when President,
+to a young man employed as his secretary, and who was a little
+behindhand with his work: "When you have a number of duties to perform,
+always do the most disagreeable one first." No advice could have been
+more in character.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most beautiful part of Mr. Quincy's life was his old age.
+What in most men is decay, was in him but beneficent prolongation and
+adjournment. His interest in affairs unabated, his judgment undimmed,
+his fire unchilled, his last years were indeed "lovely as a Lapland
+night." Till within a year or two of its fall, there were no signs of
+dilapidation in that stately edifice. Singularly felicitous was Mr.
+Winthrop's application to him of Wordsworth's verses:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The monumental pomp of age<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was in that goodly personage."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Everything that Macbeth foreboded the want of, he had in deserved
+abundance,&mdash;the love, the honor, the obedience, the troops of friends.
+His equanimity was beautiful. He loved life, as men of large vitality
+always do, but he did not fear to lose life by changing the scene of it.
+Visiting him in his ninetieth year with a friend, he said to us, among
+other things: "I have no desire to die, but also no reluctance. Indeed,
+I have a considerable curiosity about the other world. I have never been
+to Europe, you know." Even in his extreme senescence there was an April
+mood somewhere in his nature "that put a spirit of youth in everything."
+He seemed to feel that he could draw against an unlimited credit of
+years. When eighty-two, he said smilingly to a young man just returned
+from a foreign tour, "Well, well, I mean to go myself when I am old
+enough to profit by it." We have seen many old men whose lives were mere
+waste and desolation, who made longevity disreputable by their untimely
+persistence in it; but in Mr. Quincy's length of years there was nothing
+that was not venerable. To him it was fulfilment, not deprivation; the
+days were marked to the last for what they brought, not for what they
+took away.</p>
+
+<p>The memory of what Mr. Quincy did will be lost in the crowd of newer
+activities; it is the memory of what he was that is precious to us.
+<i>Bonum virum facile crederes, magnum libenter.</i> If John Winthrop be the
+highest type of the men who shaped New England, we can find no better
+one of those whom New England has shaped than Josiah Quincy. It is a
+figure that we can contemplate with more than satisfaction,&mdash;a figure of
+admirable example in a democracy as that of a model citizen. His courage
+and high-mindedness were personal to him; let us believe that his
+integrity, his industry, his love of letters, his devotion to duty, go
+in some sort to the credit of the society which gave him birth and
+formed his character. In one respect he is especially interesting to us,
+as belonging to a class of men of whom he was the last representative,
+and whose like we shall never see again. Born and bred in an age of
+greater social distinctions than ours, he was an aristocrat in a sense
+that is good even in a republic. He had the sense of a certain personal
+dignity <i>inherent</i> in him, and which could not be alienated by any whim
+of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_632" id="Page_632">[Pg 632]</a></span> popular will. There is no stouter buckler than this for
+independence of spirit, no surer guaranty of that courtesy which, in its
+consideration of others, is but paying a debt of self-respect. During
+his presidency, Mr. Quincy was once riding to Cambridge in a crowded
+omnibus. A colored woman got in, and could nowhere find a seat. The
+President instantly gave her his own, and stood the rest of the way, a
+silent rebuke of the general rudeness. He was a man of quality in the
+true sense,&mdash;of quality not hereditary, but personal. Position might be
+taken from him, but <i>he</i> remained where he was. In what he valued most,
+his sense of personal worth, the world's opinion could neither help nor
+hinder. We do not mean that this was conscious in him; if it had been,
+it would have been a weakness. It was an instinct, and acted with the
+force and promptitude proper to such. Let us hope that the scramble of
+democracy will give us something as good; anything of so classic dignity
+we shall not look to see again.</p>
+
+<p>Josiah Quincy was no seeker of office; from first to last he and it were
+drawn together by the mutual attraction of need and fitness, and it
+clung to him as most men cling to it. The people often make blunders in
+their choice; they are apt to mistake presence of speech for presence of
+mind; they love so to help a man rise from the ranks, that they will
+spoil a good demagogue to make a bad general; a great many faults may be
+laid at their door, but they are not fairly to be charged with
+fickleness. They are constant to whoever is constant to his real self,
+to the best manhood that is in him, and not to the mere selfishness, the
+<i>antica lupa</i> so cunning to hide herself in the sheep's fleece even from
+ourselves. It is true, the contemporary world is apt to be the gull of
+brilliant parts, and the maker of a lucky poem or picture or statue,
+the winner of a lucky battle, gets perhaps more than is due to the solid
+result of his triumph. It is time that fit honor should be paid also to
+him who shows a genius for public usefulness, for the achievement of
+character, who shapes his life to a certain classic proportion, and
+comes off conqueror on those inward fields where something more than
+mere talent is demanded for victory. The memory of such men should be
+cherished as the most precious inheritance which one generation can
+bequeath to the next. However it might be with popular favor, public
+respect followed Mr. Quincy unwaveringly for seventy years, and it was
+because he had never forfeited his own. In this, it appears to us, lies
+the lesson of his life, and his claim upon our grateful recollection. It
+is this which makes him an example, while the careers of so many of our
+prominent men are only useful for warning. As regards history, his
+greatness was narrowly provincial; but if the measure of deeds be the
+spirit in which they are done, that fidelity to instant duty, which,
+according to Herbert, makes an action fine, then his length of years
+should be very precious to us for its lesson. Talleyrand, whose life may
+be compared with his for the strange vicissitude which it witnessed,
+carried with him out of the world the respect of no man, least of all
+his own; and how many of our own public men have we seen whose old age
+but accumulated a disregard which they would gladly have exchanged for
+oblivion! In Quincy the public fidelity was loyal to the private, and
+the withdrawal of his old age was into a sanctuary,&mdash;a diminution of
+publicity with addition of influence.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Conclude we, then, felicity consists<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not in exterior fortunes....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sacred felicity doth ne'er extend<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond itself....<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The swelling of an outward fortune can<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Create a prosperous, not a happy man."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_633" id="Page_633">[Pg 633]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_CONSPIRACY_AT_WASHINGTON" id="THE_CONSPIRACY_AT_WASHINGTON"></a>THE CONSPIRACY AT WASHINGTON.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The people of the United States now have the mortification of standing
+before the world in the attitude of a swindled democracy. Their
+collective will is crossed by the will of one individual, whose only
+title to such autocracy is in the fact that he has cheated and betrayed
+those who elected him. There might be some little compensation for this
+outrage, if the man himself possessed any of those commanding qualities
+of mind and disposition which ordinarily distinguish usurpers; but it is
+the peculiarity of Mr. Johnson that the indignation excited by his
+claims is only equalled by the contempt excited by his character. He is
+despised even by those he benefits, and his nominal supporters feel
+ashamed of the trickster and apostate, while condescending to reap the
+advantages of his faithlessness. No party in the South or in the North
+thinks of selecting him as its candidate, for the vices and weaknesses
+which make an excellent accomplice and tool are not those which any
+party would consider desirable in a leader. Whatever office-seekers,
+partisans, traitors, and public enemies may find in Mr. Johnson, it is
+certain that they find in him nothing to respect. He is cursed with that
+form of moral disease which sometimes renders a man ridiculous,
+sometimes infamous, but which never renders him respectable,&mdash;namely,
+vanity of will. Other men may be vain of their talents and
+accomplishments, but he is vain of the personal pronoun itself, utterly
+regardless of what it covers and includes. Reason, conscience,
+understanding, have no impersonality to him. When he uses the words, he
+uses them as synonymes of his determinations, or as decorative terms
+into which it pleases him to translate the rough vernacular of his
+wilfulness and caprices. The "Constitution," also, a word constantly
+profaned by his lips, is not so much, as he uses it, the Constitution of
+the United States as the moral and mental constitution of Andrew
+Johnson, which, in his view, is the one primary fact to which all other
+facts must be subordinate. His gross inconsistencies of opinion and
+policy, his shameless betrayal of his party, his incapacity to hold
+himself to his word, his hatred of a cause the moment its defenders
+cease to flatter him, his habit of administering laws he has vetoed, on
+the principle that they do not mean what he vetoed them for meaning, his
+delight in little tricks of low cunning,&mdash;in short, all the immoral and
+unreasonable acts of his administration have their central source in a
+passionate sense of self-importance, inflaming a mind of extremely
+limited capacity.</p>
+
+<p>Such a person, whose mere presence in the executive chair of a
+constitutional country is itself "a high crime and misdemeanor," is of
+course the natural prey of demagogues, and he now appears to be
+surrounded by demagogues of the most desperate class. His advisers are
+conspirators, and they have so wrought on his vulgar and malignant
+nature that the question of his impeachment has now come to be merged in
+the more momentous question whether he will submit to be impeached.
+Constitutionally, there is no limit to the power of Congress in this
+respect but that which Congress may itself impose. The power is plain,
+and there can be no revision of the judgment of the Senate by any other
+power in the government. But Mr. Johnson thinks, or says he thinks, that
+Congress itself, as at present constituted, is unconstitutional. He
+believes, or says he believes, that the defeated Rebel States whose
+representatives Congress now excludes are as much States in the Union,
+and as much entitled to representation, as New York or Ohio. As he
+specially represents the defeated Rebel States, it is hardly to be
+supposed that he will consent to be punished for crimes committed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_634" id="Page_634">[Pg 634]</a></span> in
+their behalf by a Congress from which their representatives are
+excluded; and it is also to be presumed that the measures he is now
+taking to obstruct the operation of the laws of Congress relating to
+reconstruction are but preliminary to a design to resist Congress
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>The madness of such a scheme leads judicious people to disbelieve in its
+possibility; but in respect to Mr. Johnson it has been found that the
+only way to prevent the occurrence of mischief is to diffuse extensively
+among the people the suspicion that it is meditated. Judicious and
+dispassionate persons are often poor judges of what men of fierce
+passions and distempered minds will do; for they unconsciously attribute
+to such men some of their own ideas of honesty, propriety, and regard
+for the public welfare. The legislators whom Louis Napoleon outwitted
+were overthrown, because, bad as their opinion of him was, it was not so
+bad as events proved it ought to have been. In the case of Mr. Johnson,
+there is not the same excuse for misconception, since his cunning is
+utterly divorced from sagacity, and he has not the intelligence to
+conceal what his impulses prompt him to attempt. The kind of man he is
+would seem to be obvious to the most superficial observer; the natural
+inference is, therefore, that he will act after his kind; but this is an
+inference which dispassionate statesmen have hesitated fully to draw.
+They have been continually surprised at acts which they should have
+foreseen. They were surprised that, during the months he was left to his
+own devices and to the counsels of Southern politicians, he matured his
+policy of reconstruction. They were surprised that he would not abandon
+his policy rather than break with the Republican party. They were
+surprised when they learned that he meditated a <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i> on the
+assembling of the Fortieth Congress. They were surprised when they found
+that no law could be made which would bind him according to its intent.
+They were surprised when, as soon as Congress adjourned, he began to
+take measures which can have no other intelligible purpose than that of
+making him master of Congress when it reassembles. And to crown all,
+though it has been apparent since February, 1866, that he was the enemy
+of the country, they have still had technical reasons for retaining him
+as the proper executive of its laws.</p>
+
+<p>It would then seem that, in dealing with such a man as Andrew Johnson,
+it is the part of wisdom to suspect the worst. Without any special
+knowledge of the treasonable intrigue now going on in Washington, it is
+still possible to fathom the President's designs, and to understand the
+resources on which he relies. In the first place, his conceit makes him
+believe that he is the first man in the nation, and that he is not only
+adored at the South, but popular at the North. The slightest sign of
+reaction in Northern and Western elections he considers a testimony to
+his individual merit, and an indorsement of his policy. In case he
+refuses to recognize the present Congress, turns its members by military
+power out of their seats, and appeals for support to the white
+population of the Rebel as well as Loyal States, he will count on being
+sustained by the nation. The Democratic party agrees with him as far as
+regards the constitutionality of the laws which he will, in the name of
+the Constitution, be compelled to disregard in order to get possession
+of the military power of the country; and he thinks that party will
+support him in resuming those functions as commander-in-chief of which
+he has been deprived by a "usurping" Congress. The army and navy, with
+all Republican officers removed, including, of course, General Grant and
+Admiral Farragut, he thinks will obey his orders. The South, he
+supposes, will rally round him to a man. The thoroughly Rebel military
+organization in Maryland, controlled by a Governor after his own heart,
+will interpose obstacles to the passage of troops from the Northern
+States to Washington. The Democrats<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_635" id="Page_635">[Pg 635]</a></span> in those States will do all they
+can to prevent troops from being sent. Before there could be any
+efficient military organization in the Loyal States brought to bear on
+his dictatorship, he expects to have a Congress of "the whole nation"
+around him, of which at least a majority will be defeated Rebels and
+Copperheads. The whole thing is to be done in the name of the
+Constitution; and the Proclamation he has issued to all officers of the
+United States, civil and military, telling them to obey the Constitution
+(i. e. Mr. Johnson), may be considered the first step in the development
+of the scheme.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to say that such a scheme could only find hospitable
+reception in the head of a spiteful, inflated, and unprincipled egotist,
+for such an egotist Mr. Johnson assuredly is. It is needless to say that
+it would break down through the refusal of General Grant to give up his
+command, and through the refusal of the great body of the army to obey
+the President; for the danger is not so much the success of the attempt
+as the convulsion which, the mere attempt would occasion. That the
+danger is a serious one, provided the October and November elections
+show a considerable Republican loss, is evident from a consideration of
+the President's position. He has already gone far enough in his course
+to exasperate Congress, and unite its Republican members, conservative
+and radical, in favor of his impeachment. Without going over the long
+list of delinquencies and usurpations which would justify that measure,
+it is sufficient to name the recent Proclamation of Amnesty as an act
+which promises to secure it. That Proclamation is a plain violation of
+the Constitution as the Constitution is understood by Congress; and it
+is upon the Congressional interpretation of the Constitution that, in
+the matter of impeachment, the President must stand or fall. Congress,
+by giving the power of granting amnesty to Mr. Lincoln, evidently
+conceived that it was not a power given to him by the Constitution; by
+taking it away from Mr. Johnson, it as evidently conceived that it
+could not be exercised by him except by usurpation. In usurping this
+power, Mr. Johnson must have known that his act belonged, in the opinion
+of Congress, to the class of "high crimes and misdemeanors," for the
+commission of which the Constitution expressly provides that Presidents
+may be impeached; and he must also have known that Congress, in judging
+of his infractions of the Constitution, would be bound neither by his
+individual opinion of his constitutional powers nor by the opinion of
+the Supreme Court, but was at perfect liberty to act on its own
+interpretation of his constitutional duty. It is not therefore to be
+supposed that he intended to limit his defiance of Congress to the mere
+issuing of the Amnesty Proclamation, especially as the principle on
+which that Proclamation was issued would cover his refusal to carry out
+the whole Congressional plan of reconstruction. His conviction or
+assertion that Congress has no right to withhold from him the power to
+pardon defeated rebels and public enemies by the wholesale, is certainly
+not greater or more emphatic than his conviction or assertion that, in
+its plan of reconstruction, Congress has granted to subordinates powers
+which constitutionally belong to him. If he can exalt his will over
+Congress in the one case, there is no reason why he should not do it in
+the other.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, in the Proclamation of Amnesty, Mr. Johnson practically claims
+that his power to grant pardons extends to a dispensing power over the
+laws. But it is evident that the Constitution, in giving the President
+the power to pardon criminals, does not give him the power to dispense
+with the laws against crime. At one period, Mr. Johnson seems to have
+done this in respect to the crime of counterfeiting, by his repeated
+pardons extended to convicted counterfeiters.&mdash;Still there is a broad
+line of distinction between the abuse of this power to pardon criminals
+after conviction, and the assumption of power to restore to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_636" id="Page_636">[Pg 636]</a></span> whole
+classes of traitors and public enemies their forfeited rights of
+citizenship. By the pardon of murderers and counterfeiters, the
+President cannot much increase the number of his political supporters;
+by the pardon of traitors and public enemies, he may build up a party to
+support him in his struggle against the legislative department of the
+government. The reasons which have induced Mr. Johnson to dispense with
+the laws against treason are political reasons, and bear no relation to
+his prerogative of mercy. Nobody pretends that he pardoned
+counterfeiters because they were his political partisans; everybody
+knows he pardons traitors and public enemies in order to gain their
+influence and votes. A public enemy himself, and leagued with public
+enemies, he has the impudence to claim that he is constitutionally
+capable of perverting his power to pardon into a power to gain political
+support in his schemes against the loyal nation.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not probable that the President will limit his usurpations to
+a measure whose chief significance consists in its preliminary
+character. Before Congress meets in November, he will doubtless have
+followed it up by others which will make his impeachment a matter of
+certainty. The only method of preventing him from resisting impeachment
+by force, is an awakening of the people to the fact that the final
+battle against reviving rebellion is yet to be fought at the polls. Any
+apathy or divisions among Republicans in the State elections in October
+and November, resulting in a decrease of their vote, will embolden Mr.
+Johnson to venture his meditated <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>. He never will submit to
+be impeached and removed from office unless Congress is sustained by a
+majority of the people so great as to frighten him into submission.
+Elated by a little victory, he can only be depressed by a ruinous
+defeat; and such a defeat it is the solemn duty of the people to prepare
+for him. Even into his conceited brain must be driven the idea that his
+contemplated enterprise is hopeless, and that, in attempting to commit
+the greatest of political crimes, he would succeed only in committing
+the most enormous of political blunders.</p>
+
+<p>Still, it is not to be concealed that there are circumstances in the
+present political condition of the country which may give the President
+just that degree of apparent popular support which is all he needs to
+stimulate him into open rebellion against the laws. It is, of course,
+his duty to recognize the people of the United States in their
+representatives in the Fortieth Congress; but, on the other hand, it is
+the character of his mind to regard the people as multiplied duplicates
+of himself, and a mob yelling for "Andy" under his windows is to him
+more representative of the people than the delegates of twenty States.
+In the autumn elections only two Representatives to Congress will be
+chosen; the political strife will relate generally to local questions
+and candidates; and it is to be feared that the Republicans will not be
+sufficiently alive to the fact, that divisions on local questions and
+candidates will be considered at Washington as significant of a change
+in the public mind on the great national question which it is the
+business of the Fortieth Congress to settle. That Congress needs the
+moral support of a great Republican vote <i>now</i>, and will obtain it
+provided the people are roused to a conviction of its necessity. But a
+large and influential portion of the Republican party is composed of
+business men, whose occupations disconnect them from politics except in
+important exigencies, and who can with difficulty be made to believe
+that politics is a part of their business, as long as the safety of
+their business is not threatened by civil disorders. They think the
+reconstruction question is practically settled, and when you speak to
+them of plots such as are now hatching in Washington, and which seem as
+preposterous as the story of a sensational novel, their incredulity
+confirms them in the notion that it is safe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_637" id="Page_637">[Pg 637]</a></span> to allow things to take
+their course. Their very good sense makes them blind to the designs of
+such a Bobadil-Cromwell as Andrew Johnson. The great body of the
+Republican party, indeed, shows at present a little of the exhaustion
+which is apt to follow a series of victories, and exhibits altogether
+too much of the confidence which so often attends an incompleted
+triumph.</p>
+
+<p>The Democratic party, on the contrary, is all alive, and is preparing
+for one last desperate attempt to recover its old position in the
+nation. Its leaders fear that, if the Congressional plan of
+reconstruction be carried out, it will result in republicanizing the
+Southern States. This would be the political extinction of their party.
+In fighting against that plan, they are, therefore, fighting for life,
+and are accordingly more than usually profligate in the character of the
+stimulants they address to whatever meanness, baseness, dishonesty,
+lawlessness, and ignorance there may be in the nation. Taxation presses
+hard on the people, and they have not hesitated to propose repudiation
+of the public debt as the means of relief. The argument is addressed to
+ignorance and passion, for Mirabeau hit the reason of the case when he
+defined repudiation as taxation in its most cruel and iniquitous form.
+But the method of repudiation which the Democratic leaders propose to
+follow is of all methods the worst and most calamitous. They would make
+the dollar a mere form of expression by the issue of an additional
+billion or two of greenbacks, and then "pay off" the debt in the
+currency they had done all they could to render worthless. In other
+words they would not only swindle the public creditor, but wreck all
+values. A party which advocates such a scheme as this, to save it from
+the death it deserves, would have no hesitation in risking a civil
+convulsion for the same purpose. Indeed, the reopening of the civil war
+would not produce half the misery which would be created by the adoption
+of their project to dilute the currency.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if by apathy on the part of Republicans and audacity on the part
+of Democrats the autumn elections result unfavorably, it will then be
+universally seen how true was Senator Sumner's remark made in January
+last, that "Andrew Johnson, who came to supreme power by a bloody
+accident, has become the successor of Jefferson Davis in the spirit by
+which he is governed, and in the mischief he is inflicting on the
+country"; that "the President of the Rebellion is revived in the
+President of the United States." What this man now proposes to do has
+been impressively stated by Senator Thayer of Nebraska, in a public
+address at Cincinnati: "I declare," he said, "upon my responsibility as
+a Senator of the United States, that to-day Andrew Johnson meditates and
+designs forcible resistance to the authority of Congress. I make this
+statement deliberately, having received it from an unquestioned and
+unquestionable authority." It would seem that this authority could be
+none other than the authority of the Acting Secretary of War and General
+of the Army of the United States, who, reticent as he is, does not
+pretend to withhold his opinion that the country is in imminent peril,
+and in peril from the action of the President. But it is by some
+considered a sufficient reply to such statements, that, if Mr. Johnson
+should overturn the legislative department of the government, there
+would be an uprising of the people which would soon sweep him and his
+supporters from the face of the earth. This may be very true, but we
+should prefer a less Mexican manner of ascertaining public sentiment.
+Without leaving their peaceful occupations, the people can do by their
+votes all that it is proposed they shall do by their muskets. It is
+hardly necessary that a million or half a million of men should go to
+Washington to speak their mind to Mr. Johnson, when a ballot-box close
+at hand will save them the expense and trouble. It will, indeed, be
+infinitely disgraceful to the nation if Mr. Johnson dares to put his
+purpose into act, for his courage to violate his own duty will come from
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_638" id="Page_638">[Pg 638]</a></span> neglect of the people to perform theirs. Let the great uprising of
+the citizens of the Republic be at the polls this autumn, and there will
+be no need of a fight in the winter. The House of Representatives, which
+has the sole power of impeachment, will in all probability impeach the
+President. The Senate, which has the sole power to try impeachments,
+will in all probability find him guilty, by the requisite two thirds of
+its members, of the charges preferred by the House. And he himself,
+cowed by the popular verdict against his contemplated crime, and
+hopeless of escaping from the punishment of past delinquencies by a new
+act of treason, will submit to be removed from the office he has too
+long been allowed to dishonor.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES" id="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"></a>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The New Life of</i> <span class="smcap">Dante Alighieri</span>. Translated by <span class="smcap">Charles Eliot
+Norton</span>. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.</p></div>
+
+<p>In "The New Life" Dante tells how first he met Beatrice and loved her;
+but how he feigned that it was another lady he loved, making a defence
+of her and others still that his real passion might not be known; how
+Beatrice would not salute him, believing him false and inconstant with
+these ladies, her friends; how being at a banquet where she was, he was
+so visibly stricken with love that some of the ladies derided him; how
+Beatrice's father died, and how Dante himself fell ill; how Beatrice
+quitted the city, and soon after the world; and how Dante was so
+grateful to another lady who pitied his affliction that his heart turned
+toward her in love, but he restrained it, and remained true to Beatrice
+forever. Part of this is told as the experience of children in years,
+Dante being nine at the time he first sees his love, and she of "a very
+youthful age"; but the narrative then extends over the course of sixteen
+years. The incidents of the slight history furnish occasion for sonnets
+and canzonets, which often repeat the facts and sentiments of the prose,
+and which are again elaborately expounded.</p>
+
+<p>Such is "The New Life,"&mdash;a medley of passionate feeling, of vaguest
+narrative, of scholastic pedantry. It is readily conceivable that to
+transfer such a work to another tongue with verbal truth, and without
+lapse from the peculiar spirit of the original, is a labor of great and
+unusual difficulty. The slightest awkwardness in the translation of
+these mystical passages of prose and rhyme connected by a thread of fact
+so fragile and so subtle that we must seem to have done it violence in
+touching it, would be almost fatal to the reader's enjoyment, or even
+patience. Their version demands deep knowledge, not only of the language
+in which they first took form, but of all the civil and intellectual
+conditions of the time and country in which they were produced, as well
+as the utmost fidelity, and exquisite delicacy of taste. It appears to
+us that Mr. Norton has met these requirements, and executed his task
+with signal grace and success.</p>
+
+<p>The translator of the "Vita Nuova" has not departed from the principle
+which Mr. Longfellow's translation of the "Commedia" is to render sole
+in the version of poetry. Indeed, there was a greater need, if possible,
+of literalness in rendering the less than the greater work, while the
+temptations to "improvement" and modification of the original must have
+been even more constant. Yet there is a very notable difference between
+Mr. Longfellow's literality and Mr. Norton's, which strikes at first
+glance, and which goes to prove that within his proper limits the
+literal translator can always find room for the play of individual
+feeling. Mr. Longfellow seems to have developed to its utmost the Latin
+element in our poetical diction, and to have found in words of a kindred
+stock the best interpretation of the Italian, while Mr. Norton
+instinctively chooses for the rendering of Dante's tenderness and
+simplicity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_639" id="Page_639">[Pg 639]</a></span> a diction almost as purely Saxon as that of the Bible. This
+gives the prose of "The New Life" with all its proper archaic quality;
+and those who read the following sonnet can well believe that it is not
+unjust to the beauty of the verse:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"So gentle and so modest doth appear<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My lady when she giveth her salute,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That every tongue becometh, trembling, mute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Although she hears her praises, she doth go<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Benignly vested with humility;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And like a thing come down, she seems to be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From heaven to earth, a miracle to show.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She gives the heart a sweetness through the eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Which none can understand who doth not prove.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from her countenance there seems to move<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A spirit sweet, and in Love's very guise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who to the soul is ever saying, Sigh!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Norton has in all cases kept to the metres of the original, but in
+most of the canzonets has sacrificed rhyme to literality,&mdash;a sacrifice
+which we are inclined to regret, chiefly because the translator has
+elsewhere shown that the closest fidelity need not involve the loss of
+any charm of the original. "We have not room here to make any general
+comparison of Mr. Norton's version with the Italian, but we cannot deny
+ourselves the pleasure of giving the following sonnet, so exquisite in
+both tongues, for the better proof of what we say in praise of the
+translator:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Per che si fa gentil ciocch' ella mira:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ove ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">E cui saluta fa tremar to core.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sicch&egrave; bassando 'l viso tutto smuore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ed ogni suo difetto allor sospira:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fugge dinanzi a lei superbia ed ira.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Aiutatenmi, donne, a farle onore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nasce nel core, a chi parlar la sente,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Onde &egrave; laudato chi prima la vide.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quel, ch' ella par, quando un poco sorride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Non si puo dicer, n&egrave; tenerc a mente;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Si &egrave; nuovo miracolo, e gentile."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;* <br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Within her eyes my lady beareth Love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So that whom she regards as gentle made;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All toward her turn, where'er her path is laid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And whom she greets, his heart doth trembling move;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So that with face cast down, all pale to view,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For every fault of his he then doth sigh;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Anger and pride away before her fly:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Assist me, dames, to pay her honor due.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All sweetness truly, every humble thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The heart of him who hears her speak doth hold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whence he is blessed who hath her seen erewhile.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What seems she when a little she doth smile<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cannot be kept in mind, cannot be told,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Such strange and gentle miracle is wrought."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The poems are of course rendered with varying degrees of felicity, and
+this we think one of the happiest versions; though few in their
+literality lack that ease and naturalness of movement supposed to be the
+gift solely of those wonder-workers who render the "spirit" of an
+author, while disdaining a "slavish fidelity" to his words,&mdash;who as
+painters would portray a man's expression without troubling themselves
+to reproduce his features.</p>
+
+<p>It appears to us that generally the sonnets are translated better than
+the canzonets, and that where Mr. Norton has found the rhyme quite
+indispensable, he has all the more successfully performed his task. In
+the prose there is naturally less inequality, and here, where excellence
+is quite as important as in the verse, the translator's work is
+irreproachable. His vigilant taste seems never to have failed him in the
+choice of words which should keep at once all the dignity and all the
+quaintness of the original, while they faithfully reported its sense.</p>
+
+<p>The essays appended to the translation assemble from Italian and English
+writings all the criticism that is necessary to the enjoyment of "The
+New Life," and include many valuable and interesting comments by the
+translator upon the work itself, and the spirit of the age and country
+in which it was written.</p>
+
+<p>The notes, which, like the essays, are pervaded by Mr. Norton's graceful
+and conscientious scholarship, are not less useful and attractive.</p>
+
+<p>We do not know that we can better express our very high estimate of the
+work as a whole, than by saying that it is the fit companion of Mr.
+Longfellow's unmatched version of the "Divina Commedia," with which it
+is likewise uniform in faultless mechanical execution.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Bulls and the Jonathans; comprising John Bull and Brother
+Jonathan, and John Bull in America.</i> By <span class="smcap">James K. Paulding</span>.
+Edited by <span class="smcap">William I. Paulding</span>. New York: Charles Scribner and
+Company.</p></div>
+
+<p>"John Bull and Brother Jonathan" is an allegory, conveying in a strain
+of fatiguing drollery the history of the relations between Great Britain
+and the United<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_640" id="Page_640">[Pg 640]</a></span> States previous to the war of 1812, and reflecting the
+popular feeling with regard to some of the English tourists who overran
+us after the conclusion of peace. In this ponderous travesty John Bull
+of Bullock is England, and Brother Jonathan the United States; Napoleon
+figures as Beau Napperty, Louis XVI. as Louis Baboon, and France as
+Frogmore. It could not have been a hard thing to write in its day, and
+we suppose that it must once have amused people, though it is not easy
+to understand bow they could ever have read it through.</p>
+
+<p>"John Bull in America" is a satire, again, upon the book-making
+tourists, and the ideas of our country generally accepted from them in
+England. It is in the form of a narrative, and probably does not
+exaggerate the stories told of us by Captain Ashe, Mr. Richard
+Parkinson, Farmer Faux, Captain Hamilton, Captain Hall, and a tribe of
+now-forgotten travellers, who wrote of adventure in the United States
+when, as Mr. Dickens intimates, one of the readiest means of literary
+success in England was to visit the Americans and abuse them in a book.
+Mr. Paulding's parody gives the idea that their lies were rather dull
+and foolish, and that the parodist's work was not so entirely a
+diversion as one might think. He wrote for a generation now passing
+away, and it is all but impossible for us to enter into the feeling that
+animated him and his readers. For this reason, perhaps, we fail to enjoy
+his book, though we are not entirely persuaded that we should have found
+it humorous when it first appeared.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Life and Death of Jason.</i> A Poem. By <span class="smcap">William Morris</span>. Boston:
+Roberts Brothers.</p></div>
+
+<p>Whether the reader shall enjoy and admire this poem or not, depends
+almost solely upon the idea with which he comes to its perusal. If he
+expects to find it a work of genius, with an authentic and absolute
+claim upon his interest, he will be disappointed. If he is prepared to
+see in it a labor of the most patient and wonderful ingenuity, to behold
+the miracle of an Englishman of our day writing exactly in the spirit of
+the heroic ages, with no thought or feeling suggested by the experience
+of the last two thousand years, it will fully answer his expectations.
+The work is so far Greek as to read in many parts like Chapman's
+translation of the Odyssey; though it must be confessed that Homer is,
+if not a better Pagan, at least a greater poet than Mr. Morris. Indeed,
+it appears to us that Mr. Morris's success is almost wholly in the
+reflected sentiment and color of his work, and it seems, therefore, to
+have no positive value, and to add nothing to the variety of letters or
+intellectual life. It is a kind of performance in which failure is
+intolerably offensive, and triumph more to be wondered at than praised.
+For to be more or less than Greek in it is to be ridiculous, and to be
+just Greek is to be what has already perfectly and sufficiently been. If
+one wished to breathe the atmosphere of Greek poetry, with its sensuous
+love of beauty and of life, its pathetic acceptance of events as fate,
+its warped and unbalanced conscience, its abhorrence of death, and its
+conception of a future sad as annihilation, we had already the Greek
+poets; and does it profit us that Mr. Morris can produce just their
+effects and nothing more in us?</p>
+
+<p>We are glad to acknowledge his transcendent talent, and we have felt in
+reading his poem all the pleasure that faultless workmanship can give.
+He is alert and sure in the management of his materials; his
+descriptions of sentiment and nature are so clever, and his handling of
+a familiar plot so excellent, that he carries you with him to the end,
+and leaves you unfatigued, but sensible of no addition to your stock of
+ideas and feelings.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No.
+121, November, 1867, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
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@@ -0,0 +1,8898 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121,
+November, 1867, 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 20, No. 121, November, 1867
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: March 9, 2009 [EBook #28285]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by Cornell University Digital Collections.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
+
+_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._
+
+
+VOL. XX.--NOVEMBER, 1867.--NO. CXXI.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by TICKNOR AND
+FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+Massachusetts.
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article.
+
+
+
+
+THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY CONSULTS WITH JACOB PENHALLOW, ESQUIRE.
+
+Lawyer Penhallow was seated in his study, his day's work over, his feet
+in slippers, after the comfortable but inelegant fashion which Sir
+Walter Scott reprobates, amusing himself with a volume of old Reports.
+He was a knowing man enough, a keen country lawyer, but honest, and
+therefore less ready to suspect the honesty of others. He had a great
+belief in his young partner's ability, and, though he knew him to be
+astute, did not think him capable of roguery.
+
+It was at his request that Mr. Bradshaw had undertaken his journey,
+which, as he believed,--and as Mr. Bradshaw had still stronger evidence
+of a strictly confidential nature which led him to feel sure,--would end
+in the final settlement of the great land claim in favor of their
+client. The case had been dragging along from year to year, like an
+English chancery suit; and while courts and lawyers and witnesses had
+been sleeping, the property had been steadily growing. A railroad had
+passed close to one margin of the township, some mines had been opened
+in the county, in which a village calling itself a city had grown big
+enough to have a newspaper and Fourth of July orations. It was plain
+that the successful issue of the long process would make the heirs of
+the late Malachi Withers possessors of an ample fortune, and it was also
+plain that the firm of Penhallow and Bradshaw were like to receive, in
+such case, the largest fee that had gladdened the professional existence
+of its members.
+
+Mr. Penhallow had his book open before him, but his thoughts were
+wandering from the page. He was thinking of his absent partner, and the
+probable results of his expedition. What would be the consequence if all
+this property came into the possession of Silence Withers? Could she
+have any liberal intentions with reference to Myrtle Hazard, the young
+girl who had grown up with her, or was the common impression true, that
+she was bent on endowing an institution, and thus securing for herself a
+favorable consideration in the higher courts, where her beneficiaries
+would be, it might be supposed, influential advocates? He could not help
+thinking that Mr. Bradshaw believed that Myrtle Hazard would eventually
+come to a part at least of this inheritance. For the story was, that he
+was paying his court to the young lady whenever he got an opportunity,
+and that he was cultivating an intimacy with Miss Cynthia Badlam.
+"Bradshaw wouldn't make a move in that direction," Mr. Penhallow said to
+himself, "until he felt pretty sure that it was going to be a paying
+business. If he was only a young minister now, there'd be no difficulty
+about it. Let any man, young or old, in a clerical white cravat, step up
+to Myrtle Hazard, and ask her to be miserable in his company through
+this wretched life, and Aunt Silence would very likely give them her
+blessing, and add something to it that the man in the white cravat would
+think worth even more than that was. But I don't know what she'll say to
+Bradshaw. Perhaps he'd better have a hint to go to meeting a little more
+regularly. However, I suppose he knows what he's about."
+
+He was thinking all this over when a visitor was announced, and Mr.
+Byles Gridley entered the study.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley said, wiping his forehead.
+"Quite warm, isn't it, this evening?"
+
+"Warm!" said Mr. Penhallow, "I should think it would freeze pretty thick
+to-night. I should have asked you to come up to the fire and warm
+yourself. But take off your coat, Mr. Gridley,--very glad to see you.
+You don't come to the house half as often as you come to the office. Sit
+down, sit down."
+
+Mr. Gridley took off his outside coat and sat down. "He does look warm,
+doesn't he?" Mr. Penhallow thought. "Wonder what has heated up the old
+gentleman so. Find out quick enough, for he always goes straight to
+business."
+
+"Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley began at once, "I have come on a very grave
+matter, in which you are interested as well as myself, and I wish to
+lay the whole of it before you as explicitly as I can, so that we may
+settle this night before I go what is to be done. I am afraid the good
+standing of your partner, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, is concerned in
+the matter. Would it be a surprise to you, if he had carried his
+acuteness in some particular case like the one I am to mention beyond
+the prescribed limits?"
+
+The question was put so diplomatically that there was no chance for an
+indignant denial of the possibility of Mr. Bradshaw's being involved in
+any discreditable transaction.
+
+"It is possible," he answered, "that Bradshaw's keen wits may have
+betrayed him into sharper practice than I should altogether approve in
+any business we carried on together. He is a very knowing young man, but
+I can't think he is foolish enough, to say nothing of his honesty, to
+make any false step of the kind you seem to hint. I think he might on
+occasion go pretty near the line, but I don't believe he would cross
+it."
+
+"Permit me a few questions, Mr. Penhallow. You settled the estate of the
+late Malachi Withers, did you not?"
+
+"Mr. Wibird and myself settled it together."
+
+"Have you received any papers from any of the family since the
+settlement of the estate?"
+
+"Let me see. Yes; a roll of old plans of the Withers Place, and so
+forth,--not of much use, but labelled and kept. An old trunk with
+letters and account-books, some of them in Dutch,--mere curiosities. A
+year ago or more, I remember that Silence sent me over some papers she
+had found in an odd corner,--the old man hid things like a magpie. I
+looked over most of them,--trumpery not worth keeping,--old leases and
+so forth."
+
+"Do you recollect giving some of them to Mr. Bradshaw to look over?"
+
+"Now I come to think of it, I believe I did; but he reported to me, if I
+remember right, that they amounted to nothing."
+
+"If any of those papers were of importance, should you think your junior
+partner ought to keep them from your knowledge?"
+
+"I need not answer that question, Mr. Gridley. Will you be so good as to
+come at once to the facts on which you found your suspicions, and which
+lead you to put these questions to me?"
+
+Thereupon Mr. Gridley proceeded to state succinctly the singular
+behavior of Murray Bradshaw in taking one paper from a number handed to
+him by Mr. Penhallow, and concealing it in a volume. He related how he
+was just on the point of taking out the volume which contained the
+paper, when Mr. Bradshaw entered and disconcerted him. He had, however,
+noticed three spots on the paper by which he should know it anywhere. He
+then repeated the substance of Kitty Fagan's story, accenting the fact
+that she too noticed three remarkable spots on the paper which Mr.
+Bradshaw had pointed out to Miss Badlam as the one so important to both
+of them. Here he rested the case for the moment.
+
+Mr. Penhallow looked thoughtful. There was something questionable in the
+aspect of this business. It did obviously suggest the idea of an
+underhand arrangement with Miss Cynthia, possibly involving some very
+grave consequences. It would have been most desirable, he said, to have
+ascertained what these papers, or rather this particular paper, to which
+so much importance was attached, amounted to. Without that knowledge
+there was nothing, after all, which it might not be possible to explain.
+He might have laid aside the spotted paper to examine for some object of
+mere curiosity. It was certainly odd that the one the Fagan woman had
+seen should present three spots so like those on the other paper, but
+people did sometimes throw _treys_ at backgammon, and that which not
+rarely happened with two dice of six faces _might_ happen if they had
+sixty or six hundred faces. On the whole, he did not see that there was
+any ground, so far, for anything more than a vague suspicion. He
+thought it not unlikely that Mr. Bradshaw was a little smitten with the
+young lady up at The Poplars, and that he had made some diplomatic
+overtures to the duenna, after the approved method of suitors. She was
+young for Bradshaw,--very young,--but he knew his own affairs. If he
+chose to make love to a child, it was natural enough that he should
+begin by courting her nurse.
+
+Master Byles Gridley lost himself for half a minute in a most
+discreditable inward discussion as to whether Laura Penhallow was
+probably one or two years older than Mr. Bradshaw. That was his way,--he
+could not help it. He could not think of anything without these mental
+parentheses. But he came back to business at the end of his half-minute.
+
+"I can lay the package before you at this moment, Mr. Penhallow. I have
+induced that woman in whose charge it was left to intrust it to my
+keeping, with the express intention of showing it to you. But it is
+protected by a seal, as I have told you, which I should on no account
+presume to meddle with."
+
+Mr. Gridley took out the package of papers.
+
+"How damp it is!" Mr. Penhallow said; "must have been lying in some very
+moist neighborhood."
+
+"Very," Mr. Gridley answered, with a peculiar expression which said,
+"Never mind about that."
+
+"Did the party give you possession of these documents without making any
+effort to retain them?" the lawyer asked.
+
+"Not precisely. It cost some effort to induce Miss Badlam to let them go
+out of her hands. I hope you think I was justified in making the effort
+I did, not without a considerable strain upon my feelings, as well as
+her own, to get hold of the papers?"
+
+"That will depend something on what the papers prove to be, Mr. Gridley.
+A man takes a certain responsibility in doing just what you have done.
+If, for instance, it should prove that this envelope contained matters
+relating solely to private transactions between Mr. Bradshaw and Miss
+Badlam, concerning no one but themselves,--and if the words on the back
+of the envelope and the seal had been put there merely as a protection
+for a package containing private papers of a delicate but perfectly
+legitimate character--"
+
+The lawyer paused, as careful experts do, after bending the bow of an
+hypothesis, before letting the arrow go. Mr. Gridley felt very warm
+indeed, uncomfortably so, and applied his handkerchief to his face.
+Couldn't be anything in such a violent supposition as that,--and yet
+such a crafty fellow as that Bradshaw,--what trick was he not up to?
+Absurd! Cynthia was not acting,--Rachel wouldn't be equal to such a
+performance!--"why then, Mr. Gridley," the lawyer continued, "I don't
+see but what my partner would have you at an advantage, and, if disposed
+to make you uncomfortable, could do so pretty effectively. But this, you
+understand, is only a supposed case, and not a very likely one. I don't
+think it would have been prudent in you to meddle with that seal. But it
+is a very different matter with regard to myself. It makes no
+difference, so far as I am concerned, where this package came from, or
+how it was obtained. It is just as absolutely within my control as any
+piece of property I call my own. I should not hesitate, if I saw fit, to
+break this seal at once, and proceed to the examination of any papers
+contained within the envelope. If I found any paper of the slightest
+importance relating to the estate, I should act as if it had never been
+out of my possession.
+
+"Suppose, however, I chose to know what was in the package, and, having
+ascertained, act my judgment about returning it to the party from whom
+you obtained it. In such case I might see fit to restore, or cause it to
+be restored, to the party, without any marks of violence having been
+used being apparent. If everything is not right, probably no questions
+would be asked by the party having charge of the package. If there is no
+underhand work going on, and the papers are what they profess to be,
+nobody is compromised but yourself, so far as I can see, and you are
+compromised at any rate, Mr. Gridley, at least in the good graces of the
+party from whom you obtained the documents. Tell that party that I took
+the package without opening it, and shall return it, very likely,
+without breaking the seal. Will consider of the matter, say a couple of
+days. Then you shall hear from me, and she shall hear from you. So. So.
+Yes, that's it. A nice business. A thing to sleep on. You had better
+leave the whole matter of dealing with the package to me. If I see fit
+to send it back with the seal unbroken, that is my affair. But keep
+perfectly quiet, if you please, Mr. Gridley, about the whole matter. Mr.
+Bradshaw is off, as you know, and the business on which he is gone is
+important,--very important. He can be depended on for that; he has acted
+all along as if he had a personal interest in the success of our firm
+beyond his legal relation to it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Penhallow's light burned very late in the office that night, and the
+following one. He looked troubled and absent-minded, and, when Miss
+Laura ventured to ask him how long Mr. Bradshaw was like to be gone,
+answered her in such a way that the girl who waited at table concluded
+that he didn't mean to have Miss Laury keep company with Mr. Bradshaw,
+or he'd never have spoke so dreadful hash to her when she ahst about
+him.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+SUSAN POSEY'S TRIAL.
+
+A day or two after Myrtle Hazard returned to the village, Master Byles
+Gridley, accompanied by Gifted Hopkins, followed her, as has been
+already mentioned, to the same scene of the principal events of this
+narrative. The young man had been persuaded that it would be doing
+injustice to his talents to crowd their fruit prematurely upon the
+market. He carried his manuscript back with him, having relinquished the
+idea of publishing for the present. Master Byles Gridley, on the other
+hand, had in his pocket a very flattering proposal from the same
+publisher to whom he had introduced the young poet, for a new and
+revised edition of his work, "Thoughts on the Universe," which was to be
+remodelled in some respects, and to have a new title not quite so
+formidable to the average reader.
+
+It would be hardly fair to Susan Posey to describe with what delight and
+innocent enthusiasm she welcomed back Gifted Hopkins. She had been so
+lonely since he was away! She had read such of his poems as she
+possessed--duplicates of his printed ones, or autographs which he had
+kindly written out for her--over and over again, not without the sweet
+tribute of feminine sensibility, which is the most precious of all
+testimonials to a poet's power over the heart. True, her love belonged
+to another,--but then she was so used to Gifted! She did so love to hear
+him read his poems,--and Clement had never written that "little bit of a
+poem to Susie," which she had asked him for so long ago! She received
+him therefore with open arms,--not literally, of course, which would
+have been a breach of duty and propriety, but in a figurative sense,
+which it is hoped no reader will interpret to her discredit.
+
+The young poet was in need of consolation. It is true that he had seen
+many remarkable sights during his visit to the city; that he had got
+"smarted up," as his mother called it, a good deal; that he had been to
+Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's party, where he had looked upon life in all its
+splendors; and that he brought back many interesting experiences, which
+would serve to enliven his conversation for a long time. But he had
+failed in the great enterprise he had undertaken. He was forced to
+confess to his revered parent, and his esteemed friend Susan Posey, that
+his genius, which was freely acknowledged, was not thought to be quite
+ripe as yet. He told the young lady some particulars of his visit to the
+publisher, how he had listened with great interest to one of his
+poems,--"The Triumph of Song,"--how he had treated him with marked and
+flattering attention; but that he advised him not to risk anything
+prematurely, giving him the hope that _by and by_ he would be admitted
+into that series of illustrious authors which it was the publisher's
+privilege to present to the reading public. In short, he was advised not
+to print. That was the net total of the matter, and it was a pang to the
+susceptible heart of the poet. He had hoped to have come home enriched
+by the sale of his copyright, and with the prospect of seeing his name
+before long on the back of a handsome volume.
+
+Gifted's mother did all in her power to console him in his
+disappointment.--There was plenty of jealous people always that wanted
+to keep young folks from rising in the world. Never mind, she didn't
+believe but what Gifted could make jest as good verses as any of them
+that they kept such a talk about.--She had a fear that he might pine
+away in consequence of the mental excitement he had gone through, and
+solicited his appetite with her choicest appliances,--of which he
+partook in a measure which showed that there was no immediate cause of
+alarm.
+
+But Susan Posey was more than a consoler,--she was an angel to him in
+this time of his disappointment. "Read me all the poems over again," she
+said,--"it is almost the only pleasure I have left, to hear you read
+your beautiful verses." Clement Lindsay had not written to Susan quite
+as often of late as at some former periods of the history of their love.
+Perhaps it was that which had made her look paler than usual for some
+little time. Something was evidently preying on her. Her only delight
+seemed to be in listening to Gifted as he read, sometimes with fine
+declamatory emphasis, sometimes in low, tremulous tones, the various
+poems enshrined in his manuscript. At other times she was sad, and more
+than once Mrs. Hopkins had seen a tear steal down her innocent cheek,
+when there seemed to be no special cause for grief. She ventured to
+speak of it to Master Byles Gridley.
+
+"Our Susan's in trouble, Mr. Gridley, for some reason or other that's
+unbeknown to me, and I can't help wishing you could jest have a few
+words with her. You're a kind of a grandfather, you know, to all the
+young folks, and they'd tell you pretty much everything about
+themselves. I calc'late she isn't at ease in her mind about somethin' or
+other, and I kind o' think, Mr. Gridley, you could coax it out of her."
+
+"Was there ever anything like it?" said Master Byles Gridley to himself.
+"I shall have all the young folks in Oxbow Village to take care of at
+this rate! Susan Posey in trouble, too! Well, well, well, it's easier to
+get a birch-bark canoe off the shallows than a big ship off the rocks.
+Susan Posey's trouble will be come at easily enough; but Myrtle Hazard
+floats in deeper water. We must make Susan Posey tell her own story, or
+let her tell it, for it will all come out of itself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I am going to dust the books in the open shelves this morning. I wonder
+if Miss Susan Posey wouldn't like to help for half an hour or so,"
+Master Gridley remarked at the breakfast-table.
+
+The amiable girl's very pleasant countenance lighted up at the thought
+of obliging the old man who had been so kind to her and so liberal to
+her friend, the poet. She would be delighted to help him; she would dust
+them all for him, if he wanted her to. No, Master Gridley said, he
+always wanted to have a hand in it; and, besides, such a little body as
+she was could not lift those great folios out of the lower shelves
+without overstraining herself; she might handle the musketry and the
+light artillery, but he must deal with the heavy guns himself. "As low
+down as the octavos, Susan Posey, you shall govern; below that, the
+Salic law."
+
+Susan did not know much about the Salic law; but she knew he meant that
+he would dust the big books and she would attend to the little ones.
+
+A very young and a very pretty girl is sometimes quite charming in a
+costume which thinks of nothing less than of being attractive. Susan
+appeared after breakfast in the study, her head bound with a kerchief of
+bright pattern, a little jacket she had outgrown buttoned, in spite of
+opposition, close about her up to the throat, round which a white
+handkerchief was loosely tied, and a pair of old gauntlets protecting
+her hands, so that she suggested something between a gypsy, a jaunty
+_soubrette_, and the _fille du regiment_.
+
+Master Gridley took out a great volume from the lower shelf,--a folio in
+massive oaken covers with clasps like prison hinges, bearing the stately
+colophon, white on a ground of vermilion, of Nicholas Jenson and his
+associates. He opened the volume,--paused over its blue and scarlet
+initial letter,--he turned page after page, admiring its brilliant
+characters, its broad, white marginal rivers, and the narrower white
+creek that separated the black-typed twin-columns,--he turned back to
+the beginning and read the commendatory paragraph, "_Nam ipsorum omnia
+fulgent tum correctione dignissima, tum cura imprimendo splendida ac
+miranda_," and began reading, "_Incipit proemium super apparatum
+decretalium_ ..." when it suddenly occurred to him that this was not
+exactly doing what he had undertaken to do, and he began whisking an
+ancient bandanna about the ears of the venerable volume. All this time
+Miss Susan Posey was catching the little books by the small of their
+backs, pulling them out, opening them, and clapping them together,
+'p-'p-'p! 'p-'p-'p! and carefully caressing all their edges with a
+regular professional dusting-cloth, so persuasively that they yielded up
+every particle that a year had drifted upon them, and came forth
+refreshed and rejuvenated. This process went on for a while, until Susan
+had worked down among the octavos, and Master Gridley had worked up
+among the quartos. He had got hold of Calmet's Dictionary, and was
+caught by the article Solomon, so that he forgot his occupation again.
+All at once it struck him that everything was very silent,--the
+'p-'p-'p! of clapping the books had ceased, and the light rustle of
+Susan's dress was no longer heard. He looked up and saw her standing
+perfectly still, with a book in one hand and her duster in the other.
+She was lost in thought, and by the shadow on her face and the
+glistening of her blue eyes he knew it was her hidden sorrow that had
+just come back to her. Master Gridley shut up his book, leaving Solomon
+to his fate, like the worthy Benedictine he was reading, without
+discussing the question whether he was saved or not.
+
+"Susan Posey, child, what is your trouble?"
+
+Poor Susan was in the state of unstable equilibrium which the least
+touch upsets, and fell to crying. It took her some time to get down the
+waves of emotion so that speech would live upon them. At last it
+ventured out,--showing at intervals, like the boat rising on the billow,
+sinking into the hollow, and climbing again into notice.
+
+"O Mr. Grid--ley--I can't--I can't--tell you or--any--body--what's the
+mat--mat--matter.--My heart will br--br--break."
+
+"No, no, no, child," said Mr. Gridley, sympathetically stirred a little
+himself by the sight of Susan in tears and sobbing and catching her
+breath, "that mustn't be, Susan Posey. Come off the steps, Susan Posey,
+and stop dusting the books,--I can finish them,--and tell me all about
+your troubles. I will try to help you out of them, and I have begun to
+think I know how to help young people pretty well. I have had some
+experience at it."
+
+But Susan cried and sobbed all the more uncontrollably and convulsively.
+Master Gridley thought he had better lead her at once to what he felt
+pretty sure was the source of her troubles, and that, when she had had
+her cry out, she would probably make the hole in the ice he had broken
+big enough in a very few minutes.
+
+"I think something has gone wrong between you and your friend, the young
+gentleman with whom you are in intimate relations, my child, and I think
+you had better talk freely with me, for I can perhaps give you a little
+counsel that will be of service."
+
+Susan cried herself quiet at last. "There's nobody in the world like
+you, Mr. Gridley," she said, "and I've been wanting to tell you
+something ever so long. My friend--Mr. Clem--Clement Lindsay doesn't
+care for me as he used to,--I know he doesn't. He hasn't written to me
+for--I don't know but it's a month. And O Mr. Gridley! he's such a great
+man, and I am such a simple person,--I can't help thinking--he would be
+happier with somebody else than poor little Susan Posey!"
+
+This last touch of self-pity overcame her, as it is so apt to do those
+who indulge in that delightful misery, and she broke up badly, as a
+horse-fancier would say, so that it was some little time before she
+recovered her conversational road-gait.
+
+"O Mr. Gridley," she began again, at length, "if I only dared to tell
+him what I think,--that perhaps it would be happier for us both--if we
+could forget each other! Ought I not to tell him so? _Don't_ you think
+he would find another to make him happy? _Wouldn't_ he forgive me for
+telling him he was free? _Were_ we not too young to know each other's
+hearts when we promised each other that we would love as long as we
+lived? _Sha'n't_ I write him a letter this very day and tell him all?
+_Do_ you think it would be wrong in me to do it? O Mr. Gridley, it makes
+me almost crazy to think about it. Clement must be free! I cannot,
+cannot hold him to a promise he doesn't want to keep."
+
+There were so many questions in this eloquent rhapsody of Susan's that
+they neutralized each other, as one might say, and Master Gridley had
+time for reflection. His thoughts went on something in this way:--
+
+"Pretty clear case! Guess Mr. Clement can make up his mind to it. Put it
+well, didn't she? Not a word about our little Gifted! That's the
+trouble. Poets! how they do bewitch these school-girls! And having a
+chance every day, too, how could you expect her to stand it?" Then
+aloud: "Susan Posey, you are a good, honest little girl as ever was. I
+think you and Clement _were_ too hasty in coming together for life
+before you knew what life meant. I think if you write Clement a letter,
+telling him that you cannot help fearing that you two are not perfectly
+adapted to each other, on account of certain differences for which
+neither of you is responsible, and that you propose that each should
+release the other from the pledge given so long ago,--in that case, I
+say, I believe he will think no worse of you for so doing, and may
+perhaps agree that it is best for both of you to seek your happiness
+elsewhere than in each other."
+
+The book-dusting came to as abrupt a close as the reading of Lancelot.
+Susan went straight to her room, dried her tears so as to write in a
+fair hand, but had to stop every few lines and take a turn at the
+"dust-layers," as Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's friend used to call the
+fountains of sensibility. It would seem like betraying Susan's
+confidence to reveal the contents of this letter, but the reader may be
+assured that it was simple and sincere and very sweetly written, without
+the slightest allusion to any other young man, whether of the poetical
+or cheaper human varieties.
+
+It was not long before Susan received a reply from Clement Lindsay. It
+was as kind and generous and noble as she could have asked. It was
+affectionate, as a very amiable brother's letter might be, and candidly
+appreciative of the reasons Susan had assigned for her proposal. He gave
+her back her freedom,--not that he should cease to feel an interest in
+her, always. He accepted his own release, not that he would ever think
+she could be indifferent to his future fortunes. And within a very brief
+period of time after sending his answer to Susan Posey, whether he
+wished to see her in person, or whether he had some other motive, he had
+packed his trunk, and made his excuses for an absence of uncertain
+length at the studio, and was on his way to Oxbow Village.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+JUST AS YOU EXPECTED.
+
+The spring of 1861 had now arrived,--that eventful spring which was to
+lift the curtain and show the first scene of the first act in the mighty
+drama which fixed the eyes of mankind during four bloody years. The
+little schemes of little people were going on in all our cities and
+villages without thought of the fearful convulsion which was soon coming
+to shatter the hopes and prospects of millions. Our little Oxbow
+Village, which held itself by no means the least of human centres, was
+the scene of its own commotions, as intense and exciting to those
+concerned as if the destiny of the nation had been involved in them.
+
+Mr. Clement Lindsay appeared suddenly in that important locality, and
+repaired to his accustomed quarters at the house of Deacon Rumrill. That
+worthy person received him with a certain gravity of manner, caused by
+his recollection of the involuntary transgression into which Mr. Lindsay
+had led him by his present of Ivanhoe. He was, on the whole, glad to see
+him, for his finances were not yet wholly recovered from the injury
+inflicted on them by the devouring element. But he could not forget
+that his boarder had betrayed him into a breach of the fourth
+commandment, and that the strict eyes of his clergyman had detected him
+in the very commission of the offence. He had no sooner seen Mr. Clement
+comfortably installed, therefore, than he presented himself at the door
+of his chamber with the book, enveloped in strong paper and very
+securely tied round with a stout string.
+
+"Here is your vollum, Mr. Lindsay," the Deacon said. "I understand it is
+not the work of that great and good mahn who I thought wrote it. I did
+not see anything immoral in it as fur as I read, but it belongs to what
+I consider a very dangerous class of publications. These novels and
+romances are awfully destructive to our youth. I should recommend you,
+as a young mahn of principle, to burn the vollum. At least I hope you
+will not leave it about anywhere unless it is carefully tied up. I have
+written upon the paper round it to warn off all the young persons of my
+household from meddling with it."
+
+True enough, Mr. Clement saw in strong black letters on the back of the
+paper wrapping his unfortunate Ivanhoe,--
+
+    "DANGEROUS READING FOR CHRISTIAN YOUTH.
+
+    "TOUCH NOT THE UNCLEAN THING."
+
+"I thought you said you had Scott's picture hung up in your parlor,
+Deacon Rumrill," he said, a little amused with the worthy man's fear and
+precautions.
+
+"It is _the great_ Scott's likeness that I have in my parlor," he said;
+"I will show it to you if you will come with me."
+
+Mr. Clement followed the Deacon into that sacred apartment.
+
+"That is the portrait of the great Scott," he said, pointing to an
+engraving of a heavy-looking person whose phrenological developments
+were a somewhat striking contrast to those of the distinguished Sir
+Walter.
+
+"I will take good care that none of your young people see this volume,"
+Mr. Clement said; "I trust you read it yourself, however, and found
+something to please you in it. I am sure you are safe from being harmed
+by any such book. Didn't you have to finish it, Deacon, after you had
+once begun?"
+
+"Well,--I--I--perused a consid'able portion of the work," the Deacon
+answered, in a way that led Mr. Clement to think he had not stopped much
+short of _Finis_. "Anything new in the city?"
+
+"Nothing except what you've all had,--Confederate States establishing an
+army and all that,--not very new either. What has been going on here
+lately, Deacon?"
+
+"Well, Mr. Lindsay, not a great deal. My new barn is pretty nigh done.
+I've got as fine a litter of pigs as ever you see. I don't know whether
+you're a judge of pigs or no. The Hazard gal's come back, spilt, pooty
+much, I guess. Been to one o' them fashionable schools,--I've heerd that
+she's learnt to dance. I've heerd say that that Hopkins boy's round the
+Posey gal,--come to think, she's the one you went with some when you was
+here,--I'm gettin' kind o' forgetful. Old Doctor Hurlbut's pretty
+low,--ninety-four year old,--born in '67,--folks ain't ginerally very
+spry after they're ninety, but he held out wonderful."
+
+"How's Mr. Bradshaw?"
+
+"Well, the young squire, he's off travellin' somewhere in the West, or
+to Washin'ton, or somewhere else,--I don't jestly know where. They say
+that he's follerin' up the courts in the business about old Malachi's
+estate. I don' know much about it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The news got round Oxbow Village very speedily that Mr. Clement Lindsay,
+generally considered the accepted lover of Miss Susan Posey, had arrived
+in that place. Now it had come to be the common talk of the village that
+young Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey were getting to be mighty thick
+with each other, and the prevailing idea was that Clement's visit had
+reference to that state of affairs. Some said that Susan had given her
+young man the mitten, meaning thereby that she had signified that his
+services as a suitor were dispensed with. Others thought there was only
+a wavering in her affection for her lover, and that he feared for her
+constancy, and had come to vindicate his rights.
+
+Some of the young fellows, who were doubtless envious of Gifted's
+popularity with the fair sex, attempted in the most unjustifiable manner
+to play upon his susceptible nature. One of them informed him that he
+had seen that Lindsay fellah raound taown with the darndest big stick y'
+ever did see. Looked kind o' savage and wild like. Another one told him
+that perhaps he'd better keep a little shady; that are chap that had got
+the mittin was praowlin' abaout with a pistil,--one o' them Darringers
+abaout as long as your thumb, an' 'll fire a bullet as big as a
+potato-ball,--a fellah carries one in his breeches-pocket, an' shoots y'
+right threugh his own pahnts, withaout ever takin' on it aout of his
+pocket. The stable-keeper, who it may be remembered once exchanged a few
+playful words with Mr. Gridley, got a hint from some of these unfeeling
+young men, and offered the resources of his stable to the youth supposed
+to be in peril.
+
+"I've got a faaest colt, Mr. Hopkins, that'll put twenty mild between you
+an' this here village, as quick as any four huffs'll dew it in this here
+caounty, if you _should_ want to git away suddin. I've heern tell there
+was some lookin' raound here that wouldn't be wholesome to meet,--jest
+say the word, Mr. Hopkins, an' I'll have ye on that are colt's back in
+less than no time, an' start ye off full jump. There's a good many
+that's kind o' worried for fear something might happen to ye, Mr.
+Hopkins,--y' see fellahs don't like to have other chaps cuttin' on 'em
+aout with their gals."
+
+Gifted Hopkins had become excessively nervous by this time. It is true
+that everything in his intimacy with Susan Posey so far might come under
+the general head of friendship; but he was conscious that something more
+was in both their thoughts. Susan had given him mysterious hints that
+her relations with Clement had undergone a change, but had never had
+quite courage enough, perhaps had too much delicacy, to reveal the whole
+truth.
+
+Gifted was walking home, deeply immersed in thoughts excited by the
+hints which had been thus wantonly thrown out to inflame his
+imagination, when all at once, on lifting his eyes, he saw Clement
+Lindsay coming straight towards him. Gifted was unarmed, except with a
+pair of blunt scissors, which he carried habitually in his pocket. What
+should he do? Should he fly? But he was never a good runner, being apt
+to find himself scant o' breath, like Hamlet, after violent exercise.
+His demeanor on the occasion, did credit to his sense of his own
+virtuous conduct and his self-possession. He put his hand out, while yet
+at a considerable distance, and marched up towards Clement, smiling with
+all the native amiability which belonged to him.
+
+To his infinite relief, Clement put out _his_ hand to grasp the one
+offered him, and greeted the young poet in the most frank and cordial
+manner.
+
+"And how is Miss Susan Posey, Mr. Hopkins?" asked Clement, in the most
+cheerful tone. "It is a long while since I have seen her, and you must
+tell her that I hope I shall not leave the village without finding time
+to call upon her. She and I are good friends always, Mr. Hopkins, though
+perhaps I shall not be quite so often at your mother's as I was during
+my last visit to Oxbow Village."
+
+Gifted felt somewhat as the subject of one of those old-fashioned forms
+of argument, formerly much employed to convince men of error in matters
+of religion, must have felt when the official who superintended the
+stretching-machine said, "Slack up!"
+
+He told Mr. Clement all about Susan, and was on the point of saying
+that if he, Mr. Clement, did not claim any engrossing interest in her,
+he, Gifted, was ready to offer her the devotion of a poet's heart. Mr.
+Clement, however, had so many other questions to ask him about everybody
+in the village, more particularly concerning certain young persons in
+whom he seemed to be specially interested, that there was no chance to
+work in his own revelations of sentiment.
+
+Clement Lindsay had come to Oxbow Village with a single purpose. He
+could now venture to trust himself in the presence of Myrtle Hazard. He
+was free, and he knew nothing to show that she had lost the liberty of
+disposing of her heart. But after an experience such as he had gone
+through, he was naturally distrustful of himself, and inclined to be
+cautious and reserved in yielding to a new passion. Should he tell her
+the true relations in which they stood to each other,--that she owed her
+life to him, and that he had very nearly sacrificed his own in saving
+hers? Why not? He had a claim on her gratitude for what he had done in
+her behalf, and out of this gratitude there might naturally spring a
+warmer feeling.
+
+No, he could not try to win her affections by showing that he had paid
+for them beforehand. She seemed to be utterly unconscious of the fact
+that it was he who had been with her in the abyss of waters. If the
+thought came to her of itself, and she ever asked him, it would be time
+enough to tell her the story. If not, the moment might arrive when he
+could reveal to her the truth that he was her deliverer, without
+accusing himself of bribing her woman's heart to reward him for his
+services. He would wait for that moment.
+
+It was the most natural thing in the world that Mr. Lindsay, a young
+gentleman from the city, should call to see Miss Hazard, a young lady
+whom he had met recently at a party. To that pleasing duty he addressed
+himself the evening after his arrival.
+
+"The young gentleman's goin' a courtin', I calc'late," was the remark
+of the Deacon's wife when she saw what a handsome figure Mr. Clement
+was making at the tea-table.
+
+"A very hahnsome young mahn," the Deacon replied, "and looks as if he
+might know consid'able. An architect, you know,--a sort of a builder.
+Wonder if he hasn't got any good plans for a hahnsome pigsty. I suppose
+he'd charge somethin' for one, but it couldn't be much, an' he could
+take it out in board."
+
+"Better ask him," his wife said; "he looks mighty pleasant; there's
+nothin' lost by askin', an' a good deal got sometimes, grandma used to
+say."
+
+The Deacon followed her advice. Mr. Clement was perfectly good-natured
+about it, asked the Deacon the number of snouts in his menagerie, got an
+idea of the accommodations required, and sketched the plan of a neat and
+appropriate edifice for the _Porcellarium_, as Master Gridley afterwards
+pleasantly christened it, which was carried out by the carpenter, and
+stands to this day a monument of his obliging disposition, and a proof
+that there is nothing so humble that taste cannot be shown in it.
+
+"What'll be your charge for the plan of the pigsty, Mr. Lindsay?" the
+Deacon inquired with an air of interest,--he might have been involved
+more deeply than he had intended. "How much should you call about right
+for the picter an' figgerin'?"
+
+"O, you're quite welcome to my sketch of a plan, Deacon. I've seen much
+showier buildings tenanted by animals not very different from those your
+edifice is meant for."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Clement found the three ladies sitting together in the chill, dim
+parlor at The Poplars. They had one of the city papers spread out on the
+table, and Myrtle was reading aloud the last news from Charleston
+Harbor. She rose as Mr. Clement entered, and stepped forward to meet
+him. It was a strange impression this young man produced upon her,--not
+through the common channels of the intelligence,--not exactly that
+"magnetic" influence of which she had had experience at a former time.
+It did not overcome her as at the moment of their second meeting. But it
+was something she must struggle against, and she had force and pride and
+training enough now to maintain her usual tranquillity, in spite of a
+certain inward commotion which seemed to reach her breathing and her
+pulse by some strange, inexplicable mechanism.
+
+Myrtle, it must be remembered, was no longer the simple country girl who
+had run away at fifteen, but a young lady of seventeen, who had learned
+all that more than a year's diligence at a great school could teach her,
+who had been much with girls of taste and of culture, and was familiar
+with the style and manners of those who came from what considered itself
+the supreme order in the social hierarchy. Her natural love for
+picturesque adornment was qualified by a knowledge of the prevailing
+modes not usual in so small a place as Oxbow Village. All this had not
+failed to produce its impression on those about her. Persons who, like
+Miss Silence Withers, believe, not in education, inasmuch as there is no
+healthy nature to be educated, but in transformation, worry about their
+charges up to a certain period of their lives. Then, if the
+transformation does not come, they seem to think their cares and duties
+are at an end, and, considering their theories of human destiny, usually
+accept the situation with wonderful complacency. This was the stage
+which Miss Silence Withers had reached with reference to Myrtle. It made
+her infinitely more agreeable, or less disagreeable, as the reader may
+choose one or the other statement, than when she was always fretting
+about her "responsibility." She even began to take an interest in some
+of Myrtle's worldly experiences, and something like a smile would now
+and then disarrange the chief-mourner stillness of her features, as
+Myrtle would tell some lively story she had brought away from the gay
+society she had frequented.
+
+Cynthia Badlam kept her keen eyes on her like a hawk. Murray Bradshaw
+was away, and here was this handsome and agreeable youth coming in to
+poach on the preserve of which she considered herself the gamekeeper.
+What did it mean? She had heard the story about Susan's being off with
+her old love and on with a new one. Ah ha! this is the game, is it?
+
+Clement Lindsay passed not so much a pleasant evening, as one of
+strange, perplexed, and mingled delight and inward conflict. He had
+found his marble once more turned to flesh and blood, and breathing
+before him. This was the woman he was born for; her form was fit to
+model his proudest ideal from,--her eyes melted him when they rested for
+an instant on his face,--her voice reached those hidden sensibilities of
+his inmost nature, which never betray their existence until the outward
+chord to which they vibrate in response sends its message to stir them.
+But was she not already pledged to that other,--that cold-blooded,
+contriving, venal, cynical, selfish, polished, fascinating man of the
+world, whose artful strategy would pass with nine women out of ten for
+the most romantic devotion?
+
+If he had known the impression he made, he would have felt less anxiety
+with reference to this particular possibility. Miss Silence expressed
+herself gratified with his appearance, and thought he looked like a good
+young man,--he reminded her of a young friend of hers who--[It was the
+same who had gone to one of the cannibal islands as a missionary,--and
+stayed there.] Myrtle was very quiet. She had nothing to say about
+Clement, except that she had met him at a party in the city, and found
+him agreeable. Miss Cynthia wrote a letter to Murray Bradshaw that very
+evening, telling him that he had better come back to Oxbow Village as
+quickly as he could, unless he wished to find his place occupied by an
+intruder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the mean time, the country was watching the garrison in Charleston
+Harbor. All at once the first gun of the four years' cannonade hurled
+its ball against the walls of Fort Sumter. There was no hamlet in the
+land which the reverberations of that cannon-roar did not reach. There
+was no valley so darkened by overshadowing hills that it did not see the
+American flag hauled down on the 13th of April. There was no loyal heart
+in the North that did not answer to the call of the country to its
+defenders which went forth two days later. The great tide of feeling
+reached the locality where the lesser events of our narrative were
+occurring. A meeting of the citizens was instantly called. The venerable
+Father Pemberton opened it with a prayer that filled every soul with
+courage and high resolve. The young farmers and mechanics of that whole
+region joined the companies to which they belonged, or organized in
+squads and marched at once, or got ready to march, to the scene of
+conflict.
+
+The contagion of warlike patriotism reached the most peacefully inclined
+young persons.
+
+"My country calls me," Gifted Hopkins said to Susan Posey, "and I am
+preparing to obey her summons. If I can pass the medical examination,
+which it is possible I may, though I fear my constitution _may_ be
+thought too weak, and if no obstacle impedes me, I think of marching in
+the ranks of the Oxbow Invincibles. If I go, Susan, and if I fall, will
+you not remember me ... as one who ... cherished the tenderest ...
+sentiments ... towards you ... and who had looked forward to the time
+when ... when...."
+
+His eyes told the rest. He loved!
+
+Susan forgot all the rules of reserve to which she had been trained.
+What were cold conventionalities at such a moment? "Never! never!" she
+said, throwing her arms about his neck and mingling her tears with his,
+which were flowing freely. "Your country does not need your sword,...
+but it does need ... your pen. Your poems will inspire ... our
+soldiers.... The Oxbow Invincibles will march to victory, singing your
+songs.... If you go ... and if you ... fall.... O Gifted!... I ... I ...
+yes I ... shall die too!"
+
+His love was returned. He was blest!
+
+"Susan," he said, "my own Susan, I yield to your wishes, at every
+sacrifice. Henceforth they will be my law. Yes, I will stay and
+encourage my brave countrymen to go forward to the bloody field. My
+voice shall urge them on to the battle-ground. I will give my dearest
+breath to stimulate their ardor.... O Susan! My own, own Susan!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While these interesting events had been going on beneath the modest roof
+of the Widow Hopkins, affairs had been rapidly hastening to a similar
+conclusion under the statelier shadow of The Poplars. Clement Lindsay
+was so well received at his first visit that he ventured to repeat it
+several times, with so short intervals that it implied something more
+than a common interest in one of the members of the household. There was
+no room for doubt who this could be, and Myrtle Hazard could not help
+seeing that she was the object of his undisguised admiration. The belief
+was now general in the village that Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey were
+either engaged, or on the point of being so; and it was equally
+understood that, whatever might be the explanation, she and her former
+lover had parted company in an amicable manner.
+
+Love works very strange transformations in young women. Sometimes it
+leads them to try every mode of adding to their attractions,--their
+whole thought is how to be most lovely in the eyes they would fill so as
+to keep out all other images. Poor darlings! We smile at their little
+vanities, as if they were very trivial things compared with the last
+Congressman's speech or the great election sermon; but Nature knows well
+what she is about. The maiden's ribbon or ruffle means a great deal more
+for her than the judge's wig or the priest's surplice.
+
+It was not in this way that the gentle emotion awaking in the breast of
+Myrtle Hazard betrayed itself. As the thought dawned in her
+consciousness that she was loved, a change came over her such as the
+spirit that protected her, according to the harmless fancy she had
+inherited, might have wept for joy to behold, if tears could flow from
+angelic eyes. She forgot herself and her ambitions,--the thought of
+shining in the great world died out in the presence of new visions of a
+future in which she was not to be her own,--of feelings in the depth of
+which the shallow vanities which had drawn her young eyes to them for a
+while seemed less than nothing. Myrtle had not hitherto said to herself
+that Clement was her lover, yet her whole nature was expanding and
+deepening in the light of that friendship which any other eye could have
+known at a glance for the great passion.
+
+Cynthia Badlam wrote a pressing letter to Murray Bradshaw. "There is no
+time to be lost; she is bewitched, and will be gone beyond hope if this
+business is not put a stop to."
+
+Love moves in an accelerating ratio; and there comes a time when the
+progress of the passion escapes from all human formulae, and brings two
+young hearts, which had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer
+together, into complete union, with a suddenness that puts an infinity
+between the moment when all is told and that which went just before.
+
+They were sitting together by themselves in the dimly lighted parlor.
+They had told each other many experiences of their past lives, very
+freely, as two intimate friends of different sex might do. Clement had
+happened to allude to Susan, speaking very kindly and tenderly of her.
+He hoped this youth to whom she was attached would make her life happy.
+"You know how simple-hearted and good she is; her image will always be a
+pleasant one in my memory,--second to but one other."
+
+Myrtie ought, according to the common rules of conversation, to have
+asked, _What other?_ but she did not. She may have looked as if she
+wanted to ask,--she may have blushed or turned pale,--perhaps she could
+not trust her voice; but whatever the reason was, she sat still, with
+downcast eyes. Clement waited a reasonable time, but, finding it was of
+no use, began again.
+
+"_Your_ image is the one other,--the only one, let me say, for all else
+fades in its presence,--your image fills all my thought. Will you trust
+your life and happiness with one who can offer you so little beside his
+love? You know my whole heart is yours."
+
+Whether Myrtle said anything in reply or not,--whether she acted like
+Coleridge's Genevieve,--that is, "fled to him and wept," or suffered her
+feelings to betray themselves in some less startling confession, we will
+leave untold. Her answer, spoken or silent, could not have been a cruel
+one, for in another moment Clement was pressing his lips to hers; after
+the manner of accepted lovers.
+
+"Our lips have met to-day for the second time," he said, presently.
+
+She looked at him in wonder. What did he mean? The second time! How
+assuredly he spoke! She looked him calmly in the face, and awaited his
+explanation.
+
+"I have a singular story to tell you. On the morning of the 16th of
+June, now nearly two years ago, I was sitting in my room at Alderbank,
+some twenty miles down the river, when I heard a cry for help coming
+from the river. I ran down to the bank, and there I saw a boy in an old
+boat--"
+
+When it came to the "boy" in the old boat, Myrtle's cheeks flamed so
+that she could not bear it, and she covered her face with both her
+hands. But Clement told his story calmly through to the end, sliding
+gently over its later incidents, for Myrtle's heart was throbbing
+violently, and her breath a little catching and sighing, as when she had
+first lived with the new life his breath had given her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Why did you ask me for myself, when you could have claimed me?" she
+said.
+
+"I wanted a free gift, Myrtle," Clement answered, "and I have it."
+
+They sat in silence, lost in the sense of that new life which had
+suddenly risen on their souls.
+
+The door-bell rang sharply. Kitty Fagan answered its summons, and
+presently entered the parlor and announced that Mr. Bradshaw was in the
+library, and wished to see the ladies.
+
+
+
+
+OPINIONS OF THE LATE DR. NOTT RESPECTING BOOKS, STUDIES, AND ORATORS.
+
+
+During the summer of 1833, several professional gentlemen, clergymen,
+lawyers, and educators were spending their vacation at Saratoga Springs.
+Among them was Dr. Nott. He was then regarded as a veteran teacher,
+whose long experience and acknowledged wisdom gave a peculiar value to
+his matured opinions. The younger members of this little circle of
+scholars, taking their ease at their inn, purposely sought to "draw out"
+the Doctor upon those topics in which they felt an especial interest.
+They were, therefore, in their leisure moments, constantly hearing and
+asking him questions. One of them, then a tutor in Dartmouth College,
+took notes of the conversations, and the following dialogue is copied
+from his manuscript:--
+
+_Mr. C._ "Doctor, how long have you been at the head of Union College?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "Thirty years. I am the oldest _president_ in the United
+States, though not the oldest man in office. I cannot drop down anywhere
+in the Union without meeting some one of my _children_."
+
+_Mr. C._ "And that, too, though so many of them are dead! I believe that
+nearly half of my class are dead!"
+
+_Dr. N._ "Indeed! That is a large proportion to die so soon. I think it
+remarkable that so few deaths have occurred among the members of the
+college since I have been connected with it. I can distinctly recollect
+all the individuals who have died at college, and during thirty years
+there have been but _seven_. The proportion has been less than one third
+of one per cent. Very many have died, however, very soon after leaving
+college. Two or three in almost every class have died within a year
+after they have graduated. I have been at a loss as to the cause of this
+marked difference. I can assign no other than the sudden change which
+then takes place in the student's whole manner and habits of living,
+diet, &c."
+
+_Mr. C._ "How do the students generally answer the expectations they
+have raised during their college course?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "I have been rarely disappointed. I have found my little
+anticipatory notes generally fulfilled. I recollect, however, one class,
+which graduated four or five years ago, in regard to which I have been
+very happily disappointed. It had given us more trouble, and there were
+more sceptics in it than in any other class we ever had. But now every
+one of those infidels except _one_ is studying for the ministry."
+
+_Mr. C._ "What course do you take with a sceptical student?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "I remember a very interesting case I had several years ago.
+There was a young man in college of fine talents, an excellent and
+exemplary student, but an atheist. He roomed near me. I was interested
+in him; but I feared his influence. It was very injurious in college,
+and yet he did nothing worthy of censure. I called him one day to my
+study. I questioned him familiarly and kindly in relation to his
+speculative views. He said he was not an atheist, but had very serious
+doubts and difficulties on the subject, and frankly stated them to me. I
+did not talk with him _religiously_, but as a philosopher. I did not
+think he would bear it. I told him that I felt a peculiar sympathy with
+young men in his state of mind; for once, during the French Revolution,
+I had been troubled with the same difficulties myself. I had been over
+that whole ground; and would gladly assist his inquiries, and direct him
+to such authors as I thought would aid him in his investigations after
+truth. As he left my study, I said, 'Now, I expect yet to see you a
+minister of the Gospel!' He returned to his room; he paced it with
+emotion; said he to his room-mate (these facts his room-mate
+communicated to me within a year), 'What do you think the President
+says?' 'I don't know.' 'He says he expects yet to see me a minister. I a
+minister! I a minister!'--and he continued to walk the room, and
+reiterate the words. No immediate effect on his character was produced.
+But the _prophetic_ words (for so he seemed to regard them) clung to him
+as a magic talisman, and would never leave his mind; and he is now a
+pious man, and a student in divinity."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Doctor, we have been seeking amusement and profit by some
+exercises in elocution. Mr. G---- and myself have been trying to read
+Shakespeare a little; but some gentlemen here have had some qualms of
+conscience as to the propriety of it, and have condemned the reading of
+Shakespeare as demoralizing. What is your opinion, sir?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "Why, as to that matter, sir, I always say to my young men,
+'Gentlemen, if you wish to get a knowledge of the world and of human
+nature, read the Bible. The Bible is the first and best book that can be
+studied for the exhibition of human character; and the man who goes out
+into the world expecting to find men just such as Moses and Paul have
+represented them will never be disappointed. If you are contented to
+read nothing but your Bibles, _well, you have it all there_. But if you
+will read any other books, read Homer and Shakespeare. They come nearer,
+in my estimation, to Moses and Paul, in their delineations of human
+character, than any other authors I am acquainted with. I would have
+every young man read Shakespeare. I have always taught my children to
+read it.' Ministers, as a class, know less practically of human nature
+than any other _class_ of men. As I belong to the fraternity, I can say
+this without prejudice. Men are reserved in the presence of a
+respectable clergyman. I might live in Schenectady, and discharge all my
+appropriate duties from year to year, and never hear an oath, nor see a
+man drunk; and if some one should ask me, 'What sort of a population
+have you in Schenectady? Are they a moral people? Do they swear? Do they
+get drunk?' for aught that I had seen or heard, I might answer, 'This
+is, after all, a very decent world. There is very little vice in it.
+People have entirely left off the sin of profaneness; and, as to
+intemperance, there is very little of that.' But I can put on my old
+great-coat, and an old slouching hat, and in five minutes place myself
+amid the scenes of blasphemy and vice and misery, which I never could
+have believed to exist if I had not seen them. So a man may walk along
+Broadway, and think to himself, 'What a fine place this is! How civil
+the people are! What a decent and orderly and virtuous city New York
+is!'--while, at the same time, within thirty rods of him are scenes of
+pollution and crime such as none but an eyewitness can adequately
+imagine. I would have a minister _see_ the world for himself. _It is
+rotten to the core._ Ministers ordinarily see only the brighter side of
+the world. Almost everybody treats them with civility; the religious,
+with peculiar kindness and attention. Hence they are apt to think too
+well of the world. Lawyers, on the other hand, think too ill of it. They
+see only, or for the most part, its worst side. They are brought in
+contact with dishonesty and villany in their worst developments. I have
+observed, in doing business with lawyers, that they are exceedingly
+hawk-eyed, and jealous of everybody. The omission of a word or letter in
+a will, they will scan with the closest scrutiny; and while I could see
+no use for any but the most concise and simple terms to express the
+wishes of the testator, a lawyer would be satisfied with nothing but the
+most precise and formal instrument, stuffed full of legal _caveats_ and
+technicalities."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Which do you think excels in eloquence, the bar or the
+pulpit?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "The bar."
+
+_Mr. C._ "To what causes do you ascribe the superiority?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "The superior influence of things of sight over those of faith.
+The nearness of objects enhances their importance. The subjects on which
+the lawyer speaks come home to men's business and bosoms. Some present,
+immediate object is to be gained. The lawyer _feels_, and he aims to
+accomplish something. But ministers have plunged into the metaphysics of
+religion, and gone about to inculcate the peculiarities of a system, and
+have neither felt themselves, nor been able to make others feel. It has
+long been a most interesting question to me, Why is the ministry so
+inefficient? It has seemed to me, that, with the thousands of pulpits in
+this country for a theatre to act on, and the eye and ear of the whole
+community thus opened to us, we might _overturn the world_. Some ascribe
+this want of efficiency to human depravity. That is not the sole cause
+of it. The clergy want knowledge of human nature. They want directness
+of appeal. They want the same go-ahead common-sense way of interesting
+men which lawyers have."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Ought they not to cultivate elocution?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "It seems to me that at those institutions where they pay the
+most attention to elocution they speak the worst. I have no faith in
+artificial eloquence. Teach men to think and feel, and, when they have
+anything to the purpose to say, they can say it. I should about as soon
+think of teaching a man to weep, or to laugh, or to swallow, as to speak
+when he has anything to say."
+
+_Mr. C._ "How, then, do you account for the astonishing power of some
+tragedians?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "Ah! the speaking in the theatre is all overacted. There is no
+nature in it. Those actors, placed in a public assembly, and called upon
+to address men on some real and momentous occasion, would utterly fail
+to touch men's hearts, while some plain country-man, who had never
+learned a rule of art, would find his way at once to the fountains of
+feeling and action within them. The secret of the influence which is
+felt in the acting of the teatre is _not_ that it is natural. Let a
+_real tragedy_ be acted, and let men _believe_ that a _real_ scene is
+before them, and the theatre would be deserted. No audience in this
+country could bear the presentation of a natural and real tragedy. Men
+go to the theatre to be amused. The scenery, the music, the attitudes,
+the gesticulations, all unite to fix attention and amuse; but the
+eloquence, so called, of the theatre, is all factitious, and is no more
+adapted to the real occasions of life than would be the recitative in
+singing, and it pleases on the same principle that _this does_."
+
+_Mr. C._ "But, Doctor, why was it that, when Cooke or Kean appeared on
+the stage, he engrossed all eyes and ears, and nothing was heard or seen
+or thought of but himself? The acting of Kean was just as irresistible
+as the whirlwind. He would take up an audience of three thousand in his
+fist, as it were, and carry them just where he pleased, through every
+extreme of passion."
+
+_Dr. N._ "because these actors were great men. Cooke, as far as I have
+been able to learn, (I never saw him,--I had once an engagement to meet
+him in Philadelphia, but he was drunk at the time, and disappointed me,)
+was perfectly _natural_. So I suppose Kean to have been. So Garrick was,
+and Talma. And the secret of the influence of these men was, that they
+burst the bonds of art and histrionic trick, and stood before their
+audience in their untrammelled natural strength. Garrick, at his first
+appearance, could not command an audience. It was first necessary for
+him entirely to revolutionize the English stage.
+
+"Ministers have, very often, a sanctimonious tone, which by many is
+deemed a symbol of goodness. I would not say it is a symbol of
+hypocrisy, as many very pious men have it. One man acquires a tone, and
+those who study with him learn to associate it with his piety, and come
+to esteem it an essential part of ministerial qualification. But,
+instead of its being to me evidence of feeling, it evinces, in every
+degree of it, want of feeling; and whenever a man rises in his religious
+feelings sufficiently high, he will break away from the shackles of his
+perverse habit, and speak in the tone of nature.
+
+"The most eloquent preacher I have ever heard was Dr. L----. General
+Hamilton at the bar was unrivalled. I heard his great effort in the case
+of People _versus_ Croswell, for a libel upon Jefferson. There was a
+curious changing of sides in the position of the advocates. Spencer, the
+Attorney-General, who had long been climbing the ladder of democracy,
+managed the cause for the people; and Hamilton, esteemed an old-school
+Federalist, appeared as the champion of a free press. Of course, it
+afforded the better opportunity of witnessing the professional skill and
+rhetorical power of the respective advocates.
+
+"Spencer, in the course of his plea, had occasion to refer to certain
+decisions of Lord Mansfield, and embraced the opportunity of introducing
+a splendid _ad captandum_ eulogium on his Lordship,--'A name born for
+immortality; whose sun of fame would never set, but still hold its
+course in the heavens, when the humble names of his antagonist and
+himself should have sunk beneath the waves of oblivion.'
+
+"Hamilton was evidently nettled at this invidious and unnecessary
+comparison, and cast about in his mind how he might retort upon Spencer.
+I do not know that my conjecture is right; but it has always seemed to
+me that his reason for introducing his repartee to Spencer in the odd
+place where he did, just after a most eloquent and pathetic peroration,
+was something as follows--'I have now constructed and arranged my
+argument, and the thread of it must not be broken by the intervention of
+any such extraneous matter. Neither will it do to separate my peroration
+from the main body of my argument. I must, then, give up the opportunity
+of retorting at all, or tack it on after the whole, and take the risk of
+destroying the effect of my argument.'
+
+"He rose, and went through his argument, which was a tissue of the
+clearest, most powerful, and triumphant reasoning. He turned every
+position of his opponent, and took and dismantled every fortification.
+But his peroration was inimitably fine. As he went on to depict the
+horrors consequent upon a muzzled press, there was not a dry eye in the
+court-house. It was the most perfect triumph of eloquence over the
+passions of men I ever witnessed.
+
+"When he had thus brought his speech to its proper, and what would have
+been a perfect close, he suddenly changed his tone, and, in a strain of
+consummate and powerful irony, began to rally his antagonist. He
+assented to the gentleman's eulogium upon Lord Mansfield. It was
+deserved. He acknowledged the justice of his remarks in relation to
+himself (Hamilton) and his ephemeral fame; but he did not see why the
+gentleman should have included himself in the same oblivious sentence.
+His course hitherto in the race of fame had been as successful, for
+aught he knew, as was ever his Lordship's. His strides had been as long
+and as rapid. His disposition, too, to run the race was as eager, and he
+knew no reason why he might not yet soar on stronger pinions, and reach
+a loftier height, than his Lordship had done.
+
+"During the whole reply, the audience were in a titter; and he sat down
+amidst a burst of incontrollable laughter. Said Spencer to him
+frowningly, (I sat by the side of the judges on the bench, and both
+Hamilton and Spencer were within arm's length of me,) 'What do you mean,
+sir?' Said Hamilton, with an arch smile, 'Nothing but a mere
+compliment.' 'Very well, sir, I desire no more such compliments.'"
+
+_Mr. C._ "What was the difference between the oratory of Hamilton and
+that of Burr?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "Burr, above all men whom I ever knew, possessed the most
+consummate tact in evading and covering up the arguments of his
+opponent. His great art was to throw dust in the eyes of the jury, and
+make them believe that there was neither force nor sense nor anything
+else in the arguments of the opposite counsel. He never met a position,
+nor answered an argument, but threw around them the mist of sophistry,
+and thus weakened their force. He was the _prince of plausibilities_. He
+was always on the right side (in his own opinion), and always perfectly
+confident.
+
+"Hamilton, on the other hand, allowed to the arguments of his opponent
+all the weight that could ever be fairly claimed for them, and attacked
+and demolished them with the club of Hercules. He would never engage in
+a cause unless he believed he was on the side of justice; and he often
+threw into the scale of his client the whole weight of his personal
+character and opinion. His opponents frequently complained of the undue
+influence he thus exerted upon the court."
+
+_Mr. C._ "You have heard Webster, I suppose."
+
+_Dr. N._ "I have never heard him speak. I have the pleasure of a slight
+personal acquaintance with him, and, from what I know of him, should
+think he would have less power over the passions of men than Hamilton.
+He is a giant, and deals with _great principles_ rather than passions.
+
+"Bishop McIlvaine will always be heard. He has an elegant form, a fine
+voice, and a brilliant imagination, and he can carry an audience just
+where he pleases."
+
+_Mr. C._ "You, of course, have heard Dr. Cox."
+
+_Dr. N._ "Yes, often. He is an original, powerful man, unequal in his
+performances: sometimes he hits, sometimes he misses; sometimes he rises
+to the sublimity of powerful speaking, and at others sinks below the
+common level."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Have you read his book on Quakerism?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "As much of it as I can. Some Presbyterians like it. For my
+part, I confess I do not. He carries his anti-Quaker antipathies too
+far. It is perfectly natural he should do so. Men who go over from one
+denomination to another always stand up more than straight, and for two
+reasons;--first, to satisfy their new friends that they have heartily
+renounced their former error; secondly, to convince their former friends
+that they had good reasons for desertion. Baptists who have become such
+from Presbyterians are uniformly the most bigoted, and _vice versa_.
+
+"I am disgusted and grieved with the religious controversies of the
+present age. The divisions of schools, old school and new school, and
+the polemical zeal and fury with which the contest is waged, are
+entirely foreign from the true spirit of Christianity. The Christianity
+of the age is, in my view, most unamiable. It has none of those lovely,
+mellow features which distinguished primitive Christianity. If
+Christianity as it now exists should be propagated over the world, and
+thus the millennium be introduced, we should need two or three more
+millenniums before the world would be fit to live in."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Why do you judge so, Doctor?"
+
+_Dr. N._ "By the style of our religious periodicals. If I had suddenly
+dropped down here, and wished to ascertain at a bird's-eye view the
+religious and moral state of the community, I would call for the papers
+and magazines, and when I had glanced at them I should pronounce that
+community to be in a low moral and religious state which could tolerate
+such periodicals. A bad paper cannot live in a good community.
+
+"I have been especially grieved and offended with the recent Catholic
+controversy. I abhor much in the Catholic religion; but, nevertheless, I
+believe there is a great deal of religion in that Church. I do not like
+the condemnation of men in classes. I would not, in controversy with the
+Catholics, render railing for railing. They cannot be put down so. They
+must be charmed down by kindness and love."
+
+_Mr. C._ "I have been much amused by reading that controversy."
+
+_Dr. N._ "My dear sir, I am sorry to hear you say so. You cannot have
+read that controversy with pleasure, without having been made a worse
+man by it."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Why, I was amused by it, I suppose, just as I should be amused
+by seeing a gladiator's show."
+
+_Dr. N._ "Just so; a very good comparison,--a very accurate comparison!
+It is a mere gladiatorial contest; and the object of it, I fear, is not
+so much truth as victory."
+
+_Mr. C._ "But Luther fought so, Doctor."
+
+_Dr. N._ "I know it; and I have no sympathy with that trait in the
+character of Luther. The world owes more, perhaps, to Martin Luther
+than to any other man who has ever lived; and as God makes the wrath of
+man to praise him, and restrains the remainder, so he raised up Luther
+as an instrument adapted to his age and the circumstances of the times.
+But Luther's character in some of its features was harsh, rugged, and
+unlovely; and in these it was not founded upon the Gospel.
+
+"Compare him with St. Paul. Once they were placed in circumstances
+almost identically the same. Luther's friends were endeavoring to
+dissuade him from going to Worms, on account of apprehended danger. Said
+Luther, 'If there were as many devils at Worms as there are tiles on the
+roofs of the houses, I would go.'
+
+"When Paul's friends at Caesarea wept, and besought him not to go up to
+Jerusalem, knowing the things which would befall him there, 'What mean
+ye,' said he, 'to weep, and break my heart? For I am ready, not to be
+bound only, but to die also at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord
+Jesus.'
+
+"Many a bold, reckless man of the world could have said what Luther
+said. None but a Christian could have uttered the words of Paul."
+
+_Mr. C._ "Was it not in part a constitutional difference? Peter and Paul
+were very different men; so, if Luther had not been a Christian, he
+would have exhibited the same rugged features of character."
+
+_Dr. N._ "That is just the point, sir. These traits in his character
+were no part of his Christianity. They existed, not in consequence, but
+in spite, of his religion. I want to see, in Christian character, the
+rich, deep, mellow tint of the Scriptures."
+
+
+
+
+CRETAN DAYS.
+
+
+I.
+
+CANEA.
+
+It was by a happy chance that my first acquaintance with Crete and the
+Cretans was made just previous to the outbreak of the insurrection which
+has just now brought the island so strongly to the attention of the
+world, and which will prevent any future traveller of this generation
+from seeing it, as I saw it, at the highest point of that comparative
+material prosperity which thirty-five years of such peace as Christian
+lands enjoy under Turkish rule had created, and before the beginning of
+that course of destruction which has now made the island one expanse of
+poverty and ruin. It was in the beginning of the last year of the
+administration of Ismael Pacha, in August, 1865, that, blockaded a month
+in Syra by cholera, I finally got passage on a twenty-ton yacht
+belonging to an English resident of that place, and made a loitering
+three days' run to Canea.
+
+Crete, though _never_ visited by cholera, was in quarantine at all Greek
+ports, and intercourse with the great world was limited to occasional
+voyages of the little caiques of the island to Syra, where they endured
+two weeks' quarantine, and whence they brought back the mails and a
+cargo of supplies, so that any arrival was an event to the Cydonians,
+and that of a yacht flying the English and American flags at once was
+enough to turn out the entire population. The fitful northerly breeze
+had kept us the whole afternoon in sight of the port; and it was only as
+sunset closed the doors of the health-office that we dropped anchor in
+the middle of the little harbor,--the wondering centre of attraction to
+a wondering town, whose folk came to assist at the sunsetting and our
+arrival. Lazy soldiers, lying at full length on the old bronze cannon of
+the batteries, looked out at us, only raising their heads from their
+crossed arms; grave Turks, smoking their nargiles in front of the cafes
+that open on the Marina, turned their chairs round to look at us without
+stopping their hubble-bubbling; and all about us, where nothing else
+was, a line of motley humanity--Greek, Turk, Egyptian, Nubian,
+Abyssinian, under hats, caps, tarbouches, turbans, hats Persian and
+ecclesiastical, and no hats at all--half circled us with mute and mostly
+stupid admiration.
+
+It was my first experience of a Turkish town, and perhaps I was more
+struck with the dilapidation and evident decay than I ought to have
+been. The sea-wall of the massive Venetian fortification seemed
+crumbling and carious; the earth-work above it was half washed away; the
+semicircle of houses on the Marina looked seedy and tottering; the
+Marina itself was in places under-cut and falling into the water; and
+above us, overtopping the whole city, the Pacha's palace, built on the
+still substantial, though time-worn and neglected walls of the old
+Venetian citadel, reared a lath-and-plaster shabbiness against the glow
+of the western sky, reminding one of an American seaside hotel in the
+last stages of popularity and profitable tenancy,--great gaps in the
+plaster showing the flimsiness of the construction, while a coating of
+unmitigated whitewash almost defied the sunset glow to modify it. On the
+western point of the crescent of the Marina, under the height on which
+stands the palace, is a domed mosque,--one large central dome surrounded
+by little ones,--with a not ugly minaret, slightly cracked by
+earthquakes, standing at one side in a little cemetery, among whose
+turbaned tombstones grow a palm and an olive tree, and beyond which the
+khan (also serving as custom-house), a two-story house of the Venetian
+days, relieves the dreary white with a wash of ochre, stained and
+streaked to any tint almost. A little nearer the bottom of the port is
+an old Venetian gate, which once shut the Marina in at night while the
+custom-house guard slept, and over the keystone of which the Lion of St.
+Mark's still turns his mutilated head to the sea.
+
+On the whole, the look of the thing was not unpicturesque, except for
+the hopeless whiteness and shabbiness of the principal architectural
+features, and especially the "Konak" (palace), which was, beyond all
+disguise of light or circumstance, an eyesore and a nuisance, the more
+so that its foundations were fine old brown stone masonry, delicious in
+color, solid, and showing at one end a pointed arched vault, with its
+portward end fallen down to show the interior, and crowned with an
+enormous mass of cactus. On the south side, invisible from the port, are
+three fine Gothic windows, now filled up, but preserving the traceries.
+The palace could scarcely have had a nobler site, or the site a more
+ignoble occupancy.
+
+Too late for pratique, we had nothing to do but turn in early, and get
+ready to go ashore at sunrise.
+
+Once landed, I began to wish that the comparison I had drawn for the
+Konak was a more just one, and that inside its card-board classicalism
+could be found the slightest approach to American hospitality. Not an
+inn of any kind exists in Canea: a dirty, dingy restaurant, which called
+itself "The Guest-House of the Spheres," offered one small bedroom,
+which the filth of the place, with its suggestions of bugs and fleas,
+forbade the title of a sleeping-room. While the yacht stayed I had a
+bed; but after that it was a dreary prospect for a man who had intended
+living at his ease in his inn the rest of the summer. And here let me,
+once for all, give due credit to Crete, and say that, though there is
+not from one end of the island to the other an inn, the stranger will
+never wait long, even in the smallest village, to know where he may
+sleep, and will rarely find a greater difficulty than to reconcile the
+rival claims to the honor of his presence. In my case, I had no greatly
+prolonged anxiety, and accepted the proffered hospitality of Mr. Alexis,
+then Vice-Consul of the United States of America, and now Dutch Consul,
+to whom most of the few travellers in Crete are more or less under
+obligations.
+
+I thoroughly enjoyed some days of careless loafing about Canea. I have
+intimated my slight experience of Turkish towns; and if the critic
+should think it worth while to remark that I should have seen
+Constantinople and Cairo, Smyrna and Salonica, before attempting to
+describe one, I admit the justice of the criticism, and pass over
+readily all that is Turkish in Canea, the more that it is mainly of
+negative or destructive character. What remains of interest in Canea is
+Venetian, though of that there is almost nothing which represents the
+great period of the sea-republic, except the fine, and in most parts
+well-conditioned walls. Here and there a double-arched window, with a
+bit of fine carving in the capitals, peeps out from the jutting
+uglinesses of seraglio windows, close latticed and mysterious; one or
+two fine doorways, neglected and battered as to their ornamentation,
+some coats of arms, three or four arched gateways, and as many
+fountains, are all that will catch the eye of the artist inside the
+walls, unless it be the port, with its quaint and picturesque boats of
+antique pattern.
+
+Canea had its west-end in what is now known as the Castelli,--the slight
+elevation on which, most probably, the ancient city was built, and on
+which stood the Venetian citadel, and the aristocratic quarter, enclosed
+and gated with an interior wall, whose circuit may still be traced in
+occasional glimpses of the brown stone above and between the Turkish
+houses. The Castelli of to-day is the principal street of this quarter,
+running through its centre, and guarded by the gates whose arches
+remain, valueless and without portcullis, but showing in their present
+state how strong a defence was needed to assure the patricians in their
+slumbers against any importunate attempts of their malcontent subjects
+and fellow-townsmen to clear off the score which the infamous government
+of the Republic accumulated. One doorway in this street struck me
+particularly, from the exquisite ornamentation of its stone doorway; but
+the palace to which it opened is abandoned, and in ruins. Most of the
+better class of these houses are in the same state, modern repair being
+only a shabby patching up and whitewashing. The quarter is inhabited
+almost entirely by Mussulmans; and, though habitable houses are greatly
+in demand in the business parts of Canea, and many of these old palaces
+could be made available at a small cost, their owners have so little
+energy, or so great an aversion to new-comers and Christians, that none
+of them are put under repairs.
+
+On the walls of the city are many old bronze guns of both Venetian and
+Turkish manufacture. The former still bear the Lion of St. Mark's, and
+one long nine-pounder is exquisitely ornamented with a reticulation of
+vines cast in relief over the whole length of it. It bears the name of
+Albergetti, its founder. The only modern guns I saw were half a dozen
+heavy cast-iron thirty-two-pounders of Liege, and a few light bronze
+guns on the battery commanding the entrance of the harbor. The whole
+circuit of the walls is still furnished with the ancient bronze guns, of
+which several are of about twelve-inch calibre, with their stone balls
+still lying by them.
+
+The harbor of Canea approximates in form to a clumsy L, the bottom of
+the letter forming the basin in the centre of which our yacht was
+moored, with a longer recess running eastward from the entrance, and
+divided from the open sea only by a reef on which the mole is built,
+following the direction of the coast at this part of the island. The
+narrow entrance is at the exterior angle of the L, between the
+water-battery and the lighthouse; and in the interior angle are the
+Castelli, Konak, &c. Along the inner side of the eastern recess, and
+across its extremity, is a line of galley-houses,--the penitential
+offering, it is said, of a patrician exiled here, to purchase his
+repatriation. Earthquakes have rent their walls, decay has followed
+disuse, for the harbor has now become so filled up that only a small
+boat can get into the furthermost of the arches, and the greater part of
+the galley-houses have dry land out to their entrances, and the
+ship-yard of to-day is in the vacant space left by the fall of two or
+three of them.
+
+As might be expected, Canea is a very dull city. Out of the highway of
+Eastern trade or travel, whoever visits it must do so for itself alone,
+for the arts of amusing idlers and luring travellers are unknown to it.
+The only amusements for summer are a nargile on the Marina, studying
+primitive civilization the while, during the twilight hours, and the
+afternoon circuit of the ramparts, where every day at five o'clock an
+execrable band tortures the most familiar arias with clangor of
+discordant brass. From the ramparts we overlooked the plain, bounded by
+Mount Malaxa, above which loomed the Aspravouna, showing late in summer
+strips of snow in the ravines that furrowed the bare crystalline peaks,
+brown and gray and parched with the drought of three months. The Cretan
+summer runs rainless from June to October; and the only relief to the
+aridity of the landscape is formed by the olive-orchards, covering
+nearly the whole expanse between the sea sands and the treeless ridge of
+Malaxa with so luxuriant a green, that, accustomed to the olive of
+Italy, I could scarcely believe these to be the same trees. This I at
+first supposed to be owing to some peculiarity of the plain, but
+subsequently found it to be characteristic of the Cretan olive; and I
+remember hearing Captain Brine of the Racer express the same surprise I
+myself felt on first seeing the olive here. The trees are like
+river-side willows in early summer.
+
+To get a clear comprehension of the position of Canea and the ancient
+advantages of Cydonia, its local predecessor, and at the same time of
+the whole northwestern district of Crete, one must ascend the hills of
+the Akroteri,--at least the first ridge, from which the view is superb.
+The Aspravouna towers higher: we look into the gorges of the Malaxa
+ridge, and up the ravine of Theriso, to the mountains about Laki,--an
+immemorial strong-hold of the Cretans, behind which, a sure and
+impregnable refuge to brave men, is the great plain of Omalos. Farther
+on are the hills of Selinos and Kisamos, sending off northward two long
+parallel ridges of considerable altitude, the peninsula of Grabusa, the
+ancient Corycus, the western land of Crete, and, from where we look,
+visible in portions above the nearer ridge of Cape Spada, the Dictynnian
+peninsula, which divides the plain of Cydonia from that of Kisamon and
+Polyrrhenia, and, but for the glimpses of Corycus above it, shutting in
+our view, as it bounds the territory dependent on the ancient city.
+
+No site in Crete is more distinctly recognizable from the indications of
+the ancient geographers than Cydonia. It had "a port with shoals
+outside," and from this elevation one looks directly down the longer
+fork of the harbor, and can see how the mole is built on a black reef,
+whose detached masses extend from the lighthouse eastward to the corner
+of the city wall, which is built out to meet it, and then descends to
+the mole, with which it is continuous. Beyond the entrance of the
+harbor, the reef again appears, gradually nearing the shore; and beyond
+this, as far as the eye can reach, are no rocks,--no Other nook where a
+galley could have taken refuge.
+
+How the hearts of the Pelasgian wanderers must have bounded when their
+exploring prows pushed into this nook, which offered them shelter from
+all winds that blow! It was a site to gladden the eyes of those builders
+of cities. Up above them, the bluff rock waiting for the layers of huge
+stones,--the eastern nook of the port more perfectly protected than the
+southern, which receives more or less the swell from the northerly
+winds, and whose inner shore of hard sand tempted the weary
+keels,--while all around stretched a wide, fertile, and then probably
+forest-clad plain, doubtless abounding in the stags for which the
+district was long famous. Here the restless race "located," and seem to
+have prospered in the days of those brave men who lived before
+Agamemnon, to whom and to whose allies in the Trojan war they seem to
+have given much the same trouble that their reputed descendants, the
+Sphakiotes, did to the Cretan Assembly of 1866, not being either then or
+now over-devoted to Panhellenism, though never averse to a comfortable
+fight.
+
+Pashley quotes a Latin author to show that Cydonia was one of the most
+ancient, if not the most ancient, of Cretan cities,--"Cnossus and
+Erythraea, and, as the Greeks say, Cydonia, mother of cities." The
+alleged foundation of the city by Agamemnon was clearly, if anything,
+only a revival of the more ancient city; and after him successive
+colonizations rolled their waves in on this beautiful shore, obedient to
+its irresistible attraction. Dorian, Samiote, Roman, followed, adding
+new blood, and perhaps new wealth; and when finally, in the degradation
+of the Byzantine empire, Venice took possession of Crete, Cydonia had so
+far passed into insignificance, that, "seeking a place to build a
+fortress to quell the turbulent Greeks," she refounded Cydonia, and
+called it Canea,--an evident corruption of the old name. With all this
+building and rebuilding, nothing remains, of the ancient city. A mass of
+masonry near the Mussulman cemetery, which Chevalier in 1699 saw covered
+with a mosaic pavement, is still visible, but is Roman work, rubble and
+mortar. As Pashley says, the modern walls of Canea would have been
+sufficient to consume all vestiges of the ancient building. The
+citations he gives ought to put at rest all question, of the identity of
+Canea with Cydonia, and we shall presently see the only serious
+objection which has been raised against it disappear under an
+examination of the geological character of the plain.[A]
+
+Looking from our hill-top southwestwardly across the plain, the eye is
+carried between two low ranges of hills into a valley which seems a
+continuation of this plain. Here runs the Iardanos, along which,
+according to Homer, the Cydonians dwelt. But it is now in no point of
+its course nearer than ten miles to Canea. This discrepancy troubled the
+early travellers, who were finally inclined to solve the riddle by
+supposing Cydonia to have been a district, and not a city merely. But
+study the plain a little, or Spratt's chart of it, and we shall see that
+from that far-off river-bed an almost unbroken and very gentle
+inclination leads through the plain, by the rear of the city, to the bay
+of Suda, a considerable ridge rising between it and the sea.
+
+Suppose the mountains reclothed with forests, the hillsides pierced with
+perennial springs, and the flowing of the waters, not, as now, fitful
+and impetuous, but copious and constant. Then dam up the narrow opening
+the river has cut through the coast line of hills, in its direct course
+from the mountains to the sea, with a smaller and similar one cut by a
+stream coming down from Theriso, and you have the whole water sheet of
+the north side of the Aspravouna emptying into the bay of Suda. In this
+supposed route of the Iardanos (now the Platanos), just where it
+commences its cutting through the hills, is a large marsh, the remnant
+of what was once a lake of a mile or more in width, when the Iardanos,
+then a gentle, bounteous river, turned from its present course to run
+eastward, and deposit its washings where they made the marshes of
+Tuzla, and the shallows at the head of Suda Bay. Civilization,
+ship-building, commerce, carried away the forests; and, thus changed[B]
+into a furious mountain torrent,--three months a roaring flood which no
+bridge can stride, and the rest of the year almost a dry pebbled
+bed,--the Iardanos made a straight cut for the sea, drained its lake,
+forgot its old courses, and changed, in time, its name; and _so_ it
+happens that the Cydonians no longer dwell along the Iardanos.
+
+While we are on our look-out, let us try to study out another puzzle,
+which even Spratt left in doubt, i. e. the site of Pergamos. We know
+that it was near both Cydonia and Achaia, and Spratt pretty conclusively
+fixes the latter on the Dictynnian peninsula; so that it must have been
+in our present field of view. Looking this over, we can see but one
+point of land which offers the indispensable requisites for a city of
+the heroic ages, and that is the site of the modern Platania, midway
+between Canea and the peninsula,--a bold hill with a nearly
+perpendicular face to the north and east, and so abrupt on the west as
+to be easily fortified, and connected with the hills on the south by a
+narrow neck of hill,--such a site, in fact, as any one familiar with
+Pelasgic remains would seek at once in a country where any such remains
+existed. The fact that no remains exist to show that an ancient city
+stood here proves no more than at Canea; while the fact that none of the
+possible sites in the neighborhood show any such remains is conclusive
+against them, as no modern cities are there to consume the ancient
+masonry. In our researches in the island, we shall almost invariably
+find that, where there are remains of ancient cities, there is no modern
+town, and that, where a modern town stands on an ancient site
+determined, there are few, if any, antique vestiges. The reason is
+evident,--the ruins serve as quarry. The change of name even proves more
+for our hypothesis than against it. The plane-tree was not in ancient
+times so rare in the island as now, and would hardly have then given a
+name to a city, while now it not only names Platania, but the river
+even,--a grove of plane-trees occupying the valley between the city and
+the mouth of the river. The probability is, then, that the names of both
+are synchronous; and it would be useless to look for any Platania in
+ancient times, or any vestige of the name "Pergamos" in modern times,
+while, if the ancient city stood on a site now abandoned, we should in
+all probability find both ruins and name to indicate the locality.
+
+The conjecture of Spratt, that Pergamos was near Pyrgos Pori is only a
+conjecture, Pyrgos being too common a name for any strongly situated
+village or ruin to have any significance. A city at that locality would,
+moreover, have been cut off from all sea approach by the Iardanos in its
+ancient course; and as Pergamos was one of those cities founded by the
+wanderers from Troy,--either, they say, by Agamemnon or AEneas,--it would
+probably not have been founded on an inland site, or even on a river
+navigable, as the Iardanos must have been, for small craft, the access
+to which would be commanded by Aptera, Minoa, and Cydonia. So far as
+conjecture goes, it seems to me much more likely that Hagia Irene--which
+Spratt supposes the ancient city--was Achaia, the location of which he
+avoids by supposing it a district, rather than a city, forgetting that
+in those days no one dwelt outside of city walls. My hypothesis, coupled
+with that of the identity of Platania with Pergamos, would satisfy all
+the exigencies of the case, which that of neither Spratt nor Pashley
+does. For the rest, Pergamos is mainly interesting as the burial-place
+of Lycurgus.
+
+From our point of view on the Akroteri, we see the whole domain of
+Cydonia,--as at our left Suda Bay terminates the view, (on the first
+plateau eastward of the bay Aptera presided,) while the Dictynnian hills
+divide it from the plain of Kisamos to the west, and the mountains rise
+abruptly to the south;--a little kingdom well defined, one of the most
+perfectly beautiful territories the tourist can find, and still
+fertile,--though the hills have forgotten their fruit and the plain its
+river,--and capable of sustaining a much larger population than it now
+supports, if the Mohammedan blight were off it.
+
+Almost at the foot of the ridge where we stand is a beautiful example of
+a Venetian fortified country-house,--a little castle, turreted and
+loop-holed, with a drawbridge thrown from a tower rising opposite the
+doorway, and still in excellent preservation. Other similar houses may
+be seen, but I have nowhere in the island found one so fine as this. At
+the farther edge of the plain, lying along under the hills, is a
+succession of white villages,--Zukalaria, Nerokouro (running water),
+Murnies, celebrated for its oranges and the brutal and gratuitous
+massacre by Mustapha Pacha (late Imperial Commissioner), in 1833,
+Boutzounaria (dripping water), first place of assembling of the Cretan
+malcontents in 1866, Perivolia, Galatas, Hagia Marina, and Platania, by
+the sea.
+
+Off Platania is the island of St. Theodore, whose fortress, defended by
+the Venetian mercenaries against the Turks, showed one of those examples
+of heroic constancy we so generally and erroneously attribute to
+patriotic courage; for, defying the enemy to the last, the garrison
+defended the castle until the Turks had stormed and filled it with their
+numbers, and then blew it up, destroying every one within the walls. The
+foundations still remain, but level with the cemented floor; everything
+is razed cleanly, while the fragments lie along the slopes like the
+ejections of a volcano.
+
+Midway between the Akroteri and Canea lies Kalepa, a suburb where most
+of the foreign consuls reside in summer, with many of the wealthier
+Khaniotes, and the only place in the vicinity where the summer can be
+passed in comfort. A few houses are fitted with European improvements,
+but the greater part are the simple and cheerless residences of the
+Cretan peasant, furnished with the merest necessities of existence. Even
+here, in the most prosperous of the villages I have been in, life is,
+for most of the people, only a struggle against poverty, thrift being
+impossible where every surplus meets a new impost. Many houses are still
+in ruins from the devastations of 1821-1830, showing how incompletely
+the island had recovered from that war before being plunged into another
+more destructive still. From the ravages of this, however, Kalepa is
+saved so far,--thanks to a few consular residents,--but saved alone of
+all the villages of the plain country.
+
+If it be true that civilization is determined by natural advantages, it
+must be that Cydonia was the "mother of cities," at least of all the
+Hellenic realm, for no more enchanting or tempting site have I ever
+known through travel or description. With its climate of paradisiacal
+softness and healthfulness, and the beauty of its framing hills,--fanned
+in summer by the north winds from the AEgean and by south winds tempered
+by the snows of the Aspravouna,--with a winter in which vegetation never
+ceases and frost never comes,--with its garden-like plain and its
+old-time river, and its port unexceptionable in ancient times,--nothing
+was wanting to render prosperity and security complete in former days,
+as nothing but freedom is wanting now to restore both, and make the city
+the most attractive place in the classical world. Hitherto, its charms
+have but tempted invasion, and its fertility has only grown harvests for
+the sword. Here began the Cretan conquest by Metellus; here began the
+movements which, one after the other, have shaken the Ottoman chain only
+to make it heavier; and here began the latest struggle, which, so long
+and gallantly upheld, may finally bring back to Crete the civilization
+born on her shores, but for so many centuries an exile.
+
+
+II.
+
+THE AKROTERI.
+
+Not to make one's first excursion from Canea to the Akroteri, with its
+convent of the Hagia Triada (Holy Trinity), and its sacred Grotto of St.
+John, would be _lesa maesta_ to the Khaniotes, who regard a pilgrimage
+to the latter as entitling one to a Hadjiship.
+
+The ride (or walk, which I recommend, in preference, to good
+pedestrians) is a delightful one in early summer; and, even after the
+heats of August have browned the plain of the Akroteri, an early start
+from Canea will leave a memory of breezy upland with wide expanse of
+mountain and sea,--including some of the most picturesque views to be
+found in Crete,--and of the rich odors of many aromatic herbs and
+flowers, through whose rifled sweets the Akroteri is famous for its
+honey. A three hours' ride--first up the zigzag road that climbs the
+ridge above Kalepa, and then over an undulating plain sparsely dotted
+with hamlets and clouded here and there with olive-orchards--brings one,
+with a sufficient appreciation of good cheer, and clean, cool rooms,
+shade, and quiet, into the cloistered court of Hagia Triada, a
+semi-military building of the Venetian days. Still unfinished, the
+Turkish conquest having interrupted its progress, with all other in the
+seventeenth century. In the centre of the quadrangle, round which are
+the rooms of the monks and the guest-rooms, stands the church, an
+edifice nondescript as to style, with a facade of a species of Venetian
+Doric, fronting a building whose plan is a Latin cross, and whose roof
+observes Byzantine tradition. On the entablature over the doorway are
+the dedicatory Greek capitals, [Greek: BGYTHTP],--the meaning of which
+none of the priests could tell me, though a duplicate inscription in
+Latin and Greek beside the door told by whom the convent was built; and
+the Hegoumenos added the tradition, that the two founders, being
+converted by an extraordinary illumination from the Latin to the Greek
+Church, gave an edifying proof of their devotion to their new creed by
+erecting this convent.
+
+The Hegoumenos was a Sphakiote, a very shrewd, clear-headed and
+energetic man, and, though betraying no great familiarity with books or
+dogmas, showed that he was a better fisher in those waters where men are
+to be caught than most of his _confreres_ of any creed. He had that
+manner of innate authority which never fails to impose itself on the
+indecisions and self-distrusts of the mass of men, and which in a wider
+circle of ambition would certainly have won him a larger place. Like the
+Hegoumenos of every other Greek convent, he was elected by the monks,
+and, though completely in the hands of his brethren, and at any time
+liable to be removed by another election, the subordination to him was
+perfect as could have been imagined. It was a curious exemplification of
+the force of democracy. Yet not only in Hagia Triada, but in other
+Cretan convents, I have seen how the mass of men find their governors as
+surely and wisely, and often more fitly, than if they had had men born
+to the place, or appointed by some superior hierarchy.
+
+In Italy I had always been accustomed to find the convents posted on the
+hill-tops, and almost inaccessible; but in Crete the loveliest valleys
+are almost certain to have been chosen as their locations. The convent
+of the Hagia Triada is indeed on a plain, but at the foot of the range
+of hills which skirts the Akroteri to the north, and is thus almost shut
+in from two sides, while to the south the plain extends to Suda Bay,
+which is hidden in the chasm between the Akroteri and Mount Malaxa, and
+beyond which the mountains of Sphakia rise in picturesque and alluring
+redundance of ravine and massive rock. All the nearer plain is green
+with the olive-orchards, and the road which approaches the front
+entrance is flanked with two lines of cypresses, and carob-trees grow up
+the rocky heights overlooking the convent, where no other tree will
+grow. The hum of bees filled the air, and mingled with the notes of
+nightingales (poetically fabled to sing _only_ by night), the chirping
+of multitudinous sparrows, wrens, and linnets, and the twittering of
+swallows. At the outer gate sat two or three aged monks, picturesque and
+sculpturesque at once, like enchanted porters at the doors of some
+spellbound palace, their long, gray beards and sunken, listless eyes
+according with their own and the convent's external dilapidation.
+
+The beauty and quiet of the place were almost enchantment enough to
+account for the gray-headed porters, their immobility and longevity, and
+I longed to draw the charm over me. But I was one of a party which had
+come under the inspiration of the most inane motive of travel,--the
+desire to see all there was to be seen; and so, after a half-hour's
+repose, and the usual refreshments,--preserved fruits and a glass of
+water, followed by coffee,--we enlisted the Hegoumenos in our party, and
+set out for the grotto, taking in the way Hagios Joannes, a still more
+incomplete and still more secluded convent than Hagia Triada, among the
+hills between the latter and the sea. The road which we followed would
+be called by no means a bad road for Crete, but anywhere else would be
+execrable,--a mere bridle-path through a gorge in a range of hills from
+which all the soil seems to have been washed with most of the small
+stones, and where, with much precaution, your beast goes picking his way
+as if in a laborious, slow-paced minuet. The convent stands in an
+opening of the hills, on a little bit of comparatively plain land,-a
+half-finished battlemented square pile, offering defence against a
+slight attack; but the monks said that the Turks always found the road
+so bad that they never came to attack them during any of the island
+wars, though Hagia Triada was twice pillaged. The comparative poverty
+of Hagios Joannes may have had something to do with its exemption, but
+the road would defend it from my encroachments forever; and, in fact,
+visitors only pass it on the way to the grottoes and convent of
+Katholikon, which lie near the opening of the gorge, where it becomes a
+wild glen, and approaches the sea. The path, descending, led us to the
+Cave of the Bear, where we had arranged to lunch, and the bounties of
+Canea, spread on the ground in the mouth of the cave, went to repair the
+wear and tear of body and temper caused by the badness of the road. The
+cave derives its name from a mass of stalactite which has a traceable
+resemblance to a bear, but it had no further interest than being our
+lunching-place. Here the road became so bad that even a donkey could not
+follow it, and we clambered down on foot by zigzag and rock stair to the
+mouth of the Cave of St. John. Caves _per se_ have no kind of attraction
+to me. Stalactite and stalagmite are pretty much the same: so, half the
+way in, I made excuse of the fatigue of some of the ladies, and,
+determining to go no farther, proved my gallantry by stopping to keep
+them company, thus abandoning my Hadjiship, which can only be claimed
+when the inner chamber is attained. If, then, the reader would know
+more, he must consult the guide-book, when there is one; and meanwhile
+let me assure him, on the authority of Pashley, that the cave is four
+hundred and seventy feet deep, and, on that of my more persevering
+fellow-visitors, that at the bottom is a chamber, very fine and imposing
+by torchlight, where is a couch of natural formation on which died the
+saint, leaving his name with his bones and the odor of his sanctity. The
+story is that this St. John--neither the Baptist nor the Evangelist, but
+a hermit of Crete--centuries ago made his abode here, and lived many
+years without seeing the face of another man. Lest he should in daylight
+chance upon his abhorred and outcast brethren, or any of them, he only
+ventured out at night, and lived on what he could find in other people's
+gardens or orchards. Happening one night to be discovered in the act of
+laying in a provision of corn, he was mistaken for a thief, and received
+an arrow from the owner of the provision. He crawled back, mortally
+wounded, to his grotto, and never came out again except in the shape of
+relics.
+
+The convent of Katholikon, long abandoned, did not invite entrance: a
+Venetian bridge spans the ravine, and gave access to the chapel for the
+hermits whose little dens still remain on the other side, the denizens
+having long since deserted them. Down by the sea are some Venetian
+ruins, a boat-house, and some masonry of a landing. I advise travellers
+who will visit Katholikon, its cave and hermitages, to order a boat
+round from Canea to meet them at this place, and then go home in
+comfort,--the only point to be gained from going back by land being a
+more thorough experience of Cretan roads. To those who intend seeing the
+rest of the island, opportunities will not lack for this; to others, the
+knowledge is superfluous. A careful horse will make his way down, but he
+ought to be strong to get up. Mine was not; and, in climbing, his force
+or his footing failed him, and over he went backwards, and I narrowly
+escaped being crushed under him. Stunned and half bewildered by the
+fall,--for I had struck on my back amongst sharp stones, with one of
+which my head had made intimate acquaintance,--I managed, I know not
+how, to extricate myself from the flourish of legs; the horse lying more
+helpless than myself in the narrow path between two slopes of stone, and
+vainly plunging to get over on his side. He finally completed his
+somerset, to the confusion of the line of equestrians behind, the
+nearest of whom were speedily dismounted; and the chances of a kicking
+match among the quadrupeds were good for a moment, until two prompt
+Arabs, in attendance on Miss T----, restored the disorderly elements to
+peace. Sore, bleeding, and faint, I lay awhile on a bed of wild thyme,
+until I began to feel the good effects of a cordial administered by the
+_pateras_, and we resumed our file, most of the party returning directly
+to Canea,--myself, with a companion who served as guide and interpreter,
+passing the night at the convent, the good Hegoumenos being urgent in
+his entreaties that the whole company would likewise honor his roof.
+None of the ladies felt inclined to do so, and perhaps it was just as
+well for their repose that they did not; for, clean as the rooms of the
+convent were, and white as was the linen, there were discomforts which,
+though infinitely small, were infinitely numerous, and, by the law of
+majorities, our tormentors turned us out of bed to pass the night in the
+open air,--a change always safe, and even delightful at this season, in
+Crete.
+
+The Greek convent is a true hostel; no one is refused admission and
+hospitality,--no restrictions on the gentler sex make it impossible for
+real parties of pleasure to visit its beautiful valley,--no Pharisaic
+rigidity of self-denial makes it imperative to refuse visitors good
+cheer, though the community observe their long and trying fasts with a
+severity which puts to shame abstinence in Catholic countries. (The
+Greek fasts two hundred and forty-six days out of three hundred and
+sixty-five, and most of this time not even fish is allowed, while part
+of the time oil, milk, and shell-fish are also forbidden.) And the
+welcome is no mere show of kindliness; the longer you stay at the
+convent, the better the monks are pleased, and staying longer than you
+intended is the highest compliment you can pay them. What change a
+larger acquaintance with the world will produce, of course I cannot say,
+or how much the spirit of hospitality will diminish by an increase of
+the calls on it; but now no English country-house makes you more at home
+than a Cretan convent.
+
+In the morning, the _pateras_ guided us to a peak, near the northeastern
+point of the Akroteri, whence we could overlook, not only the peninsula
+and Suda Bay, but the Apokorona, the coast from Cape Spada to Cape
+Stavros, the Rhiza as far as the mountains of Kisamos, Mount Ida, and
+the mountains of Sphakia, Lampe, and even, in the dim distance,
+Lassithe. Included in the field of view were the sites of seven of the
+Cretan cities of _early_ days, not counting Minoa and Canea, hidden from
+view. On the north, we had the Greek islands Cerigotto, Cerigo, Milo,
+Santorini, and others less prominent. It was my intention to return by
+the shore of Suda Bay, in order to visit Minoa, but the badness of the
+roads, and the utter want of interest in the intermediate distance,
+determined me to visit that part of the Akroteri by boat at a later
+period.
+
+Returning to the convent, we had not long to wait for a capital
+dinner,--soup, a boiled chicken, mutton stewed with artichokes and
+beans, new honey, and rice prepared with milk, sugar, and spices, with a
+dessert of figs and grapes. The wine of the convent had a bitter taste,
+from an herb steeped in it, which was preferable to the pitch of Greek
+wines, but still not a desirable addition. One of the monks, who had a
+small property close by the convent, brought us a bottle of wine of his
+own production, which was one of the best I have ever tasted in the
+East, and to my mind better than that of Cyprus. With coffee and
+cigarettes we stretched ourselves on the sofas before the windows,
+through which the east wind blew the odors extorted from the fragrant
+herbs and flowers by the overpowering sun. No other sound than the hum
+of the bees darting past with unwearying haste, and the chirping of a
+few birds amongst the olives, disturbed the air, and the monks left us
+to dream or doze as we pleased. The charm of the place was complete, and
+it would not have been a penance to make the convent a summer's abode.
+The fleas were a drawback, surely; but nowhere in Crete can one get away
+from that plague, and at Hagia Triada they were less offensive, as I
+learned by later experience, than in many other convents, and even in
+most private houses.
+
+When, the sun cooling his fires, we ordered our steeds out, and prepared
+to return, the whole _personnel_ of the convent came to assist, with the
+inhabitants of a little village adjoining, which finds protection and
+Christian charity from the convent. The monks, excepting two or three,
+seemed of an ignorant and boorish quality, but hard-working and
+kind-hearted. Here, evidently, a certain kind of bliss was in ignorance,
+and the most learned were not wise enough to be accused of much folly.
+The Hegoumenos, in bidding us good by, begged us warmly to come again
+and stay long,--a month at least. All joined in the kindly wish; and we
+rode back through the lengthening olive shadows, which never had fitter
+accompaniment than in the peace and content which the convent promised
+us, and I am sure not vainly. Not that I am a believer in the peace that
+does not come of fighting,--the retreat before battle,--or think that
+quiet and laziness are one. Content is a piggish virtue and one which no
+earnest soul can abide in, and unsleeping ambition is the only Jacob's
+ladder; but when my reader is tired of struggling, and must repose, I am
+sure that he (or she, even) would find in Hagia Triada such peace and
+content as may be healthfully known, and no begrudging of the solace and
+satisfaction to heretics. It seems to me that only those who have no
+right to a quiet life envy it in others, and, as our monks earn their
+right to be charitable, they are not envious, even with sinners.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] As I shall have constant occasion to draw from Pashley information
+and quotations which my own classical reading, time, and library
+facilities do not permit me even to verify, I shall, once for all,
+confess indebtedness for almost all the classical knowledge I possess of
+the island, as well as for almost all the topographical information and
+direction in my visits to antique sites, to either him or Spratt,
+without whose invaluable researches the half of Crete would still be in
+a measure _terra incognita_. What I hope to add to the knowledge of
+Crete will be in a different vein from theirs.
+
+[B] Consult Marsh's "Man and Nature."
+
+
+
+
+CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC.
+
+BY THE PROFESSOR EMERITUS Of DEAD AND LIVE LANGUAGES.
+
+([Greek: Phi. Beta. Kappa.]--CAMBRIDGE, 1867.)
+
+
+    You bid me sing,--can I forget
+      The classic ode of days gone by,--
+    How belle Fifine and jeune Lisette
+      Exclaimed, "Anacreon, geron ei"?
+    "Regardez donc," those ladies said,--
+      "You're getting bald and wrinkled too:
+    When summer's roses all are shed,
+      Love's nullum ite, voyez-vous!"
+
+    In vain ce brave Anacreon's cry,
+      "Of Love alone my banjo sings"
+    (Erota mounon). "Etiam si,--
+      Eh b'en?" replied the saucy things,--
+    "Go find a maid whose hair is gray,
+      And strike your lyre,--we sha'n't complain;
+    But parce nobis, s'il vous plait,--
+      Voila Adolphe! Voila Eugene!"
+
+    Ah, jeune Lisette! Ah, belle Fifine!
+      Anacreon's lesson all must learn;
+    'O kairos oxus; Spring is green;
+      But Acer Hyems waits his turn!
+    I hear you whispering from the dust,
+      "Tiens, mon cher, c'est toujours so,--
+    The brightest blade grows dim with rust,
+      The fairest meadow white with snow!"
+
+    You do not mean it! _Not_ encore?
+      _Another_ string of playday rhymes?
+    You've heard me--nonne est?--before,
+      Multoties,--more than twenty times;
+    Non possum,--vraiment,--pas du tout,
+      I cannot! I am loath to shirk;
+    But who will listen if I do,
+      My memory makes such shocking work?
+
+    Ginosko, Scio. Yes, I'm told
+      Some ancients like my rusty lay,
+    As Grandpa Noah loved the old
+      Red-sandstone march of Jubal's day
+    I used to carol like the birds,
+      But time my wits has quite unfixed,
+    Et quoad verba,--for my words,--
+      Ciel! Eheu! Whe-ew!--how they're mixed!
+
+    Mehercle! Zeu! Diable! how
+      My thoughts were dressed when I was young
+    But tempus fugit! see them now
+      Half clad in rags of every tongue!
+    O philoi, fratres, chers amis!
+      I dare not court the youthful Muse,
+    For fear her sharp response should be,
+      "Papa Anacreon, please excuse!"
+
+    Adieu! I've trod my annual track
+      How long!--let others count the miles,--
+    And peddled out my rhyming pack
+      To friends who always paid in smiles.
+    So, laissez-moi! some youthful wit
+      No doubt has wares he wants to show;
+    And I am asking, "Let me sit,"
+      Dum ille clamat, "Dos pou sto!"
+
+
+
+
+THE ROSE ROLLINS.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+"It was a Sunday evening that was coming on, you see, and there was a
+full moon, and all the willagers would be out to church, because there
+was a rewival a-going on, and, thinks says I, he'll walk into his sleep,
+like as not, and he'll be wisible to one and he'll be wisible to all,
+and I must adopt the adwice that's been adwised me, whether it's quite
+adwisable or not; so I gets the clothes-line, and I cuts off about five
+yards, and I slips it under my piller before I goes to--before I retires
+to rest. The clothes-line was a new hempen one, and strong as could be.
+Well, he was no sooner asleep than up I riz, and slips the line from
+under my piller, and I ties my arm to his'n with a knot that couldn't be
+ontied easy. And now, thinks says I to myself, you get away and walk
+into your sleep if you can! But you'll see directly that I was adwised
+bad.
+
+"Just as the meetin' folks was a-goin' home, I, bein' about half asleep,
+feels somethin' pullin' and pullin' onto my arm, and says I, 'Let go!'
+and nothin' answered, and then says I, 'Let go, I tell you!' and, bless
+you! I had no more than got the words out of my mouth when down I comes
+onto the floor, piller and all! I knowed then, right away, what was the
+matter,--he was a-walkin' into his sleep. 'O, stop,' says I, 'just for a
+minute, till I ontie myself!'
+
+"'Divel a bit!' says he, and with that he strode off, and me headlong at
+his heels!"
+
+"My little wentersome one!" says John; and finding that that but very
+inadequately expressed what he felt, he repeated it, with slight
+alteration, "My wentersome little one!" at the same time lifting his
+eyes to heaven and shaking his finger in a menacing way at the air.
+
+"Me--your own--headlong at his heels," whispered the widow, softly. And
+then she boxed his ear with the tips of her fingers, and then he said he
+would love to have her a-boxin' on 'em forever, and then she laughed
+incredulously, and then she went on:--
+
+'Stop, you willain, till I ontie myself,' says I.
+
+"'Ontie me, you wixen!' says he, 'who cares whether you are ontied or
+not?' and he histed the winder,--a two-story winder it was,--and out he
+went!"
+
+"My brain is a-reelin'!" cries John. "You poor dewoted dove!"
+
+"Dewoted, sure enough," says the widow, "and dewoted you'd 'a' thought
+if you'd 'a' seen me; for up he hists the winder, and out he goes. Now
+there was the framework of a new house--a great skeleton like--standin'
+alongside of us, and into that he waults, and I waults after him,--for
+what could I do but wault?--and away he goes from beam to beam, and from
+jice to jice, and from scantlin' to scantlin', waultin' up and up, and
+me waultin' after,--for what could I do but wault?--and cryin' with all
+my might, 'You willain!' and he a-cryin' back, 'You wixen!' and the moon
+a-shinin' like a blaze, and the meetin' folks goin' by, and my
+night-gownd a-floppin', and both of us plain wisible!
+
+"'Help! murder!' I cries, for my salwation depended on it, and, seein'
+the meetin' folks adwance, he just waulted from the timber onto which we
+stood right into the thin and insupportable air--"
+
+"And dragged you after him? Lord 'a' mercy!" cried John.
+
+"No," says the widow, speaking with great calmness; "my presence of mind
+never forsook me,--I was an undertaker's daughter, and adwantage of
+birth prewailed over the disadwantage of position,--I waulted down the
+tother side; and there we hung balanced into the air, and there we would
+have hung all night but for the accident of the rewival.
+
+"When they cut us down,--which one of the rewival folks did with his
+jack-knife,--I woluntarily fainted away, and was carried in for dead,
+and didn't rewive, and wouldn't rewive, for hours and hours. La me! I
+was so ashamed!"
+
+"I wish it had been my forten to carry you into the house," says John.
+
+"So do I," says the widow; "but let us be thankful that the wicissitudes
+of life have driv us together at last."
+
+"At last, sure enough," says John; "you speak wisdom when you don't know
+on 't, you dove of doves!"
+
+She bent her eyes upon him in tender inquiry, in answer to which he
+said, "At last it is, sweetheart, for you don't know that I loved you
+when I was a youngster not more 'n a dozen year old!"
+
+"Loved _me_, captain! It isn't creditable! Tell me all about it. Are you
+sure?"
+
+"Just as sure on 't as I be of anything; just as sure as I be that I
+love you now."
+
+"Tell me all about it, I'm dying to know; it seems like some wild
+novelty, to be sure."
+
+"Yes, you're right, it is like a novelty if it was only writ out, and it
+don't seem creditable, but it's true; I'm just as sure on 't as I be of
+anything,--just as sure as I be that I love you now!"
+
+"O captain!"
+
+"Yes, my own Rose, I loved you when I was a little lad,--loved you just
+as I did the mornin' star,--loved you and worshipped you from far away.
+What a spry little thing you was, a-hoppin' about among the mahogany and
+walnut stuff like a young sparrer! O, how I've watched and follered you
+with my eyes when you didn't dream on 't!"
+
+"But, John, my nerves are a woman's, remember, and you mustn't keep them
+a-strain so long; they're wery much weakened by all this."
+
+"Ay, to be sure," says John; "your nerves be a woman's, to say nothin'
+of your curosity bein' a woman's!"
+
+And he laughed with as much heartiness at her expense as though she had
+been his wife already.
+
+"John!" This with tender reproach, and he resumed, in a tone of
+respectful and lover-like humility.
+
+"Wa'n't your name Rose Rollins afore you was jined to the
+vagabond,--wagabond, that is to say,--afore you was dethroned; and
+didn't you live in Fust Street, opposite them old tenement housen knowed
+as Baker's Row?"
+
+"Of course I did, John, in the yaller brick with the shop in the corner,
+and the entrance embellished with a beautiful sign,--three coffins, with
+their leds turned back so as to reweal the satin linin's, and my
+father's name in letters that represented silver screws! A stroke of
+genius that design was!--the sign of the three coffins, two of them
+sideways and one end; my father's name--Farewell Rollins, wery
+appropriate to his business as it turned out--in letters that they was
+modelled after silver screws."
+
+"Three on 'em, two sideways and one end?" says John; "and the name,
+Farewell Rollins, shaped arter silver screws! Why, as you be a livin'
+cretur, you're the very--wery--little gal I was in love with; and many a
+day, dark enough otherwise with poverty and sorrer, you've lighted up
+with your purty golden head!" And then he tells her, by way of
+illustrating the depth and sincerity of his early attachment, that it
+once happened to him to have an orange given him at Christmas time; and
+that, although he had never tasted an orange in all his born days,
+except through a confectioner's window-glass, he without hesitation
+tossed it over the wall into her father's yard, hoping that she, who ate
+oranges every day, might possibly have his added to the rest. And he
+concluded with, "Such was the nater of my feelin's for you even then."
+
+"And the nater of your feelin's, John, was not only wergin' close upon
+the feelin's of love," says the milliner, deeply touched, "but they was
+love,--love of the wiolentest kind!"
+
+And then she says that, if she can only find in the town an orange as
+big as the full moon, she'll buy it, let it cost what it will, and give
+it to him.
+
+And then she says, playfully tapping his chin, "I only wish them
+feelin's had hild."
+
+"You wish them feelin's had hild!" says John, leaning his face still
+lower to the touches of her pretty hands; and then in his reverence he
+addressed her in the third person, saying, "How sweetly prowokin' she
+is!"
+
+Then, very earnestly, "They hev hild all these years, them feelin's hev,
+and they hev been rewived this day in all their wiolence; and the
+beautiful curls that used to shine down all the daffodils are just as
+soft and as golden as ever!" Here he ventured to touch the ends of the
+long-admired tresses; but he did not see that they were both thin and
+faded, and that the parting was very, very wide. "Ay, it's the same
+bright head," he went on, "that's been a-shinin' all these years so far
+away that I never expected to put my rough hand on 't,--not, anyhow,
+afore I'd crossed the dark ferry, and got refined into a spirit. And
+now, just think! here you be, a-sailin' in my little wessel, that I'd
+christened 'The Rose Rollins' for your memory's sake,--a-sailin' by my
+side in all the freshness and bloom of your perfect beauty!"
+
+The milliner laughed, well pleased with the compliment, and said that,
+when one charm wanished, another took its place sometimes; so that, if
+we only kept up our witality, we didn't look much the worse for all our
+years. "Now you, for instance, could never have been handsomer than you
+are to-day!" she concluded, pointing her theory with that kindly method
+so characteristic of women.
+
+His face had been drawing nearer to hers all the while she spoke, so
+that his eyes were quite looking into hers now. "I'm broke a leetle,"
+says he, "I know it; but when I see myself in these lovely
+lookin'-glasses I do look right nice, for all." And then he went on with
+his story.
+
+"I was a'most forgettin' on 't," he said; "but what wonder!
+
+"My father was a sailor; and the last time he ever went out was as one
+of the crew of the Dauphin, of Nantucket, Captain Griscom,--how well I
+remember it! though I was a little chap then,--about seven year old, I
+guess. The Dauphin was a whaler, you must know, and Captain Griscom as
+rough and hard as the sea-rocks themselves. I seen him once; and I've
+got a picter in my mind of his furrered, weather-beat face, and eyes
+that was more like the bulb of some pison plant than anything else,--so
+blue, and dull, and lackin' all human expression. His ear was like a dry
+knot,--seemed as if 't would break off if you touched it, and his nose
+wa' n't much better. He wa' n't a man that any child would ever go
+nigh,--anyhow I couldn't. My father was high-sperited,--too
+high-sperited for his sitooation, as'll be showed by an' by.
+
+"My mother was a little, pale woman, with blue eyes, and hair as soft as
+flax. You've seen her, I dare say, for she took in washin', and used to
+hang the things on the ruf, and I would go up with her under pertence of
+helpin', but more, I'm afeard, because I could the better see into your
+door-yard, and maybe get a glimpse o' you. Well, my father used to tell
+her, 'Katura,' he would say, 'arter one more voyage I'll leave the sea,
+for then I shall be rich enough to buy an acre o' ground somewheres
+where I can hear the waters a-lappin' on the sand; and we'll build a
+snug little house, and send our boy to school, and you sha' n't wash no
+more, for you ain't strong, Katura,--not nigh so strong as you used to
+be,--I can see that plain enough.' Then the tears would come to my
+mother's eyes; for a tender word was always touchin' to her, and seein'
+on 'em my father would make haste to say, pattin' of her cheek, that,
+although some o' the airly roses was gone, she wa' n't a mite less
+purty than she used to be! and then she'd wipe her eyes and smile agin,
+and arter a little smoothin' up of her hair, or carefuller pinnin' of
+her handkerchief, light his pipe for him, and fetch the big chair out of
+the corner; and then she'd set herself to darnin' of his socks, or
+patchin' of his jackets, and so they'd pass an evenin' happy as could
+be,--my father singin' a sea-song, or a love-song, maybe, first or last.
+
+"We lived in the last house o' the Row,--the housen was all poor enough,
+you mind, but ourn was the very poorest on 'em, and then we had the top
+floor,--one room and a pantry bein' all, exceptin' the ruf, which was
+flat, and which we had the privilege on for a yard, in consideration of
+a dollar extra a month. 'Have the ruf, be sure, Katura!' my father would
+say. 'What's a dollar?' and he'd slap his hand down as though 't was
+full o' dollars, but 't wa' n't, and mother always paid the extra dollar
+out of her own airnin's, but feelin' all the time a'most as if he'd paid
+it, just because of the generous way he had o' speekin'. I remember the
+last time father sailed with the Dauphin, as I was sayin'
+afore,--remember it just as though it was yesterday. It was a mornin' in
+winter,--the twenty-third o' December, and snow a-lyin' on the ground. I
+could see his tracks along the walk for a week arter he was gone, and
+then the snow begun to melt; thawin' and freezin' together at first, and
+then a clean thaw, so the tracks filled up with water, and arter another
+week I couldn't find no trace on 'em.
+
+"'Take good care o' your mother, my lad!' he said, 'take the best o'
+care on her! I'll be home afore long, for good and all, to take care on
+her myself; it won't be but two or three year at the outside,'--and he
+give my shoulder a little shake, and then he slipped a quarter-dollar
+into my hand. And then he turned to her. 'Three year ain't long,
+Katura,' he says; 'why, they'll fly round just like so many hours,
+a'most, and fust thing you know you'll hear my step a-comin' up the
+stair! Have everything you want, good wife, and don't work hard; you
+know its agin my will that you should,--these pale cheeks make me a
+little afeard; but, arter all, you'll come round with the daisies, I
+guess.' And with that he turned from her, and writ a little with his
+finger on the table, and then he chirked up like, and buttoned his
+jacket quick, and went out the door just as though he wa' n't a-goin' no
+furder than across the street.
+
+"The minute follerin', mother went up to the house-ruf. She wanted to
+see arter the washed things, she said, how they was a-dryin' and all;
+but I knowd well enough she wanted to see arter him, and didn't pull at
+her skirt and foller, as I generally did. I stayed down stairs, and, to
+kind o' break up my sorrer, I chucked my head aginst the knob that was
+atop o' the andiron! A curus way to git relief; but my diversions, them
+times, was somewhat limited.
+
+"When my mother came down agin, there wa' n't no tears in her eyes, but
+they had a kind of a fur-reachin' look, as if they was a-gazin' clear
+across the salt seas; and they never lost that look arterwards. It was
+wofuller than tears, that look was,--'cause it seemed as if it was arter
+somethin' that wa'n't to be found on this airth.
+
+"I hung round her, and when she did n't say nothin' I told her I was
+goin' to be the best boy that ever was, and build all the fires, and
+help her to keep things snug; and that I could make my old shoes last
+three year, till father would come home. I was sure on 't, with one new
+pair o' half-soles, and one new pair o' toe-caps, anyhow.
+
+"Then she took me on her knee, and leaned her face agin mine, and said I
+was the best child in all the world, and she hoped yet to see the time
+that I'd hev as nice shoes and other things as I deserved. I slipped the
+ring up and down her finger, as she held me so, a-talkin' to me, and at
+last I said, 'This ring is too big, mother; what made you get such a
+big one?' And then she said, 'Your father give it to me long ago, my
+child, and it wa'n't none too big at fust; it's the fault of the
+finger,--that is getting too thin'; and then she took the ring off,--it
+was a leetle slim thing,--and put it in an old teapot that was kept on
+the top shelf of the cupboard. She was afeared she'd either lose it off
+her hand, she said, or break it on the washboard. She didn't say nothin'
+furder, but I see she thought that the losin' on 't would be the
+dreadfullest misfortin that could happen to her.
+
+"It would take too long, and wear out your patience, I calculate, if I
+was to tell you of all the troubles we hed arter the sailin' of the
+Dauphin, and troubles ain't interestin' to hear on, nohow; so I'll pass
+'em by, trustin' your lively imagination to picter on 'em out.
+
+"Well, when the three year was purty near up, she used to say to me
+every day, 'Where do you 'spose poor father is? And what will he think
+of his little boy when he sees him?' And then she would answer her own
+question, and say, 'He'll think he's a little man,--that 's what he'll
+think.' And with such like talk she seemed to get a sort of comfort,
+somehow. From her, more than from anything I knowed myself, I got a fine
+notion o' my father; among other things, I thought he was the biggest
+man in the world, and I used to spekilate as to whether Mr. Farewell
+Rollins had a coffin in his shop that would be long enough for him, if
+he should happen to die at home. I didn't s'pose he had, and the thought
+of what it would cost to get one big enough caused me a good deal of
+sorrer. More 'n this, I thought he must have wonderful powers, and that
+he could make me a kite that would fly to the moon, or, if he chose, dip
+all the water out o' the sea with mother's long-handled gourd.
+
+"These thoughts give me a good deal o' satisfaction, but there was times
+that nothin' I could git out o' myself could chirk me up; and them
+times I always betook myself to the andirons, and bobbed my head agin
+the top on 'em, and that was sure to fetch me round.
+
+"I longed for my father to come back, as much, maybe, that Rose Rollins
+might see what a big man he was, as for anything else. I guessed she'd
+begin to notice of us some when the Dauphin come in! Hows'ever, the
+three year went by, and no Dauphin come in; and then the eyes o' my
+mother began to look, not only as if they was a-gazin' away across the
+salt sea, but clean into eternity. Her cheeks fell in like a pie that
+has been sot in a cellar for a week arter the bakin' on't, and her arm
+showed in her sleeve no bigger than a broomstick. I was a'most afeared
+on her sometimes, her forehead come to look so like yaller glass, and as
+if I could see right into it, if I only tried; and them times I thumped
+my head uncommon hard on the knobs of the andirons,--they was a
+blessin', Rose,--and I used to spekilate as to what folks did that wa'
+n't rich enough to hev 'em. My mother got so weak, arter a while, that
+she would sometimes sit by the side o' the tub and wash; and it was
+astonishin' to me to see what great sheets and bed-quilts she could
+wring dry them times; and it was astonishin', too, that she could keep
+her hands in freezin' water, day arter day, and be none the wuss for it;
+but she always said she wa' n't,--in, fact, she used to tell me she
+thought it done her good; and, happy enough for me! I never thought o'
+doubtin' of her for many a long day arterwards.
+
+"Many a time she give me the last bit o' bread, and said she wa' n't
+hungry, and once when I broke my slice in two, and offered her part
+back, she said, 'No, Johnny, I don't think I feel so well for eatin'.
+Rich food,' she said, 'didn't suit her constitution. And so, if we
+happened to hev meat or butter, she put it all on my plate. When it come
+to be my share to work without eatin', then I understood.
+
+"Many a time o' nights I heard her a-turnin' and moanin' in her sleep,
+as if soul and body was clean wore out; and at last I went to the lady
+that lived in the house with the painted door, and fitted young ladies
+with corsets, and sold them pomatum that made the hair grow to their
+heels,--so she said,--and told how my mother moaned in the night as if
+she was a-bein' drownded in the sea; and she told me it was a nasty
+habit some folks had,--mostly because they slept too sound,--and that,
+if I would give her a rough shake, she guessed she would come out all
+right. I tried to believe her on account o' the pomatum and the painted
+door, partly; but it wa'n't in the heart o' me to give the rough shake,
+and I never done it, thank the Lord!
+
+"Sometimes the fine lady would come in with her sewin'-work to bring us
+a little sunshine, she used to say, and I'm sure she never brought
+nothin' else, nor that neither, that anybody could see; and I always
+noticed that my mother felt a good deal less cheerful arter one o' these
+visits.
+
+"'Why don't you ride out, Mrs. Chidlaw?' she would say, 'and why don't
+you call the doctor? and why don't you wear warm flannels?' and then why
+didn't she do a thousand things that wa'n't to be thought on, 'cause
+they wa'n't in the nater o' the case; and then she would go away, sayin'
+she would run in another time and bring more sunshine!
+
+"My mother generally cried for a spell arter one o' these bright
+mornin's; and I didn't wonder, for it seemed to me as if the scent o'
+the pomatum was pison, and all the air was heavy like, arter one o' the
+visits.
+
+"She used to set up o'nights, a-workin', my mother did, long beyond
+midnight sometimes. 'What makes you, mother?' I would say. 'O, 'cause I
+like it, John!' she 'd answer, so lively like; and then she 'd begin to
+hum a tune, maybe, as if she was overflowin' with sperits.
+
+"She didn't seem to need sleep no more, she said, and, besides, she
+wanted to be wide awake when father come. So night arter night she would
+set by our one taller candle, a-mendin' of my jackets, and a-darnin' of
+my stockin's, and a-straightenin' and a stiffenin' up of the run-down
+heels of my old shoes.
+
+"'I don't care nothin' about 'em, mother,' I would say. 'I 'd just as
+lives be a wearin' on 'em ragged as not, and you 've chores enough
+without a-mindin' of me so much.' But she always said that, whether or
+not I cared for myself, she cared for me, and that she wanted I should
+look as smart as anybody's boy, so that father would be proud on me when
+he come home; concludin' with 'He must sartainly come now afore long.'
+
+"Many a time I've waked up of a winter night and found her woollen
+petticoat spread onto my bed, and she ashiverin' by the dyin' fire. One
+mornin' she surprised me uncommon by holdin' of a cap afore my eyes. 'A
+new one made of the old one,' says she, 'but you 'd never dream on 't,
+would you, Johnny?'
+
+"I hung it on the chair-post, and then I stood off, fairly dazzled, so
+gret was my admiration on 't. It was my old cap, be sure; but then it
+was all brushed up and pressed into shape, and lined anew with one o'
+the sleeves of my mother's silk weddin'-gown.. It wa' n't to be wore no
+longer every day, so she said, but must be put on the upper shelf o' the
+cupboard with her ring and her Sunday shawl, and kep' nice agin the time
+father should come home. I suffered, on givin' on 't up, the most
+tormentin' pangs, and had to bob my head agin the andirons considerable
+longer than common afore I come round. I was bent on wearin' on't in the
+sight of Rose Rollins,--that's you,--and forcin' on her to see the silk
+linin' some ways, and I planned out warious stratagems to that end. But
+mother said, 'No, Johnny, keep it nice just a leetle bit, till poor
+father comes.' And arter that she pacified me by takin' on 't down from
+time to time and allowin' of me to wear it as much as two or three
+minutes sometimes. The linin' was pea-green; and I've often thought
+since it was a leetle too fine for the tother part, which was
+seal-skin, and wore tolerable bare,--I havin' wore it, not off and on,
+but steady on, from the time I left off my bunnet that was made of the
+end of my cradle-quilt; but I didn't calculate it was too fine then, and
+I made a pint o' standin' on a chair afore the lookin'-glass, or else
+afore the winder towards your 'us, all the whilst I was a-wearin' on 't.
+It worried me a good deal, them times, to decide which I 'd rather
+do,--look at myself, or hev you look at me!
+
+"I used to tease mother to put the white shawl round her shoulders.
+'Just for a minute,' I would say; but she always answered, 'One of these
+days, Johnny; it 's all wrapt up with camp-phire, and I don't want to be
+gettin' on 't down!' I understood well enough that it was to be got out
+when the great day come.
+
+"'Suppose, Johnny,' says she, one day, 'we cut off some of our luxuries,
+and save up to buy somethin' nice for poor father agin he comes home!' I
+was struck favorable with the idee of the present, but what luxuries was
+to be cut off I didn't see clear.
+
+"There's the candle, for one thing!' says mother. 'Taller's taller, at
+the best o' times; and the few chores I do at night I can do just as
+well by the light of a pine-knot.'
+
+"Butter, she said, wa' n't healthy for her, nor milk, nor meat, nor
+sugar, nor no such things, so it would all be easy enough for her. She
+only hesitated on my account. But I spoke up ever so brave. 'I don't
+mind,' says I; 'it'll be good fun, in fact, just to see how leetle we
+can live on!' And I think yet my mind was some expanded by that
+experience,--it driv me to such curus devices. At fust I took leetle
+bites off my cake, and leetle sips of my porridge; but I found a more
+effective plan afore long, for looks goes a good ways, and even when we
+deceive ourselves it kind o' helps us. Well, I took to hevin' my
+porridge in a shaller plate, so that there seemed twice as much on 't as
+there really was, and to hollerin' my cake out from the under side, so
+that, when it was reduced to a mere shell, it still represented what it
+wa' n't; a trick that I found to work very slick, especially when I
+imagined Rose a-lookin' at my shaller plate, and not knowin' how deep it
+was.
+
+"'Won't we hev a beautiful surprise, though, for poor father!' my mother
+would say, when my spoon touched bottom, and it always touched bottom
+premature; and then we would talk of what we should buy, and I would be
+carried away like, and forget myself.
+
+"A fur hat was talked on in our fust wild enthusiasm, but that idee was
+gin up arter we'd gone about among the stores; and we settled final on
+'t a pair o' square-toed brogans, with nails in the heels on 'em.
+
+"'Let 'em be good sewed shoes, and not peg,' says my mother, when she
+give the shoemaker his order, 'and make 'em up just as soon as possible.
+You see my husband may be here any day now; and we mean to hev a great
+surprise for him,--Johnny and me.'
+
+"The shoemaker, to my surprise,--for I expected him to enter into it
+with as much enthusiasm as we,--hesitated, said he was pressed heavy
+with work just then, and that he thought she had best go to some other
+shop! I didn't understand the meanin' on 't at all; but my mother did,
+and told him she could pay him aforehand, if he wanted it; at which he
+brightened up, and said, come to think on 't, he could make the brogans
+right away.
+
+"Sure enough, they was finished at the appinted time, and I carried 'em
+home, with the money that come back in change inside o' one on 'em.
+
+"'Why, Johnny,' says mother, when she counted it, her face all
+a-glowin', 'here's enough left to buy a handkerchief for your father!'
+
+"Then she counted it agin, and said there was enough, she was a'most
+sure on 't. It mightn't get a silk one, not pure silk, but if she could
+only find somethin' with a leetle mixter o' cotton in 't, why it would
+look nearly as well,--the difference would never be knowed across the
+house.
+
+"She wanted a new gingham apron for herself; but that wa' n't bought,
+and all the money, as I have guessed sence, went into the handkerchief.
+And a purty one it was, too,--yaller-colored, with a red border, and an
+anchor worked in one corner on 't with blue-silk yarn.
+
+"So the fine presents was put away on the top shelf o' the cupboard,
+with the cap and the ring and the shawl, and there they stayed, week in
+and week out, and still the Dauphin didn't come in. I could see that my
+mother was a-growin' uneasy, more and more, though she never said
+nothin' to me that was discouragin'. She'd set sometimes for an hour
+a-lookin' straight into the air, and then she went up to the ruf more 'n
+common to look arter the things a-dryin' there.
+
+"One day there come on snow and sleet, but for all that she stayed
+aloft, just as though the sun had been a-shinin'; and at last, when the
+dusk had gathered so that she couldn't see no longer, she come down with
+a gret heap o' wet things, in her arms, and all of a shiver.
+
+"Her hand shook as she sot down to bind shoes,--she had took to bindin'
+of shoes some them times, not bein' so strong as she used to be for the
+washin'; but arter a while she fell of a tremble all over. 'It's no
+use,' says she, 'I ain't good for nothin' no more,' and she put away the
+bindin' and cowered close over the ashes.
+
+"I wanted to lay on a big stick, but she said no, she'd go to bed, and
+get warm there; but she didn't get warm, not even when I had piled all
+the things I could rake and scrape over the bed-quilt, for I could see
+them tremblin' together like a heap o' dry leaves.
+
+"I went to the lady with the painted door, and she promised to come in
+and see my mother early in the mornin'; but in the mornin', when I went
+agin, she said she had so many corsets to fit that it wa' n't
+possible,--that I must tell my mother she sent a great deal o' love, and
+hoped she'd be better very soon.
+
+"I didn't go arter her no more, and all that day and the next my poor
+mother lay, now a-burnin' and now a-freezin', but by and by she got
+better, and sot up in bed some, havin' my little chair agin her back;
+and so she finished bindin' o' the shoes, and I carried on 'em home, she
+a-chargin' me twenty times afore I sot out to take care and not lose the
+money I got for bindin' on 'em. 'And don't forget to stop at the store,'
+she said, 'and buy me a quarter o' tea, as you come back, Johnny.'
+
+"But, after all, I went home without the tea, or the money either.
+
+"In the fust place, the shoemaker said my mother had disappinted him in
+not sendin' the work home when she promised; and when I said she was
+sick, he answered that that wa 'n't his look-out; and then he eyed the
+work sharply, sayin', at last, that he couldn't pay for them sort o'
+stitches, and he wouldn't give out no more bindin' neither, and that I
+might go with a hop, skip, and jump, and tell my mother so; and he waved
+his hand, with a big boot-last in it, as though, if I didn't hop quick,
+he'd be glad to help me for'a'd himself.
+
+"'Never mind, Johnny,' says mother, as I leaned my head on her piller,
+a-cryin', and told her what the shoemaker had said, 'it'll all be right
+when father comes back.'
+
+"She didn't mind about the tea, she said, water would serve just as
+well; and then, arter pickin' at the bed-clothes a leetle, she said she
+felt sleepy, and turned her face to the wall.
+
+"All winter long she was sick, and there was heart-breakin' things all
+the while comin' to pass; but I'd rather not tell on 'em.
+
+"Spring come round at last,--as come it will, whether them that watch
+for its comin' are cryin' or laughin',--and the sun shined in at the
+south winder and made a patch o' gold on the floor,--all we had, to be
+sure,--when one day comes the news we had been a-lookin' for so
+long,--the Dauphin was a-comin' in!
+
+"'And me here in bed!' says my mother; 'that'll never do. How
+good-for-nothin' I be!'
+
+"Then she told me to run and fetch her best gown out of the chest, and
+she was out o' bed the next minute; and though she looked as pale as the
+sheet she managed somehow to dress herself. Then she told me to fetch
+her the lookin'-glass where she sot by the bedside; and when she seen
+her face the tears came to her eyes, and one little low moan, that
+seemed away down in her heart, made me shudder. 'I don't care for my own
+sake,' she said, puttin' her arm across my neck; 'but what will your
+father think o' me?'
+
+"Then she sot the glass up afore her, and combed her hair half a dozen
+different ways, but none on 'em suited. She didn't look like herself,
+she said, nohow; and then she told me to climb to the upper shelf and
+git down the fine shawl, and see if that would mend matters any.
+
+"I fetched the ring too; but it wouldn't stay on a single finger; and so
+she give it to me, smilin', and sayin' I might wear it till she got
+well.
+
+"I sot the house in order myself, with her a-tellin' on me some about
+things. The two silver teaspoons was burnished up, and stuck for show
+into the edge of the dresser; the three glass tumblers was sot forth in
+full view; and the tin coffee-pot, so high and so narrer at the top, was
+turned sideways on the shelf, so as to make the most on 't; and the
+little brown earthen-ware teapot was histed atop o' that. We had a dozen
+eggs we had been a-savin', for we kep' a hen on the ruf, and them I took
+and sot endwise in the sand-bowl, so that, to all appearance, the whole
+bowl was full of eggs; and I raly thought the appintments, one and all,
+made us look considerable like rich folks.
+
+"'Do go up to the ruf, Johnny, my child,' says my mother, at last, 'and
+see what you will see.'
+
+"She had sot two hours, with her shawl held just so across her bosom,
+and was a-growin' impatient and faint like.
+
+"She looked at me so eager, when I come down, I could hardly bear to
+tell her that I could only just see the Dauphin a-lyin' out, and that
+she looked black and ugly, and that I couldn't see nothin' furder. But I
+did tell it, and then come another o' them little low moans away down in
+her heart. Directly, though, she smiled agin, and told me to go to the
+chest and open the till, and get the table-cloth and the pewter platter
+that I would find there. 'We must have our supper-table shine its best
+to-night,' she said.
+
+"Agin and agin I went up to the ruf, but I didn't see nothin' no time
+except the whaler a-lyin' a little out, and lookin' black and ugly, as
+if there wa'n't no good a-comin' with her.
+
+"At last evenin' fell, and then my mother crept to the winder, and got
+her face agin the pane, and such a look of wistfulness come to her eyes
+as I had never seen in 'em afore.
+
+"She didn't say nothin' no more, and I didn't say nothin'; it was an
+awful silence, but somethin' appeared to keep us from breakin' on 't.
+
+"The shadders had gathered so that the street was all dusky; for there
+wa'n't no lamps at our end o' the street,--when all at once mother was
+a-standin' up, and holdin' out her arms. The next minute she says, 'Run
+to the door, Johnny; I ain't quite sure whether or not it's him!' And
+she sunk down, tremblin', and all of a heap.
+
+"I could hear the stairs a creakin' under the tread of heavy steps, and
+when I got to the door there was two men a comin' up instead o' one.
+'It's him! mother! it's him!' I shouted with all my might, for I see a
+sailor's cap and jacket, and took the rest for granted. I swung the door
+wide, and stood a-dancin' in it, and yet I didn't like the looks o'
+neither on 'em; only I thought I ought to be glad, and so I danced for
+pertended joy. 'Get out o' the way! you sassy lad!' says one o' the men,
+and he led the tother right past me into the house, I follerin' along
+behind, but neither on 'em noticin' of me in the least; and there sot my
+mother, dead still on her chair, just as if she was froze into stone.
+'Here he is,' says the man that was leadin' of him,--'here's John
+Chidlaw, what there is left on him!' Then he give me a push toward him,
+and nodded to my mother like, a-drawin' his mouth into such queer shapes
+that I couldn't tell whether he was a-laughin' or cryin', and I didn't
+know which I ought to do neither.
+
+"By this time the man that I partly took to be my father was a-backin'
+furder and furder from us, and at last he got clean agin the jamb o' the
+chimney, and then he looked up wild, as if he was a looking at the sky,
+and directly he spoke. 'This'll be a stiff blow,' says he. 'We're struck
+aft, and we'll be in the trough of the sea in a minute! God help us
+all!' And with that he began to climb up the shelves o' the cupboard, as
+though he was a climbin' into a ship's riggin'.
+
+"Next thing I seen, mother had got to him, somehow, and was a-holdin'
+round his neck, and talkin' to him in tones as sweet and coaxin' as
+though he had been a sick baby. 'Don't you know me, John?' she
+says,--'your own Katura, that you left so long ago!' He didn't answer
+her at all; he didn't seem to see her, but kep' right on, a-talkin'
+about the ship not bein' able to lift herself, and about the rudder
+bein' tore away, and a leak som'er's, and settin' of a gang o' hands at
+the pumps, and gettin' of the cargo up, and the dear knows what all! I
+didn't understand a word on 't, and, besides that, I was afeard on him.
+
+"'Tell 'em about the last whale we ketched, Jack,--that big bull that so
+nigh upsot us all. Come, that's a story worth while!' It was the man
+that had led him in who said this; and he laughed loud, and slapped him
+on the shoulder as he said it; and then he looked at my mother and
+winked, and drawed his mouth queer agin.
+
+"My father kind o' come to himself like now, and seatin' himself astride
+a chair, and with his face to the back on 't, he began:--
+
+"We was a cruisin' about in the South Pacific, when, between three and
+four in the afternoon of an August day, we bein' in latitude forty at
+the time, the man on the look-out at the fore-topmast-head cried out
+that a whale had broke water in plain view of our ship, and on her
+weather bow.
+
+"'Where away, sir? and what do you call her?' shouts the captain,
+hailin' the mast-head.
+
+"'Sperm whale, sir, three pints on the weather-bow, and about two miles
+off!'
+
+"'Keep a sharp eye, and sing out when the ship heads for her!'
+
+"'Ay, ay, sir.'
+
+"The captain went aloft with his spy-glass. 'Keep her away!' was his
+next order to the man at the helm.
+
+"'Steady!' sung out the mast-head.
+
+"'Steady it is!' answered the wheel.
+
+"'Square in the after-yards, and call all hands!'
+
+"'Ay, ay, sir.'
+
+"'Forward there! Haul the mainsail up, and square the yards!'
+
+"'Steady, steady!' sings out the mast-head.
+
+"'Steady it is!' answers the wheel.
+
+"'Call all hands!' shouts the captain, in a voice like a tempest.
+
+"The main hatches was off, and the men mostly in the blubber-room,
+engaged, some on 'em, in mincin' and pikin' pieces of blanket and horse
+from one tub to another, and some was a-tendin' fires, and some
+a-fillin' casks with hot ile from the cooler; but quick as lightnin' all
+the deck is thronged, like the street of a city when there is a cry of
+fire.
+
+"'There she blows! O, she's a beauty, a regular old sog!' sings the
+mast-head.
+
+"'Slack down the fires! Quick, by G--!' shouts the captain in a voice
+like thunder.
+
+"'She peaks her flukes, and goes down!' cries the mast-head.
+
+"'A sharp eye, sir! Mind where she comes up!'
+
+"'Ay, ay, sir!'
+
+"'Get your boats ready, lads, and stand by to lower away!'
+
+"The men work as for life,--the boat-bottoms are tallered, the
+boat-tackle-falls laid down, so as to run clear, the tub o' line and
+the harpoons got in, the gripes cast clear, and each boat's crew by the
+side o' their boat.
+
+"'Hoist and swing! Lower away!'
+
+"In a moment we're off, bendin' to our oars, every man on us, eager to
+see who will be up first. The whale was under half an hour; but at last
+we get sight o' the signal at the main, which tells us that she's up
+agin.
+
+"'Down to your oars, lads! Give way hard!' says the captain.
+
+"I got the palm o' my hand under the abaft oar, so as with each stroke
+to throw a part of my weight agin it, and our boat leapt for'a'd across
+the water, spring arter spring, like a tiger,--her length and twice her
+length afore the others in a minute.
+
+"'She's an eighty-barrel! right ahead! Give way, my boys!' cries the
+captain, encouragin' on us. And all our strength was put to the oar.
+
+"'Spring harder, boys! Harder! If she blows agin, some on you'll have an
+iron into her afore five minutes!' Then to the whale,--a-standin' with
+his legs wide, and bendin' for'a'd like,--'O, you're a beauty! Ahoy!
+ahoy! and let us fasten!'
+
+"We was nearly out of sight of our ship now, but we could see the smoke
+of her try-works still standin' black above her, though the fires had
+been slacked so long.
+
+"All at once the whale blowed agin; and we could see her plain now,
+lyin' like a log, not more 'n twenty rods ahead. A little more hard
+pullin', and 'Stand up!' says the Captain, and then, 'Give me the first
+chance at her!' I was a-steerin' and I steered him steady, closer,
+closer, alongside a'most, and give his iron the best chance possible;
+but it grazed off, and she settled quietly under, all but her head.
+
+"'That wa'n't quite low enough,' says he. 'Another lance!'
+
+"This failed too, and she settled clean under. Every man was quiverin'
+with excitement; but I watched calmly, and, as soon as I spied her
+whitenin' under water, I sent my lance arter her without orders, and by
+good forten sunk it into her very life--full length.
+
+"She throwed out a great spout o' blood, and dashed furiously under.
+
+"'God help us! She'll come up so as to upset our boat!' cries the
+captain. 'Every man here at her, when she comes in sight!'
+
+"He had hardly done speakin' when I felt a great knock, and at the same
+time seen somethin' a-flyin' through the air. She had just grazed us,
+shovin' our boat aside as a pig shoves his trough, and was breakin'
+water not a stone's throw ahead.
+
+"The captain had gone overboard; but we obeyed his last words before we
+looked arter him, and had a dozen irons into her afore you could 'a'
+said Jack Robinson! Down she went agin, pullin' the line arter her, coil
+on coil; but the pain wouldn't allow her to stay down long, and directly
+she was out agin, thrashin' the water with her flukes till it was all
+churned up like blubbers o'blood,--for her side was bristlin' with
+harpoons, and the life pourin' out on her like rain out of a
+thunder-cloud.
+
+"Meantime the captain had been hauled aboard, and as he sunk down on an
+oar,--for he couldn't stand,--all his shirt and hair a-drippin' red, his
+cold, spiteful eye shot into me like a bullet, and says I to the mate,
+'I'm a doomed man.'"
+
+"Then my father began ramblin' wildly about goin' overboard himself, and
+how he seen a stream o' fire afore his eyes as he sunk into the cold and
+dark; and how there came an awful pressure on his brain, and a roarin'
+in his ears; and how the strength went out of his thighs, and was as if
+the marrer was cut,--how he heard a gurglin', and felt suffocation, and
+then clean lost himself!"
+
+At this point John Chidlaw ceased to be master of his voice, and all at
+once hid his face in his arms. When the woman who had been listening so
+attentively, getting one of his rough hands upon her knee, stroked it
+gently, without a word, and by and by he returned her a little
+pressure, and then, steadying himself up, he said: "It ain't no use to
+think on't, Rose,--it's all over now, and they've met beyond the seas o'
+time, my poor father and mother, for they both crossed long ago,--met,
+and knowed each other, I hope, but the one never come to himself here,
+nor recognized the other. My mother took straight to her bed; and when
+she wore the white shawl agin, and had it drawed across her bosom, it
+was for that journey from which none on us come back."
+
+"Dear John," says Rose, very softly,--all the coquette gone,--only the
+woman left. And presently he was strong enough to go on.
+
+"It was a good many year," he said, "not till I was a'most a man, before
+I came to understand rightly what it was that sot my father crazy. The
+captain had been agin him all along on account of his too much sperit,
+and that capterin' o' the whale finished up the business, and pinted his
+fate. It wa'n't long arter this till Captain Griscom found occasion to
+treat him very hardly, which bein' resented only by a look, he ordered
+him down below to be flogged! This, Rose, was what broke the spirit on
+him; he was never himself arterwards, never knowed nothin' at all clear,
+exceptin' about the takin' o' that whale; and that he told over and over
+a hundred times, arter that fust time, just as I've told it to you, but
+all before it and all behind it was shadders, till the great shadder of
+all came over him.
+
+"When I come to hear on 't, I said I hoped my father would meet that
+'ere captain som'er's on the seas of eternity, and flog him within an
+inch of his life; and I ha'n't repented the sayin' on't yet."
+
+The tide had come up while John Chidlaw was telling his story, and his
+little boat slid off the bar directly, when, taking up the oars, he soon
+brought her to land.
+
+"Bless your dear heart, John!" says Rose, pointing back to the boat's
+name, as he handed her ashore, "would you believe I was so stupid as
+not to see that the name o' your wessel was the same as my own? I read
+it the _Rose Rolling_, to be sure!"
+
+But John maintained that she was not stupid a single bit nor mite, but,
+on the contrary, smart altogether beyond the common. "To come so nigh
+the truth," says he, "and yet not get hold on 't, arter all, is a leetle
+the slickest thing yet!"
+
+And then he told, as they walked home together,--he with three bandboxes
+in one arm, and her on the other,--all about his weary years of hardship
+and poverty, and all about the beginning of his good fortune, the
+running away of the horse and of the little girl who drew him after her,
+because she reminded him so much of Rose herself as she used to be when
+he looked down upon her so fondly from the roof in Baker's Row,--told
+her of the child's father, and how he set him up in business,--of his
+prosperity since, ending with her taking passage with him, which he said
+was the best fortune of all.
+
+"That was luck," says he, "that no words can shadder forth!" And then he
+said, "I oughtn't to call it luck, my dear; it was just an intervention
+of Divine Providence!" Then he corrected himself. "An interwention o'
+Diwine Providence," says he,--"that's what it was!" And he hugged the
+very bandboxes till he fairly stove them in.
+
+About a month after this blessed luck, the milliner's shop was closed
+one day at an unusually early hour, and the white-muslin curtains at the
+parlor windows above might have been noticed to nutter and sway, as with
+some gay excitement indoors. And so indeed there was. John had taken his
+Rose for good and all, and the little parlor was full of glad hearts and
+merry feet. All the milliner's apprentices and sewing-girls of the
+neighborhood were there, bright as so many butterflies, laughing, and
+nodding, and whispering one another, and dropping their eyes before the
+young sailors, and teamsters, and other fine fellows, who were serving
+them with a generosity that was only equalled by their admiration.
+Coffee, cakes, cheese, chowder, bottled beer, fruits, and hot
+bannocks,--the lasses had them all at once, and the lads would have been
+glad to give them even more.
+
+And John, grown ten years younger that day, kept all the while (being
+forced to turn his head away now and then to receive congratulations)
+one foot under the table, and against the soft slipper and silken
+stocking of Rose, lest at any moment she might be caught up into heaven,
+and so vanish out of his sight; and she, in turn, kept fond watch of
+him, pressing the oranges upon him with almost importunate solicitude.
+Perhaps she remembered that one which he had parted with for her sake,
+when he used to look down upon her from the roof of Baker's Row with
+such hopeless and helpless admiration.
+
+
+
+
+ARE THE CHILDREN AT HOME?
+
+
+    Each day when the glow of sunset
+      Fades in the western sky,
+    And the wee ones, tired of playing,
+      Go tripping lightly by,
+    I steal away from my husband,
+      Asleep in his easy-chair,
+    And watch from the open doorway
+      Their faces fresh and fair.
+
+    Alone in the dear old homestead
+      That once was full of life,
+    Ringing with girlish laughter,
+      Echoing boyish strife,
+    We two are waiting together;
+      And oft, as the shadows come,
+    With tremulous voice he calls me,
+      "It is night! are the children home?"
+
+    "Yes, love!" I answer him gently,
+      "They're all home long ago";--
+    And I sing, in my quivering treble,
+      A song so soft and low,
+    Till the old man drops to slumber,
+      With his head upon his hand,
+    And I tell to myself the number
+      Home in the better land.
+
+    Home, where never a sorrow
+      Shall dim their eyes with tears!
+    Where the smile of God is on them
+      Through all the summer years!
+
+    I know!--yet my arms are empty,
+      That fondly folded seven,
+    And the mother heart within me
+      Is almost starved for heaven.
+
+    Sometimes, in the dusk of evening,
+      I only shut my eyes,
+    And the children are all about me,
+      A vision from the skies:
+    The babes whose dimpled fingers
+      Lost the way to my breast,
+    And the beautiful ones, the angels,
+      Passed to the world of the blessed.
+
+    With never a cloud upon them,
+      I see their radiant brows:
+    My boys that I gave to freedom,--
+      The red sword sealed their vows!
+    In a tangled Southern forest,
+      Twin brothers, bold and brave,
+    They fell; and the flag they died for,
+      Thank God! floats over their grave.
+
+    A breath, and the vision is lifted
+      Away on wings of light,
+    And again we two are together,
+      All alone in the night.
+    They tell me his mind is failing,
+      But I smile at idle fears;
+    He is only back with the children,
+      In the dear and peaceful years.
+
+    And still as the summer sunset
+      Fades away in the west,
+    And the wee ones, tired of playing,
+      Go trooping home to rest,
+    My husband calls from his corner,
+      "Say, love! have the children come?"
+    And I answer, with eyes uplifted,
+      "Yes, dear! they are all at home!"
+
+
+
+
+IN THE GRAY GOTH.
+
+
+If the wick of the big oil lamp had been cut straight, I don't believe
+it would ever have happened.
+
+Where is the poker, Johnny? Can't you push back that for'ard log a
+little? Dear, dear! Well, it doesn't make much difference, does it?
+Something always seems to ail your Massachusetts fires; your hickory is
+green, and your maple is gnarly, and the worms eat out your oak like a
+sponge. I haven't seen anything like what I call a fire,--not since Mary
+Ann was married, and I came here to stay. "As long as you live, father,"
+she said; and in that very letter she told me I should always have an
+open fire, and how she wouldn't let Jacob put in the air-tight in the
+sitting-room, but had the fireplace kept on purpose. Mary Ann was a good
+girl always, if I remember straight, and I'm sure I don't complain.
+Isn't that a pine-knot at the bottom of the basket? There! that's
+better.
+
+Let me see; I began to tell you something, didn't I? O yes; about that
+winter of '41. I remember now. I declare, I can't get over it, to think
+you never heard about it, and you twenty-four year old come Christmas.
+You don't know much more, either, about Maine folks and Maine fashions
+than you do about China,--though it's small wonder, for the matter of
+that, you were such a little shaver when Uncle Jed took you. There were
+a great many of us, it seems to me, that year, I 'most forget how
+many;--we buried the twins next summer, didn't we?--then there was Mary
+Ann, and little Nancy, and--well, coffee was dearer than ever I'd seen
+it, I know, about that time, and butter selling for nothing; we just
+threw our milk away, and there wasn't any market for eggs; besides
+doctor's bills and Isaac to be sent to school; so it seemed to be the
+best thing, though your mother took on pretty badly about it at first.
+Jedediah has been good to you, I'm sure, and brought you up
+religious,--though you've cost him a sight, spending three hundred and
+fifty dollars a year at Amherst College.
+
+But, as I was going to say, when I started to talk about '41,--to tell
+the truth, Johnny, I'm always a long while coming to it, I believe. I'm
+getting to be an old man,--a little of a coward, maybe, and sometimes,
+when I sit alone here nights, and think it over, it's just like the
+toothache, Johnny. As I was saying, if she had cut that wick straight, I
+do believe it wouldn't have happened,--though it isn't that I mean to
+lay the blame on her _now_.
+
+I'd been out at work all day about the place, slicking things up for
+to-morrow; there was a gap in the barn-yard fence to mend,--I left that
+till the last thing, I remember,--I remember everything, some way or
+other, that happened that day,--and there was a new roof to put on the
+pig-pen, and the grape-vine needed an extra layer of straw, and the
+latch was loose on the south barn door; then I had to go round and take
+a last look at the sheep, and toss down an extra forkful for the cows,
+and go into the stall to have a talk with Ben, and unbutton the coop
+door to see if the hens looked warm,--just to tuck 'em up, as you might
+say. I always felt sort of homesick--though I wouldn't have owned up to
+it, not even to Nancy--saying good by to the creeturs the night before I
+went in. There, now! it beats all, to think you don't know what I'm
+talking about, and you a lumberman's son. "Going in" is going up into
+the woods, you know, to cut and haul for the winter,--up, sometimes, a
+hundred miles deep,--in in the fall and out in the spring; whole gangs
+of us shut up there sometimes for six months, then down with the
+freshets on the logs, and all summer to work the farm,--a merry sort of
+life when you get used to it, Johnny; but it was a great while ago, and
+it seems to me as if it must have been very cold.--Isn't there a little
+draft coming in at the pantry door?
+
+So when I'd said good by to the creeturs,--I remember just as plain how
+Ben put his great neck on my shoulder and whinnied like a baby,--that
+horse knew when the season came round and I was going in, just as well
+as I did,--I tinkered up the barn-yard fence, and locked the doors, and
+went in to supper.
+
+I gave my finger a knock with the hammer, which may have had something
+to do with it, for a man doesn't feel very good-natured when he's been
+green enough to do a thing like that, and he doesn't like to say it
+aches either. But if there is anything I can't bear it is lamp-smoke; it
+always did put me out, and I expect it always will. Nancy knew what a
+fuss I made about it, and she was always very careful not to hector me
+with it I ought to have remembered that, but I didn't. She had lighted
+the company lamp on purpose, too, because it was my last night. I liked
+it better than the tallow candle.
+
+So I came in, stamping off the snow, and they were all in there about
+the fire,--the twins, and Mary Ann, and the rest; baby was sick, and
+Nancy was walking back and forth with him, with little Nancy pulling at
+her gown. You were the baby then, I believe, Johnny; but there always
+was a baby, and I don't rightly remember. The room was so black with
+smoke, that they all looked as if they were swimming round and round in
+it. I guess coming in from the cold, and the pain in my finger and all,
+it made me a bit sick. At any rate, I threw open the window and blew out
+the light, as mad as a hornet.
+
+"Nancy," said I, "this room would strangle a dog, and you might have
+known it, if you'd had two eyes to see what you were about. There, now!
+I've tipped the lamp over, and you just get a cloth and wipe up the
+oil."
+
+"Dear me!" said she, lighting a candle, and she spoke up very soft, too.
+"Please, Aaron, don't let the cold in on baby. I'm sorry it was smoking,
+but I never knew a thing about it; he's been fretting and taking on so
+the last hour, I didn't notice anyway."
+
+"That's just what you ought to have done," says I, madder than ever.
+"You know how I hate the stuff, and you ought to have cared more about
+me than to choke me up with it this way the last night before going in."
+
+Nancy was a patient, gentle-spoken sort of woman, and would bear a good
+deal from a fellow; but she used to fire up sometimes, and that was more
+than she could stand. "You don't deserve to be cared about, for speaking
+like that!" says she, with her cheeks as red as peat-coals.
+
+That was right before the children. Mary Ann's eyes were as big as
+saucers, and little Nancy was crying at the top of her lungs, with the
+baby tuning in, so we knew it was time to stop. But stopping wasn't
+ending; and folks can look things that they don't say.
+
+We sat down to supper as glum as pump-handles; there were some
+fritters--I never knew anybody beat your mother at fritters--smoking hot
+off the stove, and some maple molasses in one of the best chiny teacups;
+I knew well enough it was just on purpose for my last night, but I never
+had a word to say, and Nancy crumbed up the children's bread with a
+jerk. Her cheeks didn't grow any whiter; it seemed as if they would
+blaze right up,--I couldn't help looking at them, for all I pretended
+not to, for she looked just like a pictur. Some women always are pretty
+when they are put out,--and then again, some ain't; it appears to me
+there's a great difference in women, very much as there is in hens; now,
+there was your aunt Deborah,--but there, I won't get on that track now,
+only so far as to say that when she was flustered up she used to go red
+all over, something like a piny, which didn't seem to have just the same
+effect.
+
+That supper was a very dreary sort of supper, with the baby crying, and
+Nancy getting up between the mouthfuls to walk up and down the room with
+him; he was a heavy little chap for a ten-month-old, and I think she
+must have been tuckered out with him all day. I didn't think about it
+then; a man doesn't notice such things when he's angry,--it isn't in
+him. I can't say but _she_ would if I'd been in her place. I just eat up
+the fritters and the maple molasses,--seems to me I told her she ought
+not to use the best chiny cup, but I'm not just sure,--and then I took
+my pipe, and sat down in the corner.
+
+I watched her putting the children to bed; they made her a great deal of
+bother, squirming off of her lap and running round barefoot. Sometimes I
+used to hold them and talk to them and help her a bit, when I felt
+good-natured, but I just sat and smoked, and let them alone. I was all
+worked up about that lamp-wick, and I thought, you see, if she hadn't
+had any feelings for me there was no need of my having any for her,--if
+she had cut the wick, I'd have taken the babies; she hadn't cut the
+wick, and I wouldn't take the babies; she might see it if she wanted to,
+and think what she pleased. I had been badly treated, and I meant to
+show it.
+
+It is strange, Johnny, it really does seem to me very strange, how easy
+it is in this world to be always taking care of our _rights_. I've
+thought a great deal about it since I've been growing old, and there
+seems to me a good many things we'd better look after fust.
+
+But you see I hadn't found that out in '41, and so I sat in the corner,
+and felt very much abused. I can't say but what Nancy had pretty much
+the same idea; for when the young ones were all in bed at last, she took
+her knitting and sat down the other side of the fire, sort of turning
+her head round and looking up at the ceiling, as if she were trying her
+best to forget I was there. That was a way she had when I was courting,
+and we went along to huskings together, with the moon shining round.
+
+Well, I kept on smoking, and she kept on looking at the ceiling, and
+nobody said a word for a while, till by and by the fire burnt down, and
+she got up and put on a fresh log.
+
+"You're dreadful wasteful with the wood, Nancy," says I, bound to say
+something cross, and that was all I could think of.
+
+"Take care of your own fire, then," says she, throwing the log down and
+standing up as straight as she could stand. "I think it's a pity if you
+haven't anything better to do, the last night before going in, than to
+pick everything I do to pieces this way, and I tired enough to drop,
+carrying that great crying child in my arms all day. You ought to be
+ashamed of yourself, Aaron Hollis!"
+
+Now if she had cried a little, very like I should have given up, and
+that would have been the end of it, for I never could bear to see a
+woman cry; it goes against the grain. But your mother wasn't one of the
+crying sort, and she didn't feel like it that night.
+
+She just stood up there by the fireplace, as proud as Queen Victory,--I
+don't blame her, Johnny,--O no, I don't blame her; she had the right of
+it there, I _ought_ to have been ashamed of myself; but a man never
+likes to hear that from other folks, and I put my pipe down on the
+chimney-shelf so hard I heard it snap like ice, and I stood up too, and
+said--but no matter what I said, I guess. A man's quarrels with his wife
+always make me think of what the Scripture says about other folks not
+intermeddling. They're things, in my opinion, that don't concern anybody
+else as a general thing, and I couldn't tell what I said without telling
+what she said, and I'd rather not do that. Your mother was as good and
+patient-tempered a woman as ever lived, Johnny, and she didn't mean it,
+and it was I that set her on. Besides, my words were worst of the two.
+
+Well, well, I'll hurry along just here, for it's not a time I like to
+think about; but we had it back and forth there for half an hour, till
+we had angered each other up so I couldn't stand it, and I lifted up my
+hand,--I would have struck her if she hadn't been a woman.
+
+"Well," says I, "Nancy Hollis, I'm sorry for the day I married you, and
+that's the truth, if ever I spoke a true word in my life!"
+
+I wouldn't have told you that now if you could understand the rest
+without. I'd give the world, Johnny,--I'd give the world and all those
+coupon bonds Jedediah invested for me if I could anyway forget it; but I
+said it, and I can't.
+
+Well, I've seen your mother look 'most all sorts of ways in the course
+of her life, but I never saw her before, and I never saw her since, look
+as she looked that minute. All the blaze went out in her cheeks, as if
+somebody had thrown cold water on it, and she stood there stock still,
+so white I thought she would drop.
+
+"Aaron--" she began, and stopped to catch her breath, "Aaron--" but she
+couldn't get any farther; she just caught hold of a little shawl she had
+on with both her hands, as if she thought she could hold herself up by
+it, and walked right out of the room. I knew she had gone to bed, for I
+heard her go up and shut the door. I stood there a few minutes with my
+hands in my pockets, whistling Yankee Doodle. Your mother used to say
+men were queer folks, Johnny; they always whistled up the gayest when
+they felt the wust. Then I went to the closet and got another pipe, and
+I didn't go up stairs till it was smoked out.
+
+When I was a young man, Johnny, I used to be that sort of fellow that
+couldn't bear to give up beat. I'd acted like a brute, and I knew it,
+but I was too spunky to say so. So I says to myself, "If she won't make
+up first, I won't, and that's the end on't." Very likely she said the
+same thing, for your mother was a spirited sort of woman when her
+temper _was_ up; so there we were, more like enemies sworn against each
+other than man and wife who had loved each other true for fifteen
+years,--a whole winter, and danger, and death perhaps, coming between
+us, too.
+
+It may seem very queer to you, Johnny,--it did to me when I was your
+age, and didn't know any more than you do,--how folks can work
+themselves up into great quarrels out of such little things; but they
+do, and into worse, if it's a man who likes his own way, and a woman
+that knows how to talk. It's my opinion, two thirds of all the divorce
+cases in the law-books just grow up out of things no bigger than that
+lamp-wick.
+
+But how people that ever loved each other could come to hard words like
+that, you don't see? Well, ha, ha! Johnny, that amuses me, that really
+does amuse me, for I never saw a young man nor a young woman
+either,--and young men and young women in general are very much like
+fresh-hatched chickens, to my mind, and know just about as much of the
+world, Johnny,--well, I never saw one yet who didn't say that very
+thing. And what's more, I never saw one who could get it into his head
+that old folks knew better.
+
+But I say I had loved your mother true, Johnny, and she had loved me
+true, for more than fifteen years; and I loved her more the fifteenth
+year than I did the first, and we couldn't have got along without each
+other, any more than you could get along if somebody cut your heart
+right out. We had laughed together and cried together; we had been sick,
+and we'd been well together; we'd had our hard times and our pleasant
+times right along, side by side; we'd christened the babies, and we'd
+buried 'em, holding on to each other's hand; we had grown along year
+after year, through ups and downs and downs and ups, just like one
+person, and there wasn't any more dividing of us. But for all that we'd
+been put out, and we'd had our two ways, and we had spoken our sharp
+words like any other two folks, and this wasn't our first quarrel by any
+means.
+
+I tell you, Johnny, young folks they start in life with very pretty
+ideas,--very pretty. But take it as a general thing, they don't know any
+more what they're talking about than they do about each other, and they
+don't know any more about each other than they do about the man in the
+moon. They begin very nice, with their new carpets and teaspoons, and a
+little mending to do, and coming home early evenings to talk; but by and
+by the shine wears off. Then come the babies, and worry and wear and
+temper. About that time they begin to be a little acquainted, and to
+find out that there are two wills and two sets of habits to be fitted
+somehow. It takes them anywhere along from one year to three to get
+jostled down together. As for smoothing off, there's more or less of
+that to be done always.
+
+Well, I didn't sleep very well that night, dropping into naps and waking
+up. The baby was worrying over his teeth every half-hour, and Nancy
+getting up to walk him off to sleep in her arms,--it was the only way
+you _would_ be hushed up, and you'd lie and yell till somebody did it.
+
+Now, it wasn't many times since we'd been married that I had let her do
+that thing all night long. I used to have a way of getting up to take my
+turn, and sending her off to sleep. It isn't a man's business, some
+folks say. I don't know anything about that; maybe, if I'd been broiling
+my brain in book learning all day till come night, and I was hard put to
+it to get my sleep anyhow, like the parson there, it wouldn't; but all I
+know is, what if I had been breaking my back in the potato-patch since
+morning? so she'd broken her's over the oven; and what if I did need
+nine hours' sound sleep? I could chop and saw without it next day, just
+as well as she could do the ironing, to say nothing of my being a great
+stout fellow,--there wasn't a chap for ten miles round with my
+muscle,--and she with those blue veins on her forehead. Howsomever that
+may be, I wasn't used to letting her do it by herself, and so I lay with
+my eyes shut, and pretended that I was asleep; for I didn't feel like
+giving in, and speaking up gentle, not about that nor anything else.
+
+I could see her though, between my eyelashes, and I lay there, every
+time I woke up, and watched her walking back and forth, back and forth,
+up and down, with the heavy little fellow in her arms, all night long.
+
+Sometimes, Johnny, when I'm gone to bed now of a winter night, I think I
+see her in her white nightgown with her red-plaid shawl pinned over her
+shoulders and over the baby, walking up and down, and up and down. I
+shut my eyes, but there she is, and I open them again, but I see her all
+the same.
+
+I was off very early in the morning; I don't think it could have been
+much after three o'clock when I woke up. Nancy had my breakfast all laid
+out overnight, except the coffee, and we had fixed it that I was to make
+up the fire, and get off without waking her, if the baby was very bad.
+At least, that was the way I wanted it; but she stuck to it she should
+be up,--that was before there'd been any words between us.
+
+The room was very gray and still,--I remember just how it looked, with
+Nancy's clothes on a chair, and the baby's shoes lying round. She had
+got him off to sleep in his cradle, and had dropped into a nap, poor
+thing! with her face as white as the sheet, from watching.
+
+I stopped when I was dressed, halfway out of the room, and looked round
+at it,--it was so white, Johnny! It would be a long time before I should
+see it again,--five months were a long time; then there was the risk,
+coming down in the freshets, and the words I'd said last night. I
+thought, you see, if I should kiss it once,--I needn't wake her
+up,--maybe I should go off feeling better. So I stood there looking: she
+was lying so still, I couldn't see any more stir to her than if she had
+her breath held in. I wish I had done it, Johnny,--I can't get over
+wishing I'd done it, yet. But I was just too proud, and I turned round
+and went out, and shut the door.
+
+We were going to meet down at the post-office, the whole gang of us, and
+I had quite a spell to walk. I was going in on Bob Stokes's team. I
+remember how fast I walked with my hands in my pockets, looking along up
+at the stars,--the sun was putting them out pretty fast,--and trying not
+to think of Nancy. But I didn't think of anything else.
+
+It was so early, that there wasn't many folks about to see us off; but
+Bob Stokes's wife,--she lived nigh the office, just across the
+road,--she was there to say good by, kissing of him, and crying on his
+shoulder. I don't know what difference that should make with Bob Stokes,
+but I snapped him up well, when he came along, and said good morning.
+
+There were twenty-one of us just, on that gang, in on contract for Dove
+and Beadle. Dove and Beadle did about the heaviest thing on woodland of
+anybody, about that time. Good, steady men we were, most of us,--none of
+your blundering Irish, that wouldn't know a maple from a hickory, with
+their gin-bottles in their pockets,--but our solid, Down-East Yankee
+heads, owning their farms all along the river, with schooling enough to
+know what they were about 'lection day. You didn't catch any of _us_
+voting your new-fangled tickets when we had meant to go up on Whig, for
+want of knowing the difference, nor visa vussy. To say nothing of Bob
+Stokes, and Holt, and me, and another fellow,--I forget his name,--being
+members in good and reg'lar standing, and paying in our five dollars to
+the parson every quarter, charitable.
+
+Yes, though I say it that shouldn't say it, we were as fine a looking
+gang as any in the county, starting off that morning in our red
+uniform,--Nancy took a sight of pains with my shirt, sewing it up stout,
+for fear it should bother me ripping, and I with nobody to take a
+stitch for me all winter. The boys went off in good spirits, singing
+till they were out of sight of town, and waving their caps at their
+wives and babies standing in the window along on the way. I didn't sing.
+I thought the wind blew too hard,--seems to me that was the reason,--I'm
+sure there must have been a reason, for I had a voice of my own in those
+days, and had led the choir perpetual for five years.
+
+We weren't going in very deep; Dove and Beadle's lots lay about thirty
+miles from the nearest house; and a straggling, lonely sort of place
+that was too, five miles out of the village, with nobody but a dog and a
+deaf old woman in it. Sometimes, as I was telling you, we had been in a
+hundred miles from any human creature but ourselves.
+
+It took us two days to get there though, with the oxen; and the teams
+were loaded down well, with so many axes and the pork-barrels;--I don't
+know anything like pork for hefting down more than you expect it to,
+reasonable. It was one of your ugly gray days, growing dark at four
+o'clock, with snow in the air, when we hauled up in the lonely place.
+The trees were blazed pretty thick, I remember, especially the pines;
+Dove and Beadle always had that done up prompt in October. It's pretty
+work going in blazing while the sun is warm, and the woods like a great
+bonfire with the maples. I used to like it, but your mother wouldn't
+hear of it when she could help herself, it kept me away so long.
+
+It's queer, Johnny, how we do remember things that ain't of no account;
+but I remember, as plainly as if it were yesterday morning, just how
+everything looked that night, when the teams came up, one by one, and we
+went to work spry to get to rights before the sun went down.
+
+There were three shanties,--they don't often have more than two or three
+in one place,--they were empty, and the snow had drifted in; Bob
+Stokes's oxen were fagged out, with their heads hanging down, and the
+horses were whinnying for their supper. Holt had one of his great
+brush-fires going,--there was nobody like Holt for making fires,--and
+the boys were hurrying round in their red shirts, shouting at the oxen,
+and singing a little, some of them low, under their breath, to keep
+their spirits up. There was snow as far as you could see,--down the
+cart-path, and all around, and away into the woods; and there was snow
+in the sky now, setting in for a regular nor'easter. The trees stood up
+straight all around without any leaves, and under the bushes it was as
+black as pitch.
+
+"Five months," said I to myself,--"five months!"
+
+"What in time's the matter with you, Hollis?" says Bob Stokes, with a
+great slap on my arm; "you're giving that 'ere ox molasses on his hay!"
+
+Sure enough I was, and he said I acted like a dazed creatur, and very
+likely I did. But I couldn't have told Bob the reason. You see, I knew
+Nancy was just drawing up her little rocking-chair--the one with the
+green cushion--close by the fire, sitting there with the children to
+wait for the tea to boil. And I knew--I couldn't help knowing, if I'd
+tried hard for it--how she was crying away softly in the dark, so that
+none of them could see her, to think of the words we'd said, and I gone
+in without ever making of them up. I was sorry for them then. O Johnny,
+I was sorry, and she was thirty miles away. I'd got to be sorry five
+months, thirty miles away, and couldn't let her know.
+
+The boys said I was poor company that first week, and I shouldn't wonder
+if I was. I couldn't seem to get over it any way, to think I couldn't
+let her know.
+
+If I could have sent her a scrap of a letter, or a message, or
+something, I should have felt better. But there wasn't any chance of
+that this long time, unless we got out of pork or fodder, and had to
+send down,--which we didn't expect to, for we'd laid in more than
+usual.
+
+We had two pretty rough weeks' work to begin with, for the worst storms
+of the season set in, and kept in, and I never saw their like, before or
+since. It seemed as if there'd never be an end to them. Storm after
+storm, blow after blow, freeze after freeze; half a day's sunshine, and
+then at it again! We were well tired of it before they stopped; it made
+the boys homesick.
+
+However, we kept at work pretty brisk,--lumbermen aren't the fellows to
+be put out for a snow-storm,--cutting and hauling and sawing, out in the
+sleet and wind. Bob Stokes froze his left foot that second week, and I
+was frost-bitten pretty badly myself. Cullen--he was the boss--he was
+well out of sorts, I tell you, before the sun came out, and cross enough
+to bite a ten-penny nail in two.
+
+But when the sun _is_ out, it isn't so bad a kind of life, after all. At
+work all day, with a good hot dinner in the middle; then back to the
+shanties at dark, to as rousing a fire and tiptop swagan as anybody
+could ask for. Holt was cook that season, and Holt couldn't be beaten on
+his swagan.
+
+Now you don't mean to say you don't know what swagan is? Well, well! To
+think of it! All I have to say is, you don't know what's good then.
+Beans and pork and bread and molasses,--that's swagan,--all stirred up
+in a great kettle, and boiled together; and I don't know anything--not
+even your mother's fritters--I'd give more for a taste of now. We just
+about lived on that; there's nothing you can cut and haul all day on
+like swagan. Besides that, we used to have doughnuts,--you don't know
+what doughnuts are here in Massachusetts; as big as a dinner-plate,
+those doughnuts were, and--well, a little hard, perhaps. They used to
+have it about in Bangor that we used them for clock pendulums, but I
+don't know about that.
+
+I used to think a great deal about Nancy nights, when we were sitting up
+by the fire,--we had our fire right in the middle of the hut, you know,
+with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. When supper was eaten, the
+boys all sat up around it, and told stories, and sang, and cracked their
+jokes; then they had their backgammon and cards; we got sleepy early,
+along about nine or ten o'clock, and turned in under the roof with our
+blankets. The roof sloped down, you know, to the ground; so we lay with
+our heads in under the little eaves, and our feet to the fire,--ten or
+twelve of us to a shanty, all round in a row. They built the huts up
+like a baby's cob-house, with the logs fitted in together. I used to
+think a great deal about your mother, as I was saying; sometimes I would
+lie awake when the rest were off as sound as a top, and think about her.
+Maybe it was foolish, and I'm sure I wouldn't have told anybody of it;
+but I couldn't get rid of the notion that something might happen to her
+or to me before five months were out, and I with those words unforgiven.
+
+Then, perhaps, when I went to sleep, I would dream about her, walking
+back and forth, up and down, in her nightgown and little red shawl, with
+the great heavy baby in her arms.
+
+So it went along till come the last of January, when one day I saw the
+boys all standing round in a heap, and talking.
+
+"What's the matter?" says I.
+
+"Pork's given out," says Bob, with a whistle. "Beadle got that last lot
+from Jenkins there, his son-in-law, and it's sp'ilt. I could have told
+him that beforehand. Never knew Jenkins to do the fair thing by anybody
+yet."
+
+"Who's going down?" said I, stopping short. I felt the blood run all
+over my face, like a woman's.
+
+"Cullen hasn't made up his mind yet," says Bob, walking off.
+
+Now you see there wasn't a man on the ground who wouldn't jump at the
+chance to go; it broke up the winter for them, and sometimes they could
+run in home for half an hour, driving by; so there wasn't much of a hope
+for me. But I went straight to Mr. Cullen.
+
+"Too late! Just promised Jim Jacobs," said he, speaking up quick; it was
+just business to him, you know.
+
+I turned off, and I didn't say a word. I wouldn't have believed it, I
+never would have believed it, that I could have felt so cut up about
+such a little thing. Cullen looked round at me sharp.
+
+"Hilloa, Hollis!" said he. "What's to pay?"
+
+"Nothing, thank you, sir," says I, and walked off, whistling.
+
+I had a little talk with Jim alone. He said he would take good care of
+something I'd give him, and carry it straight. So when night came I went
+and borrowed Mr. Cullen's pencil, and Holt tore me off a bit of clean
+brown paper he found in the flour-barrel, and I went off among the trees
+with it alone. I built a little fire for myself out of a
+huckleberry-bush, and sat down there on the snow to write. I couldn't do
+it in the shanty, with the noise and singing. The little brown paper
+wouldn't hold much; but these were the words I wrote,--I remember every
+one of them,--it is curious now I should, and that more than twenty
+years ago:--
+
+"Dear Nancy,"--that was it,--"Dear Nancy, I can't get over it, and I
+take them all back. And if anything happens coming down on the logs--"
+
+I couldn't finish that anyhow, so I just wrote "Aaron" down in the
+corner, and folded the brown paper up. It didn't look any more like
+"Aaron" than it did like "Abimelech," though; for I didn't see a single
+letter I wrote,--not one.
+
+After that I went to bed, and wished I was Jim Jacobs.
+
+Next morning somebody woke me up with a push, and there was the boss.
+
+"Why, Mr. Cullen!" says I, with a jump.
+
+"Hurry up, man, and eat your breakfast," said he; "Jacobs is down sick
+with his cold."
+
+"_Oh!_" said I.
+
+"You and the pork must be back here day after to-morrow,--so be spry,"
+said he.
+
+I rather think I was, Johnny.
+
+It was just eight o'clock when I started; it took some time to get
+breakfast, and feed the nags, and get orders. I stood there, slapping
+the snow with my whip, crazy to be off, hearing the last of what Mr.
+Cullen had to say.
+
+They gave me the two horses,--we hadn't but two,--oxen are tougher for
+going in, as a general thing,--and the lightest team on the ground; it
+was considerably lighter than Bob Stokes's. If it hadn't been for the
+snow, I might have put the thing through in two days, but the snow was
+up to the creatures' knees in the shady places all along; off from the
+road, in among the gullies, you could stick a four-foot measure down
+anywhere. So they didn't look for me back before Wednesday night.
+
+"I must have that pork Wednesday night sure," says Cullen.
+
+"Well, sir," says I, "you shall have it Wednesday noon, Providence
+permitting; and you shall have it Wednesday night anyway."
+
+"You will have a storm to do it in, I'm afraid," said he, looking at the
+clouds, just as I was whipping up. "You're all right on the road, I
+suppose?"
+
+"All right," said I; and I'm sure I ought to have been, for the times
+I'd been over it.
+
+Bess and Beauty--they were the horses, and of all the ugly nags that
+ever I saw Beauty was the ugliest--started off on a round trot, slewing
+along down the hill; they knew they were going home just as well as I
+did. I looked back, as we turned the corner, to see the boys standing
+round in their red shirts, with the snow behind them, and the fire, and
+the shanties. I felt a mite lonely when I couldn't see them any more;
+the snow was so dead still, and there were thirty miles of it to cross
+before I could see human face again.
+
+The clouds had an ugly look,--a few flakes had failed already,--and the
+snow was purple, deep in as far as you could see under the trees.
+Something made me think of Ben Gurnell, as I drove on, looking along
+down the road to keep it straight. You never heard about it? Poor Ben!
+Poor Ben! It was in '37, that was; he had been out hunting up blazed
+trees, they said, and wandered away somehow into the Gray Goth, and went
+over,--it was two hundred feet; they didn't find him not till
+spring,--just a little heap of bones; his wife had them taken home and
+buried, and by and by they had to take her away to a hospital in
+Portland,--she talked so horribly, and thought she saw bones round
+everywhere.
+
+There is no place like the woods for bringing a storm down on you quick;
+the trees are so thick you don't mind the first few flakes, till, first
+you know, there's a whirl of 'em, and the wind is up.
+
+I was minding less about it than usual, for I was thinking of
+Nannie,--that's what I used to call her, Johnny, when she was a girl,
+but it seems a long time ago, that does. I was thinking how surprised
+she'd be, and pleased. I knew she would be pleased. I didn't think so
+poorly of her as to suppose she wasn't just as sorry now as I was for
+what had happened. I knew well enough how she would jump and throw down
+her sewing with a little scream, and run and put her arms about my neck
+and cry, and couldn't help herself.
+
+So I didn't mind about the snow, for planning it all out, till all at
+once I looked up, and something slashed into my eyes and stung me,--it
+was sleet.
+
+"Oho!" said I to myself, with a whistle,--it was a very long whistle,
+Johnny; I knew well enough then it was no play-work I had before me till
+the sun went down, nor till morning either.
+
+That was about noon,--it couldn't have been half an hour since I'd eaten
+my dinner; I eat it driving, for I couldn't bear to waste time.
+
+The road wasn't broken there an inch, and the trees were thin; there'd
+been a clearing there years ago, and wide, white level places wound off
+among the trees; one looked as much like a road as another, for the
+matter of that. I pulled my visor down over my eyes to keep the sleet
+out,--after they're stung too much they're good for nothing to see with,
+and I _must_ see, if I meant to keep that road.
+
+It began to be cold. You don't know what it is to be cold, you don't,
+Johnny, in the warm gentleman's life you've lived. I was used to Maine
+forests, and I was used to January, but that was what I call cold.
+
+The wind blew from the ocean, straight as an arrow. The sleet blew every
+way,--into your eyes, down your neck, in like a knife into your cheeks.
+I could feel the snow crunching in under the runners, crisp, turned to
+ice in a minute. I reached out to give Bess a cut on the neck, and the
+sleeve of my coat was stiff as pasteboard before I bent my elbow up
+again.
+
+If you looked up at the sky, your eyes were shut with a snap as if
+somebody'd shot them. If you looked in under the trees, you could see
+the icicles a minute, and the purple shadows. If you looked straight
+ahead, you couldn't see a thing.
+
+By and by I thought I had dropped the reins; I looked at my hands, and
+there I was holding them tight. I knew then that it was time to get out
+and walk.
+
+I didn't try much after that to look ahead; it was of no use, for the
+sleet was fine, like needles, twenty of 'em in your eye at a wink; then
+it was growing dark. Bess and Beauty knew the road as well as I did, so
+I had to trust to them. I thought I must be coming near the clearing
+where I'd counted on putting up overnight, in case I couldn't reach the
+deaf old woman's.
+
+There was a man just out of Bangor the winter before, walking just so
+beside his team, and he kept on walking, some folks said, after the
+breath was gone, and they found him frozen up against the sleigh-poles.
+I would have given a good deal if I needn't have thought of that just
+then. But I did, and I kept walking on.
+
+Pretty soon Bess stopped short. Beauty was pulling on,--Beauty always
+did pull on,--but she stopped too. I couldn't stop so easily, so I
+walked along like a machine, up on a line with the creaturs' ears. I
+_did_ stop then, or you never would have heard this story, Johnny.
+
+Two paces,--and those two hundred feet shot down like a plummet. A great
+cloud of snow-flakes puffed up over the edge. There were rocks at my
+right hand, and rocks at my left. There was the sky overhead. I was in
+the Gray Goth!
+
+I sat down, as weak as a baby. If I didn't think of Ben Gurnell then, I
+never thought of him. It roused me up a bit, perhaps, for I had the
+sense left to know that I couldn't afford to sit down just yet, and I
+remembered a shanty that I must have passed without seeing; it was just
+at the opening of the place where the rocks narrowed, built, as they
+build their light-houses, to warn folks to one side. There was a log or
+something put up after Gurnell went over, but it was of no account,
+coming on it suddenly. There was no going any farther that night, that
+was clear; so I put about into the hut, and got my fire going, and Bess
+and Beauty and I, we slept together.
+
+It was an outlandish name to give it, seems to me, anyway. I don't know
+what a Goth is, Johnny; maybe you do. There was a great figger up on the
+rock, about eight feet high; some folks thought it looked like a man. I
+never thought so before, but that night it did kind of stare in through
+the door as natural as life.
+
+When I woke up in the morning I thought I was on fire. I stirred and
+turned over, and I was ice. My tongue was swollen up so I couldn't
+swallow without strangling. I crawled up to my feet, and every bone in
+me was stiff as a shingle.
+
+Bess was looking hard at me, whinnying for her breakfast. "Bess," says
+I, very slow, "we must get home--to-night--_any_--how."
+
+I pushed open the door. It creaked out into a great drift, and slammed
+back. I squeezed through and limped out. The shanty stood up a little,
+in the highest part of the Goth. I went down a little,--I went as far as
+I could go. There was a pole lying there, blown down in the night; it
+came about up to my head. I sunk it into the snow, and drew it up.
+
+Just six feet.
+
+I went back to Bess and Beauty, and I shut the door. I told them I
+couldn't help it,--something ailed my arms,--I couldn't shovel them out
+to-day. I must lie down and wait till to-morrow.
+
+I waited till to-morrow. It snowed all day, and it snowed all night. It
+was snowing when I pushed the door out again into the drift. I went back
+and lay down. I didn't seem to care.
+
+The third day the sun came out, and I thought about Nannie. I was going
+to surprise her. She would jump up and run and put her arms about my
+neck. I took the shovel, and crawled out on my hands and knees. I dug it
+down, and fell over on it like a baby.
+
+After that, I understood. I'd never had a fever in my life, and it's not
+strange that I shouldn't have known before.
+
+It came all over me in a minute, I think. I couldn't shovel through.
+Nobody could hear. I might call, and I might shout. By and by the fire
+would go out. Nancy would not come. Nancy did not know. Nancy and I
+should never kiss and make up now.
+
+I struck my arm out into the air, and shouted out her name, and yelled
+it out. Then I crawled out once more into the drift.
+
+I tell you, Johnny, I was a stout-hearted man, who'd never known a fear.
+I could freeze. I could burn up there alone in the horrid place with
+fever. I could starve. It wasn't death nor awfulness I couldn't
+face,--not that, not _that_; but I loved her true, I say,--I loved her
+true, and I'd spoken my last words to her, my very last; I had left her
+_those_ to remember, day in and day out, and year upon year, as long as
+she remembered her husband, as long as she remembered anything.
+
+I think I must have gone pretty nearly mad with the fever and the
+thinking. I fell down there like a log, and lay groaning, "God Almighty!
+God Almighty!" over and over, not knowing what it was that I was saying,
+till the words strangled in my throat.
+
+Next day, I was too weak so much as to push open the door. I crawled
+around the hut on my knees, with my hands up over my head, shouting out
+as I did before, and fell, a helpless heap, into the corner; after that
+I never stirred.
+
+How many days had gone, or how many nights, I had no more notion than
+the dead. I knew afterwards; when I knew how they waited and expected
+and talked and grew anxious, and sent down home to see if I was there,
+and how she--But no matter, no matter about that.
+
+I used to scoop up a little snow when I woke up from the stupors. The
+bread was the other side of the fire; I couldn't reach round. Beauty eat
+it up one day; I saw her. Then the wood was used up. I clawed out chips
+with my nails from the old rotten logs the shanty was made of, and kept
+up a little blaze. By and by I couldn't pull any more. Then there were
+only some coals,--then a little spark. I blew at that spark a long
+while,--I hadn't much breath. One night it went out, and the wind blew
+in. One day I opened my eyes, and Bess had fallen down in the corner,
+dead and stiff. Beauty had pushed out of the door somehow and gone. I
+shut up my eyes. I don't think I cared about seeing Bess,--I can't
+remember very well.
+
+Sometimes I thought Nancy was there in the plaid shawl, walking round
+the ashes where the spark went out. Then again I thought Mary Ann was
+there, and Isaac, and the baby. But they never were. I used to wonder
+if I wasn't dead, and hadn't made a mistake about the place that I was
+going to.
+
+One day there was a noise. I had heard a great many noises, so I didn't
+take much notice. It came up crunching on the snow, and I didn't know
+but it was Gabriel or somebody with his chariot. Then I thought more
+likely it was a wolf.
+
+Pretty soon I looked up, and the door was open; some men were coming in,
+and a woman. She was ahead of them all, she was; she came in with a
+great spring, and had my head against her neck, and her arm holding me
+up, and her cheek down to mine, with her dear, sweet, warm breath all
+over me; and that was all I knew.
+
+Well, there was brandy, and there was a fire, and there were blankets,
+and there was hot water, and I don't know what; but warmer than all the
+rest I felt her breath against my cheek, and her arms about my neck, and
+her long hair, which she had wrapped all in, about my hands.
+
+So by and by my voice came. "Nannie!" said I.
+
+"O don't!" said she, and first I knew she was crying.
+
+"But I will," says I, "for I'm sorry."
+
+"Well, so am I," says she.
+
+Said I, "I thought I was dead, and hadn't made up, Nannie."
+
+"O _dear_!" said she; and down fell a great hot splash right on my face.
+
+Says I, "It was all me, for I ought to have gone back and kissed you."
+
+"No, it was _me_," said she, "for I wasn't asleep, not any such thing. I
+peeked out, this way, through my lashes, to see if you wouldn't come
+back. I meant to wake up then. Dear me!" says she, "to think what a
+couple of fools we were, now!"
+
+"Nannie," says I, "you can let the lamp smoke all you want to!"
+
+"Aaron--" she began, just as she had begun that other night, "Aaron--"
+but she didn't finish, and--Well, well, no matter; I guess you don't
+want to hear any more, do you?
+
+But sometimes I think, Johnny, when it comes my time to go,--if ever it
+does,--I've waited a good while for it,--the first thing I shall see
+will be her face, looking as it looked at me just then.
+
+
+
+
+BUSY BRAINS.
+
+A CHAPTER OF LITERARY ANECDOTE.
+
+
+Of all working systems, the Mind seems most pertinacious in concealing
+the method of its operations. "No admittance" is inscribed upon the door
+of the laboratories of the brain. Approaching a psychological inquiry is
+like entering a manufactory: curious to observe its ingenious processes,
+we find that, though we may penetrate its court-yard and ware-rooms,
+every precaution is taken by its polite proprietors to prevent our
+interrogating its workmen or understanding its methods. The intellect
+often displays proudly her works; she has the assurance to attempt to
+answer questions about all things else in heaven and earth; but when her
+life is the subject of inquiry, that life seems to elude her own
+observation. We see in the evening sky stars so dim that the eye cannot
+fix upon them; we only catch glimpses of them when we are looking at
+some other point aside; the moment we turn the eye full upon them, they
+are lost to our sight. This covert and transient vision is the best
+which men have ever yet caught of the Mind, which they have studied so
+long to know. The metaphysicians look directly at it, and to them it is
+invisible, and they cannot agree what it is, nor how it moves. And when
+we look aside at the anatomy and physiology of the human frame, or, on
+the other hand, at the complex and endless variety of human actions and
+human experience, we catch only a partial and unsatisfactory glimpse of
+the soul which is beyond.
+
+Thought, as we have suggested, will uncover to us almost anything sooner
+than the secrets of its own power. It has explained much about the
+conditions of rapid vegetation, and how to procure profitable crops from
+the earth; but how little has it yet disclosed of the conditions which
+secure vigorous thinking, and best promote the development of truth!
+
+But some one may say: "I supposed that the conditions of mental activity
+were well known; they are quiet, peace of mind, neither too much nor too
+little food, and a subject which interests the feelings, or effectually
+calls forth the powers of the mind."
+
+Though you know all this, you are in ignorance still. Truly a savage
+might profess the art of agriculture in this fashion; for all this is
+only as if one were to say that the conditions of success in farming
+were to be where there were no earthquakes or avalanches, that is, to be
+quiet; to have the ground cleared of trees, that is, to have the mind
+free from cares and the shadows of sorrows; to have neither too much nor
+too little sunshine and rain, that is, to be properly fed; and to have
+good seed to put into the ground, that is, to engage the mind with a
+topic which it will expand and reproduce. After all these things have
+been secured, it is only a sort of barbaric husbandry that we have
+practised. The common and rude experience of men, laboring without
+thinking about their labor, teaches these things, and the very
+beginnings of the art and science of Intellectual Economy come beyond
+and after these.
+
+What shall we say of those moods which every student passes through,
+which turn and return upon the mind, irresistible and mysterious? What
+are the causes of those strange and delightful exaltations of mind in
+which thought runs like a clock when the pendulum is off, and crowds a
+week of existence into an hour of time? Whence are those dull days which
+come so unexpectedly, and sometimes lead a troop of dull followers, to
+interrupt our life's work for a week at a time? Where are we to search
+for obstructions in the channels of the mind when ideas will not flow?
+How is it that, after a period of clearness and activity in thought, the
+brain grows indolent, and, without a feeling of illness, or even of
+fatigue, work lags and stops? By what right is it that, at times, each
+faculty in our possession seems to grow independent, and refuses to
+return to its task at our call? What are the secret psychological
+conditions which influence the mental powers as strangely as if there
+were a goblin who had power to mesmerize Fancy and put it to sleep, to
+lock up Imagination in a dreary den of commonplaces, to blindfold
+Attention and make sport of his vain groping, and to send sober Reason
+off on foolish errands, so that Mistress Soul has not a servant left?
+
+Such variations of mental power, which we call moods of mind, are often
+caused, doubtless, by ill-health, or by fatigue, or by some irregularity
+of habit, or by anxiety of mind; but the experience of every student
+will probably attest the existence of such variations where none of
+these causes can be assigned. There are moods which we cannot trace to
+illness, or weariness, or external circumstances. Men are prone to
+regard them as whims, which sometimes they struggle against and
+sometimes they yield to, but at all times wonder at.
+
+The connection of the mind and body, and the dependence of the mind upon
+the health and vigor of the body, have been much dwelt upon; and we
+cannot be too deeply sensible of the debt which the student owes to
+those who have made this truth prominent to him. But, after all, it is
+wonderful with how much independence of bodily suffering--and even of
+suffering in the brain--the mind carries itself, and this fact seems
+worthy of more distinct recognition than it has received. It
+significantly confirms our belief in the existence of an immaterial
+principle, or soul, superior to the mere functions of the brain. Great
+and healthful mental activity often exists in a disordered body; and
+biographical literature is full of illustrations of the power of a
+strong will to accomplish brilliant results while the system is agitated
+by physical distress.
+
+Campbell, the poet, pursued his regular habit of writing every day, even
+under the pressure of much bodily pain.
+
+Cowper never, when it was possible to perform his task, excused his
+frail and desponding body from attendance in his little summer-house,
+morning and afternoon, until his forty lines of Homer were arrayed in
+English dress. The ballad of "John Gilpin" originated during one of his
+illnesses. With the hope of diverting his mind during an unusually
+severe attack of gloom, Lady Austen related to him the history of the
+renowned citizen, which she had heard in her childhood. The tale made a
+vivid impression, and the next morning he told her that the ludicrous
+incident had convulsed him with laughter during the night, and that he
+had embodied the whole into a ballad.
+
+Paley's last, and perhaps, for his day, his greatest work,--his "Natural
+Theology,"--was principally composed during the period in which he was
+subject to attacks of that terribly malady, nephralgia.
+
+So great was the delicacy of John Locke's constitution, that he was not
+capable of a laborious application to the medical art, which was his
+profession; and it is not improbable that his principal motive in
+studying it was that he might be qualified, when necessary, to act as
+his own physician. His difficulty was a lung complaint, or asthma; but
+his biographer says: "It occasioned disturbance to no person but
+himself, and persons might be with him without any other concern than
+that created by seeing him suffer." Notwithstanding this permanent
+suffering, his works are alike laborious and voluminous.
+
+Robert Hall, in the period when his intellectual power was most
+vigorous, pursued his daily studies almost regardless of the pain which
+was his companion through life. Dr. Gregory pursued a course of study
+with him in metaphysics and in mathematics; and he writes: "On entering
+his room in the morning, I could at once tell whether or not his night
+had been refreshing; for if it had, I found him at the table, the books
+to be studied ready, and a vacant chair set for me. If his night had
+been restless, and the pain still continued, I found him lying on the
+sofa, or, more frequently, upon three chairs, on which he could obtain
+an easier position. At such seasons, scarcely ever did a complaint issue
+from his lips; but, inviting me to take the sofa, our reading
+commenced.... Sometimes, when he was suffering more than usual, he
+proposed a walk in the fields, where, with the appropriate book as our
+companion, we could pursue the subject. If _he_ was the preceptor, as
+was commonly the case in these peripatetic lectures, he soon lost the
+sense of pain, and nearly as soon escaped from our author, whoever he
+might be, and expatiated at large upon some train of inquiry or
+explication which our course of reading had suggested. As his thoughts
+enkindled, both his steps and his words became quicker, until erelong it
+was difficult to say whether the body or the mind were brought most upon
+the stretch in keeping up with him."
+
+Hannah More, who wrote many volumes, and accumulated a fortune of nearly
+a hundred and fifty thousand dollars from them, was an invalid. In her
+early life, as well as in her declining years, she was subject to
+successive illnesses, which threw great impediments in the way of her
+intellectual exertions. Morning headaches prevented her from rising
+early. She used to say that her frequent attacks of illness were a great
+blessing to her, independently of the prime benefit of cheapening life
+and teaching patience; for they induced a habit of industry not natural
+to her, and taught her to make the most of her _well_ days. She
+laughingly added, it had taught her also to contrive employments for her
+sick ones; that from habit she had learned to suit her occupations to
+every gradation of the measure of capacity she possessed. "I never," she
+said, "afford a moment of a healthy day to transcribe, or put stops, or
+cross _t_'s or dot my _i_'s. So that I find the lowest stage of my
+understanding may be turned to some account, and save better days for
+better things. I have learned from it also to avoid procrastination, and
+that idleness which often attends unbroken health."
+
+Baxter, one of the most voluminous of English writers, was an invalid.
+After speaking of his multifarious labors as pastor, preacher, and also
+surgeon to the poor in general, he says these were but his relaxation;
+his writing was his chief labor, which went slowly on, for he had no
+amanuensis, and his weakness took up so much of his time. "All the pains
+that my infirmities ever brought on me," he adds, "were never half so
+grievous and afflictive as the unavoidable loss of time which they
+occasioned. I could not bear, through the weakness of my stomach, to
+rise before seven, and afterwards not till much later; and some
+infirmities I labored under made it above an hour before I could be
+dressed. An hour I must have of necessity to walk before dinner, and
+another before supper, and after supper I could seldom study." He is
+described as one of the most diseased men that ever reached the full
+limit of human life, entering upon mature life diseased and sore from
+head to foot, and with the symptoms of old age. His "Saint's Rest" was
+written as his meditation in a severe illness, and after he had been
+given up by his physicians.
+
+Lindley Murray commenced his work as a grammarian, and his other
+writings, after disease had fixed upon his declining years. Having
+successively engaged in the practice of law, and in mercantile pursuits,
+and having retired from the latter with some property, he fell into
+ill-health, which compelled him to go abroad, and kept him an exile
+through the remainder of his long life. The disease with which he was
+afflicted was a weakness in the lower limbs, which precluded him from
+walking, and, after a time, from taking any exercise whatever. He was
+thus imprisoned, as it were, in a country-seat, near York, in England;
+and here he commenced those literary labors, which, so far from being
+forbidden by his illness, did much to alleviate his sufferings. He says:
+"In the course of my literary labors, I found that the mental exercise
+which accompanied them was not a little beneficial to my health. The
+motives which excited me to write, and the objects which I hoped to
+accomplish, were of a nature calculated to cheer the mind, and to give
+the animal spirits a salutary impulse. I am persuaded that, if I had
+suffered my time to pass away with little or no employment, my health
+would have been still more impaired, my spirits depressed, and perhaps
+my life considerably shortened."
+
+Of Lord Jeffrey, who was a very hard-working man, it is said that one of
+his cures for a headache was to sit down and clear up a deep legal
+question.
+
+The cases of Pascal, Dr. Johnson, Channing, and others, will doubtless
+occur to the reader. It will suffice here to mention one more,--that of
+William of Orange, whose vigorous, comprehensive, and untiring intellect
+through a long course of years wielded and shaped the destinies of
+England, and enabled him, if not to make a more brilliant page in
+history, yet to leave a more enduring monument in human institutions
+than any other man of his age. Macaulay thus graphically describes him:
+"The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable, because his
+physical organization was unusually delicate. From a child he had been
+weak and sickly. In the prime of manhood, his complaints had been
+aggravated by a severe attack of small-pox. He was asthmatic and
+consumptive. His slender frame was shaken by a constant hoarse cough. He
+could not sleep unless his head was propped by several pillows, and
+could scarcely draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel
+headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion soon fatigued him. The
+physicians constantly kept up the hopes of his enemies by fixing some
+date beyond which, if there were anything certain in medical science, it
+was impossible that his broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through
+a life which was one long disease, the force of his mind never failed,
+on any great occasion, to bear up his suffering and languid body."
+
+Let the weak and feeble of body, therefore, take courage of heart; and
+let the robust student be admonished that he cannot excuse _all_ his
+inactive days upon the ground of indisposition.
+
+Fatigue is an enemy which every hard-working brain knows of; but it is
+an enemy, not of the workman, but only of the taskmaster. The student
+may resort to what healthful contrivances he pleases to avoid fatigue;
+but when it appears, he should not excuse himself, but yield to its
+impulse. He should learn to distinguish indolence, and other
+counterfeits, from that genuine weariness which makes the sleep of a
+laboring man sweet. Weariness is the best friend of labor, just as the
+toothache is the best friend of sound teeth. Weariness is an angel. When
+the proper end of your day has come, she hovers over your desk, and, if
+you are careless of the time, she breathes a misty breath upon your
+eyelids, and loads your pen with an invisible weight; the shadow of her
+gray wings dims your page, and her throbbing hand upon your forehead
+admonishes you of her presence. Let her visits be few and far between,
+and it is well; but you will never regret that you entertained her even
+unawares. You may avoid, but never resist her. She comes from Heaven to
+save life.
+
+But comes there never into your study a little imp of darkness,--of
+intellectual darkness, we mean,--whose efforts to imitate the gentle
+interference of fatigue are as grotesque as they are vexatious, and who
+does not succeed in deceiving, however readily one may sometimes fall in
+with his humor? The heavy pen, the dull page, the wandering thoughts,
+sometimes interrupt the most successful currents of labor, in those
+morning hours, and in the fresh days after vacations, when we cannot
+find the excuse of weariness. There is an indisposition to continuous
+labor, which is utterly different from fatigue.
+
+John Foster declared: "I have no power of getting fast forward in any
+literary task; it costs me far more labor than any other mortal who has
+been in the habit so long. I have the most extreme and invariable
+repugnance to all literary labors of any kind, and almost all mental
+labor. When I have anything of the kind to do, I linger hours and hours
+before I can resolutely set about it, and days and weeks if it is some
+task more than ordinary."
+
+Dr. Humphrey recommends that the unwilling thoughts be frightened to
+their task by the same means which Lord Jeffrey used to drive out a
+headache. He says, in his letters to his son: "When you sit down to
+write, you sometimes will, no doubt, find it difficult to collect your
+scattered thoughts at the moment, and fix them upon the subject. If, in
+these cases, you take up a newspaper, or whatever other light reading
+may happen to be at hand, with the hope of luring the truants back, you
+will be disappointed. Nothing but stern and decided measures will
+answer. I would advise you to resort at once to geometry or conic
+sections, or some other equally inexorable discipline to settle the
+business. I have myself often called in the aid of Euclid for a few
+moments, and always with good success. A little wholesome schooling of
+the mind upon lines and angles and proportions, when it is not in the
+right mood for study, will commonly make it quite willing to exchange
+them for the labor of composition, as the easier task of the two."
+
+There is sound philosophy perhaps in this recommendation. Many persons
+have observed that the preliminary process of "composing the thoughts"
+is one which requires a little time and effort, especially where one
+comes to his subject from a period of exercise, or repose, or any other
+condition in which the brain has not been active. The functional
+activity of the brain depends on the copious supply of the arterial
+blood, its activity varying with that supply, increasing as that supply
+is greater, and relaxing when it is diminished. But unlike other organs
+of the body, the brain is densely packed in an unyielding cavity, and
+there must be room made for this increased volume of circulation
+whenever it takes place. This is accomplished, physiologists tell us, in
+the cerebro-spinal fluid, the quantity of which has been estimated at
+two ounces. This fluid is readily absorbed and as readily reproduced,
+and thus its quantity varies in a certain inverse proportion to the
+volume of the circulation of blood in the brain; and by this means an
+equality of pressure is secured throughout all the variations in the
+force of the circulation. The act of adjustment between this balancing
+fluid and the blood requires a little period for its completion, and
+therefore the brain cannot instantaneously be brought to its maximum
+action.
+
+Hence, where the circulation has been diverted from the brain, and the
+proposed mental effort requires it to be vigorously revived in the
+brain, time must be allowed for this process of adjustment, and room
+must be made for the needed supply of blood; and perhaps a familiar
+demonstration in mathematics, which fixes the attention, and will
+instantly detect any delinquency of that faculty, may often be one of
+the best modes of employing this transition period, and aiding the
+change.
+
+We may observe here the singular paradox, which we believe that the
+philosophy of the mind and the experience of the scholar equally
+establish, that what are usually called the heaviest or severest
+subjects of thought are the least exhausting to the thinker. How many
+students, like Chief-Justice Parsons, have been accustomed, when
+fatigued with the labor of deep research, or exhausted by continued
+train of thought upon one subject, to relax the mind with arithmetical
+or geometrical problems. Isaac Newton could, month after month, spend in
+the profoundest problems of pure mathematics twice as many hours in the
+day as Walter Scott could give to the composition of what we call light
+reading; and it will be found that mathematicians, theologians, and
+metaphysicians have been able to sustain more protracted labor, and with
+less injury, than have poets and novelists. There are not wanting
+reasons which aid us to understand this paradox, but we will not enter
+upon them here.
+
+Irregularities of habit will doubtless disturb the action of the mind.
+The mental power that is thrown away and wasted by recklessness in this
+respect is incalculable. But there are variations in mental power in the
+midst of health, in the absence of fatigue, and under the most regular
+habits. Perhaps few authors have more carefully adapted their habits to
+their work, or ordered their method of life with a more quiet equality,
+than did Milton. He went to bed uniformly at nine o'clock.[C] He rose in
+the summer generally at four, and in winter at five. When, contrary to
+his usual custom, he indulged himself with longer rest, he employed a
+person to read to him from the time of his waking to that of his rising.
+The opening of his day was uniformly consecrated to religion. A chapter
+of the Hebrew Scriptures being read to him as soon as he was up, he
+passed the subsequent interval till seven o'clock in private meditation.
+From seven till twelve he either studied, listened while some author was
+read to him, or dictated as some friendly hand supplied him with its
+pen. At twelve commenced his hour of exercise, which before his
+blindness was usually passed in his garden or in walking, and afterward
+for the most part in the swing which he had contrived for the purpose of
+exercise. His early and frugal dinner succeeded, and when it was
+finished he resigned himself to the recreation of music, by which he
+found his mind at once gratified and restored. He played on the organ,
+and sang, or his wife sang for him. From his music he returned with
+fresh vigor to his books or his composition. At six he admitted the
+visits of his friends; he took his abstemious supper, of olives or some
+light thing, at eight; and at nine, having smoked a pipe and drank a
+glass of water, he retired. Yet in the midst of this clock-like
+regularity his labors were broken by frequent unfruitful seasons.
+Symmons says of him, that "he frequently composed in the night, when his
+unpremeditated verse would sometimes flow in a torrent, tinder the
+impulse, as it were, of some strange poetical fury; and in these
+peculiar moments of inspiration, his amanuensis, who was generally his
+daughter, was summoned by the bell to arrest the verses as they came,
+and to commit them to the security of writing.... Some days would elapse
+undistinguished by a verse, while on others he would dictate thirty or
+forty lines.... Labor would often be ineffectual to obtain what often
+would be gratuitously offered to him; and his imagination, which at one
+instant would refuse a flower to his most strenuous cultivation, would
+at another time shoot up into spontaneous and abundant vegetation." He
+seldom wrote any in the summer.
+
+Cowper said that _he_ composed best in winter, because then he could
+find nothing else to do but think; and he contrasted himself in this
+respect with other poets, who have found an inspiration in the
+attractive scenes of the more genial seasons.
+
+The biographer of Campbell has given us the following anecdote with
+respect to the oft-quoted lines,
+
+    "'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
+    And coming events cast their shadows before."
+
+The happy thought first presented itself to his mind during a visit at
+Minto. He had gone early to bed, and, still meditating on "Lochiel's
+Warning," fell fast asleep. During the night he suddenly awoke,
+repeating, "Events to come cast their shadows before"! This was the very
+thought for which he had been hunting the whole week. He rang the bell
+more than once with increasing force. At last, surprised and annoyed by
+so unseasonable a peal, the servant appeared. The poet was sitting with
+one foot in the bed, and the other on the floor, with an air of mixed
+impatience and inspiration. "Sir, are you ill?" inquired the servant.
+"Ill! never better in my life. Leave me the candle, and oblige me with a
+cup of tea as soon as possible." He then started to his feet, seized
+hold of his pen, and wrote down the happy thought, but as he wrote
+changed the words "events to come" into "coming events," as it now
+stands in the text. Looking at his watch he observed that it was two
+o'clock, the right hour for a poet's dream; and over his cup of tea he
+completed his first sketch of "Lochiel."
+
+Nor is this capriciousness exclusively the attribute of the poetic Muse.
+
+Calvin, who studied and wrote in bed, if he felt his facility of
+composition quitting him, as not unfrequently he did, gave up writing
+and composing, and went about his out-door duties for days, weeks, and
+months together. But as soon as he felt the inspiration again, he went
+back to his bed, and his secretary set to work forthwith.
+
+Dr. Edward Robinson was always under the necessity of waiting upon his
+moods in composition. He wondered at the men who can write when they
+will. Sometimes for days together he could make no headway in his higher
+tasks.
+
+There are avocations, like those of the advocate, the preacher, the
+journalist, which must be pursued continuously, well or ill, and in
+spite of such variations of feeling. In these labors men doubtless learn
+to disregard in some degree these moods of mind; but the variable
+quality of the productions of one man on different days confirms what
+testimony we have of their existence.
+
+The zeal or the indifference, the clearness or the dulness, the
+quickness or the sluggishness of thought, are doubtless to some degree
+determined by the methods of labor into which the person falls, and by
+the incidental habits and circumstances of his life. It is wonderful
+what a vast fund of information and suggestion upon these and kindred
+points of mental phenomena is found in the experience of the great
+industrial class of the intellectual world recorded in biographical and
+historical literature. Let us then visit some of the busiest and most
+successful scholars, philosophers, poets, writers, and preachers; let us
+peep through the window of biography into the library, the cabinet, and
+the office. Let us watch the habits of some of these busy-brained men,
+these great masters of the intellectual world. Let us note what helps
+and what hindrances they have found; how they have driven their work, or
+how they have been driven by it, and what is the nature and degree of
+the systems which they have adopted in ordering their hours of labor and
+of relaxation.
+
+We will visit them as we find them, without looking for examples of
+excellence or warnings of carelessness, and will leave the reader to
+make his own inferences.
+
+The poet Southey, who is said to have been, perhaps, more continually
+employed than any other writer of his generation, was habitually an
+early riser, but he never encroached upon the hours of the night. He
+gives the following account of his day, as he employed it at the age of
+thirty-two: "Three pages of history after breakfast (equivalent to five
+in small quarto printing), then to transcribe and copy for the press, or
+to make my selections and biographies, or what else suits my humor, till
+dinner-time. From dinner till tea, I write letters, read, see the
+newspaper, and very often indulge in a siesta, for sleep agrees with me,
+and I have a good substantial theory to prove that it must; for as a man
+who walks much requires to sit down and rest himself, so does the brain,
+if it be the part most worked, require its repose. Well, after tea I go
+to poetry, and correct and rewrite and copy till I am tired, and then
+turn to anything else till supper." At the age of fifty-five, his life
+varied but little from this sketch. When it is said that his breakfast
+was at nine, after a little reading, his dinner at four, tea at six, and
+supper at half past nine, and that the intervals, except the time
+regularly devoted to a walk, between two and four, and a short sleep
+before tea, were occupied with reading and writing, the outline of his
+day during those long seasons when he was in full work will have been
+given. After supper, when the business of the day seemed to be over,
+though he generally took a book, he remained with his family, and was
+ready to enter into conversation, to amuse and to be amused. During the
+several years that he was partially employed upon the life of Dr. Bell,
+he devoted two hours before breakfast to it in the summer, and as much
+time as there was daylight for during the winter months, that it might
+not interfere with the usual occupations of the day. Of himself, at the
+age of sixty, at a time when he was thus engaged every morning at work
+away from his home, he says: "I get out of bed as the clock strikes
+six, and shut the house door after me as it strikes seven. After two
+hours' work, home to breakfast; after which my son engages me till about
+half past ten, and, when the post brings no letters that interest or
+trouble me, by eleven I have done with the newspaper, and can then set
+about what is properly the business of the day. But I am liable to
+frequent interruptions, so that there are not many mornings in which I
+can command from two to three unbroken hours at the desk. At two I take
+my daily walk, be the weather what it may, and when the weather permits,
+with a book in my hand. Dinner at four, read about half an hour, then
+take to the sofa with a different book, and after a few pages get my
+soundest sleep, till summoned to tea at six. My best time during the
+winter is by candlelight; twilight interferes with it a little, and in
+the season of company I can never count upon an evening's work. Supper
+at half past nine, after which I read an hour, and then to bed. The
+greatest part of my miscellaneous work is done in the odds and ends of
+time."
+
+Shelley rose early in the morning, walked and read before breakfast,
+took that meal sparingly, wrote and studied the greater part of the
+morning, walked and read again, dined on vegetables (for he took neither
+meat nor wine), conversed with his friends (to whom his house was ever
+open), again walked out, and usually finished with reading to his wife
+till ten o'clock, when he went to bed. This was his daily existence. His
+book was generally Plato, or Homer, or one of the Greek tragedians, or
+the Bible, in which last he took a great interest. Out of twenty-four
+hours he frequently read sixteen. "He wrote his Prometheus," says
+Willis, "in the baths of Caracalla, near the Coliseum." It was his
+favorite haunt in Rome.
+
+The poet Campbell thus describes his labors, when in London, at the age
+of fifty-five: "I get up at seven, write letters for the Polish
+Association, until half past nine, breakfast, go to the club and read
+the newspapers till twelve. Then I sit down to my studies, and, with
+many interruptions, do what I can till four. I then walk round the Park
+and generally dine out at six. Between nine and ten I return to
+chambers, read a book or write a letter, and go to bed always before
+twelve." "His correspondence," says his biographer, "occupied four hours
+every morning, in French, German, and Latin. He could seldom act with
+the moderation necessary for his health. Whatever object he once took in
+hand, he determined to carry out, and found no rest until it was
+accomplished." Whatever he wrote during his connection with the New
+Monthly and the Metropolitan was written hurriedly. If a subject was
+proposed for the end of a month, he seldom gave it a thought until it
+was no longer possible to delay the task. He would then sit down in the
+quietest corner of his chambers, or, if quiet was not to be found in
+town, he would start off to the country, and there, shut in among the
+green fields, complete his task. When sixty-two years old, he says: "I
+am only six hours out of the twenty-four in bed. I study twelve, and
+walk six. Oranges, exercise, and early rising serve to keep me
+flourishing."
+
+"Procter (Barry Cornwall) usually writes," says Willis, "in a small
+closet adjoining his library. There is just room enough in it for a desk
+and two chairs, and his favorite books, miniature likenesses of authors,
+manuscripts, &c., piled around in true poetical confusion." He confines
+his labors to the daytime, eschewing evening work. In a letter to a
+friend, some years ago, he wrote: "I hope you will not continue to give
+up your nights to literary undertakings. Believe me (who have suffered
+bitterly for this imprudence) that nothing in the world of letters is
+worth the sacrifice of health and strength and animal spirits which will
+certainly follow this excess of labor."
+
+Cowper, at the age of fifty-three, and at a busy period of his life,
+says: "The morning is my writing time, and in the morning I have no
+spirits. So much the worse for my correspondents. Sleep, that refreshes
+my body, seems to cripple me in every other respect. As the evening
+approaches I grow more alert, and when I am retiring to bed am more fit
+for mental occupation than at any other time. So it fares with us whom
+they call nervous."
+
+He was very assiduous in labor. While he was translating Homer, he says:
+"As soon as breakfast is over, I retire to my nutshell of a
+summer-house, which is my verse manufactory, and here I abide seldom
+less than three hours, and not often more." This little summer-house,
+which he called his boudoir, was not much bigger than a sedan-chair; the
+door of it opened into the garden, which was covered with pinks, roses,
+and honeysuckles. The window opened into his neighbor's orchard. He
+says: "It formerly served an apothecary, now dead, as a smoking-room;
+and under my feet is a trapdoor, which once covered a hole in the ground
+where he kept his bottles. At present, however, it is dedicated to
+sublimer uses. Having lined it with garden mats, and furnished it with a
+table and two chairs, here I write all that I write in summer-time,
+whether to my friends or to the public.... In the afternoon I return to
+it again, and all the daylight that follows, except what is sometimes
+devoted to a walk, is given to Homer." In the evening he devoted himself
+to transcribing, so that his mornings and evenings were, for the most
+part, completely engaged. He read also, but less than he wrote; "for I
+must have bodily exercise," he said, "and therefore never let a day pass
+without it." His walk was usually in the afternoon.
+
+Lord Byron, who used to sit up at night writing "Don Juan," (which he
+did under the influence of gin and water,) rose late in the morning.
+Leigh Hunt thus describes him: "He breakfasted, read, lounged about,
+singing an air, generally out of Rossini, and in a swaggering style,
+though in a voice at once small and veiled; then took a bath and was
+dressed, and coming down stairs, was heard, still singing, in the
+court-yard, out of which the garden ascended at the back of the house.
+The servants at the same time brought out two or three chairs. We then
+lounged about, or sat and talked. In the course of an hour or two, being
+an early riser, I used to go in to dinner. Lord Byron either stayed a
+little longer, or went up stairs to his books and his couch. When the
+heat of the day declined we rode out, either on horseback or in a
+barouche, generally towards the forest. He was a good rider, graceful,
+and kept a firm seat. In the evening I seldom saw him. He recreated
+himself in the balcony, or with a book; and at night, when I went to
+bed, he was just thinking of setting to work with 'Don Juan.' His
+favorite reading was history and travels. His favorite authors were
+Bayle and Gibbon. His favorite recreation was boating." Byron had
+prodigious facility of composition. He was fond of suppers, and in
+London, after supping at Rogers's and eating heartily, he would go home
+and throw off sixty or eighty verses, which he would send to press the
+next morning.
+
+Goldsmith's desultory habits are quite characteristic. Irving says: "It
+was his custom during the summer-time, when pressed by a multiplicity of
+literary jobs, or urged to the accomplishment of some particular task,
+to take country lodgings a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow
+or Edgeware road, and bury himself there for weeks and months together.
+Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his room, at other times
+he would stroll out along the lanes and hedgerows, and, taking out paper
+and pencil, note down thoughts to be expanded and corrected at home."
+Though he engaged to board with the family, his meals were generally
+sent to him in his room, in which he passed the most of his time,
+negligently dressed, with his shirt-collar open, busily engaged in
+writing. Sometimes, probably when in moods of composition, he would
+wander into the kitchen, without noticing any one, stand musing with his
+back to the fire, and then hurry off again to his room, no doubt to
+commit to paper some thought which had struck him. He was subject to
+fits of wakefulness, and read much in bed; if not disposed to read, he
+still kept the candle burning; if he wished to extinguish it, and it was
+out of his reach, he flung his slipper at it, which would be found in
+the morning near the overturned candlestick, daubed with grease. He is
+said to have considered four lines of poetry a day good work.
+
+He commenced his poem of "The Traveller" in Switzerland, but long kept
+it back from publication, till Johnson's praise of it induced him to
+prepare it for the press. It is said that, while for two years previous
+to its publication he was employed in the drudgery of laborious
+compilations for the booksellers, his few vacant hours were fondly
+devoted to the patient revisal and correction of this his greatest poem;
+pruning its luxuriances, or supplying its defects, till it appeared at
+length finished with exactness and polished into beauty. While writing
+his History of England, he would read Hume, Rapin-Thoyras, Carte, and
+Kennet, in the morning, make a few notes, ramble with a friend into the
+country about the skirts of "Merry Islington," return to a temperate
+dinner and cheerful evening, and, before going to bed, write off what
+had arranged itself in his head from the studies of the morning. In this
+way he took a more general view of the subject, and wrote in a more free
+and fluent style than if he had been mousing at the time among
+authorities. The influence of this way of composing history is plainly
+seen in the entertaining, but not immortal, volumes it produced.
+
+Douglas Jerrold's day of labor may be sketched thus. At eight o'clock he
+breakfasts on cold new milk, toast, bacon, watercresses, and perhaps
+strawberries. Then he makes long examination of the papers, cutting out
+bits of news. The study is a snug room filled with books and pictures;
+its furniture is of solid oak. There work begins. If it be a comedy, he
+will now and then walk rapidly up and down the room, talking wildly to
+himself, and laughing as he hits upon a good point. Suddenly the pen
+will be put down, and through a little conservatory, without seeing
+anybody, he will pass out into the garden for a little while, talking to
+the gardeners, walking, &c. In again, and vehemently to work. The
+thought has come; and, in letters smaller than the type in which they
+shall be set, it is unrolled along the little blue slips of paper. A
+crust of bread and glass of wine are brought in, but no word is spoken.
+The work goes rapidly forward, and halts at last suddenly. The pen is
+dashed aside, a few letters, seldom more than three lines in each, are
+written and despatched to the post, and then again into the garden,
+visits to the horse, cow, and fowls, then another long turn around the
+lawn, and at last a seat with a quaint old volume in the tent under the
+mulberry-tree. Friends come,--walks and conversation. A very simple
+dinner at four. Then a short nap--forty winks--upon the great sofa in
+the study; another long stroll over the lawn while tea is prepared. Over
+the tea-table are jokes of all kinds, as at dinner. In the later years
+of his life, Jerrold seldom wrote after dinner; and his evenings were
+usually spent alone in his study, reading, writing letters, &c.
+Sometimes he would join the family circle for half an hour before going
+to bed at ten; but his rule was a solitary evening in the study with his
+books.
+
+Dickens's favorite time for composition is said to be in the morning.
+Powell, in his "Notices of Living Authors of England," says that he
+writes till about one or two o'clock, when he lunches, and afterwards
+takes a walk for a couple of hours; returns to dinner, and gives the
+evening to his own or a friend's fireside. Sometimes his method of labor
+is much more intense and unremitting. Of his delightful little Christmas
+book, "The Chimes," the author says, in a letter to a friend, that he
+shut himself up for one month close and tight over it. "All my
+affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and I became as
+haggard as a murderer long before I wrote, 'The End.' When I had done
+that, like 'The Man of Thessaly,' who, having scratched his eyes out in
+a quickset hedge, plunged into a bramble-bush to scratch them in again,
+I fled to Venice to recover the composure I had disturbed." When his
+imagination begins to outline a new novel, with vague thoughts rife
+within him, he goes "wandering about at night into the strangest
+places," he says, "seeking rest and finding none."
+
+Bulwer accomplishes his voluminous productions in about three hours a
+day, usually from ten until one, and seldom later, writing all with his
+own hand. Composition was at first very laborious to him, but he gave
+himself sedulously to mastering its difficulties; and is said to have
+rewritten some of his briefer productions eight or nine times before
+publication. He now writes very rapidly, averaging, it is said, twenty
+octavo pages a day. He says of himself in a letter to a friend: "I
+literatize away the morning, ride at three, go to bathe at five, dine at
+six, and get through the evening as I best may, sometimes by correcting
+a proof."
+
+Charles Anthon, so well known to the classical students of this
+generation, was accustomed, for many years at least, constantly to
+retire at ten and rise at four, so that a large part of his day's work
+was done by breakfast-time; and it was this untiring industry that
+enabled him, despite his incessant labors both in college and in school,
+to produce some fifty volumes.
+
+Gibbon always studied with his pen in hand, and for the purpose of his
+history he practised laboriously the formation of his style of writing.
+The first chapter of his history he rewrote three times, and the second
+and third chapters twice, before he was satisfied with them; but after
+thus getting under way, the greater part of his manuscript was sent to
+the press in the first rough draft, without any intermediate copy being
+made. After completing his great history, he congratulated himself upon
+having accomplished a long, but temperate labor, without fatiguing
+either the mind or the body. "Happily for my eyes," he said, "I have
+always closed my studies with the day and commonly with the morning."
+When he had accomplished the labors of the morning in the library, he
+preferred recreation and social enjoyments rather than any exercise of
+mind. He gives the following account of his sensations on accomplishing
+his great work. "It was on the day, or rather night, of June 27, 1787,
+between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of
+the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen,
+I took several turns in a covered walk of acacias. I will not dissemble
+the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the
+establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober
+melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an
+everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion."
+
+This reminds us of the emotions which Noah Webster describes as
+overwhelming him when he reached the close of his dictionary. "When I
+finished my copy," says Dr. Webster, "I was sitting at my table in
+Cambridge, England, January, 1825. When I arrived at the last word, I
+was seized with a tremor that made it difficult to proceed. I, however,
+summoned up my strength to finish the work, and then, walking about the
+room, I soon recovered."
+
+Buckle, even more systematically and laboriously than ever did Gibbon,
+devoted himself to the formation of his style of writing as a special
+preparation for entering upon the composition of his history. In his
+later years he abandoned the custom of writing at night, and it was his
+usual practice to lay aside his pen by three o'clock in the afternoon.
+When at home in London, he spent an hour or so at noon in walking about
+the city, frequently dined out, and read an hour after coming home. He
+went to dinner-parties exclusively, it is said, because they took less
+time than others.
+
+Sir William Jones while in India began his studies with the dawn, and in
+seasons of intermission from professional duty continued them throughout
+the day; meditation retraced and confirmed what reading had collected or
+investigation discovered. With respect to the division of his time, he
+wrote on a small piece of paper these lines:--
+
+    "SIR EDWARD COKE.
+
+    "Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,
+     Four spend in prayer,--the rest on nature fix."
+
+    "RATHER,
+
+    "Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
+     Ten to the world allot,--and _all_ to heaven."
+
+Of Chief-justice Parsons of Massachusetts, his son says: "It is
+literally true that for fifty years he was always reading or writing
+when not obliged to be doing something else. He had, fortunately for
+himself, many interruptions, but he avoided them as far as he could; and
+there were weeks, and I believe consecutive months, when he passed
+nearly two thirds of his day with books and papers.... He very seldom
+took exercise for exercise' sake. Excepting an infrequent walk of some
+minutes in the long entry which ran through the middle of his house, he
+almost never walked for mere exercise, until an attack of illness. After
+that he sometimes, though rarely, took a walk about the streets or on
+the Common.... His office was always in his dwelling-house. There he sat
+all the day, but his evenings were invariably spent in the large common
+sitting-room. He had his chair by the fireside, and a small table near
+it on which the evening's supply of books was placed. There he sat,
+always reading, (seldom writing in the evening or out of his office,)
+but never disturbed by any noise or frolic which might be going on. If
+anybody, young or old, appealed to him, he was always ready to answer;
+and sometimes, though not very often, would join in a game or play, and
+then return to his books.... I have never known him wholly unoccupied
+at any time whatsoever. He was always doing something, with books, pen,
+or instrument, or engaged in conversation."
+
+Judge Story arose at seven in summer and at half past seven in
+winter,--never earlier. If breakfast was not ready, he went at once to
+his library, and occupied the interval, whether it was five minutes or
+fifty, in writing. When the family assembled, he was called, and
+breakfasted with them. After breakfast he sat in the drawing-room, and
+spent from half to three quarters of an hour in reading the newspapers
+of the day. He then returned to his study, and wrote until the bell
+sounded for his lecture at the Law School. After lecturing for two, and
+sometimes three hours, he returned to his study, and worked until two
+o'clock, when he was called to dinner. To his dinner--which on his part
+was always simple--he gave an hour, and then again betook himself to his
+study, where in the winter time he worked as long as the daylight
+lasted, unless called away by a visitor, or obliged to attend a
+moot-court. Then he came down and joined the family, and work for the
+day was over. During the evening he was rarely without company; but if
+alone he read some new publication, sometimes corrected a proof-sheet,
+listened to music, talked with the family, or played backgammon. In the
+summer afternoons he left his library towards twilight. Generally the
+summer afternoon was varied three or four times a week in fair weather
+by a drive of about an hour in the country in an open chaise. At ten or
+half past he retired for the night, never varying a half-hour from this
+time. The exercise he took was almost entirely incidental to his duties,
+and consisted in driving to Boston to hold his court, or attend to other
+business, and in walking to and from the Law School. His real exercise
+was in talking. His diet was exceedingly simple. His lectures were
+wholly extemporary, or delivered without minutes, and no record was ever
+made of them by himself. After an interruption of hours, and even of
+days, he could take up the pen and continue a sentence which he had left
+half-written, without reading back, going on with the same certainty and
+rapidity as if he had never been stopped.
+
+While Lord Jeffrey was judge, during the sittings of the court, the
+performance of his official duties exhausted nearly his whole day, the
+evenings especially; and his spare time, whether during his sittings or
+in vacation, was given to society, to correspondence, to walking, to
+lounging in his garden, and to reading.
+
+John C. Calhoun was an arduous student, and very simple in his habits.
+He avoided all stimulants. When at home, he rose at daybreak, and, if
+weather permitted, took a walk over his farm. He breakfasted at half
+past seven, and then retired to his office, which stood near his house,
+where he wrote till dinner-time, or three o'clock. After dinner he read
+or conversed with his family till sunset, when he took another walk. His
+tea hour was eight. He then joined the family, and read or talked till
+ten, when he retired.
+
+Dr. Arnold of Rugby began lessons at seven; and, with the interval of
+breakfast, they lasted till nearly three. Then he would walk with his
+pupils, and dine at half past five. At seven he usually had some lessons
+on hand; and "it was only when they were all gathered up in the
+drawing-room after tea," says Mr. Stanley, "amidst young men on all
+sides of him, that he would commence work for himself in writing his
+sermons or Roman History." In a letter Dr. Arnold said: "from about a
+quarter before nine till ten o'clock every evening I am at liberty, and
+enjoy my wife's company fully; during this time I read aloud to her,--I
+am now reading to her Herodotus, translating as I go on,--or write my
+sermons, or write letters." His favorite recreations were
+horseback-riding, walking, and playing with his children.
+
+Florence Nightingale, in advising that the sick be not suddenly
+interrupted so as to distract their attention, says that the rule
+applies to the well quite as much as to the sick. She adds: "I have
+never known persons who exposed themselves for years to constant
+interruptions who did not muddle away their intellects by it at last."
+Dr. Arnold seems to be an exception.
+
+The elder Alexander, the Princeton theologian, was another exception to
+Florence Nightingale's rule. It was his peculiarity that he seemed
+incapable of being interrupted. Except in hours of devotion, his study
+was always free to his children, even the youngest; noise made no
+difference; their books and toys were on his floor, and two or three
+would be clambering upon him while he was handling a folio or had the
+pen in his hand. Nor was this while engaged in the mechanical part of an
+author's work. His door was always open to the children; they burst in
+freely without any signal, and he always looked up with a smile of
+welcome; and he declared that he often could think to most purpose when
+there was a clatter of little voices around him. His voluminous works,
+which he commenced to publish late in life, do not indicate that he
+underwent a "muddling" process.
+
+Johnson used to assert that a man could write just as well at one time
+as another, and as well in one place as another, if he would only set
+himself doggedly about it.
+
+Dr. Channing's habits of labor when at home in Boston are thus
+described. "The sun is just rising, and the fires are scarcely lighted,
+when, with a rapid step, Dr. Channing enters his study. He has been
+watchful during many hours, his brain teeming, and under the excitement
+of his morning bath he longs to use the earliest hours for work.... His
+first act is to write down the thoughts which have been given in his
+vigils; next he reads a chapter or more in Griesbach's edition of the
+Greek Testament, and, after a quick glance over the newspapers of the
+day, he takes his light repast. Morning prayers follow, and then he
+retires to his study-table. If he is reading, you will at once notice
+this peculiarity, that he studies pen in hand, and that his book is
+crowded with folded sheets of paper, which continually multiply as
+trains of thought are suggested. These notes are rarely quotations, but
+chiefly questions and answers, qualifications, condensed statements,
+germs of interesting views; and when the volume is finished, they are
+carefully selected, arranged, and under distinct heads placed among
+other papers in a secretary. If he is writing, unless making preparation
+for the pulpit or for publication, the same process of accumulating
+notes is continued, which, at the end of each day or week, are filed.
+The interior of the secretary is filled with heaps of similar notes,
+arranged in order, with titles over each compartment. When a topic is to
+be treated at length in a sermon or essay, these notes are consulted,
+reviewed, and arranged. He first draws up a skeleton of his subject,
+selecting with special care and making prominent the central principle
+that gives it unity, and from which branch forth correlative
+considerations. Until perfectly clear in his own mind as to the
+essential truth of this main view, he cannot proceed. Questions are
+raised, objections considered, etc., the ground cleared, in a word, and
+the granite foundation laid bare for the cornerstone. And now the work
+goes rapidly forward. With flying pen he makes a rough draft of all that
+he intends to say, on sheets of paper folded lengthwise, leaving half of
+each page bare. He then reads over what he has written, and on the
+vacant half-page supplies defects, strikes out redundances, indicates
+the needless qualification, and modifies expressions. Thus sure of his
+thought and aim, conscientiously prepared, he abandons himself to the
+ardor of composition.... By noon his power of study is spent, and he
+walks, visits, etc. After dinner he lies for a time upon the sofa, and
+walks again, or drives into the country. Sunset he keeps as a holy hour.
+During the winter twilight he likes to be silent and alone.... At tea he
+listens to reading for an hour or more, leading conversation, etc.
+Evenings he gives up to social enjoyments."
+
+Mr. Buckle's method of making his researches, and preserving memoranda
+of the results for subsequent use in composition, was similar to Dr.
+Channing's, as we may infer from a note in his History. Dr. Channing
+spent his vacations at Newport, where his time was thus allotted:--Rose
+very early, walked, etc. Breakfasted on coarse wheat-bread and cream,
+with a cup of tea. Then went to his study. Every hour or half-hour, more
+or less, he threw his gown around him, and took a turn in the garden for
+a few minutes. After a few hours of work he was exhausted for the day,
+and read and conversed till dinner. The afternoon was given up to
+excursions, and the evening to society.
+
+Dr. Doddridge, in reference to his work, "The Paraphrase on the New
+Testament," said that its being written at all was owing to the
+difference between rising at five and at seven o'clock in the morning.
+"A remark similar to this," says Albert Barnes, "will explain all that I
+have done. Whatever I have accomplished in the way of commenting on the
+Scriptures is to be traced to the fact of rising at four in the morning,
+and to the time thus secured, which I thought might properly be employed
+in a work not immediately connected with my pastoral labors. That habit
+I have now pursued for many years.... All my Commentaries on the
+Scriptures have been written before nine o'clock in the morning. At the
+very beginning, now more than thirty years ago, I adopted a resolution
+to stop writing on these Notes when the clock struck nine. This
+resolution I have invariably adhered to, not unfrequently finishing my
+morning task in the midst of a paragraph, and sometimes even in the
+midst of a sentence.... In the recollection now of the past, I refer to
+these morning hours, to the stillness and quiet of my room in this house
+of God, when I have been permitted to 'prevent the dawning of the
+morning' in the study of the Bible, while the inhabitants of the great
+city were slumbering round about me, and before the cares of the day and
+its direct responsibilities came upon me,--I refer to these scenes as
+among the happiest portions of my life.... Manuscripts, when a man
+writes every day, even though he writes but little, accumulate. Dr.
+Johnson was once asked how it was that the Christian Fathers, and the
+men of other times, could find leisure to fill so many folios with the
+productions of their pens. 'Nothing is easier,' said he; and he at once
+began a calculation to show what would be the effect, in the ordinary
+term of a man's life, if he wrote only one octavo page in a day; and the
+question was solved.... In this manner manuscripts accumulated on my
+hands until I have been surprised to find that, by this slow and steady
+process, I have been enabled to prepare eleven volumes of Commentary on
+the New Testament, and five on portions of the Old Testament."
+
+Isaac Barrow was a very early riser, and with two exceptions very
+temperate in his habits. He indulged greatly in all kinds of fruit;
+alleging that, if the immoderate use of it killed hundreds in autumn, it
+was the means of preserving thousands throughout the year. But he was
+fonder still of tobacco. He believed that it helped to compose and
+regulate his thoughts. (He died, we may add, from the use of opium.) It
+was his plan, in whatever he was engaged, to prosecute it till he had
+brought it to a termination. He said he could not easily draw his
+thoughts from one thing to another. The morning was his favorite time
+for study. He kept a tinder-box in his apartment, and, during all of the
+winter and some of the autumn months, rose before it was light. He
+would sometimes rise at night, burn out his candle, and return to bed.
+
+Zwingli is described as indefatigable in study. From daybreak until ten
+o'clock he used to read, write, and translate. After dinner he listened
+to those who had any news to give him, or who required his advice; he
+then would walk out with some of his friends, and visit his flock. At
+two o'clock he resumed his studies. He took a short walk after supper,
+and then wrote his letters, which often occupied him until midnight. He
+always worked standing, and never permitted himself to be disturbed
+except for some very important cause.
+
+Melancthon was usually in his study at two or three o'clock in the
+morning, both in summer and winter. "It was during these early hours,"
+says D'Aubigne, "that his best works were written." During the day he
+read three or four lectures, attended to the conferences of the
+professors, and after that labored till supper-time. He retired about
+nine. He would not open any letters in the evening, in order that his
+sleep might not be disturbed. He usually drank a glass of wine before
+supper. He generally took one simple meal a day, and never more than
+two, and always dined regularly at a fixed hour. He enjoyed but few
+healthy days in his life, and was frequently troubled with
+sleeplessness. His manuscripts usually lay on the table, exposed to the
+view of every visitor, so that he was robbed of several. When he had
+invited any of his friends to his house, he used to beg one of them to
+read, before sitting down to table, some small composition in prose or
+verse.
+
+There is an interest of a peculiar nature in thus visiting the haunts
+and witnessing the labors of scholars, philosophers, and poets, which
+arises from the stimulus it affords us in turning again to our own
+humbler but kindred work. Whatever brings us into sympathy with the
+great and the noble thinkers enlarges and lifts our thoughts.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[C] In his youth he studied till midnight; but, warned by the early
+decay of sight and his disordered health, he afterwards changed his
+hours.
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A QUACK.
+
+IN TWO PARTS.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+I solemnly believe that I should have continued to succeed in the
+virtuous practice of my profession, if it had not happened that fate was
+once more unkind to me, by throwing in my path one of my old
+acquaintances. I had had a consultation one day with the famous
+homoeopath, Dr. Zwanzig; and as we walked away we were busily
+discussing the case of a poor consumptive fellow who had previously lost
+a leg. In consequence of this defect, Dr. Zwanzig considered that the
+ten-thousandth of a grain of _Aur._[D] would be an over-dose, and that
+it must be fractioned so as to allow for the departed leg, otherwise the
+rest of the man would be getting a leg-dose too much. I was particularly
+struck with this view of the case, but I was still more, and less
+pleasingly, impressed with the sight of my quondam patient, Stagers, who
+nodded to me familiarly from the opposite pavement.
+
+I was not at all surprised when, that evening quite late, I found this
+worthy seated waiting in my office. I looked around uneasily, which was
+clearly understood by my friend, who retorted, "Ain't took nothin', Doc.
+You don't seem right awful glad to see me. You needn't be afraid,--I've
+only fetched you a job, and a right good one too."
+
+I replied, that I had my regular business, that I preferred he should
+get some one else, and pretty generally made Mr. Stagers conscious that
+I had had enough of him.
+
+I did not ask him to sit down, and, just as I supposed him about to
+leave, he seated himself with a grin, remarking, "No use, Doc. Got to go
+into it this one time."
+
+At this I naturally enough grew angry, and used several rather violent
+phrases.
+
+"No use, Doc," remarked Stagers.
+
+Then I softened down, and laughed a little, treated the thing as a joke,
+whatever it was, for I dreaded to hear.
+
+But Stagers was fate. Stagers was inevitable. "Won't do, Doc,--not even
+money wouldn't get you off."
+
+"No?" said I interrogatively, and as coolly as I could, contriving at
+the same time to move towards the window. It was summer, the sashes were
+up, the shutters drawn in, and a policeman whom I knew was lounging
+opposite, as I had noticed when I entered. I would give Stagers a scare
+anyhow; charge him with theft,--anything but get mixed up with his kind
+again.
+
+He must have understood me, the scoundrel, for in an instant I felt a
+cold ring of steel against my ear, and a tiger clutch on my cravat. "Sit
+down," he said; "what a fool you are. Guess you've forgot that there
+coroner's business." Needless to say, I obeyed. "Best not try that
+again," continued my guest. "Wait a moment,"--and, rising, he closed the
+windows.
+
+There was no resource left but to listen; and what followed I shall
+condense, rather than relate it in the language employed by my friend
+Mr. Stagers.
+
+It appeared that another acquaintance, Mr. File, had been guilty of a
+cold-blooded and long-premeditated murder, for which he had been tried
+and convicted. He now lay in jail awaiting his execution, which was to
+take place at Carsonville, Ohio, one month after the date at which I
+heard of him anew. It seemed that, with Stagers and others, he had
+formed a band of counterfeiters in the West, where he had thus acquired
+a fortune so considerable that I was amazed at his having allowed his
+passions to seduce him into unprofitable crime. In his agony he
+unfortunately thought of me, and had bribed Stagers largely in order
+that he might be induced to find me. When the narration had reached this
+stage, and I had been made fully to understand that I was now and
+hereafter under the sharp eye of Stagers and his friends, that, in a
+word, escape was out of the question, I turned on my tormentor.
+
+"And what does all this mean?" I said; "what does File expect me to do?"
+
+"Don't believe he exactly knows," said Stagers; "something or other to
+get him clear of hemp."
+
+"But what stuff!" I replied. "How can I help him? What possible
+influence could I exert?"
+
+"Can't say," answered Stagers imperturbably; "File has a notion you're
+most cunning enough for anything. Best try somethin', Doc."
+
+"And what if I won't do it?" said I. "What does it matter to me, if the
+rascal swings or no?"
+
+"Keep cool. Doc," returned Stagers, "I'm only agent in this here
+business. My principal, that's File, he says, 'Tell Sandcraft to find
+some way to get me clear. Once out, I give him ten thousand dollars. If
+he don't turn up something that'll suit, I'll blow about that coroner
+business, and break him up generally.'"
+
+"You don't mean," said I, in a cold sweat,--"you don't mean that, if I
+can't do this impossible thing, he will inform on me?"
+
+"Just so," returned Stagers. "Got a cigar, Doc?"
+
+I only half heard him. What a frightful position. I had been leading a
+happy and an increasingly comfortable life,--no scrapes, and no dangers;
+and here, on a sudden, I had presented to me the alternative of saving a
+wretch from the gallows, or of spending unlimited years in a State
+penitentiary. As for the money, it became as dead leaves for this once
+only in my life. My brain seemed to be spinning in its case; lights came
+and went before my eyes. In my ears were the sounds of waters. I grew
+weak all over.
+
+"Cheer up a little," said Stagers. "Here, take a nip of whiskey. Things
+ain't at the worst, by a good bit. You just get ready, and we'll start
+by the morning train. Guess you'll try out something smart enough, as we
+travel along. Ain't got a heap of time to lose."
+
+I was silent. A great anguish had me in its grip. I might writhe and
+bite as I would, it was to be all in vain. Hideous plans arose to my
+ingenuity, born of this agony of terror and fear. I could murder
+Stagers, but what good would that do. As to File, he was safe from my
+hand. At last I became too confused to think any longer. "When do we
+leave?" I said, feebly.
+
+"At six to-morrow," he returned.
+
+How I was watched and guarded, and how hurried over a thousand miles of
+rail to my fate, little concerns us now. I find it dreadful to recall it
+to memory. Above all, an aching eagerness for revenge upon the man who
+had caused me these sufferings predominated in my mind. Could I not fool
+the wretch and save myself? On a sudden an idea came to my
+consciousness, like a sketch on an artist's paper. Then it grew, and
+formed itself, became possible, probable, it seemed to me sure. "Ah,"
+said I, "Stagers, give me something to eat and drink." I had not tasted
+food for two days.
+
+Within a day or two after my arrival, I was enabled to see File in his
+cell,--on the plea of being a clergyman from his native place.
+
+I found that I had not miscalculated my danger. The man did not appear
+to have the least idea as to how I was to help him. He only knew that I
+was in his power, and he used his control to insure that something more
+potent than friendship should be enlisted on his behalf. As the days
+went by, this behavior grew to be a frightful thing to witness. He
+threatened, flattered, implored, offered to double the sum he had
+promised, if I would but save him. As for myself, I had gradually become
+clear as to my course of action, and only anxious to get through with
+the matter. At last, a few days before the time appointed for the
+execution, I set about explaining to File my plan of saving him. At
+first I found this a very difficult task; but as he grew to understand
+that any other escape was impossible, he consented to my scheme, which I
+will now briefly explain.
+
+I proposed, on the evening before the execution, to make an opening in
+the man's windpipe, low down in the neck, and where he could conceal it
+by a loose cravat. As the noose would be above this point, I explained
+that he would be able to breathe through the aperture, and that, even if
+stupefied, he could easily be revived if we should be able to prevent
+his being hanged too long. My friend had some absurd misgivings lest his
+neck should be broken by the fall; but as to this I was able to reassure
+him, upon the best scientific authority. There were certain other and
+minor questions, as to the effects of sudden, nearly complete cessation
+of the supply of blood to the brain; but with these physiological
+refinements I thought it needlessly cruel to distract a man in his
+peculiar position. Perhaps I shall be doing injustice to my own
+intellect if I do not hasten to state that I had not the remotest belief
+in the efficacy of my plan for any purpose except to extricate me from a
+very uncomfortable position.
+
+On the morning of the day before the execution, I made ready everything
+that I could possibly need. So far our plans, or rather mine, had worked
+to a marvel. Certain of File's old accomplices succeeded in bribing the
+hangman to shorten the time of suspension. Arrangements were made also
+to secure me two hours alone with the prisoner, so that nothing seemed
+to be wanting. I had assured File that I would not see him again
+previous to the operation, but during the morning I was seized with a
+feverish impatience, which luckily prompted me to visit him once more.
+As usual, I was admitted readily, and nearly reached his cell, when I
+became aware from the sound of voices heard through the grating in the
+door that there was a visitor in the cell. "Who is with him?" I inquired
+of the warden.
+
+"The doctor," he replied.
+
+"Doctor?" I said. "What doctor?"
+
+"O, the jail physician," he returned. "I was to come back in half an
+hour and let him out; but he's got a quarter to stay as yet. Shall I
+admit you, or will you wait?"
+
+"No," I replied. "It is hardly right to interrupt them. I will walk in
+the corridor for ten minutes or so, and then you can send the turnkey to
+let me in."
+
+"Very good," he returned, and left me.
+
+As soon as I was alone, I cautiously advanced up the entry, and stood
+alongside of the door, through the barred grating of which I was able
+readily to hear what went on within. The first words I caught were
+these:--
+
+"And you tell me, Doctor, that, even if a man's windpipe was open, the
+hanging would kill him,--are you sure?"
+
+"Yes," returned the other, "I believe there would be no doubt of it. I
+cannot see how escape would be possible; but let me ask you," he went on
+more gravely, "why you have sent for me to ask all these singular
+questions. You cannot have the faintest hope of escape, and least of all
+in such a manner as this. I advise you to think rather on the fate which
+is inevitable. You must, I fear, have much to reflect upon."
+
+"But," said File, "if I wanted to try this plan of mine, couldn't some
+one be found to help me, say if he was to make twenty thousand or so by
+it?"
+
+"If you mean me," answered the doctor, "some one cannot be found,
+neither for twenty nor for fifty thousand dollars. Besides, if any one
+were wicked enough to venture on such an attempt, he would only be
+deceiving you with a hope which would be utterly vain."
+
+I understood all this, with an increasing fear in my mind. The prisoner
+was cunning enough to want to make sure that I was not playing him
+false.
+
+After a pause, he said, "Well, Doctor, you know a poor devil in my fix
+will clutch at straws. Hope I haven't offended you."
+
+"Not the least!" returned the doctor. "Shall I send to Mr. Smith?" This
+was my present name,--in fact I was known as the Rev. Mr. Eliphalet
+Smith.
+
+"I would like it," answered File; "but as you go out, tell the warden I
+want to see him immediately about a matter of great importance."
+
+At this stage, I began to conceive very distinctly that the time had
+arrived when it would be wiser for me to make my escape, if this step
+were yet possible. Accordingly I waited until I heard the doctor rise,
+and at once stepped quietly away to the far end of the corridor, which I
+had scarcely reached when the door which closed it was opened by a
+turnkey who had come to relieve the doctor. Of course my own peril was
+imminent. If the turnkey mentioned my near presence to the prisoner,
+immediate disclosure and arrest would follow. If time were allowed for
+the warden to obey the request from File, that he would visit him at
+once, I might gain thus half an hour, but hardly more. I therefore said
+to the officer: "Tell the warden that the doctor wishes to remain an
+hour longer with the prisoner, and that I shall return myself at the end
+of that time."
+
+"Very good, sir," said the turnkey, allowing me to pass out, and
+relocking the door; "I'll tell him."
+
+In a few moments I was outside of the jail gate, and saw my
+fellow-clergyman, Mr. Stagers, in full broadcloth and white tie, coming
+down the street towards me. As usual he was on guard; but this time he
+had to deal with a man grown perfectly desperate, with everything to
+win, and nothing to lose. My plans were made, and, wild as they were, I
+thought them worth the trying. I must evade this man's terrible watch.
+How keen it was, you cannot imagine; but it was aided by three of the
+infamous gang to which File had belonged, for without these spies no one
+person could possibly have sustained so perfect a system.
+
+I took Stagers's arm. "What time," said I, "does the first train start
+for Dayton?"
+
+"At twelve," said the other; "what do you want?"
+
+"How far is it?" I continued.
+
+"About fifteen miles," he replied.
+
+"Good; I can get back by eight o'clock to-night."
+
+"Easily," said Stagers, "_if_ you go. What is it you want?"
+
+"I want," said I, "a smaller tube, to put in the windpipe. Must have it,
+in fact."
+
+"Well, I don't like it," said he, "but the thing's got to go through
+somehow. If you must go, I will go along myself. Can't lose sight of
+you, Doc, just at present. You're monstrous precious. Did you tell
+File?"
+
+"Yes," said I. "He's all right. Come. We've no time to lose." Nor had
+we. Within twenty minutes we were seated in the last car of a long
+train, and running at the rate of twenty miles an hour towards Dayton.
+In about ten minutes I asked Stagers for a cigar.
+
+"Can't smoke here," said he.
+
+"No," I answered; "I'll go forward into the smoking-car."
+
+"Come along, then," said he, and we went through the train accordingly.
+I was not sorry he had gone with me when I found in the smoking-car one
+of the spies who had been watching me so constantly. Stagers nodded to
+him and grinned at me, and we sat down together.
+
+"Chut," said I, "dropped my cigar. Left it on the window-ledge, in the
+hindmost car. Be back in a moment." This time, for a wonder, Stagers
+allowed me to leave unaccompanied. I hastened through to the back car,
+and gained the platform at its nearer end, where I instantly cut the
+signal cord. Then I knelt down, and, waiting until the two cars ran
+together, I removed the connecting pin. The next moment I leaped to my
+feet, and screwed up the brake wheel, so as to check the pace of the
+car. Instantly the distance widened between me and the flying train. A
+few moments more, and the pace of my own car slackened, while the
+hurrying train flew around a distant curve. I did not wait for my own
+car to stop entirely before I slipped down off the steps, leaving the
+other passengers to dispose of themselves as they might until their
+absence should be discovered and the rest of the train return.
+
+As I wish rather to illustrate my very remarkable professional career,
+than to amuse by describing its mere incidents, I shall not linger to
+tell how I succeeded, at last, in reaching St. Louis. Fortunately, I had
+never ceased to anticipate a moment when escape from File and his
+friends would be possible, so that I always carried about with me the
+funds with which I had hastily provided myself upon leaving. The whole
+amount did not exceed a hundred dollars; but with this, and a gold watch
+worth as much more, I hoped to be able to subsist until my own ingenuity
+enabled me to provide more liberally for the future. Naturally enough, I
+scanned the papers closely, to discover some account of File's death,
+and of the disclosures concerning myself which he was only too likely to
+have made. I met with a full account of his execution, but with no
+allusion to myself, an omission which I felt fearful was due only to a
+desire on the part of the police to avoid alarming me in such a way as
+to keep them from pouncing upon me on my way home. Be this as it may,
+from that time to the present hour I have remained ignorant as to
+whether or not the villain betrayed my part in that curious coroner's
+inquest.
+
+Before many days I had resolved to make another and a bold venture.
+Accordingly appeared in the St. Louis papers an advertisement to the
+effect that Dr. Von Ingenhoff, the well-known German physician, who had
+spent two years on the plains acquiring a knowledge of Indian medicine,
+was prepared to treat all diseases by vegetable remedies alone. Dr. Von
+Ingenhoff would remain in St. Louis for two weeks, and was to be found
+at the Grayson House every day from ten until two o'clock.
+
+To my delight I got two patients the first day. The next I had twice as
+many; when at once I hired two connecting rooms, and made a very useful
+arrangement, which I may describe dramatically in the following way.
+
+There being two or three patients waiting while I finish my cigar and
+morning julep, there enters a respectable looking old gentleman, who
+inquires briskly of the patients if this is really Dr. Von Ingenhoff's.
+He is told it is.
+
+"Ah," says he, "I shall be delighted to see him; five years ago I was
+scalped on the plains, and now"--exhibiting a well-covered head--"you
+see what the Doctor did for me. 'T isn't any wonder I've come fifty
+miles to see him. Any of you been scalped, gentlemen?"
+
+To none of them had this misfortune arrived as yet; but, like most folks
+in the lower ranks of life and some in the upper ones, it was pleasant
+to find a genial person who would listen to their account of their own
+symptoms. Presently, after hearing enough, the old gentleman pulls out a
+large watch. "Bless me! it's late. I must call again. May I trouble you,
+sir, to say to the Doctor that his old friend, Governor Brown, called to
+see him, and will drop in again to-morrow. Don't forget: Governor Brown
+of Arkansas." A moment later the Governor visited me by a side-door,
+with his account of the symptoms of my patients. Enter a tall
+Hoosier,--the Governor having retired. "Now, Doc," says Hoosier, "I've
+been handled awful these two years back." "Stop," I exclaim, "open your
+eyes. There now, let me see," taking his pulse as I speak. "Ah, you've
+a pain there, and you can't sleep. Cocktails don't agree any longer.
+Weren't you bit by a dog two years ago?" "I was," says the Hoosier, in
+amazement. "Sir," I reply, "you have chronic hydrophobia. It's the water
+in the cocktails that disagrees with you. My bitters will cure in a
+week, sir."
+
+The astonishment of my friend at these accurate revelations may be
+imagined. He is allowed to wait for his medicine in the ante-room, where
+the chances are in favor of his relating how wonderfully I had told all
+his symptoms at a glance.
+
+Governor Brown of Arkansas was a small but clever actor, whom I met in
+the billiard-room, and who, day after day, in varying disguises and
+modes, played off the same trick, to our great mutual advantage.
+
+At my friend's suggestion, we very soon added to our resources by the
+purchase of two electro-magnetic batteries. This special means of
+treating all classes of maladies has advantages which are altogether
+peculiar. In the first place, you instruct your patient that the
+treatment is of necessity a long one. A striking mode of putting it is
+to say, "Sir, you have been six months getting ill, it will require six
+months for a cure." There is a correct sound about such a phrase, and it
+is sure to satisfy. Two sittings a week, at three dollars a sitting,
+pays pretty well. In many cases the patient gets well while you are
+electrifying him. Whether or not the electricity cures him is a thing I
+shall never know. If, however, he begins to show signs of impatience,
+you advise him that he will require a year's treatment, and suggest that
+it will be economical for him to buy a battery and use it at home. Under
+this advice he pays you twenty dollars for an instrument which cost you
+ten, and you are rid of a troublesome case.
+
+If the reader has followed me closely, he will have learned that I am a
+man of large views in my profession, and of a very justifiable
+ambition. The idea had often occurred to me of combining in one
+establishment all the various modes of practice which are known as
+irregular. This, as will be understood, is merely a more liberal
+rendering of the same idea which prompted me to unite in my own business
+homoeopathy and the ordinary practice of medicine. I proposed to my
+partner, accordingly, to combine with our present business that of
+spiritualism, which I knew had been very profitably turned to account in
+connection with medical practice. As soon as he agreed to this plan,
+which, by the way, I hoped to enlarge, so as to include all the
+available isms, I set about making such preparations as were necessary.
+I remembered to have read somewhere, that a Doctor Schiff had shown that
+you could produce remarkably clever knockings, so called, by voluntarily
+dislocating the great toe and then forcibly drawing it back again into
+its socket. A still better noise could be made by throwing the tendon of
+the peroneus longus muscle out of the hollow in which it lies, alongside
+of the ankle. After some effort I was able to accomplish both feats
+quite readily, and could occasion a remarkable variety of sounds,
+according to the power which I employed or the positions which I
+occupied at the time. As to all other matters, I trusted to the
+suggestions of my own ingenuity, which, as a rule, has rarely failed me.
+
+The largest success attended the novel plan which my lucky genius had
+devised; so that soon we actually began to divide large profits, and to
+lay by a portion of our savings. It is, of course, not to be supposed
+that this desirable result was attained without many annoyances and some
+positive danger. My spiritual revelations, medical and other, were, as
+may be supposed, only more or less happy guesses; but in this, as in
+predictions as to the weather and other events, the rare successes
+always get more prominence in the minds of men than the numerous
+failures. Moreover, whenever a person has been fool enough to resort to
+folks like myself, he is always glad to be able to defend his conduct by
+bringing forward every possible proof of skill on the part of the man he
+has consulted. These considerations, and a certain love of mysterious or
+unusual means, I have commonly found sufficient to secure an ample share
+of gullible individuals; while I may add, that, as a rule, those who
+would be shrewd enough to understand and expose us are wise enough to
+keep away altogether. Such as did come were, as a rule, easy enough to
+manage, but now and then we hit upon some utterly exceptional patient,
+who was both fool enough to consult me and clever enough to know he had
+been swindled. When such a fellow made a fuss, it was occasionally
+necessary to return his money, if it was found impossible to bully him
+into silence. In one or two instances, where I had promised a cure upon
+prepayment of two or three hundred dollars, I was either sued or
+threatened with suit, and had to refund a part or the whole of the
+amount; but most folks preferred to hold their tongues, rather than
+expose to the world the extent of their own folly.
+
+In one case I suffered personally to a degree which I never can recall
+without a distinct sense of annoyance, both at my own want of care and
+at the disgusting consequences which it brought upon me.
+
+Early one morning an old gentleman called, in a state of the utmost
+agitation, and explained that he desired to consult the spirits as to a
+heavy loss which he had experienced the night before. He had left, he
+said, a sum of money in his pantaloons-pocket, upon going to bed. In the
+morning he had changed his clothes, and gone out, forgetting to remove
+the notes. Returning in an hour in great haste, he discovered that the
+garment still lay upon the chair where he had thrown it, but that the
+money was missing. I at once desired him to be seated, and proceeded to
+ask him certain questions, in a chatty way, about the habits of his
+household, the amount lost, and the like, expecting thus to get some
+clew which would enable me to make my spirits display the requisite
+share of sagacity in pointing out the thief. I learned readily that he
+was an old and wealthy man, a little close too, I suspected; and that he
+lived in a large house, with but two servants, and an only son about
+twenty-one years old. The servants were both elderly women, who had
+lived in the household many years, and were probably innocent.
+Unluckily, remembering my own youthful career, I presently reached the
+conclusion that the young man had been the delinquent. When I ventured
+to inquire a little as to his character and habits, the old gentleman
+cut me very short, remarking that he came to ask questions, and not to
+be questioned, and that he desired at once to consult the spirits. Upon
+this I sat down at a table, and, after a brief silence, demanded in a
+solemn voice if there were present any spirits. By industriously
+cracking my big-toe joint, I was enabled to represent at once the
+presence of a numerous assembly of these worthies. Then I inquired if
+any one of them had been present when the robbery was effected. A prompt
+double-knock replied in the affirmative. I may say here, by the way,
+that the unanimity of the spirits as to their use of two knocks for yes,
+and one for no, is a very remarkable point; and shows, if it shows
+anything, how perfect and universal must be the social intercourse of
+the respected departed. It is worthy of note, also, that if the spirit,
+I will not say the medium, perceives, after one knock, that it were
+wiser to say yes, he can conveniently add the second tap. Some such
+arrangement in real life would, it appears to me, be very desirable.
+
+To return to the subject. As soon as I explained that the spirit who
+answered had been a witness of the theft, the old man became strangely
+agitated. "Who was it?" said he. At once the spirit indicated a desire
+to use the alphabet. As we went over the letters, (always a slow method,
+but useful when you want to observe excitable people,) my visitor kept
+saying, "Quicker. Go quicker." At length the spirit spelt out the words,
+"I know not his name." "Was it," said the gentleman,--"was it a--was it
+one of my household?" I knocked yes, without hesitation; who else could
+it have been? "Excuse me," he went on, "if I ask you for a little wine."
+This I gave him. He continued, "Was it Susan, or Ellen? answer
+instantly."
+
+"No,--No."
+
+"Was it--" He paused. "If I ask a question mentally, will the spirits
+reply?" I knew what he meant. He wanted to ask if it was his son, but
+did not wish to speak openly.
+
+"Ask," said I.
+
+"I have," he returned.
+
+I hesitated. It was rarely my policy to commit myself definitely; yet
+here I fancied, from the facts of the case, and his own terrible
+anxiety, that he suspected or more than suspected his son as the guilty
+person. I became sure of this as I studied his face. At all events it
+would be easy to deny or explain, in case of trouble; and after all,
+what slander was there in two knocks! I struck twice as usual.
+
+Instantly the old gentleman rose up, very white, but quite firm.
+"There," he said, and cast a bank-note on the table, "I thank you";--and
+bending his head on his breast, walked, as I thought with great effort,
+out of the room.
+
+On the following morning, as I made my first appearance in my outer
+room, which contained at least a dozen persons awaiting advice, who
+should I see standing by the window but the old gentleman with
+sandy-gray hair. Along with him was a stout young man, with a decided
+red head, and mustache and whiskers to match. Probably the son, thought
+I,--ardent temperament, remorse,--come to confess, etc. Except as to the
+temper, I was never more mistaken in my life. I was about to go
+regularly through my patients, when the old gentleman began to speak.
+
+"I called, Doctor," said he, "to explain the little matter about which
+I--about which I--"
+
+"Troubled your spirits yesterday," added the youth jocosely, pulling his
+mustache.
+
+"Beg pardon," I returned. "Had we not better talk this over in private?
+Come into my office," I added, touching the lad on the arm.
+
+Would you believe it?--he took out his handkerchief, and dusted the
+place I had touched. "Better not," he said. "Go on, father; let us get
+done with this den."
+
+"Gentlemen," said the elder person, addressing the patients, "I called
+here yesterday, like a fool, to ask who had stolen from me a sum of
+money, which I believed I left in my room on going out in the morning.
+This doctor here and his spirits contrived to make me suspect my only
+son. Well, I charged him at once with the crime, as soon as I got back
+home; and what do you think he did. He said, 'Father, let us go up
+stairs and look for it, and--'"
+
+Here the young man broke in with "Come, father, don't worry yourself for
+nothing"; and then, turning, added, "To cut the thing short, he found
+the notes under his candlestick, where he had left them on going to bed.
+This is all of it. We came here to stop this fellow" (by which he meant
+me) "from carrying a slander further. I advise you, good people, to
+profit by the matter, and to look up a more honest doctor, if doctoring
+be what you want."
+
+As soon as he had ended, I remarked solemnly: "The words of the spirits
+are not my words. Who shall hold them accountable?"
+
+"Nonsense," said the young man. "Come, father," and they left the room.
+
+Now was the time to retrieve my character. "Gentlemen," said I, "you
+have heard this very singular account. Trusting the spirits utterly and
+entirely as I do, it occurs to me that there is no reason why they may
+not after all have been right in their suspicions of this young person.
+Who can say that, overcome by remorse, he may not have seized the time
+of his father's absence to replace the money?"
+
+To my amazement up gets a little old man from the corner. "Well, you are
+a low cuss," said he; and, taking up a basket beside him, hobbled out of
+the room. You maybe sure I said some pretty sharp things to him, for I
+was out of humor to begin with, and it is one thing to be insulted by a
+stout young man, and quite another to be abused by a wretched old
+cripple. However, he went away, and I supposed, for my part, that I was
+done with the whole business.
+
+An hour later, however, I heard a rough knock at my door, and, opening
+it hastily, saw my red-headed young man with the cripple.
+
+"Now," said the former, catching me by the collar, and pulling me into
+the room among my patients, "I want to know, my man, if this doctor said
+that it was likely I was the thief, after all?"
+
+"That's what he said," replied the cripple; "just about that, sir."
+
+I do not desire to dwell on the after conduct of this hot-headed young
+man. It was the more disgraceful, as I offered but little resistance,
+and endured a beating such as I would have hesitated to inflict upon a
+dog. Nor was this all; he warned me that, if I dared to remain in the
+city after a week, he would shoot me. In the East I should have thought
+but little of such a threat, but here it was only too likely to be
+practically carried out. Accordingly, with much grief and reluctance, I
+collected my whole fortune, which now amounted to at least seven
+thousand dollars, and turned my back upon this ungrateful town. I am
+sorry to say that I also left behind me the last of my good luck, as
+hereafter I was to encounter only one calamity after another.
+
+Travelling slowly eastward, my spirits began at last to rise to their
+usual level, and when I arrived in Boston I set myself to thinking how
+best I could contrive to enjoy life, and at the same time to increase my
+means.
+
+On former occasions I was a moneyless adventurer; now I possessed
+sufficient capital, and was able and ready to embark in whatever
+promised the best returns with the smallest personal risk. Several
+schemes presented themselves as worthy the application of industry and
+talent, but none of them altogether suited my tastes. I thought at times
+of travelling as a Physiological Lecturer, combining with it the
+business of a practitioner. Scare the audience at night with an
+enumeration of symptoms which belong to ten out of every dozen of
+healthy people, and then doctor such of them as are gulls enough to
+consult me next day. The bigger the fright, the better the pay. I was a
+little timid, however, about facing large audiences, as a man will be
+naturally if he has lived a life of adventure, so that, upon due
+consideration, I gave up the idea altogether.
+
+The patent-medicine business also looked well enough, but it is somewhat
+overdone at all times, and requires a heavy outlay, with the possible
+result of ill-success. Indeed, I believe fifty quack remedies fail for
+one that succeeds; and millions must have been wasted in placards,
+bills, and advertisements, which never returned half their value to the
+speculator. If I live, I think I shall beguile my time with writing the
+lives of the principal quacks who have met with success. They are few in
+number, after all, as any one must know who recalls the countless
+remedies which are puffed awhile on the fences, and disappear to be
+heard of no more.
+
+Lastly, I inclined for a while to undertake a private insane asylum,
+which appeared to me to offer facilities for money-making; as to which,
+however, I may have been deceived by the writings of certain popular
+novelists. I went so far, I may say, as actually to visit Concord for
+the purpose of finding a pleasant locality and a suitable atmosphere;
+but, upon due reflection, abandoned my plan as involving too much
+personal labor to suit one of my easy frame of mind.
+
+Tired at last of idleness and of lounging on the Common, I engaged in
+two or three little ventures of a semi-professional character, such as
+an exhibition of laughing-gas; advertising to cure cancer; send ten
+stamps by mail to J. B., and receive an infallible receipt, etc. I did
+not find, however, that these little enterprises prospered well in New
+England, and I had recalled to me very forcibly a story which my
+grandfather was fond of relating to me in my boyhood. It briefly
+narrated how certain very knowing flies went to get molasses, and how it
+ended by the molasses getting them. This, indeed, was precisely what
+happened to me in all my little efforts to better myself in the Northern
+States, until at length my misfortunes climaxed in total and unexpected
+ruin.
+
+The event which deprived me of the hard-won earnings of years of
+ingenious industry was brought about by the baseness of a man who was
+concerned with me in purchasing drugs for exportation to the Confederate
+States. Unluckily, I was obliged to employ as my agent a long-legged
+sea-captain from Maine. With his aid, I invested in this enterprise
+about six thousand dollars, which I reasonably hoped to quadruple. Our
+arrangements were cleverly made to run the blockade at Charleston, and
+we were to sail on a certain Thursday morning in September, 1863. I sent
+my clothes on board, and went down the evening before to go on board,
+but found that the little schooner had been hauled out from the pier.
+The captain, who met me at this time, endeavored to get a boat in order
+to ferry us to the ship, but the night was stormy, and we were obliged
+to return to our lodgings. Early next day I dressed and went to the
+captain's room, which proved to be empty. I was instantly filled with
+doubt, and ran frantically to the foot of Long Wharf, where, to my
+horror, I could see no signs of schooner or captain. Neither have I ever
+again set eyes on them from that time to this. I immediately lodged
+information with the police as to the unpatriotic designs of the rascal
+who had swindled me, but whether or not justice ever overtook him I am
+unable to say.
+
+It was, as I perceived, such utterly spilt milk as to be little worth
+lamenting; and I therefore set to work with my accustomed energy to
+utilize on my own behalf the resources of my medical education, which so
+often before had saved me from want. The war, then raging at its height,
+appeared to me to offer numerous opportunities to men of talent. The
+path which I chose myself was apparently a humble one, but it enabled me
+to make very agreeable use of my professional knowledge, and afforded
+rapid and secure returns, without any other investment than a little
+knowledge cautiously employed. In the first place, I deposited my small
+remnant of property in a safe bank, and then proceeded to Providence,
+where, as I had heard, patriotic persons were giving very large bounties
+in order, I suppose, to insure to the government the services of better
+men than themselves. On my arrival I lost no time in offering myself as
+a substitute, and was readily accepted, and very soon mustered into the
+Twentieth Rhode Island. Three months were passed, in camp, during which
+period I received bounties to the extent of six hundred and fifty
+dollars, with which I tranquilly deserted about two hours before the
+regiment left for the field. With the product of my industry I returned
+to Boston, and deposited all but enough to carry me to New York, where
+within a month I enlisted twice, earning on each occasion four hundred
+dollars.
+
+My next essay was in Philadelphia, which I approached, even after some
+years of absence, with a good deal of doubt. It was an ill-omened place
+for me; for although I got nearly seven hundred dollars by entering the
+service as a substitute for an editor,--whose pen, I presume, was
+mightier than his sword,--I was disagreeably surprised by being hastily
+forwarded to the front under a foxy young lieutenant, who brutally shot
+down a poor devil in the streets of Baltimore for attempting to desert.
+At this point I began to make use of my medical skill, for I did not in
+the least degree fancy being shot, either because of deserting or of not
+deserting. It happened, therefore, that a day or two later, while in
+Washington, I was seized in the street with a fit, which perfectly
+imposed upon the officer in charge, and caused him to leave me at the
+Douglas Hospital. Here I found it necessary to perform fits about twice
+a week; and as there were several real epileptics in the wards I had a
+capital chance of studying their symptoms, which finally I learned to
+imitate with the utmost cleverness.
+
+I soon got to know three or four men, who, like myself, were personally
+averse to bullets, and who were simulating other forms of disease with
+more or less success. One of them suffered with rheumatism of the back,
+and walked about bent like an old man; another, who had been to the
+front, was palsied in the left arm; and a third kept open an ulcer on
+the leg, by rubbing in a little antimonial ointment, which I sold him at
+five dollars a box, and bought at fifty cents.
+
+A change in the hospital staff brought all of us to grief. The new
+surgeon was a quiet, gentlemanly person, with pleasant blue eyes and
+clearly cut features, and a way of looking you through without saying
+much. I felt so safe myself that I watched his procedures with just that
+kind of enjoyment which one clever man takes in seeing another at work.
+
+The first inspection settled two of us, "Another back case," said the
+ward surgeon to his senior.
+
+"Back hurt you?" says the latter, mildly.
+
+"Yes, sir; run over by a howitzer; ain't never been straight since."
+
+"A howitzer!" says the surgeon. "Lean forward, my man, so as to touch
+the floor,--so. That will do." Then, turning to his aid, he said,
+"Prepare this man's discharge papers."
+
+"His discharge, sir?"
+
+"Yes, I said that. Who's next?"
+
+"Thank you, sir," groaned the man with the back. "How soon, sir, do you
+think it will be?"
+
+"Ah, not less than a month," replied the surgeon, and passed on.
+
+Now as it was unpleasant to be bent like a letter V, and as the patient
+presumed that his discharge was secure, he naturally took to himself a
+little relaxation in the way of becoming straighter. Unluckily, those
+nice blue eyes were everywhere at all hours; and, one fine morning,
+Smithson was appalled at finding himself in a detachment bound for the
+field, and bearing on his descriptive list an ill-natured endorsement
+about his malady.
+
+The surgeon came next on O'Callahan. "Where's your cap, my man?"
+
+"On my head, yer honor," said the other, insolently. "I've a paralytics
+in my arm."
+
+"Humph!" cried the surgeon. "You have another hand."
+
+"An' it's not rigulation to saloot with yer left," said the Irishman,
+with a grin, while the patients around us began to laugh.
+
+"How did it happen?" said the surgeon.
+
+"I was shot in the shoulder," answered the patient, "about three months
+ago, sir. I haven't stirred it since."
+
+The surgeon looked at the scar.
+
+"So recently?" said he. "The scar looks older; and, by the way, doctor,"
+to his junior, "it could not have gone near the nerves. Bring the
+battery, orderly."
+
+In a few moments the surgeon was testing, one after another, the various
+muscles. At last he stopped. "Send this man away with the next
+detachment. Not a word, my man. You are a rascal, and a disgrace to
+these good fellows who have been among the bullets."
+
+The man muttered something, I did not hear what.
+
+"Put this man in the guard-house," cried the surgeon; and so passed on,
+without smile or frown.
+
+As to the ulcer case, to my amusement he was put in bed, and his leg
+locked up in a wooden splint, which effectually prevented him from
+touching the part diseased. It healed in ten days, and he too went as
+food for powder.
+
+As for myself, he asked me a few questions, and, requesting to be sent
+for during my next fit, left me alone.
+
+I was of course on my guard, and took care to have my attacks only in
+his absence, or to have them over before he arrived.
+
+At length, one morning, in spite of my care, he chanced to be in the
+ward, when I fell at the door. I was carried in and laid on a bed,
+apparently in strong convulsions. Presently I felt a finger on my
+eyelid, and as it was raised, saw the surgeon standing beside me. To
+escape his scrutiny, I became more violent in my motions. He stopped a
+moment, and looked at me steadily. "Poor fellow!" said he, to my great
+relief, as I felt at once that I had successfully deceived him. Then he
+turned to the ward doctor and remarked: "Take care he does not hurt his
+head against the bed; and, by the by, doctor, do you remember the test
+we applied in Smith's case? Just tickle the soles of his feet, and see
+if it will cause those backward spasms of the head."
+
+The aid obeyed him, and, very naturally, I jerked my head backwards as
+hard as I could.
+
+"That will answer," said the surgeon, to my horror. "A clever rogue.
+Send him to the guard-house when he gets over it."
+
+"Happy had I been if my ill-luck had ended here; but, as I crossed the
+yard, an officer stopped me. To my disgust it was the captain of my old
+Rhode Island company.
+
+"Halloa!" said he; "keep that fellow safe. I know him."
+
+To cut short a long story; I was tried, convicted, and forced to refund
+the Rhode Island bounty, for by ill luck they found my bank-book among
+my papers. I was finally sent to Fort Mifflin for a year, and kept at
+hard labor, handling and carrying shot, policing the ground, picking up
+cigar-stumps, and other like unpleasant occupations.
+
+Upon my release, I went at once to Boston, where I had about two
+thousand dollars in bank. I spent nearly all of the latter sum before I
+could prevail upon myself to settle down to some mode of making a
+livelihood; and I was about to engage in business as a vender of lottery
+policies, when I first began to feel a strange sense of lassitude, which
+soon increased so as quite to disable me from work of any kind. Month
+after month passed away, while my money lessened, and this terrible
+sense of weariness still went on from bad to worse. At last one day,
+after nearly a year had elapsed, I perceived on my face a large brown
+patch of color, in consequence of which I went in some alarm to consult
+a well-known physician. He asked me a multitude of tiresome questions,
+and at last wrote off a prescription, which I immediately read. It was a
+preparation of iron.
+
+"What do you think," said I, "is the matter with me, doctor?"
+
+"I am afraid," said he, "that you have a very serious trouble,--what we
+call Addison's disease."
+
+"What's that?" said I.
+
+"I do not think you would comprehend it," he replied. "It is an
+affection of the supra-renal capsules."
+
+I dimly remembered that there were such organs, and that nobody knew
+what they were meant for. It seemed the doctors had found a use for them
+at last.
+
+"Is it a dangerous disease?" I said.
+
+"I fear so," he answered.
+
+"Don't you know," I asked, "what's the truth about it?"
+
+"Well," he returned gravely, "I am sorry to tell you it is a very
+dangerous malady."
+
+"Nonsense," said I, "I don't believe it,"--for I thought it was only a
+doctor's trick, and one I had tried often enough myself.
+
+"Thank you," said he, "you are a very ill man, and a fool besides. Good
+morning." He forgot to ask for a fee, and I remembered not to offer one.
+
+Several months went by; my money was gone; my clothes were ragged, and,
+like my body, nearly worn out; and I am an inmate of a hospital. To-day
+I feel weaker than when I first began to write. How it will end I do not
+know. If I die, the doctor will get this pleasant history; and if I
+live, I shall burn it, and, as soon as I get a little money, I will set
+out to look for my little sister, about whom I dreamed last night. What
+I dreamed was not very agreeable. I thought I was walking up one of the
+vilest streets near my old office, when a girl spoke to me,--a
+shameless, worn creature, with great sad eyes, not so wicked as the rest
+of her face. Suddenly she screamed aloud, "Brother! Brother!" and then,
+remembering what she had been,--with her round, girlish, innocent face,
+and fair hair,--and seeing what she was, I awoke, and cursed myself in
+the darkness for the evil I had done in the days of my youth.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[D] _Aurum_, used in religious melancholy (see Jahr,) and not a bad
+remedy, it strikes me.
+
+
+
+
+"THE LIE."
+
+
+Many years ago--now more than two hundred and fifty--some one in England
+wrote a short poem bearing the above emphatic title, which deservedly
+holds a place in the collections of old English poetry at the present
+day. It is a striking production, familiar, no doubt, to most lovers of
+ancient verse, and, although numbering only about a dozen stanzas, has
+outlasted many a ponderous folio.
+
+I say, indefinitely enough, that this little poem was written by _some_
+one, and strange as it may appear, the name of that one is still in
+doubt. Its authorship was attributed, by Bishop Percy and others, to Sir
+Walter Raleigh, and sometimes with the fanciful addition, that he wrote
+it the night before his execution. The piece, however, was extant many
+years before the world was disgraced by that deed of wickedness.
+
+After a while it began to be questioned whether the verses were really
+written by Sir Walter. Some old-poetry mouser appears to have lighted on
+an ancient folio volume, the work of Joshua Sylvester, and found among
+its contents a poem called "The Soul's Errand," which, it would seem,
+was thought to be the same that had been credited to Sir Walter Raleigh
+under the title of "The Lie."
+
+Joshua Sylvester was in his day a writer of some note. Colley Cibber, in
+his "Lives of the Poets," is quite lavish in his praise, and says his
+brethren in the sacred art called him the "Silver-tongued." The same
+phrase has been applied to others.
+
+In his "Specimens of Early English Poets," Ellis "restores" the poem,
+with the title of "The Soul's Errand," to Sylvester, as its "ancient
+proprietor, till a more authorized claimant shall be produced."
+
+Chambers, in his "Cyclopaedia of English Literature," prints the poem,
+with the title of "The Soul's Errand," and he also gives it to
+Sylvester, "as the now generally received author of an impressive piece,
+long ascribed to Raleigh."
+
+Sir Egerton Brydges, in his "Censura Literaria," doubts Percy's right to
+credit Sir Walter with the poem of "The Lie," of which he says there is
+a "parody" in the folio edition of Sylvester's works, where it is
+entitled "The Soul's Errand."
+
+The veteran J. Payne Collier, the _emendator_ of Shakespeare, has
+recently put forth a work, in four volumes, entitled "A Bibliographical
+and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language." In
+this work he claims the authorship of "The Lie," "otherwise called 'The
+Soul's Errand,'" for Sir Walter Raleigh, and rests his authority on a
+manuscript copy "of the time," headed, "Sir Walter Wrawly his Lye." He
+quotes the poem at length, beginning,
+
+    "_Hence_, soule, the bodies guest."
+
+All other copies that I have seen read, "_Go_, soul," which I think will
+be deemed the more fitting word.
+
+Collier does not allude to Sylvester in connection with this poem, but
+introduces him in another article, and treats him somewhat cavalierly,
+as "a mere literary adventurer and translating drudge." "When he died,"
+Collier says, "is not precisely known." He might have known, since there
+were records all round him to show that Sylvester died in Holland, in
+September, 1618. His great contemporary, Sir Walter Raleigh, was
+beheaded in October, one month after.
+
+(By the way, Payne Collier holds out marvellously. Here is his new work,
+dated 1866, and I have near me his "Poetical Decameron," published in
+1820, _forty-six_ years ago.)
+
+Ritson, a noted reaper in the "old fields," supposes, that "The Lie" was
+written by Francis Davison; and in Kerl's "Comprehensive Grammar," among
+many poetical extracts, I find two stanzas of the poem quoted as written
+by Barnfield,--probably Richard. These two writers were of Raleigh's
+time, but I think their claims may be readily dismissed. Supposing that
+"The Lie" was written by either Joshua Sylvester or Sir Walter Raleigh,
+I shall try to show that it was not written by Sylvester, and that he
+has wrongfully enjoyed the credit of its authorship.
+
+Critics and collators have for years been doubting about the authorship
+of this little poem, written over two centuries and a half ago; and, so
+far as I can ascertain, not one of them has ever discovered, what is
+the simple fact, that there were _two_ poems instead of _one_, similar
+in scope and spirit, but still two poems,--"The Lie" _and_ "The Soul's
+Errand."
+
+I have said that Sir Egerton Brydges alludes to a "parody" of "The Lie,"
+in Sylvester's volume, there called "The Soul's Errand." In that volume
+I find what Sir Egerton calls a "parody." It is, in reality, another
+poem, bearing the title of "The Soul's Errand," consisting of _twenty_
+stanzas, all of four lines each, excepting the first stanza, which has
+six. "The Lie" consists of but _thirteen_ stanzas, of six lines each,
+the fifth and sixth of which may be termed the refrain or burden of the
+piece. I annex copies of the two poems; Sir Walter's (so called) is
+taken from Percy's "Reliques," and Sylvester's is copied from his own
+folio.
+
+On comparing the two pieces, it will be seen that they begin alike, and
+go on nearly alike for a few stanzas, when they diverge, and are then
+entirely different from each other to the end. I do not find that this
+difference has ever been pointed out, and am therefore left to suppose
+that it never was discovered. At this late day conjectures are not worth
+much, but it would appear that, the opening stanzas of the two poems
+being similar, their identity was at some time carelessly taken for
+granted by some collector, who read only the initial stanzas, and thus
+ignorantly deprived Sir Walter of "The Lie," and gave it to Sylvester,
+with the title of "The Soul's Errand."
+
+This, however, is certain: "The Soul's Errand," so called, of _thirteen_
+stanzas, given to us by Ellis and by Chambers as Sylvester's, is not the
+poem that Sylvester wrote under that title, and we have his own
+authority for saying so. His poem of _twenty_ stanzas, bearing that
+title, does not appear to have ever been reprinted, and it is believed
+cannot now be found anywhere out of his own book. Ellis, it is plain, is
+not to be trusted. Professing to be exact, he refers for his authority
+to page 652 of Sylvester's works, and then proceeds to print a poem as
+his which is not there. Had he read the page he quotes so carefully, he
+would have seen that "The Lie" and "The Soul's Errand" were two separate
+productions, alike only in the six stanzas taken from the former and
+included in the latter.
+
+We learn that Sir Walter Raleigh's poems were never all collected into a
+volume, and, further, we learn that "The Lie," as a separate piece, was
+attributed to him at an early period. Payne Collier, as I have said,
+prints it as his, from a manuscript "of the time"; and in an elaborate
+article on Raleigh, in the North British Review, copied into Littell's
+Living Age, of June 9, 1855, the able reviewer refers particularly to
+"The Lie," "saddest of poems," as Sir Walter's, and adds in a note that
+"it is to be found in a manuscript of 1596." This would make the piece
+two hundred and seventy years old. When and by whom it was first taken
+from Sir Walter and given to Sylvester, with the altered title, and why
+Sylvester incorporated into his poem of "The Soul's Errand" six stanzas
+belonging to "The Lie," can now, of course, never be known.
+
+I find that I have been indulging in quite a flow of words about a few
+old verses; but then they _are_ verses, and such as one should not be
+robbed of. They have lived through centuries of time, and outlived
+generations of ambitious penmen, and the true name of the author ought
+to live with them. Long ago, when a school-boy, I used to read and
+repeat "The Lie," and it was then the undoubted work of Sir Walter
+Raleigh. In after years, on looking into various volumes of old English
+poetry, I was told that "The Lie" was _not_ "The Lie," and was not
+written by Sir Walter Raleigh; that the true title of the piece was "The
+Soul's Errand," and that the real author of it was a certain Joshua
+Sylvester. Unwilling to displace the brave knight from the niche he had
+graced so long, I hunted up Sylvester's old folio, and the result of my
+search may be found in these imperfect remarks.
+
+Frankly, I would fain believe that "The Lie" was written by Sir Walter.
+It is true I am not able to prove it, but I think I prove that it was
+not written by Sylvester. He wrote another poem, "The Soul's Errand,"
+and he is welcome to it; that is, he is welcome to fourteen of its
+twenty stanzas,--the other six do not belong to him. Give him also,
+painstaking man! due laudation for his version of the "Divine Du
+Bartas," of which formidable work anyone who has the courage to grapple
+with its six hundred and fifty-odd folio pages may know where to find a
+copy.
+
+But Sir Walter Raleigh,--heroic Sir Walter,--he is before me bodily,
+running his fingers along the sharp edge of the fatal axe, and calmly
+laying his noble head on the block.
+
+    "The good Knight is dust,
+    And his sword is rust";
+
+but I want to feel that he left behind him, as the offspring of his
+great brain, one of the most impressive poems of his time,--ay, and
+indeed of any time.
+
+
+THE LYE.
+
+BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
+
+    Goe, soule, the bodies guest,
+      Upon a thanklesse arrant;
+    Feare not to touche the best,
+      The truth shall be thy warrant:
+        Goe, since I needs must dye,
+        And give the world the lye.
+
+    Goe tell the court, it glowes
+      And shines like rotten wood;
+    Goe tell the church it showes
+      What's good, and doth no good:
+        If church and court reply,
+        Then give them both the lye.
+
+    Tell potentates they live
+      Acting by others actions:
+    Not lov'd unlesse they give,
+      Not strong but by their factions:
+        If potentates reply,
+        Give potentates the lye.
+
+    Tell men of high condition,
+      That rule affairs of state,
+    Their purpose is ambition,
+      Their practise only hate;
+        And if they once reply,
+        Then give them all the lye.
+
+    Tell them that brave it most,
+      They beg for more by spending,
+    Who in their greatest cost
+      Seek nothing but commending:
+        And if they make reply,
+        Spare not to give the lye.
+
+    Tell zeale, it lacks devotion;
+      Tell love, it is but lust;
+    Tell time, it is but motion;
+      Tell flesh, it is but dust;
+        And wish them not reply,
+        For thou must give the lye.
+
+    Tell age, it daily wasteth;
+      Tell honour, how it alters;
+    Tell beauty, how she blasteth;
+      Tell favour, how she falters;
+        And as they shall reply,
+        Give each of them the lye.
+
+    Tell wit, how much it wrangles
+      In tickle points of nicenesse;
+    Tell wisedome, she entangles
+      Herselfe in over-wisenesse:
+        And if they do reply,
+        Straight give them both the lye.
+
+    Tell physicke of her boldnesse;
+      Tell skill, it is pretension;
+    Tell charity of coldness;
+      Tell law, it is contention;
+        And as they yield reply,
+        So give them still the lye.
+
+    Tell fortune of her blindnesse;
+      Tell nature of decay;
+    Tell friendship of unkindnesse;
+      Tell justice of delay:
+        And if they dare reply,
+        Then give them all the lye.
+
+    Tell arts, they have no soundnesse,
+      But vary by esteeming;
+    Tell schooles they want profoundnesse,
+      And stand too much on seeming:
+        If arts and schooles reply,
+        Give arts and schooles the lye.
+
+    Tell faith, it's fled the citie;
+      Tell how the countrey erreth;
+    Tell, manhood shakes off pitie;
+      Tell, vertue least preferreth;
+        And, if they doe reply,
+        Spare not to give the lye.
+
+    So, when thou hast, as I
+      Commanded thee, done blabbing,
+    Athough to give the lye
+      Deserves no less than stabbing,
+        Yet stab at thee who will,
+        No stab the soule can kill.
+
+
+THE SOULES ERRAND.
+
+BY JOSUAH SYLVESTER.
+
+    Goe Soule, the bodies guest,
+    Upon a thanklesse Errand,
+    Feare not to touch the best,
+    The Truth shall be thy warrant:
+      Goe thou, since I must die,
+      And give the world the lye.
+
+    Goe tell the Court it glowes,
+    And shines like rotten wood;
+    Say to the Church it showes
+    What's good, but doth not good.
+
+    Tell Potentates they live,
+    Acting by others Action,
+    Not lov'd unlesse they give,
+    Not strong, but by a faction.
+
+    Tell men of high condition,
+    That in Affaires of State
+    Their purpose is ambition,
+    Their practice only hate.
+
+    Goe tell the young Nobility,
+    They doe degenerate,
+    Wasting their large ability,
+    In things effeminate.
+
+    Tell those that brave it most,
+    They beg for more by spending,
+    And, in their greatest cost,
+    Seeke but a self-commending.
+
+    Tell Zeale it wants Devotion,
+    Tell Love it is but Lust,
+    Tell Priests they hunt Promotion,
+    Tell Flesh it is but Dust.
+
+    Say Souldiers are the Sink
+    Of Sinne to all the Realme;
+    Given all to whores and drink,
+    To quarrell and blaspheme.
+
+    Tell Townesmen, that because that
+    They pranck their Brides so proud,
+    Too many times it drawes that
+    Which makes them beetle-brow'd.
+
+    Goe tell the Palace-Dames
+    They paint their parboil'd faces,
+    Seeking by greater shames
+    To cover lesse disgraces.
+
+    Say to the City-wives,
+    Through their excessive brav'ry,
+    Their Husband hardly thrives,
+    But rather lives in Slav'ry.
+
+    Tell London Youths that Dice,
+    Faire Queanes, fine Clothes, full Bouls,
+    Consume the cursed price
+    Of their dead-Fathers Soules.
+
+    Say Maidens are too coy
+    To them that chastely seeke them,
+    And yet are apt to toy
+    With baser Jacks that like them.
+
+    Tell Poets of our dayes
+    They doe profane the Muses,
+    In soothing Sin with praise,
+    That all the world abuses.
+
+    Tell Tradesmen waight and measure
+    They craftily abuse,
+    Thereby to heap-up treasure,
+    Though Heav'n thereby they lose.
+
+    Goe tell the vitious rich,
+    By usury to gaine
+    Their fingers alwaies itch,
+    To soules and bodies paine.
+
+    Yea tell the wretched poore
+    That they the wealthy hate,
+    And grudge to see at doore
+    Another in their state.
+
+    Tell all the world throughout
+    That all's but vanity,
+    Her pleasures doe but flout
+    With sly security.
+
+    Tell Kings and Beggars base,
+    Yea tell both young and old,
+    They all are in one case,
+    And must all to the mould.
+
+    And now kinde Host adieu,
+    Rest thou in earthly Tombe,
+    Till Christ shall all renew,
+    And then I'll thee resume.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOWERY AT NIGHT.
+
+
+Coming up from one of the Brooklyn ferries, after dark, on a sultry
+summer evening, I take my way through the close-built district of New
+York City still known as "The Swamp." The narrow streets of the place
+are deserted by this time, but they have been lively enough during the
+day with the busy leather-dealers and their teams; for this is the great
+hide and leather mart of the city, as any one might guess even now in
+the gloom by the pungent odors that arise on every side. The heavy iron
+doors and window-shutters of the buildings have been locked and barred
+for the night; and the thick atmosphere of the place appears to affect
+the gas-lights, which burn sickly and dim in the street lanterns. Nobody
+lives here at night. The footfalls of the solitary policeman give out a
+hollow sound as he paces the narrow _trottoir_ of Ferry Street, in the
+heart of "The Swamp." Over two hundred years ago, when Governor Peter
+Stuyvesant pastured his flocks and herds hereabouts, the wayfarer would
+have been more likely to mark a solitary heron than a solitary
+policeman; for it was really a swamp then, and much earth-work must have
+been expended in making the solid ground whereon the buildings now
+stand. Neither is it probable that, even on the most sultry of summer
+nights, the nose of old Mynheer Stuyvesant would have been saluted with
+odors of morocco leather, such as fill the air of "The Swamp" to-night.
+The wild swamp-flowers, though, gave out some faint perfumes to the
+night air in those olden times; but the place could hardly have been so
+still of a summer night as it is now, for the booming of the bullfrog
+and the piping of his lesser kin must have made night resonant here, and
+it is reasonable to surmise that owls hooted in the cedar-trees that
+hung over the tawny sedges of the swamp. "Jack-o'-Lantern" was the only
+inhabitant who burned gas hereabouts in those times, and he manufactured
+his own. The nocturnal raccoon edged his way through the alders here, in
+the old summer nights, and the muskrat built his house among the reeds.
+Not a raccoon nor a muskrat is the wayfarer likely to meet with here
+to-night; but the gray rat of civilization is to be dimly discerned, as
+he lopes along the gutters in his nightly prowl.
+
+There is something very bewildering to the untutored mind in the
+announcements on the dim, stony door-posts of the stores. Here it is set
+forth that "Kids and Gorings" are the staple of the concern. Puzzling
+though the inscription is to me, yet I recognize in it something that is
+pastoral and significant; for there were kids that skipped, probably,
+and bulls that gored, when the grass was green here. "Oak and Hemlock
+Leather," on the next door-post, reads well, for it is redolent of
+glades that were old before the masonry that now prevails here had been
+dreamed of. Here we have an announcement of "Russet Roans"; and the next
+merchant, who is apparently a cannibal or a ghoul, deliberately notifies
+the public that he deals in "Hatters' Skins." Many of the door-posts
+announce "Findings" and "Skivers"; and upon one of them I note the
+somewhat remarkable intimation of "Pulled Wool." Gold Street, also, is
+redolent of all these things, as I turn into it, nor is there any
+remission of the pungent trade-stenches of the district until I have
+gained a good distance up Spruce Street, toward the City Hall Park. Here
+the Bowery proper, viewed as a great artery of New York trade and
+travel, may be said to begin. The first reach of it is called Chatham
+Street; and, having plunged into this, I have nothing before me now but
+Bowery for a distance of nearly two miles.
+
+Leaving behind me, then, the twinkling lights of the newspaper buildings
+and those of the City Hall Park northward along Chatham Street I bend my
+loitering steps. Israel predominates here,--Israel, with its traditional
+stock in trade of cheap clothing, and bawbles that are made to wear, but
+not to wear long. The shops here are mostly small, and quite open to the
+street in front, which gives the place a bazaar-like appearance in
+summer. Economy in space is practised to the utmost. It is curious to
+observe how closely crowded the goods (bads might be a more appropriate
+term for most of them) are outside the shops, as well as inside. The
+fronts of the houses are festooned with raiment of all kinds, until they
+look like tents made of variegated dry-goods. Here is a stall so
+confined that the occupant, rocking in his chair near the farther end of
+it, stretches his slippered feet well out upon the threshold. It is near
+closing time now, and many of the dealers, with their wives and
+children, are sitting out in front of their shops, and, if not under
+their own vines and fig-trees, at least under their own gaudy flannels
+and "loud-patterned" cotton goods, which are waving overhead in the
+sluggish evening breeze. Nothing can be more suggestive of lazily
+industrious Jewry than this short, thick-set clothier, with the curved
+nose, and spiral, oily hair, who sits out on the sidewalk and blows
+clouds from his meerschaum pipe. The women who lounge here are generally
+stoutish and slatternly, with few clothes on, but plenty of frowzy hair.
+Here and there one may see a pretty face among the younger girls; and it
+is sad to reflect that these little Hebrew maids will become stout and
+slatternly by and by, and have hooked noses like their mothers, and
+double chins. The labels on the ready-made clothing are curious in their
+way. Here a pair of trousers in glaring brown and yellow stripes is
+ticketed with the alluring word, "Lovely." Other garments are offered to
+the public, with such guaranties as "Original," "Genteel," "Excelsior,"
+and "Our Own." There is not an article among them but has its ticket of
+recommendation, and another card affixed to each sets forth the lowest
+price for which it is to be had. The number and variety of hats on show
+along this queer arcade are very characteristic of the people, with whom
+hats have long been a traditional article of commerce. Dimly-lighted
+cellars, down precipitous flights of narrow, dirty steps, up which come
+fumes of coffee and cooked viands, are to be seen at short intervals,
+and these restaurants are supported mainly by the denizens of the
+street. Shops in the windows of which blazes much cheap jewelry abound,
+and there are also many tobacconists on a small scale.
+
+The lights of Chatham Square twinkle out now; and here I pause before a
+feature very peculiar to the Bowery,--one of those large, open shops in
+which vociferous salesmen address from galleries a motley crowd of men
+and women. One fellow in dirty shirt-sleeves and a Turkish cap
+flourishes aloft something which looks like a fan, but proves, on closer
+inspection, to be a group composed of several pocket-combs, a razor, and
+other small articles, constituting in all a "lot." This he offers, with
+stentorian utterances, for a price "a hundred per cent less, _you_ bet,
+than you kin buy 'em for on Broadway." Other salesmen lean furiously
+over the gallery railing, flourishing shirts, stockings, and garments of
+every kind, mentionable and unmentionable, in the faces of the gaping
+loafers below. Sometimes a particular "lot" will attract the attention
+of a spectator, and he will chaffer about it for a while; but the sales
+do not often appear to be very brisk. The people one sees in these
+places are very characteristic of the Bowery. Many of them are what the
+police call "hard cases,"--men, with coarse, bulldog features, their
+mustaches trimmed very close, and dyed with something that gives them a
+foxy-black hue. Women, many of them with children in their arms, have
+come to look out for bargains. Near the entrance, which is quite open to
+the street, there stands a man with a light cane in his hand, which he
+lays every now and then over the shoulders of some objectionable youth
+marked by him in the crowd. The objectionable youth is a pickpocket, or
+a "sneak-thief," or both, and the man with the cane is the private
+detective attached to the place. He is well acquainted with the regular
+thieves of these localities, and his business is to "spot" them, and
+keep them from edging in among the loose articles lying about the store.
+He says that there area great many notorious pickpockets in the crowd,
+and he looks like one who knows.
+
+Here and there along the Bowery small, shrivelled Chinamen stand by
+rickety tables, on which a few boxes of cheap cigars are exposed for
+sale. These foreigners look uneasy in their Bowery clothes, which are of
+the cheapest quality sold at the places just mentioned. Some of them
+wear the traditional queue, but they wind it very closely round their
+heads, probably to avoid the derision of the street boys, to whom a
+Chinaman's "tail" offers a temptation not to be resisted. Others have
+allowed their hair to grow in the ordinary manner. They are not
+communicative when addressed, which may be due, perhaps, to the fact,
+that but few of them possess more of the English language than is
+necessary for the purposes of trade. Fireworks and tobacco are the
+principal articles in which these New York Chinamen deal.
+
+Everybody who passes through the Bowery, and more especially at night,
+must have observed the remarkable prevalence of small children there.
+Swarms of well-clad little boys and girls, belonging to the
+shop-keepers, sport before the doors until a late hour at night. Here is
+a group of extremely diminutive ones, dancing an elf-like measure to the
+music of an itinerant organist. Darting about, here, there, and
+everywhere, are packs of ragged little urchins. They paddle along in the
+dirty gutter, the black ooze from which they spatter over the passers on
+the sidewalk, and run with confiding recklessness against the legs of
+hurrying pedestrians. Ragged and poor as they certainly are, they do not
+often ask for alms, but continually give themselves up, with wild
+_abandon_, to chasing each other in and out between the obstacles on the
+sidewalk. Boys of a better class carry on business here. Watch this one
+selling fans: he is so well dressed, and so genteel in appearance, that
+it is easy to see his livelihood does not altogether hang upon a
+commercial venture so small as the one in which he is at present
+engaged. That boy has evidently a mercantile turn, and may be a leading
+city man yet. Farther on, four smart-looking youngsters are indulging in
+some very frothy beverage at a street soda-water bar. High words are
+bandied about concerning the quality of the "stamps" offered by them in
+change, the genuine character of which has been challenged by a boy of
+their own size, who seems to be in charge of the concern. Numbers of
+these cheap soda-water stalls are to be seen in the Bowery; and they
+appear to drive a good business generally, notwithstanding the
+lager-beer saloons that so generally abound. Many larger establishments
+for the sale of temperance drinks are open here during the summer
+months. I notice a good number of people going to and from a large one,
+the entrance of which is so wide and high that it realizes the idea of
+"open house," and within which there are a great number of taps from
+which soda-water, ready mingled with all the various kinds of syrups, is
+drawn.
+
+Let us cross over the Bowery, and take a look at Division Street, which
+diverges from it at the neck of Chatham Square, and is one of the
+curiosities of the district. It is a narrow street, very brilliantly
+lighted up on one side by the show-windows of the milliners' shops; and
+a marvellously long row of milliners it is, never ending until it runs
+against a druggist just where Bayard Street makes an angle with
+Division. Every window and every show-case by the thresholds is filled
+with a curious variety of infinitesimally small bonnets and hats, some
+in a skeleton state, others bedizened in all the fancy modes of the
+season. Division Street may be termed the milliners' quarter of New York
+City. Most of the goods displayed here are of a "sensation" character,
+but that is just what pays on the east side. Yet I would not be
+understood here as meaning to disparage the west side; and indeed I have
+been told that ladies from the most fashionable quarters of the city are
+not above buying their millinery in Division Street. Numbers of young
+girls are passing to and fro here, pausing ever and anon to gaze in at
+the windows with longing eyes. If there be "sermons in stones," so are
+there also in show-cases, and many a sad romance of won and lost grows
+out of the latter too. The shop-girls have nearly got through their work
+now, and they lean against the door-posts or stand out on the sidewalk,
+gossiping in groups of twos and threes. You will observe that there is
+not a single milliner's shop on the other side of the street. The
+dealers there are mostly in the hardware and grocery lines, or they
+represent commerce as tobacconists, confectioners, and such like; but
+they have nearly all shut up for the night, and the glory of the gas is
+on the milliner side of the way alone. All along the Bowery the same
+order of things may be observed to prevail,--the west side being chiefly
+devoted to the dry-goods trade, while the hardware dealers, grocers,
+restaurateurs, and numerous other tradespeople occupy the east side.
+
+And now again up the Bowery,--where the lights appear to stretch away
+into almost endless space. The numerous lines of horse-cars pass and
+repass each other in long perspective, their lights twinkling like
+constellations on the rampage, as they run to and fro. The jingle of
+their harness-bells is pleasant of a sultry night, recalling the
+sleigh-bells of bracing winter. And the bells have something suggestive
+in them, too, of the old Bowery pastures, where the flocks and herds
+roamed at large, and the cow-bells rang bass to the shrill treble that
+came from the bell-wethers of the flock. But here we have something that
+is hardly so pastoral in its associations. Out from the portals of a
+large theatre issues a crowd of roughs, who elbow and jostle each other
+in their anxiety to reach the nearest place where bad liquor can be had.
+To-night the theatre has been given over to the gymnasts of the
+"prize-ring," and they have had a sparring exhibition there. Three or
+four interesting English pugilists, lately arrived in the city, have
+been showing their mettle with the gloves on; and, although a dollar a
+head is the usual admission fee on such occasions, the entertainment is
+always sure to bring together an immense crowd of the rough class. A
+little later, and another dense throng will emerge from the Old Bowery
+Theatre, just over the way. It will be a very mixed crowd of men, women,
+and children,--the street-boys, with their wondrous variety of sharp
+faces, owlish faces, wicked faces, and ragged clothes, being constant
+patrons of this popular east-side theatre. Not far from this are the
+most dangerous corners and lurking-places to be found anywhere in the
+Bowery. Here thieves and rowdies of the worst description hang about the
+doors of the low bar-rooms in the neighborhood, in gangs of five or six,
+all ready at a signal to concentrate their forces for a rescue, a
+robbery, or a row of any sort in which plunder may be secured. There are
+policemen in the Bowery, of course; but in many cases the tactics of the
+thieves prove to be too much for these guardians of the public peace.
+One night, for instance, in the merry month of May of this year, a gang
+of about a dozen armed ruffians boarded a Third Avenue horse-car
+somewhere in these latitudes, knocked down the conductor with a
+slung-shot, robbed and otherwise maltreated several of the passengers,
+and got clear away before the first policeman had made his appearance.
+Such incidents are by no means uncommon in the Bowery and its purlieus
+at night. It is quite different now, remember, from the Bowery it was
+when old Peter Stuyvesant used to dot its cow-paths with the tip of his
+wooden leg.
+
+Everywhere within the limits of the sidewalk, and sometimes out upon the
+pavement beyond, stand fruit-stalls loaded with oranges, apples, nuts,
+and all such fruits as are seasonable and plenty. There are tables on
+which pink, pulpy melons, flecked with the jet-black seeds, are set
+forth in slices, to tempt thirsty passengers; tables upon which large
+rocks of candy are broken up into nuggets to suit customers; and tables
+upon which bananas alone are exposed for sale. The lamps upon all these
+flame and smoke in the fitful whiffs of night air. The weighing-machine
+man is here, with a blazing light suspended in front of his brazen disk;
+and, as I pass on, I notice that the man who exhibits the moon is
+dismounting his big telescope, for the night is clouding fast, and his
+occupation is gone. Two small girls are scraping doleful strains from
+the sad catgut of violins nearly as big as themselves. They have long
+been frequenters of the Bowery at night, and were much smaller than
+their fiddles when I first saw them here. Off the sidewalk, upon the
+pavement of the street, there is a crowd of men and boys, closely
+grouped around something in the way of a show. As I approach, old voices
+of the once familiar woodlands and farm-yards greet my ear. I listen to
+them, for a brief moment, rapt. Alas! they are spurious. They emanate
+from a dirty man, who stands in the centre of the group, with a small
+wooden box slung before him. By his side stands his torch-bearer, who
+illuminates him with a lamp suspended from a long pole. The performer
+takes something from his mouth, and, having made a laudatory address
+regarding its merits, replaces it between his teeth, and resumes his
+imitations of many birds and quadrupeds. His mocking-bird is very fair;
+his thrush, passable; but his canary less successful, being rather too
+reedy and harsh. Farm-yard sounds are thrown off with considerable
+imitative power. His pig is so good, indeed, that it invites a
+purchaser, who puts one of the calls into his mouth, and frightfully
+distorts his features in his wretched efforts to produce the desired
+grunts and squeaks. The crowing of cocks, the neighing of horses, the
+lowing of cows, and the bleating of sheep follow in succession,--sounds
+so appropriate to the memories of the Bowery that was, that one is
+tempted to applaud the rascal in spite of the swindle he is practising
+on the crowd. Of course, with the exception of the bird-songs, none of
+these sounds are produced by the aid of the calls, but are simply the
+fruit of long and assiduous practice on the part of the gifted
+performer.
+
+On, on, still up the Bowery, of which the end is not yet. Great numbers
+of people are passing to and fro, an excess of the feminine element
+being generally observable. The sidewalks are cumbered with rough wooden
+cases. As in Chatham Street, the shop-keepers--or "merchants," if they
+insist on being so designated--are sitting, mostly, outside their doors.
+Garlands of hosiery and forests of hoop-skirts wave beneath the
+awnings,--for most of the Bowery shops have awnings,--making the
+sidewalk in front of them a sort of arcade for the display of their
+goods. But the time has come now for taking in all these waving things
+for the night, and the young men and girls of the shops are unhooking
+them with long poles, or handing them down from step-ladders planted in
+the middle of the sidewalk. Ranged outside the larger establishments
+are rows of headless dummies, intended to represent the female form
+divine, and to show off on their inanimate busts and shoulders the
+sweetest assortments ever seen of new things in summer fashions. These
+headless dummies of the Bowery have a very ghastly look at night. They
+suggest a procession of the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives, who, true to
+their instincts while in life, nightly revisit the "ladies' furnishing
+establishments" here, to rummage among scarfs and ribbons, and don for
+the brief hour before cock-crow the valuable stuffs and stuffings that
+are yet so dear to them.
+
+Yonder is a group curious for color, and one well worth the
+consideration of a painter who has a fancy for striking effects. A negro
+girl with hot corn for sale stands just outside the reflection from a
+druggist's window, the bars of red and green light from the colored jars
+in which fall weirdly on the faces of two men who are buying from her.
+The trade in boots and shoes is briskly carried on, even at this late
+hour of the night. In the Bowery this trade is very extensive. Long
+strings of boots and shoes hang from the door-posts. Trays of the same
+articles are displayed outside, and it seems an easy matter for any
+nocturnal prowler to help himself, _en passant_, from the boxes full of
+cordwainers' work that stand on the edge of the footway next the street.
+On the eastern side of the way, there are fewer lights to be seen now
+than there were an hour ago. The tradespeople over there, generally,
+have put up their shutters, and the time for closing the
+drinking-saloons is at hand; but lights are yet lingering in the
+pawnbroker's establishments, for the _Mont de Piete_ is an institution
+of an extremely wakeful, not to say wide-awake, kind.
+
+Now the Bowery widens gradually to the northward, and may be likened to
+a river that turns to an estuary ere it joins the waters of the main.
+The vast and hideous brown-stone delta of the Cooper Institute divides
+it into two channels,--Third Avenue to the right, Fourth Avenue to the
+left. Properly the Bowery may be said to end here; but only a few
+blocks farther on, at the corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street,
+is marked the spot where stood the gateway leading to the original
+_Bouwery_, the old mansion in which Peter Stuyvesant dwelt when New
+Amsterdam was, but as yet no New York. And here, till within a few
+months, stood the traditional Stuyvesant pear-tree, said to have been
+brought from Holland, and planted by the hands of the old Dutch Governor
+himself. Spring-time after spring-time, until within a year or two past,
+the Stuyvesant pear-tree used to blossom, and its blossoms run to fruit.
+It lived, in a very gnarled and rheumatic condition, until the 26th of
+February last, when it sank quietly down to rest, and nothing but the
+rusty old iron railing is left to show where it stood.
+
+
+
+
+STEPHEN C. FOSTER AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY.
+
+
+Thirty-six years ago a young man, about twenty-five years of age, of a
+commanding height,--six feet full, the heels of his boots not included
+in the reckoning,--and dressed in scrupulous keeping with the fashion of
+the time, might have been seen sauntering idly along one of the
+principal streets of Cincinnati. To the few who could claim acquaintance
+with him he was known as an actor, playing at the time referred to a
+short engagement as light comedian in a theatre of that city. He does
+not seem to have attained to any noticeable degree of eminence in his
+profession, but he had established for himself a reputation among jolly
+fellows in a social way. He could tell a story, sing a song, and dance a
+hornpipe, after a style which, however unequal to complete success on
+the stage, proved, in private performance to select circles rendered
+appreciative by accessory refreshments, famously triumphant always. If
+it must be confessed that he was deficient in the more profound
+qualities, it is not to be inferred that he was destitute of all the
+distinguishing, though shallower, virtues of character. He had the
+merit, too, of a proper appreciation of his own capacity; and his aims
+never rose above that capacity. As a superficial man he dealt with
+superficial things, and his dealings were marked by tact and shrewdness.
+In his sphere he was proficient, and he kept his wits upon the alert for
+everything that might be turned to professional and profitable use. Thus
+it was that, as he sauntered along one of the main thoroughfares of
+Cincinnati, as has been written, his attention was suddenly arrested by
+a voice ringing clear and full above the noises of the street, and
+giving utterance, in an unmistakable dialect, to the refrain of a song
+to this effect:--
+
+    "Turn about an' wheel about do jis so,
+    An' ebery time I run about I jump Jim Crow."
+
+Struck by the peculiarities of the performance, so unique in style,
+matter, and "character" of delivery, the player listened on. Were not
+these elements--was the suggestion of the instant--which might admit of
+higher than mere street or stable-yard development? As a national or
+"race" illustration, behind the footlights, might not "Jim Crow" and a
+black face tickle the fancy of pit and circle, as well as the "Sprig of
+Shillalah" and a red nose? Out of the suggestion leaped the
+determination; and so it chanced that the casual hearing of a song
+trolled by a negro stage-driver, lolling lazily on the box of his
+vehicle, gave origin to a school of music destined to excel in
+popularity all others, and to make the name of the obscure actor, W. D.
+RICE, famous.
+
+As his engagement at Cincinnati had nearly expired, Rice deemed it
+expedient to postpone a public venture in the newly projected line until
+the opening of a fresh engagement should assure him opportunity to share
+fairly the benefit expected to grow out of the experiment. This
+engagement had already been entered into; and accordingly, shortly
+after, in the autumn of 1830, he left Cincinnati for Pittsburg.
+
+The old theatre of Pittsburg occupied the site of the present one, on
+Fifth Street. It was an unpretending structure, rudely built of boards,
+and of moderate proportions, but sufficient, nevertheless, to satisfy
+the taste and secure the comfort of the few who dared to face
+consequences and lend patronage to an establishment under the ban of the
+Scotch-Irish Calvinists. Entering upon duty at the "Old Drury" of the
+"Birmingham of America," Rice prepared to take advantage of his
+opportunity. There was a negro in attendance at Griffith's Hotel, on
+Wood Street, named Cuff,--an exquisite specimen of his sort,--who won a
+precarious subsistence by letting his open mouth as a mark for boys to
+pitch pennies into, at three paces, and by carrying the trunks of
+passengers from the steamboats to the hotels. Cuff was precisely the
+subject for Rice's purpose. Slight persuasion induced him to accompany
+the actor to the theatre, where he was led through the private entrance,
+and quietly ensconced behind the scenes. After the play, Rice, having
+shaded his own countenance to the "contraband" hue, ordered Cuff to
+disrobe, and proceeded to invest himself in the cast-off apparel. When
+the arrangements were complete, the bell rang, and Rice, habited in an
+old coat forlornly dilapidated, with a pair of shoes composed equally of
+patches and places for patches on his feet, and wearing a coarse straw
+hat in a melancholy condition of rent and collapse over a dense black
+wig of matted moss, waddled into view. The extraordinary apparition
+produced an instant effect. The crash of peanuts ceased in the pit, and
+through the circles passed a murmur and a bustle of liveliest
+expectation. The orchestra opened with a short prelude, and to its
+accompaniment Rice began to sing, delivering the first line by way of
+introductory recitative:--
+
+    "O, Jim Crow's come to town, as you all must know,
+    An' he wheel about, he turn about, he do jis so,
+    An' ebery time he wheel about he jump Jim Crow."
+
+The effect was electric. Such a thunder of applause as followed was
+never heard before within the shell of that old theatre. With each
+succeeding couplet and refrain the uproar was renewed, until presently,
+when the performer, gathering courage from the favorable temper of his
+audience, ventured to improvise matter for his distiches from familiarly
+known local incidents, the demonstrations were deafening.
+
+Now it happened that Cuff, who meanwhile was crouching in dishabille
+under concealment of a projecting _flat_ behind the performer, by some
+means received intelligence, at this point, of the near approach of a
+steamer to the Monongahela Wharf. Between himself and others of his
+color in the same line of business, and especially as regarded a certain
+formidable competitor called Ginger, there existed an active rivalry in
+the baggage-carrying business. For Cuff to allow Ginger the advantage of
+an undisputed descent upon the luggage of the approaching vessel would
+be not only to forfeit all "considerations" from the passengers, but, by
+proving him a laggard in his calling, to cast a damaging blemish upon
+his reputation. Liberally as he might lend himself to a friend, it could
+not be done at that sacrifice. After a minute or two of fidgety waiting
+for the song to end, Cuff's patience could endure no longer, and,
+cautiously hazarding a glimpse of his profile beyond the edge of the
+flat, he called in a hurried whisper: "Massa Rice, Massa Rice, must
+have my clo'se! Massa Griffif wants me,--steamboat's comin'!"
+
+The appeal was fruitless. Massa Rice did not hear it, for a happy hit at
+an unpopular city functionary had set the audience in a roar in which
+all other sounds were lost. Waiting some moments longer, the restless
+Cuff, thrusting his visage from under cover into full three-quarter view
+this time, again charged upon the singer in the same words, but with
+more emphatic voice: "Massa Rice, Massa Rice, must have my clo'se! Massa
+Griffif wants me,--_steamboat's comin'!_"
+
+A still more successful couplet brought a still more tempestuous
+response, and the invocation of the baggage-carrier was unheard and
+unheeded. Driven to desperation, and forgetful in the emergency of every
+sense of propriety, Cuff, in ludicrous undress as he was, started from
+his place, rushed upon the stage, and, laying his hand upon the
+performer's shoulder, called out excitedly: "Massa Rice, Massa Rice, gi'
+me nigga's hat,--nigga's coat,--nigga's shoes,--gi' me nigga's t'ings!
+Massa Griffif wants 'im,--STEAMBOAT'S COMIN'!!"
+
+The incident was the touch, in the mirthful experience of that night,
+that passed endurance. Pit and circles were one scene of such convulsive
+merriment that it was impossible to proceed in the performance; and the
+extinguishment of the footlights, the fall of the curtain, and the
+throwing wide of the doors for exit, indicated that the entertainment
+was ended.
+
+Such were the circumstances--authentic in every particular--under which
+the first work of the distinct art of Negro Minstrelsy was presented.
+
+Next day found the song of Jim Crow, in one style of delivery or
+another, on everybody's tongue. Clerks hummed it serving customers at
+shop counters, artisans thundered it at their toils to the time-beat of
+sledge and of tilt-hammer, boys whistled it on the streets, ladies
+warbled it in parlors, and house-maids repeated it to the clink of
+crockery in kitchens. Rice made up his mind to profit further by its
+popularity: he determined to publish it. Mr. W. C. Peters, afterwards of
+Cincinnati, and well known as a composer and publisher, was at that time
+a music-dealer on Market Street in Pittsburg. Rice, ignorant himself of
+the simplest elements of musical science, waited upon Mr. Peters, and
+solicited his co-operation in the preparation of his song for the press.
+Some difficulty was experienced before Rice could be induced to consent
+to the correction of certain trifling informalities, rhythmical mainly,
+in his melody; but, yielding finally, the air as it now stands, with a
+pianoforte accompaniment by Mr. Peters, was put upon paper. The
+manuscript was put into the hands of Mr. John Newton, who reproduced it
+on stone with an elaborately embellished title-page, including a
+portrait of the subject of the song, precisely as it has been copied
+through succeeding editions to the present time. It was the first
+specimen of lithography ever executed in Pittsburg.
+
+Jim Crow was repeated nightly throughout the season at the theatre; and
+when that was ended, Scale's Long Room, at the corner of Third and
+Market streets, was engaged for rehearsals exclusively in the Ethiopian
+line. "Clar de Kitchen" soon appeared as a companion piece, followed
+speedily by "Lucy Long," "Sich a Gittin' up Stairs," "Long-Tail Blue,"
+and so on, until quite a _repertoire_ was at command from which to
+select for an evening's entertainment.
+
+Rice remained in Pittsburg some two years. He then visited Philadelphia,
+Boston, and New York, whence he sailed for England, where he met with
+high favor in his novel character, married, and remained for some time.
+He then returned to New York, and shortly afterwards died.
+
+With Rice's retirement his art seems to have dropped into disuse as a
+feature of theatrical entertainment, and thenceforward, for many years,
+to have survived only in the performances of circuses and menageries.
+Between acts the _extravaganzaist_ in cork and wool would appear, and to
+the song of "Coal-Black Rose," or "Jim along Joe," or "Sittin' on a
+Rail," command, with the clown and monkey, full share of admiration in
+the arena. At first he performed _solus_, and to the accompaniment of
+the "show" band; but the school was progressive; couples presently
+appeared, and, dispensing with the aid of foreign instruments, delivered
+their melodies to the more appropriate music of the banjo. To the banjo,
+in a short time, were added the bones. The art had now outgrown its
+infancy, and, disdaining a subordinate existence, boldly seceded from
+the society of harlequin and the tumblers, and met the world as an
+independent institution. Singers organized themselves into quartet
+bands; added a fiddle and tambourine to their instruments--perhaps we
+should say implements--of music; introduced the hoe-down and the
+conundrum to fill up the intervals of performance; rented halls, and,
+peregrinating from city to city and from town to town, went on and
+prospered.
+
+One of the earliest companies of this sort was organized and sustained
+under the leadership of Nelson Kneass, who, while skilful in his
+manipulations of the banjo, was quite an accomplished pianist besides,
+as well as a favorite ballad-singer. He had some pretensions as a
+composer, but has left his name identified with no work of any interest.
+His company met with such success in Pittsburg, that its visits were
+repeated from season to season, until about the year 1845, when Mr.
+Murphy, the leading caricaturist, determining to resume the business in
+private life which he had laid aside on going upon the stage, the
+company was disbanded.
+
+Up to this period, if negro minstrelsy had made some progress, it was
+not marked by much improvement. Its charm lay essentially in its
+simplicity, and to give it full development, retaining unimpaired
+meanwhile such original excellences as Nature in Sambo shapes and
+inspires, was the task of the time. But the task fell into bungling
+hands. The intuitive utterance of the art was misapprehended or
+perverted altogether. Its naive misconceits were construed into coarse
+blunders; its pleasing incongruities were resolved into meaningless
+jargon. Gibberish became the staple of its composition. Slang phrases
+and crude jests, all odds and ends of vulgar sentiment, without regard
+to the idiosyncrasies of the negro, were caught up, jumbled together
+into rhyme, and, rendered into the lingo presumed to be genuine, were
+ready for the stage. The wit of the performance was made to consist in
+quibble and equivoke, and in the misuse of language, after the fashion,
+but without the refinement, of Mrs. Partington. The character of the
+music underwent a change. Original airs were composed from time to time,
+but the songs were more generally adaptations of tunes in vogue among
+Hard-Shell Baptists in Tennessee and at Methodist camp-meetings in
+Kentucky, and of backwoods melodies, such as had been invented for
+native ballads by "settlement" masters and brought into general
+circulation by stage-drivers, wagoners, cattle--drovers, and other such
+itinerants of earlier days. Music of the concert-room was also drafted
+into the service, and selections from the inferior operas, with the
+necessary mutilations of the text, of course; so that the whole school
+of negro minstrelsy threatened a lapse, when its course of decline was
+suddenly and effectually arrested.
+
+A certain Mr. Andrews, dealer in confections, cakes, and ices, being
+stirred by a spirit of enterprise, rented, in the year 1845, a
+second-floor hall on Wood Street, Pittsburgh supplied it with seats and
+small tables, advertised largely, employed cheap attractions,--living
+statues, songs, dances, &c.,--a stage, hired a piano, and, upon the
+dissolution of his band, engaged the services of Nelson Kneass as
+musician and manager. Admittance was free, the ten-cent ticket required
+at the door being received at its cost value within towards the payment
+of whatever might be called for at the tables. To keep alive the
+interest of the enterprise, premiums were offered, from time to time, of
+a bracelet for the best conundrum, a ring with a ruby setting for the
+best comic song, and a golden chain for the best sentimental song. The
+most and perhaps only really valuable reward--a genuine and very pretty
+silver cup, exhibited night after night, beforehand--was promised to the
+author of the best original negro song, to be presented before a certain
+date, and to be decided upon by a committee designated for the purpose
+by the audience at that time.
+
+Quite a large array of competitors entered the lists; but the contest
+would be hardly worthy of mention, save as it was the occasion of the
+first appearance of him who was to prove the reformer of his art, and to
+a sketch of whose career the foregoing pages are chiefly preliminary.
+
+Stephen Collins Foster was born in Alleghany, Pennsylvania, on the 4th
+of July, 1826. He was the youngest child of his father, William B.
+Foster,--originally a merchant of Pittsburg, and afterwards Mayor of his
+native city, member of the State Legislature, and a Federal officer
+under President Buchanan, with whom he was closely connected by
+marriage. The evidences of a musical capacity of no common order were
+apparent in Stephen at an early period. Going into a shop, one day, when
+about seven years old, he picked up a flageolet, the first he had ever
+seen, and comprehending, after an experiment or two, the order of the
+scale on the instrument, was able in a few minutes, uninstructed, to
+play any of the simple tunes within the octave with which he was
+acquainted. A Thespian society, composed of boys in their higher teens,
+was organized in Alleghany, into which Stephen, although but in his
+ninth year, was admitted, and of which, from his agreeable rendering of
+the favorite airs of the day, he soon became the leading attraction.
+
+At thirteen years of age, he made his first attempt at composition,
+producing for a public occasion at the seminary in Athens, Ohio, where
+he was a student at the time, the "Tioga Waltz," which, although quite a
+pretty affair, he never thought worthy of preservation. In the same
+year, shortly afterwards, he composed music to the song commencing,
+"Sadly to mine heart appealing," now embraced in the list of his
+publications, but not brought out until many years later.
+
+Stephen was a boy of delicate constitution, not addicted to the active
+sports or any of the more vigorous habits of boys of his age. His only
+companions were a few intimate friends, and, thus secluded, his
+character naturally took a sensitive, meditative cast, and his growing
+disrelish for severer tasks was confirmed. As has been intimated, he
+entered as a pupil at Athens; but as the course of instruction in that
+institution was not in harmony with his tastes, he soon withdrew,
+applying himself afterwards to the study of the French and German
+languages (a ready fluency in both of which he finally acquired), and
+especially to the art dearer than all other studies. A recluse, owning
+and soliciting no guidance but that of his text-book, in the quiet of
+the woods, or, if that were inaccessible, the retirement of his chamber,
+he devoted himself to this art.
+
+At the age of sixteen he composed and published the song, "Open thy
+Lattice, Love," which was admired, but did not meet with extraordinary
+success. In the year following he went to Cincinnati, entering the
+counting-room of his brother, and discharging the duties of his place
+with faithfulness and ability. His spare hours were still devoted,
+however, to his favorite pursuit, although his productions were chiefly
+preserved in manuscript, and kept for the private entertainment of his
+friends. He continued with his brother nearly three years.
+
+At the time Mr. Andrews of Pittsburg offered a silver cup for the best
+original negro song, Mr. Morrison Foster sent to his brother Stephen a
+copy of the advertisement announcing the fact, with a letter urging him
+to become a competitor for the prize. These saloon entertainments
+occupied a neutral ground, upon which eschewers of theatrical delights
+could meet with the abetters of play-house amusements,--a consideration
+of ruling importance in Pittsburg, where so many of the sterling
+population carry with them to this day, by legitimate inheritance, the
+stanch old Cameronian fidelity to Presbyterian creed and practice.
+Morrison, believing that these concerts would afford an excellent
+opportunity for the genius of his brother to appeal to the public,
+persisted in urging him to compete for the prize, until Stephen, who at
+first expressed a dislike to appear under such circumstances, finally
+yielded, and in due time forwarded a melody entitled, "'Way down South,
+whar de Corn grows." When the eventful night came, the various pieces in
+competition were rendered to the audience by Nelson Kneass to his own
+accompaniment on the piano. The audience expressed by their applause a
+decided preference for Stephen's melody; but the committee appointed to
+sit in judgment decided in favor of some one else, himself and his song
+never heard of afterwards, and the author of "'Way down South" forfeited
+the cup. But Mr. Kneass appreciated the merit of the composition, and
+promptly, next morning, made application at the proper office for a
+copyright in his own name as author, when Mr. Morrison Foster, happening
+in at the moment, interposed, and frustrated the discreditable
+intention.
+
+This experiment of Foster's, if it fell short of the expectation of his
+friends, served, notwithstanding, a profitable purpose, for it led him
+to a critical investigation of the school of music to which it belonged.
+This school had been--was yet--unquestionably popular. To what, then,
+was it indebted for its captivating points? It was to its truth to
+Nature in her simplest and most childlike mood.
+
+Settled as to theory, Foster applied himself to the task of its
+exemplification. Two attempts were made while he yet remained in
+Cincinnati, the pencil-drafts of which, however, were laid aside for the
+time being in his portfolio. His shrinking nature held timidly back at
+the thought of a venture before the public; and so the case stood until
+he reappeared in Pittsburg.
+
+The Presidential campaign of 1844 was distinguished by political
+song-singing. Clubs for that purpose were organized in all the cities
+and towns and hamlets,--clubs for the platform, clubs for the street,
+clubs for the parlor, Whig clubs, Democratic clubs. Ballads innumerable
+to airs indefinite, new and old, filled the land,--Irish ballads, German
+ballads, Yankee ballads, and, preferred over all, negro ballads. So
+enthusiastic grew the popular feeling in this direction, that, when the
+November crisis was come and gone, the peculiar institution would not
+succumb to the limitation, but lived on. Partisan temper faded out; the
+fires of strife died down, but clubs sat perseveringly in their places,
+and in sounds, if not in sentiment, attuned to the old melodies, kept up
+the practice of the mad and merry time.
+
+Among other organizations that thus lingered on was one, composed of
+half a dozen young men, since grown into graver habits, with
+Foster--home again, and a link once more in the circle of his
+intimates--at its head. The negro airs were still the favorites; but the
+collection, from frequent repetition, at length began to grow stale. One
+night, as a revival measure for the club, and as an opportunity for
+himself, Foster hinted that, with their permission, he would offer for
+trial an effort of his own. Accordingly he set to work; and at their
+next meeting laid before them a song entitled "Louisiana Belle." The
+piece elicited unanimous applause. Its success in the club-room opened
+to it a wider field, each member acting as an agent of dissemination
+outside, so that in the course of a few nights the song was sung in
+almost every parlor in Pittsburgh. Foster then brought to light his
+portfolio specimens, since universally known as "Uncle Ned," and "O
+Susanna!" The favor with which these latter were received surpassed even
+that rewarding the "Louisiana Belle." Although limited to the one slow
+process of communication,--from mouth to ear,--their fame spread far and
+wide, until from the drawing-rooms of Cincinnati they were introduced
+into its concert-halls, and there became known to Mr. W. C. Peters, who
+at once addressed letters requesting copies for publication. These were
+cheerfully furnished by the author. He did not look for remuneration.
+For "Uncle Ned," which first appeared (in 1847), he received none; "O
+Susanna!" soon followed, and "imagine my delight," he writes, "in
+receiving one hundred dollars in cash! Though this song was not
+successful," he continues, "yet the two fifty-dollar bills I received
+for it had the effect of starting me on my present vocation of
+song-writer." In pursuance of this decision, he entered into
+arrangements with new publishers, chiefly with Firth, Pond, & Co. of New
+York, set himself to work, and began to pour out his productions with
+astonishing rapidity.
+
+Out of the list, embracing about one hundred and fifty of his songs, the
+most flatteringly received among his negro melodies were those already
+enumerated, followed by "Nelly was a Lady," in 1849; "My Old Kentucky
+Home," and "Camptown Races," in 1850; "Old Folks at Home," in 1851;
+"Massa's in the Cold Ground," in 1852; "O Boys, carry me 'long," in
+1853; "Hard Times come again no more," in 1854; "'Way down South," and
+"O Lemuel," in 1858; "Old Black Joe," in 1860; and (noticeable only as
+his last in that line) "Don't bet your Money on the Shanghai," in 1861.
+
+In all these compositions Foster adheres scrupulously to his theory
+adopted at the outset. His verses are distinguished by a _naivete_
+characteristic and appropriate, but consistent at the same time with
+common sense. Enough of the negro dialect is retained to preserve
+distinction, but not to offend. The sentiment is given in plain phrase
+and under homely illustration; but it is a sentiment nevertheless. The
+melodies are of twin birth literally with the verses, for Foster thought
+in tune as he traced in rhyme, and traced in rhyme as he thought in
+tune. Of easy modulation, severely simple in their structure, his airs
+have yet the graceful proportions, animated with the fervor,
+unostentatious but all-subduing, of certain of the old hymns (not the
+chorals) derived from our fathers of a hundred years ago.
+
+That he had struck upon the true way to the common heart, the successes
+attending his efforts surely demonstrate. His songs had an unparalleled
+circulation. The commissions accruing to the author on the sales of "Old
+Folks" alone amounted to fifteen thousand dollars. For permission to
+have his name printed on its title-page, as an advertising scheme, Mr.
+Christy paid five hundred dollars. Applications were unceasing from the
+various publishers of the country for some share, at least, of his
+patronage, and upon terms that might have seduced almost any one else;
+but the publishers with whom he originally engaged had won his esteem,
+and Foster adhered to them faithfully. Artists of the highest
+distinction favored him with their friendship; and Herz, Sivori, Ole
+Bull, Thalberg, were alike ready to approve his genius, and to testify
+that approval in the choice of his melodies as themes about which to
+weave their witcheries of embellishment. Complimentary letters from men
+of literary note poured in upon him; among others, one full of generous
+encouragement from Washington Irving, dearly prized and carefully
+treasured to the day of Foster's death. Similar missives reached him
+from across the seas,--from strangers and from travellers in lands far
+remote; and he learned that, while "O Susanna!" was the familiar song of
+the cottager of the Clyde, "Uncle Ned" was known to the dweller in tents
+among the Pyramids.
+
+Of his sentimental songs, "Ah, may the Red Rose live alway!" "Maggie by
+my Side," "Jennie with the Light-Brown Hair," "Willie, we have missed
+you," "I see her still in my Dreams," "Wilt thou be gone, Love" (a duet,
+the words adapted from a well-known scene in Romeo and Juliet), and
+"Come where my Love lies dreaming" (quartet), are among the leading
+favorites. "I see her still in my Dreams" appeared in 1861, shortly
+after the death of his mother, and is a tribute to the memory of her to
+whom he was devotedly attached. The verses to most of these airs--to all
+the successful ones--were of his own composition. Indeed, he could
+seldom satisfy himself in his "settings" of the stanzas of others. If
+the metrical and symmetrical features of the lines in hand chanced to
+disagree with his conception of the motion and proportion befitting in a
+musical interpretation; if the sentiment were one that failed, whether
+from lack of appreciation or of sympathy on his part, to command
+absolute approval; or if the terms employed were not of a precise thread
+and tension,--if they were wanting, however minutely, in _vibratory_
+qualities,--of commensurate extent would be the failure attending the
+translation.
+
+The last three years of his life Mr. Foster passed in New York. During
+all that time, his efforts, with perhaps one exception, were limited to
+the production of songs of a pensive character. The loss of his mother
+seems to have left an ineffaceable impression of melancholy upon his
+mind, and inspired such songs as "I dream of my Mother," "I'll be Home
+To-morrow," "Leave me with my Mother," and "Bury me in the Morning." He
+died, after a brief illness, on the 13th of January, 1864. His remains
+reached Pittsburg on the 20th, and were conveyed to Trinity Church,
+where on the day following, in the presence of a large assembly,
+appropriate and impressive ceremonies took place, the choral services
+being sustained by a company of his former friends and associates. His
+body was then carried to the Alleghany Cemetery, and, to the music of
+"Old Folks at Home," finally committed to the grave.
+
+Mr. Foster was married, on the 22d of July, 1850, to Miss Jane D.
+McDowell of Pittsburg, who, with her daughter and only child, Marian,
+twelve years of age at the date of his death, still survives him. He was
+of rather less than medium height, of slight frame, with parts well
+proportioned, and showing to advantage in repose, although not entirely
+so in action. His shoulders were marked by a slight droop,--the result
+of a habit of walking with his eyes fixed upon the ground a pace or two
+in advance of his feet. He nearly always when he ventured out, which was
+not often, walked alone. Arrived at the street-crossings, he would
+frequently pause, raise himself, cast a glance at the surroundings, and
+if he saw an acquaintance nod to him in token of recognition, and then,
+relapsing into the old posture, resume his way. At such times,--indeed,
+at any time,--while he did not repel, he took no pains to invite
+society. He was entertaining in conversation, although a certain
+hesitancy, from want of words and not from any organic defect, gave a
+broken style to his speech. For his study he selected a room in the
+topmost story of his house, farthest removed from the street, and was
+careful to have the floor of the apartment, and the avenues of approach
+to it, thickly carpeted, to exclude as effectually as possible all
+noises, inside as well as outside of his own premises. The furniture of
+this room consisted of a chair, a lounge, a table, a music-rack, and a
+piano. From the sanctum so chosen, seldom opened to others, and never
+allowed upon any pretence to be disarranged, came his choicest
+compositions. His disposition was naturally amiable, although, from the
+tax imposed by close application to study upon his nervous system, he
+was liable to fits of fretfulness and scepticism that, only occasional
+and transient as they were, told nevertheless with disturbing effect
+upon his temper. In the same unfortunate direction was the tendency of a
+habit grown insidiously upon him,--a habit against the damning control
+of which (as no one better than the writer of this article knows) he
+wrestled with an earnestness indescribable, resorting to all the
+remedial expedients which professional skill or his own experience could
+suggest, but never entirely delivering himself from its inexorable
+mastery.
+
+In the true estimate of genius, its achievements only approximate the
+highest standard of excellence as they are representative, or
+illustrative, of important truth. They are only great as they are good.
+If Mr. Foster's art embodied no higher idea than the vulgar notion of
+the negro as a man-monkey,--a thing of tricks and antics,--a funny
+specimen of superior gorilla,--then it might have proved a tolerable
+catch-penny affair, and commanded an admiration among boys of various
+growths until its novelty wore off. But the art in his hands teemed with
+a nobler significance. It dealt, in its simplicity, with universal
+sympathies, and taught us all to feel with the slaves the lowly joys and
+sorrows it celebrated.
+
+May the time be far in the future ere lips fail to move to its music, or
+hearts to respond to its influence, and may we who owe him so much
+preserve gratefully the memory of the master, STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER.
+
+
+
+
+THE FEAST OF HARVEST.
+
+
+    The fair Earth smiled and turned herself and woke,
+      And to the Sun with nuptial greeting said:--
+    "I had a dream, wherein it seemed men broke
+      A sovran league, and long years fought and bled,
+    Till down my sweet sides ran my children's gore,
+      And all my beautiful garments were made red,
+        And all my fertile fields were thicket-grown,
+      Nor could thy dear light reach me through the air;
+    At last a voice cried, 'Let them strive no more!'
+      Then music breathed, and lo! from my despair
+        I wake to joy,--yet would not joy alone!
+
+    "For, hark! I hear a murmur on the meads,--
+      Where as of old my children seek my face,--
+    The low of kine, the peaceful tramp of steeds,
+      Blithe shouts of men in many a pastoral place,
+    The noise of tilth through all my goodliest land;
+      And happy laughter of a dusky race
+        Whose brethren lift them from their ancient toil,
+      Saying: 'The year of jubilee has come;
+    Gather the gifts of Earth with equal hand;
+        Henceforth ye too may share the birthright soil,
+      The corn, the wine, and all the harvest-home.'
+
+    "O, my dear lord, my radiant bridegroom, look!
+      Behold their joy who sorrowed in my dreams,--
+    The sword a share, the spear a pruning-hook;
+      Lo, I awake, and turn me toward thy beams
+    Even as a bride again! O, shed thy light
+      Upon my fruitful places in full streams!
+        Let there be yield for every living thing;
+      The land is fallow,--let there be increase
+    After the darkness of the sterile night;
+      Ay, let us twain a festival of Peace
+        Prepare, and hither all my nations bring!"
+
+    The fair Earth spake: the glad Sun speeded forth,
+      Hearing her matron words, and backward drave
+    To frozen caves the icy Wind of the North,--
+      And bade the South Wind from the tropic wave
+    Bring watery vapors over river and plain,--
+      And bade the East Wind cross her path, and lave
+        The lowlands, emptying there her laden mist,--
+      And bade the Wind of the West, the best wind, blow
+    After the early and the latter rain,--
+        And beamed himself, and oft the sweet Earth kissed,
+      While her swift servitors sped to and fro.
+
+    Forthwith the troop that, at the beck of Earth,
+      Foster her children, brought a glorious store
+    Of viands, food of immemorial worth,
+      Her earliest gifts, her tenderest evermore.
+    First came the Silvery Spirit, whose marshalled files
+      Climb up the glades in billowy breakers hoar,
+        Nodding their crests,--and at his side there sped
+      The Golden Spirit, whose yellow harvests trail
+    Across the continents and fringe the isles,
+      And freight men's argosies where'er they sail:
+        O, what a wealth of sheaves he there outspread!
+
+    Came the dear Spirit whom Earth doth love the best,
+      Fragrant of clover-bloom and new-mown hay,
+    Beneath whose mantle weary ones find rest,
+      On whose green skirts the little children play:
+    She bore the food our patient cattle crave.
+      Next, robed in silk, with tassels scattering spray,
+        Followed the generous Spirit of the Maize,--
+      And many a kindred shape of high renown
+    Bore in the clustering grape, the fruits that wave
+        On orchard branches or in gardens blaze,
+      And those the wind-shook forest hurtles down.
+
+    Even thus they laid a great and marvellous feast,
+      And Earth her children summoned joyously,
+    Throughout that goodliest land wherein had ceased
+      The vision of battle, and with glad hands free
+    These took their fill, and plenteous measures poured,
+      Beside, for those who dwelt beyond the sea;
+        Praise, like an incense, upward rose to Heaven
+      For that full harvest,--and the autumnal Sun
+    Stayed long above,--and ever at the board,
+        Peace, white-robed angel, held the high seat given,
+      And War far off withdrew his visage dun.
+
+
+
+
+A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER.
+
+
+It is the misfortune of American biography that it must needs be more or
+less provincial, and that, contrary to what might have been predicted,
+this quality in it predominates in proportion as the country grows
+larger. Wanting any great and acknowledged centre of national life and
+thought, our expansion has hitherto been rather aggregation than growth;
+reputations must be hammered out thin to cover so wide a surface, and
+the substance of most hardly holds out to the boundaries of a single
+State. Our very history wants unity, and down to the Revolution the
+attention is wearied and confused by having to divide itself among
+thirteen parallel threads, instead of being concentred on a single clew.
+A sense of remoteness and seclusion comes over us as we read, and we
+cannot help asking ourselves, "Were _not_ these things done in a
+corner?" Notoriety may be achieved in a narrow sphere, but fame demands
+for its evidence a more distant and prolonged reverberation. To the
+world at large we were but a short column of figures in the corner of a
+blue-book, New England exporting so much salt-fish, timber, and Medford
+rum, Virginia so many hogshead of tobacco, and buying with the proceeds
+a certain amount of English manufactures. The story of our early
+colonization had a certain moral interest, to be sure, but was
+altogether inferior in picturesque fascination to that of Mexico or
+Peru. The lives of our worthies, like that of our nation, are bare of
+those foregone and far-reaching associations with names, the
+divining-rods of fancy, which the soldiers and civilians of the Old
+World get for nothing by the mere accident of birth. Their historians
+and biographers have succeeded to the good-will, as well as to the
+long-established stand, of the shop of glory. Time is, after all, the
+greatest of poets, and the sons of Memory stand a better chance of being
+the heirs of Fame. The philosophic poet may find a proud solace in
+saying,
+
+    "Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
+    Trita solo";
+
+but all the while he has the splendid centuries of Greece and Rome
+behind him, and can begin his poem with invoking a goddess from whom
+legend derived the planter of his race. His eyes looked out on a
+landscape saturated with glorious recollections; he had seen Caesar, and
+heard Cicero. But who shall conjure with Saugus or Cato Four
+Corners,--with Israel Putnam or Return Jonathan Meigs? We have been
+transplanted, and for us the long hierarchical succession of history is
+broken. The Past has not laid its venerable hands upon us in
+consecration, conveying to us that mysterious influence whose force is
+in its continuity. We are to Europe as the Church of England to her of
+Rome. The latter old lady may be the Scarlet Woman, or the Beast with
+ten horns, if you will, but hers are all the heirlooms, hers that vast
+spiritual estate of tradition, nowhere yet everywhere, whose revenues
+are none the less fruitful for being levied on the imagination. We may
+claim that England's history is also ours, but it is a _de jure_, and
+not a _de facto_ property that we have in it,--something that may be
+proved indeed, yet is a merely intellectual satisfaction, and does not
+savor of the realty. Have we not seen the mockery crown and sceptre of
+the exiled Stuarts in St. Peter's? the medal struck so lately as 1784
+with its legend, HEN IX MAG BRIT ET HIB REX, whose contractions but
+faintly typify the scantness of the fact?
+
+As the novelist complains that our society wants that sharp contrast of
+character and costume which comes of caste, so in the narrative of our
+historians we miss what may be called background and perspective, as if
+the events and the actors in them failed of that cumulative interest
+which only a long historical entail can give. Relatively, the crusade of
+Sir William Pepperell was of more consequence than that of St. Louis,
+and yet forgive us, injured shade of the second American baronet, if we
+find the narrative of Joinville more interesting than your despatches to
+Governor Shirley. Relatively, the insurrection of that Daniel whose
+Irish patronymic Shea was euphonized into Shays, as a set-off for the
+debasing of French _chaise_ into _shay_, was more dangerous than that of
+Charles Edward; but for some reason or other (as vice sometimes has the
+advantage of virtue) the latter is more enticing to the imagination, and
+the least authentic relic of it in song or story has a relish denied to
+the painful industry of Minot. Our events seem to fall short of that
+colossal proportion which befits the monumental style. Look grave as we
+will, there is something ludicrous in Counsellor Keane's pig being the
+pivot of a revolution. We are of yesterday, and it is to no purpose that
+our political augurs divine from the flight of our eagles that
+to-morrow shall be ours, and flatter us with an all-hail hereafter.
+Things do really gain in greatness by being acted on a great and
+cosmopolitan stage, because there is inspiration in the thronged
+audience, and the nearer match that puts men on their mettle. Webster
+was more largely endowed by nature than Fox, and Fisher Ames not much
+below Burke as a talker; but what a difference in the intellectual
+training, in the literary culture and associations, in the whole social
+outfit, of the men who were their antagonists and companions! It should
+seem that, if it be collision with other minds and with events that
+strikes or draws the fire from a man, then the quality of those might
+have something to do with the quality of the fire,--whether it shall be
+culinary or electric. We have never known the varied stimulus, the
+inexorable criticism, the many-sided opportunity of a great metropolis,
+the inspiring reinforcement of an undivided national consciousness. In
+everything but trade we have missed the invigoration of foreign rivalry.
+We may prove that we are this and that and the other,--our
+Fourth-of-July orators have proved it time and again,--the census has
+proved it; but the Muses are women, and have no great fancy for
+statistics, though easily silenced by them. We are great, we are rich,
+we are all kinds of good things; but did it never occur to you that
+somehow we are not interesting, except as a phenomenon? It may safely be
+affirmed that for one cultivated man in this country who studies
+American, there are fifty who study European history, ancient or modern.
+
+Till within a year or two we have been as distant and obscure to the
+eyes of Europe as Ecuador to our own. Every day brings us nearer,
+enables us to see the Old World more clearly, and by inevitable
+comparison to judge ourselves with some closer approach to our real
+value. This has its advantage so long as our culture is, as for a long
+time it must be, European; for we shall be little better than apes and
+parrots till we are forced to measure our muscle with the trained and
+practised champions of that elder civilization. We have at length
+established our claim to the noblesse of the sword, the first step still
+of every nation that would make its entry into the best society of
+history. To maintain ourselves there, we must achieve an equality in the
+more exclusive circle of culture, and to that end must submit ourselves
+to the European standard of intellectual weights and measures. That we
+have made the hitherto biggest gun might excite apprehension (were there
+a dearth of iron), but can never exact respect. That our pianos and
+patent reapers have won medals does but confirm us in our mechanic and
+material measure of merit. We must contribute something more than mere
+contrivances for the saving of labor, which we have been only too ready
+to misapply in the domain of thought and the higher kinds of invention.
+In those Olympic games where nations contend for truly immortal wreaths,
+it may well be questioned whether a mowing-machine would stand much
+chance in the chariot-races,--whether a piano, though made by a
+chevalier, could compete successfully for the prize of music.
+
+We shall have to be content for a good while yet with our provincialism,
+and must strive to make the best of it. In it lies the germ of
+nationality, and that is, after all, the prime condition of all
+thorough-bred greatness of character. To this choicest fruit of a
+healthy life, well rooted in native soil, and drawing prosperous prices
+thence, nationality gives the keenest flavor. Mr. Lincoln was an
+original man, and in so far a great man; yet it was the Americanism of
+his every thought, word, and act which not only made his influence
+equally at home in East and West, but drew the eyes of the outside
+world, and was the pedestal that lifted him where he could be seen by
+them. Lincoln showed that native force may transcend local boundaries,
+but the growth of such nationality is hindered and hampered by our
+division into so many half-independent communities, each with its
+objects of county ambition, and its public men great to the borders of
+their district. In this way our standard of greatness is insensibly
+debased. To receive any national appointment, a man must have gone
+through precisely the worst training for it; he must have so far
+narrowed and belittled himself with State politics as to be acceptable
+at home. In this way a man may become chairman of the Committee on
+Foreign Affairs, because he knows how to pack a caucus in Catawampus
+County, or sent ambassador to Barataria, because he has drunk bad
+whiskey with every voter in Wildcat City. Should we ever attain to a
+conscious nationality, it will have the advantage of lessening the
+number of our great men, and widening our appreciation to the larger
+scale of the two or three that are left,--if there should be so many.
+Meanwhile we offer a premium to the production of great men in a small
+way, by inviting each State to set up the statues of two of its
+immortals in the Capitol. What a niggardly percentage! Already we are
+embarrassed, not to find the two, but to choose among the crowd of
+candidates. Well, seventy-odd heroes in about as many years is pretty
+well for a young nation. We do not envy most of them their eternal
+martyrdom in marble, their pillory of indiscrimination. We fancy even
+native tourists pausing before the greater part of the effigies, and,
+after reading the names, asking desperately, "Who was _he_?" Nay, if
+they should say, "Who the devil was _he_?" it were a pardonable
+invocation, for none so fit as the Prince of Darkness to act as
+_cicerone_ among such palpable obscurities. We recall the court-yard of
+the Uffizj at Florence. That also is not free of parish celebrities; but
+Dante, Galileo, Michael Angelo, Macchiavelli,--shall the inventor of the
+sewing-machine, even with the button-holing improvement, let us say,
+match with these, or with far lesser than these? Perhaps he was more
+practically useful than any one of these, or all of them together, but
+the soul is sensible of a sad difference somewhere. These also were
+citizens of a provincial capital; so were the greater part of Plutarch's
+heroes. Did they have a better chance than we moderns,--than we
+Americans? At any rate they have the start of us, and we must confess
+that
+
+    "By bed and table they lord it o'er us,
+    Our elder brothers, but one in blood."
+
+Yes, one in blood; that is the hardest part of it. Is our provincialism
+then in some great measure due to our absorption in the practical, as we
+politely call it, meaning the material,--to our habit of estimating
+greatness by the square mile and the hundredweight? Even during our war,
+in the midst of that almost unrivalled stress of soul, were not our
+speakers and newspapers so enslaved to the vulgar habit as to boast ten
+times of the thousands of square miles it covered with armed men, for
+once that they alluded to the motive that gave it all its meaning and
+its splendor? Perhaps it was as well that they did not exploit that
+passion of patriotism as an advertisement in the style of Barnum or
+Perham. "I scale one hundred and eighty pounds, but when I'm mad I weigh
+two ton," said the Kentuckian, with a true notion of moral avoirdupois.
+That ideal kind of weight is wonderfully increased by a national
+feeling, whereby one man is conscious that thirty millions of men go
+into the balance with him. The Roman in ancient, and the Englishman in
+modern times, have been most conscious of this representative solidity,
+and wherever one of them went there stood Rome or England in his shoes.
+We have made some advance in the right direction. Our civil war, by the
+breadth of its proportions and the implacability of its demands, forced
+us to admit a truer valuation, and gave us, in our own despite, great
+soldiers and sailors, allowed for such by all the world. The harder
+problems it has left behind may in time compel us to have great
+statesmen, with views capable of reaching beyond the next election. The
+criticism of Europe alone can rescue us from the provincialism of an
+over or false estimate of ourselves. Let us be thankful, and not angry,
+that we must accept it as our touchstone. Our stamp has so often been
+impressed upon base metal, that we cannot expect it to be taken on
+trust, but we may be sure that true gold will be equally persuasive the
+world over. Real manhood and honest achievement are nowhere provincial,
+but enter the select society of all time on an even footing.
+
+Spanish America might be a good glass for us to look into. Those
+Catharine-wheel republics, always in revolution while the powder lasts,
+and sure to burn the fingers of whoever attempts intervention, have also
+their great men, as placidly ignored by us as our own by jealous Europe.
+The following passage from the life of Don Simon Bolivar might allay
+many _motus animorum_, if rightly pondered. Bolivar, then a youth, was
+travelling in Italy, and his biographer tells us that "near Castiglione
+he was present at the grand review made by Napoleon of the columns
+defiling into the plain large enough to contain sixty thousand men. The
+throne was situated on an eminence that overlooked the plain, and
+Napoleon on several occasions looked through a glass at Bolivar and his
+companions, who were at the base of the hill. The hero Caesar could not
+imagine that he beheld the liberator of the world of Columbus!" And
+small blame to him, one would say. We are not, then, it seems, the only
+foundling of Columbus, as we are so apt to take for granted. The great
+Genoese did not, as we supposed, draw that first star-guided furrow
+across the vague of waters with a single eye to the future greatness of
+the United States. And have we not sometimes, like the enthusiastic
+biographer, fancied the Old World staring through all its telescopes at
+us, and wondered that it did not recognize in us what we were fully
+persuaded we were _going_ to be and do?
+
+Our American life is dreadfully barren of those elements of the social
+picturesque which give piquancy to anecdote. And without anecdote, what
+is biography, of even history, which is only biography on a larger
+scale? Clio, though she take airs on herself, and pretend to be
+"philosophy teaching by example," is, after all, but a gossip who has
+borrowed Fame's speaking-trumpet, and should be figured with a teacup
+instead of a scroll in her hand. How much has she not owed of late to
+the tittle-tattle of her gillflirt sister Thalia? In what gutters has
+not Macaulay raked for the brilliant bits with which he has put together
+his admirable mosaic picture of England under the last two Stuarts? Even
+Mommsen himself, who dislikes Plutarch's method as much as Montaigne
+loved it, cannot get or give a lively notion of ancient Rome, without
+running to the comic poets and the anecdote-mongers. He gives us the
+very beef-tea of history, nourishing and even palatable enough,
+excellently portable for a memory that, must carry her own packs, and
+can afford little luggage; but for our own part, we prefer a full,
+old-fashioned meal, with its side-dishes of spicy gossip, and its last
+relish, the Stilton of scandal, so it be not too high. One volume of
+contemporary memoirs, stuffed though it be with lies, (for lies to be
+good for anything must have a potential probability, must even be true
+so far as their moral and social setting is concerned,) will throw more
+light into the dark backward of time than the gravest Camden or Thuanus.
+If St. Simon is not accurate, is he any the less essentially _true_? No
+history gives us so clear an understanding of the moral condition of
+average men after the restoration of the Stuarts as the unconscious
+blabbings of the Puritan tailor's son, with his two consciences, as it
+were,--an inward, still sensitive in spots, though mostly toughened to
+India-rubber, and good rather for rubbing out old scores than retaining
+them, and an outward, alert, and termagantly effective in Mrs. Pepys.
+But we can have no St. Simons or Pepyses till we have a Paris or London
+to delocalize our gossip and give it historic breadth. All our capitals
+are fractional, merely greater or smaller gatherings of men, centres of
+business rather than of action or influence. Each contains so many
+souls, but is not, as the word "capital" implies, the true head of a
+community and seat of its common soul.
+
+Has not life itself perhaps become a little more prosaic than it once
+was? As the clearing away of the woods scants the streams, may not our
+civilization have dried up some feeders that helped to swell the current
+of individual and personal force? We have sometimes thought that the
+stricter definition and consequent seclusion from each other of the
+different callings in modern times, as it narrowed the chance of
+developing and giving variety to character, lessened also the interest
+of biography. Formerly arts and arms were not divided by so impassable a
+barrier as now. There was hardly such a thing as a _pekin_. Caesar gets
+up from writing his Latin Grammar to conquer Gaul, change the course of
+history, and make so many things possible,--among the rest our English
+language and Shakespeare. Horace had been a colonel; and from AEschylus,
+who fought at Marathon, to Ben Jonson, who trailed a pike in the Low
+Countries, the list of martial civilians is a long one. A man's
+education seems more complete who has smelt hostile powder from a less
+aesthetic distance than Goethe. It raises our confidence in Sir Kenelm
+Digby as a physicist, that he is able to illustrate some theory of
+acoustics in his Treatise of Bodies by instancing the effect of his guns
+in a sea-fight off Scanderoon. One would expect the proportions of
+character to be enlarged by such variety and contrast of experience.
+Perhaps it will by and by appear that our own civil war has done
+something for us in this way. Colonel Higginson comes down from his
+pulpit to draw on his jackboots, and thenceforth rides in our
+imagination alongside of John Bunyan and Bishop Compton. To have stored
+moral capital enough to meet the drafts of Death at sight, must be an
+unmatched tonic. We saw our light-hearted youth come back with the
+modest gravity of age, as if they had learned to throw out pickets
+against a surprise of any weak point in their temperament. Perhaps that
+American shiftiness, so often complained of, may not be so bad a thing,
+if, by bringing men acquainted with every humor of fortune and human
+nature, it puts them in fuller possession of themselves.
+
+But with whatever drawbacks in special circumstances, the main interest
+of biography must always lie in the amount of character or essential
+manhood which the subject of it reveals to us, and events are of import
+only as means to that end. It is true that lofty and far-seen exigencies
+may give greater opportunity to some men, whose energy is more sharply
+spurred by the shout of a multitude than by the grudging _Well done!_ of
+conscience. Some theorists have too hastily assumed that, as the power
+of public opinion increases, the force of private character, or what we
+call originality, is absorbed into and diluted by it. But we think
+Horace was right in putting tyrant and mob on a level as the trainers
+and tests of a man's solid quality. The amount of resistance of which
+one is capable to whatever lies outside the conscience, is of more
+consequence than all other faculties together; and democracy, perhaps,
+tries this by pressure in more directions, and with a more continuous
+strain, than any other form of society. In Josiah Quincy we have an
+example of character trained and shaped, under the nearest approach to a
+pure democracy the world has ever seen, to a firmness, unity, and
+self-centred poise that recall the finer types of antiquity, in whom the
+public and private man was so wholly of a piece that they were truly
+everywhere at home, for the same sincerity of nature that dignified the
+hearth carried also a charm of homeliness into the forum. The phrase "a
+great public character," once common, seems to be going out of fashion,
+perhaps because there are fewer examples of the thing. It fits Josiah
+Quincy exactly. Active in civic and academic duties till beyond the
+ordinary period of man, at fourscore and ten his pen, voice, and
+venerable presence were still efficient in public affairs. A score of
+years after the energies of even vigorous men are declining or spent,
+his mind and character made themselves felt as in their prime. A true
+pillar of house and state, he stood unflinchingly upright under whatever
+burden might be laid upon him. The French Revolutionists aped what was
+itself but a parody of the elder republic, with their hair _a la_ Brutus
+and their pedantic moralities _a la_ Cato Minor, but this man
+unconsciously was the antique Roman they laboriously went about to be.
+Others have filled places more conspicuous, few have made the place they
+filled so conspicuous by an exact and disinterested performance of duty.
+
+In the biography of Mr. Quincy by his son, there is something of the
+provincialism of which we have spoken as inherent in most American works
+of the kind. His was a Boston life in the strictest sense. But
+provincialism is relative, and where it has a flavor of its own, as in
+Scotland, it is often agreeable in proportion to its very intensity. The
+Massachusetts in which Mr. Quincy's habits of thought were acquired was
+a very different Massachusetts from that in which we of later
+generations have been bred. Till after he had passed middle life, Boston
+was more truly a capital than any other city in America, before or
+since, except possibly Charleston. The acknowledged head of New England,
+with a population of wellnigh purely English descent, mostly derived
+from the earlier emigration, with ancestral traditions and inspiring
+memories of its own, it had made its name familiar in both worlds, and
+was both historically and politically more important than at any later
+period. The Revolution had not interrupted, but rather given a freer
+current to the tendencies of its past. Both by its history and position,
+the town had what the French call a solidarity, an almost personal
+consciousness, rare anywhere, rare especially in America, and more than
+ever since our enormous importation of fellow-citizens to whom America
+means merely shop, or meat three times a day. Boston has been called the
+"American Athens." AEsthetically, the comparison is ludicrous, but
+politically it was more reasonable. Its population was homogeneous, and
+there were leading families; while the form of government by
+town-meeting, and the facility of social and civic intercourse, gave
+great influence to popular personal qualities and opportunity to new
+men. A wide commerce, while it had insensibly softened the asperities of
+Puritanism and imported enough foreign refinement to humanize not enough
+foreign luxury to corrupt, had not essentially qualified the native tone
+of the town. Retired sea-captains (true brothers of Chaucer's Shipman),
+whose exploits had kindled the imagination of Burke, added a not
+unpleasant savor of salt to society. They belonged to the old school of
+Gilbert, Hawkins, Frobisher, and Drake, parcel-soldiers all of them, who
+had commanded armed ships and had tales to tell of gallant fights with
+privateers or pirates, truest representatives of those Vikings who, if
+trade in lumber or peltry was dull, would make themselves Dukes of
+Dublin or Earls of Orkney. If trade pinches the mind, commerce
+liberalizes it; and Boston was also advantaged with the neighborhood of
+the country's oldest College, which maintained the wholesome traditions
+of culture,--where Homer and Horace are familiar there is a certain
+amount of cosmopolitanism,--and would not allow bigotry to become
+despotism. Manners were more self-respectful, and therefore more
+respectful of others, and personal sensitiveness was fenced with more of
+that ceremonial with which society armed itself when it surrendered the
+ruder protection of the sword. We had not then seen a Governor in his
+chamber at the State-House with his hat on, a cigar in his mouth, and
+his feet upon the stove. Domestic service, in spite of the proverb, was
+not seldom an inheritance, nor was household peace dependent on the whim
+of a foreign armed neutrality in the kitchen. Servant and master were of
+one stock; there was decent authority and becoming respect; the
+tradition of the Old World lingered after its superstition had passed
+away. There was an aristocracy such as is healthful in a well-ordered
+community, founded on public service, and hereditary so long as the
+virtue which was its patent was not escheated. The clergy, no longer
+hedged by the reverence exacted by sacerdotal caste, were more than
+repaid by the consideration willingly paid to superior culture. What
+changes, many of them for the better, some of them surely for the worse,
+and all of them inevitable, did not Josiah Quincy see in that wellnigh
+secular life which linked the war of independence to the war of
+nationality! We seemed to see a type of them the other day in a colored
+man standing with an air of comfortable self-possession while his boots
+were brushed by a youth of catholic neutral tint, but whom nature had
+planned for white. The same eyes that had looked on Gage's red-coats,
+saw Colonel Shaw's negro regiment march out of Boston in the national
+blue. Seldom has a life, itself actively associated with public affairs,
+spanned so wide a chasm for the imagination. Oglethorpe's offers a
+parallel,--the aide-de-camp of Prince Eugene calling on John Adams,
+American Ambassador to England. Most long lives resemble those threads
+of gossamer, the nearest approach to nothing unmeaningly prolonged,
+scarce visible pathway of some worm from his cradle to his grave; but
+Quincy's was strung with seventy active years, each one a rounded bead
+of usefulness and service.
+
+Mr. Quincy was a Bostonian of the purest type. Since the settlement of
+the town, there had been a colonel of the Boston regiment in every
+generation of his family. He lived to see a grandson brevetted with the
+same title for gallantry in the field. Only child of one among the most
+eminent advocates of the Revolution, and who but for his untimely death
+would have been a leading actor in it, his earliest recollections
+belonged to the heroic period in the history of his native town. With
+that history his life was thenceforth intimately united by offices of
+public trust, as Representative in Congress, State Senator, Mayor, and
+President of the University, to a period beyond the ordinary span of
+mortals. Even after he had passed ninety, he would not claim to be
+_emeritus_, but came forward to brace his townsmen with a courage and
+warm them with a fire younger than their own. The legend of Colonel
+Goffe at Deerfield became a reality to the eyes of this generation. The
+New England breed is running out, we are told! This was in all ways a
+beautiful and fortunate life,--fortunate in the goods of this
+world,--fortunate, above all, in the force of character which makes
+fortune secondary and subservient. We are fond in this country of what
+are called self-made men (as if real success could ever be other); and
+this is all very well, provided they make something worth having of
+themselves. Otherwise it is not so well, and the examples of such are at
+best but stuff for the Alnaschar dreams of a false democracy. The gist
+of the matter is not where a man starts from, but where he comes out. We
+are glad to have the biography of one who, beginning as a gentleman,
+kept himself such to the end,--who, with no necessity of labor, left
+behind him an amount of thoroughly done work such as few have
+accomplished with the mighty help of hunger. Some kind of pace may be
+got out of the veriest jade by the near prospect of oats; but the
+thorough-bred has the spur in his blood.
+
+Mr. Edmund Quincy has told the story of his father's life with the skill
+and good taste that might have been expected from the author of
+"Wensley." Considering natural partialities, he has shown a discretion
+of which we are oftener reminded by missing than by meeting it. He has
+given extracts enough from speeches to show their bearing and
+quality,--from letters, to recall bygone modes of thought and indicate
+many-sided friendly relations with good and eminent men; above all, he
+has lost no opportunity to illustrate that life of the past, near in
+date, yet alien in manners, whose current glides so imperceptibly from
+one generation into another that we fail to mark the shiftings of its
+bed or the change in its nature wrought by the affluents that discharge
+into it on all sides,--here a stream bred in the hills to sweeten, there
+the sewerage of some great city to corrupt. We cannot but lament that
+Mr. Quincy did not earlier begin to keep a diary. "Miss not the
+discourses of the elders," though put now in the Apocrypha, is a wise
+precept, but incomplete unless we add, "Nor cease from recording
+whatsoever thing thou hast gathered therefrom,"--so ready is Oblivion
+with her fatal shears. The somewhat greasy heap of a literary
+rag-and-bone-picker, like Athenaeus, is turned to gold by time. Even the
+_Virgilium vide tantum_ of Dryden about Milton, and of Pope again about
+Dryden, is worth having, and gives a pleasant fillip to the fancy. There
+is much of this quality in Mr. Edmund Quincy's book, enough to make us
+wish there were more. We get a glimpse of President Washington, in 1795,
+who reminded Mr. Quincy "of the gentlemen who used to come to Boston in
+those days to attend the General Court from Hampden or Franklin County,
+in the western part of the State. A little stiff in his person, not a
+little formal in his manners, not particularly at ease in the presence
+of strangers. He had the air of a country-gentleman not accustomed to
+mix much in society, perfectly polite, but not easy in his address and
+conversation, and not graceful in his gait and movements." Our figures
+of Washington have been so long equestrian, that it is pleasant to meet
+him dismounted for once. In the same way we get a card of invitation to
+a dinner of sixty covers at John Hancock's, and see the rather
+light-weighted great man wheeled round the room (for he had adopted
+Lord Chatham's convenient trick of the gout) to converse with his
+guests. In another place we are presented, with Mr. Merry, the English
+Minister, to Jefferson, whom we find in an unofficial costume of studied
+slovenliness, intended as a snub to haughty Albion. Slippers down at the
+heel and a dirty shirt become weapons of diplomacy and threaten more
+serious war. Thus many a door into the past, long irrevocably shut upon
+us, is set ajar, and we of the younger generation on the landing catch
+peeps of distinguished men, and bits of their table-talk. We drive in
+from Mr. Lyman's beautiful seat at Waltham (unique at that day in its
+stately swans and half-shy, half-familiar deer) with John Adams, who
+tells us that Dr. Priestley looked on the French monarchy as the tenth
+horn of the Beast in Revelations,--a horn that has set more sober wits
+dancing than that of Huon of Bordeaux. Those were days, we are inclined
+to think, of more solid and elegant hospitality than our own,--the
+elegance of manners, at once more courtly and more frugal, of men who
+had better uses for wealth than merely to display it. Dinners have more
+courses now, and, like the Gascon in the old story, who could not see
+the town for the houses, we miss the real dinner in the multiplicity of
+its details. We might seek long before we found so good cheer, so good
+company, or so good talk as our fathers had at Lieutenant-Governor
+Winthrop's or Senator Cabot's.
+
+We shall not do Mr. Edmund Quincy the wrong of picking out in advance
+all the plums in his volume, leaving to the reader only the less savory
+mixture that held them together,--a kind of filling unavoidable in books
+of this kind, and too apt to be what boys at boarding-school call
+_stick-jaw_, but of which there is no more than could not be helped
+here, and that light and palatable. But here and there is a passage
+where we cannot refrain, for there is a smack of Jack Horner in all of
+us, and a reviewer were nothing without it. Josiah Quincy was born in
+1772. His father, returning from a mission to England, died in sight of
+the dear New England shore three years later. His young widow was worthy
+of him, and of the son whose character she was to have so large a share
+in forming. There is something very touching and beautiful in this
+little picture of her which Mr. Quincy drew in his extreme old age.
+
+"My mother imbibed, as was usual with the women of the period, the
+spirit of the times. Patriotism was not then a profession, but an
+energetic principle beating in the heart and active in the life. The
+death of my father, under circumstances now the subject of history, had
+overwhelmed her with grief. She viewed him as a victim in the cause of
+freedom, and cultivated his memory with veneration, regarding him as a
+martyr, falling, as did his friend Warren, in the defence of the
+liberties of his country. These circumstances gave a pathos and
+vehemence to her grief, which, after the first violence of passion had
+subsided, sought consolation in earnest and solicitous fulfilment of
+duty to the representative of his memory and of their mutual affections.
+Love and reverence for the memory of his father was early impressed on
+the mind of her son, and worn into his heart by her sadness and tears.
+She cultivated the memory of my father in my heart and affections, even
+in my earliest childhood, by reading to me passages from the poets, and
+obliging me to learn by heart and repeat such as were best adapted to
+her own circumstances and feelings. Among others, the whole leave-taking
+of Hector and Andromache, in the sixth book of Pope's Homer, was one of
+her favorite lessons, which she made me learn and frequently repeat. Her
+imagination, probably, found consolation in the repetition of lines
+which brought to mind and seemed to typify her own great bereavement.
+
+    'And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be,--
+    A widow I, a helpless orphan he?'
+
+These lines, and the whole tenor of Andromache's address and
+circumstances, she identified with her own sufferings, which seemed
+relieved by the tears my repetition of them drew from her."
+
+Pope's Homer is not Homer, perhaps; but how many noble natures have felt
+its elation, how many bruised spirits the solace of its bracing, if
+monotonous melody! To us there is something inexpressibly tender in this
+instinct of the widowed mother to find consolation in the idealization
+of her grief by mingling it with those sorrows which genius has turned
+into the perennial delight of mankind. This was a kind of sentiment that
+was healthy for her boy, refining without unnerving, and associating his
+father's memory with a noble company unassailable by time. It was
+through this lady, whose image looks down on us out of the past, so full
+of sweetness and refinement, that Mr. Quincy became of kin with Mr.
+Wendell Phillips, so justly eminent as a speaker. There is something
+nearer than cater-cousinship in a certain impetuous audacity of temper
+common to them both.
+
+When six years old, Mr. Quincy was sent to Phillips Academy at Andover,
+where he remained till he entered college. His form-fellow here was a
+man of thirty, who had been a surgeon in the Continental Army, and whose
+character and adventures might almost seem borrowed from a romance of
+Smollett. Under Principal Pearson, the lad, though a near relative of
+the founder of the school, seems to have endured all that severity of
+the old _a posteriori_ method of teaching which still smarted in
+Tusser's memory when he sang,
+
+    "From Paul's I went, to Eton sent,
+    To learn straightways the Latin phrase,
+    Where fifty-three stripes given to me
+    At once I had."
+
+The young victim of the wisdom of Solomon was boarded with the parish
+minister, in whose kindness he found a lenitive for the scholastic
+discipline he underwent. This gentleman had been a soldier in the
+Colonial service, and Mr. Quincy afterwards gave as a reason for his
+mildness, that, "while a sergeant at Castle William, he had seen
+something of mankind." This, no doubt, would be a better preparative for
+successful dealing with the young than is generally thought. However,
+the birch was then the only classic tree, and every round in the ladder
+of learning was made of its inspiring wood. Dr. Pearson, perhaps,
+thought he was only doing justice to his pupil's claims of kindred by
+giving him a larger share of the educational advantages which the
+neighboring forest afforded. The vividness with which this system is
+always remembered by those who have been subjected to it would seem to
+show that it really enlivened the attention, and thereby invigorated the
+memory, nay, might even raise some question as to what part of the
+person is chosen by the mother of the Muses for her residence. With an
+appetite for the classics quickened by "Cheever's Accidence," and such
+other preliminary whets as were then in vogue, young Quincy entered
+college, where he spent the usual four years, and was graduated with the
+highest honors of his class. The amount of Latin and Greek imparted to
+the students of that day was not very great. They were carried through
+Horace, Sallust, and the _De Oratoribus_ of Cicero, and read portions of
+Livy, Xenophon, and Homer. Yet the chief end of classical studies was
+perhaps as often reached then as now, in giving young men a love for
+something apart from and above the more vulgar associations of life. Mr.
+Quincy, at least, retained to the last a fondness for certain Latin
+authors. While he was President of the College, he told a gentleman,
+from whom we received the story, that, "if he were imprisoned, and
+allowed to choose one book for his amusement, that one should be
+Horace."
+
+In 1797, Mr. Quincy was married to Miss Eliza Susan Morton of New York,
+a union which lasted in unbroken happiness for more than fifty years.
+His case might be cited among the leading ones in support of the old
+poet's axiom, that
+
+    "He never loved, that loved not at first sight";
+
+for he saw, wooed, and won in a week. In later life he tried in a most
+amusing way to account for this rashness, and to find reasons of
+settled gravity for the happy inspiration of his heart. He cites the
+evidence of Judge Sedgwick, of Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Wolcott, of the Rev.
+Dr. Smith, and others, to the wisdom of his choice. But it does not
+appear that he consulted them beforehand. If love were not too cunning
+for that, what would become of the charming idyl, renewed in all its
+wonder and freshness for every generation? Let us be thankful that in
+every man's life there is a holiday of romance, an illumination of the
+senses by the soul, that makes him a poet while it lasts. Mr. Quincy
+caught the enchantment through his ears, a song of Burns heard from the
+next room conveying the infection,--a fact still inexplicable to him
+after lifelong meditation thereon, as he "was not very impressible by
+music"! To us there is something very characteristic in this rapid
+energy of Mr. Quincy, something very delightful in his naive account of
+the affair. It needs the magic of no Dr. Heidegger to make these dried
+roses, that drop from between the leaves of a volume shut for seventy
+years, bloom again in all their sweetness. Mr. Edmund Quincy tells us
+his mother was "not handsome"; but those who remember the gracious
+dignity of her old age will hardly agree with him. She must always have
+had that highest kind of beauty which grows more beautiful with years,
+and keeps the eyes young, as if with a sort of partial connivance of
+Time.
+
+We do not propose to follow Mr. Quincy closely through his whole public
+life, which, beginning with his thirty-second, ended with his
+seventy-third year. He entered Congress as the representative of a party
+privately the most respectable, publicly the least sagacious, among all
+those which under different names have divided the country. The
+Federalists were the only proper tones our politics have ever produced,
+whose conservatism truly represented an idea, and not a mere selfish
+interest,--men who honestly distrusted democracy, and stood up for
+experience, or the tradition which they believed for such, against
+empiricism. During his Congressional career, the government was little
+more than an _attache_ of the French legation, and the opposition to
+which he belonged a helpless _revenant_ from the dead and buried
+Colonial past. There are some questions whose interest dies the moment
+they are settled; others, into which a moral element enters that hinders
+them from being settled, though they may be decided. It is hard to
+revive any enthusiasm about the _Embargo_, though it once could inspire
+the boyish Muse of Bryant, or in the impressment quarrel, though the
+Trent difficulty for a time rekindled its old animosities. The stars in
+their courses fought against Mr. Quincy's party, which was not in
+sympathy with the instincts of the people, groping about for some
+principle of nationality, and finding a substitute for it in hatred of
+England. But there are several things which still make his career in
+Congress interesting to us, because they illustrate the personal
+character of the man. He prepared himself honestly for his duties, by a
+thorough study of whatever could make him efficient in them. It was not
+enough that he could make a good speech; he wished also to have
+something to say. In Congress, as everywhere else, _quod voluit valde
+voluit_; and he threw a fervor into the most temporary topic, as if his
+eternal salvation depended upon it. He had not merely, as the French
+say, the courage of his opinions, but his opinions became principles,
+and gave him that gallantry of fanaticism which made him always ready to
+head a forlorn hope,--the more ready, perhaps, that it was a forlorn
+hope. This is not the humor of a statesman,--no, unless he holds a
+position like that of Pitt, and can charge a whole people with his own
+enthusiasm, and then we call it genius. Mr. Quincy had the moral
+firmness which enabled him to decline a duel without any loss of
+personal _prestige_. His opposition to the Louisiana purchase
+illustrates that Roman quality in him to which we have alluded. He
+would not conclude the purchase till each of the old thirteen States had
+signified its assent. He was reluctant to endow a Sabine city with the
+privilege of Roman citizenship. It is worth nothing, that while in
+Congress, and afterwards in the State Senate, many of his phrases became
+the catchwords of party politics. He always dared to say what others
+deemed it more prudent only to think, and whatever he said he
+intensified with the whole ardor of his temperament. It is this which
+makes Mr. Quincy's speeches good reading still, even when the topics
+they discussed were ephemeral. In one respect he is distinguished from
+the politicians, and must rank with the far-seeing statesmen of his
+time. He early foresaw and denounced the political danger with which the
+slave power threatened the Union. His fears, it is true, were aroused
+for the balance of power between the old States, rather than by any
+moral sensitiveness, which would, indeed, have been an anachronism at
+that time. But the Civil War justified his prescience.
+
+It was as Mayor of his native city that his remarkable qualities as an
+administrator were first called into requisition and adequately
+displayed. He organized the city government, and put it in working
+order. To him we owe many reforms in police, in the management of the
+poor, and other kindred matters,--much in the way of cure, still more,
+in that of prevention. The place demanded a man of courage and firmness,
+and found those qualities almost superabundantly in him. His virtues
+lost him his office, as such virtues are only too apt to do in peaceful
+times, where they are felt more as a restraint than a protection. His
+address on laying down the mayoralty is very characteristic. We quote
+the concluding sentences:--
+
+"And now, gentlemen, standing as I do in this relation for the last time
+in your presence and that of my fellow-citizens, about to surrender
+forever a station full of difficulty, of labor and temptation, in which
+I have been called to very arduous duties, affecting the rights,
+property, and at times the liberty of others; concerning which the
+perfect line of rectitude--though desired--was not always to be clearly
+discerned; in which great interests have been placed within my control,
+under circumstances in which it would have been easy to advance private
+ends and sinister projects;--under these circumstances, I inquire, as I
+have a right to inquire,--for in the recent contest insinuations have
+been cast against my integrity,--in this long management of your
+affairs, whatever errors have been committed,--and doubtless there have
+been many,--have you found in me anything selfish, anything personal,
+anything mercenary? In the simple language of an ancient seer, I say,
+'Behold, here I am; witness against me. Whom have I defrauded? Whom have
+I oppressed? At whose hands have I received any bribe?'
+
+"Six years ago, when I had the honor first to address the City Council,
+in anticipation of the event which has now occurred, the following
+expressions were used: 'In administering the police, in executing the
+laws, in protecting the rights and promoting the prosperity of the city,
+its first officer will be necessarily beset and assailed by individual
+interests, by rival projects, by personal influences, by party passions.
+The more firm and inflexible he is in maintaining the rights and in
+pursuing the interests of the city, the greater is the probability of
+his becoming obnoxious to the censure of all whom he causes to be
+prosecuted or punished, of all whose passions he thwarts, of all whose
+interests he opposes.'
+
+"The day and the event have come. I retire--as in that first address I
+told my fellow-citizens, 'If, in conformity with the experience of other
+republics, faithful exertions should be followed by loss of favor and
+confidence,' I should retire--'rejoicing, not, indeed, with a public and
+patriotic, but with a private and individual joy'; for I shall retire
+with a consciousness weighed against which all _human suffrages_ are but
+as the light dust of the balance."
+
+Of his mayoralty we have another anecdote quite Roman in color. He was
+in the habit of riding early in the morning through the various streets
+that he might look into everything with his own eyes. He was once
+arrested on a malicious charge of violating the city ordinance against
+fast driving. He might have resisted, but he appeared in court and paid
+the fine, because it would serve as a good example "that no citizen was
+above the law."
+
+Hardly had Mr. Quincy given up the government of the city, when he was
+called to that of the College. It is here that his stately figure is
+associated most intimately and warmly with the recollections of the
+greater number who hold his memory dear. Almost everybody looks back
+regretfully to the days of some Consul Plancus. Never were eyes so
+bright, never had wine so much wit and good-fellowship in it, never were
+we ourselves so capable of the various great things we have never done.
+Nor is it merely the sunset of life that casts such a ravishing light on
+the past, and makes the western windows of those homes of fancy we have
+left forever tremble with a sentiment of such sweet regret. We set great
+store by what we had, and cannot have again, however indifferent in
+itself, and what is past is infinitely past. This is especially true of
+college life, when we first assume the titles without the
+responsibilities of manhood, and the President of our year is apt to
+become our Plancus very early. Popular or not while in office, an
+ex-president is always sure of enthusiastic cheers at every college
+festival. Mr. Quincy had many qualities calculated to win favor with the
+young,--that one above all which is sure to do it, indomitable pluck.
+With him the dignity was in the man, not in the office. He had some of
+those little oddities, too, which afford amusement without contempt, and
+which rather tend to heighten than diminish personal attachment to
+superiors in station. His punctuality at prayers, and in dropping asleep
+there, his forgetfulness of names, his singular inability to make even
+the shortest offhand speech to the students,--all the more singular in a
+practised orator,--his occasional absorption of mind, leading him to
+hand you his sand-box instead of the leave of absence he had just dried
+with it,--the old-fashioned courtesy of his, "Sir, your servant," as he
+bowed you out of his study,--all tended to make him popular. He had also
+a little of what is somewhat contradictorily called dry humor, not
+without influence in his relations with the students. In taking leave of
+the graduating class, he was in the habit of paying them whatever honest
+compliment he could. Who, of a certain year which shall be nameless,
+will ever forget the gravity with which he assured them that they were
+"the _best-dressed_ class that had passed through college during his
+administration"? How sincerely kind he was, how considerate of youthful
+levity, will always be gratefully remembered by whoever had occasion to
+experience it. A visitor not long before his death found him burning
+some memoranda of college peccadilloes, lest they should ever rise up in
+judgment against the men eminent in Church and State who had been guilty
+of them. One great element of his popularity with the students was his
+_esprit de corps_. However strict in discipline, he was always on _our_
+side as respected the outside world. Of his efficiency, no higher
+testimony could be asked than that of his successor, Dr. Walker. Here
+also many reforms date from his time. He had that happiest combination
+for a wise vigor in the conduct of affairs,--he was a conservative with
+an open mind.
+
+One would be apt to think that, in the various offices which Mr. Quincy
+successively filled, he would have found enough to do. But his
+indefatigable activity overflowed. Even as a man of letters, he occupies
+no inconsiderable place. His "History of Harvard College" is a valuable
+and entertaining treatment of a subject not wanting in natural dryness.
+His "Municipal History of Boston" his "History of the Boston Athenaeum,"
+and his "Life of Colonel Shaw" have permanent interest and value. All
+these were works demanding no little labor and research, and the
+thoroughness of their workmanship makes them remarkable as the
+by-productions of a busy man. Having consented, when more than eighty,
+to write a memoir of John Quincy Adams, to be published in the
+"Proceedings" of the Massachusetts Historical Society, he was obliged to
+excuse himself. On account of his age? Not at all, but because the work
+had grown to be a volume under his weariless hand. _Ohne Hast ohne
+Rast_, was as true of him as of Goethe. We find the explanation of his
+accomplishing so much in a rule of life which he gave, when President,
+to a young man employed as his secretary, and who was a little
+behindhand with his work: "When you have a number of duties to perform,
+always do the most disagreeable one first." No advice could have been
+more in character.
+
+Perhaps the most beautiful part of Mr. Quincy's life was his old age.
+What in most men is decay, was in him but beneficent prolongation and
+adjournment. His interest in affairs unabated, his judgment undimmed,
+his fire unchilled, his last years were indeed "lovely as a Lapland
+night." Till within a year or two of its fall, there were no signs of
+dilapidation in that stately edifice. Singularly felicitous was Mr.
+Winthrop's application to him of Wordsworth's verses:--
+
+    "The monumental pomp of age
+    Was in that goodly personage."
+
+Everything that Macbeth foreboded the want of, he had in deserved
+abundance,--the love, the honor, the obedience, the troops of friends.
+His equanimity was beautiful. He loved life, as men of large vitality
+always do, but he did not fear to lose life by changing the scene of it.
+Visiting him in his ninetieth year with a friend, he said to us, among
+other things: "I have no desire to die, but also no reluctance. Indeed,
+I have a considerable curiosity about the other world. I have never been
+to Europe, you know." Even in his extreme senescence there was an April
+mood somewhere in his nature "that put a spirit of youth in everything."
+He seemed to feel that he could draw against an unlimited credit of
+years. When eighty-two, he said smilingly to a young man just returned
+from a foreign tour, "Well, well, I mean to go myself when I am old
+enough to profit by it." We have seen many old men whose lives were mere
+waste and desolation, who made longevity disreputable by their untimely
+persistence in it; but in Mr. Quincy's length of years there was nothing
+that was not venerable. To him it was fulfilment, not deprivation; the
+days were marked to the last for what they brought, not for what they
+took away.
+
+The memory of what Mr. Quincy did will be lost in the crowd of newer
+activities; it is the memory of what he was that is precious to us.
+_Bonum virum facile crederes, magnum libenter._ If John Winthrop be the
+highest type of the men who shaped New England, we can find no better
+one of those whom New England has shaped than Josiah Quincy. It is a
+figure that we can contemplate with more than satisfaction,--a figure of
+admirable example in a democracy as that of a model citizen. His courage
+and high-mindedness were personal to him; let us believe that his
+integrity, his industry, his love of letters, his devotion to duty, go
+in some sort to the credit of the society which gave him birth and
+formed his character. In one respect he is especially interesting to us,
+as belonging to a class of men of whom he was the last representative,
+and whose like we shall never see again. Born and bred in an age of
+greater social distinctions than ours, he was an aristocrat in a sense
+that is good even in a republic. He had the sense of a certain personal
+dignity _inherent_ in him, and which could not be alienated by any whim
+of the popular will. There is no stouter buckler than this for
+independence of spirit, no surer guaranty of that courtesy which, in its
+consideration of others, is but paying a debt of self-respect. During
+his presidency, Mr. Quincy was once riding to Cambridge in a crowded
+omnibus. A colored woman got in, and could nowhere find a seat. The
+President instantly gave her his own, and stood the rest of the way, a
+silent rebuke of the general rudeness. He was a man of quality in the
+true sense,--of quality not hereditary, but personal. Position might be
+taken from him, but _he_ remained where he was. In what he valued most,
+his sense of personal worth, the world's opinion could neither help nor
+hinder. We do not mean that this was conscious in him; if it had been,
+it would have been a weakness. It was an instinct, and acted with the
+force and promptitude proper to such. Let us hope that the scramble of
+democracy will give us something as good; anything of so classic dignity
+we shall not look to see again.
+
+Josiah Quincy was no seeker of office; from first to last he and it were
+drawn together by the mutual attraction of need and fitness, and it
+clung to him as most men cling to it. The people often make blunders in
+their choice; they are apt to mistake presence of speech for presence of
+mind; they love so to help a man rise from the ranks, that they will
+spoil a good demagogue to make a bad general; a great many faults may be
+laid at their door, but they are not fairly to be charged with
+fickleness. They are constant to whoever is constant to his real self,
+to the best manhood that is in him, and not to the mere selfishness, the
+_antica lupa_ so cunning to hide herself in the sheep's fleece even from
+ourselves. It is true, the contemporary world is apt to be the gull of
+brilliant parts, and the maker of a lucky poem or picture or statue,
+the winner of a lucky battle, gets perhaps more than is due to the solid
+result of his triumph. It is time that fit honor should be paid also to
+him who shows a genius for public usefulness, for the achievement of
+character, who shapes his life to a certain classic proportion, and
+comes off conqueror on those inward fields where something more than
+mere talent is demanded for victory. The memory of such men should be
+cherished as the most precious inheritance which one generation can
+bequeath to the next. However it might be with popular favor, public
+respect followed Mr. Quincy unwaveringly for seventy years, and it was
+because he had never forfeited his own. In this, it appears to us, lies
+the lesson of his life, and his claim upon our grateful recollection. It
+is this which makes him an example, while the careers of so many of our
+prominent men are only useful for warning. As regards history, his
+greatness was narrowly provincial; but if the measure of deeds be the
+spirit in which they are done, that fidelity to instant duty, which,
+according to Herbert, makes an action fine, then his length of years
+should be very precious to us for its lesson. Talleyrand, whose life may
+be compared with his for the strange vicissitude which it witnessed,
+carried with him out of the world the respect of no man, least of all
+his own; and how many of our own public men have we seen whose old age
+but accumulated a disregard which they would gladly have exchanged for
+oblivion! In Quincy the public fidelity was loyal to the private, and
+the withdrawal of his old age was into a sanctuary,--a diminution of
+publicity with addition of influence.
+
+    "Conclude we, then, felicity consists
+    Not in exterior fortunes....
+    Sacred felicity doth ne'er extend
+    Beyond itself....
+    The swelling of an outward fortune can
+    Create a prosperous, not a happy man."
+
+
+
+
+THE CONSPIRACY AT WASHINGTON.
+
+
+The people of the United States now have the mortification of standing
+before the world in the attitude of a swindled democracy. Their
+collective will is crossed by the will of one individual, whose only
+title to such autocracy is in the fact that he has cheated and betrayed
+those who elected him. There might be some little compensation for this
+outrage, if the man himself possessed any of those commanding qualities
+of mind and disposition which ordinarily distinguish usurpers; but it is
+the peculiarity of Mr. Johnson that the indignation excited by his
+claims is only equalled by the contempt excited by his character. He is
+despised even by those he benefits, and his nominal supporters feel
+ashamed of the trickster and apostate, while condescending to reap the
+advantages of his faithlessness. No party in the South or in the North
+thinks of selecting him as its candidate, for the vices and weaknesses
+which make an excellent accomplice and tool are not those which any
+party would consider desirable in a leader. Whatever office-seekers,
+partisans, traitors, and public enemies may find in Mr. Johnson, it is
+certain that they find in him nothing to respect. He is cursed with that
+form of moral disease which sometimes renders a man ridiculous,
+sometimes infamous, but which never renders him respectable,--namely,
+vanity of will. Other men may be vain of their talents and
+accomplishments, but he is vain of the personal pronoun itself, utterly
+regardless of what it covers and includes. Reason, conscience,
+understanding, have no impersonality to him. When he uses the words, he
+uses them as synonymes of his determinations, or as decorative terms
+into which it pleases him to translate the rough vernacular of his
+wilfulness and caprices. The "Constitution," also, a word constantly
+profaned by his lips, is not so much, as he uses it, the Constitution of
+the United States as the moral and mental constitution of Andrew
+Johnson, which, in his view, is the one primary fact to which all other
+facts must be subordinate. His gross inconsistencies of opinion and
+policy, his shameless betrayal of his party, his incapacity to hold
+himself to his word, his hatred of a cause the moment its defenders
+cease to flatter him, his habit of administering laws he has vetoed, on
+the principle that they do not mean what he vetoed them for meaning, his
+delight in little tricks of low cunning,--in short, all the immoral and
+unreasonable acts of his administration have their central source in a
+passionate sense of self-importance, inflaming a mind of extremely
+limited capacity.
+
+Such a person, whose mere presence in the executive chair of a
+constitutional country is itself "a high crime and misdemeanor," is of
+course the natural prey of demagogues, and he now appears to be
+surrounded by demagogues of the most desperate class. His advisers are
+conspirators, and they have so wrought on his vulgar and malignant
+nature that the question of his impeachment has now come to be merged in
+the more momentous question whether he will submit to be impeached.
+Constitutionally, there is no limit to the power of Congress in this
+respect but that which Congress may itself impose. The power is plain,
+and there can be no revision of the judgment of the Senate by any other
+power in the government. But Mr. Johnson thinks, or says he thinks, that
+Congress itself, as at present constituted, is unconstitutional. He
+believes, or says he believes, that the defeated Rebel States whose
+representatives Congress now excludes are as much States in the Union,
+and as much entitled to representation, as New York or Ohio. As he
+specially represents the defeated Rebel States, it is hardly to be
+supposed that he will consent to be punished for crimes committed in
+their behalf by a Congress from which their representatives are
+excluded; and it is also to be presumed that the measures he is now
+taking to obstruct the operation of the laws of Congress relating to
+reconstruction are but preliminary to a design to resist Congress
+itself.
+
+The madness of such a scheme leads judicious people to disbelieve in its
+possibility; but in respect to Mr. Johnson it has been found that the
+only way to prevent the occurrence of mischief is to diffuse extensively
+among the people the suspicion that it is meditated. Judicious and
+dispassionate persons are often poor judges of what men of fierce
+passions and distempered minds will do; for they unconsciously attribute
+to such men some of their own ideas of honesty, propriety, and regard
+for the public welfare. The legislators whom Louis Napoleon outwitted
+were overthrown, because, bad as their opinion of him was, it was not so
+bad as events proved it ought to have been. In the case of Mr. Johnson,
+there is not the same excuse for misconception, since his cunning is
+utterly divorced from sagacity, and he has not the intelligence to
+conceal what his impulses prompt him to attempt. The kind of man he is
+would seem to be obvious to the most superficial observer; the natural
+inference is, therefore, that he will act after his kind; but this is an
+inference which dispassionate statesmen have hesitated fully to draw.
+They have been continually surprised at acts which they should have
+foreseen. They were surprised that, during the months he was left to his
+own devices and to the counsels of Southern politicians, he matured his
+policy of reconstruction. They were surprised that he would not abandon
+his policy rather than break with the Republican party. They were
+surprised when they learned that he meditated a _coup d'etat_ on the
+assembling of the Fortieth Congress. They were surprised when they found
+that no law could be made which would bind him according to its intent.
+They were surprised when, as soon as Congress adjourned, he began to
+take measures which can have no other intelligible purpose than that of
+making him master of Congress when it reassembles. And to crown all,
+though it has been apparent since February, 1866, that he was the enemy
+of the country, they have still had technical reasons for retaining him
+as the proper executive of its laws.
+
+It would then seem that, in dealing with such a man as Andrew Johnson,
+it is the part of wisdom to suspect the worst. Without any special
+knowledge of the treasonable intrigue now going on in Washington, it is
+still possible to fathom the President's designs, and to understand the
+resources on which he relies. In the first place, his conceit makes him
+believe that he is the first man in the nation, and that he is not only
+adored at the South, but popular at the North. The slightest sign of
+reaction in Northern and Western elections he considers a testimony to
+his individual merit, and an indorsement of his policy. In case he
+refuses to recognize the present Congress, turns its members by military
+power out of their seats, and appeals for support to the white
+population of the Rebel as well as Loyal States, he will count on being
+sustained by the nation. The Democratic party agrees with him as far as
+regards the constitutionality of the laws which he will, in the name of
+the Constitution, be compelled to disregard in order to get possession
+of the military power of the country; and he thinks that party will
+support him in resuming those functions as commander-in-chief of which
+he has been deprived by a "usurping" Congress. The army and navy, with
+all Republican officers removed, including, of course, General Grant and
+Admiral Farragut, he thinks will obey his orders. The South, he
+supposes, will rally round him to a man. The thoroughly Rebel military
+organization in Maryland, controlled by a Governor after his own heart,
+will interpose obstacles to the passage of troops from the Northern
+States to Washington. The Democrats in those States will do all they
+can to prevent troops from being sent. Before there could be any
+efficient military organization in the Loyal States brought to bear on
+his dictatorship, he expects to have a Congress of "the whole nation"
+around him, of which at least a majority will be defeated Rebels and
+Copperheads. The whole thing is to be done in the name of the
+Constitution; and the Proclamation he has issued to all officers of the
+United States, civil and military, telling them to obey the Constitution
+(i. e. Mr. Johnson), may be considered the first step in the development
+of the scheme.
+
+It is needless to say that such a scheme could only find hospitable
+reception in the head of a spiteful, inflated, and unprincipled egotist,
+for such an egotist Mr. Johnson assuredly is. It is needless to say that
+it would break down through the refusal of General Grant to give up his
+command, and through the refusal of the great body of the army to obey
+the President; for the danger is not so much the success of the attempt
+as the convulsion which, the mere attempt would occasion. That the
+danger is a serious one, provided the October and November elections
+show a considerable Republican loss, is evident from a consideration of
+the President's position. He has already gone far enough in his course
+to exasperate Congress, and unite its Republican members, conservative
+and radical, in favor of his impeachment. Without going over the long
+list of delinquencies and usurpations which would justify that measure,
+it is sufficient to name the recent Proclamation of Amnesty as an act
+which promises to secure it. That Proclamation is a plain violation of
+the Constitution as the Constitution is understood by Congress; and it
+is upon the Congressional interpretation of the Constitution that, in
+the matter of impeachment, the President must stand or fall. Congress,
+by giving the power of granting amnesty to Mr. Lincoln, evidently
+conceived that it was not a power given to him by the Constitution; by
+taking it away from Mr. Johnson, it as evidently conceived that it
+could not be exercised by him except by usurpation. In usurping this
+power, Mr. Johnson must have known that his act belonged, in the opinion
+of Congress, to the class of "high crimes and misdemeanors," for the
+commission of which the Constitution expressly provides that Presidents
+may be impeached; and he must also have known that Congress, in judging
+of his infractions of the Constitution, would be bound neither by his
+individual opinion of his constitutional powers nor by the opinion of
+the Supreme Court, but was at perfect liberty to act on its own
+interpretation of his constitutional duty. It is not therefore to be
+supposed that he intended to limit his defiance of Congress to the mere
+issuing of the Amnesty Proclamation, especially as the principle on
+which that Proclamation was issued would cover his refusal to carry out
+the whole Congressional plan of reconstruction. His conviction or
+assertion that Congress has no right to withhold from him the power to
+pardon defeated rebels and public enemies by the wholesale, is certainly
+not greater or more emphatic than his conviction or assertion that, in
+its plan of reconstruction, Congress has granted to subordinates powers
+which constitutionally belong to him. If he can exalt his will over
+Congress in the one case, there is no reason why he should not do it in
+the other.
+
+Indeed, in the Proclamation of Amnesty, Mr. Johnson practically claims
+that his power to grant pardons extends to a dispensing power over the
+laws. But it is evident that the Constitution, in giving the President
+the power to pardon criminals, does not give him the power to dispense
+with the laws against crime. At one period, Mr. Johnson seems to have
+done this in respect to the crime of counterfeiting, by his repeated
+pardons extended to convicted counterfeiters.--Still there is a broad
+line of distinction between the abuse of this power to pardon criminals
+after conviction, and the assumption of power to restore to whole
+classes of traitors and public enemies their forfeited rights of
+citizenship. By the pardon of murderers and counterfeiters, the
+President cannot much increase the number of his political supporters;
+by the pardon of traitors and public enemies, he may build up a party to
+support him in his struggle against the legislative department of the
+government. The reasons which have induced Mr. Johnson to dispense with
+the laws against treason are political reasons, and bear no relation to
+his prerogative of mercy. Nobody pretends that he pardoned
+counterfeiters because they were his political partisans; everybody
+knows he pardons traitors and public enemies in order to gain their
+influence and votes. A public enemy himself, and leagued with public
+enemies, he has the impudence to claim that he is constitutionally
+capable of perverting his power to pardon into a power to gain political
+support in his schemes against the loyal nation.
+
+But it is not probable that the President will limit his usurpations to
+a measure whose chief significance consists in its preliminary
+character. Before Congress meets in November, he will doubtless have
+followed it up by others which will make his impeachment a matter of
+certainty. The only method of preventing him from resisting impeachment
+by force, is an awakening of the people to the fact that the final
+battle against reviving rebellion is yet to be fought at the polls. Any
+apathy or divisions among Republicans in the State elections in October
+and November, resulting in a decrease of their vote, will embolden Mr.
+Johnson to venture his meditated _coup d'etat_. He never will submit to
+be impeached and removed from office unless Congress is sustained by a
+majority of the people so great as to frighten him into submission.
+Elated by a little victory, he can only be depressed by a ruinous
+defeat; and such a defeat it is the solemn duty of the people to prepare
+for him. Even into his conceited brain must be driven the idea that his
+contemplated enterprise is hopeless, and that, in attempting to commit
+the greatest of political crimes, he would succeed only in committing
+the most enormous of political blunders.
+
+Still, it is not to be concealed that there are circumstances in the
+present political condition of the country which may give the President
+just that degree of apparent popular support which is all he needs to
+stimulate him into open rebellion against the laws. It is, of course,
+his duty to recognize the people of the United States in their
+representatives in the Fortieth Congress; but, on the other hand, it is
+the character of his mind to regard the people as multiplied duplicates
+of himself, and a mob yelling for "Andy" under his windows is to him
+more representative of the people than the delegates of twenty States.
+In the autumn elections only two Representatives to Congress will be
+chosen; the political strife will relate generally to local questions
+and candidates; and it is to be feared that the Republicans will not be
+sufficiently alive to the fact, that divisions on local questions and
+candidates will be considered at Washington as significant of a change
+in the public mind on the great national question which it is the
+business of the Fortieth Congress to settle. That Congress needs the
+moral support of a great Republican vote _now_, and will obtain it
+provided the people are roused to a conviction of its necessity. But a
+large and influential portion of the Republican party is composed of
+business men, whose occupations disconnect them from politics except in
+important exigencies, and who can with difficulty be made to believe
+that politics is a part of their business, as long as the safety of
+their business is not threatened by civil disorders. They think the
+reconstruction question is practically settled, and when you speak to
+them of plots such as are now hatching in Washington, and which seem as
+preposterous as the story of a sensational novel, their incredulity
+confirms them in the notion that it is safe to allow things to take
+their course. Their very good sense makes them blind to the designs of
+such a Bobadil-Cromwell as Andrew Johnson. The great body of the
+Republican party, indeed, shows at present a little of the exhaustion
+which is apt to follow a series of victories, and exhibits altogether
+too much of the confidence which so often attends an incompleted
+triumph.
+
+The Democratic party, on the contrary, is all alive, and is preparing
+for one last desperate attempt to recover its old position in the
+nation. Its leaders fear that, if the Congressional plan of
+reconstruction be carried out, it will result in republicanizing the
+Southern States. This would be the political extinction of their party.
+In fighting against that plan, they are, therefore, fighting for life,
+and are accordingly more than usually profligate in the character of the
+stimulants they address to whatever meanness, baseness, dishonesty,
+lawlessness, and ignorance there may be in the nation. Taxation presses
+hard on the people, and they have not hesitated to propose repudiation
+of the public debt as the means of relief. The argument is addressed to
+ignorance and passion, for Mirabeau hit the reason of the case when he
+defined repudiation as taxation in its most cruel and iniquitous form.
+But the method of repudiation which the Democratic leaders propose to
+follow is of all methods the worst and most calamitous. They would make
+the dollar a mere form of expression by the issue of an additional
+billion or two of greenbacks, and then "pay off" the debt in the
+currency they had done all they could to render worthless. In other
+words they would not only swindle the public creditor, but wreck all
+values. A party which advocates such a scheme as this, to save it from
+the death it deserves, would have no hesitation in risking a civil
+convulsion for the same purpose. Indeed, the reopening of the civil war
+would not produce half the misery which would be created by the adoption
+of their project to dilute the currency.
+
+Now, if by apathy on the part of Republicans and audacity on the part
+of Democrats the autumn elections result unfavorably, it will then be
+universally seen how true was Senator Sumner's remark made in January
+last, that "Andrew Johnson, who came to supreme power by a bloody
+accident, has become the successor of Jefferson Davis in the spirit by
+which he is governed, and in the mischief he is inflicting on the
+country"; that "the President of the Rebellion is revived in the
+President of the United States." What this man now proposes to do has
+been impressively stated by Senator Thayer of Nebraska, in a public
+address at Cincinnati: "I declare," he said, "upon my responsibility as
+a Senator of the United States, that to-day Andrew Johnson meditates and
+designs forcible resistance to the authority of Congress. I make this
+statement deliberately, having received it from an unquestioned and
+unquestionable authority." It would seem that this authority could be
+none other than the authority of the Acting Secretary of War and General
+of the Army of the United States, who, reticent as he is, does not
+pretend to withhold his opinion that the country is in imminent peril,
+and in peril from the action of the President. But it is by some
+considered a sufficient reply to such statements, that, if Mr. Johnson
+should overturn the legislative department of the government, there
+would be an uprising of the people which would soon sweep him and his
+supporters from the face of the earth. This may be very true, but we
+should prefer a less Mexican manner of ascertaining public sentiment.
+Without leaving their peaceful occupations, the people can do by their
+votes all that it is proposed they shall do by their muskets. It is
+hardly necessary that a million or half a million of men should go to
+Washington to speak their mind to Mr. Johnson, when a ballot-box close
+at hand will save them the expense and trouble. It will, indeed, be
+infinitely disgraceful to the nation if Mr. Johnson dares to put his
+purpose into act, for his courage to violate his own duty will come from
+the neglect of the people to perform theirs. Let the great uprising of
+the citizens of the Republic be at the polls this autumn, and there will
+be no need of a fight in the winter. The House of Representatives, which
+has the sole power of impeachment, will in all probability impeach the
+President. The Senate, which has the sole power to try impeachments,
+will in all probability find him guilty, by the requisite two thirds of
+its members, of the charges preferred by the House. And he himself,
+cowed by the popular verdict against his contemplated crime, and
+hopeless of escaping from the punishment of past delinquencies by a new
+act of treason, will submit to be removed from the office he has too
+long been allowed to dishonor.
+
+
+
+
+REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
+
+
+    _The New Life of_ DANTE ALIGHIERI. Translated by CHARLES ELIOT
+    NORTON. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.
+
+In "The New Life" Dante tells how first he met Beatrice and loved her;
+but how he feigned that it was another lady he loved, making a defence
+of her and others still that his real passion might not be known; how
+Beatrice would not salute him, believing him false and inconstant with
+these ladies, her friends; how being at a banquet where she was, he was
+so visibly stricken with love that some of the ladies derided him; how
+Beatrice's father died, and how Dante himself fell ill; how Beatrice
+quitted the city, and soon after the world; and how Dante was so
+grateful to another lady who pitied his affliction that his heart turned
+toward her in love, but he restrained it, and remained true to Beatrice
+forever. Part of this is told as the experience of children in years,
+Dante being nine at the time he first sees his love, and she of "a very
+youthful age"; but the narrative then extends over the course of sixteen
+years. The incidents of the slight history furnish occasion for sonnets
+and canzonets, which often repeat the facts and sentiments of the prose,
+and which are again elaborately expounded.
+
+Such is "The New Life,"--a medley of passionate feeling, of vaguest
+narrative, of scholastic pedantry. It is readily conceivable that to
+transfer such a work to another tongue with verbal truth, and without
+lapse from the peculiar spirit of the original, is a labor of great and
+unusual difficulty. The slightest awkwardness in the translation of
+these mystical passages of prose and rhyme connected by a thread of fact
+so fragile and so subtle that we must seem to have done it violence in
+touching it, would be almost fatal to the reader's enjoyment, or even
+patience. Their version demands deep knowledge, not only of the language
+in which they first took form, but of all the civil and intellectual
+conditions of the time and country in which they were produced, as well
+as the utmost fidelity, and exquisite delicacy of taste. It appears to
+us that Mr. Norton has met these requirements, and executed his task
+with signal grace and success.
+
+The translator of the "Vita Nuova" has not departed from the principle
+which Mr. Longfellow's translation of the "Commedia" is to render sole
+in the version of poetry. Indeed, there was a greater need, if possible,
+of literalness in rendering the less than the greater work, while the
+temptations to "improvement" and modification of the original must have
+been even more constant. Yet there is a very notable difference between
+Mr. Longfellow's literality and Mr. Norton's, which strikes at first
+glance, and which goes to prove that within his proper limits the
+literal translator can always find room for the play of individual
+feeling. Mr. Longfellow seems to have developed to its utmost the Latin
+element in our poetical diction, and to have found in words of a kindred
+stock the best interpretation of the Italian, while Mr. Norton
+instinctively chooses for the rendering of Dante's tenderness and
+simplicity a diction almost as purely Saxon as that of the Bible. This
+gives the prose of "The New Life" with all its proper archaic quality;
+and those who read the following sonnet can well believe that it is not
+unjust to the beauty of the verse:--
+
+    "So gentle and so modest doth appear
+      My lady when she giveth her salute,
+      That every tongue becometh, trembling, mute;
+      Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare.
+    Although she hears her praises, she doth go
+      Benignly vested with humility;
+      And like a thing come down, she seems to be,
+      From heaven to earth, a miracle to show.
+    So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh,
+      She gives the heart a sweetness through the eyes,
+      Which none can understand who doth not prove.
+    And from her countenance there seems to move
+      A spirit sweet, and in Love's very guise,
+      Who to the soul is ever saying, Sigh!"
+
+Mr. Norton has in all cases kept to the metres of the original, but in
+most of the canzonets has sacrificed rhyme to literality,--a sacrifice
+which we are inclined to regret, chiefly because the translator has
+elsewhere shown that the closest fidelity need not involve the loss of
+any charm of the original. "We have not room here to make any general
+comparison of Mr. Norton's version with the Italian, but we cannot deny
+ourselves the pleasure of giving the following sonnet, so exquisite in
+both tongues, for the better proof of what we say in praise of the
+translator:--
+
+    "Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore;
+      Per che si fa gentil ciocch' ella mira:
+      Ove ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira,
+      E cui saluta fa tremar to core.
+    Sicche bassando 'l viso tutto smuore,
+      Ed ogni suo difetto allor sospira:
+      Fugge dinanzi a lei superbia ed ira.
+      Aiutatenmi, donne, a farle onore.
+    Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile
+      Nasce nel core, a chi parlar la sente,
+      Onde e laudato chi prima la vide.
+    Quel, ch' ella par, quando un poco sorride,
+      Non si puo dicer, ne tenerc a mente;
+      Si e nuovo miracolo, e gentile."
+
+        *       *       *       *
+
+    "Within her eyes my lady beareth Love,
+      So that whom she regards as gentle made;
+      All toward her turn, where'er her path is laid,
+      And whom she greets, his heart doth trembling move;
+    So that with face cast down, all pale to view,
+      For every fault of his he then doth sigh;
+      Anger and pride away before her fly:--
+      Assist me, dames, to pay her honor due.
+    All sweetness truly, every humble thought,
+      The heart of him who hears her speak doth hold;
+      Whence he is blessed who hath her seen erewhile.
+    What seems she when a little she doth smile
+      Cannot be kept in mind, cannot be told,
+      Such strange and gentle miracle is wrought."
+
+The poems are of course rendered with varying degrees of felicity, and
+this we think one of the happiest versions; though few in their
+literality lack that ease and naturalness of movement supposed to be the
+gift solely of those wonder-workers who render the "spirit" of an
+author, while disdaining a "slavish fidelity" to his words,--who as
+painters would portray a man's expression without troubling themselves
+to reproduce his features.
+
+It appears to us that generally the sonnets are translated better than
+the canzonets, and that where Mr. Norton has found the rhyme quite
+indispensable, he has all the more successfully performed his task. In
+the prose there is naturally less inequality, and here, where excellence
+is quite as important as in the verse, the translator's work is
+irreproachable. His vigilant taste seems never to have failed him in the
+choice of words which should keep at once all the dignity and all the
+quaintness of the original, while they faithfully reported its sense.
+
+The essays appended to the translation assemble from Italian and English
+writings all the criticism that is necessary to the enjoyment of "The
+New Life," and include many valuable and interesting comments by the
+translator upon the work itself, and the spirit of the age and country
+in which it was written.
+
+The notes, which, like the essays, are pervaded by Mr. Norton's graceful
+and conscientious scholarship, are not less useful and attractive.
+
+We do not know that we can better express our very high estimate of the
+work as a whole, than by saying that it is the fit companion of Mr.
+Longfellow's unmatched version of the "Divina Commedia," with which it
+is likewise uniform in faultless mechanical execution.
+
+
+    _The Bulls and the Jonathans; comprising John Bull and Brother
+    Jonathan, and John Bull in America._ By JAMES K. PAULDING.
+    Edited by WILLIAM I. PAULDING. New York: Charles Scribner and
+    Company.
+
+"John Bull and Brother Jonathan" is an allegory, conveying in a strain
+of fatiguing drollery the history of the relations between Great Britain
+and the United States previous to the war of 1812, and reflecting the
+popular feeling with regard to some of the English tourists who overran
+us after the conclusion of peace. In this ponderous travesty John Bull
+of Bullock is England, and Brother Jonathan the United States; Napoleon
+figures as Beau Napperty, Louis XVI. as Louis Baboon, and France as
+Frogmore. It could not have been a hard thing to write in its day, and
+we suppose that it must once have amused people, though it is not easy
+to understand bow they could ever have read it through.
+
+"John Bull in America" is a satire, again, upon the book-making
+tourists, and the ideas of our country generally accepted from them in
+England. It is in the form of a narrative, and probably does not
+exaggerate the stories told of us by Captain Ashe, Mr. Richard
+Parkinson, Farmer Faux, Captain Hamilton, Captain Hall, and a tribe of
+now-forgotten travellers, who wrote of adventure in the United States
+when, as Mr. Dickens intimates, one of the readiest means of literary
+success in England was to visit the Americans and abuse them in a book.
+Mr. Paulding's parody gives the idea that their lies were rather dull
+and foolish, and that the parodist's work was not so entirely a
+diversion as one might think. He wrote for a generation now passing
+away, and it is all but impossible for us to enter into the feeling that
+animated him and his readers. For this reason, perhaps, we fail to enjoy
+his book, though we are not entirely persuaded that we should have found
+it humorous when it first appeared.
+
+
+    _The Life and Death of Jason._ A Poem. By WILLIAM MORRIS.
+    Boston: Roberts Brothers.
+
+Whether the reader shall enjoy and admire this poem or not, depends
+almost solely upon the idea with which he comes to its perusal. If he
+expects to find it a work of genius, with an authentic and absolute
+claim upon his interest, he will be disappointed. If he is prepared to
+see in it a labor of the most patient and wonderful ingenuity, to behold
+the miracle of an Englishman of our day writing exactly in the spirit of
+the heroic ages, with no thought or feeling suggested by the experience
+of the last two thousand years, it will fully answer his expectations.
+The work is so far Greek as to read in many parts like Chapman's
+translation of the Odyssey; though it must be confessed that Homer is,
+if not a better Pagan, at least a greater poet than Mr. Morris. Indeed,
+it appears to us that Mr. Morris's success is almost wholly in the
+reflected sentiment and color of his work, and it seems, therefore, to
+have no positive value, and to add nothing to the variety of letters or
+intellectual life. It is a kind of performance in which failure is
+intolerably offensive, and triumph more to be wondered at than praised.
+For to be more or less than Greek in it is to be ridiculous, and to be
+just Greek is to be what has already perfectly and sufficiently been. If
+one wished to breathe the atmosphere of Greek poetry, with its sensuous
+love of beauty and of life, its pathetic acceptance of events as fate,
+its warped and unbalanced conscience, its abhorrence of death, and its
+conception of a future sad as annihilation, we had already the Greek
+poets; and does it profit us that Mr. Morris can produce just their
+effects and nothing more in us?
+
+We are glad to acknowledge his transcendent talent, and we have felt in
+reading his poem all the pleasure that faultless workmanship can give.
+He is alert and sure in the management of his materials; his
+descriptions of sentiment and nature are so clever, and his handling of
+a familiar plot so excellent, that he carries you with him to the end,
+and leaves you unfatigued, but sensible of no addition to your stock of
+ideas and feelings.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No.
+121, November, 1867, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***
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